Ellery nodded, but not as if he had been listening. “So after everything that’s happened — all the planning, all the eyewash — something’s gone wrong again,” he murmured. “In Abel’s hurry he forgot to take into account the angle of the shot. I wonder how he got Max.”
“Let’s go ask him,” said the Inspector.
They found Abel in King Bendigo’s office. Abel, and Judah, and Karla, still together.
Colonel Spring was there, too. The Colonel was in mufti. Stripped of his beautiful uniform, in a wrinkled and badly fitting suit, he fooled them. But only for a moment. His hand came up with a brown cigarette, and he said something with a lazy sting in it. He was directing the feverish activities of a group of men, also in ordinary clothes. These men were hurrying in and out of the safe vault near the great black desk, empty-handed going in, coming out laden with documents, money boxes, and what might have been precious gems in sealed cases.
The safe was almost empty.
Judah was bundled up in a coat; he looked cold. Karla was in a suit and a long wool coat. Her face was swollen and red.
Abel Bendigo was at his dead brother’s desk going through drawers. A man stood silently by, holding a grip open. Abel was dropping papers into it.
The Colonel and his men paid no attention to the interruption, but the wife and the brothers looked up sharply. Then Abel rose from the desk and made a sign to the man beside him, and the man shut and locked the grip and put the key in his pocket and carried the grip out, past the Queens.
“We’re about through,” said Colonel Spring to the Prime Minister.
“All right, Spring.”
The men went out under their last burdens. Colonel Spring followed them, lighting a fresh cigarillo. As he approached the Queens he looked up, smiled, spread his hands in a charming gesture, shrugged, and passed on.
“Getaway?” said Ellery.
“Yes,” said Abel.
“You seem to be doing it on a wholesale basis, Mr. Bendigo. Who gets left holding the bag?” the Inspector asked.
“You’d better get ready, too,” said Abel. “We’re leaving in a very few minutes.”
“Not before you answer a question or two, Mr. Bendigo! Where is Max?”
“Max’l?” Abel sounded preoccupied. “I really don’t know, Inspector. When the evacuation started, he disappeared. Search parties are looking for him now. I’m hoping, of course, that he’ll be found before we leave the island.”
The Inspector’s jaws worked,
Ellery stood by in silence.
“And where,” rasped the Inspector, “have you and Mrs. Bendigo and your brother Judah been since you left us at the pool?”
Abel’s stare did not falter. “The three of us — I repeat, Inspector, the three of us — went directly to the Home Office, and we’ve been here, together, ever since. Isn’t that so, Karla?”
“Yes,” said Karla.
“Isn’t that so, Judah?”
“Yes,” said Judah.
“You haven’t left this room, I suppose,” said the Inspector, “not one of you?”
The three shook their heads.
“When did Colonel Spring and his men get here?”
“Only a few minutes ago,” said Abel with a faint smile. “But that’s of no importance, is it, Inspector Queen? Since the three of us vouch for one another?”
Now the Inspector was silent. But then he said, “No. No, if you vouch for one another, I don’t suppose it is. By the way, my condolences.”
“Condolences?” said Abel.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Bendigo. I thought you knew that your brother King is dead.”
Karla turned away. She faced the wall, and she remained facing it.
Judah took a flask from his coat and unscrewed the cap.
“We know,” said Abel. “I wasn’t sure you did. My brother’s death was reported to us — a few minutes ago. I’m told he took his own life.”
“He was murdered,” said Ellery.
They stared at each other for a long time.
At last Abel said, “If there were time to go into it... But of course there isn’t, Mr. Queen. You understand that?”
Ellery did not reply.
Abel came around King Bendigo’s desk and took his sister-in-law’s arm gently. “Come, Judah.”
“But are you going to leave him lying there—” began the Inspector.
“My brother,” said Abel, and before his stare the Inspector felt himself tighten all over, “will be buried in a fitting manner.”
A half-hour later the father and the son were in a launch, with their luggage, roaring up the bay. Ahead of them sped another launch, a larger one, with the two Bendigos and Karla.
The Queens said nothing to each other. The Inspector was sunk in something remote from launches and islands and people who did murder in such a way as to confuse and defeat a man, and Ellery was taking in the fantastic scene on shore and in the bay. He had never seen so many ships, such a variety. This is what Dunkirk must have been like, he thought, minus the bombs. The whole island seemed on the move, converging in its thousands on the little harbor. Far out to sea scores of other ships lying low in the water were hove to, as if awaiting something — a signal, or nightfall. Overhead, the planes screamed and streaked, most of them leaving the island, some of them still coming in. He must have put in a call for every seagoing vessel and aircraft in the Bendigo empire...
When they climbed aboard the big cruiser, a seaman saluted and conducted them to the chartroom. There they found the Bendigos and Karla, looking back at the harbor through glasses. Two pairs of glasses were waiting for them. In silence Ellery and his father each picked one up. In silence the five kept their eyes on the island.
The activity had noticeably slackened. The gush of vehicles down the cliff roads had dwindled to a trickle. Most of the bay spread clear; the piers were still crowded, but things were coming to the end.
The end came ninety minutes later.
The last ship edged away from the dock and headed up the bay.
The roads, the piers were deserted. From one cusp of the harbor to the other, nothing moved.
The last flight of planes rose from the heart of the island, circled once, gaining altitude, then straightened out and skimmed off into the remote skies.
A red-faced man in a brass-buttoned blue uniform and a cap visored with gold came in.
He said to Abeclass="underline" “All ready, sir. There is no one left on the island.”
“There’s at least one,” said Inspector Queen. “King Bendigo.”
The officer looked at Abel Bendigo, startled.
“My brother,” said Abel steadily, “is dead. I’m in charge now, Captain. You have your orders.”
Ellery put his hand on Abel’s arm. “Dr. Akst?” he asked.
“On board. Safe and well.”
The Bendigo got under way slowly. Slowly the cruiser headed out to sea.
They were all at the railing in the stern now, watching Bendigo Island shrink and lose color and definition.
Gradually the cruiser picked up speed. The sea was calm; the air was mild.
The armada of small ships and medium-sized ships and large ships was at full steam. Most of them had already vanished over the horizon.
Through the strong glasses Ellery kept watching the island. Nothing on it anywhere moved. Nothing lived.
Five miles from the island the cruiser’s speed slackened, the seas churning. Gradually they subsided, and the vessel lifted and fell gently in the swells.
And suddenly, very suddenly, the whole island rose in the air and spread itself against the sky. Or so it seemed.
A great puff of smoke rose swiftly from the place where the island had lain. It mushroomed like a genie.
The cruiser trembled. A blast of sound struck the vessel, staggered them.