Last Ditch

by Ngaio Marsh

  ‘Why not? Anyway, that’s a pretty crummy old crack, isn’t it?’

  ‘Do you ever look at anything that’s not in the pretty peep department?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Oh, you wouldn’t know,’ Mr Jones said. ‘Such as Troy. Does the name Troy mean anything to you, by the way?’

  ‘Look,’ Ricky said, ‘it really is bad luck for you and I can’t answer without making it sound like a pay-off line. But, yes, the name Troy does mean quite a lot to me. She’s – I feel I ought to say “wait for it, wait for it” – she’s my mother.’

  Mr Jones’s jaw dropped. This much could be distinguished by a change of direction in his beard. There were, too, involuntary movements of the legs and arms. He picked up a large tube of paint which he appeared to scrutinize closely. Presently he said in a voice which was pitched unnaturally high:

  ‘I couldn’t be expected to know that, could I?’

  ‘Indeed, you couldn’t.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I’ve really gone through my Troy phase. You won’t agree, of course, but I’m afraid I feel she’s painted herself out.’

  ‘Are you?’

  Mr Jones dropped the tube of paint on the floor.

  Ricky picked it up.

  ‘Jerome et Cie,’ he said. ‘They’re a new firm, aren’t they? I think they sent my Mum some specimens to try. Do you get it direct from France?’

  Jones took it from him.

  ‘I generally use acrylic,’ he said.

  ‘Well,’ Ricky said, ‘I think I’ll seek my virtuous couch. It was nice of you to ask me in.’

  They faced each other as two divergent species in a menagerie might do.

  ‘Anyway,’ Ricky said, ‘we do both speak English, don’t we?’

  ‘You reckon?’ said Mr Jones. And after a further silence: ‘Oh Christ, forget the lot and have a beer.’

  ‘I’ll do that thing,’ said Ricky.

  II

  To say that after this exchange all went swimmingly at Mr Jones’s pad would not be an accurate account of that evening’s strange entertainment but at least the tone became less acrimonious. Indeed, Mr Jones developed high spirits of a sort and instructed Ricky to call him Syd. He was devoured by curiosity about Ricky’s mother, her approach to her work and – this was a tricky one – whether she took pupils. Ricky found this behavioural change both touching and painful.

  Miss Harkness took no part in the conversation but moodily produced bottled beer of which she consumed rather a lot. It emerged that the horse Ricky had shrunk from in the dark was her mount. So, he supposed, she would not spend the night at Syd’s pad, but would ride, darkling, to the stables or – was it possible? – all the way to L’Esperance and the protection, scarcely, it seemed, called for, of the Pharamonds.

  By midnight Ricky knew that Syd was a New Zealander by birth, which accounted for certain habits of speech. He had left his native soil at the age of seventeen and had lived in his pad for a year. He did some sort of casual labour at Leathers, the family riding-stables to which Miss Harkness was attached but from which she seemed to have been evicted.

  ‘He mucks out,’ said Miss Harkness in a solitary burst of conversation and, for no reason that Ricky could divine, gave a hoarse laugh.

  It transpired that Syd occasionally visited St Pierre-des-Roches, the nearest port on the Normandy coast to which there was a weekly ferry service.

  At a quarter to one Ricky left the pad, took six paces into the night and fell flat on his face in the mud. He could hear Miss Harkness’s horse giving signs of equine consternation.

  The village was fast asleep under a starry sky, the sound of the night tide rose and fell uninterrupted by Ricky’s rubber-shod steps on the cobbled front. Somewhere out on the harbour a solitary light bobbed, and he wondered if Mr Ferrant was engaged in his hobby of night fishing. He paused to watch it and realized that it was nearer inshore than he had imagined and coming closer. He could hear the rhythmic dip of oars.

  There was an old bench facing the front. Ricky thought he would wait there and join Mr Ferrant, if indeed it was he, when he landed.

  The light vanished round the far side of the jetty. Ricky heard the gentle thump of the boat against a pier followed by irregular sounds of oars being stowed and objects shifted. A man with a lantern rose into view and made fast the mooring lines. He carried a pack on his back and began to walk down the jetty. He was too far away to be identified.

  Ricky was about to get up and go to meet him when, as if by some illusionist’s trick, there was suddenly a second figure beside the first. Ricky remained where he was, in shadow.

  The man with the lantern raised it to the level of his face, and Ricky saw that he was indeed Ferrant, caught in a Rembrandt-like golden effulgence. Ricky kept very still, feeling that to approach them would be an intrusion. They came towards him. Ferrant said something indistinguishable and the other replied in a voice that was not that of the locals: ‘OK, but watch it. Good night.’ They separated. The newcomer walked rapidly away towards the turning that led up to the main road and Ferrant crossed the street to his own house.

  Ricky ran lightly and soundlessly after him. He was fitting his key in the lock and had his back turned.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Ferrant,’ Ricky said.

  He spun round with an oath.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ricky stammered, himself jolted by this violent reaction. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’

  Ferrant said something in French, Ricky thought, and laughed, a little breathlessly.

  ‘Have you been making a night of it, then?’ he said, ‘Not much chance of that in the Cove.’

  ‘I’ve been up at Syd Jones’s.’

  ‘Have you now,’ said Ferrant. ‘Fancy that.’ He pushed the door open and stood back for Ricky to enter.

  ‘Good night then, Mr Alleyn,’ said Ferrant.

  As Ricky entered he heard in the distance the sound of a car starting. It seemed to climb the steep lane out of Deep Cove, and at that moment he realized that the second man on the wharf had been Louis Pharamond.

  The house was in darkness. Ricky crept upstairs making very little noise. Just before he shut his bedroom door he heard another door close quite near at hand.

  For a time he lay awake listening to the sound of the tide and thinking what a long time it seemed since he arrived in Deep Cove. He drifted into a doze, and found the scarcely-formed persons of the book he hoped to write, taking upon themselves characteristics of the Pharamonds, of Sydney Jones, of Miss Harkness and the Ferrants, so that he scarcely knew which was which.

  The next morning was cold and brilliant with a March wind blowing through a clear sky. Mrs Ferrant gave Ricky a grey mullet for his breakfast, the reward, it emerged, of her husband’s night excursion.

  By ten o’clock he had settled down to a determined attack on his work.

  He wrote in longhand, word after painful word. He wondered why on earth he couldn’t set about this job with something resembling a design. Once or twice he thought possibilities – the ghosts of promise – began to show themselves. There was one character, a woman, who had stepped forward and presented herself to be written about. An appreciable time went by before he realized he was dealing with Julia Pharamond.

  It came as quite a surprise to find that he had been writing for two hours. He eased his fingers and filled his pipe. I’m feeling better, he thought.

  Something spattered against the window-pane. He looked out and down, and there, with his face turned up, was Jasper Pharamond.

  ‘Good morning to you,’ Jasper called in his alto voice, ‘are you incommunicado? Is this a liberty?’

  ‘Of course not. Come up.’

  ‘Only for a moment.’

  He heard Mrs Ferrant go down the passage, the door open and Jasper’s voice on the stairs: ‘It’s all right, thank you, Marie. I’ll find my way.’

  Ricky went out to the landing and watched Jasper come upstairs. He pretended to make heavy weather of the asc
ent, rocking his shoulders from side to side and thumping his feet.

  ‘Really!’ he panted when he arrived. ‘This is the authentic setting. Attic stairs and the author embattled at the top. You must be sure to eat enough. May I come in?’

  He came in, sat on Ricky’s bed with a pleasant air of familiarity, and waved his hand at the table and papers. ‘The signs are propitious,’ he said.

  ‘The place is propitious,’ Ricky said warmly. ‘And I’m very much obliged to you for finding it. Did you go tramping about the village and climbing interminable stairs?’

  ‘No, no. Julia plumped for Marie Ferrant.’

  ‘You knew her already?’

  ‘She was in service up at L’Esperance before she married. We’re old friends,’ said Jasper lightly.

  Ricky thought that might explain Mrs Ferrant’s curiosity.

  ‘I’ve come with an invitation,’ Jasper said. ‘It’s just that we thought we’d go over to Montjoy to dine and trip a measure on Saturday and we wondered if it would amuse you to come.’

  Ricky said: ‘I ought to say no, but I won’t. I’d love to.’

  ‘We must find somebody nice for you.’

  ‘It won’t by any chance be Miss Harkness?’

  ‘My dear!’ exclaimed Jasper excitedly. ‘Apropos the Harkness! Great drama! Well, great drama in a negative sense. She’s gone!’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last night. Before dinner. She prowled down the drive, disappeared and never came back. Bruno wonders if she jumped over the cliff – too awful to contemplate.’

  ‘You may set your minds at rest,’ said Ricky. ‘She didn’t do that.’ And he told Jasper all about his evening with Syd Jones and Miss Harkness.

  ‘Well!’ said Jasper. ‘There you are. What a very farouche sort of girl. No doubt the painter is the partner of her shame and the father of her unborn babe. What’s he like? His work, for instance?’

  ‘You ought to be the best judge of that. You’ve got some of it pinned on your drawing-room walls.’

  ‘I might have known it!’ Jasper cried dramatically. ‘Another of Julia’s finds! She bought them in the street in Montjoy on Market Day. I can’t wait to tell her,’ Jasper said, rising energetically. ‘What fun! No. We must both tell her.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Down below, in the car. Come and see her, do.’

  Ricky couldn’t resist the thought of Julia so near at hand. He followed Jasper down the stairs, his heart thumping as violently as if he had run up them.

  It was a dashing sports car and Julia looked dashing and expensive to match it. She was in the driver’s seat, her gloved hands drooping on the wheel with their gauntlets turned back so that her wrists shone delicately. Jasper at once began to tell about Miss Harkness, inviting Ricky to join in. Ricky thought how brilliantly she seemed to listen and how this air of being tuned-in invested all the Pharamonds. He wondered if they lost interest as suddenly as they acquired it.

  When he had answered her questions she said briskly: ‘A case, no doubt, of like calling to like. Both of them naturally speechless. No doubt she’s gone into residence at the pad.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Ricky said. ‘Her horse was there, don’t forget. It seemed to be floundering about in the dark.’

  Jasper said, ‘She would hardly leave it like that all night. Perhaps it was only a social call after all.’

  ‘How very odd,’ Julia said, ‘to think of Miss Harkness in the small hours of the morning, riding through the Cove. I wonder she didn’t wake you up.’

  ‘She may not have passed by my window.’

  ‘Well,’ Julia said, ‘I’m beginning all of a sudden to weary of Miss Harkness. It was very boring of her to be so rude, walking out on us like that.’

  ‘It’d have been a sight more boring if she’d stayed, however,’ Jasper pointed out.

  There was a clatter of shoes on the cobblestones and the Ferrant son, Louis, came running by on his way home from school. He slowed up when he saw the car and dragged his feet, staring at it and walking backwards.

  ‘Hullo, young Louis,’ Ricky said.

  He didn’t answer. His sloe eyes looked out of a pale face under a dark thatch of hair. He backed slowly away, turned and suddenly ran off down the street.

  ‘That’s Master Ferrant, that was,’ said Ricky.

  Neither of the Pharamonds seemed to have heard him. For a second or two they looked after the little boy and then Jasper said lightly: ‘Dear me! It seems only the other day that his Mum was a bouncing tweeny or parlourmaid, or whatever it was she bounced at.’

  ‘Before my time,’ said Julia. ‘She’s a marvellous laundress and still operates for us. Darling, we’re keeping Ricky out here. Who can tell what golden phrase we may have aborted. Super that you can come on Saturday, Ricky.’

  ‘Pick you up at eightish,’ cried Jasper, bustling into the car. They were off, and Ricky went back to his room.

  But not, at first, to work. He seemed to have taken the Pharamonds upstairs, and with them little Louis Ferrant, so that the room was quite crowded with white faces, black hair and brilliant pitch-ball eyes.

  III

  Montjoy might have been on another island from the Cove and in a different sea. Once a predominantly French fishing village, it was now a fashionable place with marinas, a yacht club, surfing, striped umbrellas and, above all, the celebrated Hotel Montjoy itself with its Stardust Ballroom, whose plateglass dome and multiple windows could be seen, airily glowing, from far out to sea. Here, one dined and danced expensively to a famous band, and here, on Saturday night at a window-table sat the Pharamonds, Ricky and a girl called Susie de Waite.

  They ate lobster salad and drank champagne. Ricky talked to and danced with Susie de Waite as was expected of him and tried not to look too long and too often at Julia Pharamond.

  Julia was in great form, every now and then letting off the spluttering firework of her laughter. He had noticed at luncheon that she had uninhibited table-manners and ate very quickly. Occasionally she sucked her fingers. Once when he had watched her doing this he found Jasper looking at him with amusement.

  ‘Julia’s eating habits,’ he remarked, ‘are those of a partiallytrained marmoset.’

  ‘Darling,’ said Julia, waggling the sucked fingers at him, ‘I love you better than life itself.’

  ‘If only,’ Ricky thought, ‘she would look at me like that’ – and immediately she did, causing his unsophisticated heart to bang at his ribs and the blood mount to the roots of his hair.

  Ricky considered himself pretty well adjusted to the contemporary scene. But, he thought, every adventure that he had experienced so far had been like a bit of fill-in dialogue leading to the entry of the star. And here, beyond all question, she was.

  She waltzed now with her cousin Louis. He was an accomplished dancer and Julia followed him effortlessly. They didn’t talk to each other, Ricky noticed. They just floated together – beautifully.

  Ricky decided that he didn’t perhaps quite like Louis pharamond. He was too smooth. And anyway, what had he been up to in the Cove at one o’clock in the morning?

  The lights were dimmed to a black-out. From somewhere in the dome, balloons, treated to respond to ultraviolet ray, were released in hundreds and jostled uncannily together, filling the ballroom with luminous bubbles. The band reduced itself to the whispering shishshish of waves on the beach below. The dancers, scarcely moving, resembled those shadows that seem to bob and pulse behind the screen of an inactive television set.

  ‘May we?’ Ricky asked Susie de Waite.

  He had once heard his mother say that a great deal of his father’s success as an investigating officer stemmed from his gift for getting people to talk about themselves. ‘It’s surprising,’ she had said, ‘how few of them can resist him.’

  ‘Did you?’ her son asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Troy said, and after a pause, ‘but not for long.’

  So Ricky asked Susie de Waite about herself and i
t was indeed surprising how readily she responded. It was also surprising how unstimulating he found her self-revelations.

  And then, abruptly, the evening was set on fire. They came alongside Julia and Louis and Julia called to Ricky.

  ‘Ricky, if you don’t dance with me again at once I shall take umbrage.’ And then to Louis. ‘Goodbye, darling. I’m off.’

  And she was in Ricky’s arms. The stars in the sky had come reeling down into the ballroom and the sea had got into his eardrums and bliss had taken up its abode in him for the duration of a waltz.

  They left at two o’clock in the large car that belonged, it seemed, to the Louis Pharamonds. Louis drove with Susie de Waite next to him and Bruno on her far side. Ricky found himself at the back between Julia and Carlotta, and Jasper was on the tip-up seat facing them.

  When they were clear of Montjoy on the straight road to the Cove, Louis asked Susie if she’d like to steer, and on her rapturously accepting, put his arm round her. She took the wheel.

  ‘Is this all right?’ Carlotta asked at large. ‘Is she safe?’

  ‘It’s fantastic,’ gabbled Susie. ‘Safe as houses. Promise! Ow! Sorry!

  She really is rather an ass of a girl, Ricky thought.

  Julia picked up Ricky’s hand and then Carlotta’s. ‘Was it a pleasant party?’ she asked, gently tapping their knuckles together. ‘Have you liked it?’

  Ricky said he’d adored it. Julia’s hand was still in his. He wondered whether it would be all right to kiss it under, as it were, her husband’s nose, but felt he lacked the style. She gave his hand a little squeeze, dropped it, leant forward and kissed her husband.

  ‘Sweetie,’ Julia cried extravagantly, ‘you are such heaven! Do look, Ricky, that’s Leathers up there where Miss Harkness does her stuff. We really must all go riding with her before it’s too late.’

  ‘What do you mean,’ her husband asked, ‘by your “too late”?’

  ‘Too late for Miss Harkness, of course. Unless, of course, she does it on purpose, but that would be very silly of her. Too silly for words,’ said Julia severely.

  Susie de Waite let out a scream that modulated into a giggle. The car shot across the road and back again.