Ngaio Marsh - Spinsters in Jeopardy

“But, dear Madame,” cried M. Dupont, “we are doing things about Ricketts. Only—” M. Dupont continued, fortunately mistaking for an agonized sob the snort of hysteria that had escaped Troy —“only by an assemblage of the known facts can we arrive at a rational solution. Moreover, if the former case is to be imitated we shall certainly receive a message and it is important that we are here when it arrives. In the meantime all precautions have been taken. But all!”

“I know,” Troy said, “I’m terribly sorry. I know.”

“You brought Miss Garbel’s last letter, darling. Let’s have a look at it.”

“I’ll get it.”

Troy was not very good at keeping things tidy. She had a complicated rummage in her travelling case and handbag before she unearthed the final Garbel letter, which she handed with an anxious look to Alleyn. It was in a crumpled condition and he spread it out on the arm of his chair. “Here it is,” he said, and read aloud.

My dear Agatha Troy,

I wrote to you on December 17th of last year and hope that you received my letter and that I may have the pleasure of hearing from you in the not too distant future! I pursue my usual round of activities. Most of my jaunts take me into the district lying west of Roqueville, a district known as the Paysdoux (Paysdoux, literally translated, but allowing for the reversed position of the adjective, means Sweet Country) though a close acquaintance with some of the inhabitants might suggest that Pays Dopes would be a better title!!! (Forgive the parenthesis and the indifferent and slangy pun . I have never been able to resist an opportunity to play on words.)

“Hell’s boots!” Alleyn said. “Under our very noses! Pays Dopes indeed, District of Dopes and Dope pays.” He read on:

As the acquaintances I visit most frequently live some thirty kilometres (about seventeen miles) away on the western reaches of the Route Maritime I make use of the omnibus, No. 16, leaving the Place des Sarrasins at five minutes past the hour. The fare at the present rate of exchange is about 1/-English, single, and 1/9 return. I enclose a ticket which will no doubt be of interest. It is a pleasant drive and commands a pretty prospect of the Mediterranean on one’s left and on one’s right a number of ancient buildings as well as some evidence of progress, if progress it can be called, in the presence of a large chemical works, in which, owing to my chosen profession, I have come to take some interest.

“Oh Lord!” Alleyn lamented. “Why didn’t I read this before we left? We have been so bloody superior over this undoubtedly admirable spinster.”

“Please?” said M. Dupont.

“Listen to this, Dupont. Suppose this lady, who is a qualified chemist, was in the hands of the drug racket. Suppose she worked for them. Suppose she wanted to let someone in authority in England know what goes on inside the racket. Now. Do you imagine that there is any reason why she shouldn’t write what she knows to this person and put the letter in the post?”

“There is good reason to suppose she might fear to do so, Mr. Chief,” rejoined Dupont, who no doubt considered that the time had come for a more familiar mode of address. “As an Englishwoman she is perhaps not quite trusted in the ‘raquette.’ Her correspondence may be watched. Someone who can read English at the bureau-de-poste may be bribed. Perhaps she merely suspects that this may be so. They are thorough, these blackguards. Their net is fine in the mesh.”

“So she writes her boring letters and every time she writes, she drops a veiled hint, hoping I may see the letter. The Chèvre d’Argent is about thirty kilometres west on the Route Maritime. She tells us by means of tedious phrases, ferocious puns, and used bus tickets that she is a visitor there. How did she address her letters. Troy?”

“To ‘Agatha Troy.’ She said in her first letter that she understood that I would prefer to be addressed by my professional name. Like an actress, she added, though not in other respects. With the usual row of ejaculation marks. I don’t think she ever used your name. You were always my brilliant and distinguished husband!”

“And is my face red!” said Alleyn. M. Dupont’s was puzzled. Alleyn continued reading the letter.

If ever you and your distinguished husband should visit “these parts”! you may care to take this drive which is full of interesting topographic features that often escape the notion of the ordinary Tourist . I fear my own humble account of our local background is a somewhat Garbelled (!!!) version and suggest that first-hand observation would be much more rewarding! With kindest regards…

“Really—” Alleyn said, handling the letter back to Troy— “short of cabling: ‘Drug barons at work come and catch them’ she could scarcely have put it more clearly.”

“You didn’t read the letters. I only told you about bits of them. I ought to have guessed.”

“Well, it’s no good blackguarding ourselves. Look here, both of you. Suppose we’re on the right track about Miss Garbel. Suppose, for some reason, she’s in the racket yet wants to put me wise about it, and has hoped to lure me over here. Why, when Troy writes and tells her we’re coming, does she go away without explanation?”

“And why,” Troy interjected, “does she send flowers by someone who used them as a means of kidnapping Ricky and taking him to her flat?”

“The card on the flowers isn’t in her writing.”

“She might have telephoned the florist”

“Which can be checked,” said M. Dupont, “of course. Will you allow me? This, I assume is the bouquet”

He inspected the box of tuberoses. “Ah, yes. Le Pot des Fleurs. May I telephone, Madame?”

While he did so, Troy went out to the balcony and Alleyn, seeing her there, her fingers against her lips in the classic gesture of the anxious woman, joined her and put his arm about her shoulders.

“I’m looking at that other balcony,” she said. “It’s silly, isn’t it? Suppose he came out again. It’s like one of those dreams of frustration.”

He touched her cheek and she said: “You mustn’t be too nice to me.”

“Little perisher,” Alleyn muttered, “you may depend upon it he’s airing his French and saying ‘why’ with every second breath he draws. Did you know W. S. Gilbert was pinched by bandits when he was a kid?”

“I think I did. Might they have taken him to the Chèvre d’Argent? As a sort of double bluff?”

“I don’t think so, my darling. My bet is he’s somewhere nearer than that”

“Nearer to Roqueville? Where, Rory, where?”

“It’s a guess and an unblushing guess, but—”

M. Dupont came bustling out to the balcony.

“ Alors !” he began and checked himself. “My dear Monsieur and Madame, we progress a little. Le Pot des Fleurs tells me the flowers were bought and removed by a woman of the servant class, not of the district, who copied the writing on the card from a piece of paper. They do not remember seeing the woman before. We may find she is a maid of the Château, may we not?”

“May we?” said Troy a little desperately.

“But there are better news than these, Madame. The good Raoul Milano has reported to the hotel. It appears that an acquaintance of his, an idle fellow living in the western suburb, has seen a car, a light blue Citroën, at 2:30 p.m. driving out of Roqueville by the western route. In the car were the driver, a young woman and a small boy dressed in yellow and brown. The man wears a red beret and the woman is bare-headed. The car was impeded for a moment by an omnibus and the acquaintance of Milano heard the small one talking. He spoke in French but childishly and with a little difficulty, using foreign words. He appeared to be making an enquiry. The acquaintance heard him say ‘ pourquoi ’ several times.”