The Snow Tiger / Night of Error (48 page)

And he held out her open notebook, with many of Mark’s drawings in full view. We were all very still, looking at it.

Clare said coolly, ‘Thank you, Mr Kane.’

‘I didn’t know you could draw, Miss.’

‘I can’t, not very well.’

Kane grinned and flicked at the open pages. ‘Doesn’t look like it,’ he agreed. ‘That’s a pretty cow, mind you, but it’s a pretty scraggy-looking falcon.’

Clare managed a smile as she took the book from him. ‘Yes, I’ll never be an artist,’ she said.

Geordie said harshly, ‘Kane, have you spliced that new halliard yet?’

‘Just going to, skipper, no sweat.’ He walked away briskly and I let my breath out. Clare said in a soft voice, ‘God, I’m sorry.’

Campbell watched Kane out of sight and made sure we were out of anyone else’s hearing. ‘Clare, of all the damn silly things to do.’

‘I said I was sorry.’

‘I don’t think it matters,’ I said calmly. ‘It’s not the actual diary – none of Mark’s handwriting shows. And for all we know Kane isn’t aware that the diary ever existed.’

‘Somebody might,’ said Clare. ‘That man Ramirez, he sent people to steal Mark’s things – he may have known about it.’

‘If Kane is a low man on the totem pole then he wouldn’t know everything. I don’t think it makes a bit of difference what Kane saw. Forget it.’

Clare looked at the drawings again, and suddenly a smile displaced her air of tension. ‘Now that he’s mentioned the cow, I think I may have one of Mark’s awful puns figured out. Don’t get excited though, Pop – it’s only a wild guess.’

She pointed to the cow and its companion, the squashed semi-circle.

‘I’ve been reading things, and I read somewhere that another name for the Tuamotus is the Low Islands. That’s what this flattish object is, a low island on the sea. Then he’s put
OR
– and drawn the cow. It’s two drawings for the same place – the Tuamotus.’

‘For God’s sake, why?’ Campbell demanded.

‘Cows go moo – they low.’ And she burst out laughing. I had to join her and even her father started to smile as he saw the joke. If true, it was a good one. We put the incident with Kane out of our minds.

As
Esmerelda
drew nearer to Tahiti the sea gave place to mountains, hazy green, and then we began to see the surf breaking on the beaches as we sailed along the coast. We all turned our thoughts to cold beer ashore.

Papeete, the Pearl of the Pacific, is a pleasant town with all the usual offices – banks, a hospital, shops and so forth, but it is also a collection of tin huts set down on a tropical island and therefore a trifle squalid; but the setting is magnificent. Arriving there we tied up almost in the main street and there are not many ports in the world where you can do that. Looking over the harbour you can see the island of Moorea nine miles away, a volcano which exploded in the far past leaving a jumble of spires and peaks leaning at impossible angles, one of the most splendid sights in the world, and one which must go a long way to compensate for any inconveniences occasioned by living in Papeete.

I looked around the harbour for the
Eastern Sun
but there was no sign of her, so I tried to relax as we waited for customs clearance. Campbell was fretful, anxious to go ashore and see if there was anything for him at the post office. He was too much in the dark concerning the Suarez-Navarro expedition. I wasn’t any too patient myself. I had questions to ask and I wanted to try and see the Governor. I believe in starting at the top.

At last a customs officer arrived, gave us a leisurely scrutiny and departed, leaving us free to go ashore. I had asked him when the
Eastern Sun
was due, and one of life’s rare miracles occurred.

‘The cruise boat, m’sieur? She come any time, I ’ave ’eard on ze radio. She is due tomorrow.’

I spoke to Geordie before everyone vanished. ‘Who are the two toughest chaps you have?’

‘Ian Lewis for one,’ he said promptly. ‘Then it’s a toss-up between Taffy and Jim Taylor.’

‘Whoever it is must be good at unarmed combat.’

‘Then it’s Ian and Jim. Taffy’s the knife expert. Who do you want laid out?’

‘Paula Nelson will be in tomorrow, on the
Eastern Sun
. And this place is unhealthy for her. When it comes in I want you to go and meet her, because she’ll recognize you, and I want you to take the others along, collect her and bring her back here – unhurt. Anyone who tries anything is to be stepped on hard.’

He listened carefully and then nodded. I knew she’d be in good hands.

‘Right. I’ll leave you to your own filthy devices, Geordie. We’ll want to get refitted so that we could leave almost any time, so warn the crew not to stray. Anyone who ends up in gaol stays there. I’m going to try for an interview with the Governor.’

There was a lot of mail for Campbell at the main post office. He was back even before I went ashore, clutching a sheaf of papers and disappearing below with Clare. I hoped he’d let her out some time, and it occurred to me to ask her to dine with me that night. It would be nice not to eat surrounded by the others, but nicer still with Clare along. I collected a file from my cabin and set out for Government House, and discovered it to be a rambling edifice in Late Tropical Victorian set in a large garden.

I had, as I expected to have, a royal tussle with batteries of underlings, secretaries and so forth, but I was persistent and was at long last shown to a room to await a summons for a brief meeting with the Governor. He was a tall, cadaverous man with a thin hairline moustache, sitting behind an imposing desk cluttered with papers. He
did not rise but stretched his hand out to me across the table.

‘M. Trevelyan, what can I do for you? Please sit down.’

I said, ‘Thank you for seeing me, Monsieur – er –’

‘My name is MacDonald,’ he said surprisingly, and smiled as he saw my expression. ‘It is always the same with you English – you cannot understand why I have a Scottish name – but you should know that one of Napoleon’s Marshalls was a MacDonald.’

It appeared that this was one of his usual opening gambits with English visitors, so I said politely, ‘Are you any relation?’

‘My father thought so, but many Scots settled in France after the abortive revolutions in the eighteenth century. I, myself, do not think I am descended from a Marshall of France.’ He became more businesslike. ‘How can I help you, M. Trevelyan?’ His English was fluent, with hardly a trace of accent.

I said, ‘About a year ago my brother died in the Tuamotus, on one of the smaller atolls. There appears to be some mystery about his death.’

MacDonald raised his eyebrows. ‘Mystery, M. Trevelyan?’

‘Do you know anything about it?’

‘I am afraid I have no knowledge of the death of your brother. For one thing I am new here, and am merely the Acting Governor; the Governor of French Oceania is away on leave. And also one would not recall the details of every death, every incident in so large a jurisprudence as this one.’

I wouldn’t describe my brother’s death, possibly his murder, as an incident myself; but no doubt the Governor would see it differently. I managed to express my disappointment without actually dismissing myself from his office, which had clearly been his wish, and he settled back to hear me out.

‘We will have something on the files,’ he said, and picked up a telephone. While he was speaking I opened my own file and sorted out documents.

He replaced the receiver. ‘You spoke of some mystery, M. Trevelyan.’

‘Mark – my brother – died on an unnamed atoll. He was treated by a Dr Schouten who lives on an island called Tanakabu.’

MacDonald pulled down his mouth. ‘Did you say Dr Schouten?’

‘Yes. Here is a copy of the death certificate.’ I passed a photostat across the desk and he studied it.

‘This seems to be quite in order.’

I said sardonically, ‘Yes, it’s a well filled-in form. You note that it states that my brother died of peritonitis following an operation to remove a burst appendix.’

MacDonald nodded. I was going to continue but I was interrupted by the appearance of a clerk who put a file on MacDonald’s desk. He opened it and scanned the contents, pausing halfway through to raise his head and look at me thoughtfully before bending his head again.

At last he said, ‘I see the British Foreign Office asked for details. Here is the letter and my superior’s reply.’

‘I have copies of those,’ I said.

He scanned the papers again. ‘All seems in order, M. Trevelyan.’

I pushed another photostat across the desk. ‘This is an attested copy of a statement made by an English doctor to the effect that he removed my brother’s appendix several years ago.’

It didn’t take for a moment and then suddenly it sank in. MacDonald started as though I’d harpooned him and picked up the photostat quickly. He read it several times and then put it down. ‘It looks as though Dr Schouten made a mistake then,’ he said slowly.

‘It seems so,’ I agreed. ‘What do you know about him?’

MacDonald spread his hands. ‘I’ve never met him – he never comes to Tahiti, you understand. He is a Dutchman and has lived in the Islands for about twenty years, administering to the people of the Tuamotus group.’

But I remembered his wry mouth and sensed that he knew more.

‘He has a problem, hasn’t he? Is he an alcoholic?’

‘He drinks, yes – but everyone does. I drink myself,’ said MacDonald in mild rebuke. He was not going to commit himself.

‘Is he a good doctor?’

‘There have never been any complaints.’

I thought about Schouten, living in a remote group of islands far from the administrative centre of Papeete. Complaints about his professional capacity would have a way of dying on the vine, especially if most of his clientele were local people.

I said, ‘Did Dr Schouten come to Papeete to report my brother’s death?’

MacDonald consulted his file. ‘No, he didn’t. He waited until there was a convenient schooner and then sent a letter together with the death certificate. He would not leave his hospital for so long a journey for one death – there are many, you understand.’

‘So no one saw my brother except Dr Schouten and the two men who found him – and no one has made any investigation, no one has questioned Kane or Hadley or the doctor?’

‘You are wrong, M. Trevelyan. We are not standing in Hyde Park Corner in the midst of a modern civilized metropolis. The Tuamotus are many hundreds of miles away and we have but a small administrative staff – but I assure you that questions were asked. Indeed they were.’

He leaned forward and asked coldly, ‘Are you aware, M. Trevelyan, that at the time of your brother’s death he was suspected of murder, and a fugitive from the police?’

‘I did hear that cock-and-bull story. It must have been convenient for your police department to have such a tidy closing of the case.’

He didn’t like that and his eyes flickered. ‘Here in French Oceania we have a peculiar problem. The islands have an enviable reputation, that of an earthly paradise. Consequently, men are drawn here from all over the world, hoping to live in ease and comfort. They think they can live by eating the fruit from the trees and by building a little thatched hut. They are wrong. The cost of living here is as high as anywhere else in the world.

‘These men who come here are often, not always, the failures of civilization. Most go away when they find that the islands are not the paradise of reputation. Others stay to cause us trouble. Our work here is not to aid the degenerate sweepings, but to maintain the standard for our own people. And when an unknown white who is already in trouble dies we do not make too much fuss.’

He tapped the file. ‘Especially when there is a valid death certificate, apparently in order, especially when we think he may be a murderer, and very especially when he evaded the Tahiti police and ran away to die on some atoll two hundred miles from here.’

I kept my self-control with some difficulty. ‘Yes, I understand all that, but will you make an investigation now? My brother, as you will see in there, was a scientist, not a beachcomber. And you will admit that there is something wrong with the death certificate.’

MacDonald picked up the doctor’s statement. ‘True, a man cannot have appendicitis twice. Yes, we will certainly interview the doctor again.’ He made a note on his pad. ‘I will appoint an officer to interview him personally, rather
than send a message to the local authorities. It will be done as soon as he next goes out to the Tuamotus.’

He leaned back and waited for my thanks.

‘When will that be?’ I asked.

‘In about three months’ time.’

‘Three months!’

‘Your brother is already dead, M. Trevelyan. There is nothing I can do to bring him back to life. We also are busy men; I administer an area of over a million square miles. You must realize that the government cannot come to a stop while we –’

‘I am not asking you to stop the government. All I’m asking is that you investigate the death of a man!’

‘It will be done,’ he said levelly. ‘And we will find that the doctor has made an honest mistake. Perhaps he confused two patients on the same day. That is nothing new, but it would be a pity to ruin him for one mistake. We need doctors in the islands, M. Trevelyan.’