“She’ll come and look at you—the Umara.”
“Umara,” Charles said. “That’s both a name and an office?”
“Yes.”
“She’s a princess?”
“We do not call it that. You might. You might also say priestess, though that would not be accurate, either. As I told you, the Umara is the Keeper of the Memory of the Tribe, and of the Gift.”
“Do you mean treasure?”
Jan shook his head scornfully. “No, no, what treasure there was is long gone. The gift for healing. People from other tribes bring their ill to us, and the people from the barrio, and even people who could afford doctors but who value our gift.”
“Do all the Quiztanos have it?”
“Only a handful in each generation. But we watch for it, and when we see it, we help it to blossom.”
“We—” Charles mused. “You sound as though you think of yourself as Quiztano.”
“When I am in Holland I am as Dutch as anyone. But as we draw near to Venezuela I begin to think Quiztano.”
“Can you tell me anything more about the Englishman and the Umara?”
“They had a child, as is the way with such things. When the boy was still very young, the Fair—for that is what the Englishman was called—sailed for England and promised to return. After he left, the Umara learned that she was to have another child. And there was not a word from the Fair, not a word. She knew he would not return and she died, and the babe with her. And then—my grandfather tells me—the next Umara saw a vision and she said that the Englishman would return, and she is still waiting for him. She is very old—we do not even know how old—and very wise, and she says that she will not die until the Fair returns.”
Charles looked unhappy. “Is there anything more?”
Jan spread out his hands and stretched his fingers apart. “It is all history, and my grandfather and the Umara are very old and sometimes they get confused and their stories are not always the same. After the Fair did not return and the Umara died—young, young, for the Umaras usually live to be very old—there was talk of revenge, undying revenge, unless the Fair should return. From his son—the one who was a little boy when he left, remember—there have been many descendants. Some have had the Gift, and some have not, and some have left the tribe, strong with other blood. The Umara—she has dreams, too, Charles, dreams like yours. And she says that there is still anger and hate and lust for revenge, and it will not stop until the return of the Fair.”
There was a long silence. Jan looked at his watch. Ten more minutes before it was time to go to the captain.
Then Charles asked, “Jan—my dreams—the Umara’s —do you think Simon could be the One?”
The morning sun blazed as brilliantly in Pharaoh as on the Orion. Miss Leonis moved slowly and sadly through her morning ritual. The kettle did not gleam as brightly as usual. The flowers did not fill the air with their scent. There was an emptiness to the world.
—And all because of one old hound dog, she thought.
She walked the mile to the mailbox slowly. It was not her habit to collect the mail daily, because there was little mail. Simon’s Renier relatives wrote him regularly, newsy but undemanding letters. But she had apprised them of Simon’s trip to Caracas. The box would undoubtedly be empty. But the walk would mitigate her loneliness.
Usually Boz walked with her. In his youth he had circled about her happily; in his old age he had creaked arthritically along beside her. She could almost feel his presence. She opened the mailbox absently and pulled out a white envelope without realizing that she had expected no mail. Then she came back into herself and looked at the envelope in surprise. It was from her bank, the bank where she had been known all her life, although for most of that life she had had little or no money in it. Whenever she sold a piece of silver or a bit of jewelry, she had deposited the money. The check Forsyth Phair had given her was one of the largest deposits she had ever made.
She opened the letter from the bank. The check, they informed her regretfully, was not good.
She reached out to steady herself on the mailbox. Forsyth Phair’s check dishonored? It had—she searched for the phrase—it had bounced.
There must be some mistake.
But her heart told her with dull certainty that there was no mistake.
And she had allowed Simon to go off with this—this scoundrel.
Instead of going to her cabin or out on deck after breakfast, Poly sat at the foot of Charles’s unmade bunk. Geraldo usually did the cabins fore to aft, and would come to her father’s and Charles’s cabin before he came to hers. Even if she could not speak to him in front of anybody, she could give him some kind of signal that it was imperative that she talk with him alone, at once.
Charles was not in the cabin, but her father was sitting in the chair and adding to the journal which he expected to send home to Benne Seed Island as soon as they got to Port of Dragons and a post office. Without looking up he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I am in a high state of perturbation.”
“That’s obvious. What about?”
“If I knew, I mightn’t be so perturbed. I don’t have intuitions and intimations and revelations like Charles, but I do have sharp eyes and ears, and there’s something wrong on this ship.”
“What’s wrong, Poly?”
“Mr. Smith is afraid of Mr. Phair. Dr. Wordsworth can’t stand him. Charles and I don’t think he likes Simon. But it’s more than that. Do you think the fork lift going after Simon was an accident?”
Dr. O’Keefe spoke in his most reasonable voice. “Why wouldn’t it have been an accident?”
“Fork lifts aren’t likely to go out of control.”
“It is quite possible for an accelerator to jam.”
“I suppose so. But I’m worried about Simon.”
Dr. O’Keefe sighed. “I was glad to find that Simon was on the Orion and that you and Charles would have a young companion, but I think that possibly all three of you are letting your imaginations run riot.”
“Charles doesn’t imagine things.” At that moment Poly decided not to tell her father the fragments of conversation she had overheard until she talked with Geraldo himself. “You know that, Daddy. And what about the portrait? Mr. Phair treats it as though it were far more valuable than I’d think any portrait could be, even a great portrait of Bolivar. He goes in to check it at least three times a day, as though anybody could move it with all that heavy wooden packing case around it.”
Dr. O’Keefe smiled. “You do sound in a high state of perturbation, Pol.”
“Well, I am. The ship has been marvelous. I’ve loved every minute of it. But I keep having this funny feeling about getting off at Port of Dragons tomorrow. I’m sorry I’m showing my perturbation so visibly. I’ll get along to my cabin now. I was sort of waiting for Geraldo.”
“Oh?”
“I need to talk to him. And then maybe I’ll need to talk to you.” Without further explanation she departed, leaving her father to think that he was glad she would not be on the ship much longer.
When she pushed through the curtains to her cabin, Geraldo was already there. Her bed was made, and the cabin cleaned, and he was just standing there.
He said, “I’ve been waiting for you. There is something I have to talk about.”
After breakfast Simon followed Mr. Theo into the salon. The old man had a music manuscript spread out on one of the tables. He looked up, his attention quickly focusing on Simon.
“Mr. Theo,” Simon asked, “do you believe in dreams?”
“Believe, how? That they can predict the future?”
“Not so much the future. The past. I don’t mean that they predict the past, but that they can pick things up, things that have happened a little while ago, and even a long time ago.”
Mr. Theo asked with interest, “What have you been dreaming?”
“I haven’t. Charles has.”
Mr. Theo raised his bushy brows in questio
n.
“He dreamed that he went to Pharaoh, and he described things I’m sure I never told him, like the dented copper kettle and the way Aunt Leonis talks to it. And then he dreamed about Dragonlake, and he said that he checked it with Dr. Eisenstein and she showed him a picture that was exactly like what he dreamed. What do you think, Mr. Theo?”
The old man threw back his mane. “Charles is not, in my opinion, a romanticizer. I take dreams seriously, young Simon, possibly because in my dreams I am always young and I play the organ as Bach might have played it.”
“Is that dreaming about the past?”
“Not in the way you’re implying Charles dreams. That sounds to me more like the ripples you see spreading out and out when you throw a pebble in a pond, or the way sound waves continue in much the same fashion. So it seems quite likely to me that there are other similar waves. Strong emotion, I would guess, either very good or very bad, would leave an impression on the air. And what about radio?”
“That picks up sound.”
“And television?”
“Sight.”
“And a good radio or television set will give you brilliant sound or a clear picture, and a bad set will be fuzzy and full of static.”
Simon pondered this. “You mean, Charles may be like a very, very good set, and in his dreams he picks up things?”
“I don’t discount the possibility.”
“Okay, then,” Simon said. “Neither do I. I’m sleepy this morning. Charles and Poly and I talked till midnight. I think I’ll go have a nap.”
He left Mr. Theo and went out into the heat of the sun, stretched out in the shadow of a large crate, and went to sleep. He was deep in slumber when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and somebody shaking him. He rolled over and saw Poly, not with Charles, but with Geraldo.
“Wake up, Simon,” she said. “Geraldo and I have to talk to you.”
The intensity in her voice woke him completely and he sat up.
Geraldo, too, looked solemn and anxious.
“Simon,” Poly said, “while you were up on the boat deck last night, did anything happen?”
“Happen? No. Why?”
“Nothing? Are you sure?”
“Yes. I was feeling homesick, and I went up and daydreamed about Aunt Leonis.”
“Were you very deep in your daydream?”
“I guess I was. She was almost as real as though we were talking face to face.”
“Did you know that Geraldo was up on deck, too?”
“No.”
“Well, he was, and he saw a man come toward you, very softly, so you mightn’t have heard if you were concentrating. Geraldo said the man crept toward you, and then he put out his arms and he was going to push you overboard; you were standing right between the lifeboat and the rail, weren’t you? right where the captain told us not to?”
“Yes, but I had my hand on the rail and the ship wasn’t rolling. I was perfectly safe.”
“You were right where someone could give you one shove and send you overboard.”
“Who would want to do that?”
“I wish I knew,” Poly said. “You really didn’t hear anything?”
“No. I told you. Who was the man, then?”
“Geraldo saw only his back. He had on a uniform hat, so he couldn’t even see his hair. Geraldo ran across the deck and grabbed his arm, and the man was slippery as an eel and ran down to the promenade deck and into the ship and vanished.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Nobody would want to push me overboard. Geraldo, are you sure you didn’t dream it?”
“Geraldo knows the difference between being awake and asleep,” Polly said indignantly.
“Then why didn’t I notice anything?”
“You do go awfully deep into your dreams, Simon. Both Charles and I have noticed that.”
“They’re not proper daydreams unless you go deep.”
“So you might not have noticed, if you were in the middle of an important part.”
“That’s true,” Simon acknowledged. “But I don’t like it. It scares me.”
“Simon, do you think maybe the fork lift wasn’t an accident?”
Simon put his hands over his ears in an instinctive gesture of rejection. “Stop! Don’t talk like that!”
Poly’s voice was low and intense. “But if somebody’s trying to kill you—”
“No! Why would anybody want to kill me? There’s no reason! I’m not important—no, Poly, no!”
Geraldo spoke. “The portrait of Bolivar—Jan told me he saw Umar painted on the back.”
Simon scrambled to his feet, lifted his arms heavenward, and then flung them down to his sides. “What I think we should do is go and look at the portrait and see exactly what is written on the back, even if we have to get a hammer and chisel to take the crate apart.”
“That’s a good idea,” Poly said, “but do you have a key to that cabin?”
“No.”
“I have all the keys,” Geraldo reminded them.
“Good.” Simon nodded. Now that he had made a decision to act he was brusque and business-like. “Let’s go, then.”
They went quickly to the galley. Geraldo opened the small cupboard where he kept the keys, each on its own labeled peg. He lifted his hand to the pegs in bewilderment: the key to cabin 5, the cabin with the portrait, was not in its place. “The key—it is gone.”
“But who would take it?” Simon asked. “Cousin Forsyth has his own key—”
“Come,” Geraldo cried, and ran down the port passage, Simon and Poly at his heels. The passage was empty. Geraldo tried the door handle. It moved under the pressure of his hand. “It is open.”
“But it’s always locked—” Simon said.
“Like Bluebeard’s closet—” Poly started, then closed her mouth as Geraldo opened the door wide.
They looked into the cabin, and then at each other, in utter consternation.
On the floor of the cabin lay the boards from the face of the case, tidily stacked. The back of the case was still in one piece. It was empty.
“The portrait!” Simon croaked incredulously. “It’s gone!” He looked wildly about the cabin for the great gold frame, for the familiar face of the General, dark and stern and noble.
For a moment they hovered on the threshold. As Simon started in to look for the portrait, Poly stopped him. “Don’t touch anything. There may be fingerprints. Let’s go tell Daddy, quickly.”
They ran back up the passage, stopped short at the galley.
Jan was hanging the key to cabin 5 on its peg.
“Where did you get the key?” Poly demanded.
Jan turned around, looking surprised. “Mynheer Boon found it in the salon. He said Mr. Phair had left it lying on his crossword puzzle.”
“But this isn’t his key, it’s Geraldo’s.”
“I know,” Jan said, still looking surprised. “I saw Mr. Phair and he told me he had his key. So I came and looked on the board and saw that the key was missing. What is wrong?”
Poly said swiftly, “Later, Jan, I have to talk to Daddy.”
Jan stood by the keyboard, looking after them in puzzlement as they raced through the foyer and down the starboard passage. “Geraldo, I need you to set up for lunch,” he called, but Geraldo had disappeared.
7
THE HEARSE
Dr. O’Keefe and Charles hurried to the cabin and stood on the threshold, silently looking at the empty packing case.
Dr. O’Keefe said, “You were quite right not to touch anything. We must tell Mr. Phair at once.”
He strode along the passage, the others hurrying behind him, to Mr. Phair’s cabin. It was empty. “We’ll try the salon.”
Mr. Theo smiled at them as they came in. He touched his music manuscript. “It’s quite warm in here this morning, but I’m afraid that these loose pages might blow overboard.”
“Best not to run the risk,” Dr. O’Keefe agreed. “Seen Mr. Phair?”
“No. But he’
s seldom sociable in the morning.” Mr. Theo turned back to his music.
“The promenade deck, then,” Dr. O’Keefe said. As they left the salon they met Mynheer Boon in the foyer. Dr. O’Keefe asked him, “Have you seen Mr. Phair recently?”
“Not since breakfast.”
“But you found the key to the portrait cabin on his crossword puzzle,” Poly said.
“What are you talking about, Miss Poly? I found no key.”
Poly looked at Simon and Geraldo in consternation.
“Come,” Dr. O’Keefe said, and led them to the promenade deck. “Seen Mr. Phair anywhere around?” he asked casually of the Smiths, who were sunning in deck chairs.
“Not since breakfast,” Mr. Smith said. “How ’bout you, Patty?”
“I haven’t seen him since breakfast, either. Maybe he’s checking on his portrait.”
“Quite possibly,” Dr. O’Keefe said dryly, and turned to climb the steps to the boat deck, where Dr. Wordsworth and Dr. Eisenstein were briskly taking their morning constitutional. In a calm, unemphatic voice he asked, “We’re wondering if you’ve seen Mr. Phair?”
Hardly interrupting their stride, the two professors assured him that they had not.
Dr. O’Keefe said, “We’ve tried all the likely places. I’d better go to the captain and tell him about the portrait. Wait for me in the cabin.”
“I have work to do, please, sir,” Geraldo said. “It is time for me to set up for lunch. Jan will need me.”
“I would prefer you to stay with my children and Simon, Geraldo. Jan can do without you for once. I’ll explain to him.”
“Please, Daddy,” Poly asked, “do we have to wait in the cabin? It’s so terribly hot. Couldn’t we wait for you in the Dragon’s Lair? We can stay in the shade and we’ll get the breeze.”
It was indeed hot. Dr. O’Keefe wiped the back of his hand across his brow. “All right. But go there directly and immediately. And do not leave until I come for you. I want to know exactly where you are.”
—He’s worried, Poly thought,—more worried than he wants us to know.
“Sir,” Simon asked, “who would steal the portrait?”
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