“No.” Koski’s voice was dull with fatigue. “Nothing to do with all this security hocus-pocus. If the idea’d been to get hold of Merrill’s shares, or his estate, or his inheritance, — the body wouldn’t have been cut up to conceal its identity. Other way ’round. Body would have to be identified before there’d be any sense to the crime. Purpose of the mutilation was to hide the dead man’s identity long enough to let Gjersten get out of the country. Aboard the Santa Pobrico. Killer might have stood to profit by Merrill’s death. But not by having it known.”
“There is a discrepancy.” Foss smoothed his mustache. “You say Gjersten sailed on the Pobrico?”
“As an oiler, yair.”
“Then it couldn’t have been Gjersten who assaulted Morrie Schlauff. Because the officers who came around to my office sometime after... after you left... I presume they were acting on your instructions?—”
“Go on. Presume.”
“—told me Morrie must have been attacked at just about the time the Pobrico was pulling away from her pier.”
“Yair.”
Koski waited until the Penfield Reef siren ceased its periodic groan. “Gjersten didn’t slug Schlauff. Schlauff was after information about Merrill. Doped it out that it ought to be worth something to know the whereabouts of a rich man’s son, accused of murder. Had no idea what he was going up against. Accidentally went right to the head man behind this business. He asked the wrong question, guessed the right answer. So maybe the key man tried to buy him off. Maybe he just decided to knock him off. Gjersten wasn’t mixed up in that.”
Barbara asked: “Why are you hunting for him, then? Why don’t you go after this... this head man you talk about?”
“Oh, Gjersten was a killer.” Koski felt the Seavett heel to starboard, knew the yacht must be turning on the inshore leg of the patrol. “He was in on Merrill’s murder. Worked with the boss-guy. Helped put over the message about Joslin. They knew Merrill was a friend of Joslin. Would probably have gone to his aid if word came this union lad was in dutch. So Gjersten let the other man use his room at the dive. But he was probably afraid he’d be identified by the girl he’d taken to the same room in the afternoon. So today, when he learned from the papers the body had been discovered, he must have found where she lived, got in her room up the fire-escape, shot her when she came in. Gjersten was deadly, but he didn’t have the knowledge to do the big job the head man was doing.”
“Knowledge?” Fross took off his glasses, put them on again, and coughed delicately.
“Special kind of information. Information that would be useful to enemy subs off our coast.”
The quietness of the saloon was deepened by the dismal bellow of the siren on the reef. Koski went on:
“Man would have to know about ships. Ship sailings. Ship routes. Might know more about Ovett ships than any others. Have to be familiar with radio. Shortwave. Sending and receiving. Either have one himself or have access to it.” Koski wasn’t watching Barbara, but he could hear her breathing, — like a runner at the finish of a sprint. “He’d have to be able to dress like a seaman. Act like one. Know his way around the waterfront, or how to find his way around without being noticed. He was smart enough to tie a bandage around his chin. So everyone noticed the bandage. Nobody noticed him.”
Ellen stood up, rigidly. “He doesn’t have a swastika mark on his arm, like Gjersten. He has it branded into his heart.”
Joslin came up off the seat, too. “He’s worse than a Nazi. Because he doesn’t wear the lousy label where it can be seen. He’s the dirtiest dog on earth. A Quisling.”
They both looked at Berger.
XXVII
Berger squinted at her, gaped at her as if she were demented. His apple-red cheeks purpled. Veins traced dark threads on his forehead.
“Me!” he bellowed, — raised his arm to strike Joslin.
Koski stepped in, swiftly, got between them.
He was too close to use punches. There was only room for quick jabs, keeping Berger off balance.
“Yair! You!—”
A push.
“You answer the requirements—”
A shove, crowding Berger’s legs against the transom seat.
“—you found Merrill’s union cards on him. After you killed him—”
A prod in the stomach.
“—that gave you the idea of getting Ansel out of the country by switching identities—”
Another push.
“—you had a short-wave in your office. Or close to it—”
A blow, ramming Berger back on the padded seat.
“—I saw the glass insulator spools outside your window-sill this morning. And that office of yours has practically an airplane view of ships leaving the harbor.”
A hoarse groan from the Seavett’s fog horn made the saloon hideous with vibration. Joslin wrestled Fross into a corner on the chance he might interfere. Barbara tugged excitedly at Hurlihan: “Taurus! The bull! If I’d only been certain about Ansel’s birth hour... I’d never have made such a mistake, Clem!”
The Executive Director struggled to stand up. “Before you... get yourself... in any deeper, Lieutenant... better consider... who you’re... defaming.”
“I know who I’m talking to. Same guy Schlauff talked to. He catch you at the earphones when he walked into your office without knocking, tonight?—
He toppled the spy back against the cushions.
“—you slug him from behind?—
A straightarm to the chest.
“—after you went down in the elevator with him?—
An open hand wallop on the shoulder.
“—maybe you thought he was dead. After you cracked his skull!”
Berger held up his elbows to ward off Koski’s attack.
The Harbor Squad man cuffed him hard on the head. “Schlauff wasn’t dead. But he couldn’t have gotten up and walked. Not further than across Battery Park from the lobby of your office building to the Pier—
He hooked rapid-fire lefts to the side of the spy’s jaw; short, stinging blows that didn’t travel more than a few inches.
“—not with a fracture like that. This morning, in your office, I thought how nice it was for you to be right close at hand. In case we wanted you. We want you now.”
“Give me... chance to... disprove your... filthy lies.” Berger raged in cold fury.
“You’ll have your chance. Way we do things over here. You’d get a quick curtain if you’d pulled this in Himmlerland. Here you’ll have time to polish up that nonexistent alibi—”
The maniac howl of the siren on Penfield Reef punctuated Koski’s scorn.
“Who’s your Shipowners’ Council — other than you and Lawford Ovett? Only person who could prove you weren’t in Brooklyn Sunday afternoon is an old man who’s in the hospital now. You made a hell of a fuss about my not annoying this lifelong friend of yours, but still you didn’t mind roaring at me like a mad bull there in his bedroom last night. Gave me to cogitate at the time, that did... Now, the old boy’s in such shape he won’t be able to be a witness against you.” Koski held him by the throat.
“Witnesses!” Berger choked. “You talk... of witnesses... when you... have none...”
“Yair, yair. We got a few. Clerk at the drugstore where you bought the suitcase. Youngster at the pier where you dumped the suitcase in the river. Colored maid at the Bar-Nothing. And Ansel. You won’t be glad to know it — but we’ve got little Ansel.”
“Don’t even... know Gjersten... to speak to!”