The beer was cold and delicious. It was fun to be keeping his own spot of observation, however pointless it might turn out to be.

Someone had left a copy of Le Monde on the table. He picked it up and began laboriously to read it, maintaining through the rubber plant leaves a pretty constant watch on the factory gates.

Feeling as if the waiters and every customer in the café observed him with astonishment, he contrived to make a hole in the paper which might be useful if, by some freakish chance, Syd should take it into his head to refresh himself when he emerged from the factory. Time went by slowly. It really was getting awfully hot. The newspaper tipped forward. He gave a galvanic jerk, opened his eyes and found himself looking through the rubber plant leaves at Syd Jones, crossing the street toward him.

Ricky whipped the paper up in front of his face and found that the peephole he had made was virtually useless. He stole a quick look over the top and there was Syd, sure enough, seating himself at a distant table with his back to Ricky. He dumped his paint box on the unoccupied seat. There was no doubt that now it was extremely heavy.

Ricky asked himself what the devil he thought he was up to and why it had become so important to find a reason for Syd Jones’s taking a scunner to him. And why was he so concerned to find out if Syd doped himself? Was it because there were details in a pattern that refused to emerge and somehow or another — yes, that, absurdly, was it — could be associated with the death of Dulcie Harkness?

Having arrived at this preposterous conclusion, what was he going to do about it? Waste his little holiday by playing an inane game of hide-and-seek with Syd Jones and return to the island no wiser than when he left it?

There were no looking glasses in this café, and Syd had his back to Ricky, who had widened the hole in Le Monde. He was assured that his legs were unrecognizable since he had changed into jeans and espadrilles.

The waiter took an order from Syd and came back with café-nature and a glass of water.

And now Ricky became riveted to the hole in his paper. Syd looked round furtively. There were only four other people including Ricky in the cafe and he had chosen a table far removed from any of them. Suddenly, as far as Ricky could make out, he put the glass on the seat of his chair, between his thighs. He then appeared to take something out of the breast pocket of his shirt. His head was sunk on his chest, and he leaned forward as if to rest his left forearm on his knee and seemed intent on some hidden object. He became very still. After a few seconds his right arm jerked slightly, there was a further manipulation of some sort, he raised his head, and his body seemed to relax as if in the gift of the sun.

“That settles the drug question, poor sod,” thought Ricky.

But he didn’t think it settled anything else.

Syd began to tap the ground with his foot as though keeping time with an invisible band. With the fingers of his right hand he beat a tattoo on the lid of his paint box. Ricky heard him laugh contentedly. The waiter walked over to his table and looked at him. Syd groped in his pocket and dropped quite a little handful of coins on the table. The waiter picked up what was owing and waited for his tip. Syd made a wide extravagant gesture. “Help yourself,” Ricky heard him say. “Servez-vous, mon vieux,” in execrable French. “Prenez le tout.” The man bowed and swept up the coins. He turned away and, for the benefit of his fellow waiter, lifted his shoulders and rolled his head. Syd had not touched his coffee.

“Good morning, Mr. Alleyn.”

Every nerve in Ricky’s body seemed to leap. He let out an exclamation, dropped the newspaper and turned to find Mr. Ferrant smiling down at him.

ii

After the initial shock, Ricky’s reaction was one of hideous embarrassment joined to fury. He sat there with a flaming face knowing himself to look the last word in abysmal foolishness. How long, oh God, how long had Mr. Ferrant stood behind him and watched him squint with screwed up countenance through a hole in a newspaper at Syd Jones? Mr. Ferrant, togged out in skintight, modishly flared white trousers, a pink striped T-shirt, white buckskin sandals, and a medallion on a silver chain. Mr. Ferrant of the clustering curls and impertinent smile. Mr. Ferrant, incongruously enough, the plumber and odd-job man.

“You made me jump,” Ricky said. “Hullo. Mrs. Ferrant said you might be here.”

Mr. Ferrant snapped his fingers at the waiter.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked Ricky.

“No. Please. Do. What,” Ricky invited in a strange voice, “will you have?”

He would have beer. Ricky ordered two beers and felt that he himself would be awash with it.

Ferrant, whose every move seemed to Ricky to express a veiled insolence, slid into a chair and stretched himself. “When did you come over, then?” he asked.

“This morning.”

“Is that right?” he said easily. “So did he,” and nodded across at Syd who now fidgeted and looked at his watch. At any moment, Ricky thought, he might turn round and see them and what could that not lead to?

The waiter brought their beer. Ferrant lit a cigarette. He blew out smoke and wafted it away with a workman’s hand. “And what brought you over, anyway?” he asked.

“Curiosity,” said Ricky and then, hurriedly, “To make a change from work.”

“Work? That’d be writing, wouldn’t it?” he said as if there was something suspect in the notion. “Where’re you staying?” Ricky told him.

“That’s a crummy little old place, that is,” he said. “I go to Le Beau Rivage myself.”

He took the copy of Le Monde out of Ricky’s nerveless grasp and stuck his blunt forefinger through the hole. “Quite fascinating what you was reading, seemingly. Couldn’t take your eyes off of it, could you, Mr. Alleyn?”

“Look here,” Ricky said. He put his hand up to his face and felt its heat. “I expect you think there was something a bit off about — about — my looking — about. But there wasn’t. I can’t explain but—”

“Me!” said Ferrant. “Think! I don’t think nothing.”

He drained his glass and clapped it down on the table. “We all get our little fancies, like,” he said. “Right? And why not? Nice drop of ale, that.” He was on his feet. “Reckon I’ll have a word with Syd,” he said. “Quite a coincidence. He come in the morning boat, too. Lovely weather, isn’t it? Might turn to thunder later on.”

He strolled across between the empty tables with slight but ineffable shifts of his vulgar little stern. Ricky could have kicked him but he could have kicked himself still harder.

It seemed an eternity before Ferrant reached Syd, who appeared to have dozed off. Ricky, held in a nightmarish inertia, could not take his eyes off them. Ferrant laid his hand on Syd’s head and rocked it, not very gently, to and fro.

Syd opened his eyes. Ferrant twisted the head towards Ricky. He said something that didn’t seem to register. Syd blinked and frowned as if unable to focus his eyes, but he made a feeble attempt to shake Ferrant off. Ferrant released him with a bully’s playful buffet. Ricky saw awareness dawn on Syd’s face and a mounting anger.

Ferrant shifted the paint box to the ground and sat down. He put his hand on Syd’s knee and leaned toward him. He might have been giving him some important advice. The waiter strolled toward Ricky, who paid and tipped him. He said something about “un drôle de type, celui-là, ” meaning Ferrant.

Ricky left the café. On his way out Ferrant waved to him.

He walked back into the town, chastened.

Perhaps the circumstance that most mortified him was the certainty that Ferrant by this time had told Syd about the hole in the newspaper.

The day had turned into a scorcher and the soles of his feet were cobbled with red-hot marbles. He reached the front and sought the shade of a wooden pavillion facing the sea. He shuffled out of his espadrilles, lit his pipe, and began to feel a little better.