Ngaio Marsh - Spinsters in Jeopardy

Alleyn said, choosing his French very carefully: “I am minded to place a great deal of confidence in you, Raoul.”

“If Monsieur pleases.”

“I think you were more impressed with Mr. Baradi’s skill than with his personality.”

“That is a fact, Monsieur.”

“I also. Have you seen Mr. Oberon?”

“On several occasions.”

“What do you think about him?”

“I have no absolute knowledge of his skill. Monsieur, but I think even less of his personality than of the Egyptian’s.”

“Do you know how he entertains his guests?”

“One hears a little gossip from time to time. Not much. Monsieur. The servants at the Château are for the most part imported and extremely reticent. But there is an under-chambermaid from the Paysdoux, who is not unapproachable. A blonde, which is unusual in the Paysdoux.”

“What has the unusual blonde to say about it?”

Raoul did not answer at once and Alleyn turned his head to look at him. He was scowling magnificently.

“I do not approve of what Teresa has to say. Her name, Monsieur, is Teresa. I find what she has to say immensely unpleasing. You see, it’s like this, Monsieur. The time has come when I should marry and for one reason or another — one cannot rationalize about these things’my preference is for Teresa. She has got what it takes,” Raoul said, using a phrase— elle a du fond —which reminded Alleyn of Annabella Wells’s desperate claim. “But in a wife,” Raoul continued, “one expects certain reticences where other men are in question. I dislike what Teresa tells me of her employer, Monsieur. I particularly dislike her account of a certain incident.”

“Am I to hear it?”

“I shall be glad to recount it. It appears, Monsieur, that Teresa’s duties are confined to the sweeping of carpets and polishing of floors and that it is not required of her to take petit déjeuner to guests or to perform any personal services for them. She is young and inexperienced. And so, one morning, this Egyptian surgeon witnesses Teresa from the rear when she is on her knees polishing. Teresa is as good from behind as she in from in front, Monsieur. And the doctor passes her and pauses to look. Presently he returns with Mr. Oberon and they pause and speak to each other in a foreign language. Next, the femme de charge sends for Teresa and she is instructed that she is to serve petit déjeuner to this animal Oberon, if Monsieur will overlook the description, in his bedroom and that her wage is to be raised. So Teresa performs this service. On the first morning there is no conversation. On the second he enquires her name. On the third this vilain coco asks her if she is not a fine strong girl. On the fourth he talks a lot of blague about the spirituality of the body and the non-existence of evil, and on the fifth, when Teresa enters, he is displayed, immodestly clad, before a full-length glass in his salon. I must tell you, Monsieur, that to reach the bedroom, Teresa must first pass through the salon. She is obliged to approach this unseemly animal. He looks at her fixedly and speaks to her in a manner that is irreligious and blasphemous and anathema. Monsieur, Teresa is a good girl. She is frightened, not so much of this animal, she tells me, as of herself because she feels herself to be like a bird when it is held in terror by a snake. I have told her she must leave, but she says that the wages are good and they are a large family with sickness and much in debt. Monsieur, I repeat, she is a good girl and it is true she needs the money, but I cannot escape the thought that she is in a kind of bondage from which she cannot summon enough character to escape. And on some mornings, when she goes in, there is nothing to which one could object, but on others he talks and talks and stares and stares at Teresa. So that when I last saw her we quarrelled and I have told her that unless she leaves her job before she is no longer respectable she may look elsewhere for a husband. So she wept and I was discomforted. She is not unique but, there it is, I have a preference for Teresa.”

Alleyn thought: “This is the first bit of luck I’ve had since we got here.” He looked up the valley at the glittering works of the Maritime Alps Chemical Company and said: “I think it well to tell you that I am interested professionally in the ménage at the Chèvre d’Argent. If it had not been for the accident of Mademoiselle’s illness I should have tried to gain admittance there. M. le Commissaire is also interested. We are colleagues in this affair. You and I agree to forget my rank, Raoul, but for the purposes of this discussion perhaps we should recall it.”

“Good, M. l’lnspector-en-Chef.”

“There’s no reason on earth why you should put yourself out for an English policeman in an affair which, however much it may also concern the French police, hasn’t very much to do with you. Apart from Teresa, for whom you have a preference.”

“There is always Teresa.”

“Are you a discreet man?”

“I don’t chatter like a one-eyed magpie, Monsieur.”

“I believe you. It is known to the police here and in London that the Chèvre d’Argent is used as a place of distribution in a particularly ugly trade.”

“Women, Monsieur?”

“Drugs. Women, it seems, are a purely personal interest. A side-line. I believe neither Dr. Baradi nor Mr. Oberon is a drug addict. They are engaged in the traffic from a business point-of-view. I think that they have cultivated the habit of drug-taking among their guests and are probably using at least one of them as a distributor. Mr. Oberon has also established a cult.”

“A cult, Monsieur?”

“A synthetic religion concocted from scraps of mysticism, witchcraft, mythology, Hinduism, Egyptology, what-have-you, with, I very much suspect, a number of particularly revolting fancy touches invented by Mr. Oberon.”

“Anathema,” Raoul said, “all this is anathema. What do they do?” he added with undisguised interest.

“I don’t know exactly but I must, I’m afraid, find out. There have been other cases of this sort. No doubt there are rites. No doubt the women are willing to be drugged.”

Raoul said: “It appears that I must be firm with Teresa.”

“I should be very firm, Raoul.”

“This morning she is in Roqueville at the market. I am to meet her at my parents’ restaurant, where I shall introduce a firm note. I am disturbed for her. All this, Monsieur, that you have related is borne out by Teresa. On Thursday nights the local servants and some of the other permanent staff are dismissed. It is on Thursday, therefore, that I escort Teresa to her home up in the Paysdoux where she sleeps the night. She has heard a little gossip, not much, because the servants are discreet, but a little. It appears that there is a ceremony in a room which is kept locked at other times. And on Friday nobody appears until late in the afternoon and then with an air of having a formidable gueule de bois . The ladies are strangely behaved on Fridays. It is as if they are half-asleep, Teresa says. And last Friday a young English lady, who has recently arrived, seemed as if she was completely bouleversée; dazed, Monsieur,” Raoul said, making a graphic gesture with one hand. “In a trance. And also as if she had wept.”

“Isn’t Teresa frightened by what she sees on Fridays?”

“That is what I find strange, Monsieur. Yes: she says she is frightened, but it is clear to me that she is also excited. That is what troubles me in Teresa.”

“Did she tell you where the room is? The room that is unlocked on Thursday nights?”

“It is in the lower part of the Château, Monsieur. Beneath the library, Teresa thinks. Two flights beneath.”