Burton summed up. “I’m very much afraid, with those foolish letters around loose — at least, that one letter — that Rowdy Kitterley is going to find himself in an uncomfortable spot. However, until they show up, he’s comparatively safe. But the evidence of that last warning letter will practically condemn him!”
Vivian turned to him as they reached the curb. “But where are the letters?” she demanded. “If Rowdy is being framed, as you seem to think, why haven’t the letters appeared? They’re surely worth something to someone!”
Burton shook his head: “The answer to that, my dear, will solve the whole case.” He went on, almost reluctantly. “And, too, there’s another answer we mustn’t let ourselves lose sight of entirely. Even if we do feel sympathetic toward Rowdy. Put everyone into the scene as it is at the present moment, and out of the whole cast of characters you’ll find that Rowland Kitterley had more reason that anyone else to keep those letters concealed!”
Burton drove with Vivian to Patricia’s villa. There he took leave of her. Han Soy was due at the hotel on the next train. But for a moment, at the summit of the flight of wooden steps that led up to the villa, he paused, alone in the darkness.
Below him wound the splendor of that broad highway known as Grande Corniche. The harbor of Villefranche showed clusters of fairy-like lights; the crafts moored out there in the silence were like ghostly, pasteled silhouettes on the dusky softness of a painted background.
He touched his left shoulder. Somehow he was glad that he had thought to adjust the shoulder holster with its reliable .38 under his coat tonight. There might be need for it. Things had stirred up, he thought. And Han Soy, his faithful valet, was due...
He descended the steps slowly and entered the car. The Paris Express must have got in before this.
A block before the taxi came to the entrance of his hotel, he leaned forward and gave the order to pull up. He paid off his driver and walked on. The late hour had almost drained the Promenade des Anglais of even wakeful strollers.
Entering the hotel by the door opening on the Promenade, he called for the key to his suite, accepted it abstractedly. The clerk was in conference with two guests and paid him scant attention as he handed it over.
Still, with a feeling that called for caution, Burton left the elevator on the floor below his own. He mounted the well-carpeted stairs slowly, thoughtfully, wondering if Soy had come yet and reflecting that if he had he had been sent up to the suite. Burton had left word he was expecting him.
He fitted his key, stepped into the small foyer, then stepped back with a whispered oath.
Yes, Han Soy had arrived.
A scramble, a low oath that matched his own! Burton’s gun flicked into his hand. Two men were dark shadows against the portieres in the rear. Soy’s voice cried out something.
Livid flame bit the half-dark. Burton heard lead slam against the door panel to the left of him. He fired at the flash.
He knew two men to be there. Han Soy was an almost indistinguishable huddle in the middle of the sitting-room floor.
One dark figure went through the window, onto the fire-escape. The second paused only to snap another wild shot; then, at Burton’s return flash, he was gone.
The gambler sped across the intervening space. A chair had been deliberately upended inside the doorway. His feet tangled in its rungs in the darkness and he had to dutch at the wall to save himself from a spill.
But the effect had been accomplished. By the time he reached the rear window, the fire-escape was empty. Curtains were billowing innocently outward from an apartment opening just below.
It was against Burton’s nature to make any futile attempt at running out and trying to intercept his attackers on the floor beneath his. The two men, whoever they were, had known their business. In only one particular had they fallen short: Before a fear that must have been deep in them, fear for the known menace of Black Burton’s .38 and his shooting wizardry, their nerve had failed.
Burton retraced his way and bent swiftly over the form of the little Chinaman who had served him so well and for so long. He snapped on the overhead lights and the luxurious apartment sprang into recognizibility.
But Han Soy was not dead. Nor was he too badly hurt. Small, even for a Chinaman, the yellow man struggled up on one elbow as Burton crouched over him. Blood ran down thickly from a clotted and jagged tear in the skin just over his left eye.
Burton said swiftly, “Your temple! Anything else, Soy?”
Han Soy held up a hand and shook his head. Burton poured him a large drink of brandy. The Oriental downed it swiftly, a look of gratitude and devotion in his slanting eyes.
Burton helped him to the lounge. Soy said at last: “Did you know them, sir?”
“I don’t think so; didn’t get enough of a look, but I’m pretty sure they’re strangers to me. But tell me—”
“There is little to tell! But perhaps on the other hand there is much when it is seen by two pairs of eyes.” Han Soy paused. His English was pure, unstilted, his diction excellent. Soy had been and was a scholar. He smiled a little. “Yes, perhaps there is much to tell. Perhaps it is because of what I had seen, there in the railway terminal before I came on here. They did not want me alive when you arrived to tell you that!”
“I suppose everyone who knows me knows who you are, of course — our long association,” Burton nodded. “They could have spotted you easily enough if that was in their minds. And there never was any secret about your being due to arrive here. The thing is, why did they want to silence you before you could talk to me? What did you uncover?”
Han Soy sighed. “Maybe nothing. But it must be something, still. I saw two men in buying tickets for the Golden Arrow north. And I could not help but recognize them from the pictures I had seen — you know the story of this murder has been in all the papers since it happened, your connection with it, the principals; you understand? I had time to become acquainted with all the known facts long before I reached here. And so when these two saw me and saw that I had possibly recognized them, guessing who I was...” Han Soy spread his long, thin hands. “It would have been better for them had I not lived to tell you.”
Burton lit a cigarette. Through the smoke of it, as he arose from beside the couch, he queried softly:
“I understand a little, Soy. Who were the men you recognized buying tickets north?”
Han Soy replied: “One I did not recognize. But the other, I have seen his photographs, with the news of the murder. The one I recognized resembled the man who works at the Circle Tabarin. Jules Peret.”
Burton turned away. He made no comment at once. Instead, as the little Chinaman’s slant eyes followed him, he crossed the room, slumped into a deep chair and closed his eyes. Wreaths of smoke curled about his dark features. Soy made no move, said nothing.
At last: “It’s got to be that way!” Black Burton exclaimed. He got to his feet. “I’m leaving you here, Soy. If it’ll be any comfort to you, you paid the price for cracking this case with that crack on your head!”
Now the gay lights on the Promenade were surrendering their hours of triumph to gray fingers of an early dawn mist creeping in from the Mediterranean. Burton’s taxicab dropped him two blocks from the Cercle Tabarin. He told a somewhat querulous and suspicious chauffeur to wait there for him, then turned up his collar to hide his white shirt front and strode away.
From the road the Cercle Tabarin was mostly in darkness. It was situated on Monte Carlo’s outskirts, almost on the border of the port town of Villefranche. Mist continued to billow in damply from the sea; the air already had in it a hint of sunrise.