THREE
THE MIRACLES of the latest research in botany,” Dr. Gardner said and satisfied Mumsford with his logical explanation for the shapes and colors. “I’ve been experimenting.” He had an answer, too, for the plastic-green lawn. “A special fertilizer, and I have a reservoir. I store water in the rainy season and pump it into my garden. I’ve built a generator in the back. We can take a look when we’re done here.”
They were already well inside the house when Mumsford asked his questions about the lawn and the flowers, and only because he was prompted, only because Dr. Gardner said to him, “What do you think about my lawn and my flowers?” Yet as he had walked toward the house no other questions had consumed him more, no other questions had been on the tip of his tongue causing him to lose memory temporarily of his only reason for coming. The green of the grass, the texture, the shapes and colors of the flowers, disturbed him but thrilled him, too. He wanted to know how the Englishman had done it. But when the Englishman appeared, the thrill he had felt subsided and his head spun with confusion and disappointment.
Dr. Gardner had met him on the porch. He had come through the front door tucking a white shirt down the back of his tan cotton pants. He was a tall, thin, wiry man with tiny nuggets of steel blue for eyes and skin tough like leather, burnt to a deep olive brown. His hair fell down in scraggly locks to his shoulders. It was a dark reddish color but the ends were light, bleached by the sun.
“It’s Mumsford, isn’t it?” he asked and he held out his hand. “I mean it’s not Mumford, or Munford, is it?”
“Yes, yes, it is Mumsford.”
He shoved the rest of his shirt down the front of his pants, pulled a blue elastic band off his wrist, and tied back his hair. “Servants,” he said. “Ariana told me an Inspector Munford was here to see me, but I knew she had made a mistake.”
Ariana.
Before Gardner appeared, Mumsford had knocked on the door, and when there was no answer he had peered through the window. He was certain he had seen a naked woman dashing across the drawing room. He had caught a glimpse of her back before she disappeared through another door. A tumble of wild black curls swished across her bare bottom, back and forth like the pendulum of a clock.
“Ariana,” Dr. Gardner called out. “Ariana!”
Perhaps it was another woman.
“Come, come, Inspector,” Dr. Gardner urged him. “Don’t stand there in the sun. Come inside. It’s nicer inside.”
She reappeared hovering behind him. The same tumble of hair. Ariana.
“Don’t stand in the doorway.” Dr. Gardner pushed her aside. “Make way, make way.”
Ariana, Dr. Gardner’s servant. Ariana, naked in Dr. Gardner’s drawing room. Ariana who should not be questioned in the presence of Dr. Gardner. Images collided in Mumsford’s head: the naked woman, the man tucking in his shirt. Did he know she had written a letter to the commissioner?
Dr. Gardner led him into the drawing room. “Drinks for the inspector,” he said as he brushed past Ariana.
Mumsford kept his eyes focused on the room in front of him, too embarrassed to look back at her.
“Bit of a shock, isn’t it, young man?” Gardner was speaking to him.
Yes, but more than a bit of a shock.
“One never gets quite used to it.” Gardner chuckled. “I mean, after the blistering heat outside.”
The muscles on Mumsford’s face tightened.
“Relax, old man.” Gardner gave him a friendly tap on his back. “It’s only air-conditioning.”
It wasn’t that he had not felt the difference the instant he entered the room. Suddenly he could breathe, suddenly the pores on his neck and face contracted pleasantly, and his undershirt, seconds ago damp, sticking uncomfortably to his back, was a cool compress soothing his blistering skin. But it was a sensation he experienced almost unconsciously. His conscious self was preoccupied with sorting out the shock: the certainty that it was Ariana he had seen. He was not wrong about the hair, the lithe body, the liquid flow of brown skin. He was not wrong about the loose shirttails hanging out of Dr. Gardner’s pants, which were unbelted and, he could swear, unbuttoned at the waist.
“So what do you think?” Dr. Gardner’s voice penetrated his brain and Mumsford pulled himself together.
“I didn’t think the technology had been advanced for domestic use,” he said.
Gardner grinned. “Not for everybody, my man.”
She was still standing there, waiting, he supposed, for Dr. Gardner’s order. Dr. Gardner had not said what kind of drinks. Perhaps she was waiting to know exactly what he wanted her to bring.
“But it has advanced, it has advanced,” Dr. Gardner was saying, taking no notice of Ariana.
This was not his business, Mumsford reminded himself. He was not here to discuss her or her dealings with Gardner.
“And my lawn? What do you think about my lawn and my flowers?” Dr. Gardner came closer to him. So Mumsford asked and Gardner replied, “The miracles of the latest research in botany. I’m a scientist, Inspector.”
How logical was his answer, how simple. He was a scientist; he was experimenting with shapes and colors. Mumsford managed a smile. “And all this?” He cast his eyes around the room.
“For my Virginia,” Dr. Gardner said. “A little of England for her.”
Yes, that was what his subconscious mind had registered: England. He fixed his back resolutely toward her so he could not see her. England. There were no wicker and bamboo here, no couches covered in fabric with overlaying patterns of coconut fronds and bright red hibiscus. His eyes took in more: proper English armchairs, proper English love seats. Dr. Gardner had not been snared, as some of his compatriots on the island had, into succumbing to the foolish romantic notion of local color. In the drawing room where he stood, the chairs were upholstered in English fabrics, refined damasks in English floral patterns: sprays of pink, white, and red roses extending off long, leafy green stems against a pale yellow background. The drapes on the windows matched the yellow of the damask. On the mahogany cocktail table that separated the love seats were picture books of English gardens and a bronze sculpture of Don Quixote on his horse. He looked down to the rug on the floor.
“Persian,” Dr. Gardner said before he could inquire. “An original. Handwoven, not one of those modern machine-made imitations.”
No straw mats, either, on the wood floors.
One wall was completely lined with books. Mumsford could not read all the titles, but he was sure they were by English writers. Shakespeare—the name stood out—and then there were others: Milton, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, names he had learned in grammar school. England’s heroes, her geniuses. Racial pride flared through him like a brush fire. Whatever distaste he felt for Gardner when the image of his unbuttoned pants flashed across his brain was replaced now with genuine admiration. Here was an Englishman indeed.
“Sit. Sit.” Dr. Gardner pointed to an armchair. “Give me your hat and baton.”
Mumsford relinquished them with a slight bow, clicking his heels in military fashion. Gardner laughed and laid his hand lightly on his shoulder. “For heaven’s sake, at ease, young man. Don’t be so stuffy. Make yourself comfortable.”
Mumsford blushed. He had not intended the bow and the click, but