“I agree,” Santiago said. “I still think the girl must have some sort of an answer, but she may take her time returning. In the meantime, we’ll surprise Mr. Dillon as much as possible.” He smiled up at Algaro. “Think you can handle that, Algaro?”

“With pleasure, Señor,” Algaro said.

“Good.” Santiago turned back to Serra. “What about the crew?”

“Guerra, first mate. Solona and Mugica as usual, and I’ve brought in two men with good diving experience, Javier Noval and Vicente Pinto.”

“And they’re reliable?”

“Absolutely.”

“And we’re expected at Samson Cay?”

“Yes, Señor, I spoke to Prieto personally. You wish to stay there?”

“I think so. We could always drop anchor off Paradise Beach at Caneel, of course. I’ll think about it.” Santiago finished his coffee and stood up. “Right, let’s get moving then.”

Dillon took to Caneel from the moment he got there. He parked the jeep and, carrying his own bags, followed the obvious path. There was a magnificent restaurant on a bluff up above him, circular with open sides. Below it was the ruins of a sugar mill from the old plantation days. The vegetation was extremely lush, palm trees everywhere. He paused, noticing a gift shop on the left and set back. More important the smaller shop next to it said “Paradise Watersports,” Carney’s place. He remembered that from the brochure and went and had a look. As he would have expected, there were diving suits of various kinds on display, but the door was locked, so he carried on and came to the front desk lobby.

There were three or four people being dealt with at the desk before him so he dropped his bags and went back outside. There was a very large bar area, open at the sides, but under a huge barnlike roof, a vital necessity in a climate where instant heavy rain showers were common.

Beyond was Caneel Bay, he knew that from the brochure, boats of various kinds at anchor, a pleasant, palm-fringed beach beside another restaurant, people still taking their ease in the early evening sun, one or two windsurfers still out there. Dillon glanced at his watch. It was almost five-thirty and he started to turn away to go back to the front desk when he saw a boat coming in.

It was a 35-foot Sport Fisherman with a flying bridge, sleek and white, but what intrigued Dillon were the dozen or so airtanks stacked in their holders in the stern, and there were four people moving around on deck packing their gear into dive bags. Carney was on the flying bridge, handling the wheel, in jeans and bare feet, stripped to the waist, very tanned, the blond hair bleached by the sun. Dillon recognized him from the photo in the brochure.

The name of the boat was Sea Raider, he saw that as it got closer, moved to the end of the dock as Carney maneuvered it in. One of the dive students tossed a line, Dillon caught it and expertly tied up at the stern, then he moved along to the prow where the boat was bouncing against its fenders, reached over and got the other line.

Dillon lit a cigarette, his Zippo flashing, and Carney killed the engines and came down the ladder. “Thanks,” he called.

Dillon said, “My pleasure, Captain Carney,” and he turned and walked away along the dock.

One of the receptionists from the front desk took him out to his cottage in a small courtesy bus. The grounds were an absolute delight, not only sweeping grassland and palm trees, but every kind of tropical plant imaginable.

“The entire peninsula is private,” she said as they followed a narrow road. “We have seven beaches and, as you’ll notice, most of the cottages are grouped around them.”

“I’ve only seen two restaurants so far,” he commented.

“Yes, Sugar Mill and Beach Terrace. There’s a third at the end of the peninsula, Turtle Bay, that’s more formal. You know, collar and tie and so on. It’s wonderful for an evening drink. You look out over the Windward Passage to dozens of little islands, Carval Rock, Whistling Cay. Of course a lot further away you’ll see Jost Van Dyke and Tortola, but they’re in the British Virgins.”

“It sounds idyllic,” he said.

She braked in a turned circle beside a two-storied, flat-roofed building surrounded by trees and bushes of every description. “Here we are, Cottage Seven.”

There were steps up to the upper level. “It isn’t all one then?” Dillon asked.

She opened the door into a little vestibule. “People do sometimes take it all, but up here it’s divided into two units. Seven D and Seven E.”

The doors faced each other, she unlocked 7D and led the way in. There was a superb shower room, a bar area with a spare icebox. The bedroom-cum-sitting room was enormous and very pleasantly furnished with tiled floor and comfortable chairs and a sofa, and there were venetian blinds at the windows, two enormous fans turning in the ceiling.

“Is this all right?” she asked.

“I should say so.” Dillon nodded at the enormous bed. “Jesus, but a man would have to be a sprinter to catch his wife in that thing.”

She laughed and opened the double doors to the terrace and led the way out. There was a large seating area and a narrow part round the corner that fronted the other windows. There was a grassy slope, trees and a small beach below, three or four large yachts of the ocean-going type at anchor some distance from shore.

“Paradise Beach,” she said.

There was another beach way over to the right with a line of cottages behind it. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Scott Beach and Turtle Bay is a little further on. You could walk there in fifteen minutes, although there is a courtesy bus service with stops dotted round the grounds.”

There was a knock at the door, she went back inside and supervised the bellboy leaving the luggage. Dillon followed her. She turned. “I think that’s everything.”

“There was the question of a telephone,” Dillon said. “You don’t have them in the cottages, I understand.”

“My, but I was forgetting that.” She opened her carrying bag and took out a cellular telephone plus a spare battery and charger. She put it on the coffee table with a card. “Your number and instructions are there.” She laughed. “Now I hope that really is everything.”

Dillon opened the door for her. “You’ve been very kind.”

“Oh, one more thing, our General Manager, Mr. Nicholson, asked me to apologize for not being here to greet you. He had business on St. Thomas.”

“That’s all right. I’m sure we’ll catch up with each other later.”

“I believe he’s Irish too,” she said and left.

Dillon opened the icebox under the bar unit, discovering every kind of drink one could imagine including two half-bottles of champagne. He opened one of them, poured a glass, then went out and stood on the terrace looking out over the water.

“Well, old son, this will do to take along,” he said softly and drank the champagne with conscious pleasure.

In the end, of course, the sparkle on the water was too seductive and he went inside, unpacked, hanging his clothes in the ample wardrobe space, then undressed and found some swimming trunks. A moment later he was hurrying down the grass bank to the little beach, which for the moment he had entirely to himself. The water was incredibly warm and very clear. He waded forward and started to swim, there was a sudden swirl over on his right, an enormous turtle surfaced, looked at him curiously, then moved sedately away.

Dillon laughed aloud for pure pleasure, then swam lazily out to sea in the direction of the moored yachts, turning after some fifty yards to swim back. Behind him, the Maria Blanco came round the point from Caneel Bay and dropped anchor about three hundred yards away.

Santiago had changed his mind about Samson Cay only after Captain Serra had brought him a message from the radio room. An enquiry by ship-to-shore telephone had confirmed that Dillon had arrived at Caneel Bay.