The Case of the Unconquered Sisters

by Todd Downing

  “A rest?” She turned. “Oh then, John, you were really hurt. You oughtn’t to joke about it. You might have been killed.”

  Biggerstaff laughed carelessly. “Forget it. Let me have those bundles, then get in the car. We’ll drive home in state. It’s not every day you get to ride in a car from the United States Embassy.”

  He helped her into the seat between Roark and Rennert, then wormed himself into the front, the grip between his knees.

  There was a moment of silence as they started on. Rennert could see a slightly puzzled expression come over the girl’s face as she stole a glance at first one and then the other of the men beside her.

  He said, “We are on our way to call at your house, Miss Faudree. I’m glad that Mr. Biggerstaff has seen fit to vouch for me, although he has exaggerated my services. I wonder if you have time to talk to Mr. Roark and myself this afternoon?”

  “Why, of course. I haven’t thanked you yet for helping John, but I was going to. You must come up to my apartment.”

  Biggerstaff had turned about. “Mr. Rennert has some news that’s going to surprise you, Cornell. You remember Professor Voice?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s about him.” He looked at Rennert. “Shall I tell her, Mr. Rennert?”

  “Since you have her curiosity aroused, yes.”

  “Well,” Biggerstaff said excitedly, “Voice was murdered. Somebody shot him and put his body in place of one of those skeletons that I was taking to the border.”

  “Murdered?” She stared at him, then turned to Rennert. “Is he joking, Mr. Rennert?”

  “No, Miss Faudree. It’s the truth.”

  “But when—when did this happen?”

  “About the first of May, I think.”

  Her eyes still held his, but a cloudiness came into them. “Then Mr. Voice didn’t go away?”

  “No, he didn’t go away.”

  “But his note!” she exclaimed suddenly. “I wonder why he sent that?”

  “You received a note from him?”

  “Yes. Lucy, my aunt, did, rather. I didn’t see it. But I understood that he said he was called away unexpectedly to the United States.”

  “It came through the mail?”

  “Yes.”

  “When was this?”

  “Over a month ago. It must have been about the first of May. Aunt Lucy will remember.”

  Rennert had the feeling that some belated consideration was forcing itself into her thoughts, cooling the natural spontaneity of her manner.

  His next question was forestalled by Biggerstaff, who had turned his head and spoken to the driver. The latter brought the car to an abrupt stop beside a gnarled eucalyptus tree which blocked further progress in this direction.

  Cornell’s laugh was nervous. “But come in. As we say in Mexico, here you have your house.”

  7

  Gun

  The house stood against a background starkly Mexican: cold volcanoes and black lava and pine-covered mountains shrouded in rain. Low stone walls, their crumblings masked by bougainvillaea, marked the confines of its extensive grounds. Its materials were dark stones whose only names are Aztec: tepetate and the igneous tezontle. They gave an incongruous effect to the effort at Georgian architecture—the two long stories with a roof set with dormer windows sloping back to the height of another, the faded green shutters, the white-painted wooden pillars which supported the roof of a small porch.

  As Rennert walked toward it up a gravel path bordered by sea shells, he was impressed by the sense of isolation which came over him. Not a quarter of a mile away were the villas and streets of San Angel. But no sound of their activity came to this place. It was as if the house partook of some of the qualities of the dead acres of stone behind it.

  Biggerstaff was whistling a low, rollicking tune as he sprang up the steps. He dropped the grip, took a key from his pocket and unlocked the front door.

  They entered a hall in whose spaces a few articles of furniture—a low love seat cushioned in satin, a few high-backed Spanish chairs, a tall pendulum clock, a hat-rack—seemed lost.

  Opposite the door rose a wide staircase.

  “You can leave your hats and coats here,” Biggerstaff told them, nodding toward the rack.

  As they made their way up the heavily carpeted treads Rennert’s eyes took in something of the arrangement of the house. A narrow ill-lit transverse hall met the larger one at right angles to the stairway. Halfway up was a landing, from which another flight descended to what was evidently a rear door.

  He heard Cornell say to Biggerstaff, “John, there’s a letter for you. It’s in your room.”

  “From the museum?”

  “Yes.”

  As they emerged into a wide corridor, laid with coco matting, Biggerstaff turned to Rennert and Roark. His voice trembled a bit. “Excuse me, will you? Cornell will take you upstairs.”

  He walked with quick steps toward a room directly across the hall.

  Cornell led the way to the right, opened one of two doors at the end of the hall and preceded them up a steep flight of uncarpeted stairs.

  They found themselves in a long room, with walls and ceiling of buff beaverboard. There were many windows, enlivened by gay chintz curtains. The furnishings were old and ill-assorted, but a certain color scheme had been worked out by means of slip covers and cushions. There were flowers.

  She relieved them of the packages. “Sit down, won’t you?”

  Roark had brought out a package of cigarettes. He started to take one, then looked at her and said: “I suppose you still refuse?”

  “Yes,” she said evenly, “I still refuse.” She turned to Rennert. “Tell me the truth, Mr. Rennert, about John. What did the doctor really say?”

  Rennert started to tell her.

  Before he had gone beyond a few words the door at the foot of the stairs slammed, and Biggerstaff came bounding up. A smile broadened his lips, and his eyes were bright with excitement. He was waving a letter in his left hand.

  “I got it, dear! I got it!”

  “Oh, John!” Cornell went to meet him., “Let me see!”

  Her hand trembled as she ran her eyes over the sheet of paper. She folded it, and their eyes met.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to come back and open it,” she said unsteadily. “I was sure what it’d be but I was afraid. I’ve looked at that envelope, felt it—tried to make it tell me what was in it. I knew it couldn’t be anything but good news. Now …” She stopped, color mounting to her cheeks.

  “Now …” he repeated.

  She raised a hand to brush back her hair, laughed self-consciously and turned to Rennert and Roark. “Oh, please pardon us! We—we don’t often act this way. But John’s just got some good news. Tell them, John.”

  Biggerstaff took a deep breath and rested his weight first on one foot and then on the other. He made an effort to speak calmly.

  “It’s a letter from the Teague Museum in Sari Antonio. I put in an application for a job on their permanent staff this spring. And—well, I got it.”

  As the two men murmured polite congratulations, he went on:

  “You probably don’t realize how much this means to me. It’s something I’ve been working for so long. I’ve got a chance now to do some real work in archaeology, something more than just wielding a pick.”

  There was a pause, and for the first time constraint crept into the atmosphere of the room. There was, Rennert knew, nothing more he and Roark could say with regard to the young man’s good fortune. They could only sit there, reminders of another matter which waited to be discussed.

  Cornell must have realized this, for she caught Biggerstaff’s arm and drew him from the center of the room. “Sit down, John. Mr. Rennert and Mr. Roark haven’t come here to hear us talk about ourselves.”

  She sank into a wicker basket chair, while Biggerstaff dropped onto a low hassock close by.

  “Now, Mr. Rennert,” she said, “tell us about Mr. Voice. I haven’t g
iven him a thought in over a month. Suddenly to hear that—he’s dead, in this way—well, it’s hard to grasp. Tell me about him, please.”

  She sat listening with a slowly deepening frown as he told of the discovery of the skeleton at the border and of its identification as that of the university professor.

  Biggerstaff, on the other hand, did not appear to be listening. His legs were spread wide apart, and he was leaning back, staring out the window.

  When Rennert had concluded, the girl’s face relaxed somewhat and she sank back in the chair. “It’s fantastic. Mr. Voice was such a harmless soul, all wrapped up in his work. He couldn’t have had an enemy anywhere, I’d have thought.”

  Her gaze had been wandering from place to place about the room. Suddenly it stopped, on a blue-and-white Talavera vase which held a mass of pink carnations.

  “John!” She turned swiftly. “Those letters!”

  An expression of pain or of displeasure passed over Biggerstaff’s face. He did not look at her but squirmed slightly on the leather cushion.

  “Mr. Rennert asked me about them. I told him that I’d never taken them seriously. I don’t know what to think now.”

  The flush had entirely left Cornell’s cheeks.

  “Oh, this is terrible!” She glanced at Roark. “What do you think, Mr. Roark? You saw them.”

  (Rennert noted that only in her first greeting had she addressed him as Delaney.)

  Roark did not answer for a moment. He seemed disconcerted by the question.

  “At the time,” he said a bit stiffly, “I thought as Biggerstaff—that someone was playing a joke on Voice. It seems that I was mistaken.”

  “You think that someone did kill him because he didn’t pay the money?”

  Roark only shrugged.

  Rennert said, “You think, then, Miss Faudree, that Mr. Voice wasn’t going to pay?”

  “No. He didn’t have that much money.” Her eyes were troubled as they tried to attract those of Biggerstaff.

  The latter was staring at the floor and refused to look up. There was an obstinate set to his jaw and compressed lips which made him look older, not at all like the ebullient boy who had come dashing up the stairs a few minutes before.

  “There’s another question which I must ask, Miss Faudree,” Rennert said. “Did Professor Voice have a gun?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” She glanced for confirmation at first Biggerstaff, then Roark.

  The former shook his head.

  “He told me that he didn’t,” Roark said. “I offered to loan him mine, but he refused. Said that he’d never handled a gun in his life.”

  Rennert turned to the girl again. “What other guns are there in the house, Miss Faudree?”

  She thought for a moment. “I don’t think there are any. Except an old one I have.”

  “Might I see it?”

  “Why certainly.” She seemed surprised. “It’s one that belonged to my father.”

  She got up and went to a carved chest in the corner. It was several minutes before she came back with a revolver held on the palm of her hand.

  Rennert took it and examined it perfunctorily. It was a 32 caliber revolver of an obsolete make. There were two shells in its chambers.

  “You keep it loaded,” he commented.

  “Oh, I’m responsible for that,” Biggerstaff interposed. “I’ve borrowed it once or twice to practice on targets out in the Pedregal. I left those shells in it because—well, because I thought Cornell ought to have some protection out here. Our party will be going back to the United States before long. And this house is so isolated.”

  “May I borrow this, Miss Faudree?” Rennert asked.

  “Why of course,” she said readily. “There’s no need for me to keep it at all. I’ve told John that I’d be perfectly safe.”

  “You’ve never been bothered by thieves or vagrants?”

  “Never. San Angel’s a peaceable place.”

  As Rennert slipped the revolver into a hip pocket he saw Biggerstaff’s eyes follow the movement. Perhaps it was the light glinting on their pupils which gave them their took of sharpness.

  Rennert glanced at his watch and rose.

  “Well, Biggerstaff, we’re forgetting the doctor’s orders. They apply to a member of the Teague Museum staff as well as to a simple wielder of a pick.”

  The young man flung back his head. “Oh, Mr. Rennert, I don’t feel like going to bed yet.” He forced a grin. “I’ve just got here—and Cornell and I’ve got some things we want to say to each other. The doctor’s hour isn’t up yet.”

  “You have about twenty minutes,” Rennert admitted. “I want to look around a bit. When I get through I’ll come back to see that you’re tucked in and have taken that sedative. You’ll make him behave in the meantime, Miss Faudree?”

  “I certainly will, Mr. Rennert.” The girl got to her feet and said hesitantly, “You’ll want to see my aunts, I suppose?”

  “If it’s convenient.”

  “Aunt Lucy will be downstairs. I can take you down and introduce you.”

  Rennert remembered Biggerstaff’s words about the strained relationship between Cornell and her relatives. “That’s not necessary, Miss Faudree. Mr. Roark can introduce me.”

  She didn’t succeed in hiding her relief. “If you will, Mr. Roark. Just go into the living room—the parlor, we call it—and ring for Marta, the maid. She’ll call Aunt Lucy.”

  “Thank you. We’ll turn the patient over to you now.”

  As they went down the stairs Rennert glanced at Roark’s face.

  “Love,” he said, “must have its way, even with a doctor’s orders.”

  The cynicism was on Roark’s lips again. “My God, Rennert, are you going to get lyrical about it? I suppose you left them there so they could bill and coo without being inhibited by our presence?”

  Rennert smiled. “To tell the truth, I left them there so they could make up their minds whether or not to tell me about those letters.”

  “You think they know who wrote them?”

  “I think they do.”

  8

  Gold

  From the hall they entered a huge high-ceilinged room already dim with twilight. Heavy dark draperies masked windows which, judging by the faintly musty odor, were seldom opened to sunlight.

  As Roark stopped by the door to pull a red velvet bell-cord, Rennert’s eyes wandered over the polished formal furniture, the harpsichord of satinwood and French walnut, the chandelier with cut-crystal drops, the large fireplace, the gilt-framed portrait above it.

  Roark’s voice sounded hushed: “Tindall Faudree, the grandfather.”

  He turned his head. “Oh hello, Marta. Is Miss Lucy in?”

  The woman on the threshold had appeared so silently that only a rustle of skirts had betrayed her presence.

  Her features seemed finer than those of most mulattoes, the lips not conspicuously thick. Her black hair, drawn tightly back to the nape of her neck, was made attractive rather than otherwise by its slight kinkiness. A gold bracelet dangling heavily on her right wrist was a bright, barbaric note in the gloom.

  Her “Yes” was low, with a toneless quality, as if she were speaking an unaccustomed language.

  “I wonder if we might see her?” Roark drew a card from his billfold.

  She took it, then the one which Rennert produced. “In a moment,” she said, and was gone.

  The two men waited in silence, as if a reverent constraint were implicit in the atmosphere of the room.

  Rennert compared this with the gay, many-windowed apartment upstairs.

  He followed Roark’s example and tried one of the chairs which stood in stiff alignment before the fireplace. It creaked slightly under his not inconsiderable weight. He began to inspect it unobtrusively, wondering if it were, as it seemed, a genuine Chippendale. It was a habit which his profession had ingrained in him—to test and evaluate every object with which he came in contact. If people, he had often thought, were only as easi
ly understood as things!

  It was a habit which often proved embarrassing, he told himself as he straightened up at the opening of the door.

  A small woman in black satin entered. She paused for a second, then came toward them, a black ebony cane padding softly on the rug.

  “Mr. Roark, this is a pleasure.” She smiled as she extended a hand.

  “The pleasure is certainly mine, Miss Faudree. May I present Mr. Rennert?”

  “Mr. Rennert.” He felt cool slender fingers touch his for an instant as keen black eyes scrutinized his face. He hoped that his bow approached the ease and urbanity of the young diplomat’s.

  “Welcome to our home,” she said. “Won’t you gentlemen be seated?”

  As she went toward a brocaded armchair a little distance away, Marta came quietly into the room and began lighting the tall wax candles on the mantel.

  As their soft light flowed out Rennert said:

  “I have been admiring your fireplace, Miss Faudree. One seldom sees nowadays such a happy combination of utility and beauty.”

  “Yes. It is a replica of the fireplace in the old Faudree plantation. My grandfather brought the mantelpiece with him to Mexico. The marble was carved in France.”

  It occupied the angle between the two doors. On either side of the yawning cavern of blackened bricks were huge andirons in the shape of mythological monsters. Set into the front of the elaborately carved mantel was a shield bearing heraldic figures. An arm brandishing a sword and a single word: Invicti.

  But she wasn’t looking at the mantel.

  Above the Bohemian glass wine bottles, alabaster statuettes and framed daguerreotypes which shared its top with the mahogany candlesticks was an oil portrait of a white-haired, white-mustached man in a gray uniform. His bold, arrogant features were dominated by piercing black eyes set far apart on either side of the bridge of a Roman nose.

  Two generations hadn’t broken the mold, Rennert thought as he looked at the woman who sat forward in her chair, a black cashmere shawl about her thin, erect shoulders, regarding the portrait with proud eyes. Lucy’s face was pale, so pale that it resembled the dead-white fragility of a cameo. The candlelight made her thin, impeccably arranged hair a cap of silver. The hair and the shut-in pallor made it difficult to estimate her age. Probably not more than sixty. Perhaps much less.