Mercifully, a cab was just drawing up with some other visitors. Bond took it and told the driver to get him back quick to The Everglades. All he knew was that they had got Leiter and had wanted to draw Bond away from the cottage. Bond couldn’t make it out, but he knew that suddenly everything was going bad on them and that the initiative was back in the hands of Mr Big and his machine.
Mrs Stuyvesant hurried out when she saw him leave the cab.
‘Your poor friend,’ she said without sympathy. ‘Really he should be more careful.’
‘Yes, Mrs Stuyvesant. What is it?’ said Bond impatiently.
‘The ambulance came just after you left.’ The woman’s eyes were gleaming with the bad news. ‘Seems Mr Leiter was in an accident with his car. They had to carry him to the cottage on a stretcher. Such a nice coloured man was in charge. He said Mr Leiter would be quite all right but he mustn’t be disturbed on any account. Poor boy! Face all covered with bandages. They said they’d make him comfortable and a doctor would be coming later. If there’s anything I can…’
Bond didn’t wait for more. He ran down the lawn to the cottage and dashed through the lobby into Leiter’s room.
There was the shape of a body on Leiter’s bed. It was covered with a sheet. Over the face, the sheet seemed to be motionless. Bond gritted his teeth as he leant over the bed. Was there a tiny flutter of movement?
Bond snatched the shroud down from the face. There was no face. Just something wrapped round and round with dirty bandages, like a white wasps’ nest.
He softly pulled the sheet down further. More bandages, still more roughly wound, with wet blood seeping through. Then the top of a sack which covered the lower half of the body. Everything soaked in blood.
There was a piece of paper protruding from a gap in the bandages where the mouth should have been.
Bond pulled it away and leant down. There was the faintest whisper of breath against his cheek. He snatched up the bedside telephone. It took minutes before he could make Tampa understand. Then the urgency in his voice got through. They would get to him in twenty minutes.
He put down the receiver and looked vaguely at the paper in his hand. It was a rough piece of white wrapping paper. Scrawled in pencil in ragged block letters were the words:
HE DISAGREED WITH SOMETHING THAT ATE HIM
And underneath in brackets:
(P.S. WE HAVE PLENTY MORE JOKES AS GOOD AS THIS)
With the movements of a sleep-walker, Bond put the piece of paper down on the bedside table. Then he turned back to the body on the bed. He hardly dared touch it for fear that the tiny fluttering breath would suddenly cease. But he had to find out something. His fingers worked softly at the bandages on top of the head. Soon he uncovered some of the strands of hair. The hair was wet and he put his fingers to his mouth. There was a salt taste. He pulled out some strands of hair and looked closely at them. There was no more doubt.
He saw again the pale straw-coloured mop that used to hang down in disarray over the right eye, grey and humorous, and below it the wry, hawk-like face of the Texan with whom he had shared so many adventures. He thought of him for a moment, as he had been. Then he tucked the lock of hair back into the bandages and sat on the edge of the other bed and quietly watched over the body of his friend and wondered how much of it could be saved.
When the two detectives and the police surgeon arrived he told them all he knew in a quiet flat voice. Acting on what Bond had already told them on the telephone they had sent a squad car down to The Robber’s place and they waited for a report while the surgeon worked next door.
He was finished first. He came back into the sitting-room looking anxious. Bond jumped to his feet. The police surgeon slumped into a chair and looked up at him.
‘I think he’ll live,’ he said. ‘But it’s fifty-fifty. They certainly did a job on the poor guy. One arm gone. Half the left leg. Face in a mess, but only superficial. Darned if I know what did it. Only thing I can think of is an animal or a big fish. Something’s been tearing at him. Know a bit more when I can get him to the hospital. There’ll be traces left from the teeth of whatever it was. Ambulance should be along any time.’
They sat in gloomy silence. The telephone rang intermittently. New York, Washington. The St Petersburg Police Department wanted to know what the hell was going on down at the wharf and were told to keep out of the case. It was a Federal job. Finally, from a call-box, there was the lieutenant in charge of the squad car reporting.
