Cade shouted: “Come out José. You can’t escape. You may as well give yourself up.”
There was no answer, but the horse whinnied and stamped its hoofs. Cade could see its head over the door of the loose-box; it was looking at him, mutely questioning. It had a diamond blaze showing up whitely between the eyes.
He shouted again: “I’m coming for you, José. Make one false move and I’ll shoot you.”
He heard a faint hissing sound, felt something flick his ear as though a wasp had stung it, and heard a thud behind him. He turned and saw a knife imbedded in the timber of the door. José appeared to be well supplied with knives and he was certainly an expert in using them.
Cade stepped swiftly away from the door. He wondered where the knife had come from. He had seen no movement to betray the thrower; there had just been that faint hiss, the stinging of his ear and then the thud as the point had buried itself in the woodwork.
The horse moved again in its loose-box; it seemed to be nervous, too. José could see him and he could not see José. How many more knives had the man got?
It occurred to him that José might be hiding in one of the empty loose-boxes; perhaps that was one reason why the horse was nervous. The horse was in the nearest box. Cade did not think José would be in that one. He ducked below the level of the loose-box doors and crept past the horse, which shied back a little. He came to the next box and peered cautiously over the door. There was a scattering of straw on the floor, a drain in the centre and a manger at the far end. The manger was empty. So was the box.
He ducked down again and was creeping towards the next box when he heard a sound above him and on his right, a kind of rustling sound. He looked up just in time to see a baulk of timber hurtling through the air towards him. He dived forward and the baulk struck the door of the loose-box in which the horse was stabled, half-smashing the bolt holding it shut. The horse reared up and neighed, its eyes rolling in terror.
Cade knew where José was now. The baulk of timber had come from the loft. The loft was entirely open on the inner side; it was a large shelf with the hay piled on it, and there was a rough ladder at one end which José must have climbed immediately he entered the building. To get him Cade would have to climb it too.
He thought about it. And the more he thought about it, the less he liked it. There was really no reason, he told himself, why he should go up there after José. It was police work. Why not, therefore, go back to San Borja and inform the police that there had been a murder at the Gomara place and that the murderer was holed up in a hay loft? Though, of course, by the time the police arrived he was not likely to be in the hay loft; he was more likely to be miles away and still moving.
Well, so what if he were miles away? Why should he, Cade, worry? It was not his duty to bring José to justice, not his duty to climb that ladder and tackle a man who was about as deadly as a jungle puma. Why should he not walk straight out of the stable and leave José to it?
But he knew the reason why he could not do that. It was lying on a bed in an upstairs room in the house; it was lying there very still with only a little blood on it; lying there open-eyed, but seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling nothing; lying there so close to the dresses it would never wear, the cosmetics it would never use; lying there waiting for the men to come and put it in a box and take it away and bury it in the ground.
A good enough reason.
He looked up at the loft. The light was poorer up there. He could see some hay piled up unevenly, but he could not see José. He could not hear him either. José was lying low, not moving, just waiting for Cade to come up the ladder.
Cade looked at the ladder. It went up almost vertically, so that he would need to use at least one hand in going up. It was the kind of ladder you could fall off very easily—even without being pushed.
The horse had calmed down a little; it came to the door of the loose-box and looked at him. But it was still nervous, and when he started to walk towards the ladder it backed away. He reached the ladder in five quick strides. He began to climb.
He was sweating now; the sweat ran down his face and he could feel his shirt sticking to him. He kept his right hand free while he climbed; the right hand was the one that held the .38 Colt. His hands were sweating too and affecting his grip on the butt of the gun, but he had to be ready to shoot at once if José appeared at the top of the ladder; he had to shoot before José could throw anything down on him.
He was half-way up when he heard the rustle of hay in the loft. He guessed that José was creeping towards the ladder and he did not wait; he started to fire the revolver. The horse neighed again and moved round in the loose-box, frightened by the sound, but the shots must have kept José back, for he did not appear at the ladder-top and in another moment Cade had climbed the last few rungs and had flung himself forward on the floor of the loft.
José was there sure enough. He was standing a few paces back from the edge with a pitchfork gripped in both hands. As Cade came off the ladder José lunged forward and downward.
Cade saw the pitchfork coming and instinctively rolled to one side. The tines of the fork straddled his left arm; he felt one of them graze his flesh as it pierced the sleeves of jacket and shirt, pinning them to the boards. The pressure of his finger on the trigger of the revolver was a kind of reflex action; he did not consciously take aim and the bullet went wide. José wrenched the pitchfork out of the floor and raised it for another thrust, but Cade was up on his feet in a moment and dodged in under José’s lunge. The pitchfork passed over his head, and his shoulder took José in the stomach. José gave a grunt as the air was forced out of him and he went over backwards into the hay, still gripping the pitchfork.
Cade rammed the muzzle of the revolver into the base of José’s ribs. “Drop it or I’ll blow a hole clean through you. Drop it.”
José stopped struggling. He dropped the pitchfork and it fell with a clatter to the floor of the loft. His face was close to Cade’s and he was breathing heavily; his breath stank of garlic and strong tobacco; his body stank of sweat and unwashed linen.
“You damned murdering swine,” Cade said. “Why did you kill her? What had she ever done to you?”
José sneered. “That whore. She deserved to die.”
“You too,” Cade said, and he ground the revolver into Jose’s ribs. “Suppose I kill you now and save the law a job.”
“And Señor Gomara. Will you kill him also?”
Cade stared into José’s eyes. He saw no fear there; hatred, yes, but not fear. “Did Gomara tell you to kill the girl?”
“Who else? It was no concern of mine.”
He was a cold-blooded bastard, Cade thought. He could drive a knife into a girl’s heart and think no more of it than as a task that had to be done. Cade almost shot him then; his finger pressed on the trigger. José would never know how close he came to death in that moment. Or perhaps he guessed it, for he smiled crookedly, mockingly, despising the lack of ruthlessness that had saved him.
“Get up,” Cade said.
José got up.
“Turn round and go down the ladder. If you try to run I’ll shoot you in the back.”
“You are a marksman, señor?”
“I shall not miss you.”
José turned and walked to the ladder. He went down facing the rungs. Cade followed closely, gun in hand.
As soon as José’s feet touched the ground he made a break for the door. Cade, still on the ladder, had to twist his body in order to aim the gun at him. It was an awkward position and he missed. The bullet flicked the horse instead, ploughing a shallow groove through the flesh of its haunch. The report of the gun combined with the sharp lash of the bullet sent the already nervous horse into a frenzy. The bolt of the loose-box door, weakened by the baulk of timber, gave way under the sudden pressure of the frightened animal and the door burst open just as José drew level with it. It struck him in the side and sent him reeling. He lost his footing and fell full length on the floor.
The horse came out of the loose-box as though the devil were driving it. Its hoofs clattered on the hard floor, came down on José’s head, smashed it to a pulp and were gone. José’s body twitched convulsively and then was still.
The horse had been Della Lindsay’s. It had avenged her death.
Cade put the revolver back in his pocket and stepped down off the ladder. The horse had managed to squeeze through the wicket and had galloped off. Cade looked at José’s dead body and turned away; it was not a pleasant sight. He followed the horse out of the stable and walked towards the house through the brilliant sunlight.
He caught a glimpse of Andres and a couple of women standing in a little group and looking in the direction of the stable. They had probably heard the sound of the shooting and had come from the back of the house to see what was going on. As soon as they saw Cade they hurried away and disappeared from view. They all looked scared. Perhaps they had already been scared when he had arrived with Juanita. Perhaps that was why they had not answered the door-bell. He wondered whether they had known of Della’s death.
Cade walked up the steps and into the house. He went straight to the snake room, pushed open the door and walked in.
Juanita was still there. She was standing perfectly rigid with her back pressed hard against the right hand wall and staring in front of her as though petrified.
Cade spoke to her. “Juanita.”
She did not move, did not look at him. She might not have heard.
He followed the direction of her fixed, unwavering gaze and noticed for the first time what she was staring at. It was something in the snake pit. He walked to the edge of the pit and looked down.
One of the wheels was buckled and the chair was lying on its side half in one of the shallow pools. Gomara seemed to be curiously twisted; the back of his head was in the pool but the water did not quite cover his face. His mouth was open, and one might have imagined that he was crying out in terror or agony, except that there was no sound coming from his lips. There were no snakes near him, but Cade could see some of them moving sinuously not far away.
How long, he wondered, had Gomara been in the pit? That he was dead was certain; but from what cause had he died? From the fall, from snake venom, or from something else?
He turned his back on the pit and went to Juanita. He saw now what he had not noticed before: in her right hand, which was hanging down by her side, she was holding a small automatic pistol. It had probably been in her handbag. The handbag was lying on the floor.
“You’d better give that to me,” Cade said.
Again it was as though she had not heard. He took her hand and eased the gun from her fingers. She made no resistance.
He lifted the gun to his nose and sniffed. Nothing. He took the magazine from the butt and examined it. It was full. The gun had not been fired. He dropped it into the left-hand pocket of his jacket.
“What happened?” he asked.
She did not answer. He gripped her shoulders and shook her. “Juanita! Answer me. What happened?”
It was like someone waking from a deep sleep, a dream, a nightmare perhaps. Her eyes gradually lost their fixed stare and her body its rigidity. She looked at Cade as if only then becoming aware of his presence.
“Roberto!”
“What happened, Juanita?” he repeated.
She shuddered. “I meant to kill him. That is why I came.”
“That is why you brought the gun?”
“Yes.” She looked at her right hand. “It’s gone. Where is it?”
“I’ve got it,” Cade said. “But you didn’t kill him. The gun hasn’t been fired. So what happened?”
She was becoming calmer. She frowned slightly, as though trying to marshal her thoughts.
“He was afraid. When I told him who I was and why I had come he was afraid. When I pointed the pistol at him he tried to get away. He turned the chair; one wheel went over the edge; he tried to save himself but could not. He fell in. The snakes. Oh, God, the snakes.”
She lifted a hand to her eyes as though to shut out some horrible sight Cade put his arm round her shoulders and waited for her to recover.
Then he said: “Why should he have been afraid when you told him who you were?”
“I recognised him. I had traced him here but I could not be certain until I saw him. Then I knew. You know who he was, don’t you?”
“Carlos Rodriguez.”
“Yes. Carlos Rodriguez.”
“But why—”
“There was a girl who was found dead in Rodriguez’s swimming-pool. A girl he had seduced, corrupted, killed. A girl only eighteen years old.”
“Isabella Martinez.”
“She was my half-sister.”
THIRTEEN
NO MYSTERY
NICHOLAS MARCOS GLAVIGERO of the San Borja police was a large plump man with a gentle, slightly wheezing voice and somewhat protruding ears. He had a dark, smoothly-shaven face with eyes set so widely apart and so poorly aligned that it seemed not at all improbable that he might have been capable of seeing in two directions at once. And that, for a police officer, might have been a very useful ability.
“There are then, Sañor Cade, three dead people at the house of Señor Gomara?”
“Yes,” Cade said.
Clavigero sighed. He had a comfortable office with two electric fans which stirred the air even if they did not cool it very much. It was apparent to Cade that if he had been at all able to justify such an action he would undoubtedly have despatched some subordinate to investigate the matter. But three bodies—that was rather too many. He sighed again and lifted his heavy bulk from the chair in which it had been seated. He was sweating gently in spite of the fans.
“We will go to the house of the unfortunate Señor Gomara?” he said. “You, Señor Cade, will please accompany me.”
The Citroen was standing in the shade of some trees outside the police-station, a square concrete building with a flat roof and white walls. Cade had already taken Juanita Suarez back to the Phoenix and had left her in the care of Señora Torres. He had told the Señora that Juanita was not feeling well and the Señora had promised to look after her.
“You must go and lie down, señorita. I will bring an aspirin and a cooling drink. It is the heat no doubt. So very hot it is.”
Juanita thanked her. Cade believed she was still suffering from the shock of Gomara’s peculiarly unpleasant death. He had told her nothing about Delia and José. Time for that later.
“We will go in the police car‚” Clavigero said. “No need for you to waste petrol, Señor Cade. On the way we will go over your story again—in detail.”
The police car was a big Ford, not very new, rather beaten up, like a suspect after questioning. Clavigero and Cade sat in the back and a sergeant sat in the front with the driver. The sergeant was a silent, morose sort of man with extraordinarily large hands and feet. The driver looked about fifteen years old, but that seemed hardly probable.
Cade went over the story in detail.
“You are an Englishman, Señor Cade?” Clavigero said.
“It is on the passport.”
“Yes. So it is. I was merely stressing the fact. So, as an Englishman, what are you doing in San Borja?”
“l am a journalist I am writing a story.”
Clavigero chuckled softly. “You will have plenty of material, it seems.”
“That is not the kind of story I write.”
“So?” Clavigero seemed a trifle disappointed. He had perhaps been anticipating world-wide press coverage of the crime with his own name in the headlines. “And what were you doing at Señor Gomara’s?”
“I had an interview with him yesterday. He invited me to come again.”
“And Señorita Suarez?”
“I invited her to accompany me.”
“I shall of course need to question her later.”
“Of course.”
“And you did not, Señor Cade, in fact speak to Señor G
omara today?”
“No. When I saw him he was already dead.”
“But Señorita Suarez spoke to him?”
“Yes. It was while she was with him that he accidentally fell into the snake pit with his wheeled chair.”
“Accidentally,” Clavigero said. “Yes, of course.” He sighed. “Accidents will happen.”
The Mercedes was standing a short distance back from the gate. Cade had had to move it before he could open the gate to let the Citroen through. The gate was still open; there were no enemies for Gomara to keep out now.
Clavigero told the driver to stop by the stable. “We will look first at this man José Rivera.”
It was the first time Cade had heard José’s surname. He supposed Clavigero would make it his business to know a thing like that
Cade went first through the wicket, then Clavigero, then the sergeant The driver stayed in the car. There were flies on José’s head. The knife was still sticking in the door, the baulk of timber that had broken the bolt of the loose-box was lying where it had fallen, but the horse had not returned.
Clavigero wheezed and sweated a little. He looked at José; he looked at the loose-box and at the knife; he looked up at the loft.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I see.”
There were dark stains on the floor where the horse’s hoofs had carried some of José’s blood. The sergeant pointed them out gloomily.
“I have seen them,” Clavigero said. He looked at Cade. “You are fortunate to be alive, señor. That beam, that knife, either might have killed you.”
“I know,” Cade said.
“This Rivera was a very violent man. Perhaps it is fitting that he should have come to a violent end.”
“He was certainly violent.”
“Let us go to the house,” Clavigero said.
The front door was closed. Cade had closed it before leaving. He had found Andres and the other servants and had told them to let no one in until the police arrived. Not that there was likely to be anyone to let in. They had all seemed stunned; he was not sure that they had understood what he had been saying.
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