John MacDonald - The Good Old Stuff

I slid the small fold of money across to him. His hand flicked at it and it was gone. “If Miss Severence should learn from you that I asked this question, I will break several bones in your face. That is a sincere promise.” He smiled and bowed. I left.

He didn’t get up when I walked into my room. He sat in the chair by the windows and smiled at me. He wore wrinkled whites with scores of faint stains down the front. He wore a small spade beard that looked as rigid as gray steel wire. His face was wide and red and shiny with sweat. His smiling red rosebud of a mouth looked silly above the bold beard. His eyes weren’t silly. They were light blue, frigid, unwinking.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked him.

“Van Hosen. I wanted to see you. Forgive the liberty. I bribed the boy to let me in.” His voice was high and sharp, with a faint accent.

“What do you want?”

“Just casual conversation, Mr. Garry. Nothing important. I write for the local papers. Features. You could call this an interview. I like to talk to visitors on the island. Get their impressions. Use them in my articles.”

I sat on the edge of the bed. I tried to keep all expression off my face. He might be what he claimed to be. He might be connected with O’Dell, Severence, and Wend. “Go ahead, but make it quick. I’m tired.”

“What are you doing on the island, Mr. Garry?”

“Tourist.”

“How do you like it?”

“Beautiful.”

“Haven’t you anything to add to that?”

“Nothing.”

He pulled at the spade beard. He stared at my bad hand. I covered it with the other. “Mr. Garry, we usually get more information than that. The tourist talk about the glamour, the air of mystery that seems to be a carryover from the days of the conquerors. You know, Ceylon was taken from the Veddas by the Singhalese. It has been ruled by the Portuguese, the Dutch, and now the English. Polynesians and Macronesians came here across thousands of miles of ocean in outrigger canoes. A Moslem pirate with an Abyssinian garrison held Colombo at one time. Intrigue and revolt and conquest. Plot and counterplot. Assassinations and assignations. Can’t you feel it in the air?”

“Can’t say that I do.”

“Then, Mr. Garry, you’re an exception. You see, many of our visitors are carried by this strange feeling. They see bogies behind every bush. They imagine plots where none exist. We think them a little silly, yet in a way we’re proud of our heritage. You can consider this as a word of warning. The evil-faced man who glowers at you in a café isn’t plotting to steal your money or take your life. He’s probably wondering whether he can sell you a used automobile.”

“I don’t think about plots. Maybe I’m not imaginative.”

He grunted as he pulled himself to his feet. Standing, he was much less impressive. His legs were too short for his long torso. He looked tired and old and more than a little shabby. I held the door for him.

“No story here for me, then. Sorry to have bothered you, Mr. Garry.”

I shut the door and paced back and forth across the room. It was all too pat. A discreet warning. Tourists were a commonplace. No need to interview them. It was the same warning that O’Dell and Constance had given me — only it was more direct. The trail was growing too warm. Suppose I found out too much. They hadn’t hesitated to kill Dan. It was the first time that I was absolutely positive that he had been killed. I stopped pacing and went to the desk.

I scribbled a note to the American consul:

Dear Sir:

I have instructed you to open this in case I meet with an accident. In April 1945, Captain Daniel Christoff, U.S. Army, was drowned in the waters outside Colombo Harbor. The official investigation censured Captain Christoff. I am trying to find out how he was killed and why. If anything happens to me, the following local people will be implicated in some way — Miss Constance Severence, Mr. Clarence O’Dell, Mr. Guy Wend (?), and a man who poses as a reporter and calls himself Van Hosen. He wears a small spade beard. This should give you enough to start on. Trace the connection between the above-listed people. Find their motivation.

I signed it and sealed it.

I took it to the consul’s office in the morning. I had half expected them to make a fuss, to become official and difficult. They were very calm about the whole matter. I walked into a hotel near the office. Of all the people I had seen, Constance seemed to be the most vulnerable. It was time to make another date with her. I phoned Naval Headquarters and asked for her extension. A male voice answered and said, “Miss Severence didn’t report for work this morning.” He hung up before I could ask any more questions. I took a rickshaw to her hotel.

I walked down the narrow lobby and stopped in front of the desk. Pancho Villa smiled at me, the broad welcoming smile of the perfect host.

“What is Miss Severance’s room number?”

He rubbed his hands together and smiled more broadly. “It is regretted, master, that you won’t be able to speak with the lady.”

“She’s given instructions about me?”

“Not that, master. The lady has had a misfortune.”

“What do you mean?”

“Possibly, master, if you go through that door at the end of the lobby and turn to the right, you will find her in front of the bathhouses. She drowned this morning while taking an early swim. The police are even now examining her.”

I stared at him. He didn’t stop smiling. Maybe it was confusion that made him smile. He giggled. I turned and walked to the door he had indicated.

I turned right into the glare of sunshine on a white tile walk. Fifty feet ahead were the bathhouses. The wide white beach was at my left as I walked. The blue water rolled up into long ragged white crests that thudded against the sand with constant soft thunder. I saw a group ahead and quickened my step.

She was on her back on the hot tile in front of the bathhouses. Two Singhalese in police uniform stood staring down at her. A big man with a long white face was scribbling in a notebook. A slender British officer knelt on the white square of his pocket handkerchief and looked at her closely.

The pale blue bathing suit revealed the magnificent body that her dress had concealed. Long golden limbs and flowing curves. Her lips were swollen, bluish, protruding. Her eyes were wide. There was a thin green string of seaweed across her forehead. Part of it rested on her eyeball. Her shoulders were scraped. As I looked at her, her skin seemed more bluish. I noticed that the two police were soaked up to the knees. I guessed that they had stood in the surf to recover her body.

The one with the long white face looked at me. “A friend?”

“An acquaintance. How did it happen?”

“Caught by the undertow. The hotel doesn’t recommend swimming here at this time of year. Very foolish except for exceptional swimmers. She wasn’t.”

The slim British officer stood up and picked up his handkerchief. He used it to flick nonexistent dust off his spotless uniform. He carefully wiped his hands on it and then started to put it back in his pocket. On an impulse, he stooped over and spread it over her rigid face. The tall man kept writing. The officer stepped over to me and said, “Too bad. Conny was a pleasant type.”

“Oh, you knew her?”

“Quite. Breaks me up a bit. Let’s get a peg up at the hotel bar.”

I agreed gladly. They had removed the weak link in the chain. They had destroyed my starting point. Of that I had no doubt.

I liked the looks of the officer, except for the fact that he was a bit too pretty. A very fair man, with even bronze tan, regular delicate features, and eyelashes that any girl would have envied. I saw the minute wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and around his mouth and knew that he was older than he had at first appeared. I guessed his age at about thirty-three.