C. B, paused to fiddle. with his pipe, then went on, `But the big shots are right up and away above that sort of thing. In most cases I doubt if they even know the chiefs of the little covens. Anyhow, they leave it to their subordinates to supervise them and pick likely lads to form new ones. Their job is to use occult forces to destroy good influences. Their usual line is to cause the illness or death at a time of crisis of the key man who might be able to tide it over; or, alternatively, to produce conditions which will favour some unscrupulous individual getting control of the situation. The best example I can give you of an ace high Black Magician in modern times is the monk Rasputin. He did more than all the Bolsheviks put together to bring about the Russian revolution; and I don't need to tell you the extent of the evil that has brought to Russia, and may yet bring to the rest of the world.'
Molly rejoined them at that moment, and as John got up to get her a drink she enquired how he had enjoyed his day.
`Oh, all right,' he replied casually. `We found a nice place to picnic, but as a matter of fact we slept for most of the afternoon.'
`Dear me, you must have been bored then.' With a smile she turned to C. B. `This business really is rather hard luck on Johnny. Three days of his holiday have gone already, and he hasn't had a moment yet to look up his old friends or hit any of .the high spots along the coast. I think he is being very sweet to devote all his time to this poor girl.'
`Perhaps he doesn't find her as boring as you think,' C. B. smiled back; and, standing up, he carefully removed a long brown hair from the open collar of John's pale blue sweat shirt.
`Well played, Sherlock,' John laughed. `But don't let that little souvenir give either of you any wrong ideas. It signifies only the sealing of the sort of deal that Hitler used to call “A pact of Eternal Friendship” when it suited his book to enter into a political understanding with someone for a few weeks.' He told them about his phony engagement to Christina, and the reason that had prompted him to suggest it.
`Now I'm here, I'll be able to get the French police moving, should we need them,' C. B. commented, `but all the same it was quite a sound idea.'
Then Molly added, `Christina showed me your father's ring and explained why she was wearing it directly we got upstairs. She told me, too, about Count Jules' visit after I left this morning.'
`John has just given me particulars of that.' C. B. stretched out his long legs, and went on thoughtfully, `In view of young de Grasse's threat, I think we ought to set a watch to night, just in case they attempt a snatch. We could put an armchair on the landing outside her room. I need very little sleep, so I can easily sit up reading until two. Then if John relieved me until five, I'd come on again then. By seven your bonne will be about, so I could get another couple of hours shut eye before breakfast. How about it, John; are you game to do the three hours before dawn?'
`Sure. Longer if you like. After all, now she is my fiancée I don't have to stay outside her door, do I?'
`Any nonsense of that kind, and I'll pack you off back to England,' his mother said severely.
He gave a mock sigh and shot an injured look at the Colonel. `You see, sir, how old fashioned she is in her ideas about the latitude that should be allowed to engaged couples. I do wish you would try your hand at educating her up a bit for me.'
Both of them picked up the innuendo. C. B. let his gaze fall to his big feet. Molly flushed and said quickly, `I really came down to say that if you want to change tonight, it is time we went up.'
The Colonel levered himself out of his chair. `It is just as you like, my dear. As I always have a tub before dinner,
I find it no more trouble, and considerably more enlivening to the mind, to get into le smoking, as they call it out here.'
`I know you do,' she smiled, `so while you are with us I have put dinner back to eight thirty. But you and John will have to share the guests' bathroom, and it is nearly half past seven now.'
Finishing up their drinks, they followed her out. An hour later they reassembled.
John was first down, and having switched on the lights he mixed another round of cocktails. When his mother joined him he noted with secret amusement that she was considerably more made up than usual, and was wearing a very pretty frock that he had not seen before. C. B. came in a moment later, gave her one appraising glance, and said
`Molly, my dear, you're looking positively stunning. If it wasn't for John, here, I'd stake my oath that you couldn't be a day over thirty.'
She gave a happy laugh. `Well, they say a woman is as old as she looks and a man is as old as he feels, so perhaps we had better leave it at that. But you're not looking so bad yourself. I don't wonder you like to change in the evenings. Dark, well cut clothes instead of those baggy things you wear in the day time take at least ten years off you.'
`You sweet children,' purred John, as he handed them
their cocktails. `How I wish I were your age; then I should have so many new experiences to look forward to.'
`You insolent pup!' C. B. made a pretence of cuffing him; and they continued laughing together until the gong went.
`Christina has been an awfully long time dressing,'
Molly remarked, `but we will give her a few minutes' grace.'
They shared out the remaining contents of the shaker, but still Christina had not appeared; so Molly said to John, `I think you had better slip up and find out how much longer your fiancée is going to spend titivating herself for your benefit.'
'Right oh!' he nodded, and, leaving the room, ran upstairs. A minute later he came pounding down again, shouting as he came, `She isn't there! Her room's empty! She's gone!'
8
Kidnapped?
As John burst into the room, C. B. gave him a rueful smile. `Seems we've been caught on the hop. Any sign of a struggle?'
`I don't think so: I didn't notice any.'
`We should have heard it if there had been,' said Molly.
`I doubt if we would have taken any notice, while we were up there dressing, unless she had let out a shout; and we might not even have heard that during the past ten minutes while we've been joking together down here.'
`She must have been gone longer than that. Her evening frock is still on the bed. Come up and see.' Turning, John hurried from the room.
`After you, my dear.' C. B. politely stood aside for Molly. He had not so far raised his voice, and his movements, although actually as quick as those of the others, appeared quite leisurely.
Upstairs they halted together in the doorway of the big room at the back of the house that Christina had been given. At first glance there was nothing to suggest that she had been forcibly removed; neither was there any paper prominently displayed, which might have been a note left by her, giving a reason for her having left of her own accord.
`I suppose she has gone?' C. B. murmured. `Better look in the bathroom, though. I've known young women faint in hot baths before now.'
Swinging round, Molly ran to a door on the opposite side of the passage and thrust it open. The bathroom was empty. Hastily she tried the W.C. next door, but that was empty too. Her face showed her distress as she cried
`This is entirely my fault! It has been dark for well over an hour. It was criminal of me to forget the way her personality changes at nightfall, and that she might take it into her head to go off somewhere. I should never have left her on her own. I could so easily have arranged for her to have changed in my room with me.'
`I'm just as much to blame, Mumsie,' John said miserably. `I promised her this afternoon that I'd take care of her; and now I've let her down the very first time that I ought to have been on the look out for Jules.'
`If anyone is to blame, it is the old professional,' C. B. put in quietly:
`Nonsense!' Molly protested. 'You had only just come on the scene.'
`For God's sake don't let's stand here arguing.' John's voice was sharp with anxiety. `We must get after her. Come on ! Hurry! '
`Half a mo', young feller. So fa
r there is nothing to point to the de Grasses having snatched her, and it doesn't always pay to jump to conclusions. Your mother may be right. Knowing we are on the side of the angels she may have taken a sudden dislike to us after sundown, and gone back to her own villa. Just step over and see, will you?'
`Right oh!' John ran down the stairs and the others followed more slowly.
When they reached the hall, C. B. said:
`Got a telephone directory, Molly? There is a number I want to look up. John may find her at the villa, but I doubt it. My own bet is that the de Grasses have got her. Young Count Jules told John this morning that they had undertaken to get her to England before the 6th and to day is the 3rd; so they haven't much of a time margin.'
Molly found him the directory and he began to flick through it, but went on talking: `That is why I felt pretty certain they would try something to night, and suggested keeping watch. It was stupid of me, though, not to anticipate that they might get to work immediately darkness made the girl vulnerable to suggestion.'
`No, Bill; you are being unfair to yourself. No one would
expect kidnappers to stage a raid while all of us were moving about the house. They would wait till we were asleep.'
`You are wrong there, Molly my love. The changing hour is a very favourite one with cat burglars. They shin up a drainpipe, cling on there, and take an occasional peep through the window of the room which they intend to burgle. Then, when its occupant goes along to the bathroom, or has finished dressing and goes downstairs, they nip in and do their stuff. If they have to make a certain amount of noise, it doesn't matter, because if the servants hear it they think it is being made by their employers, or one of the guests who is still upstairs changing.'
`Do you think, then, that they got Christina out by way of the window?'
`No. The dressing table had not been pushed back out of place, and the blind was still down. It isn't easy to pull a blind down from outside; and, anyway, why should they bother?'
`Perhaps they got her out by the window in the passage. Surely we should have heard them if they had carried her downstairs?'
`Not necessarily, provided they were fairly careful about it. As I've said, with a servant getting dinner, and people bathing and banging cupboards all over the place, no one takes any notice of noises at that hour. Besides, it is possible that she went because she wanted to, and walked quietly out on her own.'
C. B. broke off for a second. 'Ah, here we are Malouet, Alphonse. Do you remember him?'
`By name, yes. Wasn't he the Inspector of Police who put up such a good show in Nice during the Resistance?'
`That's him. The old boy retired a couple of years ago. Apparently he is now living out at Cimiez. The address looks like that of a flat in one of the big hotels there that they have converted into apartments since the war. Although he is no longer on the active list, he will be able to pull more guns for me than some bird I don't know, if we have to call in the police.'
Flicking over the leaves again, he added, `In case we can't get hold of him to night, I had better look up the number of the Prefecture at Nice. That is the top police H.Q. in this part of the world, and in a case like this it is a waste of time going to the small fry.' He had just found the second number when John came rushing in. Still breathless from having run up the steep garden path, he panted
`I was right! The de Grasses have got her. Jules carried her off from her own villa about an hour ago. Come on! I'll get out the car!'
`Steady on!' C. B. admonished him. `Let's have such details as you can give us first.'
Between gasps to get his breath back, John reported, `Old Maria says Christina came in at about a quarter to eight. She ran upstairs and came down again two minutes later. She was carrying a small suitcase and immediately went out with it. But she returned almost at once. Maria didn't see her come back, but she saw the lights go on in the sitting room. From her kitchen she can see the glow they throw from ... from the side window of the sitting room on to the trees in the garden; so ... so she looked in to see who was there. It was Christina and a chap who answers the description of Jules. They were arguing about something. She must have given him a drink and had one with him. Their glasses are still on the table. Maria didn't hear them leave. But she doesn't think they could have remained there much more than ten minutes. She happened to glance at her clock just before the sitting room lights were switched off again, and it had not yet gone eight.'
`Good! Now we at least have a line of enquiry we can pursue.' C. B. picked up the telephone.
`What are you going to do?' John asked impatiently. `Ring up the police or rather an old friend of mine who is an ex police officer of exceptional ability.'
`Then for God's sake hurry ! They must be nearly at
St. Tropez by now. If we don't start at once we may not
arrive in time to prevent him from putting off to sea with
her in that damn' yacht.'
C. B. gave the number of Inspector Malouet's apartment, then covered the receiver with his hand. listen, partner. I'm not going to let you run your head into a hornet's nest, or land up in a cell at a French police station either, if I can prevent it. We are by no means certain yet that Jules is taking her to the yacht, and ...'
`Where the hell else would he take her?'
`Maybe to some hide out anywhere between Nice and Toulon. There must be plenty of places along the coast where he has pals who would keep her locked up for the night. Remember, he has got to get her back to England by the 6th, and he couldn't possibly do that by sea. Getting her on to the yacht could be only a temporary measure anyhow. He probably means to drug her, then have her flown home.'
`Still, the fact that he tried to get her on the yacht last night is the only line we have to go on.'
`Agreed; and we'll draw that covert as soon as I've made this call.'
`Can't you telephone your police friend later if we fail to find her on the yacht?'
No, we must get this chap moving as soon as we possibly can. You don't seem to realise what we are up against. That yacht is private property, just as much as if it were a house. You can't go busting your way aboard like a bandit. If you did, de Grasse's boys would be fully entitled to slog you on the head, then hand you over to the police. You have to be able to show justification for any act of that sort.'
`C. B., you make me tired! What better justification could we have than knowing that poor kid has been carried off by thugs?'
Molly had never known her son display such rudeness to an older man. It crossed her mind that, blare about girls as he liked to think himself, Christina, by striking an entirely new note, might have bowled him over. That could explain both the extreme agitation he was showing and his lapse of manners. Nevertheless, she spoke with unusual sharpness
`That will do, John. Colonel Verney has not wasted an unnecessary moment; and he is the best judge of what should be done.'
`Sorry!' he muttered. `But I'm damned if I'll let Jules get away with this. I'm damned if I will.'
At that moment the telephone began to make shrill whistling sounds. C. B. jangled the receiver, said, "Allo! 'Alto!' and repeated the number, but nothing happened the other end; so he turned his smiling grey eyes on John.
`What I meant was some legal, or at least moral, justification. Strictly speaking, we are not entitled to take any action ourselves, and should turn the whole job over to the police. If there had been signs of a struggle in her bedroom, or old Maria had seen her hauled from her villa by a couple of woolly headed Negroes, we'd have some excuse for taking a hand ourselves; but as it is ...'
Again the telephone made odd noises, but again no satisfactory result followed; so he went on, `As it is, she walked out of this house of her own accord, and left her own villa a quarter of an hour later with Jules. He is, for all practical purposes, a respectable citizen, and as far as we know she went with him perfectly willingly; so if you butted in, from the legal point of view you wouldn't have a leg to stand on.'
`I'm her fiancé, aren't I?' John demanded truculently.
`Yes. And I give you full marks now for your foresight in thinking up that bright idea. In France, as marriage is so mixed up with cash and property, people take a much more serious view of a fiancé’s rights than they do in England. But even that would not condone your breaking into what amounts to a private dwelling, without obvious cause. It will help, though, in getting a search warrant if we can bring evidence to the effect that she was definitely taken on to the yacht.'
Once more noises came from the telephone, and this time it proved to be the number that C. B. had called. With a nod to the others, he said, `Our luck is in. It is Malouet himself.' Then he spoke for several moments in his own particular brand of French. It was good French from the point of view of fluency, but it did not sound good, as he spoke very quietly, and without using any of the ejaculations or inflections of the voice which are such a feature of that language.
When he hung up, he said, `As you may have noticed, I had to be a bit obscure; but the old boy tumbled to my meaning. He confirms my own view of the matter. In the remote chance of our happening on somebody prepared to vouch for it that they saw Christina either taken aboard by force, or carried aboard unconscious, the authorities will not hold it against us if we force our way on to the yacht and insist on being taken to her. But if such evidence as we can get is to the effect that she went aboard of her own free will, the only way in which we can insure against a nasty come back is for John, as her fiancé, to swear an affidavit, stating that he believes her to have been lured aboard for an illegal purpose; then we will be granted a search warrant.'
`So that is all we have been wasting a precious ten minutes to be told,' said John sarcastically. `Why didn't you get on to your office in Whitehall and ask them to send us a . couple of hundred forms to fill up?'
`Johnny!' his mother exclaimed. `You will apologise at once!'
`Sorry, C. B.,' he murmured a trifle sullenly. `But for goodness' sake, let's get going and do something.'
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