Complete works of peter.., p.419
Complete Works of Peter Cheyney. Illustrated, page 419
He got into the boat. Isles followed him.
Guelvada said: "My good Mellin, take us out to this cay where Jacques landed. Show me where his boat was sunk."
Mellin said: "O.K. There's going to be a lot of trouble gettin' that boat up."
Guelvada said: "Maybe it will be worth your while to get it up, even if it costs a little money and some trouble. Has Jacques any relatives?"
Mellin shook his head. "I wouldn't know."
Guelvada said: "Maybe one day the boat will be yours. Who knows?"
Mellin said nothing. He started the engine. The boat began to move away from the jetty.
Forty minutes afterwards Mellin cut the engine. Now it was daylight. There was a hint of sunlight on the water. Guelvada, leaning over the side of the boat, could see, twenty feet below, Jacques's launch as she lay on her side on the sandy bottom. A fish swam out of the forrard cabin as he looked.
"Life," said Guelvada, "is amusing. One day a launch is a fishing boat—the next day a home for a very pleasant fish." He sat there admiring the iridescent colours of the fish as it swam gracefully away. Then he said: "Get in as near as you can. I'm going ashore."
Mellin said: "I can't take her any farther. I'm afraid you will have to get your feet wet."
"What can be nicer?" said Guelvada. "Stay here. It will be pleasant in the sea." He said to Isles: "Do you like swimming?"
Isles nodded.
"I suggest," said Guelvada, "we try it." He began to undress.
Ten minutes afterwards Guelvada and Isles came out of the water; walked up the sandy, sloping beach. Thirty yards from the sea the cay was a mass of thick, tropical undergrowth and trees. Guelvada began to walk up and down the edge of it. Eventually, he stopped.
He said: "As you see, my friend, here is a path. Let us follow it and, who knows? And I hope there are no snakes out this morning." He began to walk along the pathway, Isles following silently behind him.
They walked for a long while. The path twisted tortuously through the thick undergrowth. Then, suddenly, they came to a clearing. In the middle of the clearing was a shack—a well-built shack. Outside it were two or three packing-cases. A thin wisp of smoke emerged from the chimney.
Isles said: "It might not be so good if someone's inside—someone who doesn't like us, I mean. If I go into a scrap I like to have some clothes on."
Guelvada shrugged. "I don't think you need worry, my friend. In any event, it is as easy to fight without clothes as with them."
He walked across the clearing; opened the door of the shack; went inside. Isles, looking over his shoulder, stopped dead at the picture before him. The shack was divided into two rooms. They stood on the threshold of what had apparently been the living-room. There were shelves filled with tinned foods; an open fireplace in which some embers still glowed.
There was a table in the middle of the room and across it lay the body of Jacques. He was slumped forward, half-sitting in a chair, his head and shoulders on the table, his left hand hanging grotesquely by his side. On the floor beneath the nerveless fingers was a dead, half-smoked cigarette. Jacques was not a pretty-sight. He had been shot through the left eye at close range. It was as well that the good side of his face lay uppermost.
Guelvada sat down on a wooden chair. Isles thought he looked even more extraordinary without clothes than with them. Stripped, Guelvada, who was inclined to look plump when he was dressed, had not a particle of fat on him. He was all hard muscle and sinew. His skin, white as a woman's, glowed with health, and when he moved Isles could see the muscles ripple under his skin.
Guelvada said: "So you see, my friend, this was the end of Jacques. I knew it."
Isles said: "Not a good end."
"Consider to yourself," said Guelvada. "This man was a fool. He thought that the people who employed him would look after him, threatened as he was with arrest. So he came back to them for help. What a fool," he repeated. "Did he think that they would let him live knowing what he knew?"
He walked across the room, past the table; pushed open the door of the second room. It was a bedroom, roughly but comfortably furnished. Guelvada pointed to the corner. A wireless transmission set lay on the floor.
"It is quite simple," said Guelvada. "One man lived here. This was the person from whom Jacques received his instructions. An excellent hiding place. From here he could report to his principals on the mainland. He could know what was happening on Dark Bahama through Jacques. With Jacques dead, his murderer makes a getaway. I wonder where he's gone. Maybe I can guess."
Isles said: "There must have been another boat."
"Of course," said Guelvada. "Of course there was another boat." He went back into the living-room. He regarded what remained of Mervyn Jacques.
He said quietly: "You will now have a long time to consider, my friend Jacques, how particularly stupid you were." He turned to Isles. "Let us go. There is nothing to do here. I prefer the sunshine outside to this. He went out of the shack.
It was twelve o'clock. Guelvada finished his second cup of coffee. He got up; walked to the window; looked out across the sunlit sea. Then he went into the bedroom. When he returned, Isles saw that he held in his hands the package.
Guelvada said: "My friend, this is the cause of all the trouble. These documents!" He held up the package. "For these, men have lived and worked and died. Sacrificed for these things have been young Steyning's life, his sister's health, Gelert, and our friend Mr. Jacques, who lies so uncomfortably across a table somewhere out there." He looked at his strap-watch. "The afternoon plane goes at two-thirty. You will be on that plane. Return to your hotel; pack your things; eat some lunch. You will be in Miami soon after three o'clock. Take these documents; give them to Mrs. Lyon. Tell her to keep them in safety until she receives an instruction as to their disposal. I shall stay here."
Isles asked: "Will you be coming over to Miami?"
Guelvada nodded. "In two or three days' time. I have one or two matters to clear up here. I must attend to the disposal of our friend Jacques. I must see the Commissioner. But I shall be with you... perhaps to-morrow, perhaps the next day. Au revoir, my friend. And good luck to you." He threw the package on the table. Isles picked it up.
He said: "All right. I shall be on the two-thirty plane."
Guelvada said archly: "It will be very nice to see Mrs. Lyon again, don't you think? I shall think of you to-night. I expect you will be dining with her in that charming dining-room of hers with french windows looking out on to the lawn."
Guelvada yawned artistically. "Consider what a time you can have on the airplane. Your trip takes just over half an hour—long enough for you to plan your attack on the delightful and charming Thelma. Consider your position. You arrive at her apartment a hero—or almost a hero. You have the documents and her job has been successfully completed for her. No longer need she worry about the possible criticism of her employer. She will be happy. More, she should be well disposed to you."
"I hope you're right." Isles smiled. "I think I'd like it a lot if I felt that she was well disposed to me."
Guelvada smiled mischievously. "Be wise. On your journey think out every honeyed phrase possible. Refurbish your technique of love-making. Be ferocious and interesting, subtle and alarming in your approach." He sighed. "I wish I were you, my friend." He sighed again. "You should be delightfully happy."
Isles grinned. "Why not?"
Guelvada said: "Precisely! And in the meantime you will take good care of that package. You wouldn't lose it, would you?"
Isles said: "No. That I promise you. Well, I'll be seeing you, Ernie."
"You may rely on that," said Guelvada.
Isles went away.
Guelvada stood by the table until he heard the front door close behind Isles. Then he went to the sideboard and mixed himself a drink. He came back to the table, sat down, put his feet on the table and gave himself up to thought.
He thought he liked Isles. The Englishman was an admirable character. Even if he was young in the mind he was still an admirable character and eventually life and this and that would give him added mental years. Guelvada visualised Isles on the airplane, working out his plan of attack on Thelma, polishing the phrases with which he would make his approach.
Such nonsense... Guelvada thought. The trouble with Anglo-Saxons was that they tried to play a woman in very much the same way as they played a game of golf—with a carefully thought-out technique for each shot—with force on the fairway and suavity on the putting green.
He got up; stretched. He felt a little tired. He yawned and went over to the telephone. He asked the operator for the Commissioner of Police.
Guelvada stood on the edge of the sun-baked airfield waiting for the two-thirty plane for Miami to leave. He stood in the shadow of a palm tree from which position of vantage he could see the Customs office, the waiting-room and the strip of shrub-bordered promenade where passengers, having cleared through the Customs office, stood about in small groups waiting for the plane.
At the end of the promenade, leaning against the white wall of the waiting-room, stood Isles. Guelvada thought that he looked immaculate in his tan gaberdine coat and slacks, with a cream silk shirt and a white-spotted brown tie. His document case was in his left hand; an iced rum drink, generously laid on by the Clipper services, in his right hand.
Guelvada sighed. He thought that Isles would be happy, or at least contented. His work, he thought, was over. The excitement of his short stay on Dark Bahama was already becoming a memory and he was looking forward to Miami and his next meeting with Thelma Lyon.
Guelvada grinned. He thought to himself, with a wry twist of the lips, that people—even quick-brained and clever people like Isles were, occasionally, very simple. When they wanted to reduce life to plain and simple terms—because that is how they wanted life at the moment—they invariably managed to talk or to think themselves into the appropriate frame of mind.
Guelvada shrugged. That, he supposed, was human nature. At the moment Isles believed that he had materially assisted in the work which had originally brought Thelma Lyon to Dark Bahama. He believed that she would be grateful. He already saw himself, in spite of his own natural cynicism, something of a hero in her eyes. He probably visualised the scene in her apartment after his arrival when she would endeavour to make him aware of her gratitude.
Guelvada grinned again. Very few people, he thought, were wise to Thelma Lyon. Very few people—except those who, like himself, had an acute perception of what went on inside the minds of some types of women—realised that she was brilliant and clever and tough and ruthless. Otherwise she would never have been able to stand the years with Quayle—the war years—when she, like Guelvada, had taken her life in her hands on half a dozen occasions merely in order to carry out a job for which, at the end, there would be little material gain, no bouquets and, if lucky, a mere commendation given almost grudgingly by Quayle.
Isles, said Guelvada to himself, had a great deal to learn, but if, in the meantime, he wished to enjoy a suggestion of a fool's paradise—well, why not?
The Clipper, her wings gleaming in the sun, taxied down the runway; turned in front of the airport buildings; stopped. The pilot, co-pilot and a slim dark-haired hostess, descended. The passengers began to go aboard. Isles, his document case under his arm, was the last passenger to mount the steps that led into the plane.
The pilot and co-pilot went aboard. The plane began to move down the runway; then, at the end, like a great silver bird, suddenly she was airborne; began to climb rapidly.
Guelvada turned away. He thought to himself: Well... good luck, Isles... my romantic friend.
He began to walk towards the spot where he had left his car.
He wondered if he would ever see Isles again.
It was three o'clock when he stopped the car outside the gates of the Police Barracks. He went in; crossed the sun-baked square; entered the building on the other side. He knocked at the door of the Commissioner's office; went inside.
Falstead, in a white uniform, a white topee on the back of his head, sat at the desk in the cool office.
He said: "Good afternoon, Guelvada. What's the newest excitement?"
Guelvada helped himself to a cigarette from the box on the desk. He said: "The excitement is coming to a close, I think, my dear Major. Isles has just left for Miami. He has flown into the blue. Goddam it... sometimes I wish I were Julian Isles. But only for a moment. By and large—and I don't mean maybe—I prefer to be Ernest Guelvada.
Falstead said: "Yes? Well... life must be anything but boring for you. Yours is a strange job." He paused for a moment; then: "I suppose you'll think I'm damned curious, but I'm wondering just how you got into it?"
Guelvada grinned. "I'll tell you. Once upon a time—believe it or not—I was what you call a very nice little boy. I lived in a small town in Belgium. A place called Ellezelles. Then the first war came. And the Germans. I was fourteen when they shot my father for killing a German who assaulted my mother. After that I wasn't quite so nice. I used to spend my time planning how to kill Germans and I became most proficient at it. I learned to throw a knife very adequately—I'm telling you! Then I contacted some British secret agents and began to supply them with information. It was easy. I could go anywhere and I could look very innocent. No one ever suspected me, and people—especially when they had drunk too much—were not afraid of talking in front of a boy. And so one thing led to another, and I progressed from one stage to another, until here I am to-day. Still doing the same things, being the same sort of person. Simple... isn't it?"
Falstead asked: "D'you like it?"
Guelvada smiled. "Why not? It's amusing. The time passes quickly. There isn't enough of it for one to spend too much time thinking about oneself. Also... there is a certain excitement. Besides which, it suits me, and," he added modestly, "I'm damned good at it... goddam it, I am a master of my profession!"
Falstead smiled. "I think you're an amusing person. An amusing person with one hell of a nerve.
Guelvada stubbed out his cigarette. "I have come to say au revoir," he said. "I am leaving on the nine o'clock plane to-night. I do not know how long I shall be in Miami or where I shall go when I leave there." He grinned. "Maybe I'll come back here. In the meantime there are one or two little points. The first one is Jacques. Jacques, our not-so-clever friend, is dead. His body is on the cay beyond Bear Island. He went there when he took a run-out on us yesterday. He went to see his boss; to tell him that you were going to get after Jacques on a murder charge. He thought his boss would help him."
Falstead said: "I see...."
"Jacques, of course, was a fool," Guelvada continued. "But he was very scared and he did what he thought best—at the moment. His boss helped him a lot. He shot him. An obvious course, because Jacques, in your hands, could have been very inconvenient. He could have talked quite a lot in an endeavour to save his skin—or his neck."
Falstead said: "All right. We'll clean that up. I'll send out to-morrow and pick up the body. We'll keep it as quiet as possible. I suppose you'd like that?"
"Candidly, my friend, I don't care," said Guelvada. "But there is one little thing which you must do for me. Here is a list. This afternoon, telephone through to Frim and read it to him. He will understand exactly what you mean."
Falstead took the half-sheet of paper. He read it. It said:
The Altermeyer Hotel Orchid Beach. Ferenzy's Bar. The Altermeyer Hotel.
"All right," said Falstead. "I'll get through immediately."
"Excellent," said Guelvada. "And perhaps you'll make a reservation for me on to-night's plane?"
Falstead nodded. "I'll do that."
Guelvada went to the door. "I have come to the conclusion that I am tired. I shall sleep... the sleep of the happy, contented and very just man. So long, Falstead. I'll be seeing you... maybe!"
He went out.
Falstead picked up the telephone.
He said to himself: "An amazin' feller! A damned amazin' feller!"
It was soon after four o'clock when Isles pressed the door-bell at the Lyon apartment. He waited with a pleasurable sense of anticipation. Outside, the afternoon sun was shining on the shrubs and flowers in the patio, but here it was cool.
The negro maid opened the door. She said: "Good afternoon, Mistah Isles. Ah'm glad to see you again."
Isles said: "I'm glad to be here again. Is Mrs. Lyon in?"
The maid shook her head. "She's been out since dis morning, Mistah Isles. She said she'd be back for dinner."
Isles felt disappointed. He had a sense of something like an anti-climax. He said: "I see...."
She said: "You sure do look tired, Mistah Isles."
"I am tired," said Isles. "I've been missing on my sleep lately. Mary Ann, is my room unlocked?"
"No, Mistah Isles. Ah got the key. Heah it is—all ready for you." She produced the key from a pocket in her apron.
Isles took it. "All right. I'm going to have a bath and get some sleep. If Mrs. Lyon comes in tell her I'll see her at half-past eight to-night."
She said: "Ah'll tell her."
Isles walked down the long corridor; opened the door of his bedroom; went in. He put the document case under the mattress of the bed; unpacked his grip; undressed; got into pyjamas; lay on the bed.
He was thinking about his meeting with Thelma; what he was going to do or say. He began to think about himself; that it was time he settled down to some regular profession—some routine of life—something in which there would be a future. He grinned wryly. He could not quite see that. All his life he had adventured and he supposed if you were built like that you went on being like it. He lay there, his hands behind his head, looking at the ceiling, thinking of the past, considering the present, wondering about the future. He went to sleep.
It was eight o'clock when he awoke. He got up; took a shower; dressed; walked down the corridor. The Lyon apartment door was open. Isles walked across the hall into the drawing-room.
