by Joan Sanger
I caught the fever of his suppressed excitement. And then precisely at that moment my heart gave an extra beat, for hurrying across the dining room toward us, I recognized—of all people!—Lynn Dawson. Very tailored and tan she was looking, and very obviously bothered by something. However, with her usual debonaire smile, she brushed aside the police officer who was still lingering at our table.
“If you’re nice, you’ll wait to arrest these young men until another time. I simply must talk to them right away.”
The officer laughed and moved away.
Lynn took the chair which I drew up for her, her perturbation more evident than ever.
“Whatever shall I do?” she began after the immemorial fashion of all sturdy young women whose minds are already made up. “This radio arrived for Uncle Fred the very first day he went off fishing. I think it will interest you.”
She drew a message from her small white handbag.
“Of course, I should have opened it there and then, but alas! mine is such a strong character.”
She laid the message on the table before us and we took it in with one swift absorbing glance. It was dated four days prior.
SANFRED LAMAR
CALLE PASEO 32
VEDADO, HAVANA.
JUST LEARNED FROM PANAMA PAPERS THAT MY NAME HAS BECOME INVOLVED IN WYNDHAM MIXUP STOP MY WIFE AND I ARRIVE HAVANA WEDNESDAY MORNING STOP HAVE WIRED ATTORNEY TO MEET US STOP WILL COMMUNICATE WITH YOU AT ONCE
H. D. FORD
My jaw dropped in amazement.
“But today’s Wednesday! He must be here,” I said stupidly.
“Oh, he is, Johnny, no mistake about that. At this moment he’s pacing up and down the patio out at Uncle Fred’s, in a temper so hot it almost matches his carroty head. Whew!”
“Good Lord!” I ejaculated slowly.
It was Alcott who interrupted with the air of Richard III calling for his horse.
“Listen! Don’t let the grass blossom under your feet, old timer. You beat it back to the house with Miss Dawson and get a crack at that redhead without delay. I’ll trot along to headquarters to see what’s happening to that Sanchez pair. And believe me, we both had better hurry! S’long!”
Chapter XX A VERY IRATE YOUNG MAN
BY the time that Lynn and I arrived out in the Vedado district and at Judge Lamar’s quiet, palm-shaded residence, Hugh Ford had abandoned his posturing. Instead of an angry lion pacing up and down the patio, I found a lamb in immaculate flannels and a blue yachting jacket, stretched out in an easy chair, a planters’ punch by his side, his attention absorbed in a copy of Machiavelli’s “Prince” which he seemed to have picked up at random from the library shelf. He glanced up in surprise at our entrance. A sunburned, keen-looking, young fellow, smooth-faced, well-knit, direct-eyed. For some reason even his mop of flaming red hair seemed on him not unattractive. When I added to his obvious physical assets what I already knew of his unquestioned ability in the field of political writing, I no longer wondered at his personal popularity. I don’t think he did either. He looked to me as though he revelled in his success, in all the flavor and fatness of it.
Lynn introduced us without delay, explaining my own interest in the Wyndham case and assuring him I could be of quite as much help to him as her uncle. However, on that point, Ford was good-natured but skeptical.
“I’ve only waited around because the butler tells me Mr. Calvin Watts phoned he would be out about this time.”
And much to my dismay, instead of opening up on his own connection with Wyndham, Ford draped himself artistically in the grilled iron doorway and proceeded to turn the conversation to the Galapagos Islands and the lure of the tropics.
“God! Those nights there!” he said at one point. “Imagine, Miss Dawson! Shimmering green moonlight and the stars so close you feel as though you could reach up and gather handfuls of them.”
Lynn was enchanted. Not I! I would have much preferred learning how he had reached out and gathered fifty thousand dollars from Wyndham’s private brokerage account. Oddly, persistently he began to recall to my mind a certain chap with whom I’d once roomed after college, one of these dreamy young aesthetes with a soul far above such craven things as money. He had gone over immensely with all my girls, sending them orchids, taking them to the swankiest places for tea, always on my savings of course. Sometimes he even magnanimously invited me to come along and, while he dwelt loftily on the magnificence of life in the Renaissance, or the magic of pre-Raphaelite poetry, I was permitted the supreme privilege of settling the check. Of course, we split up after a time, for there are limits to human patience, but deep within me, I still nursed a grudge against that fellow and his whole species.
But at the moment, something more than the old grudge was working. “Mr. Ford,” I said, cutting straight into the middle of a rapturous description of the sun-flecked coral beaches and deep booming surf on his South Sea islands, “I’m kinda curious about something. Why of all the books around this place does any guy on a nice, pleasant day choose this particular one?” I had picked up the open copy of Machiavelli’s “Prince” from the table where I had seen him lay it.
Ford’s grey eyes looked sharply at mine, accepting the challenge.
“If you’ve read it,” he said with a shrug, “there’s no need to ask that question. If you haven’t, I might suggest there are great chunks of political wisdom in it.”
“As for instance this one peculiar little passage?”
I pointed to the page at which he had left it and with a growing sense of distrust, I now read aloud from a recently underscored passage:
“(It is) offtimes necessitated for the preservation of his state that he (the prince) do things inhuman, uncharitable and irreligious, and therefore, it is convenient his mind be always at his command, and flexible to all the puffs and variations of fortune; not forbearing to be good whilst it is in his choice, but knowing how to be evil when there is a necessity.”
I looked up at Ford significantly. “Shall I go on?”
“Suit yourself” he said coldly. I read on, a contemptuous note in my voice.
“A prince then is to have particular care that nothing falls from his mouth but what is full of the fine quality aforesaid, and that to see and hear him he appears all goodness, integrity, humanity and religion, which last he ought to pretend to more than ordinary, because . . .”
I left off abruptly for the simple reason that Ford, pale in the face, had snatched the book from my hand.
“I get the drift of your damned insinuation now.” He planted himself squarely before me. “Listen here, if you, like half the rest of your confounded newspaper tribe, think I’ve had anything to do with Steve Wyndham’s end, you better get to hell out of here. I’ve had five drinks and I’ve a gun in my pocket. Do you understand?”
Lynn gave a startled cry and rushed to my side, but I wasn’t shot just yet.
“Steady Lynn. Clear out for a few minutes like a dear.” I looked meaningly at Ford. “I don’t think your irate guest wants any more bloodshed. He’s just got a load on his mind. It’s making him peevish.”
Lynn looked beseechingly at Ford. “I wish you’d give me that gun.” Without once relaxing his expression, Ford took an automatic out of the pocket of his white flannels and threw it carelessly on a tiled topped table which stood nearby.
“Now! If there is any shooting around here we’ll start off even.”
Lynn heaved a sigh of relief and went out into the garden. Left alone, Ford’s stony expression underwent a swift change.
“Look here. I hadn’t intended to open my mouth without due advice of counsel, but you goad a fellow to it.” He smiled affably. “Shall we sit down?”
Inwardly I thought the transition from the thunder of his outburst to this tone of easy going confidence was too sudden, too suspiciously sudden, in fact. Whatever assets Ford had, one that he certainly lacked was poise. He started uncertainly.
“I’m going to tell you briefly what I know of
this mess about Wyndham, but I advise you not to interrupt me. I’m doing a fool thing to talk to you at all, and if you give me time to think I may change my mind.
“First and foremost, get one thing clear. I have absolutely no knowledge as to how Steve met his end. He and I were about as thick as two men could be. We’ve been friends since the time we were at Yale. I knew all the snarls in his family life and sympathized. I knew, or thought I knew, all the ins and outs of his affairs in the sporting world, the social world, the financial world. The only thing I never knew. and no one else did either, was what Steve was going to do next. However, that’s aside from the point.
“When I saw him last, we had been down here on a holiday. I was in for some hard work in the Spring, expecting to do a big write-up on the racketeer situation and I was glad for the chance to play. Furthermore. and this is something I’d like to keep out of this story but I guess it’s what is called a contributory factor. I had just met the young lady who has since become my wife. and in the varnacular, I was hard hit. I think that in part accounts for my crazy, insane, mad oblivion to everything that was actually up those days. The only comforting reflection is that Steve was in pretty much the same shape himself at the time.
“I remember on the very day, that has since become so momentous in connection with Steve’s end, Miss Devereux had arrived in Havana. Until that happened, I had actually planned to be in on the now momentous poker game that was scheduled for that night. It’s too bad I wasn’t there. But those things are fate, I guess.
“When Steve came in from golfing that afternoon, he’d been out with Meenan and Lamar and Brady, I think. I still have a mental picture of myself doing a nose dive into my best white flannels, and Steve walking up and down the floor as though very much perturbed and undecided about something. He was looking unusually grave.
“I remember at one point he stopped pacing the floor and said abruptly: ‘Red’—that was what he always called me—‘I’ve got something important to spill to you.’ I think I answered offhand. ‘Can it, old man. Ten minutes ago, Kay phoned that she’s in town.’ Steve turned without a word, and went on into his room to take a shower.
“I finished dressing and was on the point of a hasty exit when Lamar dropped by for a few minutes chat. I never was less hospitable to anyone, but at that, despite the difference in age and everything, he’s a regular fellow you know, and he gathered something was up and let me run along.
“I was with Miss Devereux from that hour until shortly after midnight. When I came back to my rooms . . .”
“I beg your pardon,” I said coolly, breaking into the middle of Ford’s story, “would you mind telling me where you spent the time?”
Ford looked at me searchingly. “We had cocktails and went dancing at the Almendares Grill. Later we debated dressing for dinner and, since it looked as though it was going to rain, we compromised instead on a quiet informal supper for two at the Casino.”
“Is there anyone besides your wife and yourself who could testify to that?”
“I’m afraid not. There are times when two’s company you know!”
“Well, go ahead!”
“As I was saying, when I got back to my rooms it looked like pandemonium had broken loose. Steve was gone and everyone was speculating how and why and everything else under the sun. At first, I was as puzzled as the rest for there were certain elements I didn’t like. One thing was the matter of my inner door being locked and my outer unlocked in a way altogether contrary to our custom. Some of the bunch tried kidding me about this, saying after all I didn’t really know what I was doing these days. But I did know about those doors, that’s sure, and I would have stuck it out on that point until it was cleared, had I not found this note from Steve under a whiskey bottle on my bureau.”
Ford took a folded paper from his jacket and handed it over to me. It was written on Sevilla Biltmore stationery. I read what was evidently Wyndham’s last note.
Something has arisen with regard to Carol. In consequence am leaving at around twelve to-night. If for any reason you don’t hear from me within the next week or so, settle up my bill here, have my things packed and checked over at the Biltmore Yacht Club. Also. if any emergency turns up in business, attend to it as per always. Thanks and s’long!
Steve.
I gave the note back to Ford, saying simply, “Well?”
“Well! There’s not much more to relate, sad to say. I killed two weeks around Havana without once getting any word from Steve. Then very carefully I followed his instructions, sent his bags over to the Yacht Club and hied myself back to New York, and straight into one of the toughest magazine assignments I ever tackled.”
“No sign of life from Wyndham all this while?”
“Absolutely none, nor as I saw it was there any reason for any. I was conversant with all his affairs and he knew he could trust me to muddle through somehow in the emergencies. Also, he had plenty of cash with him when we were in Cuba, and a very sizable letter of credit to fall back on.
“Furthermore, and try to keep this in mind, I was working like mad on my own account just then and conducting a pretty dizzy courtship in my off-hours.”
“Yes,” I said good-naturedly. “You made all the newspapers sore as hell marrying so quietly in November.”
“That’s neither here nor there!” Ford answered unsociably. “The point is I was some three thousand miles away on what was supposed to have been a honeymoon when this damned news breaks that Steve’s disappeared or been murdered or something.”
“Jesus, hadn’t you begun to think so, yourself?”
“No.”
“Not even a suspicion all this while?”
“No.” Then Ford quieted down a bit. “In all that while only one thing did strike me queer. Along about July, on a steaming hot day when I was dashing over to the Plaza for an appointment with Miss Devereaux, I ran straight into—er—er—the very girl whom Steve had been so stewed up about all year.”
“Cut out the riddles!” I broke into Ford’s story. “We know the girl in the case was Barton Dunlap’s wife.”
Ford shrugged. “All right then. I was shocked at the change in Mrs. Dunlap. She’d always been lovely in a sort of magazine cover way. Wonderful light hair! Violet blue eyes! Everything in fact that should entitle a girl to a life of gardenias and ease. But on this occasion there was an air of indefinable worry in her face that I hated to see. Furthermore, I had an idea she was dressed a little shabbier than I’d ever known her to be. She was generally awfully stunning, you know.
“We exchanged the usual pleasantries in short order. She mentioned she’d just returned from getting her divorce in Paris. Then suddenly she sprang her neat little bombshell.
“ ‘How’s Steve getting along?’
“My jaw dropped. ‘I’d supposed you knew more about that than I did!’
“She shook her head and looked away.
“ ‘No. Steve and I are about quits, I think. Something or other happened; what’s the difference what? I had to leave for Paris a good deal earlier than I had planned. . . .’ She spoke hurriedly. ‘You know, my sister and I sank nearly every cent we had in a bad sugar speculation. Of course, I had rather expected to see Steve in Pinar del Rio before I left.’ She smiled gamely. Then abruptly she turned her head away.
“I took her hand for I saw her eyes were wet. I remember saying rather awkwardly, ‘You’ve got me guessing, Carol. I know you don’t need me to tell you what Steve thinks of you. However, I can any day you want.’
“ ‘Let’s forget all that,’ she answered quietly.
“ ‘Will you come up to my office some time soon? I’d like to have a talk.’
“ ‘Maybe.’
“We said goodbye. For five minutes I speculated idly on what their smashup could have been about and what-the-devil had so suddenly changed Steve’s plans when I knew for a fact, that at the time he left his note, he was expecting to see her. Then I met Miss Devereux and—well, that was that!�
�
Hugh D. Ford stretched himself out again in the big easy chair and seemed to rest content. I decided he was a callous egg. Just the same, I enjoyed watching him. There’s a sort of magnetic something about these mortals who think they’ve pulled themselves up to the very heights of life.
After a moment or so, I said, “I’d give a damned lot to talk to your friend Mrs. Dunlap just now.”
Ford’s answer was a surprise.
“You might reach her at ‘El Mirasol.’ That’s her sister’s plantation down near Pinar del Rio. It happens I radioed both to her and to Phillip Brady to meet me down here in Cuba without delay.”
“Good work!” Pause. “There’s nothing further you could add that might help us?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t suppose you ever thought to enquire as to whether Wyndham had drawn on his letter of credit or bank balance since the time he blew out.”
“Not until this damned news broke. Since then, I’ve been keeping the radio apparatus hot.”
“With what result?”
“One curious one. Not a penny of Steve’s bank balance or his letter of credit has been touched since the beginning of last February. That has me worried. It suggests there may be something in this damned talk.”
“H’m. Since you’ve arrived in Havana did you think to check up on his baggage?”
“Yes. That was the first thing I did. Every item of his stuff is exactly as I left it. The whole thing’s got me guessing. It’s blamed queer!”
Queer? That put it mildly. There was a silence in the room broken only by the lazy droning of the dragon flies and insects in the garden. Somewhere on the verandah outside I heard a footstep, I didn’t know whose. Hugh D. Ford picked up his Planters Punch and drained off the liquid from the melting ice in the bottom.
“Er—I hate to bring a personal matter up,” I broke out at length, “but what of that fifty thousand dollars you drew from Wyndham’s account at Manning and Wilson’s?”