McNeil was not so much tired as disgusted. Everything had turned out poorly: the fiasco at Green Hell Island, the loss of the jewels, if they were recoverable at all, and if so, how; Tommy and his idiocy in snatching Diana. Well, he thought with a certain amount of savage satisfaction, one thing is domned sure — Tommy won’t be snatching anyone else in a hurry. The truth!
His trip back had sobered him up considerably, and also rested him. He had returned walking along the beach, his bare toes splashing in the curls of the tiny wavelets rippling up the smooth sand, taking to the water to swim only when necessary — once to pass a small community of fishing huts that ran from the main road down to the ocean’s edge, and then not again until he had entered the water some hundred yards from his shack, entering the sluiceway and emerging beneath the hut. He had not been surprised to find the hatch removed from the hole leading to the room above; obviously the coppers would have been here and searched, and just as obviously they would have taken pains to leave evidence that they had done so. He had climbed in, exchanged his swimming trunks for trousers, pulled on a shirt, put on his socks and shoes, and prepared to leave the shack for the inn.
He should have taken a bottle of rum from Tommy’s, but he hadn’t and that was that, but rum he needed badly. Rum might give him an idea as to a possible solution to his problem; or at least it might ease the feeling he had that fate had made him its plaything. One thing was sure; if it did nothing else it would slake his thirst, and the long hike home had built it to formidable size.
He came into the large bar room of the pub and let the heavy carved door swing shut behind him. His eyes scanned the room automatically: an unhappy bartender back of the bar, forced to work double shift; a cane cutter down at the end of the bar nursing a mug of beer and muttering into it drunkenly, probably imprecations he wished he could direct to his field foreman instead of the flat ale before him; a pair in one of the booths drinking what looked like rum. What were they doing here? Strangers the two of them, one a mulatto or an Indian, the other white. Ugly bostards the both. He turned back to the bar, rapping on it loudly with a thick knuckle.
“Rum!”
The bartender brought the bottle over, pouring a glass full, turning. McNeil put out a hand.
“Leave the bottle.”
The bartender shrugged, put the bottle down, and walked away. McNeil took the drink in one swallow, poured a second and allowed it to stand. The two men he saw in the mirror were watching him somberly. What right did the miserable bostards have to eye him like that, anyway? Never saw the ugly sods before and hoped he’d never see them again. He took his eyes from the mirror, looking down at his glass, swirling the liquid slightly and watching the oily surface break up, dipping and swaying. He smiled at it a moment and upended the glass, taking the rum down in one gulp.
And, of course, the miracle he had been expecting from the rum instantly came to pass. As he had known it would, as he had indeed known it would! Others could have their macumba or their voodoo — rum did nicely for him. He almost chortled. My word! Whatever had made him think the problem of getting the gems off Green Hell Island was even difficult, let alone impossible? The solution was so simple it was enough to make a mon giggle. Somebody had to go and get them and then hand them over to him, that was all. Not Tommy, of course — never that cheating bostard — but somebody. The question now, of course, was who — but rum having solved the major portion of the problem, there was little reason to suppose it wouldn’t resolve the minor ones as well.
He poured his glass full, drank it, and was about to pour another when he became aware that the bartender was standing before him, a stubborn look on his fat face. McNeil scowled at him fiercely.
“Well, and what’s that mewling ugly look supposed to stand for?”
“You’ve drunk half the bottle, and we haven’t seen any money as yet,” the bartender said, and swallowed. He was well aware that McNeil was a dangerous man to cross; he hadn’t seen the fight the other night, but it was still the talk of the pub and would be for months — maybe years. On the other hand, he was equally aware that the daily inventory indulged in by his eagle-eyed employer would most certainly turn up a missing bottle of rum unaccounted for with biwis in the till. What was a mon to do?
“Is that it, now?” McNeil said, and laughed. “Is that your only problem, you poor little mon? Well, here’s your miserable brass and be domned to you! Any other pub in this village and you’d see the last of me and that’s the fact! Ugly bostard pub!”
He reached for his wallet and then paused, a statue. He had forgotten he’d been had; he’d forgotten to get more money at Tommy’s! He was flat! The bartender, understanding, finally assumed a role in the frozen tableau, but it was merely to stand and look forlorn: Now that his worst fears were obviously realized he had no idea what to do next. Then, in time, he recalled the constable that was always about, no matter where McNeil went. Jamison was bound to be outside in that sedan of his, but could he make it from behind the bar and past the big man to the door before the other woke up and caught him?
Fortunately, he was saved the problem of making the horrendous decision. A polite voice spoke from the booth along the wall. Wilson was smiling at him, reaching into his pocket.
“Don’t worry about it, bartender. I’ll be only too glad to pay the gentleman’s tab.”
McNeil came out of his trance, turning to stare suspiciously. He had that look on his face that indicated eventual forced acceptance, dislike compounded with the unfortunate inevitability of being the other’s guest. Gratitude had never been a major word in the large man’s lexicon, and besides, why was the little mon doing it, eh? Still, with that domned constable outside he could well spend twenty-four hours in the jug for beating the bill — or even more if he tried to resist arrest — and he hadn’t the time to spare. Why hadn’t he thought of getting money at Tommy’s? Well, that was water over the dam. He swallowed, trying to find the words to accept the offer without appearing under obligation, when he happened to note the wallet from which Wilson was dragging money. Across the table in the booth, Captain Da Silva was watching the scene unfold with twinkling eyes.
McNeil’s eyes widened in shock. It took a second or two for the full truth to strike him, and then it was as if he had also been struck with a bucket of ice water, clearing his brain, replacing the heady rum fumes first with outrage and then with pure hate.
“Hey! That’s my purse!”
“I beg your pardon?” Wilson looked at him with curiosity, pausing in his act of extracting the money.
McNeil clenched his jaw and reached for the wallet, intending to recover it before he took the little purse-snatching bostard by the ears and broke every bone in his thieving body; but Wilson instantly drew it out of range. There was something in the graceful gesture reminiscent of a torero baiting a bull. Da Silva grinned.
McNeil first took a deep breath and then sneered. He stationed himself squarely where neither man could possibly escape.