‘I should like it above all things.’
‘Why don’t you want them to know who you are?’
‘It would quite spoil my holiday.’
‘Which might mean anything.’
‘It might.’
‘Why do you say I’m afraid?’
‘You’re shaking. That may be a carry-over from alcohol or heroin, or both, but I don’t think it is. You’re behaving like a frightened woman. You were in a blue funk when you hit me.’
‘You’re saying detestable, unforgivable things to me.’
‘Have I said anything that is untrue?’
‘My life’s my own. I’ve a right to do what I like with it.’
‘What’s happened to your intelligence? You should know perfectly well that this sort of responsibility doesn’t end with yourself. What about those two young creatures? The girl?’
‘I didn’t bring them here.’
‘No, really,’ Alleyn said, going to the door, ‘you’re saying such very stupid things. I’ll go down to the front and see if my car’s come. Goodbye to you.’
She followed him and put her hand on her arm. ‘Look!’ she said. ‘Look at me. I’m terrifying, aren’t I? A wreck? But I’ve still got more than my share of what it takes. Haven’t I?’
‘For Baradi and his friends?’
‘Baradi!’ she said contemptuously.
‘I really didn’t want to insult you with Oberon.’
‘What do you know about Oberon?’
‘I’ve seen him.’
She left her hand on him but with an air of forgetfulness. A tremor communicated itself to his arm. ‘You don’t know,’ she said. ‘You don’t know what he’s like. It’s no good thinking about him in the way you think about other men. There are hommes fatals, too, you know. He’s terrifying and he’s marvellous. You can’t understand that, can you?’
‘No. To me, if he wasn’t disgusting, he’d be ludicrous. A slug of a man.’
‘Do you believe in hypnotism?’
‘Certainly. If the subject is willing.’
‘Oh,’ she said hopelessly, ‘I’m willing enough. Not that it’s as simple as hypnotism.’ She hung her head, looking, with that gesture, like the travesty of a shamed girl. He couldn’t hear all she said but caught one phrase: ‘… wonderful degradation …’
‘For God’s sake,’ Alleyn said, ‘what nonsense is this?’
She frowned and looked at him out of her disastrous eyes. ‘Could you help me?’ she said.
‘I have no idea. Probably not.’
‘I’m in a bad way.’
‘Yes.’
‘If I were to keep faith? I don’t know what you’re up to, but if I were to keep faith and not tell them who you are? Even if it ruined me? Would you think you could help me then?’
‘Are you asking me if I could help you to cure yourself of drugging? I couldn’t. Only an expert could do that. If you’ve still got enough character and sense of purpose to keep faith, as you put it, perhaps you should have enough guts to go through with a cure. I don’t know.’
‘I suppose you think I’m trying to bribe you?’
‘In a sense – yes.’
‘Do you know,’ she said discontentedly, ‘you’re the only man I’ve ever met –’ She stopped and seemed to hesitate. ‘I can’t get this right,’ she said. ‘With you it’s not an act, is it?’
Alleyn smiled for the first time. ‘I’m not attempting the well-known gambits of rudeness introduced with a view to amorous occasions,’ he said. ‘Is that what you mean?’
‘I suppose it is.’
‘You should stick to classical drama. Shakespeare’s women don’t fall for the insult-and-angry-seduction stuff. Sorry. I’m forgetting Richard III.’
‘Beatrice and Benedick? Petruchio and Katherine?’
‘I was excluding comedy.’
‘How right you are. There’s nothing very funny about my situation.’
‘No, it seems appalling.’
‘What can I do? Tell me, what I can do?’
‘Leave the Chèvre d’Argent today. Now, if you like. I’ve got a car outside. Go to a doctor in Paris and offer yourself for a cure. Recognize your responsibility and, before further harm can come of this place, tell me or the local commissary or anyone else in a position of authority, everything you know about the people here.’
‘Betray my friends?’
‘A meaningless phrase. In protecting them you betray decency itself. Can you think of that child Ginny Taylor and still question what you should do?’
She stepped back from him as if he was a physical menace.
‘You’re not here by accident,’ she said. ‘You’ve planned this visit.’
‘I could hardly plan a perforated appendix in an unknown maiden lady. The place and all of you speak for yourselves. Yawning your heads off because you want your heroin. Pin-point pupils and leathery faces.’
She caught her breath in what sounded like a sigh of relief. ‘Is that all,’ she said.
‘I really must go. Goodbye.’
‘I can’t do it. I can’t do what you ask.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He opened the door. She said: ‘I won’t tell them what you are. But don’t come back. Don’t come back here. I’m warning you. Don’t come back.’
‘Goodbye,’ Alleyn said and without encountering anyone walked out of the house and down the passageway to the open platform.
Raoul was waiting there with the car.
II
When she returned to the roof-garden, Annabella Wells found the men of the houseparty waiting for her. Dr Baradi closed his hand softly round her arm, leading her forward.
‘Don’t,’ she said, ‘you smell of hospitals.’
Carbury Glande said: ‘Annabella, who is he? I mean we all know he’s Agatha Troy’s husband, but for God’s sake, who is he?’
‘You know as much as I do.’
‘But you said you’d crossed the Atlantic with him. You said it was a shipboard affair and one knows they don’t leave many stones unturned, especially in your hands, my angel.’
‘He was one of my rare failures. He talked of nothing but his wife. He spread her over the Atlantic like a overflow from the Gulf Stream. I gave him up as a bad job. A dull chap, I decided,’
‘I rather liked him,’ young Herrington said defiantly.
Mr Oberon spoke for the first time. ‘A dangerous man,’ he said. ‘Whoever he is and whatever he may be. Under the circumstances, a dangerous man.’
Baradi said: ‘I agree. The inquiry for Garbel is inexplicable.’
‘Unless they are initiates,’ Glande said, ‘and have been given the name.’
‘They are not initiates,’ Oberon said.
‘No,’ Baradi agreed.
Young Herrington said explosively: ‘My God, is there no other way out?’
‘Ask yourself,’ said Glande.
Mr Oberon rose. ‘There is no other way,’ he said tranquilly. ‘And they must not return. That at least is clear. They must not return.’
III
As they drove back to Roqueville, Alleyn said: ‘You did your job well this morning, Raoul. You are, evidently, a man upon whom one may depend.’
‘It pleases Monsieur to say so,’ said Raoul cheerfully. ‘The Egyptian gentleman is also, it appears, good at his job. In wartime a medical orderly learns to recognize talent, Monsieur. Very often one saw the patients zipped up like a placket-hole. Paf! and he’s open. Pan! and he’s shut. But this was different.’
‘Dr Baradi is afraid that she may not recover.’
‘She had not the look of death upon her.’
‘Can you recognize it?’
‘I fancy that I can, Monsieur.’
‘Did Madame and the small one get safely to their hotel?’
‘Safely, Monsieur. On the way we stopped in the Rue des Violettes. Madame inquired for Mr Garbel.’
Alleyn said sharply: ‘Did she see him?’
‘I un
derstand he was not at home, Monsieur.’
‘Did she leave a message?’
‘I believe so, Monsieur. I saw Madame give a note to the concierge.’
‘I see.’
‘She is a type, that one.’ Raoul said thoughtfully.
‘The concierge? Do you know her?’
‘Yes, Monsieur. In Roqueville all the world knows all the world. She’s an original, is old Blanche.’
‘In what way?’
‘Un article défrâichi. One imagines she has other interests beside the door-keeping. To be fat is not always to be idle. But the apartments,’ Raoul added politely, ‘are perfectly correct.’ Evidently he felt it would be in bad taste to disparage the address of any friend of the Alleyns.
Alleyn said, choosing his French very carefully: ‘I am minded to place a great deal of confidence in you, Raoul.’
‘If Monsieur pleases.’
‘I think you were more impressed with Dr Baradi’s skill than with his personality.’
‘That is a fact, Monsieur.’
‘I also. Have you seen Mr Oberon?’
‘On several occasions.’
‘What do you think about him?’
‘I have no absolute knowledge of his skill, Monsieur, but I think even less of his personality than of the Egyptian’s.’
‘Do you know how he entertains his guests?’
‘One hears a little gossip from time to time. Not much, Monsieur. The servants at the Château are for the most part imported and extremely reticent. But there is an under-chambermaid from the Paysdoux, who is not unapproachable. A blonde, which is unusual in the Paysdoux.’
‘What has the unusual blonde to say about it?’
Raoul did not answer at once and Alleyn turned his head to look at him. He was scowling magnificently.
‘I do not approve of what Teresa has to say. Her name, Monsieur, is Teresa. I find what she has to say immensely unpleasing. You see, it’s like this, Monsieur. The time has come when I should marry and for one reason or another – one cannot rationalize about these things – my preference is for Teresa. She has got what it takes.’ Raoul said, using a phrase – elle a du fond – which reminded Alleyn of Annabella Well’s desperate claim. ‘But in a wife,’ Raoul continued, ‘one expects certain reticences where other men are in question. I dislike what Teresa tells me of her employer, Monsieur. I particularly disklike her account of a certain incident.’
‘Am I to hear it?’
‘I shall be glad to recount it. It appears, Monsieur, that Teresa’s duties are confined to the sweeping of carpets and polishing of floors and that it is not required of her to take petit déjeuner to guests or to perform any personal services for them. She is young and inexperienced. And so, one morning, this Egyptian surgeon witnesses Teresa from the rear when she is on her knees polishing. Teresa is as good from behind as she is from in front, Monsieur. And the doctor passes her and pauses to look. Presently he returns with Mr Oberon and they pause and speak to each other in a foreign language. Next, the femme de charge sends for Teresa and she is instructed that she is to serve petit déjeuner to this animal Oberon, if Monsieur will overlook the description, in his bedroom and that her wage is to be raised. So Teresa performs this service. On the first morning there is no conversation. On the second he inquires her name. On the third this vilain coco asks her if she is not a fine strong girl. On the fourth he talks a lot of blague about the spirituality of the body and the non-existence of evil and on the fifth, when Teresa enters, he is displayed, immodestly clad, before a full-length glass in his salon. I must tell you, Monsieur, that to reach the bedroom, Teresa must first pass through the salon. She is obliged to approach this unseemly animal. He looks at her fixedly and speaks to her in a manner that is irreligious and blasphemous and anathema. Monsieur, Teresa is a good girl. She is frightened, not so much of this animal, she tells me, as of herself because she feels herself to be like a bird when it is held in terror by a snake. I have told her she must leave but she says that the wages are good and they are a large family with sickness and much in debt. Monsieur, I repeat, she is a good girl and it is true she needs the money but I cannot escape th e thought that she is in a kind of bondage from which she cannot summon enough character to escape. And some mornings, when she goes in, there is nothing to which one could object but on others he talks and talks and stares and stares at Teresa. So that when I last saw her we quarrelled and I have told her that unless she leaves her job before she is no longer respectable she may look elsewhere for a husband. So she wept and I was discomfited. She is not unique but, there it is, I have a preference for Teresa.’
Alleyn thought: ‘This is the first bit of luck I’ve had since we got here.’ He looked up the valley at the glittering works of the Maritime Alps Chemical Company and said: ‘I think it is well to tell you that I am interested professionally in the ménage at the Chèvre d’Argent. If it had not been for the accident of Mademoiselle’s illness I should have tried to gain admittance there. M. le Commissaire is also interested. We are colleagues in this affair. You and I agreed to forget my rank, Raoul, but for the purpose of this discussion perhaps we should recall it.’
‘Good, M. l’Inspecteur-en-Chef.’
‘There’s no reason on earth why you should put yourself out for an English policeman in an affair which, however much it may concern the French police, hasn’t very much to do with you. Apart from Teresa, for whom you have a preference.’
‘There is always Teresa.’
‘Are you a discreet man?’
‘I don’t chatter like a one-eyed magpie, Monsieur.’
‘I believe you. It is known to the police here and in London that the Chèvre d’Argent is used as a place of distribution in a particularly ugly trade.’
‘Women, Monsieur?’
‘Drugs. Women, it seems, are a purely personal interest. A sideline. I believe neither Dr Baradi nor Mr Oberon is a drug addict. They are engaged in the traffic from a business point of view. I think that they have cultivated the habit of drug-taking among their guests and are probably using at least one of them as a distributor. Mr Oberon has also established a cult.
‘A cult, Monsieur?’
‘A synthetic religion concocted from scraps of mysticism, witchcraft, mythology, Hinduism, Egyptology, what-have-you, with, I very much suspect, a number of particularly revolting fancy touches invented by Mr Oberon.’
‘Anathema,’ Raoul said, ‘all this is anathema. What do they do?’ he added with undisguised interest.
‘I don’t know exactly but I must, I’m afraid, find out. There have been other cases of this sort. No doubt there are rites. No doubt the women are willing to be drugged.’
Raoul said: ‘It appears that I must be firm with Teresa.’
‘I should be very firm, Raoul.’
‘This morning she is in Roqueville at the market, I am to meet her at my parents’ restaurant where I shall introduce a firm note. I am disturbed for her. All this, Monsieur, that you have related is borne out by Teresa. On Thursday nights the local servants and some of the other permanent staff are dismissed. It is on Thursday, therefore, that I escort Teresa to her home up in the Paysdoux where she sleeps the night. She has heard a little gossip, not much, because the servants are discreet, but a little. It appears that there is a ceremony in a room which is kept locked at other times. And on Fridays nobody appears until late in the afternoon and then with an air of having a formidable gueule de bois. The ladies are strangely behaved on Fridays. It is as if they are half-asleep, Teresa says. And last Friday a young English lady, who has recently arrived, seemed as if she was completely bouleversée; dazed, Monsieur,’ Raoul said, making a graphic gesture with one hand. ‘In a trance. And also as if she had wept.’
‘Isn’t Teresa frightened by what she sees on Fridays?’
‘That is what I find strange, Monsieur. Yes; she says she is frightened but it is clear to me that she is also excited. That is what troubles me in Teresa.’
‘Did she tell you where the room is? The room that is unlocked on Thursday nights?’
‘It is in the lower part of the château Monsieur. Beneath the library, Teresa thinks. Two flights beneath.’
‘And today is Wednesday.’
‘Well, Monsieur?’
‘I am in need of an assistant.’
‘Yes, Monsieur?’
‘If I asked at the Préfecture they would give me the local gendarme who is doubtless well-known. Or they would send me a clever man from Paris who as a stranger would be conspicuous. But a man of Roqueville who is well-known and yet is accepted as the friend of one of the maids at the Chèvre d’Argent is not conspicuous if he calls. Do you in fact call often to see Teresa?’
‘Often, Monsieur.’
‘Well, Raoul?’
‘Well, Monsieur?’
‘Do you care, with M. le Commissaire’s permission, to come adventuring with me on Thursday night?’
‘Enchanted,’ said Raoul, gracefully.
‘It may not be uneventful, you know. They are a formidable lot, up there.’
‘That is understood, Monsieur. Again, it will be an act of grace.’
‘Good. Here is Roqueville. Drive to the hotel if you please. I shall see Madame and have some luncheon and at three o’clock I shall call on M. le Commissaire. You will be free until then but leave me a telephone number and your address.’
‘My parents’ restaurant is in the street above that of the hotel. L’Escargot Bienvenue, 20 Rue des Sarrasins. Here is a card, Monsieur, with the telephone number.’
‘Right.’
‘My father is a good cook. He has not a great repertoire but his judgment is sound. Such dishes as he makes he makes well. His filets mignons are a speciality of the house, Monsieur, and his sauces are inspired.’
‘You interest me profoundly. In the days when there was steak in England, one used to dream of filet mignon but even then one came to France to eat it.’
‘Perhaps if Monsieur and Madame find themselves a little weary of the table d’hôte at the Royal they may care to eat cheaply but with satisfaction at the Escargot Bienvenu.’
‘An admirable suggestion.’
‘Of course, we are not at all smart. But good breeding,’ Raoul said simply, ‘creates its own background and Monsieur and Madame would not feel out of place. Here is your hotel, Monsieur, and –’ His voice changed. ‘Here is Madame.’