Good! I had him on the defensive already. It was I who should be doing the talking, not he. I sensed already the faintest thread of doubt in his voice and pressed on.

'You say I "evidently" quarrelled with Dr Schouten. What "evidence" is there? I left him after a long talk, none the worse for it. There was a witness to that, an islander called Piro. He drove me from my ship. He will also attest that we came to save the hospital when it was already burning – and so will many others there. You have no right to arrest me. Or any of us!'

He was listening intently and did not interrupt me. Behind me the policemen stood like statues. I didn't understand why things were going my way but I was feeling stronger by the minute.

'Why don't you study that file, M. Chamant? You've got it down in black and white – Hadley was the man who is supposed to have found my brother, but whom I say was his murderer – and Schouten told me so. I can't prove that now, but I can prove everything else.'

I remembered another fact and produced it triumphantly.

'I took photographs. Develop my film. It will tell you everything.'

'M. Trevelyan, I am listening carefully. Of course we will check your camera, and we have already sent a police patrol boat to Tanakabu. But you still have a great deal to explain, and you are not yet released from arrest.'

I said, 'I've got plenty to tell you! That damned bastard and his mate Kane – they're the ones you want. They murdered Sven Norgaard, they murdered my brother, they murdered that poor bloody Schouten and they killed fourteen patients in his hospital – burnt them alive, do you hear – they burnt those poor wretches alive!'

Chamant was gesturing to the two policemen who heaved on my shoulders. I had lost all restraint in my anger, and was trying to climb over the table in my frenzy of trying to make Chamant see the truth. I slumped back, shaking a little and fighting for self-control. There was silence for a moment as we all contemplated my words.

'Where is Hadley now?' I asked him, trying to stay on the offensive.

He regarded me closely in silence still, then nodded gravely. He gave instructions to one of the men in rapid French, and the officer left the room smartly. Then he looked at me. 'I am not yet ready to believe you. But we will speak again with M. Hadley, I assure you. Meantime, I ask you to explain this, if you can.'

He pointed to a small box on a side-table and one of the remaining policemen brought it to his desk. Opened, it revealed four guns and a little pile of boxes of ammunition. I recognized two of the guns immediately.

'Four guns with enough ammunition to start a war, M. Trevelyan. Not a cargo for a peaceful ship, a scientific expedition.'

'Where did you find them?' But I could guess, and I was troubled. This was going to set back the progress I'd made.

'Three in the cabin of your M. Campbell. One in the possession of M. Wilkins, your captain.'

I made a weak gesture. There didn't seem to be much to say.

'You have seen them before?'

I said, 'Yes, two of them. Mr Campbell gave me that one when we discovered that Kane had gone from our ship. I must tell you the whole story, in sequence you understand. This other one he had himself. But'

'But?'

'Neither of us fired a shot! If you exhume Schouten you'll see he was shot three times, I think.'

'Only the other two were fired.'

'Yes, on our ship – when Hadley was getting away. We did try to ram him, to stop him – to bring him to justice.' That phrase sounded melodramatic enough even for a Frenchman to gag on it, I thought.

'You will tell me the story.'

So I did, leaving out all references to our search for manganese nodules, to Ramirez and Suarez-Navarro. I thought that made it all far too complicated. I said only that Hadley, once chartering a boat for my brother and Norgaard, had quarrelled with them for reasons unknown, had murdered both of them and had implicated the Dutch doctor in his crime. I had come to seek the truth and had run into a hornet's nest. It was circumstantial and very tidy. He made notes from time to time but said little.

When I finished he said, 'You will write all this down and sign it, please. I am going to allow you to return to your ship, but you will see that you and all your crew are confined to quarters on board. There will be a police guard.'

He was interrupted by the return of the officer he had sent out, who came straight to his side and whispered agitatedly to him. They both got up to look out of the window and went on speaking in urgent undertones, in French. And somehow I guessed what they were talking about.

'It's Hadley, isn't it?'

He turned to face me.

'You've let him get away, haven't you? You've let that murderous thug walk out of here!'

He nodded heavily. 'Yes, he has apparently left. You must understand that there was no reason to hold him, after he placed the information and made a deposition. We would not expect him to leave here – it is his home port.'

Something about the way he spoke told me that he was deeply troubled, to the point of forgetting that he was speaking to a man under arrest. I could guess why. Hadley was surely known here as a tough and a trouble-maker. The police may well have had him under surveillance already, for his connections with Mark and Norgaard, and for all I knew for a score of other things. And in letting him get away M. Chamant had blotted his own copybook rather badly. I was furious and exultant at the same time.

He got himself in hand and gave instructions to take me back to Esmerelda, and I was only too happy to go. House arrest seemed insignificant compared to being locked up in a cell. I went on board and was not particularly bothered by the sight of armed police dotted about, a couple on deck and more on the quayside, and a little knot of spectators shifting about as if waiting for a show to begin. In fact I managed a grin and a half-wave at them as I was ushered below, to their delight and the guard's disapproval.

There was a babble of voices at my return and the same air of tense expectancy as on the dockside, only here it was tinged with anxiety and bafflement. They all crowded around me and started firing questions.

'Wait up!' I held them off goodnaturedly. 'Plenty of time -too much, if anything. First, I want a wash-up and about a gallon of coffee and some food. Who's cook?'

I headed determinedly for my cabin to get a change of clothes, leaving the others to see to my inner comforts – and was brought up by the sight of Geordie, still in his bunk in the cabin we'd been sharing all along.

'Geordie! What the hell are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in the hospital?' I was already seething at this inhuman treatment, but he waved me down casually.

'I'm fine, boy. It's good to see you. What happened to you?'

'Geordie, I'll tell you together with the rest, once I've washed and had some coffee. Are you sure you're all right?'

But in fact he looked a lot better, and I could see that his face had been professionally attended to, with neat stitches and tidier bandaging. As I stripped he said, They wanted to cart me off but I sat firm. There's nothing wrong with me that their pretty visiting nurse can't fix. I'd get her to take a look at you too.'

He nodded at my hands, still partly covered with burnt skin, though they had started to heal pretty well on the short trip back. I completed a quick ablution and was finally seated in the saloon over breakfast and surrounded by the whole of the crew of the Esmerelda – bar one. It was an immense relief not to see Kane's face among the others.

I told them as much as they needed to know, reserving a few more private comments for Geordie and Campbell later.

'He's a worried man, that Chamant. Was even when he saw me, and he has to be even more so now that Hadley's skipped,' Campbell said.