I said: “So, you didn’t?”
“Didn’t what?” She expelled the words huskily through clenched teeth.
I stood up suddenly, lifting her in my arms. She came alive, writhing, to press the length of her body against me.
I held her away and started carrying her back to the house.
She kicked bare legs in the moonlight and started cursing me. I smothered the vicious phrases with my hand and carried her back into the drawing room that way, striding past a battery of amazed eyes and dumping her down into the chair where she had been previously. I turned away, wiping sweat from my face.
Michaela got up and went to Desta as I turned away. Though the Mexican girl couldn’t have been much older than Desta, there was a look of maternal solicitude on her features as she bent down and touched Desta’s arm; a grave madonna-like expression of understanding that radiated softly from her eyes.
“Come,” she said gently, “I will take you to your room.”
Desta rose submissively, like one who had no will of her own. Michaela linked the girl’s arm in hers, and spoke a low word to Pasqual that brought him to his feet and to the other side of Desta. Supporting her between them, they led the American girl from the room.
A long shuddering sigh came from Myra’s lips when they went out the door. In the moment of intense quiet following, Burke grinned briefly at me, then turned to her and asked:
“What about Hardiman?”
She stared at him a moment, then answered in a strained voice: “Raymond was half asleep and his room was dark. He said Mr. Hardiman had been there but left about half an hour ago.”
Burke crossed to the table and rang for a servant, a brooding look of worry on his face. When a man answered his ring he said brusquely:
“Have the butler get all the servants together in the hall where I can question them about Mr. Hardiman.”
The man nodded shakily and hurried out. Jelcoe edged forward and asked: “What’s this about Mr. Hardiman? Has he disappeared?”
“For the moment at least,” Burke admitted. He paused, chewing on the stem of his pipe. “Baker was slugged at his home and that telegram stolen from him. If Hardiman did the slugging...” Jerry paused with an expressive shrug of his heavy shoulders, then went on: “Exactly what did the telegram say, Jelcoe?”
Chief Jelcoe’s right eyelid twitched as he wrinkled his forehead in thought. “Just about what I told you over the phone. I glanced through it hurriedly and realized it was in reply to an inquiry you hadn’t seen fit to discuss with me so I thought perhaps it was private.”
Jerry paid no attention to the accusing tone Jelcoe used. He nodded and said: “Let’s go out and interview the servants. We’ve got to locate Hardiman.”
Myra Young jumped up from the divan and beat her hands together as they went out. “This is getting me down. It’s worse than a wake. Let’s have some music or something to snap us out of our dope.”
I mixed myself another drink while she went to an ornate console radio and pushed some buttons. A blast of static came out, then a blare of music. She tuned it down to a soft wailing of brasses and came swaying toward me with her arms outstretched, a set smile of determined gaiety on her face.
“How about a dance?”
I shook my head without saying anything, and she swayed away in rhythm with the music, snapping her fingers. Senor Rodriguez sat quietly in a chair in one corner, puffing on a small black cigar and watching Myra with about the same expression on his face that I might wear if I were suddenly confronted by a visitor from Mars.
I didn’t blame the Mexican for looking at her like that. There was something macabre about her dancing. I had a feeling that she wasn’t letting herself think... that she was afraid to be quiet with her thoughts... that she was driven by some inner compulsion to put on this act for us.
Burke and Jelcoe came back into the room. Jerry came to the table to mix himself a drink, and Jelcoe stood just inside the door, watching Myra, with his Adam’s Apple bobbing up and down.
I asked Jerry if he’d had any luck, and he grimaced and said: “I don’t know. The butler is positive that Hardiman’s telephone call was from Laura Yates... that he went outside to meet Laura on the side lawn half an hour ago. He hasn’t been seen since.”
Out of the corners of my eyes I watched Myra sway up to Jelcoe and undulate invitingly before him. He backed away from her in flabbergasted fright, and I began wondering if her sanity had snapped under the strain.
I plopped more soda into my glass, and at that instant Myra screamed. She was standing in the middle of the floor staring at us wildly, both hands held up for silence:
“What? Oh my God! what was that?”
“What was what?” Burke and Jelcoe sprang forward and I froze with my glass half-way to my mouth.
“I... thought I heard something. Didn’t you hear it? A... it sounded like... a shot. Sort of faint and muffled.”
“You must have heard my shot of soda,” I said, for it was at that instant I had seen her stop and listen.
Burke shook his head, looking from Jelcoe to me. “I didn’t hear anything. But that blasted radio is making so much noise...”
“I’m sure I did,” she broke in shrilly. “I... I’m sure!”
He turned away from her and made it to the door in long strides. Jelcoe and I trotted after him, caught up with him as he went up the stairway. Blank silence cloaked the upper floor of the house.
The butler came panting up the stairs after us as we reached the top. Burke whirled on him and asked: “Which is Dwight’s suite?”
“Right here, Sir.” Morrow was trembling and his face ashen. He stepped past us and turned the knob of a door opening into a living room dimly illuminated by light streaming through an open inside door.
Burke stepped past him, calling, “Dwight!” as the butler pushed a wall switch. Brilliant light flooded the room, and we saw the squatty figure of Raymond Dwight lying on his side on a leather couch across the room.
The stubby fingers of his left hand trailed down against the floor and he seemed to be relaxed in peaceful slumber, but I knew he was dead before I crossed to Burke’s side and looked down at the small, powder-marked hole in his forehead.
We all whirled about at the sound of rushing water from the bathroom where the light had come from, and Jelcoe sprinted toward the open door on his toes, drawing a Police .38 as he ran.
He stopped as the tall figure of a man stepped into the lighted doorway. It was Rufus Hardiman... and he faced us with a saturnine smile on his ascetic face.
It was a smile of triumph. Of supreme, exultant triumph. He glanced down at Jelcoe’s pistol and shook his head slowly. “You don’t need that,” he protested. “Really, you don’t. You can do anything you wish with me... now.”
Burke took three slow steps toward them, a frown of great annoyance and indecision on his face. “What did you just flush down the sewer?”
“That... you will never know.” Rufus Hardiman folded his arms and moved aside to let Burke enter the bathroom.
Jelcoe kept Hardiman covered until Jerry came out with half a dozen tiny scraps of paper in his hand and nodded to the chief. “Go over him for a pistol. And be careful. A .25 doesn’t take up much room.”
A dry chuckle came out of Hardiman’s throat and he lifted his hands high, coatsleeves sliding down from bony wrists. “Go over me by all means. I’m not a gunman, you know.”
Burke stepped over and stood by me while Jelcoe energetically searched the diplomat for a weapon.
“He certainly doesn’t seem to be worried about getting caught red-handed,” I said, low-voiced; and Burke shook his head. He went past me then and looked down at the stiffening body of our erstwhile host.
The room was large and rectangular with French doors opening out onto the balcony. An open door beyond the foot of the leather couch led into a bedroom.