Man on a Rope (10 page)

“But I'm a businessman, Mrs. Ransom,” he said. “If Mr. Lambert had lived another day or two we could have made a deal that would have been profitable for both of us. I'd still like to make that deal.”

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm afraid I don't understand.”

“You knew about the diamonds? You knew he was going to sell them?”

“Yes, I knew that.”

Hudson hesitated, as though he found the going more difficult than he had expected. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. He readjusted the dark glasses.

“What I mean is,” he said finally, “I want those diamonds. I'm ready to pay cash.”

For a moment then she stared at him, a new narrowness growing in her eyes. She looked at Barry. When she looked back at Hudson her mobile mouth was grim.

“Then why are you here?” she demanded, her voice edged with suspicion. “Do you think I stole them?”

“No,” Hudson said hurriedly, gesturing with one hand. “I don't know who stole them. If I did I'd go direct to the proper person. But somebody did steal them, Mrs. Ransom…. The field is sort of narrow, ain't it?” he added, his grammar slipping.

“Who've we got?” He began to tick names off on his fingers as he worked his gum. “Including all possibilities, we've got Dawson here, and me, and you, and the son, Ian, and Amanti, and that pilot guy, McBride.” He hesitated. “And maybe that colored guy, Albert—he knew where the combination was. Okay, I'm making my pitch. To you and everybody else. I want the word to get around, and if I have to I might pay some sort of bonus for the right kind of tip.”

He stood up, as though aware that there was little more that he could add.

“To you maybe this murder is a very personal thing, and I don't blame you for getting sore. But me, I only just met Lambert. I didn't kill him and don't know who did. That's a job for the cops. For myself, I'm willing to do business, and if you ever want to talk you can find me at the Windsor. It'll be confidential. Dawson here”—he glanced at Barry—“thinks I'm nuts and is only along this morning for the ride.”

Ian Lambert was not at home in the furnished room he rented over a tailor shop on Robb Street. The only other place that Barry could think of as a possibility was Ian's brother-in-law's schooner, but he did not know where it might be tied up, or even its name. Eddie Glynn's encyclopedic knowledge saved the day when he heard the problem.

“You mean Chris Holt?” he said. “Sure, Mr. Dawson. The
Jessie B
. I know her berth. You want to go there now?”

The route he picked went along High Street for a distance, cut right to Water Street, and then turned left away from the city. Here the area was devoted to commerce and industry, a flat, multi-odored section of warehouses and docks and. small factories. As they continued, the road became increasingly rough and was cut at intervals by manmade canals that reached endlessly inland and served as arteries of transportation just as they did on the larger sugar estates, the carriers long metal cane-punts which were roped end to end and usually hauled by mules.

A bumpy dirt road took them to a ramshackle but usable shed beyond which stood a line of docks in need of repair. Husky black men were loading bags of rice into the
Jessie B's
holds and under the canvas which had been spread aft two men lounged in improvised deck chairs.

The
Jessie B
was a black-painted, two-masted craft, old looking but well kept, and lay almost motionless in the muddy-brown river, which stretched broadly across to the distant, low-lying shore. The towering finger of its topmast was seemingly stationary against cloud-studded sky, and a thin wisp of blue smoke oozed from its galley stack to evaporate in the humid morning air. As Barry and Hudson approached, the two men moved in the shade of the awning and Barry knew that the shorter one was Ian Lambert.

“Okay to come aboard?” he said.

“Sure.”

He stepped over the rail and gave a hand to Hudson, who seemed a little uncertain in his movements. He introduced Hudson to Ian, who in turn introduced his rangy, brown-haired companion as Chris Holt, his brother-in-law. Barry sat down on a locker next to the deckhouse and Hudson perched on the rail, hands braced on either side of him.

“Hot,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Holt.

Hudson glanced at Barry, his expression suggesting that he could use a little help. When no more was forthcoming he launched into his prologue, picking his words with such care that the result was halting and uncertain.

In contrast to the sweat-stained, half-clad Negroes who wrestled the rice bags aboard, Holt looked very neat in his well-pressed khakis and clean T-shirt. His skin was sunblackened over the flat-muscled arms and neck, and he sucked on a stubby brier as he listened to Hudson. What he said when the proposition had been explained was in the same general vein as Muriel Ransom's reply.

“You got some idea that we know where the diamonds are?”

“No,” said Hudson. “I'm just passing the word. With no will, Ian here, and your wife, are going to get a good chunk of the estate. The diamonds are part of the estate. What I'm saying is, if you stumble across 'em I'm willing to deal.”

“What about Dawson?”

Hudson looked at Barry. “Forget him. He doesn't have to know a thing. He don't want to know. He's just helping me line up prospects…. Which would you rather have?” he demanded. “If you had a choice. The diamonds or the U.S. dollars?”

“The dollars.” Holt glanced across at Ian Lambert, who had not opened his mouth or moved a muscle. “What I'm wondering, “he added, “is why you're so damned anxious to get the stones.”

“I'm not anxious,” Hudson said, “but I don't like to waste my time. I found a deal I like. I got a market for the stones, and I'm getting a ten-per-cent bonus—a hundred and ten grand for a hundred in cash.”

“You figure to smuggle them into the States?”

“What the hell do you care?” Hudson said testily.

“I don't. Neither does Ian.” Holt glanced at his brother-in-law. “Do you?”

Ian's grunt defied translation, and Holt grinned and said: “Of course, if we had the diamonds, and we did trade, it would be a private deal. You wouldn't go to the police; neither would we.”

“The cash wouldn't have to go into the estate either,” Hudson added, another indication of how his mind worked. “It wouldn't have to be split with this brother in England and it wouldn't be taxed.”

“Yeah,” said Holt. “Well, thanks for the suggestion. We'll give it some thought.”

“Do that.” Hudson came to his feet and it was obvious that Holt's attitude had annoyed him. His jaw was hard and his mouth thin, his lips moving very little when he spoke. “You're not from around here, are you?”

“An American,” Holt said, “by way of Nova Scotia. When I got tired of the winters I drifted south…. Why?”

“Just wondered how you got so smart.” Hudson straightened his jacket, his tone still grating. “Just don't get cute with me. Unless you've got something to sell, stay away from me.”

Barry stood up and Lambert heaved his chunky body from his chair. For an instant then, his shirt sleeves stretched upward. That was how Barry happened to notice the watch with the gold wristband.

Boyd McBride was just stepping from his dirty black Vauxhall when Eddie Glynn's Zephyr pulled up behind him. When he saw who was getting out of the back seat he saluted and said:

“Hi. Come on in. I'll buy you a beer.”

He led the way up a somewhat overgrown path to a smallish unpainted bungalow, but Barry lingered a moment, his attention focused on the Vauxhall's license plates while his thoughts turned back to the night before and the car he had seen parked beyond the puddle left by the shower.

The plates he looked at now bore the number X-188. The other car had been partly obscured by a tree trunk and all he had seen was the X-l before he noticed the man who might have been George Thaxter leaning against the other tree.

Now he turned into the path, brow furrowed and thinking hard as this new suspicion made itself felt. Someone had come to Lambert's bungalow during the time he had walked two blocks and reluctantly retraced his steps. Someone had searched the desk and scattered its contents. A car had started up as he stepped to the veranda to investigate the sound he thought he heard, but there was no car parked beyond the puddle when he looked again.

So what? he asked himself. There was a chance that McBride had been the man, nothing more. There were perhaps another ninety-nine cars whose license plates started with X-l, but how many of the owners knew Colin Lambert and wanted him dead?

The budding suspicion lingered as he entered the bungalow, and when McBride came in from the kitchen with a tray and glasses and three bottles of frosted Heinekens he saw that his host had rolled up his sleeves, that the left wrist bore a watch similar to the one he had seen on Ian Lambert. He thought about this as he sipped his beer and listened vaguely to Hudson's now familiar prologue. When, finally, he realized that such thoughts formed a sort of mental circle that was getting him nowhere, he stopped thinking and began to pay attention.

McBride's reaction to Hudson's proposition was one of sardonic amusement. He had flopped back in his planter's chair, both legs supported by the flat, extended arms, and was finding obvious enjoyment in his beer. He did not question Hudson's motives, nor did he bristle at the implication that he might know something about the missing diamonds.

“I could use a hundred thousand,” he said. “With that kind of dough I'd gas up my duck and take off for good.”

“I understand that Lambert held a note on that amphibian,” Barry said, taking a shot in the dark.

“He did,” McBride said, not batting an eye. “But not now.” He considered that last inch of beer in his glass. He tipped it this way and that, one blond brow cocked and his pale eyes thoughtfully amused. Then, abruptly, he drained his glass and swung his legs down.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “I sure could use that dough. The trouble is, if I did stumble across those stones they wouldn't be mine, would they? I'd be a thief to keep them, and you'd be a crook to buy stolen property.”

Hudson licked his lips and paused, as though he did not quite know what to make of McBride's reaction. Neither did Barry. He had an idea that, like Hudson, the big man was a gambler, with no more moral scruples than necessary to keep him out of jail. He had the manner of a man possessed of great self-confidence and a conscience seldom subject to doubts and pressure. He was not stupid, but Barry had an idea that his thinking lacked penetration.

“If you're worried about it,” Hudson said finally, “just turn them over to Ian Lambert and let me know. Maybe,” he added with obvious sarcasm, “he'll give you a reward.”

He stood up with that and started from the room, Barry following and McBride grinning at them from his chair. When the door slammed behind them Hudson said:

“I hope the hell he's got them or can find them. Who does he think he's kidding with the stolen-property crack? If he's got 'em he'll be around…. Let's go see that lawyer.”

Louis Amanti led the way into his private office, and when Barry saw the doubtful look on Lynn Sanford's face as she glanced up from her typewriter he gave her a solemnwink. When he sat down, he noticed the transom over the closed door and knew that if she stopped banging the typewriter long enough to listen she might hear some of the conversation.

Hudson made his speech, and by that time it was easy. Amanti's first reaction was to frown and shift his position and straighten things on his desk that did not need straightening. When he was ready his head came up and his bespectacled dark gaze steadied.

“Yes,” he said. “I knew about the diamonds and I understood that Lambert had found a purchaser. But if you're serious in this offer, I don't know why I shouldn't report it to the police.”

“I'm serious,” Hudson said flatly, “and you can report it to the police if you want to.”

Amanti said: “Hmm,” disapprovingly and fingered his watch chain.

Hudson said: “If you're going to handle the estate you'll have the right to sell the diamonds—if they turn up. If you need anybody's permission you can probably get it from Ian Lambert and Chris Holt.”

“I have not yet been appointed administrator.”

“You haven't got the diamonds yet either, have you?”

“What you're suggesting is not only highly irregular but downright improper.”

“Okay,” said Hudson. “Have me arrested.”

Amanti frowned, but when he made no attempt to terminate this interview which was so distasteful to him, Barry got the idea that he might not be as ethically pure as he seemed. He watched the lawyer rise and go round the desk to close the transom. When he had seated himself he said: “If the police locate the diamonds they will eventually turn them over to the estate.”

“After they've collected taxes and duty and what have you,” Hudson said. “By that time I won't be here.”

“Yes, but—” Amanti let the words trail off, took a breath, and tried again. “If we take a hypothetical case and assume that in one way or another I come into possession of the diamonds, if this should happen, is it your idea that I would sell them secretly to you?”

“It would depend on how you operate,” Hudson said bluntly. “If you did, nobody'd know it but you and me.”

“But,” said Amanti, aware at last of Barry and suddenly aghast, “we already have a witness—”

“Only to this hypothetical offer, if that's the way you see it. I trusted Dawson to make an appraisal. He's got a hundred bucks coming,” he added, making no effort to explain why, “but if a deal is made he'll never know it…. If that's too big a hunk for you,” he said, “you could go to the heirs and tell 'em you've got the stones and an offer. That way you could ask for a cut.”