Johnson Johnson 04 - Dolly and the Doctor Bird (23 page)

It came to me that the Begum improved on acquaintance. I said, “What happened?” There was no trace of a blood bath.

“Mr. Tiko has been the center of attention,” said the Begum. “Do you know what happens if a woman eats too much Yang in the Zen macrobiotic diet?”

“No,” I said.

“That’s funny,” said the Begum, looking thoughtful. “I thought you did.”

“But my father?” I said impatiently.

“Hasn’t even met him, my dear,” said the Begum with a kind of quiet triumph. “The moment he came into the house, I sent Mr. Tiko down to the beach, and the moment he came down to the beach, I sent Mr. Tiko back to the house. You know those Japanese watches with dumped Russian movements?”

“Yes,” I said, and waited, but she appeared to believe her remark fully concluded. I said, “Does Mr. Tiko know who we are?”

“Mr. Tiko,” said the Begum, “knows that you and your father are resident in my house and that your name is MacRannoch. He has no doubt discovered that numbers of his fellow guests are also named MacRannoch. Whether he has made any deduction from this, I cannot quite say. My own dear late Achmed had the same gift for concealing his systems.” She put an arm on my shoulder and said, “While you are here, darling. Has someone tried to kill Sir Bartholomew Edgecombe again? Krishtof wanted to know.”

It was too complicated to go into details. “Yes,” I said. “But I can’t tell you who it was. Johnson is working on it.”

There was a little silence. Then, “
Johnson
?” said the Begum slowly, and the blood retreated from my digestive organs, leaving my steak in bleak tête-à-tête with my rum.

I had made a gross error of judgment. In order to provoke the opposition into action, Johnson had let it be known to our limited circle who and what Edgecombe was. He had said nothing of his own share in the present giant slalom event. I had blown his cover.

The Begum’s large, made-up eyes grew steadily luminous. She stood struck into stillness, her painted nails still on my shoulder. “Not
two
of them?” she said. “Two espionage agents in one Hurst Volumetric Spore Trap?”

I looked around. There was no one in earshot. “Should I have James desensitized?” asked the Begum with some anxiety.

Even after ten days of this, I still felt at times like a corn weevil in a shredded-wheat packet. I pulled myself together. “I shouldn’t have told you. I’m sorry, but you realize that no one is supposed to know that. Promise me, please promise me, you won’t tell anyone else.”

The Begum’s eyes, on closer inspection were not anxious at all. “Only James Ulric?” she suggested.

My God
. “Not James Ulric. Especially not James Ulric.”

The Begum put her dark glasses on, effectively preventing me from evaluating all her further pronouncements. “You are asking me,” she said, “to destroy the spirit of the whole fine relationship between your father and me, built up trust upon trust, through the years of endurance and love?” She slid her grasp down to my elbow and, turning me, walked slowly through waves of Nancy Sinatra back up to the house. “I wouldn’t consider it,” said the Begum, “unless…”

We were nearing the castle. From behind the battlements my father’s carrying voice could be heard. “Where’s that bloody woman?” he was roaring.

“Unless what?” I prompted. I was gravely anxious. If the Begum informed James Ulric of Johnson’s identity, the news would spread like a barium meal. My father’s voice yelled, “
Thelma
!”

The Begum’s handsome black head cocked to one side. “Perhaps,” she said, “we should go in.” And discarding both Johnson and blackmail in a single, unreliable smile, she began to sweep her way up the wide castle steps.

My father appeared at the top, heaving. “Thelma,” he said. “That bloody Nip! That you invited to your bloody barbecue!”

Mr. Tiko and James Ulric had met.

“Well?” said the Begum Akbar calmly.

“He’s finished the jigsaw!” screamed my father. The air filled with spume. Mr. Tiko, appearing deferentially behind his left elbow said, “My humble regrets, Mr. MacRannoch. I understood from your wife that she wished the puzzle completed.”

My father, throbbing, gazed from Mr. Tiko to the Begum and back. “That’s not my wife!” he shouted.

Mr. Tiko gazed at him impassively. “I beg your pardon,” he said.

My father, who looked like Albert Schweitzer this evening, had sudden trouble with his Wurlitzer. Gliding past him, the Begum slid Mr. Tiko and myself from the threshold into the library and waited until James Ulric beat in with a full head of steam. She shut the door. James Ulric pointed a muscular finger at his Japanese guest and said, “You’re running after the bitch for her money!”

“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Tiko again. Above his neat beach shirt his face was still courteous, but he was bending his mind to the problem. “The Begum, I understand, is not your wife,” said Mr. Tiko. “But Doctor MacRannoch is your daughter?”

My father walked around him. The distance was not far. “You thought all Achmed’s bloody rupees were coming to Beltanno,” he said. “You thought you were marrying money. I have news for you, my funny, wee, buff Mickey Mouse. If you marry my daughter, you won’t get the decimal point in my bank book. I’ll spend it all.”

“James,” said the Begum’s voice smoothly.

Beside himself, my father merely swelled and jerked his white quiff at his mistress. “And I’ll spend all
her
money as well.”

The Begum’s thin eyebrows rose. Mr. Tiko said, “Pardon me. I am one of your daughter’s most devoted admirers, but —”

The Begum said, “But James. We are not married yet.”

“No,” said my father. “And neither are they. You’ll see. Tell him no money, and he’ll be on the next jumbo jet back to the geishas.” He paused. “What do you mean, we’re not married yet?”

The Begum sat down with grace. “It semed to have a bearing on the conversation,” she said. “Further, I have told you I will not become Mrs. MacRannoch until Beltanno is married.”

My father gasped. “You want her to marry that Nip?” he said. “And all my grandchildren sweetie-egg color?”

“I didn’t say so,” said the widow of the late Achmed Akbar, with some coolness.

“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Tiko, but he hadn’t a chance. My father broke in, snapping his fingers. “Broody! Who was that man who phoned you, Beltanno? I offered him…”

“Wallace Brady,” I said. I was surprised I could still speak. “That was Wallace Brady. I told you.”

“I offered him…” said my father, and got no further, because the door opened and Wallace Brady poked his head around.

“Calling me, someone?” he said.

“Yes,” said James Ulric smartly. I opened my mouth. My father said, “I offered you seventy-five thousand dollars once to marry my daughter.”

My all-American golf partner entered the library very carefully and shut the door after him, his eyes sliding over the persons of Mr. Tiko and the Begum, sitting bolt upright in her chair. “Yes,” he said. “You sure did. I thought you were pulling my leg.”

“I’ll double it,” said James Ulric briefly.

There was a short silence. Wallace Brady’s round pale eyes wandered in my direction. “Don’t trouble,” I said. “I’ve got my own plans. Mr. Tiko, I owe you an apology.”

Like a canary whose cage has been opened, Mr. Tiko hopped with relief into the sunshine. “Not at all,” he said. “I think it is your father who has mistaken my intentions. Long your admirer, I have at no time ventured to aspire to your hand. I say so with personal regret.”

I smiled at him. The pineapple of rum had left my mind perfectly clear. I said, “Your intentions were perhaps somewhat in doubt, but mine have been fixed from our first meeting. Mr. Tiko, setting aside all question of money… would you consider me as your wife?”

Mr. Tiko’s mouth opened. He shut it, looked around the room, and then gave a small bow. “It would be an honor,” he said. “I could wish for no higher. But in my country, there is a custom before which all must bow. I could not bind myself without the consent of your venerable parent.”

“Right. Wallace?” said James. He hardly let Mr. Tiko finish speaking. He was steaming with triumph and malice.

“Will you marry me, Beltanno?” said Wallace. “For nothing,” he added.

“No,” I said. I remembered with a pang the moment when he attacked Johnson Johnson in my defense. Then I remembered the
Haven
and felt a little less like a failed premium offer. The Begum said reasonably, “But, Beltanno, you must marry someone.”

I saw my father shoot her a look of surprise and gratitude. “Brady. It’s settled,” he said.

“Or Krishtof Bey,” said the Begum. “He’d take you with seventy-five thousand dollars.” She stared hard at my father, daring him to visualize sweetie-mouse-colored grandchildren in ballet tights. There was an unfriendly silence.

“Or Krishtof Bey,” said my father weakly, after a moment. The Begum sat back with a sigh. I said, “I’m not marrying Krishtof Bey either.”

The Begum said sweetly, “You’re marrying one of them. Or one of your friends will be sorry.”

I had forgotten Johnson Johnson entirely. I stared at her, plumbing her perfidy. Unless I married, said that brittle, mandarin smile, she would betray Johnson Johnson’s identity.

I smiled back. “All right,” I said. “I choose Mr. Tiko.”

“You can’t,” said my father. “You heard him. I’ve refused my consent.”

“We know why, as well,” said the Begum. “You’re afraid of his golf handicap.”

“You’re mad,” said my father. “I could beat any one of that tribe from a bus with one hand in my pocket.”

“Then play him for Beltanno,” said the Begum.

A simple solution conceived by Medusa. You would not think for a moment that any sane person would consider it seriously. You would never dream that, having embraced the principle, Wallace Brady should complain that he too should be allowed to play golf for a wife, and that the Begum, judiciously holding the balance, would decree that Krishtof Bey must also have a share in the match.

Account for it as you might — mispaired chromosomes, pancreatic deficiency, or straightforward mental retardation — you would still barely believe that a group of coherent, mixed adults could agree to meet the next afternoon at the golf course at Great Harbour Cay, and there compete, match play over an eighteen-hole course, for the privilege of marrying Dr. B. Douglas MacRannoch: winner gets the bride, with veto rights over any candidate possessed by James Ulric MacRannoch, provided that he wins more holes than the man to be vetoed.

I think I used a lot of strong language for which I failed to apologize. I know that at first, all my brain could grasp was that I was being asked to mortgage my whole future for Johnson’s despicable safety. It further came to me that I risked being linked in holy matrimony with a murderer. Was this why Wallace Brady had asked for my hand? Why Krishtof Bey had expressed a wholly unexpected interest in legal attachments?

On the other hand, it came to me through the sound of my own protestations, Johnson Johnson had undertaken in twenty-four hours to expose Edgecombe’s would-be assassin. If he didn’t, Sergeant Trotter was going to put the whole thing in the hands of the police, and the Begum could expose whom she wished. If he did, we should know the name of the miscreant by the end of the golf match, and it was quite on the cards that my prospective fiancé, whichever he might be, would be led off the golf course in handcuffs.

I wondered what kind of game Krishtof Bey played.

I said, “All right. I think you’re all drunk. But I’ll do it.”

There was a hazy silence. It came to me that none of us was entirely stone sober, and that further, no one had expected me to agree. James Ulric sat down suddenly. Mr. Tiko bowed, an expression of faint alarm on his face. Wallace Brady was grinning.

The Begum Akbar rose, shook out her long, filmy wrappings, and crossing, laid a hand on Mr. Tiko’s bowed shoulders. “And,” she said, “all you did was finish their jigsaw.”

The rest of that evening and the following night are obscured by a deep fuzz of sleep.

A normal reaction to stress, not to mention a crisis of an unprecedented and personal nature. I recall using much these words to describe my weary condition to Johnson, a little later that evening.

I remember his patient rejoinder. “You’re tiddly,” he said. “Go to bed. You look like an overworked loofah.”

That was after I had broken the news of the golf competition. I see now why he thought I was intoxicated. At the time, he showed only mild hysteria and was willing enough to answer my questions.

Once the Begum’s guests had all left, Johnson had been busy. Without consulting me or anyone else, he had roused Sir Bartholomew Edgecombe, and helped by Spry, had put him in
Dolly
’s speedboat. Sir Bartholomew was now safely at home on Great Harbour Cay, guarded by his own houseboys and with Spry to supervise for good measure. So that I could relax. Edgecombe was safe.

“Bully for Edgecombe,” I said. I cannot excuse the blight which attacks my vocabulary. “But what about us? I suppose that means the murderer is still on Crab Island? Who is it? You said that you knew.”

“I do,” Johnson said. “But it still can’t be proved. Any one of our suspects could have doctored the
Haven
after she was loaded… although I’ve discovered one thing. When she took on the explosives, the job was done by a team from Bullock’s Harbour. A group who naturally knew Pentecost and his brothers.”

The deceased waiter from the Bamboo Conch Club. “On Mr. Brady’s instructions?” I asked.

“Exactly. But for all we know, Mr. Brady’s instructions may have been perfectly innocent. Someone else may have given Pentecost’s friends their less legitimate orders. One of them, we suppose, dived and placed
Dolly
’s beacon under her hull.”

“And fixed the alternator leads? And put the sugar into the fuel tank?” I said.

Johnson’s bifocals were two blank enigmas. “Oh no,” he said. “That had to be done by someone aboard.”

Letting out Krishtof Bey. Unless Krishtof Bey was working with someone. I said, “Is it possible that two of these people are in league together against Edgecombe?”