Alleyn was silent for a minute.
“I know it’s a hell of a lot to ask,” Robin said desperately.
“I think it is,” Alleyn said, “when you are so obviously leaving most of the facts out of your story.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You are asking us to behave in a difficult and extremely odd manner. You want us, in effect, to kidnap Miss Taylor. We have had,” Alleyn said, “our bellyful of kidnapping, this afternoon. I suppose you heard about Ricky.”
Robin made an inarticulate noise that sounded rather like a groan. “I know. Yes. We did hear. I’m awfully sorry. It must be terribly worrying.”
“And how,” Alleyn asked, “did you hear about it?” and would have given a good deal to have had a clear view of Robin’s face.
“Well, I — well, we rang up the hotel this afternoon.”
“I thought you said you had been to Douceville all the afternoon.”
“Hell!”
“I think you must have known much earlier that Ricky was kidnapped, didn’t you?”
“Look here, sir, I don’t know what to say.”
“I’ll tell you. If you want me to help you with this child, Ginny, and I believe you do, you will answer, fully and truthfully, specific questions that I shall put to you. If you don’t want to answer, we’ll say goodnight and forget we had this conversation. But don’t lie. I shall know,” Alley said mildly, “if you lie.”
Robin waited fora moment and then said: “Please go ahead.”
“Right. What precisely do you expect to happen at this party?”
A car came down the square. Its headlights shone momentarily on Robin’s face. It looked very young and frightened, like the face of a sixth-form boy in serious trouble with his tutor. The car turned and they were in the dark again.
Robin said: “It’s a regular thing. They have it on Thursday nights. It’s a sort of cult. They call it the Rites of the Children of the Sun in the Outer and Oberon’s the sort of high priest. You have to swear not to talk about it. I’ve sworn. I can’t talk. But it ends pretty hectically. And tomorrow Ginny — I’ve heard them — Ginny’s cast for — the leading part.”
“And beforehand?”
“Well — it’s different from ordinary nights. There’s no dinner. We go to our rooms until the Rites begin at eleven. We’re meant not to speak to each other or anything.”
“Oh, there are drinks. And so on.”
“What does ‘so on’ mean?” Robin was silent. “Do you take drugs? Reefers? Snow?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Come on. Which is it?”
“Reefers mostly. There’s food when we smoke. There has to be. I don’t know if they are the usual kind. Oberon doesn’t smoke. I don’t think Baradi does.”
“Are they traffickers?”
“I don’t know much about them.”
“Do you know that much?”
“I should think they might be.”
“Have they asked you to take a hand?”
“Look,” Robin said, “I’m sorry but I’ve got to say it. I don’t know much about you either, sir. I mean, I don’t know that you won’t—” He had turned his head and Alleyn knew he was peering at him.
“Inform the police?” Alleyn suggested.
“Well — you might.”
“Come: you don’t, as you say, know me. Yet you’ve elected to ask me to rescue this wretched child from the clutches of your friends. You can’t have it both ways.”
“You don’t know,” Robin said. “You don’t know how tricky it all is. If they thought I’d talked to you!”
“What would they do?”
“Nothing!” Robin cried in a hurry. “Nothing! Only I’ve accepted, as one says, their hospitality.”
“You have got your values muddled, haven’t you?”
“Have I? I daresay I have.”
“Tell me this. Has anything happened recently — I mean within the last twenty-four hours — to precipitate the situation?”
Robin said: “Who are you?”
“My dear chap, I don’t need to be a thought-reader to see there’s a certain urgency behind all this preamble.”
“I suppose not. I’m sorry. I’m afraid I can’t answer any more questions. Only — only, for God’s sake, sir, will you do something about Ginny?”
“I’ll make a bargain with you. I gather that you want to remove the child without giving a previous warning to the house party.”
“That’s it, sir. Yes.”
“All right. Can you persuade her, in fact, to drive into Roqueville at six o’clock?”
“I don’t know. I was gambling on it. If he’s not about, I might. She — I think she is quite fond of me,” Robin said humbly, “when he’s not there to bitch it all up.”
“Failing a drive, could you get her to walk down to the car park?”
“I might do that. She wants to buy one of old Marie’s silver goats.”
“Would it help to tell her we had rung up and asked if she would choose a set of the figures for Ricky? Aren’t there groups of them for Christmas? Cribs?”
“That might work. She’d like to do that.”
“All right. Have your car waiting and get her to walk on to the park. Suggest you drive down to our hotel with the figures.”
“You know, sir, I believe that’d do it.”
“Good. Having got her in the car it’s up to you to keep her away from the Château. Take her to see Troy by all means. But I doubt if you’ll get her to stay to dinner. You may have to stage a breakdown on a lonely road. I don’t know. Use your initiative. Block up the air vent in your petrol cap. One thing more. Baradi, or someone, said something about a uniform of sorts that you all wear on occasion.”
“That’s right. It’s called the mantle of the sun. We wear them about the house and — and always on Thursday nights.”
“Is it the white thing Oberon had on this morning?”
“Yes. A sort of glorified monk’s affair with a hood.”
“Could you bring two of them with you?”
Robin turned his head and peered at Alleyn in astonishment. “I suppose I could.”
“Put them in your car during the day.”
“I don’t see—”
“I’m sure you don’t. Two of your own will do, if you have two. You needn’t worry about bringing Miss Taylor’s gown specifically.”
“Hers!” Robin cried out. “Bring hers! But that’s the whole thing! Tomorrow night they’ll make Ginny wear the Black Robe.”
“Then you must bring a black robe,” Alleyn said.
ii
On Thursday evening the Côte d’Azur, inclined always to the theatrical, became melodramatic and, true to the weather report, staged a thunderstorm.
“It’s going to rain,” a voice croaked from the balustrade of the Chèvre d’Argent. “Listen! Thunder!”
Far to southward the heavens muttered an affirmative.
Carbury Glande looked at the brilliantly-clad figure perched, knees to chin, on the balustrade. It mingled with a hanging swag of bougainvillea. “One sees a voice rather than a person. You look like some fabulous bird, dear Sati,” he said. “If I didn’t feel so ghastly I’d like to paint you.”
“Rumble, mumble, jumble and clatter,” said the other, absorbed in delighted anticipation. “And then the rains. That’s the way it goes.” She pursed her lips out and, drawing in air with the smoke, took a long puff at an attenuated cigarette.
Baradi walked over to her and removed the cigarette. “Against the rules,” he said. “Everything in its appointed time. You’re over-excited.” He threw the cigarette away and returned to his chair.
A whiteness flickered above the horizon and was followed after a pause by a tinny rattle.