“And for me, also.”
“But the boy’s my boy and his mother’s my wife. It looked perfectly safe to bring them here and they gave me admirable cover, but as things have turned out, I shouldn’t have brought them. But for the unfortunate Miss Truebody, of course, it would have been all right.”
“And she, too, provided admirable cover. An unquestioned entrée.”
“Not for long, however. What I’m trying to say is this: I’ve fogged out a scheme of approach. I realize that in suggesting it I’m influenced by an almost overwhelming anxiety about Ricky. I’ll be glad if you tell me at once if you think it impracticable and, from the police angle, unwise.”
Dupont said: “M. l’Inspecteur, I understand the difficulty and respect, very much, your delicacy. I shall be honoured to advise.”
“Thank you. Here goes, then. It’s essential that we arouse no suspicion of our professional interest in the factory. It’s highly probable that the key men up there have already been informed from the Château of my real identity. There’s a chance, I suppose, that Annabella Wells has kept her promise, but it’s a poor chance. After all, if these people don’t know who I am why should they kidnap Ricky? All right. We make a show of leaving this hotel and taking the eastern route for St. Céleste. That will satisfy anybody who may be watching us at this end. We take to the hills and double back to the factory. By this time, you, with a suitable complement of officers, are on your way there. I go in and ask for Ricky. I am excitable and agitated. They say he’s not there. I insist that I’ve unimpeachable evidence that he is there. I demand to see the manager. I produce Raoul, who says he took his girl for a drive and saw a car with Ricky in it turn in at the factory gates. They stick to their guns. I make a hell of a row. I tell them I’ve applied to you. You arrive with a carload of men. You take the manager aside and tell him I am a V.I.P. on holiday.”
“Comment? V.I.P?”
“A very important person. You see it’s extremely awkward. That you think the boy’s been kidnapped and that it’s just possible one of their workmen has been bribed to hide him. You’ll say I’ll make things very hot for you at the Sûreté if you don’t put on a show of searching for Ricky. You produce a mandai de perquisition. You are terribly apologetic and very bored with me, but you say that unfortunately you have no alternative. As a matter of form you must search the factory. Now, what does the manager do?”
Dupont’s sharp eyebrows were raised to the limit. Beneath them his round eyes stared with glazed impartiality at nothing in particular. His arms were folded. Alleyn waited.
“In effect,” Dupont said at last, “he sends his secretary to investigate. The secretary returns with Ricketts and there are a great many apologies. The manager assures me that there will be an exhaustive enquiry and appropriate dismissals.”
“What do you say to this?”
“Ah,” said Dupont, suddenly lowering his eyebrows and unfolding his arms. “That is more difficult.”
“Do I perhaps intervene? Having clasped my son to my bosom and taken him out with his mother to the car, thus giving the manager an opportunity to attempt bribery at a high level, do I not return and take it as matter of course that you consider this an admirable opportunity to pursue your search for the kidnappers?”
Dupont’s smile irradiated his face. “It is possible,” he said. “It is conceivable.”
“Finally, my dear Dupont, can we act along these lines or any other that suggest themselves without arousing the smallest suspicion that we are interested in anything but the recovery of the child?”
“The word of operation is indeed ‘act.’ From your performance on the telephone, Mr. Chief, I can have no misgivings about your own performance. And for myself”— here Dupont tapped his chest, touched his moustache and gave Alleyn an indescribably roguish glance —“I believe I shall do well enough.”
They stood up. Alleyn put his police bag inside a large suitcase. After looking at the chaos within Troy’s partly unpacked luggage, he decided on two cases. He also collected their overcoats and Ricky’s.
“Shall we about it?” he asked.
“En avant, alors!” said Dupont.
ii
Mr. Oberon looked down at the figure on the bed. “Quite peaceful,” he said. “Isn’t it strange?”
“The teeth,” Baradi pointed out, “make a great difference.”
“There is a certain amount of discolouration.”
“Hypostatic staining. The climate.”
“Then there is every reason,” Mr Oberon observed with satisfaction, “for an immediate funeral.”
“Certainly.”
“If they have in fact gone off to St. Céleste they cannot return until the day after tomorrow.”
“If, on the other hand, this new man at the Préfecture is intelligent, which Allen says is not the case, they may pick up some information.”
“Let us—” Mr. Oberon suggested as he absentmindedly rearranged the sprigged locknit nightgown which was pinned down by crossed hands to the rigid bosom —“let us suppose the worst. They recover the child,” he raised his hand. “Yes, yes, it is unlikely, but suppose it happens. They call to enquire. They ask to see her.”
The two men were silent for a time. “Very well,” Baradi said. “So they see her. She will not be a pretty sight, but they see her.”
Mr. Oberon was suddenly inspired. “There must be flowers,” he ejaculated. “Masses and masses of flowers. A nest. A coverlet all of flowers, smelling like incense. Tuberoses,” he cried softly clapping his hands together. “They will be entirely appropriate. I shall order them. Tuberoses! And orchids.”
iii
The eastern route followed the seaboard for three miles out of Roqueville and then turned slightly inland. At this point a country road branched off it to the left. Raoul took the road which mounted into the hills by a series of hairpin bends. They climbed out of soft coastal air and entered a region of mountain freshness. A light breeze passed like a hand through the olive groves and sent spirals of ruddy dust across the road. The seaboard with its fringe of meretricious architecture had dwindled into an incident, while the sea and sky and warm earth widely enlarged themselves.
The road, turning about the contour of the hills, was littered with rock and scarred by wheel tracks. Sometimes it became a ledge traversing the face of sheer cliffs, and in normal times Troy, who disliked heights, would have feared these passages. Now she dreaded them merely because they had to be taken slowly.
“How long,” she asked, “will it be, do you suppose?”
“Roqueville’s down there a little ahead of us. We’ll pass above it in a few minutes. I gather we now cast back into the mountains for about the same distance as we’ve travelled already and then work round to a junction with the main road to the factory. Sorry about these corners, darling,” Alleyn said as they edged round a bend that looked like a take-off into space. “Are you minding it very much?”
“Only because it’s slow. Raoul’s a good driver, isn’t he?”
“Very good indeed. Could you bear it if I told you about this job? I think perhaps I ought to, but it’ll be a bit dreary.”
“Yes,” Troy said. “I’d like that. The drearier the better because I’ll have to concentrate.”
“Well, you know it’s to do with the illicit drug trade, but I don’t suppose you know much about the trade itself. By and large it’s probably the worst thing apart from war that’s happened to human beings in modern times. Before the 1914 war the nation most troubled by the opium racket had begun to do something about it. There was a Shanghai conference and a Hague Convention. Both were cautious tentative shows. None of the nations came to them with a clean record and all the delegates were embarrassed by murky backgrounds in which production, manufacture and distribution involved the revenue both of states and highly placed individuals. Dost thou attend me?”