'Not yet,' I said grimly. 'But I soon will. I'm going to catch up with that bastard.'
She laughed scornfully. 'He'd tear you in half, Mike. Be careful of him – don't come at him from the front, club him down from behind. He'd do the same to you. He's an uncivilized savage.'
I looked at this girl who talked of brawls and beatings so matter-of-factly. No wonder she had that permanently shrinking air – or perhaps it was her manner which attracted violence in the first place. 'I'll remember that.'
She sighed. 'Well, then I got real scared because I said too much. You know what I said? I said I had proof that he was lying – that Mark hadn't died the way he said. He looked at me in a real funny way and said he'd be back – with friends. So I packed a few things and got out. I stayed with someone else the rest of the night and next morning there was a trading schooner leaving for Panama at five o'clock and I was aboard by four. I kept below deck until Papeete was out of sight.'
'What was your proof, Paula?'
She said what I guessed she was going to say. 'Mark already had his appendix out. I saw the scar. He couldn't have died that way.'
'I knew about that too. Mark had his appendix out years ago.'
Paula looked at her watch and jumped to her feet. She still looked ravaged but she seemed a little calmer now. 'I have to get back.'
Thanks, Paula. You've helped me a lot. Do you think that Hadley killed Mark and Sven Norgaard?'
'I do,' she said intensely.
'Have you any idea why he should?'
She shrugged. 'No idea-but I'm sure he did it.'
'Paula, before I leave here – will you write down what you know for me?'
'I – I guess so, Mike. I – have to be careful.'
She wouldn't come into the hotel lounge with me so I went in alone ahead of her and found Geordie sitting talking to Clare. 'Pop's gone to bed,' she said. 'It's late and he gets tired.'
'I hope Geordie's been entertaining you all right.'
'Oh yes, he's been telling me more about Mark – and you.'
I said lightly, 'I thought I felt my ears burning.'
I saw Paula join the trio. In the dim lounge lighting one could not see any trace of disarray and she began to sing in the same pleasant, husky voice. 'Nice voice she's got,' said Clare casually. v I saw they were both looking at her.
'How was your assignation?' asked Geordie.
'Interesting.'
A mischievous smile played briefly on Clare's mouth. 'We saw you escorting her out of the foyer.'
'Her name is P. Nelson,' I said. Geordie choked over his coffee.
I put Clare in the picture regarding the name, then said, 'She's had a lot to tell me, all fascinating. She thinks that Mark was murdered, and his partner Norgaard too – oh yes, he's dead. And she thinks they were both killed by Hadley, this mystery partner of Kane's. But the concensus of opinion in Tahiti seems to be that Mark killed Norgaard – that's the official police view – and that Mark died by accident while on the run. It's a hell of a mess.'
'Good God,' said Geordie. 'What's she doing here?'
'Ran away from Hadley. I'll fill you all in in the morning. I'm tired.'
It seemed an age since we had come sailing into Panama, only that morning.
Clare looked over towards Paula, who was still singing.
'How well did she know Mark?'
'Pretty well,' I said unthinkingly. 'She was another of Mark's popsies.'
And could have bitten my tongue out the moment I spoke.* 5*
Next morning at breakfast Campbell came down with a cable. He frowned as he read it. 'Suarez-Navarro have started to move,' he said. 'Their ship has left Darwin, bound for New Guinea.'
Geordie said, 'The Bismarck Archipelago is up that way too.'
'What's that got to do with it?'
'We forgot to tell you,' I said. 'Kane sent a cable yesterday, to Rabaul, which is in the Archipelago.'
'Kane – maybe to Ramirez, telling him where you are. Would your nodule deposit be anywhere up near Rabaul?' asked Campbell.
'There's nothing against it and a few things for it,' I said. 'Though personally I think Mark wouldn't have been so far away from where it is. But from what I could gather from the notebooks Mark was linking nodule formation with vulcan-ism, and there's a hell of a lot of volcanoes in that part of the world.'
'Not here?'
'Oh yes, all over the Pacific. I'm going to explain that to you when my own ideas are clearer.'
'Do you think he was right in that theory?' said Campbell.
'I don't know,' I admitted. 'It's all very theoretical. There's nothing against it in principle.'
Campbell muttered, 'When I get an unqualified answer from a scientist I suppose the world will be coming to an end. Now, what's all this about the girl last night? Clare's told me a little.'
So I filled them all in and we sat back, aghast and disturbed by the implications in Paula's story. We were running into something which got steadily nastier. Campbell approved of my wanting her evidence written down, preferably legally attested, though I wasn't sure if she would commit herself so far.
Clare said, changing the subject, 'Mike, I've been giving the diary some thought and especially the drawings, and I think I've come up with something. Can we all go up to Pop's suite after breakfast?'
Geordie assented reluctantly. He was anxious to get back to his ship, but we persuaded him that all would be well for a couple of hours more. They're good lads, plenty to do and they know where you are if they want you,' I said firmly. So after breakfast we found ourselves seated round a coffee table in the suite, already sweating gently in spite of the air conditioning, and with the sunshine of Panama calling to us through the open windows. Clare laid out the diary and tracings in front of us.
'I've been working backwards, from where we know Mark was, to see if we can identify any more of the drawings. The very last one is what looks like a monocle, and I think I know what it is – but only because we do know where Mark was. I think it means Tahiti.'
'How the hell can it mean Tahiti?' said Campbell.
'They're also known as the Society Islands. And a monocle is the epitome of the uppercrust, the 'society' bloke. It's lean, but could it do?' She looked anxiously for my opinion.
I laughed. 'As well as anything. Crude but effective. Go on.'
'Numbers 31 and 30 I can't see at all – perhaps Geordie might, if he knows the area well. One's a cow and one's a -well, it's this.' She pointed to an object like an irregular, flattened semicircle standing on a flat base. It was connected to the cow with the word 'OR', and made no sense at all to any of us.
'Then we come to these. The Fair Goddess and The Disappearing Trick, a woman and an eagle.'
I interrupted her. They are the two that come immediately before his high cobalt assay figures. I think they may be crucial.'
'Good,' she said briskly. 'Because there are lots more possibilities. I've been thinking about the woman. I think she could be La France – you know, Uncle Sam for America, John Bull for Britain and this female – Marianne – for France. You see her in newspaper cartoons.'
Campbell looked at the drawing intently. 'You may have something there. This thing on her head is the Cap of Liberty, isn't it? What's the extent of French territory in the Pacific?'
'French Oceania – about a million square miles of it, including Tahiti, Bora-Bora, the Tuamotus, the Marquesas, the Austral Islands. You'd have to get it down much closer than that.'
The Marianas Islands,' said Geordie and he sounded very glum. 'The Marianas Trench.'
Clare looked thrilled. 'Where are they?'
'A long way off, too far for comfort. Almost alongside the Philippines,' I said. 'It just can't be there, or else why was Mark so far away from it? I don't believe it.'
But Geordie had thought of something else. 'Suarez-Navarro's ship is heading that way.'
We looked at one another in dismay. 'Just doesn't feel right,' I said, only because I didn't want it to be. 'We want something down this way.'
Campbell said, 'What's this about a goddess? Marianne isn't one.'
