“What about the night I hit him with the car. Who followed us to that bar where we had the drink?”
“I did.”
“And you telephoned Arthur.”
“Right. He wanted to get the two of you together but he was plastered and he got there a little late. Like a damn fool he ran out into the street to try to stop you and you hit him.”
“You were there?”
“On the sidewalk.”
Sanford took a moment to remember other things and he seemed to realize that Breck had had nothing to do with the incident on the subway platform.
“I couldn’t find Laura after that,” he said. “I didn’t even know who she was. Did you keep on following me?”
“Constantly. One of the three of us was around practically all of the time. Hubbard wanted a pattern of the way you lived. What you did and where you went at different times of the day.”
“He tried to run me down with a pickup truck one night. The other morning when I talked to him on the houseboat he admitted it but he said he didn’t steal the truck. Who did?”
“One of my partners.”
“Who followed me to Florida? I mean, who found me?”
“Me.” Breck tapped his bare chest with his thumb. “The mastermind. Only I didn’t follow you. I didn’t know where you went. When I finally did locate you one of the guys I was working with in New York came to Miami and we went through the whole routine of checking your daily movements again.”
“You don’t know what happened there or what Hubbard tried to do?”
“No. All I know is that you pulled a vanishing act again. I’ve been looking for you ever since.”
“Where did you get your lead?”
“It wasn’t easy. You were two days gone before I was sure and your landlady wasn’t any help. She didn’t know anything about you except that you’d paid your rent and left no forwarding address. After that it took a lot of leg work and a lot of questions.”
He poured more beer and said: “I tried the bus stations and talked to clerks and drivers. The same way at the airline offices—downtown and out at the airport. By that time I knew you had a couple of favorite bars and restaurants but they were no help either. But when we started checking on you in New York Hubbard wanted to know all he could about your background and I finally remembered that you liked boats and had spent a couple of summers working in yards so I started checking on the docks, and marinas, and boatyards. It was a couple of months after that before I got a line on two guys who were going to take a ketch from Ft. Lauderdale to the west coast by the way of the Panama Canal. I found out that when they shoved off they took a third guy along—nobody knew your name—and the description fitted so I started from there.”
“You missed me when you were here last July,” Sanford said.
“So I blew one. It’s not the first time.”
“Then on Wednesday—or was it Thursday—you got in touch with Hubbard.”
“I cabled him in New York and he telephoned back to tell me to sit tight, that he’d try to be here Saturday.”
“He must have told you something else too.”
“Did he?”
Sanford spoke of the two Indians who had attacked him Sunday night after he had left the Pickwick Club.
“Hubbard got in here Saturday,” he said. “He’d never been here before, didn’t know a soul. So I doubt like hell if he’d know where to find a couple of guys willing to use a knife on a man all by himself.”
Breck put his glass down and nodded, a note of approval in his voice. “You think pretty good. I lined those two Indians up but I didn’t hire them or make any deal.”
“You knew what Hubbard had in mind?”
“Maybe.”
“When those two men jumped me,” Sanford said, “and I saw the knife, I knew that somehow Hubbard had to be in back of it even though I didn’t know he was in town or on the houseboat. When the police found a hundred U.S. dollars on the Indian they caught I was sure of it.”
He hesitated and when Breck made no comment he added: “When I had that drink with you Sunday night you knew I was going to the Pickwick Club. Irene Dumont says you left her for a while with the excuse that you were going to get some cigarettes from your room. That gave you a chance to get in touch with those Indians—I don’t know whether you did it with a phone call or a messenger or by carrier pigeon—and tell them where to look for me. If they had pulled the job off you would have been an accessory to murder.”
“Technically maybe,” Breck said, and if there was any feeling of shame or guilt in him it did not carry over into his voice. “In my business I do a lot of things I don’t particularly want to do. I do my job and don’t ask too many questions. With Hubbard I was pretty sure that if I happened to get into any trouble I’d have twenty or thirty million bucks to back me up. It was nothing personal. And the less I knew about it the better.”
The statement was as matter-of-fact as it was cold-blooded in concept, and when Sanford realized he had never met anyone like Breck before and could not therefore know what made him tick, he changed the subject.
“So what do you think happened last night? How much did that plainclothes sergeant tell you?”
“He told me about the constable that got knifed and that’s not hard to figure. He must have stumbled onto something without knowing what it was until it was too late.”
“And Hubbard?”
“The sergeant said a couple of fishermen saw the body floating in that frogman’s suit and dragged it ashore. There was a little slit in the front of the suit and a knife wound in the chest.”
“Did he tell you about the bloodstains on my ketch?”
Breck, apparently deciding he had had enough sun, moved off the chaise and pulled it into the shade. When he sat down again he took off his glasses and now the hooded gray eyes were narrowed and direct as he considered the remark.
“Bloodstains?” he said. “Have they got anybody here that can type them?”
“They’ve already been typed,” Sanford said. “They didn’t come from the constable.”
“Where were they on the ketch?”
Sanford told him. “If that blood was Hubbard’s—and that’s the way it looks—it means he was killed there. You know him a lot better than I do, how do you figure it?”
“What’s to figure?” Breck shrugged bare shoulders. “He went out to the houseboat, put on the suit, and swam back. He must have climbed aboard to wait for you. What kind of layout do you have? Are there two cabins?”
“Yes. The main one and a small one forward.”
“Then someone must have beat Hubbard to the boat, and was waiting for him, maybe in that little cabin with the door partway open. When he was ready all he had to do was slide the door back and step out with his knife. Either you—you’re bigger than he is and I’d say pretty quick—or someone who was waiting for Hubbard did the job and dumped the body over the side.” He tipped one hand. “How else can you figure it?”
“Your figuring is all right as far as it goes,” Sanford said, “but you’re forgetting one small point.”
“What point is that?”
“Unless I killed Hubbard—and I didn’t—or unless it was pure coincidence, then whoever killed him had to know that he was coming to the ketch. That could be you, or Aldington, or Janovic, or Cushman.”
Breck considered the remark, his gray eyes full of thought. “I see what you mean,” he said finally, “but your point doesn’t stand up too well. All I knew—and this could apply to Aldington and Janovic—is that Hubbard rode out to the houseboat. If he intended to kill you he wouldn’t be crazy enough to tell me or anybody else what he was going to do, would he? I didn’t know about any frogman’s suit or what he had in mind, so that leaves Cushman who might have seen Hubbard. If I was investigating the case I wouldn’t rule out the two women either. I think you could find good enough motives. A woman could have used that knife because Hubbard wouldn’t be expecting anything like that fr
om either of them.”
Breck came out of his chair as he finished and moved to the end of the pool. Sanford walked alongside, aware that the detective’s argument had some merit but not yet ready to accept it. He said he was going to get a sandwich and spoke of the conference Superintendent Kirby had called at two o’clock.
“Are you invited?” he asked.
“No, but I probably will be,” Breck said and, taking a breath, took off from the edge of the pool in a clean, professional-looking dive.
15
Apparently George Breck got the invitation he expected because he was there in the hotel’s private dining-room with the others from the houseboat when Superintendent Kirby and Inspector Larkin called the meeting to order shortly after two o’clock.
Kirby had appropriated a table on which he spread his papers and notes. Sanford sat off to one side with Breck on the other while Larkin remained standing near the door. The others sat in a rough semicircle, the two women side by side, with Cushman, Aldington, and Janovic a few feet away. Kirby remained standing while he made his preliminary remarks and they took quite a while. He gave them the usual cautionary statement to warn them that anything said might be used in evidence but he stressed the informality of the questioning.
“You will all be questioned individually later for the record and statements will be required,” he said in his clipped and proper phrases, “but my purpose here is to let each of you hear what the others have to say and to give you a chance to help this investigation to the best of your ability …”
He paused as Howard Aldington cleared his throat and now the lawyer said: “You understand, of course, Superintendent, that we are under no compulsion to answer any questions at all at this time.”
“Quite.” Kirby’s quick blue eyes flicked from face to face. “I should also point out that since you are not qualified to practice law in the colony, Mr. Aldington, you have no more standing in a legal sense than any of the others. If you feel that your rights are being jeopardized I’m sure your consul will provide adequate protection when the time comes.”
He paused again to see if there was any argument. “I was about to say that some of you may have mistaken ideas about loyalty to one another since you came here together. Now loyalty, the reluctance to give information against one another, is commendable but it has no place in a murder investigation. From the evidence we now have, and with reasonable assumptions, it seems obvious that one of you killed Police Constable Pierce and King Hubbard. We intend to find out which one and I can assure you that you will be required to remain in Belize until we do. Do I make myself clear? … Now if any of you are unaware of Mr. Hubbard’s purpose in coming here I’ll try to explain what he had in mind.”
When there was no comment he gave a concise and articulate account of the story Sanford had told him the previous afternoon. He spoke of his talk with King Hubbard and the impression Hubbard had made. He said that the circumstances surrounding Hubbard’s death and his use of the frogman’s suit served only to substantiate Sanford’s statements; then he launched into a theory that gave the official view of how and why the two murders had taken place the night before.
Because this theory was so similar to the one that George Breck had offered earlier, Sanford did not pay too much attention to the points Kirby was making. Instead, he found himself thinking about the others in the room, particularly Laura Maynard. She looked very cool and composed in her tan tailored dress, her auburn-tinged hair framed softly the lovely, high-cheekboned face, and the green eyes had an open, understanding look each time they met his. Beside her, Blanche Hubbard sat quietly on a straight-backed chair. She wore a smart-looking print dress; her blonde hair, worn a little shorter than Laura’s, was attractively set. The puffiness was still apparent in her face but heavy makeup gave her skin an artificial smoothness from which the shadowed eyes watched only Kirby.
Aldington remained aloof and immaculate in his lightweight suit. The blond and muscular Janovic listened attentively, his eyes watchful, and Fred Cushman, his bulky figure slumped a little, seemed quite indifferent until Kirby made a point that gave a clue as to the fundamental purpose behind his motive for the assembly he had arranged.
“To get a proper perspective of Mr. Hubbard and to understand, not just why he wanted to kill Mr. Sanford but why he was like he was, I need information from those who knew him best … But before I do,” he added, looking at George Breck, “I’d like to ask just how you participated in Mr. Hubbard’s plans against Mr. Sanford.”
Breck apparently had been questioned by experts before and if he was bothered by Kirby’s attention it did not show. The hooded gray eyes were steady and perhaps a little insolent, and a humorless grin worked briefly on his mouth as he answered the question.
“I told your sergeant all I know,” he said in his city accents. “If you read his report you’ve got about all of it. I gave him my name, rank, and serial number,” he added, his grin fixed. “I showed him my credentials. I’m licensed as a private detective in New York and Florida and I worked for Hubbard on and off for two or three years. I was hired to find Sanford and I did. I informed Hubbard. That’s all I know and all I intend to say, now or any other time.”
Kirby didn’t like it; the twist of his mouth said so. But his self-control remained intact and his voice stayed clipped and precise.
“We may have to delve a little deeper into certain aspects of your work before we finish, Mr. Breck,” he said, “but for now I’d like to get back to Mr. Hubbard.” Again Kirby glanced about the room. “Which one of you has known him longest? On a personal basis that is.”
“I have,” Cushman said. “Ever since we were in prep school together.”
“Oh? And you’ve been good friends ever since?”
“Friends?” Cushman seemed to savor the word and rejected it. “No, I wouldn’t say that. He introduced me yesterday morning as his secretary and man Friday. In recent years that might cover it. In the beginning I was more of a toady. Are you familiar with the word?”
Accepting Kirby’s nod as his answer, Cushman said: “My father was a small-town minister and by most standards I was a poor boy. I went to prep school—it was a good one—on scholarship. I worked summers to pay for my clothes and get a little spending money. Hubbard was everything I was not. He bought what he wanted, one way or another, and he was very generous when he liked you. I didn’t realize until later that the purpose of his generosity was to satisfy his own ego; not to strengthen the recipient but actually to break down his self-respect.
“King was used to having someone do him favors and run errands. Also I was a lot bigger than he was—I was playing some football at the time—and I made a good protector and bodyguard. With his makeup and odd streaks of violence, he frequently needed someone like me. He made life a lot more pleasant for me at the time and I liked my new status while it lasted. I suppose it got to be a habit, or perhaps disease would be a better word.”
He shifted his weight in the chair and crossed his knees. His amber eyes were fixed and indifferent behind the tan-rimmed glasses and his cord jacket looked wrinkled and shapeless as he waited to see if there would be any reply. When none came he continued in the same quiet monotone.
“He got in trouble sometimes when some boy crossed him or gave him a thrashing. His father had to come and talk to the headmaster from time to time. It always worked until he finally cut up a boy pretty badly with a piece of broken glass. That was the end of King at that school. Anyone else would probably have wound up in a reformatory but the old man and his lawyers apparently had enough money to fix it.
“Actually I think his father was to blame for King’s attitude that he could do as he pleased and to hell with you if you didn’t like it. I understand King’s mother committed suicide and the old man developed a certain contempt for all women that he cultivated and passed along to his son. Imagine—unless it was a family name or something like that—a father calling his son King. But I guess that’s what the ol
d man wanted—a king, and he used his money and influence to make one.”
He took a small breath and said: “He’d made bis fortune the hard way, using whatever means he needed to do the job. From what little I saw, and the things I heard, he was a driving, arrogant, cold-blooded bastard. He was a partner, originally, with the oil millionaire who owns this houseboat. King was a major stockholder. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s why those two sport fishermen were named Rex I and Rex II … With his father pushing and backing him up, King was always number one. Look what happened to Arthur, the other son,” he said and glanced at Laura.
“No wonder Arthur turned out to be a psycho and a lush. The old man’s will practically put him on an allowance, with King in full control of the fortune until Arthur was thirty-five.”
Again he paused and then, as though aware that he had been digressing, he said: “I didn’t see King again until we were in college. He told me he had picked that one because I was already there. I didn’t have any more money then than I did in prep school, and I guess I was glad to see him; maybe even a little flattered because we set up shop the way it used to be, with me the peacemaker and buffer and King supplying the funds. That time he lasted two years. There were occasional brawls and girl trouble most of which could be hushed up. But when he broke a girl’s jaw one night when he was drunk and she did something he didn’t like, that finished him.”
“A girl?” Kirby said, sounding somewhat aghast. “He was not punished? How could that be?”
“Money,” someone said and Sanford had to glance round to realize that it was Aldington who had spoken. “You’d be surprised what it will do. It’s also much easier to understand than you might think. Suppose you get your jaw broken in some barroom brawl. Maybe it’s partly your fault. You get your jaw wired up and nothing is going to mend the fracture but time. You can press charges if you like. That might be your first thought but after you consider the matter you realize that the most someone like Hubbard is going to get is a modest fine. That isn’t going to help your jaw any and no matter how bitter you are you eventually accept that fact. So when someone comes around and offers you two, or five, or ten thousand dollars—depending on the circumstances—you decide the smart thing to do is to collect and forget it. At least that’s the way it worked with Hubbard in every case I know about.”
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