Death in the Andamans

by M. M. Kaye

  Charles, who knew him better, did not even wonder. Ronnie was a frequent victim of what he himself termed ‘one over the eight’, but he seldom if ever went in for really hard drinking; and then never alone. Mr Purvis was a man who liked company with his whisky, and rather than drink alone would normally have combed the island for a companion. Yet tonight he had been deliberately drowning something in drink. And it was certainly not sorrow. Funk, diagnosed Charles dispassionately: the fellow’s scared stiff about something and has been trying the effects of Dutch Courage. Now I wonder what the hell he’s so frightened of?

  That Mr Purvis was frightened was as patently and disturbingly plain to everyone in the room as the fact that he was drunk. His usually bronzed features (Ronnie subscribed to the popular theory that ‘all handsome men are slightly sunburnt’) were a curious putty colour, his hands so unsteady that the leaves of the periodical he held shook as though they were in a wind, while his eyes were as wide and glaring as a frightened cat’s, and any unexpected sound or movement caused him to start violently.

  There was something about his obvious terror that was infectious, for Nick could see its reflection in Valerie’s face. He saw, too, that the fear which had been in Copper’s eyes ever since Valerie had read through the contents of the notebook had deepened to something still and panic-stricken, and rising abruptly, he crossed the ballroom floor and switched on every light in the big room. An action that at least had the effect of dispelling the lurking shadows, though it failed to add much cheerfulness to the scene.

  The Club had been decorated in honour of the Christmas festivities with branches of casuarina intertwined with strings of fairy-lights, but the branches were already wilted and sad-looking, and the flood of light seemed only to intensify the dreariness of the empty, damp-stained dance floor and make it seem larger and blanker and more deserted than before.

  Charles ordered a round of drinks which were brought by the slant-eyed, soft-footed Burmese boy, who materialized noiselessly out of the shadows beyond the ballroom. But alcohol did little towards raising anyone’s spirits. Ronnie Purvis was beyond making even an effort at conversation, and though Charles and Valerie struggled valiantly, their efforts to dissipate the general gloom were markedly unsuccessful.

  Copper was making a pretence at reading an out-of-date copy of the National Geographic magazine, but Nick, who was watching her without appearing to do so, saw that although she turned a page at regular intervals her eyes were fixed and her gaze unmoving and he was unpleasantly reminded of Rosamund Purvis, and Dan’s voice saying something to the effect that he believed if someone came up behind her and touched her on the shoulder, she’d scream the roof off. The same, decided Nick, might well be said of Copper at that moment: except that Copper wouldn’t scream — she wasn’t, thank God, the screaming kind. But she might easily faint …

  Outside the Club the sullen swell crashed monotonously against the stone and concrete of the sea-wall, and occasionally a larger wave, more powerful than its fellows, would fling up an arc of spray to rattle against the ballroom windows, causing Ronnie Purvis to start violently with every repetition of the sound.

  Charles put down his unfinished drink and rose abruptly: ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. Leave that beastly lemon drink of yours, Val; you can get another one up at the house. I’ve had enough of this.’

  His companions rose with alacrity, and Ronnie stumbled to his feet, his mouth twitching. ‘I – I think I’ll come with you,’ he said thickly. ‘G–gloomy hole this. R–rotten Club. M–mind if I walk up with you as f–far as my bungalow?’ He clawed at Charles’s arm as though he was afraid of being refused and as if some special terror lay in having to walk, alone, the few hundred yards that stretched between the Club and his front door.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Charles impatiently, disengaging his coat-sleeve from Ronnie’s clutching fingers: ‘Put down that drink and come along.’ He turned on his heel, and Mr Purvis, interpreting these instructions according to his own desires, paused to swallow what whisky remained in his glass before running unsteadily after him.

  The air outside felt almost cold after the stuffy closeness of the atmosphere inside the Club, and though night had fallen there was still no breath of wind, and the light rain that was sifting down upon the island barely stirred the leaves beneath its silent fingers. It powdered Valerie’s dark hair with stars and turned Copper’s pale gold head to silver, and made a glimmering haze about the lamps that lined the roads between the dim sentinel columns of the coconut palms.

  They dropped Ronnie Purvis at his bungalow, though it was patently obvious that he would have greatly preferred to accompany them to Government House. ‘Can’t go home alone,’ mumbled Ronnie, swaying dangerously and clutching at a lamppost to steady himself: ‘That’s what they’re waiting for … Ge’ me alone, so they c’n shoot me. Shtole m’revolver. S’gone. Looked everywhere.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Charles sharply. ‘Did you say your revolver had been stolen?’

  ‘Not shtolen … taken; so’s I carn s–shoot ’em first!’

  ‘Listen, Ronnie,’ said Charles urgently. ‘If you’ve lost your revolver you’d better go and look for it, and if you can’t find it, you’d better report it!’

  ‘Not losht. Just gone. No one in the housh … all ’lone. Lesh all have a lil’ drink’n be merry — f’r t’morrer we die!’

  Ronnie’s bungalow was in darkness except for a gleam of light from the servants’ quarters, and Valerie remembered suddenly that as both Rosamund and Amabel were up at the hospital, he would be alone in the empty house. Bare charity suggested that she should at least offer him dinner that night. But she could not bring herself to do so, because his drunken terror reacted too unpleasantly upon her own taut nerves. Refusing his invitations and cutting short their goodbyes she dragged at Charles’s arm, and they turned hurriedly away, leaving Mr Purvis standing in the pool of light from the nearest lamp, swaying on his feet and casting desperate, terrified glances into the darkness beyond.

  Valerie said in a low, breathless voice: ‘Did you see — I only noticed it when we were standing under the lamp — he isn’t wearing his ring.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charles thoughtfully, ‘I noticed. It almost begins to look as though there may be something in that theory of Copper’s after all, doesn’t it?’

  ‘You mean you think that Ferrers was killed in mistake for Ronnie?’

  ‘No. But I think that that possibility has suddenly occured to Ronnie!’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Why not? It occurred to Copper. Besides, do you ever remember his not wearing that ring before? He even wears it when he’s bathing!’

  Nobody answered him. They walked on in silence and at the top of the ascent passed the Guest House: its outline barely discernible through the misty darkness and its windows glinting secretively through the screen of wet leaves, reflecting the glow from the nearest lamp like the eyes of animals caught in the headlights of a car.

  Copper turned her head away from it as they passed, but she could not turn away the picture that rose before her mind’s eye: the picture of Dan Harcourt walking under those wet branches and through that rusty gate to meet his death. And all at once it seemed to her that there was no safety anywhere in all that misty, marooned island: not out in the wet night, nor in the lighted house above them. She found that her heart was hammering in her throat, and fought down a frantic impulse to turn about and run back down the road they had climbed. But there was nowhere to run to. No safety, no security, no haven …

  They turned through the stone-pillared gates of Government House and walked up the curving drive under the dark, dripping branches of the flame trees, and they were half-way up when a dim figure materialized out of the mist ahead of them. It proved to be Leonard Stock, on his way down to his house to collect a few more of his wife’s belongings.

  Leonard was nervous and talkative, and like Ronnie Purvis, inclined to throw quick, darting glances behind h
im. And Valerie, catching herself doing the same thing, wondered if everyone on the island was equally on edge? She supposed that they must be. It would have made little material difference to their situation if they had been able to communicate by telephone or signal with Aberdeen, but somehow the feeling of being completely cut off — marooned and locked in with murder — was a particularly horrible one. Like being shut into a dark room which you knew to be empty, and then, close beside you, hearing someone breathe …

  Mr Stock was obviously infected with the same feeling; and even more obviously, intensely disliked the task his wife had set him of going down to his empty, darkened house to fetch some probably useless trifle which she could easily have done without. Valerie, who felt sorry for him but thought him a fool to put up with his wife’s shenanigans, inquired what everyone had been doing that afternoon? ‘I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting my guests rather badly. How is Ruby? And Mr Shilto?’

  ‘Ruby is still a little exhausted, I fear. She decided to remain in bed. Shilto’s been in his room most of the afternoon, and I’m afraid I’ve hardly seen him. He came down to the office and borrowed a typewriter and some foolscap, so I imagine he’s been getting down to some work.’

  Valerie said: ‘I hope Dad got my message about not coming back for tea? He was busy when I rang up.’

  ‘Yes. We were making a thorough search of the office,’ explained Mr Stock. ‘You see, I had a theory that something might be missing, because one of the sentries thought he saw a light in the office shortly before midnight last night, and as your father denied being there, I — we, were afraid that perhaps some unauthorized person had come down after the rest of the household were in bed and – and removed something from it.’

  ‘And have they?’

  ‘Oh no, there’s nothing missing, except____’ Mr Stock stopped abruptly and looked sly and a little malicious.

  ‘Then there is something missing! Do tell us!’

  Mr Stock made a pretence of wavering, but it was obvious that he had some special tit-bit of information that he was bursting to impart. ‘I – I don’t think Sir Lionel____’ He hesitated, fingering his lip, and having glanced nervously over his shoulder, lowered his voice and said: ‘You won’t let it go any further, will you? I don’t suppose it matters very much if you four hear of it, but I should never really have allowed you to get it out of me.’

  Nick’s mouth twitched at this interpretation of Leonard’s obvious desire to impart information, but Valerie said impatiently: ‘Go on. What was it?’

  ‘The letter!’ said Mr Stock in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘The letter that Ferrers wrote to your father, which he did not have time to answer. It’s been stolen. I’m quite sure of it.’

  ‘Why? Did Dad tell you so?’

  ‘Oh dear me, no. He merely asked me if I had seen an envelope addressed in Ferrers’s writing, and when I said I had not, he said it was of no importance: no importance whatever. He was very positive about it.’

  ‘Then I don’t suppose it was,’ said Valerie shortly.

  ‘It must have been, for if it were not, why should he be so anxious to find it? And he was anxious. Oh, indeed he was. You see I — er — happened to return unexpectedly to the office and found your father had opened all the drawers once more and was going through the letters again, though we had already gone through them with the greatest care only half an hour before. He was talking to himself too — you know how he sometimes does when he is worried — and I distinctly heard him say, “But it should be here: I know I left it here!” He was not at all pleased when he saw me: really quite rude. I don’t think I have ever been spoken to like … But I am positive that there was no letter there in Ferrers’s writing. Positive! One cannot mistake it. Besides, he always used that cheap violet-coloured bazaar ink. It is the greatest pity that I did not — er — I mean … Um, I — er — I suppose that none of you have seen it? Or – or would know what it was about?’

  ‘No,’ said Valerie curtly.

  Leonard flushed and his eyes darted from face to face in an apparently uncomfortable realization of having said far too much. But somewhere behind them there lurked an avid curiosity and an odd glint of panic — or was it malice?

  There followed a brief, uncomfortable pause that was broken by Valerie: ‘Don’t let us keep you,’ she said coldly. ‘I’m sure you must have a lot to do, and Ruby will be wondering what has happened to you.’

  Mr Stock, encountering her freezing glance, lost himself in a maze of half-sentences, and backing away, scuttled off down the dark leafy tunnel of the drive, and Charles, watching him go, said: ‘I wonder what it is that he thinks he knows? Did you see his face? He looked like a cat that has scoffed the canary.’

  Nick turned to peer into the misty darkness that had swallowed up the slight figure of their late companion, and said thoughtfully: ‘I think that the sooner we take another look at that notebook of Val’s, the better. However, this is neither the time nor the place to stand around arguing, and I’m getting damnably damp. Let’s get indoors.’

  They found the big house ablaze with lights, as though the servants too had caught the prevailing unease and with the coming of darkness had attempted to hold fear at bay by turning on every lamp in the place. But light alone had no power to banish the fear that pervaded it: a fear that whispered in the swish of the bats’ wings, the chirruping of the little gecko lizards and every creak of floorboard or furniture, and lurked in the shadow of every curtain and behind each half-opened door.

  There was no sign of Sir Lionel Masson, John Shilto or Ruby Stock, and the big house was uncannily quiet. Charles sent down to the Mess for the discarded notebook, and while they were waiting for it Valerie ordered drinks to be served in the verandah. She was annoyed to find herself talking in something approaching a whisper, and even more annoyed, on raising her voice, to discover that it had acquired a slight tendency to tremble.

  The air in the verandah smelt stale and faintly musty, and she crossed to the french windows that led on to the small balcony beyond the drawing-room and threw them open. The frangipani tree in the garden below was in bloom, and its pungent perfume, intensified by night and the light fall of rain, drifted in from the misty darkness; cloyingly sweet and unpleasantly reminiscent, thought Valerie, shivering, of the heavy scent of hot-house flowers at an expensive funeral.

  She banged the window to again; bringing down a pattering shower of raindrops from the bridal-creeper that grew thickly above the balcony and jarring from its foothold one of the little gecko lizards which had been crawling across the high ceiling in pursuit of a moth. It fell with a small sharp plop at Copper’s feet, and Nick saw every vestige of colour wiped from her face and her teeth clench hard upon her lower lip to stop herself from screaming.

  He stood up swiftly, and reaching her in two quick strides, caught her by the elbows and jerked her to her feet, and before she could speak had propelled her firmly into the drawing-room and pushed her down into an armchair at the far side of the room. Leaning over her, a hand on each of the chair arms so that she could not rise or escape, he said in a low voice: ‘What is it, Coppy? What are you frightened of? Tell me, darling.’

  Copper’s eyes, dark with fear, clung to his as a drowning man to a spar, but she only shook her head dumbly.

  ‘Why won’t you tell me? Is it because you’re afraid that I may have had something to do with all this?’

  Her eyes did not move from his, and he felt her mind stumble and recover itself. She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue and spoke with a manifest effort. ‘No,’ she said in a dry, halting whisper. ‘No. It’s — nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Then tell me what’s the matter?’

  ‘I — can’t,’ said Copper, twisting her hands together. ‘There – there isn’t anything to tell. Really there isn’t. I – I’m only feeling a bit on edge … like everyone else.’ She essayed a stiff little smile that twisted her lips but did not reach her frightened eyes, and the taut lines about Nick�
�s mouth softened suddenly.

  ‘You’re a rotten bad liar, Coppy darling, and just at the moment you couldn’t deceive a blind baby. Of course you’re on edge; we all are. I’m not in too good a shape myself. Look____’ He held out a hand for inspection, and she saw that it was not quite steady.

  Nick replaced it on the arm of her chair and smiled down at her. ‘You see? We’ve all got the jitters, dear — and with reason. We should be supermen if we hadn’t. But it takes more than that to explain why you should have them so badly that a silly little incident like that lizard coming adrift could bring you to within an ace of screaming the roof off.’

  ‘I — it didn’t,’ denied Copper uncertainly. ‘You’re imagining things.’

  ‘Am I?’ He jerked a clean handkerchief from his breast pocket and with a swift, unexpected movement, leant forward and touched it to her lips. She pulled back with a startled gasp and Nick held out the handkerchief. The white linen was marked with a small scarlet stain.

  ‘Think that’s imagination?’ he inquired gently. ‘It’s no good stalling, Copper. You’re not scared in the way the rest of us are scared. Or even as that chap Purvis is — which in his case I imagine to be equal parts of alcohol, bad conscience and terror of being the next victim. An hour or so ago you were no more on edge than Charles or Valerie or myself. But you spotted something that frightened you when Val read out the contents of that damned notebook, didn’t you? Didn’t you, Coppy! You either thought of something, or remembered something, that frightened you badly. And you’ve been thinking of it ever since and twisting and turning it over in your head to see if it fits.’

  ‘No!’ said Copper breathlessly. ‘No!’

  ‘It’s true. And what’s more, you’re still frightened! You’re frightened now. What is it, sweet? Tell me____’

  ‘I … I … can’t,’ said Copper with difficulty.