“Good God, man, of course it’s Siran!” Farnholme pointed down at the priest. “We’re looking for a cold-blooded murderer, aren’t we? Who else, but Siran?”
Nicolson looked at ‘him. “And what else, Brigadier?”
“What do you mean, ‘what else ‘?”
“You know very well. I wouldn’t shed any more tears than you if we had to shoot him, but let’s have some little shred of evidence first.”
“What more evidence do you want? Ahmed was facing aft, wasn’t he? And he was stabbed in the back. So somebody in the front of the boat did it — and there were only three people farther for’ard than Ahmed. Siran and his two killers.”
“Our friend is overwrought.” It was Siran who spoke, his voice as smooth and expressionless as his face. “Too many days in an open boat in tropical seas can do terrible things to a man.”
Farnholme clenched his fists and started for’ard, but Nicolson and McKinnon caught him by the arms.
“Don’t be a fool,” Nicolson said roughly. “Violence won’t help matters, and we can’t have fighting in a small boat like this.” He relased his grip on Farnholme’s arm, and looked thoughtfully at the man in the bows. “You may be right, Brigadier. I did hear someone moving about the boat, up for’ard, last night, and I did hear something like a thud. Later on I heard a splash. But I checked where the priest had been sitting.”
“His bag is gone, Nicolson. I wonder if you can guess where?”
“I saw his bag,” Nicolson said quietly. “Canvas, and very light. It wouldn’t sink.”
“I’m afraid it would, sir.” McKinnon nodded towards the bows. “The grapnel’s gone.”
“Weighted to the bottom, eh, Bo’sun? That would sink it all right.”
“Well, there you are then,” Farnholme said impatiently. “They killed him, took his bag and flung it over the side. You looked both times you heard a noise and both times you saw Ahmed sitting up. Somebody must have been holding him up — probably by the handle of the knife stuck in his back. Whoever was holding him must have been sitting behind him — in the bows of the boat. And there were only these three damned murderers sitting there.” Farnholme was breathing heavily, his fists still white-knuckled, and his eyes not leaving Siran’s face.
“It sounds as if you were right,” Nicolson admitted. “How about the rest of it?”
“How about the rest of what?”
“You know quite well. They didn’t kill him just for the exercise. What was their reason?”
“How the devil should I know why they killed him?”
Nicolson sighed. “Look Brigadier, we’re not all morons. Of course you know. You suspected Siran immediately. You expected Ahmed’s bag to be missing. And Ahmed was your friend.”
Just for a moment something flickered far back in Farnholme’s eyes, a faint shadow of expression that seemed to be reflected in the sudden tense tightening of Siran’s mouth, almost as if the two men were exchanging a guarded look, maybe of understanding, maybe of anything. But the sun was not yet up, and Nicolson couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t imagining the exchange of glances, and, besides, any idea or suspicion of collusion between the two was preposterous. Give Farnholme a gun and Siran would be only a memory.
“I suppose you have a right to know.”, Farnholme appeared to be holding himself tightly under control but his mind was racing furiously, fabricating a story that would bear examination. “It won’t do any harm, not now, not any more.” He looked away from Siran and stared down at the dead man at his feet, and his expression and tone softened. “Ahmed was my friend, you say. He was, but a very new friend, and only then because he desperately needed a friend. His name is Jan Bekker, a countryman of Van Effen’s here. Lived in Borneo — Dutch Borneo — near Samarinda, for many years. Representative of a big Amsterdam firm and supervisor of a whole string of river rubber plantations. And a lot more besides.”
He paused, and Nicolson prompted him: “Meaning?”
“I’m not quite certain. He was some kind of agent for the Dutch Government. All I know is that some weeks ago he broke up and exposed a well-organised Japanese Fifth Column in Eastern Borneo. Dozens of them arrested and shot out of hand — and he also managed to get hold of their complete list of every Japanese agent and fifth-columnist in India, Burma, Malaya and the East Indies.
“He carried it in his bag, and it would have been worth a fortune to the allies. The Japs knew he had it, and they’ve put a fantastic price on his head — dead or alive — and offered a similar reward for the return or destruction of the lists. He told me all this himself. Somehow or other Siran knew of all this, and that’s what he’s been after. He’s earned his money, but I swear before God he’ll never live to collect.”
“And that’s why Bekker or whatever his name is was disguised?”
“It was my idea,” Farnholme said heavily. “I thought I was being very, very clever, Muslim priests are as good as any other priests in the world: a renegade, whisky-drinking priest is an object of contempt and everybody shuns him. I tried as best I could to be the kind of dissolute drinking companion a man like that would have. We weren’t clever enough. I don’t think we could have been anyway. The alarm call was out for Bekker the length and breadth of the Indies.”
“He was a very lucky man to have got even this far,” Nicolson acknowledged. “That’s why the Japs have been at such pains to get us?”
“Heavens above, man, surely it’s all obvious enough now!” Farnholme shook his head impatiently, then looked again at Siran: there was no anger in his eyes now, only cold, implacable purpose. “I’d sooner have a king cobra loose in this boat than that murderous swine there. I don’t want you to have any blood on your hands, Nicolson. Give me your gun.”
“How very convenient,” Siran murmured. Whatever he lacked, Nicolson thought, it wasn’t courage. “Congratulations, Farnholme. I salute you.”
Nicolson looked at him curiously, then at Farnholme. “What’s he talking about?”
“How the devil should I know,” Farnholme answered impatiently. “We’re wasting time, Nicolson. Give me that gun!”
“No.”
“For God’s sake, why not? Don’t be a fool, man. There’s not one of our lives worth a snuff of a candle as long as this man’s at large in the boat.”
“Very likely,” Nicolson agreed. “But suspicion, no matter how strong, is not proof. Even Siran is entitled to a trial.”
“In the name of heaven!” Farnholme was completely exasperated. “Don’t you know that there’s a time and place for these quaint old Anglo-Saxon notions about fair play and justice. This is neither the time nor the place. This is a matter of survival.”
Nicolson nodded. “I know it is. Siran wouldn’t recognise a cricket bat if he saw one. Get back in your seat, Brigadier, please. I’m not completely indifferent to the safety of the others in the boat. Cut one of the heaving lines in three, bo’sun, and make a job on these characters. It doesn’t matter if the knots are a bit tight.”
“Indeed?” Siran raised his eyebrows. “And what if we refuse to subject ourselves to this treatment?”
“Suit yourselves,” Nicolson said indifferently. “The brigadier can have the gun.”
McKinnon made a very thorough job of immobilising Siran and his two men, and took a great deal of grim satisfaction in hauling the ropes tight. By the time he was finished the three men were trussed hand and foot and quite unable to move: as a further precaution he had secured the three rope ends to the ring-bolt in the for’ard apron. Farnholme had made no further protest. It was noticeable, however, that when he resumed his seat on the benches beside Miss Plenderleith, he changed his position so that he was between her and the stern, and from there he could watch both her and the bows of the boat at the same time: his carbine was lying on the seat beside him.
His work done, McKinnon came aft to the sternsheets and sat down beside Nicolson. He brought out dipper and graduated cup, ready to serve out the morning ration of water, then turned suddenly to Nicolson. Half-a-dozen people in the boat were talking — the babble wouldn’t last long after the sun cleared the horizon — and his low pitched words could not have been heard two feet away.
“It’s a desperate long way to Darwin, sir,” he said obliquely.
Nicolson lifted his shoulders in a half-shrug and smiled: but his face was dark with worry. “You, too, Bo’sun? Maybe my judgment was wrong. I’m sure that Siran will never stand trial. But I can’t kill him, not yet.”