Three and One Make Five (19 page)

Massier stumbled to his feet and went across to pour himself out a second and much larger drink.

‘You waited three years before you decided it was the right time to move. That must have seemed a very long three years as you watched the other four all spending furiously. But at least you’d managed to persuade them that it would be the height of folly to sell all the jewels and plate at once, so there’d been no general distribution and the bulk of the treasure—now worth God knows how many times more than it had been when it went to the bottom of the sea—was intact so that you knew that when you’d murdered everyone else there’d still be a fortune waiting for you.

‘This year, you started. You murdered Clarke, Allen Short, and Marsh. And when you murdered Marsh by getting him drunk and then pushing him out of the window, you believed you’d finally secured everything for yourself . . . Where are the jewels and gold plate?’

Massier, who’d remained standing by the table, drained his glass and then refilled it with shaking hands. He drank greedily.

‘Where are they?’

‘I don’t know anything,’ he croaked.

‘Are they on this island?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Alvarez sighed. ‘Sit down.’

Moving like a sleepwalker, Massier returned to his chair.

‘When did you first come to this island?’

‘About . . . eight years ago.’

‘Did you come here to live?’

He shook his head.

‘What then?’

‘Just for the summer, to teach diving.’

‘What happened in the winter?’

‘I returned to France.’

‘Are you married?’

He hesitated, then nodded.

‘Where’s your wife now?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘When did she leave you?’

‘Five years ago.’

‘Was she fed up with your beachcombing way of life?’

He didn’t answer.

‘Whereabouts did you live in France?’

‘In Paris.’

‘Did you own the place you lived in?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I . . . couldn’t afford to.’

‘D’you own this house?’

‘Yes.’

‘How much did it cost to buy and restore?’

Incredibly, he had failed to realize where the previous questions had been leading. He stared at Alvarez, even more frightened than before.

‘Fifty million would be a conservative estimate, wouldn’t it? Where did that sort of money come from? And where does the money come from to run the house and employ Josephina and the gardener?’

‘I . . . I won it.’

‘On what?’

‘The lottery.’

‘When?’

‘Three years ago.’

‘How many millions did you win?’

‘I . . . I don’t remember exactly.’

‘I’d have thought that that sort of memory would accompany one to the grave. But it must have been a lot more than fifty million. At which bank did you encash the ticket?’

He realized that to give any answer would be merely to make it that much more easy to prove he was lying.

‘Where were you on Friday, the twenty-third of last month?’

‘Why d’you ask?’

‘It’s when señor James Marsh was murdered in the village of Pelonette, near Nice.’

‘I haven’t left the island in months.’

‘Can you prove that?’

‘Ask Josephina.’

‘Does she work here over the weekends?’

He shook his head.

‘So she can never vouch for you on a Saturday or Sunday . . . You flew to Nice on Friday night, after she’d finished here, and you returned some time Saturday. Passports ire seldom stamped at borders these days, so you thought you were safe.’

‘I swear to God I haven’t left the island in months.’

‘You hold God that lightly?’

‘Then ask . . . ask Marion.’

‘Who?’

His expression crumpled.

‘Who’s Marion?’

‘She . . . she used to live here.’

‘When did she leave?’

‘Nine days ago,’ he said in a whisper.

‘Why did she leave? Because she’d begun to suspect the truth about your visit to France?’

‘No.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘I . . . I don’t know.’

Alvarez finished his drink, then stood. ‘I want your passport.’

Massier looked up, his expression pleading. ‘If I . . .’ he swallowed heavily.

‘Well?’

‘The jewels and gold . . . What happens to them?’

‘When they are positively identified? They’ll be returned to their legal owner, the Marques de Orlocas’s daughter.’

‘Couldn’t . . .’ He stopped. His expression changed. ‘I don’t know anything about them,’ he said vehemently.

‘Your passport, please. And you will make no attempt to leave this island until further inquiries have been carried out.’

Massier came to his feet and then stumbled out of the room.

Dolores had just poured out a second bowlful of cocoa for Alvarez when the phone rang. She showed no inclination to go and answer the call so he regretfully came to his feet and went through.

One of the guards at the post said: ‘There’s a message come in for you from señora Josephina Zimmerman. She says she’s just arrived at señor Massier s house and he’s shot himself and what’s she to do?’

‘Is he dead?’

‘She says he must have been dead for some hours.’

In this heat, Alvarez thought grimly, the ravages of death soon became very apparent. It had not happened in his department, yet it was his case and there could be no doubt that Salas (to whom it must be reported) would direct him to carry out the investigation. ‘Look, do me a favour, will you? Get on to the police doctor for the Treller department and ask him . . .’

‘Sorry, mate, I’ve too much to do as it is,’ said the guard, before replacing the receiver.

Alvarez swore, thought, then returned to the kitchen. ‘I’ve got to get moving right away.’

‘You’re not going anywhere until you’ve finished the cocoa and ensaimada,’ corrected Dolores. ‘Not when I took all the trouble to go out early to the baker to get the ensaimada for you . . . Anyway, what’s happened?’

‘A man’s committed suicide. Thankfully.’

‘Thankfully?’ she repeated, shocked.

‘Now, everything’s over and done with.’ He sat on a stool at the small kitchen table.

‘But suicide, Enrique?’

‘There are times when I really can’t see it as a sin, whatever the priests say. If it’s kinder to everyone, including himself, how can it be so wrong?’

She shook her head. There were times when she completely failed to understand him.

He unwound part of the ensaimada and dunked it in the cocoa, then ate. Just over three years ago, there had been five men whose lives had been very ordinary. Then a sixth man, a tragic fool, had shown them a vision of riches beyond their wildest dreams and because men always longed for what they normally could only dream about, they’d pursued those riches without any thought to the cost. The cost had proved to be tragically high. Four murders and a suicide . . .

Massier lay on the floor of the small room, beyond the sitting-room, which Josephina referred to as the library, even though there were no shelves of books, but only a few paperbacks in a metal-framed bookcase.

The gun was a 9mm Lebel automatic and he’d put the muzzle against his right temple and pulled the trigger. There was a thin ring around the entry wound, due to pressure of the soiled muzzle, the skin was split and scorched, and the muzzle area alone was speckled with particles of partly burned powder. He’d been sitting on a chair behind the desk and at the moment of death an involuntary movement had thrown him off this on to the ground. His right arm was outstretched, his left was by his side: the automatic lay between his body and his right arm. The ejected cartridge case was three metres away. There was surprisingly little blood. His eyes were partially open and his lips were parted to show his upper teeth. Already, flies were bothering his corpse.

Alvarez crossed to the single window and looked out The beauty of the enclosed valley, surrounded by mountains, increased the ugliness of the death behind him Why, he wondered bitterly, did man forever destroy . .

He left the library and went through to the sitting room, where he found Josephina. ‘The doctor should be here soon and then the body can be moved . . . D’you know if there’s a safe in the house?’

She nodded. ‘There’s one in the library: behind one of the paintings on the wall.’ She hesitated, then said worriedly: ‘I know only about it because I went in there one day and he’d left it open.’

He said easily: ‘D’you think I could imagine there’d be any other reason?’

She was relieved and grateful for this implicit testimony to her honesty.

He returned to the library. There were three coloured prints of roses hanging on the walls and the last one he checked proved to be concealing the safe. As had happened not long before in the case, he searched for the key and this time found it almost immediately, in the top right-hand drawer of the desk. He opened the safe, which was much larger than the size of the door suggested. There were a few pieces of personal jewellery—cuff-links, tiepins, and dress studs—some papers which included the escrituras of house and land, and nearly five hundred thousand pesetas and six thousand Swiss francs in notes. But no collection of stolen jewellery and gold plate.

He relocked the safe and replaced the key in the desk drawer. Massier must surely have recovered the four shares of the men he’d murdered, so where was this fortune? Was there so much that it wouldn’t fit into the safe? But even the most valuable jewellery would pack into a relatively small space and surely there wouldn’t have been so much gold plate that it would have overflowed this large safe? And even if this was wrong and there had been that much, wouldn’t he have kept the jewellery in the safe, as being the more valuable, and the gold somewhere else?

Josephina was in the kitchen. ‘If the Señor had something valuable,’ he asked, ‘but he didn’t want it in the safe, can you think where he might have kept it?’

The question clearly bewildered her.

‘What about one of the outbuildings?’ he suggested.

‘He used the first one for a garage and there’s some wood and tools in the second one, otherwise they’re empty.’

‘How much land did he own?’

‘Just the garden. When he bought the house he was offered the farmland as well, but he said he didn’t want it.’

The house and the outbuildings would have to be searched from top to bottom: the garden would have to be checked with a metal detector and, if necessary, dug over: the banks would have to be asked about safe-deposits . . .

She interrupted his thoughts. ‘What’s the best thing for me to do now?’

‘I’d say you might as well pack up and go home. That is, after you’ve told me where you live in case I need some more help.’

Til do that, then. I suppose . . . I suppose it’s happened because of you coming here yesterday?’

Tm afraid so.’

‘What was the trouble?’

‘He’d been mixed up in something nasty.’

‘I’d never have thought it of him. You just can’t tell these days, can you?’

She gave him her address, then began to leave but stopped at the door and turned back. ‘What’s to happen about the dog?’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Well, feeding it.’

‘I hadn’t thought about that . . . Can you come in each day until I can find out exactly what’s what? Can’t say I’d like the idea of trying to cope with it.’

‘He’s all right if he knows you.’

‘That’s just as well or from the looks of him you wouldn’t have got very far past the gates this morning.’

‘There’d have been no trouble. He was still chained up. The sen or must have forgotten to turn him loose. Wasn’t thinking straight, knowing what he was going to do.’

What thoughts did go through a man’s mind when he knew he was going to kill himself? Alvarez wondered.

Alvarez telephoned Palma at 9.17 that evening.

‘Have you checked the garden?’ demanded Salas.

‘Yes, señor. We used a metal detector and had several responses, but none of them proved significant. The gardener says it would be impossible for anything of any size to be buried anywhere in the garden without his knowing.’

‘I don’t suppose you’ve thought to check with the banks if he’s deposited the stuff in one of their strong-rooms?’

‘Indeed, yes.’

‘You have!’

‘He hasn’t made such a deposit.’

‘Then it has to be hidden somewhere about the house or the outbuildings and you’ve failed to find it.’

‘I’ve had five men searching every nook and cranny. I’ll swear it’s not anywhere around.’

‘Then that just leaves somewhere abroad.’

‘Yes, señor. I think that originally they took everything abroad so there could never be the possibility of their recovery of the fortune coming to light by accident. Since then, they’ve just been encashing what they immediately needed.’

‘Then it’ll be deposited somewhere totally secure, probably a bank’s strong-room. Among Massier’s papers there must be a receipt for the deposit.’

‘There isn’t.’

‘Check again, more thoroughly.’

‘I assure you, señor, if there were such a receipt, I would have found it. And if you remember, we’ve not come across such a receipt with any of the other dead men.’

‘Then exactly how d’you propose to locate the jewellery and gold?’

‘At the moment,’ he confessed, ‘I’ve no idea.’

‘You do realize, do you, that until they are returned to the daughter of the Marques de Orlocas, the case cannot be considered closed?’

‘I suppose it can’t.’

‘There’s no suppose about it. You’d better start thinking and find out where it is.’

Alvarez sighed. Just for once, Salas might have been generous enough to have credited him with successfully solving a case.

The next morning Alvarez left the guardia post at 12.47 and drove home, taking a short cut up a one-way street, travelling the wrong way. His mind was fixed on the question which had been exercising it so bitterly. The jewellery and gold plate were not hidden in Massier’s house, outbuildings, or garden, and they hadn’t been deposited in any bank in Spain. So they must be hidden abroad. Where abroad? There were no leads left to follow and the last man who’d known the truth had shot himself. . .