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money will be five hundred thousand dollars. You will get ten per cent of that. My stepdaughter and I divide what is left.’
    ‘Who will do the kidnapping?’
    ‘Why, no one. Odette will go away somewhere, and you will make the ransom demand. That is why I need your help. You will be the threatening voice on the telephone. It is simple enough, but it will have to be well done. For making the telephone call, and for collecting the ransom, I am offering you fifty thousand dollars.’
    Well, the cat was out of the bag now. I felt my mouth turn dry.
    Kidnapping was a capital offence. If I was going to touch this job, I would have to be more than careful. A kidnapper went to the gas chamber if he was caught.
    This idea of hers could be as dangerous as murder – it carried the death sentence.

CHAPTER THREE

    I

    A small dark cloud drifted across the face of the moon. For the space of a minute or so, the sea looked suddenly cold and the beach dark and uninviting, then the cloud passed, and once more there was silver on the water and brightness on the beach.
    Rhea Malroux was looking at me.
    ‘There is no other way of raising such a sum,’ she said. ‘It will have to be kidnapping. It’s the only way to make my husband part with the money. It is easy enough. It’s just a matter of working out the details.’
    ‘Kidnapping carries the death sentence,’ I said. ‘Have you thought of that?’
    ‘But no one is being kidnapped,’ she returned, and stretched out her long, beautiful legs. ‘Just supposing something went wrong, then I will tell my husband the truth, and that will be that.’
    To me, she was as convincing as a carpet salesman trying to sell me a fake Persian rug.
    But at the back of my mind was the thought of fifty thousand dollars. Maybe, I told myself, if I handled the set-up, worked out all the details myself, I could sink a hook into that money.
    ‘You mean your husband will just laugh and tell you you and your stepdaughter are naughty girls and do nothing more about it? The fact that I have telephoned him, telling him his daughter has been kidnapped and demanding money, won’t mean a thing – he’ll treat it as a joke? You think he’ll tell the Federal Agents this is just some fun dreamed up by his wife to rook him out of five hundred thousand dollars?’
    There was a long pause, then she said, ‘I don’t like your tone, Mr. Barber. You are being impertinent.’
    ‘So sorry, but I once was a newspaper man,’ I said. ‘I know, perhaps a lot better than you do, that if the daughter of Felix Malroux is kidnapped, it will make headline news all over the world. It could turn out to be another Lindberg case.’
    She shifted in her chair and I saw her hands turn into fists.
    ‘You’re exaggerating. I won’t allow my husband to call in the police.’ Her voice was sharp and impatient. ‘The situation will be this: Odette will disappear. You will telephone my husband and tell him she has been kidnapped. She will be returned if my husband will pay five hundred thousand dollars. My husband will pay the money. You will collect it and Odette returns. That’s all there is to it.’
    ‘You mean that’s all you hope there is to it,’ I said.
    She made an impatient movement.
    ‘I know that’s all there is to it, Mr. Barber. You tell me you are prepared to take a risk if you are well paid. I am offering you fifty thousand dollars. If that isn’t enough, say so and I’ll find someone else.’
    ‘Will you?’ I said. ‘Don’t kid yourself. You would have quite a time to find anyone to take on a job like this. I don’t like any of it. There are all kinds of snags. Suppose your husband calls in the police, in spite of what you say? Once you have the police in your hair you have them there until someone gets arrested, and that someone could be me.’
    ‘The police won’t come into it. I’ve told you: I can handle my husband.’
    I thought of an ageing millionaire, dying slowly of cancer. Maybe he had