Aground by Charles Williams; Franklin W. Dixon Read Free Book Online Page A

be between thirty and thirty-five, and at that age they didn’t stay in there long against the sauce without being marked.
    “You don’t have to look so smug,” she said. “I’m perfectly aware of it.”
    “What?”
    “That my feet are on the coffee table.”
    “Los pies de la Señora Osborne están en la mesa,” he said, with a parrot-like intonation.
    She frowned. “What’s that mean?”
    “The feet of Mrs. Osborne are on the table. I don’t know—it just sounded like one of those phrase-book deals. Would it be all right if we talked about your feet in the morning?”
    “Captain, I have a feeling that you don’t entirely approve of me. Do you?”
    “I hadn’t given it any thought,” he said. “Does it matter?”
    “Of course it matters. Don’t you realize I might slash my wrists?”
    He said nothing, wondering if two adults could get into a more asinine conversation. She probably wasn’t drunk enough to throw things, so maybe after she got a little of it out of her system, whatever it was, he could leave without starting a scene that would bring down the hotel. There seemed no point in even trying to guess what had brought it on. It was possible, of course, that he’d muffed the cue back there when she’d asked him to register for them, though that was pretty farfetched; if she’d wanted to indulge in a little away-from-home affair, she was certainly attractive enough to do better. There were plenty of younger and more personable men available in a place like Nassau. It was more probable, if that were the case, that she’d merely expected him to make the bid so she could turn it down. In any event, it hadn’t even occurred to him, so maybe he was getting old. Or, as she charged, he just didn’t like her. Well, he didn’t, particularly. Maybe that was the answer; she’d sensed it, and resented it—though he couldn’t imagine why. With those green eyes and that high-cheekboned and suggestively arrogant face she didn’t strike you as somebody who normally bled a great deal over the opinions of the rabble.
    She was apparently lost in thought; maybe she’d forgotten he was there.
    “What did you want to see me about?” he asked.
    She poured some more rum in the glass. “Hollister.”
    His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “What about him?”
    “I wanted to ask you something. When he was giving you this snow job, did he ever say anything about being a doctor?”
    “No.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “Positive.”
    “Just this moonshine about being president of a drug firm? Well, it is in the pattern, at that.”
    He began to have the feeling now that she wasn’t as drunk as she appeared. She was faking it. “What are you talking about?”
    “Still that same old medical angle,” she mused, as if speaking to herself. “His mother must have been frightened by a pregnancy test.”
    “You know him, don’t you?”
    “Who says I do?”
    “You spent over a thousand dollars today just to fly over the Dragoon with a pair of binoculars, looking for him.”
    “Maybe I was trying to find out.”
    “Who do you think he was?”
    “It’s nothing to you.”
    “No, but it might be to the police. Or had you thought of that?”
    “Never mind the police. If I have to go out and recover my own boat, they can look after themselves. I tell you I don’t know, anyway. I’m just guessing.”
    “Did he have a watch like that?”
    “Yes,” she said. “But that’s no real proof. They’re not too common, but still there are others.”
    “What about the description I gave you?”
    “It could fit him. Along with a lot of other men. There’s another thing, though, that’s more important. You must have wondered why he wanted somebody else to survey the boat instead of going himself.”
    “Sure.”
    “He couldn’t have gone himself because Tango would know him. He’d been aboard the Dragoon before.”
    He nodded. “That would make sense. But what would he want to steal it for?”
    “I have no