Рауль Уитфилд - The Virgin Kills

Crozier shook his head slowly, looking at Mick. “Thought you didn't know what the word meant,” he said sarcastically.

Carla looked at the investigator and made a gesture with her hands that was not ungraceful. “You see how truthful he is!” she sneered. Crozier looked around the group and nodded his head. He touched his gray mustache. Then he shook his head. There was a suggestion of a smile playing around his lips.

“The trouble is,” he corrected, “that I can't quite see how truthful any of you are.”

He did something that might have been the first part of a bow, turned, and moved away. Sonia and Tim Burke followed him. Mick looked at me and shook his head.

“Being a detective—even that kind of one—it's a tough job, Al,” he said, “I feel sorry for him.”

There was mockery in his words. I frowned at him, feeling uncertain. But Carla Sard didn't feel that way.

“Being a murderer is a tough job, too, Mr. O'Rourke,” she said coldly. “I feel sorry for—”

She stopped as Mick lowered his head and took a step toward her. She drew in a sharp breath.

“—for any murderer,” she finished in a hurried manner.

Mick stopped and leaned down. He picked nothing from the surface of the deck and made the gesture of throwing it overboard. Then he smiled at Carla.

“Yeah—so do I, kid,” he agreed.

2

When I went into the main saloon at four o'clock, they were setting up the machine. I stood in the port-side entrance and watched them for awhile. It was a motion-picture projection outfit, and there was a lot of it. At the far end of the room there was a screen. I walked down and stood looking at the screen. After a few minutes I went around and looked behind it. There was a curved, large loudspeaker mounted just behind the silver square. Wires ran to one side of the saloon, and I traced them to the projection machine.

I lighted a cigarette, and while I was doing it, Risdon came over and stood close to me. His greenish eyes didn't look so green. They looked weary. He said:

“Like it?”

I shrugged. “It's all right if they use it to show comedies. But I don't like drama.”

Risdon said in a hard voice: “The title of this one is Regatta. It's a crew picture.”

I felt my nerves jerk a little, but I tried not to show it. Risdon said:

“Crozier wanted me to find you—he's with Sonia Vreedon, in her cabin.”

I widened my eyes. “Is that nice?” I asked.

The Poughkeepsie detective made a weary motion. His voice was grim.

“You and O'Rourke can't seem to get interested in important things,” he stated. “You're sidetracked with a lot of bum jokes.”

I nodded. “Once a columnist, always a—”

Risdon interrupted. “I know—but I think Grazier's giving you a last chance. I wouldn't laugh it off.”

“My God!” I said, “am I suspected now?”

“You might know more about O'Rourke—than you're telling,” Risdon said. “Anyway, Crozier's waiting. He's sort of taken things out of my hands.”

I smiled a little. “Do you mind much?” I asked.

“Not with this crowd to work on,” he replied grimly.

I went out of the saloon and along to Sonia Vreedon's cabin. The door wasn't closed, but I knocked anyway. Sonia called firmly.

“Come in!”

I went inside. She was lying on a divan, and Crozier was seated in a wicker chair, smoking. He offered me a cigarette, which I didn't take because it was cork-tipped. I picked out a chair; Crozier got up and went back to close the door and lock it. I said to Sonia:

“You may feel worse, but you look better.”

She nodded, “I feel as though there's a chance—for Tim,” she said.

Crozier came back and sat down. He said in a very low voice:

“Miss Vreedon got an idea—when she saw that plane fly over the yacht, early this morning. The rest of us had muffed it. They shot pictures of the race, from the air. Two planes—and one was down pretty low. One of them quit before the finish, because of the storm. But the other stuck. The cameraman was Eddie Tippen—he used some sort of trick lens, and he got something. His plane came right up on California—Eddie figured that crew was going to win, so he concentrated on it.”

I sat up straight. Sonia said:

“I told Mr. Crozier my idea—and he got right in touch with New York. The name of Babe Harron's father, and the fact that the Babe was murdered—it helped. They have sent us up a projection machine and a screen—and two men to operate it. They've sent the film that was shot.”

I said: “You've seen it?”

She shook her head. “It takes a little while to set up the apparatus—it's sound, you see.”

Crozier looked at me with his eyes slightly shut. He nodded.

“What we want you to do is to see that Mick O'Rourke hasn't any gun with him when he comes into the saloon, just after dark.”

I whistled softly. “You still think Mick did—”

Crozier sighed heavily. “I've given up thinking,” he stated. “It all comes down to this—we've eliminated certain people. People we're pretty sure didn't morphine Harron or murder Vennell. We've established the motive for Harron's death, and we've got a good idea that Vennell was silenced because there was danger of his breaking under the strain. But we haven't got the killer. Tim Burke is in the worst spot. Your pal, Mick—he isn't sitting so well, either. I want him in the saloon, and without a gun.”

I nodded. “I'll do what I can,” I said.

There was a little silence. Then Crozier said quietly:

“Risdon will have his men inside, and we'll have the California crew and all those connected with it out here. And those aboard the yacht, of course. The place will be pretty crowded.”

“If the pictures showed anything important, the company that shot them would have spotted it,” I said.

Sonia Vreedon didn't appear to hear me. Crozier smiled coldly.

“Would it?” he said. “Something that seems important to us might not seem at all important to a motion-picture company.”

Sonia Vreedon nodded. I said:

“Well, I hope you've got something. I'll try to fix it so that Mick goes in without a gun. But you could make sure—” The investigator leaned toward me. He spoke in a hard voice.

“You've helped me a lot, Connors. That's why I've been honest with you. If I didn't think there was something in this idea of Miss Vreedon's, I wouldn't go through with it. But I don't want to make much fuss about it—and search people on their way in.

I frowned at him. “They'll know you're not just putting on a picture show for them,” I suggested.

He nodded. “They certainly will,” he agreed. “I'm attending to that. But I don't want any one person getting set to stand a shock.”

I sat up straight and widened my eyes on Sonia Vreedon's, I said:

“You're going to—”

She shook her head. “We're just going to show some pictures of the race,” she said very grimly. “It happens there is a long close-up of Babe Harron. It happens that he was photographed just before—”

Her voice broke. I looked at Crozier and he said quietly:

“Your job is to see that the big fellow gets into the saloon without a gun.”

I shrugged. “Mick didn't do—” I started, but Crozier interrupted me. His voice was tired.

“I know—O'Rourke is innocent, and Tim Burke is innocent. Everybody's innocent. But the facts are that Babe Harron was morphined to death. And Vennell was murdered in his suite.”

I watched Sonia's body shiver. She sat up and said very softly:

“I know it will happen—in the saloon, when we show the pictures I feel it!”

Crozier's eyes were on mine. He spoke in a toneless voice.