Death in the Andamans (30 page)

‘I wonder,' said Mrs Stock, ‘if you'd give Leonard a message from me? Would you mind telling him that as I'm feeling particularly tired, I'm going to try and get to sleep at once, and that as I don't want to be disturbed I have put his washing things on the chest of drawers in the next room. I'm sure that John Shilto won't mind letting him share his bathroom just for tonight.'

‘Of course. Are you quite sure there's nothing else we can do for you?'

‘No. No, nothing at all, thank you. Good-night. And please close that door as you go out.'

Valerie and Copper withdrew thankfully, shutting the door of the dressing-room behind them, and they were half-way across the big bedroom — now Leonard's — when a sound stopped them, and they looked back at the closed door of the room they had just left. From the other side of it came the unmistakable sound of a key being turned in the lock, followed by the rasp of bolts pressed home into their sockets. Mrs Stock, it appeared, was barricading herself in for the night.

‘I wonder what she's up to inside there?' said Valerie thoughtfully. ‘I wonder if
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' She frowned speculatively at the teak panels of the closed door, and then turned on her heel again: ‘Come on, Coppy. Let's go and rescue Amabel before there's another murder. I should hate to see Charles arrested for homicide, however justifiable.'

But when they rejoined the remainder of the party in the drawing-room, Miss Withers was no longer talking. She was sitting huddled up in a corner of the sofa and complained of a headache. Amabel was unused to alcohol, even in its mildest form, and those pre-dinner cocktails were having after-effects. The Commissioner had vanished, and Charles, Nick, and Mr Shilto, grouped about the empty fireplace, were discussing fishing with a noticeable lack of animation, while Leonard Stock, who was occupying a lonely seat by the bookcase, was yawning over a tattered copy of
Country Life,
and struggling to keep his eyes open.

Valerie paused beside him and delivered his wife's message, which was received without comment: evidently Mr Stock was only too used to being inconvenienced by his Ruby.

On a sudden impulse, which she was afterwards unable to account for, she lowered her voice, and with her eyes on the group by the fireplace added the brief information that they had discovered the envelope of the missing letter in John Shilto's room: ‘So you see, Leonard, you were right about it having been taken from the office. But I don't expect Father ever thought of it when he said there was nothing missing.'

Looking down, she surprised an expression of what she could only describe as utter shock in Leonard's pale eyes. It was gone again in a moment, but the little man was obviously shaken:
‘John Shilto!'
he said in an uncertain whisper. ‘It isn't possible! I thought
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' He pulled himself up short. ‘I mean, what possible reason could he have had for wanting that letter? There must be some mistake. Yes of course that's it, a mistake…'

He babbled on for a full minute, but Valerie received the impression that he was talking at random to cover up some deeper sense of shock or surprise than was conveyed by his words, and she was suddenly angry with herself for having spoken. She cut short his low-voiced incoherencies, and excusing herself, crossed to the far side of the room where Copper was idly turning the pages of a photograph album.

‘I rather think I've made an ass of myself,' she confided in a rueful undertone. ‘I lost my head and told Leonard that we'd found the envelope of that letter in John Shilto's room, and it seemed to shake him to the core. He's quite obviously got a theory of his own about all this, and it doesn't include John Shilto. Or it didn't, up to five minutes ago! You don't think he
really
knows something, do you? Ought we to ask him, because…'

‘No,
don't!
' interrupted Copper quickly. ‘I mean — he – he could only be guessing, and we're all doing that. Don't let's
____
' She broke off at the approach of Amabel, and said with some relief: ‘Hullo, Amabel, come and play mah-jong, or Slam or something.'

‘I dode thig I will, thag you. I thig I'b going to ged one of my colds,' confided Amabel in dismal tones. ‘They always start with a headache. Id cabe on suddenly with the puddig.'

Valerie, lending a suitably sympathetic ear, suppressed a giggle with difficulty and said: ‘Let's leave the men to talk fish, and see if we can find some aspirin for your head. And when you've taken it, Charles can see you home. You'll be much better off in bed if you're sickening for a cold. Coming with us, Copper?' The three girls withdrew unobtrusively and went off in search of restoratives for Amabel.

‘Dad's got something much better than aspirin,' said Valerie. ‘It's a sort of powder stuff in a capsule, and it acts twice as quickly. I'm not sure I couldn't do with one myself, to steady the nerves a bit! We'll go and hunt through his medicine cupboard.' She pushed open the door into Sir Lionel's bedroom, switched on the light, and followed by Amabel, vanished through a doorway to the right which led into her father's dressing-room. Copper could hear the chink of bottles as they hunted through the medicine cupboard, but instead of following them she paused instead by the open french windows that gave on to a small creeper-covered balcony overlooking the garden.

Below her in the misty darkness one of the guard lights that remained on all night gave out a dim radiance that touched the creepers with faint gold, illuminating a cataract of scented blossoms that foamed across the wooden balustrade and fell in tangled profusion to the ground. And struck by a sudden thought, Copper walked out on to the wet balcony and peered downwards. But by that faint light it was impossible to tell if the thick masses of creeper had been torn or misplaced.

A breath of wind stirred the mists into ghostly eddies about the old house, and she shivered and turned back again to the comfort of the lighted room.

Sir Lionel's bedroom was large and bare and furnished only with a handful of necessities: a cupboard, a narrow bed with a small table beside it, a larger writing-table and a single chair. There were no pictures or ornaments, but a recent photograph of Valerie shared a double leather frame on the writing-table with an older and more faded one of a woman who must have been her mother, for the resemblance between the two faces was remarkable. Copper reached out instinctively, and picking up the frame, examined them with interest. And she was replacing it when something slipped from between the photograph and the back of the frame, and fell upon the table. A sheet of paper covered in thin, spidery writing in cheap, violet-coloured ink. Ferrers's letter …

Copper stared at it with a feeling as of cold fingers closing about her heart. It was torn in one place, and it had been badly crumpled, but here and there a few words stood out staringly.

… should be most grateful if you could give me some idea as to what the law is on such matters. The lagoon is undoubtedly my property, and therefore anything that it contains is presumably mine, but … would prefer to have some official ruling as to where I stand before getting in touch with dealers … acquired an aqualung in Calcutta, and the results have been surprising … As you will realize, I cannot risk … legal angle must be assured …

Pearls
____
!
So that was it! Not the plantation — the lagoon. He had stumbled upon a pearl bed, and
____
Why, of course! She herself had asked a question about pearl oysters just before Sir Lionel had spoken of the letter from Ferrers. That should have told her! It had been the mention of oysters that had reminded him of Ferrers; not Amabel's reference to a fisherman who had been drowned. And she herself had put an end to the conversation because she had not wanted to be reminded of that sodden, shrivelled little corpse that the sea had flung ashore.

Pearls … John Shilto must have known. That smell that Charles had complained of at the back of Ferrers's bungalow: oysters of course. Oysters rotting in the sun …

A voice from the adjoining dressing-room said encouragingly: ‘That's right. Swallow it whole. Now in a few minutes you'll feel a lot better.' Copper returned to the present with a start, and thrusting the letter hurriedly back into its hiding-place, turned quickly to face Valerie and Amabel as they re-entered the bedroom.

Returning with them to the drawing-room it was a shock to discover that the fishing story with which Charles had been regaling the company when they left was still in progress, for she felt as though they had been away an hour. But a glance at the clock revealed that they had been absent for barely eight minutes.

Leonard Stock had given up the unequal struggle and departed to bed, and Charles evidently took their reappearance as a signal for breaking up the party, for abandoning his salmon in midstream he jumped up and offered his escort to Amabel as the lesser of two evils — the greater being the continued company of Mr John Shilto.

‘I dode thig you need bother,' said Amabel flatly. ‘I'b going back in a rigshaw, and one of the orderlies will come along, adyway.'

‘Then just let's make sure you get off,' urged Charles, a thought tactlessly. ‘Hullo, Copper old girl. You look as if you'd seen a ghost. What's up?'

‘Nothing,' said Copper stiffly. ‘I'm – I'm a little tired.' And then somehow Nick was standing between her and the inquiring glances that Charles's comment had provoked. ‘Same here,' he said lightly. ‘Bed for everyone, I think.'

The house-party trooped yawning into the hall, and Nick put a cup into Copper's cold hand and closed her nerveless fingers about it, holding them there with a strong warm clasp. ‘It's only black coffee,' he said in an undertone, ‘but it's hot. Be a good child and get it down. It'll pull you together.'

Copper essayed a shadow of a smile and drank obediently, her teeth chattering against the rim of the cup.

The others were saying their goodbyes at the head of the stairs by the time she had finished, and Nick took the empty cup from her hand and followed her into the hall. John Shilto departed unsteadily for his room and Charles and Valerie went down into the front hall to see Amabel into her rickshaw. But when Copper would have followed them, Nick put a restraining hand on her arm. He leant against the banisters, his shoulder to the carved stairhead and his eyes on the group in the hall below, and spoke without turning his head: ‘What's happened, Copper?'

‘I found the letter,' said Copper in a strained whisper.

‘The devil you have! Where?'

‘In Sir Lionel's room. It was hidden behind a photograph in a leather frame. I – I picked the frame up, and the letter fell out.'

Nick continued to lounge against the banister rail and to watch the departure of Amabel with apparent interest, but his voice compensated for his lack of gesture: ‘Take a pull on yourself, darling. It's pretty obvious that whoever took it wouldn't want it found on or near him, but at the same time didn't want it destroyed. And the Commissioner's room would be about the best hiding-place in the house, for no one would think of searching for it there — least of all Sir Lionel! — and when it's wanted again whoever put it there has only to wait until Sir Lionel is safe in his office, and sneak in and collect it.'

‘I suppose so,' said Copper in a steadier voice. ‘I don't really know why finding it should have scared me so much. It's – it's all this secrecy, I suppose. Everyone having something to hide.'

‘Even I,' agreed Nick ironically. ‘Tough luck, Coppy! I wonder what dark secret young Amabel is concealing behind that guiltless countenance? And if it comes to that, what are you?'

Copper was saved the necessity of answering by the return of Valerie and Charles.

‘
Dear
Amabel!' said Charles, mounting the stairs. ‘How I love that girl! Her forebears must have driven a flourishing trade in the undertaking business, and I imagine that Burke and Hare figure pretty prominently in the Withers family tree.' He draped himself limply about the stairhead and added: ‘You don't think that we could have been on the wrong track over this murderer business, do you? I mean after this evening's performance I wouldn't put it past Amabel to have pulled off the job herself for the sole purpose of adding another snappy anecdote to her collection of Morgue Memories.'

Nick was not amused. He said tersely: ‘Has she gone? Good. Then if the coast is clear, let's get back to the drawing-room for a bit. This spot is a damn sight too public and Copper has got something to tell us.'

They returned to the empty drawing-room where Charles helped himself to a generous nightcap and Copper related her discovery of the letter. And its contents.

‘Pearls!'
said Valerie breathlessly. ‘Gosh!'

‘Gosh is right,' agreed Nick. ‘Pearls. Or in other words, dollars and cents and the pound sterling. Some people might even consider them worth murdering for.'

Charles said grimly: ‘Some person quite obviously has!' He finished his drink and put down the empty glass with a thump. ‘Well, it's a comfort to have something solid to go on at last, after an entire afternoon devoted to floundering around in a sea of woolly conjecture. That ring theory of Copper's about everyone intending to take a crack at Romeo Purvis and copping old Ferrers by mistake, has been sticking in my gullet. As a motive, it appeared to my limited brain pure dishwash. But here at last we have a good, solid motive for any number of murders. Offered a sufficient quantity of gleaming globules as an inducement, I might very well try my hand at a little light murdering myself.'

He turned about and indicated Valerie with a wave of his hand: ‘Just cast your eye over there. The small whatnot which, if you look closely, you will observe pinned to my loved one's bosom, was reluctantly donated by myself to mark her last birthday, and set me back a matter of forty-five quid. And what does this bauble consist of? Three — count 'em — three undersized lemon pips which the jeweller who stung me with them insisted were pearls of genuine and not Japanese manufacture, mounted in roughly ten bob's worth of gold. Therefore, by a simple process of calculation — and deducting fifteen quid as an absolute maximum for mounting and making — those three miserable blobs of tallow are worth just about ten pounds apiece, and are barely visible at a distance of two yards. It therefore stands to reason that a pint-size mug of passably decent pips would probably net something in the neighbourhood of fifteen to twenty thousand pounds. Am I right?'