The Diving Dames Affair - Leslie Peter (читать книги онлайн без сокращений .TXT) 📗

"Regrettably - most regrettably - there seems to have been somebody with an interest in seeing that they never did recover consciousness," the policeman supplied.

"Do you mean that they were killed? Murdered?"

"Unfortunately. We might very well have accepted that they had succumbed to their injuries, were it not for the fact that the intruder left open a window that should have been closed. But once we were suspicious, we were able to ask the post-mortem doctor to - how do you say? - keep the open eye. He found that, beyond all doubt, they had been killed by that simplest of all methods: the air bubble injected straight into a vein by a hypodermic syringe..."

---

"I have no wish to be obtrusive, Captain," Solo said later in Garcia's office, "and as a lawyer, of course, I have no right at all to question you - but as a matter of interest, do you have any idea why these girls were killed, or who killed them?"

"None, Mr. Williams. At the same time - purely as a matter of interest, of course - I am curious to know how these ladies managed to instruct an attorney to come all the way from New York to represent them, when in fact they had never recovered consciousness after the accident. An accident they presumably never knew had occurred."

Solo smiled. "I confess my Portuguese at fault in expressing myself poorly," he lied easily. "I said delegated to represent them. I am not of course instructed by victims. That would, as you say, have been impossible. I was asked to come by the organization to which they falsely claimed to belong, the D.A.M.E.S. The directors naturally wish to know why they are being thus misrepresented I had hoped to find out for them by questioning the ladies."

"Ah. You were to hold what is called, I believe, a watching brief?"

"Exactly. Any information you are permitted to give me will therefore be of the greatest assistance."

"There is very little," Garcia said wearily. "The car was rented on behalf of the organization and they gave, at the time, no names. It was paid for in advance and the papers and indemnities they produced seemed to be in order."

"Was the accident itself... engineered?"

"We think not. At the time there were no direct witnesses - only passersby on the lower road who saw the car tumble down the slope. But after putting out a radio message, we pulled in a truck driver who seems to have been the unwitting cause of the affair. He had taken the wrong road and was making an illegal turn just before a sharp bend. The sports car hit the wall and went over in attempting to avoid him."

"'He did not come forward at the time?"

"No. He drove away because he was frightened he would be blamed."

"I see. Then it looks very much as though… You have not found out where the women were based? Where they came from?"

"Not yet, senhor. It is a big country with many states. We shall find out."

"Of course. It looks, then, as though they may have been killed to delay that investigation?

"Yes," Garcia said with a sigh. "I suppose it does."

---

Solo found the site of the accident without any trouble. He had not liked to ask the policeman any further details: as a lawyer, he could have no possible interest in viewing the place. But from local newspaper reports, he was able to identify the highway - and once there, the evidence was all too plain. The brushwood was still scarred and flattened where the breakdown cranes had penetrated to haul away the wrecked car. Above, a trail of stones fanned out from the breached wall of the side road curving up around the flank of the mountain.

The agent took the minor road and left his car a hundred yards below the hairpin. There was nothing to see, really - just the broken parapet and the remains of chalk marks made by the police investigators on the scorching macadam. Nearer the corner, where the foliage on the mountainside shimmered in the heat haze rising from the road, four black skid marks angled across the surface. The car had obviously been out of alignment, going partially sideways, when the driver braked. She must have taken the bend too fast, seen the truck, clamped on the anchors when she had already lost the back end, and then released them and tried to get through, Solo thought to himself.

He walked around the curve and crouched down to the height the driver of a sports car would have been.

As he had thought, the road beyond the hairpin was invisible.

There was not much traffic. An ancient bus full of Negro women in bright headscarves rattled down to wards the main road in low gear; a tan Chevrolet hissed past on its way up into the mountains. He walked slowly back to his car, fanning his face with a newspaper. By the Buick, an old man with a wide-brimmed straw hat and a blanket over one shoulder had halted his mule. Solo gave him good-day politely.

"Good day, senhor," the old man replied. "And a good route to you. It is a good day for those who travel prudently. But no day is good for those who would arrive before their time... the yanqui ladies whose haste brought them only to the disaster you have been investigating, for example."

"You saw the accident?"

"Naturally. I am always on this road at this time."

"But... you did not come forward in answer to the police radio message?"

"The senhor will forgive me - but he is perhaps of the police himself?"

"No, no. My name is Williams; I am an attorney. I am trying to find out what caused the accident. I represent the ladies."

"So. A lawyer. Miguel Oliveira at your service," the old man said courteously, holding out a seamed hand. "As to the matter of the police, when you reach my age you learn that is wisest to avoid any unnecessary contact with them. I have seen many different police forces – and today's friend may be tomorrow's enemy. Also I do not possess a radio."

"But you did see the accident," Solo said, shaking the hand. "Can you advance any… Why do you think it happened?"

"They were going too fast. There was a truck. But then they always went too fast. Man is not intended for such speeds."

"Always? You had seen the girls before?"

"Many times, senhor. In different cars. Perhaps three times each month, perhaps five. They could not have been here more often for they lived so far away."

"You know where they came from?" Solo asked in astonishment.

"Si, senhor. From far, from very far away, as I have said."

"Do you know what place, what town?"

"That I cannot tell you. But it was very far. Many hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles. Beyond the mountains, across the plain, beyond the great forests, beyond Belo Horizonte, beyond Goiania, somewhere in the hills of the interior before the great new city that men say rises like white towers into the sky."

"You mean Brasilia?"

"I believe that is what it is called," Miguel Oliveira admitted graciously.

"But… but... how in the world - you will forgive me, senhor? - how can you know this?"

"Simply," the old man said. He extended an arm up towards the tree-covered crests piercing the aching blue of the sky. On the road somewhere above, an automobile windshield flashed fiercely in the sun. "Below the pass, Pedro Gonzales keeps a small shack where he sells trinkets and refreshing drinks to the tourists who stop to admire the view. Each day, I pause to bid him good day and to drink a little wine with him. On two occasions, I have heard the American women make a telephone call from there. They also drink there - and I understand some American, although I do not speak it very well."