“Well? Any luck yet?”
“I haven’t called anyone yet. I’m thinking...”
“About what?” Wilson asked impatiently.
“About this whole business.” The tall man replaced the receiver and walked to a chair beside the coffee-table, raising one hand to forestall any objection. “The girl will be all right for a few minutes, at least; she’s just been drugged. Let’s have a drink and see if we can’t think this thing out before we call a doctor or anyone else.”
He sat down, reaching for a cigarette from a pack on the table, and applied a match. Wilson frowned at him in indecision for a moment and then went to a bar in one corner, returning with a bottle and two glasses. He poured the drinks and handed one to Da Silva. The seated man nodded his appreciation, sipped the drink, and then leaned back, looking up at Wilson through a cloud of smoke.
“To begin with — and before you come out of your state of shock and needle me with it — it appears I was wrong to take this matter of Miss Howard and her brother so lightly. I might mention that the other day the same thought came to me, when I wondered about that telegram coming from the interior instead of from the university in California that had her forwarding address. Or why, instead of cabling, he hadn’t telephoned—”
Wilson’s face darkened. He sat down abruptly opposite Da Silva and stared across the table. “I never thought of that.”
“I thought of it, but I didn’t do anything about it. I was too busy with more important things.” Da Silva’s tone was slightly bitter. He finished his drink and leaned forward, brushing ash from his cigarette. “In any event, it’s a little late to worry about that. Somebody sent her that telegram, and the purpose was to calm her down until they could get their grubby little hands on her. And get their grubby little hands on her they did.”
“But why?”
“Obviously, to keep her quiet. Real quiet. Why? A good guess is that it’s connected with her brother. Another good guess is that the man she thought she recognized at the hotel bar is the one she really thought he was. And he didn’t appreciate being recognized. Maybe when she wakes up, she can tell us. In the meantime, let’s try and use our heads.” He took a deep drag on the cigarette and crushed it out. “Let’s get back to tonight. To begin with, I don’t suppose you’d recognize any of those three unsavory characters we saw down at the cove, if you ever saw them again?”
Wilson shook his head. Da Silva sighed dispiritedly.
“Neither would I. It was too dark and it all happened too fast. So much for police training...” He leaned over and refilled his glass, frowning into the amber liquid and then raising his eyes. “However, let me ask you a question. If you paid a trio of thugs to tie a girl to a raft and shove her out into the ocean to drown, would you take their word for it that they had done it? Remember, if this thing had worked as planned, there wouldn’t have been any body floating around to be reported in the newspapers. Would you accept their word that they had fulfilled their contract?” He paused, eying Wilson carefully. “Especially with a girl whose body would certainly give any male assassin some very interesting second thoughts?”
Wilson was watching him closely. “No, I wouldn’t.”
“I agree,” Da Silva said, and nodded. “Now if I were hiring these people, I’d insist on a signed affidavit — difficult in this case, since I doubt if they can write — or else I’d be around somewhere where I could see the action myself.”
Wilson raised his glass and drank as he considered Da Silva’s statement. He set it down slowly. “Which means that whoever is behind this whole thing also saw our part in the matter... And you think he might well have followed us here.” He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone followed us. I didn’t notice any car behind us when we got here or any that passed us, either.”
“Let’s be honest,” Da Silva said disgustedly. “Neither of us was thinking of being followed. We just weren’t thinking, period. All we wanted to do was get the girl to someplace safe.”
“We don’t even know he had a car.”
“He had a car,” Da Silva said positively. “They didn’t undress her in the hotel lobby.”
“And that’s another thing,” Wilson said, frowning. “Why did they undress her at all? Unless—” His face darkened at the thought.
Da Silva shook his head. “There were no signs of anything like that. They undressed her because clothing has a tendency to wash free of a body. It can float or be washed up on the shore. And identified.” He returned to his theory. “It seems logical to assume that we were seen, and the smart assumption to make now is that we were also followed. And that our nasty friend — or one of his equally nasty henchmen — is probably outside of this apartment right now, waiting for one of us to leave.”
Wilson stared at him. “Why on earth should he expect one of us to leave?”
“I didn’t say he expects it — he hopes for it.” Da Silva shrugged, but his eyes were bright. “What would be the first thing he’d expect us to do as soon as we got here? Call a doctor, obviously. And when the doctor came, of course, we’d open the door for him without any hesitation. Our nasty friend would be much more apt to brave the terrors of this apartment if only one of us were here to defend the girl. One might be taken by surprise, but two makes the odds considerably worse.”
“Granted,” Wilson said. “But still, why would one of us leave?”
“For any number of reasons. Maybe to go to a drugstore for some remedy before the doctor gets here. Maybe because one of us has a prior appointment. Maybe even — since he has no idea of our fine, virtuous characters — to leave the other alone with a beautiful, naked, and grateful girl, since three makes a crowd. I could give you a dozen maybes. The thing, though, is that in the meantime our nasty friend waits.”
“So let him wait,” Wilson said bitterly. “It’ll teach him patience.” He finished his drink and reached for the bottle of brandy. “He seems like the kind who could use any spare virtue going around.”
Da Silva leaned forward and clamped a firm hand over the top of the bottle. Wilson looked at him, surprised. Da Silva’s saturnine face could have been carved out of rock.
“We wouldn’t want the man to wait indefinitely,” he said softly. “That wouldn’t be polite. So you will please stop drinking and leave here immediately.” His tone was significant. “And conspicuously.”
Wilson frowned. “And leave you to do the hero act alone?”
Da Silva smiled gently. “I wasn’t expecting you to take a trip around the world when you left here. I was thinking more of a trip around the block, after posing on the front steps of the building — front view and profile — long enough to be identified. And then around the back and up the service elevator — or even the stairs — and in through the kitchen door.”
Wilson considered the plan a moment and then nodded, a faint smile on his face. “I like the whole idea. Except for one thing.” His smile disappeared. “I stay here with Jill. You go around the block.”
Da Silva considered him a moment and then nodded. “If you insist. The fresh air will do me good.” He came to his feet, walked out to the kitchen and unlatched the chain bolt, made sure the door was locked, and returned, slipping the key into his pocket. “If I find that chain bolt back in place when I try to get in, I’ll know that Jill has recovered and your baser instincts have taken over.” He glanced around. “How are you fixed for guns?”
“I’ll get you one.” Wilson rose and went into the bedroom, glancing down at the unconscious girl. Her breathing seemed to be steady, but there was a pasty look to her skin. For a moment he considered forgetting the entire scheme and calling a doctor, but he put the thought away. For the time being, at least, Jill appeared to be all right, and the surest way to keep her that way would be to trap the maniac who had done this thing to her. That is, he thought bitterly, if the bastard isn’t drinking in a bar twenty miles away from here right now. He shook his head at the uncomfortable thought, dug into the drawer of the nightstand for a revolver, picked Da Silva’s jacket from the bed, and returned to the living room.