Spinsters in Jeopardy Read online

  ‘Ah, Monsieur! You see we make great efforts to clear up this little affair. The entire staff is summoned by Monsieur le Directeur. We question everybody. This fellow of yours is invited to examine the persons. You are invited to bring the little boy, also to examine. Monsieur le Directeur is most anxious to assist. He is immeasurably distressed, is it not, Monsieur le Directeur?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said M. Callard without enthusiasm.

  Alleyn said with a show of huffiness that he was glad to hear that they recognized their responsibilities. M. Dupont bent down as if to soothe him and he murmured: ‘Keep going as long as you can. Spin it out.’

  ‘To the last thread.’

  Alleyn made his way to Raoul and was able to mutter: ‘Ricky describes the driver as a man with black teeth, a red beret, as your friend observed, and no jacket. The woman has a moustache, is bareheaded and wears a black dress with a whitish pattern. If you see a man and woman answering to that description you may announce that they resemble the persons in the car.’

  Raoul was silent. Alleyn was surprised to see that his face, usually a ready mirror of his emotions, had gone blank. The loud-speaker kept up its persistent demands. The hall was filling rapidly.

  ‘Well, Raoul?’

  ‘Would Monsieur describe again the young woman and the man?’

  Alleyn did so. ‘If there are any such persons present you may pretend to recognize them but not with positive determination. The general appearance, you may say, is similar. Then we may be obliged to bring Ricky in to see if he identifies them.’

  Raoul made a singular little noise in his throat. His lips moved. Alleyn saw rather than heard the response.

  ‘Bien, Monsieur,’ he said.

  ‘M. Dupont will address the staff when they are assembled. He will speak at some length. I shall not be present. He will continue proceedings until I return. Your soi-disant identification will then take place. Au’voir, Raoul.’

  ‘’Voir, Monsieur.’

  Alleyn edged through the crowd and round the wall of the room to the double doors. The commissionaire stood near them and eyed him dubiously. Alleyn looked across the sea of heads and caught the notice of M. Dupont who at once held up his hand. ‘Attention!’ he shouted. ‘Approchez-vous d’avantage, je vous en prie.’ The crowd closed in on him and Alleyn, left on the margin, slipped through the doors.

  He had at the most fifteen minutes in which to work. The secretary’s office was open but the door into M. Callard’s room was, as he had anticipated, locked. It responded to his manipulation and he relocked it behind him. He went to the desk and turned on the general intercommunication switch in the sound-system releasing the vague rumour of a not quite silent crowd and the voice of M. Dupont embarked on an elaborate exposé of child-kidnapping on the Mediterranean coast.

  Perhaps, Alleyn thought, at this rate he would have a little longer than he had hoped. If he could find a single piece of evidence, enough to ensure the success of a surprise investigation by the French police, he would be satisfied. He looked at the filing cabinet against the walls. The drawers had independent key-holes but the first fifteen were unlocked. He tried them and shoved them back without looking inside. The sixteenth, marked with the letter P, was locked. He got it open. Inside he found a number of the usual folders each headed with its appropriate legend: ‘Produits chimiques en commande,’ ‘Peron et Cie,’: ‘Plastiques,’ and so on. He went through the first of these, memorizing one or two names of drugs he had been told to look out for. Peron et Cie was on the suspect list at the Sûreté and a glance at the correspondence showed a close business relationship between the two firms. He flipped over the next six folders and came to the last which was headed: ‘Particulier à M. Callard. Secret et confidential.’

  It contained rough notes, memoranda and a number of letters and Alleyn would have given years of routine plodding for the right to put the least of them in his pocket. He found letters from distributors in New York, Cairo, London, Paris and Istanbul, letters that set out modes of conveyance, suggested suitable contacts, gave details of the methods used by other illicit traders and warnings of leakage. He found a list of the guests at the Chèvre d’Argent with Robin Herrington’s name scored under and a query beside it.

  ‘Cette pratique abominable,’ boomed the voice of M. Dupont, warming to its subject, ‘cette tache indéracinable sur l’honneur de notre communauté –’

  ‘Boy,’ Alleyn muttered in the manner of M. Callard, ‘you said it.’

  He laid on the desk a letter from a wholesale firm dealing in cosmetics in Chicago. It suggested quite blandly that ‘Crème Veloutée’ in tubes might be a suitable mode of conveyance for diacetylmorphine and complained that the last consignment of calamine lotion had been tampered with in transit and had proved on opening to contain nothing but lotion. It suggested that a certain Customs official had set up in business on his own account and had better be dealt with pretty smartly.

  Alleyn unzipped from his breast-pocket a minute and immensely expensive camera. Groaning to himself he switched on M. Callard’s fluorescent lights.

  ‘ – et, Messieurs, Dames,’ thundered the voice of M. Dupont, ‘parmi vous, ici, ici, dans cette usine, ce crime dégoûtant a élevé sa tête hideuse.’

  Alleyn took four photographs of the letter, replaced it in the folder and the folder in its file, relocked the drawer and stowed away his lilliputian camera. Then, with an ear to M. Dupont, who had evidently arrived at the point where he could not prolong the cackle but must come to the ’osses, Alleyn made notes, lest he should forget them, of points from the other documents. He returned his notebook to his pocket, switched off the loud-speaker and turned to the door.

  He found himself face to face with M. Callard.

  ‘And what the hell,’ M. Callard asked rawly, ‘do you think you are doing?’

  Alleyn took Troy’s gloves from his pocket. ‘My wife left these in your office. I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘She did not and I do. I locked this office.’

  ‘If you did someone obviously unlocked it. Perhaps your secretary came back for something.’

  ‘She did not,’ said M. Callard punctually. He advanced a step. ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘You know very well who I am. My boy was kidnapped and brought into your premises. You denied it until you were forced to give him up. Your behaviour is extremely suspicious, M. Callard, and I shall take the matter up with the appropriate authorities in Paris. I have never,’ continued Alleyn who had decided to lose his temper, ‘heard such damned impudence in my life! I was prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt but in view of your extraordinary behaviour I am forced to suspect that you are implicated personally in this business. And in the former affair of child-stealing. Undoubtedly in the former affair.’

  M. Callard began to shout in French, but Alleyn shouted him down. ‘You are a child-kidnapper, M. Callard. You speak English like an American. No doubt you have been to America where child-kidnapping is a common racket.’

  ‘Sacré nom d’un chien –’

  ‘It’s no use talking jargon to me, I don’t understand a bloody word of it. Stand aside and let me out.’

  M. Callard’s face was not an expressive one, but Alleyn thought he read incredulity and perhaps relief in it.

  ‘You broke into my office,’ M. Callard insisted.

  ‘I did nothing of the sort. Why the hell should I? And pray what have you got in your office,’ Alleyn asked as if on a sudden inspiration, ‘to make you so damned touchy about it? Ransom money?’

  ‘Imbécile! Sale cochon!’

  ‘Oh, get to hell!’ Alley said and advanced upon him. He stood, irresolute, and Alleyn with an expert movement neatly shouldered him aside and went back to the hall.

  IV

  Dupont saw him come in. Dupont, Alleyn considered, was magnificent. He must have had an appalling job spinning out a short announcement into a fifteen minute harangue but he wore the air of an orator in the first flu
sh of his eloquence.

  His gaze swept over Alleyn and round his audience.

  ‘Eh bien, Messieurs, Dames, chacun à sa tâche. Defilez, s’il vous plaît, devant cette statue … Rappelez-vous de mes instructions. Milano!’

  He signalled magnificently to Raoul who stationed himself below him, at the base of the statue. Raoul was pale and stood rigid like a man who faces an ordeal. M. Callard appeared through the double doors and watched with a leaden face.

  The gendarmes, who had also reappeared, set about the crowd in a business-like manner, herding it to one side and then sending it across in single file in front of Raoul. Alleyn adopted a consequential air and bustled over to Dupont.

  ‘What’s all this, Monsieur?’ he asked querulously. ‘Is it an identification parade? Why haven’t I been informed of the procedure?’

  Dupont bent over in a placatory manner towards him and Alleyn muttered: ‘Enough to justify a search,’ and then shouted: ‘I have a right to know what steps are being taken in this affair.’

  Dupont spread his blunt hands over Alleyn as if he were blessing him.

  ‘Calm yourself, Monsieur. Everything arranges itself,’ he said magnificently and added in French for the benefit of the crowd: ‘The gentleman is naturally overwrought. Proceed, if you please.’

  Black-coated senior executive officers and white-coated chemists advanced, turned and straggled past with deadpan faces. They were followed by clerks, assistant chemists, stenographers and laboratory assistants. One or two looked at Raoul, but by far the greater number kept on without turning their heads. When they had gone past, the gendarmes directed them to the top of the hall where they were formed up into lines.

  Alleyn watched the thinning ranks of those who were yet to come. At the back, sticking together, were a number of what he supposed to be the lesser fry: cleaners, van-drivers, workers from the canteen and porters. In a group of women he caught sight of one a little taller than the rest. She stood with her back towards the statue and at first he could see only a mass of bronze hair with straggling tendrils against the opulent curve of a full neck. Presently her neighbour gave her a nudge and for a moment she turned. Alleyn saw the satin skin and liquid eyes of a Murillo peasant. She had a brilliant mouth and had caught her under-lip between her teeth. Above her upper lip was a pencilling of hair.

  Her face flashed into sight and was at once turned away again with a movement that thrust up her shoulder. It was clad in a black material spattered with a whitish-grey pattern.

  Behind the girls was a group of four or five men in labourer’s clothes: boiler-men, perhaps, or outside hands. As the girls hung back, the gendarme in charge of this group sent the men forward. They edged self-consciously past the girls and slouched towards Raoul. The third was a thick-set fellow wearing a tight-fitting short-sleeved vest and carrying a red beret. He walked hard on the heels of the men in front of him and kept his eyes to the ground. He had two long red scratches on the cheek nearest to Raoul. As he passed by, Alleyn looked at Raoul who swallowed painfully and muttered: ‘Voici le type.’

  Dupont raised an eyebrow. The gendarme at the top of the room moved out quietly and stationed himself near the men. The girls came forward one by one and Alleyn still watched Raoul. The girl in the black dress with the whitish-grey pattern advanced, turned and went past with averted head. Raoul was silent.

  Alleyn moved close to Dupont. ‘Keep your eye on that girl, Dupont. I think she’s our bird.’

  ‘Indeed? Milano has not identified her.’

  ‘I think Ricky will.’

  Watched by the completely silent crowd, Alleyn went out of the hall and, standing in the sunshine, waved to Troy. She and Ricky got out of the car and, hand-in-hand, came towards him.

  ‘Come on, Ricky,’ he said, ‘let’s see if you can find the driver and the Nanny. If you do we’ll go and call on the goat-shop lady again. What do you say?’

  He hoisted his little son across his shoulders and, holding his ankles in either hand, turned him towards the steps.

  ‘Coming, Mum?’ Ricky asked.

  ‘Rather! Try and stop me.’

  ‘Strike up the band,’ Alleyn said. ‘Here comes the Alleyn family on parade.’

  He heard his son give a doubtful chuckle. A small hand was laid against his cheek. ‘Good old horse,’ Ricky said courageously and in an uncertain falsetto: ‘How many miles to Babylon?’

  ‘Five score and ten,’ Alleyn and Troy chanted and she linked her arm through his.

  They marched up the steps and into the hall.

  The crowd was still herded at one end of the great room and had broken into a subdued chattering. One of the gendarmes stood near the man Raoul had identified. Another had moved round behind the crowd to a group of girls. Alleyn saw the back of that startlingly bronze head of hair and the curve of the opulent neck. M. Callard had not moved. M. Dupont had come down from his eminence and Raoul stood by himself behind the statue, looking at his own feet.

  ‘A-ha!’ cried M. Dupont, advancing with an air of camaraderie, ‘so here is Ricketts.’

  He reached up his hand, Ricky stooped uncertainly from his father’s shoulders and put his own in it.

  ‘This is Ricky,’ Alleyn said, ‘M. Dupont, Ricky, Superintendent of Police in Roqueville. M. Dupont speaks English.’

  ‘How do you do, sir,’ said Ricky in his company voice.

  M. Dupont threw a complimentary glance at Troy.

  ‘So we have an assistant,’ he said. ‘This is splendid. I leave the formalities to you, M. Alleyn.’

  ‘Just have a look at all these people, Rick,’ Alleyn said, ‘and tell us if you can find the driver and the Nanny who brought you up here.’

  Troy and Dupont looked at Ricky. Raoul, behind the statue, continued to look at his boots. Ricky, wearing the blank expression he reserved for strangers, surveyed the crowd. His attention came to a halt on the thick-set fellow in the short-sleeved jersey. Dupont and Troy watched him.

  ‘Mum?’ said Ricky.

  ‘Hallo?’

  Ricky whispered something inaudible and nodded violently.

  ‘Tell Daddy.’

  Ricky stooped his head and breathed noisily into his father’s ear.

  ‘OK,’ Alleyn said. ‘Sure?’

  ‘’M.’

  ‘Tell M. Dupont.’

  ‘Monsieur, voici le chauffeur.’

  ‘Montrez avec le doigt, mon brave,’ said M. Dupont.

  ‘Point him out, Rick,’ said Alleyn.

  Ricky had been instructed by his French Nanny that it was rude to point. He turned pink in the face and made a rapid gesture, shooting out his finger at the man. The man drew back his upper lip and bared a row of blackened teeth. The first gendarme shoved in beside him. The crowd stirred and shifted.

  ‘Bravo,’ said M. Dupont.

  ‘Now the Nanny,’ Alleyn said. ‘Can you see her?’

  There was a long pause. Ricky, looking at the group of girls at the back, said: ‘There’s someone that hasn’t turned round.’

  M. Dupont shouted: ‘Présentez-vous de face, tout le monde!’

  The second gendarme pushed through the group of girls. They melted away to either side as if an invisible wedge had been driven through them. The impulse communicated itself to their neighbours: the gap widened and stretched, opening out as Alleyn carried Ricky towards it. Finally Ricky, on his father’s shoulders, looked up an exaggerated perspective to where the girl stood with her back to them, her hands clasped across the nape of her neck as if to protect it from a blow. The gendarme took her by the arm, turned her and held down the hands that now struggled to reach her face. She and Ricky looked at each other.

  ‘Hallo, Teresa,’ said Ricky.

  V

  Two cars drove down the Roqueville road. In the first was M. Callard and two policemen and in the second, a blue Citroën, were its owner and a third policeman. The staff of the factory had gone. M. Dupont was busy in M. Callard’s office and a fourth gendarme stood, lonely and import
ant, in the empty hall. Troy had taken Ricky, who had begun to be very pleased with himself, to Raoul’s car. Alleyn, Raoul and Teresa sat on an ornamental garden seat in the factory grounds. Teresa wept and Raoul gave her cause to do so.

  ‘Infamous girl,’ Raoul said, ‘to what sink of depravity have you retired? I think of your perfidy,’ he went on, ‘and I spit.’

  He rose, retired a few paces, spat and returned. ‘I compare your behaviour,’ he continued, ‘to its disadvantage with that of Herod, the Jewish Anti-Christ who slit the throats of first-born innocents. Ricky is an innocent and also, Monsieur will correct me if I speak in error, a first-born. He is, moreover, the son of Monsieur, my employer, who, as you observe, can find no words to express his loathing of the fallen woman with whom he finds himself in occupation of this contaminated piece of garden furniture.’

  ‘Spare me,’ Teresa sobbed. ‘I can explain myself.’

  Raoul bent down in order to place his exquisite but distorted face close to hers. ‘Female ravisher of infants,’ he apostrophized. ‘Trafficker in unmentionable vices. Associate of perverts.’

  ‘You insult me,’ Teresa sobbed. She rallied slightly. ‘You also lie like a brigand. The Holy Virgin is my witness.’

  ‘She blushes to hear you. Answer me,’ Raoul shouted and made a complicated gesture a few inches from her eyes. ‘Did you not steal the child? Answer!’

  ‘Where there is no intention, there is no sin,’ Teresa bawled, taking her stand on dogma. ‘I am as pure as the child himself. If anything, purer. They told me his papa wished me to call for him.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Monsieur,’ said Teresa, changing colour.

  ‘Monsieur Goat! Monsieur Filth! In a word, Monsieur Oberon.’

  ‘It is a lie,’ Teresa repeated but rather vaguely. She turned her sumptuous and tear-blubbered face to Alleyn. ‘I appeal to Monsieur who is an English nobleman and will not spit upon the good name of a virtuous girl. I throw myself at his feet and implore him to hear me.’

  Raoul also turned to Alleyn and spread his hands out in a gesture of ineffable poignancy.