Man on a Rope

by George Harmon Coxe

  “Then if Lambert wanted to,” he said aloud, “he could still have sent McBride to prison.” To himself he added the thought that such a threat could be a motive for murder. But this did not explain the missing will, or the notebook, and now he said:

  “Was there more than one notebook missing?”

  “No.”

  “How would anyone know what notebook to pick? The stuff you wrote in it was shorthand, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does Amanti know shorthand?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  The reply stymied him as he offered a cigarette and a light. He signaled the waiter and put a bill on the check, his dark-blue eyes somber in his concentration.

  “What else was in the notebook?” he said finally. “I mean, the draft of that will didn’t fill the whole book, did it?”

  “No.” She hesitated, her head tipped in thought. “There was that, and some letters, I think. And—oh, yes. There was a report—”

  “A report?”

  “Well, more like a résumé. An evaluation of Mr. Lambert’s estate. He wanted it ready when he signed the will so he could go over everything with Mr. Amanti and the bank—they were to be co-executors. At least until Mr. Lambert was settled in England.”

  “And there’d be a date, wouldn’t there?” he demanded as a new possibility suggested itself.

  “What?”

  “When you take a letter you put a date down, don’t you?”

  “Certainly.”

  “A man wouldn’t have to read shorthand,” he said half to himself while this new excitement churned inside him, “if he knew the date.”

  “Stop mumbling, darling,” she said. “What are you trying to say?”

  “There was a date on that report, or whatever you call it. Who besides you and Amanti knew what date it was dictated?”

  “Why—” She hesitated, brows arching. “No one, I guess.” Then, understanding now what Barry was suggesting, she gave a little gasp and said: “But why would Mr. Amanti do a thing like that?”

  “There was a copy of that report in the files,” Barry said. “Amanti says it was stolen, along with the copy of the will. The original of that report was on Lambert’s desk last night. I saw it. But the police found no such list.”

  He went on quickly then, explaining his suspicion of Amanti and understanding how a clever man who wanted to destroy all evidence of that report might also destroy the will and the copy to confuse the issue. Amanti had told the police that the shorthand notes on the will had been taken; he had said nothing at all about the estate list which had been taken down in the same notebook.

  “I don’t believe it,” Lynn said. “Why should—”

  “Look, baby,” Barry said, taking her hand and helping her from the chair. “Lambert was pretty rough on anybody who cheated him; look what he did to Thaxter. That estate had to be right to the last penny when Lambert went over it. Suppose your boss was a little short. Maybe just temporarily. If Lambert had lived to discover that shortage, Amanti might have wound up just where Thaxter did.”

  “Oh, really, Barry,” Lynn said. “You’re just guessing. How do you know there was any such shortage?”

  He took a breath and looked down at her and she looked so pretty and desirable that he grinned at her in spite of himself. He took her arm and they went along the side of the hotel toward the taxi parked in front.

  “Somebody broke into your place,” he said. “Somebody broke into the office and slugged Amanti when he walked in on the guy. Somebody stole a notebook full of shorthand notes, but it doesn’t have to be the same man. Somebody killed Lambert,” he said. “Maybe for the diamonds and maybe not.”

  He did not add that someone had apparently tried to make him the number-one suspect. “All I know,” he said, “is that I want to be on that plane next Wednesday. The sooner I get back on the job, the sooner we get married.”

  She stopped to cock her head at him, her eyes mischievous. “Those are your rules,” she said, “not mine. My papers are in order, I have a visitor’s visa, and a little money in the bank. I can pay my own passage. If you weren’t so stubborn we could go back together—”

  He laughed. He said they had been all through that. He was not going to take her to New York until he was earning a living and had found a place to live.

  “You’re wonderful,” he said. “I love you.”

  And if it had been any other girl but Lynn he would have kissed her then and there. But he had learned that her British shyness and reserve frowned on any such public display. Even nights in the back seat of Eddie Glynn’s car she was cautious with her kisses. Only when they were alone, strolling in the shadow of the sea wall or in the privacy of her veranda when he said good-night, did her inhibitions vanish. These were the times when her ardor surprised him, and it was a fine thing to remember when he was no longer with her.

  “In you go,” he said as he opened the door of the Zephyr and gave her a small pat that brought forth a muffled exclamation of halfhearted protest. “Dinner?” he said as the car started and her hand stole inside his.

  “Un-unh. I promised last week to have dinner with the Allenbys,” she said, referring to friends of her uncle’s. “I told you.”

  “That’s right, you did,” Barry said. “Lunch tomorrow?”

  “Love it.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  BARRY WAITED until Lynn had climbed the stairs and disappeared into Amanti’s office, and then he slid in beside Eddie Glynn on the front seat. Eddie accepted the cigarette with thanks, brown eyes curious as he awaited instructions but offering no comment as Barry planned his next step.

  He knew what he wanted to do, but not until he considered the man beside him did he have any idea of how to proceed. He was very fond of Eddie Glynn, who was always neat and never overcharged. Eddie was the sort you offered a drink after he had been driving you around because Eddie accepted with thanks but as an equal.

  Native born but reasonably well traveled, Eddie, at forty, had found his niche. As a youth he had been to Brazil and Venezuela and Trinidad; to Surinam and French Guiana. He had dived for diamonds and panned for gold and assisted the government geologists. He had traveled the old cattle trail in the days before cold-storage plants, making the long trek from the savanna country below Lethem to the Berbice River and then by boat to New Amsterdam and up the coast to Georgetown and the slaughterhouses.

  He knew what made the economy tick and would tell you if you asked him. He would tell you that absentee ownership and neglect of the worker was what had caused the political trouble in the past and brought the British regiment to the colony. He had little sympathy for Hammonds Ltd., the tentacle-like British company which owned sugar estates, ships, department stores, factories, drugstores, timber and mining leases, and a hotel. There was even a taxi company to compete with such free-lances as Eddie, and he had once stated that Hammonds was in every business but undertaking.

  “And they should be in that too,” he had said, “because at least one person dies from Hammonds each day and that way they could keep the profit in the company.”

  But Eddie was never bitter. He was critical of Hammonds only because they brought too much help from England and made too few promotions of the colonials. He had married the sister of a government official, he made a good living. He was his own boss, and because of his knowledge of the local scene he was seldom idle. It was this knowledge that Barry counted on when he asked if Eddie knew about the trouble between Colin Lambert and George Thaxter.

  “Only that there was trouble,” Eddie said. “The way I heard it, Thaxter was short-changing Lambert and he went to jail for it. He just got out the day before yesterday…. I used to work with him,” he said. “He was a pretty decent chap when he stayed away from the rum. He should have known better than to fool with Lambert. There was a real hard case.”

  He tossed his butt from the window and said: “Came out here with a little money, built a shack and got some cattle
, and moved an Indian woman in to take care of him. Had a way with Indians. They seemed to like him, and after a while he finally married one. I don’t know if there was any license or anything like that, but he acknowledged her. Had three or four kids that died and then Ian and his sister.”

  “Ian didn’t get along with him,” Barry said, hoping for more information.

  “He treated him like a hired hand after the mother died,” Eddie said. “Sent him to school here, but never gave him much of a chance. The sister, Jessie, was nice. Not like an Indian. She went to school here and in Barbados, and when she married Holt old Lambert wanted nothing more to do with her.”

  He fell silent, and when Barry saw that there would be no elaboration he said: “Would you know where Thaxter is staying?”

  “I could find out,” Eddie said, and started the motor.

  Three minutes later he parked in the middle of a downtown block and said he would be back in a minute. Barry did not know where he went, but when he returned he started up again, drove round the block, and stopped before a three-story wooden building. A stairway flanked by ground-floor shops led upward from the sidewalk, and over the entrance a small sign said: HOTEL MURRAY.

  “You ever been in here?” Eddie said as he cut the motor. “Well, the second floor is kind of a night club. You know, a bar and some booths and a bit of a dance floor. They’ve got one of those boxes that plays records and a three-piece orchestra nights. A few women, hostesses I guess you’d call ’em. Some of them have rooms on the top floor; that’s the hotel part. I heard Thaxter was staying here…. You want me to come up with you, Mr. Dawson?” he said as Barry got out of the car.

  Barry said no and asked Eddie to wait, adding that he probably would not be long, and then he was climbing the worn wooden stairs to a landing which had three additional openings. One led to a stairway which mounted to the third floor, a second on the right opened into a long room that seemed dark and uninviting. Barry stepped in far enough to see the bar on the left, the booths opposite and at the front. As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom he made out two women sitting in a booth, a half-dozen or more men standing at the bar, their faces shining darkly as they turned to inspect him. Beyond were a small dance floor and an orchestra stand.

  The Murray Hotel did not boast of much of a lobby. It was a squarish little room with two windows overlooking the street, and the furniture looked battered and uncomfortable. The desk, just inside the door, was a tiny affair, and when Barry approached it a slim, brown-skinned man in shirt sleeves rose from his chair.

  “I’m looking for George Thaxter,” Barry said.

  “Room twelve.” The clerk looked behind him at the key rack, which had two rows of numbered hooks, several of them empty. “Must be in,” he added. “Key’s gone.”

  Number twelve proved to be the last room on the right-hand side of the narrow airless corridor, and the door was hooked on the inside to keep it open a six-inch crack. When Barry knocked he heard a bedspring creak and presently a leathery hand appeared to unsnap the hook.

  Barry could tell by the gleam of recognition in the dark eyes that George Thaxter recognized him. Without his hat and coat and clad as he was in wrinkled trousers and a sweat-stained T-shirt, he looked different. His thinness was more apparent, the droop of the shoulders more pronounced. His head was nearly bald, and an inch or more above the brows the deep tan faded in a line of demarcation where a hat had protected the head; above this the skin was white and damp-looking.

  In that first moment or two the eyes that stared back at Barry seemed to be waging a struggle of their own, and now he eased forward so that Thaxter had to move out of his way. Then he was in a shabby room that held an iron bedstead and accompanying chamber pot, a washstand with pitcher and bowl, a single chair. A curtain draped across one corner served as a wardrobe, and the lone window looked down at the rear of some unidentified building.

  “How did you know where to find me?” Thaxter said when he had closed the door.

  “I asked some questions. I saw you come out of Police Headquarters this morning.”

  “Yes, I was there.”

  “I asked my taxi-driver who you were.”

  Thaxter rubbed the back of his neck, shrugged, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “What do you want?”

  “A little conversation. What did the cops want?”

  Thaxter considered this a silent moment. He tipped his head, his glance suddenly wary. “You know about me?” he said. “About being in the Penal Settlement?”

  “I know a little more than that.”

  “Then you should know why the police wanted to talk to me.”

  “They figured you had a motive.”

  “Definitely.”

  “You and McBride got caught in the same bit of larceny, but McBride got away with it and you didn’t. I guess you’ve been brooding about that ever since.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Probably,”

  Thaxter made noises in his throat, and the corners of his mouth tightened. “I offered to make restitution,” he said bitterly. “I could have raised the money. I had some shares I could have sold. But Lambert was a vindictive bastard; always had been. I’ve seen what he did to other people. McBride would’ve kept me company too if Lambert could have found another pilot for his meat plane. He got this confession out of McBride and he’s held it over him ever since.”

  Yes, Barry thought, and he probably could have put McBride in jail right up to the day he died.

  Suppose they had had a fight. Suppose something came up that infuriated Lambert and made him threaten to use the confession. McBride had been known to have been more than friendly with Muriel Ransom. Suppose Lambert had found out about it, or suppose McBride was jealous enough to kill rather than let Lambert take the woman to England. Suppose—

  He put. aside such thoughts with an effort when he realized he could substantiate none of them. “What?” he asked, aware that Thaxter was speaking.

  “I said I had plenty of motive to kill Lambert. I might even have tried if I’d thought I could get away with it. But I’m not fool enough to risk my neck just to get even…. I had a pretty good alibi,” he said.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Barry said. “How long had you been under that tree when I asked you for the match?”

  “My clothes weren’t wet, were they? That shows I wasn’t out in the shower.”

  “You could have ducked under a porch,” Barry said, and stopped just before he added: The same way I did…. “Did you tell the police you were there?” he said aloud.

  “No.”

  “Did you tell them you saw me?”

  “No.” Thaxter hesitated, some new resentment darkening his gaze. “What did you come here for, anyway? What do you want with me?”

  Barry could find no ready answer to this. He had come here in the hope of learning something new, and the results were disappointing. He did not think Thaxter was telling the truth about his vigil under the tree, and he wondered if a threat would bring about a proper statement.

  “The police have got me on the books as one of the chief suspects,” he said. “You can get me off the hook.”

  “Me? How?”

  “They think Lambert was shot during that shower. You saw me come after the shower.”

  “I don’t want to get mixed up in it,” Thaxter said. “I’ve got no sympathy for Lambert. If the one who did it gets away with it, it’s all right with me.”

  “I’d be willing to pay a few dollars for your co-operation.”

  Thaxter had been looking at the floor, and now he eyed Barry aslant, some new interest showing in his eyes.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Go to the police and tell them when you saw me. Give me an alibi.” He stood up and tried to make his voice tough. “If you don’t, I’m going to make it a point to tell the Superintendent where I saw you, and when. I’d rather have it come from you, and that’s why I’m willing to spend a little…. I’ll give you
until tonight to come clean,” he said. “If I don’t hear from you by then, I’ll start talking.”

  With that he stepped into the hall and shut the door, dissatisfied with himself and knowing the things he had said were not very convincing, even to him. Thaxter might talk if he was paid to do so, but Barry did not have either the equipment or the information to scare him. That threat about going to the police was nothing but talk and he knew it; he was not sure he wanted Thaxter to go to the police because he had no way of knowing how long the man had been under that tree. It was even possible that he had seen Barry’s earlier arrival and panicky flight.

  He took the thought back to the hotel with him and found its ramifications disquieting as he stripped and showered. When he had put on a robe he went to the window and looked out at the frangipani tree to make sure that the dirt surrounding it had not been disturbed. Then, putting his recent efforts from his mind, he began to think of new methods and new approaches, persisting in this until an idea came to him that seemed promising.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  AT FIVE O’CLOCK THAT AFTERNOON Barry Dawson crossed the, open-air lounge and took a small table near the front railing but as far away from the dining-room as he could get. On the street the home-going parade of bicycles had started, all moving at the same easy pace. Each had its headlight and taillight and small self-operated generator; each was licensed, and he wondered how many thousands had been registered in the city and its surroundings.

  A brief shower which came without warning made the cyclists head for tree trunks and sent the pedestrians running for cover. Most of these were Negro women and all wore hats or scarves, and with the first drops all had the same idea in mind: to cover their heads. He had noticed this curious complex before. The head, it seemed, must be protected from raindrops at any cost, and now, as they scurried for shelter they put whatever was handy on top of their heads—a basket, a bundle, a book; those who were unencumbered resorted to clasped hands.

  In this case the raincloud was tiny and the shower ended almost before it began. Cautiously then the cyclists mounted, and Barry smiled at the scene as the sidewalks began to fill once more. When he glanced up he saw the waiting bellboy who customarily brought his cocktails.