by Basil Copper
The owner didn’t want to spoil his carpets, I guess. I didn’t blame him. These last tanks had only a few small fish in them; they looked like tropical specimens. I was disappointed. It looked hardly worth the trouble of such elaborate tanks. I would have expected twelve-foot eels for that sort of money.
But just at the moment it was the man seated in the big alcove at the end of the saloon who occupied my attention. He was a remarkable specimen.
2
Mr. Mandrake was a big, chunky box of a man. His short blond hair was cropped close to his blunt skull and stuck up like bristles all over his head. His skin was a delicate pink but that was the only delicate thing about him. His eyes were wide-spaced, pale-grey and quite expressionless but the long blond eye-lashes, almost feminine in their length, contrasted in a startling manner with the greyness of his eyes and the pinkness of his skin.
He had the blunt chin and the big nose of a boxer; his mouth was wide with deep lines round the corners and when he smiled, which wasn’t often, he revealed strong, irregular yellow teeth. An incised scar about two inches long which ran diagonally from a point above his left eyebrow ended among the roots of his blond hair and made a white gash against the lobster shade of his complexion.
When he stood up as we got close to the table I was surprised to see that he was comparatively short in stature; it was his breadth and the general scale on which he was built which had given me an impression of size. His age could have been anything from thirty-five to fifty-five. His bulky frame was encased in an impeccably cut grey silk suit with shawl lapels. He wore a wide-collared shirt of stunning whiteness, and a pale-yellow bow tie with tiny red motifs on it that I couldn’t make out.
His hands were chunky; the big fingers thick as cigars, but the nails were well kept. There was the glint of a gold watch on one wrist and a handkerchief which made the detergent ads look positively dingy peeped from the breast pocket of his jacket. His hands were pink too and they looked like starfish clusters against the sober background of his suit. He stared at me hard for a moment.
“So glad you could come, Mr. Faraday.” His hand was hard, cool and dry. I couldn’t place his accent. The hand-shake was about as sincere as a Rotarian’s weekly lunch-smile. He waved one of the star-fish around and indicated the divan behind the table.
“Do sit down.”
I remained standing. Scarpini moved at my side. He clamped his hand over my arm and pushed downwards.
“You heard what Mr. Mandrake said,” he gritted.
“Go pull the chain and flush yourself out,” I told him. I moved sideways and then Scarpini came up with the fruit knife. Mr. Mandrake moved then, with astonishing rapidity for a man of such a big build.
The pink starfish of his hand described a dazzling curve in the air. There was a sharp crunch of bone meeting flesh and Scarpini flew from one side of the cabin to the other. The fruit knife shot from his hand and Otto quickly put a foot on it. Scarpini got up. He was breathing heavily and the expression on his face wasn’t friendly. A white line spread diagonally across his face where Mandrake had cracked him and a thin trickle of blood ran from the comer of his nose.
“Get out,” Mandrake told him evenly. “This is no time for rough stuff. And take the pig-sticker with you.”
There was such authority in his voice that Scarpini just seemed to melt away; Otto handed him the knife blade first. There was a grin on his face. The girl hadn’t moved. Otto went and sat on the other end of the horse-shoe divan. Mandrake waved his hand again.
“I must apologise Mr. Faraday. But one must take the hired help one can get. Won’t you sit down—please.”
I sat down near him behind the big mahogany table and fished for a cigarette. He came up with a silver embossed box from the table. The cigarettes were a foreign brand, with little coronets stencilled on the tubes, and tasted lousy enough to be very expensive. He leaned forward and flourished a silver lighter in his big pink hand. I lit the cigarette from it and sat back on the cushions and feathered the smoke at the skylight.
“How did you know my name?” I asked him. It was pretty obvious how since it had been down in the Catamaran guest book for everyone to see but I was just curious to hear his reply.
“It is not unknown in the wider world,” he said. “But I am neglecting my duties as host. A drink, perhaps. Will you do the honours, my dear.”
Diane Morris got up from her end of the divan and went over to the cocktail cabinet. Mandrake cocked his eyebrows at me.
“Since this is purely a social visit I’ll have a planter’s punch,” I said.
Mr. Mandrake smiled thinly, revealing his irregular teeth. “An excellent choice in this climate,” he said. “Make that two, my dear.”
He looked across at Otto.
“Bourbon—with plenty of ice.”
Diane Morris mixed the drinks and handed them round. I noticed she had bourbon also, with not too much seltzer. Then she went and sat on the end of the divan again and clinked the ice in her goblet with a long glass mixing rod. Mandrake sat drinking without saying anything. He seemed inordinately interested in studying the tips of his brown suede sneakers. He wore grey silk socks too, I noted. I figured I’d make a good high fashion spy if I was ever sent to cover a mannequin parade. I put out my cigarette in a large gimballed ashtray on one side of the table and made a hole in my drink. Diane had mixed it well and the rum tasted real good.
Mandrake set his drink down with a sigh and folded his pink hands across one knee. “Now let’s get down to business, Mr. Faraday. Would 5,000 dollars interest you?”
I blinked. “Would I be interested in going on breathing?” I said. “What do I have to do? Assassinate the governor?”
Mandrake chuckled throatily. “Nothing so melodramatic—or so profitless, I can assure you. We are merely looking for a piece of information. I think you can help us.”
He stopped for a moment, picked up his glass and looked stonily at me over the rim of it.
“I shall expect quite a lot of information for 5.000 dollars,” he said. “Accurate information.”
“Never welshed on a client yet,” I said. “No information, no fee.”
“It is not quite so simple as that, Mr. Faraday,” he continued. “A man has been killed on the island. You know all about that, of course.”
“A Mr. Grosvenor,” I said innocently. “I could hardly avoid hearing about it since we were both checked in at the same hotel.”
Mandrake nodded. “Quite so,” he said. “Mr. Grosvenor had something belonging to us. And I want it back. I am willing to pay you the 5,000 dollars to get it for me. Since you are already a guest at the Catamaran you are in a good position to do so without attracting too much attention. My men are altogether too conspicuous.”
“You can say that again,” I said. “Junior here was trying to be rather forceful the other evening.”
Otto shifted uncomfortably and buried his head in his glass. Mr. Mandrake sighed. “With little effect,” he said. “Now that I have met you I can see just how foolish and ill-advised a move that was. But you see the sort of associates with which I am surrounded. It is difficult to do much without using such men, but their efforts are inevitably crude and pointless.”
“Except in the case of Mr. Grosvenor,” I said.
There was a deep silence. Mr. Mandrake lifted his eyebrows. “Indeed?” he said. “Would you mind explaining?” “The ice gag,” I said. “What was the alibi?”
Mr. Mandrake smiled slowly. Too thinly and without too much sincerity.
“You are a man after my own heart, Mr. Faraday. I must congratulate myself on my choice. Without admitting anything, I was at the Stanley Bay Yacht Club all the afternoon in question. In a prominent position on the veranda, surrounded by the local worthies. I think even the local police chief would find that hard to crack.”
I looked at him for a long moment and then drained my glass. Diane Morris was at my elbow. She took the glass from me and I heard the clink of ice-cubes a
s she started to re-fill it.
“Since we are being so frank, Mr. Faraday,” said Mr. Mandrake. “I think it is your turn to answer some questions.”
I leaned back against the cushions. “Fire away,” I said.
“You seem altogether too friendly with the local police force,” he said. “That will have to stop if we are to be associated.”
“I was only assisting them with their inquiries,” I said. “As far as I can make out they haven’t turned up a thing so far. It would look kinda odd if they were suddenly socially unacceptable. Besides, it’s going to be difficult to me to operate if I’m not to contact them. And I shall have to rely on them for information, if I’m going to find what you’re looking for. What are you looking for, anyway?”
A frown chased across Mandrake’s face. He looked out through the big windows at the blues and greens of the harbour.
“We don’t really know,” he said. “It’ll probably be nothing more than a piece of paper with some information on it. It might be in code; concealed in a letter—or in any one of half a dozen ways. That’s your job. I should start with Grosvenor’s room.”
“I thought your girlfriend would have been there already,” I said.
He looked over at Diane Morris. She flushed but said nothing. Then he laughed again. “She didn’t make too good a job of it either,” he said. “As I said, all my help can’t avoid attracting attention. That’s where you come in.”
“Police have already been over it,” I said. “They didn’t find anything.”
“Amateurs,” he said. “It needs a trained man. I want you to give that room the whole works.”
“All right,” I said. “You might have something.”
He looked me straight in the face again. “And, Mr. Faraday, just remember one thing. Play square with us. I’m sure I don’t have to make myself more explicit. There’s a lot of money involved here.”
“There must be to sweeten me up with 5,000 iron men,” I said.
He sipped again at his drink. “See that you earn it,” he said.
He beckoned to Otto. The big man passed over a leather brief-case he took from a shelf behind the divan. Mandrake rummaged around in the case and came up with a big bundle of notes.
He counted out ten, all brand new, and threw them across tome.
“A thousand on account,” he said. “Better check them to make sure.”
“You want a receipt for these?” I asked him.
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Mandrake said blandly.
“I knew a guy like you once,” I said. “He was so rich he even had the inside of his Rolls wall-papered.”
Diane Morris smiled for the first time since we met that afternoon. I put the wad of notes into my wallet and then put that back into my inside pocket. It seemed to burn a hole in the lining.
Mandrake got to his feet. “And now that we have concluded our business, let me show you the yacht.”
He led the way down the centre of the saloon. Otto sat still on the divan except that he’d slightly changed his position so that his eyes could watch my every move. Diane came over from the hooch stall. She handed me another long glass. Her fingers brushed mine for just a short while longer than was strictly necessary. I raised the glass and drank to her. She smiled again. Mandrake was standing by one of the big central fish-tanks.
“Are you interested in tropical fish, Mr. Faraday?” he asked.
“Not particularly,” I said.
“A pity. A most fascinating study.”
He tapped the glass of the tank and the fish inside milled around uneasily. They were only small things, about four inches long, a silver grey velvet colour with tiny gold flecks. Their fan-like tails parted the water lazily. Their little red eyes looked blandly and innocently out at us. There was only one thing I didn’t like about them—or two to be strictly accurate. The little white barbs which stuck up each side of their mouths; when they gulped, which they did occasionally, rows of minute white teeth made ivory patterns in their gullets.
“Do you know what these are?” said Mandrake almost dreamily. He tapped the side of the tank again and the little fish went round in a vivid circle. I shook my head.
“They are of the species Serrasalmus,” he said. “From South America. Or, to a layman like yourself they may be familiar under their more common name of Piranha.”
I shrugged. “Aren’t they supposed to be the little fellows that can tear a guy to strips in about nothing flat?”
He smiled. “A slight exaggeration of the popular cinema, the penny novelette and the comic strip. They can be dangerous, yes, especially when encountered en masse in their native rivers. They usually go for cattle, seldom man. Blood is their primary motivation—an open cut or wound would be fatal. These are quite harmless for the moment.”
Then he did something which got me. He lifted off the vent and plunged one of his pink hands down into the green water. The little fish circled gingerly and then drew back. He waved his hand through the water, following a particular fish; when it stopped near the end of the tank he gently scratched its flank. It let him do it for a moment and then slid away. He just stood there looking at me. I felt sweat trickle down my collar. After about a million years he took his hand out again. He laughed.
“You see, quite harmless. Would you like to try?”
“No thanks,” I said. “I wouldn’t look good with a metal hook.”
He laughed again and the tension in the saloon relaxed. “The explanation is perfectly simple. No blood and, of course, these fish are well fed. Raw meat and such-like, you know. If there had been a cut on my hand it would have been a different story.”
He led the way over to the second tank. “In contrast, these fish have not been fed for some time. There is quite a difference. In fact, I would not advise anyone putting their hand into this one.”
“Don’t get your tanks mixed up,” I told him.
He sat down in a deep leather armchair. “There is not much fear of that, Mr. Faraday.”
Just then we were interrupted by a curious noise. Mr. Mandrake looked up sharply. It came from Otto. He had gotten up on to the divan. Foam came from his mouth and flecked his clothing. His voice, when it came, was a shrill scream.
“Get that damn thing outta here,” he yelled. Something I hadn’t seen before loped down the room; it was an ordinary white cat with pink albino eyes, but it had a fantastic effect upon Otto. He almost went up in the air. His hand plucked at his clothing, and the Luger came up, its black snout looking like the barrel of a cannon as he waved it at us.
“That damn Charley Fong,” he raved. “I told him to keep that thing outta my way or I’d murder it.”
Mr. Mandrake stood up then very suddenly. His voice cracked like a whip. “Drop it Otto, do you hear?”
The cat came on down the room, picking its way between the furniture with mincing steps. It seemed to sense the big man’s fear and made straight for the divan. Something black went through the air and hit Otto’s gun hand and spun him off balance. The leather cushion Mandrake had thrown, tumbled on the carpet and with it the Luger Otto had the good sense to drop.
The big man screamed as the cat jumped at him; it clawed at his face and he went over on the divan in a melee of arms and legs. The cat yowled once as the big man’s hand caught it and then it had dug its claws into the calf of his leg. Otto seemed to go raving mad then. With a hoarse shriek he swung his foot, crashed the cat’s body against the arm of the divan and then, half-dazed, it released its hold and was flung through the air towards Mandrake. It bounced against the leg of the big tank against which we were sitting and landed on the carpet spitting viciously. Blood glistened on its flank.
Before anyone could move Mandrake had it by the scruff of the neck; he pulled the vent of the big tank off with a quick wrench of his disengaged hand and then he held the spitting cat down into the suddenly agitated water.
A thin scream that fretted our nerves like jets of boiling water cam
e from the cat; the liquid in the tank foamed and threshed as the forms of the fish darted at its body. The tank was all clouded now and scarlet splashes spread out against the glass; water and blood slopped over the edge and the cat’s howls rose to a high, keening cry. Its body trembled and vibrated and I could see Mandrake’s arm quiver with the effort as he held the dying beast beneath the surface, his hand just out of reach of the darting barbs of the killer piranha.
I sat back in my chair and looked steadily at Mandrake. Diane Morris stumbled over towards the cocktail bar with her hands over her ears. A bead of sweat trickled down Mandrake’s face. Otto had climbed down from the divan and was retching into his handkerchief.
So no-one was really prepared for it when Charley Fong crashed through the saloon double doors with eyeballs bursting from a yellow mask which had turned to off-white. He made straight for Mandrake and his face spelt murder. What made it worse was that he had a big meat-axe in his hand.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Underwater
1
I THOUGHT it was time I contributed something to the afternoon’s entertainment. I went out of my chair in a long dive, going in low under Charley Fong’s guard, hoping to avoid the flailing axe. I hit the carpet with my shoulder, bounced and then caught him just below the knees. He grunted once and then we were turning and he came down on top of me with a crash. He was mighty heavy for such a small man.
I caught a glimpse of Mandrake; he hadn’t moved. He still had his hand inside the top of the tank and his eyes had a fixed expression. We hit the floor with a noise like thunder. Charley Fong gave a sobbing sigh like all the breath was expelled from his lungs and the meat-axe left his hand and went skiddering across the cabin. Otto had got to the Luger by now and he was coming up fast. I put my hand over Charley Fong’s face and pressed him down into the carpet.
As I rolled I saw Diane Morris pass between me and Mandrake. I couldn’t see what she was doing. It was Scarpini I was worried about but fortunately he didn’t show. I wriggled on top just as Otto got to us with the Luger.
