It was peaceful and quiet in the living room of my bungalow. A shaded floor lamp stood near the table and the two Scotties lay on the floor just beyond the bright circle of light.
Blackmail and murder seemed awfully remote. I had a queer good feeling of impersonality about the whole business. Here, with the two of us to think it out, I felt we were going to hit on a solution.
I finished my eggs, and let the dogs scramble for the last bit of the meat which was rightfully theirs. Burke grinned as he watched Nip eagerly licking at a grease mark on the rug. He said:
“It’s easy to see why you haven’t married, Asa.”
“Why?” I was draining my glass of beer.
He gestured toward the dogs. “No self-respecting spouse would put up with them.”
“Who the hell,” I jeered, “wants a self-respecting spouse?”
“That’s just it,” he said patiently. “Obviously, you prefer the dogs.”
I set my glass down and thought about Laura Yates for no reason at all.
Then I lit a cigarette and looked at the cross of silver with its extra cross-bar which lay on the table. Burke had brought it along in his pocket after the experts failed to find any prints on it.
I picked it up and studied it. It was about two inches long, and heavy.
“How does this fit into the pattern of murder, Jerry?”
He sprawled his long legs out and blew a volcanic blast of smoke toward the ceiling. “I don’t know, Asa. But I’m convinced it’s an important part of the picture. If we knew what the damned thing meant we might have the answers to a lot of other questions.”
“Do you think the same person killed both Young and Dwight?”
He hesitated over that, then said soberly: “Yes. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise.”
“Hardiman?”
Burke shook his head, his eyes wary. “I don’t know. We certainly can’t eliminate him. But he just doesn’t add up for me... yet.”
“It seems to me he’s the only one who does,” I protested. “He had the opportunity and certainly the motive for tonight’s job. He as good as admitted he had found and destroyed whatever documentary evidence Dwight was holding over his head.”
Burke nodded and said:
“There were five others with a possible motive and opportunity. Desta, Marvin, Michaela, Pasqual... and Laura.”
“I believe Hardiman lied about seeing Laura sneak into the house,” I stated emphatically.
“Possibly.” He gave me an odd glance, and I had an idea that in some little corner of his mind that wasn’t chock full of serious contemplations, he was laughing at my vehemence. “However,” he resumed, “we know she was on the grounds at about the right time. Just as she was in the Young case.”
“Good God!” I exclaimed. “Can you sit there and tell me you believe a woman is responsible for two cold-blooded murders in succession?”
He smoked his pipe placidly. “Study the annals of crime,” he drawled. “There’s a lot of truth in the old axiom that the female of the species is more deadly than the male. They have a way of going to extremes once they start something.”
“I can’t believe it of any woman who was there tonight.”
“There’s Desta. Don’t you have a feeling there’s something queer about her?”
“Plenty,” I agreed emphatically. “Though I don’t know whether you’re thinking of the same connotations as I.”
“U-m-m. Something unnatural and abnormal. Why, for instance, did she fly at Myra Young so fiercely on those two occasions?”
“A daughter naturally resents having her father carry on with another woman,” I said lamely.
“Nonsense. You’re forgetting the sort of crowd that kid travels with. You can’t actually believe she was shocked by a thing like that.”
“It did seem peculiar,” I admitted. “Which is just what that gal is if you ask me. What do you think she did when I took her outside to question her?”
“Don’t tell me that she... er... took advantage of you?” A wide grin spread over his face.
“I was practically raped before I could get her back in. And it wasn’t a normal sort of passion. I don’t know how to put it, Jerry, but she’s got a screw loose.”
He nodded. “Nymphomania... and maybe something else. Something we don’t want to lose sight of. A father complex...” His voice trailed off uncertainly.
I went to the liquor cabinet and came back with a bottle of brandy and two glasses. Burke watched approvingly as I poured two drinks. He took an appreciative sniff and said:
“It’s good to get something like this after the fancy mixed stuff I drank out at Dwight’s.”
I sat down and said: “We’ve gotten sidetracked away from the cross. It intrigues me, Jerry.”
“Crosses,” he corrected. “Three of them. One on Michaela’s letter... one daubed on Young’s cheek... and this.” He picked the silver cross up and looked at it.
“Does it look like the one you said Young showed you once?”
“Very much. An exact duplicate, as nearly as I recall. There must be some particular significance attached to the double bar.”
“The symbol of the double-cross,” I suggested jokingly.
“Maybe you’ve got something there.” He spoke seriously. “Could the symbol on Michaela’s note been a warning for Leslie not to double-cross her? Or, had he already double-crossed her, and was the symbol a subtle warning?”
I said: “I still like Hardiman for a suspect.”
“Let’s get down to earth and see exactly where we stand.”
“You said in the beginning that if you knew why Young was invited to the hacienda, you could deduce who wanted to keep him from going... and would know the murderer.”
He nodded stubbornly. “I still maintain that the invitation and the telephoned threat contain the vital clue to the entire affair. Let’s examine what we know about the meeting at the hacienda. Why was Young invited?”
“Because Michaela wanted him to meet Dwight and Hardiman there.”
“Assuming the only connection between them was through her father, she would know Young’s Communistic leanings and might reasonably expect him to bitterly oppose a crooked deal being put through — by a hated capitalist — at the expense of a government which is striving desperately toward socialism.”
“From that, you might infer that she asked Young to come because she thought he might throw a monkey wrench in the works... which further infers that she wanted to spoil the deal.”
“Exactly. That’s perfectly in line with what we know of her political convictions.”
“But she’s been helping to get Dwight and Rodriguez together,” I protested.
“Wait a minute. That’s merely been an assumption. That’s what she appeared to be doing. How do we know she hasn’t been secretly working against it all along? Look at it this way: Hardiman puts the pressure on Rodriguez in Mexico City. Mexico is determined to avoid a quarrel with us over the oil payments. If a payment to Dwight will appease our State Department (as represented by Hardiman) it would be sensible for Mexico to accede to the demand on the promise that a single payment would suffice.”
Burke paused to sip some brandy.
“All that makes sense,” I agreed. “Mexico is torn by internal dissension and certainly wants no serious quarrel with us. Yet, it’s physically impossible for her to pay for all the property she’s expropriated. If paying Dwight’s claim would satisfy our State Department, they would likely do it. But I still don’t understand how Michaela fits into it.”
“She could have learned of the impending deal in Mexico City... and determined to prevent it if possible. By pretending to act as a go-between and getting into Dwight’s confidence, she would be in a good position to break it up. She could make a pretence of helping him while all the time she waits for a chance to stick a knife in his back.” He paused abruptly, got up and paced back and forth.