Operation Manhunt

by Christopher Nicole

  Strohm nodded, returned along the valley to the forest. Jonathan was left wondering at the amazing manner in which O’Connor, having been the least effective member of the party so far, had suddenly stepped in and assumed command of the entire operation. Certainly, under his leadership, things moved quickly and smoothly. Strohm returned in a few minutes with two stout branches which he trimmed down to make a pair of reasonably straight poles. A mattress was made of twisted vines, and in this Geraldine, still protesting her ability to manage on her own, was placed.

  Even Phyllis Malthus seemed to have fallen under the psychiatrist’s spell. Benny had regained control of Aristotle, who was sheltering beneath a rock quite close to the recent battleground, and having assured herself that the dog had come to no harm, Phyllis glared at her husband. “Wretched little man,” she said disgustedly. “I’d cheerfully see you behind bars. But the doctor says it would cause a terrible scandal, and I suppose he’s right.”

  “Don’t do me any favors,” Malthus said. “That I’ll finally be getting divorced from you is the only good thing about this whole miserable business.”

  “Divorced?” she cried. “Who said anything about getting divorced? Oh, dear me, no, Jimmy Malthus. I don’t hold with divorces. Besides,” and an almost pleasant look came over her face, “now that you’ve tried to murder me, and in front of all these witnesses, I think I’m going to enjoy being married to you. Eh, pet?” She tickled Aristotle under the chin.

  They resumed their march, Malthus and Harman, their hands still tied behind their backs, now leading the way. Behind them came Byrne and the three sailors. Their hands had been freed to enable them to carry the stretcher, but their wrists had been secured to the poles, so they could do nothing except obey orders. O’Connor and Strohm came behind them, then Phyllis Malthus, with Aristotle once again in her arms, and Jonathan and Benny were last.

  “Slow up a bit, Benny,” Jonathan said, once they had climbed the hill leading out of the Valley of Desolation, and were descending again, toward the west. “I want to talk with you.”

  “Seems to me we have nothing to discuss, Mr. Anders,” Benny said. “I had hoped that after we had become comrades in arms, so to speak, you might have taken a more reasonable view of things. But if you’ve got the doctor on your side on top of everything else, it seems to me I’ve had it.”

  “Which is exactly what I wish to talk about,” Jonathan said. “I have a distinct feeling that events have suddenly gotten out of control.”

  “Your reactions need tightening, Mr. Anders. I got that feeling the moment I struck that match, yesterday evening.”

  “I’m thinking about Dr. O’Connor,” Jonathan said. “I even had a feeling just now that Malthus was hinting the doctor would suffer more for having the police investigate what happened on board the schooner than he would, and he did try to murder us. Listen to me, Benny, no matter who you really are, just about everyone who has seen that photograph believes you’re Vladimir Pobrenski. And I wasn’t kidding when I said that at least half the people who are looking for you mean to kill you, or send you back to the Communists. Believe me, we will at least take care of you.”

  “In England?” Benny demanded. “Nasty, foggy place where it rains all the time? Might as well be in a Russian prison.”

  “You wouldn’t, you know. And it wouldn’t be a prison. It’d be a firing squad.”

  Benny sighed. “It’s a pretty horrible mess, isn’t it, Mr. Anders?”

  “And it’s going to get worse. We’re your only hope, Benny, fogs and all. So if you’re with me, I propose that the very moment we reach civilization, you and I find ourselves a plane out of here. Without saying a word to a soul.”

  “Not even the doctor?” Benny inquired. “After all he’s doing for us?”

  The forest echoed to a sudden report. “Oh, my,” Phyllis Malthus cried. “Whatever’s that?”

  “A gunshot.” Strohm cupped his hands over his mouth and gave a loud shout. “Over here! Over here!”

  “You’d better release our friends,” Brian O’Connor said. “And you men had better remember our bargain, else its a long jail sentence for every one of you.”

  The gun fired again, closer now, and they hurried down the hillside, to discover a group of men, three of whom were policemen, coming across the valley beneath them.

  “Hallo!” shouted one of the civilians. “We’ve been hunting for you since that wind died. Good Lord!” He peered at Brian O’Connor as they came closer. “Dr. O’Connor? I had no idea you were involved. Remember me? I’m Edwards, from the Press office.”

  “Definitely, we will not tell the doctor, Benny,” Jonathan decided.

  The search party was headed by a Negro superintendent of police, cool and smart in his khaki uniform. “But this is really something,” he said as he came up to them. “Is that you, Jonas? But where is Pete?”

  Jonas looked suitably embarrassed, shifted from foot to foot. “Man, Inspector, Pete didn’t make it.”

  “Well, I am sorry to hear that,” the police officer said. “Even if I am the one who sent him to jail that time. Man, but these fellows are all bashed up, Dr. O’Connor. And the young lady is hurt too?”

  “My daughter,” Brian O’Connor said. “Gerry, I’d like you to meet an old friend of mine, Superintendent Wilson Courtney.”

  “My pleasure, Mr. Courtney,” Geraldine said. “But it’s only a sprained ankle, really.”

  “We’re all suffering from a slight case of exposure,” O’Connor said.

  “And hunger,” Phyllis Malthus said. “Aristotle is starving.”

  “And I wouldn’t mind a drink,” Benny confessed.

  “But of course,” Courtney said. “Bring those water bottles and the brandy over here. And you fellows,” he beckoned his constables, “you take this stretcher, eh? The road isn’t far.”

  Brian O’Connor took a sip of brandy, followed it with a long drink of water, handed the bottle to Jonathan. The reporter was giving Geraldine and Phyllis Malthus a drink.

  “How on earth did you know to come looking for us, Courtney?” the doctor asked.

  “Some men from up the coast saw the lifeboat coming through the surf, and they telephoned Roseau. Well, we knew where you had to come in, and we figured you’d pass through the Valley of Desolation. Man, we were very happy to hear that you were coming, because we had picked up a brief radio message last night. But it was cut off before we could exactly find your position.”

  “At first we didn’t think the fire was serious,” O’Connor explained. “It began in the lazaretto, and we thought we could keep it under control, at least until we made Roseau. But then the pump broke down, and the blaze spread very rapidly. The transmitter went almost immediately.”

  “Well, of course, we hoped that it was just a wireless failure, Doctor. But by then the weather was getting so bad. The Americans sent out a search aircraft from Puerto Rico, but there was no sign of you, and the pilot reported that the fringe of that hurricane was certain to pass over Dominica. So we had to assume the worst.”

  “She went down very fast,” Strohm agreed. “And visibility was bad at the time.”

  “We did hear a plane,” Geraldine said. “But you never told me you’d been to Dominica before, Daddy?”

  “I wanted to surprise you, although not quite in this dramatic fashion, I’ll agree. Actually, I know Dominica very well. And Dominica knows me too, eh, Courtney?”

  The police officer laughed. “Oh, yes, sir, Dr. O’Connor. The doctor is one of our most distinguished residents, Miss O’Connor.”

  “Did you say resident?” Geraldine cried.

  “There’s the road,” Brian O’Connor said. “You have transport waiting, I hope, Courtney.”

  “Oh, yes, Doctor. I have three cars. We knew there would be several of you.”

  “And what exactly do you want us to do first?”

  “Well, I know the first thing you all will need is a meal and a hot bath and a good rest. I have made ho
tel reservations.”

  “If you don’t mind, we’ll go straight to the house,” O’Connor said. “You can come out there to talk with us, if you like. But we none of us really feel like facing reporters and that sort of thing. If you’ll excuse us, Mr. Edwards.”

  “Oh, I have enough to go on with, Doctor,” the reporter said. “If you’ll give me the privilege of an exclusive, maybe tomorrow?”

  “It’ll be a pleasure,” O’Connor said.

  “And you would like me to take care of the boys, Doctor?” Courtney asked.

  “I’m sure they’d be grateful, Courtney. But Byrne and Harman must come out to the house. You and Phyllis will come in the first car, James. And there’s room for you, Mr. Anders, and Benny.”

  “I think Benny and I should catch a plane, as soon as possible,” Jonathan said.

  “Oh, quite. But right now I’m sure it’s impossible. Eh, Courtney?”

  “We haven’t had a plane all day, Doctor. We’re expecting one in this evening, but it won’t be returning. It’s just the local one, you know, from Barbados via St. Vincent. Anyway,” he said to Jonathan, “you can’t go flying off in those torn clothes, man. I have some I got from the local Red Cross, waiting in the car. We will find something to fit you.”

  “And you have to have a meal, my dear boy,” O’Connor said. “I think we should be on our way. You follow on with Harman and Byrne and the superintendent, Strohm.”

  “Anything you say, Dr. O’Connor,” Strohm agreed. He seemed to have decided to hitch his wagon to the new star. Jonathan sighed, but there was nothing he could do at the moment without taking the police into his confidence, and he couldn’t risk that.

  “We’ll take the superintendent up on that hotel,” Malthus decided. “We don’t want to impose any further.”

  “You can find a hotel,” Phyllis Malthus declared. “Aristotle and I are going home with the doctor.”

  “And you are coming too, James,” O’Connor said. “I really must insist. You’re looking quite done in.”

  Malthus hesitated, glanced at his erstwhile comrades, each of whom avoided meeting his eye, and then turned to the police officer. “You’re meeting us at the doctor’s house, are you, Mr. Courtney?”

  “Oh, yes. There will have to be a full report, you know. A man’s life has been lost.”

  Brian O’Connor got into the first car, and Geraldine was placed beside him. Phyllis Malthus and Aristotle followed, and then Malthus himself. Benny and Jonathan sat in front with the driver. “Take us out to the plantation, will you?” O’Connor said.

  “A plantation?” Geraldine cried. “Daddy, whatever have you been up to?”

  Brian O’Connor smiled, settled back against the cushions as the big car pulled away from the roadside. “Well, it’s not a plantation, really. Not any more, at any rate. But it used to be a very large sugar estate, a hundred and fifty years ago. Sugar was the sole economy of Dominica, once. But when the slaves were freed, the bottom dropped out of the market, at any rate in these smaller islands. The big estates were abandoned, and in time were divided up into lots among the Negroes. But the plantation houses and the land immediately around them were just left. Several of them have been restored and are operated as hotels, and I might say, Mr. Anders, there are few pleasanter places to spend a vacation.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” Jonathan said, “next time I’m on holiday in this part of the world.”

  “I was fortunate enough to be able to purchase one of them very cheaply, oh, about ten years ago. I’m afraid I rather lost interest in my practice, and in the normal, everyday events of life, Gerry, when your mother decided that things weren’t going to work out between us. I still look after one or two of my oldest and most important patients, like James here, but most of the year I spend in Dominica. It has a sort of primitiveness, wildness, if you like, which suits me.”

  “Well, if you’d only let me know,” Geraldine grumbled, “I’d have come to visit you sooner. It’s certainly a beautiful island.”

  The road had snaked between the towering, tree-smothered mountains, but now they were leaving the trees and coming into Roseau itself, a cluster of red-roofed wooden houses, like Kingstown huddling around an even more exposed roadstead, in which the whitecaps were a constant reminder of the morning’s storm.

  The driver skirted the town, and took the coast road north. Here more trees and telephone wires were down, and in places there had been considerable flooding. The car swung inland, along the motorway leading north, but soon they turned down a bumpy track, and now once more the gigantic trees surrounded them, while on their left a small river rustled beside the road, the water black and sinister, hurrying onward to the sea. The gathering dusk added to the eeriness of the setting.

  “Ooh!” Phyllis Malthus said. “What a gloomy place. Do they have voodoo in Dominica, Dr. O’Connor?”

  “Very much so, Phyllis,” Brian O’Connor said genially. “Although the local name for it is obeah.”

  “It does give you a creepy feeling, doesn’t it, Mr. Anders?” Benny whispered.

  “Obeah is just a primitive religion, Benny,” O’Connor explained. “Nothing for us to be afraid of, because it works entirely on the power of suggestion. And I can assure you, there’s nothing creepy about the house.”

  The trees ended abruptly, and the drive swept across a large, brilliantly green lawn, sloping gently upward to the huge-pillared portico of the plantation house.

  “Oh, isn’t it marvelous!” Geraldine cried. “Like something out of Gone with the Wind.”

  “Not quite.” Brian O’Connor smiled. “We’ve only two floors, and I’m afraid I only employ a staff of three. But you’ll find it very comfortable.”

  The car stopped, the driver got out and opened the door for them. A man and a woman hurried forward to greet them. “Well, Doctor, but it is true you were out in that storm?”

  “Very true, Stanley,” O’Connor said. “With these good people, and there are some more coming on behind. So we’ll need all the spare rooms, and blankets, and whatever food you can prepare in a hurry.”

  “Oh, yes, sir, Dr. O’Connor. You all just come inside and we will make you feel good.”

  O’Connor beckoned to the woman. “I want you to meet my daughter, Geraldine. Lilian and Stanley have been with me for years, Gerry.”

  “I’m most happy to meet you, Miss Geraldine.” Lilian curtsied. “The master has spoken of you often.”

  “I must find out what he told you.” Geraldine managed a smile. “But I’m truly glad to be here.”

  “Miss Geraldine has sprained her ankle, Lilian,” O’Connor said. “Mr. Anders? I wonder if you would give Stanley there a hand with the stretcher?”

  “Of course, Dr. O’Connor.”

  “And do you have any breast of chicken?” Phyllis Malthus asked. “My poor Aristotle is so hungry. And he’s being so good about it. It’ll have to be minced, of course.”

  “You give me the little dog, mistress.” Lilian took Aristotle, hastily withdrew her hand from the vicinity of the bared teeth. “We will find him something.” Her expression suggested that the best thing might be a dose of strychnine.

  Stanley took the foot of the stretcher, Jonathan the head. They carried Geraldine through a high-ceilinged entry hall, large enough to play football in, and entirely lacking in furniture. They climbed the huge, curving staircase to a wide gallery. From here they looked down on the rest of the party, just straggling into the house; Malthus gazed around him apprehensively.

  “This will be your room, Miss Geraldine.” Stanley took them into a large bedroom, lit by a triple window. The center of the room was filled by an iron four-poster double bed, and there was an outsize, three-mirrored dressing table against the wall. A stool sat in front of the dressing table, and there was a rocking chair by the window, but otherwise the room was starkly empty, and there was no carpet on the unpolished floor. A door in the wall opposite the bed led into an adjoining bathroom.

&nbs
p; “Just put the stretcher down,” Geraldine said. “Mr. Anders will help me.”

  “Yes, Miss Geraldine,” Stanley said. “Lilian is going to bring up some nightclothes, eh? And I will fetch a tray.”

  “That sounds delightful,” Geraldine said, and held Jonathan’s hand to hop from the stretcher to the bed. “I’m in a whirl,” she confessed.

  “I think we all are.” Jonathan crossed the room, leaned out of the window, from where a fire escape led down to the backyard, which was nothing more than a derelict area of black earth, containing a shed garage, in which waited an old Lincoln. More in keeping with the atmosphere of the house, the forest also waited, silently, no more than fifty yards away, as if knowing this house had no business still being here, and would soon again become its victim. “You have a surprising father.”

  “Yes,” she said thoughtfully. “Oh, this bed feels so good.” Her eyes closed. “I could sleep for a week. Are you going to bed, too, Jon?”

  He returned to stand beside her. “Not until I get back to London.”

  “Oh!” She opened her eyes again. “But when are you leaving?”

  “As soon as I can get a flight, which, it seems, may be first thing in the morning. So I think I should say good-by.”

  “I’ll come to see you off.”

  “Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll come up before I leave. Benny’ll want to say good-by, too. But I think you should stay in bed.”

  “Well, don’t forget.” She squeezed his hand. “It’s been fun, hasn’t it? In a gruesome sort of way.”

  “Just great.” He hesitated. “Gerry, could I ask you a question?”

  “Anything you like.”