Lime had gone over the ground at the mountain farm where the kidnappers had abandoned the phony Navy helicopter. The serial numbers had been filed off and acid-eaten but a team of Spanish detectives had etched them out with alcohol and hydrochloric; the helicopter belonged to the Pamplona branch of a German rental concern used by wealthy skiers seeking untouched slopes in the high areas inaccessible by road. The manager of the office had been found dead Monday morning in his bed in Pamplona—at first glance from a heart attack, but autopsy showed he had been murdered with a long thin needle jabbed between the upper ribs into the heart. Only a tiny scab on the skin gave clue. Perhaps he had seen the kidnappers’ faces too clearly, or had found out something he shouldn’t have—or perhaps he had refused to rent the helicopter to them. At any rate that chain of investigation was broken by the manager’s death.
The helicopter had been painted Navy colors and the ID numbers proved to have been splashed on by means of hand-cut stencils. From more than a few feet away they looked perfect and of course at the time no one had had reason to inspect them closely.
The helicopter had been left inside the barn; its rotor blades had been removed crudely by the use of hand tools. The bodies of two Secret Service Agents were in the barn with the chopper, shot by 9mm slugs fired from two different handguns, neither of which had been found.
The helicopter abounded with fingerprints of Fairlie and the two Secret Service men; those were the only identifiable prints found anywhere except for a variety of small partials in and around the house; they were being checked out but were probably the prints of children and wanderers who had stopped by the deserted farm last summer.
The farm did offer one clue: a pair of black leather gloves a Guardiano had discovered while sifting through the powder snow piled up by the helicopter’s movements. The descending chopper had swept a barnyard area free of snow; this was the clue that had attracted the searchers’ attention from the air and had brought investigators here late on the afternoon of the kidnapping. Half buried in one of the loose drifts the gloves had gone unseen until the following morning; a Spanish inspector was studying them when Lime arrived. Handling them gingerly with tweezers.
Lime had told Chad Hill, “Send them to London.”
“Why London?”
“Scotland Yard. They’ve worked out a glove-print identification scheme. They can get glove prints off the helicopter controls,” he had explained. “If they match these gloves then we know these were worn by the pilot. About half the time London’s been able to pick up latent fingerprints—enough for an ID—from the inside surfaces of the gloves. These are plain leather, they’re not lined—I think we’ve got a pretty good chance.”
So the gloves had been flown to London aboard a United States Navy Phantom Jet, along with the dismantled control stick of the helicopter, and Lime and Chad Hill had proceeded to Palamos.
Now in the garage he sat on an upturned packing box wearing a rumpled tweed suit the color of cigarette ashes and a five-o’clock shadow. He felt customarily benumbed, subject to dull pains of resentment—Dominguez, the top man in the Guardia, had wasted hours of his time during the night by insisting that Lime address himself personally to the variety of woebegone witnesses the Spaniards had rounded up. There was nothing for it but to comply; not so much because of the demands of international courtesy but because it was indeed possible one of them had something to offer by way of information.
It had consumed most of the night. An old woman who claimed to have seen a hearse drive in and out of the garage. (An old hearse was found near the waterfront; whether it was a clue was indeterminate since it had been wiped clean of fingerprints.) A young man who claimed to have seen several Arabs in the vicinity of the garage. (Immigration was checking; questions were being asked in Palamos. No results yet.) A bus driver who had passed the hearse Monday night and seen its driver—a black man in chauffeur’s uniform. (The phony helicopter pilot? Possibly; but what did it add?)
There was also a Basque fisherman with a strange tale about several Arabs and a coffin and a fishing boat. The story was unclear. The fisherman had been taken before Dominguez and Lime had watched as Dominguez infuriated the fisherman to the point of stubborn silence. Dominguez had fired his questions arrogantly and impatiently; Dominguez’s accent was Castilian, the fisherman was a Basque. Lime had fumed silently: surely the Guardia had a Basque member who could do this interrogation more successfully? But Dominguez wasn’t the sort to whom that kind of suggestion would be welcome. Dominguez thought he had a natural gift for intimidating people; with the Basque it produced only defiance but Dominguez couldn’t see that.
On his way out Lime had dropped a word to an R.N. subaltern: “See if you can bring that fisherman around to see me when he’s through with him, will you? I’ll be at the garage.”
Three hours ago. Now he sat on the packing box still awaiting the Basque because there was nowhere in particular to go.
Chad Hill kept trotting back and forth bringing items of useless news to him from the various knots of technicians. “It’s American gum—spearmint. No fingerprint on it—he must’ve pressed it with a rag. The alarm clock’s a Benrus.”
“A Benrus.” Lime had learned how to repeat the last word or two whether he was listening or not. It made people go on talking. It was even possible Hill might eventually tell him something he could use.
The 500 KC transmitter was a fishing-boat model. The Wollensak recorder was an old model but a common brand. The mylar tape was also German, available anywhere on the continent; the alarm clock had been used to trigger the broadcast. The tape was reeled onto five-inch spools, Hill explained. It ran at one and seven-eighths inches per second. It was long enough to play about an hour. All three of Fairlie’s speeches were on it, separated by five-minute intervals of blank tape.
It was a simple robot device. The ordinary alarm clock was evidence the kidnappers had set the transmitter not more than twelve hours before the broadcast; but that was meaningless—you could travel forever in twelve hours, and by the time Fairlie’s voice had been aired at 12:30 P.M. local time last Tuesday the kidnappers could have been anywhere. And by now they had a lead of fifty-six hours on Lime.…
They’ve moved, Lime thought. They didn’t stay around here, they’d have known the search would be too intense. They went out: how? Not by public transport; Fairlie was too recognizable. Not by car. Helicopter, airplane or boat—it had to be one of those.
Boat, he thought. Because Palamos was a sea-front town, and because the Basque fisherman had seen Arabs on a boat. There had been Arabs around the garage; too much coincidence unless they were the same Arabs. All right then. Boat. What next?
A commotion in the corner: Chad Hill bouncing on his feet, wheeling, loping across with his loud voice preceding him:
“A fingerprint!”
Hill was very excited and Lime stared bleakly. When Hill came to an awkward stop above him he threw his head back. “Chad it could be anybody’s fingerprint. Maybe the owner of the place.”
“Well of course. But I mean they seem to have wiped the whole place clean before they left—but they missed this one.”
“Where is it?” So many people were crowded into the corner he couldn’t see.
“On the panel where the light switch is.”
It was a possibility to be conceded. He got to his feet with an effort. Their last act would have been to switch off the lights before driving out. They’d have done that after having wiped the place. Yes; a possibility. He went across.