Charla looked at him approvingly. “You can be quite a serpent.”
“At heart I’m a ninny.”
“It’s an effective disguise. Omar did look like such a sweet, baffled old man. We should have assumed you’d take after him.”
The phone rang and she answered it. “Who? Oh, yes, of course. What is that? Oh, no, my dear. My brother and I hardly know the young man. Seen with him? You must be mistaken. Not that I would mind, you understand. It’s really quite exciting being in the same hotel, actually. Even the same floor, I understand. He must be a very interesting chap. All that money. My word! I’m sorry my brother and I have to leave this evening. It would be amusing to stay here and watch the fun. No, of course not. You’re very welcome.”
She hung up. “A bright girl, that one. Playing percentages, bribing the help, I imagine. Possibly the bellhops who carried you upstairs last night. I tried to stay well out of it, but those boys are quite observant. Well, darling, you might as well bring your suitcases in here and we’ll leave it up to Joseph to plan a good way to get you out of here tonight and onto the Glorianna. She’ll be refueled by now. And it’s just what you need, you know. The dramatic, mysterious disappearance.”
“That’s all I need.”
“We’ll do our bargaining at sea, Kirby.”
“Will we?”
“Dear boy, give me credit for some intelligence. If you weren’t interested in making a deal, you wouldn’t be hanging about, would you?”
“I guess not. I — uh — think I’ll shower and change.”
“Take your time, dear. We won’t be out of this for hours and hours. Want your back scrubbed?”
“No thanks.”
“Don’t look so severe. Any other little service you can think of?”
“Not right now. I’ll let you know.”
“I’m sure you will, you lovely serpent.”
When he was back in his room with the door bolted, he went and listened at the corridor door. He could hear a murmur of voices in the hall, and some laughter. He walked back and forth, biting his lip, smacking his fist into his palm. He remembered her words, “a place where screaming wouldn’t matter.” It made him feel sweaty and chilled.
At seven-thirty he stood on the exposed landing with the green eye looking out of the porthole in the bright door at him, shadowed by the dusk.
“It’s me,” he said in a squeaky, muffled, breathless voice. “Me!”
Betsy opened the door and let him in. “Dear Lord,” she said softly. “Anybody follow you here? No, I guess they wouldn’t.”
He undid the jacket and belt of the hotel uniform and took the hotel pillow out. He pulled the wads of tissue out of his cheeks. He collapsed into a chair and said, “They sent up a fat one.”
“A fat what?”
“A fat waiter. I called from the honeymooner’s room.”
“From the whose room?”
“I haven’t hit anybody since I was thirteen years old. He put the tray down and turned around and — Pow. I left a fifty-dollar bill in his hand. Then I walked right through all of them.”
“All of who?”
“Why would they have uniforms this color? Salmon and emerald?”
“Kirby, I heard all about you on television, on the six o’clock news, and I could guess that the thundering herd is after you, but really, you’d better start at the beginning. Unless you start somewhere near the beginning, I am going to all of a sudden start screaming.”
“She said something about screaming, and it was very nasty.”
“Kirby!”
“All right. All right.” And he told her. There was, for once, no need for in-process editing. She listened carefully, thoughtfully.
“So she finally showed her teeth, did she?”
“My God, the last place I ever want to be is on that yacht. And it’s a damn strain to talk to somebody and not really know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you are a sweet lamb and I think you did very well. But where are we? Now she thinks you know what it is she’s after. But you have no idea what it is?”
“Absolutely none.”
“But now she knows she’s either got to be awfully damn cute to get it away from you, or awfully rough, or pay your full price, or come in as a partner. What does it sound like, whatever it is?”
“All I can think of, I swear, is some sort of an invention.”
She nodded gravely. “That’s where I’ve been going too. Years and years ago, he did try to invent things. And suddenly he became rich and powerful. He got an edge, a gimmick, something that works. I think that Charla and Joseph reasoned it all out by inference. Maybe they don’t even know exactly what it is. But they could guess it could be written in his personal papers.”
“And they think I know exactly what it is.”
“Maybe it would be awfully useful right about now if you could lay your hands on it, Kirby.”
He closed his eyes. “You know, I’m just about whipped. Everybody in the world thinks I’ve got twenty-seven million dollars squirreled away and they all want it. Just six people know I gave it all away. You, me, Wilma, Wintermore, Charla and Joseph. And I gave Charla the idea I’d kept some. But they want something else, and I don’t know what it is, and you don’t, and you seem to think they don’t either.”
“Leaves Wilma, doesn’t it?”
He opened his eyes. “Could she know?”
“Maybe she could know without knowing she knows. Maybe she could have it without knowing she has it.”
“Guess I better phone her.”
He phoned Wilma. A man answered. He had a precise, high-pitched voice. “Who wishes to speak to her, please?”
He hesitated. Betsy was listening too. She nodded. “Kirby Winter.”
“You wouldn’t mind proving you’re Mr. Winter?”
“How do you expect me to—”
“Just a moment, please. I must get the questions she wrote down. You can prove you are Mr. Winter by answering them correctly.” He was gone for twenty seconds. “Are you there? Good. First, please give me the name of the man you were dealing with at the time of your uncle’s death.”
“Uh — Manuel Hernandez y Gomez.”
“And the name of the man in Rangoon in December?”
“Oh. Dr. Na Dan Boala.”
“Thank you, Mr. Winter. I suggested this precaution to my sister. She was in such a state of horrible emotional shock, she wasn’t thinking with — her customary precision. I am Roger Farnham. She hoped you might call. Now, thank God, I shall be able to leave also. The harassment is sickening, as I guess you must have learned by this time. I must say, it is a grim reward for my sister’s years of loyal faithful service to your uncle.”
“I didn’t have anything to—”
“I realize that, of course. And there is much about this I can’t pretend to understand, sir. Wilma will tell me very little. But I do know, of course, she is — uh — incapable of hanky-panky.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“I’ll doubtless be followed when I leave here, but I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing I won’t be leading them to Wilma. Do you know that the reporters actually badgered her into hysterics?”
“That’s too bad.”
“It took considerable guile to get her hidden safely away.”
“I can imagine.”
“And it would be a shame if you led the world to her hiding place.”
“I’ll certainly try not to.”
“She’s too delicate for this sort of thing. I’m leaving it up to you to do the right thing, and find some way out of this for her. Someone should be sued for the filthy hints they put in that interview.”
“I don’t think they’ll be doing any more hinting.”
“The damage is done, apparently. At any rate, sir, I have a home, a family and a profession to return to. Please tell her I cannot be expected to damage my own life in some vain attempt to assist her.”