To The Devil A Daughter

To The Devil A Daughter

by Dennis Wheatley

By Dennis Wheatley

Novels

The Launching of Roger Brook

The Shadow of Tyburn Tree

The Rising Storm

The Man Who Killed the King

The Dark Secret of Josephine

The Rape of Venice

The Sultans Daughter

The Wanton Princess

Evil in a Mask

The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware

The Irish Witch

Desperate Measures

The Scarlet Impostor

Faked Passports

The Black Baroness

V for Vengeance

Come into My Parlour

Traitors Gate

They Used Dark Forces

The Prisoner in the Mask

The Second Seal

Vendetta in Spain

Three Inquisitive People

The Forbidden Territory

The Devil Rides Out

The Golden Spaniard

Strange Conflict

Codeword Golden Fleece

Dangerous Inheritance

Gateway to Hell

The Quest of Julian Day

The Sword of Fate

Bill for the Use of a Body

Black August

Contraband

The Island Where Time Stands Still

The White Witch of the South Seas

To the Devil A Daughter

The Satanist

The Eunuch of Stamboul

The Secret War

The Fabulous Valley

Sixty Days to Live

Such Power is Dangerous

Uncharted Seas

The Man Who Missed the War

The Haunting of Toby Jugg

Star of Ill Omen

They Found Atlantis

The Ka of Gifford Hillary

Curtain of Fear

Mayhem in Greece

Unholy Crusade

1

Strange Conduct of a Girl Unknown

Molly Fountain was now convinced that a more intriguing mystery than the one she was writing surrounded the solitary occupant of the house next door. For the third morning she could not settle to her work. The sentences refused to come, because every few minutes her eyes wandered from the paper, and her mind abandoned its search for the appropriate word, as her glance strayed through the open window down to the little terrace at the bottom of the garden that adjoined her own.

Both gardens sloped steeply towards the road. Beyond it, and a two hundred feet fall of jagged cliff, the Mediterranean stretched blue, calm and sparkling in the sunshine, to meet on the horizon a cloudless sky that was only a slightly paler shade of blue. The road was known as the `Golden Corniche' owing to the outcrop of red porphyry rocks that gave the coast on this part of the Riviera such brilliant colour. To the right it ran down to St. Raphael; to the left a drive of twenty odd miles would bring one to Cannes. Behind it lay the mountains of the Esterel, sheltering it snugly from the cold winds, while behind them again to the north and east rose the great chain of snow tipped Alps, protecting the whole coast and making it a winter paradise.

Although it was only the last week in February, the sun was as hot as on a good day in June in England. That was nothing out of the ordinary for the time of year, but Mrs. Fountain had long since schooled herself to resist the temptation to spend her mornings basking in it. Her writing of good, if not actually best seller, thrillers meant the difference between living in very reasonable comfort and a near precarious existence on the pension of the widow of a Lieutenant Colonel. As a professional of some years' standing she knew that work must be done at set hours and in suitable surroundings. Kind friends at home had often suggested that in the summer she should come to stay and could write on the beach or in their gardens; but that would have meant frequent interruptions, distractions by buzzing insects, and gusts of wind blowing away her papers. It was for that reason she always wrote indoors, although in the upstairs front room of her little villa, so that she could enjoy the lovely view. All the same, to day she was conscious of a twinge of envy as she looked down on the girl who was lazing away the morning on the terrace in the next garden.

With an effort she pulled her mind back to her work. Johnny, her only son, was arriving to stay at the end of the week, and during his visits she put everything aside to be with him. She really must get up to the end of chapter eight before she abandoned her book for a fortnight. It was the trickiest part of the story, and if she had not got over that it would nag at her all through his stay. And she saw so little of him.

Despite herself her thoughts now drifted towards her son. He was not a bit like his father, except in his open, sunny nature that so readily charmed everyone he met. Archie had been typical of the Army officer coming from good landed gentry stock. After herself, hunting, shooting and fishing had been his passions, and on any polo ground he had been a joy to watch. Johnny cared for none of those things. He took after her family, in nearly all of whom a streak of art had manifested itself. In Johnny's case it had come out as a flair for line and colour, and at twenty three his gifts had already opened fine prospects for him with a good firm of interior decorators. But that meant his living in London. He could only come out to her once a year, and she could not afford to take long holidays in England.

She had often contemplated selling the villa and making a home for him in London; but somehow she could not bring herself to do that. When she and Archie married in 1927 they had spent their honeymoon at St. Raphael, and fallen nearly as much in love with that gold and blue coast of the Esterel as they were with each other. That was why, when his father had died in the following year, they had decided to buy a villa there. As a second son his inheritance amounted to only a few thousands, but they had sunk nearly all of it in this little property and never regretted it. During the greater part of each year they had had to let it, but that brought them in quite a useful income, and for all their long leaves, while Johnny was a baby and later a growing boy, they had been able to occupy it themselves; so every corner of the house and every flowering shrub in the garden was intimately bound up with happy memories of her young married life.

The coming of the war had substituted long months of anxious separation for that joyful existence, and in 1942 all hope of its resumption had been finally shattered by an 8 mm. shell fired from one of Rommel's tanks in the Western Desert. Johnny had then been at school in Scotland, and his mother, her heart numb with misery, had striven to drown her grief by giving her every waking thought to the job she had been doing since 1940 in one of the Intelligence Departments of the War Office.

The end of the war had left her in a mental vacuum. Three years had elapsed since Archie's death, so she had come to accept it and was no longer subject to bouts of harrowing despair. But her job was finished and Johnny had just gone up to Cambridge; so she was now adrift without any absorbing interest to occupy the endless empty days that stretched ahead. Nearly six years of indifferent meals, taken at odd hours while working, often till midnight, on

Top Secret projects that demanded secretarial duties of the most conscientious type, had left her both physically and mentally exhausted; so when it was learned that the villa had not been damaged or looted of its furniture, her friends had insisted that she should go south to recuperate.

She went reluctantly, dreading that seeing it again would renew the intolerable ache she had felt during the first months after her loss. To her surprise the contrary had proved the case. If Archie's ghost still lingered there, it smiled a welcome in the gently moving sunlight that dappled the garden paths, and in the murmur of the sea creaming on the rocks there seemed to be a faint echo of laughter. It was the only permanent home they had ever had, and in these peaceful surroundings they had shared she found a new contentment.

For a few months her time had been amply filled in putting the house to rights, getting the neglected garden back into order and renewing her acquaintance with neighbours who had survived the war; but with her restoration to health her mind began to crave some intellectual occupation. Before the war she had occasionally written short stories for amusement and had had a few of them accepted; so it was natural that she should turn to fiction as an outlet. Besides, she had already realised that Archie's pension would be insufficient to support her at the villa permanently, and by then she had again become so enamoured of the place that she could not bear the thought of having to part with it. So, under the double spur, she set to work in earnest.

Very soon she found that her war time experiences had immensely improved her abilities as a writer. Thousands of hours spent typing staff papers had imbued her with a sense of how best to present a series of factors logically, clearly and with the utmost brevity. Moreover, in her job she had learned how the secret services really operated; so, without giving away any official secrets, she could give her stories an atmosphere of plausibility which no amount of imagination could quite achieve. These assets, grafted on to a good general education and a lively romantic mind,

had enabled her agent to place her first novel without difficulty. She had since followed it up with two a year and had now made quite a name for herself as a competent and reliable author.

Molly Fountain's books were set in a great variety of countries, but they were always mystery thrillers with a background of secret service. No one knew better than she that truth really was stranger than fiction; yet she never deliberately based a plot upon actual happenings to which she had been privy during the war. On the other hand, while taking considerable care to avoid any risk of an action for libel, she had no scruples about using as characters in her stories the exotic types frequently to be met with on that cosmopolitan coast, or incorporating such lurid doings as the tittle tattle of her bridge club in Cannes brought her, if these episodes could be profitably fitted in to add zest to the tale. That, subconsciously at least, was one of the reasons for her interest in the girl next door. Everything about this new neighbour suggested that she was the centre of a mystery.

Four days earlier Molly had just sat down to tea on her own little terrace when a taxi drew up in the road below and the girl had stepped out of it. She came from the direction of Cannes. In the taxi with her was a middle aged man and some hand luggage. From the time and circumstances of her arrival it could be inferred that she had not come south on the Blue Train, but had landed from a 'plane at Nice airport. The man who accompanied her was strongly built, stocky and aggressive looking, yet with something vaguely furtive about him. His clothes had struck a slightly incongruous note as he stood for a moment in the sunshine, looking up at the villa. It was not that there was anything really odd about them, and they were of quite good quality; but they were much more suited to a city office than either holidaying on the Riviera or travelling to it. He had helped the driver carry the suitcases up to the house, but remained there only about ten minutes, then returned to the waiting taxi and was driven off in it. That was the first and only time that Molly had seen him, and it now seemed evident that, having gone, he had gone for good.

There was nothing peculiarly strange in that. He might have been a house agent who had arranged to meet the girl and take her out to the villa that she had rented on a postal description through his firm; but in spite of his office clothes he had looked much too forceful a personality to be employed on such comparatively unimportant tasks. It seemed more probable that he was a relative or friend giving valuable time to performing a similar service. Anyhow, whoever he was, he had not bothered to come near the place again.

The strange thing was that no one else had either; nor, as far as Molly knew, had the girl ever gone out at least in the daytime and there was certainly something out of the ordinary about a young woman who was content to remain without any form of companionship for three whole days.

Stranger still, she made not the least effort to amuse herself. She never brought out any needlework or a sketching block, and was never seen to write a letter. Even when she carried a book as far as the terrace she rarely read it for more than a few minutes. Every morning, and a good part of each afternoon, she simply sat there gazing blankly out to sea. The theory that she was the victim of a profound sorrow suggested itself, yet she wore no sign of mourning and her healthy young face showed no trace of grief.

Molly had never encouraged her servants to bring her the local gossip, but in this case so intrigued had she become that she had made an exception. Like most women with a profession, she was too occupied to be either fussy or demanding about her household, provided she was reasonably well served; so she still had with her a couple named Botin whom she had engaged on her return to France in 1946. They had their faults, but would allow no one to cheat her except themselves, and that only in moderation. They were middle aged, of cheerful disposition and had become much attached to her. Louis looked after the garden and did the heavy work, while Angele did the marketing, the cooking and all those other innumerable tasks which a French bonne a tout faire so willingly undertakes. On the previous day Molly had, with apparent casualness, pumped them both.

Louis produced only two crumbs of information, gleaned from his colleague, old Andre, who for many years had tended the adjoining garden. The mademoiselle was English and the villa had been taken for only a month. Angele had proved an even poorer source, as she reported that the borne who was looking after the young lady next door was a stranger to the district; she had been engaged through an agency in Marseilles and was a Catalan, a woman of sour disposition who had rejected all overtures of friendship and was uncommunicative to the point of rudeness.

Negative as Angele's contribution appeared to be, it had given Molly further food for speculation. Why should an English visitor engage a semi foreigner from a city a hundred miles away to do for her, when there were plenty of good bonnes to be had on the spot? It would have saved a railway fare, and quite a sum on the weekly household books, to secure one who was well in with the local shopkeepers and knew the best stalls in the St. Raphael market at which to buy good food economically. The ,answer that sprang to mind was that a stranger was much less likely to gossip, and therefore something was going on next door that the tenant desired to hide.

Then, last night the mystery had deepened still further. Molly was a light sleeper. A little after one o'clock she had been roused by the sound of a loose stone rattling down the steep slope of a garden path. Getting out of bed she went to the window. The moon was up, its silvery light gleaming in big patches on the cactus between the pine trees, and there was the girl just going down the short flight of steps that led from her little terrace to the road.

Fully awake now, Molly turned on her bedside light and settled down to read a new William Mole thriller that she had just had sent out from England; but while reading, her curiosity about her neighbour now still further titillated, she kept an ear cocked for sounds of the girl's return. As a writer she could not help being envious of the way in which Mr. Mole used his fine command of English to create striking imagery, and her sense of humour was greatly tickled by his skilful interpolation of the comic between his more exciting scenes; so the next hour and a half sped by very quickly. Then in the still night she heard the click of the next door garden gate, and, getting up again, saw the girl re enter the house.

Why, Molly wondered, when she never went out in the daytime, should she go out at night? It could hardly be that she was in hiding, because she spent the greater part of each day on the terrace, where she could easily be seen from the road by anyone passing in a car. The obvious answer seemed to be that she had gone out to meet someone in secret; but she had been neither fetched in a car nor returned in one, and she had not been absent quite long enough to have walked to St. Raphael and back. Of course, she could have been picked up by a car that had been waiting for her round the next bend of the road, or perhaps she had had an assignation at one of the neighboring villas. In any case, this midnight sortie added still further to the fascinating conundrum of what lay behind this solitary young woman having taken a villa on the Corniche d'Or.

For the twentieth time that morning Molly's grey green eyes wandered from her typewriter to the open window. Just beneath it a mimosa tree was in full bloom and its heavenly scent came in great wafts to her. Beyond it and a little to the left a group of cypresses rose like dark candle flames, their points just touching the blue horizon. Further away to the right two umbrella pines stood out in stark beauty against the azure sky. Below them on her small, square, balustraded terrace the girl still sat motionless, her hands folded in her lap, gazing out to sea. About the pose of the slim dark haired figure there was something infinitely lonely and pathetic.

Molly Fountain knew that she had no right whatever to poke her nose into someone else's business, but she could bear it no longer. Her new neighbour, although unconscious of it, was playing the very devil with her work, and, worse, she would know no peace of mind until she had at least made an effort to find out if the girl were in trouble. That it was not the sort of trouble which sometimes causes young women to seek seclusion for a while in order to protect their reputations was evident, as the villa had been leased for only a month and the girl showed not the slightest sign of pregnancy. Yet there must be some cause for her abnormal conduct and obvious melancholy. Molly was far from being a motherly soul, but she had her fair share of maternal instinct and, quite apart from her desire to satisfy her curiosity, she now felt an urge that would not be denied to offer her help if it was needed, or at least endeavour to animate this woebegone young creature with something of her own cheerful vitality.

There was only one thing for it. On the Riviera it was not customary to call upon temporary neighbours, but the fact that they were both English would be excuse enough for that. With Molly, to make up her mind was to act. Pushing back her chair from the typing table, she stood up. For once a real life mystery had been thrust beneath her nose. There and then she decided to go out and attempt to solve it.

2

Colonel Crackenthorp's Technique

Going through into her bedroom, Molly Fountain pulled her linen working smock up over her head. Anyone seeing her at that moment would never have guessed that she was forty five. Her up stretched arms emphasized the lines of her good figure; her hips had broadened comparatively little since she had reached maturity and her legs were straight and shapely. Only as she jerked off the smock and threw it on a chair did the fact that her youth was past become apparent, from a slight thickening of the muscles in her neck and her grey hair.

From her wardrobe she selected a white, hand embroidered blouse and a grey coat and skirt. The cut of these, together with her medium weight nylons and practical, lowish heeled shoes, did nothing to detract from her real age, since the one thought Molly could not bear was that anyone should have cause to regard her as `mutton dressed as lamb'. For that reason, too, except when going out at night to a party, she used very little make up. Yet, even so, the face that looked back at her from the mirror as she quickly tidied her hair would have been judged by most people to be that of a woman still under forty. There were laughter lines round the mouth and the beginnings of crow's feet round the eyes, but not a hint of sagging in the still firm flesh, and it was moulded on that fine bone formation that preserves the basis of youthful good looks right into old age.

Reaching up on tip toe she pulled a battered hat box from off the top of the wardrobe and took from it a three year old straw hat bedecked with cornflowers. Molly hated hats and never wore one if she could possibly avoid it, but she felt that on this occasion a hat should be worn in support of her pretence that she was making a formal call. Securing it on her head at what she believed to be a chic angle, she collected a pair of gloves and her bag, then set off on her self appointed mission.

It was a little before mid day and the sun was strong enough now to tan anyone who was not used to it. As she made her way down the garden path that zig zagged among spiky cactus and strange shaped succulents she saw a little green lizard run up the trunk of a tall palm tree, and on reaching the terrace at the bottom she made a mental note that enough roses were in bloom in the bed behind it to furnish her with another bowl. Out in the road she walked along under the tall retaining wall of rough hewn rock that supported both her garden and those of several medium sized villas situated on the same slope. At intervals along it hung festoons of large flowered yellow jasmine and purple bougainvillea. The scent of flowers, mingled with that of the primeval pine wood among which the villas had been built, was delicious. For the ten thousandth time the thought crossed her mind that never could she bring herself to leave it and face another English winter.

By then she had reached the gate to the next garden. Opening it, she went up the steep stone steps set in a narrow cleft in the stonework. As her head emerged above ground level she turned it towards the terrace. The girl had heard her approach and was looking in her direction. Slowly she stood up, but she did not move forward and gave no sign of welcome. Her face had a guarded look and Molly thought she detected just a trace of fear in her dark eyes.

Stepping up on to the terrace, Molly said, `I'm Molly Fountain, your nearest neighbour. As we're both English I thought ...'

The girl's eyes widened and her broad face suddenly became animated as she exclaimed, `Not the Molly Fountain?'

Molly smiled. Her name was by no means universally

known, but during the past two years it had become sufficiently so for a high proportion of English people to whom, for one reason or another, she had to give it to ask if she was the author; yet the question still never failed to arouse in her a slightly bashful pleasure, and she replied with becoming modesty

`I don't know of any other, and if you are thinking of the writer of secret service yarns, that would be me.'

`Of course!' said the girl. `I've read several of them, and they're awfully thrilling.'

`That makes things easier, doesn't it?' Molly quickly took advantage of the bridge unexpectedly offered by her literary activities. `Having read some of my stories will, I hope, make you look on me as a little less like a total stranger. You must forgive me making my first call on you in the morning, but social customs are more elastic here than at home, and I thought you might prefer it to cards left formally on you in the afternoon.'

It was the first time Molly had seen the girl face to face, and while she was speaking she was taking quiet stock of her. Tall above the average, so slim as to be almost gawky, and a slight awkwardness in the control of her long limbs gave her somewhat the appearance of an overgrown schoolgirl. Seen from the distance Molly had put her down as about twenty three, but now she revised her estimate and decided that nineteen would be nearer the mark. Her forehead was broad and surmounted by thick, wavy, dark brown hair parted in the middle; her mouth was wide, full and generous. A snub nose robbed her of all pretence to classical beauty, and her complexion was a trifle sallow; but she possessed two excellent features. When her teeth flashed in a smile they were dazzlingly white: more striking still, her brown eyes were huge and extraordinarily luminous.

Molly's reference to formal calls caused her to remember the duties of hospitality, and with only a fraction of hesitation she said, `Won't you ... come up to the house?'

`Thank you; I should love to,' Molly replied promptly. Then, as they turned towards it, she added, `But, you know, you haven't told me your name yet.'

`Oh!' Again there was a slight hesitation before the answer. `It's Christina Mordant.'

The path between the prickly pears and oleanders snaked from side to side round a succession of hairpin bends, yet despite that it was still steep enough to require all their breath as they mounted it; so they spoke no more until they reached a small lawn on the level of the villa.

Molly had never been up there before and the lemon washed house was partly concealed both from her windows and the road by umbrella pines and palm trees. She saw now that it was somewhat smaller than her own and probably contained only six or seven rooms including the servants' quarters. As they crossed the lawn she asked

`Is this your first visit to the Riviera?'

`Yes,' Christina nodded, leading her guest through a pair of French windows into the sitting room. `But I've lived in France for a while. I was at a finishing school in Paris until just before Christmas.'

`I first came to this part of the world in 1927, and have made my home here for the past five years; so you must let me show you something of this lovely coast,' Molly volunteered.

Christina's hesitation was much more marked this time. Her under lip trembled slightly, then she stammered, `Thank you ... awfully; but ... but I don't care much for going out.'

A moment's awkward pause ensued, then she pulled herself together and added in a rather breathless attempt to atone for what might be taken as rudeness, `Do please sit down. Let me get you a drink. I'm afraid we don't run to cocktails, but Maria could make some coffee, or we have delicious orange juice.'

Molly did not really want a drink, but realised that acceptance would give her an excuse to prolong her call, and the longer they talked the better her chance of winning the girl's confidence; so she said, `I'd love some orange juice if it's not too much trouble.'

`Oh, none at all,' Christina cried, hurrying to the window. `There are masses of oranges in the garden. I'll pick some. It won't take me a moment. We've lemons, grapefruit and tangerines, too. Would you like it straight, or prefer a mixture?'

`I always think orange and grape fruit half and half is the nicest out here, where there's no shortage of sugar,' Molly replied; and as the girl left the room she began to take detailed stock of it.

The villa belonged to a cafe proprietor in Cannes who had never occupied it himself, but bought it as an investment and made a good thing out of it by letting it furnished for short periods to a succession of holiday makers. In consequence it contained only the barest necessities, and its furniture was of that positively hideous variety favoured by the French bourgeoisie. In vain Molly's glance roved over the monstrosities in cheap wood and chromium for some indication of Christina's personality, until her eye lit on a manicure set which lay open on a rickety spindle legged table half concealed by the chair in which she was sitting. Picking it up she saw that it was comparatively new, bore the mark of a Paris manufacturer, and that its morocco leather cover was stamped with the initials E. B.

When Christina returned she came in by the door from the hallway carrying a tray with a jug of fruit juice, two glasses and sugar. As she poured out, she asked, `Do you live here all the year, Mrs. Fountain?'

Most of it. I usually spend June in London and have a fortnight in Paris in the autumn; but the cost of living has become so high both in France and England that I can't afford to live for more than about six weeks in hotels.'

Christina raised her dark eyebrows. Really! I should have thought you were terribly rich. Your books must bring you in thousands.'

`That's a popular illusion that the public have about all authors,' Molly smiled. `Except for a handful of best sellers, writing is one of the worst paid jobs in the world; and even in France, these days, a big part of one's earnings is taken away by taxation.'

For ten minutes or so she went on talking about books and authors, as Christina was obviously interested, and it seemed a good line for tuning in on the girl's mind without arousing her suspicions. Then, having learnt that she had a liking for historical novels, Molly said

`In that case it surprises me all the more that you don't make some excursions. This coast is full of history right back to Phoenician times. Frejus was a Roman town. The streets of the old quarter in Nice are absolutely fascinating, and both Marshal Massena and Garibaldi were born there. Napoleon landed from Elba at Cap d'Antibes and at Haute Cagnes there is a fine old castle that belonged to the Counts Grimaldi. When I was your age I would have given anything for the chance to visit all these places.'

Christina gave her an uncomfortable look, then averted her eyes and muttered, `I'm quite happy lazing in the garden.'

`How long are you here for?'

`About another three weeks. The villa is taken for a month.'

`Are you quite on your own?'

`Yes.'

`Surely you find it very lonely? Have you no friends you could go to visit, or who could come to see you?'

`No. I don't know anyone at all down here. But ... but I like being on my own.'

`In that you are lucky,' Molly commented quietly. `It is a great blessing to be content with one's own company and not be driven constantly to seek some new distraction from one's own thoughts. But all the same I should have thought you would have sometimes liked a change of scene. Don't you ever go out at all?'

Christina shook her head.

`An exciting book kept me reading very late last night, and when I got out of bed to get one of my sleeping pills I thought I saw you coming in through the garden.'

For a moment the girl's face remained closed and secretive, then she replied, `Yes. I had been for a walk. I sleep most of the afternoon and go out for a walk every night. I don't know why, but I've always felt listless after midday; then, as darkness falls, I seem to wake up and want to do things.'

`Some people are like that. The astrologers say that we are influenced all our lives by the hour of our birth, and that people born in the evening are always at their best at night.'

`Really! That seems to fit my case. I was born at nine forty five in the evening.' After a second Christina volunteered the additional information, `My birthday is March the sixth and I'll be twenty one next month.'

`You will be here for it, then. It seems an awful shame that you should be deprived of the chance to celebrate. But perhaps you have relatives or friends who will be joining you before that?'

`No; I expect still to be quite alone.'

There fell a pause while Molly considered this new evidence of the girl's complete isolation. A twenty first birthday is such a landmark in any young person's life that it seemed quite extraordinary that she had not a single person in the world who wished to make it a happy day for her. Then, after a moment, Molly realised that she had got nowhere; she had not succeeded in getting the faintest clue to this mystery.

Swiftly she began to consider what line. the favourite hero of her own creation, Colonel Crackenthorp’s, would take on having reached such an impasse. She knew this fiction character of hers as well as she knew herself; so the answer came automatically. The debonair and resourceful `Crack' would employ shock tactics. Shock tactics it should be then. Looking the girl straight in the eye, she said suddenly

`Christina Mordant is not your real name, is it?'

Caught off her guard, the girl winced as if she had been struck, and gasped, `How . . . how did you know?'

Then she recovered herself. Her face had gone white, but she slowly rose to her feet. As she did so her big brown eyes narrowed and filled with an angry light. Her whole body was trembling as she burst out

`What has it to do with you? I didn't ask you to come here! What right have you to pry into my affairs? How dare you spy on me and come here to catechise me? Get out! D'you hear me? Get out at once!'

This was not at all the sort of response that the shock tactics of the gallant `Crack' would have met with in one of Molly's books. The girl would have broken down, wept upon his broad shoulder and confessed all. But then `Crack' was a handsome fellow who had the devil of a way with women, whereas his creator was only a middle aged lady novelist. No doubt, thought Molly that explained why his technique had failed so lamentably in this real life try out. Anyhow, it was clear that she had botched the whole business beyond repair; so she stood up and said

`I do apologise. My inquisitiveness was quite unjustified and I'm afraid I was very rude. I'm not either usually, and in the ordinary way I'd never dream of forcing myself on anyone. My work keeps me far too busy to waste time calling on strangers. But I couldn't help being worried by seeing you sitting on your terrace hour after hour doing absolutely nothing. And you looked so terribly unhappy that I felt sure you must be in some sort of trouble. Had other people come to see you I would never have come here; but you're very young and seemed to have no one to turn to. I'm old enough to be your mother, and I was hoping that you might care to confide in me, because I would willingly have helped you if I could. As it is I can only ask you to forgive my unwarranted intrusion.'

Mustering the remnants of her shattered dignity, Molly squared her shoulders then, with a brief inclination of her head, walked past the tall, now stone faced, girl, through the French windows and out on to the lawn. She was only half way across it when she was halted by a despairing cry behind her.

`Oh, Mrs. Fountain ! Come back! Come back! I didn't mean what I said. You're nice! You're kind: I'm sure I can trust you. I can't tell you why I'm here because I don't know myself. But I'm worried out of my wits. Oh, please let me talk to you.'

Molly turned, and next moment the slim girlish figure was weeping in her arms. Without elation, but in faint surprise, she was conscious of the thought that good old `Crack's' technique had worked after all.

3

The Mysterious Recluse

A good ten minutes elapsed before Christina as she called herself became fully coherent. During that time the only concrete fact that Molly had got out of her was that the purposeful looking middle aged man who had arrived in the taxi with her four days before was her father.

They were now back in the house and sitting together on the cheap, velvet covered settee. Molly had one arm round the girl's shoulders and was gently wiping the tears from her cheeks with a totally inadequate handkerchief. When her sobbing at last began to ease, Molly said

`My dear, do you really mean to tell me that your father brought you here and left you without giving any reason at all for doing so?'

`The... the only reason he gave was that I ... I have enemies who are hunting for me.'

`What sort of enemies?'

The girl gave a loud sniff, then fished out her own handkerchief and blew her snub nose. When she had done, she said in a firmer voice, `I don't know. I haven't an idea. That's just what makes the whole thing so puzzling.'

Molly poured some more of the fruit juice into a glass and handed it to her. She drank a little, said `Thanks,' and went on, `He simply said that I was threatened by a very great danger, but that I had nothing at all to worry about providing I obeyed his instructions implicitly. When I pressed him to tell me what the danger was, he said it was far better that I should know nothing about it, because if I knew I might start imagining things and do something silly. All I had to do was to lie low here for a few weeks and I should be quite safe.'

`You poor child! I don't wonder now that you've been unable to give your thoughts to any form of amusement, with a thing like this on your mind. But have you no idea at all what this threat might be, or who these enemies are from whom your father is hiding you?'

`No. I've cudgeled my wits for hours about it, but I haven't a clue. I've never done any grave harm to anyone. Honestly I haven't. And I can't think why anyone should want to harm me.'

After considering the matter for a moment, Molly asked, `Are you by chance a very rich girl?'

Oh no. Father left me ample money to pay for my stay here, and he gives me a generous dress allowance; but that's all I've got.'

`I really meant, are you an heiress? Has anyone left you a big sum of money into which you come when you are twenty one?'

'No: no one has ever left me anything. I don't think any of my relatives ever had much to leave, anyway.'

`How about your father? Is he very well off

'I suppose so. Yes, he must be. We live very quietly at home, but all the same he must make a lot of money out of the factory, and all the other businesses in which he is mixed up. But why do you ask?'

`I was wondering if there could be a plot to kidnap you and hold you to ransom.'

The big brown eyes showed a mild scepticism. `Surely that sort of thing happens only in America? Besides, my father is no richer than scores of other British industrialists; so I can't see any reason why kidnappers should single him out for their attention.'

`What does he make at his factory?'

Motor engines.

The reply instantly aroused Molly's instinct for good thriller plots, and she exclaimed, `Then he may be one of the key men in the rearmament drive. Perhaps he holds the secret of some new type of aircraft. It may be the Russians who are after you, in the hope that he will betray the secret as the price of getting you back.'

With a shake of the head, the girl swiftly damped Molly's ardour. `No, Mrs. Fountain, it can't be that. He only makes dull things like agricultural tractors.'

Again Molly pondered the problem, then she asked a little diffidently, `Before you left England, did you go into a private nursing home to have a minor operation?'

`Yes.' The brown eyes grew round with surprise. `However did you guess?'

`I didn't. It was just a shot in the dark. But since you admit it that may explain everything. The probability is that your father brought you out here to hide you from the police.'

`I can't think what you're talking about. Having an operation isn't a crime.'

`It can be, in certain circumstances,' Molly replied dryly. `Well, I'm sure they don't apply to me.'

`They might. Is your mother still alive?'

`No; she died when I was six.'

`Have you any elder sisters?'

`No, I am an only child.'

Molly nodded and said gently, `That makes what I have in mind all the more likely. Even in these days quite a number of girls, particularly the motherless ones, reach the age of nineteen or twenty without knowing enough about life to take care of themselves. When you found you were going to have a baby and your father put you in the nursing home to have it removed, he evidently decided that you had quite enough to worry about already without his telling you that such operations are illegal. But they are, and if the police have got on to that nursing home they are probably investigating all the operations that took place in it. Everyone concerned would be liable to be sent to prison. As you were an innocent party I don't think you need fear that for yourself; but for having authorized the operation, your father might get quite a heavy sentence. So it's hardly to be wondered at that he wants to keep you out of the way until the police have got their evidence from other cases and the danger of your being drawn into it is past.'

The girl had listened in silence, but as Molly ceased speaking she began to titter; then, with her white teeth flashing, she burst into a loud laugh. But, catching sight of Molly's rather aggrieved expression, she checked her laughter and said quickly

`I'm so sorry, Mrs. Fountain, I didn't mean to be rude, and I'm awfully grateful for the way you are trying to help me get my bearings. But I couldn't prevent myself from seeing the funny side of your last theory; and you would, too, if you knew the way I had been brought up. I learnt all about sex from other girls, ages ago, but up to last December I've spent nearly the whole of my life in schools including the holidays. And in all the schools I've been to we were as carefully guarded from everything in trousers as if we had been nuns; so I haven't even ever had a boy friend yet, let alone an illegal.'

Molly felt slightly foolish; but, hiding her discomfiture, she smiled. `I'm glad to hear that, but what sort of operation did you have?'

`I had my tonsils out. During January I had a rather nasty sore throat, and although the local doctor said he didn't think it really necessary, Father insisted that it should be done. He put me in a private nursing home at Brighton for the job and made me stay there for three weeks afterwards to convalesce. He collected me from there to bring me straight out here.'

`It rather looks, then, as if he has been attempting to hide you for some time, and used the excuse of your tonsils to get you out of the way as early as the end of January.'

`Perhaps. At the time I was rather touched, as I thought he was showing an unusual solicitude about me. You see, to tell the truth, although it sounds rather beastly to say so, he has never before seemed to care very much what happened to me; and I am quite certain that he would not risk going to prison on my account, as you suggested just now. In view of what has happened since, I think you must be right; but the thing that absolutely stumps me is why he should be taking so much trouble to keep me from everyone I've ever known.'

Her heart going out more warmly than ever to this motherless and friendless girl, Molly said, `Don't worry, my dear. We'll get to the bottom of it somehow; but I'll have to know more about you before I can suggest any further possibilities. As you have had such a secluded life, there can't be much to tell me about that. Still, it's possible that I might hit on a pointer if you cared to give me particulars of your family and your home. To start with, what is your real name?'

`I'm sorry. I'll tell you anything else you wish, but that is the one thing I can't tell you. Father made me swear that I wouldn't divulge my name to anyone while I was down here. I chose Christina for myself, because I like it. Would you very much mind calling me that?'

`Of course not, my dear. Start by telling me about your father, then, and his reasons for always keeping you at school. We might get some clue to his present treatment of you from the past.'

Christina fetched a packet of cigarettes from the hideous mock Empire sideboard, offered them to Molly and took one herself. When they had lit up, she began

`I can't say for certain, but I think the reason that Father has never shown me much affection is because he didn't want me when I arrived. He was then only a working class man a chauffeur who had married the housemaid but he was always very ambitious, and I think he regarded me as another burden that would prevent him from getting on.

`I was born in Essex, in the chauffeur's flat over the garage of a house owned by a rich old lady. You must forgive me for not giving you the name of the house and the village. It's not that I don't trust you, but we live in the house now ourselves, and everybody in those parts knows my father; so it would practically amount to breaking my promise about not telling anyone down here my real name. Anyhow, the house had no bearing on my childhood, because when I was only a few weeks old my father chucked up his job and bought a share in a small business in a nearby town.

`We lived in a little house in a back street, and it was not a happy household. I don't remember it very clearly, but enough to know that poor Mother had a rotten time. It wasn't that Father was actively unkind to her at least not until towards the end but he cared for nothing except his work. He never took her for an outing or to the pictures, and he was just as hard on himself. When he wasn't in his office or the warehouse he was always tinkering in a little workshop that he had knocked up in the backyard of the house, even on Sundays and often far into the night.

`Within a year or two of his going into business one of his partners died and he bought the other out. But that did not content him. As soon as he had the business to himself he started a small factory to make a little motor, many of the parts of which he had invented, and it sold like hot cakes. When I was five we moved to a bigger house in a somewhat better neighborhood, but that did not make things any better for Mother. He had less time to give to her than ever, and he would never buy her any pretty clothes because he said he needed every penny he was making for expansion.

`There doesn't seem any reason to believe that Mother was particularly religious as a young girl, and she was only twenty eight when she died; so I suppose it was being debarred from participating in all normal amusements that led her to seek distraction in the social life of the chapel. My memory about it is a little vague, but I know that she spent more of her time there during the last two years of her life, and that for some reason it annoyed Father intensely that she should do so. I was too young to understand their arguments, but I have an idea that she got religion and used to preach at him. Naturally, he would have resented that, as he is an agnostic himself, and does not believe in any of the Christian teachings.

`Eventually he became so angry that he forbade her to go to chapel any more. But she did, and on my sixth birthday she took me with her. That proved an unhappy experience for both of us, as I was sick before I even got inside the place, and had to be taken home again. She made a second attempt a few Sundays later, when Father was out of the way seeing some friend of his on business, but again I was sick in the porch. Undaunted, she seized on the next occasion that he was absent from home on a Sunday morning, and for the third time I let her down by being as sick as a puppy that has eaten bad fish, up against the chapel doorway.

`Why chapels and churches have that effect on me I have no idea. I think it must be something to do with the smell

that is peculiar to them; a sort of mixture of old unwashed bodies, disinfectant and stale cabbages. No doctor at any of the schools I've been to has ever been able to explain it, or produce a cure; so I've always had to be let off attending services. I suppose it has become a case of association now, but I am still unable to look inside a church without wanting to vomit.

`Anyway, after my mother's third attempt to take me to chapel, the connection between chapel going and being sick must have been quite firmly established in my mind. No child could be expected to like what must have appeared to be a series of outings undertaken with the deliberate intention of making it sick; and, of course, I was still too young to realise what I was doing when I spilled the beans to Father.

`I let the cat out of the bag at tea time, and he went absolutely berserk. He threw his plate at Mother, then jumped up and chased her round the table. I fled screaming to my room upstairs, but for what seemed an age I could hear him bashing her about and cursing her. She was in bed for a week, and afterwards she was never the same woman again; so I think he may have done her some serious injury. It is too long ago for me to recall the details of her illness, but I seem to remember her complaining of pains in her inside, and finding the housework heavier and heavier, although it is probable that her decline was due to acute melancholia as much as to any physical cause. By mid summer she could no longer raise the energy to go out, and became a semi invalid. Naturally her chapel friends were very distressed and used to come in from time to time to try to cheer her up. The pastor used to visit us too, once or twice a week, when it was certain that Father was well out of the way, and sit with her reading the Bible.

`It was one of his visits that precipitated her death. Father came home unexpectedly one afternoon and found him there. I was out at kindergarten, so I only heard about it afterwards. By all accounts Father took the pastor by the shoulders and kicked him from the front door into the gutter.

'Most people take a pretty dim view about anyone laying violent hands on a man of God, and the episode might have resulted in a great deal of unpleasantness for Father, but on balance he got off very lightly. For one thing he was popular, at any rate with his work people and their families, whereas the pastor was not. For another, a story went round that the pastor had been Mother's lover, or that, anyway, Father had caught him making a pass at her. I don't believe that for one moment. I haven't a doubt that it was put about by Father himself in an attempt to justify his act, and that the real truth was that finding the pastor there had sent him into another of his blind rages against the chapel and everything connected with it.

`The affair cost him the goodwill of a certain number of his more staid acquaintances, and it stymied his standing for the town council, as he had planned to do, that winter. But it didn't prove as serious a set back to his upward progress as it might have done; and although the pastor had talked of starting an action for assault, he didn't, because in view of what happened afterwards he decided that it would be un Christian to do so. He was thinking, of course, of the fact that when Father woke up next morning he found Mother dead in bed beside him.

`It was generally accepted that she had died as the result of delayed shock. There can be no doubt that such a scene must have struck at the very roots of her being. When I was older, friends who had known her told me that she had regarded her pastor as inspired by God; so for her to have seen him set upon must have been like witnessing the most appalling sacrilege. At that moment, in her morbid state of mind, I dare say my father must have appeared to her to be the Devil in person, and the thought that she was married to him may have proved too much for her. She fainted and was put to bed by a neighbour. It was she who told me most of what I know about it, some years later. The doctor was called in and he was a bit worried because Mother would not answer his questions or speak to anybody; but he thought she would be all right when she got over the shock.

`It may be true that she didn't get over it, and her heart suddenly failed, or something; but she had been taking pills to make her sleep for some time, and when our neighbour came in next morning she found the bottle empty. She said nothing about it, but it was her opinion that Mother had taken an overdose to escape having to go on living with Father. Perhaps he knows the truth about what happened, but if so he is the only person who does.'

Christina paused to light another cigarette, then she went on, `For a time our neighbour looked after me. Then, in the autumn, Father brought a woman named Annie to the house. She was a big blonde creature, lazy but kindhearted, and he gave out that he had been married to her in London; but of course that wasn't true, and I am sure now that she was just a tart that he had picked up somewhere. Mother had been much too weepy and religious to inspire a passionate devotion in any child; so I had soon got over her loss, and I grew to love Annie. She said she had always wanted a little daughter just like me, and my life with her was one long succession of lovely surprises and jolly treats. No doubt she was common, rather silly and the sort who is too lazy to earn her own living except by haunting dance halls and shady clubs; but the nine months she was with us were far and away the happiest of my childhood, in fact the only really happy ones I ever had, and I was inconsolable for weeks after she went away.

`The affair broke up because Father was getting on so fast. He felt it was bad for business for him to continue living in the sort of house more suited to one of his own foremen; so he bought another out in the town's best residential district. To me, at the time, it seemed huge, but actually it was just an eight roomed house with a garage and an acre or so of garden. Still, as far as we were concerned it was a great step up in the world; and although Father may not have been quite as keen on Annie as he had been at first, it was mainly because she did not fit into the picture that he ditched her.

`It was a few days before we were due to move that I found her in tears. She told me then that they had never been married and that he didn't consider her good enough for him any longer. But she didn't make a scene. She had more natural dignity than many better bred women whom I've met, and I'll always remember her walking out, dry eyed and smiling, to the taxi that was to take her to the station. I never saw her again.

`For me, her going robbed the new house of all its glamour, and very soon I came to hate the place. Father never again made the mistake of getting married, or pretending that he had divorced Annie and acquired a new wife. Instead, he replaced Annie with a girl who had been one of his secretaries. They never bothered to conceal the fact from me that they slept together, but to preserve the proprieties she was given the status of governess housekeeper. Her name was Delia Weddel, and she had been brought up in quite a good home, but if ever there was a bitch she was one.

`She was another blonde, but the thin kind, and strikingly good looking, until one came to realise the hardness of her eyes and the meanness of her mouth. Why she should have taken a hate against me I have no idea, but she made my life hell, and she was so cunning and deceitful that neither Father nor the daily woman we used to have in to do the housework guessed what was going on.

`As a child I was subject to sleep walking. That meant if sounds were heard in the night someone had to get up and put me to bed again. Annie used to do that so gently that I hardly realised it had happened, but Delia used to put me outside the back door until the cold woke me up. While I was there she would go upstairs, strip my bed and throw the clothes on the floor; so that when she let me in, shivering with cold, I had to make it again myself before I could get to sleep. Next day, too, she always gave me some punishment for having disturbed her, and, of course, that only made me worse.

`Then there was the agony of lessons. As she was officially my governess she had at least to make a pretence of teaching me. But all she ever did was to point out a passage in a history or geography book and order me to learn it by heart, while she read a novel or went shopping. It was torture, because I wasn't old enough to master things like that. I had got to the stage of reading only fairy stories and books about animals; yet if I couldn't say my piece at the end of the hour I knew that I was going to get my knuckles rapped. I would have given anything in the world to be back at kindergarten with the common little children, singing songs and playing games with bricks. But at that age a child is absolutely at the mercy of grown ups; so there was nothing I could do about it.

`A breakdown in my health saved me from Delia. Perhaps the doctor suspected what had led up to it. Anyhow, he advised that I needed sea air to build me up, and that as I was getting on for eight I should be sent to a boarding school at the seaside after Christmas. Delia was only too glad to be rid of me; so in January 1939 I was packed off to a school at Felixstowe.

`It wasn't a very good school. They fed us shockingly and cheese pared on the central heating, although it was quite an expensive place and supposed to be rather smart. I had a thin time to start with, too, because most of the other girls were awful snobs. When they found out that I had been at a National Kindergarten and spent my childhood in a back street, they christened me `the little alley cat and were generally pretty beastly. Still, anything was better than Delia, and from then on going back to her for the holidays was the only thing I really had to dread.

`Soon after war broke out the school was moved to Wales, and when I came home the following Christmas I found to my joy that Delia had gone the way of Annie. The house was being run for Father by a middle aged couple named Jutson. Their status was simply that of servants: she was cook housekeeper and he did the odd jobs and the garden. They have been with us ever since. Later I learned by chance that from 1940 Father was well off enough to have a flat in London. Or, rather, that he kept a succession of popsies in flats that were nominally theirs and used to stay with them whenever he went up; so I know very little about his later mistresses.

`The Jutsons are a respectable, hard working couple, but she is rather a sour woman. During the holidays and the Easter ones that followed she did what she had to do for me, but no more. I was fed at regular hours and seen to bed at night, otherwise I was left to amuse myself as well as I could. I think Father has always paid them well to keep their mouths shut about his affairs, because when I ask either of them why he was often absent from home,

or where he had gone to and when he was coming back, hey always used to say “Ask no questions and you'll get to lies ! ” And that has been their attitude ever since.

`That April the real war began and Father decided it would be best for me to remain at school for the summer Holidays. Many of the other parents felt the same way about their daughters, so more than half of us stayed on in Wales, and while the Battle of Britain was being fought we had quite a jolly time. We couldn't foresee it then, but 'or most of us that was only the first of many holidays spent at school. In my case I didn't see my home again for the next five years.

`As part of the drill at school I wrote to Father every week, and occasionally he sent me a typed letter in reply. it was always to the effect that producing war supplies Dept him desperately busy, but he hoped to find time to home down to see me soon. He did, about two or three times a year, but I would just as soon that he hadn't, as we had absolutely nothing to say to one another, and I could almost hear his sigh of relief when the time came for him a catch his train back to London. I must say, though, to always treated me very generously. He allowed me to take any extras that I wished, and I had only to ask for anything I wanted in one of my letters and his secretary could have it sent down.

`The summer that the war ended I was fifteen and I came home at last, but not for long. Apart from a few of Mother's old friends I didn't know a soul, and I hope I haven’t become a snob myself, but I seemed to have moved right out of their class. I no longer talked the same language as their children, and although I tried to get over that, father said he did not wish me to have those sort of people in the house. Within a fortnight I was at a dead end and Hopelessly bored.

`One day Father suddenly realised how isolated I was and took the matter in hand with his usual efficiency. He explained that his own social life was in London, but for various reasons he could not have me with him there; so some other step must be taken to provide me with suitable companions of my own age. He had found a place in Somerset that ran courses in domestic science and was open all the year round. His suggestion was that I should go there for the rest of the summer holidays.

`Anything seemed better than staying at home doing nothing; so I agreed. And I was glad I had. It was a lovely old house and most of the pupils were older than myself; so we were treated much more like grown ups than are the girls at an ordinary school. I liked it so much that I asked Father to let me go back there for good after one last term in Wales. That suited him; so I spent nearly the whole of the next two and a half years in Somerset. Occasionally, just for a change, I spent a week at home, and seven or eight times I was invited to stay at the homes of girls with whom I had become friends. My best friend lived in Bath; another one lived in Kensington, and with her I saw something of London; but such visits were only short ones and at fairly long intervals.

`I was perfectly content for things to go on that way indefinitely, but just before my eighteenth birthday the principal wrote to Father to say that as I had taken all the courses they ran and passed all the exams it did not seem right to keep me on there any longer. Faced with the same old problem of what to do with me, he decided to send me to a finishing school in Paris, and I was there until last December.'

Christina lit another cigarette, and added, `I forgot to tell you that in 1949 old Mrs. Durnsford died and Father bought The Grange....'

She paused and a look of consternation came over her face. `Oh damn, now I've given away the one thing I didn't mean to tell you.'

Molly smiled. `Don't worry, my dear. I won't try to ferret out your name from that, and a little slip of that kind can't really be considered as breaking your promise to your father.'

`No, I suppose not,' Christina agreed. `Anyhow, the fact of his going back there made very little difference as far as I was concerned. The Jutsons now live in the flat over the garage where I was born; but we have no other servants living in, and Father never does any entertaining. On balance, I prefer it out there in the country to living in a suburb of the town, although there are no shops and cinemas handy. When I get back I hope to interest myself in the village, but until this winter I've never lived there or more than a few days at a time; so I've had no chance yet to get to know any of the neighbours except old canon Copely Syle, and I've known him as long as I can remember.'

Again Christina paused, before ending a little lamely, Well, there it is. I really don't think there is anything more to tell you.'

`You poor child.' Molly took her hand and pressed it. I think your father has been terribly selfish in not providing you with a proper home life. You seem to have missed all the jolly times that most young people have on seaside holidays and at Christmas parties.'

`Oh, I don't know. People never miss what they haven't been used to, do they? Except when I first went to school, I've always got on well with the other girls, and most of the mistresses were awfully kind to me.'

`Perhaps; but that isn't quite the same thing. What about your grandparents? And had you no aunts and uncles to take an interest in you?'

`I know nothing about Father's family. I have an idea that he was illegitimate; but if he ever had one he must have broken with it as soon as he began to get on, so that it should not prove a drag upon him. Mother was an only child and her parents died when I was quite young; so I lave no relatives on that side either.!

'Tell me about your father's friends. Although you have been at home so little, you must have met some of them. recalling the sort of people they were might give you a line on what this present trouble is about.'

Christina shook her head. `For the past ten years Father has spent a great deal of his time in London, and the only social life he has is there. He subscribes quite generously to local charities, but after he had to withdraw his candidature for the town council he would never mix himself up with public activities in the district. The only people he has ever asked home as far as I know were senior members of its office staff, and then it would only be to discuss confidential business with them over a drink in the evening.'

`Just now you mentioned a Canon somebody?'

`Oh, old Copely Syle is an exception. He lives only a mile or so from us, on the way to the village, at the Priory. Although, even when we lived in ... in the town, he used to drop in occasionally.'

`In view of your father's bias against religion it seems rather strange that he should have made a life long friend of a canon.'

`He is not a practicing clergyman, and I think he helped Father to make his first start in business. Anyhow, they knew one another when Father was chauffeur to Mrs. Durnsford, and it may be partly on my account that the Canon has always called whenever I've spent a few days at home. You see, he is my godfather.'

`Have you any idea what your father's plans for you are when your month's tenancy of this villa is up?'

`Yes and no. That is one of the things that worries me so much. He said that if everything went all right he would come back and collect me. If he didn't, I was to return to England and go the head office of the National Provincial Bank in London. If I made myself known at the Trustee Department and asked for a Mr. Smithson he would give me a packet of papers. When I had read them I could make up my own mind about my future; and I need have no anxiety about money, as he had made ample provision for me to receive an income which would enable me to live quite comfortably without taking a job.'

`Good gracious!' Molly exclaimed. `From that one can only infer that the danger threatens both of you, and that it is something much more serious than blackmail, or even being sent to prison.'

Christina nodded. `Yes, it's pretty frightful, isn't it, to think that he may already be dead, and that if they find me I may be dead too before the month is up?'

`My dear child!' Molly quickly sought to reassure her. `You mustn't think such things. He may only have meant that he might have to leave you for a much longer period, and that during it you would have to make arrangements for yourself. I must confess, though, that in spite of all you've told me, I haven't yet got an inkling who this mysterious “They” can be.'

For a further quarter of an hour they speculated on the

problem in vain; then, as Molly stood up to leave, Christina said, `You have been terribly kind, Mrs. Fountain; and just being able to talk about this wretched business has made me feel much less miserable already.'

Molly went on tip toe to give her a quick kiss. `I'm so glad; and you do understand, don't you, that you can come in to me at any time. If I don't see you before, I shall expect you to morrow for lunch; but if you have the least reason to be frightened by anything don't hesitate to come over at once.'

Together they walked out into the sunshine and began the descent of the steep garden path. They were about half way down it when there came a rustling in the undergrowth and a joyful barking.

`That's Fido, my cocker spaniel,' Molly remarked. `The wicked fellow must have seen me and broken through the pittosporum hedge.'

Skilfully avoiding the prickly cactus, the dog came bounding towards his mistress. On reaching her he barked louder than ever and jumped up affectionately.

`Down, Fido! Down!' she cried in mock severity. `How dare you invade someone else's garden without being invited to call. You are as bad as I am.'

Like the well trained animal he was, he ceased his transports, but ran towards Christina, expecting to find in her a new friend.

Suddenly he halted in his tracks. His body seemed to become rigid; the hackles rose on his neck, his jaws began to drool saliva, and through them came a low whimper of fear.

`Whatever can be the matter with him?' Molly exclaimed in astonishment. `I've never known him behave like that before.'

Christina's face had become half sullen and half miserable as she said in a low voice, `It's not my fault! I can't help it. But animals always take a dislike to me on sight.

4

Enter the Wicked Marquis

It was March 1st and John Fountain had arrived that morning. He and his mother had just finished lunch, and with a sigh of satisfaction he smiled across at her.

`What a meal! How good it is to eat in France again. I bet there were six eggs in the omelet. And that fillet of beef as tender as foie gras and as big as a month's ration! Real butter instead of National grease, and the pineapple au Kirsch topped with lashings of cream. Most of our wretched people at home have forgotten that such food still exists.'

Molly nodded. `It is years now since there has been a shortage of anything down here. Food is expensive, of course, but the markets are always overflowing with it. The rich alone could not consume one twentieth of the perishable stuff that is offered for sale every day, and even the poorest classes show no signs of being hungry. It's simply that the French people always have spent most of their earnings on food and they still insist on the right to do so. I can't think why our people continue to allow themselves to be half starved by their Government. I'm sure it isn't necessary.'

`I can answer that one.' John's voice was bitter. `It's due to the Socialists and their insistence on continued bulk buying by the nation. That may have been necessary during the war, but by forcing it on us for six years afterwards they destroyed the whole organization that had been built up over centuries of private firms importing our food from the best markets at the best prices. It will be years before the incredible muddle they made can be unsorted. But tell me more about this girl next door.'

`I don't think there's much more to tell, Johnny. During the past three days I've seen quite a bit of her. She is still nervous of going out in the day time but, quite illogically, she doesn't seem to mind at night. On Sunday I always dine out for a change, so yesterday afternoon I suggested that she should come with me to the Reserve at St. Raphael. She said she would rather not, but about half past six she turned up here and asked if she might change her mind. Of course I said “Yes”, and I'm sure she thoroughly enjoyed herself.'

`Do you really believe her story?'

`Yes. She has the naturally frank expression and well spaced eyes that can nearly always be taken as a sign of honesty; and I don't see what she could possibly hope to gain by deceiving me. After all, it wasn't a case of her approaching me and attempting to win my sympathy, perhaps in the hope of a loan; but I who invited her confidence. Then the way she inadvertently let out the name of her home and its previous occupant shows that she is not an accomplished enough liar to have made the whole thing up.'

`With a pre 1949 telephone directory of Essex those two items of information should be sufficient for us to trace the village she comes from, and the initials on the manicure set make it pretty certain that her real name begins with B; so it shouldn't be very difficult to find out who she is.'

`I don't think it would be quite playing the game for us to do that.'

`It may be necessary if these people who are after her suddenly appear on the scene.'

`Let's not meet trouble half way, Johnny. I'm hoping, though, that while you are here you'll give some of your time to her. With a man she would probably be less scared of going out during the day, and it would do her a world of good to be taken about a bit.'

His rather thin face broke into a slightly cynical grin. 'No doubt. But what about me? I'm on holiday remember. Do you think she is my cup of tea?'

Mrs. Fountain did not reply immediately, but smiled a little dubiously at her attractive son. He was of medium height, well made, although not powerful. His principal charm lay in his lively, intelligent eyes and humorous mouth. He had dark hair and his nose was slightly aquiline. Although only twenty three the responsible position he had secured in a good firm had matured him early; so he was very much a man now, and she was wise enough to seek no longer to control him.

She was thinking of his previous holidays. Last year he had run around with that little Italian countess, who was certainly no better than she should be. The previous year he had given her even more serious cause for secret alarm by attaching himself to an American widow of glamorous appearance, but uncertain age and most dubious antecedents. Johnny's taste certainly did not run in the direction of jeunes fidles. That was natural enough for a man in his early twenties, and it would do him no harm as long as he did not get himself seriously entangled. Knowing that the Riviera swarmed with harpies, she dreaded the sort of designing female that he might so easily pick up, and during the past few days she had been rather hoping that this year Christina might prove a sufficient attraction to keep him out of mischief. She thought the chances of that very slender, but she was clever enough not to spoil the market by boosting the goods, and after a moment she said

`To be honest, Johnny, this girl is not up to your weight. She is practically a new born lamb, and after a couple of days you may find yourself hopelessly bored with her. But she seems to have had so little fun in her life and she is so desperately lonely, it really would be a generous act to spare her an hour or two now and then.'

He smiled at her. `You horrible woman ! I can scent the maternal match making instinct a mile away in this.'

`Good gracious, no!' she protested. `We don't really know anything 'about her, and her father sounds a most undesirable type.'

`One doesn't marry their fathers, dearest except in the tale of the chap who killed the dragon, who when offered his choice said he'd rather marry the king than any of the three princesses.'

`What are you talking about?'

Putting his head on one side, he wriggled his shoulders, smirked, and replied in an effeminate voice, `It's a fairy story.'

`Johnny, you are awful,' she laughed.

`On the contrary, I am nobly defending myself against a conspiracy to make me break my plighted word, given freely long ago, that when I grew up I would marry you.'

`Idiot ! I tell you, the idea of your entering on a serious affair with this young woman never entered my mind. It is simply that she has been starved of youthful companionship and ...'

`I know. That she could be a sweet little sister to me. Really, Mumsie ! How you can sit there looking so innocent while you tell such tarradiddles, I cannot think.'

`But you will do as I ask?'

`Knowing that you will starve and probably beat me if I refuse, it seems I have no option.'

`Splendid. I expect you would like to sleep off your lunch now; then I thought that about tea time I would take you over and introduce you.'

'O.K., honoured parent.' John stood up, but before turning away he screwed his face into a leery expression and gave a slow, sardonic wink. `Before retiring to my slumbers I'd like to know just where I stand. I take it that there will be no kick coming from you if I seduce her?'

Molly knew perfectly well that he was only pulling her leg, but all the same she replied with a hint of seriousness, `I've already told you, she's as inexperienced as if she had just come out of a convent; so you'll jolly well behave yourself.'

`Oh, I'll be as good as gold,' he assured her blandly. `But I know these innocent types. The odds are that she'll seduce me. Then what? I'll get the blame, of course, and have to pay the seven and six maintenance for the baby. Or has it gone up to a quid now? I think that the least you can do is to guarantee me against that.'

`You're a horrid boy, with a horrid, low mind, and I dislike you intensely,' said his mother, giving him a light kiss on the cheek. `Now, run along and get your nap. It's past three al ...'

Her last words trailed away into silence as she caught a quick step on the gravel outside the French window of the dining room. Next moment a tall shadow was thrown by the sunlight on the parquet, and turning she saw Christina standing on the threshold.

`Oh, Mrs. Fountain,' the girl began rather breathlessly, `I hope I'm not interrupting you. I knew your son was arriving to day, and I waited until I thought you would have finished lunch; but I wanted to talk to you rather .. . rather urgently.'

`Of course not, my dear. Come in.' Molly waved a vague hand. `This is John Johnny, our new neighbour, Christina Mordant.'

The two young people nodded and smiled politely at one another. Neither made any move to shake hands. John was thinking, `Gad, what a nose ! But her eyes really are remarkable'; while Christina thought, `He's really quite nice looking: what a pity he has such a prominent Adam's apple.'

`Do sit down.' Molly offered the cigarettes and Christina took one. As she lit it, John hurried forward. `What about a liqueur? A Bene, or a spot of Sticky Green?'

`No thanks,' Christina replied quickly. `I only go in for soft drinks, and I don't want anything now.'

`I expect you would rather John left us,' Molly said after a moment. `He has so gorged himself with food that he can hardly keep awake, anyhow.'

John sighed. `See how my own mother derides and dismisses me. But take no notice. I am hardened now to the feminist streak in her, which has ever thwarted my ambition to emulate St. George.'

`What! And marry the king like your friend in the fairy story?' Molly said with a twinkle.

`That's one up to you, Mumsie,' he replied with a grin.

After a puzzled look from one to the other of them, Christina's glance came to rest on Molly. `Over dinner last night you suggested telling John about me, because, if the sort of thing I have to fear happened, a man's help might prove invaluable; and I agreed. If you have told him, and he cares to stay, it would be just as well for him to hear about this new development.'

`Yes. Mother has given me an account of the extraordinary situation in which you find yourself,' John said, his voice now low and serious. `You must forgive our fooling; and please believe that I am just as anxious as she is to help you in any way I can.'

She gave him a faint smile. `Thanks; you're both most awfully kind. Well, just before lunch I had a visitor.'

Molly's face showed her dismay. `Then the enemy has run you to earth already?'

`No; this was a friend or, at least, an old acquaintance. But I was so surprised to see him coming through the gate that for a moment I thought I must have got a touch of the sun, and be imagining things. It was Canon Copely

Syle.,

'As he is an intimate friend of your father's, your father might quite well have confided to him the place where he had hidden you.'

`No. That's the strange part about it. His finding me here was pure chance. He hasn't seen my father for some weeks and had no idea I was in the South of France. He has been staying at Cannes for a few days, and this morning he was motoring in to St. Raphael for lunch. He just happened to catch sight of me sitting on the terrace; so he made his friend who was driving the car stop, and came in to see me.'

`There doesn't seem to be anything particularly perturbing about that,' John remarked.

`Oh, but there is!' Christina protested. `His first words to me were, “My dear child, whatever are you doing here? Why aren't you in England with your father?” I replied, “Why should I be?” At that he looked quite staggered, and said, “But surely you've heard the bad news about him? Has no one informed you that he was seriously injured in a car smash? I had it yesterday in a letter from a mutual friend. I would never dream of upsetting you without good reason, but I gather there are grave fears for his life.” '

`Perhaps this is just the sort of thing your father feared might happen to him,' Molly said, her thriller writer's mind having gone swiftly into action. `I mean, it wouldn't be the first time that unscrupulous people had deliberately engineered a car smash, in order to get out of the way somebody against whom they had a grudge.'

`Yes; I suppose such things do happen. Anyhow, the Canon said that he is returning to England to morrow, and he offered to take me with him.'

`You will be leaving us then?'

Christina shook her head. `No. Father told me that no matter what messages I might receive, even if they were said to come from him, in no circumstances was I to leave the villa until he returned to fetch me; or, failing that, before the twentieth of next month.'

`It is quite natural that he should have said something of the kind as a reasonable precaution against your falling into a trap set by your enemies; but when he said it he cannot possibly have had the Canon in mind. Didn't you tell me at our first talk that the Canon is your godfather?'

`Yes; but the fact that he is my godfather doesn't mean very much. He has always sent me a small present on my birthday, and I've written to thank him; but we have never got any closer than that. I have seen him perhaps thirty or forty times in my life, but never for any length of time, and father has always been present, except at two accidental meetings; so I've never got beyond exchanging polite platitudes with him.'

`Still, he is a life long friend of your father's; so I'm afraid, my dear, there cannot be very much doubt about this shocking news he has brought you. It is hardly credible that he would cause you such anxiety had he not been certain of his facts.'

`Yes, I suppose so.' Christina sighed. `I think, though, I may have unconsciously misled you a little about his relationship to Father. I have always had the impression that their association is based more on some common interest than on genuine friendship. One of the occasions when I ran into him by chance was soon after we had moved into our present home, and when I told Father about it he said that should the Canon ever ask me to the Priory I was to make some excuse for not accepting. At the time I put that down to a revival of his anti Christian bias, and a fear that I might get religion, like Mother. But quite apart from that I'm pretty certain that Father does not really like him, and for some reason that I can't explain I don't either.'

`Apart from this personal prejudice, do you know anything against him?'

`No, nothing at all. In the village he is highly respected.'

`Then it doesn't seem as if he is the sort of person who would be mixed up in anything shady, or lend himself to practicing such a brutal deception on you.'

`It doesn't, does it? Yet, all the same, I feel I ought to stick to Father's orders and remain where I am.'

`What did the Canon say when you refused his offer to take you back to England to morrow?' John enquired.

`He spent quite a time trying to persuade me to change my mind, and, when I wouldn't, seemed to think me very callous.'

`What excuse did you make for digging your toes in?'

`I said I thought the friend who had written to him must have exaggerated Father's danger, and that his office would have been certain to let me know if my presence was really required in England; so I meant to remain here until I heard something more definite. I took the precaution, too, of telling him that I was living under the assumed name of Christina Mordant, and asking him not to divulge my real identity to anyone down here. Naturally he looked very surprised, but he did not ask me for a reason, and gave me his promise.'

`Clever girl,' John smiled. `There is one way you could find out about your father for certain though. Why not telephone your home or his works?'

`No, I can't do that. He said that whatever happened I was not to attempt to get him on the telephone; because, if the call was traced back, it would give away my hiding place.'

For a while longer they discussed matters without getting any further, then Molly said, `Johnny and I are going to dine in Cannes to night, and we'd like you to come with us. We thought of going to the Carlton, but if you haven't got an evening dress with you we could go to some quieter place.'

`It's terribly kind of you,' Christina hesitated a second, `but I don't think I ought to. It doesn't seem right somehow, as there is a possibility that Father may be dying.'

`Just as you like, my dear; but I think it is a great mistake ever to anticipate the worst, and that you would be much wiser to let us take you out and try to cheer you up, rather than stay at home brooding about unhappy possibilities. I won't press you, but should you change your mind, as you did last night, we shall be leaving about half past seven.'

Christina did change her mind, and returned at twenty past seven dressed to accompany them to the Carlton. As she stepped from the half darkness of the garden into the lighted room, both Molly and John had difficulty in hiding their astonishment. She was wearing a long frock of oyster satin. It was backless, strapless and low cut, to display her good neck and shoulders to the best advantage, but at the moment she had draped over them a short cape of dark skunk. Neither of them had seen her before in anything but very ordinary and rather girlish day clothes; so the difference in her appearance was quite striking. It made her look several years older and entirely sophisticated a change that was further stressed by a new expression in her face and a much brisker manner.

Molly was thinking, `I wonder where she learned to dress like this? It can only have been at her finishing school in Paris. That must be quite a place ! I'll swear the scent she has got on is by Dior. Too old for her pity she didn't choose something a little less exotic. Her father may have neglected her, but he certainly isn't mean with her about money. The little number she's got on must have cost a packet.'

John's mind was running on the lines, `Gee whiz ! Call that nothing ! And after lunch I thought she looked like Skinny Lizzy, the sixth form's tallest girl. All the same she must be darn near as tall as I am. If the mind under that brown hair fits this evening's turnout she won't prove as dumb as I feared. Anyhow, if we see anyone I know I shan't be accused of cradle snatching.'

At the moment he was shaking a cocktail, and producing a third glass he said, `Can't I tempt you?'

`Why not?' she replied lightly. `When the drinks were offered round at our social evenings in Paris, we girls were only allowed to take sherry; but I suppose one must make a start on the hard liquor some time. You must warn me, though, if you think I am getting tight.'

He laughed. `As a confirmed drunk myself I should certainly lead you astray if I got the chance, but you can rely on my Mama to provide a restraining influence.'

Soon after eight they were in Cannes. As it was the height of the winter season the big restaurant at the Carlton was quite crowded. Everyone was in evening dress and at the many tables one could hear spoken every language outside the Iron Curtain. French and Americans predominated, but there were Indians and Egyptians, as well as Swiss, Belgians and Scandinavians. The only major nation ill represented for its size was Britain, but as an acid commentary on mismanagement after victory the richer citizens of the defeated nations, Germany and Italy, were back again in force, enjoying themselves once more. The fact that champagne cost £4 a bottle did not prevent its flowing freely. The scene was glittering, the service excellent ,and the menu a triumph in gastronomic art. Nothing more could have been desired to ensure a gay and happy evening.

Yet, before they were half way through dinner, Molly was conscious that her little party was a flop. Johnny and Christina seemed to have nothing in common except an unhappy inability to do full justice to the good things set before them. Neither had anything but a vague recollection of the time when food had not been rationed in England, and so many years of meagre feeding had reduced the capacity of their stomachs to a point where they were incapable of containing more than would sustain life. Johnny was the worst affected, as he had eaten an exceptionally large lunch and, although he was not particularly greedy by nature, it irritated him not to be able to enjoy all the rich dishes which would normally have been such a treat; while Christina, who had also found herself defeated after the second course, was obviously worried that she might give offence to her hostess, as she kept on apologizing for only toying with the rest of her dinner.

In addition to this unsatisfactory state of things, Molly found herself quite unable to get a spark going between them. They had no mutual friends, had been brought up in totally different surroundings, and seemed to have no tastes in common. Johnny, she could see, was suffering from indigestion, and although the girl had drunk two glasses of champagne, her tongue showed no signs of being loosened by the wine.

When the time came for them to have coffee, she was commiserating with herself on the failure of this expensive evening, and thinking how much simpler it would have been to draw them out had she had either of them alone. It was only then the thought struck her that the barrier between them was almost certainly herself. All men, she knew, loved to talk about themselves, but Johnny would not do so in front of her for obvious reasons; and if they were alone the girl, no doubt, would trot out her little stock of airs and graces, but not with his mama looking on.

At a table not far off there were an American couple whom Molly had known for some years. They were elderly people, and did not dance or gamble; so it was certain they would be going home fairly early, and their villa was situated not much more than a mile from hers. Before coming out she had given Johnny ample francs to pay for their evening; so with commendable guile she concealed her disappointment and said to the young couple:

`I'm sure you two will want to dance, and I'm not feeling like sitting up very late to night. I've been overworking

a bit lately and I am paying for it now with a headache; so you must forgive me if I desert you. My friends, the Pilkington’s, are over there and they are sure to be going home soon. I can easily get a lift from them, so as to leave the car for you.'

Her reward was to see Johnny's quick concern, and hear his protest that she would be ruining the first evening of his holiday, which they always spent together; but Molly Fountain was not given to changing her mind once she had made it up, and blowing a kiss from her finger tips to Christina, she left them to join the Americans.

When John was staying with his mother on the Riviera he often got home at unconscionable hours, and like most young people he required a lot of sleep; so it was an accepted thing that he should never be called, but should ring when he woke for Angele to bring him coffee and croissants.

On the following morning he did not wake till nearly eleven. Then, having breakfasted in bed, he dawdled for another hour over his bath and dressing; so it was half past twelve before he came downstairs and joined his mother.

`Well,' she asked, as soon as he had kissed her good morning, `how did things go last night after I left you? I do hope you weren't too terribly bored by my little protégé

'Bored!' His eyebrows shot up in a comical grimace. `Believe me, Mumsie, you're jolly lucky to get me back all in one piece.'

Molly smiled and patted her grey hair. `Making due allowances for your usual exaggeration, I'm rather pleased to learn that she has something that ticks inside her.'

`Something that ticks! Why, the girl's a human bomb. Honestly, this new born lamb of yours this little sister of Saint So and so straight out of a convent is a positive danger to the public.'

`Oh come, Johnny! Mix yourself a Vermouth Cassis, and one for me too. Then put reins upon your imagination, tie it up to the fence, and tell me what happened.'

He walked over to the side table and while mixing the drinks spoke over his shoulder, `Well, to start with, we danced. The fact that she seems to have had very little practical experience of dancing with a man is the one piece of evidence we have to support your theory that she has only just come out of the egg. Otherwise, hold me up, Uncle ! Her sense of timing is not at all bad, so I think she'd be pretty good if she had some practice. But that's not the point. She clung to me as if I was her favourite woolly bear. I got really scared she meant to rape me on the dance floor. And that scent of hers! It played old Harry with my libido.'

`Johnny, don't be disgusting.'

`Don't you pretend to be a little innocent, Mumsie. You know as well as most people what goes on in the world, and how that sort of thing can affect a chap. Anyhow, after we had danced for a bit she said she'd like to try a liqueur brandy. In the next hour she knocked back three doubles and she didn't blink an eyelid.'

`She must have a remarkably good head.'

`I'll say she has.' John brought the drink over to his mother, and went on, `About half an hour after midnight she suggested that I should take her to the Casino to do a spot of gambling. I hedged a bit at first; as on the one hand I would have liked an excuse not to dance with her any more for the time being, while on the other I didn't particularly want to go to the rooms, because you know how it has always been with me. I can make money if I work for it, but I never seem to have any luck at the tables.'

`You had a perfectly good excuse for refusing, as they wouldn't have let you in without your passports; and as she is still under twenty one they wouldn't have let her in anyway.'

He shook his head sadly at her. `Darling, how you do under rate the resourcefulness of your offspring. I'm ten times as good as your pet “Crack”, if you only knew it. I've known that chap Fleury, the under manager, for years. All I had to do was to ask for him and say we'd forgotten to bring our passports. It was a safe bet that he would pass me in, and anyone else who was with me. So, on the basis that if “Paris was worth a Mass” my chastity must be worth a couple of thousand francs, I agreed. By a quarter to one we were in the Casino. And what do you think happened then?'

`How in the world should I know, silly?'

`Well, for the next hour and a half, while I piddled around dropping six milles, little orphan Annie played baccarat with a poker face that could hardly have been equaled had she been born inside the Sporting Club; and at the end of it she walked off with half a million francs.'

`Johnny, she didn't?'

`She did, Mumsie. If I hadn't been so well brought up,

I'd have had it off her in the car on the way home. Just think of it! Five hundred quid, and free of Income Tax.'

Molly nodded. `How lovely for her. One hears a lot about beginner's luck, but I must say I've never heard a better example of it.'

`It must have been mainly that; although the old Canon stood behind her chair all the time, and was tipping her off what to do now and then.'

`What! Her godfather, Canon Copely Syle?' Molly sat up in surprise. `This is the first you've said of him.'

`Sorry. I'm afraid I telescoped the story a bit to give you the exciting denouement about her big win. The Canon was there when we entered the rooms, and came over to us.'

`What did you make of him?'

`I thought he was rather a nice old boy. He's certainly a picturesque one. All black satin front, pink face, and long silvery locks curling down behind his ears like a parson in a Restoration play. He couldn't have made himself pleasanter.'

`I'm glad he didn't spoil her evening. His attitude towards her might have been pretty frigid on meeting her in such a place, after having told her only that morning that he believed her father to be dying.'

`I think he was a bit shocked at first. I happened to catch sight of his face before she saw him, and he was staring at us with a rather worried, annoyed sort of look. But as soon as we got chatting butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, and he never even mentioned her father until just before we were leaving.'

`Was there anything fresh in what he said then?'

`No; he only introduced us to a friend of his who had been playing at another table, for the purpose of telling her that should she change her mind about going home, and want an air passage at short notice, this chap would be able to fix it for her. He was another distinguished looking old boy with grey hair, only the tall and thin type.

With a nice red ribbon across his shirt front he could have walked on to any stage in the role of the French Ambassador, and he wouldn't even have had to change his name for the part. It was the Marquis de Grasse.'

Molly nearly dropped her glass, and her mouth fell open. Then she gave a cry of consternation. `Oh, Johnny! What can be at the bottom of all this? De Grasse is one of the most evil men in France.'

5

Battle of Flowers and Battle of Wits

John knew about his mother's work in the war at least he thought he did. All she had ever told him was that her fluent French had secured her an interesting job as a secretary, and that later she had acted as P.A. to one of the senior officers of a department of the War Office situated in Baker Street. Since the war he had run across several people who had been connected with the same office, and from odd scraps of information they had dropped he had formed a pretty shrewd idea of the activities in which they had been engaged. Those who knew his mother spoke most highly of her, and the association had led him to believe that she too had actively participated in all sorts of cloak and dagger business designed to bring alarm and despondency to the enemy.

The belief was strengthened by the fact that she still kept a private armoury, consisting of two pistols and a number of other lethal weapons. She had often assured him that her `museum', as she called it, had been acquired only because such things had always fascinated her and, in addition, helped her to describe accurately the use to which they could be put when writing scenes of violence in her books. In this she was speaking the entire truth. Much as she would have liked to try some 'of them out, she had never used any of them. Neither had she ever been in the least danger, except during air raids, as her work had lain inside the office, helping to direct the activities of others. Nevertheless, it had given her an exceedingly wide knowledge of the French Resistance, secret agents, collaborators and the crooks who were mixed up with them.

After a moment he said, `I suppose you ran up against the Marquis when you were doing your stuff as Molly Polloffski, the beautiful spy?'

`No, Johnny. I've told you hundreds of times that there was nothing the least glamorous about my job; and I've never met de Grasse. But I know plenty about him.'

`There was a chap of that name up at Cambridge when I was there. I knew him slightly, but he went down at the end of my first year.'

She nodded. `That would have been the son, Count Jules de Grasse. His father is as slippery as they make 'em. In the war he was far sighted enough to back both sides; and his having sent his boy to school in England in 1940 went a long way towards saving him from a heavy sentence of imprisonment when the French began to catch up with collaborators after the liberation. He had been in it up to the neck with the Germans, but was able to produce that card as evidence that he had always thought and hoped that the Allies would win; then plead that he had done no more to help the Germans than thousands of other patriotic Frenchmen had been compelled to do as the only alternative to having their businesses taken from them. Of course, we knew that wasn't true, but he is immensely rich and money talks in France with a louder tongue than in most countries. His story about his son proved a good enough peg on which to hang a pardon, so he was able

to bribe his way out, and he got off scot free.'

`What was his business?'

`He is ostensibly a respectable shipping magnate; but that covers a multitude of sins. We had plenty of proof on our files that he used his ships for running every sort of contraband. Before the war he used to specialize in dope and white slaving; but more recently, I understand, he has concentrated on smuggling Jews out to Palestine, and arms to anyone in the Near East who wants to make trouble for us.'

`How do you know that, Mumsie?'

Molly coloured slightly. `Oh, sometimes friends who

worked with me in the old firm come out here, and we talk of this and that.'

He laughed. `Boys and girls who are still in it, eh? I've always suspected that they kept you on unofficially to tip them off about anything you might tumble to in their line that was going on down here.'

`Johnny, you do get the silliest ideas. The department I worked for was wound up soon after the war ended.'

`Maybe; but there are others: for example, your old friend Conky Bill's outfit. I know he pretends to be only a sort of policeman whose job it is to hunt out Communists; but like this shipping racket I bet it covers his poking that big nose of his into a multitude of other dubious goings on.'

`And if you don't keep your nose out of other people's business you may one day get it chopped off,' retorted Molly aptly.

`Touché!' he grinned. `Let's get back to the wicked Marquis, then. What else do you know about him?'

`His headquarters used to be at St. Tropez. The choice was appropriate, as before the war it had the most evil reputation of any town west of Suez. Every vice racket flourished there. At night, down by the port, it was dangerous for decent people; and your father would not allow me to leave him to do even ten minutes' shopping on my own there in the middle of the day.'

`Really! On the few occasions I've been there I've never noticed anything peculiar about it.'

`You wouldn't, now. The Germans, and later the French, have cleaned it up a lot since then. But I am told that de Grasse still spends quite a lot of his time there.'

`He is living there at present. He told Christina so. He and his wife have a permanent private suite at the Capricorn. You know, that big modern hotel that overlooks the bay from the high ground to the right of the road, just before you enter the town. On learning that Christina had never been to St. Tropez, he said that his wife loved entertaining young people, and offered to send a car to fetch her if she could lunch with them to day.'

Molly set down her glass with a bang. `I hope to goodness she refused?'

'No: she accepted. It is only in the day time that she seems to shy off any suggestion that she should go out; but of course she may have changed her mind this morning.'

`I'm afraid not. I had to go into St. Raphael earlier to do some shopping, and I got back only just before you came down. I remember now noticing that she was not on her terrace when I drove past it, and she always is at that hour. If you were very late getting in she may still have been sleeping, but ... Oh, Johnny, run round next door and make certain.'

Seven or eight minutes elapsed before John returned, panting slightly. He spread out his hands. `No dice, dearest. She was called for around twelve by a chap a few years older than myself. From the rather sketchy description which was all I could get out of her old Catalan woman, it might have been Jules de Grasse. Evidently she had changed her mind about going, though, and did not mean to, as she wasn't dressed ready to go out. It seems that they had quite an argument before she went upstairs and changed her clothes. It was close on half past when they left; so you must have passed them on your way back.'

Standing up, Molly helped herself to a cigarette. When John had lit it for her she drew hard for a moment, before she said, `I do hope she will be all right. I don't like this new development a little bit. I wish to goodness there was something we could do to ensure her getting safely out of the clutches of those people.'

John shrugged. `We certainly can't arm ourselves from your museum, give chase, and do a “stand and deliver” on the de Grasses to get her back if that is the sort of move your agile mind is beginning to toy with. They are not the Germans and there's no longer a war on; so snap out of it, Mumsie. She went off in broad daylight of her own free will, and judging by the form last night she is perfectly capable of taking care of herself:'

`You did make a pass at her, then?'

`Well, not exactly. She made it quite clear that she expected me to say good night to her in the orthodox manner. And, although she said afterwards that it was the first time she had been kissed by a man, she took to it like a duck to water. If it hadn't been that she didn't seem to know the opening moves of the game I certainly wouldn't have believed her, and I still have my doubts about it. But it wasn't of that sort of thing that I was thinking. I meant in her general behaviour; and particularly at the Casino, she undoubtedly had all her wits about her.'

Lunch was announced at that moment. They dealt with the hors d'oeuvres in thoughtful silence; then when Angele had put the sweetbreads on the table and gone out again, Molly said, `You know, I believe she is a schizophrenic.'

`What, dual personality?'

`Yes. It is the only way one can account for the quite extraordinary changes which we have both seen in her. By day she is still an affectionate, overgrown child who is scared stiff that something awful is going to happen to her, and obsessed with the thought that she must remain in hiding; while by night she becomes a rather hard boiled, sophisticated young woman, who is perfectly prepared to take the risk of being recognised for the sake of having a good time. It goes even further than that, because I am sure that during the day time she is both innocent in mind and instinctively modest; whereas, from what you tell me, by night she is only too eager to have a necking party with the first man she sets eyes on.'

'Hi! Have a heart!' John protested, swiftly swallowing a piece of fried courgette. `That is not very complimentary to your only begotten.'

`Do you seriously suggest that she would have preserved a virginal aloofness had she been out with any other personable young man than yourself?

'Thank you, Mumsie. The word “personable” salves my wounded pride. No, to be honest, I don't. And I think you've hit the nail on the head with this theory of yours that she is a schizo'. All the same, that does not get us any further in solving the mystery of who is after her blood, and why.'

`At least we now have good reason to suppose that the Canon is not to be trusted. No clergyman who had a proper respect for his cloth would show himself in the gambling rooms of a Casino anyhow after midnight and his being a friend of de Grasse makes him suspect in the highest degree. I wouldn't mind betting the serial rights of my next book that the story he told Christina about an accident to her father was a pack of lies, and designed solely to lure her away from her villa. Then, this invitation of de Grasse’s: he and his wife are not the sort of people to spend their time showing young girls the beauties of the Riviera. It is all Lombard Street to a china orange that the Canon put him up to asking her to St. Tropez for some nefarious purpose of his own.'

John nodded; his voice was serious now. 'I'm afraid you're right, dearest. But there is nothing we can do about it for the moment. We can only wait to see if she gets back all right and, if not, call in the police.'

That afternoon there was to be a Battle of Flowers at St. Maxime. As they had planned to go to it, they set off there immediately after lunch. The little town was only about fifteen miles away; so by half past two John had parked the car and they were installed in the seats for which Molly had already secured tickets. Their chairs were in the front row facing the sea, with only a temporary barrier of chestnut pale fence railing them off from the promenade down which the procession would come; and while they waited for it they could scarcely prevent their gaze from frequently coming to rest on the white houses of St. Tropez, which lay in the shelter of the headland just across the bay. Both of them were wondering how Christina was faring there, and although John endeavoured to engage his mother's attention, he did not succeed in doing so until the sounds of the town band in the distance heralded the beginning of the fete.

The battle was not on the grand scale of those held at Nice, Cannes and Monte Carlo; but there were nearly thirty carriages, and a lovely sight they made. The wheels, body and shafts of them all were entirely hidden by massed flowers, each seeking to outdo the others in colour, variety or originality. In most cases stocks, violets and carnations of many hues provided the ground work; while towers, trumpets, sheaves and fountains, on which were wired hundreds of roses, hyacinths, arum lilies and gladioli, surmounted the backs of the carriages. In each rode two or more young women, specially selected for their good looks. Some were displaying their charms in décolleté evening frocks or in ballet skirts below which they wore black, large mesh, fish net stockings, while others were wearing light summer dresses and big floppy hats; but in every case their toilettes had been chosen to carry out the main colour motive of their floral chariots.

In every carriage the girls had big baskets of surplus flowers, with which to pelt the onlookers, and everyone in the crowd had a supply of similar ammunition bought from the gaily dressed flower vendors. At a slow walk the colourful procession passed along between the barriers, while to and from both sides hundreds of little bunches of mimosa, stock, short stemmed narcissi and carnation heads sailed up into the bright sunlight, thrown by the laughing girls and .applauding people. To give the audience ample opportunity to enjoy the spectacle to the full, at intervals of about a quarter of an hour the procession passed and re passed three times; so it was half past four before the battle was finally concluded.

After it was over, remembering his mother's fondness for hot chocolate, John proposed that they should adjourn to a patisserie. While they were there she again became distrait. Then after a time, she suggested that they should go on to St. Tropez in case Christina was still with the de Grasses at the Capricorn; as if she were they could pretend to have run into her by chance and by offering her a lift ensure her returning safely with them.

John considered the idea for a moment, then pointed out that as she had been asked over only to lunch the probability was that she would have left a couple of hours ago, so be home by now; while if the de Grasses had persuaded her to remain with them for the afternoon it would pretty certainly have been on the excuse of taking her for a drive, or to see the town; so the odds were all against her still being at the hotel, and it seemed going a bit far to add twenty miles to their return journey for such a slender chance of finding her.

Molly thought his reasoning sound, so she did not press her suggestion. In consequence, having collected the car, instead of heading west, they headed east for home, arriving there just before six. Leaving John to put the car away, Molly went straight up to Christina's villa, hoping to find her there, and learn as soon as possible what had transpired at the lunch. But Christina was still absent.

More perturbed than ever for the girl's safety, Molly mounted the steep path to her own house, to be met in the hall by Angele, who told her that at about half past three the. English mademoiselle who lived next door had telephoned, but had left no message. When John came in they discussed the situation again, but there seemed nothing they could do, as to have appealed to the police on the bare facts that a girl had gone out to lunch with friends and failed to return home by six o'clock would have been laughable.

They had fallen into an unhappy silence when, a quarter of an hour later, the telephone rang. John answered the call, and it was Christina. A little breathlessly she said, `I tried to get you earlier this afternoon. I lunched with the de Grasses and I am still with them. We've just got back to the hotel, and I'm telephoning from the call box in the ladies' cloakroom; but we shall be going up to their private suite again in a minute. They have made me promise to stay and dine with them on their yacht. But I don't want to. Can you . . . can you possibly think of some excuse to come over here and ... and get me away from them? Please, oh please!'

'O.K.,' replied John promptly. `Was it Count Jules who collected you this morning?'

`Yes; and it was he who took me round the town this afternoon.'

`Right ! We'll be with you in three quarters of an hour. All you have to do is sit tight until we turn up, and in no circumstances fall for any pretext they may trot out with the idea of getting you to leave the hotel. Keep your chin up, and don't worry that pretty head of yours. We'll have you home in time for dinner.'

He had spoken with calm assurance, in order to quiet her evident fears; but as he replaced the receiver he felt far from confident about the outcome of the next few hours; and, while he repeated to his mother what she had said, it became even more clear to him that to get her away from the de Grasses was going to prove an extremely tricky business.

`If they once get her on their yacht it will be long odds against our ever seeing her again,' said Molly, now giving free rein to her anxiety.

He nodded glumly. `It looks as if the Marquis is at his old white slaving game again. Unless we can pull a fast one on him that poor kid may end up in Port Said or Buenos Aires.'

`Perhaps. She might, if they simply want to get rid of her. But I'm sure the Canon is behind this, and it may be that he wants to force her into doing something for some purpose of his own.'

`Anyhow, I'll be damned if I'm going to let him.' John had spoken with sudden fierceness, and his mother

shot him an appraising look as she asked, `You do rather

like her, then?'

He shrugged, gave a quick grin, and reverted to his usual gaily inconsequent manner. `Don't be silly, Mumsie. It is solely that my sense of chivalry has been aroused. I feel like the knight who was riding through a forest and came upon a beauteous damsel tied to a tree. She cried out to him, “Frugal me, frugal me ! ” So he frugalled her.'

`Stop talking nonsense,' Molly admonished him, turning away. `We've got to hurry. While you get the car out, I must just run upstairs. I won't be a moment.'

`You had better not,' he called after her, as he ran towards the door, `otherwise I shall start without you.'

Five minutes later she rejoined him in the road, carrying a crocodile skin bag that she generally used only when travelling. As she got into the car he gave it a suspicious glance, and said, `You haven't brought the armaments, have you?'

She had never lied to him, and, after a second, she admitted, `I've brought my small automatic but it's only a very little one.'

Instead of letting in the clutch, he sat back and folded his arms. `Now look, dearest. Things may be done that way in your thrillers, but they are not in real life. It's too damn' dangerous. For one thing the de Grasses would make mincemeat of us, and for another, if we survived the first five minutes they are clever enough to ensure that it is we who would find ourselves in prison afterwards. Before I drive you a yard, you have got to give me your solemn promise that you won't start anything.'

`All right, I promise,' she said with a sigh. `But it is a bit hard. This might have been a real chance to find out what it feels like to hold somebody up with a pistol

'Try it sometime when I am elsewhere on my lawful occasions,' he advised. `Then I'll at least remain free myself to come and bail you out.'

As he spoke the car shot forward. He was feeling guilty now at having scotched his mother's suggestion that they should drive on to St. Tropez from St. Maxime, as the sun was already going down beyond the hills ahead of them, and had he not opposed her they would by this time have been with Christina. In consequence, while exercising a fair degree of caution going round the sharp bends of the Corniche, he drove much faster than was his custom.

It was a good twenty five miles from the villa to St. Tropez; but, after St. Raphael, for about half that distance the road was nearly flat and moderately straight, as it followed the shallow curve of the great bay in the centre of which lay St. Maxime; so until they reached Beauvallon he was able to make good going. There, the road made a hairpin bend round the deep narrow gulf, then wound its way along the peninsula that had St. Tropez as its seaward end. When they pulled up in front of the great modern building of concrete and glass, that looked more like a block of flats than an hotel, it was just after seven and twilight was falling.

While on their way they had made their plan of campaign, and on entering the hotel, instead of enquiring for the Marquis at the desk, they walked straight to the lift and asked the lift man to take them up to de Grasse's suite. The lift shot up to the top floor, and as they stepped from it the man pointed out to them a door at the end of the corridor. Their footfalls making no sound on the heavy pile carpet, they advanced towards it; then John rang the bell.

After a moment the door was opened by Count Jules. He was a shortish but athletic looking young man in his middle twenties, with slim hips, broad shoulders and a plump round face. His eyes were very dark and his lips a trifle thick, but the corners of his mouth turned up slightly, giving him an expression of humorous good nature.

For a few seconds he stared blankly at his visitors, then recognition dawned in his eyes, and he exclaimed in English that had no more than a faint trace of accent

`Why! Surely it is John Fountain?'

`Of course,' John smiled. `I thought you were expecting us.'

Count Jules looked his astonishment. `Forgive me, but I did not know, even, that you were in this part of the world.'

John made a gesture of annoyance. `I'm so sorry. They must have made a muddle downstairs. I asked for you at the desk, and after telephoning the chap said we were to come up. But there was a woman beside us asking for somebody else, and in making the calls he must have got his lines crossed.'

A slight narrowing of the Frenchman's eyes suggested either suspicion or that he was not used to such inefficient service and meant to give the unfortunate receptionist a sharp reprimand; but before he had time to make any comment John hurried on

`I happened to meet your father last night in the Casino at Cannes. That's how I learned you were here. My mother and I have been visiting friends in St. Tropez this afternoon. On the spur of the moment I thought I would look you up before we drive back to our little villa for dinner.'

`But how nice ! I am delighted, delighted.' There was no trace in the Count's voice of anything but genuine pleasure.

`I don't think you've ever met my mother,' John said.

Enchante, Madame.' Count Jules took Molly's hand as though it were a fragile piece of porcelain, and went through the motion of kissing the back of it, although he did not actually touch it with his lips. Then he murmured, `Forgive me for keeping you standing like this in the hall. Please to come in. We are so happy to see you.'

The small hallway of the suite had four doors leading from it. That on the immediate right stood partly open. Issuing from it John had heard the murmur of voices, and he guessed that Christina was with someone there. He had spoken to Jules rather loudly in the hope that she might hear what he said, and so not sabotage his story by giving any indication that they had really come to collect her. As their host pushed the door back and bowed through it, John saw over her shoulder that Christina was looking in their direction with anxious expectation. But Molly forestalled any gaffe she might have made by exclaiming

`Why, Christina ! John told me you were lunching with these friends of his, but I never expected to find you still here.'

Jules' glance switched swiftly from the girl to the newcomers, and he said in a surprised voice, `You know one another, then?'

`Oh yes,' Molly replied lightly. `We are next door neighbours and quite old friends.'

When they entered the room a woman, who at first sight looked quite young, had been curled up in one corner of a big settee. As she uncurled herself and sat up Jules turned and addressed her in rapid French

`Belle mere, may I present Mrs. Fountain and her son John, who was up with me during my last year at Cambridge.' Then he added in English, `My stepmother, the Marquis de Grasse.'

The sitting room of this luxury suite was unusually spacious for an hotel, and from floor to ceiling one of its sides was composed entirely of sliding glass windows. But as the light was already fading and the Marquise was sitting with her back to them, it was difficult to tell her age. She was slim, extremely soignée, and, in the latest fashion, she had had several curls of her elaborately dressed dark hair dyed gold. Her eyes were round and blue, her mouth a little sulky looking. She was wearing a silk blouse, grey slacks with knife like creases, and over her shoulders a chinchilla fur. Extending a limp hand she said

`I am ver pleas to meet you. But my English, et ess not much good. You forgive? Perhaps you spik French?'

Molly's French being excellent, and that of both John and Christina adequate, most of the conversation which followed was carried on in that language. But the Marquise took little part in it; except to inform Molly a little later, while John and Jules were talking over old times, that although her husband owned houses in several parts of France, she much preferred to live for most of the year in hotels, as it was far less trouble.

They were already drinking cocktails, and while Jules made a fresh mix for the new arrivals, Christina said, `Madame la Marquise and Count Jules have been most kind. They insisted on my spending the afternoon here. He took me up to the old fort, then all round the harbour; and now they want me to stay and dine with them on their yacht.'

`I wish I were as young as you are and could still keep such hours,' Molly replied with a smile. `If I had been up till near dawn this morning I should be dropping asleep by now.'

Christina took the ball quickly. `That's just the trouble. I'm not used to late nights, and I really don't feel up to it.'

`Nonsense!' said Jules. `After a few glasses of champagne you will forget there is such a place as bed.'

`Unfortunately champagne does not agree with me. And as I told you some time ago, I already have quite a headache. Please don't think me rude, but I'd really rather go home.'

`If you are feeling like that it's lucky we turned up,' John put in casually. `We can give you a lift back, and save Jules from being late for his dinner.'

`No, no!' Jules protested. `A couple of aspirins will soon put your headache right, and we are not dining till nine; so if you wish you can lie down for an hour before we start. How about lying down for a while now? Belle mere will make you comfortable in our spare room.'

`No thank you. I'd rather not.'

He shrugged. `Well, our friends will not be going yet. See how you feel a little later on.' Turning to John, he added, `There are fireworks at Le Lavendou to night and we are taking the yacht round the cape to witness them. It would be a pity for her to miss that. I wish that I could ask you and your mother to accompany us, but unfortunately the dining space on the yacht is limited, and my father has already made up his party.'

Dismissing the matter, he then went on to talk about mutual friends they had known at Cambridge.

Outside darkness was falling rapidly, and during the quarter of an hour that followed Molly noticed a perceptible change in Christina. She had become much more lively as she described with enthusiasm the things she had seen with Count Jules that afternoon. When he switched on the lights and drew the curtains, she was laughing gaily about her big win at the tables the previous night, and saying that she could hardly wait to get back to them and try her luck again.

Scenting danger in her change of mood, Molly said to her, `John was going to suggest taking you in to Cannes again to morrow night. But you won't feel much like it if you don't get a good sleep to night; so from that point of view your decision to come home with us is a wise one. It is a great pity that you are feeling so rotten this evening and have to disappoint Count Jules, but I'm sure he will forgive you and ask you to go out on the yacht again some other time. And, talking of time, I really think it's time that we were going.'

`Oh, not yet!' cried Jules. `You have been here hardly twenty minutes, and Christina is looking better already. I feel sure she will keep her promise and come with us after all.'

`How late should we be?' Christina asked.

`We need not be late at all. We shall sit down to dinner as the yacht leaves harbour. The fireworks start at ten. They last only half an hour. The yacht will be back in her berth again by half past eleven. Normally we should then dance for a while; but if you wish I could run you straight home, and you would be in bed not long after midnight.'

`In that case . . .' Christina hesitated, then said with, for her, unusual brazenness, `Give me another cocktail, and while I am drinking it I will make up my mind.'

`But certainly!' As Jules jumped to his feet, to John's surprise his mother called out, `And me, too, if you please.' Then, with sudden apprehension, he saw her pick up and open her crocodile skin bag. But, to his considerable relief, she only took out her compact and powdered her nose.

When Jules had replenished their glasses, Molly drew John's attention to a rather novel arrangement of bookcases at the far end of the room, and suggested that they might be a good idea for incorporation in some of his designs. He had not previously mentioned the fact to the de Grasses that he had taken up interior decorating as a profession, but he did so now, while they were all looking at the bookcases.

The Marquise showed a sudden interest, and asked his opinion of the room, which she had had redecorated to her own specification. It displayed considerable taste, so he was able truthfully to compliment her upon it, before making a few tactful suggestions on quite minor points.

For a few minutes they discussed them. Then John happened to glance at Christina. Her face had gone deadly white. With quick concern he asked

`I say; you're looking awfully pale. Are you feeling all right?'

She shook her head. `No ... I ... I feel awfully queer.'

The Marquise uncoiled her long legs in the beautifully tailored grey slacks, and said, `Poor little one. Would you like to go to the bathroom? Come with me. I will take you there.'

`No,' murmured Christina. `I don't want to be sick. I ... just feel muzzy.' She pointed to her glass, which was nearly empty, and added, `That ... that last cocktail must have been too much for me.'

`Drinking a spot too much when one is overtired often has that effect,' John remarked. `But this settles it. She must come home with us; and the sooner the better.'

`No!' A sharp note had crept into Jules' voice. `She shall stay here until she recovers. Belle mere, oblige me, please, by taking her to your room and looking after her.'

`I'm afraid that is not a very good idea,' John countered smoothly. `She'll only fall asleep, and wake up in a few hours' time feeling like hell. Then you would have the unenviable task of driving her home.'

John's contention was amply supported by the fact that, although Christina was trying to keep her head up, it now kept falling forward on to her chest. But Jules replied coldly

`I should not in the least mind putting myself out a little for a young guest of mine who has been taken ill.'

`Perhaps; but has it occurred to you that someone will have to stay with her, and that if your stepmother does so it would mean depriving her of the party and your father's other guests of their hostess?'

`That can be overcome. My stepmother's maid is most competent.'

`But,' Molly put in, `it would be bad for the girl when she wakes, to be taken for a twenty five mile drive.'

Jules' black eyes had gone as hard as pebbles as he turned them on her. `She can. stay here for the night. What is to prevent her?'

`I am,' replied Molly firmly. `As an older woman I know better than you how to deal with a case like this. She will feel miserable and ashamed if, after having allowed herself to drink too much, she wakes up among comparative strangers and in a strange bed. I intend to take her back to her own villa.'

Jules could barely conceal his anger any longer. `Madame!' he snapped, `I will not be dictated to in this manner. She is in no condition to be driven anywhere. A doctor should see her, and I mean to send for one. I insist that she stays here.'

`Sorry, old chap!' John's voice was still quite good humored and level. `But my mother has known her for some time and is more or less responsible for her. So what she says goes.'

As he spoke he advanced towards Christina, took her firmly by the arm, and pulled her to her feet. Then he added quietly, `Give me a hand to get her to the lift, will you?'

Quite suddenly Jules' determination to keep her there seemed to collapse. With a tight little smile he stepped forward, took Christina's other arm, and helped John support her to the door. The Marquise asked Molly to telephone them next morning to let them know if Christina was all right, then the two older women exchanged polite adieus, and Molly followed the others out into the corridor.

There, at Jules' suggestion, she went down ahead of them in the lift, to bring the car round to a side door of the hotel, so that they should not have to take the half conscious girl right across the big lounge. By making a great effort, Christina could manage to walk a few steps at a time, as long as she was supported on both sides. Ten minutes later, with few people having seen them, they had her safely in the back seat of the car. Just as it was about to drive off, Jules leaned forward and said smoothly through the window to John

`My father will be so sorry to have missed you; but you must come over and see us again.'

`Thanks,' John replied, with the appearance of equal cordiality, `I should love to.'

Molly had overheard the exchange, and as the car ran down the drive she murmured, `I thought at one moment he was going to prove really troublesome. I wonder what caused him suddenly to change his mind.'

`I've no idea.' John shrugged. `Anyhow, we pulled it off. But what a bit of luck that she asked for that last cocktail. God alone knows how we should have got her away if it hadn't been for that.'

`Yes. That, and what I put in it.'

'Mumsie!' He turned to stare at her for a second. `What the devil do you mean?'

`I gave her a Micky Finn, darling.'

`You didn’t

'Well, to be accurate, only about a quarter of one, because I didn't want to knock her right out. ' Molly's voice was just a trifle smug. `I'm really rather pleased with myself. I've had some of those tablets in my museum for years. I souvenired them during the war, and I've always wanted to try them on someone, but a suitable 0opportunity has never arisen before. The way it worked was most gratifying.'

`How on earth did you manage to put it in her drink without anyone seeing you?'

Molly tittered with pleasure at the thought of her skilful coup. `I didn't. I put it in my own, and used the cherry stick to help dissolve it quickly. Then, when I had made you all look away from the table to the bookcase, I exchanged her glass for mine.'

`Well played, Mumsie!' John spoke with genuine admiration. `But you've let the cat out of the bag, you know. This night's work dispels my last lingering doubts about your having been Molly Polloffski, the beautiful spy.'

`No, Johnny. Really, I assure you I never did anything but work in an office.'

`Tell that one to the Marines!' he replied, closing the conversation.

As Christina had been given only a small dose of the powerful drug, she recovered fairly quickly from its worst effects, and when they got back to Molly's villa she was able to walk up the path to it unassisted. As soon as they reached the sitting room Molly sat her down in an armchair, then went upstairs and fetched her a bromoseltzer.

She was now fully conscious again, but in a curious mood, half tearful and half defiant. Several times she apologized for having made a fool of herself, and for having given them so much trouble. But she did not seem to realise that they had saved her from some very grave danger. Every now and then she harped back to the de Grasses' party and said how sorry she was to have missed it. In fact it soon became clear that she now resented their having prevented her remaining at the Capricorn until she recovered, so that there might" still have been a chance of her being able to go on the yacht.

At length Molly said, `I'm afraid, my dear, that this business has been getting on your nerves, and that you are no longer in a quite normal state. If you were, you would recall that it was at your own request, made earlier this evening, that we got you out of the clutches of the de Grasses.' Pausing for a moment she fished something out of her bag and concealed it in her hand; then she went on, `Our only wish is to get to the root of your trouble, and see you out of it. Here is something which may help us to

do that, and help you, too.'

As she finished speaking she threw the thing she was

holding towards Christina's lap, and cried, `Catch!' Christina cupped her hands and caught the spinning object. It was a small gold crucifix. The second it fell into her palms she gave a scream of pain. Then, as though seared by white hot metal, she thrust it from her.

`I feared as much!' Molly said grimly. `And now we know the worst ! Every night when darkness falls, you become possessed by the Devil.'

6

The Christina of the Dark Hours

With her eyes glaring, Christina sprang up from the armchair. Then, as though suddenly stricken by a fit, her long limbs grew rigid, she fell back into it, and little flecks of froth began to appear at the corners of her mouth.

Molly went quickly over to the side table on which stood the drinks, filled a tumbler half full of Perrier water and, turning about, sloshed its contents into the girl's face. She whimpered, the rigor passed, and she sat up, the water dripping from her brown hair and running down her pale cheeks. Laying a hand on her shoulder, Molly said kindly:

`God help you, child; but I am right, aren't I? You are only your real self in the day time, and at night you become possessed.'

With a moan, Christina buried her face in her hands, and burst into a flood of tears.

Turning to John, Molly said, `She had better stay here to night. Before we left I told Angele that we might be late for dinner, so we would have something cold. Slip out to the kitchen and tell her that we shan't be ready for it for another half hour, and that she is to go up at once and make the spare room ready.'

John was standing with his mouth a little open, staring at Christina. He could still hardly believe that he had not been the victim of a sudden amnesia and imagined the happenings of the last few moments. But he pulled himself together, nodded, and left the room.

For a few minutes Molly remained silently beside

Christina, then when the girl's weeping ceased she said, `My dear, you must be quite exhausted, and are in no state to talk further about this to night. I'm going to put you to bed here, and to morrow when you are feeling better we will decide what it is best for us to do.'

`There is nothing that you can do,' murmured Christina a little sullenly.

`Oh yes, there is,' countered Molly, in her most determined voice, `And we're going to do it; but it is not the time to go into that now.'

At that moment John returned; so his mother said to him, `You had better stay with her, while I go over to her villa and get her a few things for the night.'

Christina was now sitting staring at the floor. After another swift glance at her, John mixed himself a drink and, feeling extremely awkward, sat down some way from her on the edge of the sofa. For once he was completely out of his depth. The very idea of anyone in this modern world being possessed by the Devil struck him as utterly fantastic. Yet Christina had reacted to the touch of the crucifix as though she had been stung by a hornet, and there seemed no normal explanation for that. Moreover, she had made no attempt to explain it herself, or deny his mother's diagnosis of her case. In such extraordinary circumstances he could think of nothing whatever to say to her; but fortunately she did not seem to expect him to start a conversation; so they both remained sitting there in silence until Molly returned.

Much to his relief, no further scene ensued. Molly's attitude to the girl was now the same as she would have adopted to any young guest who had suddenly been taken ill in her house. With brisk efficiency, she hurried her off to bed; and Christina went without a word of protest.

Shortly afterwards Angele came in to say that she had laid supper, and when Molly came down she found John in the dining room pulling the cork of a bottle of vin rose. As she took her seat at the table she said

`For a moment I feared that poor child was going to run screaming from the house. It was a great relief that after her fit she became so docile, and allowed me to put her to bed, where I can keep an eye on her. She is fairly comfortable now, but as a result of that Mickey Finn she naturally does not feel like eating any dinner. I have told Angele to take her up a cup of bouillon, and later I shall give her a good dose of some stuff I have.'

`I suppose,' John remarked, `that if we made her drink a noggin of Holy water she would start to fizz, then blow up; so no doubt you're right to play for safety and stick to your panacea for all childish ills a grey powder disguised in a spoonful of raspberry jam.'

His rather poor attempt at humour brought the quick reproof, `I was referring to some stuff which will make her sleep. And, Johnny, this is nothing to joke about.'

`Sorry; but I haven't yet got my bearings. What was the big idea in putting a fast one over on Christina while she was still too doped to fully understand what was going on?'

`If you mean my throwing her that little crucifix, I should have thought my reason for doing so immediately became obvious.'

`No, I didn't mean that. While she was in that state, throwing anything at her might have made her scream. I meant putting the idea that she was possessed into the poor girl's head at a time when she was too goofy to repudiate it?'

`She didn't repudiate it because she knows or at least suspects that it is true.'

`Oh come, Mumsie! You can't really believe that people become possessed. That is now just a form of speech for a particular kind of religious lunacy.'

`It is not, and she is.' Molly announced with decision. `I have been wondering all day if that could be at the bottom of her extraordinary behaviour, and now I am certain of it. The acid test is to touch anyone who is suspected of possession with a crucifix. If they react as though they have been burnt, that is a sure sign that they have a devil inside them.'

John helped himself to another chunk of pate maison, spread it lavishly on a brioche, and asked skeptically, `How do you know? Is it just that you have read about it in some old book, or have you actually seen it happen on a previous occasion?'

`I was told about it by a Roman Catholic priest whom I knew years ago. He specialized in exorcism, and had witnessed many strange happenings. One experience that he told me of I shall never forget. It was in Ireland and he was endeavouring to drive a devil out of a poor cottager. The place was deep in the country, so the wife had prepared a meal. In honour of the priest she had bought a leg of mutton, but as the time when he could get out there was uncertain she cooked it in advance and placed it cold on the table of the living room, all ready for when he had fulfilled his mission. The case proved a very stubborn one. The possessed man became violent, struggling and blaspheming, and had to be tied down. For over two hours the priest wrestled with the fiend, conjuring him to come forth without success; but at last he triumphed. A wisp of evil smelling black smoke issued from the cottager's foaming mouth, sped across the room, apparently passing through the leg of mutton, then disappeared through the wall. When the exhausted victim had been put to bed the priest and the rest of the family sat down to supper. But they were unable to eat the mutton. When it was touched it fell from the bones, absolutely rotten and alive with maggots.'

`Did the chap who told you this story produce any supporting evidence to substantiate that he was telling the truth?’

`No, and I did not need it. He was a most saintly old man. I am sure he would have allowed himself to be torn in pieces rather than lie about any matter connected with his faith.'

`Have you any other sources for believing that such things still happen?'

`Not direct ones, but occasionally one sees cases reported in the French papers.'

`Why the French papers, particularly?'

`Cases are probably also reported in the Spanish and Italian press, and those of other Catholic countries; but I don't see them.'

`The inference is, then, that these occurrences are confined to Catholic countries?'

`No, I don't think that is so. I think that the profound

knowledge of demonology that has been handed down by the Roman Catholic Church enables certain of her priests to recognise possession and deal with it; whereas when a case occurs in a Protestant country hardly anyone is capable of distinguishing it from ordinary lunacy, so the sufferer is simply certified and put in an asylum.'

John could not help being impressed, and after remaining silent for a moment he said, `If you are really right about all this, Mumsie, it looks as if we ought to call a Catholic priest in to cope with Christina.'

`That is easier said than done, darling. You see, although all Roman Catholic priests are qualified by their office to perform ceremonies of exorcism, very few of them ever do so. Experience has shown it to be a job for experts who have made a special study of that sort of thing; much in the same way as only a very limited number of doctors are capable of prescribing the most efficient treatment for a rare disease. As we are not Catholics ourselves and Christina isn't one either, I'm afraid it would prove difficult to interest the local man in her case sufficiently to induce him to send for a first class exorcist, perhaps from some distant part of France.'

`How do you propose to handle this extraordinary business, then? She is quite sane most of the time, and we can't let her be popped into a loony bin.'

Molly looked down at her plate. `When we've finished supper I thought I would ring up London, and try to get hold of Colonel Verney.'

`What, Conky Bill!' John exclaimed in astonishment.

`Yes. He usually dines at his club in the middle of the week and never goes home much before eleven, so there is quite a good chance of my catching him. If he is not too desperately busy I might be able to persuade him to fly down to morrow and stay with us for a few days.'

`But hang it all, Mumsie, what's the idea? Of course, I know you've always had a bit of a yen for C. B., so one can't blame you for seizing on any excuse ...'

`Johnny, I've told you often enough that I used to act as liaison between my chief and C. B. during the war, and that after your father died he was extremely kind to me. That's all there is to it.'

`Dearest, you know jolly well that the two of you flirt like mad when you are together. I think he's a grand chap, and nothing would please me better than to get tight at your wedding: but that is beside the point at the moment. The thing I don't get is why you should regard him as a suitable substitute for a Catholic priest who has trained as an expert exorcist.'

`If I tell you, you must promise never to repeat it.'

`Go ahead. I can give as good an imitation of a bearded oyster as you can about things that really matter.'

`Well, you are quite right in assuming that for the past few years C. B. has given most of his time to checking up on the activities of Communists and fellow travellers. But that is only because they have now become the principal source of danger to our right to choose whom we want to rule us at free elections. Before the war he spent just as much of his time keeping his eye on the Fascists. Actually he is responsible for keeping his chief informed about all groups that may be engaged in subversive activities. That, of course, covers every type of secret society, including circles that practised Black Magic.'

John raised his dark eyebrows. `Such circles do really exist, then? I remember reading an article some months ago in the Sunday Empire News by ex Superintendent Robert Fabian, giving a most lurid account of how young girls were lured into, lending themselves to all sorts of obscene rites in secret Satanic Temples. He even went so far as to state that he knew there to be such places in Kensington, Paddington and Bloomsbury. But I thought it was all poppycock, and that now Fabian is retired he was just making himself a bit of easy money.'

`No; Fabian was telling the truth. And when he was an officer of the Special Branch he worked in close collaboration with C. B. You have no idea of the horrors they uncovered.'

`Why are there never any prosecutions, then?'

`Because the Satanists who run these circles are too clever. They recruit their disciples from among the people who attend quite respectable spiritualist and theosophical societies, many of whom can easily be intrigued by a promise of revealing to them the real secrets of the occult at some small private gathering. The obtaining of power is, of course, the lure, and they start them off with Yoga exercises; then prescribe a special diet for them, including a course of pills which are actually aphrodisiacs to increase their sexual appetite. After that there is usually not much difficulty in involving them with some more advanced Satanist of the opposite sex. For them that starts as just a rather intriguing affair, but it is the thin end of the wedge. Their instructor promises the revelation of higher mysteries if they will consent to being hypnotized, and they nearly always do. Once they have been fully dominated they no longer have a mind of their own and become willing subjects for every kind of abomination. A few of the stronger minded ones survive to achieve the rank of real Satanists themselves, but most of them are used only for obscenities and soon degenerate into physical and moral wrecks. Many of them end up as suicides, and those who are rescued by their friends always prove useless from the police point of view. Either they have not gone far enough to be able to give evidence of any actually criminal activities, or, if they have, they have been hypnotized into a state in which their minds are blank about the Satanists they have been mixed up with and the places where the rituals in which they participated took place. That is why there are never any prosecutions.'

`It sounds a ghastly business,' John said, pushing his plate away; `but I don't quite see where Conky Bill comes into it. From Fabian's article and what you say, it seems that the Satanists' only interest is to get hold of young people upon whom to practice their perversions at their orgies. Beastly as that may be, it is a form of private fun and has no connection with subversive activities against the State.'

`You are quite wrong about that, Johnny. The people who direct these circles really are the henchmen of the Devil. The sexual excesses that take place under their auspices are only a means to an end a focus for concentrating evil forces which they can use for the furtherance of their own wicked designs. You must have read at some time that in the old days the Devil was often referred to as the Lord of Misrule. The object of these high up Satanists is to deliver the world up to him, and the only way they can do that is to cause the breakdown of good rule so that misrule may take its place. With that as their goal they do everything they can to foment wars, class hatred, strikes and famine; and to foster perversions, moral laxity and the taking of drugs. There is even reason to believe that they have been behind many of the political assassinations that have robbed the world of good rulers and honest statesmen, and naturally Communism has now become their most potent weapon. So you can see that breaking up these Black Magic circles, wherever they can be found, is very much in C.B.'s province.'

`Oh come, Mumsie! I agree that they may exert their influence for political evil, but by suggesting that they are working to a plan and have supernatural backing, aren't you letting your imagination run away with you a bit? After all, no one really believes in the Devil any more.'

`My dear, he was part of the original creation, and no amount of popular education can destroy that. It is simply that in modern times he has gone underground, and judging by the amount of havoc and mystery there has been in the world during the present century he must be very pleased with the success of his latest stratagem. It was his own apparent abolition, resulting from the decay of religion, that gave him his big chance, and he is using it with a greater skill than he has ever displayed before in his attempts to ensnare mankind.'

`You honestly believe that?'

`I do. Now that more than half the people in the world have become godless, they have also become rudderless. Once they have put away from themselves the idea of a hereafter they think only of their own selfish ends of the moment. That leaves them an easy prey to unscrupulous politicians. Before they know where they are, they find themselves robbed of all personal freedom; their family life, which is their last tie with their better instincts, is broken up, and their children are taken from them, to be educated into robots lacking all individuality. That is what nearly happened in Nazi Germany and what has happened in Russia; and if that is not the state of things that Satan would like to see everywhere, tell me what is?'

John did not reply. Instead, after a moment's thought he asked, `Have you any idea where Christina fits into all this? I

'No. I have heard that now and then one of those Paris finishing places is discovered to be no better than a high class brothel. When girls who are just becoming women are cooped up together they corrupt one another very easily, you know; and in the type of place that caters for those whose parents want to be rid of them for two or three years at a stretch, an unscrupulous principal with a clever man behind her might get away with a vice racket of that kind for quite a long time without being found out. As sexual promiscuity is the first step towards greater evils, if Christina was at such a place she may have got herself involved in something there. But somehow I don't think so. She does not give me the impression of a girl who has gone very far down the slope of her own free will. I am more inclined to think that she is the victim of a spell, and has been bewitched.'

`If we can get hold of C. B., do you think he will be able to free her from the ... er ... sort of trouble you have in mind?'

`I don't know, Johnny. We can only hope so. All I do know is that in the course of his job he must have picked up a lot about the principles on which Satanists work, and he is the only person I know who may be able to advise us what to do. Even if he is busy I feel sure he will come if he possibly can, as, quite apart from any wish to help the girl, there is the de Grasse angle, and that should prove an additional justification for him to leave his office.'

Three quarters of an hour later Molly succeeded in getting Lieutenant Colonel William Verney on the telephone. They then talked for a few minutes in the curious jargon that such people had used in the war, even when their conversations were protected from listeners in by a scrambler. It consisted of short phrases, interspersed with apparently irrelevant allusions to mutual friends, places, books and past happenings, which could mean little to any third person, but rang bells in the minds of both. She proved right in her belief that he would respond to her appeal; and it was agreed that, unless he telegraphed her that he had been unable to get a seat on the plane, she should meet him at Nice airport on the following day.

In consequence, in spite of the concern she was feeling about Christina, Molly went to bed in a happy frame of mind; while the girl fell into a heavy slumber as a result of the draught she had been given. But John lay long awake, turning over and over all that his mother had said about Satanism, veering between belief and disbelief, and quite unable to decide whether it was only her vivid imagination that caused her to credit the Devil with being active in the modern world, or if in sober truth the unfortunate Christina was, during certain hours, possessed by some evil force that had been conjured up from the traditional Pit, said to be inhabited by Satan's legions.

At length he dropped off, but only to become the victim of a nightmare, in which he was chained to a rock and an angel and a devil were fighting over him. Both of them had Christina's face, and while that of the angel glowed with beauty, that of the devil was rendered peculiarly horrifying by the fact that luminous smoke was curling up from its flared nostrils.

In the morning, contrary to custom, his mother had him called and his breakfast brought to him at eight thirty; so he was dressed and downstairs well before ten. From her he learned that Christina had had a good night, was none the worse for her experiences of the previous evening, and had gone over to her own villa to change her clothes, but had promised to return as soon as she had done so.

A quarter of an hour later she came in through the sitting room window, looking a little subdued but otherwise perfectly normal, and very pretty in a square necked frock made gay with broad bands of red and yellow peasant embroidery. In the morning sunshine it seemed difficult to believe that she was the same girl whose eyes had glared hatred during a fit as a result of having a crucifix pitched to her, in that very room, little more than twelve hours before. But all three of them were uncomfortably aware that no good purpose could be served by refraining from going into the matter, and Molly set about it with commendable briskness.

Tell me, my dear,' she said as they sat down, `how `much do you remember about what happened last night?'

Christina turned her big, frank brown eyes upon her questioner. `A certain amount, but not everything. There are some quite big gaps. I remember your arrival at the Capricorn and how relieved I was; because I felt sure you would get me away from those people. Then I have a vague recollection of your disputing with them about me, and that I became increasingly annoyed with you for wanting to take me home. What occurred after that is completely gone, until I woke up feeling dreadfully ill and found myself in the back of your car. We came in here and I was trying to figure out a way of getting back to the Capricorn without your knowing. Then ... then I had a sort of fit, and from that point on my mind is a blank again until I woke up in bed here this morning.'

`Is it usual for you to have those sort of lapses of memory about much of what has been happening to you the night before?'

`Yes. Somehow at night I seem to be quite a different person. I often get up and roam about, and at such times I get all sorts of nasty impulses of a kind that I rarely have during the day. As far as I know I don't often give way to them, but I can't be quite certain of that, because afterwards I nearly always get these blackouts. The thought of what I may have done during them distresses and frightens me next morning. But to the best of my belief I do remember if I have actually done anything wicked, because I have had numerous instances of that. Any really definite action seems to register permanently in my mind.'

`Can you give us any examples?'

`Well, for one thing, I'm afraid I'm a thief.' Christina lowered her eyes and went on unhappily, `Honestly, I don't mean to be; but several times in Paris I stole trinkets and scent and money from the other girls at night. When I remembered what I had done the following morning I was terribly ashamed. Fortunately I was able to put the things back before my thefts were noticed; and no others were reported. It is that which makes me believe that when I do give way to these awful impulses I know what I have done when I wake up.'

`Was the impulse to steal the only one that came to you?'

`No. I seem to become horribly malicious. My best friend was engaged to be married. One night I stole her love letters that her fiancé had written to her, and burnt them down in the furnace. Several times I used a steel crochet hook to make ladders in other girl's stockings and spilt ink on their clothes, but I was so cunning that they never found out who had done it. Then I became subject to a special feeling about anything connected with religion. It is a sort of hatred and fear. I can't bring myself to touch any sacred object, but . . . but I've defiled them. Three times I did that with little lockets containing holy symbols belonging to different girls. There was a frightful row afterwards, but no one had the least suspicion that I was the culprit.'

`Is there anything else you can tell us about your state during these midnight forays?' Molly asked after a moment.

Christina flushed, and her voice was very low. `Yes. I realise that if you are going to help me I ought not to keep anything back. Sometimes I feel the most awful urge towards immorality but I'd rather not talk about that.'

`Let's go back to last night,' said Molly, promptly changing the line of the conversation. `Do you remember my throwing a crucifix to you, and what happened then?'

`Yes,' Christina replied in a whisper. `As it touched me it felt like a live coal. I sprang up and screamed. Then you said that I was possessed by the Devil.'

`I know it was a terrible thing to say, my dear; but do you think you are?'

`I don't know. At times I've wondered if I am, myself. But why should I be? What can I possibly have done to deserve such an awful fate?'

So far John had not spoken; but seeing that the girl was now very near to tears, he stretched out his hand, took one of hers, and pressed it. `We are sure it's not your fault. Even if it's true even if you have done something to bring it on yourself Mother and I wouldn't stop wanting to help you. And we wouldn't like you any the less.'

`Thanks.' She gave him a faint smile and let her hand remain in his, as Molly added, `John is quite right about that; and my own belief is that it is nothing you have done, but that somebody has bewitched you. Have you ever known anybody who was interested in witchcraft, magic or sorcery?'

`I don't think so. In Paris one of the girls used to tell fortunes with a pack of cards; but one couldn't really call that witchcraft, could one? And she wasn't very good at it. As a matter of fact I could do it far better myself, but I didn't; not when I was there. I gave it up several years ago, because it frightened me. Twice when I was at that school in Somerset I predicted serious accidents; and in one case I saw death in the cards, although I didn't say so, and the person died a month later.'

Molly nodded. `Such an uncanny gift is additional proof that you have some special link with occult powers; and evidently it is not a recent one. How long is it since you took to prowling about at night, and feeling these distressing impulses?'

`Ever since I can remember; but, as I told you the other day, when I was young it took the form of sleep walking. It may have been because I did naughty things at such times that Delia was so unkind to me. I didn't even begin to be aware of what I was doing until I was thirteen, and even then it came as a gradual transition. I must have been over seventeen before I was fully conscious when I got out of bed at nights. But the occasions on which I did so were fairly few and far between, and the impulses I felt were neither as strong nor as wicked. It is only during the past year that I have been getting so much worse. That is what frightens me so much.'

`Have you ever been to a séance, or gone in for table turning and just for a lark called on the Devil to aid your enquiries?'

`No, never.'

`And there is no special episode in your childhood, or anything else you can remember, that might have a bearing on your present state?'

`No. I have already told you everything about my life that I can think of.'

There fell a pause, then John asked, `How about Canon Copely Syle? I wouldn't mind betting that he didn't turn up here by chance, and that the story he told you about your father having had a serious accident was a fake, designed to get you away from your villa. I didn't know it when we met the Marquis de Grasse at Cannes, but Mother has since told me that he is a crook. The fact that the Canon introduced you to him, and his son afterwards tried to get you on to their yacht, makes the case against the Canon pretty black. In fact, it is ten to one that he is at the bottom of the whole business.'

`Yes. I came to that conclusion yesterday; although I then had little more than my instinct to go on. It was that which made me refuse to go on the yacht yesterday afternoon, when Count Jules took me down to the harbour and pressed me to. It was only after I had made an excuse not to, and dug my toes in, that he invited me to dine on board instead; and as he had first made certain that I had no engagement for the evening, I could think of no way to wriggle out of accepting. But I'm afraid I can't help much about the Canon. I told you all I know about him on the morning of his visit.'

`There are two things you can tell us,' Molly said, `although I hesitate to ask you, and I wouldn't if I didn't think it important that we should know them. They are your real name, and your father's address.'

Christina shook her head. `I'd rather not break my promise to him.'

`Just as you like, my dear. But when he asked you for it, neither of you could possibly foresee the sort of thing that has happened since; and if he knew how you were situated at present I feel sure he would release you from it. You see, now that the Canon has discovered your hiding place, and it looks as if he is employing crooks to get hold of you, we have to face the fact that however carefully John and I endeavour to guard against it, you might be taken from us. If that happened our best hope of getting you back would be to call in the police; and it might be a great help to them in tracing you if we could give them your proper name and enable them to communicate with your father.'

For a moment Christina considered the matter, then she said with sudden decision, `All right. My name is Ellen Beddows, and we live at The Grange, Little Bentford, near Colchester. My father is Henry Beddows of Beddows Agricultural Tractors.'

`Thank you, my dear. Of course we shall continue to call you Christina, and you may be sure we will not abuse your confidence. Now, there is just one other thing. Your father must hold the key to both your own peculiar state and the mystery of why the Canon is so anxious to get hold of you. Don't you really think the time has come when we should try to get in touch with him?'

`No!' Christina's voice was firm. `He told me that it was unlikely that his office would know where to find him, and even if they did I ,must not ring him up. I have already broken one promise that I gave him, and there is some reason to believe that he may be in danger himself; so I will do nothing which might bring him here and perhaps place him in greater danger still.'

`Very well then.' Molly, stood up. `I must leave you now, because I have to drive to Nice to meet a friend of mine at the airport. He is coming to stay for a few days, and I do hope you will like him, as it is really you who he is flying out from England to see.'

`Me!' exclaimed Christina with a surprised look.

`Yes. He is not a psycho analyst or anything of that kind; so you have no cause to be frightened that he will try to delve into your sub conscious and drag out the sort of little personal secrets we all prefer to keep to ourselves. But he has had considerable experience of the way in which occultists get young people into their clutches; so I am hoping very much that he may know of a method of countering the evil influence that is being exerted on you.

The plane doesn't get in till one; so I shan't be back much before tea time. But John will look after you while I am away, and I thought you might like to take a picnic lunch out together.'

John and Christina agreed that a picnic was a good idea; so as soon as they had seen Molly off they set about their

preparations. An inspection of the larder revealed a fine choice of good things. Angele prepared a salad for them, while Christina stuffed some crisp rolls with ham and gruyere cheese, and John collected fruit, a bottle of wine and glasses. When they had finished packing the things into a basket, Christina said

`As we are going to walk, I think I will put on a pair of thicker shoes. You don't mind waiting while I slip over to my villa, do you?'

`Of course not,' John replied. `It has not yet gone half past eleven; so we have tons of time. In fact it might not be a bad idea if we didn't start till twelve. That would give you a chance to pack a suitcase with some other things you may want, as Mother was saying this morning that she thought it would be best if you stayed on with us here for the time being anyhow. I'll come across and collect it later.'

`Will there .. ?' she hesitated. `Are you quite sure there will be room for me, now that this friend of your mother's is coming?'

`Oh yes. You needn't worry about that. This villa is slightly larger than yours, I think. Anyhow, I'm giving up my room to Conky Bill Colonel Verney, that is and Angele will move my things into the little slip room at the back, next to the one you occupied last night.'

`All right, then. It really means that you'll be giving up your room for me, though. I'll never be able to repay you and your mother for all your kindness.'

As she turned away, he called after her, `You had better put in a frock for this evening. Not a “knock 'em in the Old Kent Road” effect like you wore the other night; but something simple. Conky Bill is an old fashioned type and likes changing for dinner; so black tie and sea boots will be the order of the day.'

When she had disappeared he went upstairs and carried most of his smaller belongings through to the slip room, then came down and asked Angele to move the rest while he was out. Picking up the basket with the lunch in it, he walked through the sitting room to the French windows, but halted there with a slight frown on his face. Count Jules de Grasse was coming up the garden path.

The Count saw him at the same moment and called out gaily, `Good morning ! You see how prompt I am to repay your call.'

Putting down the basket, John advanced to meet him, a smile now disguising the faint uneasiness he felt. `How nice of you. I am sorry we had to drag Christina away from you last night; but she really was not fit to stay.:

'Oh, we quite understood. How is she this morning?:

'I'm glad to say she is fully recovered,' John replied, as they turned back towards the house. Then, to forestall any further invitation Count Jules might have brought for her, he added, `As a matter of fact you only just caught me. I am about to take her out for the day.'

`Dear me ! Then I fear I have timed my visit badly.'

Feeling that it would be wisest to continue this pretence of friendship, and at least hear what the Count had come to say, John waved a hand towards the French windows. `No. Do come in. We shan't be starting for a little while yet. Can I offer you a drink?'

`Thanks. If you happen to have any pastis I should like one.'

`I expect there is some here. There is usually.' Having found the bottle among the drinks on the side table, John poured from it two good portions of the clear spirit into tumblers, added the water that turned it a cloudy opal, and handed one to his stocky, round faced visitor.

The Frenchman raised his glass, and, having drunk, gestured with it towards the view. `You have a charming place here; and I envy you having a mimosa tree just outside your windows. Now that it is in blossom the smell is heavenly.'

`My father bought this villa some years before the war,

and my mother has lived here almost continuously since.'

`Indeed ! Then you must have been here many times

yourself. I wish I had known before this that we were neighbours. There is little I do not know about the towns of the Riviera, so I could have provided you with a lot of fun.'

`It's a kind thought,' John smiled, `but I have managed pretty well on my own.'

Jules took another swig of the absinthe and remarked, `This is really excellent. Where did you find it?'

`It is a private brew made by the barman at the Negresco. I think my father was rather a favourite customer of his. Anyhow, when my mother goes in to Nice, he still lets her have a bottle now and then.'

`My congratulations on it. Also, since Madame, your mother, is not here, be kind enough to give her my compliments, please.'

`Thanks. I will.'

A short silence fell, then Jules passed a hand over his dark, slightly crinkly hair, and said

`I would like to have a word with you strictly in private, mon ami. Might we, perhaps, take our drinks down to your little terrace?'

`By all means, if you wish,' John replied, much intrigued by the implication of this request.

Side by side, they walked in silence down the path between the Clementine and lemon trees. When they had settled themselves on two of the white painted, comfortably sprung iron chairs that are peculiar to French gardens, Jules asked

`How do you find life in England these days? I mean this decorating business of yours, and making from it a decent income?'

John shrugged. `I've no complaints about business, but money is quite another matter. The trouble is to keep a little when you've made it. We are almost taxed out of existence.'

`So I gather; and it is getting to be the same way here. The illusion still persists that French people do not pay their taxes; but that is no longer true. The Government now assesses us arbitrarily and forces us to meet its demands in anticipation of our incomes. Since in both our countries the Government has become only another name for the People, it really amounts to the idle and stupid stealing from those who work hard and show initiative. But now, alas, they have come to consider it as a right; and I see little prospect of any change in this iniquitous system.'

Wondering what all this could be leading up to, John nodded, and replied, `I fear you are right; and the great danger is that before any change is likely to occur they will have killed off all the geese that lay the golden eggs.'

`In France that has happened already at least, as far as those families who were the mainstay of the country up to the early years of this century are concerned. In 1914 the franc had stood for many generations at 25 to the £. It has since been devalued again and again so that it now stands at round 1,000 to the £. In one half a normal lifetime it has been reduced to one fortieth of its former value. Think what that has meant to the great property owners and others who depend mainly on fixed incomes.'

Again John nodded. `It's effect must have been devastating; in fact, as destructive as a series of capital levies.'

Jules lit a Gitane cigarette and let it remain dangling from his full lips. `You have said it, mon ami; and it is just that point I wished to make with you. Less than half a century ago my family owned great estates. They administered them well and took from them what they wanted, but in reason. Now, my father and I have only our intelligence left; so even to live in reasonable comfort we must take what we can get anywhere we can get it.'

`I thought your father was a wealthy ship owner,' John remarked.

Shrugging his shoulders, Jules crossed one leg over the other, sat back and stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets. `It is true that we own a few ships, but these thieves of tax collectors always have their noses in our books and steal most of the profits. Therefore we have been compelled to develop as a side line the acceptance of commissions for cash, which is not taxable.'

`Really? I suppose you mean carrying certain cargoes without declaring them?'

`Exactly. And there is one commission we accepted recently, of which, as an old friend, I feel it is only fair to

inform you.' Jules paused for a moment, then went on, `It is to transport the young woman you know as Christina Mordant to England before March the 6th. On the completion of that transaction we are to receive the sum of one thousand pounds.'

`I see,' said John quietly.

`Now!' Jules' smile broadened. `It appears that you are interested in Christina. Why, is a question that I am still asking myself; for she is as yet no more than a hoydenish young girl, and still lacking in all the attributes which go to make women intriguing to men of our intelligence. Should you care to stand aside entirely, and not seek to prevent my collecting Christina from her villa at any time I may choose, I will willingly give you introductions to a dozen ladies, all more charming and sophisticated than she is, who live within easy reach; and you can take your pick of them to console you for your loss. Do you agree?'

`No,' said John firmly. `I do not.'

Jules shrugged. `I feared that might prove the case. Therefore I will put up to you an alternative proposition. As I took some pains to point out to you just now, the age of chivalry is past, and most regrettably its passing has compelled my father and me to become business men. We cannot afford to forgo a thousand pounds, but as no contract has been signed we are not strictly bound to carry out our undertaking. In view of your evident desire to continue enjoying Christina's innocent prattle, how would it appeal to you to pay us twelve hundred pounds to leave her alone?'

Such a bare faced attempt at blackmail caused John's eyes to open wide with astonishment. For a second he felt inclined to laugh, but he knew that it was no laughing matter, and, getting to his feet, he said angrily:

`What the hell do you take me for?'

`Should you refuse both my offers, I shall take you for a fool.' Jules also had come to his feet, but his voice remained level. `If, as your attitude now leads me to suppose, you wish to marry the girl, why not approach your mother? She must make a great deal from her books, so could easily find the money.'

`That is beside the point,' John snapped. `I will neither let you take Christina away, nor pay you one brass farthing

to refrain from attempting to. And now, get out!'

Jules' eyes had gone very dark, but his tone was still mild. `I am sorry that you should prove so unreasonable. I came here hoping that we might arrange matters on a friendly basis, and I am still sufficiently well disposed towards you to give you a warning. Do not think that because you came out on top last night you will be lucky enough to do so a second time. I let you get away with it only because my father and I will never permit any situation to arise which might cause trouble in the hotel at which we live. If you attempt to interfere in my business again you must not blame me if you get seriously hurt.'

Night Must Fall

John watched Count Jules drive off in a big blue Citroen, then he turned about and looked up at Christina's villa. It was now about a quarter past twelve, but there was no sign of her in the garden or at those windows of the house that he could glimpse between the umbrella pines; so it looked as if she had not yet finished her packing. Picking up the empty glasses, he stumped up the path with them, and collected the lunch basket. Then, as he left the house, he saw that she had come out just ahead of him and was now half way down to her terrace; so they met in the road.

Assuming that she had not seen Count Jules, John decided that to make any mention of his visit would be to give her needless cause for anxiety; so he greeted her with a smile and said, `I think we'll go towards Agay, then turn inland. If you don't mind an hour's trudge uphill, there is a lovely view from the lowest spur of the ridge.'

She nodded. `We will go wherever you like. But tell me about your visitor. I was ready to start at twelve o'clock, as we arranged, but I saw him with you on the terrace; so I thought it wiser to remain under cover till he had gone. What did he want?'

`He said it was just a friendly call; and he enquired most tenderly about your health.'

`I bet he didn't come all the way from St. Tropez only for that. Please be honest with me, John. Now that I have told you everything I can about myself, it wouldn't be fair of you to keep me in the dark. I would much rather know about it if you have reason to believe that they are plotting anything fresh against me.'

On reconsideration, he decided that she was right, and, if warned, would be additionally careful in watching her every step. So, as they walked at an easy pace along the broad, curving road, flanked with occasional stone balustrades surmounted by urns gay with geraniums and small yellow striped cactus, he gave her the full story of his recent interview. When he had done she said with a shrug

`He really must be crazy to have thought that you might pay him twelve hundred pounds to leave me alone.'

`Oh, I don't know.. Most people have the idea that popular authors make enormous sums. It isn't true, of course few of them earn as much as most Harley Street specialists let alone a leading barrister. Still, he probably believes that my Mama could lay her hand on a thousand or so without batting an eyelid.'

`But even if she could, what can possibly lead him to suppose that she would be willing to part with a sum like that on my account?'

`You must remember that although Jules was educated in England he is very much a Frenchman, and has the typical Frenchman's outlook on women,' John told her. `Custom and lack of inclination combine to prevent them from developing the sort of friendships that English people like ourselves enjoy in the normal course of events. They regard women solely from the point of view of sex, and divide them into two categories those whose circumstances readily invite an amusing love affair, and those who are in no position to offer such an attraction. To anyone of Jules' nationality and class it is unthinkable that a chap like myself might have an affair with a young unmarried girl; because she falls into category number two. It is not entirely a matter of principle that restrains them from entering on such affairs, but also because they would be bored to tears. They regard it as essential that their mistresses should be sexually experienced and take the matter as lightly as they do themselves, so that they run no danger of becoming permanently entangled. Therefore, Jules would argue that, since I should get little fun out of seducing you, and landing myself with a packet of trouble afterwards, the only reason for my interest in you must be that I want to marry you.'

`Surely he can't think that? We . . . of course it seems much longer, but we have known one another only a few days.'

`He is probably not aware that I arrived here only on Monday; and for all he knows we might have already met before you left England.'

`But even if you were keen on me, it is unlikely that your mother would be willing to fork out twelve hundred pounds. Anyhow, until something had been definitely settled and we had become engaged.'

`I don't know so much about that. From the French point of view such a payment might be regarded as a lever to clinch the deal, and more or less part of the contract by which you agreed to marry me.'

`I have always thought that in France it was the other way about, and that in a marriage contract it was the girl's parents who had to put up the money.!

'Ah, but you've forgotten that you are an heiress. If your old man owns a controlling interest in Beddows Agricultural Tractors he must be worth a packet; and you are an only child. As Jules would see it, for my mother to put up twelve hundred to get you for me as a wife would be a jolly good bet.'

Christina laughed. `It is one I wouldn't care to make. As I've told you, I really know awfully little about my father's private life. I don't think he has married again, but he might have. Anyhow, by his mistresses he may have had children of whom he is much fonder than he is of me. It is quite on the cards that when he dies the bulk of his money will go to the people I have never heard of, and that he will leave me only a few hundreds a year to keep me from actual want.'

While they were talking they had reached the little village of Dramont, and after walking over to look at the memorial, which commemorated the landing of the Americans there on August the 15th, 1944, they took the by road that led up into the Esterel.

Their way now lay through the pine forest, which here and there had clearings in it of a few acres devoted to intensive cultivation. In most of them stood a lemon washed farmhouse, and the land was occupied by crops of fruit, vegetables and flowers, all growing on series of terraces which had been laboriously constructed out of the hillside and were kept in place by walls of rough hewn stone. On some there were rows of orange, lemon and tangerine trees, or short bare stalked vines, on others globe artichokes, young beans and primeurs of all sorts for the Paris markets; while many were small fields of carnations, grown in a four feet high wooden trellis work which enabled long mats of split canes to be rolled over them at night to protect them from the frost.

The going was stiff; so they did not talk very much, and then only of trivial things, such as the thrifty care with which the peasants cultivated every available inch of their soil, and of how utterly different the scene was from any that could be found in England at that time of the year. In an hour they had covered barely three miles, but they then came out on the summit of the lowest foothill of the range, and paused there to admire the view. Dramont was now hidden from them by the tops of the trees, but beyond it, no great distance from the shore, they could see the little Golden Isle with its pseudo feudal tower, and to either side of the twin capes of Agay the Mediterranean stretched away in an infinity of blue.

To one side of the road lay an orchard of ancient olive trees, their gnarled trunks and grey green leaves standing out in charming contrast to the yellowier green of the short grass in which they had been planted a century or more ago. In the hush of mid day, with sunlight dappling the grass through leaves unstirred by a breath of wind, it was a truly sylvan spot, having that spell like quality which made them almost expect that a nymph or faun would peep out at them from behind one of the trees at any moment. Instinctively feeling that they could find no more delightful place in which to picnic, they turned into the orchard without exchanging a word, and, sitting down under one of the trees a little way from the road, unpacked their lunch.

When they had satisfied their first hunger, John asked Christina what sort of time she had had at her finishing school in Paris, and after describing the life there she summed it up as more interesting but not so much fun as that she had had in Somerset. In Paris the only lessons had been French grammar and the study of the Arts; the girls had been taken to the opera, the Salon, concerts, classical plays, the best films, special dress shows for jeunes fines, the museums and all the places of historic interest. She had enjoyed all that; but the mistresses had been much stricter and the girls less friendly than at the school of domestic science, and she had greatly missed the fine old mansion that housed it, with its park, swimming pool and lovely garden; the paper chases and cricket in the summer, and in winter the bicycle rides on Saturdays into the local town for tea and shopping.

John had never been in Somerset, but he knew Paris well, particularly the intellectual side of life there; so they talked for a while of painting, ballet and books. The extent of her knowledge, and especially the wideness of her reading, rather surprised him; but she explained that never having been home for the holidays she had had much more time than most girls in which to devour her favourite authors and dip into all sorts of unusual subjects.

In turn she asked him about his work, and he told her that on the whole he thoroughly enjoyed it; but that like every other business it had its irritating moments. As was natural, he lamented the passing of the great house, which had given such marvelous scope to the interior decorators of the Georgian age and been so hideously abused by those working a hundred years later. In the previous year his directors had given him a real plum a Canadian millionaire who wanted a permanent home in London, fully equipped regardless of expense, but did not wish to be bothered with any of the details, or even informed of the colours of the rooms, until he walked into it; but that sort of thing did not happen often. Most of his clients were people compelled by taxation to move from country houses that their families had occupied for generations into medium sized West End flats. The majority of them had taste; so they were usually not difficult to deal with, and the major trouble in such cases was generally that the furniture they wished to retain was much too big for the rooms; so it often spoiled the final decor. The real headaches were the black marketers and other nouveaux riches, who went round on their own, buying ghastly suites or fake antiques, guaranteed to make any interior look garish or pretentious. Yet he declared that he would not for the world be in any other business, as every day brought its new problem that kept his mind alert, and now and then an achievement which gave him real artistic satisfaction.

`Do you ever have to do kitchens?' Christina enquired. `Yes, sometimes.'

`How many sinks do you put in a new scullery?'

`Why, one, of course,' he replied promptly. `In these days of small staffs no one would want more.'

`Then if I ever need a kitchen designed I shan't employ you,' she laughed. `It makes the work infinitely lighter if one has two sinks side by side; and they should both be on a much higher level than most architects place them, to save backache from bending unnecessarily far over.'

`It is certainly a thought,' he admitted in a slightly chastened tone. `I suppose you got the idea from that domestic place you were at?'

`Yes: our kitchen expert had learned her stuff in America, where most wives have to do their own housework. It is scandalous how far behind we are in Britain; and in France things are even worse, in spite of the good cooking. For years past all housework has continued to be far more laborious than it need be. If I ever have a home of my own I shall install all the new labour saving devices. I'll have toe hollows instead of protruding bases along the floor level of the cupboards, so that the paint is not knocked off, compo rubber sinks and draining boards to save breakage, laundry chutes, a mix and whip, an electric dish washer, and one of those lovely things to throw the garbage into that chews up even bones.'

`And the Queen Anne teaspoons too, when some careless woman in fails to notice them among the debris,' John added with a smile, pleased at this opportunity to get in a return shot for hers about the sinks. All the same, he was impressed with her grasp of the subject, and went on jokingly, `We had better go into partnership. You could do all the expensive gadgets on the domestic side, while I crib ideas like the arrangement of those bookcases we saw at the de Grasses last night.'

Her expression immediately became serious, and she asked, `Do you think there is any risk that they might try to get hold of me by force?'

`I doubt it,' he replied with a confidence he was far from feeling. `In any case, you may be sure that we shall do our utmost to protect you. Still, it is a possibility that they might lure you away by some trick, and, as a matter of fact, while we were trudging up the hill, an hour back, I had an idea about that.'

`Did you? Tell me what it was.'

He hesitated a second. `Well, if by chance they did manage to entice you away, we shouldn't be on a very good wicket. I mean, if we had to go to the police and ask them to trace you, they would naturally want to know what authority we had for making such a request, particularly if things pointed to your having gone off of your own free will. They would get down to the job quickly enough if we were relatives of yours, but they might refuse to act at all if they took the view that, as we were only acquaintances, we had no right to stick our noses into your business.'

`I see what you mean; but I don't see how that can be got over.'

`It can be. I think the germ of the idea came into my mind when we were nattering about marriage. Mama and I could raise Cain, and get them running round in circles, if I could say that you were my fiancée.'

Christina's big brown eyes were round with astonishment as she turned them on him. `You . . you aren't making me a proposal of marriage, are you?'

He had been lying full length on the grass, but now he sat up and looked at her with a grin. `Sorry, but I'm afraid I'm not. Although I suppose it is presumptuous of me even to infer that I might have raised false hopes in your maidenly breast. I only had in mind that stupid old saying “marriages are made in heaven and engagements to be broken”. Ours, if you thought the idea worth pursuing, would be only for the “duration of the conflict”, and afterwards we should go our own separate ways, seeking more suitable partners to dig our hooks into in earnest. What do you say?'

`It is a bit shattering to have all one's girlish dreams about first proposals rendered farcical like this,' she said half seriously. `But I do see your point about an engagement giving you the right to get a hue and cry going, should I disappear. I'd feel bound to make it a condition, though, that we should tell your mother that there is nothing serious between us.'

`Of course. And Conky Bill, too. I wouldn't like either of them to think later that I had bilked you. But we ought to put up a bit of a show to establish our state of bliss in the minds of the retainers.'

She gave him a rather dubious look. `What exactly do you mean by that?'

`Why, the usual concrete evidence that you are about to be made into an honest woman.' As he spoke, he drew a gold signet ring from the little finger of his left hand and held it up. `Here ! Let me slip this on your engagement finger. It was my father's, and I regard it as one of my few treasures. So far God's sake don't lose it. You can flash it in front of that old Catalan woman of yours and Angele. Tell them that I mean to buy you something more spectacular when we get home, but that in the meantime it is the symbol of my undying love.'

`All right then,' she laughed, and held out her left hand. It was shapely, but large, and he had considerable difficulty in working the ring over her knuckle. At length he succeeded, and as it slipped down to the waist of the finger he muttered