by Mary Stewart
If my guess about him was correct, then his actions were perfectly consistent. He had known Yanni was to make a trip the night before; he must know there was some risk involved. He would obviously not have expected Yanni to meet his death, but, once faced with a drowned body, he had had no doubts as to who it would be. His story of floating debris was nonsense, of that I was sure: what had happened was that he had seen me, and then Godfrey, at the rock-pool, had jumped to conclusions, and had made an excuse to come down to see for himself. There had been that sharp ‘Who is it?’ and then the next, immediate, reaction – to examine the body as closely as he dared, presumably for any evidence of violence. No doubt if such evidence had been there, he would have had to come out with the truth, or part of it. As it was, he held his tongue, and no doubt shared Godfrey’s relief that the matter need not be brought into the open.
Yes, it all tied up, even Gale’s surreptitious return to the pool, presumably to examine the body more closely than he had dared with Godfrey there, and to remove anything Yanni might have been carrying which might link him with his ‘contact’. And it was Gale’s luck that the boat had proved innocent: either poor Yanni had been on his way home when the accident happened, or last night’s trip had, in fact, merely been a routine one to the fishing-grounds. Even the attack on the dolphin took its place with the rest. I was certain, now, that Gale had shot at the creature because he was afraid it would attract the tourist crowds, and destroy his badly-needed privacy. But the anger that this action had roused in me didn’t give me the right, I decided, to open up a field of inquiry that would probably hurt Spiro’s people, and would certainly hurt Yanni’s. The two bereaved families had already quite enough to bear. No, I would hold my tongue, and be thankful that I had been allowed to stay inside my enchanted bubble with a quiet conscience. And as for Max Gale—
The Clarinet Concerto came to an end, the bright pomp ascending jubilant into a triumph of golden chords. The player switched itself off. In the silence that followed I heard sounds from Phyllida’s room. She was up and busy.
I glanced at the clock. Twenty past twelve. She should have been asleep long ago. I went across the hallway to her door.
‘Phyllida?’
‘Oh, come in, come in!’
She sounded thoroughly edgy and upset. I went in, to find her out of bed and rummaging through a drawer, dragging the contents out anyhow and strewing them on the floor. She was looking enchantingly pretty in some voluminous affair of yellow nylon, with her hair down, and her eyes wide and dark-shadowed. She also looked as if she were on the verge of tears.
‘What’s up? Are you looking for something?’
‘Oh, God!’ She jerked open another drawer and rummaged in it, and slammed it shut again. ‘Not that it’ll be there … I would do a damn fool thing like that, wouldn’t I?’
I looked at her in some alarm. Phyllida hardly ever swears. ‘Like what? Lost something?’
‘My ring. The diamond. The god-damned Forli blasted diamond. When we were down at the bay. I’ve only just this moment remembered it, what with everything. I had it on, didn’t I? Didn’t I?’
‘Oh, my heaven, yes, you did! But don’t you remember, you took it off before we went in the water? Look, stop fussing, Phyl, it’s not lost. You put it in your make-up bag, that little zip thing covered with roses. I saw you.’
She was at the wardrobe now, feeling in the pockets of the beach coat. ‘Did I or did I not put it on again after I’d left the water?’
‘I don’t think so. I don’t remember … No, I’m sure you didn’t. I’d have noticed it on your hand. You didn’t have it on when we were having coffee up at Godfrey’s. But honey, it’ll be in the little bag. I know you put it here.’
She shoved the coat back, and slammed the wardrobe shut. ‘That’s the whole blasted point! The beastly bag’s still down on the beach!’
‘Oh, no!’
‘It must be! I tell you, it’s not here, I’ve looked everywhere.’ The bathroom was ajar, and on the floor her beach bag lay in a heap with slippers and towel. She picked up the bag for what was obviously the umpteenth time, turned it upside down, shook it, and let it fall. She kicked over the towel with her foot, then turned to face me, eyes tragic, hands spread like a mourning angel invoking a blessing. ‘You see? I bloody left the thing, on the bloody beach!’
‘Yes, but listen a minute …’ I thought back rapidly. ‘Perhaps you did put it back on. After all, you used the zip bag when you did your face. Did you put the ring on then, and take it off again when you washed at Godfrey’s? Perhaps you left it in his bathroom.’
‘I’m sure I didn’t. I can’t remember a thing about it, and I know that if I had the thing on when I washed at Godfrey’s, I’d have known it. You can’t help knowing,’ she said ingenuously, ‘when you’re flashing a thing like that about on your hand. Oh, what a fool I am! I didn’t mean to bring it here at all, but I forgot to put it in the bank, and it’s safer on my hand than off it… Or so I thought! Oh hell, hell, hell!’
‘Well, look,’ I said soothingly, ‘don’t start to worry yet. If you didn’t put it back on, it’s still in the little bag. Where was that when you last saw it?’
‘Just where we were sitting. It must have got pushed to one side under the trees or something, and when Max Gale went back for our things he just wouldn’t see it. He’d just grab the things and chase after us.’
‘Probably. He’d be in a hurry.’
‘That’s what I mean.’ She noticed nothing in my tone, but spoke quite simply, staring at me with those wide, scared eyes. ‘The wretched thing’s just sitting there on the sand, and—’
‘Well, for heaven’s sake don’t look like that! It’ll be as safe as a house! Nobody’ll be there, and if they were, who’d pick up a scruffy plastic bag with make-up in?’
‘It’s not scruffy, and Leo gave it to me.’ She began to cry. ‘If it comes to that, he gave me the beastly ring, and it belongs to his beastly family, and if I lose it—’
‘You haven’t lost it.’
‘The tide’ll wash it away.’
‘There’s no tide.’
‘Your foul dolphin’ll eat it. Something’ll happen to it, I know it will.’ She had cast reason to the winds now, and was crying quite hard. ‘Leo had no business to give me anything like that and expect me to watch it all the time! Diamonds are hell, anyway – if they’re not in the bank you feel as miserable as sin, and if they are in the bank you’re all frustrated, so you simply can’t win, they’re not worth having, and that ring cost thousands and thousands, and it’s worse in lire, millions of lire,’ wept Phyl unreasonably, ‘and there’ll be his mother to face, not to mention that ghastly collection of aunts, and did I tell you his uncle’s probably going to be a C-Cardinal—’
‘Well, honey, this won’t exactly wreck his chances, so take a pull at yourself, will you, and – hey! Just what do you think you’re doing?’
She had yanked the wardrobe door open again, and was pulling out a coat. ‘If you think I’ll get a wink, a single wink of sleep, while that ring’s lying out there—’
‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ I said with great firmness, taking the coat from her and putting it back. ‘Now, don’t be a nit! Of course you’re worried stiff, who wouldn’t be, but you’re certainly not going down there tonight!’
‘But I’ve got to!’ Her voice thinned and rose, and she grabbed for the coat again. She was very near to real hysteria.
I said quickly: ‘You have not. I’ll go myself.’
‘You can’t! You can’t go alone. It’s after midnight!’
I laughed. ‘So what? It’s a nice night, and I’d a darned sight rather take a walk out than see you work yourself into a fit of the screaming abdabs. I don’t blame you, I’d be climbing the walls myself! Serves you right for flashing that kind of ice around, my girl!’
‘But, Lucy—’
‘I mean it. I’ll go straight away and get the wretched thing, so for sweet Pete’s sake dry your
eyes or you’ll be fretting yourself into a miscarriage or something, and then Leo will have something to say, not to mention his mother and the aunts.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘You’ll do no such thing. Don’t argue. Get back into bed. Go on … I know exactly where we were sitting, and I’ll take a torch. Now mop up, and I’ll make you some Ovaltine or something, and then go. Hurry up now, get in!’
I don’t often get tough with Phyllida, but she is surprisingly meek when I do. She got in, and smiled shakily.
‘You’re an angel, you really are. I feel so ashamed of myself, but it’s no use, I shan’t rest till I’ve got it … Look, I’ve had an idea, couldn’t we just ring Godfrey, and ask him to go? Oh, no, he said he was going to be out late, didn’t he? Well, what about Max Gale? It’s his fault, in a way, for not seeing the thing … We could ring him up to ask if he’d noticed it, and then he’d have to offer to go down—’
‘I’m not asking favours of Max Gale.’
This time she did notice my tone. I added, hastily: ‘I’d rather go myself. I honestly don’t mind.’
‘You won’t be scared?’
‘What’s there to be scared of? I don’t believe in ghosts. Anyway, it’s not so dark as it looks from in here; the sky’s thick with stars. I suppose you’ve got a torch?’
‘There’s one in the kitchen, on the shelf beside the door. Oh, Lucy, you are a saint! I shouldn’t have slept a wink without that beastly thing safe in its box!’
I laughed at her. ‘You should be like me, and get your jewellery you-know-where. Then you could lose the lot down on the beach, and not worry about Leo’s beating you.’
‘If that was all I thought would happen,’ said Phyllida, with a spice of her usual self, ‘I’d probably enjoy it. But it’s his mother.’
‘I know. And the aunts. And the Cardinal. Don’t come that one over me, my girl, I know darned well they all spoil you to death. Now, stop worrying. I’ll bring you the Ovaltine, and you shall have the Grand Cham’s diamond safe under your pillow “or ere your pulse twice beat”. See you.’
The woods were still and silent, the clearing full of starlight. The frogs had dived at my approach; the only sound now from the pool was the lap and stir of the lily-pads as the rings of water shimmered through them and set them rocking.
I paused for a moment. I had told Phyllida that I didn’t believe in ghosts, and I knew I had no reason to be afraid, but for the life of me I couldn’t help glancing towards the place where Yanni had appeared last night, while just for a moment I felt my skin prickle and brush up like a cat’s fur.
Next moment, very faintly, I heard the piano. I tilted my head to listen to the thin, falling melodic line that crept down through the trees. I recognised phrases that I had heard last night. It was this, no doubt, that had unconsciously given me pause, and called up poor Yanni for me.
The ghost had gone. The pathway to the beach was just a pathway. But I didn’t follow it yet: slowly, rather as if I were breasting water instead of air, I climbed the path to the Castello.
I paused at the edge of the rose garden, hanging back in shadow. The roses smelt heavy and sweet. The music was clear now, but muted, so that I guessed it came from the house rather than the terrace. I recognised another passage, a simple, almost lyrical line that suddenly broke and stumbled in the middle, like a step missed in the dark. I found it disquieting. After a while the pianist stopped, started again, played for another half-minute before he broke off to go back a few bars; then the same long phrase was played over several times before being allowed to flow on unchecked.
The next time he stopped I heard the murmur of voices. Julian Gale’s tones carried beautifully; Max replied indistinguishably. Then the piano began again.
He was there, and working. They were both there. As if I had had something proved to me – whatever it was I had come for – I turned away and, with the help of the torch, followed the Castello’s own path downhill, through the clearing where I had met Max Gale, and on down the broken steps to the bay.
After the heavy shade of the path, the open beach seemed as light as day. The white crescent of sand was firm and easy walking. As I left the wood I switched off the torch, and went rapidly across the bay to where we had been sitting that morning. The pines, overhanging, made a black pool of shadow, so black that for a moment it looked as if something was lying there. Another body.
But this time I didn’t pause. I knew it for a trick of the shadows, no more; just another ghost to fur the skin with gooseflesh; an image painted on the memory, not of the living Yanni this time, but of the dead.
The music sounded faintly from above. I kept the torch switched off in case the flash attracted the Gales’ attention, and approached the trees.
Something was lying there. Not shadows; it was solid, a long dark bundle-shape, like the thing in the rock-pool. And it was real.
This time the shock really did hit me. I still remember the kick over the heart, the sharp, frightening pain that knocked all the blood in my body into hammering motion, the way a kick starts a motor-cycle engine. The blood slammed in heavy, painful strokes in my head, my fingers, my throat. My hand tightened so convulsively on the torch that the switch went down and the light came on, pinpointing whatever it was that lay there under the pines.
It wasn’t a body. It was a long, smoothly-wrapped bundle of something, longer than a man. It was lying just where we had been sitting that morning.
I had my free hand clamped tightly against my ribs, under the left breast. It is a theatrical gesture, but, like all the theatre’s clichés, it is based soundly on truth. I believe I felt I must hold my terrified heart from battering its way out of the rib-cage. I must have stood there for several minutes, rigid, unable either to move forward or to run away.
The thing didn’t move. There was no sound, other than the distant notes of the piano, and the soft hushing of the sea.
My terror slowly faded. Body or no body, it obviously wasn’t going to hurt me, and, I thought grimly, I’d be better facing a dozen bodies than going back to Phyllida without the Forli diamond.
I pointed the torchlight straight at the thing under the trees, and approached it bravely.
The bundle stirred. As my breath whistled sharply in, I saw, in the torchlight, the gleam of a living eye. But then in the split half-second that prevented me from screaming, I saw what – not who – this was. It was the dolphin.
Apollo’s child. Amphitryte’s darling. The sea-magician. High and dry.
The eye moved, watching me. The tail stirred again, as if trying to beat movement out of the hard earth as it would from water. It struck the edge of the crisping ripples with a splash that seemed to echo right up the rocks.
I tiptoed closer, under the blackness of the pines. ‘Darling?’ I said softly. ‘What’s the matter? Are you hurt?’
The creature lay still, unblinking, the eye liquid and watchful. It was silly to look, as I did, for recognition, but at least I could see no fear of me. I shone the torch carefully over the big body. There seemed to be no wound, or mark of any kind. I examined the sand round about. There was no blood, only a wide, dragged wake where the animal had been hauled or thrown out of the water. Near a pine-root the torchlight caught the pale gleam of Phyllida’s make-up bag; I snatched this up; I didn’t even look inside, but rammed it into my pocket and then forgot it. Presumably the diamond was safe inside it, but more important now than any diamond was the dolphin, stranded and helpless, a prey for anyone who wanted to hurt him. And that someone did want to hurt him, I very well knew … Moreover, unless he could be got back into the water, he would die as soon as the sun got up and dried his body out.
I straightened up, trying to force my thoughts into order, and to recall everything I had ever read or known about dolphins. It was little enough. I knew that, like whales, they sometimes stranded themselves for no obvious reason, but that if they were unhurt and could be re-floated fairly soon, they would suffer no ill
effects. I knew, too, that they must be kept wet, or the skin cracked and went septic; and that they breathed through an air-hole on the top of the head, and that this must be kept clear.
I shone the torch again. Yes, there was the air-hole, a crescent-shaped, glistening nostril on top of the head. It was open, but half clotted with sand thrown up as the creature had ploughed ashore. I fixed the torch as best I could in the crotch of a pine bough, dipped my hands in the sea, and gently wiped the sand from the hole.
The dolphin’s breath was warm on my hands, and this was somehow surprising: the creature was all at once less alien, his friendliness and intelligence at the same time less magical and more touching. It was unthinkable that I might have to watch him die.
I ran my hands over his skin, noticing with fear how rough this was; the breeze was drying it out. I tried to judge the distance I would have to drag him. Now and again a ripple, driven by that same breeze, washed right up to the dolphin’s tail, but this was the thinnest film of water licking up from the shallows four yards away. Another few feet out, as I knew, the sand shelved sharply to deeper water beside the rocks. Once get him even half floating, and I should be able easily to manage his weight.
I switched off the torch, then put my arms round the dolphin as far as I could, and tried to pull him. But I couldn’t get hold of him; my hands slipped over the faultless streamlining of his body. Nor could I grasp the dorsal fin, and when I tried tugging at his flippers he fidgeted for the first time, and I thought he was going to struggle, and work himself further up the shore. Finally, kneeling, I got my shoulder right against his, and tried to thrust him backwards with all the strength I could muster. But he never moved an inch.
I stood back at length, panting, sweating, and almost in tears. ‘I can’t do it. Sweetie, I can’t even budge you!’ The bright liquid eye watched me silently. Behind him four yards away, the sea heaved and whispered under the tail of the wind. Four yards; life or death.