The clock struck murder, p.1
The Clock Struck Murder, page 1
Also by Betty Webb
The Lost in Paris Mysteries
Lost in Paris
The Lena Jones Mysteries
Desert Noir
Desert Wives
Desert Shadows
Desert Run
Desert Cut
Desert Lost
Desert Wind
Desert Rage
Desert Vengeance
Desert Redemption
The Gunn Zoo Mysteries
The Anteater of Death
The Koala of Death
The Llama of Death
The Puffin of Death
The Otter of Death
The Panda of Death
Copyright © 2024 by Betty Webb
Cover and internal design © 2024 by Sourcebooks
Cover design by theBookDesigners
Cover images © Elisabeth Ansley/Arcangel, Ron Koeberer/Arcangel, Tracy ben/Shutterstock, E_pictu_rebeautifullymadSmartha/Shutterstock, VikiVector/Shutterstock, beautifullymad/Shutterstock, E_pictu_re/Shutterstock
Sourcebooks, Poisoned Pen Press, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Apart from well-known historical figures, any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567–4410
(630) 961-3900
sourcebooks.com
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.
Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Excerpt from Lost in Paris
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Cover
For Paul, always
Chapter One
July 1924
Paris, France
Zoe Barlow ordinarily loved Paris, but of late, she’d been loving it less now that the 1924 Summer Olympics were here. The previous Winter Sports Week had been bad enough, but at least the games had been based miles and miles from La Cité. Whereas now, for the better part of June and now July, Paris was awash with tourists babbling in a dozen different languages, getting lost, and wandering into busy intersections without bothering to look both ways. Taxis honked and screeched, and dray horses—never bred to suffer such crowds—neighed in distress. The air was redolent with human sweat, gasoline, and horse shit.
But even if the streets had been empty and the air pure, Zoe would have been unhappy anyway, now that her favorite clock lay in pieces. And it was her own, greedy fault.
Before the disaster, her regular Friday night poker game had been going well. Archie Stafford-Smythe, the disgraced son of the Earl of Whittenden, had unwisely tried to bluff his pair of jacks into something bigger. Seeing through his ruse, Zoe, secure with three eights, had raised another fifty francs, whereupon the wiser players dropped out.
But foolish Archie called, and as a result, Zoe raked in a two-hundred-franc pot, her biggest in months. He’d been gentlemanly about it—Archie was always gentlemanly—but since he’d been nipping on gin in between the many replenished servings of Château Margaux, he wasn’t exactly shipshape when he rose from the card table. Once on his feet, he’d tipped backward.
Crash. Bang.
“Oh, bloody hell!” he’d muttered. “I’m sorry, Zoe.”
Sighing at the memory, she made her way west along rue de Rennes. She’d loved that little porcelain clock. Only four inches high, its housing was a sweet-pea-green and rose art nouveau frothery of snake shapes curled around an opaline clockface. She’d fallen in love with the silly thing when she’d first spotted it at a Montparnasse flea market a year earlier, but c’est la vie.
Nothing lasted forever, did it? Best to be philosophical about it all. Besides, once Archie had been rendered perpendicular again, he’d promised to replace it, but knowing his taste—dark and Jacobian, just like his family—Zoe had told him to leave the clock-hunting to her. He’d still insisted on paying for the replacement, which she welcomed.
Zoe wasn’t as rich as her friends thought she was. Despite her poker winnings, she was economically strapped. Of late, there was the rapidly dwindling stipend from Beech Glen, her family’s Alabama cotton plantation. And then there were the checks she wired to the Pinkerton International Detective Agency to find her lost daughter. She would rather starve than discontinue their search.
As she walked along, she every now and then caught an admiring look from a male passerby, and rightly so. Since she planned on stopping off at La Rotonde for a celebratory glass of wine after her purchase, she’d taken pains with her toilette: Passion’s Flame lipstick, rouged cheeks, kohl-rimmed blue eyes. Her hennaed bob contrasted wonderfully with her new ecru sheath, and she was especially proud of the bright blue sash that showed off her small waist. It perfectly matched her tiny clutch purse and T-strapped pumps. Like the dress, the shoes were handmade, the shoe on the left built up to accommodate her shorter leg. Wearing it, she hardly limped at all.
When Zoe was eight, she had so badly broken her leg in a fall that even a year spent in traction hadn’t managed to correct its now-shorter length. But again, c’est la vie.
Ten sweltering minutes after leaving the house, Zoe reached the Vaugirard Passage, an alleyway crammed between rue Vaugirard and rue de Rennes. Once she entered the narrow alley, Montparnasse’s tall limestone buildings receded, as did much of the street noise.
Thanks to the encompassing shadows, the alley was several degrees cooler, and the sparrows nesting in a low-branched chestnut tree trilled in gratitude. But Zoe’s six years’ residency in Paris had taught her a thing or two about its flirtatious weather. Those dark clouds looming in the south had a lot to do with the lowering temperature. They were far enough away, she hoped, not to necessitate a dowdy raincoat.
In contrast to larger flea markets, such as the monster by the Porte de Clignancourt, the market she headed toward was relatively small and run by two sisters, Veronique and Laurette Belcoeur. It had no protective roof, so even the smallest drizzle would drive the vendors away. When Zoe arrived, the desertion had already begun, with only five sales tables left. And no wonder. The market’s location, in a narrow space between the shadows of two large apartment buildings, funneled a rising wind.
However, the remaining tables still displayed a treasure trove of goods ranging all the way from rhinestone-studded cigarette holders to children’s toys to hand-carved African masks. Once Zoe squeezed past two long-skirted French women competing for the same iron cookpot, she spotted blond Laurette, the sister who’d sold her the now-ruined clock.
Laurette had changed dramatically since last summer. No longer an ingenue, she’d entered the full bloom of womanhood. Her wheat-colored hair, which last year had fallen past her shoulders, was now cut into a severe bob that accentuated her startling beauty. And, as if to broadcast her sales savvy, instead of wearing the drear clothes worn by the other saleswomen, she sported a maroon-trimmed pink linen frock that wouldn’t have seemed out of place on a cinema star.
The dress’s beauty was somewhat diminished by its short sleeves, which revealed a series of bruises marching along its wearer’s arm. Zoe frowned. Those bruises hadn’t been there the last time she’d visited the flea market.
But the young woman was smiling—a sincere smile, too, not the smile of a woman who’d been ill-used. Relieved, Zoe’s eyes lit on Laurette’s sparkling amethyst earrings. Who would have guessed that trading in used items could lead to such opulence? The offerings on her table, however…
Some junk, certainly, but some treasures, too, especially among the clocks. After a narrow-eyed study of the table’s offerings, Zoe spotted an art nouveau clock lurking behind an obviously fake Louis XIV. No fragile porcelain on the art nouveau! The brass and mahogany clock stood almost a foot high, its round clockface supported by two serpentine “legs.” Between them dangled a long, penis-shaped pendulum that made Zoe grin. Très naughty!
Hoping Laurette hadn’t noted her delight, she asked, “How much?”
“Ninety-six francs. As you can see, it even has the original wind-up key.” Apparently, Zoe hadn’t stopped grinning soon enough.
Not that ninety-six franks was as much as it sounded. After the war, the French economy had collapsed, and now it took twelve francs to make up one American dollar.
Still, the price seemed high, so Zoe settled in for some serious haggling. “Looking at the clock more closely, I can see a scratch on the base and what looks like a paint blister on that suggestive pendulum. Why, it’s in such poor shape that I doubt it can even keep time, so I’d say even half of what you’re asking is too much.”
For an answer, Laurette wound the clock, and it responded with a healthy tick-tick-tick while the minute hand started its slow tour around the pristine face.
“Okay, so it works,” Zoe admitted. “But the price is still unreasonable. I can only afford sixty francs.”
Overhead, a rumble of thunder seemed to punctuate her comment.
Laurette laughed. “You won’t find another like this in Paris. But for you, Madame, I’ll drop the price to eighty francs.”
Progress. Maybe Zoe would be able to firm up a deal before the storm arrived. She flashed her ringless left hand. “I’m still Mademoiselle, Laurette, and I still can’t pay more than sixty.”
“Here’s what I’m willing to do.” The young beauty reached a slender hand under the table, rummaged through a box, and came up holding a set of dangling amber earrings. “I’ll include these with the price. They will go beautifully with your hennaed hair.”
Zoe’s heart yearned for the earrings, but she didn’t let it show. “I already have too many earrings.” A lie there; a woman could never have too many earrings.
Laurette’s lipsticked mouth drooped into a frown. “Still, eighty is as low as I can go. Let me see…” She paused and tapped her chin with a well-manicured finger; maroon nail polish, the same color as the trim on her dress. Then the hand disappeared into the box again, coming up with a lady’s powder compact. Tortoiseshell, with pseudo-gold trim.
“That’s not real gold,” Zoe pointed out.
“Of course not, but it’s pretty anyway, isn’t it?”
Zoe agreed. “Eighty is still too high, I’m afraid.”
Laurette chuckled. “Ooh, la la, you are a fierce bargainer! But eighty francs gives you the clock, the amber earrings, and this lovely compact. Oh, and I’ll also throw in these nice salt and pepper shakers.” She waved at a pair fashioned in cut glass, crowned by bronze caps. “A bargain in anyone’s eyes.”
“Seventy francs.” Zoe would have paid eighty for the earrings alone.
A smirk. “Sorry, but eighty is the lowest I can go. Perhaps you should make room for the next customer. She seems willing enough.”
Over her shoulder, Zoe spied a smartly dressed woman eyeing the clock. A shill? Some flea markets employed them to drive up prices, but when the woman made a comment to her companion, a plump man sweating fiercely, Zoe realized the woman was no French shill, just another American. One of the Olympics-goers with money to burn.
Turning back to Laurette, Zoe heaved a theatrical sigh. “If you insist, but oh, how cruel you are! So eighty it is. But, alas, we have a problem now. Thinking only to buy a clock, I now find myself with all these loose items. As you can see, my little clutch”—she held up the brown-and-ecru-patterned clutch bag “will barely manage the compact, so you’ll have to help me out. A box, perhaps?”
Laurette frowned. “No boxes, just this big one, which I need. And I don’t…” She stopped. “Oh! I know!” After rummaging through the box again, she unwrapped a porcelain depiction of a shepherdess and set it on the table. Then she took the paint-spattered piece of canvas the shepherdess had been wrapped in, laid it flat, and placed clock, earrings, salt and pepper shakers, and the compact in the middle. Before Zoe could get a good look at the messy shape on the canvas, Laurette brought the corners together and tied them tightly with a piece of string.
“Voilà, Mademoiselle! Now, that’ll be eighty francs, please. Enjoy your new clock!” White teeth gleamed.
Zoe paid up, then started happily for home, leaving the Summer Olympics tourists to haggle over an ashtray in the shape of the Eiffel Tower.
Upon reaching the little house she’d named Le Petit Bibelot—Little Trinket—she set the parcel on the long dining table and headed straight for her bath. Unlike most artists’ flats, her home enjoyed both hot and cold running water, but now she ran straight cold after dumping a handful of Chanel bath salts into the water. When the desired height had been reached, she stripped off her sweaty clothes and stepped into the water. There she stayed until her housekeeper arrived.
“Someone’s been shopping!” Madeline called from the sitting room, her light voice making her sound much younger than her fortysomething years. “May I see?”
“Help yourself,” Zoe called back, rising from the soapy water and wrapping herself in a thick bath sheet. “Just a new clock to replace the one Archie broke, plus a couple other things.”
Rustle, rustle from the sitting room. Then, “Yes, that I can see, but what’s this they’re wrapped in? Some child’s work? Oh my, the lumps! Such a waste of good paint.”
Curious, Zoe wrapped the bath sheet tighter and, not bothering to slip on her shoes, hobbled across the parquet to see what Madeline was going on about. At first, all she saw was a blaze of vibrant primary colors—blues, reds, yellows—but as she grew closer, she could make out the shape of a small village overshadowed by an onion-domed church. On a nearby rooftop stood a violinist wearing a billed cap. Odd, yes, but even more amazingly, a red-and-dun cow floated across the night sky.
“No,” Zoe whispered. “Not possible.”
Hardly willing to believe the testimony of her eyes, she dropped her gaze to the painting’s lower right corner and read the signature…
MARC CHAGALL
Chapter Two
If there was a leading artist in Paris today—besides Picasso, of course—it was Marc Chagall.
Russian by birth, Chagall had been working at La Ruche, a beehive-shaped collection of studios not far from Zoe’s little house, when he’d decided to visit relatives in his former home of Vitebsk, Russia. Before leaving, he had locked around a hundred and fifty paintings into his studio, expecting to find them waiting when he returned.
His timing couldn’t have been worse. While he was still in Russia, the Great War had begun, and in the middle of that, the bloody Bolshevik revolution erupted. When the chaos died down, Chagall had returned to Paris only to discover that his studio had been broken into, his hurriedly stored paintings vanished.
How had one of them wound up serving as wrapping paper at a Montparnasse flea market?
“Not a child’s painting then?” Madeline, having worked for Zoe several years, recognized the wonder on her employer’s face.
Zoe shook her head. “Does the name Marc Chagall mean anything to you?”
Madeline stretched out her mechanical arm and drew the painting closer. “Do you mean the Russian artist? You think he did this? Maybe it’s just something done by a clever child.”
“See those holes? That’s where the canvas was attached to the stretchers. No child would know to do that.”
She didn’t bother to correct Madeline’s assertion that the painting could have been done by a child, either, because there had always been a childlike quality to Chagall’s creations. It was one of the main reasons his work had become so popular of late. Who didn’t want to be transported back to childhood, when life seemed so simple yet so magical? A place where fiddlers perched on roofs and cows could fly!
“I need to get this back to Marc,” Zoe said, carefully rolling up the canvas. “But first, I think we need to oil your arm. It’s squeaking again.”
Madeline had lost her right arm while nursing wounded soldiers in the Great War. A German mortar had landed in the hospital tent, killing eight men and wounding scores of others. With her arm blown off, Madeline would have bled out had it not been for the injured man she’d been attending to. As she’d lain unconscious on the ground, he used his belt for a tourniquet, then lugged her to another field hospital. Years later, when the prosthetic furnished by the French government developed problems, Zoe had convinced a sculptor friend to design a less trouble-prone prosthetic. The new arm worked perfectly. Its only drawback was its need for a weekly oiling.
