“But he couldn’t have had anything to do with it, sir. I saw him when he left the pub and Miss Cogswell was still inside working.”
“Look, Constable, if Miss Cogswell is missing, McNeil knows something about it, and I’m going to find out what. Now let me have your flashlight and get on that radio!”
He took the proffered light and tramped toward the house with Wilson at his side. Neither man gave a thought to the necessity of maintaining a cover as far as the big McNeil was concerned; their only thought was for the girl’s safety. Da Silva led the way up the porch, pounding on the door roughly. There was no answer.
He pounded the panel again. “McNeil!”
There was still no answer. With an oath he put his shoulder to the door, ramming it hard, snapping the lock and bursting into the shack, prepared for instant battle, but there was no response to his entrance. He swept the flashlight about the room.
“He’s gone!”
With a scowl on his swarthy features he marched into the only other room the shack boasted; Wilson could hear a door slam and then Da Silva was back.
“He’s gone.”
Wilson shook his head sardonically. “Some surveillance!”
“I’m not so sure. Storrs said they had good men on the stake-out and he knows what he’s talking about. There has to be some other way out of here.” He swept the light about again, concentrating the beam on the small cot in one corner. Trousers were folded there, a pullover shirt and underwear on top of it; socks and shoes were on the floor beside a wooden crate that served as a sort of endtable. “Of course!” He looked at Wilson. “He left here in swimming trunks. Look for a trap door of sorts.”
Wilson bent over the floor, studying it in the light of the flashlight beam. “Ah!” He squatted down, prying at an almost invisible crack. A square panel came up, revealing blackness. “Let me have the light.” He played it back and forth about the narrow space and then came to his feet.
“There’s a sluiceway there; I imagine it’s full at high tide. It’s still deep enough right now for a man to swim out to sea and not be seen from shore. We should have remembered that a lot of these places did a land office business in smuggling during the old days and even as recently as our famous and delightful experiment with Prohibition.”
Da Silva took the flashlight back and stared at the hole in the floor. When he spoke, he sounded more thoughtful than upset.
“One thing is sure: He didn’t take Diana out through that channel. If he had anything to do with her kidnapping — and we know he was angry about something when he left the inn, and it may have been more than just her riding him about the stones — then he must have arranged to meet her someplace.” He sighed. “Well, we’re not getting any further standing around here.”
He tramped from the house, walking to the car, leaning in to speak to Jamison.
“Well? Any luck with the bus?”
“It’s gone through North Point up in St. Lucy’s, sir. They’ve sent a car after it from there. They ought to catch up with it before long and call back.”
“Good. Let me have the microphone. Switch it to head-quarters.”
Jamison’s black face was puzzled. “But what about McNeil, sir?”
“He went for a dip in the ocean.” He pressed a button on the side of the microphone. “Hello? This is Captain Da Silva. Of Interpol. That’s right. I’m calling from Constable Jamison’s car in Brighton. Tie me into Inspector Storrs’ telephone at his home, will you please? Thank you. I’ll wait.”
“And just what are you going to tell the inspector when you get him?” Wilson asked.
“I’m in no position to tell anyone anything,” Da Silva said bitterly. “From now on I’m just asking. And humbly, too...”
7
It was the insistent sound of the low-flying plane that woke McNeil. He came to consciousness instantly, a prison-learned trait, one moment in dreamless sleep, the next wide awake, alert, all senses straining for the reason for his awakening. He listened carefully to the low throbbing hum from the sky above and then rolled from his bunk, padding barefooted to the deck, searching the sky through the thick cover of the tree branches and fronds that screened the small cove and the powerboat from any view above. At the moment the plane was not visible, but the sound of its engine remained, echoing from the far side of the small island. Certainly no passenger plane, but one much smaller. He waited patiently, calmly, secure in his knowledge that his boat was invisible. There was a shadow across his face; he frowned thoughtfully through the leaves at the small monoplane coming into view. It circled above him lazily, easily recognizable, one of the two police seaplanes from Barbados, familiar sights along the beaches of the island.
The big black man’s frown deepened. He had known all along that his failure to appear from the shack on the beach that day might — in fact almost inevitably would — lead to investigation and eventually to a search once his absence was encountered. It was impossible to think that that Constable Jamison — or Wexford, rather, by day — would sit patiently in his car all day without wondering why his quarry did not appear. But that the discovery and the start of the hunt would, or even could have proceeded so quickly, was odd. That was disturbing.
He glanced at the chronometer — only two hours past first light, and not only had an air search been instituted, but it had even reached this tiny point in the huge wilderness of the Atlantic east of Barbados — deserted wastelands of water if ever there were. It was puzzling. It was worse than puzzling: It was frightening. The plane could, of course, be searching for someone else — a chartered fishing boat with tourists, perhaps, long overdue at the Oistins Yacht Basin; or it even might be some student pilot on the police force fattening his flying log with free time, but McNeil was positive neither was the case. He was the object of the search and he knew it. He would be a fool not to know it, and he hadn’t gotten to within a half hour’s hike of a fortune in gems by being a fool.
His jaw tightened as he watched the small plane through the leafy cover that hid him from sight. Should the searchers in the plane not be satisfied with their scrutiny from the air, should they decide to investigate more thoroughly, to descend, land on the ocean and taxi slowly around the island searching under the overhanging boughs, his hiding place would be discovered very rapidly. And then he would be in serious trouble. Not that they could arrest him for anything, or even hold him — they had no basis for that — but he would have led the police to the place where the jewels had lain hidden all these years, and his fifteen years in a Brazilian penitenciário would have gone for naught. And the lives of his friends. For with enough men — or even enough tourists flocking to the island once the story made the headlines — it would only be a matter of time before the cave would be located, searched, and the stones discovered.
Well, he thought savagely, glaring at the circling plane, we didn’t put in fifteen years in that filho de mãe prisão de Bordeirinho just to hand over the jewels like that at this late date, my word! He padded back to the cabin and knelt, raising the bunk to disclose the hidden lazaret, flashing the flashlight about and then reaching far, drawing forth a high-powered rifle and a box of ammunition. He paused a moment and then reached in again, bringing out a revolver, checking it with an abrupt thrust of his thumb, noting the cartridge caps and then tucking the weapon into the waistband of his swimming trunks. If he could get in a lucky shot at the plane once they were in the water and limited in speed, maybe he could hit their fuel tank and even blow them up before they could radio their position.