He had no objection, or at least none that he voiced. And he had the sense not to follow her through the kitchen and out the side porch.
She felt better after a wash and a short rest in the guesthouse bedroom. She had just finished changing into fresh clothing when Margaret appeared with an invitation to dinner. Sabina declined, pleading a headache. Margaret, fortunately, had no knowledge of her visit to the Pettibone house, so she did not have to make explanations or fend off questions.
The short rest had cleared her head; she sat on the porch to think over what she’d found at the Pettibone house and what it implied. She had no doubt now that Gordon Pettibone had been the victim of foul play. Nor was there any question in her mind of who had done the deed, or of how the sealed study had been entered before and exited afterward; that was the easily solvable part of the conundrum.
What she did not know yet was the why of it — the motive, the choice of place and time. Without that knowledge, or at least a clear idea of what those factors might be, she was reluctant to take her suspicions to the police.
She had the feeling that Gordon Pettibone’s dying words were the key to why. The meaning of “pick up sticks” continued to elude her, yet she felt that she ought to be able to figure it out. There must be something she was not considering. Something she had been told? Something she had overlooked in the study?
There was a stirring at the back of her mind. Could it have something to do with that index card she’d found in the Bible? She fetched the envelope on which she’d written the letters and numbers from the card, stared at the line until her eyes ached. RL462618359. Incomprehensible. Then she thought: By itself, yes, but perhaps not in conjunction with something else.
If only she could remember what it was that she had been told or had overlooked...
19
Quincannon
The Millays must have had very few guests, for there were no spare rooms available in the ranch house for that purpose. The only accommodation was a single room located in an outbuilding behind the house that was used mainly for the storage of dry goods. Quincannon was conducted there by the servant girl, Mele, while Grace Millay arranged with Sam Opaka to have the Kona nightingale unharnessed, fed, and quartered for the night.
The partitioned bedroom in the outbuilding was small, almost monastic, its furnishings limited to a bed with a straw-tick mattress, a ladder-back chair, and two rough-hewn puncheon tables. There was no electrical service on this remote section of the Big Island; the Millay ranch buildings were lighted by kerosene lamps of one type or another. The one in here was a small flat-wick lamp, the kind that did not give off much illumination. A hanging lantern would produce a circle of flame of considerably more candlepower, but there was none of this type in the outbuilding. Where one could be found, Quincannon thought, was in the stable.
Sam Opaka brought his carpetbag, handed it over, and departed without a word. Quincannon couldn’t tell if the bag had been searched, not that it mattered a whit if it had; it contained nothing of value or pertinence to his investigation. With a basin of water and a bar of lye soap supplied by Mele he scrubbed a layer of volcanic dust off his face, hands, and beard, then changed into fresh clothes for dinner.
The meal was served by lamplight on the lanai. Home-grown beef, rich and tender, which he ate mechanically, without enjoyment. He and Grace Millay were the only diners. Her brother, she explained briefly, was “not feeling well” (an obvious euphemism) and preferred to remain in his room. As they ate, she questioned him briefly about his profession but made no further mention of his pursuit of the two swindlers. The remainder of their somewhat strained conversation was on neutral topics.
After dinner he declined the offer of brandy and returned to the makeshift guest quarters. He stretched out on the bed fully dressed, the Navy Colt beside him and his ears cocked, and forced himself to remain awake and alert for any sign of danger. The vigil was groundless. There was no incident of any kind.
An hour past midnight, he rose and went to the door to reconnoiter. The night was silent, the ranch grounds empty as far as he could see, the sky filled with enough scudding clouds to keep moonlight to a minimum. No lights showed in the main house; a dull lantern gleam in a bunkhouse window was the only light to be seen.
He slipped out, made his stealthy way around past the cattle pens and dairy barn. The stable lay ahead to his right, but as he neared it the door to the bunkhouse opened, shedding a swath of lantern light and then a pair of paniolos. The hired wagon, fortunately, had been drawn near the corral fence; Quincannon ducked low into the shadows behind it, just in time to avoid being seen. He crouched there while the two cowboys rolled and smoked cigarettes. They took their confounded time doing so; his sacroiliac had begun to ache by the time they finished and went back inside. Straightening, he swallowed a grumble, stretched the kink out of his spine, and hurried on to the stable.
The doors were shut; carefully, so as not to make any noise, he parted the two halves, eased through, pulled them closed behind him. Horses and the Kona nightingale moved restlessly in their stalls when he scraped a lucifer alight. That one match was all he needed to locate a lantern hanging from a nail near the door.
He took it down, shook it to be certain the reservoir was full. Then, wrapped in shadow again, he drifted back out to the hired wagon and secreted the lantern inside the box beneath the seat.
Quincannon was up and on his way shortly after first light.
The ranch had already stirred to life. Paniolos and other hirelings moved in and around the barn, corral, and cattle pens; none of them paid any attention to him. Stanton and Grace Millay were nowhere to be seen; neither was Sam Opaka. Quincannon found the cowhand he had spoken to yesterday, Keole, in the stable and together they brought the Kona nightingale out and harnessed it in the rented buggy’s traces.
There was still no sign of the Millays by the time Quincannon drove out of the ranch yard. Just as well. Farewells were unnecessary; they would be as glad to see him gone as he was to leave.
Rolling, dark-veined clouds obscured most of the towering slopes of Mauna Kea. They thickened and seemed to follow him, hiding the rising sun, as the donkey clattered him along the ranch road. Once he saw a lone rider far off among the cattle grazing on an upper valley slope. Otherwise he had the road and the morning to himself.
By the time he neared the ocean the sky was a mass of dark-edged cumulus clouds that obliterated the sun. The muggy kona heat was already on the rise; that, the restive cloud cover, and the wind that blew in fitful gusts here and carried the smell of ozone, threatened the arrival of a new storm. The prospect goaded him into venting an epithet that made the donkey’s ears twitch. But the threat had yet to be fulfilled when he reached the intersection with the Kailua road. With luck, the downpour would hold off long enough for him to complete the task he had set for himself.
The road was deserted; he saw no one anywhere, heard only the thrum of the wind and the sullen mutter of the whitecapped sea. He drove to the heiau, tethered the Kona nightingale to the same stunted tree as the day before, then removed the lantern he had appropriated from beneath the buggy seat. He considered donning the rain slicker that the charitable Kailua liveryman had rolled inside the box, decided against it. Even if the storm broke while he was prowling among the rocks below, he would be better off unencumbered by an extra garment.