“For what it’s worth — I don’t think I’d do that. Quite.”

“I’ll get that bugger,” Syd Jones announced happily. “I’ll bloody well get him.”

“What bugger?” Fox asked.

“That’d be telling. Think I’d let you in? You got to be joking, Big Fuzz.”

“About my son?” Alleyn asked Dr. Carey.

“Ah yes, of course. He’s settled down nicely.”

“Yes?”

“He’ll be all right. There’s been quite a bit of pain and considerable shock. He’s had something that’ll help him sleep. And routine injections against tetanus and so on. The cuts around the ankles were nasty. We’d like to keep him under observation.”

“Thank you,” Alleyn said. “I’ll tell his mother.”

“Of course I’m completely in the dark,” said Dr. Carey. “Or nearly so. But, damn it all, I am supposed to be the police surgeon round here. And there is an adjourned inquest coming up.”

“My dear chap,” said Alleyn, “I know, and I’m sorry. You shall hear all. In the meantime what shall we do with this specimen?”

Syd Jones, gloomily surveyed by Fox, laughed, talked incomprehensibly, and drifted into song.

“You won’t get any sense out of him. I’d put him in the cells and have him supervised. He’ll go to sleep sooner or later,” said Dr. Carey.

Syd was removed, laughing heartily as he went. Fox went out to arrange for a constable to sit in his cell until he fell asleep, and Alleyn, who now felt as if he’d been hauled through a mangle, pulled himself together and gave Dr. Carey a succinct account of the case as it had developed. They sat on the hideously uncomfortable wall bench. It was now ten minutes past three in the morning. The station sergeant came in with cups of strong tea: the third brew since they’d arrived, five hours ago.

Doctor Carey said: “No thanks, I’m for my bed.” He stood up, stretched, held out his hand, and was professionally alerted. “You look done up,” he said. “Not surprising. Will you get off now?”

“Oh yes. Yes, I expect so.”

“Where are you staying?”

“At the Montjoy.”

“Like anything to help you sleep?”

“Lord, no,” said Alleyn, “I’d drop off in a gravel pit. Nice of you to offer, though. Good night.”

He went to bed at his hotel, fell instantly and profoundly asleep and, having ordered breakfast in his room at seven-thirty and arranged with himself to wake at seven, did so and put in a call to his wife. It went through at once.

“That’s your waking-up voice,” he said.

“Never mind. Is anything the matter?”

“There was but it’s all right now.”

“Ricky?”

“Need you ask? But darling, repeat, it’s all right now. I promise.”

“Tell me.”

He told her.

“When’s the first plane?” Troy asked.

“Nine-twenty from Heathrow. You transfer at Saint Pierre-des-Roches.”

“Right.”

“Hotel Montjoy and George VI Hospital.”

“Rory, say if you’d rather I didn’t. You will, won’t you?”

“I’d rather you did but God knows where I’ll be when you get here. We may well blow up for a crisis.”

“Could you book a room?”

“I could. This one.”

“Right. I’ll be in it.”

Troy hung up. Alleyn rang up the hospital and was told Ricky had enjoyed a fairly comfortable night and was improving. He bathed, dressed, ate his breakfast, and was about to call the hotel office when the telephone rang again. He expected it would be Fox and was surprised and not overjoyed to hear Julia Pharamond’s voice.

“Good morning,” said Julia. She spoke very quietly and sounded harried and unlike herself. “I’m very sorry indeed to bother you and at such a ghastly hour. I wouldn’t have, only we’re in trouble and I — well, Jasper and I — thought we’d better.”

“What’s the matter?”

“And Carlotta agrees.”

“Carlotta does?”

“Yes. I don’t want,” Julia whispered piercingly into the mouthpiece, “to talk down the telephone. A cause des domestiques. Damn, I’d forgotten they speak French.”

“Can you give me an inkling?”

After a slight pause Julia said in a painstakingly casual voice. “Louis.”

“I’ll come at once,” said Alleyn.

He called Fox up. On his way out, while Fox rang Plank, Alleyn left the L’Espérance number at the hotel office, ordered a taxi to meet Troy’s plane, and booked her in. “And you might get flowers for the room. Lilies of the valley if you can.”

“How many?” asked the grand lady at Reception.

“Lots,” said Alleyn. “Any amount.”

The lady smiled indulgently and handed him a letter. It had just been sent in from the police station, she said. It was addressed to him. The writing was erratic. There was much crossing out and some omissions, but on the whole he thought it rather more coherent than might have been expected. It was written on printed note paper with a horse’s head printed in one corner.

He showed the letter together with the enclosure, a new pamphlet, to Fox, who read it when they had set off in Superintendent Curie’s car.

“He doesn’t half go on, does he?” said Fox. “Do you make out he thinks he knows who chummy is?”

“That’s how I read it.”

“What’ll we do about this service affair?”

“Attend in strength.”

They drove on in silence. The morning was clear and warm; the channel sparkled and the Normandy coast looked as if it were half its actual distance away.

“What do you reckon Mr. L. Pharamond’s been up to?” asked Fox.

“I’ll give you one guess.”

“Skedaddled?”

“Skedaddled. And if we’d known, how could we have stopped him?”

“We could have kept him under obbo,” Fox mused.

“But couldn’t have prevented him lighting out. Well, could we? Under what pretext? Seen conversing with G. Ferrant at one o’clock in the morning? Query — involved in drug running? Dropped a sleeve button in the horse paddock at Leathers. Had previously denied going into horse paddock. Now says he forgot. End of information. Query — murderer Dulcie Harkness? He wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face over that lot, Br’er Fox.”

Up at L’Espérance they found Jasper waiting on the terrace. Alleyn introduced Fox. Jasper, though clearly surprised that he had come, was charming. He led them to a table and a group of chairs, canopied and overlooking the sea.

“Julia’s coming down in a minute,” he said. “We thought we’d like to see you first. Will you have coffee? And things? We’re going to. It’s our breakfast.”

It was already set out, with croissants and brioches on the table. It smelled superb. When Alleyn accepted, Fox did too.

“It really is extemely odd,” Jasper continued, heaping butter and honey on a croissant. “And very worrying. Louis has completely vanished. Here comes Julia.”

Out of the house she hurried in a white trouser suit and ran down the steps to them with her hands extended. Fox was drinking coffee. He rose to his feet and was slightly confused.

“How terribly kind of you both to come,” said Julia. “No, too kind. When one knows you’re being so active and fussed. How’s Ricky?”

“In hospital,” said Alleyn, shaking hands.

“No! Because of his black eye?”

“Partly. Could we hear about Louis?”

“Hasn’t Jasper said? He’s vanished. Into thin air.”

“Since when?”

Jasper, whose mouth was full, waved his wife on.

“Since yesterday,” said Julia. “You remember yesterday morning when he was as large as life in his zoot suit and talked to you on the front? In the Cove?”