The Pool of Pink Lilies

by Joyce Dingwell

  The fact had not occurred to her before, but it did, and with a sickening impact, now.

  `I did not intend to see what you had inscribed, senhorita,' the Senhor was saying in a cool hard voice, 'but now that I have—'

  `Yes, senhor?' Her own voice shook.

  Now that I have, why are my arrangements so important to you that you must note them down in a book? And who is Arlene?'

  He only spoke quietly, but the flint in his tone had alerted the others. All heads were turned to Greer and Vasco Martinez. There was a dead silence.

  Greer had no explanation to make. She had nothing to answer. As the silence grew, and grew, and they all still looked at her, she managed to blurt jerkily: 'I believe the doctor has something to tell you, Senhor Martinez.'

  `To do with what is written here?' the Portuguese asked sharply.

  `It could be,' she said wretchedly, for it would be to do with it, of course, what else? Yet she, poor fool, had not thought of this.

  She turned to go, to – to run, but Vasco's voice stopped

  her. 'You will remain, senhorita. And Terry, you will tell me something that it appears now I have not been told.'

  `I didn't want to alarm you unless it was warranted,' said the doctor, 'and the gardener has assured me—'

  `What gardener?'

  `Aselmo.'

  `But he is my Bombay man.'

  `Yes,' Terry said. 'You see, the Bombay place was broken into ... nothing seems to have been taken, otherwise I would have—'

  His voice trailed off in the face of Vasco's cold rage. The doctor shrugged across at Greer as though to say 'I told you so.'

  But it was a gesture that Greer did not answer. She simply stood shocked and bowed. Shocked at what she had helped bring about, for it must be through what she had written to Arlene that this deplorable thing had happened. Bowed by that icy look in the Senhor Martinez.

  Within an hour the household was packed up and on the road back to Bombay.

  From a distance the 'cross-roads' city of India wore a dusky blue bloom, but as the cars came nearer to the teeming Bombay metropolis the inevitable enamelled, almost brazen skies glittered down.

  Once more Greer was keenly conscious of the rather higgledy-piggledy construction style of the buildings, but between their un-planning that glorious blue shout of shimmering harbour that instantly took away any discordant note.

  She sniffed once more the spices, herbs, jasmine and mango petals, she heard the clangour and clamour of the markets, the call of 'Only look, no need to buy' from the merchants, the crooning 'Two annas for a bunch of lilies, memsahib' from the girls.

  Now they were in the city itself, passing the imposing government buildings, the banks and office blocks, the squares of flats. She remembered Uncle Randall's flat.

  Then they were climbing ... how well she recalled that first anxious climb, the doctor in another car with Holly, she and the Senhor following, her instinctive thought as she had glanced out of the window that Holly would like this flower-soft street.

  At last the Senhor's Bombay house was rising up. More a palace really ... no, a palacio, for it belonged to a Portuguese.

  She thought of her first impression of the place, its almost breathtaking grandeur, and but for the dull heaviness in her she could have been affected once again by the white columns with their hanging baskets of fern, the flagged terraces with their tubs of yellow roses, the lavish lattice work.

  `Senhorita.' They had stopped at the bottom of the lordly steps, and Vasco Martinez was bowing her out.

  He put the tips of his fingers impersonally under her elbow to guide her up, but when he stopped briefly to issue an order as to the luggage she took the opportunity to hurry ahead.

  Holly was not far behind her, and Greer braced herself for the question her sister must ask, that inevitable : 'Did you tell your uncle's wife that we would be away?'

  But she had underestimated Holly. The girl, coming into the bedroom almost at once, only put her arms around her. 'Darling, I know it will be all right.'

  `Holly, I didn't—'

  `Hush! I don't have to be told.'

  Tears were rolling down Greer's cheeks, but, oddly, they were not tears of sympathy for herself but tears of relief for Holly. For Holly was being the comforter instead of the comforted, Holly was being the watch-girl now. Holly was leading instead of being led. For a moment her present cares lifted. Greer felt a joy instead.

  `You're well, you're really well, Holly.' Greer brushed her tears away and smiled at her sister.

  `Yes, I feel I'm standing on my own feet at last. Oh, it's a wonderful feeling, Greer. You'll never know the futility

  I went through, the desperation. You were fine, you devoted yourself to me, but just to know that I myself can cope ...' Holly gave a little shiver of joy. 'I wonder if that's why I felt so anxious to come here to India, I wonder if in some subconscious way I knew I could get better here.'

  `The good part to me,' said Greer thankfully, 'is that we can go on now, Holly. You have the strength. When old Doctor Jenner said " . . .Why not? ... Let her go . . . May as well . . ." I thought—'

  `I often thought it, too,' Holly smiled.

  BMut he was wrong. And were he here he would not say ‘`.. . Let her go" because he thought it couldn't matter, with your radiance he'd really be keen for us to move on. And we will, Holly. We'll go overland to England. How would you like that? There is a cross-country tour that I'm sure we could afford.'

  Holly was looking at her in amazement. But, Greer, I'm not moving out. I – I thought you might have sensed that by now. I know I did say it was secret, but—'

  Greer could not look back at her. She also could not bring herself to cry: But I don't know, not really, I mean there's been three of them, hasn't there, and though I know it could only be one . . . that one . . . what of the others?'

  She heard her own voice say dully, But I must go, I can't stop here.'

  `You are stopping here.' The voice at the doorway held no two thoughts about that. Senhor Martinez remained where he was, he did not enter. He said, 'You will remain anyway until I have looked into this matter. I will see you in my office in half an hour.' He turned on his heel.

  Greer did not stop with Holly. She turned as quickly and single-mindedly as the Portuguese had, and went out of the big house by the back door.

  She had intended to hail a cab, but when she saw one of the smaller house cars pulled up and empty behind the others, saw that the keys were still there, she simply got

  in. What she had to do, or at least whom she had to see, would not take long.

  But she should have had more sense than to think she could get to Uncle Randall's flat and back in the stipulated time. She thought this some twenty minutes later. When would she learn to expect the inevitable hold-ups in an Indian street? The pedlars, the bicycles, the crowding taxis, the ever-appearing cow.

  But at last she arrived there and ran up the stairs. For a moment she believed it would be as privately as she had thought it would be, and that was that Arlene had flitted off.

  Then to her surprise the door opened. But not on Arlene. Nor Uncle Randall.

  Senhor Martinez stood there.

  `You are very transparent, Senhorita Greer,' were his opening words. 'I knew at once you intended this. I did not even have to check the cars. However, I have more local knowledge than you, which enabled me to be here to greet you.' He gave an ironic bow.

  `I was coming back,' she said inadequately, 'I just wanted to see—'

  `If your aunt was here? No, she has gone.' He shrugged.

  `Has she taken ... taken whatever it was that was taken from your house? That is, if it was Arlene who did it.'

  `I think you can be assured of that.' He was fixing one of his cheroots, taking his time over the clipping and trimming and lighting. He looked at her obliquely across the blue weave of smoke.

  `Why can I be assured?' she demanded.

  `A simple but telling answer. Because wh
at was taken only referred to your uncle and aunt.'

  `Money—' she stammered wretchedly.

  `I am a business man,' he said scornfully, 'I would not leave money in my house.'

  `Then—?'

  `Papers that your uncle gave me as a guarantee, a

  guarantee of something that at no time did he ever intend to make good.'

  `You were holding them as evidence against him?' `Why not?' He exhaled slowly. 'While I retained these at least he could not do the same to others.'

  `I don't think,' Greer said chokily, 'that that was your real reason. Uncle Randall had only to go to some other place, somewhere he was unknown, just as he has been doing all his life, to begin it all over again. I think you were only holding them to — to hold me.'

  `Hold you? Why should I do that?' He laughed with soft amusement.

  `I didn't mean it like that,' she flashed. 'I meant to hold something over me.'

  `Isn't it the same?' he reasoned. `So for that object you believe I retained these papers.' Again the soft amusement. 'Oh, no, you are very wrong. If I wanted to hold you, senhorita, it would be more like this.'

  He had put the cigar down and stepped forward, but it was still all so quick that it happened before Greer realized it.

  One moment she was standing a few paces from him, the next his hands were round her waist, gripped hard as his dark olive face came nearer to hers. She saw the black eyes, amused no longer, but burning, burning with a deep fire, a fire she could not comprehend, because it was Holly for whom those fires burned.

  `Holly . . .' She tried to say it, but his lips were on hers, cool at first, harbour-cool, then the coolness going and Indian heat instead.

  Slowly he broke the kiss. He held up his head again from hers. He released her.

  `That,' he said with the soft amusement again, 'is how I would do it, senhorita, not with papers in a safe.'

  `You — you're hateful!'

  `So long as I have pressed my point.'

  She went unsteadily to the window and held hold of the sill for support.

  `What are you going to do? About Randall and Arlene, of course.'

  `But of course.' Again the bantering smile 'Who else?'

  She ignored that. She said, 'Do you think that Arlene was supporting my uncle all the time?'

  `Yes. Not from any wifely affection but for her own gain. She is well known in Bombay. She has never been any good. I would say' ... again he took up his cheroot ... 'that she made a good match in your uncle.'

  `He hadn't deserted her, then?'

  `He merely had found it convenient to lie low for a while.'

  `But why did he bring us across? Why did he pay for Holly and me?'

  `I think if you ever go into it, senhorita, you will find that Randall Perry and Arlene Perry were planning something quite large. But they needed an innocent face, two innocent faces, for their own were not innocent, not even where they were unknown. So—' He spread his palms.

  `But if that was so, if we were wanted, would Arlene have been so antagonistic to us when we first arrived?'

  `The bubble had burst. Randall had got out, leaving her to hang on until he planned another move, and that annoyed her. He probably did not know what move it could be then, but the opening occurred.' He smiled thinly and remindingly at Greer, and she flinched. 'His wife's attitude,' he went on, 'is understandable in such a person as she is, she would tolerate no friends unless they were profitable friends, and until you so conveniently came to her rescue, she had no use for you. Naturally then she was not pleased initially to see you. But afterwards, what a different story. Tell me, Senhorita Greer, how much money did you give her?'

  `It was mine,' hotly.

  `How much?'

  She told him miserably.

  He was smiling with thin amusement again. 'And I aided and abetted that by directing my accountant to pay you in advance,' he said.

  `I was a fool,' Greer admitted quietly. 'But he was my uncle, my mother's only brother. Arlene was his wife. You will never understand that, Senhor Martinez. You don't understand the word belonging.'

  His face had darkened at her words. For a moment Greer thought he was going to cross the room and either shake her or—

  'On the contrary,' he said coldly, 'I understand very well. Belonging, to the Portuguese, comes first of all. But the belonged must always be worth the belonging. That is where you made your mistake.'

  `Yes,' she admitted. 'I also made a mistake telling Arlene that we would be away, that there would only be a casual caretaker at the house. When I did so I was thinking of nothing more than my letters, hers to me, I was thinking how they would attract attention if they were held in the Bombay house for our return, alternatively if they were forwarded to Stuyva. I had no other thought, Senhor Martinez, and you'll have to believe me.'

  He shrugged carelessly. 'Of course I believe that. What else? Do you think I suspected that you informed your uncle's wife with the direct knowledge that she would then . ..' He spread his hands significantly. 'Oh, no, you have been foolish, but not malicious I think, even though there was no difficulty in getting into the house, even though' ... a sharp inquiring look . 'it was done quite ordinarily with a key.'

  `You mean there was no force?'

  `No, simply the turn of a key.'

  `But my key, the one I was given, is still with me. It's here in my handbag. My – bag.' Standing almost where she had stood the last time in the flat, memory came flooding back to Greer. Her handbag tossed down. Arlene taking her out to the small verandah. When she returned her odd feeling that her bag was not where she had put it

  ... that her things, although they were still there, were not quite the same. She supposed now in their absence that the maid, instructed by Arlene, had taken an impression of the key. It would be easy enough.

  'I don't know. Oh, I don't know.' She began to cry.

  He came across to her and for a moment she thought he was going to put his arms around her in comfort, not like before in derision . . . and something else, she dared think? ... more in gentleness and in friendship. Almost she raised her face in anticipation.

  But when he came he just stood there.

  `There is nothing to be done here, senhorita, we will go back to the house.' He paused. 'We will leave this discussion, all discussions, until tomorrow. It has been an upsetting period; for myself with that stupid accident as well. So instead we will rest. Then when we feel refreshed and calmer we will continue from where we have paused.'

  'I want to leave Bombay, senhor,' Greer said emptily. She added, her voice firm now, intentional, 'Holly must come, too.'

  'I can answer that for both of you,' he said at once. `Holly, as surely you must know by now, will not leave.' He looked at her questioningly, questioning her for even thinking her sister would go.

  `She has said so,' Greer admitted, 'but she could change her mind.' She waited a moment, then she looked questioningly, but questioning for a different reason, back at him. 'You can answer for both of us, you just said?'

  `That is right, senhorita.'

  `Then what do you have for me?' She tried to say it challengingly, but it emerged differently from what she planned.

  He said coolly: 'That is not under discussion . . . yet. But the other is. That "Who leaves?" of yours.' A pause. 'The answer, senhorita: No one leaves.'

  'No one?'

  'No one,' he said again. 'We are postponing the dis-

  cussion, but not closing it. Meanwhile, no one leaves. As Holly had no intention of leaving, anyway, that really means you. You are not leaving Bombay. Now if you are ready we will return in my car. My man can bring the smaller one.'

  This time the fingers under her arm were not so light. They impelled her out of the flat to the waiting limousine.

  In silence they returned to the Bombay house.

  CHAPTER TEN

  GREER saw nothing of Senhor Martinez the next day, and only glimpses of Holly. Doctor Terry was packing prior to leaving for England
. 'From there, who knows?' he said to Greer.

  `I thought you were assigned here,' Greer replied, 'or at least somewhere in Asia.' To herself she added, 'That rules out Terry for Holly, for she never could have kept London a secret, not Holly. London was always to Holly what the Pool of the Pink Lilies was to me. No, it's not Terry, so why then did they sit hand-in-hand?'

  `No assignment, I've just been enjoying a break between jobs,' Terry told her. 'I've restless feet, Greer, or perhaps I should say a thirst for more and more information, and not the sort in medical books but in different countries, in different people.'

  Jim Matson took his small class as usual, but afterwards hurried off to his other pupils. 'I only got leave of absence for the Stuyva jaunt,' he explained. 'However, I'll be signing off from Bombay quite soon, I'm going to try my luck and my English classes in Madras.'

  That ruled out Jim. It ruled out two.

  But hadn't she known this? Greer said to herself as she sought out the little boys. She was rather unsure whether she was still in the actual employ of Senhor Martinez, in other words whether she was still required to 'observe', but she liked children, and it was no punishment to join the pair in the pool, to walk with them in the garden.

  Last night, tossing sleeplessly in bed, Greer had resolved to speak directly with Holly at last. To ask her everything that Holly, and everyone else, meaning Vasco, seemed to assume she already knew. It was not going to be easy. To hear Holly say: 'Yes, it is the Senhor, of course, but I thought you had guessed' would never be easy.

  However, she had to hear it, and resolutely Greer had gone first thing to tap on Holly's door.

  It was pre-breakfast, yet Holly was gone. Greer had hardly believed it. Even allowing for Holly's remarkable change in health it seemed impossible that she was out at this early hour.

  She saw her briefly later, but not to speak to. The little nurse who had attended her in her illness had come to visit her. The two sat by the window so deeply absorbed that Greer could not interrupt them. Later, Holly had been with Doctor Terry. Later with Jim. But not with the Senhor, Greer noted, though of course he would be reserved for those velvet, strangely disturbing Indian nights. But still I have to see her, Greer thought. Ask her. Know. Greer was not aware she said that know aloud.