“Then what?”
“Then he put on a pair of bathing trunks, put the key to the automobile in the pocket of his bathing trunks, locked up the yacht, slipped over the side, and swam out into the channel. Then, swimming quietly, he rounded the premises of the yacht club and managed to gain one of the bathing beaches, where he came ashore, apparently a man who had merely been out for an evening swim. He walked boldly past the few people who were, for the most part, sitting in parked automobiles looking out over the water, and went to the place where he had left his car. He used the key to turn on the ignition. He came home, took a shower, dried out his wet bathing-suit, and put on his clothes.”
“Then what?”
“I had been out at a business conference and unfortunately he had to wait for me to come home.”
“Go on.”
“It was almost eleven o’clock when I arrived.”
“So what did you do?”
“My son told me what had happened. I warned him that he had made a very poor decision, that he should have notified the police immediately.”
“I presume then that you called the police?”
“Not the police. I decided to let the caretaker at the yacht club discover the body.”
“So what did you do?”
“I called the caretaker and asked him to go aboard my yacht and get a briefcase which was in the main cabin and send it to me by taxicab.”
“What happened?”
“I presumed, of course, that when he went to the main cabin he would find the body and report to the police.”
“He didn’t do so?”
“The body wasn’t there.”
“How do you know?”
“The night watchman sent me the briefcase by taxicab, just as I had instructed him. That caused me grave concern. I questioned my son very carefully to see if there was any chance he had been aboard another yacht, or if he had imagined any of the things he had found. Then the next morning I personally went down and boarded the yacht and made an inspection.”
“What did you find?”
“There was no indication that there had ever been a body in the cabin of the yacht. No one was there. Things were just as I had left them.”
“How did the night watchman get aboard the yacht?”
“He has a key. It is not mandatory that owners leave extra keys in the safe at the yacht club, but the management prefers to have them do so. Then, in case of fire, or in case of any urgent necessity, the caretakers can get aboard the yachts and move them.”
“Then what happened?”
“My son was worried because we didn’t know just what had happened. He decided it would be a good plan for him to have an alibi for Tuesday night.”
“You had one?”
“Oh, yes. I was in conference with a business associate. One of the directors of the bank.”
“Give me his name and address.”
“Surely, Mr. Lam, you don’t doubt my—”
“I’m not doubting. I’m investigating. What’s his name and address?”
“Waldo W. Jefferson. He’s one of the directors of the bank. He has offices in the bank building.”
“How about guests that go aboard yachts?” I asked. “Are they registered?”
“No, just the owner registers, but the number of guests is noted. That is, the registration will show that the owner boarded the yacht, that he had two guests, three guests, four guests, or whatever the case might have been.”
I said, “All right, let’s go down to the yacht. You can register me as a guest.”
“But I have already gone through the yacht carefully, Mr. Lam. There’s no evidence there that—”
“Perhaps no evidence that you can see, but if the body of a dead man was once aboard your yacht and the police have any reason to suspect that such was the case, you’re apt to find there’s a lot of evidence they’ll uncover which you never knew existed.”
An expression of smug satisfaction flitted across his face. “There is nothing, Mr. Lam.”
“Perhaps.”
“Just what do you expect to find, Mr. Lam? What do you want to look for?”
I said, “I once attended one of Frances G. Lee’s seminars on homicide investigation.”
“I dare say you have proper professional qualifications, Mr. Lam. I fail to see why we should discuss them at this time, however.”
I went on as though there had been no interruption. “They called for a volunteer to take off his coat and roll up his sleeves. They had a test tube of human blood. They put blood smears on his hands and arms.”
“There have been no blood smears on my hands or arms,” he said with dignity.
“And then,” I said, “they told him to go wash the blood off, to use soap and water, to scrub, to do everything he could to get rid of the bloodstains.”
“Well, it washed right off, didn’t it?”
“Sure.”
“Then what?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“They went on with the class.”
“You mean they simply had him put the blood on and then wash it off?”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t see your point, Lam.”
“Then the next day they asked him if he’d taken a bath, and he said he had. They asked him if he’d scrubbed his hands and arms particularly well — devoting an unusual amount of attention to them — and he admitted that he had, that he felt they might be going to play some trick on him so he’d made a good job of it.”
“Then what?”
“Nothing.”
“Lam, what are you getting at?”
“The next day they did the same thing,” I said.
“He’d taken another bath?”
“Yes.”
“And scrubbed his hands and arms?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Lam, I don’t see what you’re getting at. You’re creating a divergence and—”
“And then,” I said, “they rolled up his sleeves, put on a reagent, and every place where the blood had touched his arms there was a dark-blue stain.”
John Carver Billings sat as perfectly quiet as a mouse on a pantry shelf when a door opens. I could see him digesting that information and he didn’t like it.
Abruptly he straightened in his chair, said in that calm, precise, close-clipped banker’s voice of his, “Very well, Mr. Lam, we will now go to the yacht.”
Chapter Thirteen
Floating palaces of teakwood and mahogany, glistening with varnish, dotted with polished brass, rocked quietly at their moorings, waiting patiently for the weekends when their owners would take them out for a few hours’ recreation on the waters of the bay, or, perhaps in the case of the more venturesome, out into the pounding whitecaps beyond the heads and through to the long rollers of the surging ocean.
Some of them were so large they would require a crew to operate them; others were of a modern construction with controls so ingeniously arranged that one man could, in case of necessity, handle the boat.
It was as Billings had told me. The yacht club was virtually inaccessible to any but members. The high, steelmeshed fence was surmounted with an inclined barrier of heavy barbed wire, and at the gate there was a balanced platform. When we stepped on that a buzzer sounded, and the night gateman who was on duty gave Billings a respectful “Good evening, sir,” and handed him a book. Billings wrote his name, and, in a separate column next to the name, added the information, One guest. The watchman checked the time.
He wanted to say something else, but Billings cut him off with a curt “Some other time, Bob,” and piloted me down the long inclined ramp to the floats where we could hear the gentle lap of water and see the shimmering reflection of lights.
Our feet on the float gave back booming echoes from the water below. There was a grim, eerie atmosphere clinging to the place. Neither one of us said anything.