Treasure Up in Smoke

by David Williams

  ‘Not me so much as the chap I’m relieving.’ Small leant across the desk. ‘He gave me a pretty thorough briefing on our Lady Cynthia for obvious reasons. Officially she’s a casual visitor and her presence is ignored by everyone from the Governor down . . .’

  ‘And up?’

  It took the Chief Inspector a moment to understand Treasure’s meaning. ‘Oh, Mr O’Hara knew she was about, but I was told he had no knowledge of her relationship with Mr Joyce.’

  ‘Or didn’t want to have. This is a pretty small community. I should have thought . . .’

  ‘Exactly, sir.’ Small nodded agreement with the implication. ‘On the other hand, it’s outwardly a very Catholic community. I imagine you have to do penance for gossiping.’

  Treasure smiled. He wondered why the reputedly talented and competent Chief Minister bothered with maintaining a social charade to protect his position on a tin-pot island. If the man was emotionally engaged with a member of one of the richest families in the western world then a more agreeable way of life might be open to him in some other place. Even if Joyce’s wife denied him a divorce . . .

  ‘Of course, things may change now Mr O’Hara’s gone.’ Small offered this gratuitous comment without emphasis.

  ‘You mean in terms of the pious observance of the Catholic view on matrimony?’

  ‘Something like that, sir, yes. As far as I could see, it was Mr O’Hara who set the pace – for the people at the top, anyway.’

  ‘Because he controlled the purse-strings. But won’t his brother . . . ?’

  ‘From what I can gather Mr Paul O’Hara won’t be much concerned with keeping people on the strait and narrow – nor with the island either, except for what he can get out of it.’

  So the Chief Minister, thought Treasure, might be said to have been presented with the penny and the bun through the sad demise of Joe O’Hara – additional power, and freedom from rules that constrained his way of life.

  ‘You said Paul O’Hara knew his brother was sleeping at the cabin. He wasn’t at the dinner last night?’

  ‘No, sir, he wasn’t. Arrived while it was on, came ashore and made himself at home in Buckingham House. He makes fairly regular trips here – uses that floating gin-palace to ship cigars to the States . . .’

  ‘Which would make his cruises tax deductible,’ Treasure put in knowingly.

  Small nodded. ‘I expect so. Anyway, he admitted he had a flaming row with his brother and that Mr Joe left for the cabin around midnight – probably in the cause of a quiet life.’

  ‘You’ve seen Paul O’Hara?’

  ‘Yes. I went straight to the house after I’d finished up at the Falls. He’s a cool customer. Made no bones about his relations with his brother, and didn’t express any particular concern about what happened. You know, he didn’t even want to see the body. The only thing that seemed to throw him was the decapitation.’

  ‘He learnt about the death from you? But it must have been some hours after . . .’

  ‘Not about the death, sir, no. A young kitchen maid, the only servant on duty and incidentally his alibi –’ Small glowered disapprovingly – ‘she wakened him about nine o’clock and told him Mr Joe was dead, but for some reason hadn’t mentioned the, er . . . the foul play – perhaps to spare his feelings.’

  Treasure nodded. ‘Understandable, perhaps. It’s odd, though, the chap didn’t ask how his brother came to kick the bucket.’

  ‘He assumed it was a heart attack.’

  ‘Assumed? Well, that was a thundering big assumption . . .’

  ‘Not the way he put it, sir. Mr Joe had had heart trouble for years.’

  ‘And you said O’Hara jibbed at the idea of a postmortem.’

  ‘Mm – though I can’t imagine why he should think we could’ve avoided one.’ Small picked up the telephone whose ring had punctuated his last remark. ‘All right, I’ll come out.’ He replaced the receiver. ‘Father Babington is here asking to see me.’

  ‘One of the top people.’ Treasure grimaced and stood up. ‘I’ll make myself scarce.’

  CHAPTER XIV

  Paul O’Hara surveyed the contents of his brother’s desk. These, together with material he had removed from the wall safe, he had stacked in untidy piles on the desk top. He had gleaned very little new information from his hardly authorized examination of Joe’s private papers.

  He was not his brother’s legal executor. He had hoped to come upon a copy of Joe’s will, but in this he was disappointed. He automatically became the owner of King Charles Industries Ltd., but he would need to wait upon Joe’s lawyers and bankers on Grand Cayman to learn how the fool had arranged the dissipation of his private possessions – and what they amounted to in cash terms.

  Paul was quite ready to challenge Joe’s intentions if the private estate was substantial. He was certain his brother would have bequeathed him nothing – that everything would be made over to one or other of the KCI charitable trusts. Preventing even the smallest flow of more O’Hara capital into any of these wholly undeserving activities would give him satisfaction beyond the sum of the pecuniary gain.

  In demanding and obtaining Joe’s keys from that temporarily rattled policeman, Paul had confidently believed he had secured access to any amount of material that would throw at least a ridiculous and at best an unsavoury light on the character of the brother he did not one bit lament. In this, too, his expectations had been unrealized.

  There were no private sets of account books, no diaries, no letters – nothing in the least incriminating or salacious. His hopes had been especially dashed in the last connection. He had long harboured the view that Joe’s much promoted saintly persona was far too flawless to be true. Did the man really sublimate all his human desires in that endless pursuit of pious intentions? Could the character who had hatched the whole cigar caper have been so unspotted in relation to all other forms of conventional sin?

  The cigar caper: curse that humbug of a priest for his misdirected loyalty. By all accounts he had roundly and publicly condemned Joe as a traitor – and two hours later mindlessly ordered the destruction of the source of continuing bounties – all on the unsupported premise that such wanton profligacy accorded with Joe’s wishes.

  Well, the premise had been almost unsupported: the irony was that the sanctimonious Babington had Joe wrongly cast as a traitor in the first place. At least the idiot had been dissuaded from consigning a three months’ stock of cigars to the incinerator’s unappreciative maw. Hell’s teeth, that had been a close call – involving a best forgotten, undignified bit of crawling. At least the reward would compensate for the indignity; the cigars might be the last profitable shipment, but the satisfied customers would be paying cash on delivery – there would be no invoices from KCI this time.

  O’Hara calculated the value of his personal benefit from this last machination – and made a note to be at the quayside personally to supervise the unloading of the train from the convent at two o’clock.

  He was of a mind to quit the island as soon as the yacht was loaded, but prudence suggested he should remain until the results of the autopsy were available. His intention then was to have the yacht take him to Grand Cayman before the Captain sailed it back to Miami. He could spend the next day clearing the legal and financial business. He supposed he would need to return to KCI for Joe’s funeral – even Paul O’Hara recognized this elemental obligation. In any case, his own lawyer would be flying down to meet him in the morning, and having him on hand in Rupertstown for the following week would be a justifiable expense.

  The big deal with Dogwall could simmer on the back burner for a while – that’s how the man himself had put it, and with scarcely disguised enthusiasm about the ultimate outcome. Dogwall was hooked, but with Joe’s puppet, Mr High-and-Mighty Joyce, flexing his constitutional muscles there would have to be a hiatus – until ways were found to cut the Chief Minister down to size, as well as to expose the posturings of the ludicrous Rees. The Governor appeared to have gr
aduated from train-spotter to Lord Protector in one short morning. O’Hara could only suppose that the epidemic of arrogance was a measure of how surely his brother had suppressed and inhibited the ambitions of others – which proved there was some good even in Joe.

  Soberly he concluded that for the time being at least he had to avoid giving Rees and Joyce grounds for invoking the support of the British Government in opposition to his plans. KCI being to all appearances a self-supporting Crown Colony, Whitehall would be only too ready to defend the status quo on the island. Once it became evident that the economy was heading for bankruptcy, then London would start playing a different tune. If eventually the choice lay between mounting an expensive aid programme or accepting American financial succour available for the asking he had no doubt which course would appeal most.

  O’Hara needed to take his time – and happily he could now afford to do so. It was always possible that in the interim he could bring Babington back to a saner view on the cigar business – possible but, he had to admit to himself, not exactly probable. As an alternative, selling the cigar company to the Anglo-Australian interest would upset nobody. He could scarcely prevent himself from laughing aloud at the prospect of bringing off this particular coup. Damn it, they could put in their distillery too if they wanted – it would all help the Paul O’Hara cash flow and improve the value of King Charles Industries.

  The new owner of Buckingham House stroked his beard and passed his gaze over the contents and decorations of the sombre library. The edifice in which the room was contained was the part of the inheritance which he would gladly have forsworn: perhaps he could sell it to an oil-rich Arab or a social-climbing dentist. In any event, it could hardly be said seriously to mar the fresh prospect that stretched enticingly ahead.

  O’Hara sighed; it was irritating that his sense of secure contentment stopped short of immoderate proportions – due only to the unfathomable action of a person unknown. He wished hell fire on the meddling fool who had cut off his brother’s head.

  Glen Dogwall, naked and muscles straining, shadow-boxed before the full-length mirror in the guest-house bathroom. He had made only rare and youthful appearances in the boxing ring. Being well past the age when he could be required to do so again, apart from becoming a keen spectator of the sport, he was the source of so many fictitious tales concerning his exploits as a young pugilist that he had come to believe them himself.

  In his mind’s eye he downed Mongo Joyce with a well-timed blow to the head and danced back, rolling his heavy shoulders at the mirror, while a mythical referee counted out the completely out-classed and equally invisible Chief Minister.

  This part of the fantasy exhausted, Dogwall struck a succession of poses to reconfirm his conviction that only age and status denied him the opportunity to run for the Mr Universe title. He then went into his Fred Astaire dance routine, snapping his fingers to the rhythm of ‘How About You’, and humming a version of the melody that even Cole Porter might have found difficult to distinguish from the British National Anthem. The choreography attaching to this part of the exhibition limited the performer to backward and forward steps – the narcissistic satisfaction ceased abruptly outside the limited confines of what the mirror could reflect.

  Dogwall’s sense of self-admiration was now beginning to peak and he was ready to go into his finale. Unfortunately this involved co-operation – not to mention assistance – from his wife. He chasseed to the bathroom door; she was still not back. The message from Government House that had greeted his return from seeing O’Hara had simply indicated she had gone on a train ride. He snorted his displeasure: the fact that his wife had chosen an arguably less incongruous midday occupation than the one he had in mind for her did not enter his thoughts. He had not married the woman so that she could take unscheduled trips at times inconvenient to himself.

  He stepped into the shower. In response to his turning the tap to full volume the rusty rose emitted a powerless sprinkle that scarcely bore comparison with the performance of a watering-can. He sat down on the floor of the little cubicle and pretended it was raining.

  Paul O’Hara had jokingly suggested that he, Glen Dogwall the Third, had cut off his brother’s head – and got away with it. He had given up hotly denying the accusation because the guy had quickly made it plain it was only a ghoulish joke: it had still been unnerving. More – Paul had blandly indicated that Joe’s demise had been the most desirable of issues. Dogwall shook his head; that took some beating – the man’s own brother and he was practically ordering imported champagne for the wake.

  Well, Rachel would alibi him up to the eyebrows – as soon as he could find her and tell her exactly what to say. Joe O’Hara had got what was coming to him all right. The double-cross had been more than Dogwall could stomach. Paul had promised not to let out he had tipped him off the night before about the deal being a set-up – that was something else Rachel would need telling about. There was no point in the police figuring he had a motive: Paul had said as much in passing. Dogwall had not reacted at the time because he had had something else on his mind – sole ownership of King Charles Industries, no less.

  He was sure it had been Paul’s phone call to the Governor and Joyce that had fixed it. If they had been in the least bit ready to co-operate over the original Sunfun deal, O’Hara would never have gotten so furious and later confidentially offered to sell out what amounted to control of the whole damned island. True, his opening price had sounded steep – but that was before they got on to the idea of a discounted, part payment through Switzerland. Well, the Sunfun Hotel Corporation of America knew more than most outfits about how to avoid capital gains tax – you could almost say they were experts. O’Hara could be accommodated all right.

  The soft island water trickled over Dogwall’s flopped anatomy. He had stopped imagining himself in the ring or before the footlights. He smiled contentedly at the prospect of having everybody on this money-spinning little island working for him, including that smart-ass lawyer of a Chief Minister, Mongo Joyce – especially Mongo Joyce. And there was nothing the bastard could do about it – which also went for his buddy-boy Governor.

  Altogether things looked pretty good to Glen Dogwall – since he was contemplating upon rather than taking cognizance of his creased-up, less than athletic trunk, now settled in slack repose. One thing he failed to figure was why Paul had confided the belief there would be no murder charge over his brother’s death – when everybody knew the guy had his head cut off. It was not that he hoped Paul was wrong; on the contrary, if he was right then who was going to care about alibis anyway?

  Mongo Joyce watched his secretary close the door as she left his office. She had not expected to be called to work today, but she had come in with a good grace. So had all the other people he had summoned to help deal with the situation. There was no doubt he commanded loyalty.

  With this consoling thought in mind he stood up and walked to the window. The room was at the front of the combined KCI courthouse and government administrative building across the square from the police-station block.

  The decorated, beffagged platform stood deserted, like the square itself. Even the intended good-humoured expression on the face of the King Charles statue seemed to have saddened – as though to point the thought that the platform it faced could easily do service as gallows or bandstand.

  Eric Small had been right. The Chief Minister had wasted not a minute of the morning, and establishing witness to his whereabouts during the previous night had been first on the list of priorities. After leaving the Governor he had gone straight to his home. His wife had accepted her instructions without demur, question or show of emotion. He had telephoned Cynthia from the office. She had been no less co-operative – but she had needed to be persuaded that events had not created the perfect opportunity for ending moral pretentions. Her impatience had been assuaged by Joyce’s stricture that authorship of the particular event he had in mind had yet to be established. She had agreed that a wif
e’s testimony, if lacking in objectivity, was somehow more respectable than a mistress’s – if only because it begged fewer additional questions.

  What Joyce saw spread out before him in his mind’s eye was not an empty square but the fulfilment of his ambition. He would now lead KCI forward to independence and ultimately to a status in the Caribbean that would put its importance far ahead of its size.

  First would come the referendum: with Joe gone and Archie Rees pledging moral support, self-determination for KCI within the Commonwealth was a foregone conclusion. Once the people realized the profitable future that lay ahead there would be no cause for opposition. He, Mongo Joyce, would decide when it was time to create an opposition – a cosy one, just big enough to prove he was running a democracy. This was a low priority in the time-scale but it was as well not to forget its ultimate importance.

  After independence, King Charles Industries Ltd. and all its subsidiary and associated companies would be nationalized – not confiscated, but taken into state ownership at a fair price with stage payments spread over five years. Cynthia Franks-Barrett would arrange to place three million dollars at the community’s disposal, at nominal interest.

  Joe O’Hara’s insane decision to phase out the tobacco business would be immediately reversed. Personally Joyce had never been able to understand why Americans prized King Charles Elegantes so highly, but with a turnover of five million dollars a year he wanted to see the activity expanded. If the nuns were unwilling to co-operate he would soon recruit people who would – even if he had to bring them from Cuba or Jamaica.

  The distillery project and the hydro-electric scheme were both critically important ventures. Joyce, was not so ingenuous as to suppose that foreign capitalists would be queueing to invest in a heavily nationalized economy. Nevertheless, his plans very much included new partnership enterprises, and with the right kind of tax advantages and guarantees he was confident he could overcome initial diffidence. He was nothing if not confident.