“But I don’t think it was Alexias who murdered Dimitri,” he said softly. “I think it was you.”
Thunder rumbled again and the rain increased in a sudden rush, hammering against the window. There was no change of expression on Van Horn’s face. He said calmly, “Are you quite sure you know what you’re saying?”
Katina stood up and moved forward, her eyes very large in the white face. “What are you trying to suggest, Hugh?”
He placed his hands gently on her shoulders. “Someone tried to kill me in the alley at the back of the prison tonight. Someone who knew I was coming out. And the automatic you gave me. For some strange reason it wouldn’t fire.”
She looked up at him, horror in her eyes, and he went on, “Did Van Horn know that your uncle played chess with Father John Mikali every Thursday night?”
She nodded. “Everybody knows.”
“Then why didn’t he tell me I was wasting my time when I said I intended visiting your uncle?”
She turned slowly and looked at Van Horn and Lomax went on, “When I got to the farm, Dimitri and the Samos brothers were waiting for me hi the dark. There was only one possible explanation. Dimitri was expecting me because someone had warned him I was coming. But only one person knew.”
Van Horn smiled lightly. “It doesn’t even hang together. How on earth could I have got in touch with him hi time? Katina took the jeep.”
It was Katina who answered him. “You were on the telephone to someone when I came up from the kitchen and Dimitri worked most nights at The Little Ship. Everyone knew that.”
Van Horn lit a cigarette, his hand as steady as a rock. “You still haven’t placed me at the farm at the tune of the murder. No jury in the world would accept for one moment that a man of my age and condition could cross the mountain twice on the same night within a matter of hours,”
ISO
“That worried me for a while,” Lomax said. “Until I remembered Katina once telling me there was a jetty at the bottom of the cliffs near the farm.” He glanced down at her. “How long would you say it would take from here to there by sea?”
“Twenty minutes,” she said. “I’ve done it often. So has Oliver.”
Lomax looked enquiringly at Van Horn. “Would you care to guarantee the launch hasn’t been to sea tonight? We could always check.”
“You’re not making sense,” Van Horn said. “What possible motive could I have had for killing Dimitri Paros?”
“It’s only a guess, but I’d say he’d discovered you were the man responsible for the death of his father,” Lomax said.
Katina’s breath hissed sharply between her teeth. For a moment Van Horn’s composure almost broke, but he rallied strongly. “It won’t do, Lomax. Everyone knows what I went through at Fonchi.”
“When we were discussing things earlier today, I told you I thought Alexias Pavlo was the traitor,” Lomax said. “You pointed out that I still had to explain how the Germans got on to him in the first place. I can do better than that. I can show how they got on to you.”
“I’m afraid you’re not making sense,” Van Horn said, but all colour had left his face and deep lines were scoured across his forehead.
“When I first visited this house seventeen years ago, Joe Boyd borrowed a volume of your war poems called The Survivor,” Lomax told him. “It was bound in green leather and autographed in gold, one of a complete edition of your works.”
He went to the bookshelves and returned with a slim green volume which he dropped on the coffee table. “The book in question. I noticed it earlier when Katina brought me up from the hotel to meet you again. It wasn’t until tonight that I realised it had no business being there.”
“I don’t understand,” Katina said.
“I think Van Horn does. You see Joe Boyd forgot to return the book. He was carrying it in one of his tunic pockets when he went into action. I only remembered that tonight after all these years. The Germans must have found it when they searched his body. No wonder I thought Steiner was laughing at me when I told him we hadn’t been in contact with anyone on the island.”