by Todd Downing
He glanced into the smoker. Searcey sat by the lowered shade of the window. His jaws were moving slightly, as if they were just finishing the act of mastication, and his fingers were tamping tobacco into the bowl of a worn black briar pipe. He looked up as Rennert stood in the doorway.
“Have a match?” he asked.
Rennert tendered a packet of safety matches and watched Searcey light his pipe.
“Thanks,” the other started to hand them back, then paused. “Do you have any more of these?” he asked.
Rennert felt in his pockets. “No, I don’t,” he answered.
Searcey returned the packet. “I thought if you did I’d borrow some. They seem to have run out back here.” He paused and drew contentedly upon the pipe. “What in the hell’s the matter now?” he asked. “Why don’t we pull out of this god-forsaken place?”
“Probably changing engines,” Rennert explained. “A new one from San Luis Potosí was to have met us here.”
“We’ll hope it’s better than the old one we had. Judging from the map in the time-table there’s nothing at all between here and San Luis but desert—and lots of that. It’d be a hell of a place to get stalled.”
“Yes,” Rennert agreed soberly, “it would.” He wondered if this man knew just what a dangerous and unpleasant kind of hell it might turn out to be for all of them.
From up front came a frantic clanging of the engine.
“Well,” Searcey laughed, “that sounds just like the bell of the old one.”
“Yes,” Rennert smiled. “I think I’ll go back in the Pullman, if you’ll excuse me.”
He let the curtains fall to behind him and glanced in the direction of the door, outside of which the conductor had appeared.
“About to start again, are we?” Rennert called to him.
“Yes,” the man adjusted his lips in a smile.
“With the new engine from San Luis we won’t be long in making up our lost time, I suppose?”
“I am sorry, Señor Rennert,” there was helplessness in the voice, “but there is no new engine.”
“No?”
“It did not meet us here as we had hoped.”
“What was the explanation from San Luis?”
“There was no explanation from San Luis.”
“But you wired, did you not?”
“Yes, señor, we wired,” he shrugged helplessly, “but there has come no answer. The wires—” he checked himself and stared out into the sunlight.
“What’s the matter with the wires?” Rennert demanded quickly.
The conductor said in a voice as flat as the desert that stretched before his eyes: “The wires are down, señor, between here and San Luis. They do not know, here in Vanegas, what the trouble is but there comes from San Luis no answer.” He started to move toward the front of the train, paused and said with the same distortion of a smile: “It will be nothing, nothing at all. These things happen often. The wires will be repaired within a few hours.”
“We can reach San Luis with the engine as it is?”
“But surely, señor, but surely. It will delay us but we can reach San Luis. Con permiso.”
Rennert stood for a moment, thoughtfully regarding his disappearing back. He told himself: If I were sure which one is guilty I would notify the soldiers on this train to detain him and warn the others not to continue straight into danger. He turned his head at the sound of footsteps on gravel and watched the Mexican soldier approach the steps. He knew that the only possibility of preventing the escape of the guilty person lay in keeping this group within the confines of the Pullman until identification was certain. And it was not yet certain….
The soldier mounted the steps with heavy deliberate tread and stood before Rennert, regarding him with expressionless face.
“You watched the telegraph office?” Rennert asked.
“Si, señor.”
“And did this man, this Mr. King, send a telegram from Vanegas?”
“No, señor, he walked to the office but he did not send a telegram.”
“Did any of the passengers send telegrams?”
“No. Another, the one of the gray hair, walked upon the platform and looked at the scenery but the others did not leave the car.”
“This man who walked upon the platform—what were his actions?”
The Mexican shrugged. “He did nothing, señor, but walked up and down. He stopped by the end of the car, below the observation platform, and made some marks in the dust with a stick.”
“Did anyone go near him?”
“I did not see anyone, señor, but I was watching this other man, as you told me.”
“Very well,” Rennert said abstractedly, “thank you.”
When the man had gone he stood for a moment longer. King, then, had not dispatched the telegram to the wife who he claimed had remained in Laredo but had merely pretended to do so. And Jeanes had stood beside the train and made marks in the dust with a stick.
His face set in lines of concentration, Rennert made his way down the passage, stepping aside to avoid the debris which the porter was sweeping out of the smoker. The Pullman was quiet save for the sound of the electric fans. King sat with a time-table in front of him. He was slowly moving a finger up its lines.
Rennert stopped beside him. “Did you send the telegram to your wife as I asked?”
King looked up as if in surprise at Rennert’s approach and attempted a smile. “Why, yes,” he said pleasantly enough, “I sent it.” He glanced back at the time-table.
“You asked her to send the answer to San Luis Potosí?”
“Yes, yes,” King’s voice sounded a bit gruff as if his thoughts were on the folded booklet in his hands.
“Thank you,” Rennert said evenly. “I shall be looking for the reply at San Luis Potosí.”
King did not answer.
Rennert walked on down the aisle and paused at the seat where Radcott sat staring out the window and drumming upon the sill with the tips of pudgy fingers.
“Another question about last night,” he said pleasantly. “Did you see this man Torner after he got on the Pullman?”
There was something almost vacuous about Radcott’s stare. “Yes,” he said, “I saw him in his seat and later in the smoker, after the train had pulled out of the station.”
“Could you tell me if he was wearing this in his tie?” Rennert held out the pin.
Radcott looked at it with suddenly narrowed eyes. He took it in his hand and examined it.
“No,” he shook his head decidedly as he returned it, “he wasn’t wearing that.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive,” Radcott moved restlessly in his seat.
Rennert thrust the pin into his lapel again. “Have you seen that pin before, Mr. Radcott?”
Radcott drew out his handkerchief and passed it quickly across his face. “No,” he said firmly, “no, I never saw it before.”
“None of the other passengers were wearing it—or one like it?”
“No, I’m sure not.”
Rennert studied him for a moment. “Thanks,” was all he said as he walked on. He was positive that Radcott had recognized that pin and had been more than a little startled by the sight.
He passed Miss Talcott, who was reading and did not look up at his approach, and continued on to the door of the observation platform.
At the corner of the station an old woman squatted behind a basket of withered peaches. A dingy blue rebozo shielded her face from the sun and from beneath its folds she gazed at the train with eyes that held no expression whatever. Before her the sunlight slanted across the slate-gray dust.
On one side of the track stood Jeanes. His head was bare and raised slightly so that his hair was a brush of burnished silver in the sun. His eyes were fixed upon the horizon where mountains were blue-gray shadows, heat-obscured, and upon his face was a rapt look. His lips were moving and words came indistinctly to Rennert’s ears.
“Quandje marche dans la
vallée de l’ombre de la mort, je ne crains aucun mal, car tu es aveç moi: Ta houlette et ton baton …”
At his feet a faint breeze from the mountains rippled torn fragments of paper in the dust.
“When I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death …”
9
Sunset (6:23 P.M.)
The Tropic of Cancer was past, the slim white stela that marks its location lost to sight in the darkness that was gathering upon the desert. As if mocking its alien whiteness cacti thrust huge dark fingers out of the soil.
The tiny crystals set in the old-fashioned celluloid comb sparkled in the light as Miss Talcott bent her head to peer along the floor of the Pullman. She came to the forward seat where Rennert sat, paused and said: “Do people who lose things annoy you, Mr. Rennert?”
Rennert had been staring thoughtfully out the window, his thoughts far from pleasant as he watched the sun melt the jagged peak of a mountain to the west. The extra edition of the San Antonio newspaper was spread upon his lap.
He looked around and said: “One’s own shortcomings are always more annoying in others.”
She laughed. “Yes and it’s worse when one has an excellent memory like mine. It isn’t a question of forgetting where I put it, I’m sure. Why, this is the first time I’ve lost anything since the night the report came that the zapatistas were going to raid Coyoacan and everyone had to move into Mexico City before daylight. I lost a Chinese shawl in the confusion that night.”
“And what is it that you’ve lost now?”
“My paper knife. I was using it this afternoon to cut the pages of a book but can’t find it anywhere now.”
Rennert frowned. “Do you remember when you had it last?” he asked gravely.
“Yes, it was while we were in Saltillo. I had been reading Manuel Azuela’s last novel and while we were waiting there I finished cutting the pages and laid the knife on the seat beside me. Mr. Jeanes came along then to talk to me and I put the book down. I remember marking my place with the knife. When I picked the book up again the knife was gone. I thought that it must have fallen to the floor but I couldn’t find it. The porter says that he has seen nothing of it. I’d rather hate to lose it. It’s an old piece of Chinese bronze that I picked up in Acapulco, a relic, I like to think, of the days of the Spanish galleons.”
“Did you ask Mr. Jeanes if he had seen it?”
“No,” she shrugged slightly, “I didn’t. I scarcely felt like getting started in another conversation with the young man.”
Rennert indicated the seat opposite him. “Won’t you sit down, Miss Talcott?”
“Yes,” she cast a glance in the direction of the door, “I will. I’ve been wanting to talk to you all day and this seems a good opportunity while the others are in the diner.” She sat down and smoothed out black taffeta with careful fingers. She smiled as she looked down at something which she held in her right hand. “Someone else has been losing things too,” she said, “that’s some consolation.” She held out her hand.
In its palm rested a small band of tawdry brass set with three bright red pieces of glass. Rennert looked at it curiously and took it in his fingers. It was an exceedingly cheap and ugly ring.
“Where did you find this?” he asked.
“In the aisle back there, by one of the vacant berths. It looks like a child’s ring, the kind we used to get as prizes at county fairs.”
“Yes,” Rennert was studying it. He looked up suddenly. “Do you mind, Miss Talcott, if I keep this? Not for its intrinsic value, I assure you.”
She looked at him oddly. “Why, of course not,” she said with an abstracted laugh. “You’ll try to find the owner, I suppose?” a bantering note crept into her voice.
“Yes,” Rennert’s face was serious, “I shall try my best to find the owner of this ring.” He slipped it into a pocket of his coat. “And now, Miss Talcott, would it be an impertinence to ask why you don’t feel like starting another conversation with Mr. Jeanes?”
“Not at all,” she lifted her eyes to look at him. Her hands were clasped placidly in her lap. “Mr. Jeanes is, I’m sure, a very very admirable young man. I’m sure he has all the virtues which a good young man should possess. He is exceedingly zealous. He has his own life running in a satisfactory groove, all his own thoughts and actions and emotions so tabulated that he feels sure that anyone, even God, looking at them with a careful and scrutinizing eye, would pronounce approval upon them. This done, he feels rather at a loss for an outlet for his excess energy. So he convinces himself that it’s his duty to arrange other people’s lives, whether they wish it or not. He doesn’t approve of me or rather of the way I’ve arranged my life.”
“So I judged,” Rennert smiled.
“Understand,” she said hastily, “I’m not blaming him in the slightest. I can see why doctrinaires don’t approve of me. Usually, I could sit and talk to him—or rather let him do the talking—and be mildly amused. Now,” her smile faded from her lips and Rennert thought that a shadow of weariness darkened her face for an instant, “I am too tired. I’ve had too much contact lately with his kind, I’ve had to keep my face fixed in the correct beatific smile for so long that it’s becoming an impossibility to keep it up much longer. Now I only want to get back to my house in Coyoacan and be by myself.”
For a few moments there was silence.
“You have been in the States for long?” Rennert asked.
“No, only two weeks, but it seems two years.”
The disc of the sun was invisible now and the jagged mountains were turning a deep black flanged with orange flame along the upper crests. Between them and the train stretched a dark level sea that became sand and cactus and rock only when one concentrated his gaze upon its surface.
“This has been an interesting day, hasn’t it?” Miss Talcott remarked absently.
“Yes, though possibly not in the way you mean.”
She considered this unhurriedly then smiled. “Yes, I think we mean the same thing, Mr. Rennert. The reaction of human beings to death?”
“Yes,” he studied her face.
“Of course,” she said after a moment, “our interest is slightly different, I imagine. To me that man who died this morning is an abstraction. What interests me is the way the people who were about him have been reacting to his death during the day.”
“I should be interested, Miss Talcott, in hearing your observations, if you care to give them to me.”
“Certainly,” her voice quickened, “it has made the day rather interesting for me. I’ve been pretending to read but really I’ve not been much engrossed in my book. Mr. Spahr and Mr. Radcott have been trying to fight off thoughts of the man’s death, one of them with liquor and the other with romantic notions about Mexico, its beauty and all that. Both of them are succeeding very well. Mr. Searcey is older and more calloused, but I imagine that he is doing much the same thing, emphasizing his callousness as a defense. Mr. King—” she paused.
“I’m interested,” Rennert said quietly, “in knowing just what you think about Mr. King.”
She laughed. “I was trying to think of some simile. He’s like a lost and frightened child who can’t see any familiar landmarks. Back in Fort Worth or wherever he comes from he would probably be cool and collected, arranging resolutions of regret to the dead man’s family and protests to the railway company for not lighting their tunnels. Mr. Jeanes is concerned only with the man’s soul and is happy with this concern. Interesting, isn’t it?”
Rennert asked quietly: “And I?”
Their eyes met.
“You,” she said, “are thinking mostly of who murdered him.”
Outside the window the gathering night was a silence made up of the myriad muted noises of a Mexican countryside. The train had paused momentarily at one of the little groups of adobe huts that huddle about the railway tracks as if for security against the pitiless desert that hems them in. Scarcely worthy of names, they leave the map undotted and the time-table un
cluttered save for an occasional condescending asterisk.
As the train drew out with a swish of steam and grinding of metal Rennert said: “You know that it was murder then?”
“Of course,” her voice was matter-of-fact. “Wasn’t it?”
“Yes, Miss Talcott, it was murder.”
Her hands were unclasped now and the fingers of the left were toying with the diamond ring. “I suppose you, too, look at it more or less abstractly, don’t you?” she asked thoughtfully. “As a problem to be worked out—by formula or by the trial and error method?”
“Yes, I suppose so, although I try to disguise my interest in the puzzle by telling myself that my desire for justice demands its working.”
Her laugh was spontaneous. “And now that we’re both being frank, tell me what I can do to help you work it out.”
“You can tell me, Miss Talcott, exactly what happened in this car while we were passing through that tunnel.”
“I’ve thought about it quite a bit today,” her manner became more serious, “but I can’t think of a thing that would help. Anyone who was sitting in the car might have gotten up, slipped down the aisle and killed that man—” she paused. “By the way, have you found out how he was killed?”
“He was killed, I am sure, by nicotine poison injected by a hypodermic needle.”
“I see,” she looked at him thoughtfully, “easily done. Mr. Jeanes, Mr. Searcey, and Mr. King were all sitting close enough to him to have done it.”
“You were not aware of anyone being in the aisle?”
“No, but I was sitting so far back that I couldn’t have known it if one of them had been.” He thought that her eyes narrowed a trifle behind her glasses. “I suppose you’re checking up on Mr. Radcott?”
“Yes, he would have had to pass your seat if he had come into the Pullman.”
“I think,” she said slowly, “that you can leave him out of your calculations. I feel sure that he didn’t go down the aisle. He’s rather large, you know, and I think that I would have known it if he had done so, even in the darkness.” She thought for a moment. “I’m afraid that’s all the help I can give you. I know it sounds very stupid not to be able to tell exactly what happened in that tunnel but I doubt whether you yourself could have done any better, if you hadn’t happened to be noticing particularly.”