"But you do not know why I did these things?"
"Tell me," Sam said once more.
"One takes a step in a certain direction and that step leads to another and then another and there is no turning back from the way down. A man abandons life and his God and drags those he loves down those steps with him. Three years ago, I took that first step."
"You were supposed to be in Cuba the night Charley was killed," Sam said. He pushed his thoughts forward to their inevitable conclusion. "But you were at Isla Honda secretly. You returned with Gabrilan and Jaquin. You thought you were not seen, but Bill Somerset spotted you by accident. It didn't mean anything to him. He hardly knew you. But when Gabrilan's bones were recovered and Ashton and I returned to Isla Honda, he started to think about it and he knew what it really meant. And Bill wasn't the only one who saw you that night."
Benny nodded. "Harry Lundy, too."
"But Harry kept it to himself because he had better game. He had found Ashton in an incriminating situation. Ashton had tried to make it look like suicide and Lundy blackmailed him ever since." Sam paused. "And Ellen was there. You knew that, didn't you? Yet she never told me what it was all about; she still hasn't. And you never volunteered to tell me the truth about her part in it."
"She was afraid. She had made a mistake and she did not want you to know about it, because-because she wants you for herself, Sam."
"It would have been better if she had told the truth about Charley."
"It was not suicide," Benny whispered. His lips were pale. "You know that for sure, amigo?"
"Ashton told me how he found Charley's body," Sam said quietly. He thought, Strange I can't hate him now. Not even when I have him here before me. He said: "Benny, you killed him."
"It was an accident," Benny nodded.
Estella moaned. Her hands were clapped over her mouth. Benny looked at her and gently took her hands and held them in his.
"There was no meaning in what I did except that I thought too much about the money being brought to Isla Honda. I wanted it for all the things it might bring Estella and me. It was an obsession I could not conquer. You see, at the last moment your brother changed his mind and conceded that he had no right to use the bank's money for the purpose for which it had been intended. He sent me to Cuba to cancel the withdrawal destined for the two foreign agents. But I did not follow his orders. I signed the necessary forms and took the money from the vaults myself. I returned to Isla Honda with those two men, who were to pay me a substantial share for my efforts. That is why there was such a violent quarrel between your brother and Ellen and those two men. I had betrayed Charles. He knew I had done it with Ellen's help, but he did not see me because I was hiding aboard Gabrilan's boat. Your brother insisted the money was to go back to Havana at once. But the two agents were armed. They wanted his cooperation for the rest of the deal, but he refused it and they went on with it anyway. They left without me. They paid me nothing and it was exactly what I deserved.
"When I realized how I had been used, I went into the house to apologize, to do what I could. Charles was rightly furious. He despised me. I had stabbed him in the back. In the bedroom there, he tried to kill me. We fought and the gun went off. It was an accident. It is difficult to describe how I felt then. I would have welcomed death for myself, but man is like an animal at moments like that, with only one thought in mind-to preserve his own unworthy existence. I killed your brother, amigo, and in a way I also killed myself in that same hour.
"I was seen by Bill Somerset and by Lundy. I knew they had seen me, but it did not matter. I expected to be arrested. When nothing happened, I did not understand it. Later, I realized what Ashton had done to protect himself and how Lundy used what he knew against Ashton rather than expose me. I went to Ellen and told her everything, but she said neither of us must talk of it. It was an accident, Charley's death, and the matter was ended."
"But you killed Bill Somerset and Lundy, too," Sam said.
"I had to."
"This time it was solely for the money?"
"It was to save myself."
"And Ellen knows you did it?"
"She is not sure."
Sam said: "You have a gun. Will you kill me, too?"
"I do not know."
"Where is the money now?"
"I have it. Estella will show you."
The woman got up wordlessly and went to the forward end of the cabin where she opened a locker and lifted out a metal box covered with a patina of sea growth that had not been scraped away. She put it on the floor in front of her husband and Benny opened it. The money was there in neat packets. More money than Sam had ever seen in all his life.
"The box was water-tight," Benny said softly.
Sam made no move toward the money. He was aware of a sudden increase in the tension of the boat's cabin. The usual dockside noises above them had ended, too. An unnatural silence waited out there and he lifted his head sharply to listen and then he heard the quick footsteps of a woman approaching the boat. Sunlight winked in the cabin portholes and reflected off the calm harbor water.
A moment later Ellen came aboard.
Sam stood aside as she entered the cabin. Her face betrayed nothing. She looked hurried and anxious, her eyes alarmed as she looked at Benny and Estella and then at Sam. Lastly, she looked at the money. Her mouth opened then closed. She made a little sound that meant nothing. She looked trim and clean and healthy in her crisp white skirt and blouse, her tanned legs bare, a white ribbon in her golden hair.
"Sam, you can't stay here! All the men on the dock are talking about you! I didn't believe them when they said you were back! The police-"
"It's all right," he interrupted. "Sit down, Ellen. We have a few minutes yet. You understand what this means, don't you? You could have told me a lot, two days ago-and maybe Bill Somerset would be alive today. Don't look at Benny-he didn't give you away! It was John Ashton. He told me the part you played in all this and I put the rest of it together, the way you shielded Benny after it happened." His laugh was short and grim. "The big question right now is what Benny intends to do with that money and the gun in his hand."
"I am going to Cuba," Benny said.
"You'll never make it. The police will soon be here. Why do you think I let everyone see me? Even if they don't arrive, I can't let you go." Sam's voice suddenly hardened. "I can see how it happened about Charley and all the things you did afterward until we come to Bill Somerset. That was not done on impulse or by accident. It was a thing of fear, the act of a coward, Benny. It was unnecessary. It was murder, nothing less, of an innocent man."
"I had to," Benny said querulously. "He told me what he knew and said he was going to tell you about it."
"So you killed him. Just like that. And then you tried to frame me for it."
"Amigo, I would not have let you suffer any punishment."
"Wouldn't you?" Sam asked bluntly.
Benny looked down at the gun in his hand. It was trembling slightly. His thin brown face was shiny with sweat. He looked at Estella. The woman's face was blank and empty. Ellen's face had crumpled with defeat. It was very quiet in the cabin. Then Benny stood up. He picked up the strongbox in his left hand and leveled the gun with his right.
"I am going now, Sam," he said. "Do not try to stop me."
"I must," Sam said. He lunged forward for the gun.
22
The struggle was sharp and brief. Afterward, Sam wasn't, sure just how it happened. He heard Ellen scream as he dived toward Benny and then the gun went off with a shattering roar in the narrow confines of the cabin. He got his hand on the barrel and twisted it sharply, a fury in him that he had been forced to this. Benny was strong, impelled by desperation. He got the gun away from Sam for a moment and it went off again. Sam did not feel the bullet. He slashed at Benny's face with his free hand and Benny fell backward, still clinging to the money box. Then he dropped it and the ancient catch flew open and the packets of currency spilled over the deck in a
cascade of bills. Benny squirmed, trying to get out of the corner. His face was strange. His foot kicked the snowfall of money on the deck and then his legs suddenly went out from under him as he lunged for the cabin door. Estella screamed and then the sound was abruptly cut off as the gun went off a third time, muffled under Benny's body.
Silence flowed back into the cabin. The boat rocked gently. Then footsteps pounded on the dock and Sam heard the excited shouts of approaching men. He breathed deeply and heavily. He looked at Estella. The woman had not moved. He looked at Benny and saw that Benny was dead.
***
The sheriff and Lieutenant Caspar listened attentively. They did not interrupt. Sam talked and answered questions continuously for two hours and then he waited with Ellen while his statement was transcribed and he signed it. He did not mention Ellen's previous knowledge of what had happened and she did not offer it.
The lieutenant's office was cool and shaded by blinds drawn against the bright afternoon sun. While he talked, Sam sensed a change in the attitude of the officials who listened to him from one of hostility to sympathy. He knew he was cleared before he was quite finished, but the formalities seemed endless. Once they were interrupted when John Ashton and Deputy Frye were brought in. Ashton was proud and superior in his defeat; Frye looked frightened. Both men made their statements and were taken away. De Silva arrived. The Cuban detective was apologetic to Sam and he regarded Ellen Terhune with raised brows, but it didn't seem to matter now. Luis De Silva was accepted as a bona fide insurance detective. He, too, had a statement to sign. It was all very neat and orderly, Sam thought, and it was all pretty useless. Benny was dead and Bill Somerset and there was an end to it all; and yet he felt a lack of something else, perhaps of a beginning, while he signed his statement. He was glad when it was all over and he was allowed to leave the building. Ellen was released with him.
The quiet street lay in deep afternoon shadow. He walked with Ellen toward the corner where her car was parked and they halted there and faced each other.
"Sam," she whispered. "Why didn't you tell them about me? I was guilty of withholding evidence and some of the responsibility for everything is mine because I urged Charley to do the thing that cost him his life. Ambition is a dreadful thing, I know. I wanted so much for both of us. And I've paid for my mistakes with many a sleepless night, Sam."
"We've all paid too much," he said briefly. "That's why I thought it ought to end as it did."
"Thank you," she whispered. Then she said: "Sam, what are you going to do now?"
"I haven't thought about it. I'll be reimbursed for my boatyard now. Perhaps I'll get it working again."
"I've been an awful fool. I know it now-but now is too late, isn't it?"
"Don't talk about it, Ellen," he said gently.
"I think we ought to. It's been pretty horrible for you. I was never sure if it was Benny or you. You've done everything you set out to do, but as you say, the cost was too high."
He thought of Benny Suarez. "Yes, it was."
"But you'll stay on the islands, Sam?"
"I have to until the trials are over."
"What will happen to John Ashton?"
"Nothing much. Conspiring to withhold evidence I sup pose. Hell probably get away with it, if he has a good lawyer. And I don't think the police will be too anxious to prosecute, considering how they bungled things. Frye will get what's coming to him, though."
"And after the trials?" she asked. "Will I see you again, Sam?"
"I don't think so."
She nodded. Her smile was small and uncertain, but her hand was firm in his. "I suppose you're right. But I wanted to hear it from you, definitely."
"I'm sorry, Ellen."
"It's all right," she said.
He watched her drive off, her hair shining in the sunlight The street seemed very empty after she was gone. He felt as it he had never been so alone before. Then he turned and began walking to the bus station. With each step he walked faster.
***
It was almost evening when he returned to Isla Honda.
He did not see her at first. The schooner was again tied to the end of the dock and he thought he might find her aboard and then her voice spoke to him from the seaward side of the boathouse and he turned quickly that way. She stood against the wall of the building facing the water.
"I didn't think you would come back, Sam," she said quietly. I hoped you would, but I didn't think so."
He smiled. "I had to."
"Why?" she asked.
"For you," he said simply.
Her hair gleamed long and dark in the setting sun Her eyes were somber as she looked at him. He thought she had never been lovelier. It was as if some hidden weight had been lifted from inside her to be replaced by an inner serenity that showed in the calm curve of her mouth and the quiet depths of her eyes. Her arms were folded across her breasts as she stared at the wide, darkening sea.
"You don't really mean that," she whispered. "You know too much about me now."
"That's all over with," he said.
She shook her head. "It wouldn't he pleasant for you."
"That part of it is finished. I'm staying here, Mona. I'll get the boatyard back. And you're staying with me."
She looked at him. Her mouth trembled. "I wish it were true. I wish-"
"It is true, Mona," he told her. "It will be."
He took her arm and they walked a little way out on the dock to a bench and sat down facing the water. Isla Honda was behind them. He put his arm around her and held her very close to him. It would not be easy, he knew. She was hurt and sensitive and he loved her very much. It would take a little time. He watched the lower edge of the sun touch the rim of the far horizon. A deep and abiding tenderness filled him. He felt at peace for the first time since his return home. He saw the tears in Mona's eyes and he kissed her gently and after a moment she relaxed against him, in the closed circle of his arms.
He had waited a long time, he thought. But there was time enough, now.
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