Death in the Andamans

by M. M. Kaye

  His sudden pedantic turn of speech. Was that too a sign of hate? What he himself had described as ‘dramatization’? He was acting — even the nonchalance of his present pose was acted — but his pale eyes remained tense and watchful, and as the moments ticked by and Valerie did not return, Copper saw his hand move stealthily towards his pocket, and in spite of the close atmosphere of the verandah she was suddenly ice cold … What did it feel like — being shot? A cold bead of sweat ran down her forehead and smeared her cheek: and then Valerie was back again, light-footed and breathing in quick gasps, her arms laden with clothing.

  ‘Ah!’ said Leonard Stock on a short sigh. ‘I was beginning to think that you had been stupid. Sit down beside your friend, please.’

  He slipped out of the dressing-gown and began to clothe himself; drawing on the garments over his pyjamas, swiftly but without undue haste. And as he dressed he talked in a low, precise voice that made his words seem like so many drops of ice water.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it is strange how in spite of exercising the greatest caution one can yet make such unpardonable slips. Throughout this affair I have made no mistake which might have been avoided. I think I put the case clearly in that typescript that I pinned to poor Shilto’s pillow. The discovery of Harcourt’s body, owing to the unexpected production of a coffin that proved to be a few inches too small, was a quite unavoidable accident. But the plan for the elimination of John Shilto appeared to contain no flaws. I thought it all out very carefully from every angle and down to the last detail, though the broad outline was of course childishly simple …

  ‘I had only to walk from my room to his, and after pinning the letter to his pillow (he was fortunately drunk enough to be sleeping soundly) shoot him, allow myself a margin of roughly fifteen to twenty seconds to complete the scene, and then step out of the window. This admirably patterned dressing-gown of my wife’s served as an excellent camouflage to anyone looking up from below, but the mist proved even more valuable.

  ‘The moment those two young men in the next room had run out into the passage nothing was more simple than to enter their room from the balcony, and walking through it, pick my time and join those who were crowding into the turret room. But I forgot that damnable stain, and I followed it up by the almost worse slip of forgetting about the mosquito net. I congratulate you on spotting that, my dear. You did, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Copper steadily. ‘Valerie and Charles and I were the only other people in the room when Nick pulled out the mosquito net to look at Mr Shilto. No one else could have known that it wasn’t like that when we found him. Unless it wasn’t suicide, but murder. And then only the murderer could have known.’

  ‘Ah, yes. It was regrettably careless of me. A bad slip.’

  ‘There was another one,’ said Copper conversationally, her voice unstrained but her eyes intent. ‘Not exactly a slip, but a useful clue.’

  ‘You surprise me,’ murmured Mr Stock, stooping to lace his shoes — the revolver beside his foot and within easy reach of his swiftly moving fingers. ‘I had imagined that outside those two glaring examples I was blameless.’

  Copper said: ‘On the day of the Mount Harriet picnic I saw you carry a packing-case full of bottles from the car to the far side of the lawn, single-handed; and I remember being surprised. Then later, when we decided that you couldn’t be the murderer because you hadn’t the strength, I had forgotten about it and could only remember that something had happened that afternoon that had struck me as a little peculiar. I couldn’t even connect it with anyone in particular. But when you made the slip about the mosquito net, and I realized that you must have been in John Shilto’s room before we were, I thought: “It’s impossible, because whoever shot him must have killed the other two, and he isn’t strong enough.” And then quite suddenly I remembered the box of bottles, and so I asked you to move the lamp, to make sure. It takes two of the servants to lift that lamp, yet you lifted it easily.’

  Mr Stock straightened up and laughed his little bloodless laugh: ‘Clever!’ he approved. ‘Very clever of you. Yes, I once wanted to be a gymnastic instructor at a private school; before I came out to India. But Ruby thought athletics of that description were undignified, and so I gave it up. But I used to practise in secret. I’ve never missed doing a few press-ups every morning.’

  His thin lips stretched to show his teeth, and the sheer concentrated malignancy of that smile chilled Copper’s blood and made her shrink back involuntarily. But Leonard Stock was not thinking of her … ‘Ruby!’ he said softly, and his lean fingers tightened convulsively about the weapon he held. ‘Dear Ruby! I’d put a shot through her head before I go, except that she’ll hate this worse than death! I think she suspects even now. For the first time in her life she’s frightened — and of me!’

  It was plain that he was no longer addressing Copper, but speaking his thoughts aloud: ‘Seventeen years I’ve put up with her. Seventeen years from my life____! And for a good many of them I’ve been planning how I’d kill her. It’s been my one recreation — planning the details of her murder. But this was better. Who would have supposed that that little rat Ferrers would stumble on a pearl bed? If we hadn’t stopped at his bungalow that day I might never have found out. It must have been in that tidal lagoon behind the house. He’d left the shells to rot in the sun — the fool!’

  Once again, and too late, Copper remembered something. A look she had seen on Leonard’s face when the Shilto cousins had met at Mount Harriet. Yes, he had known even then; and had realized in that moment that John Shilto also knew…!

  But he was still speaking, and now his voice held a note of injury and bewilderment: ‘I didn’t mean to kill him. It wasn’t my fault. It was the storm. I’d felt queer all day — keyed up and on edge — and when it broke, something seemed to snap. He was beside me, and suddenly it came to me that if I killed him I could get the pearls. Freedom and money. Freedom from these damned Islands — freedom from Ruby! With the pearls, I could walk out — disappear …

  ‘So I killed him. Harcourt was a mistake — his mistake, not mine. And as it seemed that John Shilto had also found out about the pearls, I realized that he would have to go too. Besides, it was useful to have those two murders pinned on someone else. And then for the whole thing to fall to pieces over a smear of red wood-stain and a slip of the tongue!’

  Leonard Stock jerked back his head and laughed: so suddenly and so shrilly that involuntarily Copper started to her feet. In a flash the barrel of the revolver was levelled at her breast, held in a perfectly steady hand. ‘No tricks, my dear,’ urged Leonard Stock.

  He reached behind him, and picking up his raincoat struggled into it; changing the revolver from his right hand to his left and back again in the process. There were voices from the direction of the hall, and he said: ‘Ah, that will be Dutt arriving. Yes, he is going to the turret room, so I shall be able to leave without attracting undue attention. May I remind you both not to go rushing to your friends with this story until I have had ample time to get clear of the island? Say half an hour?’

  ‘Are you mad?’ interrupted Valerie breathless: ‘You’re marooned on this island like the rest of us!’

  ‘Oh, dear me, no.’ Leonard Stock laughed with genuine amusement. ‘You forget that I always keep my own boat in the old swimming-bath. And after the discovery of Harcourt’s body I took the precaution of provisioning her — just in case of accidents. This is no weather to be setting out in a sailing boat, I will admit. But she has a good engine, and luckily the sea appears to have fallen considerably, so I shouldn’t do too badly. Half an hour should see me well off the premises. So remember, no immediate hue and cry if you wish to avoid further bloodshed.’

  He wagged the heavy revolver at them with a grim joviality, and grinned maliciously. ‘Well — au revoir, my dears. I trust we shall not meet again, but one can never____’

  He stopped suddenly. There were voices in the ballroom, but this time it was Charles. Charles and Nic
k.

  Copper swayed sickeningly and caught at the arm of the sofa to steady herself. She saw Leonard Stock slip the heavy revolver into the pocket of his raincoat, but his hand still kept a grip on it and she knew that his unshaking finger was still upon the trigger.

  He did not again remind them that at least one life, if not all their lives, depended upon their behaviour during the next few moments. Perhaps he knew that they needed no reminder. He began to speak in his usual rather diffident voice, and they saw, with a fresh stab of fear, that his face had once more become weak and characterless and rather foolish, as though he had drawn a mask over that other face whose owner had murdered three men.

  Valerie gave a hysterical laugh and said: ‘And I once said that story about Jekyll and Hyde was far-fetched! One lives and learns.’

  ‘What’s that about Jekyll and Hyde?’ inquired Charles. And then he and Nick were standing beside them: real and solid and alive in an unreal world.

  Nick looked sharply from Copper to Valerie and said: ‘You two look pretty done up. A stiff brandy all round would about suit the case I think.’

  ‘Suits me all right,’ said Charles. ‘God! What a night! Hello, Leonard, old man, what are you all togged up for? If you’re thinking of fetching Dutt, you’re too late. He arrived a few minutes ago and they’re all poring over the body again. So we beat it.’

  ‘Er — as a matter of fact,’ fluttered Mr Stock, ‘Ruby is a bit upset, and she says she cannot go to sleep again without some tablets which she sometimes has to take, which are unfortunately down at our house. I said that I would slip down and fetch them — it won’t take me a moment.’

  ‘Jeepers, these wives!’ said Charles. ‘Who wouldn’t be a bachelor?’

  Copper attempted a laugh. ‘That’s a nice thing to say in front of your future wife, Charles. Are we going to get those drinks or aren’t we?’

  ‘Of course. Come on.’ They moved off down the verandah, Leonard Stock walking a little behind them, and paused at the top of the stairs. ‘I think I should appreciate that drink more when I come back,’ said Mr Stock.

  ‘We’ll save you one,’ promised Charles. ‘Don’t go breaking your neck in the dark.’

  ‘I shall do my best to avoid it,’ said Mr Stock primly. ‘Goodnight.’

  He began to descend the stairs slowly and rather stiffly. And as he did so, Sir Lionel Masson came quickly across the ballroom: ‘Hullo, Stock — where are you off to?’ He did not wait for an answer, but hurried on in a preoccupied voice: ‘By the way, that revolver of Purvis’s — I’d better take charge of it.’ He held out a hand, and Mr Stock stopped upon the staircase and made his fourth and final mistake.

  Had he said ‘I put it in your room,’ or any similar lie, the events of that night might have had a very different ending. But some instinct of obedience betrayed him, and mechanically he had begun to draw the revolver from his pocket. A split second later he had recognized the error. But by then it was too late, for the Commissioner had seen it.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll see Purvis about it in the morning. It’s quite disgraceful that he should not have kept it locked up.’

  Mr Stock did not move, and Nick took a step forward as though to take the gun. But as he did so Copper moved quickly and stood between him and the figure on the staircase below, her cold fingers clinging to his. She could see rage, uncertainty and cunning contending together in the eyes of the shrivelled little killer in the raincoat, from whose features the mask had once more slipped to show the face of murder. Then the Commissioner had brushed past her, and descending the few steps that lay between them, held out his hand.

  With a curious little sigh, Mr Stock drew out the revolver. He looked once more into the faces above him, and was silent for a long moment. Then suddenly and unexpectedly he laughed, a loud, shrill peal of laughter; his lips drawn back from his teeth in a curiously animal grimace. And startled by the sudden shrillness of that sound, Kioh, who had followed at the Commissioner’s heels, spat indignantly, and bounding forward, streaked between his feet and down the stairs …

  It was all over in a moment, before anyone could move or cry out.

  Leonard Stock, taken unawares, stepped backwards and missed his footing. Instinctively, his hands came up and his finger must have tightened upon the trigger, for as he fell there was a blinding flash and a crashing detonation, and his body tumbled backwards down the shallow steps and came to rest at the turn of the staircase, where it quivered once, and then lay still.

  The bullet had entered under his chin and come out at the back of his head, and he was dead long before they reached him.

  23

  It was a glorious day. The pearly sheen of morning had melted before the shimmering sunlight of midday, and beyond the curving sands of North Corbyn’s the sea was an expanse of smooth, translucent turquoise that stretched away, island-dotted, to the far horizon, where it met and merged into the blue of a cloudless sky.

  Valerie and Copper, accompanied by Nick and Charles, had boarded the little fishing-launch Jarawa, and complete with bathing-suits and picnic-baskets had anchored off North Corbyn’s to spend a day of alternate sun- and sea-bathing.

  The Commissioner had been deeply thankful to see them leave. He hoped that they would be able to put out of their minds, if only for that day, the horror and confusion of the night on which John Shilto and Leonard Stock had died; though he doubted if he himself would be able to do so. It had taken some little time to get a coherent account of the events preceding Leonard’s death from his overwrought stepdaughter and her friend, and at first he had not believed them. In fact it was not until dawn had broken that an inspection of the sailing boat in the disused swimming-bath, and a long and harrowing interview with Stock’s wife, had finally convinced him that a murderer had indeed paid for his crimes by becoming his own executioner.

  Two crowded and grimly unpleasant days, full of endless inquiry and discussion, had followed. The bodies of Ferrers, Dan, John Shilto and Leonard Stock had been buried, and though the mists still clung thick about the tiny island, the sea had fallen and communication with the mainland had at last been restored.

  Sir Lionel had made an abortive attempt to keep Valerie and Copper in bed, but they had rebelled against staying there and had wandered about the house and the fog-shrouded island looking worn and hollow-eyed; flatly refusing to discuss any aspect of the recent murders and starting violently at every unexpected sound. But on the third day the sun had risen into a cloudless sky, the mists had melted with the dawn, and the harassed Commissioner had instructed his stepdaughter and her friends to remove themselves off the island and to stay off it for as long as possible.

  ‘And if I so much as see a flicker of you before dinner,’ said Sir Lionel, ‘I shall give the whole lot of you seven days’ hard labour. So now you know! You can have the Jarawa for the day and go out fishing or picnicking or bathing. And now get out and leave me to my labours.’ He kissed Valerie, and hustled them firmly out of the house.

  The Islands, new-washed by storm and mist and drenched in sunlight, appeared greener and lovelier than ever before, and there were lime trees in blossom in the jungle behind North Corbyn’s. Huge, gaudily painted butterflies lilted to and fro on the windless air, the sands of the long white beach were wet and firm underfoot, and the sea that had recently raged so wildly was now as flat as a looking-glass, its water crystal-clear and patched with lavender and lilac where the reefs of coral patterned the sea-floor.

  The Jarawa had anchored as close to the beach as possible, and its four passengers had waded ashore with the baskets and bathing-towels on their heads to spend the morning swimming and sun-bathing. Afterwards they had eaten a picnic lunch under a tree that spread its branches far over the sands, before settling down to a prolonged and peaceful siesta: from which Copper had been the first to wake, aroused in the late afternoon by the crying of a gull overhead.

  Propping herself on one elbow she had looked out across the beach at the tranqui
l sea, and found it hard to believe that barely a week ago it had risen up in a shrieking frenzy to lash out at the Islands, smashing and tearing. For by now the waves and the wind had already swept away most of the traces of their recent rage, and save for a few prostrate coconut palms and the unusually large number of shells that strewed the sand, there was little visible evidence of those wild days and nights. ‘Except on Ross,’ thought Copper soberly. There were four new graves on that little island to mark forever the passing of the great storm.

  For the first time since that terrifying night when John Shilto had died and Leonard Stock had become his own executioner, she found herself able to think of it all calmly and with a certain amount of detachment; and after a while, with curiosity. And apparently Valerie too had been awakened by the gull, and her thoughts must have been moving on the same lines, for she turned on her elbow and her voice broke the drowsy afternoon silence: ‘Charles____’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Charles, how did everything happen? I mean about Leonard, and the Shiltos and everything. Did you ever find out?’

  ‘Ask me some other time,’ murmured Charles into the hat that he had tilted well over his nose.

  ‘I don’t want to know another time. I want to know now. I haven’t wanted to know before, because I felt that if anyone so much as mentioned the grisly subject to me, I’d go off the deep end. But getting away from Ross, and all this heavenly sun and peacefulness, has been like a tonic, and I suddenly feel sane again — and full of curiosity.’