Plank listened with carefully restrained avidity.

When Alleyn had finished they made their final arrangements. They telephoned the island airport for details of disembarking passengers. There had been none bearing a remote resemblance to Ferrant or Jones. Plank was to telephone his own station at five-thirty to report progress. If neither Alleyn nor Fox were there, Mrs. Plank would take the message. “If by any delicious chance,” Alleyn said, “you find it before then, you’d better pack up and bring your booty here and be wary about dabs.”

“And I take the car, sir?”

“You do. You’d better lay on some form of transport to be sent here for us in case of an emergency. Can you do this?”

“The Super said you were to have the use of his own car, sir, if required.”

“Very civil of him.”

“I’ll arrange for it to be brought here.”

“Good for you. Off you go.”

“Sir.”

“With our blessing, Sergeant Plank.”

“Much obliged I’m sure, sir,” said Plank and left after an inaudible exchange with his wife in the kitchen.

“And what for us?” Fox asked when he had gone.

‘“And what for me, my love, and what for me?’ ” Alleyn muttered. “I think it’s about time we had a look at Mr. Ferrant’s seagoing craft.”

“Do we know where he keeps it? Exactly?”

“No, and I don’t want to ask Madame. We’ll take a little prowl. Come and say goodbye to Mrs. P.”

He took the tray into the kitchen. Mrs. Plank was ironing. “That was kind,” he said and unloaded crockery into the sink. “Is this the drill?” he asked and turned on the tap.

“Don’t you touch them things!” she shouted. “Beg pardon, sir, I’m sure. It’s very kind but Joe’d never forgive me.”

“Why on earth not?”

“It wouldn’t be fitting,” she said in a flurry. “Not the thing at all.”

“I don’t see why. Here!” he said to the little girl who was ogling him around the leg of the table. “Can you dry?”

She swung her barrel of a body from side to side and shook her head.

“No, she can’t,” said her mother.

“Well, Fox can,” Alleyn announced as his colleague loomed up in the doorway. “Can’t you?”

“Pleasure,” he said and they washed up together.

“By the way, Mrs. Plank,” Alleyn asked. “Do you happen to know where Gil Ferrant berths his boat?”

She said she fancied it was anchored out in the harbor. He made great use of it, said Mrs. Plank.

“When he goes night fishing?”

“If that’s what it is.”

This was a surprising reaction but it turned out that Mrs. Plank referred to the possibility of philandering escapades after dark in “Fifi,” which was the name of Ferrant’s craft. “How she puts up with it I’m sure I don’t know,” said Mrs. Plank. “No choice in the matter I daresay.”

Fox clicked his tongue against his palate and severely contemplated the glass he polished. “Fancy that,” he said.

Unhampered by the austere presence of her husband, Mrs. Plank elaborated. She said that mind you, Mr. Fox, she wouldn’t go so far as to say for certain but her friend next door knew for a fact that the poor girl had been seen embarking in “Fifi” after dark with Ferrant in attendance and as for her and that Jones… She laughed shortly and told her daughter to go into the garden and make another mud pie. The little girl did so by inches, retiring backwards with her eyes on Alleyn as if he were royalty. Predictably she tripped on the doorstep and fell, still backwards, on the wire mat. She was still roaring when they left.

“Didn’t amount to much joy,” Fox said disparagingly as they walked down to the front. “All this about the girl. We knew she was — what’s that the prince called the tom in the play?”

“ ‘Some road’?”

“That’s right. The young chap took me to see it,” said Fox, who usually referred in this fashion to his godson. “Very enjoyable piece. Well, as I was saying, we knew already what this unfortunate girl was.”

“We didn’t know she’d had to do with Ferrant, though. If it’s true. Or that she went boating with him after dark.”

“If it’s true,” they said together.

“Might be the longed-for link, if it is true,” Fox said. “In any case I suppose we add him to the list.”

“Oh yes. Yes. We prick him down. And if Rick’s got the right idea about the attack on him, I suppose we add a gloss to the name. ‘Prone to violence.’ ”

“There is that, too,” said Fox.

They were opposite the Ferrants’ cottage. Alleyn looked up at Ricky’s window. It was shut and there was no sign of him at his worktable.

“I think I’ll just have a word with him,” he said. “If he’s at home. I won’t be a moment.”

But Ricky was not at home. Mrs. Ferrant said he’d gone out about half an hour ago; she couldn’t say in what direction. He had not left a message. His bicycle was in the shed. She supposed the parcel in the hall must be his.

“Freshening himself up with a bit of exercise, no doubt,” said Fox gravely. “Heavy work, it must be, you know, this writing. When you come to think of it.”

“Yes, Foxkin, I expect it must,” Ricky’s father said with a friendly glance at his old colleague. “Meanwhile one must pursue the elusive ‘Fifi.’ From Rick’s story of the dead-of-night encounter between Ferrant and Louis Pharamond, it looks as if she sometimes ties up at the end of the pier. But if she anchors out in the harbor, he’ll need a dinghy. There are only four boats out there. Can you pick up the names?”

Fox, who was long-sighted, said: “ ‘Tinker.’ ‘Marleen.’ ‘Bonny Belle.’ Wait a bit. She’s coming round. Hold on. Yes. That’s her. Second from the right, covered with a tarpaulin. ‘Fifi.’ ”

“Damn.”

“Could we get a dinghy and row out?”

“With Madame Ferrant’s beady eye at the front parlor window?”

“Do you reckon?”

“I’d take a bet on it. Let’s trip blithely down the pier.”

They walked down the pier and stood with their hands in their pockets, ostensibly gazing out to sea. Alleyn pointed to the distant coast of France.

“To coin a phrase, don’t look now, but Fifi’s dinghy’s below, moored to the jetty with enough line to accommodate to the tide.”

“Is she though? Oh, yes.” said Fox, slewing his eyes down and round. “I see. ‘Fifi’ on the stern. Would she normally be left like that, though? Wouldn’t she knock herself out against the pier?”

“There are old tires down there for fenders. But you’d think she’d be hauled up the beach with the others. Or, of course, if the owner was aboard, tied up to ‘Fifi’.”

“Do we get anything out of this, then?”

“Let’s get back, shall we?”

They returned to the front and sat on the weatherworn bench. Alleyn got out his pipe.

“I’ve got news for you, Br’er Fox,” he said. “Last evening that dinghy was hauled up on the beach. I’m sure of it. I waited up in Rick’s room for an hour until he arrived and spent most of the time looking out of the window. There she was, half blue and half white and her name across her stern. She was just on the seaward side of the high-water mark with her anchor in the sand. She’d be afloat at high tide.”

“Is that so? Well, well. Now, how do you read that?” asked Fox.

“Like everything else that’s turned up — with modified rapture. Ferrant may let one of his mates in the cove have the use of his boat while he’s away.”

“In which case, wouldn’t the mate return it to the beach?”

“Again, you’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Alleyn said. And after a pause. “When I left last night, at ten o’clock, the tide was coming in. The sky was overcast and it was very dark. The dinghy wasn’t on the beach this morning.”

He lit his pipe. They were silent for some time.

Behind them the Ferrants’ front door banged. Alleyn turned quickly, half expecting to see Ricky, but it was only the boy, Louis, with his black hair sleeked like wet fur to his head. He was unnaturally tidy and French-looking in his matelot jersey and very short shorts.