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expecting you since lunchtime. And...?' She heliographed with her pince-nez towards Solitaire.

      'Mrs Bryce,' said Bond.

      'Ah yes,' said Mrs Stuyvesant, wishing to disbelieve. 'Well, if you'd care to sign the register, I'm sure you and Mrs Bryce would like to freshen up after the journey. The full address, please. Thank you.'

      She led them out and down the cement path to the end cottage on the left. She knocked and Leiter appeared. Bond had looked forward to a warm welcome, but Leiter seemed staggered to see him. His mouth hung open. His straw-coloured hair, still faintly black at the roots, looked like a haystack.

      'You haven't met my wife, I think,' said Bond.

      'No, no, I mean, yes. How do you do?'

      The whole situation was beyond him. Forgetting Solitaire, he almost dragged Bond through the door. At the last moment he remembered the girl and seized her with his other hand and pulled her in too, banging the door shut with his heel so that Mrs Stuyvesant's 'I hope you have a happy...' was guillotined before the 'stay'.

      Once inside, Leiter could still not take them in. He stood and gaped from one to the other.

      Bond dropped his suitcase on the floor of the little lobby. There were two doors. He pushed open the one on his right and held it for Solitaire. It was a small living-room that ran the width of the cottage and faced across the beach to the sea. It was pleasantly furnished with bamboo beach chairs upholstered in foam rubber covered with a red-and-green hibiscus chintz. Palm-leaf matting covered the floor. The walls were duck's-egg blue and in the centre of each was a colour print of tropical flowers in a bamboo frame. There was a large drum-shaped table in bamboo with a glass top. It held a bowl of flowers and a white telephone. There were broad windows facing the sea and to the right of them a door leading on to the beach. White plastic jalousies were drawn half up the windows to cut the glare from the sand.

      Bond and Solitaire sat down. Bond lit a cigarette and threw the pack and his lighter on to the table.

      Suddenly the telephone rang. Leiter came out of his trance and walked over from the door and picked up the receiver.

      'Speaking,' he said. 'Put the Lieutenant on. That you, Lieutenant? He's here. Just walked in. No, all in one piece.' He listened for a moment, then turned to Bond. 'Where did you leave the Phantom?' he asked. Bond told him. 'Jacksonville,' said Leiter into the telephone. 'Yeah, I'll say. Sure. I'll get the details from him and call you back. Will you call off Homicide? I'd sure appreciate it. And New York. Much obliged, Lieutenant. Orlando 9000. Okay. And thanks again. 'Bye.' He put down the receiver. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and sat down opposite Bond.

      Suddenly he looked at Solitaire and grinned apologetically. 'I guess you're Solitaire,' he said. 'Sorry for the rough welcome. It's been quite a day. For the second time in around twenty-four hours I didn't expect to see this guy again.' He turned back to Bond. 'Okay to go ahead?' he asked.

      'Yes,' said Bond. 'Solitaire's on our side now.'

      'That's a break,' said Leiter. 'Well, you won't have seen the papers or heard the radio, so I'll give you the headlines first. The Phantom was stopped soon after Jacksonville. Between Waldo and Ocala. Your compartment was tommy-gunned and bombed. Blown to bits. Killed the Pullman porter who was in the corridor at the time. No other casualties. Bloody uproar going on. Who did it? Who's Mr Bryce and who's Mrs Bryce? Where are they? Of course we were sure you'd been snatched. The police at Orlando are in charge. Traced the bookings back to New York. Found the FBI had made them. Everyone comes down on me like a load of bricks. Then you walk in with a pretty girl on your arm looking as happy as a clam.'

      Leiter burst out laughing. 'Boy! You should have heard Washington a while back. Anybody would have thought it was me that bombed the goddam train.'

      He reached for one of Bond's cigarettes and lit it.

      'Well,' he said. 'That's the synopsis. I'll hand over the shooting script when I've heard your end. Give.'

      Bond described in detail what had happened since he had spoken to Leiter from the St Regis. When he came to the night on the train he took the piece of paper out of his pocket-book and pushed it across the table.

      Leiter whistled. 'Voodoo,' he said. 'This was meant to be found on the corpse, I guess. Ritual murder by friends of the men you bumped in Harlem. That's how it was supposed to look. Take the heat right away from The Big Man. They certainly think out all the angles. We'll get after that thug they had on the train. Probably one of the help in the diner. He must have been the man who put the finger on your compartment. You finish. Then I'll tell you how he did it.'

      'Let me see,' said Solitaire. She reached across for the paper.

      'Yes,' she said quietly. 'It's an ouanga, a Voodoo fetish. It's the invocation to the Drum Witch. It's used by the Ashanti tribe in Africa when they want to kill someone. They use something like it in Haiti.' She handed it back to Bond. 'It was lucky you didn't tell me about it,' she said seriously. 'I would still be having hysterics.'

      'I didn't care for it myself,' said Bond. 'I felt it was bad news. Lucky we got off at Jacksonville. Poor Baldwin. We owe him a lot.'

      He finished the story of the rest of their trip.

      'Anyone spot you when you left the train?' asked Leiter.

      'Shouldn't think so,' said Bond. 'But we'd better keep Solitaire under cover until we can get her out. Thought we ought to fly her over to Jamaica tomorrow. I can get her looked after there till we come on.'

      'Sure,' agreed Leiter. 'We'll put her in a charter plane at Tampa. Get her down to Miami by tomorrow lunchtime and she can take one of the afternoon services--KLM or Panam. Get her in by dinner-time tomorrow. Too late to do anything this afternoon.'

      'Is that all right, Solitaire?' Bond asked her.

      The girl was staring out of the window. Her eyes had the faraway look that Bond had seen before.

      Suddenly she shivered.

      Her eyes came back to Bond. She put out a hand and touched his sleeve.

      'Yes,' she said. She hesitated. 'Yes, I guess so.'

      Chapter 13

       DEATH OF A PELICAN

       Table of Content

      Solitaire stood up.

      'I must go and tidy myself,' she said. 'I expect you've both got plenty to talk about.'

      'Of course,' said Leiter, jumping up. 'Crazy of me! You must be dead beat. Guess you'd better take James's room and he can bed down with me.'

      Solitaire followed him out into the little hall and Bond heard Leiter explaining the arrangement of the rooms.

      In a moment Leiter came back with a bottle of Haig and Haig and some ice.

      'I'm forgetting my manners,' he said. 'We could both do with a drink. There's a small pantry next to the bathroom and I've stocked it with all we're likely to need!'

      He fetched some soda-water and they both took a long drink.

      'Let's have the details,' said Bond, sitting back. 'Must have been the hell of a fine job.'

      'Sure was,' agreed Leiter, 'except for the shortage of corpses.'

      He put his feet on the table and lit a cigarette.

      'Phantom left Jacksonville around five,' he began. 'Got to Waldo around six. Just after leaving Waldo--and here I'm guessing--Mr Big's man comes along to your car, gets into the next compartment to yours and hangs a towel between the drawn blind and the window, meaning--and he must have done a good deal of telephoning at stations on the way down--meaning 'the window to the right of this towel is it'.

      'There's a long stretch of straight track between Waldo and Ocala,' continued Leiter, 'running through forest and swamp land. State highway right alongside the track. About

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