by Todd Downing
“Yes, in custody.”
“Under suspicion of what?” Searcey’s lips tightened.
“Under suspicion of being a labor agitator.”
Spahr drew a lungful of smoke and expelled it without sound. “They don’t think he committed these murders, then?” he asked in a small voice.
“I can’t answer that question, Spahr, until we get to San Luis.”
“Will we have to get off the train?”
“I can’t say.”
“Well,” the young man grinned feebly, “I’m ready for bed. Before long it’s going to take the whole Mexican army to keep me awake.”
There was a lightness about Spahr’s manner that might have been due to relief or to high nervous tension, Rennert reflected as he left the smoker and walked toward the Pullman.
In the doorway at the rear stood the same alert-eyed Mexican soldier.
In the seat to Rennert’s right sat King, staring straight ahead of him without expression in his tired eyes. Rennert, as he approached, observed the change which had come over the man during the day. He looked now immeasurably older, as if these experiences had ravaged his face of a veneer of complacency, leaving it a clay mask upon which so many emotions had left their stamp that it was now a mere blur. He looked up at Rennert but did not speak.
Rennert rested upon the arm of the chair opposite him and said: “We’re getting into San Luis Potosí in a few minutes. You haven’t forgotten that you are to receive an answer to that telegram to your wife here?”
“No, I haven’t forgotten,” King’s lips twitched convulsively. “Do you think we’ll be held here?” he asked after a pause.
“I hope not, at least for long. Of course there are several matters which the Mexican authorities will want to settle before they allow anyone to go on.”
King leaned forward. “Tell me, Mr. Rennert,” he said desperately, “whether you think there’s going to be any suspicion of me in this awful business. After what Radcott said, I mean.”
Rennert regarded him steadily. “It’s true, is it, that you were alone in the smoker for a few minutes?”
“Yes, it’s true, but I’ll swear I didn’t leave it!”
“Did you by any chance tell anyone about this knife of Radcott’s?”
Again there was the twitching of the muscles about King’s lips. He said in an almost inaudible voice: “Yes, I did tell one person.”
“Who?”
King sat as if incapable of speech.
“Of all the stupidities which you could commit now the greatest would be to conceal any kind of information,” Rennert said sternly.
“Yes, I suppose so,” King swallowed. “I told Miss Talcott about the knife.”
Rennert, engaged now in tightening the strands of evidence about the person who he felt sure was guilty, couldn’t repress entirely his start of surprise. “When did you tell her?” he asked.
“After the train had stopped and I went back to the Pullman. I went back to where she was sitting and stopped to talk to her a few minutes.” He hesitated. “She seemed so calm and unruffled about everything that it was rather reassuring to talk to her. She just joked about the whole business, said it was better than reading a novel, and I—well, I suppose I got into the same mood. She said something about wishing she had her paper knife to protect herself in case the worst came to the worst and I told her about Radcott having a knife. It was all in a joke, though. I really felt better after having talked to her.”
Rennert asked quietly: “What comment did Miss Talcott make when you told her about the knife?”
King thought for a moment, a frown creasing his forehead.
“She said something I didn’t quite understand. She said that if anybody was killed with that knife he could at least have the consolation that he had drawn the grand prize.”
The train emitted two prolonged whistles.
Rennert sat with a thoughtful expression upon his face. Then his lips parted in a grim smile. “She knew that the knife had been a premium in a box of popcorn?” he asked.
“Yes, I told her that. That’s what seemed to amuse her so.”
Rennert’s lips retained their smile. “The grand prize to which Miss Talcott referred,” he said, “was death.”
King looked bewildered. “What a gruesome idea!” he shivered a bit. “I can’t understand that woman,” he went on reflectively. “She’s so calm and self-possessed about everything that it’s rather comforting to be around her. And then, all of a sudden, she’ll make some peculiar remark that almost makes my blood run cold. And some of the stories she tells!”
He sat for a moment in thought. “Like that one about the five poplar trees opposite her house near Mexico City. She said that during the Revolution some army occupied the town. There was a lot of shooting and disturbance during the night and in the morning she woke to find a body hanging from each of those five trees. There were signs stuck on each body telling why the man had been executed. Four of the signs said: ‘For looting.’ On the fifth body the sign said simply: ‘A mistake.’” He winced. “I wonder,” he ventured, “whether her mind isn’t a little unbalanced after so many of these harrowing experiences.”
Rennert’s smile died and his lips adjusted themselves into contemplative lines. “No, Mr. King,” he said, “Miss Talcott’s mind isn’t unbalanced. I should say that it’s adjusted to a nicety with her surroundings by the dust of Mexico which has settled on it without her knowing it.”
The engine wailed again into the night.
The conductor passed along the aisle. His eyes met Rennert’s in a quick understanding glance.
“Are we getting into San Luis Potosí?” King asked, shifting uneasily in his seat.
“Yes,” Rennert did not move from his perch upon the arm of the seat. He thrust a hand into his pocket and said: “By the way, I suppose I’d better return to you these matches which I took the liberty of taking from your pocket while you were unconscious.” He held them out.
King took them without looking up. “I don’t suppose,” he said as his fingers crushed them, “that there’s any need to say anything about my having told you that I didn’t have any more?”
“No, I don’t think there’s any need to say anything about what you did. In times of economic stress it’s called, I believe, hoarding.”
Silence stood between them for a moment.
“I’ll get off with you at Monterrey and you can get the money. If you don’t, this will be the last train trip you take not wearing handcuffs. Don’t forget extradition.”
King started from his seat, his face bloodless, as the words, carefully enunciated behind him, cut across the sounds of the train’s passage.
Rennert watched him.
He turned his head to stare down the aisle, empty except for the figure of the conductor, who was standing facing them, his eyes on Rennert’s face.
“I thought—” he brought his gaze back to Rennert’s and swallowed hard. “Who was that?”
“The speech which the conductor has just repeated at my request, Mr. King, is my reconstruction of the words which you overheard in the Pullman here last night and the latter part of which you interpreted as ‘blast the train on this trip,’ ‘earrings and cuffs’ and ‘extra edition.’”
King sat as if stunned and incapable of speech.
“You have only a few minutes,” Rennert said to him quietly, “to tell me why you invented that story of your wife having been on this train last night.”
23
Five Poplar Trees (1:30 A.M.)
The conductor moved along the aisle again. Rennert looked up, nodded and murmured: “Gracias.”
King still sat staring straight in front of him. “What do you mean?” he asked weakly.
Rennert was beginning to lose patience. “Exactly what I said, King. I know that your wife entered the station at San Antonio with you but did not get on this train. You yourself heard a Spanishspeaking person talking English in one of the seats behind you. Y
ou tried to lead me to believe that it was your wife who had listened to his words. Why?”
King took out a handkerchief and passed it over his face. “It’s hard to explain,” he said in an undertone.
The train was slowing to a stop.
Rennert got to his feet. “Not so hard to explain, King. You were alarmed, to put it mildly. You wanted to take someone into your confidence but didn’t want to let it be known that you were too nervous to sleep as the train was approaching the Mexican border. Hence the story of your wife who got off at Laredo. Isn’t that correct?”
King didn’t look up. “Yes, that was it. I didn’t want you to know how frightened I really was. You see, I’m used to Fort Worth—”
Rennert walked down the aisle and left him.
The stop at San Luis Potosí, ancient treasure-house of Spain, was brief, unconfused and, in view of the tension-charged atmosphere and this very lack of confusion, vaguely disquieting. A hush pervaded the dimly illuminated platform and the few people who stood there had the appearance of being huddled in silent groups. Here and there electric lights glinted upon the steel of naked bayonets in front of stolid dark faces.
The army officer who boarded the train conducted his inquiries with expedition and efficiency. A few words to the over-awed Sergeant Estancio and to the conductor and a formal introduction of himself to Rennert, to whom he handed a telegram with a request to accompany him into the diner.
As he walked forward Rennert tore open the envelope. The message was from the officials at Saltillo and informed him that an autopsy had revealed traces of nicotine poisoning in the body of Torner. Information, Rennert reflected as he stepped into the diner, which he had taken for granted but which was essential in order to unite satisfactorily the various strands of the case.
The officer did not sit down but stood stiffly in the center of the aisle, his alert black eyes probing into Rennert’s. His voice was quick, staccato, as he requested an account of the events of the day, particularly since the train had left Saltillo.
Rennert summarized them concisely, though a bit wearily. He realized with a little annoyance that the man was paying but perfunctory attention to most of what he said.
At mention of the message which had been given to King at Vanegas, however, his interest visibly quickened and some of the impassivity left his oval, sharply featured face. He took the piece of paper from Rennert and his eyes grew sharp and calculative as he read it. He folded it and slipped it into a pocket of his uniform.
“You have been vouched for by the authorities in Mexico City, Señor Rennert,” he spoke in a voice which had metallic undertones. “It is their order that this train, with all the passengers in the Pullman, continue on to Mexico City without delay. There the authorities will take charge. Their instructions are that no arrest is to be made until Mexico City is reached. I am to accompany you there.”
“They are not aware that two more deaths have occurred on this train since it left Saltillo?”
“No, I shall wire them from here.” As if a veil had been drawn across them his eyes became all at once guarded. “I think that it is, in their opinion, a case where international complications are to be feared. In the present state of affairs there is a wish to avoid this if possible.”
“You have learned that there was an attempt made tonight to stop this train? That ties were found piled upon the track?”
“Yes,” the answer came in a quick low voice. “An armored car with machine guns will precede this train into Mexico City to avoid any further obstruction.” He hesitated and said delicately: “It was feared that a demonstration might be made in San Luis Potosí. It is for that reason that it was thought best not to make the arrest of anyone here.”
“The arrest?” Rennert queried. “Of the person who has committed these murders on the Pullman?”
Reserve was stamped upon the man’s entire manner. He said: “No, Señor Rennert, that matter is to the authorities of less importance than another. It is a question of one who crossed the border on this Pullman, one whose presence in Mexico will cause,” he paused and chose the word with care, “embarrassment to the Government.”
“The identity of this person is known?”
“Yes, the immigration authorities had suspicions and sent a description to Mexico City. There is no doubt as to the identity.” The obsidian surfaces of his eyes clouded and cleared again. “If this person should also prove to be guilty of these murders,” he said tentatively, “things will simplify themselves, will they not?”
“Yes, but I am sure that is not the case.”
The officer’s shrug was a masterpiece of tact. “That,” he said without expression, “is regrettable, is it not?”
Rennert felt unattuned to the air of dynamic tension which seemed to pervade the situation. He was conscious of increasing weariness and felt an almost irresistible desire to yawn. He asked: “The bodies of this woman and of the porter will be removed here, I suppose?”
Concentration lay heavy upon the features of the other. “There were no instructions about these bodies,” he said at last, “since it was not known about them at Mexico City. I think, however, that it will be the wish of the authorities that they be not removed in view of the situation here at San Luis Potosí.”
Rennert frowned. “You realize, of course, the fact that one of these bodies has been lying in a compartment for several hours—in rather warm weather?”
The man permitted himself another shrug of neatly uniformed shoulders. “Of course, Señor Rennert. But they could not be removed without observation. Rumors would spread. The newspapers would learn of it.”
Rennert said grimly: “One of these bodies is lying in the berth above mine. I’m not particularly squeamish but I can’t say that I relish the idea of spending the night below it.”
The smile was a gracious teeth-revealing one. “But, of course, Señor Rennert! It will be removed. It can be put into the compartment with the other body, can it not?”
“Yes,” Rennert knew that his smile was a feeble effort compared to the Mexican’s. He added: “It is fortunate that I am not addicted to nightmares.”
“Nightmares,” the officer became very serious, “are caused by overeating late at night.” He seemed to grasp eagerly at a chance to divert the conversation to safer channels. “Cheese is very bad. You have not been eating cheese?” solicitude was in his voice.
“No,” Rennert bit his lip, “I haven’t indulged in any cheese lately.”
“Very well, then,” the brown hands came upward, palms thrust out, “you will not have the nightmare.”
Fifteen minutes later Rennert looked up and down the silent curtain-shrouded aisle, at each end of which a soldier stood in the doorway. He let his head fall wearily upon the pillow and stretched his legs between the cool sheets. As he reached for the light his eyes rested for an instant upon the dark stains that ran along the edge of the curtains masking his berth.
The train hurtled on.
He never got over the feeling that the dream which he had that night was oddly premonitory. He saw, straight and slim and distinct against a Mexican morning sky, five poplar trees. From four of them hung grotesque scarecrow figures that swayed drunkenly in the breeze. The fifth tree was as yet unadorned.
24
The Rim of the Valley (7:30 AM.)
Clouds frothed milky-white below the train and sent long tentacles along the rocky ground to touch the rails. Here and there the rays of the sun had cut a swathe through the white foam to reveal vertiginous depths of black volcanic stone and impudent pine trees clinging to barren slopes beyond and below which lay other depths of thick white foam.
Rennert lay in his berth and looked out upon the scene.
The train was laboring along a runway fashioned of moist dark earth studded with stones, the edge of which fell away with breathtaking abruptness to the sky above the earth where men lived. He always thought, as he viewed the rim of the Valley of Mexico by the light of early morning, o
f Jules Verne’s projectile-encased men who had stared for a fleeting moment at the unseen surface of the moon, uncertain whether the dark mysterious world of vast seas of water and forested hills that came and went in the lightning space of time were or were not an illusion.
He got up reluctantly and began to dress. He walked down the silent aisle to the deserted smoker. When he had finished his ablutions he glanced once more out the window.
A maguey lifted cruel gray-green claws from the ground. Along a crumbling adobe wall a small white goat was running, pursued by a barefooted boy in white pajama-like clothing. For an instant, through an opening in the gray wall bougainvillea-splashed tiles were visible.
The train was slowing down.
Rennert walked toward the rear and stepped upon the observation platform. He was grateful for this interval of solitude before the others had risen.
The morning coolness of Mexico tingled in his nostrils and filled his lungs.
“Good morning, Mr. Rennert.”
Miss Talcott sat in a chair by the railing. She looked up at him and smiled.
“Good morning, Miss Talcott. You’re up early.”
“Yes.” She breathed deeply, sensuously, her eyes half closed, and said: “I’m just a bit drunk, Mr. Rennert, with the smell of the Valley about me again. I’ve been aching to get back to it—the smell of the dark moist earth, the’dobe walls, the flowers,” she paused and laughed happily, “even the goats. It feels like home again.”
“When the dust of Mexico has settled upon a human heart,” Rennert quoted, “that heart can find rest in no other land.”
“Yes,” she rested her right hand upon the rail and let her eyes wander along the low wall of gray adobe that paralleled the track. “The Mexicans are right about that. I shall never try to leave Mexico again,” she said it very quietly and decisively, as if the words marked a period to some current of thought.
Vitality seemed to have flowed into her suddenly, Rennert reflected. Her cheeks were slightly flushed and her eyes bright and eager. Her hand moved restlessly upon the rail, its fingers tapping impatiently so that the diamond upon the third finger glittered and danced with the rays of the sun.