But why would Yasmin be ringing the bell in the first place?
Ah well, she was a young English girl, a student of art (or music or literature, whichever was applicable) who had such a massive admiration for the work of Monsieur Renoir or Monet or Stravinsky or whomever, that she had come all the way from England to pay homage to the great man, to say hello to him, to give him a little present and then to go away again. Nunc dimittis.
“That,” I said to Yasmin as I polished off the last succulent lobster claw–and by the way, don’t you love it when you are able to draw the flesh of the claw out of the shell whole and pinky-red in one piece? There is some kind of tiny personal triumph in that. I may be childish, but I experience a similar triumph when I succeed in getting a walnut out of its shell without breaking it in two. As a matter of fact, I never approach a walnut without this particular ambition in mind. Life is more fun if you play games. But back to Yasmin–”that,” I said to her, “will get you invited right into the house or the studio ninety-nine times out of a hundred. With your smile and your lascivious looks, I cannot see any of these lads turning you away.”
“What about their watchdogs or their wives?”
“I think you’ll get past them, too. Occasionally they may tell you the man’s busy painting or writing and to come back at six o’clock. But you’re always going to win in the end. Don’t forget, you’ve travelled a long way just to pay homage. And make a point of saying you won’t stay more than a few minutes.”
“Nine,” Yasmin said, grinning. “Just nine minutes. When do we start?”
“Tomorrow,” I said. “I shall buy a motor car this afternoon. We’re going to need it for our French and other European operations. And tomorrow we will drive to Essoyes and you will meet Monsieur Renoir.”
“You never waste time, do you, Oswald?”
“My darling,” I said, “as soon as I have made a fortune, I propose to spend the rest of my life wasting time. But until the money is in the bank, I shall work very hard indeed. And so must you.”
“How long do you think it will take?”
“To make our fortunes? About seven or eight years. No more. That’s not such a long stretch when it means you can laze about doing nothing forever after.”
“No,” she said, “it isn’t. And anyway, I’m rather enjoying this.”
“I know you are.”
“What I’m enjoying,” she said, “is the thought of being ravished by all the greatest men in the world. And all the kings. It tickles my fancy.”
“Let’s go out and buy a French motor car,” I said. So out we went and this time I bought a splendid little 10 hp Citroën torpedo, a four-seater, a brand-new model only just out. It cost me the equivalent of three hundred fifty pounds in French money, and it was exactly what I wanted. Although it had no luggage compartment, there was plenty of room on the back seats for all my equipment and suitcases. It was an open tourer, and it had a canvas roof that could be put up in less than a minute if it started to rain. The body was dark blue, the colour of royal blood, and its top speed was an exhilarating 55 mph.
The next morning we set off for Essoyes with my travelling laboratory packed away in the back of the Citroën. We stopped at Troyes for lunch where we ate trout from the Seine (I had two, they were so good) and drank a bottle of white vin du pays. We got to Essoyes at four in the afternoon and booked into a small hotel whose name I have forgotten. My bedroom again became my laboratory, and as soon as everything had been laid out in readiness for the immediate testing and mixing and freezing of semen, Yasmin and I went out to find Monsieur Renoir. This was not difficult. The woman at the desk gave us precise instructions. A large white house, she said, on the right-hand side, three hundred metres beyond the church or some such thing.