Dave Button had turned his sunken eyes to where Stan was watching the meeting from the doorway. “Shut up. Ben,” he commanded. His pronounced monotone did not vary, but its consistent flatness carried an emphatic warning.
Stan was not interested in Dave Button. He watched the sickly smile creep over Eve Farraday’s sensitive face at Eckhardt’s mention of the police. The girl was scared. Her brother saw it, too. His guiding hand tightened on her slender arm until she winced from the pain. Stan considered it a good moment to introduce himself.
“Maybe I can explain,” he said, stepping forward from the door. “Unless I’m mistaken, Commander Dawson has been fishing all day, and Miss Farraday and her brother have been in Fort Myers. It’s possible they don’t know to what Mr. Eckhardt is referring.
“Who the devil are you?” Tolliver, with flushed face, was still clinging tightly to his sister’s arm.
“His name’s Rice,” Eckhardt said, with a sneer. “I heard he was on board. Why don’t you get offended at him, Dawson? He’s one of the cops you think are so funny!”
The languorous Miles Standish Rice could be rapier sharp on occasion. In common with many other people, he did not care for Ben Eckhardt, and he resented Eckhardt’s sneering classification. He lashed out, verbally:
“I don’t need the assistance of a cheap gambler, Eckhardt. The less you say—the better. You’re one jump from being jailed as a material witness right now. Unless you want to take that jump—keep your mouth shut.”
A small knot of listeners had begun to gather about them. Before Eckhardt could reply Dave Button took his arm and led him inside. Joe Keefe, summoned by some underground magic, appeared at Stan’s elbow.
“I want a private room where I can talk with Miss Farraday and her brother,” Stan told the manager.
Keele turned questioningly to the Farradays.
“I’m damned if I see—” Tolliver began.
“Tolly, please!” Eve pleaded. “I think we better listen to what this—this—” she stumbled over the word “policeman” and substituted “gentleman,” “—gentleman has to say. Will you forgive us, Commander?”
Dawson covered his curiosity well by nodding gallantly. Keefe led the way upstairs to his own office. “No one will disturb you here. There’s a private deck outside there.” He pointed to double glass doors opening into blackness, and went out closing the office door behind him.
Stan settled himself into the swivel chair at Keele’s desk. Eve seated herself at his right. Tolliver took a deep leather chair and sprawled out his legs, regarding Stan with open animosity. Stan studied the handsome arrogant boy for a moment and made a decision. Young Farraday liked excitement, but he was no killer. As for Eve—he turned to the girl, his blue eyes twinkling reassuringly into her wide brown ones.
“You’re in the hands of the law, all right,” he said with his disarming grin. “But I’m working for your father, Bruce Farraday.”
Eve made a quick gesture of hand to breast. “Why?”
“Because I’ve inadvertently built up a false reputation of being a de-tec-ka-tive—when actually I like to eat and fish. You haven’t seen your father since you returned from Fort Myers, have you?”
“No.” Eve was nervously toying with a small gold clasp-pin which held her white cloak together across her breast. It represented a slender, graceful, animal with two long horns curving in toward each other at the tops. Stan leaned back and closed his eyes. Somewhere, many years before, he had seen a similar pin. “We were tired from the drive,” the girl was saying, “and there was a light in Commander Dawson’s apartment when we passed. We stopped in for a highball and finished up here.”
“Did you know a man named Edward Fowler?” Stan opened his eyes. His mind was still occupied with that gold pin.
Tolliver sat up in the chair. “Dad’s crazy. There’s nothing the matter with Ed Fowler—”
“He’s dead. Murdered, Tolliver, and the police found your torn up check in his room at the Amboy Hotel—”
“Oh no!” The words were wrung in an anguished cry from Eve. “It’s impossible—why just last night—”
“He was stabbed last night—at the Sunset. That’s why your father has brought me into this.” Stan spoke gently, astounded at the effect of his words on Eve Farraday. She had almost collapsed at the news of Fowler’s death. Certainly the death of a casual friend could never reduce a well poised debutante to such numbness and despair.
Tolliver had left his chair and was pacing back and forth in front of the desk—three steps and turn—three steps and turn.
“I never heard such foolishness,” he said wildly without pausing in his stride. “That check was a joke—just a joke—and now this comes—”
“Why don’t you let me in on the joke?” Stan interrupted.
“It’s simple enough. Eve can tell you it’s simple enough. Fowler and I always played for high stakes—but we settled at a fraction of our losses—a tenth of a cent on the dollar. We got to shooting crap in the Commander’s apartment one night. Fowler had a run of luck and apparently won that amount from me. I wrote him the check to make it look real—to make the others think I was a big shot. That’s the truth, isn’t it Eve? Tell him that’s the truth.” He stopped his pacing and looked appealingly at his sister,
Eve stood up slowly, and laced him defiantly. “No,” she said firmly, “that isn’t the truth. Even you don’t know the truth, Tolly. But I’m going to tell it now. I can’t protect you from your own foolishness any longer.” She pointed to the chair Tolliver had quitted. “Sit down there. I’m going on the deck with Mr. Rice—”
Tolliver obeyed her with the docility of a frightened child. She turned and went outside with Stan following. In the darkness of the small railed enclosure, she took Stan’s arm and drew him to the side overlooking the water.
“Edward Fowler tore up that check because I
