And now? Here they were, both of them, converging on a case that might well turn out to be all compact of such elements. And over and above everything else, here was Ricky escaped from what, almost certainly, had been a murderous attack, the thought of which sent an icy spasm through his father’s stomach. Get him out of it, smartly, now, before there was any further involvement, he thought — and then had to recognize that already Ricky’s involvement was too far advanced for this to be possible. He must be treated as someone who might, himself in the clear, provide the police with “helpful information.”
And at the back of his extreme distaste for this development why was there an indefinable warmth, a latent pleasure? He wondered if perhaps an old loneliness had been, or looked to become, a little assuaged.
Ricky came back with the assurance that Mrs. Ferrant was concocting a dish the mere smell of which would cause the salivary glands of a hermit to spout like fountains.
“She’s devoured by curiosity,” he said. “About you. Why you’re here. What you do. Whether you’re cross with me. The lot. She’d winkle information out of a Trappist monk, that one would. I can’t wait.”
“For what?”
“For her to start on you.”
“Rick,” Alleyn said. “She’s Mrs. Ferrant, and Ferrant, you tell me, is mysteriously affluent, goes in for solitary night fishing, pays dressy visits to Saint Pierre-des-Roches, and seems to be thick with Jones. With Jones who also visits there and goes to London carrying paint and who, since he’s found out your father is a cop, has taken a scunner to you. You think Jones dopes. So do I. Ferrant seems to have a bully’s ascendancy over Jones. One of them, you think, tried to murder you. It follows that you watch your step with Mrs. Ferrant, don’t you agree?”
“Yes, of course. And I always have. Not because of any of that but because she’s so bloody insatiable. About the Pharamonds in particular. Especially about Louis.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. And I’ll tell you what. I think when she was cooking or whatever she did up at L’Espérance, she had a romp on the side with Louis.”
“Why?”
“Because of the way he talks about her. The bedside manner. And — well, because of that kid.”
“The Ferrant kid?”
“That’s right. There’s a look. Unmistakable, I’d have thought. Dark and cheeky and a bit slyboots.”
“Called?”
“Wait for it.”
“Louis?”
Ricky nodded.
“It’s as common a French name as can be,” said Alleyn.
“Yes, of course,” Ricky agreed, “and it’d be going altogether too far, one would think, wouldn’t one? To christen him that if Louis was—” He made a dismissive gesture. “It’s probably just my dirty mind after all. And — well—”
“You don’t like Louis Pharamond?”
“Not much. Does it show?”
“A bit.”
“He was on that voyage when you met them, wasn’t he?” Ricky asked. Alleyn nodded. “Did you like him?”
“Not much.”
“Good.”
“Which signifies,” Alleyn said, “damnall.”
“He had something going with Miss Harkness.”
“For pity’s sake!” Alleyn exclaimed, “how many more and why do you think so?”
Ricky described the incident on the cliffs. “It had been a rendezvous,” he said rather importantly. “You could tell.”
“I don’t quite see how when you say you were lying flat on your face behind a rock, but let that pass.”
Ricky tried not to grin. “Anyway,” he said, “I bet I’m right. He’s a prowler.”
“Rick,” Alleyn said after a pause, “I’m here on a sort of double job which is my Assistant Commissioner’s Machiavellian idea of economy. I’m here because the local police are worried about the death of Dulcie Harkness and have asked us to nod in and I’m also supposed in an offhand, carefree manner to look into the possibility of this island being a penultimate station in one of the heroin routes into Great Britain.”
“Laws!”
“Yes. Of course you’ve read about the ways the trade is run. Every kind of outlandish means of transit is employed — electric light-fittings, component parts for hearing aids, artificial limbs, fat men’s navels, anything hollow — you name it. If the thing’s going on here there’s got to be some way of getting the stuff out of Marseilles, where the conversion into heroin is effected, across to Saint Pierre, from there to the island and thence to the mainland. Anything suggest itself?”
“Such as why did Jones cut up so rough when I trod on his paint?”
“Go on.”
“He does seem to make frequent trips — Hi!” Ricky said, interrupting himself. “Would this mean Jerome et Cie were in it or that Jones was on his own?”
“Probably the former but it’s anyone’s guess.”
“And Ferrant? The way he behaved with Syd at Saint Pierre. Could they be in cahoots? Is there anything on Ferrant?”
“The narcotics boys say he’s being watched. Apparently he makes these pleasure trips rather often and has been known to fly down to Marseilles and the Côte d’Azur where he’s been seen hobnobbing with recognized traders.”
“But what’s he supposed to do?”
“They’ve nothing definite. He may have the odd rendezvous on calm nights when he goes fishing. Suppose — and this is the wildest guesswork — but suppose a gentleman with similar propensities puts out from Saint Pierre with a consignment of artists’ paints. They’ve been opened at the bottom and capsules of heroin pushed up and filled in nice and tidy with paint. Then a certain amount is squeezed out at the top and the tubes messed about to look used. And in due course they go into Syd Jones’s paint box among his rightful materials and he takes one of his trips over to London. The stuff he totes round to shops and artists’ studios is of course pure as pure. The customs people have got used to him and his paint box. They probably did their stuff at some early stages before he began to operate. Even now, if they got curious, the odds are they’d hit on the wrong tube. One would suppose he doesn’t distribute more than a minimum of the doctored jobs among his legitimate material. Of which the vermillion you put your great hoof on was one.”
Alleyn stopped. He looked at his son and saw a familiar glaze of incredulity and interest on his open countenance.
“Don’t get it wrong,” he said. “That may be all my eye. Mr. Jones may be as pure as the driven snow. But if you can find another reason for him taking such a scunner on you, let’s have it. Rick, consider. You visit his ‘Pad’ and show an interest in his Jerome et Cie paint. A few days later you tread on his vermillion and try to pick up the tube. You send him to us and when he gets there he’s asked if he’s messing about with drugs. On top of that he learns that your pop’s a cop. He sets out on a business trip to headquarters and who does he find dodging about among the cargo? You, Chummy. He’s rattled and lets fly, accusing you of the first offense he can think of that doesn’t bear any relation to his actual goings-on. And to put the lid on it you dog his footsteps almost to the very threshold of Messrs. Jerome et Cie. And don’t forget, all this may be a farrago of utter nonsense.”
“It adds up, I suppose. Or does it?”
“If you know a better ‘ole’—”
“What about Ferrant, then? Are they in cahoots over the drug racket?”
“It could be. It looks a bit like it. And Ferrant it is who finds you — what exactly were you doing? Show me.”