West of Guam (62 page)

The Island detective said gently, looking at the older woman seated in the room:

“You think Markden killed Dario Cardoro?”

The girl said: “Yes—yes, I do! I’m sure of it. I was with Dario at the cock fights. He was sure he had been tricked. He said he would never pay. Riazo had no life, no fight. Dario left me in the box, hurried away. He was terribly upset.”

Jo gestured towards a chair. “Please sit down,” he said.

The girl went slowly to the chair, sat down. She looked at the older woman, said:

“This is my companion—Señora Riggia.”

The Spanish woman bowed, her eyes on Jo’s. She was short and thick-set. Her body relaxed in the chair.

“It is terrible,” she said with an accent.

Jo Gar nodded. “It is bad for Señor Markden, the American,” he stated. “He was owed money by the dead man. It was refused him. He threatened the dead man. He was on the hotel grounds not long before the murder was committed. He has vanished.”

The girl said, “They will find him—the police.”

The Island detective nodded. “I think so,” he agreed. “But he is not the murderer of the magician, Cardoro.”

The girl’s brown eyes widened. She said in a half whisper: “Not the—murderer—”

Jo smiled gently. His eyes were on the older woman. Her hands were gripping the sides of the wicker chair. Far out in the Bay a big boat whistled. Jo spoke slowly.

“Markden has been in trouble with the police before. He has shot a man. He possesses a gun. He did not use it on Cardoro.”

The older woman said sharply, “That was because he did not wish to give himself away. He wished the police to think it was some other person—not an American. Americans do not use knives.”

Jo Gar said, “That is good reasoning, Señora. Almost
too
good.” He looked at the girl again. There was a short silence. Then Jo said pleasantly:

“I have been looking at the body. Cardoro was killed by a strong person.”

The girl said: “A strong person? That is not so. The doctors have said that the spur blade did not penetrate more than an inch. A blow to the base of the brain—”

The Island detective interrupted, but his tone was cold and his words unhurried.

“And Markden is not a strong person?” he suggested.

The girl said with scorn: “Of course not. He is smaller even than you.”

Jo bowed slightly. “That is so,” he agreed. “I felt that you were aware of the fact that Markden is not strong.”

There was a knock at the door of the room. The girl rose. Before she reached the door it was opened. Sadi Ratan entered. He said quickly, looking at the Spanish woman:

“I felt that you should know, Señora—”

He stared at Jo, broke off. The Island detective smiled at him.

“I came to talk with Miss Rayne, Lieutenant,” he said.

Sadi Ratan frowned. Then his eyes narrowed until they were slits in his brown face.

“We have captured the American, Markden,” he said grimly. “He has admitted that Señor Gar visited him tonight. That is bad for you, Señor Gar. You were protecting a murderer, one wanted by the police.” Jo Gar said quietly, “One wanted by the police, but not a murderer.”

The police lieutenant said in a hard tone, “He will confess very soon. And even if he does not—”

The Island detective smiled with his lips. “You will try to hang him, anyway,” he finished.

Sadi Ratan let his right hand go back towards a hip pocket. He said in a hard tone:

“It will be necessary for me to place you under arrest, Señor Gar, for interfering with the police and for aiding a murderer.”

Jo shook his head. “Señor Markden is not yet a murderer,” he reminded. “He has not been found guilty.”

The girl said with scorn: “His record is not good. He has shot a man. He is a gambler and he has been caught cheating, before this happened. He killed Dario—because Dario refused to pay him.”

Jo shook his head. His eyes were very small.

“You know much about the American,” he said calmly. “Almost
too
much.”

Sadi Ratan was watching him closely. Jo looked at the girl, addressed the police lieutenant.

“The Great Cardoro has done his tricks here often—for a period of years. He is Spanish—there is a bond between him and the Spanish here. There is a Spanish paper in Manila. News of Spaniards all over the world reaches it and is printed or filed away in the paper morgue. I have been looking through the morgue files. I find that Cardoro was worth twice as much two years ago than he was six months ago. His losses were due to gambling. I found a later item stating that Cardoro the Great had become engaged to an American girl of the theatre, Miss Jessie Rayne. And I found one more item of three months ago. In Melbourne a gambling place was raided. One of the heaviest losers had been Cardoro. He had stated then that he was willing his money to Miss Rayne, his fiancée, and that on the day of their marriage he would never gamble again.”

The girl was watching him narrowly—her breathing was heavy. The older woman was tense in her chair. Jo said, smiling a little:

“So there you are.”

Sadi Ratan said sharply, “There you are—where? What of it?”

Jo Gar shrugged. “But Cardoro has continued gambling. Continued losing. His fortune is willed to Miss Rayne. But will there
be
any fortune—would there
have been
any fortune—if Cardoro had not been—”

The girl shrilled at him, “You are telling me that
I
killed—Dario!

You dare—”

Jo Gar shook his head. “I am not,” he said quietly. “You did not love him, but you did not kill him. You do not know so much about knives, and you are not strong enough.”

The girl’s eyes were wide; her face was pale. Sadi Ratan breathed something that the Island detective did not catch. He said softly:

“But you realized, Miss Rayne, that the money you had married Cardoro for would not be for you, unless something was done. And you decided that something should be—death.”

The girl cried: “No—”

Jo Gar said steadily: “Yes. You waited for the opportunity. The American, Markden, offered it. He had reason to hate Cardoro. He had a record and you knew about it. He was a gambler on cock fights, and that was why the blood-stained knife spur was found beside the dead man. But you went too far. Markden is an American, and he would not kill and then boast about it as a Filipino or a Spaniard might do. He would not hate that much.”

He paused and said very slowly: “Cardoro was killed with a knife—not a cock fight spur. He was killed by a strong man or woman, who knew how to handle a knife. He was killed by—”

He turned and looked at the girl’s companion. He said quietly:

“You murdered Dario Cardoro. You did not throw the knife far enough into the Bay, in your hurry. And you were seen throwing it. I have the knife.”

The woman sprang from the chair. She screamed in Spanish, terribly. From the folds of her dress steel color caught the light of the room. Her right arm was lifted.

Jo Gar said, “Stop—”

The woman’s right hand went down into the folds of the black dress she wore. She said in a hysterical tone:

“You lie—”

Jo Gar’s right hand made swift movement; his Colt was low at his right side.

“No,” he said steadily. “I do not lie. You murdered Cardoro. Drop the knife you were about to throw—on the floor.”

The woman was breathing heavily; her eyes held a wild expression. But her hand remained in the folds of her black dress.

Jo said: “Quickly—drop it!” He raised the gun slightly.

The knife made clattering sound as it struck the wood of the floor. The woman in black slipped downward, slowly, in a faint. Jo said:

“Well, I have the knife
now,
anyway.” He went over and picked it up. “She did not throw it into the Bay—and she was not seen throwing it. But I was coming close—and her nerves—”

The Rayne girl was on the divan, rocking back and forth. Her eyes stared somewhere beyond the figure of Jo Gar. She spoke in a monotone.

“She made me—tell her when Dario slept. She used the knife and left the knife spur, touching it in his blood. She hated him. He loved her once, but he sent her away. He was losing, gambling away all the money he had willed to me. She made me help her—she was to have some of—the money. I didn’t want—to do it.”

Jo Gar looked at Sadi Ratan. “I thought at first that he had been murdered outside, carried in. That was wrong. And I thought that the knife had been thrown away. That was wrong, too. But when I saw the woman’s eyes, saw her watching me—”

He shrugged. The woman on the floor stirred and moaned. The Rayne girl said:

“He was brutal—it was self-defense. He was brutal to both of us—”

Jo Gar smiled slightly. “Your defense is your own affair,” he said gently. “I am very little interested.”

Lieutenant Ratan frowned and swore. Jo Gar said:

“You were so sure of the American. So sure he was guilty. Now you must free him.”

Sadi Ratan muttered:

“All the evidence we had—pointed to him.”

Jo Gar sighed. “That is so,” he agreed softly. “And that was why I had to go to a newspaper and seek the evidence—you
did not
have.”

Sadi Ratan, lieutenant of police, flicked Manila dust from his khaki uniform and smiled at the shine of his boots. He inspected the insignia of his office, striped on the left sleeve of his coat, lifted his dark eyes and continued to smile at Jo Gar.

“I thought it would please you to know that I have been ordered to go aboard the
China Maru
at Quarantine, Señor Gar,” he said gently. “The person in whom I have interest is a client of yours, I am told.”

Jo Gar lifted a stubby, brown hand to his thin lips. His diminutive body was sprawled in the fan-backed chair of his office, almost beneath the slightly squeaking ceiling fan. The Island detective parted his lips and tapped his palms against a yawn.

“Many times my clients have disturbed me,” he said tonelessly, his gray-blue eyes looking somewhere beyond Lieutenant Ratan. “However, Miss Crale is no longer a client of mine, Lieutenant.”

Sadi Ratan widened his eyes in faint surprise. Jo Gar smiled very slightly.

“Hysterical ladies are not pleasing—in the tropics,” the Island detective murmured. “I received her radio requesting me to board the
China Maru
on Cavite, Lieutenant. My answer was a refusal. I presume she then radioed the police.”

Sadi Ratan pressed his lips close together and frowned in the direction of Jo’s knees. The ceiling fan stirred hot air about the small office. “Strange,” the lieutenant of Manila police said with faint sarcasm.

“I had felt that you preferred wealthy clients to poor ones, Señor Gar.”

He turned towards the door that led to the creaky, wooden stairs and the
calle
off the Escolta, Manila’s main business street.

Jo Gar lighted a brown-paper cigarette, blew smoke thinly towards the slow whirling fan.

“You had felt correctly, Lieutenant,” he said tonelessly. “But Virginia Crale’s life has been threatened so often, in her imagination, that her fees bored me beyond their value in cash.”

Sadi Ratan turned near the door, facing the chair in which Jo Gar was seated.

“You are kind to allow the police to work on the case,” he stated grimly, a sneer on his handsome face.

The Island detective smiled gently. “It was kind of you to inform me that you were going aboard the boat. I am afraid your trip will be useless, but there is the advantage of a cool breeze off Cavite.”

Sadi Ratan bowed his head jerkily and went from the room. Jo listened to the sound of his highly polished boots on the creaky steps. From the
calle
below came the shrill cries of drivers. Odors reached the room and there was the deeper noise of whistles on the Pasig river. The Island detective rolled the brown-paper cigarette between his short fingers. After a little time he leaned forward, lifted the radio message from his battered cane desk. He slumped back in the wicker chair, read softly and tonelessly.

MY LIFE IS AGAIN IN DANGER STOP I HAVE BEEN THREATENED TWICE SINCE BOARDING THE BOAT AT NAGASAKI STOP I THINK IT IS THE MAN FROM SHANGHAI STOP PLEASE BOARD THE CHINA MARU AT QUARANTINE AND COME DIRECTLY TO MY CABIN STOP CRALE

Jo Gar tossed the radio message to the surface of his desk. He sighed heavily, leaned back and closed his gray-blue eyes.

“The man from Shanghai,” he breathed softly. “That would be Jacobi.”

He rose languidly, moved to a small cabinet in a corner. It was early afternoon, only an hour beyond
siesta
time. That corner of the office was even hotter than the other portions. Jo slowly opened a drawer and thumbed through cards until he found the one he wanted. He raised it, looked down at it. He read the words written in his own careful hand very softly.

“Baron Jacobi. Legitimacy of title uncertain. Store on the
Calle Real.
Collector of lacquer—red a specialty. Many trips to China. Reputed wealthy. Collection in Manila second only to that of Virginia Crale. Who suspects him of threatening her life for the reason he wants to buy her collection which she has repeatedly refused to sell. Jacobi known along the Escolta as
the Man from Shanghai.
Methods of obtaining pieces for his collection sometimes not legitimate. Considerable power here and in Shanghai.”

Jo Gar placed the card back in the drawer, nodding his gray-haired head slowly. A faint smile edged his thin lips. He turned his left palm downward and looked at his wristwatch. The hands showed forty minutes after two.

He went across to another chair and lifted his pith helmet, placed it on his head. The white duck suit was less soiled than the helmet. Jo stood thinking for several seconds, then went to the desk and took from a drawer his Colt .45. He placed it carefully in the deep right pocket of his trousers. Leaving the room he went slowly down the wooden stairs.

At the foot of them, just within the doorway of the old frame building he encountered a messenger boy. The Filipino smiled at him and handed him an envelope. “It is a message of the radio,” he stated in Tagalog.