Last Ditch

by Ngaio Marsh

  ‘Good morning,’ said Julia. She spoke very quietly and sounded hurried and unlike herself. ‘I’m very sorry indeed to bother you and at such a ghastly hour. I wouldn’t have, only we’re in trouble and I – well, Jasper and I – thought we’d better.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘And Carlotta agrees.’

  ‘Carlotta does?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t want,’ Julia whispered piercingly into the mouth-piece, ‘to talk down the telephone. À cause des domestiques. Damn, I’d forgotten they speak French.’

  ‘Can you give me an inkling?’

  After a slight pause Julia said in a painstakingly casual voice. ‘Louis.’

  ‘I’ll come at once,’ said Alleyn.

  He called Fox up. On his way out, while Fox rang Plank, Alleyn left the L’Esperance number at the hotel office, ordered a taxi to meet Troy’s plane and booked her in. ‘And you might get flowers for the room. Lilies-of-the-valley if you can.’

  ‘How many?’ asked the grand lady at Reception.

  ‘Lots,’ said Alleyn. ‘Any amount.’

  The lady smiled indulgently and handed him a letter. It had just been sent in from the police station, she said. It was addressed to him. The writing was erratic. There was much crossing out and some omissions, but on the whole he thought it rather more coherent than might have been expected. It was written on headed paper with a horse’s head printed in one corner.

  Sir: I am in possession of certain facts – in re slaying of my niece – and have been guided to make All Known Before The People since they sit heavy on my conscience. Therefore on Sunday next (please see enclosure) I will proclaim All to the multitude the Lord of Hosts sitteth on my tongue and He Will Repay. The Sinner will be called an Abomination before the Lord and before His People. Amen. Amen. I will be greatly obliged if you will be kind enough to attend.

  With compliments

  Yrs etc. etc.

  C. Harkness.

  (Brother Cuth)

  He showed the letter, together with the enclosure – a new pamphlet – to Fox, who read it when they had set off in Superintendent Curie’s car.

  ‘He doesn’t half go on, doesn’t he?’ said Fox. ‘Do you make out he thinks he knows who chummy is?’

  ‘That’s how I read it.’

  ‘What’ll we do about this service affair?’

  ‘Attend in strength.’

  They drove on in silence. The morning was clear and warm, the channel sparkled and the Normandy coast looked as if it was half its actual distance away.

  ‘What do you reckon Mr L. Pharamond’s been up to?’ asked Fox.

  ‘I’ll give you one guess.’

  ‘Skedaddled?’

  ‘Skedaddled. And if we’d known, how could we have stopped him?’

  ‘We could have kept him under obbo,’ Fox mused.

  ‘But couldn’t have prevented him lighting out. Well, could we? Under what pretext? Seen conversing with G. Ferrant at one o’clock in the morning? Query: Involved in drug running? Dropped a sleeve button in the horse-paddock at Leathers. Had previously denied going into horse-paddock. Now says he forgot. End of information. Query: Murdered Dulcie Harkness? He wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face over that lot, Br’er Fox.’

  Up at L’Esperance they found Jasper waiting on the terrace. Alleyn introduced Fox. Jasper, though clearly surprised that he had come, was charming. He led them to a table and a group of chairs, canopied and overlooking the sea.

  ‘Julia’s coming down in a minute,’ he said. ‘We thought we’d like to see you first. Will you have coffee? And things? We’re going to. It’s our breakfast.’

  It was already set out, with croissants and brioches on the table. It smelt superb. When Alleyn accepted, Fox did too.

  ‘It really is extremely odd,’ Jasper continued, heaping butter and honey on a croissant. ‘And very worrying. Louis has completely vanished. Here comes Julia.’

  Out of the house she hurried in a white trouser suit and ran down the steps to them with her hands extended. Fox was drinking coffee. He rose to his feet and was slightly confused.

  ‘How terribly kind of you both to come,’ said Julia. ‘No, too kind, when one knows you’re being so active and fussed. How’s Ricky?’

  ‘In hospital,’ said Alleyn, shaking hands.

  ‘No! Because of his black eye?’

  ‘Partly. Gould we hear about Louis?’

  ‘Hasn’t Jasper said? He’s vanished. Into thin air.’

  ‘Since when?’

  Jasper, whose mouth was full, waved his wife on.

  ‘Since yesterday,’ said Julia. ‘You remember yesterday morning when he was as large as life in his zoot-suit and talked to you on the front? In the Cove?’

  ‘I remember,’ Alleyn said.

  ‘Yes. Well, we drove back here for luncheon. And when we got here, he sort of clapped his hand to his brow and said he’d forgotten to send a business cable to Lima and it was important and he’d have to attend to it. Louis has – what does one call them? – in Peru.’

  Jasper said: ‘Business interests. We came originally from Peru. But he’s the only one of us to have any business links. He’s jolly rich, old Louis is.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Julia. ‘He often has to ring up Lima or cable to it. They’re not very clever at the Cove about cables in Spanish or long-distance calls to Peru. So he goes into Montjoy. At first we thought he’d probably lunched there.’

  ‘Did you see him again before he left?’

  ‘No. We were at luncheon,’ said Julia.

  ‘We heard him come downstairs and start his car. Now I come to think of it,’ said Jasper, ‘it was some little time after we’d sat down.’

  ‘Have you looked to see if he’s taken anything with him – an overnight bag, for instance?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Julia, ‘but not a penny the wiser are we. Louis has so many zoot-suits and silken undies and pyjamas and terribly doggy pieces of luggage that one couldn’t tell. Even Carlotta couldn’t. She’s still looking.’

  ‘What else have you done about it?’ asked Alleyn. He thought of his own gnawing anxieties during Ricky’s disappearance and wondered if Carlotta, for example, suffered anything comparable: Jasper and Julia, though worried, clearly did not.

  ‘Well,’ Julia was saying, ‘for a long time we didn’t do anything. We’d expected him simply to whizz into Montjoy, send his cable and whizz back. Then when he didn’t we supposed he’d decided to lunch at the Montjoy and perhaps stay the night. He often does that when the little girls get too much for him. But he always rings up to tell us. When he didn’t ring and didn’t come back for dinner, Carlotta telephoned the hotel and he hadn’t been there at all. And still we haven’t had sniff nor sight of him.’

  ‘I even rang the pub at Belle Vue,’ said Jasper.

  ‘What about his car?’

  ‘We rang the park where he always leaves it and it’s there. He clocked in about twenty minutes after he left here.’

  ‘The thing that really is pretty bothering,’ Julia said, ‘is that he was in a peculiar sort of state yesterday morning. After we left you. We wondered if you noticed anything.’

  Alleyn gave himself a moment’s respite. He thought of Louis: over-elegant, over-facetious, giving his performance on the front. ‘How do you mean “peculiar”?’ he asked.

  ‘For him, very quiet, and at the same time, I felt he was in a rage. You mustn’t mind my asking but did you have words, the two of you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I only wondered. He wouldn’t say anything about being grilled by you and didn’t seem to enjoy me calling it that – I was just being funny-man. You know? But he didn’t relish it. So I wondered.’

  ‘Was that why you asked me to come?’

  Jasper said: ‘What we really hoped you’d do is give us some advice about what action we could take. One doesn’t want to make a sort of public display but at the same time one can’t just loll about in the sun supposing that he’ll
come bounding back.’

  ‘Has he ever done anything of this sort before?’

  Julia and Jasper spoke simultaneously.

  ‘Not like this,’ said Jasper.

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Julia.

  They looked at Fox and away.

  Fox said: ‘I wonder if I could be excused, Mrs Pharamond? We started a slow puncture on the way up. If I’m not required at the moment, sir, perhaps I should change the wheel?’

  ‘Would you, Fox? We’ll call out if we need you.’

  Fox rose. ‘A very enjoyable cup of coffee,’ he said, with a slight bow in Julia’s direction and descended the steps to the lower terrace where the car was parked. It was just as well, thought Alleyn, that it was out of sight.

  ‘Not true!’ said Julia with, wide-open eyes. ‘My dear! The tact! Have you many like that?’

  ‘We have a finishing-school,’ said Alleyn, ‘at the CID.’

  Jasper said: ‘Answering your question. No, Louis, as Julia said, always lets us know if he’s going to be away unexpectedly.’

  ‘Is he often away unexpectedly?’

  ‘Well –’

  Julia burst out. ‘Oh, let’s not be cagey and difficult, darling. After all, we asked the poor man to come, so why shuffle and snuffle when he wants to know about things? Yes, Louis does quite often leave us for reasons undisclosed and probably not very respectable. He can’t keep his hands off the ladies.’

  ‘Julia! Darling!’

  ‘And what ladies some of them are. But then, it appears that Louis bowls them over like ninepins and has only to show himself at a casino in Lima for them to swarm. This we find puzzling. Perhaps he’s been hijacked and taken away for a sort of gentlemanly white-slave trade, to be offered to sex-starved señoritas, which would really suit him very well as he could combine their pleasure with his business.’

  ‘No, honestly,’ Jasper protested and giggled.

  ‘Darling, admit. You’re not all that keen on him yourself. But we do love Carlotta very dearly,’ said Julia, ‘and we’ve got sort of inoculated to Louis like one does with sandflies, blood being thicker than water as far as Jasper is concerned.’

  Jasper said: ‘What steps do you think we should take?’

  Alleyn found it odd to repeat the advice that he and Fox had offered each other yesterday. He said they could report Louis’s disappearance to the police now or wait a little longer. He thought he would advise the latter course.

  ‘Have you,’ he said, ‘looked to see if his papers – passport and medical certificates and so on – are in his room? You say he often makes business trips to Peru. Isn’t it just possible that something cropped up – say a cable – calling him there on urgent business and that you’ll get a telegram to this effect?’

  Jasper and Julia looked at each other and shook their heads. Alleyn was trying to remember in which South American countries extradition orders could be operated.

  ‘Speaking as a policeman,’ said Julia, ‘which it’s so difficult to remember you are, would the force be very bored if asked to take a hand? I mean, busy as you all seem to be over the Harkness affair? Wouldn’t they think Louis’s on-goings of no account?’

  ‘No,’ Alleyn said. ‘They wouldn’t think that.’

  A stillness came over the group of three. Jasper, who had reached out to the coffee-pot, withdrew his hand. He looked very hard at Alleyn and then at his wife.

  Julia said: ‘Is there something – you know and we don’t? About Louis?’

  Carlotta came out of the house and down the steps. She was very pale, even for a Pharamond. She came to the table and sat down as if she needed to.

  ‘I’ve made a discovery,’ she said. ‘Louis’s passport and his attaché case and the file he always takes when he goes to Lima are missing. I forced open the drawer in his desk. So I imagine, don’t you,’ said Carlotta, ‘that he’s walked out on me?’

  ‘You sound as if you’re not surprised,’ said Julia.

  ‘Nor am I. He’s been precarious for quite a time. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? You must have.’ They were silent. ‘I always knew, of course,’ Carlotta said, ‘that by and large you thought him pretty ghastly. But there you are. I have a theory that quite a lot of women require a touch of the bounder in their man. I’m one of them. So, true to type, he’s bounded away.’

  Jasper said: ‘Carla, darling, aren’t you rushing your fences a bit? After all, we don’t know why he’s gone. If he’s gone.’

  Julia said: ‘I’ve got a feeling that Roderick, if we’re still allowed to call him that, knows. And I don’t believe he thinks it’s anything to do with you, Carla.’ She turned to Alleyn. ‘Am I right?’ she asked.

  Alleyn said slowly: ‘If you mean do I know definitely he’s gone, I don’t. I’ve no information at all as to his recent movements.’

  ‘He’s in trouble, though. Isn’t he? It’s best we should all realize. Really.’

  ‘What’s he done?’ Carlotta demanded. ‘He has done something, hasn’t he? I’ve known he was up to something. I can always tell.’

  Jasper said with an unfamiliar note in his voice: ‘I think we’d better remember, girls, that we are talking, however much we may like him, to a policeman.’

  ‘Oh, dear. I suppose we should,’ Julia agreed, and sounded vexed rather than alarmed. ‘I suppose we must turn cagey and evasive and he’ll set traps for us and when we fall into them he’ll say things like “I didn’t know but you’ve just told me.” They always do that. Don’t you?’ she asked Alleyn.

  ‘I don’t fancy it’s going to be my morning for aphorisms,’ he said.

  ‘Somehow,’ Julia mused, ‘I’ve always thought – you won’t mind my saying, Carla darling? I prefer to be open – I’ve always thought Louis was a tiny bit the absconding type.’

  Carlotta looked thoughtfully at her. ‘Have you?’ she said, as if her attention had been momentarily caught. ‘Well, it looks as though you’re right. Or doesn’t it?’ she added, turning to Alleyn.

  He stood up. The three of them contemplated him with an air of – what? Polite interest? Concern? One would have said no more than that, if it had not been for Carlotta’s pallor, the slightest tremor in Jasper’s hand as he put down his coffee-cup, and – in Julia? – the disappearance, as if by magic, of her immense vitality.

  ‘I think,’ Alleyn said, ‘that in a situation which for me, if not for you, poses a problem, I’ll have to spill the beans. The not very delicious beans. As you say, I’m a policeman. I’m what is known as an “investigating officer”, and if something dubious crops up I’ve got to investigate it. That is why I’m here, on the island. Now, such is the nature of the investigation, anybody doing a bolt for no discernible reason becomes somebody the police want to see. Your cousin is now somebody I want to see.’

  After a long silence Jasper said: ‘I don’t like your chances.’

  ‘Nor do I, much.’

  ‘I suppose we aren’t to know what you want to see him about?’

  ‘I’ve gone further than I should already.’

  Carlotta said: ‘It’s not about that girl, is it? Oh God, it’s not about her?’

  ‘It’s no good, Carla,’ Julia said, and put her arm round Carlotta. ‘Obviously, he’s not going to tell you.’ She looked at Alleyn and the ghost of her dottiness revisited her. ‘And we actually asked you to come and help us,’ she said. ‘It’s like the flies asking the spider to walk into their parlour, isn’t it?’

  ‘Alas!’ said Alleyn. ‘It is, a bit. I’m sorry.’

  The child Selina appeared on the steps from the house. She descended them in jumps with her feet together.

  ‘Run away, darling,’ her parents said in unison.

  Selina continued to jump.

  ‘Selina,’ said her father. ‘What did we tell you?’

  She accomplished the final jump. ‘I can’t,’ she said.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said her mother. ‘Why can’t you?’

  ‘I got a message.’

  �
��A message? What message? Tell us later and run away now.’

  ‘It’s on the telephone. I answered it.’

  ‘Why on earth couldn’t you say so?’

  ‘For him,’ said Selina. She pointed at Alleyn and made a face.

  Julia said automatically: ‘Don’t do that and don’t point at people. It’s for you,’ she said to Alleyn.

  ‘Thank you. Selina,’ he said. ‘Will you show me the way.’

  ‘Okey-dokey-pokey,’ said Selina, and seized him by the wrist.

  ‘You see?’ Julia appealed to Alleyn. ‘Quite awful!’

  ‘One is helpless,’ said Jasper.

  As they ascended the steps Selina repeated her jumping technique, retaining her hold on Alleyn’s wrist. When they were half-way up she said: ‘Cousin Louis is a dirty old man.’

  Alleyn, nonplussed, gazed down at her. In her baleful way Selina was a pretty child.

  ‘Why do you talk like that?’ he temporized.

  ‘What is a dirty old man?’ asked Selina.

  ‘Father Christmas in a chimney.’

  ‘You’re cuckoo.’ She slid her hand into his and adopted a normal manner of ascent. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘Louis says he is.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Louis Ferrant says his mother says Cousin Louis is a DOM.’

  ‘Do you know Louis Ferrant?’

  ‘Nanny knows his mother. We meet them in the village. He’s bigger than me. He says things.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘I forget,’ said Selina, and looked uncomfortable.

  ‘I don’t think Louis Ferrant’s an awfully good idea,’ Alleyn said. He hoisted Selina up to his shoulder. She gave a shriek of pleasure and they entered the house.

  It was Plank on the telephone.

  ‘I thought you’d like to know, sir,’ he said. ‘They’ve rung through from Montjoy. Jones wants to bargain.’

  ‘He does? What’s he offering?’

  ‘As far as we can make out – info on Dulcie. He won’t talk to anyone but you. He’s drying out and in a funny mood.’