Brazilian Sleigh Ride, page 11
“You knew, of course, that Jimmy had had no previous experience in work of this nature?”
“Of course. He said so, and his application form bore it out.”
“And you had no fear at that time that he might eventually turn out to be a crook?”
Henderson looked at him curiously, as if wondering at the intelligence that could formulate such a question. “Obviously not. In any event he had to be bonded in order to work as a teller, and the bonding company is pretty thorough in checking on a man’s honesty.” He reviewed his words and revised them slightly. “Or at least on his past honesty.”
“And his previous lack of experience didn’t bother you?”
Henderson looked at Wilson with a faintly bitter smile. “Tellers have to start somewhere, Mr. Wilson. They aren’t born experienced. We often wish they were, but unfortunately they’re not.”
Wilson nodded. “Yes.” He made a penciled notation in his thickly inscribed notebook and looked up again. “I see you brought him up from teller to the position of assistant cashier in a little over a year. Isn’t that a bit fast?”
“Too fast,” Henderson agreed with a grimace. His hand went back to his ear. “Obviously far too fast, in his case. Or, I suppose, in any other case. But, as I say, I liked the man. He was smart as a whip, hard-working, willing—he seemed to be very interested in his job and its details, and in learning more about it, and—” his smile was a bit rueful, almost as if what he was going to say was in the nature of taking the two men into his confidence— “and also, it wouldn’t quite do for the president of a bank to play golf with a teller, but with an assistant cashier the potential damage to discipline isn’t quite so bad.” He wiped away his smile as if in realization that matter under discussion wasn’t basically humorous. “In any event, I brought him along. As you say, probably too fast.”
Wilson didn’t bother to point out that the words weren’t his. He looked down at the notes he had taken and then back up again. Da Silva, at his side, watched the scene through half-closed eyes. Wilson continued his questioning. “Was the loss insured?”
“Not for the full present value—the present market value, that is. These bonds have gained considerably in value since the date of issue; the type of insurance we carry covers a portion of the value at the time of issue, and that’s all. But a fair amount of the loss is covered, yes.” He studied the man across from him evenly. “That doesn’t affect Martin’s guilt in any way, you understand.”
“I realize that. Tell me, Mr. Henderson, to get back to Jimmy—” Wilson smiled a bit apologetically. “I hope you don’t mind my jumping around this way?”
Henderson waved it away. “Not at all.”
“Thank you. Now, regarding Jimmy—you say you played golf with him, or at least since his promotion to assistant cashier took away the stigma of playing golf with a teller. I imagine, if your relationship was on a personal basis like that, he must have spoken at one time or another about his personal life. I’m sure he must have mentioned the fact that he was engaged to be married. Do you happen to know the girl he was engaged to? Her name? Or anything about her?”
Henderson frowned and shook his head. “If he was engaged, I knew nothing of it. He never said anything here. And as for playing golf with him—” He shrugged. “Well, he wasn’t made assistant cashier until a few months ago. Less, as a matter of fact; it was only the beginning of November. And there hasn’t been any golf played around here since then. We don’t have the year-round golfing weather here that you do in Brazil. Actually, I only played golf with him the one time that I mentioned.”
“I see.” Wilson nodded and scribbled another note. He turned a page of his notebook and then looked up. “I’m going to jump again, Mr. Henderson, back to the robbery. Last evening you spoke with a Mr. Al Cormier, and at the time—”
Henderson frowned. “Cormier?”
“A big, red-haired man.”
“Oh, yes, I remembered. What about it?”
“Well, Cormier is a private detective, and—”
“A private detective?” Henderson sat up in his chair, shaking his head. “Believe me, Mr. Wilson, I automatically assumed he was from the police. If I said anything to him that the police or Interpol wanted kept quiet, I’m very sorry, but—”
“No, no.” Wilson shook his head. “It was perfectly all right to speak with him, Mr. Henderson. He was representing—well, he was representing me, as a matter of fact. I raised the point merely to check the details of the story he gave me.” He studied his notes a moment and then repeated Cormier’s report almost verbatim. Henderson sat, fingers tented and lips pursed, listening to the other closely. Wilson finished. “Is that the story of the robbery?”
Henderson nodded. “Exactly. Mr. Quinleven felt that we couldn’t afford to wait until I returned from Chicago, and I was forced to be of the same opinion. It was an uncomfortable position to be in, believe me. I—like you—could hardly believe that Martin would do a thing like this, and I would have preferred to wait until I got back and had a chance to check into it personally. But every minute counted, and I felt that if we were wrong I could always apologize; but if we were right …” His hand went to the lobe of his ear. “So the police were called in, and we were right. But still too late, as it turned out.”
Wilson stared over Henderson’s shoulder at the gray wintry sky, thinking, and then shook his head almost disconsolately. “Well, I guess that’s about all the questions I have, Mr. Henderson. Unless Captain Da Silva has any others.”
He turned and looked at the tall man slumped down in his chair with his eyes half-open. In response, Da Silva opened his eyes a bit more and pulled himself a bit more erect.
“A few.” He paused; the téléphone at Henderson’s elbow had begun to ring. In accordance with the general tone of the office, even the bell was subdued. Henderson stared at the instrument a moment and then picked it up, his eyes and shrug apologizing to his visitors for the interruption.
“Hello? Yes? Who? Certainly, put him on.” He cupped the receiver and spoke across the desk. “The police …” He removed his hand and waited a moment; his connection was finally completed. “Hello? Yes. This is Mr. Henderson. What? What?”
Da Silva and Wilson traded glances at the shocked tone of the bank president. He had picked up a pencil and was making a series of unintelligible scrawls on a desk pad as he listened. In the quiet of the office the faint rasp of the voice speaking at the other end could be heard. Henderson listened closely. At last the rasp ceased, and for several seconds the bank president sat as if thinking. Then he sighed deeply and spoke. “Are you sure, Lieutenant?” There was another rasp. “Thank you, Lieutenant. And you’ll keep me informed of any developments? Thank you.”
He hung up and tossed his pencil aside; his eyes sought first Da Silva and then Wilson. When he spoke at last, his voice was quiet.
“That was the police lieutenant who was here investigating the theft. They’ve heard from the Brazilian police. There appears to be evidence that Martin was attacked and robbed in a city called Recife; his plane must have stopped there. They haven’t found his body, but apparently they have enough evidence to lead them to believe that he was probably—” he seemed to have difficulty with the word— “probably killed. They think his body must have been sunk in the ocean or buried somewhere in the brush there.” He stared at them a moment and then shook his head in pain. “So poor Martin did the whole thing for nothing.”
Da Silva sighed. He would have preferred that the police had kept their information to themselves, at least for the time being, but they hadn’t, and that was that. He leaned forward.
“I’m not too certain that report is true, Mr. Henderson.” He forestalled any comment by raising a hand. “I know there was evidence to indicate that Martin was attacked and robbed, and at least wounded, if not killed—and it’s true that we haven’t found him, either alive or dead. Mr. Wilson agrees with the theory the police have given you just now—but, frankly, I don’t.”
Henderson stared at him. “You don’t?”
“No. There is other evidence which I’m not in a position to give you, which leads me to believe that Martin wanted us to think just what the police—and Mr. Wilson—are thinking. In my opinion, Martin is safe and sound, with the bonds in his possession, just waiting for the heat to simmer down before coming back here and converting those bonds into cash. And then really disappearing.”
Henderson frowned. “If you’re right, it’s odd that the police don’t know of it.”
Da Silva shrugged. “They probably wouldn’t believe me, anyway. Mr. Wilson certainly doesn’t. But I think it’s just a question of time until I’ll be able to prove it.”
Henderson’s fingers picked up his pencil again; for a moment he sat quietly and then looked up. “This may sound strange coming from the president of a bank that’s been robbed, but I hope you are right and Mr. Wilson wrong. Because at least—well, the bonds are only money, when you come right down to it, and a man’s life is a lot more important.” He spread his hands. “I liked Martin.” He suddenly remembered something. “You had some questions you wanted to ask, Captain Da Silva?”
“A few. For one, you said earlier that this affair could cost you your position here at the bank. Isn’t that a bit drastic, just because you happened to hire a man who turned out to be a crook?”
Henderson’s smile was bitter. “I won’t say you don’t know anything about banks and banking, Captain, because I suppose every organization is different. In this organization, I can assure you, the Board of Directors will take a very dim view of my having played golf with Martin—even though at the time he wasn’t even a part of our organization—and then having brought him in to work here. Our Board of Directors are stuffy, even for a bank. They—” He stopped and shook his head. “In any event, I’m afraid that’s my problem, and there’s no need to wash our dirty linen in public.” He stared at Da Silva. “Anything else?”
“Just one last question. I was just wondering what your secretary’s name was. You know, under that disguise of respectability, she’s quite a dish.”
Both Wilson and Henderson looked at him as if he were out of his mind. Henderson’s look turned to one of prim disapproval that their conversation should have ended on such a note. “Her name is Sandra Johnson,” he said coolly, and rose to his feet.
“Thank you.” The tall detective didn’t seem to be at all put out by the expression on the faces of the other two men. “I wonder if she’s busy for dinner tonight.…” His voice trained off. He arose together with Wilson and gathered up his overcoat, and then looked at the man behind the desk. “Thank you, Mr. Henderson.”
Wilson shook hands with the bank president and followed Da Silva from the room, closing the door behind him. The secretary’s desk was unoccupied; Miss Johnson was apparently either in the ladies’ room enhancing her appearance or actually performing some duty in connection with her employment. Wilson glared at the tall man at his side.
“What’s the matter with you, Zé? Can’t you get girls off your mind for five minutes?”
Da Silva grinned. “Now, now. You run along and take care of the information we want from that steamship line. Find out if Martin ever traveled to Brazil when he worked on the boats, and if so where.” He raised a hand. “And I’ve just thought of something your friend Cormier might be able to help us with. See if you can get hold of him and ask him to stop by the hotel sometime this afternoon.”
“And just what do you expect to be doing in the meantime?” Wilson’s voice dripped with venom. “Something vital to the investigation—like making a date?”
Da Silva nodded. “Exactly. I’m going to wait around until Miss Johnson comes back and see if she’ll have dinner with me. And I have a hunch I’ll be successful.”
“Modest Captain Da Silva!”
“Not modest—just curious.” The expression on the tall Brazilian’s face became completely serious. “As I told you before, under that guise of respectability, she’s a real dish.”
“And you’re curious to penetrate that guise of respectability.”
A faint smile came to Da Silva’s dark eyes. “I’m just curious about her in general. Though you obviously didn’t notice, my friend, Miss Sandra Johnson is the girl in that photograph we found in Martin’s suitcase.…”
TEN
Da Silva opened the door of the suite and stepped aside, waving Al Cormier in.
“Let me have your coat.” He took Cormier’s lined Burberry and dropped it on a chair and then walked over to the bar in the corner of the room. “How about a drink?”
Cormier looked about the room and grinned. “All the comforts of home, eh?”
“All except warm weather. What would you like?”
“A shot and a beer, if you have them.” The red-haired man looked a bit truculent, as if his choice of drink might be sneered at. “I happen to like it,” he added simply.
“You could like worse,” Da Silva said with a grin, and bent over the miniature refrigerator beneath the bar. He uncapped the beer and then poured a generous slug of whiskey into a whiskey sour glass, dug out a crystal beer stein, and pushed everything across the polished mahogany bar. “You could like pinga, for instance. Like Wilson.”
“Whatever that is,” Cormier said, and poured his beer into the stein.
“That’s Brazil’s answer to Sterno. It’s the first distillation of raw sugar alcohol, and its smell alone is enough to scare off everybody but about fifty million Brazilians. And Wilson.” Da Silva poured himself a brandy, raised his glass, and sipped. “I’ll take cognac.”
Cormier propped one of his size twelve shoes on the bottom rung of the adjacent stool and looked about the room appreciatively. “This is really some fancy layout. Speaking of Wilson, where is he?”
“He ought to be wandering in any minute. He had some chores to do.”
Cormier nodded, drank his shot, and followed it with a sip of beer. “That’s better. That should keep the cold out. By the way, how are you fellows doing?”
Da Silva grinned. “I don’t know about Wilson, but I’m doing fine. I’ve got a date for dinner with a beautiful and very well built girl.”
Cormier studied him. “And that’s going to solve the problem?”
“It’ll solve mine,” Da Silva said, and then looked up. A key was being inserted in the door. Wilson came in, nodded to the two men, and shed his overcoat. He walked over to the bar and studied the array of glasses there.
“Hi. You can pour me a brandy while you’re standing there.”
Da Silva reached for a glass and a bottle. “Al was just asking how you were doing.”
“I’ll do better once I get that drink,” Wilson said, and shook his head. “God, but it’s cold. And that shipping office had to be all the way downtown, and a wind off the Battery that could kill you. I’ll be happy when we get back to Brazil.”
Da Silva paused in his bartending duties. “When will that be?”
Wilson looked at him evenly. “It won’t be before I get that drink—or before you have your date, if that’s what’s worrying you.” He picked up the glass Da Silva had filled and stared into its contents, frowning.
“So Jimmy had been to Recife,” Da Silva said.
Wilson nodded, and downed his drink in one gulp. “Yes.” His eyes came up. “But he’s also been to Belém.”
“And Rio?”
“No. The ship he was on did one of these twelve-day cruises that seem to be laid out by the policy-making division of the CIA. From Recife they went to Dakar.” He pushed his glass across for a refill. “God alone knows why.”
Da Silva poured. “So now you’re probably going to ask me why we don’t chase him to Dakar.”
“No. Now I’m going to want to ask you why we don’t forget the whole thing and go home.”
Da Silva frowned. “Because we still don’t have the bonds. Did you get a chance to talk to this chief cashier, Quinleven?”
Wilson nodded. “I talked to him. A good-looking guy, about our age, who sounds like he’s doing his best to get old fast. Prissy, if that word still means anything. Says he never liked Martin from the time he started working there. Says he wasn’t at all surprised that Martin stole the bonds. Asked what the world was coming to.”
“Not a bad question,” Cormier conceded, not knowing what the conversation was all about.
“The best one he asked,” Wilson said.
Da Silva leaned forward. “Didn’t he say anything of any use?”
“To whom? You or me?” Wilson sounded bitter. “As a matter of fact, he didn’t say anything useful to either one of us.” He downed his drink and pushed his glass across again.
Da Silva filled it only partially. “It sounds like you’ve had a hard day.”
Wilson shook his head. “Hard? On the contrary, it was easy. Too easy.” He hiccuped gently and reached for his glass. “Six easy lessons in how to railroad a guy who once saved your life.”
“Railroad? You sound more as if you were finally convinced that the man is guilty.”
“So he’s guilty!” Wilson sounded savage. “So he took the bonds and ran away to Brazil! So why?” He nodded his head slowly at his own question. “That’s a good question there. Why did he do it?”
There was a moment’s silence. Da Silva refrained from the obvious answer. Cormier had been listening to the exchange quietly. It seemed to him a good time to break the tension.
“I haven’t the slightest idea what you guys are talking about,” he said, “but you asked me to stop up here, apparently for a reason. Could I ask what it might be?”
Wilson shrugged. “Don’t ask me. Zé wanted you to come.”
Da Silva nodded. “Yes, I did. Wilson just asked a question: Why did Martin do it? Well, one good reason, of course, is that he had to do it—if he needed the money desperately enough. And the thought came to me that one way people get to need money desperately is if they have a habit of gambling.”
