Man on a Rope (15 page)

Reluctantly he opened his eyes and surveyed the darkness beyond the tent-like confines of the mosquito netting. By bending his neck he could make out the vague outlines of the three windows which had picked up some ray of reflected light that made them less black than the room itself. It was then that he realized that, with no conscious effort on his part, he was holding his breath and straining his ears. Slowly, then, an odd uncertainty began to make itself felt; the impulse to find out why he should feel this way was strong. It made him lift his head from the pillow, his eyes wide and staring now, his nerve ends groping.

The mosquito netting was like a veil obscuring his view and he could not tell whether he saw something move down by the windows or whether it was his imagination. Not until he heard the faint metallic tinkling sound was he certain that he was not alone in the room. He did not know whether there had been other sounds, or whether it was some instinctive alchemy of the brain that had prodded him back to consciousness, but he was wide awake now, the back of his neck cool and prickly as he waited for a repetition of the sound and planned a course of action.

For there was no longer any doubt in his mind about what he wanted to do. Instinct had roused him and left him momentarily startled and alarmed, but this reaction had passed. Every part of him was alert now and there was a feeling of certainty that the one who had planted the diamonds in his room had come back. This was what he had been waiting for. He was in business at last and the problem now resolved itself to ope of methods. Since he knew he might be dealing with a killer, he weighed the odds carefully, convinced that his only real advantage was surprise.

Luckily he had never bothered to tuck in the mosquito netting. Its edges hung loosely all about the bed, but he knew he could move it and he did so, soundlessly, lifting the edge on his left with that hand, moving no other part of his body until he was half uncovered.

He could see more clearly now, certain that the shadowed form by the window did not belong there. The sounds in the darkness ahead continued from time to time, sometimes brushing sounds, sometimes tinkling sounds that could have been made by a foraging mouse had he not already known the intruder was busy with the flower can on the left. Cautiously now, counting on the other's preoccupation, he tested the bedsprings by easing over on one hip. When there was no noise, he drew his knees up and freed the rest of his body from the net.

Somehow he got his feet on the floor. A concentrated muscular effort brought him to a sitting position. He tried to get silently to his feet, but as his weight lifted, the bed finally betrayed him. There was a sudden twang as the spring snapped back into place. There was a muffled gasp and a convulsive movement as the shadowy figure spun to meet him.

The surprise he had counted on paid off handsomely. He did not have far to go, and two long, lunging strides took him close. Except for the pale blur of a face the figure seemed all in black, and, not knowing whether there would be a gun or not, he met the other head on, his charge driving the intruder back a step, his arms clamping hard about the other's arms to pinion them and render then helpless.

Then, as his back arched and his shoulder muscles tightened, a low, terrified voice gasped in his ear, a wordless cry of protest.

He knew before he heard the voice that he held a woman in his arms. A faint odor of perfume was in his nostrils, but it was the size and substance of the body that told him this must be Muriel Ransom.

“Please!” It was a breathless word as she strained against him. “
Barry!
”

It was a second or two before he understood, before he could believe his senses. He could tell that she was lightly dressed and felt the hard pressure of breast and thigh as she braced herself against him. Only then did he realize why the contours of her body were so softly rounded and distinct; only then did he remember that he had gone to bed naked.

His confusion was genuine as he let go of her and stepped quickly back. “Stay there!” he said, feeling her hands a moment to make sure they were empty.

He backed away, groping for his shorts on the chair by the bed. He squirmed into them, found his robe. He moved past her again to adjust the shutters, knowing now that she must have come in through the window.

Because he did not want much light, he turned on the desk lamp, blinking against the brightness for a moment and then knowing why the woman had been hard to see. She wore thin black slacks, a black blouse buttoned to the neck. A scarf had been knotted tightly about her dark hair. Unless one met her face to face it would be difficult to see her at all. That there was very little if anything beneath the slacks and blouse was also readily apparent, but he had no interest in such things as he faced her.

She stood stiffly, chin up but trembling, her face deadwhite and pinched at the mouth. The neat pile of dirt beside the flower can bore testimony to her activity, and when Barry looked back at her his jaw was hard and his dark-blue eyes were grim and hostile.

“So you're the one that killed him,” he said harshly. “But for a bit of luck you'd have framed me for it, too.”

For a moment then she simply stared at him, lips slowly parting, the luminous dark eyes shocked and unbelieving.

“Oh, no!” she whispered huskily. “No, Barry.”

He did not believe her. He said so. “Sit down!” he said, and waited until she had done so before he perched on the edge of the window seat. “Go ahead,” he said, still shaken. “Talk. Unless you'd rather tell it to the police.”

“I didn't kill him,” she said simply, and now her eyes moved beyond him, a mistiness growing in them in this contemplation of something that she alone could see. “I was going to marry him,” she said, her voice dull and lifeless. “We were going to England. Why should I want to kill him?”

“How do I know? Maybe because you'd had an affair with McBride and Lambert found out about it. Maybe he kicked you out.”

“Yes,” she said. “We had an affair. But that was over. That stopped when I knew how Colin felt about me.”

“So what did you come here for tonight?”

He watched her glance stray to the pile of dirt and fasten there. He stood up and worked on the dirt with a newspaper until he had transferred it to the can where it belonged.

“Well?” he said when he had finished.

“I came for the diamonds,” she said with no further hesitation. “I knew the police didn't have them. I thought they were still here.”

“You planted them.”

“Yes.”

“To frame me,” he said as anger stirred anew inside him. “You figured the police would come here, and they did. If I hadn't had a bit of luck and got rid of them, I'd be waiting trial right now.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“If I had wanted to frame you, Barry, I would have told the truth last night.”

“The truth?” he said in slow astonishment. “About what?”

“About you.”

He had risen to get his cigarettes, and now he stopped, wheeling, peering at her, understanding somehow that she meant what she said. For she was looking right back at him, chin up now and her dark gaze unflinching.

He got the cigarettes, but by now he was so upset by what she had said that he forgot to offer her one. She asked if she might have one too. He said he was sorry and gave her a light. Then, because he had to know, he said:

“What's the rest of it?”

“Colin telephoned me last night about a half-hour after I'd left him. He didn't say what he wanted, but he sounded upset about something. He said he had to see me. I told him I couldn't come then. I was all undressed and I'd washed my hair and was putting it up. He said to come as soon as I could.”

She reached for an ashtray and balanced it on her lap. “By the time I was ready the shower had started and I had to wait, but I started as soon as I could. I was nearly there, on the other side of the street, when I saw someone come out of the house and hurry down the stairs. By the time you turned toward the hotel I knew it was you. When—when I went in I found him on the floor.”

Barry let his breath out, an odd coldness beginning to work on him as the night breeze swirled gently about his bare ankles. There could be no argument to this and he knew it; he knew that he was indeed lucky that she had not told the truth the night before, but it was still not enough.

“You took the diamonds.”

“Yes.”

“How? Did you know the combination? Since when?”

“Since Monday night. Colin was in Trinidad over the week-end. He brought me a bracelet. We had dinner at his place, just like last night. He didn't drink much, but that time he had two brandies after dinner and he was in a wonderful mood. He was considerate and affectionate, and finally he said he'd brought me a present. He teased me about it and I teased to make him give it to me. Finally he laughed and said if I could open the safe I could have it, and then—well, he gave me a number for each kiss. There were three, and that's how I got the bracelet.”

“Were the diamonds there then?”

“No. I never actually saw them. I wouldn't have known the pouch was in the safe if he hadn't told me about the deal he was going to make after you had left yesterday afternoon.”

She put her cigarette out and took a breath, the fabric of the blouse tightening against the fullness of her bosom. “I can tell you why I took them if you want to know,” she said quietly. “But to make you understand I'll have to start a long way back…. Would you have anything to drink here, Barry?”

He said all he had was rum. She said that would be fine, and so he got the bottle from the bureau, holding it up to the light to be sure it was nearly full. He brought two glasses from the bathroom, one of which he filled with water. He watched her pour an inch of rum, swallow half of it, and then take a sip of water. She put the water glass aside, but held the other one.

“I don't think there's much point to tell you about my childhood except to say that it was a pretty sordid and unhappy one,” she said. “We lived in Pennsylvania—there were two brothers, but I was the oldest—and my father couldn't hold a job because he drank too much. So did my mother finally—in self-defense, I guess. I waited until I was seventeen before I decided I'd had enough of it. I'd saved a little money, and a girl friend of mine who was just as fed up as I was ran away with me. We rode the bus to Florida.

“It was easy enough to find a job,” she said. “It was during the last months of the war and gas rationing was off and Miami and the Beach were crawling with soldiers and the papers were full of ads for waitresses and hostesses and car hops. The only problem was to get a place where you didn't have to fight off the customers. But I knew by then that I had something men wanted, and the tips were good and everything was all right until my friend found herself a nice sergeant and got married…. I got married after a while too,” she said and now a note of irony colored her voice.

She discovered she still had some rum in the glass and tossed it off. “He was only a kid and I didn't know any better. He said he had a job as an assistant manager at one of the Beach hotels. Actually he was no such thing. He hung around that hotel and some others, and wore good clothes because he was hustling bets for the gamblers and taking a flyer himself when he could. All I knew was that he had the clothes, and money in his pocket. We got a little apartment and I kept house and took dancing lessons. Considering my background and lack of talent for dancing,” she said frankly, “I suppose it wasn't too bad until he got too cute for the gamblers and they bounced him. The next thing I knew, he and another guy were grabbed sticking up a liquor store.”

She paused again and there was distance in her dark gaze as her mind went back. It was as though she were reliving that period in her life, and even her words took on the connotation of her background now that the veneer she had acquired sloughed off.

“They had him over a barrel,” she said, “and they let him have it. The last I heard—and that was a long time ago—he was working with the road gang. I got a divorce. I found out I couldn't dance enough to do much good, so I worked here and there, mostly as a cigarette girl and mostly in traps. I was drifting,” she said. “I was a tramp and didn't know it. When a fellow came along and said I could do better in Havana I believed him, and it was the same act, shilling for drinks, listening to the propositions that came along and sometimes taking one.

“I never told anyone about this part before,” she said. “I've been trying for years to forget it; I thought I had. I'm only telling you now so you'll understand how it was, and I guess the details aren't important. Havana back to Miami, sometimes doing good, sometimes not. Four of us went to Panama with a night-club act we'd rehearsed. I guess we were pretty pitiful, but I was always glad I went because that's where I met Bill Ransom.”

She glanced down at the empty glass she still held, and Barry reached out with the bottle to add another couple of ounces. She tasted the rum and sipped some water, and when she continued nothing had changed in her voice.

“He was an Englishman, an engineer, and he'd been on a job in Costa Rica. He was in town for a couple of weeks before he took a new assignment in Belize. He had enough money and he was a quiet guy with nice manners and a way of treating you that made you think you were important. I was working in one of those Central Avenue traps—have you ever been to Panama City?—and I knew he was interested when he kept coming back. About the third night he got up enough courage to buy me a drink. He'd had quite a lot himself, but he was still polite and when he asked if I'd have lunch with him I said yes. We did a lot of talking in the next few days. He was staying at the El Panama and we swam in the pool there and went for a picnic out at the beach at Amador. Then, about three days before his leave was up, he asked me to marry him.… Have you ever been to Belize?”