Experiment in Crime Page 6

  Mrs. Macey smiled at a waffle. "With Professor Burke, I would imagine that pretty much everything is serious."

  "It is not!" Marigold spoke with heat. "Do you call publicly necking a Miami Beach blonde, serious? And that's just one thing! Professor Burke only acts stuffy and superpolite. Actually--he's an authority on crime. He's been right in the midst of gang wars. He knows personally half the big shots in the underworld. He's two distinct personalities--and it's terribly fascinating."

  "Nonsense," said her father. "A professor?"

  "Drag him over here," Steve repeated.

  "I've tried," she said.

  Her brother snorted. "Lookie, cookie. If you try--he'll come. I don't know what it is. The big brown eyes, the well-made if slightly undersized chassis, or that wobble in your vocal cords. But they work, if you work them. Now, be a good kid and drag your prof over here."

  She looked mournfully out of the French windows and down the arched patio, over the sun-polished Macey lawn to the garden hedge. "I'll try again," she said miserably.

  Just exactly how he found himself walking home that afternoon with Marigold Macey, the professor could not be sure. He was preparing his work for the next term--a morass of pressing details. The strong easterly which had risen on Sunday evening might die down soon; if so, he would have to be absent from Coral Gables for a time. He was trying to get ready when Marigold appeared in his office.

  She asked some trivial question about the work in the following term. She sat on his desk, patted his arm, batted her eyes, switched herself about, and urged him to accompany her home for tea. She did not call him, "honey-chile"; a girl has to draw the line somewhere.

  Her home was several blocks away, in the opposite direction from Bedelia's--and he found himself walking with the girl at his side. She seemed very happy. And he was not displeased. He recalled the unmistakable leer he had given her in the College Inn Tearoom, the notion that had prompted the grimace, and his subsequent conclusion that it had doubtless forever alienated Miss Macey. It seemed not to have done so. On the contrary.

  As they walked, she talked of this and that. "You detest Miss Orme, don't you?"

  she said.

  "There's something about her. The snood. Always reminds me of a beaver's tail."

  Marigold chuckled. "Your star student-- but . . . !"

  "Intellectually overenergetic, if such a thing is possible." He smiled. "Going to be a social worker, she says. I have no doubt of it. I can imagine her thrusting principle and theory on the underprivileged--with all the whelming purposefulness of a bulldozer. I shouldn't make such a statement about a student. But Miss Orme. . . !"

  "Not liking her, shows good taste in women."

  "Really?" He had never viewed it from that angle.

  "Of course! Don't be naïve!"

  They reached her residence. "We'll go in the side and around to the garden," she said. "Tea won't be ready for a while--not till Dad's home."

  The garden was hedge-enclosed and contained, besides a round pool where fishes swam and water lilies floated, some aluminum furniture and a barbecue fireplace.

  Marigold chose a languorous double chair and patted the place at her side. He sat. The sun was very low and the air was suffused with orange light. She took his hand. "Nice of you to come over."

  "I'm very glad I did it."

  "I thought you sort of--disliked me."

  "Nothing could be farther from the truth."

  These, and some further platitudinous remarks, along with the warm feel of the girl's hand in his own, led to a recrudescence of a recent sentiment. It became so acute that he let go of her hand and rose with the thought of sauntering over to the pool.

  Marigold, however, interposed herself between him and the pool. Why not? his brain suggested. She was looking up at him with an extravagant brilliance in her eyes--which at least suggested she might consent to the experiment. He stepped forward, put his arms around her, and kissed her firmly, unprofessorially.

  "Great gad, man!" the judge bellowed, coming through the hedge.

  Professor Burke's mind rocketed back to what constituted reality for him. He loosened his hold of the girl. He thought of his situation in the terms in which he had been reared to think. The man with the grey temples, flushed face and irate voice was plainly her father. At that moment the professor felt passionately enamored of Miss Macey. So he said, rather croakingly, "My intentions are perfectly--"

  "To hell with your intentions! You're trampling my pineapple!"

  Professor Burke jumped.

  Marigold, who was both pleased and astonished by the past twenty or thirty seconds of her existence, burst into laughter. "Father," she said, when she could, "is trying to sprout a pineapple." She pointed to its top--in a small, mulched bed. "Daddy, this is Martin Burke."

  The judge said, "Delighted," fell to his knees, and began replacing the tilted plant.

  "Tea is ready," he continued. "The next time you decide to kiss anybody, Marigold, for heaven's sake keep out of the flower beds. I told your mother it would root--and by gad, it's rooting!"

  A short week ago, Professor Burke would have regarded even the idea of amorously kissing a young lady as something to be pushed into the nebulous future. A short week ago, he would have regarded being caught doing just that, by the girl's father, as a shocking catastrophe. He was, however, changing.

  "I got lipstick on you," Marigold said. "Hold still."

  Even this did not utterly dishevel him. He intended to kiss her again, at the earliest opportunity. He had tried to say that his intentions were honorable--idiotic phrase!--and he now saw that they were merely to kiss her.

  Judge Macey satisfied himself that the pineapple was not ruined. He rose-and shook hands. "Don't be embarrassed," he said. "My daughter's impulses are familiar to the whole family. She's really quite a nice girl--though headstrong. Come in and meet my wife and my son, Steve."

  This, in the professor's opinion, was both the civil and the mature way of looking at the matter.

  "I hear," the judge went on, "that you're a New Englander. So are we.

  Expatriates." No topic could have been more fortunate.

  Throughout the tea which followed, they indulged in a kind of nostalgia--a fest of place names, of recipes, and of worrying over the spread of the Dutch elm disease on New England's commons. They found mutual friends--and, as was inevitable, Esperance Perthnot, who came to America just after the Mayflower and who was a remote ancestor of the Maceys as well as of the Burkes. Naturally, they invited the professor to stay for dinner; being a New Englander, he refused politely. Naturally, both he and his hosts realized that he would accept a later invitation.

  When the professor had gone, stepping lightly into the bland dark, the judge said,

  "Marigold, I really believe you're growing up. That's a very intelligent young man."

  She regarded her father demurely, "He can neck like hell, too!" It was a boast rather than a fact.

  The judge was a New Englander, but aware of modern trends. Hence he took no umbrage. He looked his daughter steadily in the eye. "Of course he can neck like hell.

  Comes from good stock!"

  "What were you and he talking about, when you spent so long showing him your den?"

  The judge smiled. "He was asking my advice. Talking about what you called the--

  other side of his personality."

  "Was he? What'd he say?"

  "Just put a hypothetical question. Asked me what I would do if I had inside facts which led me to suspect that a certain group of men were engaged in a particularly nefarious and antisocial activity. Would I report my suspicions to the authorities? Or would I continue my observations until I confirmed them beyond doubt?"

  "And what did you advise?"

  The judge picked up the evening paper and walked to his easy chair. "It was a pretty nebulous question. I told him that I thought the 'authorities' would tend to regard the suspicions of a person like himself with a good deal of doubt--u
nless he had some very convincing evidence. After all, a professor running around to the police station talking about 'antisocial activities'. . . ! These Miami cops probably wouldn't know what he meant."

  "Isn't he exciting!"

  "I'm reading," her father answered rather plaintively. "Exciting? Burke? Sound as a rock! Nothing exciting about the man. Good chap!"

  Chapter XI

  Professor Burke sat down in the sea. It was nearly midnight. It was Christmas Eve. It was no time for a man to be wading--and now sitting--in the pitch-black ocean off the Florida Keys. The water was lukewarm over the flats, and there was no wind. The stars were glowing balefully. Near at hand loomed the underbrush on shore. Far away, in the opposite direction, a lighthouse swept its pale, impalpable arms round and round forever, encircling nothing, revealing only the endless flicker of salt sea. Insane, he thought. He should be up at Bedelia's, opening their reciprocal gifts beneath her small, electric-lighted tree.

  But the easterly had dropped that morning. The wharf would be usable. The fact was scant indication it would be used; it was, however, the only indication he had to go on. Christmas Eve might suit them.

  Behind him, up the coast of Little Tango Key, his coupe stood on one of the roads they had explored. He had parked it there with the coming of darkness. He had eaten his sandwiches and cake and drunk coffee from his thermos in solitude. Every half hour he had walked down to the waterfront and looked. It was well past eleven when the lame man--presumably--had set a gasoline lantern on the little dock.

  No one, as Bedelia had pointed out, could stand the torment of exposure in the underbrush or on the near.by water. The professor had worked out a protective device, based upon the bee-hat. He donned it--a helmet of fine screen which sat on his shoulders.

  It was painted a dull black. Fixed to it were numbers of wires covered with green paper, which Bedelia used for securing vines. Twisted in these wires were many small branches which the professor had picked before dark. He put on gloves.

  In this regalia he was able to wade down the coast line. When he was satisfied that his wading sounds might soon be distinguished from the occasional splash of a fish, he moved out to sea. The bottom--now sandy, now oozy--slippery and then weedy--

  forced him to go very slowly. He found, finally, a spot with sandy bottom some fifty yards or so beyond the yellow-green, faintly hissing, gasoline lantern. He eased himself down.

  There, his plans completed themselves. From anything but direct inspection, he was safe: above water, he looked like any clump of mangrove branches which floats in the currents around the Keys.

  The lame man had left the dock. The night was quiet. He thought of sting rays and barracudas and morays. He reminded himself not to budge if some creature bumped against him. And not to cry out under any circumstances.

  He forced his thoughts along rational channels: sting rays and morays did not attack unless disturbed--and barracuda struck seldom, under any conditions. It was much too shallow for large sharks.

  He conquered his nerves and then thought about the Coral Gables Choir, which would still be caroling wherever a candle showed in a window. No snow--nothing here to suggest Christmas. No loose tire-chains clanking against fenders in the crystalline dark.

  No icicles hanging like glass stalactites around the eaves. Just people standing around amongst rosebushes, jasmine, hibiscus--to sing "Silent Night" and "Little Town of Bethlehem."

  Small waves lapped around his portable greenery. Insects hummed indignantly outside his screen. He switched his thoughts to Marigold. Connie Maxson intruded. So he turned back to the matter of carols. Mentally, he hummed, "The First Nowell." He heard a washing, gurgling sound, out toward the open sea. Cautiously, he turned around.

  For a long time, he saw nothing. Sea--stars--the remote lighthouse. Then he heard a car on the land. Its motor whined a little. He knew its wheels were sluicing in the soft, white marl. Feet sounded on the dock. He glanced back. Men were there now--two of them. The light had been dimmed. He turned his attention toward the sluicing sound.

  And suddenly it took form--a dark, huge shape, and a white combing at the water level. He heard the muffled voices of men, grunting. The thing came steadily nearer. He began to fear it would run him down. As he considered a retreat from the path of the great, black blob, he made it out. It had wings.

  It passed him, slowly, splashingly, at a distance of a few rods. When it came between himself and the gasoline light, he could see it perfectly. A two-motored seaplane. Or amphibian. It bobbed and eddied as it was pushed toward the flimsy wharf by two men in the water. The propellers, he saw, were many bladed-and the blades were wide. They looked like the vanes of a windmill.

  Somewhere he had read about just such propellers. They were said to be very quiet. Certainly, although the plane must have landed within a half mile of where he was concealed, he had not heard it. And naturally enough, it had showed no light. Instrument landing? Perhaps. Perhaps an accurate knowledge of the area--and a glint from the lighthouse, enough to show the pilot the sea surface. A plane with quiet propellers and, doubtless, engine-mufflers. A windless night for a gentle landing--and this method of hand-taxiing across the shoals. The coastal authorities, he reflected, would not think of the possibility of pushing a plane, by wading, across a mile of flats. It was, all in all, exceedingly ingenious.

  The plane was swung around at the pier. A door opened.

  "Howdy, Chuck."

  "Hi, Solo. Six customers."

  "Well--get 'em out. These bugs. . . !"

  The professor watched the six passengers of the plane step out. They required help. He could soon see why: their hands were linked together behind their backs and they were bent forward, as if pulling against their hands.

  Handcuffs, evidently. Then the professor could make out not only the glitter of the steel, but the sash weights which were wired onto the handcuffs. The cargo was disposable. Dropped overboard--from aloft, or in the deeper water-these passengers would vanish. No incriminating evidence.

  They were rubbing their arms and hands, now. One of them sobbed, suddenly.

  "Shut up, sister!"

  Another "passenger" asked something in a low tone.

  "Naw, you damned hun! Not here. You got a long ride in a trunk compartment.

  Then you'll be in good old U.S.A. to celebrate Christmas. Only--you probably won't feel like it. Come on, guys. I'm being eaten alive!"

  It was then that something struck the professor. Forcibly. It might have been a turtle. A ray. A bonefish hurrying in the night. It might have been any of a hundred creatures. He did not cry out. But he lost his balance. He made a swimming motion with his hand to regain it. And the motion set up a sharp splash.

  The men on the dock fell silent. A strong beam from a flashlight shot over the water and began sweeping in circles. The beam found the miniature greenery and held on it.

  "Weeds," a voice said.

  "What's the matter? Spooky?"

  "Fish," said another voice.

  "Lemme look." The professor recognized it as the old man's. The light once more blinded him.

  "People been pokin' around here lately," the old man said. "Maybe it is weeds.

  Looks kind of funny. Floats high. I'll send a bullet into it."

  "Cut it out, you fool! Chuck! Johnny! Walk back in and take a squint at that bunch of weeds." They came close. One carried a boat hook. The professor heard the other murmur, "Something in it, anyhow! Look in the water--underneath! "

  "Shall I take a slam at it?"

  With an emotion like cosmic self-censure rather than fear, the professor rose to his feet. "Never mind, gentlemen. I surrender."

  The spectacle of the greenery lifting itself from the sea startled the two men. The professor thought of running. But he knew he could not run fast in water that deep. The light would be at his back. And the range would be easy. He started wading toward the little wharf.

  When he got there, the six airplane passengers were gone. The
old man and a husky-looking, well-dressed fellow with sleek, black hair were alone on the dock. Each covered him with a gun. The younger man was slapping at his face with his free hand.

  "Take that thing off!"

  The professor removed it. Light struck his eyes.

  "That," said the old man, "is the same jerk came poking around here a few days back."

  The professor's clothes dribbled. The two men from the plane, also dripping, came up beside him. The round, white stare of the flashlight was very close. "Who are you?"

  The voice was the younger one--cold, furious, afraid.

  "Martin L. Burke--University of Miami. An amateur--interested in gang methods.

  I--"

  Professor Burke heard a sound. The light danced. A hot feeling came in his cheek.

  His ear rang. He realized he had been hit--hit hard.

  "Who? A Fed? Treasury? Customs? Talk fast!"

  Professor Burke was panting, now. "I told you--"

  They hit him again. "Look in his pockets!"

  "He wouldn't be carrying anything, Solo."

  "Look anyhow."

  They looked. The professor got his breath and his grip on himself.

  "Put cuffs on him, Chuck. And drop him over--about halfway back. Whoever the hell he is!"

  Chapter XII

  The handcuffs held his arms together behind his back. The weights--twenty-five or thirty pounds of them--pulled achingly. He was left standing on the wharf while Chuck and the other pilot--Johnny, the professor thought--went up on the bank and talked with Solo for a minute. Then he was pushed up the board and into the cabin of the plane. He heard the car leave.

  They used the flashlight briefly, in order to tie him into a seat. Then they went out the door and onto the nose of the plane. He heard their splashes. Slowly, the plane turned.

  He had a glimpse through the door of the lame old man, carrying the gasoline lantern away. Then it was dark. The door shut quietly.

  For a long while, the plane moved in slow surges out across the flats. Then it rocked as the two men clambered back on board. They threw a light on him and checked the knots they had made.