The Twenty-Third Man (22 page)

Peterhouse gambolled about the new arrival, escorted her to the reception desk, watched her being given her key, and was only shaken off at the exit from the lift. Laura awaited her opportunity, and, having seen him safely into the dining-room for a late but hearty breakfast, she went up to Dame Beatrice’s room, the number of which she readily obtained from Luisa Ruiz, tapped, and was admitted.

‘Well,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘and what have
you
been up to, and how is my godson?’

‘First things first: he’s flourishing. Eats and sleeps. Good as gold. I can’t believe he’s
my
child.’

‘He probably takes after his father who, by the way, sends love to you both and says that you are to stay as long as I want you.’

‘Very nice of him. I suppose he’s on a stag-party toot every free evening he has!’

‘I have interested him in our island mystery. The consensus of opinion in London is that Telham knifed Lockerby; but who knifed Emden still seems a matter of detection.’

‘On balance, it ought to be Telham, I suppose,’ said Laura. ‘But let me – unless you want breakfast –?’

‘I breakfasted on board at eight.’

‘Then let me tell you all my news and give you all my views.’

‘By all means. The mattress on that bed perhaps will not need renewal or replacement so soon if you cease from bouncing up and down on it.’

‘Oh, sorry. Yes, well, as I was saying, we come now to the mysteries of (a) Peterhouse, who, so far as I am concerned, has adopted the pernicious characteristic of an unwanted sticking-plaster, and (b) that very odd woman, Mrs Angel. Somehow, you know, I don’t see her as a female Simon Legree.’

‘You have picked the wrong man with whom to compare her, but I came to the same conclusion. Nevertheless, as the gentleman said in
St Joan
, there is
something
about her.’

‘That’s where my knowledge comes in,’ said Laura. ‘She’s hand-in-glove, thick as thieves – any figure of speech you like – with Ruiz’s son.’

‘Possibly she is his mother.’

‘His mother?’

‘It would explain a good deal.’

‘Good Lord! It would explain another bit of gossip I’ve picked up. She told me that Peterhouse the Barnacle blackmails Ruiz into keeping him here free of charge.’

‘Indeed? No wonder he is hail-fellow-well-met with the other guests, if that is true.’

‘He’s a queer kettle of fish altogether, if you ask
me
. You know he’s supposed to be an orchid-gatherer?’

‘We exploded that myth. There are no orchids worth a collector’s trouble to be found on Hombres Muertos.’

‘No? Well, his speciality seems to be Alpine plants – the poisonous varieties. He was telling me all about them. I was bored to death, except that poison is always interesting.’

‘No doubt, and I am obliged to you for the information. Is there anything more that you have learned?’

‘I don’t think so. Pilar seems a bit of a liar, but I expect you know all that.’

‘Pilar’s life lacks excitement, therefore she likes to live in her imagination. Nevertheless, you see, her tales, lurid and, I think, untrue (I doubt very much whether Mr Peterhouse is blackmailing Señor Ruiz, for example), have helped us, although not, of course, considerably. We must get Mr Peterhouse to show us his poisonous plants.’

‘Do you really think he grows them?’

‘I have every expectation of it, child. It may, or may not, throw some light on his mentality if he does. Time, as often, will show. What of friend Clun?’

‘I don’t know. He seems all right. I haven’t seen much of the Drashleighs, but I rather like the kid Clement.’

‘Yes. Clement is a host in himself. Did you visit the Cave of Dead Men?’

‘I did. You know, our murderer is a moron. Who on earth would put a twenty-fourth dead man at a table where every visitor knew there ought to be twenty-three?’

‘It was not quite like that, you know, Laura. The boy saw twenty-two orthodox dead men in their robes and masks, the murdered man disguised as the twenty-third of them. If he saw the real twenty-third king he saw him as a mummy, lying in a corner of the cave. As we know, this mummy was taken away and tossed down the mountain-side among the rocks where the brigands found him.’

‘Oh, yes, the brigands! They’re terribly funny! I just
mentioned
I had to feed my baby and they almost burst into tears and begged me to go and look after him.’

‘When was this?’

‘When they stopped me, after I’d been to see the troglodytes.’ She recounted the abortive adventure.

‘Tomorrow’, said Dame Beatrice, forbearing to comment on the sentimental conduct of the bandits, ‘Mr Peterhouse shall take me to the Botanic Gardens.’

The botanic gardens were outside the city boundaries of Reales but less than half an hour’s journey by car from the hotel. They were not particularly impressive, being small, by European standards. They exhibited a fair number of the indigenous plants of the island, but, otherwise, were uninteresting. Laura, acting on instructions, did not make one of the party. Peterhouse, enjoying his role, gave brief but adequate descriptive information as he and Dame Beatrice made the rounds, but he seemed uneasy with her, smiled often and nervously, rather in the style of Ben Gunn, and showed obvious relief when they were once more outside the gates.

‘And now?’ he asked, when they had gained the road which led in a northerly direction to the mountains but southwards back to Reales and the hotel.

‘Much more anon,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘What do you know about knives?’

‘Knives?’ He looked startled. ‘Oh, you mean Emden. Of course, that’s all over now. The island police have written it down to the bandits’ account, which means that the incident’s closed – or so says Pilar’s Pepe. Personally, one can’t help feeling rather glad it’s all over. It made things very uncomfortable at the hotel. It was something outside the routine, and I love routine. I live by it. Besides, we’re not used to the murder of English tourists on Hombres Muertos. It ruins the local colour.’

‘The local colour’, said Dame Beatrice, gazing up at the sky and out to the distant sea, ‘appears to be mostly blue, and blue is the colour which is said to attract the most ghosts.’

‘Ghosts?’

‘Come, come, Mr Peterhouse! You are not going to tell me you do not believe in ghosts?’

‘Haven’t given them a thought since my boyhood.’

‘You do not believe that the spirits of Karl Emden and of Ian Lockerby haunt this beautiful island?’

‘Ian Lockerby? Mrs Lockerby’s husband? Why, what happened to him?’

‘He was knifed in the back, Mr Peterhouse.’

‘Good heavens! Like Emden?’

‘Exactly like Emden, except for the kind of knife. Yet, even at that, a sort of likeness arises.’

‘Oh, really? How do you mean?’

‘Ian Lockerby was killed with a knife whose owner cannot be identified.’

‘Where was he killed? He was not killed here.’

‘In a back street in London.’

‘And you think whoever did it came here afterwards?’

‘I do. And don’t ask me what I have to go on, because I should find that far too fatiguing to explain.’

‘And you’re still determined to get Emden’s murderer?’

‘If, by that, you mean hand his murderer over to the law, the answer is that my chief consideration is one of identification.’

‘And you think’, said Peterhouse eagerly, ‘that you’re on the way to identifying him?’

‘I have hopes. And now, I must thank you for your kindness in escorting me to the Botanical Gardens and in giving me the benefit of your vast knowledge of the plants indigenous to this island. Will you do me a further favour?’

‘Surely, dear lady, if it lies within my power.’

‘Will you take me to see the Rusty-leaved Alpine rose?’

Peterhouse, whose face had become solemn, brightened immediately.

‘Certainly, certainly. Whenever you like. I shall be delighted to show you my whole collection. When would you care to come? It means a boat-trip, I’m afraid. My little collection takes root on the tiny island of Tiene.’

‘Tiene? A curious name. I have never heard of it.’

‘That is quite likely. The island is mine by purchase, and I named it myself. It is little more than a rock, but the soil is not volcanic, as it is here. I made my earliest experiments on Monte Voy, to the north-east of Reales, but met with so little success that I prospected, discovered Tiene, made an offer for it, purchased it, and – hey presto! Success!’

‘Most commendable, I am sure. Could we go there this afternoon?’

‘This afternoon? Admirable, if only the tide is right.’

‘I have an idea that the tide
will
be right.’

Peterhouse gave her a very searching look.

‘It is interesting that you should say that,’ he remarked. ‘I, too, have that very same feeling. The name of my island is Tiene. You won’t forget, will you?’

‘
Tiene
. He holds. Holds what, Mr Peterhouse? What dark and dangerous secret do you hide there?’

‘Well, not bodies that have been knifed in the back,’ replied Peterhouse. He spoke gaily. They got into the car which Dame Beatrice had hired, and beside which they had stood and talked after leaving the Gardens, and in a very short time were sharing a table for a rather late lunch at the Sombrero, where Señor Ruiz, as a signal honour, waited upon them himself.

They rested for half an hour after lunch, and met on the terrace at five. The boat, a small motor-launch hired from the harbour, took them round the south-east coast of the island and out to a speck on the horizon. This speck soon turned into a large rock with a tiny strip of greyish beach towards which the launch leapt like a beast that espies its prey. The boatman brought his little craft round with skill, and backed gently in. He and Peterhouse gallantly chaired Dame Beatrice ashore.

To the astonishment of the latter, a couple of donkeys, in charge of a small boy, were waiting at the top of the beach to convey them into the mountains.

‘This’, said Dame Beatrice, contemplating the animals
and
their guardian, ‘is luxury indeed. I fully expected that we should go mountaineering in the Swiss manner, roped together and carrying the alpenstocks which I felt certain you would have hidden in a cave among the rocks. But we are not, it seems, to beat a banner with a strange device, and I cannot say I am sorry.’

The sun streamed down on the little grey beach and the sand was hot beneath their feet. Above their heads towered a mighty cliff broken only by a defile up which, it appeared, the donkeys were prepared to climb. The travellers mounted their steeds, the boy clucked and walloped, the boatman returned to his launch, and the donkeys, after a preliminary pause for reflection, began to move onwards and upwards. Dame Beatrice turned her head.

‘We are marooned,’ she said. The launch was being shoved off-shore by the boy and the boatman, and soon they heard the chugging of the engine.

‘Oh, they’ll be back when we need them,’ said Peterhouse easily. ‘The boy lives opposite. His brother brings him and the donkeys in an old fishing-boat. Then my boatman takes the child back in the launch, which then plies for hire until it returns for me here. It meant quite a bit of organization to begin with, but it works very nicely now.’

‘I really must congratulate you. How high do we climb to see your plants?’

‘We find several specimens at three thousand five hundred feet.’

‘Really? That does not seem very high for Alpine flowers, but I should scarcely have thought this island rose to more than three thousand feet, in any case.’

‘You can’t tell from the beach. This mountain is very deceptive. There are peaks beyond peaks, you know. The path narrows here. I had better lead, I think.’

The defile had shrunk to a width of less than a couple of yards, and it wound and turned on itself and presented what seemed to be the blind end of a
cul-de-sac
time and
again
, only to writhe a way through. The donkeys plodded on as though they were accustomed to the route. The donkey-boy had provided the riders with sticks, but there seemed no need to use them.

As they made their way upward it became clear that the island was considerably larger than Peterhouse had indidicated. The defile ended at last in an upland valley, heather-covered, not unlike a Scottish deer-forest. At the head of the valley were some scattered pines from which, disturbed by the travellers, flew several large blue chaffinches.

‘I wonder whether Mrs Angel has seen and photographed such birds?’ Dame Beatrice remarked. She had drawn level with Peterhouse, for they had left the defile and their donkeys were able to amble side by side.

‘She got the Houbara bustard, really a North African native, and her black oyster-catcher,’ Peterhouse observed. ‘I have never invited her to Tiene, so she may or may not have seen the chaffinches. She wants the sand-grouse and the Canary chat, but she’ll have to go to Fuenteventura to see them, or so she says. They don’t breed here or on Hombres Muertos.’

‘You seem to record her conversations with remarkable faithfulness. Are you, too, interested in birds?’

‘Not particularly. You know, talking of Hombres Muertos, why not Mujeres Muertas? What is your opinion on that? If ever the sexes are to achieve completely equal treatment, I don’t see why we men should die while the women live.’

‘An interesting thought.’

The donkeys picked their way among the pines and came out on to an uneven, squarish plateau. Peterhouse growled at his donkey, in Spanish, to stop. He slid off, stiffly and awkwardly.

‘We are here,’ he said abruptly. ‘Let me help you to dismount.’

Dame Beatrice did not wait for any help. Her donkey had stopped dead as soon as its companion had done so,
and
she was standing beside him before Peterhouse had finished speaking.

‘I don’t see your garden,’ she remarked.

‘I want you to see my cave first. I discovered it all by myself. You will be the first of my friends to see it, but, I hope, by no means the last.’ He gave a sharp jerk to his donkey’s bridle and led the way across the plateau. Dame Beatrice followed behind, her donkey delicately walking in its companion’s wake. Her left hand held the bridle. Her right was in the pocket of her skirt.