Flight to the Lonesome Place by Alexander Key Page A

hiding on it with someone named Marlowe. I think that greedy Bernardo wants the land back. Just why, I don’t know. It—it’s been so hard for Black Luis and me to keep in touch with each other. To get a letter to him I have to send it to Nicky Robles, who works at the beach near Córcega. Then Nicky has to take it around the point and put it in the hollow of an old sea grape tree. The only trouble is, well—”
    She turned and looked at him uncertainly, her lower lip caught between her small white teeth. “It’s the stamps,” she said. “Black Luis doesn’t have money to buy them, so I would always send him some when I could. But we haven’t been able to write to each other for a long time because Bernardo cut off my allowance.”
    â€œCut off your allowance! But why?”
    â€œBecause he’s a stinker. Someday, if he isn’t careful, I’ll wish him warts, and he’ll break out all over with them. Millions of warts.”
    Ronnie eyed her in disbelief. “You can’t really do that, can you?”
    Her chin came up. “Certainly I can! I haven’t tried it yet, because it’s such an awful thing to do to anyone. It should be kept for emergencies. But I’ve been tempted. Oh, it was so embarrassing to be without a penny, so that I couldn’t even pay back favors I owed the other girls. And how I wanted some pralines! Imagine going to school in New Orleans and being too poor to buy a single praline!”
    It was mainly a growing amazement that made Ronnie shake his head. Suddenly he asked, “Do you really like pralines so well?”
    â€œOh, I love them. They’re my favorite sweet.”
    â€œThen wait till I get back. I’ve a whole box of them in my bag.”
    He hastened around the deck, and went inside to his stateroom. The door, which he had left unlocked but closed, was open now, and he entered so quickly that the cabin steward was taken momentarily by surprise.
    Josip was standing between the bunks, absorbed in the precious copy of Time and Duality . The steward looked up, and his thin lips parted briefly. But almost instantly the lips closed and twisted into a smile.
    â€œYou must pardon me, young sir, but I am a great reader, and I simply cannot resist a book when I see one lying around. This one seems very interesting. Very interesting indeed.” Josip closed it, placed it on the bunk, then picked up a bundle of soiled towels and started out. On the threshold he paused briefly and said, “I will bring you some ice water later, young sir.”
    Ronnie said nothing. His swift anger had given way to a feeling of sickness in his stomach. Before going to lunch, he had carefully put the copy of Time and Duality away in his zipper bag.
    Josip had deliberately opened the bag—obviously to search for something that would prove what he already suspected. And Josip had found it.
    The book had been of interest to him for one reason only. The name “Ronnie Cleveland” was written on the flyleaf.

5
    THE LAST BEEHIVE
    IT WAS UPSETTING ENOUGH to realize that Josip knew his secret and probably would try and profit from it, but with it went the growing fear of what would be waiting for him when he reached San Juan. To these concerns, as the vessel plowed steadily southeastward, there was added a physical discomfort that threatened to become serious. It was his wig.
    He had never been forced to wear it for long in a tropical climate. It had been designed merely to hide his own hair, which was thick and curly, and he had seldom minded its tightness in air-conditioned buildings. But here at sea it was becoming a torture to keep it on for more than an hour at a time.
    On the second day out, when his furiously hot and itching scalp had twice driven him to his stateroom to plunge his head into a basin of cool water, Ana María Rosalita offered a solution.
    â€œIf you’ll let me trim your hair a little,”