“If that harmless old duffer is Professor Witherspoon,” I interrupted heavily, “then I’m the Queen of the May.”
For almost a minute there was only the far-off murmur of the surf, the whisper of the night wind in the trees.
“I can’t stand much more of this,” she said at last, wearily. “You said yourself you’ve seen him on television and-”
“And a very reasonable facsimile he is, too,” I agreed. “His name may even be Witherspoon but he’s certainly no professor of archaeology. He’s the only person I’ve ever met who knows less about archaeology than I do. Believe me, that’s a feat.”
“But he knows so much about it-”
“He knows nothing about it. He’s boned up on a couple of books on archaeology and Polynesia and never got quarter of the way through either. He didn’t get far enough to find out that there are neither vipers nor malaria in those parts, both of which he claims to exist. That’s why he objected to your having his books. You might find out more than he knows. It wouldn’t take long. He talks about recovering pottery and wooden implements from basalt-the lava would have crushed the one and incinerated the other. He talks about dating wooden relics by experience and knowledge and any schoolboy in physics will tell you that it can be done with a high degree of accuracy by measuring the extent of decay of radioactive carbon in those relics. He gave me to understand that those relics were the deepest ever found, at 120 feet, and I don’t suppose there are more than ten million people who know that a ten million year old skeleton was dug out from the Tuscany hills about three years ago at a depth of 600 feet-in a coal-mine. As for the idea of using high explosive in archaeology instead of prying away gently with pick and shovel-well, don’t mention it around the British Museum. You’ll have the old boys keeling over like ninepins.”
“But-but all those relics and curios they have around-”
“They may be genuine. Professor Witherspoon may have made a genuine strike, then the idea occurred to the Navy that here would be the perfect set-up for secrecy. They could have all access to the island forbidden for perfectly legitimate reasons and that would give them the ideal cover-up, nothing to excite the suspicions of countries who would be very excited indeed if they knew what the Navy was doing. Whatever that is. The strike may be finished long ago and Witherspoon kept under wraps with someone very like him to put up a front for accidental visitors. Or those relics may be fakes. Maybe there never was an archaeological find here. Maybe it’s a brilliant idea dreamed up by the Navy. Again they would require Witherspoon’s cooperation, but not necessarily himself, which accounts for the bogus prof. Maybe the story was fed to the newspapers and magazines. Maybe some newspaper and magazine proprietors were approached by the government and persuaded to help out in the fraud. It’s been done before.”
“But there were also American papers, American magazines.”
“Maybe it’s an Anglo-American project.”
“I still don’t understand why they should try to cripple you,” she said doubtfully. “But maybe one or either of your suggestions goes some way towards an answer.”
“Maybe. I really don’t know. But I’ll have the answer tonight. I’ll find it inside that mine.”
“Are you-are you really crazy?” she said quietly. “You’re not fit to go anywhere.”
“It’s only a short walk. I’ll manage. There’s nothing wrong with my legs.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind.”
“Please, Johnny.”
“No.”
She spread out her hands. “I’m of no use to you at all?”
“Don’t be silly. We’ve got to have someone to hold the fort, to see that no one comes snooping into our house to find two dummies. So long as they can hear even one person breathing and see another form beside him, they’ll be happy. I’m going back for a couple of hours’ sleep. Why don’t you go and whoop it up with the old Professor? He can’t keep his eyes off you and you may find out a great deal more in that way than I will in mine.”
“I’m not quite sure that I understand what you mean.”
“The old Mata-Hari act,” I said impatiently. “Whisper sweet nothings in his silver beard. You’ll have him ga-ga in no time. Who knows what tender secrets he might not whisper in return?”
“You think so?”
“Sure, why not. He’s at the dangerous stage as far as women are concerned. Somewhere between eighteen and eighty.”
“He might start getting ideas.”
“Well, let him. What does it matter? Just so long as you get some information out of him. Duty before pleasure, you know.”
“I see,” she said softly. She rose to her feet and stretched out her hand. “Come on. Up.”
I got to my feet. A couple of seconds later I was sitting on the sand again. It hadn’t been so much the unexpectedness of the openhanded blow across the face as the sheer weight of it. I was still sitting there, feeling for the dislocation and marvelling at the weird antics of the female members of the race, when she scrambled over the high bank at the top of the beach and disappeared.
My jaw seemed all right. It hurt, but it was still a jaw. I got to my feet, swung the crutches under my arms and started for the head of the beach. It was pretty dark now and I could have made it three times as fast without the crutches but I wouldn’t have put it past the old boy to have night-glasses on me.
The bank at the top was only three feet high, but it was still too high for me. I finally solved it by sitting on the edge and pushing myself up with my crutches, but when I got to my feet, swung round and made to take off, the crutches broke through the soft soil and I fell backwards over on to the sand.
It knocked the breath out of me but it wasn’t much of a fall as falls go, not enough to make me swear out loud, just enough to make me swear softly. I was trying to get enough breath to swear some more When I heard the quick light sound of approaching feet and someone slid over the edge of the bank. A glimpse of white, a whiff of Night of Mystery, she’d come back to finish me off. I braced my jaw again, then unbraced it. She was bent low down, peering at me, in no position at all to haul off at me again.
“I-I saw you fall.” Her voice was husky. “Are you badly hurt?”
“I’m in agony. Hey, careful of my sore arm.”
But she wasn’t being careful. She was kissing me. She gave her kisses like she gave her slaps, without any holding back that I could notice. She .wasn’t crying, but her cheek was wet with tears. After a minute, maybe two, she murmured: “I’m so ashamed. I’m so sorry.”
“So am I,” I said. “I’m sorry, too.” I’d no idea what either of us was talking about, but it didn’t seem to matter very much at the moment. By and by she rose and helped me over the edge of the bank and I tip-tapped my way back to the house, her arm in mine. We passed by the professor’s bungalow on the way, but I didn’t make any further suggestions about her going in to see him.
* * *
It was just after ten o’clock when I slid out under a raised corner of the seawardfacing side-screen. I could still feel her kisses, but I could also feel my sore jaw, so I left in a pretty neutral frame of mind. As far as she was concerned, that is. As far as the others were concerned-the others being the professor and his men-I wasn’t feeling neutral at all- I carried the torch in one hand and the knife in the other, and this time I didn’t have any cloth wrapped round the knife- If there weren’t more lethal things than dogs on the island of Vardu, I sadly missed my bet.
The moon was lost behind heavy cloud, but I took no chances. It was almost a quarter of a mile to where the mine shaft was sunk into the side of the mountain but I covered nearly all of it on hands and knees and it didn’t do my sore arm any great deal of good. On the other hand, I got there safely.
I didn’t know if the professor would have any good reason to have a guard at the entrance to the mine or not. Again it Seemed like a good idea to err on the side of caution, so when I stood up slowly and stiffly in the black shadow of a rock where the moon wouldn’t get me when and if it broke through, I just stayed there. I stood there for fifteen minutes and all I could hear was the far-off murmur of the Pacific on the distant reef and the slow thudding of my own heart. Any unsuspecting guard who could keep as still as that for fifteen minutes was asleep. I wasn’t scared of men who were asleep. I went on into the mine.