Charles Williams - Go Home, Stranger

“I’m sorry, Pat,” he said gently. “About your brother, I mean. I kept hoping there might be some other answer.”

“It’ll be all right,” she said. “I faced it a long time ago, and the worst part is already over.” She was silent for a moment, staring moodily out across the channel. Then she went on, “But let’s not think about it any more. Think of Vickie, and how she’ll feel a few hours from now. There won’t be any question at all now, will there?”

“No. Even if Griffin won’t talk, we’ve got enough evidence to get her out of there tonight.”

She shuddered involuntarily and shook her head. “I’ll have nightmares the rest of my life. How could you ever cut into that awful thing?”

He took her in his arms and kissed her, and then grinned. “The one I was working on was harmless enough,” he said. “And I think the other one may be, too, but I’m not going to open it to see. The police can take over, as far as I’m concerned.”

“But they were booby traps, weren’t they? I mean, one end filled with those cans of heroin and the other with explosive?”

“That’s right. But there was something Griffin and Counsel both forgot about.”

She raised her head and looked at him. “What was that?”

“Water pressure. It’s tough stuff to fool with after you get down past thirty feet. And to build something that’ll stay water tight for months at that depth, you’ve almost got to test it under pressure. It turned out I was right. I knew it, as soon as I got the knife through it the first time. Water oozed out: There was a tiny flaw in the seam, and the thing was full of water before it had been down there a day.”

“And that killed the explosive?”

He shook his head. “Not the explosive. The detonating circuit. At that pressure, water would seep into the battery in no time, and destroy it. Griffin knew it too, but he found out too late. He was already within grabbing distance before he saw the water and knew I’d been leaning over it that way to hide it from him.”

She stared at him admiringly. “You’re amazing.”

“And you’re very beautiful.”

She smiled. “Shall we go around again? Or get started?”

He looked out along the bayou leading back toward the south and east where the highway and the camp should be, and Vickie, and then San Francisco, and all the time ahead. Then he turned back to the very large and very lovely brown eyes looking up at him adoringly.

He kissed her.

“You name it, Skipper,” he said.

THE END