Goodbye California - Alistair [43]
‘Go down to the corner there,’ Ryder said. ‘Hide in the bushes. I’ll get as close as I can to that lounge. When I wave my arm attract his attention.’
They took up position, Jeff among the rose bushes, Ryder, on the other side of the pool, in the dark shadow between two yew trees. (The Californians, unlike Europeans, do not relegate their yews and cypresses to graveyards.) Jeff made a loud moaning sound. Donahure stopped his pacing, listened, went to the opening between the sliding glass doors and listened again. Jeff repeated the sound. Donahure slipped off his shoes and padded silently across the tiles, a gun in his hand. He had taken only five steps when the butt of the Smith & Wesson caught him behind the right ear.
They used a pair of Donahure’s own handcuffs to secure him to the standpipe of a radiator, Scotch Tape from his desk to gag him and a table runner to blindfold him.
Ryder said: ‘The main entrance will be at the back. Go down to the bungalow and check that the houseboy and his wife are still there. When you return lock it, and if anyone rings don’t answer. Lock every door and window in the house. Pull the curtains here then start on that desk. I’ll be in his bedroom. If there’s anything to be found it will be in one of those two rooms.’
‘Still don’t know what we’re looking for?’
‘No. Something that would make you lift an eyebrow if you saw it in your house or mine.’ He looked around the room. ‘No sign of a safe – and you can’t have secret wall-safes in a wooden house.’
‘If I had as much on my conscience as you say he has I wouldn’t have anything in the house. I’d have it in a bank safe-deposit. Well, at least you’ve got the satisfaction of knowing that he’ll have a headache when he wakes.’ Jeff thought. ‘He could have a study or office or den – lots of these houses do.’
Ryder nodded and left. There was no such study. The first bedroom he came to was plainly unoccupied. The second bedroom was Donahure’s. Ryder used a pencil flash, established that the curtains of both windows were open, closed them and switched on overhead and bedside lights.
The immaculate room clearly reflected the efficient tidiness of the houseboy’s wife, a tidiness that made Ryder’s task that much easier. Ryder was painstaking, methodical, took all of fifteen minutes for his search and found nothing, for there was nothing to find. For all that, he made an interesting discovery. One wall cupboard was given over to a positive armoury of weapons – revolvers, automatics, shotguns and rifles with a copious supply of ammunition to match. There was nothing sinister in this: many American gun buffs had their own private armouries, frequently setting aside an entire gun-room to display them. But two particular weapons caught his attention – peculiarly-shaped light-weight rifles of a type not to be found in any gun store in America. Ryder took them both and a box of matching ammunition then, for good measure, pocketed three of the splendid collection of handcuffs that Donahure had hanging from hooks on the side. All those items he laid on the bed while he went to examine the bathroom. There was nothing there that there shouldn’t have been. He picked up his newly acquired possessions from the bed and rejoined Jeff.
Donahure, chin slumped on his chest, appeared to be asleep. With the rifle barrel Ryder prodded him far from gently in the region of his expansive solar plexus. He was asleep. Jeff was sitting by the desk looking down into an opened drawer. Ryder said: ‘Anything?’
‘Yes.’ Jeff looked pleased with himself. ‘I’m a slow starter but when I get going –’
‘What do you mean, a slow starter?’
‘Desk was locked. Took me some time to find the key – it was at the bottom of Fatso’s holster.’ Jeff deposited a bundle of currency notes on the table. They were in eight separate lots, each secured with an elastic band.
‘Hundreds of bills, all small denominations, looks like. What’s Donahure doing with hundreds of bills?