The Twenty-Third Man (16 page)

‘There are twenty-three,’ she said. ‘I should have thought it would be twenty-two now. Wasn’t one thrown down the mountain-side or something?’

‘Good Lord! The bandits must have resurrected him. Well, what do you think of the set-up?’

‘Impressive, very. There’s one thing I want to know.’

‘How long the late Emden could have remained disguised as the twenty-third man if that little mosquito of a boy hadn’t seen twenty-four bodies before the killer had had a chance to get rid of one of them? And that’s interesting, too, you know, because, surely, there was one without the trappings?’

‘I don’t know. It hadn’t even occurred to me, I’m ashamed to say. Well, there’s nothing more to be done here. I ought to talk to that boy. So far he hasn’t crossed my path.’

‘When he does, you’d be well advised to boot him out of it. The kid’s poison. Mind you, it isn’t his fault. Well, there’s no more to see, I’m afraid. Shall we be getting back to breakfast?’

‘I hoped to see the bandits,’ said Laura. ‘I thought this was one of their haunts.’

‘Only when one comes without a guide. Union rules, you know.’

There seemed nothing useful for her to do in Puerto del Sol and she did not feel justified in remaining there merely to enjoy all the sun and the sea, so she returned to the Hotel Sombrero and soon found an opportunity of asking Clement about the twenty-fourth body in the cave,
for
Laura was not a believer in mincing matters where the young were concerned.

‘What was he like to look at?’ she asked bluntly, having introduced the subject with equal brusqueness.

‘Oh, him!’ said Clement. ‘He was just a sort of mummy. That means that Mr Emden was already there, togged up and with a mask on his face. He wasn’t nifty, though. The air was perfectly fresh. How soon do bodies go bad?’

‘It depends on all sorts of things, I believe. Look here, people seem to have the impression that all twenty-four were robed and masked. You don’t appear to have told anybody about the mummified type you saw.’

‘No, I didn’t, actually. After all, it would be a matter of common sense. Besides, as soon as I saw it – it was rather like a monkey, you know – I sort of guessed what had happened.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, Emden was pretty well disliked, and what
I
think is that somebody came here to
do
him. Definitely, I mean. With murder in mind, somebody followed him here.’

‘Followed him to the island? What made you think that?’

‘Well, you know my friend Chiquito?’

‘No.’

‘He’s a semi-Spaniard, like most of the people here, and there aren’t many things he doesn’t get to know. Their lives are a bit dull, I imagine, so they gossip a lot and have a grape-vine and a bush-telegraph and all that. Well, Chiquito told me that Pepe Casita told him that his girl, the maid Pilar on the first corridor, said that Emden was in the most fearful funk as soon as Dame Beatrice and the rest of that mob landed and came to stay at the hotel. He – Emden, you know – hopped it at the first possible minute, and you can’t help putting two and two together, when you realize that, once he left the Sombrero, he was never seen alive again.’

‘That isn’t certain, is it?’

‘Well, the murderer saw him, of course. And do you know who
I
think did it? I think it was Mr Telham. He’s got a hang-dog look. You watch him and see.’

LAURA WAS DETERMINED
to earn her unexpected holiday. She felt she had gained very little by her first attempts, for her duty, as she saw it, was to obtain a first-hand impression of the guests and staff at the Hotel Sombrero and (although she had kept any hint of this from Dame Beatrice) to give the bandits and the troglodytes the benefit of her scrutiny.

‘I’ll knock off the troglodytes first,’ she confided to the baby, as she gave him his morning six o’clock feed. ‘So do yourself proud, cully, while you’re at it, as I may be late for the next one.’

She breakfasted off rolls and coffee at seven, went into the Plaza and woke a taxi-driver.

‘
Cavernas
,’ she said.

‘
A solas?
’ The driver looked astounded.

‘
Sí, sí!
’

‘
Madre de Dios!
’ It was clear that for a young woman to venture alone to the country of the cave-dwellers was unprecedented.

‘
Con presteza!
’ urged Laura, unconcerned with questions of precedent but merely with the necessity for haste. ‘
Como el viento
?’

The driver contrived to emulate the speed of the wind so successfully that Laura began to wonder whether her command had been strictly necessary. They bounced, swerved, climbed, and ricocheted up the mountain-side at a reckless speed which brought them to the caves in what she felt must be record time.

The troglodyte girls were already at work on the banana plantations or in the cigarette factories, or (thought Laura, with visions of the bird-loving Mrs Angel) getting themselves shipped off to South America, so the only
people
at home were the old women and one or two unkempt, unshaven men. At the end of a baffling and fruitless hour she returned to the taxi-driver, whom she had told to wait, and bade him take her back to the hotel. It was some time before she realized that he was doing nothing of the kind, but just as it dawned upon her that they were on a very different route from the one by which they had come, the taxi drew up, the driver got down, and two tall, thin men appeared in front of a bit of scrub behind which they had been hiding.

‘Hold-up,’ thought Laura. ‘Oh, well, I wanted to see the bandits, so this is it.’

The driver opened the door of the cab and bowed as she got out. The two thin scarecrows bowed. Laura inclined her head and graciously extended her hand. In turn, the bandits kissed it.

There followed a staccato conversation in the island
patois
. Even if they had spoken Spanish, it was so fast that Laura could not have followed what was said. At last one of the bandits turned to her and told her, in fair Spanish, to pay the taxi. Laura shook her head. She needed the taxi to take her home, she explained. The three men smiled. Laura, on an inspiration, declared that she had to feed her baby at ten o’clock and that it was already half past nine.

‘A baby?’

‘Yes.’

‘A boy?’

‘Yes.’

‘How old? – Ah, a
small
baby.’ They looked at one another, shrugged, spread out thin hands, and jerked their heads at the taxi-driver. ‘Take her.’

‘And those men are followers of José the Wolf?’ asked Laura, when she had reached the Plaza again, and was out of the car.

‘Of Old Fool Uncle Horse,’ the driver said, raising his eyes heavenwards. Laura added a considerable tip to the fare, since she deduced that the taxi-driver had missed a
fat
rake-off from the bandits if they had decided to hold her to ransom, and walked into the hotel.

The leisurely breakfast, served until eleven at the Hotel Sombrero, satisfied Laura that she could manage to exist until lunch-time. She dawdled over her last cup of coffee, and then went on to the terrace. She had not been there long before Luisa Ruiz came out. Pretending to rearrange the cushions on the empty chair next to Laura’s, she said in a low tone:

‘My brother is here.’

‘Your brother? From Spain?’

‘From Spanish America.’

‘That’s nice for you. How long will he stay?’

‘Until his business is done, I think.’

‘Oh, I see. Shipping cargo, or something, I take it. Must be a jolly country, South America. I’ve never been further than the West Indies.’

‘That is the best thing. Nobody was clever enough, intelligent enough, good enough, to leave it at that. Always they wish to go west, further west, and more west still. What is this madness, Señora, that makes for the west, for the sunset, for disillusion – for death?’

She flicked a speck off the last cushion, gave Laura a slight smile, and disappeared inside the doorway. Laura decided to keep an eye open for the South American brother. She had heard of him from Dame Beatrice, but there had been no reason to think that he would be home so soon. She wondered whether it was his usual time of year for a visit, but decided that this could not be so. If it were, surely some hint of it would have been dropped to Dame Beatrice, if not by Luisa herself or by Señor Ruiz, then certainly by the garrulous and artless (although possibly prevaricating) Pilar, the beloved of Pepe.

However, Laura was greatly intrigued, when she went down to the beach to sun-bathe, to see Mrs Angel with a swarthy, broad-shouldered young man whom she took to be the son of the house of Ruiz. All the ugly gossip about Mrs Angel’s profession came crowding into Laura’s
ever-open
mind. It looked like the gathering of the vultures, she decided. She wished she could get near enough to overhear their conversation, and was trying to work out some way by which she could carry out this wish, without appearing to eavesdrop, when the young man, who had been facing her, got up, bowed, and Mrs Angel, turning, beckoned Laura to join them.

‘Our dear Señor Ruiz’s son, Don Ricardo, Mrs Gavin.
Quite
a famous man,’ she said, effecting the introductions. ‘Ricky dear, this is Mrs Gavin, from England.’

‘Not famous. Or, if so, only because of my cherished Mrs Angel, an angel, no?’ said Don Ricardo, speaking in English. ‘Please to join us, Mrs Gavin. I am about to order a bottle of wine. It is never too hot to drink wine.’

Laura joined them, but the conversation sustained itself on a general note and her curiosity remained unsatisfied. Unless there was something to be made of the fact that Don Ricardo and Mrs Angel had a good deal to say to one another and appeared to be on very good terms, the answer (said Laura to the baby a little later) was a lemon. She kept her eyes open during the next few days, however, and it was most noticeable that Don Ricardo spent a great deal of his time in Mrs Angel’s company. For a young man who thought enough of his home and family to pay them an expensive visit every year without fail, this was a curious circumstance, Laura thought, and one well worth reporting to Dame Beatrice.

Her next encounter was with Peterhouse – her next significant encounter, that is. He joined her on the following morning when she was in the garden.

‘You are particularly interested in flowers?’ he asked, in a strangely gentle tone.

‘Indeed I am; and, on the present occasion, they delightfully occupy my thoughts,’ said Laura, in unconscious imitation of Dame Beatrice’s mode of speech. She waved a hand to indicate the glowing, sub-tropical garden.

‘You are a
connaisseuse
?’

‘Not of flowers – unless, perhaps, orchids.’ She introduced the gambit unblushingly.

‘Ah, yes. Most interesting. But there are no orchids worth talking about on Hombres Muertos, Mrs Gavin. Personally, I much prefer to experiment in growing Alpine plants.’

‘Not orchids? I thought one of the other guests told me …’

‘Oh, no. There are no orchids which would justify the attention I lavish upon
Helliborus niger
, for instance. You know the plant, of course?’

‘Sorry to say I’ve never heard of it. At least, not under that name.’

‘I apologize. I refer to the Christmas Rose, known in Switzerland as
Schneerose
. I may tell you that I have reproduced it here in a very different type of soil from the humus chalk and dolomite soils which are its natural habitat. Moreover, I have caused it to flower (I have sent specimens to Kew to prove this) in what appears to be its close season, August. Not only have I succeeded with that. I think of
Pulsatilla montana
, the mountain anemone. It is really a southern Alpine valley plant, although it can be found up to an altitude of seven thousand feet. However, I can grow it at twelve thousand feet here, and
not
in a chalky soil. Then take
Pulsatilla vernalis
, the spring anemone! A lovely plant, and one that requires the sunlight. I am not altogether surprised that I get it to flower in October, considering the difference in climate, but still I account it one of my successes. So I do
Pulsatilla baldensis
, a typical Tyrolean mountain plant. Well, if not altogether typical, it certainly belongs to the Dolomites.’

‘The Dolomites! Ah, yes!’ said Laura, attempting to stem the flow. It was impossible.

‘Then take
Tiroler Windröschen
, and what
do
you say to
Pulsatilla alpina sulphurea?
’ asked the merciless botanist.

‘The yellow anemone?’ said Laura, guessing boldly. ‘Well, it is a more important-looking plant than either
Vernalis
or
Baldensis
, in my opinion, but that is purely a matter of choice.’

‘Knowledgeable, knowledgeable,’ said Peterhouse, collaring the batting once more. ‘I like the way
Sulphurea
has that delicate suggestion of blue on the underside of the petals. The very sturdy bracts, too, and the tinge of red where these meet the main-stem of the plant are most attractive. In any case, I’m very fond of yellow.’

‘There is plenty of sulphur, in every sense of the word, on Hombres Muertos, I suppose,’ said Laura, faint but pursuing. Peterhouse shook her off again.

‘I must show you specimens of
Rhododendron terrugineum
, the rusty-leaved Alpine rose, a tremendous plant,’ he said. ‘It grows to a height of more than three feet in the Swiss Alps, but here I have obtained a height of between five and six feet, and
my
flowers are larger than anything you’ll ever see in Europe. Then take
Rhododendron hirsutum
?’

‘The hairy rose. And that reminds me,’ said Laura, desperately casting about for means of escape, ‘I
must
go and see after my infant.’

‘Mind you,’ said Peterhouse, taking no notice of this plea, ‘I am interested only in
poisonous
plants.’

‘That sounds rather sinister. Do you mean that
everything
you’ve mentioned is poisonous?’

‘Indeed it is. I might attempt to grow the Alpine campions, the soldenella, the lilies; the Alpine crowsfoot, the lady’s-slipper orchis – a beauty, that! – the gentian; I could experiment with the erica, which – I don’t know whether you’ve seen it? – is not unlike the heather; with the Noble Liverwort, that strange flower of three different colours. The cyclamen might attract me; the charming yellow violet, the graceful columbine, the saxifrage, (most famous of Alpine plants, and greatly loved), the auricula, the aromatic wormwood. …’