I went back to the living room, sat down, and thought a minute. She followed me, distractingly. The negligee was only moderately opaque.
I tried resolutely to put myself in the other fellow’s place. The day bed, obviously. I took the pillows off it and felt each one. I pulled out the lower part to make it twin beds—and that’s where I found it. I found more than I thought.
The gadget itself was a small black metal box, not much bigger than a match box, with a little round grill on each side suggesting a microphone. It was suspended from the springs of the lower part of the day bed, near the wall, where someone lying in bed could easily reach it. It could pick up sounds in the room, and someone in the bed could whisper into it.
The most interesting thing about it, however, was the little switch on the top, marked On and Off. Right now it was at the Off position. That was a good thing.
“Ever see this before?”
She took it from me with slightly shaky fingers.
“Why, no. What in the world is it?”
“It’s what I’ve been looking for. The bug.”
“So someone has been eavesdropping on me?”
“Oh, yes. With a little inside help.” I pointed to the switch. “Someone had to turn that on and off at the right times.”
“But who could do that?”
“It was concealed in your maid’s bed.”
“Not—oh, no! It couldn’t have been Klára!”
“It had to be someone who was in the room a lot, and they could hardly depend on a steward or ship’s maid to always be in at the right times.”
“But Klára was as—as faithful as—”
“I’m afraid she wasn’t. Didn’t you tell me she was leaving you permanently on this trip and going home to Hungary for good? A few thousand bucks extra could have looked awfully good to her. It may also explain why she was killed.”
“Why?”
“She obviously was working for them. She would go a certain way for them. Maybe she believed in your mother’s ESP powers, or precognitive gift, or whatever you want to call it.”
“She did.”
“But when her persuasion about returning to New York did not work, it could well be that they wanted her to do something more, something more inimical to you, and that she refused. They couldn’t afford to let it stop there. Killing her not only would silence her, but it would frighten you even more. Maybe they had another green-face act in mind and hid her body in the lifeboat only momentarily.”
“Who’s ‘they’? You—you make them sound like an army.”
“We know who the real ‘they’ is. He’s presumably in California. He has representatives on the ship, though, and he expects them to produce results. The chances are he doesn’t even know how they are going about it.”
I thought a minute.
“You know, maybe you’ll sleep in our suite tonight. In my bed.”
“I will?”
She did not sound shocked.
“And I will sleep here—in your bed.”
“What will that do?”
“It will make you safer. No one will know where you are. And someone may come calling here. With one or two little breaks in our favor, we could wrap this whole thing up tonight. Meanwhile—”
I hung the bug back on the bedsprings and pushed the two halves back into a day bed.
“It’s off now. But each time you come in, just reach down like this—” I illustrated “—and feel the switch. If it’s in the upper position, the bug is on, and you are being overheard. Don’t let that scare you. Just behave normally. But don’t say anything confidential to anyone. And don’t turn the bug off, either. We don’t want them to know we know it’s there. That way we can use it against them. And we will.”
“Gee whiz.” Her eyes shone with excitement.
“Oh, there’s one other thing. How much do you know about baseball?”
“Why—not much. Three strikes are out, and there’s a pitcher’s plate and so on.”
“Mound. The plate is home. But do you follow baseball? Did you ever see a game?”
“Not a real game, no. I guess I really don’t know much about it at all—as I suppose you gathered from the score I predicted yesterday. Did you ever hear what the real score was?”
“I’ll check it when I get a chance.”
She wrapped the negligee around herself a little more tightly. It was getting a little difficult to leave. “What was it you wanted to tell me?” I asked.
“Tell you?”
“You asked me to stop by and see you.”
“Oh, yes.” She smiled, and it was as if the sun had broken out over the stormy sea. “I guess I’ve forgotten now. Maybe I just wanted to talk to you.” Lightning flashed from the brilliant sun. “I—sometimes I need, what do you call it? Reassurance.”
“Now you have the key to it,” I said. “But be careful who you let in here.”
“I will.”
“Also...” I hated to bring up something unpleasant. “Going back to Sam Jones. I saw him in the bar, the night before last, until one o’clock. You called me about six-thirty. He was dead then, in your closet, although you didn’t know it, and he had been for some time. Did you hear from him at all after one o’clock?”
“No. As I said, I took a pill—”
“So you were asleep by when? One-thirty? At the latest?”
“About that.”
“And Klára?”
“I think I heard her mattress creak before I went to sleep.”
“And you called Jones about six-thirty.”
“Earlier. It probably was nearer five-thirty the first time. I couldn’t sleep. I don’t know why. But I couldn’t. I got no answer.”
“And you stayed awake after five-thirty?”
“Yes. I called him again, a little after six. Still no answer. So I began to worry, and then I called you. But why is all this important?”
“I’m trying to figure out when he was killed. I’ll say it was between one-thirty and two, yesterday morning. Because when I dragged him out of here, he was still wearing the same clothes that he had worn earlier in the bar. He somewhat needed a shave.”
“He did?”
“And his bed had not been slept in. But most of all—” I wasn’t sure of how much to go into.
“What?”
“His body had begun to stiffen at the time I dragged him out, even though it had been in a warm closet.”
“Stop saying such awful things.”
“Sorry. But you see what I mean. You had to go to sleep—and be fast asleep—before they could bring him in here, tie the rope, and all that. Which means they could not dare come in here to leave him earlier than two. At which time he was dead. So he was killed sometime after 1:00 a.m., but probably no later than two.”
“Sometimes you say things that scare me.”
“I don’t mean to scare anyone. What are you going to do now?”
“I was going to bathe. I am uncomfortable if I don’t bathe twice a day. Then your cute girlfriends and I are going to the afternoon movie. Then I get my hair done.”
“Okay. See you later.”
I started for the door. At least I thought I started for the door. She came forward.
“Just lock your door when I leave, and keep it locked. Be sure of who’s there before you open it.” Her eyes glistened wetly. “And remember. You’ll be safe tonight in our suite.” Somehow...anyhow...I anyway...put my awkward arms around her and held her for a time, and then I kissed her. Not one of those quick brother-and-sister kisses, or a chaste peck on the cheek. This lasted.
What came back was not sisterly, either.
THE MISSING TRACES
“...Those are all the notices which appeared before the disappearance of the bride.”
“Before the wh
at?” asked Holmes with a start.
“The vanishing of the lady.”
Conan Doyle
“The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor”
Chapter 17
The Beginning
I walked down a deck or two, the taste of her lipstick still on my mouth, the look of her body still in my eyes, the curve of her back still on the tips of my fingers.
The smoking room was gloomy, despite all the subdued lighting they could turn on. It took a moment to make sure Tom was not here. Cotton-Hair Pennypacker, was though. He and his wife were playing bridge with two men and, when I saw who they were, I did a fast double-take. One man was Mesh-Gloves (and he still wore his gloves playing cards). The other was Dr. Cyclops. Even as I looked, Mrs. Pennypacker stood up and waved a protesting hand.
“No, no more,” she said. “I must bathe and rest. Last night was strenuous you know, for an old lady.”
Cotton-Hair Pennypacker caught sight of me. “How about it?” he called. “We’re losing a player here. Won’t you fill in for just one last rubber?”
I hadn’t played bridge for five years. But this was one game I wanted to get into. Mrs. Pennypacker smiled at me, Mesh-Gloves and Cyclops each bowed to her stiffly and rather grumpily, making me wonder if she had won all the money, and Pennypacker performed introductions as she limped away. What had become of the Steak-Lovers?
“Mr.—ah, Deacon, right? It’s your pal who is Dolan, isn’t it? Yes. This is Mr. Bu, Mr. Deacon.” Mr. Bu was Mesh-Gloves, and what nationality did that make him? He bowed, and did not shake hands. Maybe the gloves meant he had a painful skin disease.
“And Mr. Giorgione.”
I felt like saying, “I’ve admired your paintings.” Instead I shook hands and said I was glad to meet him, which was about half-true. He had an iron handshake that almost cracked my knuckles, but his hand was slimy-cold. Cyclops, or rather Mr. Giorgione now, said he was charmed. Maybe he was. One thing he surely wasn’t, and that was Italian, despite his name.
“We have been playing for a cent a point,” said Pennypacker. I was his partner now. He gathered in the cards and shuffled them with an easy, sure-fingered professionalism that made me remember Las Vegas. I began to wonder what I had let myself in for. Newt had said I would have an expense account. I suspected I’d need it.
As I said, I hadn’t played bridge in some time, and I never was much competition for Charles Goren.
“For the last rubber,” said Mr. Bu, and he looked down at his little mesh-gloved fingers clasped before him, “couldn’t we go to five cents and make it a little more exciting?”
The accent was faintly oriental or Near Eastern.
Giorgione said nothing. His good eye was on Pennypacker’s hands, shuffling the deck. The bad one was off in space.
“Choose?” said Pennypacker, fanning the deck out face down across the middle of the table. Every card overlapped the next by a mathematically perfect quarter of an inch.
I shrugged. “A nickel is fine.”
“A nickel it is,” Pennypacker said, and we picked cards. I drew the five of diamonds—a portent. I hoped Newt’s bank had lots of money.
Bu won the deal with the queen of clubs, gathered in the cards, and presented them to me to cut. Then he passed them around with swift grace, the gloves obviously troubling him not at all.
I saw a waiter and waved. “I’d like a drink,” I told the others. “Perhaps you’ll have one with me.”
“A Coke would be nice,” said Pennypacker.
Giorgione merely nodded no, and frowned at his cards. I looked at Bu.
“No, thank you,” he said. “I usually have sexual intercourse around six, and I never like to drink just before that.”
I looked at him, then around at the others. No one seemed to have heard him or, if they had, paid him any particular attention. Then Pennypacker looked up at me quickly from his hand, grinned, and winked. Live and learn.
The rubber went fast—and badly for us. But halfway through I made a little progress.
* * * *
It came as it was my deal. I shuffled slowly and pretended to make conversation.
“That was quite a party last night. Or were you there?” I asked the question generally, and pushed the cards to Giorgione for cutting. “I know you were,” I told Bu.
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t close the place up like we did. You were wise.”
“We left quite early.”
“That’s the trouble with parties like that,” said Pennypacker. “You want to stay on and on. Mama and I just looked in about ten o’clock, danced a few minutes, and then went below and read. We’re that age, I guess.”
I threw the cards around. “And you, Signor Giorgione? Dealer passes.”
So far he had hardly opened his mouth. When he had his hand sorted, he studied it a moment. “One heart,” he said and added absently, “I was not there.”
“Another reader of books, no doubt,” said Pennypacker. “Two diamonds, partner.”
“And what were you reading?” I asked Giorgione, knowing the question would bother him.
“Two spades,” said Bu.
“I wasn’t reading,” said Giorgione.
I had to look at my hand. I’d forgotten most of the rules for counting tricks. And I had no hand anyway. To hell with it—I wasn’t here to win nickels. Just don’t trump any of your partner’s aces, Deacon.
“Three diamonds.”
Giorgione said “Three hearts.” Then he unexpectedly became voluble. “After dinner I went out on deck. It was beautiful—so dark and stormy. I ran into another passenger, an Indian, Mr. Vishnolar. We walked and talked. We have common interests. Some of the things he said excited me. And so, when I went below, I could not sleep. Even from the distance I could hear the orchestra playing for the party. Especially when they played the Dixieland music. I said my prayers twice, but for a long time I could not sleep. I think they should not have the parties so late.”
His good eye glared indignantly, first at me and then at Bu.
“Five diamonds,” said Pennypacker.
I wasn’t paying much attention to him. How lucky can you get, I wondered. Two hours before, Tom and I had divided up some of the suspects for an alibi check, and now I had a pretty good idea where three of them were at the time of the maid’s murder, or at least where they said they were, and Cotton-Hair Pennypacker to boot. If Tom had nailed down the other Pennypacker’s alibi, as he surely must have, we were making progress.
Fortuitous progress.
Too fortuitous? Was it an accident that Giorgione and Vishnolar, the Indian, could alibi each other? Or that Bu sat near me for a time during the gala?
Everyone was looking at me. “I passed,” said Bu impatiently.
What was the bid? I said, “Oh, yes,” and pretended to study my cards. Pennypacker was smiling at me with bright-eyed encouragement. I had two diamonds in my hand, the higher being the five. I had the king of spades and the ten of hearts. Those were my high cards.
“Six diamonds,” I said.
“Double,” said Giorgione.
We went down four, doubled and vulnerable.
While Giorgione dealt, Pennypacker said philosophically, “Well, bridge is the great leveler, no matter who you are or what you do.” He seemed not at all mad that I’d lost us fifty-five dollars each. “What else do you do, Signor Giorgione, aside from playing bridge very well?”
“I travel,” said Giorgione.
Pennypacker looked at me and opened the bidding. “I pass.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Giving up?”
He laughed back. “No. It was an honest appraisal of this hand.”
“Never play cards with a magazine writer,” I said. “We’re totally ignorant of everything. Except what we’re working on at the moment.”
“Someone said you were with a magazine,” he said.
I told him which one.
“Two spades,” said Bu.
“You must travel a lot on stories,” said Pennypacker.
“Yes. Pass. But right now it’s for pleasure. Thank heaven.”
“I know how you feel.”
“Three hearts,” said Giorgione.
“And you?” I said. “I gather you teach economics or business administration or something.”
“Yes. Not now, though. I pass. On sabbatical. From Grinnell College. As you say, thank heaven.”
“Amen.”
“Five spades,” said Bu, and Giorgione gave him the most frightful look I have ever seen at a bridge table.
Bu’s hand played itself. He had everything, and made a grand slam in spades. It was so automatic that Pennypacker and I talked during the play.
“Maybe you can explain something to me,” I said, just to keep the conversation going because I hoped to get to Bu. “Years ago I shared an apartment with another guy who was a broker. He claimed the best way to make money in the market was to deal in puts and calls and he even made it clear to me what those were. And he said the really great sure way to make money in the market was to straddle.”
Pennypacker chuckled. “Puts and calls can save you a lot of grief,” he said. “And make you a fair profit too, whichever way you go.”
“But what’s a straddle?”
“A straddle—” he glanced at his cards, then played one “—a straddle consists of buying two stocks of approximately the same value. It is based on certain technical evaluations of the stocks. They are never in the same category—two motors or two oils or anything like that.”
“And then?”
“And then you play the rise or fall of one against the rise and fall of the other.”
“I see. Maybe. Sounds intricate.”
“It is.”
“Slam in spades,” said Bu.
Another hand ended the rubber. Pennypacker figured the winnings and losings. It turned out I had lost $105 of Newt Harlow’s money.
Ho-hum.
With his winnings from the previous rubbers, Giorgione had won just under $210. “You play a beautiful game, sir,” said Pennypacker, and I knew he meant it.
The Traces of Merrilee Page 14
