“I remember,” Alleyn said.

“Yes. Well, we drove back here for luncheon. And when we got here, he sort of clapped his hand to his brow and said he’d forgotten to send a business cable to Lima and it was important and he’d have to attend to it. Louis has — what does one call them? — in Peru.”

Jasper said: “Business interests. We came originally from Peru. But he’s the only one of us to have any business links. He’s jolly rich, old Louis is.”

“Well, then,” said Julia. “He often has to ring up Lima or cable to it. They’re not very clever at the Cove about cables in Spanish or long distance calls to Peru. So he goes into Montjoy. At first we thought he’d probably lunched there.”

“Did you see him again before he left?”

“No. We were at luncheon,” said Julia.

“We heard him come downstairs and start his car. Now I come to think of it,” said Jasper, “it was some little time after we’d sat down.”

“Have you looked to see if he’s taken anything with him — an overnight bag for instance?”

“Yes,” said Julia, “but not a penny the wiser are we. Louis has so many zoot suits and silken undies and pajamas and terribly doggy pieces of luggage that one couldn’t tell. Even Carlotta couldn’t. She’s still looking.”

“What else have you done about it?” asked Alleyn. He thought of his own gnawing anxieties during Ricky’s disappearance and wondered if Carlotta, for example, suffered anything comparable; Jasper and Julia, though worried, clearly did not.

“Well,” Julia was saying, “for a long time we didn’t do anything. We’d expected him simply to whiz into Montjoy, send his cable, and whiz back. Then when he didn’t we supposed he’d decided to lunch at the Montjoy and perhaps stay the night. He often does that when the little girls get too much for him. But he always rings up to tell us. When he didn’t ring and didn’t come back for dinner Carlotta telephoned the hotel and he hadn’t been there at all. And still we haven’t had sniff nor sight of him.”

“I even rang the pub at Belle Vue,” said Jasper.

“What about his car?”

“We rang the park where he always leaves it and it’s there. He clocked in about twenty minutes after he left here.”

“The thing that really is pretty bothering,” Julia said, “is that he was in a peculiar sort of state yesterday morning. After we left you. We wondered if you noticed anything.”

Alleyn gave himself a moment’s respite. He thought of Louis: overelegant, overfacetious, giving his performance on the front. “How do you mean: ‘peculiar’?” he asked.

“For him, very quiet, and at the same time, I felt he was in a rage. You mustn’t mind my asking, but did you have words, the two of you?”

“No.”

“I only wondered. He wouldn’t say anything about being grilled by you and didn’t seem to enjoy my calling it that — I was just being funnyman. You know? But he didn’t relish it. So I wondered.”

“Was that why you asked me to come?”

Jasper said: “What we really hoped you’d do is give us some advice about what action we could take. One doesn’t want to make a sort of public display but at the same time one can’t just loll about in the sun supposing that he’ll come bouncing back.”

“Has he ever done anything of this sort before?”

Julia and Jasper spoke simultaneously. “Not like this,” said Jasper. “Not exactly,” said Julia.

They looked at Fox and away.

Fox said: “I wonder if I could be excused, Mrs. Pharamond? We started a slow puncture on the way up. If I’m not required at the moment, sir, perhaps, I should change the wheel?”

“Would you, Fox? We’ll call out if we need you.”

Fox rose. “A very enjoyable cup of coffee,” he said with a slight bow in Julia’s direction and descended the steps to the lower terrace where the car was parked. It was just as well, thought Alleyn, that it was out of sight.

“Not true!” said Julia with wide-open eyes. “My dear! The tact! Have you many like that?”

“We have a finishing school,” said Alleyn, “at the C.I.D.”

Jasper said: “Answering your question. No, Louis, as Julia said, always lets us know if he’s going to be away unexpectedly.”

“Is he often away? ‘Unexpectedly’?”

“Well—”

Julia burst out. “Oh let’s not be cagey and difficult, darling. After all we asked the poor man to come so why shuffle and snuffle when he wants to know about things? Yes, Louis does quite often leave us for reasons undisclosed and probably not very respectable. He can’t keep his hands off the ladies.”

“Julia! Darling!”

“And what ladies some of them are. But then, it appears that Louis bowls them over like ninepins and has only to show himself at a casino in Lima for them to swarm. This we find puzzling. Perhaps he’s been hijacked and taken away for a sort of gentlemanly white-slave trade, to be offered to sex-starved señoritas. Which would really suit him very well as he could combine their pleasure with his business.”

“No, honestly,” Jasper protested and giggled.

“Darling, admit. You’re not all that keen on him yourself. But we do love Carlotta, very dearly,” said Julia, “and we’ve got sort of inoculated to Louis like one does with sandflies, blood being thicker than water as far as Jasper is concerned.”

Jasper said: “What steps do you think we should take?”

Alleyn found it odd to repeat the advice that he and Fox had offered each other yesterday. He said they could report Louis’s disappearance to the police now or wait a little longer. He thought he would advise the latter course.

“Have you,” he said, “looked to see if his papers — passport and medical certificates and so on — are in his room? You say he often makes business trips to Peru. Isn’t it just possible that something cropped up — say a cable — calling him there on urgent business and that you’ll get a radiogram to this effect?”

Jasper and Julia looked at each other and shook their heads. Alleyn was trying to remember in which South American countries extradition orders could be operated.

“Speaking as a policeman,” said Julia, “which it’s so difficult to remember you are, would the Force be very bored if asked to take a hand? I mean, busy as you all seem to be over the Harness affair? Wouldn’t they think Louis’s ongoings of no account?”

“No,” Alleyn said. “They wouldn’t think that.”

A stillness came over the three. Jasper, who had reached out to the coffeepot, withdrew his hand. He looked very hard at Alleyn and then at his wife.

Julia said: “Is there something you know and we don’t? About Louis?”

Carlotta came out of the house and down the steps. She was very pale, even for a Pharamond. She came to the table and sat down as if she needed to.

“I’ve made a discovery,” she said. “Louis’s passport and his attaché case and the file he always takes when he goes to Lima are missing. I forced open the drawer in his desk. So I imagine, don’t you,” said Carlotta, “that he’s walked out on me?”

“You sound as if you’re not surprised,” said Julia.

“Nor am I. He’s been precarious for quite a time. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? You must have.” They were silent. “I always knew, of course,” Carlotta said, “that by and large you thought him pretty ghastly. But there you are. I have a theory that quite a lot of women require a touch of the bounder in their man. I’m one of them. So, true to type, he’s bounded away.”

Jasper said: “Carla, darling, aren’t you rushing your fences a bit? After all, we don’t know why he’s gone. If he’s gone.”

Julia said: “I’ve got a feeling that Roderick, if we’re still allowed to call him that, knows. And I don’t believe he thinks it’s anything to do with you, Carla.” She turned to Alleyn. “Am I right?” she asked.

Alleyn said slowly: “If you mean do I know definitely he’s gone, I don’t. I’ve no information at all as to his recent movements.”

“He’s in trouble, though. Isn’t he? It’s best we should all realize. Really.”