“Exactly,” I said. “Señor Gomez was the friend of Betty Crofath. He knew her in Argentina. He comes to New Orleans. Betty Crofath comes to New Orleans. Betty Crofath had information which might have been of some military importance, something that would have hurt the Japanese Empire had it been divulged to certain parties. Betty Crofath is murdered. The instrumentality of that murder is a poison which very much resembles a sleeping tablet in appearance and in effect. It is a chemical worked out by the Crescent City Chemical Manufacturing and Supply Company. A very interesting chain of circumstances, don’t you think?”
Señor Gomez made a little bow. “You express it very forcefully, señor. Now, perhaps, may I say a word?”
“Go ahead.”
“Let us look at it from the other viewpoint. Betty Crofath leaves New Orleans for San Francisco. At approximately that same time, The Phantom Crook takes an airplane to Tucson. He boards the train. He has a berth directly across from the one occupied by Miss Crofath. Shortly after The Phantom Crook boards the train, Miss Crofath dies. Also on that car is a Daphne Strate, who is a friend of Miss Crofath and who had been seen in earnest conversation with her the night before. The next morning, The Phantom Crook is seen engaged in earnest conversation with Miss Strate. Then Miss Strate goes to San Francisco, assumes the name of Betty Crofath, steals Betty Crofath’s purse, her driving license, her baggage. The Phantom Crook calls upon her in her hotel bedroom. Daphne Strate leaves. The Phantom Crook leaves. Almost immediately after the last departure, the body of the Pullman car porter is found in the room. His throat has been cut from ear to ear.”
And Gomez made a little bow, smiled at us, and said, “I rather like that presentation. I doubt if a prosecuting attorney could have done better.”
Daphne Strate was watching me with thoughtful, speculative eyes.
“But come, come,” Señor Gomez said. “We are above all of these petty matters, my dear Señor Sabin. The game we are playing is far removed from that elemental cops-and-robbers pastime. You are not going to say anything to the police about me, and, by the same token, I am not going to say anything to the police about you.”
“What, then, are you going to do?”
“You mentioned when you first met me that you had seen me on New Year’s morning.”
“Something to that effect.”
“In a restaurant.”
“I said in front of a restaurant.”
“With an attractive young woman.”
“That’s right.”
“And we were engaged in an argument,” Señor Gomez went on.
“Correct.”
“That was in Buenos Aires?”
“Yes.”
“Could you tell me the name of the restaurant?”
“No.”
“Could you tell me what street it was on?” he asked.
“No.”
“Could you tell me what hotel you stayed at there?”
“I see no reason for doing so.”
“Could you tell me exactly, or approximately, even, what time it was?”
“Shortly after daylight.”
“Come, come, señor, you should do better than that. Was it eight o’clock, nine o’clock, ten o’clock?”
“About eight o’clock, I should judge.”
His smile showed even rows of white teeth. “A very conservative guess, señor, but as it happens, a wrong guess which betrays you to your undoing. In short, my dear Señor Sabin, much as I dislike to question the word even of one who has a police record, it is now quite evident to me that you have never been in Buenos Aires, that you did not see me on New Year’s morning at all, that you were simply bluffing about the whole business. If you will note carefully, Señor Sabin, you will realize that Buenos Aires is far south of the Equator, that, therefore, the seasons are completely reversed; that New Year’s day comes in the middle of our summer; that in place of getting daylight around seven or seven-thirty in the morning, the sun is high in the heavens at eight o’clock on New Year’s. In short, my dear Señor Sabin, it has now become apparent to me that you received this information from something Betty Crofath had written — perhaps a diary.”
“And so?” I asked.
“And so, señor, if it is all the same to you, I will take custody of that diary.”
“I am afraid it is not all the same to me,” I told him.
“I will take custody of it anyway.”
Daphne Strate sat suddenly upright. “So that’s it!” she exclaimed.
Señor Gomez looked at her with thoughtful eyes.
“That is what, my dear?”
“That’s where it was.”
“The diary?”
“Yes.”
“And,” Ramon Gomez said, suavely, “that is where what was, my dear?”
I said to Daphne Strate, “You keep your tongue moving, and you’ll talk your head off — and I don’t mean that merely as a figure of speech.”
Ramon said, “Don’t let him frighten you, my dear.”
Daphne Strate said nothing.
“What was it you had reference to, Miss Strate?”
She shook her head.
Gomez turned to me. “I’m afraid, Señor Sabin, you are causing me much trouble. Come, which one of you has the diary?”
Señor Gomez turned to Daphne Strate. “My dear,” he said, “you need not be afraid of me. I am perhaps your best friend. I perhaps could get you out of rather a tight scrape. All that I would ask in return would be your assistance.”
She watched him silently.
“I have reason to believe,” he said, “that there was something in the personal effects of Betty Crofath that would have been very valuable. I have, I believe, gone through all of those personal effects and I have not found that which I wanted. Therefore, it never existed or it has been removed.
“I have good reason to believe that it existed. So, my dear, let us suppose it was removed. Do you suppose that you have it?”
She slowly shook her head. “I didn’t have a chance to go through her things — I just gave them a hurried glance when I — when I heard this noise.”
“The noise?”
“The man who was bound and gagged and placed in the bathtub.”
“Oh, yes,” Ramon Gomez said, and tilted back his head and raised his eyes to the ceiling, as one who wishes to appraise certain various ideas and does not want his judgment to be influenced by any visual interruption.
“There must have been a diary,” he said almost musingly, “and that diary must contain more than... No, how absurd, how foolish of me! I know where it is now.” He threw back his head and laughed. “Not in the diary. Of course not! It was in the one place where no one ever thought to look — the place that...” He broke off abruptly.
I grinned at him.
Daphne Strate looked disappointed.
Abruptly, Gomez got to his feet. “My dear Miss Strate, I think that you and I can be of some mutual assistance.”
She looked him over with a certain tentative appraisal. “What’s your proposition?” she asked.
“Come, come,” Ramon said. “One should hardly make his proposition to a beautiful young woman in the presence of hostile witnesses. What I say might be misconstrued. I notice that you have a suitcase there. Yours, perhaps?”
“Yes.”
“You were leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Splendid! Excellent! After we get into the corridor I shall carry your suitcase. But here, since the Señor Sabin has such a reputation for baffling speed and swift dexterity, I will not be quite so gentlemanly. You had better go first.”