Ellery Queen. The Best of Suspense

Harold Q. Masur Lawyer’s Holiday

What Maury Faber did was inexcusable. Perhaps even illegal. At 7:15 A. M. he used a passkey and invaded my hotel room. He clamped his fingers around my shoulder and unceremoniously shook me awake.

Three days ago I had checked into the Everglades Hotel on Florida’s west coast for a week of rest and recreation, which meant sleeping until noon. Ordinarily I am not a slugabed, but I had just finished a long and complicated trial, working around the clock, in court during the day and studying transcripts at night.

So I bitterly resented the intrusion. Prying open a grainy eye, I gave the man a hard look. Almost any sight on God’s green footstool would be more pleasing than Faber’s kisser first thing in the morning. It was pale and meaty, dominated by a heavy nose, and well matched to the short barrel-shaped body he invariably kept garbed in the latest most fashionable resort style. Acquiring a passkey had been no problem for Maury Faber. He was president and managing director of the joint.

“What the hell, Maury!” I said.

“Up.” His voice was harshly urgent. “Get dressed, Jordan. I need you.”

“It’s unilateral. I don’t need you, not at this hour.”

“It’s an emergency. A crisis. Please.”

“I’m a lawyer, not a doctor.”

“It’s too late for doctors.”

“Then call an undertaker. Damn it, Maury, I’m on vacation. Go away.” I closed my eyes and rolled over.

He yanked the blanket away and dropped it on the floor. “You’re a lawyer and right now that’s what I need, Jordan — a lawyer. It’s your job to help people in trouble, isn’t it?”

“Why me?” I asked, my voice muffled against the pillow. “I’m not even admitted to the bar in this state. You’ve got a whole battery of lawyers down here.”

“They know real estate, period. Conveyances, leases, mortgages. What do they know about homicide? Besides, the dead man is a friend of yours.”

“Who?”

“Gifford — Sam Gifford.”

I sat up, suddenly wide-awake. “What? What did you say?”

“I said Sam Gifford is dead.”

“Oh, my God! How?”

“Shot.”

“Where?”

“Through the head.”

“I mean where did it happen?”

The question wrung an agonized groan from Faber. “In my wife’s cabana,” he said, and added hastily, “but that’s not where he got it. He was shelved elsewhere and brought there.”

I looked at him narrowly. “How do you know?”

“No blood in the cabana. Not a drop.” Despite the air conditioning Faber’s pores were exuding moisture. It glistened on his forehead and ran down his checks.

“How come you don’t move him the hell out of there?”

“It’s too late.” He groaned again. “The chambermaid who found him started yelling and before we could do anything somebody called the law.”

“All right, Maury. You don’t miss much around here. I want the truth. Was your wife fooling around with Gifford?”

“Don’t say that.” His voice was up a full octave. “Don’t even think it. Carmen doesn’t fool around with the guests. Or anybody,” he added hopefully. “She hardly knew the man.” He pressed his palms together in a gesture of supplication. “Jordan, please. A favor. Name your own fee. Anything. I don’t care.”

One vacation shot to hell. I sighed and slid out of bed. “Okay. Let’s see what’s cooking.”

He scuttled to the door and blocked my path. “Put some clothes on, for God’s sake.”

Which indicates the state of mind I was in.

Lieutenant George Ritchie was a leathery character, a native Floridian, a spare, tightlipped man with a flinty face hermetically sealed against any show of emotion. He had commandeered the manager’s office and he showed himself briefly at the door, ordering one of his troopers to keep us outside until he finished interrogating Maury’s wife.

It must have been a painful ordeal. Ultimately she emerged, pale and shaken. She threw us a helpless look and was quickly hustled away. Carmen Faber was a decorative item, with clothes by Givenchy and face by Max Factor. Exactly what you’d expect Maury to latch onto after his first wife yielded the ghost.

Ritchie glanced indifferently at my card. “New York lawyer,” he said, sizing me up, then transferring his gaze to Faber. “You think you need a mouthpiece, Maury?”

“For advice, yes. I’m worried about the hotel. This is not exactly my idea of good publicity. Mr. Jordan happens to be here on vacation. He once did some work for me up north, so I asked him to sit in. Besides, he knew the victim.”

“Ah. Well, we’ll come to that in a moment. So you’re worried about the hotel. Not your wife?”

“What’s to worry, Lieutenant? She’s clean.”

“The body was found in her cabana.”

“Found maybe, but not killed there.”

Ritchie had obviously reached the same conclusion. “How well did she know this Gifford?”

“Hardly at all. He’d only been here a few days.”

“I understand she had a few drinks with him.”

“She enjoys mingling with the guests, makes them feel at home.”

Ritchie shifted to me. “All right, Counselor. Would you care to brief me on the victim?”

I was going to do it whether I cared to or not. I said, “Samuel P. Gifford. Professional money raiser. He coaxes contributions out of prospective donors for political campaigns. He could charm the wallet away from the most confirmed miser.”

“Was he down here on vacation or business?”

“I don’t know, Lieutenant. He asked to sit at my table and we exchanged only small talk.”

“Any family you know of?”

“No.”

“So who do we notify?”

“Try the Republican State Committee in New York,” I said.

“How well did you know him?”

“I handled his divorce two years ago.”

Ritchie nodded. “Wait here for me, Counselor.” He headed for the door, beckoning to Faber. “Get me the key to Gifford’s room. We’ll have a look at that right now.”

They marched out, leaving me alone. I sat behind the manager’s desk and reached for the phone. I dialed the operator and got through to Mike Ryan at campaign headquarters for the reelection of Theodore Hoke Prentice to the United States Senate. Ryan was the senator’s campaign manager. We exchanged amenities to background noises of ringing telephones and the busy chatter of many voices.

“You sound far away, Counselor,” Ryan said. “Where are you calling from?”

“Florida.”

“I guess I’m in the wrong business. Anything special on your mind?”

“Sam Gifford. Is he working for you at the moment?”

“He sure is. Matter of fact, he’s in Florida right now.”

“You can scratch him off the payroll.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“He’s dead.”

Silence. Static on the line for a few moments. I could picture Ryan’s shocked face. When he finally got wired for sound he asked for details. I gave him what I had, admittedly not much. He thought about it, then reached a decision, sounding subdued, “Would you look into it for us, Jordan?”

“I may not have enough time,” I said. “I’m due back in New York at the end of the week.”

“Then give it a few days. Please. We owe Gifford that much at least. And send your bill to the committee. I’m sure the senator will concur and he’d be most grateful.”

I didn’t mind having a U.S. senator in my debt, although in this instance I differed in almost every conceivable respect from any position Theodore Hoke Prentice had ever taken. He was a flag-waving reactionary, espousing tough law enforcement and weak labor unions. I already had a client, but there didn’t seem to be any conflict of interest, so I agreed.

“I’ll need some information, Mike.”

“Shoot.”

“Was Gifford down here on business?”

“Yes. He was trying to contact old Amos Rhodes. Does the name ring a bell?”

“Negative.”

“That’s understandable. Rhodes is a queer old duffer, sort of a recluse, been out of circulation for years. Made his pile on Wall Street, selling short before the crash of ’29 and then riding it up during the long bull market of the fifties and sixties. After that he retired. Divides his time now between Florida and a place down in Mexico — wait a minute, I have it on a piece of paper — town called San Miguel Allende.

“Just before the election four years ago he sent Prentice a letter praising the senator’s voting record. We turned it over to Gifford, thinking Rhodes might be good for a contribution. The letter was postmarked Palm City, Florida. Gifford flew down there, got an interview with Rhodes, put the bite on him, and what do you know, the old man coughed up twenty-five grand. That’s a lot of beans, Counselor.

“So now with the senator up for reelection, we thought Rhodes might shell out again. But he failed to answer our letters and Gifford decided to fly down last week and see him personally. You know the score, Jordan. Advertising and TV spots skyrocketing in cost, we need all the financial help we can get.”

“Any luck?”

“So far Gifford hadn’t notified us. But our boy was a bulldog. He didn’t discourage easily and whatever the difficulty he’d be hanging in there making his pitch until the subject came across or dropped dead from a heart attack.”

“Just for the record, did Gifford have any enemies?”

Ryan hesitated. “Not down there certainly, but Sam was a notorious chaser, as you probably know, which could mean husband trouble.”

“How about Rhodes? Does he have a wife?”

Ryan chuckled. “Amos Rhodes is well over eighty, and a bachelor. Look, Jordan, can you soft-pedal this thing where the senator is concerned?”

I was silent. Theodore Hoke Prentice was no favorite of mine. After a moment I said, “This is not my bailiwick. I carry no clout down here. If it doesn’t come up, I won’t mention it.” And on that note we hung up.

In the morgue of the local newspaper I found only one item on Amos Rhodes, written six years ago. Some enterprising lensman had managed a quick shot of him through the window of a limousine. The caption stated that he had arrived on his annual hegira to the isolated estate fourteen miles inland. Even then he was a parched and rheumy-eyed antique with patches of flour-white hair clinging to a pale and bony skull.

Anyone who can dash off a check for $25,000 probably had local bank connections. Maury Faber arranged a meeting for me with an official of the First Florida Trust, housed in a small limestone structure, pseudo-Moorish in style. I have found that bankers generally disgorge information with all the abandon of a slot machine, but the Everglades Hotel was First Florida Trust’s largest depositor and Mr. Briscoe anxiously wished to retain Maury Faber’s good will; so he agreed to cooperate so long as he did not have to breach conventional ethics. A thin seamed man with a lidless stare, he conceded that Amos Rhodes did have an account at the bank.

“Have you ever met him personally?” I asked.

“Once. When he opened the account ten years ago.”

“And he’s made regular deposits since that time?”

“Yes, on a monthly basis whenever he’s in Florida — until quite recently, that is.”

“But not in person, I take it.”

“No, sir. Sometimes by mail, and sometimes his housekeeper, Mrs. Alma Hull, would drive into Palm City to shop, make a deposit, and cash one of his checks. But the account has been rather dormant lately and I suspect Mr. Rhodes must have made other arrangements.”

“What is the current source of his income? Dividends, bond interest?”

A look of intense pain crossed Briscoe’s face as he shook his head. “Mr. Jordan, I shouldn’t be saying this, but it’s my impression Mr. Rhodes has become senile. He seems to have liquidated all his holdings and used the cash to buy himself a straight life annuity with an insurance company. I’m sure you know what that means.”

I nodded. “The investor turns his money over to the company in exchange for a guaranteed lifetime income. If he’s old enough he gets the highest possible income, and when he dies that finishes it. No refund, no estate, nothing. The insurance company keeps the rest of the investment.”

It turned Briscoe livid. “Asinine,” he said, resentment shading into outrage. “Utter fiscal imbecility. He must have developed hardening of the brain.”

I knew what ailed the man. How could banks lend money at a profit if depositors placed their funds elsewhere? “Did you make inquiries?”

“Yes. I was curious about it. A man sharp enough to make all that money in the first place had to have some sense. Well, sir, we do some business with the insurance company and my contact there told me that Mr. Rhodes is afflicted with a certain phobia. He dies a little every time he has to pay taxes. That’s a fairly common disorder, except Rhodes had it to the point of monomania. In his bracket he considered the government bite confiscatory. He was positively paranoic about it. So he turned to an annuity.”

I mulled it over. To an eccentric like Rhodes it probably made sense. At his advanced age he might get fourteen percent on his investment. And since the Internal Revenue Service considered this income a partial return of capital, most of it would be tax deductible. And since Rhodes had no family or relatives, why leave an estate? He’d have a princely income for life all to himself. And he could squander it as he pleased, including making contributions to the campaign of Senator Theodore Hoke Prentice.

At my request Briscoe drew a road map of the area marked with arrows and instructions on how to reach the Rhodes retreat. The local Hertz office provided me with a rental car and I took off.

For seclusion the old man had picked an ideal spot. I had to drive inland along a canal, past pine and palmetto scrub. An occasional oak bearded with Spanish moss lined the neglected blacktop. There was almost no traffic in either direction. In the distance I spied a blue heron stalking the shallows.

I found the Rhodes place guarded by a stone wall with a wrought-iron gate. It was not locked, so I drove through. Hibiscus hedges concealed the lower half of a rambling structure. I pulled up under a porte-cochère alongside a shining new sports car.

As I climbed out of my rental a young man in a white T-shirt emerged from the front door and slouched down the steps to head me off. He was deeply bronzed and heavily muscled, with slate-colored eyes under a dark ridge of brow. “Something I can do for you?” he asked politely.

“I’d like to see Mr. Amos Rhodes.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

I shook my head and offered one of my cards. “I’ve come a long way and it’s important.”

He smiled apologetically. “Well, Mr. Jordan, if my vocal cords were up to it I’d be happy to give him your message.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”

“It’s simple. Mr. Rhodes returned to his villa in Mexico two days ago.”

“I see. Are you the caretaker here?”

“You might say that. My mother works for Mr. Rhodes and he allows me to stay at the place whenever he’s away.”

“Then your name must be Hull.”

“Correct. Burt Hull.”

“Perhaps you can help me. Have you been here during the past week?”

“I have.”

“Would you know if a man named Sam Gifford drove out to see Mr. Rhodes?”

He shook his head. “Not a chance. Mr. Rhodes doesn’t like visitors. He hasn’t permitted a stranger to see him in over a year.”

“How long will he be staying in Mexico?”

“Permanently. That’s a decision he made some time ago. He prefers the climate down there. As a matter of fact, he’s asked me to put this house on the market and I’ll be talking to real estate agents in the next few days.” Burt Hull kept smiling, arms folded across his chest.

I thanked him and went back to the car.

Faber was pacing back and forth in his lobby like a big cat whose cage has been missed at feeding time. He ran over and clamped his fingers on my arm. Agitation made him almost incoherent.

“Slow down, Maury,” I said soothingly. “Remember, you have high blood pressure. You’ll pop a blood vessel. What’s eating you?”

“They took Carmen away. Lieutenant Ritchie is holding her as a material witness. You gotta do something, Jordan. You gotta spring her. All this luxury around here; she’s not used to a cell. She’ll go bananas. She—”

I cut him short. “Does he have any new evidence?”

Faber looked ill, his eyelids twitching. “They found a ring under the corner of a rug in Gifford’s room. A three-carat solitaire I bought her last year in Palm Beach. She swears she never went to Gifford’s room, but Ritchie won’t listen. He doesn’t believe her.”

I thought about it. Holding Carmen was the lieutenant’s way of taking her out of circulation while he tried to build a case. A writ of habeas corpus might bring her home, but I had no time to fool around with legal formalities. Faber’s local talent could handle that angle and I told him so. I pointed to the desk of a travel agent in the far corner of the lobby.

“Do you have an account with that outfit?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“I want you to get me on the first available flight to Mexico City.” I forestalled his objections with an upraised hand. “I’m not looking for a free trip, Maury. I have to go down there for some information about Gifford. Relax. I should be back in a few days.”

He was dubious and confused. When he saw that I was implacable, he relented, shrugged in resignation, and headed for the travel desk. Fifteen minutes later he brought a round-trip ticket to my room.

“You’ll need a tourist card,” he told me. “The man says you can pick one up at the Mexican Tourist Department in Miami. Your plane leaves from Miami International tomorrow morning. Start packing.”

The Eastern Airlines jet dipped into the terminal leg of its landing pattern and I heard the flaps thump as the pilot lowered them to reduce air speed. We hit the runway without a bounce, high on the central plateau, still almost a mile and a half above sea level. I moved my watch back one hour. Customs was a brief formality and the hotel room Faber had reserved for me was a pleasant surprise.

Early the next morning I was on a bus heading north. I had planned on renting a car, but one look at the suicidal machismo of Mexican drivers dissuaded me. The bus was air conditioned and had a stewardess who served coffee and cold drinks.

We sped northwest on a good highway, cutting through dry plains blistered by a remorseless sun and dotted in the distance by shapeless villages. Four hours later, from the crest of a steep hill, I spotted San Miguel Allende, a Colonial town that looked as if it hadn’t changed for generations.

I’d heard it was an expatriate haven for pensioners, artists, writers, and a sprinkling of that ubiquitous breed of hirsute youngsters.

The bus wound down cobbled streets past pink, yellow, and salmon walls that insure the privacy of the houses within. Churchbells were pealing for no apparent reason, certainly not for my arrival. Despite all the resident gringos, it was a totally alien culture. I saw Indios in wide-brimmed straw hats, women with rebozos, squatting mendicants, and ragged boys hawking gum and an English-language newspaper which I later found was of limited interest.

On the Plaza Principal I checked into the San Francisco Hotel and then spent the rest of the day familiarizing myself with the terrain. Late in the afternoon I settled myself at a conspicuous table of a sidewalk café, ordered Mexican beer, and put a warm friendly smile on my face. In due course I struck up a conversation with a middle-aged couple who had retired to San Miguel a few years ago, had not returned to the United States since, and were starved for gossip about New York. I regaled them with stories for half an hour and eventually got what I needed.

Their local lawyer represented a large segment of the American community. Still active at seventy he had an encyclopedic knowledge of the town and its population. They said they would arrange an appointment for me and told me to be at his office at eleven the next morning.

Senor Ignacio Arruza, el abogado, was a gnarled and fragile antique with the courtly manners of a Spanish grandee. His office contained only the barest essentials, but the furnishings beneath his scalp seemed more than adequate. And his English was far better than my Spanish. After exchanging a few legal bromides he asked, “In what way, Senor Jordan, may I serve you?”

“There is a norteamericano here named Amos Rhodes. Do you know him?”

Arruza nodded, informing me that he had handled details for the purchase of the Rhodes villa in San Miguel, ownership of property being a complicated procedure for foreigners. “It has been many years now and there have been no legal problems since. Senor Rhodes is a man of much privacy. He is old, much older than myself. He does not mingle with his countrymen. He secludes himself behind the walls of his villa. His enferman, a sort of nurse and housekeeper, takes care of him. Heavy work and marketing is usually done by a criada, a maid.”

“A Mrs. Hull is the nurse-housekeeper?”

“That is so. A silent one, a sour creature, not friendly.”

“What about the maid?”

Senor Arruza displayed fine porcelain dentures with a gold tooth winking among them. “Ah, Senor Jordan. Maria Sanchez, a most splendid one. But she is no longer employed. She has been dismissed. I saw her strolling in the Jardin yesterday and we spoke. The Hull woman told her to leave and Maria does not know why.”

“Has anyone taken her place?”

“Maria says no. Perhaps they are economizing.” Arruza frowned. “But that would be most unusual. Help here is inexpensive.” He gave me a short course on the attractions of the dollar vis-a-vis the peso. “Most norteamericanos have several criadas working for them. There is no industry in San Miguel and the local girls need work.”

I asked him how to find the Rhodes villa and he wrote out precise instructions in Spanish, suggesting that I use one of the taxis on the Plaza.

The taxi, a junkyard relic, rattled ominously on the rough cobblestones, but its engine had apparently been tended with loving skill, and it pulled us up a steep hill to a sparsely settled area, stopping finally at high cement wall that must have been built about the time Juarez finished off Maximilian.

“You will be long, Senor?” the driver asked. “Perhaps I should wait for you.”

“Por favor.”

Above a door of heavy zebra wood dangled a pullcord that jangled a bell somewhere inside. I kept it working until the upper half of the door opened to reveal the solid torso of a woman in her fifties. Thin-lipped, stern-visaged, an American-Gothic face, inhospitable, and armored against any show of emotion or civility.

“Mrs. Hull?” I asked.

“Yes. What do you want?”

“I’d like to see Amos Rhodes.”

“Mr. Rhodes does not care to see anyone. Who are you?”

“I’m an attorney. I’ve come a long way on an important matter.”

“Important to you perhaps, not to Mr. Rhodes.”

“Would you tell him that I’m here on behalf of Theodore Hoke Prentice, a member of the United States Senate?” I handed her a card.

“Wait here.” The door snapped shut in my face.

It was hot and I began to perspire. Five minutes later she appeared again. “Mr. Rhodes says he never heard of you. American politics no longer interests him. He wishes to be left alone.” This time the door closed with unchallengeable finality.

I turned and saw the driver hunkered down under a tree. A motionless car under the Mexican sun quickly becomes an oven. He held the door for me and my pores opened wide. To save fuel we coasted down the long hill.

“Would you know a girl named Maria Sanchez?”

“Si, Senor. She is the friend of my daughter. They walk together on the paseo.” He explained that most of the town’s younger population congregated there on Saturday evenings in the traditional ritual of circling the Jardin, boys strolling in one direction, girls in the other.

“This is the same girl who worked for Senor Rhodes?”

“Si. But no longer. She was — how you call it? — fired.”

“You know where she lives?”

“Less than a mile away, Senor.”

“Please take me there.”

At the bottom of the hill he turned onto a rutted road and presently pulled up at a cluster of adobe structures. Two goats and a cow wandered aimlessly on the unpaved street. Large-eyed, impassively solemn children gathered to watch us. My driver entered one of the houses. In a moment he emerged, trailed by a young girl, exuberantly healthy, who acknowledged my bow with an ear-to-ear smile.

“This is Maria Sanchez, Senor. She does not have much English.”

What she had was about four words, so I drafted the driver as an interpreter. He rattled my inquiries in Spanish and got back rapid-fire replies. They raced their words as if the devil were chasing each phrase.

“Maria says that Senora Hull arrived two days ago. Solo. Alone. Senor Rhodes did not come with her. She told Maria that he had remained in the states because he was too ill to travel. Maria was not surprised. She says the patron was very sick when they left here to go to the states. We have many fine medicos here in San Miguel, but Senora Hull did not trust them.” He shrugged. “For one person a maid was not necessary, so Maria was dismissed.”

I produced a twenty-dollar bill. “Mr. Rhodes would like Senorita Sanchez to have severance pay.”

When the girl understood, she put her hands behind her back, shaking her head.

The driver apologized. “She says it would be charity, Senor. She has not earned the money and she will not take it.”

I did not offend her by insisting. “Muchas gracias, Senorita,” I said gravely and climbed back into the cab. The driver looked at me. “The office of el abogado, Ignacio Arruza,” I told him. “And where did you learn your English?”

“Migrant farm worker in the states,” he grinned. “And driving a hack in El Paso.”

When I added a tip to his fare, an unusual procedure in Mexico, he shook my hand gratefully. I found Senor Arruza dozing at his desk. I sat across from him and waited quietly. In five minutes one eye opened and the eyebrow above it lifted inquiringly.

“Would it be possible to find out whether Senor Rhodes arrived in this country on a specific day earlier this week?”

“There are many points of entry, Senor Jordan.”

“He would have flown from Miami to Mexico City.”

That simplified it. Arruza spread his fingers. If modest sums of money were to change hands, he explained, the money to be judiciously distributed, certain bureaucrats would undoubtedly be inclined to cooperate. He gave me an approximate total figure and I placed the cash on his desk. He had a contact in Mexico City who would take care of it at once.

Outside, the sun was now directly overhead and stores were shuttering for the afternoon siesta. I crossed the Plaza to my hotel and stretched out to indulge in the local custom. Before sleep came I pondered the situation. Burt Hull had claimed Amos Rhodes was in Mexico. Mrs. Hull had tried to give the impression he was in seclusion in his villa. But according to what she had told Maria Sanchez. Rhodes had never arrived in San Miguel. So somebody was lying. And I didn’t think it was Maria.

Afternoon shadows had darkened the room when Senor Arruza’s call awakened me. He’d heard from his contact at the capital. Mrs. Alma Hull, he told me, had flown down by herself from Miami via Aero de Mexico. Amos Rhodes had not been on the plane and there was no record of his arrival.

That was all I needed to know.

So it was time to leave. I now had plenty of assumptions and a few conclusions, but nothing solid enough to assure Lieutenant Ritchie’s cooperation. What I needed was a court order. But no judge in his right mind would sign the necessary papers based only on wild speculation.

From behind his desk at the First Florida Trust in Palm City, Mr. Briscoe regarded me without pleasure. As I spoke, he went through a whole series of emotional changes — annoyance, resentment, uneasiness, and finally irresolution. It took me nearly a half hour to convince him that his records were not sacrosanct, that sooner or later, one way or another, if not at my request, then at the request of the local prosecutor, he would have to comply.

Ultimately he called a filing clerk and gave instructions. Records were brought. Amos Rhodes had received a monthly check from an insurance company in payment of his annuity contract. A number of these had been deposited to his account at the First Florida Trust. Before clearing, they had been microfilmed. Briscoe had enlarged copies of the first two and the last three.

I brought them back to my room at the Everglades. I am not a handwriting expert, but in a recent case involving a forged will I had been carefully coached by one of the best. I placed the last three checks on top of each other and held them flat against a window pane, shifting them until the endorsed signatures of Amos Rhodes were precisely superimposed. An expert would have used an oblique sheet of glass illuminated from behind by a bright lamp. The windowpane was primitive but adequate.

I knew that it is impossible for anyone to sign his or her name twice in exactly the same way. Yet in each of the three superimposed signatures I could not detect a single millimeter’s difference in the shape or size of the letters.

So they had all been traced from a single writing, probably an authentic one, in the hand of Amos Rhodes.

The next step called for a search warrant on the application of a law-enforcement official. I took my theories and the copies of the canceled checks to Lieutenant Ritchie. He listened without expression. His narrowed eyes studied the checks. It changed the shape of his mouth, pulling it tight. “I’m calling the county attorney in on this,” he said. “Any objections?”

“It’s your bailiwick.”

He stood up. “We’ll get a court order and go over there tomorrow morning.”

“Am I invited?”

“Be on deck here at ten A.M. sharp.”

“Would it be possible to release Mrs. Faber?”

“Not now. She stays on ice until we see what turns up.”

There were five of us in the official car — myself, Lieutenant Ritchie, two of his deputies, and an eager young assistant county attorney. We drove past marshland to the Amos Rhodes estate. Burt Hull’s sports car was parked in the courtyard. No one answered the doorbell. I imagined him peering through a window, hoping we would depart.

Ritchie nodded to one of his deputies. “Hit it, Bruback.”

The deputy backed up and launched 200 pounds of bulk at the door. On his second try it flew open, splintering wood around the lock. They drew their guns and went in at a crouch. No one was at home.

I went out to the terrace, sat on a canvas chair, and watched the deputies remove two sharp-edged spades from the trunk compartment of Ritchie’s car. The Lieutenant was prowling the grounds like a bloodhound. Finally he paused near one of the hedges and gestured. The men began to dig. They got down pretty deep. Ritchie peered sourly into the hole and then indicated another spot. An hour later the deputies looked discouraged.

I wandered over. “You’re not going to find anything.”

Ritchie gave me a startled look.

“Burt Hull is not an idiot,” I said. “We’re close to alligator country. I think Amos Rhodes has long since been digested. If you could drain the swamps you might find his skeleton. Hull would have had to cart the body off in a car, that sports job, so there might be some evidence there.”

Ritchie nodded. “We’ll impound it for the lab boys, but let’s have a quick look first.”

They examined the interior. Then Bruback used the spade to spring the lid of the trunk. Ritchie rummaged around. He hefted a small bundle of rags and when he unwrapped it a revolver was resting on his palm.

“Well, now,” he said. “The counselor may be onto something. A .32 caliber Short Colt, taking a .315 diameter bullet. Which squares exactly with the slug we dug out of your friend Sam Gifford.”

The county attorney grew excited. “A ballistics check would lock it up. Let’s go back and do it now.”

Ritchie shook his head. “Burt Hull is in the area. He can’t be far off without wheels. If he comes back and finds the house door broken and his car missing he’ll hightail it out of here fast. So we sit tight and put the arm on him when he shows.”

He deployed his men out of sight and stationed me and the county attorney at different windows. I was on my third cigarette when Hull sauntered in off the road. They let him get close. Then I saw Bruback materialize behind him and the other deputy move in at an angle. Ritchie stepped out on the terrace.

Hull pulled up short. His head swiveled and he saw the deputies. He protested, smiling tautly, as they hustled him into the house. “Hey, now! What goes on here? What’s this all about?”

“We’re trying to locate Mr. Amos Rhodes,” Ritchie said.

“That’s easy. He’s in Mexico.”

“No,” I said. “Hasn’t your mother called to tell you I was down there?”

“All right. Where do you think he is?”

“Rotting in some nearby swamp — what’s left of him anyway.”

Hull met my eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about a dead man. Amos Rhodes. A man who probably died from old age. But you and your mother decided to keep it a secret. Because once the news was out it would cut off the income. All those monthly payments on his nice fat lifetime annuity — they’d all stop. So you never told anyone and carted off the body and fed it to the big lizards. That kept the checks coming and you and your mother continued to cash them.”

The taut smile congealed. Hull turned to Ritchie. “This guy is crazy.”

“It won’t wash,” I said. “The Mexicans are sticklers for paperwork. There’s no record Rhodes ever arrived down there. You’re caught, Hull. You want to throw off the hook, produce him.”

“I don’t have to produce him. Mr. Rhodes is a free agent. He wants to go somewhere else, that’s his privilege.”

“He was an old man. Sick. Helpless. Unable to take care of himself. Where could he go without your mother’s help?”

“Maybe he hired somebody else.”

“Then why did she lie and give the impression he was in San Miguel?”

“That’s your story. She’ll say otherwise.”

“You still insist Rhodes is alive?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he getting money? Who’s supporting him?”

“That annuity you were talking about.”

“Impossible. Somebody’s been forging his endorsements and pinching the cash. If Rhodes is alive, why didn’t he complain to the insurance company?”

Hull gave a forced and hollow laugh, but bubbles of sweat had broken out on his forehead. “How do I know? He never consulted me about his problems. For all I know you may be lying about the forgeries.”

“No, sir. We have evidence that will convince the insurance company. And they’ll stop payment pending an investigation.”

“I welcome it.”

“Even if it includes the murder of Sam Gifford?”

“Now, wait a minute! You can’t tie me into that.”

“We can tie you into possession of the murder gun,” Ritchie said. “A Short Colt we found in your car. Exactly the type of weapon that killed Gifford.”

It jolted him, draining the blood from his face. His voice shook. “Why would I kill the man? Hell, I didn’t even know him.”

“Because he came down here to put the bite on Rhodes for a campaign contribution. You tried to fob him off, but he wouldn’t let go. A Gifford characteristic. He began nosing around, got wind of something, and suddenly it looked like the end of the ball game for you. You were afraid he’d blow the whistle, so you had to silence him. You killed him and then tried to throw a curve by dumping him in Mrs. Faber’s cabana because you saw them having a drink together at the Everglades bar.”

He swallowed painfully. “You can’t prove anything like that.”

“Your gun will prove it for us. When ballistics matches it with the slug found in Gifford’s skull you’re sunk, finished, kaput.”

He knew what ballistics would show and his body sagged. His eyes were bankrupt.

Ritchie said, “You’ll have your day in court, mister. That’s more than you gave Gifford.”