Marcus bowed and backed grinning into the house.
“Hadn’t you better wait to make sure?” I asked.
“But I am sure,” he drawled, “as sure as when the voice spoke from the orange tree. There is nothing to wait for now: I have seen him die.”
“In a dream.”
“Was it a dream?” he asked carelessly.
When I left, ten or fifteen minutes later, Marcus was making noises indoors that sounded as if he actually was packing.
Sherry shook hands with me, saying:
“Awfully glad to have had you for breakfast. Perhaps we’ll meet again if your work ever brings you to northern Africa. Remember me to Miriam and Dolph. I can’t sincerely send condolences.”
Out of sight of the bungalow, I left the road for a path along the hillside above, and explored the country for a higher spot from which Sherry’s place could be spied on. I found a pip, a vacant ramshackle house on a jutting ridge off to the northeast. The whole of the bungalow’s front, part of one side, and a good stretch of the cobbled walk, including its juncture with the road, could be seen from the vacant house’s front porch. It was a rather long shot for naked eyes, but with field glasses it would be just about perfect, even to a screen of overgrown bushes in front.
When I got back to the Kavalov house Ringgo was propped up on gay cushions in a reed chair under a tree, with a book in his hand.
“What do you think of him?” he asked. “Is he cracked?”