“You suspect me or murder, Scape,” Ewa Crop said. “What motive?”
“How about the grieving widow and her money? You’re not exactly well to do, are you?”
“No. I’m not.”
Scape looked around the room again. A very small circular Spanish carpet was beside the bed, the floors were marble, the ceiling was decorated. There wasn’t anything in the room that said anything. Reluctantly, he moved away from the cold air coming from the sleeve-mounted air-conditioner, and he walked from the room, the way the body had allegedly walked or been transported by the ghosts.
“Where was the torturing done?”
“In the old days? A dungeon. It’s been sealed for a few hundred years, absolutely sealed.”
“Maybe the weird noises are things down there.”
“Perhaps. Anything else you’d like to see?”
“No. I guess not.”
“Ewa going to get your approval, Scape?”
“We’ll have to see, won’t we?” Scape said and led the way outside where the two women were standing under a tall old shade tree. Scape moved to the car, Mike following and the women coming over. Then Scape looked back at the great old house. “Oh, what’s up on the second floor?”
“There isn’t any,” Randolf-Wilson said. “Oh, no. That’s just the air space. It’s nothing.”
“An attic?”
“No. There’s no way into it. It’s sealed. The old time architecture. I think it’s a Moorish touch or maybe even Roman.”
Inspector Delgado smiled at Scope “Superb dinner, I’m grateful to you, Mister Scape.”
“It’s my treat, Inspector. May I ask those few questions?”
“Entirely improper, official business, impossible to discuss it without authorization from Madrid. Okay. Go ahead, ask,” Delgado smiled.
“No criticism. I’m hardly in a position to criticize, but why have you dropped it?”
“Of course it’s criticism. Certainly the three of them or at least the two of them engineered the murder, but without the murderer—” he shrugged his shoulders. He was a tall, handsome man who’d been an Embassy brat, had grown up and been educated all over the world, including the States. “It’s hardly a locked room murder. Presumably someone was paid, given the key. The dead man was drunk in bed. The hired killer smashed his head in and then the body was carried into the living room. The killer left and he’s now in England or Sweden more probably.
“It’s difficult, Mister Scape. We have an immense tourist industry. Most probably one of them came and did it and left the island even before the body was discovered. For your purposes that may not be agreeable, but for me it’s a matter of near indifference. Europe stops at the Pyrenees. We’re medieval, a remnant from the Middle Ages. That’s your view. The truth is that our bias is even greater than yours. We generally refrain from killing each other, but have the inclination to believe that it’s one of your normal societal behavior patterns. This killing was investigated, we made a genuine attempt to find evidence to bring the widow and her friends to court. We were unable to do that and very frankly I’m considerably more concerned with the incidence of motor vehicle fatalities on our roads.”
“I understand. But I wonder whether your bias hasn’t hurt you on this. We may murder each other all the time, but with it we have a certain sophistication. I don’t think we usually hire a murderer if it’s a c old-blooded murder for money. Basic reasoning. If money is the goal, money is all important; and if that’s so, we do our damndest not to put ourselves into positions where we could be blackmailed.”
The Inspector smiled.
“That’s neatly rational, but are murderers?”
“Are you absolutely certain they didn’t kill him?”
“There’s no way they could have done it. The medical examiner placed the time of death.”
“Could he have been wrong?”
“Of course, but his credentials are excellent and the extreme time span still makes it impossible. They were at least a hundred miles away when it was done. Lord Vandelaff was with them.
“Look, my friend, I accept that you may have an inclination to distrust us, but we’re both a product of your system. The medical examiner is a Harvard Med product. I studied with the F.B.I., N.Y.P.D. Maybe Spanish police work could have pinned it on them, but I used American police work and I didn’t come up with a case.”
“This was your first murder on the island?”
“My first investigation. I’d just been assigned here. But in the States and England, Germany I’ve been an observer in plenty of them.”
“They did it,” Scape said. “I don’t know how. Vandelaff wasn’t drunk or drugged?”
“Sorry. Everything was checked and this is Spain, we have the means to check things. I’m afraid your company is going to have to pay. Certainly I believe they killed him, but I don’t know any way to prove that.”
Scape got progressively more sour. He checked at the offices of the Majorca Daily Bulletin and in their back issues checked the extremely brief account of the murder. He also talked to an effeminate columnist who knew all the gossip but nothing useful. And, just curious, he noticed the weather. He couldn’t avoid noticing it. They had photographs and stories about how miserable it had been. It had gotten rainy and cold in late October, it had been quite cold.
He walked out of the Bulletin office and headed for Iberia to change his flight. He’d give it twenty-four more hours. If he still couldn’t think of anything by then he’d give it up. They wouldn’t be the first people who’d gotten away with murder.
But he was disgusted about it. Somehow the two or three of them had killed old Stanley and for some reason there didn’t seem to be any way to prove it. How had they done it?
He walked, looking into the spectacular old court yards, admiring the mansions and visualizing how they must have been when horses and carriages and even Imperial Spain had commanded the world. And he looked into store windows. There were a lot of American products, very expensive compared to their competition. Zenith, Westinghouse, General Electric, Fedders, Kelvinator. Fedders!
The Crop House at Puerto de Andraitx had a stairway blasted out of the rock. Scape went down the stairs. He’d stopped off at his hotel to get the form out of his attache case and to get his bags. He was very pleased with himself.
There was a tiny beach blasted out of the rock, too. Sand had been brought in to cover it. It was really just a ledge and the sea, beautiful blue water lapped at it.
The three of them were there. They were wearing the tiniest bathing suits Scape had ever seen. They looked as close to a nudist colony as Scape had ever been. They were bronzed and glittering in the sparkling suntan oil that covered them as almost their only covering.
Scape stood on the lowest step and waiting. He admired them.
Mike Randolf-Wilson was the one who looked up first. No shock, no surprise. Just: “Well, well, if it isn’t the great investigator.”
The two women lifted their heads from their sun worshipping and looked at Scape.
“Come to say good-by, Scape? I assure you it wasn’t necessary. You needn’t have inconvenienced yourself.”
“No inconvenience. I just came for Mrs. Crop’s autograph.”
She smiled. “For what?”
“You’re a gambler. Want to sign?”
“Sign what?”
“A quitclaim. Your agreement that without prejudice and not as an admission of anything you agree to the company paying you one dollar as full payment of your late husband’s policy.”
“That’s a stupid bluff, Scape,” Randolf-Wilson said.