Trustee From the Toolroom by Nevil Shute Page B

"Course, I believed what John told me,' he said. ' He told me it was just Jo's rings and things like that. But now we know that they took £26,000 of diamonds along with them, I bet that they were in that jewel case, too.'
    Katie got up from her chair. ' Make a pot of tea,' she said. She went and busied herself in her little kitchenette while she thought it over. She came back presently with two cups of tea. 'Suppose you went out there,' she said, ' what's it all going to cost ?'
    'Everything we've got and probably a bit more,' he replied. 'That's just to get there. Getting back would cost as much again.'
    She stared at him helplessly. ' But that's crazy!'
    He rubbed his hand across his eyes. ' I know. The other way is to do nothing and just leave it be.'
    She sat in silence for a minute. 'That don't seem right,' she said at last. 'I can't say I like that much better.'
    He looked up at her gratefully; Katie was coming round to the unthinkable course he had proposed. 'I like it a bloody sight worse,' he said. 'I'd never be able to think of John and Jo again if we just sat tight on our fannies and did nothing.'
    'That's enough of that shop language,' she said. 'Drink your tea while it's hot.' He obeyed her. 'This Governor in this place Papeete,' she said. 'Suppose you were to write to him and tell him all about it, couldn't he go there and get the box out of the keel ?'
    Keith nodded. ' I thought of that. Tell you the truth, I don't just know what a Governor does. Would he be the top man ? An asylum's got a Board of Governors, but they aren't top of anything.'
    'I think he's the top man,' said Katie. 'I read about a Governor in a book once.'
    'That's what I thought,' said Keith. ' If that's right he'd be paid by the Government - the French Government, I suppose, in Paris. Well, when John and Jo took those diamonds out of England they could have gone to prison for it - that's what Mr Carpenter said. Maybe the diamonds would have been confiscated if they'd been found out.' She nodded. 'Well now, who's to say that if this Governor got his hands on them they wouldn't be confiscated again? I just don't know, and, what's more, I don't know who to ask, safely. I mean, £26,000 is worth while anybody going after, if they know it's there. I don't feel like telling anyone about it, least of all this Governor.'
    She nodded slowly. Twenty-six thousand pounds was an incredible sum of money to her, but if it existed at all it belonged to Janice, and no one else was going to lay a finger on it. She knew from her Sunday newspaper that many a bank manager had fallen from grace for much less than that, and who was to say that a French Governor would be any better ? She was reluctant to admit it and to face the infinite difficulties that would ensue, but Keith had the right idea. Better to say nothing to anybody and go after this himself. She asked him, ' What were you going to do in this place, Papeete, if the island's 300 miles away?'
    'I don't honestly know,' he said. 'But look at it like this. Suppose we had lots of money, enough to do whatever we wanted without thinking about it.' She nodded. 'Well, I'd go out there and get a headstone for the grave made in this place Papeete, and then I'd hire a ship with a crew that knew the way around, and I'd go to this island and get the headstone set up on the grave and everything done proper. And I'd take a lot of photographs for Janice to see when she's older. Well, while I was there I'd go out to the wreck upon this reef in a small boat, and I'd know soon as I laid eyes on it if the box was still there in the concrete. Just behind the mast it was, towards the rudder end. I'd be a poor sort of a fish if I couldn't lay my hands upon it then, and get it away.'
    'Well, we haven't got lots of money,' she said. 'Not for hiring ships and that. I suppose you'd say that if you can get a free ride out to this place Honolulu you can do the rest of it free, too.'
    'I could try,' he said simply. 'Maybe I could do