Instead of doing the proper thing and immediately rectifying the mistake Uncle Seymour had tucked away his find in the old roll-topped desk in his room. Uncle Miles had been shattered when, one evening two months later, he had stumbled upon his brother possessively admiring his treasured hoard. Uncle Seymour had been truculent, stubbornly refusing to accede that he had done anything wrong or to perceive any negative repercussions to their business reputation if his actions were made public. He had insisted that he was just 'minding' the books and necklace until their return was requested.
Uncle Miles had worried about the problem for several weeks as he tried without success to contact Monsieur St Clair personally by phone and by letter. The estate staff were brusque and uncommunicative and his letters remained unanswered. It was only when the strain got too much for him that Uncle Miles had reluctantly confided in Elizabeth and asked for her active help in returning the valuable items to their reclusive owner.
'Oh, Monsieur St Clair is still living there, then. He's quite old, isn’t he? Is he still in good health?' she asked Jack now.
'Why do you ask?'
'Oh, no reason—I'd heard he was a recluse.'
Every reason in the world. If by any chance the old man was ill and died before Elizabeth got to him then a delicate situation would become extremely dangerous.
On the other hand an illness might explain the reason why there had been no apparent hue and cry about the disappearance of some highly valuable possessions. If the police were not yet involved Elizabeth knew that there was a good chance that she could extricate Uncle Seymour from the folly of his age without any shameful publicity or embarrassing legal red tape. If Monsieur St Clair was old and not in the best of health himself he might be better able to appreciate Elizabeth's plea for forgiveness for her uncle's temporary moral lapse.
Jack Hawkwood was looking at her with that unsettlingly thoughtful gaze again.
'If by recluse you mean does he value his privacy-yes, he does. Very highly. Hotel guests are expressly warned against trespassing. If they do, and are caught, their booking can be terminated forthwith and they will not be welcome ba
ck on the island again.'
'A little drastic, isn’t it?' Elizabeth said faintly, appalled at the realisation that she wasn’t going to be able to just walk up and knock on the door, as she had naively assumed she would do.
'But very effective.'
It was a very blunt statement, one that told her that she would get no more information on the subject out of Jack Hawkwood.
Not that he had told her anything positively helpful. He might be proving a push-over where getting evidence of his involvement with Serena Corvell was concerned, but for the rest she was very definitely on her own!
CHAPTER FIVE
AS ELIZABETH depressed the shutter-release two things happened simultaneously.
A slim, darkly tanned redhead wearing a string bikini draped herself across the viewfinder, totally obscuring Elizabeth's target, and the sun-lounger from which Elizabeth had been precariously leaning in order to get a better shot tipped over.
Picking herself up off the silky white sand, Elizabeth swore under her breath as she smoothed down her loose multi-coloured beach shirt and checked her camera for damage. She righted the sun-lounger, shaking out the huge royal-blue hotel towel before she spread it back on the lounger and sat down again, smiling half-heartedly at the chuckles and amused gibes of the guests in the immediate vicinity. Damn J.J. Hawkwood!
She glared at the subject of her frustration, who was lying further along the beach. The redhead was kneeling provocatively beside him, laughing down into his lazily responsive face, ignoring the discontented expression of Serena Corvell sitting under a sun-umbrella beside him.
The unfaithful wife of Uncle Simon's suffering client was evidently not having the holiday of her dreams. Well, nor was Elizabeth, and she was meanly glad that someone was sharing her disenchantment with this island paradise.
The hotel complex was unlike any Elizabeth had ever seen, a low sprawl of sinfully luxurious bungalows, each sub-divided into two separate suites, and interconnected by paths of crushed shells winding among luxuriant hibiscus, poinsettias and oleander shrubs. The main building, a graceful three-storey structure directly overlooking the curving beach of powder-fine white sand, housed three restaurants, the extensive sports facilities, casino, nightclub and numerous bars. A huge swimming-pool competed with the tranquil turquoise waters of the bay to lure the guests into taking full advantage of the balmy New Caledonia weather.
Elizabeth had been at one of the most fabulous hotels in the world for three days and she still hadn’t found time to enjoy herself! If anything her anxieties had increased. Although she had placed the necklace, cleverly sealed in festive paper, in the hotel safe, she had not managed to persuade the hotel telephonist to connect her with the St Clair estate. Off-limits to guests evidently also extended to phone calls.
Her surveillance was also proving a disappointment. From the time that Jack took a morning jog along the beach while Serena breakfasted on the veranda of his bungalow until three or four in the morning when the casino finally closed, the pair were constantly on the move, but they actually seemed to spend little time alone together. Elizabeth was beginning to despair of getting any more 'compromising' photographs than those she had taken on the boat coming over.
She took one now, just for the hell of it. She had a feeling that she could walk up and snap the camera right under their noses and neither Jack nor Serena would pay a blind bit of notice. Their lives were far too self-involved.
Perhaps the lovely Serena was coming to the same conclusion that Elizabeth had reached through the objective magnification of her long lens: that J.J. Hawkwood's excessive sociability with his guests was in the nature of a flashy conjuring trick. In fact, for all his affability, there was a reserve, a wariness about him that drew a definite line between the public and private man, over which few presumed to step.
Certainly, she had discovered to the detriment of her nerves, under that lazy exterior he had fearsome stores of energy to burn.
Sure enough, he wasn’t content to lie on the beach for long. A few minutes later he was walking off into the palm trees that lined the beach, hand in hand with the luscious redhead!
At first Elizabeth couldn’t believe her eyes. She looked from Serena Corvell's stiff face to the man retreating along the sand. A number of other women on the beach were also openly studying his form.
Elizabeth grudgingly had to admit it was superb. Unlike his thickly furred chest his back was a tapering sweep of smooth bare skin, from wide shoulders to lean hips. His legs were long, slender yet powerful as they flexed with each easy stride. Sprinter's legs and a swimmer's chest—an awesome combination. Stripped to dark blue racing-style swimming-trunks, Jack was impressively male.
But not perfect, Elizabeth saw with a jolt, for down one hair-roughened thigh was a curving scar which reached from hip-joint to knee. The flaw only served to emphasise the perfection of the rest of him.