It was an impossible dream and he knew it, and even wondered if his panic of the moment was distorting his judgment. The chances were he wouldn’t even be able to hit the bouncing plane at all, let alone seriously damage it; and they were probably on the radio at that moment, describing the scene beneath them, getting instructions to descend, land, and search more thoroughly. Still, McNeil thought decisively, angrily, I’m not leaving here without the stones! What did I tell that mon on the stoop of the house? If I don’t come back, I don’t come back, and that’s the way of it! Up the creek the two of us! For without the stones, there’ll be no Diana, and without either the stones or Diana, what’s the odds? My word!
He came back on deck, jacking ammunition into the rifle, twisting the high-powered scope into an approximation of the proper distance, his mind as cold as ice now that confrontation seemed inevitable. He knew automatically just where he would stand, just at what point he would bring the telescopic lens to bear on the wing-tanks of the plane, hoping for luck. He trotted back of the small roundhouse, the rifle heavy in his hand but comforting in its weight. He squatted down, resting the gun butt on the deck, the box of extra ammunition at hand, and then looked up, frowning. The drone of the plane was diminishing; it had stopped its aimless circling but instead of lowering toward the smooth sea it had banked sharply and was now disappearing to the south, swaying a bit as it recovered from the steep change of direction, dwindling in size, the sound of its motor gone long before the small plane itself was finally out of sight.
McNeil frowned in surprise and suspicion. What kind of a search was that? Or was it possibly just a ruse to bring him out of hiding, with the police planning on returning later? It must have been obvious to the men in the plane that there were a dozen coves invisible beneath the branches, yet there they were, disappearing, a dot in the bright morning sky, and now even that gone. Well, if they wanted to lure him out and then come back, he could wait as long as they could and probably a lot longer; he wasn’t squandering gasoline at an exorbitant rate. And if he had to stay where he was until nearly dark, he could do that, too. There would still be plenty of daylight left to get to the cave and back to the boat. And he hadn’t planned on returning to Brighton before late at night in any event.
He went back to the cabin and placed the rifle against one of the bunks within easy range should he hear the plane again. The revolver was tossed onto the chart table. One advantage of the stillness of the island was that no plane or boat could possibly approach without giving warning. He searched the locker beneath the galley for more food and discovered some hard tack and packaged ham. The rum would have helped it go down, but he knew this was no time for drinking. He took the hard tack and ham with him and went back on deck. He squatted on the leeside of the roundhouse, gnawing at the saltless biscuit, chewing the meat, his eyes still studying the sky where the small seaplane had disappeared.
What kind of a search had that been, anyway? It didn’t make sense, and William Trelawney McNeil was suspicious of all things that didn’t make sense...
When the disappearance of McNeil from the seaside shack had first been discovered and reported, the decision had been made to meet at the office of Chief Inspector Storrs at Police Headquarters in Bridgetown and to use it as a base from which to operate. The bus and the driver that had carried Diana Cogswell from Brighton to Queensland had been located, the man questioned. Yes, the woman had got down at the lane that led to the top of the hill just the other side of Chalky Mount — the Brighton side. No, there hadn’t been a soul to meet her, not that the driver recalled. No, mon — sir — the woman didn’t seem upset or nothing, just a bit weary, like she’d been working hard, but she did work hard. The driver had stopped to take the parch from his throat at times, and she was always rushing about. She worked the nights, you know, and that was the busy time, what with the boats in and the sugar gang thirsty after a day in the sun... No sir, she didn’t say a word, just paid her fare and stepped down to the roach. He hadn’t noticed her face so he couldn’t tell what her expression was, but she hadn’t said anything. Same as usual, same as every night he had carried her.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Wilson said when the driver had been dismissed. He was sitting on the low couch that covered one wall of the inspector’s office, frowning at the floor; now his eyes came up somberly. “McNeil leaves the bar in a huff, and the chances are that it was because of Diana’s needling him. Now, would he really have gotten so angry at her that he waits until she’s through work, then leaves his shack — taking a dangerous chance of being spotted someplace — just for revenge? At this time? Why? And if he picked her up, where would he take her?” He thought a moment. “Unless he suddenly decided that she was a police agent, which seems farfetched.”
“More than farfetched,” Da Silva said. “Where would he discover this? All alone in his shack, eh?” He shook his head. “The normal thing for him to do would be to push up his timetable and go for the stones at once. It’s what we figured he’d do, and what I think he probably did.”
Wilson looked at him. “Taking the girl with him?”
Inspector Storrs took part in the discussion. “You gentlemen seem to be overlooking the fact that McNeil left the shack without any clothes — nothing except swimming trunks. And we’re not even sure he had those. I doubt if he could run about the island naked for very long without somebody noticing. Or did he meet somebody with clothes?”
“The banker,” Wilson said suddenly.
“Except we’ve just decided that McNeil left the shack practically on the spur of the moment. At least there’s every indication he did exactly what we wanted him to — push up his timetable. So how could he have contacted his banker, as you call him, to arrange for clothing?”
“Unless the arrangements were made a long time ago,” Wilson said. “His banker seems to have arranged everything else fairly well. Suppose he cached clothes for McNeil somewhere along the beach where they could be picked up whenever McNeil felt the time was ripe to go for the stones? And tonight was the night?”
“No,” the inspector said flatly. He was seated at his desk, twiddling a pencil. He tossed it aside. “No. Anyone might come onto the clothing at any time along the beach — or anywhere else — no matter how well they were hidden. Some tourists looking for rocks; some small boys playing pirate. It would be taking a chance; it would be very sloppy planning. And I doubt if their plans have many loopholes in them by now; certainly not one as large as that.”
He paused, reaching for the pencil again unconsciously. The others waited.
“If you want my opinion, gentlemen,” he continued evenly, “what McNeil did was to swim out to a boat that was waiting for him, probably anchored a good distance from shore. I have never believed he hid the stones on Barbados, anyway. As I said about the clothes, they might well have been found, especially in fifteen years. This is the most densely populated island in the Caribbean per square mile, gentlemen. There are no wild places left here; almost every inch is cultivated. And with hotels going up — as they were fifteen years ago as well — a lot of beach coves have been filled in, a lot of rock caves excavated. McNeil knew this when he was faced with hiding the stones.”
Da Silva resumed his pacing. He paused, frowning at the floor, then looked up.
“If he swam out to a boat, would he come back to shore to pick up the girl? Even if there were clothes on the boat, would he take the chance of coming back to land — say by dinghy — and anchoring this extremely important transportation on a lonely spot of beach where it might be stolen? Again it sounds as if that would be bad planning. Remember that where Diana was picked up is a good half-mile from the beach; the road curves inland near Chalky Mount. Besides,” he added with a faint smile, “the normal thing for a man to do in McNeil’s circumstances would be to go get the loot, come back and lay it at his lady love’s feet, and say, ‘See? You thought I was talking through my hat, eh? Well, what do you say now?’ That sort of thing.”