“Thank you, Mrs. Hawker.” He cast another glance at her, then followed her husband from the house. A giant black-bearded Bengali got up from the stairs, waiting respectfully while they descended. He stood a good four inches over Stark’s six-foot-plus height.
“Who’s he?” Stark asked after they were past.
“Gurko Singh, one of the servants,” Hawker replied disinterestedly.
“House servant?”
“Sort of, but I generally use him to chauffeur me around the field.” Hawker grinned. “He also makes a pretty good bodyguard.”
“I can see that,” Stark wryly admitted.
When Hawker paused to light his pipe, Stark studied his surroundings. The superintendent’s house had a high, steep roof of palm leaves with a surrounding veranda protected from the sun by thick bamboo laths, strung so close together they formed an almost solid screen. The latter interested him. If Driscoll had been murdered on the veranda, as claimed, the killer must have hidden on the porch. Whoever he was, he certainly wasn’t a stranger to the household, he decided. The yard was bordered by a bamboo hedge which gave the house an aura of privacy. Palms and senna trees provided shade for several swings set among them.
“That’s the infirmary across the way,” Hawker stated, motioning toward a long, thatch-roofed building set under some shade trees. “The Doc and his gal have quarters in the rear.
Stark asked her name.
“Suzanne . . . Suzanne Ebell, a real looker.”
“Any other help?”
“A nurse . . . Yoshi Kusaka, and a couple of cleanup boys.”
“Japanese?”
“Yoshi? Of course.” The superintendent cast a quick glance at him. “Just don’t get any ideas.”
“Because she’s Japanese?”
Hawker stopped and faced him squarely. “That’s about the size of it, but I can vouch for her. So can Dr. Ebell, or almost anyone else on the compound.” His voice softened. “Believe me, if you’d ever see her working through some of these fever sieges we get occasionally you would know what I mean. She’s kept that place open when me and the Doc and everyone else was flat on our backs. Yes, sir, I’ll vouch for her.”
“No need to,” Stark answered complacently. “Personally I don’t give a damn about her nationality.”
Hawker grunted before starting toward the infirmary again. A slender, graying man emerged from an adjoining room as they entered and looked quizzically at them. A quick smile creased his thin face.
“This is Dr. Ebell,” Hawker announced. He nodded toward his companion. “Mr. Stark, of the home office.” Stark placed the doctor’s age at around fifty as they shook hands.
“Glad to have you with us, Stark. Be here long?”
“I don’t know,” he replied truthfully.
“Neither do we.” The doctor laughed quickly.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll leave you two together while I check with Hodges,” Hawker cut in. “He can fill you in.”
“Not at all,” Stark answered, grateful for a chance to talk alone with the man.
“I’ll be back pretty quick.” The superintendent nodded briefly and left.
Ebell’s eyes followed him down the walk. “Mike’s got a pretty nasty job on his hands,” he explained.
“Oh . . . ?”
“Destroying the plant. He’s spent twelve years watching it grow; now they’re asking him to blow it up. It’s like cutting off his arm.”
“It’s tough, but it has to be done,” Stark observed. “We can’t let the Japanese get the oil.”
“No, we can’t.” Ebell glanced around the room. “I feel the same about my little hospital here. It’s not much as hospitals go but I’ve gotten pretty fond of it.”
“It’ll be waiting, Doctor. This war won’t last forever,” Stark encouraged.
“No, I don’t believe that, Mr. Stark. Neither do you, I suspect.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“The day of the white man is past in this land. When the war’s over, there won’t be a place in the sun for us any longer,” he observed thoughtfully.
Stark bridled. “The Japanese won’t win,” he snapped.
“No, of course not.”
“Then why—?”
“The Malays,” Ebell cut in. “When this thing’s over you’ll find a new nation here. You can hear the stirrings now. It’s only a muted sound but it’ll rise to a thunder someday. When it does, it’ll sweep through the East Indies like a typhoon. Independence—it’s a magic word, Mr. Stark.”
“Maybe, if they’re ready,” he replied, realizing the doctor probably was right.
“They’re ready.”
“Any leaders?” Stark asked conversationally.
“Here and there. I’ll have to admit there are more and more signs of unrest—even occasional rebellion.” He smiled whimsically. “We like to blame it on the Japanese.”
“Why not? It’s to their advantage,” he said softly.
“The Malay is not looking to the Jap,” Ebell countered. “He doesn’t want another master, white or yellow. All he wants is his own land, and I think he’s getting pretty damned tired of bowing and scraping to outsiders.”
“You sympathize with them, Doctor?”
“Yes, I do.” His voice held a defiant edge. “I sympathize with the underdog everywhere.”
“Yet you work for the company.”
“As a doctor,” Ebell corrected. “I can do some good here.”
Stark changed the conversation. “What do you know about Driscoll?”
The doctor’s eyes sharpened as he studied the younger man curiously before answering. “He was murdered, if that’s what you mean.”
“By a native?”
“We have only the evidence of the method,” Ebell carefully pointed out. “Certainly a blowgun points to a native, but who can say for sure? We all have lungs.” He smiled faintly. The point wasn’t lost to Stark.
“Do you have any suspicions?” he queried.
“No, of course not. Driscoll was a thoroughly likable young man—I was quite shocked.”
“Do you know of any enemies he made?”
“I can’t imagine any.”
“Or any reason for his murder?”
“That neither, Mr. Stark. I’m afraid I can’t be of much help.” He held the agent’s eyes. “The company generally isn’t this interested.”
“This was murder,” Stark pointed out.
“I’ve seen other murders,” Ebell observed. “They usually check them with native constabulary, then dump them in a hole and forget about them.”
“Even Europeans?”
“Even Europeans,” he agreed.
“Do you mind if I ask some questions?”
“Certainly not. Go ahead.” Ebell eyed him thoughtfully.
“Have you ever heard of a man named Saito?”
“Driscoll