Chapter 74

DORIS

"Is that France?" Mia asked, leaning over her father and pointing out the plane's small round window.

"That’s Paris, yes," Arthur said.

"Can we sing French songs and eat French fries?"

Arthur and I laughed.

"Of course, pumpkin."

We went to the central park right away, and Arthur asked someone for directions to the carousel in what sounded to me like perfect French.

"I’m impressed," I said.

"Don’t be," he responded. “I speak French, Spanish, Hindi, and Mandarin, and I butcher them all."

"It sounded pretty good to me," I said.

"It sounded like blah blah blah blah blah blah to me," Mia said.

We found the carousel. It didn’t look exactly like an American one. The animals were more fantastical, like something out of an old-fashioned children’s book.

The carousel was also larger than I had expected, much larger.

It wasn’t moving, so it was easy to walk past pink lions and purple and blue striped zebras to the octagon-shaped center column.

We had to walk around three sides before we found a large brown door with gold writing. It was in French, so I couldn’t read it.

"What does it say?” Mia asked Arthur.

"It says 'à travers l'étang ou mourir, des puzzles faits à la main et des boîtes pour vos trésors les plus précieux.'"

"Daddy!"

Arthur laughed. "It says 'Across The Pond Or Die, handmade puzzles, and boxes for your most precious treasures. By appointment only’."

"Oh no," I said. “Do we have an appointment?"

"We do," Arthur said. "Susan made one for me."

"Who’s Susan?" Mia asked.

"She’s the new assistant that Nathan hired for me. I can’t expect him to do all of my small errands and be my right-hand man and the CEO of AmeriCapital at the same time."

Arthur knocked on the door, and an old man’s voice responded, sounding muffled.

A few moments later, the door opened to reveal a man barely as tall as my chest. He was leaning heavily on a cane and looked like he stepped out of the 14th century.

"Are you a hobbit?" Mia asked.

He laughed and answered her in a very thick French accent. "I might be part hobbit," he said, holding his finger and thumb about 2 mm apart.

"Oh good," I said. "You speak English."

He shrugged the way some French people do when they mean maybe, but at the same time, maybe not.

The man stepped back, and we walked into his shop.

I could immediately see this man was a true artist. Every square millimeter to the ceiling was packed with handmade wooden puzzles and miniature boxes.

Arthur explained Wayne and his grandmother's situation to the old man in French while Mia and I patiently waited, looking around at all the hand-carved wonders.

"Oh, yes," the old man said in English when Arthur was done, explaining why we were there. "I remember her quite clearly. She was such a lovely lady."

The man went behind his desk and pulled out a large ledger box that looked older than I was.

"I think it’s in this book somewhere."

We waited patiently while he flipped pages.

"No, not this one." He put the book back under his desk and took out an identical one.

"What’s in there?" Mia asked, standing up on her tiptoes to better peer at the French writing.

"It’s a record of every item I’ve ever sold and who I sold it to," he said. "Ah-ha!" He said, pointing. "Here it is."

The old man turned the book around so that Arthur could see it.

"I will write all this information down for you," the old man said.

"Merci," Arthur said. "Pumpkin, why don’t you pick out a small souvenir to take home with us to the United States?"

"I think I might have just a thing," the man said. He went to a small shelf that was about ankle height and pulled out a light tan-colored box.

When he opened it up, five little animals were sitting in their carousel places.

"I love it!" Mia exclaimed.

The man handed the box to Mia and gave a note to Arthur. Arthur paid for Mia’s precious gift, and we left.

"Next stop, this address," Arthur said, holding up the note. "I don’t think it’s far from here, but it’s too far to walk."

We got in a taxi. Arthur showed the driver the address, and we were off.

The taxi driver was enchanted with Mia and answered all her questions, pointing out the Eiffel Tower and famous statues along the way.

When we got to the house, it was much larger and fancier than I had expected.

"Is this a castle?"

"No pumpkin, but it might be a château."

"What’s that?"

"It’s a fancy word for house so real estate agents to charge twice as much," I said.

We walked up the long driveway and knocked on the front door. It took a moment, but when the door swung back, I was surprise. A woman in her late twenties with long blonde hair answered. She was without a doubt, one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen.

"Arthur?" She asked.

"Annabel-Marie?"

And then they were off speaking French too fast for me to catch any words at all.

Annabel-Marie. I knew that name. She was a famous model. She represented Coco Channel clothes and the new French perfume, Channel No. 5 in Love.

From Anabel-Marie's body language, I wondered if she and Arthur had dated at one point, which made me a little insecure for a minute.

"Let me introduce my daughter and her mother," Arthur said, and the way he pulled me close to him, wrapped his arms around me, and kissed my temple while putting his hand on top of Mia's head made all my insecurities go away.

"My goodness, how lovely. Please, please," she said, stepping back. "Won't you come in?”

It took me a minute, but I realized she was also the Givenchy model for their new jewelry line and for this year’s most fashionable blouses!

Annabel stepped back further and led us into the most beautiful classic French foyer I had ever seen.

"Arthur,” she said with a sexy French accent. "It is so good to see you. What brings you to Paris?"

"You will not believe this, but…" Arthur said, and he told Annabel the entire story of Wayne and his grandmother, starting from the night that Arthur and I were on the double date with Nathan and Nina, and Wayne stumbled up to us and thrust us into the mystery with the strange note he put in Nathan’s hand.

"Oh my goodness!" Annabel said, placing her hands on her face dramatically. "That is such a tale. And what did the little old man from Across The Pond Or Die write down for you?"

"That is the interesting thing. Wayne‘s grandmother is actually the Duchess of Akinberg."

"No!" Annabel said, leaning forward and then placing her palms on her face again.

"Yes," Arthur said, gesturing around the large house we were standing in with a big smile.

"That would mean this is her former home," Annabel said.

"Correct, dear Watson!" Arthur said.

"So the treasure is here?" Mia asked.

"It is, pumpkin."

"How do we find it?"

"Well, luckily, Wayne‘s grandmother was a good friend of the puzzle store owner, and she told him where she was going to hide it, and he wrote it down in his book." Arthur tapped the piece of paper the puzzle store owner gave him.

Then Arthur held the paper up higher and tapped it again with a dramatic flourish.

Arthur put on a pair of imaginary reading glasses, brought the paper until it was centimeters from his nose, squinted, held the paper at arm's length, squinted again, and then brought it so close to his face that it was touching his nose.

Mia laughed.

Then Arthur held the paper away, again, stretching his arm as far as it could go, as if he was a trombone player, and he had to bring the paper farther away to see it.

Arthur continued to adjust imaginary glasses like he was 60 years old until Mia finally said, "Daddy! Come on! What does it say?"

Arthur let out a stream of words in rapid-fire French.

"Oh," Annabel said.

"Daddy, you know I don’t speak French. What does it say?"

"It says the treasure boxes are hidden in tiles behind the backsplash tiles in the kitchen."

"What’s a backsplash??" Mia asked.

"It’s the tiles people put on the wall int the kitchen right above the counter," I explained. "It’s called a backsplash because if you get spaghetti sauce that splashes back on it, it’s easy to wipe off because it’s tile and not a painted wall."

"That’s a funny name for it," Mia said.

"How will we figure out which tile it is under?" I asked.

"Yeah, aren't there like a million, trillion, billion, gazillion tiles in a kitchen?" Mia threw her arms in the air like it was hopeless. "That would take, like, until my ninth birthday."

“Follow me,” Annabel said.

We followed her toward the kitchen. Before we got there, a handsome man with messy hair entered the living room from the other direction.

Annabel’s smiled, and she positively beamed. "Oh, there you are, Anton. Everyone, this is Anton. Anton is a famous chef."

"Well, not as famous as you are," Anton said, and then he kissed Annabel on the cheek.

She looked up at him adoringly. Somehow, knowing she was happily married made me feel better.