Joan refused a drink but Dave said he’d have some rumand-water and not to be stingy with the rum. Crawford poured a good slug into a glass, added two cubes of ice and filled it with water. He did not ask Gloria what she would like but made two whisky and waters. She accepted hers without comment, still standing there, still holding the gun. Crawford sat down, took a big gulp of his drink, and flexed his lips. He pushed his yachting cap back to reveal his black shiny hair and the thick brows bunched a moment before he spoke.
“No,” he said, as though there had been no interruption, “I didn’t search the bungalow last night.”
“I did,” Gloria said.
“After we’d followed you into Hastings on the way to the airport?” Dave asked.
She nodded. “I wasn’t looking for the gun. I just happened to find it. I went out there to look for that envelope.”
“Oh. So you knew what was in it?” He looked at Crawford. “Did you know she killed Mike and Sankar?”
“What makes you think she did?”
Dave spoke of the money Joan had found and went on to explain why she’d come here in the first place. He took his time to give all the details about the shoes so that Crawford would be sure to understand. He said that there could only be one conclusion: Gloria had been at the bungalow at the time of the murder and she’d taken the wrong shoes by mistake.
“I wondered about it,” Crawford said, watching Gloria but nothing showing in his swart face. “Something told me she might have killed Mike but I didn’t want to think about it.”
“You must have thought something.”
“A lot of people could have killed Mike. I wasn’t so sure about her”—he indicated Joan—”until I heard about Sankar. I knew she couldn’t have done that job because she was with you. That left Dunning and he sure as hell had a motive—and Eustis.” He looked right at Gloria. “Did you kill him for the money? Did you get in a fight or—”
“Not the money, you idiot. I did it for you.”
Dave heard her reply but at the moment his mind was on other things. He was still curious about Crawford and his motivations and now, as he watched the broad thoughtful face, he leaned forward, elbows on knees and the glass in both hands.
“Did you figure on taking your cruise alone?”
“Hell, yes. I knew damn well I couldn’t be lucky forever. I didn’t know where those clippings were but I knew you had them someplace. I didn’t know what you had in mind but it was a cinch you hadn’t turned them over to the cops yet or they’d have been on my back.
“I figured I’d better get out while I had a chance. I wasn’t even sure where I was going. Wherever it turned out to be I could get in touch with Gloria and she could let me know what the score was. If things worked out I could come back; if not she could join me.”
“How did Mike get the clippings in the first place?”
“He stole ’em, the bastard.”
“How did he know you had them?”
“He didn’t. He was just lucky and I was stupid.” He finished his drink and got up to make a refill. There was resentment in the dark eyes now and his mouth was tight and mean looking. “You read those clippings so you know what happened in New York. I ducked while I could and I got away with around a hundred and fifty grand. I went to Florida but I stayed away from Miami and Fort Lauderdale and the horses and the dog tracks. A little town in the middle of the state; got me a job in a filling station long enough to get a social security card and a driver’s license. I made it here okay and I’ve been doing all right ever since. You ask me why I kept those clippings and I’ll tell you I don’t know. Maybe it was because I wanted them around to remind me how it used to be and how lucky I was to get out and still stay healthy. I hardly ever looked at them but they were there to remind me that I was a new guy now and that I had to be a good boy.
“A guy off a cruise ship thought he recognized me one day. He told Mike, and Mike, being the kind of rat he was, got curious and decided to check. He knew a newspaper guy in New York. He put in a call and the guy filled him in on Tony Cruise. Mike couldn’t be sure but he still had this idea so he broke into my place two or three weeks ago.
“I knew about it but I thought it was some fight-fingered native, a petty larceny job like they generally do down here. They never take jewelry or anything like that, that they have to dispose of. They might take food if they’re hungry, or any cash that’s lying around, but with me nothing was missing. Mike was looking for anything that would tie me in with Tony Cruise. He found it. Hell, I didn’t even know he had those clips until two or three nights ago.”
“The night you had the fight at Club Morgan?”
“Yeah,” Crawford said and swore softly from the corner of his mouth. “When that happened I thought I’d better tell Gloria the truth about myself so I did.” He looked over at the woman, took another swallow of his drink before he continued. “She took it okay. I told her I was not Tony Cruise any more. I said I was a different guy and she believed me. When you went to the lawyer’s the morning after Mike was killed and she saw that envelope with the name Cruise written across it she knew what it was.”
“Yes,” Dave said. “It had to be that way.”
“And I had to try to get it.”
“You didn’t know Joan was here?”
“When?”
“Now.”
“I told you I didn’t.”
Dave looked at Gloria. “What were you going to do with her?”
She gestured with the gun. “It’s rather obvious, isn’t it? I was going to make Alan take her with him.”
For the first time Crawford showed surprise. The thick brows climbed and his jaw was momentarily slack. “Me?” he said in slow astonishment.
“What else could I do?” she said evenly. “Kill her and bury the body in the back yard? As a matter of fact you’re still going to take her with you only now David goes too.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Now wait—”
“You wait.” She put her glass aside and shifted the gun in her hand. She was still watching Crawford, her gray eyes cold and direct and an odd grayness mingling with the tan in her cheeks. “If it hadn’t been for you and those clippings of yours I might not have shot Mike at all. I did you a favor. Now you’re going to do me one. They hang you on this island for murder and I’ve always thought I had a rather pretty neck. You can sit there and think about it all you want to, but this time we’ll do it my way.”
21
AGAIN THE SILENCE deepened in the room, for something in the woman’s tone told the rest of them she meant exactly what she said. Joan, who had not moved, glanced at Dave with startled eyes but it was Crawford, though he made no immediate reply, whose expression was openly incredulous.
Dave had heard the words and understood their implication. They were shocking in their directness but strangely enough he was more depressed and disheartened than surprised. That Gloria Ludlow had been driven to the point of desperation there could be no doubt; this same compelling force had made her pull the trigger that first night. He understood that there could be no other answer, just as he understood that this was not the woman he had once been in love with.
That girl had been selfish and self-centered, aware of her pretty face and spectacular figure, trading on it to get what she wanted. She was a schemer, too. He had always known that. He remembered how she used to play one boy against the other, always looking for the invitation or the date that offered the most for Gloria. The potential for what was happening now may always have been there—this, he knew, was true of many people—but he could not make himself believe that, given a second chance, another man, a fair share of happiness, she could have resorted to murder, no matter what the provocation.
Brutality had coarsened her and somehow there must have been some contagion to Mike Ludlow’s moral disintegration. In living with him and tolerating for too long his cruelty, she had resorted finally to his methods. He knew t
hat her hate and resentment of her husband must have been a factor in his death but he could not accept the premise that the murder had been premeditated.
With Eric Sankar, yes. That time her life was also at stake. She must have known this as certainly as she had ever known anything. With police pressure on the little solicitor he might eventually have cracked and this was a chance she could not take. Further, by that time she had no more to lose. Her mind and personality warped by one murder, she had no room for moral values. She had done what she felt she had to do. But it was Mike’s death that concerned him at the moment and he had to find out what had made her pull the trigger.
“Why, Gloria?” he said, his voice sounding loud in the otherwise quiet room.
“Why what?”
“Did you go there to kill Mike?”
She took a moment to consider the question before she frowned and shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“But you went there with the gun.”
“I told you why. I made up my mind that he would never beat me again. I’d been afraid of him much too long. I didn’t know what might happen but I was going to be sure of that.… A lot of what I told you that first night was true,” she said. “I’d had some drinks here before I went to the party. I had other drinks there. I didn’t know if I could do any good but I had to try and I wanted some protection. That’s why I took it.”
She glanced at the gun in her hand and said: “Mike and Alan had made a deal about that option. Alan had a check sent from Florida so they could close the deal on Monday. When Mike called it off, Alan found out Alice Dunning had sold or pawned a lot of jewelry to raise the cash. Then Alan told me about the clippings Mike had stolen and what they meant to him. And I made up my mind that Mike was not going to get away with it this time. After five years I had taken all I could from him and I didn’t intend to let him ruin what might be my last chance to find some happiness. I wasn’t thinking about the money when I went there; I was thinking about the option and those clippings.”
“You thought they were in the bungalow?” Dave asked.
“Why not? How could I know Roger Eustis had them in his office? … Mike was sitting there drinking and gloating at that money he had in the box when I came into the living room. When I told him what I wanted he just laughed at me. He wouldn’t even get out of the chair. I knew he kept a big automatic in his bedroom and the last time I’d been there he had a smaller gun in the top of that sideboard. He didn’t even try to stop me when I went around behind him and took the gun out of the drawer. Finally, when I told him that if he didn’t give me the option I would take the money, he got mean.”
She stopped and moistened her lips. She seemed to be thinking now and though she still looked at Dave he got the impression that the gray eyes were focused in the past and saw neither him nor anything else in the room.
“I was ready to shoot,” she said. “Not to kill. I wasn’t thinking about that. I just wanted to hurt him. I didn’t stop to think that if I did I might have to go to prison for a while. I only knew that if I took the money there would be no profit for Mike on Monday, no nothing. I might have taken it and gone if he hadn’t threatened Alan.”
“Threatened?”
“He said he was going to turn those clippings over to the police in the morning. He said he was going to call the Federal Attorney in New York and tell him where Alan was. He stood up and started toward me. He told me what would happen to Alan once they sent him back to the States. I told him I’d shoot but he wasn’t listening. He’d always done what he wanted to with me and he thought he could do it again. He grabbed for the gun and right then something happened inside me. I remembered the old pattern, the way it had always been with all those other moments of fear and violence. This time when I saw that look on his face I knew I had to stop him. I did. I pulled the trigger.”
She hesitated, as though reliving in fancy the shocking impact of that fatal instant.
“I wasn’t even sure I’d hit him at first; I only knew he stopped. He stood there quite a while before he sat down on the edge of the chair. He had this funny look on his face but I still didn’t know how badly he was hurt until he leaned forward and toppled off.
“When I knew he was dead I didn’t panic,” she said. “I knew I had to get back to the Carib Club in a hurry. I took the money—I’ve already told you why and where I put it—and looked around for my shoes. When I started up the beach I realized I still had Mike’s gun and I threw it into the sea. When I got to the patio I started to put my shoes on; then I realized they weren’t mine. I couldn’t get them on; they were too small. I didn’t worry about dancing barefoot—there are always a few down here who do that—but I couldn’t understand what had happened. I wanted to go back, to find my own shoes, but I couldn’t. I was too scared.”
Dave understood this much but there was something else he had to know, something that only proved again that this was a resourceful, scheming woman who could think under pressure when she had to.
“You came back after the party hoping I’d be there, didn’t you?”
“Mike told me you were going to stay with him,” she said. “I thought you might still spend the night there. It was worth a try. If no one was there I would only have wasted a couple of minutes. I didn’t expect to find you in the water—that was luck and made it even better—but I knew what I wanted to do if you were in bed. If you substitute yourself for Mike, what I told you that first night was true. I didn’t expect to be arrested but I knew if the police got suspicious enough and you told them what had happened no one, certainly not a jury, would ever believe I would have come back and put on an act like that if I had really killed Mike.”
He saw traces of a smile on her mouth, as if she was still a little proud of her cleverness, and he said: “You also knew if I happened to be there you could find out what the police were thinking. You wanted to know if anything had been said about shoes or if some other woman had been there.”
“That was part of it.”
Joan Allison, who had been listening intently and making no sound, leaned forward in her chair. “How did you get your shoes back, Gloria?”
“It was easy. I went up there the next day while you were having lunch. I got a yard boy to go into your cottage and get them for me. I gave him twenty dollars—more than he’d made in a month—and told him that if he ever opened his mouth we’d both be in trouble. I knew he wouldn’t. You couldn’t drag the truth out of that sort.”
“What did you do with mine?”
“Threw them away.” She laughed humorlessly. “I guess I should have thrown my own away too.”
“Mr. Sankar saw you,” Joan said, still watching her.
“Yes, he saw me. He saw where I threw the metal box—”
“And then he buried it under the manchineel tree,” Dave said. “Did he get in touch with you?”
“No.”
“So I’m the one who put him on the spot. That evening when the South Americans came I told you how Joan had identified Sankar. I told you who he was and where he was staying. I told you the police would be questioning him and you got scared.”
“Certainly I got scared,” Gloria said. “I knew he had the money but I didn’t know where he’d put it. I called him up. I told him there was money enough for both of us. I offered to split. It was more than he’d ever dreamed of having, and he wasn’t too hard to convince.”
“When did you talk to him?”
“After I got you started for the airport. I had to go back to the bungalow then because I wanted to search it and see if those clippings were anywhere around, but he said he had a date later.”
“You must have met him just after he left the Club Morgan. You drove back out to the bungalow. Whose car did you use?”
“His.”
“By that time you already had the Mauser.”
“Yes.”
“You drove back to the bungalow and dug up the box. You took out the money and threw the box into the
ocean. You knew then you were going to kill him, didn’t you?”
“I had no choice. I was lucky the police hadn’t already got the truth out of him. I could tell he was a weak little man. I knew it was just a question of time before they made him talk.… I left him in his car right where the police found it. I didn’t know whose gun I had but it seemed like a good idea to leave it, so I did. My own car was parked about two blocks away and I got into it and came here.”
Dave looked at Crawford and found he could not fathom the expression in the broad swart face. He was watching Gloria, some of the slackness still in his jaw and a lingering incredulity in his dark eyes. Dave had to speak to him before he could get his attention.
“Didn’t you even suspect her?” he asked.
Crawford gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head as if to dispel the thoughts that were festering inside him. He considered the question, took a small breath.
“After I found out about Sankar, maybe I did. I didn’t see Sankar after I left Club Morgan. I went to the Beau Brummel for a drink just like I told Major Fleming. I drove here but the house was dark. So I waited. She”—he looked at the woman—”didn’t get here until nearly one but I didn’t ask her where she’d been and she didn’t tell me. We came in and had a couple of drinks and talked about the clippings. She said she hadn’t found them at your place and I told her I’d go out later to try the glove compartment of the car. I had an idea then that if I didn’t find them it might be a good idea to take off tonight.
“It’s still a good idea, baby,” he said to Gloria, “only now I don’t go alone. We’ll both go. It took a lot of guts to try to get those clippings from Mike and what happened was just as much his fault as yours. You tried to help me, now I’ll help you.”
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