Man on a Rope (20 page)

He gave her a curious look when she asked if she could speak to him, but he stood up politely and motioned her to a chair. He was again dressed in one of his white suits, complete with waistcoat, and she found herself wondering if this insistence on the proper dress at all times was his wife's doing.

She composed her face as she sat down. She composed her mind and sorted her thoughts and spoke directly.

“What would happen if you found the missing diamonds, Mr. Amanti?” she asked. “Would you turn them over to the police?”

She watched the dark eyes Wink at her and saw the frown growing. She watched him sit up in his chair and the mouth grow crooked with his smile.

“Do you think it's likely that I'll find them?”

“I didn't mean find, exactly,” she said. “I was just thinking that the person who has them might be afraid the police would find them.”

“I should think he might.”

“He might be scared enough to want to get rid of them.”

“It's possible.”

“But he would hardly throw them away, not anything as valuable as that. He'd be more likely to leave them where they could be found by the proper person, wouldn't he?”

He was still watching her, the smile fixed, but behind the lenses something was happening to his eyes. She could not tell what it was—speculation, a certain wariness?—but it served to warn her to be careful.

“Are you trying to tell me that you have the diamonds, Miss Sanford?” he asked softly.

“Oh, my, no,” she said innocently.

“And you don't know where they are?”

“No.”

“Then yours is a purely hypothetical question?” he said, a mild irony in his voice.

“Very much so.”

“Do you have any particular place in mind where I might be expected to find these diamonds?”

“Well”—she gestured with one hand to give the impression that she was merely offering the first thought that entered her head—“suppose you came back here tonight to work and found them on your desk. You'd tell the police, wouldn't you?”

“That would be the proper thing to do,” he said, “but first I think I'd wonder how I'd explain my find to the police. They would want to know how anyone could get in here to leave the diamonds, wouldn't they? I'd have to tell them that I had the lock changed and that there were only two keys—yours and mine.”

The reply was disconcerting because she had not considered the possibility. Again she cautioned herself, for this was a clever man and she had already aroused his suspicion.

“You could tell them you were working in your office when someone knocked at the door. Naturally you'd walk out to see who it was.”

“Naturally.”

“By the time you reached it and looked out, whoever had knocked was gone.”

“Leaving the pouch on the landing for me to find.”

“Yes.” She folded her hands in her lap and smiled at him in an effort to disguise her growing nervousness. “Wouldn't they believe you?”.

“I suppose they'd have to,” he said. “It could happen that way. People have returned stolen things that became too dangerous for them before.”

He moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue and interlaced his plump fingers in front of him on the desk.

“Tell me, Miss Sanford,” he said. “In this hypothetical case of yours do you think it's likely that this person might actually leave the pouch?”

“I think he might if he was sure he wouldn't be caught.”

“You think this might happen tonight?”

“It might.”

“Would you have any particular time in mind?”

“Probably not before ten o'clock.”

She was looking right at him now and he was still smiling. Outwardly his manner remained indulgent and the softcadence of his voice never varied or showed any particular interest. He continued in the same way, but this time the glasses could not mask the strange lights that flickered in his eyes and were gone.

“Since this is only a hypothetical case,” he said, “I can assure you that the office will be empty until after ten o'clock tonight. Mrs. Amanti and I are dining out and I feel certain we won't be home before ten. After that I may stop here; I often do.”

He half rose to indicate that the interview was over. He consulted the gold watch he pulled from his vest pocket as she came to her feet.

“I'm glad you raised the question,” he said. “Naturally, matters of this nature must be held in strictest confidence…. You won't forget to drop those letters off on your way home.”

She said she would attend to them. She closed her desk and gathered her things, stopping only long enough to fix her mouth and rinse her hands at the washbowl behind the screen. There was a closet midway between Amanti's door and the outer one, a small boxlike enclosure used for storing supplies. Amanti never used it, but it served as a wardrobe for her and its three hooks were sufficient for her needs.

The germ of the idea that was to change her plans so decisively came as she took her jacket from one of the hooks. When she had put it on she felt her hair and came back to her desk to get her bag and the letters. She said: “Good night, Mr. Amanti,” and started to walk past the closet door, which still stood partly open.

What she did then was not motivated by any conscious thought or any consideration of the consequences. It was an impulse, pure and simple, that shaped her course, but the component parts of that impulse were many and varied.

Barry had planted the seed of her doubt about Mr. Amanti. Barry was the one who had suggested that perhaps her employer was not the exemplary character she had assumed him to be. There was little to substantiate the suggestion that Amanti might have been short in his accounts, that he feared the settlement that would have to be made when Lambert's will was signed and the estate audited. But there was no longer any doubt in her mind that Amanti had removed the notebook which contained the original record of those assets.

A list had been stolen from Lambert's desk; the copy had been taken from the files. But only Amanti could have known which notebook to take. There was no one now to accuse him of any irregularity.

It is questionable if such thoughts influenced her at the moment; rather it was an accumulation of thoughts that somehow combined to leave the intuitive impression that Mr. Amanti could no longer be trusted. It was of such intangibles that the impulse was born, and the time involved in its acceptance was no more than a fraction of a second.

She had to find out more about Mr. Amanti and as she passed the closet door she knew how to do it. Two more hard-heeled steps took her to the outer door and she rattled the knob as she opened it. She closed it with authority, still on the inside of the office. For another long moment she listened. When she could hear no movement in the inner office, she moved soundlessly back to the closet, slid inside and closed the door until only a tiny crack remained.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

W
ITH THE DOOR
nearly closed, it was quite dark in the closet and she stood a moment with breath held and her ear close to the crack. As the seconds dragged on she felt the pressure of her first misgivings and opened the door another inch. There was still no sound but the rapid thumping of her heart, and now there came a disquieting thought: how long would she have to stay here? If nothing happened in the next few minutes, would she be able to tiptoe from the room without alerting Amanti to her presence?

Not touching the knob but pressing lightly on the panel with her fingertips, she eased the door open another inch and put her nose to the crack so that she would get more air. Feeling now the mounting pressure on her nerves, she tried to combat it by telling herself she had made the decision and was stuck with it, that she could outwait Amanti no matter how long it took if she put her mind to the task. She was still working on the silent fight talk when she heard Amanti speak. Coming as it did out of all that silence, the voice frightened her strangely until she realized he was talking on the telephone.

The number he gave the operator meant nothing to her, but what he said next did: “Hello—would you please see if Ian Lambert is in his room?… Yes, if you please.”

She broke up the following silence by counting off what she thought were seconds. She wondered how long it would take Lambert to come to the telephone, and then she faced the awful possibility that he might not come at all. Silently she begged for help. She asked that luck be with her, and after what seemed like an eternity her prayers were answered.

“Ian,” Amanti said. “Louis Amanti. There's been a rather curious development about the missing diamonds…. No, I can't tell you over the telephone. I'm not even sure what will happen next, but I think we ought to talk it over.”

There was a moment of silence, then: “In my office, yes. You might bring Chris Holt with you if it doesn't take too long…. Well, how long? Can you make it in ten minutes?… Excellent… Yes, I'll expect you.”

She heard the telephone being cradled and asked herself if she could possibly stand ten more minutes in this sweatbox. The answer was quickly affirmative, now that she knew what she had to do and could properly prepare herself.

She did not try to count the minutes. She put her mind on other things, and it helped to know that her suspicion of Amanti was being substantiated, at least to some degree. She did not try to speculate on what might happen next, but clung steadfastly to the hope that she would learn something that would help Barry. As the minutes of silence began to accumulate she forced her thoughts still further afield.

She found herself wondering what New York would be like. She understood that Barry's job would take him to some other section of the States—he thought it might be in the West or in Canada—and that would be all right too because she would have a chance to see the country. In her imagination she even allowed herself to hope that he would change his mind, that, once cleared of suspicion, he would see how much easier it would be to take her with him rather than go on alone and send for her. Her papers were in order; she had the proper visa. Her uncle had already given his approval and she had the proper clothes because she understood the weather would be reasonably warm by the time she reached New York.

Such thoughts helped to speed the minutes and when she heard the sounds on the outer stairs she was ready. By the time the door opened she had narrowed the crack again. She kept it that way, depending on her ears to tell her what was happening, until she was sure that the two callers were safely inside the inner office.

Now, with the greetings over and the steps gone from the room, she widened the crack a fraction of an inch at a time. She thrust her nose into the opening and breathed deeply. It did not stop the perspiration which had begun to bathe her body, but it helped to steady her and dispel the frightening possibility that she might faint. She did not dare try to remove her jacket, and she had to hold her bag and the letters, but with her free hand she unbuttoned the front of her blouse and shrugged the jacket back from her shoulders. When the voices began she opened the door still more and then she forgot her discomfort.

“Hudson was in to see me this morning,” Amanti was saying.

“He came to us too,” Holt said. “He said he was still willing to buy the diamonds. Is that what you wanted to talk about?”

“In a sense, yes.”

“He asked us,” Ian Lambert said in his deliberate way, “whether we would rather have the diamonds or the cash.”

“We told him we'd take the dollars if we had a choice,” Holt added.

“By rights, of course,” Amanti said, “if any of us located the diamonds it would be our duty to turn them over to the proper authorities.”

“Meaning the cops,” Holt said.

“Until the court appoints me administrator of the estate—and I'm hoping this will happen—I have no legal right to take any steps whatsoever. But a strange thing happened this afternoon and I thought I ought to get your reaction.”

There was a pause and Amanti continued: “I do not intend to give you any details whatsoever except to say that there is a possibility that the diamonds may be left here outside my office some time tonight.”

“Are you kidding?” Holt said. “Left here? A hundred thousand dollars' worth of. diamonds? Why the hell—”

“It is my impression,” Amanti cut in, “that the person who now has them is afraid to keep them any longer. If found in his possession he runs the risk of being arrested for murder. He may even be the killer. How would you feel about that?”

“About what?”

“Well, which are you the most interested in, getting the murderer or getting the diamonds?”

“We'll take the diamonds, won't we, Ian?… Let the cops worry about the killer.”

“Then let's carry the assumption a step farther. To turn the stones over to the police—still assuming that they are to be delivered anonymously to me tonight—would mean a great shrinkage in your shares. There would not only be the royalties, taxes, and duties which Lambert never paid, there would also be a share which in all probability would go to Sir Eric Lambert in England.”

“So?”

“Yet to withhold the stones or make any deal—say with Hudson—would subject all of us to certain penalties if we were caught.”

“What you're saying,” Holt said, “is that if we hold out on the cops and make a private deal we're liable to wind up in the can.”

“If not that, certainly a conviction and a stiff fine…. Now, are we willing to take such a risk?”

There was another pause, during which Holt apparently found a silent agreement from Lambert.

“We are,” he said. “Neither of us liked the old man and we've got just enough larceny in us to take a chance.”

“It will be more difficult for me,” Amanti said. “If I should have to stand trial I would be ruined in this colony. I would have no more practice and I would be publicly disgraced. I would not care to risk such a thing unless the payment for success was substantial.”