Blow-Down, page 15
Lane twisted around, shipped his oar, reached back to seize the girl, fling her to the bottom of the skiff. He crouched, waiting for the fusillade of shots that would proclaim the ley de fuga. He heard none. There was only the approaching roar of the marine engine behind, and, suddenly, a fainter, smoother sound ahead, another motor purring in counterpoint to the first. Lane raised his head, saw a tiny blue flame flickering from the exhaust in the stern of the dark craft that had materialized from the mangroves. The dark craft was going away, and in a hurry, running from the launch with the searchlight. Lane saw it swerve left once to escape the swinging cone of brilliance, then, as the beam moved to follow, cut right to disappear behind the arm of mangrove thicket that marked the entrance to the inlet. Lane had only a fleeting glimpse of the stern, could read no name there, and could make out none of the figures in the retreating boat.
The roar behind him was deafening now. Lane turned to face it—and quickly picked up his oar. Ten seconds ago he had been afraid that the launch with the searchlight was pursuing him; now he was afraid that it wasn’t. The glaring eye of the searchlight blinded him so that he could not accurately judge the course of the speeding launch, but it seemed to be bearing down on him, too intent on its pursuit of the other power boat to be aware of the skiff in its path. Reflections from the water danced gleamingly on the sleek, oncoming bows.
Lane took a few frantic strokes, then decided the skiff was destined to be cut in two. He reached out the oar to fend off what seemed to be an inevitable collision.
The power boat changed its course by a fraction of a point. The spray from the racing bows whipped across Lane’s face. The glistening side streaked by, inches away.
The skiff caught the sidewash, however, lifted sick-eningly, hung poised for a breathless instant at the crest of the swell, then plunged careening into the trough. Just as the skiff capsized, Lane heard Muriel scream.
The next instant his ears rang with the sudden pressure of seething water. He was floundering below the surface, fighting the boiling turbulence of the power boat’s wake. He came up, gasping, a dozen yards from the floating, whale-back shadow of the overturned skiff. He did not see Muriel. He started swimming.
When he reached the skiff, he still saw no sign of Muriel. He called. A scarcely audible “Hello” answered him from the other side. He swam around the bow, found the girl hanging on to the painter.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she gasped.
“Just fancy,” Lane said. Treading water, he slipped his arms around the girl’s waist.
“Climb on my shoulders,” he said, “and scramble aboard the wreck.”
“But, Walt—”
“Sharks,” said Lane. “Up!”
The girl had one knee on his shoulder when a blaze of light struck him. The searchlight beam of the launch that upset them was boring through the night to find them. The launch, swinging in a wide circle, was coming back.
Chapter Eighteen
His Excellency Tires of Bananas
A bell tinkled in the cockpit; the motor coughed and died. As the launch drifted closer, Lane saw the gleam of three rifle barrels poked over the cabin cowling, and immediately abandoned all thought of flight. He handed Muriel up into the outstretched hands of soldiers on the launch. The Comandante himself helped haul Lane aboard.
“Hello, Lane,” said the Comandante. “Have a nice swim?”
“It was a little disappointing, Joe,” Lane replied, as he watched Muriel wringing the water out of her skirt. “You didn’t fire a shot.”
“I was just going to shoot,” said the Comandante, “when you drifted into the line of fire. Sorry we upset you, Lane.”
“Sorry? What are you sorry about? Does the ley de fuga rule out drowning?”
“Hell, I wasn’t going to shoot at you,” said the Comandante.
“Who were you going to shoot at?”
“I don’t know. I might have known if I hadn’t come back to pick you up. Did you get a good look at that boat that just ran out of here?”
“No,” said Lane.
“Neither did I,” said the Comandante. He gave an order in Spanish. The bell tinkled again, and the launch shivered as the motor leaped into action. “We won’t catch him now, of course,” he continued, “but we might pick up some trace of where he came from or where he’s gone. Don’t mind a cruise, do you, Lane?”
“Can’t we put the señorita ashore?” Lane asked. “She’s pretty damp.”
“I’m all right,” Muriel said. “Don’t mind me.”
The girl was listening anxiously to the Comandante’s words. She looked none the worse for her ducking, Lane remarked, as he scrutinized her by the dim glow from the light in the cockpit. She ought to look like a drowned rat, but she didn’t. The close-molded lines of her clinging wet clothes were certainly nothing to be ashamed of. And her wet hair, plastered back from her face, gave her a new, almost classic profile. A Greek goddess, pint-size—
“My apologies, Señorita,” said the Comandante. “I’m afraid I am too preoccupied to be gallant. There is a blanket in the cabin. Also a bottle of rum, if you are afraid of a chill—”
“I’ll stay here,” Muriel said, “until I find out what you’re going to do to me.”
“Do to you, Señorita? It is not my place to do anything. If I were Lane, here, I think I should kiss you. But I—”
“I helped a prisoner escape,” Muriel said. “Or try to escape. Isn’t that a crime?”
“Oh, that!” said the Comandante, with a deprecatory gesture. “Lane here is my friend. He didn’t kill Stilton or Roland. I was going to turn him loose tomorrow morning anyhow. I didn’t see any harm in letting him jump the gun a few hours.”
“You knew that I was planning a jail break, obviously—since you were laying for us.”
“Well, yes. I did overhear your conversation this morning.”
“And you let us go through with it anyhow—despite the fact that you were going to release me tomorrow?” Lane was puzzled.
“I was being clever.” The Comandante chuckled. “I had a brilliant plan. It almost worked. It may still work. I’ll admit it might have been hard on you, Lane. I was using you for a—a—what do they call those wooden ducks?”
“Decoys,” said Muriel.
“That’s it, decoys. Well, you were a decoy, Lane. I picked out two men I strongly suspect may have killed Stilton and Roland. To each of them I told the same story: That I thought Lane knew who the murderer was, and that I thought Lane might try to escape tonight. I figured that if either of these men was actually the murderer, he might try to get to you, Lane. I was standing by, of course, to stop any more murder, if possible—but to see if either of my men turned up. Apparently I was right.”
“Who were the men?” Lane asked.
“Adolf von Graulitz was one,” said the Comandante. He paused, looking at Muriel.
“Who was the other?” the girl asked in a low voice.
“Dave Perry,” said the Comandante.
“Then either Perry or von Graulitz was in that boat just now?” Lane demanded.
“Probably,” said the Comandante. “I’ll know for certain when we go ashore. I’ve had both of them watched tonight. Unless—” He gave the girl a sharp, questioning glance. “Did you tell anyone else of your plans, Señorita?” he demanded.
The girl hesitated briefly, then said, “No.”
“I wonder about that.” The Comandante was pensive. “That was a fruit company skiff you two were in just now. I thought I recognized the number on the bow. Didn’t it come from the Campo Marino, in the Rio Sangre District, Señorita?”
“I don’t know where it came from.”
“I see.” The Comandante offered his cigarette case. “Who got it for you? Holliday?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. Holliday is in port then?”
“I don’t know. He’s probably gone back to Rio Sangre by this time.”
“When did you last see him?”
“About an hour ago.”
“At the Cantina de Mi Sueño, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
The Comandante shook his head. “I’ll have to check up on him, too,” he said. “That’s an angle I hadn’t counted on.”
“You can stop counting on it,” Muriel declared. “You know as well as I do that Cecil Holliday hasn’t had anything to do with all this.”
“I know nothing of the kind, Señorita.” The Comandante gave the girl a paternal pat on her wet shoulder. “The trouble with you, Señorita, is that you think people are fundamentally good and that your friends can do no wrong. On the other hand, I, for the moment, have to assume that all people are fundamentally evil. All except you and young Lane, anyhow. Because someone has been evil enough to take human life twice in one night. By the way, Lane, do you still think I’m the guilty party?”
“Give me forty-eight hours and your full co-operation,” said Lane, “and I think I can tell you definitely.”
“You’ll have all that,” said the Comandante, “and my full gratitude too, if you crack this case. It’s just my luck that Bill Roland had to get killed. I’ve had a dozen wires from the Capital today, and hell is popping. The Foreign Ministry has already sent apologies to Washington, of course, but if I don’t turn up the culprit by the end of the week, the American Minister himself will be down here with a couple of undersecretaries fom our Foreign Ministry. They’ll be looking for a goat to sacrifice and I have an idea that my horns are already caught in the bramble bush. I don’t relish being sacrificed, Lane. I’m a soldier, but I have other ambitions. You, on the other hand, are a trained investigator. You ought to get to the bottom of this better than I can. And that’ll do us both good. When my day comes in the Capital—and it won’t be long now, Lane—I’d like the people in Washington to remember that I’m the man who got quick action on the death of the U.S. Vice Consul. If I ever have anything to say about the foreign policy of this republic, we’ll play with eagles, not swastikas. And if—”
“There’s a boat!” interrupted Muriel, pointing to starboard. “The other boat’s coming back!”
The red and green eyes of a small craft on her way in from the sea gleamed in the darkness.
“She’s got running lights this time,” said the Comandante. He gave orders in a quiet voice. The searchlight beam stabbed through the darkness, picking up little eddies of sea mist as it groped for the other boat. The Comandante’s launch changed her course, cutting obliquely across the other craft’s bows, her engine throttled down.
A clear strain of music drifted across the water, gay voices in close harmony.
“Hell, it’s Doctor Janvier!” the Comandante exclaimed. “That’s his brandy tenor.”
The singers went into their refrain with great enthusiasm. Lane could make out two voices, one of them a woman’s.
Zon! Zon! Zon!
Suzette, ma Suzette.
Zon! Zon! Zon!
Suzette, ma Suzon!
The two boats were almost opposite. The lookout in the bow of the Comandante’s launch called, “Alto!” Dr. Janvier appeared in the glare of the searchlight, looking a little like an owl with his gray beard and upstanding tufts of hair on either side of his otherwise bald head. He blinked into the light, and said, “Hola! Who is it?”
A rolypoly little woman appeared beside him. Lane supposed she was Mme. Janvier. She was dark, with vivacious black eyes and a ready, dimpled smile.
“It is Coronel Blanco!” she announced.
“Welcome!” exclaimed Dr. Janvier. “What is it now, Coronel, that you chase me at sea? Another murder or just an accouchement?”
Boat hooks grappled the two craft together. The Comandante stepped to the deck of the doctor’s boat.
“Where do you come from, doctor?” he asked.
“The cays,” said Dr. Janvier. “We went for a little promenade, my wife and I.”
“Which cay?” The Comandante was not looking at the Janviers. He was interested in a big, blanket-covered mound on the semicircular leather cushions of the cockpit. The blanketed mound was roughly the shape and size of a man.
“I can never remember the names of the cays,” the doctor replied. “It is the one that has clams. We made a picnic.”
The Comandante stepped into the cockpit and prodded the blanket with the end of his riding-crop. The blanket squirmed, grunted, rose erect, then slipped down, to disclose the ballooning torso of Señor Manzana, Minister of the Interior.
“Your Excellency!” exclaimed the Comandante. “What are you doing here?”
His Excellency blinked. “Buenas tardes,” he said sleepily.
“His Excellency has been making the picnic with us,” exclaimed Dr. Janvier. “We dug clams and built a little fire, and my wife cooked clams marinière. His Excellency found them delicious. And they are. Not so delicious as mussels, perhaps, but delicious. A little white wine at the bottom of the casserole. A large onion cut in pieces. A point of garlic, a bay leaf, a bouquet of parsley. One steams the clams in the white wine until they open and mingle their juice with the herbs. One eats the clams, one scoops the juice with the empty shell, one—”
“Why did you carry off Señor Manzana?” the Comandante broke in.
“Carry him off?” Dr. Janvier’s mouth opened in innocent amazement. “But His Excellency asked to accompany us!”
“He begged to come!” volunteered Mme. Janvier, emphasizing the second word with a lively gesture of her well-cared-for hands, and a quick upward movement of her long, expressive eyelashes. “He lunched with us at noon, and he saw the poulet à la gelée—”
“He was greatly attracted by the picnic menu,” Dr. Janvier interrupted. “My wife prepared to take to the cays a cold roast chicken molded in tarragon jelly. When His Excellency expressed admiration and a desire to—”
“You knew His Excellency was expected at the Alcotts’ for dinner tonight,” reproved the Comandante.
“No!” exclaimed Dr. Janvier, raising his hands in surprise that was not quite convincing. “I did not know. But then how could I know? We were not invited chez Alcott. Somehow the ladies of the fruit company do not seek the society of Madame Janvier.”
“They say awful things about me.” Mme. Janvier laughed gaily. “Did you hear what they said when the doctor told how we encountered each other? He was in Guatemala then, and he was presented to me at a ball at the French Legation. The wives put their noses in the air—like this. They said, ‘French Legation, yes. But the Legation of the French Republic, no.’ You blush, Coronel. Even in the dark I see you blush. So you know the French Legation in Guatemala. But these so nice company wives, how do they know it? They are so talon rouge, so proper that they cannot drink tea with a woman who has sung in the caf’ concerts.”
“You devil.” The Comandante chuckled in spite of himself. “You kidnaped His Excellency just to break up Mrs. Alcott’s dinner party.”
“But no! Nobody kidnaped His Excellency.”
“Very well, then, you baited him with that tarragon chicken and trapped him with clams. Or did you?” The Comandante paused, staring at Dr. Janvier, who was nervously toying with the point of his beard. “I wish I could be sure this was just a question of feminine spite. Try to remember, doctor, just which cay you landed on to picnic.”
“I know what you are thinking,” said Dr. Janvier. “You are thinking that Señor Manzana and Madame Janvier and I have been plotting with Adolf von Graulitz on that little island of his down the coast toward Liberica. You think perhaps we have been dividing buried treasure, maybe one hundred thousand dollars. Alas, no, Coronel. We were at the cay with the sandy beach, where Perry goes sometimes to fish. If you go now you may still find the embers of our fire.”
“I may have to believe you, doctor.” The Comandante turned to the Minister of the Interior and conversed briefly in Spanish. His Excellency insisted that the reasons for his unconventional behavior were purely gastronomic. He had been informed that Mrs. Alcott invariably served either black bean soup or a salad of bananas with mayonnaise. His Excellency had subsisted almost exclusively on beans and bananas for the greater part of his life, and now that he had reached an age of moderate affluence, the mere sight of either of those staples in any form caused him to break out in a violent nettle-rash. Moreover, he understood that the diet at Perry’s bungalow consisted rather monotonously of company-killed beef. Therefore, since Dr. and Mme. Janvier had offered him hospitality—
“We will be most happy to have him with us until he settles his business with the company,” said Dr. Janvier. “After all, Perry is anxious for His Excellency to be entertained, and I am sure that my wife and I can entertain him. For tomorrow, now, there is tepeiscuinte. One of my former patients shot a tepeiscuinte near Manaca Point this morning, and if you have never tasted one as prepared by Madame Janvier—”
“With red wine and mushrooms,” explained Mme. Janvier. Her eloquent hands were outspread in a show of both pride and anticipatory pleasure.
From the Comandante’s launch, only a few feet away, Walter Lane was watching Mme. Janvier’s hands. They were clearly visible under the light in the cockpit. He was particularly interested in her fingernails, which flashed bright red as she gesticulated. They seemed a much lighter shade than the plum red Muriel had said she used as a polish. He nudged Muriel who stood close beside him. She, too, was watching and caught his unasked question instantly.
“She must have changed,” Muriel said in his ear. “She always used plum. But that’s coral—like mine.”
And like Della’s, Lane said to himself. And like the little bottle of polish he had found in Graulitz’s hut on the cays.
Chapter Nineteen
A Colossal Error—?
At midnight, four fruit company mozos moved down the dark streets of Puerto Musa, carrying on their shoulders, like palanquin-bearers, the gleaming brass bedstead from Suite B of the S.S. Bonaca. His Excellency the Minister of the Interior was moving from Dave Perry’s to the bungalow of Dr. Janvier, just beyond the hospital.
