“Well, if some third person didn’t bring the sack in here—”
“You mean I did?” cried Slidenberry, amazed.
“What else is there to think? Sanchez didn’t do it.”
“Look here,” cried Slidenberry, thrown for a moment on the defensive, “it’s absurd the idea of my doing such a thing! I couldn’t incriminate Dr. Sanchez with such brummagem as this! There’s no law against bringing glass into America!”
The old Latin-American himself shook his head slowly.
“I believe this is the most complicated plot that has ever been woven around me,” he said. “If it had been in a French port I would not have been surprised. Even the Dutch might have originated it; but for simple minded North Americans to hatch up anything so complicated — it amazes me.”
Suddenly Slidenberry tossed the envelope on the bunk.
“I’ve got it!” he announced triumphantly, turning to confront the psychologist with a grim smile. “I’ve got it now!”
“What is it?” inquired Poggioli.
“Why, that was a blind to throw us off the trail, of course. Now let’s get to work and find the real stones!”
As the inspector searched, Poggioli introduced himself to the dictator and recalled to him the matter of the murder in Curaçao. The old adventurer was immensely moved.
“Gracias a Dios that I should see that clever young American again before I die,” he cried. “The mystery you solved in that Godforsaken island, señor, was much darker than that which surrounds me now.”
The old man arose, embraced and kissed Poggioli in the affectionate Venezuelan manner.
“But still this is rather an oddly twisted case, Dr. Sanchez,” suggested Poggioli.
“Puh, nothing of the sort; simply a customs inspector trying to send me to jail with glassware!”
Poggioli looked puzzled.
“But why is he searching so thoroughly now?”
“To save his face, señor.”
“But, señor, look at him. That isn’t the psychology of a desultory search. It isn’t necessary to squeeze out your shaving cream to save his face. Then he found feathers in your room. He didn’t bring them in with him.”
“No-o. That is a queer thing, señor. Feathers — was the inspector expecting feathers?”
“Yes, he was. I’ll tell you the truth, señor; he had a cable from Belize instructing him to search you for feathers and diamonds.”
“Oh la! So those feathers were sewn into my military uniform in British America!”
“Or possibly on the voyage here. The cable could have been filed ahead of time to be sent later.”
“You have a great head, señor; you think of every combination that can possibly exist. You catch the truth not in the Latin style of a burst of divination, but in the North American style of wearing her down by endless analysis, of making her surrender out of sheer boredom, Señor Poggioli.”
This somewhat dubious compliment was interrupted by Slidenberry. He arose from his search, stood balked in the middle of the cabin.
“You may go,” he said slowly, “I pass your trunks. I find nothing dutiable in them.”
The old man looked at him cryptically.
“I can go ashore free?”
“That’s what I said.”
Sanchez shrugged.
“Do you imagine I would fall into so obvious a trap as that, señor?” Slidenberry stared at the Latin.
“What the hell are you talking about now?”
Dr. Sanchez sighed wearily.
“You know very well. You find glassware; you say, ‘These are not his diamonds; I will find genuine diamonds.’ Well, I am as wary as you. I look at the glassware; I say to myself, ‘These are not his diamonds; I will be as clever as he is and avoid his genuine diamonds.’ ” The old man patted himself on the chest.
Slidenberry looked at him.
“I almost thank God I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“I’ll make myself clear. How easy it would have been for you to have hidden a real diamond in my trunk or toothpaste or clothes; then, when I step ashore, I will be searched and, la! caged up again.”
“Good Lord, you don’t think I’d plant a real diamond—”
“Think! I know it. Why would you make such a stir with paste if you did not intend to plant a real one?” The old man laughed.
Slidenberry looked at him.
“Really, our faith in each other is touching. All right, what do you intend to do if I can’t even clear your baggage and let you go ashore?”
“This,” said the old Venezuelan pungently. “By the strangest coincidence there is a man in my cabin whom I can trust. I am going to ask Señor Poggioli to take my money ashore, buy me a complete new outfit of clothes, bring them back here, let me dress and disembark from this ship in a virgin costume.”
With this the old man went to his trunk, drew out a canvas bag of specie, silver and gold, swung it toward Poggioli and set it clinking on a chair.
The psychologist looked at the old man in amazement.
“Why any such rigmarole as this, señor?” he asked curiously.
“Señor,” said Sanchez, “how can you ask me? You know how long I have sweated in prison on trumped-up charges. You would be wary too if you saw ahead of you one tiny glimpse of freedom.”
Poggioli stood pondering this new development when Slidenberry nodded him aside. When they were outside the cabin door the inspector whispered intently—
“Well, what do you make of that, Dr. Poggioli?”
“I think... I think that throws a new light on the subject,” answered the psychologist carefully.
“How?”
“This is a positive move. Don’t you see — up to this point his maneuvering has been negative and defensive; now it is for me to do something for him.”
“But, listen,” pressed the inspector, “don’t you see it works out just right for us? If he takes absolutely nothing ashore, he takes nothing ashore — does he? Now I believe he’s cracked — as you would say, got a complex, not to say a mania — on the subject of prisons. I suppose he has been driven to it by his experiences which you describe. So, if you don’t mind, I wish you would go get him an outfit and let him walk off the ship in his birthday clothes as far as anything he brought into this country is concerned.”
Poggioli could see why Slidenberry jumped at such an opportunity. He agreed to the plan, full of vague suspicion created by this new quirk of the ex-dictator. Dr. Sanchez handed him the bag of Venezuelan coins, gave him a money changer’s address in the Latin quarter of Miami and also a list of the shirt, suit and shoe sizes that he wore. The psychologist went ashore in an odd mood.
The money changer was in Miramar Street near the harbor. He ran a mere booth, arranged in the room of a private house, evidently one of those men who attend to the wants of his fellow Venezuelans before they learn the ways of American banks.
The fellow weighed the gold and silver coins in a pair of scales instead of counting them and gave Poggioli the exchange in American money.
An hour later the scientist took the clothes on board the Stanhope. Slidenberry had occupied his time by re-searching everything in the cabin, but without results. The whole affair would apparently remain an unsolved mystery, that is if it really were a mystery and not the maunderings of an unbalanced brain.
Dr. Sanchez had Slidenberry stand completely outside the cabin while he changed his apparel from hat to shoes. Then he pointed to his baggage.
“That I am going to leave in bond, señores, until I get ready to sail from this country. Then I’ll search it myself and see what you planted in it at the last hour.”
The inspector shook his head.
“Crazy as bedlam,” he said, as he and Poggioli watched Sanchez go ashore.
After the ex-dictator had gone the different phases of the incident simmered in Poggioli’s mind. No two pieces of the puzzle seemed to fit together. Slidenberry, too, was curious, but he was relieved.