Experiment in Crime (11 page)

He stood in the shadows of their neighbor's garage and looked--not daring to hope that Bedelia was there, fearing to investigate. His feelings overcame his judgment. He was about halfway through her leafy yard when a man stepped in front of him. A man with a gun. "What do you want, bud?"

"I--I live here." The professor hated himself.

"Yeah? You Burke?"

"I'm Burke."

"Come along." The man followed the professor to the porch. He knocked. After a while Bedelia called, "Yes? What is it?"

"Guy here says he's this Burke. I got him covered."

He heard the downstairs couch creak. He heard her big, boney feet cantering in the hall. The porch light switched on. "Martin! Thank heaven!" They embraced.

She addressed the man with the gun. "Thank you, Dusty. Keep a sharp eye out for anybody else."

"Okay, Miss Ogilvy." The night ate him.

She hurried the professor into the kitchen. "What on earth have you done to yourself?"

"It's a long story," he said, grinning at her fondly. "Who's your guard?"

"That's a story, too."

He sat down at the familiar enamel-topped table. "They told me, in Cuba, that they'd caught you. Well--not exactly. That they'd gone after you."

She was staring.
"Cuba!"

"I've been over the whole route," he answered. "Is the coffee hot?"

"It's been hot--pretty steadily, since early Christmas morning, Martin." Her spectacles misted up and she polished them on the hem of her kimono.

"I'm not sure we're safe--even with that guard."

"We've got three of them," she answered.

"Three! What are they? Private detectives?"

"My story will keep."

"And mine will take a long time. I need to know about the guards."

She looked at him--at his powdered hair, his face and hands, yellow-brown from the diluted iodine, and at his unfamiliar garments. She sighed.

"Just to reassure you, Martin. And I hope I did right." She poured coffee in her two largest cups. "I didn't expect you till some time in the morning. By ten o'clock, when no word came, I began to worry. You'd had time to drive back--after sunrise. It was possible, of course, that you were on to something that prevented your return or even making a phone call. But it was also possible that they'd caught you at it."

His eyes were grim--and the odd color of his face emphasized the fact. "They did."

"Oh, Martin. . . !"

"Take it easy, Bedelia. I'm right here, now."

"Well. I reasoned that if they had caught you, they might be after me. Correct, wasn't it? I closed up the house. But first I put hairs across several doors, with Scotch tape. My mother did it to jam closets. Then I went to the Duffys for Christmas dinner. I came back with them--the whole family--to show them our Tree. I felt nobody would bother two carloads of people and nobody did. But the hairs on the doors were broken, so I knew they had been here. When the Duffys left, I also went.

"I couldn't think what to do. I wanted to be at home--in case you arrived--and I was afraid to be there alone. I couldn't call the police--"

"You should have!"

Bedelia looked at him. "Then--why aren't you?"

"Go on."

"I felt I couldn't because you might return and it might be premature. Finally, in the late afternoon, I got hold of Mr. Sanders. I told him that you had gone looking into something and weren't back. I told him my house had been searched and I was worried about staying there. I asked if he could possibly send me a man or two to stand watch. He was delighted to help out."

"Good heavens!"

"He did ask me what you were doing--and I said I had no idea. I think he finally concluded that I was an over-nervous woman. But he sent three dandy men. They arrived--at Laura's, where I was then--around five. I came over here with them and that's all. Now you talk!"

At the conclusion of a story that left Bedelia numb, he looked at the telephone. "I suppose I must call the police, or the F.B.I., or both of them--now. And yet I hate to.

What I have found out will cause the arrest of a lot of underlings. French Paul and that detestable Wilser and a hundred more will probably get out of it. The whole, hideous thing should be untangled quietly for a while. And I'm absolutely exhausted. I don't know how I can even go to police headquarters--or any place-and answer hours of questions."

"I wouldn't, then. I'd go right upstairs and get a good night's sleep. Morning's sleep. Then you can go to the head of the F.B.I. Right now, there wouldn't be anybody on duty but a clerk of some sort. A minor person. And the police--from what Double-O says-

-aren't to be relied on entirely. You might be giving information to one of them who would pass it straight to the Maroon people."

He thought about it. "I believe you're right, Bedelia."

"I'm sure of it! Anyone who tried to come in here after us tonight would get hurt!"

He lowered himself into his tub. He was bruised, scratched, strained-sore from head to foot. He scrubbed at his hands and face without much success. He nearly fell asleep.

The trousers of Franz Wasser and the jacket of the nameless man lay on a chair in his bedroom. He picked them up, sat tiredly on his bed, and examined them. No labels.

The customers of the Maroon Gang were careful about labels. The jacket was rather thick. He squeezed it--and went to his bureau for scissors. He ripped the lining. Inside was a second, double lining of black cloth. Stitched in sections were ten one thousand dollar bills and many hundred dollar bills. The professor was becoming accustomed to such sums. He started to the stairway door to call Bedelia. He decided the fact would wait till they had slept. He tossed the jacket with the stitched-in money onto a chair. His bed creaked just once.

In a little-patronized, old-fashioned hotel in the coastal town of Vellehomez, in Cuba, the owner of the coat--the nameless man--came into a numb consciousness about an hour after a plane had quietly taken off.

The man's head hurt. He reached out and felt walls. One wall was cold and smooth. He remembered the antique tub. He remembered everything, then.

His coat was gone. That fact filled him with fury. The plane for America would be gone too. He got to his feet and found the door.

The kerosene lamps were still burning in the big room. No one was there.

Abandoned luggage lay about.

He walked over to the larger table and took matches back to the bathroom. He lighted the candle. He looked at himself in the mirror. His hair was sticky. He started to wash. Then he noticed the diluted iodine spilled on the dirty, cracked sink--and the face powder on the floor.

He peered at his own face for a moment, and thought about the last one to arrive: Burke-the man who had spent most of the day scribbling something which their guards had taken away, every few hours. Burke--whoever he was--had dark hair and a light skin.

Iodine and powder would reverse those characteristics. They were the same height and build.

The nameless man knew what had happened--although not why. The other, whom he had estimated to be something of a fool, had gone in his place. His rage increased.

Without the money, without the coat and its lining, his arrival in America would be a mistake. He would have to return, now, to Havana--and explain to Borston. Borston would be enraged. Moscow would be bitter.

To live his life--to put behind his career--and then to be slugged by a mild-looking capitalist imbecile!

He combed his hair without a grimace. He went into the big room and sat. He waited; he could wait.

The guards who came were unfamiliar. Two of them. Slight men and tipsy. It was Christmas Night, the nameless man reflected.
Bourgeois sentimentalists.

He asked, in Spanish, for their chief.

"He has gone home to his wife--his children--long since, Professor."

"Well, I must leave. My plans are changed. I will not wait for the next trip."

"Leave, Professor?" They laughed.

He decided that it would be futile to try to explain the substitution to them. And he understood why Burke had impersonated him. They picked up the last few sheets that Burke had written. The nameless man wished he had read them.

He watched for an opportunity--and lunged.

He had overestimated his own condition and the drunkenness of the guards. One shouted and the other stepped aside. A knife flashed. The man without a name sank slowly to his knees and fell suddenly on his face.

"Idiot!" said one of the Latins.

"He would have killed me!"

"We must get word to Julio. He will be like a whip!"

At two o'clock in the morning, a phone rang in the Havana hotel room of Wilser.

He answered and listened.

"If they had to," he finally said, "they had to. You know the procedure." He hung up and turned on the light.
More work to do.

Long before daybreak, a handcart rumbled through the silent back streets of Vellehomez. It ceased rumbling when its wheels touched the dirt road. At the waterfront where, not very long before, the plane had taxied quietly into the harbor, a body was lifted from the cart into a skiff. Handcuffs with weights were fastened to the body. The skiff rowed slowly across the harbor. Its oarlocks did not squeak. The sea beyond was calm--and very deep. The body sent up a long chain of sound, the muttering of bubbles.

An amateur radio operator in the suburbs of Havana got in touch with a brother

"ham" in America. They chatted cheerfully and familiarly of various matters, for a long time.

In the Bayfront residence of French Paul, two men played gin rummy. They had been playing, off and on, all night. They always did. A telephone buzzed. One of them answered and asked questions. Finally he switched the call to an upstairs bedroom.

French Paul woke, as Wilser had wakened less than an hour before. French Paul listened.

One of the men had come up from downstairs.

The fat Alsatian hung up and thought for a long time. Finally, he smiled. He threw back the covers of his bed.

"Our professor," he said, "has met with a mishap. He was a clever man. A little too--enterprising." He walked over to a desk, yawned, and sat down. "A friend," he said,

"must send condolences--and a warning--to his landlady. The police in Vellehomez can announce the rest."

French Paul chuckled.

Bedelia had dressed, served breakfast to Double-O's men, and was dusting when the mail truck drove up. Her guards did not interfere with the arrival of the special delivery letter. It contained one sheet, of single-spaced typewriting with neither salutation nor signature:

Professor Burke committed suicide last night near the town of Vallehomez, Cuba, after writing a confession of his jewel-smuggling. He was seen to leap from a skiff. His body was not found. Portions of a full confession--in his own hand--were recovered. So this letter may be regarded as an amicable warning. He had led you to believe he was hunting for certain persons--rather than acting as a member of a criminal organization. It would not be wise to take erroneous information to the police! The facts will be made clear to you soon. Wait. Do not act!

She read it and sat down heavily. "Well!"

Presently she rapped on the windowpane with her ring. One of the guards appeared at the kitchen door. "Professor Burke came home last night, as you know," she said. "But I want you three men to keep that fact quiet."

"Sure. You need somebody around all day? The other two boys are getting kind of sleepy."

"I'll let you know. But you might take turns napping on the side porch." She emphasized the need for secrecy concerning the professor.

Just who, she wondered, would have sufficient prestige--and know-how--to accomplish her object? Worriedly she dismissed one after another. She thought of the name of a man she did not know, who would be right. She looked in the book and dialed.

When the professor came down for breakfast, a car was leaving the driveway. He had a glimpse of a face.

"Morning, Bedelia! That looked like Marigold Macey."

"It was." Bedelia's large eyes were brilliant. "Sit down, Martin. And start your breakfast. I have news for you."

"News?"

"You're dead!" She showed him the letter.

He read rapidly. "Who sent it? How did it get here? Are the Sanders men still around?"

"The men are. Getting tired, too."

"They--Bedelia! I killed that man!"

"Maybe you did--and a good thing, too!"

He was horrified. "Not for anything on earth--no matter how low--even a foreign agent--would I have--!"

"Martin! Collect yourself! Isn't it much more likely that he came to, tried to escape when he found he had been left behind, and they killed him?"

"But how could they confuse him with me? His hair was light--his skin very dark.

. . ."

"It's obvious from the letter that they
did
confuse him! Perhaps the men who killed him were unfamiliar with him--you--whoever. Disposed of the body hurriedly--in the sea--as the letter says. It looks like that to me."

He shuddered. "The unlucky devil. . . !"

"Good gracious, Martin, where is your sense of proportion? Don't you see what an opportunity this is?"

His mind worked jerkily. "Confession," he said slowly. "Yes--I can understand that. They could select a page here and there--and it would certainly look like a confession. In my own handwriting!"

"Please, Martin. Go on with your breakfast! Look at it from their point of view.

They think they have murdered you. They know there will be an investigation, in any case. All the police--the Vellehomez police--will need is a few pages from that account you wrote of the Maroon Gang--select pages, as you say--and a couple of witnesses to your 'suicide.' The Maroon Gang down there can supply the witnesses easily enough and handwriting experts will attest to the confession, so-called."

He stared at her.

"I phoned Marigold Macey an hour ago," she went on.

"What for?"

"Because I knew she'd come right over. I knew, furthermore, that she'd believe what I told her. Few would. Martin, there are--sometimes--really formidable disadvantages in a perfect reputation. And I knew she could get straight to her father--