Shayne asked, “Was your husband in the war?”
“No, he suffered from a kidney difficulty which kept him a civilian. He was reticent about his feelings, but I believe he felt it keenly. He was painfully shy and introverted, and it might have done him a world of good to rub elbows with men from other walks of life.”
Shayne lifted his cup as though about to drink, then set it back on the saucer. He observed, “Shy people don’t usually work for travel agencies.”
“Oh, he didn’t have the kind of position where he was called upon to mingle with the public. He used to refer to himself-he had a dry sense of humor at times-as a high class baggage clerk. He kept accounts, planned itineraries, placed reservations, and of course he did have a lot to do with baggage. You probably know that American tourists who stay more than a few days are entitled to take back five hundred dollars worth of goods duty-free. You’d be surprised how many people buy things they can’t possibly use, merely because they’re so much cheaper here. Albert didn’t care for tourists, especially ladies. He used to tell some horrendous tales.”
Looking away so she wouldn’t see what her hand was doing, she picked another little cake out of the basket. It was very hot in the room. Shayne could feel himself perspiring.
“What kind of tales, Mrs. Watts?” he said with an effort.
“Oh, you know what they’re like,” she said, chewing. “Brassy, immodest in their dress and language, screeching to each other about the sensational bargains. Albert could take them off quite aptly. The thing he chiefly couldn’t abide was their frightful sentimentality toward the natives. Charming and unsophisticated, so fresh, so childlike.” She snorted. “If they knew these savages the way we do!”
“That’s one of the things we wondered about,” Shayne said. “Did he have any reason to be in the native quarter the night he was killed? Did he have any native friends, or spend any time there as a rule?”
“I should say not! Quite the opposite. The place is filthy, unsanitary, a perfect sink. Albert was fastidious. He wouldn’t have been caught dead in that part of town.” She exclaimed, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Because he was caught dead there, wasn’t he? And that’s the whole point, you see. Reading the account in the newspaper-and I’ve seriously considered suing them for slander-what would one conclude? That here was another respectable and henpecked husband who had kicked over the traces and gone off to some low colored dive to make a night of it. He had more rum than was good for him, blundered among thieves and was just foolish enough and intoxicated enough to put up a fight. All very plausible. But untrue.”
“Let’s go back to the phone call, Mrs. Watts. Exactly what did he say?”
“Well that,” she said, considering, “was a bit queer, one must admit. I won’t bore you with the ins and outs of island politics, which I don’t understand clearly myself, as a matter of fact. In brief, Albert had recently joined a committee to protect the traditional interest in the face of increasing native agitation. He phoned to say that this committee was having an extraordinary session to discuss a confidential matter. He would have a bite of something at a restaurant in town. Very well. So far so good. I had no reason to doubt that there would actually be such a meeting. But he kept on with it, and told me just where the committee would be meeting, who would be there, and this and that-all made up out of whole cloth, because about the one thing our brilliant police have established so far is that no meeting had been scheduled, or even discussed. By the end I said to myself, ‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much,’ quoting the Bard, you know. He promised to bring home a magazine I had asked for, and those were the last words I heard from Albert in the flesh.”
She touched a little napkin to her eyes, although Shayne hadn’t noticed any tears.
“Was there any change in him in the last few months?” Shayne asked.
She put her finger to her chin. “Nothing too extraordinary, Mr. Shayne. There were little things. He was wakeful-Albert, who during the whole previous course of our married life had always slept like a log. Sometimes he would go out for what he called brooding walks. He would stride along the sand for hours, and come home drained and exhausted. And he became increasingly irritable. He was always a phlegmatic person, but one night a few weeks ago he took a rolled-up copy of Punch and struck Georgette a violent blow across the face. All she was doing, poor innocent, was scratching to go out.”
Shayne kept his face serious. “Did he ever mention the possibility of coming into a sum of money?”
She shook her head, her fingers moving toward the cake basket. “Money. I think not. One thing-he had always admired the way I managed the household funds, but recently he did tell me that I didn’t need to make do with the cheaper cuts. He specifically told me to get top-round from then on, and leave the spareribs to the natives.”
It was becoming hotter in the room by the minute. Shayne barely managed to resist an impulse to put down his cup and escape into fresh air.
“A couple of other questions, Mrs. Watts. Did he do much traveling?”
“No, I thought I’d explained that. He had to go to Miami recently for some kind of training course, but that’s the only time he stirred off this island in years.”
“Did he ever have any dealings with a man named Luis Alvarez?” She shook her head, and he tried another name: “Paul Slater?”
He was watching her closely. She started. “Surely you don’t think that nice good-looking Paul Slater could have any connection with-”
“Just a shot in the dark,” Shayne said. “He and your husband knew each other?”
“Superficially. We saw the Slaters sometimes at the Yacht Haven dances, or at fireworks displays, that kind of semi-public occasion. Mr. Slater was once kind enough to fetch me an ice at a dance. A most agreeable young man, for an American. I don’t mean to imply,” she said hastily, “but the Americans one sees on St. Albans-”
“You aren’t hurting my feelings,” Shayne said.
He put down his cup on the lee of the teapot, so she couldn’t see how little he had drunk.
“More tea, Mr. Shayne?”
“No, thanks,” he said, standing up. “You’ve been very helpful, Mrs. Watts, and I’ll let you know if I find out anything.”
“Do have one of my little cakes, at least,” she said. “Dear me, they seem to be all gone. Mr. Shayne, you’re so abstemious you quite put me to shame.”
She struggled forward, but soon gave up the attempt to rise. “I’m going to be most discourteous and let you find your own way out. I feel a little faint. I don’t think of myself as a demonstrative person, but when I speak of Albert, the tears have a way of coming.”
She touched her eyes again. The cross little dog let Shayne leave without barking at him. It seemed to the American that the eyes of Albert Watts’ portrait followed him as he made his way to the door.
Outside, he mopped his forehead and let out his breath in a long, soundless whistle.
4
Michael Shayne spent the next day like any other tourist. He left a call with Miss Trivers to be awakened early. After breakfast, he phoned for a cab. One of Miss Trivers’ other guests came up to him as he was waiting on the Lodge steps.
This was a tall, sad-faced Englishman named Cecil Powys. He wore a battered tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. Heavy-rimmed glasses gave him a somewhat owlish look. “I say,” he said hesitantly, taking his pipe out of his mouth, “Miss Trivers tells me you plan to go bone-fishing on the flats. Would you mind frightfully if I come along?”
“Glad to have you,” Shayne said.
“The price of a charter’s too steep for me to manage single-handed,” the Englishman said. “Divided in two, it becomes possible. Divided in three or four would be even better. I’ll get my impedimenta. Back in a sec.”