She gave him a supplicating glance “And then?”
“I think he’ll be all right. His shoulder is smashed up. I don’t think his lungs have been touched.”
“I can stay here with him?”
“I’d appreciate it. I’ll be in the stateroom across the way with Captain LeRoy. Call me if you need me.”
LeRoy was seated close to a reading lamp, a leather backed notebook open on his knee. He did not look up as Stan came in and closed the stateroom door. Instead, he turned a page and said flatly: “I’m going to make an arrest, Stan, as soon as we touch shore.”
There were twin beds in the stateroom. Stan selected one and stretched himself full length, his hands under his head. “No one on board shot Farraday.” He wearily followed an intricate design in the carved woodwork on the ceiling. “You know that of course.”
“Of course,” LeRoy repeated. “I searched the boat with Dawson. He was shot during that time. Tolliver and Eve were together in the main cabin—neither of them left. You were with Mrs. Staunton.”
“And the tender—”
“Was empty. I’ve just returned from another search. Thinking someone might have climbed on board from the tender while we were taking Farraday down to the cabin.”
“There were no powder burns either, Vince. If he’d been shot in the back from the cockpit we’d have seen sonic. A gun would have to be close in that small a space. Did you look for another boat?”
”The wires on the searchlight were cut Stan. I couldn’t.”
“If he dies—I’m to blame.” Stan closed his eyes. “The man who shot him was under the dock when we left. It’s a fiendish idea. I heard his boat scrape against something—and like a nitwit paid no attention. For an instant -as we turned south—our tender was still. He hooked onto it—and we left towing two boats instead of one. He had to shoot when he did. It was getting too rough for him. The roughness is the only thing that saved Farraday’s life.”
“He must have used a silencer.”
“It’s been used once before in the last few days.”
“But what a chance to take, Stan!”
“Not so much—after he’d put our searchlight out of commission. He probably had an outboard motor in his boat to take him home after we had left him far enough behind. Don’t forget he could take shortcuts in a small boat over places so shallow we wouldn’t dare to follow. What’s your plan, Vince?”
“I talked the matter over with State’s Attorney Mumford tonight before we left. He agrees with me that I have an airtight case. This shooting forces my hand. My man will be in jail before the newspapers are on the street. I think you know who it is as well as I do—”
“What have you learned, Vince, that I don’t know?”
“I’ve traced the knives for one thing. They were stolen from the winter quarters of the circus at Sarasota.”
“Are you going to tell a jury that that proves who threw them?”
“That’s Mumford’s business. But here’s something that will keep you from being so bored. Last Saturday night a man left the others for a moment downstairs—saying he had to write a postal. He used Toby’s machine in the office—then excused himself and went upstairs to the bathroom. Have you questioned your blonde about that?”
“No,” Stan admitted. “I haven’t. It sounds interesting.”
“My witnesses are Toby Munroe, and his servant, Juan. I also have Ben Eckhardt’s sworn statement. I asked Millie about it—but she claims she had stepped out on the porch to wait for Ben and Dave. The man was Dave Button.”
“Let’s have it from the start to the present, Vince.” Stan turned over on his side, facing the Captain, and opened his eyes.
“Dave Button has been in Africa. That’s pretty damning itself. He knew Edward Fowler—and Mumford is going to prove that he knew Fowler’s real identity—that Fowler was the clever Major Flint on the trail of the diamonds stolen by Button.”
“You going to hang that on him, too?”
“You’re damn right I am,” LeRoy said with quiet fury. “I’ll make him talk. He didn’t dare risk getting those diamonds by the customs. Thai’s why he’s in Miami. Those stores were smuggled ashore on the key where we were going tonight. He’s turned us back all right—but I’m just beginning. Dawson was the man he intended to shoot—not Farraday. Dawson found the place where those diamonds were landed.”
“And if you find Dave Button has an airtight alibi for tonight?”
“Then I’ll know just how much Caprilli and his mob are mixed up in this. It looks like his work anyhow. You found that Bessinger was lugging around one of those freak cards in his wallet. Well he and his wife are wrong-tins if I ever saw them. They fit in perfectly as the experts who were going to buy those stones for Moneta Caprilli. I followed your suggestion and checked up with Macy’s again. They had an order for those cards from Edward Fowler—and two inquiries about it! The first was from the Hoxby Detective Agency in New York. Do you remember them?”
Stan swung his feet to the floor and took out a cigarette. “That’s clever work, Vince, and the second inquiry was from Marty Williamson.”
“That puts the linger on the Hoxby outfit as being tied up with Caprilli. Bessinger has the dough to buy those stones—and Caprilli had that rod, Snifler Carew, dogging his steps every minute of the time. The eleven of diamonds is Bessinger’s card of identification, and i’s going to land him in jail with Dave Button.”
“I’ll take the defence for a minute.” Stan hunted vainly for a match, and accepted a light from LeRoy. “The fingerprints on that milk bottle were Tody Munroe’s—not Button’s.”
“I’m glad you brought that up. You explained it in my office this afternoon when you said Toby was drinking milk. That bottle
