West of Guam (71 page)

“Crandon told me they did,” she said.

The detective smiled at Sadi Ratan. “You see,” he breathed.

Sadi Ratan glared at him. “I shall see more when I talk to Crandon and Foxe.”

The coroner said: “If you are finished with the body, I shall have my men remove it, lieutenant.”

Sadi Ratan nodded.

When the body had been removed Ratan faced the woman. “You quarreled with The Great Black—why?”

Her red lips trembled. Her eyes went to Jo Gar’s. He smiled at her. “You do not
have
to answer,” he said. “But it is within the power of the lieutenant to hold you as a material witness. Perhaps if you are frank with him. …”

The woman looked at Sadi Ratan. “It is personal. Please—if you will send your men away—”

They were sent away. After a few seconds she spoke.

“We quarreled—Hugh and I—because he refused to marry me.”

Jo Gar said: “And his reason for not wishing to marry you, princess?”

“My family is of the old regime—I am a princess. Hugh’s family—” She moved her lovely hands slightly.

Sadi Ratan said with faint amusement: “But all that, Madame, is ended.”

Her voice was precise. “All that, lieutenant, never began for you. You would not understand.”

The detective spoke gently. “In any case, Hugh Black left you in anger?”

She said: “In a sort of—quiet anger.”

Sadi Ratan cleared his throat. “My men are searching for him. He is necessary, of course, to complete your alibi.”

“Alibi?” she asked.

The police lieutenant shrugged. “You are an expert in the art of throwing a dagger, a knife. I myself have witnessed your skill. I myself saw the dead man fall forward. I did not see him struck down, but with the stage lighted as it was, a thrown knife might easily have been missed. I saw few of the knives that you threw at the targets, Madame, until they struck. And with the added deception of mirrors—” He broke off, bowed, his smile sardonic. “The dead man is one Richard Janisohn, posing as The Great Black. If it should be that
he
were hated—”

The woman interrupted. “But
I
did not hate him.”

Jo Gar said: “There are other matters. Your men have found no dagger or knife. The two assistants have not been thoroughly questioned. The Princess Vlatchnoff has stated that she was in this room when Janisohn was struck down.
Others
were on the stage behind the man who is now dead.”

The police lieutenant moved close to the woman, pointed a brown finger at her. “It is true, is it not, that the one who is now dead was in love with you?”

“Yes!” she said quickly.

Ratan’s eyes were small. “And it is true, is it not, that you did not love him?”

Again she spoke swiftly, firmly. “Yes!”

The silence following her answer was broken by the murmur of voices in the corridor beyond the dressing room. A police-uniformed Filipino came into the room. He spoke rapidly to Sadi Ratan in Tagalog.

When he had finished Sadi Ratan hurried through the doorway. The woman turned wide dark eyes to the detective’s gray-blue ones.

“I do not understand the language.”

“The police have found a knife,” said Jo Gar. “A knife! Where?”

“In the ceiling of the corridor, princess, less than twenty feet from this door.”

The edge of a typhoon breeze was gustily slapping the city of Manila as Jo Gar and Sadi Ratan emerged from the Manila Hotel after escorting the princess to her room there.

The police lieutenant halted near his car, frowned at the detective. “Charming liar,” he said. “She will do well under guard until I verify my opinion.”

“And your opinion is?” Jo Gar asked.

Sadi Ratan shrugged. “Richard Janisohn was in love with her. He would not give her up. Hugh Black, she states, would not marry her because her family was superior to his. That, I think, is a lie. The Great Black would not marry her because he suspected Janisohn. She knew it, and she feared Janisohn. So—”

A gust of typhoon wind rocked both men. Ratan smiled coldly at Jo Gar.

“You have been retained by her, but I do not conceal my thoughts from you. So—she struck Janisohn down with a perfectly thrown knife. Apparently, someone had attempted to murder The Great Black—that was what she wished the police to believe. But she had knowledge that Richard Janisohn was impersonating The Great Black.”

“What of her statement that she was in the dressing room with Hugh Black when Janisohn fell? And where is Black?”

Sadi Ratan’s voice was positive. “You have a fine reputation, Señor Gar. The princess”—sarcasm crept into the title—“is your client. But I think that
after
the princess threw the knife at the man she knew was impersonating The Great Black she went to Black’s dressing room. I think he had already departed.

“The doorman is an old Filipino by the name of Vincente Lapa. He thinks that The Great Black left the theater just before the pigeons were released—that is because of the applause he heard. The Great Black had left when Lapa heard it. That applause, you recall, was just before Janisohn fell. Almost immediately after that Madame Vlatchnoff threw her knife, unseen; reached the dressing room unseen. Her story that The Great Black was with her there is a lie.

“As for your second question: Where is The Great Black? What does a man do when he has quarreled with the woman he loves? Does he retire to his hotel room? Perhaps. Or perhaps he walks the city, visits drinking places. The police are searching for him, Señor Gar.”

“And when you find him?” Jo Gar asked.

Sadi Ratan raised palms to a flurry of warm rain. “You disagree with my theory, but you too have promised your client only that you will seek the murderer of the dead man. Perhaps, then, when we find this Hugh Black, he will not recall having been in the dressing room with Madame Vlatchnoff at the proper time to establish her alibi. Perhaps he will not recall it
in time.
”

“Perhaps,” Jo Gar agreed. “Then there was the knife. Since you believe that Princess Vlatchnoff used it in killing a lover she wished to forget—how did it reach the ceiling near the dress room?”

Sadi Ratan’s smile became grimmer. “Two men have come to me, Señor Gar. One was seated in the audience in the third row, another in the first. Each of them saw the knife after it had struck. When the assistants pulled the body behind the curtain, the knife remained in the neck.”

Jo Gar whistled. “And after that?”

“We found blood on the knife we withdrew from the corridor ceiling.”

Jo Gar nodded. “It is so. Yet The Great Black’s assistants who lifted Janisohn’s’ body must have seen the knife.”

Sadi Ratan’s voice was mocking. “It is so,” he replied. “Yet Madame Vlatchnoff is very beautiful, and it is not beyond possibility that they realized Janisohn was only a lover of hers—a past lover—and one who impersonated a great magician for a few minutes.”

Jo Gar whistled again. “And thus the knife was returned to the princess, fingerprints removed from the hilt. And it was she who skillfully tossed it against the corridor ceiling.”

“And why not, Señor Gar?”

Jo Gar smiled. “I can think of
many
reasons, Lieutenant. But the rain and the wind are for younger men—men like yourself. I seek shelter.
Adios.
”

Surprise was in Sadi Ratan’s eyes.
“Adios,
Señor Gar!”

As Jo Gar closed the door of Ling Po’s shop, a bell tinkled.

The detective called, “The hour is late, and Jo Gar is regretful.”

Ling Po waddled toward Jo Gar, bowing many times. “The hour at which Señor Gar visits me—it is the best,” he stated. “You are wet, Señor.”

“It does not matter, Ling Po. Tonight I have not come to sip tea and hear wise words. I have come for help. I have been foolish tonight, Ling Po. I have visited many shops. And here in the shop of my good friend—”

His eyes went to a small space on a low shelf holding many objects: dusty Buddhas; fans; strings of wooden beads.

After a few seconds he asked, “Today you sold something from the shelf?”

The wrinkles of Ling Po’s yellow skin formed a smile again. “It is as you say Señor,” he said. “It was the small lacquer box of very fine workmanship. It brought a good price.”

“A lacquer box—and the purchaser did not bargain with you, Ling Po?”

The elderly Chinese looked at the detective with a puzzled expression. “He did not bargain, this one,” he stated.

“Some men can afford not to bargain,” said Jo Gar. His right hand buried itself in a pocket, withdrew an object, held it beneath Ling Po’s eyes. “This is the lacquer box for which the purchaser did not bargain, Ling Po?”

The eyes of the old Chinese widened. He nodded. “It is the box,” he muttered. “I do not think that in all Manila there is another—” He stopped. “But Señor Gar, how is it that you—”

Jo Gar smiled and placed the box carefully on a counter. He said, “Please, Ling Po, do not touch the box. You see, there is still dust on a portion of it.”

The black eyes of the Chinese held an inscrutable expression. “Since you have not asked me, yet wish to know, Señor Gar—he was a tall one, the purchaser. His shoulders were broad, and he possessed great dignity. His hair was dark and rolling like the China Sea.”

Jo Gar smiled. “You perhaps recall the hour of the purchase, Ling Po?”

“It so happens that this one asked me the price of the clock of my ancestors,” said Ling Po. “My eyes went to it, and I recall the hour. Within twenty minutes the hour of eleven would strike.”

Jo Gar looked at the old clock, glanced at his wrist watch, raised his eyes to the old clock again.

“I told the tall one that the clock was not to be purchased. It has never failed by so much as a minute, Señor Gar. He bowed to me and went away.”

The detective nodded. “It is good not to sell things that have served a family well,” he said. “And was tonight the first time the purchaser of the lacquer box had come to your shop, Ling Po?”

The elderly Chinese shook his head. “Two mornings ago he visited me, Señor Gar. He did not buy, but he looked at many objects. He asked me then if my shop was open at night, and I answered that my shop was open most hours of the clock and that I slept little.”

Jo Gar nodded. “Yet you had been dozing tonight just before the purchaser of the lacquer box entered the shop?”

There was faint surprise in Ling Po’s black eyes as he nodded. “It is so. Tonight I was weary. But Señor Gar, how is it that you … ” His voice trailed off.

“Tomorrow you shall know many things, Ling Po. But tonight—” Jo Gar lifted the lacquer box from the counter, moved across to the shelf. On the spot where the box had rested there was little dust. Jo Gar fitted the box at the proper angle on the shelf.

He said: “It is almost two. Long ago I should have been home in bed. Kalaa, my assistant, will be waiting up.” His gray-blue eyes smiled. “The box rested there before you sold it to the tall one, Ling Po?”

Ling Po nodded. “For many months, Señor Gar. Then it is purchased, and within a few hours you return it.”

The detective removed the lacquer box from the shelf, placed it in a coat pocket. He bowed to Ling Po. “And I go now to return it to the owner, Ling Po. Tomorrow I shall visit you again.”

The elderly Chinese bowed low. “Good, Señor Gar, for in mystery there is often danger. I do not seek mystery as you do.”

“My profession requires that I seek it,” said Jo Gar. “It is so also with the profession of—magician.” He went from the shop, closing the door behind him.

The automobile Jo Gar hailed rattled along the Escolta, passing sleepy drivers of
calesas.
When it passed police headquarters the detective called sharply in Tagalog, “Stop! Wait for me here.”

Inside the building he went directly to the office of Lieutenant Sadi Ratan.

“You are still up, Señor Gar,” the lieutenant observed. “I advise you to return to your house and sleep.”

“You are pleased with yourself, Lieutenant—and you offer me advice, May I ask why?”

“It is a pleasure to inform you, Señor Gar. The Great Black left my office only a few minutes ago. His statements did not in any way aid your client, Madame Vlatchnoff. On the contrary, his statements were damaging to her. And he did establish a perfect alibi for himself.”

Sadi Ratan was enjoying himself.

“We have established the exact time that Janisohn fell to the stage, the knife in his neck. It was eighteen minutes to eleven. At that hour the princess states that she was in the dressing room in Hugh Black’s arms. And yet, Señor Gar, The Great Black states that he left the theater
before
the applause intended for him and accepted by the dead man, and that at twenty minutes to eleven he was in a shop a half-mile away.”

“You have investigated his statement?” Jo Gar asked.

Sadi Ratan shrugged. “Later in the morning, when the shop will be open. But I do not doubt Hugh Black. He came to me of his own accord as soon as he heard of the murder. He tried at first to protect Madame Vlatchnoff. Then, under my questioning, he admitted that he believed she had thrown the knife, knowing Janisohn had taken his place.”

“And the reason for the murder?”

“Hugh Black had discovered that she had had an affair with Janisohn. She did not think he knew it. She no longer loved Janisohn and was afraid of him. Black believes it is possible Janisohn was attempting to blackmail her. So”—the police lieutenant shrugged—“she threw the knife, at which she has great skill.”