Last Ditch ra-29

by Ngaio Marsh

  “Maddening, isn’t it?” said the A.C. “Well, my dear Rory, the latest intelligence through Interpol and from chaps in our appropriate branch is that the route has been altered. From Izmir to Marseilles it still rings the changes between the Italian ports, and the morphine-heroin transformation is still effected in laboratories outside Marseilles. But from there on there’s a difference. Some of the heroin now gets away through a number of French seaports, some of them quite small. You can guess what I’m coming to, I daresay.”

  “Not to Saint Pierre-des-Roches, by any chance?”

  “And from there to this island of yours—”

  “It’s not mine. With respect,” said Alleyn.

  “—from where it finds its way to the English market. We don’t know any of this,” said the A.C, “but it’s been suggested. There are pointers! There’s a character with a bit of a record who shows signs of unexpected affluence. That kind of thing.”

  “May I ask, sir,” Alleyn said, “the name of the character who shows signs of unexpected affluence?”

  “Of course you may. He’s a plumber and odd-job man living in Deep Cove and he is called Ferrant.”

  “Fancy that,” Alleyn said tonelessly.

  “Quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “Life is full of them.”

  “So I just wondered if your young man had noticed anything.”

  “He’s noticed his landlord, who is called Ferrant and is a plumber, leaving at dawn by a channel packet, if that’s what it is, dressed up to kill with suede suitcases and bound for Saint Pierre-des-Roches.”

  “There now!” cried the A.C. “Splendid fellow your son. Jolly good! Super!” He occasionally adopted the mannerisms of an effusive scoutmaster.

  “Has anything been said by the appropriate branch about a painter called Jones?” Alleyn asked.

  “A house painter?”

  “No, though you might make the mistake. A picture painter.”

  “Jones. Jones. Jones. No. No Joneses. Why?”

  “He travels in artists’ materials for a firm called Jerome et Cie with a factory in Saint Pierre-des-Roches. Makes frequent visits to London.”

  “Artists’ materials?”

  “In tubes. Oil colors. Big ones.”

  There was a longish silence.

  “Oh, yes?” said the A.C. in a new voice. The strange preliminaries evidently were over and they were down to the hard stuff.

  “First name?” snapped the A.C.

  “Sydney.”

  “Living?”

  “In Deep Cove. The firm’s handing out free color to one or two leading painters, including Troy. He called on us, here, with an introduction from Rick. I’d say he was getting over a hangover.”

  “They don’t like that. The bosses. It doesn’t work out — pusher into customer.”

  “Of course not. But I wouldn’t think he was a habitual. There’d been a party the night before. My guess would be that he was suffering from withdrawal symptoms but from what Ricky says of him, he doesn’t seem to be hooked. Yet. It may amount to nothing.”

  “Anything else about him?”

  Alleyn told him about the roadside incident when Ricky trod on the vermillion.

  “Got into a stink, did he?”

  “Apparently.”

  “It’s worth watching.”

  “I wondered.”

  “We haven’t got anyone on the island so far. The lead on Saint Pierre’s only just come through. What’s the young chap doing there, Rory?”

  Alleyn said very firmly: “He’s writing a book, sir. He went over there to put himself out of the way of distraction and has set himself a time limit.”

  “Writing!” repeated the A.C. discontentedly. “A book!” And he added: “Extraordinary what they get up to nowadays, isn’t it? One of mine runs a discotheque.”

  Alleyn was silent.

  “Nothing official, of course, but you might suggest he keep his eyes open,” said the A.C.

  “They’ll be down on his book, I hope.”

  “All right. All right. Oh, by the way, there’s something else come through. About an hour ago. Another coincidence in a way, I suppose one might call it. From this island of yours.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. The Super at Montjoy rang up. Superintendent Curie, he is. There’s been a riding fatality. A fortnight ago. Looked like a straightforward accident but they’re not satisfied. Inquest adjourned. Thing is: the super’s been inconsiderate enough to perforate his appendix and they want us to move in. Did you say anything?”

  “No.”

  “There’s a funny noise.”

  “It may be my teeth. Grinding.”

  The A.C. gave a high whinnying laugh.

  “You can take Fox with you, of course,” he said. “And while you’re at it you may find—”

  His voice, edgy and decisive, continued to issue unpalatable instructions.

  iv

  After posting his long letter to his parents, Ricky thought that now, perhaps, he could push the whole business of Dulcie Harkness into the background and get on with his work. The answer couldn’t reach him for at least three days and when it came it might well give half-a-dozen good suggestions why there should be fresh scars, as of wire, on the posts of the broken-down fence and why the wire that might have made them had been removed and why there was a gash that the vet couldn’t explain on a sorrel mare’s near foreleg and why there was a new-looking cut end to a coil of old wire in the coach house. And perhaps his father would advise him to refrain from teaching his grandmother, in the unlikely person of Sergeant Plank, to suck eggs.

  Tomorrow was the day when the Island Belle made her dawn call at the cove. There was a three-day-a-week air service but Ricky liked the idea of the little ship. He came to a sudden decision. If the day was fine he would go to Saint Pierre-des-Roches, return in the evening to Montjoy, and either walk the eight miles or so to the Cove or stand himself a taxi. The break might help him to get things into perspective. He wondered if he were merely concocting an elaborate excuse for not getting on with his work.

  “I may run into Mr. Ferrant,” he thought, “taking his ease at his inn. I might even have a look at Jerome et Cie’s factory. Anyway, I’ll go.”

  He told Mrs. Ferrant of his intention and that disconcerting woman bestowed one of her protracted stares upon him and then said she’d give him something to eat at half-past four in the morning. He implored her to do no such thing but merely fill his thermos flask overnight with her excellent coffee and allow him to cut himself a “piece.”

  She said, “I don’t know why you want to go over there; it’s no great masterpiece, that place.”

  “Mr. Ferrant likes it, doesn’t he?”

  “Him.”

  “If there’s anything you want to send him, Mrs. Ferrant, I’ll take it with pleasure.”

  She gave a short laugh that might as well have been a snort.

  “He’s got everything he wants,” she said and turned away. Ricky thought that on her way downstairs she said something about the unlikelihood of his encountering Mr. Ferrant but he couldn’t be sure of this.

  He woke himself up at four to a clear sky and a waning moon. The harbor was stretched like silk between its confines with the inverted village for a pattern. A party of gulls sat motionless on their upside-down images, and the jetty was deserted.

  When he was dressed and shaved he stole down to the kitchen. It was much the biggest room in the house and the Ferrants used it as a living room. It had television and radio, armchairs, and a hideous dresser with a great array of china. Holy oleographs abounded. The stove and refrigerator looked brand new and so did an array of pots and pans. Ricky felt as if he had disturbed the kitchen in a nightlife of its own.

  It was warm and smelled of recent cooking. His thermos stood in the middle of the table and, beside it, a message on the back of an envelope.

  Mr. Allen.

  Food in warm drawer.

  When he opened
the drawer he found a dish of toasted bacon sandwiches. She must have come down and prepared them while he was getting up. They were delicious. When he had finished them and drunk his coffee, he washed up in a gingerly fashion. It was now twenty to five. Ricky felt adventurous. He wondered if perhaps he would want to stay in Saint Pierre-des-Roches, and on an impulse returned to his room and pushed overnight gear and an extra shirt and jeans into his rucksack.

  And now, there was the Island Belle coming quietly into harbor with not a living soul to see her, it seemed, but Ricky.

  He went downstairs and wrote on the envelope.

  Thank you. Delicious. May stay a day or two but more likely back tonight.

  Then he let himself out and walked down the empty street to the jetty. The sleeping houses in the Cove looked pallid and withdrawn. He felt as if he saw them for the first time.

  The Island Belle was already alongside. Two local men, known to Ricky at the pub, were putting a few crates on board. He exchanged a word with them and then followed them up the gangway. A sailor took charge of the crates and wished him good morning.

  The Belle was a small craft, not more than five hundred tons. She did not make regular trips to the Devon and Cornwall coast but generally confined herself to trading between the islands and nearby French ports. The captain was on the bridge, an elderly bearded man, who gave Ricky an informal salute. A bell rang. The gangway was hauled up, and one of the cove men freed the mooring ropes. The Belle slid out into the harbor.

  Ricky watched the village shift back, rearrange itself, and become a picture rather than a reality. He went indoors and found a little box of a purser’s office where a man in a peaked cap sold him a return ticket. He looked into the empty saloon with its three tables, wall benches, and shuttered miniature bar.

  When he returned on deck they were already outside the heads and responding, he found with misgiving, to a considerable swell. The chilly dawn breeze caught him and he began to walk briskly along the starboard side, past the wheelhouse and toward the forward hatch.

  Crates of fish covered with tarpaulins were lashed together on the deck. Ricky stopped short. Someone was standing motionless on the far side of the crates with his back turned. This person wore a magenta woolen cap pulled down over his ears, with the collar of his coat turned up to meet it. A sailor, Ricky supposed.

  Conscious of a feeling of inward uneasiness, he moved forward, seeking a passageway around the cargo, and had found one when the man in the magenta cap turned. It was Sydney Jones.

  Ricky hadn’t seen him since they met in the drive to Leathers on the day of the accident. On that occasion, Syd’s inexplicable refusal to speak to or look at him seemed to put a stop to any further exchanges. Ricky’s mother had written a brief account of his visit. “When he dropped to it that your poor papa was a policeman,” she wrote, “which was just before he went back to the Yard, Jones lost not a second in shaking our dust off his sandals. Truly we were nice to him. Daddy thinks he was suffering from a hangover. I’m afraid his work isn’t much cop, poor chap. Sorry, darling.”

  And here they were, confronted. Not for long, however. Syd, gray in the face, jerked away and Ricky was left staring at his back across a crate of fish.

  “Ah, to hell with it,” he thought and walked around the cargo.

  “Look here,” he said. “What is all this? What’ve I done?”

  Syd made a plunge, an attempt, it seemed, to dodge around him, but they were both caught by an ample roll of the Island Belle and executed an involuntary pas de deux that landed them nose to nose across the fish crate as if in earnest and loving colloquy. Syd’s dark glasses slid away from his washed-out eyes.

  In spite of growing queasiness Ricky burst out laughing. Syd mouthed at him. He was regrowing his beard.

  “Come on,” Ricky said. “Let’s know the worst. You can’t insult me! Tell me all.” He was beginning to be cold. Quite definitely all was not well within. Syd contemplated him with unconcealed disgust.

  “Come on,” Ricky repeated with an awful attempt at jauntiness. “What’s it all about, for God’s sake?”

  Clinging to the fish crate and exhibiting intense venom, Syd almost shrieked at him: “It’s about me wanting to be on my bloody pat, that’s what it’s about. Get it? It’s about I can’t take you crawling round after me. It’s about I’m not one of those. It’s not my scene, see? No way. See? No way. So do me a favor and—”

  Another lurch from the Island Belle coincided with a final piece of obscene advice.

  “You unspeakable—” Ricky shouted and pulled himself up. “I was wrong,” he said. “You can insult me, can’t you, or have a bloody good try, and if I thought you meant what you said I’d knock your bloody little block off. ‘Crawl round after you,’ ” quoted Ricky, failing to control a belch. “I’d rather crawl after a caterpillar. You make me sick,” he said. He attempted a dismissive gesture and, impelled by the ship’s motion, broke into an involuntary canter down the sloping deck. He fetched up clinging to the taffrail where, to his fury, he was indeed very sick. When it was over, he looked back at Syd. He too, had retired to the taffrail where he was similarly engaged.

  Ricky moved as far aft as he was able and for the remainder of the short voyage divided his time between a bench and the side.

  Saint Pierre-des-Roches lay in a shallow bay between two nondescript headlands. Rows of white houses stared out to sea through blank windows. A church spire stood over them, and behind it on a hillside appeared buildings of a commercial character.

  As the ship drew nearer some half-dozen small hotels sorted themselves out along the front. Little streets appeared and shop fronts with titles that became readable: “Dupont Frères.” “Occasions.” “Chatte Noire,” and then, giving Ricky — wan and shaky but improving — quite a little thrill: “Jerome et Cie” above a long roof on the hillside.

  Determined to avoid another encounter, Ricky watched Syd Jones go ashore, gave him a five-minute start, and then himself went down the gangway. He passed through the duanes and a bureau-de-change and presently was walking up a cobbled street in Saint Pierre-des-Roches.

  Into one of the best smells in all the world: the smell of fresh-brewed coffee and fresh-baked brioches and croissants. His seasickness was as if it had never been. There was “La Chatte Noire” with an open door through which a gust of warm air conveyed these delectable aromas, and inside were workpeople having their breakfasts; perhaps coming off night shift. Suddenly Ricky was ravenous.

  The little bistro was rather dark. Its lamps were out and the early morning light was still tentative. A blue drift of tobacco smoke hung on the air. Although the room was almost full of customers, there was not much conversation.

  Ricky went to the counter and gave his order in careful French to the patronne, a large lady with an implacable bosom. He was vaguely conscious, as he did so, that another customer had come in behind him.

  He took the only remaining single seat, facing the street door, and was given his petit déjeuner. No coffee is ever quite as good as it smells, but this came close to it. The butter and confitures in little pots were exquisite and he slapped sumptuous dollops of them on his warm brioches. This was adventure.

  He had almost finished when there was a grand exodus from the bistro, with much scraping of chair legs, clearing of throats, and exchanging of pleasantries with the patronne. Ricky was left with only three other customers in view.

  Or were there only three? Was there perhaps not someone still there in the corner of the room behind his back? He had the feeling that there was and that it would be better not to turn around and look.

  Instead he raised his eyes to the wall facing him and looked straight into the disembodied face of Sydney Jones.

  The shock was so disconcerting that seconds passed before he realized that what he saw was Syd’s reflection, dark glasses and all, in a shabby looking glass, and that it was Syd who sat in the corner behind his back and had been watching him.

  There is a
lways something a little odd, a little uncomfortable, about meeting another person’s eyes in a glass: it is as if the watchers had simultaneously caught each other out in a furtive exercise. In this case the sensation was much exaggerated. For a moment Ricky and Syd stared at each other’s image with something like horror and then Ricky scrambled to his feet, paid his bill, and left in a hurry.

  As he walked up the street with his rucksack on his back, he wondered if Syd was going to ruin his visit to Saint Pierre-des-Roches by cropping up like a malignant being in a Hans Christian Andersen tale. Since Dulcie Harkness’s death he hadn’t thought much about Syd’s peculiar behavior, being preoccupied with misgivings of another kind concerning freshly cut wire scars on wooden posts and a gash on a sorrel mare’s leg. He thought how boring it was of Syd to be like that. If they were on friendly terms he could have asked him about the wire. And then he thought, with a nasty jolt, that perhaps it mightn’t be a good idea to ask Syd about the wire.

  He passed several shops and an estaminet and arrived at a square with an hôtel-de-ville, central gardens, a frock-coated statue of a portentous gentleman with whiskers, a public lavatory, a cylindrical billboard, and a newsagent. There were also several blocks of offices, a consequential house or two, and L’Hôtel des Roches, which Ricky liked the look of.

  The morning was now well established, the sun shone prettily on the Place Centrale, as the little square was called, and Ricky thought it would be fun to stay overnight in Saint Pierre and perhaps not too extravagant to put up at L’Hôtel des Roches. He went in and found it to be a decorous hostelry, very provincial in tone and smelling of beeswax. In a parlor opening off the entrance hall, a bourgeois family sat like caricatures of themselves and read their morning papers. A dim clerk said they could accommodate Monsieur and an elderly porter escorted him by way of a cautious old lift to a room with a double bed, a wash-hand-stand, an armchair, a huge wardrobe, and not much else. Left alone he took the opportunity to wash the legacy of the fish crate from his hands and then looked down from his lattice window at a scene that might have been painted by a French Grandmère Moses. Figures, dressed mostly in black, walked briskly about the Place Centrale, gentlemen removed hats, ladies inclined their heads, children in smocks, bow ties, and berets skittered in the central gardens, housewives in shawls marched steadfastly to market. And behind all this activity was the harbor with the Island Belle at her moorings.