by Todd Downing
As Rennert moved to a chair his eyes rested on the small framed photograph which was the sole occupant of the top of a chest of drawers.
It was a woman’s face, as finely chiseled as some of those wooden ones in the other room, beautiful in a full-blown way. If there was no indication of great intellectual force, the lack was compensated for by the strength and resolution inherent in the chin and mouth. And by the eyes …
Rennert sat down and began to unlace his shoes. “That was the Campos hacienda?”
“Yes.” Angerman folded his trousers over the footboard of the bed so as to leave the crease undisturbed. He seemed to be ambidexterous.
“I know the region.”
“You are to be one of the witnesses in Dr. Torbays case then?”
“No, I am not one of the witnesses. I did not see the wreck. I was near. I heard it. But I did not see it.”
Rennert stood up and cast another glance at the picture. The eyes were the woman’s most attractive feature. They were large, deep-set and luminous, and gave her a faintly exotic appearance. There was a similarity between them and those of Darwin Wyllys. Put this calmness in place of the febrile intensity of the man’s, draw that terrible dilation of his pupils …
“Perhaps,” Rennert said, “that is fortunate for you. It looks as if those who saw the wreck are not finding the Valley a very healthy place to live.”
Angerman was fastening the buckle of a pair of snugly-fitting black trunks. “That is what you and I are going to talk about, Mr. Rennert. Shall we go?”
Rennert looked once more, surreptitiously, at the photograph. He was sure it was that of Mrs. Torday.
II
The sun stared obliquely from a sky of profound blue. The air was heady with the smell of blistered pine boards, of vapours rising from the waves that lapped gently against the float, of salt water drying on Rennert’s bare shoulders and arms. Slightly winded from the swim, he sat tailor-fashion and felt a pleasing lassitude creep over his limbs.
Angerman lay outstretched, his hands clasped behind his head, his eyes fixed on the sky.
“Let us go back,” he said. “Last night Professor Radisson was shot. Yesterday afternoon Carlos Campos was killed. Did you know that a year ago somebody tried to kill Dr. Torday?”
“I knew it.” Rennert thought it wise not to divulge the source of his information. “But none of the particulars.”
“Not many people know it. He has a car built for his wheelchair. One that will not jolt. Now I drive him back and forth from the radio station. But before a chauffeur did it. He broadcasts twice each night. At seven and at nine. He was going back to his house after the last broadcast. Someone tried to crowd him off the road at the edge of Brownsville. The chauffeur was too scared to see what kind of a car it was. It was a narrow escape.” Angerman stopped as if he had rounded out a period.
“Two years ago,” he went on, “Charles Bettis, the brother of Matt Bettis at the hotel, was shot and killed. That was before I came here, and I do not know much about it. But they found him out in the country. Shot through the head. A bullet from a long-range rifle, like deer hunters use. Everybody said it was an accident. But Dr. Torday does not think so.”
“He believes, I suppose, that there is a plot on foot to do away with himself and his witnesses.”
Angerman turned his head so that his eyes met Rennert’s. “That is what he wants you to find out.”
Rennert smiled. “So that’s why I’m here.”
Angerman’s smile matched his. “That is why you are here. I am offering you a job.”
Rennert was silent for a moment. “Be more specific,” he said. “Just what is it Dr. Torday wants me to do?”
“To find out if there is a plot against him or his witnesses. To get evidence one way or the other.”
“I see. Didn’t I make it plain on the way over that I quit work of that sort when I left the Customs Service?”
“Yes, Mr. Rennert, you made it plain.” There was a glint of humour in the blue eyes. “I think maybe you knew what was coming and tried to make yourself—not me—believe you did not want to do it.” Angerman sat up. “But you can keep on believing what you said—and still take this job. It will help make you a farmer quicker than sitting on your—I beg your pardon, Mr. Rennert—than sitting in a chair at the hotel all day.”
“How?”
“Dr. Torday will give you that section of land next to your house. The orange trees that we looked at. The trees that you will look at every morning and want—if you do not take this job.”
Rennert laughed outright, partly in satisfaction. “Do you mind telling me what part you had in planning this campaign?”
Angerman’s face beamed with pleasure that he made no attempt to conceal. “Last night,” he said, more thickly than usual, “Dr. Torday called me to his office. ‘Jarl,’ he said, ‘I have a job for you. Go out and engage Mr. Rennert’s services. Have him here at noon to-morrow.’ At noon you and I will go to his office and my job will be done.”
“I don’t like to be bluntly mercenary, Angerman, but is the offer of that orange grove made by you or by him?”
“By him. But I thought of it. I thought of it this morning. After I met you I told myself that you would be more likely to take that land than money. You told me you would like to have it. A few minutes ago, when I went to the office, I’phoned Dr. Torday. I asked him if I could offer you the orange grove. He said, ‘Yes.’”
“Was it your idea to have me attest these affidavits?”
“Yes. Dr. Torday had told me to get them fixed, but there was no hurry. I found out you were a notary. I thought it would give me a chance to know you, to feel you out.”
“It’s true then that the testimony of these men is of no importance to Dr. Torday?”
“No, it is of no importance. Now”—Angerman sprang to his feet, swaying the solid raft—“we will call it settled, won’t we?”
“I’m going to withhold my answer until I’ve talked with Dr. Torday. But I see no reason why I shouldn’t accept his offer.” Rennert realized what a disadvantage it is to have to look up to meet a man’s eyes. “I trust this means that you and I are going to be frank with each other?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I want you to tell me, then, about Darwin Wyllys.”
“That is a private matter, Mr. Rennert.”
“I’m not going to get very far if you take that attitude. For instance, I was at the bullfight yesterday afternoon. I saw you and Wyllys meet outside.”
“Neither of us was inside. That is enough.” Angerman turned his back and stepped to the edge of the float, where he stood, a flaming bronze and black colossus straddling seashore and houses and palms. “I think it will be much better,” he said firmly, “if you do not ask any more questions about Darwin Wyllys.”
He dived.
III
A remarkable change had come over Darwin Wyllys when he ushered them into his living-room the second time. He was fully dressed in whites. He had shaved and combed his hair. His face was flushed with colour, as if from the effects of a cold shower. His pupils had lost most of their dilation.
“Enjoy your swim?” he inquired affably.
“I always enjoy a swim.” Angerman preserved some of the defensive hauteur which he had manifested since he and Rennert left the float.
“I haven’t been in lately. Sit down. Or do you want to get this affidavit fixed up right away?” Wyllys turned to Rennert and smiled. “I didn’t understand about it at first, Mr. Rennert. Jarl here made things clear to me. I’m ready to sign it now.”
“We cannot stay,” Angerman said. “Here it is.”
Wyllys took the sheet from him, moved to the table, and affixed his signature. Rennert completed the document and handed it to Angerman.
The air of strain about their departure was very slight.
On the walk outside Rennert stopped suddenly. “I forgot my seal,” he said as he turned back. “Just a moment.”
“I’ll do it.”
Rennert crossed the porch, rang, and stepped inside when Wyllys came to the door.
“I have a message for you,” he said in a low voice as he secured his seal. “Mr. Jester has the papers you want. He will meet you in his office at eight o’clock to-night.”
Wyllys’s eyes brightened. “Good! Now I will be able to please Jarl.”
“To please him?”
“Yes, by giving him what he wants more than anything in the world. The hacienda.”
“The Campos hacienda?”
“Yes. Didn’t you know?”
“No,” Rennert said slowly, “I didn’t know.”
7
The Broken Man
I
“Dr. Torday,” Angerman broke the silence, “lives here.”
“Yes,” Rennert said, “I know.”
The estate, on the northern fringe of Brownsville, had been pointed out to him more than once. Due to its isolation and the peculiar circumstances of its owner’s life, popular gossip had been rife and inventive regarding what lay behind its stone boundary walls. Rennert had been told, in all seriousness, that the crippled physician maintained there an Oriental seraglio, replete with eunuchs, slant-eyed dancing girls smuggled across the Rio Grande, a retinue of dwarfs and deformed buffoons and other horrors which the clean-minded Anglo-Saxon knew of only from the Arabian Nights.
The walls were high. The man who swung open the iron gates at Angerman’s signal was ostensibly a gardener, but wore a revolver and stood at military attention as they passed. Otherwise, Rennert thought as he was carried between smooth green lawns, clustered shrubs and flowers and rows of tall palms, it might have been the home of any successful bourgeois businessman.
Angerman parked in front of the house—a large rectangular mansion of cream-coloured brick and stucco—and got out. He glanced at his watch and unobtrusively straightened his tie as Rennert walked round the car to join him.
A Mexican maid let them in, and Rennert noted a softening of the black eyes that rested for a moment longer than necessary on the broad white-clad form of his companion.
The latter disregarded her. “Will you sit down, Mr. Rennert? I will see if Dr. Torday is ready.”
Rennert sat in a living-room which occupied the east side of the residence. It was a beautiful room, done in a modified Regency style, with wallpapers of a deep but vital blue, white classical figures and light graceful furniture which increased the feeling of spaciousness.
His eyes did not detect a single discordant note in the décor. That, he decided, was the trouble. It was a singularly impersonal room, too formal, lacking the little disarrangements which are significant of human occupancy.
A woman came in from one of the two doors at the rear, paused for a fraction of a second before Rennert turned his head, then advanced toward him.
She wore a severely simple dress of white. Her arms and throat and face were white as alabaster. As Rennert rose he recognized the features of the photograph which adorned Jarl Angerman’s bedchamber. She was older now, a little of the firmness had gone from her mouth, but her eyes were unchanged.
“I am Mrs. Torday. I believe you are Mr. Rennert. Dr. Torday told me that he was expecting you. Jarl—Mr. Angerman—is with him now?”
“Yes.”
“He won’t be long. Sit down, won’t you?” Her voice was low and pleasant, with no trace of strain. Yet there was an absent quality to it, purely negative in its force, as if from habit she were giving but perfunctory attention to what she said.
“I hope you can relieve Dr. Torday’s mind, Mr. Rennert. He didn’t rest well last night. In his condition rest is essential. I’ve tried to convince him that he is letting his imagination run away with him, but without success. Don’t you agree with me that it is fantastic to suspect the Mexican National Railways of any plot such as this?”
“It certainly strikes me as fantastic, Mrs. Torday. But I know very little about the matter as yet. Mr. Angerman told me of it only this morning. When he took me to Tonatiuh to attest the affidavit of your brother, Mr. Wyllys.”
“Yes.” The monosyllable was colourless.
“I hadn’t met your brother before. I was sorry to hear from Mr. Angerman that he was suffering from nervous trouble. I trust that the sunshine and quiet of Tonatiuh will relieve him.”
“Nervous trouble?” He thought, but couldn’t be sure, that there was a faintly speculative look in her eyes. “Oh, you’re mistaken, Mr. Rennert,” she said calmly. “There is nothing wrong with Darwin. He’s merely living down at Tonatiuh in order to be with Mr. Angerman. They have been friends most of their lives. Darwin worships him. He has never been very strong himself.”
“Oh, I’m sorry I misunderstood. I was glad of the opportunity to visit Tonatiuh. Do you go there often?”
“Very seldom. Dr. Torday likes his patients to have as much privacy as possible. He discourages casual visiting. And I don’t like to set an example to others.”
Rennert never knew how long Jarl Angerman had been standing in the hall, exactly like a garbed piece of statuary. It was no movement on his part but rather the consciousness of his presence which made Rennert turn.
Angerman came in, setting thick rubber soles carefully on the deep nap of the rug, and said: “How do you do, Irene.”
“How do you do, Jarl. Is Dr. Torday ready to see Mr. Rennert?”
“Yes.”
Their eyes met briefly.
Mrs. Torday rose and held out a hand to Rennert. “I’m so glad to have met you, Mr. Rennert. I expect we shall see you here frequently now.”
“I hope so, Mrs. Torday.”
Rennert went with Angerman across the hall and into a room on the southwest. It was a large nondescript room which seemed to do duty as office and library. There were metal filing-cases, a desk with a typewriter, cases crammed with books and papers, a suite of living-room furniture.
Two high-backed Spanish chairs were ranged side by side, facing the French windows on the south. Facing, also, a wheelchair. Deep in the latter, his back to the sun, a man sat.
“Dr. Torday,” Angerman said, “this is Mr. Rennert.”
II
Rennert was faintly amused at his own surprise. It told him how actively his fancy had been at work, without his full awareness, in conjuring up images of Torday. What sort of an individual he had expected to meet, he didn’t know. A patriarch, perhaps. Or a grotesque, even sinister, invalid. But certainly not this crabbed insignificant little man who was busily appraising him with such shrewd black eyes.
Dr. Torday wore a grey sack suit. A black silk scarf was wound loosely about his neck, entirely covering the cast which must have been there. His head, with its little wisps of grizzled hair, rested upon large cushions. His voice was the mildly incisive one which Rennert had heard over the radio.
“So this is Hugh Rennert! Do you mind standing right where you are for a moment, Mr. Rennert? I can’t turn my head, you know, and I’m curious to get a good look at you.” He gave a little bark of laughter. “It’s rude, I know. But I dare say you’re just as curious about me. So we’ll toss the conventions overboard.”
For a full minute he studied Rennert’s face.
“I’m agreeably surprised, Mr. Rennert. I’d expected a younger man. One of those fellows with bulldog jaw, tight lips, hard eyes. You have good features. A well-proportioned body. Getting just a little bit fat. Better go down to Tonatiuh sometime and have Jarl show you some exercises that will take care of that. Turn your head just a bit, will you? Yes, I thought so. Well-modeled ears. I’d be inclined to put confidence in you if I saw only your ears. People never look at ears. I think maybe they’re the most expressive things about a man. He doesn’t have any control over them, as he does over his eyes, for instance. Or his mouth. I’ve had to study physiognomy. I’ll wager I know what your voice will be like. Soft, but none of this southern slurring. Say something, won
’t you? I’ll keep still now and give you a chance.” Another laugh. “You might say this: ‘You’re taking advantage of the fact that you’re an invalid, Torday.’ Go ahead. I’d much prefer you to be frank. And I know that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I don’t think you’re taking advantage of the fact that you’re an invalid, Dr. Torday.”
Torday sighed. “I’m disappointed in you, Mr. Rennert. You don’t need to toady to me.”
“I think you’re taking advantage of the fact that you have something I want. You would act exactly the same way regardless of your physical condition.”
The invalid’s laugh was loud and clear and happy. “Touché, Rennert! You’re absolutely right. You and I will get along together. I’m going to apologize to you—sincerely—for having kept you standing. Sit down. Jarl, you must attend to the refreshments. What will you have, Rennert? Don’t be hesitant in expressing your wishes. I’m not by nature a hedonist, but I keep myself supplied with such pleasures as I can have. In compensation for those I can’t have. What will it be? Whisky-and-soda? Brandy? Anis?”
“Brandy, if you please.”
“Fine. Jarl, there’s a special bottle of Martell in the lower compartment of the bar. Open that for us. We must toast Rennert in the best.”
His eyes followed Angerman as the latter moved toward a movable chromium and nickel plated bar by the window. “You and I will have to drink alone, Rennert. Jarl is an abstainer. He gets his enjoyment out of mortification of the flesh. Takes icy baths, I suspect. He’ll look on at our dissipation with a severe Spartan aloofness. Nordic, rather.”
He fell silent when Angerman passed out of his range of vision, then pitched his voice a little higher. “Remarkable, isn’t it, how this analogy keeps cropping up in history? I know how those weak Byzantine emperors felt when they looked down on the blond blue-eyed Northmen who were guarding their thrones. What were those mercenaries called? Varangians. Poor bargainers then, poor bargainers now, the Vikings. It may be fortunate for me that Jarl doesn’t read history. Some of his ancestors found out after a long time that those thrones were comfortable places to sit. But no”—he watched Angerman returning with decanter and glasses—“the discovery was always forgotten. Haven’t been studying up on the Varangians, have you, Jarl?”