Mr. Moto Is So Sorry (6 page)

“What do they want me for?” Calvin asked.

Mr. Moto smiled and drew in his breath.

“For taking money,” he said. “Excuse my rudeness, please. Someone has been taking a great deal of money from a gentleman in New York for several years. He says that it is you. I hope so much they are not right.”

“For several years?” Calvin repeated, and his face felt moist and clammy. “It was only once—it wasn't for several years. It was my uncle—it was a family matter. He wouldn't—he couldn't have called in the police. He's too much of a man for that—”

Mr. Moto drew in his breath again.

“So sorry,” he said. “But you do not want to go back, I think. Please, am I not right?”

For a moment Calvin's mind moved back sickeningly into the past.

“I never knew that she'd done it before,” he said, and his freckled face looked ugly. “But it's like her, though, and it's like her to get out from under—that girl would lie her head off—”

He stopped, suddenly realizing that Mr. Moto was no friend of his.

“You're right,” he said, “I don't want to go back. If I could, I wouldn't want to. It would kill him if he knew about it. I'm going ahead to see this through. I've got to get there to see this Gilbreth.”

Mr. Moto rose from his seat on the bed and stood before Calvin. His manner had changed to a sort of businesslike precision, which took Calvin off his guard. He realized that in his agitation at the news he had said a good deal more than he intended.

“It is so much nicer,” Mr. Moto said, “now that we understand each other. I think we will get along so very nicely, if you are careful, Mr. Gates.”

Mr. Moto pointed a delicate finger at him and nodded solemnly.

“Believe me, you must be careful, please. I am so used to bad men, Mr. Gates. They do not frighten me, not very much. I should not enjoy it if you had your hands upon my throat. I was so very happy that you have no weapons in your baggage. You look so gentle, but I think that you are dangerous, and able to think.”

Calvin Gates scowled at Mr. Moto. “So nice of you to say so,” he answered, “but you're wrong. I'm a sentimental fool, or I wouldn't be here tonight.”

Mr. Moto raised his hand in polite agreement.

“Oh yes,” he said. “Nordics are never very logical. I am not asking what you have done, Mr. Gates. You are wanted by the police for taking money, but you are more than a thief I think. I do not ask about you, and you do not ask about me.”

Calvin Gates's forehead was smoother.

“I don't ask about you,” Calvin said, “because I don't give one continental damn.”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Moto, “so very much. I am glad that you say it clearly. Our authorities have been asked to detain you, but I think it can be arranged perhaps. So nice that I have influence.”

“Detain me?” repeated Calvin Gates.

“Yes,” said Mr. Moto, “yes.”

“All right, you want me to keep still,” Calvin told him. “Anything else, Mr. Moto? I'm ready to oblige, as long as I can keep on going.”

Mr. Moto rubbed his hands together very softly.

“You will leave tomorrow on your journey as if nothing had happened,” he said. “There is only one thing more. There is a cigarette case inlaid with little birds. It is not here.”

Calvin Gates answered almost cordially.

“If that's what you want,” he said, “I can get it for you. It might have been easier if you'd just asked for it before.”

Mr. Moto shook his head very quickly.

“It is exactly what I do not want, please,” he said. “I know where the little case is now, since you do not have it. You will do nothing and forget about it altogether. This is very important, please.”

“All right,” said Calvin Gates. “I don't know what your game is, but I'll forget it.”

“I am so very glad,” Mr. Moto said, “that you should understand. It is a very important game, please. I should not hesitate to go very, very far in it. I do not want anything disturbed. And now I shall show you to your room. It will be right across the hall, and I hope you will have a very pleasant night and such a very pleasant journey.”

Calvin Gates stepped carefully past the dead man near the door.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose I'll be seeing you again.”

“I hope not,” said Mr. Moto gently. “For your sake, Mr. Gates.”

Calvin Gates hesitated. He knew so little that he could not tell how far to go; he only knew that he had been caught up in something entirely beyond his own control, and that he was not the only one who was caught. He was thinking of Miss Dillaway with her hair tied in an uncompromising knot, who made no effort to appear attractive.

“So you know who has that case?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Mr. Moto, “I am so sure that I know now.” He nodded toward the dead man. “Since he does not have it, and you have not. It was very important that the case should go where you are going. I wish so much for it to go there without trouble. It must. This was all such a bad mistake.”

“It seems to me,” said Calvin, “that it will be dangerous for Miss Dillaway.”

Mr. Moto's expression gave no hint of agreement or disagreement.

“It will be dangerous for you if you should meddle,” Mr. Moto said.

“Thanks,” Calvin Gates answered, and he paused, and he and Mr. Moto looked at each other carefully. “I won't forget that, Moto.”

“I am so glad,” Mr. Moto breathed softly, “so glad you won't forget. I should be so sorry for you. May I show you your new room, please? It is right across the hall. I am so sorry, I shall be busy here tonight, so that we cannot have a pleasant talk.”

The room where Mr. Moto took him was almost the same as the one he had left.

“Your bags will arrive in a few minutes,” Mr. Moto said. “I am sorry I must leave you, I am so very busy.”

CHAPTER VI

When Mr. Moto left him, Calvin opened the window and peered out into a dark courtyard; then he closed the window and stood with his ear close to the door listening to sounds from the room across the hall. He could hear a soft thud of footsteps, and he could hear Mr. Moto's voice speaking in an insistent undertone.

He had not been listening long before there was a knock at his door. Two men who were obviously not hotel attendants carried his trunk into the room. They gazed at him incuriously and set the trunk at the head of the bed, and returned a moment later with his brief case and his bag. One of them brought in his clothes, which he laid carefully on a chair. Calvin took a piece of money from his trousers pocket, but they looked at him blankly and shook their heads. He heard them hurry across the hall again, open a door and close it, and a moment later he opened his own door. The hallway stretched before him to right and left, absolutely empty, and Calvin closed his door noiselessly and smiled. He had been surprised at first that his room had not been watched, but now he was not surprised: the thing that he proposed to do was so obvious that only a fool would have attempted it, and Mr. Moto had said that he was not a fool.

He turned out his light and dressed quickly in the dark. Then he opened the door again and stepped out into the hall, holding his shoes in his hand. He dropped them noisily in front of his door and listened. There was a confused and gentle murmur of voices in the room across the hall. Standing in the hallway, Calvin Gates slammed his door shut, and ran on tiptoe down the hall. He had judged the distance he must travel and the chances he must take.

He darted along the corridor in his stocking feet past the well of the lift to the stairway. When he reached the angle of the stairs, he paused in its shelter and looked behind him. He had moved quickly and just quickly enough. Not a second after he had reached the stairs the door of the room he had first occupied opened and Mr. Moto's head appeared. Mr. Moto was looking across the hall toward the shoes. Calvin Gates could not help smiling at their guilelessness. Mr. Moto gazed at them before he closed the door again, and Calvin's smile grew broader.

“I guess,” he murmured, “Mr. Moto has put me in bed for the night.”

He waited for a few moments, but the hall was empty. Finally he stepped from the angle of the stairs and continued moving softly down the corridor. He had seen Miss Dillaway to her room that night, and he remembered the number. He knocked upon her door without any hesitation, because the noise was a chance that he was obliged to take and he had realized long ago that when one started it was always better to move ahead. He knocked three times, and when he paused he was relieved to hear the key in the lock. A moment later Miss Dillaway opened the door a crack. He could not see her, but he heard her voice—a voice that was soft and incredulous.

“What's the matter, Gates?” she asked. “What is it?”

Calvin pushed the door open and he was in her room before he answered;

“Don't make a noise,” he whispered.

He had forgotten about propriety and she had only been an abstraction to him until he was in her room, but when he was there he felt a self-conscious embarrassment at his rudeness. He had broken in upon something which he was not meant to see, upon a different person from the girl he had known on the train and upon a sort of privacy that made him stare at her blankly. She had on a negligee of delicate pastel green. Her bare feet were thrust into green silk mules, and her hair fell over her back and shoulders in a dark, misty cloud that framed the delicate oval of her face. Even with the startled look in her wide brown eyes her face was beautiful. In that moment of surprise she was very young and entirely untouched by the world outside.

The bare ugliness of the room had been changed by her small possessions—a gold-backed comb and brush upon the bureau, and some books on a chair. Her small blue leather traveling clock was on the table. They were all small things, but all of them made her different and all of them told him that he should not be there. For a second she was breathless and confused, and he shared her confusion.

“What do you mean by coming in here?” she said breathlessly. “What do you mean by pushing the door open?”

“I'm sorry,” said Calvin Gates. Her face was growing red and so was his. “I didn't mean to startle you. I haven't got much time.”

Miss Dillaway bit her lower lip and pulled her green gown more tightly about her, a quick instinctive gesture which reminded him that he was staring at her.

“Gates,” she said, “are you going to get out of here or shall I have to ring? I didn't think you'd act like this. You're like all the rest of them. I thought—”

“Don't,” Calvin answered. “There isn't time. I came here to help you.”

“Oh,” she said, “that's one way of putting it.”

“Don't,” Calvin Gates repeated. “I do want to help you, Miss Dillaway. I'm afraid you're in trouble.”

The confusion and the anger had left her face and her brown eyes grew wider.

“Go ahead,” she answered. “What is it, Gates?” And Calvin told her bluntly because it was the only way to tell it.

“Your Russian has been murdered,” he told her. “A political murder I think—by the police.”

She walked toward him and rested her hand on his arm and her lips trembled. It was an ugly enough moment, but he was only conscious that she trusted him and that she had touched his arm.

“Murdered,” she whispered. “How do you know that?”

“I know it,” he answered, “because I saw him die.”

She reached her hand toward him again, and he held it in his for a moment.

“It's going to be all right,” he said.

Then she drew her hand away and it was exactly as though a door had closed between them, for her composure had come back—that same casual mask which he had seen on the train.

“I want you to listen,” Calvin Gates went on. “I want you to try to trust me and do what I tell you. Do you think you can?”

“Yes,” she said, “I think I can. I don't know you very well.” And she smiled. It was a poor attempt at a smile. “Do you have to be so dramatic, Gates?”

Calvin Gates looked back at her soberly.

“I'm sorry,” he began, “to have broken in here.”

“Good heavens,” said Miss Dillaway, “let's not go over that again. What are you staring at, Gates?”

“It's you,” said Calvin Gates, “you're beautiful.”

“Well, you needn't look so surprised,” said Miss Dillaway. “You didn't come here to tell me that.”

“No,” he said, “I didn't. The Russian was killed on account of that cigarette case, the one he gave you, the one you put in your purse. They know you have it, Miss Dillaway. You must get rid of it at once.”

She pushed her hair back from her forehead again.

“Why should he be killed on account of that?” she asked.

Calvin Gates shook his head. “You'll have to take my word for it,” he said. “There isn't any time to find out why. I'm asking you to give me your purse with that cigarette case right away.”

“But why?” she asked him. “Aren't you going to tell me why?”

“Not now,” said Calvin Gates.

Miss Dillaway put her head to one side. “But why should I?” she asked.

“Because I'm asking you,” Calvin said, “and I'm asking you to do it quickly, because you need help worse than you ever did in your life.”

She stood there for a moment small and straight in her light green gown, like a painting in a gallery, and then she smiled.

“My knight,” she said, “my knight in armor.”

The effect of her remark on Calvin was not agreeable.

“I wish you wouldn't call me that,” he said. “You can either give me your purse or not.”

“I'm sorry, Gates,” she said, and her voice was suddenly contrite. “I'm generally able to look out for myself, you know. Suppose I give you my purse, then what?”