The Twenty-Third Man (23 page)

At the edge of the plateau, which was at the end of a fairly steep slope, Peterhouse stopped. With his free hand he described a semi-circle in the air.

‘What do you think of the view?’ he asked. ‘Come on the other side of your donkey. You’ll see much better if you do.’

‘I hardly think so,’ Dame Beatrice replied. ‘The view from this angle is superb. I suppose that long smudge over there is Hombres Muertos. How blue the sea is, and how wide and remote the sky! But time marches on, Mr Peterhouse. Where is your grotto?’

‘My cave of Mujeres Muertas? Ah, yes, come along. This way. This way.’

He jerked at his donkey’s bridle and the patient animal turned its back on the seascape and went with him back across the plateau. They descended to the heather-covered valley and then began to climb a slope away to the left. Dame Beatrice took her hand from her pocket. A small revolver nestled against her palm. It was pearl-handled, toy-like, and deadly. Peterhouse did not turn his head. The slope grew steeper. They passed among a few more pine trees and there, at the right-hand side of the way, was a mountain cave not unlike the one where the twenty-three kings were entombed.

Dame Beatrice stood at the mouth of the cave. Peterhouse tiptoed past her, then turned, and beckoned her in.

“‘Will you walk into my parlour?” said the spider to the fly. Tell me more about your scheme to obtain the
dead
women to people your cave,’ Dame Beatrice suggested, holding up the revolver and gazing at it as though she wondered how it came to be where it was. ‘I can see enough of the cave from here to realize that it is snug, warm, dry, and nicely sanded. And how do you propose to arrange your corpses? Are they to have a stone table around which they will be seated to await the sound of the Last Trump? Will they be embalmed? Mummified? Sun-dried like the pirates at Execution Dock? Tell me your plans. Do you need advice, help, or merely willing victims?’

‘Willing or unwilling, it matters nothing to me,’ said Peterhouse, swinging round to find an unwavering and gleaming barrel pointed at his abdomen. ‘You need not think to frighten me with that thing.’

‘Not even if it holds a silver bullet? Come, let us leave the cave. I want to see your poison plants before we go.’

‘Go? Go where?’

‘Back to Hombres Muertos. Back to the hotel.’

‘Do you think I’m mad?’

As Dame Beatrice had been attempting for some time to assess him from this point of view, she did not reply. She waved the revolver in an imperious but not an impatient way, and intoned, in her beautiful voice, more as an invocation than a command:

‘On, Stanley, on!’

From the side of the cave appeared, as though by pre-arrangement (which was the case), Laura Gavin and the manslaughterer Clun. Peterhouse stepped back.

‘Good heavens above!’ he cried. ‘How the devil did
you
get here?’

‘By boat, just like you,’ Clun replied. ‘You surely don’t imagine you’re the only person who knows of this tight little island, or the only one who knows you come to it?’

‘Well, I don’t call this nice!’ said Peterhouse. He turned to Dame Beatrice. ‘You’ve double-crossed me!’

‘There can be no double-cross, if I understand the term, without a previous agreement,’ said she. ‘As we
made
no agreement, and as I did not trust you merely to show me what you had agreed to show me …’

‘
Agreed
to show you?’

‘Your poisonous Alpine plants. Now, Mr Peterhouse, justify my hopes, and then tell me why you choose to grow nothing but the poisonous varieties. What has South America to do with it? What the Hotel Sombrero de Miguel Cervantes? What my secretary, whom you took through the list of your favourites with such all-consuming zeal?’

‘Nothing, nothing, nothing!’ He uttered the words emphatically, as though he was answering each question separately. ‘If you want to see the plants, come.’

‘Just a minute,’ said Laura. ‘Let’s have an answer. You’d better come clean, and then we shall know where we are.’

‘Where
we
are, Mrs Gavin? I thought that you, at least, were my friend.’

‘No, merely an interested acquaintance.’

‘But what is it to do with you? Where’s the connexion between you and Dame Beatrice? I perceive that there
is
a connexion, although, until you two met on the steps, I had not realized that it existed. Of course, I ought to have known that when you came and she went, just like that, there was something more than coincidence.’

‘Categorically, then,’ said Laura, waving a shapely palm, ‘it concerns me because we are in joint session, Dame Beatrice and I, to expose impostors and to discover murderers. The actual connexion between us is that I am, and have been for many years – since I was twenty, to be exact – her secretary and amanuensis.’

‘I see. So I am being vetted?’

‘Exactly. So watch your step. I should be loth to see you overflown with a honey-bag, signior. Now, then, what about the potted plants? Fact, fiction, or camouflage?’

‘Well, it’s like this,’ began Peterhouse. He was interrupted by being shouted at by Clun.

‘Get on with your poisonous plants, you blinking, skull-
duggering
hypocrite!
Allons! –
Or take the consequences!’

‘Well, really,’ said Peterhouse, mildly. ‘All right, come this way.’ He led them back along the route by which they had come, the donkeys following like dogs. When at last they gained the beach, he struck off towards the right. Dame Beatrice paused to stroke and pat the donkey which had borne her. Laura halted, too.

‘What now?’ she asked. Dame Beatrice cackled. Peterhouse looked back.

‘Aren’t you coming?’ he called. There was a schoolboy shout.

‘Wait for me! Oh,
please
wait for me! I’m coming, too!’

Dame Beatrice turned to see Clement Drashleigh ploughing his way across the beach. Laura, at a nod from her employer, went to meet him.

‘Hullo, Clement,’ she said. ‘What on earth
are you
doing here?’

‘I don’t know, really,’ said the child, ‘but I’ve come from Hombres Muertos because I got bored with the parents and made myself a nuisance. Pilar told me you’d all gone off with Mr Peterhouse. Well, I know this island. I’ve been over here before. It’s very interesting. So I thought perhaps he’d brought Dame Beatrice here to show it to her, you know, so I thought I’d come.’

‘But won’t your father and mother wonder where you are?’

‘I’ve no idea. I’m a lone wolf. But you ought to see the poisonous plants! They’re just wonderful!’

‘They do exist, then?’ Laura looked doubtful. The boy laughed.

‘I should say so. He’s taking you to see them, isn’t he? He took me once.’

‘Did your people know?’

‘Heavens, no! They don’t care for Peterhouse at all.’

‘Sensible blighters,’ said Laura, under her breath. ‘Well, here we go. Thank goodness Dame B. has brought a revolver.’

It proved a short way to go. A defile brought the party
on
to a stretch of moorland. An ill-defined path led into a passage between rocks. At a thousand feet there was blooming the Christmas rose. Peterhouse led them onward and upward. The going was surprisingly easy.

‘Well,’ said Laura, when the exhaustive but not exhausting journey was over, ‘I must congratulate you, Mr Peterhouse. Your experiments are an enormous success. What, exactly, is your object or plan?’

‘Oh, I have none. A voice crying in the wilderness, dear Mrs Gavin. That is all your humble servant has ever aspired to be.’

Laura bent to inspect an attractive specimen of
Pulsatilla baldensis
.

‘You must get a lot of fun, leading people up your garden,’ she said. ‘Is it really worth while, though?’

‘Oh, I think so. I think so, you know.’

This elliptical conversation was interrupted.

‘Mr Peterhouse saw the twenty-fourth body,’ said Clement. ‘I know he did.’

Peterhouse turned abruptly away from Laura.

‘What was that?’ he demanded.

‘You heard,’ said Clement rudely. ‘What do you think I’ve been doing while I’ve stayed on Hombres Muertos? I followed everybody about. I heard all the conversations. I put a spoke in the murderer’s wheel.’

Peterhouse was taken aback.

‘You what?’ he inquired feebly.

‘You heard,’ said Clement. ‘And the murderer wasn’t you, so you needn’t get big-headed about it.’

‘Do you know who the murderer was, then?’ demanded Laura. Clement grinned.

‘Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. Nobody does, I imagine. It was the perfect murder. I might have done it myself, for all you know.’

Peterhouse led the way down the mountain to the beach, but no launch was there to take the party back. They waited for half an hour, but there was no sign of any boat to take them back to Hombres Muertos.

Peterhouse began by showing resignation, then his mood changed, and he became very angry. He cursed, fumed, kicked the grey sand, and at last walked into the water and semaphored wildly with his arms. Dame Beatrice kept a covert eye on him. She was seated on the sand between Laura and Clun. Clement, a short distance away, was digging holes with the heels of his sandals, giving up this pastime occasionally to fondle the donkeys.

Peterhouse came out of the sea and addressed the adults.

‘I can’t understand it,’ he said. ‘I ordered the launch as usual. We haven’t had tea, and, if this goes on, we shan’t get a dinner either.’

‘Oh, well,’ said Laura cheerfully, ‘we can always chew some of your alpine plants and get a good night’s sleep.’

Peterhouse seated himself beside her, but soon got up to wander restlessly back and forth along the strip of beach.

‘If it weren’t for Clement, it would be an amusing situation,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘His presence among us is something I did not foresee. I fear your fatal fascination has much to answer for.’

‘I could always swim back,’ said Laura. ‘I wonder what the currents are like?’

‘I have no control over your movements,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘but I beg that you will not attempt such a feat.’

‘There’s my infant. By now he’ll be raising hell for his dinner. Sorry, but I really must go.’

‘Not on your Nelly,’ murmured Clun. ‘I’m going myself. You keep an eye on the kid and the old lady. Peterhouse equals Bughouse. He’s a loony. So long.’ He dropped his linen shorts to his ankles and pulled his shirt over his head. ‘Bronze nude. Thank goodness I’ve managed to acquire a veneer of tan since I’ve been out of gaol. Excuse my back.’

Peterhouse was well up the beach and facing away from them as Clun waded into the water. By the time Peterhouse turned, he was striking out for the shadowy coastline ahead.

Dame Beatrice kept her eye on Peterhouse. As soon as he saw Clun in the water, he stood stock-still. Then he came galloping up to the women.

‘What is he doing?’ he cried.

‘Swimming,’ replied Laura, getting lazily on to her feet.

‘But we must stop him! He is going out too far!’

‘Oh, I expect he knows what he’s up to. He swims quite well, I believe.’

‘Shout to him, Mrs Gavin. A woman’s voice will carry farther than mine. Shout to him to come back.’

‘Not I. I don’t believe in minding other people’s business.’

‘Dame Beatrice,’ said Peterhouse, appealingly, ‘can’t I persuade
you
to stop him? So foolish to risk his life just to show off before ladies.’

‘Alas!’ said Dame Beatrice, shading her eyes with her hand and gazing seawards. ‘I fear that my dulcet, ultra-feminine tones would scarcely carry so far. But do you shout, Mr Peterhouse. Imitate the unearthly cry of the foghorn, or the yodelling melodies of the Alps. You must surely have heard the latter many times in your search for the family of ranunculus.’

Peterhouse danced with impatience. Suddenly he rushed to the foot of the defile up which they had just climbed and came back with a collection of stones. He went to the water’s edge and began to hurl the stones in the direction of Clun’s bobbing head.

‘Here!’ he shouted, turning to Laura. ‘Go and get a lot more!’

‘No good,’ said Laura, who was still on her feet. ‘They’re all falling woefully short. You won’t attract his attention
that
way, you know. Much better leave him alone to judge for himself what to do.’

Peterhouse dropped on to the sand and dejectedly shook his head.

‘Tell me,’ he said, hitching himself backwards until he was seated at Laura’s feet, ‘has he gone to fetch help?’

Laura shrugged.

‘The non-appearance of the launch was a put-up job, wasn’t it?’ she inquired. Peterhouse tittered.

‘You answer my question, and I’ll answer yours,’ he said. Clement came strolling up to them.

‘I want my tea,’ he said.

‘Well, you shouldn’t have come here,’ said Peterhouse. ‘I didn’t bargain for hungry children. Here!’ He put his hand in his trousers’ pocket and pulled out a piece of chocolate. What with the warmth of his body and the warmth of the day, it had become a revolting and fluid mess in a silver foil wrapping.

‘I say!
Thanks!
Sure you don’t want it?’ said Clement, stretching out a grimy brown hand.

‘Neither do you,’ said Dame Beatrice. She twitched away the messy little packet.

‘Give that back!’ yelled Peterhouse. ‘Oh, really, I beg your pardon! I suppose you know what’s best.’

‘In this case, yes,’ Dame Beatrice calmly replied. ‘I feel that I am
in loco parentis
to this child when his people are not present, and I am sure they would not care to have him eat chocolate in this condition. They are, as you are aware, somewhat particular, not to say faddy, where Clement is concerned.’ She handed him back the chocolate.

‘True, true,’ Peterhouse agreed. He ran to the edge of the sand and hurled the packet of chocolate into the water.

‘Oh,
slosh
?’ said Clement, vexed. ‘I
could
have done with that! I’m simply starving!’

‘Poor child,’ said Dame Beatrice kindly. ‘I would not for the world deprive you of nourishment. Let us cast about. A little higher up I descried the prickly pear. Let us seek its habitat together.’