The coffee was black, strong and sweet. Bon Chance sipped it slowly, savouring every drop, feeling its warmth seep into him. Everything was an effort, even the simple act of drawing breath. He scarcely noticed as Sarah collected the discarded towels; she brought his dressing gown and draped it around his shoulders to add a layer of warmth to the silk against his skin.
"Louie?" she questioned doubtfully. He turned his head and found her a smile, a distant, distracted smile that turned her heart over. She wanted to tell him she was sorry, but the words seemed to stick in her throat.
"Talk to me Sarah," he requested, apparently unaware of her inner turmoil. "Convince me I am still here."
"I'm not sure you are." The jest was forced, the smile assumed, but at least it was better than the tears that were threatening to escape.
"If I am not here," he considered thoughtfully, "I wonder where I am?"
"You look as though you're miles away," Cutter grinned, reappearing around the dividing screen and buttoning his dry shirt. Jack barked twice in ready agreement and Louie looked down at him in mild surprise.
"It is that obvious?" He looked down at his empty coffee cup and frowned slightly, as though he expected to see something else. "What time is it?"
The sudden change of subject threw most of his audience. While Jake, Sarah, and Corky puzzled at the question, Gushie drew out his pocket watch and examined it.
"Half past one," he announced. "Guess I'd better go and close up downstairs."
"What's happening down there?" Cutter poured himself another cup of coffee, throwing a meaningful glance at Sarah as he did so. She frowned in brief incomprehension, then, realising what he meant, retrieved the empty cup from Bon Chance's unresisting grip and passed it over to be refilled.
"Well - " Gushie turned his chair in the narrow space with the ease of practice. "There's one gendarme guarding the body, there's another guarding Derwell, and the customers are busy discussing how we haven't had a decent murder for quite a while." He grimaced at the thought, pausing on his way to the door to favour his employer with a worried look. "They all know that Derwell killed her. This business doesn't make any sense."
"You can say that again," Jake muttered wryly between one gulp of coffee and the next. "Okay Gushie - send 'em packing. There'll be a lot more to gossip about in the morning."
"More?" Sarah enquired suspiciously as the door closed behind the departing figure. "What do you mean, more?"
"Well," the pilot considered, walking across the room to recover his cap from where he'd thrown it earlier. "There will be the matter of how someone found the Magistrate collapsed in his room first thing tomorrow morning, and how he's in a coma and there doesn't seem to be anything anyone can do ..."
"Jake," Louie remarked mildly, "I trust this is some scheme or other, because if there is something you know that I don't ..."
"Its perfectly simple." Cutter perched himself on the corner of the bed, turning his cap in his hands as he considered his plan. "Yvette Carlin was murdered tonight - not once, but twice over. We've got one murderer locked away downstairs awaiting the hand of justice. Its the other one I'm worried about. The one who, right now, is probably thinking how they got away with it."
"I get it!" Corky interjected, then frowned. "You mean Derwell didn't put the pills in the wine?"
"Why shoot someone when you've already poisoned them? No - someone else came very close to murder tonight, and we have to find out who."
"Very commendable." Bon Chance's voice was a sigh of effort. The coffee had ceased to have any taste, and the dialogue around him was fading in and out with disconcerting irregularity.
"So," Jake ploughed on. "We need time to investigate. Time we won't have if Derwell and all our suspects get dragged off to Tagataya for a trial. The way I figure it, our murderer will be feeling pretty secure just now. He won't know that anyone realises what he's done, and he won't expect us to get suspicious because someone else has disposed of his victim for him. I want to rock that sense of security without giving anything away. What do you think he might do if he realised someone else drank that lethal cocktail?"
"Panic?" Corky suggested.
"Right." The American grinned at his assembled audience. "We play this carefully - drop a few worried hints about how we all thought Louie was just drunk, and suggest all sorts of reasons for his indisposition - except the real one of course - and with any luck we'll find one would-be murderer trying to get rid of the evidence as fast as he possibly can."
"What makes you think it was a 'he'?" Sarah asked in the ensuing silence.
Jake frowned at her. "Oh, come on, Sarah." he said. "Does it matter?"
"It might," she answered tartly. "I suppose you don't think a woman would be capable of planning cold blooded murder. Well let me tell you, Jake Cutter, I'd put my money on a woman being behind this. Someone who resented Mademoiselle Carlin's success."
Blue eyes favoured her with patient humour, a look that made her blood boil. "Jealousy can be a very powerful motive," she continued icily.
"Yeah," Cutter agreed. "That was why Derwell killed her. The only woman with any opportunity would be Miss Wentworth - and without Yvette Carlin she's out of a job. Besides - why would she draw our attention to the sleeping tablets if she was the one who put them in the bottle?"
The singer was standing by the low table which supported the coffee pot; the pilot sat on the corner of the bed, long legs stretched out in front of him. Beside him, unnoticed in the sudden flare of disagreement, Bon Chance sank his head into a shaking hand. The world had started to spin around him again. The mutter of potential argument seemed a distant distraction of hammering sound, one which served as a counterpoint to the slow pulse of his heart.
"Perhaps she thought she could make it look like suicide," Sarah was suggesting. "Then, when she realised her victim had left the room again she made a point of mentioning the pills so we would know about them."
"I don't get it." Corky shook his head at the problem. "I like Miss Wentworth. She wouldn't kill anyone."
"Of course she wouldn't, Corky." Cutter's voice was sharp. "And Sarah knows it. Or she should," he added, his face mirroring his disapproval.
"I didn't suggest Miss Wentworth did it," she retorted. "You did."
It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. The world was a spiral of diminishing sensation, draining down through limbs made of lead and ice water. It wasn't sleep that threatened to engulf him; it was absence. Absence of light, of sound and senses. He fought for a hold on tangibility; the darkness stroked it away with a gentle hand. Her hand. The warmth of a lover's touch, the soft brush of her breath on his skin. She had been so vital and alive, yielding curves and passionate strength. They argued as if she were nothing, an object to be murdered dispassionately, a nonentity whose death had cancelled every moment of her life. But she had died in his arms, a warm weight of flesh and blood that he had shared and savoured without regret. The darkness had taken her, just as it wanted him ...
"LOUIE!"
Shock dragged him back from the edge, shock at the fear in a friend's voice, at the bruising panic which had seized his shoulders; shock too at the ease with which he had been about to give up his hard fought hold on life.
"Jake," he murmured in distant protest. "That hurt."
Cutter gathered his charge into a brotherly hug, an emotional expression of the feelings that threatened to tear him apart. "I'm sorry," he muttered inconsequentially. "I'm sorry, Louie. I really am."
The apology hurt more than the intensity of the man's grip: it was given to excuse, not the savage contact that was a reassurance of life, but the moment of inattention that had made it necessary. Bon Chance rested his spinning head on the American's shoulder and fought to regain his equilibrium. In normal circumstances the matter of their friendship was an unspoken understanding, an assumption of mutual comprehension that required little expression. The Frenchman was a deeply private individual, and he committed himself to others with reluctance; he had many acquaintances, and few friends, the inevitable result of a memory of how friendship had once betrayed him. But he trusted this man as he had trusted few others in his life, not least because of the American's sense of integrity. The raw emotion in the muttered apology was like a knife in his heart and he could find no words to answer it.
"Louie?" Sarah's voice, from the other side of him, strained and fearful. That at least he could cope with. He wrapped his hand over hers where it rested on his arm, and found her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. There had been the suspicion of choked back tears in her voice, but she found a brave face and returned the smile with one of her own.
"You had us a little worried there," she announced, trying to make light of the incident.
He laughed softly, acknowledging the underlying worry in her eyes. Sarah too. It was a sobering discovery, the depths of his friends' concern, and it gave him strength he needed and had not found within himself. "You should try it from my side," he muttered, straightening up with an effort and grinning wryly at Corky, who was staring at the three of them with wide eyed alarm.
"No thanks," Cutter answered, regarding his patient with affection and relief. "Look, Louie, how long are we going to have to keep you awake? I'm not sure I can cope with this all night."
That was funny and Bon Chance leant back into his friend's arm shaking with laughter. It was mistake, because the effort left him dizzier than ever.
"You are not sure ...?" He sobered with difficulty, putting a reluctant mind to the problem. It was bad enough that his body seemed to lack the strength to obey him. That his mind refused to concentrate as well was just too much. "Two, maybe three hours," he decided at last. "Long enough for my system to start to assimilate the drug. Then - then you can leave me to sleep for as long as you like. Provided I don't stop breathing," he added thoughtfully, smiling at Sarah's expression, "I should survive."
"Don't talk like that," she cried. "Of course you'll survive."
"You'd better," Cutter announced decidedly. "Or I will be looking for a murderer. Okay - couple of hours." He smiled with determination. "We'll manage that. Then," he emphasised, "we take turns watching you. Just to be sure. Corky," he requested brightly, "pull up a chair. Its gonna be a long night ..."
Morning was a glimmer of orange-gold sunshine piercing through half closed shutters. It sent a shaft of light deep into the seclusion of the quiet room, and Cutter watched its leading edge creep slowly across the polished floor. It moved with measured stateliness, released by the first fingers of dawn and paced by the insistent ticking of the murmured clock. He watched it because, in the hollowness of early morning, he had no desire for more intellectual distractions. It held his eyes and his attention while his mind unravelled tangled skeins of thought, searching for the knot of event and motive that prevented him from weaving the whole into a recognisable picture.
Sleep was always something I had taken for granted, a state I welcomed when tired, cursed when occasion prevented me from enjoying it. I had never understood why some cultures regarded it as a 'little death'. Until now. The line between sleep and that darker state had suddenly been revealed as the tentative barrier it really is. And it had frightened me.
Idly he examined the watch on his wrist, habit taking precedence over the slow pace of the bedroom clock. The two time pieces shared a common agreement, just as they had five minutes before. He sighed, and leant back into the chair, shifting numbed flesh into a semblance of comfort and casting an envious glance at a somnolent Jack as he did so. His one-eyed dog lay stretched on the rug at his feet, nose nestled between his paws and his back leg twitching slightly as though he dreamed of rabbits.
Cutter let his gaze linger on the sight for a moment, the beginnings of a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth. Then he lifted his eyes, and the smile faded as the reason for his self imposed discomfort became the object of his attention.
They had talked into the early hours, talked until Corky was a droop of weariness in the bedside chair and Sarah a coffee drugged zombie, giggling at inconsequences in the conversation. Eventually Jake had conceded the defeat he had dreaded, and sent Corky to see Sarah safely to her room. Too tired to protest she had gone, leaving Gushie to clear the coffee cups and Cutter to consider his remaining problems.
Bon Chance had demonstrated a self discipline that was quite remarkable in the circumstances. The effort he had been required to make had been evident in every word, every gesture, and his conversation had developed a disconcerting habit of wandering from the point; but he had not succumbed to the lure of sleep again, nor had he raised a single complaint about how he was feeling. It hadn't been easy; conversation had occasionally flagged and Cutter had had to studiously avoid the temptation to draw the normally reticent Frenchman into personal revelations that he would later regret. Somehow they had made it through three long hours of enforced small talk; a process undeniably helped by the fact that at some point Bon Chance had uncovered a devilish streak in himself that emerged as a sideways attempt to make Sarah blush. She had been shocked at the sudden compliment he had paid her - the sort of compliment that only the French could think of; shocked and then embarrassed. But she hadn't blushed; she'd merely sat tongue-tied for several minutes, trying to work out if he'd really meant it or not. By the time she came back into the conversation it had become more than a little risque. She coped with the discussion on Eastern art, just. She'd been indignantly outraged at Gushie's joke (which Louie had found very funny and Jake had had to make a mental note to explain to Corky afterwards), and she'd finally reddened at the Frenchman's thoughts on how a woman's nationality affected her attitude towards life. It had taken her several minutes to realise he was talking about a very intimate 'attitude', and, after realising it, she had gone a very interesting shade of scarlet. Fortunately, she also realised it had been a deliberate tease; and all of them had had to laugh when she pointed out that Corky had gone just as red as she had. He, of course, immediately went an even deeper crimson and stayed out of the conversation for a good ten minutes or so. Quickly recognising the need for safer topics, Jake had hastily started reminiscing about past customers of the Monkey Bar. That had lasted well enough, until the conversation flagged that final time and he had reluctantly ordered Sarah to bed.
They had looked at each other then, the American and the Frenchman, sharing a common desire for sleep, sharing too the fear that went with it. Then Bon Chance had smiled. It was a warm and thoughtful smile. It sat well on the face of a man who had known the face of death more intimately than most who had lived to tell the tale. It said many things. One of them was thanks. Another could have been goodbye.
Then he had stretched, and yawned, and laughed, and let go. The arms of Morpheus accepted his surrender and he never knew how a pensive Cutter had drawn the top sheet over him, allowing himself the briefest of smiles at the slide of satin between his fingers.
Asleep, Bon Chance looked oddly vulnerable. Robbed of its normally expressive animation his face was drawn and pale. Cutter shifted slowly in his chair, easing tired limbs and taking some comfort in the sound of the older man's breathing: slow and steady, a barely audible whisper under the insistent ticking of the clock. The remnants of the poison in his system had wrapped the Frenchman in an unnatural depth of sleep, a deep and seemingly dreamless slumber in which he barely stirred. That slow and even breathing had been his companion's only reassurance through the remaining hours of the night. Now that early morning penetrated the room the light revealed deep lines of exhaustion on the sleeper's face.
Cutter had begun to drift back into a half-aware, half dozing state, when a knock on the door threw him fully awake. Jack sat up, his one eye glittering in the shadows, and followed his master's heels as he softly strode over to discover the identity of his visitor.
Gushie wheeled in, a questioning look on his face, and Jake closed the door behind him, risking a quick glance along the sun touched balcony. There was no sign of life on Boragora, other than the stir of early birds and a lone dog rooting at the quayside.
"I thought you might want to snatch some sleep before everyone else starts to stir." Gushie's voice was hushed, his eyes drawn to the back of the room and the sleeper concealed there.
"Yeah." Cutter leant against the wall and eyed the man with sympathy. "Guess I might, at that. You're up with the sun - you make a habit of it?"
"I don't sleep much. Not so much of me to rest."
From another man that might have been self pitying, even bitter. But Gushie made it a gentle joke, an acceptance of a situation that had so many things for him to be thankful for. Cutter laughed softly, jerked his head towards the bed. "He'll sleep the day, I guess. But keep an eye on him, will ya? I'll send Sarah up for a spell after breakfast so you can get some work done. He'll not thank us if the guests aren't looked after."
"You can say that again. Jake - "
"Mmm?"
The smaller man hesitated, looking down at the floor. "I - suppose he will wake up, won't he?"
"Yup. Probably with a sore head and vowing to give up wine and women for at least - three days."
Gushie laughed at that, sobered almost immediately. "I couldn't sleep," he admitted. "I was scared, Jake."
Cutter followed the look, nodded slowly. "Me too. Look - we've got to get this story straight. You came up early to wake him, because you knew he'd want to tackle the murder straight away. Only you couldn't wake him. You called me, I called Sarah, or I will, as soon as I've had a good hour to get my head clear. Then I try to go to Tagataya, but the Goose won't start ..."
"She won't?"
"Nah - Corky said he'd run some watered oil through the filter pump when he gases up. It'll take him all day to clean it out again. So, we all sit around, looking worried, wondering what the matter might be, and our would-be murderer puts two and two together - and Jack here lets me know the moment anyone so much as sets foot within an inch of Yvette Carlin's door. If we don't scare him up by midday Gushie, we'll never get him. I just hope this works."
"You an me both. Jake - what kind of a guy does a thing like that?"
"I don't know. I don't even know why. I mean - it was hardly going to look like suicide, was it? Unless ..." a piece of the puzzled clicked quietly into place at the back of Cutter's tired mind. "Oh boy," he said. "Gushie - I know Derwell was really trying to kill her last night. I've got this feeling that no one else was either."
"How do you mean?"
"Okay." The pilot ran a hand through his hair to help the thoughts tumble out of his overworked mind. "Picture the scenario. Derwell gets jealous - takes a few warning potshots at his unfaithful mistress, who, overcome with remorse at driving him to such extremes, decides to end it all there and then."
Gushie frowned. "But she wasn't his mistress, was she?"
"I don't think so. But then, he didn't miss the way he intended to either. Just like she wasn't supposed to drink the wine."
"Uh?"
"Oh, come on Gushie. Its pure Hollywood. Big star, tragic story, lots of publicity! Who's going to care how accurate the thing is? The fan magazines would get months out of a tale like that. So would the picture. Everyone gets rich, no one hurt, happy ending. Except ..."
"Except Yvette had company after dinner."
"Uh-huh. And Derwell isn't the great white hunter he thinks he is. I wonder how long he waited in the bushes until the two of them came downstairs? Long enough to see proof of what he suspected, perhaps. Certainly long enough to finish that bottle of whisky. I guess Yvette didn't know she was supposed to be following a script."
"It's a great theory, Jake, but whose name are you going to put on the screenplay?"
Cutter shrugged. "I'm not sure, Gushie. Right now I'm improvising this as I go along. Let's hope the murderer turns up in the third reel."
The man in the wheelchair smiled in the dimness. "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?"
"What?"
"Oh, nothing Jake. Just - you kinda reminded me of someone Louie introduced me to once."
Cutter favoured his companion with a puzzled look and Gushie winked at him before he wheeled his way further into the room to take up his vigil. The pilot stared after him for a moment, then shrugged, and slipped out onto the verandah in search of much needed sleep.
J.K. Kopanski was not a patient man. He said as much for the fifteenth time that morning and his companions all nodded sagely and went back to their breakfasts. Miss Wentworth's eyes were red with crying, and she groped at her handkerchief as she sipped her coffee. John Winter sighed a martyr's sigh as she sniffed emotionally at Kopanski's speech. He'd already heard it more times that morning than he cared to think about.
"J.K," he growled, through clenched teeth. "No one's covering anything up for God's sake! You can't speak to the Magistrate because he's ill. They told you that already! Look," he insisted, as the Polish director stared at him with mild annoyance, "these people don't give a damn about us. Okay, so Yvette is dead. They all know who killed her. One of us. We brought her here; we got rid of her. That's going to have about as much impact on their lives as - as the name of the man who's going to win the next presidency. Their concern has a lot more to do with the fact that the man who runs this crazy piece of nowhere - you know, the guy who owns this hotel? He's sick. The way I figure it, if anything serious happens to him, they're going to start blaming us for that as well."
"Blaming us for what, Johnny?"
Stanley Mordecai was a cheerful note of elegance in the brightness of the morning. He slipped into the chair between Winter and Harcourt and poured himself a coffee as though it were any other morning.
"Ztanley." Kopanski's voice was grief stricken. "Zey won't speak to me. Zey tell me I must vait before I can tell ze vorld ze tragedy that has played out on zis Pacific stage."
"Let the world wait," Mordecai grinned. J.K! This is just what you wanted!"
"Vhat I vanted!"
"Yeah. Just think of it - Kopanski's star stolen from the world. Tragic heroine murdered by her leading man. The press will love it."
Liza Wentworth burst into tears again. "Stanley Mordecai," she cried, rising to her feet, "you are the most heartless man I've ever met!"
She turned and ran back to her room, weeping copiously.
"Ze film is ruined," Kopanski burbled into his croissant.
"No, J.K." Harcourt considered the matter thoughtfully. "I think Stanley's right. This could make this movie. Everyone will want to see Yvette's last film; not to mention the face of her murderer."
"God!" Winter threw up his arms in disgust. "You're a load of ghouls, all of you. The poor girl is barely cold and all you can think of is the publicity it will bring. Personally I don't want anything to do with it. I hope the studio cancels the damn thing. I might have known Derwell would muck everything up."
"More coffee?" Gushie wheeled out onto the verandah with the appearance of a brave smile.
Almost immediately Kopanski pounced on him. "Please," he pleaded. "Vhy cannot I speak to somevun? My sweet child is lying cold and alone ..."
"Can it J.K." Mordecai advised. "Look fella. What's happening here? Shouldn't there be some action on this from the local law or something?"
"There should." Cutter stood in the doorway, his cap jammed firmly on his head, a worried frown written deeply across his face. "Gushie, I can't get any response from Tagataya. I think the radio's dead. I'll get Corky on it as soon as he's finished with the Goose. Take Sarah up some coffee, will ya? Let me know if there's any news."
"Sure Jake." The man in question wheeled away, back into the bar.
In his place Mordecai stood up and stared at the pilot. "Okay, Cutter," he announced. Maybe you can tell me. What the hell is going on?"
"I don't know." Jake was watching the assembly for some sign of self betrayal. The way the conversation had been headed he had at least two suspects to consider. "Look, I'm sorry. Okay? Its just that Louie's supposed to be in charge of this sort of thing and he's - " There was no acting talent required for his show of despair. His brief hour had not served to wipe away the traumas of the night, and, despite his reassurances to Gushie, he still wasn't completely sure that Bon Chance was going to wake up again. "He's sick. Real sick. He was over on Kauli last week treating some kids with fever. Maybe that's it. Or else it was something he ate, or drank - I dunno."
Carefully John Winter replaced his cup of coffee on the table and looked at it suspiciously.
Mordecai frowned. "He seemed okay last night."
Cutter allowed himself an ironic laugh. "Yeah. Okay is right. He was drunk as a lord. God knows what they drank together. At least she wouldn't have felt any pain." He straightened self-consciously. "Look - I'll let you know the situation as soon as I can. I'm trying to get through to the Magistrate on Tagataya so that he can come over and take charge of this thing. There'll have to be a trial. I guess you know the best Derwell will get will be life."
"The best?" Mordecai queried as the American turned back towards the bar.
"Yeah." Cutter watched the colour drain from five faces as he let them have it broadside. "This is a French colony. They still use the guillotine here you know."
"Did they buy it?" Sarah looked up as Cutter entered the shuttered room, her face questioning.
"I guess." He leant over her shoulder to examine her charge. Bon Chance had barely stirred.
"Jake!" She grabbed hold of his arm and, for the first time that morning, he got a real good look at her. The play acting of the first few hours had forced him to be found knocking furiously on her door at eight that morning, leaving hurriedly yelled instructions for her to join Gushie in Louie's room before he legged it to the Goose in order to choke its engines in spectacular style. One good look and he wished he had done it differently.
She was pale and drawn, eyes unnaturally bright from unshed tears, her hair an unruly mop over an unmade-up face.
"Sarah? Are you okay?"
She grimaced at the ceiling in a moment of exasperation. "Now he asks me. Jake, I feel terrible. I had the most awful nightmares last night, and all I get this morning is woken up by a troupe of drum majorettes practising on my door. You go haring off without explanation, and all Gushie will say is that you have a plan to fool our guests or something. I sit here for an hour and you finally turn up, and when I ask if it worked all you can say is 'I guess'!"
He looked at her long and hard, and she frowned back determinedly. Finally he started to laugh, lifting her up from her chair to gather her into his arms with affection. She didn't resist. Rather she leant into him, returning the embrace with her own, sharing the need for his presence as he needed the release of his mirth.
"I'm sorry Sarah," he said softly. "I needed to get things rolling, that's all. I didn't mean to leave you out, just didn't have time to explain."
"You never have time to explain," she huffed, releasing him and returning to her post with self-conscious dignity. "But did it work?"
He nodded slowly, watching the sleeping man stir and settle again the way that sleepers do. "I think so. They don't know what we know at any rate. If the guilty party has a conscience he's going to get rid of whatever evidence he can as soon as he can. Jack's on guard at the inner door, and Corky's down at the Goose watching the outer one through the binoculars. No one's going in or out of that room without us knowing about it. I hope," he added.
"You hope! Jake - is this all worth it? I mean, Louie's going to be okay, and ..."
"Sarah," he interrupted her gently. "Last night someone tried to stage a murder. Just because someone else killed their chosen victim doesn't mean they don't have to be brought to justice. You do realise that if Derwell hadn't been such a lousy shot we would have had two corpses on our hands this morning? And no idea why? Damn it - it's not that easy to kill someone with a toy gun like that one you know. That idiot managed to find the one spot that would prove fatal. If he hadn't we might have locked him up for just being drunk and disorderly. No one would have realised that there was anything more than drink involved."
She nodded bleakly, remembering her own hasty conclusions the night before. Yvette Carlin would have died in her sleep, the apparent victim of an over indulgence in alcohol. And Bon Chance ... Sarah shivered at the thought, and Cutter reached out a comforting arm to drape over her shoulders.
"Well," he drawled wearily. "I guess some people are just born plain lucky huh?"
"I guess."
He laughed at that, and ruffled her hair so that she grabbed at his arm and pushed him away. "Jake Cutter," she began indignantly, "if I didn't ..."
A short sharp bark from the doorway brought the pilot's head round in immediate attention. "Stay with him, Sarah," he breathed. "I'll be back ..."
The inner doorway into the actress's room was slightly ajar, just as Cutter had left it. Whoever was inside must have entered from the upper walkway, and with a bit of luck Corky would already be on his way from his post at the Goose. The American slid past the doorframe as quietly as he could and eased the crack open a little wider. In the shuttered darkness of the room a figure moved stealthily by the dresser, perhaps trying to assess if anything had been disturbed.
"Looking for something?" Cutter called boldly, swinging the door wide. The intruder jerked upright, and a glass dropped from his hand, hitting the edge of the furniture to break with jagged finality on the floor below.
"Oh do be careful," the pilot advised. "Those are Louie's best glasses. He won't like it if you damage too many of them."
"Ah - " The figure laughed nervously, turning round to reveal the angular face of Stanley Mordecai. "It was an accident. You startled me."
"I meant to."
Jack slipped past Cutter's shadow to growl menacingly at Mordecai's feet.
"Hey," the man protested. "Call him off. I haven't done anything."
"No?" Jake moved to join him, eyeing the empty bottle and the other glass that lay on its side on the dresser. "Then what are you doing in here?"
"I was looking for a - a script." Mordecai had recovered enough to bluster. "Not that that's any of your business."
The outer door crashed open, spilling sunlight and Corky's bulky form into the room. The mechanic hesitated, looking from Cutter to the production man and back again.
"And what," the pilot continued, reaching into the man's pocket with his fingers crossed behind his back, "were you doing hiding this?" He'd been lucky and chosen the right pocket. The crumpled pill box unfolded accusingly in his hand.
Mordecai took one look at Cutter's face and dived for the doorway in panic. Corky grabbed for him, earning himself a collision with the doorframe and an elbow in the stomach. Jack went for the man's ankles, and was rewarded with a kick in the side, but Cutter brought him down with a flying leap that spilled the tow of them into the balcony rail and threatened to tip the fleeing Californian over the edge.
"Going somewhere?" Jake hissed, the note of threat clear in his voice. Mordecai looked down at the waiting ground and swallowed.
"I guess not," he admitted.
The inside of the office was already stifling. It was going to be a hot day, and the gendarme Cutter had summoned from his watch in the billiard room shifted uneasily on his feet. He would have much rather been perched at his more normal post on the quayside where he could watch the comings and goings of the village and get some of the breeze onto his face. He'd spent an uncomfortable night with a corpse and still wasn't very sure about what was going on.
"I tell you you've got nothing on me." Mordecai had recovered his composure sufficiently to realise he might not be in trouble after all. "Okay, so I was in the room, but so what? That doesn't prove anything."
Cutter slammed his fist onto the desk in frustration, and Corky winced as a pile of papers slid unprompted to the floor. "Look, mister." Jake had had less than an hour's sleep and a nerve stretching night before it. He was in no mood to be put off with words. "You and I both know what you did, and I'm not going to let you get away with it. You understand me?"
In the chair opposite him the production assistant leant back and eyed him carefully. "I think I do," he allowed slowly, "but then I think I already have. Got away with it that is. You've got no proof of anything have you?"
"You're a callous bastard, you know that Mordecai? I should have guessed from the way you play poker. Hey - " A thought flitted across the back of Cutter's mind and he pinned it down, adding the pieces to the puzzle. "Was that it? Are you in need of money?"
Mordecai grinned. "Not any more." He ran a finger down the crease of his tailored slacks as though he hadn't a care in the world. "The picture was going to bomb, but somehow I don't think it will now. Can you see the headlines ..."
"Yeah." Jake leant forward to stare at his captive intensely. "Production man found guilty of attempted murder. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"
"Bull." His fellow American was having none of it. "Henry Derwell slays co-star in crime of passion. You can't seriously expect to accuse me of a crime someone else has already committed. You were there. She was shot. What did I do?"
"I don't know." Cutter tried a different track. "What did you do? Were the pills in the wine an afterthought, or didn't you intend Derwell to go as far as he did? I don't suppose he'll protect you in court. You did put him up to it, didn't you?"
Mordecai frowned back at him, a flitter of worry creasing his features. "I may have said something." His tone was cautious. "We all had a fair bit to drink last night. I thought he'd cause a scene or something. I wouldn't have believed he'd have the guts to do what he did. He pulled the trigger, not me. He never did have the brains to think anything through."
"And you do?"
"Sure." The man laughed softly. "I'm covered. You can't prove I put anything in the wine. Maybe I did. So what? It was a bullet that killed her, Cutter, not me. And you haven't got a thing to stand up against me in court. Not even a crime to accuse me of."
"Au contraire, monsieur." Louie's voice was a drop of soft honey concealing ground glass. "You will find that French law views an attempt on the life of one of its officials with extreme displeasure. And you are wrong if you think there is no case to bring. You are not in America now. You are in France. And in France ..."
"You're guilty until you prove yourself innocent!" Cutter nearly yelped with joy, not least at the sight of his friend in the doorway, Sarah hovering at his elbow with a frown on his face.
"What?" Mordecai went a peculiar shade of grey, staring at Bon Chance as though he was an apparition. Maybe he thought he was. The white suit and the very pale face could have lent themselves to that interpretation. "You're not serious?" He turned back to Cutter, half rising to his feet. "You - you stitched me up! You were trying to get me to confess 'cos I thought I was home safe! I thought you were trying to get me for her! I didn't mean anyone else to touch the stuff - heel, I didn't mean her to touch the stuff! I was only trying for the papers. God's sake, man - you've got to understand; I didn't intend for anyone to get hurt. I was going to stop her; I only meant it to look like suicide. I needed the money. If that idiot Derwell hadn't mucked it up, we'd have all coined it in. I didn't know she'd gone back to her room - I didn't for one minute think anyone else would share that bottle with her. When you said this morning - hell, I thought I had killed someone. Oh God - " He realised what he was saying and sank back to the chair, his head in his hands. "I nearly did, didn't I?"
"Monsieur," Bon Chance said coldly. "You have plotted the death of an innocent woman without thought for the consequences, you have come uncomfortably close to robbing Boragora of it's resident Magistrate de Justice, and you have succeeded in ensuring that most of the inhabitants of my hotel have had their worst night's sleep for years."
"You can say that again," Corky muttered from his spot by the door. Louie turned grim eyes on him and he shrank almost visibly.
"Because of my - personal involvement in the case," he continued as though no interruption had occurred, "I will be forced to turn you over to my colleague on Tagataya for his consideration. You will find that he holds a dim view of fools and opportunists." As he spoke, Bon Chance ran an absent finger along the side of his throat in a gesture of habit. "You may consider yourself lucky that, due to circumstances, you cannot be directly charged with murder and will be spared the kiss of Madame this time. But I do not think you will like where the confession you have just made will be taking you. And I am sure you will be there a long time."
Mordecai lifted bleak eyes to offer a wordless appeal to Cutter's grim face. He found no sympathy in the pilot's expression, nor in any of the other faces that surrounded him. Bent, like an old man, he let the gendarme lead him away, to join Derwell in the lockup below.
"Goddamn it," Cutter breathed after he had gone. "I thought I'd blown it for a while there."
"You had," Louie replied, motioning him out of his chair with an elegant forefinger. "And if you are going to shout," he requested in a pained tone, "do it quietly s'il tu plait?"
Jake stared at him for a long moment, then got slowly to his feet. "Louie," he said softly, "what the hell are you doing out of bed?"
"I couldn't stop him," Sarah announced, joining Cutter with an exasperated look on her face. "He didn't hear a word I said. I tried to ..."
"Sarah." Bon Chance sank into his chair and then his head into his hand. "Please ..."
"Gee," Corky was quietly sympathetic. "I haven't had a hangover that bad for weeks."
"A what?" Sarah stared at her employer suspiciously. "Louie, you haven't - have you?"
"Jake - " the French accent began distantly.
"I know," Cutter grinned and, taking Sarah's shoulders, pointed her in the direction of the door. "Coffee," he requested. "Black, strong, and lots of it."
"Oh no," she groaned. "Not more coffee, Jake. I couldn't."
For that matter, when it came, neither could he.
It was a warm night the night they showed the precious reels of 'Unremembered Rendezvous' that a contrite Kopanski had sent them from the studio in Hollywood. It was a real weepie of a film that had Sarah snuffling into her handkerchief as Yvette Carlin's character, finding she was suffering from an incurable illness, drove away the man she loved so that he would not have to watch her die. There was scarcely a dry eye in the bar as she married John Winter's character so that her drunken brother could have a roof over his head, and when the hero arrived at the last minute at her dying bedside, Sarah was forced to bury her face in Jake's shoulder so that she didn't have to watch Henry Derwell bid farewell to the woman he had killed. Her final words had an echo of inevitability that rang curiously strong in the confines of the Monkey Bar.
The film finished to the accompaniment of silence. Gushie reached up and switched off the projector with a thoughtful frown. Then, almost forced, Corky began to play a quiet rendition of some tune or other, and the conversation slowly regained its normal animation. No comment was ever made about the film, but Gushie stored it away with care, just in case.
Cutter left Sarah wiping her eyes and sharing a beer with Corky in an unusually subdued manner, and went to look for Bon Chance, who had slipped away from the main bar in the dark, leaving the credits rolling in the silence.
He found him by her graveside, a single golden orchid bright against the darkness of the earth. He paused, considering, and then turned away, leaving his friend to contemplate the moon and the woman he had known so briefly; a face that would live forever in the flickering of celluloid and in the heart of a man who had so nearly followed her into the dark. It was a long time before Bon Chance returned to the conviviality of the bar, and when he did Cutter made no comment on his absence. Instead, he silently offered him the glass of cognac he'd been saving and Louie smiled, considering its depths with haunted eyes.
'Do not let them grieve for me, those I have loved and leave behind. If I have found one moment of happiness it was here - in this place that became my refuge, my final resting place. I have no regrets in my life, other than that I have had such a short time to find those things that mean so much to me. I do not go afraid into the darkness. I only weep for those whom I leave weeping. I have loved you for so short a time, and yet each moment was time enough for love. Farewell. May we meet again: as we met once in some unremembered rendezvous beyond the touch of time.'
Yvette Carlin - 'Unremembered Rendezvous' 1938. Her last film.
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