She said: “This is a very funny thing, darling. It was like running into dynamite, with no dynamite there.”
“I am not interested, beloved.”
She repeated to him what he had said to her on their first murder case:
“You have a trained mind. Remember? Do something, darling! And then this shadow at first, with no sound of an engine. The plane must have been very high, because the shadow was so small.”
“That,” said Hollis, caught, “is odd.”
Marjorie would, by this time, have expected her particular anathema, the drawling-witted local sheriff. She did not expect a gentleman who looked like a citizen of the U.S.A. in good standing, and more particularly like one of the better-grade Princeton graduates, class of 1920 — and who announced himself as an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation!
He sat down in the living room like any caller, and accepted a glass of iced papaya juice, and almost casually got the whole set-up.
When ghost-pale little Stacy began her chatter about somebody (her gaze pointed Carl Schee) gunning for just her fiancé, Lieutenant Brook Hanna, this F.B.II. man, Coates, said he was afraid it was much bigger than that. Somebody was gunning for any and all army fliers. At this rate, they would kill off our men while they were still students, before they ever got to the wars. He said skillfully, “You are the Miss Rider who, as a baby, was...?”
“Yes.”
His look poor-childed her.
It slid off, clicked around the room, ticketed everyone, down to Moselle and Yvette, assisted by a few well-placed questions.
“Unfortunately,” he continued, finishing the papaya juice and lighting a cigarette, “it does not appear to be a simple question of gunning. No machine-gun nest. We have combed the islands. Of course, as far as any sound of shooting, the roar of the planes and their bombs and machine-gun explosions, would be complete cover. But... there are no bullet holes in either of the wrecks!”
“But it didn’t,” glowered Carl Schee, “happen over this island.”
“No,” agreed Coates, watching him with his intelligent gray eyes, “over that island. Unfortunately there is nobody there whom we could suspect, except the young guard. He is not a clever youth.”
“Then,” charged Carl belligerently, “you suspect us?”
“The advantage of an island,” thoughtfully, “is that it does restrict, geographically anyhow, the suspects. I should think one of you on this island must be guilty.”
“It’s too bad,” said Carl hotly, “that we haven’t got a Japanese alien among us.”
“That is too bad. Perhaps we won’t need one. Which of your ancestors, Mr. Schee, were German?”
“I like that! All right. My father’s father, and he was as good an American as you are!”
“That is entirely possible.”
“When a crime is committed,” offered Stieg McCloud unexpectedly, “it sometimes pays to take a check on the weather. Many a murderer has been convicted on his weather testimony — full moon where there was no moon, saw things he couldn’t have — ha.”
“What was the moon?”
“It wasn’t the moon, it was the wind. Damme, both times a south wind blowing.”
“As though... sabotage and death blew from this island,” agreed Coates, fixing not on Schee, but on McCloud. “What’s the Stieg in your name from?”
“Family name,” gruffly. “My mother.”
“German?”
“Austrian.”
“And you’re a retired weather man. Advance weather information is as valuable to the enemy as maps of the country.”
“What,” barked McCloud, “do you mean to insinuate? That I am a Fifth Columnist weather expert? Damme, I’m as loyal an American citizen as anybody!”
“Doubtless,” agreed the F.B.I. agent rather tiredly. “This is all routine, Mr. McCloud. My job is to question.”
He rose. “By the way, where’s the child on this island?”
“No child,” said several voices together.
“That’s funny, because...”
Then little Mr. Mears said something. He said quickly, as though to get it over: “Mr. McCloud is a recognized authority on kites. I myself know a great deal about kites, from Mr. McCloud.”
“Kites,” said the agent. “Kites... Thank you, Professor.”
Mr. Mears blushed: “I am not a professor.”
“But the local sheriff said—”
“I have never troubled to correct the local sheriff.”
“Thank you,” said Coates, faintly smiling, “again. The local sheriff, I take it, troubles you quite a lot. I hope we shall not have to trouble you.”
“That is fine,” said Hollis, “for I cannot take any more time away from my book.”
“What are you writing?” respectfully.
“A History of the American Civil War,” said Mears, blushing with pleasure that anybody should ask...
Marjorie fretted at her husband. “I don’t care if he is a G-man! He is not so smart as you are, Hollis.”
“He is quite capable of handling this job, my dear.”
“Who did it, Hollis?”
“Of that I am not quite sure — only of how it was done.”
“How? How?” cried little Mrs. Mears, beating her hands with curiosity.
But Hollis retired to his study and — for the first time in their life together — locked the door against her.
The south wind blew and blew. For three days it blew, gentle but steady. Everybody’s nerves were as raw as those exposed, live frogs’ nerves in Advanced Biology. Nothing happened, of course. Nothing would happen with the U.S. government itself on guard.
But something did happen.
Marjorie wandered down to the north end of the island, to talk with the young soldier with a machine-gun who was on guard there. She told herself spitefully that, after a Brain, Stupidity was a relief. The young soldier didn’t know much; his job was, moreover, to know less! He would not talk. Would not say what he was on watch for, would not say what he would do if what he was on watch for materialized. He would only say that he was Joe Baker from the Bronx, and that he liked beer.
The sun shone blindly, the sky was dizzied with it; the south wind shifted the great white clouds like stage scenery, all in a piece, northward. Neither of them saw a thing. Not a thing.
The army planes were coming, you could hear their high, distant, multiple beat. Then they seemed to be scattered across the sky. Suddenly one roared low over the island tip, skimmed the beach: Brook Hanna, picking up Stacy’s shell message.
The plane lifted and zoomed toward the lagoon. And suddenly, nearer than the other times, lower, there was that terrific pause, that ball of explosion, that slow motion act of falling to pieces in mid-air.
The scream was Stacy: “It’s — Brook!”
She came, running raggedly. Fell. Clutched up. Fought on.
Marjorie was running after her.
Both girls ran into the water. Stacy turned and fought off Marjorie. But Marjorie gripped her, dragged her out...
It was Brook, all right. If you dreaded a thing long enough, it came true...
Brook was not dead — he was dying...
Then he was not dying — he might even live to give testimony...
He did live, but he never needed to give the testimony...
“Will you tell me, Mr. McCloud, as an authority on kites,” asked the F.B.I. man formally (this was again in the living room, with all present) “whether, since it is possible to float weather instruments on them, it is also possible to lift on them a high explosive which is so sensitive to shock that it detonates with great violence if, say, an airplane collides with the kite?”