Эллери Куин - The Killer Touch

Burt realized that Joss was half-drunk and a bad security risk, but he needed help.

“Listen, when we go back out there, I want you to get everybody to sign the guestbook. I’m particularly interested in Mrs. Keener.”

She raised her brows. “What’s on your mind?”

“Just a sneaky way to see her handwriting.” He patted her shoulder. “Go on, play it natural. I’ll explain when the party’s over.”

Back at the table, Joss carried it off... almost. She brought up the subject of a previous guest, forgot his name, then got the guest book, a massive bookkeeping ledger, to refresh her memory. She discovered that none of those present had signed the book. Burt signed first, then Rolf Keener, who asked Joss with a faint smile, “Is it okay if I sign for both of us?”

Joss shot Burt a brief glance, then said quickly, “Oh, no. Everybody sign.”

Rolf, still smiling, pushed the heavy book in front of the woman. “Here, Mrs. Rolf Keener. Sergeant March would like your autograph.”

Burt met the cold blue eyes and regretted his maneuver with the book. He’d revealed more than he could ever learn, and it gave him no surprise to look across the table and see the woman print in block capitals: MRS. ROLF KEENER.

The boys began playing a bouncy local mixture of calypso, cha-cha-cha, and Latin American rock-and-roll. They’d donned white shirts for the occasion, and Boris managed to look dignified even with a nose-flute in one flaring nostril. Coco sat on the floor with his legs hooked around a pair of bongo drums. His hands, pink-scarred by fish-bites, fluttered like black wings on the taut drum-skin. Godfrey’s face hung vacuous over a guitar almost as large as himself.

Rolf pulled Joss up to dance on the wooden floor; he acted like someone playing a hilarious game — and winning it. Burt hesitated to trust his leg, but when Joss and Rolf began their third twist, he asked Mrs. Keener to dance.

“If I pop out of my dress,” she said, getting up, “will you look the other way?”

“We’ll have to wait and see,” said Burt.

Burt found to his surprise that he enjoyed dancing with her. She moved with a boneless, sinuous grace which never brought her into contact with him, but nevertheless made him totally aware of her body. He glanced down at her muscular calves, saw that her feet were shod in flat-heeled, ballet-style slippers.

“Did you used to be a professional dancer?”

She dimpled in a way she must have practiced. “You say the nicest things.”

Burt thought: She’s certainly no junkie. She’s a healthy female animal with beautiful coordination, a gargantuan appetite, and none of the addict’s sexual apathy. He could feel her physical warmth surrounding him like a blanket. On their third dance he spoke softly in her ear: “On the slope behind your cabin, there’s a concrete water catchment with a tile-roofed cistern at the lower end. Have you seen it?”

“Yes.” She whirled away once and came back into his arms. “In an hour?”

So simple, he thought, like meeting her for coffee. “That’s fine.”

She came against him for an instant as though sealing the bargain with a sample. Burt found himself looking over her head into the icy blue eyes of Rolf. There was no jealousy there, only a crinkle of mild amusement.

But then, he asked himself, why should Rolf be jealous? For he had just learned, with a certainty that dispelled all doubt, that the woman in his arms was not Tracy Keener.

The woman pleaded a headache fifteen minutes later and the pair left despite Joss’s protest that parties didn’t end this way in the islands. Joss decided to stay and finish the wine and Burt stayed with her.

“Joss, what’s the best way to get to this island without the authorities knowing?”

“In the hold of a ship, I guess.”

Burt thought of Mrs. Keener’s tight clothing, he’d returned to the theory that they’d belonged to a smaller woman. She couldn’t have carried much luggage as a stowaway.

“Is there a quicker way?”

“Flying in at Grenada.”

“She’d go through immigration.”

“Not our immigration. We come under St. Vincent, the southern islands come under Grenada. People cross all the time and nobody knows unless they get in trouble.”

“Then Rolf could have picked her up in the launch from Grenada. Of course.”

“Who, Mrs. Keener?”

“She isn’t Mrs. Keener.”

Joss’s mouth dropped open. “You mean he sent his girl friend down here—”

“I mean that the woman who came on O’Ryan’s schooner is not the woman we had dinner with tonight. There’s been a switch, and it happened sometime between last night and the night before.”

She stared at him a moment, then shook her head. “I’ve had too much to drink, Burt. I can’t figure it.”

“Okay. I searched the purse while I was on the schooner. Her driver’s license said she was five-feet-four, and weighed a hundred and five pounds. Now this woman was nearer one-twenty, wouldn’t you say?”

“At least, but women change their weight.”

“But not their height, Joss. While we were dancing I noticed that she was wearing low heels. The top of her head came to the tip of my nose. I’m six feet and a quarter inch tall. My nose is approximately five inches below the top of my head. That would put her height at about five-seven.”

“But why? To change wives—”

“Divorce is a lot less trouble. It’s bigger than that, and I’ve got a feeling there’s a lot of money involved, knowing Rolf.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Get more information — maybe. I’ve got a date with her out by the cistern.”

Joss looked alarmed. “Burt, it’s probably a trap.”

“I know. I don’t aim to throw myself at her feet without looking around. Rolf has a gun, you know.”

“Burt, don’t risk it. Look, let me talk to Rolf, I’ll tell him I’m sick, get him to take me to St. Vincent, go to the police—”

“And tell them what?”

“Why... that there’s a woman here—”

“And our proof?”

“My word—”

“Have you told anybody about seeing your husband on the beach wearing hip boots?”

“What does that—?” She closed her mouth, reddening. “Oh, I see what you mean. They’d think I was raving. Okay, you go.”

“Suppose Rolf does have a big deal on; he’d see that I never got to St. Vincent.”

Joss laughed nervously. “Oh, hell, this thing has sobered me up quicker than a gallon of black coffee. Who do you suppose the woman is?”

“It’s not important, is it? I’m wondering what happened to the real Mrs. Keener.”

Burt squatted inside a clump of grass and peered at the woman who stood beside the cistern. Strange that she’d wear her white beach coat to a secret tryst; she stood out like neon beneath the thick crescent of the moon. The water catchment was a gray triangle on the slope above her. He could hear rats chittering in the grass around him; the booming surf had become an unchanging part of life, audible only when he made an effort to hear it. Beyond the cistern he saw the fumaroles geysering up like pale gleaming wraiths in the moonlight.

A match flared and went out. A cigarette glowed in the pale oval of her face, brightened and dimmed several times in rapid succession. Lover’s getting impatient, he thought, but I’ll bet she doesn’t leave...

A cloud obscured the moon and darkened the island. A darker shadow joined the white shape of the woman. When the moon came out again, the larger shadow broke away and disappeared around the corner of the cistern. Burt gripped the two-foot length of steel pipe and crept out of the grass. He angled to the right, down the slope and back up again on the side of the cistern opposite the woman. He peered around the corner and saw Rolf squatting with his back to the stone wall. Rolf was an old night fighter; Burt knew he could never sneak close enough for a solid blow. He picked up a stone and, holding his arm away from his body so there would be no swish of cloth, threw it over Rolf’s head. It thumped on the ground ten feet ahead of the man; Rolf rose to his feet. Burt leaped forward and swung the pipe against his head with a delicate, calculated force. Rolf fell against the cistern and started a limp-legged slide to the ground; Burt caught him beneath the arms and lowered him gently. He withdrew a .38 snub-nosed revolver from Rolf’s shoulder holster and shoved it in his hip pocket. Rolf’s pulse and breathing were both surprisingly normal; Burt decided he’d have less than a quarter hour with the woman.