Bear Island

Neal Divine's private papers revealed little of interest except a large number of unpaid bills, I0Us, and a number of letters, all of them menacing in varying degrees, from an assortment of different bankers-a form of correspondence that went well with Divine's nervous, apprehensive, and generally down-trodden mien. At the bottom of an old-fashioned Gladstone in the Count's room I found a small black automatic, loaded, but as an envelope beside it contained a current London licence for the gun this discovery might or might not have significance: the number of law-abiding people in law-abiding Britain who for divers law-abiding reasons consider it prudent to own a gun are, in their total, quite remarkable. In the cubicle shared by Jungbeck and Heyter I found nothing incriminating. But I was intrigued by a small brown paper packet, scaled, that I found in Jungbeck's case. I took this into the main cabin where Mary Stuart was moving from window to window-there were four of them keeping watch.

"Nothing?" I said. She shook her head. "Put on a kettle, will you?"

`There's coffee there. And some food."

"I don't want coffee. A kettle-water-half an inch will do." I handed her the packet. "Steam this open for me, will you?'

"Steam-what's in it?"

If I knew that I wouldn't ask you to open it."

I went into Lo

I was crossing the passage to Eddie's room when Mary called me. She had the package open and was holding the contents in a white handkerchief. I said: "That's clever."

"Two thousand pounds," she said wonderingly. "All in new five-pound notes."

"That's a lot of money." They were not only new, they were in consecutive serial number order. I noted down the first and last numbers, tracing would be automatic and immediate: somebody was being very stupid indeed or very confident indeed. This was one item of what might he useful evidence that I did not appropriate but locked up again, resealed, in Jungbeck's case. Men a man has that much money around he's apt to check on its continued presence pretty frequently. Neither Eddie's nor Hendriks's cubicles revealed any item of interest, while the only thing I learned from a brief glance at Sandy's room was that he was just that modicum less scrupulous in obtaining his illicit supplies than Lo

It was just after three o'clock, with the light begi

"Where on earth can they all be?" she said. "I'm sure something must have happened to them."

"He'll be all right. They probably just went farther than they intended, that's all."

"I hope so. It's getting dark and the snow's starting-" She broke off. and looked at me in embarrassed accusation. "You're very clever, aren't you?"

I wish to God I were," I said, and meant it. I pushed my almost uneaten meal away and rose. "Thank you. Sorry, and it's nothing to do with your cooking, but I'm not hungry. I'll be in my room."

"It's getting dark," she repeated inconsequentially.

"I won't be long."

I lay on my cot and looked at my haul from the various cabins. I didn't have to look long and I didn't have to be possessed of any outstanding deductive powers to realise the significance of what I had before me. The salary lists were very instructive but not half so enlightening as the correspondence between Otto's chequebooks and Goin's bankbook. But the map-more precisely the detailed inset of the Evjebukta-was perhaps the most interesting of all. I was gazing at the map and having long, long thoughts about Mary Stuart's father when Mary Stuart herself came into my room.

"There's someone coming!'

"Who?"

I don't know. It's too dark and there's snow falling."

"What direction?"

"That way." She pointed south."

"That'll be Hendriks and the Three Apostles!" I wrapped the papers up into a small towel and handed them to her. "Hide those in your room."

I turned my medical bag upside down, brought a small coach screwdriver from my pocket and began to unscrew the four metal studs that served as floor rests.

"Yes, yes, of course." She hesitated. "Do you mind telling me-"

"There are shameless people around who wouldn't think twice of searching through a man's private possessions. Especially mine. If I'm not here, that's to say." I'd removed the base and now started working free the flat black metal box that had fitted so snugly into the bottom.

"You're going out." She said it mechanically, Eke one who is beyond surprise. "Where?"

"Well, I'm not dropping in at the local, and that's for sure." I took out the black box and handed it to her. "Careful. Heavy. Hide that too-and hide it well."

"But what-"

"Hurry up. I hear them at the door."

She hurried up. I screwed the base of the bag back in position and went into the main cabin. Hendriks and the Three Apostles were there and from the way they clapped their arms together to restore circulation and in between sipped the hot coffee that Mary had left on the stove, they seemed to be more than happy to be back. Their happiness vanished abruptly when I told them briefly of Judith Haynes's death and although, like the rest of the company, none of them had any cause to cherish any tender feelings towards the dead woman, the simple fact of the death of a person they knew and that this fresh death, suicide though it had been, had come so cruelly swiftly after the preceding murders, had the immediate effect of reducing them to a state of speechless shock, a state from which they weren't even begi

"Now, now, Mr. Gerran, you must take it easy," I said solicitously. "I know this has been a terrible shock to you-"

"Where is she?" he said hoarsely. "Where's my daughter? How in Coxs name-"

"In her cubicle." He made to brush by me but I barred his way. "In a moment, Mr. Gerran. But I must see first that-well, you understand?"