Spinsters in Jeopardy (13 page)

“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.

i

Alleyn was used to anonymous calls on the telephone. There was a quality of voice that he had learned to recognize as common to them all. Though this new voice spoke in French it held the familiar tang of artifice. He nodded to Dupont, who at once darted out of the room.

The voice said: “M. Allen?”

“
C’est Allen qui parle
.”

“
Bien. Écoutez. A sept heures demain soir, présentez-vous à pied et tout seul, vis-à-vis du pavillon de chasse en ruines, il y a sept kilomètres vers le midi du village St. Céleste-des-Alpes. Apportez avec vous cent mille francs en billets de cent. N’avertissez-pas la police, ou le petit apprendra bien les consequences. Compris
?”

Alleyn repeated it in stumbling French, as slowly as possible and with as many mistakes as he dared to introduce. He wanted to give Dupont time. The voice grew impatient in correction. Alleyn, however, repeated his instructions for the third time and began to expostulate in English. “
Plus rien à dire,
” said the voice and rang off.

Alleyn turned to Troy. “Did you understand?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I think so.”

“Well, it’s all right, my dearest. It’s as we thought. Tomorrow evening outside a village called St. Cèleste-des-Alpes with a hundred quid in my hand. The village, no doubt, will be somewhere above St. Céleste.”

“You didn’t recognize the voice?”

“It wasn’t Baradi or Oberon. It wasn’t young Herrington. I wouldn’t swear it wasn’t Carbury Glande, who was croaking with hangover this morning and might have recovered by now. And I would by no means swear that it wasn’t Baradi’s servant, whom I’ve only heard utter about six phrases in Egyptian but who certainly understands French. There was a bit of an accent and I didn’t think it sounded local.”

Dupont tapped and entered. “Any luck?” Alleyn said.

“Of a kind. I rang the
centrale
and was answered by an imbecile but the call has been traced. And to where do you suppose?”

“Number 16, Rue des Violettes?”

“Precisely!”

“Fair enough,” Alleyn said. “It must be their town office.”

“I also rang the Préfecture. No reports have come in from the patrols. What was the exact telephone message, if you please?”

Alleyn told him in French, wrapping up the threats to Ricky in words that were outside Troy’s vocabulary.

“The same formula,” Dupont said, “as in the reported version of the former affair. My dear Mr. Chief and Madame, it seems that we should now pursue our hunch.”

“To the chemical works?”

“Certainly.”

“Thank God!” Troy ejaculated.

“All the same,” Alleyn said, “it’s tricky. As soon as we get there the gaff is blown. The Château, having been informed that the telephone message went through, will wait for us to go to St. Céleste. When we turn up at the factory, the factory will ring the Château. Tricky! How far away is St. Céleste?”

“About seventy kilometres.”

“Is it possible to start off on the eastern route and come around to the factory by a detour? Behind Roqueville?”

M. Dupont frowned. “There are some mountain lanes,” he said. “Little more than passages for goats and cattle but of a width that is possible.”

“Possible for Raoul who is, I have noticed, a good driver.”

“He will tell us, at least. He is beneath.”

“Good.” Alleyn turned to his wife. “See here, darling. Will you go down and ask Raoul to fill up his tank—
faire plein d’essence
will be all right-and ask him to come back as soon as he’s done it. Will you then ask for the manager and tell him we’re going to St. Celeste, but would like to leave our heavy luggage here and keep our rooms. Perhaps you should offer to pay a week in advance. Here’s some money. I’ll bring down a couple of suitcases and join you in the hall. All right?”

“All right.
Voulez-vous,
” Troy said anxiously, “
faire plein d’essence et revenez ici
. O.K.?”

“O.K.”

When she had gone Alleyn said, “Dupont, I wanted a word with you. You can see what a hellish business this is for me, can’t you? I know damn well how important it is not to let our investigation go off like a damp squib. I realize, nobody better, that a premature inquiry at the factory might prejudice a very big coup. I’m here on a job and my job is with the police of your country and my own. In a way it’s the most critical assignment I’ve ever had.”

“And for me, also.”

“But the boy’s my boy and his mother’s my wife. It looked perfectly safe to bring them here and they gave me admirable cover, but as things have turned out, I shouldn’t have brought them. But for the unfortunate Miss Truebody, of course, it
would
have been all right.”

“And she, too, provided admirable cover. An unquestioned entrée.”

“Not for long, however. What I’m trying to say is this: I’ve fogged out a scheme of approach. I realize that in suggesting it I’m influenced by an almost overwhelming anxiety about Ricky. I’ll be glad if you tell me at once if you think it impracticable and, from the police angle, unwise.”

Dupont said: “M. l’Inspecteur, I understand the difficulty and respect, very much, your delicacy. I shall be honoured to advise.”

“Thank you. Here goes, then. It’s essential that we arouse no suspicion of our professional interest in the factory. It’s highly probable that the key men up there have already been informed from the Château of my real identity. There’s a chance, I suppose, that Annabella Wells has kept her promise, but it’s a poor chance. After all, if these people don’t know who I am why should they kidnap Ricky? All right. We make a show of leaving this hotel and taking the eastern route for St. Céleste. That will satisfy anybody who may be watching us at this end. We take to the hills and double back to the factory. By this time, you, with a suitable complement of officers, are on your way there. I go in and ask for Ricky. I am excitable and agitated. They say he’s not there. I insist that I’ve unimpeachable evidence that he is there. I demand to see the manager. I produce Raoul, who says he took his girl for a drive and saw a car with Ricky in it turn in at the factory gates. They stick to their guns. I make a hell of a row. I tell them I’ve applied to you. You arrive with a carload of men. You take the manager aside and tell him I am a V.I.P. on holiday.”

“
Comment
? V.I.P?”

“A very important person. You see it’s extremely awkward. That you think the boy’s been kidnapped and that it’s just possible one of their workmen has been bribed to hide him. You’ll say I’ll make things very hot for you at the Sûreté if you don’t put on a show of searching for Ricky. You produce a
mandai de perquisition
. You are terribly apologetic and very bored with me, but you say that unfortunately you have no alternative. As a matter of form you must search the factory. Now, what does the manager do?”

Dupont’s sharp eyebrows were raised to the limit. Beneath them his round eyes stared with glazed impartiality at nothing in particular. His arms were folded. Alleyn waited.

“In effect,” Dupont said at last, “he sends his secretary to investigate. The secretary returns with Ricketts and there are a great many apologies. The manager assures me that there will be an exhaustive enquiry and appropriate dismissals.”

“What do you say to this?”

“Ah,” said Dupont, suddenly lowering his eyebrows and unfolding his arms. “That is more difficult.”

“Do I perhaps intervene? Having clasped my son to my bosom and taken him out with his mother to the car, thus giving the manager an opportunity to attempt bribery at a high level, do I not return and take it as matter of course that you consider this an admirable opportunity to pursue your search for the kidnappers?”

Dupont’s smile irradiated his face. “It is possible,” he said. “It is conceivable.”

“Finally, my dear Dupont, can we act along these lines or any other that suggest themselves without arousing the smallest suspicion that we are interested in anything but the recovery of the child?”

“The word of operation is indeed ‘act.’ From your performance on the telephone, Mr. Chief, I can have no misgivings about your own performance. And for myself”— here Dupont tapped his chest, touched his moustache and gave Alleyn an indescribably roguish glance —“I believe I shall do well enough.”

They stood up. Alleyn put his police bag inside a large suitcase. After looking at the chaos within Troy’s partly unpacked luggage, he decided on two cases. He also collected their overcoats and Ricky’s.

“Shall we about it?” he asked.

“
En avant, alors
!” said Dupont.

ii

Mr. Oberon looked down at the figure on the bed. “Quite peaceful,” he said. “Isn’t it strange?”

“The teeth,” Baradi pointed out, “make a great difference.”

“There is a certain amount of discolouration.”

“Hypostatic staining. The climate.”

“Then there is every reason,” Mr Oberon observed with satisfaction, “for an immediate funeral.”

“Certainly.”

“If they have in fact gone off to St. Céleste they cannot return until the day after tomorrow.”

“If, on the other hand, this new man at the Préfecture is intelligent, which Allen says is not the case, they may pick up some information.”

“Let us—” Mr. Oberon suggested as he absentmindedly rearranged the sprigged locknit nightgown which was pinned down by crossed hands to the rigid bosom —“let us suppose the worst. They recover the child,” he raised his hand. “Yes, yes, it is unlikely, but suppose it happens. They call to enquire. They ask to see her.”

The two men were silent for a time. “Very well,” Baradi said. “So they see her. She will not be a pretty sight, but they see her.”

Mr. Oberon was suddenly inspired. “There must be flowers,” he ejaculated. “Masses and masses of flowers. A nest. A coverlet all of flowers, smelling like incense. Tuberoses,” he cried softly clapping his hands together. “They will be entirely appropriate. I shall order them. Tuberoses! And orchids.”

iii

The eastern route followed the seaboard for three miles out of Roqueville and then turned slightly inland. At this point a country road branched off it to the left. Raoul took the road which mounted into the hills by a series of hairpin bends. They climbed out of soft coastal air and entered a region of mountain freshness. A light breeze passed like a hand through the olive groves and sent spirals of ruddy dust across the road. The seaboard with its fringe of meretricious architecture had dwindled into an incident, while the sea and sky and warm earth widely enlarged themselves.

The road, turning about the contour of the hills, was littered with rock and scarred by wheel tracks. Sometimes it became a ledge traversing the face of sheer cliffs, and in normal times Troy, who disliked heights, would have feared these passages. Now she dreaded them merely because they had to be taken slowly.

“How long,” she asked, “will it be, do you suppose?”

“Roqueville’s down there a little ahead of us. We’ll pass above it in a few minutes. I gather we now cast back into the mountains for about the same distance as we’ve travelled already and then work round to a junction with the main road to the factory. Sorry about these corners, darling,” Alleyn said as they edged round a bend that looked like a take-off into space. “Are you minding it very much?”

“Only because it’s slow. Raoul’s a good driver, isn’t he?”

“Very good indeed. Could you bear it if I told you about this job? I think perhaps I ought to, but it’ll be a bit dreary.”

“Yes,” Troy said. “I’d like that. The drearier the better because I’ll have to concentrate.”

“Well, you know it’s to do with the illicit drug trade, but I don’t suppose you know much about the trade itself. By and large it’s probably the worst thing apart from war that’s happened to human beings in modern times. Before the 1914 war the nation most troubled by the opium racket had begun to do something about it. There was a Shanghai conference and a Hague Convention. Both were cautious tentative shows. None of the nations came to them with a clean record and all the delegates were embarrassed by murky backgrounds in which production, manufacture and distribution involved the revenue both of states and highly placed individuals. Dost thou attend me?”

“Sir,” said Troy, “most heedfully.”

They exchanged the complacent glance of persons who recognize each other’s quotations.

“At the Hague Convention they did get round to making one or two conservative decisions but before they were ratified the war came along and the whole thing lapsed. After the peace the traffic was stepped up most murderously. It’s really impossible to exaggerate the scandal of those years. At the top end were nations getting a fat revenue out of the sale of opium and its derivatives. An investigator said at one stage that half Europe was being poisoned to bolster up the domestic policy of Bulgaria. The goings-on were fantastic. Charges d’affaires smuggled heroin in their diplomatic baggage. Drug barons built works all over Europe. Diacetylmorphine, which is heroin to you, was brewed on the Champs Élysées. Highly qualified chemists were offered princely salaries to work in drug factories and a great number of them fell for it. Many of the smartest and most fashionable people in European society lived on the trade: murderers, if the word has any meaning. At the other end of the stick were the street pedlars, at the foot of Nurse Cavell’s statue among other places, and the addicts. The addicts were killing themselves in studies, studios, dressing-rooms, brothels, boudoirs and garrets; young intellectuals and young misfits were ruining themselves by the score. Girls were kept going by their
souteneurs
with shots of the stuff. And so on. Thou attendest not.”

“Oh, good sir, I do.”

“I pray thee, mark me. At the Peace Conference this revolting baby was handed over to the League of Nations, who appointed an Advisory Committee who began the first determined assault on the thing. The international police came in, various bodies were set up and a bit of real progress was made. Only a bit.