by Ngaio Marsh
‘Nothing. A parcel for my tailor. It’s gone. Who cares! Away we go.’
He started up his engine. Water splashed up like wings on either side and cascaded across the windscreen. They roared down the steep incline and turned left above the tunnel and over the high headland, on the road to Roqueville.
IV
High up in the hills on their vantage point in the factory road, Alleyn and Raoul waited in Raoul’s car.
‘In five minutes,’ Alleyn said, ‘it will be dark.’
‘I shall still know the car, Monsieur.’
‘And I. The rain’s lifting a little.’
‘It will stop before the light goes, I think.’
‘How tall are you, Raoul?’
‘One metre, seventy, Monsieur.’
‘About five foot eight,’ Alleyn muttered, ‘and the girl’s tall. It ought to be all right. Where was the car exactly?’
‘Standing out on the platform, Monsieur. The parcel was in the trough behind the driver’s seat.’
‘He’s stuck to his word so far, at least. Where did you put the note?’
‘On the driver’s seat, Monsieur. He could not fail to see it.’
But Robin, driving in a state of strange exhilaration towards Roqueville, sat on the disregarded note and wondered if it was by accident or intention that Ginny leant a little towards him.
‘It will be fine on the other side of the hill,’ he shouted. ‘What do you bet?’
‘It couldn’t be.’
‘You’ll see. You’ll see. You’ll jolly well see.’
‘Robin, what has come over you?’
‘I’ll tell you when we get to Roqueville. There you are! What did I say?’
They drove down the mountain-side into a translucent dusk, rain-washed and fragrant.
‘There they go,’ Alleyn said and turned his field-glasses on the tiny car. ‘She’s with him. He’s brought it off. So far.’
‘And now, Monsieur?’
Alleyn watched the car diminish. Just before it turned the point of a distant headland, Robin switched on his lamps. Alleyn lowered his glasses. ‘It is almost lighting-up time, Raoul. We wait a little longer.’ They turned as if by a shared consent and looked to the west where, above and beyond the tunnelled hill, the turrets of the Chèvre d’Argent stood black against a darkling sky.
Presently, out on Cap St Gilles pricks of yellow began to appear. The window of a cottage in the valley showed red. Behind them the factory presented a dark front to the dusk but higher up in its folded hills the Monastery of Our Lady of Paysdoux was alive with glowing lights.
‘They are late with their lamps at the Chèvre d’Argent,’ said Raoul.
‘Which is not surprising,’ Alleyn rejoined. ‘Seeing that Monsieur le Commissaire has arranged that their electrical service is disconnected. The thunderstorm will have lent a happy note of credibility to the occurrence. The telephone also is still disconnected.’ He used his field-glasses. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘they are lighting candles. Start up your engine, Raoul. It is time to be off.
V
‘You disturb yourself without cause,’ Baradi said, ‘she is buying herself a silver goat. Why not? It is a good omen.’
‘Already she’s been away half an hour.’
‘She has gone for a walk, no doubt.’
‘With him.’
‘Again, why not? The infatuation is entirely on one side. Let it alone.’
‘I am unusually interested and therefore nervous,’ said Mr Oberon. ‘It means more to me, this time, than ever before and besides the whole circumstances are extraordinary. The mystic association. The blood sacrifice and then, while the victim is still here, the other, the living sacrifice. It is unique.’
Baradi looked at him with curiosity. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘how much of all this’ – he made a comprehensive gesture –’means anything to you? I mean I can understand the, what shall I call it, the factual pleasure. That is a great deal. I envy you your flair. But the esoteric window-dressing – is it possible that for you – ?’ He paused. Mr Oberon’s face was as empty as a mask. He touched his lips with the tip of his tongue.
He said: ‘Wherein, if not in my belief, do you suppose the secret of my flair is to be found? I am what I am and I go back to beyond the dawn. I was the King of the Wood.’
Baradi examined his own shapely hands. ‘Ah, yes?’ he said politely. ‘A fascinating theory.’
‘You think me a poseur?’
‘No, no. On the contrary. It is only as a practical man I am concerned with the hazards of the situation. You, I gather, though you have every cause, are not at all anxious on that account? The Truebody situation, I mean?’
‘I find it immeasurably stimulating.’
‘Indeed,’ said Baradi dryly.
‘Only the absence of the girl disturbs me. It is almost dark. Turn on the light.’
Baradi reached out his hand to the switch. There was a click.
‘No lights, it seems,’ he said and opened the door. ‘No lights anywhere. There must be a fuse.’
‘How can she be walking in the dark? And with a cripple like Robin? It is preposterous.’
‘The British do these things.’
‘I am British. I have my passport. Telephone the bureau in Roqueville.’
‘The telephone is still out of order.’
‘We must have light.’
‘It may be a fault in the house. The servants will attend to it. One moment.’
He lifted the receiver from Mr Oberon’s telephone. A voice answered.
‘What is the matter with the lights?’ Baradi asked.
‘We cannot make out, Monsieur. There is no fault here. Perhaps the storm has brought down the lines.’
‘Nothing but trouble. And the telephone? Can one telephone yet to Roqueville?’
‘No, Monsieur. The centrale sent up a man. The fault is not in the château. They are investigating. They will ring through when the line is clear.’
‘Since yesterday afternoon we have been without the telephone. Unparalleled incompetence!’ Baradi ejaculated. ‘Have Mr Herrington and Mlle Taylor returned?’
‘I will inquire, Monsieur.’
‘Do so, and ring Mr Oberon’s apartments if they are in.’
He clapped down the receiver. ‘I am uneasy,’ he said. ‘It has happened at a most tiresome moment. We have only the girl Teresa’s account of the affair at the factory. No doubt she is speaking the truth. Having found the boy they are satisfied. All the same it is not too amusing, having had the police in the factory.’
‘Callard will have handled them with discretion.’
‘No doubt. The driver, Georges Martel, however, will be examined by the police.’
‘Can he be trusted?’
‘He has too much at stake to be anything but dependable. We pay him very highly. Also he has his story. He was rung up by an unknown client purporting to be the boy’s father. He took the job in good faith and merely asked the girl Teresa to accompany him. They know nothing. The police will at once suspect the former kidnappers. Nevertheless, I wish we had not attempted the affair with the boy.’
‘One wanted to rid oneself of the parents.’
‘Exactly. Of the father. If circumstances were different,’ Baradi said softly, ‘I should not be nearly so interested in ridding myself of Mama. Women!’ he ejaculated sententiously.
‘Women!’ Mr Oberon echoed with an inexplicable laugh and added immediately: ‘All the same I am getting abominably anxious. I don’t trust him. And then, the light! Suppose it doesn’t come on again before the Rites. How shall we manage?’
‘Something can be done with car batteries, I think, and a soldering iron. Mahomet is ingenious in such matters. I shall speak to him in a moment.’
Baradi walked over to the window and pulled back the silk blind. ‘It is quite dark.’ The blind shot up with a whirr and click.
‘It really is much too quick on the trigger,’ he observed.
Mr Ober
on said loudly: ‘Don’t do that! You exacerbate my nerves. Pull it down. Tie it down.’
And while Baradi busied himself with the blind he added: ‘I shall send out. My temper is rising and that is dangerous. I must not become angry. If his car has gone I shall send after it.’
‘I strongly suggest you do nothing of the sort. It would be an unnecessary and foolish move. She will return. Surely you have not lost your flair.’
Mr Oberon, in the darkness, said: ‘You are right. She will return. She must.’
‘As for your rising temper,’ said Baradi, ‘you had better subdue it. It is dangerous.’
CHAPTER 11
P.E. Garbel
Raoul slowed down at a point above the entrance to the tunnel.
‘Where should we leave the car, Monsieur?’
‘There’s a recess off the road, on the far side, near the tunnel and well under the lee of the hill. Pull in there.’
The silhouette of the Chèvre d’Argent showed black above the hills against a clearing but still stormy sky. A wind had risen and cloud-rack scurried across a brilliant display of stars.
‘Gothic in spirit,’ Alleyn muttered, ‘if not in design.’
The road turned the headland. Raoul dropped to a crawl and switched off his lights. Alleyn used a pocket torch. When they came down to the level of the tunnel exit he got out and guided Raoul into a recess hard by the stone facing.
Raoul dragged out a marketing basket from which the intermingled smells of cabbage, garlic and flowers rose incongruously on the rain-sweetened air.
‘Have you hidden the cloaks underneath?’ Alleyn asked him.
‘Yes, Monsieur. It was an excellent notion. It is not unusual for me to present myself with such gear. The aunt of Teresa is a market-gardener.’
‘Good. We’ll smell like two helpings of a particularly exotic soup.’
‘Monsieur?’
‘No matter. Now, Raoul, to make certain we understand each other will you repeat the instructions?’
‘Very well, Monsieur. We go together to the servants’ entrance. If, by mischance we encounter anybody on the way who recognizes Monsieur, Monsieur will at once say he has come to inquire for the sick Mademoiselle. I will continue on and will wait for Monsieur at the servants’ entrance. If Monsieur, on arriving there, is recognized by one of the servants who may not yet have left, he will say he has been waiting for me and is angry. He will say he wishes to speak to Teresa about the stealing of Riki. If, on the other hand, all goes well and we reach the servants’ quarters together and unchallenged, we go at once to Teresa’s room. Monsieur is seen but not recognized, he is introduced as the intellectual cousin of Teresa who has been to England, working in a bank and has greatly improved his social status and again we retire quickly to Teresa’s room before the Egyptian valet or the butler can encounter Monsieur. In either case, Teresa is to give a message saying it has come by a peasant on a bicycle. It is to say that Mr Herrington’s car has broken down but that Miss Taylor and he will arrive in time for the party. Finally, if Monsieur does not come at all, I wait for an hour then go to seek for him.’
‘And if something we have not in the least anticipated turns up?’
Raoul laughed softly in the dark: ‘One must then use one’s wits, Monsieur.’
‘Good, shall we start?’
They walked together up the steep incline to the platform.
A goods train came puffing up from Douceville. The glow from the engine slid across the lower walls and bastions of the Chèvre d’Argent. Behind the silk blind a dim light burned: a much fainter light than the one they had seen from the window of their train. Higher up, at odd intervals in that vast façade, other windows glowed or flickered where candles had been placed or were carried from one room to another.
The train tooted and clanked into the tunnel.
It was quite cold on the platform. A mountain breeze cut across it and lent credibility to the turned-up collar of Alleyn’s raincoat and the scarf across his mouth. The passage was almost pitch dark but they thought it better not to use a torch. They slipped and stumbled on wet and uneven steps. The glow from old Marie’s door was a guide. As they passed by she shouted from behind the oil-lamp: ‘Hola, there! Is it still raining?’
Raoul said quietly: ‘The stars are out. Goodnight, Marie,’ and they hurried into the shadows. They heard her shouting jovially after them: ‘Give her something to keep out the cold.’
‘She speaks of Teresa,’ Raoul whispered primly. ‘There is a hint of vulgarity in Marie.’
Alleyn stifled a laugh. They groped their way round a bend in the passage, brushing their hands against damp stone. Presently an elegant design of interlaced rosettes appeared against a background of reflected warmth. It was the wrought-iron gate of the Chèvre d’Argent.
‘As quick as we dare,’ Alleyn whispered.
The passage glinted wet before the doorway. The soles of his shoes were like glass. He poised himself and moved lightly forward. As he entered the patch of light he heard a slither and an oath. Raoul hurtled against him, throwing him off his balance. He clung to the gate while Raoul, in a wild attempt to recover himself, clutched at the nearest object.
It was the iron bell-pull.
The bell gave tongue with a violence that was refracted intolerably by the stone walls.
Three cabbages rolled down the steps. Raoul by some desperate effort still clung to the basket with one hand and to the bell-pull with the other.
‘Monsieur! Monsieur!’ he stammered.
‘Go on,’ Alleyn said, ‘Go on!’
Raoul let go the bell-pull and a single note fell inconsequently across the still-echoing clangour. He plunged forward and was lost in shadow.
Alleyn turned to face the door.
‘Why, if it’s not Mr Alleyn!’ said Mr Oberon.
II
He stood on the far side of the door with his back to a lighted candelabrum that had been set down on a chest in the entry. Little could be seen of him but his shape, enveloped in his white gown with the hood drawn over his head. He moved towards the door and his hands emerged and grasped two of the iron bars.
Alleyn said: ‘I’m afraid we made an appalling din. My chauffeur slipped and grabbed your bell-pull.’
‘Your chauffeur?’
‘He’s taken himself off. I fancy he knows one of your maids. He had some message for her, it seems.’
Mr Oberon said, as if to explain his presence at the door: ‘I am waiting for someone. Have you seen –’ He paused and shifted his hands on the bars. His voice sounded out of focus. ‘Perhaps you met Ginny. Ginny Taylor? And Robin Herrington? We are a little anxious about them.’
‘No,’ Alleyn said. ‘I didn’t see them. I came to ask about Miss Truebody.’
Mr Oberon didn’t move. Alleyn peered at him. ‘How is she?’ he asked.
Mr Oberon said abruptly: ‘Our telephone has been out of order since yesterday afternoon. Do forgive me. I am a little anxious, you know.’
‘How is Miss Truebody?’
‘Alas, she is dead,’ said Mr Oberon.
They faced each other like actors in some medieval prison scene. The shadow of twisted iron was thrown across Alleyn’s face and chest.
‘Perhaps,’ Alleyn said, ‘I may come in for a moment.’
‘But, of course. How dreadful of me! We are all so distressed. Mahomet!’
Evidently the Egyptian servant had been waiting in the main hall. He unlocked the door, opened it and stood aside. When Alleyn had come in he relocked the door.
With the air of having arrived at a decision, Mr Oberon led the way into the great hall. Mahomet came behind them bringing the candelabrum which he set down on a distant table. In that vast interior it served rather to emphasize the dark than relieve it.
‘Monsieur,’ said Mahomet in French, ‘may I speak?’
‘Well?’
‘There is a message brought by a peasant from Mr Herrington. He has had trouble with his auto. He is gettin
g a taxi. He and Mlle Taylor will arrive in time for the ceremony.’
‘Ah!’ It was a long drawn-out sigh. ‘Who took the message?’
‘The girl Teresa, who was on her way to catch the omnibus. The peasant would not wait so the girl returned with the message. Miss Taylor also sent a message. It was that Monsieur must not trouble himself. She will not fail the ceremony. She will go immediately to her room.’
‘Is all prepared?’
‘All is prepared, Monsieur.’
Mr Oberon raised his hand in dismissal. Mahomet moved away into the shadows. Alleyn listened for the rattle of curtain rings but there was no other sound than that of Mr Oberon’s uneven breathing. ‘Forgive me again,’ he said, coming closer to Alleyn. ‘As you heard from him it was news of our young people.’
‘I’m afraid my French is too rudimentary for anything but the most childish phrases.’
‘Indeed? It appears they have had a breakdown but all is now well.’
Alleyn said: ‘When did Miss Truebody die?’
‘Ah, yes. We are so sorry. Yesterday afternoon. We tried to get you at the hotel, of course, but were told that you had gone to St Céleste for a few days.’
‘We changed our plans,’ Alleyn said. ‘May I speak to Dr Baradi?’
‘To Ali? I am not sure – I will inquire – Mahomet!’
‘Monsieur!’ said a voice in the shadows.
‘Tell your master that the English visitor is here. Tell him the visitor knows that his compatriot has left us.’
‘Monsieur.’
The curtain rings jangled together.
‘He will see if our friend is at home.’
‘I feel,’ Alleyn said, ‘that I should do everything that can be done. In a way she is our responsibility.’
‘That is quite wonderful of you, Mr Alleyn,’ said Mr Oberon who seemed to have made a return to his normal form. ‘But I already sensed in you a rare and beautiful spirit. Still, you need not distress yourself. We felt it our privilege to speed this soul to its new life. The interment is tomorrow at three o’clock. Anglican. I shall, however, conduct a little valedictory ceremony here.’
The curtain rings clashed again. Alleyn saw a large whiteness move towards him.
