Man on a Rope

by George Harmon Coxe

  Ian Lambert was not at home in the furnished room he rented over a tailor shop on Robb Street. The only other place that Barry could think of as a possibility was Ian’s brother-in-law’s schooner, but he did not know where it might be tied up, or even its name. Eddie Glynn’s encyclopedic knowledge saved the day when he heard the problem.

  “You mean Chris Holt?” he said. “Sure, Mr. Dawson. The Jessie B. I know her berth. You want to go there now?”

  The route he picked went along High Street for a distance, cut right to Water Street, and then turned left away from the city. Here the area was devoted to commerce and industry, a flat, multi-odored section of warehouses and docks and. small factories. As they continued, the road became increasingly rough and was cut at intervals by manmade canals that reached endlessly inland and served as arteries of transportation just as they did on the larger sugar estates, the carriers long metal cane-punts which were roped end to end and usually hauled by mules.

  A bumpy dirt road took them to a ramshackle but usable shed beyond which stood a line of docks in need of repair. Husky black men were loading bags of rice into the Jessie B’s holds and under the canvas which had been spread aft two men lounged in improvised deck chairs.

  The Jessie B was a black-painted, two-masted craft, old looking but well kept, and lay almost motionless in the muddy-brown river, which stretched broadly across to the distant, low-lying shore. The towering finger of its topmast was seemingly stationary against cloud-studded sky, and a thin wisp of blue smoke oozed from its galley stack to evaporate in the humid morning air. As Barry and Hudson approached, the two men moved in the shade of the awning and Barry knew that the shorter one was Ian Lambert.

  “Okay to come aboard?” he said.

  “Sure.”

  He stepped over the rail and gave a hand to Hudson, who seemed a little uncertain in his movements. He introduced Hudson to Ian, who in turn introduced his rangy, brown-haired companion as Chris Holt, his brother-in-law. Barry sat down on a locker next to the deckhouse and Hudson perched on the rail, hands braced on either side of him.

  “Hot,” he said.

  “Yeah,” said Holt.

  Hudson glanced at Barry, his expression suggesting that he could use a little help. When no more was forthcoming he launched into his prologue, picking his words with such care that the result was halting and uncertain.

  In contrast to the sweat-stained, half-clad Negroes who wrestled the rice bags aboard, Holt looked very neat in his well-pressed khakis and clean T-shirt. His skin was sunblackened over the flat-muscled arms and neck, and he sucked on a stubby brier as he listened to Hudson. What he said when the proposition had been explained was in the same general vein as Muriel Ransom’s reply.

  “You got some idea that we know where the diamonds are?”

  “No,” said Hudson. “I’m just passing the word. With no will, Ian here, and your wife, are going to get a good chunk of the estate. The diamonds are part of the estate. What I’m saying is, if you stumble across ’em I’m willing to deal.”

  “What about Dawson?”

  Hudson looked at Barry. “Forget him. He doesn’t have to know a thing. He don’t want to know. He’s just helping me line up prospects…. Which would you rather have?” he demanded. “If you had a choice. The diamonds or the U.S. dollars?”

  “The dollars.” Holt glanced across at Ian Lambert, who had not opened his mouth or moved a muscle. “What I’m wondering, “he added, “is why you’re so damned anxious to get the stones.”

  “I’m not anxious,” Hudson said, “but I don’t like to waste my time. I found a deal I like. I got a market for the stones, and I’m getting a ten-per-cent bonus—a hundred and ten grand for a hundred in cash.”

  “You figure to smuggle them into the States?”

  “What the hell do you care?” Hudson said testily.

  “I don’t. Neither does Ian.” Holt glanced at his brother-in-law. “Do you?”

  Ian’s grunt defied translation, and Holt grinned and said: “Of course, if we had the diamonds, and we did trade, it would be a private deal. You wouldn’t go to the police; neither would we.”

  “The cash wouldn’t have to go into the estate either,” Hudson added, another indication of how his mind worked. “It wouldn’t have to be split with this brother in England and it wouldn’t be taxed.”

  “Yeah,” said Holt. “Well, thanks for the suggestion. We’ll give it some thought.”

  “Do that.” Hudson came to his feet and it was obvious that Holt’s attitude had annoyed him. His jaw was hard and his mouth thin, his lips moving very little when he spoke. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “An American,” Holt said, “by way of Nova Scotia. When I got tired of the winters I drifted south…. Why?”

  “Just wondered how you got so smart.” Hudson straightened his jacket, his tone still grating. “Just don’t get cute with me. Unless you’ve got something to sell, stay away from me.”

  Barry stood up and Lambert heaved his chunky body from his chair. For an instant then, his shirt sleeves stretched upward. That was how Barry happened to notice the watch with the gold wristband.

  Boyd McBride was just stepping from his dirty black Vauxhall when Eddie Glynn’s Zephyr pulled up behind him. When he saw who was getting out of the back seat he saluted and said:

  “Hi. Come on in. I’ll buy you a beer.”

  He led the way up a somewhat overgrown path to a smallish unpainted bungalow, but Barry lingered a moment, his attention focused on the Vauxhall’s license plates while his thoughts turned back to the night before and the car he had seen parked beyond the puddle left by the shower.

  The plates he looked at now bore the number X-188. The other car had been partly obscured by a tree trunk and all he had seen was the X-l before he noticed the man who might have been George Thaxter leaning against the other tree.

  Now he turned into the path, brow furrowed and thinking hard as this new suspicion made itself felt. Someone had come to Lambert’s bungalow during the time he had walked two blocks and reluctantly retraced his steps. Someone had searched the desk and scattered its contents. A car had started up as he stepped to the veranda to investigate the sound he thought he heard, but there was no car parked beyond the puddle when he looked again.

  So what? he asked himself. There was a chance that McBride had been the man, nothing more. There were perhaps another ninety-nine cars whose license plates started with X-l, but how many of the owners knew Colin Lambert and wanted him dead?

  The budding suspicion lingered as he entered the bungalow, and when McBride came in from the kitchen with a tray and glasses and three bottles of frosted Heinekens he saw that his host had rolled up his sleeves, that the left wrist bore a watch similar to the one he had seen on Ian Lambert. He thought about this as he sipped his beer and listened vaguely to Hudson’s now familiar prologue. When, finally, he realized that such thoughts formed a sort of mental circle that was getting him nowhere, he stopped thinking and began to pay attention.

  McBride’s reaction to Hudson’s proposition was one of sardonic amusement. He had flopped back in his planter’s chair, both legs supported by the flat, extended arms, and was finding obvious enjoyment in his beer. He did not question Hudson’s motives, nor did he bristle at the implication that he might know something about the missing diamonds.

  “I could use a hundred thousand,” he said. “With that kind of dough I’d gas up my duck and take off for good.”

  “I understand that Lambert held a note on that amphibian,” Barry said, taking a shot in the dark.

  “He did,” McBride said, not batting an eye. “But not now.” He considered that last inch of beer in his glass. He tipped it this way and that, one blond brow cocked and his pale eyes thoughtfully amused. Then, abruptly, he drained his glass and swung his legs down.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “I sure could use that dough. The trouble is, if I did stumble across those stones they wouldn’t be mine, would the
y? I’d be a thief to keep them, and you’d be a crook to buy stolen property.”

  Hudson licked his lips and paused, as though he did not quite know what to make of McBride’s reaction. Neither did Barry. He had an idea that, like Hudson, the big man was a gambler, with no more moral scruples than necessary to keep him out of jail. He had the manner of a man possessed of great self-confidence and a conscience seldom subject to doubts and pressure. He was not stupid, but Barry had an idea that his thinking lacked penetration.

  “If you’re worried about it,” Hudson said finally, “just turn them over to Ian Lambert and let me know. Maybe,” he added with obvious sarcasm, “he’ll give you a reward.”

  He stood up with that and started from the room, Barry following and McBride grinning at them from his chair. When the door slammed behind them Hudson said:

  “I hope the hell he’s got them or can find them. Who does he think he’s kidding with the stolen-property crack? If he’s got ’em he’ll be around…. Let’s go see that lawyer.”

  Louis Amanti led the way into his private office, and when Barry saw the doubtful look on Lynn Sanford’s face as she glanced up from her typewriter he gave her a solemnwink. When he sat down, he noticed the transom over the closed door and knew that if she stopped banging the typewriter long enough to listen she might hear some of the conversation.

  Hudson made his speech, and by that time it was easy. Amanti’s first reaction was to frown and shift his position and straighten things on his desk that did not need straightening. When he was ready his head came up and his bespectacled dark gaze steadied.

  “Yes,” he said. “I knew about the diamonds and I understood that Lambert had found a purchaser. But if you’re serious in this offer, I don’t know why I shouldn’t report it to the police.”

  “I’m serious,” Hudson said flatly, “and you can report it to the police if you want to.”

  Amanti said: “Hmm,” disapprovingly and fingered his watch chain.

  Hudson said: “If you’re going to handle the estate you’ll have the right to sell the diamonds—if they turn up. If you need anybody’s permission you can probably get it from Ian Lambert and Chris Holt.”

  “I have not yet been appointed administrator.”

  “You haven’t got the diamonds yet either, have you?”

  “What you’re suggesting is not only highly irregular but downright improper.”

  “Okay,” said Hudson. “Have me arrested.”

  Amanti frowned, but when he made no attempt to terminate this interview which was so distasteful to him, Barry got the idea that he might not be as ethically pure as he seemed. He watched the lawyer rise and go round the desk to close the transom. When he had seated himself he said: “If the police locate the diamonds they will eventually turn them over to the estate.”

  “After they’ve collected taxes and duty and what have you,” Hudson said. “By that time I won’t be here.”

  “Yes, but—” Amanti let the words trail off, took a breath, and tried again. “If we take a hypothetical case and assume that in one way or another I come into possession of the diamonds, if this should happen, is it your idea that I would sell them secretly to you?”

  “It would depend on how you operate,” Hudson said bluntly. “If you did, nobody’d know it but you and me.”

  “But,” said Amanti, aware at last of Barry and suddenly aghast, “we already have a witness—”

  “Only to this hypothetical offer, if that’s the way you see it. I trusted Dawson to make an appraisal. He’s got a hundred bucks coming,” he added, making no effort to explain why, “but if a deal is made he’ll never know it…. If that’s too big a hunk for you,” he said, “you could go to the heirs and tell ’em you’ve got the stones and an offer. That way you could ask for a cut.”

  Amanti placed his hands on the desk top and pushed himself erect, a flush suffusing his olive skin and his dark eyes resentful.

  “Your suggestion is both preposterous and insulting,” he said. “Kindly get out of my office.”

  Hudson sighed heavily but without apparent resentment. “Sure,” he said and stood up and opened the door.

  Barry followed him out, stopping only long enough to lean over Lynn’s shoulder and tell her he’d be waiting outside in fifteen minutes. Down on the sidewalk as they got into the Zephyr he said to Hudson:

  “Now that you’ve made the rounds, what good did it do you?”

  “I planted the seed,” Hudson said. “That’s all I figured on for now. There’s a good chance one of ’em knocked off Lambert. So long as he’s got the diamonds there’s a chance he’ll get tagged. I’m giving him an out. If he takes it he gets rid of the stones—and he knows I won’t talk—and he gets paid for them. People’ll do funny things for a hundred grand, and don’t you forget it.”

  “Suppose you buy them and the police grab you.”

  “Then I’ll start to worry.”

  “What about me?”

  “What about you?”

  “Didn’t it ever occur to you that I might go to the police and tell them what you’ve been doing?”

  “Why should you?” Hudson said with what seemed like genuine surprise. “You’re not a rat, are you? And what good would it do? I like that word Amanti uses—‘hypothetical.’ I’ve been making some hypothetical offers. Is that illegal?”

  The only reply Barry could think of was a silent no, and as the taxi headed for the hotel he seemed to realize that Hudson had been quite serious in each one of his proposals.

  CHAPTER NINE

  WHEN BARRY DROVE UP in front of the Windsor with Lynn Sanford he happened to glance up at the open-air lounge on the floor above. There, at a railside table watching the endless procession of cyclists on their way back from lunch—“breakfast” was the local term—sat Arthur Hudson and the busty blonde. Not wanting to renew his acquaintance at the moment, Barry pulled his head back and thought up a quick excuse.

  “We haven’t eaten at the Tower in quite a while,” he said. “How about trying that room out back?”

  “All right,” Lynn said. “I’d like to.”

  She said nothing more during the short ride, waiting until they had ordered their lunch and the waiter had gone before she put the question Barry knew was coming.

  “What were you doing with Mr. Hudson?” she said. “What did he want with Mr. Amanti?”

  Because he was in love and liked to share his experiences with this girl, Barry told her what he had been doing, seeing the hazel eyes widen and the lines of doubt and disapproval working on her young mouth. She voiced this disapproval when he finished. She had never heard of such an outrageous proposition. Could Hudson really be serious?

  She was worried, too, about his willingness to accompany Hudson, and this was harder to explain because he did not want to tell her about the diamond pouch buried beneath the frangipani tree. To do so, to imply that someone had tried to frame him for murder, would upset her even more, and so he replied to her comments as best he could and then digressed to speak of the things that were missing from Amanti’s office.

  “Do you know about the envelope that had McBride’s name on it?”

  “There was an envelope.”

  “Amanti told Superintendent Kerby he thought there was a note in it. He said McBride had borrowed money on that amphibian he owns.”

  He paused, but she was no longer looking at him. She was slowly stirring her iced tea and the frown was still biting into her brow, and so he said:

  “McBride could be the guy that broke into your place last night. He wears a watch with a metal band. You said whoever it was pulled your head back on his chest. That makes him a fairly tall man; taller than Ian Lambert, who also wears a metal band. Nothing was missing but your pocketbook—”

  “I found it.”

  “Where?”

  “In the bushes beside the veranda.”

  “What was missing besides the office key?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Su
ppose it was McBride,” he said. “He has to have a key to get into the office, so he takes a chance on getting yours. Would he take that chance just because he owed Lambert some money?… What else was in that envelope?” he asked gently.

  Her eyes were deeply troubled when at last she met his gaze. “I wouldn’t tell this to anyone but you,” she said, “because I don’t know if it’s true. But I did hear Mr. Amanti and Mr. Lambert talking once just after I’d gone to workthere. They were in the private office, but the transom was open and—well, I couldn’t help hearing. It was about something that McBride had done, and a man named Thaxter.”

  Barry said: “Oh—” and. tried to disguise his quickening interest.

  “Whatever it was had happened a year before that,” she said. “Thaxter had worked at the ranch as a sort of foreman in charge of the slaughtering and those shipments by air—this was before Mr. Lambert sold out to the syndicate…. I’m not sure,” she said, “but I think Thaxter and McBride had a system of falsifying the weights or something and Lambert finally found out about it. Thaxter went to jail for two years. He was at the Penal Settlement on the lower Mazaruni, and I know he’s out because he came to the office yesterday.”

  “What did he want?”

  “I think he wanted to know if Mr. Amanti knew of any opening for him.”

  “And McBride?”

  “Mr. Lambert needed McBride. He had to have someone to make those flights. I think he got some sort of confession along with a note promising to make up the shortage.”

  Barry’s mind went quickly back to the night before, recalling the car that had been parked outside, the ransacked desk. His hunch said that McBride had been there. McBride had looked for that envelope, and the odds were good that he was still somewhere around the house when he, Barry, had returned. He could have been there even earlier.