Spinsters in Jeopardy

Chapter VI Consultation

i

Troy wouldn’t wait for the lift. She ran downstairs with Alleyn and Raoul at her heels. Only the porter was there, sitting at the desk in the hall.

Alleyn said: “This will take thirty seconds, darling. I’m in as much of a hurry as you. Please believe it’s important. You can get into the car. Raoul can start the engine.” And to the porter he said: “Please telephone this number and give the message I have written on the paper to the person who answers. It is the number of the Préfecture and the message is urgent. It is expected. Were you on duty here when flowers came for Madame?”

“I was on duty when the flowers arrived, Monsieur. It was about an hour ago. I did not know they were for Madame. The woman went straight upstairs without enquiry, as one who knows the way.”

“And returned?”

The porter lifted his shoulders. “I did not see her return. Monsieur. No doubt she used the service stairs.”

“No doubt,” Alleyn said and ran out to the car.

On the way to the Rue des Violettes he said: “I’m going to stop the car a little way from the house, Troy, and I’m going to ask you to wait in it while I go indoors.”

“Are you? But why? Ricky’s there, isn’t he? We saw him.”

“Yes, we saw him. But I’m not too keen for other people to see us. Cousin Garbel seems to be known, up at the Chèvre d’Argent.”

“But Robin Herrington said he didn’t know him and anyway, according to the card on the flowers, Cousin Garbel’s gone away. That must be what the concierge was trying to tell me. She said he was ‘pas chez elle.’ ”

“ ‘Pas chez soi’ surely?”

“All right. Yes, of course. I couldn’t really understand her. I don’t understand anything,” Troy said desperately. “I just want to get Ricky.”

“I know, darling. Not more than I do.”

“He didn’t look as if he was in one of his panics. Did he?”

“No.”

“I expect we’ll have a reaction and be furiously snappish with him for frightening us, don’t you?”

“We must learn to master our ugly tempers,” he said, smiling at her.

“Rory, he will be there still? He won’t have gone?”

“It’s only ten minutes ago that we saw him on a sixth floor balcony.”

“Was she a fat shiny woman who led him in?”

“I hadn’t got the glasses. I couldn’t spot the shine with the naked eye.”

“I didn’t like the concierge. Ricky would hate her.”

“That is the street, Monsieur,” said Raoul. “At the intersection.”

“Good. Draw up here by the kerb. I don’t want to frighten Madame, but I think all may not be well with the small one whom we have seen on the balcony at Number 16. If anyone were to leave by the back or side of the house, Raoul, would they have to come this way from that narrow side-street and pass this way to get out of Roqueville?”

“This way, Monsieur, either to go east or west out of Roqueville. For the rest there are only other alley-ways with flights of steps that lead nowhere.”

“Then if a car should emerge from behind Number 16 perhaps it may come about that you start your car and your engine stalls and you block the way. In apologizing you would no doubt go up to the other car and look inside. And if the small one were in the car you would not be able to start your own though you would make a great disturbance by leaning on your horn. And by that time, Raoul, it is possible that M. le Commissaire will have arrived in his car. Or that I have come out of Number 16.”

“Aren’t you going, Rory?”

“At once, darling. All right, Raoul?’

“Perfectly, Monsieur.”

Alleyn got out of the car, crossed the intersection, turned right and entered Number 16.

The hall was dark and deserted. He went at once to the lift-well, glanced at the index of names and pressed the call-button.

“Monsieur?” said the concierge, partly opening the door of her cubby-hole.

Alleyn looked beyond the ringed and grimy hand at one beady eye, the flange of a flattened nose and half a grape-coloured mouth.

“Madame,” he said politely and turned back to the lift.

“Monsieur desires?”

“The lift, Madame.”

“To ascend where. Monsieur?”

“To the sixth floor, Madame.”

“To which apartment on the sixth floor?”

“To the principal apartment. With a balcony.”

The lift was wheezing its way down.

“Unfortunately,” said the concierge, “the tenant is absent on vacation. Monsieur would care to leave a message?”

“It is the small boy for whom I have called. The small boy whom Madame has been kind enough to admit to the apartment.”

“Monsieur is mistaken. I have admitted no children. The apartment is locked.”

“Can Nature have been so munificent as to lavish upon us a twin-sister of Madame? If so she has undoubtedly admitted a small boy to the principal apartment on the sixth floor.”

The lift came into sight and stopped. Alleyn opened the door.

“One moment,” said the concierge. He paused. Her hand was withdrawn from the cubby-hole door. She came out, waddling like a duck and bringing a bunch of keys.

“It is not amusing,” she said, “to take a fool’s trip. However, Monsieur shall see for himself.”

They went up in the lift. The concierge quivered slightly and gave out the combined odours of uncleanliness, frangipani, garlic and hot satin. On the sixth floor she opened a door opposite the lift, waddled through it and sat down panting and massively triumphant on a high chair in the middle of a neat and ordered room whose French windows gave on to a balcony.

Alleyn completely disregarded the concierge. He stopped short in the entrance of the room and looked swiftly round it at the dressing-table, the shelf above the wash-basin, the gown hanging on the bed-rail and at the three pairs of shoes set out against the wall. He moved to the wardrobe and pulled open the door. Inside it were three sober dresses and a couple of modestly trimmed straw hats. An envelope was lying on the floor of the wardrobe. He stooped down to look at it. It was a business envelope and bore the legend “Compagnie Chimique des Alpes Maritimes.” He read the superscription:

He straightened up, shut the wardrobe door with extreme deliberation and contemplated the concierge, still seated like some obscene goddess, in the middle of the room.

“You disgusting old bag of tripes,” Alleyn said thoughtfully in English, “you little know what a fool I’ve been making of myself.”

And he went out to the balcony.

ii

He stood where so short a time ago he had seen Ricky stand and looked across the intervening rooftops to one that bore a large sign: Hotel Royal. Troy had left the bed-cover hanging over the rail of their balcony.

“A few minutes ago,” Alleyn said, returning to the immovable concierge, “from the Hôtel Royal over there I saw my son who was here, Madame, on this balcony.”

“It would require the eyes of a hawk to recognize a little boy at that distance. Monsieur is mistaken.”

“It required the aid of binoculars and those I had.”

“Possibly the son of the laundress who was on the premises and has now gone.”

“I saw you, Madame, take the hand of my son, who like yourself was clearly recognizable, and lead him indoors.”

“Monsieur is mistaken. I have not left my office since this morning. Monsieur will be good enough to take his departure. I do not insist,” the concierge said magnificently, “upon an apology”

“Perhaps,” Alleyn said, taking a mille franc note from his pocket-book, “you will accept this instead.”

He stood well away from her, holding it out. The eyes glistened and the painted lips moved, but she did not rise. For perhaps four seconds they confronted each other. Then she said, “If Monsieur will wait downstairs I shall be pleased to join him. I have another room to visit.”

Alleyn bowed, stooped and pounced. His hand shot along the floor and under the hem of the heavy skirt. She made a short angry noise and tried to trample on the hand. One of her heels caught his wrist.

“Calm yourself, Madame. My intentions are entirely honourable.”

He stepped back neatly and extended his arm, keeping the hand closed.

“A strange egg, Madame Blanche,” Alleyn said, “for a respectable hen to lay.”

He opened his hand. Across the palm lay a little clay goat, painted silver.

iii

From that moment the proceedings in Number 16 Rue des Violettes were remarkable for their unorthodoxy.

Alleyn said: “You have one chance. Where is the boy?”

She closed her eyes and hitched her colossal shoulders up to her earrings.

“Very good,” Alleyn said and walked out of the room. She had left the key in the lock. He turned it and withdrew the bunch.

It did not take long to go through the rest of the building. For the rooms that were unoccupied he found a master-key. As he crossed each threshold he called once: “Ricky?” and then made a rapid search. In the occupied rooms his visits bore the character of a series of disconnected shots on a cinema screen. He exposed in rapid succession persons of different ages taking their siestas in varying degrees of déshabillé. On being told that there was no small boy within, he uttered a word of apology and under the dumbfounded gaze of spinsters, elderly gentlemen, married or romantic couples and, in one instance, an outraged Negress of uncertain years, walked in, opened cupboards, looked under and into beds and, with a further apology, walked out again.

The concierge had begun to thump on the door of the principal apartment of the sixth floor.

On the ground floor he found a crisp bright-eyed man with a neat moustache, powerful shoulders and an impressive uniform.

“M. l’Inspecteur-en-Chef, Alleyn? Allow me to introduce myself. Dupont of the Sûreté, at present acting as Commissary at the Préfecture, Roqueville.” He spoke fluent English with a marked accent. “So we are already in trouble,” she said as they shook hands. “I have spoken to Madame Alleyn and to Milano. And the boy is not yet found?”

Alleyn quickly related what had happened.

“And the woman Blanche? Where is she, my dear Inspecteur-en-Chef?”

“She is locked in the apartment of Miss P.E. Garbel on the sixth floor. The distant thumping which perhaps you can hear is produced by the woman Blanche.”

The Commissary smiled all over his face. “And we are reminded how correct is the deportment of Scotland Yard. Let us leave her to her activities and complete the search. As we do so will you perhaps be good enough to continue your report.”

Alleyn complied and they embarked on an exploration of the unsavoury private apartments of Madame Blanche. Alleyn checked at a list of telephone numbers and pointed to the third. “The Château Chèvre d’Argent,” he said.

“Indeed? Very suggestive,” said M. Dupont; and with a startling and incredible echo from Baker Street added, “Pray continue your most interesting narrative while we explore the basement.”

But Ricky was not in any room on the ground floor nor in the cellar under the house. “Undoubtedly they have removed him,” said Dupont, “when they saw you wave from your balcony. I shall at once warn my confrères in the surrounding districts. There are not many roads out of Roqueville and all cars can be checked. We then proceed with a tactful but thorough investigation of the town. This affair is not without precedent. Have no fear for your small son. He will come to no harm. Excuse me. I shall telephone from the office of the woman Blanche. Will you remain or would you prefer to rejoin Madame?”

“Thank you. I will have a word with her if I may.”

“Implore her,” M. Dupont said briskly, “to remain calm. The affair will arrange itself. The small one is in no danger.” He bowed and went into the cubby-hole. As he went out Alleyn heard the click of a telephone dial.

A police-car was drawn up by the kerb outside Number 16. Alleyn crossed the road to Raoul’s car.

There was no need to calm Troy: she was very quiet indeed, and perfectly collected. She looked ill with anxiety but she smiled at him and said: “Bad luck, darling. No sign?”

“Some signs,” he said, resting his arms on the door beside her. “Dupont agrees with me that it’s an attempt to keep me occupied. He’s sure Ricky’s all right.”

“He was there, wasn’t he? We did see him?”

Alleyn said: “We did see him,” and after a moment’s hesitation he took the little silver goat from his pocket. “He left it behind him.” Raoul ejaculated: “La petite chèvre d’argent.”

Troy’s lips quivered. She took the goat in her hands and folded it between them. “What do we do now?”

“Dupont is stopping all cars driving out of Roqueville and will order a house-to-house search in the town. He’s a good man.”

“I’m sure he is,” Troy said politely. She looked terrified. “You’re not going back to Chèvre d’Argent, are you? You’re not going to call their bluff?”

“We’re going to take stock.” Alleyn closed his hand over hers. “I know one wants to drive off madly in all directions, yelling for Ricky but honestly, darling, that’s not the form for this kind of thing. We’ve got to take stock. So far we’ve scarcely had time to think, much less reason.”

“It’s just — when he knows he’s lost — it’s his nightmare — mislaying us.”

Two gendarmes, smart in their uniforms and sun-helmets, rode past on bicycles, turned into the Rue des Violettes, dismounted and went into Number 16.

“Dupont’s chaps,” said Alleyn. “Now we shan’t be long. And I have got one bit of news for you. Cousin Garbel is a spinster.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“His name is Penelope and he wears a straw hat trimmed with parma violets.”

Troy said: “Don’t muddle me, darling. I’m so desperately addled already.”

“I’m terribly sorry. It’s true. Your correspondent is a woman who has some connection with the chemical works we saw this morning. For reasons I can only guess at, she’s let you address her letters as is to a man. How did you address them?”

“To M.P.E. Garbel.”

“Perhaps she thought you imagined ‘M.’ to be the correct abbreviation of Mademoiselle?”

Troy shook her head: “It doesn’t seem to matter much now, but it’s quite incredible. Look: something’s beginning to happen.”

The little town was waking up. Shop doors opened and proprietors came out in their shirt sleeves scratching their elbows. At the far end of the Rue des Violettes there was an eruption of children’s voices and a clatter of shoes on stone. The driver of the police-car outside Number 16 started up his engine and the Commissary came briskly down the steps. He made a crisp signal to the driver, who turned his car, crossed the intersection and finally pulled up in front of Raoul M. Dupont walked across, saluted Troy and addressed himself to Alleyn.

“We commence our search of houses in Roqueville, my dear Inspecteur-en-Chef. The road patrols are installed and a general warning is being issued to my colleagues in the surrounding territory. Between 2:15 by the church clock when you saw your son until the moment when you arrived at these apartments, there was an interval of about ten minutes. If he was removed in an auto it was during those minutes. The patrols were instructed at five minutes to three. Again if he was removed in an auto it has had half an hour’s advance and can in that time have gone at the most no further on our roads than fifty kilometres. Outside every town beyond that radius we have posted a patrol and if they have nothing to report we shall search exhaustively within the radius. Madame, it is most fortunate that you saw the small one from your hotel. Thus have you hurled a screwdriver in the factory.”

The distracted Troy puzzled over the Commissary’s free use of English idiom, but Alleyn gave a sharp exclamation. “The factory!” he said. “By the Lord, I wonder.”

“Monsieur?”

“My dear Dupont, you have acted with the greatest expedition and judgment. What do you suggest we do now?”

“I am entirely at your disposal, M. l’Inspecteur. May I suggest that perhaps a fuller understanding of the situation—”

“Yes, indeed. Shall we go to our hotel?”

“Enchanted, Monsieur.”

“I think,” Alleyn said, “that our driver here is very willing to take an active part. He’s been extremely helpful already.”

“He is a good fellow, this Milano,” said Dupont and addressed Raoul in his own language: “See here, my lad, we are making enquiries for the missing boy in Roqueville. If he is anywhere in the town it will be at the house of some associate of the woman Blanche at Number 16. Are you prepared to take a hand?”

Raoul, it appeared, was prepared, “If he is in the town, M. le Commissaire, I shall know it inside an hour.”

“Oh, là-là.” M. Dupont remarked, “what a song our cock sings.”

He scowled playfully at Raoul and opened the doors of the car. Troy and Alleyn were ushered ceremoniously into the police-car and the driver took them back to the hotel.

In their bedroom, which had begun to take on a look of half-real familiarity, Troy and Alleyn filled in the details of their adventure from the time of the first incident in the train until Ricky’s disappearance. M. Dupont listened with an air of deference tempered by professional detachment. When they had finished he clapped his knees lightly and made a neat gesture with his thumb and forefinger pressed together.

“Admirable!” he said. “So we are in possession of our facts and now we act in concert, but first I must tell you one little fact that I have in my sleeve. There has been, four weeks ago, a case of child-stealing in the Paysdoux. It was the familiar story. A wealthy family from Lyons. A small one. A flightish nurse. During the afternoon promenade a young man draws the attention of this sexy nurse. The small one gambols in the gardens by our casino. The nurse and the young man are tête-à-tête upon a seat. Automobile pass to and fro, sometimes stopping. In one are the confederates of the young man. Presently the nurse remembers her duty. The small one is vanished and remains so. Also vanished is the young man. A message is thrown through the hotel window. The small one is to be recovered with five hundred mille francs at a certain time and at a place outside St. Céleste. There are the customary threats in the matter of informing the police. Monsieur Papa, under pressure from Madame Maman, obeys. He is driven to within a short distance of the place. He continues on foot. A car appears. Stops. A man with a handkerchief over his face and a weapon in his hand gets out. Monsieur Papa, again following instructions, places the money under a stone by the road and retires with his hands above his head. The man collects and examines the money and returns to the car. The small one gets out. The car drives away. The small one,” said M, Dupont, opening his eyes very wide at Troy, “is not pleased. He wishes to remain with his new acquaintances.”

“Oh, no!” Troy cried out.

“But yes. He has found them enchanting. Nevertheless he rejoins his family. And now, having facilitated the escape of the cat. Monsieur Papa attempts to close the bag. He informs the police.” M. Dupont spread his hands in the classic gesture and waited for his audience-reaction.

“The usual story,” Alleyn said.

“M. Dupont,” Troy said, “do you think the same men have taken Ricky?’

“No, Madame. I think we are intended to believe it is the same men.”

“But why? Why should it not be these people?”

“Because,” M. Dupont rejoined, touching his small moustache, “this morning at 7:30 these people were apprehended and are now locked up in the poste de police at St. Celeste. Monsieur Papa had the forethought to mark the notes. It was tactfully done. A slight addition to the decor. And the small one gave useful information. The news of the arrest would have appeared in the evening papers but I have forbidden it. The affair was already greatly publicized.”

“So our friends,” Alleyn suggested, “unaware of the arrest, imitate the performance and hope our reactions will be those of Monsieur Papa and Madame Maman and that you will turn our attention to St. Celeste.”

“But can you be so sure—” Troy began desperately. M. Dupont bent at the waist and gazed respectfully at her. “Ah, Madame,” he said, “consider. Consider the facts. At the Château de la Chèvre d’Argent there is a group of persons very highly involved in the drug ‘raquette.’ By a strange accident your husband already officially interested in these persons, is precipitated into their midst. One, perhaps two of the guests, know who he is. The actress Wells, who is an addict, is sent to make sure. She returns and tell them: ‘We entertain, let me inform you, the most distinguished and talented officer of The Scotland Yard. If we do not take some quick steps he will return to enquire for his invalid. It is possible he already suspects.’ And it is agreed he must not return. How can he be prevented from doing so? By the apparent kidnapping of his son. This is effected very adroitly. The woman with the bouquet tells the small Ricketts that his mother awaits him at the house she visited this morning. In the meantime a car is on its way from the Château to take them to St. Céleste. He is to be kept in the apartment of Garbel until it comes. The old Blanche takes him there. She omits to lock the doors on to the balcony. He goes out. You see him. He sees you. Blanche observes. He is removed and before you can reach him there the car arrives and he is removed still further.”

“Where?”

“If, following the precedent, they go to St. Céleste, they will be halted by our patrols, but I think perhaps they will have thought of that and changed their plans and if so it will not be to St. Céleste.”

“I agree,” Alleyn said.

“We shall be wiser when their message arrives, as arrive it assuredly will. There is also the matter of this Mademoiselle Garbel whose name is in the books and who has some communication with the Compagnie Chimique des Alpes Maritimes, which may very well be better named the Compagnie pour l’Elaboration de Diacetylmorphine. She is the ‘raquette,’ no doubt, and you have enquired for her.”

“For him. We thought: ‘him.’ ”

“Darling,” Alleyn said, “can you remember the letters pretty clearlyT’

“No,” said poor Troy, “how should I? I only know they were full of dreary information about buses and roads and houses.”

“Have you ever checked the relationship?”

“No. He — she — talked about distant cousins who I knew had existed but were nearly all dead.”

“Did she ever write about my job?”

“I don’t think, directly. I don’t think she ever wrote things like ‘how awful’ or ‘how lovely’ to be married to a chief detective-inspector. She said things about my showing her letters to my distinguished husband, who would no doubt be interested in their contents.”

“And, unmitigated clod that I am, I wasn’t. My dear Dupont,” Alleyn said, “I’ve been remarkably stupid. I think this lady has been trying to warn me about the activities of the drug racket in the Paysdoux.”

“But I thought,” Troy said, “I thought it was beginning to look as if it was she who had taken Ricky. Weren’t the flowers a means of getting into our rooms while I was at luncheon? Wasn’t the message about being away a blind? Doesn’t it took as if she’s one of the gang? She knew we were coming here. If she wanted to tell you about the drug racket why did she go away?”

“Why indeed? We don’t know why she went away.”

“Rory, I don’t want to be a horror, but — No,” said Troy, “I won’t say it.”

“I’ll say it for you. Why in Heaven’s name can’t we do something about Ricky instead of sitting here gossiping about Miss Garbel?”

“But, dear Madame,” cried M. Dupont, “we are doing things about Ricketts. Only—” M. Dupont continued, fortunately mistaking for an agonized sob the snort of hysteria that had escaped Troy —“only by an assemblage of the known facts can we arrive at a rational solution. Moreover, if the former case is to be imitated we shall certainly receive a message and it is important that we are here when it arrives. In the meantime all precautions have been taken. But all!”

“I know,” Troy said, “I’m terribly sorry. I know.”

“You brought Miss Garbel’s last letter, darling. Let’s have a look at it.”

“I’ll get it.”

Troy was not very good at keeping things tidy. She had a complicated rummage in her travelling case and handbag before she unearthed the final Garbel letter, which she handed with an anxious look to Alleyn. It was in a crumpled condition and he spread it out on the arm of his chair. “Here it is,” he said, and read aloud.

“Hell’s boots!” Alleyn said. “Under our very noses! Pays Dopes indeed, District of Dopes and Dope pays.” He read on:

“Oh Lord!” Alleyn lamented. “Why didn’t I read this before we left? We have been so bloody superior over this undoubtedly admirable spinster.”

“Please?” said M. Dupont.

“Listen to this, Dupont. Suppose this lady, who is a qualified chemist, was in the hands of the drug racket. Suppose she worked for them. Suppose she wanted to let someone in authority in England know what goes on inside the racket. Now. Do you imagine that there is any reason why she shouldn’t write what she knows to this person and put the letter in the post?”

“There is good reason to suppose she might fear to do so, Mr. Chief,” rejoined Dupont, who no doubt considered that the time had come for a more familiar mode of address. “As an Englishwoman she is perhaps not quite trusted in the ‘raquette.’ Her correspondence may be watched. Someone who can read English at the bureau-de-poste may be bribed. Perhaps she merely suspects that this may be so. They are thorough, these blackguards. Their net is fine in the mesh.”

“So she writes her boring letters and every time she writes, she drops a veiled hint, hoping I may see the letter. The Chèvre d’Argent is about thirty kilometres west on the Route Maritime. She tells us by means of tedious phrases, ferocious puns, and used bus tickets that she is a visitor there. How did she address her letters. Troy?”

“To ‘Agatha Troy.’ She said in her first letter that she understood that I would prefer to be addressed by my professional name. Like an actress, she added, though not in other respects. With the usual row of ejaculation marks. I don’t think she ever used your name. You were always my brilliant and distinguished husband!”

“And is my face red!” said Alleyn. M. Dupont’s was puzzled. Alleyn continued reading the letter.

“Really—” Alleyn said, handling the letter back to Troy— “short of cabling: ‘Drug barons at work come and catch them’ she could scarcely have put it more clearly.”

“You didn’t read the letters. I only told you about bits of them. I ought to have guessed.”

“Well, it’s no good blackguarding ourselves. Look here, both of you. Suppose we’re on the right track about Miss Garbel. Suppose, for some reason, she’s in the racket yet wants to put me wise about it, and has hoped to lure me over here. Why, when Troy writes and tells her we’re coming, does she go away without explanation?”

“And why,” Troy interjected, “does she send flowers by someone who used them as a means of kidnapping Ricky and taking him to her flat?”

“The card on the flowers isn’t in her writing.”

“She might have telephoned the florist”

“Which can be checked,” said M. Dupont, “of course. Will you allow me? This, I assume is the bouquet”

He inspected the box of tuberoses. “Ah, yes. Le Pot des Fleurs. May I telephone, Madame?”

While he did so, Troy went out to the balcony and Alleyn, seeing her there, her fingers against her lips in the classic gesture of the anxious woman, joined her and put his arm about her shoulders.

“I’m looking at that other balcony,” she said. “It’s silly, isn’t it? Suppose he came out again. It’s like one of those dreams of frustration.”

He touched her cheek and she said: “You mustn’t be too nice to me.”

“Little perisher,” Alleyn muttered, “you may depend upon it he’s airing his French and saying ‘why’ with every second breath he draws. Did you know W. S. Gilbert was pinched by bandits when he was a kid?”

“I think I did. Might they have taken him to the Chèvre d’Argent? As a sort of double bluff?”

“I don’t think so, my darling. My bet is he’s somewhere nearer than that”

“Nearer to Roqueville? Where, Rory, where?”

“It’s a guess and an unblushing guess, but—”

M. Dupont came bustling out to the balcony.

“Alors!” he began and checked himself. “My dear Monsieur and Madame, we progress a little. Le Pot des Fleurs tells me the flowers were bought and removed by a woman of the servant class, not of the district, who copied the writing on the card from a piece of paper. They do not remember seeing the woman before. We may find she is a maid of the Château, may we not?”

“May we?” said Troy a little desperately.

“But there are better news than these, Madame. The good Raoul Milano has reported to the hotel. It appears that an acquaintance of his, an idle fellow living in the western suburb, has seen a car, a light blue Citroën, at 2:30 p.m. driving out of Roqueville by the western route. In the car were the driver, a young woman and a small boy dressed in yellow and brown. The man wears a red beret and the woman is bare-headed. The car was impeded for a moment by an omnibus and the acquaintance of Milano heard the small one talking. He spoke in French but childishly and with a little difficulty, using foreign words. He appeared to be making an enquiry. The acquaintance heard him say ‘pourquoi’ several times.”

“Conclusive,” Alleyn said, watching Troy.

She cried out: “Did he seem frightened?”

“Madame, no. It appears that Milano made the same enquiry. The acquaintance said the small one seemed exigent. The actual phrase,” M. Dupont said, turning to Alleyn, “was: ‘Il semblait être impatient de comprendre quelque chose’!”

“He was impatient to understand something,” Troy ejaculated, “is that it?”

“Mais oui, Madame,” said Dupont and added a playful compliment in French to the effect that Troy evidently spoke the language as if she were born to it. Troy failed to understand a word of this and gazed anxiously at him. He continued in English. “Now, between Roqueville and the point where the nearest patrol on the western route is posted there are three deviations: all turning inland. Two are merely rural lanes. The third is a road that leads to a monastery and also—” Here M. Dupont raised his forefinger and looked roguish.

“And also,” Alleyn said, “to the Factory of the Maritime Alps Chemical Company.”

“Parfaitement!” said M. Dupont.

iv

“And you think he’s there!” Troy cried out. “But why? Why take him there?”

Alleyn said: “As I see it, and I don’t pretend, Lord knows, to see at all clearly, this might be the story. Oberon & Co. have a strong interest in the factory but they don’t realize we know it. Baradi and your painting chum Glande were at great pains to deplore the factory: to repudiate the factory as an excrescence in the landscape. But we suspect it probably houses the most impudent manufactory of hyoscine in Europe and we know Oberon’s concerned in the traffic. All right. They realize we’ve seen Ricky on the balcony of Number 16 and have called in the police. If Blanche has succeeded in getting herself out of durance vile she’s told them all about it. They’ve lost their start. They daren’t risk taking Ricky to St. Celeste, as they originally planned. What are they to do with him? It would be easy and safe to house him in one of the offices at the factory and have him looked after. You must remember that nobody up at the Château knows that he understands a certain amount of French.”

“The people who’ve got him will have found that out by now.”

“And also that his French doesn’t go beyond the nursery stage. They may have told him that we’ve gone back to look after Miss Truebody and have arranged for him to be minded until we are free. I think they may have meant to keep him at Number 16 while we went haring off to St. Celeste. La Belle Blanche (damn her eyes) probably rang up and said we’d spotted him on the balcony and they thought up the factory in a hurry.”

“Could they depend on our going to St. Céleste? Just on the strength of our probably getting to hear about the other kidnapping?”

“No,” said Alleyn and Dupont together.

“Then — I don’t understand.”

“Madame,” said Dupont, “there is no doubt that you shall be directed, if not to a place near St. Céleste, at least to some other place along the eastern route. To some place as far as possible from the true whereabouts of Ricketts.”

“Directed?”

“There will be a little note or a little telephone message. Always remember they fashion themselves on the pattern of the former affair, being in ignorance of this morning’s arrest.”

“It all sounds so terribly like guesswork,” Troy said after a moment. “Please, what do we do?”

Alleyn looked at Dupont, whose eyebrows rose portentously. “It is a little difficult,” he said. “From the point-of-view of my department, it is a delicate situation. We are not yet ready to bring an accusation against the organization behind the factory. When we are ready, Madame, it will be a very big matter, a matter not only for the department but for the police forces of several nations, for the International Police and for the United Nations Organization itself.”

Troy suddenly had a nightmarish vision of Ricky in his lemon shirt and brown shorts abandoned to a labyrinth of departmental corridors.

Watching her, Alleyn said: “So that we mustn’t suggest, you see, that we are interested in anything but Ricky.”

“Which, God knows, I’m not,” said Troy.

“Ah, Madame,” Dupont said, “I too am a parent.” And to Troy’s intense embarrassment he kissed her hand.

“It seems to me,” Alleyn said, “that the best way would be for your department, my dear Dupont, to make a great show of watching the eastern route and the country round St. Celeste and for us to make an equally great show of driving in a panic-stricken manner about the countryside. Indeed, it occurs to me that I might very well help matters by ringing up the Château and registering panic. What do you think?”

Dupont made a tight purse of his mouth, drew his brows together, looked pretty sharply at Alleyn and then lightly clapped his hands together.

“In effect,” he said, “why not?”

Alleyn went to the telephone. “Baradi, I fancy,” he said thoughtfully, and after a moment’s consideration: “Yes, I think it had better be Baradi.”

He dialled the hotel office and gave the number. While he waited he grimaced at Troy: “Celebrated imitation about to begin. You will notice that I have nothing in my mouth.”

They could hear the bell ringing, up at the Chèvre d’Argent.

“ ’Allo, ’allo.” Alleyn began in a high voice and broke into a spate of indifferent French. Was that the Chèvre d’Argent? Could he speak to Dr. Baradi? It was extremely urgent. He gave his name. They heard the telephone quack: “Un moment, Monsieur.” He grinned at Troy and covered the receiver with his hand. “Let’s hope they have to wake him up,” he said. “Give me a cigarette, darling.”

But before he could light it Baradi had come to the telephone. Alleyn’s deep voice was pitched six tones above its normal range and sounded as if it was only just under control. He began speaking in French, corrected himself, apologized and started again in English. “Do forgive me,” he said, “for bothering you again. The truth is, we are in trouble here. I know it sounds ridiculous but has my small boy by any chance turned up at the Château? Yes. Yes, we’ve lost him. We thought there might be the chance-there are buses, they say-and we’re at our wits’ end. No, I was afraid not. It’s just that my wife is quite frantic. Yes. Yes, I know. Yes, so we’ve been told. Yes, I’ve seen the police but you know what they’re like.” Alleyn turned towards M. Dupont, who immediately put on a heroic look. “They’re the same wherever you go, red-tape and inactivity. Most unsatisfactory.” M. Dupont bowed. “Yes, if it’s the same blackguards we shall be told what we have to do. No, no, I refuse to take any risks of that sort. Somehow or another I’ll raise the money but it won’t be easy with the restrictions.” Alleyn pressed his lips together. His long fingers blanched as they tightened round the receiver. “Would you really?” he said and the colour of his voice, its diffidence and its hesitancy, so much at variance with the look in his eyes, gave him the uncanny air of a ventriloquist. “Would you really? I say, that’s most awfully kind of you both. I’ll tell my wife. It’ll be a great relief to her to know — yes, well I ought to have said something about that, only I’m so damnably worried — I’m afraid we shan’t be able to do anything about Miss Truebody until we’ve found Ricky. I am taking my wife to St. Céleste, if that’s where — yes, probably this afternoon if — I don’t think we’ll feel very like coming back after what’s happened, but of course — Is she? Oh, dear! I’m very sorry. That’s very good of him. I am sorry. Well, if you really don’t mind. I’m afraid I’m not much use. Thank you. Yes. Well, goodbye.”

He hung up the receiver. His face was white.

“He offers every possible help,” he said, “financial and otherwise, and is sure Mr. Oberon will be immeasurably distressed. He has now, no doubt, gone away to enjoy a belly laugh at our expense. It is going to be difficult to keep one’s self-control over Messrs. Oberon and Baradi.”

“I believe you,” said M. Dupont.

“Rory, you’re certain now, in your own mind, aren’t you?”

“Yes. He didn’t utter a word that was inconsistent with genuine concern and helpfulness, but I’m certain in my own mind.”

“Why?”

“One gets a sixth sense about that sort of bluff. And I think he made a slip. He said: ‘Of course you can do nothing definite until those scoundrels ring you up.’ ”

M. Dupont cried, “Ahah!”

“But you said to him,” Troy objected, “that we would be told what to do.”

“’Would be told what to do!’ Exactly. In the other case the kidnappers’ instructions came by letter. Why should Baradi think that this time they would telephone?”

As if in answer, the bedroom telephone buzzed twice.

“This will be it,” said Alleyn and took up the receiver.