Death in the Andamans (29 page)

19

‘Here's the fatal volume,' said Charles. ‘Now let's see if our newest clue fits in anywhere. The disappearing letter. What do you suppose was in it?'

‘We can always ask,' said Valerie. ‘In fact I'll go and hunt up Dad now and find out.'

‘You do that, honey. It may turn out to be just what we need. And believe me, one really solid lead would be like manna in the wilderness at this moment!' Valerie rose, but was forestalled by one of the house-servants who arrived on the verandah with a message from her stepfather.

Sir Lionel, it transpired, had gone down to see Mr Dobbie — presumably about the burial of both Ferrers Shilto and Dan Harcourt — and had accepted an invitation to stay on for supper: he might not be back until late and Valerie was not to stay up for him.

‘Well, that's that,' said Charles. ‘Never mind, we can always ask him tomorrow. And I don't suppose that it will turn out to be of any interest, anyway.'

Nick said shortly: ‘There I don't agree. If Leonard's guess is right, and someone has swiped it, then it means it contained something of more than ordinary interest. And if it really is missing, it's an even bet that we know who's got it. John Shilto!'

‘Why?' demanded Valerie. ‘I don't see why it
has
to be him?'

‘Use your wits, Val! That “next-of-kin” business. We've already decided that John Shilto changed his mind about coming on to the Harriet picnic because of something that he saw or heard while he was at Ferrers's house, and we all heard him offer to buy back the plantation.'

‘We also,' added Charles, ‘heard Ferrers turn down that offer extremely nastily. So nastily, in fact, that John's chances of inheriting anything in the sweet-by-and-by could have been profitably swapped for a peanut. But as Ferrers died intestate, John presumably inherits anything there is going. Which could turn out to be plenty. For all we know, copra is due for a rise. Or perhaps Ferrers had found a method of draining his plantation, or fertilizing it, that was making the nuts grow like mad. He may have written to your father to say that he was expecting a bumper crop and wanted extra facilities for exporting the stuff. Something on those lines.'

‘Y–es,' said Valerie doubtfully. ‘But I still don't see why John Shilto would want to steal the letter. After all, since it had already been read he couldn't hush it up, so why else would he want it?'

‘Curiosity?' suggested Nick. ‘Or possibly a guilty conscience? He may have wanted to check up on what his cousin had been writing to the Commissioner about, so that he'd know how much of the gaff had been blown.'

Charles said impatiently: ‘This is all guess-work. I suggest we try something a bit more practical for a change, and I have a proposal to make.' He rubbed his chin and frowned thoughtfully in the direction of the darkened drawing-room, and after a moment stood up, and crossing swiftly and silently to the door that led into it, peered inside. He stood there for several minutes, listening and letting his gaze wander about the room, before returning to his chair.

‘What's the matter, darling?' inquired Valerie with an uncertain laugh. ‘Making sure that there are no murderers under the sofas?'

Charles did not echo her bantering tone. ‘I thought I heard something move in the drawing-room,' he said slowly. ‘Probably only bats or a lizard — or Kioh. But it seems to me that we've all been talking too much and too audibly. So if you will kindly cluster round a bit closer, I propose to lower the old voice a bit. Now listen: what I have to propose is this. You girls, by fair means or foul, must lure the Shilto out here and keep him entertained, while Nick and I go through his room with a magnifying glass and a small-tooth comb.'

Valerie shot out a hand and caught at his sleeve. ‘Don't be absurd, Charles! What on earth do you expect to find there?'

‘Nothing,' admitted Charles frankly. ‘But hope, we are told, springs eternal in the human breast, and you never know what might not turn up. With luck, Ferrers's letter!'

There was a brief silence, and then Valerie rose briskly to her feet: ‘All right. But while you're doing it, Copper can try her hand at vamping John Shilto and I'll see if I can't get something out of Ruby.'

Charles said: ‘That's my little Mata Hari! And look, Copper, for God's sake keep the Shilto in play for at least half an hour. Or twenty minutes will do, but that's the absolute deadline. We'll wait in Nick's room until you've got the man away, and then sneak in. And for all our sakes don't let him come nipping back to relieve nature or anything, or we're sunk.'

‘I'll do my best,' said Copper doubtfully, ‘but I can't exactly detain him by force, you know.'

‘Nonsense! Sit on his head. Or throw a faint — or take him off to see your etchings. Use your imagination, girl!'

‘You two,' put in Valerie firmly, ‘will have to do the job as quickly as you possibly can. And if the worst comes to the worst and he does come back while you're still there, you'll both have to hop out by one of the windows.'

‘Thanks,' said Nick grimly. ‘A mere drop of twenty feet or so — to say nothing of the possibility of landing on the head of some luckless sentry.'

Valerie laughed. ‘It's all right, Nick,' she consoled. ‘I wasn't suggesting that you should choose suicide as an alternative to capture. There's a ledge about two feet wide that runs round the outside of the turret room and almost joins up with the balcony outside your room. You can easily get back to your own balcony from it. At least, it's easy by day, though it'll probably be a bit messy by night.'

‘I dislike the word “messy”,' said Nick. ‘It suggests a spade-and-bucket case:
“The driver took a little knife and scraped him off the wheel.”
Only in our case it would be the path, or possibly a sentry.'

‘It's all right, my timorous mariner,' Charles reassured him: ‘She doesn't mean that kind of mess. It's your gent's natty suiting that is doomed to suffer mortal injury. They stain all the outside woodwork here with some red muck that “comes off on you something lovely”. Which means that if Copper fails to freeze on to old Shilto for the requisite time limit, we shall either have to go home in Val's pyjamas, or remain in hiding until she can get our suits back from the cleaners. However, these are the grim risks that stare every amateur detective nastily in the eye, so let us give them the cut direct.
“Lay on, Macduff!” — “Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more!” — “Excelsior!”'

‘For Pete's sake stop being so bloody
Boy's Own!
' snapped Nick, exasperated.

*   *   *

It was some fifteen minutes later that Valerie joined Mr Shilto and Copper in the verandah, and a single look was enough to inform Copper that one assignment at least had proved unsuccessful.

Valerie shook her head in answer to an interrogatory eyebrow, and for the next quarter of an hour assisted in plying Mr Shilto with drink and conversation. Which proved to be a trying ordeal in more ways than one, since Mr Shilto, like Ronnie Purvis, had also been bolstering up his spirits with strong drink. Though unlike Mr Purvis, it had had the effect of making him disconcertingly boisterous, for he talked loudly and disjointedly, punctuating his remarks with frequent bursts of foolish laughter. The minutes seemed to crawl like hours, but at long last Charles and Nick reappeared and Mr Shilto finished the remainder of the brandy and removed himself.

‘Any luck?' demanded Valerie in a feverish whisper. ‘I had none with Ruby. At the first hint of the subject she closed up like a hysterical clam and almost threw me out of the room. What happened to you two? You were away for
hours.
We thought you were
never
coming!'

‘It took a bit of time,' said Charles, ‘because we made a pretty thorough search. But it was worth it. Look!' He pulled a piece of crumpled paper out of his pocket and handed it over.

Valerie straightened out its creases, and her eyes widened in a face that had become suddenly colourless. For it was an envelope, addressed in cheap violet ink and in a curious spidery handwriting that she had occasionally seen before, to
____

Sir Lionel Masson, C.S.I., C.I.E., C.B.E.,

    
Government House,

        
Ross.

The writing was Ferrers Shilto's, but the envelope was empty.

20

‘— and when they were found,' concluded that indefatigable pessimist, Miss Amabel Withers, ‘they were all dead.'

‘We have all heard that story at least six times, Amabel!' snapped Valerie with unwonted irritation, ‘and if you could possibly keep off the more morbid stories in the Islands' repertoire for this one evening, I'm sure we should all be profoundly grateful.'

Amabel's snub nose glowed pinkly — a distressing habit it acquired when its owner was in any way upset — and her somewhat cowlike eyes filled with tears. Valerie was smitten with sudden compunction: ‘I'm sorry, Amabel. I'm a pig. Pay no attention to my beastly snappishness. But if we
could
keep off stories of Battle, Murder and Sudden Death just for tonight, it would be a help.'

Once more they were all seated about the long dining-room table, and Amabel had come over from the hospital for dinner. She had reported that Rosamund Purvis, though by now completely recovered from the ‘nervous breakdown' brought on by the accident to the sailing party, had decided to remain at the hospital to keep Truda company. ‘You see,' explained Amabel with a characteristic lack of tact, ‘Truda couldn't come because she thinks that the hospital cook, who is ill, may be going to die, and Rosamund wouldn't come because she said she'd rather be in hospital with six dead cooks than in a house with one live murderer.'

Her observation had been received in virulent silence, and Valerie, gallantly suppressing a strong impulse towards violence, had managed to turn the conversation to the non-arrival of the S.S.
Maharaja.
But with doubtful results.

‘I shouldn't wonder,' offered Amabel with a touch of animation, ‘if it hadn't been wrecked. I expect a storm like that could easily turn a ship right over.'

Comment being useless: ‘Valerie, my dear,' said the Commissioner, ‘I think we had better go in to dinner,' and they had finished their drinks hurriedly and trooped into the dining-room; a silent party temporarily united by a common desire to lay violent hands upon Miss Withers.

During the meal Amabel, who had drunk two cocktails of Charles's devising, with fatal results, had excelled herself. Possibly the unusual silence of the remainder of the house-party was partly responsible for this, since few of them felt equal to manufacturing social conversation, and there was not one among them who did not have his or her own disturbed and secret thoughts. Wherefore Amabel droned on unchecked, and but for the subject-matter of her conversation they might all have welcomed her excessive volubility. But struck by a melancholy association of ideas, stories of murder, mystery, and death by drowning tripped off her tongue in unceasing and morbid procession.

Valerie had endured all these with exemplary patience. But a repetition of the story that Amabel had told on the ferry during the storm on Christmas Eve was too much for her, and had finally provoked her to acid comment. Her belated outburst effectively checked the flow of horrors for the remainder of the evening, but failed to dispel the gloom that their recital had cast over Amabel's fellow-diners, who with one consent hurried over the remainder of the meal and left the table before the arrival of the coffee and liqueurs.

Valerie and Copper left Miss Withers and the men to their own devices, and went off to see Mrs Stock, who had changed rooms with her husband and was now sitting up in bed in the small dressing-room, sipping Ovaltine, with the pink feathered wrap dragged carelessly about her shoulders.

She looked tired and hag-ridden and as though she had suddenly aged ten years, and Valerie noticed with a slight sensation of shock that for the first time since she had known her Mrs Stock had no make-up on her face. Without it, her skin showed coarse and colourless and marked with fine lines about the eyes and mouth, and the fact that she was a middle-aged woman was suddenly and startlingly apparent.

Her hair tangled about her head in disordered black wisps which served to accentuate the pallor of her face, and though she greeted the two girls apathetically, Copper saw that her eyes, like Ronnie's and her husband's and Mr Shilto's, were never still, but darted incessant, uneasy glances about the small room. ‘I found I couldn't sleep in the larger one,' she said in reply to Valerie's inquiry about her change of room: ‘There were so many bats, and one can't keep them out. And anyway, I am never really comfortable at night in a big room. I think a small bedroom is so much more – more cosy, don't you?'

Valerie, remembering Ruby's own house and her conversion of its largest room — originally the living-room — into her bedroom, had some difficulty in concealing her surprise at this statement. ‘Er — yes,' she agreed hastily: ‘I suppose so. I hadn't really thought much about it. I suppose they build the rooms large for coolness. I do hope you won't find this one stuffy? There's no wind just now. Would you like me to open one of the windows for you?'

‘No!'
said Mrs Stock with unexpected violence, clutching at Valerie's arm as though to restrain her if necessary by force:
‘No!'
She subsided suddenly at the sight of the girls' astonished faces, and forced a smile. ‘I – I'll open it myself later when I put the lights out. I do so dislike all those beetles and moths and insects flying in.'

Valerie, refraining from the obvious comment that the mosquito net would effectively prevent them from becoming a nuisance, stayed talking for a few more minutes, and then said goodnight.