"Robin was talking on the phone soon after I came, " Kris explained, "and I accidentally overheard him, and it was something about me and possibly my friend, that"s you, and Odin and mushrooms on Trox Island. " "And you haven"t asked him about it? " "Well... not yet. I mean... I don"t want to upset him...
he says he"s paying for us to go to Cayman, and he"s paying the cost of the aircraft... " "I"ll ask him, " I said, and later, peacefully, nightcap gla.s.s of cognac to hand, I mentioned Bell"s account of the Darcy mushroom and sod farm business and wondered where he found fungus and gra.s.s to grow best.
"Florida, " he promptly said. "I grow my gra.s.s in swampland up near Lake Okeechobee. Best wet agricultural conditions for sod in the States. " "And someone mentioned Trox Island too. Where"s that? " I put no force into an ultra-calm inquiry, but even so I sensed a tightening, and then a deliberate loosening in my host.
"Trox? " He took his time answering. He opened a heavy gleaming wood thermidor and fiddled lengthily with cutting and lighting a cigar. Internal debate came out in punctuating puffs of smoke. I sat placidly, looking out from the terrace to the vast untroubled sea.
"Trox, " Robin said pleasantly at length, sure he had the whole tobacco tip redly glowing, "is one of the many little islands sticking up in the Caribbean Sea. I believe Trox is chiefly constructed of guano--that"s bird droppings, of course. " "Fertilizer, " I agreed.
He nodded. "So I understand, but I"ve never been there myself. " He inhaled smoke and blew it out, and said how much Evelyn and he were enjoying having Kris and me as house guests and how interesting he had found Kris"s view of the future of s.p.a.ce travel, and how much he looked forward to Kris"s reports on shaking hands with Odin. He had dropped Trox Island as if of no interest. I tried again to mention it and he cut me off immediately, saying flatly, "Think about Odin.
Forget Trox Island. Let me fill your gla.s.s. " Evelyn drew me away, wanting me to identify the stars, turning aside as boring our engrossment with shifting winds.
At the end of the evening Kris and I each returned to our colorful basic tropical bedrooms, brilliant fabrics, wicker furniture, white tiled floor, ceiling fan circling, bright bathroom adjacent, all an ultimate comfort. I fell asleep as easily as on the previous evening, but half-woke hours later in the dark wondering why the London streetlights weren"t throwing familiar shadows on the ceiling.
Miami... I drifted to full consciousness... I was in Sand Dollar Beach, named for the flat round decorative sh.e.l.ls sometimes found on the sh.o.r.eline. They were a sort of sea urchins of the order Clypeasteroida... I"d looked them up.
I switched on the bedside light, felt restless, got up, padded in and out of the bathroom, and finally, with a towel and in swimming shorts made my way through the dark house, across the terrace and down into the soothing pool.
Robin Darcy, friendly but secretive, generous beyond normal, had given us too much and told us too little. So what the devil were Kris and I set on? And could it be a one-way trip?
Mrs. Mevagissey relied on my earnings, as I for twenty past years had lived on hers. I had no right to risk the money that paid the nurses. They alone made her existence bearable. My priority was to fly through a hurricane and to return home safely. Kris"s plans came second, Robin"s third.
Odin, my own knowledge and forward-looking perception told me, could grow quite quickly from Category 3 to Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, which meant that the speeds of its winds would destroy every instrument put out to measure them. Category 5 meant Odin would deliver catastrophic damage in storm surge wherever it touched on , - sh.o.r.e, it could sustain incredible winds of around 180 miles an hour in its eye wall... and little islands, with or without mushrooms, could be flooded and disappear.
I relaxed in the semi-cool water and swam lengths with economic strokes, covering distance without concentrating.
All my life swimming had been the one compet.i.tive sport my grandmother and I had been comfortably able to afford for me, though from sixteen onwards I"d deserted munic.i.p.al pools and Olympic-type racing for longer endurance trials and surfing.
By the time Kris and I went to Florida I was growing out also of the urge to race at all, but I still had the shoulders and movements of long practice.
Thinking only of Hurricane Odin and Trox Island, I slid out of the pool in a while and stood, toweling, with my back to the house.
A voice behind me said with goose-b.u.mpy menace, "Stand still and raise your hands. " I nearly swung round thoughtlessly and would doubtless have been shot, but after a moment of reconsideration I dropped the towel and did as I"d been told.
"Now turn round slowly. " I turned round, realizing that I, on the pool deck, was in unlit shadow to anyone up on the terrace.
Robin stood up there, lit from behind by a glow in the house. Round cozy Robin held a handgun pointing motionlessly where it could do me terminal damage.
"I"m Perry, " I said.
"I was swimming. " "Come forward where I can see you. And come slowly, or I"ll shoot. " If he hadn"t so obviously been speaking the simple truth,
I.
might have joked, instead I slowly stepped forward until the house lights shone into my eyes.
"What are you doing out here? " Robin asked blankly, lowering the gun to point at my feet.
"I couldn"t sleep. Can I put my hands down now? " He shook himself slightly as if waking up, opening his mouth and nodding, but in the second before life returned to normal the pool area was suddenly full of blinding lights, blue uniforms, shouting voices and horribly purposeful black guns.
The wish--the willingness--to kill reached me like shock waves. I felt battered by noise. I was told to kneel and did so, and was held down by a ruthless hand on my neck.
Robin was ineffectually speaking. The blue-uniformed police, not listening, continued with their rough mission, which was if not to put a bullet in him, at least to immobilize the intruder and shout garbled words into his befuddled ear, words Robin later identified as my "rights. " For what seemed ages I went on kneeling ignominiously on the pool deck, feeling stupid in my swimming shorts, gripped by unfriendly hands, with wrists clicked into handcuffs behind my back (always behind one"s back in Florida, Robin said, and in most other states). My protests got nowhere against their loud-voiced and fulfilling abuse until Robin finally reached the chief uniform"s attention. The intruder, he apologized, was a houseguest.
A houseguest swimming at three-thirty in the morning?
Very sorry, Robin said. Very sorry.
Unwillingly deprived of their prey, the blue uniforms with surliness holstered their guns and rested their lightbulbs. They reported back by radio to their home base, produced forms for Robin to sign, treated both of us with continuing suspicion, retrieved their handcuffs and finally disappeared as fast as they had come.
I stood up stifily, picked up the towel, crossed the terrace and followed Robin into the house.
He wasn"t pleased with me, nor inclined to realize that he hadn"t warned me about any alarms.
"I had no idea, " he said crossly, "that you would swim in the middle of the night. There are burglar alarms round the terrace which alert a security firm to the presence of an intruder.
There"s a direct line to the police and a warning buzzer in my bedroom. I suppose you"d better have a drink. " "No... I"m sorry for the trouble. " I wound and tied the towel round my hips like a loincloth and Robin a.s.sessed me with thoughtfulness, crossing his wrists below his stomach to hold his gun.
"I must say, " he said judiciously, "that you behaved very coolly under fire. " I hadn"t felt cool. My heart rate had been of Cape Canaveral speed.
I asked, "How far off were they from actually shooting? " "The distance of a trigger"s travel, " Robin said. He put his handgun into a pocket in his robe. "Go back to bed. I hope you sleep. " Before I could move, however, the telephone rang, and without surprise at this early-morning summons, Robin answered.
"Yes, " he said into the receiver. "A false alarm. My houseguest... midnight swim... yes, everything"s fine.. yes.
yes... it"s Hereford... yes, that"s right, Hereford.
No, the police weren"t happy, but I a.s.sure you all is well. " He put down the receiver and briefly explained to me that the security firm had been checking. "They always do, after the police radio in that it"s a false alarm. " Robin accompanied me to my bedroom door, recovering his milder manner on the way.
"I should have told you about the alarm, " he murmured.
"But never mind, no harm done. " "No. " I smiled goodnight, and he with a laugh said he hoped I would be as unruffled when I met Odin.
LEAVING EVELYN AT home, Robin, Kris and I flew on Cayman Airways from Miami to Grand Cayman in the morning, Robin with still good humor telling Kris about our adventures in the night. Kris, on the far side of the house, had slept soundly through the din.
It was after we"d cleared immigration that trickles of decent information slowly reached me, but without flowing together to make a stream.
Robin and Kris, collected by car outside the airport, were driven away, telling me transport was there for me as well but otherwise leaving me standing in unexpectedly hot air temperature wondering what to do next.
"Next" turned out to be a thin woman in bleached often washed cotton trousers and a white sleeveless top who walked straight up to me and said,
"Dr. Stuart, I presume. " ! l
L.
Her voice was crisply grand-house-in-the-country English.