‘I’ve told you,’ said Louli. ‘I was going to give myself up. You see, I thought …’ She looked down at her hands and Cecil saw that they were actually trembling. ‘I thought Leo hated me – because of what I’d said about Helen, getting her into all this trouble and danger. I thought it had made him realize that it was really her he loved. And if that was so, I simply didn’t care what happened to me, I thought I might at least reinstate myself in his eyes by giving myself up to save her.’
‘Greater love hath no man than this,’ said Cecil, ‘that he lay down his life for his friend – to impress someone else.’ He suggested delicately that, anyway, it had worked and without going to all those lengths either.
‘I’d got it all wrong,’ she said. ‘He was angry with me, yes – but that’s different, that’s not hating. And he was sorry for her and anxious about her – but that’s not loving. You heard what he said – after she’d hidden me from the Gerente in my Vanda Lane get-up: he said, “I’ll thank you for ever – for doing this for Louvaine.” For Louvaine.’ She closed her lids over the blue blaze of her eyes. ‘You’ll never know, nobody will ever know, what those words meant to me.’
‘So you decided not to go on with the act?’
She shrugged against the white pillows. ‘Inspector Cockrill decided for me. I was flat out by then. But I couldn’t go on with it: he’d shown it was all a nonsense – which it was.’
‘Was it?’ said Doubting Thomas.
She couldn’t help laughing. ‘No use hoping, ducky! I know it would be more exciting if it could be true, but I’m afraid Mum’s Out. I can’t dive and I couldn’t have dived: but that day she died, Vanda executed two beautiful dives.’ She acknowledged that for the rest it had all fitted in absurdly well. It had been like planning a story in the old days, with poor Vanda. ‘You settle on the main plot, what the book’s about; and having done so, you usually find that you’re stuck with certain “constants” and you have to weave your story so as to take those constants in. In my case, the main plot was simply that I look like Vanda and I could have impersonated her. The constants were things like the lay-out of the hotel, the timing, that thing about the rolled-up bathing towel and so forth. I had to work them all in and it was really almost exciting if it hadn’t been so horrible and frightening, to find how it all fell into place. I mean, what a bit of luck, for instance, that Vanda wore bathing shoes. And that business about her clenching her hands on the rail: I couldn’t know that, I just relied on taking off the varnish and hoping you wouldn’t see that my nails were long while hers were always short.’ She laughed again. ‘And meanwhile, clever old Inspector Cockrill had had it worked out, and discarded it, long ago. I wonder how he’s feeling about it now?’
Inspector Cockrill in fact was feeling exceedingly relieved in his mind – or in his heart, rather, for his brain, he admitted crossly to himself, had little to do with it – at the escape of his pet from the noose which her own folly had set for herself: from that dark threat which in his anxiety for her, he had permitted to overhang his heart at the initiation of her experiment. It was better to let it go through, he said to himself; she had to do her piece for him, and I could always save her in the end. Why he should care about it all, he hardly knew; like Leo himself, he found her nowadays often only tiresome and silly and ill-behaved and certainly her accusation of Helen, however much the outcome of shock and hysteria, had been an unendearing episode. And yet – he looked back upon the line of pretty girls who, in his crabbed old age, had made his own arid heart beat for a little while a little more warmly: and thought that of them all, not least had been Louvaine – Louvaine as she had been in those first few sunny days, so gay and so honest, so hopelessly lost in love.
Meanwhile, however …
Leo Rodd came out of the hotel and across the terrace to his table and pulled up one of the scrubbed wooden chairs and sat down. He sent a waiter scurrying for a Bitter Campari and when the man had gone, hit the table with a triumphant hand and said, ‘Yes. You were right. Bills everywhere.’
Cockie sipped calmly at his Juanello. ‘Has he paid now?’
‘Not yet,’ said Leo. ‘But promised – and with chapter and verse, apparently, they’re all quite satisfied. Camillo – that’s this new guide who’s brought on his party from Venice – passed through Florence and Siena and they were full of it. I rang up Rapallo and the Flora in Rome, and by a miracle somehow got through. Odyssey Tours have never stayed at the Flora before, but we were booked in there as you know. He owes at the two hotels I rang up in Rapallo and everywhere in Siena – you remember that ghastly albergo in Siena?’
The waiter came scooting back with the Bitter Campari, scooped up his money and departed at his own more accustomed stroll. Leo said eagerly, ‘How did you guess?’
‘I don’t guess,’ said Cockie, irritably. ‘I deduce. We’d been promised in the prospectus, “first-class hotels”. Well, that means good second-class – we all know that. But what did we get? We got tip-top luxury in Rapallo, we got the lowest kind of pension in Siena, we were due for tip-top class again in Rome. So there was some reason why he couldn’t take us to the intermediate ones and one good reason could be that he hadn’t paid his bills there on previous tours. He’s been using Odyssey funds for his own purposes.’
‘Would the hotels give him credit?’
‘I suppose so. Odyssey’s a big firm, they’d know that they’d get their money in the end and there must be lots of reasonable excuses for a courier not paying on the nail – money not arrived from England, that kind of thing. An awful lot of fiddling goes on no doubt, with currency; he’d spin some yarn.’
‘And of course he’s actually a director; or so I believe.’
‘Do you indeed?’ said Cockie, with ferocious pity.
‘Well, isn’t he?’
‘All talk. He’s a courier, my dear fellow, no more, no less. Mind you, these chaps have responsibility – they handle a lot of money, thirty or forty people travelling through the continent for two or three weeks, that costs money; and then no sooner have they got rid of one lot than they pick up another. Fernando’s probably been this way several times already this season. And he’d have a lot of freedom too, with the arrangements – bookings and so on, why arrange it from England when you’ve got people actually on the spot …?’
The new courier appeared upon the terrace and sat down rather furtively all by himself, only to be besieged a moment later by his eager flock. It was pitiful to see the interested smile switched on, the listening ear inclined to recitals of Mrs A’s pleasure in this afternoon’s excursion, Mrs B’s dissatisfaction with it, Mrs C’s loss of a bracelet of exclusively sentimental value and her evident confidence that he would rush off forthwith and comb the unsavoury streets of Barrequitas for it; to watch the guarded skirmishings to avoid a jolly old glass of Jewanello with Mr D in favour of Hoo-warne-ellyo with refined Miss E. Leo Rodd said – reluctantly, for hope was rising within him like yeast and he was loath to pick holes in a case which might even yet shift the load of suspicion from Helen: ‘Wouldn’t the hotels confide in the courier who followed him on these trips?’
‘I don’t suppose couriers do follow each other. This would be Femando’s beat, the others would be conducting tours taking in other places. This business has thrown them all out, probably Camillo would never have come through Siena and Florence otherwise, they’ve had to reorganize because of Fernando being out of commission.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Leo. He sat twiddling his glass in his one hand and tried not to be glad that suspicion was shifting to Fernando, who after all was a good enough fellow, a rogue if you liked, but a cheerful, well-meaning rogue. And yet – there was Miss Trapp; that didn’t seem quite so well-meaning and jolly. ‘I’m sorry for the old girl,’ he said.
‘Foolish woman. He’s obviously getting money out of her.’
‘Yes. Hence the promises to the hotels.’
‘They didn’t say what form the promises took?’
/> Leo laughed. ‘No. They were startlingly frank about the rest, but they got a bit cagey at that stage: both to Camillo apparently from what he’s just told me, and to me on the telephone. I dare say they think it’s coming from illegal sources and the less they know about it at this stage the better.’
‘She couldn’t have got money from England so soon.’
‘If at all, surely?’
‘If at all.’ He sat musing for a little while. ‘Unless, of course – I wonder what’s the position if she marries him?’
‘Oh, good God – no!’ protested Leo, as only a little while earlier, Helen had said before him.
‘He comes from Gibraltar,’ said Cockrill. ‘That’s a sterling area. Easy enough for him to bring it over from there. You convert it into Gibraltar pounds and then buy pesetas and then, I suppose, buy lire with the pesetas.’
Leo was not interested in the economics of Mr Fernando’s jugglings with the existing currency regulations. ‘The thing is – how does this affect the murder? I mean, surely it must?’
‘It might well affect the blackmail business,’ said Cockie.
‘Well, of course. She could threaten to expose him to the company. You’ve never been able to get hold of the book?’
‘No,’ said Cockie. He, Inspector Cockrill of Scotalanda Yarrda, had asked in vain for a look at the bloodstained book; it was a sore point.
‘Or she could threaten to expose him to Miss Trapp. Only how could she have known? – La Lane, I mean.’
‘She was observant,’ said Cockie. ‘It was her job to be – like mine: and after all, I knew. And she was a student of human nature.’
‘And she was a goddam bitch.’
‘She had a cruel streak. She didn’t need the money and, in fact, she never asked for any. She just liked torturing people, that was all.’
‘Louvaine – though she was her cousin – had no idea of it.’
‘Miss Lane would hardly be proud of it, I suppose.’
‘Of course Louli knew that she kept books of notes: she thought they were just for people, to base characters on and so forth. She nearly passed out when the Gerente produced that one.’
‘She behaved very foolishly – and worse than foolishly – in not telling me at once the true state of affairs.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Leo. He deflected this uncomfortable offshoot of the conversation. ‘If Miss Trapp had promised Fernando money …’
‘We don’t know that she had,’ said Cockie. ‘Only that he expected to get it. In either case, she doubtless won’t have known what it was for.’ He pinched out the untidy end of his cigarette and pitched the butt over the balustrade into the oleander bushes below. ‘He was certainly ripe for blackmail. If marriage was really in the air, he had a lot more to lose than just his job.’
‘It does constitute quite a hefty motive for murder?’ suggested Leo, deprecatingly, fighting down the optimism rising again within him. ‘The only thing is – how? We now know for certain that it really was Vanda Lane who came out alive and dived and went back to her room that afternoon, don’t we? Or don’t we?’
‘Yes,’ said Cockie. ‘I think we do.’
‘I mean, I was a fool ever to doubt it for a second, even without having had time to reason. You see – I know it was La Lane diving. I saw her dive at Rapallo. She was magnificent, Louli would have had to be exhibition standard to have copied her; but what’s more to the point, she had a certain style, sort of mannerisms – I’d recognize her just as I’d recognize a batsman or a bowler or a runner.’
‘All right, all right,’ said Cockie, ‘I know, I’m convinced, I knew it long before you did. That was Vanda Lane diving; so, definitely, she was still alive at half past four that afternoon, when we all gathered on the beach to bathe. She was murdered between that time, and the time she was found in her room. But as for Fernando …’ He sat leaning forward in his chair, his knees apart, his hands between them, looking down, rolling a new cigarette; and shook his grey head. ‘I just don’t see how the chap could have done it. He makes a great play about swimming but he can’t swim really: it was all he could do to go porpoising out to the raft and he could no more have swum back without attracting attention than he could have flown. And he’d have to do it there and back. As for under water …’
‘I asked Camillo that too,’ said Leo. ‘Not letting on, of course, just casual chat about Fernando, following on the revelations – about which he’s in a great state of pleasurable excitement – regarding the hotels. He says Fernando’s a bit of a joke at the swimming club, can’t swim for toffee, let alone under water; and you can’t learn that sort of thing all in a day, it’s true. I suppose he was on the raft?’
‘Oh, yes, he was on the raft,’ said Cockie. ‘I watched him go out there, splashing and gasping and I saw him there, on and off when I glanced up from my book; and when we all started moving in, I watched him swim back. And in the interval – the woman was murdered.’ He licked the edge of the cigarette paper and gummed it down with neat, accustomed fingers. ‘I don’t know.’
Hope died a little in Leo Rodd’s heart. ‘I can’t pretend, Inspector, that I wouldn’t – well, rather have it this way.’ He thought it all over. ‘There’s only one other curious thing – if it amounts to anything. Both times that Louvaine’s appeared in the Vanda Lane transformation – the only person who’s really been deceived, has been Fernando. I noticed both times. He went an awful colour and muttered and crossed himself, or whatever it is these heathens do.’
‘I noticed it too,’ said Cockie. He shrugged. ‘Superstition, probably.’
‘Or a bad conscience,’ said Leo; and once again could not keep the rising optimism out of his voice.
For the hours were passing by, passing by: and with every moment, the time crept nearer when the great hand would stretch out over the chessboard of their little lives and gather up the chosen pawn, the randomly-chosen pawn, and with one great sweep tumble the rest of them, helpless, out of the way. Leo craving audience with the Old Wykehamist pal, received in return an ominous invitation for the party to see over the Grand Ducal palace the following afternoon. They had missed it on an earlier occasion, suggested the El Exaltida’s message, delicately, and no doubt would like to remedy the omission before their early departure the following morning. A car, by the way, had been laid on to take them from Piombino to the airfield, the vaporetto leaving at 8.15 a.m. would probably suit them best. If, during their visit to the palatio, he found himself at liberty, said the Grand Duke, he would send a messenger for Mr Rodd; if, as unfortunately was probable, he was too much occupied, he must content himself with making his adieux herewith, trusting that such of the party as were leaving would have a pleasant and uneventful journey. It was evident that the public school veneer, though restored, was spread very thinly across the volcano within.
They all sat uneasily at dinner under the bougainvillea and the swinging lanterns, wretchedly toying with the savoury mess of rice and pimento, artichoke and olive, heaped on the plates before them. ‘I don’t think we should go near this terrible palace …’
‘But, ducky, if we don’t and he sends for Mr Rodd, he’ll be so cross.’
‘I could go alone,’ said Leo.
‘No, Leo, don’t!’ said Helen, but she cut it off short and amended indifferently: ‘Well – perhaps.’
‘Suppose he sends for Mrs Rodd,’ said Miss Trapp. She looked about her, into their faces, cold with fear and dread. ‘I think we should speak of it outright. We haven’t got much more time. Suppose while we are at the palace to-morrow, he sends for Mrs Rodd.’
‘It won’t make any difference where I am,’ said Helen. ‘If they want me, they’ve only to make me come. Here at the hotel or anywhere. If I was at the palace, anyway I might get a chance to see him and talk to him – he must be more rational than the Gerente. If they make me go straight to the prison, I’m nothing to him, just an impersonal speck of dust to be got rid of.’ She spoke very calmly but her voice shoo
k. ‘I don’t see anything to be gained by not going to the palace.’
Mr Cecil was of opinion that they should all make a mad dash for it away from San Juan altogether. ‘That has been considered,’ said Cockie. ‘It won’t work. Mrs Rodd is guarded day and night by two men; even if we could get rid of them, we’d have to get away from Barrequitas by boat, and even then we’d only get to Italy and Italy would quite certainly pack us straight back again.’ He had given it far more serious thought than appeared from the way he spoke; but he knew that to fail in an escape plan would make their last case far, far worse than their first. He voiced for the first time an intention which he thought it might not be easy to put across. ‘Not only must we not try to get away to-day – but we must not get away at all.’ He said to Helen: ‘You needn’t think that we shall all go off and leave you here.’
‘But we’ve got orders to go,’ said Mr Cecil, paling.
‘We aren’t going.’
‘But I mean, they’ll send us, ducky …’
Inspector Cockrill did not care for being called ducky by Mr Cecil. In revenge he, for the first time, included him in the proposal. ‘You and I and Mr Fernando, and Mr Rodd of course, are staying here on the island. The ladies, perhaps, had better go; but the men will stay, All the men.’
‘Of course,’ said Mr Fernando, bowing gallantly to Helen; but his soft brown eyes filled with tears of apprehension as he looked at Miss Trapp.
‘I should not dream of going,’ said Miss Trapp.
‘Of course not,’ said Louli. ‘After all, we’ve paid! Odyssey would never refund the money, we must simply work it off in San Juan.’
‘But, Louli …’ Mr Cecil wrung his white hands at this wholesale defection. ‘But, Inspector … But one’s got to get back, my dears.…’ He brushed back the golden forelock and threw out a shapely hand to Helen. ‘You will understand, my dear, how one longs, but longs, to stay on and sympathize, buns through the bars, and the lute played quite ceaselessly outside the little cell window; but there is the business to consider, so much hanging on one, and after all, dear, buns aside, what actually could one do?’ And what was more, he added, calming down, if that wicked old Exaltida didn’t want them on his island, he’d surely have ways of simply making them go? ‘They just wouldn’t keep us in the hotel. So then?’
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