Island in the Sun

by Alec Waugh

  Bradshaw nodded. “That’s how things usually appear in retrospect. There was a case in Baltimore …”

  The incident was appropriate to the situation. Maxwell’s blood pounded as he listened. He had got away with it; the perfect crime. He had fooled them all. Here in Bradshaw he had his witness that he had received the news with equanimity. Nothing in his manner could have aroused suspicion. He had carried it off. Once again his spirits were carried high, on a tide of confidence. He’d show these fellows in his speech this afternoon what he amounted to.

  “Let’s ring for lunch,” he said. “Two punches are enough before a speech.”

  3

  Bradshaw was back in Jamestown before seven. Maxwell had wanted him to stay on to dinner. The speech had been a great success. There had been no organized heckling and Maxwell had met his audience on a “you and I” basis; he had talked to them as one of them. He was jubilant, he wanted to relive his victory, like a golfer recounting his medal round, hole by hole and stroke by stroke. It was a mood with which Bradshaw was familiar. It would mean his having to listen to the whole of Maxwell’s speech a second time. That was more than he could take. He excused himself on the grounds of work. He was only in part evasive. He wanted to write his article tomorrow and he needed Whittingham’s advice.

  A light was burning in the policeman’s office, and he stopped the car. “If I’m not out within five minutes, you can go back home,” he told the chauffeur. Whittingham was in and disengaged. He was seated at his desk, he had pulled out the lowest drawer and was using it as a footrest. It was a position he adopted when he was thinking.

  He smiled when Bradshaw was brought in. He did not like journalists and Bradshaw did not seem to him a particularly attractive specimen of the fraternity, but he recognized Bradshaw as a man of consequence.

  “So you’ve come to the fountain’s source,” he said.

  “I’m thinking of diagnosing it as an Obeah case. Would that be too ridiculous?”

  “It depends on the angle you select.”

  “I suppose you’ve heard how he made a ninny of that Obeah man on his estate?”

  “I have.”

  “Could it be a case of vengeance?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s not the way they work.”

  “They give potions to the natives, don’t they?”

  “Yes, but those potions are mainly effective because the villagers believe in them. It’s faith healing and faith killing. I’ve known cases in the New Hebrides of strong, healthy men who have nothing whatsoever wrong with them, turning their faces to the wall and dying within four days because their vanity has been hurt. These Obeah men are astute. They know when a man is seriously ill. If they lay a spell on such a man, and his friends tell him, it’s in the cards he’ll die. On the other hand, a man with a basically strong constitution who is told he is going to recover will get well nine times in ten. That’s how these fellows work. They aren’t Chicago gangsters. They wouldn’t tell one of their followers to bump off an enemy.”

  “Shall I give those reasons for its not being Obeah?”

  “If you want to write about Obeah. And perhaps you do.”

  “Can you suggest any alternative theory?”

  Whittingham reflected. Anything he told Bradshaw would appear in Baltimore, and afterward be reported in the local press. Use might be made of Bradshaw. The murderer, if he was an educated person, would read the article. It might be advisable to lull him into false security. On the other hand it might be more useful to make the murderer feel anxious. An anxious man often gave himself away. The second course was perhaps the better.

  “You might say this,” he said. “You might suggest that though the obvious explanation is that Carson interrupted a casual burglar who set upon him, the police are not blind to the possibility that a clever murderer would try and make it look like the work of a casual thief. A criminal can sometimes be too clever.”

  “Do you think that’s probable?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Had Carson any enemies?”

  “Everyone has enemies.”

  “Maybe that’s so; but it can hardly have been premeditated. Carson wouldn’t have left the club as early as that once in a month. There’s another thing, it was the merest chance that Carson didn’t meet Maxwell Fleury on the way.”

  “How could that have happened?”

  Bradshaw repeated his talk with Maxwell.

  “He and young Fleury were good friends. If they had met, he’d probably have asked young Fleury in. If he had, nothing would have happened the way it did. It’s a curious coincidence. Fleury may have passed the house at the very moment that Carson was being throttled.”

  Whittingham made no reply. He was following his own thoughts. If Fleury had passed along that road by foot, he might have noticed something of no significance to him that would help the police.

  “Is Fleury a particular friend of yours?” he asked.

  “Not particularly.”

  “Yet you went all that way out there to lunch. …”

  “He wanted me to hear his speech. I’d been there the other evening, when he was hooted down.”

  “How did it go this time?”

  “Very well. He met them three-quarter-way. He reminded them that he had colored blood. He kept repeating, ‘I am one of you.’ I think he’ll be elected.”

  “It’s going to be a very curious Leg. Co. The A.G.’s going to be made a judge. That means a new A.G. and heaven knows who they’ll choose. How long are you proposing to stay on here, by the way?”

  “As long as there’s material I can use.”

  “You may find quite a lot.”

  “I shouldn’t complain if it turned out that way.”

  The following morning Bradshaw began his article. “A month ago I wrote that I sat on a volcano. The eruption has begun. Three mornings ago one of the chief white planters in the island was found on the floor of his study, murdered.”

  4

  Two days later in London, Carson’s death was announced in a four line paragraph at the foot of a column in an evening paper. It could scarcely have been accorded smaller prominence, but it caught the eye of the Opposition, and a question was tabled for the following week.

  The Minister of State for the Colonies had also seen the paragraph. It was accompanied by a memo in Purvis’ precise, small handwriting. “Shall I cable for fuller information?”

  The Minister reread the paragraph. He had a great deal upon his mind. He wanted to concentrate on Kenya. He did not want to be bothered with a small West Indian island. He pressed the bell that rang in his secretary’s room. “Tell Mr. Purvis that I’m going to telephone Santa Marta: then put a call through to the Governor. Mark it high priority.”

  There was a five hours difference in time between London and the Caribbean. Lunch in London was breakfast time in Santa Marta. The call reached Templeton as he was on the point of leaving G.H. on an afternoon tour of inspection of a housing project. It had been one of his boasts as a soldier that no news took him off his guard. He never expressed surprise. It was the first time he had been rung up from London, but he treated the call as a routine occurrence. His voice through a buzz of static sounded firm and clear.

  “There is nothing to worry about,” he reassured the Minister. “It is a tragic business, but it has no social or political implications. I shall be forwarding you a full report by air mail tomorrow. I am anxious that as little as possible should appear about it in the press. I don’t want to scare the tourists. We are expecting a number of American journalists in July. I mentioned that in my last dispatch. We are trying to develop a summer season here. The less said the better. But you’ll get my dispatch before the end of the week. It’ll cover all these points.”

  “A question is going to be asked about it in the House.”

  “My dispatch will provide you with all information that you require.”

  Th
e Governor was speaking to his chief. But his manner was that of a colonel reassuring his second-in-command. The Minister hung up the receiver with relief. If Templeton had had any qualms a sudden call from London would have brought them to the surface, and Templeton’s composure had been complete. There could be nothing to worry about in Santa Marta. He could concentrate on Kenya.

  At the other end of the line, the Governor hesitated. They must be worried over there. Did his dispatch need redrafting? He rang for Archer.

  “You’re a man of letters. Take away this report, read it, then come back straight away and tell me how it strikes you.”

  It was a one page report. It recounted the incident in succinct straightforward language. There was nothing literary about it, but it set out the facts and drew a conclusion from them, there was no possibility of misunderstanding the writer’s point of view. Archer was impressed. He had been accustomed when he was in the army to disparage the intellectual caliber of the average professional soldier. “The army,” he would argue, “has drawn upon the least intellectual section of the upper middle classes. Look at the Army Class in the average Public School. If a boy comes from a reasonable home, is a reasonably decent fellow, reasonably good at games, with no pretensions to scholarship, then his housemaster suggests that he should join the Army Class. You do not expect a J.C.R. standard of conversation in an Army Mess.”

  That was how he had talked six years ago. Yet here he was now being forced to recognize that the Governor’s report was written in better because clearer English than that of a leading article in the average London newspaper. He followed his own thoughts. The Governor had been trained to use his pen as a medium with which to convey commands and information. His sentences had to be read by busy, harried men in action or on the brink of action. There could be no room for ambiguity. The senior and junior officers who read his reports must never be forced to read them twice to see what exactly he had meant. Could you have a better training for the writing of good English? How often in point of fact were not the best books written by men who were not professionals, by soldiers, administrators, engineers, who had something of interest to say and had learnt through necessity how to convey exactly what they had in mind.

  He reread the report. It told exactly what had happened and gave the Governor’s reasons for believing that there was no occasion for alarm. Why had the old man shown it to him? It couldn’t be out of author’s vanity. Many brother officers had forced their poems on him. “Just a little thing I tossed off the other day. I know it’s no good of course.” But H.E. wasn’t that kind of person.

  Archer carried back the draft.

  “It looks fine to me,” he said.

  “Put yourself in the place of the man who’ll read it. The Minister of State for the Colonies. He has to answer questions in the House. He has to cover himself, remember; to give an answer which may have to be interpreted two ways. He wants to be able to say in a year’s time, if occasion arises, ‘I must remind the Honorable member for East Stepney that I did point out the possibility of such an unfortunate eventuality as has in fact occurred.’ You see my point, Denis?”

  Archer saw it very well. Once again he got an angle on the school in which H.E. had been trained. Whereas the professional writer was concerned with the saying of something for his own satisfaction, a man like H.E. had always to have his audience in mind, since his audience would be taking action on what he wrote. Objective as opposed to subjective writing.

  “I wonder if the report should be less unqualified,” the Governor said.

  He looked interrogatively at his A.D.C. Himself he did not think it should be. He believed, as a soldier, in deciding on a course of action and then pursuing his aim in blinkers. At the staff college they had told him that there were three ways of winning a battle, and that once you had decided on the way you preferred, you must not think about the other two. But he was dealing now not with soldiers but with politicians.

  “What about asking Whittingham what he thinks, sir?”

  “You might do that. Not that I’ll follow his advice. He always plays for safety. Did you ever get involved during the war with any of those security fellows?”

  “Only the F.S.P., sir.”

  “You’re lucky. Some of the top boys drove me mad. They were so keen on their security that they’d have liked to have stopped us attacking, in case the Germans should discover the type of tanks we used. But you are quite right. We ought to know Whittingham’s views, if only so that he’ll have a chance of saying later on, ‘I told you so.’”

  5

  Archer found the policeman in an expansive mood. No, he said, he had found no clues yet, but that was not worrying him. The police played a waiting game. Sooner or later the other man made a mistake. Something unusual happened and it caught one’s notice.

  “It’s not unlike fishing. You throw out a net, and sooner or later a string will tighten. The efficiency of a police organization depends on how finely drawn are the meshes of the net. We are understaffed here, and half my constables are fools. But we’ve one great thing in our favor. This is an island. No one can get away without my knowing it. You see that map there on the wall. I look at it when I feel depressed. It reminds me that Santa Marta is only fifty miles long and fifteen wide: that there are only a hundred thousand people on it; that among the hundred thousand is the man I’m looking for, and that he, poor wretch, is shivering with terror, wondering what I’m doing, wondering what I know.

  “Time’s no problem,” he went on. “That’s another factor in my favor. I’ll be waiting, I or my successor, for twenty years if need be. I’m in no hurry. I’m the spider in the center of the web. Sooner or later the fellow that I’m waiting for will become desperate or overconfident. At least that’s what I tell myself. What now can I do for you?”

  Archer handed him the Governor’s report.

  “H.E. would like your comment upon this.”

  He watched Whittingham as he read it. The policeman’s expression did not change. He always looked the same, bland, bucolic, indolent. There was nothing sinister, nothing intimidating about his face. But how would one feel if one were a criminal sitting in this chair, trying to guess what he was suspecting, wondering if he had been fooled? It was difficult to credit Whittingham with quick perceptions. Perhaps that was in part his strength, that he did not look a sleuth.

  Whittingham handed back the paper.

  “It’s fine as far as I’m concerned.”

  “H.E. wondered if you wanted anything qualified.”

  “I don’t see what.”

  “You don’t think then that there are any political complications here.”

  “Carson wasn’t political.”

  “You don’t think his laborers are getting their own back over something.”

  “He was popular on his estate.”

  “You don’t link this up with that fire at Belfontaine.”

  “That was Mardi gras. Belfontaine is a trouble spot. Young Fleury isn’t liked.”

  “H.E. will be relieved over what you say, so will the Tourist Board.”

  “Is that what’s worrying him?”

  “Among other things.”

  Whittingham pursed his lips and remained silent. He seemed to have said all he had to say. Archer stood up. “Shall I be seeing you at G.H. tomorrow?”

  “You bet you will. I’m counting on champagne.”

  “You won’t be disappointed.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  1

  The party in honor of Jocelyn’s engagement was an after dinner occasion, with a band and dancing: a hundred invitations were dispatched and there was a small family dinner party first. Sylvia and Maxwell had arranged to come in early. Whittingham had suggested that Maxwell should call at his office next time he was in town. Maxwell had expected such a message. That busybody Bradshaw. But he was glad Bradshaw was, otherwise he would have been forced to call on Whittingham. It would have been suspicious if he had not. Whittingham would hav
e said, “Didn’t it occur to you that you might have information that would be of use to us?”

  He was glad Whittingham had written, and he was glad that the party at G.H. had given him a definite date for coming into town. Otherwise he might have seemed too eager or too dilatory. He would have had to pick on precisely the right day. “Dear Colonel,” he had written, “I’ll be in town on Saturday for Jocelyn’s engagement party. If I don’t hear from you to the contrary, I’ll look in at about eleven. I can guess why you want to see me, but I’m afraid I shan’t be able to help you much.” How luckily everything was turning out.

  They left in the cool of the morning, shortly after eight. Maxwell was filled with the same exultation that he had experienced a week ago when he had driven out from Jamestown, through the rain. He was alive, alert in every nerve, in every fiber. How fresh and glowing Sylvia looked.

  “You look more attractive every day,” he said.

  She made no answer, but her eyes were fond. It was like a second honeymoon, no it was not, it was like a first one. She leant against him, responsive to the pressure of his arm.

  “Hurry or we’ll be late,” she said.

  She didn’t need to tell him how she felt. She had told him that, in the dusk, not in words but in her response to him. He must know. Why else would he look so radiant? He seemed reborn. He took his hand from the wheel and laid it over hers, pressing it then replacing it upon the wheel. It was the kind of thing that he had never done before. It was a miracle, there was no other word for it. She began to sing a song that her nurse had taught her,

  I gave my love a cherry

  Without a stone.

  I gave my love a chicken

  Without a bone.

  I gave my love a story

  Without an end.