“Then listen carefully, Mr. Cain. I understand that Mr. Wentworth is still alive, in spite of the recent attempt on his life. I understand you’ve been talking with him, and I want to know just what he told you. I want to know now, and at any price. So, whatever your price is, I’m prepared to pay it. If you were quoted correctly, your price is merely conversation, is that correct?”
“The answer to a few questions. Where are you?”
“Bonelli will tell you that.” He sounded amused. He said: “Come here now, and we’ll talk. I won’t ask you to come alone, because I do not really think you’d do that. Bring Wentworth with you, all right?”
I covered the mouthpiece with my hand and asked Bonelli: “He’s at your house? With Markle Hyde?”
He said urgently: “Yes, but you can’t go there.”
I said: “I’ll come without him, Ming Sin-san. Quite alone. I’ll send him to you after we’ve talked, if I think that’s a good idea.”
I could hear the chuckle at the other end. “All right, I suppose that’s fair enough. Will you come now?”
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.” I put the phone down and said to Bonelli: “Will you go just a little further with me?”
He said stubbornly: “Ming doesn’t want Wentworth, Cain. He wants you. You’re not safe on the streets, so how do you think you’ll manage face to face with him in a private house?”
I must confess that the prospect was not too exhilarating, but it was a question of alternatives and there just weren’t any.
I said: “Why would he go to Markle Hyde?”
“That’s what I want to know.” He was frowning, his mind nibbling at an unpleasant problem. He said: “Markle Hyde for Wentworth? Is that what he’s up to? Or is Markle Hyde already dead? The enmity between those two is unbelievable.”
“And yet Hyde has taken no pains, apparently, to protect himself while he’s here. All I saw at your house were two guards. Against Ming he’d need an army. That can only mean that he knows he’s in no danger himself, not of that sort anyway.”
Bonelli looked at me, puzzled. I told him: “All this started because Ming wanted to get at Hyde through his daughter. Vendetta. Just killing him off wasn’t enough, you remember? He caused the death of his son and tried the same thing with the daughter. It’s essential for him that Hyde remain alive to see just what happens to Sally. And Hyde knows that. He told me so in almost as many words.”
Bonelli said thoughtfully: “Yes, perhaps, though you may be reaching for a conclusion you hope is the right one. And there’s no reason for him to favor you with the same treatment, is there?”
“No, I suppose not. It’s a nasty business.”
“Then you won’t go?”
“I must. But you didn’t answer my question.”
“A little further? Yes, I’ll go a little further. What is it you want?”
“While I’m gone, that’s the time Ming will try to get Wentworth. I suggest you get every one of Ericeira’s men together and mount a really heavy guard.”
He sighed. “All right. But I’ll do better than that. I’ll move him.”
“Machine-guns raking your tables?”
“Precisely to avoid that, I’ll put him where Ming won’t be able to get at him, and yet will know where he is.”
“That can be only one place. A police cell. You’re sure he can’t be kidnaped there? Or simply murdered?”
“No, I’m not sure. But it might take just a little longer.”
“All right, I’ll leave it to you and Ericeira.” I was glad that he was on my side again after that moment of indecision; and all over a busted cellar-door! I knew he’d go along with me now, too; he was thinking that his old friend Markle Hyde was probably dead. I said: “Move him as fast as you can then. Don’t let him sit still long enough to get grabbed. Or even shot. I might just need the fact that he’s alive to get myself out of your house in one piece.”
“Ye-e-s. It’s a terribly dangerous thing you’re doing.”
“It always has been.”
“But now there’s absolutely no reason why he shouldn’t just kill you off the moment you show your face.”
I said: “There is. You said that truths become clichés when they’re good enough to use all the time.” He looked at me puzzled. I said: “There’s a cliché about insurance too.” He didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. I said: “Is Melindo to be trusted? With Wentworth, I mean?”
“No, of course not.
“More money, then, by the hour. Every hour that Wentworth stays alive, another bundle of notes for Melindo.”
He said sadly: “All these years I’ve been paying Melindo so very little. It seemed wise that he should never show signs of sudden affluence, or he’d be suspect and lose his value to me. And now the careful rationing of my bribery has come to nothing, hasn’t it?”
I said sympathetically: “You may have to find yourself another boy, but just now I want Wentworth well looked after until I’m safely out of that house.”
He said: “I’ll hold him as long as I can. I wish I were sure about Markle.”
“We’ll soon find out.”
He was resigned to my going. He looked at me as though he never expected to see me again. He made one more attempt: “There must be some way to persuade you.”
“No. No, there’s not. I hate it as much as you do, but there just isn’t an alternative. I came here to find Sally Hyde, and Ming is the only lead we have.”
“He might be just as much in the dark as you are.”
“Yes, he might, but there’s a chance he knows. He is her target, and it’s a likelihood that she’ll reach him, that she’s already reached him, I’m working in the dark, and I’ve got to make the most of any glimmer of light.”
