West of Guam (68 page)

The girl touched a handkerchief to her lips. “I didn’t want to come here, but somehow I felt that I should. There were only the two of us left. We weren’t close; saw each other only every two or three years. But I felt something was wrong. I felt that perhaps Conrad hadn’t just happened to cross an insane man’s path. The last letter, his fear—”

She broke off and Jo Gar spoke quietly.

“You have the letter?”

She shook her head. “No,” she said slowly.

Faint surprise showed in the gray-blue eyes of the Manila detective. The girl said:

“It was stolen from my cabin on the
Tayo Maru,
somewhere between Honolulu and Manila.”

Jo Gar leaned forward, his eyes slitted on hers. His short-cropped gray hair gave age to the youth of his face; his lean left-hand fingers toyed with a jade paper cutter many years old.

“You were traveling to Manila alone?”

She shook her head. “A very good friend—Barbara Prentice—came with me. We travel together often. We both have sufficient income—” She paused.

“That was only one thing—Conrad’s letter vanishing. Three days out of Manila I found this on the floor of our cabin.”

She reached in her bag, handed him a slip of paper. On it were scrawled in pencil the words: “For you, it shall be death in the fan-backed chair! Do not leave the boat at Manila! The wise one leaves death alone as Conrad Samson did not.”

Jo Gar said slowly, looking at the pencilled scrawl: “In what way did your brother not leave death alone?”

The girl shrugged. “He collected carved wood. Now and then he sent me a piece. An
Igorrote
image; a Chinese box. Cases of his collection were returned to me. He often left Manila; went to small islands.”

The detective nodded. “There was the theft of his letter, then this note found on your cabin floor. And then—”

She said: “Then this—lying on the floor.”

She placed on the surface of his desk a loop of cord. He lifted the loop, looked at the slipknot. When he spread the cord out, its length was about three feet.

He said softly, “Hemp—island hemp, I should say.”

Her voice was a whisper again, hoarse. She lifted her hands to her throat. “A strangler’s knot, Barbara said!”

“When did she say that?” he asked.

“When I first showed her the cord. She said she’d read about such a knot being used in the East. She begged me not to leave the boat at Manila. She won’t leave the hotel. She thinks—”

He waited several seconds, then spoke.
“What
does she think, Miss Samson?”

She straightened her slender body. Her voice was calmer. “Barbara thinks that Conrad did something terrible in his collecting. Desecrated some tribal grave, perhaps. Took something that had to do with death. He was warned to replace it but didn’t. So he was—killed. She read something like that, she says. He was to have been strangled in a fan-backed chair. But he was killed another way. Barbara thinks the Chinese who killed him wasn’t mad. He pretended to be, and then he was killed by others of the tribe so that he could never talk.”

Jo Gar smiled faintly. “Your friend is an amateur detective. She reads and has an imagination. I am a professional detective with little imagination. There
are
tribes on the islands decorating burial grounds with wooden images and objects. There might be a tribe whose chief would be so incensed that he would warn a collector thief, then murder. The murder might be accomplished in such a way as your friend suggests. It is possible but highly improbable. …

“Who might have known that you were coming to Manila to investigate your brother’s death? Who would have followed from the States, or met the boat at Honolulu? Have you any of the objects your brother collected with you?”

She spoke softly. “Two—an
Igorrote
spoon and an old fan. It’s very old Chinese, Conrad wrote when he sent it. I haven’t any of the things that were in the boxes shipped after he died. As for the other part, Barbara says someone either in San Francisco or on the boat knew I was Conrad’s sister. He was assigned to frighten me. Someone feared I might prove Conrad was murdered. That person might be caught.”

“She has been reading mystery tales of the Orient, I am afraid,” said Jo Gar.

Joan Samson frowned at him, “Then why was his letter which stated he was afraid of being murdered stolen from me? Why did I find the note threatening me with death in a fan-backed chair? And why was the cord left in my cabin?”

The detective spoke tonelessly: “I should like you to return to the Manoa Hotel. In fifteen minutes I must confer with a plantation owner whose rice weighs less when it reaches Manila than when it is put aboard the
sampans
miles away. When I have finished I shall come to the hotel. I should like to talk with your friend, and also I may see the two objects your brother sent you.”

Her eyes held fear. “I am almost afraid to—” She paused, rose.

Jo Gar looked up at her. “My assistant. Sidi Kalaa, will accompany you.”

She seemed relieved. “You will wish a retaining fee, Señor Gar. I have—”

He rose, shaking his head slowly. “Later, I think. Do not be afraid. But please remain in the hotel until I have seen you.” He clapped his hands and called, not too loudly: “Sidi Kalaa!”

The girl went slowly toward the door to the outer office as footfalls sounded; the Siamese cat moved like a small, dark tiger toward Jo Gar and the fan-backed chair.

It was almost six when Jo Gar left the office. Near the outer door he stooped and patted the Siamese. When he closed the door behind him, he locked it with the key he had used for almost a dozen years. He went slowly down wooden steps, one flight to the street. Walking half a square, he reached the Escolta, main business street of Manila, hailed a
caleso
driver and instructed the Filipino to drive to the Manoa Hotel.

At the hotel he dismissed the
caleso,
went along a palm-fringed patio entrance into the foyer. At the desk he was requested to announce himself; he moved to a booth and was connected with Suite A-12. A masculine voice said:

“This is Doctor Van Caan speaking.”

Jo Gar narrowed his eyes. “It is Señor Jo Gar, doctor,” he replied. “Miss Samson is expecting me. I trust there is no illness—”

The doctor said: “Oh, yes, Señor Gar. She spoke of you. Won’t you come up?”

The detective hung up the receiver, left the phone booth. As he walked toward the wide stairway rising to the first floor the English manager of the hotel John Balding, hurried toward him. There was a worried expression on his thin face.

He drew Jo Gar aside, “Señor Gar, I am glad you have arrived. This American—she is in some great trouble.”

Jo Gar said softly, “Perhaps it is not so great as her imagination.” The hotel manager shook his head. “I sent her to you, and when she returned, about an hour ago, she entered her suite. Her companion, Miss Barbara Prentice, was not there. Miss Samson sent for me, and when we could not find her companion on the grounds of the hotel she became hysterical. I then called Doctor Van Caan. He found it necessary to give her a sleeping powder.”

Jo Gar frowned. “I was on my way to the suite now. But if Miss Samson is sleeping—”

The manager spread his hands. “Her screams were very disturbing. Doctor Van Caan, of course, is—”

“A very fine physician,” the detective agreed. “No person about the hotel has seen Miss Prentice?”

The manager shook his head. “Not since she was seen returning to her suite with Miss Samson after lunch. And Miss Samson stated incoherently that she had left Miss Prentice in the suite when she went to see you.”

Jo Gar nodded. “I will go up and talk with the doctor,” he said.

He smiled at the manager; walked slowly up the wide stairs. When he reached the door of the suite Doctor Van Can stood just inside. They bowed to each other, went into the living room.

The doctor said: “She was highly hysterical. I was forced to give her a rather strong sleeping powder. It will be hours before she will regain consciousness. She spoke of you—and I regretted having to give her the powder, knowing she would be unable to talk to you. But she managed to tell Mr. Balding and myself that she felt something terrible had happened to her companion. Balding stated that he had sent Miss Samson to you, and he thought that perhaps she had told you of her fears and perhaps that would clear up the apparent mystery of her companion’s absence. Her condition was such that I was forced to give her the powder.”

Jo Gar spoke softly. “May I see her?”

The doctor led the way to a partially closed door, opened it. Joan Samson was lying on a divan, motionless. Her breathing was slow, regular. She was dressed in white pajamas.

The Doctor said: “I got her to undress, then gave her the powder. She refused an injection, and it was a bit of a job to get her to take the powder. But ten minutes later she was sleeping like a baby. She said you were coming, so we didn’t call you.”

Jo Gar nodded. They moved out of the room, closed the door behind them.

“I trust nothing has happened to her companion,” said the doctor. He looked narrowly at Jo Gar. He was a short, thick-set man of Dutch descent. His reputation was fine; he had been some twenty-odd years in the Islands.

“I shall make inquiries, doctor,” said Jo Gar. “It will be what hour, do you think, before she is able to talk?”

The doctor shrugged. “I should say perhaps midnight. Perhaps later, it is a strong drug.”

Jo Gar bowed to the doctor. “I shall remain awake and in the meantime do what I can about finding her companion. It is perhaps worry over things that seem more important than they really are. As for Miss Prentice she may have wished to walk about the town. It is cooler now.”

The doctor said: “But Miss Samson stated that her friend was afraid and would never have left the hotel alone. She seemed to feel that her friend had been lured away—something like that.” The detective moved toward the door, looking at his wrist watch. It was six-thirty precisely. “I will do all I can,” he said. “And I will return here about eleven, unless I am called sooner.”

The doctor nodded. “I will return in a few hours. She will be all right until then. But perhaps—”

The detective interrupted. “Yes, I will have my assistant in the corridor outside until I return.”

He smiled, bowed, left the suite. In the foyer he telephoned Sidi Kalaa at his home, gave him the number of the suite, told him to remain in the corridor outside, when he arrived.

Balding came up to him, looking more worried than before. “Perhaps we should call the police.”

Jo Gar shrugged. “There would be publicity,” he said. “Miss Samson is sleeping. Her friend is not around the hotel, but there are many places of interest. It is a new city, a new atmosphere. A walk, perhaps, despite the fact that Miss Samson feels her friend would not have left the hotel.”

Balding said: “You think we should wait, then, for a while?”

Jo Gar said tonelessly: “For a while, I think I will make inquiries.” He left the hotel. No more were the heat waves rising from the paving of the
Luneta,
where the Constabulary Band would play in a few hours, in the park between the Manoa Hotel and the Army and Navy Club. The sun was sinking over the Island of Cavite, over the Bay of Manila. There would be a fan-shaped sunset, blood-red, Jo Gar decided.

He frowned as he watched an elderly Chinese stooped beneath the light weight of a chair he was carrying strapped to his back. The Chinese was moving toward the rear of the hotel, and the chair he carried was a fan-back.

“Not a very good one,” Jo Gar breathed in Spanish, He stood for a few seconds before the hotel, thinking. He was thinking of Joan Samson’s widening eyes, filled with fear, as she had regarded
his
fan-backed chair.

After a few seconds he lighted a brown-paper cigarette and moved away from the hotel. Out in the bay there was the deep-toned note of a big vessel’s whistle. A small Filipino boy ran past him with a fighting cock under an arm. It was still very hot, and Jo Gar moved with wise slowness toward the Escolta.

Lieutenant Sadi Ratan, of the Manila police, sipped his claret and smiled at Señor Jo Gar.

“Conrad Samson?” He spoke in Tagalog, in a rather high-pitched voice. “Nonsense! We found the shop where his assassin had been drinking saké. Much of it. The Chinese was bad. Keroti, his name. First he stabbed a child, who was swift enough to escape being badly hurt. Then an old woman—she died. And Samson, he had no chance. The Chinese came upon him from behind; struck many times. Then he ran on, crept into a doorway, knifed himself to death. It is not the first time such a thing has happened. A plot? Nonsense. Murder, yes; but the murder of accident. The Chinese was crazed.”

Jo Gar finished his cool drink. “So I thought.”

Lieutenant Sadi Ratan regarded him with curiosity. “Why do you speak of Señor Samson?” he asked. “He has been dead many days. By now, no doubt, the girl to whom he was
engaged
is anticipating receiving his money. There was much of it, you know.”

Jo Gar leaned forward across the table. “The girl to whom he was engaged—she was willed his wealth?” he asked.

Lieutenant Ratan nodded. “We made a complete investigation, of course. We found a copy of his will. All his money was left to the girl. To his sister went his collection. Carved woods. I do not think he was a good collector, Señor Gar.”

“You recall the name of the one to whom he willed his money?”

Sadi Ratan frowned. He tapped on the table surface with browned fingers, his eyes puzzled. “It is difficult,” he breathed. Light came into his dark eyes. “An American name. But wait! I have it—something of it. That cat of yours, the devil of a Siamese—”

Jo Gar said “Baba—could it be Barbara, lieutenant? Barbara Prentice?”

The lieutenant of Manila police struck a palm against the table surface. “It is so,” he said. “It was the American woman, this Baba Prentice, who received the fortune of this Conrad Samson.”

The detective rose suddenly. He looked at the watch on his wrist. The hour was seven. He bowed to Sadi Ratan. The lieutenant raised his eyebrows.