Puzzle for Pilgrims (14 page)

He stopped reading. “That’s where she broke off to take a stroll on the balcony. Needed a little fresh air maybe.” He folded the paper and put it neatly back in his wallet. “Someone was a dope not to notice that letter and destroy it.”

He finished his drink and rose. “Anyone ready for a freshener?”

No one said anything. He poured himself another drink and half turned to glance at Martin.

“Now, Martin, I’m not saying you necessarily murdered Sally. Maybe Marietta did. Maybe Iris did. But you’re all so palsy-walsy that I figure you’d like to stick together. And what’s fifty thousand bucks to a guy who’s dragging down two million smackers just because a little lady got so forgetful and fell off of her balcony before she could lick an envelope and a postage stamp?”

Martin’s lips were pale. “That’s all the evidence you’ve got?”

“It’ll do, won’t it?”

I said, “We get the idea. No fifty thousand dollars and you go to the police.”

He grimaced. “Well, Peter, I guess I could, couldn’t I, if I felt in an ornery mood?”

“You’re forgetting something,” I said. “You discovered the body. You suppressed the evidence. That makes you an accessory after the fact.”

“Peter, I’m surprised at you.” He grinned. “No, on second thought, I’m not. You don’t know the whole story about me. I figured it’d simplify things to be kind of reticent for a while. You see, I’m a private detective. A private dick to you. Like to see the credentials? Pretty.”

He fumbled some papers out of his pocket and tossed them to me. They proclaimed that Jacob Lord, whose photograph was affixed thereunto, was a licensed private investigator in the State of California. That’s what he looked like, of course. Now I knew, it was written all over him.

“Yeah, Peter,” he said. “Sally hired me, imported me from California a couple of days before she died. She was scared of being murdered by Martin or Marietta or Iris, she said. My job was to keep an eye on all of you and protect her. That’s why I picked Marietta up at the bar.”

He grinned. “Swell job I did of protecting, didn’t I? But that’s not the point. The point is the police’ll feel kind of sorry for me, losing a valuable client like that. And of course they’ll understand why I held up the evidence temporarily. After all, I was in your confidence. It was a perfect setup for a little preliminary investigation. I’ll say I needed an accident verdict at the inquest to put you all off your guard.”

I said, “And you think they’ll believe you?”

“Natch, Pete, old pal.”

“The police aren’t crazy for private dicks.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, baby. Here in Mexico, a private investigator from the States—he’s a big shot. Besides, that whole setup in Taxco’s ready to break. It didn’t break just because I handled it fine. But they all know the Martin-Iris-Sally setup. There’s the will, too, Martin inheriting. The moment murder’s mentioned, even with a tenth of the evidence I got…” He shrugged expressively.

“It’ll only be your word against ours.” I sounded more arrogant than I felt. “I’ll swear the balustrade wasn’t over Sally’s legs. Iris and I will swear there was no slipper, no overturned vase, nothing in the typewriter. After all, that letter you just read us isn’t signed. You could have typed it yourself. We will say you framed the whole thing.”

“For why?”

“For fifty thousand dollars.”

“And you think they’ll believe you?” He was mocking me by quoting my own words back.

“Why not? I’m as disinterested a party as you.”

He looked at Iris. He looked at Marietta. He winked at me. “Disinterested, eh?” He paused. “No, Pete, I’m kind of afraid they wouldn’t go for that. You see, there
was
a slipper, there
was
an overturned vase, there
was
a letter in the typewriter. Remember? Of course, if your memory’s kind of fuzzy…” He felt in his pocket again and produced two small squares of paper which looked like photographic prints. He leaned forward and stretched them out to me. “Always carry my camera. That’s a habit of Jake’s. Comes in handy. I snapped these when you and Iris were still out on the terrace.”

There were two photographs, one of Sally’s desk with the paper clearly visible in the typewriter, another taken down the living room showing the slipper and the overturned vase.

“Too dark, of course,” Jake was murmuring, “to have gotten a shot of Sally down in the stream bed with the balustrade over her legs. But I guess the police’d get the idea from these. Get the idea, I mean, that I was the guy telling the truth and you…” He pursed his lips at me. “A liar, Pete, that’s what they’d find out you were.”

This clinching evidence didn’t affect me much. I had known from the beginning I was fighting a losing battle. I made a move to return the photographs. He waved them away.

“Keep ’em, Pete, for your memory book. I got plenty more.” He turned to Martin. “There’s another little matter, Marty, me boy. I kind of hate to bring up old history, but Sally mentioned something in that letter about a rather unpleasant thing you and Marietta—yes, you, beautiful—pulled a couple of years back.”

He smiled at Marietta affectionately. “I have the proof of that little carryings-on. Sally gave it to me for safekeeping. So it isn’t just the murder that would break. Get it? This other little thing’d come out too. There’s another murder motive right there. And even if you ducked the murder rap, you’d be up against a mighty unpleasant situation. Seems to me, under the circumstances, fifty thousand bucks wouldn’t be badly missed.”

Martin’s face had gone very pale. He knew as well as I did when he was licked. He said, “You’ll get your fifty thousand dollars as soon as I can raise it.”

“Fine,” Jake grinned. “That’s what I like to hear. Good straight talk.” He turned slyly to me. “Still feel like you’re smarter than me, baby?”

I shrugged. “It’s Martin’s problem. Not mine. It’s up to him.”

“Sure. It’s up to Martin. That’s good straight talk too.” Jake surveyed his guests’ scarcely touched glasses. “Now, charming people, how’s about another little snort of Scotch? After all, it’s on the house. Sally’s paying for it.”

He crossed to the dumb-waiter and poured a strong shot of whisky. He put soda and ice in it. He carried it, smiling, to Marietta.

“Down the hatch, beautiful.”

Marietta took the drink. Her fingers gripped the glass tightly. With a violent movement of her wrist, she tossed its contents straight into his face.

“Louse,” she said.

Jake brushed the back of his hand across his eyes. His face was transfixed with fury, and his whole body was taut. I thought he was going to hit her. I jumped up. Then the smile came back to his mouth. He ran a hand across his cropped, wet hair.

“Well, well,” he said. “Quite a shampoo Jake got.” He turned his back full on Marietta and watched Martin. “Funny. That reminds me of something. Almost the most important thing, and it slipped my mind. Jake must be breaking up. Old age.”

He gestured around him. “Kind of pretty suite, isn’t it? But it comes awful high. And, believe it or not, I’ve spent all of Sally’s retainer already. Me and money. It just seems to slide through my fingers. I should put myself on a budget.”

He sat down again on the arm of his chair. He twirled his drink, studying it solemnly.

“I’ve been figuring. Until old man Johnson starts the dough rolling, we’re going to have to be pretty chummy. Not that we don’t trust each other, of course. But seems like we ought to stick together for a while. Now, it’s nice having a plush suite like this. But we got to figure on being economical. Know what I’m going to do? I’m going to move out of here tonight and move in with Martin and Marietta.”

“No.” The word, coming from Marietta, was a cry. “No. You can’t do that.”

Jake’s eyes blinked at her. He got up and went to her, bending over her, his face close to hers.

“Hey, hey, beautiful, what’s eating you?”

She was shaking. Her green eyes were blind with panic. “You can’t,” she babbled. “You can’t. Really, you can’t. Martin’s working. He’s writing. He—he needs privacy. He needs… It’s too small. It’s too small for three. The beds—there are only two beds.”

“Quiet.” Jake took her trembling arms. She struggled but couldn’t shake off the big hands. “Quiet, beautiful. What you getting so hot for?” He grinned, a brash, impertinent grin. “You ain’t got any objections to my sleeping with your brother, have you?”

He released her. She gave a sob. She got up and hurried to the window. She stood there with her back to us, staring out, one hand clutching the looped silver and green drapes.

Jake glanced after her and then shrugged. “Well, now we’ve got that settled, how about moving on? I’m almost packed. And since you folks don’t seem to want anything else to drink…”

He smiled blandly at Martin. “I hope your sister’s a good little cook. Jake’s a fiend for an honest-to-goodness American breakfast, plenty of eggs and hot cakes.”

Martin got up. His boy’s face was pale and drawn. But there was still a real dignity to him. I had to hand it to Martin. He’d behaved better than I had expected him to behave. He stared at Jake, not intimidated.

He said, “I suppose, under the circumstances, I can’t prevent you from moving in with us, if you want to.”

“That’s right, Martin,” said Jake.

“But you might as well know one thing.” Martin’s voice was at its quietest. “If you worry Marietta, I’ll kill you.”

Jake grinned over his shoulder at me. “Hark at him, Peter? A rowdy family, isn’t it? Always raring for a fight.”

He patted Martin’s silver-blond head like an affectionate uncle.

“One thing, baby. The hotel bill’s waiting at the desk. While I tuck my shirt in, how’s about running downstairs and taking care of it? Do that little thing, will you?”

Jake drove off with Martin and Marietta in Martin’s car. Iris and I were left standing on the curb outside the massive splendors of the Hotel Reforma. There was a mountain chilliness in the air, and the Paseo was forlorn and empty. The faint moan of accordion music drifted out from Tony’s Bar, where the tourists were still beating it up. At some distance up the Paseo, red neon lights glistened out the name of Mexico’s reigning movie star: “Maria Felix.”

“Give you a ride back to the hotel, Iris?”

“Thank you.”

We went to my parked car. As I started it, she moved away from me close to her door. There was no physical contact between us. She was wearing an unfamiliar perfume, something light and summery, that Martin probably liked. It made her seem even more alien. The street lights, passing by, brought her face and her dark hair gleaming in and out of sight. Her profile was lovely, but there was a new fragility to it, the fragility of worked ivory. She looked more mature and much more unhappy. Not like my wife. That’s what a couple of months of Haven had done to her.

I said, “This isn’t the sort of evening when you go home for a good night’s rest. How about a drink at my place?”

“I was going to ask you,” she said.

I parked in the Calle Londres, took her past the hanging bougainvillea vine and up the iron stairs to the apartment. I let her in and turned on the light. It was the first time she had been there since the day she had left. It was curious watching her move into the living room and drop her fur wrap onto a chair, half a home-coming, half a visit from an inhabitant of Mars.

“Find a seat,” I said. “I’ll get drinks.”

I went into the bedroom and found rum, Coca-Cola, and limes. I made Cuba libres. Iris liked them. I put them on a tin tray and carried them into the living room.

Iris had sat down on the Porfirio Diaz couch.

I put the tray on a massively carved coffee table and sat down next to her. She picked up a glass.

“Cubas,” she said.

“Yes.” I felt suddenly embarrassed that she would think I was using the familiar drinks in a sentimental attempt to revive the past.

“Martin hates Cubas,” she said. “He says the Devil is American and invented everything that ends with Cola.”

“He probably did.”

She turned to me quickly. “Peter, what can we do?”

“When you’re playing poker, can you beat four aces with two pairs?” She shivered. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

I said, “If you’re planning to make a career out of Martin, you’d better get used to things being bad.”

She put her drink down and her hair tumbled forward over her cheek. I’d seen it do that a thousand times. I had always loved it. Now it gave me a pang.

She looked up at me. “You do think Sally was murdered?”

“I know Sally was murdered. I always have. So have you.”

She didn’t answer.

I said, “She even hired a detective to protect her. Sally was mean with money. She’d never have done that unless she was genuinely afraid. She threw a scene at my place, saying either you or Martin or Marietta was going to murder her. I laughed it off. I thought she was playing to the gallery. I guess she wasn’t.”

Iris sank back on the couch.

I said, “I’ve asked it once before, Iris. I’m going to ask it again. Did you kill her?”

She was almost calm. Her golden-brown eyes, so unlike Marietta’s green ones, were steady.

“Why should I have killed her? She telephoned to tell me that she was willing to divorce Martin, that everything would be all right.”

“She called me too,” I said. “Everything would have panned out without her being murdered.”

“If Sally hadn’t been lying,” she said bitterly. “Sally was always lying, dangling things and snatching them away. The truth wasn’t in her.”

I watched her over my burning cigarette. “And the truth’s in you?”

“You don’t believe me?”

“You haven’t told me the truth yet. For example, you knew Sally was dead down in the stream bed long before Jake found her, didn’t you?”

It is curious how many different silences there are. This one was dangerous, the silence before an explosion.

She said, “I’ve been trying to think of you as an enemy. I can’t quite do it.”

“Then?”

“It’s all right to tell you the truth, isn’t it?”

“No,” I said. “I’ll make you write a check for fifty thousand dollars.”

She smiled, fleetingly. It was an unexpected time for a smile, and I realized it could only have happened because we were man and wife, because we knew each other so well and hadn’t quite got used to the habit of acting in front of each other the way strangers are supposed to act.