The Bamboo Blonde (12 page)

He said out of the side of his mouth, "You won't," and to Dare's approaching nearness, "You couldn't find that little guy who mixes the Planters Punches, could you? I'm thirsty."

Dare said. "But, of course, darling." She went to the door of the salon.

And Griselda heard the tender sputtering away into the night. Sergei stood by the rail watching wishfully. Kathie alone was unreservedly content. Her fingers touched the chromium; her eyes licked the moon-white lounging chairs. She liked yachts. She didn't care who owned them or what he wanted with this group. Kew watched her.

Albert George returned. His mouth was grim. "I'm afraid my invitation was premature. I'd forgotten it was Saturday night. My captain and first mate evidently shared the popular desire to hear this Rob. I have sent for them. Meanwhile—"

"I've ordered drinks, darling," Dare told him.

Con said, "Hope you didn't mind, old man. But my tongue was hanging out for your specials. I sampled them yesterday afternoon when I barged in on Dare."

You didn't barge in on a yacht; you took special steps to get there.

Dare cried, "We had a grand session about old times. I'm sorry you had to be on the mainland, Albert George. You'd have enjoyed it."

Kew spoke flatly. "He'd have been bored stiff." He walked over to Kathie, slid his palm against her arm. "Like it?"

"It is wonderful." Her eyes were aglow.

"I'll show you around after a bit. Mrs. Travis," the major said.

The Planter's Punches arrived. Everyone drank but Griselda. Maybe she was behaving as absurdly as Con's eyebrows seemed to point out. But this wasn't a pleasure visit.

Nor did the pretense of it remain on the surface for long. There was a second round of drinks. And the major asked casually, but it wasn't casual, "I believe you mentioned that your husband saw Mannie Martin the night before he disappeared, Mrs. Travis."

Con took Griselda's second untouched glass. That made four for him: two up on the others. "Thought we weren't going to talk about Mannie."

Albert George wasn't pretending now. He was military. "As a matter of fact, I suggested this retreat in order that we might discuss the problem without the infernal din." He waved his cigar at the hotel across the waters.

"Let the police find him," said Con. "We're not detectives."

"The police have not been effective." Pembrooke said. "Against my better judgment they were not consulted until too long after the disappearance. I spoke to the studio officials the morning after Martin did not keep his appointment with me. I suggested then that they report to official quarters. They didn't."

"If I told 'em once, I told 'em—" Con quoted broadly at Dare. "Let's have another set. What's your hurry, Major?"

He answered with distinct control. "You should realize that it is necessary for our governments jointly to speed the Pan-Pacific network, much as the Pan-American network which has recently been inaugurated commercially was arranged. Perhaps you realize that it is necessary to speed the plans, not knowing from one day to the next what will occur to thwart them, or to make such a network of supreme importance. My hands are tied awaiting Martin’s return."

''Why wait for him? Why not forge right along? Serve him right."

"I need him," Pembrooke admitted brusquely.

"Why?" It was unusual for Kathie to be interested. She doubtless sniffed more kudos for the family friend.

"I need him or I need your husband, Mrs. Travis. I was told in Washington that there were only two men capable of planning this system." He smiled at her. "Unfortunately the lieutenant couldn't help out because of Navy regulations, although Mannie did confer with him on some technical matters."

Her eyes were wide. "I never know anything about Walker's business. He never tells me. He knows I'm not interested."

"Just like my wife," Con interjected loudly.

Pembrooke ignored him. "You wouldn't know then, Mrs. Travis, if your husband kept a memorandum of the work he and Martin did?"

She shook her head helplessly.

"You can see why my hands are tied. I don't have the data. We believe that Martin was bringing it to me when he disappeared. It isn't among his papers. There is nothing I can do until he is found. That, Mr. Satterlee"—he spoke with ironic deference to Con—"is why I asked the question of Mrs. Travis. I feel that there may be some piece of information that has escaped the police in their broader search, something that might lead us to Martin. Do you know, Mrs. Travis, if Martin told your husband that Sunday night anything about his plans for the next day?"

The wind stirred her dusky hair and she was beautiful. And stupid. "He was going to see Walker the next day. He was going to meet him at seven-thirty at Navy Landing. But he telephoned before dinner and postponed it until later. And then he didn't show up at all."

Griselda was watching her. It might all be lies, even as she had lied about Shelley Huffaker. She had spoken then with that same sweet quietness. Mannie had liked women. Kathie liked men. She was impressed by the radio executive's belongings. She might have had a private friendship with the man, know much more than she was saying. But her heart was so obviously on her sleeve for Kew. Another man didn't belong. And even if she had played a game with Mannie, there was no reason for her lying now. Unless… Griselda winced. Unless Walker Travis knew what had happened to his friend. Was Walker as hard under his rabbit front as Kathie under her seeming softness? Could he have wanted to supplant Mannie in this new deal, gather to himself some of the things his wife clutched after? A man could resign from the Navy. If Mannie didn't reappear, Pembrooke would move mountains to retain Walker's services.

The major had turned to Con. "Mannie didn't send you his notes, did he?"

Con roared happily. "For Cod's sake, why would he send them to me? I'm a commentator not a technician. I wouldn't know a kilowatt from an antenna."

Pembrooke wasn't amused. "He did write to you. His secretary mailed the letter. But it wasn’t dictated to her."

"Oh, that." Con beckoned the attending boy. "That was personal."

"You did receive a letter?"

"Yeah. I didn't get it till alter Mannie'd flown the coop. He sent it to New York and then it had to travel way back out again to Hollywood. If he'd known I was in town he could have called me up and saved postage."

"Do you have the letter with you?"

Griselda waited tensely.

"Never keep letters." Major Pembrooke couldn't know that Con's suits resembled a newspaper waste-basket until cleaners' day. And that there hadn't been need for cleaners' day these past weeks. Con must still have the letter. Was that what the intruder had been after Wednesday night? She looked at him. He was leaning back in his chair content in the acceptance of his lie.

"Do you remember what he had to say?"

Con sat straight and scowled. "I told you it was personal."

"Con." Dare laid her hand on his arm. "Don't be that way. Can't you see Albert George is just trying to get any slight lead as to where Mannie might be found? Any small hint—"

Con waved his glass in apology. "Sorry, old boy. I don't remember anything about it. Something about a fishing trip or a fish or something. Nothing important. Nothing about taking a powder." He held Dare's hand, rubbing his thumb over the smooth black red polish of her nails. He spoke as if the major had vanished. "Anyhow, darling, Albert George is asking the wrong questions of the wrong guy. Sergei's already told us that Mannie is found."

Sergei shrilled nervously, "I told you I do not know. It is the rumor I hear." His hands deprecated it. "That Hollywood, so much always the rumor, never what has happened."

Kew interjected gently, "Perhaps if they find the murderer of Shelley Huffaker, they'll have a lead on Mannie. Kathie met this Huffaker girl through him. It is quite probable that she knew Martin too well."

Kathie shook her head softly. "I told you she wasn't his girl, Kew. She wasn't his type at all. She was common."

"I know, darling." He turned back to the others. "But she might have run into some information about this deal which someone wanted to suppress."

Dare broke in, "Your assumption. Kew, is that Mannie was suppressed to keep the deal from going through? At any rate at this time?"

"What else?"

Pembrooke admitted, "It is that which I fear. It is for that reason that I pleaded with his associates to call in the police at once."

Con passed his glass. "You can relax, old boy. Cap'n Thusby is on the job now. He'll find Mannie for you."

The major eyed him. "You said earlier that Mannie would not return."

"He won't. But Thusby'll turn up the cadaver. Probably have all the papers you want in the pocket. And you can make new plans."

Griselda wondered—did the major really want Mannie found? The man was worried about something; that couldn't be an act; it sweated from every pore. It was these papers, written information of some sort. Did he believe, as Kew did
:
that they had been turned over to Con or to Travis? Was that why they were here on
The Falcon?
Kathie in her husband's place because Walker was regulated by the Navy? Was the major that determined to regain this information? Griselda sat tensely on guard waiting for the return whir of the tender and for the throb of the engines below deck.

Kathie protested, "I don't want to hear about bad things. Please let's not talk about it." She raised her lashes. "You said you'd show me around, Major Pembrooke."

"Delighted." His cigar circled the semi-dark. "Would the rest of you c
are
to come?"

He'd rather they wouldn't but each one accepted, even Sergei. Griselda alone remained on the deck, the one small hand against the dike. She tried to think about what had happened, what was happening. Somehow, somewhere, Shelley Huffaker's death must be a part of Mannie's disappearance. If it were entirely unconnected, a happening that had nothing to do with the Pan-Pacific network, the police might involve Con merely to solve the murder. They couldn't do it. Even if the pieces weren't ready to fit as yet, Shelley must be tied in with the trouble. If only she had been Mannie's girl friend, if only there were a jealous man or woman to have fired the gun, if only the police had someone but Con on whom to pin suspicion.

She thought she heard the hiss of a step behind her and she half rose out of her chair, looked quickly. There wasn't even a white-ducked figure slippering away. She was quite alone on the deck. The others had been gone too long. She came to her feet, moved silently to the rail, but there was no small boat approaching. Hesitantly she walked to the door of the salon, even more hesitantly stepped inside. She knew Oriental authenticity and beauty. The room was magnificent. And it was empty. Its silence was as forbidding as the ancient greening bronze Buddha hovering maliciously in the far shadowy corner. She stepped quickly to the stairs that led below; her black satin heels were reassuring staccato striking through the gemmed color of the rug.

She hesitated there at the top of the red-carpeted staircase. Her hand was colder than the cold brass balustrade. There was no sound from below. She moved silently now, step by step, waiting for sound at each small descent, hearing none. The corridor below was as soundless. It was as if she were alone on the ship. She didn't know which way to move; she went ahead, toward the dim light at the far end, past one narrow closed door, and another, and another. She might have been a wraith; there was as little motion and sound in her progress.

And then she heard voices and she moved eagerly, alive again, to the door from which they issued. She had been wrong, it was one voice and she backed away from its menace. Her hand faltered against the near door. She could hear too clearly those uncompromising words. If they had been spoken in anger, they would not have been so fearful. But they were as unaccented, as level in cadence, as if they issued from a mechanized transcription.

"You will stay out of this if you are wise. I do not wish any assistance. I prefer and intend to handle matters unaided."

She couldn't distinguish the murmuring response but the major's voice came again in dreadful clarity.

"This girl's death is nothing to me. I had no acquaintance with her."

Again the indistinguishable murmur and again audible words, more flintlike than before.

"I am slow to anger as you should realize. But there comes a time when any man's temper is strained. I warn you again, stay out of my affairs. I will attend to all who interfere with me as soon as my business here is completed."

She heard movement and she pressed against the door where she stood, her fingers automatically fumbling the knob. It gave and she stepped backward, noiselessly, even as the other door was opened. She closed herself into the darkness and waited without breathing. She heard steps moving up the corridor; whether one or more, she didn't know. She waited, not daring to stir. It seemed as if she stood there for endless time waiting courage to venture out again, fearing lest she come face to face with that cold insensate voice.

She opened the door a lean, noiseless crack. The corridor was empty as before. She couldn't run up the stairs; she was so weak she clamped the handrail, lifted weighted slippers. There wasn't reason for this reaction; because a man's voice held the threat of death didn't mean she was in danger.

The salon was empty as before. She rushed to the doorway, stepped on deck. Each person was in place; she might have dreamed her vigil there, her journey into the dim world below stairs. Each one looked at her with more than idle curiosity. And she heard at that moment the sputter of the returning boat.

She broke restraint. She ran to Con and he jumped to meet her. She heard the hysteria in her voice, "I want to go back to the hotel. I have to go back- I don't feel well. You've got to take me back."

His hands were strong, his voice steady, "My wile's evidently not feeling well, Major. Could you set us ashore?"

She couldn't see Pembrooke's face, only the color of the tip of his cigar. He said, "If you wish, certainly. Or Mrs. Satterlee is welcome to rest here. There are any number of guest cabins."