Ngaio Marsh - Last Ditch

“He’s a compulsive boor, of course. Mightn’t we be making far too much of a series of unrelated and insignificant little happenings?”

“Of course we might,” Alleyn agreed warmly. He finished reading his son’s letter, folded it, and put it down. “He’s taken pains over that,” he said. “Very long and very detailed. He even goes to the trouble of describing the contents of the old coach house.”

“The whole thing’s on his mind and he thinks writing it all out may help him to get shot of it.”

“He’s looking for a line. It’s rather like those hidden-picture games they used to put in kids’ books. A collection of numbered dots and you joined them up in the given order and found you’d got a pussycat or something. Only Rick’s dots aren’t numbered and he can’t find the line.”

“If there is one.”

“Yes. There may be no pussycat.”

“It’s the sort of thing you’re doing all the time, isn’t it?”

“More or less, my treasure. More or less.”

“Oh!” Troy exclaimed, “I do hope there isn’t a line and I do hope Miss Harkness wasn’t—”

“What?”

“Murdered,” said Troy. “That, really, is what the letter’s all about, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes,” Alleyn agreed. “That’s what it’s all about.”

The telephone rang and he answered it. It was his Assistant Commissioner. Being a polite man he made his usual token apology.

“Oh, Rory,” he said. “Sorry to disturb you at home. Did I hear you mention your boy was staying on that island where Sunniday Enterprises, if that’s what they call themselves, have set up a holiday resort of sorts?”

It pleased the A.C., nobody knew why, when engaged in preliminaries, to affect a totally false vagueness about names, places, and activities.

Alleyn said: “Yes, sir, he’s there,” and wondered why he was not surprised. It was as if he had been waiting for this development, an absurd notion to entertain.

“Staying at this place of theirs? What’s it called? Mount something?”

“Hotel Montjoy. Lord no. He’s putting up at a plumber’s cottage on the non-u side of the island.”

“The Bay. Or Deep Bay, would that be?”

“Deep Cove,” Alleyn said, beginning to feel exasperated as well as apprehensive.

“To be sure, yes. I remember, now, you did say something about a plumber and Deep Cove,” said the bland A.C.

Alleyn thought: “You devious old devil, what are you up to?” and waited.

“Well,” said the A.C, “the thing is I wondered if he might be helpful. You remember the dope case you tidied up in Rome? Some of the Ziegfeldt group?”

“Oh that ,” Alleyn said, greatly relieved. “Yes.”

“Well, as we all know to our discomfort, Ziegfeldt himself still operates in a very big way.”

“Quite. I understand,” said Alleyn, “there have been extensive improvements to his phony castle in the Lebanon. Loos on every landing.”

“Maddening, isn’t it?” said the A.C. “Well, my dear Rory, the latest intelligence through Interpol and from chaps in our appropriate branch is that the route has been altered. From Izmir to Marseilles it still rings the changes between the Italian ports, and the morphine-heroin transformation is still effected in laboratories outside Marseilles. But from there on there’s a difference. Some of the heroin now gets away through a number of French seaports, some of them quite small. You can guess what I’m coming to, I daresay.”

“Not to Saint Pierre-des-Roches, by any chance?”

“And from there to this island of yours—”

“It’s not mine. With respect,” said Alleyn.

“—from where it finds its way to the English market. We don’t know any of this,” said the A.C, “but it’s been suggested. There are pointers! There’s a character with a bit of a record who shows signs of unexpected affluence. That kind of thing.”

“May I ask, sir,” Alleyn said, “the name of the character who shows signs of unexpected affluence?”

“Of course you may. He’s a plumber and odd-job man living in Deep Cove and he is called Ferrant.”

“Fancy that,” Alleyn said tonelessly.

“Quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”

“Life is full of them.”

“So I just wondered if your young man had noticed anything.”

“He’s noticed his landlord, who is called Ferrant and is a plumber, leaving at dawn by a channel packet, if that’s what it is, dressed up to kill with suede suitcases and bound for Saint Pierre-des-Roches.”

“There now!” cried the A.C. “Splendid fellow your son. Jolly good! Super!” He occasionally adopted the mannerisms of an effusive scoutmaster.

“Has anything been said by the appropriate branch about a painter called Jones?” Alleyn asked.

“A house painter?”

“No, though you might make the mistake. A picture painter.”

“Jones. Jones. Jones. No. No Joneses. Why?”

“He travels in artists’ materials for a firm called Jerome et Cie with a factory in Saint Pierre-des-Roches. Makes frequent visits to London.”

“Artists’ materials?”

“In tubes. Oil colors. Big ones.”

There was a longish silence.

“Oh, yes?” said the A.C. in a new voice. The strange preliminaries evidently were over and they were down to the hard stuff.

“First name?” snapped the A.C.

“Sydney.”

“Living?”

“In Deep Cove. The firm’s handing out free color to one or two leading painters, including Troy. He called on us, here, with an introduction from Rick. I’d say he was getting over a hangover.”

“They don’t like that. The bosses. It doesn’t work out — pusher into customer.”

“Of course not. But I wouldn’t think he was a habitual. There’d been a party the night before. My guess would be that he was suffering from withdrawal symptoms but from what Ricky says of him, he doesn’t seem to be hooked. Yet. It may amount to nothing.”

“Anything else about him?”

Alleyn told him about the roadside incident when Ricky trod on the vermillion.

“Got into a stink, did he?”

“Apparently.”

“It’s worth watching.”

“I wondered.”

“We haven’t got anyone on the island so far. The lead on Saint Pierre’s only just come through. What’s the young chap doing there, Rory?”

Alleyn said very firmly: “He’s writing a book, sir. He went over there to put himself out of the way of distraction and has set himself a time limit.”

“Writing!” repeated the A.C. discontentedly. “A book!” And he added: “Extraordinary what they get up to nowadays, isn’t it? One of mine runs a discotheque.”

Alleyn was silent.

“Nothing official, of course, but you might suggest he keep his eyes open,” said the A.C.

“They’ll be down on his book, I hope.”

“All right. All right. Oh, by the way, there’s something else come through. About an hour ago. Another coincidence in a way, I suppose one might call it. From this island of yours.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. The Super at Montjoy rang up. Superintendent Curie, he is. There’s been a riding fatality. A fortnight ago. Looked like a straightforward accident but they’re not satisfied. Inquest adjourned. Thing is: the super’s been inconsiderate enough to perforate his appendix and they want us to move in. Did you say anything?”

“No.”

“There’s a funny noise.”

“It may be my teeth. Grinding.”

The A.C. gave a high whinnying laugh.

“You can take Fox with you, of course,” he said. “And while you’re at it you may find—”

His voice, edgy and decisive, continued to issue unpalatable instructions.

iv