West of Guam (47 page)

The fat man said hoarsely: “No—it is not—like that—”

Jo Gar nodded. “It
is
—like that,” he contradicted. “You come to me and tell me a story that is not true. You go to Vincente and tell him another. You received no telephone call threatening his life. But you wished to break his nerve. You knew when the new ride would start operation, and
you
told Matoy to suggest to the new ride’s owner the purchase of a certain sort of bell—”

The half-breed’s eyes were very narrow. He was calm now, too calm.

Jo Gar watched him closely, and after a brief pause, said:

“But even with the bell—and with persons shooting, you could not be sure that he would be hit. He might have risen—and escaped death. The shooters might have seen him in time. So Matoy fixed a gun in a manner that caused it to jam, and went into the little room. That removed him from the scene, and allowed him to say he could not know who was shooting. And one of those who was shooting was Katayou, who is a fine shot—”

The fat half-breed made a hissing sound, his body rigid near the chair. Jo Gar slipped his right hand into the right pocket of his drill coat. He said tonelessly:

“And your daughter screamed—not
after
Vincente was killed, Señor Kanochi, but
before.
She screamed when she heard the bell at the ride behind the shooting gallery ring—and as she saw Vincente’s head appear. And Katayou used the repeating rifle several times—then slipped away in the crowd. Vincente was dead, and it was not an accident.”

There was silence except for the heavy breathing of the fat half-breed. Then Kanochi said:

“You are guessing at these things.”

Jo Gar said: “Some I know—from them I make what you call guesses. They are good guesses.”

Kanochi said: “You are wrong. It was I who stood in the crowd and used the rifle! It was I who killed the weakling Vincente! He was a gambler, and brutal to his wife—my daughter. Katayou is a good man—a fine man. That is why I killed Vincente.”

Jo Gar shook his head. “You are too fat and too well known—you were not in the crowd—”

Kanochi’s eyes became a stare, beyond Jo. With a swift movement the Island detective swung around. But even as he was swinging he saw the half-breed’s right hand come up. He checked his swing, jerked his body to one side and got his Colt clear of the pocket.

But Kanochi’s hands were empty. Liquid dripped from his lower lip; he swayed a little. His right hand fell to his side, and the ring was held in the light, with the stone of red swung away from the lower half. Jo Gar stood quietly and said in a low tone:

“Poison.”

Kanochi nodded, swaying. It was a jerky, broken nod. He said in a thinner voice than ever:

“I planned—the murder. I used the gun. My daughter has gone away—with Katayou—they must be happy. Vincente was bad—you know that, I did it—for them. Let them—go—”

Jo Gar said very gently: “You did not—use the repeating rifle.

Katayou used it—”

The half-breed spoke with choking effort. His face was a graying, twisted mask.

“Let them—go—and be happy—”

He pitched forward and fell heavily to the polished wood of the floor. Jo Gar said suddenly and in a strange tone:

“Very well—it shall be as you wish—”

The half-breed pounded the floor with a clenched fist. He forced words from between his lips.

“It is—good. Go—and let me die alone—”

Jo Gar bowed slightly. He turned his back on the big man on the polished floor, went from the veranda. He walked slowly away from the house and the sound and color of the
Park of the Moon.
It was not pleasant to see a man die in convulsions. He was convinced that Katayou had actually murdered Vincente Calleo, but of that fact he could not be sure. And Señor Kanochi had planned the murder, of
that
he
was
sure. He decided, on the long walk back to his office just off the Escolta, that he would keep his word to the half-breed. He would report that Kanochi had murdered his son-in-law. It would be as the man who was now probably dead had wished. And in a sense it was justice—a life for a life.

A Chinese boy answered the veranda bell which had made a musical, clanging sound within the house. The house was on the outskirts of Manila; it faced Oriental Road, and the Pasig River was at its rear, beyond a garden of palms and jungle growth. The Chinese boy had slick, black hair and dark, wide eyes. Jo said:

“Señor Gar—Monsieur Lemere has sent for me.”

The Chinese boy bowed and opened the polished door wide. His eyes held a frightened expression. As the Island detective stepped into a large, square room a deep-toned clock struck the hour of eight. The tones echoed and reechoed through the house.

From the distance, from some spot beyond the screened and shuttered windows, there came a low cry which graduated into a high wail and then fell again to the low note. Jo Gar removed his pith helmet and ran stubby, brown fingers through his gray hair. He looked questioningly at the house-boy.

“What is that?” he asked in his toneless voice.

The house-boy made the sign of the cross. His face showed fear—the whole, brown fatness of it.

“He weeps for Señor Delancey—it is the
Americano’s
boy,” he replied,

Jo Gar said: “Gerry Delancey?”

The Chinese boy nodded. “I am Monsieur Lemere’s boy,” he explained.

The Island detective smiled very slightly. “And for that reason you do not weep,” he said.

A hoarse voice called out suddenly, from a room above:

“Tanyo, damn you! Show Señor Gar up here. Hurry, damn you—hurry! You’re all the same—the whole stinking breed of you. Chatter, chatter talk nonsense—all the time—day and night—”

The voice was shaken, uncertain. It was almost as though the speaker were damning the house-boy in order to hear his own voice. Jo Gar half closed his gray-blue eyes and glanced towards the broad stairs. The house-boy said:

“You come, please—”

He moved almost soundlessly across the waxed floor. Manila was hot, had been hot for weeks. Hot with the reek of the tropics. But this house was cool almost damp. There was an odor of incense. It was a good, well-built house, and the Island detective imagined that the typhoon winds did not rock it too much, in season. Not even so much as they rocked the building in which he had his small office, just off the Escolta, Manila’s main business street.

There was a small room to the right of the stairs, and the house-boy halted in the doorway, stood to one side. He made a small but graceful gesture with his left hand and said softly:

“The Señor Gar.”

Jo Gar smiled a little at the boy’s use of the word “the.” He went into the room and saw that Lemere was standing with his back to a large screened window. Lemere was a big man, over six feet tall and weighing more than two hundred pounds. He was supposed to be of French descent, but he had lived for some fifteen years in the islands. He had brown hair and eyes and high cheek bones, and a mouth that Jo Gar did not like. The lips were too thin and straight.

Lemere said in his hoarse voice, speaking in English and with little accent:

“These damned Chinks and Filipinos—”

He checked himself abruptly, realizing that Jo Gar was a half-breed, and that there was Filipino blood in his veins. The Island detective said nothing. From the jungle growth at the rear of the house, somewhere between it and the river, there came the wail of Delancey’s house-boy. Lemere put large, brown hands to his ears and shook his head slowly from side to side. Then he took his hands away and shouted hoarsely:

“Tanyo—have that damned yelling stopped! Tell that boy I’ll come down there and beat him—”

His voice trailed off. He stared at Jo Gar as though he were seeing him the first time. He said:

“Good—I’m glad you came. Delancey’s dead. Murdered.”

Jo Gar said: “Murdered?”

Lemere nodded. “I haven’t sent for the police yet, haven’t made any report. Wanted you to come here first. They bungle things so much. And you seem to get somewhere. So I sent for you. I’m glad you came.”

Jo Gar’s gray-blue eyes moved around the room. It was comfortably furnished in wicker; there were fan-back chairs made in the great Bilibid prison, several tables and wicker book shelves. From the large windows one looked over the garden to the Pasig; two hundred yards or so distant, and curving sharply at this point.

The Island detective looked at Lemere again. He recalled that the Frenchman had lived with Gerald Delancey for several years, in this house. That is, they had lived together during the six months or so they were in Manila. The rest of the time they spent in travel about the Islands, and around China and Japan. They collected for one of the biggest curio houses in the Orient—Rescelli. They were pretty well known in Manila; both were members of the English Club; each was a bachelor. They were together a great deal; Jo recalled that only a week or so ago he had seen them attending a soccer game, near the old Walled City.

Lemere said:

“This is pretty rotten, Señor Gar. Coming as it did—”

Jo Gar said: “The death occurred here—in this house?”

Lemere ran fingers across his forehead, shivered. He went to a small table and poured himself a drink of what appeared to be brandy. When he looked questioningly at the Island detective, Jo shook his head.

“No thanks,” he said. “It would be well if I were to see—”

Lemere nodded. “That’s what I took the drink for,” he breathed. “Gerry was my—best friend—”

He moved past Jo, and the Island detective followed him. They went along a narrow hall, came to a closed door. Lemere opened it, went into a room that was becoming dark. Jo followed him in, halted near the door. The room was about ten feet wide and quite long. Thirty feet, perhaps. It had only two small windows; there was a heavy odor of incense. The windows were at each end of the room, which apparently ran from the front to the rear of the house. Each window was screened.

The wall space was almost covered by the objects hanging on it. There were native shields and spears, head-dresses of various types, tribal, religious markings and poles, strings of beads—wooden and stone and metal. On the several tables of the room were small objects of all types, weapons and trinkets and cooking utensils—mostly tribal. The room was fairly dark; it had a somber feeling. At one end of one table there was a crude incense burner, and though the incense was only ash, the odor was still strong. There were two wicker chairs, and near the small window that faced towards the Pasig River there was a low couch covered with a brownish rug of some sort of rough material.

Lemere stood for several seconds looking towards the couch, then turned away from it. His eyes met Jo’s briefly; he said:

“On the couch—where I found him. I haven’t—touched a thing in here.”

The Island detective moved towards the body on the couch. He was thinking, as he went towards it in the dusk, with the odor of the incense in his nostrils, of strange death—poison by incense or liquid. The room gave him that sort of feeling.

But the body of Gerald Delancey held nothing mysterious in the way of death. He lay flat on his back, his eyes staring at the ceiling, wide. There was a bullet wound in the left temple and another in the throat. Both wounds were small, and from the one in the temple little blood had flowed. The right fist was clenched; the left held the material of the couch cover in a tight grip. There was a half bitter, half sardonic smile on Delancey’s rather sallow face. It was almost as though he had expected death, and had mocked it when it had come.

Delancey had been a small, rather slight man. He had sparse, blond hair and blue eyes. In death he seemed to have grown smaller.

Jo Gar turned slowly and looked about the room. Lemere sank into one of the wicker chairs and wiped his perspiring face with a handkerchief. The wailing in the growth back of the house had stopped. One of the small river tugs made a whistle sound. The Island detective’s eyes came away from the curios on the walls. He moved nearer Lemere.

“You had quarreled,” he said slowly.

Lemere took his handkerchief away from brown eyes swiftly. He sat erect in the chair, his lips working without making sound. Jo said: “I did not say that you had killed Delancey. I said that you had quarreled.”

Lemere was breathing heavily. “That damned Chink!” he muttered. “I hate the breed—”

Jo spoke with faint impatience. “Your nerves are not good. You sent for me before the police because you felt one whom you would pay would be more sympathetic. You have had recent trouble with Delancey, and you are a bit worried about the police.”

Lemere did not speak. Jo said: “Your house-boy told me nothing. But you were foolish to have told him he must not speak of the quarrel you had with Delancey. That might cause trouble. Many humans quarrel, but few murder because of that fact.”

There was a little silence. Lemere said heavily:

“We quarreled over business. I thought he was letting some of the stuff we got in Java go too cheaply. We’ve been doing badly lately. This depression has hurt our business, which is a luxury business. Our nerves were bad, too. We had a nasty scrap last night, and another just after
siesta
time, this afternoon. There are five of us living here—and I took the Chinese cook and my house-boy and went into the city, at four o’clock. I was angry and thought of finding another place. A place for myself and the servants.”

He paused. Jo spoke softly:

“That left Delancey and his house-boy here.”

The Frenchman shook his head. “His house-boy went away yesterday, to visit his parents. He returned here from north of the city at seven o’clock. I had come back, by that time and had found—the body. I returned with the servants at about six-forty. The cook went into his quarters to change his clothes. I called Delancey’s name several times, then came up here. This is stuff we haven’t sold to Rescelli for one reason or another. We use the room often. The door was half opened—and things were just as they are now.”

Jo Gar seated himself in a straight backed wicker and looked around the room. His eyes went from one hanging object to another. As he used them he said: