Nine Coaches Waiting

CHAPTER 16

He came awake instantly. "Mademoiselle? Is it morning?"

"Yes. Get up, chicken. We've got to go."

"All right. Are you crying, mademoiselle?"

"Good heavens, no! What makes you think that?"

“Something fell on me. Wet."

"Dew, mon p’tit. The roof leaks. Now come along."

He jumped up straight away, and in a very short space of time we were down that ladder, and Philippe was lacing his shoes while I made a lightning raid on William Blake's cupboards.

"Biscuits," I said cheerfully, "and butter and-yes, a tin of sardines. And I brought cake and chocolate. Here's riches! Trust a man to look after himself. He's all stocked up like a squirrel."

Philippe smiled. His face looked a little less pinched this morning, though the grey light filtering through the shutters still showed him pale. God knows how it showed me. I felt like I walking ghost.

"Can we make up the stove, mademoiselle?"

"Afraid not. We'd better not wait here for Monsieur Blake. There are too many people about in the wood. We'll go on."

"Where to? Soubirous? Is that where he is?"

“Yes but we're not going towards Soubirous. I think we'll make straight for Thonon."

"Now?"

"Yes."

“Without breakfast?" His mouth drooped and I'm sure mine did too. There had been a tin of coffee in the cupboard and the stove was hot; I'd have given almost anything to have taken time to make some. Almost anything.

I said: "We'll find a place when the sun's up and have breakfast outside. Here, put these in your pockets." I threw a quick glance round the hut "All right, let's go. We'll make sure no-one's about first, shall we? You take that window… carefully now."

We reconnoitred as cautiously as we could from the windows, but anyone could have been hidden in the trees, watching and waiting. If Bernard had taken Jules down to Soubirous he wouldn't be back yet, but even so I found myself scanning the dim ranks of the trees with anxious fear. Nothing stirred there. We would have to chance it.

The moment of leaving the hut was as bad as any we had yet had. My hand on the latch, I looked down at Philippe.

"You remember the open space, the ride, that we came up? It's just through the first belt of trees. We mustn't go across it while we're in sight of Valmy. We must go up this side of it, in the trees, till we've got over the top of the ridge. It's not far. Understand?"

He nodded.

"When I open this door, you are to go out. Don't wait for me. Don't look back. Turn left-that way-uphill, and run as fast as you can. Don't stop for anything or anyone."

"What about you?"

"I'll be running with you. But if-anything-should happen, you are not to wait for me. You are to go on, across the hill, down to the nearest house, and ask them to take you to the police station in Thonon. Tell them who you are and what has happened. Okay?"

His eyes were too big and bright, but he nodded silently.

On an impulse, I bent and kissed him.

"Now, little squirrel," I said, as I opened the door-"run!

Nothing happened, after all. We slipped out of the hut unchallenged, and still unchallenged reached the summit of the ridge. There we paused. We had broken out of our hiding- place with more regard for speed than silence, but now we recollected ourselves and moved quietly but still quickly for a hundred yards more of gentle downhill before we halted on the edge of the ride.

Peering through a convenient hazel-bush we looked uphill and down. The ride was straight and empty. On the far side the trees promised thick cover.

We ran across. Pigeons came batting out of the pine-tops like rockets, but that was all. We scurried deep into the young forest of larch and spruce, still so thickly set that we had to brush a way between the boughs with hands constantly up to protect our eyes.

The wood held the wet chill of early morning, and the boughs dripped moisture. We were soon soaked. But we held on doggedly on a long northward slant that I hoped would eventually bring us to a track or country road heading towards Thonon.

It was Philippe who found the cave. I was ahead of him, forging a way through the thick branches and holding them back for his passage, when I pushed through a wet wall of spruce, to find myself on the edge of an outcrop of rock. It was a miniature cliff that stuck out of the half-grown trees like the prow of a ship. The forest parted like a river and flowed down to either side, leaving the little crag with its mossy green apron open to the sky. I could hear the drip of a spring.

I said: "Watch your step, Philippe. There's a drop here. Make your way down the side. That way."

He slithered obediently down. I followed him.

"Miss Martin, there's a cave!"

I said thankfully: "And a spring. I think we might have a drink and a rest, don't you?"

Philippe said wistfully: "And breakfast?"

"Good heavens. Yes, of course." I had forgotten all about food in the haste that was driving me away from Bernard, but now I realised how hungry I was. "We'll have it straight away."

It wasn't really a cave, just a dry corner under an overhang, but it provided some shelter from the grey forest-chill, and- more-gave us an illusion of safety. We ate without speaking, Philippe seemingly intent on his food, I with my ears straining for sounds that were not of the forest. But I heard nothing. The screech of a jay, the spattering of waterdrops off the trees, the clap of a pigeon's wing and the trickle of the spring beside us… these made up the silence that held us in its safety.

And presently the sun came up and took the tops of the springtime larches like fire.

It may sound a silly thing to say, but I almost enjoyed that morning. The spell of the sun was potent. It poured down, hot and bright, while in front of it the wet greyness streamed off the woods in veils of mist, leaving the spruces gleaming darkly brilliant and lighting the tiny larch-flowers to a red flush along the boughs. The smell was intoxicating. We didn't hurry; we were both tired, and, since we had followed no paths, it would only be the purest chance that would put Bernard onto our trail. And on this lovely morning it was impossible to imagine that such an evil chance existed. The nightmare was as good as over. We were free, we were on our way to Thonon, and Monsieur Hippolyte arrived tonight… And meantime the sun and the woods between them lent to our desperate adventure, not the glamour of romance, but the everyday charm of a picnic.

We held hands and walked sedately. In the older belt of the forest the going was easy. Here the trees were big and widely spaced, and between them shafts of brilliant sunlight slanted down onto drifts of last-year's cones and vivid pools of moss. Ever and again the wood echoed to the clap and flurry of wings as the ringdoves rocketed off their roosting-places up into the high blue.

Presently ahead of us we saw brighter sunlight at the edge of the mature forest. This ended sharply, like a cliff, for its whole steep length washed by a river of very young firs-babies, in all the beauty of rosy stems and a green as soft as woodsorrel. They split the older forest with a belt of open sunshine seventy yards wide. Between them the grass was thick and springing emerald already through the yellow of winter. On their baby stems the buds showed fat and pink.

We halted again at the edge of the tall trees before braving the open space. The young green flowed down the mountain-side between its dark borders, plunging into the shadow that still lay blue at the bottom of Dieudonné valley. Looking that way I could see the flat fields where cattle grazed; the line of willows that marked a stream; a scatter of houses; a farm where someone -tiny in the distance-stood among swarming white dots that must be hens.

No-one was on the hillside. The inevitable wood pigeon played high above the treetops, riding the blue space like surf in ecstatic curved swoops and swallow-dives, wings raked back and breast rounded to the thrust of the air.

Nothing else moved. We plunged-Philippe was chest-high- across the river of lovely young trees. The fresh green tufts brushed hands and knees softly, like feathers; they smelt of warm resin. Half-way across Philippe stopped short and cried: "Look!" and there was a fox slipping like a leaf-brown shadow into the far woods. He paused as he reached them and looked back, one paw up and ears mildly inquiring. The sun was red on his fur. Along his back the fine hairs shone like gold. Then he slid quietly out of sight and the forest was ours again.

All morning the enchantment held, our luck spinning out fine and strong, like the filigree plot of a fairytale. Almost, at times, we forgot the dark and urgent reason for our journey. Almost.

Some time before noon we came, after a slowish journey of frequent stops, and one or two forced diversions, on the road I had hoped to find. This was a narrow road between steep banks, that wound stonily the way we wanted to go, high above die valley which carried the main traffic route to the south. Our last stage had taken us through a rough tract of thorns and dead bracken, so it was with some thankfulness that we clambered through the wire fence and negotiated the dead brambles that masked the ditch.

Our luck had made us a little careless. As I landed on the gravel surface of the road, and turned to reach a hand to Philippe, the clang of metal and the swish of a car's tyres close behind me brought me round like a bayed deer.

A battered Renault coasted round the bend in a quiet whiffle of dust that sounded a good deal more expensive than it looked. She slithered-with a few bangs and rattles that belied that expensively silent engine-to a stop beside us. The driver a stout grey-stubbled character in filthy blue denims, regarded us benevolently and without the least curiosity from under the brim of a horrible hat.

He was a man of few words. He jerked a thumb towards the north. I said: "S'il vous plâit, monsieur.” He jerked the thumb south. I said: "Merci, monsieur" and Philippe and I clambered into the back seat to join the other passengers already there. These were a collie-dog, a pig in what looked like a green string bag, and a rather nasty collection of white hens in a slatted box. A large sack of potatoes rode de luxe beside the farmer in the front seat. As I began, through the embraces of the collie-dog, to say rather awkwardly: "This is very kind of you, monsieur," the Renault lurched forward and took a sharp bend at a fairly high speed and still without benefit of engine, but now with such a succession of clanks and groans and other body-noises that conversation-I realised thankfully-was an impossibility.

He took us nearly two miles, then stopped to put us down where a farm track joined the road.

To my thanks he returned a nod, jerked his thumb in explanation down towards the farm, and the Renault after it. The track down which he vanished was a dirt road of about one in four. We watched, fascinated, until the Renault skated to a precarious standstill some two inches from the wall of a Dutch barn, and then turned to go on our way, much heartened by an encounter with someone who quite obviously had never heard of the errant Comte de Valmy, and who was apparently content to take life very much as it came. He might also, I thought cheerfully, be deaf and dumb. Our luck seemed to be running strongly enough even for that.

Our road ran fairly openly now along the hillside, so we kept to its easier walking. The lift had done something to cheer Philippe's flagging spirits; he walked gamely and without complaint, but I could see that he was tiring, and we still had some way to go… and I had no idea what we might yet have to face.

He set off now cheerfully enough, chatting away about the collie and the pig. I listened absently, my eyes on the dusty length of road curling ahead of us, and my ears intent on sounds coming from behind. Here the road wound below a high bank topped with whins. I found myself watching them for cover as we passed.

Half-a-mile; three-quarters; Philippe got a stone in his shoe and we stopped to take it out. We went on more slowly after that. A mile; a mile-and-a-quarter; he wasn't talking now, and had begun to drag a bit; I thought apprehensively of blisters, and slackened the pace still further.

I was just going to suggest leaving the road to find a place for lunch when I heard another car. An engine, this time, coming from the north. She was climbing, and climbing fast, but for all that, making very little more noise than the old Renault coasting. A big car: a powerful car… I don't pretend I recognised the silken snarl of that engine, but I knew who it was. The sound raked up my backbone like a cruel little claw.

I breathed: "Here's a car. Hide, Philippe!"

I had told him what to do. He swarmed up the bank as quick and neat as a shrew-mouse, with me after him. At the top of the bank was a thicket of whins, dense walls of green three or four feet high with little gaps and clearings of sunlit grass where one could lie invisibly. We flung ourselves down in one of these small citadels as the Cadillac took a bend three hundreds yards away. The road levelled and ran straight below us. He went by with a spatter of dust and the hush of a gust of wind. The top was down and I saw his face. The little claw closed on the base of my spine.

There was no sound in the golden noon except the ripple of a skylark's song. Philippe whispered beside me: "That was my cousin Raoul, mademoiselle."

"Yes."

"I thought he was in Paris?"

"So did I."

"Is he-couldn't we have-wouldn't he have helped us?"

"I don't know, Philippe."

He said, on a note of childish wonder: "But… he was so nice at the midnight feast."

A pause.

"Wasn't he, mademoiselle?"

"I-yes. Yes, Philippe, he was.”

Another pause. Then, still on that terrible little note of wonder: "My cousin Raoul? My cousin Raoul, too? Don’t you trust him, mademoiselle?"

“Yes," I said, and then, desperately: "No."

"But why-?"

"Don't Philippe, please. I can't-" I looked away from him and said tightly: "Don't you see, we can't take risks of any kind. However sure we are we've got to be-we've got to be sure." I finished a bit raggedly. "Don't you

see?”

If he saw anything odd in this remarkably silly speech he didn't show it. With a shy but a curiously unchildlike gesture he put out a hand and touched mine. "Mademoiselle-"

"I'm not crying, Philippe. Not really. Don't worry. It's only that I'm tired and I didn't get much sleep last night and it's long past time for food." Somehow I smiled at him and dabbed at my face while he watched me with troubled eyes. "Sorry, mon p'tit. You're standing this trek of ours like a Trojan, and I'm behaving like a fool of a woman. I'm all right now."

"We'll have lunch," said Philippe, taking a firm hold of the situation.

"Okay, Napoleon," I said, putting away my handkerchief, "but we'd better stay where we are for a little while longer, just to make sure."

"That he's really gone?"

"Yes," I said, "that he's really gone."

Philippe relaxed obediently into the shelter of the whins, and lay chin on hand, watching the road below him through a gap in the thick green. I turned on my back so that the sun was on my face, and closed my eyes. Even then I didn't want to face it. I wanted to go on, blind, cowardly, instinct-driven… but as I lay there listening for the engine of his car the thing that I had been trying to keep back, dammed out of mind, broke over me. And before I had thought further than simply his name I knew how very far I was-still was-from jettisoning him along with the others. Instinct might make me shrink from Léon de Valmy, and keep me a chilly mile away from Héloïse, but-it seemed-whatever evidence, whatever "proof' I was offered, I still sprang without thought straight to his defence.

Because you want it that way. Haven't you been enough of a fool, Cinderella? I stirred on the warm grass with sharp discomfort, but still somewhere inside me hammered the insistent advocate for the defence…

Everything that had happened since Raoul had entered the affair, everything he had said and done, could bear an innocent interpretation as well as a guilty one… or so I told myself, groping wearily, confusedly, back through the fogs of memory. A word here, a look there-never did frailer witnesses plead more desperately. He had not known of the attempts to get a non-French-speaking governess; he hadn't been worried, only amused, at the thought that I might have eavesdropped on his father's conversation; he had seemed as shocked as I was over the shooting in the wood; his sharp questions about William Blake, and that curiously touchy temper he had shown, might have been due to jealousy or some other preoccupation, and not to the realisation that the "friendless" orphan was in touch with a tough-looking Englishman in the neighbourhood; and that blast of the horn that brought Philippe out onto the balcony-that might have been fortuitous. Bernard hadn't spoken of it. As for Bernard's flat statement to Berthe that it had been Raoul who had shot at Philippe in the wood, I didn't regard that as evidence at all. Even in his drunken mood, and however sure he had made himself of Berthe, Bernard might well hesitate to admit that kind of guilt to her. Then at the dance…

But here the pleading memories whirled up into a ragged and flying confusion, a blizzard so blinding that, like Alice among the cards, I came to myself trying to beat them off. And I was asked to believe that these, too, were dead and painted like a pack of cards? Something to put away now in a drawer, and take out again, years hence, dusty, to thumb over in a dreary game of solitaire? Yes, there it was. For Philippe's sake I had to assume Raoul's guilt. I couldn't afford to do anything else. The child had only one life to lose, and I couldn't stake it. Raoul was guilty till he could be proved innocent. In that, if in no other part of my crazy fear-driven plans, I had been right. He was here but we couldn't run to him.

Close to my ear Philippe whispered: "Mademoiselle."

I opened my eyes. His face was close to mine. It was scared. He breathed: "There's someone on the hilltop behind. He's just come through the wood. I think it's Bernard. D'you suppose he's in it too?"

I nodded and put a swift finger to my lips, then lifted my head cautiously and peered through the screening whins towards the hill behind us. At first I saw nothing but the trees and the tangling banks of scrub, but presently I picked him out. It was Bernard. He was above us, about two hundred yards away, standing beside a big spruce. There was no need to tell Philippe to keep close; we both lay as still as rabbits in our thicket of green. Bernard was standing motionless, scanning the slope below him. The moments dragged. He was looking our way. His gaze seemed to catch on us, to linger, to pass on, to return…

He was coming quickly down the hill in our direction.

I suppose a rabbit stays still while death stalks it just because it is hoping against hope that this is not death. We stayed still.

He had covered half the distance, not hurrying, when I heard the Cadillac coming back.

My hand pressed hard over Philippe's on the short turf. I turned my head and craned to stare up the road. My muscles tensed themselves as if they would carry me without my willing it straight down into his path.

I don't know to this day whether I really would have run to him then or not, but before I could move I heard the brakes go on. The tyres bit at the soft gravel of the road and the car pulled up short some fifty yards away from us. I could see him through my screen of whins. He was looking uphill towards Bernard. The horn blared twice. Bernard had stopped. I saw Raoul lift his hand. Bernard changed course and walked quickly down the hill towards the car. He jumped the ditch and hurried up to the door. Raoul said something to him, and I saw Bernard shake his head, then turn with a wide gesture that included all the hill from where we lay back to Dieudonné. Then Raoul gave a sideways jerk of the head and Bernard went round the bonnet and got in beside him.

The Cadillic went slowly by below us. Raoul was lighting a cigarette and his head was bent. Bernard was talking earnestly to him.

I turned to meet Philippe's eyes.

After a while I got up slowly and reached a hand down to him. "Come along," I said, "let's get back from the road and find somewhere to have lunch."

After we had eaten we took to the woods again without seeing another soul, and some time in the middle of the afternoon our path led us out of a wild tangle of hornbeam and honeysuckle onto a little green plateau; and there, not so very far to the north of us we saw at last, through the tops of the still-bare trees, the blue levels of Lac Léman.

CHAPTER 17

"This," I said, "is where we stop for a while."

Philippe was surveying the little dell. It was sheltered and sun-drenched, a green shelf in the middle of the wood. Behind us the trees and bushes of the wild forest crowded up the hill, dark holly and the bone-pale boughs of ash gleaming sharp through a mist of birch as purple as bloom on a grape. Below the open shelf the tangle of boughs fell steeply towards Thonon. Those bright roofs and coloured walls were, I judged, little more than a mile away. I saw the gleam of a spire, and the smooth sweep of some open square with brilliant flowerbeds and a white coping above the lake. Even in the town there were trees; willows in precise Chinese shapes, cypresses spearing up Italian-fashion against the blue water, and here and there against some painted wall a burst of pale blossom like a cloud.

At my feet a small stream ran, and a little way off, under the flank of a fallen birch, there were primroses.

Philippe slipped a hand into mine. "I know this place."

"Do you? How?"

"I've been here for a picnic. There were foxgloves and we had pâtisseries belges."

"Do you remember the way down into Thonon? Where does it land us?”

He pointed to the left. "The path goes down there, like steps. There's a fence at the bottom and a sort of lane. It takes you to a road and you come out by a garage and a shop where they keep a ginger cat with no tail.”

"Is it a main street?"

He wrinkled his forehead at me. "We-ell-"

"Is it full of shops and people and traffic?"

"Oh, no. It has trees and high walls. People live there." A residential area. So much the better. I said: "Could you find your way from there to the Villa Mireille?"

"Of course. There's a path between two garden walls that takes you to the road above the lake and then you go down and down and down till you get to the bottom road where the gate is. We always went by the funicular."

"I'm afraid we can't. Well, that's wonderful, Philippe. We're practically there! And with you as guide"-I smiled at him-"we can't go far wrong, can we? Later we'll see how much I can remember of what you told me about the Villa Mireille, but just for the moment I think we'll stop and rest."

"Here?"

"Right here."

He sat thankfully down on the fallen birch. "My legs are aching.

"I'm not surprised."

"Are yours?"

“Well, no. But I did miss my sleep last night and if I don't have a rest this minute I shall go to sleep on my feet."

"Like a horse," said Philippe, and giggled, albeit a little thinly.

I flicked his check. "Exactly like a horse. Now, you get tea ready while I make the bed."

"English tea?"

"Of course."

The grass was quite dry, and the sun stood hot overhead in the calm air. I knelt down beside the birch-log and carefully removed two dead boughs, a thistle, and some sharp stones from our "bed", then spread out my coat. Philippe, solemn-eyed, was dividing the last of William's biscuits into equal parts. He banded me mine, together with half a stick of chocolate. We ate slowly and in silence.

Presently I said: "Philippe."

"Yes, mademoiselle?"

"We'll be down in Thonon pretty soon now. We really ought to go straight to the police."

The big eyes stared. He said nothing.

I said: "I don't know where the nearest British Consul is, or we'd go to him. I don't suppose there's one in Évian, and we can't get to Geneva because you've no passport. So it should be the police."

Still he said nothing. I waited. I think he knew as well as I did that the first thing the police would do would be to face us both with Léon de Valmy. After a while he asked: "What time will my Uncle Hippolyte get home?"

"I've no idea. He may be here already, but I think we may have to wait till late… after dark."

A pause. "Where is this Monsieur Blake?"

"I don't know. He may be out somewhere in Dieudonné, or he may have gone back up to the hut. But we-we couldn't very well wait for him there." He gave me a quick look and I added hastily: "We might telephone the Coq Hardi from Thonon. They might be able to give him a message. Yes, that's a good idea. We can try that."

Still he said nothing. I looked at him a little desperately. "You want to go and look for your uncle first? Is that

it?"

A nod.

"Philippe, you'd be quite safe if we went to the police, you know. We-we should do that. They'd be frightfully nice to you, and they'd look after you till your Uncle Hippolyte came- better than I can. We really should."

"No. Please. Please, Miss Martin."

I knew I ought to insist. It wasn't only the eloquence of Philippe's silences, and the clutch of the small cold hand that decided me. Nor was it only that I was afraid of facing Léon de Valmy… though, with the anger spilt out of me and dissolved in weariness, my very bones turned coward at the thought of confronting him in the presence of the police.

There was another reason. I admitted it out of a cold grey self-contempt. I might have braved Léon de Valmy and the police, but I didn't want to face Raoul. I was a fool; moreover, if I allowed any more risk to the child I was a criminal fool… but I would not go to the police while there was any chance that Raoul might be involved. I wasn't ready, yet, to test the theories of that advocate for the defence who pleaded still so desperately through today's tears. I couldn't bring the police in… not yet. If they had to be told, I didn't even want to be there. I was going to wait for Monsieur Hippolyte and, like a craven, hand the whole thing to him. Let the deus ex machina fly in out of the clouds and do the dirty work. I was only a woman, and a coward, and not ready, even, to face my own thoughts.

I gave a little sigh. "All right. We'll go to the Villa Mireille first. In any case they've already searched it."

"How d'you know?"

"Eh? Oh, well, I imagine they have, don't you? But your uncle won't be there yet, petit, of that I'm sure. We'll stay here a little while and rest. I don't feel fit for very much more just yet. Here, you may as well finish the last of the chocolate."

"Thank you." He gave me a watery smile. "I'm sleepy."

"Well, curl up there and sleep. I'm going to."

"I'm thirsty, too."

"I imagine the stream's all right. It comes straight down the hillside. Let's risk it anyway."

We drank, and then lay down in the sun, curled close together on my coat, and soon we slept.

I needn't have been afraid that any restless ecstasy of the mind would keep me awake. Sleep fell from nowhere like a black cloud and blotted me out. I never stirred or blinked until the sun had his chin on the hilltop beyond Dieudonné valley, and the shadows of the naked trees stretched long-fingered across the glade to touch us with the first tiny chill of evening.

Philippe was awake already, sitting with knees drawn up and chin on them, gazing a little sombrely at the distant housetops, purpling in the fading light. The lake was pale now as an opal, swimming under the faint beginnings of mist. In the distance on the further shore we could see, touched in with rose and apricot, the snows of Switzerland.

Brightness falls from the air… I gave a little shiver, then cot to my feet and pulled the silent Philippe to his. "Now," I said briskly, "you show me that path of yours, petit, and we'll be on our way."

His memory proved accurate enough. The path was there, and the narrow country road, and the corner with the garage and the shop, past which we hurried in case anyone should recognise him from his previous visits. He never spoke, and his hand in mine had become perceptibly more of a drag. I watched him worriedly. His frail energy was running out visibly now, sand from the brittle glass. I thought of the long wait that probably still lay ahead of us, and bit my lip in a prolonged pain of indecision.

The dusk had fairly dropped now over the town. We walked along a high-walled street where the pavements were bordered with lopped willows. The lamps had come on, and festoons of gleaming telegraph wires pinned back the blue dusk. Few people were about. A lorry started up from the garage and drove off with a clatter, its yellow lights like lion's eyes in the half-light. A big car purred by on its own hasty business. Two workmen on bicycles pedalled purposefully home. From a side street came the raucous voice of a radio and the smell of frying.

Philippe stopped. His face, lifted to mine, looked small and pale. He said: "That's the way, mademoiselle."

I looked to my right where a vennel led off the street between two high ivy-covered walls. It was narrow and unlighted, vanishing into shadow within twenty yards. A loose spray of ivy tapped the wall; its leaves were sharp and black and clicked like metal.

From the opposite side of the road came a burst of laughter, and a woman's voice called something shrill and good-natured. The cafe door clashed, and with the gush of light came once again the heavenly hot smell of food.

The child's hand clutched mine. He said nothing.

Well, what was luck for if it was never to be tempted?

I turned my back on the black little alley. Two minutes later we were sitting at a red-topped table near the stove while a long thin man with a soiled apron and a face like a sad heron waited to be told what we would have to eat.

To this day I vividly remember the smell and taste of everything we had. Soup first, the first delicious hot mouthful for almost twenty-four hours… It was crȇme d'asperge, and it came smoking-hot in brown earthenware bowls with handles like gnomes' ears, and asparagus-tips bobbed and steamed on the creamy surface. With the soup came butter with the dew on it, and crusty rolls so new that where they lay on the plastic table-top there was a tiny dull patch of steam.

Philippe revived to that soup as a fern revives to water. When his omelette arrived, a fluffy roll, crisped at the edges, from which mushrooms burst and spilled in their own rich gravy, he tackled it with an almost normal, small-boy's appetite. My own brand of weariness demanded something more solid and I had a steak. It came in a lordly dish with the butter still sizzling on its surface and the juices oozing pinky-brown through the mushrooms and tomatoes and tiny kidneys and the small mountain of crisply- fried onions filet mignon can be translated as darling steak this was the very sweetheart of its kind. By the time that adorable steak and I had become one flesh I could have taken on the whole Valmy clan single-handed. I complimented the waiter when he came to clear, and his lugubrious face lightened a little.

"And what to follow, mademoiselle? Cheese? A little fruit?"

I glanced at Philippe, who shook his head sleepily. I laughed, "My little brother's nearly asleep. No, no cheese for me, thank you, monsieur. A café-filtre, if you please, and a café-au-lait.” I fingered the purse in my pocket. "And a benedictine, please."

“Un filtre, un café-au-lait, une bénédictine." He swept the last crumb from the table, gave the shiny red top a final polish with his cloth, and turned away. I said: "Could monsieur perhaps get me some jetons?”

"Assuredly." He took the money I held out and in a short time the cups were on the table and I had a little pile of jetons in front of me.

Philippe roused himself to blink at them. "What are those?"

I gaped at him. Then it came to me that Monsieur le Comte de Valmy had, course, never had to use a public telephone. I explained softly that one had to buy these little metal plaques to put in the slot of the telephone.

“I should like to do it," said Monsieur le Comte decidedly, showing a spark of animation.

"So you shall, mon gars, but not tonight. Better leave it to me." And I rose.

"Where are you going?" He didn't move, but his voice clutched at me.

"Only to the corner behind the bar. See? There's the telephone. I'll be back before my coffee's filtered. You stay here and drink your own-and Philippe, don't look quite so interested in those men over there. Pretend you've been in this sort of place dozens of times, will you?"

"They're not taking any notice."

Neither they were. The only other occupants of the little café besides ourselves were a gang of burly workmen absorbed in some card-game, and a slim youth with hair cut en brosse whispering sweet somethings into the ear of a pretty little gipsy in a tight black sweater and skirt. Nobody after the first casual glance had paid the slightest attention to us. The stout patronne who sat over some parrot-coloured knitting behind the bar merely smiled at me and nodded as I picked my way between the tables towards her and asked if I might telephone. Nobody here, at any rate, was on the lookout for a young woman with brown hair and grey eyes, on the run with the kidnapped Comte de Valmy.

It wasn't only luck that protected us, I thought, as I fumbled with the half-forgotten intricacies of the telephone; it was commonsense to suppose that the chances of our being seen and recognised now, here, were very small. One had read dozens of "pursuit" books, from the classic Thirty-nine Steps onwards, and in all of them the chief and terrible miracle had been the unceasing and intelligent vigilance of every member of the population. In sober fact, nobody was much interested…

Here one of the card-players raised his eyes from the game to look at me; then he nudged his neighbour and said something. The latter looked up too, and his stare raked me. My heart, in spite of the soothing logic of my thoughts, gave a painful jerk, as with an effort I forced my gaze to slide indifferently past them. I turned a shoulder and leaned against the wall, waiting, bored, for my connection. From the corner of an eye I saw the second man say something and grin. I realised with a rush of amused relief that any pursuit that those two might offer would have other and quite natural motives that had nothing whatever to do with the errant Comte de Valmy.

"Ici le Coq Hardi" quacked a voice in my ear.

I jerked my attention back to it, and my imagination back to the teeming little inn at Soubirous.

"I want to speak to Monsieur Blake, please."

"Who?"

"Monsieur Blake. The Englishman from Dieudonné." I was speaking softly, and mercifully the radio was loud enough to drown my voice. "I understand he stays with you. Is he there now?"

There was some altercation, aside, that I couldn't make out. Then it stopped abruptly, as if cut off by a hand over the mouthpiece. To my fury I found that my own hand was damp on the receiver.

Then the voice said into my ear: "No, he's not here. Who's that wanting him?"

"Is he likely to be in tonight?"

"Perhaps." Was I being jumpy, or was it suspicion that put the edge on that unfriendly voice? "He didn't say. If you ring back in half-an-hour… Who is that speaking, please?"

I said: "Thanks very much. I'll do that. I'm sorry to have-"

The voice said, harsh and sharp: "Where are you speaking from?"

Suspicion. It bit like an adder. If I didn't answer they could trace the call. I didn't stop to ask myself why they should. It was enough for me that the Coq Hardi was on Valmy land and that presumably the news would reach the chateau just as quickly as wires could carry it. If I could let them think I was safe for another half-hour…

I said pleasantly, with no perceptible hesitation: "From Évian. The Cent Fleurs. Don't trouble Monsieur Blake. I'll ring him up later on. Thank you so much."

And right in the teeth of another question I rang off.

I stood for a moment looking unseeingly at the telephone, biting my lip. Needless to say I had no intention of waiting to ring up again, but in putting off pursuit I had also put off William Blake. If he got my message at all, and if he was aware of the story that must by now be rife in Soubirous, he might realise I needed help and set straight off for Évian and the huge crowded floor of the Cent Fleurs, which certainly wouldn't remember if a young woman accompanied by a small boy had used the telephone at some time during the evening.

Somehow I was very sure, of William Blake's desire-and solid capacity-to help. Now I had had to cut myself off from that, and only now did I realise how much I had depended on the comfort of his company when the inevitable showdown came. I was well aware that even the interview with Hippolyte wouldn't be altogether plain sailing. 'Never before had I felt so miserably in need of a friend-someone who, even if they could do nothing, would simply be there. I gave myself a mental shake, I mustn't start this. Just because, for a few short hours, I had laid flesh and spirit in other hands, I didn't have to feel so forsaken now. I'd hoed my own row for long enough-well, it seemed I must go on doing just that. What one has never really had, one never misses. Or so they say.

I went back to my table, unwrapped three lumps of sugar, and drank my coffee black and far too sweet. The benedictine I drank with appreciation but, I'm afraid, a lack of respect. It was the effect, and not the drink I craved. I took it much too quickly, with half a wary eye on the card-players in the other corner.

Then, just as they were nicely involved in a new round of betting, I quietly paid the waiter, nodded a good night to Madame and went (unfollowed except by Philippe) out of the café.

Chapter 18

The Villa Mireille stood right on the shore of Lac Léman. It was one of a row of large wealthy houses-châteaux, almost- which bordered the lakeside, being served to landward by a narrow pretty road some two hundred feet below the town's main boulevards. Most of the houses stood in large gardens plentifully treed and guarded from the road by high walls and heavy gates.

It was dark when we reached the Villa Mireille. The gate was shut and as our steps paused outside there was the rattle of a heavy chain within, and a dog set up a deep barking.

"That's Beppo," whispered Philippe.

"Does he know you?"

"No-I don't know. I'm frightened of him."

Here the door of the concierge's lodge opened, and the light from it rushed up the trees that made a crowded darkness beyond the gate. A woman's voice called something, shrilly. The barking subsided into a whining growl. The door shut and the trees retreated into murky shadow.

I said: "Is there another way in?"

"You can get in from the lake-shore. The garden runs right down, and there's a boat-house. But I don't know the way down along the lake."

"We'll find it."

"Are we going further?" His voice was alarmed and querulous; tears of pure fatigue were not far away.

"Only to find a way down to the lake. We can't go in past Beppo and Madame-what did you say her name was?"

"Vuathoux."

"Well, unless you'd like to go straight to her-“

"No.”

I said: "You'd be safe, Philippe."

“She would telephone my Uncle Léon, wouldn't she?"

"Almost certainly."

"And my cousin Raoul would come?"

"It's possible."

He looked at me. "I would rather wait for my Uncle Hippolyte. You said we could."

"All right. We'll wait."

"Would you rather wait for my Uncle Hippolyte?"

"Yes."

"Then," said Philippe, swallowing, "perhaps we will find the way quickly?"

We did-three houses along from the Villa Mireille. A small wicket, swinging loose, gave onto a dim shrubbery, and as we slipped cautiously inside we could see the dim bulk of a house looming unlighted among its misty trees. No dog barked. We crept unchallenged down a long winding path, along beside a high paling bordering an open stretch of grass, and eventually once again between big trees towards the murmur of the lake.

Neither moon nor stars showed tonight. Over the water mist lay patchily, here thick and pale against the dark distances, here no more than a haze veiling the lake's surface as breath mists a dark glass, here as faint as the sheen that follows a finger stroking dark velvet. Long transparent drifts of vapour wreathed up from the water and reached slow fingers across the narrow shore towards the trees. The water lapped hollowly on the shingle beside us as we crunched our way back towards the Villa's garden. The night was not cold, but the water breathed a chill into the air, and the slowly-curling veils of mist brushed us with a damp that made me shiver.

"That's the boat-house," whispered Philippe. "I know where the key's kept. Are we going to go in?"

The boat-house was a small square two-storeyed building set, of course, over the water, at the head of an artificial bay made by two curving stone jetties. The shore was very narrow here, and from the yard-wide strip of shingle rose the steep bank crowded with trees that edged the grounds of the Villa Mireille. The rear wall of the boat-house was almost built up against this bank, and the beeches hung their branches right over the roof.

Mist and darkness blurred the details, but the general effect of desertion, looming trees, and lapping water was not just exactly what the moment demanded for Philippe and me.

I said briskly: "I want to go up through the garden and take a look at the house. For all we know he's already here. Would you like to stay in the boat-house? You could lock yourself in, and we'd have a secret signal-"

“No," said Philippe again.

"All right. You can scout up the garden with me. Very carefully, mind."

"Madame Vuathoux is deaf," said Philippe.

"Maybe. But Beppo isn't. Come on, petit"

The bank was steep and slippery with clay and wet leaves that lay in drifts between the roots of the beeches. Above it was the rough grass of a small parkland studded with more of the great trees. We crept softly from one huge trunk to the next; the spring grass was soft and damp underfoot, and there was, incongruously, the smell of violets. Elms now, and horse-chestnuts. I could feel the rough bark of the one, and the sticky buds of the other licked at my hand. The hanging fronds of willow brushed us wetly, clung, hindered us. We pushed through into a grove of willows as thick as a tent, and paused. We were almost at the house now. The willows curtained the edges of a formal lawn; the terrace of the house lay beyond this, thirty yards away. Near us was the metallic gleam of a small pool and I could see something that looked like a statue leaning over it.

I took Philippe's hand and we crept softly up behind the plinth of the statue, where the willows hung like an arras down to the water's surface. I pulled the trailing stems aside and scanned the facade of the house. None of the windows showed light, but there appeared to be a lamp over the front door, illuminating the drive. The door itself was out of our range of vision, but the glow of the lamp showed part of a circular gravel sweep, and banks of rhododendrons. Up here the mist was still only a blurring of the air, a thickening of the lamplight that lay like hoar-frost on the wet leaves.

I said softly: "The windows on the terrace. What room's that?"

"The salon. It's never used. My Uncle Hippolyte has his study upstairs. The end window. There's no light in it."

I looked up at it, "Then I'm afraid he's not home yet."

"Are we going in?"

I thought for a moment. "Where's the back door?"

"Round the other side, near the lodge."

"And near Beppo? Then that's out. And I doubt if there are any windows open. And there's that light over the front door… No, Philippe, I think we'll wait. What do you think?"

"Yes. I-there's a carl"

His hand gripped mine almost painfully. The road was not more than twenty yards away on our right. A car was coming along it, slowing down rapidly through its gears. Brakes squealed. A door slammed. Footsteps. A bell clanged. Seconds later through the clamour of the dog we heard the chink of iron and the squeak of a hinge, as Madame Vuathoux hastened to open the gates.

Philippe's grip tightened. "My Uncle Hippolyte!" A man's voice said something indistinguishable beyond the banked shrubs. "No," I said on a caught breath. "Raoul."

The cold hand jerked in mine. I heard the concierge say, in the loud toneless voice of the very deaf: "No, monsieur. Nothing, monsieur. And has there been no trace of them found?"

He said curtly: "None. Are you sure they couldn't have got in here? This is where they'll make for, that's certain. Is the back door locked?"

"No, monsieur, but I can see it from my window. Nobody has been there. Or to the front. Of that I am sure."

"The windows?"

"Locked, monsieur."

"No telephone call? Nothing?"

"Nothing, monsieur."

There was a pause. In it I could hear my own heart hammering.

"All the same," he said, "I'll have a look round. Leave the gates open, please. I'm expecting Bernard here any minute.”

Another heart-hammering pause. Then the car started up and the lights turned in slowly off the road, slithering metallically across the sharp leaves of the rhododendrons. He parked it in front of the door, and got out. I heard him run up the steps, and then the door shut behind him. The dog still whimpered and growled a little. Back at the lodge, the concierge called something to it, and after a few moments it fell silent.

I felt the cold hand twitch in mine. I looked down. The child's face was a blur with great dark pools for eyes. I whispered: "Keep close behind the statue. He may put some lights on."

I had hardly spoken before the salon windows blazed to brilliant oblongs, and the light leaped out across the terrace to touch the lawn. We were still in shadow. We waited, tense behind the statue. It was the figure of a boy, naked, leaning over to look at himself in the pool; a poised, exquisite Narcissus, self- absorbed, self-complete…

Room after room leaped into light, was quenched. We followed his progress through the house; light and then black darkness. The windows on the terrace facing us remained lit Finally they were the only ones. He came to one of the long windows, opened it, and stepped out onto the terrace. His shadow leaped across the lawn to the edge of the water. He stood there for a minute or two, very still, staring at the night I put a gentle hand on Philippe's head, pushing it down so that no faint probe of light would touch his face. We were crouching now. My cheek was against the stone of the plinth. It was I cold and smooth and smelt of lichen. I didn't dare lift my head to look at Raoul. I watched the tip of his shadow.

Suddenly it was gone. In the same moment I heard another car came fast along the road. Lights swept in at the gate. The salon windows went black, blank. I lifted my head and waited straining my ears.

Steps on the gravel. Raoul's voice, still on the terrace, saying: "Bernard?"

"Monsieur?" The newcomer came quickly round the corner of the house. I heard Raoul descending the terrace steps. He said in that quick hard voice he had used to Madame Vuathoux "Any sign?"

“None, monsieur, but-"

I heard Raoul curse under his breath. "Did you go back to the hut?"

"Yes. They weren't there. But they'd been, I swear they-"

"Of course they had. The Englishman was up there last night till midnight. I know that. They'd go to find him. Have you found out where he is?"

"He's not back yet. He went out with a party up to the plantation beyond Bois-Roussel early this morning and they're not back yet. But, monsieur, I was trying to tell you. I rang up just now, and they told me she'd telephoned him at the Coq Hardi. She-"

"She telephoned him?" The words flashed. "When?"

"Thirty to forty minutes ago."

"Sacré dieu." I heard his breath go out "Where was she speaking from? Did the fools think to ask?"

"Yes, indeed, m'sieur. They had heard the scandal from Jules, you understand, and-"

“Where was she speaking from?"

"The Cent Fleurs, in Évian. They said-"

"Half-an-hour ago?"

"Or three-quarters. No more."

"Then the Englishman can't have heard anything. He must be still away with the party. She's not with him yet."

He turned away abruptly and Bernard with him. Their voices faded but I heard him say roughly: "Get over to Évian immediately with that car. I'm going myself. We have to find them, and quickly. Do you hear me? Find them."

Bernard said something that sounded surly and defensive, and I heard Raoul curse him again. Then the voices faded round the corner of the house. Seconds later the Cadillac's engine started, and her lights swept their circle out of the driveway. The dog was barking once more. Madame Vuathoux must have come out of her cottage at the sound of the second car, for I heard Bernard speak to her, and she answered him in that high, overpitched voice: "He said he'd be here at twelve. Twelve at the latest."

Then Bernard, too, was gone. I lifted my head from the cold plinth and slid an arm round Philippe. I waited for a moment.

Philippe said, with excitement colouring the thin whisper "He's coming at twelve. Did you hear? "

"Yes. I don't suppose it's far off nine now. Only three more hours to wait, mon gars. And they've gone chasing off to Évian."

"He came down the terrace steps. He must have left a window open. Shall we go in?"

I hesitated, then said dully: "No. Only three more hours, Let's play it quite safe and go back and lock ourselves in the boat-house."

The boat-house looked, if possible, rather more dismal than before. Philippe vanished round the back of it and after a minute reappeared with a key which he displayed with a rather wan air of triumph.

"Good for you," I said. "Lead the way, mon lapin."

He went cautiously up the steep outside stair to the loft over the boats. The treads were slippery with moss and none too safe. He bent over the door, and I heard the key grate round in the lock. The door yawned, creaking a little, on a black interior from which came the chill breath of dust and desertion.

"Refuge," I said, with a spurious cheerfulness that probably didn't deceive Philippe at all, and switched on the torch with caution.

The loft, thank heaven, was dry. But that was its only attraction. It was a cheerless little black box of a place, a dusty junk-hole crowded with the abandoned playthings of forgotten summers. I found later that one of the concrete piers of the harbour had a flat platform in its shelter which in happier days made a small private lido. Here in the loft had been carelessly thrust some of the trappings that in July's sunshine were so amusingly gay; striped canvas chairs, a huge folded umbrella of scarlet and dusty orange, various grubby objects which looked as if, well beaten and then inflated, they might be air-cushions, a comical duck, a sausage-like horse with indigo spots… Seen by torchlight in the chilly April dark, with a vigil ahead of us and fear at our elbow, they looked indescribably dreary and grotesque.

There was a small square window low down in the shoreward wall. I propped a canvas chair across it to conceal the torchlight from a possible prowler, then turned to lock the door.

Philippe said dolefully behind me. "What are we going to do till twelve o'clock?"

"Failing Peggitty and chess," I said cheerfully, "sleep. I really don't see why you shouldn't. You must be worn out, and there's nothing now to worry you and keep you awake."

"No," he said a little doubtfully, then his voice lightened. “l shall sleep in the boat."

"Little cabbage, the boat isn't there. Besides, how wet. Now up here," I said falsely, gesturing with the torch towards the dreary pile, "it's much nicer. Perhaps we can find-"

"Here it is." And Philippe had darted past me and was pulling out from under three croquet mallets, a half-deflated beach-ball and a broken oar, a flat yellowish affair that looked like a cyclist's mackintosh.

"What in the wide world-?" I said.

"The boat."

"Oh. Oh, I see. Is it a rubber dinghy? I’ve never seen one.

He nodded and spread his unappetising treasure out on the unoccupied half of the floor. "You blow it up. Here's the tube. You blow into that and the sides come up and it's a boat. I want to sleep in it."

I was too thankful that he had found something to occupy him to object to this harmless whim.

"Why not?" I said. "It's a good solid damp-proof ground- sheet anyway. And after all, who minds a little dust?"

"It's not a ground-sheet. It's a boat." He was already rootling purposefully behind some dirty canvas in a corner.

“Ça se voit,” I said untruthfully, eyeing it.

"You blow it up," explained Philippe patiently, emerging with an unwonted spot of colour in his face, from between an oil-drum and the unspeakable spotted horse.

"Darling, if you think either of us has got enough blow left in them-"

"With this" He was struggling with some heavy-seeming object. I took it from him.

"What is it?"

"A pump. It's easy. I'll show you." He was already down on the floor beside the dismal yellow mass, fitting the nozzle of the pump to the mouth of the tube. I hadn't the heart to dissuade him. Besides… I had been uneasily aware for some minutes now of the bitter little draught that crept under the door and meandered along the boards, cutting at my ankles. Philippe was busy with the footpump, which seemed remarkably easy to work. If the blessed boat really would inflate…

It would. Presently Philippe lifted a face flushed with pride and effort and liberally festooned with cobwebs, from a business-like rubber dinghy whose fat sausage-like sides would certainly stem any wandering draughts. I praised him lavishly, managed to parry offers to blow up the horse, the duck, and the beach-ball as well ("just to show you"), and finally got us both disposed in our draught-proof but decidedly cramped bed, curled up for warmth together in our coats and preparing to sit out the last three hours or so of our ordeal.

The ghastly minutes crawled by. The night was still, held in its pall of mist. I could hear the occasional soft drip of moisture I from the boughs that hung over us, and once some stray current I of air must have stirred the trees, for the budded twigs pawed at the roof. Below in the boat-house the hollow slap and suck of water told of darkness and emptiness and a world of nothing…Compared with this burial in the outer dark last night's lodging had had a snug homely quality that I found myself I remembering-Bernard or no Bernard-with longing.

And it was cold. Philippe seemed warm enough, curled in a ball with his back tucked into the curve of my body and my arms I over him; at any rate, he slept almost straight away. But as I the minutes halted by I could feel the deadly insidious cold creeping through me, bone by bone. It struck first at my exposed I back, then, slowly, slithered through my whole body, as if the blood were literally running cold through the veins and arteries that held me in a chilled and stiffening network. Cramped as I was, I dared not move for fear of waking the child. He had had, I judged, just about as much as he could take. Let him sleep out I the chilly minutes before the final rescue.

So I lay and watched the darkness beyond my canvas barrier for a glimpse of light from the villa, and tried not to think, not to think about anything at all.

It was the beach-ball that put an end to the beastly vigil. Disturbed from its winter's rest and moved, I suppose, by some erratic draught, it finally left its place on a pile of boxes and rolled, squashily elliptical in its half-deflated state, off its perch and down onto the floor. It fell on me out of nowhere with a silent, soggy bounce, and jerked me with a yelp out of my stiff, half-dozing vigil. I sat up furiously. Philippe's voice said, sounding scared: "What was that?"

I reached clumsily for the torch. “The beach-ball, confound it. I'm sorry, Philippe. Don't be frightened. Let's have a look at the time…Quarter to twelve." I looked at him. "Are you cold?"

He nodded.

I said: "Let's get out of here, shall we? There's no light up at the villa yet, so I vote we try that terrace window. Only a few minutes more now…”

The mist was thicker now. Our little torch-beam beat white against it. It lay heavy as a cloudbank among the trees, but over the lawn near the house it showed only a pale haze that thinned and shifted in the moving torchlight.

The lamp still glowed over the front door. Its circle of light seemed to have shrunk as the trees crowded and loomed closer in the mist. No other light showed.

We slipped quietly across the lawn and up the terrace steps. The long window stood ajar, and we went in.

The salon was a big room, and in the light of a cautious torch it looked even bigger. The little glow caught the ghostly shapes of shrouded furniture, the gleam of a mirror, the sudden glitter of the chandelier that moved with a spectral tinkle in the draught from the window. The meagre light seemed only to thicken the shadows and make the room retreat further into dusk. It smelt of disuse, melancholy, dry-as-dust.

We hesitated just inside the window.

I whispered: "We'll go to your Uncle Hippolyte's room. That'll have been prepared, surely? There'll be a fire or a stove. And is there a telephone in it? "

He nodded and led the way quickly across the salon. If he was scared he didn't show it. He moved almost numbly, as if in a bad dream. He pushed open a massive door that gave onto the hall and slipped through it without a look to right or left into the shadowed corners. I followed.

The hall was a high dim square where I could just make out a graceful branching staircase. Tiles echoed our quick footsteps hollowly. No other sound. We fled upstairs. Philippe turned left along a wide gallery and finally stopped before a door.

"It's Uncle Hippolyte's study," he whispered, and put a hand to the knob.

The room, sure enough, was warm. Like pins to a magnet we flew across the carpet to the big stove and hugged it as closely as we could with our chilled bodies. I said, sending the torchlight raking round the room: "Where does that door lead?"

"There's another salon. Bigger. It's never used now."

I went across and pushed the door open. The torchlight once more probed its way over the ghosts of furniture. Like the room downstairs, this was still shrouded in its winter covers. It smelt musty, and the silk-panelled walls, as I put up a gentle finger, felt dusty and brittle, like a dead moth's wing. From the empty darkness above came the now familiar phantom tinkling of a chandelier.

I crossed the carpet softly and paused by a shrouded shape that seemed to be a sofa. I lifted the dust-cover and felt underneath it… damask cushions fraying a little, silk that caught on the skin and set the teeth on edge. "Philippe," I called softly.

He appeared beside me like a smaller, frailer ghost. He was shivering a little. I said very matter-of-factly: "I don't suppose it'll be needed, but every fighter has to have a possible line of retreat worked out. If for any reason we still want to hide, I'd say this is as good a place as any. Under the dust-cover. It makes a tent, see? And you'd be pretty snug underneath and quite invisible."

He saw. He nodded without speaking. I cast him a look as I covered the sofa again and followed him back into the study. I pulled the salon door almost, but not quite, shut behind me.

I glanced at my wrist. Five minutes to twelve. One of the windows looked out over the drive. No sign of a car. I turned to Hippolyte's desk and picked up the telephone.

CHAPTER 19

A man's voice said: "Coq Hardi."

At least it was not the same unpleasant and suspicious voice, but there was no harm in trying to disarm it further. It was five minutes to twelve, but just in case…

I said quickly, eagerly; "Guillaume? Is that you, chéri? It's Clothilde."

He said blankly: "Clothilde?"

"Yes, yes. From Annecy. You haven't forgotten? You told me to-

The voice was amused. "Mademoiselle, a moment. Who is it you want?"

"I-isn't that Guillaume? Oh mon dieu, how silly of me!" I gave a nervous giggle. "I am sorry, monsieur. Perhaps-if he isn't in bed?-if you will have the goodness to fetch him-"

He was patience itself. "But of course. With the greatest of pleasure. But Guillaume who, Mademoiselle Clothilde? Guillaume Rouvier?"

"No, no. I told you. Monsieur Blake, the Englishman. Is he there? He did tell me-"

"Yes, he's here. Content yourself, Mademoiselle Clothilde. He's not gone to bed. I'll fetch him." I heard him laugh as he moved away from the telephone. No doubt William's stock would soar at the Coq Hardi…

Philippe had moved up close to me. In the faint glow that the front door light cast up through the uncurtained window his face looked small and pale, the eyes enormous. I winked and made a face at him and he smiled.

William said in my ear, sounding bewildered and suspicious: "Blake here. Who is that, please?"

“I’m sorry if I've embarrassed you," I said, "but I had to get you somehow, and that seemed the best way. Linda Martin."

"Oh, it's you. The barman said it was a petite amie. I couldn't think-what's been going on? Where are you? Are you all right? And the boy-"

"For heaven's sake! Can anyone hear you, William?"

"What? Oh yes, I suppose they can. But I don't think they know English."

"Never mind, don't risk it. I daren't call you for long because it mayn't be safe, but I… I need help, and I thought-"

He said quietly: "Of course. I heard the local version of what's happened, and I've been hop-expecting you'd get into touch with me. I-I've been terribly worried-I mean, you being on your own, and all that. What is it? What can I do?"

I said gratefully: "Oh, William… Listen, I can't explain now, it would take too long. Don't worry any more; we're safe, both of us, and I think the whole thing will be over in a few minutes, but… I'd be awfully grateful if you'd come along. There's no danger now, but there'll be… scenes, and I don't somehow feel like facing them alone. I know it's a lot to ask of someone you hardly know, and it's a shocking time of night, but I wondered-"

"Tell me where you are," said William simply, "and I'll come. I've got the jeep. Is it the Cent Fleurs?"

"No, no. So they told you I'd rung up before?"

"Yes. I've just got back from Évian."

"Oh, William, no!"

"Well," he said reasonably, "I thought you were there. I didn't know anything about this business till we got in tonight, you know. I was up at the hut till late last night, working, but I was due today to go with a couple of men over to the south plantations and we had to make an early start, so I slept at the pub. We were out all day and got back lateish, and then I was told you'd rung up from the Cent Fleurs, and of course I heard all the stories that were going round. I rang up the Cent Fleurs and they didn't remember you, so I skated down to Évian in the jeep-"

"Did you see Raoul de Valmy there?"

"Don't know him from Adam," said William simply. "Is he looking for you, too?"

"Yes."

"Oh. I thought you might have-I mean, someone said-" he stopped, floundering a little.

I said: "Which ever of the stories you heard, it isn't true. We're on our own."

"Oh. Ah. Yes. Well," said William cheerfully, "tell me where you are now and I’ll be straight over."

"We're in Thonon, at the Villa Mireille. That's Hippolyte de Valmy's place; he's the brother-"

"I know. Have you seen him?"

"He's not back yet. Expected any minute. We're waiting for him. I-I'll explain when I see you why we didn't go straight to the police. Just for the time being, will you not say anything? Just-come?"

"Sure. I'm half-way there already. Repeat the name of the place, please."

"The Villa Mireille. Anyone'll tell you. It's on the lakeside. Take the lower road. M.I.R.E.I.L.L.E. Got it?"

"Yes, thank you… sherry."

"What? Oh, I see. Is the barman listening?"

"Yes."

"Then you'll have to say goodbye nicely, I'm afraid."

"I don't know how."

"Say ’à bientȏt, chérie’"

"Ah biang toe sherry," said William grimly, and then laughed. "I'm glad you're in such good spirits, anyway," he added.

"Yes," I said drearily. "See you soon. And thank you, William. Thank you a lot. It's nice not to be… quite on one's own."

"Think nothing of it," said William, and rang off.

The handset was hardly back in its cradle when the car came down the road. We stood together, just back from the dark window, and watched the lights. It slowed and changed gear for the gate. Its lights swung round in the mist and slid across the study ceiling.

Philippe's hand slid into mine, and gripped. My own shaking.

He said inadequately: "Here he is."

"Yes. Oh, Philippe."

He said wonderingly: "You have been afraid too, all the time?"

"Yes. Terribly."

"I didn't know."

"I'm glad of that."

The car had stopped. Lights were cut, then the engine. Feet crunched on the gravel and the car door slammed. Steps, quick and assured, mounted to the front door. We heard the rattle of the handle. Then the sounds weren't outside the house any longer, but inside; the slight sound of the big door opening, a step on the tiled floor…

He had come. It was over.

I said shakily: "Dieu soit béni" and made for the study door. I hadn't even considered what I was going to say to Hippolyte, It was possible that in some fashion he had already been greeted with the news. It was also possible that he had never even heard of me. I didn't care. He was here. I could hand over.

I flew along the carpeted gallery and down the lovely curve of the stairs.

The hall lights were not on. The front door was ajar, and the lamp that hung outside it over the steps cast a long panel of gold across the tiles. Outside I saw the car gleaming in the mist. The newcomer stood just inside the door, one hand raised as if in the act of switching on the lights. He was silhouetted against the lamplit haze beyond, a tall, powerfully-built man, standing stockstill, as a man does when he is listening.

On the thick carpet my feet made little more noise than a ghost's. I reached the centre stair and hesitated, one hand on the balustrade. I started slowly down the last flight towards him.

Then he saw me, and raised his head.

"So you are here," he said.

That was all, but it stopped me as if he had shot me. I stood clutching the banister till I thought the wood would crack. For one crazy moment I wanted to turn and run, but I couldn't move.

I said, in an unrecognisable voice that broke on the word: “Raoul?"

“Lui-mȇme." There was a click as the lights came on-a great chandelier that poured and flashed light from a thousand glittering crystals. They struck at my eyes and I flinched and put up a hand, then dropped it and looked at him across the empty hall. I had forgotten all about Philippe, about Hippolyte, about William Blake even now tearing down from Soubirous; I could see nothing but the man who stood there with his hand on the light-switch, looking up at me. There was nothing except the thing that lay between us.

He dropped his hand, and shut the door behind him. He was quite white, and his eyes were hard as stones. There were lines in his face I hadn't seen before. He looked very like Léon de Valmy.

He said: "He's here? Philippe?" His voice was very even and quiet, but I thought I could hear the blaze of anger licking through it that he didn't trouble to suppress.

The question was answered by Philippe himself. He had followed me as far as the gallery, and there had stopped, prompted by a better instinct than my own. At his cousin's question he must have moved, for the stir in the shadows above him made Raoul lift his head sharply. I followed his look just in time to see Philippe, a small silent wraith, melt back into the darkness of the gallery.

Then Raoul moved, and fast. He took the hall in four strides and was coming upstairs two at a time. His leap out of immobility had been so sudden that I reacted without reason, a blind thing in a panic. I don't remember moving, but as I let go the banister I fled-was swept-up the stairway in front of him, only to check desperately on the landing and whirl to face him.

I shrieked: "Run, Philippe!" and put up frantic, futile hands to break the tempest.

They never touched him. He stopped dead. His arms dropped to his sides. I moved slowly back till I came up against the curve of the banister-rail and leaned there. I don't think I could have stood unsupported. He wasn't looking after Philippe. He was looking at me. I turned my head away.

Behind me, along the gallery, I heard the study door shut very softly.

Raoul heard it too. He lifted his head. Then he looked back at me.

"I see," he said.

So did I. I had seen even while shock reacting on weariness had driven me stupidly and headlong from him up the stairs. And now I saw the look that came down over his face, bleak bitter pride shutting down over anger, and I knew that I had turned my world back to cinders, sunk my lovely ship with my own stupid, wicked hands. I couldn't speak, but I began to cry-not desperately or tragically, but silently and without hope, the tears spilling anyhow down my cheeks, and my face ugly with crying.

He didn't move. He said, very evenly: "When I reached the Château Valmy this morning and my father told me that you had gone, he seemed to think you would have come to me for help. I told him no, you thought I was in Paris till Thursday, but I'd left my apartment there on Tuesday evening, and you couldn't know where I was. It was only later that I found you hadn't tried to get in touch with me there at all." His voice was quite expressionless. "There was only one reason I could think of why you hadn't telephoned me. When I… put this to my father he denied that any harm had come to you. I didn't believe him."

He paused. I couldn't look at him. I put up a hand to wipe away the tears that streaked my face. But they kept falling.

"I told him then that I intended to make you my wife, and that if anything happened to you, or to the boy and through him to you, I would kill him-my father-with my own hands."

I looked at him then. "Raoul…" But my voice died away. I couldn't speak.

He said slowly, answering my look: "Yes. I believe I did mean it," and added one word, one knell of a word, "then."

We had neither of us heard the other car. When the hall door swung open to admit two people-a man and a woman-we both jumped and turned. The man was a stranger to me; the woman was Héloïse de Valmy. They neither of them saw us above them on the landing, because at that moment Madame Vuathoux, who must this time have seen the lights of the car, came bustling into the hall from the back regions, vociferous with welcome.

"Monsieur-but you are welcome! I was so afraid that, with this mist-oh!" She stopped and her hands went up as if in horror. "Tiens, Madame-she is ill? What is the matter? Of course, of course! What horror! Has there still been no word?"

I hadn't noticed till she mentioned it, but Héloïse de Valmy was indeed clinging to Hippolyte's arm as if she needed its support. In the merciless light from the chandelier her face looked ghastly, grey and haggard like the face of an old woman. The concierge surged forward with cries of commiseration.

The little boy-nothing was heard yet, no? And of course Madame was distracted. La pauvre… Madame must come upstairs… there was a stove lit… a drink… some bouillon, perhaps?

Hippolyte de Valmy interrupted her. "Monsieur Raoul is here?"

"Not yet, monsieur. He came this evening, and then left for Évian. He said he would be back at midnight to see you. It is after-"

"His car's outside."

Raoul moved at that, almost idly. He said: "Good evening, mon oncle."

Madame Vuathoux gaped up at him, at last stricken dumb. Hippolyte turned, eyebrows raised. Héloïse said: "Raoul!" just as I had done, and with no less horror in her voice. New lines etched themselves in her face and she swayed on her feet, so that Hippolyte tightened his grip on her arm. Then she saw me shrinking behind Raoul against the banister and she cried my name, almost on a shriek: "Miss Martin!"

Madame Vuathoux found her voice again at that. She echoed the cry. "La voilà! There she is! In this very house! Monsieur Raoul-"

Hippolyte said curtly: "That will do. Leave us, please."

There was silence until the door had shut behind her. Then he turned again to look up at us. He surveyed me without expression, then he gave a formal little nod and looked at Raoul. "You found them?"

"Yes, I found them."

"Philippe?"

"He's here."

Héloïse said hoarsely: "Safe?"

Raoul's voice was very dry. "Yes, Héloïse. Safe. He was with Miss Martin."

Her eyes fell before his and she gave a little moaning sigh Hippolyte said: "I think we had better talk this thing out quietly. Come up to the study. Héloïse, can you manage the stairs, my dear?"

No-one looked at me, or spoke. I was a shade, a ghost, a dead leaf dropped by the storm into some corner. My story was over. Nothing would happen to me now. I would not even be called upon to explain to Hippolyte. I was safe, and I wished I was dead.

Héloïse and Hippolyte were coming slowly up the stairs. Raoul turned past me as if I didn't exist and began to mount the flight to the gallery. I went after him quietly. I had stopped crying, but my face still stung with tears, and I felt tired, so tired. I found I was pulling myself up by the banisters as if I were an old woman.

Raoul had opened the study door and switched on the light He was waiting. I didn't look at him. I passed him with my head bent, and went straight across the study to the door that gave onto the salon.

I pushed it open.

I said wearily: "Philippe? It’s all right, Philippe, you can come out." I hesitated, conscious that Raoul, too, had crossed the room and was standing just behind me. Then I said: "You're quite safe now. Your Uncle Hippolyte's here."

For some reason-no reason at all-the others had followed us into the salon, ignoring the comfort of the study stove.

Hippolyte had taken the cover from the sofa, and now sat there, with Philippe in the crook of his arm. On the other side of the empty grate Héloïse sat huddled in a small chair of golden brocade. Someone had twitched the dust-sheet off that and it lay in a bundle at her feet.

With its light on, the salon seemed more ghostly than ever. The light of the big chandelier dripped icily from its hundred glittering prisms. It fell coldly on the white shrouds that covered the furniture, and struck back from the pale marble of the fire- place where Raoul stood, one elbow on the mantelpiece, as I had seen him stand in the library at Valmy.

I sat as far away from them as possible. At the end of the long room was a piano, a concert-sized grand encased in green baize; to this I retreated in silence, and sat down on the long piano-bench with my back to the instrument. My hands clutched at the edge of the bench. I felt numb and unutterably weary. There was talking to be done-well, let them do it, the Valmys, and get it over and let me go. It was no longer anything to do with me. I raised my head and looked at them down the length of that beautiful dead room. They might have been a million miles away.

Hippolyte was talking to Philippe in an undertone. In him, too, the Valmy likeness was strong; he was a younger, gender edition of Léon de Valmy-Lucifer before the fall. He looked kind, and his voice as he talked softly to Philippe sounded pleasant. But for all the gentleness, and the marks of anxiety and fatigue, I thought I could see in him the same hard force as in the other men-cooler, perhaps, and slower, but in the circumstances none the worse for that. My deus ex machina would be capable enough, thank God.

He looked up at Raoul and said in his quiet voice: "As you may have guessed, Héloïse drove into Geneva to meet my plane. She has told me a rather… odd story."

Raoul was selecting a cigarette. He said without raising his eyes. "You'd better tell me what it was. I've heard several versions of this odd story lately, and I confess I'm a little confused. I'd like to know which one Héloïse is trying to sell now."

She made a little sound, and Hippolyte's lips tightened. "My dear Raoul-"

"Look," said Raoul, "this thing has gone a long way beyond politeness or the conventions of-filial duty. We'll get on a lot better if we simply tell the truth." His eyes rested indifferently on Héloïse. "You know, you may as well cut your losses, Héloïse. You must know my father was pretty frank with me this morning. I suppose he may intend to deny it all now, but I confess I can't see where that'll get him-or you. I don't know what he sent you down to Geneva to say, but the thing's over Héloïse. You can abandon your-attitudes. There are no witnesses here that matter, and you'll certainly need my Uncle Hippolyte to help you if the hell of a scandal is to be avoided. Why not give it up and come clean?"

She made no reply, but sat there in a boneless huddle, not looking at him.

He watched her for a moment without expression. Then his shoulders lifted a fraction and he turned back to Hippolyte. "Well," he said, "since it appears that Héloïse isn't playing, you'd better let me start."

Hippolyte's face, as he glanced from one to the other looked suddenly very tired. "Very well," he said. "Go ahead. You rang me up in Athens on Monday night to ask me to come home as you were anxious about Philippe. You spoke of accidents, and insisted that Philippe might be in some danger. You also said something not very clear about Philippe's governess. Héloïse, too, spoke of her tonight-also not very clearly. I take it that this is the young woman in question, and that there have been recent and alarming developments which Héloïse has been attempting to explain to me. I must confess to some confusion. I am also tired. I hope you will be very brief and very lucid."

Raoul said: "You can forget Philippe's governess." (That was me-"Philippe's governess." He hadn't even glanced at me. He was a million miles away.) He went on: "She never was in it, except incidentally. The story begins and ends with my father. That was why I said this thing had gone beyond convention. Because your starting-point, mon oncle, is this: your brother-my father-with the help or at any rate the connivance of his wife-has been trying for some time past to murder Philippe."

I heard Héloïse give a faint sound like a moan, and I saw the child turn his head to look at her from the shelter of Hippolyte's arm. I said in a hard little voice I didn't recognise as my own: "Philippe is only nine years old. Also he has just been through a considerable ordeal and is very tired and probably hungry. I suggest that you allow me to take him downstairs to some reliable person in the kitchen."

They all jumped as if one of the shrouded chairs had spoken, then Hippolyte said: "Certainly he should go downstairs. But I should like you to remain here, if you will. Ring the bell, please, Raoul."

Raoul glanced at me, a look I couldn't read, and obeyed.

We waited in silence, and presently the door opened. It wasn't Madame Vuathoux who stood there, but an elderly manservant with a pleasant face.

"Gaston," said Hippolyte, "will you please take Master Philippe downstairs and see he gets something to eat? Have Madame Vuathoux or Jeanne get a room ready for him… the little dressing-room off my own, I think. Philippe, go with Gaston now. He'll look after you."

Philippe had jumped up. He was smiling. The grey-haired servant returned the smile. "Come along," he said, and put out a hand. Philippe ran to him without a backward look. The door shut behind them.

Hippolyte turned back to Raoul. I could see, I'm not sure how, the rigid control he was exerting over face and hands. His voice was not quite steady, but it was as pleasant and gentle as ever. He said: "Well Raoul, you'd better go on with your story. And I advise you to be sure of your facts. You… he's my brother, remember."

"And my father," said Raoul harshly. He knocked the ash off his cigarette into the empty fireplace, with an abrupt movement. "As for my facts, I haven't a great many, but you can have them. I only really came into the story myself"-here his eyes lifted and met mine; they were like slate-"this morning."

He paused for a moment. Then he began to talk.

He said: "I don't have to tell you the background to the story; that my father, if Philippe had never been born, would have succeeded to Valmy, where he has lived all his life and which he loves with what (particularly since his accident) is an obsessive love. When his elder brother didn't marry he assumed that Valmy would be some day his, and he never hesitated to divert the income from his own estate, Bellevigne, into Valmy. I have run Bellevigne for him since I was nineteen, and I know just how steadily, during those early years, the place was milked of everything that might have made it prosperous. My father and I have fought over it time and again… after all, it is my heritage as well, and I wasn't as sure as he that Étienne wouldn't get himself a son one day."

Hippolyte said: "I know. Léon would never listen."

"Well," said Raoul, "Étienne did marry, and get Philippe. I don't intend to distress you with my father's reactions to that fact; mercifully he had the sense to keep them from Étienne possibly so that Étienne would let him go on living at Valmy. But the immediate result was that Bellevigne's income was put back where it belonged, and I had the job of trying to build up what had been steadily ruined for years." Something like a smile touched the hard mouth. "I may say I enjoyed the fight… But last year, Étienne was killed."

He looked down at Hippolyte. "And immediately Valmy started to take the money out of Bellevigne again."

The older man made a little movement. "As soon as that?" Raoul smiled again. It wasn't a nice smile. "I'm glad you're so quick in the uptake. Yes. He must have decided then and there that something had to be done about Philippe. There were six years before the child inherited. The chance would come."

Hippolyte said, hard and sharp: "Be sure of your facts."

"I am. It'll save time and heart-searching if you know here and now that my father has admitted his intention of murdering Philippe."

A pause. Hippolyte said: "Very well. I'll accept that. To whom did he admit this?"

Raoul's mouth twisted. "To me. Content yourself, mon oncle, it's still only a family affair."

"I-see." Hippolyte stirred in his chair. "And so I went off to Greece and handed Philippe over."

"Yes. Somewhat naturally I hadn't tumbled to the significance of what had happened over Bellevigne. One doesn't," said Raoul evenly, "readily assume one's father is a murderer. I was merely puzzled and furious-so furious at being thrown back to the foot of the cliff I'd been climbing that I didn't stop to think out the whys and the wherefores. I just spent all my energy on one blazing row after another. When I went up to Valmy at the beginning of April I thought I'd find out how Philippe was getting on there. I don't pretend for a moment that I thought there was anything wrong; I told you, one doesn't think in that sort of way of one's own family and the people one knows. But-anyway, I went up to Valmy to 'sound’ things, as it were. And things seemed all right. I'd heard Philippe had a new governess, and I wondered-" Here his glance crossed mine Momentarily and he paused. He added: "Valmy was never a house for children, but this time it seemed all right. Then, next day, there was an accident that might have been fatal."

He went on, in that cold even voice, to tell Hippolyte about the shooting in the woods, while Hippolyte exclaimed, and Héloïse stirred in her chair and watched the floor. She made no sound, but I saw that the fragile gold silk of the chair-arm had ripped under her nails. Raoul was watching her now. There was no expression whatever on his face.

"Even then," he said, "I didn't suspect what was really going on. Why should I? I blamed myself bitterly for that later, but I tell you, one doesn't think that way." He dropped his cigarette-stub onto the hearth, and turned away to crush it out with his heel. He said a little wearily, as if to himself: "Perhaps I did suspect; I don't know. I think I may have fought against suspecting." He looked at his uncle. "Can you understand that?"

"Yes," said Hippolyte heavily. "Yes."

"I thought you would," said Raoul. "A damnable exercise, isn't it?" He was already lighting another cigarette.

Hippolyte said: "But you suspected enough to make you go back pretty soon? And again at Easter?"

Raoul's attention was riveted on lighting the cigarette. "It wasn't altogether suspicion that drove me back. Nor did I see anything to rouse me into active worry until the Easter Ball- that night I rang you up. But that night two things happened. Miss Martin told me that there'd been another accident-a coping of the west balcony was suddenly dangerously loose overnight, and only the fact that she noticed it and shoved something across the broken bit saved Philippe from a particularly nasty end on some spiked railings underneath."

This had the effect of making Hippolyte turn and look at me. The expression in his face made me wonder, for the first time, what Héloïse had been telling him about me on the way from Geneva. From the look on his face it had been nothing to my credit. As Raoul went on to speak of the midnight feast with Philippe I saw the expression deepen-as if Hippolyte were being given a very different picture of me from the one he had got from Héloïse. "And there was something so odd about Héloïse that night," said Raoul. "She seemed frightened, if that were possible, and then there was Miss Martin's talk of night, mares… But it was really the second accident that shook me. I went straight to the telephone in the small hours, and eventually got hold of you. It seemed the best thing to do, for us to tackle him together and find out what was going on and force him to… see reason. I thought you might also hand the child over to my care if you had to leave again. I've no authority at all where Philippe's concerned, and for obvious reasons I preferred not to enlist official help at that point. Hence the S.O.S. to you." He gave his uncle that fleeting, joyless smile. "In any case, as far as the police were concerned, my father still held the winning card, which was that nothing had happened. He had, and has, committed no provable crime. But I thought that if you cabled you were coming home it would put paid to whatever he might be planning. If even then," he finished very wearily, "he really was planning anything."

There was another of those silences. Hippolyte looked across at Héloïse. Raoul went on: "It seems odd, now, that I should ever have been so slow to believe him capable of murder. I should have known… but there it is. I tell you it's not the sort of thing one readily accepts. It certainly wasn't the sort of thing I felt I could tax him with-and I doubt if that would have done much good anyway. If the interview I had with him this morning is anything to go by-" He broke off, and then gave a little shrug. "Well, I had sent for you. I'd done what I could to silence my own uneasiness, and I knew Miss Martin was dependable. I told myself I was being a fool. I didn't want to leave Valmy next morning, but I got an early call from Paris, and had to go. It was to do with some money I'd been trying to raise on Bellevigne, and the chap I wanted was passing through Paris that afternoon. I had to catch him. So I went. I'd intended to stay in Paris till Wednesday afternoon, then to come over here and meet you when you got in from Athens, and go up to Valmy with you on Thursday. But once I got away from

Valmy I found I was worrying more and more; it was as if, once I got out of his range, I could see him more clearly. Anyway, I think I saw for the first time that this impossible thing might be true and there might really be danger-immediate danger. I did ring up Valmy in the afternoon and got my-got him. I made some excuse-I forget now what it was-and asked a few questions. He told me about your cable, and I'll swear he even sounded pleased at the prospect of seeing you. Everything seemed to be normal, and when I rang off I was convinced yet again that the whole thing was a bag of moonshine." He drew on his cigarette and the smoke came out like a sigh. "But-well, by the evening I couldn't stand it any longer. I rang up the airport and was lucky. There was a seat on a night flight. I'd left my car at Geneva, and I drove straight up to Valmy. I got there early this morning, to find that Miss Martin and Philippe had disappeared."

He flicked ash from his cigarette. "Just as a matter of interest, Héloïse, how did you account for that to my uncle when you met his plane?"

Still she didn't speak. She had turned away her head so that her cheek was pressed against the wing of the chair. She looked as if she were hardly listening. Her face was grey and dead. Only her fingers moved, shredding, shredding the gold silk under them.

Hippolyte began, looking so uncomfortable that I had a rough idea what the story had involved: "It wasn't very coherent. I did gather-"

I said: "It doesn't matter. I'll tell you what did happen. I found out on Tuesday night what Monsieur de Valmy was planning. Bernard got drunk at the dance and told Berthe, one of the maids. She told me. I had to get Philippe away. I-I didn't know where to go. We hid, and then came here to wait for you. That's all."

I could feel Raoul's eyes on me. Between us stretched the empty ghost-filled spaces of that alien room. I said no more. If I never told him the rest, I couldn't do it here.

Hippolyte turned back to Raoul. "Go on. You got back and found them gone. I assume that at this point you did tackle Léon?"

"I did." Something new had come into the even voice, something that made me stir on my bench and look away. I didn't want to watch his face, though heaven knew, there was nothing there to read. He said: "There were various-theories as to why the two had run away, but to me it only meant one thing; that Miss Martin had had some proof that Philippe was in danger, and had removed him from harm's way. I blamed myself bitterly for not having let my own suspicions take root. So I attacked my father."

"Yes?"

Raoul said: "It wasn't a pleasant interview. I’ll cut it very short. He started by denying everything, and-you know him -he denied it so well that he made me look a fool. But the fact remained that Lin-Miss Martin had bolted. I kept at him and eventually he changed his ground. He suggested then that as far as Philippe's fate was concerned Miss Martin mightn't be entirely disinterested." He flicked ash off his cigarette, not looking at me.

Hippolyte said: "What do you mean?"

Raoul didn't answer. I said briefly: "Monsieur de Valmy had reason to believe I was in love with Monsieur Raoul."

I saw Hippolyte raise his brows. In his own way he was as quick as Léon. He said: "So you might have had an interest in disposing of Philippe? A very long-sighted young lady. And what was your reaction to this-suggestion, Raoul?"

"It was so absurd that I wasn't even angry. I laughed. I then told him that he had got the facts right only so far. The interest was on both sides and it was serious-in other words I intended to make Miss Martin my wife, and if any harm came to her or to Philippe he'd have me to answer to as well as the police."

Hippolyte flashed a look from Raoul to me, and back again, then his eyes dropped to his hands. There was a long pause. Something in the way the interview was going must have prompted him to ignore the information in Raoul's last speech, for all he said was: "And then?"

Raoul said, in a very hard, dry voice: "I'll cut this short. It's pretty unspeakable. He changed his ground again, and suggested cutting me in. Yes. Quite. He pointed out the advantages that I and my wife would get from Philippe's death. He-didn't seem to understand that I might be able to resist them. And he was convinced I would be able to persuade her too, as my wife, to acquiesce in his plans. Between us we could pacify you when you arrived, see you back to Greece, and then take our time over Philippe. We could cook up some story of Linda's having run away to me-everyone was saying that anyway-and get through the bigger scandal by making it a purely sex affair. He then suggested that I find Linda and allow people to believe she had run off to meet me."

"Yes?"

It was, perhaps, the most horrible thing about the interview that neither Léon's son nor his brother showed surprise. Distress, yes; horror, perhaps; but not surprise. Not even at a wickedness that couldn't conceive of disinterested good.

Raoul said: "I didn't say much. I-couldn't, or I'd have laid hands on him. I merely said that neither of us would ever connive at harming Philippe, and we had better stop talking nonsense and find the pair of them, or there might be a scandal he'd find it hard to get out of. I thought that Linda might have tried to get in touch with me in Paris, and rang up there and then in front of him, but there hadn't been a call. I left a message with the concierge in case Linda rang up later, but I'd been so sure she'd ring me up that I thought my father had lied about their escape from Valmy, and that something had happened to them, so-oh well, never mind that now. I knew I was wrong almost straight away, because Bernard-you know his man? – came in. Apparently he'd been out looking for them. He got a bit of a surprise to see me, and I lost no time in making it very plain that it was in his best interest to find Linda and Philippe quickly. I thought they might have gone for help to the Englishman who works over on Dieudonné-I'd discovered that Linda knew him, and was glad she had at least one friend in the district. I rang up the Coq Hardi at Soubirous, where he sleeps sometimes, but he'd already gone out, and he wasn't expected back till dinnertime. I told Bernard to go up to the hut where the Englishman keeps his things, but he said he'd been already and they weren't there. He told me where else he'd been. I sent him out again with instructions to report to me, and some sort of plan of search, the best I could devise, with the little I knew… well, none of this matters now. He knew very well he'd better play in with me, and play safe. When he'd gone I told my father again, quite plainly, that if any harm came to those two even if looked like the most obvious accident in the world, I would kill him. Then I went out with the car." His voice was suddenly flat and very tired. "That's all."

I sat still, looking down at my feet. That was all. Only sixteen more hours spent combing the valleys, ringing up Paris making carefully casual inquiries (I found later) of the Consulate, the hospitals, the police…

One or two things became plain: first, that Léon de Valmy had had no idea that the convenient rumour of my engagement was, in fact, true: second, that Raoul knew nothing of the final hurried poison-plot, and was unaware that Léon de Valmy had ever had any positive intention of harming me; Bernard, coming in on the interview, must have realised immediately that his master's guns were spiked; somehow, Léon de Valmy had tipped him the wink that the hunt must be called off, and from then on the man had, perforce, co-operated with Raoul in his search. Whether or not I had been right about our danger last night in the woods, we had been safe since early this morning… since Raoul had come home. Because of Raoul, the dogs had been called off. We had been quite safe all day, because of Raoul. I sat very still, watching my feet.

The silence was drawing out. I heard the lustres quiver like the music of a ghostly spinet. I looked down the length of the lovely dead room towards the group by the fireplace.

Both men were watching the woman in the chair.

She was sitting very still, but her stillness wasn't even a travesty of the poise I knew. The delicate flower had wilted to pulp. She lay back in her chair as if she had no bones, and her hands were motionless at last on the shredded silk of the chair-arms. Her pale eyes were fully open now; they moved from Raoul's face to Hippolyte's, painfully. There was no need for her to speak. It was all written in her face, even, I thought, a dreadful kind of relief that now it had all been said.

The door opened and Philippe came in. He was carrying a steaming cup of bouillon very carefully between his hands. He brought it to me and held it out. "This is for you. You had an ordeal too."

I said: "Oh, Philippe…" and then my voice broke shamefully. But he didn't appear to notice this. He was looking at Héloïse, silent and slack in her chair. He said doubtfully: "Aunt Héloïse, would you like some too?"

That did it. She began to cry, on a thin dry note that was quite horrible to listen to.

I leaned forward, kissed Philippe's cheek, and said quickly: “Thank you, p'tit, but Aunt Héloïse isn't well. Better just run along. Goodnight now. Sleep well."

He gave one wondering look, and went obediently.

Héloïse didn't put her hands to her face. She lay back in her chair and sobbed tearlessly on that dreadful, jerky note. Hippolyte de Valmy, now as grey-faced as she, watched her helplessly, touching a handkerchief to his lips with an unsteady hand. Then, after a few moment's hesitation, he moved to a chair beside her, took one of her unresisting hands and began, rather feebly, to pat it. He was murmuring something through her sobs, but the uncertain comfort had no effect.

Raoul stood apart from the two of them, silent, and with the shutters still down over his face. He didn't look at me.

I believe I opened my lips to say something to him, but at that moment Héloïse began at last to speak. Her voice was terrible, thin and shaken and breathless.

She said: "It's true, yes, it's true what he says, Hippolyte. He made Léon tell him… there was a scene… dreadful things… he had no right…" She turned suddenly towards him and her free hand closed over his, clutching at him. "But I'm glad you know, Hippolyte. You'll get us out of it, won't you? You'll see there's nothing said? You won't take it further? It's not a police matter! You heard what Raoul told you-it's only in the family! That's it, it's only in the family! Bernard won't dare speak, and Raoul can't say anything; how can he? Léon's his father, isn't he? Surely that means something?" She shook his arm, leaning nearer, her voice hurrying and breathless: "You can't let it all come out, you know that! You can't do that to Léon, you and Raoul! There's no harm done… the boy's safe and the girl's all right. Don't look like that, Raoul. You know you can put it right between you if you want to! The Martin girl's in love with you; she'll keep her mouth shut, and-“

"Héloïse, please!” This, sharply, from Hippolyte. He had freed himself and moved slightly away from her. He was looking at her almost as if he'd never seen her before. "You say it's all true? You did know of it? You?"

She had sunk back in her chair. She swallowed another of those sharp convulsive sobs and moved her head to and fro against the chair-back. "Yes, yes, yes. Everything he told you. I'll admit everything, if only you'll help.” Something in his tone and look must have got through to her here, for her voice changed: "I-I'm not wicked, Hippolyte, you know that. I didn't want to hurt Philippe; but-well, it was for Léon's sake, I did it for Léon." She met his stony look and added sharply: "You know as well as I do that Valmy should be his. Surely he has the best right to it? It's his home. You know that. Why, you've said so yourself! And he's not like other men. You know that, too; you should realise he's not like other people. He should have had Valmy. He should! He'd had enough to bear without being turned out of his home!"

Her brother-in-law moved uncomfortably. "I cannot see that Léon would be grateful for this special pleading, Héloïse. And at the moment it's beside the point. What we're discussing is a good deal more serious. Attempted murder. Of a child."

"Yes, yes, I know. It was wrong. It was wrong. I admit that. But it didn't happen, did it? There's no harm done, Raoul said that himself! That doesn't have to be taken any further! Oh, you'll have to talk to Léon about it, I can see that, but you'll see he stays on at Valmy, won't you? There's no reason why he shouldn't! People are talking, but it'll soon be forgotten if you stand by us and don't bring things into the open. And I know you won't! You know how Léon feels! You'll see he keeps Valmy, won't you? He should have talked to you before- I wanted him to, instead of trying to arrange things this way. I was sure you'd see his point of view, and you do, don't you? I'm sure there's some way things can be fixed! You can come to some arrangement, can't you? Can't you?"

He started to say something, then bit it back, saying instead, calmly enough: "It's no use discussing it any more here. This is getting us nowhere. Héloïse-"

“Only promise me you won't take it to the police!"

"I can't promise anything. All I can say is that we'll try and compromise between what's right and what's best."

She seemed not to be listening. Something had broken in her, and now she couldn't stop. She was out of control; her hands and lips were shaking. The pleading voice poured on, admitting with every desperate syllable what must never-even in her mind -have been in words before.

"It'll kill him to go to Bellevigne! And all our money's in Valmy! We looked after Valmy, you can't say that we didn't! Every penny went into the estate! You can't say he was a bad trustee!"

"No," said Hippolyte.

She didn't even notice the irony. The dreadful single-mindedness she showed was ample explanation of how Léon had persuaded her to help him against what better instincts she must have possessed. She swept on: "It was for Léon's sake! Why shouldn't he get something-just this thing-out of life? Valmy was his! You know it was! Étienne had no right to do this to him, no right at all! That child should never have been born!"

Raoul said suddenly, as if the words were shaken out of him: "God pity you, Héloïse, you've begun to think like him."

This stopped her. She turned her head quickly towards him. I couldn't see her eyes, but her hands clenched themselves on the arms of the chair. Her voice went low and breathless: "You," she said, "you. You always hated him, didn't you?"

He didn't answer. He had taken out another cigarette and was making rather a business of lighting it.

"He's your father," she said. "Doesn't that make any difference? Can you stand by and see him ruined? Doesn't it mean anything to you that he's your father?"

Raoul didn't speak. For all the expression on his face he mightn't even have been listening. But I saw his brows twitch together as the match burned him.

Suddenly her hands hammered the chair-arms. She shouted at him: "Damn you, are you condemning your own father?" Even the vestiges of common self-control had gone; her voice rose to the edge of hysteria. "You to stand there and call him a murderer! You who have everything, everything, and he a cripple with nothing to call his own but that ruined relic of a place in the south! You condemn him, you talk fine and large of right and wrong and murder and police, and who's to say what you'd have done if you'd been in his place? How do you know what you'd have been if you'd smashed your car up one fine day on the zigzag and cracked your spine and two lives along with it? Yes, two! Would she have looked at you then? Ah yes, it only takes one look from you now, doesn't it, but would she? Would she have stayed with you and loved you the way I've loved him all these years and done for you what I've done for him-and glad to, mind that, glad to? Oh, no, not you!" She stopped and drew a long, shivering breath. "Oh, God, he's a better man with half a body than you'll ever be, Raoul de

Valmy! You don't know… oh dear God, how can you know…?”

Then she put her hands to her face and began to weep.

Quite suddenly, the scene was unbearable. And I didn't belong in this anywhere any more. I stood up abruptly.

It was at this moment that the door went back with a slam against the silk-panelled wall, and William Blake came in with a rush like an angry bear.