Murder on the Tropic

by Todd Downing

  Arnhardt’s voice cut in: “To hell with Solier! He can’t lock up a room on the east side of the house and expect it to stay vacant until he gets ready to come back.”

  “Well, run the Tolmans out of their room if you want to. They—”

  “Yes, and that reminds me of another thing I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time.” Arnhardt raised his voice still higher. “It’s about the Tolmans. Ann told me about the damned dirty deal they’ve gotten from you and Solier. I’m going to see that you two get paid back for that if it’s the last thing I do. I won’t—”

  The door of a room across the patio opened and a young Mexican came out. He wore boots, corduroy trousers and a khaki shirt. A broad-brimmed straw hat shaded a finely featured face across which a thin waxed mustache looked like a painted line. He carried a square case of black leather and a spade. He regarded Rennert for a moment with a steady direct stare then, with no sign of greeting, walked toward the entrance.

  As Rennert’s eyes followed him he reminded himself that eaves-dropping is not judged as harshly in Mexico as among Anglo-Saxons.

  “You young fool!” Falter’s voice was hoarse and guttural. “If anything happened to the Tolmans your stepfather, George Stahl, was responsible as much as Solier and I. You’ve let yourself be taken in by hard-luck stories from that red-headed—”

  A fist cracked smartly against flesh. A splintering crash was the echo.

  4

  Damp Earth

  Mark Arnhardt’s feet struck the paving like pistons as he came out of the room and headed straight across the patio. His fists were clenched tightly at his sides and his chin was thrust forward belligerently. If he saw Rennert he made no indication of it but entered a room to the left of the entrance and slammed the door behind him.

  Rennert stood in the shade by the frangipani tree and flicked ash from his cigarette. His eyes followed it to the ground and he frowned.

  About the base of the tree was a bed of Oliver’s flowers, thrusting out blood-red stars tipped with yellow from spatulate green and crimson leaves. Between them and the paving where he stood was an expanse of bare soil, broken into irregular blocks by a network of cracks.

  He stepped forward and kicked the ground with the toe of his shoe. The hard surface resisted at first. He pressed his weight against his foot, the baked upper layer broke and his shoe plowed into loose darker earth. He knelt down and took a bit of it between his fingers.

  It was damp.

  He straightened up and let the soil fall slowly from his hand. He stood for a moment, his face thoughtful, then walked toward the open door of Falter’s quarters. He tapped against the side.

  There was a moment of silence then a voice called gruffly from inside: “Come in.”

  Rennert entered a small square room furnished with a large desk, scarred by usage, and a swivel chair. A straight chair to one side of the desk had been overturned. One of the rungs at the back was broken. Several dusty calendars advertising various brands of beer adorned the blue-tinted walls. It served, evidently, as office for the master of the hacienda.

  Falter came out of the adjoining room. His face was flushed and he held a handkerchief to the side of his mouth.

  “Oh, hello, Rennert.” He spoke indistinctly through the folds of the cloth. “Sit down.” He gestured toward a chair on the other side of the desk and, as Rennert moved toward it, he hastily straightened the overturned chair.

  “Hot, isn’t it?” He pulled open a drawer of the desk and brought out a bottle of Habanero and two glasses. “We’ve got some beer, if you’d rather have it.” He spoke jerkily, out of one side of his mouth.

  “This whisky will do, thanks.”

  Falter went to the door and called: “Maria!”

  There was no response.

  He called again.

  “Si, señor,” came a woman’s answering voice, evidently from the inner patio.

  “Tráenos agua,”

  “Bueno.”

  Falter came back and sat down behind the desk, crossing his legs. He kept the handkerchief pressed against his face.

  “Get settled all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, the bath put a brighter aspect on things. I’m sure I’ll be very comfortable. I just wondered, however, if I hadn’t inconvenienced someone.”

  “How’s that?” Falter’s eyes came quickly to his face.

  “The room you put me in is on the east side, I notice. It must be one of the choice ones. Young Arnhardt had it, I understand. I could have taken another.”

  Falter patted his mouth gently with the handkerchief.

  “That’s all right.” He stared past Rennert’s head. “It’s really Solier’s room. He used it when he was here. He told me to put you in it. Arnhardt can take another just as well as not.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “How’s the weather been up in Texas?” Falter asked abstractedly.

  “Much the same as here—hot and dry. It’s what we expect, however. You usually have rains down here by this time.”

  “Yes, so they say. They’ve been unusually late in starting. It has been the worst spring I ever went through.”

  He glanced at the door.

  A thin Mexican woman entered. Her shoulders were bent as if from long support of burdens. Her face, moulded in the high-checked features of the pure Mexican aborigine, was like wrinkled parchment. Her long glistening hair, black, shot through with gray, hung in two symmetrical braids. In one hand she carried a clay jug beaded with moisture, in the other a bunch of red hibiscus flowers.

  She set the jug on the desk and turned to go.

  “Maria,” Falter said, “éste es el señor Rennert, que está de visita aquí.”

  She turned vague black eyes, with a distinct mongoloid cast, on Rennert’s face.

  “Mucho gusto, señor.” Her voice was soft but to Rennert, accustomed to the staccato birdlike voices of Mexican women, it sounded singularly flat and expressionless.

  “El gusto es mío,” he spoke in reply to her salutation.

  “Oh,” Falter seemed surprised, “you speak Spanish.”

  “Yes, I get along fairly well with it.”

  “Cómo está Miguel?” Falter asked Maria.

  For an instant some emotion seemed about to break the mask of her face. It betrayed itself in the almost imperceptible trembling of her thin lips, in the febrile brightness that glinted across the dark surfaces of her eyes and was gone.

  “Muy malo, señor, muy malo,” she said tonelessly.

  Falter frowned. “I’ll send in to Victoria for a doctor,” he said in Spanish.

  She shook her head vigorously and her fingers tightened about the stems of the red flowers.

  “No, señor! No, señor! Do not do it! If he is cured, I must do it.”

  “But, Maria,” Falter said patiently, “a doctor would know better than you what to do. You don’t even know what’s the matter with Miguel.”

  Her voice too was patient: “Yes, señor, I know. I know.”

  “What is it?”

  Her eyes went to the top of the desk, wandered for an instant over its surface, then focused on the jug of water.

  “It is nothing, señor, nothing but a little illness,” she seemed to be speaking to herself—or, the odd thought struck Rennert, to the water itself. “It will go.”

  “Very well,” Falter’s tone was nettled, “just as you say. Let me know, though, if you want a doctor.”

  “Muy bien, señor, gracias.”

  The woman turned toward the door, hesitated, then faced them again. She held out the hibiscus flowers.

  “These flowers,” she spoke quickly, “they are red, are they not, señor?”

  Falter had extended his hand toward the whisky bottle. He let it fall to the desk and stared at her.

  “What?”

  “These flowers,” there was quiet persistence in her manner, “they are red, are they not?”

  “Of course. What color did you think they were?�
��

  She turned to Rennert.

  “You, too, señor, you see that they are red?” A faint suggestion of eagerness tinged her voice.

  Rennert had leaned forward to watch her more closely. The cigarette burned unheeded in his fingers.

  “Yes,” he said quietly, “they are red.”

  She turned again to Falter. Her breathing was more rapid now, her breast rising and falling perceptibly under the dark blue rebozo which she wore.

  “You will tell him, señor? You will tell Miguel?”

  “Tell him what?” Falter’s voice and face expressed his bewilderment.

  “That these flowers are red. They,” she stole a cautious sideways glance at the water jug, “are playing tricks with him. This afternoon, when he fell sick, there were white claveles in the room. Pure white. I picked them this morning. He thought that they were yellow. I take him now these red flowers so that he will know there are no yellow flowers in his room.”

  Rennert had not taken his eyes from her face.

  “Did Miguel,” he asked, “have fear when he saw—or thought he saw—the yellow flowers?”

  She regarded him for a long moment, then her head moved slowly up and down in affirmation.

  “Yes, he had much fear.” She turned, murmured. “Hasta luego, señores,” and left them.

  “What the hell?” Falter laughed uncertainly as he stared after her into the sunlight.

  5

  Yellow Flowers

  Falter poured whisky into the glasses. He shoved two tumblers forward and filled them with water from the jug. Some of the liquid splashed over the desk-top.

  “Have a drink,” he said with forced joviality as he handed Rennert a glass.

  Rennert brought his attention back to the room. He had been staring, since Maria left, out the window, where transverse bars of iron divided the view of a bed of white carnations in the inner patio. In response to a gesture from Falter he raised his glass and drank.

  “I suppose I ought to have told you something about Maria,” Falter was saying as he set down his glass. He ran the tip of his tongue over his upper lip. “She’s a little loose up here,” he pointed to his fore head. “They say she had some bad experiences during the Revolution, when a bunch of bandits captured the hacienda. She’s harmless, of course. Spends most of her time pottering about among the flowers. I don’t know what was on her mind just now. She must be worrying too much about Miguel.”

  “What about Miguel’s illness? You say he was taken sick this afternoon?”

  “Yes, a couple of hours or so before you came. I’d told him to move Arnhardt’s stuff out of that room. He worked there a while then Maria came in to tell me that he was sick and couldn’t do any more.”

  “You haven’t seen him?”

  “I went in his room a little later—they live back in the inside patio—and tried to find out what the trouble was. He was lying on the bed and wouldn’t talk. He seemed to be suffering but I didn’t know what to do. Maria came back in a few minutes with a bunch of herbs that she’d gathered out in the mountains. Evidently she was going to brew some kind of concoction out of them. They’re superstitious as hell, these Mexicans, and don’t trust doctors from the cities. If he doesn’t get better tonight I’ll send for a doctor anyway, regardless of what the old woman says. Miguel is invaluable around here.”

  Falter leaned forward and took up his glass. He glanced inquiringly at Rennert, who shook his head. He filled his own glass brimful and tossed it down his throat.

  “God!” he took a deep breath of satisfaction. “I needed that.” He looked at Rennert for a moment, frankly appraising him. “Rennert,” he said, his voice suddenly unconstrained, “you bring me thoughts of cold white milk and ice and toasted wheat bread and hard yellow slabs of butter—things one almost forgets about down here.”

  Rennert smiled. “Really, I didn’t know that I portrayed so nicely the solid puritan virtues. I’m afraid it’s only middle age and the fact that I’ve just had a bath for the first time in two days.”

  Falter’s smile was ineffectual. “No, it’s not that at all. It’s the state of health I’ve been in lately. Tortillas and beans aren’t meant for a white man’s diet. Maria is a good enough cook in her way but her menu is limited. We had a Chinese cook up until a few weeks ago but he left us, saved up enough money to go visit some friends in Mexico City. I’ve been hoping he’d come back soon. By the way, did Solier send some tablets down by you?”

  “Yes, I have them here.” Rennert took out a box which Solier had given him in San Antonio and laid it on the table.

  “Good!” Falter took it eagerly. “I’ve been wanting some more of those. They may save my stomach until Lee gets back. They’re the best cure for indigestion I know of,” he explained as he opened the box and took out a white wafer. He swallowed it and took a drink of water. “How is Solier?” he asked.

  “Seems to be all right. He’s been rather busy and wants to get away for a vacation. That’s the reason he didn’t come down himself.”

  Falter sat for a moment with a frown of concentration on his face. He looked up suddenly and met Rennert’s gaze.

  “Just what,” he asked, “did Solier tell you about things down here?”

  “He told me of the plan to build a hotel that had to be abandoned on account of the change in the route of the highway. He told me about Miss Fahn’s refusal to sell her shares and about the disappearance of the water. He wanted me to persuade Miss Fahn to sell, if possible, and to learn who was responsible for the theft of the water. I am to offer the woman the full price she paid for the shares, if necessary.”

  Falter’s short stubby fingers were caressing the sides of the glass. He kept nodding his head as Rennert spoke.

  “I’m glad you came,” he said slowly, “although I’m not sure you can do any good. Miss Fahn’s a tough proposition. I’ve got the feeling that it’s not a question of money with her so much as something else. What, I don’t know.”

  In his preoccupation Falter took the handkerchief from his mouth. On the right side there was an ugly discolored bruise, from which blood still welled.

  “Can you tell me something about her?” Rennert asked. “Give me some pointers on how to approach her?”

  “God, no!” Falter shook his head decidedly. “I don’t think she is approachable. Unless,” he eyed Rennert speculatively, “you happen to be a religious man. She’s very much that way, objects to profanity, drinking, gambling,” he paused for a fractional second, “and all that sort of thing.”

  Rennert smiled. “I’ll have to restrain my appetites, then.”

  “You certainly will if you want to get along with her. Of course if you know anything about plants and flowers, that might make up for other shortcomings.”

  “I understood that she was a botanist.”

  “Yes, she spends all her time tramping around the hills gathering flowers and leaves and things. By the way, did you bring those postcards she wanted?”

  “Yes, one hundred and twenty-six of them. That the right number?”

  “Yes, she’s been pestering me for a week to have Solier send some down.”

  “She must carry on a lot of correspondence?”

  Falter shook his head. “No, that’s the strange thing about her wanting them. She hasn’t gotten any mail or sent any off since she’s been here.”

  “You’re sure?” Rennert was interested.

  “Yes, Miguel goes in to Victoria twice a week. He always brings all the mail to me when he gets back. There’s never anything for Miss Fahn. I asked him if he ever took any in for her and he said he didn’t.”

  “Frankly,” Rennert said, “I’m getting rather curious to meet Miss Fahn. Now, as to the disappearance of the water, do you have any information to give me?”

  “Not a thing. It’s got me puzzled. Every night lately a five-gallon glass bottle of water has vanished. The bottle itself is always in place in the morning but the water is gone.”

  “Where
is the water kept?”

  “In the kitchen, in the inner patio.”

  “It’s locked at night?”

  “Yes.”

  “The obvious question: How many people have keys?”

  “Maria and I had one apiece. She lost hers several weeks ago and has had to use mine since. I lock up myself at night when she has finished and unlock in the morning. Yet somebody gets in every night. No one person could drink that much water, however.”

  “Solier said that you thought someone might be trying to force the occupants of the hacienda to leave.”

  “Yes,” Falter pressed the handkerchief more firmly against his mouth, “the thought had occurred to me that that might be the explanation. Who it could be, though, I don’t have any idea.”

  “I noticed,” Rennert said, “that the soil out in the patio has been well watered recently. There are the cracks that the sun makes on damp ground. Underneath, there is dampness. I should say,” he looked keenly at Falter, “that water was poured there not later than last night.”

  “And last night,” Falter’s face held frank astonishment, “another bottle of water was emptied.”

  “Those flowers, too, look as if they had plenty of moisture. Are they watered regularly?”

  “No, they haven’t been for several weeks. Maria takes care of them but I told her to quit watering them when the fountain out there went dry.”

  There was silence for a moment.

  “There’s one more matter I’d like to bring up,” Rennert said. “It’s about George Stahl’s death.”

  Falter’s thick eyebrows drew together swiftly. “What do you mean?” he demanded.

  “I’d like to have all the particulars that you can recall.”

  “Did Solier ask you to inquire into that?” Falter’s voice was perceptibly edged.

  “Not precisely.” Rennert’s manner was almost casual. “His instructions were to look into everything of an unusual nature that has happened about here lately. I thought that Stahl’s death would naturally, come under that category.”

  “I don’t see how. He died of a sunstroke.”

  “Suppose you tell me about it.”