Authors: Alistair MacLean
She could be as quick as a cat. She caught the all but imperceptible shake of my head and she wasn't even looking in my direction.
"I'm so sorry, Professor Witherspoon." It takes some doing to combine a dazzling smile with a tone of deep regret but she managed it. "There's nothing I'd like better, but I really do feel so weak yet. If I could be excused until the morning I-"
"Of course. But of course. Mustn't overdo the convalescence, must we?" He seemed to be on the point of grabbing her hand again, but thought better of it. "We'll send a tray along. And we'll also send
you
along. No need to stir."
At a signal from him the two Fijians caught an end of the bed apiece and lifted, not such a feat, as the bed itself probably didn't weigh even thirty pounds. The Chinese boy came in to carry all the clothes we had, the professor led the way and there was nothing for me to do but to take her hand as we walked between the two houses, bend over her solicitously and murmur: "Ask him for a torch."
I didn't suggest a reason why she should ask for one, for the excellent reason that none occurred to me, but she handled it beautifully. When the professor had dismissed the bearers and was expatiating at length on how the guest house was built entirely from the products of two trees, the pan-danus and coconut palm, she interrupted diffidently to ask: "Is there-is there a bathroom here, Professor Witherspoon?"
"But of course, my dear. How remiss of me. Down the steps, to the left and it's the first small hut you come to. The next is the kitchen. For obvious reasons you can't have fire and water in houses like these."
"Of course not. But-but doesn't it get rather dark at night here? I mean-"
"God bless my soul! What must you think of me? A torch-of course you shall have a torch. You shall have it after our evening meal." He glanced at his watch. "Expect you in about half an hour, Bentall?" A few more platitudes, a smirk at Marie and he bustled briskly away.
The westering sun had already dipped behind the shoulder of the mountain but the heat of the day still lingered in the air. For all that Marie shivered and pulled the coverlet high about her shoulders. She said: "Would you care to let the side-screens down? Those trade winds aren't what they're cracked up to be. Not when the darkness comes."
"Let the screen down? And have a dozen listening ears pressed against them in a couple of minutes?"
"You-you think so?" she said slowly. "You feel there's something wrong here? With Professor Witherspoon?"
"I've long passed the feeling stage. I know damn well there's something wrong. I've known it ever since we arrived here." I pulled a chair up to her bed and took her hand: a hundred to one that we had a keen and interested audience and I didn't want to disappoint them. "What are
you
going on? Feeling fey again or womanly intuition or hard facts?"
"Don't be unpleasant," she said quietly. "I've already apologised for my foolish behaviour-just the fever, as you said. This is intuition, or a hunch-quite different. This ideal spot, those smiling Fijian boys, the marvellous Chinese servant, that Hollywood dream of what an English archaeologist should look like and behave-it's all too idyllic, too perfect. You get the impression of-of a carefully maintained facade. It's too dreamlike, if you know what I mean."
"You mean you'd feel better if you saw the professor roaring and cursing round the place or saw someone lying under a stoop and drinking from the neck of a whisky bottle?"
"Well, something like that."
"I've heard the South Pacific often affects people like that at first. The sense of unreality, I mean. Don't forget I've seen the professor several times on the screen. He's just as large as life. And if you want perfection marred, just wait until the boyfriend, Hewell, happens by."
"Why, what's he like?"
"Couldn't describe him. You're too young to have seen the King Kong films. You won't mistake him though. And while you're watching out for him I want you to check the number of people who come and go into the workers' hut. That's why I didn't want you to come across for supper."
"That shouldn't be hard."
"Nor so easy. They're all Chinese-the ones I’ve seen so far anyway-and they'll probably all look alike to you. Check what they're doing, how many stay in, whether the ones that come out are carrying anything or not. Don't let anyone guess you're checking. Let down the screens when it's dark enough and if there are no window cut-outs you can peek through-"
"Why don't you write it all down for me?" she said sweetly.
"O.K., so you've been at this longer than I have. Just a cowardly concern for my own neck. I'm going to take a walk around during the middle of the night and I'd like to know what the score is."
She didn't put her hand to her mouth or gasp or try to dissuade me, I couldn't even have sworn to it that the pressure of her hand had increased. She said, matter-of-factly: "Do you want me to come with you?"
"No. I just want to look around and there's nothing wrong with my own eyes. And while I don't expect trouble I can't see you'd be much help, if any did come along. No offence, of course."
"Well," she said doubtfully, "Fleck's got my gun, there wouldn't be much point in calling the cops and I don't suppose I could do very much if someone jumped me. But if someone jumped
you,
then I-"
"You have the wrong idea entirely," I said patiently. "You're not built for speed. I am. You never saw anyone who could run away from a fight as fast as Bentall." I crossed the coconut floor and pulled over a made-up string bed, placing it close to hers. "Do you mind?"
"Suit yourself," she said agreeably. She looked at me lazily under half-closed eyelids and an amused smile curved across her mouth, but it wasn't at all the same amused smile as she'd given me in Colonel Raine's office in London. "I'll hold your hand. I think you're just a sheep in wolf's clothing."
"Wait till I get off duty," I threatened. "You and me and the lights of London. You'll see."
She looked at me for a long moment and then turned to gaze out over the darkening lagoon. She said: "I don't see it."
"Ah, well. Wrong type. Lucky Fm not the sensitive kind. About this bed: I know this is going to be a big disappointment to you, but it occurred to me that when I took a walk tonight it might be a good thing to shove some sort of dummy in here and it's not likely they'll investigate its genuineness when the bed is so near yours." I heard the sound of voices, looked up and saw Hewell and his Chinese come into sight round a corner of the crushing mill: Hewell was a walking mountain, there was something almost frighteningly simian about the bowed form, the perceptibly rolling gait, the slow swing of the hands that all but brushed his knees as he walked. I said to Marie: "If you want to have the screaming heebie-jeebies during the night, turn round and have an eyeful. The boy-friend's here."
* * *
If it hadn't been for the boy-friend's face, the professor's incessant chatter and the bottle of wine he'd produced to mark, he said, the occasion, it would have been quite a pleasant meal: the Chinese boy certainly knew how to cook and there was none of this nonsense of birds' nests and sharks' fins, either. But I couldn't keep my eyes off that gaunt and ravaged face opposite me-the immaculate white drills into which he'd changed only emphasised the Neanderthalic hideousness of it: I could shut my ears to Witherspoon's banalities: the wine, an Australian burgundy, was quite excellent if your tastes ran to sweetened vinegar, but I was thirsty and managed to force some down.
But it was Hewell, curiously enough, who made the meal tolerable. Behind that primitive broken face lay a keen mind- at least he was smart enough to stay away from the burgundy and drink Hong-Kong beer by the quart-and his stories of life as a hard-rock mining engineer in what seemed to have been half the countries in the world made good listening. Or they would have made good listening if he hadn't stared unwinkingly at me all the time he was speaking, the black eyes so far back in their sockets that the illusion of a bear peering out from his cave was stronger than ever. He'd the Ancient Mariner whacked to the wide. I might have been sitting there transfixed all night if Witherspoon hadn't finally pushed back his chair, rubbed his hands together in satisfaction and asked me how I'd enjoyed the meal.
"It was excellent," I told him. "Don't let that cook go. Very many thanks indeed. And now, if you will, I think I'll be getting back to my wife."
"Nonsense, nonsense!" The affronted host to the life. "Coffee and brandy to come yet, my boy. When ever do we archaeologists get an opportunity to celebrate? We're delighted to see a strange face here, aren't we, Hewell?"
Hewell didn't contradict him, but he didn't agree with him either. It didn't matter to Witherspoon. He brought forward a rattan armchair, set it in position for me and fussed around like an old hen until he was certain I was comfortably seated. Then Tommy brought in the coffee and brandy.
From that moment on, the evening went well. After the Chinese boy had brought in drinks for the second time the professor told him to bring the bottle and leave it there. The level in the bottle sank as if there was a hole in the bottom of it. The professor was in tremendous form. The level sank some more. Hewell smiled twice. It was a great night. The calf was being fatted for the kill. They weren't wasting all that excellent brandy for nothing. The bottle was emptied and another brought in. The professor told some mildly risque jokes and convulsed himself with laughter. Hewell smiled again. I wiped away some tears of mirth and caught the quick flicker of interchanged glances. The axe was starting on its back swing. I congratulated the professor on his wit in a slurred and stumbling voice. I never felt more sober in my life.
They'd obviously rehearsed the whole thing meticulously. Witherspoon, the dedicated scientist to the life, started to bring me some of the exhibits from the show-cases lining the walls, but after a few minutes he said: "Come, Hewell, we are insulting our friend here. Let us show him our real treasures."
Hewell hesitated doubtfully and Witherspoon actually stamped his foot on the floor. "I insist. Damn it, man, what harm in it?"
"Very well." Hewell crossed to the big safe on my left hand side and after a minute's fruitless twiddling of the knob, said: "Combination's stuck again, professor."
"Well, open it from the back combination," Witherspoon said testily. He was standing to my right, a piece of broken pottery in his hand. "Now look at this, Mr. Bentall. I want you to pay particular attention to..."
But I wasn't paying any attention, particular or otherwise, to what he was saying. I wasn't even looking at the pottery. I was looking at the window behind him, a window which the kerosene lamp inside and the darkness outside transformed into an almost perfect mirror. I was looking at Hewell and the safe that he was tilting away from the wall. That safe weighed three hundredweights if it weighed an ounce. And the way I was sitting, leaning to the right in the arm-chair and left leg crossed ,over the right, my right foot was sticking out directly in its path, if it toppled. And it was going to topple. The safe was now a good foot away from the wall at the top and I could see Hewell actually sighting along its side to see if my foot was in the line of fall. And then he gave it a push.
"My God!" Professor Witherspoon shouted. "Look out!" The cry of horror was as perfectly done as it was calculatedly late, but he needn't have bothered himself, I was already looking out for myself. I was already starting to fall out of my chair as the safe fell on my leg, twisting my foot so that the side lay flush along the floor: the sole was more than half an inch of solid leather, but even so it was a chance. A long chance, but I had to take it.
There was nothing faked about my shout of pain. That stout leather sole felt as if it were being bent in half and so did my foot: but the safe didn't touch any other part of my foot or leg.
I lay there, gasping, trapped by the weight of the safe, until Hewell rushed round to the front to heave it up while Witherspoon dragged me clear. I struggled painfully to my feet, shook off the professor's arm, took one step on my injured foot and collapsed heavily to the floor. What with the safe and myself, the floor was certainly taking a beating that night.
"Are you-are you badly hurt?" The professor was aghast with anxiety.
"Hurt? No, I'm not hurt. I just felt tired and lay down for a rest." I glared up at him savagely, both hands cradling my right foot. "How far do you think you could walk with a broken ankle?"
CHAPTER FIVE
Wednesday 10 P.M.-Thursday 5 A.M.
Abject apologies, restoring the patient with what few drops of brandy still remained, splinting and taping my ankle in a surgical dressing took about ten minutes. After that they half-helped, half-carried me back to the guest hut. The side-screens were down but I could see the chinks of light through them. The professor rapped on the door and waited. The door opened.
"Who-who is there?" Marie had thrown some kind of wrap over her shoulders and the light of the kerosene lamp behind her made a shining halo round the soft fair hair.
"Nothing to worry about, Mrs. Bentall," Witherspoon said soothingly. "Your husband's just had a slight accident. Hurt his foot rather, I'm afraid."
"Slight accident!" I yelped. "Hurt his foot. I've broken my bloody ankle." I pushed off the restraining hands, tried to lurch through the door, stumbled, cried out and measured my length on the floor of the guest house. I was getting good at measuring my length on floors, it was far quicker than using a tape. Marie, her voice high-pitched in anxiety, said something I couldn't catch above my own moans and dropped to her knees beside me, but the professor lifted her gently to her feet while Hewell picked me up and placed me on my bed. I weigh close on two hundred, but he lifted and set me down with as little effort as a girl her doll, except perhaps not quite so gently. But those string beds were stronger than they looked and I didn't go through to the floor. I moaned some more and then propped myself up on one elbow, letting them see how a stiff-lipped Englishman suffers in silent agony, wincing and screwing my eyes shut from time to time just in case they didn't get it.