“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?”