King smiled grimly. “You think this might have happened to you?”
“The possibility did cross my mind.”
King shook his head. “We don’t plan to kill you, Mr. Fletcher. We want you alive. We want you very much alive. Yes, sir.”
The big man had stuck the pistols in his belt. “Let’s go,” he said. “Let’s go.” He had a deep, rumbling voice, like an echo in a vault.
“Okay, Lawrence,” King said. “Come along, Mr. Fletcher; it’s time we were away from here. You’re with us now.”
Fletcher decided not to disagree; he felt in no condition for argument. They walked to the door. Lawrence picked up the hurricane lantern and followed them. When King and Fletcher were out of the hut he turned and flung the lantern at one of the wooden crates. The glass shattered and the oil spilled out and took fire immediately.
“Hurry now,” King said. “No time to waste.”
When they reached the gate the flames were visible through the window of the hut. There was a big blue Ford parked outside the yard with someone in a floppy sun-hat sitting at the wheel. King opened the nearside rear door.
“Get in, Mr. Fletcher.”
Fletcher’s hesitation was only momentary. With the blaze getting a real hold on the hut, it was not a healthy area to hang around in, and he had never felt less like taking a brisk walk or a hard run than he did just then. He got in and King followed him. The big man got in beside the driver. Half a second later they were away.
No one said anything until they were clear of Jamestown and heading north, away from the coast. It was one of the quietest car rides Fletcher could remember. Finally he said:
“So you’re kidnapping me?”
“I’d have called it rescuing,” King said. “You weren’t doing too well when we arrived.”
Fletcher acknowledged the truth of that. “I suppose you followed us from Port Morgan?”
“That’s so. But we lost touch for a time. We had to hunt around to find the place. That’s why we were late.”
“You knew where they would go?”
“We had a good idea.”
“Was it necessary to kill them?”
“Well, what do you think? They would have used the guns. We had to be quick. It was either kill or be killed.”
Fletcher could appreciate the logic in that. And had he not himself felt a desire to kill the men? So who was he to criticise? It had been brutal nevertheless.
“And now where are you taking me?”
“Maybe you’d better ask the driver,” King said.
The driver turned and looked at Fletcher for a moment. “We’re going home.”
It was the first time he had caught a glimpse of the driver’s face; the floppy hat had effectively screened it from his view. Therefore he had not realised that the driver was female and white. The accent said she was American, too.
“I should have introduced you,” King said; and he sounded faintly amused. “Leonora, this is Mr. John Fletcher.”
“I guessed,” she said. “Who else could it be? Hi, John.”
“Hi, Leonora,” Fletcher said. “Where’s home?”
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you? Home is where you make it.”
“Thanks,” he said. “Now I know everything.”
He began to wonder how an American girl came to be mixed up with people like King and Lawrence, people who could do such deadly work with machetes; but it was not a question to go into just then. Besides, he did not yet know who the two men were, or why they should be so interested in him. But perhaps all would eventually be made clear. One thing at least began to look more and more certain as the Ford got further and further away from Jamestown: he was not likely to be back at Joby’s very early. In fact, it seemed more than possible that he would not return that night. Which was likely to throw his plans for a morning departure sadly out of gear.
“Do we have far to go?” he asked.
“It’s not that big an island‚” King said. “How could it be far?”
It was a large rambling old house somewhere in the hill country on the northern side of the island. To get to it they had to leave the tarred highway and take to some roads that were even worse than the one between Jamestown and Port Morgan; really rough, with some pretty steep gradients and hairpin bends that called for no little skill on the part of the driver. Picked out by the headlights of the Ford, some of the going looked hazardous indeed, and Fletcher decided that he himself would have preferred to make the drive in daylight.
He was relieved when they reached the end of the journey and Leonora brought the car to a halt in front of the house. There seemed to be no lack of lights around the place, and he concluded that a generator was working somewhere, since it was in far too isolated a situation to get its electricity in any other way. They got out of the car and climbed some wide stone steps to a spacious terrace of the same material. From the terrace they went into the house, which at first glance seemed to be an expanse of polished wood floors and heavy furniture that could well have been there from the time when the building had been completed.
The man who greeted them appeared to be about fifty; his hair was greying and his skin was tan rather than black. He was of medium height, lean and rather handsome, elegantly dressed, and with a keenly intelligent look about him. Fletcher had the feeling that he had seen him somewhere before, but he could not remember where or when.
“Well, Mr. Fletcher,” the man said, “I’m very glad you were able to come.”
“I didn’t have much choice,” Fletcher said.
“No? You will have to tell me about that. However, the main thing is that you are here.” He held out his hand and it would have seemed ridiculous as well as rude to refuse it. The grip was firm but not prolonged. “My name is Conrad Denning.”
Fletcher knew then why he had had that impression of having seen the man before. Different though the two might be in physique and many other ways, there was nevertheless a certain unmistakable facial resemblance between Mr. Denning and President Clayton Rodgers. And this was really not so very surprising, since Denning and Rodgers happened to be cousins.
“Mr. Fletcher,” Denning said, “you are welcome to my house, very welcome indeed.”
EIGHT:
SO MANY ENEMIES
They talked in a large comfortable drawing-room which opened on to the terrace, and Fletcher kept remembering things he had heard about Conrad Denning. Like his cousin, Denning had studied law in the United States, and he had a practice in Jamestown. He was reputed to be a wealthy man and had at one time been prominent on the political scene, but he had opposed Clayton Rodgers and had lost; as Rodgers’s star ascended, so Denning’s faded — at least in the political sense. It was said that he had only avoided imprisonment or banishment from the island by agreeing to abandon politics altogether and never again meddle in affairs of state. So he had retired into the background and had concentrated on his legal business. It was safer than fighting the President.
“You are no doubt wondering‚” Denning said, “what there can possibly be that we should wish to talk to you about.”
Fletcher smiled. “I’d have to be pretty incurious not to wonder about that. You went to some lengths to get me here.”
“It became a little more complicated than we had anticipated. We were not expecting you to be carried off by those thugs. Incidentally, what did they want of you?”
“They wanted to convince me that the island climate was bad for my health and that I ought to leave without delay.”
“But I believe you had already decided to do that. Didn’t you tell them so?”
“I told them, but I don’t think they believed me. Either that or they wanted to make sure I didn’t change my mind. And I think they took pleasure in the job for its own sake; they seemed to get quite a kick out of it.”