Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 103, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 625 & 626, March 1994

The French Umbrella by Donald Olson

© 1994 by Donald Olson

When he is not busy at his typewriter, one of Donald Olson’s hobbies is restoring antique furniture. Objects of special beauty, often antique, frequently appear in his stories; here it is a lovely French umbrella, one that its owner says is simply “one of a kind”...

Despite the rain, Fay would rather have walked from her parents’ East Sixties apartment to her own far more modest flat west of Broadway, but had yielded to her father’s plea that she take a taxi. His somewhat exaggerated concern for her safety dated from an incident twelve years before, when Fay was nine.

It was her custom to visit her parents for a few hours every Tuesday, her day off from the shop called Rainchecks, a boutique off Fifth Avenue featuring imported rainwear and accessories, a job she enjoyed far more than the two years at an expensive boarding school which she had left after suffering a mild breakdown. Her father was not happy to have Fay move out of the family duplex, but approved of his daughter’s roommate, a strong-principled, motherly sort of girl named Prudence Baxter.

It was on this particular rainy afternoon that something extraordinary happened. Fay sat gazing out of the cab window as they were held up in traffic near Forty-eighth Street when her glance fell upon a woman looking in a store window. It was not, however, the woman herself who first caught Fay’s attention; it was the umbrella the woman held, peacock blue with a distinctive carved ivory handle.

“I’ll get out here,” cried Fay, already opening the door. She paid the driver and splashed her way to the curb, knowing she must be mistaken of course; it couldn’t possibly be the same umbrella, although Claudine had insisted hers was one of a kind. “Not another like it in Paris, ma petite,” she’d boasted, twirling its ivory handle encircled by a narrow silver band engraved with Claudine’s initials.

A feverish excitement gripped Fay as she followed the woman along the street, eager and yet curiously reluctant to catch a glimpse of her face. Oh God, she thought, what if it is Claudine? What would I do? No, no, it was impossible, it couldn’t be. Claudine still in New York? Quite unlikely.

A block farther along the woman paused at the entrance to a restaurant, collapsing the umbrella, shaking the rain from it before opening the door. Still, Fay caught only a glimpse of pale sleek hair bound in a chignon before the woman vanished inside. Fay hesitated briefly before entering the restaurant, where she paused, heart thumping, scanning the rows of tables in the fashionably twilit atmosphere.

As the woman sat down at a table near the window Fay saw her face for the first time. In the harsh light of day the changes wrought by twelve years might have been noticeable, but in that dim light the face appeared unmarked by time, the same high cheekbones, the slightly-too-long nose, the whimsical arch of the brows. There could be no doubt. It was Claudine Bouchère.

Fay’s first impulse was to retreat, yet a kind of horrified fascination rooted her to the spot; it still seemed utterly improbable that it could be Claudine sitting there in that pose of relaxed, elegant negligence, now sipping the glass of white wine a waiter had set before her. Dismay, confusion, and then a rising flood of anger dispelled Fay’s air of indecision; before giving a thought to the consequences of her action, she found herself boldly approaching the table.

“Hello, Claudine.”

The woman looked at her blankly, without a hint of recognition. “Pardon?”

“Don’t you remember me? I’m Fay.”

A wrinkle of the brows, then a sudden narrowing of those sea-green eyes. “Fay? No, no, it cannot be.”

Neither alarm nor confusion, merely astonishment.

Fay laughed nervously, her voice tight. “Funny. That’s just what I thought when I saw you. It cannot be.”

“But how divine. Ma petite Fay, all grown up. How wonderful to see you.”

“Is it really?”

“But of course. Oh, don’t stand there. Sit down. I’m meeting someone but we have awhile. I’m a bit early.”

Fay sat down, aware that she was trembling. “You haven’t changed, Claudine. And still carrying the same umbrella. That’s how I spotted you in the street.”

Claudine uttered her throaty Marlene Dietrich laugh. “Ah, oui, my French umbrella. You remembered. How you loved to carry it. It has sheltered me from many a storm since those days.”

The woman’s aplomb was unbelievable. Or was it an act? Her guileless, politely amused expression betrayed no shadow of anxiety or even of guarded speculation.

“I wasn’t sure what to do,” said Fay. “To face you like this — well, I had to, of course, I had to make sure — or to do the sensible thing.”

“The sensible thing?”

Fay was suddenly, secretly furious at such apparent insouciance. “Well, my first impulse,” she lied, “was to look for the nearest policeman.”

That should have shaken her, but no, not so much as the flicker of an eye, the quiver of a lip. “A policeman! Oh, my dear little Fay, that would have been a great foolishness.”

“Foolish?”

“Under the circumstances, the height of folly, I assure you.” Then, her gaze distracted, she added quickly: “Ah, my friend is here. I’m sorry, my dear, I can say no more now.” Her hand reached out, closed tightly around Fay’s. “You must promise me. Say nothing about this — reunion — to anyone. Not anyone, understand? Do nothing until we have talked.” She reached in her bag, scrawled on a card. “My address and unlisted phone number. Come and see me tomorrow at three, promise? It is urgent that we talk.”

Fay glanced up at the tall, darkly handsome man who had arrived at the table. She rose, somewhat clumsily. Claudine stood too, reached again for Fay’s hand. “Promise?”

“Yes, very well. Goodbye for now.” She turned and fled from the restaurant, the card clutched in her hand. The rain had stopped but the air still had that bluish cast, like the atmosphere in a scarily unpleasant dream.

“Pru, it’s the truth. I ran into her, just like that. I couldn’t believe it.”

“And you talked to her? Actually talked to her?” Prudence was a short, plump girl a few years older than Fay, with an open expression and an air of constant, mother-hennish solicitude.

“For a few minutes, until this man arrived.”

“What did you say? What did she say?”

“Nothing, really. It was incredible, she was as cool as a — what’s cucumber in French?”

“Concombre.” Prudence worked as a translator at the UN.

“She made me promise not to mention our meeting to anyone till we’d had a chance to talk. I don’t know what to do. I mean, I know what I ought to do, but I did promise. I don’t know why. I wanted time to think.”

“Think? Good God, what’s there to think about? All you’ve done is given her time to fly the coop.”

Fay pondered this. “I don’t think so. She could have been acting, of course, but I’d swear she wasn’t the least bit alarmed. More amused than anything. Almost indifferent.”

“Poor Fay, you’re such a child. At least call your father.”

“Not yet. I don’t want to upset him. I don’t think Daddy’s ever quite got over what happened. He even insisted on buying a gun afterward so Mother and I would be safe in the house when he was away. Maybe I should do nothing. What does it really matter after all this time?”

Prudence rolled her eyes. “I think Dr. Sonnenberg would disagree. You said yourself he believes all your problems stem from what happened back then. And why should that beastly woman go unpunished?”

With seeming irrelevance, Fay mentioned the French umbrella. “Whenever I’ve thought about Claudine I’ve remembered it. It’s like seeing in my mind a picture by Renoir. Claudine holding my hand, the two of us strolling along the seashore under that blazing summer sun, shielded by the French umbrella. I was so happy, Pru. Maybe that’s why I can’t feel terribly vindictive about Claudine, no matter what she did. I’d been so wretched having to listen to those endless rows between Mother and Daddy, feeling somehow my whole world was coming to an end. I’ll never forget how I felt the day Mother told me Daddy was leaving us. Deserting us. We’d be leaving the house in Larchmont, everything would be different. I remember how I prayed that something would happen to make everything all right again. And sure enough, something did happen. It was as if my prayers were answered.”

Daddy was going away to “sort things out.” He’d tried to explain to nine-year-old Fay. She remembered the phrase “trial separation.” She was inconsolable, and Mother was of little help, being either hysterical or in a state of brooding numb despair. The only comfort was provided by Claudine, who’d been part of the household for about a year since arriving from Paris, a sort of combination nanny and au pair. Fay had taken to her immediately, for she had the gift of sharing a child’s world without that telltale air of condescension and falseness.

Claudine had a boyfriend named Kevin Corkery who did odd jobs and gardening and occasionally chauffeured for Fay’s father. Fay developed a childish crush on Corkery, who was quite good-looking and loved to tease her.

A week after Daddy left, Mother went to spend a few days with Fay’s widowed grandmother on Sixty-eighth Street, leaving Claudine in charge of the house. A few days after this, Claudine surprised and delighted Fay by telling her they too were going away, a holiday by the seaside. It was summer, school was out, and a friend of Kevin’s had loaned him the use of a cottage on Long Island.

“I’ve called your mama and she agrees it’s a splendid idea,” said Claudine. “We’ll go swimming every day and have weenie roasts on the beach. There’s even a boat. Won’t that be fun?”

And it was. It was bliss. Fay had never been to the shore and after the domestic turmoil at home, it was like being whisked into a magical world of peace and light and harmony. The cottage was a somewhat ramshackle affair and quite remote, which made it all an even more delightful adventure, like something out of Robinson Crusoe. There was no TV, no telephone; it was almost like camping out. Fay had never been happier. She and Claudine never strayed far from the cottage, although Kevin often had to be away taking care of his odd-job customers and shopping for what supplies they needed.

“I wish we could stay here forever and ever,” Fay told Claudine as they sat on the beach at night looking up at the stars.

“And never see your mama again? How cruel!”

“She wouldn’t care. She doesn’t love me.”

“Ah, now that is unfair. She loves you even more than you can comprehend, ma petite. She would do anything for you.”

“Well, what about Daddy? He doesn’t love me or he wouldn’t have gone away.”

“Not true. He does love you, and he loves your mama. Maybe right now he doesn’t know how much he loves her, but I know. I am a French girl. I know about such things. You must have patience, little Fay. All will be fine, you wait and see.”

Fay lost track of time. The summer days passed like a long slow ride on a shining carousel, the outside world never intruding upon their happy solitude. But as the days drifted by Kevin’s absences grew lengthier and more frequent; at these times Fay was aware that Claudine’s happiness seemed clouded by some obscure concern she did not share with Fay.

Finally one night the spell of fine weather came to an end. A violent thunderstorm woke Fay, passing as quickly as it arrived but leaving Fay sleepless on her cot. Presently she became aware of voices murmuring in the next room where Claudine and Kevin slept. She rose quietly and moved to the door, pressing her ear to it and listening.

It was not like the turbulent rows between Mother and Daddy, yet Fay detected a similar tone of antagonism.

She heard Kevin say: “I won’t take the risk, that’s all there is to it.”

To which Claudine replied: “No, you will not take the risk but you will take the money, oui?”

“Only my share.”

“Shares. When did we ever speak of shares? It was all for us.”

“Crazy, that’s what it was. We should never have done it.”

“Now you say that.”

“Yes, well, you’ve been holed up out here. You’ve no idea what a stink it’s raised.”

“What did you expect? Oh, do what you wish. Go! Leave us. I’ll take care of things here.”

In the morning, with the sun as bright as ever, Claudine set about cleaning the cottage in a mood of hectic gaiety; neither then nor later as they ate their picnic lunch on the beach did she once mention Kevin’s name. With a child’s instinctive wisdom Fay too avoided the subject.

Back in the cottage Claudine said, “You’ll be all right if I leave you for a little while, won’t you, ma petite?”

“Where are you going?”

“To the village. It’s much too long a walk for you. I won’t be gone long. I must buy something at the drugstore. Kevin will not be coming back.”

Fay no longer felt any constraint to remain silent. “I woke up last night. I heard you talking. He said he was going away. Like Daddy went away?”

“Something like that, yes. Men, they are all alike. They get restless. Quel dommage. You’ll be all right, but do not leave the cottage. Promise?”

“Promise.”

Fay felt no sense of unease until after two hours Claudine had still not returned. But she was not frightened. She loved and trusted Claudine. The tears did not come until the pine trees behind the cottage began casting long shadows across the sand dunes.

She decided then to go and look for Claudine and was just leaving the cottage when three men came down the narrow track through the pines. Two were policemen. The third was Daddy.

“I still can’t hate her,” said Fay. “How could I? No matter what Mother and Daddy said about her. How she and Kevin had betrayed their trust, kidnapped me for money, might even have murdered me and buried me out there on that desolate beach. It didn’t change the fact that those had been the happiest two weeks of my young life. And Claudine had phoned the police before she disappeared and told them where to find me.”

Prudence considered this with a frown of mature scepticism. “Maybe the real reason you couldn’t hate Claudine was that if you hadn’t been kidnapped and given your folks such a jolt, they wouldn’t have reconciled. Ever think of that?”

Fay nodded. “Shock therapy for a shaky marriage? It certainly did the trick. I think Daddy blamed himself for what happened. He couldn’t have been sweeter to Mother and me after that.”

“Fine, but that doesn’t change the fact they did kidnap you and extort all that money from your parents. You can’t simply overlook it.”

“No, I suppose not. I suppose it’s my duty to put the police onto Claudine. I have to think about it.”

When she left for work the next morning, Fay did not tell Prudence she was going to keep her appointment with Claudine that afternoon, just in case her friend was proved right and Claudine had already skipped.

But she had not. A smiling Claudine opened the door of the fourth-floor apartment of the brownstone not many blocks from where Fay lived.

“I knew you would come,” she said.

Fay looked around the small but well-furnished living room. “How nice. Still living on the ransom money after all this time?” she inquired with conscious cruelty.

“Hardly. We weren’t that greedy. But I had a friend who gave me good financial advice.”

“Kevin?”

Claudine laughed. “Oh, my dear, God knows whatever happened to Kevin. I don’t.”

“You’ve lived here all this time?”

“No. I lived abroad until about a year ago.”

Fay said sharply, “You mean until you thought it safe to come back?”

“It was always safe.”

“Oh?”

Claudine, with a sigh of reluctance, adopted a more serious manner. “Since yesterday I’ve been debating whether or not to tell you the truth. I decided I had no choice. I like my life. I see no reason to endanger it merely to spare your feelings.”

“Sorry, I don’t follow you.”

“Twelve years ago, remember? When your papa left your mama, possibly forever. You remember how distraught she was. Even panic-stricken. The thought of losing him devastated her. Your mama confided in me perhaps more than you realized at the time. She was desperate. Willing to try anything to get him back. The kidnapping, you see, was her idea. If that didn’t bring him back, nothing would, or so she reasoned. We made a pact, she and Kevin and I. Well, you know the rest. Bizarre a plot as it seemed, it worked, didn’t it?”

Even after the first shock wave of this appalling revelation had passed, disbelief did not enter Fay’s mind, almost as if in one of its deeper recesses there had always remained some tiny formless atom of uncertainty.

“But it was monstrous!” she cried. “What you did to him. To Daddy.”

“Yes, well, your mama could hardly tell him, could she. And I would sincerely hope you never do.”

Fay rose so abruptly her knee struck the coffee table. “No, I’ll not tell Daddy, but I shall never talk to her again.”

“Fay, you may as well know. I contacted your mama shortly after I came back to New York. We had a cozy little visit. Right here.” Fay stared at her. “But why?”

Claudine shrugged. “My investments have not been all that successful. I thought she might lend a hand. Which she did. A very generous woman, your mama — when she has no choice.”

Fay walked until she was exhausted, then wandered into a movie, sitting through it twice without really seeing it, wanting only to huddle in the darkness with her own disturbing thoughts. When she came out it was raining again. Unwilling to face anyone, even Prudence, she had a meal in a restaurant before going home.

“Where the dickens have you been?” Prudence greeted her. “Your father’s called twice. Fay, I don’t care what you think, I was worried. I told him, about yesterday. I told him you’d seen that woman.”

White-faced, Fay lashed out at her. “You fool! You meddling fool. You don’t know what you’ve done.”

“Fay, listen to me—”

“You didn’t give him her address, did you?”

“You didn’t tell me her address.”

“He mustn’t find her. He mustn’t let the police know. The things she would say. It would kill him.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“Never mind. I’ve got to go out again.”

“Fay!”

But she was already out the door.

Fay’s sole thought was that she must warn Claudine, urge her to get away while she still had time. Her mind was haunted by dread of the frightful consequences should the police — or her father — find Claudine and learn the truth. At a phone booth she dialed the number on the card Claudine had given her. The phone rang and rang and rang but there was no answer.

She could think of no other course of action but to talk to her father, tell him something, anything, anything but the truth, somehow persuade him to do nothing.

“For pity’s sake, Fay, why didn’t you tell me you’d seen Claudine Bouchère? At least Prudence had the sense to confide in me.”

“Daddy, I didn’t want to upset you and Mother. Not till I’d had a chance to talk to Claudine.”

“But why should you have talked to her?”

“I don’t know. I can’t explain. Did you tell Mother I’d seen her?”

“Of course. You can imagine how it affected her.”

Fay seized upon this. “That’s why I had to see you, Daddy. Don’t you see what it’ll do to Mother if that business is dragged up again? We must forget I ever saw Claudine.”

He regarded her bleakly. “Too late for that, I’m afraid.”

“But it isn’t.”

“Fay, I kept putting it off. Calling the police, I mean. I wanted to talk to you first and get her address. But I couldn’t reach you. Finally I did call them about fifteen minutes ago. When I gave them her name they told me. Some friend of Claudine’s had a date to pick her up. When he got to her apartment, he found her dead. She’d been shot.”

Fay dropped heavily into the nearest chair. “My God. When did it happen?”

“Earlier this evening apparently.”

“What did Mother say?”

“She doesn’t know yet. She was at Judith’s when I called the police.” Judith was a family friend who lived on the next block. “I’m afraid this is going to upset her terribly. She’s been a bundle of nerves lately. Right now she’s taking a hot bath. Honey, I think we could both use a drink.”

Fay noticed how his hand trembled as he poured, and suddenly, with terrible conviction, she knew.

“Daddy, how did you find her if you didn’t know her address?”

“I didn’t find her. That’s why I kept calling you, to get her address.”

“You didn’t go out?”

“No, of course not,” he said crossly.

Daddy was no fool, she knew that. Would it really be that hard for him to trace Claudine? Daddy had always had resources.

She suddenly couldn’t wait to get out of his presence, said she must dash, they would talk later.

“Don’t you want to see your mother?”

“No time, Daddy.”

“But wait, I’ll call you a cab.”

“I’d rather walk, thanks. I’ve got my umbrella.”

“Your mother had to borrow one from Judith or she’d have been drenched.”

Fay shut the door to the vestibule behind her and opened the closet to remove her coat. Only by chance did she happen to see what stood in the corner. At first she stared at it with total disbelief, then reached in and picked it up. The French umbrella. Claudine’s umbrella, with its ivory handle and silver band.

Fay knew with absolute, intuitive certainty what it must mean, and could only speculate on what madness could have possessed her mother to have taken it away with her. As a concealment, perhaps, when she left Claudine’s apartment?

With a spiteful joy at imagining her mother’s consternation at finding the umbrella gone and knowing who must have taken it, Fay tucked it under her arm as she left the building.

I wonder, she thought, not very much caring, what she did with the gun.