you can avoid getting hit on the head for a while.'
'The penicillin shipment?'
'It's safe, under heavy guard at the train station. No one is going to get within fifty yards of it and live.'
'Have you seen Diana?'
'Miss Seaton is fine. The young French girl Lieutenant Kazimierz hired is with her, and there's a guard on their room. No need to worry, everything's fine.'
It was too much good news, it just couldn't be all true.
'Are we going to pick up Villard?' I asked.
'We'll talk about that later,' Harding said. 'Lieutenant Kazimierz was awake for a while, and said you had evidence Colonel Walton was involved in these murders?'
'I thought I did, sir, but now I think I was wrong. I need to talk to you about that.'
I didn't know how to tell Harding what I had to say. Or what he would do when I told him. I changed the subject quickly to give myself a few minutes grace.
'What time is it anyway?' I asked.
'Just past five-thirty,' said Harry Dickinson, glancing at his watch. It was nice to hear a military type tell time the old fashioned way. He pulled the blackout curtain aside. The sky was lit up by a red dawn. 'No need for this,' he said as he pulled the curtain aside.
'Harry, what are you doing here?'
'I heard you were causing trouble, and came to see you. Major
Harding asked me to stay and stand guard with him. I was going stark raving mad sitting in a hospital bed, so this seemed a nice alternative.'
'How's the leg?'
'This little scratch? Just a through and through, as we say.'
I was glad to have Harry as a friend. I was glad they were all here, and I thought about nights back in Boston when Dad and Uncle Dan had something going and the house would fill with cops, all watching out for each other. It felt good to be part of something that brought men like these together. Part of it was suffering; I knew that much from Harry and Kaz, and I think Harding too. It was the possibility of death that made men look each other in the eye, grip shoulders, give a nod that said Yes, I will risk everything for you. Harry had that look in his eyes, and I returned it.
Harding opened the door and asked an orderly to bring in a pot of coffee and four cups. Daylight began to fill the room, so he turned out the lamp. Then he cranked up Kaz's bed so Kaz was sitting up. His face was scratched and bruised, and he looked incredibly thin in the hospital pajamas. I wondered how much strain and abuse his body could take. I wondered the same about mine. Then Kaz opened his eyes.
'Billy! So glad to see you.' He looked around for his glasses and Harding picked them up from the nightstand, handing them to Kaz. Almost tenderly.
'Same here, buddy' I sat up too and let my feet hang off the side of the bed. It wasn't too bad. I had on the same hospital pajamas as Kaz, and that reminded me: his clothes.
'Kaz, the notebook is gone,' I said.
'Major Harding has already asked some of the orderlies to go through the discarded clothing. They should find my jacket there.'
'No, you don't understand. It wasn't in your pocket. I searched for it while you were still wearing your jacket.'
There was silence in the room, and Kaz and Harding both looked at me, uncomprehending. The door opened and an orderly entered, a tray with a pot of coffee and cups in his hands.
'Here you go, Major.' He set it down on the table and left.
'Okay, Boyle, tell me what you know.' Harding handed me a cup of black coffee. I took a sip.
'I'll start with a question. Did you tell Gloria Morgan where our quarters were located, the day we left here with Kaz?'
'Why?' Harding's eyes narrowed and he didn't look happy. I knew he didn't like me poking around his personal life, or even knowing he had one.
'Just before we left, you and she were talking outside the entrance to the hospital. Did you tell her where we were headed?'
'Boyle, she knows we're attached to HQ at the Hotel St. George.'
'Yes, but not everyone attached to HQ is quartered there.' I saw the effect that had on Harding. It was the same thing that happened to me when Diana had brought it up. How could I have been so stupid?
'Yes, I told her. I said perhaps I could take her to dinner there one night.'
'What made you mention where we were quartered?'
He looked away from me.
'She asked.'
'Yesterday I saw a nurse wheel Kaz into the Post-Op room. He'd just been given an overdose of morphine. I think that nurse was Gloria Morgan.'
'Yes,' said Kaz, in open-mouthed amazement. 'It was Miss Morgan who took care of me. She gave me a shot for the pain…'
'And didn't mark it on your chart. Then stashed you away in a room where no one would notice. In the confusion, your death would've been chalked up to an undiagnosed brain injury. No autopsy, no questions, no notebook.'
'But why…' Harding asked, letting the question hang there. 'Why?'
'Her motive? I have no idea. But it does tell us something.'
'What?' asked Kaz.
'She had a reason for stealing the notebook and trying to get rid of you. You said the code was virtually unbreakable without knowing what book they were using.'
'Dictionary code?' asked Harding.
'A variation, quite complex,' Kaz said, nodding. 'Yes, it makes sense. The key book is here, otherwise why would she want the notebook?'
'Excuse me, but what are you two talking about?' Harry asked.
'It's a long story, but coded messages have been sent between Blackpool, England, and Algiers, using neutral merchant ships. The code is based on duplicate copies of a certain book, and if you don't know which book, then the code is totally secure.'
'So by stealing the codebook, she tipped you off that the book is here,' Harry said.
'Yeah. It was the most dangerous situation she could imagine. Both the book and the codebook, with coded messages, in the same place. That's why she killed Jerome, and tried to kill us. Casselli was murdered because he got cold feet, or was too honest for this business.'
'What!' Harding slammed his coffee cup down, sending a splash of hot coffee up and onto his hand. He shook it off. 'Explain yourself, Boyle!'
'I thought it was Walton, since he had the means and opportunity. Proximity to the Bessette crime family in Blackpool, direct involvement with medical supplies, access to the only telephone in the area so he could inform the shooter when we left him. But when I saw that Gloria had wheeled Kaz into that room to die, I remembered that you and she were talking that day. She knew what route we would have to take, too, and was in a position to make a call from Walton's office. It would have been completely normal for her to be in there.'
'Anybody could've made that call, Boyle,' Harding said. 'And what about accusing her of killing Jerome? What grounds do you have for that?'
'Harry's grandmother,' I said.
'What?' all three of them exclaimed at the same time.
'It came to me when I realized Gloria had given Kaz an overdose. Harry told me how his grandmother hated hospitals and needles. When she was dying, her doctor gave her morphine in a liqueur. Alcohol actually increases the effect of the morphine.'
'So?' demanded Harding.
'Just before Jerome died, I came into his room and Gloria and he were drinking Creme de Menthe. The perfect liqueur to mask any taste, and liquid morphine is pretty tasteless to start with.'
