Who Stole Sassi Manoon

(1) To the Manor Borne

Kelly finished his tour of the manor on a third-floor balcony. The sun, far away across the endless violet water, was just settling below the horizon. The sky was too beautiful to be anything but a creation of Walt Disney Studios, and in its light the tiny island was ornately green and darkly luxurious.

It was a good island, really, ideal for its present use. A tiny green button on the blue vest of the Caribbean, it was mostly jungle, with only this one cleared area around the manor on the eastern shore. The only building on the island, the manor was three stories high and widely rambling, with twenty-three rooms and seven baths. Porches, patios, terraces, and balconies afforded panoramic views in all directions. The furniture tended heavily to wicker and bamboo, but some of the bedrooms were elaborately appointed and the basements were fully supplied with canned foods and excellent wines. The two bars were kept well-stocked, the ham radio set on the top floor was in fine working order, and the cove in front featured a magnificent crescent-shaped white sand beach. Just the place for a hideout.

The only lack was a dock, which was why the boats were now anchored in the cove; they’d come ashore in the dinghys. But it was a minor omission, compared to the assets of the place.

Kelly had delayed touring the house until his work of the day was done. To complete the first phase of the caper he had still to inform the authorities of the amount and disposition of the ransom, and that’s what he’d done as soon as they’d come ashore. While the ham equipment had warmed up he and the Major had used the old L. C. Smith typewriter in the radio room to prepare their message, so they would be sure to present it clearly when they got themselves a listener. Then Kelly had sat at the mike, repeating, “CQ, CQ, CQ,” until at last they’d roused a pharmacist in San Juan, who had come on expecting the sort of chat about tubes and frequencies that ham radio operators never tire of, and who had refused to believe for the longest time that Kelly wasn’t pulling his leg. But when finally he had accepted the thought that Kelly was serious, he said, “Is it okay if I tape what you say? I wouldn’t want to get it wrong.”

Ham radio equipment was notoriously bad at accurate reproduction of voices, so Kelly said fine and then read the prepared statement into the mike:

“Sassi Manoon is alive and well. If she is to be returned, a ransom of four hundred thousand dollars must be paid. This money, in unmarked United States currency, must be sealed in a watertight container and dropped with a yellow marked buoy in the sea at latitude nineteen degrees twelve minutes north and longitude seventy-eight degrees five minutes west. It must be dropped at precisely four p.m. on Monday, December 4th. No ships or planes are to be in the area. If the money is not delivered, or if it is marked or watched, Sassi Manoon will never be seen alive again. This is the only message we will make, as we do not want the authorities to trace us through triangulation of later broadcasts. We are not listening to the radio or reading newspapers, and so can receive no messages other than the delivery of the money at the proper time. We do not wish to harm Miss Manoon, and promise her safe return if the money is paid.”

The pharmacist had wanted to talk when Kelly was done, but Kelly had merely told him to report to the authorities and had then sighed off. Now there was nothing to do but wait till Monday afternoon and see what happened. In the meantime, he had taken a grand tour of the manor, had found it in many respects quite similar to what he had in mind for himself when this was all over, and had finished the tour on the third-floor west balcony, just as the sun was setting.

He found Jigger there, sourly studying the sun. Both she and Sassi were free to go wherever they wanted on the island, since there were no weapons they could get to, the radio room was locked up, neither boat would start without an ignition key, and they wouldn’t get very far on the open sea in an open dinghy.

Jigger turned her head when Kelly stepped outside, increased the sourness of her expression, and said, “You.”

“That’s all right,” Kelly said. “I won’t bother you.” He went over to the edge and looked down at the pocket jungle below.

“You do bother me,” she said. “You bother me all the time. I should have screamed last night when I had the chance, in Sir Albert’s house. I shouldn’t have taken pity on you.”

The word pity stung. “What you shouldn’t have done,” Kelly answered, “was get so greedy. You wanted to know what was going on because you wanted in on it. You didn’t fool me for a second.”

“In on it? In on kidnapping? You must be crazy.”

“We’ll see,” Kelly said.

“In the first place,” Jigger told him, “you’ll never get away with it.”

“We’ll see,” Kelly said.

“And even if you do,” Jigger said, “I could identify you. And so could Sassi. So what are you going to do, kill us?”

“No,” Kelly said. “I just won’t go places where you are. The police can show you rogue’s gallery pictures, but I won’t be there. You’ll never see me again, so how can you identify me?”

“My time will come,” she said darkly.

Kelly looked at her. She was really very pretty, even though her brow was furrowed by anger. Normally, of course, he would have gone somewhere else on finding another person out here, and half of him had wanted to do so this time, but the other half found itself intrigued by this girl, had been intrigued by her since he’d first semi-seen her through smashed glasses in B. B. Bernard’s bedroom, and it was that half that had kept him out here on the balcony and in this conversation. It was also that half which now prompted him to say, “In a way, I’m sorry you won’t see me again.”

“Are you?” she said snottily. “Well, I’m not.”

It was the sort of rebuff human beings always gave other human beings, and Kelly realized he shouldn’t have expected anything else. Annoyed with himself for having forgotten what he knew about people, he shrugged his shoulders in irritation and left the balcony. A little kalah with Starnap was what he really wanted anyway. But going downstairs he couldn’t help but regret that she hadn’t turned out to be different from all the rest.

Sassi counted rooms, and the bar was number eleven. That was a good number to quit on, a lucky number. She found a glass, found ice, found Scotch, found sweet vermouth, and combined them in a way pleasing to eye and palate. She then sat down in a handy black leather chair, gazed at the black rectangle of night outside a handy window, and considered her situation and prospects.

They didn’t seem to her entirely bad. Now that she’d had a chance to look at the gang who’d kidnapped her, she’d entirely lost her fear for her own safety. What a crew! It was the damnedest example of miscasting she’d ever seen. With the possible exception of the Major, there wasn’t one of this mob who looked right for the part, and even the Major looked more slick than sinister.

Though why should they look sinister? Sassi could see this affair now for what it actually was, and there was nothing sinister about it. It was a straightforward business proposition, that’s all. They were holding her until the studio coughed up X dollars. Simple enough. She’d had agents doing the same thing for years.

So there was nothing to worry about. All she had to do was sit back and relax until the business dickering was done, and then she’d go back to work. Nothing to it.

Nothing in the glass, either. Sassi, feeling more and more at ease with the world, got up and made herself a fresh drink. She was on her way back to her chair when in came her co-kidnappee, the girl who called herself Jigger. “Welcome to Key Largo,” Sassi said, and sat down again.

Jigger came over, looking tense. “I’ve been looking for you,” she said. Her face was intent, her voice low with meaning.

“You have?”

“We’ve got to make plans.”

Sassi frowned at her. “What plans?”

“To get out of here,” Jigger said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Sassi stared at her in disbelief. “To do what?”

“Get out of here,” Jigger repeated, low and urgent. “I’ve got some ideas, how we could do it.”

“You’re kidding,” Sassi said.

“We could do it,” Jigger insisted. “You think we couldn’t outfox these guys?”

Sassi was about to tell her what she thought when she saw Jigger’s expression suddenly change, becoming wary and guarded. Someone else had come in.

Twisting around, Sassi saw it was the boy with the voices, her friend from the boat. “There it is,” he said, pointing at the bar. “I’ve been looking for that thing. Hello, ladies. May I join you?”

“Be our guest,” Sassi told him. “We were just having a caucus of the escape committee.”

Otto Preminger replied, “Zis Stalag is guaranteed escape-proof, I guarantee it.” He went on over to the bar.

Jigger, her voice loaded with meaning, said, “I’ll talk to you later, Sassi,” and drifted out of the room.

“Sure,” Sassi told her back. When Jigger was safely gone, Sassi got to her feet, went over to the bar where her friend was making himself a drink that seemed to be mostly ice cubes in a tall glass, and said, “Buddy, you’re a lifesaver.”

“Frank,” he said. “Call me Frank.”

“Frank,” Sassi said, “you saved my life.”

“If we expect to get repeat business,” Frank said, wiping the bar with a rag, “we got to have satisfied customers. You come in this joint often?”

“Every time I’m in the neighborhood,” Sassi told him. She pushed her glass toward him. “Put a little more sweet vermouth in that, will you?”

“Ugh,” he said, but he did it. Pushing the glass back, he said, “How come I saved your life?”

“Because you’re good-hearted, I guess,” she said. “Is there a radio around here?”

“You want to hear the news?”

There was a gleam in his eye. She pointed at him and said, “You do Walter Cronkite, I’m walking out.”

The gleam faded, but then he looked reminiscent instead. “You know who I, miss?” he said. “John Cameron Swayze. I could do a John Cameron Swayze to make you look for the picture, but what good is it now?”

“I’d look for the off switch,” she said.

“That’s the trouble with you big stars,” he told her. “Jealous of the talents on the way up.”

Sassi started to laugh, but then she thought, That’s ridiculous. I’m swapping jokes with a guy that kidnapped me. Then she thought, What the hell, and went on laughing.

It was midnight, and the Major and Miss Rushby were playing gin. The Major was dealing, till Miss Rushby said, “I saw that. Seconds. You gave yourself my card.”

The Major looked at the deck in his hands and shook his head. “I must be getting tired,” he said. “We’ll just play this hand, and then to bed.”

“My card, Alfred.”

The Major pushed a card from his side of the table to hers.

“Not that one,” she said, pushed it back, and selected another. “This one.”

He grabbed her hand. “Not that one either, and you know it.”

“The deuce of diamonds,” she said. “I’ll swear that’s the deuce of diamonds.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “Here’s the deuce of diamonds.” He flipped over a third card. Touching a fourth, he said, “This one’s yours.”

“Then I’m getting tired, too.” she said. “Enough of cards.” She pushed back from the table, got to her feet, and stretched in a restricted and ladylike way.

The Major, riffling the cards together, said, “The question is, what about these young men?”

“They do come in handy,” Miss Rushby said. “Guarding the prisoners and so on. And their ransom idea is brilliant.”

“The question remains,” the Major said. “What about afterward?”

“I should think,” Miss Rushby said, “they’ll be watching for us to do something to their boat. So perhaps we’d best do something to our own instead, and when the time comes, leave in theirs. We will have to give up Redoubtable in any event, after this.”

“That would mean,” the Major said, “getting the key from young Kelly. Not too easy, that.”

“It just might be possible,” Miss Rushby said. “The Jigger person is still somewhat confused about my status, and if anyone could slip the key away from Kelly it would be she. And if I were to suggest it to her, to help us escape—”

“Capital!” said the Major. “Just the ticket.”

“I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”

“Excellent.” The Major riffled the cards. “One more hand before bed?”

“Oh, Alfred,” Miss Rushby said, and sat down. “But mind your dealing,” she said.

(2) Breakfast

Miss Rushby raised the meat clever high and brought it down with a clop on the chopping block. When she raised it again, the tea bag was in two sections. She discarded the section with the tag, the staple, and the empty end of bag, carefully picked up the full section and emptied it into the teapot on the counter to her left. She then took another tea bag from the package, placed it carefully on the block, and raised the meat clever again.

A voice said, “Wouldn’t it be easier—?”

“Oh,” said Miss Rushby, and jumped a foot. Dropping the cleaver on the counter, she looked around and saw Sassi Manoon standing there, just as startled as she was. She said, “My dear, don’t ever come up behind a person without a sound like that.”

“I’m sorry,” Sassi said. “I know how that is.” She looked past Miss Rushby. “I was going to say,” she said, “wouldn’t it be easier to do that with scissors?”

“What, this?” Miss Rushby looked at the bag on the block. “Yes, I suppose it would,” she said. “But there weren’t any in the utensil drawer. And besides, I do detest these little bandages so.” She picked up the clever again. “Not that the tea inside them is worth the effort,” she said, and decapitated another tea bag.

Sassi said, “Is there anything I can do? You’re making breakfast, aren’t you?”

“What there is,” Miss Rushby said. “No eggs, I’m afraid. But there was some bacon in the freezer downstairs, I have a package thawing in that warm water there. And we have powdered everything. Powdered coffee, powdered milk, powdered hotcake mix.”

“The way I see it,” Sassi said, “we add water to the powdered milk, then add that to the powdered hotcake mix. We add water to the powdered coffee, then we combine the watered powdered coffee and the watered powdered milk. Too bad we don’t have powdered sugar.”

“We have,” Miss Rushby said, pointing at a cabinet. “Confectioners’.”

“Never mind,” Sassi said, and Kelly came in. Sassi said to him, “You want pancakes?”

“Hotcakes,” said Miss Rushby.

“Flapjacks,” Kelly said. “But all I want is coffee.”

“There’s powdered,” Miss Rushby said.

“Instant,” said Kelly. “Do you need a match with this stove?”

“Yes,” Miss Rushby said, a trifle stiffly. She didn’t like having all her words rejected like that.

Alfred came in, then, smoothing his mustache. “Morning, Adelaide,” he said. “Lovely day. Lovely.”

“Good morning,” said Miss Rushby. “Yes, it is.”

“Sea air,” Alfred announced. “Nothing like it to give one an appetite.”

“I’m making pancakes,” Sassi told him.

He looked pleased. “You mean hotcakes?”

“She means flapjacks,” Kelly said.

“Six for me,” Alfred said, unperturbed.

For a while nothing further was said. Miss Rushby finished slaughtering tea bags and put the water on to boil. Kelly was making coffee. Sassi was making pancakes and had dragooned Alfred into making milk.

Miss Rushby had been hoping to talk to Jigger before breakfast, but obviously that was not to be. Oh, well, afterward would serve. At the moment the kitchen was steadily filling up. Frank came in next, and Miss Rushby set him to setting the table.

Robby came in a few minutes after Frank. He sniffed the air and said, “Ah! Wheatcakes!”

“Flapjacks,” said Kelly.

“Hotcakes,” said Miss Rushby.

“Pancakes,” said Sassi.

“I believe Adelaide is right,” said Alfred judiciously.

“Sassi’s right,” said Frank.

“Thank you, Frank,” said Sassi.

“I’ll have one of each,” said Robby.

“Actually,” Alfred said, still as judiciously, “I believe I’ve also heard them spoken of as slapjacks.”

“You mean flapjacks,” said Kelly.

“No, I don’t believe I do. I believe I mean slapjacks.”

Jigger strolled in then, looking as sullen as usual, but all at once her face lighted up. She sniffed, looked around happily, and said, “Griddlecakes!”

Everybody spoke at once.

(3) Couples

“This is fun!” Jigger shouted. Ocean sprayed by on both sides of Nothing Ventured IV as, with Kelly at the wheel and Jigger the only passenger, it roared out of the cove and into the open sea.

Jigger had started her campaign with Kelly at lunchtime, by offering to make his sandwich. He’d accepted, with some apparent surprise, and she’d said, “I was kind of mean to you yesterday, that’s why. I want to make up for it.”

He had believed her, of course. Jigger considered her lifework to be getting men to believe she was interested in them, and she’d spent most of her waking hours since the onset of puberty in improving her abilities in that direction. Dealing with a recluse like Kelly was duck soup, and it was simplicity itself, after lunch, to get him to take her for a spin in his boat, which was obviously his pride and joy. If she couldn’t come back from this joyride with the boat key in her possession, she might as well turn in her false eyelashes.

It had been both surprising and disheartening when Sassi had refused to join her in planning an escape from these clowns — visions of the eternal friendship that would follow their successful escape together had kept Jigger awake most of the night — but Miss Rushby’s approach this morning had been second best and she was willing to settle for it. And the plan was a good one. Jigger was to get her hands on the key to Nothing Ventured IV, and tonight, after the kidnappers had gone to sleep, they would escape in the boat, the three women. (Actually, Jigger was still slightly confused about Miss Rushby’s status here, since at times she seemed kidnapper and at times victim, but with collaborators in such short supply, she couldn’t be choosy. All she could do was use whoever was willing to work with her, and keep her eyes open.)

Now, out of the cove, Jigger watched Kelly throttle the boat back and set the wheel so they’d continue untended in a slow straight line. When he was done, she took his hand and said, “Come on, I’ll make us drinks.”

“All right,” he said.

In a way, it was like taking candy from a baby. Kelly so wanted to trust somebody. Jigger felt a little bad about what she was doing, and had to keep reminding herself she was dealing here not with a poor sad shnook but with a vicious kidnapper who had to be outwitted.

Still, he looked a lot like a poor sad shnook.

She made drinks — hers weak, his strong — and they sat side by side on the sofa.

“If you don’t mind my saying so, Kelly,” Jigger said, “you just don’t look like a kidnapper.”

“I’m not a kidnapper,” Kelly said, with a touch of that bad temper that always lurked near his surface. “You think I do this kind of thing all the time?”

“Why do it at all?” she asked him.

“Why? I’ve been forced to, that’s why!”

How fiery he looked. “Who forced you?” she asked him. She’d started this conversation simply to have something to talk about, but now she was really interested, because she suddenly had the feeling that no one would ever force this guy Kelly into anything.

“Society!” he cried, and angrily flung up the hand that didn’t hold the drink.

“Society? What do you mean, society?”

He glared at her with brooding eyes. “I mean that society has made no place for me,” he said through clenched teeth. “So I have to carve my own place in this world, no matter who gets in my way.”

She blinked. She hadn’t expected anything like this from Kelly. All she’d ever seen from him so far was petulant shnookdom. This was the other side of the coin and she was finding it a contradictory but compelling combination: a shnook with fire.

And then what he was saying finally connected with her, and she realized that her own attitude was exactly the same as his. No place had been made for her in the world either, and she was determined to carve her own, and it didn’t matter who got in her way.

“I understand, Kelly,” she said. “I know just what you mean.”

He looked surprised. “You do?”

“Yes, I do,” she said fiercely. “You have to fight for what you want in this life.”

“That’s right! You do know, don’t you?” He swigged from his drink, thumped the glass down on a table.

“Of course I know!” she told him. “You don’t get anything in this life that you don’t fight for.”

“That’s for sure.” He grinned at her in savage companionship. “And you know what the only weapon is?”

She did. “Money!” she cried.

“That’s right!” His fists were clenched, his face was flushed. “Money is power!”

“That’s right, Kelly, you’re right!” She was caught up in it completely now, she was clutching at his arm, she’d never felt so totally understood by another human being in her entire life. She’d forgotten all about her belief that Kelly was a shnook, she’d forgotten all about Miss Rushby and the key, she’d forgotten all about Sassi Manoon and the perfect entree into the movies. There was nothing but Kelly, who understood! He understood! “We’ve got to get it any way we can!” she yelled, exultant.

“And then they’ll leave us alone!” Kelly roared. He was gripping her arms, his hands like steel.

“To live our own lives!” she yelled in his face, laughing at the wonder of it, the beauty of it, this meeting of star-crossed atoms.

“Yes!”

“Yes!”

“JIGGER!”

“KELLY!”

They flung themselves into a wild embrace, and only much later did they begin to be gentle.

Sassi came out of the water, removed her bathing cap, and walked across the white sand to where she’d left the blanket. Lying face down on it, she gave herself up to sunlight and ease.

Ease. How long had it been since she’d felt ease? How long since she’d been calm and comfortable? There was always something, there had been always something for years now. When was the last time she’d awakened and been able to say, “I have nothing at all to do today”? Seven years at least.

The image she’d thought of yesterday still pleased her. This was a business deal, in which she was being kept from work until the studio produced a certain number of dollars. A deal like that was the easiest thing in the world to understand, and, in fact, the only other times in recent years she’d been able to relax at all had been when her advisors were holding out for more money. This was simply a variant on contract talks.

But a lovely variant. This time, there weren’t even personal appearances to fill in the gap. No planes to catch, no autographs to sign, no interviews to give, no stills to pose for, no Bennys to bitch at. Lovely.

Her guest room had included a drawerful of bathing suits, two in her size, plus bathing caps. She had the run of the island. The food was simple but plentiful, her time was her own, the ocean was lovely, the sun was magnificent, and at the moment she didn’t care if these particular contract negotiations went on for six months.

Someone sat down near her. Suspecting it was The Weasel again — her private name for Jigger — she kept her eyes shut, pretending to be asleep. The Weasel thought they were in a prison-break movie. She’d come sneaking into Sassi’s room in the middle of last night, waking her up with a lot of numskull plans, the plans she’d been thwarted from unveiling in the bar. Like rowing out to sea in one of the dinghys: “We’d be found in a couple hours. There’s plenty ships out there.” Sure. Or like sneaking around at night and barricading everybody else in their rooms. Or like breaking into the radio room. Or God knows what all. Sassi had tried to explain it to her, telling her, “Honey, they’re not being tough on us now. We’ve got it made. You try some dumb stunt, they’ll lock you in a coal bin.” But The Weasel was insistent, and finally Sassi had had to go under the covers and put her fingers in her ears until she’d gone away.

So was she back now? Someone was there, just off to the right. Sassi, lying on her stomach, kept her eyes closed and her face hidden in the crook of her arm, because if it was The Weasel she didn’t want any more escape plans. No tunnels under the sea to Jamaica, no balloons constructed of bed-sheets, no scuffing HELP in the sand. No.

But it wasn’t The Weasel after all, because finally it was Lee Marvin’s voice that said, “You’re about done on that side, lady. Better turn over.”

“Hello, Frank,” she said, eyes still shut. She rather liked Frank, much in the same way she liked Kama and Sutra. He was an enjoyable pet, even if he did have one or two bad habits.

He did Thomas Mitchell now: “A man can forget everything in these islands. Even himself.”

“No more imitations, Frank,” she said. She opened her eyes — everything was tinged in red — and looked at him, sitting there on a blanket of his own beside her. “I’m really not up to it,” she said.

He shrugged, and looked embarrassed. “Okay,” he said.

“How long do you think we’ll be here?” she asked, both to ease his embarrassment and because she really wanted to know.

“Not long,” he said. “We’re supposed to get the ransom tomorrow. If we do, we’ll leave here and send the authorities a message where to pick you up.”

“What if you don’t?”

Frank looked embarrassed again and shrugged. “I dunno. We’ll have to work it out then, I guess.”

A trace of cold touched Sassi’s spine. “You wouldn’t — do anything, would you?”

“What?” He looked startled, then laughed in confusion. “Heck, no. What do you think we are? I guess we’ll just give them another message. Maybe put you on the radio and tell them you’re alive and well.”

“Sure,” Sassi said, much relieved. “Anything to oblige.” She found herself hoping it would happen that way: no ransom tomorrow, and then another demand, and so on. With any luck she could get a couple weeks out of this. And it could happen that way. If she knew Joshua Solly, and God knew she did, he wouldn’t be in any hurry to cough up a lot of money, not for her or anybody. “How much are you asking?” she wanted to know.

“Four hundred thousand.”

“I get twice that much for a picture,” she said, feeling idiotically that it was an insult to be held for such little ransom.

“Eight-fifty you get,” he said. “We were going to ask that, but we thought it was too much.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to try,” she said.

He shrugged. “We settled for four.”

“Always start high,” she advised him. “You can always settle for less later on. I wish you’d told me before.”

“I didn’t think you’d care,” he said.

She laughed and sat up. “This is a nutty conversation,” she said. “How’d you get into something like this, anyway?”

Frank grinned. “Which story do you want to hear? The sick old mother that needs the operation, or the kid brother in medical school?”

“Okay,” Sassi said. “I deserved that.”

Which made Frank embarrassed again. “It was kind of snotty,” he said. “Actually, I just want the money.”

“What if you get caught?”

“I’d rather not.”

“But what if you do?”

Frank grinned again. “I’d rather not,” he said.

Sassi saw that was the only answer she was going to get, so she lay down again, on her back this time, and said, “If you do, I probably won’t identify you.”

He looked at her in surprise. “Why not?”

“Because you’re a nice guy,” she said, “and prison would probably be bad for your disposition.”

Smiling, he said, “Thanks, then. But I hope the question never comes up.”

“One thing,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Don’t spoil it, you know? Don’t try to kiss me or make out with me or anything like that. Okay?”

It was Billy DeWolfe who answered: “Oh, my dear, I wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

Sassi laughed and shut her eyes. “Don’t let me sleep more than an hour,” she said.

“Right,” said Frank.

Jigger glared at herself in the bathroom mirror. “Jigger Jackson,” she said savagely, “you’re a goddam fool. In the first place, the guy’s a kidnapper, he’ll die on the gallows. In the second place, he’s a nut, he’ll blow himself up some day. And in the third place, Sassi Manoon is the only one around here that can do you any good.” She squinted balefully at her image in the mirror. “So why fall for a creep like Kelly?”

Her image didn’t answer.

She looked away from herself, disgusted, and glared instead at the key in her open palm. The fact that it was the wrong key made it both less and more than she wanted to do. So now what? Eh? Now what?

She and Kelly had stayed out there on the boat all day, Kelly having cut the engine so they could just drift wherever the gentle waves took them. They hadn’t even started for home until long after dark, after the nearly-full moon was already up and gleaming its sweet pale falsehoods on the black ocean. And it wasn’t till then, till they were already on their way back to the island, that she thought again of the key. It was in use just then, of course, but might he have an extra?

The thought saddened her. She was troubled about having to do this, but she was also determined. It didn’t matter about the moonlight or Kelly’s unexpected magnetism or her own feelings, she was out here for a purpose and she was going to stick to that purpose. Too much was at stake, she couldn’t let bright moonlight and stupid emotion spoil things this time. Still, it bothered her.

It bothered her when she went down into the cabin and went through Kelly’s pants, he not being in them at the time, and a part of her really didn’t want to find a key in there. When her fingers did close on a key, her heart sank.

But then she pulled it out and looked at it, and saw a way out of the dilemma after all, because it was a Yale, and attached to it was a small cardboard tag on which someone had long ago written in ink RADIO ROOM.

Radio room. She tucked the key away inside her own clothing and went back out on deck.

And now here she was, an hour later, alone at last in the third-floor bathroom, looking at herself and at the key and feeling very confused and troubled and irritated and upset.

All right. The compromise she’d worked out was a good one. She and Sassi wouldn’t be escaping in the boat, they wouldn’t exactly be escaping at all, but the effect would be the same.

It had come to her in a flash, as she’d stood there on the boat with the radio-room key in her hand. What they would do tonight, they would sneak into the radio room and signal for help. Then she would slip a note under Kelly’s door, knock on the door until she was sure he was awake, and then she and the other two women would hurry away and hide in the cellars. There were hundreds of places to hide down there; it would take days for anybody to find them. And the note would tell Kelly that help was on its way, that they’d used the radio and the kidnappers should escape at once.

That would do it. Kelly wouldn’t be captured, at least not this time. Sassi Manoon would be rescued, and Jigger would still have the credit. If the plan was sour ashes in her mouth, that just showed how stupid she was, that’s all. And if she couldn’t help daydreaming about Kelly some night a year or two from now sneaking in her bedroom window to take her in his arms and whisper how he understood, that just showed she’d seen too many movies.

She looked again at her reflection in the mirror. “So let’s go,” she said, and her reflection nodded, tight-lipped. She left the bathroom and went downstairs to the room Miss Rushby shared with the Major — that was part of the enigma of Miss Rushby — and knocked softly on the door.

Miss Rushby opened almost at once, nodded, touched her finger to her lips, and tiptoed out. “I thought it was you,” she whispered, when she had the door closed behind her. “He’s asleep. Come along.”

They moved silently down the hall and into a sitting room, where Miss Rushby carefully shut the door before switching on the lights. Then she said, “Well? Any success?”

“I got something better than the boat key,” Jigger told her. “I got the key to the radio room.”

Miss Rushby, an anticipatory smile left hanging on her face like Christmas wreaths in February, said, “Eh? You did what?”

Jigger told her the plan all in a rush, sensing from the outset that Miss Rushby wasn’t entirely pleased by the turn of events. But when she was done, Miss Rushby merely nodded in a thoughtful sort of way and said, “May I see the key?”

Jigger handed it over.

Miss Rushby took it, and said, “Thank you, my dear. You may go to bed now.”

“What? What about—?”

“No, dear.” Miss Rushby, smiling sadly, shook her head. “There will be no messages. No rescues. No escapes. I’d thought you would prove useful, but a workman is no better than the tools he uses, as they say. Well, well, I’ll think of something else. Good night, my dear.” And she left the room.

Jigger’s mouth hung open five seconds while her mind rearranged the facts at its disposal — Miss R one of the kidnappers, in league with the Major, using her to help double-cross Kelly and the other two — and then it shut with a snap and she stormed purposefully back up to the third floor to let Kelly know what she’d done and what Miss Rushby and the Major had been planning to do.

He wasn’t there. She went looking for him, getting more and more frantic, and fifteen minutes later she found him in the library on the second floor, listening to Miss Rushby.

Jigger stopped in front of them. “You gave him back the key,” she said.

Miss Rushby smiled her sad smile. “Of course, dear,” she said. “Good night, Kelly.” She got to her feet and left the room.

Jigger said, “Kelly—”

“Never mind,” Kelly said. He was looking at the key in his hand. “A long long time ago,” he said, “I learned something. I forgot it for a while today. Now I remember it again.” He got to his feet. He wouldn’t look at her, she couldn’t see into his eyes.

“Please, Kelly,” she said. “Let me explain.”

He walked out of the room.

Jigger stood there a minute or two longer, but there was nothing to do. She couldn’t run after him, she couldn’t explain, she couldn’t say a word. So she went off to bed instead, where she amazed and infuriated herself by crying herself to sleep.

(4) Smiles and Frowns

Robby loved mornings like this — the sky a cloudless blue, the air soft and warm, the sea calm and sparkling beneath the sun. There’d been another great communal breakfast this morning — though Jigger and Kelly had both been absent this time — and there’d been a feeling of their all being on vacation somehow, at a camp or a lodge, off with a congenial group for a special time separate from everybody’s normal life. And now here he was standing on the deck of Nothing Ventured IV, about to sail out across the beautiful blue and yellow day and come back with armloads of beautiful green. Who could ask for anything more?

Kelly came up on deck now, apparently having spent the entire night playing kalah with Starnap, and Robby said, “You ready?”

“Of course I’m ready,” snapped Kelly. “Don’t I look ready?”

“You don’t have to bite my head off,” Robby said. “I just asked if you were ready.”

“Well, I am.” Kelly’s mouth was curved down at the corners.

“You’re in an awful mood today,” Robby said.

“Is it any of your business?”

Robby shook his head. “No. It’s just that, for a man about to go out in the ocean and pick up four hundred thousand dollars, you don’t act very happy, that’s all. All right, I’m going.”

He went on down to the main cabin, where the Major was sitting at his ease, a gin and tonic in one hand and a plastic-tipped cigar in the other. “I guess we’ll be on our way in a minute,” Robby said.

The Major looked at his watch. “Excellent,” he said.

Robby went over to the bar and made himself a drink. Through the porthole he could see a bit of the beach, see Frank and Sassi Manoon sitting there on a blanket with bathing suits on. He wondered if Frank was making out with Sassi Manoon. Today would be a good time for him to do it, while he was alone on the island with just the women.

The boat abruptly started, with an unnecessarily severe jerk, making Robby slop tonic water. He said something about Kelly under his breath, wiped it up with a bar rag, and went over to sit down opposite the Major, who seemed absorbed in contemplation of his cigar smoke.

Robby cast about for a minute or two, trying to find a topic of conversation, but finally admitted to himself that there was none, that he and the Major were not destined to sit around together and chat. He knew about people like the Major. They still lived in another age, where all the people around them were white, and if a black skin did show up, it was a uniform for a servant. It confused them to have the servant sit down like anybody else. Robby thought sometimes he should feel compassion for people like that, locked into unreality, but he couldn’t quite get that objective. What he felt was irritation. They bugged him.

Speaking of which, he wondered what was the matter with Kelly. Something sure had him in a hell of a mood.

Well. With Kelly carrying on up on deck and the Major being rigidly polite down here, it was going to be a great trip. Wonderful trip.

Robby put his nose in his drink.

Sassi rolled over, stretched, opened her eyes, and said, “You know what?”

Frank, sitting beside her with a cigarette dangling in his mouth, looked away from his study of the blue horizon and said, “No, what?”

“I hope you don’t get it.”

Frank took the cigarette from his mouth. “You hope I don’t get what?”

“The money.”

He grinned. “Sure.”

“No, I mean it.” She sat up. “Can I have a cigarette?”

“Sure.” He lit one from his and gave it to her. “You want to call our bluff, huh?”

“Heck, no,” she said. “I’m just enjoying it here, that’s all.”

Frank smiled experimentally. “Of course you are,” he said.

“Brother,” she said, “you should have my life for a week. It’s like an iceberg: the ten percent you see is all white and sparkly, but the other ninety percent is cold and wet and dark and no fun at all. Sassi Manoon is mostly done with mirrors.”

“I would’ve brought my violin,” Frank said, “but salt water plays hell with the wood.”

She grinned at him and shook her head. “You bastard, you won’t ever let me have my big scene. How can I feel sorry for myself with you around?”

“How can you help but?”

“You’re not so bad,” she said “In fact, you’re pretty good.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but don’t spoil it, you know? No kissing me or making out or anything like that.”

She laughed aloud. She didn’t know when she’d been happier. “Frank,” she said, “I hope they never pay. I hope you have to keep me here forever!”

Quietly, “sprong” said the radio-room door.

Jigger, screwdriver held in both hands, looked up and down the hall. Nobody. Sassi Manoon and her boy friend were out on the beach together, and the Rushby fink was napping in her room down on the second floor. Jigger took a deep breath and stepped into the room.

The door wouldn’t close completely any more, but it was good enough. If she had bad luck and somebody came up to the third floor, they’d hear her anyway, whether the door was closed or not.

She switched on the light and looked at the bank of electronic equipment hulking enigmatically along the opposite wall, staring at her blank-faced with all its dials. “Damn it,” she whispered.

The window was to the right, and faced the sea. She went over and saw Sassi and Frank lying on the blanket, but could no longer see Nothing Ventured IV. It was out there somewhere in all that ocean.

She was not going to cry. She was going to turn on that radio and contact the police, being sure to leave enough time so she could warn Kelly and the others and give them a chance to get away. She had to do at least that much, no matter what.

She thought about movie contracts, the publicity she would get out of this, the chances for stardom, and she tried to ignore how flat and uninteresting it all sounded. It was what she’d wanted all her life, and now it was within her grasp and how stupid to let an emotional hang-up spoil it now. Kelly was lost to her anyway, she might as well get something she wanted out of all this, whether she wanted it or now.

She turned away from the window and sat down in the swivel chair in front of the microphone. There was a switch near her right hand that said On-Off, and it was turned to Off, and she turned it instead to On. The she cleared her throat, leaned close to the mike, and said, “Hello? Hello?”

The two submarine sleds came slicing through the water like flat sharks. Kelly rode one and Robby the other, their feet against the padded boards at the rear of the sleds, their hands on the handlebars. They wore bathing suits, air tanks, rubber gloves, utility belts, and goggles.

They had stopped Nothing Ventured IV a good distance from the drop zone, and from its deck they’d watched the two helicopters appear far to the east, the one veering westward and gradually fading from sight, the other hovering in one place for a moment or two, then circling around and heading south again, its mission obviously done.

The Major had pointed, saying, “That other chap’s the lookout. Up where you can’t see him for the sun.”

“Just like we figured,” Robby’d said.

“We’ll be back soon,” Kelly had said then, surly. He’d spent most of the trip out from the island down with Starnap, playing kalah.

They’d dropped the sleds over the side, jumped over after them, started them, and headed north, keeping eight to ten feet below the surface, skimming along through a dark green-blue world in which an occasional fish looked at them pop-eyed as they passed, then itself darted away into the even darker depths below.

They were both good at the sleds now, having practiced with them around Montego Bay every chance they’d gotten in the last week. It had originally been Frank and Robby who were supposed to operate the sleds, but Frank turned out to have something weird wrong with his sense of balance or something. Whatever it was, it made him invariably steer the sled on a downward slant, and he had to be pulled to the surface every time. In shallow water this merely meant he stirred up mud when he hit bottom, but out in the deep ocean it would be goodbye, Frank. So Kelly had taken over.

They had an hour of air in the two tanks on their backs. The drop was nearly six miles from where they’d left the boat, and it took the best part of half an hour to get there. But when they did arrive, it was a snap. Nothing to it. Kelly held both sleds while Robby used his knife to cut through the straps holding the package and the marker buoy together. They tied the package to Robby’s sled, and then turned and headed back again, two flat shadow creatures flying through a blue-green world with an orange roof.

And now, ahead, there was the flashlight suspended in the water below Nothing Ventured IV turning this way and that with the movement of the water, guiding them home.

They surfaced beside the boat, the Major threw a line over to them, and they climbed aboard, Robby going first, towing his sled up after him.

When Kelly and the other sled were aboard, they untied the dripping package and carried it down into the main cabin, where the Major carefully cut it open.

Green.

They stood looking at it in awed respect, and gradually all three of them began to smile. Even Kelly seemed to have forgotten his bad mood for the moment.

The Major broke the silence. “Gentlemen,” he said, “fortune has smiled upon us.”

“And now,” Robby said, “we smile upon our fortune.”

“Let’s get back,” said Kelly.

(5) Dos Equis

Miss Rushby checked the Webley, found it in proper working order, fully loaded and safely on safety. She then checked her slip, found it wasn’t showing, and left the bedroom.

She’d hoped all three of them would be on the beach, but the Jigger girl was missing. Too bad, but not vital. Frank was the important one to worry about.

Actually, she was sorry about what she’d had to do to Jigger, and she was just as pleased not to have to meet the girl’s eyes directly just now, when she would be having so much else to concentrate on.

Her sensible shoes really weren’t very sensible when it came to walking on sand, and she traveled across it in long slow strides as though in imitation of someone walking through waist-deep water. She stopped where Frank and Sassi were sitting together on a blanket, and said, “Good afternoon.”

Frank looked around. “Hi, Miss R.”

“Hello, Frank.” Miss Rushby showed him the Webley. “Hands up,” she said.

“Gently,” said the Major. “We don’t want to drop that in the ocean.”

“We know,” said Robby, with only a trace of apparent sarcasm. He was in the process of handing the bulky package of money over the side to Kelly, who was standing in the dinghy. The Major, also in the dinghy, was holding it steady against the side of Nothing Ventured IV.

Kelly got the package and lowered it gently into the dinghy, then helped his friend over the side and in. “I’ll row,” Robby said. No one contradicted him, so he rowed. Kelly sat in the prow, twisted around to face the shore, and the Major sat in the stern, smiling benignly on his two partners.

Adelaide was waiting on shore, the signal that everything was all right. The Major had a strong sudden impulse to smile broadly and wave his arms at her, but that would be undignified and childish, so he contented himself with a small smile and a small nod of the head, neither of which she could see.

The dinghy pulsed toward shore, Robby rowing with practiced ease. The shore itself was in shadow now, the sun low enough to be hidden behind the bulk of the house and the island, but out here on the water it still peeked over the manor roof, glaring suspiciously into the Major’s eyes and making him squint.

Robby timed it nicely, giving one last strong heave on the oars just in conjunction with a long rolling wave that carried them well inshore and receded with the first third of the boat beached on nearly dry sand.

“We’re here,” said Kelly, with satisfaction, and Robby shipped the oars.

The Major withdrew his Walther automatic and pointed it at Robby. “On your feet, gentlemen,” he said. He could see Adelaide, onshore, pointing her Webley at Kelly.

Kelly, outraged, cried, “What’s the meaning of this?”

“The meaning,” the Major told him, with a smile of crocodile, sadness, “is that our partnership is most regrettably at an end.”

Jigger didn’t believe it at first, when she saw the guns come out. She was watching from the third-floor window of the radio room, and her plan had been to make another attempt to talk to Kelly as soon as he was away from the others, but now she didn’t know what to do. She watched the Major and Miss Rushby march Kelly and Robby away at gunpoint — come to think of it, Frank and Sassi didn’t seem to be around any more either — and for just a minute everything seemed hopelessly lost.

But then she saw the package in the dinghy. The Major had left it there, obviously intending to come right back with Miss Rushby after Kelly and Robby had been locked away, when he and Miss Rushby would get into the dinghy, row out to their own boat, and be long gone with the boodle when the fuzz got here.

Oh, yeah?

Jigger got moving.

There were stairs and there were stairs, and it seemed to Jigger she could count on characters like the Major and Miss Rushby being too snooty to use the servants’ stairs at the back of the house. And she was right. She flew down the back stairs like the slender ghost of a wronged scullery maid, hit the beach running, made a U-turn at the dinghy with only enough slackening of pace to grab the plastic-covered package up in both arms, and tore back into the house at a dead run.

She slid to a stop in the deserted main entrance hall. The primary staircase led up from here, and most of the house connected to this hall one way or another. Jigger put her head and bellowed, “I called the cops from the radio room!” She had good projection, she’d worked on that during her one season as an apprentice in a summer stock theater in Pennsylvania. Wherever they were in the house, the Major and Miss Rushby had heard her.

Jigger listened to the echoes die away, nodded in satisfaction, and took off for the cellars.

The Major had just locked the door behind Robby and Kelly — he’d put them next door to the other two — when he heard the shout. He stopped where he was, listening, heard nothing more, and turned to Adelaide. “That girl?”

Adelaide was wide-eyed, as so he supposed was he. “Could she have?” she asked.

“We must find out,” said the Major.

He was faster than Adelaide, of course, and she hadn’t finished climbing the stairs to the third floor when he was already at the broken door of the radio room, looking in and seeing the rig still on and lit. “Turn around, my dear,” he called. “It’s all true.”

He caught up with her as she made the turn at the second floor. They were both a bit out of breath, but they kept going. “Do you think,” Adelaide said, hurrying as best she could, “we can make it?”

“We can only try, my dear.” The Major held her elbow on the descent, not to hurry but to help.

“At least,” she said, as they reached the first floor at last and headed for the door, “we have the money.”

“Thank heaven,” said the Major.

Then they got to the dinghy, and they didn’t have the money after all. “And to think,” Adelaide said angrily, “I was actually feeling sorry for that girl!”

“A nasty little baggage,” the Major said. “I never liked her, never.”

Adelaide wrung her hands. “What shall we do?”

The Major turned to glare at the house. Faces looked back from second-story windows, but none of them was Jigger. Twenty-seven rooms. Three basements. Plus an entire jungle out back.

“We’ll never find her,” the Major said. “Not in time.”

“We’ll have to go without?”

“I’m afraid so, my dear.”

He helped her into the dinghy, pushed it into the water, wetting his shoes and trouser legs, then climbed in himself and began to row.

“Poor Percy,” said Adelaide.

(6) Love

Kelly stood at the window watching Redoubtable sail out of the tiny cove and away. Evening was lengthening toward the night, the beach looked deserted, Nothing Ventured IV looked abandoned as it bobbed down there in the water, the future looked grim. The Major and Miss Rushby had gotten away with the money, Jigger had called the police, and the whole plan had gone up the flue.

Kelly heard somebody kick the door open behind him, but he didn’t turn around till he heard Frank call his name: “Kelly? Time for us to get out of here, buddy.”

Kelly nodded, turned away from the disappearing Redoubtable, and walked wearily across the room. “I know.”

Robby said, “Next time,” but then let it go at that.

Kelly just shrugged. Later on, he knew, he’d go talk things over with Starnap and maybe they’d think of something else to do, but at the moment it all seemed hopeless. They’d exposed their faces and their real names, they’d used up their cash reserve, and now they had nothing to show for it and no way to organize themselves to start all over again.

Sassi came to the doorway, looking in at them, seeming almost as troubled as they were, saying, “You boys better get going.”

Robby said, “I hate it that the Major got the money.”

Frank said, “He didn’t. We watched Jigger go out and grab it while you guys were being marched up here.”

Kelly lifted his head, feeling sudden hope. “They didn’t get the money? It’s still on the island?”

“Forget it,” Frank told him. “You’d never find it before the cops got here.”

“But... Jigger...”

Frank shook his head in disgust. “Not Jigger,” he said. “She wasn’t saving that dough for us. Don’t you know what she’s up to?”

It was a question Kelly had already been gnawing on for quite a while without finding any satisfactory answer. “No,” he said.

“A movie contract,” Frank told him. “She figures to parlay this caper into an in at the studio. Isn’t that right, Sassi?”

“It’ll work, too,” Sassi said. “The publicity alone would help a lot, but besides that, she’s saved the studio’s money. And if I put in a word for her too—” She shrugged.

Frank said, “You? Why?”

“She’ll make a deal with me,” Sassi said. “We’ll both get your descriptions wrong.”

“It’s almost isn’t worth it,” Frank said.

“It’s worth it to me,” said Robby. “What about you, Kelly?”

Kelly shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Let’s just get out of here.”

“Right.”

They left the room and started for the stairs and Jigger popped into sight at the end of the hall. Coming briskly toward them, she said, “Kelly, I want to talk to you.”

“Hello, sweetheart,” said Frank.

Jigger stopped in front of them, looking at Kelly. “Kelly? Will you listen to me?”

Kelly didn’t want to. All he wanted was to get back on his ship and go away from here somewhere and let this day come to an end and maybe play some kalah with Starnap and then tomorrow possibly start thinking again. He said, wearily, “We don’t have the time,” and kept walking toward the stairs.

Jigger folded her arms and stepped to one side, letting him by. “If that’s the way you want it,” she said.

They all walked by her, but Kelly got only as far as the head of the stairs. He stopped there and looked back at Jigger, the others all stopping, too, and looking at him in confusion. Jigger was still standing there, arms folded, a tough expression on her face. What did she want to talk to him about? He said, “Where’s the money?”

“Will you listen to me?”

What was this going to be? Some sort of self-justification. He shrugged and said, “Go ahead and talk.”

“In private,” she said, and nodded her head at the nearest doorway. “In there.”

Frank said, “Kelly, we don’t have much time.”

Kelly had no idea why he wanted to hear what Jigger had to say — what could she have to say? — but for some reason it seemed important to listen. He said to the others, “Go on down, I’ll be a minute.”

Frank said, “Kelly—”

“Come on Frank,” Robby said. To Kelly he said, “Try not to take too long.”

“I won’t.”

Frank and Robby and Sassi went downstairs, and Kelly followed Jigger into the room. As soon as they were inside he said, “Where’s the money?”

“In the cellar,” she said. “Down the first flight of stairs, behind the third door on the left.”

“Fine,” said Kelly, and left the room. He went to the head of the stairs and called, “Frank!”

“What?”

“Look in the cellar, first flight of stairs, third door on the left.”

“Right.”

He looked back at the doorway and Jigger was standing there. He said, “I guess I don’t have to listen to anything else, do I?”

“You don’t have to,” Jigger said.

“Right,” said Kelly, and started down the stairs. He went half a flight, expecting her to call him back, and when she didn’t, he turned around and went back up and said, “Why’d you tell me where it was?”

“Because you asked me.”

Kelly thumped his fist on the banister. “Why did you have to take that key?”

“Because I was a klutz. I figured to call the cops and then warn you so you could get away before they got here. So I could have my cake and eat it too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s supposed to mean I wanted a movie contract and I wanted you, and I was trying to figure out how to get both.”

“You wanted me,” Kelly said sarcastically, trying to convince himself she was lying and he didn’t care.

“Yes,” she said. “I still do. That’s why I didn’t call the cops after all.”

From downstairs Frank’s voice roared. “Got it!”

Kelly blinked, looking in two directions at once. “What? You didn’t call?”

“Hear me, Kelly?”

“I hear you, I hear you!”

“I didn’t call,” Jigger said. “When I got down to it, actually sitting there in that radio room, I had to make up my mind which I wanted more. You, or the movies.” She shrugged. “So I made my choice.”

“Kelly, let’s go!”

Kelly looked down the stairs, then back at Jigger. “You saved our bacon,” he said.

“Sure,” she said.

He hesitated, looking at her, afraid to take the plunge.

Feet pounded up the stairs, and Robby panted into view. Staring up at them, he gasped, “Kelly! They’re here! The cops are here!”

(7) Virtue Triumphant

Kelly stared at Jigger, and her face drained of color. “I didn’t,” she said. “Kelly, I didn’t. I swear, I swear I didn’t.”

He kept staring at her, and then slowly he nodded. “All right,” he said.

She began to smile. “Thank you, Kelly.”

Robby said, “Kelly?”

“Coming.”

They all raced downstairs. Frank was standing by a window there, pointing his thumb upward. “In the sky,” he said. “In the sky.”

Kelly stuck his head out the window and there it was, a lone helicopter high in the sky, hovering like an insect from another planet. He pulled his head back in and said, “We’ve got to do something.”

Robby said, “We can’t outrun a helicopter.”

“I know, I know.”

Sassi said, “He isn’t landing, he’s just staying up there.”

“Waiting for reinforcements,” Kelly said. “They must have a lot of planes out, searching this whole area.” He shook his head. “I have to talk to Starnap,” he said, and before anyone else could say anything, he ran out of the house and down the beach toward the dinghy.

He felt very slow and very visible. He didn’t look up, but he could feel the helicopter on the top of his head, like a magnifying glass focusing the sun’s rays.

He sculled the dinghy briskly through the calm water to Nothing Ventured IV, clambered aboard, and hurried down the steps and into the forward cabin, where he switched on the light and Starnap’s control panel.

It took him two minutes to feed the problem into Starnap and less than one minute to get the answer. He read it, frowned, asked another question, looked at the answer, smiled, got to his feet, shut everything off, and raced back up the stairs, over the side, and into the dinghy. He rowed like mad for shore and dashed across the sand and into the house. He burst in, breathless from exertion, and just stood there a few seconds gasping while the others all milled around him asking him what did Starnap say, what were they supposed to do, was there any hope at all.

Kelly took a deep breath. “Starnap,” he panted, “Starnap — says — call — the police!”

“Well,” the policeman with the mustache said to Kelly, “how does it feel to be a hero?”

“We didn’t do anything,” Kelly said modestly. “The kidnappers were already gone when we got here. They got the money and left.”

They were all sitting in the main living room, Kelly and Jigger on one sofa, Frank and Robby and Sassi on another, three policemen in plainclothes on a third. The manor was full of policemen, uniformed and non, American and Jamaican and British. The sky and the beach were full of helicopters, the cove was full of boats. The booty was stashed aboard Nothing Ventured IV, and they were all heroes.

The policeman with the mustache took time out to light a pipe, then said, “As I understand it, you four were just out on a pleasure cruise, is that it? You, these two gentlemen, and this young lady.”

“My fiancée,” Kelly said, taking Jigger’s hand.

“Congratulations. And you stumbled across this island, is that how it happened?”

“The place looked interesting,” Kelly said. “We didn’t think there was anybody here at all until we came into the cove and Miss Manoon waved to us.”

The policeman smiled around his pipe and turned to Sassi. “That must have been quite a moment for you, I expect, Miss Manoon,” he said.

“It certainly was,” Sassi said. “Up till then, I didn’t even know if I was going to be alive now.”

“This heavy-set man with the German accent,” the policeman said, “the one you say seemed to be the ringleader. He threatened your life?”

“He kept — insinuating,” Sassi said. She shivered. “I never knew what he was going to do. Any of them.”

“But you heard none of them referred to as Baby Face Preble?”

Sassi frowned. “Baby Face Preble? No. I couldn’t imagine any of them being called Baby Face anything.”

“Mm.” The policeman pulled on his pipe, then said, as though reluctantly, “You didn’t see anything of a rug, did you? A Persian carpet.”

“A rug? Where?”

One of the other policemen said, “It’s an entirely different case, Miss Manoon, don’t worry your head about it.” He turned to the first policeman and said, “I told you it was a different case.”

“Then why was the truck stolen?” demanded the first policeman. “What happened to the rug? What about the man in the projection booth, described as looking very much like Baby Face Preble?”

“A different case,” the other policeman insisted. “An entirely different case, as I’ve maintained all along.” He turned to Sassi, saying, “There’s been some controversy over a different set of criminals active the same day you were kidnapped. There are those, like my friend here, who insisted the two gangs were both involved in the same affair.”

“Then what were the carpet thieves after?” demanded the first policeman.

The second policeman looked condescendingly at him. “A carpet, I should think.”

The first policeman puffed out a lot of pipe smoke.

Kelly said, “It’s getting late, it’s after ten o’clock. I have to get my fiancée home.”

The second policeman said, “There’ll be reporters on their way, you know. Photographers. Wouldn’t you like to stay and talk to them?”

“No,” said Kelly. He floundered for a second, then said, “My parents, uh, they don’t know anything about my, uh, my fiancée.”

“Ah,” said the policeman.

“I’d rather they didn’t know,” Kelly said. “Until the marriage.”

“Of course,” said the policeman. “You’d like us to downplay your part in the affair.”

Kelly nodded. “Yes,” he said.

“I think that could be arranged,” the policeman said. He looked at the other two. “Don’t you think so?”

Adjusting their ties, smoothing their hair, they both said they thought so.

Kelly got to his feet, holding Jigger’s hand, and she stood beside him. “Well,” he said. “I guess we’ll be off, then. Goodbye, Miss Manoon. It was certainly a pleasure to meet you.”

Sassi smiled, no more than the situation warranted, and said, “You were lifesavers, you and your friends.”

Frank and Robby were on their feet now, looking modest and pleased. Frank said, “Shucks, ma’am, we didn’t do anything.”

“I won’t forget what you’ve all done for me,” Sassi said.

Everybody shook hands all around, and then Kelly and Jigger and Frank and Robby left, walking by helicopter light down to the dinghy, rowing out to Nothing Ventured IV, driving the ship slowly out of the cove and out to sea.

Sassi Manoon stood at the front window, watching the lights of the small ship disappear. One of the policemen stood beside her, and after a moment he said, “You know, Miss Manoon, it’s young people like that give me hope for the future.”

“Me, too,” said Sassi Manoon.