I said, "What about coming to the point?"

He wagged a finger at me.

"Later… I said later. There is something which I must think over rather carefully. There's really plenty of time, my dear chap."

Belle came back, put the basin on the table and stood the pitcher in it. When she left Robinson said, "Bon appetite and backed out, followed by Leroy.

The meal was fish or, rather, wet cotton wadding mixed with spiky bones. I ate with my fingers and the flesh tasted of mud. When I had eaten rather less than my fill, but could stomach no more, I walked over to the water pitcher and was about to pour water into the basin to wash my slimy hands when I stopped and looked at it thoughtfully.

I did not pour the water but dabbled my hands in the pitcher, then wiped them dry on my jeans.

The pitcher held more than two gallons. That, plus the weight of the pitcher itself, would be about twenty-five pounds. I was beginning to get ideas. I went back to the bed, spread butter on a thick slice of bread, and munched while looking at the pitcher, hoping it would tell me what to do. The first faint tendrils of an idea began to burgeon.

Robinson came back about two hours later with his usual bodyguard, and Leroy took his position just to the left of the door. Robinson closed the door and leaned on it.

"I'm sorry to learn of your marital troubles, Mr. Mangan," he said suavely.

"But from what I heard I gather you are on your way to solving them." He smiled at my startled expression.

"Oh, yes, I listened to your conversation with your wife with great interest."

I cursed silently. Ramon Rodriguez had shown me what could be done with bugs, and I might have known that Robinson would have the place wired.

"So you're a voyeur, too," I said acidly.

He sniggered.

"I even recorded your love-play. Though not i55 my main interest it was very entertaining. If set to music it could hit the top twenty."

"You bastard!"

"Now, now," he said chidingly.

"That's not the way to speak when you're at the wrong end of a gun. Let us come to more serious matters – the case of Jack Kayles. I noted when listening to the tape that you showed interest when your wife mentioned his name. My interest is in how you tracked him down. I would dearly like to know the answer to that."

I said nothing but just looked at him, and he clicked his tongue.

"I

advise you to be cooperative," he said.

"In your own interest and that of your wife."

"I'll answer that if you tell me why he killed my family."

Robinson regarded me thoughtfully.

"No harm in that, I suppose. He killed your family because he is a stupid man; how stupid I am only now beginning to find out. In fact, it is essential that I now find the measure of his stupidity, and that is why you are here. "

He took a pace forward and stood with his hands in his pockets.

"Kayles was supposed to sail from the Bahamas to Miami in his own boat. There was a deadline, but Kayles was having problems something technical to do with boats." Robinson waved the technicality aside.

"At any rate he found he could not meet the deadline. When he heard that a skipper needed a crewman to help take a boat to Miami the next day he jumped at the chance. Do you follow me?"

"So far."

"Now, Kayles was carrying something with him, something important."

Robinson waved his hand airily.

"There is no necessity for you to know what it was. As I say, he is stupid and he let your skipper find it, so Kayles killed him with the knife he invariably carries. His intention was to conveniently lose that poor black man overboard but, unfortunately, the killing was seen by your little girl and then.. " He sighed and shrugged. '.. then one thing led to another. Now, Mr. Mangan, I don't mind telling you that I was very angry 156 about this very angry, indeed. It was a grievous setback to my plans. Disposing of your boat was a great problem, to begin with. "

"You son of a bitch," I said bitterly.

"You're talking about my wife, my daughter and my friend." I stuck my finger out at him.

"And you've no need to be coy about what Kayles was carrying. It was a consignment of cocaine."

Robinson stared at me.

"Dear me! You do jump to conclusions. Now, I wonder…" He broke off and looked up at the roof, deep in thought.

After a while his gaze returned to me.

"Well, we can take that up later, can't we? I've answered your question, Mangan. Now answer mine. How did you trace the idiot?"

I saw no reason not to answer, but I was becoming increasingly chilled. If Robinson saw no reason not to gossip about three murders then it meant that he thought he was talking to a dead man, or a man as good as dead. I said, "I had a photograph of him," and explained how it had come about.

"Ah!" said Robinson.

"So it was the little girl's camera. That really worried Kayles. He was pretty sure she had taken his photograph, but he couldn't find the camera on your boat. Of course, it was a big boat and he couldn't search every nook and cranny, but it still worried him. So he solved his problem as he thought by sinking your boat, camera and all. But it wasn't there, was it? You had it. I suppose you gave the photograph to the police."

"There'll be a copy of it in every police office in the Bahamas," I said grimly.

"Oh dear!" said Robinson.

"That's bad, very bad. Isn't it, Leroy?"

Leroy grunted, but said nothing. The shotgun aimed at me had not quivered by as much as a millimetre.

Robinson took his hands from his pockets and clasped them in front of him.

"Well, to return to the main thrust of our conversation. You tracked Kayles to theJumentos. How did you do that? I must know."

"By his boat."

'57 "But it was disguised."

"Not well enough."

"I see. I told you the man is an idiot. Well, the idiot escaped and reported back to me. He tol^me a strange story which I found hard to credit. He told me that you knew all my plans. Now, isn't that odd?"

"Remarkable, considering that I don't know who the hell you are."

"I thought so, too, but Kayles was most circumstantial. Out it all came, information which even he was not supposed to know about and all quite accurate."

"And I told him all this?" I said blankly.

"Not quite. He eavesdropped while you were talking to the man. Ford.

I must say I was quite perturbed; so much so that I acted hastily, which is uncharacteristic of me. I ordered your death, Mr. Mangan, but you fortuitously escaped. " Robins on shrugged.

"However, the four Americans were quite a bonus I believe the Securities and Exchange Commission is causing quite a stir on Wall Street."

"The four Am…" I broke off.

"You caused that crash? You killed Bill Pinder?"

Robinson raised an eyebrow.

"Pinder?" he enquired.

"The pilot, damn you!"

"Oh, the pilot," he said uninterestedly.

"Well, by then I had time to think more clearly. I needed to interrogate you in a place of my own choosing and so here you are. It would have been difficult getting near to you on Grand Bahama; for one thing, you were tending to live in Commissioner Perigord's pocket. But that worried me for other reasons; I want to know how much information you have passed on to him. I must know, because that will influence my future actions. "

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, wishing I did.

"I will give you time to think about it; to think and remember. But first I will do you a favour." He turned and opened the door, saying to Leroy, "Watch him."

A couple of minutes later the pistol carrier came in. He jerked his head at Leroy.

"He wants you." Leroy went out and I was left facing the muzzle of a pistol instead of a shotgun. Not a great improvement.