by Joan Sanger
J. E.
Chapter XIV LOLITA CAROS
BUT I crowed too soon. The next day, hour by hour, proved it. Wearisomely, tediously, exhaustingly. And that, despite the almost miraculous brightness of the morning, and an enticing Gulf breeze that might have consoled any two more normal human beings, in our position, which is another way of saying any two with purposes less adamant than ours. At Police Headquarters on Empedrado and Monserate Streets, whither we’d repaired early in hope of a confidential chat with the Commissioner, we found, after cooling our heels a little matter of two hours or so, that Señor Jouffret was deeply involved in a red hot crisis which had broken loose in domestic politics. To the tune of doors swinging, phones buzzing and a battalion of excitable assistants hurrying back and forth, the chief assured us with profuse apologies of his “so great interest in the Wyndham case,” and promised us in two days he would be free to go over every phase of the tragic affair with us. Meanwhile ... “Ah Señor, there is a little matter of a bombing out in the Marianao district.... But you’ve heard, of course.”
We hadn’t heard then, but we were to get our fill of that bomb before the day was over. At the offices of the Havana Post, we ran straight into it once more. There it had stirred up such a reportorial pandemonium that out of sheer fellow feeling we limited ourselves to sending in to the editor our letter of introduction from New York Globe with a short supplementary note stating that we’d be around in a day or so.
Outside, in the dazzling white glare of the tropical day, we looked at each other glumly and mopped the beads of honest sweat from our brows.
“Well,” I began, doing my best to comport myself on the approved lines of the young fellow who once carried the message to Garcia, but grumbling withal, “I’ll bet next you’ll want to trot all over Havana inspecting every goddam registry in the town.”
“That’s one way of locating Wyndham’s slippery friends.”
I surveyed Alcott as he stood there, nearly six feet of gaunt lean resolution, unwilted by the sun.
“Aw, Pete, have a heart!”
“What d’you mean?”
“I’m hot as Hell! So are you!” I paused, then added persuasively, “Well?”
“Well?” he echoed severely.
“What’s the use? Ten minutes tomorrow at the right source.... Give a guy time for a bite of lunch and a drink!”
We had lunch and we had the drink. In fact, we had two or three. At Sloppy Joe’s, that old oasis for parching Americans, we ran straight into a couple of men whom I happened to know from the press back home. Precisely how long they held us there swapping stories, ladling out advice about this, that and the other (but mainly the other) I haven’t a notion. I had the hazy idea it was growing late. I had the hazier idea that all problems were growing remote and metaphysical. Then abruptly, I passed my hand over my eyes and clutched hold of Alcott’s sleeve.
“Pete,” I said, in a hoarse low tone. “Either I’m seeing pink elephants ... or else ...” I broke off unable to proceed.
Alcott grinned reassuringly. “Your friend over there with the tall planter’s punch?”
I swallowed hard, blinked my eyes and looked again. Of course! I should have known immediately. There was really no mistaking the broad smile and the strange myopic eyes that peered from behind their thick lens glasses across in our general direction.
“But how in hell ...?”
“H’m. I thought I recognized him when he came In.”
“Queer!”
“Damned queer!”
The unexpected appearance of Charles Elihu Stone had a sudden subduing effect like the touch of that strange little wooden stick with which epicures some time take the bubbles off champagne. It pulled us up sharply, reminding us as nothing else could, of the sinister importance of our presence in Havana. In the space of three minutes we’d forgotten to smile at the point of Nick Grier’s latest, we’d made the plump little proprietor fairly trip himself up in his haste to procure our check, we shuffled to our feet, mixed our hats, bade the bunch an abrupt farewell, and not until we were two blocks away did either of us venture a word on what was uppermost in our thoughts.
Then, like the ill-fated bomb of the early morning, Alcott exploded.
“Jesus Christ. I might be an adult about ideas, but I’m in the go-cart about action.” He shook his head. “What an idiot I was to have mentioned our destination to that bird!” He said a good deal more at the moment, all duly deleted by the Censor.
Suddenly, for no good reason, I recalled to mind the chance remark that had been overheard on the night of Meenan’s death. Then I grabbed Alcott’s arm. “What makes you sure Stone’s following us and not down here on some business of his own?”
“Just a hunch! But we’ll have to watch our step, Johnny.”
“What’s his game?”
“Put that question down in your little black book! We’ll know before we’re through, that’s one thing certain!”
For some reason, Alcott’s bleak pessimism about this encounter didn’t vanish with a cold shower and a shave; nor even with our magnificent tactical success in locating within our first four or five phone calls, the exact whereabouts of Calvin Watts, Judge Lamar, and Barton Dunlap. As we left our hotel room, some time later, Alcott stepped up to the desk.
“There was a young man here this afternoon enquiring for us, wasn’t there?”
“Ah, yes. He took a room here, I think. One moment, Señores, I’ll get the number.”
“No need. We’ll see him soon enough. I merely stopped to tell you that we may have to return home earlier than we expected. I’ll let you hear in the morning.”
As we left the desk, Alcott decided upon impulse that he’d drive out to the hacienda with me.
“It may just happen I’ll be lucky enough to pick up some information outside the grounds while you do the honors within. Anyhow, it’s not a bad plan to keep that fellow Stone guessing for a bit.”
We found a taxi near the hotel entrance and showed the card with the address of the Charity Fete to an energetic little driver who stood nearby. With much bobbing of the head and a volley of Spanish he conveyed the idea that no one in all Havana could convey us there better than he. But when for a seemingly endless time he twisted this way and that through tortuous streets, shot at breakneck speed down wide boulevards and wound his way deeper and deeper into the Havana suburbs, I began to have my doubts. Nonetheless, despite all misgivings he pulled up at last at a spacious gateway ... “El Verano.”
Yes, there it was, exactly as on the card. At the hacienda just ahead were lights and music. As though taking cue from this Alcott stopped the driver and got out of the cab. I proceeded into the grounds, leaving Alcott standing solitary in the roadway, gazing off toward the building with an expression of puzzled interest.
The house I now approached was low, rambling and half hidden by flowers and palm trees. Whatever its dignity on ordinary occasions, this night it was gay with color and movement. Crowds in carnival array thronged the patio. Dozens of small booths vied with each other for novelty and beauty.
While I was still busy taking in the multi-colored scene La Caros appeared at my side.
“Ah, good evening! ... So you did come at last?” She turned to a girl who was with her and said something in Spanish, the net upshot of which was that the girl relieved her of a large flower tray which she was carrying and moved off. Lolita smiled sweetly up at me.
“I wanted to wait for my dances until you got here ... only you were so very late! Ah, but ... where is your frien’?”
I proffered my best apologies for Alcott, gallantly inventing a business appointment that had kept him.
It was obvious, La Caros was disappointed.
“You like my hacienda?” she said by way of changing the subject.
“It’s wonderful! An old one, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” She glanced around. “It’s been in my husband’s family many years.” She broke off abruptly. “Tell me. Do you
and your frien’ stay long in Havana?”
“Oh, that’s somewhat uncertain. We’re here on business.”
“I suppose one should not ask ... what the beezness is?”
I smiled. “This time it doesn’t matter. Our business is everybody’S. We’re newspaper men.”
Lolita examined me with searching interest. “You would not make the leetle joke with me, would you?”
“No, why should I?”
La Caros shrugged. “Only because your frien’—he do not seem just like the ordinaire newspaper gentleman to me.”
“No?” I was amused. And yet basically, Lolita Caros’ observation was correct. Pete Alcott wasn’t the run of the mill newspaper man in any sense. As long as we’d known him around the Globe he never quite talked the vernacular, acted the vernacular nor behaved in any respect according to Hoyle. However, the important thing for the Globe was that he wrote Sports copy, like a house afire. And the important thing for Alcott seemed to be that here, a thousand miles from home, he had made a knockout impression on a very lovely lady.
This last fact irked me more than a little. La Caros had found chairs in a quiet corner of the patio and I was all set for drawing out from my very charming hostess a few facts about her own somewhat enigmatic self. But though I strove valiantly, it was obvious her interest was much more intrigued by the absent Alcott and without too much waste of subtlety she always managed to bring the conversation back to him. What was his name? Where had I met him? What was he like? After a half hour of wasted time I realized the young man at the Chateau Madrid was correct. Lolita’s was certainly a most impulsive nature.
How long we might have gone on at our verbal fencing, I hardly know. But suddenly I was disturbed by a very singular observation.
“Señorita Caros ... I’m afraid I am detaining you. There is a man on the other side of the patio who keep looking over here in no uncertain manner!”
Lolita shrugged indifferently. “It’s most likely my husband.” She paused uncertainly. “If you want, I will show you about the grounds.”
Abruptly, she rose to her feet and moved off. I followed at her side.
“My husband behave like a spoilt child every now and then. You must not mind. We are not married long, you know!”
“How long?” I asked with a glint of sudden interest. This after all was the sort of thing I had come to get.
“Oh, four months or so!” It was obvious she wanted to put an end to the subject.
“Er ... May I ask your married name?” I put in on a bright hunch.
She looked at me in surprise. “I thought everyone knew that. I am Señora de Sanchez.”
“Not Señora José Sanchez?”
She smiled. “If you know so well ... why then, do you ask?”
“Oh! There is a great deal about you I’ve been wanting to ask, Señorita Lola!” I said as disarmingly as possible.
“About me? Why so?”
“You once knew an American by the name of Stephen Wyndham, I believe!”
It was no mere fancy that La Caros grew pale in the moonlight. Stopping still in the path she looked intently at me. Then with an effort at control she said in a matter of fact tone, “Yes. I once like Stephen Wyndham very much. But he grew, how you say it ...? he grew cold with me!”
Precisely what any man should answer to a statement like that I never learned, modern education being so very inadequate to modern needs. Embarrassed, I changed the subject with some glittering platitudes about how tropical these tropical nights always were, and how charitable were Charity Bazaars. I also averred that it was growing late and perhaps I should be leaving. But at the mere mention of departure, Lolita seemed disappointed.
“Oh, it is early yet. And your frien’, he might still come.” She looked at me ingenuously. “By the by, are you and he relatives perhaps, that you interest yourselves so much in this Meester Wyndham?”
“You read the papers I presume?”
“Now and den!” She laughed. “When I have de time!”
“Then perhaps you know that Stephen Wyndham disappeared on the 13th of February of last year.”
Las Caros’ eyes grew large with amazement. “What you mean,” she asked, looking directly at me. “Stephen Wyndham have disappear?”
“Precisely!”
“I don’t understand!” But I got no chance to elucidate. At that moment, a man came around the bend and down the pathway toward us. In the green bright light of the moon I could see he was dressed in a dinner jacket and was smoking fast and furiously. I also noted that he’d arrived at the age where his waist looked a trifle too thick and his hair a trifle too thin. As he approached, he nodded sullenly to me, and then in an abrupt tirade of heated Spanish, he addressed himself to La Caros. Under the verbal onslaught, Lolita’s color mounted, but her manner remained calm throughout. Once, in dulcet tones she tried to explain something but the man talked on, low and fast—fairly biting the words out with his even white teeth. Then swiftly as the storm had arisen it was ended.
La Caros turned to me, a faint sarcastic smile hovering on her lips. “This is my husband, Señor Sanchez! That boy I dance with last night have told him that I invite two American gentlemen to my party.” She paused.
There was an awkward silence, during which Sanchez tried his best to look agreeable. “This is not our usual way of receiving guests. I am very sorry. My wife is young—and sometimes she forget she is away too long from her other friends. You will pardon us, I know!”
“But suppose it happen I do not want to leave yet?”
Señor Sanchez looked at La Caros coldly.
“Do not anger me again, Señora.”
Nonetheless, Lolita stood her ground, until in ill-disguised rage, Sanchez moved off and left us once more to ourselves.
But somehow I felt my real opportunity had fled. As soon as I could with politeness, I proffered my excuses and said good night.
La Caros held out her hand to me as I was leaving. “Perhaps we will meet again before long. Adios.”
“Good night, Señora!”
I found my taxi waiting where I had left it; and the little driver dosing not so very far away. Slowly, we started off down the roadway. Outside the gates, half hidden in the shadow of the tall shrubbery we had the good fortune to be hailed by Alcott.
“Any luck?” he asked as he sprang into the cab beside me. I was about to answer when suddenly our car made a sharp turn.
“Good God, look out!” But Alcott’s warning came too late. The car was careening wildly. A wheel had spun off. How we ever extricated ourselves from that mess I’ll never quite know. The one thing that saved our lives was that we had only just started and the car had not yet gained much speed.
Our little Havana driver, badly scratched and shaken up. dissolved into volleys of barely intelligible protest. Between gestures and indignation, I gathered nothing of the kind had ever happened to one of his cars before. Those wheels he indicated in fine pantomime, were on tight ... tight! He was sure!
It was all queer business. Inexplicably, my hand wandered to Miss Wyndham’s letter that I carried in my pocket. “Bad fortune pursues those who meddle needlessly in Wyndham matters. It is a kind of family curse.” A ridiculous cold shiver went down my spine. Then I pulled myself together for hastening down the moonlit road toward us, I recognized the young man who had danced with La Caros the night before.
“Ah!” he exclaimed in seeming distress as he surveyed our broken down taxi. “You have met with no harm, I trust.”
“Oh, no,” Alcott said coldly. “And our driver’s even optimistic enough to think he’ll be able to get us back to town.”
“That is well,” the young man said with oily smoothness. “I come from Señor Sanchez. He had thought to offer you one of his cars.”
But with a chilly air, Alcott turned aside. “Thank you. We’ll make out all right, I think.”
Later that night when we were about to turn in, Pete said cheerily through the darkness.
/> “Well, old boy, our sleuthing seems to be looking up a bit!”
“How do you make that?” I parried glumly.
“Tonight while you were holding forth with the fair Lolita I had a little talk with one of the gardeners.”
“Yeah?” I yawned in boredom.
“Yeah. And it might interest you to know, Señor Sanchez has only just returned from a week’s trip to New York.”
“Still connecting that Meenan’s death with young Wyndham’s I see.”
“Maybe something like that.”
“And whom do you connect with our broken down car tonight?”
“Ask me that in another week’s time!”
Chapter XV AN UNEXPECTED VISIT
EARLY the next morning, when I was fuming about the room trying to cram an armful of crumpled clothes into Alcott’s stubborn suitcase, the telephone rang. Needless to say, it rang inconveniently. I was rushed with impromptu packing and this was the morning when, despite murder, mystery and a generally cockeyed world, I intended taking a couple of hours off to go swimming with my old girl. Reluctantly, I picked up the telephone receiver, anticipating trouble.
“A lady downstairs to see Mr. Alcott.”
“Mr. Alcott’s out,” I snapped. That was no lie. Having spent the better part of the night convincing me of the necessity of our getting away as soon as possible from the surveillance of Parson Stone, Alcott had hustled off at an early hour to find more secluded quarters.
“The lady asks if Mr. Ellis is in?”
“What?” I let out before I could put a brake to my surprise. Then I enquired the name.
Instead of an immediate answer I heard a ripple of Spanish, followed by a woman’s voice, very low, at the other end of the wire.
“This is your frien’ of last evening. It is important that I see you.”
With no little curiosity I gave Lolita Car os our room number. Within a very few minutes she arrived, looking singularly pale and distraught. As she crossed the threshold of our room, I noticed she threw an anxious glance behind her as though in some way fearful of being followed. I noticed too, that although she was quietly and unobtrusively dressed, she wore a dark scarf drawn up high over her chin and her hat pulled low over her eyes. Because of the heat of the morning I closed only the half door to our apartment, a fact that seemed to cause a moment’s apprehension, but without any comment she sat down.