‘But he was too strong,’ he said, wonderingly.
‘Just an old man everybody knew… too strong. He was throwing men aside, snapping his teeth… I thought he was going to kill Sally. I came over the bar and hit him… with this — ’ he held up the truncheon ‘ — and he didn’t even feel it. It snapped over his shoulder… Old Sam, but too strong…’
He let the broken club roll from his hand onto the counter; his voice was hollow. ‘Then there was a knife,’ he said. ‘I don’t know who started it… someone… then they all had knives and hooks out, they were stabbing into Sam like they couldn’t stop, like they was all crazy, like sharks when they get frenzied… or like they was too scared to stop. And Sam didn’t seem to know he was being stabbed. It went on and on. Then Sam was down on the floor, he must of been dead. All his blood has poured out, he’s dead, and everyone steps back from him… and Sam sits up!’
I flinched. The bartender’s voice went into me as those knives had gone into Sam Jasper; I was bleeding sweat, congealed fear seeped from my pores The bartender gripped my arm; said, ‘He sat up and his jaw dropped open; then he fell over again… but all his blood was out and… he moved after he was dead…’
He was trembling. His hand shook on my arm and the trembling passed on into me. What terrible determination had caused Sam Jasper to move, to defy mortality with a final convulsion?
Locked together by the coupling of his hand, we shuddered face to face. Then he looked away.
‘They left,’ he said, as if aware for the first time that we were alone in the room. ‘They all left.’
I understood that. Murder had been done and these were not men to plead self-defence or to stand trial… nor to go, as Nurse Jeffries had, to the compound.
‘It wasn’t like the old days,’ he said.
His hand dropped away from me. He went down the bar and hesitated by the telephone. Then he turned and went out the door. I waited for a few minutes. Then I went down to the phone. The switchboard said, ‘Sorry, sir, the lines are still out of order…’ and I said, ‘You’d better listen to me.’ Ten minutes later Larsen arrived.
Even had the phone been working, it would never have occurred to me to call Jerry Muldoon, although, legally, Jasper’s death should have been his concern. And I wasn’t thinking of getting a story, either. I was lost in an emotional wilderness. I only hoped that Larsen would know what to do — that there was something that could be done. Waiting for him, I prayed that Mary Carlyle would not walk in, bearing some news for me. Mary had liked Sam Jasper. And that was not Sam on the floor, that sticky mould of red aspic… nor, worse, had it been Sam in the moments before he died. I could never tell Mary what had happened here. But I could tell Larsen — in his way, he too was a dead man.
I went behind the bar and poured myself a huge brandy.
I was halfway through it when Larsen arrived. He came in with half a dozen men and, while they inspected the body — gingerly, at first — he came directly over to me.
He said, ‘You were right to call me, Harland.’
‘I thought I might be. Have a drink?’
His cold eyes flickered.
‘The bartender left too,’ I said.
‘I’m going to need your help, Harland.’
I poured Larsen a drink. He didn’t refuse it. When I’d first seen him, he’d sipped very slowly at a beer; things were changed. They were taking Sam Jasper out on a rubber sheet and, as they stepped, their heels made squishing sounds in the congealing blood.
‘How can I help?’
‘The men he fought with… who killed him. I want you to identify them.’
‘I didn’t see the fight. I told you, I — ’
‘The men who were in the bar earlier,’ he said.
‘I don’t know if I can.’
‘I guess you’ll cooperate. You phoned me.’
‘No, I don’t mean I won’t… I’m not sure I can. I didn’t know any of them by name or — ’
He nodded crisply; said, ‘Understand this. You can’t protect anyone. I’m not talking about a criminal charge here, this isn’t crime and punishment. These locals are… independent types. They won’t come in voluntarily, we’ll have to find them. All of them. And they’ll be hiding, thinking they are guilty of murder or — ’
‘Guilty? It strikes me that if anyone on this island is guilty of anything — ’
‘Don’t be antagonistic,’ he said. Then he took his spectacles off and rubbed his eyes. He looked at me, for the first time, without the lenses between us. He seemed more human. He said, ‘Guilt? I know about guilt. I think every one of us, working on this thing, feels guilty. Sometimes, Harland… sometimes I feel guilt so heavy that it’s like a shroud draped over me. I have to stop whatever I’m doing and take a deep breath. And doing that, I only manage to inhale the guilt, it gets in my lungs, inside me. I’m not a robot, Harland. I thought I was a patriot… but a guilty patriot. Now… well, now we do what we can.’ He put the spectacles back on, as if hiding behind them. He took a slug of brandy. He was waiting for me to speak.
I said, ‘I only know what the bartender told me…’
Larsen nodded impatiently.
‘He… Sam Jasper… was inhumanly strong. He was insane, of course, but when the knives went into him he scarcely seemed to notice, he — ’
‘I know,’ Larsen snapped. ‘I don’t need an account of the affair, I know what… they… can do.’
‘They?’
He ignored that.
He said, ‘Do you know if any of them were… wounded?’
‘No. But Sam was fighting with them… and he had attacked a woman… so I think we can assume he inflicted some damage.’
Larsen sighed, nodded; said, ‘I want you to describe every one of the men who were in this room, as best you can. Then I’ll want you to identify them as we bring them in. We have to find them, and we have to do it in the next couple hours.’
‘Is that possible?’
‘Probably not.’
‘And if you don’t?’
‘I’m not at liberty to discuss that. Just in case we do. If we don’t… why, then, you’ll know about it, just like everyone else. You won’t like it.’
‘This… disease, this madness. It’s infectious, right?’
‘Of course it’s infectious, goddamn it! You’ve seen what happens.’
‘And you have to find these men in time to treat them, to give them an antidote or inoculate them or whatever…’
‘Whatever! You’re wasting time.’
‘I have to be sure just what I’m doing, just why I’m helping you, Larsen.’
‘I told you, there will be no criminal charges. Isn’t that enough?’ He was looking at his watch. ‘Please, Harland,’ he said, quite softly.