Man on a Rope (24 page)

“Let me carry the theory a step farther,” he said. “Muriel said she washed her hair and went to bed early,” he continued to McBride. “When she came to the bungalow with the police she had a scarf on her head and bobby pins in her wet hair.”

“Why not? She said she washed it.”

“Then tell me why a woman who had been to the beauty parlor that afternoon to get her hair done would wash it again that night.”

McBride's face was suddenly all humps and wrinkles. “What?” he said.

“I saw her late that afternoon when she came to see Lambert. She was all dressed up in that same one she's wearing now. Her hair looked nice. Lambert commented on the way she looked and she laughed and said something about beauty parlors being wonderful institutions.” He swallowed and said: “There are only a couple beauty parlors where a woman like Muriel would go. I checked them both late this afternoon and one of them—you can check it and so can the police—say she had her hair washed and set the afternoon Lambert was killed. If you think she went home and washed it again that night you're crazier than I thought. But she had to say she washed it because she got soaked going home and she had to have some explanation”

McBride was not the quickest man in the world mentally, but if you drew him an outline he could fill in the picture. He seemed to have it now as he looked at Muriel, at the gun in his hand, and at the money on the table—in that order. He was wavering now and Barry spoke sharply to press his advantage.

“Boyd,” he said to hold the other's attention. “You went to the bungalow that night too. If there's any doubt in your mind about Muriel just remember that you were still hiding on the veranda when I came back. I heard your car leave. You don't have to admit it; just recall how long you were there after you found Lambert dead and started looking for the envelope that could have put you in jail. I was gone not more than four or five minutes. If Muriel didn't come while you, were searching the desk, when did she come? How would she know I had been there earlier? She couldn't have come
after
I left the first time. You would have run into her wouldn't you? So when do you think she came?”

Barry had seen the things happening behind McBride's pale eyes as he drove his point home. Even McBride understood the logic of the premise, and now that the pattern of doubt in his mind had been dispelled to his satisfaction he was suddenly convinced.

“So.” he said, a note of wonderment in his voice, “it was you all the time.”

Muriel's face was chalk-white as she reached for her handbag and took out a handkerchief. She blew her nose, and her mouth quivered. She swallowed visibly and batted her eyelashes at McBride as though trying to hold the tears back.

“What difference does it make now?” she wailed. “I—I had to do it…. It was as much your fault as mine,” she said. “He found out about us. He was going to kick me out and he said you'd go to jail—”

“So that was the motive,” Barry said quietly. “I've been wondering just why it happened then. Lambert knew you'd been pretty friendly before you got engaged, didn't he?” he said to Muriel.

“This was after,” McBride said sourly. “During that month he was upcountry getting everything ready so he could get back to England.”

“What did he do, get a private detective to keep an eye on Muriel?”

“It wasn't any detective. It was those two jerks Holt and young Lambert; it was their idea. They didn't want the old man to get married and go back to England. I guess they figured once he did that neither of them—Ian or his sister—would get another dime. So they started spyin'. Every night. Holt when his boat was in town and Ian when it wasn't…. They wrote it all down,” he said. “Every time Muriel came here or I went to her place, and how long we stayed and when we left.”

“How did you find out Lambert knew?” Barry said, remembering now that Albert had said Ian had come to the bungalow about nine that night. Ian admitted this, but had refused to tell Kerby what the argument was about.

“That's why he telephoned me,” Muriel said, watching McBride now. “Albert didn't hear what was said, but Colin told me just enough to scare me.”

“You went there with a gun,” Barry said.

“I got that in Havana years ago,” she said as if that explained everything. “I often kept it in my bag at night—in Panama and Belize and here. I didn't go there to kill him; I didn't know what I was going to do until he started to rage at me and call me names. He said I'd be a pauper when he finished with me, and I knew he meant it.”

She said: “All I could think of was that there wouldn't be any wedding or any money. I couldn't even pay my debts. I'd have to get a job, probably clerking behind some counter and not making enough to eat on unless I stuck to rice and peas and fishheads like some of them have to do.”

“You'd still have McBride,” Barry said.

“Not even that,” she flared, “because he'd be in jail.” She looked at the big man and something changed in her voice. “You've got to help me,” she said. “If it hadn't been for me you'd be standing trial now…. You said you loved me,” she said when he remained silent.

“I know I said it,” McBride said softly. “I've said that before to other women. I was ready to pull out with you tonight and maybe—”

He hesitated, his indecision obvious. She pounced on it. “It can be good,” she said. “I promise you. A hundred thousand dollars to start all over. Nothing has to change. We do just as we planned—fly to Trinidad and then to Caracas. You have parachutes”—she waved her hand to indicate Barry and Lynn—“and why should we worry about them anyway?”

Again she hesitated, a film of moisture shining on her chalky features and desperation warping her voice. “Please, darling. You want to help me, don't you? I only wanted the diamonds. I just couldn't stand being poor again. When I knew he was going to make me poor if it was the last thing he did, I took the gun out. I was half crazy, I guess, and I made him open the safe. That's all I was going to do—take the diamonds. I didn't think he would dare go to the police because what he'd done was illegal and he might have to go to jail too. I didn't think he'd dare report me. And then—”

Her voice faltered and she tried again: “There was this gun in the desk and he reached for it. I knew he'd shoot. I—I couldn't give him the chance.”

Barry felt the tension now. It was working on his muscles and already filled his mind so that he had to concentrate. He did not know how much of this was true, but he did know that Muriel was an actress—not because of stage training but because over the years experience had taught her that to get what she wanted from men she had to act. Such skills had served her well before and she made her plea convincing.

But even now, certain that she had shot Lambert, he found it a hard thing to accept. Whether she had done this as she said, or in a fit of passion before she opened the safe with the combination she had once said she knew, was not important. She had killed not once but twice, luring George Thaxter into her car on the promise of some payment for his silence only to shoot him down beside the deserted road. He had to remind himself that beauty and a seductive figure were no yardsticks for good conduct and the proper moral virtues. He knew that women could be as vicious as men and could kill as callously once they put their minds to the task. His trouble was that he had no experience with such a woman, had never known one like her.

“You took Lambert's gun,” he said. “Why?”

She looked at him as if the question had never once occurred to her. “I don't know,” she said. “He dropped it when I shot. It—it was there on the floor…. I don't know,” she said.

And in this, Barry believed her. Some impulse born of fear and panic had prompted her to take the gun and she had done so. It was not a matter of reason, nor could such an impulse ever be explained. Later, when she knew she had to kill Thaxter, cunning had influenced her choice of weapon, but by then she'd had much time to think.

He glanced at McBride and the indecision was still written on his face. He could not keep his eyes from the package with its fifty-dollar bills for long and he knew that to change his mind now would mean losing the money for good. Barry addressed him in a final effort to persuade him.

“You got away with that envelope theft,” he said. “Nobody has anything on you now; you even own the amphibian free and clear, don't you?”

“Sure.”

“You've got those two meat flights each week for the cattlemen. You've got all the charters you can handle in the amphib. You have a nice little business and it should get better. That's what you've been working for, isn't it?”

McBride frowned again, as though he resented somehow this demand that he use his brain. “What about it?”

“You've got a good thing, why not hang on to it? Even if you could spend that hundred thousand bucks, how long do you think you could trust Muriel?”

The woman cursed him as he spoke, but he kept driving his words at McBride.

“You heard her admit she killed for the diamonds. Suppose she didn't like the way you were treating her. Suppose she got the idea that you were cheating, one way or another. Could you ever be sure there wouldn't be a slug of poison in your coffee? Or maybe a motor running all night in a garage some time when you were too drunk, or too sick, to get out of the car—”

Muriel interrupted him. “Shut up!” she screamed. “Make him stop.”

If McBride heard her he gave no sign. Instead his mind had fastened on something else that Barry had said. He glanced at the package again and shifted his gun and now his pale eyes were puzzled.

“What do you mean, even if I could spend the money?” he said.

“The money's hot, Boyd.”

“Hot? You mean stolen?”

“Why do you think Hudson was so damned anxious to make that diamond deal?”

“I don't know and I don't care.”

“You'd better care. Did you know that there's an international police force that operates all over the free world? I think it's called Interpol. It acts as a sort of United Nations against crime. Once the word goes out they'll pick you up in Rome or Rio or Singapore just as quick as they will in New York. I've got a couple of clippings I want you to look at. When you've read them, tell me what you think your chances are of spending those fifties.”

He reached carefully into his pocket as he spoke and now he stood up and put the two clippings on the table. He unfolded them, spread them out, placed the cable he had received from Walt Lanning beside them. Then, while McBride put the gun down and read the accounts of the Hartford bank robbery, he spoke of his own theory and explained where he had found the clippings.

“Four hundred and twenty thousand dollars,” he said, “but only a hundred that can be traced. Fifties. New ones with the numbers listed. Not one has shown up, and you know why, don't you? Because Hudson got stuck with them—his name is probably Haney, like the cable says—and he hasn't dared spend them in any legitimate transaction.”

McBride was watching him now and he hammered at his opening. “There won't be a big-city bank in the world that isn't on the lookout for those bills right now,” he said. “Deposit them right here in Georgetown and see. You might be able to get rid of a bill here and there, but I'll bet you couldn't spend a thousand dollars anywhere before someone nailed you…. Or were you figuring on hiding out in the bush with Muriel the rest of your life?”

McBride had to take one idea at a time, but he seemed to accept the suggestion that the cash had been stolen.

“Hudson was taking off Monday with Lambert's diamonds,” he said, as though talking to himself.

“For Trinidad and Central America,” Barry said, “according to the flight tickets I saw.”

“I was supposed to fly Lambert to Caracas on Monday.” The voice was still quiet as the truth began to dawn. “He was going to take the cash with him. When the bank checked those fifties they'd find out they were hot and he'd wind up without a dime of it. Brother!”

He let his breath out and suddenly, the thought complete as he understood the perfidious cleverness of Hudson's scheme, his brows bent and his mouth was mean.

“The dirty bastard,” he said, leaving no doubt as to whom he meant. “He's not going to get away with it I'll go over there with a gun—”

“You'll go nowhere,” Barry cut in, his voice rasping. “Forget Hudson. The police will take care of him soon enough. You're not in any great trouble, so why don't you play it smart for once?”

He was a hard man with an idea, McBride. When he got one he hated to let go and it was not easy to dismiss the thought of the hundred thousand dollars he hoped to have. But when at last he was convinced, he gave in completely.

“Okay,” he growled, his mind made up. “You're right.”

He pushed the clippings aside and picked up the gun. He looked over at Muriel and then he stiffened where he was. When Barry noticed this and glanced round to find out why, the woman was already pointing the little automatic at McBride.

“Leave it there!” she said, her voice cold. “Don't touch it!” You're not going to quit on me now, lover; you or anybody else.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I
N THOSE NEXT FEW SECONDS
while the silence expanded and the tension spread through the room Barry was not sure what was going to happen. A covert glance told him Lynn was well out of the way, but his jacket was still buttoned and he knew he could not get at his gun, even if he had the chance. McBride, too, was undecided.

His bronzed hand covered the heavier automatic, but the fingers were relaxed. He studied the woman with smoldering eyes and watched her come to her feet, the little weapon steady in her right hand, the left tucking the handbag from which it must have come under her left arm.