Blow-Down, page 10
“But he isn’t furious any more?”
“Well, he’s got other things to worry about. He’s got to get an alibi for himself now. The Comandante thinks Dave Perry might have killed Mr. Stilton because Mr. Stilton ran away with Mrs. Perry.”
“Stilton did? When?”
“Eight years ago—but the Comandante just found it out. And the ex-Mrs. Perry is flying down to claim Mr. Stilton’s body and is going to make it even more fun for Dave—for Mr. Perry.”
“What about the hundred thousand dollars, in that case?
“That was just a false clue to conceal the real motive for the murder, the Comandante says.”
“Tell me more,” Lane said.
The girl told him how Cecil Holliday had established an alibi for Henry Alcott, and how the wives had come down to the Comandancia to swear that Ed Bannister was busy taking them home at the time when Stilton was probably killed.
“Did you tell the Comandante about my seeing a man climbing over the hedge back of the office?” Lane asked.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Well—you said you weren’t sure who it was, and—”
“And you were afraid it might have been someone you didn’t want to incriminate. That it?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Who were you protecting?”
“I wasn’t protecting anybody. Only I was afraid it might have been Cecil Holliday.”
“What reason would Holliday have had for killing Stilton?”
“Plenty. Mr. Stilton Was very easy to hate anyhow. And he happened to be responsible for an accident that wrecked Cecil’s career as a pianist. I can’t picture Cecil as a murderer; he’s such a gentle person; but he was very drunk tonight.”
Lane was silent for a moment. He reached in his pocket pulled out a soggy pack of cigarettes, put it back. “You couldn’t lend a guy a dry cigarette, could you?” he asked.
“On the table behind you. And light me one, Walt.”
She watched the flare of the match paint vivid orange highlights on his rugged face. The flame went out. A glowing spot of light was passed toward her. She caught his wrist, guided it, took the cigarette from his fingers with her lips.
“What color nail polish do you use?” he asked.
“Coral. Why? Do you taste it?”
“And the other girls in the house?”
“Well, Della uses coral, too. Katherine doesn’t use any. Fay uses rose, and Nita cardinal. What—”
“What about the married women?”
“Dr. Janvier’s wife always buys plum red. Mrs. Bannister uses rose sometimes. The rest of them don’t approve of painting the fingernails. Now would you mind telling me why you want to know?”
“I’ve been with Adolf von Graulitz tonight,” Lane said.
“Oh. Then that swastika—?”
“Has nothing to do with it. Graulitz had me brought to him by a couple of armed thugs—who’d been instructed to bring someone else. I don’t know yet whom they mistook me for. At any rate I visited Herr von Graulitz on one of the cays several miles down the coast. You go to the cays quite frequently, don’t you, Muriel?”
“Not frequently, exactly. I go out once in a while on a fishing party.”
“With Mr. Perry?”
“He’s usually along. But there are always six or eight of us.”
“Do you know a cay with a manaca hut on it—about halfway down the coast to Liberica, I should judge?”
“There are several along there with fishing shacks on them,” the girl said. “Some of the boys go over for the week-end sometimes.”
“Did you ever see von Graulitz on one of your fishing-parties?”
“No, never.”
“Never saw Dave Perry talking to Graulitz on one of the cays?”
“Graulitz knows better than to try to crash one of Dave’s parties.”
“It’s a funny thing,” Lane said, “but I picked up a nail-polish phial just outside of Graulitz’s hut tonight. It must belong to either you or Della. It’s labeled ‘coral.’ ”
“Washed up by the tide, probably,” said the girl.
“It was above the high-water line. Besides it was half full. It was probably dropped from a woman’s handbag. And there was an American label on the bottle.”
“So you are a detective?”
“For the purpose of argument let’s say I’m a detective.”
“A company detective?”
“Is that what Perry thinks?”
“He thinks you’re down here to spy on him. Aren’t you?
“Not unless he’s the man who poisoned Bill Bossert.”
“Bill Bossert wasn’t poisoned. He had—”
“He was poisoned—probably by the man who killed Stilton tonight.”
“But who—?”
“Let me ask questions for a while,” Lane said. “What about this young wireless operator who was here tonight? Does he come here often?”
“Bob Neptune? Fairly often. He grows faint at the sight of Nita, it seems. Only Nita can’t see him.”
“How long has Nita been in Puerto Musa?”
“About a year. Her job is practically fire-proof. She’s the niece of J. B. Fenwick, who own Westchester Fruit Distributors—a big customer of the company.”
“Tell me: Has Nita ever put out that honeyed drawl of hers for the private delectation of Dave Perry?”
“Nita’s drawl is broadcast on all wave-lengths.”
“Has Dave Perry tuned in recently?”
“Dave has better sense—now.”
“Now?”
“Well, he let one woman make a fool of him. I don’t think he’d do nip-ups over anybody as obvious and as—well, as indiscriminate as Nita. She’s a charming person, but something of an opportunist. She—”
“You’re pretty fond of Perry, aren’t you?”
“I’m devoted to him.”
“And if you ever found out that he had been guilty of skulduggery in the first degree?”
“I’d still be devoted to him—because I know there’d be good reason for whatever he did.”
“In other words, you love him.”
“Of course I love Dave—but I’m not in love with him, if that subtle distinction means anything to you.”
“We won’t quibble over definitions.”
“But I want you to know how I feel about Dave. I admire him tremendously, I love the grand person that he is, I have a deep and affectionate respect for him, and I have every reason to be grateful to him.”
“What do you owe him—your job?”
“Dave Perry is my job, really—a sort of responsibility. Dave practically brought me up. His wife, Geraldine, was my stepsister. Jerry and I never did get on particularly well together, but we were on our own since I was twelve, and she sort of looked after me for a few years until she married Dave.”
“And then he took care of you?”
“He put me through school and bought my clothes. I worshiped him, of course. It was only a school-girl crush, and I know I didn’t mean anything to Dave—then. But Jerry used to stage terrible jealous scenes, even though I was only sixteen. When she ran away from Dave, I thought, in my romantic girlish egotism, that it was because of Dave’s attention to me. I didn’t know about Stilton until after the divorce.
“Well, I wanted to take the first boat for the tropics and look out for Dave, but he wouldn’t let me. He made me finish school, then got me a job in the fruit company’s New York office for a while. By that time the company was beginning to send quite a few office girls to the tropics. It was less of a pioneering life. So three years ago I came down to be Dave’s secretary. I’m glad I did. Dave had never really reorganized his life after Jerry pulled out, but in three years he’s pretty well straightened up again. At least I thought so until a few weeks ago. He’s been awfully jittery lately.”
“And what do you owe to Cecil Holliday?”
“Nothing—except sympathy, and the duty of an involuntary goddess not to hurt her worshipers.”
“I don’t know whether to be more jealous of Perry or Holliday,” Lane said.
“Why should you be jealous of either?”
“Because I know you’d break your heck for both of them, separately and collectively,” Lane said. “Loyalty in a woman has always moved me to warm and wistful admiration. To how many men can you be loyal at once?”
The girl’s reply was a soft, elusive laugh in the darkness, Lane reached for her hand, lifted it, turned it until he could kiss the inner curve of her fingers. The touch of his lips was like an electric contact that charged the room with a strange, sudden tenseness. An unreasoning tightness gripped Lane’s throat. The girl, too, was affected; her fingers trembled against his lips, yet she left them there, as if powerless to withdraw them. The whole horrid nightmare of Stilton’s murder, the ugly presence of death, seemed to drop abruptly from between the two, leaving an acute awareness of life and youth, of physical closeness. His lips brushed the palm of the girl’s hand, caressed her wrist, pressed against the soft angle of her elbow. Then, suddenly, he sprang up.
“I’m going into the next room,” he said when he could find his voice, “so you can get some clothes on.”
“Why, Walt?”
“Because I was on the point of forgetting what I came here for. I want you to do something for me, Muriel. Get dressed.”
“At this time of night?”
“Right now. Unless you’re accustomed to go walking in your nightie.”
“I’m not going walking.”
“Yes, you are. You owe it to Perry. Didn’t you promise Perry you’d find out all about me tonight?”
“I didn’t tell you that.”
“You didn’t deny it, either.”
Silence. Then, “All right, I’ll get dressed.”
Lane sat in the living-room, smoking a cigarette. He could hear Muriel moving about after her clothes. After a while he thought he heard her voice, as though she were talking in low, not unmusical tones. He got up, went to the door of her room, listened. He did not know in which room the telephone was, so he went silently to the two other doors. When he heard the girl’s voice again, she seemed to be humming snatches of a song. Relieved, he went back to his chair—but he did not sit down. Framed in the door from the veranda was the silhouette of a man, a tall man with bushy hair. A shorter, slimmer silhouette slid into view beside him. Then Lane blinked into the blinding glare of a flashlight.
“Don’t move, Lane. We don’t want to hurt you.” Lane didn’t recognize the voice. He tried unsuccessfully to see the faces of the men behind the dazzling lamp.
“I had a hunch we’d find you here,” said a second voice, which Lane knew instantly as Dave Perry’s. He chuckled briefly and without amusement.
“The hunch didn’t come by telephone, did it, Perry?” Lane asked.
He heard a door open behind him, then the click of a switch. In the sudden flood of light Lane saw that Perry was holding the flashlamp and that the man next to him was dark and dapper, with a quiet air of authority about him. The fact that he kept his right hand in the pocket of his white uniform did nothing to destroy the effortless poise of his military bearing. He was the Comandante of the port, obviously.
“They came in a hurry, didn’t they, Muriel?” said Lane without turning around.
“Muriel has nothing to do with this,” Perry said.
“No, of course not,” Lane said. “This is just a social call, and you brought the Comandante along to make a fourth. What do we play for—tenth of a cent?”
Then the girl walked into the center of the room. She turned her back on Perry and the Comandante, and looked at Lane with strange intensity. Her face seemed very small and white, and, Lane thought, frightened. Her eyes, however, were not in the least frightened. An incredible succession of changes flashed and faded in their clear blue depths—bewilderment, defiance, uncertainty, pleading. Her lips parted, but before she could speak, Perry ordered, “Get out of here, Muriel. This might not be pleasant.”
“I’m enjoying it immensely,” Lane said. “Why not let her join in the fun?”
“Let’s get down to brass tacks,” the Comandante said testily. “You were at the American Consulate tonight, Lane.”
“Was I?”
“You were seen coming away from there half an hour ago. You admit, of course, that you were at the Consulate, talking to Mr. Roland tonight?”
“In case you’re trying to trap me into an incriminating admission,” Lane said, “may I point out that it’s no crime for an American citizen to address his consular representative?”
“Then you do admit you saw the Vice Consul tonight?”
“Not half an hour ago. Not even an hour and a half ago. Not—”
“Dr. Janvier saw you leaving the Consulate half an hour ago.”
“I may have been passing near the Consulate,” Lane said, “but I wasn’t inside. I was coming back from a little boat ride. I—” He stopped; something in the ominous set of the Comandantes lips gave him a crawling sensation at the base of his scalp. “Say, what is all this?” he demanded. “What’s happened to Bill Roland?”
“He’s dead,” Perry announced grimly. “You ought to know—you shot him!”
Chapter Twelve
A Pitcher of Dog’s Noses
The Puerto Musa Jail was an annex to the Comandancia, built out over the mangrove-choked inlet in back. Walter Lane was locked in the rear cell—the best room in the jail, since it had a window on the sea, which allowed the occupant a breath of air. It also allowed him choice tidal smells and whatever nocturnal insects could find their bloodthirsty way through the gaping holes in the screen. There were no bars on the window, the common knowledge that the waters below swarmed with hungry tropical fauna being considered sufficient deterrent to escape.
Lane stood at the window, watching the night sift stars into the sea, listening to the howls and profane jabbering of the payday drunks in the other three cells. He was standing because both the rudimentary cot and the rickety chair which constituted the furnishings of his cell had an inhabited look about them. Moreover, he could think better on his feet, and he had a lot of thinking to do—particularly about the peremptory manner in which he had been jailed. There had been no questioning to speak of, and no chance for explanation; it had been Perry who convinced the Comandante that the interrogation could wait until morning.
Lane had been standing at the window for ten minutes, when the alcoholic noises in the neighboring cells ceased suddenly. In the unaccustomed quiet he could hear the gentle slap of the sea against the pilings of the prison. Then he heard a brisk, authoritative step in the corridor, and the grating of a key in the lock. The door opened and the Comandante came in, carrying a lantern in one hand and two folding canvas chairs in the other.
“I guess you think this is one hell of a jail, Lane,” the Comandante said, snapping open one of the camp chairs, “but it’s the only one in town, even if it’s not equipped for de luxe prisoners. I’ve never bothered much about the equipment. My own people find it quite comfortable, and I’ve never had any prisoners like you before. The fruit company always sneaks its bad boys out of port before I get a chance to throw them in the jug. Better take this chair, Lane. The standard equipment is probably lousy.”
“I’ll take it standing,” Lane said. “Why do you suppose the company broke precedent with me?”
“You picked on the wrong people,” said the Comandante. He put the lantern on the floor and sat down in one of the chairs. “The company bigshot from the Capital, and then the American consul. That’s bad, Lane. And then that hundred thousand was company money. Might as well sit down, Lane. You won’t sleep with those drunks yelling in the next cell. And there’s no use of my going to bed either; it’ll be daylight in an hour or so. I thought we might have a drink together.”
So that’s it, Lane thought. He’s going to try to get me pie-eyed to see if I won’t tell my right name—and where the hundred grand is buried.
The door opened again and a soldier came in with a pitcher of some very yellow liquid and two glasses. He put them down on the floor next to the lantern. When he had gone, the Comandante poured some of the yellow stuff into each glass. It foamed a little.
“Have a dog’s-nose,” said the Comandante.
“Pretty hot night for a dog’s-nose,” Lane said.
“I see you’re a Dickens scholar.” The Comandante smiled. “Only this isn’t a Pickwickian dog’s-nose. That’s warm porter and sugar and gin, isn’t it?”
“And nutmeg,” Lane amended.
“Yes. Well, this isn’t Pickwickian. It’s a Yorkshire dog’s-nose. Cold beer and gin. It’s Holliday’s recipe. Better have one.”
“I’ll have the other,” said Lane. He sat down and reached for the glass the Comandante was keeping for himself. He might as well play the Comandante’s game. He had an idea he could outdrink the dapper little Latin. And if they drank the spiked beer glass for glass, it might be the Comandante who did the talking. “Here’s how,” said the Comandante. “You know, I think I like you, Lane. If I have to stand you up against a firing-squad, I’m going to hate it like hell.”
“So am I,” Lane said.
“Of course, I’m glad it’s you, in a way—on account of the Vice Consul. If one of my compatriots plugged Roland, there’d be hell to pay—plus an indemnity. The U.S. doesn’t ferry the marines down this way much any more, but just the same the national treasury couldn’t stand much of an indemnity.”
“By the way,” Lane said, sipping his drink cautiously, “just how am I supposed to have killed the Vice Consul?”
“You shot him through the neck. Don’t you remember?”
“No,” said Lane. “I don’t remember hearing the shot either. Did anybody else hear it?”
“Nobody,” said the Comandante. He wiped off a white mustache of foam. “The Consulate is pretty close to Gin Mill Row, and you bided your time till the mechanical pianos were playing a loud piece and the customers were filling the night full of whoops and decibels. A man couldn’t hear a howitzer above that racket.”
