“Besides which,” Simon continued at leisure, “I like civilized amenities with my crime — or wine. Both of them have a finer flavor for being enriched with background.” He raised his glass again, passing it under his nostrils and admiring its ruby tint. “I take this wine, and to me it’s much more than alcoholic grape juice. I think of the particular breed of grapes it was made from, and the dry sunny slopes where they ripened. I think of all the lore of wine-making. I think of the great names of wine, that you could chant like an anthem — Chambertin, Romanée-Conti, Richebourg, Vougeot... I think of great drinkers — buveurs très illustres, as Rabelais addresses us — of August the Strong of Saxony, who fathered three hundred and sixty-five bastards and drank himself to death on Imperial Tokay, doubtless from celebrating all their birthdays — or of the Duke of Clarence who was drowned in a butt of malmsey wine... Or, perhaps, I might think of pearls...”
Wendel suddenly stiffened into stillness.
“I was wondering how to bring pearls into it.”
“Did you ever hear that wine would dissolve pearls?” asked the Saint. “If you collected these items, you’d have read about how the decadent Roman emperors, in their lush moments, would dissolve pearls in the banquet wine, just to prove that money was no object. And then there’s a story about Cleopatra’s big party to Caesar, when she offered him wine with her own hands, and dropped a priceless pearl in his goblet. Now if you knew—”
“What I want to know,” Wendel said, “is how much you’re interested in Lady Offchurch’s pearls.”
The Saint sighed.
“You’re such a materialist,” he complained. “I arrive in New Orleans an innocent and happy tourist, and I’ve hardly checked into a hotel when you burst in on me, flashing your badge and demanding to know what the hell I want in town. I do my best to convince you that I’m only here to soak up the atmosphere of your historic city and incidentally absorb some of your superb cooking with it. I even persuade you to have dinner with me and get this epicurean picnic off to a good start. We are just starting to relax and enjoy ourselves, with poetic excursions into history and legend, when suspicion rears its ugly head again and you practically accuse me of planning to swipe some wretched dowager’s jewels.”
“I’ll go further than that,” Wendel rasped, with the raw edges of uncertainty in his voice. “I’m wondering what made you choose this place to eat in.”
“It seemed like a good idea.”
“It wasn’t because you expected Lady Offchurch to choose it too.”