Sadi Ratan smiled nastily. “Of course not,” he muttered. “And as for the missing mask—”
Jo said: “It is missing no longer. It hangs on the nail in the curio room, from which it was taken.”
Lemere’s big body swung towards him; the Frenchman’s eyes were wide, staring. He was breathing quickly and the fingers of his large hands were twitching. Sadi Ratan said:
“The Javanese mask—is back in the room?”
Jo said: “Yes—it was returned while you were questioning Gao.” Lemere breathed: “Good God! Why?”
Sadi Ratan went swiftly from the living-room and up the stairs.
Lemere stood motionless except for the twitching of his fingers.
Jo said softly: “You would really like to know why the mask was removed, then returned, Monsieur Lemere?”
The Frenchman stared at him, then nodded. The Island detective said:
“The mask had not been hanging from the nail for perhaps a week. You did not see it there when you quarreled with Delancey. You did not even think of the mask, until I suggested that something had been taken. And when I said that—you thought I believed it. You saw an opportunity, and you did not tell me the truth. There was not so much dust on the spot from which the mask been taken as on the other uncovered spots of the wall, but there was some dust. Quite a bit. More than could possibly get there in a few hours’ time. Or in a day’s time.”
Lemere said: “Nonsense.”
Jo Gar spoke again, very softly. “You did not go from here to find another place to live, this afternoon, after the quarrel. You pretended that was the reason, and you took the servants with you. You kept them with you—even drinking with them at Montanya’s place—a place not usually visited by one of your station. Nor does one of your position ordinarily drink with servants—he goes to one place and the servants to another. But you did it the other way because you were in need of a perfect alibi—you must not be alone during those two hours and forty minutes, Monsieur Lemere.”
Lemere said in his hoarse voice “You are telling me that I murdered Gerry Delancey—”
Jo said: “You know that I am not telling you that. You were not in the house when the American was murdered. And I think that you are aware of the fact that this house-boy of his, Gao, will have as good an alibi as you and your house-boy and cook have. You do not want Gao to suffer for a crime you know he did not commit.”
Lemere said sharply: “I know nothing of the sort. You’re talking—” The Island detective said gently: “You have just said that you did not believe this Gao would confess or be broken down. It is your idea that this murder should be unsolved, even though you have sent for me, and are apparently working with the police.”
Lemere laughed harshly, bitterly. “I never heard such rot in my life. I never—”
Jo’s gray-blue eyes were growing small. “Tanyo is your servant, and faithful to you. He returned the mask, which you had somewhere in the house. He thought I was with you and the lieutenant, as you had planned for me to be. I saw him return the mask. I think that you wanted Lieutenant Ratan and myself to believe that Gao had stolen it, had become frightened, and had returned it. You wanted to implicate Gao, but not to convict him—”
Lieutenant Ratan came into the room, holding the Javanese mask between two fingers that were handkerchief covered. He said to Lemere:
“This is the missing mask—the one that was missing?” Lemere said unsteadily: “Yes.”
Sadi Ratan smiled narrowly. “It will show the fingerprints of Gao, I think. He returned it, or had it returned by one of the other servants, because he was frightened. Delancey probably caught him in the act of stealing it, they fought, and the Americano was killed. Gao has hidden the gun, but he did not hide this. He thought that to return it would confuse us all the more. Or perhaps he did not think it had been missed and was afraid it might be.”
Jo Gar smiled at Lemere. “You see?” he said. His voice was very calm. “You were correct when you told me you had sent for me because the police bungle so much.”
Sadi Ratan swore in his native tongue. The Island detective said very slowly:
“I will tell you what you did, Lemere. You had quarreled much with Delancey lately. You felt that he was ruining the business in which you were partners. You did not murder him—nor did you have him murdered. But you knew that death was close to Delancey, and you made that death simpler. You left him alone, and he was murdered. You know who murdered him, but you have attempted to protect that murderer and to implicate a servant you did not think could be convicted. Death for Delancey means that you will control the business—where a separation would mean that one would have to buy the other out, or the business would be split up. You saw death coming—and you stood aside.”
Lemere’s eyes were slits. Sadi Ratan muttered something that the Island detective failed to catch. Lemere said shakily:
“You don’t know anything about our business arrangements, Gar—you don’t know that his death means control of all of it for me.”
Jo smiled a little. “I can find out,” he said simply. “I think that is just—what it means.”
There was a little silence. Lemere’s big body was swaying a little. He breathed heavily and kept his eyes on the gray-blue ones of Jo. The Island detective said:
“Who fired those two bullets—who murdered your partner, Lemere?”
The big Frenchman said heavily: “Damn you—I don’t know!”
But fear showed in his eyes now. Jo Gar saw it, and Sadi Ratan saw it. The Island detective said:
“That is true, you do not know. You were not here to see. But who did you expect would kill Delancey, Lemere?”
The Frenchman shook his head savagely from side to side. His lips were wet and his nerve was breaking. He had done a terrible thing, in stepping aside, and he knew it. Jo Gar said quietly:
“I doubt that you would now be protecting a man. I think Delancey was murdered with a small caliber gun held in the hand of a woman—”
The big man screamed fiercely. “No—for ——’s sake, Gar—no! I’ll tell you the truth. The servants lied, and I lied. I left them in town, across the Pasig. I came back here—”
Jo Gar said: “No, please. You have lied, but do not lie again. You did not murder Delancey. Who was the woman—”
The big man made a swift movement with his right hand. Sadi Ratan cried out: “Stop!” Jo Gar moved his body swiftly to the left and ripped his own automatic from a pocket of his duck trousers. There was crashing sound in the room—once, twice. Smoke curled from the gun as it slipped from Lemere’s creased fingers, but the bullet had gone wide of the Island detective.
Sadi Ratan kicked the gun aside. Jo Gar went close to the big man. “You are very foolish, Monsieur Lemere,” he said quietly, “to let your temper get the best of you. You have now done something for which the police can exact a penalty. And perhaps, while they have you in custody, they can obtain from you the name of the murderer of your partner.”
“I cannot tell,” Lemere said between clenched teeth, “that which I do not know.”
There was a little silence, then Sadi Ratan said in a less confident voice:
“We must find the woman.” Jo Gar shook his head.
“You must, perhaps,” he replied. “I am a peculiar man, and I feel that I have done enough. You will find it difficult even if you get a name, though I do not think she will use a mask to throw you off. But I am finished with the affair.”
Sadi Ratan said with a touch of nastiness: “Perhaps you think it would be too difficult.”
Jo Gar smiled. “Perhaps,” he agreed.
Less than ten days later, in his hot office off the Escolta, Jo Gar read of the suicide of one Marie Saronocca. She had been a half-breed and she had loved well if not too wisely. She had loved one Gerald Delancey, but he had refused to continue loving her. So she had hated him and she had killed him. The Filipino paper in which Jo read the item stated that she was very beautiful, and that her
small house in the old, Walled City, contained many curios of native, Island tribes—and from China and Java. She left a written confession of her crime, and in it she did not mention Monsieur Lemere. Another item, in the next column, stated that Lieutenant Sadi Ratan, of the Manila police, had suspected a woman of Delancey’s murder, and been working hard on the case.
Jo Gar used a palm leaf fan to bring warm air on his brown face.
He laid the paper aside, and smiled. He said a little wearily:
“It is so easy to work hard. So many people work hard—and accomplish practically nothing.”
China Man
A knife is thrown in the dark for Jo Gar.
The number five typhoon signal had been hoisted and was standing straight out against a gray sky when Jo Gar paid his caleso driver, patted the mangy pony on the head and moved from the Escolta towards his office. A hot wind was blowing in gusts; it had been dark for an hour or so. The Island detective reached the front of the frame building, looked towards the wooden steps that led to the first floor, moved a few feet to the entrance.
He remembered that he had only a few of his brown-paper cigarettes in his office, and none in his duck suit pockets. Since he had come to the office to talk with a client he would need cigarettes. He halted with his diminutive body almost framed in the entrance, half turned away from the semi-darkness within. The tobacco shop was two squares distant, and it was almost ten. He decided that he had better ascend to see if his client had arrived.
He went into the entrance of the building and moved up the creaking steps. Several times he had thought of moving into more desirable quarters, but there was something about his tiny, hot office in the old building that he liked. His fees were not big; he accepted almost any case that was interesting, and many of his clients were not rich. If he were to move into better quarters he would perhaps not be able to accept cases that interested him, and his contacts would be different.
He had decided that he would lose more than he would gain, and had remained in the building on one little street off the Escolta, Manila’s main business street. He liked the river sounds that reached him from the dark watered Pasig, and the odors that drifted up from the small shops near the river—odors of spices and hemp and shell foods.
There was a swaying electric light bulb, on the floor above the one that held his office—the light on his floor gave no glow.
He remembered that after many months a new bulb had been placed at the end of the connection that dangled from the ceiling—only yesterday. Yet it was dark above.
He had almost reached the first floor when he heard the sound. It was very faint—and it seemed to the Island detective’s keen ears to be a combination of two sounds. There was the slow sucking in of breath and the rustle of cloth. Someone was at the far end of the dark floor.
Jo Gar climbed the last few steps; the door of his office was on his right, and when he turned to open it his back would be to almost the entire floor. He reached in his pocket for the small key, faced the door. Almost instantly he heard the sound of cloth scraping cloth—and of breath expelled with an effort. And he let his body go downward, very quickly.
The knife made a sharp humming sound—there was a short crash as the blade struck wood, just above his head. But the knife did not stick in the door, making vibration sound. The blade point had not struck cleanly. The hilt battered against wood, and the knife dropped, the blade pricking Jo Gar’s right ankle as he twisted his body around.
His right-hand fingers jerked his Colt from the hip pocket in which he carried it almost all of the time now. There was sound on the steps leading to the floor above—and his eyes caught the shape of a figure that seemed tall and thin. He thought he saw the outlines, above the figure, of such a head covering as the rivermen wore—the sampan men. A coolie hat, it looked like—round and rising to a shallow point—of dark bamboo.
He raised his gun, and the figure was gone. The stairs creaked under weight, but there was no sound of shoes or sandals. The one who had thrown the knife was bare-footed.
Jo Gar got to his feet, took a few steps towards the second flight of stairs, halted. He was breathing quietly. Very slowly he lowered his gun. The creaking sound had died—a door slammed. The electric bulb dangling from the wire, on the floor above, swayed less and less.
The Island detective bent down and lifted the knife. Without attempting to inspect it he wrapped it in a handkerchief, touching only the blade with his fingers. He listened for several seconds—there was no more sound from above. The light bulb on the next floor was not swaying now.
Jo Gar sighed and went swiftly down the steps to the narrow street. Almost directly across from the office entrance the doorway of a small spice shop was dark, and Jo hurried the few feet to the entrance. With his back to the shop, he got his small body in such a position that he could see the street—and the entrances of a half dozen or so of the lower frame buildings similar to the one in which he had his office.
Two thoughts were strong—the knife thrower had been a Chinese, and he had thrown very poorly. He had thrown like a Filipino would shoot, missing at even a short distance.
Seconds passed and only one figure emerged from one of the frame buildings across the narrow street. That was the figure of a very heavy Filipino woman, and she stood for a time in the doorway before she waddled towards the Escolta.
The roofs of the buildings were almost all of the same height. The knife thrower had gone to the roof, and from here he would find many exits, many ways of escape. And yet, Jo had reasoned that if he had thought himself followed, the one who had thrown the knife would simply cross the roof to another building and come down the stairs to the street. It was only a short distance to the Escolta, which would be crowded. With a typhoon approaching—the band would not be playing at such time on the Luneta—Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese—they were moving along the Escolta. He could hear the babble of their tongues.
For almost ten minutes the Island detective remained in the shadow of the doorway across from his building. Then he sighed again and moved from it, went to his office. He switched on a single small bulb hanging above his battered desk, locked the door behind him. As he turned towards the desk again, he saw the sheet of white paper on the floor. There was a scrawl on it—without lifting the sheet which had been shoved beneath the door, he knelt down and read the message, written in English:
“I have called—you were not in—in case I do not return it is my China man, Tavar, that I suspect. J.M.”
Jo Gar lifted the white sheet of paper and placed it on his desk. From a drawer he took a check he had received from John Mallison two days ago, as a retainer. He compared the writing and nodded his head slowly, with his gray-blue eyes narrowed. His wristwatch showed him that he had not reached the office late. Mallison had come early, and he had gone away. But first he had left the note.
The Island detective inspected his Colt, returned it to the right hip pocket of his white duck trousers. He took the knife from his pocket and got the handkerchief away from it carefully. The knife had a very narrow, eight-inch blade. The handle was of wood, and the whole affair was very cheap. There were thousands of such knives about Manila; it was a common type used by rivermen. The blade had been carefully sharpened.
Jo Gar went to work on the knife, and when he had finished he sighed for the third time. There were no fingerprints on the hilt—none on the blade. Whatever method the thrower had used, he had left no mark. And because it was not easy to throw such a knife without leaving a mark, the Island detective frowned and murmured softly:
“I think that his hands were covered—”
He placed the knife in a drawer of his desk; and locked the drawer. He smoked a brown-paper cigarette and read the note that Mallison had left, very slowly. His frown went away, and there was a blank expression in his slightly almond-shaped eyes. Mallison had come to see him before the hour appointed. He suspected Tavar, his China man, and he had wanted Jo to know that. But why had he not wa
ited until the appointed hour? And if there had been some good reason for him not waiting, why had he written the note? Was he afraid that he might not be able to return?
The Island detective sat in his fan-backed chair, which had come from Bilibid Prison—which perhaps had been ironically made there by humans he had trapped—and pulled on the brown-paper cigarette. John Mallison was an American—an importer of jade in carved forms. His finer pieces he shipped to England and the Americas. He had five men working for him, searching in Oriental countries. Tavar, his China man, was one of them. In the last month, during which Tavar had been in Manila most of the tine, some twenty-odd carved pieces had disappeared from the Mallison shop. He valued them at about five thousand dollars.
These things he had told Jo Gar, when he had given him the retainer. But he had also told the Island detective that he had no suspicions. He had told him this only yesterday, and this evening he had sent Jo a message setting an hour for a meeting. He had come early, and he had gone—leaving a note. He suspected his China man.
Jo Gar placed the note and check in another drawer of his battered desk, locked the drawer. He finished his cigarette, thinking about the one who had thrown a knife at him—the one who had failed to murder. He decided that the man had worn a coolie hat and had gone bare-footed. He said softly:
“But I do not think he was a coolie. I think he dressed as one because he wished to go bare-footed without attracting attention. He wore skin colored gloves, perhaps—he did not wish to leave prints on the knife he threw. A coolie would not worry about that.”
The point was—there were many enemies. Almost always, when Jo Gar caught a man, there was a conviction. The caught one remembered, and his relatives and friends remembered. There were many enemies. Señor Gar had a reputation—criminals were afraid of him and hated him. And there was this China man that Mallison suspected, this Tavar.
Jo Gar stood up and said very tonelessly and softly:
“Perhaps Señor Mallison was right in his suspicions. Perhaps this Tavar followed him here, and guessed that Mallison suspected him and was coming to me. He worked with speed—obtained the knife—”
West of Guam Page 38
