“And then?”
“According to Jones, Harkness had told him to drive the car to a corn merchant on the way to Montjoy and pick up some sacks of fodder.”
“Rick remembers,” Alleyn said, “that after the body was found, Mr. Harkness said Jones had been told to take the mare to the smith to be reshod and that he’d given this order to get the mare out of Dulcie’s way. Harkness had added that because Jones didn’t carry out this order he was as good as a murderer. Didn’t Jones tell you about this?”
“Not a word, sir. No, he never.”
“Sure?”
“Swear to it, sir.”
Fox said: “Mr. Harkness isn’t what you’d call a reliable witness. He could have invented the bit about the blacksmith.”
“He wasn’t drinking then, Mr. Fox. That set in later,” said Plank, who seemed set upon casting little rays of favorable light upon the character of Mr. Harkness. “But he was very much upset,” he added. “I will say that for him. Distracted is what he was.”
“However distracted,” Alleyn said, “one would hardly expect him to cook up a pointless fairy tale, would one? I’d better talk to Rick about this,” he said vexedly and asked Plank to drive into the Cove. “Come and take a look at your godson, Br’er Fox,” he suggested, and to Plank: “Drop us round the corner at the station. You’ll be able to put in half an hour catching up on routine.”
“Don’t make me laugh, sir,” said Plank.
They passed the Ferrants’ house, turned into the side lane, and pulled up at the corner cottage that was also the local police station. A compact little woman with tight hair and rosy cheeks was hoeing vigorously in the garden. Nearby a little girl with Plank’s face at the wrong end of a telescope was knocking up a mud pie in a flowerpot.
Plank, all smartness, was out of the driver’s seat and opening the doors in a flash.
“Is this Mrs. Plank?” Alleyn said and advanced upon her, bareheaded. She was flustered and apologized for her mucky hand. Fox was presented. He and Alleyn admired the garden.
“It’s beginning to look better,” Mrs. Plank said. “It was a terrible old mess when we first came four years ago.”
“Have you had many moves?” Alleyn asked them and they said this was the third.
“And that makes things difficult,” Alleyn said, knowing constant transfers to be a source of discontent.
He had them talking freely in no time: about the disastrous effect on the children’s education and the problems of settling into a new patch where you never knew what the locals would be like — friendly or suspicious, helpful or resentful. Of how, on the whole, the Cove people were not bad but you had to get used to being kept at a distance.
Alleyn edged the conversation around to the neighbors. Did Mrs. Plank know the Ferrants around the corner with whom his son lodged? Not well, she said shortly. Mrs. Ferrant kept herself to herself. She, Mrs. Plank, felt sorry for her. “Really?” Alleyn asked. “Why?”
Finding herself in the delicious situation where gossip could be regarded as a duty, Mrs. Plank said that what with Ferrant away in France half the time and where they got the money for it nobody knew and never taking her with him and when he was home the way he carried on so free for all that he gave her washing machines and fridges and the name he had in the Cove for his bold behavior and yet being secretive with it: well, the general feeling was that Mrs. Ferrant was to be pitied. Although, come to that, Mrs. Ferrant herself wasn’t all that—
“Now then, mother,” said Plank uneasily.
“Well, I know,” she said, “and so do you, Joe.” Alleyn had a picture of the village policeman’s wife, cut off from the cozy interchange of speculative gossip, always having to watch her tongue and always conscious of being on the outside.
“I’m sure Mrs. Plank’s the soul of discretion,” he said. “And we’re grateful for any tips about the local situation, aren’t we, Plank? About Mrs. Ferrant — you were saying?”
It emerged that Mrs. Plank had acquired one friend only with whom she was on cozy terms: her next-door neighbor in the lane, a widow who, in the past, had been a sewing maid up at L’Espérance at the time when Mrs. Ferrant was in service there. Ten years ago that would be, said Mrs. Plank and added with a quick glance at her husband that Mrs. Ferrant had left to get married. The boy was not yet eleven. Louis, they called him. “Mind you,” Mrs. Plank ended, “they’re French.”
“So are most of the islanders, mother,” said Plank. She tossed her head at him. “You know yourself, Joe,” she said, “there’s been trouble. With him.”
“What sort of trouble?” Alleyn asked.
“Maintenance,” said Plank. “Child. Up to Bon Accord.”
“Ah. Don’t tell me. He’s no good, that one,” cried Mrs. Plank in triumph.
Mr. Fox said, predictably, that they’d have to get her in the force and upon that playful note they parted.
Alleyn and Fox turned right from the lane on to the front. They crossed over to the far side and looked up at Ricky’s window, which was wide open. There he was with his tousled head of hair, so like his mother’s, bent over his work. Alleyn watched him for a moment or two, willing him to look up. Presently he did and a smile broke over his bruised face.
“Good morning, Cid, me dear,” said Ricky. “Good morning, Br’er Fox. Coming up? Or shall I come down?”
“We’ll come up.”
Ricky opened the front door to them. He wore a slightly shamefaced air and had a postcard in his hand.
“Mrs. F. is out marketing,” he said. “Look. On the mat, mixed up with my mail. Just arrived.” He shut the door.
The postcard displayed a hectically colored view of a market square and bore a legend: “La place-du-marché, La Tournière.” Ricky turned it over. It had a French stamp and was addressed in an awkward hand to “M. Ferrant” but carried no message.
“It’s his writing,” Ricky said. “He’s given me receipts. That’s how he writes his name. Look at the postmark, Cid.”
“I am. La Tournière. Posted yesterday. Air mail.”
“But he was in Saint Pierre yesterday. Even if it wasn’t Ferrant who shoved me off the jetty, it certainly was Ferrant who made me look silly in the café. Where is La Tournière?”
“North of Marseilles,” said his father.
“Marseilles! But that’s — what?”
“At a guess, between six and seven hundred kilometers by air from Saint Pierre. Come upstairs,” said Alleyn.
He dropped the card on the mat and was on the top landing before the other two were halfway up. They all moved into Ricky’s room as Mrs. Ferrant fitted her key in the front door.
“How did you know she was coming?” Ricky asked.
“What? Oh, she dumped her shopping bag against the door while she fished for her key. Didn’t you hear?”
“No,” said Ricky.
“We haven’t all got radioactive ears,” said Mr. Fox, looking benignly upon his godson.
Alleyn said abruptly: “Rick, why do you think it was Ferrant who shoved you overboard?”
“Why? I don’t know why. I just felt sure it was he. I can’t say more than that — I just — I dunno. I was certain. Come to think of it, it might have been Syd.”
“For the sake of argument we’ll suppose it was Ferrant. He may have felt he’d better remove to a distant spot, contrived to get himself flown to La Tournière, and posted this card at the airport. What time was it when you took the plunge?”
“According to my ruined wristwatch, eight minutes past three.”