Spinsters in Jeopardy

Chapter X Thunder in the Air

i

Alleyn left word at the office that he might be late coming in and said that unless he himself rang up no telephone calls were to be put through to Troy. Anybody who rang was to be asked to leave a message. It was nine o’clock.

The porter opened the doors and Alleyn ran down the steps to Raoul’s car. There was another car drawn up beside it, a long and stylish racing model with a G.B. plate. The driver leaned out and said cautiously: “Hallo, sir.”

It was Robin Herrington.

“Hullo,” Alleyn said.

“I’m on my way back actually, from Douceville. As a matter of fact I was just coming in on the chance of having a word with you,” Herrington said rapidly, and in a muted voice. “I’m sorry you’re going out. I mean, I don’t suppose you could give me five minutes. Sorry not to get out, but as a matter of fact I sort of thought — It wouldn’t take long. Perhaps I could drive you to wherever you’re going and then I wouldn’t waste your time. Sort of.”

“Thank you, I’ve got a car but I’ll give you five minutes with pleasure. Shall I join you?”

“Frightfully nice of you, sir. Yes, please do.”

Alleyn walked round and climbed in.

“It won’t take five minutes,” Herrington said nervously and was then silent.

“How,” Alleyn asked after waiting for some moments, “is Miss Truebody?” Robin shuffled his feet. “Pretty bad,” he said. “She was when I left. Pretty bad, actually.”

Alleyn waited again and was suddenly offered a drink. His companion opened a door and a miniature cocktail cabinet lit itself up.

“No, thank you,” Alleyn said. “What’s up?”

“I will, if you don’t mind. A very small one.” He gave himself atot of neat brandy and swallowed half of it. “It’s about Ginny,” he said.

“Oh!”

“As a matter of fact, I’m rather worried about her, which may sound a bit funny.”

“Not very.”

“Oh. Well, you see, she’s so terrifyingly young, Ginny. She’s only nineteen. And, as a matter of fact, I don’t think this is a madly appropriate setting for her.” Alleyn was silent and after a further pause Robin went on, “I don’t know if you’ve any idea what sort of background Ginny’s got. Her people were killed when she was a kid. In the blitz. She was trapped with them and hauled out somehow, which rocked her a good deal at the time and actually hasn’t exactly worn off even now. She’s rather been nobody’s baby. Her guardian’s a pretty odd old number. More interested in marmosets and miniatures than children, really. He’s her great uncle.”

“You don’t mean Mr. Penderby Locke?” Alleyn said, recognizing this unusual combination of hobbies.

“Yes, that’s right. He’s quite famous on his own pitch, I understand, but he couldn’t have been less interested in Ginny.”

“Then — Miss Taylor is related to Miss Grizel Locke who, I think, is Penderby Locke’s sister, isn’t she?”

“Is she? I don’t know. Yes, I think she must be,” Robin said, shooting out the words quickly and hurrying on. “The thing is, Ginny just sort of grew up rather much under her own steam. She was sent to a French family and they weren’t much cop, I gather, and then she came back to England and somebody brought her out and she got in with a pretty vivid set and had a miserable love affair with a poor type of chap and felt life wasn’t as gay as it’s cracked up to be. And this affair busted up when they were staying with some of his chums at Cannes and Ginny lelt what was the good of anything anyway, and I must say I know what that’s like.”

“"She arrived at this philosophy in Cannes?”

“Yes. And she met Baradi and Oberon there. And I was there too, as it happened,” said Robin with a change of voice. “So we were both asked to come on here. About a fortnight ago.”

“I see. And then?”

“Well, it’s a dimmish sort of thing to talk about one’s hosts, but I don’t think it was a particularly good thing, her coming. I mean it’s all right for oneself.”

“Is it?”

“Well, I don’t know. Just to do once and — and perhaps not do again. Quite amusing, really,” said Robin miserably. “I mean, I’m not madly zealous about being a Child of the Sun. I just thought it might be fun. Of a sort. I mean, one knows one’s way about.”

“One would, I should think, need to.”

“Ginny doesn’t,” Robin said.

“No?”

“She thinks she does, poor sweet, but actually she hasn’t a clue when it comes to — well, to this sort of party, you know.”

“What sort of party?”

Robin pushed his glass back and shut the cupboard with a bang. “You saw, didn’t you, sir?”

“I believe Dr. Baradi is a very good surgeon. I only met the others for a few moments, you know.”

“Yes, but — well, you know Annabella Wells, don’t you? She said so.”

“We crossed the Atlantic in the same ship. There were some five hundred other passengers.”

“I’d have thought she’d have shown up if there’d been five million,” Robin said with feeling. Alleyn glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry, I’m not exactly pressing ahead with this,” Robin said.

“Don’t you think you’d better tell me what you want me to do?”

“It sounds so odd. Mrs. Alleyn will think it such cheek.”

“Troy? How can it concern her?”

“I — well, I was wondering if Mrs. Alleyn would ask Ginny to dinner tomorrow night.”

“Why tomorrow night, particularly?”

Robin muttered: “There’s going to be a sort of party up there. I’d rather Ginny was out of it.”

“Would she be rather out of it?”

“Hell!” Robin shouted. “She would if she were herself. My God, she would!”

“And what exactly,” Alleyn asked, “do you mean by that?”

Robin hit the wheel of his car with his clenched fist and said almost inaudibly: “He’s got hold of her. Oberon. She thinks he’s the bottom when she’s not — it’s just one of those bloody things.”

“Well,” Alleyn said, “we’d be delighted if Miss Taylor would dine with us but don’t you think she’ll find the invitation rather odd? After all, we’ve scarcely met her. She’ll probably refuse.”

“I’d thought of that,” Robin said eagerly. “I know. But I thought if I could get her to come for a run in the car, I’d suggest we called on Mrs. Alleyn. Ginny liked Mrs. Alleyn awfully. And you, sir, if I may say so. Ginny’s interested in art and all that and she was quite thrilled when she knew Mrs. Alleyn was Agatha Troy. So I thought if we might we could call about cocktail time and I’d say I’d got to go somewhere to see about something for the yacht or something and then I could ring up from somewhere and say I’d broken down.”

“She would then take a taxi back to the Chèvre d’Argent.”

Robin gulped. “Yes, I know,” he said. “But’well, I thought perhaps by that time Mrs. Allen might have sort of talked to her and got her to see. Sort of.”

“But why doesn’t Miss Locke talk to her? Surely, as her aunt — What’s the matter?”

Robin had made a violent ejaculation. He mumbled incoherently: “Not that sort. I’ve told you. They didn’t care about Ginny.”

Alleyn was silent for a minute.

“I know it’s a hell of a lot to ask,” Robin said desperately.

“I think it is,” Alleyn said, “when you are so obviously leaving most of the facts out of your story.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You are asking us to behave in a difficult and extremely odd manner. You want us, in effect, to kidnap Miss Taylor. We have had,” Alleyn said, “our bellyful of kidnapping, this afternoon. I suppose you heard about Ricky.”

Robin made an inarticulate noise that sounded rather like a groan. “I know. Yes. We did hear. I’m awfully sorry. It must be terribly worrying.”

“And how,” Alleyn asked, “did you hear about it?” and would have given a good deal to have had a clear view of Robin’s face.

“Well, I — well, we rang up the hotel this afternoon.”

“I thought you said you had been to Douceville all the afternoon.”

“Hell!”

“I think you must have known much earlier that Ricky was kidnapped, didn’t you?”

“Look here, sir, I don’t know what to say.”

“I’ll tell you. If you want me to help you with this child, Ginny, and I believe you do, you will answer, fully and truthfully, specific questions that I shall put to you. If you don’t want to answer, we’ll say goodnight and forget we had this conversation. But don’t lie. I shall know,” Alley said mildly, “if you lie.”

Robin waited fora moment and then said: “Please go ahead.”

“Right. What precisely do you expect to happen at this party?”

A car came down the square. Its headlights shone momentarily on Robin’s face. It looked very young and frightened, like the face of a sixth-form boy in serious trouble with his tutor. The car turned and they were in the dark again.

Robin said: “It’s a regular thing. They have it on Thursday nights. It’s a sort of cult. They call it the Rites of the Children of the Sun in the Outer and Oberon’s the sort of high priest. You have to swear not to talk about it. I’ve sworn. I can’t talk. But it ends pretty hectically. And tomorrow Ginny — I’ve heard them — Ginny’s cast for — the leading part.”

“And beforehand?”

“Well — it’s different from ordinary nights. There’s no dinner. We go to our rooms until the Rites begin at eleven. We’re meant not to speak to each other or anything.”

“Oh, there are drinks. And so on.”

“What does ‘so on’ mean?” Robin was silent. “Do you take drugs? Reefers? Snow?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Come on. Which is it?”

“Reefers mostly. There’s food when we smoke. There has to be. I don’t know if they are the usual kind. Oberon doesn’t smoke. I don’t think Baradi does.”

“Are they traffickers?”

“I don’t know much about them.”

“Do you know that much?”

“I should think they might be.”

“Have they asked you to take a hand?”

“Look,” Robin said, “I’m sorry but I’ve got to say it. I don’t know much about you either, sir. I mean, I don’t know that you won’t—” He had turned his head and Alleyn knew he was peering at him.

“Inform the police?” Alleyn suggested.

“Well — you might.”

“Come: you don’t, as you say, know me. Yet you’ve elected to ask me to rescue this wretched child from the clutches of your friends. You can’t have it both ways.”

“You don’t know,” Robin said. “You don’t know how tricky it all is. If they thought I’d talked to you!”

“What would they do?”

“Nothing!” Robin cried in a hurry. “Nothing! Only I’ve accepted, as one says, their hospitality.”

“You have got your values muddled, haven’t you?”

“Have I? I daresay I have.”

“Tell me this. Has anything happened recently — I mean within the last twenty-four hours — to precipitate the situation?”

Robin said: “Who are you?”

“My dear chap, I don’t need to be a thought-reader to see there’s a certain urgency behind all this preamble.”

“I suppose not. I’m sorry. I’m afraid I can’t answer any more questions. Only — only, for God’s sake, sir, will you do something about Ginny?”

“I’ll make a bargain with you. I gather that you want to remove the child without giving a previous warning to the house party.”

“That’s it, sir. Yes.”

“All right. Can you persuade her, in fact, to drive into Roqueville at six o’clock?”

“I don’t know. I was gambling on it. If he’s not about, I might. She — I think she is quite fond of me,” Robin said humbly, “when he’s not there to bitch it all up.”

“Failing a drive, could you get her to walk down to the car park?”

“I might do that. She wants to buy one of old Marie’s silver goats.”

“Would it help to tell her we had rung up and asked if she would choose a set of the figures for Ricky? Aren’t there groups of them for Christmas? Cribs?”

“That might work. She’d like to do that.”

“All right. Have your car waiting and get her to walk on to the park. Suggest you drive down to our hotel with the figures.”

“You know, sir, I believe that’d do it.”

“Good. Having got her in the car it’s up to you to keep her away from the Château. Take her to see Troy by all means. But I doubt if you’ll get her to stay to dinner. You may have to stage a breakdown on a lonely road. I don’t know. Use your initiative. Block up the air vent in your petrol cap. One thing more. Baradi, or someone, said something about a uniform of sorts that you all wear on occasion.”

“That’s right. It’s called the mantle of the sun. We wear them about the house and — and always on Thursday nights.”

“Is it the white thing Oberon had on this morning?”

“Yes. A sort of glorified monk’s affair with a hood.”

“Could you bring two of them with you?”

Robin turned his head and peered at Alleyn in astonishment. “I suppose I could.”

“Put them in your car during the day.”

“I don’t see—”

“I’m sure you don’t. Two of your own will do, if you have two. You needn’t worry about bringing Miss Taylor’s gown specifically.”

“Hers!” Robin cried out. “Bring hers! But that’s the whole thing! Tomorrow night they’ll make Ginny wear the Black Robe.”

“Then you must bring a black robe,” Alleyn said.

ii

On Thursday evening the Côte d’Azur, inclined always to the theatrical, became melodramatic and, true to the weather report, staged a thunderstorm.

“It’s going to rain,” a voice croaked from the balustrade of the Chèvre d’Argent. “Listen! Thunder!”

Far to southward the heavens muttered an affirmative.

Carbury Glande looked at the brilliantly-clad figure perched, knees to chin, on the balustrade. It mingled with a hanging swag of bougainvillea. “One sees a voice rather than a person. You look like some fabulous bird, dear Sati,” he said. “If I didn’t feel so ghastly I’d like to paint you.”

“Rumble, mumble, jumble and clatter,” said the other, absorbed in delighted anticipation. “And then the rains. That’s the way it goes.” She pursed her lips out and, drawing in air with the smoke, took a long puff at an attenuated cigarette.

Baradi walked over to her and removed the cigarette. “Against the rules,” he said. “Everything in its appointed time. You’re over-excited.” He threw the cigarette away and returned to his chair.

A whiteness flickered above the horizon and was followed after a pause by a tinny rattle.

“We do this sort of thing much better at the Comédie Française,” Annabella Wells paraphrased, twisting her mouth in self-contempt.

Baradi leaned forward until his nose was placed in surrealistic association with her ear. Beneath the nose his moustache shifted as if it had a life of its own and beneath the moustache his lips pouted and writhed in almost soundless articulation. Annabella Wells’s expression did not change. She nodded slightly. His face hung for a moment above her neck and then he leaned back in his chair.

Above the blacked Mediterranean the sky splintered with forked lightning.

“One. Two. Three. Four,” the hoarse voice counted to an accompaniment of clapping hands. The other guests ejaculated under a canopy of thunder.

“You always have to count,” the voice explained when it could be heard again.

“The thing I really hate,” Ginny Taylor said rapidly, “is not the thunder or lightning but the pauses between bouts. Like this one.”

“Come indoors,” Robin Herrington said. “You don’t have to stay out here.”

“It’s a kind of dare I have with myself.”

“Learning to be brave?” Annabella Wells asked with a curious inflexion in her voice.

“Ginny will have the courage of a lioness,” said Baradi, “and the fire of a phoenix.”

Annabella got up with an abrupt expert movement and walked over to the balustrade. Baradi followed her. Ginny pushed her hair back from her forehead and looked quickly at Robin and away again. He moved nearer to her. She turned away to the far end of the roof-garden. Robin hovered uncertainly. The other four guests had drawn closer together. Carbury Glande half-closed his eyes and peered at the cloud-blocked sky and dismal sea. “Gloriously ominous,” he said, “and quite un-paintable. Which is such a good thing.”

The pause was not really one of silence. It was dramatized by minor noises, themselves uncannily portentous. Mr. Oberon’s canary, for instance, hopped scratchily from cage-floor to perch and back again. A cicada had forgotten to stop chirruping in the motionless cactus slopes that Mr. Oberon called his jardin exotique. Down in the servants’ quarters a woman laughed, and many kilometres away, towards Douceville, a train shrieked effeminately. Still, beside the threat of thunder, these desultory sounds added up to silence.

Glande, with an eye on Ginny, muttered: “I damned well think we need something. After all—” He swallowed. “After everything. It’s nervy work waiting.” His voice shot up into falsetto. “I don’t pretend to be phlegmatic. I’m a bloody artist, I am.”

Baradi said: “Keep your voice down. You certainly have a flair for the appropriate adjective,” and laughed softly.

Glande fingered his lips and stared at Baradi. “How you can!” he whispered.

Annabella, looking out to sea, said: “Keep your hand to the plough, Carbury dear. You’ve put it there. No looking back.”

“I’m on your side,” announced the voice from the balustrade. “Look what I am doing for you all.”

From her remote station Ginny said: “I can’t stand this.”

“Well, don’t,” Robin said quietly. “Old Marie asked me to tell you there’s only one of the big silver goats left. Why not dodge down before the rain and get it? In the passage you won’t see if there’s lightning. Come on.”

Ginny looked at Baradi. He caught her glance and walked across to her. “What is it?” he said.

“I thought I might go to old Marie’s shop,” Ginny said. “It’s away from the storm.”

“Why not?” he said. “What a good idea.”

“I thought I might,” Ginny repeated doubtfully.

For a split second lightning wrote itself across the sky in livid calligraphy. The voice on the balustrade had counted two when the heavens crashed together in a monstrous report. Ginny’s mouth was wide open. She ran into the tower and Robin followed her.

The initial clap was succeeded by a prolonged rattle and an ambiguous omnipotent muttering. Above this rumpus Glande could be heard saying: “What I mean to say: do we know we can trust them? After all, they’re comparative strangers and I must say I don’t like the boy’s manner.”

Baradi, who was watching Annabella Wells, said: “There’s no need to disturb yourself on their account. Robin is much too heavily involved and as for Ginny, can we not leave her safely to Ra? In any case, she knows nothing.”

“The boy does. He might blurt out something to those other two — Troy and her bloody high-hat husband.”

“If Mr. and Mrs. Allen should arrive there need be no meeting.”

“How do you know they don’t suspect something already?”

“I have told you. The girl Teresa reports that having recovered the boy, they have retired to their hotel in high glee.”

“There was a bungle over the kid. There might be another bungle. Suppose Allen hangs about like he did last time asking damn-fool esoteric questions?”

“They were not as silly as you think, my dear Carbury. The man is an intelligent man. He behaved intelligently during the operation. He would make a good anaesthetist.”

“Well — there you are!”

“Please don’t panic. He is both intelligent and inquisitive. That is why we thought it better to remove him, if possible, to St. Céleste, until the Truebody has been disposed of.” Baradi’s teeth gleamed under his moustache.

“I can see no cause for amusement.”

“Can you not? You must cultivate a taste for irony. Annabella,” Baradi continued, looking at her motionless figure against the steel-dark sky, “Annabella tells us that Mr. Allen, as far as she knows, is the person he appears to be: a dilettante with a taste for mysticism, curious literature and big-game hunting. The latter, I may add, in the generally accepted sense of the expression.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Glande cried out. The voice from the balustrade broke into undisciplined laughter. “Shut up!” he shouted. “Shut up, Sati! You of all people to laugh. It’s so damned undignified. Remember who you are!”

“Yes, Grizel dear,” Annabella Wells said, “pray do remember that.”

It had grown so dark that the lightning darted white on their faces. They saw one another momentarily as if by a flash-lamp, each wearing a look of fixity. The thunder-clap followed at once. One might have imagined the heavens had burst outward like a gas-filled cylinder.

Mr. Oberon, wearing his hooded gown, stepped out of the tower door and contemplated his followers.

“Cher maître,” shouted Baradi, waving his hand, “you come most carefully upon your hour. What an entrance! Superb!”

The volley rolled away into silence. Mr. Oberon moved forward and, really as if he had induced it, rain struck down in an abrupt deluge.

“You will get wet, dear Sati,” said Mr. Oberon.

Glande said: “What’s happened?”

They all drew near to Mr. Oberon. The rain made a frightful din, pelting like bullets on water and earth and stone and on the canvas awning above their heads. Landscape and seascape were alive with its noise. The four guests, with the anxious air of people who are hard-of-hearing, inclined their heads towards their host.

“What’s happened?” Glande repeated, but with a subdued and more deferential manner.

“All is well. It is arranged for tomorrow afternoon. An Anglican ceremony,” said Oberon, smiling slightly. “I have spoken to the — should I call him priest? I was obliged to call on him. The telephone is still out of order. He is a dull man but very obliging. A private funeral, of course.”

“But the other business-the permit or whatever it is?”

“I’ve already explained,” Baradi cut in irritably, “that my authority as a medical man is perfectly adequate. The appropriate official will be happy to receive me tomorrow when the necessary formalities will be completed.”

“Poor old Truebody,” said Annabella Wells.

“The name is, by the way, to be Halebory. Pronounced Harber. So English.”

“They’ll want to see the passport,” Glande said instantly.

“They shall see it. It has received expert attention.”

“Sati,” said Mr. Oberon gently, “you have been smoking, I think.”

“Dearest Ra, only the least puff.”

“Yet, there is our rule. Not until tonight.”

“I was upset. It’s so difficult. Please forgive me. Please.”

Mr. Oberon looked blankly at her. “You will go to your room and make an exercise. The exercise of the Name. You will light your candle and looking at the flame without blinking you will repeat one hundred times: ‘I am Sati who am Grizel Locke!’ Then you will remain without moving until it is time for the Rites. So.”

She touched her forehead and lips and chest with a jerky movement of her hand and went at once.

“Where is Ginny?” Mr. Oberon asked.

“She was nervous,” said Baradi. “The storm upset her. She went down to the shop where one buys those rather vulgar figurines.”

“And Robin?”

“He went with her,” said Annabella loudly.

Mr. Oberon’s mouth parted to show his teeth. “She must rest,” he said. “You are, of course, all very careful to say nothing of an agitating nature in front of her. She knows the lady has died as the result of a perforated appendix. Unfortunately it was unavoidable that she should be told so much. There must be no further disturbance. When she returns send her to her room. It is the time of meditation. She is to remain in her room until it is time for the Rites. There she will find the gift of enlightenment.”

He moved to the tower door. The rain drummed on the awning above their heads but they heard him repeat: “She must rest,” before he went indoors.

iii

Old Marie’s shop was a cave sunk in the face of the hill and protected at its open end by the Chèvre d’Argent, which at this point straddled the passage. Ginny and Robin were thus hidden from the lightning and even the thunder sounded less formidable in there. The walls of the cave had been hewn out in shelves and on these stood Marie’s figurines. She herself sat at a table over an oil lamp and wheezed out praises of her wares.

“She’s got lots of goats,” Ginny pointed out, speaking English.

“Cunning old cup-of-tea,” Robin said. “Thought you needed gingering up, I suppose. By the way,” he added, “Miss Troy or Mrs. Allen or whatever she should be called, wanted a set of nativity figures — don’t you call it a crib? — for the little boy. Marie wasn’t here when they left yesterday. I promised I’d get one and take it down this afternoon. How awful! I entirely forgot.”

“Robin! How could you! And they’ll want it more than ever after losing him like that.”

“She thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind choosing one.”

“Of course I will,” Ginny said, and began to inspect the groups of naïve little figures.

Old Marie shouted: “Look, Mademoiselle, the Holy Child illuminates himself. And the beasts! One would say the she-ass almost burst herself with good milk. And the lamb is infinitely touching. And the ridiculous price! I cannot bring myself to charge more. It is an act of piety on my part.”

Robin bought a large silver goat and Ginny bought the grandest of the cribs. “Let’s take it down now,” he said. “The storm’s nearly over, I’m sure, and the car’s out. It’d save my conscience. Do come, Ginny.”

She raised her troubled face and looked at him. “I don’t know,” she said, “I suppose — I don’t know.”

“We shan’t be half-an-hour. Come on.”

He took her by the arm and hurried her into the passage-way. They ran into a world of rain, Ginny protesting and Robin shouting encouragement. With the help of his stick he broke into quite a lively sort of canter. “Do be careful!” Ginny cried. “Your dot-and-go-one leg!”

“Dot-and-go-run, you mean. Come on.”

Their faces streamed with cool water and they laughed without cause.

“It’s better out here,” Robin said. “Isn’t it, Ginny?”

The car stood out on the platform like a rock in a waterfall. He bundled her into it. “You look like — you look as you’re meant to look,” he said. “It’s better outside. Say it’s better, Ginny.”

“I don’t know what’s come over you,” Ginny said, pressing her hands to her rain-blinded face.

“I’ve got out. We’ve both got out.” He scrambled in beside her and peered into the trough behind the driver’s seat. “What are you doing?” Ginny asked hysterically. “What’s happened? We’ve gone mad. What are you looking for?”

“Nothing. A parcel for my tailor. It’s gone. Who cares! Away we go.”

He started up his engine. Water splashed up like wings on either side and cascaded across the windscreen. They roared down the steep incline and turned left above the tunnel and over the high headland, on the road to Roqueville.

High up in the hills on their vantage point in the factory road, Alleyn and Raoul waited in Raoul’s car.

“In five minutes,” Alleyn said, “it will be dark.”

“I shall still know the car, Monsieur.”

“And I. The rain’s lifting a little.”

“It will stop before the light goes, I think.”

“How tall are you, Raoul?”

“One mètre, sixty, Monsieur.”

“About five foot eight,” Alleyn muttered, “and the girl’s tall. It ought to be all right. Where was the car exactly?”

“Standing out on the platform, Monsieur. The parcel was in the trough behind the driver’s seat.”

“He’s stuck to his word so far, at least. Where did you put the note?”

“On the driver’s seat, Monsieur. He could not fail to see it.”

But Robin, driving in a state of strange exhilaration towards Roqueville, sat on the disregarded note and wondered if it was by accident or intention that Ginny leaned a little towards him.

“It will be fine on the other side of the hill,” he shouted. “What do you bet?”

“It couldn’t be.”

“You’ll see. You’ll see. You’ll jolly well see.”

“Robin, what has come over you?”

“I’ll tell you when we get to Roqueville. There you are! What did I say?”

They drove down the mountain-side into a translucent dusk, rain-washed and fragrant.

“There they go,” Alleyn said and turned his field glasses on the tiny car. “She’s with him. He’s brought it off. So far.”

“And now, Monsieur?”

Alleyn watched the car diminish. Just before it turned the point of a distant headland, Robin switched on his lamps. Alleyn lowered the glasses. “It is almost lighting-up time, Raoul. We wait a little longer. They turned as if by a shared consent and looked to the west where, above and beyond the tunnelled hill, the turrets of the Chèvre d’Argent stood black against a darkling sky.

Presently, out on Cap St. Gilles pricks of yellow began to appear. The window of a cottage in the valley showed red. Behind them the factory presented a dark front to the dusk, but higher up in its folded hills the monastery of Our Lady of Paysdoux was alive with glowing lights.

“They are late with their lamps at the Chèvre d’Argent,” said Raoul.

“Which is not surprising,” Alleyn rejoined. “Seeing that Monsieur le Commissaire has arranged that their electrical service is disconnected. The thunderstorm will have lent a happy note of credibility to the occurrence. The telephone also is still disconnected.” He used his field glasses. “Yes,” he said, “they are lighting candles. Start up your engine, Raoul. It is time to be off.”

iv

“You disturb yourself without cause,” Baradi said. “She is buying herself a silver goat. Why not? It is a good omen.”

“Already she’s been away half-an-hour.”

“She had gone for a walk, no doubt.”

“With him.”

“Again, why not? The infatuation is entirely on one side. Let it alone.”

“I am unusually interested and therefore nervous,” said Mr. Oberon. “It means more to me, this time, than ever before and besides the whole circumstance is extraordinary. The mystic association. The blood-sacrifice and then, while the victim is still here, the other, the living sacrifice. It is unique.”

Baradi looked at him with curiosity. “Tell me,” he said, “how much of all this”—he made a comprehensive gesture —“means anything to you? I mean I can understand the, what shall I call it, the factual pleasure. That is a great deal. I envy you your flair. But the esoteric window-dressing — is it possible that for you—?” He paused. Mr. Oberon’s face was as empty as a mask. He touched his lips with the tip of his tongue.

He said: “Wherein, if not in my belief, do you suppose the secret of my flair is to be found? I am what I am and I go back to beyond the dawn. I was the King of the Wood.”

Baradi examined his own shapely hands. “Ah, yes?” he said politely. “A fascinating theory.”

“You think me a poseur?”

“No, no. On the contrary. It is only as a practical man I am concerned with the hazards of the situation. You, I gather, though you have every cause, are not at all anxious on that account? The Truebody situation, I mean?”

“I find it immeasurably stimulating.”

“Indeed,” said Baradi drily.

“Only the absence of the girl disturbs me. It is almost dark. Turn on the light.”

Baradi reached out his hand to the switch. There was a click.

“No lights, it seems,” he said and opened the door. “No lights anywhere. There must be a fuse.”

“How can she be walking in the dark? And with a cripple like Robin? It is preposterous.”

“The British do these things.”

“I am British. I have my passport. Telephone the bureau in Roqueville.”

“The telephone is still out of order.”

“We must have light.”

“It may be a fault in the house. The servants will attend to it. One moment.”

He lifted the receiver from Mr. Oberon’s telephone. A voice answered.

“What is the matter with the lights?” Baradi asked.

“We cannot make out. Monsieur. There is no fault here. Perhaps the storm has brought down the lines.”

“Nothing but trouble. And the telephone? Can one telephone yet to Roqueville?”

“No, Monsieur. The centrale sent up a man. The fault is not in the Château. They are investigating. They will ring through when the line is clear.”

“Since yesterday afternoon we have been without the telephone. Unparalleled incompetence!” Baradi ejaculated, “Have Mr. Herrington and Mlle. Taylor returned?”

“I will enquire, Monsieur.”

“Do so, and ring Mr. Oberon’s apartments if they are in.”

He clapped down the receiver. “I am uneasy,” he said. “It has happened at a most tiresome moment. We have only the girl Teresa’s account of the affair at the factory. No doubt she is speaking the truth. Having found the boy, they are satisfied. All the same it is not too amusing, having had the police in the factory.”

“Callard will have handled them with discretion.”

“No doubt. The driver, Georges Martel, however, will be examined by the police.”

“Can he be trusted?”

“He has too much at stake to be anything but dependable. We pay him very highly. Also he has his story. He was rung up by an unknown client purporting to be the boy’s father. He took the job in good faith and merely asked the girl Teresa to accompany him. They know nothing. The police will at once suspect the former kidnappers. Nevertheless, I wish we had not attempted the affair with the boy.”

“One wanted to rid oneself of the parents.”

“Exactly. Of the father. If circumstances were different,” Baradi said softly, “I should not be nearly so interested in ridding myself of Mama. Women!” he ejaculated sententiously.

“Woman!” Mr. Oberon echoed with an inexplicable laugh and added immediately: “All the same I am getting abominably anxious. I don’t trust him. And then, the light! Suppose it doesn’t come on again before the Rites. How shall we manage?”

“Something can be done with car batteries, I think, and a soldering iron. Mahomet is ingenious in such matters. I shall speak to him in a moment.”

Baradi walked over to the window and pulled back the silk blind. “It is quite dark.” The blind shot up with a whirr and click.

“It really is much too quick on the trigger,” he observed.

Mr. Oberon said loudly: “Don’t do that! You exacerbate my nerves. Pull it down. Tie it down.”

And while Baradi busied himself with the blind he added: “I shall send out. My temper is rising and that is dangerous. I must not become angry. If his car his gone I shall send after it.”

“I strongly suggest you do nothing of the sort. It would be an unnecessary and foolish move. She will return. Surely you have not lost your flair.”

Mr. Oberon, in the darkness, said: “You are right. She will return. She must.”

“As for your rising temper,” said Baradi, “you had better subdue it. It is dangerous.”