Wandering One

Our customer’s name must, of course, remain anonymous. Let us just call her… Madame de Pompadour.

She walked in, dressed in black lace and finery, a large wide-brimmed ladies’ hat obscuring her features. Paul had been expecting her and ambled clumsily down the stairs.

“Sit down, sit down,” he said, indicating a small sitting area in the front of the shop. He gestured for Willard and I to join them also. I gave Willard an anxious glance, and he merely nodded.  Mme de Pompadour delicately lowered herself onto a seat next to Paul. Willard sat opposite Paul and I, to my extreme discomfort, found myself seated opposite the Madame. She looked straight into my face and I blushed deeply.

“Madame de Pompadour, Sumaya, Willard,” Paul pointed to us effusively, “Would you like some tea Mme?”

“Thank you.”

“Willard?” Will got up clumsily, went to the back of the shop and put the kettle on.

There was an awkward silence as the water boiled. Paul had not put on music this morning, expecting a customer, and so there was just the sound of the kettle, a car alarm whining insistently down the road, the occasional bird, and of course, the road. Paul checked his watch. I looked away from the Mme, who honestly intimidated me.

“Sumaya. Very beautiful name.”

“Ah! Yes, thank you.”

“Where is it from, may I ask?”

“It’s an Arabic name, but I’m Sri Lankan, Madame.”

“I see. Very good tea over there, I hear. I do like my tea.”

“Yes, I believe they do say it… is… good.”

She smiled. I blushed once again. I was no good at this client relations business, and I had no idea why Paul had insisted that I be part of this meeting. I was in this business partly to avoid dealing with other people as much; I was unprepared for the retail side of things!

Momentarily, Willard returned with four cups of fragrant English Breakfast tea on a tray along with cream and sugar. I added a little milk and 3 sugars to mine. Willard drank his milky and with no sugar. Paul- somewhat of an innocent when it comes to tea- drank his plain and with at least 5 teaspoons of sugar. Madame de Pompadour: she drank hers black and sugarless.

“I am here because I would like you to track down an item of mine which has been stolen. Paulsen, you remember my dear faithful last husband do you not?” she said with not a little bitterness.

My throat tightened- surely she was not dressed in mourning for a dead husband? A husband towards she had shown much enmity…?

“Oh, yes of course, how could I forget Charles! He was in here this very week, oh yes, in fact we just finished his order, didn’t we Will?”  Willard nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing slightly as he swallowed some tea. I exhaled slowly, relieved.

“Well, Charles left me a rather nice silver serving platter after we parted ways. Sort of a pompous consolation prize for running off with that… rabbit-woman.” She glared in my direction and I smiled and looked down into my tea nervously.

“My house was broken into very quietly not three days ago and this platter was the only thing disturbed. Nothing else was touched. There were no signs that the display cabinet had been broken into, though it is locked and was locked even when I came down the next day.

“I know not who this could be- other than Charles, that so-called lady of his or one of their associates. While the value of that platter is not too much, it does have a certain… sentimental value to yours truly.”

She paused and smiled at me again. I felt a little bit creeped out by that smile. It was a little too familiar and friendly for my comfort, like being smiled at by a crocodile, despite her obvious magazine good looks.

“Right, hmmm. This certainly is puzzling and we’ll have to send a couple of our Fellows over to have a look at your place so we can start crafting some search spells. I’ll have to ask you some detailed questions in a moment, I hope you don’t mind, Willard, Sumaya, go and fetch me some drawing paper from down the road while I talk to the Mme.”

And with that we were dismissed.

“So, your first client, and it’s the Madame de Pompadour!” Willard smiled wryly.

“When Paul said he just had some customer dropping by I thought it would be some little old lady who needed her cat found, not the Madame herself!”

“Yes, well you get used to that sort of thing. We do have our own share of little old ladies, but Paulsen’s always got surprises up his sleeve.”

“Yes, indeed.”

Brunswick street during the day is vibrant and full of life. Students, homeless people, bohemians, the occasional lost looking business-person; they all inhabit this world. Sometimes it’s amazing to wonder at all this variety. A cyclist almost knocked us over on the footpath, rung its bell twice and waved as we talked. Cars streamed past and we had to negotiate the gauntlet of Alexandra Parade on a weekday. For a short time a random dog decided to follow us, until it got bored and wandered somewhere else. There was a sense of magic around, that day. As there should be .

“So what do you think of that whole story?” I ventured.

Willard narrowed his eyes.

“I’ve never trusted the Madame, and I don’t trust her now. I think there’s far more to this than Paul is letting on.”

“That lady scares me, I don’t know what it is, she has this creepy way of looking at you.”

“Oh, that… no I think she rather fancies you, don’t you think?” I blushed yet again.

“No, no way, she’s Count Xavier’s consort, she’s not gay. Anyway I’m pretty sure that’s not why she was looking at me.”

“Oh Sumaya, my dear, you have so much to learn!” He nudged me playfully and grinned. I smiled back. This was a side of Willard I’d never seen before, and I felt a new warmth towards him.

We made a quick walk to Zetta Florence and walked in…