I knew she was lying. Something had happened down there that she was., ashamed or afraid to tell me, probably just that she'd lost her nerve at the critical moment much more drastically than she cared to admit.
Well, it happens. I just wished she hadn't felt compelled to lie, as if I gave a damn how brave she had or had not been. I slipped the bolt back into the rifle and passed the weapon over.
"Let's finish the job and get out of this sun," I said. "Give me another five with the 150-grain load to see how she's grouping now and where she's putting them on the paper.
Then we'll sight her in three inches high at a hundred yards. That'll put her just about on the button at two-fifty. How's your shoulder holding up?"
"It's all right," she said. "Eric, I-"
"What is it?"
"Nothing," she said. "Five shots, you said?"
"Five," I said.
"One day," she said brightly, "one day I'll fall for a man who'll settle for three-shot groups or do his own damn shooting."
XVI
ON THE WAY BACK to the motel, I stopped at a public phone booth to make a phone call. I had to get the number from the operator, as it was a new installation not yet listed in the book. After dialing, I let the ringing continue for a long time, but no one answered. Apparently neither Catherine Smith nor her alleged father were at home. Well, they wouldn't be if they were behaving as I hoped and expected them to.
When I reached the motel, Sheila's car was already parked in front of her unit. I hesitated, but there wasn't anything I had to say to her, and if she had anything to say to me, she'd had plenty of opportunity. To hell with her and her dark secrets, anyway. As I entered my room, the phone started to ring. I closed the door, picked up the instrument, and heard her voice on the line.
"Mr. Evans?" she said. "I'm sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Evans, you're probably busy, but-"
I stood perfectly still, holding the instrument tightly.
There were three words she could have used: disturb, bother, and interrupt. I'd always thought interrupt was a bad one, hard to fit naturally into an ordinary greeting, but that was the trouble code we were using, regardless.
I said slowly, repeating the word so she'd know I'd got it, "You're not interrupting anything, Miss Summerton. I just came in the door; I haven't started on my paper work yet. What can I do for you?"
She started to speak. Her voice sounded perfectly steady. I listened, thinking hard. The three code words are variations on the same theme. The first means, I'm in trouble, save yourself. The second means, I'm in trouble, help me.
And the third, the one she'd used, means, I'm in trouble, give me a diversion so I can handle it.
"Yes," I said. "Yes, Miss Summerton. I have an extra instruction booklet. I'll bring it right over."
I put the phone down and stared at the wall, but there was really nothing to think about. The emergency drill gave me no discretion. The agent in trouble calls the signals. Of course, as her senior, it was my prerogative to disregard her call entirely and leave her to the wolves if I thought the operation required it; but if I took action, it had to be the type of action she'd requested.
She'd asked for a diversion, not active help. Whatever the trouble was in there, she was going to handle it herself, all one hundred pounds of her. I thought of the smooth-working team of Catherine and Max, and the ruthless professional way they'd cooperated in slipping that needle into my neck.
I looked at my watch. Ten minutes should be about right, I decided, long enough so whoever had her covered
– as somebody presumably did-would start to get tense and nervous, but not so long that they'd know for sure something was wrong. I spent the time sticking a few things into my pockets that might come in handy. The low sun hit me hard as I left my room, carrying the yellow instruction booklet that had accompanied the questionnaires.
Around the corner, the swimming pool patio was full of half-naked kids. Some grownups lounged in long chairs by the pool, but it was the kids who were doing the splashing and yelling. I waited until the space around Sheila's door was clear for a moment, and walked up quickly and hammered on it hard with my fist.
"Open up!" I called as loudly as I dared. "Open up. This is the police!"
It wasn't what you'd call really clever; in fact it was pretty corny. Well, most diversions are. You start a fight or set fire to a wastebasket or shoot off a gun or a firecracker. The rest is up to the other person, the person in trouble, and he had better move fast-or she had.
I heard a sudden scuffle behind the door. A small-caliber gun went off in there. The crack of it was unmistakable to me, but nobody around seemed to notice, perhaps because of the kid-noises around the pool. There was a long, long pause. I fought back the impulse to Shout silly questions or break down the door. Then it opened and Sheila looked out. She was holding a slim-barreled.22 automatic pistol I'd never seen before.
"I had to break his finger with the trigger-guard before he'd let go," she said calmly. "Otherwise no damage except a hole in the ceiling. Did anybody hear the shot?"
I shook my head. I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss her hard for being unharmed, and the hell with her little white lies. But it was hardly the time for a sentimental clinch.
"Good work, Skinny," I said, and I walked past her and looked at the stocky, baldish man sitting on the bed with a sick look on his face, nursing his hand, one finger of which stuck out at a crazy angle.
"It's Ernest Head," Sheila said unnecessarily behind me.
I heard the door close. She went on: "His wife is missing. He thought we might know where she is. When I said I didn't know, he made me call you."
Looking down at the man on the bed, I had that half smug, half-guilty feeling you get when your most diabolical schemes start to pay off.
"He knocked on the door right after I got here," Sheila was saying. "I guess I'd mentioned I was staying at this motel when I interviewed him last night. He stuck the gun in my face and forced his way in. He was talking rather wildly. He seemed to think I knew a lot of things I didn't. I could probably have disarmed him sooner, but it seemed better to let him talk."
Her voice was still quite calm. I glanced at her. There was a darkness to her eyes, a tightness to her mouth, that indicated that being closed up in a room with a wild man with a gun hadn't been quite as easy as she'd like to have me think, but it was a harmless and natural deception. Whatever had happened in Costa Verde, she'd made up for it here.
"What did he have to say?" I asked.
"His real name in Schwarzkopf, Ernst Schwarzkopf. His wife's real name is… was, before she married him, Gerda Landwehr." Sheila glanced at me rather accusingly. "You knew?"
"I heard the names last night, you know where."
The man on the bed looked up. "Gerda," he said. "Gertrude… Trudie… Where is she? What have you done with her?"
Sheila said, "Currently Gertrude Head is a middle-aged American housewife with dark 'hair. I met her last night. But once, he says, back in Germany, Gerda Landwehr was blonde and beautiful-and strictly on the make."
"She just wanted fun," Head protested. "All girls do.
She wanted fun and money and music and dancing."
"They were going to be married," Sheila said. "But then the Nazis came along, and the war, and Gerda got some better propositions and took them. She apparently had several uniformed playmates, one in particular, who got stationed in one of the camps-the same camp as a certain general we've heard of. I gather she made herself a bit conspicuous there. There was that woman who had lamp-shades made of human skin, remember? Gerda seems to have had a few ideas along the same lines."
"That isn't true!" Head said quickly. "I told you! It was all lies, lies, made up by people who were jealous! Gerda never-"