“Friday evening. So did I.”
“When did he leave?”
“I don’t know. I came — he sent me away yesterday morning. He was still there when I left.”
“Were Luke Wheer and Vaughn Kester there?”
“Yes. They came late Sunday night, to tell him—” Her hand fluttered in appeal. “But where is he? What’s going to happen? For God’s sake—”
“He’s all right. Don’t worry, Miss Duke. We’ll handle it. Was Thorpe with you at the cottage continuously from Friday evening until Sunday midnight?”
“Yes, he—” She stopped and her eyes narrowed.
“Why do you ask a question like that if—”
“If I’m working for him? Because no matter who I’m working for I have to be sure of the facts. Don’t waste valuable time suspecting me. Was he?”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t go away at all?”
“We went for a ride and to the movies at the village. He didn’t go away from me, not for five minutes.”
“Thank you. Now what I really came for, do you know where your father is?”
“My father?” She gawked at him. “My father?”
Fox nodded. “Mr. Henry Jordan. Now take it easy, you’re jumpy. Thorpe says in that note that you are to answer my questions. We want to find your father because we need his help. Thorpe will explain when he sees you — or you’ll read it in the papers — I haven’t time now. Do you know where he is?”
“But, good Lord—”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Do you know whether he spent the weekend on his boat?”
“No. I know he’s on it most of the time. Weekends are the same as week-middles to him since he retired. I expect he was—”
“Where does he go on the boat?”
“Lord, I don’t know. Around on the water.”
“Where does he keep it?”
“I don’t know that either, but I suppose somewhere near his house. He lives in a little house at City Island. I suppose somewhere on the ocean—”
“City Island isn’t on the ocean, it’s on the sound.”
“Well, then, on the sound. That’s all I know — but I can give you the address of his house. Wait a minute, I’ll get it.”
She disappeared within, and in a few moments came back and handed Fox a slip of paper. “That’s the address. He hasn’t any phone.”
“Thank you very much. No, Miss Duke, I can’t tell you a thing. But don’t worry. Go to bed. I interrupted your sleep. I apologize.”
He left her, left the building, walked around the corner to the truck, got a key from his pocket and unlocked the rear door, poked his head in and spoke to the dark interior:
“I saw her. She doesn’t know where he is or where he was over the weekend. He lives at City Island and we’re bound for there.”
“This is insuf—”
“I told you not to talk,” Fox snapped and banged the door.
North on Third Avenue, on the car tracks under the elevated, the truck bumpety-bumped along, back through the city; darted deviously through the vastness of the Bronx and finally straightened its course on Central Avenue. The sun was beginning to assert itself and obviously it meant to make a day of it. On a stretch where no sidewalk offered a risk of curious pedestrians and the bedlam of passing traffic smothered lesser sounds, Fox steered off the through lanes, stopped the truck, got out and unlocked the rear door again, and inquired:
“All right?”
“No!” Thorpe yapped. “It’s unbearable! It’s an oven in here! We can’t—”
“Sorry, you’ll have to take it. Quit banging on that partition, or I’ll park this thing and take a taxi home and you can play the hand out. You even banged after I stopped. How did you know where I was stopping?”
He swung the door to and trotted back to the front. As they eased back into the swift current, he observed to Dan, with his eyes on the road and his face straight: “Good gracious, it’s hot in there.”
“It’s even hotter where his stand-in is,” Dan rumbled. “Anyhow, people pay three or four dollars for a Turkish bath. The same thing.”
Ten minutes later they turned off of Central Avenue at a busy intersection, rounded another corner and parked at the curb. Fox opened the rear door enough to poke his head in, stated that he was leaving Dan on the seat and there was no telling whether he would be gone forty minutes or four hours, walked back to the intersection and found a taxi, and gave the driver the address he had got from Miss Duke. As the taxi headed east towards the causeway to City Island, Fox was on the edge of the seat, gripping the strap, frowning and not singing. If he found Henry Jordan at home, his boat at its mooring, the operation was defeated, done, and he might as well drive the truck straight to the courthouse at White Plains.
But the little house at 914 Island Street, perched, like its companions in the row winding with the shore of the sound, with its rear on stilts to lift it above the tide, had no occupant. Fox, having found both front and back doors locked, and having got no response to his knocking, stood on the little elevated porch and looked out across the water. Boats of all sizes and descriptions tugged at their moorings; and bobbing dots here and there — one a hundred yards straight out from where he stood — were moorings without boats. He was saved the trouble of deciding on the next step by the sound of a voice.
“He’s not there!”
Fox turned and saw the head of a woman with frowsy hair protruding from the window of the house next door, thirty paces off.
“Good morning!” he called. “I’m looking for Henry Jordan!”
“Yeah, I see you are. He’s out on his boat.”
“Thanks. When did he go?”
“Oh, I think... yeah, I think Thursday.”
“Hasn’t been back?”
“No, he often stays out a week or more.”
“Where does he go, anywhere in particular?”
“No, nowhere particular. He likes flounder. There’s more of them down the Long Island side. Once my husband and I caught—”
“Excuse me. What’s the name of his boat?”
“Armada. Funny name, don’t you think?”
“Very. What’s it like a cruiser?”
“Yeah, it’s thirty foot, nine-foot beam, high out of the water and an awful roller, white all over with the cabin trimmed in brown, though he was telling my husband not long ago—”
“Thank you very much.”
“Who shall I tell him—”
“Don’t bother.” Fox was on his way. “Thanks!”
That, of course, was the best of luck. The bad luck was waiting for him when he got back to the truck — a flat tire; and there was no spare. Fox glared at it; this would not only cause delay, but would call attention to a conspicuous vehicle far from its haunt; but there was no help for it. He drove back to the intersection and found a garage, and told the mechanic:
“Fix it as quick as you can, will you, brother? I’ve got meat in there that’s going to spoil on a day like this.”
That cost a dollar and thirty-five minutes. Then he headed north again and at a favorable spot halted to report progress to his inside passengers. Again north.
His wristwatch said half-past ten and the heavy oppressive air said ninety in the shade, when he parked the truck once more, this time on the main street of South Norwalk. Before he left the seat and left the truck for good, he told Dan:
“Remember, my part’s easy. I’m taking it because I can find it from the water and you can’t. You’ve got the job and it’s up to you. Don’t let them out until I’m beached and don’t let them out if there’s any one in sight close enough to see faces. They’re not to run or do anything but act natural — walk across the beach to me — and they’re not to do that if there’s any one within three hundred yards, even if it means waiting all day. As soon as they’re on board and the boat’s under way, take the truck home, get the convertible, drive to South Norwalk, park outside Carter’s place and wait. You may wait an hour and you may wait twenty. Stay with the car.”