Tucker looked at him curiously. He said, “You talked with Gibbs. I didn’t.”
He retired to the law library, pulling the door shut behind him with a certain emphatic gesture of finality.
Hazlit got up, started pacing the floor, his forehead creased in a deep frown.
Chapter 24
The trim little steamship looked like a miniature ocean liner as it nosed through the blue waters of the channel. A wave hissed up on each side of the white prow, a boiling wake churned up astern. Overhead was a stretch of cloudless blue sky against which seagulls, poised in effortless ease, hung just behind the stern where the suction of air currents carried them forward.
Astern, the coast line of California showed a misty blue. Ahead, the slopes of Catalina, touched with the morning sun, were reddish gold.
Frank Duryea, Milred, and Gramps Wiggins sat in one of the sheltered nooks on the upper deck.
Duryea took from his inside coat pocket a special delivery letter addressed in typewriting to the District Attorney, Santa Delbarra, California. He turned it over in his hands, studying it intently.
“That the one that came at five o’clock this morning?” Gramps Wiggins asked.
“That’s the one. Did you hear them ringing the bell?”
“I woke up when I heard you call out asking what it was, and heard a boy say, ‘Special delivery letter.’ ”
“The words ‘Urgent. Deliver immediately’ are typed on the envelope,” Duryea said. He extracted the sheet of paper from the inside of the envelope and spread it out.
Gramps and Milred leaned over to read the words which had been typed on the sheet of paper. “If you want to find out who murdered those two men on the yacht, you’d better find out where Nita Moline spent her time between midnight Sunday night and three o’clock Monday morning. This is a real tip from someone who isn’t being catty, but wants the murder solved. After you find out where she was, if you’ll put an ad in the personal column of the Los Angeles Examiner saying ‘Party inquired about was at—’ and then say who she was with, I’ll write you another letter and let you know something important. But I won’t do that unless you put in that ad where she was and who she was with.”
The letter was signed simply, “A Friend.”
“Well,” Duryea asked, “what do you think of it?”
“It was written by a woman,” Milred said.
“What makes you think so?”
“I should say it was written by a jealous woman,” Milred went on. “There are several clues in it. Notice in the first place that she says she isn’t being catty. That’s typically a feminine expression, then also notice that she wants you to find out where Miss Moline was between those hours and make the in-formation available. She then promises to write and let you know if you are correct. It’s a woman, and a jealous or a suspicious woman.”
“What do you think, Gramps?” Duryea asked.
Gramps said, “Let’s see how much we can tell about the person who wrote it. Somebody that was just a little careless. Notice there are four mistakes in the letter. One has been erased. Down near the end she was too lazy or careless to make an erasure. She simply struck the letter S over. Where she erased, she wasn’t careful to do a clean job of it. And this is a good example of how each typewriter shows its individuality. Notice the way that A is tilted over to one side, and the E is... Say, son, wait a minute!”
“What’s the matter?” Duryea asked.
“Great jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!” Gramps exclaimed.
Milred smiled at her husband. “Something he ate for breakfast,” she said.
“More apt to be something he didn’t eat,” Duryea said. “This salt air is giving me an awful appetite. I’ll bet...”
“Ye gods,” Gramps shrilled. “You know what we’ve got, son? You know what this is?”
“No,” Duryea said. “What is it?”
“The hottest clue in the whole damn case,” Gramps said.
Duryea looked at the old man’s excited countenance, and said, “What is it?”
“Don’t you get it? The little distinctive oddities of alignment are the same in this letter that they were on the carbon copy of the letter that Stearne’s office produced. This here letter, son, was written on the same typewriter that Mrs. Rodman used on Saturday afternoon!”
Duryea looked at the expression on Gramps’ face, then whipped a photostatic copy of the other letter from his pocket. As he compared the two, his face showed the verdict, even before he said, “You’re right, Gramps. Now we’ve got to find the person who wrote that letter.”
“Where’s it postmarked?” Gramps asked.
“Los Angeles.”
“And she wants you to put the information in a Los Angeles paper. She lives there.”
Gramps said, “That envelope is just a plain stamped envelope with a special delivery stamp—”
The hoarse blast of a whistle drowned out his words. He jumped to his feet, ran around to where he could look forward, and came back to say, “We’re just comin’ into the harbor, son. Better put that letter away. Don’t put it back in that wallet. If you run into a pickpocket and he should reef your britch, the first thing he’d grab would be the leather, an’...”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Duryea said, laughing. “You’re using a lot of technical terms, Gramps. When did you know any pickpockets?”
Gramps Wiggins looked sheepish. “Aw, I... just somethin’ I read somewhere, I guess, in some of these detective stories.”
Duryea laughed with polite disbelief.
“All pickpockets ain’t bad, anyway,” Gramps asserted. “Some of ’em are nice boys that just got a wrong start, an’ once they get in the game, they don’t know how to get out.”
Milred said, “Well, let’s get ashore. And how about eats? Think of the scandal when the citizens of Santa Delbarra pick up their papers tonight and read, ‘Special from Catalina. Over-zealous official neglects feeding wife. Our readers will be shocked to know that Mrs. Milred Duryea collapsed on the beach promenade at Santa Catalina Island at an early hour this morning. Physicians who attended her said...’ ”
“I surrender,” Duryea announced.
“A hamburger with everything,” she said.
“Two,” Gramps piped up. “Heavy on the onions, too.”
“Three,” Duryea laughed.
They had no difficulty in finding the house they wanted. It was a small cottage with a sign announcing that it was for rent, furnished, by the day, week, or month. Mrs. Raleigh studied Duryea’s credentials and said, “Why, yes, I remember the party. That was last Saturday, just about noon.”
“That’s right.”
“When Mr. Hilbers, the yachtsman, came here,” she said after a moment, “he didn’t say how large his party was. He said that he’d come over on his yacht, and intended to be here over the week end. He wanted a place to use as headquarters for his party — where they could have baths. He didn’t say how big his party was.”
“Can you describe him?” Duryea asked.
“Oh, yes. He’s been here once or twice before. He’s tall and slender, with dark hair. About twenty-seven or twenty-eight, I should judge, quite attractive. When you’ve once heard his voice you’ll never forget it. He wore a blue serge, double-breasted coat, and a yachting cap.”
“Did you see the woman?”
“Why, I saw his sister. She was with him when he checked out.”
“Can you describe her?”
“Yes. She’s an attractive young brunette, about a hundred and twenty pounds. She has a good figure, and knows it.”
“Had you ever seen her before?”
“Yes, but I can’t remember just when it was. Incidentally, you might be interested to learn that she left something behind.”
“What?”
“A bathing suit.”
“Where is it?” Duryea asked.
“I have it over in my house. Would you like it?”
“Very much,” Duryea said. “It might be important. — You’re sure that it was left by the sister?”
“At least by one of the women in Mr. Hilbers’ party. It was hanging in the shower. I’d intended to hold it until Mr. Hilbers happened to be over here again. Just a moment and I’ll get it.”
She disappeared in the house and returned presently with a rubber bathing suit. A peculiar montage of marine scenery had been worked into the rubber — waves curling into green crests, over which pelicans were flying. Here and there a seal thrust its head out of the water. These seals all had the same facial expression — a whisker-twisting smirk — a leer of cynical triumph.
Duryea held it up to Milred. His wife, studying it carefully and with a practiced eye, said, “Not bad. It looks as though it had been shaped to curves.”
Duryea said to Mrs. Raleigh, “I’m going to take this. Would you mind writing your name or putting your initials on a hem somewhere? Some little mark so you can identify it later on as being the same suit which you found in the shower.”
He handed her a fountain pen. She scrawled her initials on the hem of the panties.
Duryea took from his pocket a picture he had cut from a newspaper. “Just to make certain — is this the woman?”
“Yes. I hadn’t noticed that picture before. How did it happen to be in the paper?”
“Her husband was C. Arthur Right,” Duryea said. “He was murdered.”
“Was that her husband? Good heavens! I knew she was married, but I didn’t know what her married name was.”
Duryea folded the bathing suit. “Please don’t say anything to anyone about this interview,” he warned.
It was as they were walking back toward the pier that Milred asked, “What about the bathing suit, Frank? You look as grim as an executioner.”
Duryea said, “When I went aboard that yacht Sunday morning, there were three witnesses, Miss Moline and Ted Shale, both sopping wet, and Miss Harpler. Miss Harpler was wearing a bathing suit. It was rubber. The ornamental design dyed on it was a series of curling waves, flying pelicans and grinning seals. Now, figure that one out!”
Gramps chuckled. “Now you’re gettin’ somewhere, son. Now you’re whizzin’!”