Run Afoul (35 page)

“One was Midshipman Fisher, with a message for you from Captain Wilkes. He wants to see you, the instant you're back.”

That suited Wiki, because he was very anxious to talk to Captain Wilkes himself. He said, “On the
Vincennes?
”

“No—on Enxados Island. He's staying there to keep an eye on the gravitational observations, until the end of the first watch.”

The watch didn't end until midnight, so Captain Wilkes would certainly still be there. Wiki looked around again, and said, “And the other caller?”

Midshipman Keith said importantly, “Sir Patrick Palgrave.”

“What!”

“He came in a
fallua.
”

Wiki's heart was thudding with alarm. “What did he want?”

“He didn't say. I told him that you would have to head off to Enxados Island as soon as you got back from the city, so wouldn't be available until the morning. However, he said it was very urgent and wouldn't take long, so I invited him to wait in the saloon. He went down, but after just a few moments he came back on deck, and said he had changed his mind, and would come and see you tomorrow. Then he went off in the
fallua.
”

Wiki, beset by a terrible sense of emergency, felt more anxious than ever to report to Captain Wilkes. When he asked for a boat to take him to Enxados Island, though, Constant Keith mumbled a bit, and then came out with it—the boat would have to come right back, as George had taken the other boat to the
Peacock,
and it was against orders to leave the brig with no boat at all.

Wiki understood. “I'll find my own way back,” he said. It wouldn't be a problem. If necessary, he could stay the night on the island or on the
Vincennes,
and signal for a boat in the morning.

Once, on the way across the stretch of water to the island, he thought he heard the splash of an oar, but when he looked over his shoulder he saw nothing unusual, just the lights of the city reflected in the quiet water. There were several boats moored by the stairs at the foot of the convent, but the only man there was a sentry, who challenged him in a jumpy sort of way. The encampment on the flat hillock was abandoned, as the men had all returned to the
Vincennes,
and there were very few lights in the convent windows. Next day, the
Porpoise
would be discharged to be smoked for rats, and her men would come to this camp, the marine told him. Meanwhile, however, the only activity was the round-the-clock monitoring of the scientific instruments.

Wiki headed to the convent, his steps crunching on gravel. To his surprise, there was no sentry in the portico. His footsteps echoed under the gateway roof, and then quietened as he walked into the central courtyard. Once he paused, because he heard a step on the gravel outside. Then he decided it must have been the sentry, returning from wherever he had been. The columns of the cloisters gleamed ghostlike in the light of the moon, their thrown shadows very black.

He headed for the gravitational chamber first, anticipating that Captain Wilkes would be there. Even before he arrived at the archway, Wiki could hear the ticking of the tall case clock, and the heavy, almost palpable swish of the big pendulum. There was no sound of voices, but he could see the glow of reflected light from the lanterns set in the walls.

He entered the chamber without calling out, as he didn't want to take the risk of disturbing Captain Wilkes's concentration. However, the precaution wasn't necessary, because the chamber seemed to be empty. Then, just as Wiki was about to turn back, to go up the winding stairs to Captain Wilkes's room, he glimpsed a black heap at the foot of the telescope stand.

He arrived beside it in a couple of quick strides, and hunkered down—to find a body. It was the young genius, Midshipman Fisher. Wiki saw blood leaking from the smashed head, and felt terrible sadness at the loss of that bright young mind. Then, with another sick lurch, he saw the
mere pounamu
lying on the stone flags beside the dead boy. So it had been stolen from the brig, he realized—by Sir Patrick. Had his father told him where it was stowed—or had the Englishman glimpsed it as he waited in the saloon?

Then he heard the man who had impersonated Sir Patrick Palgrave speak out from the flickering shadows at the far end of the room. He ordered, “Pick up the club, Wiki Coffin.”

Instead, Wiki stood up. His eyesight had adjusted. The scar-faced Englishman stood in front of the case clock, and behind the swinging pendulum. Wiki could also see the gun that he held aimed.

He took a breath to steady his voice, and then said calmly, “William Olliver, I understand—first mate of the ship
Pagoda.
”

“What a clever young savage you are!” the other mocked, but after a pause he confessed, “I'm curious to know how you deduced it.”

“As soon as I understood that you and Dr. Olliver were brothers—that you had the same grandfather—it was easy to guess that you were one of the crew of the wrecked ship. The crew list,” Wiki added, “was at the bethel.”

“Ah.” William Olliver was quiet a moment, and then burst out, “I should never have told those women about our crazy grandfather and his crackpot theory about the sun—but I tend to be loose-mouthed in the company of pretty females, my wife in particular. Winston told you the same yarn?” he asked.

“He did—but the moment I first saw you together, I should have realized that you and he were brothers.”

William Olliver let out a grunt of sour laughter. “Most people refused to believe that Winston and I were brothers even when they knew it for a fact! He was grotesquely fat; I was thin; he affected that great beard; I preferred to be clean shaven. Winston fancied he was the cleverer man, because he was a surgeon and I was a common seaman. The truth of the matter was that he was fat, lazy, selfish, and gluttonous, a slobbering lump. That's what killed him, you know—his greed.”

“I thought it was your cudgel that killed him.”

“Don't try to be clever—not when I'm holding the gun.” William Olliver wagged the pistol, and snapped again, “Pick up the club.”

“So you can shoot me dead by the corpse of poor young Fisher, and then claim I'd shamed one of the most honorable weapons of my people by using it to slaughter a defenseless boy?” Wiki took four angry steps from the telescope to the side wall, to distance himself from the treachery.

William Olliver exclaimed, “Get back where you were!” Then, more calmly, he pointed out, “It's easy enough to shoot you first, and then put the club in your hand.”

“It would, indeed, be easy—for the man that you've become. You know something?” Wiki asked, without moving.

The other paused, and then said unwillingly, “What?”

“I think that before you met Patrick Palgrave—before he came on board the
Pagoda
for the passage back to England—you had the makings of a fine man. You certainly have imagination—the stories you spun about Grimes had me completely fooled. You have the talent of a fine artist, too—the beautiful gardens you created are evidence of that.”

“Condescending compliments—from a half-breed cannibal! Who would ever have guessed the day when such a thing could happen?” William Olliver spat with vicious sarcasm.

“I'm quite serious—and I did not intend to be condescending,” Wiki told him quietly, then asked, “Is that how you struck up a friendship with the passenger on the
Pagoda?
By talking about plants and gardens—and learning a lot about his background at the same time? When did it occur to you to impersonate him?” he demanded. “When you found you were the only survivor of the wreck? Or when you realized that your face was so badly burned that you were no longer recognizable as William Olliver, first officer?”

“Does it matter?” Olliver's tone was distant.

“Not really,” said Wiki, and took a surreptitious pace. “What
did
matter was your brother Winston, who had to be kept quiet. You paid him?”

“I paid him well,” the other spat. “But the bastard was greedy.”

“And to teach him a lesson, you stopped the payments?”

Wiki glimpsed William Olliver's involuntary nod. “So that's why he was so anxious to join the expedition,” he meditated aloud. “Having a paid berth to Rio must have seemed like a dream come true.” And whatever money remained would have allowed him the luxury of carrying that butt of Madeira, he thought as he moved a few more stealthy inches along the wall. His right hand was in his pocket, gripping the ring that Josefa had given him.

“And you have to admit that your brother did you a significant favor,” he pointed out. “It was as big a shock for him to learn that Grimes had worked for Palgrave's father as it would have been for you, if you'd been there—and he did what he thought you would have done. That was the last thing Dr. Olliver said before he died, you know—after he had cried out your name, he whispered to me, ‘I killed for him!'”

William Olliver recoiled. “Winston thought he was so clever, but he couldn't have made a bigger mess if he'd tried! He was quite content for Festin to take the blame, but the maestro's revered around here!”

“So you persuaded Dr. Tweedie to confuse the issue by pretending the mortars had been mixed up?”

“His son had been in trouble and I'd fixed it with the judge, so he owed me a favor. He didn't know the details, of course, but I promised it wouldn't rebound on him.”

So Forsythe had been right, Wiki thought. When he had watched Dr. Tweedie make up the bismuth medicine, the apothecary had done everything just as usual. Just as the lieutenant had stated, he hadn't missed a thing. And Dr. Vieira de Castro? Obviously, he had been persuaded to let Tweedie off lightly, but Wiki didn't want to think about that, because he'd liked the coroner—who was a cousin of Josefa's family. Instead, he asked, “What about the Swedish analyst? Did you have a hold over him, as well?”

“Johan Ohlsson?” Olliver let out a laugh that sounded genuinely amused. “Utterly incorruptible! But, as it turned out, he really did believe that Grimes died of natural causes. That lung must have been in a shocking state.”

“You took quite a risk,” Wiki commented.

“As you should have understood by now, taking calculated risks is my specialty.”

That was indeed very true, Wiki mused. He said, “But when you covered up the murder, it meant that your brother had an even bigger hold over you. Were you trying to kill him, when you fired at the brig?”

“If you want the truth, you clever young savage, I was aiming at
you!
”

There was such cold venom in Olliver's voice that Wiki flinched. Then the imposter admitted, “But my brother would have been the next target—and I would have got you both, if that bloody awning hadn't fallen down.”

Would he? As he moved another stealthy pace, Wiki remembered how Palgrave had put on spectacles to see more clearly. “
He
was the one you killed on the trail,” he commented, and asked, “Did you take him by surprise—or did you go along the trail together?”

“What's the difference?” the other demanded. However, he answered the question, saying abruptly, “We kept company on the road—and it was his idea.”

“How stupid of your brother—when you're so good at playing polo.”

“Who the
hell
told you that I'm good at playing polo?”

“It's well known,” said Wiki quickly, to protect Josefa. “I imagine you kept pace with him until the path widened, and then swerved round, cantered away, and then came back and galloped past him, swinging the cudgel as if his head were a wooden ball—or did you make him run first, to make it more fun?”

“Do you really think I'm that cold-blooded?”

“I do think that's the kind of man you've become,” said Wiki very soberly. “After you had clubbed him you galloped off, and it was not until the rest of the party had gone past that you realized that he had struggled to his feet and blundered to the fazenda. So you joined us in a panic-stricken hurry—just in time to see my father arrested for the crime you'd committed. It could have been a disaster when your brother lasted long enough to cry out your name, so it was an enormous piece of luck for you that my father is another William. What was your original plan?” he queried, after moving another surreptitious pace. “To pretend to spy a runaway slave, go galloping off after him, and come back later to report that he'd eluded you? After all, you had taken great pains to establish those mythical cimarrons!”

“You think you know it all, don't you,” William Olliver spat.

“I think perhaps I do,” Wiki quietly agreed. “When you galloped out of the jungle and into the mountain pool, you were a magnificent sight—but I suppose you did it simply to clean both yourself and your horse. The blood must have splashed over the horse's withers and flanks as well as your boots and legs.”

He was almost within reach of the pendulum spike, but just as he was bracing himself he was distracted by a flurry of movement. Two rats squirted out of the hole in the wall beside the case clock, and scuttled along the skirting.

William Olliver saw the flicker of movement, too. He said, with sick disgust in his voice, “The place is alive with rats.”

Searching for food, because the provisions had been restowed on the
Vincennes,
Wiki thought. Revolted, he saw that the rats had been distracted by the smell of blood, and were heading for the midshipman's corpse.

William Olliver was watching, too—and, glancing back at Wiki, he realized at the same time how far he had moved. “Get back!” he exclaimed, and hissed, “And pick up that club.”

Instead, Wiki pitched Josefa's ring straight at the gleaming eyes. Next, in a fast burst of movement, he snatched the pendulum, spun it at Olliver's face, dived for the floor, and frantically rolled. A shot roared out from Olliver's gun, struck the pendulum bob, glanced off it, and crashed back and forth around the room. Then he heard William Olliver's terrified scream.