Free Salvage for the Saint by Leslie Charteris Page B

moustache with magnificent resignation.
    “Madame—I am difficult to overlook altogether.” He patted his gross midriff affectionately. “A consequence, I am afraid, of gastronomic excess. A lifelong habit which I am now too old, fortunately, to consider breaking … But what am I thinking of? I am shamefully forgetting the manners. I must introduce myself. I am Jacques Descartes. I was making on the island some negotiations in a matter of bulls and cows. Now I am returning to my home in the south, I drive with my assistant until we tire, then we stop at this delightful hotel and—suddenly, there in the restaurant, quelle surprise! Whom do I see but the beautiful—you permit me, Madame?—the beautiful Madame Tatenor. It is a little world, is it not? Such a little world!”
    “It certainly is,” Arabella agreed. And then for conversation’s sake she added: “Whereabouts in the south is your home? I suppose you’re some kind of—farmer?”
    Descartes winced at the word.
    “Not a farmer, Madame. No, no! I am an entrepreneur of the bullfighting in France. I am a breeder and trainer of the picador horses, also a breeder of bulls. You know, perhaps, that not only the Spanish have their bulls and picadors. I have my haras in the village of St Martin-du-Marais, in the Camargue. There I live, and there I own also an hotel. It is true I have also several local farms under my wings, but that is purely a business operation. My horses and bulls, they are my real love. My associates and I are proud, most proud, of our successes.”
    “And—if I may ask without seeming too nosey—was your trip to England, to the island, a success, would you say?”
    Descartes hesitated.
    “Let me put it in this way. I have a … a lead to follow up, which could prove to be most rewarding. Most rewarding. Oh yes, I think you can say that our trip was well worth while.”
    “But what happened to the assistant you mentioned?” Arabella enquired. “Isn’t he hungry?”
    Descartes smiled broadly, exhibiting some expensive gold dental work.
    “Enrico is indisposed. He is not at all a good traveller when a passenger, I am afraid. So he sleeps now. And it is good. Tomorrow he will drive, and when driving he will not feel sick. It is so with some people.”
    “How about you? Will you feel queasy when he’s driving?”
    “Definitely not. My digestive system has become hardened during all the years of abuse—glorious abuse!” Descartes leaned forward, as far as his midriff would allow, with a confiding and avuncular manner. “I confess, Madame Tatenor, I am an incorrigible gourmand. Food is for me a grand passion, perhaps the grand passion I failed to find with a woman. But life is so, n’est-ce-pas? We find our compensations. For example, I detect, do I not, the arrival of our hors d’oeuvres!”
    They continued to chat amiably over the food, and Arabella found that time passed pleasantly enough in Descartes’ ebullient company.
    “You’re something of a philosopher yourself, aren’t you?” she observed an hour and a half later, over the cognac. “Like your famous namesake.”
    He beamed.
    “You are right. I too, in my way, am a thinker. Perhaps not quite in the class of the great Rene Descartes … but then, there is one enterprise of logical thinking in which even he might not be the match of me. I say so, Madame, with all modesty. That enterprise is—do you by chance play the game of backgammon?”
    “Backgammon?” Arabella cast back through her memory. “Why yes, I do believe I played that a few times in my college days. What’s it called in French?”
    “It is called le tric-trac. And I—” Descartes puffed out his chest proudly, but the expansion of his midriff was manifestly greater and Arabella’s composure teetered on the brink for a difficult moment “—in certain circles I am known as Jacques du tric-trac. I am, with modesty, probably the finest backgammon player in all France.”
    Arabella raised a polite