'No.' I looked around for the waiter.
'You half wit! Her real name is Lily May Scroggins! Not Goldfinkel at all.'
'So what? Elizabeth Windsor likes to be called 'Your Majesty,' but no one's arrested her yet. Now shut up and listen to some real news.'
Jay's lips pressed together in a thin line, but she shut up like a good girl. I guessed she had more revelations to come. They could wait.
'Ahab has two wives and two sets of children!' I leaned back triumphantly.
'So do most Hollywood stars over the age of fourteen. What's the big deal?'
'They didn't know about each other, that's what the big deal is. They didn't know about each other until this afternoon, when they both bumped into him in The Circus. I had a grandstand view – best cat fight I've seen since From Russia with Love.'
Stretching the truth, but I knew that would get my Jaykins going.
'So Ahab's a bigamist and you got your rocks off watching two women knocking each other's lights out. Move on, big boy – men are deceivers, in case you hadn't noticed.'
I took a breath.
'Listen to a few facts from Detective Chief Superintendent Neptune.
'One – Ahab dropped a piece of paper, an unsigned note telling him to be outside Ballahoo at three o'clock if he knew what was good for him.
'Two – one of his paramours is a waitress at Ballahoo.
'Three – the other paramour made a long bus journey from the far end of the island in response to another unsigned note, which also fell into my hands in the melee.'
Jay looked determinedly uninterested, but there was a glint in her eye that told she had made the connection.
'Add one, two and three and you get…'
'…a blackmailer's bluff called!'
'But it wasn't any bluff. Now all we have to do is find out who it was.'
'Bravo, Sherlock!'
I puffed on my imaginary pipe. I really must give it up – it looks stupid.
The third margarita disappeared and I was feeling peckish.
'It's a short hop to Antigua. I suggest, my dear, that we partake of dinner in our cabin tonight. I bought myself a rather spiffing new belt today. Heavy, embossed…'
Miss Lawrence looked up at me. Her lips parted and a tip of pink tongue appeared.
'I'll put up a fight…'
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: RUMBLE IN WADADLI
'And this time, you're not abandoning me with a cart load of Bingo-obsessed senior citizens! I want to see something of your blessed Wadiddly.'
'My wadiddly is always at your command, as you very well know, my love.'
I gave Harry a disparaging look and he winked, his eye already firmly fixed upon the varied delights of St. Johns, Antigua. We stood in a small square, freshly deposited by yet another kamikaze cab driver, and I swayed slightly, still regaining my land legs. My other half scanned the milling crowds, as if looking for something specific. Finally, his face lit up and he took me by the hand and strode off towards a small wooden cubicle with a brightly hand-painted sign.
Hardy Tours
The Isle in a Day
'I shall treat you to a tour worthy of Her Majesty!'
'Well, oi'll be damned!'
It took me some time to discern that there was, in fact, a person concealed within the shadowy confines of the rather rustic erection. It was a very small and wiry looking man with a thick Irish accent. Predictably, the leprechaun recognized Harry and leaned over the little counter of the hut to shake his hand enthusiastically.
'Oi'll be damned. Harry Neptune. Oi tot ye'd bin run off the oisland for good, ye wicked divil ye! And who, might oi inquire, is the comely young lady?'
The little man was as full of blarney as a Limerick bar at closing time. He was anywhere from fifty to sixty years old, his rather cadaverous looking face deeply creased by the sun. Bright blue eyes squinted from beneath reddish brows and he somewhat reminded me of Peter Pan. Harry turned to me.
'Jay, I'd like you to meet Kismet Hardy, an old friend of mine. Kismet Hardy, this is my new wife, Jay.'
Mr. Hardy's sparkling peepers almost popped out of his little head.
'Oi'll be boogered! Are ye pregnant, dear?'
'Certainly not!'
I felt quite put out that he should imagine unplanned parenthood would be the only cause for our impromptu betrothal. The leprechaun scratched his thinning ginger hair.
'No, that's never got our Harry down the aisle before. Are ye rich, then?'
This time, I glared at them both, Peter Pan and Captain Hook, who was doing his best to look innocent.
'Alas, no. And considerably better off before I encountered this rum-soaked reprobate!'
Mr. Hardy laughed, a high-pitched wheeze.
'Ah, but ye're in love! Oi can see that as plain as the pretty little nose on yer face! Harry, ye're a lucky man to be so utterly despoised and adored by this sweet wee creature here. Ye've never had that before, oi'll warrant, with yer barrow loads of trollops.'
Harry adroitly changed the subject, picking up a badly Xeroxed pamphlet with a smiling sun on the front page.
'Ahem, anyway, it's dandy to see you, Kismet, old chap, but we're actually here to partake of one of your superlative sight-seeing tours. What's on the itinerary today then, old boy?'
The leprechaun placed a pair of rather rakish pince-nez on the end of his nose and peered at a dog-eared timetable. My impressions moved from the creations of J.M. Barrie to something straight out of 'Oliver Twist.'
'The Lord Nelson Experience is scheduled to commence at 10 o' clock, the good Lord and Rufus the relief bus driver willing. Ye're lucky oi've got just two tickets left – got a large advance booking from a party of Texan history buffs.'
'Kismet, Hardy.'
I looked up at Harry, as he delved in his wallet for a few notes. He had that look in his eye again.
I blinked my eye until the bit of grit worked its way out, then contemplated the bus ride to English Harbour and Nelson's Dockyard. A competent European rally driver in a well-founded jeep could make it in forty minutes or so. An Antiguan bus driver would barely leave you time to do the crossword in the Daily Observer – say five minutes. I nerved myself.
'Now where the bejabers has that rascal Rufus got to? Oi can only droive one bus at a toime. Rufus! Rufus!'
Kismet Hardy raised his voice to a fog horn bellow, the legacy I happened to know of thirty years in the Royal Navy as a Chief Petty Officer and the scourge of ratings and midshipmen.
'Drunk, no doubt, and asleep in a shebeen somewhere. If his last name weren't Bird oi'd never…'
I saw an opportunity to survive the day's outing without becoming a road traffic accident statistic.
'Never mind, Kismet old pal. I'll take the second bus – know this island like the back of my hand.'
Hardy looked at me suspiciously. I plastered an innocent expression on my face.
'And look at the state of the back of your hand – all hairy. Can oi trust youse to decant my paying punters in the right place? Hmm?'
