Spinsters in Jeopardy

Chapter VIII Ricky Regained

i

Troy could scarcely endure the scene that followed and very nearly lost control of herself. She couldn’t understand a word of what was said. Alleyn held her by the arm and kept saying: “In a minute, darling. He’ll be here in a minute. He’s all right. Hold on. He’s all right.”

Dupont and Callard were behaving like Frenchmen in English farces. Callard, especially, kept giving shrugs that began in his middle and surged up to his ears. His synthetic Americanisms fell away and when he threw a sentence in English at Troy or at Alleyn he spoke it like a Frenchman. He shouted to Alleyn: “If I lose my temper it is natural. I apologize. I knew nothing. It was the fault of my staff. There will be extensive dismissals. I am the victim of circumstances. I regret that I struck you.”

He pounded his desk bell and shouted orders into the sound system. Voices from the other places said in mid-air: “Immédiatement, M. le Directeur.” “Tout de suite. Monsieur.” “Parfaitement, M. le Directeur.” The secretary ran in at a high-heeled double and set up a gabble of protest which was cut short by Dupont. She teetered out again and could be heard yelping down her own sound system.

With one part of her mind Troy thought of the door and how it must soon open for Ricky and with another part she thought it was unlucky to anticipate this event and that the door would open for the secretary or a stranger and, so complicated were her thoughts, she also wondered if, when she saw Ricky, he would have a blank look of panic in his eyes, or if he would cry or be casually pleased, or if these speculations too were unlucky and he wouldn’t come at all.

Stifled and terrified, she turned on Dupont and Callard and cried out: “Please speak English. You both can. Where is he? Why doesn’t he come?”

“Madame,” said Dupont gently, “he is here.”

He had come in as she turned away from the door.

The secretary was behind him. She gave his shoulder a little push and he made a fastidious movement away from her and into the room. Troy knew that if she spoke her voice would shake. She held out her hand.

“Hallo, Rick,” Alleyn said. “Sorry we’ve muddled you about.”

“You have, rather,” Ricky said. He saw Dupont and Callard. “How do you do,” he said. He looked at Troy and his lip trembled. He ran savagely into her arms and fastened himself upon her. His fierce hard little body was rammed against hers, his arms gripped her neck and his face burrowed into it. His heart thumped piston-like at her breast.

“We’ll take him out to the car,” Alleyn said.

Troy rose, holding Ricky with his legs locked about her waist. Alleyn steadied her and they went out through the secretary’s room and the lobby and the entrance hall to where Raoul waited in the sunshine.

ii

When they approached the car Ricky released his hold on his mother as abruptly as he had imposed it. She put him down and he walked a little distance from her. He acknowledged Raoul’s greeting with an uncertain nod and stood with his back turned to them, apparently looking at M. Dupont’s car which was occupied by three policemen.

Alleyn murmured: “He’ll get over it all right. Don’t worry.”

“He thinks we’ve let him down. He’s lost his sense of security.”

“We can do something about that. He’s puzzled. Give him a moment and then I’ll try.”

He went over to the police car.

“I suppose,” Ricky said to nobody in particular, “Daddy’s not going away again.”

Troy moved close to him. “No, darling, I don’t think so. Not far anyway. He’s on a job, though, helping the French police.”

“Are those French policemen?”

“Yes. And the man you saw in that place is a French detective.”

“As good as Daddy?”

“I don’t expect quite as good but good all the same. He helped us find you.”

Ricky said: “Why did you let me be got lost?”

“Because,” Troy explained with a dryness in her throat, “Daddy didn’t know about it. As soon as he knew, it was all right, and you weren’t lost any more. We came straight up here and got you.”

The three policemen were out of the car and listening ceremoniously to Alleyn. Ricky watched them. Raoul, standing by his own car, whistled a lively air and rolled a cigarette.

“Let’s go and sit with Raoul, shall we,” Troy suggested, “until Daddy’s ready to come home with us?”

Ricky looked miserably at Raoul and away again. “He might be cross of me,” he muttered.

“Raoul cross with you, darling? No. Why?”

“Because — because — I—lost — I lost—”

“No, you didn’t!” Troy cried. “We found it. Wait a moment.” She rooted in her bag. “Look.”

She held out the little silver goat. Ricky’s face was transfused with a flush of relief. He took the goat carefully into his square hands. “He’s the nicest thing I’ve ever had,” he said. “He shines in the night. Il s’illume. Raoul and the lady said he does.”

“Has he got a name?”

“His name’s Goat,” Ricky said.

He walked over to the car. Raoul opened the door and Ricky got into the front seat casually displaying the goat.

“C’est ça,” Raoul said comfortably. He glanced down at Ricky, nodded three times with an air of sagacity, and lit his cigarette. Ricky shoved one hand in the pocket of his shorts and leaned back. “Coming, Mum?” he asked.

Troy got in beside him. Alleyn called Raoul, who swept off his chauffeur’s cap to Troy and excused himself.

“What’s going to happen?” Ricky asked.

“I think Daddy’s got a job for them. He’ll come and tell us in a minute.”

“Could we keep Raoul?”

“While we are here I think we can.”

“I daresay he wouldn’t like to live with us always.”

“Well, his family lives here. I expect he likes being with them.”

“I do think he’s nice, however. Do you?”

“Very,” Troy said warmly. “Look, there he goes with the policemen.”

M. Dupont had appeared in the factory entrance. He made a crisp signal. Raoul and the three policemen walked across and followed him into the factory. Alleyn came to the car and leaned over the door. He pulled Ricky’s forelock and said: “How’s the new policeman?” Ricky blinked at him.

“Why?” he asked.

“I think you’ve helped us to catch up with some bad lots.”

“Why?”

“Well, because they thought we’d be so busy looking for you we wouldn’t have time for them. But, sucks to them, we didn’t lose you and do you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because you waved from the balcony and dropped your silver goat and that was a clue and because you called out to us and we knew you were there. Pretty good.”

Ricky was silent.

Troy said: “Jolly good, helping Daddy like that.”

Ricky was turned away from her. She could see the charming back of his neck and the curve of his cheek. He hunched his shoulders and tucked in his chin.

“Was the fat, black smelly lady a bad lot?” he asked in a casual tone.

“Not much good,” Alleyn said.

“Where is she?”

“Oh, I shut her up. She’s a silly old thing, really. Better, shut up.”

“Was the other one a bad lot?”

“Which one?”

“The Nanny.”

Alleyn and Troy looked at each other over his head.

“The one who fetched you from the hotel?” Alleyn asked.

“Yes, the new Nanny.”

“Oh, that one. Hadn’t she got a red hat or something?”

“She hadn’t got a hat. She’d got a moustache.”

“Really? Was her dress red perhaps?”

“No. Black with kind of whitey blobs.”

“Did you like her?”

“Not extra much. Quite, though. She wasn’t bad. I didn’t think I had to have a Nan over here.”

“Well, you needn’t. She was a mistake. We won’t have her.”

“Anyway, she shouldn’t have left me there with the fat lady, should she, Daddy?”

“No.” Alleyn reached over the door and took the goat. He held it up admiring it. “Nice, isn’t it?” he said. “Did she speak English, that Nanny?”

“Not properly. A bit. The man didn’t.”

“The driver?”

“ ’M.”

“Was he a chauffeur like Raoul?”

“No. He had funny teeth. Sort of black. Funny sort of driver for a person to have. He didn’t have a cap like Raoul or anything. Just a red beret and no coat and he wasn’t very clean either. He’s Mr. Garbel’s driver, only Mr. Garbel’s a Mademoiselle and not a Mr.”

“Is he? How d’you know?”

“May I have Goat again, please? Because the Nanny said you were waiting for me in Mademoiselle Garbel’s room. Only you weren’t. And because Mademoiselle Garbel rang up. The lady in the goat shop has got other people that light themselves at night too. Saints and shepherds and angels and Jesus. Pretty decent.”

“I’ll have a look next time I’m there. When did Miss Garbel ring up, Rick?”

“When I was in her room. The fat lady told the Nanny. They didn’t know about me understanding which was sucks to them.”

“What did the fat lady say?”

“ ‘Mademoiselle Garbel a téléphoné.’ Easy!”

“What did she telephone about, do you know?”

“Me. She said they were to take me away and they told me you would be up here. Only—”

Ricky stopped short and looked wooden. He had turned rather white.

“Only—?” Alleyn said and then after a moment: “Never mind. I think I know. They went away to talk on the telphone and you went out on the balcony. And you saw Mummy and me waving on our balcony and you didn’t know quite what was up with everybody. Was it like that?”

“A bit.”

“Muddly?”

“A bit,” Ricky said tremulously.

“I know. We were muddled too. Then that fat old thing came out and took you away, didn’t she?”

Ricky leaned back against his mother. Troy slipped her arm round him and her hand protected his two hands and the silver goat. He looked at his father and his lip trembled.

“It was beastly,” he said. “She was beastly.” And then in a most desolate voice: “They took me away. I was all by myself for ages in there. They said you’d be up here and you weren’t. You weren’t here at all.” And he burst into a passion of sobs, his tear-drenched face turned in bewilderment to Alleyn. His precocity fell away from him: he was a child who had not long ago been a baby.

“It’s all right, old boy,” Alleyn said, “it was only a sort of have. They’re silly bad lots and we’re going to stop their nonsense. We wouldn’t have been able to if you hadn’t helped.”

Troy said: “Daddy did come, darling. He’ll always come. We both will.”

“Well, anyway,” Ricky sobbed, “another time you’d jolly well better be a bit quicker.”

A whistle at the back of the factory gave three short shrieks. Ricky shuddered, covered his ears and flung himself at Troy.

“I’ll have to go in,” Alleyn said. He closed his hand on Ricky’s shoulder and held it for a moment. “You’re safe. Rick,” he said, “you’re safe as houses.”

“O.K.,” Ricky said in a stifled voice. He slewed his head around and looked at his father out of the corner of his eyes.

“Do you think in a minute or two you could help us again? Do you think you could come in with me to the hall in there and tell me if you can see that old Nanny and Mr. Garbel’s driver?”

“Oh, no, Rory,” Troy murmured. “Not now!”

“Well, of course, Rick needn’t if he’d hate it, but it’d be helping the police quite a lot.”

Ricky had stopped crying. A dry sob shook him but he said: “Would you be there? And Mummy?”

“We’ll be there.”

Alleyn reached over, picked up Troy’s gloves from the floor of the car and put them in his pocket.

“Hi!” Troy said. “What’s that for?”

“’To be worn in my beaver and borne in the van,’” he quoted, “or something like that. If Raoul or Dupont or I come out and wave will you and Ricky come in? There’ll be a lot of people there, Rick, and I just want you to look at ’em and tell me if you can see that Nanny and the driver. O.K.?”

“O.K.,” Ricky said in a small voice.

“Good for you, old boy.”

He saw the anxious tenderness in Troy’s eyes and added: “Be kind enough, both of you, to look upon me as a tower of dubious strength.”

Troy managed to grin at him. “We have every confidence,” she said, “in our wonderful police.”

“Like hell!” Alleyn said and went back to the factory.

iii

He found a sort of comic-opera scene in full swing in the central hall. Employees of all conditions were swarming down the curved stairs and through the doors: men in working overalls, in the white coat of the laboratory, in the black jacket of bureaucracy; women equally varied in attire and age: all of them looking in veiled annoyance at their watches. A loudspeaker bellowed continually:

“ ’Allo, ’allo, Messieurs et Dames, faites attention, s’il vous plaît. Tous les employés, ayez la bonté de vous rendre immédiatement au grand vestibule. ’Allo, ’allo.”

M. Dupont stood in a commanding position on the base of the statue and M. Callard, looking sulky, stood at a little distance below him. A few paces distant, Raoul, composed and god-like in his simplicity, surveyed the milling chorus. The gendarmes were nowhere to be seen.

Alleyn made his way to Dupont, who was obviously in high fettle and, as actors say, well inside the skin of his part. He addressed Alleyn in English with exactly the right mixture of deference and veiled irritability. Callard listened moodily.

“Ah, Monsieur! You see we make great efforts to clear up this little affair. The entire staff is summoned by Monsieur le Directeur. We question everybody. This fellow of yours is invited to examine the persons. You are invited to bring the little boy, also to examine. Monsieur le Directeur is most anxious to assist. He is immeasurably distressed, is it not. Monsieur le directeur?”

“That’s right,” said M. Callard without enthusiasm.

Alleyn said with a show of huffiness that he was glad to hear that they recognized their responsibilities. M. Dupont bent down as if to soothe him and he murmured: “Keep going as long as you can. Spin it out.”

“To the last thread.”

Alleyn made his way to Raoul and was able to mutter: “Ricky describes the driver as a man with black teeth, a red beret, as your friend observed, and no jacket. The woman has a moustache, is bareheaded and wears a black dress with a whitish pattern. If you see a man and woman answering to that description you may announce that they resemble the persons in the car.”

Raoul was silent. Alleyn was surprised to see that his face, usually a ready mirror of his emotions, had gone blank. The loud-speaker kept up its persistent demands. The hall was filling rapidly.

“Well, Raoul?”

“Would Monsieur describe again the young woman and the man?”

Alleyn did so. “If there are any such persons present you may pretend to recognize them, but not with positive determination. The general appearance, you may say, is similar. Then we may be obliged to bring Ricky in to see if he identifies them.”

Raoul made a singular little noise in his throat. His lips moved. Alleyn saw rather than heard his response.

“Bien, Monsieur,” he said.

“M. Dupont will address the staff when they are assembled. He will speak at some length. I shall not be present. He will continue proceedings until I return. Your soi-distant identification will then take place. Au ’voir, Raoul ”

“ ’Voir, Monsieur.”

Alleyn edged through the crowd and round the wall of the room to the double doors. The commissionaire stood near them and eyed him dubiously. Alleyn looked across the sea of heads and caught the notice of M. Dupont, who at once held up his hand. “Attention!” he shouted. “Approchez-vous davantage, je vous en prie.” The crowd closed in on him, and Alleyn, left on the margin, slipped through the doors.

He had at the most fifteen minutes in which to work. The secretary’s office was open, but the door into M. Callard’s room was, as he had anticipated, locked. It responded to his manipulation and he relocked it behind him. He went to the desk and turned on the general inter-communication switch in the sound system releasing the vague rumour of a not quite silent crowd and thevoiceof M. Dupont embarked on an elaborate exposé of child-kidnapping on the Mediterranean coast.

Perhaps, Alleyn thought, at this rate he would have a little longer than he had hoped. If he could find a single piece of evidence, enough to ensure the success of a surprise investigation by the French police, he would be satisfied. He looked at the filing cabinet against the walls. The drawers had independent keyholes but the first fifteen were unlocked. He tried them and shoved them back without looking inside. The sixteenth, marked with the letter P, was locked. He got it open. Inside he found a number of the usual folders each headed with its appropriate legend: Produits chimiques en commande; Peron et Cie; Plastiques, and so on. He went through the first of these, memorizing one or two names of drugs he had been told to look out for. Peron et Cie was on the suspect list at the Sûreté and a glance at the correspondence showed a close business relationship between the two firms. He flipped over the next six folders and came to the last which was headed: Particulier à M. Callard. Secret et confidentiel.

It contained rough notes, memoranda and a number of letters, and Alleyn would have given years of routine plodding for the right to put the least of them into his pocket. He found letters from distributors in New York, Cairo, London, Paris and Istanbul, letters that set out modes of conveyance, suggested suitable contacts, gave details of the methods used by other illicit traders and warnings of leakage. He found a list of the guests at the Chèvre d’Argent with Robin Herrington’s name scored under a query beside it.

“Cette pratique abominable,” boomed the voice of M. Dupont, warming to its subject, “cette tache indéracinable sur l’honneur de notre communauté—”

“Boy,” Alleyn muttered in the manner of M. Callard, “you said it.”

He laid on the desk a letter from a wholesale firm dealing in cosmetics in Chicago. It suggested quite blandly that Crème Veloutée in tubes might be a suitable mode of conveyance for diacetylmorphine and complained that the last consignment of calamine lotion had been tampered with in transit and had proved on opening to contain nothing but lotion. It suggested that a certain customs official had set up in business on his own account and had better be dealt with pretty smartly.

Alleyn unshipped from his breast pocket a minute and immensely expensive camera. Groaning to himself he switched on M. Callard’s fluorescent lights.

“—et, Messieurs, Dames,” thundered the voice of M. Dupont, “parmi vous, ici, ici, dans cette usine, ce crime dégoûtant a élevé sa tête hideuse.”

Alleyn took four photographs of the letter, replaced it in the folder in its file, relocked the drawer and stowed away his Lilliputian camera. Then, with an ear to M. Dupont, who had evidently arrived at the point where he could not prolong the cackle but must come to the ’osses, Alleyn made notes, lest he should forget them, of points from the other documents. He returned his notebook to his pocket, switched off the loudspeaker and turned to the door.

He found himself face-to-face with M. Callard.

“And what the hell,” M. Callard asked rawly, “do you think you are doing?”

Alleyn took Troy’s gloves from his pocket. “My wife left these in your office. I hope you don’t mind.”

“She did not and I do. I locked this office.”

“If you did someone obviously unlocked it. Perhaps your secretary came back for something.”

“She did not,” said M. Callard punctually. He advanced à step. “Who the hell are you?”

“You know very well who I am. My boy was kidnapped and brought into your premises. You denied it until you were forced to give him up. Your behavior is extremely suspicious, M. Callard, and I shall take the matter up with the appropriate authorities in Paris. I have never,” continued Alleyn, who had decided to lose his temper, “heard such damned impudence in my life! I was prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt but in view of your extraordinary behavior I am forced to suspect that you are implicated personally in this business. And in the former affair of child-stealing. Undoubtedly in the former affair.”

M. Callard began to shout in French, but Alleyn shouted him down. “You are a child-kidnapper, M. Callard. You speak English like an American. No doubt you have been to America where child-kidnapping is a common racket.”

“Sacré nom d’un chien—”

“It’s no use talking jargon to me, I don’t understand a bloody word of it. Stand aside and let me out.”

M. Callard’s face was not an expressive one, but Alleyn thought he read incredulity and perhaps relief in it.

“You broke into my office,” M. Callard insisted.

“I did nothing of the sort. Why the hell should I? And pray what have you got in your office,” Alleyn asked as if on a sudden inspiration, “to make you so damned touchy about it? Ransom money?”

“Imbécile! Sale cochon!”

“Oh, get to hell!” Alleyn said, and advanced upon him. He stood, irresolute, and Alleyn with an expert movement neatly shouldered him aside and went back to the hall.

iv

Dupont saw him come in. Dupont, Alleyn considered, was magnificent. He must have had an appalling job spinning out a short announcement into a fifteen-minute harangue, but he wore the air of an orator in the first flush of his eloquence.

His gaze swept over Alleyn, and round his audience.

“Eh bien, Messieurs, Dames, chacun à sa tâche. Défilez, s’il vous plaît, devant cette statue.… Rappelez-vous de mes instructions. Milano!”

He signalled magnificently to Raoul, who stationed himself below him, at the base of the statue. Raoul was pale and stood rigid like a man who faces an ordeal. M. Callard appeared through the double doors and watched with a leaden face.

The gendarmes, who had also reappeared, set about the crowd in a business-like manner, herding it to one side and then sending it across in single file in front of Raoul. Alleyn adopted a consequential air and bustled over to Dupont.

“What’s all this, Monsieur?” he asked querulously. “Is it an identification parade? Why haven’t I been informed of the procedure?”

Dupont bent in a placatory manner towards him and Alleyn muttered: “Enough to justify a search,” and then shouted: “I have a right to know what steps are being taken in this affair.”

Dupont spread his blunt hands over Alleyn as if he were blessing him.

“Calm yourself, Monsieur. Everything arranges itself,” he said magnificently and added in French for the benefit of the crowd: “The gentleman is naturally overwrought. Proceed, if you please.”

Black-coated senior executive officers and white-coated chemists advanced, turned and straggled past with dead-pan faces. They were followed by clerks, assistant stenographers and laboratory assistants. One or two looked at Raoul, but by far the greater number kept on without turning their heads. When they had gone past, the gendarmes directed them to the top of the hall where they formed up into lines.

Alleyn watched the thinning ranks of those who were yet to come. At the back, sticking together, were a number of what he supposed to be the lesser fry: cleaners, van-drivers, workers from the canteen and porters. In a group of women he caught sight of one a little taller than the rest. She stood with her back towards the statue and at first he could see only a mass of bronze hair with straggling tendrils against the opulent curve of a full neck. Presently her neighbor gave her a nudge and for a moment she turned. Alleyn saw the satin skin and liquid eyes of a Murillo peasant. She had a brilliant mouth and had caught her under-lip between her teeth. Above her upper lip was a pencilling of hair.

Her face flashed into sight and was at once turned away again with a movement that thrust up her shoulder. It was clad in a black material spattered with a whitish-grey pattern.

Behind the girls was a group of four or five men in labourer’s clothes: boiler-men, perhaps, or outside hands. As the girls hung back, the gendarme in charge of this group sent the men forward. They edged self-consciously past the girls and slouched towards Raoul. The third was a thick-set fellow wearing a tight-fitting short-sleeved vest and carrying a red beret. He walked hard on the heels of the men in front of him and kept his eyes on the ground. He had two long red scratches on the cheek nearest to Raoul. As he passed by, Alleyn looked at Raoul, who swallowed painfully and muttered: “Voici le type.”

Dupont raised an eyebrow. The gendarme at the top of the room moved out quietly and stationed himself near the men. The girls came forward one by one and Alleyn still watched Raoul. The girl in the black dress with the whitish-grey pattern advanced, turned and went past with averted head. Raoul was silent.

Alleyn moved close to Dupont. “Keep your eye on that girl, Dupont. I think she’s our bird.”

“Indeed? Milano has not identified her.”

“I think Ricky will.”

Watched by the completely silent crowd, Alleyn went out of the hall and, standing in the sunshine, waved to Troy. She and Ricky got out of the car and, hand-in-hand, came towards him.

“Come on, Rick,” he said, “let’s see if you can find the driver and the Nanny. If you do we’ll go and call on the goatshop lady again. What do you say?”

He hoisted his little son across his shoulders and, holding his ankles in either hand, turned him towards the steps.

“Coming, Mum?” Ricky asked.

“Rather! Try and stop me.”

“Strike up the band,” Alleyn said. “Here comes the Alleyn family on parade.”

He heard his son give a doubtful chuckle. A small hand was laid against his cheek. “Good old horse,” Ricky said courageously and in an uncertain falsetto: “How many miles to Babylon?”

“Five score and ten,” Alleyn and Troy chanted and she linked her arm through his.

They marched up the steps and into the hall.

The crowd was still herded at one end of the great room and had broken into a subdued chattering. One of the gendarmes stood near the man Raoul had identified. Another had moved round behind the crowd to a group of girls. Alleyn saw the back of that startlingly bronze head of hair and the curve of the opulent neck. M. Callard had not moved. M. Dupont had come down from his eminence and Raoul stood by himself behind the statue, looking at his own feet.

“Ah-ha!” cried M. Dupont, advancing with an air of camaraderie, “so here is Ricketts.”

He reached up his hand. Ricky stooped uncertainly from his father’s shoulders to put his own in it.

“This is Ricky,” Alleyn said, “M. Dupont, Ricky, Superintendent of Police in Roqueville. M. Dupont speaks English.”

“How do you do, sir,” said Ricky in his company voice.

M. Dupont threw a complimentary glance at Troy.

“So we have an assistant,” he said. “This is splendid. I leave the formalities to you, M. Alleyn.”

“Just have a look at all these people, Rick,” Alleyn said, “and tell us if you can find the driver and the Nanny who brought you up here.”

Troy and Dupont looked at Ricky. Raoul, behind the statue, continued to look at his boots. Ricky, wearing the blank expression he reserved for strangers, surveyed the crowd. His attention came to halt on the thick-set fellow in the short-sleeved jersey. Dupont and Troy watched him.

“Mum?” said Ricky.

“Hallo?”

Ricky whispered something inaudible and nodded violently.

“Tell Daddy.”

Rick stooped his head and breathed noisily into his father’s ear.

“O.K.,” Alleyn said. “Sure?”

“ ’M.”

“Tell M. Dupont.”

“Monsieur, voici le chauffeur.”

“Montrez avec le doigt, mon brave,” said M. Dupont.

“Point him out, Rick,” said Alleyn.

Ricky had been instructed by his French Nanny that it was rude to point. He turned pink in the face and made a rapid gesture, shooting out his finger at the man. The man drew back his upper lip and bared a row of blackened teeth. The first gendarme shoved in beside him. The crowed stirred and shifted.

“Bravo,” said M. Dupont.

“Now the Nanny,” Alleyn said. “Can you see her?”

There was a long pause. Ricky, looking at the group of girls at the back, said: “There’s someone that hasn’t turned around.”

M. Dupont shouted: “Présentez-vous de face, tout le monde!”

The second gendarme pushed through the group of girls. They melted away to either side as if an invisible wedge had been driven through them. The impulse communicated itself to their neighbours: the gap widened and stretched, opening out as Alleyn carried Ricky towards it. Finally Ricky, on his father’s shoulders, looked up an exaggerated perspective to where the girl stood with her back to them, her hands clasped across the nape of her neck as if to protect it from a blow. The gendarme took her by the arm, turned her, and held down the hands that now struggled to reach her face. She and Ricky looked at each other.

“Hallo, Teresa,” said Ricky.

v

Two cars drove down the Roqueville road. In the first was M. Callard and two policemen and in the second, a blue Citroën, were its owner and a third policeman. The staff of the factory had gone. M. Dupont was busy in M. Callard’s office and a fourth gendarme stood, lonely and important, in the empty hall. Troy had taken Ricky, who had begun to be very pleased with himself, to Raoul’s car. Alleyn, Raoul and Teresa sat on an ornamental garden seat in the factory grounds. Teresa wept and Raoul gave her cause to do so.

“Infamous girl,” Raoul said, “to what sink of depravity have you retired? I think of your perfidy,” he went on, “and I spit.”

He rose, retired a few paces, spat and returned. “I compare your behaviour,” he continued, “to its disadvantage with that of Herod, the Anti-Christ who slit the throats of first-born innocents. Ricky is an innocent and also, Monsieur will correct me if I speak in error, a first-born. He is, moreover, the son of Monsieur, my employer, who, as you observe, can find no words to express his loathing of the fallen woman with whom he finds himself in occupation of this contaminated piece of garden furniture.”

“Spare me,” Teresa sobbed. “I can explain myself.”

Raoul bent down in order to place his exquisite but distorted face close to hers. “Female ravisher of infants,” he apostrophized. “Trafficker in unmentionable vices. Associate of perverts.”

“You insult me,” Teresa sobbed. She rallied slightly. “You also lie like a brigand. The Holy Virgin is my witness.”

“She blushes to hear you. Answer me.” Raoul shouted and made a complicated gesture a few inches from her eyes. “Did you not steal the child? Answer!”

“Where there is no intention, there is no sin,” Teresa bawled, taking her stand on dogma. “I am as pure as the child himself. If anything, purer. They told me his papa wished me to call for him.”

“Who told you?”

“Monsieur,” said Teresa, changing colour.

“Monsieur Goat! Monsieur Filth! In a word, Monsieur Oberon.”

“It is a lie,” Teresa repeated but rather vaguely. She turned her sumptuous and tear-blubbered face to Alleyn. “I appeal to Monsieur who is an English nobleman and will not spit upon the good name of a virtuous girl. I throw myself at his feet and implore him to hear me.”

Raoul also turned to Alleyn and spread his hands out in a gesture of ineffable poignancy.

“If Monsieur pleases,” he said, making Alleyn a present of the whole situation.

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “Yes. Well now—”

He looked from one grand-opera countenance to the other. Teresa gazed at him with nerveless compliance, Raoul with grandeur and a sort of gloomy sympathy. Alleyn got up and stood over the girl.

“Now, see here, Teresa,” he began. Raoul took a respectful step backwards. “It appears that you have behaved very foolishly for a long time and you are a fortunate girl to have come out of it without involving yourself in disaster.”

“Undoubtedly,” Teresa said with a hint of complacency, “I am under the protection of Our Lady of Paysdoux for whom I have a special devotion.”

“Which you atrociously abuse,” Raoul remarked to the landscape.

“Be that as it may,” Alleyn hurriedly intervened. “It’s time you pulled yourself together and tried to make amends for all the harm you have done. I think you must know very well that your employer at the Château is a bad man. In your heart you know it, don’t you, Teresa?”

Teresa placed her hand on her classic bosom. “In my heart, Monsieur, I am troubled to suffocation in his presence. It is in my soul that I find him impure.”

“Well, wherever it is, you are perfectly correct. He is a criminal who is wanted by the police of several countries. He has made fools of many silly girls before you. You’re lucky not to be in gaol, Teresa. M. le Commissaire would undoubtedly have locked you up if I had not asked him to give you a chance to redeem yourself.”

Teresa opened her mouth and let out an appropriate wail.

“To such deplorable depths have you reduced yourself,” said Raoul, who had apparently assumed the maddening role of chorus. “And me!” he pointed out.

“However,” Alleyn went on, “we have decided to give you this chance. On condition, Teresa, that you answer truthfully any questions I ask you.”

“The Holy Virgin is my witness—” Teresa began.

“There are also other less distinguished witnesses,” said Raoul. “In effect, there is the child-thief Georges Martel with whom you conspired and who is probably your paramour.”

“It is a lie.”

“How,” Alleyn asked, “did it come about that you took Ricky from the hotel?”

“I was in Roqueville. I go to the market for the femme de charge. At one o’clock following my custom I visited the restaurant of the parents of Raoul, who is killing me with cruelty,” Teresa explained, throwing a poignant glance at her fiancé. “There is a message for me to telephone the Château. I do so. I am told to wait as Monsieur wishes to speak to me. I do so. My heart churns in my bosom because that unfortunately is the effect Monsieur has upon it: it is not a pleasurable sensation.”

“Tell that one in another place,” Raoul advised.

“I swear it. Monsieur instructs me: there is a little boy at the Hotel Royal who is the son of his dear friends, Monsieur and Madame Alleyn. He plans with Monsieur Alleyn a little trick upon Madame, a drollery, a blague. They have nounou for the child and while they are here I am to be presented by Monsieur as a nounou and I am to receive extra salary.”

“More atrocity,” said Raoul. “How much?”

“Monsieur did not specify. He said an increase. And he instructs me to go to Le Pot des Fleurs and purchase turberoses. He tells me, spelling it out, the message I am to write. I have learned a little English from the servants of English guests at the Château so I understand. The flowers are from Mademoiselle Garbel who is at present at the Château.”

“Is she, by Heaven!” Alleyn ejaculated. “Have you seen her?”

“Often, Monsieur. She is often there.”

“What does she look like?”

“Like an Englishwoman. All Englishwomen with the exception, no doubt, of Madame, the wife of Monsieur, have teeth like mares and no poitrine. So, also, Mademoiselle Garbel.”

“Go on, Teresa.”

“In order that the drollery shall succeed, I am to go to the hotel while Madame is at déjeuner. I shall have the tuberoses and if without enquiry I can ascertain the apartments of Monsieur and Madame I am to go there. If I am questioned I am to say I am the new nounou and go up to the appartements. I am to remove the little one by the service stairs. Outside Georges Martel, who is nothing to me, waits in his auto. And from that point Georges will command the proceedings!”

“And that’s what you did? No doubt you saw the number of the appartement on the luggage in the hall.”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“And then?”

“Georges drives us to 16 Rue des Violettes where the concierge tells me she will take the little boy to the appartement of Mademoiselle Garbel where his father awaits him. I am to stay in the auto in the back-street with Georges. Presently the concierge returns with the little boy. She says to Georges that the affair is in the water as the parents have seen the boy. She says that the orders are to drive at once to the factory. Georges protests: ‘Is it not to St. Céleste?’ She says: ‘No, at once, quickly to the factory.’ The little boy is angry and perhaps frightened and he shouts in French and in English that his papa and mama are not in a factory but in their hotel. But Georges uses blasphemous language and drives quickly away. And Monsieur will, I entreat, believe me when I tell him I regretted then very much everything that had happened. I was afraid. Georges would tell me nothing except to keep my mouth sewn up. So I see that I am involved in wickedness and I say several decades of the rosary and try to make amusements for the little boy who is angry and frightened and weeps for the loss of a statue bought from Marie of the Chèvre d’Argent. I think also of Raoul,” said Teresa.

“It’s easy to see,” Raoul observed, “that in the matter of intelligence you have not invented the explosive.” But he was visibly affected, nevertheless. “You should have known at once that it was a lot of blague about the nounou. ”

“And when you got to the factory?” Alleyn asked.

“Georges took the little boy inside. He then returned alone and we drove round to the garages at the back. I tried to run away and when he grasped my arms I inflicted some formidable scratches on his face. But he threw me a smack on the ear and told me Monsieur Oberon would put me under a malediction.”

“When he emerges from gaol,” Raoul said thoughtfully, “I shall make a meat pâté of Georges. He is already fried.”

“And then, Teresa?”

“I was frightened again, Monsieur, not of Georges but of what Monsieur Oberon might do to me. And presently the whistle blew and a loud-speaker summoned everybody to the hall. And Georges said we should clear out. He walked a little way and peeped round the corner and came back saying there were gendarmes at the gates and we must conceal ourselves. But one of the gendarmes came into the garage and said we must go into the hall. And when we arrived Georges left me saying: ‘Get out, don’t hang round my heels.’ So I went to some of the girls I knew and when I heard the announcement of Monsieur le Commissaire and saw Raoul and they said Raoul had seen me: Oh, Monsieur, judge of my feelings! Because, say what you will, Raoul is the friend of my heart and if he no longer loves me I am desolate.”

“You are as silly as a foot,” said Raoul, greatly moved, “but it is true that I love you.”

“Ah!” said Teresa simply. “Quelle extase!”

“And upon that note,” said Alleyn, “we may return to Roqueville and make our plans.”