West of Guam (70 page)

“I told you lies about the letter stolen from me; the threatening note was a fake; the noose was, too! Gordon left me his room key. I got Barbara to go over to the room late this morning. The fan-backed chair was there. I told her the room was cooler, and that I wanted to be alone. She slept, and I pretended she was missing. I didn’t take the powder. When you and the doctor left, I went to the other corridor. No one saw me. I got Barbara to sit in the chair told her it was a beautiful one. Then I tightened the—”

She broke off, covered her face with her shaking hands. After a few seconds she said in a smothered tone: “After she was—still, I came back here. I was an actress once, and pretending to be drugged wasn’t hard.” She stopped her rocking, fell backward on the bed.

The doctor said in a dull tone: “Well, Señor Gar—”

Joan Samson breathed from the bed, brokenly: “I thought he’d stick by me. I didn’t think he’d tell them.”

Jo Gar looked at Balding. “It wasn’t a call for me,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t about this Veiller. I have no idea where he is. That was just a bluff to make her confess. You are wanted at the desk.”

Balding regarded Jo Gar with admiration. “Good Lord!” he said slowly.

The girl pulled herself up, stared at the detective with wide eyes. “They said you were the best detective in the Islands,” she said. “I wanted you on my side.”

Jo Gar said steadily, “I think it was the wrong side.”

She smiled desperately, bitterly. “I guess you were—too much the best detective.” There was a touch of bravado in her voice. “And the fee, Señor Gar?”

The detective’s eyes held little expression. He shook his head. When she had fallen backward again, and her hair was spread over outstretched arms on the bed, he said to the doctor and the manager: “It would now be wise to call the police.”

As Balding went toward the phone, Jo Gar lighted a brown-paper cigarette. His fingers were trembling just a little. The wind made a higher sound in the palms beyond the room; dry leaves ran over the patio. The detective thought of Baba; wished that he might return to his office—and to the Siamese. He would be curled, Jo Gar knew, like a dark tiger, in the fan-backed chair.

The moon-faced Chinese sitting on Jo Gar’s right made cheerful gurgling sounds as he slapped yellow palms together. The racially mixed audience in the heat-soaked Manila Theater was enthusiastic; on the stage the famous English magician Hugh Black—The Great Black—bowed gracefully to the clatter of applause and the hum of many tongues.

The ancient curtain of the theater descended slowly, rose with the famous magician still in the center of the stage, bowing. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with black, wavy hair. He had poise, dignity. His movements were rapid and filled with grace.

Gesturing toward a small table near him, he stamped a foot heavily. Smoke rose from the table, there was a flutter of wings. Dozens of pigeons winged out over the audience, circling back to the stage as the curtain again descended.

There were wrinkles of fat in the neck of the aged Chinese seated beside the Island detective. He gurgled up at the winging birds.

The last one circled, dived back toward the lowering curtain, flashed under it. Jo Gar reached for one of his brown-paper cigarettes. The curtain rose again, and The Great Black raised his arms above his head. Still the applause continued.

Jo Gar’s gray-blue eyes smiled; he ran brown fingers through his gray hair, half raised his tall, lean body from the uncomfortable seat. And as he lifted himself, he was conscious of the fact that the figure of the magician no longer possessed grace. The Great Black was slumping—slumping downward toward the stage floor, sprawling forward now, toward the footlights!

There was a hush in the theater, and then a sudden babble. Jo Gar stood erect, staring at the motionless lure of the great magician. Two of his assistants were kneeling beside him; they lifted him from the stage floor, moved backstage as the curtain came down. The babble of excitement in the theatre continued. A voice spoke to the Island detective in Tagalog, the native tongue.

“Señor Gar! You saw that. He was struck—” Sadi Ratan, Lieutenant in the Manila police, was in the aisle beside Jo Gar’s seat.

The detective said calmly: “You
saw
something strike the magician, Lieutenant Ratan?”

Sadi Ratan’s lips curved downward. His dark eyes were narrow, aggressive. “You think it was a faint, perhaps. Señor?” There was contempt in his tone. “You observed the way he fell? I must hurry to the rear of the theater.” He moved along the aisle.

The moon-faced Chinese plucked at Jo Gar’s coat. “You see?” he muttered. “The Great Black—he is ill, very ill!”

Jo Gar smiled. “It is so, “ he said. “The performer is either very ill, or he has already—ceased to be ill.”

A small Filipino attired in dinner clothes appeared before the curtain. He raised a hand and when there was quiet spoke in a shrill, shaken voice.

“The Great Black—the management regrets—it is that the famous one—he is sick. Please—it is regrettable—you will now leave quietly.”

Jo Gar sighed. He spoke half to the moon-faced Chinese, half to himself. “I think it is that the famous one—has
ceased
to be ill.”

A bright-eyed
mestizo
winked at Jo Gar as he moved slowly along the Escolta, main business street of Manila, from the lobby of the theater toward the stage-entrance alley. Behind him the audience spilled into the street. At the stage door an elderly Filipino looked into the detective’s slant eyes, frightened.

“Señor Gar, “ he breathed, and stepped aside.

“I have come to see Señor Hugh Black. He is in the dressing room?”

The elderly Filipino shivered. “It is so, Señor. If you will go to the light … ”

Along a dimly lighted corridor there was an electric bulb over one of the doors. When Jo Gar reached it, he heard the sharp voice of Lieutenant Ratan within the room, which was small and hot. The detective entered; his gray-blue eyes went to the lighted mirror of the dressing table, past photographs of actors and actresses hanging on the walls to the figure stretched on a Spanish-shawled couch.

As he noted the limpness of a dangling hand, he heard Sadi Ratan say, “You are the Princess Vlatchnoff? That is your stage name?”

Jo Gar looked at the woman. She was seated on a small chair at the right of the entrance door. She was very beautiful: her face was oval; her features were delicate, her eyes and hair dark.

“I
am
the Princess Vlatchnoff—Sonya Vlatchnoff.” Her voice was soft and husky. Jo Gar said quietly: “Señor Black—he is dead.”

Sadi Ratan smiled, his dark eyes half closed. “I felt that you would come here, Señor Gar. It is good of you. You have often aided the Manila police. This is Doctor Montaloupe.” He gestured toward a small dark-faced man. “He was in the audience and came to the stage by way of an entrance behind the boxes. Señor Black was dead when he reached his side. A knife wound in his neck—the base of the brain.”

The doctor said: “It is a wound that
might
have been made by a knife.”

The detective looked toward the body. “A thrown knife, doctor?”

The doctor shrugged. “There has been such impact. When I reached the magician’s side, he had been carried in here. The weapon is missing.” Sadi Ratan spoke sharply, “You recall the Princess Vlatchnoff, Señor Gar? It was she who performed the knife-throwing act just after the intermission.”

The detective nodded. His eyes went to the woman’s white face, ran over her colorful costume. It was the same costume she had worn on the stage.

The husky voice of the princess broke the silence of the dressing room. “This police lieutenant suspects me of murder, Señor Gar.” There was a strange flicker in her eyes, and then they were cold again. “I have heard of you in Shanghai. I should like you to help me.”

Sadi Ratan said: “That is very well, but I should like Señor Gar to know that Mr. Hugh Black came to the police two days ago. He feared for his life. He stated that a woman hated him, and that if death came to him it would be by a knife.”

The Princess Vlatchnoff’s hands were clenched; she was breathing quickly. The police lieutenant went on: “The knife was thrown from behind the magician. He was facing the audience. There were cabinets and mirrors on the stage for the purpose of illusion. The two assistants of The Great Black and two men who work the lights did not see the knife thrown. When I came in here Madame Vlatchnoff was alone with Mr. Black.”

The woman looked at Jo Gar and spoke huskily. “My husband was a sportsman who loved swords, knives. It was with him I learned—” She broke off.

Sadi Ratan said: “To throw a knife excellently!”

Her eyes appealed to Jo Gar. “I have not yet been accused of murder, but I am suspected of it. I should like to retain you, Señor Gar. I am not guilty of murdering this man.”

“I am not a lawyer, princess,” Jo Gar told her, “but if you wish to retain me—if you wish me to seek the murderer—”

She said firmly: “I do.”

The detective bowed. Sadi Ratan moved toward the figure on the couch.

“The coroner will be here immediately—and two of my men. Poor devil—he was a great magician, this Black.”

“He is a great magician, lieutenant,” Sonya Vlatchnoff said quietly.

Sadi Ratan faced her. His voice was hard.

“The princess chooses to doubt that Hugh Black is dead?”

Her dark eyes met Jo Gar’s. She spoke in a husky, even tone.

“Yes. I choose to doubt that The Great Black is dead.”

The detective said softly, “And your reason for the doubt, Princess Vlatchnoff?”

There was silence. Then the woman said, “The dead man lying there, Señor Gar, is
not
The Great Black.”

Jo Gar pulled on a brown-paper cigarette, his figure lolling in a chair near the dead man. Don Castana, the coroner, was examining the wound; two of the police lieutenant’s men stood near the door. Sadi Ratan paced back and forth, talking in a low voice.

“And you say, Madame Vlatchnoff, that after the trick performed by The Great Black about five minutes before the end of the show—the vanishing of a girl from a tank of water—it was the magician’s habit to have himself impersonated by this dead man, unknown to the audience. This Richard Janisohn took the applause and did a few simple encore tricks. In the meantime, The Great Black was dressing for the street.”

Princess Vlatchnoff nodded. “Yes,” she said. “He started it as a whim—he told me once how simple it was to fool an audience. Of course the impersonating make-up is very good. When it worked well, Hugh decided to continue the trick. It allowed him to leave the stage sooner, rest from the strain of his performance.”

Jo Gar said: “The entire company knew The Great Black was replaced by Richard Janisohn just before the end of the performance?” The woman shrugged. “Some of us knew—I’m not sure how many.

Janisohn stood in the wings for a few seconds. After the water illusion there was usually much applause. Hugh bowed from the side of the stage, walked off. Janisohn walked on in his place. That was all.”

Sadi Ratan frowned. “But not all the persons backstage knew this?”

“Very likely not.” The princess’ voice was low and calm. “We carry our own lights and operators with us—it is necessary in a performance of illusions. Some of them may never have known; certainly none of the local staff did.”

Ratan said: “But you did, Madame?” She nodded. “To an extent.”

Jo Gar stared at his cigarette. “You mean that at times The Great Black did finish the performance?”

She said: “That is so, Señor Gar.”

Sadi Ratan swore in Tagalog. The coroner straightened up.

“The death was apparently instantaneous,” he said. “At the impact of the weapon—a knife or a dagger. The impact point was the base of the brain; the weapon drove in with much force.”

Ratan spoke swiftly. “The weapon might have been a thrown knife or dagger?”

Don Castana nodded. “Thrown or in the grip of the murderer, I should say.”

The police lieutenant regarded the Princess Vlatchnoff with narrowed eyes. “When this Richard Janisohn substituted for The Great Black tonight he took the bows, made a gesture toward a small table, stamped a foot. Smoke was released. Pigeons flew out over the audience, circled back as the curtain descended. The curtain rose again and Janisohn bowed. Then he fell forward toward the footlights. Where were you, Madame Vlatchnoff, at that time?”

“I was here in this dressing room, seated there.” She gestured toward the couch on which the body was lying.

Jo Gar smiled. “You were alone in this room at the time the dead man fell, princess?” he asked.

She said slowly “No, I was not alone. I was there on the couch.

Hugh Black was holding me in his arms.”

The lieutenant of police stared at her. “You did not tell us this before.”

“You did not ask me where I was or who was with me.”

A brown-faced policeman appeared in the dressing-room doorway, spoke to Sadi Ratan in the native tongue.

When the policeman had finished, Ratan turned to the princess. “Mr. Hugh Black has not returned to the Manila Hotel. His clothes are in the closet, and his toilet articles are still there.”

For the first time there was fear in the woman’s eyes. Ratan’s voice crackled at her.

“Why does
that
frighten you, Madame?”

Her eyes met the police lieutenant’s squarely. “Because I think perhaps whoever murdered Richard Janisohn may have discovered the mistake, followed Hugh Black—” Her voice broke.

Jo Gar stood up.
“Followed,
you say, princess? He left you here, then?”

Her voice was steadier now. “Yes; we quarreled. He left me here. I was here when Crandon and Foxe carried Janisohn in. I was terribly shocked.”

Sadi Ratan said: “Crandon and Foxe are The Great Black’s assistants?”

She nodded. “Yes. They are English. They ran to Janisohn when he fell.”

The Manila lieutenant asked, “If you were down here when Janisohn fell, how do you know
that?”