Ngaio Marsh - Spinsters in Jeopardy

Alleyn said: “Right. I’ll talk to the Préfecture. But before I do, my dearest dear, will you believe one thing?”

“All right, I’ll try.”

“Ricky isn’t in danger. I’m sure of it.”

“But it’s true. He’s been — it’s those people up there — they’ve kidnapped him, haven’t they?”

“It’s possible that they’ve taken a hand. If they have it’s because they want to keep me busy. It’s also possible, isn’t it, that something entered into his head and he got himself up and trotted out.”

“He’d never do it, Rory. Never. You know he wouldn’t.”

“All right. Now, I’ll ring the Préfecture. Come on.”

He sat her beside him on the bed and kept his arm about her. While he waited for the number he said: “Did you lock the door?”

“No. I didn’t like the idea of locking him in. The manager’s spoken to the servants. They didn’t see anybody. Nobody asked for our room numbers.”

“The heavy trunk is still in the hall downstairs and the room numbers chalked on it. What colour are his clothes?”

“Pale yellow shirt and brown shorts.”

“Right. We may as well— ’ Allo ! ’ Allo !..”

He began to talk into the telephone, keeping his free hand on her shoulder. Troy turned her cheek to it for a moment and then freed herself and went out on the balcony.

The little square — it was called the Place des Sarrasins — was at the top of a hilly street and the greater part of Roqueville lay between it and the sea. The maze of alleys where Troy had lost herself was out of sight behind and above the hotel. As if from a high tower, she looked down into the streets and prayed incoherently that in one of them she would see a tiny figure: Ricky, in his lemon-coloured shirt and brown linen shorts. But all Troy could see was a pattern of stucco and stone, a distant row of carriages whose drivers and horses were snoozing, no doubt, in the shadows, a system of tiled roofs and the paint-like blue of the sea. She looked nearer at hand and there, beneath her, was Raoul Milano’s car, seeming like a toy, and Raoul himself, rolling a cigarette. The hotel porter, at that moment, came out and she heard the sound of his voice. Raoul got up and they disappeared beneath her into the hotel.

The tone of Alleyn’s voice suggested that he was near the end of his telephone call. She had turned away from her fruitless search of the map-like town and was about to go indoors when out of the tail of her eye she caught a flicker of colour.

It was a flicker of lemon-yellow and brown.

The hot iron of the balcony rail scorched the palms of her hands. She leant far out and stared at a tall building on a higher level than herself, a building that was just in view round the corner of the hotel. It was perhaps a quarter of a mile away and from behind a huddle of intervening roofs, rose up in a series of balconies. It was on the highest of these, behind a blur of iron railings, that she saw her two specks of colour.

“Rory,” she cried. “Rory!”

It took several seconds that seemed like as many minutes for Alleyn to find the balcony. “It’s Ricky,” she said, “isn’t it? It must be Ricky.” And she ran back into the room, snatched the thin cover from her bed and waved it frantically from the balcony.

“Wait a moment,” Alleyn said.

His police case had been brought up to their room and contained a pair of very powerful field glasses. While he focussed them on the distant balcony he said: “Don’t be too certain, darling, there may be other small boys in yellow and — no — no, it’s Ricky. He’s all right. Look.”

Troy’s eyes were masked with tears of relief. Her hands shook and her fingers were too precipitant with the focussing governors. “I can’t do it-I can’t see.”

“Steady. Wipe your eyes. Here, I will. He’s still there. He may have spotted us. Try this way. Kneel down and rest the glasses on the rail. Get each eye right in turn. Quietly does it.”

Circles of blurred colour mingled and danced in the two fields of vision. They swam together and clarified. The glasses were in focus now but were trained on some strange blue door, startling in its closeness. She moved them and an ornate gilded steeple was before her with a cross and a clock telling a quarter to two. “I don’t know where I am. It’s a church. I can’t find him.”

“You’re nearly there. Keep at that level and come round gently.” And suddenly Ricky looked through iron rails with vague, not quite frightened eyes whose gaze, while it was directed at her, yet passed beyond her.

“Wave,” she said. “Go on waving.”

Ricky’s strangely impersonal and puzzled face moved a little so that an iron standard partly hid it. His right arm was raised and his hand moved to and fro above the railing.

“He’s seen!” she said. “He’s waving back.”

The glasses slipped a little. The wall of their hotel, out-of-focus and stupid, blotted out her vision. Someone was tapping on the bedroom door behind them.

“ Entrez ,” Alleyn called, and then sharply, “Hullo! Who’s that?”

“What? I’ve lost him.”

“A woman came out and led him away. They’ve gone indoors.”

“A woman?”

“Fat and dressed in black.”

“Please let’s go quickly.”

Raoul had come through the bedroom and stood behind them. Alleyn said in French, “Do you see that tall building, just to the left of our wall and to the right of the church? It’s pinkish with blue shutters and there’s something red on one of the balconies.”

“I see it, Monsieur.”

“So you know what building it is?”

“I think so, Monsieur. It will be Number 16 in the Rue des Violettes where Madame enquired this morning.”

“Troy,” Alleyn said. “The Lord knows why, but Ricky’s gone to call on Mr. Garbel.”

Troy stopped short on her way to the door. “Do you mean…?”

“Raoul says that’s the house.”

“But—. No,” Troy said vigorously. “No, I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t just get up and go there. Not of his own accord. Not like that. He wouldn’t. Come on, Rory.”

They were following her when Alleyn said: “When did these flowers come?”

“What flowers? Oh, that. I hadn’t noticed it. I don’t know. Dr. Baradi, I should think. Please don’t let’s wait.”

An enormous florist’s box garnished with a great bow of ribbon lay on the top of a pile of suitcases.

Watched in an agony of impatience by his wife, Alleyn slid a card from under the ribbon and looked at it.

“So sorry,” he read, “that I shall be away during your visit. Welcome to Roqueville. P. E. Garbel.”

i

Troy wouldn’t wait for the lift. She ran downstairs with Alleyn and Raoul at her heels. Only the porter was there, sitting at the desk in the hall.

Alleyn said: “This will take thirty seconds, darling. I’m in as much of a hurry as you. Please believe it’s important. You can get into the car. Raoul can start the engine.” And to the porter he said: “Please telephone this number and give the message I have written on the paper to the person who answers. It is the number of the Préfecture and the message is urgent. It is expected. Were you on duty here when flowers came for Madame?”

“I was on duty when the flowers arrived, Monsieur. It was about an hour ago. I did not know they were for Madame. The woman went straight upstairs without enquiry, as one who knows the way.”

“And returned?”

The porter lifted his shoulders. “I did not see her return. Monsieur. No doubt she used the service stairs.”

“No doubt,” Alleyn said and ran out to the car.