CHAPTER 21Mr. Pinkerton slipped down his staircase into the empty lounge. Voices were coming from the bar. It wouldn’t, he thought sententiously, and slightly mixed metaphorically even for him, be the first night men had washed the ghosts of wicked deeds out of their eyes with grog in this ancient hostelry. Then, peering round the corner of the rubber plant he saw he’d made a mistake—at least none of the occupants of the crowded bar that he could make out had any connection with the people at the inn. Except Jo, and Jo was not precisely at the bar. He was coming along balancing a small tray with the virtuosity of a comic acrobat in a music-hall turn. It had a glass with a double whisky in it, and a small green bottle of soda. He held it at arm’s length as he executed an elaborate right-ang
