the
boy from the desk to his room on the third floor. There were wooden
shutter doors for ventilation on all the rooms to catch and circulate the
vagrant breeze from over the harbor. Willi had reserved a corner room for him
that yielded a magnificent view of sea and shore, of the myriad islands
like greenish curd in a milky ocean all the way to the horizon. The harbor
docks and quays looked abnormally empty of shipping. Smoke lifted like a thick
black serpent from a distant quarter of the town, and he saw with some surprise
how narrow a crescent of civilization existed here. The island’s jungle pressed
hard like another dark green ocean against the glimmering river and canals, the
tea and chinchona plantations on the mountain range that formed the spine of
the island like the armor of some prehistoric reptile. But directly below his
balcony was the calm and order of this European quarter, with its hospital,
churches, cafes, shops and green land and bandstand.
“Will there be anything more, sir?” the Malay boy asked.
“A bourbon and soda, with ice, if you have any.”
The boy grinned. “Yes, sir. It is already ordered.”
“And who ordered it?”
“I cannot say, sir. It was on the chit for this reservation,
Mr. Durell.”
His room was huge and airy, with high ceilings and stuffy
plush furniture that might hide anything in the way of insect life or security
microphones. The bed was enormous and canopied with blue mosquito netting. The
bathroom could have doubled for the pool at the Taj Mahal , with gold-washed faucets, a huge marble basin, and a
tub that stood on legs shaped out of cast-iron winged griffins. The
sounds of traffic drifted pleasantly through the windows as Durell tossed
his bag on the bed and gave the room a routine fanning. He did not know how
much of his visit might interest the caretaker police regime here in Pandakan,
but a certain amount of efficiency was obvious at once. In two minutes he
uncovered a mike in a tall lamp made out of a many-limbed Hindu goddess with an
inappropriate number of breasts on her abdomen, and another behind a batik
hanging on the wall. Next to the tapestry-like cloth was a photograph of the
last Sultan, a fat, smiling man whose face did not resemble the way he had
looked when an assassin’s bullet had smashed the back of his skull a month ago.
The microphone bugs were attached by tape to a hole in the plaster wall. He did
not disturb them, but his reflection in the large mirror on the opposite
wall turned dark and saturnine.
A pair of double-leafed, carved doors of jackwood apparently
opened into the next room to form a suite, if desired. They were locked, but
did not stay locked. He turned the
bronze handle downward and had them in his hands when he felt a movement in
them and they clicked open.
He found himself face to face with a plump, tall,
brown-skinned stranger with pale amber eyes and a smiling mouth and a totally
unpleasant Webley pointed at the pit of his stomach.
He remembered thinking with dismay that to be surprised this
way usually happened only once to someone in his business. His reaction was
swift and savage. His right hand knocked at the other’s gun while his left
stabbed with stiff fingers at the brown throat above the braided uniform
collar. Before he saw the military tabs indicating a full colonel, it was too
late to check his attack, but he prevented it from being lethal.
Fortunately, the gun did not go off. It went spinning across
the polished floor to the bed, while the other man drove his left fist
into Durell’s stomach. By then Durell’s karate attack found its mark and the
man stumbled back, clutching and strangling, all interest lost in anything
except getting the next breath of air into his lungs.
Durell picked up the Webley and emptied it, noticed the
safety was on, and felt a bit worried. On the other hand, he owed no apology
for reacting to the colonel’s sudden appearance. He helped the plump brown man
to his feet. The
boy from the desk to his room on the third floor. There were wooden
shutter doors for ventilation on all the rooms to catch and circulate the
vagrant breeze from over the harbor. Willi had reserved a corner room for him
that yielded a magnificent view of sea and shore, of the myriad islands
like greenish curd in a milky ocean all the way to the horizon. The harbor
docks and quays looked abnormally empty of shipping. Smoke lifted like a thick
black serpent from a distant quarter of the town, and he saw with some surprise
how narrow a crescent of civilization existed here. The island’s jungle pressed
hard like another dark green ocean against the glimmering river and canals, the
tea and chinchona plantations on the mountain range that formed the spine of
the island like the armor of some prehistoric reptile. But directly below his
balcony was the calm and order of this European quarter, with its hospital,
churches, cafes, shops and green land and bandstand.
“Will there be anything more, sir?” the Malay boy asked.
“A bourbon and soda, with ice, if you have any.”
The boy grinned. “Yes, sir. It is already ordered.”
“And who ordered it?”
“I cannot say, sir. It was on the chit for this reservation,
Mr. Durell.”
His room was huge and airy, with high ceilings and stuffy
plush furniture that might hide anything in the way of insect life or security
microphones. The bed was enormous and canopied with blue mosquito netting. The
bathroom could have doubled for the pool at the Taj Mahal , with gold-washed faucets, a huge marble basin, and a
tub that stood on legs shaped out of cast-iron winged griffins. The
sounds of traffic drifted pleasantly through the windows as Durell tossed
his bag on the bed and gave the room a routine fanning. He did not know how
much of his visit might interest the caretaker police regime here in Pandakan,
but a certain amount of efficiency was obvious at once. In two minutes he
uncovered a mike in a tall lamp made out of a many-limbed Hindu goddess with an
inappropriate number of breasts on her abdomen, and another behind a batik
hanging on the wall. Next to the tapestry-like cloth was a photograph of the
last Sultan, a fat, smiling man whose face did not resemble the way he had
looked when an assassin’s bullet had smashed the back of his skull a month ago.
The microphone bugs were attached by tape to a hole in the plaster wall. He did
not disturb them, but his reflection in the large mirror on the opposite
wall turned dark and saturnine.
A pair of double-leafed, carved doors of jackwood apparently
opened into the next room to form a suite, if desired. They were locked, but
did not stay locked. He turned the
bronze handle downward and had them in his hands when he felt a movement in
them and they clicked open.
He found himself face to face with a plump, tall,
brown-skinned stranger with pale amber eyes and a smiling mouth and a totally
unpleasant Webley pointed at the pit of his stomach.
He remembered thinking with dismay that to be surprised this
way usually happened only once to someone in his business. His reaction was
swift and savage. His right hand knocked at the other’s gun while his left
stabbed with stiff fingers at the brown throat above the braided uniform
collar. Before he saw the military tabs indicating a full colonel, it was too
late to check his attack, but he prevented it from being lethal.
Fortunately, the gun did not go off. It went spinning across
the polished floor to the bed, while the other man drove his left fist
into Durell’s stomach. By then Durell’s karate attack found its mark and the
man stumbled back, clutching and strangling, all interest lost in anything
except getting the next breath of air into his lungs.
Durell picked up the Webley and emptied it, noticed the
safety was on, and felt a bit worried. On the other hand, he owed no apology
for reacting to the colonel’s sudden appearance. He helped the plump brown man
to his feet. The
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