Soon afterwards she joined Pierre in his room. To have attempted to deceive him would have been pointless, as he must soon have discovered that she was doing so. In consequence, when he asked her whether she had been successful, she replied
`No, and for that you have only yourself to blame. To have threatened Sallust is the worst thing you could have done. He is a very brave man and a born adventurer. Your threats put his back up and. he has taken them as a challenge. He is now determined to go through with this business, and nothing I can say will deter him.'
Lacost shrugged. `Then the more fool him. But we'll talk further about it later. I could hardly wait for you. Get your things off and jump into bed.'
Three hours slipped by, then as she was about to leave him she asked, `What do you intend to do about Sallust?'
Pierre gave an ugly laugh. `I must put him out of the ring and the sooner the better.'
'No!' she pleaded. 'No! Please do nothing here. Wait till we get to Fiji or one of the other islands. Out there I may be able to turn him into a lotus eater who will become content to laze in the sun and let everything else go hang.'
`That would not ensure our coming out on top,' Pierre argued. `By then he will have provided the Ratu with the money to get on with the job. While you are playing Circe to Sallust, young James will be working like the nigger he is, and may forestall me.'
Suddenly inspiration came to Manon and she said, `James is the king pin in this whole business. Why concern yourself with Sallust? Get rid of James and you will have a free field. Why not do that.
'You've got something there,' he agreed. `I'll consider it. Perhaps there will occur a chance to throw a spanner in his works tomorrow. Have you made any plans to go sightseeing?'
`Yes, we are going up to Lake Atitlan and making a trip in a motor boat across the lake to the village of San Antonio Palopo to see some wonderful carvings in the church there.'
Pierre fingered one end of his long moustache thoughtfully for a. moment, then he said, `There are plenty of lonely places on the way there. Perhaps Jules Corbin and I might stage a hold up and put the Ratu out of the running.'
`You won't harm Sallust, will you?' she exclaimed in sudden alarm.
`No, my little one; no,' he assured her with a smile. `If we can render young James hors de combat for a few months his backer will be stymied too. Besides,' Pierre 's smile became a grin, `I would hate to deprive you of the embraces of your Casanova.'
Manon shrugged off the jibe at Gregory's now limited sexual activities and soon afterwards she returned to her room.
When she woke in the morning she felt extremely worried. She knew from long experience that Pierre never hesitated to lie to her when it suited his book. She knew, too, that he was completely unscrupulous and had a malicious streak in him. If he did hold up the party on their way to Lake Atitlan she felt certain that Gregory would not stand by and see his friend injured without endeavouring to prevent it. That would be excuse enough for Pierre to shoot him, too. And, although he had said that he had no objection to sharing her with Gregory that might not be true. Quite possibly he would be delighted at the chance to put her other lover out of the way. Again, he might not hold up the car but, concealed in the bushes along the roadside, shoot into it. She knew him to be an excellent shot, but would he be able to obtain a rifle? If not, his aim with a pistol at a moving target twenty or more feet away must prove uncertain. He might miss James and hit Gregory or her.
Instead of breakfasting with the others at nine o'clock, as they had arranged, she remained in bed. When Gregory arrived to enquire why she had failed to join them she had almost made up her mind to tell him about Pierre and warn him of his danger. But at the last moment she was deterred by the awful thought that if Pierre found out what she had done he might tell Gregory about her having killed her husband.
As an excuse for still being in bed, she said that she was suffering from an appalling migraine. Then she asked Gregory to postpone the expedition to Lake Atitlan and remain with her.
To her distress he said that he did not think that would be a good idea. `If I could help to get rid of your migraine quicker,' he declared, `I'd willingly stay with you. But I know from experience that doesn't help. Talking to anyone only makes things worse, and the best cure is to lie silent here in a semi darkened room. That being so, it would be absurd for James and me to kick our heels about the hotel all day; so we'll adhere to our plan of going up to the lake, and I'm only sorry that you can't come with us.'
She then pretended a fit of temper, and abused him as an unfeeling lover. But that got her nowhere. She was already aware that once he had made up his mind about a thing he was as stubborn as a mule. With gentle mockery he told her that she was behaving like a spoilt child; then he saw to it that she had everything she might want, kissed her and departed.
The first half of the way to Lake Atitlan was the same as that to Chichicastenango, then the road branched off to the north. Again they drove through magnificent scenery with ranges of volcanoes outlined against the blue sky, forming a backdrop in the distance. Soon after midday, at a place high up in the mountains, their driver pulled up and they got out to enjoy, from the edge of the cliff on which they stood, one of the finest panoramas in Central America. Far below them the great inland lake shimmered in the sunshine. It was ringed with six volcanoes one of which was eleven thousand six hundred feet in height descending steeply to its shores. Here and there along the lake edge there were clusters of seemingly tiny white houses and, leaving furrows on the still surface of the lake, a few boats that looked no larger than beetles.
Having gazed their fill they returned to the car, and for another half hour it wound its way down into a lovely valley where lay the pretty little town of Panajachel. Two miles further on they came to the lake shore on which stood the Hotel Tzanjuya. There they lunched off freshly caught lake fish that tasted like bream.
James was in great heart. Until that morning he had been far from happy, because he feared that, should the records in Antigua fail to provide definite evidence that the sunken ship had carried a cargo of gold, Gregory would decline to finance him. But on the way to the lake Gregory had told him that he meant to do so in any case. Over the meal they talked of the gear that would be needed to raise the heavy beams that blocked the way to the cabin in which were the chests that, it was hoped, contained the treasure.
Pontoons and a crane could, James thought, be hired in
Suva. If not, they might have to be brought from San Francisco. But nothing could be gained by writing to the harbour authorities to ask if they had such equipment, as if they left for Fiji within the next week they would arrive there sooner than a letter.
When Gregory enquired about divers and labour, James assured him that there would be no difficulty about that; his people would willingly co operate. But it was certain that a professional diver would have to be employed, as moving the beams would be a tricky operation.
After the meal they went aboard a small motor launch to make the trip across the lake. The crew consisted solely of the owner. Smilingly he welcomed them aboard but, looking at his wrist watch, conveyed to them in broken English that he wished they had made an earlier start, instead of lingering over lunch. Apparently, while the lake was always as placid as a mill pond in the mornings, a change of temperature in the afternoons caused winds to come rushing down the valley between the volcanoes, and disturb it to such an extent that at times the waves could become twelve feet high.
Chugging away from the hotel, for a while they hugged the shore, on which there were a few pleasant villas scattered along a bathing beach, then they turned out and crossed an arc of the lake, to arrive an hour later at the rickety landing stage that served the village of San Antonio Palopo. Going ashore, they made their way up a narrow, winding, potholed track to the church. It was an empty, barn like structure and proved disappointing. The carvings which had been so cracked up turned out to be eight or ten wooden figures obviously intended to represent saints. In a group they leaned disconsolately against one wall, with no altars or candles burning before them. They were unquestionably old, but none could honestly have considered them fine works of art.