Nightmare in Morocco (17 page)

"I'll sit here a while."

The envelope wasn't sealed, but as soon as Marie was out of sight, Noa ripped it open and unfolded the paper.

"Dear Noa,

By the time you get this letter, I will be buried
and my last will and testament will be known to you
.
You will
, I know, have Cathy with you in Spain or wherever your travels take you
.

There are things I should have told you
.
How hard
it is for me to write them, still it's easier than
speaking them
to you!

You have without doubt believed I have left all my
holdings to you because of Cathy's immaturity, because
I trust
totally in your judgment and fairness
.
However, it is not right for me to leave it at that.
I can't write of the endless trouble, the endless fights, Cathy and I have had
.
I have tried and failed
I can’t
do anything with her
.
I blame him, the so
called boyfriend who has taken control of her mind
.
Still the
final word is: Cathy is a thief
.
She has
stolen everything
from me she could get her hands on, most regretfully for me, the coins I have collected and treasured th
r
oughout my whole life
.
I can
not understand such deceit
.
Do I forgive her?
Yes
.
Because I love her in spite of everything
.
She is
my little girl.
I
am leaving this letter with our dear friend,
Wendell
.
He will give it to you after I am gone
.
My
dying
another thing I have kept from you
is
inevitable. Have
I tricked you?
Yes
.
My greatest wish is
for you
to take Cathy and influence her, make her,
like yourself
, someone to be proud of.
You, my sister, are the very greatest friend I have
had in
my lifetime
.
I am depending on you now
.
Mike."

Noa reread the letter, then laid her head on the table and sobbed.

Chapter Eight

"My body is at death's door," Wendell Carlson said as Noa entered his hospital room the next morning
.
"But my mind is still ambitious."

"This sounds like a Shakespeare play," Noa laughed, relieved to see him sitting up in bed, the familiar, sardonic light glowing in his eyes
.
"Where doth such ambition lead?"

"To one question," he answered promptly
.
"Will you become my business partner?"

The dream of Noa's whole life was now ever so casually being offered to her
.
She thought of all the times she had longed for the financial backing to achieve part ownership of Carlson Rand tours
.
Once she had even considered asking Mike to help her
.
Now that she had the cash it took to say an immediate yes, she was surprised at her hesitation
.
"Why have you suddenly decided to take on a partner?"

"Health problems
.
Other matters I haven't wanted to worry you with
.
I'm going to have to lighten my work load
.
That's why I hired Taber Rand
.
These past few months, I've needed Taber's assistance more than I care to admit."

"Have you asked Taber to become a partner?"

Skillfully, Wendell evaded the question
.
"I always wanted your dad and
me
to run the business together. I even told him I'd secure loans for him, but he wouldn't throw in with me without what he called sufficient and proper backing
.
My life would have been less painful if he had
without the Thomas Rand experience
.
But that's in the past
.
Noa, money is no object with you
.
I know Mike left you more than the amount we're talking about."

Noa's mind flitted to the letter Mike had left with him, to the unsealed envelope
.
No, she told herself sternly, Wendell Carlson wasn't a reader of other people's mail.

Wendell studied her with arched brow
.
"What's wrong, Noa?
I thought you'd be glad to accept my offer."

"Right now, we have so much else to discuss."

In the stillness that followed, Wendell's eyes widened
.
That was part of his persuasive charm
.
He seldom, if ever, applied pressure
.
She had witnessed the numerous times he had profited by his silences
.
She believed the flourishing of his business to be the direct result of the power of his personality
.
She had always believed its force to be based upon an almost pure sincerity
.
She wondered for the first time if he picked up his manner as a tool, like a carpenter lifts a hammer, to accomplish, in his case, some scheming end
.
"I'll need to think about it."

"While you're thinking, I'll just call the home office and supply you with figures
.
The facts of Carlson Rand you already know."
His voice became mocking
.
"Just in case you don't intend to spend the rest of your life loafing around the
Riviera
."

"Do you think I have the experience necessary?"

Silence again, followed by the same widening of gaze
.
"Ann always grieved because she couldn't give me a son
.
I did, too, until I first saw you."
He spoke slowly, emphatically, "You are my chosen
.
The one to whom I intend to pass my torch, if you'll allow Shakespeare a
cliché
."

"It's your script," Noa laughed again, feeling convinced, and more than a little honored that such a man as Wendell Carlson would consider her as a daughter, one preferable to any son he could imagine
.
"But I'm more interested in what's going on on this tour
.
Tell me everything that happened before you were attacked."

"I should have gone directly to the bank, but I had to see Ali Balsam about a business deal we're cooking up, so I stopped by the medina on the way."

She realized now how little she had impressed upon him the great danger involved in transporting Belda's ring
.
He
probably
even confined her rambling talk of lurking thieves and falling columns to wild imagination
.
How lucky she was that he had not been killed!

"Can you tell me anything at all about your attacker?"

"Nothing much
.
He wore a dark, hooded robe and I believe, in addition, he had a black scarf wrapped around his face. I wouldn't swear to that
.
I had walked past the fountain
.
He rushed at me from behind and I remember two blows."

"What did he hit you with?"

His eyes narrowed in concentration
.
"I'm not sure, but I
believe it was a chunk of rock
.
Maybe a cobblestone from the path."

"Were there any witnesses?"

"At that moment, the clearing was deserted
.
Ali found me. He said a crowd had gathered around me by that time."

"Did they take only the ring?"

"My billfold, too, where I had put the emerald for safekeeping
.
The wallet itself had only fifty or sixty dollars in it
.
They found it tossed nearby."

"What do you make of it?"
Noa asked him.

"Robberies occur more frequently here than they used to
.
The police believe it is just another one of them."
Wendell's alert eyes strayed to hers
.
"Of course it's someone on the tour who knew you gave me the ring."

"You were going to tell me something about Taber."

"You remember Clyde Graham, retired from Scotland Yard?
I hired him over a year ago to investigate the company's missing money."
Wendell smiled
.
"Graham's an Englishman
.
Never been able to let go of it
.
When I hired Taber Rand he was furious
.
He said he was working with the idea that Taber received the vast sums his father had
embezzled."
Wendell paused. "That makes Taber an accomplice."

"Surely not."

"I hired Taber Rand in haste," Wendell said with that sudden widening of gaze
.
"The way things are going, I might not have the leisure to repent of it."

"Do you really believe...
?”

"I don't know what to believe
.
Graham called early this morning
.
He's flying in tomorrow with what he calls a breakthrough."

"Did he tell you what?"

 
"He wouldn't talk about it on the phone
.
He did tell me some other things."

"What?"

"I've had him run a check on the whole tour list
.
This Greg Corbin who claims to be a student at Newark College of Engineering has in fact never enrolled
.
They've never heard of him
.
And Mo
u
lay Aziz was picked up at Heathrow in January for tying to leave the country with a great sum of undeclared cash."

"Do you think he's a smuggler?"

"Graham thinks he's some sort of political activist
.
But he could be an international jewel thief instead."

"What about the others?"

"Belda Ward has the record of a saint
feeds the hungry, patronizes the arts
.
Milton was one of her down and outers.

He's been married four times," Wendell gave a short laugh, "which is insane, but not criminal
.
And Marie is in our camp
.
I've demanded that they search all members of the tour."

"Which wasn't such a good idea," a voice from the doorway admonished
.
Taber strode into the room
.
His solemn,
harassed
manner caused Noa to wonder how long he had been standing outside the door. "Some of them raised a terrible fuss
.
Especially
Milton Ward
.
That man has a nasty temper!
And Moulay Aziz is threatening to bring suit against us."

Wendell closed his eyes
.
"My day is complete
.
You resolve these problems, Rand
.
That's why I hired you."

"Did the police find anything?" Noa asked.

Taber looked from Wendell to her and answered with a searing gaze and a question of his own
.
"Did you believe they would?"

"Whoever stole it," Noa said, "would not have the ring
.
He would be smart enough to
hide
it." "You're right
.
They've gone over the hotel like a swarm of bees over honeycombs
.
Nothing."

"They wouldn't hide the ring in the hotel,"
Noa said, rising
.
"
But
there's other places to look."

* * *

Noa decided she must talk to Ali Balsam herself, and that meant going alone into the medina
.
Street peddlers carrying leather goods and postcards swarmed beneath the huge stone archway
.
Someone tugged at her arm, proffering a billfold that made her think of the one stolen from Wendell that the thief had cast aside
.
Impatiently Noa waved him away and began to walk faster
.
As if recognizing her mood, others who had started to follow her, fell back.