Conquering Kilmarni by Hugh Cave

with a razor blade. When it was on the shelf with the others, no one would guess it was only a shell. That day, after putting the money into it, he turned to Peter and said with a touch of weariness, "I think I'll go to my room for a while, son. It was hot down there in the Bay and I'm a little tired. If I'm wanted for anything important, come and call me, will you?"
    "Yes, Dad. Of course."
    It wasn't the sea-level heat that had taken the starch out of him, Peter knew. The road to Morant Bay went by the cemetery where Mom and Mark were buried, and when Dad went there alone he never failed to walk in and stand by their graves for a few minutes. Then all the memories came back, and the loneliness took hold again, and for hours—even days, sometimes—he seemed old and tired again.
    Peter watched his father walk slowly from the office and then went downstairs to the kitchen, where he knew Miss Lorrie would be putting away the groceries Dad had bought in the Bay supermarkets. Dad always did that because the villages of Rainy Ridge, Trinityville, and Seaforth, between Kilmarnie and the Bay, had only small shops. Mr. Devon had bought a bagful of Jamaican beef patties at a Morant Bay bakery, too, and Miss Lorrie asked Peter if he wanted one.
    "You like them, don't you?" she said.
    "You bet!" The patties were shaped like half moons and made of flaky pastry filled with a spicy meat mixture. One day last week Peter'd heard a worker complaining that they were too expensive now. "Them used to cost a shilling before the money changed from pounds to dollars. Now some of them cost a dollar, as if all of we did become rich of a sudden."
    Peter was standing in the kitchen doorway, eating a patty Miss Lorrie had heated for him, when Mr. Campbell came from the direction of the garage.
    "Hello, Peter," the headman said. "Is your father around?"
    "Yes, Mr. Campbell. But he's resting. If it's important, though—"
    "No, no, it's not important. I just wanted to show him—" The headman glanced back at the garage. "Why don't I show you, and you can tell him about it?"
    "Sure."
    Peter followed Mr. Campbell to the garage, expecting him to go inside. But the headman walked around the garage to the mule pen in back of it, where he kept the cantankerous riding mule he called Nasty. When he opened the gate, the mule stopped feeding and jerked his head up to stare at them as they went past him to the shelter in the far corner.
    Under the shelter's galvanized roof the headman moved a bed of dry grass with his foot and said, "Look at this, Peter."
    His foot had uncovered some empty crocus sacks. With them was a paper bag from which he took two tins of sardines, one of them empty, and three rock-hard bammies and some small, half-ripe bananas. "This is where your friend Zackie slept last night, Peter."
    Peter nodded. "I know. He told me."
    "He told you?"
    "Yes, sir. He couldn't go home or to Miss Lorrie's house. His father was looking for him."
    Mr. Campbell turned to peer at the mule, who was still standing there like a statue, gazing at them as if trying to make up his mind whether to charge them or not. "Nasty sleeps here in this shelter," he said. "Peter, have you any idea what would happen if you or I tried to share that animal's bed?"
    "What would happen, Mr. Campbell?"
    "Most likely we'd get our ribs kicked in. That mule will stay on his best behavior all day just to get a chance to kick you when you're not looking." The headman chuckled, and then frowned again. "I think your dad ought to know about this. I can appreciate why Zackie doesn't want to go home, but if he's planning on turning this into a second home for himself ... Well, he could get hurt, and I don't think we want that."
    Peter nodded. "Just as soon as Dad wakes up, I'll tell him."
    "Good." The headman let his hand rest on Peter's shoulder. "And see that Zackie gets something fit to eat, will you? He must be hungry."
    Peter returned alone to the house and talked to Miss Lorrie in the