The Lower Deep (21 page)

"Yes. I believe you're right."

The talk ran down and Clermont stood up. "Shall I look in on Paul Henninger before I go?"

"I wish you would."

They went to the manager's room together. But this time the man in bed was asleep and apparently not dreaming. His breathing was normal, his body quiet. Without disturbing him, Clermont merely nodded to Steve and departed.

George Benson called on Danielle André that Friday evening. He had met her earlier and told her he would be over if he could, so the door opened before he reached it. She'd been watching
for him through a window, she told him with a smile.

When George made it clear that he was in no hurry to go home, Dannie was content to make coffee and sit with him for a while in her living room, just to talk.

"Your wife went out?" she asked.

"She went out last night."

"And again tonight?"

"Not again. She hasn't come back. After giving me the 'sleep and dream' routine I told you about, she took off. I tried to follow but was stopped by one of the worst headaches I've ever had in my life. Haven't seen her since."

"Do you still have it?"

He shook his head. "No, thank God, or I wouldn't be here. Nobody with a skull-buster like that would be wanting what I'm wanting."

Dannie smiled, then frowned. "Where do you suppose she goes, George?"

"A boyfriend somewhere, most likely. Maybe more than one. I keep thinking of Noel Coward's song, 'Alice Is at It Again.'"

"Poor Alice," Dannie said.

"Poor Alice?"

"There must be something wrong with your wife. You aren't that hard to please."

"I am very hard to please, lady. I need loving. And to love. How does that song go? 'I've never loved and I've never been loved till you.'"

"You're full of songs tonight." Smiling again, Dannie rose from her chair and went to sit beside him on the one piece of furniture—a sofa done in soft blue island cotton—that she had bought for
this house she rented furnished from Louis Clermont. Then they both lost interest in talking and, with their arms around each other, went into the bedroom.

Later, lying naked in George's arms after they had made love to each other, Dannie André reached a decision in a matter that had been troubling her for days. She would not, could not, no matter how it nagged at her conscience, tell George about her true feelings for his wife.

Because—and this hurt—she would have to admit to him that Alice, whom he felt was so selfish and unfeeling, had from the very beginning, gone out of her way to be friendly to Danielle André.

Well, not from the very beginning, no. At the start, Alice had been pretty aloof, probably because she disliked teaching at the school anyway. Alice had never kept that a secret and made no bones about it even now. She taught there only because she couldn't gracefully get out of it. But in other respects she had become a very kind, considerate person. A real friend. Yes.

Look, for heaven's sake. Time and again she had come by Dannie's room on her way to lunch and suggested they go down to the cafeteria together. And at lunch the two of them had talked about what they liked to eat, to wear, to read, parts of the world they would love to visit—almost everything under the sun.

Talking like that with someone two or three days a week, over lunch, you began to feel close to her. Like a sister, almost. Or a lifelong friend.

In other ways, too, Alice had shown a desire to be friends. Day before yesterday, for instance.

She, Dannie, had been feeling really lousy for some reason. Had such a headache she thought she might be coming down with what the peasants called
la fiev.
When Alice stepped in to suggest they go down to lunch together, she'd had to say she didn't feel like eating. So after expressing sympathy, Alice had gone to the cafeteria alone.

But not to eat there. Uh-uh. She'd returned with a sandwich for herself and a cup of broth for Dannie and coaxed Dannie into drinking the broth. And afterward, Dannie had felt much better. Most likely not because of the broth, but because of Alice's kindness.

Obviously, this was a side of Alice's personality that George didn't see much of. Maybe he never saw it. People who married for the wrong reasons—in this case, George admitted he'd simply gone for the prettiest girl in his hometown—sometimes ended up like that, didn't they? Not really bad, just wrong for each other. So while George had no use for Alice now, she, Dannie, had
to admit she liked her.

But she couldn't tell George these things. No, no. He would never understand.

He was beginning to make love to her again now, pulling her close to him with one hand and caressing her body with the other. It was a relief to stop thinking about what she should or should not tell him. A relief just to relax and be made love to, knowing that she cared for this man more every time she went to bed with him. And knowing that almost everyone else in Dame Marie felt good about him, too—especially the fishermen and their
families—even if his wife did not. Alice might be kind and friendly, but she was a fool, all the same.

Dannie was one of the few teachers at the school who had a phone in her home. It had been there when she rented the house from Dr. Clermont. Suddenly it began ringing on the table beside the bed.

With an exaggerated groan she reached for it, at once wriggling back against George so both of them could hear the caller. "Hello?"

"Miss André? This is Dr. Clermont."

"Yes, Doctor."

"Hope I'm not disturbing you."

"Not at all."

"I'm calling because Ginny Jourdan seems to be missing. Is missing, in fact. Officially, I mean—with the police notified and all. Seems she left home last night and hasn't been heard from since. I'm wondering if you've seen her."

"No, Doctor, I haven't."

"She wasn't in school today, I suppose."

"I didn't notice. I don't have her in any of my Friday classes. But it won't be hard to find out. I'm surprised the police—"

"Maybe they have. I don't know. I'm strictly an amateur, just trying to help out. Well, I guess if you haven't seen her, there's no point in my taking up more of your—"

"Has anyone questioned Eddie Forbin, Doctor?"

"Her boyfriend?"

"Yes."

"I believe Lieutenant Etienne had a talk with
him, and he claims he hasn't seen her lately. Ginny's dropped him, it seems. By the way, do you by any chance know whether Ginny has been friendly with a young Dr. Mendoza from the alcoholics' place? He's a good-looking Cuban fellow, quite an independent soul in some ways, and it seems he also is missing."

"What's his name again?"

"Mendoza. Juan Mendoza."

"I've never heard her mention him."

"Well, that's something. Ought to keep things from getting even more complicated, at least. All right, Miss André. Thanks, and God bless."

Dannie returned the phone to the table and said to George, "Did you get any of that?" The conversation had been in French.

He shook his head, and she told him what had been said.

"Ginny Jourdan missing?" he echoed. "And a doctor from the Azagon?"

"And," she reminded him, "maybe your wife."

"Oh, hell," George said. "Alice isn't missing. She's just spending a longer time than usual with her boyfriend of the moment. Heaven help the poor bastard."

T
he news of Ginette Jourdan's disappearance swept through Dame Marie like a brushfire.

The girl had left home Thursday night and been reported missing by her parents Friday morning. All day Friday, Lieutenant Etienne and his men searched the town and its environs for her. By Saturday the community talked of little else.

Ginny's schoolmates discussed her disappearance wherever they happened to be gathered. Some, recalling her fondness for going alone to Anse Douce, went looking for her there.

They failed to find her. But at the end of the beach, where it became a gully filled with huge chunks of coral, they did find something of note.

There, kicking sand as he walked, a boy turned up a bit of pink and white striped flannel.

"Hey, what's this?" he yelled, and pulled up a pajama jacket. Then on his knees he dug deeper like a dog after a buried bone and uncovered the pants as well.

The kids took their find to Dame Marie's little army post, and Lieutenant Etienne drove to the Azagon with it. There he unwrapped the pajamas on Steve Spence's desk. "Take a look at these, Doctor. Are they the ones your manager fellow was wearing the night he claimed he went swimming and came back naked?"

Steve did not know, but carried the pajamas to Henninger's room where the Belgian was still in bed. The answer to his question did not really startle him.

"Yes, oh, yes!" Henninger sat up with more vigor than he had displayed in days. "Now can I hope you'll believe me?"

"I never said I didn't believe you, Paul. But tell me something. The kids who found these said they were buried. Not just dropped and covered by drifting sand, but buried. I wouldn't buy the drifting sand theory anyway because, if you remember, Lawton Lindo and I walked the whole cove that night and saw nothing. Do you recall burying them?"

Henninger shook his head. "I don't recall anything. As I told you, I must have walked there in my sleep."

"Well, either you buried them or someone else did. At least, we've found them. That's a small step toward solving one of our mysteries, at any rate."

But it was no help in the town's collective effort
to find Ginny Jourdan. Nothing of hers was discovered at Anse Douce or anywhere else.

Etienne had questioned young Eddie Forbin, the girl's boyfriend, soon after Ginny was reported missing. After the discovery of the pajamas he interrogated the youth again. This time he did so at Forbin's home in the presence of his parents, who were two of Dame Marie's most respected citizens.

"You say you haven't been out with Ginny in more than two weeks, Eddie?"

"That's right, sir. I'm not saying I didn't try. She just wasn't interested anymore, she told me."

"Has she been going out with someone else, do you know?"

"I don't think so. Not with anyone in town, for sure, or I'd have heard about it."

"I want to ask you a question that mustn't go beyond this room, Eddie. You understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"I've heard a rumor—no, not quite a rumor, but a suggestion—that Ginny might have become friendly with a fellow at the alcoholics' place. Have you any thoughts on that?"

"One of the patients, you mean?"

"Well, yes. But he's a doctor, too."

The boy shook his head. "It sounds just plain crazy to me. Ginny isn't old enough for anyone at the Azagon."

"Where do you think she might be, Eddie?"

"Lieutenant, I don't have any idea. Believe me, if I did, I'd go after her this minute, even if she wouldn't look at me!"

The town soon began asking another question.

Was it possible that Ginny Jourdan's disappearance might somehow be connected with the fate of the
Ti Maman?
The question was in no way frivolous, Steve Spence decided when he heard it. Nothing at this point ought to be ruled out. But it remained only a question, not in any way a clue.

At ten o'clock Saturday night George Benson went to Louis Clermont's house to discuss some things that were troubling him.

He talked about the series of dreams in which he seemed to be so strangely interested in swimming.

He discussed the headaches or feelings of pressure that seemed to have become so much a part of his life now—a damned unpleasant part, he told Clermont when describing them again in detail.

And with much shaking of his head, he wondered aloud about the perhaps related business of his wife's coming into his room at night in the apparent belief she could influence him in some hypnotic way even while he slept.

True, George thought, the third complaint was perhaps outside the doctor's field, and maybe the dreams were, too, but at least he could discuss them with Louis Clermont as a friend. That was odd, too. Before the visits about the tongue-biting, he had scarcely known this man. There was just something about Clermont that inspired confidence.

They talked about many things in the nearly three hours George spent in the doctor's home. The tongue-biting. The headaches. The parallels between George's complaints and those of Paul Henninger, and to a lesser degree others at the
Azagon including the fellow who was missing after having been seen swimming far out at sea by the Dutch woman from the sisal plantation.