the adjoining territory of Port Antonio.
Durell was the young English manager of Trident Villas, a graduate of
London’s College of Hotel Management, with a series of letters after his
name indicating more knowledge and experience than his youthful
appearance would seem to support. But Durell was good; he knew it, the
Trident’s owners knew it. He never stopped looking for the
unexpected-that, along with routine smoothness, was the essence of
superior management.
He had found the unexpected now. And it troubled him.
It was a mathematical impossibility. Or, if not impossible, certainly
improbable in the extreme.
It simply did not make sense.
“Mr. Durell?”
He turned. His Jamaican secretary, her brown skin and features
bespeaking the age-old coalition of Africa and Empire, had walked out on
the deck with a message.
“Yes?”
“Lufthansa flight sixteen from Munich will be late getting into
Montego.”
“That’s the Keppler reservation, isn’t it?”
“Yes. They’ll miss the in-island connection.”
“They should have come into Kingston.”
“They didn’t,” said the girl, her voice carrying the same disapproval as
Durell’s statement, but not so sternly. “They obviously don’t wish to
spend the night in Montego; they had Lufthansa radio ahead. You’re to
get them a charter-”
“On three hours’ notice? Let the Germans do it! It’s their equipment
that’s late.”
“They tried. None available in Mo’Bay.”
“Of course, there isn’t…. I’ll ask Hanley. He’ll be back from
Kingston with the Warfields by five o’clock.”
“He may not wish to……
“He,will. We’re in a spot. I trust it’s not indicative of the week.”
“Why do you say that? What bothers you?”
Durell turned back to the railing overlooking the fields and cliffs of
coral. He lighted a cigarette, cupping the flame against the bursts of
warm breeze. “Several things. I’m not sure I can put my finger on them
all. One I do know.” He looked at the girl, but his eyes were
remembering. “A little over twelve months ago, the reservations for
this particular week began coming in. Eleven months ago they were
complete. All the villas were booked … for this particular week.”
“Trident’s popular. What is so unusual?”
“You don’t understand. Since eleven months ago, every one of those
reservations has stood firm. Not a single cancellation, or even a minor
change of date. Not even a day.”
“Less bother for you. I’d think you’d be pleased.”
“Don’t you see? It’s a mathematical imp-well, inconsistency, to say the
least. Twenty villas. Assuming couples, that is forty families,
really-mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins … For eleven months
nothing has happened to change anyone’s plans. None of the principals
died-and at our rates we don’t cater exclusively to the young. No
misfortunes of consequence, no simple business interferences, or measles
or mumps or weddings or funerals or lingering illness. Yet we’re not
the Queen’s coronation; we’re just a week-in-Jamaica.”
The girl laughed. “You’re playing with numbers, Mr. Durell. You’re put
out because your well-organized waiting list hasn’t been used.”
“And by the way, they’re all arriving,” continued the young manager, his
words coming faster. “This Keppler, he’s the only one with a problem,
and how does he solve it?
Having an aircraft radio ahead from somewhere over the Atlantic. Now,
you’ll grant that’s a bit much. The others?
No one asks for a car to meet them, no in-island confirmations required,
no concerns about luggage or distances. Or anything. They’ll just be
here.”
“Not the Warfields. Captain Hanley flew his plane to Kingston for the
Warfields.”
“But we didn’t know that. Hanley assumed that we did, but we didn’t.
The arrangements were made privately from London. He thought we’d given
them his name; we hadn’t. I hadn’t.”
“No one else would The girl stopped. “But everyone’s … from all
over.”
“Yes. Almost evenly divided. The States, England, France, Germany, and
… Haiti.”
“What’s your point?” asked the girl, seeing the concern on Durell’s
face.
“I have a strange feeling that all our guests for the week are
acquainted. But they don’t want us to know it.”
LONDON, ENGLAND
The tall, light-haired American in the unbuttoned Burberry trench coat
walked out the Strand entrance of the Savoy Hotel. He stopped for an
instant and looked up at the English sky between the buildings in the
court. It was a perfectly normal thing to do-to observe the sky, to
check the elements after emerging from shelter-but this man did not give
the normally cursory glance and form a judgment based primarily on the
chill factor.
He looked.
Any geologist who made his living developing geophysical surveys for
governments, companies, and foundations knew that the weather was
income; it connoted progress or delay.
Habit.
His clear gray eyes were deeply set beneath wide eyebrows, darker than
the light brown hair that fell with irritating regularity over his
forehead. His face was the color of a man’s exposed to the weather, the
tone permanently stained by the sun, but not burned. The lines beside
and below his eyes seemed stamped more from his work than from age,
again a face in constant conflict with the elements. The cheekbones
were high, the mouth full, the jaw casually slack, for there was a
softness also about the man … in abstract contrast to the hard,
professional look.
This softness, too, was in his eyes. Not weak, but inquisitive; the
eyes of a man who probed-perhaps because he had not probed sufficiently
in the past.
Things … things … had happened to this man.
The instant of observation over, he greeted the uniformed doorman with a
smile and a brief shake of his head, indicating a negative.
“No taxi, Mr. McAuliff?”
“Thanks, no, Jack. I’ll walk.”
“A bit nippy, sir.”
“It’s refreshing–only going a few blocks.”
The doorman tipped his cap and turned his attention to an incoming
Jaguar sedan. Alexander McAuliff continued down the Savoy Court, past
the theater and the American Express office to the Strand. He crossed
the pavement, and entered the flow of human traffic heading north toward
Waterloo Bridge. He buttoned his raincoat, pulling the lapels up to
ward off London’s February chill.
It was nearly one o’clock; he was to be at the Waterloo intersection by
one. He would make it with only minutes to spare.
He had agreed to meet the Dunstone company man this way, but he hoped
his tone of voice had conveyed his annoyance. He had been perfectly
willing to take a taxi, or rent a car, or hire a chauffeur, if any or
all were necessary, but if Dunstone was sending an automobile for him,
why not send it to the Savoy? It wasn’t that he minded the walk; he
just hated to meet people in automobiles in the middle of congested
streets. It was a goddamn nuisance.
The Dunstone man had had a short, succinct explanation that was, for the
Dunstone man, the only reason necessary for all things: “Mr. Julian
Warfield prefers it this way.”
He spotted the automobile immediately. It had to be Dunstone’s-and/or
Warfield’s. A St. James Rolls-Royce, its glistening black, hand-tooled
body breaking space majestically, anachronistically, among the
petrol-conscious Austins, MGs, and European imports. He waited on the
curb, ten feet from the crosswalk onto the bridge. He would not gesture
or acknowledge the slowly approaching Rolls. He waited until the car
stopped directly in front of him, a chauffeur driving, the rear window
open.
“Mr. McAuliM.” said the eager, young-old face in the frame.
“Mr. Warfield?” asked McAuliff, knowing that this fiftyish,
precise-looking executive was not.
“Good heavens, no. The name’s Preston. Do hop in; I think we’re
holding up the line.”
“Yes, you are.” Alex got into the backseat as Preston moved over. The
Englishman extended his hand.
“It’s a pleasure. I’m the one you’ve been talking to on the telephone.”
“Yes … Mr. Preston.”
“I’m really very sorry for the inconvenience, meeting like this. Old
Julian has his quirks, I’ll grant you that.”
McAuliff decided he might have misjudged the Dunstone man. “It was a
little confusing, that’s all. If the object was precautionary-for what
reason I can’t imagine-he picked a hell of a car to send.”
Preston laughed. “True. But then, I’ve learned over the years that
Warfield, like God, moves in mysterious ways that basically are quite
logical. He’s really all right. You’re having lunch with him, you
know.”
“Fine. Where?”
“Belgravia.”
“Aren’t we going the wrong way?”
“Julian and God-basically logical, chap.”
The St. James Rolls crossed Waterloo, proceeded south to the Cut,
turned left until Blackfiiars Road, then left again, over Blackfriars
Bridge and north into Holbom. It was a confusing route.
Ten minutes later the car pulled up to the entrance canopy of a white
stone building with a brass plate to the right of the glass double doors
that read SHAFTESBURY ARMS. The doorman pulled at the handle and spoke
jovially.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Preston.”
“Good afternoon, Ralph.”
McAuliff followed Preston into the building, to a bank of three
elevators in the well-appointed hallway. “Is this Warfield’s place?” he