The Rodriguez Affair (1970)

by Pattinson, James

  Clavigero did not trouble to ring the bell. He opened the door and walked in. The others followed.

  “I will look now at the woman‚” Clavigero said.

  They climbed the stairs. They went into the room where Della was lying on the bed. The sergeant looked at her and seemed more morose than ever.

  Clavigero sighed again. “Yes, I see. And this was exactly as you found her?”

  “Yes,” Cade said.

  “Why did you come to Señorita Lindsay’s bedroom?”

  “I had looked in the other rooms.”

  “You were searching for her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I wished to speak to her.”

  Clavigero gazed at the gir’s face. “That is understandable. She was very attractive. Such a pity. It is always a tragedy when the young and beautiful die. There can never be too much beauty in the world.”

  When they went into the snake room Clavigero sweated even more. He took out a handkerchief and dabbed his face and chin. He walked to the edge of the pit and looked down at Gomara.

  “We shall have to get him out of there.”

  “There are snakes,” the sergeant said. He seemed afraid that Clavigero might order him to go down and lift Gomara out. “Venomous snakes.”

  “Nevertheless, the body cannot be allowed to remain there. That is out of the question.”

  “Andres would do it,” Cade suggested. “He has a way with snakes.”

  Clavigero nodded to the sergeant. “Go and fetch the old man.”

  The sergeant went away.

  Clavigero said: “There is no mystery here, I think. It is quite evident to me that the killing of Señorita Lindsay was a crime of passion.”

  “You think so?”

  “I am certain of it I have dealt with such affairs before. The woman was Señor Gomara’s mistress. José desires her. It is natural; he is a man. She spurns him, laughs in his face perhaps. He is a servant, a menial, and she will have nothing to do with such a fellow. He goes to her room, consumed by desire. She is as we saw her, choosing a dress perhaps. The sight of her thus inflames him. He tries to embrace her. She resists, smacks his face perhaps, calls him names. In a fit of uncontrollable rage and jealousy he draws his knife and stabs her. He hears your car horn and runs out of the house, hoping to send you away until he can dispose of the body. You insist on being allowed to come in.” Clavigero paused and looked hard at Cade. “That is one point that puzzles me. Why did he let you in?”

  “I persuaded him,” Cade said. “He was reluctant, but Señor Gomara had given orders that I was to be admitted at any time. And José could not have expected that I would go to the bedroom.”

  He had not told Clavigero about the revolver. That was one detail he felt it unnecessary to reveal. He had not mentioned Juanita’s small automatic either.

  “I see,” Clavigero said. “Yes, that seems all perfectly clear. We shall, of course, test the knife for fingerprints. You did not touch it?”

  “No.”

  “Then I feel certain that we shall find only José Rivera’s prints on it”

  He seemed highly pleased with himself. Perhaps it gave him a sense of achievement to have cleared everything up so quickly and efficiently. It would be a credit to the San Borja police department.

  “And Señor Gomara?” Cade asked.

  Clavigero shrugged. “An accident, as you said. An invalid in a wheel-chair; such men should not have snake pits without walls round them. Sooner or later it was bound to happen.”

  When he got back to the hotel Cade went straight up to Juanita’s room. He knocked gently on the door and heard her voice, a little startled, it seemed.

  “Who is there?”

  “Robert. May I come in?”

  She opened the door herself. She was obviously glad to see him, but she looked tired, as though the events of the day had drained the vitality from her.

  “Roberto.”

  He closed the door and kissed her. “It’s all right,” he said. “The police are accepting Gomara’s death as an accident. There’ll be no trouble. I’m afraid you’ll have to answer a few questions.”

  She looked worried. “Questions?”

  “They’ll want your version of what happened. Just tell them you were talking to Gomara and he accidentally sent the chair over the edge. That is what happened.”

  “Yes. That is what happened.”

  “Don’t say anything about your gun. Or mine.”

  “I won’t,” she said.

  “And there’s something else you’d better know; something that happened out there.”

  She seemed to brace herself. “What else happened?”

  He told her about Delia and José.

  “Oh God‚” she said. “You might have been killed.”

  “But I wasn’t.”

  “Promise me you’ll never do that again.”

  “Do what again?”

  “Go chasing a murderer.”

  “It’s not something I make a habit of doing,” Cade said.

  Earl Johnson was in the lounge when Cade went down. Johnson ordered drinks and piloted Cade to a seat where they would not be overheard.

  “Some very strange rumours are floating around,” Johnson said. “Maybe you know something about them.”

  “What kind of rumours?”

  “That Gomara is dead for example. That Della Lindsay and José are also dead. That you and Juanita are rather deeply involved.”

  “Innocently involved,” Cade said.

  “Naturally. Like to tell me about it?”

  “I don’t know whether I should.”

  “I saved your life, Rob.”

  Cade told him.

  Johnson thought it over. “I don’t think my clients are going to like this very much. I kinda got the impression they wanted him alive. They wanted to deal with him themselves in their own way.”

  “We can’t all get what we want”

  “That’s true. And they can’t blame me. I didn’t kill the guy.”

  “Nobody killed him. He was bitten by a snake.”

  “That’s also true. And he had it coming to him. If anyone deserved to be snake-bitten he did.”

  “You’ll be pulling out now, I suppose?”

  Johnson nodded. “Nothing more for me here now.”

  “Nor me,” Cade said.

  “Let’s drink to that.”

  They drank.

  FOURTEEN

  A SMALL FAVOUR

  THE CUSTOMS officer at London Airport examined Cade’s luggage with particular care. At least, so it seemed to him. He was glad he had ditched the revolver before leaving San Borja. True, he might well have a need for something of the kind even in England, but a gun was not the sort of thing that was easy to explain away to an eagle-eyed customs officer.

  Cade had nothing incriminating in his luggage and he was passed through.

  London looked cold and dreary and uninviting. In the blistering heat of Venezuela he had thought of this city with a certain nostalgia; now that he was back he found it less attractive. There was no one in London he really wanted to see.

  There were, nevertheless, people he would have to see. Alletson for one. He rang up the superintendent as soon as he got back to the flat As luck would have it, Alletson was in his office.

  “This is Robert Cade speaking. I thought you’d be pleased to know I’m back in England.”

  “Why should I be pleased about a thing like that?” Alletson sounded dissatisfied with life. Perhaps the villains were getting him down. Or it could have been the weather.

  “No reason at all,” Cade said. “But you’d have cursed me if I hadn’t let you know.”

  “You’re right there. I want to talk with you. When can you get round here?”

  “I’ll have a shower to remove the grime of travel and then I’ll be right with you.”

  Alletson’s face looked to Cade just a little squarer and paler than it had been when he had last see
n it. He was sitting at a desk littered with manila folders when a young constable showed Cade in. He waved a hand in the general direction of a chair.

  “Sit down, Mr. Cade.”

  Cade sat down.

  “Like a cup of tea?”

  “Is it good tea?” Cade asked.

  “It’s lousy.”

  “I don’t think I’ll trouble then.”

  Alletson grunted. He opened a folder, looked at the papers inside and seemed to be depressed by what he saw. He sighed. It was not such a wheezy sigh as Clavigero’s but he was not so fat. Perhaps sighing was an occupational disease of police officers.

  “Have you caught those boys who killed Harry Banner?” Cade asked.

  Alletson’s reaction appeared to indicate that it was not the most tactful of questions. He looked sour. “If I had a bit more information to go on, and if certain people who might be expected to help didn’t go gallivanting off to distant parts of the world, I might stand more chance of laying my hands on them.”

  Cade gathered from this rather lengthy answer that Alletson had not yet made an arrest.

  “Don’t be so harsh, superintendent. My journey may not have been altogether a waste of time.”

  “And what might you mean by that?”

  “I picked up some information in Venezuela that could be a lead.”

  Alletson raised his eye to the ceiling as though praying for divine guidance. “Amateur detectives. That’s all I need to make my day.”

  “Don’t you want to hear what I discovered? If you don’t I won’t trouble you.”

  “Get on with it,” Alletson said. “I’m listening.”

  “Harry Banner spent some time in a place called San Borja, which is a one-horse town deep in the heart of Venezuela. He went to work for a man named Gomara on an estate about ten miles out of town. Gomara is now deceased.”

  “What’s all that got to do with this case?”

  “Listen,” Cade said. “Two men came to San Borja with Banner. South Americans, probably from Argentina.”

  “Did they have names?” Alletson allowed himself to show a small amount of grudging interest.

  “Manuel Lopez and Luis Guzman.”

  Alletson made a note on a pad. “And then?”

  “And then Banner suddenly left Gomara’s place. He left San Borja too—in quite a hurry. From all accounts Lopez and Guzman were mad as hell when they found he’d gone. They went after him hot-foot.”

  “And what do you deduce from that, Sexton Blake?” Alletson was mildly sarcastic.

  “It seems reasonably obvious. Harry Banner and the other two were in some kind of racket together, perhaps involving this man Gomara. He pulled a fast one on his partners and they went after him. They caught up with him in London and killed him.”

  “You have been busy,” Alletson said. “Did you find out what the racket was?”

  “You can’t expect me to do all your work,” Cade said. “After all, I’m only an amateur detective.”

  Alletson seemed inclined to make a sharp retort to that, but apparently decided it was not worth his while to bandy words with so unimportant a person.

  “I have the descriptions of the two South Americans,” Cade said. “Guzman is thin and hard-faced. He wears a drooping moustache and has a small scar on his forehead. Lopez is shorter, thick-set, pockmarked, wearing a gold signet ring.”

  Alletson’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I seem to have heard the second description somewhere before. It sounds very much like the man who tailed you.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Cade said.

  “The question is why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why he tailed you.”

  “Could be because I was Harry Banner’s friend.”

  “That’s hardly a good reason. Or are you suggesting that Lopez and Guzman are going round knocking off all Banner’s friends out of revenge for what he did to them?”

  “I don’t think that’s likely.”

  “Neither do I, Mr. Cade. Do you know what I think?”

  “No. Tell me.”

  “I think you’re not coming clean. I think you’re not coming entirely clean. I have a nasty little idea at the back of my mind that you’re withholding some rather vital information.”

  Cade looked innocent. “You know me, superintendent. I would never do a thing like that.”

  “I hope not,” Alletson said. “I sincerely hope not. It’s an offence, you know. Now, Mr. Cade, I want you to tell me again all that happened on the evening when Mr. Banner came to see you.”

  “I’ve told you.”

  “You may remember something you forgot to mention on the previous occasion. Some little detail that slipped your memory first time round. Just go through it all very carefully from the moment when Banner rang you up.”

  Cade went through it all very carefully.

  “That’s the same as before,” Alletson said. He sounded a shade disgruntled.

  “That’s the way it happened. Is that all you want from me?”

  “It seems all I’m likely to get.”

  “I’ll be on my way then. You’ve got my phone number in case you need to get in touch?”

  “I’ve got it,” Alletson said.

  Cade got up and walked to the door. He said : “You wouldn’t like to give me police protection, I suppose?”

  “Why should you need police protection?”

  “Lopez and Guzman could still be after me.”

  “If they’re still in London.”

  “I’d say they are.”

  “I can’t give you police protection,” Alletson said. “We’re short-handed.”

  “If I’m murdered my blood will be on your head.”

  “I’ll try to bear it with fortitude,” Alletson said.

  After leaving Alletson Cade made his way to a public house called the Sitting Duck, situated not far from Fen-church Street Station. It was one of those hostelries that have changed very little since Victorian times, full of mirror glass and mahogany and marble-topped tables with wrought-iron legs. The landlord was an ex-pugilist named Barney Logan and the pub was much frequented by others of that fraternity. The photographs of many past champions adorned the walls, and a pair of boxing-gloves hung symbolically behind the bar, inscribed with the date when Barney Logan had exchanged the ring for the less energetic profession of publican.

  It was just a little before one when Cade called in at the public bar, and business looked meagre. There were two old women drinking stout at a table in one corner, a couple of men in the uniform of British Rail disposing of pints of bitter, and a seedy gentleman who was making a small whisky go a very long way indeed.

  Barney Logan himself was polishing a glass and looking bored. He had the kind of face that could only have belonged to an ex-pug, all beaten-up and squashed-in and scarred, like something that had been inadvertently allowed to fall into a cement-mixer. When he saw Cade his eye brightened.

  “Why, Mr. Cade. Nice to see you. Been a long time.”

  “Been out of the country,” Cade said.

  Barney looked envious. “You get around. Me, I don’t get around no more. Did once. You ever hear about that fight I had in Chicago?”

  “I believe so,” Cade said. Everybody who had ever stepped across the threshold of the Sitting Duck had heard about Barney’s fight in Chicago. It had been the high-light of his career.

  “What’s it to be then, Mr. Cade?”

  “Scotch from the old square bottle. A large one.”

  Barney got the drink and accepted Cade’s offer of one for himself.

  “Good fighting, Mr. Cade.”

  “Good fighting, Barney.”

  They drank to that.

  “Seen Percy around lately?” Cade asked.

  Barney glanced at the clock behind him. “Another ten minutes and he’ll be walking through that doorway. You want to see him?”

  “I’d like to have a talk with him.”

  He was on his second wh
isky when Percy walked in. Percy Proctor had been a middleweight; he had in fact been a very good middleweight He would probably have had difficulty now in getting down to the eleven stone mark but there was still not a lot of surplus flesh on him. He looked hard, and his face was not beaten-up like Barney’s; Percy had been more skilful. He had once done a bit of wrestling too, but he seldom talked about that; he was rather ashamed of it

  “Hallo, Percy,” Cade said. “I was looking for you.”

  “You were?” Percy said. He had a snuffling intonation that came from getting too much leather on the nose. “You wanter write some more about me?”

  Cade had once done a feature on Percy for a magazine and had got to know him very well.

  “Not this time.”

  Percy looked disappointed. “I liked that piece you done las’ time. Classy, that’s what it was, classy. There was words in that there piece I never knew came in the English language.”

  “I’m glad you liked it. This time I want you to do me a small favour.”

  “Any time, Mr. Cade, any time. Jus’ you say the word an’ it’s as good as done.”

  “What’ll you have, Percy?”

  “I’ll have a dirty big pint an’ a glass of rum, seein’ as you’re payin’,” Percy said.

  Cade gave the order and steered Percy to a corner table. “Now,” he said, “this is the set-up.”

  Cade went up in the lift; it had been repaired during his absence in South America. He got out at the third floor and walked to the door of his flat. He opened the door and went in, and there was that odour of cigar smoke again, the odour he had smelt that day when he had come back from the hotel where Harry Banner’s dead body was lying.

  If he had been quick enough he might have drawn back, but the men were quicker. One of them seized his arm and pulled him in; the other slipped between him and the door, closing it softly and slipping the catch. The one who had pulled him in was thick-set, pockmarked, wearing a gold signet ring; the other man was thin, hard-faced, with a scar on his forehead above the left eyebrow.