cried
`This is entirely my fault! It has been dark for well over an hour. It was criminal of me to forget the way her personality changes at nightfall, and that she might take it into her head to go off somewhere. I should never have left her on her own. I could so easily have arranged for her to have changed in my room with me.'
`I'm just as much to blame, Mumsie,' John said miserably. `I promised her this afternoon that I'd take care of her; and now I've let her down the very first time that I ought to have been on the look out for Jules.'
`If anyone is to blame, it is the old professional,' C. B. put in quietly:
`Nonsense!' Molly protested. 'You had only just come on the scene.'
`For God's sake don't let's stand here arguing.' John's voice was sharp with anxiety. `We must get after her. Come on ! Hurry! '
`Half a mo', young feller. So far there is nothing to point to the de Grasses having snatched her, and it doesn't always pay to jump to conclusions. Your mother may be right. Knowing we are on the side of the angels she may have taken a sudden dislike to us after sundown, and gone back to her own villa. Just step over and see, will you?'
`Right oh!' John ran down the stairs and the others followed more slowly.
When they reached the hall, C. B. said:
`Got a telephone directory, Molly? There is a number I want to look up. John may find her at the villa, but I doubt it. My own bet is that the de Grasses have got her. Young Count Jules told John this morning that they had undertaken to get her to England before the 6th and to day is the 3rd; so they haven't much of a time margin.'
Molly found him the directory and he began to flick through it, but went on talking: `That is why I felt pretty certain they would try something to night, and suggested keeping watch. It was stupid of me, though, not to anticipate that they might get to work immediately darkness made the girl vulnerable to suggestion.'
`No, Bill; you are being unfair to yourself. No one would
expect kidnappers to stage a raid while all of us were moving about the house. They would wait till we were asleep.'
`You are wrong there, Molly my love. The changing hour is a very favourite one with cat burglars. They shin up a drainpipe, cling on there, and take an occasional peep through the window of the room which they intend to burgle. Then, when its occupant goes along to the bathroom, or has finished dressing and goes downstairs, they nip in and do their stuff. If they have to make a certain amount of noise, it doesn't matter, because if the servants hear it they think it is being made by their employers, or one of the guests who is still upstairs changing.'
`Do you think, then, that they got Christina out by way of the window?'
`No. The dressing table had not been pushed back out of place, and the blind was still down. It isn't easy to pull a blind down from outside; and, anyway, why should they bother?'
`Perhaps they got her out by the window in the passage. Surely we should have heard them if they had carried her downstairs?'
`Not necessarily, provided they were fairly careful about it. As I've said, with a servant getting dinner, and people bathing and banging cupboards all over the place, no one takes any notice of noises at that hour. Besides, it is possible that she went because she wanted to, and walked quietly out on her own.'
C. B. broke off for a second. 'Ah, here we are Malouet, Alphonse. Do you remember him?'
`By name, yes. Wasn't he the Inspector of Police who put up such a good show in Nice during the Resistance?'
`That's him. The old boy retired a couple of years ago. Apparently he is now living out at Cimiez. The address looks like that of a flat in one of the big hotels there that they have converted into apartments since the war. Although he is no longer on the active list, he will be able to pull more guns for me than some bird I don't know, if we have to call in the police.'
Flicking over the leaves again, he added, `In case we can't get hold of him to night, I had better look up the number of the Prefecture at Nice. That is the top police H.Q. in this part of the world, and in a case like this it is a waste of time going to the small fry.' He had just found the second number when John came rushing in. Still breathless from having run up the steep garden path, he panted
`I was right! The de Grasses have got her. Jules carried her off from her own villa about an hour ago. Come on! I'll get out the car!'
`Steady on!' C. B. admonished him. `Let's have such details as you can give us first.'
Between gasps to get his breath back, John reported, `Old Maria says Christina came in at about a quarter to eight. She ran upstairs and came down again two minutes later. She was carrying a small suitcase and immediately went out with it. But she returned almost at once. Maria didn't see her come back, but she saw the lights go on in the sitting room. From her kitchen she can see the glow they throw from ... from the side window of the sitting room on to the trees in the garden; so ... so she looked in to see who was there. It was Christina and a chap who answers the description of Jules. They were arguing about something. She must have given him a drink and had one with him. Their glasses are still on the table. Maria didn't hear them leave. But she doesn't think they could have remained there much more than ten minutes. She happened to glance at her clock just before the sitting room lights were switched off again, and it had not yet gone eight.'
`Good! Now we at least have a line of enquiry we can pursue.' C. B. picked up the telephone.
`What are you going to do?' John asked impatiently. `Ring up the police or rather an old friend of mine who is an ex police officer of exceptional ability.'
`Then for God's sake hurry ! They must be nearly at
St. Tropez by now. If we don't start at once we may not
arrive in time to prevent him from putting off to sea with
her in that damn' yacht.'
C. B. gave the number of Inspector Malouet's apartment, then covered the receiver with his hand. listen, partner. I'm not going to let you run your head into a hornet's nest, or land up in a cell at a French police station either, if I can prevent it. We are by no means certain yet that Jules is taking her to the yacht, and ...'
`Where the hell else would he take her?'
`Maybe to some hide out anywhere between Nice and Toulon. There must be plenty of places along the coast where he has pals who would keep her locked up for the night. Remember, he has got to get her back to England by the 6th, and he couldn't possibly do that by sea. Getting her on to the yacht could be only a temporary measure anyhow. He probably means to drug her, then have her flown home.'
`Still, the fact that he tried to get her on the yacht last night is the only line we have to go on.'
`Agreed; and we'll draw that covert as soon as I've made this call.'
`Can't you telephone your police friend later if we fail to find her on the yacht?'
No, we must get this chap moving as soon as we possibly can. You don't seem to realise what we are up against. That yacht is private property, just as much as if it were a house. You can't go busting your way aboard like a bandit. If you did, de Grasse's boys would be fully entitled to slog you on the head, then hand you over to the police. You have to be able to show justification for any act of that sort.'
`C. B., you make me tired! What better justification could we have than knowing that poor kid has been carried off by thugs?'
Molly had never known her son display such rudeness to an older man. It crossed her mind that, blare about girls as he liked to think himself, Christina, by striking an entirely new note, might have bowled him over. That could explain both the extreme agitation he was showing and his lapse of manners. Nevertheless, she spoke with unusual sharpness
`That will do, John. Colonel Verney has not wasted an unnecessary moment; and he is the best judge of what should be done.'
`Sorry!' he muttered. `But I'm damned if I'll let Jules get away with this. I'm damned if I will.'
At that moment the telephone began to make shrill whistling sounds. C. B. jangled the receiver, said, 'Allo! 'Alto!' and repeated the number, but nothing happened the other end; so he turned his smiling grey eyes on John.
`What I meant was some legal, or at least moral, justification. Strictly speaking, we are not entitled to take any action ourselves, and should turn the whole job over to the police. If there had been signs of a struggle in her bedroom, or old Maria had seen her hauled from her villa by a couple of woolly headed Negroes, we'd have some excuse for taking a hand ourselves; but as it is ...'
