Theo and I struggled to our feet and reached up to clamber quickly back on deck. The men had come up from under cover, and they were standing there in the open, a ragged, uncouth, loyal army of villains yelling their heads off in a variety of languages, waving their rifles like savage dervishes, slapping their thighs and clapping each other on the back.

And the helicopter was plunging slowly into the sea. It was catching fire, the flames spreading outwards on a sheet of falling gasoline, then seeming to turn back and engulf the craft itself. I fancied I heard a terrible long drawn out scream. It toppled over and gathered speed and crashed into the water close beside us, its twisted framework scraping our hull as it went down.

I ran to the side and looked over, and there below me was the cold, dead face of Alexander Ming; the eyes were open and the face was blackened, and in death he was staring straight at me, accusingly. The black smoke covered the stare, and he was gone. Of the other men there was no sign. And then the flames took over, and the black smoke, and then the water. And all that was left on the surface was a charred piece of green metal with the letter “M” in scarlet on it.

Theo was beside me, scratching his head. He said: “Now, how we get this junk into port, we only got little bit sail left, you want to tell me that?”

I said: “You’ll find a way, skipper.”

He grinned at me, and I went below to find Mai.

Sally was stretched out on a bunk, her eyes glazed, silent and morose and listless. There were four wounded men, whom Mai had bandaged, lying on the floor and slowly getting drunk on the wine she had found for them.

I said: “All over now. We’ll be home soon.”

Mai nodded, looking at me with solemn, somber eyes. She said: “Next door.”

“I know.”

I took her hand and we went into the tiny cabin to while away the time till we should arrive in port.

CHAPTER 14

I said: “In the course of time, she’d have killed Ming and herself too. You’re going to have your work cut out to patch things up again.”

Markle Hyde nodded. He said, wondering: “How did she get so close to him and still stay alive? That’s what I can’t understand.”

I shrugged. “Too long, too involved a story. One day, perhaps, Sally will tell you that herself. But I shouldn’t press her for it, not too hard. And not for a while yet.”

He knew that I was keeping something back, knew too that he would never get it out of me.

We sat together in the fine old living room of Bonelli’s house at Penha Point, with the yellow sun streaming in through the open windows, and the cool breeze blowing off the waters. Sally was there too, standing still and silent by the window and looking out across the water, with her back turned to us. She looked round at me and said nothing.

I said to him: “What will you do now? The whole world will know who Markle Hyde really is. Does that matter to you?”

He shook his head. “Not anymore.” He was a tired old man, with all the fire gone out of him. “I can’t go back to the States, of course. But somewhere out here, there ought to be room for me. I don’t know. When all this...” He groped for the words. “When all this has settled down—wherever Sally wants to go.”

“She’ll find the best treatment in the world out here. In Hong Kong, or Singapore, or Rangoon.”

“Yes. Yes, I know that. Maybe there is something we can do. At least we can try.”

Sally moved away from the open window and came and sat on the floor next to her father, like a child, her head against his knees. He put a hand on her shoulder and touched it, and she took his hand in hers, and I felt that this was no place to stay any longer.

I got up and went over to her, and I bent down and raised her chin and kissed her just once, and she looked at me and said nothing.

And as I turned at the door, I saw that she was crying quietly.

Somehow, the tears were the most comforting thing I could have wished for. I closed the door softly behind me and went back to the fan-tan house.

Bettina was there, and so was Mai, and so was Bonelli. There were a couple of loose ends still to be tied up, and I said to Bonelli:

“Whatever happened to our dear friend Wentworth?”

He shrugged. “The police were delighted to get him; and now that Ming is dead, there is, no doubt, a great deal he will tell the worthy captain.”

“Captain?”

“Melindo. I arranged for him to make the arrest, and they were so delighted that he is now a captain.”

I said politely: “That be nice for you, won’t it?”

“Of course. All it requires is a little manipulation. And you, my dear Cain?”

“Me? Back to San Francisco.”

I looked at Mai, and she lowered her eyes and said nothing. I said to Bettina: “Are you ready for Hong Kong now?”

She said, hinting broadly: “Of course. That’s where the money is now that I’m a free woman again.”

Bonelli was opening a bottle of champagne, Boulinger 1959, and pouring it into beautiful tulip-shaped glasses; they were deeply engraved and were made, I suspected, at Louis Vaupel’s New England Glass Company about seventy-five years ago.

I said to him: “There’s an awful lot of Markle Hyde’s money to be used up. And a lot of people who’ll need it. The men on Theo’s junk. Theo himself, Bettina, Mai.”

Mai said sharply: “No money. I have my work with Bettina. I do not need it.”

Bettina said: “Take it and give what you don’t want to me. Don’t be a bigger fool than God made you.”

I saw Mai smile suddenly, and she looked at me and said: “Or do you want to take me back to the States with you?”

“No. Not really.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

“Would you have come if I’d asked you?”

She did not hesitate, “No. Of course not. And you must have known that.”

“Yes, I knew that.”

Bettina was staring glumly at her champagne, and I said: “I don’t really feel like celebrating.” She pushed the glass away and said to Bonelli, almost wistfully: “Could I have Scotch instead? Champagne gives me a rash on my belly.”

I sat and drank with them for a while, and then I wrote a note to Harry Mann-Crawford in Hong Kong, reminding him of the Queen’s pardon for Bettina and thanking him for his help; I told him:

...And when this fellow Wentworth has finished all he has to say, no doubt there’ll be some tidying up to be done at your end too. I didn’t really come here to break up a crime syndicate, but it seems that, with help, that’s what we’ve done. So sweep up all the refuse, and may your career thereby be enhanced. . . .

We drove over to the airport in Bonelli’s car, and we put the two of them on the plane, and we stood there, saying nothing as the Caravelle took off sharply. We watched it climb and wondered why it should be so hard to bring to an end something that had caused so many people so much grief.

We turned away and, as we walked slowly back to the car, Bonelli glanced up at me sideways and asked softly: “Is it hard to see her go?”