"Yes," she said, "but you've forgotten something, haven't you, Helm?"
I looked down at her. She waited, smiling faintly. I grinned and said, "Goddamn a world full of temperamental females. Please?"
"That's better."
I looked at Martha. "Okay, is that it? Is there anything else you were supposed to tell me?"
"No," she said, "no, that's all. Just the two lists of names, and the date, and that you'd know what to do."
I studied her grimly. She never gave up. She was still holding out something. After a moment I realized what it had to be.
"You're forgetting one item, aren't you, Borden?" I said wearily. "One more thing he told you. An address, a place on the water, but where?" She faced me and didn't speak, but the resentful gray eyes told me I was right. I said, "Eleven hot-shot agents, the best he's got, specially selected, carefully hidden out of harm's way. Eleven agents but only ten targets. That's one left over: me. Me, and a boat he was very eager for me to have. Tell me where I'm supposed to go boating, Borden, and when."
She started to blurt out something frustrated and furious but held it back. "He… he wants you to report to him the night before."
"The night of June 16th. Where?"
She glanced towards Lorna, and back to me. "That I'm not going to tell you in front of her! If you want to risk having her know Daddy's hiding place, you'll have to tell her yourself."
Lorna swung her feet off the bed and stood up. "It's something I'm better off not knowing, anyway," she said. "If I don't know, it wasn't I who spilled it. Excuse me, folks, while I go wash my face."
The younger woman watched her go, waiting until the bathroom door had closed fully. Then she looked at me once more. "If you betray him, I'll kill you!"
I said wearily, "Oh, shut up, doll. Don't make loud noises about things you're not going to do. You're the little girl who doesn't believe in killing anything, remember?"
She glared at me. "Damn you! Why do you have to be so-" She stopped and drew a long, ragged breath. "It's in Florida," she said, "but I don't know the exact. -. – There's a man Daddy goes fishing with, a friend, Hank Priest, Congressman Henry Priest, who's got a waterfront place near a little town called Robalo, on Robalo Island. That's on the west coast. You're supposed to get in touch with him. He'll tell you where to go and get you a reliable guide. Give yourself time enough so you can pick the right tide. It's somewhere out in that maze of mangrove islands off the edge of the Everglades, I think, but you'll never find anything in there without a guide-anything, that is, except snakes, alligators, and mosquitoes."
"It sounds real inviting," I said wryly.
"Of course you're supposed to make sure nobody follows you."
"Of course," I said. "Naturally. A station wagon the size of a Greyhound bus towing a great big white boat, and I'm supposed to drive it invisibly across two-thirds of the continent-"
"It's spring. The roads are full of cars towing boats. Anyway, Daddy's got confidence in you for some reason. He knows, with the information I've given you, you'll make it good."
I nodded slowly. "All right, I'll try to live up to his goddamned confidence in me." I regarded her deliberately, until she shifted position and licked her lips as if to protest. Then I said, "Now tell me how much of all this is the truth, if any, and who really told you what to say. Lorna!"
The bathroom door opened, and Lorna stood there in her stocking feet, with her little revolver steady in her hand.
XXL.
Martha Borden stared incredulously at the armed woman in the bathroom doorway. "Now what do you think you're doing with that silly little pistol?" she demanded.
Lorna shrugged. "Ask Helm. It's his play."
"Matt, have you gone absolutely crazy-"
"Over here," I said. "Hands against the wall. That's right. Hold the pose." Moving in to make the frisk, I apologized to Lorna over my shoulder: "Not that I think you'd miss anything that was there at the time, but she was outside for several minutes getting the candy just now. She could have picked up some kind of a weapon." I went over the girl carefully, finding nothing. "Okay, you can lower your arms and turn around."
Martha's eyes were hot and angry as she swung to face me once more. "Well, that's one way of getting a cheap thrill!"
"Relax, little girl," I said. "I hate to disillusion you, but your body isn't all that stimulating. I've frisked lots more irresistible ladies without blowing a fuse." I studied her for a moment longer, frowning. I wasn't sure, of course. Either she was a hell of a good actress-better than she had any right to be-or I was making an embarrassing mistake; but it had to be checked out. I felt around the edge of the bed where she'd been sitting earlier, and found nothing there, either. "Sit down," I said. "Keep your hands where I can see them."
"Watch it!" Lorna said quickly. We both looked at her, startled. She said, "Don't sit on the candy bars. I guess I will have one, after all."
I raked them all up and handed them to her. She put her gun away and moved to a nearby chair and sat down, carefully peeling a Hershey's with almonds.
Martha asked, "Well, should I sit or shouldn't 1?"
"Sit," I said.
Lorna munched chocolate and nuts and asked, "What's the problem, anyway?"
"There are two problems," I said. "The first is that she knows too much. The second is that she's probably a lousy little traitor."
I made it rough deliberately, so that I could study the reaction. Martha made a shocked sound of protest, but whether or not it was genuine was hard to tell.
Lorna asked, "How do you figure that, Helm?"
I said, "I've been playing along with her to find out what she was going to say. Now we've got to figure out how much of what she's told us was the truth, if any of it was. If it wasn't, we've got to figure out who got her to lie, and what the real truth is."
"Everything I told you was the truth!" Martha blurted indignantly. "You have absolutely no reason to call me a-"
"Every reason in the world, doll," I said. "We'll come to the evidence in a minute."
Lorna swallowed another bite of chocolate and said calmly, "I gather you're not contending that she isn't Martha Borden. You're saying that Martha Borden is a traitor-a traitress, to be precise."
"That's right. The resemblance is too damned close. She's got to be the right girl. Only she's gone wrong. Well, she's not the first kid who's turned against her parents these days."
"What makes you think she has?"
"Like 1 said, she knows too much. A lot of the names she used were those of genuine agents; maybe all of them were. But the really interesting thing is what she doesn't know, or says she doesn't know. She can't tell, an impostor from her own father. At least she pretends she can't."
"What do you mean?" That was Martha, jumping to her feet. "What do you mean, an impostor?"
"Sit down!" I waited until she'd obeyed. Now that I was marshalling the evidence, it looked fairly convincing. I spoke to Lorna. "Suppose you were to dial the special number, Mrs. Holt. And suppose the voice at the other end, a fairly familiar voice, told you he was afraid a gent named Leonard intended to decimate our organization to the last man, what would you think?"
Lorna's eyes widened. "Mac never said that!"