The Last Trumpet

by Todd Downing

  “They regret very, very much, but they don’t know one way or the other. They were busy, saw it was Torday’s car, so just waved it on by. The Customs’ doctor left his vaccines, the County doctor came. They conferred and said the man had been shot at fairly close range, twelve or fifteen feet maybe, with a small-calibre gun. Bullet went through his right temple and death must have been practically instantaneous. Further examination in progress. There’s nothing at all impossible about the woman’s story. Saturday night, holiday time, traffic unusually heavy, going and coming. The sides of the bridge crowded with pedestrians, too. So much noise you couldn’t hear yourself think. Firecrackers popping steadily. It would have been the simplest thing in the world to plug the man from another car. Or to step up to his window while the traffic was jammed. A silencer was probably used. Even if it wasn’t the sound might not have been noticed. Listen. That’s a sample of what it will be like on that bridge when the gates are opened again.”

  They were silent for a moment, while firecrackers spat and cracked, clear and staccato above the din of horns and voices.

  Bounty’s hands fiddled with coins. “It was the first time,” he said, “that I had ever seen Mrs. Torday. A good-looking woman.”

  “Yes,” Rennert said, “she’s a good-looking woman.”

  “Not a face to launch a thousand ships maybe, but a body to keep one from sailing away. You were right about banked fires.”

  “The Mexicans closed the gates on their side, I suppose, at the same time we did on ours?”

  “Yes, a message was sent over from this office. Rennert, this chap Distant, who stays at your hotel. He’s straight, you’d say?”

  “Yes,” Rennert looked at him quickly. “How’s he mixed up in this?”

  “He was driving on a line with Mrs. Torday when she stopped. They searched his car and let him go on. He was driving a hired car and had a girl with him—Dr. Lincoln’s daughter. He explained that he’d lost his place in the procession and couldn’t get back in. Said that he’d had a couple of glimpses in the Torday car, thought something was wrong with the passenger and was going to tell Mrs. Torday. He said he had seen no one near her car. You might talk to him.”

  “I’ll do that. What became of Torday’s automobile?”

  “It’s been taken away to be examined. I doubt whether it will have anything to tell. They called Torday at the radio station. He was brought over in another car, missed his nine-o’clock broadcast. Which means that thousands of listeners will go to bed with their day incomplete. I got here just after he did and heard his story, before he took his wife home. He says Darwin Wyllys was to have met someone in Brownsville at eight o’clock. That would be Rolf Jester?”

  “Yes. I’ll explain about that later.”

  “Mrs. Torday drove the doctor to his studio, then sent a man down to Tonatiuh to get Wyllys. He brought him to the station, where she took the wheel and started to take him to see Jester. It seems she is a better driver than he is. The plan was for her to leave him in Brownsville, where he was going to spend Sunday, then come back for Torday. Rennert, I watched Torday to-night. He wasn’t grieved or shocked so much as scared. I didn’t talk to him very long, and he didn’t tell me what was on his mind. But we can guess, can’t we?”

  “I think we can. He suspected the bullet was meant for him, not Wyllys.”

  “Sure. No lights on inside the car; Wyllys in the same place Torday always rode; the time Torday frequently crosses the bridge; someone waiting.” Bounty hoisted his shoulders in a shrug. “We talked about you, Rennert.”

  “About me?”

  “Yes. He’s calling a meeting at twelve o’clock noon to-morrow of all the men involved in this. Lincoln, Jester, Radisson, Bettis. Distant, if he gets here. The idea is to form sort of a league for self-defence. He wants you to be there.”

  Bounty was secretly amused by something, Rennert had no idea what. “Well,” he said uncertainly, “I don’t know. Did you tell him you had made me a deputy?”

  “Yes, I told him. He persuaded me to let you attend his gathering. Orders now, deputy. Attend. You meet Torday at his house tomorrow at eleven-thirty. Use your own judgment as to what you do after you get there. But don’t forget this: the first thing you’re to do is to get a sealed envelope from Torday. You’re to deliver that envelope to me, still sealed. Savvy?”

  Rennert had turned about in his chair, but Bounty’s face was suddenly shadowed by the brim of his hat.

  “Just what,” Rennert demanded, “is going on here?”

  “Now, now, deputy, don’t go questioning orders.” Bounty found a match and chewed on it complacently. He indicated the last of the line which was passing the Customs’ inspection. “This is about over with. Result just as expected. Every car, every pedestrian on the bridge, will have been searched for a gun that was chucked over the railing as soon as it was used. Or the owner may even have kept it and carried it off with him. Not one out of ten people were being searched to-night before this happened. If he was on foot he would have had an even better chance of getting off before the alarm was given than if he’d been in a car. But if he was in a car ahead, he could have got out while the traffic wasn’t moving, walked back to the Torday car, shot his man, and driven on past the Customs as slick as you please. Or he may have been headed for the Mexican side.”

  “Has any record been kept of the people who were caught on the bridge?”

  “Yes, on both sides. Close attention to passports, tourist cards and all that. The Mexicans are going through the motions, but they aren’t really so interested because the body was found on the United States side of the line. Even if they did by any chance stop a man with a gun they would only be able to hold him for possession of it. Unless it could be proved that Wyllys was shot on the Mexican side, which is entirely possible. Then there wouldn’t be any corpus delicti, because that would be in the United States. Wouldn’t it make a nice international tangle if the gun had been fired a foot or so inside Mexico, but the man died in the United States? Or if the murderer had stood on the United States side, shot across the line, and then stepped over into Mexico? And the victim died in Mexico, but was carried across the line and found in the United States. Hell, we could go on like that all night. I suppose I’d better let you get to work.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “You remember Juan Canard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, he’s inside, waiting on you. Says he wants to take you over into Matamoros and talk to you. He acts as if he were a buddy of yours.”

  “He came down for the story, I suppose?”

  “He must have been within a few feet of the story when it happened.”

  II

  “He was on the bridge?” Rennert asked quickly.

  “Yes. His car’s standing out there now. He doesn’t know it’s been searched”—Bounty winked—“but it has. I took a Customs man out and watched him go through it. Nothing there, of course. When I got here I found Canard fraternizing with everybody, interviewing the Tordays, and poking his nose into corners. Why don’t you go with him? Do a little fraternizing yourself. You might learn something, who knows?”

  “I shall. What do you know about the fellow, Bounty?”

  “He’s a local product who has had to come up against rather long odds. His mother migrated here from Monterrey soon after the Mexican Revolution broke out—in nineteen-ten or -eleven. Juan was born a few months later. She uses Señora with her name, but it has always been general knowledge in the Mexican quarter that she wasn’t married. Their attitude toward things like that is more tolerant than ours. I don’t know whether Juan ever knew who his father was or not. You can tell by looking at him that he’s part American. He worked and went to school, won a lot of medals and some sort of scholarship. He studied journalism and got a job on the Sun.” The sheriff slapped dust off his trouser legs. “He would be the ideal solution for our problem, wouldn’t he? The ubiquitous reporter. But he’s a good lad, to my mind, a
lthough a little forward sometimes. I can’t see him in the role of murderer unless he’s in the hire of the National Railways of Mexico. And that seems preposterous. Besides, we’ve agreed that they aren’t concerned in this. Still, you said you saw Canard at the bullfight yesterday, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, he was in the callejón taking pictures. A mirror there would be on a level with the eyes of the matador. But one of his photographs was of Campos being flung into the air. That would mean that he would have had to manipulate a mirror and the camera at almost precisely the same time. To do either would require close concentration. I don’t think he could have done it.”

  “You’re sure he took the picture?”

  “I didn’t see any other photographer there. He might have got someone else to snap the camera while he held the mirror.”

  “An accomplice.” Rennert sighed. He felt rather old and worn just then. “I’m discouraged. We aren’t getting anywhere. Peter”—it was the first time he had used his companion’s given name—“I’m convinced that we don’t have an inkling of the motive for these crimes yet. Until we do, we’re going to be running around in circles.”

  Bounty’s manner was constrained. “Don’t worry,” he said in a low voice. “It’ll turn out all right. You’ve been doing all you can. I was joking about your going with Canard to-night. There’s no need of it. Go on home and go to bed. Or take in that movie you were talking about this afternoon.”

  “Oh, no; I really want to see Canard.” Rennert started to rise. “How do you spend your Sundays?”

  “Well, I admit I’m downright lazy on Sunday. I sleep late. Noon, maybe. Read the rest of the day. But if I can help you out, let me know.”

  “No, it’s not that. I thought you might like to have dinner with me to-morrow night. At the hotel, about six. We can talk this business over. Or, if you prefer, we can forget it. I’d like to have you in either event. You’re a bachelor, too, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” After a moment of silence Bounty looked at Rennert and said evenly: “The Jester Hotel is a rather swanky place on Sundays, isn’t it? The Rotarians and their wives and the bridge club ladies eat there.”

  “I shouldn’t call it swanky. Very informal. They do make a specialty of their Sunday dinners, though. That’s why I thought you might like to come.”

  “I’m used to sitting on a stool at a cheap lunch counter. I don’t eat with my knife exactly, but—”

  “Don’t be a damn fool.”

  The two men studied and understood each other.

  Bounty’s smile was slow and warm and satisfied.

  “That’s no way to talk to your superior officer while you’re on duty,” he complained. “I’ll be there, Hugh.”

  As Rennert walked away he heard the low strains of The Eyes of Texas:

  The eyes of Texas are upon you

  ’Til Gabriel blows his horn!

  13

  Bar Sinister

  I

  Out over the Gulf a full moon was pushing its way through streamers of grey cloud. As Rennert walked toward the black roadster parked almost exactly in the centre of the lane reserved for southbound traffic, he contemplated the deserted, ill-lighted expanses of the bridge, and, below it, the dark void which was sluggishly moving water and sand. He was beginning to have an antipathy to sand, which so curiously in this case was always obtruding its presence when blood was spilled.

  Afterwards, he was known to maintain, at incautious moments, that this impressionability of his towards the twin symbols of the bull-ring was nothing less than a premonition of the disclosure that was to come so soon. Which, of course, was absurd, he would promptly point out. Sand is everywhere along the Rio Grande.

  Juan Canard opened the door of the car with Mexican courtesy, otherwise his manner was altogether American.

  “My lucky night,” he said, as he tossed away a cigarette. “I had come this far on my way to Matamoros when they closed the gates. I left the vehicle here and went to see what the excitement was.” He hurried to the other side and slid behind the wheel. “Looks as if my ideas of yesterday afternoon weren’t so far wrong after all, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Rennert agreed, “it does look that way.”

  “By the way”—it was said in sincere fashion—“I was glad to congratulate Mr. Bounty on his new deputy. He’s smart, that man.”

  “Thanks.”

  Rennert had decided that he had better be uncommunicative for the present.

  Theirs was the last car to leave the bridge. A note which Canard had secured from the United States Customs officials expedited their passage by the Mexican. A few minutes of dexterous driving took them past the halted north-bound procession. Rennert’s head was none too steady by the time they threaded their way out of the hubbub and Canard turned to the right, down the street, he noticed, which led to the radio station.

  Behind them rose the roar of starting motors and shifting gears as the gates were thrown open.

  “Perhaps,” Canard laughed, “I ought to tell you where I’m taking you. The Triumph of the Emotions. Any objections?”

  “No.”

  “But you’re wondering why I chose that place. Well, we’re going there because I have a table reserved. I might as well be frank. I had invited another party to be there to-night. But I was late getting’ started, and it’s still later now. I doubt whether we’ll find him. I doubt whether he ever came.” Canard glanced at Rennert’s face. “The date was with Jarl Angerman.”

  “Oh!”

  “I made it before Dr. Torday had discharged him. He was to have met me as soon as he brought Torday over for the first broadcast. You understand why I say I don’t think he bothered to keep it?”

  “Yes, I understand. A friendly little tête-à-tête?”

  “Of course, Mr. Rennert. In a gay, carefree atmosphere. Wine, women, song. I thought it might loosen his tongue.”

  “And now you’re trying the same tactics on me?”

  Canard shook his head sadly. “Not on you—again. I know you too well for that. Now, I’m taking you here simply because I hate to let this table go to waste. Especially when I’m not sure I can put it on my expense account.”

  Rennert was tempted to call a halt at the entrance of The Triumph of the Emotions. The night club was packed. Alcoholic stimulation had given voices and laughter hysterical pitch. The interior was banked with smoke.

  But in a moment he was glad that he had let himself be led in. Canard’s request to be conducted to the table which he had reserved for himself and a friend was met by a sharply inimical look on the face of the head waiter. The friend was big and blond? The Mexican was sorry, but that table had now been filled. There had been trouble with the big rubio. He kept his feet sticking out on the floor and one of the waiters had tripped over them. He had been told to keep his feet under the table. He had got mad. The police had been summoned. A shrug. If they wanted to see their friend they would find him in a cell at the Cárcel Municipal.

  What time had this happened? Rennert wanted to know quickly, before the man could turn away.

  About eight-five or eight-ten, was the reply. To his question as to how long previous to this the rubio had occupied his table Rennert got the usual indefinite Mexican answer. Ten or fifteen minutes was finally settled on as a good estimate.

  His pockets lighter by several pesos, Rennert accompanied Canard back to the car.

  The newspaper-man was excited. “Shall we drive by the gaol,” he suggested, “and see if we can help Angerman?”

  Rennert assented, bringing his mind back from an arrangement of time schedules. Allowing for discrepancies, there seemed to be no doubt that Angerman had been at The Triumph of the Emotions at the moment when that shot was fired on the bridge.

  And Kent Distant had planned to take Miss Lincoln there. If the young man had been at the Customs office at eight-twenty, he must have made his departure from the night club about the time of the fracas There was a chance that he could confirm Angerman�
�s alibi….

  “I want you to tell me,” Rennert said as they got in the car, “why you were so interested in involving me in this case.”

  II

  Canard’s manner became more subdued. “That’s what I wanted to explain to you to-night, Mr. Rennert. I had an idea Dr. Torday would tell you of our interview. I’ll be frank. I’ve got to make some money. My mother has been sick for some time. The doctors have just said it’s cancer. I’m going to send her to a hospital, and you know how much that costs.”

  Rennert wondered if a bit of defiance didn’t creep into his voice.

  “The two of us are alone in the world,” he went on presently, “and I want her to have the best of care. Now I’ve been hoping for a rise in salary. I think I can get it if I convince the boss that I’m a wide-awake reporter. I’m looking for a story that will draw his attention. A scoop.” He laughed. “I think I’m on the trail of that story. In fact I’m already making out headlines for it. Reign of Terror in Valley Ended. Not so good, is it? Rennert Ends Reign of Terror in Valley. It ought to have your name in it. Don’t you think so?”

  “No.”

  “Definitely?” Canard turned his head and regarded Rennert keenly.

  “Definitely,” Rennert said. “If there ever is a headline, and if there is a name in it, it’s going to be Peter Bounty.”

  “You mean that, I suppose?”

  “I mean it. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. I want to hear how you first thought of all this.”

  “Well, if you were looking down into the callejón of the bull-ring yesterday you saw me think of it. I was taking pictures and noticed Matt Bettis in the stands. That reminded me I was supposed to interview him about Dr. Torday’s lawsuit. That got me to thinking that it was just a year ago that someone tried to run Torday off the highway and murder him. I was covering the police run then, and it was pretty general knowledge that Torday was more frightened than the circumstances called for. Some people thought he knew the identity of his assailant. It was right after that he hired Angerman as a bodyguard and started taking precautions about his estate.