The White Witch of the South Seas

by Dennis Wheatley

  Gregory considered for a moment. ‘There is something in what you say. But it would mean my abandoning the investigation I meant to carry out. If we leave that for a week or so the memories of the servants about what happened will have become faulty and de Carvalho’s corpse will have become no more than a skeleton.’

  ‘To hell with his corpse! Valentim was no friend of mine that I should be anxious to avenge his death. Besides, we can’t prove that he was clubbed to death. Remember, a coconut falling from a tree is very different from one you see for sale on the stalls. It would not have had its husk chopped open and removed, so would have weighed anything up to twelve pounds. It is quite possible that, falling from such a height, it would have smashed his skull.’

  ‘But it was the back of his head, not the top, that had been bashed in.’

  ‘Yes; yes; I know. And I don’t doubt that it was the Colons who killed him. But, if accused, they are sure to say that when the coconut fell he was bending over to tie up his shoelace, or pick a flower, or something. Naturally, I’d be delighted if we could pin Valentim’s murder on Lacost, but the chances are we’d fail. Anyhow, I don’t give a damn about that now. It’s Olinda who matters. I’ve got to get to her. I’m going to rouse out Bob Wyndhoik and have him start the engines at once.’

  As James turned away, Gregory shrugged resignedly. Although he did not believe that there was any immediate cause for anxiety about Olinda, he could not help sympathising with his young friend’s urge to ensure that she had his protection at the earliest possible moment. Moreover, there was much to be said for the argument that it would be next to impossible to prove that when de Carvalho had, presumably, been hit by the coconut he was standing upright. There was also the factor that if the police were brought into the matter it was quite on the cards that he and James might have to kick their heels in Suva for perhaps several weeks until the trial came on, as they would be needed to give evidence about the reason why the Colons should have wanted de Carvalho out of the way.

  All things considered, it seemed just as well to let sleeping dogs lie and, now that Olinda could so much improve their own position by legalising it, concentrate on securing the treasure before Lacost could get back to Tujoa, ignore old Elbœuf and make off with it.

  The Southern Cross shuddered as her motors started and a moment later she was nosing her way out of the bay. Soon afterwards James joined Gregory in the cabin, where he was fixing himself a badly-needed drink. The young Ratu smiled and rubbed his hands together:

  ‘Bob thinks we have quite a good chance of reaching Suva right on their heels. They can’t have had more than a few hours’ start, and from the account we had in Tujoa of La-cost’s Pigalle she is a rotten old craft. For us, round the south coast of Viti Levu should be only about sixteen hours cruising, while she may take twenty or more.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s right,’ Gregory conceded. “But dirty old boats sometimes have good engines. If I were you I’d tell Bob to about ship and make for Lautoka.’

  ‘Why? It’s very unlikely Lacost will have gone there.’

  ‘True. But it’s only twenty miles away, and we could telephone a warning to Olinda from there.’

  ‘You’re right!’ James exclaimed, and dashed away up the cabin steps.

  When he returned the launch had heeled over and was making a sharp turn. Gregory finished his drink and remarked thoughtfully, ‘There is one thing I don’t understand. Why should de Carvalho have come to the Mamanucas in the Colon’s old tub instead of in his own fine yacht?’

  James shrugged. ‘Goodness knows. But it does account for one thing, and I thank heaven for it on my knees. Normally, Olinda accompanies Valentim on all his cruises. From what Joe-Joe told us this afternoon it is clear that there was no woman with the visiting party, so Olinda remained in Suva. Obviously, her reason for doing so was because the accommodation in the Pigalle was too shoddy for an elegant woman to be willing to occupy it. Praises be things turned out like that, otherwise she would already be in the hands of those devils. Or perhaps Lacost would have arranged a plausible double “accident”, in which case she would be dead.’

  ‘Yes. It’s certainty a stroke of luck that she wasn’t with them. There may be another explanation, though, why she was not. Perhaps there was a death in her family, or some other urgent reason why she should return to Brazil. If so, and de Carvalho sent her off in the yacht, that would account for his having come here with the Colons in the Pigalle.’

  ‘I only hope you are right, although I would have thought that in such a case she would fly back. Anyhow, if she is no longer in Suva she will be out of all danger.’

  After a moment James went on, ‘One other thing puzzles me about this business. If Lacost had made up his mind to murder Valentim before getting the gold, why didn’t they simply push him off the boat in the middle of the night, and let him drown? If they had done that, no-one would ever have been able to examine the body and learn the truth.’

  Gregory slowly shook his head. ‘The job they’ve done is much more subtle. If later any question arises of their having an interest in bringing about his death, they can say, “But if we had wanted to kill him we had a week or more at any time during which we could have thrown him to the sharks. His death was an accident of the sort that happens every now and then to a native in these islands. He died within a few hundred yards of the bure, It is only by chance that one of the servants there did not actually see what happened. We made no secret of his death, but gave him proper burial, and, instead of leaving for Tujoa, which was where we wanted to go, we at once returned to Suva to report the accident to his widow and the authorities”.’

  By that time it was two o’clock in the morning. Giving a yawn, Gregory added, ‘We should dock at Lautoka in less than four hours, but that is time enough to get a good rest, and I need one. I’m going to my cabin. Tell Bob to give me a call ten minutes before we are due to land, will you?’

  Soon after five o’clock, the Southern Cross reached Lautoka, and Gregory paid off the cheerful, garrulous Bob Wyndhoik. As they walked the short distance to the Cathay Hotel, a wonderful dawn sky of gold and orange, streaked with narrow bars of black cloud, showed above the mountains to the east. At the hotel the servants were just starting work but the manager was away for the night, staying with friends, and was not expected back until after breakfast. However, his deputy, an Indian, proved most efficient and helpful. Having ordered coffee and fruit for them, he set about trying to put them in touch with Olinda.

  Although it seemed certain that a yacht like the Boa Viagem would, if in harbour for any length of time, be connected to the shore by telephone, naturally there was no number for her in the book; so the Indian got on to the Port Authority. After a wait of ten minutes it was confirmed that the yacht was still at Suva and James was put through to her. He asked for her Captain and there was another, longer, wait until the Captain, very annoyed at being roused from his sleep, came on the line.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘the Senhora Mauá de Carvalho is in the yacht, but I certainly will not rouse her at such an hour.’ Angry and impatient, James began to shout. Realising that he was getting nowhere, Gregory pulled the instrument from him and said in a sharp voice:

  ‘We are police officers. Do as you are told. Bring the Senhora to the telephone at once or you will find yourself in trouble.’

  That had the desired effect. Six minutes later he was speaking to Olinda. The line was far from good, but he managed to make her understand who he was and that James was with him. Then, that at any time during the morning Lacost would probably arrive. She was to receive him in the presence of her Captain, who was to be armed. Lacost would tell her that her husband was dead. Whether she believed him or not, she was to show shock and pretend to faint, so that Lacost could be got rid of as soon as possible. In no circumstances was she to go ashore, and he and James expected to be with her within a few hours.

  By leaving open the question whether de Carvalho was really dead or still a
live he had prepared her for the truth. The next matter was to get to her as soon as possible, so he asked for a car to take them to Nandi airport.

  The Indian shook his head. ‘I am sorry, sir, but that will not be easy so early in the morning. The garages will not be open yet. But wait; it is only ten or twelve miles to Nandi. Since your business is urgent, I will run you over in my little car. Our girl in the office here is very good. She will attend to any wishes our visitors may have daring my absence.’

  Gratefully, they accepted the offer of this most obliging man, and a few minutes later were on their way. It was a quarter to seven when they reached Nandi. An American jet liner had just come in from Honolulu, so the whole of the airport staff were fully occupied. James, still obsessed with the idea that Lacost would reach Olinda before they did and harm her in some way, could not conceal his impatience.

  To take his mind off his worry while they waited, Gregory gently baited him by speaking of the kindness of the Indian who had motored them to Nandi, and mentioned that the Hindu and Pakistani immigrants had brought great benefits to the islands.

  James rose to the bait and argued fiercely that they were usurers who swindled the natives out of their property, and were a menace to their simple but adequate standard of living.

  Gregory took up the challenge and said that there were grasping men in every race. Here and there Indians might cheat the islanders, but the great majority were honest, industrious people. Rightly, he argued that the natives owed them a great deal. The better-off among them could now buy radios, fridges and electric gadgets that made housework easier, and even the poorest could buy good cooking utensils and gay cotton clothes from the Indian shops. The Indians, too, provided culture for the new generation of islanders who were ready to receive it. He instanced the Art and Botanical Societies in which they played such active part, and Mr. Desai’s splendidly-stocked bookshop in Suva. Some of these things, he insisted, might be due originally to the white man’s initiative, but they were supported and the increase in their activities made possible only by the capital contributed by the hard-working Indians.

  The discussion served its purpose until an official was free to deal with Gregory’s enquiry. He had hoped to secure a small charter plane which, as soon as it had been serviced, would fly them to Suva. But no such aircraft was available, and the public morning service did not leave until ten o’clock.

  Gregory could not feel that after his talk with Olinda they had any real cause for anxiety, so he was in favour of waiting for the flight. But James, having in mind the way in which Lacost had attempted to kill them both on Lake Atitlan, remained convinced that such an unscrupulous enemy might quite well take a time-bomb with him when he went on the yacht to tell Olinda of her husband’s death, and leave it behind to blow her to pieces.

  As a result of his agitated pressing, a hire car was produced which, it was thought, could take them to Suva sooner than if they went by the ’plane and then had to drive from the airport into the city.

  It was a little after eight o’clock when they set off, and Gregory had agreed to the plan because it seemed reasonable to suppose that on an almost clear road the drive could be accomplished in about three hours, which meant that they should reach Suva harbour a little before the E.T.A. of Lacost’s Pigalle.

  But neither he nor James had been aware of the condition of the road. They had assumed it to be similar to the good, smooth surface of that on which they had travelled from Lautoka to the airport. But it was nothing of the kind. For almost the whole way the surface was rutted, broken and, here and there, long stretches were pockmarked with dangerous potholes. Frequently the car bounced from side to side and, with only rare intervals, broken stones hit the bottom of it like an irregular fusilade of pistol shots.

  In vain James alternately pleaded with their driver and offered him rewards to go faster. The man, quite reasonably, objected to having his tyres cut up more severely than could be avoided or having to force the pace to an extent where his car would be shaken to pieces.

  Meantime, Gregory, jolted from side to side though he was, had an admirable opportunity to enjoy the tropical scenery as they followed the road, which for the greater part of the way was in sight of the sea, round the south of Viti Levu.

  For some distance along the coastal plain there were thousands of acres of sugar cane and fields in which cattle and goats were grazing, but no sheep; while inland jungle-clad mountains, with many patches of bare rock showing, stood out against the sky. The villages became few and far between as they progressed into a country of rolling hills, not unlike Tuscany, then there came dense jungle again, with many mango, breadfruit and casuarina trees.

  Along the second half of the way there was again wild, mountainous jungle, with tree-ferns, ginger plants and palms growing alongside the road. Then there came a long stretch of flat land—once rubber plantations that had since been abandoned. It was followed by the great area in which Fiji’s dairy-farming industry flourishes. Their driver told them that eight thousand cattle were milked there every day. They left it for more jungle-covered mountain slopes, through which the road curved sharply and went up and down at steep gradients until they entered the huge semicircle of Suva Bay.

  It was another quarter of an hour before their car brought them round the greater part of the long curve to the outskirts of the town, and by the time they found the berth at which the Boa Viagem was tied up it was well after midday.

  Jumping out, James left Gregory to settle for the car and ran to the gangway leading up to the deck of the yacht. There he was halted by a sailor, which enabled Gregory to catch up with him. The man refused to let them pass until he had called an officer, so it was evident that Olinda was taking sound precautions. When they gave their names to the officer he said that the Senhora Mauá de Carvalho was expecting them, and led them to the saloon.

  Olinda was there, looking at a fashion magazine. As she saw them enter, she dropped the magazine and stood up, an expression of anxiety mingling with delight on her lovely face.

  Again Gregory registered the fact that, although not his type, she was a splendid specimen of young womanhood. She was a big girl, at least five foot eleven in height, with a generous bust and full hips, separated by a waist that could not be said to be narrow, but was small enough to accentuate the curves of her upper and lower body. Her black hair was parted in the centre, Madonna-fashion, but fell to each side of her face and on to her broad shoulders in a glory of long curls. She had painted her Cupid’s-bow mouth a bright red. Her big black eyes, under tapering arched brows, lit up as their glance became riveted on James.

  Running forward, he clasped both her hands, raised them in turn rapidly to his lips and cried, ‘Did you think me dead? I had no way of getting in touch with you. Mr. Sallust and I have survived all sorts of dangers. But we’re still alive. And … and … thank God you are. Oh, how wonderful it is to see you again.’

  ‘Yes,’ she stammered. ‘Yes. For me too. But Valentim? Is … is it true that he is dead?’

  Smiling, James nodded. ‘Yes. He’s dead. Lacost or one of the Colons killed him. We have not the least doubt about that. But it means that you are now in danger. I’ve been worried out of my wits about you. Oh, thank God, I’ve found you safe and well.’

  ‘How … how did Valentim die? ‘she asked, a little breathlessly. James told her; and of how Gregory had made certain by partly disinterring the corpse, that the man on whom the coconut was said to have fallen was Valentim.

  She stared at Gregory with distended eyes. ‘You did that? You opened up a grave? And in the middle of the night! How did you dare?’

  He spread out his hands in the foreign gesture he sometimes used. ‘Senhora, that sort of tiling does not require anywhere near the courage that it does to grapple with an armed man. The dead cannot harm one. And while I have every reason to believe in the existence of evil occult forces, I do not believe that they can harm anyone who has faith in his ability to defy them.’


  Olinda shook her head. ‘All the same, I think you are very brave, and it makes me happy that James should have you for his friend. After what you tell me there can be no doubt that Valentim is no more. I married him when quite young, hypnotised a little, perhaps, by his vivid personality and the power he exercised through his great fortune. Later he resented it that I did not give him children, although, according to the doctors, that was no fault of mine. Then his constant infidelities sickened me, and I began to hate him. I cannot honestly say that I am sorry that he is dead, but I will have many Masses said for his soul.’

  As she crossed herself, Gregory asked, ‘Has Lacost been here to see you? If he hasn’t, he may arrive at any moment, and we must be prepared.’

  ‘He was here over an hour ago. Very tactfully and, apparently, with much sorrow, he told me about Valentim’s death—or, rather, about a falling coconut having killed him. To get rid of him quickly I pretended to faint, as you had told me to. Before he went off he left a message with Captain Amedo. It was to the effect that he had secured divers in the Yasawas and intended to leave shortly with them for Tujoa. He added that as soon as I had sufficiently recovered and the Boa Viagem was fit to put to sea he trusted that I would follow; as, now that my husband was dead, he naturally regarded me as his partner.’

  James let go a sigh of relief. ‘Then, if he’s off back to Tujoa, you should be quite safe here.’

  ‘If he does go,’ Gregory added. ‘But I wouldn’t trust him.’ Then, looking across at Olinda, he said, ‘There seems to be a question about the Boa Viagem’s being fit to put to sea. What did he mean by that?’

  ‘Oh, of course you wouldn’t know,’ Olinda replied quickly. ‘Soon after we arrived here from Tujoa something went wrong with the engines. I know little about such things, but it was thought that some discontented member of the crew had damaged them deliberately. That is why Valentim went to the Yasawas in Lacost’s boat, and I stayed behind.’