“Why don’t you think you’d recognize her?” he asked.
“I’ve been aboard her only once.”
“How’s that?”
“My husband took her in on some property he sold about a year ago, just before he died. Since the estate was settled, I’ve been trying to sell her. But to get back to the subject, you’d recognize her, wouldn’t you?”
“I think so,” he said.
“Good. Now, about the plane?”
“Not so fast. Maybe Hollister made me a little gun-shy, but this time I’d like some proof. How do I know you’re Mrs. Osborne?”
“Well!” He thought for a moment she was going to tell him that anybody knew who Mrs. C. R. Osborne was, but she fooled him. “You’re pretty hard-boiled, aren’t you?”
“Not particularly,” he said. “It’s just that I’ve made my quota of bonehead plays for this week. But you don’t have to bother digging up identification. Just tell me what I said in that letter.”
She repeated it almost exactly as he had written it. “Are you satisfied now?”
“Yes.” Then it occurred to him that his manners were almost as bad as hers. “And, incidentally, I want to thank you for going to all that trouble to call back to Houston to verify it.”
She shrugged. “No trouble. Now what about the plane?”
“You’re sure you want to go to all that expense, just to see if she’s out there? She’s insured, isn’t she?”
She nodded. “Against marine risk, as I get the picture. But I don’t think the policy covers theft, and if something happens to her out there and I’ve got no witnesses or actual proof of loss, it might be years before I could collect.”
That was possible, he thought. But the feeling persisted that she wasn’t telling the truth—or at least not all of it. Well, it was none of his business. He bent over the chart, studying the position she had marked and estimating the distances. “I think Nassau would be the best bet. It’s a little nearer, and McAllister Air Service used to have some big twin-engine amphibians that should be able to do it. Want me to call them now?”
“Sure.”
He reached for the telephone on one of the small end-tables. While the operator put through the call he sat frowning thoughtfully at the chart. What could they have been doing out there? He was connected then with the office at Windsor Field in Nassau. McAllister had left for the night, but one of the pilots was still around, a man named Avery. He said they were still flying the amphibians.
“What’s their range?” he asked.
“It depends on the load. What do you want to carry?”
“Just a couple of passengers. Here’s the deal. . . .” He explained briefly, and asked, “Do you have a chart handy, any general chart that takes in the area west of Andros?”
“Yes, sir. There’s one right in front of me.”
“Good. Take a look at the outer edge of the Bank, opposite Cay Sal. Got it? They picked up the dinghy at about 23.30 north, just off the hundred-fathom curve in the Santaren Channel. If we wanted to fly a search pattern around that point, how much of the area could we cover and still not have to walk home?”
“Hmmm . . . Just a minute . . . We could stay down there close to two hours and still get back all right.”
“What’s the rate?”
“A hundred and twenty-five dollars an hour.”
“Just a minute.” He placed a hand over the transmitter and relayed the figure to Mrs. Osborne.
She nodded. “Tell him we’ll be there as soon as we can.”
He spoke into the instrument. “Okay. I think there’s a Pan American flight out of here early in the morning—”
“Yes. Flight 401. Arrives Nassau at nine a.m.”
“Check. And if we can’t get space on it, I’ll cable you what flight we will be on. That okay?”
“Yes, sir. So unless we hear from you, we’ll have her fueled and ready for nine a.m.”
He broke the connection, got the hotel operator again, and asked for Pan American Airways. They were in luck; space was available on flight 401. He made the reservations and hung up.
“It’s all set,” he said. “Ill meet you at the Pan Am counter at the airport about three-quarters of an hour before flight time.”
“Good. Now about your pay—”
“There’s no charge,” he said.
She frowned. “What?”
“I helped them steal the boat, didn’t I? The least I can do is help you find it.”
“You can’t be serious.”
He stood up to leave. “Whether or not I did it with intent, as the police call it, doesn’t change the facts. I’m at least partly responsible for their getting away with it.”
“Well, you’re an odd one, I must say.” She regarded him for the first time with something approaching interest. “How old are you?”
“Forty-three.”
“You don’t look it.”
“Thanks,” he said. She didn’t bother to rise. He walked to the door, fighting the stiffness in his leg, but paused with his hand on the knob. “That dinghy—when they found it, were there any oars in it?”
“No,” she said. “Just the motor.”
“Was there any gasoline in it? Or did they look?”
She stared down at the glass in her hand. “They looked,” she said. “It was empty.”
He nodded. The silence lengthened. “See you in the morning,” he said, and went out.
3
It was a long time before he got to sleep. On the evidence, the theft of the Dragoon was no hare-brained, spur-of-the-moment stunt; it had been carefully thought out by men who knew what they were doing. Then by the same token they must have known they couldn’t enter any port in the western hemisphere without the necessary documentation—which they couldn’t possibly steal. So what had they planned to do? Stay at sea, or put her into orbit?
And how had they lost the dinghy? The police seemed to accept this as merely a routine incident—they’d been towing it, it came adrift, so what? But it wasn’t that simple. They wouldn’t have been towing it at sea; and certainly not with the motor and somebody’s clothes in it. It would have been aboard, lashed down on the deckhouse. So they had put it over the side for something. But for what? The watch and the clothes were easier to understand, at least up to a point. The man—whoever he was—had taken them off to go in the water for some reason. But what reason? You were stumped again.
And what about Mrs. Osborne—aside from the obvious things like the good looks and bad manners? Something didn’t quite ring true. The theft would have been reported to her as soon as the police learned of it themselves—last Friday, at the latest. That was four days ago. But she apparently hadn’t thought it necessary to come to Miami until this morning; and then presumably she’d grabbed the first available plane after the police called to tell her about the dinghy. Why? It wasn’t to identify the dinghy. She’d admitted over the phone she wasn’t familiar enough with the Dragoon’s gear to be sure. And it wasn’t necessary, anyway, because Tango identified it. So could it have been that watch that brought her flying in from Houston? Maybe she had an idea whose it was. But if so, why hadn’t she told the police?
Forget it, he thought. All you have to do is find the schooner. He closed his eyes, and in back of them was the deadly flower of explosion. He had seen it nearly every night for the past two months, the same unvarying and frozen scene like a nightmare captured intact and imbedded in plastic. It was too late to stop him. Barney leaned forward to strike the torch. . . .
She was waiting near the Pan American counters when he arrived at the airport the next morning, and had already picked up the tickets and checked her bag. He tried to pay for his, but she brushed the money aside impatiently. “Don’t be silly, I’ll pay the expenses.”