The Adventurers (96 page)

Dania's eyes searched mine for a moment. I think she intuitively knew what I was planning. "Don't do it, Dax," she said in a low voice, "he's not worth it!"

I didn't answer. I started for the door. As I opened it, Dania stopped me. "I'm not like that, Dax, am I? Like he said, a stick of wood?"

The bastard really knew how to stick it in where it hurt. Unerringly he had discovered Dania's area of greatest doubts. I shook my head and bent to kiss her cheek.

"No, you're not like that at all," I said. "Besides, what would a man like that know about women? If he didn't have all that money he'd be going steady with his fist!"

Fat Cat came into my room as I was loading the small revolver. He blinked his eyes rapidly and the sleep disappeared. "What are you planning to do?"

I snapped the barrel into place and spun the chamber. It clicked softly and rhythmically in my ears. "I'm going to do something I should have done a long time ago." "Campion?" I nodded.

Fat Cat hesitated a moment, then came toward me. "Better let me do it. I have had more experience."

"No," I said, slipping the gun into my jacket pocket. "It will not look good, for you or for Corteguay. There is enough talk already about Guayanos."

"So there will be more talk," I said. "Besides, I have a better chance of convincing the police it was an accident than you.

Who is there who will doubt it when I say we were examining the gun and it went off?"

Fat Cat looked at me skeptically.

"After all," I said, "I am an ambassador, am I not?"

After a moment, Fat Cat shrugged his shoulders. "Si, excelencia." A faintly mocking glint came into his eyes but I could tell he was satisfied with me. "But, excellency, are you sure you remember how to work that thing?"

"I remember," I said.

"Be careful, then." He opened the door for me. "Don't shoot yourself."

Almost three hours after I had left Marcel's, the taciturn Oriental butler let me in again. It was a few minutes after four in the morning, but he looked as if he never slept.

"I have the key to the elevator," I said.

The butler nodded. "Mr. Campion told me. Don't forget to turn the key again when you get off."

I nodded. The door to Marcel's living room was open. I turned and locked the elevator door behind me and walked in. The lights were still on but the room was empty.

The door to Marcel's bedroom was ajar, so I walked over and looked in, restraining an impulse to shout at him. It made no sense to be polite to a man you had already made up your mind to kill. The room was dark. I switched on the lights. The bed was empty. It had not been slept in. I walked through to the dressing room, and then into the bathroom. Each was empty.

I came back into the living room and tried the door of the guest room. It was locked from the inside. Marcel had either called up another girl and gone in there with her or was asleep and with his usual paranoia had locked the door behind him. Either way, I wasn't about to wait to find out. I knocked loudly on the door and shouted. "Marcel!"

I waited a moment, then repeated my call. There was still no answer. I walked slowly back to the bar and poured myself a drink. At least I was sure he was alone. If anyone had been with him there would have been an answer. Probably he had gone in there and passed out.

I took a sip of my drink and glanced up at the paneling behind the bar. Then I remembered the closed-circuit television. I walked around behind the bar, found the button, and pressed it.

Silently the panel rolled back. It took a moment for the set to warm up. The first place I looked was on the bed. It was empty. Then I saw Marcel. Slowly I let the breath escape from my mouth. Someone had beat me to it; Marcel was already dead.

He was lying on his stomach on the floor beside the bed. His head was arched peculiarly, his eyes protruding from their sockets, his thick swollen tongue sticking out from his mouth. He was in his shirt sleeves, his collar open, and a black silken cord had been wound around his neck, then back to the hands tied behind his back, and from there to his ankles. It was pulled so tightly behind him that it made of his body a taut bow.

I stared at him for a moment, my drink forgotten. It was as viciously simple and neatly executed as anything I had ever seen. Whoever had done it had been a true professional, and there was no doubt in my mind that Marcel had been alive when the murderer left the room. But only for a few moments. Then he had killed himself by struggling to free himself, which only tightened the black silk cord around his miserable neck.

I took another sip of the drink, then reached for the telephone on the bar. I pressed the button marked butler.

"Yes, Mr. Campion?" The Oriental voice had a peculiar sibilance over the telephone.

"This isn't Mr. Campion, it's Mr. Xenos. Did anyone come to see Mr. Campion while I was away?"

There was a slight hesitation. "No, sir, not to my knowledge. I didn't let anyone in the front door since you left with the ladies."

I looked at the television screen. "Then I suggest you call the police. Mr. Campion appears to be dead."

Slowly I put down the telephone and lit a cigarette. I sat there smoking and sipping my drink as I waited for the police to arrive. I remember the words of a bank robber I had once met named Willie Sutton. He had written a book about himself and for a while he was sort of a party pet.

"There isn't a safe, a vault, a bank or a prison made by man that another man could not find a way to break into or out of, if he wanted to badly enough."

I wondered grimly what Marcel would have said had he heard those words. Probably nothing. He thought he was the only one who had everything figured out. I smiled grimly to myself.

I wondered how much good all his money and his schemes were doing him now.

CHAPTER
26

The murder of Marcel had all the classic elements the newspapers love, and they made the most of it. The well-guarded house, the impenetrable apartment, the locked room, and one of the richest, most hated men in the world as the victim. Added too were hints of international financial intrigue, and hundreds of photographs of beautiful women and expensive call girls. It was like Christmas for them every day. They had everything they needed except one thing. The murderer.

A captain of homicide put it very well late one afternoon about a week later in my office. By this time we had begun to feel as if we knew each other quite well. There had not been one day since the murder we had not seen each other. "Mr. Xenos," he said, knocking out his pipe in the ash tray on my desk, "it will take years to complete this investigation. And when we're finished we'll be no closer to who the murderer is than we are right now. It's not because we lack suspects. I could name at least fifty people who had good reason to kill him."

I smiled to myself. This cop was not stupid, just too polite to say that I was included.

"Each time we come back to his apartment. We're checked it thoroughly, over and over, backward and forward. And there is no possible way a murderer could get into the house without being noticed, much less upstairs."

"But one did," I said.

The policeman nodded. "Yes, one did. And it wasn't the servants either. The old joke about the butler won't work this time. They all have airtight alibis."

The captain got to his feet. "Well, I've taken as much of your time as I intend to." He held out his hand, a faint smile on his lips. "I'll be retiring at the end of the year, Mr. Xenos. Here's hoping I won't be seeing you again."

I took his hand, looking at him quizzically.

"I mean at least not under circumstances like these. Twice we've met in the last two months and each time a man had been killed."

Then I remembered. Of course. He had questioned me after the Guayanos killing. I shook his hand and laughed. "Wait a minute, Captain. You're making it sound as if it were dangerous for me to know anyone."

"I didn't mean that," he added hastily. "Oh, you know what I mean."

"Don't explain, Captain," I said, "I understand. By the way, would you do me a favor?"

"If I can."

"I would like to get in touch with the Guayanos girl. Would you know where I could reach her?"

A look of surprise came over his face. "Don't you know?"

I shook my head.

"The day after we released the body she and her uncle took it home for burial."

"To Corteguay?"

The captain nodded. "Yes, that was why I thought you knew. Your embassy cleared the papers."

That explained it; I had been in Europe. "Did a man named Mendoza go with them?"

"I think so. At least he got on the plane with them, but there was one stop in Miami and he may have gotten off there. I can check it if you like."

I shook my head. "No, thanks, Captain. It's not that important."

The captain left the office and I sat brooding about it. Strange that I had heard nothing. There should have been word from Corteguay. Mendoza was not the sort of man Hoyos was likely to overlook. I called for our copies of the daily arrival and departure lists at the Curatu airport for that week.

Beatriz' name was recorded and so was her uncle's, but there was no name resembling Mendoza. I folded the sheets slowly. On the list or not, I was certain Mendoza was in Corteguay. A sense of foreboding came over me. For a moment I thought of sending a cable. But then I decided against it. I was not the secret police. Let Hoyos and Prieto do their own dirty work.

The revolution did not come until almost two months later. The first I heard about the uprising was on Easter Sunday morning, that same day originally planned for the election. I was in Dania's apartment. We were sitting up in bed having breakfast when she picked up the remote-control gadget that operated the television set at the foot of the bed. "Do you mind if I turn on the twelve-o'clock news?"

"Do I have to get dressed for it?" I asked.

Dania laughed, and pressed the button. A moment later the picture came on. As usual it was a soap commercial. Then one of those good-looking nothing types standard to television came on. "And now, ladies and gentlemen, from the CBS newsroom in New York—the news!"

The scene dissolved to the face of a serious man seated behind a desk. His somewhat pudgy face, rather prominent nose, bushy mustache, and slightly protruding eyes induced an immediate sense of confidence. This man knew what he was talking about, even if you were aware that he was reading what others had written for him.

I bit into a piece of toast and watched.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen." The big smooth voice flowed out into the room. "This is Walter Johnson, CBS News. Now for the first item.

"We have another bulletin on the fighting in Corteguay."

I just had time to glance at Dania before he continued. There was a wide, startled look in her eyes.

"Battles in the mountains between the government troops and the guerrilleros continued throughout the night. The rebels have captured two more villages and say that they have inflicted heavy casualties upon the government forces. According to their statements, picked up from their own radio station broadcasting in the field, they appear to be but sixty miles from the capital city of Curatu. They are in complete control of all the country to the north.

"Meanwhile to the south other rebel forces have been swelled by the mass defection of regular army troops joining them in their march north to link forces with the strong rebel concentration of troops on the other side of Curatu.

"In Curatu itself a military curfew has been established. The streets are empty but occasional bursts of gunfire are heard, especially in the port area, where soldiers are stationed to protect the sea approaches to the city. Almost anything seen moving is fired upon.

"Meanwhile, several times this morning, President de Cordoba took to the radio to make an impassioned plea to the populace to stay calm in the midst of this crisis. He implored responsible officials and the army to remain loyal to the government and steadfast and determined in what—and I quote—he called their 'opposition to the seductions and promises of the Communists to the south and the lawlessness and violence of the bandoleros to the north.' President de Cordoba termed the growing war not a revolution but the first overt invasion of Latin America by the Communists. He claimed—and again I quote—that it was 'planned, conceived, led, and supplied by men and forces from outside the country.' He further stated that he personally intends to take charge of the army tomorrow after he has made certain provisions for the orderly continuation of government. He promises—and again a quote—not to rest until he has 'driven the bandits over the borders and into the seas over which they came.'"

The camera switched to another angle, and the commentator picked up a sheet of paper. "The State Department in Washington has announced plans for the immediate safety and evacuation of any Americans in Corteguay should this become necessary."

He put that sheet down and picked up another. "Pan American Airlines has announced the temporary suspension of flights to Curatu until the situation has clarified. The daily flight schedules which have read New York, Miami, Curatu, Bogota, will now read New York, Miami, Bogota."

The camera angle again switched and this time the news analyst spoke without notes. "Attempts to reach the Corteguayan ambassador at the embassy here in New York have been without success. The doors of the Corteguayan consulate have been barred to the press since the early hours of the morning. It is not known whether Senor Xenos, who has been in the news himself lately, is in the city or not.

"And now to other news. Here in New York, the Easter parade is—"

There was a click and the picture faded from the screen. I was out of the bed and half dressed when Dania turned to look at me.

"What does it all mean?" she asked.

I paused in the midst of buttoning my shirt and stared at her. What did it mean? A thousand thoughts flashed through my mind. Marcel could have been right. What right had I to spend nights away from the consulate when deep inside I had always known that at any moment the explosion might come? I didn't have to ask myself where my brains were; Marcel had told me very explicitly.