The Dangerous Islands

by Ann Bridge

  ‘Monday or Tuesday, I think.’

  ‘Oh good—that will give us a week-end here. I think she will be all right, but she must keep quiet for a bit. Anyhow she’ll be just as well looked after here as by those old creatures of hers in London.’ Julia took a dim view of Mrs. Hathaway’s two elderly and rather spoilt servants.

  Philip telephoned to the Coroner at once.

  ‘Thank you, Sir—if you can fix up the inquests for tomorrow it would be excellent. The old lady is rather done up—she won’t be fit to travel tomorrow.’

  ‘Right—I’ll lay on both. 11.30 all right?’

  ‘Whatever suits you,’ Jamieson said.

  He attended the two inquests the following morning; both were brief formal affairs. (The Press had lost interest in the case, and taken themselves off.) A verdict of ‘accidental death’ was returned on the Professor, and on the Russian sailor one of ‘murder by a person or persons unknown’. (The Home Office had expressed a strong preference for this solution on the telephone.)

  But Julia was right about Mrs. Hathaway being well looked after at St. Mary’s. The maids in the Zennor Hotel rallied round the old lady, constantly offering her freshly-pressed orange-juice, or a re-filled hot-water bottle. It was of course the dead season, and no one in the hotel was particularly busy; but this kindly attention was very nice, all the same. After twenty-four hours of it Julia felt that she could safely leave her precious godmother for part of the day, at least, and she made a suggestion to Philip at breakfast.

  ‘Couldn’t we go and see those gardens at Tresco?’ I do want to. Last time you dragged me off to look at that beastly trawler instead.’

  ‘Darling, I didn’t know then that the trawler was there —I just wanted to see the lie of the land,’ he protested.

  ‘Yes—well now the trawler’s sunk, and we know the lie of the land only too well!’ the girl said sadly. ‘Do let’s have one peaceful day here, with no spying or searching.’

  He looked at her distressfully. ‘Darling, I didn’t realise you disliked my job so much. Are you sure you want to marry me?’

  ‘Oh don’t be silly, Philip. The Prof’s dead; he was the only part of your job I minded—I’ve rather enjoyed my own other little efforts in that line. Stop fussing, and get us to Tresco.’

  They went. On the Black Swan to Old Grimsby, on foot across the island, and then followed the drive up to the Abbey, with the lake on their left, encircled by pale reeds and full of curious birds; Philip, to Julia’s surprise, could name most of the exotic shrubs and conifers bordering the avenue.

  ‘Gracious! How much you know!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Fond of plants,’ the man said deprecatingly. ‘An uncle of mine had rather a good arboretum, so I was more or less brought up with that sort of thing.’

  The gardens at Tresco are really a miracle, given their northern latitude. The lie of the land, skilful shelter-planting, and above all the blessed warmth of the Gulf Stream pouring past, month in and month out, have made it possible to create a semi-tropical Paradise only some fifty miles from the cold, frost-ridden, foggy mainland of Britain. Julia fairly gasped at what she saw as they walked along the paths, here and there passing the ruins of the ancient Abbey buildings: huge bushes of camellias about to burst into flower, banks bright with pelargoniums, and self-sown freesias growing practically wild in every odd corner, scenting the air deliciously.

  ‘But this is like Tangier,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Well especially the freesias. They used them as borders to the paths at the Consulate-General. Oh Philip, what on earth is that?’ She indicated a strange-looking plant.

  He told her its name, and the names of many other unusual specimens—collected, experimentally planted, and tended unceasingly since 1834, when the original ‘Lord Proprietor’ of the Islands, Augustus Smith, settled down on the wind-swept, sandy, utterly bare Tresco (there was not so much as a gorse-bush then on the whole island) built himself a house, and started the gardens. Julia had heard of them, but knew little of their history; perched on a seat she listened while Philip recounted to her how the Scillonian seamen, trading in the Southern Hemisphere, had brought back roots and seeds to augment the collection; of the gifts from Kew Gardens and, later, of plant-collecting expeditions sent out by subsequent owners of Tresco.

  ‘What a lovely thing to do,’ she said at length. ‘So much nicer and more worth while than endowing some revolting technical college to teach people how to make atom bombs.’

  The man laughed.

  ‘Come and see Valhalla—though I wish they didn’t call it that.’ He led her down to a large open-fronted shed, filled with what is probably a unique collection of the carved and painted figure-heads from the prows of ships wrecked off the Scillies: Grecian goddesses, ancient heroes—even one gentleman in full Highland dress; many had been carefully re-painted, and restored to their original brilliance of colour. Julia examined them, and turned to her companion in delight.

  ‘There you are again,’ she said. ‘Something really worth doing —collecting them, and getting them all tidied up. What frightfully sensible people these Smith-Dorriens, or Dorrien-Smiths— which are they?—must be.’

  ‘Dorrien-Smith,’ he told her.

  ‘Well they have all the right ideas. Making this divine garden, and rescuing these charming things from the wreckers. I bet you a lot of the Islanders would have chopped them up for firewood as soon as look at you. Remember that sawing-horse on Bryher?’

  ‘Yes. But remember how nice the Bryher people were about old Burbage.’

  ‘I do—I shall never forget that.’ She gave a sort of sniffing sob. ‘Oh, I am so thankful that the poor old sweet never did anything really wrong. He was quite silly enough to, you see,’ she said candidly.

  ‘Yes. But I think the authorities, too, grasped that in the end; which was why they were able to clear him. I don’t suppose anyone will ever get to the bottom of all that—I mean what he did or didn’t do to help the wretched Russians. Personally, I don’t mind—all I really care about is that he should have been cleared, to set your and Mrs. H.’s minds at rest.’

  He said this as they happened to be passing a seat set against a wall under some strange tree with bright red flowers; the girl caught his elbow, drew him down onto the seat, threw her arms round him, and kissed him warmly.

  ‘Oh you precious Philip! I do so love you for being so loving, and charitable.’

  This little scene was prolonged for some time, greatly to the satisfaction of both parties—when they left the seat Julia pulled off one of the red flowers from the overhanging tree and tucked it away in her handbag—‘Just to remind,’ she said, smiling.

  Philip Jamieson was happy too. Ever since he became engaged to Julia he had had some of the sensations of a man who has managed to snare a Bird of Paradise, but wonders if he will succeed in getting it safely home? After that talk in the gardens at Tresco he felt much more certain of settling his particular Bird of Paradise in his house in Gray’s Inn.

  They crossed the low ridge of the island; they were to lunch at the hotel before returning to St. Mary’s. As they walked up the sandy drive Philip, remembering Julia’s request for one day ‘with no spying or searching’, rather nervously put a question to her.

  ‘Should you mind frightfully if I made an enquiry here? It has only this moment occurred to me that I ought to.’

  ‘What on earth about?’

  ‘That extraordinary little chef man.’

  ‘But he’s gone, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. All the same I ought to ask, if you didn’t mind.’

  ‘Oh, ask away! All I want is a drink, and a good lunch.’

  They ordered their drinks in the comfortable little bar; then Jamieson went up to the Manager, whom he already knew by sight, and asked if he could have a word with him?

  ‘Most gladly. Here?’

  ‘No, not here,’ the Colonel said. ‘By ourselves.’

  The Manag
er went and looked into the Television room—it was empty. ‘Come in here,’ he said, ‘where we can sit. I’m no good at standing.’ Philip, who had been standing for the better part of two hours in the Tresco gardens, was himself quite glad to sit.

  ‘Now, how can I help you?’ the Manager asked. ‘You’re in Intelligence, aren’t you? You went out on that Naval boat to Shipman Head, and found something funny, I gather.’

  On this occasion Jamieson rather blessed the Islands’ hyper-efficient grapevine—it made his own task easier.

  ‘Yes. But some days before that—the last time we lunched here, in fact—we walked out to King Charles’s Castle and saw a Russian trawler come in and anchor under Shipman Head; and presently we saw that odd little Middle-Eastern-looking chef of yours signalling to her.’

  ‘What makes you think this man you saw was our chef?’ the Manager asked, in a rather chilly tone.

  ‘Oh, we picked that up on the Scillonian; he came over on her with us. And then we saw him coming up here, and going in by the staff entrance. But look,’ Jamieson said, ‘since you know that I’m in Intelligence, why do you want to hold out on me? Are you for, or against, my job?’

  The Manager gave a rather rueful laugh.

  ‘I’m sorry. I was a little taken aback by how much you knew; silly of me. Ask anything you like—I’ll tell you all I can.’

  ‘Thank you. Well, first, how did you recruit him?’

  ‘By an advertisement in the Daily Telegram —our head chef fell ill just a few weeks before we were due to close. This man answered; a Swiss name, and when he turned up, a Swiss passport. I did my early training in Switzerland, like most of us— after all, they are the world’s hoteliers—so I took him on, though when he arrived I didn’t think he looked at all Swiss, I must admit.’

  ‘References?’

  ‘He sent those with his application; from perfectly reputable places in Lucerne and Lausanne—I didn’t bother to take them up, as it was for such a short time.’

  ‘No, I understand. Could he in fact cook?’ Jamieson asked, with genuine curiosity.

  ‘Yes—superbly. Much better than our poor old fellow who’ll be coming back to us in the spring, though he’s quite good. Why do you want to know that?’ The Manager was curious in his turn.

  ‘It’s always interesting, and often useful, to know how thorough the—well, the opposition—are about the people they plant on us for these jobs,’ the Colonel replied. ‘This time they obviously were very thorough.’

  The Manager stared at him.

  ‘But do you mean that this man was sent here, deliberately, to signal to that trawler?’

  ‘Certainly to find out all he could, on the spot, and be in a position to contact the trawler, or any other vessel they chose to send.’

  ‘But how could they know that our chef would fall ill just then?’ the Manager demanded.

  ‘Did he have ulcers? If so, I expect they knew it; if not, they may have poisoned him. Have any other chefs in the Islands been taken ill recently?’

  The Manager fairly gaped at him.

  ‘Yes!—come to think of it the chef at the Horizon Hotel fell ill about the same time, and so did the cook at the Zennor. But are you implying’—he looked angry—‘that our people here are poisoners?’

  ‘No. I’m merely suggesting that Communist infiltration is extremely thorough. Are you sure that there are no Czech still-room maids at those two hotels you mentioned? They would serve the chef with his coffee, wouldn’t they?’

  The Manager actually turned pale.

  ‘Good Lord! We’ve got one here!—and I fancy they had foreigners at the Zennor and the Horizon too. You know what it is with staff today; you take what you can get.’

  ‘Naturally. But don’t bother to discharge your Czech girl— having made your chef ill she’s done her job; I don’t suppose she’ll poison anyone else!’

  ‘And you mean, seriously, that these girls were sent to take jobs here to be on hand to poison chefs, so that a spy could be introduced?’

  ‘Precisely that. And this man answered your advertisement— much the most useful situation in relation to Shipman Head— and came, and did his stuff.’

  ‘Extraordinary that you should actually have seen him doing it,’ the Manager said. He went through into the bar and fetched a second round of drinks.

  ‘He cleared off the very next day,’ he told Jamieson on his return, setting down the two glasses. ‘Left us rather in the soup, of course; but our No. 2 chef isn’t too bad.’

  ‘Oh yes—I heard he’d gone. The St. Mary’s police were rather cross with me for not having told them about him sooner, when they heard he’d skipped it, but they were going to try to have him picked up at Paddington. I wonder if that came off?’ Philip had entirely forgotten to enquire about this when he was in London.

  ‘No, it didn’t,’ the Manager said. ‘The police were onto us about him more than once. He left on the Scillonian all right, but there was no certain record of his having boarded the London train.’

  ‘I daresay not. Probably a car met him in some side street at Penzance and took him away. Oh well, he’s out of it now, too. It’s all over,’ Philip said, suddenly rather sadly. Poor old Prof.— all was most definitely over for him, as it was for the Russian sailor. He thanked his host, and took Julia in to have lunch.

  But the thought of the wretched little Russian, would-be murderer as he was, had given him an idea, and over their meal he put it to Julia.

  ‘I should like there to be a very tiny tombstone for that Russian seaman who was done in by his mates,’ he said. ‘Do you suppose they would put up a tombstone to unknowns, cast up by the sea?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so, usually—tombstones are frightfully expensive nowadays.’ Julia had been going into the question of one for the Professor, and knew what she was talking about. ‘But the Padre would know. Anyhow, why do you want him to have one? He tried to kill the Prof.’

  ‘Agreed. But he had a soul; every Communist must have a soul—though their régime doesn’t give them much chance to develope them. I sometimes think we each ought to pray for the soul of one Communist.’

  She looked at him, wide-eyed.

  ‘Do you pray, Philip? Funny that I’ve never asked you that before.’

  ‘Oh yes, night and morning—plain Presbyterian prayers, that I learned as a child. I don’t mean that I’m religious,’ he added rather hastily.

  ‘You’re good,’ the girl pronounced. ‘And you’re right about this—Father Antal would have agreed.’

  ‘Who’s he? Oh, that Hunk you got out of Portugal. Yes, he must have known quite a bit about Communists, after all that time under them in Hungary. Did he think they have souls?’

  ‘I never asked him, but I know Catholics believe that all human beings have souls. And I’m sure he would think we ought to pray for at least one Commie soul; it makes it more concrete to pray for an individual. Right—that’s settled,’ she said briskly. ‘I shall call mine Boris; one must pray for a name. What shall you call yours?’

  ‘Igor, you fantastic creature!’ he said. But there was no mockery in his laughter—under the table he took her hand.

  ‘Well if the Padre allows us to put up a stone—I suppose he has the say-so—what do you propose for an inscription?’ Julia asked, still holding Philip’s hand under the table.

  Jamieson reflected for a moment or two. At last he spoke. ‘“A communist, known to God”.’

  This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

  Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

  Copyright © Ann Bridge 1963

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  ISBN: 9781448204175

  eISBN: 9781448203581

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