and plenty of lap rugs in the Bugatti. It will not make you entirely comfortable, but you probably will not be so until you are in Scotland.” He gave her a sympathetic half-smile, and watched her face.
“Yes,” Madame Kunst said, her brows twitching into an expression of impatience and dissatisfaction.
Saint-Germain assumed an expression of diffidence. “My manservant has reminded me that there is another medication in the chateau. It is … an herbal remedy, and very efficacious, or so I have been told. I would be pleased to bring some to you.” He had made that particular elixir for more than three thousand years: it was a clear distillate that began with a solution prepared from moldy bread. The recent discovery of penicillin had amused him.
Madame Kunst looked flustered. “A peasant remedy? I don’t know … peasants are so superstitious and some of their practices are … well, unpleasant.”
Very gently, Saint-Germain said, “In your position, Madame Kunst, I would think you would take that chance, if only to make your ship. Brandy is a help, but you will not be clearheaded. With the herbal remedy, you need not be fuddled.”
She slapped her hands down on the comforter. “But what if the remedy is worse? Some of those remedies the monks made were mostly pure spirits with a little herbal additive. This is probably more of the same thing.”
“I assure you, it is not,” Saint-Germain said.
“Oh, I don’t know. I will have to think about it.” She remembered to cough. “I have to have time to recruit my strength, Herr Comte. I will tell you in an hour or so what I have decided.” With a degree of quiet malice, she added, “It was so good of you to offer this to me.” Saint-Germain bowed and left the room.
Slightly less than an hour after this, James came bursting out of Madame Kunst’s room, running down the corridor, calling for Saint-Germain.
The response was almost immediate. Saint-Germain hastened from his laboratory as he tugged his lab coat off, wishing there were a way he could curb some of James’ impetuosity. “A moment!” he cried as he reached the foot of the main staircase.
“We don’t have a moment!” James shouted as he came into view on the upper floor. “It’s urgent.”
“So I gather,” Saint-Germain said as he flung his wadded-up lab coat away from him. “But if it is, it might be best not to announce it to the world.”
“Jesus! I forgot.” He paused at the top of the stairs, then raced down them. “I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me. It should have.”
“We will discuss it later,” Saint-Germain said. “Now, what has you so up in arms?”
“Madame Kunst.” He opened up his hands. “She’s not in her room and her valise is gone.”
“Indeed.” Saint-Germain’s brows rose and he nodded grimly.
“I went to her room, as you instructed, and it was empty. The bed was still a bit warm, so she can’t have gone far, or have left too long ago. If we hurry, we can find her.” Now that he had forced himself to be calm, all his old journalistic habits came back. “If she’s carrying that thing, she’ll have to stay on the road, and that means someone will see her, if only a farmer or a shepherd.”
“You’re assuming she’s left Montalia,” Saint-Germain said. “I doubt that she has.”
“Why?” James demanded.
“Because Roger is down at the gatehouse and he has not signaled me that he has seen her. Not that that makes it simpler,” he added dryly. “This place is a rabbit warren and it is not easily searched.”
“Especially since we don’t know what we’re looking for, right?” James said, running one hand through his silver hair.
“That is a factor.” Saint-Germain looked up toward the ceiling. “But we also know what we are not looking for, which is a minor advantage.” He turned away from James, his eyes on the heavy, metal-banded door to the old wing of the chateau. “I think she may be armed, James. Be cautious with her. Bullet wounds are painful, and if they damage the spine or skull, they are as fatal to us as anyone else. No heroics, if you please. Madelaine would never forgive me.”
James did not quite know how to take this, but he shrugged. “If that’s how you want it, that’s how I’ll do it.”
“Very good,” Saint-Germain said crisply. “And we might as well begin now. First the kitchens and pantry, and then the old wing. With this precaution.” He went