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.”“I didn’t expect he would be.That’s why we sent for you.We were getting nowhere.”Rex waved the papers in his hand.“I did get a copy of the missing person’s report.It’s in French.”“Elizabeth can help you with that.She lived in Paris for a number of years as a student.”“From what I gather, the police are blaming sharks.”“Well, it’s the most facile explanation and absolves them from having to get off their froggy derrières and do something about it.”“They did send out a plane, apparently.” Rex had noticed the word avion on the report.“It was probably a training exercise the navy has to perform at regular intervals.” Winslow clapped him on his sunburned back, and Rex winced.“We’re relying on you, old chap.What next?”“I’d like to talk to the Austrian doctor.”“He’s on the beach with his wife and daughter.”When Rex returned to his cabana to change, he was ecstatic to see his suitcase waiting inside the door.He undressed and pulled on his Bermuda trunks, purchased in Miami.Then, sunscreen, notepad and pen in hand, he headed toward the beach where he easily spotted the rotund von Mueller family.“Guten Tag,” greeted the bespectacled doctor.The blonde wife and daughter smiled at Rex before wading into the shallows hand in hand.“Can I have a quick word?”“Natürlich.” The doctor gestured for him to sit down on one of a trio of lounge-chairs draped with yellow towels.“Please, proceed with your questions.”“Thank you.First of all, I understand you have known Sabine for five years.”“Ja.First in a professional capacity.Then we met again here on St.Martin.I never forget a face I have worked on!”“Did you do much work on her face?” Rex doubted science could fashion a face so naturally perfect as hers.“Nein, nein.” The doctor gave a dismissive wave of the hand.“A little bump on her nose—I remove it.A simple procedure.Und I erase a scar on her temple from a riding accident in Fontainebleau when she was a child.Other than the rhinoplasty, there was not much room for improvement.Her bone structure was perfekt!”“Paul told me you were able to match the blood found on the beach with Ms.Durand’s blood type on file at your clinic.”“That too was easy.Sabine had a very rare blood type.”“How rare?”“Type A Kp(b-).”It sounded like his son’s American fraternity house, and Rex’s puzzlement must have shown.“Other than the major ABO blood groups, there are more than two hundred minor groups,” the jovial doctor explained.“About one in a thousand people inherit a rare type, und this particular type is extremely rare and belongs only to Caucasians.”“So there can be little doubt it was hers?”Von Mueller resolutely shook his head.“Doctor, in your professional opinion, did Ms.Durand seem like someone who might have drowned herself?”“Nein und abermals nein! A thousand times no! Sabine had so much to live for.”“Have you any idea what might have happened out there?” Rex gazed pensively toward the promontory.The doctor lifted his round pink shoulders in a gesture of despair.“Perhaps she smashed her head on a rock? But no.Her body would have been found if she was that close to shore.There was no trace of sea water on the strip of material, so it could not have been washed ashore.Und there was so little blood—unless the rest was washed away.It is possible she was dragged to the water.”Rex recognized the validity of the doctor’s statement.Short of burying the body in the sand, there was nowhere else to dispose of it.A sheer cliff at the back of the promontory cut off the beach, and the barrier of jagged rocks would have made it difficult to carry a body across without being seen, since the resort stood barely a mile away.At nighttime, such a feat would have been almost impossible.“She might have been strangled,” Rex hypothesized [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]