Early the next morning I drove from the hotel to Punaauia and had breakfast with Tamara. There had been more phone calls from the local newspapers, but nothing from the kidnappers. At 8:30 we got into our separate cars and drove back to town, where I accompanied Tamara into the post office. There was just one envelope in her box, I saw, a small airmail envelope with a scene of Tahiti printed on one end. I took it by its edges and we carried it unopened to Tama’s office at the Commissariat.
“There are fingerprint facilities in France?” I gibed. He snorted sardonically, and we slit open the envelope using tweezers and a letter-opener. Inside there was nothing except a single Polaroid photograph. It showed a haggard Danielle Payton in the same pose as in the previous one. The newspaper in her hands, however, was yesterday’s Dépêche, that of October 13th. Her eye sockets were darker, her cheekbones a little more prominent. Tamara closed her eyes and leaned against my shoulder, while Tama cursed softly under his breath. He pushed the envelope and photograph between sheets of glassine and sealed them in an envelope.
“These will be in the laboratory in Paris by tomorrow morning,” he said. “If necessary, I will then personally bring in the equipment and fingerprint every man, woman, and child on this wretched island.” His face was grim. “Now, then. Monsieur LaRoche.” He activated a cassette recorder. “Try to recall your two conversations with our friends the paratroopers: that at the Vaima Café two weeks or so ago, and that of yesterday afternoon on their ship. Word by word, if possible.” He punched the intercom. “Absolutely no calls.”
Seventy minutes later Tamara had begun to fidget and I had been over both meetings twice. “So,” said Tama pensively. “At first they denied any knowledge whatsoever of Mrs. Payton. Then, when it appeared that this might lead them into deep waters, they changed their approach and intimated somewhat unconvincingly that they might have encountered her, without actually conceding that they had. Correct?”
“That’s my impression. As if they were waiting to see which way the cat would jump.”
“Hrmph.” Tama snorted and turned off the recorder. “Well, the cat has jumped. Yesterday afternoon I personally supervised the search of their ship, their rent house, and their automobiles. They were not pleased. Very much the high-powered businessmen on vacation.” He paused and stared at us somberly.
Tamara leaned forward. “Well?”
“We found this,” he said softly, and reached into a desk drawer. I felt my breath catch in my throat while he brought his hand out. On the desk he laid a small, flat, black purse. Tamara reached for it.
“Oh God,” she cried, “that looks just like Mama’s!”
Tama nodded. “We found it under a mattress in one of the forward staterooms on the Aventurier.” I heard Tamara draw in her breath with a hiss. “There was no other sign of her, anywhere.” He opened the purse and dumped its contents on the desk.
There was lipstick, a mirror, a cigarette lighter, coins, hairpins, a comb, and three unopened envelopes. The were all addressed to Danielle Payton. Two had been mailed in the United States, and the other was a bill from the local electrical company. Tama scrutinized the postmarks. “This one from Boston is dated September 17th, and the one from Hartford September 21st. This local one is September 30th.” He turned to his calendar. “September 30th was a Thursday. So Mrs. Payton would have received it on Friday, October 1st, put it in her purse with these two other letters from the United States which arrived at the same time, intending to open them later, and then…what?”
We stared down at them in horrid fascination, our imaginations conjuring up macabre and disquieting images from the ordinary spectacle of three unopened letters lying on a desk. There was an aura of finality about them somehow akin to an open grave.
“Whose cabin was it in?” I asked.
“None of theirs. It was an unused cabin generally used by the crew. As you might expect, they disclaim any knowledge of it and how it got there in loud voices.”
“So what are you going to do about them?”
“Arrest them,” ordered Tamara imperiously. “Beat them. Make them tell you where my Mama is.”
Tama nodded understandingly. “I wish I could. They have been questioned closely, and we are waiting for information from France concerning them. In the meantime, they are under close surveillance in their home. If we should learn anything useful from France.…” He gestured broadly with his hands.
There was a knock on the door, and an aide hurried in to whisper in his ear. Tama waved him from the room. “So,” he said. “Both of the local newspapers and the AP correspondent have just received photographs similar to the one on my desk. The story is about to break in the afternoon and evening papers in the United States. There is now nothing I can do to keep it from the local sources. Instead, we will ask them, and the radio-television service, to give it the greatest possible amount of publicity. It might bring someone forward with useful information.”
“I think Miss Payton should call her father,” I said. “I don’t see how he can do anything but cooperate now.” She nodded dismally, and went to make the call from the next room.
She returned ten minutes later, looking drained. “He’ll be here this evening,” she said simply.
“This evening?” echoed Tama. “There’s no plane until the UTA tomorrow morning.”
“His private jet,” said Tamara with a sigh. “The Quest for Truth.”
* * * *
Tamara had returned to Punaauia for lunch and a nap. I sat in my Fiat and drew up a list of things to do. The first was to stop by a hardware store. I purchased a box of plastic sandwich bags and some nylon fishing line and returned to the hotel, where I walked down to the beach and filled one of the bags with coarse black sand. Back in my room I stuffed the bag into a finely knit black sock and poked and prodded the sand until I had a well-balanced homemade blackjack in my hand. I cut off two pieces of the fishing line and sealed off first the bag and then the sock around it. I went back to the car and stowed my sandbag in the glove compartment. Now I was armed.
It wasn’t needed for my first interview. Visiting hours at the Hôpital de Mamao weren’t until noon, so I put on my official face and made for Mareta’s room purposefully. I kissed her on both cheeks and admired her looks enthusiastically. This was the fourth time I’d been by, and the improvement was striking. She lost some weight, and her complexion had lost its tan, but her facial injuries had healed and her eyes sparkled. You could see now that she was a beautiful young woman. I sat down beside the bed, and she held my hand in hers while we talked.
“Are you still seeing Hinano?” she asked shyly.
“We had a…misunderstanding.”
“Oh. She’s a little…peculiar sometimes.” I nodded. “They’re taking the cast off my leg in a couple of days,” she said exuberantly. “Then if my shoulder X-rays are all right, I can start the re-education on my knee. Then—home!”
I smiled and squeezed her hand. “Sure. What’s a few broken ribs?” But a cloud had passed across her face. The mention of home had reminded her that she no longer had a home to return to. I leaned across and kissed her in the little hollow her nose joined her forehead. “Don’t worry,” I whispered. “I’ll be here to get you.”
Her eyes glistened, and when I got up to leave her lips brushed across the corner of my mouth.
* * * *
The Jade Palace was almost directly across the street from the Banque de l’Indosuez. It had excellent Chinese food that was almost worth the prices you paid. Hinano was waiting for me when I arrived. Her manner was wary and reserved. While she sipped tea I told her about what had happened to Danielle Payton. She clutched my wrist. “It can’t be true!”
“I’m afraid it is.” I looked down into my glass of ice water. “Tell me everything you can about Danielle Payton.”
She did, for the rest of the lunch, but I learned nothing new. According to Hinano, Danielle Payton was a rich, fun-loving, frivolous woman who was unspoiled by her money. She was good-natured, open-hearted, generous, and devoted to the earthly pleasures in a somehow innocent fashion. At times she appeared scatter-brained: she could be both willful and easily led within a short period of time. She had traveled all over the world, but spent most of her time in Tahiti because of its zest for life, its relaxed moral standards, and the freedom it offered her to indulge herself in convivial company. She loved her daughter and hated her husband, but never discussed the reasons for the hatred.
“All I know,” said Hinano, “is that they’ve been getting divorced for years, but they keep changing their minds about the property settlement and start fighting again, and the lawyers put it off. And now that he’s running for the Senate, it’s been delayed again. Danielle says he’s the world’s biggest hypocrite. He’s pretending to be a real goody-goody and very big on the Major Morality or whatever you Americans call it, and he wants her to stay out of the way in Tahiti so that people wouldn’t know about.…” She stared down into her plate of crystal shrimp. “Well, you know.…”
“Yeah.”
“She said he gave her a million dollars to stay here until the election was over.” She looked up at me, her eyes wide. “A million dollars!”
I shook my head. “It’s nice to be rich,” I said.
She considered this carefully. “Except you never hear of poor people being kidnapped for ransom.”
* * * *
After lunch I circled the waterfront for twenty minutes until a parking space opened up and I could nose the Fiat into it. The Book of Dreams, Billy’s floating hemp palace, was moored twenty yards down the road. For the rest of the afternoon I sat in the car, getting out occasionally to feed the meter.
At 3:17 Billy appeared on deck, his shaven pate gleaming, jumped down to the sidewalk, and swaggered off to town. There was no sign of Hiro. I fingered my sandbag hopefully and tried to come to some conclusions about the three tough ex-paras, Jérôme, Jean-Paul, and Yves-Louis.
Were they gangsters, reputable hotel owners, kidnappers, or a combination of all three? Tama had said he would check into the ownership of the Hotel Taaone, and I had mentioned that in passing to Hinano as lunch was drawing to a close.
“Why, that’s ridiculous!” she said. “Of course Bob and Susan own the hotel! What bold liars these Frenchmen are!”
I sighed. Somebody certainly was.
By seven that evening the sun had made its usual spectacular descent behind Moorea, and there was still no sign of Hiro. I walked down to the Vaima Café for a ham sandwich and black coffee, and at eight o’clock began a tour of the Papeete bars, gay, straight, and in between.
But two hours later I still hadn’t found him, so I returned to Punaauia and followed Tamara into the airport for the arrival of The Quest for Truth and its owner, publishing tycoon and Senatorial hopeful, Charles Wentworth Payton.