by Lou Cameron
“All except the amount involved. We can’t be talking about even a chest of coins, Gaston. Look at the money represented in this rolling stock alone! And the other side has field guns dug in to guard the seaward approaches while they do their own looking, for God’s sake! Sylvia, did Wallace tell you or the others how much money was involved?”
She steered wide of a big quinine tree before answering, “Not in exact figures. But he said we’d each get at least ten quid back for each one we put in. My own investment was two thousand pounds, if that’s your next question.”
It had been. Captain Gringo whistled thoughtfully, Sylvia’s investment alone came to ten thousand dollars in real money. And Wallace had sold the idea to, let’s see, ten people, not counting himself and the late Marlowe. Assuming they’d all invested about the same amount, Wallace had raised at least a hundred grand before they’d left England!
Gaston had been counting too. He said, “Eh bien, it could not have been the game of con. With a fortune like that in his hot little hands, Wallace could simply have run off to Tahiti and lived happily ever after, non?”
“Okay, so what’s worth a million that you can shove in a hole in a hurry? He promised a ten-to-one return, and that’s what she adds up to in round figures!”
Gaston shrugged and said, “Not gold. A million in gold specie would be trés heavy, and we are assuming a hasty burial. Besides, had the unwashed coastal pirates gathered a million—and I don’t see how—why would they have been there waiting to be wiped out by the Royal Navy? As I said, they were bush-league riffraff, not followers of the great Morgan.”
The redhead, Pat, turned in her seat by Sylvia to offer, “Diamonds? Those uncouth ruffians may have relieved some poor señorita of jewels they didn’t know the value of. Perhaps a family treasure, ripped from the heaving breast of a poor frightened girl in inexpensive clothes, since she was living in genteel poverty and—”
“Hey, don’t make up a romance novel, Pat!” Captain Gringo cut in with a laugh, adding, “You could be on to something, leaving out the dramatic trimmings we’ll probably never know in detail. It works more than one way, damn it. The pirates may well have had something they didn’t know the value of. On the other hand, a couple of marines may have made an awful mistake with the rhinestones of some pirate’s adelita! I can’t see even Queen Victoria sending assault troops ashore with jeweler’s loupes screwed to their eyes, and it takes a pro to tell real jewelry from good paste!”
Gaston said, “I vote we drive on to Patuca, the next port up the coast. I think we can make it by horseless carriage, and, more important, it is a small but adorable out-of-the-way port where we could no doubt catch a passing schooner long before the alcalde could get word to the capital that a bunch of maniacs had just driven into his town from the jungle.”
Gaston always said things like that, so Captain Gringo didn’t answer. But Sylvia’s jaw was stubbornly set as she said, “See here, I have too much invested to give up now!”
Pat said, “Me too. I know all too well about genteel poverty. I had to borrow my share from a beastly maiden aunt who’s never going to let me live it down should I return empty-handed. I’ll be keeping house for the old bawd the rest of my perishing life!”
They rounded a giant mahogany to see an even bigger tree stretched out across their route. Sylvia braked to a stop and said, “Blast. Which way around is shorter?”
Captain Gringo said, “Hold it. The ground slopes down beyond that windfall, and when the ground dips here, it gets even muddier. How far have we driven, Sylvia?”
She looked at her instrument panel and said, “Almost fifteen miles. Why?”
“Swing due north. We’ll follow this rise another ten and make camp.”
She started the way indicated, but protested, “We’ve plenty of daylight left, Dick.”
He said, “I know. I want to know where the hell we are when we stop. Twenty-five miles into the trees should be about right, and I mean to make a comfortable dry camp, so we may have to scout around for a good rise with water within reach. We’ll be staying there awhile.”
Pat asked, “We’re camping in this uncharted wilderness more than a few hours, Dick?”
He said, “You bet your sweet fanny we are. I want to give the other side time to assume we’ve left for good before we move any closer in on ’em!”
Gaston nudged him and shot him a silent frown as the two girls stared ahead. Captain Gringo grinned but nodded encouragement. He knew Gaston had seen the redhead first, the bastard.
Sylvia was even prettier. But they didn’t seem to be hitting it off. He supposed that, having married up to Belgravia, she was no longer interested in guys who didn’t wear neckties and hadn’t rowed for Harrow. Nobody was as big a snob as a snob who’d started out poor, and he didn’t like snobs of any background. So, damn it, Gaston figured to get laid in the near future and Captain Gringo was already feeling left out!
*
They made camp on what was probably a lonely island in the rainy season. The ground sloped gently away between the close-ranked trees on all sides. A quarter mile away, a sluggish little stream of tea-colored water wound mysteriously from nowhere to anywhere through the jungle. Some of the others wanted to camp closer to water. Some of the others hadn’t camped in mosquito country before.
Captain Gringo would have ordered them to pitch their tents at least two miles from the nearest water if that had been possible in this soggy stretch of rain forest. Mosquitoes ranged a little over a mile from where they’d hatched. He hoped that not many had, in the nearby stream. The water was moving and minnows darted about under the surface. The water was stained by tannin from the trees all around, not from silt, and the two soldiers of fortune had learned that neither mosquitoes nor the more dangerous organisms of tropic dysentery liked to dwell in acid water.
Like everything else about the crazy English expedition, the tents and camping gear Wallace had bought with other people’s money added up to no spared expenses. Captain Gringo remembered how upset the Duke of Wellington had been when his junior officers unfurled those umbrellas at the Battle of Waterloo. For an exploring face, limeys sure took along lots of the comforts of home.
But hell, he enjoyed comfort too, and since old Wallace had no further use for it, he commandeered the dead leader’s tent. It was a gasser. Thick rubberized canvas formed a nice dry floor, and there was room enough inside to hold a tea party, if he’d had any friends. Gaston had encountered no resistance as he’d helped Pat set up her tent. But Captain Gringo detected a certain reserve from the others, now that he’d taken command. It hardly seemed fair. Gaston was the one who’d kicked Wilson in the nuts. But it was always lonely at the top. Maybe it was just British reserve.
Aside from Bertie and the now recovered Wilson, a rather dour Scot even when he wasn’t nursing a bruised ball, the other male survivors, now that he’d had time to learn their names, were called Baxter, Gordon, Fenton and Jerome.
He hadn’t figured out if Jerome was the guy’s first or last name. It hardly mattered. Jerome was a little shriveled-up guy with not much to distinguish him but an enlarged Adam’s apple, which he kept swallowing as he refused to meet anyone’s eyes. It seemed he had some sort of nervous tic that made him gulp like that. It was Jerome’s problem, thank God.
Nobody argued as Captain Gringo directed them to build a fire in the middle of the encircled tents. He explained that after they’d used the fire to cook the last meal of the day, he meant to pile lots of forest duff on the coals to leave it smoking but not showing after dark. The smoke would help with the bugs. It was nobody else’s business where said fire might be. All the tents had netting, of course, so there was a fifty-fifty chance they wouldn’t be completely drained of blood by morning.
The women took over the cooking chores without being told to, bless them. By now he knew them well enough to call them Sylvia, Pat, Phoebe, and Matilda. Matilda was the big tough dame who said “shit’’ in an upper-class accent the q
ueen might have envied.
By desperately casual questioning during the day he’d established that all four dames were more or less unattached. Matilda had a husband back in Kensington, apparently left behind to water her plants and keep an eye on the servants while she was off treasure hunting on her own. He could see why her old man hadn’t objected too hard. She wasn’t exactly unattractive, but, in addition to cussing like a man, she moved like a tall youth in skirts and would have bossed hell out of the other girls if they’d paid any attention to her.
As they put the high tea on the fire, Captain Gringo took Bertie aside, since he seemed to think on his feet pretty well despite the Oxford that came out of his ruddy face. The American said, “You know more than me about Wallace. But before we talk about him, what can you tell me about the fuel situation? I’ve only seen the spare kerosene tins in the back of Sylvia’s steamer. Had I been Wallace, I’d have brought a lot more.”
“I say, how was he to know we’d be driving all over the map? I’m sure we’ve enough to get to the lagoon, even after this wide detour.”
“Okay, then what? Didn’t Wallace plan on driving back? I don’t think Sylvia has enough spare fuel. Unless the rest of you have twice as much as she started out with, you don’t have enough either.”
“Oh, well, as I said, we never expected all this extra mileage.”
“Will you listen with both ears, Bertie? We wouldn’t have gotten to Laguna Caratasca yet if we’d driven straight down that original path. Sylvia’s fuel is already more than half used up. I know it’s not cricket to speak ill of the dead, but Wallace couldn’t have been planning to come back by horseless carriage, see?”
“Oh, I say, I certainly do now! I confess I feel rather silly, too. Of course we let Major Wallace do all the logistical planning. Until you mentioned it just now, I hadn’t even considered whether I had enough kerosene or not. Whatever do you imagine he had in mind?”
“A double-cross, maybe. One car could make it easy on the tins left in the other four. Three, now. Gaston was smart enough to toss the extra fuel from the White into other vehicles, but there’s still not enough.”
“I say, that couldn’t have been Wallace’s plan. The rest of us would have raised a bit of a row, you know.”
“Yeah, if any of you were alive.”
“Good God, what a beastly idea! Are you suggesting Wallace intended to do us all in after using us to find what he was looking for?”
“It’s happened. But if Wallace had been that slick with a gun, Marlowe never would have beaten him to the draw. You managed to nail Marlowe, and I notice the other men and that big butch Matilda are wearing sidearms. So let’s talk about the others. Wallace couldn’t have planned to knock off so many people without help. Marlowe obviously wasn’t in cahoots with him. He recruited Gaston and me knowing we were professional fighting men. I’d say it’d take at least three guns, crossfire, to do the job right, even if the rest of us were caught flat-footed. What’s the story on Wilson, for openers?”
“Oh, it couldn’t be Wilson, he’s related to the Duke of Caithness and played rugby as a lad. He’s a bit of a brawler and has a beastly temper when he’s been drinking. He’s a Scot, you see, but nonetheless a proper gentleman. I’ve played cards with him many a time.”
“How’s he fixed for money?”
“Oh, he’s oozing with it. I said he was a Scot, and even if he did spend lavishly, he owns a distillery in Glen Spey. He’d never murder anyone for money. ”
“Maybe he could have another reason. Who’s Baxter?”
“Oh, Freddy? He went up to Oxford with me. Didn’t graduate, of course. Something about riding his horse through the dean’s marigolds one night. He’s a bit queer in other ways. Has a bachelor flat in Mayfair and seems to like rosy-cheeked boys, but he’s never murdered any of them as far as anyone knows. He oozes money, too. Family owns a shipyard or something.”
“Was Wallace a queer?”
“Good Lord, do you suppose I ever asked? Wait, he couldn’t have been. As I recall his trouble in the Indian army, it involved another officer’s wife.”
“Okay, some guys swing both ways, but we’ll put Baxter on the back of the stove for now. Who’s Gordon?”
“Another Scot, of course. Highlander. Not as dour as Wilson. Given to singing songs about Bonny Prince Charlie when he’s had a bit too much at the club. His people are no longer Catholic, of course. George the Third converted all the Jacobite clans by giving them back their kilts in exchange for switching to the High Kirk. Let’s see, I think Gordon’s related to the Earl of Huntley. He likes girls, as all Highlanders seem to. Never met a queer Highlander, now that I think about it. I rather imagine being raised in kilts has something to do with it, although I can’t see why. At any rate, you can forget Jock Gordon as a Murderer. Turned down a commission in the family regiment to devote his time to raising milch kine on his family estates. That’s estates in the plural, by the way. He sells milk to half the country. In tins of course. Gordon Condensed Milk.”
“I’ve seen the label on many a can. Okay, I know this is silly, but what about Jerome?”
“Good God, he’s a religious fanatic. Welsh chapel. Family is in coal. Not really in the coal, of course. They sell it, in Cardiff. He’s a rather silly twit but filthy rich. I say, we seem to have run out of chaps and none of them fits your grim picture, what?”
“Neither did Wallace, but the more I study him the more I smell a rat. I know about Sylvia and Pat. Who’s your little chum with the glasses?”
“Phoebe Chambers? Lord, I wish she were my little chum. Tried, of course. I don’t seem to be her type. The sad part is, she’s supposed to be a bit of a bawd, despite her sedate looks. Saw her in a bathing dress at Brighton once and, well, those glasses don’t tell the whole story. As a suspect for other transgressions, Phoebe won’t do. She has a very good income left her by a father who mucked about in Australian wool. Not in the wool itself of course, but …”
“Right, he sold lots of wool and left her lots of money. You say she has a rep for round heels? Could she have been laying down a lot for old Wallace?”
“How on earth should I know a thing like that? She’s never invited me to her bedroom, with or without other company present. I don’t think they were lovers, though. Must say I was rather surprised, after the stories I’d heard about her. She runs with a rather fast crowd from Bloomsbury, although she lives in a better neighborhood, of course.”
Captain Gringo said, “Maybe she’s picky, or maybe someone just talks nasty about a lady with bohemian leanings. Who’s Matilda and how come her husband couldn’t make it?”
“Oh, she’s quite mad. He must be too. They have one of those marriages of convenience. Both from titled families, so they never got to choose. He’s a Cecil. She’s a Harcourt. The old boy has a seat in Lords and makes all sorts of things out of steel in the Black Country. The people who work for him do, that is. They live between the Palace and Marble Arch, on Park Row, when they’re in London. Never been to their country place in Cornwall. Hear it’s seven thousand acres under cultivation with a great swamping moor for birding. She’s a jolly good shot. But as far as I know she’s never shot anything but birds. On the wing of course. Can’t see her shooting me. We get along quite well, as a matter of fact.”
“Yeah, and Sylvia says you have more money than brains.”
“Did she? I say, I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not. In all modesty, I do have a rather decent income. Bonds backed by the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street and a few shares in Lloyd’s. The bank, not the insurance chaps. Don’t ask me how the devil stocks and bonds work. I just have to clip the coupons and send them in whenever I have bills to pay. It seems to pile up faster than I can spend it. Never have understood why.”
Captain Gringo left Bertie to ponder his unfortunate fate. The still confused American moved over to Sylvia’s steamer, parked with the others outside the tent circle, and was cleaning the bore of the Maxim when Gaston joined
him.
The Frenchman sat on the running board to mutter darkly, “Sacre God damn, Pat is sharing her tent with that Sylvia. Why do I do such mad things, Dick? After investing all that charm on the redhead, I learn the big buck-toothed Matilda insisted on her own private tent! Do you think it is too late to start a new campaign?”
Captain Gringo said it was worth a try. Maybe Gaston was too big a chump to see that if Matilda slept alone, it left Phoebe in another private, tent as well. On the other hand, Phoebe couldn’t be as easy a lay as she was reputed to be, if she was still sleeping alone, and he had more important things to worry about. A guy could always get laid, sooner or later, but if somebody killed you, you didn’t even get to jerk off for one hell of a long time.
He filled Gaston in on his suspicions. Gaston agreed with them and asked in a more serious than usual tone what the hell they were doing with this bunch of misfits. He added, “Whatever Wallace planned and whatever he was after is ancient history, Dick. Even if there is a treasure worth the time of people who already have money to burn, and even if that trés suspicious Wallace had left an X to mark the spot, there seems to be a gang sitting on it. A big one, with cannon, for God’s sake!”
“Hey, I said the whole story was nuts, Gaston. Meanwhile, it got us out of Nicaragua one jump ahead of the firing squad, so what the hell. I’m open to suggestions, but did you have someplace better to go?”
“Oui; I told you there was a trés discreet seaport just up the coast on the far side of the big lagoon.”
“I know. I found Patuca on the map. Even if I could talk the others into it, Patuca’s too far. We don’t have enough kerosene. We’ve barely enough to make Laguna Caratasca.”
“Merde alors, have the humming birds built nests in your ears? That’s where the other gang is. The ones with all the big guns!”
“Yeah, and unless they like to read in the dark, a lot of fuel oil. These boilers will ran on any kind of liquid fuel from kerosene to coconut oil. Those other guys must have supplies. Both these crazy expeditions are well funded. Too well funded for any sensible reason I can come up with, but we’ll find the answers over by the old pirate camp, not in Patuca.”