“ ’Allo, ’allo, Messieurs et Dames, faites attention, s’il vous plaît. Tous les employés, ayez la bonté de vous rendre immédiatement au grand vestibule. ’Allo, ’allo.”

M. Dupont stood in a commanding position on the base of the statue and M. Callard, looking sulky, stood at a little distance below him. A few paces distant, Raoul, composed and god-like in his simplicity, surveyed the milling chorus. The gendarmes were nowhere to be seen.

Alleyn made his way to Dupont, who was obviously in high fettle and, as actors say, well inside the skin of his part. He addressed Alleyn in English with exactly the right mixture of deference and veiled irritability. Callard listened moodily.

“Ah, Monsieur! You see we make great efforts to clear up this little affair. The entire staff is summoned by Monsieur le Directeur. We question everybody. This fellow of yours is invited to examine the persons. You are invited to bring the little boy, also to examine. Monsieur le Directeur is most anxious to assist. He is immeasurably distressed, is it not. Monsieur le directeur?”

“That’s right,” said M. Callard without enthusiasm.

Alleyn said with a show of huffiness that he was glad to hear that they recognized their responsibilities. M. Dupont bent down as if to soothe him and he murmured: “Keep going as long as you can. Spin it out.”

“To the last thread.”

Alleyn made his way to Raoul and was able to mutter: “Ricky describes the driver as a man with black teeth, a red beret, as your friend observed, and no jacket. The woman has a moustache, is bareheaded and wears a black dress with a whitish pattern. If you see a man and woman answering to that description you may announce that they resemble the persons in the car.”

Raoul was silent. Alleyn was surprised to see that his face, usually a ready mirror of his emotions, had gone blank. The loud-speaker kept up its persistent demands. The hall was filling rapidly.

“Well, Raoul?”

“Would Monsieur describe again the young woman and the man?”

Alleyn did so. “If there are any such persons present you may pretend to recognize them, but not with positive determination. The general appearance, you may say, is similar. Then we may be obliged to bring Ricky in to see if he identifies them.”

Raoul made a singular little noise in his throat. His lips moved. Alleyn saw rather than heard his response.

“Bien, Monsieur,” he said.

“M. Dupont will address the staff when they are assembled. He will speak at some length. I shall not be present. He will continue proceedings until I return. Your soi-distant identification will then take place. Au ’voir, Raoul ”

“ ’Voir, Monsieur.”

Alleyn edged through the crowd and round the wall of the room to the double doors. The commissionaire stood near them and eyed him dubiously. Alleyn looked across the sea of heads and caught the notice of M. Dupont, who at once held up his hand. “Attention!” he shouted. “Approchez-vous davantage, je vous en prie.” The crowd closed in on him, and Alleyn, left on the margin, slipped through the doors.

He had at the most fifteen minutes in which to work. The secretary’s office was open, but the door into M. Callard’s room was, as he had anticipated, locked. It responded to his manipulation and he relocked it behind him. He went to the desk and turned on the general inter-communication switch in the sound system releasing the vague rumour of a not quite silent crowd and thevoiceof M. Dupont embarked on an elaborate exposé of child-kidnapping on the Mediterranean coast.

Perhaps, Alleyn thought, at this rate he would have a little longer than he had hoped. If he could find a single piece of evidence, enough to ensure the success of a surprise investigation by the French police, he would be satisfied. He looked at the filing cabinet against the walls. The drawers had independent keyholes but the first fifteen were unlocked. He tried them and shoved them back without looking inside. The sixteenth, marked with the letter P, was locked. He got it open. Inside he found a number of the usual folders each headed with its appropriate legend: Produits chimiques en commande; Peron et Cie; Plastiques, and so on. He went through the first of these, memorizing one or two names of drugs he had been told to look out for. Peron et Cie was on the suspect list at the Sûreté and a glance at the correspondence showed a close business relationship between the two firms. He flipped over the next six folders and came to the last which was headed: Particulier à M. Callard. Secret et confidentiel.

It contained rough notes, memoranda and a number of letters, and Alleyn would have given years of routine plodding for the right to put the least of them into his pocket. He found letters from distributors in New York, Cairo, London, Paris and Istanbul, letters that set out modes of conveyance, suggested suitable contacts, gave details of the methods used by other illicit traders and warnings of leakage. He found a list of the guests at the Chèvre d’Argent with Robin Herrington’s name scored under a query beside it.

“Cette pratique abominable,” boomed the voice of M. Dupont, warming to its subject, “cette tache indéracinable sur l’honneur de notre communauté—”

“Boy,” Alleyn muttered in the manner of M. Callard, “you said it.”

He laid on the desk a letter from a wholesale firm dealing in cosmetics in Chicago. It suggested quite blandly that Crème Veloutée in tubes might be a suitable mode of conveyance for diacetylmorphine and complained that the last consignment of calamine lotion had been tampered with in transit and had proved on opening to contain nothing but lotion. It suggested that a certain customs official had set up in business on his own account and had better be dealt with pretty smartly.

Alleyn unshipped from his breast pocket a minute and immensely expensive camera. Groaning to himself he switched on M. Callard’s fluorescent lights.

“—et, Messieurs, Dames,” thundered the voice of M. Dupont, “parmi vous, ici, ici, dans cette usine, ce crime dégoûtant a élevé sa tête hideuse.”

Alleyn took four photographs of the letter, replaced it in the folder in its file, relocked the drawer and stowed away his Lilliputian camera. Then, with an ear to M. Dupont, who had evidently arrived at the point where he could not prolong the cackle but must come to the ’osses, Alleyn made notes, lest he should forget them, of points from the other documents. He returned his notebook to his pocket, switched off the loudspeaker and turned to the door.

He found himself face-to-face with M. Callard.

“And what the hell,” M. Callard asked rawly, “do you think you are doing?”

Alleyn took Troy’s gloves from his pocket. “My wife left these in your office. I hope you don’t mind.”

“She did not and I do. I locked this office.”

“If you did someone obviously unlocked it. Perhaps your secretary came back for something.”

“She did not,” said M. Callard punctually. He advanced à step. “Who the hell are you?”

“You know very well who I am. My boy was kidnapped and brought into your premises. You denied it until you were forced to give him up. Your behavior is extremely suspicious, M. Callard, and I shall take the matter up with the appropriate authorities in Paris. I have never,” continued Alleyn, who had decided to lose his temper, “heard such damned impudence in my life! I was prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt but in view of your extraordinary behavior I am forced to suspect that you are implicated personally in this business. And in the former affair of child-stealing. Undoubtedly in the former affair.”

M. Callard began to shout in French, but Alleyn shouted him down. “You are a child-kidnapper, M. Callard. You speak English like an American. No doubt you have been to America where child-kidnapping is a common racket.”