The Killer Touch by Ellery Queen Page B

about the three new arrivals.
    â€œBig men,” said Godfrey.
    â€œThey don’t wish to fish,” said Coco.
    â€œThey’re gunmen,” said Burt. “Professional killers. You boys stay clear of them, hear?”
    They nodded gravely.
    â€œWe may have to leave the island in a hurry. You boys go around and gather up all the dry wood you can find. Carry the little stuff up the hill in case we need a signal fire. The big stuff you can put right here. When the sea goes down, well build a raft.”
    The two deployed up the slope, scanning the ground, and Burt went to find Jata. She lived in a black shingle structure not more than eight feet square, hidden beneath a dark, brooding manchineel tree. He knocked and announced himself. A bolt slid back, a chain rattled, and Jata’s glittering eye appeared at a crack in the door. “Sir, I don’t come out ‘til bad men leave.”
    â€œYou’re on the stick, Jata. Where’s Maudie?”
    â€œShe sneakin” round. You see her, tell her come home. I lock her in tonight.”
    Burt searched the island and tried to look like a nature lover taking a casual walk. His leg ached miserably. Each time he emerged from beneath the trees, he was aware of Hoke watching him from the tower. The longer he walked the more uneasy he became. Mother hen March, he thought wryly; one of your chicks is missing.
    He paused to look at cabin four. Could she be in there with Charlie? Surely not of her own free will, in which case she’d be making some noise. The cabin was silent behind the curtained windows. Burt thought of the moan, and of the missing fourth man of the party—
    â€œSir, you wish to go in?”
    Burt whirled and glimpsed the white flash of Maudie’s T-shirt inside a clump of bamboo. He looked up and saw that the palm’ trees which lined the path screened the cabin from the watchtower. He stepped back and watched her crawl from the bamboo.
    â€œYou hide well for a big girl,” said Burt when she squatted beside him. “What have you been doing?”
    â€œI watch the people pass in the path. You wish to enter one of the cabins? I watch for you.”
    â€œNo, I was just wondering why one man stays in the cabin all the time.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œWhy?”
    She was gone before he could stop her, then it was too late to call her back without warning the man inside. With frozen nerves he watched her climb the ladder outside the bathroom, her white cotton skirt riding high on her heavy brown thighs. Why had he assumed a sixteen-year-old girl would be clumsy? It was not true in Maudie’s case. She moved with the silent efficiency of a burglar, lifting the cover off the water barrel, plunging her hand inside, and drawing out a dripping metal case slightly larger than a cigar box. She replaced the wooden cover on the barrel, climbed down the ladder, and ran across the path. Burt drew her behind the bamboo and took the box. It was surprisingly heavy, with only a hair-line crease revealing where the lid joined the box proper. A combination lock held it shut. It seemed to be made of hard carbon steel; he’d have trouble getting it open even with a cutting torch.
    â€œWho hid it?” he asked.
    â€œBig man who shoot the frigate bird. I see him up on top and ask myself, what he hiding in the water? Later I go see.”
    Burt shook the box, but it gave no sound. If it held money, it would take huge bills to total the fortune Rolf had mentioned. He doubted that they’d risk putting currency in water. No doubt it would be jewels, perhaps diamonds …
    â€œSee if you can put it back,” he told Maudie. “No, wait—”
    He’d heard the screen door slam on the cabin. Through the screening bamboo he watched a man walk around the corner of the cabin, yawning and hitching his suspenders over the harness of a shoulder holster. The coarse brutal cast of his features duplicated those