Dragons in the Waters

by Madeleine L'engle

  Hurtado said, “It is as plausible a theory as we have right now. My chauffeur thinks that his flat tire was not accidental.”

  “And the wool was pulled over Gutiérrez’s eyes?”

  “So it appears.”

  “Forgive me, señor comandante, I do not believe in teaching professionals their own business, and if you’re not telling me all that you are thinking I quite understand. But I don’t think that Gutiérrez is a fool, although I agree with Dr. Wordsworth that he has a somewhat enlarged estimation of his own importance.”

  “Quite,” Hurtado said.

  “And I do not trust him.”

  “Why not, Miss Phair?”

  “Sense of smell. A long life has sharpened mine.”

  “I will bear that in mind. But please try to let us do the worrying, Miss Phair. I shall not be going to bed tonight. But you must rest.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I know that. Señor comandante, I wish to go to Dragonlake tomorrow.”

  He looked at her, his eyes for a fraction of a second betraying astonishment. “Madame, it is a difficult trip.”

  “Will you make arrangements for me, please?”

  Vermeer began to protest, but Miss Leonis cut him off. “Since I am not under suspicion for murder, theft, or kidnapping, there is no reason you should not allow me to go. If you would care to accompany me, Mr. Vermeer, that would be my pleasure.”

  Hurtado looked at Vermeer with a slight nod. “It shall be arranged, madame. But you will be kind enough to tell us why you wish to make this excursion?”

  “There is, after all, a Quiztano name on the back of a portrait which once belonged to me. And I have a feeling that it may help us to find Simon and your friend.”

  The limousine drew up before the broad patio of the hotel. Hurtado and Vermeer escorted her into the lobby. The chauffeur carried Miss Leonis’s suitcase to the desk.

  “My dear madame.” Vermeer beamed. “The comandante and I have not eaten. Would you care to join us for a small collation?”

  “Thank you, no. The ship’s dinner was more than adequate. I should like to be shown directly to my room.”

  Hurtado said, “Of course. But there is one question I would beg you to answer first. What is written on the back of your portrait of Bolivar?”

  She answered, “It once had painted on it, For my son, born of Umara. Time, or effort, or both, have blurred and faded the writing, so that now the only letters that show clearly are U-M-A-R.”

  “What does this mean—Umar, or Umara?”

  “Umara is always the name, the inherited name, of the princess of the Quiztanos,.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “It is written in Quentin Phair’s journal, and referred to in his letters to his mother, and to his wife, Niniane.”

  “You have these letters?” Hurtado asked.

  “I do.”

  “With you?”

  “Yes. In his will Quentin Phair requested that they not be read for six generations. It had always been my intention to leave them for Simon, but during the days since Simon and Forsyth boarded the Orion I have dishonored Quentin’s request and read the letters and journals. It is because of this, as you can see, that I wish to go visit the Quiztanos tomorrow.”

  Hurtado said, “I assume that you felt you could give Dr. Eisenstein no information because you did not wish to confide in the assembled company.”

  “I would have had no right to make such a confidence.”

  Hurtado’s voice was quiet and courteous. “But you will tell us what is in the letters and journals?”

  “I will tell you, perhaps, after tomorrow.”

  “We may have to ask you for the letters and journals.”

  “I understand. But I am not yet ready to give them to you. They are extremely personal.”

  “Madame, a policeman is completely impersonal.”

  “I am not a policeman. But I will not withhold from you anything which might help you in your inquiries.” She poked in her reticule and drew out a small bundle of documents. “These are the papers which Forsyth Phair gave me to establish himself as a member of the branch of the family which moved North, and then West, after the War between the States. I would appreciate it if you would check on them for me.”

  Hurtado held out his hand. “Certainly.”

  Vermeer asked, “Do you have any reason to doubt the authenticity of these documents?”

  “Yes.”

  Hurtado raised his brows.

  “The check Mr. Forsyth Phair gave me for the Bolivar portrait—money which was to see me through the rest of my days—was a piece of paper, no more. Since it was for a large sum of money it was investigated by the bank. The check is worthless. If the man were not dead I would suspect him of absconding with my nephew, and I would place a rather large bet that he is somehow behind Simon’s disappearance. There’s no doubt that Forsyth Phair, whoever he was, was murdered, is there?”

  “No doubt at all.”

  “Now I wish to retire,” Miss Leonis said. “You will, of course, phone me at any time during the night if there is news of Simon?”

  “Of course, Miss Phair. Mynheer Vermeer will call for you after breakfast. You are fortunate in your choice of escort. Vermeer is somewhat of an anthropologist and knows Dragonlake and its Indians as deeply as anyone who is not a native of this area. The Quiztanos do not welcome strangers to their village, but Vermeer is known to them as a friend.”

  “Thank you.” She bowed gravely. “That is the first piece of good news I have had in a long time.”

  “I trust you will rest well.” Hurtado called the night clerk and asked him to see Miss Phair to her room.

  “A demain, madame.” Vermeer bent over her hand.

  “Good night, gentlemen.”

  They watched after her. Her walk was stiff with fatigue, but her body was erect.

  In his pajamas, Charles went to Jan’s cabin.

  The steward looked troubled. “It is not good for you to be too much with me.”

  “Am I bothering you? I’m sorry.”

  “No, no, it is not that. I know that I am under suspicion.”

  “That’s nonsense.”

  Jan ran strong, blunt fingers through his fair hair. “I did not murder him. But it is true that I am the only one to have a special interest in the portrait. Mynheer Boon says he never saw the keys, and this I do not understand because he gave them to me to return to Mr. Phair.”

  “I don’t understand either,” Charles said.

  “I know only that I am suspected.”

  “Who suspects you?”

  “Hurtado. He is the one who is important. I am not worried about Gutiérrez. I know his type. While he was questioning us in the salon he pocketed half the cigars—he’s worse than the customs men—and blew and blustered at us but he did not know what he was doing. But Hurtado is different.”

  “I hate it, I hate it!” Charles cried with vehemence, more like his sister than himself. “I know you didn’t kill Cousin Forsyth, but I can’t bear to think that anybody on the Orion could have done it.”

  “Nor I,” Jan said. “It is a bad business. I do not know how it will end.”

  As Charles crossed the foyer to go to his cabin, el señor comandante Hurtado came briskly up the stairs. “Young man, I must talk with you.”

  Charles waited.

  “Shall we go to your cabin?”

  In the cabin Charles looked at the bunk in which Simon had spent only one night. He asked, “Where are Simon and Canon Tallis?”

  Hurtado lowered himself onto the chair and regarded Charles with his steel gaze. “I wish that I could tell you, Charles. But they are not off my mind for one moment. Tom Tallis is my friend.” He touched his breast pocket and indicated a small two-way radio. “If there is any news we will know at once. Now, Charles, I want you to tell me about your dreams.”

  “How do you know about my dreams?”

  “You seem to have discussed them with a good many peopl
e.”

  Slowly Charles crossed his legs. “Dreams are—dreams. They aren’t evidence. They don’t hold up in court.”

  “We’re not in court. Anything may be important. A reaction to a dream may give me the clue that I need. It may help me to find Simon and Tallis as well as the murderer.”

  Charles closed his eyes. “All right, I’ll tell you. If Canon Tallis phoned you from London to make sure that you would know he was coming, that tells me two things.”

  “And they are?”

  “That you are his friend. And therefore to be trusted. And also that he must have suspected something might happen. He takes my dreams seriously, by the way.”

  “I take most things seriously,” Hurtado said.

  When Charles had finished talking, his voice as unemphatic as Hurtado’s, the comandante said, “I would like you to tell this to Miss Phair.”

  Charles nodded.

  “If she were not old, and exhausted from travel and worry, I would take you to the hotel tonight. But that will not do. I will pick you up first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “You’re going to take me to her, rather than bringing her to the Orion?”

  “You are an intelligent boy. Yes. I have reasons. Get to bed now. Perhaps you will dream.”

  “Perhaps I will,” Charles said. He did not sound happy.

  Simon and Canon Tallis lay on the rough ground of their clearing. They had tried to soften it with leaves and grasses, but it was still hard and uncomfortable. Their fire burned brightly. But they were grateful not so much for the warmth as for the light. Around them the jungle was alive with noise. Some of the noises Simon recognized from South Carolina, but there were new and strange noises which he had never heard before, breathings and cluckings and hoots. Once he sat upright in terror as the firelight was reflected in two large amber eyes.

  Canon Tallis put another piece of wood on the fire. “We have just about enough till morning; then we’ll have to collect more.”

  “What was that?” Simon asked.

  “Some jungle creature. I don’t think that we’ll be disturbed as long as we stay right here and keep the fire going. We’ll take turns sleeping. You try to sleep now, and when I get too sleepy to be alert I’ll waken you.”

  “I don’t think I’m sleepy,” Simon said.

  “No. But close your eyes and perhaps sleep will come.”

  “Do you have any ideas who took the portrait, and who killed Cousin Forsyth, and why Gutiérrez kidnapped us?”

  “It appears to me that they are all connected,” the canon said.

  “Do you think that my ancestor—Quentin Phair—do you think he really did go to Dragonlake and fall in love with the Umara, and then leave her?”

  “It seems likely.”

  “I wish it didn’t.”

  “All human beings break promises, Simon.”

  “Not Quentin Phair.”

  “The Quentin Phair of your dreams wasn’t a real person.”

  “No, but—I was brought up to believe that a gentleman does not break promises.”

  “That’s not a bad way to be brought up. It’s good to take promises seriously. Then we’re not apt to make or break them lightly. I would guess that your ancestor did not make his promise lightly, but that when he got away from Venezuela and Dragonlake it was almost as though he were waking from a dream. Dragonlake may well have seemed more like a figment of his imagination than anything else, once he reached cold and reasonable England. And then when he came to the North American New World and met Niniane the dream must have seemed even further away. I do not say that this excuses him, but perhaps it does explain him?”

  “I guess so. You mean, he didn’t break the promise in cold blood. It was what Aunt Leonis would call a sin of omission rather than commission?”

  “Quite.”

  From somewhere in the jungle came the scream of a small animal, a series of hooting calls, a cry that sounded like shrill laughter. “Not much like Piccadilly,” the canon murmured. “Do try to close your eyes and rest for a while. No use both of us staying awake all night. We’ll do better at solving the murder and getting ourselves out of this predicament if we get some rest.”

  Simon closed his eyes. He had expected that the canon would lead them in prayer, rolling out pompous words as Dr. Curds had been wont to do. But if the canon did any praying it was in silence. Simon suspected that he had prayed before the boy lay down, but he could not be sure. But Canon Tallis, he understood, prayed the way Aunt Leonis prayed, and this kind of praying was something he respected, even if he did not understand it.

  He tried to listen to the fire rather than the noises outside their small clearing. After a while he slid into a doze.

  While the boy slept Canon Tallis took a sharp stone and slowly and carefully sharpened the end of a strong branch into a rudimentary spear.

  11

  THE LAKE OF DRAGONS

  Charles and Aunt Leonis sat at a small round table on the terrace of the Hotel del Lago, eating breakfast. Hurtado had urged them to speak as openly and fully as possible; one never knew what small clue might lead to the murderer, or the whereabouts of Simon and Tallis. Then he left them alone and stood at the far end of the terrace. He had his back turned to them, and had taken himself out of earshot of their conversation, but they both knew that any untoward movement or word would not escape him.

  After a while they forgot him.

  “You dreamed true,” Miss Leonis said when Charles had finished. “It is all in the letters and the journals.”

  “You’ve read them?”

  “After the accident with the fork lift, which you took as seriously as I did, I kept having the feeling that something was wrong, that I should not have allowed Simon to go with Forsyth—so, yes, I read them. And I learned more than I wanted to know about Quentin Phair. He was not the white knight sans peur et sans reproche I was brought up to believe him to be—though neither was he a scoundrel. For all his folly and over-idealism he was a man of uncommon valor, vision, and a great deal of charm.” She poured herself another cup of lukewarm tea. “I do not understand why Hurtado has no news of Simon.”

  Charles said, “If he’s with Canon Tallis he’s all right.”

  Miss Leonis beckoned to Hurtado, who joined them. “Have you found anything out about the papers I gave you last night?”

  “Madame, I am not a magician.”

  “I am over-impatient. Forgive me.”

  “I understand your concern. I should have information on the papers for you by this evening.”

  “Good. It occurs to me that it might also be wise for you to call the museum in Caracas and see if Forsyth did make arrangements there about the portrait.”

  Hurtado looked at her with admiration. “One of my men has already been instructed to do so.”

  “Sir,” Charles said, “wouldn’t it be a good idea for Aunt Leonis to go to Dragonlake?”

  Miss Leonis smiled at the boy. “I am going. This morning. Mynheer Vermeer is to accompany me. He’ll be here shortly?”

  “He’s waiting in the lobby,” Hurtado said. Then he looked directly at Charles. “What did you dream last night?”

  Charles’s face closed in. Miss Leonis and Hurtado waited. Finally the boy said, “There may be something in one of the Quiztano dwellings which Aunt Leonis ought to see.”

  “And what is that?” Hurtado asked.

  “I didn’t dream clearly enough. If Aunt Leonis is going there, she can look.”

  “Will I be able to?” the old woman asked.

  “If what I think is there is there, and if you are meant to see it, you will be able to,” Charles said.

  Hurtado spoke in a deceptively gentle voice. “Young man, you do understand that if I wish to, I can make you tell me whatever it is that you dreamed?”

  Charles gave an unexpected smile. “You’re Canon Tallis’s friend. So I know there are certain things you won’t do.”

  Hurtado’s jaw did not relax. “I wouldn’t be to
o certain of that.”

  Charles said, “You know that I can’t tell you something deadly serious when I’m not sure. When Aunt Leonis gets back from Dragonlake, then I’ll tell you.”

  Hurtado said, “The two of you are a pair. I’m surprised that you are not the nephew; you will tell me what you feel like telling me when you feel like telling me.” He snorted. “Please understand that a man has been murdered, the murderer is at large, and we do not know where Simon and Tom Tallis are.”

  “I do realize that,” Charles said somberly. “That’s why I can’t tell you anything which might be misleading.”

  “Let me be the judge of that,” Hurtado said.

  Charles only shook his head. “Tonight.”

  Hurtado tucked Aunt Leonis into the Hispano-Suiza beside the benevolent Vermeer, who wore, instead of his solar topee, an English straw boater. Miss Leonis had on the thin blue and white dress described by Charles, an ancient leghorn sun hat, and carried her lace parasol.

  Vermeer started the engine, revving it fiercely, then nosed uphill, through a narrow street, the houses brightly painted with warm, sunny colors, reds, oranges, yellows, and cooler summer colors, varied shades of greens and blues. Despite her anxiety, Miss Leonis looked about with pleasure.

  Vermeer pointed. “If you look through the open doors you can see courtyards and gardens. I live in such a house. It’s very pleasant, though hotter in summer than a Dutchman is accustomed to.” He drove around the corner into a large square, with a rococo bandstand, flowering cactus, tall, lush trees, towering palms. “Plaza Bolivar.” After the cool beauty of the plaza they drove through what appeared to be the main street. Vermeer pointed out bank and post office.

  “All the soldiers and policemen with guns,” Miss Leonis said, “in front of the bank and the post office, and there—that policeman controlling traffic with his rifle slung and ready—is this the custom in Port of Dragons?”

  “Port of Dragons is close to the border, and bandits come across too often for comfort. There’s also a sizable band of Cubans in the hills, and the city officials are afraid of revolution.”