“The boy was overwrought. In his heart he did not mean it.”
“Father, Father!” Chuck’s tone was kindly with pity. “The evidence proves that Raul was sitting right at the table this morning while Hoffmann ate breakfast, and where he was killed.”
“Did any of the servants — but they couldn’t have. I remember that they are gone.”
“Yes, the staff left yesterday to open up the Hoffmann summer place on Sea Island. The family were to drive up there today, which is why Elise Hoffmann made her early start back from Pompano.” Chuck studied Monsignor Lavigny with a slight frown. “You have something on your mind, Father?”
“There is a definite contradiction. Please explain your conviction that Raul was seated at the breakfast table with Hoffmann.”
“For one thing, you yourself were told by Mrs. Hoffmann that the man she saw escaping was Fuentes.”
“The poor woman was in a state of shock.”
“We’ll have further confirmation when Candice recovers consciousness. But even if Candice didn’t see who struck her, there is the circumstantial evidence of the drinking glass, and you can’t get around it.”
“What glass?”
“First, let’s follow Elise Hoffmann’s story. She waves hello to you as she drives by and you wave back. She puts the car in the garage, then carries her overnight bag into the house. She passes Candice’s room and knows the girl is in it because through the closed door she hears Candice’s portable TV set turned on. She leaves her overnight bag in Hoffmann’s and her suite, figures he’s breakfasting in the Florida room, and goes there. You know what she found.”
“A shocking, hideous thing!”
“She is stunned almost senseless. I will admit — in fact, she admits it herself — that her vision may have become blurred by the shock. She sees this figure who she thinks is Fuentes — and the drinking glass proves he was Fuentes — doing a quicksilver exit towards the archway where he bumps into Candice, bashes her with some sort of metal bar, and beats it as Mrs. Hoffmann gets back her vocal powers and starts to screech.”
Monsignor Lavigny said patiently, “The glass?”
“Yes, the all-important glass. Now, get this, Father. The breakfast table was laid for one — for Hoffmann. Candice had her own tray in her bedroom. Apart from other things like coffee and toast, there were a pitcher of orange juice and two glasses on the table. Both glasses had been used and each still contained some juice. One glass was beside Hoffmann’s plate. The other was across the table where someone else has been sitting.”
“Surely it was Candice, joining her uncle in a glass of orange juice after having prepared his breakfast?”
“No, Father — no on a, couple of counts. Besides the fact that she was probably still in a huff over yesterday’s row and therefore steering clear of Hoffmann, Elise Hoffmann tells me that Candice dislikes any citrus fruit or juice. All of which is purely academic, because of the fingerprints.”
“On the second glass?”
“Yes. There are those of Fuentes where he held it. They have been identified by comparison with ones found on objects in his bathroom and on silver toilet articles on his dresser. Now, this is the clincher, Father. There are also — on that second glass, mind you — prints of the thumb and three fingers of Hoffmann’s left hand, left there when he poured the orange juice into the glass and handed it to Fuentes.”
Monsignor Lavigny shook his head sadly.
“We think,” Chuck continued, “that Fuentes stepped over to renew his demands of yesterday, or possibly to apologize and make peace with Candice. We think what happened is that somehow Hoffmann had learned the nature of Fuentes’s racket, the reason for his disappearances, and threatened exposure if the kid didn’t give Candice up. Well, you know Fuentes. You can imagine how his hot Spanish blood took over.” Chuck felt sudden contrition at the expression on Monsignor Lavigny’s kindly face. “Do not take it so hard. Father. Isn’t it possible even for you to be mistaken in a man’s character?”
“I am not mistaken, but I am a bewildered and deeply disturbed old man.”
“There’s nothing to be bewildered about, Father.”
Monsignor Lavigny disagreed, speaking with difficulty, as though he were trying to establish for himself a sounder belief in what he was saying. “At the Sacred Heart, after several hours at Candice’s bedside, there was one moment, brief but perfectly sane and clear, when consciousness returned.”
“She spoke? She recognized you?”
“She did. She had heard a crash as if someone had fallen — obviously her uncle, when he was killed. It took a moment or two for the sound to register, then she ran out of her bedroom and got as far as the archway to the Florida room when she was struck on the head and knew nothing further.”
“She didn’t see who it was?”
Monsignor Lavigny spoke more hesitantly. He was reluctant to go on, but he managed it. “I must tell you that at this point her voice weakened in answer to my question as to whether her attacker might have been Raul. She said that was impossible, that Raul was in New York City this morning, that she had seen him. Then her voice faltered even more and she relapsed into coma. She has been so ever since.”
“Obviously it was delirium speaking. Just an hallucination.”
“Perhaps, and yet you have not found him in his house, nor out at the ranch, and his plane is gone.”
“Of course it is. When he fled from the Hoffmanns’ he would have driven directly out to the ranch and used the plane for escape.”
Monsignor Lavigny said with what, for him, held a quality of fierceness, “If it only were not for Elise Hoffmann’s identification and the two sets of fingerprints on the glass!”
“An unsurmountable if, Father.”
“Yes, perhaps. I can conceive that under certain provocation Raul might kill — but as for his striking Candice, never!”
“He may not have known who it was — just heard a person running towards the archway and struck blindly.”
“I cannot bring myself to accept that. I have had a sudden thought — it may be fantasy, yet might lead us to the truth. I shall be gone from here until tomorrow evening. And you... you will not be offended, not think me officious, if I make a few suggestions?”
“Why do you suppose I’m here? What are they, Father?”
“I would continue the search for the murder weapon or — what may even be more important — try to establish its absence from the place where it might normally be.”
“I take it you have an idea what it was?”
“Forgive me if I seem evasive, but to be more specific at this moment might bring grievous injustice upon the innocent. I would suggest that you look for a glove that is perhaps stained with dark grease. Also it might be advisable to consider the types of glasses that contained the orange juice.”
“You’re confusing me badly, Father.”
“Have patience, and a reliance upon your own excellent deductive powers. Your department has a plane at its disposal, has it not?”
“Yes.”
“Then a flight to Sea Island might also be indicated, and a questioning of the Hoffmann staff.”
Chuck looked at the prelate sharply. “Along any particular line?”
“Perhaps as to any unusual visitor who may have called on the Hoffmanns during the past few weeks.”
“Unusual in what way?”