by Joan Sanger
Ford sat forward and ran his fingers through his mop of red hair. He looked ridiculously embarrassed. “I thought we’d come to that. Well, get this! And it’s not for publication, you understand. I drew that money as a loan to save the last of Carol Dunlap’s holdings. I did it without her realizing the source of the money, knowing perfectly well that Steve would have wanted me to act so and that had he been there, he would have offered fifty times that much. Now do you see?”
I was about to answer when suddenly I heard a cynical laugh in the doorway. Looking in that direction, to my utter amazement, I met the now familiar gaze of Parson Charles Stone. He watched my surprise with cool indifference.
“If you believe that!” Stone nodded meaningly toward Ford, his eternal smirk spreading over his face. “Ask your red-headed friend, just what he was doing with a hotel room down the same corridor as his own, on the night of February 13th? It’s an interesting little point I’d forgotten to mention in our talk back in New York!”
At this seemingly simple remark, Ford’s face went purple with rage and his hand clenched.
“You crumby hoboe, you . . .” he began and lurched forward to strike.
But Stone dodged swiftly. Once more safe behind the grilled door, he called back sarcastically. “So sorry to have bothered you. I just dropped out here in hope of finding Mr. Alcott.”
Then we heard his footsteps hurrying down the gravel path.
Chapter XXI THE LADY IN THE CASE
SOME explanation was due from Ford there and then, but before I knew it he was out of the door and down the gravel path after Stone. I remember pacing up and down Lamar’s living room, trying with fierce energy to fit the various odds and ends of this insane puzzle into some plausible picture. But it seemed futile. Nothing made sense. Nothing seemed logical. Two and two added up to eight, to thirteen, to fifty! I poured myself a drink.
After a while, and I hardly knew how long, Lynn came in the door. She looked flushed and warm, and with the perversity that rules all such occasions, I noticed her shoe lacing was coming untied.
“Well, thank the Lord! You’re still here!” she broke out.
“Sure thing.”
“Mr. Ford just phoned to excuse himself for his abrupt departure. Said his wife was waiting or something. I should leave a message for him at the Yacht Club as soon as Uncle Fred returns.”
“Well, if I’m not a son of a gun!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Only an orthodox devil on trial would know better than hand out that line of bunk.”
“What’s up?”
“Wish to God I knew. I’ll be seeing you this evening, honey.”
“Well, I should hope so.”
She blew me a kiss.
But even so, I slung down the road, hot and out of temper. My first impulse was to corner Ford. Then I thought better of the idea.
The day was superb, blue skies, wisps of clouds, the gulf stretching itself jade colored and serene off toward the untroubled horizon. Ford could wait. By good luck, I found a taxi.
“The nearest airport and pronto!”
Blankness complete and impenetrable.
“Airplane. Zoom! Up! Sabes?”
I made signs. The man smiled.
At five that afternoon, on the outskirts of Pinar del Rio, I found myself driving into the grounds of “El Mirasol.” Obviously, the place had known better days. Its coral stucco gates were fading. The dusty white road that wound up to the main house was in bad need of repairs. Large portions of the building seemed too old to hold themselves erect any longer under the intense tropical sun and looked almost on the point of sagging. Just the same, some inexplicable air of charm was running rampant. Was it the tangled profusion of boganvillia, and oleanders, of hibiscus and palms? I wasn’t sure.
Inside a piano was playing:
“Alone . . . alone, with the sky of Romance above!
Alone . . . alone, on a night that was meant for Love!
Oh there must be someone waiting,
Who feels the way I do. . . .”
I rang the bell. Somewhere far off a dog barked. The door was opened promptly by a Cuban boy in white ducks.
“Has Mrs. Carol Sutherland Dunlap arrived?”
The piano playing ceased. I heard someone walking across the floor.
“I’m Mrs. Dunlap.”
I found myself looking at a slender young woman who was so disconcertingly pretty, that had I been ten years younger I would have promptly forgotten what I’d intended to say. However, feeling just then like a contemporary of Methuselah’s, I forgot only half of it.
“I’ve come a good way to talk to you,” I said as disarmingly as I knew how. Then I proceeded to introduce myself and tell her of the mission that had brought Pete Alcott and me adventuring to Havana.
Mrs. Dunlap looked at me with unfeigned curiosity.
“Perhaps you had better come in,” she said with quiet dignity. She led the way back into a sort of conservatory where the piano stood. I noticed she had on a pale blue tennis dress. It did nice things to her hair and eyes and the sunlight streaming through the latticed windows did the rest.
“I’m not going to beat about the bush, Mrs. Dunlap. I’m here because we’re trying our darnedest to unravel this Wyndham tangle and we need your assistance badly on a few side points.” I hesitated and looked at her closely. “That is, if the whole matter isn’t too painful to you.”
To my surprise, Mrs. Dunlap looked unmoved.
“It’s not painful at all.” Her head went up proudly. “That is, not now.” There was a pause. “What do you wish to know?”
“It’s beastly awkward having to ask you. Do you mind if I’m intimate, personal and impertinent, for a few minutes?”
Mrs. Dunlap smiled. “I’ll try to endure it.” She selected a cigarette from the box on the piano and offered me one likewise.
“You have my word the matter will be entirely confidential.” I stopped short. It’s always difficult to talk to a pretty woman about an affair which you know was unhappy. In addition to which her Irish terrier had just come in and was bounding all over the place. “Were you and Stephen Wyndham ever engaged?”
Mrs. Dunlap smiled at me. “I was still a married woman at the time Mr. Wyndham—disappeared.”
“I know that. What I mean is . . .?”
But Mrs. Dunlap didn’t give me a chance to finish. Her eyes looked amused, and faintly incredulous.
“Are you tactfully trying to decide whether any uncertainty about me could have led to the situation which so tragically arose?”
“Yes. I’d like to eliminate that as a possibility.”
“You can,” she said quietly. “Mr. Wyndham had no reason to doubt for a moment that I cared for him, nor that I would have married him the moment I was free.”
I began to like Mrs. Dunlap’s candor almost as much as her profile. “You’re a straight shooter,” I said with admiration. “Now for the next point. On February 13th, we understand that Wyndham received word that you were leaving for Paris sooner than you expected. Is that true?”
“Yes. I phoned him directly at his hotel. We had had some silly little misunderstanding prior to that. The usual nonsense. This once I threw ceremony overboard and explained that I would be leaving the following day. It happened at that time I was in very troubled waters, financially.”
“What was his attitude?”
“Oh, I didn’t mention finances.”
“No, I meant about your leaving?”
“He wanted to come down to Pinar del Rio at once.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“I explained there was an endless amount of packing and a lot of people around the place, and it would be one or two at least before I could finish up. I told him my preference would be for him to come down early the following morning. I think I even implied it would mean a great deal to me to see him.”
“What did he say?”
Abruptly Mrs. Dunlap got up from th
e piano bench on which she had been seated and crossed to the window. She ran her hand absently through her light gold bob. I couldn’t decide if she was disturbed by her recollections or by my question. After a while she turned around and faced me frankly.
“I thought he said he would come. Afterwards, when I neither saw nor heard from him I was sure I had been mistaken. I was indignant with myself for having made the overture. I had no intention of playing ‘Poor Butterfly’ to his, or any man’s whims. I made up my mind to put him out of my thoughts completely and irrevocably. For ten months I went around being bitter and cynical and disillusioned in the approved fashion. I think I even went in for heartlessness on the grand scale.”
She smiled a little sadly, her violet blue eyes looking directly into mine. Mentally I computed that a few looks like that could do as much damage as a flask of cold poison, a machine gun or a dash of T.N.T. At the same time, I decided that I’d better be quitting these southern latitudes.
And suddenly and inexplicably the grim tragedy of Wyndham’s end smote me anew. The very softness and sweetness of this woman standing opposite me; the warm, lush breeze that came in fitfully through the window, the rich vibrancy and promise of life all about, and the strange unlucky chance that cut a young man off in his thirty-fourth year . . . for causes still unknown!
Mrs. Dunlap’s voice was low, tremulous as she proceeded. “You can image how I felt when some weeks ago the newspapers first began printing rumors that Mr. Wyndham had disappeared.”
I nodded sympathetically, wondering withal if there wasn’t a little more comfort in knowing, once and for all, that your lover was dead and faithful rather than alive and roving. However, Mrs. Dunlap’s perturbation didn’t seem to bear me out.
“May I ask what you did when you learned this?”
She looked at me helplessly.
“What could I do?”
Our acquaintance being so recent, I was unable to rush gallantly to the breach as I would have liked to have done. Besides which, Carol Dunlap was so unutterably lovely, I doubted seriously if she could have done anything, even had she so wanted. Somehow, it seemed to me, that would have been expecting just too much.
But no matter what my inward reflections, I had come to Pinar del Rio primarily on business.
“We have learned that your former husband was appraised of the fact that you expected to see Wyndham on the morning of the 14th. Was it through you?”
“Yes,” she said in a low voice, “after the papers began hinting at some terrible mystery in connection with Mr. Wyndham’s silence, I went to see Mr. Dunlap.”
I looked at her narrowly. “Did you think it possible that Barton Dunlap was implicated in the crime?”
Suddenly Mrs. Dunlap sat up. Her cheeks were flushed, but I noticed she kept herself perfectly in hand. A faint shadowy smile hovered about her lips. Her tone was one of firm decision.
“You’re a pleasant enough person but you do ask the most troublesome questions. Please understand me. I went to see Barton Dunlap for reasons of my own. And now if you’ll excuse me, I really must dress for dinner. It’s growing late.”
She moved toward the door. Like a jack-in-the-box, I jumped out of my chair and stalked after her. “Would it delay dinner too long if I inquired first if you ever received a loan of $50,000 from Hugh Ford?”
Carol Dunlap paused a moment and her eyes opened wide in surprise.
“Did he tell you that?”
“You’re not answering me, and I regret to say you may have to answer that publicly before we’re finished.”
Again she gave me that faint shadowy smile.
“That may be. But just now I really must be going upstairs.”
Thoughtfully I looked after her as she crossed to the door. At the threshold she paused uncertainly.
“Forgive me, Mr. Ellis, if I seem unobliging. I see, we can’t talk after all. There’s too much that needs explanation. Goodbye and good luck to you, and your friend!”
Her voice suddenly broke. She turned quickly away and in another instant she was gone.
For a few moments, I stood irresolutely where she left me. From the first landing I thought I heard a stifled sob. Self-conscious, feeling like an interloper for the first time in all my years as a reporter, I quickly turned and left the house.
When I was racing back by plane to Havana that evening I took myself very thoroughly in hand. It was the only thing I could do. Twilight had fallen and the whir of the motors was too deafening to permit conversation with anyone but one’s self.
“Now look here old man. You’ve seen enough in your day to know better than to confound the outward aspect of guilelessness with the genuine article. As for these pretty faces! Bah! Remember your old primer work. The light that lies in a woman’s eyes can lie very ably upon occasion. Don’t be taken in by this Carol Dunlap. She’s probably phony.”
To which some instinct within me made answer, “Aw, quit talking like a simp. That gal’s been through hell, but she’s on the level or I’ll eat my hat!”
Chapter XXII A VERY UNUSUAL APPOINTMENT
BY the time I reached Havana, it was long past eight o’clock and the city was rousing itself from the warm languor of the day for its plunge into nocturnal gaiety. Even from far off I could discern the colored lanterns on her many roof gardens, and see the searchlights of the taller buildings threading their way among the stars. But to all the siren call of pleasure I was deaf at the time.
Through the friendly offices of a young Cuban of the airport I succeeded in calling our hotel.
“Ask if Mr. Peter Alcott has come in,” I begged him.
After an interminable time the answer came back in the negative.
“Has there been any message left for Mr. Ellis?”
“No.”
In desperation, I had my new friend try Police Headquarters. But there, though we explained in minute detail my connection with the press, and patiently waited a very long time, we had no better luck. As the young man was about to ring off, I thought to have him enquire whether Señor José Sanchez and his wife had yet been released.
Five minutes, ten minutes elapsed while we held on. At last:
“Señor Sanchez and his wife are being held in custody in connection with the murder of the American, Stephen Wyndham.”
“Wha—at!” I caught my breath and managed to stammer. “On whose warrant?”
Another lengthy silence.
My young friend at the airport shook his head and smiled. “You make things move queeker, up in the States, isn’t it so?” He turned back to the phone.
“Eh. . . . Que?”
There was a rapid fire of Spanish conversation and the young man looked at me in bewilderment.
“It is a little difficult to understand. It seems under private cross-examination the stories of Señor and Señora de Sanchez do not quite tally.”
“Well . . . I’ll be . . . damned. . . .”
I thanked the young man and moved on into the night. My thoughts were reeling. Despite my own suspicions up to this time, now that the charge was actually filed, I couldn’t quite believe it. Too many tangled skeins! I pulled out my little black memo book and looked again at the long list of questions that had accumulated there from the start of the case. The last few alone kept me guessing, especially in the light of this latest development.
What was the significance of Pete’s questions to the doorman at the Sevilla Biltmore? Of that sailor’s answer to his ad? What sinister purpose kept Stone shadowing us day and night? What of Ford’s unexplained presence in that hotel room on the night of Wyndham’s disappearance? And his lack of a real alibi?
I would have given a hundred dollars flat for the chance to buttonhole Pete at that moment and to thrash out some of the major complexities of the situation with him. I was agog to hear what had occurred that afternoon at headquarters and perhaps, even. more eager to spill my own adventures to him. But rack my brains though I did, I could think of no place to reach Pete.
So it was with an entirely clear conscience that at last I hailed a cab and drove out to Calle Paseo 32 to keep my appointment with Lynn.
By the time I arrived at Judge Lamar’s residence, Lynn had almost given me up for lost. But though she treated me to a fine imitation of dejection I could see she had been playing, with clear-headed vigor, at a game of Russian bank laid out before her on the table. She caught my glance at the empty place opposite hers.
“Oh, Uncle Fred got back this afternoon!”
At that moment the Judge himself came into the room. He was looking a little tired but I noticed he had acquired a good coat of tan for his three days’ outing. He greeted me with all his usual affability.
“I hear you fellows have been having a good bit of excitement around here since I’ve been away.”
“Rather. Did Lynn tell you the latest?”
Lamar nodded, tolerant and amused. “Yes. I’ve been trying all evening to reach Ford at the Yacht Club. He’s not there.”
“And I’ve a kind of feeling he won’t be!” I said glumly.
Judge Lamar looked at me with a quizzical smile that wrinkled the little crows feet in the corners of his eyes.
“Why do you say that?”
“Something came out this afternoon that Ford didn’t count on!”
Lamar picked up the deck of cards from the table. For a few moments he shuffled them as though undecided. When he spoke it was with a kind of quiet, mellow wisdom.
“If you want an unsolicited opinion, young man, I think you’re dead wrong. Hugh Ford may be a hot-headed temperamental son-of-a-gun but my guess is he’s straight. You fellows are letting this business get on your nerves.” His face brightened suddenly. “You ought to try landing a sailfish now and then.”
I forced a smile. “That doesn’t help solve this case.”
“Well, does this?” Lamar looked at me directly. “When I came in this afternoon Calvin Watts was waiting here. The boy looked white and haggard. I don’t believe he’d slept in days. He said he’d just seen Ford, Dunlap and also Phil Brady, who had apparently been dragged down here from the coast. Then he sat down and begged me to go over with him every detail of that night in Wyndham’s rooms. He was groping, he was frantic—for the tiniest minutiae of detail. He wrote out lists of those who had been drinking, of those who had been smoking, where the money was stacked, where the cigarettes, cigars, matches and whiskey each stood. His eyes had a strained, peculiar look in them. Suddenly he got up. ‘It’s what I’ve been saying all day,’ he said in a curious, tense voice. ‘It’s the question of those matches that solves this crime.’ He looked startled. He looked ghastly. He said goodnight and rushed out. I’ll frankly confess I was worried about him. If I were well enough acquainted here in Havana to have known a good doctor, I would not have allowed that boy to walk home alone.”