by Todd Downing
“That’s fine. When are you leaving?”
“To-morrow evening or Monday morning. Father wants to be sure that Professor Radisson is recovering.”
“How is Radisson?”
“I’m not sure. Father spent a lot of time with him this afternoon. Something worried him, I think, and he didn’t say much afterwards. He was aggravated, too, at Mr. Rennert.”
“At Mr. Rennert?”
“Yes, Mr. Rennert’s been appointed a deputy sheriff, you know, and—”
“A deputy sheriff? No, I didn’t know that. To investigate these—these attacks?”
“Yes, and Father says it’s gone to his head. He even went so far as to tell Father that he’d been criminally careless because the maid threw away the bullet he got out of Mr. Radisson’s hand. Father was angry about it. That’s what comes, he said, of giving a man a little bit of authority.”
Kent’s jaw set.
“I don’t know anybody,” he said stiffly, “who would be better qualified to use authority than Mr. Rennert. Now that he’s in charge the mystery will be solved.”
Both of them became absorbed in the deep bowls of Julienne soup which had been set before them.
The orchestra began to tune its instruments.
Janell glanced over the balcony railing and said, with obvious determination to change the subject: “There’s an American who looks as though he’s lost. That big one in white.”
Kent’s eyes followed hers. “That’s Jarl Angerman. Works for Dr. Torday. I saw him with Mr. Rennert this morning. Mr. Rennert told me later who he was.”
“Jarl Angerman!” She disregarded the platter of rice and eggs which the waiter had brought her.
Angerman stood for a moment at the edge of the dance floor, looking about him blankly. A little man in an evening-suit fluttered up to him, chattering. With some difficulty he got Angerman guided across the room to a vacant table which bore a reserved sign. Angerman moved with ponderous precision and sank heavily into a chair which was too small for him.
“I’ve heard Father speak of him,” Janell said. “He hasn’t any use for him. He’s drunk, I suppose.”
“I’m afraid so. Listen, Janell.” Kent leaned toward her and spoke seriously. “Mr. Rennert gave me a regular lecture last night about Matamoros and these other border towns. He said it was all right for us to come here, because it’s on a main street and near the radio station. He made me promise, though, that we wouldn’t stay late and wouldn’t venture on to any side streets There’s the riffraff of two countries here, he says, and it’s really dangerous after dark. He said if there was the least sign of trouble to get out and head for the bridge. So if I hustle you out in a hurry, you’ll understand, won’t you?”
“Of course. Father cautioned me, too. Oh, the cabaret must be beginning.”
Kent glanced at his watch.
It was eight o'clock.
The lights were dimmed, and a spotlight pierced the thick clouds of smoke. Drums throbbed out, a violin wailed, and the seed-filled gourds that are called maracas hissed like angry rattlesnakes.
“Ole!” The shout went up from the orchestra, and a girl whirled upon the floor. She was tall and lithe and wore a low-cut bodice and full yellow skirt which spun about her bare brown legs.
“Marihuana,” she began to sing in a low, drowsy voice, “sweet marihuana, listen to my plea.”
The tempo quickened and she swayed, hands raised over her head, agile fingers clattering castanets.
“You alone can bring my lover back to me,
Even though I know it’s only fantasy …”
She circled the edge of the floor, the spotlight following her. She slowed as she approached Angerman’s table and fixed her eyes provocatively on his. He stared wide-eyed at her, his fingers gripped about an empty glass.
“Sweet marihuana …”
Exactly what happened then the couple on the balcony couldn’t see. A man—in evening-suit, hence a waiter—passed between the dancer and Angerman. He stumbled. There was a crash of breaking dishes. The girl moved on hastily. In the smoky obscurity left by the shifting of the light confusion broke out. Black-coated men milled and shouted. In the midst of them stood Angerman’s tall, white-clad figure. He was flailing about with his fists.
“Let’s go, Janell.”
“All right.”
At the head of the stairs Kent thrust a bill into the hand of a waiter who was watching the mêlée below. He grasped the girl’s arm and they sped toward the exit. As he pushed through the crowd which was gathering, Kent glanced once over his shoulder. The last thing he saw was the piston-like rise and fall of Angerman’s white arms.
Berserk, he thought.
II
The lights of the International Bridge winked like will-o’-the-wisps that never got nearer. It wasn’t so bad when the car was moving, but when they had to stop to allow traffic to pass at the intersections …
It was foolish, Kent told himself angrily, to act as he was doing; glancing warily at the dark alleys and darker doorways, where only the glow of cigarettes betrayed the presence of figures shrouded by sarapes; starting at every shrill cry from the old women who huddled over charcoal braziers, stirring unsavoury messes; getting nauseated by the odour of burning fat which pervaded the hot, stagnant air.
The girl at his side must have shared his feeling, for she sat close to him, and he thought that she trembled.
“We’re all right now,” he assured her. “Almost to the bridge.”
He was sure now that she was trembling. “I don’t like Mexico. It’s not what I thought it would be. Like that bullfight yesterday.”
“This isn’t really Mexico. Only the dregs. They always come up at the border.”
“But Brownsville and the cities on our side aren’t like this.”
“They used to be.”
Their progress was slower still when they approached the busy section about the end of the bridge. The garish yellow light of the bazaars fell on crowds that moved sluggishly. They were caught in the Saturday night shifting of population, Matamoros seeking pleasure in the American city, Brownsville in the Mexican. A ceaseless ebb and flow of dark faces and white.
At the garita of the Mexican Customs a phlegmatic officer glanced perfunctorily into their car and waved them on. They were on the bridge, linked in an interminable chain which paralleled another similar one moving in the opposite direction. Along the railings at the sides jostled and eddied pedestrians in holiday spirits. Their ears were filled with din, shouts, the babble of talk, horns that demanded and begged and suggested passage, the intermittent popping of firecrackers. Their eyes smarted with flying sand.
Half-way across Kent cut round a saloon that seemed set on aggravating them by its slowness. This manoeuvre being successful, he tried it again—and made his mistake.
He found himself in the lane between the two lines of traffic, barred from re-entry into that on the right by the jam at the United States Customs. He glanced back and saw no break in the ranks. He didn’t know what to do.
They were suspended over an ink-black gulf, where lonely lights smeared the surface of water and dotted wastes of flat sand.
Kent glanced curiously at the car which was aligned with his. It was a black saloon of unusual construction. There was a single seat in the front, where a woman, an American, sat at the wheel. The entire right side was taken up by a couch-like affair. The windows were open, and as they passed a lamppost Kent caught a glimpse of the man who sat far back among cushions. He wore no hat. His head had fallen forward and to the left, so that his chin rested on his chest and the right side of his face was turned to the light. He seemed to be staring blankly at nothing. Something was wrong with his face….
The car moved forward and its interior was dark. “What is it?” Janell noticed the direction of Kent’s gaze.
He laughed nervously. “A drunk, I suppose, in that car. A luxurious way to be taken home.”
“Why, that’s Dr. Torday’s car
! He had it made especially for him, so he could be taken back and forth from the broadcasting station. They say there are special shock-absorbers, so that he won’t be jarred.”
At the next light, close to the Customs, Kent craned his neck.
The man still stared fixedly. His face was stark white in the illumination, but streaked with something dark which ran from his right temple down over his cheek-bones and along his jaw.
Blood.
11
A Cloud Like a Man’s Hand
I
At eight o’clock Rennert was rapping upon a door whose frosted glass panel bore the legend: Rolf Jester—Real Estate—Farm Loans and Mortgages.
He felt a full measure of relief only when he saw the letters merge with the approaching shadow of a man hastily putting big arms into a coat. The office was on the second floor, and had a window open upon a street which at this hour was unfrequented. Brilliantly lighted, it made a conspicuous rectangle in an otherwise dark façade. Rennert had paused upon the pavement opposite, sighted a crown of burnished red hair bent over a desk, and thought how easy murder could be.
Jester opened the door, and his welcoming smile expanded into a beam of delight. “Why, Hugh! Come in. Come in. I thought it was Darwin Wyllys.”
Rennert walked past him and across the room. He jerked down the window and the blind, the turned and let some of his regard for this big-jointed, bighearted man harden his voice. “No need to make a target out of yourself, Rolf. I’m carrying a gun. If I had had a silencer on it two minutes ago I could have shot you through the head, got leisurely into my car, and driven off. In half an hour I’d be in bed or across the river in Mexico. No one the wiser. Savvy?”
Jester’s puzzled look vanished and he frowned in quick concern. “Sit down, Hugh.” His swivel-chair creaked with his weight as he tilted it far back. He clasped his hands at the nape of his neck and gave keen scrutiny to Rennert’s face across the flat-topped desk. “What’s wrong with you, old man?” he demanded kindly. “A touch of the sun to-day?”
Rennert pulled back his lapel.
The other’s head jerked forward and he stared at the badge, then at Rennert. The corners of his mouth were suddenly compressed.
“Go ahead and laugh,” Rennert said resignedly. “I can see you want to. But it’s real. I didn’t send in breakfast food labels for it.”
Jester sobered. “I wasn’t going to laugh, Hugh. But—are you actually a deputy sheriff?”
“Peter Bounty appointed me this afternoon.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I gave Wyllys your message. You’ve had no further word from him?”
“No. But he won’t stay long. Then you and I can have the evening to ourselves.” Jester grinned and scratched red hair. “Say, he seems to want to keep this business a secret. How in the hell do I go about chasing a deputy sheriff out of my office for a few minutes?”
Rennert smiled. “In this case, I don’t think you can do it. It’s partly to see Wyllys, separated from Angerman, that I came here to-night. He told me about purchasing the Campos hacienda for Angerman. Took it for granted that I knew. Just how do you figure in this deal, Rolf?”
Jester busied himself with the making of a cigarette, one of his earlier habits which he had never given up. “Well,” he began, as his eyes measured the fall of tobacco from a cotton sack, “Wyllys came to me about six months ago and asked me to find out if the place was for sale. I wrote to old Manuel Campos, but he wouldn’t consider selling. After his death, though, I had an idea that his son wouldn’t want to be tied down. So I got in touch with Wyllys, found out that he was still in the market, and put the deal through. I met Carlos in Matamoros yesterday morning, before the bullfight, and got all the papers signed.” He indicated a wire basket. “There they all are. A clear title. Angerman has full and immediate possession of the hacienda.”
“Any strings attached?”
“None whatever.”
“Did the death of Carlos have any effect on the transfer?”
“No, the papers had already been signed.”
“But no one knew that?”
“No. Of course, Wyllys knew that I was going to see Carlos, but not just when.”
“Did he make any explanation?”
“He said it was to be a sort of Christmas present to Angerman. He wasn’t to know about it until the deal was clinched!” Jester hesitated. “There’s one thing more, Hugh. Wyllys gave me the money partly in cash and partly in securities. The securities were originally in Mrs. Torday’s name, I noticed. It’s just a guess of mine, but I think that she was the actual purchaser, and didn’t want to appear. I called Wyllys several times about the price. He was always vague and said he’d have to consult someone else. That’s confidential, Hugh.”
“Certainly. What do you know about Wyllys, Rolf? I can’t get him fitted into things.”
“I don’t know much. He came down with the Tordays from Minnesota. I think he had some money of his own originally, but the last year or so Torday seems to have been supporting him. He does odd jobs for the Doc. Tried to manage the radio station when it was started, but made a failure of it. A weak sister, I’d call him.” Jester glanced at his watch. “Are you sure he understood he was to meet me here at eight?”
“Yes, I made the time definite enough. Let’s go on talking.”
“All right. You might tell me why you’re wearing that badge. I judge Pete Bounty has got you checking up on Torday.”
“Among other things. My immediate object is to find out what I can about the Campos hacienda and about the party you took there. Is the ranch a valuable one? Oil or anything of that sort?”
“No. It’s mountainous, but there’s some good grazing land. Good farming land if it were irrigated.”
“Give me some dope on this party.”
“Well, they were just prospective customers, like I have on my hands every once in a while. The Lincolns, the Tordays and Wyllys came together. They’d been at a medical convention in San Antonio, and wanted to look over the Valley. David Distant was here. I’d been trying to sell him some land. Still am, in fact, but he won’t make up his mind. Matt and Charles Bettis were from Kansas City; had some money they wanted to invest in a hotel. The Perkinses were an elderly couple from New Orleans. He was a retired banker, and they were considering coming to the Valley to live. That’s the bunch.”
Mentally Rennert checked over the list. “Now I want an account of your visit, Rolf. From the moment you arrived.”
“That’s a big order,” Jester protested. “And God, it’s hot in here! Let’s take off our coats.”
They did so, and Jester arranged an electric fan so that it would play over both of them. He hitched up his trousers, sat down and wedged a foot against an open drawer.
“You got there Saturday noon,” Rennert began for him. “Who met you?”
“Carlos Campos and Angerman, in cars.”
“What sort of a meeting took place between Angerman and the Tordays and Wyllys?”
“Well, Wyllys and Angerman seemed to be old friends. Mrs. Torday was a little reserved, but I could see that she was glad to see Angerman. He acted very stiff and formal.”
“And Dr. Torday?”
Jester thought a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t remember about him especially. Mrs. Torday introduced Angerman to him, like she did to all the rest of us.”
“Go on.”
Jester sighed and raised his fingers to his moustache. “We went to the house, where Manuel Campos welcomed us like a grandee, and we had a big lunch. When it got cooler that afternoon Carlos and Angerman took us on a tour of the hacienda. We had a late dinner that night, and afterwards sat around the patio. Talked and listened to the peons play guitars and sing. We went back to the Pullman to sleep. Campos wanted us to stay at the house, of course, but I thought that would be too much of an imposition. The next morning Carlos and Angerman came for us again, and took us to the house for breakfast. Then they had horses sa
ddled and some of us went riding.”
“I’d like to know,” Rennert said, “who went riding. Also whether you stayed in a group or separated.”
“Let’s see.” Jester cocked an eye at the ceiling. “We separated. David Distant and I went together, east of the house. Carlos, Wyllys, and the Bettis brothers went north. Mrs. Torday and Angerman rode off toward the west.”
“In what direction was the switch?”
“West.”
“How far from the house?”
“A quarter of a mile or more.”
“Was it visible from the house?”
“No, there’s a wall between.” Jester waited, and, when no further question was forthcoming, went on: “We were supposed to have got back at twelve-thirty. Distant and I were a little late. He kept saying that we had plenty of time, and he had to stop and look at a bull-ring. But—”
“Hold on, Rolf. You say Distant stopped at a bull-ring. Why? Was he interested in bullfighting?”
“No, not that I know of. I don’t know why he wanted to look at it. It was a small arena, enclosed in wood, that they used for rodeos and novilladas. Come to think about it, I wondered at the time. Distant had a funny smile on his face when he came out. He stood before the entrance and asked me if I had ever seen it before.”
“Had you?”
“Yes, I’d seen it when I was at the hacienda before. I told him that. He frowned and suggested that I forget about it. He said Manuel Campos ought to burn it down because it was dangerous.”
“Dangerous? Did he explain what he meant?”
“No, that’s all he said. But he had something on his mind all the way back to the house.”
“You must have had some inkling as to what he was thinking of, Rolf.”
“I hadn’t, Hugh.”
“You weren’t curious enough to ask him?”
Jester’s voice was gently reproving as he said:
“You’ve been with me enough, Hugh, to know that I never try to get a fellow to confide in me if he doesn’t want to. I’m not asking you to tell me more than you think best. And yet I’m pretty much in the dark as to what you’re asking me these questions for.”
