Cummings said: “What about it?”
Jo spoke tonelessly. “I have asked questions about the breed. They are savage, part monkey. At times they are very affectionate. Blood excites them — they are extremely nervous. Apparently I talked with Brail from downstairs here, within five minutes of the time he was stabbed. When we entered the suite he was dead. The Siamese cat was on the divan, and not the least bit disturbed. There were scratches on Brail’s hands and wrists.”
Cummings said: “Well?”
Jo Gar sighed. “I do not think Brail spoke to me on the telephone. I think he had been dead some little time — long enough for the cat to have gotten over its nervousness. If the cat had been in the room when Brail had been struck down it would have still been excited when I entered the room. If it had come in after the murder, the body and the blood would still have been having an effect.”
Cummings sucked in a deep breath. Jo Gar said very quietly.
“But the Siamese was almost sleeping — it was not at all excited.”
The hotel director half closed his eyes. “Well?” he said again.
Jo Gar shrugged. “The one who spoke to me as Brail was Brail’s murderer. Brail was dead at that time. He had been dead for some little time. As I went upstairs — the murderer escaped.”
Cummings said: “How about the scratches on Brail’s hands and wrists?”
The Island detective frowned. “According to the statements Lieutenant Ratan has been giving to the press, they were caused in the struggle. Fingernail scratches — of Phelps. He states that Phelps’ nails were quite long, and several were broken. I disagree with him, but I do not think they were cat scratches.”
Cummings said again: “Well?”
Jo smiled faintly. “Phelps was shot through the mouth. The gun muzzle was very close — but that does not mean it was suicide. I think he was murdered by the same ones who murdered Walter Brail.”
The hotel director said: “By the same ones?”
Jo nodded slowly. “Ones,” he repeated. “I do not know the motive. But I could make a guess. In my own way.”
The hotel director looked at Jo Gar narrowly. They had known each other over a period of years, and there were things that Cummings remembered.
“If I can help, Señor Gar—”
Jo’s eyes were slitted on the broad stairs beyond the palms. They were more almond shaped than usual.
“I would like to look over the suite again, more carefully,” he said. “The Siamese cat is now in the hotel?”
Cummings nodded. “The maid has quarters here — the cat is in her place, at the rear of the hotel.”
Jo took his eyes away from the broad stairs. “I would like the maid to bring the Siamese to the suite,” he said. “But first I should like to call Lieutenant Ratan. He might be interested.”
Cummings grunted. “He told me that you were a fool, and that the case was finished.”
The Island detective smiled tightly. “It is very likely that what he meant was that if I had been a fool the case would now be finished,” he said softly.
When Sadi Ratan came into the living-room of Suite Twenty-eight he stopped and stared at Jo Gar, then at Hernandez. Jo smiled and gestured towards Hernandez.
“I asked the señor to come here so that the Spanish papers could have the story,” he said. “You do not object?” His tone was expressionless.
Sadi Ratan grinned at the newspaperman. “Not if it is an amusing story,” he replied.
The Island detective spoke a little grimly. “I think you will like it,” he said. “There is a cat in it.”
He nodded to the hotel director who went to the telephone. Jo Gar said:
“I have just one request — I should like to do the talking, and I shouldn’t like anyone to show surprise at what I say. I think we’d better be sitting down and taking things easy, as the Americans say.”
They seated themselves. Cummings came away from the phone and said:
“She will be right along.”
Less than a minute later there was a rap on the half-closed door that led to the corridor. Jo said:
“Please come in.”
He was smiling as the maid entered, holding the Siamese cat in her arms. The cat regarded them stolidly; the light was fading and its eyes were very blue. Jo Gar looked at the maid and said:
“Just set the cat down and let it wander around, please.”
She said: “Si señor,” and did as instructed. The Siamese did not move around much; it stayed close to her and watched the others in the room. Jo rose slowly, still smiling.
“You are not frightened of the cat?” he asked the maid.
She shook her head, a very faint smile on her lips. She was dark haired, medium in size. She was good looking for a Filipino girl, slenderer than most of them. Her English was very good.
The Island detective said: “You are not frightened — of this one?”
Her dark eyes widened. The smile had gone from Jo Gar’s face.
“Of this one?” she repeated slowly.
The Island detective nodded. “This one has seen a man murdered,” he said very steadily and softly. “It has seen blood on the man’s—”
He stopped as the Filipino maid raised a hand towards her throat. She said in a choked voice:
“No... please—”
Jo Gar turned his head back to her and pointed towards the floor. He spoke loudly, huskily.
“Walter Brail’s body was lying about there — when I came in. The cat was on the divan. Brail was dead — there was blood on his lips. A knife wound in the heart and in the neck—”
He let his words die, went towards the spot on the floor where Brail’s body had lain. The room was very quiet; he could hear the swift breathing of the maid, behind him. Cummings was breathing heavily, too.
Jo Gar turned slowly. He walked a few feet towards the maid, then stopped.
“You screamed last evening — when you saw the body. You did not go near the body. All you saw was a figure lying on the floor. Yet you screamed, again and again. You ran down the corridor screaming—”
The maid spoke in a broken voice. “I was — frightened. I felt — that he was dead — lying there—”
Jo Gar moved nearer her. “You are not afraid of a cat. A cat that belonged to a dead man. A cat that was in this room when the man was murdered, knifed—”
She said in a strangled voice: “I’ve had — Siamese cats — before—”
Sadi Ratan spoke in a protesting voice. “What is it that you want to know, Señor Gar?”
The Island detective paid no attention to Ratan. He moved closer to the maid, his gray-blue eyes very small and his lips pressed together in a straight line. When he parted them he said very grimly:
“You are the sort of woman who screams again and again when she sees a body lying on the floor — and yet you are not at all afraid of a dead man’s cat. A strange breed of cat—”
There was fear in the girl’s eyes. She raised her browned hands, pressed palms against her face. Jo stepped forward quickly, caught her wrists in his hands. He said sharply:
“Your fingernails are very short — I think a doctor would say they had been cut very recently.”
The maid pulled herself away from him. She swore fiercely, in a half Spanish, half Filipino dialect. When she had finished Jo Gar slipped right-hand fingers in the right pocket of his duck suit.