The Case of the Unconquered Sisters

by Todd Downing

  As soon as he felt the ringing cease in his ears he knelt in the dust and sought the bullet. He found it embedded in the newspapers. He sealed it in a small envelope and slipped it into his left-hand vest pocket.

  After surveying Voice’s possessions once more he began with the suitcase. It was unlocked, and he soon had its contents spread upon the table. He sorted through odds and ends of clothing but found nothing of interest.

  Next he examined the typewriter, a much-used machine of a popular make. On the back of a discarded envelope he typed out the alphabet and the numerals for comparison with the letter which had arrived after Voice’s death.

  As he put the typewriter back into its case he was thinking of that letter—and of Monica Faudree. Damn it, why had the woman been so secretive? He was inclined to doubt her assertion that she would have to search—

  “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Rennert!”

  He turned to face Cornell Faudree.

  There had been a note of relief in her voice. Relief which showed itself as well in the increasing ease of her smile and the softening of her eyes.

  She came into the room and closed the door.

  Rennert explained his mission there and the shot.

  “It’s perfectly all right,” she assured him. “I heard it and thought I’d better investigate.”

  “I hope I haven’t disturbed everyone.”

  “Oh no, I was probably the only one. The house is of stone, you know, so sounds don’t enter very well. I happened to have a window open.”

  “I understand that it’s no novelty to hear firing from the direction of the Pedregal.”

  “No, there’s always someone hunting or else just shooting to hear the noise.” She hesitated. “Where’s Delaney?”

  “He went up to the plaza. He’ll be back shortly.”

  “Well, I’ll leave you, Mr. Rennert. You’re busy.”

  “I’d be glad to have you stay. What I was doing can wait. Won’t you sit down?”

  She sank into the chair and eyed the dust on the table and the floor. “This place needs cleaning, doesn’t it? I don’t think it has been touched since Mr. Voice used to come here.”

  “He made use of this room?”

  “He’d come out here and read those old newspapers. A lot of them date back to the Civil War.”

  Rennert leaned against a corner of the table. It was the first time he had seen the girl’s face with a measure of repose on it. It was more mature than he had thought at his first meeting with her, with confidence in the set of the chin and in the introspective eyes. The hauteur of the high-bridged nose was more apparent.

  “Did Professor Voice have a key to this room?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I wonder if it’s the same one your sister Lucy gave me?”

  “No, that’s another, I’m sure. I remember Monica saying it was strange he had gone off and taken that key and the house key with him.”

  “I don’t suppose the house locks have been changed since then?”

  She shook her head and stared for a moment at the floor. “No, they haven’t. I see what you mean. The person who murdered him had and may still have his keys.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll have the locks changed, though it’s late now to be doing that.”

  Rennert was thinking not only of access to the house, but to the laboratory downstairs. With a key to this room, a person could go readily through the loft to the trap door, from which a ladder descended to the picks and shovels and lime….

  She raised her eyes and looked at him steadily. “Mr. Rennert, did John tell you of our suspicions about those threat letters?”

  “Yes, I’m glad you persuaded him to do so.”

  “It was foolish not to. John’s so scrupulous that he’d rather get into trouble himself than be disloyal to somebody he thought was a friend.” There was a note of anger in her voice. “And Karl Weikel’s no friend of his. I’ve told John that again and again, but he always wants to believe the best of everybody.”

  “Weikel seems a rather surly fellow.”

  “He is. And vindictive. John told you, too, about the forgeries in that other shipment he was in charge of?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want my opinion?”

  “Very much.”

  “I think Karl put those forgeries in to get John in trouble. It must have been done by someone here at the excavations. Karl’s jealous of John, because John’s a more conscientious worker. Dr. Fogarty knows that and gives him more responsibility. That’s why he let him take the shipments to the border instead of Karl.”

  “Is it your idea that Weikel substituted another skeleton for the same reason?”

  She frowned and held her lips pressed together for a moment.

  “If that skeleton hadn’t been Professor Voice’s,” she said with slow deliberation, “if it had been merely an old, unidentified one, I would say Yes. But as it is I don’t know what to think. I’m being perfectly frank with you, Mr. Rennert, not holding anything back on account of scruples, like John. I wouldn’t like to think of Karl as a murderer. He disliked Mr. Voice, and I’m sure he sent him those letters. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that he killed him, does it?”

  “No.” Rennert eased his position on the table. “Miss Faudree, you’re the first person I’ve talked with who has suggested that the letters and the murder of Voice might be the work of different persons.”

  “Am I? It’s natural enough to link one with the other. And Karl had a double motive for the murder: dislike of Voice and the desire to harm John. But murder’s such a terrible thing, Mr. Rennert!”

  “I realize that. One doesn’t like to associate it with young men in their twenties. I was talking with Roark about that this afternoon. I wondered whether I was indulging in middle-aged sentiment about youth’s innocence.”

  “You had been in John’s company, Mr. Rennert. That’s conducive to such sentiment.” There it was again—that tender but dispassionate note.

  “Yes,” he said, “I suppose it’s really young fellows like him I always think of, not the other kind. How old is he, by the way?”

  She said flatly, “I don’t know.”

  A challenge, he analyzed it. If so, subtlety wasn’t going to be of much avail in leading up to the information he wanted.

  “That’s an unusual thing to say about a person I’ve known as long as John, isn’t it?” she said. “That I don’t know his age.”

  “It’s unexpected, I admit. Exactness in counting the years is so important at that stage of the game.”

  “I’m sure he’s well under thirty.”

  “I have been interested in his speech. He’s not from the South-west, is he?”

  He had been right. She turned and looked straight into his eyes. “I don’t know where he’s from. Are you satisfied?”

  She forestalled his apology. “I can see that Lucy has been talking to you, Mr. Rennert, about John.”

  “There was something more.” Quietly he repeated the conversation between Biggerstaff and Weikel in the hall.

  As he spoke she rose and stood with the tips of her fingers pressed against the surface of the table. He saw the tightening of her lips in profile against the dim rectangle of light.

  When he had concluded she turned to him. Her back was to the window, so that her eyes were in shadow, but he felt the intensity of their gaze.

  She spaced her words: “Mr. Rennert, I don’t know what Karl meant. I don’t care. I have known John since last October. He has talked to me a great deal about his life at Southwestern University. I know that he enjoyed it there, that he made friends. He has never said a word to me about his life before that. Only once did I ever ask him about it. He told me nothing. He said it made no difference. I’ll always be satisfied with that. If you knew him as well as I do, you would be satisfied also.”

  Her sudden burst of laughter was incongruously loud in that still, dim-lit room.

  “Oh, it’s silly to be s
o melodramatic about this, Mr. Rennert! Acting as if John had a deep, dark past. Let’s stop it.”

  “Very well,” he said. “No more melodrama.”

  She glanced at the window. “It’s getting dark. I must be going.”

  “Do you want to take your revolver with you?”

  She looked down at the gun which he held on his palm. “Why yes, if you’re through with it.”

  “I am.”

  “I want you to have that bullet compared with the other as soon as possible, Mr. Rennert. I realize that I can’t expect you to be certain until you have done that.”

  “I shall do so at the first opportunity.

  He walked with her to the door.

  She paused on the landing and scanned the horizon, where ink-black clouds were hurling spears of rain upon the mountains. The warmth had gone from the air.

  “You say Delaney’s coming back soon?” she asked.

  “Yes, he should be here now.”

  “Tell him I’d like to see him before he goes, will you? It’s been a long time since we had a talk. I’ll be in my apartment, if he’d like to come up.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  Her gaze was on the house now. Its southern side loomed as dark as the face of the lava from which it had been quarried.

  “Why, there aren’t any lights on!” she exclaimed. “Not even in the kitchen. Didn’t I understand Monica to say that you were staying to dinner?”

  “Yes. I understand that something is wrong with the electricity.”

  “Oh!” She turned to him quickly. “Is that what Lucy said?”

  “Yes.”

  She sighed, and her face looked suddenly wan and tired.

  “Good luck, Mr. Rennert,” was all she said.

  Rennert watched her go down the stairs and start toward the house.

  He went back to his work then, but his thoughts weren’t on it. Her expression of confidence in Biggerstaff had been a valiant effort, but it hadn’t been convincing. She had spoken more to reassure herself than him.

  He eyed the brief case, but decided to let it wait until daylight.

  He pulled the trunk closer to the window and swung open its doors.

  On the left side were hangers, with two suits of a conservative cut shiny from wear. In their pockets he found a pencil stub, a soiled handkerchief, and a folded envelope, addressed to Professor Garnett Voice at San Angel. It had been postmarked at South-western University on April 21. It was empty, but on its back three columns of numbers had been written in a careful, precise hand.

  Rennert struck a match and studied them.

  The first column began with A3,400 and contained the consecutive numerals to A3,425. The second commenced with G735 and ran to G745. The last series was from P22,005 to P22,015.

  He sank into the chair and stared for a long time at these figures, put down in all probability by the murdered man within the few days preceding his death.

  He gave it up and went back to the trunk.

  There were four drawers on the right side. The first three contained a few collars, handkerchiefs and socks, books and toilet articles.

  The fourth was locked.

  Rennert produced a small leather case and with the aid of an innocent-looking steel instrument soon had the drawer open.

  It was shallow and contained papers….

  He turned around as Roark came in.

  “Well,” the latter said, “everything worked out fine. There was a streetcar waiting at the plaza. I pointed Echave out to the chauffeur, restrained him from putting on false whiskers and put him on. Your bag’s out in the car. I didn’t have a key, so couldn’t take it to your room.”

  Roark pushed his hat back from his forehead and stared at the objects which Rennert was replacing. “What the… ?”

  There were several lavishly illustrated magazines and a pack of post cards. The cards, their photography and subject matter were products of Paris. They were well thumbed.

  “The professor wasn’t absorbed in his work all the time, was he?” Roark laughed. “They look like good art work.”

  Rennert snapped the drawer shut.

  “Extremely good,” he said as he got a little wearily to his feet. “And I speak as a connoisseur.”

  Roark showed his surprise.

  “A man in the customs service,” Rennert explained, “sees so much of that in the luggage of college professors—and others.”

  15

  Owl

  Roark tossed his hat on the bed.

  “This telegram,” he said, “was waiting for you at the inn.”

  Rennert lit the thin wax candle which had been placed on his secretary during his absence and by its weak light read the message through twice, with a deepening frown.

  “It’s from my friend at Southwestern University,” he said after a moment. “The same man who sent me the other. ‘Biggerstaff query started something,’ he says. ‘Registrar finds on further examination name on transcript of precious credits from Chicago University changed from Biggers to Biggerstaff. Stop. Making inquiry Chicago.”

  Roark’s eyes were speculative. “That same mystery about Biggerstaff’s name keeps cropping up, doesn’t it?”

  Rennert nodded as he slipped the paper back into its envelope. He stared at the brim of Roark’s hat on the white coverlet and considered a new puzzle which had presented itself. A detail which in other circumstances would not have been accorded a second thought was invested now with the importance of the unexplained.

  Roark, too, evidenced troubled thought. The candlelight aged his face, etching dark lines about the eyes and hollowing the closely shaven flesh on the cheeks and under the slightly sagging lower lip. He seemed to feel the necessity of talking.

  “It’d be ironic if Cornell had made a mistake now. Fallen in love with some fellow who’s not what she thinks. I only saw Biggerstaff once before today, but I thought he’d make the right kind of husband for her. More brawn than brain, but clean and honest, without any vices. That’s the kind of man she’s meant for.”

  “She asked me to deliver a message to you.”

  Roark’s eyes went quickly to his face. “To me?”

  “Yes. She came out to the coach house before you returned. She said she would like to see you, that she would be in her apartment if you wanted to come up.”

  Roark looked away. His lips were compressed into a thin, hard line.

  “Tell Cornell she’s better off not seeing me any more,” he said, staring at the wall. “She has got away from smoky rooms now. She’d better stay away, where the air’s clean.” He broke off and heaved one shoulder in a shrug. “I’ve got to be going. I told the chauffeur to make his report on Echave to you.”

  Rennert had bent over the bed and was unfastening the clasps of his gladstone. He felt the need of a normally active person for a task to occupy his hands while his mind was busy.

  “I wonder,” he said, “if you could verify something for me? I gathered from Dr. Fogarty’s insinuation that Echave is a frequent nocturnal visitor to the room of Marta, the mulatto maid.”

  “So our puritanical professor said.”

  “Voice?”

  “Yes. He told me about it the night I stayed here. He was in a white heat of indignation that almost made him forget the letters. He had gone to Lucy Faudree and asked her if she knew that Marta was receiving a man in her room. Said that he had seen him go in several nights. It seems Lucy told him politely but firmly to mind his own business.” Roark laughed. “She even asked him how he came to be watching the woman’s room.”

  Rennert had a pair of shoes in his hands and was giving unnecessary scrutiny to their black, polished toes.

  “Typical of the puritan,” he said dryly.

  “It was my first contact with one for a long time. Voice sat in that chair for hours talking about other men’s lechery. I felt like asking him why he wasn’t a missionary. Lucy would have turned him out of the house if she’d heard his hints about Marta’s place with th
e family.”

  “Her mulatto blood, I suppose.”

  “Yes. He’d made a study of miscegenation in the South. Had statistics about the number of mulattoes in each generation. He said all the talk about Negro mammies identifying themselves with their masters’ families was perfectly true. But it wasn’t for sentimental reasons. The slave quarters in the Old South were too near the back doors of the mansions. But you aren’t interested in Marta’s amorous experiences, are you?”

  “Not as such. I’m interested in that coach house.” Rennert fished into the depths of the gladstone. “There’s one thing more I’d like to ask you about before you go.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The owls.”

  “The owls?” Roark seemed startled. He laughed again, this time with an attempt at derision which did not succeed. “You aren’t taking that talk seriously, are you?”

  Rennert had extracted a blue serge suit. He carried it to the wardrobe, put it on a hanger and came back. “I’m taking it every bit as seriously as you.”

  Roark smoked in silence for a moment. “You think I did?”

  “I know you did. If you read my face when I was looking at the drawings on those letters, I have reciprocated whenever the tecolotes have been mentioned. I want you to tell me everything you can about them.”

  Roark watched Rennert shake out the folds of a dark-gray topcoat. “Voice told me about them the morning he came to the embassy. He said that the Pedregal was suddenly filled with them at night. He thought that it might be a band of desperadoes giving signals. But when I questioned him, he admitted that he had actually seen the tecolotes. He said that they flew against his window at night. He was very much frightened.”

  “Had he heard of the Mexican belief about them at that time?”

  “Yes. He quoted the saying, ‘When the tecolote cries, the Christian dies.’ After I stayed here one night I couldn’t blame him much. Now, I’m far from being imaginative, but it was exactly as he’d said. It sounded as if every tecolote in Mexico had come to the edge of the Pedregal. There was one of them in particular, in that cedar tree at the back of the house, making the most ungodly screeching I ever heard. Then, I’ll swear, the damned thing did fly right up against the windowpane. I’ll admit I was almost as frightened as Voice. I’d brought my revolver with me and managed to shoot it as it was flying away. That drove off the others, and we weren’t bothered any more that night.”