The Longer the Thread

by Emma Lathen

  One had been made by Pete Olmsted, only this morning.

  The other, oddly enough, had been enunciated by Bradford Withers.

  “Out of the mouths of babes,” he murmured incautiously. “No, no, Dudley. I was just thinking aloud.”

  Two bankers had stated two simple undeniable truths.

  This was not much to build on. But perhaps, in the wild tangle of senseless violence and unmotivated evil, it might be the beginning—the loose thread that unravels the knot.

  He frowned in thought. There were facts that could substantiate the argument he was postulating.

  He looked back over the conversations he had held and the people he had met.

  Oddly enough, in each case it was a woman who could answer his question.

  Chapter 21.

  Threading the Needle

  John Thatcher spent a busy and productive evening. Every query was answered except one, and that soon would be.

  When he arrived at Hato Rey the following morning, he found Mrs. Schroeder tidying the office. She seemed determined to wipe out every trace of his presence. This fanciful impression was reinforced when she looked up and caught sight of him.

  “Mr. Thatcher!” she cried. “I thought you left yesterday.”

  Although he had more serious matters on his mind, Thatcher noted the true secretary. Here was Mrs. Schroeder—Patsy—a cheerful, bouncy woman. Yet, let her temporary employer take any step of which she was not forewarned, and the air grew heavy with reproach.

  “Something important has come up,” he replied. “Humble’s office has prepared some information for me. Will you see if it’s ready, please?”

  Within minutes he was scanning a two-page report. The last query was now answered. He thought for a moment, then came to a decision.

  “See if you can get hold of Captain Vallejo,” he said. “Here is his card. I want to talk to him as soon as possible.”

  He elicited a reaction worthy of Miss Corsa. Mrs. Schroeder, he could see, did not approve of associating the Sloan with police investigations. On the whole, he did not, either. But it became unavoidable when the Sloan had been made part of a murderer’s calculus.

  His telephone calls to Señora Romero and Annie Galiano—together with Humble’s material—left no room for doubt.

  Captain Vallejo was cooperative. “Not at all, Mr. Thatcher,” he said. “As I told you, I welcome any help you can provide. Perhaps some coffee . . .”

  Thatcher agreed, not solely out of deference to Mrs. Schroeder. The coffee shop, with its neutral ambiance, would let his case stand, or fall, on its own merits.

  On his way out, Thatcher asked Mrs. Schroeder to tell Miss Corsa that he was staying over.

  “I will,” she promised.

  Briefly, Thatcher debated suggesting that she confine herself to the facts. Then he decided against it. Who was he to deprive people of pleasure? It would give Mrs. Schroeder satisfaction to report that Miss Corsa’s Mr. Thatcher was dallying with the police. Presumably Miss Corsa would report that this never happened when Mr. Thatcher was safe in New York. There is too little simple enjoyment in this world.

  In the coffee shop, Captain Vallejo’s inexpressive countenance did not reveal eagerness. Nonetheless it was there.

  “You said you had run across something,” he said when the waitress had served them. “About Domínguez?”

  It was natural for him to think so, Thatcher realized. He chose his words carefully. “In a way. Yesterday I came across a suggestive connection. I think it may interest you. I have checked it out through a series of, er, personal inquiries. As well as double-checking through some Sloan sources.”

  Vallejo remained attentive, so Thatcher added, “I believe it does bear on the murder of Benito Domínguez. As well as Harry Zimmerman’s. In fact, I don’t believe it’s too much to say that it explains almost everything that has happened. This is what occurred to me . . .”

  Vallejo leaned forward fractionally. He did not interrupt.

  Thatcher was concise and well organized. Even so, it took him several minutes to present his thesis. He did not editorialize, except in his conclusion: “. . . from this warped point of view, everything—including two murders—must have seemed eminently reasonable. More than reasonable, inevitable. If at first you don’t succeed . . .”

  “Ah!” Vallejo expelled a long sigh. Then he too contemplated the train of events started—and finished—with murder. “Yes, I can see that. Each crime occurred because a previous crime failed. Until Harry Zimmerman himself had to be murdered. So now the murderer is successful, is he not?”

  Thatcher thought back over some recent conversations.

  “That remains to be seen,” he said.

  Vallejo was following his own train of thought. “Except, of course, now we know who he is. Oh, yes, Mr. Thatcher, I have no doubts. All along, we have concentrated on those who had opportunity to commit these crimes. But we have also searched for a motive. Why? Why do this? We asked questions about families and money.”

  “Not a bad line to explore,” Thatcher said, handing him Humble’s report. “As this proves.” He did not add that the Sloan Guaranty Trust had more access to the relevant information about some families and some money than any police force in the world.

  “Of course!” said Vallejo, slamming the report on the table with a violence that rattled the cups. “But you remember what I told David Lippert—before his wife sent him beyond our reach?”

  “You mean evidence,” Thatcher said.

  Vallejo nodded. He did not have to labor the point as he had done that night in Cataño. Motive and opportunity were not enough. Where was the proof?

  No one had seen murder done.

  No one had seen a fire set.

  This was what had been worrying Thatcher since he had hung up for the last time yesterday.

  “But somebody does know he lied,” he pointed out. “In fact, many people do—if they only realized it. He lied again and again.”

  Vallejo looked disappointed. “You mean, for example, Prudencio Nadal? But he is still at large.”

  “I was thinking of someone less dramatic,” said Thatcher. “Someone reliable, someone who is completely credible.”

  Like, for example, Annie Galiano.

  But it was the big lie that was critical. And Thatcher thought he knew how to pinpoint it.

  “I don’t know his name,” he said. “But I’ve been reviewing everything that’s happened since the Domínguez murder. And I believe there is one man who can help us—the man who sent the last shipment from the warehouse the day of the fire.”

  “Wilfredo Moreno,” said Captain Vallejo promptly. “The freight forwarder. We talked to him.”

  “You were asking him the wrong questions,” Thatcher commented. “The right questions should give you something very different.”

  Captain Vallejo was already halfway out of his chair.

  Wilfredo Moreno, a telephone call established, was not at his office. He had taken the day off. His son’s family was visiting from Fajardo.

  So Thatcher found himself accompanying Vallejo to a large house tucked around the corner from the downtown shopping area. Shuttered against the midmorning sun, it looked forbidding. But inside there was life abundant. While Vallejo and Thatcher waited in the small square sitting room, a rather flustered matron went off to find the master of the house. Voices, laughter, music drifted back to them. Wilfredo Moreno’s family was large and high-spirited.

  “Gentlemen?” he said, bustling in to greet them with no sign of irritation at this interruption.

  Captain Vallejo apologized and explained that a matter of high importance forced them to intrude.

  “Sit down, sit down,” said Moreno, who was a small, genial man. “I confess I am curious, but you will explain. Any way I can assist you, I will. Although I can assure you, Captain, that I tried scrupulously to tell you everything I know.”

  “It was I who neglected to ask the correct questions.” Vallejo
apologized again.

  Thatcher was beginning to wonder how long these courtesies could go on, when Captain Vallejo introduced him and asked him to explain their interest in freight forwarding.

  Rarely had Thatcher had a more enthralled audience. Moreno punctuated his dry recital with little cries. Finally, when Thatcher finished, he burst out: “But yes! What you suggest is exactly true! But what consummate villainy! To use me as a cat’s-paw!”

  Both Vallejo and Thatcher were taken aback.

  “And this explains much that puzzled me about Señor Zimmerman!” Moreno was gathering steam when another idea came to him. “So my son was right, after all! The radicals did not create this trouble! Words fail me.”

  But he was ready to continue, so Vallejo cut in. “And yet the murderer may escape unpunished!”

  “Unthinkable!”

  “Unless you, Señor Moreno, will consent to assist us.”

  Moreno swelled. “Any way I can help see justice done. I am but a humble businessman. But I will not be used! In the cause of honor, no one shall say that Wilfredo Moreno held back. My esteem and respect for Señor Zimmerman—”

  Vallejo was forced to break in again, to explain what they wanted.

  “It will not take you from your family long,” he concluded. “But it is essential.”

  Moreno rose. “First I shall inform my wife.”

  He left on a Napoleonic note.

  “We are lucky,” said Vallejo softly. “First, that he has no doubt about his acting ability. And second that he is willing to help the police trap a murderer.”

  He did not have to tell Thatcher that not everybody is.

  “Señores,” said Moreno, back once again and dressed formally for the occasion, “I place myself at your disposal!”

  “. . . and so, of course, you see why I have been disturbed,” Moreno was telling the phone not long afterward. “I explained this very carefully to Señor Zimmerman—excuse me if I raise a subject that I know must be painful for you. He understood that there must have been some confusion. But now that Señor Zimmerman is gone, I wish Slax to understand my position.”

  Like the good actor that he was, he did not glance at the reel of tape recording every word he said, every response he evoked. Nor did he glance at the men around him. Moreno might have been at his desk, making a business call. He was in fact at police headquarters in San Juan.

  “Yes,” he continued. “I value my association with Slax and do not wish to see it imperiled. . . . Ah, you can assure me that my position is understood? Good. . . . And no one is under any misapprehension? Excellent. You will understand what relief that brings me. I very much appreciate your words. Accept again . . .”

  When he finished, he looked around with pride. “There!” he said. “I believe that is what you requested. My only regret is that we do not hang people like this. Ah, well, it does not do to dwell on the darker side of life. You must excuse me. I return to my house. My grandsons expect me to show them El Morro. Youth must be served. . . .”

  He was still talking when Vallejo escorted him to the car that would speed him home.

  “One of God’s happy ones,” Vallejo commented when he returned. He flicked on the recorder.

  This time they could hear both sides of the conversation. The murderer too was businesslike.

  “Although it must have been a blow,” Thatcher said, rising, “to realize that Moreno could blow the story sky-high.”

  Vallejo revealed a certain gallows humor. “Not so much of a blow as it will be when I arrive,” he said with an echo of Moreno’s magniloquence, “with a warrant!”

  With Vallejo proceeding to Bayamón and an arrest, Thatcher returned to Hato Rey. He had no particular desire to be in Puerto Rico when someone he had known was branded a cold-blooded murderer, but one more task awaited him before he could turn northward to the tranquillity of Wall Street. Someone had to prepare Pete Olmsted for this latest blow.

  By now, Mrs. Schroeder was projecting heavy resignation.

  “I spoke to Miss Corsa,” she said when he arrived. “She wants to remind you that you have an important appointment tomorrow afternoon.”

  Only years of practice kept Thatcher from sounding defensive. “I hope I’ll be catching the evening plane,” he said crisply. “Will you please see if you can locate Olmsted for me? He may be out in Bayamón. Wherever he is, I want to see him.”

  She took note. Then: “Mrs. Lippert called, too. I had to tell her that I didn’t know when to expect you.”

  “If she calls again, repeat it,” he said. Today he did not want to talk to Norma Zimmerman Lippert.

  “Shall I call Miss Corsa?”

  “Just get Olmsted,” he ordered, striding past. It was a good thing this whole Puerto Rican episode was winding up. He scented an alliance between Miss Corsa and Mrs. Schroeder in the offing.

  Fortunately, Olmsted had just come into the building. “Still here?” he asked incuriously.

  “Have you been out at Slax this morning?” Thatcher asked abruptly.

  Olmsted dropped into a chair. “Where else? I keep going through the motions. But what good does it do? Now they’re not even turning up at the office. Norma’s running around telling every crazy story that pops into her head. Cesar’s out somewhere. Probably still trying to find another job. Eric is chasing around looking for a warehouse—”

  “What?” Thatcher said sharply. “Are you saying that there was nobody out in Bayamón?”

  Olmsted nodded. “Nobody but the foremen. The plant is running okay. But what kind of way is that to run—John?”

  Thatcher was obviously not listening. An hour ago, the murderer had been at Slax, taking a business call from Wilfredo Moreno. Now the murderer was somewhere else . . .

  A chilling thought assailed him.

  “John, what’s the matter?” Olmsted demanded.

  Thatcher was already at the door.

  “Mrs. Schroeder,” he barked, “I want you to call Wilfredo Moreno’s home. He lives somewhere in the Santurce district. I don’t believe he’s there—but find out. And if not, make them tell you where he is. And—” he broke off for a moment—“make sure they don’t give the information to anybody else.”

  “But, Mr. Thatcher!” she protested, scandalized.

  This was no time for protocol.

  “Say you’re from the police, if necessary,” he said. “And hurry.”

  Could he be wrong? Perhaps the killer had not been alarmed by Moreno. But two murders already made it too great a risk to take.

  In minutes, his premonition was amply confirmed. Señora Moreno was as voluble as her husband. No, Wilfredo was not at home. He had taken Armando and Felipe to El Morro. She would have him call back—unless this was the party who had called earlier . . .

  “Too late,” Thatcher muttered. “Now, Mrs. Schroeder, you call the police right now and repeat this to them. Tell them to get in touch with Captain Vallejo.”

  He grasped Olmsted’s arm and was steering him toward the door when she called after them. “Where will you be, Mr. Thatcher?”

  “Yes,” Olmsted began, “where—?”

  “El Morro,” said John Putnam Thatcher ferociously.

  Chapter 22.

  Gather at the Neck

  Meanwhile, Captain Vallejo was striding out of Slax in a bad temper, mocking the refrain he had just heard.

  “No, no one is here. No, I do not know . . .”

  “Stupid girls,” he grumbled to himself. Vallejo had been balked too long to be patient now. He was reviewing a list of places where he might run his quarry to ground when his driver waved to get his attention.

  The radio was stuttering out a message.

  Vallejo barely had time to assimilate Thatcher’s information when another operator broke in. His voice was choked with excitement.

  “All cars . . . all cars . . .”

  Prudencio Nadal had been sighted in Old San Juan.

  Wilfredo Moreno was just parking his car beneath the i
mposing walls of El Morro. Beside him, two little boys sat wide-eyed.

  “Ah hah!” he said. “It is something to see, is it not? Now, what can you tell me about El Morro?”

  Armando and Felipe were struck dumb.

  “Shameful,” said their grandfather severely, taking each by the hand and starting up the path. “I shall have to tell you.”

  El Morro is the mighty fortress commanding the heights over the narrow channel that leads into San Juan harbor. Bestriding the headland, El Morro is the very embodiment of history. Once the guns of English and Dutch men-of-war challenged its batteries. Once Sir Francis Drake ran the gauntlet of its artillery.

  Today, El Morro is a monument. The ships passing below are tankers and freighters; the sparkling Atlantic is dotted with dazzling sailboats, scudding before the wind. Imperial Spain is a memory.

  Yet El Morro is still a cause for wonder, even to visitors older than Armando and Felipe. Towering above the sea, with walls ten and sometimes twenty feet thick, it is almost a world of its own, from dark dungeons far below to the lighthouse that rears above the whole sprawling complex. Soldiers of Spain lived and worked here, in barracks and storerooms. They prayed here in the chapel; they stood guard on the parapets. There are towers and turrets, stairways and ramps. And there are cannons—silent, rusting, yet still menacing.

  “Now, you must promise to be good,” said Moreno, leading his charges under the great arch that is El Morro’s entrance. “Bad boys could be lost if they wander away. Or if they run up and down the stairs, they could get hurt.”

  Armando and Felipe promised fervently to be good.

  “Excellent,” said their grandfather.

  El Morro was too majestically isolated on its promontory for them to hear the wail of the sirens that were beginning to snake through the narrow streets of the city behind them.

  Captain Vallejo was swearing to himself as his driver cut in front of other traffic on the expressway.

  The radio was rapping out a barrage of calls.

  “. . . Car Thirty-three . . . to the corner of Calle Luna . . .”

  “Car Fourteen now proceeding through Santurce . . .”