"Come along."
At least, the sand was thick underfoot, and therefore soft to her bare
feet, as Margo walked to the old office building, Nayre keeping close beside
her. There, Nayre knocked, and the door was opened by a dull-faced man who held
a lantern. Nayre didn't introduce himself. He merely questioned:
"Where's Brady?"
"Over at his cottage," the man drawled sleepily. "Want me to get him?"
"Yes. Hurry."
Hanging the lantern on a beam, the dull-faced man took a dim flashlight in
its place and departed. Margo could scarcely see the flashlight's beam in the
moonlight. She was watching the man walk over toward the beach, when Nayre's
revolver supplied another reminder. Again, his order was brief:
"Come inside."
The room they entered was an office, as Margo expected. Nayre motioned her
to a cushioned chair, the only one of its sort, and sat down on the desk.
Pocketing the revolver, Nayre eyed Margo quite steadily.
"If you don't know who I am," he said, "my name is Colin Nayre. I came in
with the bunch from Centralba."
Margo nodded. Nayre quizzed:
"And your name?"
Margo gave it; wherewith, Nayre furnished a reassuring smile.
"Sorry I had to inconvenience you, Miss Lane," he declared, "but I was in
a big hurry. There was a lot of shooting going on, and the police seemed to
think that I'd taken a hand on the wrong side."
"Which side was that?" queried Margo. "I really don't know very much about
it."
"Let me explain what happened," suggested Nayre. "A crowd of crooks showed
up and grabbed the cash that we'd brought in from Centralba."
"And you sided with your friends, of course."
"Yes, with my friends." Nayre's clear eyes took a meditative expression.
"If you can call them such. Anyway, they're all dead, Jose Durez and his
friends. I suppose I'll come in for blame, because they lost their cash before
they died."
QUITE apparently, Nayre was watching for Margo's reaction. Inwardly, she
was rather shocked to learn that murder had been accomplished. However, Margo
was able to feign indifference.
She asked Nayre if he had a cigarette, remarking that she'd left her own
in a pocket of her bathing robe. Nayre produced cigarettes, gave Margo one, and
took another for himself.
"You've heard about this Centralba business," said Nayre dryly, "or you
wouldn't take it so indifferently. Tell me: does it strike you oddly?"
Margo nodded. She admitted that she couldn't understand why a dictator
like Luis Castenago had allowed an opponent of Jose Durez's caliber to go free,
with his friends, and take along the profits from their previous concession. Her
stress of the word "friends" caught Nayre's attention.
"I suppose you're wondering why I was tied up with Durez and his crowd,"
remarked Nayre. "The answer is simple: I wasn't. To answer another question
that may be in your mind, I'm not a double-crosser, and never was."
