The old boy-with that beard and moustache. I couldn’t think of him as anything else-was a mind-reader.
“Sit down, sit down. Make yourselves comfortable. A drink? Yes, yes, of course, first of all a drink. You need it, you need it.” He picked up a little bell, rang it furiously as if he were trying to see how much punishment it could stand before it came apart in his hands, replaced it and looked at me. “Too early in the morning for whisky, eh?”
“Not this morning.”
“And you, young lady. Some brandy, perhaps? Eh? Brandy?”
“Thank you.” She let him have the smile she never bothered letting me have and I could just about see the old boy’s toes curling. “You are very kind.”
I was just coming to the resigned conclusion that his staccato and repetitive way of talking was habitual and was going to be a little wearing if we had to stay with him for any length of time-and I had the thought, even then, that the voice was vaguely familiar to me–when a rear door opened and a Chinese youth came in. He was very short, very thin, dressed in khaki drill, and the only use he had for his facial muscles was to keep his expressions buttoned up for he didn’t even bat an eyelid when he saw us.
“Ah, Tommy, there you are. We have guests, Tommy. Drinks. Brandy for the lady, a large whisky for the gentleman and-let me see now, yes, yes, perhaps I rather think I will-a small whisky for me. Then run a bath. For the lady.” I could get by with a shave. “Then breakfast. You haven’t breakfasted yet?”
I assured him we hadn’t.
“Excellent. Excellent!” He caught sight of the two men who had rescued us standing outside on the white shingles with the water drums, raised a bushy white eyebrow in my direction and said: “What’s in those?”
“Our clothes.”
“Indeed? Yes, yes, I see. Clothes.” Any opinion he held as to our eccentricities in the choice of suitcases he kept to himself. He went to the doorway. “Just leave them there, James. You’ve done a splendid job, both of you. Splendid. I’ll speak to you later.”
I watched the two men smile broadly, then turn away. I said: “They speak English?”
“Certainly. Of course they do.”
“They didn’t speak any to us.”
“Urn. They didn’t, eh?” He tugged his beard, Buffalo Bill to the life. “You speak any to them?”
I thought, then grinned: “No.”
“There you are, then. You might have been any of a score of nationalities.” He turned as the Chinese boy came in, took the drinks from the tray and handed them to us. “Your excellent health.”
I grunted something appropriate and as short as it could decently be and went for that drink like a thirst-stricken camel for the nearest oasis. I insulted a perfectly good Scotch by swallowing half of it at one gulp, but even so it tasted wonderful and I was about to start on the remainder when the old boy said: “Well, preliminaries over, decencies observed. Your story, sir. Let’s have it.”
It brought me up short and I looked at him cautiously. I could be wrong about him being a hoppity old fusspot. I was wrong. The bright blue eyes were shrewd, and what little of his face was available for expression seemed to indicate a certain carefulness, if not actual wariness. Being a little odd in your behaviour doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re a little odd in the head.
I gave it to him, short and straight. I said: “My wife and I were en route to Australia, by plane. During an overnight stop at Suva we were taken from our hotel room at three in the morning by a Captain Fleck and two Indians, forced to board his schooner and locked up. Last night we heard them planning to murder us, so we broke out from the hold where they’d put us-it was a bad night and they didn’t see us go-jumped over the side and after some time washed up on a coral reef. Your men found us there this morning.”
“God bless my soul! What an extraordinary tale. Extraordinary!” He kept on blessing himself and shaking his head for a bit, then looked up at me from under bushy white eyebrows. “If we could have it with a little more detail, perhaps?” So I gave it to him again, telling him everything that had happened since we had arrived in Suva. He peered at me through those tinted glasses all the time I was speaking and when I finished he sighed, did some more headshaking and said: “Incredible. The whole thing’s quite incredible!”
“Do you mean that literally?”
“What? What? That I don’t believe you? God bless-”
“This might convince you,” Marie interrupted. She slipped off her shoe and peeled back the plaster to show the two deep fang marks on her foot. “The rat caused that.”
“But I do believe it, young lady! It’s just that everything is so bizarre, so-so fantastic. Of course it’s true, how else would you be here? But-but why should this villainous fellow, this Captain Fleck kidnap you and talk of killing you? It all seems so purposeless, so mad.”
“I’ve no idea,” I said. “The only thing I can think of-and even that is ridiculous-is that I’m a scientist, a specialist in fuel technology and maybe someone wanted to extract some information from me. Why on earth they should want to do that I just can’t imagine. And how the skipper of an obscure schooner knew that we should be flying out to Australia via Fiji-well, it doesn’t make any kind of sense at all.”
“As you say, it makes no sense at all, Mr.-ah-Bless my soul, you must forgive me! I haven’t even asked your names yet!”
“Bentall. John Bentall. And this is my wife, Marie.” I smiled at him. “And you don’t need to tell me who you are. It’s just come back to me. Dr. Harold Witherspoon-Professor Witherspoon, I should say. The doyen of British archaeologists.”
“You know me then? You recognized me?” The old boy seemed quite bucked about it.
“Well, you do get a good deal of newspaper space,” I said tactfully. Professor Witherspoon’s love of the public limelight was a byword. “And I saw your series of lectures on television, about a year ago.”
He didn’t look so pleased any longer. He suddenly looked downright suspicious, and his eyes narrowed as he said: “You interested in archaeology, Mr. Bentall? Know anything about it, I mean?”
“I’m like a million others, professor. I know about this Egyptian tomb and this lad Tutenkhamon who was in it. But I couldn’t begin to spell his name, I doubt if I’m even pronouncing it properly.”
“So. Good. Forgive my asking, I’ll explain later. I am being most remiss, most remiss. This young lady here is far from well. Fortunately, I’m a bit of a doctor. Have to be, you know. Living your life at the back of beyond.” He bustled out of the room, returned with a medical case, took out a thermometer and asked Marie to put it in her mouth while he took her wrist.
I said: “I don’t want to appear ungrateful or unappreciative of your hospitality, Professor, but my business is rather urgent. How soon will we be able to leave here and get back to Suva?”
“Not long.” He shrugged. “There’s a ketch from Kandavu- that’s about a hundred miles or so north of here-calls in about every six weeks. It was last here, let me see-yes, about three weeks ago. So, another three weeks.”
That was handy. Three weeks. Not long, he said, but they probably had a different time scale on those islands and looking out over that shimmering lagoon with the coral reefs beyond I found it easy to understand why. But I didn’t think Colonel Raine would be so happy if I just sat back and admired the lagoon for three weeks, so I said: “Any planes ever pass this way?”
“No ships, no planes, nothing.” He shook his head and kept on shaking it as he examined the thermometer. “Bless my soul. A hundred and three and a pulse of 120. Dear, dear! You’re a sick young lady, Mrs. Bentall, probably taken it from London with you. Bath, bed and breakfast in that order.” He held up his hand as Marie murmured a token protest. “I insist. I insist. You can have Carstairs’ room. Red Carstairs, my assistant,” he explained. “In Suva at present, recuperating from malaria. Rife in those parts. Expect him back on the next ship. And you, Mr. Bentall-I expect you’d like a sleep, too.” He gave a deprecating little laugh. “I daresay you didn’t sleep too soundly out on that reef last night.”
“A clean-up, shave and a couple of hours on one of those very inviting chairs on your verandah will do me,” I said. “No planes either, eh? Any boats on the island I could hire?”