“Of course. My son’s wife would have been entitled to have received what I was leaving to him.”
“Was it a large amount?”
“Half my money.”
“That would be a large amount. Who gets the other half?”
“Miss West.”
“So now she’ll get the lot?”
He stared thoughtfully at me.
“That is right. Why are you so curious about my personal affairs, Mr. Ryan?”
“It’s my business to be curious,” I said and I left him.
I found Janet West at her desk. She looked up as I stood in the doorway.
“Come in, Mr. Ryan,” she said, her voice cold and flat.
I came in.
“I want the key to the vault,” I said. “The police will want to open the coffin. I promised Lieutenant Retnick to get the key for him. Mr. Jefferson doesn’t object.”
She searched in a drawer of her desk and then gave me a key.
“I told him the story,” I said, dropping the key into my pocket. “He took it pretty well.”
She lifted her shoulders in a resigned shrug.
“And now?”
“He wants me to find Jo-An’s killer. That’s my next job.”
“How will you do that?”
“Most murders start from a motive,” I said. “I’m pretty sure there is a motive for this one. I even have an idea what the motive is. Well, I mustn’t take up your time. I’ll return the key when I’ve finished with it.”
I left her, staring thoughtfully down at her desk. The butler let me out He said nothing. I had nothing to say to him. As I walked over to my car I saw a movement behind the curtains of Janet West’s window.
She was watching me leave.
Lieutenant Retnick and Sergeant Pulski got out of the police car and joined me at the cemetery gates.
“If there’s one place I hate visiting,” Retnick said around the cigar he was holding in his teeth, “it’s a burial field.” “We’ll all arrive here sooner or later,” I said. “It’s your future, permanent home.”
“I know. You don’t have to tell me,” Retnick growled. “I just don’t like permanent homes.”
We walked through the open gateway and up a broad roadway flanked on either side by expensive-looking tombs.
“It’s over there,” Pulski said, pointing to an alley to our right. “Fourth one in the row.”
We walked down the alley until we came to a massive marble tomb, surrounded with marble chippings and a marble kerb.
“This is it,” Pulski said and took the key I handed to him.
“How did old man Jefferson react?” Retnick asked as he watched Pulski approach the door to the tomb. “I bet he had things to say to you, shamus.”
“Hey!” There was a startled note in Pulski’s voice as he turned to face us. “Someone’s been here before us!”
Retnick moved forward. I kept pace with him. We saw Pulski push the vault door open. The lock had been broken. We could see where some kind of lever had been inserted between the door and the lock. The marble was cracked and a piece had been broken off. There had been a lot of hurried pressure exerted to break the lock.
“Don’t touch anything,” Retnick warned Pulski. “Let’s take a look.”
He threw the beam of a flashlight into the vault. There were four coffins on shelves facing us. The one on the lowest shelf was without a lid. The lid stood against the wall of the tomb. We moved forward and looked into the coffin. There was a long bar of lead lying on the floor of the coffin, but nothing else.
Retnick said, “Well, for Pete’s sake! Looks like someone’s snatched the body!”
“Could be there was never a body in it,” I said.
He turned on me, his face snarled up with impatient anger.
“What do you mean? Just how much do you know you haven’t told me?”
“I’ve told you all I know,” I said curtly. “But that still doesn’t stop me using my brains, does it?”
He turned savagely to Pulski.
“Get this box to headquarters and give it the treatment. Could be there are fingerprints on it. Me and this smart shamus are going for a walk.” He grabbed hold of my arm and shoved me out of the tomb while Pulski walked down the alley to the police car where he started to talk to headquarters over the car’s telephone.
When he was out of hearing, Retnick sat on one of the tombs and fed a cigar into his face.
“Come on, shamus, give. What’s on your goddam mind?”
“Right now there’s nothing on my mind,” I said. “Would it worry you to know you’re sitting on someone’s dead wife, husband or mother?”
“I don’t give a damn who I’m sitting on,” Retnick snarled. “The Mayor telephoned me this morning . . . my influential brother-in-law ... he wants to know when I’m going to solve this case.” He chewed his cigar savagely. “How do you like that? Even my own brother-in-law puts pressure on me.”
“Tough,” I said.
“What makes you think there wasn’t a body in the coffin?”
“Just an idea. Belling’s body was burned to a cinder. Why snatch it? It couldn’t be identified anyway. So why take the risk and the trouble to bust open the vault and lug his remains away? Just because Herman’s body wasn’t in the coffin, I thought Belling’s body had to be. Now I don’t think anyone’s body was in it. The coffin was sent back here loaded with lead. There was no body in it.”
Retnick brooded over this.
“Why then should some joker take a look?” he asked.
“That’s right.” I suddenly saw why. I thumped my fist into the palm of my hand. “I must be more of a dope than I think I am! Of course! It jells! It’s one of those goddam simple things I should have seen right from the start!”
Retnick regarded me sourly.
“What are you raving about?” he snarled.
“The heroin was in the coffin!” I said. “Two thousand ounces of it! It was the perfect hiding-place ... the perfect means of smuggling it out of Hong Kong to here!”
Retnick stared at me, then he jumped to his feet.
“Yeah . . . that makes sense! Looks like we’ve got ourselves an idea!”
“After Jefferson hijacked the stuff,” I said, “he found he was stuck with it. He couldn’t leave Hong Kong and the organisation were hunting for him. That amount of heroin must be worth a pile of money. Jefferson had to convince the organisation he was dead. So he killed two birds with one stone. He got Jo-An to write to his father for money to bring his body home. Remember, he had no money. The only way to get the heroin out was in the coffin with old man Jefferson paying to get it out. Selling’s body was put in the coffin and cleared through the American Consul for shipment home. At some stage, the body was removed and probably dumped in the sea. The drugs and the lead weight were put in the coffin. Although Jefferson was trapped in Hong Kong, he did make sure his wife and the heroin were safe.”
“Who’s knocked the stuff off?” Retnick asked hopefully.
“How should I know? MacCarthy told me when they found Jefferson’s body he had been given a working over. Maybe the organisation got the truth out of him and sent a man over here to break open the vault and grab the stuff. I wouldn’t know.”
Retnick’s face brightened.
“Makes sense. Well then, this isn’t my goddam pigeon. The Narcotic Squad will have to take care of this headache.” He beamed at me. “Don’t let anyone persuade you to use your head for a door-stop. You’ve got brains even if you don’t show them.”
“Still doesn’t explain why the Chinese girl came to my office and got shot,” I said.
His smile slipped and he scowled.
“Yeah.”
