"Wouldn't he?"
Toddy looked at her, looked quickly away again. She couldn't mean what she seemed to, not with Elaine murdered and himself the principal suspect. That, and everything else that was hanging over him. Of course, she wouldn't be any angel herself but… But he couldn't think the thing through. It was a hell of a poor time to try to.
"I don't know," he said shortly. "Probably not."
"I see." Her voice was flat.
"I"-Toddy hesitated-"maybe. It would depend on a lot of things."
20
The house was in the Mission Hills section of San Diego, located on a pie-shaped wedge of land overlooking the bay. On one side a street dropped down to Old Town. On the other side another road wound downward toward Pacific Highway. In the front, a multiple intersection separated the house from its nearest neighbor by a block. There were no houses in the rear, of course; only a steep bluff.
Toddy sat in the front room-a room as sparsely furnished as the one in Chinless' Los Angeles dwelling. He had been sitting there alone for some fifteen minutes. As soon as he and the girl had arrived, Alvarado had spoken rapidly to her in Spanish-too rapidly for Toddy's casual understanding of the language-and she had gone down the hallway toward the rear of the house. Alvarado had followed her, after politely excusing himself, and closed the door; and dimly, a moment later, Toddy had heard another door close. Since then there had been silence-almost.
It seemed to Toddy, once, that he heard a faint outcry. A moment later he had thought he heard the dog bark. Thought. He wasn't sure. He strained his ears, held his breath, listening, but the sounds were not repeated.
Toddy waited with increasing uneasiness. In the far corner of the room was a desk littered with papers. When he and Dolores had arrived, Alvarado had been working there, and something about the sight had given Toddy an inexplicable feeling of danger. He wanted to get a better look at those papers. He wondered whether he dared risk the few steps across the room and a quick glance or two.
He decided to try it.
Rising cautiously, an eye on the hall door, he tiptoed across the floor and looked swiftly down at the desk. The papers were covered with rows of neatly written figures, interspersed occasionally with what appeared to be abbreviations of certain words. They were meaningless.
"Meaningless, Mr. Kent," said Alvarado, "unless you have the code book."
He came in smiling, closing the door behind him, and crossed to the desk. He picked up a small black book that had been lying face down and riffled its pages of fine, closely printed type.
"This is it. Regrettably, it is much too complex to explain in the brief time we have."
"Better skip it, then," said Toddy, matching the other's irony. And as he resumed his seat on the other side of the room, Alvarado chuckled amiably.
"A man after my own heart," he declared, sitting back down at the desk. "I cannot tell you how disappointed I am that we shall not work together… For the time being, at least."
"No?" Toddy crossed his legs. The air was heavy with perfume. Alvarado apparently had doused himself with it.
"No. Unfortunately. But we will come to that in a moment. I have had you visit me so that I might explain-explain everything that may be explained. You are entitled to know; and, as I say, I hope we may work together eventually. I did not wish you to be left with an unfavorable opinion of me."
"Go on," said Toddy.
"After I dispatched you to Tijuana, I communicated the fact to our supplier of gold… the man I suspected of killing your wife. He, reacting as I believed he would, ordered you murdered. To be slugged and disposed of permanently as soon as it was expedient. As soon as the first half of the order was carried out, I intervened. I had the proof I wanted."
"Proof?" Toddy frowned. "I don't get it."
"But it is so simple! He killed your wife-I was certain-merely as a means of disposing of you. He hoped to involve you, and through you me, in a crime which would break up our syndicate and release him from duties which have long been onerous to him. Now you understand?"
"No," said Toddy. "I don't."
"But it is-"
"Huh-uh." Toddy shook his head. "Up to a point, I'll buy it. He killed Elaine. I thought you'd done it. If I played the cards he gave me, I'd have either gone after you myself or hollered to the cops… But I didn't do that. You and I squared our beef. He didn't have a thing to gain by getting rid of me in Tijuana."
"Hmmm." Alvarado drummed absently on the desk. "I see your point. It was stupid of me not to think of it… Of course," he added, smoothly, "I was not completely sure of this man's motive. There was a strong possibility that he might have been motivated by revenge."
"Remember me?" said Toddy. "I'm supposed to be the bright boy. So stop kidding me… This guy tried to get me killed; I'll go along with that. And when he did he proved that he'd killed my wife. Why? I'll tell you. Because he was sure that, given a little time, I'd be able to dope out who he was. You were sure I would, too, and, until you got your orders from abroad, you had to protect his identity. You had to pin the rap on him good before I did too much thinking."
"Really, Mr. Kent…"
"That's the way it was. That's the way it has to be. Now why beat around the bush about it?"
Alvarado stared at him thoughtfully, a quizzical frown on his pale shark's face. Then, gradually, the frown disappeared and he nodded.
"Very well, Mr. Kent. I suppose there really is no longer need for secrecy. The man you mention has served us well… in the opinion of my superiors. He is now closing out his affairs and will soon be out of this country. Possibly-probably-we will find use for him elsewhere. But that is no concern of yours. Lone before you can discover his identity and confirm it, he will be beyond your reach."
Amazement choked Toddy for a moment. He could hardly credit himself with hearing the words that Alvarado had spoken. Before he could find his voice, the chinless man was speaking again.
"I can well understand your confusion, Mr. Kent. I share it. But there is nothing I can do about it. Our entire hypothesis was wrong. This man we suspected did not kill your wife."
"You're lying!" Toddy snapped. "Murder or no murder, this guy is valuable to your bosses. They're going to protect him at all costs. That's the whole story, isn't it?"
"It is not. My bosses, as you call them, do not act so whimsically. The man was able to prove, irrefutably, that he did not kill your wife. As an unfortunate result, our superiors retain their original high regard for him while I- for the moment, at least-have been made to appear a clumsy and vindictive fool."
"You're forgetting your lines," Toddy said grimly. "A minute ago you were saying that-"
"I was speaking in theoretical terms. Like you, I was speeding down a trail of theory and I am at a loss when the trail disappears."
"My getting slugged wasn't any theory!"
"Be grateful you were not killed, and dwell no more on the matter. Nothing good will come of it."
Hands shaking, Toddy lighted a cigarette. After an angry puff or two he ground it out beneath his foot. Alvarado nodded sympathetically.