Josh said to the Captain: "This case belonged to Michel Banet. How could an expensive trinket like this have been permitted to remain in the possession of a prisoner in a German concentration camp for five years?"
The Captain took the case in his hand and looked at it and said judicially: "Well, it couldn't." He looked at Marcia. "Did Banet own this before the war?"
"Yes." Her voice was almost a whisper, as light as the soft autumn breeze in those bronzed chestnut trees in Paris. The Captain weighed the case in his hand. "No," he said thoughtfully. "They wouldn't have let a prisoner keep a trinket like this. But it's not proof, you know," he looked at Josh. "It's not proof."
Josh turned to Gili. "You knew him in Germany," he said. "You came to Lisbon to wait for him. You were both getting out of Germany as fast as you could. But you couldn't use German money. So you had to get money. You planned the whole deception with him. ..."
Gili had leaped to her feet and stood there, trembling and white and cried at the top of her voice, shrieking: "You are lying. That's not true. They said a woman killed him. It was Marcia. She did it because she thought he loved me. We quarreled and she struck me. She was beside herself. And you"—she whirled around to Daisy Belle—"you saw it. You heard it. You know I'm telling the truth. She murdered him. Marcia murdered him! Mickey said it was a woman. Why don't you arrest her?"
18
Curiously, it was almost in the very moment that Gili spoke—so wildly and yet with at least one ingredient of truth—that Marcia perceived a change which had taken place in the relationship between Josh and the two ship's officers. Up to then there had been a definite feeling of confidence between them that, in some intangible yet perfectly marked way, was now gone.
But Josh was now on the other side of the fence. He was one of the suspects, she realized suddenly. He had wanted to kill Mickey. He had admitted that; he had admitted attacking him. So he was now suspect.
But then she was suspect, too. It was not credible. There is an innate faith in the power alone of truth to reveal itself which is like a protective shield.
It is also, however, a deceptive faith. She was not really frightened by Gili's words or by that fact—again incomprehensible—that Mickey had said a woman shot him. But when she saw the long look that the Captain and Colonel Wells exchanged—and pointedly excluded Josh Morgan—she felt something very like fright.
Mickey had spoken the truth, a woman had shot him, then there were only herself and Gili and Daisy Belle who could conceivably have had a motive for doing so.
And immediately Daisy Belle came to Marcia's defense. In doing so she naturally confirmed the portion of Gili's accusation which was true, but it was her obvious design to defend Marcia. Without waiting for that long look between the two ship's officers to turn into questions, she leaned forward, her hands linked tightly together. "Captain," she said, "there was nothing about that so-called quarrel that was serious or that would give rise to murder. It was like a hysterical explosion between two schoolgirls and it stopped as quickly and easily as it arose. Nerves are unpredictable. It was . . ." She drew herself up. She was a dignified, poised and experienced woman disposing of a childish storm of temper. "It was nothing," said Daisy Belle, calmly and impressively.
"She slapped me," said Gili vindictively. "She attacked me. You saw her."
Daisy Belle's eyebrows lifted slightly. "You needed it," she said to Gili.
The Captain looked at Marcia. "But you did quarrel? You did strike her? What did you quarrel about?"
Josh said suddenly: "I expect Mrs. Cates knows."
Daisy Belle gave him a flicker of approval, and said quickly: "I do indeed." Gili started to get up, angrily, and settled back again, eyes lambent and shining, face sullen. Daisy Belle continued: "I'll tell you exactly. Gili said that this Banet person had only wanted money from Marcia and that" —her eyebrows lifted again—"and that Gili wouldn't give him up. That I believe was the main theme of her declaration."
"Did she say," asked Captain Svendsen, sticking heavily to the point, "that she had known him anywhere else?"
Daisy Belle thought for an instant. "I'm not sure she said exactly that. It was a very strong implication. I mean the few days on the Lerida and the Magnolia could scarcely have given her the—well, proprietary rights she seemed to feel that she had."
"But she didn't definitely say how long or where she had known him?"
Gili had relaxed a little. The sullenness in her eyes was giving way to a gleam of triumph. Daisy Belle said: "I'll try to tell you exactly. I may not be able to remember the words precisely. But she seemed very angry about something. She told Marcia that she could tell her anything she chose to tell, to account for having a cigarette case, that one, I suppose, and to account for having spoken to Mickey by name like that; calling him Mickey, I mean. I did not see the significance of that then and paid no attention to it. I couldn't help, however, hearing the whole thing. She said she could tell Marcia anything she chose to tell her and that Marcia would believe it, owing, I suppose, to Marcia's faith in Andre—that is, Banet. But that she—Gili—didn't intend to, that he had only wanted money from Marcia and that now he was through with her. Or words to that effect." She paused. "As I say, the implication is inescapable. There was no question in my mind but that Gili had known him for a long time and that she was accompanying him on this trip and making her position with regard to him known to Marcia."
"What did you think of it?"
"What did I . . ." Daisy Belle gave him an astonished look. "I thought what was undoubtedly the truth. This Banet person had deceived Marcia. He had pretended not to know Gili beyond the casual acquaintance all of us had there in Lisbon and on the Lerida. He was using Marcia; and Gili, through jealousy or bad temper, told Marcia the truth. Perhaps she hoped to separate Marcia and Banet. Perhaps," Daisy Belle shrugged and said, with a fine edge to her charming voice, "Perhaps Gili was afraid she was losing him. Certainly she could only have embarked upon that fervent little flirtation with Castiogne on the Lerida in the hope of arousing Banet's possibly flagging interest in her."
She paused very briefly and Gili started forward with a defiant and angry motion and then, as if she saw the bait barely in time, drew back with a sort of gasp and shut her lips tightly together. Daisy Belle said: "In any case, I felt perfectly certain that what Gili said was the truth. She knew all about him. Ask her ..."
"I didn't," said Gili suddenly. "That is not true. I knew nothing of him. I—I said all that because I—I liked him. And I hate Marcia. She thought she owned him. Well, I—I said all that to tease her. To—yes, I liked him and I thought she might leave him alone. He didn't love her. I could see that. I thought I might make a quarrel between them." She looked around with short, sharp glances at everyone as if to test their credence and said: "That's it exactly. Why not? A girl has to get along. I've nobody. . . ."
"Why were you on the Lerida?" asked Josh.
"Why . . . ?" She caught her breath, eyed him smolderingly for an instant and said: "Because I wanted to go to Buenos Aires, of course."
"Why?"
"Because . . ." She bit her lip. Then with a flash of those shining green eyes she turned to the Captain. "I've done nothing. Marcia killed him. She was furious. She struck me. She went straight and stole the revolver and shot him. Mickey said it was a woman. And she had a motive. It was a . . ." She seemed to hunt in her mind and then flashed out triumphantly: "It was a crime of passion. That's what. A crime of passion." She gave a vigorous nod, so her long, streaked blonde hair fell over her face.