CHIEF INSPECTOR INGHAM was pleased to welcome his old friend Chief Superintendent Tibbett. His whitewashed office in the police station on Main Street was shady and cooled by an electric fan, and Ingham himself looked spruce and prosperous in his pale blue, short-sleeved uniform shirt. His shoulders were loaded with the silver epaulets of rank.
After a brief chat about old times, Henry raised the question of Miss Betsy Sprague. Inspector Ingham smiled broadly. “John Colville was talking to me this morning,” he said. “The lady is a friend of yours?”
“Not really,” Henry said. “She’s a friend of Margaret’s. We just met her while we were staying at the Anchorage. I wouldn’t worry, except that she’s not young—”
“But a healthy old lady?” Ingham put in.
Emmy grinned. “No doubt about that.”
“And I gather she had been on a long tour of the United States, visiting old pupils, traveling alone from place to place.”
“You seem to know all about her,” Henry said.
Ingham smiled. “There are few secrets in these islands,” he said. “A lady with a certain…well, personality…like Miss Sprague is bound to be noticed. She spoke to many people on St. Matthew’s. I find it hard to believe that any harm has come to her.”
“So do I,” said Henry. “On the other hand, it’s odd that she didn’t tell her friends in England that she had changed her plans.”
“She lived with friends?”
“No, no. But there was the question of her cats—”
This time, Ingham laughed outright. “My dear Mr. Tibbett, you tell me that someone is going to pay to send telegrams to England about cats?”
“English people—” Henry began.
Ingham cut him short. “Miss Sprague has changed her mind and prolonged her holiday, you may be sure,” he said. “Nevertheless, to please John Colville, I have already done some checking here. Her Immigration form has not been handed in either at the airport or the marine Customs and Immigration office, so it is virtually certain that she is still in the Seawards.” He made a note on his jotting pad. “It is sure, at least, that she reached St. Mark’s?”
“Yes. We’ve traced her as far as the marina.”
“Well, I will contact the only four hotels at which I can imagine an English lady staying. If she is not at any of them, she must have returned to St. Matthew’s on the Pride. She might have taken the afternoon boat to George Island—the third of our group—but there is no hotel there, just a beach bar and restaurant, used by visiting yachts. The most likely thing is that she is staying with friends on one of the islands. Now let us talk of more cheerful matters.”
“Just one thing,” Henry said. “What do you know of the Isabella?”
“The—? Oh, you mean the American yacht that went down in January. A very sad accident. It really had nothing to do with us.”
“I thought the boat was last seen—”
“She had cleared British Seaward waters. St. Matthew’s was her last recorded port of call, and she certainly left Priest Town Harbour. The alarm was raised a week later when she failed to show up in Puerto Rico, and it was the U.S. Coast Guard who undertook the search. They are better equipped for that sort of thing than we are,” added Herbert Ingham, in the understatement of the century.
“And nothing was ever found—no wreckage, no bodies?” Emmy asked.
“Some wreckage was found. If you’re interested, I can look it up. The U.S. Coast Guard sent us a report.” He got up and ruffled through papers in a big filing cabinet. After a minute or so, he pulled out a document. “Here we are. Report from the Coast Guard… ‘Wreckage picked up by fishing vessel Anna Maria on February 18 in Exuma Sound…strong likelihood that said wreckage formed part of missing yacht Isabella… positive identification impossible owing to deterioration…water damage…’”
Henry interrupted to say, “How much wreckage was found?”
Ingham ran his eye down the report. “A couple of planks…remnants of white paint still adhering…part of dinghy transom with letter A still decipherable…severe water damage…traces of fire damage… ”
“And where is Exuma Sound?” Henry asked.
There was a big map of the Caribbean area, from Florida to the coast of South America, hanging on the wall. Ingham went over to it and pointed. “Here. In the Bahamas. Between Andros Island and Cat Island, roughly—that’s where the Anna Maria picked up the wreckage.”
Emmy said, “But that’s miles from St. Matthew’s! And much too far north!”
Inspector Ingham waved a large black hand. “The north equatorial current—” he began, without too much conviction.
Henry opened his mouth to speak, but Emmy got her word in first.
“What you’re really saying is that there’s no proof at all that the wreckage was the Isabella. It was in quite the wrong place and with no positive identification. And anyhow,” she ended triumphantly, “Exuma Sound is inside the Bermuda Triangle!”
Ingham smiled, with some embarrassment. “Well, now, Mrs. Tibbett, you know it’s often difficult to make an exact identification in cases of shipwreck. Photographs of the wreckage were sent to Dr. Vanduren, and he gave his opinion that the lettering could have been from the transom of Isabella’s dinghy. It does no good for these matters to drag on unresolved. The Coast Guard has to decide on a basis of probability, and as far as they’re concerned, the wreckage was from the Isabella and the case is closed.”
“Well, it isn’t closed for the Vanduren family,” Emmy said stubbornly.
“How do you mean, Mrs. Tibbett?”
“Betsy Sprague was in touch with Dr. Vanduren quite recently, and he said they had no idea of what had happened to their daughter or the boat.”
Ingham was puzzled. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand. I had no idea that Miss Sprague was in any way connected—”
“Well, she was. And what’s more—”
Henry, in a tone of voice which Emmy recognized as a warning, said, “She had no connection, Inspector. She’s a friend of the Vanduren family, that’s all, and she was talking to us about the Isabella—which is why I asked you about it. I’m glad to hear it has been cleared up.”
“No bodies have been found,” muttered Emmy mulishly.
“Even though no bodies have been found,” Henry said, with a conspiratorial smile in Ingham’s direction. “Well, it’s been delightful to meet you again. Emmy and I will be setting off from the marina around lunchtime tomorrow, I expect. If there’s any news of Miss Sprague before then, I’d be grateful if you’d let us know. It would set Emmy’s mind at rest. Meanwhile, I hope we’ll see you again while we’re here. Good-bye for now, Inspector Ingham.”
Outside in the sun-splashed street, Emmy was vehemently indignant.
“Treating me like an imbecile child! I know very well what’s happened. Just because nobody official is prepared to acknowledge that the Bermuda Triangle may be—”
Henry took her arm. “My dear Emmy,” he said, “I’m sorry. I just thought that you were going to blurt out that Betsy thought she had seen Janet Vanduren at the marina here.”
“What do you mean, blurt? I think Inspector Ingham ought to know. If there’s something mysterious… ” She broke off and looked critically at her husband. “Ah, I see it now. You’re afraid of looking like a fool.”
“I don’t want to get involved,” said Henry. “It’s no business of mine.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Of course it isn’t. I’ll phone John when we get back to the marina and tell him about the gift shop and what Ingham said. Then I intend to go sailing and enjoy myself.”
“Hm,” said Emmy. Then they caught sight of a shop selling hand-printed cotton in glorious Caribbean colors, and Betsy Sprague was temporarily forgotten.
They arrived back at Windflower soon after five o’clock, after making the promised phone call to the Colvilles, who reported that they had had no further news. They changed into swimsuits, and as they climbed ashore, with their snorkel masks and fins slung in a string shopping bag, Emmy said, “Oh, Henry. My little paperweight. Can you get it for me?”
“I think so.” Henry looked down into the limpid water. “Yes, there it is. I’ll dive for it. The water’s obviously perfectly clean—thank God some places are serious about preventing pollution.”
He put on his mask and fins and slipped into the water from the pontoon. Emmy watched from above as his hand closed around the little plastic globe. However, he did not surface at once, but seemed to be looking at something she could not see in the shadow of the jetty. Then he came up, breaking the water surface with the paperweight in his hand. He said, “Take this, Emmy. I’m going down again.”
Down he went, into the sunlit water and then into shadow. When he reemerged, he was holding something in his right hand. Emmy drew in a quick breath of surprise. It was a pale pink conch shell of exactly the same kind that she had seen in the gift shop. He handed it up to her.
“Look at it,” Henry said. He had taken off his mask and was scrambling up onto the pontoon.
Emmy turned the shell over in her hands. Like the shells in the shop, it had ST. MARK’S ISLAND engraved on its shining whorl, but the engraver’s tool had apparently slipped, because there was a scratch running downward from the “s” of Island: besides this, one of the projecting points on which the shell could be balanced was broken at the tip. Not worth eight dollars fifty, but on sale at two bucks.
Emmy said, “The conch that Betsy bought.”
“It certainly looks like it. I would never have spotted it if I hadn’t gone down.”
“But—why just the shell? Where’s the rest of her luggage? What happened?”
“I’d say,” said Henry, “that the same thing happened to her as happened to you. She was climbing on board a boat and dropped the shell, just as you dropped your paperweight.”
Emmy frowned, thinking. “You mean, the young couple did invite her on board for lunch, as John guessed.”
“It looks like it. Betsy and her luggage and her shopping.”
“No,” Emmy said. “No, that can’t be right.”
“Why?”
“Because Betsy would never have let her present for Miss Pelling drop in the water and stay there. She’d have insisted on somebody going down and getting it for her—just like you fished up my paperweight.”
Henry said, “Quite right. But I said I’d get it for you later, when we came back from the police station. I daresay the young couple told Betsy that they’d dive for her shell after lunch, or when they got back—”
“Where from?”
“Who knows? The fact is that they never got back. Or at least, Betsy didn’t.”
For a moment, Henry and Emmy looked at each other. Then Emmy said, “Where was the shell, exactly? I mean, which berth do you think the boat was on?”
“That empty one opposite ours, on the other side, I would think,” Henry said. And then, “All right. Let’s go and ask the Harbour Master.”
The Harbour Master’s office was a businesslike room in the marina building, close to the Caribbean Treasure Trove. The walls were covered with charts and there was a big plan of the marina, with small paper flags indicating the occupancy of various berths. The Harbour Master—a tall, thin man with a small mustache and a light, almost brown, complexion—was explaining to a middle-aged American the procedure necessary for yachtsmen arriving from U.S. waters.
“You have to take a taxi to the town quay, sir, with the ship’s papers and your passports. There you report to Customs and Immigration—”
“For Pete’s sake, do we all have to go?” demanded the American. “There’re six of us.”
“No, that’s not necessary, sir. As skipper, you can go alone—but take all the passports for stamping. Then you get your clearance, and that’s all there is to it.”
Muttering something about a crazy setup, the American left the office. The Harbour Master made an entry in a big ledger and then looked up and smiled at the Tibbetts.
“Yes, sir…madam. What can I do for you? You’re chartering Windflower for a week, I believe. I’d be grateful if you’d let me know when your berth is going to be vacant overnight—we need space for visiting boats every evening. And don’t forget to check out with Customs and Immigration if you plan to leave Seaward waters.”
Henry said, “Actually, I’m after a piece of information, if you can help me.”
“I’ll certainly try. Something about the marina?”
“In a way. I’m trying to find out the name of the boat that was moored opposite Windflower last Thursday.”
The Harbour Master looked not unnaturally surprised. For a moment he hesitated, then evidently decided that tourists—even if weak in the head—should be kept happy. He got up and went over to the chart on the wall.
“Let’s see. Windflower is here, in number thirty-six. You mean the berth on the other side of the pontoon? Number fourteen?” He indicated a space on the plan that had a little paper flag marked BLUEBIRD in it.
Henry nodded. “The berth’s empty at the moment,” he said.
“Not for long,” remarked the Harbour Master. “Bluebird went to George Island for lunch, but the skipper axed me to be sure to keep the berth free, as they’d be back this evening.”
“So it’s Bluebird—” Emmy began.
“Not if you’re interested in last Thursday.” The Harbour Master was back at his desk, thumbing through his ledger. “Bluebird only came in on Friday. Last Thursday…let’s see…” There was a little pause. Then he said, “Last Thursday the Chermar was on that mooring.”
“The Charmer?” Henry said.
“No, sir. Chermar. C-h-e-r-m-a-r.”
“That’s a funny name for a boat.”
The Harbour Master smiled indulgently. “Young couples often do it,” he said. “Name their boat after both their names. Happen I hear these two talking, and they called Cheryl and Martin. Cher-mar—get it? Big white motor cruiser. Well, when I say big—thirty-five foot. Nice craft.” He paused, and then, with inevitable West Indian curiosity, added, “Friends of yours?”
“Not exactly,” Henry said. “So they left on Thursday, did they?”
“Seems so.”
“How do you mean?”
Quite suddenly, the Harbour Master became suspicious. He shut his ledger with a bang, stood up, and said, “If the people on Chermar aren’t friends of yours, sir, I’m afraid I can’t discuss them anymore. Wouldn’t be proper.”
“Of course, you’re perfectly right,” Henry said. “The reason I asked is that they left something behind at the mooring.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know where to find them to give it back, sir,” said the Harbour Master firmly. “I could try to raise them on VHF radio, but I’d be surprised if they’re still in range. They only stayed overnight—put in for a small repair, the gentleman told me.” He stopped abruptly, then said, “Here, if you found something on the jetty today, it’ud be from Bluebird. What made you ask about Thursday? And what’s the thing you found, anyway?”
“Just a souvenir,” said Henry. He grabbed Emmy’s hand, and the two of them were out of the office in an instant, leaving behind a highly suspicious Harbour Master. From the doorway of his office, he watched them making for the row of telephone booths. He saw Henry ruffling the pages of the local directory while Emmy fished her small-change purse out of the snorkel bag. After a moment of indecision, the Harbour Master walked back into his office and picked up his own telephone to make a call.
Inspector Herbert Ingham was on the point of leaving the police station for the day when Henry’s call came through. He listened with amused indulgence and then said, “Well, that clears that up, then, doesn’t it? Silly of me not to think of it before.”
“Think of what?”
“That the lady might have gone off on a private yacht with friends. Funny how the most obvious explanation often… What’s that?…Well, really, Chief Superintendent, I don’t think I can… Now, see here, the lady is a free agent and able to look after herself, isn’t she? If she chooses to cruise the islands with friends instead of going home to England, that’s nobody’s business but her own… No, I can’t put out an alarm call for the boat… Well, yes, I could inquire if she’s at St. Matthew’s or George Island, but…oh, very well… What’s the name of the boat?… How do you spell it?… Oh, I see, one of those composite names… Well, I can tell you one thing, a boat with a name like that isn’t going to be doing anything except holiday cruising. This Cheryl and Martin will be a rich young couple, probably from Florida… Customs and Immigration?… Yes, they’ll still be there if you hurry… ” He sighed. “All right, I’ll call them… Officer Cranstone is the man you want, he’s Immigration… O.K., see you tomorrow… ”
Chief Inspector Ingham put down the telephone, irritated. He had enough serious things on his mind without having to bother with a Chief Superintendent from Scotland Yard fussing over an old lady, who was quite obviously enjoying an extended vacation on board a friend’s boat. It was with no enthusiasm that he picked up the telephone and called the Customs and Immigration office.
“Cranstone? Herbert Ingham here. There’s a fellow on the way to see you, name of Tibbett… Chief Superintendent from Scotland Yard… No, quite unofficial, he’s on holiday with his wife, but he’s after some information, and we can’t very well refuse to cooperate… Yes, anything he wants to know… Sure I’ll be at the fish fry tonight…see you there, man… ”
The Customs and Immigration office was situated on the town quay next to the fish market. Officer Cranstone, cool and trim in white shirt and black trousers, was happy to explain Immigration procedure to Henry and Emmy.
“Skippers of visiting boats report in here to me,” he said, “with passports and the ship’s papers. We stamp the passports, issue Immigration cards which have to be surrendered when the person leaves the Seawards, and give the ship clearance. The Customs Officer makes a spot check at the marina every so often, but you understand we can’t possibly search every boat, any more than they can go through every suitcase at the airport. These people are on vacation, and we do our best to make things easy and pleasant for them. Coming by boat is a sort of guarantee, anyway.”
“Guarantee? How do you mean?”
“Well, sir, the sort of people we want to discourage are the vagrants…hippies and the like, and people with no proper means of support, who try to slip in as visitors and then take odd jobs and stay in the islands. That’s why the airport has to be more strict. There, we demand that visitors show a return ticket and prove they have somewhere to stay and means of support. But a boat is a return ticket and somewhere to stay, and it’s easy to check. So we try not to bother them too much.”
“But you do keep records?” Henry asked.
“Of course. Here’s our register of incoming boats, with the names and passport numbers of skippers and crews… ”
“What about outgoing boats?”
Cranstone, who was chubby and good-natured, rubbed his plump chin and smiled. “Yes, indeed, sir. The skipper checks the boat out and hands in the Immigration forms.”
Henry said, “Supposing the skipper of a yacht just ups anchor and leaves, without checking out?”
“He’ll be in trouble at his next port of call, that’s what,” said Cranstone. “If he can’t produce a valid clearance for his boat, he’ll be liable to a stiff fine—and you may be sure the Customs will give his ship a proper going-over.”
“I see,” Henry said. “Well, I’m interested in a motor cruiser called the Chermar, which was berthed at the marina on Wednesday last week and left on Thursday. I don’t know where she arrived from. Can you help me?”
“Surely, sir.” Cranstone thumbed through his records and a few minutes later came up with results. “Here she is. June 18, last Wednesday. Chermar, thirty-five-foot motor cruiser, port of registry Annapolis, Maryland, U.S.A., last port of call British Virgin Islands, owner-skipper Mr. Martin Ross of Washington, D.C., crew Mrs. Cheryl Ross, same address, British passports.”
“British?”
“Yes, sir. I remember Mr. Ross now—it’s not often we get Britishers coming in on boats. He told me he was working in Washington, living temporarily in the States. But his wife was American, he told me, from Florida, if I remember right. She had two passports, American and British, and he made quite a joke of it, asking which one I wanted to see. A very nice gentleman.”
“Did he speak like an Englishman?” Henry asked.
Cranstone looked puzzled. At length he said, “He spoke like a white man.”
Henry did not press the point. He should have realized, he thought, that to a West Indian English and American accents are no more distinguishable than the regional variations of Creole from different islands would be to him. He said, “Did the Chermar check out with you?”
“No, sir. I’ve no record of her leaving. Mr. Ross did mention that they’d put in for a small repair and would be away again in a couple of days—but maybe the repair is taking longer. Or maybe they’re still in the Seawards. You could check with St. Matthew’s.”
“Mr. Ross came alone to your office, with the two passports?”
“Yes, sir.” Cranstone paused. “Nothing wrong about the Chermar was there, sir?”
“I don’t know,” Henry said. “I hope not.”
That evening, the Tibbetts dined ashore at the marina restaurant.
It was clear that people from cruising boats welcomed a chance to escape from the galley and eat ashore, for the place was crowded; and since most visiting yachtsmen stayed only a few days, Henry had little hope that any of the restaurant staff would remember an individual tourist. Luckily, however, Betsy Sprague must have stood out among the crowd of bronzed young Americans like a crow in a cage of canaries. The waitress who served the Tibbetts remembered her.
“The funny-looking old lady in the long skirt and big hat? Sure, I do recall her. I only saw her the one time. She was with two people off a boat. They’d paid their check and were leaving when she came up to talk to them. They all sat down again and I brought them drinks. Next thing I saw, they were all going off down the jetty to the boat, I reckon. The young man was carrying the lady’s suitcases.” The waitress, a small and very black girl with a round face and a cornrow hairdo, smiled attractively. “I remember thinking she must be a relation, like an aunt. Otherwise it seemed kind of funny that an old lady should go cruising with a young couple. But that’s what must have happened because I never saw any of them again.”
Henry said, “Do you think you could recognize the couple she was with?”
The waitress laughed merrily. “I could try,” she said, “but, matter of fact, most white folks look pretty much alike to me. Beside, we get so many in here, different every day. The gentleman was dark and had a beard, but then most of them do. No, it’s the old lady I recall.”
Henry and Emmy had finished dinner and were drinking coffee when they noticed the Harbour Master—who had long since closed his office and left for the day—coming back into the marina, accompanied by a grim-looking Inspector Ingham, now in civilian clothes. The Harbour Master unlocked his office and switched on the light, and the two men went inside. Through the open door, Henry could see them in earnest conversation, poring over papers and charts on the desk. Then they both came out and made their way purposefully down the jetty.
Emmy said, “I do believe they’re going to Windflower, Henry. They must be looking for us.”
Henry stood up. “You settle the bill,” he said. “I’ll go and see what’s up.” He overtook the two men as they were leaving the deserted Windflower.
Inspector Ingham said, “Ah, there you are, Chief Superintendent. Come into the office for a moment, will you?”
“What’s all this about?” Henry asked.
Ingham did not reply, but led the way back down the jetty and into the Harbour Master’s office. He closed the door carefully, and then said, “You’d better take us into your confidence, sir. We can’t work in the dark.”
“I don’t understand,” Henry said.
“What do you know about the Chermar?” demanded the Harbour Master. Not being a policeman, he was quite unimpressed by Henry’s rank.
Ingham said, “You’ve been making inquiries about the Chermar—”
“Yes, but—”
“I must ask you why, sir. You told Anderson here that the Chermar had left something behind on the jetty, and then you simply disappeared without answering when he asked you what it was. You then telephoned me—”
“All right, all right,” Henry said. “I was interested in the Chermar—in fact, I still am—because, as I told you, I thought Miss Sprague might be on board. That’s now virtually certain. A waitress at the restaurant saw the Rosses with Miss Sprague last Thursday, carrying her baggage down the pontoon in the direction of the boat, which must have left shortly afterwards. She had certainly gone by Friday. That’s my information. What’s yours?”
The two black men exchanged a look, and then Ingham said, “Anderson and I were both at the fish fry this evening when the Duty Constable got word to us. She thought it might be important.”
“Word about what?”
“She was listening out on VHF and heard the U.S. Coast Guard message. There’s a general alert and search out for the Chermar. She’s overdue in St. Thomas, where the Rosses should have picked up some friends on Thursday evening. When she hadn’t turned up by this morning, these friends told the Coast Guard and asked them to try to make radio contact—the Chermar carries ship-to-shore radio. The Coast Guard has been trying for more than twelve hours now and can get no response from any area that the Chermar might conceivably have reached after leaving here.”
“In any case,” Anderson put in, “she never cleared the Seawards, either here or in St. Matthew’s, so it looks like she never even set out to go to St. Thomas.”
Ingham went on. “So now there’s a general alert. It could just be a broken radio—but that’s unlikely in view of the fact that Mr. Ross knew where his friends were staying in St. Thomas. He could easily have gone ashore somewhere and telephoned them if he was delayed for some reason. But he didn’t. So it looks as though we’ve got another one.”
Henry nodded. “Another yacht disappeared without trace. Like the Isabella.”
“And some others,” said Ingham.
The telephone bell shrilled in the small office. The Harbour Master picked it up. “Harbour Master’s office… Yes, he’s here… ” He held out the receiver to Ingham. “For you, Herbert.”
“Ingham…yes…yes…well, it’s only what we expected, isn’t it?… How much?… How many?… Anybody we—?… Oh, no. Oh, shit. Young Duprez as well?…and Laurette MacKay?… O.K., go ahead and book them. I’ll get up as soon as I can… right…be seeing you.” He put the telephone down and turned to Henry. “It’s time we had a talk, Chief Superintendent. If you can help us, we’d appreciate it.”
“About missing boats?” Henry said.
“That was my Detective Inspector. We had a tipoff there was going to be a lot of pot-smoking at the fish fry tonight. So he waited until I’d left—they wouldn’t light up while I was actually there—and then made a bust. He’s collared a whole group of youngsters with large quantities of marijuana and some heroin as well. It makes me sick.”
“Kids of important people, by the sound of it,” Anderson said.
Ingham put his hand on the Harbour Master’s shoulder. “Kids of good friends, too,” he said.
“Not—?”
“I’m afraid so, Elwin. Your boy Sebastian. You’d best get up to the station right away and see about bailing him out. Now, Chief Superintendent, as soon as I’ve dealt with this lot, I’ll come back here. What d’you say we meet on board the Windflower in about an hour’s time?”
“O.K.,” said Henry. “We’ll be waiting for you.”