Hammond Innes - Solomons Seal

‘And your sergeant recovered?’

‘Oh yes, once he knew the death wish was lifted. Funny thing is that this sort of magic doesn’t seem to be an oral or even a visual art. The sorcerer seems able to do it by remote control, by telepathy.’ He was silent a moment, still staring into the moat, which was now becoming shadowed from the rays of the sinking sun. ‘Quite honestly,’ he said quietly, ‘it’s something I can do without. It’s quite beyond my comprehension, and I don’t want to know about it.’

His acceptance of it, the way he had reacted to it — a hard-headed businessman … I was appalled. Here in England, in this most mechanical, most material of all ages … ‘When you were out there,’ I said, ‘did you ever hear the name Holland mentioned?’ And when he looked at me with a surprised lift of his eyebrows, I added, ‘There was a Carlos Holland ran ships in the islands around the turn of the century.’

He shook his head. ‘Queenslanders aren’t much interested in the past. Life’s too hard, and they live for the present. What they talk about mostly is the price of sheep or cattle or sugar, and how that randy old sport out at Dead Horse Springs has shacked up with some raw kid up from Brisbane. And if they do mention the past at all, it’s to curse the Chinks for mining out all the gold on the Palmer River.’

He had spent a week up in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, and he talked about that for a moment, how the people there had developed their pig and cassowary economy to a degree of complexity that was quite as difficult for the uninitiated to comprehend as the City’s dealings in stocks and shares. ‘But the rich man, the banker as you might say, doesn’t lend, he borrows, so that individuals, sometimes whole clans, become tied to him. Splendid fellows,’ he added. ‘A real fighting people who are not averse to a little cannibalism if it will increase their virility.’ I think he saw my mind had strayed, for he suddenly switched back to my question. ‘No, the only Holland I ever heard of was a fellow called Black Holland. He was killed by an abo half-breed in a bar brawl up near Ingham. Lewis, that was the abo’s name. He was tried for murder. Queer fellow, you buy him a drink and he’ll tell you a tall tale about some forgotten gold mine.’

‘How would an aborigine have come by a name like Holland?’ I asked.

‘His father, of course.’ His tone was terse, as though suddenly bored. ‘If the father is white, they’ll cling to the name, like all those hyphenated Smiths. Human nature is much the same everywhere. But Black Holland wasn’t an abo. He was from the islands. Bougainville, I think.’ He dropped the subject then. ‘Now, about Australia. I know you were very set on the idea of going out there to look after my interests. That’s why I wanted to tell you the situation myself. The final decision to expand was only taken yesterday.’ He was staring up into my face very intently. After a moment he said, ‘But I do need somebody I can trust to go out there and organise the sale of the property. Will you do that for me? All expenses paid, of course.’

I didn’t say anything for a moment, as I tried to readjust to this totally different offer. It wasn’t at all what I had been hoping for, but at least it would give me a chance to see whether there was more of a future for me out there than there seemed to be here in England. I think he misunderstood my silence, for he said, ‘I’m not leaving it to some smart-alec land agent out there. Like as not, he’d take me for a ride. Can’t blame him, a Pommie with a lot of land and nobody looking after his interests. I’d be a sitting duck. Well?’

‘I’ll think about it,’ I said.

He stared at me a moment longer. ‘Tell you what I’ll do. You’ve been through all the figures. You know what I paid for the place. I’ll give you a percentage of the net difference between my purchase price and whatever you manage to get for it. Say ten per cent. Would that help?’ And without waiting for a reply, he turned abruptly and walked to his car.

He had bought Munnobungle early in the seventies, when Australian land prices were almost at bottom. There had been massive inflation since then, and with a good local agent the price should be very much higher now, even if the exchange rate was against him. As soon as he was in the driving seat, he lowered the electric window. ‘You get a good deal for me and you’ll have a nice little packet of Australian dollars. Not a bad start if you’re thinking of settling there.’ He was looking up at me, smiling. ‘We’re having another board meeting day after tomorrow, a lunch afterwards. Why not join us? One o’clock at the factory. That gives you time to think it over.’ And he drove off, taking my acceptance for granted.

At the office next morning there was a handwritten envelope marked ‘Personal’ among the correspondence lying opened on my desk. It was a brief note from Miss Holland to say she had been offered a job as stewardess on a cruise ship, and would I be kind enough to sell the stamps for her and forward whatever I got for the collection, less commission and any expenses, to the credit of her account at the Southampton branch of the National Westminster Bank?

The writing was small and neat, slightly angular, so that it was not noticeably feminine, and she signed herself Perenna Holland. I had never come across the name Perenna before. There was no address, and the note had been scribbled on what appeared to be a half-sheet of typing paper. The cheap buff envelope in which it had been enclosed was post-marked Southampton. I dialled her solicitor’s number, and as soon as I was put through to him, he said in that high, precise voice of his, ‘I was just about to phone you.’

‘You’ve heard from Miss Holland, have you?’

‘Yes. She’s sent me a Power of Attorney and asked me to arrange for the sale of the house as well as the contents as soon as possible. Fortunately I now have the agreement of the mortgagors, so we can go ahead. I’d like you to handle that for us, if you will — since you were kind enough to give us a rough guide to the market value.’

‘Who drew up the Power of Attorney?’ I asked. ‘Was it a firm in Southampton?’

‘Ah, you’ve heard from her, too, have you? Yes, it was a Commissioner for Oaths at Southampton. And you were right when you said she seemed anxious to get away. She’s got a job on a cruise ship.’

I asked him for her address, but it was the same she had given me, the bank. She hadn’t said what ship she was sailing on or where it was going. It was all ‘very odd’, he thought. I told him we would deal with the sale of the house, and after I had put the phone down, I rang Lloyd’s Intelligence Services at Colchester. It took only a moment for them to check the Southampton sailings on the computer. A Greek cruise ship, the Lemnos , had left at 20.30 hours the previous evening for the Caribbean, calling at Madeira en route. No other cruise ship was due to sail from Southampton for the next eight days.

‘When will the Lemnos return?’ I asked. But they weren’t sure she would dock at Southampton again. It was a fortnight’s cruise, finishing up in Bermuda. The ship would then embark mainly American passengers for a further cruise through the Panama Canal to the Galápagos, then down to Callao and Valparaiso, finishing up at San Francisco on August 2. That was as far as their information went.

It wasn’t much, but at least I knew that she had sailed, and on a vessel headed for the Pacific. I sat there for a moment remembering the things she had said, the atmosphere of that house, wondering how much Eric Chandler knew about the family.

I was still thinking about that when the phone rang. It was the chairman of the Rotary Club. Would I take the chair for him at today’s lunch as his wife had suddenly been taken ill? There was a lot of work to get through, and it was only as I was leaving that I remembered Berners was coming at three. I gave the two albums to Miss Paget and told her to remain with him the whole time he was looking through them.