‘Well, I saw someone as I was leaving.’
‘It couldn’t have been me.’
I tried to remember what the shadowy figure had looked like. It had certainly reminded me of Kerman, so that would make it tall, broad-shouldered and lean. Not much to go on, but something.
‘Must have been one of the gang. I wish I had seen more of him.’ I looked at my wrist-watch. ‘In another quarter of an hour we should hear: if we’re going to hear.’
Kerman rubbed weary knuckles into his eyes.
‘I feel whacked. That five-hour wait in the car nearly killed me. Think they’ll turn him loose?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t see them doing it. It’ll be a lucky break for him if they do.’
‘Brandon’s going to love this if he doesn’t come back,’ Kerman said, stifling a yawn.
‘It’s her responsibility.’
‘But we are accessories. He’ll be scared to curse her, but he’ll have something to say to us.’
‘Well, let him say it,’ I said, got up and tramped across to the wagon to make another drink. My hand hovered over the bottle as Franklin Marshland came silently into the room.
‘So you’ve got back safely,’ he said. ‘I must say I was very worried.’ He looked inquiringly at Jack Kerman.
I introduced them.
‘A very long, unpleasant wait,’ Marshland went on. ‘Surely it’s time they communicated with us?’
‘It needs five minutes to the three hours,’ I said, giving Kerman another drink and going back to the settee. ‘If they’ve released him, they’ll make sure he doesn’t get back here until they are well out of town.’
He half turned to stare at me.
‘I think it’s extremely unlikely they will release him,’ he said ‘If we don’t hear in another half-hour I propose calling the Police.’
‘That’s up to you,’ I said, ‘but as we’ve waited so long, I think we should wait until daylight. Even now any false move might be dangerous for him.’
‘I think he’s dead.’
I felt tired, and beyond making aimless small-talk.
‘Just what is it you dislike so much about Lee Dedrick, Mr. Marshland?’
He ignored this question, and stepped out on to the terrace. He remained out there for three or four minutes, then came in again and headed for the door.
I’d better see how my daughter is,’ he said, more to himself than to us. ‘This wait is very hard on her.’ At the door he paused, looked back at me. ‘A man who marries a woman for her money is always worthy of contempt, Mr. Malloy.’
He went out of the room, and we listened to his footsteps on the stairs.
Kerman made a grimace.
‘Did he marry her for her money?’ he asked in a whisper.
‘I don’t know.’ I jerked my thumb at the clock. ‘Five minutes overdue.’
‘Doesn’t look very healthy, does it?’
There’s nothing we can do except wait. I swung my legs up on the settee. ‘I like that girl. Maybe she is a little over-rich and probably spoilt, but she’s got a tender heart.’
Kerman grunted.
‘I like ’em hard and shiny,’ he said, and closed his eyes.
Minutes ticked by. We began to doze. We finally slept.
The first rays of the morning sun brought me upright with a start. I looked at the clock. It showed a quarter to seven. Kerman slept soundly. I heard no sound except the gentle beating of the surf on the low ridge of coral stone that made a natural harbour at the end of the garden.
I swung my legs off the settee and walked on to the terrace.
The two Chinese gardeners were at work, staring at the umbrella standard. The flamingoes were grouped around the lily pond, hunting up some breakfast On a balcony at the far end of the terrace, Serena Dedrick, still in her black slacks and her short fur coat, sat staring out to sea. There was a 1ost look on her white face: a look that told me no one had tele-phoned while we slept, and no one had sent him back.
I walked quietly into the lounge and left her alone with her misery.
CHAPTER THREE
I
THE next four days were a sustained and shattering bedlam that shook the usually placid, unruffled calm and quiet of Orchid City to its foundations.
When the news broke that five hundred thousand dollars had been paid to a gang of kidnappers and the kidnapped man had not been returned, the country as far north as San Francisco and as far south as Los Angeles sprang into action.
For the first few hours, Brandon had it all his own way, and revelled in the commotion. He began to organize what was to be the greatest man-hunt of the century, but he had scarcely begun to issue orders when a dozen sharp-eyed Federal agents descended on him from San Francisco and snatched away his command.
State troopers, regular Army units, aircraft, television and the radio were pressed into service.
Kerman and I spent hours at Police Headquarters being questioned and cross-questioned by a furious, purple-faced fist-pounding Brandon, and later by two quiet Federal agents who took us apart, laid us on the desk, poked us about with long inquisitive fingers, and weren’t over-fussy how they put is together again.
We were bullied and threatened and cursed. We had fists shaken in our faces. Necks swelled, eyes turned bloodshot and spittle flew in all directions with the intensity of trying to get a clue out of us. But we hadn’t a clue to give out.
I couldn’t move ten yards on the streets without some visiting Pressman letting off a camera in my face. Kerman, described as ‘the man who saw the ransom taken,’ was badgered from dusk to dawn for his autograph, his nail-pairings, locks of his hair and clippings from his suit by wild-eyed, sensation-hungry souvenir-seekers until he was scared to leave the safety of the office.
The massive gates of Ocean End were closed. The telephone was disconnected. A quiet, deathly hush hung over the place.
Rumour had it that Serena Dedrick had collapsed and was seriously ill.
All day long aircraft circled overhead, searching the sand dunes, the foothills and the approaches of the city. Every road was patrolled. A house-to-house inquiry was set on foot; sus-picious characters were rounded up and questioned; a squad of police went into Coral Gables, the east-end district of the city, and checked over the more disreputable inhabitants.
The activity was enormous, but for all the efforts made by the Federal agents, the police, state troopers, the Army and hundreds of amateur investigators, neither Lee Dedrick the kidnappers were found.
Then, on the fifth morning, Serena snapped out of her grief and took a hand in the hunt herself. It was announced through the Press and over the radio that she would pay a twentythousand-dollar reward to anyone giving information that would lead to the arrest of the kidnappers, and a thousand-dollar reward for any information remotely connected with kidnapping.
The result of this announcement turned practically every citizen, except the wealthy, into amateur detectives and made Orchid City a temporary hell on earth.
It was on the sixth night after the ransom had been paid that I let myself into my quiet little cabin, thankful to get away from the strident hubbub of the hunt, with the intension of locking the door and getting myself a little peace and an early night in bed.
My cabin is situated in the sand dunes, facing the sea, and is a quarter of a mile from the nearest house. It has a small weed-infested garden which I pay Toni, my good-for-nothing house-boy, to keep neat; a veranda with faded sun blinds, one big living-room, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen big enough to swing a cat in, providing it is a Manx cat.