THE BODY IN THE HEARSE
His terror was so great that he could not even cry out.
The body gave a very living grunt as Simon almost knocked the wind out of—who was it? Not Cousin Forsyth …
The grunt was followed by muffled sounds, but no words.
Simon was almost thrown to the floor as the hearse began to move, accelerating rapidly. The shirred lavender funereal curtains covered the windows, and Simon precipitated himself across the hearse and struggled to open them, but they were tacked down. While he was trying to pull them loose his eyes adjusted to the dim light and he turned to the still-grunting body on the stretcher.
There lay a man, trussed up like a fowl; a blindfold covered his eyes, and a gag was rammed into his mouth. With trembling fingers Simon untied both, to reveal a rather pale face and a completely bald head.
“Uncle Father!” Simon cried.
Dark eyes widened in surprise. “Who are you? How do you know me?”
“You’re Poly’s godfather,” Simon said, starting to
work on the knots; he was slowed down by the rocking of the hearse, which appeared to be traveling much too rapidly for the state of the road.
“Make haste slowly,” Canon Tallis advised as the hearse jounced over a rut and Simon was thrown against him. “And while you’re working tell me who you are. And keep your voice down.”
“I’m Simon Renier, Simon Bolivar Quentin Phair Renier, and I’ve been on the Orion with Poly and Charles and Dr. O’Keefe, and Mr. Theo, too, of course.” The terrifying yet tedious job of loosening the canon’s bonds was finally done, and Simon helped him to sit up.
Canon Tallis pursed his mouth as though to whistle, but his lips were so sore and bruised from the gag that only a small puff came out. He asked, “Where’s the rest of the family?”
“Home, on Benne Seed Island. Dr. O’Keefe brought Poly and Charles with him when he was asked to spend a month in Venezuela—you really are Canon Tallis?”
The bald man nodded thoughtfully. “Curiouser and curiouser.”
“I guess Mr. Theo didn’t tell you much when he called you.”
“So right.”
“But you came anyhow. He said you would.”
“When I got an unexpected and extremely cryptic phone call from him, I thought I’d better come see what was up. I shall want you to tell me what is up, Simon, but first we’d better try to look out and see where we’re going.” Between them they managed to loosen a corner of the lavender curtain, which had been tacked down very thoroughly indeed. They peered out. The hearse was bouncing along what was no more than a double rut cut through the jungle. Trailing vines brushed against the windows. A ferocious-looking wild hog tore through the underbrush and vanished into green.
“We’re not moving as quickly as it seems,” Canon Tallis said. “I wonder if we could get out?” He tried to open the rear doors. “We’re locked in. Do you have a knife on you?”
“No, sir,” Simon said. “I’m sorry.”
“No matter. I doubt if it would help. This is a solid lock, not the thing one would normally expect on a hearse. It may be padlocked from the outside.” The hearse jolted and veered violently to one side. “They’re not going to be able to drive much farther. Not unless this path turns into a road, and somehow I doubt if it will. Can you tell me quickly what’s been happening?”
As quickly as possible, prompted by astute questions, Simon told Canon Tallis what had happened since the fork-lift incident on the dock at Savannah.
The hearse continued to crash roughly through the jungle. Simon thought it was never going to stop. “Are we being kidnapped?”
“It would appear so. Though I’m hardly a kid.”
“But why?”
“Somebody is still trying to dispose of you, it would seem.”
“And somebody doesn’t want you around to clear things up. But that policeman, Gutiérrez, he wasn’t in Savannah or on the ship. He couldn’t be the murderer. But he did throw me into the hearse.”
“Knocking the wind out of me. It does appear to be a rather complex maze, though I begin to glimpse a pattern.”
“What, sir?”
“Your not-overly-lamented late Cousin Forsyth seems to have been involved in one way or another with a good many people.”
“Is—is Gutiérrez going to kill us?”
“Since he has not already done so, I somehow doubt it. And when I do not arrive and it’s noticed that you’ve
vanished there’s going to be considerable excitement on the Orion.”
“But does anybody know you’re coming—I mean, for sure?”
“I was puzzled enough by Theo’s call to decide to leave London and come, and I was concerned enough to phone a friend of mine, Alejandro Hurtado, chief of police in Caracas, and ask him to make sure that the captain of the Orion, as well as Theo, be advised of the time of my arrival. Hurtado told me that he would arrange to have me met, so I somehow doubt if our present plight will go unnoticed by him.” He put his hand out suddenly and touched Simon’s shoulder. “We’re slowing down.”
The hearse jounced along for a moment, then came to a lurching halt.
After a moment the doors were flung open. The hearse had stopped in a small clearing where a helicopter was waiting. Gutiérrez peered in at them. “I am so sorry to inconvenience you,” he said in his most unctuous manner. “The lips of someone must be closed, so I have taken you hostage.” He grabbed Simon, and pulled the struggling boy out of the hearse and into the helicopter. The soldier with the rifle knocked Canon Tallis on the head, stunning him, and then slung the heavy body over his shoulder as though it were a sack of grain, and dumped it into the copter.
Gutiérrez was at the controls. In a moment the incredible noise of the blades deafened Simon, and then they were airborne.
Poly and Geraldo sat in the small shade up on the boat deck. The heat of port was so heavy after the breeze of open sea that even Dr. Wordsworth had given up her daily constitutional. Despite the shade, the white-painted
wood of the bench was hot against Poly’s bare legs.
“Oh, Herald,” she said, “things are so strange and my emotions are so mixed. If nothing had happened Daddy and Charles and I would have left the Orion forever, and you’d be getting ready to go on to Aruba and Curaçao and wherever you go before La Guaira, and the portrait would still be in the cabin, and Cousin Forsyth and Simon would still be on board, and Simon wouldn’t be off with that oily policeman to meet Aunt Leonis. And yet I can’t bring myself to wish that you and I weren’t sitting here, being comfortable together.”
Geraldo leaned toward her and kissed her.
When they moved apart she said, “I am gorgeously happy. How can I be happy when someone has been murdered?”
“I should not have kissed you,” Geraldo said. “Forgive me.”
“Why shouldn’t you?”
“Because you’re still a child.”
“I am not!”
“And I am in no position to—oh, you understand, Poly-heem-nia. Sooner or later you will leave the ship and we will never see each other again.”
Poly gave him her most brilliant smile. “I know. I can be quite realistic, Geraldo. But this was my first kiss and I will never forget it, ever, not when I am as old as Aunt Leonis.”
“I will try to be realistic, too,” Geraldo said, but he would have kissed her again had not Dr. O’Keefe called up to them.
Poly jumped guiltily. “I think Daddy feels he has to keep track of us all.”
Geraldo touched her cheek lightly with one finger. “I want him to keep track of you.”
“Geraldo, have you any ideas?”
He leaned toward her. “Many.”
“No, no, silly, about Cousin Forsyth and the portrait.”
“There are murmurs about Jan, but I know that it is not Jan.”
“Of course not! Jan wouldn’t murder.”
“But we know of his interest in the portrait, and there is his lie about the key. The crew—everybody—we are all very disturbed. Most of us have worked on the Orion for years, and no one is on the ship for the first time this voyage. We find it impossible to believe that there is a murderer among us. But I heard Mynheer Boon defending Jan to Mynheer Ruimtje.”
“What about the passengers?”
“It is not you or Charles or your father or Simon,” Geraldo said firmly.
“Mr. Theo, Dr. Eisenstein, Dr. Wordsworth, the Smiths. Not one of them is strong enough to have got Cousin Forsyth into the hearse.”
“Possibly two could.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Smith certainly couldn’t.”
“The lady doctors?”
Poly pondered this. Dr. Wordsworth looked strong enough. “Wouldn’t they have looked suspicious?”
“Anybody would have looked suspicious, if seen.”
“It would be rather difficult to lug Mr. Phair from cabin 5, through the ship, out on deck, and into the hearse without being seen.”
“He may not have been killed in the cabin.”
Poly fondled Geraldo’s hand. “If I were the murderer I think I’d have tried to lure Cousin Forsyth out on deck, get him behind the hearse or one of the big packing cases right by it, and done him in there so that I could have got him into the hearse inconspicuously.”
Geraldo raised her hand to his lips and kissed her
fingers. “You look so funny and adorable playing the detective.”
“I’m not playing!”
“Sorry, Polyquita, sorry.” He kissed her lightly and rose. “I have work to do, and you must go to your father.”
She stood, too. “Simon and Aunt Leonis ought to be here soon. And my godfather. I know it’s childish of me, but I keep feeling that when he gets here everything’s going to be all right.”
“May it be so,” Geraldo said.
Simon and Canon Tallis watched the helicopter disappear, up through a tangle of leaf and vine, trailing long shards of greenery on its runners; the rotors chopped through the entangling jungle until the machine was free and high in the sky.
They had been dumped unceremoniously in a small clearing which would be visible from the air only to someone who already knew about it, and who was a superb pilot.
“In a cinema,” Tallis said, “we’d have overpowered them and taken control of the copter.”
“What would we have done then?” Simon asked. “Could you fly it?”
“I’m woefully out of practice, but I do have a pilot’s license, and desperation can be a good co-pilot. That man knows his jungle and he knows his machine. Unfortunately they took my gun at the airport before they tied me up.”
“You had a gun?”
“Something told me to be prepared. However, it seems that I was not prepared enough, or we wouldn’t be here.”
“Sir, are you all right?” Simon asked.
Canon Tallis rubbed his skull. “I have a nasty egg here, which will probably be a brilliant hue of purple by morning, but otherwise I’m fine.”
“I thought he’d killed you.”
“For some reason he only wanted to knock me out, and that he succeeded in doing. But no other harm done, thank God.”
Green of leaf and vine hid the helicopter, though they could still hear the roar of its blades. Then sound, too, was lost in the enveloping murmur of the jungle. A bird startled Simon with a scream; deep within the tangle of green and brown and olive came a chattering which sounded like monkeys, and probably was.
Simon asked, “Why did they just dump us out here in the middle of the jungle?”
“I think your fat little man—”
“El señor jefe de policía Gutiérrez.”
“El señor Gutiérrez for some reason did not want to kill us outright. Odd how squeamish some types can be. The thug with him would much have preferred to shoot me than knock me out, put a bullet through you, and then leave us here for the vultures.”
“What are we going to do?” Simon asked.
“Try to survive until Hurtado finds us.”
“Will he find us?”
“Hurtado is one of the best policemen in the world. If anybody can find us, he will.”
Miss Leonis leaned toward the window in the little one-prop plane and watched the landing at Port of Dragons. Despite her exhaustion from the trip—the bus ride to Charleston, the long flight to La Guaira with a change of plane en route, and the bumpy trip in this old crate —she was excited. She peered out at the stretch of beach
beside the runway, full of flotsam and jetsam, driftwood —and, as they came closer and she could see better, old sandals, tin cans, empty bottles. The water looked yellow and rough. Then the ground came up to meet them and they bounced several times and lurched to a stop. Her ancient heart was beating too rapidly; she could feel a flutter in her throat as though a small and frightened bird was caught there. Her hands, despite the heat, were cold.
Several solicitous officials helped her from the plane and set her down on the airstrip. She looked around. She was glad that she had not seen the bird’s nest in the wind sock while they were landing; it hardly gave one a sense of confidence. Close to the plane was a low shack, and through the open door she could see a large set of scales, a soldier with a sub-machine gun, and two other semi-uniformed men with rifles. The three of them were playing some kind of card game, slapping cards and silver down on the table, which was spotlighted by the sun and looked even hotter than outdoors.
She felt a presence at her side, turned, and one of the officials who had helped her from the plane was bowing obsequiously. He was rotund and shiny with heat. “Miss Phair?”
She bowed in acknowledgment.
“Señor jefe de policía Gutiérrez of the Port of Dragons police, at your service.”
She extended a white-gloved hand and he kissed it.
“I am here to escort you to the Orion, where you will be joyfully reunited with your nephew.” He led her to an official-looking car with a gold seal on the door. “If you will be so kind as to sit in front with me, perhaps I can get some preliminary questions out of the way on the drive to the ship.”
She did not like him. Her heart continued to thud. The car was stiflingly hot and smelled of stale cigar smoke. As
he closed the door for her she decided that she was much too tired to speak Spanish, and so she sat and smiled courteously and vaguely at el señor jefe de policía Gutiérrez as he started the car and drove off, immediately firing a barrage of questions at her.
It took him some time to realize that she was not going to respond. Then he hit his forehead with the heel of his palm and moaned, as though to one of his minions, “But she is supposed to speak Spanish!”
The corners of Miss Leonis’s mouth quirked slightly. She leaned back in the car and closed her eyes, making a concentrated effort to relax her travel-taut muscles, to slow the rapid beating of her heart. If she was to be of any use to Simon she must rest. Slowly and rhythmically, without moving her lips, she began to recite poetry to herself, Shakespeare’s sonnets, her favorite psalms, the prelude to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
Her head drooped forward and she slid out of poetry and into a light slumber. She paid no mind to el señor jefe de policía Gutiérrez.
Defeated by passive resistance, he drove on.
The captain and Boon were waiting for them on the dock.
“But where is Simon?” Van Leyden demanded.
“Sim6n? But he has returned to the ship.” Gutiérrez smiled at Miss Leonis, at van Leyden and Boon.
“What are you talking about?” Boon asked.
“The English priest was at the airport when Sim6n and I arrived. He was waiting in an official car sent from the police department of Caracas. When he said that he wished to question the boy immediately I hesitated, of course, but he persuaded me. He is a man of much authority.”
“Where are they, then?” Van Leyden tried to keep his voice calm.
“The Englishman said that they would talk on the way back to the ship. His driver was one of Hurtado’s top men. How could I refuse? I was outranked. Surely they are here by now? They left half an hour before Miss Phair’s plane arrived.”
Miss Leonis asked sharply, “Where is my nephew? What is going on?” She felt old and bewildered and her lace parasol did little to keep the heat of the sun from beating down on her.
“It is of no moment, gracious señora,” Gutierrez burbled. “They will of course be here momentarily.”
A large black limousine drew up, and a uniformed chauffeur sprang out. “Where is the Englishman?” he demanded excitedly.
What had been confusion now turned to chaos. The limousine ordered by Hurtado had been delayed by a flat tire. When the chauffeur finally reached the airport he was told that his charge had already departed, that he had been met by an agent of Comandante Alejandro Hurtado—but that, declared the chauffeur, was impossible; he was the agent; the comandante had phoned him; he was always Hurtado’s official chauffeur in Port of Dragons …
Van Leyden looked at his watch. His anger toward the dead man was even deeper than his anxiety; was history going to repeat itself ? Was Phair, even dead, going to cause his resignation? He said, calmly enough, “We will wait half an hour. By then the Netherlands consul, Mynheer Henryk Vermeer, may be here. He was vacationing in the hills but he is already en route to Port of Dragons and should be here shortly. In the meantime, Miss Phair, while we are waiting for your nephew and the Englishman we will try to make you comfortable in the ship’s
salon, which is considerably cooler than the deck. Please be so kind as to follow me.” He took her parasol and held it over her until they reached the cover of the ship.
Miss Leonis was not sure that she was not going to faint before she got to the salon. Van Leyden, seeing her tremble, put his arm about her and helped her upstairs and into a comfortable chair where she would get what little breeze there was.
“I do not understand what is happening,” she said.
Van Leyden rang the bell for Geraldo. “Miss Phair, when there has been a murder, things are apt to be incomprehensible temporarily.”
“Who is this English priest with whom Simon is supposed to be?”
“Is with, I am sure, is with. He is a friend of one of the passengers, who sent for him.”
“Isn’t it a bit late for a priest?”
“It appears that he has worked for Interpol and has a reputation as someone who can solve difficult problems.”
“Let us hope that he can. Would it be possible for me to have some tea?”
“I have already rung for it.”
“Thank you. You are very kind.”
“Please try to rest, Miss Phair. You have had a difficult journey.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Simon will be most happy to see you. He is a good lad. Ah, here is Geraldo. Tea for Miss Phair, please, Geraldo, and something light to eat. Please excuse me, Miss Phair. I will send Simon to you the moment he arrives.” The anxiety with which he looked at his watch as he crossed the threshold belied the confidence in his voice.
Poly hurried out onto the promenade deck and went to Charles, who was reading in the shade of the canvas canopy. “Aunt Leonis is in the salon.”
He dropped his book. “What!”
“Aunt Leonis is in the salon.”
“Who told you?”
“I saw her.”
“Are you sure?”
“We did see her in Savannah, Charles. Who else could it be?”
“Where’s Simon, then?”
“If he’s not with Aunt Leonis he should be here with us. Have you been in the cabin lately?”
“It’s too hot.”
“Let’s look for him.”
Charles closed his book and put it down on his chair. With a worried look he followed his sister.
Simon was not to be found.
Poly said, “It’s like when we were looking for Cousin Forsyth and couldn’t find him. Do you suppose—”
“No, I don’t. Let’s go to the captain.”
The captain was on the bridge, with Dr. O’Keefe and Mr. Theo. Quietly he told the children that Simon was supposed to have left the airport in a government car with Canon Tallis. He did not say that the Englishman and Simon were already gone when the official chauffeur reached the airport. Instead, he made his voice reassuring. “No, we must not become alarmed too soon. I’ve had word from el comandante Alejandro Hurtado, chief of police in Caracas, who is coming today. Evidently Comandante Hurtado is an old friend of the Englishman’s.”
Dr. O’Keefe nodded. “Yes, Tom has friends all over the world. If he has been met by a government official we needn’t worry.”
But Mr. Theo shook his head so that his white hair flew about wildly. “They should be here if all is well. They should have been here an hour ago.”
The captain did not deny this. “Let us not alarm the old lady. It is possible that the government driver is not familiar with the route. They may have lost their way.”
“Tom Tallis does not lose his way,” Mr. Theo said.
It had to be conceded that something had gone wrong. Canon Tallis and Simon ought to be on the Orion and they were not and there had been no word from or about them.
Walking up and down the promenade deck Gutiérrez wrung his hands. His face streamed with sweat like tears. “But it is impossible, impossible,” he kept repeating.
Van Leyden told the assembled passengers and Aunt Leonis, “Vermeer will be here any moment. Hurtado is flying in from Caracas and will arrive after dinner. They will order everything.” His face was pale and all the lines seemed to have deepened.
Dr. Wordsworth whispered to Dr. Eisenstein, “This must be hell for van Leyden.” She drained her glass and shook the remaining ice.
Dr. Eisenstein whispered back, “And for the old lady. She must be wild with anxiety over the boy.”
Van Leyden said, “I think that we should all go to the dining room now. The cook has prepared an excellent meal for us. We must eat, you know.”
Mr. Smith took his wife’s hand. “This is more than Phair’s murder, Patty.”
“That nice young boy.” She squeezed his hand. “I hope he hasn’t come to any harm.”
Poly said, “I’m not hungry.”
Charles answered, “Neither am I. But the captain’s right. We have to try to eat.”
Passengers and officers ate in strained near-silence. All fragments of conversation sounded unusually loud, though voices were kept low. When Dr. Wordsworth asked, “Pass the salt, please,” in a quiet voice, everybody jumped.
Miss Leonis sat in Simon’s place. Cousin Forsyth’s chair had been taken away. She ate a little because she knew that she had to, but she did not talk. She was silent not only because she was exhausted, and worried beyond belief about Simon, but because she bore the burden of Quentin Phair’s journal, and she did not want to talk until she knew who it was she should talk to. The O’Keefes, she knew, were as anxious about Simon as she was. She had spent an afternoon with Mrs. O’Keefe and the younger children. She trusted the O’Keefes. It might be that she should talk to Dr. O’Keefe. She would wait and see. The two professors and the Smiths she sensed to be preoccupied with problems of their own which might include the disappearance of Simon and the English canon, but went beyond them. The old Greek organist she felt to be a friend; he obviously cared about Simon, and it was he who had sent for the Englishman. He was attentive to her in a quiet, unobtrusive way, not talking, but seeing that her teacup was filled, that she had salt and pepper, butter.
At the other table Charles whispered, “Where is Aunt Leonis going to sleep?”
Poly answered, “Geraldo says they’ve booked rooms
for her and for Uncle Father at the Hotel del Lago in Port of Dragons. Charles, where are they? Simon and Uncle Father?”
“I wish I knew.”
Jan came into the dining room and whispered to the captain, whose somber face relaxed slightly. He spoke to the assembled company. “Vermeer and Hurtado are both here. May I ask you, please, to stay in the dining room after dinner, just for a short while, until I know their wishes?” He bowed and left, speaking in a low voice to Jan, who closed the glass doors between dining room and salon, thereby cutting off the breeze. The passengers waited in tense silence, which Mr. Theo broke.
“If this Comandante Hurtado is a friend of Tom Tallis’s he’ll find Tom and Simon in short order.”
Miss Leonis looked at him gratefully.
Geraldo hovered, refilling their water glasses. “Perhaps I should bring coffee?” he suggested.
“It’s too hot,” Dr. Wordsworth said.
Then Jan reappeared. His expression seemed to have set into a heavy mask of apprehension. Now that he was not smiling, Charles remembered that Jan’s usual expression was a pleasant smile.
“Captain van Leyden would like to see you all on the promenade deck. It is cooler than the salon. We will serve coffee there, Geraldo.”
“Yes, sir.”
The colored lights around the awning on the promenade deck were lit, giving it a carnival appearance in macabre contrast to the mood of the assembly. On shore, small lights blinked on in the huts, moving in the wind and trembling like Christmas-tree lights up the mountainside. A single, very bright star pulsed in the blue-green sky. The dock was brightly lit with bulbs on cords
stretched from warehouse to warehouse, and from telephone and light poles. Under one of the light poles was an ancient Hispano-Suiza, highly polished, parked beside a large black limousine.
The captain and two men rose to greet the passengers. They had been sitting at one of the small tables on which stood a bottle of Dutch gin and three small glasses.
Van Leyden made the introductions. The consul, Henryk Vermeer, was a heavy, straw-haired, bulldog of a man in crisp white shorts, crested blazer, and solar topee. Charles heard his father whisper to Mr. Theo, “He looks more like an Englishman in India than a Dutchman in Venezuela.”
Mr. Theo whispered back, “Did you see the Hispano-Suiza? Bet it’s his.”
The comandante from Caracas, Alejandro Hurtado, was tall for a Latin, a dark man in dark clothes, with a dark, sharp jaw which would be purply-black almost immediately after he had shaved.
Vermeer shook hands all round, beaming affably, as though this was a purely social occasion. Hurtado revealed no expression whatsoever, but he looked at each passenger intently when he was introduced, as though memorizing name and face.
—I’m glad I have no secrets to hide from him, Poly thought as Hurtado bowed over her hand.—And I’m glad he looks a hard person to fool.
Gutiérrez was not there.
“Where is Simon?” Aunt Leonis demanded of Hurtado.
Simultaneously Mr. Theo asked, “Where is Tom Tallis?”
In the dimness of the jungle evening Canon Tallis rubbed his hand wearily over the painful lump on his
bare pate. “Now, Simon, we had better prepare for the night. Are you a hand at camping?”
“No, sir. Camping wasn’t exactly Aunt Leonis’s thing.”
“Not exactly mine, either, but necessity is an excellent teacher.” The priest had taken off the dark jacket of his clerical suit and had rolled up his shirt sleeves. “The first thing to do is to collect enough dry wood for a fire, heat or no heat. It’s a good thing we’re shaded here; my unprotected head sunburns overeasily. First thing tomorrow I’m going to have to make some kind of head covering—my panama is somewhere in that hearse.”
“I can make a sort of hat for you, sir,” Simon said, “that’s something I know how to do, by weaving palm fronds together.”
“Good lad. I shall be much obliged. You do that, and I’ll try to get a fire going.”
“But why do we need a fire, sir, when it’s so horribly hot?”
The canon smiled. “Not for warmth, certainly, though we may be grateful for it during the night. If we can keep smoke going up through the trees it will be an indication of our whereabouts which could be spotted by a helicopter—Gutiérrez is not the only one with a whirlybird. I’m certain that Hurtado will have the jungle searched.”
By the time the canon had a small fire burning in the center of their clearing, Simon had woven him a passable head covering which he tried on at once.
“Yes, this will do admirably tomorrow.”
He should have looked ludicrous—his bald head covered by the green palm hat, his clerical collar formally about his throat, his arms scratched and bleeding in several places from his endeavors. But all Simon thought was,—I know why Poly loves him. He does make me feel that everything’s going to be all right.
In their little clearing it was already night. The canon squatted by the fire, carefully feeding it, “as I wish I could feed the two of us. Tomorrow we’ll have to look for nuts and berries, and maybe we can crack a coconut between a couple of stones. But we’ll have to be careful. I’m no expert on the edible roots of the Venezuelan jungle.”
“Maybe I can help there,” Simon said. “We have a lot of the same plants at home, sir, and Aunt Leonis and I eat a lot of wild stuff.”
“Good, then. The two of us make an intrepid pair. All shall be well. Now, what I would like us to do this evening, to quell the pangs of hunger, is to go over in detail everything you have already told me, and more. Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself. Remember that nothing you can tell me is trivial, no matter how unimportant it may seem. If I can get a clear picture of what went on at sea, possibly I’ll have an idea about my unexpected reception at the alleged airport, and why you and I have been dumped here like two babes in the wood. Whose mouth has to be kept closed by Gutiérrez, and why? Start with—no, let’s go even further back. Start with the arrival of Cousin Forsyth at Pharaoh.”
On the promenade deck of the Orion the passengers sat in a stiff circle. Geraldo had brought out the coffee tray, and had been asked by the Dutch consul to serve cognac and liqueurs, and to make lemonade for Poly and Charles.
Miss Leonis, too, chose lemonade. “Where is that little policeman who met me?” She disposed of Gutiérrez by her tone of voice.
“Gutiérrez. I have taken over the case,” Hurtado said calmly.
“I’m so glad!” Mrs. Smith clasped her small hands
together. “He was trying to question us in such a bullying way.”
Dr. Wordsworth said, “He appeared to be the kind of small-town policeman who immediately gets puffed up with the enormity of his own insignificance.”
“Murders and missing persons are hardly in his line.” Vermeer beamed. “A little smuggling here and there is more the kind of problem he comes up against. More cognac, my dear madame?” He gazed admiringly at Dr. Wordsworth’s dark good looks.
“Thank you, no.” She gave him a bright smile.
Deftly, Hurtado led the conversation in what seemed a casual way, ably seconded by Vermeer. In a short time they had found out a good deal about the passengers. Hurtado began questioning Dr. Eisenstein about the Quiztano Indians. “It is interesting, is it not, that you should be planning to visit these people who seem, in some way, to be connected with the stolen portrait?”
“And therefore, possibly,” Vermeer said jovially, “with the murder.”
“I cannot understand it!” Dr. Eisenstein exclaimed. “Why would a Quiztano name be written on the back of Mr. Phair’s portrait?” She turned to Miss Leonis. “He bought the portrait from you, I believe?”
“Yes,” Miss Leonis said, “but I am afraid I can tell you nothing.”
“My dear madame,” Vermeer pursued, “nothing?”
“Nothing. I have undertaken this journey because I, too, need information.”
Hurtado noted the determined set of the old woman’s jaw, the bone showing clearly beneath the soft, finely wrinked skin.
Dr. Eisenstein continued, “And why didn’t Jan tell me that he’s part Quiztano, when he knows that the entire purpose of this trip for me is to visit the settlement on Dragonlake?”
“You did not ask him?” suggested Vermeer.
“But who could guess? He looks completely Dutch.”
“True, true,” Vermeer agreed amiably. “On a happier occasion you and I must chat, my dear doctor. I, too, am interested in the local Indians, and I have found Jan most helpful. Perhaps, later on, I can be of service to you.”
“Oh, thank you!” Dr. Eisenstein said. “There are so many things I would have liked to ask Jan.”
“It would have been so interesting for all of us,” Mrs. Smith said. “When we lived in—” She stopped herself in horror, putting her pudgy hand up to her mouth.
Vermeer asked with sociable interest, “When you lived where, Mrs. Smith?”
“Ver—Vermont. Burlington, Vermont.”
Hurtado said, “Your Spanish is excellent, Mrs. Smith, both yours and your husband’s. I congratulate you.”
“Thank you …” Mrs. Smith began to knit rapidly.
“Did you learn your Spanish in Vermont?”
Mr. Smith took off his spectacles and began to polish them. “We frequently visit our granddaughter and her family in Costa Rica.”
“You’ve never been to Venezuela before?” Hurtado asked.
“Certainly we have been to Venezuela.” Mr. Smith put on his spectacles. “When we come to South America we always spend a little time visiting and sightseeing in places other than Costa Rica—which is where we learned to speak Spanish. Although our grandson-in-law speaks excellent English.”
“Your grandson-in-law is Costa Rican?”
“Yes.”
“And yet your accent is that of Caracas,” Hurtado said.
Mrs. Smith burst into tears.
Vermeer sprang to his feet and held a large white linen handkerchief out to her. “My dear madame, please do
not upset yourself so! What has happened?” He patted her clumsily on the shoulder.
“I can’t bear it!” Mrs. Smith sobbed. “I can’t bear being terrified of being found out like this!”
“Patty!” Mr. Smith tried to stop her.
“My dear madame,” Vermeer said, “found out about what? You have nothing to fear as long as you speak the truth.”
Hurtado held up a hand to stop Vermeer. He spoke in his quiet, unemphatic way to the weeping woman. “Would you like to speak to me alone?”
She shook her head. Her soft old face was streaming with tears. “I’d like everybody to hear. It’s better that way.”
“Patty, please—”
But she could not stop.
—Why doesn’t Hurtado take her away? Poly wondered, and then answered her own question.—She might not talk unless she does it right now, right here. But it’s horrible.
Charles reached out and took his sister’s hand and held it tightly.
Miss Leonis had thought that she was beyond embarrassment. But she was not. She looked at Mr. Theo, who was scowling ferociously at Hurtado.
“He’s an honorable man, my Odell.” The words flowed from Mrs. Smith like her tears. “A fine man. No one finer. But when we were young he had a problem, a gambling problem.”
Mr. Smith stood up, knocking over his chair, and moved away from them. Vermeer moved swiftly toward him, but Mr. Smith only went to the rail and looked out to sea. Vermeer said, “My good man, if this has nothing to do with the murder it will quickly be forgotten by us all.”
Mrs. Smith dabbed at her eyes. “He worked in a bank
in Caracas. He had a fine position for a young man. We were doing well, I was teaching English, and we had a lovely little house in Macuto—that’s a suburb, a nice one. Then—he lost a lot of money and he—he borrowed from the bank.”
“Borrowed?” Hurtado asked.
“He told me—he told me what he had done. I made him go immediately to the president of the bank, and he paid it back, Odell did, with interest. He worked hard and he paid back every penny. He wasn’t asked to leave his job; the president of the bank was like a father to us, and everything was all right, and ever since that one time there’s been nothing, nothing, he’s never gambled again, ever, and he was vice-president of the bank in Burlington, they gave him an engraved silver tray when he retired, it was all behind us …”
Dr. Eisenstein, who was sitting nearest Mrs. Smith, tried to stop her. “Dear Mrs. Smith, why are you telling us all this? There’s no need.”
“There is, there is. We had forgotten it. It was past. But then there was that night at bridge—you can’t have forgotten that night.”
“No.”
“Maybe he suspected—”
“Who suspected?” Hurtado asked.
“Mr. Phair. Maybe he suspected about Odell, and was testing. I don’t know how he found out—how would he find out?”
“People like Mr. Forsyth Phair have a way of finding out things,” Dr. Wordsworth said, and was given a sharp nudge by Dr. Eisenstein.
“However he found out, he found out, and he went to Odell.”
“Mr. Phair went to your husband?” Hurtado prompted.
“Yes. He went to Odell.”
Mr. Smith turned from the rail and moved back into the light. “He threatened me. He said that if I did not pay him he would tell everybody what had happened, and he would spread the story in Costa Rica, and it would hurt our granddaughter—” He stopped. Then he said, very quietly, “I told him that as far as I was concerned he could jump overboard. I do not want the past reopened. I do not want our granddaughter to think less of me. I do not want anybody hurt. But I will not live under the constant threat of blackmail. I knew that if I were to give him money the demands would never stop. So I had a motive for murdering him. But I did not.”
“Of course you didn’t!” his wife cried. “You couldn’t have.”
“Of course, of course,” Vermeer said, full of cordiality. “Do have a drink, Mr. Smith. We all wish you well.”
Hurtado looked at his watch. “This will be all for tonight. I am grateful to you, madame.” He bowed. “If you will all be equally forthright we will sift this matter through in no time. Miss Phair, it would be my pleasure to escort you to your hotel.”
She nodded acquiescence.
“I will see the rest of you after breakfast. Out here, or in the salon, whichever is cooler.”
“Señor comandante,” Dr. Wordsworth said, “may I suggest that the murder and the theft may not have been committed by one of the passengers?”
“My dear lady, I am quite aware of that. I shall be questioning the officers and crew after you have retired.” He spoke affably enough, but there was admonition behind his words. “Vermeer, come with me, please. I will return you to your small appliance which will surely not seat three of us.”
Miss Leonis moved numbly between the two men, who helped her down the gangplank. Hurtado seated her carefully in the limousine, saying, “The hotel, alas, is not
air-conditioned, but I think you will find it reasonably cool.”
“Thank you. Heat does not bother me. My only concern is Simon.”
“He is my concern, too, madame. I will pick you up after breakfast, say ten o’clock. That will give you an opportunity for a good rest.”
“I am much obliged. I realize that what happened on deck tonight was probably a good thing—but—do you have any idea as to the whereabouts of my nephew and the English canon?”
“Believe me, Miss Phair, I’m as anxious to find them as you are. Tom Tallis is an old friend. And a highly competent man. If Simon is with him, he is in good hands.”
“Do you think they are together?”
“At this moment I see no reason to doubt it.”
Vermeer said, “We will try to find the supposed chauffeur who met Tallis. It should not be too difficult.”
Miss Leonis asked, “You think that someone impersonated the official chauffeur and then kidnapped Simon and Canon Tallis?”
Hurtado said, “It is as plausible a theory as we have right now. My chauffeur thinks that his flat tire was not accidental.”
“And the wool was pulled over Gutiérrez’s eyes?”
“So it appears.”
“Forgive me, señor comandante, I do not believe in teaching professionals their own business, and if you’re not telling me all that you are thinking I quite understand. But I don’t think that Gutiérrez is a fool, although I agree with Dr. Wordsworth that he has a somewhat enlarged estimation of his own importance.”
“Quite,” Hurtado said.
“And I do not trust him.”
“Why not, Miss Phair?”
“Sense of smell. A long life has sharpened mine.”
“I will bear that in mind. But please try to let us do the worrying, Miss Phair. I shall not be going to bed tonight. But you must rest.”
“Yes,” she said. “I know that. Señor comandante, I wish to go to Dragonlake tomorrow.”
He looked at her, his eyes for a fraction of a second betraying astonishment. “Madame, it is a difficult trip.”
“Will you make arrangements for me, please?”
Vermeer began to protest, but Miss Leonis cut him off. “Since I am not under suspicion for murder, theft, or kidnapping, there is no reason you should not allow me to go. If you would care to accompany me, Mr. Vermeer, that would be my pleasure.”
Hurtado looked at Vermeer with a slight nod. “It shall be arranged, madame. But you will be kind enough to tell us why you wish to make this excursion?”
“There is, after all, a Quiztano name on the back of a portrait which once belonged to me. And I have a feeling that it may help us to find Simon and your friend.”
The limousine drew up before the broad patio of the hotel. Hurtado and Vermeer escorted her into the lobby. The chauffeur carried Miss Leonis’s suitcase to the desk.
“My dear madame.” Vermeer beamed. “The comandante and I have not eaten. Would you care to join us for a small collation?”
“Thank you, no. The ship’s dinner was more than adequate. I should like to be shown directly to my room.”
Hurtado said, “Of course. But there is one question I would beg you to answer first. What is written on the back of your portrait of Bolivar?”
She answered, “It once had painted on it, For my son, born of Umara. Time, or effort, or both, have blurred and faded the writing, so that now the only letters that show clearly are U-M-A-R.”
“What does this mean—Umar, or Umara?”
“Umara is always the name, the inherited name, of the princess of the Quiztanos,.”
“How do you know this?”
“It is written in Quentin Phair’s journal, and referred to in his letters to his mother, and to his wife, Niniane.”
“You have these letters?” Hurtado asked.
“I do.”
“With you?”
“Yes. In his will Quentin Phair requested that they not be read for six generations. It had always been my intention to leave them for Simon, but during the days since Simon and Forsyth boarded the Orion I have dishonored Quentin’s request and read the letters and journals. It is because of this, as you can see, that I wish to go visit the Quiztanos tomorrow.”
Hurtado said, “I assume that you felt you could give Dr. Eisenstein no information because you did not wish to confide in the assembled company.”
“I would have had no right to make such a confidence.”
Hurtado’s voice was quiet and courteous. “But you will tell us what is in the letters and journals?”
“I will tell you, perhaps, after tomorrow.”
“We may have to ask you for the letters and journals.”
“I understand. But I am not yet ready to give them to you. They are extremely personal.”
“Madame, a policeman is completely impersonal.”
“I am not a policeman. But I will not withhold from you anything which might help you in your inquiries.” She poked in her reticule and drew out a small bundle of documents. “These are the papers which Forsyth Phair gave me to establish himself as a member of the branch of the family which moved North, and then West, after the War between the States. I would appreciate it if you would check on them for me.”
Hurtado held out his hand. “Certainly.”
Vermeer asked, “Do you have any reason to doubt the authenticity of these documents?”
“Yes.”
Hurtado raised his brows.
“The check Mr. Forsyth Phair gave me for the Bolivar portrait—money which was to see me through the rest of my days—was a piece of paper, no more. Since it was for a large sum of money it was investigated by the bank. The check is worthless. If the man were not dead I would suspect him of absconding with my nephew, and I would place a rather large bet that he is somehow behind Simon’s disappearance. There’s no doubt that Forsyth Phair, whoever he was, was murdered, is there?”
“No doubt at all.”
“Now I wish to retire,” Miss Leonis said. “You will, of course, phone me at any time during the night if there is news of Simon?”
“Of course, Miss Phair. Mynheer Vermeer will call for you after breakfast. You are fortunate in your choice of escort. Vermeer is somewhat of an anthropologist and knows Dragonlake and its Indians as deeply as anyone who is not a native of this area. The Quiztanos do not welcome strangers to their village, but Vermeer is known to them as a friend.”
“Thank you.” She bowed gravely. “That is the first piece of good news I have had in a long time.”
“I trust you will rest well.” Hurtado called the night clerk and asked him to see Miss Phair to her room.
“A demain, madame.” Vermeer bent over her hand.
“Good night, gentlemen.”
They watched after her. Her walk was stiff with fatigue, but her body was erect.
In his pajamas, Charles went to Jan’s cabin.
The steward looked troubled. “It is not good for you to be too much with me.”
“Am I bothering you? I’m sorry.”
“No, no, it is not that. I know that I am under suspicion.”
“That’s nonsense.”
Jan ran strong, blunt fingers through his fair hair. “I did not murder him. But it is true that I am the only one to have a special interest in the portrait. Mynheer Boon says he never saw the keys, and this I do not understand because he gave them to me to return to Mr. Phair.”
“I don’t understand either,” Charles said.
“I know only that I am suspected.”
“Who suspects you?”
“Hurtado. He is the one who is important. I am not worried about Gutiérrez. I know his type. While he was questioning us in the salon he pocketed half the cigars—he’s worse than the customs men—and blew and blustered at us but he did not know what he was doing. But Hurtado is different.”
“I hate it, I hate it!” Charles cried with vehemence, more like his sister than himself. “I know you didn’t kill Cousin Forsyth, but I can’t bear to think that anybody on the Orion could have done it.”
“Nor I,” Jan said. “It is a bad business. I do not know how it will end.”
As Charles crossed the foyer to go to his cabin, el señor comandante Hurtado came briskly up the stairs. “Young man, I must talk with you.”
Charles waited.
“Shall we go to your cabin?”
In the cabin Charles looked at the bunk in which Simon had spent only one night. He asked, “Where are Simon and Canon Tallis?”
Hurtado lowered himself onto the chair and regarded Charles with his steel gaze. “I wish that I could tell you, Charles. But they are not off my mind for one moment. Tom Tallis is my friend.” He touched his breast pocket and indicated a small two-way radio. “If there is any news we will know at once. Now, Charles, I want you to tell me about your dreams.”
“How do you know about my dreams?”
“You seem to have discussed them with a good many people.”
Slowly Charles crossed his legs. “Dreams are—dreams. They aren’t evidence. They don’t hold up in court.”
“We’re not in court. Anything may be important. A reaction to a dream may give me the clue that I need. It may help me to find Simon and Tallis as well as the murderer.”
Charles closed his eyes. “All right, I’ll tell you. If Canon Tallis phoned you from London to make sure that you would know he was coming, that tells me two things.”
“And they are?”
“That you are his friend. And therefore to be trusted. And also that he must have suspected something might happen. He takes my dreams seriously, by the way.”
“I take most things seriously,” Hurtado said.
When Charles had finished talking, his voice as unemphatic as Hurtado’s, the comandante said, “I would like you to tell this to Miss Phair.”
Charles nodded.
“If she were not old, and exhausted from travel and
worry, I would take you to the hotel tonight. But that will not do. I will pick you up first thing tomorrow morning.”
“You’re going to take me to her, rather than bringing her to the Orion?”
“You are an intelligent boy. Yes. I have reasons. Get to bed now. Perhaps you will dream.”
“Perhaps I will,” Charles said. He did not sound happy.
Simon and Canon Tallis lay on the rough ground of their clearing. They had tried to soften it with leaves and grasses, but it was still hard and uncomfortable. Their fire burned brightly. But they were grateful not so much for the warmth as for the light. Around them the jungle was alive with noise. Some of the noises Simon recognized from South Carolina, but there were new and strange noises which he had never heard before, breathings and cluckings and hoots. Once he sat upright in terror as the firelight was reflected in two large amber eyes.
Canon Tallis put another piece of wood on the fire. “We have just about enough till morning; then we’ll have to collect more.”
“What was that?” Simon asked.
“Some jungle creature. I don’t think that we’ll be disturbed as long as we stay right here and keep the fire going. We’ll take turns sleeping. You try to sleep now, and when I get too sleepy to be alert I’ll waken you.”
“I don’t think I’m sleepy,” Simon said.
“No. But close your eyes and perhaps sleep will come.”
“Do you have any ideas who took the portrait, and
who killed Cousin Forsyth, and why Gutiérrez kidnapped us?”
“It appears to me that they are all connected,” the canon said.
“Do you think that my ancestor—Quentin Phair—do you think he really did go to Dragonlake and fall in love with the Umara, and then leave her?”
“It seems likely.”
“I wish it didn’t.”
“All human beings break promises, Simon.”
“Not Quentin Phair.”
“The Quentin Phair of your dreams wasn’t a real person.”
“No, but—I was brought up to believe that a gentleman does not break promises.”
“That’s not a bad way to be brought up. It’s good to take promises seriously. Then we’re not apt to make or break them lightly. I would guess that your ancestor did not make his promise lightly, but that when he got away from Venezuela and Dragonlake it was almost as though he were waking from a dream. Dragonlake may well have seemed more like a figment of his imagination than anything else, once he reached cold and reasonable England. And then when he came to the North American New World and met Niniane the dream must have seemed even further away. I do not say that this excuses him, but perhaps it does explain him?”
“I guess so. You mean, he didn’t break the promise in cold blood. It was what Aunt Leonis would call a sin of omission rather than commission?”
“Quite.”
From somewhere in the jungle came the scream of a small animal, a series of hooting calls, a cry that sounded like shrill laughter. “Not much like Piccadilly,” the canon murmured. “Do try to close your eyes and rest for a while. No use both of us staying awake all night. We’ll
do better at solving the murder and getting ourselves out of this predicament if we get some rest.”
Simon closed his eyes. He had expected that the canon would lead them in prayer, rolling out pompous words as Dr. Curds had been wont to do. But if the canon did any praying it was in silence. Simon suspected that he had prayed before the boy lay down, but he could not be sure. But Canon Tallis, he understood, prayed the way Aunt Leonis prayed, and this kind of praying was something he respected, even if he did not understand it.
He tried to listen to the fire rather than the noises outside their small clearing. After a while he slid into a doze.
While the boy slept Canon Tallis took a sharp stone and slowly and carefully sharpened the end of a strong branch into a rudimentary spear.