So it was with an eager step that I entered the very imposing house (in a very fashionable part of the town) at which my taxi had stopped. The maid said Madame was not in but, on seeing my disappointment, asked me to wait a moment and then returned with the suggestion that if I liked, I could talk to Madame von Graun’s friend, Madame Lecerf. She turned out to be a small, slight, pale-faced young woman with smooth black hair. I thought I had never seen a skin so evenly pale; her black dress was high at the neck, and she used a long black cigarette holder.
‘So you would like to see my friend?’ she said, and there was, I thought, a delightful old-world suavity in her crystal clear French.
I introduced myself.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I saw your card. You are Russian, aren’t you?’
‘I have come,’ I explained, ‘on a very delicate errand. But first tell me, am I right in assuming that Madame Graun is a compatriot of mine?’
‘Mais oui, elle est tout ce qu’il y a de plus russe,’ she answered in her soft tinkling voice. ‘Her husband was German, but he spoke Russian, too.’
‘Ah,’ I said, ‘the past tense is most welcome.’
‘You may be quite frank with me,’ said Madame Lecerf. ‘I rather like delicate errands.’
‘I am related,’ I went on, ‘to the English author, Sebastian Knight, who died two months ago; and I am attempting to work out his biography. He had a close friend whom he met at Blauberg where he stayed in 1929. I am trying to trace her. This is about all.’
‘Quelle drфle d’histoire!’ she exclaimed. ‘What a curious story. And what do you want her to tell you?’
‘Oh, anything she pleases…. But am I to understand…. Do you mean that Madame Graun is the person in question?’
‘Very possibly,’ she said, ‘though I don’t think I ever heard her mentioning that particular name…. What did you say it was?’
‘Sebastian Knight.’
‘No. But still it’s quite possible. She always picks up friends at the places where she stays. Il va sans dire,’ she added, ‘that you ought to speak to her personally. Oh, I’m sure you’ll find her charming. But what a strange story: she repeated looking at me with a smile. ‘Why must you write a book about him, and how is it you don’t know the woman’s name?’
‘Sebastian Knight was rather secretive,’ I explained. ‘And that lady’s letters which he kept…. Well, you see – he wished them destroyed after his death.’
‘That’s right,’ she said cheerfully, ‘I quite understand him. By all means, burn love-letters. The past makes noble fuel. Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘What I would like is to know when I can see Madame Graun.’
‘Soon,’ said Madame Lecerf. ‘She is not in Paris for the moment, but I think you might call again tomorrow. Yes, that’ll be all right, I suppose. She may even return tonight.’
‘Might I ask you,’ I said, ‘to tell me more about her?’
‘Well, that’s easy,’ said Madame Lecerf. ‘She is quite a good singer, tzigan songs, you know, that kind. She is extraordinarily beautiful. Elle fait des passions. I like her awfully and I have a room at this flat whenever I say in Paris. Here is her picture, by the way.’
Slowly and noiselessly she moved across the thick carpeted drawing-room, and took a large framed photograph which was standing on the piano. I stared for a moment at an exquisite face half turned away from me. The soft curve of the cheek and the upward dart of the ghostly eyebrow were very Russian, I thought. There was a gleam on the lower eye-lid, and a gleam on the full dark lips. The expression seemed to me a strange mixture of dreaminess and cunning.
‘Yes,’ I said ‘yes….’
‘Why, is it she?’ asked Madame Lecerf inquisitively.
‘It might be,’ I replied, ‘and I am much looking forward to meeting her.’
‘I’ll try to find out myself,’ said Madame Lecerf with a charming air of conspiracy. ‘Because, you see, I think writing a book about people you know is so much more honest than making a hash of them and then presenting it as your own invention!’
I thanked her and made my adieux as the French have it. Her hand was remarkably small, and as I inadvertently pressed it too hard, she winced, for there was a big sharp ring on the middle finger. It hurt me too a little.
‘Tomorrow at the same time,’ she said and laughed gently. A nice quiet, quietly moving person.
I had learnt nothing as yet, but I felt I was proceeding successfully. Now it remained to set my mind at ease in regard to Lydia Bohemsky. When I called at the address I had, I was told by the concierge that the lady had moved some months ago. He said he thought she lived at a small hotel across the street. There I was told that she had gone three weeks ago and was living at the other end of the town. I asked my informant whether he thought she was Russian. He said she was. ‘A handsome dark woman?’ I suggested, using an old Sherlock Holmes stratagem. ‘Exactly,’ he replied rather putting me off (the right answer would have been: Oh, no, she is an ugly blonde). Half an hour later, I entered a gloomy-looking house not far from the Santй prison. My ring was answered by a fat elderly woman with waved bright orange hair, purplish jowls and some dark fluff over her painted lip.
‘May I speak to Mademoiselle Lydia Bohemsky?’ I said.
‘C’est moi,’ she replied with a terrific Russian accent.
‘Then I’ll bring the things,’ I muttered and hurriedly left the house. I sometimes think that she may be still standing in the doorway.
When next day I called again at Madame von Graun’s flat, the maid showed me into another room – a kind of boudoir doing its best to look charming. I had already noticed on the day before the intense warmth in the flat – and as the weather outside was, though decidedly damp, yet hardly what you would call chilly, this orgy of central heating seemed rather exaggerated. I was kept waiting a long time. There were several oldish French novels on the console; most of them by literary prizewinners, and a well thumbed copy of Dr Axel Munthe’s San Michele. A bunch of carnations stood in a self-conscious vase. There were a few other fragile knick-knacks about – probably quite nice and expensive, but I always have shared Sebastian’s almost pathological dislike for anything made of glass or china. Last but not least, there was a sham piece of polished furniture, containing, I felt, that horror of horrors: a radio set Still, all things considered, Helene von Graun seemed to be a person of ‘taste and culture’.
At last, the door opened and the lady I had seen on the previous day sidled in – I say sidled because she was turning her head back and down, talking to what turned out to be a frog-faced, wheezing, black bulldog, which seemed reluctant to waddle in.
‘Remember my sapphire,’ she said giving me her little cold hand. She sat down on the blue sofa and pulled up the heavy bulldog. ‘Viens, mon vieux,’ she panted, ‘viens. He is pining away without Helene,’ she said when the beast was made comfortable among the cushions. ‘It’s a shame, you know, I thought she would be back this morning, but she rang up from Dijon and said she would not arrive till Saturday (today was Tuesday). I’m dreadfully sorry. I did not know where to reach you. Are you ‘very disappointed?’ – and she looked at me with her chin on her clasped hands and her sharp elbows in close-fitting velvet propped on her knees.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘if you tell me something more about Madame Graun, perhaps I may be consoled.’
I don’t know why, but the atmosphere of the place drove me somehow to affected speech and manner.
‘And what is more,’ she said, lifting a sharp-nailed finger, ‘j’ai une petite surprise pour vous. But first we’ll have tea.’ I saw that I could not avoid the farce of
