Murder on the Tropic

by Todd Downing

  “Not much danger, I should think,” Rennert said. “The mountains between here and the coast have broken the force of it, undoubtedly. What we are getting is merely the last of it.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that. I didn’t want Ann to worry.” He turned and walked away.

  Flores watched him go and then said calmly as he smoothed out the sides of a cigarette: “What we will get, Mr. Rennert. The full force of the hurricane is just now reaching us. The rain will continue to fall for some time. Then it will slacken. The wind will stop and we will think it is over. That will be but a lull. How long it will last there is no knowing. As soon as it has passed,” he slipped the cigarette between his lips and raised his voice slightly, “I am leaving.”

  There was silence that seemed prolonged unbearably. If it could be called silence in this vacuum-like place hemmed in by the sucking eddies of the wind

  Arnhardt sat up very straight in his chair. His face was stony.

  “What was that you said, Flores?”

  “I think you heard me, Mr. Arnhardt,” the Mexican began to play with a folder of wax matches. “I am leaving for Mexico City as soon as possible. This afternoon at the latest.”

  “How, may I ask?”

  Flores struck a match and applied it to the end of the cigarette.

  “In my plane.”

  “It’s not damaged then?” There was an ominous quietness in Arnhardt’s voice.

  “No, it is not damaged.” Flores’ fingers laid the match carefully upon the side of his plate. A thin trickle of smoke came from his nostrils.

  “You’ve been lying about it all the time then?”

  A shrug and a deprecating gesture with the hands.

  “Let us call it exaggerating, Mr. Arnhardt. There is always some slight disarrangement of the parts of a plane.”

  Arnhardt sent his cigarette spinning in the direction of the doorway, where the wind caught it and sent it to the floor.

  “No one,” he said, “is leaving this place until I say so.”

  The expression of Flores’ face did not change beyond a slight contraction of the pupils of his eyes. As he spoke his lips drew apart so that his teeth gleamed. “You speak very confidently, Mr. Arnhardt. May I ask what is going to prevent me from leaving when I wish?”

  Arnhardt’s right hand went to his hip. It came out holding the blunt-nosed revolver.

  “This,” he laid it on the table with a thud.

  Flores’ black eyebrows rose in thin arcs. He sent two streams of smoke through his nostrils. They came slowly, two parallel streams, with a steady force that seemed unending. At last they ceased and he said: “The gun for which you were looking last night?”

  “No, but it will serve.”

  “You found the other gun then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Since it was not found among my effects what, may I ask, am I accused of?”

  Arnhardt moved his body very slightly yet it had the effect of a significant effort on the part of a ponderous and unwieldy mass.

  “There have been three murders committed here as well as an attempted murder. No one’s going to leave until they’re cleared up.”

  Flores’ laugh rang out clearly, its taunt unconcealed. Only his eyes, Rennert saw, lacked confidence. They were sharp and wary.

  “That promises to be a lengthy process, Mr. Arnhardt. And even in this out-of-the-way place one man—even a citizen of the great United States—cannot stand at the door with a loaded gun for twenty-four hours out of the day. It must end sometime. And when it does the authorities of my country may have questions to ask. Very unpleasant questions, Mr. Arnhardt.”

  “They can ask’em today if they want to. I’m going down to Victoria and bring them up here.”

  Flores’ teeth flashed in another wider smile.

  “Excellent, Mr. Arnhardt! Excellent! I shall be most pleased to renew acquaintance with my father’s cousin, who is commandant of the federal troops stationed there. You must ask for him in particular. He will consider it a slight on the dignity of his position if you do not. Gaspar Flores y Montes his name is. Be sure and remember it.”

  Arnhardt’s fingers had separated themselves from the butt of the gun and his hand lay inertly on the tablecloth. Rennert was reminded of a young and harassed bull in the ring when it first discovers that its ponderous strength cannot stop the sharp banderillas that sting it each time it charges the red cape flaunted before its eyes.

  Some of Flores’ suavity vanished and his voice had the needle sharpness of the dowels: “Don Gaspar will ask you perhaps why you have delayed so long in calling in the authorities. Why you have waited until your partner, Mr. Falter, is dead. Why you said nothing when your stepfather, Mr. Stahl, died here and left you his interest in this hacienda. What, in fact, you intend doing with this hacienda—so isolated, so far from the watchful eyes of the authorities.”

  Rennert thought for a moment that Arnhardt was going to lunge across the table at the Mexican. His jaw was thrust out and the cords of his neck were thick straight ridges. His fingers were pulling the tablecloth toward him. He got to his feet, reached out for the gun and thrust it into his hip pocket. He stood for a moment in indecision, his baffled eyes fixed on the tablecloth.

  Flores’ voice came again, a little less sharp and slower: “Don Gaspar will understand about the shot that was fired at you last night. He is of the old school and still believes that a man should protect his honor. He will doubtless lecture the husband who fired the shot on the poorness of his aim. That is all.”

  “God damn you!” Arnhardt lowered his head and made for the door. He jerked it open and left it swinging furiously in the wind.

  Flores’ laugh was an ineffectual attempt to maintain bravado.

  “I trust that I shall see you again before I leave, Mr. Rennert.” He got up and his voice was none too steady. “At lunch, I expect, since this storm will probably last until afternoon.”

  Rennert said: “You have given up your search?”

  Flores was folding his napkin with careful deliberate fingers.

  “Yes, Mr. Rennert, I have given it up as hopeless. Too much time has passed.”

  “Then you have not found what you were looking for?”

  “No, I have not found the body of my grandfather.

  “I wasn’t referring to the body of your grandfather, Mr. Flores.”

  The thin sensitive fingers were very still on the folds of the white cloth. Very still and stiff, with their tips pressed down firmly.

  “I do not understand you, Mr. Rennert.”

  “I think that you do. One does not look for a dead body with a divining-rod.”

  The fingers moved, unfolded the napkin and began to crease it again unsteadily.

  “You know then, Mr. Rennert?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how did you know? Miss Fahn told you?”

  “No, she thought the instrument you had was a telescope. I knew that it was something else when I saw how eager you were to impress upon me the story of your grandfather. A few minutes ago I saw the instrument. I don’t know just how it is supposed to work but I judge that you bought it as an improvement on the old-fashioned witch hazel twig.”

  “Yes, they said that it would do away with the vibrations that came from contact with the human hand. That it was infallible.”

  “And you found that it isn’t?”

  “Last night I made a test, something which I had not thought of before. I laid a thermometer on the floor, close to the instrument. The divinometer, it’s called. There was no response, even when I put the mercury directly under the wood.”

  Rennert felt a little sorry for the discouragement in the tone. He said: “You are fortunate that you were disillusioned this early. Many men here in Mexico have spent their entire lives in the same search and have died finding nothing. What was it—buried treasure or a gold mine?”

  “The family plate and jewels, Mr. Rennert. My father took only a part of them to the Unit
ed States. The rest were hidden by my grandfather. They were never found. I do not think now that they will ever be found.”

  Rennert remembered Conrad’s men on Azuera, men that could not die once treasure had fastened upon their minds. “You are determined to leave as soon as the storm stops?” he asked

  “Yes, Mr. Rennert”

  “My advice would be,” Rennert said with low emphasis, “to wait. I hope that you aren’t discounting Mr. Arnhardt and his gun.” The deadly suspense of this enforced waiting for that overt move that must come sooner or later. The strain of keeping smoothed with oil the deceptively placid surface that at any moment might rebel and loose undercurrents fraught with danger.

  “I believe,” the Mexican said slowly, “that I have Mr. Arnhardt checkmated.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure. A bullet is a play to which there is usually no answering move.”

  “I know.” The olive face was suddenly serious. “You have seen a young bull—a novillo—in the ring? Sometimes he will get in one position, with his back to the wall as it were, and refuse to budge. His querencia, we call it. He is most dangerous then,” he said as he let the napkin rest on the table.

  28

  Lull

  Ann Tolman stood under the shelter of the eaves on the other side of the archway and looked into the pounding rain that was a solid slanting wall between her and the dining-room door. She lowered her head and plunged resolutely into it. Her feet slipped in the gray-yellow water that swirled over the stones, she righted herself and came to the door where Rennert stood.

  She stopped beside him and shook her drenched hair.

  “Isn’t this glorious!” her voice rose vibrantly above the crashing of the rain and the steady whining drone of the wind. “I feel as if all the cobwebs were being washed out of my brain.”

  “It is a grand spectacle,” Rennert agreed, studying her face. “I was looking at those clouds a few minutes ago and thinking how appropriately the Norsemen imagined them to be Valkyries, the beautiful—and deadly—daughters of Odin.”

  She raised her head. A subtle yet distinct change had come over her. Her wet face retained its white look but beneath its plane of ice something glowed, reflecting itself in her eyes, bright with a fire that he had not seen there before. After a moment a tremor ran over her shoulders.

  “I was forgetting about the danger. I suppose, though, that things are always more beautiful when they’re not quite safe.”

  “At the risk of being trite, the moth and the flame, of course.”

  She stared into the rain for a long time without speaking. Then her lips set firmly, she turned her head and glanced into the dining room.

  “I’d like to have a cup of coffee.” She looked back at him. “If you have a few minutes to spare, why don’t you come in while I drink it?”

  He followed her in and rang for Lee. There was an interval of silence while the coffee was being brought. He offered her a cigarette. She took it and held it to his match without seeming to be aware of what she was doing. She leaned forward and her eyes met his steadily.

  “Mr. Rennert, who shot Mark Arnhardt last night?”

  “I’m being perfectly frank with you, Mrs. Tolman. I’m not yet sure.”

  “You don’t think Steve did it then?”

  “I don’t think he did.”

  She smiled and some of the color began to come back into her cheeks.

  “You’ve relieved my mind! I was afraid, you see, of what you were going to say. Because,” she stated emphatically, “Steve didn’t do it. He wouldn’t explain about the gun but I’m going to. You have to know something about him before you understand why he took the gun and why he wouldn’t explain.”

  She paused and took a long sip of the coffee.

  “Steve,” she said as she set the cup down, “has been unfortunate all his life. He was left an orphan when he was very young and was brought up by a maiden aunt. He spent his boyhood in an atmosphere of overstuffed chairs, antimacassars and gilt portraits. You understand what I mean?”

  “I think I understand perfectly, Mrs. Tolman.”

  “Instead of letting his emotions flow out in the ordinary channels, like other boys, he kept them bottled up inside him. An introvert, I suppose you’d call him. His first year or two at college were terribly unhappy ones. He didn’t fit in. That’s when I first knew him. I suppose it was one of the first things that attracted me to him. He began gradually to become more expansive. I think I was mostly responsible for that. By the time we were married he had almost become his normal self. Then came the tuberculosis.”

  She stared for a long time into the smoke. She was looking, Rennert knew, not at it but back into the years. She drained the coffee cup and went on.

  “At first I didn’t understand his attitude about that. His attitude toward me, too. He became cold and reserved, sort of shrunk inside himself. I realized finally what the trouble was. He resented what he thought was my pity. His feeling must have begun long before, when he had first known me. I had probably made it worse by being so obvious about my efforts to help him adjust himself to college life. I was responsible for his getting into a fraternity, for example. The success of his efforts to adjust himself must have come from a determination to stand on his own feet, without any need of help from me. When he found he had tuberculosis all the emotional constrictions that he had almost gotten rid of came back on him with greater force than ever. He thought of himself as helpless, obliged to stand by while I dashed about energetically trying to arrange things for both of us. Then we came down here. Things reached their nadir. The long hot days with nothing to do but just exist. And Mark Arnhardt was here.”

  She crushed the stub of the cigarette into the saucer, her fingers moving it about in slow concentric circles.

  “I suppose there is a great contrast between Mark and Steve, although I didn’t realize it at first. Physically, I mean. Emotionally, I don’t know that they’re so different. I liked Mark very much, somewhat the way one likes a big Newfoundland dog that doesn’t know what to do with all his energies. We got into the habit of taking walks over the mountains, going hunting together, things like that. I don’t think I could have stood it if it hadn’t been for Mark. And all the time Steve had to spend the long afternoons in bed, staring out at the sunlight and thinking of Mark’s strong legs taking him over the rocks. The idea of suicide must have come to him then. He would step out of the picture, Mark and I would get married and everything would be straightened out.”

  “And his feelings toward Arnhardt?” Rennert asked. “What were they?”

  She stared down with a frown of concentration.

  “I think,” she said slowly, “that he always liked Mark, would have been glad to become friendly with him. He felt, though, that there wasn’t any use in making the attempt. Mark was so strong and healthy, representing everything that he wasn’t. He was jealous of him, too, probably without realizing it. Not at first, at least, on account of me but on account of his strength.”

  “Did he realize the meaning of the episode in the patio yesterday afternoon?”

  “Yes, he guessed what I had attempted to do but he put the wrong interpretation on it. Typical of him. He thought that I was in despair because I couldn’t marry Mark. To him it was proof of how much I cared for Mark. So he decided to take the step that he had been contemplating for a long time. He got the gun from Falter’s desk and was going to shoot himself during the night.”

  “While I was with him he watched you and Arnhardt standing in the door.”

  “Yes, I know. The flower that I put in Mark’s buttonhole. He told me about it. It was so foolish of him but it’s little things like that which cause the greatest tragedies, I suppose. If you hadn’t found that gun last night he wouldn’t be alive this morning.”

  She stopped and her eyes went quickly to the window. She looked back at him.

  “That was so sudden. It almost startled me. The stopping of the wind.”

  There was s
omething startling about the abrupt cessation of the whine and scream and about the stillness which with its cessation impressed itself sharply on the room. It was the unexpected loss of power of a dynamo. The rain was no longer a wall of water shattering over their heads but had sunk to a steady even shower that pattered monotonously on the tiles, emphasizing the utter silence of the wind.

  Her voice sounded strangely loud and strained: “There’s one thing I haven’t been able to understand, though. That’s Mark’s attitude toward Steve. He never mentions him when we are alone. Seems to shy away from any reference to him, in fact. When they are together he acts stiff and formal and self, conscious. Yet I’ve always had the feeling that he liked Steve.”

  “I think I can explain part of his attitude. Arnhardt has always suspected your husband of poisoning his stepfather.”

  She stared at him incredulously.

  “But why?”

  “Because of what took place in San Antonio. He admitted to me that he wouldn’t have blamed Mr. Tolman for feeling that he had been wronged. I think you’re right as to his liking for him. He was reluctant to admit to himself that he did suspect him. Then, too, his friendship with you put him in an awkward position. If he had brought charges against your husband, well, you see how it would have looked.”

  She said in a low voice: “David and the woman of Bathsheba?”

  “Yes.”

  She seemed lost for several moments in her thoughts. When she raised her eyes there was a telltale brightness in them.

  “But that doesn’t solve our problem, does it? Someone did shoot Mark.” There was a distinct hardening of her face and of her voice. “I’m going to tell you something now that I’ve hesitated to do before. I never thought that it might have any importance until last night. Besides, it’s rather embarrassing for me to speak of it. It’s about Esteban Flores.” She hesitated and looked at him with a weak smile. “I wonder if you’d let me have another cigarette? I quit smoking them because Steve can’t. I feel now that I have to have them in order to keep going. There’s something uncanny about this stillness. It’s more nerve-racking than the wind. I’m sure I owe you at least a package.”