The Caves of Périgord: A Novel

cave, of course, where your father’s painting came from, and I suppose it’s time for the secret to come out. And time for the dead to be properly buried. I’m far too old to campaign for this job again, and I’d rather the truth came out than find your British government dropping all sorts of ponderous hints about unfortunate repercussions.”
    “My government?” said Manners. “What does my government have to do with this?”
    Malrand gave a cold smile. “I have been in this business too long to believe in coincidences, my dear Major. Your father had his own reasons to keep silence, but I always assumed that his death would open Pandora’s box. The disappearance of the painting and the consequent publicity simply confirmed my fears. If you didn’t steal your own painting, then I am sure you are well connected with the department of British Intelligence that did. I presume you found something in your father’s papers, a memoir, something that told you how this mess began. Something that a President of France would want very much to keep secret and that your British Intelligence would use to put pressure on me.”
    “I’m not attached to any Intelligence department,” snapped Manners. “And although I still don’t understand why you want to keep the cave secret I suspect that you organized the theft of that rock as part of your own cover-up.”
    “My cover-up!” snorted Malrand. “If only French Intelligence were so efficient.” He turned away with a shrug. “You don’t understand much about politics if you think a politician would ever entrust that kind of secret to his Intelligence agencies.”
    Lydia felt her head turning from one man to the other as if she were watching a tennis match. A cough came from the fireplace. Lespinasse had broken silence.
    “Not Intelligence, Monsieur le Président. Us. Your security team. Trying to forestall potential embarrassment. Saw no need to trouble you with it.” Lespinasse chewed on his mustache. “In fact, we had a bit of help, just between us, from our British colleagues. Just a favor between professional colleagues, you might say. We understand these political things that are best kept quiet.”
    Lydia gaped in astonishment. She had never felt more American in her life. What an arrogant, overbearing, dreadful kind of system these damned Europeans operated. They lived by the cover-up and the conspiracy. And all this useless hunt and Clothilde’s tragedy and her embarrassment and the barefaced theft from her auction house had all stemmed from their secret little ways of doing favors for each other and their feudal masters. Gathering her rage, she braced herself to tell them what she thought of the lot of them when she heard a funny, creaking sound.
    It was Malrand, and he was laughing. Laughing so hard that he could hardly catch his breath. He bent over, one hand groping for the support of a chair, the other for a handkerchief. Lydia turned to glare at Manners, but even as she looked his face twitched into a grin, and his shoulders started to shake as the laughter infected him.
    “I’d be very surprised if the British government knew anything about it,” Lespinasse added with a big wink at her and smiling broadly. He was going to say more but his shoulders heaved as a great gust of laughter began to shake his big frame. Speechless with outrage, Lydia suddenly heard a fit of giggles from Clothilde, who grinned at her, looked at the helplessly guffawing men. and then threw up her hands in mock despair at the whole ridiculous world of men and began to belly laugh in her turn. Lydia felt her own mouth beginning to pull and her throat constrict and her tummy shake as the infection caught her as well. Dammit, she thought as she heard herself laughing helplessly, what instinct is it about us humans that won’t let us keep a straight face when everyone around us is chortling like idiots?
    “Oh, my sainted aunt,” heaved Manners. “What a glorious mess!” And collapsed into guffaws again.
    “Governments don’t know a thing about it,” wheezed Malrand, weakly. “We never do, you know.” And that set him off again.
    “You’re a pair of dreadful crooks,” chortled Clothilde, red-faced, her hair in disarray, but squinting at Malrand and Lespinasse with definite affection.
    “You’re all bloody intolerable,” groaned Lydia, holding her stomach.
    A door opened and a nervous maid peeped in, her eyes bulging as she took in the scene of mass