Pearls Read Online Free PDF Page B

hot. Even the poinsettias were drooping. There were murmurs of thunder across the blue rim of the ocean. The Wet would break any day.
    Kate sat next to Flynn in the sulky, fanning herself gently with a scented handkerchief. They passed the long jetty. The passenger ship, the Koolinda , was docked there, a twinkling fairyland of lights.
    Flynn was morose. He had hardly said a word to her since they had left the party.
    'What's wrong?' Kate asked him.
    'I don't want you speaking to that man again. Do you understand me now, girl?'
    'Yes, you already told me that. So what's your quarrel with Mister McKenzie?'
    'That's men's business.'
    Men's business! He treated her as if she was a child. It was an incalculable arrogance, considering how she had fed him and washed his clothes for him ever since her mother had died. 'He called you a pearl thief. Why?'
    'I'll thank you not to question me in that manner, my girl. You're not too old to put across my knee, mind.'
    'I should like to see you to try it, Patrick Flynn. You're likely to get your nose broken again.'
    'You'll not speak to your father that way!' There was a strident note to his voice now. Their horse pricked its ears and tossed its head, jolting the sulky. Kate lapsed into tight-lipped silence.
    When they reached their bungalow, Flynn jumped off the sulky and helped his daughter down from the running board. Then he climbed back on and picked up the reins.
    'And where are you off to now?' she asked him.
    'To the hotel. I need a proper drink.' He looked down at her, and his face creased into a frown. 'And don't look at me like that! I'll do whatever I damned well please!'
    He jerked the reins and the sulky clattered away up the dirt road. Kate felt like throwing a rock after him. He was drinking himself into an early grave. He was only fifty years old and he looked like a man of sixty.
    Dear God.
    Men.
    She went into the house and removed her bonnet and her shoes. The house was like a furnace. She went out onto the veranda, breathing in the scent of the oleander and Japanese honeysuckle, trying to calm herself.
    She slumped into a cane chair and ran her fingers through her hair. Her blouse was clinging to her, it was hot. The surf was breaking on Cable Beach, five miles distant, and the muted roar mingled with the faint and alien melodies from Saigon and Singapore that drifted from the radio transmitting station next door.
    She saw a shadow move among the bushes in the garden. She felt a thrill of alarm. 'Who's there?'
    A cigarette glowed in the darkness. 'I'm sorry, I did nae mean to scare you,' a voice said.
    Kate recognised the soft brogue immediately. She smiled. 'Why, Mister McKenzie,' she purred, crossing her legs. 'What a fright you gave me.'
     
    ***
     
    Flynn jumped off the running board, tethered his horse and went through a door which read: 'Niland & Co.' There was a light burning inside.
    George Niland had his feet perched on the edge of the desk, his teeth clenched on a cheroot. He looked up as Flynn entered. 'You said it was important.'
    Flynn shut the door behind him. 'Are we alone, my boy?'
    'It's Sunday, Patrick, of course we are. For goodness sake, sit down. You're making me nervous.'
    Flynn reached into his pocket and took out an old tobacco tin. He took off the lid and removed a roll of tissue paper. 'I thought you might like to see this,' he said. He unwrapped the tissue paper. 'Now then, my boy, tell me if you've ever seen the like in your whole life.'
    There was a sharp intake of breath and George sat bolt upright. In the darkened room the pearl seemed to take on a luminescence of its own.
    'My God,' George murmured in awe, 'where did you get it?'
    'It doesn't matter where it came from, my boy. The question is - what's it worth?'
     
     

Chapter 8
     
    The bane of the pearler's life was the cockroaches. They thrived on the reeking gristle that clung to the pearl shells stored in the holds of the luggers; at night they swarmed from their hiding places to