So she watched him come down the gangway eagerly. He was twenty years older than she was — what of it? He knew precisely what he was doing and did it. She wouldn’t change him for any debutante’s dream.
He went through customs and came up to the car. “Kind of you to meet me,” he said. It was typical Sir William Withers, and Agnes had accepted it happily. He never showed affection in public.
He climbed into the car and went to sleep. He had the gift of instant relaxation. He didn’t look his age by ten years, and Agnes, though she didn’t wake him, held his hand between her own and waited.
She waited until they reached the villa, where her husband woke up and shook his shoulders. “Home,” he said.
“I’m delighted you think so.”
“Home is where you hang your hat. In point of fact, I left mine on that aircraft.”
“Home is where a man has his breakfast.”
“Point taken. I’d be glad of a good one.”
She made him a generous English breakfast, and he ate it with an evident gusto. When he had finished he pushed his plate away. He wasn’t a man who indulged in apologies, but he was always prepared to explain his actions.
“You caught me at rather short notice yesterday. I hope it doesn’t sound like self-pity, but I stayed up most of the night to fix things. Then I didn’t get a wink on that aircraft. An hour in the car…” He shrugged and smiled.
“So what you want is your bed?”
“I’ll be useless without it.”
“Do you mind if I join you?”
“I’d ardently hoped for it.”
Agnes woke at three in the afternoon and stretched in a happy languor like a cat. She slipped down to make tea and brought it to William. “Six hours,” she told him. “You’ve had a fair ration.”
“Five hours if you deduct the irrelevant.”
“I don’t call that irrelevant.”
“Good.”
She saw he was refreshed and vigorous. “Now I'll tell you why I sent for you.”
“Right.”
She told him her story crisply and succinctly. At the end he said simply, “There’s something missing.”
“I’m afraid I’m not with you.”
“That inspector gave you time — first a fortnight and then, you tell me, a week. He gave you that, but why I don’t know. Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.”
She’d heard that one and translated it back to him: “I fear Greeks bearing gifts.”
“Correct. If his case had been cast iron, he’d have run you straight out. That spy story wouldn’t stand up for long, not if I went to the High Commission. All diplomats have damp ears, that’s an axiom, and the lot we have here in the island’s capital are wetter than a baby’s nappy. Just the same, they could hardly stand for that. Not, if I may say so with modesty, not for the wife of Sir William Withers. But this isn’t just bluff, or not bluff all through. They mean to get you out all right.”
“Then what’s going to happen next?”
“I don’t know that, but I’ll stay till I do.”
“But you can hardly hang around here indefinitely. Your work—”
“Can, as it happens, wait a while. In any case I think you forget something.”
“What do I forget, then? Tell me.”
He said on a note of affectionate irony, “You forget that your family made me marry you.”
“What a four-letter man you are.”
“But your husband.”
The development William Withers had looked for came quickly and in an unusual form. It was the sound of angry women lamenting. The language was presumably Turkish, but it might have been French or Chi# nese or Hindi. The noise of a female altercation was unvarying across the world.
They put on dressing gowns and went down to the kitchen. The maid was there and two other women. The maid held a cleaver, doing most of the shouting, and the other two sat on chairs and wept. Occasionally they wailed in unison, a sort of classical chorus underscoring the maid. She was waving the cleaver and bawling, “I’ll kill him.”
William Withers said, “For God’s sake quieten them.”
Agnes knew better; she touched the maid’s arm. “And whom are you going to kill, my dear?”
“That Inspector, that fiend from hell—”
“Quite so. But hadn’t you better tell me first? If you’re doing it in my time, that is.”
The maid let a last despairing shriek, then sat down on a chair. Agnes took the chopper from her.
“They’ve cut off my father’s water. Old Zekky.”
Agnes translated; she knew it was serious. She was also very angry indeed. The usual swindle, she thought — it had happened before. They cooked up some preposterous claim, then they went to a court and took out an injunction. They did if they were also Greeks. Then a padlock went on the sluice in question and the owner of the land had had it. He’d be lucky if he could sell for tuppence.
William Withers had been thinking coolly; he said in the end. “So that’s the real ploy — not spies but water. Old Zekky first, then that odious Englishwoman. It all falls into place very neatly. They’re# going to squeeze us out with the water.” He considered again. “How much does the tank hold, the one on the roof?”
“Four days perhaps.”
“Then we’d better be careful.”
“What can we do?”
“You could let me think.”
He settled to do so, but not for long. There was another violent interruption, men this time, but only slightly less strident. They began to shout too, and the maid collapsed finally. Agnes stood still and listened silently.
“They’ve got Zekky in prison.”
“That’s really outrageous.” Sir William was getting angry too. “But they must have had some excuse.”
“They had. You know he’s a little bit ’round the bend, and when they stole his water he went the whole way. If he couldn’t have water, nobody else should. So he goes to our conservatory and pinches all those tins we had there; he climbs up the hill to that grille in the rock face, where the water comes out—”
“I know it, I’ve walked there.”
“Then he breaks the grille down and throws the tins in. Plenty of people saw him do it. They’ve arrested him for poisoning the water.”
“Preposterous,” Sir William said promptly. “That stuff was fungicides and garden sprays which some fool in his garden might perhaps use improperly, but in a solution of millions of gallons of water it wouldn’t poison an ant, far less a man. Besides, he’s very clearly dotty.”
“So much the better for them. He’ll be certified. Then what sort of a chance will he have in a lawsuit?”
“From what you’ve told me before, he hadn’t one anyway.”
“But we’ve got to get Zekky out. That inspector—”
“We have to consider our own water, too.” He was mildly reproving, but only mildly. “Poisoning,” he said softly. “Poisoning. Now that’s an idea, and it might just work.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Play my name. If it doesn’t sound disagreeably pompous, I do have a certain reputation.”
“I know that you could poison half Europe.”
“Precisely the point.” He rose in decision. “Now get this rabble out of here and bring me a jar of treacle or honey. I shall also want a fair-sized paint brush.”
“But Willie, how—”
“Woman, be quiet.”
It was a tone he seldom used to her, but when he did she jumped like a corporal.
“And get that inspector down here quickly. Tell him there’s been a cosmic disaster.”
The inspector arrived, but condescendingly. Agnes was Dutch and literally minded, and since her husband had used the words cosmic disaster, she’d repeated them when she rang the inspector. He hadn’t been anywhere near believing them, but he’d understood the position perfectly. Or had thought he had, and it went like this: he’d been putting much pressure on Agnes Withers, so she’d sent for Sir William to plead# her case. That was natural and he’d half expected it, but there was nothing her husband could say or do which would change his own intention, indeed his orders. On the other hand Sir William was eminent: it might look bad if he simply declined to see him.