He nodded vaguely and said, “Well, yes, of course that is true, Shaw, basically. But there’s a high proportion of Polynesian blood, you know. It’s a strong mixture, and there’s an aboriginal substratum as well. You may have noticed that our natives have woolly black hair and negroid features, and very long and high heads — hypsistenocephalic is the term given to those heads, and the cephalic index is as low as 68 or 70 degrees. They’re short, mostly, and —”
“Turnip-shaped head,” I said suddenly, and glanced at Flair. She looked puzzled, and I understood why: Turnip had been white. It was just the association of ideas that had registered with me. But I don’t know, or I didn’t then, what my words had done to old Pomfret-Hopton. He started and his mouth sagged open and he seemed to have lost some of his boozy complexion all of a sudden.
He said, “Turnip-shaped … oh yes, very apt, very apt indeed. Quite descriptive.”
“Have you,” I asked, “ever seen a white man with a turnip-shaped head? On Logatau?”
He worked his lips and pushed up his spectacles, which had ridden down to the tip of his nose. “On Logatau?”
“Yes, or any of the other islands?”
“I couldn’t really say. I suppose the answer’s no.” He sounded evasive. “I take an interest in these things, and I’d have noticed any similarity with the native bone structure, I think. Why d’you ask?”
I shrugged. “Just general interest. Like you.” He didn’t pursue the point and I realized I’d effectively stopped the flow of handy information about Polynesians and Melanesians and the results of their ancestors’ crossbreeding habits. I said, “These odd happenings you were talking about. I’m interested in that, as I told you. Can you elaborate?”
I thought he seemed uneasy. He dabbed at his face with a big scruffy handkerchief and made a great fuss about refilling the glasses. Then, giving me several looks from under his shaggy white eyebrows, and seeing, I think, that I was determined to get to the point, he said reluctantly, “It’s nothing very much really.”
That was a lot of help. I didn’t comment, because I knew from experience that most people feel a big urge to fill conversational gaps when their utterances arouse no response. It worked with Pomfret-Hopton. He said, “There’s so little to tell you. It’s just that some of the natives have come back with yams about queer noises and what they assume to be the spirits of the dead. That’s all.”
“Come back from Kimbau island?”
His head jerked up. “How did you know that?”
“You mentioned it yourself, earlier in the day.”
“Oh.” Again there was the look, the atmosphere of unease. I asked, “What have these spirits been up to?”
“Oh, nothing really.” The handkerchief came into play once more.
I said accusingly, “When we first met, you said there had been — I quote more or less accurately I think — damned odd things happening here lately.”
“Did I?” he said. He avoided my eyes. “I don’t remember that, I must say. If I did say that … well, you know how it is when a man’s leading this sort of life.” I did indeed; I recalled the gin in the goldfish bowl. “Sometimes I see myself pretty clearly, you know, too damn clearly. I’m not quite blind. I dare say I tend to drink a little too much, but I’m sure the good Lord knows why — and forgives.” Tears had sprung into his eyes, the maudlin tears of semi-drunken self-pity. I knew I wasn’t going to get anything more out of him. I cursed the wasted time. The old chap went on rambling but soon, to my relief and Flair’s, a native girl came up to announce dinner and we went inside. We sat down to a pretty decent meal, as a matter of fact — cold consommé that had obviously been cooled in an icebox, some sort of native dish of meat and vegetables, a pineapple-based sweet that, like the soup, had been chilled, fruit, coffee and liqueurs — a choice of Drambuie, Benedictine, Van der Hum and a really excellent old brandy. There had been white and red wine with the meal, too. All in all, Pomfret-Hopton wasn’t doing all that badly to be able to put that lot on at a few hours’ notice on Logatau. They had no electricity on the island; there could, of course, be a central cold store where ice could be buried or covered, but on the other hand if Pomfret-Hopton had to import his own from the mainland I doubted if he would find that particularly cheap. Maybe he had an arrangement with one of the hotels. Pomfret-Hopton didn’t talk much during that meal, nor did he eat much. He just fiddled with his food, but he drank a hell of a lot. He was sweating profusely throughout and I felt he was a sick man quite apart from the alcoholic intake, maybe a man with not much longer to go. It was funny I should have felt that, not knowing — then — just how right I was in that last particular. Anyway, Flair kept the conversation going cheerfully and adroitly, in fact she really made the evening, and for the old boozer’s sake I was glad.
After dinner we took our liqueurs out to the veranda. It was dark now, very black, but there was an oil lamp swinging from gimbals with a cloud of outsize moths flapping busily around it. Insects made a subdued clatter in the surrounding trees and fat spiders that I hoped were harmless scurried dryly across the rotting wooden boards of the veranda. Flair kept looking down and I knew she wanted badly to lift her legs to safety. Pomfret-Hopton would never have noticed if she had. He was almost asleep. His heavy breathing was blowing out little bubbles of saliva from the corners of his mouth but he was still carrying out a wholly automatic movement of his glass to his lips. Even Flair’s patience couldn’t go on coping with this and her eyes told me so, very expressively; I was about to say something about having had a long sea trip from Brisbane and that it was past bedtime when I caught the faintest possible movement, a sound rather than a movement really, in the trees where the fringe of light from Pomfret-Hopton’s oil lamp reached the vegetation. And then, just for a second, no more, I saw a face and a head and I recognized the turnip man.
Without moving my head I whispered to Flair. Her face tightened with fear. I’d spoken in a very low voice but my words had nevertheless penetrated Pomfret-Hopton’s stupor. Perhaps that had been more apparent than real. He sat up straight and grasped the table and I saw him look towards the trees and I saw the sudden wild terror in his eyes and, knowing in a flash what was about to happen, I picked up a chair and sent the oil lamp flying out towards the trees. At the same moment I threw myself across the veranda at Flair and knocked her out of her chair and we rolled away, flat behind the table, as the dry bush began to crackle. The ripple of flame that came from a silenced gun in the trees sent bullets thudding into the woodwork of Pomfret-Hopton’s house and missed us both. But the old man bought it. I could tell that from the cry that came from him, and then the terrible coughing. The trees were well alight a moment after that and I knew the flames would soon reach the house, which would go up like a bonfire. Voices, cries, and yells were starting distantly and coming nearer. It sounded as if the whole population was on the move. I pulled Flair up. I snapped, “It’s all right now. Turnip won’t linger with everyone coming for a look-see. We get to hell out.”
“What about the old man?”
I said, “We take him too, of course.” She gave me a hand and we dragged him away from the veranda and round the side and we didn’t put him down till we were a safe distance from the house. Then I made him as comfortable as I could with my jacket beneath his head and examined him. He wasn’t quite dead but he wouldn’t last any time at all without medical attention and he himself would be the sole dispenser of that. Or so I’d assumed; so I was highly astonished when, with difficulty, he spoke. His voice wasn’t so slurred now. He said in his usual hoarse croak, “I’m done for … if you don’t get a doctor. I don’t want to die, my boy. Get … get High.”
“High?” I repeated. I nearly laughed. In the circumstances ‘high’ was meaning only one thing to me. “What d’you mean, for Christ’s sake, get High?”
“On Kimbau. He … he’s a medical man too. I … know he wouldn’t want me … to die. Summers … went beyond his orders.”
I star
ted to question him urgently then but I knew it was no good. He had damn little time left. I said, “Right, we’ll get High if you’ll tell us how,” and then Pomfret-Hopton gave a sort of shudder followed by a violent fit of coughing that resulted in a great gush of blood and after that I knew he was just a name to be deleted from the Medical Register once and for all.
“Well, that’s it, then,” I said. I got up from the ground, automatically dusting myself down. “It’s fairly clear what we have to do now.” I saw how scared Flair was looking and no wonder. Turnip could still be around somewhere in spite of the extending fire and the gawking populace. “We put the old man where he’ll be found by the local cops, and we go and take a look for this Dr High. From what Pomfret-Hopton’s just said, I gather High is turnip-head’s employer — and if that doesn’t stink I don’t know what does.”
*
We got clear and away without being spotted, Flair and I, and so, evidently, did the turnip-headed man — Summers, as it seemed he was called. At any rate, we heard no sounds of his capture as we made our way back by a circuitous route to Gay Venturer. The locals were concentrating their attention on putting out the fires, and that attention, no doubt, became more riveted once they had found Pomfret-Hopton’s body.
Back aboard the boat Flair asked breathlessly, “What’s the next move, then?”
“Kimbau,” I said. I was moving for the fore end of the cabin to go up to the control position when I felt the small jarring movement of the boat as someone jumped down to the deck from the wooden arm of the pen and a moment later I heard the voice calling through the galley.
“Commander Shaw?”
“Come on in,” I said. It was that immigration official. He came gangling through from the galley and stood with his head bent — he was almost as tall as me — and his hands hanging in front of his body. There was a queer look in his eyes, a furtive one I thought. He was something of a bum, like Pomfret-Hopton. The best don’t come to the islands in the normal course of events. He stood there watching me and not speaking and I felt irritated and said sharply, “Well, what is it?”
He smirked and said, “Not thinking of moving out, are you, by any chance?”
“Now what gave you that idea?” I asked innocently.
He shrugged. “Just wondered. Because don’t.”
“Don’t?”
“That’s what I said, Commander. You and your boat, and the lady, you’re all being held.”
“Oh, really?” I said, still innocent. “Mind telling me why?”
“Do I have to?” The eyes looked more shifty than ever. “Look, someone set fire to the brush around the doc’s place, and —”
“Sure they did,” I agreed, “but why try to pin it on me?”
“You were asking for the doc earlier and I happen to know you were both up there tonight. And there’s something else, which again I don’t need to tell you, do I?”
Calmly I said, “How should I know what you don’t need to tell me, until you’ve told me?”
He said in a flat voice, “The doc’s dead.”
“All right,” I said, “I know that too. Are you charging me with murder, or what?”
He shook his head. “No. Not yet anyway. You’ll be needed as witnesses, for a start-off.”
“I see. How long do you mean to keep us here?”
His eyes gleamed. “Got any place to get to urgently?”
“I’m on holiday. I don’t want to waste time.”
“Sorry about that,” he said. “How long you’re kept, that’s up to the magistrate.”
“Is there a resident magistrate?”
“No. He’ll be flown in from the mainland. He comes once a month, but I reckon he’ll make a special trip for this.”
“I see. And what’s your authority, may I ask?”
“I’m the DO as well as immigration officer. That’s my authority, Commander.”
“Fair enough,” I said non-committally. “Now, do you stay aboard to make sure I don’t skip, or what?”
“I’m putting a native constable on the pier,” he said. “He’ll be armed.”
“And he’ll have orders to shoot if we make a move?”
“Too right, what d’you expect?” He reached out a hand; I thought he expected me to shake it, but he said, “I’d like your passports, if you don’t mind.”
“All right,” I said. “It wouldn’t make much difference if I did mind, would it?” I handed mine over. Flair produced hers.
“Thanks,” the DO said, and shoved them in the back pocket of his khaki drill pants. Then he moved out backwards through the galley as if anxious to keep his beady eyes on us to the last. He disappeared and I heard his feet banging along the deck and then the sounds stopped as he jumped up on the pier. I heard him haranguing someone and I guessed the native constable was already at his post. A glance out of the port a moment later confirmed this. I could see the man in the light from the pierhead lantern. He looked a tough customer, short and thick and with that woolly black hair Pomfret-Hopton had spoken of. The yellow light gleamed on the black skin of a surly, pugnacious face, on the drill uniform tunic, on brass badges, on the dull metal of a sub-machine gun. I moved across and looked out of a port on the other side of the cabin. The fires were dying down, seemed to be under control now. Flair said, “We’re in a spot now, aren’t we?”
“It’s a spot we’re not going to be in for very long,” I told her. “I’m not waiting around for any magistrate, not while turnip-head covers his tracks.”
“Why didn’t you tell the district officer about him?” she asked.
I grinned at her accusing face. “Lady,” I said, “my one fear was that you were going to!”
She looked blank. “I don’t follow.”
I said, “I don’t trust the DO. And I don’t believe he needed telling anyway, because I have a feeling he knew.”
“Oh?” She gave a nervy sort of laugh and her eyes were bright in the cabin light.
I said, “Look, he knew he hadn’t anything to go on or he’d have lifted us off this craft pronto and slung us in the local gaol. And the only reason he knew inside himself that he couldn’t hope to hold us was because he knew who really did kill Pomfret-Hopton — and we know that was turnip-head, don’t we?” On an impulse, I took her face in my hands. “There’s another thing, Flair: he’s never shown any actual interest in the fact that your name’s Dunwoodie. No overt interest, that is. Your husband’s a big name in Australia, you know. The kind of man that gets remarked on when the name crops up. I say he showed no interest — but he did react when he first saw the name on your passport, Flair. He knew.”
“So what?”
“So I believe that DO’s concerned in this whole business I’m supposed to be investigating — that’s what.”
She frowned. “Esmonde, do you mean you think Jake could be around this way somewhere?”
I said, “Flair, I just don’t know what I think really. There are lots of things I’d currently like the answers to. For one thing, considering Pomfret-Hopton originally denied having ever seen any whites with turnip-shaped heads — or as good as denied it — why did he go so sharply into reverse once he’d copped that bullet, even to the extent of giving us the man’s name? In fact, why did he ever say anything at all about God-men and mysterious happenings, when he was so obviously dead scared later on of what he’d let out to us earlier? It’s pretty clear to me now that Pomfret-Hopton himself was in this thing up to his ears — but I’m damned if I can see how!” I added, “Flair, do you remember the girl who went in to see him after us, the good-looking bit he said was a patient?”
She nodded.
“Well, she gave us a rather nasty look, if you remember. Again I don’t know how, but she could have known who we were and she might have warned the old chap off us. It’s just a theory, that’s all.”
“Any others?”
I hesitated a fraction of a second, then said no, I hadn’t. I didn’t want to add to her worries. But I did
have another theory and it was that the DO wanted us out of the way altogether, not in gaol, and not waiting to talk to the magistrate. I was pretty sure in my own mind that the black policeman up top was going to colander us with the sub-machine gun I’d seen him carrying and we’d be written off as shot while trying to escape. It was up to me to see he didn’t get the chance. I let go of Flair and reached across the cabin to the cupboard where we kept our drinks and I brought out a bottle of scotch. “We’re moving out soon whatever the DO thinks,” I said quietly, “so we’ll have one for the road. For the rolling ocean road, Flair dear, the one to Kimbau and Dr High.”
*
I gave it an hour, during which time the pierhead guard paraded backwards and forwards alongside the boat. It was a regular movement and he had been trained to face his post, sentry-wise, all the time, so that when he turned at either end of his beat he turned towards the boat, left or right according. That didn’t help us; but on each southerly perambulation there was quite a fair interval in which he had his back to the boat’s control position, and when moving back the other way he was backside-on to the stern cockpit, and I fancied that would be the best direction from which to spring him. The door to the control position creaked when opened up and was currently shut, whereas the way out through the galley was wide open. So I made my way into the galley after a word with Flair and I kept nice and quiet and waited for the right moment, hoping the policeman wouldn’t beat me to it and go into his murder mission before I was ready. As he turned and started slowly back for the bows after one of his southbound patrols, carrying his sub-machine gun across his body, I edged myself into the cockpit, keeping close to the gunnel and below it, and then I lifted a hand to Flair. She moved forward a step and opened the door through to the control position, and it creaked as usual. The native constable stiffened, aimed his nose like a gundog towards the sharp end of the boat, and moved even more slowly than before, covering the control position, with his gun now held ready for the kill.
The All-Purpose Bodies: A Fast-Paced Thriller (Commander Shaw Book 11) Page 8