“Raoul cross with you, darling? No. Why?”

“Because — because — I—lost — I lost—”

“No, you didn’t!” Troy cried. “We found it. Wait a moment.” She rooted in her bag. “Look.”

She held out the little silver goat. Ricky’s face was transfused with a flush of relief. He took the goat carefully into his square hands. “He’s the nicest thing I’ve ever had,” he said. “He shines in the night. Il s’illume. Raoul and the lady said he does.”

“Has he got a name?”

“His name’s Goat,” Ricky said.

He walked over to the car. Raoul opened the door and Ricky got into the front seat casually displaying the goat.

“C’est ça,” Raoul said comfortably. He glanced down at Ricky, nodded three times with an air of sagacity, and lit his cigarette. Ricky shoved one hand in the pocket of his shorts and leaned back. “Coming, Mum?” he asked.

Troy got in beside him. Alleyn called Raoul, who swept off his chauffeur’s cap to Troy and excused himself.

“What’s going to happen?” Ricky asked.

“I think Daddy’s got a job for them. He’ll come and tell us in a minute.”

“Could we keep Raoul?”

“While we are here I think we can.”

“I daresay he wouldn’t like to live with us always.”

“Well, his family lives here. I expect he likes being with them.”

“I do think he’s nice, however. Do you?”

“Very,” Troy said warmly. “Look, there he goes with the policemen.”

M. Dupont had appeared in the factory entrance. He made a crisp signal. Raoul and the three policemen walked across and followed him into the factory. Alleyn came to the car and leaned over the door. He pulled Ricky’s forelock and said: “How’s the new policeman?” Ricky blinked at him.

“Why?” he asked.

“I think you’ve helped us to catch up with some bad lots.”

“Why?”

“Well, because they thought we’d be so busy looking for you we wouldn’t have time for them. But, sucks to them, we didn’t lose you and do you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because you waved from the balcony and dropped your silver goat and that was a clue and because you called out to us and we knew you were there. Pretty good.”

Ricky was silent.

Troy said: “Jolly good, helping Daddy like that.”

Ricky was turned away from her. She could see the charming back of his neck and the curve of his cheek. He hunched his shoulders and tucked in his chin.

“Was the fat, black smelly lady a bad lot?” he asked in a casual tone.

“Not much good,” Alleyn said.

“Where is she?”

“Oh, I shut her up. She’s a silly old thing, really. Better, shut up.”

“Was the other one a bad lot?”

“Which one?”

“The Nanny.”

Alleyn and Troy looked at each other over his head.

“The one who fetched you from the hotel?” Alleyn asked.

“Yes, the new Nanny.”

“Oh, that one. Hadn’t she got a red hat or something?”

“She hadn’t got a hat. She’d got a moustache.”

“Really? Was her dress red perhaps?”

“No. Black with kind of whitey blobs.”

“Did you like her?”

“Not extra much. Quite, though. She wasn’t bad. I didn’t think I had to have a Nan over here.”

“Well, you needn’t. She was a mistake. We won’t have her.”

“Anyway, she shouldn’t have left me there with the fat lady, should she, Daddy?”

“No.” Alleyn reached over the door and took the goat. He held it up admiring it. “Nice, isn’t it?” he said. “Did she speak English, that Nanny?”

“Not properly. A bit. The man didn’t.”

“The driver?”

“ ’M.”

“Was he a chauffeur like Raoul?”

“No. He had funny teeth. Sort of black. Funny sort of driver for a person to have. He didn’t have a cap like Raoul or anything. Just a red beret and no coat and he wasn’t very clean either. He’s Mr. Garbel’s driver, only Mr. Garbel’s a Mademoiselle and not a Mr.”

“Is he? How d’you know?”

“May I have Goat again, please? Because the Nanny said you were waiting for me in Mademoiselle Garbel’s room. Only you weren’t. And because Mademoiselle Garbel rang up. The lady in the goat shop has got other people that light themselves at night too. Saints and shepherds and angels and Jesus. Pretty decent.”

“I’ll have a look next time I’m there. When did Miss Garbel ring up, Rick?”

“When I was in her room. The fat lady told the Nanny. They didn’t know about me understanding which was sucks to them.”

“What did the fat lady say?”

“ ‘Mademoiselle Garbel a téléphoné.’ Easy!”

“What did she telephone about, do you know?”

“Me. She said they were to take me away and they told me you would be up here. Only—”

Ricky stopped short and looked wooden. He had turned rather white.

“Only—?” Alleyn said and then after a moment: “Never mind. I think I know. They went away to talk on the telphone and you went out on the balcony. And you saw Mummy and me waving on our balcony and you didn’t know quite what was up with everybody. Was it like that?”

“A bit.”

“Muddly?”

“A bit,” Ricky said tremulously.

“I know. We were muddled too. Then that fat old thing came out and took you away, didn’t she?”

Ricky leaned back against his mother. Troy slipped her arm round him and her hand protected his two hands and the silver goat. He looked at his father and his lip trembled.

“It was beastly,” he said. “She was beastly.” And then in a most desolate voice: “They took me away. I was all by myself for ages in there. They said you’d be up here and you weren’t. You weren’t here at all.” And he burst into a passion of sobs, his tear-drenched face turned in bewilderment to Alleyn. His precocity fell away from him: he was a child who had not long ago been a baby.

“It’s all right, old boy,” Alleyn said, “it was only a sort of have. They’re silly bad lots and we’re going to stop their nonsense. We wouldn’t have been able to if you hadn’t helped.”

Troy said: “Daddy did come, darling. He’ll always come. We both will.”

“Well, anyway,” Ricky sobbed, “another time you’d jolly well better be a bit quicker.”

A whistle at the back of the factory gave three short shrieks. Ricky shuddered, covered his ears and flung himself at Troy.

“I’ll have to go in,” Alleyn said. He closed his hand on Ricky’s shoulder and held it for a moment. “You’re safe. Rick,” he said, “you’re safe as houses.”

“O.K.,” Ricky said in a stifled voice. He slewed his head around and looked at his father out of the corner of his eyes.

“Do you think in a minute or two you could help us again? Do you think you could come in with me to the hall in there and tell me if you can see that old Nanny and Mr. Garbel’s driver?”

“Oh, no, Rory,” Troy murmured. “Not now!”

“Well, of course, Rick needn’t if he’d hate it, but it’d be helping the police quite a lot.”

Ricky had stopped crying. A dry sob shook him but he said: “Would you be there? And Mummy?”

“We’ll be there.”

Alleyn reached over, picked up Troy’s gloves from the floor of the car and put them in his pocket.

“Hi!” Troy said. “What’s that for?”

“’To be worn in my beaver and borne in the van,’” he quoted, “or something like that. If Raoul or Dupont or I come out and wave will you and Ricky come in? There’ll be a lot of people there, Rick, and I just want you to look at ’em and tell me if you can see that Nanny and the driver. O.K.?”

“O.K.,” Ricky said in a small voice.

“Good for you, old boy.”

He saw the anxious tenderness in Troy’s eyes and added: “Be kind enough, both of you, to look upon me as a tower of dubious strength.”

Troy managed to grin at him. “We have every confidence,” she said, “in our wonderful police.”

“Like hell!” Alleyn said and went back to the factory.

iii

He found a sort of comic-opera scene in full swing in the central hall. Employees of all conditions were swarming down the curved stairs and through the doors: men in working overalls, in the white coat of the laboratory, in the black jacket of bureaucracy; women equally varied in attire and age: all of them looking in veiled annoyance at their watches. A loudspeaker bellowed continually: