Strange Conflict (38 page)

Partly to rouse him up, at half-past seven de Richleau sent him with Marie Lou back to the hospital to inquire for Philippa, remaining on watch himself. By eight o'clock they rejoined him with the news that the surgeon had said that her injuries were too severe for her to recover and that he thought she would die during the course of the morning.

‘That may not sound good news on the face of it,' grunted the Duke, ‘but it is so, all the same. We ourselves must see to it, though, that this time the poor thing is really dead and that her body can never again be reanimated.'

‘Could it be?' Marie Lou asked.

‘Certainly. She hasn't an injury in any vital part, and although her burns may have marred her beauty her physical form is still young and strong. That fiend we're up against might quite well take her from the grave once more, this time to work as a slave in the plantations, unless we take proper steps to prevent him.'

‘How will you do that?' inquired Simon.

De Richleau shrugged. ‘There are ways. But it is not a pleasant subject. The main point is that directly the semblance of life departs we must claim her body for burial. In the meantime let's try and think of more pleasant things. Breakfast might help.'

None of them had thought of food during these trying hours, but they now realised that they were all distinctly hungry, so they went to the least grimy-looking of the small restaurants on the water-front and did ample justice to some excellent coffee and a very passable omelette.

It was nearly nine o'clock by the time they had finished and they were now becoming acutely anxious as to what had happened to Richard and Rex. Even if they had waited until dawn to take off in a plane from the Kingston airport, having been unable to do so before, they should certainly have arrived in Port-au-Prince by now, as even in an out-of-date machine the journey could easily be accomplished in two hours.

Without any particular interest they all saw a long, low, sea-going launch enter the harbour just as they were finishing their omelette but none of them remarked upon it until Simon spotted that at its stern it was flying the Red Ensign.

No sooner had he pointed it out to the others than two figures came from the launch's cabin and jumped on to the harbour steps, where it was just being tied up. It was their friends. Hastily telling the Negro waiter that they would be back, their faces glowing with delight, they ran across the road to meet them.

Rex was carrying a large suit-case and he waved his free hand in greeting. ‘We've got the goods! But Holy Snakes it's good to see you! We've been at our wits' end for hours past thinking we'd be too late.'

‘Yes,' beamed Richard, hugging Marie Lou. ‘Thank God you're still all right. We reached Kingston at one o'clock yesterday, but all the tea in China wouldn't have got us a plane. There just wasn't one to be had. Luckily we spotted this boat. She's much speedier than the one we went in, so we hired her, and after we'd bought the other things we set off back at once. We made the return trip in just over fifteen hours.'

‘Well done!' de Richleau smiled. ‘Well done! Marie Lou and I would have been for it last night if Simon hadn't played a magnificent lone hand; but he got us a breather and put an ugly spoke in the enemy's wheel into the bargain.'

‘You've managed to identify the enemy, then?' said Richard.

‘Good God, yes!' exclaimed the Duke. ‘But of course, you don't know—it's that plausible Mulatto, Doctor Saturday. I expect you're both famished, though? Come and sit down and we'll tell you all about it.'

More coffee and eggs were ordered and while the new arrivals ate they were informed what had happened in their absence. All five of them then began to discuss their future plans.

‘You had better retain that sea-going launch for the time being, Richard,' suggested the Duke, ‘and we'll make her our temporary headquarters.'

‘You couldn't possibly get a pentacle twenty-one feet in
diameter on her, for our protection tonight.' Richard objected; ‘her beam can hardly be as much as that.'

‘We could make several smaller ones,' suggested Marie Lou, but the Duke intervened.

‘Now we're together again a large one to contain us all would be much more effective, and I doubt if we could get a room of sufficient size in the hotel. There would also be all sorts of other objections to going there. We could, of course, hire an empty house, but that means interviewing agents and going out to see places which may not be suitable; so for the time being it will save us a lot of trouble if we use the launch. When night comes we can run it up on some quiet beach and make our pentacle there on the sand above the tide-line. In the meantime I may have another use for it, and it has the added advantage that its crew are Jamaica boys—not Haitians—so they're much less likely to be got at by the Doctor.'

Having paid their reckoning they went to the launch and deposited in it the suitcase which Rex had been carrying. Then the Duke said that they had better go up to the hospital again and wait there until the life which animated Philippa's burnt body left it.

Simon remarked that although he was in no danger of falling asleep he would much prefer to rest a little rather than walk any further, as it was now getting hot, and de Richleau agreed that it was a good idea that someone should stay in the launch to keep an eye on the treasured suitcase; so they left him there and set off through the town once more.

The hospital was only about ten minutes' walk from the harbour, and when they reached it a young medical student told them that Philippa had passed away just before their arrival.

De Richleau said that in that case they would take charge of their friend's body right away if arrangements could be made for some conveyance to remove it. He added the glib lie that as the girl's parents lived in Jamaica they would naturally wish her to be buried there, and speed was important otherwise the body would begin to decompose in the heat before it could be shipped across.

The young internee was both sympathetic and affable and went off to find the surgeon, who, he said, would make
out the death certificate and arrange for the ambulance to take the body down to the harbour.

They then waited for nearly twenty minutes, and when at last the surgeon appeared his face was very grave.

‘I must apologise,' he began in excellent French, ‘for appearing to doubt your right to claim the body of the young girl you brought here early this morning and whose name you gave us as Philippa Ricardi; but a very extraordinary and most disquieting thing has occurred. The girl's face was not badly burnt and one of the nurses felt certain that she recognised her. Our nurse swears that she is Marie Martineau, a girl who was born and brought up in Port-au-Prince and whose history from her nineteenth year is surrounded by considerable mystery. We naturally sent for
Monsieur
and
Madame
Martineau and they were at the girl's bedside before she died. They have definitely identified her as their missing daughter.'

‘Did she regain consciousness before she died?' asked the Duke.

‘Yes. And, as often in such cases, she had passed beyond the stage of feeling any pain, so her death was a peaceful one.'

‘Did she recognise these people who say they are her parents?' de Richleau went on.

‘No,' said the surgeon, after a slight hesitation; ‘I cannot say that she did. But they are quite definite about her.'

‘I think you had better take us to them,' said the Duke.

‘Very well.' The surgeon turned and led the way through a passage, up some stairs and into a long, scrupulously clean ward with a wide verandah. At its end a screen had been placed, and behind it a man was standing with his had upon the shoulder of a woman who, giving way to heartbreaking tears, was kneeling at the foot of the bed in which the body lay.

As de Richleau's party rounded the screen they took in the fact that both the man and the woman were Mulattoes well advanced in years. The man was the darker of the two and had been very handsome, his features having a definite resemblance to those of Philippa; while the woman was a characterless bag of fat which appeared to have been poured into the good-quality silk dress that restrained her ample figure.

The surgeon muttered a semi-introduction. ‘
Monsieur et
Madame Martineau
—these are the people who brought your daughter to the hospital for treatment.'

The elderly Mulatto glared at them as though he would like to have cut their hearts out; while the fat woman suddenly sprang to her feet and screamed in bad French:

‘You ghouls—you grave-robbers! Where did you get her? My Marie! Where is the good God that he does not strike you dead for this?'

Trembling with indignant fury she went on: ‘We rescued her—she was safe with the good Sisters in Marseilles. Poor little one! They said that she seemed happy in the convent and we paid much money for her keep. May the curse of Hell rest upon you that you brought her back here to the place where she had already suffered so much!'

‘Your pardon,
Madame,
' de Richleau said quietly. ‘You are, I fear, under an entire misapprehension as the the sort of people we are, and also as to the identity of this dead girl. Her resemblance to your daughter may be very strong, but her name is Philippa Ricardi, and I assure you that you are mistaken in believing her to be the daughter whom you appear to have sent to a convent in Marseilles. I know this girl's father and mother intimately and I have known her since she was a child.'

The lies slipped off his tongue as firmly and readily as the rest of his words and the others could see that the surgeon at least was shaken in his belief that
Monsieur
and
Madame
Martineau were really the bereaved father and mother; but neither of the parents would give way an inch. The woman insisted that Philippa was her daughter and the man, though obviously scared of them, backed her up.

A horrible and degrading scene followed in which for twenty minutes they wrangled over the body of the dead girl, disputing as to who had the right to remove and bury it.

The Martineaus flatly refused to give in, but the Duke was equally adamant. He knew that if they had the girl buried they would probably give her a lavish funeral and the ceremony would be conducted by a Roman Catholoic priest. But that would be no protection against Doctor Saturday's calling her back from the grave twenty-four hours later. De Richleau doubted if anyone in Haiti, except himself, could give her proper protection, and he was
absolutely determined to prevent the poor corpse from being made into a Zombie a second time.

Eventually the surgeon intervened. Quieting the Martineaus, he said that, greatly as he regretted the scandal which would result, this had now become a matter for the police. He would not allow either party to remove the body until all concerned had appeared before a magistrate and the court had given its decision as to which party's claim it would sustain.

The Duke now knew that he was up against it. In his own mind he had no doubt whatever that Philippa was the Martineaus' daughter, and that her real name was Marie. The nurse also had recognised her, and in the course of an hour or two the Martineaus would doubtless produce a score of other people who would be prepared to swear to her identity; whereas he could not produce the least tittle of evidence that the girl's parents really lived in Jamaica. A verdict in favour of the Martineaus was obviously a foregone conclusion.

There was only one thing that he could do. It was a desperate step; but in any course upon which he had once made up his mind he never allowed difficulties or dangers to deter him.

‘Rex! Richard!' he said abruptly, and went on in English: ‘We are about to return to the launch, carrying all before us. Princess, you go ahead!'

Marie Lou knew that tone in the Duke's voice. She had heard it before when he meant business; so had the others. Without a second's hesitation she turned and, bowing to the surgeon, walked quickly down the length of the ward, while Rex and Richard moved up beside de Richleau.

The Duke spoke again. ‘Richard, your gun! Rex, get that body—quick!'

The other two had already tensed themselves and they acted as though animated by springs. Whipping out his automatic, Richard sprang back and held the Martineaus covered. Rex dived at the bed and in his strong arms grabbed up the still form under the sheet.

There was a piercing scream from
Madame
Martineau. The surgeon, ignoring Richard's pistol, leapt forward to intervene. De Richleau hated to have to do it, but he swung his fist and with all his force sent it crashing under the surgeon's
ribs, driving the breath out of his body. He could only gasp and groan as he doubled up and collapsed upon the floor.

Rex had flung the sheeted corpse over his shoulder and was pounding down the ward. De Richleau followed and Richard brought up the rear, waving his gun. Shouts and yells broke from the patients in the double line of beds between which they ran. One flung a medicine bottle which caught de Richleau on the ear; a nurse hastily tipped a chair over in Rex's path before she ran, screaming murder, from the room. He nearly tripped but just managed to pull up in time, and kicked the chair aside. With pandemonium broken loose behind them, they charged out of the ward and down the stairs.

In the hallway an astonished Sister flattened herself against the wall and added to the din by piercing falsetto cries for help. A porter tried to bar their path, but de Richleau thrust him aside as they tumbled through the doorway in a bunch. But doctors and medical students, attracted by the commotion, were pouring out of the passages and pounding down the stairs in their rear; while above, the Martineaus had rushed out on to the verandah and from its corner were rousing the lethargic natives in the street against them.

‘Ghouls! Grave-robbers!' shrieked
Madame
Martineau. ‘They are carrying off the body of my child to make her a Zombie! Help! Help! Oh, Holy Virgin, save her!'