“We’re well aware,” Fross crossed one leg over the other, inspected the snugness of his sock, “of your influence over Mister Ovett in matters of business.”
“You are.” Berger let his voice drop on the verb. “Well, what he asked me to do isn’t a matter of business.” He glared icily at the three of them in turn. “Lawford asks me to act in loco parentis. To look after Merrill. I gave him my word and by the Lord I mean to do it. I’ll take his father’s place in shielding him from the consequences of his own hotheadedness... or the cold-bloodedness of others.”
Hurlihan wriggled his shoulders in discomfort. “I never believed he killed Gjersten. Maybe he knows who did and had his own reason for shielding that person. But I’m for Merrill. Always have been.”
“Pah!” Berger hawked, turned and spat into the coals. “You’re for yourself. And always have been. You and Fross saw that Merrill’d absorbed a lot of half-baked idealism about the obligations of inheritance, — a man should never spend any money he hasn’t earned himself, — that sort of slush. You knew he was friendly with this professional radical. So you made a deal with Joslin. Got him to use his influence with Merrill, induced him to assign his stock to this so-called Foundation. So you, in turn, could control the company through Joslin. Then all you’d have to do was find a way to bring pressure on Merrill.”
Barbara pouted, prettily. “You’re not being quite fair, Mister Berger.”
The Executive Director gestured brusquely. “I don’t intend to be fair. None of you would win any prizes for square dealing; the only way I know how to light fire is with fire. Merrill’s in trouble. I may not be able to save him from that. But I’m not going to stand around and watch you deceive him and trick him and hoodwink him when he can’t protect himself. When he gets back or when he can defend himself, I’ll step out. Until then, you’re out.”
“What the hell!” Hurlihan jumped up.
Fross took off his pince-nez quickly. “I don’t quite understand.”
“You understand, all right. Until Merrill can get his hand on the helm, I’m running the Line. You are no longer our legal counsel, Mister Fross. You are no longer our superintendent, Gem Hurlihan. And you,” he bowed stiffly to Barbara, “remain aboard this yacht only as long as you remain a decent wife.”
“Mister Berger!”
“Merrill may not approve of my actions,” Berger added. “For that reason alone, you two,” he scowled fiercely at Fross and Hurlihan, “will continue to draw your salaries until he decides what to do about you. In the meantime,” he punctuated his statement with bobbing head, “I’m going to have a superintendent who won’t connive behind Merrill’s back. And a lawyer who’ll spend less time trying to put something over on the Line, its president or his son, — and more time to defending Merrill against this charge of murder, — or to finding out who did commit the crime.” He clutched the lapels of this coat, shook them once to indicate he had said his say. “If that’s going to mean trouble for any of you, you’ve had fair warning!”
XXV
The mist had shut down again, a thick gauze that screened everything more than fifty feet from the pilot-house windows.
“The line the yacht’s patrolling runs from Stratford Light over to the reef, Sarge. We ought to be able to hit her.”
“We’ll be lucky if we hit nothing else in this murk. Why they call it pea-soup fog I do not know. Pea soup is at least warm!” Mulcahey stuck his head out of the port window to peer anxiously in search of the buoy off Execution Rock. “Are you positive we’re after the genuine culprit, now? I would hate to be looking for the wrong needle in a haystack as big as Long Island Sound.”
“Yair.” Koski glanced back at Ellen and Joslin, leaning against the cockpit gunwale. “I feel bad about smashing Gjersten’s skull, though.”
“For why, the scut?”
“He’d have pointed the finger at his partner, before the FBI boys got through with him. But maybe, — ” he felt gingerly of his neck, “maybe he could do that just as well, the way he is...”
The Vigilant hit something. The shock jarred both men off their feet; — the patrol-boat shuddered and plunged on into the circling haze. They looked aft but could see nothing.
Mulcahey wiped his forehead. “One more like that and I will be ready to draw my pension.”
“Didn’t you ever hear about Farragut, Irish? Damn the driftwood...”
“I am giving her as near full speed as I can without having heart failure. It strikes me a funeral pace would be more appropriate, anyhow.” The Sergeant groaned as a trawler materialized out of the fog, rushed past with a swirling wake. “I do not see why it could not have been this Gjersten who did the dirty job on young Ovett.”
“The colored housekeeper at Dommy’s saw two men in Room Five, Joe. One was Gjersten. Other was our friend with a bandage around his chops. It couldn’t have been young Ovett. He was dead then. Bandage Face was seen the next morning in the South Street dock.”
“True for you, Steve. He was.”
“Then Dommy’s housekeeper heard Bandage Face singing while he was sawing up Merrill’s body. The clerk at the drugstore saw him buy the suitcase. On the other hand, Ansel wasn’t at the Bar-Nothing the night of the murder, because Claire Purdo was looking for him and couldn’t find him, according to Schlauff. She might have gone up to Five looking for Ansel, heard Bandage Face singing, knocked on the door.”
“But if this Man-in-the-White-Mask had popped his head out to see who it was, he probably wouldn’t have had the bandage on at the time, skipper.”
“Maybe not, Irish. If he didn’t, that may have been a reason why he sent Ansel to rub her out. Or it could have been Ansel killed her on his own account.”
A horn blew with terrifying closeness; the sound seemed to come from every point of the compass at once. Mulcahey threw out the clutch. The Vigilant rocked violently on the afterwash of some unseen vessel. “I would sooner be piloting a plane blindfolded, so help me.” He got the boat under way again. “How did they identify young Ovett, now?”
“Collar bone broken in two places. He had it broken by a boom that jibed over on a sloop, few summers ago. Then the Wyatt girl had the measurements that wouldn’t be affected by loss of weight, — length of leg, size of foot, — the works.”
“A sin and a shame they had to see him like that. But this yacht captain, now. He was supposed to have seen young Ovett jump off the yacht.”
“He saw Gjersten, in Merrill’s suit.”
“They were not the same size, were they, skipper? The suit would have fitted this Gjersten a trifle late?”
“Yair. But it fitted Merrill the same way, he’d lost so much weight.”
“No one can blame you for misjudgment, there,” Mulcahey sighed, dismally. “They’re takin’ it chin up, aren’t they?”
“You sort of get hardened to the possibility of a guy’s demising when he’s in the merchant marine. It always was a possibility, but now—”
Mulcahey swerved the patrol-boat toward a bell moaning in its sleep; a red can-buoy bobbed its cylindrical body up and down in a tide-race; told him he was on the course.
“I cannot figure it, at all. The man could not have sent that Sinbad telegram, bein’ dead an’ lyin’ in the morgue.”
“Wasn’t any difficulty for the murderer, Sarge. Young Ovett probably had a letter from her,” he nodded his head toward the cockpit, “in his pocket. Addressed to ‘dearest Sinbad.’ It likely said something about looking forward to seeing him when he got to town. All the killer had to know was that the Ellen who signed it was Ellen Wyatt and where she lived.”