The White Witch of the South Seas

by Dennis Wheatley

James grinned at him and raised one eyebrow. Gregory grinned back and went on:

  ‘You’re quite right, my boy. While you labour in the heat of the day I’ll toil not neither will I spin, but I may do a few other things. When you have collected your team you can come and pick me up; then we’ll make all steam back to Tujoa.’

  Next morning, Hunt’s representative took them along the wharf and aboard the Southern Cross, a cabin cruiser that could accommodate a dozen passengers, and introduced them to her Captain, Bob Wyndhoik—a tubby, brown-skinned little man who, it transpired, had a mixed ancestry of Dutch, Indonesian and Maori and had been born in New Zealand.

  He said they were lucky to get him, as he had been booked to take a party of Americans for a week’s trip round the islands, but it had been cancelled the day before; and, at the moment, there was no other boat of the size they wanted available at Lautoka.

  When told what his boat was required for, he said that he would be taking on stores during the morning, so could sail that afternoon. But he stipulated that any divers they collected must sleep on deck. James said that was customary and a price was agreed; then he and Gregory went ashore to get some Fijian money from the bank on the corner of the main street, and do some shopping.

  On the top of a slope opposite the hotel stood the Lautoka Club, which had a fine view over the bay and a big swimming pool. By courtesy of the secretary, they had drinks and a swim there before lunch. After the meal they had their baggage taken down to the Southern Cross and went aboard.

  The weather was clement and the blue sea only slightly choppy, so, when they were well clear of the inshore reefs, Captain Bob Wyndhoik came and sat himself down beside them, under the awning shading the after deck. He proved a cheerful, garrulous little man and, having spent over fifteen years in the Fijis, knew a lot about them.

  An outrigger canoe beating towards Lautoka swept past them, tilted right over, her triangular sail lying at an angle of forty-five degrees from the surface of the sea. ‘Ah!’ exclaimed the rotund Bob. ‘Look at her! What a sight for you! Them Fijians certainly are good sailors. Time was when they built the finest canoes in all the Pacific. Great double ones with decks fifteen or more feet wide above the two hulls, and a thatched house on the stern for the Chiefs to live in when they went on long voyages. They was long voyages, too. Down to Tonga, up to Samoa, across to Tahiti, way south to New Zealand or east to New Caledonia and the Solomons. Even all way up to Hawaii they went, and that’s close on three thousand mile.’

  ‘Still more amazing,’ Gregory put in, ‘many centuries ago great numbers of them decided to emigrate, and sailed in their canoes through the East Indies, and right across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar.’

  ‘True enough, sir. That was the Polynesians, though. Them is a fair-skinned lot, and much more knowledgeable, as you might say. But the Fijians built the best canoes. Why, old King Thakobau built one as a present for his pal, King George of Tonga, that was over a hundred foot long, and could carry a hundred warriors. Took seven years to build her, it did. That was way back in the early forties, when the practice still was to christen a new canoe with a human sacrifice. Not content with that, they clubbed a few poor goops to make a nice foundation before they laid down the keel. In this case, a couple of missionary gents called Lyth and Hunt persuaded them to cut out any further bloodletting when the great canoe was launched and not to do the usual on her maiden voyage, which was to collar some unsuspecting feller at each port of call and bust his head open on the prow.

  ‘But when they got her to Bau, the island from which eastern Fiji was ruled, there was an accident. As the tall mast was lowered for the first time, its heel slipped and it killed a man. Old King Thak took that as a sign that the gods were angry ‘cos the usual sacrifices had not been made before she were delivered to him. He promptly put things right by having twenty-one undesirables hunted out and clubbed to death.’

  ‘Keeping alive in those days must have been a pretty chancy business for ordinary people,’ Gregory remarked.

  ‘It was, sir. You’d never believe how cruel them old Chiefs could be. They bought it themselves, though, when they got old and sick. The young blood who was to step into a Chief’s shoes just couldn’t wait till his old man died. It was common practice for them to bury their pas alive.

  ‘Another thing. Every time they built a bure they had a special drill for keeping the evil spirits away. Into each hole where they meant to put one of them great pared tree-trunks that hold the building upright, they put a living man. Then they lowered the trunk, made the poor bugger embrace it, and shovelled in the earth atop of him, till he couldn’t breathe no more and gave up the ghost.’

  Looking across at James, Gregory gave a wicked little smile. ‘I take it that goes for Tujoa, too?’

  With a slightly embarrassed look, James returned his smile. ‘I fear so. If anyone decided to do away with my bure they would find in the foundations quite a number of human skeletons. In view of the beliefs of my forefathers, I suppose that’s quite understandable. But it does seem pretty awful that they did not club the poor wretches before stuffing them down into the holes.’

  Bob took him up. ‘For this purpose that wouldn’t have seemed right to them, Ratu. All the same, the Melanesians were great boys with their clubs. They had spears and, some of them, bows and arrows. But they used them most times for hunting. Clubs were the thing. They even used them on girls they wanted for their wives. Just a light tap on the head, no more, then the young lady was carried back for you know what in the chap’s bure. But early in the last century the Ratu Kadava Levu introduced a new custom at his capital, Bau Island. He assembled all the shy bachelors and unmarried girls. Made them sit in two lines facing each other. Then each man in turn rolled an orange to a girl he liked the look of. If the lady liked the look of the young man she rolled the orange back. Then, hooray, wedding feast a few days later. If not, nothing doing.’

  ‘That was a much more civilised way of doing things,’ Gregory commented with a smile.

  Bob nodded. ‘Pretty good idea, providing the orange ran to the girl it was aimed at. Later the missionaries took over and the marriage ceremony became a sort of hell-fire warning with “dos” and “don’ts”. Many couples, though, escaped that. Old black-crow missionaries could not be everywhere and young people got tired of waiting. So when a British Resident came round he just waved a Union Jack over the couple and that was O.K. by all.’

  Half an hour before the sun was due to set they were approaching Manon’s island. As Bob Wyndhoik brought the cruiser in to the anchorage, Gregory was having pleasant thoughts about Manon. In his mind’s eye he visualised again her unusual but attractive face. Somehow the receding chin and sallow complexion did not seem to matter. Her eyes were magnificent and her laughter infectious. Her body was something to dream about: the firm, rounded breasts, the narrow waist, the perfectly-formed legs below the powerful hips, and that alluring ‘V’ of crisp black curls on the lower part of her flat stomach. He recalled, too, her wild abandon—gasping, crying out endearments and pleas to be ravished more forcefully—each time he had possessed her. The week that lay ahead promised him a renewal of all those pleasures.

  The motor cruiser anchored; a small speed boat was lowered from her stern and Gregory and James were taken ashore. On the beach old Joe-Joe met them. He smiled a greeting, but seemed downcast. When Gregory asked for his mistress he replied:

  ‘Madame not here, Madame not here since ten, eleven days. She in Suva. But she lend house to friends. Frenchmen from Tahiti. They come in dirty old tub of yacht. Two live here all time. Others sail off up to Yasawas wanting to get divers. Last night all come back here. Make much merry. Then, this mornng, bad thing happen. They walk across island to swim from best beach on far side. On the head of one a coconut fall. They bring him back and he is dead.’

  Gregory’s brows knit and he asked sharply, ‘What did they do with the body?’

  Joe-Joe looked surprised. ‘Why, Master, they bury
it. Just beyond garden. Here peoples must bury soon after death. If taken back to Suva, long before they arrive body would have made great stink.’

  ‘I appreciate that,’ Gregory agreed. ‘But I should like to see the grave. Please take us to it.’

  Obediently Joe-Joe led them through the palms and an orange grove to a small clearing. In the centre there was the mound of a newly-made grave. There were flowers on it and from one end rose a roughly-made wooden cross. Gregory leaned forward to look at the cross and saw that no name had been carved on it.

  As they walked back towards the house, Joe-Joe offered hospitality. It would, he said, have been Madame’s wish. Gregory thanked him, but declined, saying that they would dine on board and, later that night, return to the mainland.

  When they sat down to dinner James looked across at Gregory uneasily. ‘I can’t understand this at all. It is most unlikely that two parties of Colons from Tahiti would have been out there seeking to engage divers at the same time.’

  ‘I agree, and that Manon should have lent them her house as a headquarters is a very strange coincidence. Of course, as she had heard nothing from us for over ten weeks, she has very good reason to suppose that we are dead. I happen to know that she is extremely hard up. She is wildly extravagant by nature, and the house here cost her a small fortune. So she may have gone in with Lacost and Co. to earn a share in the gold. But there may be some other explanation.’

  ‘Yes. She may have let the house to them through an agent, not knowing that they were Lacost’s party. Anyhow, this fatal accident means that we have one enemy less.’

  ‘But which? That’s what I want to know. When they are all asleep in the house I’m going to find out.’

  ‘What!’ James exclaimed, with a horrified expression. ‘You … you can’t mean that you’re going to desecrate the grave?’

  ‘I am.’ Gregory’s voice was firm. ‘Surely you don’t imagine that the dead man’s spook is going to jump out and bite me? You can come with me or not, as you wish.’

  James shuddered. ‘No, no! Forgive me, but I’ll remain on board and stay up till you return.’

  The following two hours seemed to creep by. As usual aboard such boats, the crew sat up on deck, strumming guitars and singing plaintively. James, after nervously flicking through the pages of a magazine for a while, gave up the attempt to read and sat listening to the nightly concert. Gregory, outwardly calm, but far from looking forward to the grim task he had set himself, downed four brandies-and-soda in succession while playing a game of six-pack bezique with Bob Wyndhoik. When the game ended he stood up and said to Bob:

  ‘Have two of your boys man the boat, will you? I feel like going ashore for a stroll before I turn in.’ With a glance at James, he added, ‘Well, I’ll be seeing you.’ Then they went out on deck.

  The boat had not been hove in, so was still alongside. The concert party broke up and Gregory followed the boys down into the boat. As she headed for the shore, phosphorus gleamed brightly in the little waves churned up by the bows. Five minutes later, having told the crew to wait for him, he waded through the shallows.

  It was a wonderful night. The sky was free of cloud and a splendid moon dimmed the stars but made the scene almost as bright as in daylight. In places, contrasting with its brilliant illumination, there were patches of dense black shadow thrown by the groups of palm trees and the bures. The air was balmy and, but for the gentle lapping of the tide, it was utterly silent.

  No light showed from the big bure. Cautiously, he moved from one patch of shadow to another, until he had made his way round it. The smaller bures behind it were also in darkness. Skirting them, he went to a tin-roofed shed. From his stay there early in February he knew that the gardener kept his implements there. Silently removing a spade from a stock of tools in one corner, he walked with almost noiseless footsteps through the orange grove to the small clearing in the jungle where the body had been buried.

  Carefully removing the now wilted flowers and the wooden cross, he began to shovel the loose soil away from that end of it. As he had expected, the grave was quite shallow and the corpse covered with little more than a foot of earth.

  The stillness of the night was eerie and the strong moonlight heightened the sense of tension that he felt. Sweat began to break out on his forehead but, setting his teeth, he laboured on until he had uncovered the dead man’s head. Bright as the moonlight was, clots of earth still rendered the corpse’s features unrecognisable. Taking a torch from his pocket, he shone its beam down on to the now mottled face. Then grasping it by the hair, he pulled it up so that he could examine the skull. At the back was a deep depression of crushed broken bone clotted with blood, from which scores of frightened ants scurried. Letting it fall, he shovelled back the earth, replaced the flowers and the cross, threw the spade away into the nearest patch of undergrowth, then walked thoughtfully back to the beach.

  On the deck of the cruiser, James was waiting anxiously for him. Bob had already gone to his cabin. As soon as the two boys who had taken Gregory ashore were out of earshot, wide-eyed, the young Ratu uttered the single word:

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It was as I expected,’ Gregory replied grimly. ‘De Carvalho.’

  ‘Oh God!’ James exclaimed. ‘And it’s the full of the moon! The White Witch’s curse!’

  ‘No. His death was not an accident brought about by occult means. He wasn’t killed by a falling coconut. That would have hit him on the top of the head. The back had been bashed in. He was struck down with a club, by somebody walking behind him.’

  ‘But why?’ stammered James. ‘Why? You … you said there was no point in their killing him until they had got up the gold.’

  Gregory shrugged. ‘I forgot one thing. To get clean away with taking the treasure, Lacost must have a licence. Otherwise the French authorities will hunt him down. If for no other reason, because they will want their ten per cent of the value. If he had murdered de Carvalho in Tujoa, after they had got the gold, it is certain that he would have been suspected. De Carvalho’s having died here in Fiji, apparently from an accident, no-one is going to connect his death with what happens in Tujoa. And now the holder of the licence is dead, Lacost has a free field to apply for one himself. That is the answer. Anyway, this is a stroke of luck for you. With her husband out of the way, Olinda is now all yours.’

  For a moment James was silent, then he burst out, ‘Olinda! But don’t you see? As de Carvalho’s widow, she will inherit the licence. Before Lacost can apply for one for himself he will either have to come to terms with her—or kill her. And he must be on his way to her now!’

  15

  Night Race to Suva

  Gregory raised an eyebrow. ‘That could be, although I doubt it. I don’t know much about Lacost, but I should think he’s too clever to rush his fences. As it was while with his party that de Carvalho’s death occurred, he will naturally go straight to Olinda and inform her of it. To fail to do so would be a hideous blunder. If he returned to Tujoa and left her to learn by some other means that she had become a widow she would immediately suspect that he had had a hand in it and set the police on to make enquiries. That is the one thing he dare not risk. An autopsy would disclose that de Carvalho was not killed by a falling coconut. Seeing that Lacost had motive and opportunity, he would find himself in a very nasty spot. But …’

  Having listened impatiently, James broke in. ‘What you say makes it more obvious than ever that he is on his way to Olinda. So we must go after him at once. Otherwise he may, as I said, kill her too, or at least trap her in some way. Perhaps he’ll kidnap her.’

  ‘No. As I was about to say, he is not to know that Olinda had come to hate her husband, so he will expect her to be grief-stricken by his news. It would be a most unnatural thing to force a business discussion on a woman in such a state, and a dangerous move, as it would draw attention to what Lacost hopes to gain by de Carvalho’s death. As for killing or kidnapping her, he would be crazy to attempt to do eithe
r. Apart from the difficulty of getting away with it in a place like Suva, now he has collected his divers and it is known in Tujoa what he wants them for, the police would tumble to it in no time that he was sticking at nothing to get all the treasure for himself. And remember, he can have no idea that we know about de Carvalho’s death and will soon be after him. Believe me, James, he’ll take his time, do his best to comfort Olinda in her loss, then in a few days’ time suggest to her that, as de Carvalho’s surviving partner she should transfer the licence to him for a consideration—which, of course, he would have no intention of honouring.’

  ‘She wouldn’t do that. I’m certain she wouldn’t. While Valentim was alive she had no chance to spike his guns. But she would have if she could, for my sake. Now that she is in control of the situation, I’m sure that she will refuse to have anything more to do with Lacost.’

  ‘No doubt you are right. But only when she has turned Lacost down will he be forced to think up some scheme to get her into his power without being suspected of having murdered her husband. That is going to take some planning and should give us still longer to ensure that she is adequately protected. Meanwhile, we have a good chance to settle with Lacost and Co. once and for all. We’ll go ashore again in the morning and carry out a very thorough investigation: take statements from Joe-Joe and all the other servants about the Colons and, as far as they know them, the exact circumstances of de Carvalho’s death. I also intend to have his corpse disinterred, wrapped up in a lot of sacking and boxed, then take it back to Suva so that an autopsy can be carried out.’

  ‘No!’ James shook his bushy head violently. ‘No! We must set off at once. Lacost is on his way to her. As I just said, I’m sure that when she learns that the licence is now legally hers her first thought will be of me. But she can have heard nothing of us for nearly ten weeks. She may believe me to be dead or that, not having found some way to commuicate with her, I have ceased to love her. Fed up with this whole business, she might let Lacost have the licence for the asking, and return to Brazil. That’s the least bad thing that can happen. We’ve got to work fast, I tell you.’