“No,” Alleyn said. “They wouldn’t think that.”
A stillness came over the three. Jasper, who had reached out to the coffeepot, withdrew his hand. He looked very hard at Alleyn and then at his wife.
Julia said: “Is there something you know and we don’t? About Louis?”
Carlotta came out of the house and down the steps. She was very pale, even for a Pharamond. She came to the table and sat down as if she needed to.
“I’ve made a discovery,” she said. “Louis’s passport and his attaché case and the file he always takes when he goes to Lima are missing. I forced open the drawer in his desk. So I imagine, don’t you,” said Carlotta, “that he’s walked out on me?”
“You sound as if you’re not surprised,” said Julia.
“Nor am I. He’s been precarious for quite a time. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? You must have.” They were silent. “I always knew, of course,” Carlotta said, “that by and large you thought him pretty ghastly. But there you are. I have a theory that quite a lot of women require a touch of the bounder in their man. I’m one of them. So, true to type, he’s bounded away.”
Jasper said: “Carla, darling, aren’t you rushing your fences a bit? After all, we don’t know why he’s gone. If he’s gone.”
Julia said: “I’ve got a feeling that Roderick, if we’re still allowed to call him that, knows. And I don’t believe he thinks it’s anything to do with you, Carla.” She turned to Alleyn. “Am I right?” she asked.
Alleyn said slowly: “If you mean do I know definitely he’s gone, I don’t. I’ve no information at all as to his recent movements.”
“He’s in trouble, though. Isn’t he? It’s best we should all realize. Really.”
“What’s he done?” Carlotta demanded. “He has done something, hasn’t he? I’ve known he was up to something. I can always tell.”
Jasper said with an unfamiliar note in his voice: “I think we’d better remember, girls, that we are talking, however much we may like him, to a policeman.”
“Oh dear. I suppose we should,” Julia agreed and sounded vexed rather than alarmed. “I suppose we must turn cagey and evasive and he’ll set traps for us and when we fall into them he’ll say things like ‘I didn’t know but you’ve just told me.’ They always do that. Don’t you?” she asked Alleyn.
“I don’t fancy it’s going to be my morning for aphorisms,” he said.
“Somehow,” Julia mused, “I’ve always thought — you won’t mind my saying, Carla darling? I prefer to be open — I’ve always thought Louis was a tiny bit the absconding type.”
Carlotta looked thoughtfully at her. “Have you?” she said as if her attention had been momentarily caught. “Well, it looks as though you’re right. Or doesn’t it?” she added turning to Alleyn.
He stood up. The three of them contemplated him with an air of — what? Polite interest? Concern? One would have said no more than that, if it had not been for Carlotta’s pallor, the slightest tremor in Jasper’s hand as he put down his coffee cup, and — in Julia? — the disappearance, as if by magic, of her immense vitality.
“I think,” Alleyn said, “that in a situation which for me, if not for you, poses a problem, I’ll have to spill the beans. The not very delicious beans. As you say, I’m a policeman. I’m what is known as an ‘investigating officer’ and if something dubious crops up I’ve got to investigate it. That is why I’m here, on the island. Now, such is the nature of the investigation that anybody doing a bolt for no discernible reason becomes somebody the police want to see. Your cousin is now somebody I want to see.”
After a long silence Jasper said: “I don’t like your chances.”
“Nor do I, much.”
“I suppose we aren’t to know what you want to see him about?”
“I’ve gone further than I should already.”
Carlotta said: “It’s not about that girl, is it? Oh God, it’s not about her?”
“It’s no good, Carla,” Julia said and put her arm round Carlotta. “Obviously, he’s not going to tell you.” She looked at Alleyn and the ghost of her dottiness revisited her. “And we actually asked you to come and help us,” she said. “It’s like the flies asking the spider to walk into their parlor, isn’t it?”
“Alas!” said Alleyn. “It is, a bit. I’m sorry.”
The child Selina appeared on the steps from the house. She descended them in jumps with her feet together.
“Run away, darling,” her parents said in unison.
Selina continued to jump.
“Selina,” said her father. “What did we tell you?”
She accomplished the final jump. “I can’t,” she said.
“Nonsense,” said her mother. “Why can’t you?”
“I got a message.”
“A message? What message? Tell us later and run away now.”
“It’s on the telephone. I answered it.”
“Why on earth couldn’t you say so?”
“For him,” said Selina. She pointed at Alleyn and made a face.
Julia said automatically: “Don’t do that and don’t point at people. It’s for you,” she said to Alleyn.
“Thank you, Selina,” he said. “Will you show me the way?”
“Okey-dokey-pokey,” said Selina, and seized him by the wrist.
“You see?” Julia appealed to Alleyn. “Quite awful!”
“One is helpless,” said Jasper.
As they ascended the steps Selina repeated her jumping technique, retaining her hold on Alleyn’s wrist. When they were halfway up she said: “Cousin Louis is a dirty old man.”
Alleyn, nonplussed, gazed down at her. In her baleful way Selina was a pretty child.
“Why do you talk like that?” he temporized.
“What is a dirty old man?” asked Selina.
“Father Christmas in a chimney.”
“You’re cuckoo.” She slid her hand into his and adopted a normal manner of ascent. “Anyway,” she said, “Louis says he is.”
“What do you mean?”
“Louis Ferrant says his mother says Cousin Louis is a D.O.M.”
“Do you know Louis Ferrant?”
“Nanny knows his mother. We meet them in the village. He’s bigger than me. He says things.”
“What sort of things?”
“I forget,” said Selina and looked uncomfortable.
“I don’t think Louis Ferrant’s an awfully good idea,” Alleyn said. He hoisted Selina up to his shoulder. She gave a shriek of pleasure and they entered the house.
It was Plank on the telephone.
“I thought you’d like to know, sir,” he said. “They’ve rung through from Montjoy. Jones wants to bargain.”
“He does? What’s he offering?”
“As far as we can make out, info on Dulcie. He won’t talk to anyone but you. He’s drying out and in a funny mood.”
“I’ll come.”
“One other thing, Mr. Alleyn. Mr. Harkness rang up. He’s on about this service affair tomorrow. He’s very keen on everybody attending it. There was a lot of stuff about Vengeance Is Mine Saith the Lord and the book of Leviticus. He said he’s been guided to make known before the multitude the sinner in Israel.”
“Oh, yes?”
“Yes. Something about it being revealed to him in a dream. He sounded very wild.”
“Drunk?”
“Damn near DTs, I reckon.”
“Do you suppose there’ll be a large attendance?”
“Yes,” said Plank, “I do. There’s a lot of talk about it. He’s sent some dirty big announcements to the pub and the shop.”
“Sent them? By whom?”
“The delivery boy from the Cod-and-Bottle. Mr. Harkness was very upset when I told him Jones and Ferrant wouldn’t be able to be present. He said the Lord would smite the police hip and thigh and cast them into eternal fires if Jones and Ferrant didn’t attend the meeting. Particularly Jones. He’s far gone, sir.”