The hour when he was awakened must have been shortly after two. The two double whiskies he had drunk may have made him sleep more soundly than usual, but he doubted it. The truth was that the callers were such expert operators that even if he had propped a chair beneath the doorknob they could have handled it without waking him. He had often heard older men in the bureau, including the Chief, say that prewar Japanese agents were tops in the field. They loved intricacies, and if they knew what they wanted, their patience was inordinate.
Actually the first he knew of anything wrong was when they switched on the ceiling lights. It was the light rather than the click of the switch that had aroused him. In the instant his sight was adjusting to the light, he was on his feet. In fact, before he could see clearly, he heard someone speaking just in front of him.
“Please, Mr. Rhyce, no noise, please.”
Then everything was cleared. Mr. Moto and two other stocky Japanese in blue serge suits were in the bedroom. Operator was written all over them.
Ruth Bogart, in her twin bed next the wall, reached for her handbag, but the man nearest to her knocked it from her hand.
“Quiet, please,” Mr. Moto said. All the previous awkwardness had gone from his voice. His English had become impeccable, and his accent was highly educated. “Get dressed, please, Mr. Rhyce. The man here will hand you your clothes.” Mr. Moto smiled politely. “He was a valet once for a member of your cabinet in Washington—before the war, of course.”
The loquaciousness disturbed Jack Rhyce because it indicated Mr. Moto’s belief that he held the cards. So far no one had pulled a gun, which also meant that the situation was in hand. Jack Rhyce wished he was not barefoot in pajamas, and he also wished that he could keep down his rising anger.
“I’ll give you and your chumps just ten seconds to clear out of here,” he said, “or else by God I’ll throw you out, right through that window.”
The three Japanese were a crowd, but given luck, Jack Rhyce believed that he might do it.
Mr. Moto raised his hand in a placating gesture.
“Please,” he said, “make no disturbance, Mr. Rhyce, or I shall be obliged to call for the police.”
“How’s that again,” Jack Rhyce said, “you little yellow bastard?”
“Please do not be insulting,” Mr. Moto said, “though I can understand how you feel at the moment, Mr. Rhyce. I mentioned the police.”
“Oh,” Jack Rhyce said, “so you’re a cop, are you?”
Mr. Moto looked grave and shook his head. “Not what you call a cop” he said. “I am just what you are, Mr. Rhyce, and you and I do not want cops, do we? I only want a quiet talk with you. It would be a pity if I were to call the police.”
“Go ahead and do it,” Jack Rhyce said, “and I’ll use the same word to you again. Go ahead and do it, you impertinent little yellow bastard. Call in your police.”
He had made the Japanese angry, which was perhaps a useless luxury.
“I do not understand,” Mr. Moto said. “You must be an intelligent man to have been sent here, Mr. Rhyce, and your work was very good last evening—but not the police, Mr. Rhyce. I should have to tell you and the lady here had murdered Mr. Gibson. I think you would help me rather than have me do that, Mr. Rhyce.”
Then Jack Rhyce realized that he was in grave difficulty, and the expressions of the two assistants confirmed the fact.
“Well, well,” he said, “so that’s the picture, is it? All right, tell your goddam valet to hand me my pants and a clean white shirt. From the way he looks I’ll bet he stole the plans for the wrong battleship, even if he could find his way around Washington.” There was no change in the three foreign faces watching him. He grinned at Ruth Bogart. “Anyway,” he said, “the house detectives haven’t got us, Ruth.”
While he pulled on his trousers over his pajamas, Mr. Moto rubbed his hands together softly.
“Now that is better,” he said. “I understand how a sudden intrusion can be upsetting.”
The first surprise was leaving Jack Rhyce. Although he still needed time, the directions were growing clearer. He pointed to his shoes and socks, and where they were handed to him he sat on the edge of his bed and stole another glance at Ruth Bogart. The whiteness of her face showed that they both were beginning to see where the Japanese were fitting in.
“Oh, yes,” Mr. Moto said. “Please, may I repeat, you did it very well? So neat with the pills, so nice with the needle—so nice to be a big strong man, Mr. Rhyce. No reason to tell the police. Your chief and my chief would prefer it otherwise, don’t you think?”
Jack Rhyce pulled a clean shirt over his head, tightened his belt carefully, took the tie that was handed him and knotted it deliberately. Mr. Moto had not moved his glance from him, nor would Jack have done so either, if he had been in Mr. Moto’s place.
“Not the belt, please,” Mr. Moto said, “Mr. Rhyce. I should rather hear Big Ben strike only over the BBC.”
He heard Ruth Bogart draw in her breath, and her mind must have gone, as his had, to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.
“So that’s the way the ball bounces,” Jack Rhyce said. “You’ve got me down for Big Ben?”
“Yes,” Mr. Moto said. “Your coat, please, Mr. Rhyce.”
Jack Rhyce snatched the coat from the blue-suited man.
“I’ll put that on myself,” he said.
He had a sudden unreasoning fear that if he were helped they might pinion his arms behind him.
“We will leave quietly,” Mr. Moto said. “I never like to do more than is necessary. That is why Miss Bogart will stay here. She will understand that it will do no good to make trouble. I shall drive her back to Tokyo myself in the morning.”
Ruth Bogart cleared her throat.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” she began.
It was not the time to break security; indeed it was still a question whether they would have been believed if they had attempted to explain.
Jack Rhyce smiled at her and shook his head.
“I don’t really think there’s much you can do, Ruth,” he said, “the way the ball is bouncing.”
“But, Jack,” she said, “they’re going to—”
“Let’s not be mind readers,” he said.
Mr. Moto rubbed his hands together again.
“It is so true,” he said, “what you say about the ball bouncing. One day it is you. One day it is me. The young lady is not important, Mr. Rhyce. I can give you my assurance that I will see her off for home, myself, from the airport tomorrow.” He picked up her handbag and tossed it to one of the men. “I shall give it back also tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Jack Rhyce said. “Do you mind if I ask you one question?”
“If it is short,” Mr. Moto answered. “The sooner we leave the better, Mr. Rhyce.”
Jack Rhyce nodded toward the curtained windows.
“What makes you think I killed that man down there?”
“Because he knew too much about something you know, too, Mr. Rhyce,” Mr. Moto said. “We’re going where we can have a quiet talk, and I think you will tell us what he knew before we are finished, Mr. Rhyce. Moscow does not know all the tricks.”
“You ought to know I’m not a graduate from there,” Jack Rhyce said. “Well, as long as I have your word about Miss Bogart—”
“I repeat,” Mr. Moto said, “never do anything unnecessary. Why should she come to harm? Are you ready now, Mr. Rhyce?”
“Jack—” Ruth Bogart began. Her voice was dangerously loud.
It was not a time for handsome speeches, and besides, everything was strictly business.
“Don’t, Ruth,” he said—“but it’s been nice to have known you. Come on, let’s go.”
He still was not recovered from surprise, but he began to see that there were several reasons why they should have mistaken him for Big Ben. Everything, he knew, was very dangerous.
They walked in a compact, softly stepping group down a flight of stairs and out into
the night.
“By the way,” Jack Rhyce said, “what time is it?”
Mr. Moto turned his head quickly.
“Why?” he asked. “Have you an appointment, Mr. Rhyce?”
Jack Rhyce did not answer. It was dark and very still. The hotel and the small town around it seemed sound asleep. The car that had brought them there was parked on the drive.
“You will sit in the front with me, please,” Mr. Moto said. “The men will be in the back. One of them will have you covered. He is a good man with a pistol.”
Jack got into the car without speaking. Mr. Moto took the wheel. The place where they went was not far from the hotel. It was a substantially built Japanese house surrounded by a high wall. The car stopped at the entrance door.
“You will step out quietly, please,” Mr. Moto said.
Jack Rhyce gave way to a purely professional piece of exasperation.
“Tell that goon of yours to take his hands off me,” he said. “I can still get out of a car.”
A light burning above the doorway showed the raised platform where one sat to remove one’s shoes, but there was no neat row of shoes such as one might have seen if the house had been occupied. Its dark windows and the unkempt condition of the shrubbery indicated that it had stood vacant for some time and had been opened only for this special occasion. Mr. Moto gave an order and one of the men opened the front door, at the same time switching on the lights in the entrance hall.
“The man will not touch you,” Mr. Moto said. “Walk just behind me into the house, please. It belongs to a Baron. An American general had it as a resthouse during the Occupation. Many of its rooms are European.”
Jack Rhyce was not interested in the ownership or the architecture of the house, nor did he have time to think of the incongruity of what had happened to him. The dark night, the strangeness, and the belief that time might be running short were things that one thought of later. There was a distance of about six paces of gravel driveway between the car and the lighted hallway of the house. Mr. Moto walked a pace ahead of him, not bothering to look back, which showed that he trusted the man who was walking a pace behind, but the man behind was overanxious. He was too close, as Jack could tell from the sound of his steps, and if you held a gun at someone’s back, one of the first principles was to keep a decent interval.
If one debated on whether or not to take a chance, one always ended with indecision. In the last analysis it was the contempt in Mr. Moto’s tone that made Jack take the chance, in spite of the obvious risks involved. He whirled on the ball of his right foot, and he was correct that the man in the blue suit was too close. Jack Rhyce had his wrist in his left hand and the barrel of the pistol to the ground in the split second before he brought his fist across to the jaw with all the momentum of his body behind it. The pistol exploded at the same moment. Then the hand that held it relaxed, and Jack Rhyce had the weapon—from its size and weight, another one of those Berettas. Mr. Moto turned with the light of the door behind him. Jack Rhyce spoke before anything went further.
“Shall we leave it the way it is?” he said. “I told you I didn’t want that man crowding me—and tell the other one to stop.”
The other blue suit was back in the doorway, and Mr. Moto gave a curt order.
“I am so sorry he annoyed you,” Mr. Moto said. “Yes, he was very clumsy.”
“Not clumsy,” Jack said, “just overanxious. Let’s not you and me get overanxious. I’ll get you anyway before you and the other one get me.”
They stood completely motionless for seconds that seemed to Jack Rhyce to last for a long while.
“Yes,” Mr. Moto said. “Yes, and what do you suggest?”
“You tell that friend of yours behind you,” Jack Rhyce said, “to come over here and help his friend. He’s coming to, now. I don’t like being treated this way, Mr. Moto.”
Mr. Moto was silhouetted by the light behind him so that it was impossible to see his face, and now one could gauge his reaction only from his voice.
“Yes,” Mr. Moto said, “yes?”
The rising inflection of the last word turned it into a question.
“You tell your two people to keep out of the way,” Jack Rhyce said, “and I’ll go into that house with you. I want to talk to you as much as you want to talk to me. I’m not Big Ben, and I didn’t kill Gibson. Frankly, he was my boss.”
The light from the doorway was on his face, and he still could see only the shadow of Mr. Moto, but part of the tension was gone. The disarming of the guard had done it, and there was doubt in Mr. Moto’s voice.
“You say you are not Big Ben?”
“You’re damned well right I’m not,” Jack answered. “I’m on the American team, the same as Gibson. He came up here to meet me. He was dead by the time we got there, and I want to know what he knew as much as you do. Maybe we can do some business if we go inside.”
He heard Mr. Moto sigh softly. “You may put the pistol of the clumsy man in your pocket, Mr. Rhyce,” Mr. Moto said. “If you gave it to him now he would kill himself for shame, but I am grateful to him for his clumsiness. You would of course have shot it out with me if you had been Big Ben.”
“Yes,” Jack Rhyce said, and he sighed, too, now that the tension was easing. “That’s exactly the point I’ve been trying to make, and I had to move damn fast to make it Here, take the gun, I don’t need it any more. I never did like the balance of these Italian rods.” He tossed the pistol on the driveway.
“Thank you,” Mr. Moto said. “I am very mortified that I should be so mistaken. Excuse me, please.”
“That’s all right,” Jack Rhyce said. “I’ve been sort of trying to explain you myself the last two days. It’s too bad we didn’t know sooner we were after the same boy.”
“It was so very stupid of me,” Mr. Moto said again. “I was so stupid, I think, because I have tried too hard, and thought too hard. So you were after Big Ben, too?”
“Yes,” Jack Rhyce said, and everything was easy now, and relaxed. “That’s why I was sent over from the States for. Gibson was worried and wanted help.”
XV
Either tell the whole truth or none at all was an almost infallible business maxim. Under present circumstances, even though the position of the Japanese was still equivocal, the only solution was frankness. At least they were after the same thing. At least they were all in the business.
The man on the ground groaned and struggled to his hands and knees. Jack put his hands beneath his arms and pulled him to his feet. After all, there were times when one could afford to be cordial.
“Out like a light, weren’t you, Mac?” Jack Rhyce said, and slapped him affectionately on the back. “Never mind. We’re all pals now. Your gun’s right over there.”
Mr. Moto laughed in a completely genuine way.
“His English is not good. Tell him in Japanese.”
“I apologize for your discomfort,” Jack Rhyce said in Japanese. “So it was the tea and the coffee back there at the hotel that gave me away on the language, was it?”
Mr. Moto laughed again, and both the men in blue serge smiled. Everything could change very quickly in Japan.
“Oh, no,” Mr. Moto said. “Earlier, Mr. Rhyce.”
“Earlier?” Jack Rhyce repeated.
Mr. Moto nodded.
“In Burma, Mr. Rhyce,” Mr. Moto said. “We had your name on file. Japanese linguist, born in Japan. I even had a glimpse of you once in Myitkyina.” Mr. Moto laughed heartily. “I did not speak because I was moving the other way, but I remembered you when I saw you at the airport, Mr. Rhyce.” Everyone laughed heartily. After all, the war was over.
“The word always was that you people had good Intelligence,” Jack Rhyce said, “but I didn’t know you were working so hard at it now.”
“Oh, not so hard,” Mr. Moto said, “with shortness of funds and the misfortunes. Poor Japan. We would not have made a mistake such as I have made tonight, before the war. The machinery was not bad before
the war.”
“Still, there was the German, Sorge,” Jack Rhyce said.
“Oh, yes, Sorge,” Mr. Moto said. “Such a nice man, Sorge. So intelligent; but don’t forget, please, we caught Sorge. And did you Americans catch Dr. Fuchs? And the British who always boast so much about their Intelligence—did they stop Burgess or MacLean? So hard, so very difficult to manage everything.”
It was a relief to talk naturally, without being under the necessity of cover. That Mr. Moto spoke so frankly indicated more than professional courtesy. It showed a colleague’s respect.
“It’s a touch life all right,” Jack Rhyce said. “It’s beginning to get me down these days.”
“Get you down?” Mr. Moto said. “I wish so much I could visit your great country more often. I cannot keep up with the idiom now. Before everything was so unhappy, I was over once a year at least, New York, Washington, or Honolulu. Even when my duties were in Paris and London I endeavored to spend a week or two of observation in New York. Ha-ha.… In old New York the peach-crop’s always fine, isn’t it, Mr. Rhyce?”
“I wish I knew where you picked that one up,” Jack Rhyce said.
“A song from The Red Mill was sung in the third floor corridor of the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco,” Mr. Moto answered, “the evening before you left, Mr. Rhyce?”
“You haven’t got such a bad setup, have you?” Jack Rhyce said. “So the Japanese schoolboy tailed me from Fisherman’s Wharf, but you Japs get things twisted. I was up on that floor, all right, but I didn’t sing the song.”
Mr. Moto sighed.
“So sorry I have been so very stupid,” he said. “He was so sure that you were Mr. Ben that when he gave the signal, I came myself to meet you at the airport instead of sending someone else. I mention it only so that you will give me some excuse. But why do we stand out here?”
Right You Are, Mr. Moto Page 19