of Courtleigh Manor. Ten yards in from the gates, the driver stopped, briefly, with a jerk. Alex, who was sitting forward, taking out his wallet, braced himself against the front seat as the driver quickly apologized. Then McAuliff saw what the Jamaican was doing. He was removing a lethal, thirty-inch machete from the worn felt next to him, and putting it under the seat. The driver grinned.
'I take a fare into old town, mon. Shack town. I keep long knife by me all the time there.'
'Is it necessary?'
'Oh, mon! True, mon. Bad people; dirty people. Not Kingston, mon. Better to shoot all the dirty people. No good, mon. Put 'em in boats back to Africa. Sink boats; yes mon!'
'That's quite a solution.' The car pulled up to the kerb, and McAuliff got out. The driver smiled obsequiously as he stated an inflated charge. Alex handed him the precise amount. 'I'm sure you included the tip,' he said as he dropped the bills through the window.
At the front desk, McAuliff took the messages handed to him; there was an addition. Mr Latham of the Ministry of Education had telephoned again.
Alison was on the small balcony, taking the afternoon sun in her bathing suit. McAuliff entered the room from his connecting door.
She reached out and he took her hand. 'Have you any idea what a lovely lady you are, lovely lady?'
'Thank you, lovely man.'
He gently released her hand. 'Tell me about Piersall,' he said.
'He's at the Sheraton.'
'I know. Room 51.'
'You spoke to him.' Alison obviously was concerned.
'No. That was his message. Phone him in room 51. Very urgent.'
'He may be there now; he wasn't when you called.'
'Oh? I got the message just before I talked to you.'
'Then he must have left it downstairs. Or used a pay phone in the lobby. Within minutes.'
'Why?'
'Because he was here. I talked with him.'
'Do tell.'
She did.
Alison had finished sorting out research notes she had prepared for the north coast, and was about to take her shower when she heard a rapid knocking from Alex's room. Thinking it was one of their party, Alison opened her own door and looked out in the corridor. A tall, thin man in a white Palm Beach suit seemed startled at her appearance. It was an awkward moment for both. Alison volunteered that she had heard the knocking and knew McAuliff was out; would the gentleman care to leave a message?
'He seemed very nervous. He stuttered slightly, and said he'd been trying to reach you since eleven o'clock. He asked if he could trust me. Would I speak only to you? He was really quite upset. I invited him into my room, but he said no, he was in a hurry. Then he blurted it out. He had news of a man named Sam Tucker. Isn't he the American who's to join us here?'
Alex did not bother to conceal his alarm. He bolted from his reclining position and stood up. 'What about Tucker?'
'He didn't go into it. Just that he had word from him or about him. He wasn't really clear.'
'Why didn't you tell me on the phone?'
'He asked me not to. He said I was to tell you when I saw you, not over the telephone. He implied that you'd be angry, but you should get in touch with him before you went to anyone else. Then he left... Alex, what the hell was he talking about?'
McAuliff did not answer; he was on his way to her telephone. He picked up the receiver, glanced at the connecting door, and quickly replaced the phone. He walked rapidly to the open door, closed it, and returned to the telephone. He gave the Sheraton's number and waited.
'Mr Piersall, room 51, please.'
The interim of silence was infuriating to McAuliff. It was broken by the soothing tones of a subdued English voice, asking first the identity of the caller and then whether the caller was a friend or, perhaps, a relative of Dr Piersall's. Upon hearing Alex's replies, the unctuous voice continued, and as it did so, McAuliff remembered a cold night on a Soho street outside The Owl of Saint George. And the flickering of a neon light that saved his life and condemned his would-be killer to death.
Dr Walter Piersall had been involved in a terrible, tragic accident.
He had been run down by a speeding automobile in a Kingston street.
He was dead.
Chapter Twelve
TWELVE
Walter Piersall, American, PhD, anthropologist, student of the Caribbean, author of a definitive study on Jamaica's first known inhabitants, the