Ngaio Marsh - Last Ditch

“Now,” whispered Ferrant, “who’s talking about who means business? Another squeal out of you, squire, and you’ll be gagged. And listen. Any more naughty stuff and you’ll end up with a slit windpipe at the bottom of the earth bog behind this shack. Your father won’t find you down there in a hurry and when he does he won’t fancy what he sees. Filth ,” said Ferrant, using the French equivalent. He shook Ricky by the hair of his head and slapped his face again.

Ricky wondered afterward if this treatment had for a moment or two actually served to clear rather than fuddle his wits and even to extend his field of observation. Whether this was so or not, it was a fact that he now became aware beyond the circle of light cast by the single lamp, of suitcases that were vaguely familiar. Now he recognized them, ultrasmart pieces of luggage (“ Très snob — presque cad ” — who had said that?) suspended from Ferrant’s gloved hands as he walked down the street to the jetty in the early hours of the morning.

He saw, blearily, the familiar paint box lying open on the table with a litter of tubes and an open carton beside it. He even saw that one tube had been opened at the bottom and was gaping.

“They’re cleaning up,” he thought. And then: “They’re cooking up a getaway with the stuff. Tonight. They saw me watching the Pad, and they saw me up by the pine grove, and they hauled me in. Now they don’t know what to do with me. They’re improvising.”

Ferrant thrust his face at him. “That’s for a start,” he said. “How about it? You’ll write this message? Yes?”

Ricky tried to speak but found that his tongue was out of order and his upper lip bled on the inside and wouldn’t move. He made ungainly noises. Syd said: “Christ, you’ve croaked him.”

Ricky made an enormous effort. “Won’t work,” he hoped he’d said. Ferrant listened with exaggerated attention.

“What’s that? Won’t work? Oh, it’ll work, don’t worry,” he said. “Know how? You’re going down to the pier with us, see? And if your papa and his bloody fuzz start anything, you’ll croak.” He touched Ricky’s throat with the point of the knife. “See? Feel that? Now, get to it. Tell him.”

They released his right arm and strapped the left to the chair. Ferrant pushed the drawing paper toward him and tried to shove the pencil into his tingling hand. “Go on,” he said. “Go on. Take it! Take it.”

Ricky flexed his fingers and clenched and unclenched his hand. He felt horribly sick. Ferrant’s voice receded into the distance and was replaced by a thrumming sound. Something hard pressed against his forehead. It was the table. “But I haven’t passed out,” he thought. “Not quite.”

Syd Jones was saying: “No, Gil, don’t. Hell, Gil, not now. Not yet. Look, Gil, why don’t we gag him and tie him up and leave him? Why don’t we finish packing the stuff and stay quiet till it’s time and just leave him?”

“Do I have to go over it again? Look. So he doesn’t turn up. So his old man’s asking for him. Marie reckons he’s suspicious. They’ll be watching, don’t you worry. All right. So we leave him here and we walk straight into it. But if we’ve got him between us and look like we mean business, they won’t do a bloody thing. They can’t. We’ll take him in the dinghy as far as the boat and tip him overboard. By the time they’ve fished him out, we’re beyond the heads and on our way.”

“I don’t like it. Look at him. He’s passed out.”

Ricky stayed as he was. When Ferrant jerked his head back he groaned, opened his eyes, shut them again, and, when released, flopped forward on the table. “I must listen, listen, listen,” he thought. It was a horrid task; so much easier to give up, to yield, voluptuously almost, to whatever punch, slap, or agonizing tweak they chose to deal out. And what to do about writing? What would be the result if he did write — write what? What Ferrant had said — write to his father.

“Go on,” Ferrant was saying. “Get to it. You know what to put. Go on.”

His head was jerked up again by the hair. Perhaps his scalp rather than his mouth hurt most.

His fingers closed around the conté pencil. He dragged his hand over the paper.

“ Kidnapped ,” he wrote, “ OK. They say if you’re inactive till they’ve gone I won’t be hurt. If not I will. Sorry .” He made a big attempt at organized thinking. “ P.A.D .” he wrote as a signature and let the pencil slide out of his grip.

Ferrant read the message. “What’s this ‘P.A.D.’?” he demanded.

“Initials. Patrick Andrew David,” Ricky lied and thought it sounded like royalty.

“What’s this ‘Ricky’ stuff then?”

“Nickname. Always sign P.A.D.”

The paper was withdrawn. His face dropped painfully on his forearm and he closed his eyes. Their voices faded and he could no longer strain to listen. It would be delicious if in spite of the several pains that competed for his attention, he could sleep.

There was no such thing as time, only the rise and ebbing of pain to which a new element had been added, cutting into his ankles as if into the sorrel mare’s near fore.

iv

It took much longer than they had anticipated to get their search warrant. The magistrates court had risen and Alleyn was obliged to hunt down a Justice of the Peace in his home. He lived some distance on the far side of Montjoy in an important house at the foot of a precipitous lane. They had trouble finding him and when found he turned out to be a fusspot and a ditherer. On the return journey the car jibbed at the steep ascent and wouldn’t proceed until Fox had removed his considerable weight and applied it to the rear. Whereupon Alleyn, using a zigzagging technique, finally achieved the summit and was obliged to wait there for his laboring colleague. They then found that there was next to no petrol left in the tank and stopped at the first station to fill up. The man asked them if they knew they had a slow puncture.

By the time they got back to the Cove dusk was falling and Sergeant Plank had twice rung up from Leathers. Mrs. Plank, the victim of redundancy, reported that there was nothing to report but that he would report again at seven-thirty. She offered them high tea, which they declined. Alleyn left Fox to take the call, saying he would look in for a fleeting moment on Ricky, who would surely have returned, from his walk.

So he went around the corner to the Ferrants’ house. Ricky’s window was still shut. The boy, Louis, admitted Alleyn.

Mrs. Ferrant came out of her kitchen to the usual accompaniment of her television.

“Good evening, monsieur,” she said. “Your son has not yet returned.”

The idiot insistence of a commercial jingle blared to its conclusion before Alleyn spoke.

“He’s rather late, isn’t he?” Alleyn said.

She lifted her shoulders. “He has perhaps walked to Bon Accord and is eating there.”

“He didn’t say anything about doing that?”

“No. There was no need.”

“You would wish to know because of the meal, madame. It was inconsiderate of him.”

“ C’est peu de chose .”

“Has he done this before?”

“Once, perhaps. Or more than once. I forget. You will excuse me, monsieur. I have the boy’s meal to attend to.”

“Of course. Forgive me. Your husband has not returned?”

“No, monsieur. I do not expect him. Excuse me.”

When she had shut the kitchen door after her, Alleyn lifted his clenched fist to his mouth, took in a deep breath, waited a second, and then went upstairs to Ricky’s room. Perhaps there would be a written message there that he had not, for some reason, wished to leave with Mrs. Ferrant.