I'll Get You For This

  Clairbold was a young blond man in a brown suit and a cocoa-coloured straw hat with a brown and blue tropical band. He followed Tim into the sitting-room, and looked at me the way a morbid sightseer looks at a messy street accident.

  I eyed him over. He was very young. His face was pink and plump, and the blond beard on his chin was carelessly shaved. His eyes were inquisitive and a little scared. His teeth projected, giving him a look of a young, amiable rabbit. He didn't look a shamus; that, of course, was in his favour.

  "Park your fanny," I said, waving to a chair, "and have a drink."

  He edged into the chair as if it was a bear-trap. Then he took off his hat, held it on his knees. His blond hair was slicked down, parted in the middle.

  "How do you like working for me ?" I asked, pushing the bottle of Scotch and a glass towards him.

  "I like it fine, Mr. Cain," he said nervously; shook his head at the bottle. "No, thank you. I don't use it."

  "You mean you don't drink?"

  "Not in my profession," he returned seriously. "Alcohol dulls one's powers of observation."

  I nodded gravely. "So it does," I said. "How long have you been in this racket ?"

  "You mean how long have I been a private investigator?" he asked, blushing. "Well, not long." He looked at me earnestly. "As a matter of fact, Mr. Cain, I—this is my first big job."

  "Well, you're doing fine," I said. "It doesn't worry you to work for me ?" I grinned to soften the blow, added, "I'm wanted for three murders."

  He stared at his hat, twisted it, put it on the table. "My view of the matter, Mr. Cain, is you've been unjustly accused by an unscrupulous person," he said.

  I blinked. "You really think that?" I said, glancing at Tim whose mouth had fallen open.

  "Oh yes," Clairbold said. "I've studied the facts very closely. You see, i have my reputation to consider. It wouldn't do for me to work for anyone guilty of murder. I have satisfied myself that you are an innocent party to the murders."

  "Pity there aren't more like you around," I said. "Well, you have something to tell me, haven't you?"

  "Yes. I have a full report here," he said, drawing a sheaf of papers from his pocket.

  I hurriedly waved them away. "Just tell me," I said. "Reading isn't my strong suit."

  He squared his shoulders and fixing his eyes on the wall behind my head, he said, "At ninethirty p.m. this evening, I received instructions from Mr. Davis to shadow Juan Gomez, a jai alai player, suspected of running Cuban nationals between this coast and Havana."

  I ran my fingers through my hair, looked at Tim, shook my head.

  Clairbold went straight on. "I took up a convenient position where I could observe Gomez without being seen. He was playing on the jai alai court at the time. At the end of the game, I waited in my car at the players' entrance. Gomez eventually appeared with a red-headed woman I identified as Lois Spence. They drove away in a Cadillac." He paused to look at his report.

  "Never mind the licence number," I said, guessing what he was looking for. "Where did they go?"

  He put his report away regretfully. "They took the coast road, and I had no difficulty in following them. The traffic was heavy and I kept two cars behind them. Three miles beyond Dayden Beach there's a branch road that goes down to the sea. They took this road, and I thought it unwise to follow. My headlights would have revealed my presence. I left my car and followed on foot. At the end of the road I found the Cadillac had been parked, and I observed Gomez and Miss Spence walking along the beach in an easterly direction. There was no cover, and it was impossible to go after them without being seen. Fortunately, they did not go far, and I was able to watch them from behind the Cadillac. They waited for several minutes, then a boat, out at sea, began signalling. Gomez returned the signals with a flash-light, and the boat came in. She was a thirty-footer, painted dark green. She wasn't equipped with outriggers and had no mast. One of the windshields on the pilot house was broken." He cleared his throat, holding his hand before his mouth. "I then observed a concrete ramp, cleverly concealed in the sand, had been built out to sea, allowing the boat to come practically up to the beach. The boat tied up to the ramp. Gomez and Miss Spence went aboard." He paused here, blushed slightly. "My instructions were to find out where the boat was going to. From where I was it was impossible to hear anything. I decided to crawl to the boat, although the risk of detection was considerable. However, I succeeded."

  I stared at him, imagining him crawling over the white moonlit sand towards a bunch of cutthroats who'd've rubbed him out without a thought. My estimation of him went up sharply.

  "That was a nervy thing to have done," I said, and meant it.