CHAPTER THREE

BETSY SPRAGUE HAD telephoned soon after midday. Henry reported his conversation with her to Emmy and the Colvilles when they gathered in the bar for a prelunch drink, and the general mood was one of amused, affectionate skepticism.

“She hasn’t called back, of course,” Henry said. “It must have been a mistake.”

“Poor Betsy,” Margaret remarked. “She’s really fearfully short-sighted, and she’s getting very forgetful, but of course she won’t admit it. I hope she didn’t make a scene and upset the poor girl, whoever she was.”

“Betsy always lands on her feet,” said John easily. “I expect the young couple found it all hilarious. She’s probably got herself invited on board their boat for lunch and even now is regaling them with the geology of the Seawards.”

“Well, I hope she doesn’t lose track of time and miss her plane,” Emmy said.

“Anyhow,” said Margaret, “I’m quite sure that she’s thoroughly enjoying herself and that we won’t get another phone call. She’d never ring us up to admit she’d been wrong. Another rum punch, Henry, or shall we eat?”

The first intimation that anything might be amiss did not filter through to the Anchorage until Saturday morning. It took the form of a telegram addressed to “Sprague.” It was phoned through the post office in Priest Town, and Margaret wrote it down carefully on the message pad by the telephone in the office. The telegram had been handed in at Little Fareham on Friday evening, and the message read: CABLE WHEN RETURNING CATS INCONVENIENT PELLING.

“I’m afraid it’s missed Miss Sprague, hasn’t it, Mrs. Colville?” added Corfetta Johnson, the postmistress, who knew everything. “She left on the Pride Thursday, didn’t she? Morley was over to St. Mark’s that same day, so he was telling me.” Morley Duprez, the diving expert, was Corfetta’s common-law husband, or, in island parlance, boyfriend.

“Yes.” Margaret was puzzled. “She should have arrived home early on Friday. I suppose the plane was delayed. Thank you, Corfetta. How are the children?”

“Fine, thanks, Mrs. Colville. Annelia will be in the school play next month.”

“Oh, I’m looking forward to that,” said Margaret. “Good-bye now, Corfetta.” She hung up the telephone and went to find John.

It was the Tibbetts’ last day at the Anchorage. At eleven they were due to take the boat to St. Mark’s and pick up the yacht that they were chartering. Windflower, as John had explained, was not a regular charter boat, but a sailing sloop belonging to an American who lived in Connecticut. He kept her in St. Mark’s marina and rented her out to carefully selected and personally recommended people when he was not able to sail her himself. Bob Harrison of St. Mark’s Yacht Charter Service had the keys and would see the Tibbetts safely installed on board.

Accordingly, Henry and Emmy had packed immediately after breakfast and had gone down to the beach for a final swim. They came back to the inn at ten o’clock to find Margaret and John in a worried huddle around the telephone in the bar.

Margaret said, “Oh, thank goodness you’re back, Henry. You can tell us what to do.”

“What to do?” Henry’s swimming trunks felt clammy and damp under the fresh draft from the overhead fan. “About what?”

“I’m afraid there’s a bit of a crisis, Henry,” said John.

“Yes, well, I’ll just go and take a shower and—”

“Henry,” said Margaret, “Betsy has disappeared.”

“Has what—” Emmy, coming into the bar at that moment, had caught the last words.

Margaret explained about the telegram. John continued the story.

“I wasn’t really worried,” he said, “but I thought maybe I had just better check up with British Airways, so I called them in Antigua. They confirmed that a Miss Elizabeth Sprague had been booked on the Thursday flight, but never checked in for it. They weren’t surprised. They get all too many ‘no-shows.’ Bane of the airlines—people who book flights and simply don’t appear. If the airlines could eliminate no-shows, the whole fare structure might—”

”Oh, John, do keep to the point,” said Margaret. “The fact is that she didn’t show up on Thursday, and she hasn’t done so since. Nor did she check in for the Pan-Island flight from St. Mark’s to Antigua.”

“What about her luggage?” Henry asked.

“No sign of that, either, as far as we’ve been able to trace.”

John went on. “The skipper of the Pride remembers her being on board on Thursday, and Morley Duprez spoke to her on the way over and helped her off the boat with her suitcases. He says she took a taxi from the harbor, but he doesn’t know where to. He left her while the cab driver was still loading the baggage into the trunk.”

Emmy said, “Well, she must surely have driven to the marina because she telephoned Henry from there.”

“Why would she have gone to the marina and not into town?” Margaret wondered aloud. “She said she was going to have lunch and do some shopping—”

Henry said, “It was still early for lunch, and didn’t somebody mention that there was a new gift shop at the marina? She was talking about buying presents.”

“That’s right,” John said. “Those people from the Golf Club were talking about it in the bar the other night. What’s it called, can you remember, Margaret?”

“Caribbean something…rather twee, I seem to recall… Treasure Trove. That’s it. Caribbean Treasure Trove.”

“I’ll ring them now,” said John. “Somebody might have seen her.”

Margaret was consulting the small newspaper called the Island Echo. She said, “Here’s their advertisement. Let’s see—open eight to twelve and two till six. Closed Saturday morning. That means you can’t get them until two. Anyway, you’ve got your call to England coming through.”

“We’ll be at the marina by two,” Henry said. “We’ll go to the shop and let you know if there’s any news.”

The telephone on the bar began to ring. “Ah,” said John. “That’ll be my call to Miss Pelling. Why don’t you listen on the office extension, Henry? I had a devil of a job finding her number. Hello, Anchorage Inn…yes…yes, I do…yes, Colville speaking…hello, Miss Pelling?”

Picking up the phone in the office, Henry heard a sharp, very English voice. “Hello? Is that you, Betsy?”

John said, “No, Miss Pelling. This is John Colville from the Anchorage Inn on St. Matthew’s.”

“Well, where is Betsy Sprague?”

“I was hoping you could tell me, Miss Pelling. Hasn’t she arrived home yet?”

“No, she has not, and it’s most inconsiderate of her. I told her I could only keep the cats until Friday afternoon at the latest. My nephew and his family arrived yesterday on a visit, and little Pamela is allergic to—”

John broke in, “Miss Pelling, please listen. This is serious.”

“I am well aware that it is serious, Mr.…er… ”

“Colville.”

“Mr. Colville. The poor child has developed acute hay fever, in spite of the fact that I’ve shut the cats up in the—”

“Miss Pelling, I’m talking about Betsy Sprague.”

“And so am I. Where is she? What does she mean by staying away and leaving me with—”

John shouted. “Betsy has disappeared! Vanished! Nobody knows where she is!”

“—am expected to do with… What was that you said?”

Deliberately and loudly, John repeated his remark. There was a moment of silence, and then Miss Pelling said, “How very extraordinary. What do you mean by disappeared?”

“She left here to catch her plane to England, but she never arrived at the airport. She hasn’t been seen since.”

After a little pause, Miss Pelling said, “Well, I don’t see what I can do about it.”

“Has Miss Sprague any relatives or—?”

“Not that I know of. Her elder sister died last year—also unmarried, of course. She only has what she calls her girls—her ex-pupils, you know.”

“Who are her close friends in the village, Miss Pelling?”

“Well—myself, I suppose, and Mary Bastable, but she’s in Scotland at the moment.”

“So if there had been a change of plan, you’re the person she would have told?”

“I should hope so, Mr. Colville. After all, I have her two cats in my house, and what I’m going to do with them—”

“Miss Pelling, I think you should inform the police that Miss Sprague is missing.”

“The police?”

“I shall do the same at this end. Now, please pay attention. Tell them that she was booked on British Airways from Antigua to London on Thursday, but she never boarded the plane. She was last seen at St. Mark’s Harbour. The police here have been informed. O.K.?”

There was a long silence. The operator’s voice said, “St. Matthew’s? Have you finished your conversation with England?”

“No, I haven’t. Miss Pelling, are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here. I must say I find the whole situation very peculiar, but quite typical of Betsy.”

“Will you inform the police?”

“The police? Certainly not. I have no intention of getting involved with the police. Meanwhile, these cats—”

“Good-bye, Miss Pelling.” John slammed down the receiver with unnecessary force. “My God, the stupid bitch. That’ll have cost me about fifty dollars.” He mopped his brow. Henry came back into the bar. “Well, there it is, for what it’s worth. She hasn’t arrived home.”

“Then she must still be on St. Mark’s,” Emmy said.

“Or on another British Seaward Island,” said Margaret. “She’d only be checked by Immigration if she left the Territory and went to another country.”

“Which might be anywhere,” John added. “We’d have to check with the Immigration people in every damned island and the American mainland as well. Let the police do it. I’m calling Chief Inspector Ingham.”

Henry said, “Is that Sergeant Ingham—the chap who was in charge here last time?”

“That’s right.” John was dialing already. “Chief of Police on St. Mark’s now. Done very well for… Hello, police? John Colville here, St. Matthew’s. Is Chief Inspector Ingham in the office today?… Good. I’d like to speak to him. Yes, I’ll hold on.”

Henry said, “Tell him I’m coming over to St. Mark’s today. I’ll go and see him.”

“Good idea. Hello, Ingham? John Colville… Fine, how are you?… Good… Lucky to catch you on a Saturday…

Now, listen, Herbert, a rather rummy thing has occurred… No, nothing to do with drugs. It’s just that a guest from my pub seems to have vanished into thin air…on her way home to England last Thursday…left this island, yes, and got as far as St. Mark’s and then… Oh, I know, that’s probably it, but…an elderly lady, Miss Elizabeth Sprague, S-P-R-…that’s right…booked through to London via Antigua, Pan-Island, and British Airways, and didn’t show up for either flight… No, she hasn’t arrived in England, I’ve just checked by telephone. There weren’t any delays in B.A. flights, were there?… That’s what I thought. Well, she’s over eighty, you see, and traveling alone… That’s very kind of you, Herbert. By the way, you’ll get a visit from an old friend this afternoon. You’ll never guess… What? How did you know?” John laughed. “Try to keep a secret on these islands! Oh, Morley told you, did he?… Yes, they’ve been here a week… No, no, purely a holiday this time… They’re picking up the Windflower in St. Mark’s this afternoon, and Henry thought he’d pay you a visit… O.K., very kind, I’ll tell him…yes, let me know if anything turns up, won’t you… Thanks, Herbert. Good-bye for now.”

John hung up and turned to Henry. “I suppose Ingham’s right,” he said. “Seems to regard it as a storm in a teacup. Incidentally, he knew that you and Emmy were in the islands and seemed a bit hurt that you hadn’t called on him sooner. He’ll be in his office this afternoon and would be delighted to see you both.” He looked at his watch. “Golly, you’d better hurry or you’ll miss the Pride.”

“If this is Betsy’s idea of a joke,” said Margaret, “I’ll never forgive her. I mean, if she’s just swanned off to stay with some other old girl in South America or somewhere—”

Emmy said, “Suppose the girl Betsy saw was Janet Vanduren, after all? Maybe the Vandurens could shed some light on—”

“Highly unlikely,” said Henry, who then added, “But do you happen to have their address, Margaret?”

“No, but I think I have Betsy’s letter somewhere. I’ll look for it while you go and change.”

A few minutes later, as the Tibbetts came downstairs with their baggage, Margaret came out of the office with a blue aerogram in her hand.

“Here it is.” She read aloud, skimming over the crabbed handwriting. “‘Dear Margaret…forgive me for troubling you… people I was going to stay with in East Beach, Miami…death in the family…impossible for them to…wonder if I might come to St. Matthew’s rather earlier than…will try to change my homeward bookings…’ That’s the best I can do for you. She mentioned the husband’s name, didn’t she? Leonard, or something.”

“Lionel,” Henry said. “Dr. Lionel Vanduren.”

“Wife Celia, née Dobson. Address somewhere in East Beach, Miami. That should be enough to trace them. Everybody knows doctors. Though why on earth,” Margaret added, “the Vandurens should have the faintest idea where Betsy is… ”

“You never know,” said Henry.

By two o’clock in the afternoon, Henry and Emmy had arrived in St. Mark’s, lunched at a café on Main Street, and met Bob Harrison—a stout, cheerful character with a regional accent preserved unimpaired from his native Suffolk. Soon their luggage had been stowed on board the thirty-five-foot sloop Windflower—a comfortable, beamy boat with an uptilted bowsprit reminiscent of a Baltimore skipjack. She was fully equipped for four people, Bob explained, but two could handle her easily so long as it was just island-hopping. He’d gathered from Mr. Colville that there wouldn’t be any question of extensive cruising. Henry reassured him that they only proposed the mildest of meanderings among the nearby islands, and Harrison looked relieved. Then, while Henry explored the ship and was shown the workings of the engine, winches, rigging, and heads, Emmy went ashore in search of Caribbean Treasure Trove.

She did not have far to look. The little shop was next door to the new restaurant and bar in the marina complex, and it was attractive and inviting, with its window full of bright shirts and swimsuits, straw hats, shell jewelry, picture postcards, island souvenirs, and yellow cartons of film. Emmy went inside from the bright sunshine and accustomed her eyes to the cool shade of the shop. A very pretty black girl with an hourglass figure was behind the counter selling picture postcards and stamps to a couple of elderly tourists. Emmy waited until the transaction was complete and then approached the salesgirl.

“Can I help you?”

“I hope you may be able to.” Emmy smiled and produced from her straw handbag a small color photograph that she had taken the week before with her new instant-picture camera. It showed Betsy Sprague, complete with floppy hat and ankle-length skirt, sipping a drink in the garden of the Anchorage Inn. “Were you on duty here last Thursday morning, just before midday?”

“Sure, I was.” The girl sounded puzzled.

Emmy held out the photograph. “Do you remember seeing this lady in the shop?”

“I don’t—” began the girl, and then, “Why, yes. The old lady from England. Sure, I remember her. Came in just before we closed at noon.”

Emmy beamed and began to lie fluently. “Oh, I’m so glad. She’s my aunt, you see, and she was buying presents to take back to England.”

“That’s right,” said the girl. “That’s what she told me. She was on her way home. She had her baggage with her.”

“I’m trying to find out what she bought,” Emmy said. “Since we’re buying gifts for the same people, I want to make sure we don’t take back the same things… ”

To Emmy’s ears it did not sound very convincing, but the girl seemed to find nothing strange about it. She said, “I remember quite well. She was a nice, funny lady. Not at all like an American.”

“Not at all,” Emmy agreed.

“I mean to say, she thought everything was so expensive,” the girl went on. “She just couldn’t seem to make up her mind. In the end, she took some postcards and stamps, and four of those place mats.” She indicated a rack holding plastic rectangles that were printed with an unseamanlike chart of the British Seaward Islands. “Then she said she had to have a nice gift for the lady who was looking after her cats.”

“Ah,” said Emmy. “That would be Miss Pelling. What did Aunt Betsy buy?”

“She nearly didn’t buy nothing. Said she couldn’t afford anything in the shop and axed if we didn’t have nothing cheaper. Then I minded we had a conch on sale.”

“A what?”

“A conch shell, like these here.”

The girl pointed to a basket full of huge, beautifully polished seashells. They were a delicate pearly pink, smooth and whorled, and only marred—in Emmy’s eyes—by the fact that somebody had engraved the words ST. MARK’S ISLAND on the satiny inner surface. “People put flowers in them,” the girl added. Sure enough, one stood on the counter, balanced on three ballet-point spikes, holding a bouquet of double pink hibiscus blossoms.

“They’re beautiful,” Emmy said.

“They’re eight dollars fifty,” said the girl, more practically. “But happened I remembered we had one going for just two bucks on account it was scratched and had a point broken. So the lady took it. I recall she said her friend didn’t have such good eyes and wouldn’t notice.” The girl laughed attractively.

Emmy thanked her and then said, “You didn’t see my aunt again after that, did you?”

“She didn’t come in the shop again, no. But I just see her when I come out at twelve to shut up for lunch. She down there in one of the phone booths, making a call. I went off home then. Never see her again.”

Feeling compelled to repay the girl’s information with at least a token purchase, Emmy bought a plastic paperweight with a rather unconvincing seahorse embedded in it. The girl put it into a flimsy paper bag with CARIBBEAN TREASURE TROVE printed smudgily across it and bade her a polite good afternoon.

Bob Harrison had gone back to his office, and Henry was sitting in the cockpit of the Windflower, looking out with great pleasure over the marina—a shiny bright scene of gleaming paintwork and dancing water and fluttering flags, which never failed to enchant him wherever in the world sailing boats were gathered together. He saw Emmy coming down the jetty and got up to help her climb over the coaming of the boat and into the cockpit.

Windflower did not have a very high freeboard, but even so it was quite a scramble from the unstable floating pontoon up to the deck, and in spite of Henry’s steadying hand, Emmy misjudged her foothold and was caught off balance for a moment—long enough for the flimsy paper bag from the gift shop to hit a stanchion and split. With an almost inaudible plop, the plastic paperweight nosedived into the water.

“Oh, damn,” said Emmy. “Not that it matters—it’s just a souvenir I felt I had to buy.” She scrambled on board.

Henry was gazing down into the water, which was crystal-clear and about ten feet deep. “I can see it,” he said. “I’ll dive down and get it when I go for a swim. Well, how did you get on?”

Emmy told him. “It all checks out with what we already know,” she said. “Betsy took a cab from the harbor to here and went to the shop to buy presents. Coming out, there’s an excellent view of the restaurant, where she thought she saw the Vanduren girl. So she went over to the telephone booths and called you—the gift shop assistant noticed her making the call as she was leaving for lunch.”

“And Betsy had her baggage with her?”

“I told you, the girl remarked on it.”

Henry was thoughtful. “And then she left the telephone to go and speak to the girl she supposed to be Janet Vanduren—and the trail ends.”

Emmy said, “The next thing is to locate that girl, if we can—but there’s so little to go on. A dark girl having a drink with a dark, bearded young man.” She gestured hopelessly. “There must be fifty couples like that around here every day—either off boats or hotel-based tourists. Anyhow, whoever those people were, they’ve almost certainly left by now—a couple of days can mean a big turnaround in population in a place like this, especially at a weekend. I suppose it might be worth asking the waitresses at the restaurant. One of them might remember something—”

Henry looked at his watch. “What we have to do now is to go and see Sergeant—sorry—Chief Inspector Ingham. We’ll take a taxi to the police station.”

“And I’ll buy some provisions in town,” Emmy said. “I rather like housekeeping again, for a change.”

“Well, just get enough for breakfast,” Henry said. “I thought we’d dine ashore tonight. We obviously won’t be leaving until quite late tomorrow, and I thought we might try the marina restaurant and ask a few questions about Betsy at the same time.”

Emmy said, “Henry—you’re not going to…I mean, start an inquiry, are you?”

“Good heavens, no. It’s nothing to do with us. We’re on holiday. It’s a matter for the local police—if anybody.”

“What does that mean—if anybody?”

“Well—” Henry paused. “Betsy’s a curious old girl and quite unpredictable. She may well have taken it into her head to go off somewhere, telling nobody.”

“Margaret and John are very worried,” Emmy said.

“She’s their friend—Margaret’s, anyhow. We hardly know her. We’ll ask at the restaurant this evening, and we’ll tell the Colvilles about the gift shop. After that, we’ll leave it to Ingham.”

Emmy smiled. “I shall be delighted to do just that,” she said. “Where shall we go tomorrow? I thought Tortola might be fun.”

Henry gave her a sharp look. “We’ll see,” he said.