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read all that melodramatic bunk and decided it would make a perfect cover for putting the finger on one particular yacht in the area. He could count on nobody getting too worked up about it. Hell, it would be just another Triangle tragedy, wouldn’t it?”
    “What would be his motive?”
    “I don’t know.” Haseltine spread his hands dramatically. “I’ve spent thousands of bucks looking and I still don’t know. Buster Phipps had some people who didn’t like him—nobody makes money without that—but killing-enemies, no. And neither did the girls. I can’t give you a clue. You’ll have to work it out for yourself.”
    Again I had the old familiar feeling that security was rearing its ugly head, and I wasn’t being told everything there was to know. Well, it was his problem. If it gave him a kick to have me solve it blindfolded—or fail to solve it—that was his choice.
    “And if I find the motive, and the man?”
    Haseltine leaned forward. “Don’t be stupid, partner. You know what you do, and I know what you do. That’s why I got you instead of some scared private eye with a tape recorder and a telescopic camera. Well, find whoever got the Ametta Too , and do it.”
    I looked up. The stewardess was telling me to buckle my seatbelt. After obeying orders, I looked out the plane window. We were coming off the blue water over a green island. At least I assumed it was an island down there, although it went on farther than I could see. There was a city down there: Nassau, New Providence Island, B.W.I. Now all I had to do was learn enough about it to deal with one of the other team’s best men, quickly, so I could get to work on something truly important, like finding, or avenging, a misplaced blonde.

V.
    My initial impression of the British Colonial Hotel was that the inmates, staff and guests alike, were exclusively black. It was a great, conspicuous building on the waterfront in the crowded center of Nassau; a hotel built the nice, ornate, rambling way they used to build luxury hotels; and there didn’t seem to be, at first glance, a single paleface in the joint besides me. Please understand, I’m not making the observation in a spirit of criticism. People do come in varying colors, and I’ve never considered the differences of great importance. On the other hand, I’ll readily admit that I’m not accustomed to an environment in which my own particular chromatic variation is in the minority.
    I told myself it was a valuable educational experience, which didn’t keep me from feeling slightly outnumbered, even when I realized that there were, actually, quite a number of white faces scattered -around the crowded lobby. Anyway, I hadn’t come to the Bahamas for valuable educational experiences. I just wanted to check in fast and take a preliminary look around the town, but this turned out to be easier to plan than to accomplish—checking in fast, I mean.
    I’ve spent some time in the land of mañana, enough to get me used to—anyway, resigned to—the slower tempo of life in the semi-tropics; but at least my Latin friends were always cheerful and friendly when they kept me waiting. These hotel people seemed to resent me, which I put down to the racial difference, until I saw that they seemed to resent everybody, white or black. I suppose there’s something to be said for such even-handed lack of discrimination, but I’m not really impressed by folks who act too proud for their jobs, whatever those jobs might be. Hell, even in my business, we try to render cheerful and efficient service, as I hoped to demonstrate shortly to a gent named Pavel Minsk.
    I was tempted not to tip the surly bellboy who finally condescended to drag my suitcase upstairs and drop it disdainfully inside my fifth-floor room, but there was no sense in starting a feud, so I gave him a fairly adequate gratuity, and saw that I hadn’t gained anything by the expenditure of government funds. I’ve met the same attitude in some