Ngaio Marsh - Last Ditch

“Can you give me an inkling?”

After a slight pause Julia said in a painstakingly casual voice. “Louis.”

“I’ll come at once,” said Alleyn.

He called Fox up. On his way out, while Fox rang Plank, Alleyn left the L’Espérance number at the hotel office, ordered a taxi to meet Troy’s plane, and booked her in. “And you might get flowers for the room. Lilies of the valley if you can.”

“How many?” asked the grand lady at Reception.

“Lots,” said Alleyn. “Any amount.”

The lady smiled indulgently and handed him a letter. It had just been sent in from the police station, she said. It was addressed to him. The writing was erratic. There was much crossing out and some omissions, but on the whole he thought it rather more coherent than might have been expected. It was written on printed note paper with a horse’s head printed in one corner.

Sir.

I am in possession of certain facts — in re slaying of my niece — and been guided to make All Known Before The People since they sit heavy on my conscience. Therefore on Sunday next (please see enclosure) I will proclaim All to the multitude the Lord of Hosts sitteth on my tongue and He Will Repay. The Sinner will be called an Abomination before the Lord and before His People. Amen. I will be greatly obliged if you will be kind enough to attend.

With compliments

Yrs. etc. etc.

C. Harkness (Brother Cuth)

He showed the letter together with the enclosure, a new pamphlet, to Fox, who read it when they had set off in Superintendent Curie’s car.

“He doesn’t half go on, does he?” said Fox. “Do you make out he thinks he knows who chummy is?”

“That’s how I read it.”

“What’ll we do about this service affair?”

“Attend in strength.”

They drove on in silence. The morning was clear and warm; the channel sparkled and the Normandy coast looked as if it were half its actual distance away.

“What do you reckon Mr. L. Pharamond’s been up to?” asked Fox.

“I’ll give you one guess.”

“Skedaddled?”

“Skedaddled. And if we’d known, how could we have stopped him?”

“We could have kept him under obbo,” Fox mused.

“But couldn’t have prevented him lighting out. Well, could we? Under what pretext? Seen conversing with G. Ferrant at one o’clock in the morning? Query — involved in drug running? Dropped a sleeve button in the horse paddock at Leathers. Had previously denied going into horse paddock. Now says he forgot. End of information. Query — murderer Dulcie Harkness? He wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face over that lot, Br’er Fox.”

Up at L’Espérance they found Jasper waiting on the terrace. Alleyn introduced Fox. Jasper, though clearly surprised that he had come, was charming. He led them to a table and a group of chairs, canopied and overlooking the sea.

“Julia’s coming down in a minute,” he said. “We thought we’d like to see you first. Will you have coffee? And things? We’re going to. It’s our breakfast.”

It was already set out, with croissants and brioches on the table. It smelled superb. When Alleyn accepted, Fox did too.

“It really is extemely odd,” Jasper continued, heaping butter and honey on a croissant. “And very worrying. Louis has completely vanished. Here comes Julia.”

Out of the house she hurried in a white trouser suit and ran down the steps to them with her hands extended. Fox was drinking coffee. He rose to his feet and was slightly confused.

“How terribly kind of you both to come,” said Julia. “No, too kind. When one knows you’re being so active and fussed. How’s Ricky?”

“In hospital,” said Alleyn, shaking hands.

“ No ! Because of his black eye?”

“Partly. Could we hear about Louis?”

“Hasn’t Jasper said? He’s vanished. Into thin air.”

“Since when?”

Jasper, whose mouth was full, waved his wife on.

“Since yesterday,” said Julia. “You remember yesterday morning when he was as large as life in his zoot suit and talked to you on the front? In the Cove?”

“I remember,” Alleyn said.

“Yes. Well, we drove back here for luncheon. And when we got here, he sort of clapped his hand to his brow and said he’d forgotten to send a business cable to Lima and it was important and he’d have to attend to it. Louis has — what does one call them? — in Peru.”

Jasper said: “Business interests. We came originally from Peru. But he’s the only one of us to have any business links. He’s jolly rich, old Louis is.”

“Well, then,” said Julia. “He often has to ring up Lima or cable to it. They’re not very clever at the Cove about cables in Spanish or long distance calls to Peru. So he goes into Montjoy. At first we thought he’d probably lunched there.”

“Did you see him again before he left?”

“No. We were at luncheon,” said Julia.

“We heard him come downstairs and start his car. Now I come to think of it,” said Jasper, “it was some little time after we’d sat down.”

“Have you looked to see if he’s taken anything with him — an overnight bag for instance?”

“Yes,” said Julia, “but not a penny the wiser are we. Louis has so many zoot suits and silken undies and pajamas and terribly doggy pieces of luggage that one couldn’t tell. Even Carlotta couldn’t. She’s still looking.”

“What else have you done about it?” asked Alleyn. He thought of his own gnawing anxieties during Ricky’s disappearance and wondered if Carlotta, for example, suffered anything comparable; Jasper and Julia, though worried, clearly did not.

“Well,” Julia was saying, “for a long time we didn’t do anything. We’d expected him simply to whiz into Montjoy, send his cable, and whiz back. Then when he didn’t we supposed he’d decided to lunch at the Montjoy and perhaps stay the night. He often does that when the little girls get too much for him. But he always rings up to tell us. When he didn’t ring and didn’t come back for dinner Carlotta telephoned the hotel and he hadn’t been there at all. And still we haven’t had sniff nor sight of him.”

“I even rang the pub at Belle Vue,” said Jasper.

“What about his car?”

“We rang the park where he always leaves it and it’s there. He clocked in about twenty minutes after he left here.”

“The thing that really is pretty bothering,” Julia said, “is that he was in a peculiar sort of state yesterday morning. After we left you. We wondered if you noticed anything.”

Alleyn gave himself a moment’s respite. He thought of Louis: overelegant, overfacetious, giving his performance on the front. “How do you mean: ‘peculiar’?” he asked.

“For him, very quiet, and at the same time, I felt he was in a rage. You mustn’t mind my asking, but did you have words, the two of you?”

“No.”

“I only wondered. He wouldn’t say anything about being grilled by you and didn’t seem to enjoy my calling it that — I was just being funnyman. You know? But he didn’t relish it. So I wondered.”

“Was that why you asked me to come?”

Jasper said: “What we really hoped you’d do is give us some advice about what action we could take. One doesn’t want to make a sort of public display but at the same time one can’t just loll about in the sun supposing that he’ll come bouncing back.”

“Has he ever done anything of this sort before?”

Julia and Jasper spoke simultaneously. “Not like this,” said Jasper. “Not exactly,” said Julia.

They looked at Fox and away.

Fox said: “I wonder if I could be excused, Mrs. Pharamond? We started a slow puncture on the way up. If I’m not required at the moment, sir, perhaps, I should change the wheel?”