early yesterday evening, not discovered till four a.m. Five persons found dead.
Curacao! Where the hell is that?
This is even more baffling. Curacao is a Dutch island-very far south in the Caribbean. Now, that really makes no sense at all.
We scanned the story together. Once again robbery was apparently the motive. The thief had come crashing through a skylight, and had demolished the contents of two rooms. The entire family had been killed. Indeed, the sheer viciousness of the crime had left the island in the grip of terror. There had been two bloodless corpses, one that of a small child. Surely the devil isn't simply moving south! Even in the Caribbean there are far more interesting places, said David. Why, he's overlooked the entire coast of Central America. Come, I want to get a map. Let's have a look at this pattern flat out. I spied a little travel agent in the lobby. He's bound to have some maps for us. We'll take everything back to your rooms.
The agent was most obliging, an elderly bald-headed fellow with a soft cultured voice, who groped about in the clutter of his desk for several maps. Cura9ao Yes, he had a brochure or two on the place. Not a very interesting island, as the Caribbean islands go.
Why do people go there? I asked. Well, in the main they don't, he confessed, rubbing the top of his bald head. Except for the cruise ships, of course. They've been stopping there again these last few years. Yes, here. He placed a little folder in my hand for a small ship called the Crown of the Seas, very pretty in the picture, which meandered all through the islands, its final stop Curacao before it started home.
Cruise ships! I whispered, staring at the picture. My eyes moved to the giant posters of ships which lined the office walls. Why, he had pictures of ships all over his house in Georgetown, I said. David, that's it. He's on some sort of ship! Don't you remember what you told me. His father worked for some shipping company. He himself said something about wanting to sail to America aboard a great ship.
My God, David said. You may be right. New York, Bal Harbour ... He looked at the agent. Do cruise ships stop at Bal Harbour?
Port Everglades, said the agent. Right near it. But not very many start from New York.
What about Santo Domingo? I asked. Do they stop there?
Yes, that's a regular port all right. They all vary their itineraries. What sort of ship do you have in mind?
Quickly David jotted down the various points and the nights upon which the attacks had happened, without an explanation, of course.
But then he looked crestfallen.
No, he said, I can see it's impossible, myself. What cruise ship could possibly make the journey from Florida all the way to Curacao in three nights?
Well, there is one, said the agent, and as a matter of fact, she sailed from New York this last Wednesday night. It's the flagship of the Cunard Line, the Queen Elizabeth 2.
That's it, I said. The Queen Elizabeth 2. David, it was the very ship he mentioned to me. You said his father-
But I thought the QE2 makes the transatlantic crossing, said David.
Not in winter, said the agent, agreeably. She's in the Caribbean until March. And she's probably the fastest ship sailing any sea anywhere. She can do twenty-eight knots. But here, we can check the itinerary right now.
He went into another seemingly hopeless search through the papers on his desk, and at last produced a large handsomely printed brochure, opening it and flattening it with his right hand.
Yes, left New York Wednesday. She docked at Port Everglades Friday morning, sailed before midnight, then on to Curacao, where she arrived yesterday morning at five a.m. But she didn't stop in the Dominican Republic, I'm afraid, can't help you there.
Never mind that, she passed it! David said. She passed the Dominican Republic the very next night! Look at the map. That's it, of course. Oh, the little fool. He all but told you himself, Lestat, who all his mad obsessive chatter! He's on board the QE2, the ship which mattered so much to his father, the ship upon which the old man spent his life.
We thanked the agent profusely for the maps and brochures, then headed for the taxis out front.
Oh, it's so bloody typical of him! David said as the car carried us towards my apartment. Everything is symbolic with