‘That hole in the wall is where Peregrine’s air-conditioner used to live,’ Molly remarked with a smile.
‘Mm, and the door and window next to it on the end must be Sarah’s domain.’ Treasure turned to his wife. ‘Now, I’m seeing Paul O’Hara at six and Joyce after that, so I’ll need to get moving. Just behave normally. I’ll be back before dinner. You can tell me then who pumps you hardest for information.’
‘And much good it may do them since you’ve hardly told me anything. By the way, if I’m to be left unprotected you might tell me whether I’m in danger of being injected or just beheaded.’
Treasure smiled. ‘Neither in your case. Anyway, there won’t be any more beheadings.’
‘Why not?’
‘You can work that out for yourself. There’s nothing new in the world except the history you don’t know.’ Treasure added absently, ‘Harry Truman said that, but no one was listening to him either: not at the time.’
CHAPTER XVIII
Paul O’Hara had recaptured some of the ebullience Treasure had been led to expect in him.
‘Can I get you another drink?’
The banker declined the offer. The two were standing on the flag-stoned terrace of Buckingham House.
‘You didn’t mind my mentioning the girl? Chief Inspector Small hesitated to ask you.’
O’Hara affected diffidence. ‘Well, you can tell him I’m not on intimate terms with every young female on the island – much as that may surprise him. He obviously told you about the girl here.’ Treasure gave no sign of comprehension. ‘If he’d been on the island longer he’d be less shocked by the prevailing moral mores.’ O’Hara took a long gulp from the glass in his hand. ‘On the other hand, perhaps he wouldn’t. Prissy old devil, seems to me – on a par with my revered brother. And this girl Sarah claims she saw someone enter and leave the cabin?’
It seemed to Treasure that the enquiry had been a little too casual. ‘Yes, but as I said, she’s very vague about the whole thing – or perhaps apprehensive about naming names.’
‘But she was camped outside the whole night?’
‘Apparently so – and never plucked up the courage to go in.’ Treasure had told the story as he and Small had agreed it should be retailed to O’Hara and others. ‘The Chief Inspector still thinks she may have recognized the caller, but is too frightened to say so. He felt if we could find someone she knows and trusts . . .’
‘Maybe she’d spill the beans? I wouldn’t count on it, Treasure. If you want my. opinion she’s cooked up the whole thing to get attention – or money. Did she ask for money?’
‘Not that I know of.’
O’Hara took another drink. He sniggered. ‘It could be Joe had offered her money to sleep with him, she held out hoping he’d up the ante, and now it’s too late she’s trying for something in compensation.’
‘Is it likely she’d have . . . er . . . held out? You said . . .’
‘That most of the local girls enjoy a tumble in the hay with the gentry? That’s true, but if you’d known Joe you could understand why there was never a queue. If this trollop was hesitating in the bushes she was figuring out the prices for the menu – and very possibly deciding not to be the dish of the day after all.’ O’Hara debated the credibility of this conjecture in his own mind. ‘Anyway, I don’t know the girl so it’s not likely she’ll unburden to me. I’d still guess the whole thing’s a fabrication.’
‘I think Small’s come to the same conclusion,’ Treasure gave a relaxed smile. ‘But he still has the idea she may come cleaner when she’s slept on it. It did take her some hours to come forward in the first place. Meantime he’s sent her home.’
‘To look after the Dogwalls.’ O’Hara had his back to Treasure. He was refilling his glass at the small drinks table laid out on the terrace. It was difficult to judge whether the speaker was truly seeking enlightenment.
‘To get some rest actually – she’s tired out.’ Treasure did not want to leave room for doubt. ‘I gather the Dogwalls are departing in the morning.’
O’Hara turned and nodded. ‘Which reminds me, I’m casting off myself in an hour.’ He looked towards the unnaturally darkening southern horizon. ‘Feel it getting sticky? There’s an electric storm on the way.’ He paused. ‘Think over that proposition.’
Treasure smiled. ‘I will.’
Earlier the banker had humoured O’Hara by allowing him to outline a new business deal involving the cigar company and the distillery project. This had differed from the plan proposed by Joe O’Hara in one important particular: it involved heavy front-loading in cash payments to Paul O’Hara in return for greater freedom of action and lower long-term costs in other contexts. Treasure had already concluded the proposition smelled too strongly of get-rich-quick ambitions on the part of his present companion: this was not the time, however, to say as much.
Surprisingly – or so it seemed to Treasure – the dead man’s brother had shown little interest in discussing the fatality. He had been told by Small earlier that the results of the autopsy would not be available until the following day, but the first investigations suggested a heart attack had been the cause of death. O’Hara had made the single caustic observation to Treasure that he had reached the same conclusion without benefit of a medical degree. After that he had let the subject drop – and with no comment on the still unexplained decapitation.
The banker put down his glass. ‘Well, I must leave you to lock up the shop. Oh, you’ll keep the business of the girl to yourself?’ O’Hara nodded unconcernedly. Til walk down through the garden, if that’s all right.’
‘Sure, just follow the path off the drive. I’ll be back tomorrow or the next day. As for locking up the place, it’s more necessary than you’d guess,’ O’Hara continued pointedly. ‘Joe’s servants have been robbing him for years – God knows what they’ll start lifting with no one in residence. And that goes for several thousand others in the vicinity.’
This jaundiced view of the honesty of Carleons hardly fitted with the facts as Treasure knew them. ‘But you’ll have staff about the place?’
‘In their own quarters without access to the main rooms – and that’s the way they’ll stay until I’ve got an up-to-date inventory. The place will be as burglar-proof as I can make it.’
Treasure took his leave, privately marvelling at the tolerance of a certain kitchen maid whose normal incarceration in the scullery was relieved by occasional but short-lived promotions to pleasuring in the master-bedroom. Feudalism appeared to be alive and well on KCI: or was it? His mind turned to the man who was next on his calling list.
O’Hara watched the banker out of sight, then stepped through the open french windows into the library. He locked the windows behind him and pocketed the key. He had not brought Treasure into this room. The two tea-chests near the door into the hall might have witnessed that the sack of Buckingham House had already started – in a selective way: one contained six valuable, if little known, paintings of the French Impressionist School: the other was full of Georgian silver. Both cases would be decently shrouded on their journey down to the quayside. Their contents could be expected to produce a substantial price on the American market, even if they had to be offered without a completely respectable provenance – a possibility their vendor would accept philosophically since he was planning to be paid for them twice.
O’Hara moved to the desk. Some of the papers there he took to the safe. One document he folded carefully before putting it in the inside pocket of his blazer. He had lost one small fortune that day in the incinerator’s smoke.
If he was honest with himself, he had to admit that Babington’s duplicity had probably saved them both from prison. It also meant that he was shipping a virtually worthless load of cigars – a load that had satisfied the KCI Customs Authority but which was unlikely to satisfy anybody else.
Joe had never confided in Paul that the nuns had always kept stored a sufficient quantity of ‘unfortified’ Elegantes to meet p
recisely the emergency they had faced that day. Even so, it had not been necessary for Babington to order the destruction of more than a million dollars’ worth of highly marketable merchandise when he had told the nuns to make the switch. The stuff could have been hidden. They were plenty of places in a convent from which even authorized searchers could be barred – the space in the chapel behind the altar frontal, for instance. Paul O’Hara had never been much touched by religion.
It was some compensation that Joe’s propensity for over-caution could be turned to account in just one context. Only a fool would have insured this Victorian barn at all – and only a raving idiot would have had the valuation of the building and its contents indexed to UK prices. But Joe had done just that – and paid the premiums before the due date like the good little bourgeois he was. O’Hara tapped his pocket: he had the policy and receipt to prove the matter.
‘There’s no way we’ll force the girl to remember, Mr Treasure. No way.’ Mongo Joyce added a touch of vehemence to the impartial observation. It was as though the security of his all-night alibi licensed some overt strengthening to the objectivity of the assertion. ‘Of course I’ll see her if Small wants. I know her – but only very slightly.’ He cast a glance at his wife.
Mrs Joyce had remained present throughout Treasure’s visit. The banker had been glad of this, and had been carefully noting the plump young matron’s reactions to her husband’s pronouncements. If the last disclaimer had been intended as some kind of reassurance she had greeted it impassively. The wronged wife lacked nothing in dignity while presiding in her own living-room.
The room – like the house – was neat but uninteresting. There were no pictures or books, the furnishings were new without being modern, as though they had survived unscathed from that unnamed era – post-utilitarian but pre-Design Council – loved only by junk men.
The Joyce domestic scene was singularly lacking in cultured as well as cultural amenity. Treasure was seated in the centre of it without feeling that he had reached the heart. He found himself speculating on the type of comfort – material and intellectual as well as emotional – provided for the Chief Minister further down the street. Involuntarily he smoothed the arm of his chair: he doubted Lady Cynthia Franks-Barrett much favoured uncut moquette.
‘Mr Small thinks the girl knows more than she’s telling?’ Mrs Joyce enquired.
Treasure shrugged. ‘It’s difficult to say. If she really did see somebody it’s strange she can’t offer the remotest kind of description.’
‘I think my husband should see her – but tomorrow as you say.’ The words came more as an injunction than a suggestion – and they were clearly addressed to Joyce himself: he reacted with a nod of agreement.
The two had been more concerted than Treasure had expected – and Mrs Joyce a good deal more assured than he had imagined, following the description Small had offered of this wife in name only. The banker speculated on the reason for the likely metamorphosis he was witnessing.
‘Meantime, the Chief Inspector would be grateful if we’d keep the matter to ourselves.’ Treasure gave an embarrassed smile. ‘Incidentally, you’d be perfectly right in judging all this is none of my business. It’s simply that Sarah poured her heart out to my wife . . .’
‘And Small very sensibly recruited you as a disinterested go-between.’ The understanding in Joyce’s voice was measured and – to a tuned ear – calculated.
‘He’s up to his eyes in work.’ Treasure rose to take his leave.
Joyce moved to the door. ‘If the formal autopsy report confirms Joe died of a heart attack he should be less busy tomorrow.’
Treasure nodded. ‘There’s still the matter of the decapitation, of course, which . . .’
‘Which will probably have to remain unexplained even if its symbolism is understood.’ The Chief Minister sounded curiously philosophical. ‘I don’t condone the mutilation, Mr Treasure. It was a sacrilegious action – but as a crime one feels it belongs in the body-snatching category.’ He waited while Treasure shook hands with his wife. ‘I’m glad you’re not cutting your stay short. I look forward to our business meeting tomorrow – which will also be in confidence.’
The banker had assumed the indulgent way he had been received had been coloured by political expediency. The last statement confirmed the point.
After seeing Treasure to the door, Joyce returned to the living-room and carefully re-read the copy of the telex report he had taken from his pocket. It had been delivered to him earlier through a very private channel and was a facsimile of the one addressed to Small setting out the cause of Joe O’Hara’s death. The opportunity for circumspection on KCI was less complete than the visiting Chief Inspector might imagine – in this and other contexts. The Chief Minister shrugged his shoulders.
Mrs Joyce brushed past her husband. She was tight-lipped but more resolute than she had been in years. The charade was over – and it was going to stay over.
Treasure turned left out of the side-road to hurry the short distance to Government House and almost collided with Luke Murphy who was wheeling his bicycle in the other direction.
‘D’you always push it downhill, Mr Murphy?’ Treasure asked with a smile.
‘It don’ ever rain but what it pours, sah – and it’s gonna do just dat before long.’ The black man looked up at the sky before fixing Treasure with a broad grin. ‘Fust off, me gotta fix a damn puncture in de back tyre – den me gonna get Sir Dafydd runnin’ like a bird ready fo’ yo’ ’naugral trip tomorrow.’
‘My trip?’
‘Yes, sah. Is de Governor’s plan fo’ a quiet picnic lunch on Mount Manitou for you an’ yo’ lady – bein’ yo’ seen nothin’ yet of dis lovely island.’
‘Sounds delightful – but I’m sorry if it means you’ll. . .’
‘Be workin’ on de railroad all evenin’.’ Luke slapped his side in huge delight. ‘My pleasure, sah. Dat old engine’s me pride an’ joy – and His Excellency’s. It’s bes’ we keep her fired tonight.’
Treasure examined the almost black cloud-line to seaward; it was strangely threatening – even unnerving to a stranger watching a curtain of darkness advance upon an already unnaturally orange sky. ‘Well, stay in the dry,’ he called after the retreating figure.
Alibi or no alibi, it was impossible to credit that the mild-mannered Murphy had chopped off Joe O’Hara’s head. Yet Sarah had at first seemed so certain.
In any event, things appeared to be going according to plan, and Small had evidently been as conscientious as Treasure in setting about his planned series of interviews and arrangements.
It had been Treasure’s idea to have Murphy occupied all evening at the engine shed – a safe distance from Government House. As he walked up the incline the banker was in time to see Paul O’Hara’s yacht clearing the harbour and heading westwards. It had also been his suggestion that O’Hara should not be hindered in his desire to leave that evening. He glanced at his watch. It was seven-thirty – a bit early to expect developments but with the light fading so fast it was as well that everyone would be taking up his station.
It was some satisfaction that for the next few hours at least Treasure’s own allotted responsibility was to observe the reactions and movements of those others invited to dine with the Governor.
CHAPTER XIX
Amos, the butler, turned off the lights in the drawingroom of Government House plunging the assembled company into total darkness. He then began to feel his way back to the projector – a task made no easier by the effects of his having consumed the quite considerable quantity of port remaining in the decanter after dinner.
‘Amos, you’re holding my knee. Pull yourself together.’ Lady Rees was not amused.
Moments later a flapping noise indicated that Amos, still off course, was doing battle with the portable screen. The lights came on again and Debby was revealed standing by the switches. ‘Go back to the projector, Amos. I’ll work the lights when you’re ready.’
‘A
re you sure you want to see this film, Molly?’ Lady Rees turned to her companion on the sofa which constituted – with an armchair – the front row of the makeshift cinema. ‘I mean, you’ve probably seen it a dozen times before – I know I have. Not that that matters to me one bit. Archie keeps hiring it because of the train – oh, and he once met Alec Guinness. I expect you know all the important actors. There’s nothing much to do here in the evenings. I’d have organized bridge but –’ the diatribe continued, only the tone was lowered in deference to the occupant of the armchair – ‘the Dogwalls don’t play. He, would you believe it, suggested some kind of poker.’ There was a temporary cessation in the breathless soliloquy to permit the proper savouring of the last-advertised social solecism.
‘Strip poker?’ Molly Treasure enquired in an earnest tone.
Lady Rees’s mouth fell open and her eyebrows lifted; this gave her the appearance of a surprised hippopotamus.
‘You think Sawah will be okay down there by herself?’ The lull in the conversation to her left had prompted Mrs Dogwall to lean across Molly and to address her apparently stupefied hostess. ‘I mean, maybe she could use some pwotection – being she knows . . .’
‘I’m sure the district nurse or somebody will be looking in on her.’ It was Molly who answered. ‘But remember, what Mark said at dinner was very privileged information. Nobody else knows that Sarah thinks she saw the prowler.’ Molly smiled reassuringly. ‘And as Mark emphasized, when it came to the point her memory – or her imagination – seemed quite to give out on her.’
‘You think she cooked up the whole stowy?’
‘Such things have been known. Is your husband not joining us, Mrs Dogwall?’ Molly glanced over her shoulder at the second row of assorted chairs. Only one was occupied – by the Governor who was absently studying Mrs Dogwall’s bare back over the top of his coffee cup.
‘Oh, he’ll be down in a minute. He’s calling home.’
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