The Good Old Stuff

by John D. MacDonald

  I dressed quickly and took a rickshaw back to the Princess. It was growing dark rapidly. The sun had just finished its abrupt drop into the Western sea. I told the boy to stand and wait about fifty yards from the entrance to the Princess. I hoped that she hadn’t left, and that her date hadn’t planned dinner at her hotel. The lights flashed on over the hotel entrance. It was nearly a half hour before she came out. I recognized her slim tallness and her pale hair. The rickshaw coolie was smart. He grinned at me when I gave him his instructions and followed along a discreet distance behind her rickshaw. I suddenly realized that I had had stupid luck. If she had taken a taxi, I would have been lost. The night was quiet. The bare feet of the coolie slapped on the streets that were still warm from the sun. He ran easily, his shoulder muscles moving under the brown skin with the movement of the poles.

  The trip lasted nearly fifteen minutes. Her rickshaw stopped on the Galle Road in front of a brightly lighted bungalow. I thought at first that it was a private home and that my plan would be spoiled. Then I saw the sign, China Sea Inn. There were numerous cars parked closely in the small lot beside the bungalow. I paid off my boy and walked carefully up the sidewalk. She was nowhere in sight. I knew that I was taking a risk in going up on the porch, as she might be just inside the door. I walked slowly up the steps and looked into a wide window. There were dozens of small tables in a large room. Only a few of the tables were unoccupied. Music blared from loudspeakers set high in the walls.

  I stood in the door and looked quickly around. I couldn’t see her. Off to the left were stairs. A small sign hung over the stairs announcing additional space upstairs. That was disturbing. The place was too small and too brightly lighted. If the upstairs was one large room like the downstairs, I realized that she would surely see me the second I reached the top. I had to take the chance. If she did see me, it would have to be an accidental meeting and my plan could wait. I fingered the slip of paper in my jacket pocket—the one for her. I crossed my fingers and walked up the stairs. To my relief, I came out in a small hall. Apparently, little dining rooms opened off the hall on both sides. Waiters scurried along the hall carrying steaming trays of food.

  I located her. She was sitting alone at the table for two just inside the door of the first room. By luck, she was looking at the menu when I saw her. I hurried across the hall and found a table in the opposite room. She couldn’t see me, but by leaning forward I could see her shoulder and the left side of her face. I had a good view of the empty chair across from her without having to lean forward.

  A waiter came over to me and I ordered bean sprouts, bitter squash, and chicken with sweet and sour sauce. I had a plan for getting the note to her. It would depend a great deal on luck and timing. I saw her order. Again I crossed my fingers. Then she pushed her chair back and got up. She went out into the hall and I ducked far back into my corner. She passed my door and walked down the hall. I pulled a silver rupee out of my pocket and rolled it across into the next room, following behind it. It stopped under another table. I excused myself and fumbled for it. I dropped it on the floor and kicked it as I reached for it. It slid under her table. I put my hand near her plate as I reached for it. I walked back across into my own room. As I had placed my hand on the table, I had slid the note under the edge of her plate. I sat down and waited. She returned in a few minutes. Shortly after that, her food arrived, and so did mine. She didn’t notice the note. I realized that I had probably pushed it too far under her plate.

  I glanced in at her table and nearly dropped my fork in surprise. There was a man with her. He had slipped in without my noticing it. I had half expected it to be O’Dell. This was a stranger. He was a small man with thinning black hair plastered firmly across an oval skull. His face was the color of very weak tea with too much cream. His eyes were imbedded in small pads of flesh. He talked to her, and he used his hands too much and with too much grace. The shoulders on his white linen suit were heavily padded.

  I tried to eat without taking my eyes off him except when I could anticipate his glancing up. He seemed to do most of the talking. I couldn’t hear a word. When I leaned forward, I could see her head nodding. It was as though he were giving instructions. I wondered how I could find out his name. I realized that I might have been unintelligent about the way I had handled it. If I hadn’t seen her, then possibly I could have dared to sit near enough to her to overhear portions of the conversation. Then I remembered that talking to her had given me my first feeling of true confidence that there was more to Dan’s death than had been reported.

  She was finished before I was. I watched her lay down her fork, and I waited for the waiter to pick up her plate. When he did, I saw her hands pick up the note and unfold it. She had been holding it down near the table. Suddenly she lifted it closer to her eyes. Her hands looked tense. She was reading YOU GAVE HIM TOO MUCH INFORMATION. She must have said something to the man with her. I saw his black marble eyes widen, and he snatched the note. He read it and crumpled it slowly in his fragile hand. He stared at her in the same way that a man might stare at a disfigured corpse. He pushed back his chair and stood up. He didn’t speak to her. He tossed some crumpled rupee notes onto the table and left. As he turned down the hall I heard her call, “Guy!” Her voice had a frightened note in it. He didn’t stop.

  In a few moments she got up and left. I had a glimpse of her face as she turned into the hall. She was chewing her underlip.

  I was sitting in her hotel lobby when she came in. I stood up, and she stopped. She didn’t look pleased to see me.

  “Hi, Conny. Thought I’d have to wait longer than this. Short date?”

  “What do you want?”

  “No hidden motives this time. Just a normal male impulse. You’re the only gal I know in this town, and I want to make a date.”

  She brushed by me and I caught her arm. She flung my hand off and spun around. Her eyes looked small. “Don’t touch me! Don’t talk to me! I don’t even want to be seen with you.” She turned and nearly ran toward the elevator. That was her second slip.

  I walked over to the desk. There was a chocolate-colored smooth-shaven Pancho Villa standing behind it. I took a ten-rupee note out of my pocket and stood in front of him, folding it into a small square.

  “Miss Severence has many admirers?” I said.

  “A great many, master.”

  “Could a jealous American learn their names?”

  “There are a great many.”

  I took another ten-rupee note out of my pocket and started to fold it around the first one. “I am only interested in one, a small man whom she calls Guy. A man with black hair which he is losing.”

  “Possibly, master, you speak of a man called Guy Wend, who owns a small rubber plantation a dozen miles south of Colombo. I know little else about him.”

  I slid the small fold of money across to him. His hand flicked at it and it was gone. “If Miss Severence should learn from you that I asked this question, I will break several bones in your face. That is a sincere promise.” He smiled and bowed. I left.

  He didn’t get up when I walked into my room. He sat in the chair by the windows and smiled at me. He wore wrinkled whites with scores of faint stains down the front. He wore a small spade beard that looked as rigid as gray steel wire. His face was wide and red and shiny with sweat. His smiling red rosebud of a mouth looked silly above the bold beard. His eyes weren’t silly. They were light blue, frigid, unwinking.

  “Who the hell are you?” I asked him.

  “Van Hosen. I wanted to see you. Forgive the liberty. I bribed the boy to let me in.” His voice was high and sharp, with a faint accent.

  “What do you want?”

  “Just casual conversation, Mr. Garry. Nothing important. I write for the local papers. Features. You could call this an interview. I like to talk to visitors on the island. Get their impressions. Use them in my articles.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed. I tried to keep all expression off my face. He might be what he c
laimed to be. He might be connected with O’Dell, Severence, and Wend. “Go ahead, but make it quick. I’m tired.”

  “What are you doing on the island, Mr. Garry?”

  “Tourist.”

  “How do you like it?”

  “Beautiful.”

  “Haven’t you anything to add to that?”

  “Nothing.”

  He pulled at the spade beard. He stared at my bad hand. I covered it with the other. “Mr. Garry, we usually get more information than that. The tourist talk about the glamour, the air of mystery that seems to be a carryover from the days of the conquerors. You know, Ceylon was taken from the Veddas by the Singhalese. It has been ruled by the Portuguese, the Dutch, and now the English. Polynesians and Macronesians came here across thousands of miles of ocean in outrigger canoes. A Moslem pirate with an Abyssinian garrison held Colombo at one time. Intrigue and revolt and conquest. Plot and counterplot. Assassinations and assignations. Can’t you feel it in the air?”

  “Can’t say that I do.”

  “Then, Mr. Garry, you’re an exception. You see, many of our visitors are carried by this strange feeling. They see bogies behind every bush. They imagine plots where none exist. We think them a little silly, yet in a way we’re proud of our heritage. You can consider this as a word of warning. The evil-faced man who glowers at you in a café isn’t plotting to steal your money or take your life. He’s probably wondering whether he can sell you a used automobile.”

  “I don’t think about plots. Maybe I’m not imaginative.”

  He grunted as he pulled himself to his feet. Standing, he was much less impressive. His legs were too short for his long torso. He looked tired and old and more than a little shabby. I held the door for him.

  “No story here for me, then. Sorry to have bothered you, Mr. Garry.”

  I shut the door and paced back and forth across the room. It was all too pat. A discreet warning. Tourists were a commonplace. No need to interview them. It was the same warning that O’Dell and Constance had given me—only it was more direct. The trail was growing too warm. Suppose I found out too much. They hadn’t hesitated to kill Dan. It was the first time that I was absolutely positive that he had been killed. I stopped pacing and went to the desk.

  I scribbled a note to the American consul:

  Dear Sir:

  I have instructed you to open this in case I meet with an accident. In April 1945, Captain Daniel Christoff, U.S. Army, was drowned in the waters outside Colombo Harbor. The official investigation censured Captain Christoff. I am trying to find out how he was killed and why. If anything happens to me, the following local people will be implicated in some way—Miss Constance Severence, Mr. Clarence O’Dell, Mr. Guy Wend (?), and a man who poses as a reporter and calls himself Van Hosen. He wears a small spade beard. This should give you enough to start on. Trace the connection between the above-listed people. Find their motivation.

  I signed it and sealed it.

  I took it to the consul’s office in the morning. I had half expected them to make a fuss, to become official and difficult. They were very calm about the whole matter. I walked into a hotel near the office. Of all the people I had seen, Constance seemed to be the most vulnerable. It was time to make another date with her. I phoned Naval Headquarters and asked for her extension. A male voice answered and said, “Miss Severence didn’t report for work this morning.” He hung up before I could ask any more questions. I took a rickshaw to her hotel.

  I walked down the narrow lobby and stopped in front of the desk. Pancho Villa smiled at me, the broad welcoming smile of the perfect host.

  “What is Miss Severance’s room number?”

  He rubbed his hands together and smiled more broadly. “It is regretted, master, that you won’t be able to speak with the lady.”

  “She’s given instructions about me?”

  “Not that, master. The lady has had a misfortune.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Possibly, master, if you go through that door at the end of the lobby and turn to the right, you will find her in front of the bathhouses. She drowned this morning while taking an early swim. The police are even now examining her.”

  I stared at him. He didn’t stop smiling. Maybe it was confusion that made him smile. He giggled. I turned and walked to the door he had indicated.

  I turned right into the glare of sunshine on a white tile walk. Fifty feet ahead were the bathhouses. The wide white beach was at my left as I walked. The blue water rolled up into long ragged white crests that thudded against the sand with constant soft thunder. I saw a group ahead and quickened my step.

  She was on her back on the hot tile in front of the bathhouses. Two Singhalese in police uniform stood staring down at her. A big man with a long white face was scribbling in a notebook. A slender British officer knelt on the white square of his pocket handkerchief and looked at her closely.

  The pale blue bathing suit revealed the magnificent body that her dress had concealed. Long golden limbs and flowing curves. Her lips were swollen, bluish, protruding. Her eyes were wide. There was a thin green string of seaweed across her forehead. Part of it rested on her eyeball. Her shoulders were scraped. As I looked at her, her skin seemed more bluish. I noticed that the two police were soaked up to the knees. I guessed that they had stood in the surf to recover her body.

  The one with the long white face looked at me. “A friend?”

  “An acquaintance. How did it happen?”

  “Caught by the undertow. The hotel doesn’t recommend swimming here at this time of year. Very foolish except for exceptional swimmers. She wasn’t.”

  The slim British officer stood up and picked up his handkerchief. He used it to flick nonexistent dust off his spotless uniform. He carefully wiped his hands on it and then started to put it back in his pocket. On an impulse, he stooped over and spread it over her rigid face. The tall man kept writing. The officer stepped over to me and said, “Too bad. Conny was a pleasant type.”

  “Oh, you knew her?”

  “Quite. Breaks me up a bit. Let’s get a peg up at the hotel bar.”

  I agreed gladly. They had removed the weak link in the chain. They had destroyed my starting point. Of that I had no doubt.

  I liked the looks of the officer, except for the fact that he was a bit too pretty. A very fair man, with even bronze tan, regular delicate features, and eyelashes that any girl would have envied. I saw the minute wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and around his mouth and knew that he was older than he had at first appeared. I guessed his age at about thirty-three.

  As we walked together up the walk, I stuck my hand out to him and said, “Howard Garry. I’m a tourist.”

  “Right. Peter Kay mark here.”

  We went into the bar, and I followed his lead in ordering a gin and tonic. We took them and carried them over to a table near a window. He sighed, as he sat down, and drank half of his drink in one long gulp.

  “How’d you know Conny, Mr. Garry?”

  “Oh, she knew a friend of mine that was stationed here during the war. A Captain Dan Christoff. You probably never heard of him.”

  “Yes. I remember him. Chap who was drowned. Big stink about that here. Conny complained for weeks.”

  I went over to the bar and brought back the second round. We drank it, and Lieutenant Kaymark became a bit flushed. We sat in silence. I was thinking those thoughts that every man has when he sees the body of an attractive woman. What a waste!

  After half of the third round was gone, he looked up. “I guess I shouldn’t feel so badly about it. She’ll be off my list now. One less person to watch. Bloody Intelligence unit always loads you up with too many suspected agents.”

  “You’re in Intelligence?”

  “Five years of it out here. I suppose that if I’d told you that during wartime, they could have shot me for it. But now I’m so bloody sick of it, I wish they’d transfer me out of it. It’s too much of a piece of cake. Nothing to do. Dull.”
>
  I thought it over. A man with the perfect qualifications. And he’d dropped into my lap. It was too good an opportunity to miss. I leaned forward and put my elbows on the table and lowered my voice. “How would you like to have it a lot less dull, lieutenant?”

  He shrugged and smiled. “Of course, I’d like it.” He looked amused.

  “Suppose I tell you that I think Captain Christoff was murdered? Suppose I tell you that I believe that Conny was murdered? Suppose the fact that she was a suspected agent ties in with it all?”

  “Bit thick, what?” He grinned at me as if I was a case to be pitied.

  “Don’t smirk at me, lieutenant.” I started with the interviews with the crew members. I gave him the entire story. I didn’t spare any details, and I tried to repeat the conversations as near word for word as I could remember. He sat there, indolent but interested, until I told of my interview with Constance Severence. Then he sat forward, alert and excited. His excitement grew as I told of the China Sea Inn, Guy Wend, and the note. When I finished telling him about the visit from Van Hosen, he leaned back and sighed.

  “That tears it, Garry. It’s perfect. Van Hosen is on my list. Originally from Java. Got out somehow after the Japs moved in. Mysterious circumstances. Claimed to have escaped. He does odd-job journalism around the city. Wend is also on my list. Nasty type. Slippery. Always mixed up in radical island politics. A rebel. I’m surprised about O’Dell. Never figured him for that sort of thing. It ties in with Conny beautifully.”

  “Then you think I’m right, Peter? You think it’s possible that Dan Christoff got mixed up in some kind of intrigue or spy stuff, learned too much, and was killed?”