Spinsters in Jeopardy (17 page)

“Bravo,” said M. Dupont.

“Now the Nanny,” Alleyn said. “Can you see her?”

There was a long pause. Ricky, looking at the group of girls at the back, said: “There’s someone that hasn’t turned around.”

M. Dupont shouted: “
Présentez-vous de face, tout le monde
!”

The second gendarme pushed through the group of girls. They melted away to either side as if an invisible wedge had been driven through them. The impulse communicated itself to their neighbours: the gap widened and stretched, opening out as Alleyn carried Ricky towards it. Finally Ricky, on his father’s shoulders, looked up an exaggerated perspective to where the girl stood with her back to them, her hands clasped across the nape of her neck as if to protect it from a blow. The gendarme took her by the arm, turned her, and held down the hands that now struggled to reach her face. She and Ricky looked at each other.

“Hallo, Teresa,” said Ricky.

v

Two cars drove down the Roqueville road. In the first was M. Callard and two policemen and in the second, a blue Citroën, were its owner and a third policeman. The staff of the factory had gone. M. Dupont was busy in M. Callard’s office and a fourth gendarme stood, lonely and important, in the empty hall. Troy had taken Ricky, who had begun to be very pleased with himself, to Raoul’s car. Alleyn, Raoul and Teresa sat on an ornamental garden seat in the factory grounds. Teresa wept and Raoul gave her cause to do so.

“Infamous girl,” Raoul said, “to what sink of depravity have you retired? I think of your perfidy,” he went on, “and I spit.”

He rose, retired a few paces, spat and returned. “I compare your behaviour,” he continued, “to its disadvantage with that of Herod, the Anti-Christ who slit the throats of first-born innocents. Ricky is an innocent and also, Monsieur will correct me if I speak in error, a first-born. He is, moreover, the son of Monsieur, my employer, who, as you observe, can find no words to express his loathing of the fallen woman with whom he finds himself in occupation of this contaminated piece of garden furniture.”

“Spare me,” Teresa sobbed. “I can explain myself.”

Raoul bent down in order to place his exquisite but distorted face close to hers. “Female ravisher of infants,” he apostrophized. “Trafficker in unmentionable vices. Associate of perverts.”

“You insult me,” Teresa sobbed. She rallied slightly. “You also lie like a brigand. The Holy Virgin is my witness.”

“She blushes to hear you. Answer me.” Raoul shouted and made a complicated gesture a few inches from her eyes. “Did you not steal the child? Answer!”

“Where there is no intention, there is no sin,” Teresa bawled, taking her stand on dogma. “I am as pure as the child himself. If anything, purer. They told me his papa wished me to call for him.”

“Who told you?”

“Monsieur,” said Teresa, changing colour.

“Monsieur Goat! Monsieur Filth! In a word, Monsieur Oberon.”

“It is a lie,” Teresa repeated but rather vaguely. She turned her sumptuous and tear-blubbered face to Alleyn. “I appeal to Monsieur who is an English nobleman and will not spit upon the good name of a virtuous girl. I throw myself at his feet and implore him to hear me.”

Raoul also turned to Alleyn and spread his hands out in a gesture of ineffable poignancy.

“If Monsieur pleases,” he said, making Alleyn a present of the whole situation.

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “Yes. Well now—”

He looked from one grand-opera countenance to the other. Teresa gazed at him with nerveless compliance, Raoul with grandeur and a sort of gloomy sympathy. Alleyn got up and stood over the girl.

“Now, see here, Teresa,” he began. Raoul took a respectful step backwards. “It appears that you have behaved very foolishly for a long time and you are a fortunate girl to have come out of it without involving yourself in disaster.”

“Undoubtedly,” Teresa said with a hint of complacency, “I am under the protection of Our Lady of Paysdoux for whom I have a special devotion.”

“Which you atrociously abuse,” Raoul remarked to the landscape.

“Be that as it may,” Alleyn hurriedly intervened. “It’s time you pulled yourself together and tried to make amends for all the harm you have done. I think you must know very well that your employer at the Château is a bad man. In your heart you know it, don’t you, Teresa?”

Teresa placed her hand on her classic bosom. “In my heart, Monsieur, I am troubled to suffocation in his presence. It is in my soul that I find him impure.”

“Well, wherever it is, you are perfectly correct. He is a criminal who is wanted by the police of several countries. He has made fools of many silly girls before you. You’re lucky not to be in gaol, Teresa. M. le Commissaire would undoubtedly have locked you up if I had not asked him to give you a chance to redeem yourself.”

Teresa opened her mouth and let out an appropriate wail.

“To such deplorable depths have you reduced yourself,” said Raoul, who had apparently assumed the maddening role of chorus. “And me!” he pointed out.

“However,” Alleyn went on, “we have decided to give you this chance. On condition, Teresa, that you answer truthfully any questions I ask you.”

“The Holy Virgin is my witness—” Teresa began.

“There are also other less distinguished witnesses,” said Raoul. “In effect, there is the child-thief Georges Martel with whom you conspired and who is probably your paramour.”

“It is a lie.”

“How,” Alleyn asked, “did it come about that you took Ricky from the hotel?”

“I was in Roqueville. I go to the market for the
femme de charge
. At one o’clock following my custom I visited the restaurant of the parents of Raoul, who is killing me with cruelty,” Teresa explained, throwing a poignant glance at her fiancé. “There is a message for me to telephone the Château. I do so. I am told to wait as Monsieur wishes to speak to me. I do so. My heart churns in my bosom because that unfortunately is the effect Monsieur has upon it: it is not a pleasurable sensation.”

“Tell that one in another place,” Raoul advised.

“I swear it. Monsieur instructs me: there is a little boy at the Hotel Royal who is the son of his dear friends, Monsieur and Madame
Alleyn
. He plans with Monsieur
Alleyn
a little trick upon Madame, a drollery, a
blague
. They have
nounou
for the child and while they are here I am to be presented by Monsieur as a
nounou
and I am to receive extra salary.”

“More atrocity,” said Raoul. “How much?”

“Monsieur did not specify. He said an increase. And he instructs me to go to Le Pot des Fleurs and purchase turberoses. He tells me, spelling it out, the message I am to write. I have learned a little English from the servants of English guests at the Château so I understand. The flowers are from Mademoiselle Garbel who is at present at the Château.”

“Is she, by Heaven!” Alleyn ejaculated. “Have you seen her?”

“Often, Monsieur. She is often there.”

“What does she look like?”

“Like an Englishwoman. All Englishwomen with the exception, no doubt, of Madame, the wife of Monsieur, have teeth like mares and no
poitrine
. So, also, Mademoiselle Garbel.”

“Go on, Teresa.”

“In order that the drollery shall succeed, I am to go to the hotel while Madame is at
déjeuner
. I shall have the tuberoses and if without enquiry I can ascertain the apartments of Monsieur and Madame I am to go there. If I am questioned I am to say I am the new
nounou
and go up to the
appartements
. I am to remove the little one by the service stairs. Outside Georges Martel, who is nothing to me, waits in his auto. And from that point Georges will command the proceedings!”

“And that’s what you did? No doubt you saw the number of the
appartement
on the luggage in the hall.”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“And then?”

“Georges drives us to 16 Rue des Violettes where the concierge tells me she will take the little boy to the
appartement
of Mademoiselle Garbel where his father awaits him. I am to stay in the auto in the back-street with Georges. Presently the concierge returns with the little boy. She says to Georges that the affair is in the water as the parents have seen the boy. She says that the orders are to drive at once to the factory. Georges protests: ‘Is it not to St. Céleste?’ She says: ‘No, at once, quickly to the factory.’ The little boy is angry and perhaps frightened and he shouts in French and in English that his papa and mama are not in a factory but in their hotel. But Georges uses blasphemous language and drives quickly away. And Monsieur will, I entreat, believe me when I tell him I regretted then very much everything that had happened. I was afraid. Georges would tell me nothing except to keep my mouth sewn up. So I see that I am involved in wickedness and I say several decades of the rosary and try to make amusements for the little boy who is angry and frightened and weeps for the loss of a statue bought from Marie of the Chèvre d’Argent. I think also of Raoul,” said Teresa.

“It’s easy to see,” Raoul observed, “that in the matter of intelligence you have not invented the explosive.” But he was visibly affected, nevertheless. “You should have known at once that it was a lot of
blague
about the
nounou.
”

“And when you got to the factory?” Alleyn asked.

“Georges took the little boy inside. He then returned alone and we drove round to the garages at the back. I tried to run away and when he grasped my arms I inflicted some formidable scratches on his face. But he threw me a smack on the ear and told me Monsieur Oberon would put me under a malediction.”

“When he emerges from gaol,” Raoul said thoughtfully, “I shall make a meat
pâté
of Georges. He is already fried.”

“And then, Teresa?”

“I was frightened again, Monsieur, not of Georges but of what Monsieur Oberon might do to me. And presently the whistle blew and a loud-speaker summoned everybody to the hall. And Georges said we should clear out. He walked a little way and peeped round the corner and came back saying there were gendarmes at the gates and we must conceal ourselves. But one of the gendarmes came into the garage and said we must go into the hall. And when we arrived Georges left me saying: ‘Get out, don’t hang round my heels.’ So I went to some of the girls I knew and when I heard the announcement of Monsieur le Commissaire and saw Raoul and they said Raoul had seen me: Oh, Monsieur, judge of my feelings! Because, say what you will, Raoul is the friend of my heart and if he no longer loves me I am desolate.”

“You are as silly as a foot,” said Raoul, greatly moved, “but it is true that I love you.”

“Ah!” said Teresa simply. “
Quelle extase
!”

“And upon that note,” said Alleyn, “we may return to Roqueville and make our plans.”

i

On the return journey Alleyn and Troy sat in the back seat with Ricky between them. Teresa, who was to be given a lift to the nearest bus stop, sat in the front by Raoul. She leaned against him in a luxury of reconciliation, every now and then twisting herself sideways in order to gaze into his face. Ricky, who suffered from an emotional hangover and was, therefore, inclined to be querulous and in any case considered Raoul his especial property, looked at these manifestations with distaste.

“Why does she do that?” he asked fretfully. “Isn’t she silly? Does Raoul like her?”

“Yes,” said Troy, hugging him.

“I bet he doesn’t really.”

“They are engaged to be married,” said Troy, “I think.”

“You and Mummy are married, aren’t you, Daddy?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Mummy doesn’t do it.”

“True,” said Alleyn, who was in good spirits, “but I should like it if she did.”

“Ooh, Daddy, you would
not
.”

Teresa wound her arm round Raoul’s neck.

“
Je t’adore
!” she crooned.

“Oh, gosh!” said Ricky and shut his eyes.

“All the same,” Alleyn said, “we’ll have to call a halt to her raptures.” He leaned forward. “Raoul, shall we stop for a moment? If Teresa misses her bus you may drive her back from Roqueville.”

“Monsieur, may I suggest that we drive direct to Roqueville where, if Monsieur and Madame please, my parents will be enchanted to invite them to an
apéritif
or, if preferred, a glass of good wine, and perhaps an early but well-considered dinner. The afternoon has been fatiguing. Monsieur has not eaten, I think, since morning and Madam and Monsieur Ricky may be glad to dine early. Teresa is, no doubt, not expected at the house of infamy, being, as they will suppose, engaged in the abduction of Ricky and in any case I do not permit her to return.”

Teresa made a complicated noise, partly protesting but mostly acquiescent. She essayed to tuck one of Raoul’s curls under his cap.

Ricky, with his eyes still shut, said: “Is Raoul asking us to tea. Daddy? May we go? Just us however,” he added pointedly.

“We shall all go,” Alleyn said, “including Teresa. Unless, Troy darling, you’d rather take Ricky straight to the hotel.”

Ricky opened his eyes. “Please not, Mummy. Please let’s go with Raoul.”

“All right, my mammet. How kind of Raoul.”

So Alleyn thanked Raoul and accepted his invitation, and as they had arrived at the only stretch of straight road on their journey Raoul passed his right arm round Teresa and broke into song.

They drove on through an evening drenched in a sunset that dyed their faces and hands crimson and closely resembled the coloured postcards that are sold on the Mediterranean coast. Two police-cars passed them with a great sounding of horns and Alleyn told Troy that M. Dupont had sent for extra men to effect a search of the factory. “It was too good an opening to miss,” he said. “He’ll certainly find enough evidence to throw a spanner through the plate glass and thanks for the greater part, let’s face it, to young Rick.”

“What have I done, Daddy?”

“Well, you mustn’t buck too much about it but by being a good boy and not making a fuss when you were a bit frightened you’ve helped us to shut up that factory back there and stop everybody’s nonsense.”

“Lavish!” said Ricky.

“Not bad. And now you can pipe down for a bit while I talk to Mummy.”

Ricky looked thoughtfully at his father, got down from his seat and placed himself between Alleyn’s knees. He then aimed a blow with his fist at Alleyn’s chest and followed it up with a tackle. Alleyn picked him up. “Pipe down, now,” he said, and Ricky, suddenly quiescent, lay against his father and tried to hide his goat from the light in the hope that it would illuminate itself.

“The next thing,” Alleyn said to Troy, “is to tackle our acquaintance of this morning. And from this point onwards, my girl, you fade, graciously but inexorabley,
out
. You succour your young, reside in your classy pub, and if your muse grows exigent you go out with Raoul and your young and paint pretty peeps of the bay, glimpsed between sprays of bougainvillea.”

“And do we get any pretty peeps of you?”

“I expect to be busyish. Would you rather move on to St. Céleste or back to St. Christophe? Does this place stink for you, after today?”

“I don’t think so. We know the real kidnappers are in jug, don’t we? And I imagine the last thing Oberon and Co. will try on is another shot at the same game.”

“The very last. After tomorrow night,” Alleyn said, “I hope they will have no chance of trying anything on except the fruitless contemplation of their past infamies and whatever garments they are allowed to wear in the local lock-up.”

“Really? A coup in the offing?”

“With any luck. But see here, Troy, if you’re going to feel at all jumpy we’ll pack you both off to — well, home, if necessary.”

“I don’t want to go home,” Ricky said from inside Alleyn’s jacket. “I think Goat’s beginning to illumine himself, Daddy.”

“Good. What about Troy?”

“I’d rather stay, Rory. Indeed, if it wasn’t for the young, and yet I suppose because of him, I’d rather muck in on the job. I’m getting a first hand look at the criminal classes and it’s surprising how uncivilized it makes one feel.”

Alleyn glanced at the now hazardously entwined couple in the front seat. He adjusted Ricky and flung an arm round Troy.

“A fat lot they know about it,” he muttered.

As the car slipped down the familiar entry into Roqueville he said: “And how would you muck in, may I ask?”

“I might say I wanted to do a portrait of Oberon in the lotus bud position and thus by easy degrees become a Daughter of the Sun.”

“Like hell, you might.”

“Anyway, let’s stay if only to meet Cousin Garbel.”

She felt Alleyn’s arm harden. Like Teresa, she turned to look at her man.

“Rory,” she said, “did you believe Baradi’s story about the charades?”

“Did you?”

“I thought I did. I wanted to. Now, I don’t think I do.”

“Nor do I,” Alleyn said.

“
On arrive
,” said Raoul, turning into a narrow street. “
Voici L’Escargot Bienvenu
.”

ii

It was, as Raoul had said, an unpretentious restaurant. They entered through a
portière
of wooden beads into a white-washed room with fresh window curtains and nine tables. A serving counter ran along one side and on it stood baskets of fresh fruit, of bread and of
langoustes
bedded in water-cress. Bottles of wine and polished glasses filled the shelves behind the counter and an open door led into an inner room where a voice was announcing the weather forecast in French. There were no customers in the restaurant, and Raoul, having drawn out three chairs and seated his guests, placed his arm about Teresa’s waist and led her into the inner room.

“Maman! Papa!” he shouted.

An excited babble broke out in the background.

“Come to think of it,” Alleyn said, “I’m damned hungry. Raoul told me his papa was particularly good with steak.
Filet mignon
? What do you think?”

“Are we going to be allowed to pay?”

“No. Which means that good or bad we’ll have to come back for more. But my bet is, it’ll be good.”

The hubbub in the background came closer, and Raoul reappeared accompanied by a magnificent Italian father and a plump French mother, both of whom he introduced with ceremony. Everybody was very polite, Ricky was made much of and a bottle of extremely good sherry was opened. Ricky was given grenadine. Healths were drunk, Teresa giggled modestly in the background. M. Milano made a short but succinct speech in which he said he understood that Monsieur and Madame Ahlaine had been instrumental in saving Teresa from a fate that was worse than death and had thus preserved the honour of both families and made possible an alliance that was the dearest wish of their hearts. It was also, other things being equal, a desirable match from the practical point of view. Teresa and Raoul listened without embarrassment and with the detachment of connoisseurs. M. Milano then begged that he and Madame might be excused as they believed they were to have the great pleasure of serving an early dinner and must therefore make a little preparation with which Teresa would no doubt be pleased to assist. They withdrew. Teresa embraced Raoul with passionate enthusiasm and followed them.

Alleyn said: “Bring a chair, Raoul. We have much to say to each other.”

“Monsieur,” Raoul said without moving, “no mention has been made of my neglect of duty this afternoon. I mean, Monsieur, my failure, which was deliberate, to identify Teresa.”

“I have decided to overlook it. The circumstances were extraordinary.”

“That is true, Monsieur. Nevertheless, the incident had the effect of incensing me against Teresa who, foolish as she is, has yet got something which caused me to betray my duty. That is why I spoke a little sharply to Teresa. With results,” he added, “that are, as Monsieur may have noticed, not undesirable.”

“I have noticed. Sit down, Raoul.”

Raoul bowed and sat down. Madame Milano, beaming and business-like, returned with a book in her hands. It was a shabby large book with a carefully mended binding. She laid it on the table in front of Ricky.

“When my son was no larger than this little Monsieur,” she said, “it afforded him much amusement.”

“
Merci,
Madame,” Ricky said, eyeing it.

Troy and Alleyn also thanked her. She made a deprecating face and bustled away. Ricky opened the book. It was a tale of heroic and fabulous adventures enchantingly illustrated with coloured lithographs. Ricky honoured it with the silence he reserved for special occasions. He removed himself and the book to another table. “Coming, Mum?” he said and Troy joined him. Alleyn looked at the two dark heads bent together over the book and for a moment or two he was lost in abstraction. He heard Raoul catch his breath in a vocal sigh, a sound partly affirmative, partly envious. Alleyn looked at him.

“Monsieur is fortunate,” Raoul said simply.

“I believe you,” Alleyn muttered. “And now, Raoul, we make a plan. Earlier today, and I must say it feels more like last week, you said you were willing to join in an enterprise that may be a little hazardous: an enterprise that involves an unsolicited visit to the Chèvre d’Argent on Thursday night.”

“I remember, Monsieur.”

“Are you still of the same mind?”

“If possible, I feel an increase of enthusiasm.”

“Good, now, listen. It is evident that there is a close liaison between the persons at the Château and those at the factory. Tonight the commissary will conduct an official search of the factory and he will find documentary evidence of the collaboration. It is also probable that he will find quantities of illicitly manufactured heroin. It is not certain whether he will find direct and conclusive evidence of sufficient weight to warrant an arrest of Mr. Oberon and Dr. Baradi and their associates. Therefore, it would be of great assistance if they could be arrested for some other offense and could be held while further investigations were made.”

“There is no doubt, Monsieur, that their sins are not confined to contraband.”

“I agree.”

“They are capable of all.”

“Not only capable but culpable! I think,” Alleyn said, “that one of them is a murderer.”

Raoul narrowed his eyes. His stained mechanic’s hands lying on the table, flexed and then stretched.

“Monsieur speaks with confidence,” he said.

“I ought to,” Alleyn said drily, “considering that I saw the crime.”

“You—”

“Through a train window.” And Alleyn described the circumstances.

“Bizarre,” Raoul commented, summing up the incident. “And the criminal, Monsieur?”

“Impossible to say. I had the impression of a man or woman in a white gown with a cowl or hood. The right arm was raised and held a weapon. The face was undistinguishable although there was a strong light thrown from the side. The weapon was a knife of some sort.”

“The animal,” said Raoul, who had settled upon this form of reference for M. Oberon, “displays himself in a white robe.”

“Yes.”

“And the victim was a woman, Monsieur?”

“A woman. Also, I should say, wearing some loose-fitting garment. One saw only a shape against a window blind and then for a second, against the window itself. The man, if it was a man, had already struck and had withdrawn the weapon which he held aloft. The impression was melodramatic,” he added, almost to himself. “Over-dramatic. One might have believed it was a charade.”

“A charade, Monsieur?”

“Dr. Baradi offered the information that there were charades last night. It appears that someone played the part of the Queen of Sheba stabbing King Solomon’s principal wife. He himself enacted a concubine.”

“Obviously he is not merely a satyr but also a perverted being — a distortion of nature. Only such a being could invent such a disgusting lie.”

While he grinned at Raoul’s scandalized sophistry Alleyn wondered at the ease with which they talked to each other. And, being a modest man, he found himself ashamed. Why, in Heaven’s name, he thought, should he not find it good to talk to Raoul, who had an admirable mind and a simple approach? He thought: “We understand so little of our fellow creatures. Somewhere in Raoul there is a limitation but when it comes to the Oberons and Baradis he, probably by virtue of his limitation, is likely to be a much more useful judge than…”

“The Queen of Sheba,” Raoul fumed, “is a Biblical personage. She was the
chère amie
of the Lord’s anointed. To murder he adds a blasphemy which has not even the merit of being true. Unfortunately he is left-handed,” he added in a tone of acute disappointment.

“Exactly! Moreover he offered this information,” Alleyn pointed out. “One must remember the circumstances. The scene, real or simulated, reached its climax as the train drew up and stopped. The blind was released as the woman fell against it. And the man, not necessarily Oberon or Baradi, you know, saw other windows — those of the train.”