J. Parsons Peabody was working for him. The fast yacht Huelva was his property, though it was still listed in the name of the ex-millionaire. Occasionally he combined business with pleasure and made a cruise in her.
The girl who was lying on a divan lifted her head. She was an exceedingly pretty girl with great masses of chestnut hair, glowing brown eyes, a round, doll like face and a figure so sumptuous that even the loose sailor’s costume she wore could not conceal the fact.
“When’s he coming?” she demanded. “I’m crazy about that guy, Tim.”
“He’ll be along pretty soon if he knows what’s good for him,” said Mr. Moriaty grimly.
“You ain’t going to do anything to him, are you, Tim?”
Mr. Moriaty bent heavy brows. “You stuck on this mug?” he demanded.
“Course I ain’t. You’re my man, Tim.”
“Yeah. These college goofs always make a hit with you dolls. Damned if I know why. I could kill any one of them I ever met with my bare hands.”
“He’s a swell boy and he got a raw deal.”
“What he’s had ain’t nothing to what he’s going to get if he don’t do what I tell him. There’s a launch coming out. Wait a minute.”
He picked up a pair of binoculars and turned them on the approaching launch.
“It’s him,” he said.
The girl rolled off the divan and toddled toward the cabin entrance.
“Where you going?” he demanded in his rumbling bass.
“I’ll be back presently. I’m going to put on something good looking,” she replied.
Tim laughed ironically. “Take off, you mean,” he jeered. “I’m talking private to this egg. You keep away until I send for you.”
She laughed cheerfully. “O.K., Tim.”
When the launch ran alongside a few minutes later, sailors appeared at the accommodation ladder.
“Who do you want to see?” one of them demanded of the young man who presented himself.
“All right,” shouted Moriaty. “Let him aboard.”
Tim lighted a cigar at least nine inches long. Especially made for him in Havana, they cost him a dollar apiece.
“Hello, Billings,” he said hoarsely, “Give an account of yourself and make it snappy.”
“That’s what I’m here for, Mr. Moriaty,” replied the man whom Cynthia knew as John Smith.
“How did it happen? Who done it?”
“I don’t know how it happened and I don’t know who killed him.”
“He had twenty grand in his clothes. Who got it?”
“I don’t know anything about it, Tim.”
Moriaty looked at the young man balefully. “Nobody ever double crossed me and lived long,” he declared. “I’m giving you a chance to come clean.”
Billings seated himself. He was pale and worried “I’ll tell you what I know and all I know,” he said. “I landed the plane on the moor with Haywood according to orders. We waited until it got a little darker and the fog came rolling in and then we walked across the fields and came up behind what I thought was the Sears house. In the fog I came out on the bluff about a hundred feet beyond it and I walked down the path with Haywood. Just in front of the house I heard a woman scream — it sounded as though she had fallen over the cliff.
“I had a flashlight in my pocket and, on impulse, I slid over the edge and down to the bottom. Haywood came along with me. I found a girl, who had been knocked unconscious, and I told Haywood to meet me in front of the house. I helped her to her feet when she came to after a minute and got her up a long staircase to the path again and sent her on her way.”
“And she got a look at you, of course,” said Moriaty contemptuously.
“No. The fog was too thick. She didn’t see me. I was careful of that. Then I went back to the Rapidan-Sears place, found Haywood, took him into the house and introduced him as Mr. Smith to the butler. We said good night. I went back and boarded the plane and landed in New Bedford. That’s all I know about it.”
“Go on,” said Moriaty scornfully.
“I heard about the murder in New Bedford and realized that there were things to be done so I returned to Nantucket on the morning boat.”
“Listen,” said Moriaty in cold, menacing tones. “Harry Haywood isn’t in that house more than an hour or two when he is murdered. These servants had nothing against him. They didn’t know him. You’re the only one on this island that knew that Haywood was in that house. Now, if you didn’t kill him, who did?”
“I didn’t kill him,” replied Billings stoutly. “I had one or two theories. Want to hear them?”
“You bet your life I do.”
“John Smith was an island mystery. He was supposed to be a man of wealth. He was a recluse. There are plenty of bad characters on the island. A lot of those Portuguese squatters are untrustworthy and there are tough eggs working in your mob. They might have picked that night to break in and kill the tenant of that house. That’s one theory. The other is that he was killed by somebody who did know that it was Harry Haywood who would be in the house that night, who had good reason for wanting him out of the way, and who destroyed his features so that he could not be recognized and the killing traced back to its instigator.”
“You mean me,” said Moriaty. “Why should I bump him off after all the trouble I had fixing a break for him out of Atlanta penitentiary?”
“I thought of that,” said Billings, meeting the big man’s eye without hesitation. “Haywood took the rap for you. He has enough on you to make a lot of trouble for you. In stir he might have decided to squeal, so you had to get him out. And you might have decided he knew too much to be at large.”
Moriaty frowned but did not explode as Billings had expected.
“I ain’t that kind of a guy,” he said slowly. “It ain’t a bad theory, Billings, and I know fellers that would have done just as you say. But I happen to like Harry. I’m not afraid of him. He took the rap on the income tax business because I promised to get him out in a few weeks. I put you and Daisy to work to rig up this Smith business to have a safe hideaway for him. You see, if he was living in Nantucket for six weeks before the break at Atlanta, they couldn’t very well suspect this Mr. Smith of being Harry Haywood. I don’t have to make any explanations to you, but I’m doing it. That theory of yours is screwy.”
Billings smiled and looked greatly relieved.
“I believe you,” he said. “Frankly, Tim, I can’t be a party to murder. I’ve done a few things I’m ashamed of. I was ashamed to have to help in the escape of a notorious gangster like Haywood. I only did it because you said that you’d let me quit the game after this job.”
“With your record you talk like that,” said Moriaty contemptuously. “Now my theory was that you scragged him for the twenty grand I slipped him in New York, but I believe you when you say you didn’t do it. I’ll believe you till I get proof to the contrary.”
“Haywood spent a couple of nights in New York,” said Billings. “Whom did he see and talk to. There are plenty who have it in for him.”
“That’s an idea. I’ll find out. What I can’t understand is how a two fisted guy like Haywood would lie in bed and let somebody bash in his face with a club.”
“And who stole his body from the undertaking rooms in Nantucket?”
“Yeah.”
“And who was the woman who telephoned to the Nantucket police from New Bedford next morning?” demanded Billings.
“That’s right. I forgot there was a dame in it.”
“And somebody got away with the twenty grand. No money was found in his clothes or in the house.”