“Mr. Fletcher. Ah, do step inside. So happy to see you, my dear sir.”
Fletcher walked in and Dharam Singh closed the door. There was a large tiled hall from which rose the staircase that was never used, and one small electric bulb burned in the centre of an ornate glass chandelier suspended from the high ceiling. Dharam Singh stood rubbing his hands together, the thin brown fingers making a faint rasping sound like dry twigs which might at any moment burst into flame.
“And what, Mr. Fletcher sir, can I do for you?”
Fletcher pulled from his pocket the exposed film he had taken from the underwater camera.
“I should like to have this developed.”
Dharam Singh took the film. “Of course. At once. All else shall wait.”
“And three prints of each negative.”
Dharam Singh gave a small bow. “Certainly.”
Fletcher wondered whether to advise Dharam Singh to be discreet, but decided that it was unnecessary. The photographer was not likely to talk about work he did for a customer; that was hardly the way to attract further business. And Singh was above all else a businessman.
“If I call in tomorrow?”
“The prints will be ready. Never fear.”
The music from the upper floor was faintly audible. Dharam Singh ignored it, pretending that it did not exist. Fletcher turned to go.
Dharam Singh said: “You would care for some refreshment perhaps?”
“Thank you,” Fletcher said, “but no, not just now.”
The refreshment would have been tea, and there would have been Dharam Singh’s conversation. He did not feel a desire for either at that moment.
Dharam Singh nodded. “As you wish. Another time perhaps.”
“Yes; another time.”
Though he had not accepted Singh’s offer of refreshment, Fletcher decided nevertheless to call in at another establishment which went under the name of the Treasure Ship before returning to Joby Thomas’s house. The Treasure Ship could hardly have been said to live up to the splendour of its title, for it was an ill-lit, rather dingy saloon with swing half-doors, a zinc-topped counter on the left as you went in, a sanded floor and a dozen or so round tables with two or three chairs to each. It seemed, as usual, to be doing reasonably good business, but there were a few vacant tables and some space at the bar. Tobacco smoke hung like a thin fog in the motionless air, and a powerful odour of rum greeted him as he pushed his way through the swing-doors. Some of the male and female customers glanced at him as he walked in, but with no especial interest; he had been living in Port Morgan long enough to have become an accepted part of the local scene.
He ordered a beer and Fat Annie got it for him, smiling a welcome.
“You had a good day, Mist’ Fletcher?”
“Good enough, Annie.”
She was so wide Fletcher doubted whether she would have been able to sit in an armchair unless it had been
specially made for her. So perhaps she used a settee when she wanted to relax. She was a motherly kind of person—at least she had always appeared so to him—but he had heard that she kept a machete under the counter and was quite prepared to use it if anyone caused trouble. He had never seen her use it, or even threaten to, but if it came to that he had never seen anyone cause trouble, so it could have been true.
He leaned on the bar and drank some of the beer, and he caught sight of one of the sisters who occupied the upper floor of Dharam Singh’s house sitting at one of the tables with a blond-headed man who had the look of a Scandinavian seaman. He had, too, the look of a man who had progressed a considerable distance along the road to being drunk, and Fletcher thought it was high time the sister got him out of there, since he might well be the sort who would become rowdy and force Annie to bring out the machete. The sister was a well-built girl and not at all bad-looking; as in fact all three of them were, so it was easy to see why they made a fairly comfortable living and never got behind with the rent.
And then he heard Fat Annie say something that sounded like “Oh, oh!”, and he saw the two men walk in, setting the doors swinging violently. They had a kind of swagger about them, an air that seemed to say they were the boss men and nobody had better get in their way. They were as lean as whipcord and as black as tar, and they had hair cut down so close you could see the scalp shining through. They were wearing suits of an exaggerated cut and startling hue, brilliantly patterned shirts, gold ear-rings and pointed shoes. They paused just inside the doorway and glanced round the room in a supercilious manner, letting their gaze rest
for a moment on each person in turn before moving on to the next.
“Oh, oh!” Annie muttered again. “Leopards!”
Everything had gone very quiet. Everyone had stopped talking, stopped doing anything, as though a sudden frost had crept into the hot room. Everyone except the blond seaman; he just went on talking, and because it was all so quiet everyone could hear what he was saying. Not that it amounted to much; it was not something you would have bothered to record on tape for the benefit of posterity. It was all a bit slurred and it had to do with personal relations between himself and the sister; nothing for anyone else to bother about.
But it seemed to bother the Leopards. Possibly they thought that everyone should have closed up when they walked in—and that included the blond seaman. Possibly they thought it was an affront to their dignity that he should go on talking without their permission. Or possibly they simply resented the fact of a white man saying things like that to a black girl.
Whatever the reason, they walked across to the table where the sister and the blond seaman were sitting, and there was that swagger in their gait as if they owned the earth and meant to keep it that way. The sister saw them coming and looked scared, but the seaman was not giving a damn.
“Oh, oh!” Annie muttered a third time; and Fletcher guessed that she could see trouble coming, but she made no move to get the machete; she seemed to know that this was something out of her league, something too big for her to handle.
The Leopards reached the table, and one stood on one
side of it and one on the other. The blond seaman looked up at them. He was startled but not scared.
“What you want?” he said. “What in hell you want, huh?”
“Out!” one of the Leopards said. He gave a jerk of his left thumb in the direction of the door. “Out!”
“What the hell!” the seaman said. “What the blutty hell!”
“Out!”
The sister was standing up. “Come along. Let’s go.” She was scared sure enough.
“Damn that,” the seaman said. “I wanna ’nother drink.” His gaze swivelled round and settled on the Leopard who had told him to get out. “An’ damn you too, you black bastard.”
They took him then. They got his arms up behind his back, and the chair went sliding away and the table went over and there was a lot of broken glass lying on the floor. He was a big man and he looked powerful, but he didn’t stand a chance; they marched him down the room and went out through the swing-doors. The sister followed, still looking scared. Fletcher thought she had some reason to be.
The Leopards came back five minutes later and the room was still silent. They walked to the bar, and Fletcher glanced at their shoes to see whether there was any blood on the pointed toes, but there was not. Maybe they had wiped it off on the seaman’s clothes. They ordered rum and Annie served it to them, but no money changed hands. They were standing close to Fletcher, and the one who was the closer said:
“Who are you, whitey?”
Fletcher told him—politely.
Annie said quickly, as if scenting more trouble and wanting to head it off : “Mist’ Fletcher’s okay. He live here. He bin here long, long time.”
“That so?” the Leopard said. He looked Fletcher slowly up and down—arrogantly, insolently. “That really so?”
“That’s so,” Fletcher said; still polite.
“You like it here? You like the climate mebbe? You like the people?”
“The climate’s fine. The people too.”
“You never wanna go back home?”
“Not yet.”
“Mebbe you ain’t got no home to go to.” The Leopard laughed. The other Leopard laughed too. Annie appeared to relax a little; if they could laugh the crisis was perhaps over.
“Maybe I haven’t,” Fletcher said, playing it cool.
They seemed to lose interest in him. They drank their rum and left; they were evidently not going to make a night of it—not there. Possibly they had other business to attend to.
When they had gone the atmosphere became less tense; conversation started up again, became louder, the laughter less restrained. The Leopards had had an inhibiting effect. Annie looked as though she would have liked to spit if she had not been too much of a lady.
“Trash,” she said. “Garbage scraped up off the streets of Jamestown. They got guns, too. You see them, Mist’ Fletcher?”
“No,” Fletcher said; “I didn’t see any guns.”
“Under them fancy jackets. They got guns shuh nuff. They’d use ‘em too—and get away with it. Get away with murder, them Leopards. Mebbe already have.”
Fletcher gathered that she did not much care for Leopards. He had never yet heard of anyone who did.
He finished his drink and walked out of the Treasure Ship, and they were still there, sitting in a car parked about fifty yards down the street. He had to pass the car and he saw that they were smoking cigars. There was no sign of the sister or the blond seaman, so maybe she had managed to get him to Dharam Singh’s house. One of the Leopards stretched out an arm and knocked ash off his cigar at Fletcher’s feet as he drew level with the car.
“Good night, Mr. Fletcher,” he said. “Sleep well. Happy dreams.”
He could hear them both laughing as he walked on. If he dreamed of them the dreams were not likely to be very happy; that was for sure.
Fletcher called at Dharam Singh’s house early in the morning to make sure of catching the photographer before he set out on whatever project he might have in view for that particular day. By daylight the house looked even more run down than it had in the less revealing light of the previous evening; the sun, already hot, showed up the blemishes like the wrinkles and blotches on the face of an ageing courtesan. He noticed that the curtains were still drawn across the upper windows, and was not surprised; the sisters were unlikely to be early risers. He wondered what had happened to the blond seaman; no doubt the man would eventually find his way back to his ship, rather stiff and sore and a good deal poorer. But that was no business of his.
Dharam Singh took him into what he called his studio, which was just another room with a sink in it where he did his photographic processing and took portraits if anyone happened to want something in that line.
“You’ve finished the pictures?”
Dharam Singh nodded. “Oh, yes, certainly. All finished.”
“And they came out all right?”
“Perfectly. You are becoming quite skilful at that
kind of work, Mr. Fletcher, my good sir; really quite skilful.”
“Thank you for the compliment. I’m not a professional, of course.”
“A professional could hardly have done it better. Bearing in mind the circumstances, the detail is surprisingly excellent. Yes, most surprisingly excellent.”
Fletcher was aware that Dharam Singh was burning to ask questions about the photographs. But mixed with the curiosity there was also a certain uneasiness in his manner; perhaps a trace of shiftiness too.
“You would like to know, of course, where I took the photographs.”
Dharam Singh squirmed a little. “It is not my business. Nevertheless—”
“No; it is not your business. It is the business of the police.”
“The police! Are you telling me they know?”
“You don’t imagine I’d keep a thing like that to myself, do you? That I would fail to report it.”
“No, most certainly not. It would not be right; it would not be legal; it would not be—safe. And what will the police do now?”
“That’s up to them. I suppose they’ll fish up the bodies. Perhaps the boat as well.”
“Yes; yes, I suppose so. And where—”
“Where is the boat? I don’t think I’d better tell you that. I’ve had strict instructions not to talk about it.”
“Ah, I understand. It might hinder investigations perhaps. And the police, they know of course about the photographs?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, no,” Fletcher admitted. “I
rather think that if I had told them about those I wouldn’t have been able to bring the film to you.”
“That is certainly possible. But when they find out that you have taken these photographs don’t you think perhaps they will be annoyed with you, Mr. Fletcher, sir?”
Fletcher gazed into Dharam Singh’s deep brown eyes and tried without success to plumb the depths of the photographer’s mind. “That is very possible,” he said, “if they find out. But is there any reason why they should? Is anyone going to tell them? Can you think of anyone who would be likely to do that?”
Dharam Singh gave the fleeting shadow of a smile. “No, Mr. Fletcher, my good sir, I can think of no one.”
Fletcher smiled also. “And why would the police want the photographs anyway? If they need photographs to help them solve the crime they can surely take their own.”
“Assuredly,” Dharam Singh murmured. “After all, they have their own photographers.”
“So now if you will let me have the prints and negatives—”
“Of course, of course.”
Dharam Singh went to fetch them.
* * *
“You didn’t tell me you took photographs,” Joby said. He sounded unhappy about it. Paulina too looked worried.
“You knew I had the camera,” Fletcher said. “I thought you’d know I used it.”
“And you didn’t tell Colonel Vincent about them?”
“No.”
“Why not?” Paulina asked.
“I thought I’d like to hang on to them.”
“Oh, man,” Joby said; “do you like to make trouble for yourself!”
“I don’t see that it’s trouble.”
“You will when they find out. That’s like withholding information or some such. They won’t be pleased about that. No, sir; not pleased at all.”
“They aren’t going to find out. How should they?”
“Dharam Singh—”
“He won’t say anything. Will you?”
“Me!” Joby said. “You catch me goin’ to the cops! You jus’ catch me!”
“So it’s okay. No trouble.”
“You hope.”
The photographs were laid out on the kitchen table. They were, as Dharam Singh had said, very good considering the conditions under which they had been taken. The bullet-holes in the heads of the five men were clearly visible, and anyone who had known them well would probably have had little difficulty in recognising them.
“See anyone there you know?” Fletcher asked.
Joby shook his head emphatically. “Not me, no. I never saw the one of them before.”
The pictures of the boat had come out well also. It was possible to read the name on the bows.
“Did you ever hear of a boat called the
Hale
ón
Español?
”
Again Joby shook his head. “It’s a new one on me. Could be she come from another island or some place. You didn’t see no port of origin on the stern?”
“No. Maybe it had been painted out.”
“Could be.”
“I have an idea Colonel Vincent had heard of it.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Just a hunch. The way he reacted when I told him the name. And something he said about its not being funny. Yes, I’m pretty sure he’d heard of it.”
“I don’t like it,” Paulina said. “I wish you’d never gone out there yesterday.”
Fletcher was not at all sure that he himself would not have been happier if he had not done so. Until the previous day he had never had any contact with the police or the Leopards; now he had had contact with both, and he did not care for either lot. And he had a feeling that he was going to have more contact with them; perhaps too much. Why couldn’t he have minded his own damned business and kept his nose out? Why?
Yet, looking at the matter coolly and logically, there was no reason why he should be worried. What had he done but report a crime—as any law-abiding citizen was bound to do? And though there was admittedly the question of the undisclosed photographs, that was surely of small importance and hardly likely to come to the notice of the police anyway. So why worry? But despite this mental argument a slight uneasiness continued to nag at him and he wished that he had had nothing to do with the business.
Joby took a newspaper called the
Jamestown
Gleaner
and
Island
Gazette.
There was nothing in it concerning the discovery of a sunken boat and five dead men, and there had been no report on the radio; so it looked as though the police were keeping it quiet.
He remarked on this fact to Joby. “Why should they do that?”
“Don’t ask me,” Joby said.
“You’d have thought they’d have given the press a news handout. Why would they want to keep it a secret?”
“Mebbe for the same reason they warned you not to shoot your mouth off about it. Mebbe ’cause they don’t want people to know.”
That was certainly the usual reason for keeping a secret, but it still provided no explanation as to why the police should not want people to know.
“There’s something very fishy about this. It has a smell to it.”
“You don’t need to tell me,” Joby said.
There was another thing: if the police intended going out to the scene of the sinking it might have been expected that they would take Joby and Fletcher along to point out the exact position where the boat was lying. But they had not done so; Colonel Vincent had made no suggestion that either Joby or Fletcher might give them any more assistance with their inquiries; he had simply said that the matter was to be left to them. It could be, of course, that they already knew precisely where the wreck of the ship was situated and could find their way to it without help from anyone else, but to Fletcher’s way of thinking it would have been more natural to enlist the aid of the men who had discovered the boat. Still, if this was the way Colonel Vincent liked to work things, he had a right to use his own methods.
Joby had an engagement to take a party of elderly Americans on a trip to Mariana Bay, a holiday resort on the west coast of the island. He expected to be away until the evening. Fletcher idled away the best part of the morning, trying to convince himself that he was doing some work on the projected book, but coming up with nothing more to the point than a lot of unremarkable doodling. He
wandered out into the garden and was immediately drawn into a game of pretend by Willie and Millie, whose importunities he always found it difficult to resist. In the afternoon he decided to go over to Jamestown on the ferry.
The ferry was just an open boat with seats along the sides, rather broad in the beam and equipped with a smelly diesel engine. The passengers were mostly women going to Jamestown to shop or visit relatives. They kept up a ceaseless chatter all the way across and dispersed on leaving the boat like a herd of animals suddenly released from a pen.
Now that he had arrived in Jamestown Fletcher had no particular purpose in mind. He wandered aimlessly around the streets, feeling hot and beginning to wonder whether the idle life was not after all somewhat over-rated. The plain fact was—and he might as well admit it—that he was bored. Jamestown was not like London or New York or Paris; it did not have an infinite variety of interest; you could very soon run out of alternative things to do to pass the time, and all that remained then was to go and have a drink—preferably a long and cooling one.
Fletcher was sitting at a table having his long, cooling drink in a place that, for some reason he had never bothered to investigate, was called Scotland House, when the two Americans strolled over and sat down on two vacant chairs at the same table. He was not sure they were Americans until they started talking, but he guessed so; there was an American look about them. And more than half the white people you saw in Jamestown were American anyway.
One of them said: “Do you mind?” He was a lean, desiccated sort of man with brown hair cut shorter than was the current fashion. He looked the kind who would not give a bent nickel for current fashion.
“No,” Fletcher said; “I don’t mind. Help yourselves.”
The other man was not quite so lean; he had a round face and steel-rimmed glasses and he was starting to go bald. He was young enough to let it bother him and he brushed his hair carefully over the bare places, but he was not fooling anybody that way; you could see it was walking out on him and not all the hair-restorers in the world would hold it back.
“What’s that you’re drinking?” he asked.
“It’s something they make here,” Fletcher told him. “It’s got some rum in it, and the juice of fresh limes and a few other things and ice, and it’s very cooling. They call it a Caribbean Special.”
“Sounds great,” the man said. He beckoned a waiter across and ordered three Caribbean Specials. Fletcher made a slight protest, but it was waved aside. “Forget it. This one’s on me. My name’s Hutchins—Frank Hutchins. This is Dale Brogan.”
“I’m John Fletcher.”
“Pleased to meet you, John.”
They insisted on shaking hands. They had strong, firm grips. Fletcher would have said they probably made quite a thing of keeping themselves physically fit.
“Are you here on holiday?”
“No,” Brogan said; “I don’t think you could say that. It’s not a holiday; not really.”
The waiter brought the drinks and Hutchins paid. Fletcher was faintly amused to see that he made a note of the amount in a small pocket-book. A careful man with money, apparently.
Brogan sipped his Caribbean Special. “Yes, very pleasant, very pleasant.” He set the glass down and looked at
Fletcher. “No,” he said, “we’re not on holiday any more than you are.”
Fletcher was startled. “What do you mean by that?”
“Well now, you’re writing a book, aren’t you? That’s the way we heard it.”
“Where did you hear it? Who told you?”
“Oh,” Hutchins said, “let’s not bother about who told us. Let’s just say we heard. Like we heard you made a certain rather interesting discovery yesterday.”
Fletcher gave the two men a closer look. “So you knew who I was? You knew before you came and sat down.”
“Yes; we knew.”
“You were looking for me?”
“In a way, yes.”
“Why? What do you want with me?”
“We want to give you a piece of advice,” Brogan said.
“More of that? I seem to be getting a lot of advice these days.”
“This would be worth taking.”
“What is it?”
“Forget all about what you found yesterday.”
“Now that’s an interesting suggestion,” Fletcher said. “Do you mind telling me why I should forget it?”
“Because it would be better that way—for everybody.”
“And do you think the police are going to forget it as well?”
“Never mind the police. What they do is no concern of yours.”
“And if I decide not to forget it? What then?”
“That would be very foolish. You could be making a lot of unnecessary trouble for yourself.”
“Maybe I could, but what’s it got to do with you anyway? Who the hell are you?”
Hutchins took a long drink of the Caribbean Special and smacked his lips. “Yes, pretty good. Like you said, John, it’s cooling. Now don’t bother yourself with who we are. Just regard us as friends, huh? Just take it that we’re looking after your best interests.”
“Out of the goodness of your hearts?” Fletcher said. “That’s nice; that’s really nice. It’s not often I get total strangers looking after my best interests. It’s something for the record.”
“Now don’t get ruffled,” Brogan said. “You may think we’re interfering in something that’s none of our business—”
“You’re damn right, I may.”
“But, believe me, it is our business. Yes indeed, very much so.”