The Seventh Sinner - Elizabeth Peters [77]
Di Cavallo was on his feet; the others followed suit, even the girls. The occasion seemed to demand something, but no one knew exactly what to say. It was José who found the words.
“Be of good cheer,” he said, his dark eyes intent on the older woman’s face. “No man is immortal.”
The ancient pagan epitaph should have sounded strange from him, as he stood straight and tall in the dark robe of the militant Christian order, but it seemed to strike the right note. Jacqueline’s sober face relaxed into a smile.
“Good-bye,” she said.
Di Cavallo followed her as she walked swiftly to the car. He opened the door for her, and closed it; then, with one sweep of his long legs, he got into the driver’s seat and started the engine. It was not until the car had pulled away, with a triumphant roar of the exhaust, that the abandoned watchers fully grasped what had happened. Jean looked from one blank face to the next. Dana’s expression put the final touch on the situation. Jean burst into shouts of laughter.
“Outfought and outmaneuvered,” she gasped. “Sorry, Dana; I can’t help it.”
“I wonder where they are going,” Ted said.
“None of our business. Do you realize how little we know about that lady? Did she ever mention a husband?”
“If she did, this is not the time to bring it up,” José said.
Dana’s face was still a study. Finally her mouth relaxed into a grudging smile.
“That son of a gun,” she said, using a more explicit term. “He’s been rushing me like crazy the last few days. And all he wanted was an excuse to be on the spot at the right moment.”
“Maybe he was protecting you,” Michael said coolly. “Didn’t you ever think you might be in danger?”
Dana paled.
“You’re trying to scare me.”
“I’ve been thinking some more,” Michael said pensively. “Everybody, including Andy, thought Jean was his big danger. I’m not so sure. The fuzz aren’t Latinists, and they have those nice simple minds like Jake keeps bragging about; so they would have been on the track, probably, if they had ever seen the seven written out. Di Cavallo must have known the official names, since he checked us out with the Embassy and all that. But I don’t see how he could have proved anything. That’s why they had to stage that sticky little drama last night. Without a confession—”
“All right, all right,” Dana said impatiently. “What about me?”
“The seven clue was useless without the motive,” Michael went on, maddeningly deliberate. “So long as Albert was considered a crackpot there was no way of nailing Andy for the murder. Which reminds me—there’s a question nobody asked. At some point Andy substituted his crazy composition for Albert’s real notes. But the big question is—how could he steal the material and risk leaving Albert on the loose? He must have known the guy would complain.”
Dana, still morosely wrestling with the unpalatable possibility Michael had presented, was silent. It was Ted who asked meekly,
“All right, Holmes. How?”
“I’m not even Watson,” Michael said. “But Jake and I were talking about it on the way up here. We’ll never know for sure, unless Andy…But Jake thinks Andy tried to knock Albert out earlier—left him a drink loaded with dope or something. Obviously it didn’t work. But the technique is typical of Andy; he tried the indirect method at first, with Jean, before he closed in on her.”
Dana took a deep breath.
“What about me?” she cried. “You said—”
“I’m getting to that. Now, as I said, it was unlikely that di Cavallo would ever figure out the motive. He isn’t a scholar, and he accepted our evaluation of Albert. But there were two people who knew enough about Albert’s subject to be able to spot the value of his work—you, Dana, and Ted. Ted is an Israeli, and a male—on both counts not the kind of audience Albert would seek out. You, on the other hand