The first thing I noticed when I met Maria Duval were her eyes. Cats eyes. Not the blue eyes of a Siamese cat with the shade of Delft blue porcelain china. Not the eyes of a Persian cat with the shade of molten gold. The eyes of a street cat. Mysterious green, with the sea blue shades of a swamp. Lights with the sparkle of golden coins, glow worms and star particles.
We stood opposite each other. Maria looked straight into my eyes. A mutual friend took the trouble to try and introduce us to each other. But I wasn't listening. I wasn't paying attention to anything, didn't care about anything, except those eyes that looked into mine, with their small, almost slit oval pupils. Just like cats eyes. People say that a cheetah hypnotises its prey before he strikes. That is what I had in front of me. A cheetah. A captivating catlike woman who held me in the grip of her emerald green eyes
Maria smiled, gave me her hand and the spell was broken. Consciously or sub-consciously (she has never wanted to say) Maria Duval had given a demonstration of one of her powers. That was enough. It was time to get down to business. I had in fact come to ask her about her powers and to try and understand how someone in this day and age can call themselves a clairvoyant.
A few days previously Maria was the heroine of a bizarre drama that had taken place in the vicinity of St. Tropez. The wife of a young dentist had disappeared. She left in her car on Tuesday afternoon and had not been seen since. The following morning hikers discovered an abandoned vehicle on the Colbasse pass on the road from Ramatuelle to La Croix Valmer. The car was empty. The police did not find anything in the car that was of use to the investigation.
