brother.
‘Georg, you are not well. Come back to the house. I will help you.’
Georg struck his arm aside. ‘Don’t need your help. Leave me alone, damn it.’ He marched off.
‘Maybe you had better go with him,’ I said.
Leif shook his head. ‘He is angry with me. I can’t help him now. But later – I will take him to a hospital, a sanitarium. They will cure him.’ He looked at me as if expecting agreement. All I could say was ‘I hope so.’
‘They will cure him! He will resume his career, he will succeed. And I will make sure no other devils like this one corrupt him.’
He turned to John, who returned his glare with bland indifference. ‘I wouldn’t bank on it, Leif,’ he said. ‘Once a junkie, always a junkie.’
‘I ignore your cheap taunts,’ Leif said. ‘You know the saying: He who laughs last . . .’
‘Tactless,’ John said. ‘Uncouth and tactless, Leif. An honest, law-abiding chap like you shouldn’t revel in murder, even mine.’
The diggers took the hole down almost six feet before they gave up. They weren’t disheartened, however; as Max himself admitted, the treasure trove might have been scattered to some degree. They started another excavation beside the first.
According to my watch, it was after one o’clock. In another nine or ten hours the light would be as dim as it was going to get. I gave the quiescent clouds a critical stare. A good wet, dark, noisy thunderstorm would be a big help.
The discovery of the brooch had whetted appetites that had become jaded, and prolonged the search. Yet I held to my original belief that Max would leave the island that night. There would be no darkness to veil his departure, but the chance of being observed would be lessened if he waited till the townspeople were asleep. He would have to halt the excavation by late afternoon in order to complete his preparations for departure – packing, repairing the boat, killing John – and by that time he would be extremely exasperated, for he would find nothing. There was no treasure trove, at least not in the spot where he was digging – only John’s fake brooch.
All of which meant that I didn’t dare wait until suppertime to use the contents of the bottle with which John had thoughtfully provided me. His assumption that I would know what it was, and what to do with it, was flattering, but I wished he had taken the time to drop a few hints. I had sneaked a peek at it after breakfast; it was a crystalline white powder with no perceptible odour or other distinguishing characteristics. I didn’t taste it. For all I knew, it might be cyanide or some other deadly poison, the slightest nibble of which would send me rolling around the room with my heels touching my head.
I was not keen on the idea of becoming a mass poisoner. However, I thought it unlikely that John would carry a lethal substance around with him. He wasn’t the type to swallow cyanide to avoid torture; he’d go on squirming and scheming until the last breath. More likely the powder had come from Georg’s pack – coke, heroin, morphine, God knows what. How John had covered up the theft I could not imagine; presumably he had managed to make it look like an accident, or carelessness on Georg’s part. Wherever it had originated, it was obviously not meant for my own use, so I had to assume he wanted me to bestow it on the thugs.
Shortly thereafter I was relieved to find my deductions confirmed. John began twitching and clutching his stomach. ‘I’m in agony,’ he moaned. ‘It’s probably a ruptured spleen.’
‘Probably hunger pangs,’ I said, and was rewarded by a quick glance of approval. I went on, ‘Maybe Max will let you go back to the house and make yourself a sandwich. You can make one for me while you’re at it.’
‘You’d ask a dying man – a man suffering from extreme inanition – to make you a sandwich?’
‘Your playacting is becoming banal, Smythe,’ Max said. ‘You read too many sensational novels. It is only in fiction that warders are tricked into carelessness by a pretence of illness.’
However, the mention of food had its effect on the diggers. They had been hard at it for several hours, and it was exercise of a type to which they were not accustomed. The wind had dropped to a breathless hush that was more threatening than a gale. Rudi finally summoned up enough nerve to ask Max if they could take a break. ‘We cannot work all day without food, Max,’ he added sullenly.
‘Don’t expect me to do the cooking,’ John said, between groans.
‘Dr Bliss and I will be the chefs,’ Max said. ‘Rudi, take that section down another foot, then stop. Bring Smythe back with you – and watch him.’
Max spoke only once during the walk. ‘I am tempted to lock you in your room this afternoon, Dr Bliss.’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘I cannot trust you,’ Max explained, in an accusing voice. ‘You might try to escape.’
Any comment on this seemed superfluous. We proceeded in silence.
Though the deep freeze and the pantry shelves were bulging, supplies of perishables like milk and eggs were getting low. The island must have a regular delivery service from the mainland for items of that sort – another reason why time was running out for Max. He couldn’t kidnap the milkman and the baker when they made their rounds; someone would wonder what had happened to them. Any visit from an outsider carried the risk of discovery.
I poured the rest of the milk into a pitcher and put it on the table. Max pulled out a chair and sat down. He had no intention of helping me – he just wanted to keep an eye on me. ‘Sandwiches,’ he said. ‘Cheese, ham – nothing complicated.’
‘We’re almost out of bread.’
‘There is more in the freezer.’
‘It’s frozen solid.’
‘Then unfreeze it.’
I put a couple of loaves in the oven and switched it on. As I moved back and forth between pantry and sink, refrigerator and stove, I had ample opportunity to dispose of the white powder. It would take only a second or two to dump it into – into what? Not the milk; the pitcher was at Max’s elbow. Besides, he and Hans were the only members of the gang who drank milk.
‘What about some soup?’ I suggested. ‘There’s tomato, chicken noodle – ’
‘No soup.’
I don’t think he was really worried about my slipping something into the soup; his objection was pure reflex, instinctive professional caution. Sugar? I thought. No good. Some of them took their coffee black. I plugged in the gleaming chrome-and-porce-lain device Mrs Andersson used for making coffee, and tested the bread. It was pre- sliced; I was able to separate the slices and spread them on the counter to finish thawing. As I did so, I heard voices outside. The diggers were back. I had to make up my mind in a hurry. With all of them milling around the kitchen, my chances of being detected rose a hundredfold.
So I put it in the butter. It was soft, since Max had not let me clear away after breakfast. It also showed signs of having been licked. ‘Wonderful for hair balls,’ I said aloud, mixing furiously.
‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing,’ If I hadn’t been so rattled, I wouldn’t have spoken; for all his fondess of animals, Max might be one of those fastidious souls who would refuse to eat food a cat had tasted. The cat had clearly been on the table; there wasn’t a scrap of bacon left, and several plates were suspiciously clean.
I started putting the sandwiches together. No self-respecting Swede would have touched them; they were slapped into shape with such speed that the contents leaked over the sides. I took care not to let the butter ooze, though. It was strangely lumpy-looking.
Grimy, sweaty, and dishevelled, the diggers filed in and took their places. Hans grabbed a sandwich, and my heart stopped with a grinding thud as he pried back the top piece of bread and peered at what was inside.
‘
I didn’t trust myself to speak. I got the mustard out of the refrigerator and handed it to him.
It was not one of my more elegant table settings. I hadn’t bothered to put plates down, just a few glasses and a dozen bottles of beer. Hans reached for the pitcher of milk. John got it first, and pulled it towards him. Rudi asked for a bottle opener. Turning to get it, I heard a crash, a splash, and a cry of outrage from Max. John had dropped the pitcher. The milk was soaking into Max’s hand-stitched suede shoes.
‘Weak wrist,’ John whined, nursing it.
So everybody drank beer. I made sandwiches like an assembly line. I had to do something; every time one of them took a bite I expected a complaint or a puzzled look.
