“Have a heart.”
“Come on.” Alleyn picked up a copy of yesterday’s Times. “Show me.” Ricky opened it and tore a hole in the center fold. He then advanced his eye to the hole, screwed up his face, and peered through.
Alleyn looked over the top of the Times. “Boh!” he said.
Mrs. Ferrant came in.
“Your bit of supper’s ready,” she said, regarding them with surprise. “In the parlor.”
Self-conscious, they followed her downstairs.
The aroma — delicate, pervasive, and yet discreet — welcomed them into the parlor. The dish, elegantly presented, was on the table. The final assembly had been completed, the garniture was in place. Mrs. Ferrant, saucepan in hand, spooned the shellfish sauce over hot fillets of sole.
“My God!” Alleyn exclaimed. “Sole à la Dieppoise!”
His success with the cook could only be compared to that of her masterpiece with him. Ricky observed, with mounting wonderment and small understanding, since the conversation was in French, the rapprochement his father instantly established with Mrs. Ferrant. He questioned her about the sole, the shrimps, the mussels. In a matter of minutes he had elicited the information that Madame (as he was careful to call her) had a maman who actually came from Dieppe and from whom she inherited her art. He was about to send Ricky out at the gallop to purchase a bottle of white Burgundy when Mrs. Ferrant, a gratified smirk twitching at her lips, produced one. He kissed her hand and begged her to join them. She consented. Ricky’s eyes opened wider and wider.
As the strange little feast progressed he became at least partially tuned in. He gathered that his father had steered the conversation around to the Pharamonds and the days of her service up at L’Espérance. “Monsieur Louis” came up once or twice. He was sophisticated. A very mondain type, was he not? One might say so, said Mrs. Ferrant with a shrug. It was her turn to ask questions. Monsieur Alleyn was well acquainted with the family, for example? Not to say “well.” They had been fellow passengers on an ocean voyage. Monsieur’s visit was unanticipated by his son, was it not? But entirely so. It had been pleasant to surprise him. So droll the expression, when he walked in. Jaw dropped, eyes bulging. Alleyn gave a lively imitation and slapped his son jovially on the shoulder. Ah yes, for example, his black eye, Mrs. Ferrant inquired, and switching to English asked Ricky what he’d been doing with himself, then, in Saint Pierre. Had he got into bad company? Ricky offered the fable of the iron stanchion. Her stewed-prune eyes glittered and she said something in French that sounded like à d’autres: Ricky wondered whether it was the equivalent of “tell us another.”
“You got yourself in a proper mess,” she pointed out. “Dripping wet those things are in your rucksack.”
“I got caught in the thunderstorm.”
“Did it rain seaweed, then?” asked Mrs. Ferrant and for the first time in their acquaintance gave out a cackle of amusement in which, to Ricky’s fury, his father joined.
“Ah, Madame!” said Alleyn with a comradely look at Mrs. Ferrant. “Les jeunes hommes!”
She nodded her head up and down. Ricky wondered what the hell she supposed he’d been up to.
The sole à la Dieppoise was followed by the lightest of sorbets, a cheese board, coffee and cognac.
“I have not eaten so well,” Alleyn said, “since I was last in Paris. You are superb, Madame.”
The conversation proceeded bilingually and drifted around to Miss Harkness and to what Alleyn, with, as his son felt, indecent understatement, referred to as son contretemps équestre.
Mrs. Ferrant put on an air of grandeur, of somber loftiness. It had been unfortunate, she conceded. Miss Harkness’s awful face and sightless glare flashed up in Ricky’s remembrance.
She had perhaps been of a reckless disposition Alleyn hinted. In more ways than one, Mrs. Ferrant agreed and sniffed very slightly.
“By the way, Rick,” Alleyn said. “Did I forget to say? Your Mr. Jones called on us in London?”
“Really?” said Ricky, managing to sound surprised. “What on earth for? Selling Mummy his paints?”
“Well — advertising them, shall we say. He showed your mother some of his work.”
“What did she think?”
“I’m afraid, not a great deal.”
It was Mrs. Ferrant’s turn again. Was Mrs. Alleyn, then, an artist? An artist of great distinction, perhaps? And Alleyn himself? He was on holiday no doubt? No, no, Alleyn said. It was a business trip. He would be staying in Montjoy for a few days but had taken the opportunity to visit his son. Quite a coincidence, was it not, that Ricky should be staying at the Cove. Lucky fellow! Alleyn cried catching him another buffet and bowing at the empty dishes.
Mrs. Ferrant didn’t in so many words ask Alleyn what his job was but she came indecently close to it. Ricky wondered if his father would sidestep the barrage, but no, he said cheerfully that he was a policeman. She offered a number of exclamations. She would never have dreamed it! A policeman! In English she accused him of “having her on” and in French of not being the type. It was all very vivacious and Ricky didn’t believe a word of it. His ideas on Mrs. Ferrant were undergoing a rapid transformation, due in part, he thought, to her command of French. He cpuldn’t follow much of what she said but the sound of it lent a gloss of sophistication to her general demeanor. It put her into a new category. She had become more formidable. As for his father: it was as if some frisky stranger laughed and flattered and almost flirted. Was this The Cid? What were they talking about now? About Mr. Ferrant and his trips to Saint Pierre and how he would never eat as well abroad as he did at home. He had business connections in France perhaps? No. Merely family ones. He liked to keep up with his aunts—
Ricky had had a long, painful and distracting day of it. Impossible to believe that only this morning he and Sydney Jones had leaned nose to nose across a crate of fish on a pitching deck. And how odd those people looked, scuttling about so far below. Like woodlice. Awful to fall from the balcony among them. But he was falling: down, down into the disgusting sea.
“Arrrach!” he tried to shout and looked into his father’s face and felt his hands on his shoulders. Mrs. Ferrant had gone.
“Come along, old son,” Alleyn said, and his deep voice was very satisfactory. “Bed. Call it a day.”
v
Inspector Fox was discussing a pint of mild-and-bitter when Alleyn walked into the bar at the Cod-and-Bottle. He was engaged in dignified conversation with the landlord, three of the habituals, and Sergeant Plank. Alleyn saw that he was enjoying his usual success. They hung upon his words. His massive back was turned to the door and Alleyn approached him unobserved.
“That’s where you hit the nail smack on the head, sergeant,” he was saying. “Calm, cool, and collected. You’ve had the experience of working with him?”
“Well,” said Sergeant Plank clearing his throat, “in a very subsidiary position, Mr. Fox. But I remarked upon it.”
“You remarked upon it. Exactly, So’ve I. For longer than you might think, Mr. Maistre,” said Fox, drawing the landlord into closer communion. “And a gratifying experience it’s been. However,” said Mr. Fox who had suddenly become aware of Alleyn’s approach, “quoi qu’il en soit.”
The islanders were bilingual, and Mr. Fox never let slip an opportunity to practice his French or to brag, in a calm and stately manner, of the excellencies of his superior officer. It was seldom that Alleyn caught him at this exercise and when he did, gave him fits. But that made little difference to Fox, who merely pointed out that the technique had proved a useful approach to establishing comfortable relations with persons from whom Alleyn hoped to obtain information.