One hour’s sleep and here he was, wide awake. Why? With what he’d had to drink a man was entitled to sleep until morning; he’d heard no sound, was conscious of no movement and yet-
Prompted by some pressure he did not understand he stood up and climbed to the deck, clad only in shorts and feeling the welcome coolness of the night air on his moist skin. Aft, the schooner lay quiet and motionless like the water below. Overhead the sky was still black and starlit and all about the hulls of other craft were motionless silhouettes riding at their moorings. The Aquatic Club pier stood squat and dark against the shadows of the trees lining the beach but directly inshore he thought something moved just above the water line. For another moment he peered at it, seeking some identification, but if there had been any movement it was now lost in the shadows beyond.
He felt the wet spot on the narrow deck as he made his way aft. It felt cool and damp under his bare foot and as he stepped back he could see the darkened stain. A short distance beyond the boarding ladder was another similar stain and now, aware that the hatch was open and perhaps inviting to a native prowler bent on •petty larceny, he hurried below, his instincts aroused and nerves edgy.
The cabin, dimly outlined in the faint light from the galley, was quiet. Lambert’s body had shifted its position but it lay still and Scott thought he could hear the other breathing. More confused than worried, but driven by some inner compulsion he could not explain, he continued to the galley. After a quick glance he stepped round the jog into the passageway leading forward. It was darker here, and when he came to the forward cabin he hesitated, conscious of the sand under one foot as he leaned close to the door and listened. All he could hear was the soft thudding of his heart and now, still motivated by the prodding of instinct, he opened the door.
It was a narrow cabin, the bunk less than three feet away, and even in the half-light he could make out, vaguely, the figure on the bed. The port-light was open but the room was hot and humid and absolutely still. It took him a moment to understand why. He started to close the door; then he stopped, breath held and listening hard.
Like that it hit him, the sudden realization that something was horribly wrong. The room was too still. There was no sound of breathing, not even his own.
Then, the panic rising swiftly in him, he reached for the light switch, blinking against the sudden brilliance. He stepped inside, the sand still under his bare foot; then he was staring incredulously, not at the still form clad in brassiere and panties, but at the pillow which covered the face and head.
It was hard for Scott to remember exactly what he did then or even what he felt. Somehow he had the pillow in his hand, seeing instantly the odd color which suffused the woman’s throat and face and contrasted so sharply with her yellow hair. Yet it was only after he had sought frantically for a pulse beat and found none, only when he was quite sure she was dead, that he thought to reverse the pillow and see the reddish stains smearing the whiteness, to understand that if they came from lipstick they had been put there by force.
The shock of this conclusion held him where he was, the pillow still in his hand. Unable yet to think clearly, his incredulous gaze moved slowly over the tiny cabin, the built-in locker, the drawer beneath the bunk. He saw the dress that Sally had hung on the wall, the shoes and stockings on the floor. Everything else seemed in place and there was no sign of a struggle. The still small figure bore no visible mark and there was nothing at all beyond the color of the face and throat to suggest that violence had been done.
Somehow he knew even then it must be murder but he did not remember casting the pillow aside and snapping off the light and closing the door. By the time he could begin to think he was standing in the lighted galley, weak-kneed and shaking. Then, forcing himself to consider the circumstances, he swallowed against the sickness in his stomach and looked in at Lambert, who lay long and thin and motionless on the bunk, not on his back as Scott had left him an hour earlier but on one side.
For a fleeting second the thought crossed his mind that Lambert might have awakened, as he had, and gone in to see his wife. Lambert had come for that purpose, had been determined to have some sort of showdown with Julia that very night, Scott had tricked him into taking that last drink with the hope of quieting him until morning. Apparently he had succeeded—but had he? Who could say with certainty how long a man had been asleep except the man himself? And with sleep so easy to simulate, any such statement was open to question.
It did not occur to Scott then that he himself might be suspect, that there was a time when he was alone on board with Julia and that women had been killed by men before who, having too much to drink, killed not with premeditation but to silence one who fought against unwarranted advances. No such thought crossed his mind because right then he could think only of Sally and the remark she had made about quieting Julia with a pillow.
Suppose Sally had held the pillow there too long, not intentionally but in exasperation. Suppose . . .
“No,” he said, half aloud, and cast the thought away. He would have to tell Sally what had happened, to warn her to say nothing to the police. She didn’t do it. That was what he kept telling himself even while part of his mind admitted the possibility. But she must be warned.
What he did then was motivated by two things: the confusion in his own mind and his thoughts of Sally. Still physically sick and badly shocked by his discovery, he was unable to think past the simple fact that if Sally had not killed Julia, someone else had.
Beyond that he had no idea until he remembered the pocketbook he had found and now he went to the sideboard and opened the drawer. He unsnapped the clasp to glance inside. He did not make a thorough search but when he saw the keys, the chain of small ones and the larger, hotel room key, the idea came to him. He did not stop to think whether this was the smart thing to do, or even if it was logical; for the impulse to find out what he could before the police moved in came only partly out of his own wretched confusion and indecision. His chief concern, though he did not understand this clearly until later, was the girl.
He replaced the bag. When the drawer clicked shut he thought again of Lambert and wondered if he could be awake. He turned quickly but the only thing that moved was his own shadow which fell across the bunk and obscured the thin face. When he stepped closer he saw the lids were closed. The mouth was no longer open and Lambert’s breathing was quieter now. He did not wonder about it then but turned and quickly left the cabin. . . .
CHAPTER 6
SCOTT approached the Aquatic Club apartments by way of the beach, and now, climbing the outside stairs and moving along the open gallery to her room, he only hoped he could wake Sally without arousing her neighbors.
He knocked softly and waited, listening intently. He knocked again. The third knock was longer and when he stopped he thought he heard a stirring in the room beyond. Presently a voice answered on the other side of the panel.
“Yes . . . Who is it?”
“Alan,” he whispered.
The latch clicked and the door opened a crack. He spoke into it, leaning close but still unable to see beyond it.
“Something’s happened, Sally. It’s about Julia. I’ve got to talk to you.”
After a three-second pause she answered. “All right. Just a minute.”
“Don’t turn on the light,” he cautioned. “I’ll wait.”
He stepped back to lean against the railing and his hand touched something wet. When he glanced down he discovered it was a bathing suit which had been stretched there to dry. Then, as the door opened wider, he tried to think how he could best express the things he had to say.
He stopped just inside the doorway, seeing now the pale oval of her face and aware that she wore a long, light-colored robe, that there was a ribbon about her hair. Then, because he could think of no other way, he told her about Julia and how he had found her.
“Listen to me,” he said when she tried to interrupt. “You’re not telling the police about the pillow. You
understand?”
“The pillow?” she said bewilderedly.
“You told me you put a pillow over her face.”
“Well—yes—”
“That’s how she died.”
“What?”
“She suffocated.”
“Oh, no!” She spoke quickly, her voice stiff with shock. “No, I-”
“Yes,” Scott said. “I’m almost sure of it.”
Sally listened again to his explanation, hearing each word distinctly and with a mounting horror that served only to bewilder her more. She had not been to bed and if the knock had come a half hour earlier she would not even have opened the door, so vivid were her own fears.
But during that time she had been able to think, to understand that Alan could not have been the man with the oar, that he would have had no reason to be rowing away from the schooner at that hour. Now, understanding finally what had happened to Julia but not yet fully comprehending all the implications of her death, she saw that there might be some connection between the murder and the oarsman. But at the moment this seemed less important than the things Scott was saying. There would be time later to tell of her own experience; what mattered now was that she convince him that he was wrong about the pillow. She took a breath. She picked her words with care even as she fought her rising panic.
“But I only did it to quiet her,” she said in a voice she could scarcely hear. “I didn’t—hold it there.”
Scott reached out and took her hands and they were cold and limp in his own. He squeezed them and gave them a quick hard shake. With that her head came up and her slender body straightened.
“I’m not afraid to tell the police,” she said. “I didn’t do it. I couldn’t have.” She hesitated, traces of hysteria in the cadence of her voice. “I’ll tell them—”
“No, you won’t!” Scott’s hands slid up to her elbows and he shook them again. “I haven’t called the police. Maybe I should have but I didn’t. Julia’s not going to be found until morning and you don’t know anything about a pillow. They’ll find out how she died and they’ll know it was murder. You know you didn’t hold the pillow there too long but how can you prove it to the police? How long is too long? . . . No,” he said. “That’s why I came. You put Julia to bed but you didn’t touch the pillow. I haven’t been here tonight. You came here and went to bed. You don’t know a thing.”
He had other things to say, most of them repetitive. At no time would he allow himself to think she could be guilty, even accidentally so. The trouble was there were no facts to support such a belief, certainly none the police would accept. He could not tell her any of this but for the first time he understood clearly the impulse which had prompted him to learn what he could, while he could.
For the important thing now was that the murder investigation be pursued until the guilty person was found. Only then could Sally ever be sure she was innocent.
He finally got her promise of silence.
“Good girl,” he said and squeezed her hand. “Try to sleep. Take a pill if you have one.”
The Carib Hotel, which stood well back from the road and was approached by a semi-circular drive, was a three-storied, vine-covered building, with spacious grounds and a wide veranda extending across the front and partway down one side. It was here that much of the daily social activity took place, but at this hour it was deserted and in shadow as Scott drove past and then parked under a tree so he could approach, not from the front but from the service wing on the opposite side from the lawn.
When he stepped to the ground he waited a moment, surveying the approaches. He had no knowledge of the inner geography of this particular wing but he was afraid to enter through the lobby. There would probably be a night clerk or watchman on duty there and it was essential to his plan that he get in and out without being seen, at least until he had a chance to inspect Julia’s room.
There was a light over the door which served this wing and when he saw no one about he started for it, keeping to the shadows as much as he could. The last fifty feet were in the open and he covered this distance at a normal gait, his face turned away from the light. Then he was inside and walking down a corridor that was hot and humid and filled with the smells of cooked food. Other doors opened from this corridor but there was only darkness beyond them and he kept on, turning now in a jog to the right and coming finally to a wider hallway which led from the lobby. Here carpeted stairs led upward and he met no one as he went along the second-floor hall to room 208 which overlooked the lawn. Because the light was bad he had a little trouble fitting the key in the lock but presently the door was open and he stepped inside, groping along the wall for a light switch as the door swung behind him.
What happened then came unexpectedly as the darkness closed in on him. He had been moving slowly, intent only on locating the switch, but now he stopped, his arm outstretched, the sharpest of sensations ripping along his nerves. He was for that second frozen in his track and he did not know why.
Moving only his head, he turned slowly, nerves still tingling as he tried to penetrate the darkness. When there was no sound or stir of movement he brushed off the intuitive warning, deliberately, telling himself the protective impulse was born of an imagination momentarily out of hand.
He took another step along the wall, still groping; then he sensed rather than heard the rush of movement beside him and knew too late that instinct had been right. Someone was in the room; someone had been waiting for him to take the step and even as he knew this an unseen blow clipped him on the side of the head and knocked him against the wall.
He tried to turn as he slid along it. He lashed out blindly with his right and missed. He staggered off balance and heard a quick grunt of exertion and then a fist smashed against his cheekbone.
This time he went down but at no time did he lose consciousness. He heard the scurry of feet and he swiv-eled on one knee, lunging in the general direction of the door in an effort to block it off. He came erect, bracing himself as best he could, left hand extended, his right cocked. Only then did he realize that the sound he heard was the rasp of window shutters across the room.
Even though he whirled in the directon of the sound it seemed to take him a long time to move. With anger replacing his surprise he lunged forward, seeing now the rectangle of the window but not seeing the chair that tripped him before he was halfway across the room.
He fell heavily and kicked the chair away. He got up. He stumbled against the bed, recovered his balance and continued towards the window. All this had taken no more than ten seconds. No word had been spoken. What noise there was had been made by his own clumsy efforts and when he came finally to the window he knew that he was alone in the room. When he looked down there was only the empty lawn bordered in shadows, and the wrist-thick vines matting the wall and telling him how the prowler had entered and escaped.
Leaning back inside the room he stood where he was, breathing hard and his resentment mounting, not so much at his unknown assailant as at his own carelessness. The side of his face was tender and one shin throbbed but he was otherwise unhurt. He knew he had been struck by a fist, which meant the intruder was a man, and he understood that it was surprise and the darkness which had made him such an easy victim.
Flame from his cigarette lighter disclosed a lamp on a table desk and when he had drawn the shutters he snapped it on; then he saw the three bags on the bed, two of which were open. The dresses in the largest of these were a tangled mess and he wondered if this had been opened by Julia on her arrival. The locks on the medium-sized bag had been forced and here too the contents had been partly scattered on the counterpane. The third and smallest bag was still locked, and as he took the key chain from his pocket he decided that either the prowler had been surprised before he could force it open, or that he had found what he wanted in the second bag and had been trapped before he could get away.
When Scott lifted the lid he saw that there was a smaller, leather case inside, which, when opened, dis
closed an assortment of earrings and pins and bracelets. There were some folded underthings, stockings, a writing kit, slippers, a robe. At the bottom was a long envelope which he opened. Unfolding the papers inside he started to read; just as suddenly he stopped, staring now at the wall as his head came up and he let his breath out.
For what the papers officially proclaimed was that Julia Lambert had been granted her divorce more than three months ago. According to the terms of that divorce she had no further claim on Keith Lambert and yet—
Scott replaced the papers and envelope with nervous fingers. He could not help asking himself why Julia had come here to attempt such a colossal bluff but he made no attempt to find an explanation now. Too many other questions were demanding answers and it occurred to him that this was not the place to hold a one-man conference.
He closed the small bag, locked it. He turned off the light and left the room, taking time to lock the door before hurrying downstairs. As before he was fortunate in meeting no one but it was not until he was in his car and on his way that he took time out to think.
The speculations and deductions that came to him then were arrived at by a primer-like simplicity starting from the known fact that the intruder in room 208 had been a man, and his first reaction to this was one of elation because it seemed to prove that Sally Reeves had not killed Julia. Only when he probed further did he realize that such an assumption did not necessarily follow.
Everyone who had been aboard the Griselda knew that Julia was spending the night there. They must, therefore, know that her hotel room would be empty and easy to search. That the search had been so long delayed was also easily explainable to anyone who knew the habits of the Carib’s clientele. The broad veranda was seldom empty until one thirty or two in the morning, and without a key the window was the only way to reach the room, an impossible undertaking until the veranda was deserted.
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