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is it?’
Dick had begun to dress even as he hung up the phone.
‘It’s the poste de police in Antibes—they’re holding Mary
North and that Sibley-Biers. It’s something serious—the
agent wouldn’t tell me; he kept saying ‘pas de mortes—pas
d’automobiles’ but he implied it was just about everything
else.’
‘Why on earth did they call on YOU? It sounds very pe-
culiar to me.’
‘They’ve got to get out on bail to save their faces; and
only some property owner in the Alpes Maritimes can give
bail.’
‘They had their nerve.’
‘I don’t mind. However I’ll pick up Gausse at the ho-
tel—‘
Nicole stayed awake after he had departed wondering
what offense they could have committed; then she slept. A
little after three when Dick came in she sat up stark awake
saying, ‘What?’ as if to a character in her dream.
‘It was an extraordinary story—‘ Dick said. He sat on the
foot of her bed, telling her how he had roused old Gausse
from an Alsatian coma, told him to clean out his cash draw-
er, and driven with him to the police station.
‘I don’t like to do something for that Anglaise,’ Gausse
grumbled.
Mary North and Lady Caroline, dressed in the costume
of French sailors, lounged on a bench outside the two dingy
cells. The latter had the outraged air of a Briton who mo-
mentarily expected the Mediterranean fleet to steam up to

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