“And what did the papa do then?” Fox asked in falsetto.
“That,” Alleyn said, “is the catch. He can hardly have bedded down with his lawful wedded wife and be lying doggo in the bedroom. Or can he?”
“Possible.”
“Yes. Or,” Alleyn said, “he may be bedded down somewhere else.”
“Like where?”
“Like Syd’s Pad, for example.”
“And why’s he come back? Because things are getting too hot over there?” Fox hazarded.
“Or, while we’re in the inventive vein, because they might be potentially even hotter over here and he wants to clean up damning evidence.”
“Where? Don’t tell me. At Syd’s Pad. Or,” Fox said, “could it be, don’t laugh, to clean up Syd?”
“Because, wait for it, Syd it was who made the attempt on Rick and bungled it and has become unreliable and expendable. Your turn.”
“A digression. Reverting to the deceased. While on friendly terms with Syd at his Pad, suppose she stumbled on something,” said Fox.
“What did she stumble on? Oh, I’m with you. On a doctored tube of emerald-oxide-of-chromium or on the basic supply of dope.”
“And fell out with Jones on account of it being his baby and he not being prepared to take responsibility and so she threatened to grass on him,” said Fox, warming to his work. “Or alternatively, yes, by gum, for Syd read Ferrant. It was his baby and he did her in. Shall I go on?”
“Be my guest.”
“Anyway one, or both of them, fixes up the death trap and polishes her off,” said Fox. “There you are! Bob’s your uncle.” He chuckled.
Alleyn did not reply. He got up and looked at Ricky’s window. It was still shut. The village was very quiet at this time in the afternoon.
“I wonder where he went for his walk,” he said. “I suppose he could have come back while we were on the pier.”
“He couldn’t have failed to see us.”
“Yes, but he wouldn’t butt in. He’s not at his table. When he’s there you can see him very clearly from the street. Good God, I’m behaving like a clucky old hen.”
Fox looked concerned but said nothing.
Alleyn said: “We’re not exactly active at the moment, are we? What the hell have we got in terms of visible, tangible, put-on-table evidence? Damnall.”
“A button.”
“True.”
“It wasn’t anywhere near the fence,” said Fox. “Might he just have forgotten?”
“He might, but I don’t think so. Fox, I’m going to get a search warrant for Syd’s Pad.”
“You are?”
“Yes. We can’t leave it any longer. Even if we’ve done no better than concoct a fairy tale, Jones does stand not only as an extremely dubious character but as a kind of link between the two crackpot cases we’re supposed to be handling. I’ve been hoping Dupont at his end might turn up something definite and in consequence haven’t taken any action with the sprats that might scare off the mackerel. But there’s a limit to masterly inactivity and we’ve reached it.”
“So we search,” Fox said. He fixed his gaze upon the distant coast of France. “What d’you reckon, Mr. Alleyn?” he asked. “Has he got back? Have they both got back? Jones and Ferrant?”
“Not according to the airport people.”
“By boat, then, like we fancied. In the night?”
“We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we? Here comes a copper in the Super’s car. It’s ho for the nearest beak and a search warrant.”
“It’ll be a pity,” Fox remarked, “if nobody’s there after all. Bang goes the fairy tale. Back to square one.” He considered this possibility for a moment. “All the same,” he said, “although I don’t usually place any reliance on hunches I’ve got a funny kind of feeling there’s somebody in Syd’s Pad.”
iii
The really extraordinary feature of Ricky’s situation was his inability to believe in it. He had to keep reminding himself that Ferrant had a real gun of sorts and was pointing it into the small of his back. Ferrant had shown it to him and said it was real and that he would use it if Ricky did not do as he was told. Even then Ricky’s incredulity nearly got the better of him and he actually had to pull himself together and stop himself calling the bluff and suddenly bolting down the hill.
The situation was embarrassing rather than alarming. When Syd Jones slouched out of the Pad and met them and fastened his arms behind his back with a strap, Ricky thought that all three of them looked silly and not able to carry the scene off with style. This reaction was the more singular in that, at the same time, he knew they meant business and that he ought to be deeply alarmed.
And now, here he was, back in Syd’s Pad and in the broken-down chair he had occupied on his former visit, very uncomfortable because of his pinioned arms. The room smelled and looked as it had before and was in the same state of squalor. He saw that blankets had been rigged up over the windows. A solitary shaded lamp on the worktable gave all the light there was. His arms hurt him and broken springs dug into his bottom.
There was one new feature, apart from the blankets. Where there had been sketches drawing-pinned to the wall there now hung a roughly framed canvas. He recognized Leda and the Swan.
Ferrant lounged against the table with unconvincing insolence. Syd lay on his bed and looked seldom and furtively at Ricky. Nothing was said and, grotesquely, this silence had the character of a social hiatus. Ricky had some difficulty in breaking it.
“What is all this?” he asked, his voice sounding like somebody else’s. “Am I kidnapped or what?”
“That’s right, Mr. Alleyn,” Ferrant said. “That’s correct. You are our hostage, Mr. Alleyn.”
He was smoking. He inhaled and blew smoke out his nostrils. “What an act!” Ricky thought.
“Do you mind telling me why?” he asked.
“A pleasure, Mr. Alleyn. A great pleasure.”
Ricky thought: “If this were fiction it would be terrible stuff. One would write things like ‘sneered Ferrant’ and ‘said young Alleyn, very quietly.’ ”
He said: “Well, come on, then. Let’s have it.”
“You’re going to write a little note to your papa, Mr. Alleyn.”
For the first time an authentic cold trickle ran down Ricky’s spine. “To say what?” he asked.
Ferrant elaborated with all the panache of a grade-B film gangster. The message Ricky was to write would be delivered to the Cove police station — never mind by whom. Ricky, said tartly that he couldn’t care less by whom; what was he expected to say?
“Take it easy, take it easy,” Ferrant snarled out of the corner of his mouth. He moved around the table and sat down at it. He cocked up his feet in their corespondent shoes on the table and leveled his gun between his knees at Ricky. It was not a pose that Ricky, himself in acute discomfort, thought that Ferrant would find easy or pleasant to sustain.
He noticed that among the litter on the table were the remains of a meaclass="underline" an open jackknife, cups, and a half-empty bottle of cognac. A piece of drawing paper lay near the lamp with an artist’s conté pencil beside it. There was a chair on that side of the table, opposite Ferrant.
“That’s the idea,” said Ferrant (“purred,” no doubt would be the chosen verb, thought Ricky). “We’ll have a little action, shall we?”
He nodded magnificently at Syd, who got off the bed and moved to Ricky. He bent over him, not looking in his face.
“Your breath stinks, Syd,” said Ricky.
Syd made a very raw reply. It was the first time he had spoken. He hauled ineffectually at Ricky and they floundered about aimlessly before Ricky got his balance. It was true that Syd smelled awful.