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.”

“Conclusive,” Alleyn said, watching Troy.

She cried out: “Did he seem frightened?”

“Madame, no. It appears that Milano made the same enquiry. The acquaintance said the small one seemed exigent. The actual phrase,” M. Dupont said, turning to Alleyn, “was: ‘Il semblait être impatient de comprendre quelque chose’!”

“He was impatient to understand something,” Troy ejaculated, “is that it?”

“Mais oui, Madame,” said Dupont and added a playful compliment in French to the effect that Troy evidently spoke the language as if she were born to it. Troy failed to understand a word of this and gazed anxiously at him. He continued in English. “Now, between Roqueville and the point where the nearest patrol on the western route is posted there are three deviations: all turning inland. Two are merely rural lanes. The third is a road that leads to a monastery and also—” Here M. Dupont raised his forefinger and looked roguish.

“And also,” Alleyn said, “to the Factory of the Maritime Alps Chemical Company.”

“Parfaitement!” said M. Dupont.

iv

“And you think he’s there!” Troy cried out. “But why? Why take him there?”

Alleyn said: “As I see it, and I don’t pretend, Lord knows, to see at all clearly, this might be the story. Oberon & Co. have a strong interest in the factory but they don’t realize we know it. Baradi and your painting chum Glande were at great pains to deplore the factory: to repudiate the factory as an excrescence in the landscape. But we suspect it probably houses the most impudent manufactory of hyoscine in Europe and we know Oberon’s concerned in the traffic. All right. They realize we’ve seen Ricky on the balcony of Number 16 and have called in the police. If Blanche has succeeded in getting herself out of durance vile she’s told them all about it. They’ve lost their start. They daren’t risk taking Ricky to St. Celeste, as they originally planned. What are they to do with him? It would be easy and safe to house him in one of the offices at the factory and have him looked after. You must remember that nobody up at the Château knows that he understands a certain amount of French.”

“The people who’ve got him will have found that out by now.”

“And also that his French doesn’t go beyond the nursery stage. They may have told him that we’ve gone back to look after Miss Truebody and have arranged for him to be minded until we are free. I think they may have meant to keep him at Number 16 while we went haring off to St. Celeste. La Belle Blanche (damn her eyes) probably rang up and said we’d spotted him on the balcony and they thought up the factory in a hurry.”

“Could they depend on our going to St. Céleste? Just on the strength of our probably getting to hear about the other kidnapping?”

“No,” said Alleyn and Dupont together.

“Then — I don’t understand.”

“Madame,” said Dupont, “there is no doubt that you shall be directed, if not to a place near St. Céleste, at least to some other place along the eastern route. To some place as far as possible from the true whereabouts of Ricketts.”

“Directed?”

“There will be a little note or a little telephone message. Always remember they fashion themselves on the pattern of the former affair, being in ignorance of this morning’s arrest.”

“It all sounds so terribly like guesswork,” Troy said after a moment. “Please, what do we do?”

Alleyn looked at Dupont, whose eyebrows rose portentously. “It is a little difficult,” he said. “From the point-of-view of my department, it is a delicate situation. We are not yet ready to bring an accusation against the organization behind the factory. When we are ready, Madame, it will be a very big matter, a matter not only for the department but for the police forces of several nations, for the International Police and for the United Nations Organization itself.”

Troy suddenly had a nightmarish vision of Ricky in his lemon shirt and brown shorts abandoned to a labyrinth of departmental corridors.

Watching her, Alleyn said: “So that we mustn’t suggest, you see, that we are interested in anything but Ricky.”

“Which, God knows, I’m not,” said Troy.

“Ah, Madame,” Dupont said, “I too am a parent.” And to Troy’s intense embarrassment he kissed her hand.

“It seems to me,” Alleyn said, “that the best way would be for your department, my dear Dupont, to make a great show of watching the eastern route and the country round St. Celeste and for us to make an equally great show of driving in a panic-stricken manner about the countryside. Indeed, it occurs to me that I might very well help matters by ringing up the Château and registering panic. What do you think?”

Dupont made a tight purse of his mouth, drew his brows together, looked pretty sharply at Alleyn and then lightly clapped his hands together.

“In effect,” he said, “why not?”

Alleyn went to the telephone. “Baradi, I fancy,” he said thoughtfully, and after a moment’s consideration: “Yes, I think it had better be Baradi.”

He dialled the hotel office and gave the number. While he waited he grimaced at Troy: “Celebrated imitation about to begin. You will notice that I have nothing in my mouth.”

They could hear the bell ringing, up at the Chèvre d’Argent.

“ ’Allo, ’allo.” Alleyn began in a high voice and broke into a spate of indifferent French. Was that the Chèvre d’Argent? Could he speak to Dr. Baradi? It was extremely urgent. He gave his name. They heard the telephone quack: “Un moment, Monsieur.” He grinned at Troy and covered the receiver with his hand. “Let’s hope they have to wake him up,” he said. “Give me a cigarette, darling.”

But before he could light it Baradi had come to the telephone. Alleyn’s deep voice was pitched six tones above its normal range and sounded as if it was only just under control. He began speaking in French, corrected himself, apologized and started again in English. “Do forgive me,” he said, “for bothering you again. The truth is, we are in trouble here. I know it sounds ridiculous but has my small boy by any chance turned up at the Château? Yes. Yes, we’ve lost him. We thought there might be the chance-there are buses, they say-and we’re at our wits’ end. No, I was afraid not. It’s just that my wife is quite frantic. Yes. Yes, I know. Yes, so we’ve been told. Yes, I’ve seen the police but you know what they’re like.” Alleyn turned towards M. Dupont, who immediately put on a heroic look. “They’re the same wherever you go, red-tape and inactivity. Most unsatisfactory.” M. Dupont bowed. “Yes, if it’s the same blackguards we shall be told what we have to do. No, no, I refuse to take any risks of that sort. Somehow or another I’ll raise the money but it won’t be easy with the restrictions.” Alleyn pressed his lips together. His long fingers blanched as they tightened round the receiver. “Would you really?” he said and the colour of his voice, its diffidence and its hesitancy, so much at variance with the look in his eyes, gave him the uncanny air of a ventriloquist. “Would you really? I say, that’s most awfully kind of you both. I’ll tell my wife. It’ll be a great relief to her to know — yes, well I ought to have said something about that, only I’m so damnably worried — I’m afraid we shan’t be able to do anything about Miss Truebody until we’ve found Ricky. I am taking my wife to St. Céleste, if that’s where — yes, probably this afternoon if — I don’t think we’ll feel very like coming back after what’s happened, but of course — Is she? Oh, dear! I’m very sorry. That’s very good of him. I am sorry. Well, if you really don’t mind. I’m afraid I’m not much use. Thank you. Yes. Well, goodbye.”