“You’re nearly there. Keep at that level and come round gently.” And suddenly Ricky looked through iron rails with vague, not quite frightened eyes whose gaze, while it was directed at her, yet passed beyond her.
“Wave,” she said. “Go on waving.”
Ricky’s strangely impersonal and puzzled face moved a little so that an iron standard partly hid it. His right arm was raised and his hand moved to and fro above the railing.
“He’s seen!” she said. “He’s waving back.”
The glasses slipped a little. The wall of their hotel, out-of-focus and stupid, blotted out her vision. Someone was tapping on the bedroom door behind them.
“Entrez,” Alleyn called, and then sharply, “Hullo! Who’s that?”
“What? I’ve lost him.”
“A woman came out and led him away. They’ve gone indoors.”
“A woman?”
“Fat and dressed in black.”
“Please let’s go quickly.”
Raoul had come through the bedroom and stood behind them. Alleyn said in French, “Do you see that tall building, just to the left of our wall and to the right of the church? It’s pinkish with blue shutters and there’s something red on one of the balconies.”
“I see it, Monsieur.”
“So you know what building it is?”
“I think so, Monsieur. It will be Number 16 in the Rue des Violettes where Madame enquired this morning.”
“Troy,” Alleyn said. “The Lord knows why, but Ricky’s gone to call on Mr. Garbel.”
Troy stopped short on her way to the door. “Do you mean…?”
“Raoul says that’s the house.”
“But—. No,” Troy said vigorously. “No, I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t just get up and go there. Not of his own accord. Not like that. He wouldn’t. Come on, Rory.”
They were following her when Alleyn said: “When did these flowers come?”
“What flowers? Oh, that. I hadn’t noticed it. I don’t know. Dr. Baradi, I should think. Please don’t let’s wait.”
An enormous florist’s box garnished with a great bow of ribbon lay on the top of a pile of suitcases.
Watched in an agony of impatience by his wife, Alleyn slid a card from under the ribbon and looked at it.
“So sorry,” he read, “that I shall be away during your visit. Welcome to Roqueville. P. E. Garbel.”
Chapter VI
Consultation
i
Troy wouldn’t wait for the lift. She ran downstairs with Alleyn and Raoul at her heels. Only the porter was there, sitting at the desk in the hall.
Alleyn said: “This will take thirty seconds, darling. I’m in as much of a hurry as you. Please believe it’s important. You can get into the car. Raoul can start the engine.” And to the porter he said: “Please telephone this number and give the message I have written on the paper to the person who answers. It is the number of the Préfecture and the message is urgent. It is expected. Were you on duty here when flowers came for Madame?”
“I was on duty when the flowers arrived, Monsieur. It was about an hour ago. I did not know they were for Madame. The woman went straight upstairs without enquiry, as one who knows the way.”
“And returned?”
The porter lifted his shoulders. “I did not see her return. Monsieur. No doubt she used the service stairs.”
“No doubt,” Alleyn said and ran out to the car.
On the way to the Rue des Violettes he said: “I’m going to stop the car a little way from the house, Troy, and I’m going to ask you to wait in it while I go indoors.”
“Are you? But why? Ricky’s there, isn’t he? We saw him.”
“Yes, we saw him. But I’m not too keen for other people to see us. Cousin Garbel seems to be known, up at the Chèvre d’Argent.”
“But Robin Herrington said he didn’t know him and anyway, according to the card on the flowers, Cousin Garbel’s gone away. That must be what the concierge was trying to tell me. She said he was ‘pas chez elle.’ ”
“ ‘Pas chez soi’ surely?”
“All right. Yes, of course. I couldn’t really understand her. I don’t understand anything,” Troy said desperately. “I just want to get Ricky.”
“I know, darling. Not more than I do.”
“He didn’t look as if he was in one of his panics. Did he?”
“No.”
“I expect we’ll have a reaction and be furiously snappish with him for frightening us, don’t you?”
“We must learn to master our ugly tempers,” he said, smiling at her.
“Rory, he will be there still? He won’t have gone?”
“It’s only ten minutes ago that we saw him on a sixth floor balcony.”
“Was she a fat shiny woman who led him in?”
“I hadn’t got the glasses. I couldn’t spot the shine with the naked eye.”
“I didn’t like the concierge. Ricky would hate her.”
“That is the street, Monsieur,” said Raoul. “At the intersection.”
“Good. Draw up here by the kerb. I don’t want to frighten Madame, but I think all may not be well with the small one whom we have seen on the balcony at Number 16. If anyone were to leave by the back or side of the house, Raoul, would they have to come this way from that narrow side-street and pass this way to get out of Roqueville?”
“This way, Monsieur, either to go east or west out of Roqueville. For the rest there are only other alley-ways with flights of steps that lead nowhere.”
“Then if a car should emerge from behind Number 16 perhaps it may come about that you start your car and your engine stalls and you block the way. In apologizing you would no doubt go up to the other car and look inside. And if the small one were in the car you would not be able to start your own though you would make a great disturbance by leaning on your horn. And by that time, Raoul, it is possible that M. le Commissaire will have arrived in his car. Or that I have come out of Number 16.”
“Aren’t you going, Rory?”
“At once, darling. All right, Raoul?’
“Perfectly, Monsieur.”
Alleyn got out of the car, crossed the intersection, turned right and entered Number 16.
The hall was dark and deserted. He went at once to the lift-well, glanced at the index of names and pressed the call-button.
“Monsieur?” said the concierge, partly opening the door of her cubby-hole.
Alleyn looked beyond the ringed and grimy hand at one beady eye, the flange of a flattened nose and half a grape-coloured mouth.
“Madame,” he said politely and turned back to the lift.
“Monsieur desires?”
“The lift, Madame.”
“To ascend where. Monsieur?”
“To the sixth floor, Madame.”
“To which apartment on the sixth floor?”
“To the principal apartment. With a balcony.”
The lift was wheezing its way down.
“Unfortunately,” said the concierge, “the tenant is absent on vacation. Monsieur would care to leave a message?”
“It is the small boy for whom I have called. The small boy whom Madame has been kind enough to admit to the apartment.”
“Monsieur is mistaken. I have admitted no children. The apartment is locked.”
“Can Nature have been so munificent as to lavish upon us a twin-sister of Madame? If so she has undoubtedly admitted a small boy to the principal apartment on the sixth floor.”
The lift came into sight and stopped. Alleyn opened the door.
“One moment,” said the concierge. He paused. Her hand was withdrawn from the cubby-hole door. She came out, waddling like a duck and bringing a bunch of keys.
“It is not amusing,” she said, “to take a fool’s trip. However, Monsieur shall see for himself.”
They went up in the lift. The concierge quivered slightly and gave out the combined odours of uncleanliness, frangipani, garlic and hot satin. On the sixth floor she opened a door opposite the lift, waddled through it and sat down panting and massively triumphant on a high chair in the middle of a neat and ordered room whose French windows gave on to a balcony.
Alleyn completely disregarded the concierge. He stopped short in the entrance of the room and looked swiftly round it at the dressing-table, the shelf above the wash-basin, the gown hanging on the bed-rail and at the three pairs of shoes set out against the wall. He moved to the wardrobe and pulled open the door. Inside it were three sober dresses and a couple of modestly trimmed straw hats. An envelope was lying on the floor of the wardrobe. He stooped down to look at it. It was a business envelope and bore the legend “Compagnie Chimique des Alpes Maritimes.” He read the superscription: