"So you helped me out by walking in here and asking for a drink."
"Uh-huh. And you doped it and I passed out and then you laid for Orme in the treehouse."
"And then?" Mike prompted me.
"There isn't much more," I said. "Right after Terry took the big drop is when I put on my thinking cap and my thoughts slowly turned me in your direction. So I had to be eliminated next."
Mike was smiling at me. He said nothing.
"But that was the big slipup," I said. "Because you didn't handle it. If you had, I'd probably be one day dead right now."
"Go ahead," Mike said. "Tell us why I didn't handle it."
"Because I figure you didn't even know about it, Mike. And the person who did was already too panicky to have a third murder turn up on the lot. So she hired some big city badboys to do the deed in some far-out remote spot."
I looked at the louvered wardrobe across the cabin.
"Is that right, May?" I said.
There was a pause and then both louvered doors swung noiselessly open and May stood there as gorgeous as a George Petty picture, in a bright, tight red outfit that accentuated her flame hair. She was holding one of her pearlhandled knives.
18
"You're so goddam smart, darling," May said to me in her stainless steel voice. "It's simply breathtaking to listen to you."
"Maybe I can get a job with Ferris," I said.
"I don't see how, darling," May said. "I really don't. Because I don't think you're going to be for hire much longer. Hasn't your brilliant mind figured out why we lured you out here tonight?"
"Um. I think I can make a guess as to how both of you thought I'd react once I saw Mike's summons. You figured I'd rush out here and tell you all I know-which I have just done-and then I'd make a play at holding you up for blackmail. Which isn't a part of my plan."
Mike raised his brows at me. "Is this a rib, Thax? You honestly never intended to make a stab at blackmail?"
"I honestly never did, Mike. Oh sure, I'd like a big chunk of May's dough for keeping my mouth shut, but it won't work. The deal has already gone sour. There's too many angles to it. Too many people have tried to climb on the bandwagon. Sooner or later it's bound to come apart at the seams. I don't want to be inside the bag when it does."
I watched May's hand-the one with the knife.
"Let's face it," I said. "You baited the trap with blackmail when you drew me out here tonight. But we all know you have something more practical in mind. Like a man I knew said: murder and blackmail are two divergent businesses."
"Then why did you come out here, Thax?" Mike asked.
"Because he's a damn fool!" May said sharply. "He's always been a damn fool. He thinks he can talk his way out of anything."
"That's just about the truth," I admitted. "You see, Mike, I never actually finished anything I ever started to do in my life. But this time I made up my mind I'd see this deal out to the end. And speaking of the end…"
I leaned forward as if to stand up. In the next instant I had May covered with the automatic.
"Better drop the knife, May," I said.
Mike lowered his coffee cup to the table. He said, "You wouldn't really kifi us, would you, Thax?"
I watched May. "Well, turnabout is fair play, isn't it? May-didn't you hear what I said?"
"Certainly, sweetie," May said. She started to raise the knife.
You don't try to talk a rattler out of striking. I pulled the trigger at her.
The hammer said click. I was all tensed for the expectant blast and the stupid thing said click!_
Mike grinned at me.
"Wet powder, Master 'Awkins?" he asked in an Israel Hands voice.
I looked at May. She was smiling and her lips were very moist and scarlet and her eyes very bright. She cocked the knife over her shoulder.
"Catch, May!" I flipped the automatic to her underhand.
The knife went thh-ok in the stempost by my head as I went out the window-going right on over in a backwards somersault through the moon-swerving night and crashing feet-first into the black shallows.
The muck underfoot was mushy and it sloped and the impetus of my plunge threw me into a wet pratfall. I came up thrashing and spitting out a mouthful of that damn duck-doodoo water and stood up with the lake to my waist and looked up at the Hispaniola's counter.
Mike Ransome was standing at the center window and wrenching the knife free of the sternpost. His teeth flashed down at me and then he darted back into the cabin.
He was going to cut me off from the rowboat. I wasn't much as a swimmer and that was out anyhow because if I tried it he could quickly overhaul me in the boat. So I slogged ashore and headed for the underbrush.
A scud of clouds passed over the moon's face-in a hurry, as if it had been waiting for just this to happen. It suited me. If I couldn't see Mike, he couldn't see me. I crawled a little way up Mizzenmast Hill, sticking close to the brush, and stalled to sound the darkness below for danger.
I couldn't hear him, or anything. The island, the lake, all of Neverland and the whole damn world beyond seemed to be one immense silence. That suited me too, but Mizzenmast Hill did not. It was too open. I needed the black shelter of tall trees.
I crawled again, working around the base of the manmade hill and heading inland. I figured I would slip out of my clothes and chance swimming for it, once I reached the far side of the island.
The ground flattened out and the trees loomed and I stopped making like an animal and stood up. The ground was velvety and springy under my feet, carpeted with dead pine needles and leaves and mold. I started walking.
Clawing branches and soft lacy things kept brushing at my face and body and it was so godawful dark in there I couldn't avoid them. I started groping along with my right hand stretched out and it was a damn good thing because right off the bat my palm collided with a tree trunk that had been intended for my nose.
All at once I was trapped. Turn right or left or try to go forward and I was fumbling against trees and branches or blundering into a catclaw thicket. I felt like a blind man who couldn't find the right path in a hedge maze. I thought about striking a match but vetoed it because a light in that black thicket would stand out.
I put both hands in front of me and had another blind try at finding an opening by Braille.
My outstretched left hand came against something that was soft and giving. It was covered by cloth. I felt one of the buttons.
There was a sharp intake of breath right next to me and I heard or sensed a sudden slash of motion in the dark as I sprang back and crouched for another spring, anywhere, tense and expectant.
Nothing happened. A minute dragged by like a hurt turtle and still nothing happened and I knew Mike was crouching and waiting without sound or movement only a few feet away.
The stillness came apart with a sudden good-god whir of wings as a preying owl made his shrill-laugh cry. I jumped on my nerves and shifted to the right and heard Mike leap forward with a whisk of leaves and then I whirled in another direction and crouched again.
We waited. Nothing happened. I listened for his breathing but he must have been doing it through his mouth. I hunkered down and felt the ground with my right hand. It would be too damn much to ask to find a stick or a rock for a weapon so I carefully scooped up a handful of dirt.
I straightened up. There was no sound.
Without warning a bright flare of light snapped open like a bomb burst and I saw Mike standing six feet away. He had a match in his left hand and May's knife in his right and the blade shone with the thin red light from the match dancing along the edge like blood.