Spinsters in Jeopardy

Chapter XII Eclipse of the Sun

i

“Then you guessed!” said Miss Garbel, clinging to his hand and shaking it up and down as if it were a sort of talisman. “How did you guess? How did you get here? What’s happening?”

Alleyn said: “We’ve got twenty-five minutes before that damn bell goes. Don’t let’s squander them. I wasn’t sure. Yesterday morning, when you talked like one of your letters, I wondered.”

“I couldn’t let either of you know who I was. Oberon was watching. They all were. I thought the remark about the Douceville bus might catch your attention.”

“I didn’t dare ask outright, of course. Now, tell me. Grizel Locke’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Yes; small hours of yesterday morning. We were told an overdose of self-administered heroin. I think — murdered.”

“Why was she murdered?”

“I think, because she protested about Ginny. Ginny’s her niece. I think she may have threatened them with exposure.”

“Who killed her?”

“I haven’t an idea. Oh, not a notion!”

“What exactly were you told?”

“That if it was found out we’d all be in trouble. That the whole thing would be discovered: the trade in diacetylmorphine, the connection with the factory — have you discovered about the factory? — everything, they said, would come out and we’d all be arrested and the Bristish subjects would be extradited and tried and imprisoned. Then, it appears, you rang up about Miss Truebody. Baradi saw it as a chance to dispose of poor Grizel Locke. She would be buried, you see, and you would be told it was Miss Truebody. Then later on when you were out of the way and Miss Truebody was well, a made-up name would be put over the grave. Baradi said that if anybody could save Miss Truebody’s life, he could. I’m guessing at how much you know. Stop me if I’m not clear. And then you or your wife asked about ‘Cousin Garbel.’ You can imagine how that shocked them! I was there, you see. I’m their liason with the factory. I work at the factory. I’ll tell you why and how if we’ve time. Of course I guessed who you were, but I told them I hadn’t a notion. I said I supposed you must be some unknown people with an introduction or something. They were terribly suspicious. They said I must see you both and find out what you were doing, and why you’d asked about me. Then Baradi said it would be better if I didn’t present myself as me. And then they said I must pretend to be Grizel Locke so that if there was ever an enquiry or trouble, you and Cousin Aggie—”

“Who!” Alleyn ejaculated.

“Your wife, you know. She was called Agatha after my second cousin, once—”

“Yes, yes. Sorry. I call her Troy.”

“Really? Quaint! I’ve formed the habit of thinking of her as Cousin Aggie. Well, the plan was that I’d be introduced to you as Grizel Locke and I should tell them afterwards if I recognized you or knew anything about you. They made me wear Grizel’s clothes and paint my face, in case you’d heard about her or would be asked about her afterwards. And then, tomorrow, after the funeral we are meant to meet again and I’m to say I’m leaving for a trip to Budapest. If possible, you are to see me go. So that if a hue-and-cry goes out for Grizel Locke, you will support the story that she’s left for Hungary. I’m to go as far as Marseilles and stay there until you’re both out of the way. The factory has extensive connections in Marseilles. At the same time we’re to give out that I, as myself, you know, have gone on holiday. How much longer have we got?”

“Twenty-one minutes.”

“I’ve time, at least, to tell you quickly that whatever you’re planning you mustn’t depend too much upon me. You see, I’m one of them.”

“You mean,” Alleyn said, “you’ve formed the habit—?”

“I’m fifty. Sixteen years ago I was a good analytical chemist but terribly poor. They offered me a job on a wonderful salary. Research. They started me off in New York, and after the war they brought me over here. At first I thought it was all right and then gradually I discovered what was happening. They handled me on orthodox lines. A man, very attractive, and parties. I was always plain and he was experienced and charming. He started me on marihuana — reefers, you know — and I’ve never been able to break off. They see to it I get just enough to keep me going. They get me up here and make me nervous and then give me cigarettes. I’m very useful to them. When I smoke I get very silly. I hear myself saying things that fill me with bitter shame. But when I’ve got the craving to smoke and when he’s given me cigarettes, I — well, you’ve seen. It wasn’t all play-acting when I pretended to be Grizel Locke. We all get like that with Oberon. He has a genius for defilement.”

“Why did you write as you did to Troy? I must tell you that we didn’t realize what you were up to until yesterday.”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t. But I daren’t be explicit. Their surveillance is terribly thorough and my letters might have been opened. They weren’t, as turned out, otherwise you would have been recognized as my correspondent. I wrote—”

The voice, half vocal, half whispering, faltered. She pushed back her hood and tilted her tragic-comic face towards Alleyn’s. “I began to write because of the girls like Ginny. You’ve seen me and you’ve seen Annabella Wells — frightful, aren’t we? Grizel Locke was the same. Drug-soaked old horrors. We’re what happens to the Ginnys. And there are lots and lots of Ginnys: bomb-children I call ’em. No moral stamina and no nervous reserve. Parents killed within the child’s memory and experience. Sense of insecurity and impending disaster. The poor ones with jobs have the best chance. But the others — the rich Ginnys — if they run into our sort of set — whoof! And once they’re made Daughters of the Sun it’s the end of them. Too ashamed to look back or up or anywhere but at him. So when I saw in the English papers that my clever kinswoman had married you, I thought: ‘I’ll do it. I haven’t the nerve or self-control to fight on my own but I’ll try and hint.’ So I did. I was a little surprised when Cousin Aggie replied as if to a man, but I did not correct her. Her mistake gave me a foolish sense of security. How long, now?”

“Just over seventeen minutes. Listen! Herrington and Ginny won’t come back tonight. My chauffeur and I are replacing them. Can we get away with it? What happens in the ceremony?”

She had been talking eagerly and quickly, watching him with a bird-like attentiveness. Now it was as if his question touched her with acid. She actually threw up her hands in a self-protective movement and shrank away from him.

“I can’t tell you. I’ve taken an oath of silence.”

“All that dagger and fire and molten lead nonsense?”

“You can’t know! How do you know? Who’s broken faith?”

“Nobody. I hoped you might.”

“Never!”

“A silly gimcrack rigmarole. Based on infamy.”

“It’s no good. I told you. I’m no good.”

“My man’s about Ginny’s height and he’s wearing the black robe. Has he a chance of getting by?”

“Not to the end. Of course not.” She caught her breath in something that might have been a sob or a wretched giggle. “How can you dream of it?”

“Will anybody be asked to take this oath — alone?”

“No — I can tell you nothing — but — he — no. Why are you doing this?”

“We think the ceremony may give us an opportunity for an arrest on a minor charge. Not only that—” Alleyn hesitated. “I feel as you do,” he said hurriedly, “about this wretched child. For one thing she’s English and there’s a double sense of responsibility. At the same time I’m not here to do rescue work, particularly if it prejudices the success of my job. What’s more, if Oberon and Baradi suspect that this child and young Herrington have done a bolt, they’ll also suspect a betrayal. They’ll have the machinery for meeting such a crisis. All evidence of their interest in the racket will be destroyed and they’ll shoot the, moon. Whereas, if, by good luck, we can diddle them into thinking Ginny Taylor and Robin Herrington have returned to their unspeakable fold we may learn enough, here, tonight to warrant an arrest. We can then hold the principals, question the smaller fry and search the whole place.”

“I’m small fry. How do you know I won’t warn them?”

“I’ve heard you plead for Ginny.”

“You’ve told me she’s safe,” whimpered Miss Garbel. She bit her finger-tips and looked at him out of the corner of her pale eyes. “That’s all I wanted. You ask me to bring ruin on myself. I’ve warned you. I’m no good. I’ve no integrity left. In a minute I must smoke and then I’ll be hopeless. You ask too much.”

Alleyn said: “You’re a braver woman than you admit. You’ve tried for months to get me here, knowing that if I succeed your job will be gone and you will have to break yourself of your drug. You risked trying to tip me off yesterday morning and you risked coming to plead with young Herrington here tonight. You’re a woman of science with judgement and curiosity and a proper scepticism. You know, positively, that this silly oath of silence was taken under the influence of your drug, that the threats it carries are meaningless, that it’s your clear duty to abandon it. I think you will believe me when I say that if you keep faith with us tonight you will have our full protection afterwards.”

“You can’t protect me,” she said, “from myself.”

“We can try. Come! Having gone so far, why not all the way?”

“I’m so frightened,” said Miss Garbel. “You can’t think. So dreadfully frightened.”

She clasped her claw-like hands together. Alleyn covered them with his own. “All right,” he said. “Never mind. You’ve done a lot. I won’t ask you to tell me about the rites. Don’t go to the ceremony. Can you send a message?”

“I must go. There must be seven.”

“One for each point of the pentagram, with Oberon and the Black Robe in the middle?”

“Did they tell you? Ginny and Robin? They wouldn’t dare.”

“Call it a guess. Before we separate I’m going to ask you to make one promise tonight. Shall we say for Grizel Locke’s sake? Don’t smoke so much marihuana that you may lose control of yourself and perhaps betray us.”

“I shan’t betray you. I can promise that. I don’t promise not to smoke and I implore you to depend on me for nothing more than this. I won’t give you away.”

“Thank you a thousand times, my dear cousin-by-marriage. Before the night is over I shall ask if I may call you Penelope.”

“Naturally you may. In my bad moments,” said poor Miss Garbel, “I have often cheered myself up by thinking of you both as Cousins Roddy and Aggie.”

“Have you really?” Alleyn murmured and was saved from the the necessity of further comment by the sound of a cascade of bells.

Miss Garbel was thrown into a great state of perturbation by the bells which, to Alleyn, were reminiscent of the dinner chimes that tinkle through the corridors of ocean liners.

“There!” she ejaculated with a sort of wretched triumph. “The Temple bells! And here we are in somebody else’s room and goodness knows what will become of us.”

“I’ll see if the coast’s clear,” Alleyn said. He took up his stick and then opened the door. The smell of incense hung thick on the air. Evidently candles had been lit on the lower landing. The stair-well sank into reflected light through which there rose whorls and spirals of scented smoke. As he watched, a shadow came up from below and the sound of bells grew louder. It was the Egyptian servant. Alleyn watched the distorted image of his tarboosh travel up the curved wall followed by that of his body and of his hands bearing the chime-of bells. Alleyn stood firm, leaning on his stick with his hood over his face. The Egyptian followed his own shadow upstairs, ringing his little carillon. He crossed the landing, made a salutation as he passed Alleyn and continued on his way upstairs.

Alleyn looked back into the room. Miss Garbel stood there, biting her knuckles. He went to her.

“It’s all right,” he said. “You can go down. If you feel very brave and venturesome keep as close as you dare to the Black Robe and if he looks like he’s making a mistake try and stop him. He only speaks French. Now, you’d better go.”

She shook her head two or three times. Then, with an incredible suggestion of conventional leave-taking she began to settle herself inside her robe. She actually held out her hand.

“Goodbye. I’m sorry I’m not a braver woman,” she said.

“You’ve been very brave for a long time and I’m exceedingly grateful,” Alleyn said.

He watched her go and after giving her about thirty seconds, blew out the candle and followed her.

ii

The stairs turned three times about the tower before he came limping to the bottom landing. Here a lighted candelabrum stood near a door: the door he had noticed yesterday morning. Now it was open. The air was dense with the reek of incense so that each candle flame blossomed in a nimbus. His feet sank into the deep carpet and dimly he could make out the door into Oberon’s room and the vista of wall-tapestries, receding into a passage.

Through the open door he saw four separate candlesticks, each with a lighted black candle. This, then, was the ante-room. Alleyn went in. The black velvet walls absorbed light and an incense burner hanging from the ceiling further obscured it. He could make out a partly opened curtain and behind this a rack of hanging robes. He could not be sure he was alone. Limping carefully, he made for the candles and took one up.

Remembering what Teresa had told him, he turned to the right and with his free hand explored the wall. The velvet surface was disagreeable to his touch. He moved along still pressing it and in a moment it yielded. He had found the swing-door into the temple.

There was an unwholesomeness about the silent obedience of the velvet door. It was as if everyday objects had begun to change their values. He followed his hand and walked, as it seemed, through the retreating wall into the temple.

At first he was aware only of two candle flames below the level of his knees and some distance ahead, six glowing braziers. Then he saw a white robe, squatting not far from a candle and then a black robe, near a second flame. He felt the tessellated floor under his feet and, using his stick, tapped his way across. “All the same,” he thought, “young Herrington’s stick is rubbershod.”

By the light of his own candle he made out the shape of the giant pentagram in the mosaic of the floor. It had been let into the pavement and was traced in some substance that acted as a reflector. The five-pointed star was enclosed in a double circle and he saw that at each of the points there was a smaller circle and in this a black cushion and a brazier filled with glowing embers. It was on one of these cushions that the white robe squatted. He drew close to it. A recognizable hand crept out from under the sleeve. It was Miss Garbel’s. He turned to the centre of the pentagram. Raoul was holding his candle under his own face. His hands and arms were gloved in black. He was seated, cross-legged on a black divan and in front of him was a brazier.

Alleyn murmured: “The lady behind you and to your right is not unfriendly. She knows who you are.”

Raoul signalled an assent.

“Depend on me for nothing — nothing,” admonished a ghost-whisper in French and then added in a sort of frenzy, “Not there! Not in the middle. Not yet. Like me. There!”

“Quick, Raoul. There!”

Raoul darted into the point of the pentagram in front of Miss Garbel’s. He put down his candle on the floor and pulled forward his hood.

Alleyn moved to the encircled point opposite Miss Garbel’s. He had seated himself on the cushion before his brazier and had laid down his stick and candle when a light danced across the facets of the pentagram. He sensed, rather than heard, the entrance of a new figure. It passed so close that he recognized Annabella Wells’s scent. She moved into the encircled point on his right and seated herself facing outwards as he did. At the same time there was a new glint of candlelight and the sound of a subsidence behind and to the left of Alleyn. In a moment or two a figure, unmistakably Baradi’s, swept round the pentagram and entered it between Annabella and Raoul. Alleyn guessed he had taken up his position at the centre. At the same time the bells cascaded close at hand. “Here we go,” he thought.

The five candles and six braziers furnished light enough for him to get a fitful impression of the preposterous scene. By turning his head slightly and slewing round his eyes, he could see the neighbouring points of the great pentagonal star, each protected by its circle and each containing its solitary figure, seated before a brazier and facing outward. Outside the pentagram and facing the points occupied by Annabella and Raoul was the altar. Alleyn could see the glint of metal in the embroidered cloth and quite distinctly, could make out the shape of the great crystal sun-burst standing in the middle.

The sound of bells came close and then stopped. A door opened in the wall beside the altar and the Egyptian servant walked through. He wore only a loin cloth and the squarish head-dress of antiquity. Before each of the initiates he set down a little box. “More reefers,” thought Alleyn, keeping his head down. “Damned awkward if he wants to light them for us.”

But the Egyptian made no attempt to do so. He moved away and out of the tail of his eye, Alleyn saw Annabella Wells reached out to her brazier, take a pair of tongs and light her cigarette with a piece of charcoal. Alleyn found that his brazier, too, was provided with tongs.

Because of the form of the pentagram the occupants of the five points all had their backs turned to Baradi and their shoulders to each other. If Baradi was on his feet he would have a sort of aerial survey of their backs. If he was seated on the divan he would have a still less rewarding view. Alleyn reached out for a cigarette, hid it inside his robe and produced one of his own. This he lit with a coal from the brazier. He wondered if it had occurred to Raoul to employ the same ruse.

Little spires of smoke began to rise from the five points of the star. The Egyptian had retired to a dark corner beyond the altar and presently began to strike a drum and play a meandering air on some reed instrument. To Alleyn the scene was preposterous and phony. He remembered Troy’s comment on the incident of the train window: hadn’t she compared it to bad cinematography? Even the ritual, for what it was worth, was bogus: a vamped-up synthesis, he thought, of several magic formulae. The reedy phrase trickled on like a tourist-class advertisement for Cairo, the drum throbbed and presently he sensed a stir of excitement among the initiates. The Egyptian began to chant and to increase the pace and volume of his drumming. Drum and voice achieved a sort of crescendo at the peak of which a second voice entered with a long vibrant call, startling in its unexpectedness. It was Baradi’s.

From that moment it was impossible altogether to dismiss the Rites of the Sun as cheap or ridiculous. No doubt they were both but they were also alarming.

Alleyn supposed that Baradi spoke Egyptian and that his chant was one of the set invocations of ritual magic. He thought he recognized the characteristic repetition of names: “O Oualbpaga! O Kammara! O Kamalo! O Karhenmou! O Amagaa! O Thoth! O Anubis!” The drum thumped imperatively. Small feral noises came from the points of the pentagram. Behind Alleyn, Carbury Glande began to beat with his palm on the floor. The other initiates followed, Alleyn with them. The Egyptian left his drum and running about the pentagram, threw incense on the braziers. Columns of heavily scented smoke arose amid sharp cries from the initiates. A gong crashed and there was immediate silence.

It was startling, after the long exhortations in an incomprehensible tongue to hear Baradi cry in a loud voice: “Children of the Sun in the Outer, turn inward, now turn in. Silence, silence, silence, symbol of the imperishable god protect us, silence. Turn inward now, turn in.”

This injunction was taken literally by the initiates who reversed their positions on the cushions and thus faced Baradi and the centre of the pentagram. Looking across, diagonally, to the Black Robe, Alleyn saw that Raoul had not moved. The exhortations, being in English, had meant nothing to him. Alleyn dared not look up at Baradi. He could see his feet and his white robe, up to his knees. Between drifts of incense he caught sight of the other initiates, all waiting. It seemed as if an age went by before the Black Robe rose, turned and reseated itself. He saw Baradi’s feet shift and his robe swing as he faced the alter.

Baradi intoned in aloud voice: “Here in the Names of Ra and Of the Sons of Ra—”

It was the oath Alleyn had read. Baradi gave it out phrase by phrase and the initiates repeated it after him. Alleyn spoke on the top register of his very deep voice. Raoul, of course, said nothing. Miss Garbel’s thin pipe was unmistakable. Annabella’s trained and vibrant voice rang out loudly. Carbury Glande’s sounded uncoordinated and hysterical.

“If I break this oath in the least degree,” Baradi dictated and was echoed, “may my lips be burned with the fire that is now set before them.” He gestured over his brazier. A tongue of flame darted up from it.

“May my eyes be put out by the knife that is now set before them.”

With a suddenness that was extraordinarily unnerving, five daggers dropped from the ceiling and checked with a jerk before the five initiates’ faces. A sixth, bigger, fell in front of Baradi, who seized and flourished it. The others hung glittering in the flamelight of the brazier. The women gave little whimpering febrile cries.

The oath of silence was taken through to its abominable conclusion. The flame subsided, the smaller daggers were drawn up to the ceiling, presumably by the Egyptian. The initiates turned outward again and Baradi settled down to a further exhortation, this time in English.

It was the blackest possible kind of affair, quite short and entirely infamous. Baradi demanded darkness and the initiates put out their candles. Alleyn dared not look at Raoul, but knew by the delayed flicker of light that he was a little slow with this. Then Baradi urged first of all the necessity of experiencing something called “the caress of the left hand of perfection” and went on to particularize in terms that would have appalled anyone who was not an alienist or a member of Mr. Oberon’s chosen circle. The Egyptian had returned to his reed and drum and the merciless repetition of a single phrase had its own effect. Baradi began to pour out a stream of names: Greek, Jewish, Egyptian: Pan, Enlil, Elohim, Ra, Anubis, Seti, Adonis, Ra, Silenus, Ereschigal, Tetragrammaton, Ra. The recurrent “Ra” was presently taken up by the initiates, who began to bark it out with an enthusiasm, Alleyn thought, only to be equalled by the organized cheers of an American ball game.

“There are two signs,” Baradi intoned. “There is the Sign of the Sun, Ra” (“Ra,” barked the initiates), “and there is the sign of the Goat, Pan. And between the Sun and the Goat runs the endless cycle of the senses. Ra.”

“Ra!”

“We demand a sign.”

“We demand a sign.”

“What shall the sign be?”

“The sign of the goat which is also the sign of the Sun which is also the sign of Ra.”

“Let the goat come forth which is the Sun which is Ra.”

“Ra!”

The drumming was increased to a frenzy. The initiates beat on the floor and clapped. Baradi must have thrown more incense on his brazier: the air was thick with billowing fumes. Alleyn could scarcely make out the shape of the altar. Now Baradi must be striking cymbals together.

The din was intolerable. The initiates, antic figures, half-masked by whorls of smoke, seemed to have gone down on all fours and to be flinging their hands high as they slapped the floor and cried out. Baradi broke into a chant, possibly in his own language, interspersed with further strings of names — Pan, Hylaesos, Lupercus, Silenos, Faunus — names that were caught up and shouted in a fury of abandon by the other voices. Alleyn, shouting with the rest, edged round on his knees, until he could look across the pentagram to Raoul. In the glow of the braziers he could just make out the black crouching figure and the black gloved hands rising and falling like drumsticks.

“A Sign, a Sign, let there be a Sign!”

“It comes.”

“It comes.”

“It is here.”

Again the well-staged crescendo that ended, this time, in a deafening crash of cymbals followed by a dead silence.

And across that silence: bathetic, ridiculous and disturbing, broke the unmistakable bleat of a billy goat.

The smoke eddied and swirled, and there, on the altar for all the world like one of old Marie’s statuettes, it appeared, horned and shining, a silver goat whose hide glittered through the smoke. It opened its mouth sideways and superciliously bleated. Its pale eyes stared and it stamped and tossed its head.

“It’s been shoved up there from the back,” Alleyn thought. “They’ve treated it with flourescent paint. Ça s’illumine.”

Baradi was speaking again.

“Prepare, prepare,” he chanted. “The Sign is the Shadow of the Substance. The Goat-god is the precursor of the Man-god. The Man-god is the Bridegroom. He is the Spouse. He is Life. He is the Sun. Ra!”

There was a blare of light, for perhaps a second literally blinding in its intensity. “Flash-powder,” thought Alleyn. “The Egyptian must be remarkably busy.” When his eyes had adjusted themselves, the goat had disappeared and in its place the sun-burst blazed on the altar. “Car batteries,” thought Alleyn, “perhaps. Flex soldered at the terminals. Well done, Mahomet or somebody.”

“Ra! Ra! Ra!” the initiates ejaculated with Baradi as their cheerleader.

The door to the left of the altar had opened. It admitted a naked man.

He advanced through wreaths of incense and stood before the blazing sun-burst. It was, of course, Mr. Oberon.

iii

Of the remainder of the ceremony, as far as he witnessed it, Alleyn afterwards prepared an official report. Neither this, nor a manual called The Book of Ra. which contained the text of the ritual, has ever been made public. Indeed, they have been stowed away in the archives of Scotland Yard where they occupy a place of infamy rivalling that of the Book of Horus and the Swami Viva Ananda. There are duplicates at the Sûreté. In the trial they were not put in as primary evidence, and the judge, after a distasteful glance, said that he saw no reason why the jury should be troubled to look at them.

For purposes of this narrative it need only be said that with the appearance of Oberon, naked, in the role of Ra or Horus, or both, the Rites took on the character of unbridled Phallicism. He stood on some raised place before the blazing sun-burst, holding a dagger in both hands. More incense burners were set reeking at his feet, and there he was, the nearest approach, Alleyn afterwards maintained, that he had ever seen, to a purely evil being.

His entry stung the initiates into their pitch of frenzy. Incredible phrases were chanted, indescribable gestures were performed. The final crescendo of that scandalous affair rocketed up to its point of climax. For the last time the Egyptian’s drum rolled and Baradi clashed his cymbals. For the last time pandemonium gave place to silence.

Oberon came down from his eminence and walked towards the encircled pentagram. His feet slapped the tessellated pavement. His hair, lit from behind, was a nimbus about his head. He entered the pentagram and the initiates turned inwards, crouching beastily at the points. Oberon placed himself at the centre. Baradi spoke.

“Horus who is Savitar who is Baldur who is Ra. The Light, The Beginning and The End, The Life, The Source and The Fulfilment. Choose, now, Lord, O choose.”

Oberon extended his arm and pointed his dagger at Raoul.

Baradi went to Raoul. He held out his hand. In the capricious glare from the sun-burst Alleyn could see Raoul on his knees, his shadow thrown before him towards Oberon’s feet. His face was deeply hidden in his hood. Alleyn saw the gloved hand and arm reach out. Baradi took the hand. He passed Raoul across him with a dancer’s gesture.

Raoul now faced Oberon.

Somewhere in the shadows the Egyptian servant cried out shrilly.

Baradi’s dark hands, themselves seeming gloved, closed on the shoulders of Raoul’s robe. Suddenly, with a flourish, and to a roll of the drum, he swept it free of its wearer. “Behold!” he shouted: “The Bride!”

And then, in the glare from the sun-burst, where, like an illustration from La Vie Parisienne, Mr. Oberon’s victim should have been discovered; there stood Raoul in his underpants, black slippers and Ginny Taylor’s gloves.

A complete surprise is often something of an anti-climax and so, for a moment or two, was this. It is possible that Annabella Wells and Carbury Glande were too fuddled with marihuana to get an immediate reaction. Miss Garbel, of course, had been prepared. As for Oberon and Baradi, they faced each other across the preposterous Thing they had unveiled and their respective jaws dropped like those of a pair of simultaneous comedians. Raoul himself merely cast a scandalized glance at Oberon and uttered in a loud apocalyptic voice the single word: “Anathema!”

It was then that Miss Garbel erupted in a single hoot of hysteria. It escaped from her and was at once cut off by her own hand clapped across her mouth. She squatted, heaving, in the corner of the pentacle, her terrified eyes staring over her knuckles at Baradi.

Baradi, in an unrecognizable voice and an unconscious quotation, said: “Which of you has done this?”

Oberon gave a bubbling cry: “I am betrayed!”

Raoul, hearing his voice, repeated: “Anathema!” and made the sign of the cross.

Oberon dragged Miss Garbel to her feet. He held her with his right hand; in his left was the dagger. She chattered in his face: “You can’t! You can’t! I’m protected. You can’t!”

Alleyn advanced until he was quite close to them. Glande and Annabella Wells were on their feet.

“Is this your doing?” Oberon demanded, lowering his face to Miss Garbel’s.

“Not mine!” she chattered. “Not this time. Not mine!”

He flung her off. Baradi turned on Raoul.

“Well!” Baradi said in French, “so I know you, now. Where’s your master?”

“Occupy yourself with your own affairs, Monsieur.”

“We are lost!” Oberon cried out in English.

His hand moved. The knife glinted.

“Alors, Raoul!” said Alleyn.

Raoul stooped and ran. He ran out of the pentacle and across the floor. The Egyptian darted out and was knocked sideways. His head struck the corner of the altar and he lay still. Raoul sped through the open door into Oberon’s room. Oberon followed him. Alleyn followed Oberon and caught him up on the far side of the great looking-glass. He seized his right hand as it was raised. “Not this time,” Alleyn grunted and jerked his arm. The dagger flew from Oberon’s hand and splintered the great glass. At the same moment Raoul kicked. Oberon gave a scream of pain, staggered across the room and lurched against the window. With a whirr and a clatter the blind flew up and Oberon sank on the floor moaning. Alleyn turned to find Baradi facing him with the knife in his left hand.

“You,” Baradi said. “I might have guessed. You!”

iv

From the moment that the affair began, as it were, to wind itself up in Oberon’s room, it became a straightout conflict between Alleyn and Baradi. Alleyn had guessed that it would be so. Even while he sweated to remember his police training in unarmed combat he found time to consider that Oberon, naked and despicable, had at last become a negligible element. Alleyn was even aware of Carbury Glande and Annabella Wells teetering uncertainly in the doorway, and of Miss Garbel, who hovered like a spinsterly half-back on the edge of the scrimmage.

But chiefly he was aware of Baradi’s dark infuriated body, smelling of sandalwood and sweat, and of the knowledge that he himself was the fitter man. They struggled together ridiculously and ominously, looking, in their white robes, like a couple of frenzied monks. There was, for Alleyn, a sort of pleasure in this fight. “I needn’t worry. For once, I needn’t worry,” he thought. “For once the final arbitrament is as simple as this. I’m fitter than he is.”

And when Raoul, absurd in his underpants and long gloves, suddenly hurled himself at Baradi and brought him down with a crash, Alleyn was conscious of a sort of irritation. He looked across the floor and saw that Raoul’s foot, in its ridiculous sandal, had pinned down Baradi’s left wrist. He saw Baradi’s fingers uncurl from the knife-handle. He shoved free, landed a short-arm jab on the point of Baradi’s jaw and felt him go soft. They had brought down the prayer wheel in their struggle. Alleyn reached for it and flung it at the window. It crashed through and he heard it fall with the broken glass on the railway line below. Oberon screamed out an oath. Alleyn fetched his breath and blew with all the wind he had on M. Dupont’s police whistle. It trilled shrilly, like a toy, and was answered and echoed and answered again outside.

“The house is surrounded,” Alleyn said, looking at Glande and Oberon. “I have a police authority. Anyone trying violence or flight will be dealt with out-of-hand. Stay where you are, all of you.”

The glare from the sun-burst streamed through the doorway on clouds of incense. Alleyn bound Baradi’s arms behind his back with the cord of his gown. Raoul tied his ankles together with the long gloves. Baradi’s head lolled drunkenly and he made uncouth noises.

“I want to make a statement,” Oberon said shrilly. “I am a British subject. I have my passport. I offer myself for Queen’s evidence. I have my passport.”

Annabella Wells, standing in the doorway, began to laugh. Carbury Glande said: “Shut up, for God’s sake. This is IT.”

Abruptly the room was lit. Wall-lamps, a bedside lamp and a standard lamp all came to life. By normal standards it was not a brilliant illumination, but it had the effect of reducing that unlikely interior to an embarrassing state of anti-climax. Glande, Annabella Wells and poor Miss Garbel, huddled in their robes, looked dishevelled and ineffectual. Baradi had a trickle of blood running from his nose into his moustache. The Egyptian servant staggered into the doorway, holding his head in his hands and wearing the foolish expression of a punch-happy pugilist. Oberon, standing before the cracked looking-glass as no doubt he had often done before: Oberon, naked, untactfully lit, was so repellent a sight that Alleyn threw the cover of the divan at him.

“You unspeakable monstrosity,” he said, “get behind that.”

“I offer a full statement. I am the victim of Dr. Baradi. I claim protection.”

Baradi opened his eyes and shook the blood from his moustache.

“I challenge your authority,” he said, blinking at Alleyn.

“Alleyn. Chief Detective-Inspector, C.I.D., New Scotland Yard. On loan to the Sûreté. My card and my authority are in my coat-pocket and my coat’s in young Herrington’s room.”

Baradi twisted his head to look at Annabella. “Did you know this?” he demanded.

“Yes, darling,” she said.

“You little—”

“Is that Gyppo for what, darling?”

“In a moment,” Alleyn said, “the Commissioner of Police will be here and you will be formally arrested and charged. I don’t know that I’m obliged to give you the customary warning but the habit’s irresistible. Anything you say—”

Baradi and Annabella entirely disregarded him.

“Why didn’t you tell me who he was?” Baradi said, “Why?”

“He asked me not to. He’s got something. I didn’t know he was here tonight. I didn’t think he’d come back.”

“Liar!”

“As you choose, my sweet.”

“—may be used in evidence.”

“You can’t charge me with anything,” Carbury Glande said. “I am an artist. I’ve formed the habit of smoking and I come to France to do it. I’m not mixed up in anything. If I hadn’t had my smokes tonight I’d bloody well fight you.”

“Nonsense,” said Alleyn.

“I desire to make a statement,” said Oberon, who was now wrapped in crimson satin and sitting on the divan.

“I wish to speak to you alone, Mr. Alleyn,” said Baradi.

“All in good time.”

“Garbel!” Baradi ejaculated.

“Shall I answer him, Roddy dear?”

“If you want to, Cousin Penelope.”

“Cousin!” Mr. Oberon shouted.

“Only by marriage. I informed you,” Miss Garbel reminded him, “of the relationship. And I think it only right to tell you that if it hadn’t been for all the Ginnys—”

“My God,” Carbury Glande shouted, “where are Ginny and Robin?”

“Ginny!” Oberon cried out. “Where is Ginny?”

“I hope!” rejoined Miss Garbel, “in no place so unsanctified where such as thou mayst find her.’ The quotation, cousin, is from Macbeth.”

“And couldn’t be more appropriate,” murmured Alleyn, bowing to her. He sat down at Mr. Oberon’s desk and drew a sheet of paper towards him.

“This woman,” Baradi said to Alleyn, “is not in her right mind. I tell you this professionally. She has been under my observation for some time. In my considered opinion she is unable to distinguish between fact and fantasy. If you base your preposterous behavior on any statement of hers—”

“Which I don’t, you know.”

“I am an Egyptian subject. I claim privilege. And I warn you, that if you hold me, you’ll precipitate a political incident.”

“My dear M. l’Inspecteur-en-Chef,” said M. Dupont, coming in from the passage, “do forgive me if I am a little unpunctual.”

“On the contrary, my dear M. le Commissaire, you come most punctually upon your cue.”

M. Dupont shook hands with Alleyn. He was in tremendous form, shining with leather and wax and metal: gloved, holstered and batoned. Three lesser officers appeared inside the door.

“And these,” said M. Dupont, touching his moustache and glancing round the room, “are the personages. You charge them?”

“For the moment, with conspiracy.”

“I am a naturalized British subject. I offer myself as Queen’s evidence. I charge Dr. Ali Baradi with murder.”

Baradi turned his head and in his own language shot a stream of very raw-sounding phrases at his late partner.

“All these matters,” said M. Dupont, “will be dealt with in an appropriate manner. In the meantime, Messieurs et Dames, it is required that you accompany my officers to the Poste de Police in Roqueville where an accusation will be formally laid.” He nodded to his men, who advanced with a play of handcuffs.

Annabella Wells held her robe about her with one practiced hand and swept back her hair with the other. She addressed herself in French to Dupont.

“M. le Commissaire, do you recognize me?”

“Perfectly, Madame. Madame is the actress Annabella Wells.”

“Monsieur, you are a man of the world. You will understand that I find myself in a predicament.”

“It is not necessary to be a man of the world to discover your predicament, Madame. It is enough to be a policeman. If Madame would care to make some adjustment to her toilette — a walking costume, perhaps — I shall be delighted to arrange the facilities. There is a femme-agent de police in attendance.”

She looked at him fora moment, seemed to hesitate, and then turned on Alleyn.

“What are you going to do with me?” she said. “You’ve trapped me finely, haven’t you? What a fool I was! Yesterday morning I might have guessed. And I kept faith! I didn’t tell them what you were. God, what a fool!”

“It’s probably the only really sensible thing you’ve done since you came here. Don’t regret it.”

“Is it wishful thinking or do I seem to catch the suggestion that I may be given a chance?”

“Give yourself a chance, why not?”

“Ah,” she said, shaking her head. “That’ll be the day, won’t it?”

She grinned at him and moved over to the door where Raoul waited. Raoul stared at her with a kind of incredulity. He had kicked off his sandals and wore only his pants and his St. Christopher medal and, thus arrayed, contrived to look godlike.

“What a charmer!” she said in English. “Aren’t you?”

“Madame?”

“Quel charmeur vous êtes!”

“Madame!”

She asked him how old he was and if he had seen many of her films. He said he believed he had seen them all. Was he a cinéphile, then? “Madame,” Raoul said, “Je suis un fervent — de vous!”

“When they let me out of gaol,” Annabella promised, “I shall send you a photograph.”

The wreckage of her beauty spoke through the ruin of her make-up. She made a good exit.

“Ah, Monsieur,” said Raoul. “What a tragedy! And yet it is the art that counts and she is still an artist.”

This observation went unregarded. They could hear Annabella in conversation with the femme-agent in the passage outside.

“My dear Dupont,” Alleyn murmured, “may I suggest that in respect of this woman we make no arrest. I feel certain that she will be of much greater value as a free informant. Keep her under observation, of course, but for the moment, at least—”

“But, of course, my dear Alleyn,” M. Dupont rejoined, taking the final plunge into intimacy. “I understand perfectly, but perfectly.”

Alleyn was not quite sure what Dupont understood so perfectly but thought it better merely to thank him. He said: “There is a great deal to be explained. May we get rid of the men first?”

Dupont’s policemen had taken charge of the four men. Oberon, still wrapped in crimson satin, was huddled on his bed. His floss-like hair hung in strands over his face. Above the silky divided beard the naked mouth was partly open. The eyes stared, apparently without curiosity, at Alleyn.

Dupont’s men had lifted Baradi from the floor, seated him on the divan and pulled his white robe about him. His legs had been unbound, but he was now handcuffed. He, too, watched Alleyn, but sombrely, with attentiveness and speculation.

Carbury Glande stood nearby, biting his nails. The Egyptian servant flashed winning smiles at anybody who happened to look at him. Miss Garbel sat at the desk with an air of readiness, like an eccentrically uniformed secretary.

Dupont glanced at the men. “You will proceed under detention to the Commissariat de Police at Roqueville. M. l’Inspecteur and I will later conduct an interrogation. The matter of your nationalities and the possibility of extradition will be considered. And now — forward.”

Oberon said: “A robe. I demand a robe.”

“Look here, Alleyn,” Glande said, “what’s going to be done about me? I’m harmless, I tell you. For God’s sake tell him to let me get some clothes on.”

“Your clothes’ll be sent after you and you’ll get no more and no less than was coming to you,” Alleyn said. “In the interest of decency, my dear Dupont, Mr. Oberon should, perhaps, be given a garment of some sort.”

Dupont spoke to one of his men, who opened a cupboard-door and brought out a white robe.

“If,” Miss Garbel said delicately, “I might be excused. Of course, I don’t know—?” She looked enquiringly from Alleyn to Dupont.

“This is Miss Garbel, Dupont, of whom I have told you.”

“Truly? Not, as I supposed, the Honourable Locke?”

“Miss Locke has been murdered. She was stabbed through the heart at five thirty-eight yesterday morning in this room. Her body is in a coffin in a room on the other side of the passage-of-entry. Dr. Baradi was good enough to show it to me.”

Baradi clasped his manacled hands together and brought them down savagely on his knees. The steel must have cut and bruised him, but he gave no sign.

Glande cried out: “Murdered! My God, they told us she’d given herself an overdose.”

“Then the — pardon me, Mademoiselle, if I express it a little crudely — the third English spinster, my dear Inspecteur-en-Chef? The Miss Truebody?”

“Is to the best of my belief recovering from her operation in a room beyond a bridge across the passage-of-entry.”

Baradi got clumsily to his feet. He faced the great cheval-glass. He said something in his own language. As he spoke, through the broken window, came the effeminate shriek of a train whistle followed by the labouring up-hill clank of the train itself. Alleyn held up his hand and they were all still and looked through the broken window. Alleyn himself stood beside Baradi, facing the looking-glass, which was at an angle to the window. Baradi made to move but Alleyn put his hand on him and he stood still, as if transfixed. In the great glass they both saw the reflection of the engine pass by and then the carriages, some of them lit and some in darkness. The train dragged to a standstill. In the last carriage a lighted window, which was opposite their own window, was unshuttered. They could see two men playing cards. The men looked up. Their faces were startled.

Alleyn said: “Look, Baradi. Look in the glass. The angle of incidence is always equal to the angle of refraction, isn’t it? We see their reflexion and they see ours. They see you in your white robe. They see your handcuffs. Look, Baradi!”

He had taken a paper-knife from the desk. He raised it in his left hand as if to stab Baradi.

The men in the carriage were agitated. Their images in the glass talked excitedly and gestured. Then, suddenly, they were jerked sideways and in the glass was only the reflexion of the wall and the broken window and the night outside.

“Yesterday morning, at five thirty-eight, I was in a railway carriage out there,” Alleyn said. “I saw Grizel Locke fall against the blind and when the blind shot up I saw a man with a dark face and a knife in his right hand. He stood in such a position that the prayer wheel showed over his shoulder and I now know that I saw, not a man, but his reflexion in that glass and I know he stood where you stand and that he was a left-handed man. I know that he was you, Baradi.”

“And really, my dear Dupont—” Alleyn said a little later, when the police-car had removed the four men and the two ladies had gone away to change —“really, this is all one has to say about the case. When I saw the room yesterday morning I realized what had happened. There was this enormous cheval-glass screwed into the floor at an angle of about forty-five degrees to the window. To anybody looking in from outside it must completely exclude the right-hand section of the room. And yet, I saw a man, apparently in the right-hand section of the room. He must, therefore, have been an image in the glass of a man in the left-hand section of the room. To clinch it, I saw part of the prayer wheel near the right shoulder of the image. Now, if you sit in a railway-carriage outside that window, you will, I think, see part of the prayer wheel, or rather, since I chucked the prayer wheel through the window, you will see part of its trace on the faded wall, just to your left of the glass. The stabber, it was clear, must be a left-handed man and Baradi is the only left-handed man we have. I was puzzled that his face was more shadowed than the direction of the light seemed to warrant. It is, of course, a dark face.”

“It is perfectly clear,” Dupont said, “thought the verdict is not to be decided in advance. The motive was fear, of course.”

“Fear of exposure. Miss Garbel believes that Grizel Locke was horrified when her young niece turned up at the Chèvre d’Argent. It became obvious that Ginny Taylor was destined to play the major role, opposite Oberon, in these unspeakable Rites. The day before yesterday it was announced that she would wear the Black Robe tonight. My guess is that Grizel Locke, herself the victim of the extremes of mood that agonize all drug-addicts, brooded on the affair and became frantic with — with what emotion? Remorse? Anxiety? Shame?”

“But jealousy? She is, after all, about to become the supplanted mistress, is she not? Always an unpopular assignment.”

“Perhaps she was moved by all of these emotions. Perhaps, after a sleepless night or — God knows — a night of pleading, she threatened to expose the drug racket if Oberon persisted with Ginny Taylor. Oberon, finding her intractable, summoned Baradi. She threatened both of them. The scene rose to a climax. Perhaps — is it too wild a guess? — she hears the train coming and threatens to scream out their infamy from the window. Baradi reverts to type and uses a knife, probably one of the symbolic knives with which they frighten the initiates. She falls against the blind and it flies up. There, outside, is the train with a dimly lighted compartment opposite their own window. And, between the light and the window of the compartment is the shape of a man — myself.”

Dupont lightly struck his hands together. “A pretty situation, in effect!”

“He no sooner takes it in than it is over. The train enters the tunnel and Baradi and Oberon are left with Grizel Locke’s body on their hands. And within an hour I ring up about Miss Truebody. And by the way, I suggest we visit Miss Truebody. Here comes Miss Garbel who, I daresay, will show us to her room.”

Miss Garbel appeared, scarcely recognizable, wearing an unsmart coat and skirt and no make-up. It was impossible to believe this was the woman who, an hour ago, had lent herself to the Rites of the Children of the Sun and who, yesterday morning, had appeared in pedal-pushers and a scarf on the roof-garden. Dupont looked at her with astonishment. She was very tremulous and obviously distressed. She went to the point, however, with the odd directness that Alleyn was learning to expect from her.

“You are yourself again, I see,” he said.

“Alas, yes! Or not, of course altogether, alas. It is nice not having to pretend to be poor Grizel any more but, as you noticed, I found it only too easy, at certain times, to let myself go. I sometimes think it is a peculiar property of marihuana to reduce all its victims to a common denominator. When we are ‘high,’ as poor Grizel used to call it, we all behave rather in her manner. I am badly in need of a smoke now, after all the upset, which is why I’m so shaky, you know.”

“I expect you’d like to go back to your own room in the Rue des Violettes. We’ll take you there.”

“I would like it of all things, but I think I should stay to look after our patient. I’ve been doing quite a bit of the nursing — Mahomet and I took it in turns with one of the maids. Under the doctor’s instructions, of course. Would you like to see her?”

“Indeed, we should. It’s going to be difficult to cope with Miss Truebody. Of course, they never sent for a nurse?”

“No, no! Too dangerous, by far. But I assure you every care has been taken of the poor thing.”

“I’ll bet it has. They didn’t want two bodies on their hands. M. le Commissaire has arranged for a doctor and a nurse to come up by the night train from St. Christophe. In the meantime, shall we visit her?”

Miss Garbel led the way up to the front landing. M. Dupont indicated the wrought-iron door. “We discovered the key, my dear Alleyn,” he said gaily. “An excellent move!” They climbed to the roof-garden and thence though a labyrinth of rooms to one of the bridge-like extensions that straddled the outside passage-way.

They were half-way across this bridge when their attention was caught by the sound of voices and of boots on the cobblestones below.

From the balustrade they looked down into a scene that might have been devised by a film director. The sides of the house fell away from moon-patched shadow into a deep blackness. At one point a pool of light from an open door lay across the passage-way. Into this light moved an incongruous company of foreshortened figures: the Egyptian servant, Baradi and Oberon in their white robes, Carbury Glande bareheaded and in shorts, and six gendarmes in uniform. They shifted in and out of the light, a curious pattern of heads and shoulders.

“Alors,” said Dupont, looking down at them: “Bon débarras!”

His voice echoed stonily in the passage. One of the white hoods was tilted backwards. The face inside it was thus exposed to the light but, being itself dark, seemed still to be in shadow. Alleyn and Baradi looked at each other. With a peck of his head Baradi spat into the night.

“Pas de ça!” said one of the gendarmes and turned Baradi about. It was then seen that he was handcuffed to his companion.

“Mr. Oberon,” Alleyn said, “will be delighted.”

The procession moved off with a hollow clatter down the passage. Raoul appeared in the doorway, rolling a cigarette, and watched them go.

Miss Garbel made a curious and desolate sound but immediately afterwards said brightly: “Shall we—?” and led them indoors.

“Here we are!” she said and tapped. A door was opened by the woman Alleyn had already seen at Miss Truebody’s bedside.

“These are the friends of Mademoiselle,” said Miss Garbel. “Is she awake?”

“She is awake but M. le Docteur left orders, Mademoiselle, that no one—” She saw Dupont’s uniform and her voice faded.

“M. le Docteur,” said Miss Garbel, “has reconsidered his order.”

The woman stood aside and they went into the room. Dupont stayed by the door but Alleyn walked over to the bed. There, on the pillow, was the smooth, blunt and singularly hairless face he had remembered. She looked at him and smiled and this time she was wearing her teeth. They made a great difference.

“Why, it’s Mr. Alleyn,” she murmured in a thread-like voice. “How kind!”

“You’re getting along splendidly,” Alleyn said. “I won’t tire you now, but if there is anything you want you’ll let us know.”

“Nothing. Much better. The doctor — too kind.”

“There will be another doctor tomorrow and a new nurse to help these.”

“Not—? But — Dr. Baradi—?”

“He has been obliged to go away,” Alleyn said, “on a case of some urgency.”

“Oh.” She closed her eyes.

Alleyn and Dupont went outside. Miss Garbel came to the door.

“If you don’t want me,” she said, “I’ll stay and take my turn. I’m all right, you know. Quite reliable until morning.”

“And always,” he rejoined warmly.

“Ah,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s another story.”

She showed them where a stairway ran down to ground level and she peered after them, smiling and nodding over the banister.

“We must pay one more visit,” Alleyn said.

“The third English spinster,” Dupont agreed. He seemed to have a sort of relish for this phrase.”

But when they stood in the whitewashed room and the raw light from an unshaded lamp now shone dreadfully on what was left of Grizel Locke, he looked thoughtful and said: “All three, each after her own fashion, may be said to have served the cause of justice.”

“This one,” Alleyn said drily, “may be said to have died for it.”

v

It was a quarter past two when Grizel Locke was carried in her coffin down to a mortuary van that shone glossily in the moonlight. Two hours later Alleyn and Dupont walked out of the Château de la Chèvre d’Argent. They left two men on guard and with Raoul went down the passage-way to the open platform. It was flooded in moonlight. The Mediterranean glittered down below and the hills reared themselves up fabulously against the stars. Robin Herrington’s rakish car was parked at the edge of the platform.

Alleyn said: “These are our chickens come home to roost.”

“Ah!” said M. Dupont cosily. “It is a night for love.”

“Nevertheless, if you will excuse me—”

“But, of course!”

Alleyn, whistling tunelessly and tactfully, went over to the car. Robin was in the driver’s seat with Ginny beside him. Her head was on his shoulder. He showed no particular surprise at seeing Alleyn.

“Good morning,” Alleyn said. “So you had a breakdown.”

“We did, sir, but we think we’re under our own steam again.”

“I’m glad to hear it. You will find the Chèvre d’Argent rather empty. Here’s my card. The gendarme at the door will let you in. If you’d rather collect your possessions and come back to Roqueville, I expect we could get rooms for you both at the Royal.”

He waited for an answer but it was perfectly clear to him that although they smiled and nodded brightly they had not taken in a word of his little speech.

Robin said: “Ginny’s going to marry me.”

“I hope you will both be very happy.”

“We think of beginning again in one of the Dominions.”

“The Dominions are, on the whole, both tolerant and helpful.”

Ginny, speaking for the first time, said: “Will you please thank Mrs. Alleyn? She sort of did the trick.”

“I shall. She’ll be delighted to hear it.” He looked at them for a moment and they beamed back at him. “You’ll be all right,” he said. “Get a tough job and forget you’ve had bad dreams. I’m sure it will work out.”

They smiled and nodded.

“I’ll have to ask you to come and see me later in the morning. At the Préfecture at eleven?”

“Thank you,” they said vaguely. Ginny said: “You can’t think how happy we are, all of a sudden. And just imagine, I was furious when the car broke down! And yet, if it hadn’t, we might never have found out.”

“Strange coincidence,” said Alleyn, looking at Robin. And seeing that they were incapable of coming out of the moonlight he said: “Good morning and good luck to you both,” and left them to themselves.

On the way down to Roqueville he and Dupont discussed the probable development of the case. “Oberon,” Alleyn said, “has gone to pieces, as you see. He will try and buy his way out with information.”

“Callard also is prepared to upset the peas. But thanks to your admirable handling of the case we shall be able to dispense with such aids, and Oberon, I trust, will be tried with Baradi.”

“Of the pair, Oberon is undoubtedly the more revolting.” Alleyn said thoughtfully. “I wonder how many deaths could be laid at the door of those two. I don’t know how you feel about it, Dupont, but I put their sort at the top of the criminal list. If they hadn’t directly killed poor Grizel, by God, they’d still be mass murderers.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Dupont, stifling a yawn. “I imagine we take statements from the painter, the actress Wells and the two young ones and let it go at that. They may be more useful running free. Particularly if they return to the habit.”

“The young ones won’t. I’m sure of that. As for the others: there are cures.”

In the front seat, Raoul, influenced no doubt by the moonlight and by his glimpse of Ginny and Robin, began to sing:

“La nuit est faite pour l’amour.”

“Raoul,” Alleyn said in French for his benefit, “did a good job of work tonight, didn’t he?”

“Not so bad, not so bad. We shall have you in the service yet, my friend,” said Dupont. He leaned forward and struck Raoul lightly on the shoulder.

“No, M. le Commissaire, it is not my métier. I am about to settle with Teresa. And yet, if M. l’Inspecteur Alleyn should come back one day, who knows?”

They drove through the sleeping town to the little Square des Sarracins and put Alleyn down at the hotel.

Troy was fast asleep, with Ricky curled in beside her. The little silver goat illuminated himself on the bedside table. The French windows were wide open and Alleyn went out for a moment on the balcony. To the east the stars had turned pale and the first dawn cock was crowing in the hills above Roqueville.

The End