Ricky’s progress was satisfactory, and though his face resembled, in Troy’s words, one of Turner’s more intemperate sunsets, no bones were broken and no permanent disfigurement need be expected. His ankles were still very swollen and painful but there was no sign of infection and with the aid of sticks he hoped to be able to hobble out of hospital tomorrow.

In the morning Alleyn and Fox had a session on the balcony outside the Alleyns’ room. They trudged through the body of evidence point by point in familiar pursuit of an overall pattern.

“You know,” Fox said, pushing his spectacles up his forehead when they paused for Alleyn to light his pipe, “the unusual feature of this case, as I see it, is its lack of definition. Take the homicide aspect, now. As a general rule we know who we’re after. There’s no mystery. It’s a matter of finding enough material to justify an arrest. It’s not like that, this time,” Fox said vexedly. “You may have your ideas and so may I, Mr. Alleyn. We may even think there’s only the one possibility that doesn’t present an unanswerable objection, but there’s not what I’d call a hard case to be made out. We’ve got the drug scene on the one hand and this poor girl on the other. Are they connected? Well, are they? Was she knocked off because she threatened to shop them on account of requiring a husband? And if so, which would she shop? Or all? We’ve got three names that might, as you might say, qualify — but only one available for the purpose of marriage.”

“The miserable Syd.”

“Quite so. Then there’s this uncle. There were all these scenes with him. Threats and all the rest of it. Motive, you might think. But he wasn’t drinking at that time and you can’t imagine him risking his own horseflesh. The mare he’s so keen on just as likely to be killed as the girl. And in any case he’d threatened to give her what for if she had a go. And he ordered Jones to remove the mare so’s she couldn’t try. No, I reckon we’ve got to boil it down to those three unless — by cripey, I wonder.”

“What?”

“What was it you quoted yesterday about a female informant in France? I’ve got it,” said Fox and repeated it. He thought it over, became restless, shook his head, and broke out again. “We’ve no nice, firm times for anything,” he lamented. “Mr. and Mrs. Ferrant, S. Jones, Mr. Louis Pharamond all flitting about the premises, in and out and roundabout and Mr. Harkness locking the girl up. The girl getting out and getting herself killed. Mr. Harkness writing these silly pamphlets. I don’t know,” Fox said and readjusted his glasses. “It’s mad.”

“It’s half-past eleven,” said Alleyn. “Have a drink.”

Fox looked surprised. “Really?” he said. “This is unusual, Mr. Alleyn. Well, since you’ve suggested it I’ll take a light ale.”

Alleyn joined with him. They sat on the hotel balcony and looked not toward France but westward across the Golfe to the Atlantic. They saw that battlements of cloud had built up on the horizon.

“What does that mean?” wondered Troy, who had come out to join them. “Is that the weather quarter?”

“There’s no wind to speak of,” Alleyn said.

“Very sultry,” said Fox. “Humid.”

“The cloud’s massing while you look at it,” Troy said. “Swelling up over the edge of the ocean as fast as fast can be.”

“Perhaps it’s getting ready for Mr. Harkness’s service. Flashes of lightning,” said Alleyn, “an enormous beard lolloping over the top of the biggest cloud, and a gigantic hand chucking thunderbolts. Very alarming.”

“They say it’s the season on the island for that class of weather,” Fox observed.

“And in Saint Pierre-des-Roches judging by Rick’s experience.”

“Oppressive,” sighed Fox.

The western sky slowly darkened. By the time they had finished work on the file, cloud overhung the Channel and threatened the island. After luncheon it almost filled the heavens and was so low that the church spire on the hill above Montjoy looked as if it would prick it and bring down a deluge. But still it didn’t rain. Alleyn and Troy walked to the hospital and Fox paid a routine visit to the police station.

By teatime the afternoon had so darkened that it might have been evening.

At five o’clock Julia rang up, asking Troy if they would like to be collected for what she persisted in calling “Cuth’s party.” Troy explained that she would not be attending it and that Alleyn and Fox had a car. Jasper shouted greetings down the telephone. They both seemed to be in the best of spirits. Even Carlotta joined in the fun.

Troy said to Alleyn: “You’d say they rejoiced over the bolting of egregious Louis.”

“They’ve good cause to.”

“Is he in deep trouble, RoryT

“Might well be. We don’t really know and it’s even money that we’ll never find out.”

The telephone rang again and Alleyn answered it. He held the receiver away from his ear and Troy could hear the most remarkable noises coming through, as of a voice being violently tuned in and out on a loudspeaker. Every now and then words would belch out in a roar: “Retribution” was one and “Judgment” another. Alleyn listened with his face screwed up.

“I’m coming,” he said when he got the chance. “We are all coming. It has been arranged.”

“Jones!” the voice boomed, “Jones!”

“That may be a bit difficult, but I think so.”

Expostulations rent the air.

“This is too much,” Alleyn said to Troy. He laid the receiver down and let it perform. When an opportunity presented itself he snatched it up and said: “Mr. Harkness, I am coming to your service. In the meantime, goodbye,” and hung up.

“Was that really Mr. Harkness?” asked Troy, “or was it an elemental on the rampage?”

“The former. Wait a jiffy.”

He called the office and said there seemed to be a lunatic on the line and would they be kind enough to cut him off if he rang again.

“How can he possibly hold a service?” Troy asked.

“He’s hell-bent on it. Whether he’s in a purely alcoholic frenzy or whether he really has taken leave of his senses or whether in fact he has something of moment to reveal is impossible to say.”

“But what’s he want?”

“He wants a full house. He wants Ferrant and Jones, particularly.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s going to tell us who killed his niece.”

“For crying out loud!” said Troy.

“That,” said Alleyn, “is exactly what he intends to do?”

The service was to be at six o’clock. Alleyn and Fox left Montjoy at a quarter to the hour under a pall of cloud and absolute stillness. Local sounds had become isolated and clearly defined: voices, a car engine starting up, desultory footfalls. And still it did not rain.

After a minute or two on the road a police van overtook them and sailed ahead.

“Plank,” said Alleyn, “with his boys in blue and their charges. Only they’re not in blue.”

“I suppose it’s OK,” Fox said rather apprehensively.

“It’d better be,” said Alleyn.

As they passed L’Espérance, the Pharamond’s largest car could be seen coming down the drive. And on the avenue to Leathers they passed little groups of pedestrians and fell in behind a procession of three cars.

“Looks like capacity all right,” said Fox.

Two more cars were parked in front of the house and the police van was in the stable yard. Out in the horse paddock the sorrel mare flung up her head and stared at them. The loose-boxes were empty.

“Is he looking after all this himself?” Fox wondered. “You’d hardly fancy he was up to it, would you?”

Mr. Blacker, the vet, got out of one of the cars and came to meet them.

“This is a rum go and no mistake,” he said. “I got a most peculiar letter from Cuth. Insisting I come. Not my sort of Sunday afternoon at all. Apparently he’s been canvassing the district. Are you chaps mixed up in it, or what?”

Alleyn was spared the necessity of answering by the arrival of the Pharamonds.