Ten

Wilson watched his friend Captain José Da Silva push his way through the crowded tables of the Santos Dumont restaurant; he leaned over and poured a glass of cognac to the brim, and then carefully placed it across the table in position for ready consumption. Da Silva, arriving, removed his jacket with a profound sigh of relief, draped it over the back of his chair, and dropped into his seat. He noticed the glass before him and reached for it gratefully. Wilson frowned.

“You might at least say hello first.”

Da Silva paused with the glass halfway to his lips. “Hello.” He finished the drink, wiped his lips, and shook his head reproachfully. “And never interrupt a man in the midst of a delicate operation. I might have spilled some of it.”

“Sorry.” Wilson shook his head forlornly. “You appreciate the injustice of it all? I set up a scene expecting thanks, and end up apologizing. It happens every time.”

“But I do thank you,” Da Silva insisted. “I needed that drink.”

Wilson studied his friend a moment and then reached for the bottle. “They’re all gone?”

Da Silva nodded happily. “Every last little one. And about time. The final bunch left from Galeão about half an hour ago. After the head of their delegation made a touching speech about the hospitality of our fair country, and the beauty of our wonderful city.” He shook his head envyingly. “It must be wonderful to be a policeman in some place where diplomats don’t look for an excuse to visit. Some place like Kamchatka, for example.”

“Or Pittsburgh,” Wilson added, and grinned. “So now you can go back to taking your jacket off at lunch again.”

“Right.” Da Silva winked at him. “And about time for that, too. I was beginning to walk lopsided, and my maid complained that my jackets kept sliding off the hangers. My tailor also threatened suicide; he claimed I was frightening off custom.” He leaned back, staring out of the large windows benevolently. “What a lovely day!”

“You sound relaxed,” Wilson commented.

“Completely.”

“Then, in that case,” Wilson said slowly, “you might finally get around to clueing me in on that Dorcas case. You never did, you know. After you picked up brother Alvinor, you shut up like a clam. And this is the first time I’ve had a chance to talk to you since.”

“That’s right,” Da Silva said slowly, and looked up thoughtfully. “I keep forgetting that you people didn’t hire Sebastian, after all. Well, where do you want me to start?”

“How about at the beginning?”

“A reasonable request,” Da Silva agreed equably, and then paused to put his thoughts in order. “Well, once upon a time there were two brothers named Juan Dorcas and Alvinor Dorcas, who bore an extraordinary resemblance to each other, but who otherwise had little in common. Alvinor was used to play and fun, while brother Juan—”

Wilson raised a hand in interruption. “Let’s not go back to their nursery days. Let’s take it from within the last decade. For example, just how did you get onto brother Alvinor?”

“Through you, of course. You got onto him for me, and I thank you.” Da Silva dipped his head in an exaggerated salute of appreciation. “When you were lucky enough—” He studied the expression that had sprung to Wilson’s brow and modified his statement accordingly. “I beg your pardon. I mean, when you were astute enough to locate that ship with its first mate who was a camera-bug, I happened to notice among that first batch of terrible pictures one photograph that oddly enough reminded me of Juan Dorcas. I’ll admit it was just a faceless figure leaning over the rail, but I’ll also admit that at the time I guess I had Juan Dorcas on the brain—”

“You didn’t just have Juan Dorcas on the brain,” Wilson commented sourly. “You also had the C.I.A. on the brain. Or off the brain, rather.”

Da Silva nodded brightly. “True.” His heavy eyebrows cocked quizzically. “Do you want to hear how I brilliantly solved this case, or do you want to waste your time—plus our entire lunch hour—angling for apologies?”

“Both,” Wilson said firmly.

“Well, in that case we’ll take my brilliance first. As I was saying, I thought it rather strange that Dorcas would travel on the same boat as a known killer—in fact, I thought it strange he’d travel on a freighter at all. And I thought it even more strange that I should get an anonymous letter from Salvador de Bahia—where this ship docked about the time the letter was posted—advising us that Dorcas would be killed.”

“Letter? What letter?” Wilson was frowning across the table. “You never told me anything about a letter.”

Da Silva shrugged delicately. “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. The letter sort of hinted that your Government would be the ones most interested in the—ah, the removal—of Juan Dorcas, and knowing how inordinately touchy you had become on the subject …” He smiled and lifted his shoulders. “In any event, it suddenly occurred to me that possibly you might be telling the truth.”

“Possibly!”

“Probably, then,” Da Silva conceded. “When I was learning English, I was taught never to argue about an adverb. Anyway, I sent the letter and the photograph down to an old friend of mine in Montevideo and asked him to do some checking of handwriting in Buenos Aires, and he confirmed what had only been a wild hunch—”

“A hunch you had to fall back on because you hadn’t been able to think of anything else.”

“Exactly!” Da Silva made it sound as if he had just been complimented and appreciated it. “And I was right. The handwriting was that of brother Alvinor Dorcas. The picture, of course, was also of him, although I will freely admit it could have been of any short, faceless man. Even you.” His hand went out for the bottle of cognac.

Wilson reached it first, poured himself a drink, and then proceeded to fill his companion’s glass. “And Sebastian?”

“You brought us that,” Da Silva said. “Among other things, his traveling to both Argentina and Portugal and then returning to Rio made it sound very much as if he was our boy. And also,” he added honestly, “we didn’t have the time to follow through on any other suspects. Not that we had any others.…”

Wilson frowned at his glass of cognac thoughtfully. “This Alvinor went to a lot of trouble, though. Hiring Sebastian so many months early, and taking the same boat just to see that Mendes actually got off in Rio.…”

“We don’t know that that was his only reason. He preferred to be out of sight somewhere, and the boat was as good a place as any. And it also gave him a chance to post that letter in Salvador.” He shrugged. “As to the trouble, it would have been worth it to him—or to anyone else in that position. After all, an assassination at the O.A.S. meeting would have been a perfect cover for a private killing, especially of a man as controversial as Juan Dorcas. So naturally he was forced to wait for the meeting to be held. And you want to remember he was playing for extremely high stakes. If it had worked, he would have been a very wealthy man.”

Wilson nodded. “If he hadn’t written that letter—”

“He wrote the letter as a clincher; as insurance. He didn’t want me—or us, rather—led astray by anything as ridiculous as the truth.” Da Silva shrugged. “I think even without it we’d have come up with the right answer in time. Especially the way you kept nagging me.”

“Maybe,” Wilson said. “And maybe not. If I hadn’t been lucky enough—” He suddenly grinned. “Or, rather, astute enough—to be a trustee of Stranger’s Hospital; or if Les Weldon hadn’t been playing golf that morning and Dona Ilesia had gotten hold of him first with her story of the missing patient, then brother Alvinor might well have gotten away with it, because we’d never have gotten onto Mendes.”

“He might still have had his troubles,” Da Silva pointed out. “Because I would have still insisted on Juan Dorcas wearing that bullet-proof vest. Though I will admit having proof that a known assassin was gunning for him helped me to insist.” He shook his head. “You’d think that after three previous attempts on his life he’d listen to reason, but I had to practically threaten him to get him to wear it.” He suddenly grinned impishly. “I have a feeling he feels the way I do about clothes. A bullet-proof vest under a morning coat is bound to bunch up and wrinkle. And it must have been uncomfortable in the heat.”

“Except that it saved his life.”

“But only at the expense of a ruined shirtfront.” Da Silva’s smile disappeared; his eyes came up thoughtfully. “You know, when he was told it was his brother who tried to have him assassinated, he insisted on his government instituting extradition proceedings immediately, to transfer dear Alvinor out of our hands.”

Wilson stared at him. “And you’re going to let them have him? You’re going to let him get away?”

Da Silva nodded slowly. “I think so. Of course it isn’t in my department to say yes or no, but I’m definitely in favor.”

“But why?”

“You see,” Da Silva said slowly, “neither Brazil nor Argentina has a penalty for his crime that is either excessive or even equitable. The maximum here is thirty-three years, no matter how grave the crime, and nobody I know of has ever served more than half of this. But”—his dark eyes came up, expressionless—“I have a feeling that once Alvinor is in his big brother’s backyard …”

Wilson nodded in sudden understanding. “Then you think his punishment may be more severe, is that it?”

“More certain, anyway,” Da Silva said, and turned in his chair, searching for a waiter. He frowned. “Where the devil is everybody today?” He turned back. “Wilson, why don’t you be a good fellow and go over to the maître d’ and get us a waiter?”

Wilson stared at him. “You’re marvelous! You manage to avoid an apology you still owe me, you completely overlook the fact that everything you had to help you in this case came from me and my efforts, you forget that once I was an associate, and then I was reduced to a suspect—and now I’ve come all the way down to being a servant.” He shook his head. “What is this?”

Da Silva grinned at him. “Do you remember not so very long ago I asked you why the United States didn’t send us more Wilsons, and you accused me of not knowing what to do with the Wilsons we had?”

“I do.”

“Well, then,” Da Silva said, spreading his hands in explanation, “I’m merely trying to find a use for the Wilsons we have.…”

The smaller man from the American Embassy stared across the table a moment, and then his face broke into a wide smile. “I knew if I waited long enough I’d get that apology,” he said, and rose to his feet to get a waiter.…