“Since yesterday afternoon we have been without the telephone. Unparalleled incompetence!” Baradi ejaculated, “Have Mr. Herrington and Mlle. Taylor returned?”

“I will enquire, Monsieur.”

“Do so, and ring Mr. Oberon’s apartments if they are in.”

He clapped down the receiver. “I am uneasy,” he said. “It has happened at a most tiresome moment. We have only the girl Teresa’s account of the affair at the factory. No doubt she is speaking the truth. Having found the boy, they are satisfied. All the same it is not too amusing, having had the police in the factory.”

“Callard will have handled them with discretion.”

“No doubt. The driver, Georges Martel, however, will be examined by the police.”

“Can he be trusted?”

“He has too much at stake to be anything but dependable. We pay him very highly. Also he has his story. He was rung up by an unknown client purporting to be the boy’s father. He took the job in good faith and merely asked the girl Teresa to accompany him. They know nothing. The police will at once suspect the former kidnappers. Nevertheless, I wish we had not attempted the affair with the boy.”

“One wanted to rid oneself of the parents.”

“Exactly. Of the father. If circumstances were different,” Baradi said softly, “I should not be nearly so interested in ridding myself of Mama. Women!” he ejaculated sententiously.

“Woman!” Mr. Oberon echoed with an inexplicable laugh and added immediately: “All the same I am getting abominably anxious. I don’t trust him. And then, the light! Suppose it doesn’t come on again before the Rites. How shall we manage?”

“Something can be done with car batteries, I think, and a soldering iron. Mahomet is ingenious in such matters. I shall speak to him in a moment.”

Baradi walked over to the window and pulled back the silk blind. “It is quite dark.” The blind shot up with a whirr and click.

“It really is much too quick on the trigger,” he observed.

Mr. Oberon said loudly: “Don’t do that! You exacerbate my nerves. Pull it down. Tie it down.”

And while Baradi busied himself with the blind he added: “I shall send out. My temper is rising and that is dangerous. I must not become angry. If his car his gone I shall send after it.”

“I strongly suggest you do nothing of the sort. It would be an unnecessary and foolish move. She will return. Surely you have not lost your flair.”

Mr. Oberon, in the darkness, said: “You are right. She will return. She must.”

“As for your rising temper,” said Baradi, “you had better subdue it. It is dangerous.”

Chapter XI

P. E. Garbel

i

Raoul slowed down at a point above the entrance to the tunnel.

“Where should we leave the car, Monsieur?”

“There’s a recess off the road, on the far side, near the tunnel and well under the lee of the hill. Pull in there.”

The silhouette of the Chèvre d’Argent showed black above the hills against a clearing but still stormy sky. A wind had risen and cloud-rack scurried across a brilliant display of stars.

“Gothic in spirit,” Alleyn muttered, “if not in design.”

The road turned the headland. Raoul dropped to a crawl and switched off his lights. Alleyn used a pocket torch. When they came down to the level of the tunnel exit he got out and guided Raoul into a recess hard by the stone facing.

Raoul dragged out a marketing basket from which the intermingled smells of cabbage, garlic and flowers rose incongruously on the rain-sweetened air.

“Have you hidden the cloaks underneath?” Alleyn asked him.

“Yes, Monsieur. It was an excellent notion. It is not unusual for me to present myself with such gear. The aunt of Teresa is a market-gardener.”

“Good. We’ll smell like two helpings of a particularly exotic soup.”

“Monsieur?”

“No matter. Now, Raoul, to make certain we understand each other will you repeat the instructions?”

“Very well, Monsieur. We go together to the servants’ entrance. If, by mischance, we encounter anybody on the way who recognizes Monsieur, Monsieur will at once say he has come to enquire for the sick Mademoiselle. I will continue on and will wait for Monsieur at the servants’ entrance. If Monsieur, on arriving there, is recognized by one of the servants who may not yet have left, he will say he has been waiting for me and is angry. He will say he wishes to speak to Teresa about the stealing of Riki. If, on the other hand, all goes well and we reach the servants’ quarters together and unchallenged, we go at once to Teresa’s room. Monsieur is seen but not recognized, he is introduced as the intellectual cousin of Teresa who has been to England, working in a bank, and has greatly improved his social status, and again we retire quickly to Teresa’s room before the Egyptian valet or the butler can encounter Monsieur. In either case, Teresa is to give a message saying it has come by a peasant on a bicycle. It is to say that Mr. Herrington’s car has broken down but that Miss Taylor and he will arrive in time for the party. Finally, if Monsieur does not come at all, I wait an hour then go to seek for him.”

“And if something we have not in the least anticipated turns up?”

Raoul laughed softly in the dark: “One must then use one’s wits, Monsieur.”

“Good, shall we start?”

They walked together up the steep incline to the platform.

A goods train came puffing up from Douceville. The glow from the engine slid across the lower walls and bastions of the Chèvre d’Argent. Behind the silk blind a dim light burned: a much fainter light than the one they had seen from the window of their own train. Higher up, at odd intervals in that vast façade, other windows glowed or flickered where candles had been placed or were carried from one room to another.

The train tooted and clanked into the tunnel.

It was quite cold on the platform. A mountain breeze cut across it and lent credibility to the turned-up collar of Alleyn’s raincoat and the scarf across his mouth. The passage was almost pitch dark but they thought it better not to use a torch. They slipped and stumbled on wet and uneven steps. The glow from old Marie’s door was a guide. As they passed by she shouted from behind the oil-lamp: “Hola, there! Is it still raining?”

Raoul said quietly: “The stars are out. Good night, Marie,” and they hurried into the shadows. They heard her shouting jovially after them: “Give her something to keep out the cold.”

“She speaks of Teresa,” Raoul whispered primly. “There is a hint of vulgarity in Marie.”

Alleyn stifled a laugh. They groped their way round a bend in the passage, brushing their hands against damp stone. Presently an elegant design of interlaced rosettes appeared against a background of reflected warmth. It was the wrought-iron gate of the Chèvre d’Argent.

“As quick as we dare,” Alleyn whispered.

The passage glinted wet before the doorway. The soles of his shoes were like glass. He poised himself and moved lightly forward. As he entered the patch of light he heard a slither and an oath. Raoul hurtled against him, throwing him off his balance. He clung to the gate while Raoul, in a wild attempt to recover himself, clutched at the nearest object.

It was the iron bell-pull.

The bell gave tongue with a violence that was refracted intolerably by the stone walls.

Three cabbages rolled down the steps. Raoul by some desperate effort still clung to the basket with one hand and to the bell-pull with the other.

“Monsieur! Monsieur!” he stammered.

“Go on,” Alleyn said. “Go on!”

Raoul let go the bell-pull and a single note fell inconsequently across the still-echoing clangour. He plunged forward and was lost in shadow.

Alleyn turned to face the door.

“Why, if it’s not Mr. Alleyn!” said Mr. Oberon.