The Case of the Unconquered Sisters

by Todd Downing

  Her eyelids were beginning to sag again. She laid down the pencil with numb fingers.

  She decided to go to the bathroom, dash cold water on her face.

  She got to the door and turned.

  The rain was slapping against the windowpane and rattling in a loose gutter overhead. There had been a faint creaking, too. In the wardrobe, evidently. The wood expanding as it always did at the beginning of the rainy season.

  She went out and crossed to the bath.

  She stayed there for several minutes. When she came out she felt a little better: her head was clearer.

  The door of John Biggerstaffs room was only a few feet from her right hand now. She considered for a moment, then tiptoed to it.

  John had looked so young, lying there in his sleep. It was almost amusing to see the dark stubble on his cheeks and lips, showing that he had not shaved recently. It was difficult to think of John being Cornell’s husband someday, holding her in his strong arms….

  Very softly she opened the door and went in, shading the candle with one hand. Unaccountably she felt a warm little glow of happiness.

  The bedclothes were rumpled, the way John always disturbed them with those muscular legs of his. But John wasn’t in the bed.

  She took her hand from the candle flame to make sure that her eyes were not deceiving her. She looked about the room. She did not find the dressing gown which had been hung over the foot of the bed or the slippers which had lain on the floor when she had sat there before dinner.

  Mr. Rennert must have been mistaken about that sedative when he said that John would sleep until morning. And where could he have gone? Not to the bathroom, because she had just come from there….

  She couldn’t control her yawn. It gripped her jaws and sent a delicious feeling of relaxation through her.

  After all, if one was sleepy, one was sleepy. It was silly to force oneself to wakefulness on account of a letter which could just as well wait until morning.

  She crossed the hall to her own room, put down the candle and began the impossible task of undressing. She removed the collar and the cuffs and replaced them in a drawer.

  As she turned, her eyes fell on the wardrobe. While she had been gone the doors had come entirely open, exposing the disarray of her dresses inside. She never left her garments pushed together on their hangers in that way.

  But it was too much of an effort to straighten them now. It was too much of an effort to continue undressing, even.

  She went as swiftly as she could to the bed. If she could only get her head down on the pillow and close her eyes for a moment nothing else mattered.

  She slept at once.

  18

  Sleep

  Rennert sat in the pool of light cast by the candles and watched Lucy lean over a low table, inlaid with mosaic, which bore a spirit lamp and a coffee service. Her fingers looked as white and fragile as the china cups she was moving about. She was saying:

  “Now, Mr. Rennert, we can resume our conversation of this afternoon. I always prefer not to discuss unpleasant matters at dinner. Don’t you?”

  “Certainly.”

  “After you left I went back over the days when Mr. Voice was receiving those letters. I tried to think of something that might help you. I remembered one incident which may or may not be of importance. Do you use cream and sugar, Mr. Rennert?”

  “Neither, thank you.”

  “This happened on the night of May first. I don’t know exactly what time, but it was late. I had been kept awake by the shots but had finally fallen asleep.” She handed him a cup.

  “The shots?” he prompted.

  “Yes. May Day has got to be a time of fiesta here in Mexico. The radical element is so strong, you know.” She shrugged deprecatingly. “And then, too, the religious celebrations are being discouraged, so May Day takes their place. There is always a great deal of pulque consumed, with consequent disturbances. Fireworks, gunfire and so forth.”

  Rennert nodded, wondering whether it was by accident or design that a bullet had pierced a man’s head on a night when one more shot would have attracted no attention.

  “On that night,” Lucy went on, “a windowpane of Mr. Voice’s room was broken. I was awakened by the shattering of glass. I was confused for a moment or two, the way one is. I got up, however, and went to the window. The light was on in the room above, and Mr. Voice was leaning out. I called him and asked if anything was wrong. He acted startled but said that he had accidentally broken the pane. I went back to bed. That was the last time I saw him. The letter came the next day.”

  “Was he dressed when you saw him at the window?”

  “Yes. Evidently he had just returned.”

  “Returned?”

  “My memory seems to be improving, doesn’t it? Mr. Voice had gone to Mexico City that evening.”

  “At what time?”

  “Soon after dinner. He came to my room and asked if I had a copy of that day’s newspaper. I did. He looked up something in it, then said he was going in to Mexico City.”

  “You have no idea what it was he looked up?”

  “No.”

  “How did he seem—excited, pleased, displeased?”

  She thought for a moment. “I didn’t observe him carefully, but I think he was excited. Yes, I’m sure he was. He kept glancing at his watch.”

  Rennert sipped coffee from a thin white cup which had a nick on the rim. The coffee was hot and strong, and bitter with chicory, but it didn’t seem to combat the nervousness which kept impelling him to turn his head and listen for sounds from the hall or from upstairs. The rain splashed away against the windows, so that the hush in the house was by comparison undisturbed. He had to admit himself too distracted to concentrate properly on this new and, he felt, vital bit of information. He craved a cigarette but knew that it would be futile to look for an ash tray in this room.

  “May I ask a few more questions, Miss Faudree?”

  “Of course. Anything you wish.”

  “As you said this afternoon, there are always owls in the Pedregal. But it is true, isn’t it, that they were particularly active while Voice was receiving those letters?”

  She put down her cup and reached up to draw the cashmere shawl about her shoulders.

  “It is, Mr. Rennert. I heard them myself. They would gather on the edge of the Pedregal nearest the house and in the cedar tree at the back. Several nights I heard them fly to his window. That is a simple statement of fact, unembroidered by imagination. I tried to dismiss it with a laugh, but I couldn’t.”

  “Do you recall the approximate period of time over which you heard the tecolotes?”

  “They must have begun about a week before May first.”

  “And did you hear them after that?”

  “I heard them sometimes, far out on the lava, but they never came again so near the house.”

  “Did you have any explanation?”

  Her fingers began to move down the fringe of the shawl, tugging methodically at the little knots in turn.

  “I thought at first that a new kind had migrated here. But the night Mr. Roark stayed with us he shot one. I went out and looked at it the next morning before he buried it. It was the ordinary kind one sees about here. I decided then that some roosting place of theirs out on the Pedregal must have been broken up. They stopped bothering us, and I thought no more about them.”

  Rennert leaned forward. “Did Professor Voice know about the superstition that the tecolote’s cries precede death?”

  Her eyes moved restlessly about, pausing momentarily on the mantel ledge, on the two gilt-framed silhouettes on the wall beside it, on the steady flame of the nearer of the two candles. It was as if she were seeking something to hold her gaze. “Yes, it worried him more than he would admit, I think.”

  “Did he know about it before they started, or did someone tell him?”

  Her fingers had reached the end of the shawl’s black fringe. They remained for a moment fluttering over her la
p, then sought the chair arms, to move along the gilt nailheads in the upholstery.

  “I think,” she said deliberately, “that someone told him. Yes, I’m sure of it. He asked Marta; said that someone had told him that the tecolotes always gave warning of death.”

  “And Marta assured him that they did?”

  “Yes. Marta is very intelligent in most ways, but she has any number of foolish beliefs locked away in the back of her mind. Her grandmother was a Faudree slave who came down with the family. Her mother married and left us to live in Mexico City. She brought Marta back to us when she was in her teens, after she had absorbed a great deal of superstition.” She paused. “Oh, while I think of it, Mr. Rennert. You asked to see the letters which Mr. Voice was studying. I have them here.”

  From a table she took a packet of yellowed envelopes bound by a rubber band.

  “I’m not sure,” she said as she gave it to him, “just what you will find. It has been some time since I looked at them. But I think they’re mostly letters which my grandfather and his family received before and during the war. I had always supposed they concerned personal matters, of interest only to ourselves. But Mr. Voice assured me that there were some from prominent men, and that they threw a great deal of light on the war. The Faudrees had connections and friends throughout the South.”

  “Thank you. I shall return them as soon as possible. Now let me thank you for a most pleasant dinner.” (It was impossible to sit still any longer, assuring himself that one glass of wine had been responsible for Monica’s drowsiness.)

  “You are gracious, Mr. Rennert. But I know that the thoughts of both of us have been elsewhere.” She paused. “I don’t want to annoy you with questions, but tell me this: Are you making progress?”

  “A great deal, Miss Faudree.”

  She stared at the floor. “I have lived in this house all my life, Mr. Rennert. I know every inch of it as I know my own conscience. But tonight I feel as if I were a stranger in it. These walls, the furniture, my grandfather’s picture, even—all seem different.” Her voice became strained. “I lived through the Revolution. I remember the rumors of danger, the shots in my ears day and night, the sight of butchered men in the streets. I wasn’t afraid then, as long as I was within these walls. I knew that I was safe. But now I feel as if something had got into this house. Something evil that has changed the things I know. It started when you came this afternoon, Mr. Rennert. I don’t blame you, but I am wondering if perhaps it would not be wise to stop any further investigation, to let the dead past bury its dead.”

  She looked up and met his steady gaze. He was standing so that the candlelight fell full on the long tanned line of his jaw and on his firm, severe chin.

  “Is that your wish, Miss Faudree?” he asked quietly.

  She laughed nervously and passed a hand across her forehead. “No, no.” She shook her head. “Of course not. I was forgetting myself. I wasn’t reasonable. You must go ahead, of course.”

  “And you will trust me to act as I think best here in your house tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you. Now—”

  “You must be going, I know. Take one of those candles to light your way upstairs.”

  He knew that her eyes were on his back as he went out.

  He paused in the upper hall and surveyed the tight-shut doors which faced him. The beat of the rain was muffled here, as if the dark, distempered walls enclosed a private stillness of their own.

  He went to the door of Monica’s room and knocked lightly.

  There was no response.

  He knocked again, waited, and turned the knob. He stood on the threshold and looked about him.

  A half-burned candle stood on the dresser, a yellow cascade of wax dripping down one side. Monica Faudree lay on the bed fully dressed. She looked old and not a little ludicrous, with her breath coming stertorously through her partially opened mouth and the lenses of her spectacles giving back an opaque reflection of the light.

  He called to her sharply, then went to the bed and caught her by the shoulder. He shook her several times. She moaned slightly, and her breathing became irregular. But she did not waken.

  19

  Blank

  Cornell had been crying, Rennert saw as soon as the girl opened her door to his knock.

  She did not avert her eyes from the candle quickly enough to hide the glistening brightness of their pupils or the redness of their lids.

  “I’m a bit worried about your aunt Monica,” he said. “Can you come with me to her room?”

  “Monica?” She took away the handkerchief with which she had been touching her mouth and nose. “What’s the matter?” Concern for herself was gone now, and she looked straight at him.

  “She became sleepy at dinner and went to her room to lie down. I thought it best to knock at her door a few moments ago and assure myself that she was all right. I can’t waken her.”

  “Why, of course, Mr. Rennert.” Cornell stepped into the hall and closed the door.

  He followed her into the nearby room, watched her repeat his actions of calling and shaking Monica.

  The cords of her throat were tight as she turned to him and tried to laugh. “This is strange. She seems all right, except that she’s sleeping so soundly. It’s as if—she were drugged, or something.”

  “Exactly. Will you undress her, get her to bed and stay with her for a time? Later we can attempt to rouse her, if we think it best.”

  “Why surely.” He saw the slow widening of her eyes and the accentuation of their brightness. Her face was white. “You think that someone did this to her—on purpose?”

  “It appears so, Miss Faudree. When was the last time you saw her?”

  “When you and John and Mr. Roark were in my apartment. She stayed a few minutes after you left.”

  “I have to ask this question. Did she eat or drink anything while there?”

  She shook her head. “No, nothing at all. I’m sure of that.”

  “Very well. One more thing. Did you know that she had saved the letter which came to Lucy about the first of May with the signature of Professor Voice?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know where she might keep such a letter?”

  Her gaze wandered about the room. “No. In a drawer of her dresser, perhaps. Or in the wardrobe.”

  Rennert stepped over to the dresser and looked at the album which lay there. The page which met his eyes was blank, but there was a thin line of dried paste down the left side.

  Swiftly he went through the book, glancing at the lines written with pen or pencil, at the saint’s day and Christmas cards pasted there. He found no typewritten missive.

  He turned to Cornell. “Does anyone in the house own a type writer?”

  “Dr. Fogarty has one.”

  “No one else?”

  “No. I know that because both boys, John and Karl, use it. I’ve even borrowed it myself.”

  Rennert left the album and moved toward the door, whose key was on the inside.

  “Is your aunt in the habit of locking her door?” he asked.

  “Usually at night, I think. But not in the daytime. There’s no need. Things like this—just don’t happen to us, Mr. Rennert.”

  “And I trust they won’t again. I’ll leave you now. It might be well to keep this door locked until I return.”

  “All right.” Her voice was steadier now. “You think there’s danger, don’t you?”

  “Not for her—” he stared at the bed—“now. But I don’t want to take any more chances.”

  He waited in the hall until he heard the key turn in the lock, then crossed to Weikel’s room.

  The young man was wearing the same corduroy trousers and faded blue shirt, but had removed his boots and put on bedroom slippers.

  He stood unbudging in the doorway and regarded his visitor with a level stare. The candlelight gave a bilious hue to his skin and made the pimples on his cheeks stand out in bold relief.

 
“Good evening,” Rennert said. “I want to talk to you, Weikel.”

  The other stood a moment longer, saying nothing, then stepped aside.

  “Come in,” he said grudgingly.

  Rennert entered, set his candle on the table and moved the straight chair about so that he could face Weikel.

  “Sit down.” He gestured toward the rocker. When Weikel had lowered his cumbrous body into the chair, Rennert went on:

  “I intended to call on you sooner but thought I’d give you time to eat your dinner. Where do you fellows take your meals, by the way?”

  There was something in Weikel’s unusually small eyes which Rennert couldn’t quite analyze. It wasn’t altogether antagonism, despite the forbidding aspect of the heavy, drawn brows and the lack of a smile on the lips. An uncertainty and wariness, rather.

  “Up on the plaza,” he answered.

  “At a restaurant?”

  “Yes. El Chico. I eat there,” he amended.

  “Dr. Fogarty and Mr. Biggerstaff don’t?”

  “No. It’s not good enough for them. They eat at El Eliseo. That’s more expensive.”

  All this had come readily enough. There had even been a trace of eagerness in the replies.

  “I see. At what time did you go to dinner tonight?”

  “About six-thirty.”

  Rennert glanced at the boots which stood at the foot of the bed. “You got back before the rain started, I judge.”

  “Just did.”

  Rennert remembered the second flare of the candles in the draft from the rear door and the heavy footsteps on the stairs as they had sat at the dinner table. Something in the way of corroboration….

  “Weikel,” he said, “Dr. Fogarty has told you that I am with the United States Customs Service. You heard my questions out in the coach house. Have you thought of anything in the meantime which might help me?”

  Weikel’s eyes were guarded now.

  “No,” he said at once. “I’m only Dr. Fogarty’s assistant. I don’t know anything.”