The Deceiver

smiled at Hannah. The detective was not a small man, but the preacher topped him by two inches.

“Ah, you have been talking with Mr. Quince.” He pro­nounced the name as if he had sucked on a raw lime.

“I didn’t say that,” said Hannah.

“You didn’t have to. Yes, I said those words. You think I killed Governor Moberley? No, sir, I am a man of peace. I do not use guns. I do not take life.”

“Then what did you mean, Mr. Drake?”

“I meant that I did not believe the Governor would transmit our petition to London. I meant that we should pool our poor funds and send one person to London to ask for a new Governor, one who would understand us and propose what we ask.”

“Which is?”

“A referendum, Mr. Hannah. Something bad is happening here. Strangers have come among us, ambitious men who want to rule our affairs. We are happy the way we are. Not rich, but content. If we had a referendum, the great majority would vote to stay British. Is that so wrong?”

“Not in my book,” admitted Hannah, “but I don’t make policy.”

“Neither did the Governor. But he would carry a policy out, for his career, even if he knew it was wrong.”

“He had no choice,” said Hannah. “He was carrying out his orders.”

Drake nodded into his lemonade. “That’s what the men who put the nails into Christ said, Mr. Hannah.”

Hannah did not want to be drawn into politics or theology. He had a murder to solve. “You didn’t like Sir Mars ton, did you?”

“No, God forgive me.”

“Any reason, apart from his duties here?”

“He was a hypocrite and a fornicator. But I did not kill him. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, Mr. Hannah. The Lord sees everything. On Tuesday evening the Lord summoned Sir Marston Moberley.”

“The Lord seldom uses a large-caliber handgun,” sug­gested Hannah. For a moment he thought he saw a hint of appreciation in Drake’s glance. “You said ‘fornicator.’ What did that mean?”

Reverend Drake glanced at him sharply. “You don’t know?”

“No.”

“Myrtle, the missing secretary. You have not seen her?”

“No.”

“She is a big girl, robust, lusty.”

“No doubt. She is away with her parents in Tortola,” said Hannah.

“No,” said Drake gently, “she is in Antigua General Hos­pital, terminating a baby.”

Oh dear, thought Hannah. He had only ever heard her referred to by name. He had not seen a picture of her. White parents live on Tortola, too.

“Is she ... how shall I put it ...?”

“Black?” boomed Drake. “Yes, of course she’s black. A big, bouncing black girl. The way Sir Marston liked them.”

And Lady Moberley knew, thought Hannah. Poor washed-out Lady Moberley, driven to drink by all those years in the tropics and by all those native girls. She was resigned, no doubt. Or perhaps she was not. Perhaps she had been driven a bit too far, just this once.

“There is a hint of American in your accent,” said Hannah as he left. “Can you tell me why?”

“There are many Baptist theological schools in America,” replied Reverend Drake. “I studied for the ministry there.”

Hannah drove back to Government House. On the way, he considered a list of possible suspects.

Lieutenant Jeremy Haverstock undoubtedly knew how to use a gun if he could get hold of one, but he had no apparent motive. Unless it was he who was the father of Myrtle’s baby, and the Governor had threatened to break his career.

Lady Moberley, driven too far. She had plenty of motive, but she’d have needed an accomplice to rip off that steel gatelock. Unless it could have been done with a chain behind a Land-Rover.

The Reverend Drake, despite his protestations of being a man of peace. Even men of peace can be driven too far.

He recalled the advice of Lady Coltrane to look at the entourages of the two electoral candidates. Yes, he would do that, have a good look at these election helpers. But what was the motive there? Sir Marston had been playing their game for them, easing the islands into independence, with one of them as the new Prime Minister. Unless one of the groups had thought he was favoring the other.

When he got back to Government House, there was a spate of news waiting for him.

Chief Inspector Jones had checked his firearms register. There were only six workable guns on the island. Three were owned by expatriates—retired gentlemen, two British and one Canadian. They were twelve-bore shotguns, used for clay-pigeon shooting. The fourth was a rifle, owned by the fishing skipper Jimmy Dobbs, for use on sharks if ever a monster attacked his boat. The fifth gun was a presentation pistol, never fired, owned by another expatriate, an American who had settled on Sunshine. The gun was still in its glass-topped case, its seal unbroken. And the sixth gun was Jones’s own, kept under lock and key at the police station.

“Damn,” snorted Hannah. Whatever gun had been used, it was not kept legally.

Detective Parker, for his part, had a report on the garden. It had been searched from end to end and top to bottom. No second bullet. Either it had deflected off a bone in the Gover­nor’s body, come out at a different angle, and sped over the garden wall to be lost forever; or, more likely, it was still in the body.

Bannister had received news from Nassau. A plane would be landing at four, in one hour’s time, to take the body to the Bahamas for post-mortem. Dr. West was due to touch down in a few minutes, and he would be waiting to take his charge to the mortuary at Nassau.

And there were two men waiting to see Hannah in the drawing room.

Hannah gave orders to have a van made ready to bring the body to the airstrip at four. Bannister, who would return to the High Commission there along with the body, left with Inspector Jones to supervise the arrangements. Then Hannah went to meet his new guests.

The man called Frank Dillon introduced himself and ex­plained his chance vacation on the island and his equally chance meeting over lunch with the American. He produced his letter of introduction, and Hannah studied it with little pleasure. Bannister from the official High Commission in Nassau was one thing; a London-based official who happened to be taking an away-from-it-all holiday in the middle of a murder hunt was as likely as a vegetarian tiger. Then he met the American, who admitted that he was another detective.

Hannah’s attitude changed, however, as Dillon narrated Favaro’s story.

“You have a picture of this man Mendes?” he asked finally.

“No, not with me.”

“Could one be obtained from police files in Miami?”

“Yes, sir. I could have it wired to your people in Nassau.”

“You do that,” said Hannah. He glanced at his watch. “I’ll have a search of all passport records made, going back three months. See if there’s a name of Mendes or any other His­panic name entering the island. Now, you must excuse me—I have to see the body onto the plane for Nassau.”

“Are you by any chance thinking of talking to the candi­dates?” asked McCready as they left.

“Yes,” said Hannah, “first thing in the morning. While I’m waiting for the post-mortem report to come through.”

“Would you mind if I came along?” asked McCready. “I promise not to say a thing. But after all, they are both ... political, are they not?”

“All right,” said Hannah reluctantly. He wondered whom this Frank Dillon really worked for.

On the way to the airstrip, Hannah noticed that the first of his posters were being affixed to spaces on walls where room could be found for them between the posters on behalf of the two candidates. There was so much paper being stuck over Port Plaisance, the place was getting plastered in it.

The official posters, prepared by the local printer under the auspices of Inspector Jones and paid for with