“You aren’t the only one,” said Crane.
Wilson gave him a sharp, oblique glance.
Captain Enright said, “No hard feelings, Mr Essex?”
“That’s all right.” Essex was bending over the diving suit. “I don’t care what happens as long as Camelia comes back.” His voice sounded as though he were going to cry.
Chapter XIX
CRANE AND WILSON rode home with Essex in the Bugatti. Osborne followed in his car, but Captain Enright stayed to supervise a widespread search of the area around the shack where they had found the diver’s suit.
Wilson was angry. “Who ever heard of a melodramatic stunt like that?” he demanded. “Using a diver’s suit?”
“It’s right out of a storybook,” Crane said. “It’s like the whole damn business. It’s too phony to be true.”
Essex swung the Bugatti around an erosion in the asphalt. “But will he return Camelia?”
“We’ll have to wait,” said Wilson.
“I’m not going to wait,” said Crane.
“What do you mean?” Wilson’s eyes were sharp. “I thought you were the one who advised Major Eastcomb to wait.”
“I’m tired of waiting.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to grab The Eye.”
“Don’t be funny,” said Wilson.
Essex said, “Do you really know who The Eye is?”
“I’ve got a good idea.”
Essex turned the Bugatti into the gravel driveway. “I’d give anything to get hold of him.” His lips, compressed, were like white cord.
Wilson asked, “Who do you think he is?”
“Don’t be funny,” said Crane.
Miss Day, O’Malley and Major Eastcomb met them at the front door. O’Malley was carrying a ten-foot pole on his shoulder. Crane asked him: “What are you: a spear bearer in Julius Caesar?”
The pole had a steel scissors on its end and from one blade dangled a small rope. When the rope was jerked the scissors closed, something like the operation of a lobster’s claw. “You told me to get this from the gardener,” O’Malley said.
“Oh yeah. The pruning pole.”
Wilson asked, “What are you going to do, Crane?”
Essex explained to Miss Day: “Crane thinks he has a line on The Eye.”
“Ooo! Isn’t he smart,” said Miss Day.
Crane said, “I’ll try to put a finger on the guy. Suppose we have everybody come into the living room.”
“It’s nicer in the patio,” Miss Day said.
“O.K. The patio.”
“More melodrama,” said Wilson. His voice was sarcastic.
O’Malley asked, “What do you want me to do with this pole?”
“Bring it along.”
Miss Day said, “Isn’t this exciting? I’ll get everybody.” Essex started to follow her, but Crane stopped him. “I think you better stick with us. We’ve had too many people bumped off already.”
Osborn, the county attorney, and a detective joined them in the patio. Major Eastcomb asked Crane, “Is this some more of your bloody foolishness?”
Miss Langley, her bulging eyes looking like balls of vanilla ice cream on which caramel sauce had been poured, arrived with her nurse. Tony Lamphier, wearing white slacks and a horizontally striped green-and-white jersey, appeared with the Bouchers. “What’s up?” he asked.
“You’ll see,” said Crane.
“Do you want the servants?” asked Miss Day, thrusting her head out a door.
“You might have one of them bring us a drink,” Crane said. “I seem to be thirsty.” He added, “Might as well have Craig and Brown join us.”
Crane helped Pedro place a tray with cracked ice, glasses, limes, bacardi and charged water on the table by the swimming pool. “Anybody have one?”
While he was mixing drinks for everyone except the nurse with Miss Langley and the detective, Miss Day appeared with Craig and Brown. Both the men appeared apprehensive. Craig looked at Essex. “You wanted me, sir?”
“I did,” said Crane. Ice tinkled in the glasses as he passed them.
“Well, get on with whatever you are going to do,” said Wilson.
Crane took a long drink of his bacardi rickey. “Good,” he said.
Miss Langley gulped hers. “Some more, please,” she said. “I feel a little faint.”
“No,” said the nurse.
“I got everybody here,” Crane said, “because I want a lot of witnesses to what I’m going to do.”
They stared at him. “What are you going to do?” asked Wilson.
“I’m going to accuse someone of kidnaping Camelia Essex.” Crane finished his glass. “Fix me another, will you, O’Malley?” He gave O’Malley his glass. “In fact, I’m going to accuse Essex of kidnaping his sister.”
“You can’t mean that,” said Tony Lamphier.
“God!” said Major Eastcomb.
Essex looked at Crane in bewilderment. “What … what?”
“Penn!” said Miss Day.
Mrs Boucher’s brown eyes were wide. “This is a joke.”
“Oh, that isn’t all,” Crane said cheerfully. “I further accuse him of being The Eye.”
“This is monstrous!” His face cherry red, Major Eastcomb moved toward Crane, an arm raised as though he were going to strike him. He looked at Wilson. “Isn’t it enough that Penn’s gone through what he has without being harassed by a lunatic?”
O’Malley stopped making Crane’s drink, watched the major. He was thinking, now’s my chance to slug him.
“Let him go on,” said Wilson. “We’ll soon see if he’s a lunatic.”
“What proof have you of this?” demanded Osborn.
O’Malley poured bacardi in with the ice and lime. Crane said, “I have quite a bit of proof.” O’Malley handed him the glass, saying, “Here.” Crane took it in his hand. “But first I want to give you my reasons for picking on Essex.” The glass was cold, moist.
“Gad!” said Major Eastcomb. “Do we have to listen to this?” He looked at Osborn.
“What are you so scared about, Major?” asked O’Malley.
“Go ahead,” said Wilson to Crane.
Crane was watching the major. “Well, in the first place there are the notes. They were always being found on Essex’ pillow or in his pocket or someplace like that. Who could put them there easier than himself?”
“All right,” said Osborn. “Go ahead.”
“He needed money,” said Crane. “Tortoni was after him for nearly twenty-five thousand dollars. He couldn’t get it from the trust company.”
Essex spoke for the first time. “That’s foolish, Crane.” His voice did not sound angry. “I had the I O Us. I didn’t need the money to pay Tortoni.”
“You have them now, but you didn’t have them a couple of weeks ago. You told me yourself.”
“Yes, but——”
“Never mind.” Crane took a sip of the bacardi. “You and Tortoni figured you could kidnap Camelia and make fifty grand. I suppose you were going to split it between you. Then Tortoni would call the debt square.”
“This is very pretty,” said Wilson. “But have you any facts?”
“Wait.” Crane was still talking to Essex. “You thought you could write notes to yourself, signed The Eye, and establish the fact that someone, probably a maniac, was threatening the Essex family. Thus the kidnaping would be blamed on The Eye.
“Then Tortoni’s men kidnaped Camelia. You put up a phony fight and one of the men socked you.”
“But he did his best to catch them in the Bugatti,” Tony Lamphier said. “Don’t you remember?”
“I remember all right. I remember that he collapsed just as we were about to overhaul Tortoni’s men. It was funny he should pick that particular time to fold, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” said Tony Lamphier.
“When Tortoni was killed it left Essex alone in the plot, but he decided to carry it through. The fifty gran
d would come in handy. So he wrote the note giving the directions for the delivery of the money.”
Everyone was listening quietly now.
“Then he went out under our eyes,” Crane continued, “and made the gesture of paying over the money to The Eye. He returned to wait with us for the release of Camelia, but I don’t think that will ever happen.”
“Why not?” asked Tony Lamphier.
“I think she’s dead.”
Voices rose in incredulous conversation. Essex said, “No! No! She can’t be dead.” His face was wild. Major Eastcomb said of Crane, “The man’s mad.” Miss Langley said in a graveyard whisper, “I knew she was dead, I knew …”
Wilson demanded, “Why do you think she’s dead?”
“When a kidnaper sends a ransom note he usually has the victim write on it to prove he or she is alive.”
Major Eastcomb said, “But The Eye mentioned Froggy, a toy only Camelia would know about.”
“Essex, writing the note, would know about Froggy.”
Osborne pushed black hair off his forehead. “But who is the accomplice? Who collected the money?”
“Nobody.”
“But the diver’s suit …?”
“It was a plant. Essex put it there last——”
Miss Day screamed. Her voice echoed shrilly in the patio. With an overhand sweep, like a soldier throwing a hand grenade, O’Malley flung a bacardi bottle, hit Essex a glancing blow on the top of his head. He fell, spinning, to the tile floor, lay there under everyone’s astonished eyes. An automatic pistol slipped from his outstretched right hand, skidded across the patio, came to rest at the base of a boxed palm. The bacardi bottle shattered against the side of the swimming pool.
“Thanks, tutz,” O’Malley said to Miss Day.
Crane walked over to Essex, jerked off his linen coat. He ripped off Essex’ shirt, not bothering to unbutton it, and then pulled his underwear top over his head. Essex’ skin was pale. He undid Essex’ belt, tore open his trousers. The nurse with Miss Langley uttered a cry, averted her eyes. He unfastened a brown canvas inner belt around Essex’ hips, emptied the contents of the rectangular pockets on the red tiles in front of Wilson.
“Money,” said Wilson.
The bills were so clean they looked counterfeit. Essex groaned. The bills were cabbage green.
“There’s your proof,” said Crane.
Osborn and Major Eastcomb knelt on the floor, began to count the money. Wilson asked, “How does he have it?”
Crane said, “He hid the money on the way to the bridge. Under the bridge he tore up the cardboard box, tossed the pieces in the canal.”
“How’d you figure it?”
“Easy.” Crane fumbled in his pocket, found the water-soaked piece of cardboard. He gave it to Wilson. “This spilled the beans.”
Wilson read the printing on the cardboard: “‘lifo.’ What does that mean?”
“He had a prune box. Where do prunes come from?”
“California.”
“Sure, ‘lifo’ is part of California. California prunes. I found this piece, or rather O’Malley did, right near the bridge.”
Miss Day was kneeling beside Essex, was offering him a drink of rum. “This’ll make you feel better.” O’Malley had retrieved the pistol, was standing with it in back of Essex.
Wilson’s face was puzzled. “I still don’t see what finding a piece of the box by the bridge proves.”
“The tide.” Crane got his drink from the table. “It runs six hours one way, then six the other. It was running inland when we reached the bridge around one o’clock, but it had almost stopped. That meant it was running pretty fast inland when Essex was under the bridge at ten o’clock. If there had been a diver he would have grabbed the box and hurried back to the bushes with it. He wouldn’t have waited under the bridge to open the box.”
“No, I guess not,” Wilson said.
“Well, if there had been a diver it would have been impossible for O’Malley to find a piece of the box near the bridge. The tide was going inland, so any pieces he threw in the water by the bushes would have gone toward the Everglades.”
“I get it.” Wilson nodded his head. “The piece by the bridge indicated the box had been torn up by the bridge.”
“That’s what gave me the idea about Essex,” Crane said. “And then, when we found the diver’s suit it was too much like a plant. I also wondered if a diver could walk under water against the tide. It goes pretty fast in that canal.”
Hands full of bills, Osborn came up off his knees. “This can’t be the ransom money,” he said. “There’s only nineteen thousand dollars here.”
Crane said, “Have someone look in the Bugatti.”
Osborn and the detective went into the house. Essex sat up, pressed his head with both hands. There was a smear of blood on his blond hair where the bottle had struck. His eyes went from one to another of them in dazed appeal. “Brown …” he began.
“Not me.” Brown was standing beside Craig. “You’re all alone in this jam, buddy.”
The sun was bright in Miss Day’s yellow hair. “Take some more,” she said, holding the glass of rum in front of Essex. He pushed it away.
Wilson said, “Then you think the men who actually kidnaped Miss Essex were hired by Essex?”
“By Tortoni,” Crane said.
“That’s the same thing.”
“Not exactly.”
Miss Langley suddenly began to babble. “This is impossible … The Essex … such a disgrace …” Disconnected sentences, phrases came from her lips. “I knew it … my poor sister …” Her violet eyes seemed as large as the tops of two mason jars.
“Take her away,” Crane told the nurse. “Put her to bed.”
Miss Langley allowed the nurse to lead her to the house. Her voice faded into silence.
“A rummy,” Crane explained to Wilson.
Osborn and the detective came running into the patio. “Here’s the rest of the money,” Osborn said. His voice was excited.
“Forty thousand dollars,” said the detective. Bills in rubber-banded bundles were heaped like kindling wood in his arms. “And the oilskin wrapper too.”
“That’s nine thousand extra,” said Wilson.
Crane said, “This is the first time in history a cop ever got back more money than was lost.”
“I guess we can arrest him,” said Osborn.
Crane took a long drink of bacardi. “Why not?”
Wilson asked, “Why’d he put part of the money on him?”
“Safety, I guess. If something happened to the Bugatti he’d still be well heeled.”
Satisfaction made Osborn’s voice oily. “We’ll charge him with kidnaping.” His voice sounded as though he were already talking to the grand jury.
“You better make it murder,” said Crane.
Essex struggled to his feet. “No! No!” O’Malley got ready to club him with the pistol. “She’s not dead. She can’t be dead.”
“How do you know?” asked Crane.
“Tortoni told his men to take care of her. They weren’t to harm her.” Essex’ face was the color of mashed potatoes; his lips trembled; his hands were clenched. “I wouldn’t kill my sister.”
“Not much,” said Crane.
Osborn said, “A man who would be coadjuvant to the kidnaping of his only sister would be capable of any crime.”
“She’s safe,” said Essex. “I’m sure of that.”
“Where is she then?” asked Wilson.
Essex walked stiff-legged to a chair, sat down. “I don’t know. Tortoni had charge of the hiding place.”
Osborn said, “Then you do admit conniving with Tortoni in the kidnaping of your sister?”
“Yes.” Essex pressed his head with his palms. “Tortoni forced me to help him.”
“Like hell,” Crane said and asked: “What makes you so sure Camelia’s safe?”
“Tortoni promised nothing would happen to her.”
“And you beli
eved him?”
“Of course.”
Crane disgustedly drained his glass. “I wish I was as dumb.” He turned to Wilson. “Tortoni probably had Miss Essex murdered.”
Essex came to his feet. “He wouldn’t dare. He knew I’d have him hung.”
“Would you put your own head in a noose to get him for your sister’s murder?”
Essex was silent.
Wilson asked, “If your sister is alive how will we get her back?”
“We’ll just have to wait.”
“Will they return her without word from Tortoni?”
Essex’ voice cracked with anguish. “That’s what I don’t know. I thought if they heard the ransom was paid they’d let her go. That’s why I collected the ransom.”
“Sure,” said Crane. “You were just trying to help your sister. You didn’t want the money for yourself.”
“I was trying to help her.”
“Sure,” said Crane.
Tony Lamphier spoke for the first time. He had been watching Essex, contempt in his eyes. He said, “This is terrible. Now we haven’t anybody to pay a ransom to.”
Osborn was wrapping the money in the oilskin. “We’ll take him down to the Detective Bureau. Maybe somebody can make him talk there.”
“No!” Essex cried. “Not there. I’ve told you all I know.”
Major Eastcomb walked around Miss Day to Essex. “Don’t worry, Penn. I’ll get a lawyer. We’ll have you out on bail.”
Crane stared at him in amazement. “Don’t you think he’s guilty?”
“Yes,” the major said. “But I’m still his trustee.”
“We’ll make the bail high,” said Osborn. “Kidnaping comes high.”
“Make the charge murder,” said Crane. “You can’t bail out a murderer.”
Osborn shook his head. “I’m afraid we can’t. At least not until we have reason to suppose Miss Essex is dead.”
“Well, hell!” said Crane. “Charge him with the murder of Imago Paraguay.”
Chapter XX
SUNLIGHT, coming through the open french window in Imago Paraguay’s room, cast a white rectangle on the floor. In the palms there was a sough of wind, husky and soothing. It was hot.
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