“Or covered up.”
“What if Sacchetti didn’t do it?”
“The evidence is overwhelming,” Huang said.
“Not to a policeman,” I said.
“No,” Huang said, “not to a policeman. Only to the public.”
“You plan to hang it on him then?”
“Of course.”
“Even if he’s innocent?”
“He’s not innocent, Mr. Cauthorne. There are at least six murders in our files that can be directly traced to the Sacchetti operations.”
“But not to him?”
“No. We have never questioned him.”
“But you know he was responsible?”
“We know.”
“Don’t you keep someone on him all the time?” I said.
“We watch his yacht,” Tan said. “We keep it under observation twenty-four hours a day.” He paused and looked at me and smiled, displaying some nicely even teeth. “He has most interesting visitors.”
“Doesn’t he ever leave the yacht?”
“Not recently,” Huang said. “But that means nothing. A sampan could come by at night, without lights, on the side away from shore and he could easily go aboard and disappear once it went up the Singapore River.”
“He used to give a lot of parties,” I said. “Doesn’t he give them anymore?”
“Not since he purchased the yacht,” Huang said. “He’s become quite the homebody.”
“Except for last night,” I said and immediately wished that I hadn’t.
“What makes you think he wasn’t there last night, Mr. Cauthorne?” Tan said.
This time it was my turn to smile. “He couldn’t very well have murdered Carla Lozupone, driven her to the east side of the island, and then dumped her without leaving the yacht, could he?”
“Tell me, Mr. Cauthorne, would you have any objections if Sacchetti were convicted of the Lozupone woman’s murder?” Tan said.
“Even if he weren’t guilty?” I said.
“Even so.”
I thought a moment before replying. “No,” I said. “I wouldn’t have any objections.”
Tan nodded. “I didn’t think that you would.”
He rose and headed for the door, Sergeant Huang right behind him. “How long do you plan to remain in Singapore, Mr. Cauthorne?” Huang said.
“Until I see Angelo Sacchetti,” I said.
“Forgive me if I sound inhospitable,” Huang said, “but I hope that your stay will not be too long.” Tan opened the door, nodded at me, and left. Huang paused. “Thank you for the tea, Mr. Cauthorne.”
“My pleasure.”
“And also for your answers to our questions,” he said. “Some of them were most ingenious.”
Chapter XX
The phone rang while I was trying to decide whether a drink would help to pass the time or ease the pain or both. The caller was Lim Pang Sam, the spymaster of Singapore’s four-man counter-espionage network, and he wanted to know how I was feeling.
“Rotten,” I said.
“That’s what Detective Huang reports,” Lim said. “He rang me up just a few minutes ago.”
“Were they satisfied?”
“With what?”
“With my answers to their questions.”
Lim chuckled. “I don’t think they believed a word you said, but you’re no longer their prime suspect.”
“Was I?”
“At first, but there turned out to be too many witnesses to your movements last night.”
“I did see a few people,” I said.
“But not the one you were looking for,” Lim said.
“No. I didn’t see him.”
There was a pause and then Lim said, “I think it might prove useful if you could drop by my office this afternoon, say around two-thirty? Would be that convenient?”
“Fine,” I said.
“I have some news for you,” Lim said. “And then I have something else, too.”
“At two-thirty then.”
After I hung up I mixed a drink and stood at the window and watched it rain a hard, tropical downpour, the kind that puts a wet chill into the air conditioning and gives even synthetic fabrics the clammy smell and feel of damp wool.
I thought about Carla Lozupone and who had killed her and why. Somewhere, just out of reach, a nebulous, unformed idea skittered around, saw that I was trying to sneak a glance at it, blushed, panicked, and disappeared. Having nothing better to do I stood there at the window and watched the rain and went back over it all, from Callese and Palmisano to Huang and Tan. No revelation burst through; no shining truth glimmered; there was only that something, small and elusive, that seemed to nag and snicker just over the next mental hill, just out of sight.
After a while I gave it up and rang the bell for the houseboy. He agreed to produce a plate of sandwiches and a pot of coffee and I reminded myself to increase the size of his tip if I were ever lucky enough to check out of the place. I ate the sandwiches slowly, chewing on the left side of my mouth because the right side still ached where the tall Chinese had slammed the edge of his hand against it. I refought last night’s battle and remembered the times when I had taken on three and four and even five of them and had won handily before an admiring audience of cameramen, actors, grips, script girls and assorted hangers-on. Then, of course, there had been a couple of rehearsals and the script had called for me to win, but last night’s performance had neither script nor rehearsal and the scene, as well as myself, had suffered because of it.
At two o’clock it was still raining and I went in search of the turbaned doorman to see whether he could find a cab. After five or ten minutes he whistled one to a stop and held a large umbrella over me while I climbed in. I gave the driver Lim’s address and he sped off through the rain, apparently unaware that windshield wipers could have proved useful.
Lim Pang Sam smiled broadly as he walked around his desk and extended his hand which I shook. “Except for right here,” he said, touching his own right jaw, “you don’t look bad at all. That’s a nasty bruise.”
“It feels nasty,” I said.
Lim moved back to the chair behind his desk and picked up the phone. “I’ll have some tea brought in,” he said. “It has marvelous curative powers. As the British are so fond of saying, ‘There’s nothing like a nice cup of tea.’”
“Nothing,” I agreed.
When the tea ritual was completed, Lim leaned back in his chair, holding his cup and saucer against his comfortable stomach. “Tell me about it,” he said and smiled, adding, “and you can leave out the more obvious fabrications, if you like.”
I told him what had happened from the time I had left his office the day before until Huang and Tan arrived. I didn’t bother to tell him about Carla Lozupone and me; I don’t think I ever told anyone about that.
When I was through Lim put his cup and saucer on the desk and spun his chair around to see how the ships in the harbor were doing in the rain. “So it would seem that someone is mounting a clumsy effort to make it look as though Sacchetti killed the Lozupone woman,” he said. “A frame, as you say.”
“That’s the way it looks, but then I’m no expert.”
“But your Mr. Dangerfield is.”
“He’s an FBI agent. That might make him an expert in some circles.”
“But he is not in Singapore officially?”
“No.”
“I can’t say that I like the idea of an FBI agent running about, officially or otherwise, but I even less like his theory that Toh and his daughter are responsible for the death of the Lozupone woman.”
“I don’t think he likes it too much either,” I said. “I just think he wants to like it.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he just wants everything tidy.”
Lim brought out his Lucky Strikes and offered me one. While I was accepting a light, he said, “This is a most untidy affair, Mr. Cauthorne. Assault, blackmail and murder. Most untidy. Yet there is the possibility that some good may come of it.”