Angel Death Read online

  Henry and Emmy had a leisurely swim, did some snorkeling, and remembered not to stay out in the sun unprotected for more than fifteen minutes. Then, after a nap and a shower they came down to the bar in the thoroughly euphoric mood of holiday-makers who know that fourteen of their precious fifteen days still lie ahead.

  The Anchorage was very quiet. The Colvilles had no dinner guests, so the whole party—the Tibbetts, the Colvilles, and Betsy Sprague—were able to sit down and eat together.

  As usual Miss Sprague’s presence galvanized the conversation into more lively circles than island gossip and the weather. This evening she seemed intent on drawing Henry out on the subject of his profession as a criminal investigator—not from any of the more usual sensational aspects, but from a philosophical standpoint. She was interested in the interaction of minds, she said. The minds of the criminal and of his adversary, the policeman. Before they knew it, the theme of the discussion had become the age-old question of the definition of right and wrong.

  “As far as I’m concerned,” Henry said, “right is obeying the law, and wrong is breaking it. I’m not paid to make laws of my own, nor even to interpret the existing ones.”

  “What rubbish,” said Betsy blandly. “You are not a mindless automaton. If you found your own conscience in direct conflict with the law, what would you do?”

  “Resign,” Henry said.

  “Good. So I take it that, broadly speaking, you approve of the laws of Great Britain.”

  “Certainly. I couldn’t do my job otherwise.”

  Betsy leaned forward. “What about marijuana?” she demanded.

  Henry opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say a word, John Colville interrupted. He said, “Betsy, you’re a wicked old woman. Please let’s change the subject.”

  Betsy favored him with a mischievous grin. “I’m not saying it isn’t a problem, John. Just that it must be faced.”

  John turned to Henry. “Betsy knows very well,” he said, “that drug abuse is the current plague of these islands. Her solution is to legalize the less pernicious substances, like pot.”

  “Decriminalize is a better word,” said Betsy. “And I wouldn’t stop at just pot. What caused the rise of organized crime in the United States in the twenties? Prohibition of the sale of alcohol. How do you think organized crime is making its money now? Are all legislators mentally deficient? Outlaw something that a great many people want, and you create a vacuum that only crime can fill.” She turned to Henry, fiercely. “Am I not right?”

  Henry said, “Yes, I think you are. But the trouble is, every country in the world—or at least, the majority—would have to act simultaneously. Otherwise—”

  Margaret broke in. “That’s right, Henry. That’s what Betsy doesn’t seem to realize. Look at it from a practical point of view. Just supposing that the British Seawards legalized marijuana, unilaterally. Can you imagine what would happen? Every junkie in the United States would come flocking—”

  “Look what happens when a state legalizes gambling—”

  “Marijuana is just the beginning. It would end—”

  Everybody was talking at once. Miss Sprague held up her right hand and made a small, authoritative gesture with her knife. “Children! Children!” There was silence. She smiled and went on. “When I say decriminalize, I also mean deglamorize.” She addressed John. “What makes the young men on this island smoke marijuana?”

  “Well—” John began.

  Betsy swept on. “You know as well as I do. Because it’s forbidden and because it’s expensive and because it’s considered the thing to do by the younger generation. The merchants of the stuff—pushers, as I believe they are called—take full advantage of the stupid youngsters. They keep the price ridiculously high—as a reward for taking the risks that they do with the law, of course—and when the kids haven’t enough to pay for the next fix, they go out and steal money.”

  Margaret said, “Everybody knows that, Betsy, but what’s the answer? Don’t tell me you’ve got one.”

  “Of course I have, dear, but I’m afraid it might shock our squeamish lawmakers.”

  “What do you mean?” Henry asked. “The death penalty for pushers, or something?”

  “Goodness gracious me, no.” Betsy leaned forward. “Do you know how much marijuana actually costs to produce? Practically nothing. It’s a hardy crop, giving high yields for very little outlay. The government could well afford to grow it and give it away.”

  “But I don’t see how that—” Emmy’s protest was easily steamrollered aside.

  “I would put the whole thing in the hands of the Women’s Voluntary Services. Have little booths set up on street corners, with nice ladies in sensible hats giving packages free to passersby, like those tiresome religious tracts which are so difficult to avoid in the streets these days. That would remove the glamour at one fell swoop, as well as putting the pushers out of business.”

  Henry laughed. “That’s all very well, but—”

  “Aha,” said Betsy. “Now we come to the hard part. At the same time, all treatment facilities for drug abuse would be discontinued. Not another penny would we wretched taxpayers be asked to fork out to rehabilitate the perpetrators of self-inflicted injury. That’s what I meant by squeamish legislators. Of course, there would be some distressing cases among the hard-drug addicts and some nasty sights on the streets. Tant pis. It’s nobody’s fault but his own if a person abuses drugs. Nor would any advertising which might encourage the glamour image to creep in again be allowed. The result? Those people who enjoy a smoke now and then would be able to indulge in their harmless habit in peace. Those who became hopelessly addicted would soon die off. There would be absolutely no barrier to prevent them from drugging themselves to death, and the sooner the better, say I. Well, what do you think of it?”

  John said, “It’s an ingenious idea, Betsy—but impractical, I fear. As Margaret said, unless all countries acted simultaneously, there’d be chaos in the ones that did. Personally, I can do without all the addicts in the world coming to the Seawards to die in the streets from free drug handouts.”

  Betsy Sprague sighed. “So parochial,” she said. “No breadth of vision. Ah, well. This is most delicious chicken, John. The hint of tarragon makes all the difference.”

  At lunch the following day, Henry and Emmy’s account of their morning’s snorkeling led easily to the subject of sharks.

  “Much maligned creatures,” announced Betsy. “Or so I understand. I was talking to that nice fellow in here the other day—the tall black man who does so much scuba diving, Margaret… ”

  “Morley Duprez,” Margaret said. “Yes, he takes parties from the Golf Club out diving.”

  “Well, he told me that sharks are very shy of human beings as a rule. He finds it difficult to persuade them to show themselves for his clients. All these books and films are so much inaccurate sensationalism.”

  “Very successful, though,” Henry said. “I suppose people feel the need for something exciting and dangerous in their lives.”

  “I suppose the H-bomb isn’t enough for them,” remarked Miss Sprague acidly.

  “That’s real,” Emmy said. “So people try to ignore it. They prefer make-believe horrors. Look at the tremendous vogue for science-fiction movies.”

  Miss Sprague said seriously, “I think that is rather different. I think the popularity of science fiction springs from a feeling of inadequacy and a longing for reassurance. The world seems to be in such a hopeless and dangerous mess that people long for an extraterrestrial solution—a benign Big Brother keeping his eye on us from outer space and descending in his machine to put humanity in order.”

  Henry said, “That’s all very well, but in some people’s minds it’s not fiction at all. These ridiculous theories of prehistoric visitors from other galaxies—”

  “Now, wait a minute, Henry.” Betsy laid down her knife and fork and spoke earnestly. “It does not do to dismiss these things out of hand simply because
the idea is more than your mind can grasp. The statistical probability of other inhabited planets in other star systems is—”

  “Oh, Betsy, really,” said Margaret.

  “Say what you like, Margaret dear, I for one am keeping an open mind.”

  “Into which a saucer will probably fly,” said John. “Have some more apple flan.”

  “It’s no use trying to divert me with your excellent pastries,” said Betsy, helping herself to a large slice of flan. “There is a great deal unexplained in the evolution of Homo sapiens which the Darwinists are hard put to… Yes, Emmy?”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “No, but you have something to say, nevertheless. I can always tell. Out with it.”

  With a sheepish glance at Henry, Emmy said, “Well… I was just remembering that we’re on the edge of the Bermuda Triangle here, and—”

  Henry exploded. “Oh, my God, that rubbish!”

  “Go on, Emmy dear.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. Just that the last boat that disappeared actually set out from here. The Isobel. I read about it in the English papers last winter. It was—”

  “For heaven’s sake, Emmy!” Henry sounded really angry. “A couple of young idiots blundering about the Caribbean, probably in a hired boat that they knew nothing about, lost their way and hit a rock and blew up, or something of that sort, and people like you begin spinning wild stories about supernatural powers! People who aren’t capable of navigation or seamanship shouldn’t be allowed to—”

  “Please! Please be quiet!” Betsy Sprague’s voice was so sharp, so distressed, that Henry stopped dead in midword. In the silence, Betsy cried, “You know nothing about it! Nothing! You have no right to speak like that!” And she jumped up from the table and ran toward her room, a small handkerchief pressed to her eyes.

  There was a moment of dead silence after her departure. John had half-risen and appeared frozen, one hand raised in protest. Then he sat down again slowly.

  Henry said, “I’m most frightfully sorry. I had no idea… Whatever did I say to upset her so much?”

  “I can’t imagine,” Margaret said. “Should I go after her, do you think?”

  “No,” said John. “Leave her alone and get on with your meal. It wasn’t your fault, Henry, old man. Goodness me, Miss Betsy Sprague doesn’t stop to bother about other people’s susceptibilities when she gets going on a pet subject. But it’s strange that she should fly off the handle like that.” He sighed. “Ah, well. Just as well she’s leaving the day after tomorrow. I expect she’s just tired out, poor old thing. The best she can do is lie down and have a good rest.”

  However, it was less than five minutes later that Betsy Sprague reappeared at the dinner table. Her eyes looked a little red, but she was self-composed. She sat down and said quietly, “I am so very sorry, Henry. Please forgive me.”

  “I’m the one that’s sorry,” Henry said. “I had no idea—”

  “You mustn’t apologize,” said Miss Sprague, with gentle firmness. “I behaved extremely badly. I embarrassed you very much, which is a gross breach of manners. Of course, you could have had no idea that the particular incident to which Emmy referred had any special significance for me. Now that I have disgraced myself, the least I can do is to explain.”

  John said, “Look, Betsy dear, why don’t you just—”

  “Explain,” repeated Betsy, decisively. “It is very simple. The couple on that boat were friends of mine. At least, the girl was. I must have been one of the last people to see them alive.”

  “Good heavens,” said John. “How was that?”

  “It was when I was here in January, before I went on to the States. Do you remember the day that I flew to St. Mark’s in the Golf Club helicopter?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Before I took off,” Betsy went on, “I went down to the marina. I was looking for a boat called the Isabella—a sailing ketch from Miami.”

  Emmy said, “The Sunday Scoop said it was a motor cruiser.”

  “That just shows that you can’t believe what you read in the papers, doesn’t it?” Betsy was recovering fast. “Well, the Isabella belonged to an old pupil of mine, Celia Dobson, and her husband. You remember Celia, don’t you, Margaret? Rather a plain girl, with fair hair.”

  Margaret smiled. “Barely,” she said. “She was a junior when I was in the sixth.”

  “Ah, yes. A few years’ difference makes a big gap at that age. Well, after the war, Celia married a Dr. Lionel Vanduren—an American—and went to live in Florida. The Isabella was their boat and the girl who was lost was their daughter, Janet. I met her when I stayed with the Vandurens six years ago. Janet was cruising down here with her fiancé, and Celia knew that they were due in St. Matthew’s and suggested that I should look them up. Didn’t I mention it?”

  “Not that I remember,” Margaret said.

  “Well, I couldn’t be sure of finding the boat, and I was very much taken up with the helicopter ride and my shopping. However, I did find them and spoke to them. Janet was looking so pretty. Fair, like her mother, but much better looking. There wasn’t much time to talk—they were just putting to sea. In fact, I saw the Isabella setting out from the harbor as we flew over. I didn’t think any more about it until a few weeks ago, when I was in Virginia staying with Lucy Mannering and her husband. That was when I heard that the Isabella had been lost.”

  “It was in the paper, was it?” John asked.

  “Oh, no. It had happened back in January. I heard about it from people called Jessel—a charming young couple, friends of Lucy’s children. They had actually been crewing the boat and had left her to fly home for Christmas. Naturally, they were very upset. We talked a lot, and…I’m afraid it distressed me, Henry, to hear you talking about Janet and Ed as irresponsible young people not properly in control of their boat. Peter Jessel told me that Janet and Ed were both first-rate sailors, and the boat was in impeccable condition. There was no possible reason they could think of why she should vanish without trace.

  “Naturally the first thing I did was to write to Celia. My letter was answered by Dr. Vanduren. He explained that Celia had had a complete breakdown, had spent several months in hospital—psychiatric, I imagine—and was now on a long visit with her mother in Shropshire. I didn’t mention it to you, Margaret dear, because it seemed unnecessary—but, in fact, it was with Celia that I should have been staying this week. Of course, it was out of the question. The doctor didn’t even seem to know I had been invited—or if he did, he had forgotten. Not surprising. Dr. Vanduren couldn’t throw any light on what might have happened. He said Celia was always nervous when Janet and her friends went off on long cruises, and she always made them give her a precise itinerary and keep in touch by phone or telegram. In fact, when I met Ed he was just back from sending a wire to Celia from the Priest Town post office. And that wire was the last that the Vandurens heard.”

  “Where was the Isabella supposed to go after St. Matthew’s?” Emmy asked.

  “That’s the trouble, you see. They were going to go island-hopping, as Janet put it, around the Seawards and Virgin Islands, and although they had promised to keep in touch, the Vandurens didn’t worry too much when they didn’t hear from them. These are very safe and sheltered waters. It was only when the boat didn’t turn up in San Juan to pick up the homeward crew that the alarm was raised—and that was two weeks later. There’s no record of the Isabella having put in at any of the other islands, so…well, there it is. I’m sorry, Henry. Silly of me to get so emotional.”

  “I understand completely,” Henry said. “It’s easy to take these things lightly when they happen to strangers. It’s a different matter when you know the people.”

  “Two young lives,” said Betsy Sprague. “Such a waste. I cannot abide waste.”

  Two days later, the Anchorage entered into a controlled turmoil, leading up to the departure of Betsy Sprague on Thursday morning. Her itinerary took her first in the Colvilles’ jeep to Prie
st Town, where she would board the Pride of St. Mark’s for the short trip to the larger island. A taxi from the harbor would deposit her at the airport, whence, given luck, a ten-seater interisland plane would convey her to Antigua. After that, she would be in the safe arms of British Airways as far as Heathrow Airport in London, where she would arrive early on Friday morning.

  Her arrangements after that appeared complicated to the extreme, involving Jock Higgins’s taxi and Mrs. Bastable’s housekeeper who had the keys and was looking after the dog, and Miss Pelling from the village who had taken the cats—but in the course of time Betsy Sprague would once again be installed in her comfortable cottage at Little Fareham, Hants.

  Margaret offered to accompany her old teacher as far as St. Mark’s, for there was a wait of four hours between the arrival of the Pride and the takeoff of the Antigua plane. Miss Sprague, however, would have none of it.

  “I know how busy you are, Margaret dear. I am quite capable of amusing myself in St. Mark’s for a few hours. I shall have some luncheon and buy a few little gifts for people back home. You are not to worry about me.”

  The Colvilles and the Tibbetts all came to Priest Town to wave good-bye to the Pride of St. Mark’s and the small, straight-backed figure standing on her deck with two well-worn suitcases at her feet. After the usual hooting and shouting, the last local boys leaped on board with a half-second to spare, and the sturdy little craft pulled away from the quay and chugged out of the harbor. The Anchorage contingent went home, with mixed feelings of relief and deflation.

  About an hour later, the telephone in the Anchorage rang. John, who was balanced on top of a ladder fixing the palm-frond roof of the bar, called out, “Henry, would you answer that? I expect it’s a dinner booking.”

  “Henry? Oh, I am so pleased you answered. You are just the person I want to speak to.”