Fox asked and got the expected reply.
“By God,” said Alleyn. “I wish this hadn’t happened. Damn the boy, I ought to have got him out of it to begin with.”
After a longish pause, Fox said: “I’m not of that opinion, if you don’t mind my saying so, Mr. Alleyn.”
“I don’t mind, Br’er Fox. I hope you’re right.”
“It’ll just turn out he’s taken an extra long walk.”
“You didn’t hear Mrs. Ferrant. I think she knows something.”
“About the young chap?”
“Yes.”
Fox was silent.
“We must, of course, do what we’d do if someone came into the station and reported it,” Alleyn said.
“Tell them to wait,” Fox said promptly. “Give him until it gets dark and then if he hadn’t turned up we’d — well—”
“Set up a search.”
“That’s right,” said Fox uncomfortably.
“In the meantime we’ve got the official search on hand. Did Plank say what he’d beaten up in the way of help?”
“The chaps he’s got with him. A couple of coppers from the Montjoy factory,” said Fox, meaning the police station.
“We’ll take them with us. After all, we don’t know what we’ll find there, do we?” said Alleyn.
8: Night Watches
i
The thing they got wrong in the gangster films, Ricky thought, was what it did to you being tied up. The film victims, once they were released, did one or two obligatory staggers and then became as nimble as fleas and started fighting again. He knew that when, if ever, he was released, his legs would not support him, his arms would be senseless, and his head so compounded of pain that it would hang down and wobble like a wilted dahlia.
He could not guess how long it was since they gagged him. Jones had made a pad out of rag and Ferrant had forced it between his teeth and bound it with another rag. It tasted of turpentine and stung his cut lip. They had done this when Syd said he’d heard something outside. Ferrant had switched off the light and they were very still until there was a scratching at the door.
“It’s the kid,” Ferrant said.
He opened the door a little way and after a moment shut it again very quietly. Syd switched on the light. Young Louis was there. He wore a black smock like a French schoolboy and a beret. He had a satchel on his back. His stewed-prune eyes stared greedily at Ricky out of a blackened face.
Ferrant held out his hand and Louis put a note in it. Ferrant read it — it was evidently very short — and gave it to Syd.
Louis said: “Papa, he asked me if I could row the boat.”
“Who did?”
“The fuzz. He asked if I was afraid to go out in her at night.”
“What’d you say?”
“I said I wasn’t. I didn’t say anything else, Papa. Honest.”
“By God, you better not.”
“Maman says he’s getting worried about him.” Louis pointed to Ricky. “You got him so he can’t talk, haven’t you, Papa? Have you worked him over? His face looks like you have. What are you going to do with him, Papa?”
“Tais-toi donc. Keep your tongue behind your teeth. Passe-moi la boustifaille.”
Louis gave him the satchel.
“Good. Now, there is more for you to do. Take this envelope. Do not open it. You see it has his name on it. The detective’s name. Listen carefully. You are to push it under the door at the police station and nobody must see you. Do not put it through the slot. Under the door. Then push the bell and away home quick and silent before the door is opened. Very quick. Very silent. And nobody to see you. Repeat it.”
He did, accurately.
“That is right. Now go.”
“I’ve blacked my face. Like a gunman. So’s nobody can see me.”
“Good. The light, Syd.”
Syd switched it off, and on again when the door was shut.
“Is he safe?” Syd asked.
“Yes. Get on with it.”
“We can’t take—” Syd stopped short and looked at Ricky. “Everything,” he said.
They had paid no attention to him for a long time. It was as if by trussing him up they had turned him into an unthinking as well as an inanimate object.
They had been busy. His chair had been turned away from the table and manhandled excruciatingly to bring him face to the wall. There had been some talk of a blindfold, he thought, but he kept his eyes shut and let his head flop and they left him there, still gagged, and could be heard moving purposefully about the room.
He opened his eyes. Leda and the Swan had gone from their place on the wall and now lay face down on the floor, close to his feet. He recognized the frame and wondered bemusedly by what means it had hung up there because there was no cord or wire to be seen although there were the usual ring screws.
Ferrant and Syd went quietly about their business. They spoke seldom and in low voices but they generated a floating sense of urgency and at times seemed to argue. He began to long for the moment to come when they would have to release whatever it was that bound and cut into his ankles. If he were to walk between them down to the boat, that was what they would have to do. And where would the Cid be, then? Watching with Br’er Fox from the window in Ricky’s room? Unable to do anything because if he did — Would the Cid ever get the message? Where was he? Now? Now, when Ricky wanted him so badly. It’s too much, he thought. Yesterday and the thunder and lightning and the sea and blacking my eye and now all this: face, jaw, mouth, ankle. No, it’s too much. The wall poured upwards, his eyes closed, and he fainted.
The boy Louis did not follow the path down to the front but turned off it to his right and slithered, darkling, along tortuous passages that ran uphill and down, behind the backs of cottages, some occupied and some deserted.
The moon had not yet risen and the going was tricky but he was surefooted and knew his ground. He was excited and thought of himself in terms of his favorite comic strip as a Miracle Kid.
He came out of his labyrinth at the top of the lane that ran down to the police station.
Here he crouched for a moment in the blackest of the shadows. There was no need to crouch — the lane was deserted — but he enjoyed doing it and then flattening himself against a wall and edging downhill.
The blue lamp was on but the station windows were dark, while those in the living quarters glowed. He could hear music, radio or telly, with the fuzz family watching it and the Miracle Kid, all on his own, out in the dark.
“Whee-ee!!”
Across the lane like the Black Shadow. Envelope. Under the door. Stuck. Push. Bell. Push. “Zing!!!”
In by the back door with Maman waiting. Hands in pockets. Cool. Slouch in wagging the hips.
“Eh bien?” said Mrs. Ferrant, nodding her head up and down. “Tu es fort satisfait de ta petite personne, n’est-ce pas?”
Around the corner in the police station, Mrs. Plank, peering up and down the lane, told herself it was too late for a runaway knock. Unless, she thought, it was that young Louis from around the corner who was allowed to wait up until all hours and was not a nice type of child. Then she noticed the envelope at her feet. She picked it up. Addressed to the Super and sealed. She shut the front door, went into the kitchen, and turned the envelope over and over in her hands.
There was no telling how late it might be when they returned, all of them. Joe had been very quiet when he came in but she knew he was gratified by the way the corners of his mouth twitched. He had told her they were going to search Syd Jones’s premises but it was not to be mentioned. He knew, thought Mrs. Plank, that he could trust her.
It had been a most irregular way of delivering the note, if it was a note. Suppose it was important? Suppose Mr. Alleyn should know of it at once and suppose that by leaving it until he came in, if he did come in and not drive straight back to Montjoy, some irreparable damage was done? On the other hand, Joe and Mr. Alleyn and Mr. Fox might be greatly displeased if she butted in at that place with a note that turned out to be some silly prank.