“I apologize for the touch of theater,” Don Julio said. “But I was afraid the lights might scare you away.”
Beecher’s mouth was dry, and his heart was still pounding with shock. It took him several seconds to absorb the implications of Don Julio’s comment; then he shook his head quickly, like a fighter trying to throw off the effects of a brutal, unexpected blow. “You were waiting for me?” he said. “You knew I was coming here?”
“Yes,” Don Julio said. “The Rosaleen made excellent time, didn’t she?”
Beecher sat down slowly on the arm of a chair. He rubbed a shaking hand over his face and tried to adjust himself to what he knew was coming; waves of shock seemed to be streaking through his body, hammering and pounding at the shores of his reason and strength. But the most treacherous ones were still on the way, he knew.
“Who told you I was on the Rosaleen?” he said hopelessly.
“Your friend, the Irishman.” Don Julio strolled across the room, the heels of his boots sounding with measured clarity on the cold marble floor. “I persuaded him it was the wisest thing to do under the circumstances.”
Beecher smiled bitterly. “And the circumstances were what?”
“I suspected you were in Morocco. For several reasons. A report of a landrover abandoned in Goulamine. A curiously hesitant description from a policeman in Marrakech, and a belated but more convincing one from a hotel clerk in Casblanca. I was kept informed because the crimes had occurred here, you see.” Don Julio’s tone was mildly ironical. “The Frenchman was murdered twenty feet from where we are standing, and the missing aircraft was last heard from at our little airport. Naturally, I have an interest in these things.”
“Naturally.”
“At any rate, the descriptions fitted you, and it was evident you were traveling north. It wasn’t likely you would attempt to enter Spain legally, and this thought led me to the Irishman. He was reluctant and evasive until I made it clear I was in no mood for games.”
“Why didn’t you arrest me when I landed?”
“You had gone to such great lengths not to be arrested that I believed — or hoped at least — that you were coming here to tell your story to me. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Had I arrested you, no one would have believed this for a minute. So I decided to let you come and surrender yourself. Now this is official. You are under arrest.”
“Shall we put on Don Giovanni? And pour ourselves a sherry? While I tell you what happened?”
“No.” Don Julio’s eyes were suddenly grave. “I will take your statement in my office. We are involved with a death, a murder. And several other matters. Your guilt or innocence, perhaps your life. Vamos?”
22
The windows of Don Julio’s office faced the small busy plaza in the center of Mirimar. The green shades were drawn against the village scenes now, the traffic, the promenaders, and the clusters of people on the terrace of the Bar Central, but they did not filter out the sounds of nighttime noises and excitements; lottery vendors were screaming their numbers, dogs yelped for bits of food at café tables, and taxis and trucks and private cars clattered past the administration building, horns soaring righteously and indignantly above the din of the village.
Don Julio’s office was small and tidy, and contained a simple, uncluttered wooden desk, several straight-backed chairs, and two filing cabinets placed on either side of the window. A tinted portrait of Generalissimo Francisco Franco hung behind Don Julio’s desk, and it seemed to Beecher that the General was staring directly into his eyes, with an expression of serene disapproval.
Beecher had completed his statement, but Don Julio had made no comment on it as yet; he sat motionless behind his desk, in a thoughtful, distant mood, frowning faintly at the light playing around the rim of his coffee cup. There was a third man present, Don Julio’s assistant, a gravely polite officer named Jorge Caldus, who wore a black suit and a black tie, and sat erectly in his chair, with his sad dark eyes fixed on a point about a foot above Beecher’s head.
The office was close and warm, but mildly fragrant with the aroma of coffee and tobacco smoke. The silence was oppressive; there was a strained quality to it, as if it might snap as suddenly and abruptly as a wire stretched beyond its breaking point. An old-fashioned pendulum clock hung beside the picture of Franco, and its measured ticking seemed to grow louder with each swing of the shining brass weight, underscoring and intensifying the heavy, still silence. The light from a naked bulb danced and gleamed across the brass buttons on Don Julio’s uniform. The reflections bothered Beecher, and he shifted his position to get away from them, but this didn’t help matters; the lights continued to splinter and sparkle against his eyes. He felt tired and grimy and just a bit uneasy; he had been prepared for anything but silence.
Don Julio cleared his throat and got to his feet. He paced the floor for a moment or so, hands clasped behind his back, and a faint frown tightening the lines in his strong handsome face. Finally he sat on the edge of his desk, and stared down at Beecher. “So that is your story,” he said. “You have forgot nothing, omitted nothing?”
“That’s it,” Beecher said. “Everything.”
“In that case, there are some things which puzzle me. The truth itself is often puzzling, you know, but if I am to accept this—” He hesitated, apparently searching for a word. “Well, let us say, if I am to accept this marvelous story, I must ask for a bit more clarification. Supposing we go over your account point by point, and see if we can’t clear up certain things which I now find unlikely or illogical.” Don Julio hesitated again, then smiled at Beecher, politely but cynically. “Earlier, I phoned to Madrid, and reported that a survivor from the missing Iberia plane would be in my custody tonight. And so, officials from our Intelligence staff, and from the Guardia Civil are on their way to Mirimar now.” Don Julio glanced significantly at the old-fashioned clock on the wall. “In an hour or so, I will give them my opinion of your statement, and then, for practical purposes, the investigation will be out of my hands. So you understand that it will be best all around if there are no puzzles or contradictions in your story.”
“Yes, of course,” Beecher said, and put a cigarette in his mouth. “But what is it that puzzles you?”
Don Julio took a lighter from his pocket, snapped it, and extended the flame to Beecher’s cigarette. “Let us begin, tritely but logically, at the beginning. The late Don Willie offered you a job in Rabat. We will start at that point. You two were not friends. I remember your telling me of several disagreeable arguments with him in the past. Now considering this, didn’t it occur to you that his offer was a bit strange?”
“Well, not particularly. He needed an American who spoke Spanish. I met those requirements.”
“Yes, of course. So you were not curious or suspicious?”
“No.”
“Very well. Next you had two unpleasant encounters with the Frenchman, whose name was Maurice Camion. You have just given me an explanation for his resentment of you, but at the time of the attacks you had no notion of why he disliked you. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t ask him for any explanation?”
Beecher hesitated; it was a small point surely, but the fact that Don Julio considered it significant made him stop and think about it. “No, I didn’t,” he said at last.