“Treasure-hunting outfit? She lose it?”
“Yes. They were after some Spanish galleons off Florida somewhere, but the company folded without paying any dividends. I suspect it was a swindle.”
“Thought she was a clairvoyant.” The Inspector was more than faintly sarcastic. Then, with one of his abrupt changes of subject: “What was everyone on this island doing yesterday from noon on, Colonel? As far as you know?”
“I can’t help you much there, I’m afraid. I went in to town at eleven in the morning and did not return until six.”
“You went to ask Merlini to come out and trip up your friend, Rappourt?” Gavigan’s doubt was frank.
The Colonel turned to Merlini. “He had to know that, I suppose. But is he going to tell Rappourt? If she suspects that I am doubtful of her — I–I may never have a chance to settle it one way or the other. It’s important to me. I—”
“Murder, Colonel,” Gavigan interposed heavily, “is more important than whether Rappourt’s been shaking the tambourines with her feet. Why did you call Merlini in? I thought you were so damned sure she was genuine? Last time we met you nearly had a fit when I hinted she might be phony.”
“I did believe her phenomena genuine,” Watrous said slowly. “I still do. There’s no real evidence yet to the contrary.”
“But you had doubts enough to make you call Merlini?”
“Yes. I did.”
“Those slate messages what worried you, maybe?”
Watrous hesitated slightly before he replied. “Yes. I don’t know why, but—” He shrugged vaguely.
“Would it have anything to do with the fact that the subject of the messages concerns—$8,000,000?”
“Oh,” he said, not as startled as I thought he’d be, “you know about that?”
“Yes. Why haven’t you mentioned it?”
“I thought it might come better from Rappourt and Floyd and the others. It’s their secret.”
“They have no salvage permit but were going to dive for it anyway?”
Watrous nodded.
“And you don’t think the wreck is where Rappourt’s spooks say it is?”
“I don’t know, Inspector. Floyd, who’s an authority on such things, seems satisfied, as does Brooke.”
“I see. He’d know about such things, too, would he? What is it he invents that he won’t talk about?”
“Submarine salvage apparatus. He’s working on something new, an underwater suction device — a vacuum-cleaner affair which he says can clear away the silt over the wreck and allow divers to get at it.”
Merlini, browsing among Linda’s books, asked, “That what he works on out on the houseboat all the time?”
“Yes.”
“He finished it yet?”
“Oh, no. He’s been completing his final drawings and working on a scale model.”
Merlini nodded but offered no further questions; and Gavigan resumed, on a new tack. “When you went in to town, Colonel — Henderson take you?”
“Yes.”
“And you returned at six o’clock with Lamb?”
“That’s right. Henderson always makes a six o’clock trip, picking up anyone who is in town and getting them back in time for dinner.”
“You were with Merlini for an hour or so at noon. What’d you do the rest of the time?”
“I spent the afternoon at the Psychical Research Society Library on 54th Street.”
“Librarian corroborate that?”
“Yes. Mr. Porter Welch.”
“You didn’t see Miss Skelton after you had returned?”
Watrous shook his head. “I saw her only once all day. She was talking to Lamb in the living-room as I went out at eleven to go to the boathouse. The Do Not Disturb card was on her door when I returned. I noticed it when I went up to my room to dress for dinner. Her absence was mentioned at dinner, but no one thought it unusual, though Rappourt seemed worried for fear Linda wouldn’t appear for the séance.”
“And after dinner?”
“Miss Verrill came in shortly after we had left the table, and all of us — except Arnold — sat about talking, until nine o’clock, when I pleaded a headache and excused myself, going to my room.”
“So you could sneak out your window and meet Merlini?”
The Colonel drew himself up, some of his formal dignity returning. “No,” he said indignantly. “So that I could let Merlini in when he arrived. I did go out, however, when I saw a light up in the old house. I thought that a bit odd, if as I had been told, the house was always locked.”
Casually Gavigan asked, “You’ve never been in that house before you went in with Merlini last night?”
The Colonel adjusted his pince-nez with a nervous hand.
“No,” he said emphatically. “I have not.”
Gavigan’s sharp eyes were on the Colonel as he took out a handkerchief and, holding it in his palm, carefully unfolded the corners to expose the gold cigarette lighter.
The Colonel gazed, fascinated, and his head bobbed slowly in a mechanical nod, his face gray. “I thought that would be what you were coming to,” he said in a small voice. He sat suddenly on the edge of the bed as if his knees were weak.
He looked up at Merlini. “You took it from my pocket last night, didn’t you?”
Gavigan said harshly, “You admit you picked it out of that fire last night, then?”
“Yes. I can’t very well do anything else, can I?”
“No. But you’d like to. Why?”
“I–I guess I was excited. I was afraid you’d suspect the owner of the lighter of having set the fire.”
“I see. How do you know he didn’t?”
“The lighter”—Watrous moistened his lips—“happens to be mine.” He faltered a bit, took a grip on himself, and then talked rapidly. “I’m afraid I got the wind up. We discover Linda’s body and a moment later I find my lighter there in that fire.… I — well, I think anyone’s natural reaction would be to — to hide it until he’d had time to think it over.”
“You’ve had all night to think it over,” Gavigan said. “What’s the answer?”
“I don’t know. I don’t like to accuse anyone — though I would like to know if my lighter was used merely because it happened to be handy — or because it was my lighter.
If I thought it was the latter—”
“Stop stalling. Let’s have it.”
The Colonel crumbled before the Inspector’s insisting roar. “It disappeared from my room,” he said, “night before last. It was on my dressing table when I was dressing for dinner. I’d taken it out of the suit I’d worn in the afternoon and put it there with my keys and change. When I started to transfer the articles to my pocket again — the lighter was gone.”
“It didn’t just vanish. What happened?”
“I — well, I didn’t actually see him take it — but—”
“Who? Get on with it!”
Watrous said somewhat doubtfully:
“Floyd Skelton stopped in and talked to me while I was dressing.”
“You’ll swear it was there before he came in and that it was gone afterward?”
“Yes. I think so — yes.”
“Well,” Gavigan flared angrily, “make up your mind.”
Watrous coughed nervously; then more deliberately, said, “He took it. He must have. But I couldn’t swear to that in court. I didn’t actually see him take it.”
Gavigan threw an inquisitive glance toward Merlini, which got no response.
“All right, Colonel. You can go.”
Watrous got up quickly. “Thank you.” At the doorway, he turned. “And I would appreciate it if you’d not find it necessary to tell Madame Rappourt of my suspicions. It will—”
Gavigan was obviously not listening. Watrous stopped, frowned, and went out.