The man nodded throughout the explanation, seemingly unsurprised by the request. He replied in fairly rapid French to Matt, which Darcie found hard to follow. However, he appeared to be saying something positive as Matt conversed with him and they both smiled their way through the conversation. After a few minutes, the man went out to the back of the shop.
‘Where’s he going?’ whispered Darcie.
‘Says he has something for us,’ replied Matt. ‘I’m not sure what.’
‘What’s he said so far?’ Darcie tried to peer through the door the gentleman had left ajar, which led into a workroom. She could just see the edge of a sewing machine and a table.
‘He was telling me how it’s been a tailor’s for over a hundred years, but that his father bought the shop in the late Forties.’
‘How old is he? He’s obviously not old enough to have been born then.’
‘No, he did say it was before he was born.’
Before Darcie could ask any more questions, the man came back into the room, holding a notebook. He spoke to Matt in French and then proceeded to open up a brown leather-covered book. Darcie couldn’t make out the writing as it was all handwritten and in an older cursive style. Matt took out his phone and took a picture of the page before the tailor copied out one of the entries onto a piece of paper. His handwriting looked much easier to decipher. He folded the paper in half and handed it to Matt.
‘Merci beaucoup, monsieur,’ said Matt.
Darcie thanked him in French also, but had no idea what she was thanking him for and managed to contain her excitement until they were out of the shop.
‘What did he say?’ she blurted out no sooner than Matt had closed the door behind them.
‘Come on, let’s grab a coffee and I’ll tell you.’
There was a café just across the road and as soon as they’d ordered and their drinks arrived, Darcie couldn’t contain herself any longer. ‘Come on, you have to tell me now.’
‘Sure. So, the shopkeeper said his father bought the shop in 1947 from a Monsieur Théodule Leroux who had taken over the shop from his own father. It has been a tailor’s since the beginning of the 1900s apparently.’
‘Leroux? So related to Nathalie Leroux. He has to be her father. It would make sense and that would be why she was into fashion and design.’ Darcie checked herself from sounding disproportionately excited at this little nugget of information.
‘It does make sense. The current owner doesn’t remember the daughter’s name, but he said he thought there were two children. His mother mentioned them from time to time when they spoke about buying the shop but the current owner wasn’t even born when this happened.’
‘Maybe we can find Nathalie through her father. Like on one of the genealogy sites,’ said Darcie. ‘It’s likely that she married.’
‘More than likely.’
‘What did the man write on the piece of paper?’ Darcie had almost forgotten about that. She looked up at Matt and could see a spark of excitement in his eyes.
Matt took the piece of paper from his pocket and, after unfolding it, he placed it on the table, turning it around so Darcie could read it.
GRANDIS, Philippe & Clarice
La ferme verte
Ploërmel
‘Grandis? Who are they?’ asked Darcie.
‘The address book was left in a box with other things concerning the business and a forwarding address. The Grandis family is related to the Leroux family.’
‘OK,’ said Darcie, not sure she understood the significance. ‘And where is Ploërmel?’
Matt was now tapping into his phone. ‘According to Google it’s a small town in Southern Brittany, department 56.’
‘Brittany? And the Grandis family?’
‘They are related to the Leroux family and they might know what happened to Nathalie.’
‘Wow. What are we going to do? Call them? Would you be able to do that? I couldn’t manage a conversation in French on the telephone. I hate speaking on the phone in English, never mind a foreign language.’
