by Cave, Hugh
Preble's smile became scowl. "Does this have anything to do with the obeah I've been reading about?"
"No. Obeah is a kind of black magic brought here from Africa by slaves. If you want an obeah charm, I can get you one without any trouble. I can't take you to the Devil's Pit because I don't know where it is."
"What do you think is really happening to that boy in Look Up?" Edith asked.
Peter hesitated. He had not told them Gerald's story of being forced to kill a man. "I don't know. You're the one who thought he might be getting a message of some sort from his twin brother."
"Who is lost up there near the Devil's Pit," she pursued.
"Or somewhere."
"You did tell the soldiers about Gerald?"
"I did. And by now they should be somewhere near where the scouts became lost. If, that is, the scouts were where they thought they were," Peter amended. "Sergeant Wray said the two who were found were badly confused."
Alton Preble, apparently running out of patience, said sharply, "Well, what are we to do about all this? Do you have any ideas, Sheldon?"
"I'm afraid it's not up to me."
"Meaning?"
"Edith owns Armadale. I only work here."
"What if we weren't here?"
"I suppose I'd be trying to persuade Manny Williams to hike up there with me, to find out what's going on."
"Would you? I wonder."
The retort that leaped to Peter's lips in response to Preble's sneer certainly would not have helped to ease the tension, but it was not uttered. His housekeeper came onto the veranda at that moment, to tell him there was a report on the radio about the missing scouts.
Followed by the two from England, he hurried into the drawing room.
". . . was flying near Blackrock Peak searching for the missing scouts when its pilot, Lieutenant Kevin Bradley, looked down and saw a Defence Force helicopter in a forest clearing directly beneath him. There was scarcely room for two such craft to land there, but he did so and investigated.
"According to Lieutenant Bradley, the first craft had crashed and burned. Speculation is that it may have run into unexpected air currents or a sudden hard rain. Of its pilot and civilian observer, Lieutenant Bradley could find no trace. So now, along with the Scouts, we have two more persons unaccounted for: Captain David Anderson of the Defence Force and Mr. Ronald Cripp, his observer.
"Lieutenant Bradley said that after searching for the two men for nearly an hour, he took off again and dropped supplies, as planned, to a group of soldiers, led by Sergeant Leslie Wray, who were making their way on foot along the ridge from Morgan Peak. With the supplies he also dropped a note advising them of his discovery of the burned chopper and requesting they look for the missing men.
"On the news this evening we hope to have more details of this latest puzzling event in the baffling mystery of the missing scouts."
"What did he mean by a civilian observer?" Edith asked after Peter had turned the set off.
"The army has been using some Forestry Department men to assist them."
"I see."
Do you? Peter wondered, recalling what Bronzie Dakin's boy had said about the man he had been ordered to murder. Brown pants and a yellow shirt, Gerald had said. "Only the shirt wasn't nice after me finish. It was a ruin, all red with blood."
The missing scouts would be in uniform, of course. So would any soldiers seeking them. But an observer from the Forestry Department would not be.
19
ALONE IN HIS ROOM, HOURS LATER, PETER WONDERED how he could find out what the missing forester had been wearing. If he went down to the police station in Cedar Ridge, would he be able to persuade young Corporal MacQuarrie to let him phone the capital?
He could almost hear the corporal's -response. "You're telling me, Mr. Sheldon, that Bronzie Dakin's boy may have murdered the man without even being up there where the copter was discovered? One of us has to be crazy, Mr. Sheldon."
Anyway, to find out what the forester had been wearing, he would probably have to talk to someone who had been present when the chopper took off. That could involve a lot of telephoning at a time when the station phone should not be tied up.
Seated on his bed, staring at the photographs on his walls, he shook his head in defeat. It was nonsense, anyway, to think that Gerald Dakin's fantasy of killing a man might be based on an actual happening. The forestry fellow had not been found headless; he was simply missing.
Forget it, he told himself. Turn in.
He was certainly tired enough. All evening he had continued to talk with Edith and Alton about what was happening. Deeply interested in the subject of twins, Edith must have read everything about them that she could get her hands on. She had spoken of the mysteriously close relationship of certain pairs—how, for instance, some of those separated at birth and reunited years later discovered they had led amazingly similar lives, even to having pursued the same careers and married mates of the same name.
"There was an International Congress on Twin Studies in 1977, in Washington, D.C.," Edith said. "Your Reader's Digest had a story on it. All kinds of astonishing reports were presented. One, I recall, was almost unbelievable—how twin brothers taking the same school exam were seated far apart from each other. They simply couldn't have communicated in any way. Yet out of six theme topics given to the students to choose from, those two picked the same one and wrote almost word for word the same story."
"You think, then, that Gerald is communicating with his brother Georgie?" Peter had asked. "Do you really believe that's possible?"
"I really believe it is. As I told you, the subject of twins has intrigued me ever since the doctors operated onthe wrong twin in the hospital where I was working."
But more than the possibility of telepathy between twins had been discussed there in the Great House drawing room. Alton Preble, obviously anxious to depart from Armadale at the earliest possible moment, had again bombarded Peter with questions about plantation affairs. For one thing, he was not pleased with Peter's bookkeeping.
"I concede, Peter, that a sophisticated system might not be possible here. But surely a more foolproof method than the one now in use could be devised."
Peter could only point out again that the tax people had not complained.
"At any rate"—Preble turned to Edith—"I'm sure you've seen enough of your father's folly here to know what you must do."
"Folly, Alton? Really, I—"
"Oh, I don't mean to criticize his judgment. But in view of what's going on here, how can you even think of absentee ownership? And as for the other suggestion in your father's will . . . well, my dear . . ." He shrugged and was silent.
What, Peter had wondered, was the "other suggestion" in Philip Craig's will? They hadn't enlightened him. Edith, in fact, had appeared to be annoyed at her fiancé's mention of it.
In his pajamas now, he stretched out on the bed and shut his eyes, trying again to think how he might find out if the man inGerald Dakin's fantasy was the missing observer from the helicopter. Then he realized he had another problem in connection with Bronzie Dakin's disturbed son. He had promised to take the lad to the hospital tomorrow if he was no better.
To drive to Wilton Bay and back would take two hours. Probably longer, because he would have to spend some time at the hospital. Alton Preble would not be pleased.
Well, to hell with Alton Preble. To hell with his hints, his innuendos, his courtroom inquisitions.
Sleep, old buddy. Tomorrow may be a long, tough day.
His mind made up, he put out the light and lay there gazing at a ceiling now silvered by a wash of moonlight from the windows. But instead of sleep came thoughts of the John Crow's Nest and the bits of burned map he had saved. A careful examination of the charred scraps had told him nothing, but the handkerchief containing them was still in a dresser drawer.
Maybe if he turned them over to a chemist . . . But the only chemist he knew was a professor at the university who had been here for a
weekend a month ago, hunting orchids, and was not likely to come again soon.
Suddenly, staring at the dresser, he was afraid to go to sleep. What if that damned green mist crept up on him again? Nothing but luck had kept him from burning down the Great House last night. What if this time the mind in the mist simply commanded him to hold a match to a curtain?
What if it told him to take a kitchen knife and go to &Alton Preble's room?
Or Edith's?
He sat up in a cold sweat, trembling.
Then, facing the problem, he groped for a solution.
It was a thing you had to do here all the time: find your own solutions to problems. Very early in the game he had discovered that. Carpenters, mechanics, plumbers, electricians—all such people, if professional, were miles away and not at all eager to respond to a summons, even when knowing they would be well paid. So if a boulder came crashing down the mountain onto the pipeline, you removed the shattered section of pipe and installed a new one yourself. When a high wind wrecked the power line between the generator and the house or the warehouse, you replaced the poles with new ones from the forest. If a plantation vehicle became temperamental, you patiently worked on it until you found the trouble, then did your best to fix it at least well enough to get it to a garage in town.
What to do now about guaranteeing one Peter Sheldon at least a few hours of trouble-free sleep?
He could think of only one solution, and it required a few feet of rope. That was no great problem: there was a coil of sisal rope, used for tethering mules and donkeys, on a wall of the storeroom downstairs. He went down, took a machete from the bench there, and cut off the length he needed.
Back in his bedroom he tied one end of the rope around his right ankle, positioned himself on the bed, and fastened the other end to one of the mahogany bedposts.
Now, by God, if the mist tried to send him prowling again on some ugly nocturnal mission, he would be awake before he got off the bed.
All right, old buddy, relax. Get some sleep now.
But when he awoke, with the room full of that eerie green mist, the first thing he did was sit up, lean forward with his arms outstretched, and untie the rope from his ankle. Then he slid off the bed, removed his pajamas, and as calmly as though it were time to begin a new day, pulled on his clothes. The small alarm clock on the chest of drawers said it was not time to begin a new day; it was only a quarter to four. Moonlight streaming through the windows infused the swirling mist with an eerie glow, as though the green haze were born of mother-of-pearl.
With sneakers on his feet he went silently out of the room and down the stairs again to the storeroom, not for rope this time but for a shotgun hanging on a wall there. Lifting it down, he opened a drawer of the workbench and took out two shells with which to load it, then four more that he put into his pocket.
He hadn't used the gun in months. Never, in fact, had he hunted the wild pigeons on the property as men like Manny Williams did. The only reason he had even bought shells for the weapon, after finding it here when he came as manager, was to cut down the mongoose population. Those wily, weasel-like killers, originally brought to the island to war on rats in the cane fields, took a heavy toll of birds that nested on the ground. With the 12-gauge in his hand he left the Great House by a lower door and, like a sleepwalker, paced down the path through the gardens, on his way to Look Up and the home of Bronzie Dakin.
Gerald Dakin had to be silenced.
It was an eerie journey on a night shining with moonlight. Every bush and tree, every boulder in the path, cast a clean-edged black shadow, as did his own plodding body and the shotgun held in the bend of his arm. The night itself was breathless, not even a whisper of wind to stir a leaf, yet it was far from silent. Stones clacked in the road when disturbed by his sneakers. Insects chirped and twittered, hummed and buzzed. High in a cloudless sky the moon was an unblinking eye recording his progress.
Gerald Dakin must be destroyed before. . .
Before what?
Before he revealed too much.
In the shimmering moonglow, the house was white as milk against the brown of the yard and the dark green of the trees. He put his left hand on the gate and pushed open. He stepped through. With his gaze fixed straight head, he advanced to Bronzie Dakin's door.
The door was locked. And there was a wooden bar inside, he remembered, that could be slid into place to make intrusion even more difficult. With the shotgun ready in his right hand, he made a fist of his left and pounded on the barrier.
"Bronzie, open up! It's Peter Sheldon!"
After seconds of silence he heard a slow shuffle of sandals on the old board floor inside. Then, timorously: "Who it is?"
"Peter Sheldon! Let me in!"
He heard the wooden bar grate through its slots. Heard the key turn in the lock. The door opened a few inches and he saw Bronzie Dakin's far-apart eyes peering out at him.
"Mr. Peter, it's so late. What you want?"
Lunging against the door, he thrust it open and all but knocked her down. In fact, she did fall to one knee and was still struggling to get up when he strode past her to the room where Gerald would be sleeping. As he bulled his way into the bedroom, he put both hands on the shotgun and jerked it up in front of him. By the glow of the lamp near the sick boy's bed, he saw that his intended victim was asleep.
His finger curled against one of the weapon's twin triggers. There was no need to aim at such close range. But a low voice behind him interrupted.
"No, Mr. Sheldon."
He felt his body become rigid. Felt his trigger finger stiffen as though turned to stone. The voice was not that of Bronzie Dakin. It was Mother Jarrett's—deep and calm as always, but now hypnotic as well. "No, Mr. Sheldon," it repeated. Then, almost as an afterthought: "Please hand me the gun. You will not use it here."
Not altogether sure what he was doing, he turned to face her, half expecting to find her changed somehow. But she had not changed. Though wearing a white nightgown now instead of a head-cloth and robe, she was still the same tall, dignified woman. And there seemed to be no accusation in her voice or expression as she extended her right hand toward him and said again, "Please, Mr. Sheldon—the gun."
He put it in her hand. She knew about such weapons, apparently, for almost without looking at it, she extracted the two shells before turning to place it against a wall.
"Come now," she said then, still not raising her voice. "We must talk about this."
In silent obedience he followed her into the front room, where he became aware that Bronzie Dakin, also in a nightgown, was staring at him in obvious terror. The Jarrett woman motioned Bronzie to a chair, then said to him, "You sit down, too, please, Mr. Sheldon," and found a chair for herself. Gazing at him without apparent hostility, she said, "Now tell me, please, what you meant to do just now."
"I was told to kill Gerald." Was it actually his own voice he was hearing? It sounded faint and muffled, and was the voice of a stranger.
"Who told you to kill Gerald?"
"My God, I don't know. I was asleep in bed. When I woke up, I just knew I had to do it." He looked helplessly at Bronzie, who had been one of his most faithful workers for so long, and his sense of guilt was all but unendurable. "Bronzie, believe me," he heard himself sobbing, "I don't know. . . ."
"It is happening," Mother Jarrett said calmly. "Bronzie, I told you. It is happening." Rising, she stood before Peter like something from an old Bible illustration, ruler straight and with her long fingers entwined beneath her breasts. In an even lower voice than usual she said slowly, "How did you fall under the power of Lucifer, Mr. Sheldon?"
He could only stare at her.
"You don't believe in the evil one, Mr. Sheldon?"
"Well, I—"
"Today so many don't, and I think that is why we are becoming so vulnerable. Because he exists, you know. I don't think we are learned enough yet to say whether he is a person, a thing, a place—perhaps even only a thought—but he exists, never d
oubt it. Just as God exists. And Lucifer, Satan, the devil—whatever one wishes to call him—is wholly evil."
"But why me?" Peter heard himself whispering in the stillness of the lamp lit room. "Why always me?"
"You have felt this force before, you mean?"
He told her of his experience at the John Crow's Nest. Of what had happened to him at the intake pool and the tree bridge. Of his nocturnal attempt to set fire to the Great House. It was a relief to tell her. He had a feeling she might be able to help him. Bronzie Dakin sat there watching him in a silence of horror as he spoke.
When he had finished, the silence seemed to last a frighteningly long time before the voice of Mother Jarrett dispelled it. "Mr. Sheldon," she said then, "I think you should leave here."
"Leave Armadale, you mean?"
"Leave the district. Perhaps even the island. Think. This evil has attacked you several times. Tonight it felt so confident of its control over you that it sent you here to kill Gerald. Who knows what it may do next?"
20
AS PETER TRUDGED BACK UP TO THE GREAT HOUSE IN the moonlight, the tall woman's words were a drumbeat in his brain, matching the thud of his footsteps. What, indeed, might his personal devil not force him to do next? What came after attempted murder?
But he could not leave Armadale. No way was he going to turn his back on the best five years of his life and his best hope for the future. Anyway, he hadn't been the sole target of what was going on, had he? Up there at the John Crow's Nest, Edith Craig, too, had been affected.
And the scouts. And perhaps the helicopter men. Mother Jarrett's "force of evil"—if such a thing existed—may have been at work there also.
Don't run, old buddy. But don't let your guard down again, either. Sooner or later, whatever is at work here will tip its hand and give you a chance to fight back.
Looming there above its own massive shadow in the moonlight, the old Great House seemed hostile now, poised to pounce like something alive and monstrous. What was the time? he wondered. When dressing for his nocturnal murder mission, he had neglected to put on his watch. The alarm clock in his room had read quarter to four when he left, though, so it must be after five now. He would not be going back to bed. Anyway, he wanted to think, not to sleep.
