West of Guam

by Raoul Whitfield

  When he reached a spot almost opposite the beached outrigger he crouched low and waited. The figure of the girl was very still. And then, from some spot farther along the fringe of palms, he heard a long, low whistle.

  The girl’s body moved. She stood up, but did not go away from the outrigger. She turned her head slightly and whistled as the other had whistled—long and softly.

  Jo Gar’s gray-blue eyes were expressionless as he waited. When the figure of the man came along the sand he drew in a short breath. He slipped his right hand into the right pocket of his coat and closed his short fingers over the grip of the gun.

  When the man reached the girl’s side he took her in his arms. Their bodies were close together for seconds. They stood facing the water, after a time, and Jo could hear the low murmur of their voices.

  He stepped out from the fringe of palms; moved as quietly as he could across the pebbles and sand of the narrow beach. His eyes were on the two figures; they had stopped talking now. When he was within twenty-five feet of them, directly behind them, his right shoe struck against a piece of driftwood. The sound was sharp, and they both swung around.

  Jo Gar walked forward, a smile on his face. The sand gave light to the scene, and he watched their hands carefully. The man’s breath was coming sharply. The girl’s eyes were wide. She said in a half whisper:

  “Señor—Gar!”

  Jo Gar smiled more broadly. He nodded his head, and stopped within ten feet of them. The man was a Filipino—he had a sharp face and a small mustache. His hair was very black and clipped short. He wore a white shirt and white trousers, and his feet were bare. There was a red sash around his waist.

  The Island detective said: “Yes, it is Señor Gar. And this is the house-boy, Carinto, I suppose? The house-boy of Herr Saaden.”

  The Filipino’s thick lips parted; he half muttered something, nodding his head jerkily. Jo Gar continued to smile. His eyes flickered to the eyes of the girl.

  “You do not grieve long,” he said with faint mockery. “One love is dead—only a short time. Yet already you have another.”

  The girl’s body stiffened, and the man made a slight movement with his left hand.

  Jo Gar said sharply: “No! My fingers hold a gun!”

  There was silence except for the short breathing of the two. Jo Gar looked at the Filipino and said softly:

  “The house-boy of Herr Saaden—and the murderer of Vincente!” The girl screamed and raised her hands to her face. The Filipino ripped at the left side of his red scarf and the blade of the knife shone in the beach light. But he did not throw it. Instead he leaped forward, the knife held low in his hand. His arm was moving upward as he leaped.

  Jo Gar twisted to one side and squeezed the trigger of the Colt. The Filipino groaned as the shot crashed; he fell heavily to the sand near the feet of the Island detective. The girl screamed again, took her hands away from her face and rushed at him. Jo Gar lifted his gun again, let his hand drop. The girl was tearing at him with her fingers, when he got a grip on her throat. His skin was ripped twice before she was quiet, relaxed in his arms.

  He let her slip to the sand, turned the house-boy over on his back. The knife he twisted from his weak grip. There were cries from the direction of the Saaden house, and the beams of flashlights were showing.

  Jo Gar straightened up and looked down at the Filipino. The girl stirred in the sand and moaned. Jo Gar said heavily:

  “The bullet is in your shoulder—you won’t die—yet. Why did you—murder Vincente?”

  Carinto cursed in his native tongue. The girl pulled herself to her knees and faced Jo.

  “If we tell the truth—will it help?” she asked.

  Jo Gar nodded. “The truth always helps,” he said a little grimly. “How much, I cannot say.”

  The girl said: “We’d saved money—to get married. Vincente did not want it. He saw that Juan drank, and then he gambled with him. He won all of his money. Juan did not think it was honest, and he knew why Vincente had done it. He caught him near the black sampan—and killed him. Vincente screamed, but Juan did not care. He put him on the sampan. He said it looked like a coffin—and he got away. He thought that Sarong would be suspected, because he knew the Chinese hated Vincente. He had lost money to him also—and the two had quarreled much. Juan thought that Señor Wall knew that, but he did not. I went to the house tonight; it was dark and I thought we were safe—”

  Her voice broke. The thick voice of Herr Saaden was calling, and Jo Gar answered him. On the sand Juan Carinto was groaning. Jo Gar held his Colt low at his side; his eyes were expressionless. He nodded his head very slowly.

  “It will interest Lieutenant Ratan to know that he was correct in one thing,” he murmured tonelessly. “He said that murder was almost always for a woman or money.”

  The flashlight beams were moving nearer and the voices were growing louder. Jo Gar looked out over the water and sighed.

  “And Vincente spent so much time painting the spot where his body was to rest,” he said with irony. “He even chose the proper color—”

  Herr Saaden came limping up and asked questions. Jo Gar answered them, and after a short silence he said:

  “We will take the wounded man to your house, and from there I will call Lieutenant Ratan.”

  The Dutchman nodded his head. “He will be pleased,” he said seriously.

  Jo Gar smiled a little grimly. “He will be delighted,” he said. “When he realizes that he did not recognize what a poor actress your kitchen maid is, and that he thought Sarong was much more clever than I did, and that he failed to wonder why your house-boy, Carinto, was so eager to come forward and state that he had seen the Chinese practicing with knives—he will be delighted.”

  Herr Saaden looked puzzled, but Jo Gar only smiled very faintly. He was not very concerned—whether Herr Saaden understood or not.

  Climbing Death

  A story of a man who had sworn never to fly again.

  Alwin threaded his way slowly between the table-crowded Pasig Café; his stubby fingers were moving the thin stem of a palm fan and his fat face was beaded with perspiration. Jo Gar looked up from his tall claret and widened his blue-gray eyes slightly. It was seldom anyone in Manila saw Alwin frown; the big man was exceedingly good-natured. Yet he was frowning now.

  He turned sidewise and his bulk rocked a table as he squeezed between two of them. An empty glass crashed to the polished floor of the café, but Alwin did not even turn to look at it. He came on slowly until he reached the table at which Jo Gar sat. With his eyes on Jo he pulled out the other chair; it creaked under his weight.

  The Island detective smiled faintly. “It is the curry that you eat that gives you such weight,” he said.

  Alwin paid no attention to him. He lighted what was left of the cold, twisted cigar between his thick lips His stubby fingers took it away from his teeth and he leaned towards Gar.

  “I have just had a telegram from Rooder,” he said. “Jack Branders is dead.”

  Jo Gar’s eyes became less almond shaped as he widened them on the black ones of Roger Alwin.

  “Branders dead,” he said very slowly. “It was an—accident?”

  Alwin’s eyes grew hard. “He crashed in his airplane,” he said softly and in a strange tone. “He was taking off from that field near his plantation house, if you want to call that fruit place of his a plantation. Something went wrong. The plane went over on a wing, crashed. Perhaps only one hundred feet. Branders was dead when Carter and Tate got to the ship, after hearing the crash. They were in the house taking a siesta. That’s all that was in the telegram.”

  Jo Gar shook his head slowly. Alwin wiped perspiration from his face with a large handkerchief. The ceiling fans made faint tinkling sounds and from the Calle Diaz came the shrill cries of the native nut sellers. Heat came into the café in waves, and the ceiling fans distributed them.

  The Island detective said: “It is too bad—I had heard that Branders intended to stop flyin
g.”

  Alwin’s black eyes seemed very small. “He called me this morning at ten o’clock and asked me to find a buyer for the plane,” he said grimly. “He said he would never fly again. He wanted me to find a buyer quietly, and he said he didn’t intend to tell anyone on the plantation that he was going to quit.”

  Jo Gar whistled very softly. His eyes read the thought back of Alwin’s. That thought was that Branders was known as a man of decision. He took time in making decisions, but once made there was never any change. Drink had almost beaten him before he had decided never to touch liquor again. He had decided one evening at the Manila Club. So far as anyone the Island detective knew was concerned, he had never been seen to drink liquor again. His house-boy had stolen from him, after five years of service. Branders liked the house-boy, but he told him that if he ever stole again, he would send him to Bilibid. He caught the house-boy, almost a year later, in the act of stealing some small silver change. He had sent him to Bilibid—the boy was still in prison. There were other cases.

  The Island detective spoke very softly: “Did he tell you why he intended never to fly again?”

  The fat man nodded; his eyes were very grim. “He has wanted to marry a woman in England—for several years. She has refused again and again. This morning in his mail there was a letter saying she would marry him. He intended to take no more risk—lately he has had several narrow escapes. The country out there is not good for flying.”

  Jo Gar said steadily. “He did not say anything about having one last flight?”

  Alwin pounded a fist on the wood of the table, and glasses jumped about. He got his big head nearer Jo’s.

  “Damn it—I tell you he said he was through! ‘I’ll never fly again!’ he said. And he said it that way. I tell you he meant he was through.” Jo nodded and ran browned fingers through his graying hair. He shifted his small, slender body a little, and reached into a pocket of his duck suit for a loose, brown-paper cigarette. He did not speak.

  The big man said: “I want you to go up there, Señor Gar. When can you start?”

  The Island detective looked thoughtfully at the big clock on a bare wall of the café. It was almost four o’clock. He said:

  “I can go by train to Carejo—and I think there is a train at six. I will be there almost at midnight, and someone from the plantation can meet me and drive me over.”

  Alwin nodded. “There are three white men there,” he said very carefully. “Erich Rooder, the German, and Bill Carter and Harry Tate, both Americans. Know any of them?”

  Jo Gar shook his head. “I’ve seen Rooder and Tate, at the Manila Hotel, but not for months.”

  Alwin spoke softly. “They haven’t come in from the plantation for months. The last time Branders came in he didn’t speak of them, or of Carter. Never mentioned them.”

  The Island detective lighted the cigarette he had placed between his thin lips.

  “It is your idea that Branders did not intend to fly again, yet that he did fly. You think he might have been forced to fly?”

  Alwin frowned. “Branders was a good business friend of mine. I think something went wrong at the plantation. Something that made him change his mind. I want to know what it was.”

  Jo Gar spread his browned hands in a gesture of acceptance. He smiled just a little.

  “It is my business,” he said quietly. “I shall be at the plantation by midnight. It is called Plantation Rosita, I believe.”

  Alwin nodded, his eyes still grim. “The woman he loved was named Rosita,” he said. “He was mad about her. I know. And I know that when he said he would never fly again, I understood why. And I know he didn’t intend to fly again.”

  Jo Gar looked narrowly at the glowing tip of his cigarette. He said nothing.

  The big man frowned. “What do you think, from what I have told you?” he asked.

  The Island detective shrugged. “It is strange,” he said. “Yet, except for one thing I would say that Branders had changed his mind, had gone up for one I last flight. And had crashed.”

  Alwin spoke very quietly. “And what is the one thing?”

  The Island detective raised his eyes and watched a ceiling fan as it slowly circled.

  “It is the worst time of the hot season,” he replied. “Since Branders called you at ten, and since you have already heard from Herr Rooder that he is dead, he must have made the flight at the worst time of day. Greater heat and more difficult air. And the ones who heard the crash were taking their siesta. It is very strange that Branders was not taking his, too. He is a veteran and should not be foolish.”

  Alwin said: “I can afford to pay a good fee, Señor Gar. But if I were you—I would not go up there unarmed. Personally—I think he was trying to escape from something—”

  Jo Gar shrugged. “A crash while trying to escape from something—that is not murder,” he said gently. “And it would be very difficult to prove.”

  Alwin swore thickly. “It might not be difficult to prove it to me,” he muttered. “I’ll handle it in my own way.”

  The Island detective looked at the big clock again. He rose slowly from the chair.

  “I will telegraph you from Carejo, as soon as I learn something of importance,” he said. “If I think it was an accident—I will wire that it was an accident.”

  Alwin muttered to himself, then said more clearly: “Take a gun along—there might be another accident.”

  Jo Gar’s eyes were very almond-shaped and small. “It is one of the simple reasons for carrying a gun,” he said tonelessly. “The chance of an accident.”

  Erich Rooder was a tall, lean man with blond hair and a blond mustache. His eyes were blue and his face round for his build. The sun had burned him brown; he wore a soiled khaki shirt, khaki trousers and a khaki sun helmet. He shook hands with Jo, after the Island detective had descended from the train. His face was serious.

  “Hello, Señor Gar,” he said. “I’ve seen you around Manila, of course. This is a bad business.”

  Jo Gar smiled a little. “Death is always bad,” he said. “It has the feeling of finality.”

  Rooder’s blue eyes narrowed a little. He led the way towards a battered flivver, behind the wheel of which sat a Filipino of middle age. He opened a rear door and Jo got in. The sky was cloudless and there was a crescent moon. It was very hot.

  When the flivver jerked forward along the dirt road that led from the station Rooder spoke thoughtfully.

  “I was a bit puzzled by Alwin’s wire saying you were coming out here. Of course, Alwin was a good friend of Brander’s. But I didn’t know you were an expert on airplanes.”

  Jo Gar smiled. “I’m interested in them,” he replied. “Alwin thought I might learn something from the wreckage.”

  Rooder’s eyes remained half closed. He looked ahead, and not at Jo Gar. The headlights showed the white dirt of the road, and thick, tropic foliage on each side. The country was hilly, and the road rough. They traveled at fair speed.

  “My idea is that the heat got Jack,” Rooder said steadily. His voice had a faint, guttural quality. “The thing that beats me is why he went up when he did—a half hour after noon. The hottest time of the day.”

  Jo Gar frowned. “Has he ever done it before?” he asked.

  Rooder shook his head. “Not that I know of,” he replied. “Bill and Harry were doing siesta. I was taking a shower, and with the water making racket coming down, and a lot of it in my ears—I didn’t hear the crash. The Filipinos were in their quarters, but a Chinese cook for the hands was getting some water outside, and saw the plane go up. It seemed to bank and fall sidewise, on a wing. The nose dropped and then the crash came. The engine was running all the time, apparently—that’s why I think Jack fainted at the controls.”

  Jo Gar nodded. “He wasn’t ill?” he asked.

  Rooder said: “He had a touch of fever—dengue. But he was pretty strong, you know. He hadn’t said anything about taking the ship up. I thought he was taking siesta—so did Bill a
nd Harry. It was a bad smash and he was dead when they got him out of the wreckage. The plane didn’t burn.”

  “The Chinese who saw the plane fall—what did he do?” Jo Gar asked.

  Rooder frowned deeply. “He got scared, of course—and ran towards the plantation house. Harry and Bill met him, and the three of them went out to the wreck. Jack was pretty badly smashed up.”

  Jo offered Rooder one of his brown-paper cigarettes, and they both lighted up.

  “No urgent business, or anything that would have caused Branders to fly anywhere in a hurry?” the Island detective asked.

  Rooder shrugged. “Not that I know of—and I probably would have known. Personally, I think he had a stronger touch of the fever than he thought. Maybe he went a little off his head and thought he wanted to fly. He might have fainted, or the ship might have just hit a bad spot and side-slipped down.”

  Jo nodded. The flivver bumped along over the rough road, made a turn and started up a fairly steep grade. Rooder said slowly:

  “We’re all pretty upset about it, naturally. And we can’t help thinking that Alwin seems to feel there is more to it than just an accident.”

  Jo Gar’s gray-blue eyes stared blankly ahead. “Why?” he asked softly.

  Rooder made a gesture with his lean hands. “You’re a private detective,” he said. “He sent you up here.”

  The Island detective smiled. “It is because of my knowledge of planes,” he replied. “Naturally, Alwin would like to know what caused the accident, if possible.”

  Rooder looked straight ahead. “Naturally,” he agreed. “He was a good friend. But I doubt that you’ll learn anything more than I’ve told you.”

  Jo Gar continued to smile slightly. “It is quite certain that I will not,” he said very slowly, “if there is nothing more than that to learn.”

  Carter and Tate were about the same size—tall, well-built Americans. Carter was dark and thin faced, with a good chin. Tate had brown hair and eyes; he walked with a slight limp. They sat now, in wicker chairs in the living-room of the rambling plantation house. Tate spoke in a flat, almost toneless voice.