There was a quality about the effeminate Frenchman which was implacable as death itself. His utter lack of excitement, the skillful ease with which he nursed the automatic, were forcible proofs that Jean Martone was a killer. Cliff decided without hesitation that any rash move was out of the question. Martone would shoot, accurately and fast.
“Ah! The so charming mademoiselle who so persistently uses the wrong shade of powder!” Martone’s gaze moved languidly from Elsa to Cliff. “I am force’ to ask your help, Mademoiselle. You will take the cords from the window curtains and tie this impetuous monsieur, who has wasted ten thousand francs’ worth of my powder.”
“It’s a good bluff, Martone, but I already know you.” Cliff measured his chances. “I know that you and Dorette Maupin were working together. I know you quarreled with her — and that she pushed you overboard tonight. I know how you sneaked out of the infirmary and killed her less than two hours ago.”
“Your imagination, Monsieur, it is sublime!” Martone’s slim body was erect in the doorway. “You will hurry Mademoiselle.” Moving slowly, as though in a daze, Elsa began to remove the cords from the heavy silk portieres at the windows.
“You took the plate-glass top from a table in the infirmary,” Cliff went on flatly. “Then, when the orderly went to his supper, you sneaked out onto the deserted promenade deck. Leaning over the rail you lowered something attached to a string, and let it tap against the porthole of 115. When Dorette Maupin, wakeful and upset, reached for it, you pulled it away. Then she did what you hoped for — stuck her head out of the porthole to see what was going on. It wasn’t hard, Martone, to drop that heavy glass table-top down on the back of her neck!”
Elsa was coming toward him, the heavy cords dangling from her hand. “Hold out your wrists, Monsieur,” said Martone, without a change of voice.
Cliff stood rigid, his back toward the Frenchman. Elsa’s slim hand was creeping under his coat. Slowly he extended his wrists, and at the same moment Martone guessed what the girl was up to.
Martone’s automatic cracked, but its sound was lost in the blast of Cliff’s own .38 which Elsa snatched from under Cliff’s arm and fired twice. When he swung around M. Martone was dead on the floor with a bullet between his eyes.
“You know,” said Elsa, “it’s a crying shame to waste all that beautiful powder. I think I’ll collect it and take it home with me. I’ll never have to buy any more.”
Cliff divided his time the following day between phoning the New York and Paris police, messing about with test tubes in Dr. Knott’s private laboratory, and arranging a place on the top deck where he and Elsa could spend a quiet evening.
They were stretched out in deck chairs in a sheltered spot between two lifeboats when Cliff reached out through the darkness and secured her slim hand. “This is one of the privileges of a ship’s detective,” he said with a note of affection.
“Holding the passengers’ hands?”
“No.” He gave a quick laugh. “Using the top deck, forbidden to passengers.”
She offered no resistance. “You’re a handsome devil, Cliff Chandler — and a smart one. I still don’t see how you solved the way Dorette was killed.”
“That was easy,” he assured her, “compared to some of the things I’ve had to work out today.”
“Today?”
“Listen, Elsa. The purser appraised those diamonds we found last night. The duty on the entire lot is only $2,500.”
For a moment he was silent, then he said, “Don’t you think $2,500 is a small amount to force Martone into a murder?”
“I thought they quarreled — and he killed her because she pushed him overboard.”
“I changed my mind today. Mar-tone fell overboard, Elsa — fell overboard in an attempt he made to push Dorette into the sea. She was a strong girl, on guard, and too quick for him. His stake was high — a quarter of a million dollars—”
“You found more gems?”
“Those diamonds were a plant, a red herring, Elsa, designed to cover the really valuable part of M. Martone’s samples — the powder you collected last night and took to your cabin.”
“The loose powder? But that’s preposterous — impossible.”
“You said the same thing about Dorette’s being killed last night, yet it was true. I analyzed a sample of that powder. M. Martone would gladly have paid duty on smuggled diamonds — if the customs had concentrated on the diamonds and let his powder through. That product of „Chez Martone“ is sixty per cent heroin!”
“Heroin,” Elsa breathed. “So that’s why Dorette was killed.”
“Exactly,” said Cliff. “Just one more thing and I’m through. You said that Dorette was wearing her pink net sleeping cap in bed — yet she didn’t have it on when you found her on the floor?”
“That’s right.”
“Then she must have been getting dressed for some reason. Otherwise, why would she have removed the cap which she wore to protect her hair?” Elsa sat up slightly in her chair and leaned closer to him. Her hand in his had grown cold. “Do you think she had planned to go up to the infirmary and kill Martone? Just as she took off her cap she saw something dangling in front of her porthole. She stuck out her head and—”
“That’s perfect,” said Cliff, “except for one thing. When I went into your cabin and examined the room, Dorette Maupin’s pink sleeping cap, hanging away from the porthole on the head of the bed, was wet!”
Their chairs were close to the edge of the top deck, without a protective rail. Elsa jerked her hand loose from Cliff’s hold and attacked him with the fury of a tigress. Throwing her whole weight against his chest, she shoved his light chair toward the void which marked a drop into the sea.
Cliff’s powerful hands closed about her wrists. She tore one loose, scratched at his face, and pushed again. The chair slid back a few inches, then stopped, for Cliff had taken great care in the afternoon to see that it was firmly secured. From behind a nearby lifeboat three husky deckhands materialized and pinioned the frantic girl.
“You damned flatfoot!” she screamed. “You can’t put this over on me! I’ll—”
Cutting into her hysterics, Cliff said calmly, “Elsa Graves, you’re under arrest for the murders of Dorette Maupin, agent of the French Sûreté, and Jean Martone, your accomplice in an international traffic of narcotics!”
“Of course Martone and the Graves girl were working together,” Cliff told Captain Jordan a short while later. “They were running heroin in the „Chez Martone“ powder, when they discovered that Dorette Maupin of the French Sûreté was on their trail.”
“And the diamonds?”
“Were a screen. If anything broke badly, Martone would admit petty smuggling — and take a small rap at the worst. Who’s going to bother with face powder when there are diamonds in the boxes?”
“Who, indeed?” asked Captain Jordan.
“The gentle Elsa hit on a scheme to double-cross Martone, and get rid of Dorette at the same time. Somehow she tricked Dorette into looking out of the porthole — then dropped the heavy brass-bound window of the port down on Dorette’s neck.
“Then she made a mistake. She took off the dead girl’s sleeping cap and hung it on the head of the bed to make it look as though Dorette was about to get dressed. That sleeping cap was wet, Captain, and so were Dorette’s neck and hair, from the rain. The girl must have had that cap on when she stuck her head out of the port and was killed — and Elsa must have taken it off her. That sewed Elsa up in the bag.”
The Captain rubbed his chin. “What about the table-top missing from the infirmary? And that yam about Martone dropping it down on Dorette’s neck?”