“They’ve good cause to.”
“Is he in deep trouble, RoryT
“Might well be. We don’t really know and it’s even money that we’ll never find out.”
The telephone rang again and Alleyn answered it. He held the receiver away from his ear and Troy could hear the most remarkable noises coming through, as of a voice being violently tuned in and out on a loudspeaker. Every now and then words would belch out in a roar: “Retribution” was one and “Judgment” another. Alleyn listened with his face screwed up.
“I’m coming,” he said when he got the chance. “We are all coming. It has been arranged.”
“Jones!” the voice boomed, “Jones!”
“That may be a bit difficult, but I think so.”
Expostulations rent the air.
“This is too much,” Alleyn said to Troy. He laid the receiver down and let it perform. When an opportunity presented itself he snatched it up and said: “Mr. Harkness, I am coming to your service. In the meantime, goodbye,” and hung up.
“Was that really Mr. Harkness?” asked Troy, “or was it an elemental on the rampage?”
“The former. Wait a jiffy.”
He called the office and said there seemed to be a lunatic on the line and would they be kind enough to cut him off if he rang again.
“How can he possibly hold a service?” Troy asked.
“He’s hell-bent on it. Whether he’s in a purely alcoholic frenzy or whether he really has taken leave of his senses or whether in fact he has something of moment to reveal is impossible to say.”
“But what’s he want?”
“He wants a full house. He wants Ferrant and Jones, particularly.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s going to tell us who killed his niece.”
“For crying out loud!” said Troy.
“That,” said Alleyn, “is exactly what he intends to do?”
The service was to be at six o’clock. Alleyn and Fox left Montjoy at a quarter to the hour under a pall of cloud and absolute stillness. Local sounds had become isolated and clearly defined: voices, a car engine starting up, desultory footfalls. And still it did not rain.
After a minute or two on the road a police van overtook them and sailed ahead.
“Plank,” said Alleyn, “with his boys in blue and their charges. Only they’re not in blue.”
“I suppose it’s OK,” Fox said rather apprehensively.
“It’d better be,” said Alleyn.
As they passed L’Espérance, the Pharamond’s largest car could be seen coming down the drive. And on the avenue to Leathers they passed little groups of pedestrians and fell in behind a procession of three cars.
“Looks like capacity all right,” said Fox.
Two more cars were parked in front of the house and the police van was in the stable yard. Out in the horse paddock the sorrel mare flung up her head and stared at them. The loose-boxes were empty.
“Is he looking after all this himself?” Fox wondered. “You’d hardly fancy he was up to it, would you?”
Mr. Blacker, the vet, got out of one of the cars and came to meet them.
“This is a rum go and no mistake,” he said. “I got a most peculiar letter from Cuth. Insisting I come. Not my sort of Sunday afternoon at all. Apparently he’s been canvassing the district. Are you chaps mixed up in it, or what?”
Alleyn was spared the necessity of answering by the arrival of the Pharamonds.
They collected around Alleyn and Fox, gaily chattering as if they had met in the foyer of the Paris Opéra. Julia and Carlotta wore black linen suits with white lawn blouses, exquisite tributes to Mrs. Ferrant’s art as a blanchisseuse de fin.
“Shall we go in?” Julia asked as if the bells had rung for Curtain-Up. “We mustn’t miss anything, must we?” She laid her gloved hand on Alleyn’s arm. “The baskets!” she said. “Should we take them in or leave them in the car?”
“Baskets!”
“You must remember! ‘Ladies a Basket.’ Carlotta and I have brought langouste and mayonnaise sandwiches. Do you think — suitable?”
“I’m not sure if the basket arises this time.”
“We must wait and see. If unsuitable we shall wolf them up when we get home. As a kind of hors d’oeuvre. You’re dining, aren’t you? You and Troy? And Mr. Fox, of course?”
“Julia,” Alleyn said, “Fox and I are policemen and we’re on duty and however delicious your langouste sandwiches I doubt if we can accept your kind invitation. And now, like a dear creature, go and assemble your party in the front stalls and don’t blame me for what you are about to receive. It’s through there on your right.”
“Oh dear!” said Julia. “Yes. I see. Sorry.”
He watched them go off and then looked into the police van. Plank and Moss were in the front, Cribbage and a very young constable in the back with Ferrant and Syd Jones attached to them. The police were in civilian dress.
Alleyn said: “Wait until everyone else has gone in and then sit at the back. OK? If there aren’t any seats left, stand.”
“Yes, sir,” said Plank.
“Where are your other chaps?”
“They went in, Mr. Alleyn. As far front as possible. And there’s an extra copper from the mainland like you said. Outside the back door.”
“How are your two treasures in there?”
“Ferrant’s a right monkey, Mr. Alleyn. Very uncooperative. He doesn’t talk except to Jones and then it’s only the odd curse. The doctor came in to see Jones before we left and gave him a reduced fix. The doctor’s here.”
“Good.”
“He says Mr. Harkness called him in to give him something to steady him up but he reckons he’d already taken something on his own account.”
“Where is Doctor Carey?”
“In the audience. He’s just gone in. He said to tell you Mr. Harkness is in a very unstable condition but not incapable.”
“Thank you. We’ll get moving. Come on, Fox.”
They joined the little stream of people who walked around the stables and along the path to the old barn.
A man with a collection plate stood inside the door. Alleyn, fishing out his contribution, asked if he could by any chance have a word with Mr. Harkness and was told that Brother Cuth was at prayer in the back room and could see nobody. “Alleluia,” he added, apparently in acknowledgment of Alleyn’s donation.
Alleyn and Fox found seats halfway down the barn. Extra chairs and boxes were being brought in, presumably from the house. The congregation appeared to be a cross section of Cove and countryside in its Sunday clothes with a smattering of rather more stylish persons who might hail from Montjoy or even be tourists come out of curiosity. Alleyn recognized one or two faces he had seen at the Cod-and-Bottle. And there, stony in the fourth row, with Louis beside her, sat Mrs. Ferrant.
A little farther forward from Alleyn and Fox were the Pharamonds, looking like a stand of orchids in a cabbage patch and behaving beautifully.
In the front three rows sat, or so Alleyn concluded, the hardcore Brethren. They had an air of proprietorship and kept a smug eye on their books.
The curtains were closed to exclude the stage.
An audience, big or small, as actors know, generates its own flavor and exudes it like a pervasive scent. This one gave out the heady smell of suspense.
The tension increased when a thin lady with a white face seated herself at the harmonium and released strangely disturbing strains of unparalleled vulgarity.
“Shall we gather at the River?” invited the harmonium.
“The Beautiful
The Beautiful
The Ree-iv-a?”