Spinsters in Jeopardy (10 page)

“Am I to hear it?”

“I shall be glad to recount it. It appears, Monsieur, that Teresa’s duties are confined to the sweeping of carpets and polishing of floors and that it is not required of her to take
petit déjeuner
to guests or to perform any personal services for them. She is young and inexperienced. And so, one morning, this Egyptian surgeon witnesses Teresa from the rear when she is on her knees polishing. Teresa is as good from behind as she in from in front, Monsieur. And the doctor passes her and pauses to look. Presently he returns with Mr. Oberon and they pause and speak to each other in a foreign language. Next, the
femme de charge
sends for Teresa and she is instructed that she is to serve
petit déjeuner
to this animal Oberon, if Monsieur will overlook the description, in his bedroom and that her wage is to be raised. So Teresa performs this service. On the first morning there is no conversation. On the second he enquires her name. On the third this
vilain coco
asks her if she is not a fine strong girl. On the fourth he talks a lot of
blague
about the spirituality of the body and the non-existence of evil, and on the fifth, when Teresa enters, he is displayed, immodestly clad, before a full-length glass in his salon. I must tell you, Monsieur, that to reach the bedroom, Teresa must first pass through the salon. She is obliged to approach this unseemly animal. He looks at her fixedly and speaks to her in a manner that is irreligious and blasphemous and anathema. Monsieur, Teresa is a good girl. She is frightened, not so much of this animal, she tells me, as of herself because she feels herself to be like a bird when it is held in terror by a snake. I have told her she must leave, but she says that the wages are good and they are a large family with sickness and much in debt. Monsieur, I repeat, she is a good girl and it is true she needs the money, but I cannot escape the thought that she is in a kind of bondage from which she cannot summon enough character to escape. And on some mornings, when she goes in, there is nothing to which one could object, but on others he talks and talks and stares and stares at Teresa. So that when I last saw her we quarrelled and I have told her that unless she leaves her job before she is no longer respectable she may look elsewhere for a husband. So she wept and I was discomforted. She is not unique but, there it is, I have a preference for Teresa.”

Alleyn thought: “This is the first bit of luck I’ve had since we got here.” He looked up the valley at the glittering works of the Maritime Alps Chemical Company and said: “I think it well to tell you that I am interested professionally in the ménage at the Chèvre d’Argent. If it had not been for the accident of Mademoiselle’s illness I should have tried to gain admittance there. M. le Commissaire is also interested. We are colleagues in this affair. You and I agree to forget my rank, Raoul, but for the purposes of this discussion perhaps we should recall it.”

“Good, M. l’lnspector-en-Chef.”

“There’s no reason on earth why you should put yourself out for an English policeman in an affair which, however much it may also concern the French police, hasn’t very much to do with you. Apart from Teresa, for whom you have a preference.”

“There is always Teresa.”

“Are you a discreet man?”

“I don’t chatter like a one-eyed magpie, Monsieur.”

“I believe you. It is known to the police here and in London that the Chèvre d’Argent is used as a place of distribution in a particularly ugly trade.”

“Women, Monsieur?”

“Drugs. Women, it seems, are a purely personal interest. A side-line. I believe neither Dr. Baradi nor Mr. Oberon is a drug addict. They are engaged in the traffic from a business point-of-view. I think that they have cultivated the habit of drug-taking among their guests and are probably using at least one of them as a distributor. Mr. Oberon has also established a cult.”

“A cult, Monsieur?”

“A synthetic religion concocted from scraps of mysticism, witchcraft, mythology, Hinduism, Egyptology, what-have-you, with, I very much suspect, a number of particularly revolting fancy touches invented by Mr. Oberon.”

“Anathema,” Raoul said, “all this is anathema. What do they do?” he added with undisguised interest.

“I don’t know exactly but I must, I’m afraid, find out. There have been other cases of this sort. No doubt there are rites. No doubt the women are willing to be drugged.”

Raoul said: “It appears that I must be firm with Teresa.”

“I should be very firm, Raoul.”

“This morning she is in Roqueville at the market. I am to meet her at my parents’ restaurant, where I shall introduce a firm note. I am disturbed for her. All this, Monsieur, that you have related is borne out by Teresa. On Thursday nights the local servants and some of the other permanent staff are dismissed. It is on Thursday, therefore, that I escort Teresa to her home up in the Paysdoux where she sleeps the night. She has heard a little gossip, not much, because the servants are discreet, but a little. It appears that there is a ceremony in a room which is kept locked at other times. And on Friday nobody appears until late in the afternoon and then with an air of having a formidable
gueule de bois
. The ladies are strangely behaved on Fridays. It is as if they are half-asleep, Teresa says. And last Friday a young English lady, who has recently arrived, seemed as if she was completely
bouleversée;
dazed, Monsieur,” Raoul said, making a graphic gesture with one hand. “In a trance. And also as if she had wept.”

“Isn’t Teresa frightened by what she sees on Fridays?”

“That is what I find strange, Monsieur. Yes: she says she is frightened, but it is clear to me that she is also excited. That is what troubles me in Teresa.”

“Did she tell you where the room is? The room that is unlocked on Thursday nights?”

“It is in the lower part of the Château, Monsieur. Beneath the library, Teresa thinks. Two flights beneath.”

“And today is Wednesday.”

“Well, Monsieur?”

“I am in need of an assistant.”

“Yes, Monsieur?”

“If I asked at the Préfecture they would give me the local gendarme, who is doubtless well-known. Or they would send me a clever man from Paris who as a stranger would be conspicuous. But a man of Roqueville who is well-known and yet is accepted as the friend of one of the maids at the Chèvre d’Argent is not conspicuous if he calls. Do you in fact call often to see Teresa?”

“Often, Monsieur.”

“Well, Raoul?”

“Well, Monsieur?”

“Do you care, with M. le Commissaire’s permission, to come adventuring with me on Thursday night?”

“Enchanted,” said Raoul, gracefully.

“It may not be uneventful, you know. They are a formidable lot, up there.”

“That is understood, Monsieur. Again, it will be an act of grace.”

“Good. Here is Roqueville. Drive to the hotel, if you please. I shall see Madame and have some luncheon and at three o’clock I shall call on M. le Commissaire. You will be free until then, but leave me a telephone number and your address.”

“My parents’ restaurant is in the street above that of the hotel. L’Escargot Bienvenu, 20 Rue des Sarrasins. Here is a card, Monsieur, with the telephone number.”

“Right.”

“My father is a good cook. He has not a great repertoire, but his judgment is sound. Such dishes as he makes he makes well. His
filets mignons
are a speciality of the house, Monsieur, and his sauces are inspired.”

“You interest me profoundly. In the days when there was steak in England, one used to dream of
filet mignon
but even then one came to France to eat it.”

“Perhaps if Monsieur and Madame find themselves a little weary of the table d’hôte at the Royal they may care to eat cheaply but with satisfaction at L’Escargot Bienvenu.”

“An admirable suggestion.”

“Of course, we are not at all smart. But good breeding,” Raoul said simply, “creates its own background and Monsieur and Madame would not feel out of place. Here is your hotel, Monsieur, and—” His voice changed. “Here is Madame.”

Alleyn was out of the car before it stopped. Troy stood in the hotel courtyard with her clasped hands at her lips and a look on her face that he had never seen there before. When he took her arms in his hands he felt her whole body trembling. She tried to speak to him but at first was unable to find her voice. He saw her mouth frame the word “Ricky.”

“What is it darling?” he said. “What’s the matter with him?” “He’s gone,” she said. “They’ve taken him. They’ve taken Ricky.”

iv

For the rest of their lives they would remember too vividly the seconds in which they stood on the tessellated courtyard of the hotel, plastered by the mid-day sun. Raoul on the footpath watched them and the blank street glared behind him. The air smelt of petrol. There was a smear of magenta bougainvillea on the opposite wall, and in the centre of the street a neat pile of horse-droppings. It was already siesta time and so quiet that they might have been the only people awake in Roqueville.

“I’ll keep my head and be sensible,” Troy whispered. “Won’t I, Rory?”

“Of course. We’ll go indoors and you’ll tell me about it.”

“I want to get into the car and look somewhere for him, but I know that won’t do.”

“I’ll ask Raoul to wait.”

He did so. Raoul listened, motionless. When Alleyn had spoken Raoul said, “Tell Madame it will be all right, Monsieur. Things will come right.” As they turned away he called his reassurances after them and the sound of his words followed them: “
Les affaires s’arrangeront. Tout ira bien, Madame
.”

Inside the hotel it seemed very dark. A porter sat behind a reception desk and an elegantly dressed man stood in the hall wringing his hands.

Troy said: “This is my husband. This is the manager, Rory. He speaks English. I’m sorry, Monsieur, I don’t know your name.”

“Malaquin, Madame. Mr. Alleyn, I am sure there is some simple explanation — There have been other cases—”

“I’ll come and see you, if I may, when I’ve heard what has happened.”

“But of course.
Garçon
—”

The porter, looking ineffably compassionate, took them up in the lift. The stifling journey was interminable.

Troy faced her husband in a large bedroom made less impersonal by the slight but characteristic litter that accompanied her wherever she went. Beyond her was an iron-railed balcony and beyond that the arrogant laundry-blue of the Mediterranean. He pushed a chair up and she took it obediently. He sat on his heels before her and put his hands on the arms of the chair.

“Now, tell me, darling,” he said. “I can’t do anything until you’ve told me.”

“You were such a lifetime coming.”

“I’m here now. Tell me.”

“Yes.”

She did tell him. She made a great effort to be lucid, frowning when she hesitated or when her voice shook, and always keeping her gaze on him. He had said she was a good witness and now she stuck to the bare bones of her story, but every word was shadowed by a multitude of unspoken terrors.

She said that when they arrived at the hotel Ricky was fretful and white after his interrupted sleep and the excitement of the drive. The manager was attentive and suggested that Ricky could have a tray in their rooms. Troy gave him a bath and put him into pyjamas and dressing-gown and he had his luncheon, falling asleep almost before it was finished. She put him to bed in a dressing-room opening off her own bedroom. She darkened the windows, and seeing him comfortably asleep with his silver goat clutched in his hand, had her bath, changed and lunched in the dining-room of the hotel. When she returned to their room Ricky had gone.

At first she thought that he must have wakened and gone in search of a lavatory or that perhaps he had had one of his panics and was looking for her. It was only after a search of their bathroom and the passages, stairs and such rooms as were open that with mounting anxiety she rang for the chambermaid, and then, as the woman didn’t understand English, spoke on the telephone to the manager. M. Malaquin was helpful and expeditious. He said he would at once speak to the servants on duty and report to her. As she put down the receiver Troy looked at the chair across which she had laid Ricky’s day clothes ready for his awakening — a yellow shirt and brown linen shorts — and she saw that they were gone.

From that moment she had fought against a surge of terror so imperative that it was accompanied by a physical pain. She ran downstairs and told the manager. The porter and two of the waiters and Troy herself had gone out into the deserted and sweltering streets, Troy running uphill and breathlessly calling Ricky’s name. She stopped the few people she met, asking them for a “
petit garçon, mon fils
.” The men shrugged, one woman said something that sounded sympathetic. They all shook their heads or made negative gestures with their fingers. Troy found herself in a maze of back streets and stone stairways. She thought she was lost, but looking down a steep alleyway, saw one of the waiters walk across at the lower end and she ran down after him. When she reached the cross-alley she was just in time to see his coat-tails disappear round a further corner. Finally she caught him up. They were back in the little square, and there was the hotel. Her heart rammed against her ribs and she suffered a disgusting sense of constriction in her throat. Sweat poured between her shoulder blades and ran down her forehead into her eyes. She was in a nightmare.

The waiter grimaced. He was idiotically polite and deprecating and he couldn’t understand a word that she said. He pursed his lips, bowed and went indoors. She remembered the Commissary of Police and was about to ask the manager to telephone the Préfecture when she heard Raoul’s car turn into the street.

Alleyn said: “Right. I’ll talk to the Préfecture. But before I do, my dearest dear, will you believe one thing?”

“All right, I’ll try.”

“Ricky isn’t in danger. I’m sure of it.”

“But it’s true. He’s been — it’s those people up there — they’ve kidnapped him, haven’t they?”

“It’s possible that they’ve taken a hand. If they have it’s because they want to keep me busy. It’s also possible, isn’t it, that something entered into his head and he got himself up and trotted out.”