by Todd Downing
The Last Trumpet
A Hugh Rennert Mystery
Todd Downing
Contents
Introduction, by Curtis Evans
1 Blood and Sand
2 Murder of a Matador
3 Magic Valley
4 A Ring Round the Moon
5 Lotus-Eater
6 Dust of Mexico
7 The Broken Man
8 Sheriff
9 Death on the Left
10 The Triumph of the Emotions
11 A Cloud Like a Man’s Hand
12 International Bridge
13 Bar Sinister
14 The Mark of the Beast
15 Tonatiuh
16 Coup de Grâce
17 The Shadowless Hour
18 The Moment of Truth
19 Sun on Capricorn
20 The Criminal and His Motive
Introduction
Curtis Evans
“Mr. Downing is a born detective story writer.”
—Edward Powys Mathers (“Torquemada”),
review of Todd Downing, Vultures in the Sky (1935)
The richness and diversity of American genre writing during the Golden Age of mystery fiction (c. 1920 to 1939) is much under-appreciated today. Golden Age mystery readers could choose from a wide variety of literary dishes, be it the tough stuff of the hard-boiled boys (most famously Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain), which has long received the lion’s share of the attention that scholars have granted American Golden Age crime writers; the psychological suspense (or HIBK—Had I But Known—as it was once disparaged) of Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Mignon Eberhart and Leslie Ford; the urban sophistication of Rex Stout, Patrick Quentin and Rufus King; the madcap humor of Phoebe Atwood Taylor and Craig Rice (the latter making the tail end of the Golden Age); the eccentric extravaganzas of Harry Stephen Keeler; the police procedurals of Helen Reilly; the courtroom dramas of Erle Stanley Gardner; or the magnificent baroque puzzles of S. S. Van Dine, Ellery Queen, Anthony Abbot, John Dickson Carr, C. Daly King and Clyde B. Clason.
This listing of authors just scratches the surface of American mystery writing in the years between the two world wars. So many accomplished mystery writers from the period have undeservingly fallen into obscurity. One such individual is Todd Downing, the Golden Age chronicler of fictional murders in Mexico.
Todd Downing was born in 1902 in the town of Atoka, Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory (soon to be Oklahoma). Though one-eighth Choctaw and, like his father Samuel (Sam), an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation, Todd Downing had what in many ways was a traditional, early twentieth century small town American upbringing. Both Todd’s father Sam and his mother Maud were staunch churchgoing Presbyterians and Republicans and Todd was brought up according to the proper precepts of these two orthodoxies.
Yet the Downing family of Atoka was unusual in its great love of reading. From an early age Todd Downing could be found in nooks and corners of the family’s two-story foursquare house with his nose buried in books. He particularly loved romantic tales of adventure, played out in settings around the globe. Beginning with Sir Walter Scott’s and H. Rider Haggard’s colorful sagas of derring-do, Todd moved on, in his teenage years, to crime and mystery, in the form of the short story collections of Arthur B. Reeve, creator of the virtuous scientific detective Dr. Craig Kennedy, and the novels of Sax Rohmer, creator of the diabolical criminal mastermind Dr. Fu Manchu.
After Todd became a student at the University of Oklahoma in 1920, he soon discovered Edgar Wallace, the awesomely prolific English king of the thriller. Todd devoured Wallace shockers at a prodigious rate. (His library of books, bequeathed at his death in 1974 to Southeastern Oklahoma State University, included sixty-five Wallace novels and short story collections, as well as Wallace’s autobiography and biography.) Yet as the 1920s progressed, Todd, like many bright people in his day, became increasingly interested in fair play detective fiction, where the point is not emotional jolts but cerebration: the reader tries to solve the mystery for her/him-self through clues provided within the text by the author. Over the decade of the twenties Todd purchased detective novels and short story collections by Anthony Berkeley, Earl Derr Biggers, Lynn Brock, G. K. Chesterton, Mignon Eberhart, Rufus King, Marie Belloc Lowndes, Baroness Orczy, Mary Roberts Rinehart, T. S. Stribling and S. S. Van Dine.
Between mysteries Todd managed to find time to qualify for his B.A. and M.A at the University of Oklahoma, as well as to take classes in Spanish, French and anthropology during summers spent at the National University of Mexico. In 1928 OU hired the young Atokan as an instructor in Spanish. (Todd was fluent in five languages: English, Choctaw, Spanish, French and Italian.) In addition to teaching his OU classes and conducting summer tour groups in Mexico, Todd continued voraciously reading both detective novels and crime thrillers; and in 1930 he began reviewing mysteries of all sorts in the literary pages of Oklahoma City’s Daily Oklahoman. Especial favorites of Todd’s in the mystery line were Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ellery Queen, John Dickson Carr, Dashiell Hammett, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Mignon Eberhart and additional worthy writers who likely are less familiar to many today: Anthony Abbot, Rufus King, H. C. Bailey, Eden Phillpotts and Anthony Wynne (for more on Todd Downing’s mystery fiction reviews see my book Clues and Corpses: The Detective Fiction and Mystery Criticism of Todd Downing).
Encouraged by an older colleague at the University of Oklahoma, Professor Kenneth C. Kaufman, Todd Downing wrote his first detective novel in 1931, not long after he had begun contributing mystery fiction reviews to the Daily Oklahoman. Eventually published in 1933, Murder on Tour introduced Todd’s most important series detective, United States Customs Service agent Hugh Rennert, who would appear in seven detective novels between 1933 and 1937. (A Hugh Rennert novella, probably written by Todd in 1932, was published in 1945.) Besides Murder on Tour these are: The Cat Screams (1934), Vultures in the Sky (1935), Murder on the Tropic (1935), The Case of the Unconquered Sisters (1936), The Last Trumpet (1937) and Night over Mexico (1937). All six of these later novels now have been reprinted by Coachwhip Publications.
The Hugh Rennert detective novels are primarily set in Mexico (the one exception being The Last Trumpet, where the action ranges from Cameron County, Texas to the Mexican state of Tamaulipas). Todd Downing’s authoritative and fascinating use of Mexico as a setting in his detective novels makes him one of the most important regionalist mystery writers of the Golden Age and is his most significant contribution to the genre. Additionally, the Rennert novels are graced with teasing fair play puzzle plots, stylish writing and interesting characterizations. Hugh Rennert himself is a notable detective, modest, middle-aged, self-reflective and somewhat melancholy, yet resolute and determined. (“A good kind man,” one character calls him in Night over Mexico, and he is.) Hugh Rennert is fascinated with Mexico and vacilada, the mirthfully stoic attitude of the country’s people toward life and death; and over the course of the series Todd Downing explores what might be termed the metaphysical relationship of Rennert and Mexico in interesting ways. We learn a lot about both a man and a country.
After 1937 Todd Downing wrote two more detective novels, both with a different series detective (Texas sheriff Peter Bounty, introduced in The Last Trumpet): Death under the Moonflower (1938) and The Lazy Lawrence Murders (1941). He also published the work which he considered his crowning achievement as a writer, a non-fictional study of Mexico, The Mexican Earth (1940; reprinted by the University of Oklahoma Press in 1996). Sadly, Todd’s attempt in the 1940s to write a mainstream historical novel about Mexico came to naught. Todd had resigned as an instructor at the University of Oklahoma in 1935 in order to devote himself professionally to writing, but af
ter 1941 he would never publish another novel—indeed, after 1945 he never published any fiction of any kind again. In the 1940s Todd found employment as an advertising copy writer in Philadelphia. One of his ads, the tongue-in-cheek mystery homage “The Case of the Crumpled Letter,” was chosen in 1959 as one of the 100 greatest advertisements.
In the 1950s Todd returned to the teaching profession, taking posts at schools in Maryland and Virginia, but after the death of his father in 1954 he returned to Atoka to live with his octogenarian mother and teach Spanish and French at Atoka High School, from where he had graduated thirty-five years earlier. After the death of Todd’s mother in 1965, Todd lived on alone in the old family home until his own demise in 1974. The professional highlight of his later years was his appointment as Emeritus Professor of Choctaw Language and Choctaw Heritage at Southeastern Oklahoma State University (then Southeastern State College). Reflecting Todd’s continued interest in his Choctaw heritage were his series of lessons in the Choctaw language, Chahta Anampa: An Introduction to Choctaw Grammar, and his historical pageant play about the Choctaw Nation, Journey’s End, both of which were published in 1971, forty years after he penned his first detective novel.
Todd Downing is buried beneath a simple headstone in Atoka, the place of his birth. Fittingly, his writing lives after him.
1
Blood and Sand
I
In spite of her resolve not to make a fool of herself at her first bull-fight, Janell Lincoln began to tremble when the trumpet-call ended on a shrill brassy note and the crowded amphitheatre became quiet and tense.
The trumpeter looked exactly like a vain little monkey decked out in rose and gold as he took the instrument from his lips and bowed. Then, unperturbed by the fact that no ovation was forth-coming, he smiled proudly and canted his head to listen to the echo.
The echo took a long, long time to die in the crooked shimmer of heat which rose from the arena toward the hard blue sky and the dazzling white clouds wandering in from the Gulf of Mexico. It rang in the girl’s ears, and she thought: It’s a tiny live thing that wants to escape, but can’t! She had a momentary nightmarish sensation of being trapped there too—in an inverted glass bowl which was lined by tier upon tier of dark, strange faces and clamped down tightly upon a round floor of yellow sand. Sand that was furrowed deeply and splotched by damp red stains.
She slid a hand over the hot concrete and felt her father’s fingers close over it. They were strong and gentle surgeon’s fingers whose touch always carried reassurance.
“Feel all right?” he asked. “If you want to go—”
“No, no.” She shook her head firmly. It had been her suggestion that they should come across the Rio Grande to this dedication of Matamoros’ new arena. He had agreed reluctantly. She had noticed his effort to detain her as long as possible outside, dispatching post cards to school friends up north. “Christmas Day, and I’m on my way to a bullfight!”
His luminous grey eyes were regarding her keenly, and there was an anxious look on his face. She hadn’t become accustomed yet to the rich, even coat of tan which he had been acquiring, or to the flesh which had rounded out his cheeks, softening the old angularity of his profile. With his broad shoulders stretching the cloth of his white tropical worsted coat and the sun glinting upon the grey hairs at his temples, he was, she decided again, a distinguished and handsome man. He held his Panama hat upside down between his knees, lest it serve as a target for an orange peel or worse.
She moved closer to the loop of iron which separated their seats. “Really, I’m thrilled by it. What happens now?”
“The banderillas—the darts.”
Her eyes followed his to the arena, where the bull stood, his attention fixed on something which was hidden from her sight by the red wooden fence. A massive coal-black creature with long symmetrical horns, he was motionless save for an occasional twitch of the tail and an impatient pawing of the sand. They were on the east side, close down in the sun, so that his shadow loomed hugely toward them.
A ripple of applause went over the stands, and her father said: “Carlos Campos. Evidently he’s going to place the darts. Usually the matador lets someone else do it.”
She leaned forward to get an uninterrupted view of the young man who had stepped out from the shade, brandishing in each hand a barbed stick from which dangled strips of coloured paper. He was taller than most Mexicans, and his skin-tight green-and-silver trousers and jacket set off to advantage the contours of a sinewy body. He held his head high, to smile at the crowd, and the sun played upon his dark-olive mobile face.
“So that’s Carlos Campos!” she murmured.
“Yes.” Dr. Lincoln watched the matador move with graceful springing steps over the sand. “I’m glad his father can’t see him now.”
“You told me that he wouldn’t let Carlos go into the ring, didn’t you?”
“Yes. He always opposed it. But Carlos had the fever, the afición the Mexicans call it, and practiced with young bulls on the hacienda. He got quite a local reputation. Partly because he’s left-handed, and that’s a novelty. But he waited until his father’s death before he appeared in public.”
Campos had stopped within six yards of the bull and was rising lightly on his toes, lifting one dart and then the other to arm’s length. Like a man going tentatively through setting-up exercises.
Suddenly he advanced, with a swift circular movement, and drove the barbs into the animal’s neck, close together, directly behind the head. The bull gave a low, angry bellow, but seemed too surprised to attack. The banderillas fell forward, aslant on either side of his face, and began to drip. The blood glistened brightly in the sun.
In front of them a Mexican in a tight black suit and little straw hat was consuming a cigarette with quick, nervous puffs, never taking the tube from his lies. Wisps of smoke floated back into Janell’s face with a sickening, sweet odour like cheap incense.
She turned her head away and glanced over the stands. When her father began to fan her gently with his hat she managed another smile. “I’m all right. It’s just the sun and the crowd and—and people staring at me.”
“Staring is as much a part of the entertainment as the bulls. It’s not considered rude in Mexico. And”—he patted her hand—“you can’t blame them when such a good-looking girl sits here with an old fossil like me.”
She noticed, however, that he raised his eyes and scanned the near-by rows. “Up in that box,” she told him, “a man’s been staring at me through field-glasses.”
He looked up at the row of palcos high up on the south side, his smile broadened, and he waved a hand in greeting. “They’re friends,” he said in a relieved tone. “The young fellow with the glasses is Kent Distant. The other is Hugh Rennert. You haven’t met either of them, have you?”
“No. Who’s Hugh Rennert?”
“A newcomer to our neighbourhood. He’s building that house a couple of miles east of us.”
“Oh, yes. That brick bungalow.” The neighbourhood, she knew, meant that little community a few miles outside of Brownsville which combined so happily the advantages of city, suburbs and country.
“Rennert used to be with the United States Customs Service. His father died recently and left him some money, I understand, so he resigned and came to Cameron County to grow citrus fruit.” She realized that her father’s purpose was to give her an opportunity to disregard what was happening below. “Kent Distant is the son of an acquaintance of mine—David Distant. You may have heard me speak of him.”
“The Oklahoma Indian?”
“Yes. David is supposed to spend Christmas in Brownsville. Kent came down from Washington to meet him. He’s studying for the Foreign Service there. He’s staying at the Jester Hotel, on the highway above our place, you know. I’ve been intending to ask him over for dinner.”
“Well, why don’t you?”
His eyes had a twinkle, but behind that, she saw, they had become thoughtful. “You’d like me t
o?”
“Why, yes. It’d be fun to meet an Oklahoma Indian.”
“Kent’s half Indian. A fine young man.”
There was a moment of silence. Janell said to him sternly: “I believe, my dear, you have that look in your eyes. Turn your head this way. Yes, you have.”
“Mind telling me what you mean?”
“It’s that predatory look mothers get when an unmarried male comes within range of a daughter who’s been left on their hands. You’re forgetting that I’m going to be an old maid and keep house for you.”
“I thought you might have changed your mind since last summer.”
“Of course not.”
He astonished her by dropping his bantering tone and saying: “You don’t want to take that resolution seriously, Janell.”
She was vaguely uncomfortable and didn’t respond.
“Something might happen to me, you know,” he went on gravely. “That would leave you very much alone in the world.”
“Don’t say that!” She gripped his arm tightly. “Why, nothing could possibly happen.”
His mood changed again, he laughed and glanced upward. “All right. Sorry. I think Kent’s on his way down here. Want this?” He held out the purse which she had put into his pocket for safe keeping.
She took it absently, located mirror and lipstick. She was surprised to see the paleness of her face, the nervous brightness of the deep-set eyes which were so much like her father’s. Strands of ash-blonde hair which should have been fluffy clung damply to her forehead, under the brim of her navy-blue straw hat.
But her thoughts were on her father. She had had no idea that he could still slip so easily into the dark apprehensive mood which used to worry her so. True, this had been a calamitous winter for communities like his at the southernmost tip of Texas. Early in the fall the tropical hurricane had swept in from the Gulf, raking the Magic Valley with its fury. There had been enormous damages to the citrus fruit orchards upon which everyone depended, directly or indirectly, for a livelihood. She knew from his letters that the suffering which he had witnessed then had left its trace upon him. And it was such a few years before that he had seen her mother’s body brought mangled from the wreckage of a train.
