“My wife.” His hand fell to his side. “Faithful to me. Pure as driven snow. She died shortly after Virginia was born. Twelve years we are here.”
“A long time,” Mumsord said.
“There is no doubt Virginia . . .”
“Tell me about her, sir.”
“No doubt my daughter. Her mother said she was my daughter.” He glanced at Mumsford as if daring him to contradict him.
Not missing the challenge in the glance, Mumsford said quickly, “Indeed, sir. The commissioner said there is a great resemblance between you two, sir.”
“A virgin when I married her, Inspector. Never been touched. A piece of virtue.”
Afraid he was about to launch into another lecture about virginity, Mumsford interrupted him, but not unkindly. “If you don’t mind, sir, could we start at the other beginning, the time immediately before the incident, sir?”
Gardner rubbed his eyes. The edges of his mouth had hardened, and nothing remained of the slackness that moments ago had caused the skin there to droop so that the lines along his chin had deepened. “They had a cure for the disease when we arrived,” he said abruptly.
It was not the beginning Mumsford wanted, but it was a beginning closer to the present.
“The nuns had left,” Gardner said, “but there were still a few patients. The doctor here was old and tired.”
“Is that why you came, sir?” Mumsford encouraged him.
“What?” Gardner seemed momentarily perplexed.
“Why you came, sir?”
“Yes. It was why I came.”
“And why you stayed, sir?”
“Yes, yes. I came for the lepers and I stayed for the ones who were still here.”
“But I understand, sir, you no longer take care of them.”
“And your understanding is accurate, Inspector,” he said angrily.
The glare from the cold light that shone from Gardner’s eyes forced Mumsford to look down. His remark to Gardner had not been benign. He wanted to know why Gardner was still on the island; why, since he no longer took care of the lepers.
“When you came here,” he began, trying another approach, “did you find Carlos here, sir?”
Gardner pushed back a thin lock of hair that had gotten loose from the elastic band on his ponytail. “He was six,” he said without emotion. “His mother had just died.”
“And his father?” Mumsford fumbled through his notes. “She was a blue-eyed hag.”
“Sir?”
“His mother. Sylvia. Carlos’s mother. She was a blue-eyed hag,” he repeated.
“Blue-eyed?”
“And that whelp she gave birth to was freckled.”
“She was white, his mother?”
“I said blue-eyed, Inspector.”
“So Carlos is white?”
“Freckled,” Gardner said.
“Half white?” Mumsford asked, straining forward in his chair.
“She didn’t know the father, that hag. But he was a black man.”
“There was more than one?” Mumsford fought the anger rising in him. Damn mixing of the bloods—the impurities.
“She screwed them all on the island,” Gardner said.
“The lepers?”
Gardner narrowed his eyes. “She birthed a misshapen bastard,” he said.
“Because of the disease?”
“Because of his father’s black blood,” Gardner said.
“So he is deformed?”
“Freckled,” Gardner said again.
Mumsford looked puzzled and then, as if finally making sense of what Gardner had said, he drew in his breath. “Ah,” he said knowingly.
“Freckles all over his body,” Gardner said.
“I’ve heard that happens,” Mumsford said.
Gardner raised his eyebrows.
“When the two bloods meet.”
Gardner’s eyebrows arched higher.
“Sometimes it makes black and brown dots on the white,” Mumsford said.
At first Gardner’s jaw simply dropped and his mouth gaped open. No sound came out of it, and then he was choking, laughing uproariously, kicking up his feet and making scissorlike movements with his legs in the air. “I say, I say . . .” The words came sputtering out of his mouth. “Black and brown dots on the white.” He was fighting for breath. “When the two bloods meet.” Tears streamed down his face. “When the . . .”
Mumsford fiddled with his collar, adjusted the buckle on his belt, and tried to look dignified.
“I mean . . .” Gardner swallowed the cough rising in his throat. “I mean, didn’t they teach you anything about biology in police school, Inspector?” He dried his eyes with the back of his hand.
“We were not training to be doctors, sir,” Mumsford said stiffly.
“The fundamentals. Just the fundamentals, Inspector.”
“I didn’t intend to entertain you, sir.”
“I mean, colored people don’t leave dots on white people. Or stripes, for that matter. A black and a white horse don’t make a zebra, Mumsford.”
“I’m sorry you should find me amusing, sir.”
“No. I suppose it’s not your fault. I suppose I shouldn’t have laughed.” Gardner patted his cheeks dry. “I should beg your pardon. I should apologize.”
“No apology is needed, sir.”
“I suppose you shouldn’t be blamed.”
“A misunderstanding, sir.”
“But one would have thought the colonial office would have prepared you men better before they let you come out here.”
“They prepared me, sir.”
“But surely, you’ve seen a freckled white person?”
Mumsford’s face hardened. “He lived here in the house with you?” His voice was loaded with exaggerated formality.
“Carlos?” Gardner seemed surprised by the question.
“I am here to discuss Carlos, sir. Did he live here?” Mumsford crossed off misshapen in his notes.
“Here?” Gardner looked around him.
“Yes. Did he live here?”
“From the first day,” Gardner said.
“With you and your daughter? Twelve years?” Mumsford pressed his questions.
“I thought he would be someone to amuse her. I let them play together.” Gardner stroked the legs of his pants.
“Them?”
“Carlos and my daughter. Then, when I started teaching her to read—she was four, he was six at the time—he stood nearby listening. He picked up what I was saying to her. Later he would take her little books and try to read on his own. Sometimes I would see him reading to her. Many times I was busy in my garden.” He paused, and checked the buttons on his shirt. The top one was undone. He