Alistair MacLean - Bear Island

"Well, well," I said. "Two birds with one stone. We're a brilliant pair."

"We are?"

"The lad you saw with his face pressed against that window. Probably had it stuck against it for all of five minutes until he'd made sure he'd been seen. Then to make certain you were really interested, he went and shone his torch into Judith Haynes's window. No two actions, he must have calculated, could have been designed to lure us out into the open more quickly."

"He was right at that, wasn't he?" He looked at my opened medical kit and said carefully: "I'm to take it, then, that there's something missing there?"

"You may so take it." I showed him the velvet-lined gap in the tray where the something missing had been. "A lethal dose of morphine."

"Four bells and all's well," Smithy said, shaking my shoulder. Neither the call nor the shake was necessary, I was by this time, even in my sleep, in so keyed-up a state that his turning of the door handle had been enough to have me instantly awake. "Time to report to the bridge. We've made some fresh coffee."

I followed him into the main cabin, said a greeting to Conrad who was bent over pot and cups at the oil stove and went to the front door. To my surprise the wind, now fully round to the west, had dropped away to something of not more than the order for a Force 3, the snow had thinned to the extent that it promised to cease altogether pretty soon and I even imagined I could see a few faint stars in a clear patch of sky to the south, beyond the entrance of the Sor-Hamna. But the cold, if anything, was even more intense than it had been earlier in the night. I closed the door quickly, turned to Smithy and spoke softly.

"An unlooked for change in the weather. If this improvement maintains itself I can see Otto calling on you-and if he doesn't someone's going to remind him by suggesting it-to carry out your offer of last night and strike out for Tunheim and the law."

"I'm beginning to regret I ever made the offer-but I didn't seem to have much option at the time."

"And you won't have any option if, come the dawn, the sun is shining. No way to pull out now. Watch Heyter, though, watch him very very closely."

Smithy was silent for a considering moment. "You think he bears watching?"

.He's one of thirteen potential murderers and for me those odds are small enough to make them all deserving of as close an eye as the crown jewels. And if, in that thirteen, you were to cut out Conrad, Lonnie, and the Three Apostles-and mentally I've already cut them out-you've brought the odds down to one in eight. Perhaps two in eight-perhaps even a very uncomfortable three in eight."

"You're very encouraging," Smithy said. "What makes you so sure that those five-" He broke off. as Luke, yawning and stretching vastly, entered the main cabin. Luke was a thin, awkward, gangling creature, a towheaded youth urgently in need of the restraining influences of either a barber or a ribbon.

I said: "Do you see him as a gun for hire?"

I could have him up for committing musical atrocities with a guitar, I should think. Otherwise-yes, I agree. Very little threat to life and limb.

And, yes again, that would go for the other four, too." He watched as Conrad went into one of the passages, carrying a cup of coffee. "I'd put my money on our leading man any day."

"Where on earth is he off. to?"

"Bearing sustenance for his lady-love, I should imagine. Miss Stuart spent much of our watch with us."

I was on the point of observing that the alleged lady-love had a remarkable predilection for moving around in the darker watches of the night but thought better of it. That Mary Stuart was involved in matters dark and devious-Heissman's being her uncle didn't even begin to account for the earlier oddity of her behaviour-I didn't for a moment doubt: that she was engaged in any murderous activities I couldn't for a moment believe.

Smithy went on: "It's important that I reach Turtheim?"

"It hardly matters whether you do or not. With Heyter along, only the weather and the terrain can decide that. If you have to turn back, that's fine with me, I'd rather have you here: if you get to Tunheim, just stay there."

"Stay there? How can I stay there? I'm going there for help, am I not?

And Heyter will be shouting to come back."

"I'm sure they'll understand if you explain that you're tired and need a rest. If Heyter makes a noise, have him locked up-I'll give you a letter to the Met. officer in charge."

"You'll do that, will you? And what if the Met. officer point-blank refuses?"

I think you'll find some people up there who'll be only too happy to oblige you."

He looked at me without a great deal of enthusiasm. "Friends of yours, of course?"

"There's a visiting meteorological team from Britain staying there briefly. Five of them. Only, they're not meteorologists."

Naturally not." The lack of enthusiasm deteriorated into a coldness that was just short of outright hostility. "You play your cards mighty close to the chest, don't you, Dr. Marlowe?"

"Don't get angry with me. I'm not asking you that, I'm telling you.

Policy-I obey orders, even if you don't. A secret shared is never a secret halved-even a peck at my cards and who knows who's kibitzing? I'll give you that letter early this morning."

"OK." Smithy was obviously restraining himself with no small difficulty.

He went on morosely: I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised to find even the Morning Rose up there?"

"Let me put it this way," I said. I wouldn't put it beyond the bounds of possibility."

Smithy nodded, turned and walked to the oil stove where Conrad, now returned, was pouring coffee. We sat for ten minutes, drinking and talking about nothing much, then Smithy and Conrad left. The next hour or so passed without event except that after five minutes Luke fell sound asleep and stayed that way. I didn't bother to wake him up, it wasn't necessary, I was in an almost hypernatural state of alertness: unlike Luke, I had things on my mind.

A door in a passage opened and Lonnie appeared. As Lonnie, by his own account, wasn't given to sleeping much and as he wasn't on my list of suspects anyway, this was hardly call for alarm. He came into the cabin and sat heavily in a chair by my side. He looked old and tired and grey and the usual note of badinage was lacking in his tone.

"Once again the kindly healer," he said, "and once again looking after his little flock. I have come, my boy, to share your midnight vigil."

"It's twenty-five to four," I said.

`A figure of speech." He sighed. "I have not slept well. In fact, I have not slept at all. You see before you, Doctor, a troubled old man."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Lonnie."

"No tears for Lonnie. For me, as for most of pitiful mankind, ray troubles are my own making. To be an old man is bad enough. To be a lonely old man, and I have been lonely for many years, makes a man sad for much of the time. But to be a lonely old man who can no longer live with his conscience-ah, that is not to be borne." He sighed again. I am feeling uncommonly sorry for myself tonight."

"What's your conscience doing now?"

It's keeping me awake, that's what it's doing. Ah, my boy, my boy, to cease upon the midnight with no pain. What more could a man want, Then it's evening and time to be gone?"

"This wine shop on the far shore?"

"Not even that." He shook his head mournfully. "No welcoming arms in paradise for the lost Lonnies of this world. Haven't the right entry qualifications, my boy." He smiled and his eyes were sad. "I'll pin my hopes on a small four-ale bar in purgatory."

He lapsed into silence, his eyes closed and I thought he was drifting off. into sleep. But he presently stirred, cleared his throat and said apparently apropos of nothing: "It's always too late. Always."