Five Passengers from Lisbon, page 21
“I don’t know....”
“He said a woman...”
“Yes, I...” Again a new and troublesome thought seemed to cross his mind. He thought and frowned and shook his head. “If it was a woman there’s only Gili and Daisy Belle. I don’t think it was Gili for the exact reason she gave. She needs food and clothing and shelter and just at that moment Mickey was her only hope of getting any of them. And Daisy Belle would have no motive. Even if Banet were trying to blackmail her on account of the Nazi business that Gili told us about, that threat was spiked when they came across and confessed all that. So Banet couldn’t have held that over Daisy Belle’s head and thus provide a motive for her to murder him. I simply don’t know why he was killed, Marcia, unless somehow it actually is linked up with Castiogne and Para and the diamond. Yet Urdiola is locked up. I suppose he might have got out, somehow, but I don’t see how and neither does anybody else. Luther could have had originally the same motive as Daisy Belle, but he would have, since they’ve come out with the truth, the same lack of motive. And nothing accounts for Luther’s murder. Nothing links up the two Portuguese and Banet and Luther.”
He paused, and said suddenly: “Except, of course, the theory that Luther knew something damning to the murderer. And there’s no getting around the fact that Svendsen and Colonel Wells have got exactly four suspects, if Urdiola’s out: you and me, and Daisy Belle and Gili. I didn’t murder Banet or anybody; you didn’t. There is only Daisy Belle and Gili, and I simply don’t think either of them did it!”
He looked out the port, staring into the queerly variegated fog, black and gray, spotted with dim flares of orange and red light. He said slowly: “Gili wouldn’t murder her only source of supply—Banet. Daisy Belle’s whole life is bound up in Luther—she wouldn’t murder him. I don’t see how the killing of the two Portuguese comes into it and both of them were killed. And, to tell the truth, Marcia, while I am as sure as I’ll ever be of anything that Michel tried to kill you, and I think he did it for fear you would tell his real identity, nevertheless, I still can’t see why he’d get rid of you before he got more money out of you. Darling, darling, that’s brutal. But it’s true.” Again he stopped and thought this time for moments while she stood at his side, the cold damp air in her face. And then said: “It’s queer. Just as you decide there’s no way out, all at once you think you see it.”
He turned from the port, put his hand thoughtfully under her chin and said: “My darling, my darling, no matter what happens, you are safe. Nothing now can hurt you....Do you want to go to Daisy Belle? She’s in the Captain’s cabin. I think she needs you.”
She didn’t want him to leave. There was so much she had to say, and yet had no words. He said, matter-of-factly: “Wrap yourself up if you go on deck. It’s damned cold,” and touched her cheek lightly. And he walked out of the cabin and closed the door.
For a long time Marcia did not move.
The cabin was cold. She stood huddled in the long red bathrobe, gradually aware of the chill and stealthy fingers of fog. Presently she moved across the cabin, intending to dress, intending to wrap up in a coat, intending to go to Daisy Belle, and then sat down on the edge of the bunk, staring at nothing.
She roused herself finally with a sharp realization that some time had passed since Josh had gone, while she thought of Mickey, and of the past, which was wrong; things that had happened could never be reconciled. Their only virtue was that they were gone.
Josh had said that Daisy Belle would need her. She’d better go.
She had on gray pajamas, men’s pajamas, too big for her, like the bathrobe. She’d not wait, though, to dress. She’d wrap herself in the thick nurse’s coat that lay over a chair under the port. She went to get it and, as she reached for it, Josh returned.
She heard the door open and heard him enter the cabin quickly, and she turned, saying: “Josh....”
Her voice died in a gasp, as if hands had already caught her throat.
Yet she had really barely a glimpse of the tall figure in the doorway—the figure in a red bathrobe with white bandages over its face—for the electric light switch clicked, and the cabin, everywhere, was in darkness.
There was a dim rosy twilight which outlined the port.
There was the soft rustle of motion.
And then in the thick silence an unintelligible choking whisper which said nothing, which merely made sounds.
20
But Mickey was dead.
He had once come to her cabin, masked and fearfully anonymous, like that, but he was dead.
And the patient—the real patient, what was his name?—what could he want of her?
As if it were the most important thing in life just then she sought frantically for his name and remembered it. Jacob Heinzer, Jacob Heinzer. What could he want of her?
The whisper had stopped.
There was a listening quality in the silence. And then she was listening too, every nerve in her body strained to hear, for there were shouts from the fog, shouts from the darkness and the black sea, shouts of men who had found something.
It sounded as if they said: “Found—found...” So it rang and echoed bewilderingly. Perhaps actually it was what they shouted, from boat to boat. At any rate, from that, from a sudden commotion on the decks, from the play of lights and the chug of a small boat coming hurriedly back to the ship, she knew that something—a man, Luther, alive or dead?—had been found.
Yet it seemed unimportant; it was part of another world. It had nothing to do with the small, horribly limited, black world around her just then. And clearly in the silence she thought, Mickey said it was a woman. Gili—or Daisy Belle?
If it was Gili, she would fight. If it was Daisy Belle, she would reason with her. If it was the patient, Jacob Heinzer, there was nothing she could do. There was no recourse and no appeal against a terrible, formless anonymity, against as formless and masked a purpose.
She cried, summoning strength and voice and will from desperation: “Daisy Belle, you must listen to me. Daisy Belle...” Her voice was unexpectedly loud, strained and harsh and clear in the small space around her.
Daisy Belle did not answer.
If it was the patient, the mysterious Jacob Heinzer, then he did not move.
If it was Gili...
Suddenly, and as clearly almost as her own voice sounded upon her ears, an intangible but positive emptiness sounded upon her senses.
She had heard no move. If the door had opened upon the lighted corridor outside she had not seen it.
But the sense of emptiness, of being alone in the small space pressed harder and harder upon her. It was so convincing in a queer and primitive way that her breath of its own accord began to come more freely, her heart seemed to resume beating. She knew that she was alone.
The echoes from the sea were less loud. The small boat had chugged rapidly around, probably to the other side of the ship. Had they found him? Was he still alive?
The question touched her mind, but merely touched it. Mainly she was questioning the statements of her own nerves and awareness. The door had not opened, the patient (who could not be the patient; who could not be Jacob Heinzer) had not opened the door and walked out—or had he?
Perhaps he had gone while she, distracted by the hollow echoing shouts and commotion had turned instinctively to look at the port. But had she turned?
If it was Daisy Belle, if it was Gili...
But she was perfectly positive and certain nobody was then in the cabin.
And there was something she’d been about to do. There was something that she must do. She’d been reaching for her coat; she’d been going to Daisy Belle. As she thought that, suddenly the door swung open and Josh’s figure was outlined against the light of the corridor. “Marcia...” he cried. “Marcia...”
The light streamed into the cabin. Nobody else was there, but she still could not move. She said stiffly: “Turn on the light—beside you—there by the door.”
“Marcia, they’ve found him. He’s still alive. They’ve found him....” He snapped on the light and she blinked and looked. Only she and Josh stood in the lighted small cabin. Josh came quickly to her. “It’s all true, Marcia. Don’t look so—so white and terrified, my darling. Everything is all right now.”
“Everything...”
“My darling...” He put his arm around her and made her sit beside him on the edge of the bunk again and said: “The Captain and Colonel Wells talked to Urdiola again. They think he may be telling the truth. And—Marcia, listen, why would Mickey Banet say that it was a woman who killed him? I mean—if it wasn’t a woman, if it really was a man, why would he say it was a woman? Unless,” said Josh, “he wanted to protect that man.”
“Josh...”
But he swept on excitedly, talking rapidly. “And why would he protect the man who killed him unless he wanted something from him?”
This caught her attention. “But Mickey was dying....”
“No, that’s it. He was dying, but he didn’t know it; he didn’t think so; he was under drugs; he had a false sense of security; he thought he was going to live. He tried to protect whoever it was that killed him. Exactly as he did when I hit him, and he didn’t know who it was that hit him, but he knew damn well it was somebody. Yet he came out with that vague story about having slipped or fainted. No, we ought to have known then that it was somebody whose life and whose continued life was important to Banet. And Gili all but told us....Only she didn’t know she was telling us. She knew that he had almost in so many words told her to keep quiet. Perhaps she suspected why, but she won’t admit it if she did. We ought to have known it all along. There were only you and Gili and Daisy Belle and Luther Cates and the mysterious patient...”
“Josh,” she cried, “he was here! He went away just before you came....”
“Here!” He jumped up. “Here! What do you mean?”
She told him quickly.
He stood, however, for a long moment without speaking. And then suddenly began to speak in a queerly measured and deliberate way.
“Mickey,” he said, “hoped to make a living for the rest of his life. Gili, when she told him what she and Castiogne had overheard, provided him the way. That, you see, is why he was through with you. There was a way which he suddenly discovered by which he could get much more money than you could supply. Much more...”
She did not understand him. She did not understand the listening look on his face. It was as if he were talking not to her but to somebody else. Somebody invisible, who was not there, and yet might hear him. He went on: “Castiogne hoped to do that, too, with a diamond and a promise. He was fobbed off. Para was Castiogne’s confidant and partner; he was in on the same unhealthy enterprise. He was afraid. He knew what had happened to Castiogne, so he gave Urdiola the diamond to keep for him to send his wife. He knew he was in danger, but he had by then another partner and that partner was Mickey Banet, who had invited himself into the game and was going to stay in.”
He looked at the door of the little bathroom and said: “Come out....”
There was no one there; the patient had gone—only he hadn’t. Unbelievably the narrow gray door swung slowly open.
A red, thin figure, masked in white, stood in the doorway.
Josh said gravely: “It’s all over. You haven’t got a chance. They found him and got him back; he’s still alive. He told them exactly what happened—how he’d slipped out on deck and you came along and offered him a cigarette and, as he took it, slugged him. The next thing he knew he was in the water—swimming, floating, swimming. It was sheer luck for him that one of the boys in the ward heard the splash and gave the alarm—sheer luck, that he was found. But bad luck for you.”
The figure did not move. The eyeless face stared inscrutably and blankly at them. Josh said: “Everything is known. You must have heard me. What exactly did you do for the Nazis? Or rather,” said Josh, “how much money did you turn over to them? And why? Because you thought they were going to win? Because it was easier? Because you didn’t care about anything but your own immediate safety? Why?”
There was a sort of whisper from the tall figure. Then it swayed a little queerly. But everything swayed and vibrated actually. The ship was moving again, gathering speed, steady upon her course.
Josh said: “Take off the bandages.”
A hoarse, strained whisper was intelligible: “My face—no, no...” The hands made gestures. Josh said: “You’re not Jacob Heinzer. He’s still alive. They got him out of the water. He’ll testify against you. You’re Luther Cates.”
The engines were going harder. The familiar motions and creaks of the ship were louder. Josh said: “Why did you come to this cabin? How did you do it? Why?”
Luther’s voice from those bandages said wearily: “I came to see Daisy Belle. I did not intend to hurt Marcia. I didn’t intend to touch her. I only wanted to talk to Daisy Belle. I thought she’d be here in this cabin. I didn’t know that only Marcia was here. I was alone in my cabin. I thought with all the tumult on deck I could get here, without being seen, and I did. I had the gauze hidden under a cushion in the officers’ lounge. Nobody thought of looking there. I took it from a dressing tray. I had seen Heinzer. I had to disguise myself like that in order to approach Para, for he knew I’d killed Castiogne and he knew I’d kill him if I could. But I didn’t come here to kill Marcia. I thought Daisy Belle was in this cabin and that perhaps I could speak to her alone. I had to tell her my plans. I had to, and then I heard them shout from the boats out there that they’d found him—Heinzer. So I knew then there was no escape for me. I couldn’t leave this cabin. I couldn’t...”
Josh said: “You’d better get to a doctor...” and suddenly sprang forward as the thin, red figure wavered and crumpled against the door.
“Get the doctor, Marcia—hurry—go on...”
She thought, even then, that Josh wanted to save her the thing that he knew was going to happen.
Luther Cates had a bad heart attack. He lived until the day came fully. He did not make any further statement.
It was not necessary.
A few hours later replies to wirelessed inquiries which the Captain had sent began to clatter into the ship’s receiving sets. All the money that Luther Cates with his great wealth had banked in Switzerland before the war was gone. It had gone without any question to the Nazi cause.
Daisy Belle had not known it. She had not dreamed that Luther’s own collaboration had been so expensive, so positive, and so appalling.
“My own,” she said brokenly to the Captain, “seemed so great. It was as if we shared a dreadful burden of guilt. I never dreamed that there was anything worse. So much worse. I knew that there was a shortage of cash; we used my jewels for everything. I didn’t know why. I thought it had something to do with war conditions, with getting funds...” She stopped, and after a moment continued very slowly: “I think he did it because—well, simply because it was easier. He had the money, so it was available. They wanted it, perhaps they brought pressure.” She paused again and said wearily: “I don’t think Luther was politically a Nazi, but I—it is very difficult for me to say this, but it must be true—I think he thought they were going to win. I think it was”—her voice choked over the words but she repeated it—“it was easier. We were among Nazis. They knew about the money. He bought our freedom and comfort.”
The Captain said: “The diamond he gave Castiogne was not a passage bribe, then?”
She had thought the whole thing through. She said steadily: “I think it was the first payment for silence to Castiogne. Luther came to me on the Lerida, the day of the storm, and said it was to pay Castiogne for getting us a passage. Actually it must have been shortly after Gili and Castiogne heard us talking. Castiogne must have seen his way to blackmail and undertaken it immediately. He must have come at once to Luther for money. And then—then Mickey Banet heard the tale from Gili. And he thought, as Castiogne did, that here was his chance to bleed Luther. Were they partners, he and Castiogne?”
Gili had been questioned. Gili still said that she didn’t know.
She had admitted, however, that when she had talked of the thing, accusing the Cateses, there in Mickey’s cabin, the first night on the Magnolia, she had been afraid of Mickey. “I knew then that he didn’t want me to talk of the Cates couple and of what Castiogne and I had heard them say. I knew Mickey was trying to make me stop talking of it. So I stopped. I didn’t know why he wanted me to stop talking of the Cateses and Castiogne. I never knew why.” She had paused there, and presently added sullenly: “I knew Mickey. I knew when not to question him.”
He had tried, too, to insure that Marcia kept the, to him, potentially valuable secret about the Cateses by playing on her loyalty to Daisy Belle. “An accusation like that is a very unpleasant one,” he had said. “It sticks. Never tell anybody.” And Marcia had been only too glad to agree.
Josh said, now, thoughtfully: “Gili told him what she’d heard, and what she thought Castiogne would do with the knowledge of the Cateses which Castiogne and Gili so unexpectedly shared. To Banet it was like the discovery of a gold mine. Banet did not tell Gili his immediate realization of that. Instead, knowing that Castiogne already knew, he suggested to Castiogne that they become partners. Castiogne had to agree. But Castiogne must have already confided in Para. Perhaps Para was to be the strong man. At any rate, as Urdiola says, Castiogne and Para were close friends. I think that Castiogne had not told Mickey that Para was already his partner. I don’t think Mickey knew or guessed that until the diamond was found; perhaps he never knew it. But Para knew that Mickey was one of them and told Cates, later, on the Magnolia. So it was three people in a conspiracy against Luther. He did not know that at first. He thought it was only Castiogne and killed him when he saw that an American ship was about to pick you up. He had to do that, for he realized that if he once let Castiogne leave the lifeboat alive he’d be at his mercy forever. But Para took the diamond from Castiogne while he pretended to revive him. Then Para came to Luther on the Magnolia. Luther was dealing now with a stupider man than Castiogne. He got the fact out of Para that Mickey Banet was in on the thing, too. So Luther killed Para. He admitted that he had seen Heinzer, and snatched upon that disguise. Para knew of his danger. Cates had to disguise himself in order to take Para by surprise. And then Luther saw Miss Colfax was on deck. He talked to her and then hurried inside, assumed that very easy disguise again and made sure that Miss Colfax would see him. His motive, as we said then, must have been to direct suspicion away from the people from the Lerida. Banet thought it a good enough idea, apparently, to try the same disguise himself later. He could secure gauze as easily as Luther, and he had a red bathrobe, also. The conditioning factor all along was the fact that there were so many red bathrobes, so many patients wearing them, that it was an accepted, usual pattern of the crowded life on the ship; but Banet was clumsy and frightened. He had cruelty but not the cold courage necessary. He ran and dropped the gauze. Naturally Banet had to be murdered. Probably up to then Cates had had a difficulty about weapons—the knife from the locker in the lifeboat? A knife stolen from the galley? We’ll never know about that. But this time he had a revolver. He killed Banet. There wasn’t anything else to do.”
