Inspector’s Holiday

by RICHARD LOCKRIDGE

  Heimrich picked up the telephone.

  14

  It was late afternoon when Heimrich went the now familiar way to the quarters of Comandante Antonio di Scarlotti. Major Ian Whitney was in what the young officer in charge of two security men chose to call “detention quarters.” Merton Heimrich had talked to Louis Cataldi, whose speech was rather blurred, and whose head ached, and who spoke in Italian and had to be translated out of it. Heimrich had sent two wireless messages, one to Continental Forwarding, Limited, attention “Parsons,” and the other to Sir Robert Mason, British Embassy, Washington. Mason was evidently on a long weekend and might not get the message for hours, or even for days. Heimrich doubted whether Parsons took long weekends.

  Both messages were the same:

  “Whitney killed Grimes and Hunt. But evidence insufficient. Heimrich.”

  He took along a copy of the message to break the news to Comandante di Scarlotti, who wouldn’t, Heimrich supposed, be pleased. He had already had one answer, and took that along too. It read:

  “Our dirty linen. Meeting ship Lisbon. Parsons.”

  Di Scarlotti was drinking coffee. He had coffee brought for Heimrich. He said, “We are in your debt, Inspector. Greatly in your debt. The line is in your debt and the authorities of my nation.”

  He spoke as if he had had the words ready—and a little as if he were awarding a medal.

  Heimrich sipped coffee and lighted the cigarette di Scarlotti had offered him and then, slowly, he shook his head. He said, “Better read this, Captain,” and gave di Scarlotti the copy of the message he had sent to Parsons and Sir Robert Mason. Di Scarlotti read it twice. He looked at Heimrich.

  “I do not understand,” he said. “‘Evidence insufficient.’ Why do you say that, Inspector?”

  “Because it’s true,” Heimrich said. “Yes, I’m quite certain Whitney pushed, or threw, Sir Ronald overboard. Probably knocked him out first. That he strangled Hunt. That he killed them both because they could have stopped his defecting. They had documentary evidence. That he had been leaking information—secret information—from the British Embassy to agents of—let’s say foreign powers. Whether for money or from conviction I don’t know. Earlier, he’d been assigned the other side of the Curtain. And was ritually kicked out. Which may have been a device, a cover. How he was persuaded we’ll never know, because he isn’t going to talk to us. Oh, he’ll talk. Tell his own story—that Sir Ronald was giving information to the other side; that he, Whitney, was an intelligence officer who planned to expose Grimes. That Hunt had been working with him in Washington, not with Sir Ronald. And, Captain, we can’t prove he’s lying.”

  “He killed two men in my ship,” di Scarlotti said. “You do not seem to understand, Inspector. This is an Italian ship. She is covered by Italian law. Murder aboard her—Inspector, it is a matter for the Italian authorities. You do not seem to understand.”

  Heimrich drew deeply on his cigarette and crushed it out. He drank from his cup.

  “I said I was certain, Captain,” Heimrich said. “I’m sure Whitney knocked Sir Ronald out, probably with the steelframed tennis racket, and then lifted him over the rail and let go of him. And that he then went down to Hunt’s cabin and strangled him. To get his briefcase and the documents in it. And to shut his mouth, of course. He must have thought that that—well, as we say, that that would get him off the hook. I don’t think it would have. I think Sir Ronald had already been in touch with a man named Parsons who is—oh, I suppose counterespionage, if that’s what the English call it. As Grimes himself probably was. But Whitney didn’t know that. Or, if he suspected it, thought he could bluff it out with the documents, whatever they were, destroyed. And two voices silenced.

  “There was another voice he had to try to silence—and in a way he has. This young steward of yours—”

  “This former steward,” di Scarlotti said. “I assure you, Inspector. Former.”

  “Cataldi,” Heimrich said. “Saw Whitney come out of Hunt’s cabin and recognized him and tried blackmail. Which, understandably, Cataldi’s not going to admit. Whitney tried to kill him with this racket of his and couldn’t finish the job because I happened to interrupt him. Yes. I am quite sure of these things. Can I prove them? No.”

  “I do not understand. Are you saying—but surely you are not saying—that he is to escape justice? As you would say, ‘get away with murder’?”

  “Nobody saw him throw Sir Ronald overboard,” Heimrich said. “He did go to Hunt’s cabin Wednesday night. At any rate, young Louis saw a man come out of it sometime before midnight. But—Louis won’t say who. And Whitney will deny he was there. Or say he had gone to see Hunt to talk about—oh, about their next step in stopping Sir Ronald’s plan to defect. That Hunt was alive when he left. We can’t prove he wasn’t, you know.”

  “You say Louis tried to blackmail him. And that he attacked Louis. Inspector, you saw that happen yourself.”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “I heard a sound. I saw a shadow running. I can’t identify the shadow. I found Louis Cataldi with a bad head wound. And—Louis says only that the man he saw was one of the passengers. He cannot identify the man. A tall man, he thinks. He did not see whether the man was carrying an attaché case. He says. He did not hear until late Thursday afternoon that a man—a Signor Hunt—had been murdered. He did wonder whether the man he saw leaving Hunt’s cabin was the man who killed him. Yes, he wondered that. But he could not identify the man. Anyway, it was not his business.”

  Di Scarlotti said something in Italian. What he said was brief and spoken in an angry voice, and Heimrich suspected it was a terse description of one Louis Cataldi.

  “He did not try to blackmail Major Whitney. How could he when he did not know the man was Major Whitney? He was not hit by anyone. He had gone to the boat deck—the open promenade—to get some air before he went on duty. He slipped. Stumbled. Fell against the rail and hurt his head. That’s what he would testify if Whitney was brought to court on a murder charge.”

  “The tennis racket? That, you say, he tried to attack you with?”

  “His word against my word,” Heimrich said. “As for the racket, it’s clean, Captain. No blood on it, according to the laboratory of your hospital. Oh, a section of the gut in the groove looks as if it had been scrubbed. Abraded. Probably would have snapped under pressure. If somebody used the racket to hit a tennis ball instead of a head. But that’s not enough, Captain. And—it’s the only thing tangible.”

  “This address in the match folder. It could be proved to be written by Whitney?”

  “It could be said to be. By one handwriting expert. It could—and I assure you in court it would—be said not to be by another expert. And both might be honest men. It isn’t an exact science, you know. And the writing is brief and cramped. And even if it’s proved to be Whitney’s writing, murder isn’t proved, Captain. All that’s proved is that Whitney knew the address of a corporation in Zagreb. Probably a corporation with perfectly legitimate operations and a good credit standing. It would be, you know.”

  Di Scarlotti lighted a cigarette and drew on it angrily.

  “It is murder,” he said. “In my ship. And—and you say we can do nothing?”

  “No,” Heimrich said. He pushed the wireless message from a man named Parsons across the table. Di Scarlotti read it. He shook his head. He said, “‘Our dirty linen’? I do not understand. Parsons? The man you sent a message to. But—”

  “Not washed in public,” Heimrich said. “In other words, Her Majesty’s government will handle Major Whitney, who is a British subject. And an army officer. Court-martial? Violation of the Official Secrets Act? I don’t know, Captain. Both at a guess. And Parsons is coming to pick him up in Lisbon. With, I suppose, the cooperation of the Portuguese authorities. He won’t get off easy. Sir Ronald had already reported on him, I think. By telephone to something called Continental Forwarding, Limited. Which is almost certainly a good deal more than that.”

  “It was mu
rder in my ship,” di Scarlotti said. “I am master of my ship, Inspector. I can hold this Whitney.”

  “Naturally,” Merton Heimrich said. “You can hold him. It’s up to you. But—you can’t hold me, Captain. My wife and I are getting off at Málaga. It says so on our ticket.”

  He stood up. Comandante di Scarlotti looked up at him.

  “You make things difficult, Inspector,” di Scarlotti said. “Most difficult.”

  “Well,” Heimrich said, “you’ve made things rather difficult for me.”

  Di Scarlotti sat for a moment. He reached toward the pack of cigarettes in front of him. But then, instead of taking a cigarette, he stood up. He reached a hand across the table, and Heimrich took the extended hand.

  “We are still in your debt, Inspector,” di Scarlotti said. Unexpectedly, he smiled. “As is Her Majesty’s government,” he said. “I hope they will be equally appreciative.”

  It was raining heavily when Italia tied up in Lisbon at nine on Sunday morning.

  The Heimrichs had breakfast early in their cabin and looked out of portholes and Susan said, “Ugh!”

  “I agree with you,” Merton said. “The precise word for it. Still—it could be only a shower, of course. We could still—”

  They had planned to get a taxi and be driven around Lisbon; perhaps even to have lunch in Lisbon, being sure to be back aboard before the ship sailed at two in the afternoon. They dressed for that. They went down to the foyer, which was full of people. There was a line at the purser’s desk. People were collecting landing tickets and passports. The ship was tied up to starboard and doors were open onto a streaming deck—a deck which appeared submerged. Chill air came in through the open doors. On the dock, very wet men were manhandling a gangplank to the ship’s side and making angry sounds to one another, presumably in Portuguese.

  “Ugh,” Susan said, and Heimrich said, “No, I guess not.”

  “All cities are alike in the rain,” Susan said. “Rain is the same everywhere. We can sit on the enclosed deck and look at Lisbon through the rain. We can stay dry and warm.”

  Heimrich said, “Yes.”

  “And,” Susan said, “Lisbon has never meant a great deal to me. Rome, yes, and certainly Venice and London. But not Lisbon.”

  There was no place to sit down. They were jostled in the crowded foyer. “We could go up—” Susan said, but did not finish because Heimrich was so intently watching the men who were making the gangplank fast to the ship.

  When it was fast, there was a surge toward the doors—a surge of people who were going to see Lisbon, rain or no rain; of people at journey’s end. But a ship’s officer gestured them back because three men were coming up the gangplank. One of them was in uniform. A policeman’s uniform, Heimrich guessed, although it was not a uniform he knew.

  One of the men was a solid man in a dark suit. A formidable-looking man. He closed an umbrella when he was in the shelter of the deck’s overhead. He had a hat crammed firmly on his head.

  The third man was not especially solid. He wore a belted raincoat and no hat, and smooth blond hair was plastered to a rather long head. It was he who led the others into the ship. It was he who asked something of the officer at the door. The officer gestured, pointing toward an elevator. The man in the raincoat led the others toward the elevator.

  A tall young man in uniform came up the gangplank. Inside the ship, he stripped off a wet raincoat. He was British army, as Heimrich had expected. He was a subaltern, with the pips of one. He looked around the crowded foyer.

  Lady Ellen Grimes came from among people. They were close enough to hear her say, “Michael. Michael dear,” and to see the tall young soldier, who looked rather as Sir Ronald might have looked some thirty-five years ago, put his arms around Ellen Grimes and hold her close. And then, an arm still around her shoulders, he went with her to the purser’s desk and took the landing card and passport handed him.

  “It might at least have been a sunny day for her,” Susan said. “That much she had coming. Perhaps the sun will come out again in England.”

  Heimrich looked down at his wife, and saw that her eyes were wet, although she had not been out in the rain. He put a hand on her arm and pressed it.

  “We’re so lucky,” Susan said, and they went to a table made of wood and knocked on it.

  People streamed off the ship, down the gangplank into the rain on the pier. After a few minutes the foyer was almost empty. Susan looked up at Merton and raised enquiring eyebrows. He shook his head slightly. They waited for several minutes and then four men came from the elevator—the policeman in uniform, and the solid man who carried a furled umbrella and the hatless man with the long head and the pale smooth hair. And Major Ian Whitney, who walked behind the policeman in uniform and in front of the policeman who was not in uniform and who looked straight ahead. There was a bruise on his jaw.

  The policemen and Whitney went down the gangplank to the pier. A car nudged its way along the pier, and they got into it. The man with the pale hair stopped at the door from the foyer and said something to the ship’s officer stationed there. He was, Heimrich saw, the junior officer who had brought messages from Comandante Antonio di Scarlotti. The officer pointed, and the man with pale hair came across the room to them and said, “Heimrich?”

  Merton Heimrich nodded his head.

  “Parsons,” the pale-haired man said. “Good job, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “I don’t mind,” Heimrich said.

  “The skipper isn’t too happy,” Parsons said. “See his point, of course. But there you are, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “But we’re happy,” Parsons said. “Quite happy, old man.”

  And he held out his hand, and Heimrich shook his hand. The contact was brief.

  “Can’t keep them waiting, y’know,” Parsons said and went across the foyer and out to the deck and down the gangplank. They watched him get into the car with the others. They did not wait to see the car turn and move back along the pier.

  It was dark and gray through the portholes, and the ship was no longer vibrating. It seemed to be drifting motionless in gray water. “Málaga?” Susan said, and Merton Heimrich said, “I’m afraid so, dear.”

  Angela and Guido brought them breakfast, and Heimrich gave them money. (Too much? Or did they always beam so?)

  “You were good to us,” Susan said.

  Angela said, “It was a pleasure, signora,” as if she meant it, and Guido said, “Indeed, signor-signora.”

  And men came into the cabin and carried luggage out of it.

  At the foot of the gangplank, when the Heimrichs had walked down it, a man stood with a square of cardboard held above his head. A word was hand-lettered on the cardboard. The word was “Heimrich.”

  “Close enough,” Heimrich said. “Probably our man.”

  It was their man—the man arranged for by distant Miss Snell to drive them from Málaga to Nerja. It took half an hour to retrieve their luggage and to clear it through customs. But the customs man asked only that one small bag be opened and scrawled indecipherable letters on the others.

  The sun came out as they left the busy streets of Málaga. They went along a narrow road which twisted around outcroppings of rock. Sometimes they could see the Mediterranean. On the other side, they could sometimes see high mountains with snow on their tops. Always they could see mules, heavy-laden, resigned, led by men who looked as if they had always led resigned mules. They edged around the mules; they cringed away from trucks headed for Málaga. They went through small towns.

  High-rise apartment buildings, some finished, some partly built, climbed the hills to the left as they went east along the coast toward Nerja. Now and then there were angular structures between the road and the sea.

  “It’s trying to be Miami Beach,” Susan said. “That Miss Snell. Unspoiled fishing villages.”

  He looked at her with anxiety. But her smile was her own smile, and her eyes were bright again, and she p
ut a hand on one of his and left it there.

  The buildings were less frequent as they drove on through the sunshine; more often they could see the Mediterranean sparkling under the sun. Nerja was small, and small streets squiggled from a central square.

  The parador was beyond the center of the town, but not much beyond it. It was on a cliff above the sea, and their room, on the third floor, had a balcony on the ocean side, and the sun was bright on the balcony. Heimrich had got pesetas for traveler’s checks before they left the ship, and he tipped the boy who had brought up their bags and, although he already knew pesetas were going to be hard to get used to, apparently tipped him enough. The boy made approving sounds in Spanish and went out of the room.

  They went out onto the balcony and into the sun. Far below there was a beach, and nets were drying on it, and one of the nets was being mended by two men. The sun was very bright.

  “Holiday,” Susan Heimrich said. “We’re on holiday, dear.”

  Heimrich said, “Yes, Susan.”

  “But in a way,” Susan said, “we take it with us, no matter what.”

  Heimrich looked at her carefully. She looked fine. He said, “Yes, Susan. No matter what. You bring it with us.”

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Captain Heimrich Mysteries

  1

  By mid-September in the latitude of the town of Van Brunt, Putnam County, State of New York, one begins to snatch at mild sunny days, which soon will be in short supply. Frost may come at any time; snow is not as far away as it once was. Ice will cover the terrace of a long, low house above the Hudson River. Tall bright marigolds will become shriveled hulks of plants and have to be dragged up by the roots. But it was sunny and warm that Saturday, and Merton Heimrich was having as near a day off as he ever gets, and they were having prelunch drinks on the terrace.

  It was a little after noon, and Heimrich, Inspector, New York State Police, had just put a tray with two tall drinks on it on a table when the mail carrier honked twice from the foot of the steep driveway. Susan had started to reach out toward her glass, but she drew her hand back. There is a ritual.