“No.”
Her face was troubled, staring at him. He watched the quick, growing fear in her long, tilted eyes. He wondered if he had ever really known her, either as a woman or as a friend. He started down the steps, and she plucked at his wet sleeve.
“Not now,” he said.
“You’ve got to tell me. Not later. Now.”
“Later,” he said.
He took the gun from his pocket and sheltered it under his arm. The metal felt cold through his thin shirt. At the foot of the stairs he paused and looked at the dock and float again. No one. Nothing. The cruiser lifted and fell at her mooring, and there was no sound except for the rain and the creaking of the vessel’s lines. Kari halted and pointed to the upper floor of the boathouse.
“Someone is up there. I hear voices.”
“Some friends,” he said wryly. “Hand and Keach.”
“But what are they doing here?”
“Waiting, like me, for the murderer.”
“Barney, you’re joking.”
“No, I—”
He broke off as he heard the soft thump of wood under his feet. Kari was aware of the sound, too. Her face turned to him in frightened wonder. Cornell moved quickly toward the ladder that went down to the water. Gootsie’s boat was not in sight.
The opposite bank of the creek was lost in the rain and the dark. And then there was light directly underfoot, coming up between the broad planks of the pier.
He took a firmer grip on the gun.
“Paul,” he called softly.
The light under the pier went out. Then it came on again, stabbing out from under the ladder. A moment later the stern of Gootsie’s boat appeared and a hand reached up, gripping the edge of the pier to shove the boat farther outward. Cornell looked down into the startled, handsome face of Paul Evarts.
“Barney? Kari?”
Cornell said, “It’s not there, Paul. I found it.”
“What?”
“You understand me,” Cornell said. “It’s not where you left it. I found it and turned it over to deputy Hannigan. We’ve been waiting for you, Paul. We knew you would show up. You, or whoever killed Jay Stone. The killer hid the book under the pier, not wishing to be burdened or seen with it. Only the killer knew where it actually was—he and a poor old fellow named Yvan Rulov. You know about Rulov, Paul.”
The bow of the boat was clear now. Paul Evarts straightened, balancing himself, about three feet below Cornell and Kari. His face was pale and white, looking up at them.
“What are you talking about? It’s nonsense, you know.”
“Murder isn’t nonsense,” Cornell said.
“No,” Kari whispered.
“Keep out of this,” Evarts said. “Go back to the car.”
“Paul, do you realize what he’s saying? Do you know what he means?”
“I know,” Evarts said.
“Tell him the truth,” Kari said. “Tell him you didn’t kill Jay or that other man.”
Evarts looked up at Cornell again. His blond hair looked dark and slick with the rain. His trench coat had a small rip on one shoulder. His face worked oddly as he looked at Kari.
“You’re not alone, are you, Barney?”
“No.”
“Do you have the book? Really, I mean?”
“Rulov told his wife where he saw you hide it. I came out here as soon as the police left, and found it just where Rulov said it would be.”
“Rulov is dead.”
“And you killed him,” Cornell said. “You saw his wife at Kelly’s, and knew Rulov wanted to talk to me. You sent Kari on ahead and did the job then and there, to silence him. But you didn’t count on Milly knowing just enough to lead me here.”
Kari said, “Paul, you told me to go to the car…”
Cornell said, “You killed Stone, too, Paul.”
“Barney, Barney, put the gun away. This is silly.”
“Do you think so?”
“I want that book, Barney.”
Cornell said, “It’s much too late, Paul. I saw the dossier Stone had on you—one of the biggest in the book. There isn’t much left out of it. For all his vaunted patriotism, however, he protected you as long as you were useful to him. Stone knew all along I wasn’t the spy who gave out information on Project Cirrus. It was you. I won’t pretend to know what motivated you to sell out your country, Paul. Was it money? Did Stone make you do it? What was he saving you for, Paul? What other dirty work did he have for you to do?”
“Barney.”
Cornell went on inexorably, not looking at Kari’s stiff figure beside him. “The book has all the facts, Paul—dates, places, amounts of money paid to you as an enemy agent. I don’t understand it, Paul. I’ve worked with you too long to believe you’d do such a thing for money.”
The man laughed shortly. “You know why I did it.”
“Stone?”
“Friend Stone, yes. Did you read my dossier carefully?”
“About a man named Hanson? Yes, I read it.”
“I killed Joe Hanson. It was an accident, and it happened long ago, but nobody suspected me and I didn’t enter the picture. I was married then. I mean, really, to a nice girl. She—she didn’t know very much. Joe Hanson and I fought over a—a mutual friend.”
“Another man?” Cornell asked.
Evarts’ face was a white mask. “Yes, Barney.”
“Your marriage—that one and the later ones—were just cover-ups?”
“I—I couldn’t help it, Barney. Yes, you’re right. About Joe Hanson—well, the case is unsolved on the police books. But Stone found out about it, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Cornell said.
“Stone had ways of learning things. He had an army of private investigators digging into anyone’s life that interested him. He dug into mine, and showed me what he had. Names and proof. It meant ruin, and maybe the chair for me. I never meant to kill anyone. It was an accident, Barney. But you know what Stone could do to facts. He had me where he wanted me.”
“So you took orders from him?” Cornell asked harshly.
“I had to.”
Kari whispered: “Oh, Paul… Paul.”
“I’m sorry, Kari. I had to kill Stone. I couldn’t go on being a traitor. He had Washington almost in the palm of his hand. I couldn’t let him do that to Barney. So I killed him.”
“And Rulov?” Cornell asked harshly. “Did you kill him for me, too?”
“I had to, Barney.”
“No, you didn’t. You didn’t have to kill anybody.”
“That’s easy for you to say. Look, Barney. Can you get the book back?”
“No,” Cornell said.
“Barney, please!”
“No. Come out of the boat, Paul. It’s all over.”
“You wouldn’t shoot me, Barney.”
“You’re a spy, Paul. Come up here.”
“No.”
“We’ve been friends, Paul, but you’ve lied and stolen and sold us out. You and Jay Stone. We’re not friends now. We’re enemies. I’ll use the gun if I have to.”
There was no warning when Evarts suddenly doused his flashlight. At the same time he shoved hard against the pier, thrusting himself and the boat violently out into the darkness of the creek. For an instant Cornell was held back by Kari’s convulsive grip on his arm, and then he dived for the boat.
It was almost beyond reach. His shoulders struck Evarts and they both toppled backward to the stern. The boat plunged under the sudden impact, rocking crazily. Cornell felt water pour over him in a quick torrent. Evarts grunted, and then they rolled back across the thwarts. A sudden blow of Evarts’ elbow snapped Cornell’s head back, and for a moment the boat and the dark water spun dizzily. He grabbed at the other’s arm as Evarts’ fist chopped down again and deflected the blow. Evarts gasped and arched upward, struggling to get from under. Cornell jabbed hard with his left suddenly aware that his gun was gone, dropped when he made his first leap. It didn’t matter. He heard Kari screaming on the dock behi
nd them, but that didn’t matter, either. There was just Evarts and the capsizing boat and the sudden gleam of metal in the man’s hand. He slashed at Evarts’ face, felt his knuckles crack hard on bone. The big man grunted and heaved upward again. Water poured over them. From somewhere came a dazzle of light, touching Paul’s wet yellow hair, his convulsed face. Cornell wriggled upward, jamming the man tighter between the thwarts. The boat tipped farther askew. Cornell slid sidewise, half over the gunwale, and Evarts lunged upward once more. He had a knife in his hand. Cornell snatched at it with his left and smashed at Evarts’ face with his right. Another right. Fury burst inside him, and then he was aware of more screaming from the dock, and of blinding light, and then the quick, calamitous report of a gun.
Evarts dropped the knife. For just an instant; an expression of surprise touched his bloody face. And then he toppled sidewise, crumpling all at once, half in and half out of the boat. Cornell dropped to his knees on the wet floorboard, sucking air through his open mouth, struggling to keep the boat on an even keel. A dark red stain spread through Evarts’ coat. He was dead.
Cornell looked at the dock. Hannigan stood there, complacent and satisfied as he waggled his huge Colt .44. His voice came across the dark water, thick and happy.
“Pappy always said this was a right smart gun.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
SPECIAL AGENT JOHN ACORN was a small man with a sharp, incisive face, a mouth quirked by wry humor, and dark-blue, sensitive eyes. He looked tired. There was a clean bandage of court plaster on the back of his sandy head, and a small pulse beat in his temple to make him wince occasionally. He looked neat and trim—gray suit, white shirt, blue necktie, and silk socks. He wasn’t more than thirty-five.
Sighing, he said, “It’s sure a kick in the teeth.”
Cornell made no answer. They were alone in a small back room of Calvert Beach’s police headquarters, which consisted of a small office for Deputy Hannigan, two cells, and this barren little chamber in the rear. It was almost one in the morning. The rain had stopped, the night sky was clear. Cornell felt tired, too. He had talked steadily to the state police before Acorn took over with his greater authority. Acorn had Jason Stone’s book now. It was out of Cornell’s hands. He was conscious that it was all over, that somehow it had worked out and he was free. But he felt no particular joy in that knowledge.
“A kick in the teeth,” Acorn repeated. “Hannigan was too quick on the trigger.”
“He made five thousand dollars with one shot,” Cornell said grimly. “And the headlines.”
“Yes. And solved some headaches for us while giving us a few more.” Acorn leaned back and studied Cornell with wryly amused eyes. “You gave us quite a run for our money, fella.”
“I didn’t want to run,” Cornell said.
“But you had to. I know. I’d have done the same thing, I guess. You couldn’t know what we knew, anyway.”
Cornell asked, “What did you know?”
“We never had any real idea that you killed Stone. No more than we believed the charges against you about spying. We had Jason Stone taped coming and going, for the past year; but there was nothing we could legally do to stop him. It’s still a free country, and God willing, it will stay that way. We had no proof that Stone was a master spy. The man wanted to set himself up as a little Hitler, and worked with and through other people to get there. We couldn’t make his stooges talk. Stone had everything on them, from youthful indiscretions to adultery, homosexuality, and murder, which makes their reluctance to talk natural. There are a certain percentage of misfits in every ordinary group and walk of life; more than most people suspect. But you and I know how vulnerable these people are to outside pressure. Fear of disgrace and publicity makes them ready subjects for blackmail. And Stone cashed in on their weaknesses.”
Acorn paused and sighed. “The thing puts us in a spot. I’m glad the decision isn’t up to me. It will have to go higher up—about tonight, I mean, and Congressman Keach. It’s a matter of high state policy and a question of internal security, whether this thing ever reaches the press. Take Keach, for instance. The man has been a sincere public servant for twenty years, and the country can’t afford to lose him over this, no matter what he did wrong in his younger years. If his resignation gets printed, everything blows apart.”
“Have you talked to Keach yet?” Cornell asked.
“The boss himself is doing that. I think Keach can be persuaded to kill his press statements. On the other hand, Evarts’ death has to be made known. We’ll keep as much of it out of the papers as we possibly can. No point in condemning a whole barrel of apples just because one has a worm in it.”
“Did you have any ideas about Evarts before this?”
Acorn fumbled for a cigarette, tossed the pack to Cornell, and nodded. “Sure. We checked you on Project Cirrus and found you clean. So we moved one step up the ladder and started digging into Paul Evarts’ background. We got a quick line on his secret association with Jay Stone. That put us on the right track.” Acorn sighed again. “A man like Evarts is a special problem in an organization like the State Department. Being intelligent, he covered up his moral failings very cleverly—but not cleverly enough to escape Stone’s investigations. Evarts had a good record earlier, although there was a lot of domestic trouble because he married three times in order to present a normal front to the world he had to live in. All the marriages ended in divorce, of course. We picked up the murder rap Stone hung over his head, too. This happened fifteen-eighteen years ago, when Evarts was just a kid, really. There was a fight, and Hanson was killed and left on the highway thirty miles away, apparently a hit-run victim. We’ll never know all the details about it, since Hannigan is such a good shot.”
Acorn lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply. “Stone was an expert, really diabolical, the way he played his fish. Probably he started to use Evarts on a little thing, say a peek at confidential papers one day. And that led to something else, and the little things got bigger until Evarts was hopelessly trapped, soured on the world and himself.
“We can figure it out from there. From what Rulov saw at Overlook last night, Evarts was a strict opportunist when it came to homicide. Here were you and Hand and Keach and Mrs. Stone, all wandering around, not sure of who was where and what was going on. It explains the knife. Evarts had to kill fast and silently, without raising an alarm, and get back to Mrs. Stone in a matter of minutes. He succeeded, and the same thing worked with Yvan Rulov. Evarts saw Milly contact you, and he knew danger when he saw it. He had Mrs. Stone with him again, however, but he managed to shake her for a few minutes. He slugged me just as I was about to enter your cabin. I never saw or heard him, but I saw Rulov sitting in there, and I knew from Kelly that you were around. Evarts killed fast and silently a second time, then rejoined Mrs. Stone and sat tight until he heard the police guards were recalled from Overlook. That gave him what he thought was a fine chance to retrieve Stone’s notebook. And that’s where you caught up with him.”
“It had to be Evarts,” Cornell nodded. “It was hard to believe at first, but it was obvious. Everybody was looking for the book, and only the murderer knew where it was. Hand didn’t have it, or Rulov, or Congressman Keach. Kari didn’t know where it was, either. It was a process of elimination, after all.”
“That was enough,” Acorn nodded.
Cornell stubbed out his cigarette and looked at his watch. Acorn managed a wry grin.
“I guess that’s about it,” the agent said. “We’ll look for you tomorrow, in Washington, to make some signed, confidential statements on the whole thing.”
“Then I’m free to go now?” Cornell asked.
“I guess you have things to attend to.”
Cornell stood up. “Yes, I do.”
The lobby of the Calvert Beach Inn was dim and deserted except for the sleepy-eyed clerk behind the desk. The clock over the clerk’s head read one-thirty. Cornell came through the door and headed for the desk with a long stride.
The clerk had a white mustache and goatee and looked like the town statue of Robert E. Lee. “Mrs. Stone? She is here, sir. Would you be Mr. Cornell?”
“That’s right.”
“She has not retired yet, sir. She has been waiting in the sun room, and she directed me to inform you, if you called for her—”
“All right, thanks,” Cornell said.
There was a small discreet sign over the glass doorway to the sun room, which was simply a section of the southern veranda. Cornell palmed the bronze lever handle and stepped inside. There was only the moonlight, streaming in through the tall windows, touching the wicker furniture and the inevitable potted palms. Kari stood at the windows at the far end of the porch. Her back was toward him, straight and slim, and she held her head high as she turned. She looked trim and expensive, as always. In the moonlight her face was a pale Oriental mask, lovely and inscrutable. She clasped her hands before her, but she made no move toward him.
“Barney?”
“I’m glad you waited for me, Kari.”
“I knew you would come here.”
Her voice was cool and detached, as if her thoughts were elsewhere. Her long, exquisite eyes were indrawn. Cornell hesitated then delved in his pocket and took out two long emerald ear pendants.
“I got these back from Kelly,” he said, and smiled. “He denied having them, but it didn’t take much persuasion to make him dig them up. I’m deeply grateful to you for trying to help me, Kari.”
She took the pendants without a glance. Her eyes studied him intently. “Barney, did Paul have to die?”
“It was better that way.”
“I can’t believe it yet. It—it’s as if my mind has stopped working. And my heart stands still, Barney.”
“I know,” he said.
“Do you?”
“I know that you and Paul understood each other better than any two people in the world. You both had the same problem to solve.”
She nodded, mute for a moment, then said, “We were trying to help each other. We became more than just friends, since we were both struggling to—to lead normal lives.”
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