Alleyn said he’d ask Dr. Carey to look at Syd and saw him taken back to his cell.

Fox came back into the room. “What d’you make of all that, Mr. Alleyn?” he asked. “Cooked up, would you say, to incriminate Ferrant?”

“Hard to tell, but I wouldn’t think entirely cooked up.”

“All this stuff about Ferrant being nicer to him?”

“He would be nicer, Br’er Fox, if he needed Syd to pick up a consignment. He wouldn’t want to goad him to a point where he refused to cooperate.”

“I suppose not,” Fox grunted, discontentedly.

He and Alleyn then called on Gil Ferrant and were received with a great show of insolence. Ferrant lounged on his bed. He still wore his sharp French suit and pink shirt but they were greatly disheveled and he had an overnight beard. He chewed gum with his mouth open and looked them up and down through half-shut eyes. Almost, Alleyn thought, he preferred Syd.

“Good morning,” he said.

Ferrant raised his eyebrows, stretched elaborately, and yawned.

“No doubt,” Alleyn said, “it’s been explained to you that you haven’t much hope of avoiding a conviction and the maximum sentence. If you plead guilty you may get off with less. Do you want to make a statement?”

Ferrant shook his head slowly from side to side and made a great thing of shifting the wad of gum.

“Advised not to,” he drawled.

Alleyn said: “We’ve found enough heroin at Jones’s place to send you up for years.”

Ferrant said, “That’s his affair.”

“And yours. Believe me, yours.”

“No comment,” he said and shut his eyes.

“You’re out on a limb,” said Alleyn. “Your master’s cleared off. Did you know that?”

Ferrant didn’t open his eyes but the lids quivered.

“You’d do better to cooperate,” Fox advised.

Ferrant, still lolling on the bed, opened his eyes and looked at Alleyn. “And how’s Daddy’s Baby Boy this morning?” he asked and smiled as he chewed.

In the silence that followed this quip Alleyn, as if desire could actually change place with action, saw — almost felt — his fist drive into the bristled chin. His fingernails bit into his palm. He looked at Fox, whose neck seemed to have swollen and whose face was red.

A long-forgotten phrase from Little Dorrit came into Alleyn’s mind: “Count five-and twenty, Tattycoram.” He had actually begun to count the seconds in his head when Plank came in to say he was wanted on the telephone by Mrs. Pharamond. In the passage he said to Plank, “Ferrant won’t talk. Mr. Fox is having a go. Take your notebook.”

Plank, after a startled glance at him, went off.

When Alleyn spoke to Julia she sounded much more like her usual self.

“What luck!” said Julia. “I rang the Cove station and a nice lady said you might be where you are. It’s to tell you Carlotta’s had a message from Louis. Are you pleased? We are.”

“Am I to hear what it is?”

“It’s a picture postcard of the Montjoy hotel. Someone has written in a teeny-weeny hand: ‘Picked up in street’ and it’s very grubby. It says ‘Everything OK. Writing. L.,’ and it’s addressed, of course, to Carla: Would you like to know how we interpret it?”

“Very much.”

“We think Louis has flown to Peru. I, for one, hope he stays there and so I bet, between you and me and the gatepost, does Carlotta. He was becoming altogether too difficile. But wasn’t it kind of whoever it was to fish the card out of some gutter and pop it in the post?”

“Very kind. Can you read the postmark? The time?”

“Wait a sec. No, I can’t. There’s muddy smudge all over it.”

“Will you let me see it?”

“Not,” said Julia promptly, “if it’ll help you haul him back. But we thought it only fair to let you know about it.”

“Thank you,” Alleyn said.

“So we’re all feeling relieved and in good heart for Mr. Harkness’s party tomorrow. I suppose poorest Ricky won’t attend, will he? How boring for him to be in hospital. We’re going to see him. After the party so as to tell him all about it. He’s allowed visitors, I hope?”

“Oh yes. His mother’s arriving today.”

“Troy! But how too exciting! Jasper” screamed Julia. “Troy’s coming to see Ricky.” Alleyn heard Jasper exclaiming buoyantly in the background.

“I must go, I’m afraid,” Alleyn said into the receiver. “Thank you for telling me about the postcard.”

“You aren’t at all huffy, I suppose? You sound like Ricky when he’s huffy.”

“A fat lot of good it would do me if I was. Oh, by the way, does Mrs. Ferrant do your laundry?”

“The fine things. Tarty blouses. Frills and pleats. Special undies. She’s a wizard with the iron. Like Mrs. Tiggywinkle. Why?”

“Does she collect and deliver?”

“We usually drop and collect. Why?”

“I must fly. Thank you so much.”

“Wait a bit. Do you suppose Louis dropped the postcard on purpose so that we wouldn’t get it until he’d skedaddled?”

“The idea does occur, doesn’t it? Goodbye.” On the way to the cove he reflected that a great many people in the Pharamonds’ boots would be secretly enchanted to get rid of Louis but only the Pharamonds would loudly say so.

ii

“First stop, Madame Ferrant,” said Alleyn as they drove into Deep Cove. “I want you both to come in with me. I don’t fancy the lady is easily unseated but we’ll give it a go.”

She opened the door to them. Her head was neatly tied up in a black handkerchief. She was implacably aproned and her sleeves were rolled up. Her face, normally sallow, was perhaps more so than usual and this circumstance lent emphasis to her eyes.

“Good morning,” she said.

Alleyn introduced Fox and produced the ostensible reason for the call. He would pack up his son’s effects and, of course, settle his bill. Perhaps she would be kind enough to make it out.

“It is already prepared,” said Mrs. Ferrant and showed them into the parlor. She opened a drawer in a small bureau and produced her account. Alleyn paid and she receipted it.

“Madame will understand,” Alleyn said in French, “that under the circumstances it would regrettably be unsuitable for my son to remain.”

“Parfaitement,” said Mrs. Ferrant.

“Especially since the injuries from which he suffers were inflicted by madame’s husband.”

Not a muscle of her face moved.

“You have, of course,” Alleyn went on, changing to English, “been informed of his arrest. You will probably be required to come before the court on Monday.”

“I have nothing to say.”

“Nevertheless, madame, you will be required to attend.”

She slightly inclined her head.

“In the meantime, if you wish to see your husband you will be permitted to do so.”

“I have no desire to see him.”

“No?”

“No.”

“I should perhaps explain that although he has been arrested on a charge of assault there may well follow a much graver accusation: trading in illicit drugs.”

“As to that, it appears to me to be absurd,” said Mrs. Ferrant.

“Oh, madame, I think not. May I remind you of your son’s errands last night? To and from the premises occupied by Sydney Jones? Where your husband and Jones handled a consignment of heroin and where, with your connivance, they planned their escape?”

“I know nothing of all this. Nothing. My boy is a mere child.”

“In years, no doubt,” said Alleyn politely.

She remained stony.

“Tell me,” Alleyn said, “how long have you known the real object of your husband’s trips to Marseilles and the Côte d’Azur?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Are they for pleasure? Do you accompany him?”

She gave a slight snort.

“A little romance, perhaps?”

She looked disgusted.

“To take a job?”

She was silent.

“Plumbing?” Alleyn hinted, and after another fruitless pause: “Ah, well, at least he sends postcards. To let you know where he is to be found if anything urgent crops up, no doubt.”