Appleby on Ararat (19 page)

Diana’s eyes had rounded and grown far-away. Perhaps, by some association of ideas, she was contemplating once more a mental picture of Mr Bradman at the crease. “And to think, John, that you had all that in your head when we met Dunchue drunk in the jungle!”

“Drunk?” A fleeting smile lit the now curiously settled anxiety on Appleby’s face. “My second discovery lay just there. He wasn’t drunk. You remember our luncheon at the bungalow? He gave us each a drink – and at that drink I can now remember looking in a puzzled way. But at the time I didn’t see the point until slightly later. It was after we had lunched and I was sitting looking out at a table on the veranda. A highly-polished table.
And it was spotless
. Yet Dunchue, when absolutely tight to all appearance, had set me down a brimming drink on it. You see? It was a bad slip and his drunkenness was revealed as a pretence. I was confirmed in the knowledge that the bungalow was a fake. But how much of a fake?”

“Ah,” said Poulish, “that’s often the problem. Believe me.”

“They had killed Unumunu simply to prevent his discovering something. Could it be simply what they then so quickly admitted to Diana and me: that their find was not a matter of Pacific archaeology proper, but of Viking explorers? I thought not. It was more likely that their fear was that they would be discovered as concerned with something which could not rightly be classed as scientific archaeology at all. And this was the conclusion to which our friend Heaven came too. There was a point at which, in an irresponsible mood which I now bitterly regret, I almost gave myself away. But Heaven gave himself away deliberately, and as a preliminary, as he thought, to coming to terms with them. In that he sadly failed to take their measure. Their reply was to fudge up another raid by those savages they had first invented to cover Unumunu’s death. The Heavens were eliminated and the whole hotel given good reason to want to quit. If possible, they want that quitting to be so arranged that there will be no enquiries either by government or connections of the Heavens or any one else. I think that is why we have not been wiped out: a wipe-out would bring exhaustive investigations once Heaven’s yacht, say, came in. They hope to eliminate the hotel now with virtually no questions asked. It is very difficult. They have to think it out. And in that lies our chance.”

Mudge had been clearing dishes from the table. He paused in this. “It does suggest, Mr Appleby, that a man may smile and smile and be a villain. It’s wonderful, in a manner of speaking, how life has the trick of vindicating art.” He was silent for a moment on this meditative note. “A very pleasant spoken person that Mr Hailstone seemed to me to be. And I almost hesitate, sir, to believe in such desperate villainy. And I’m sure Sir Mervyn agrees with me.”

“I do agree with Mudge.” Poulish placidly sipped whisky. “The psychology of those people doesn’t seem to me to be coming out right. A wipe-out? No, I don’t somehow recognise it among my acquaintance. Which has been pretty extensive in the last few years, I may say.”

Appleby nodded gravely. “The picture is still very imperfect. And I must say that I am afraid our danger is increasing. I believe that as things stand at the moment Dunchue and Hailstone will only have to reflect a little to see an extreme danger in letting us get away at all. Trained minds – and one that of a professional detective officer” – he shook his head – “it makes me dislike the sound of their trader which they say may be in soon.” He looked round their anxious and still slightly bewildered faces. “However, I have a last trick to play, and I play it this afternoon.”

There was a silence, and then Hoppo spoke. “The cannibals: you are quite sure–?”

“Quite. Our friends, plus their own native boys, plus one or two people whom you can guess at nearer home.”

“In fact” – Hoppo’s voice betrayed an uncertain movement between relief and regret – “we are not up against savages at all; only some sort of white criminals?”

“That, more or less.” Appleby paused, serious and absorbed. “Not criminals, though.”

They stared at him. “But,” said Diana, “Ponto–”

“Mrs Heaven–” said Miss Curricle.

Appleby shook his head. “It’s a very difficult question. You see–”

He was interrupted by a startling scream from close at hand. It was followed by another and another, so that people hurried from the hotel to look. And suddenly from the undergrowth before them broke the running figure of Miss Busst, her arms waving in imbecile terror before her. “The savages,” she screamed; “the savages have killed another man!”

The body was naked – that of a middle-aged man, clean shaven, with two great gashes as of sabre-cuts across the cheeks. Of the little group which had set out to find it at Miss Busst’s directions Jenner was the first to speak. “An absolute stranger. Well, I’ll be damned!”

Appleby looked at Jenner and wondered. Then he looked at the mysterious body as it lay in a little clearing. And finally he looked at the sky. In a way the sky was more interesting than anything else; with dead bodies he was familiar enough, but he had never seen such a sky as this. It was the colour of old bronze, in places smeared with dull green like a patina; it was as if the elements were constructing some disproportionate mausoleum for this, the island’s latest enigma. But it was, too, as if with this vast canopy nature’s interest in the mystery had ceased; the birds offered no threnody; there was no whispered question in the grasses. Everything had gone profoundly still. The little creeping wind had faded. One could feel that even the tiniest living things had stowed themselves away, and that the dead man had been lying in a loneliness unusual even here.

Glover was looking with an old eastern campaigner’s dispassionateness at the wounds. “Wanton,” he said. “Nasty ritual trick, no doubt.” He seemed suddenly puzzled. “Look here, Appleby, if what you say is true–”

“Yes,” said Appleby loudly, “if I’m right we’re far from out of the wood yet.” He turned to Jenner. “I was telling the colonel I associate this with the new moon. Time of some big feast, probably, and they need victims. I suspect the brutes mean to come back for this chap tonight.” During these remarks he shot Glover a look that was far from flattering. “Question is, how did the fellow – a white man – get here? It’s impossible he can have been living on the island. Can you think of any explanation, Mr Jenner?”

Jenner shook a head in which the eyes, oddly, stayed steadily on Appleby. “I don’t know that I can.”

“Well, I have an idea.” Appleby paused a little as if he wished no one to miss a display of professional acuteness. “Rather a horrid one, too. I think they probably captured him some time back and have been carrying him round. Till the ritual moment came, you know. Poor devil.” He stared rather callously – a shade owlishly even – at the corpse. “Best shove him under. At it all day.” He laughed sharply. “And then look out for ourselves. Strengthen those barricades.” He paced restlessly up and down. “I wish that damned trader would come. We have Dian—women to think of, after all.” He looked up suddenly, suspiciously, at the little circle of men. “That’s right, isn’t it?” Again he strode up and down, a man not in any too good command of his nerves. “Hailstone and Dunchue are determined to stay. The more fools they. Unless” – the words seemed to slip out – “they feel on better terms with the brutes than I do.” He broke off abruptly, angrily. “Glover, Hoppo – for God’s sake go and get a couple of spades. And never mind if you forget that prayer-book. Lord knows what sort of a storm we’re in for with a sky like that above us.” He looked down at the body, and his laugh was now both sharp and coarse. “Didn’t even leave the poor bastard his pants.”

The stranger was being buried – not thanks to any assistance of Appleby’s, for Appleby had disappeared. He might have been found in the semi-darkness of the late Mr Heaven’s closed boat house, anxiously watching a tinkering Mudge.

“I thought they might,” he said. “They’re thorough. And I’m trying to be thorough too… Is it bad?”

“I think not, Mr Appleby. They’ve thought it best not to do anything too obvious, it seems. Covert guile, sir. Did you ever read Dr Erasmus Darwin’s
Economy of Vegetation
?”

Appleby stared. “What the devil has that to do with it?”

Mudge looked surprised. “Nothing at all, to be sure, sir. Just a passing of the time.”

“Oh, I see. I beg your pardon. No, I’m afraid I never have.”

“I think I could recommend
The Loves of the Plants
. Not reflective, exactly; but very pretty in its way. It’s the magneto, I’m glad to say, sir. I have a spare one boxed up there in the corner. If they’d removed the plugs, now, it would be a different thing. And instructive, Mr Appleby. It takes a full mind to write poetry on botanical subjects. Would you just lift those boards at your feet, now, and see what you can see? You’ll find they’re loose, though they don’t look it.”

Appleby did as he was told. “I see a couple of tins of petrol.”

“Well now, that’s something.” In the half-light Mudge grinned solemnly. “You never know. That’s what I said to myself when I stowed it away. Only I wish now, sir, I’d stowed away a little more of it.”

“But surely you have plenty elsewhere?”

“Yes, Mr Appleby. Enough for quite a voyage. But covert guile again, sir. The drums seem tight enough. But just flash your torch on the floor about them and see what you can see.”

Again Appleby obeyed. “A few white grains of something.”

“Of course there are critics, Mr Appleby, who would maintain that Dr Darwin’s verse has a saccharine quality, so to speak. Sugary, sir. By the way, just put one of those grains on your tongue.” Mudge grinned again. “Yes, Mr Appleby: sugar. A little sugar goes a long way with petrol. Covert guile, sir.”

The sky had darkened further when Appleby left the boat house; to look up was to feel oneself within some vast bubble of congealed blood. On the ocean no flurry of wind, no trace even of swell was perceptible – but mysteriously nevertheless the breakers still crashed on the reef and tossed their white manes high in the pervading breathlessness, like asphyxiated creatures rearing desperately to gulp at air. The island waited. It was curious that nature should be concerned to build up such portentous threats instead of getting on with whatever release of forces was proposed. Appleby went to find Diana. “Will you come?” he asked gravely.

She looked at him, surprised. “To the bungalow? But of course.”

“I wouldn’t ask you – only you’re a necessary part of the plan.”

“Gallant to the last. For it is about the last, isn’t it?”

“There is a good deal of risk blowing about.”

Diana swung herself from the rail on which she was perched. “Then come on. It’s nice to be necessary – a change from being desired.” She threw mockery into the word, whistled a sickly tune, broke off. “No more gramophone; just bugles and trumpets. A minstrel boy to the war is gone.” She stretched herself, looked down at her flexed knees, at the clear line of her shins. “Only I should hate to perish in Miss Busst’s second best shorts.”

They set off past the swimming pool. The water was black like velvet and with a glow as of submarine fire in the shadows. It might have been Grendel’s mere or the haunt of some Viking dragon. A big rubber animal, half deflated, spun slowly at its centre. On the steps were cigarette ends, a bitten biscuit, a highly coloured cherry impaled on a little stick. The place was heavy with the prophecy of a Hermitage Hotel to let.

“Jenner’s disappeared – and another man who’s a bit of a pal of his.” Diana spoke low in the clamant hush about them.

Appleby nodded. “They’re concentrating their forces – just in case.”

“John, what was that about Jenner kicking George? You know, you’ve made it a sort of favourite theme.”

“Jenner didn’t kick George. But Hailstone told me – somewhat gratuitously – that he did. It’s my business to spot lies – to feel the tiny psychological discontinuities that mark a dive from the truth – and I spotted that one. But the spotting of it was almost my undoing. I immediately asked Hailstone whether Jenner had arrived with the second lot of guests. You see, I was excited and a bit careless. The issues hadn’t come home to me then and I just showed off – a thing a policeman shouldn’t do.”

“Showed off?”

“My question revealed far too good an understanding of the affair. You must realise that the arrival of Heaven and his hotel was a bit of a blow to our friends. They wanted the island to themselves – as they do now. And if they couldn’t get that then they wanted to keep the balance of physical power on their own side. So they brought up reinforcements – quite cunningly as guests to the hotel. The reinforcements were Jenner and a couple of others whom I think I’ve got taped now. It was as an unnecessary move to dissimulate this connection that Hailstone suggested a particular unfriendliness in Jenner; he had kicked George. I ought to have kept my instinctive sense of the lie to myself. But instead I almost betrayed it by asking the logical question. Had this Jenner come with the second lot of guests? It gave Hailstone a jolt at the time, and I enjoyed that. But I think – unless his bluff is deeper than I imagine – that he has since dismissed it as coincidence. Not that it’s of great importance any longer. Because what you and I are up to now is sailing in and saying we
know
– just you and me.”

Diana stared at him. “It does seem as if you were right in saying that there was risk blowing about. Not that I’m not all for it. Only I think it a little unfair that I don’t know.”

“My dear, it’s not that that’s unfair. It’s what I’m going to say about you.”

“What are you going to say?”

“Truth and lies, and both equally unfair. You will be shocked and angry.” Appleby was speaking very soberly. “But don’t forget to back me up like hell.”

“I’ll back you up.”

He glanced at her curiously. She was looking puzzled and still a little aggrieved. Her eyes had brightened. Perhaps she was breathing a shade fast. “You feel all right about this?” he asked softly.

“I feel extra,” she said.