Falter poured whisky into the glasses. He shoved two tumblers forward and filled them with water from the jug. Some of the liquid splashed over the desk-top.
“Have a drink,” he said with forced joviality as he handed Rennert a glass.
Rennert brought his attention back to the room. He had been staring, since Maria left, out the window, where transverse bars of iron divided the view of a bed of white carnations in the inner patio. In response to a gesture from Falter he raised his glass and drank.
“I suppose I ought to have told you something about Maria,” Falter was saying as he set down his glass. He ran the tip of his tongue over his upper lip. “She’s a little loose up here,” he pointed to his fore head. “They say she had some bad experiences during the Revolution, when a bunch of bandits captured the hacienda. She’s harmless, of course. Spends most of her time pottering about among the flowers. I don’t know what was on her mind just now. She must be worrying too much about Miguel.”
“What about Miguel’s illness? You say he was taken sick this afternoon?”
“Yes, a couple of hours or so before you came. I’d told him to move Arnhardt’s stuff out of that room. He worked there a while then Maria came in to tell me that he was sick and couldn’t do any more.”
“You haven’t seen him?”
“I went in his room a little later—they live back in the inside patio—and tried to find out what the trouble was. He was lying on the bed and wouldn’t talk. He seemed to be suffering but I didn’t know what to do. Maria came back in a few minutes with a bunch of herbs that she’d gathered out in the mountains. Evidently she was going to brew some kind of concoction out of them. They’re superstitious as hell, these Mexicans, and don’t trust doctors from the cities. If he doesn’t get better tonight I’ll send for a doctor anyway, regardless of what the old woman says. Miguel is invaluable around here.”
Falter leaned forward and took up his glass. He glanced inquiringly at Rennert, who shook his head. He filled his own glass brimful and tossed it down his throat.
“God!” he took a deep breath of satisfaction. “I needed that.” He looked at Rennert for a moment, frankly appraising him. “Rennert,” he said, his voice suddenly unconstrained, “you bring me thoughts of cold white milk and ice and toasted wheat bread and hard yellow slabs of butter—things one almost forgets about down here.”
Rennert smiled. “Really, I didn’t know that I portrayed so nicely the solid puritan virtues. I’m afraid it’s only middle age and the fact that I’ve just had a bath for the first time in two days.”
Falter’s smile was ineffectual. “No, it’s not that at all. It’s the state of health I’ve been in lately. Tortillas and beans aren’t meant for a white man’s diet. Maria is a good enough cook in her way but her menu is limited. We had a Chinese cook up until a few weeks ago but he left us, saved up enough money to go visit some friends in Mexico City. I’ve been hoping he’d come back soon. By the way, did Solier send some tablets down by you?”
“Yes, I have them here.” Rennert took out a box which Solier had given him in San Antonio and laid it on the table.
“Good!” Falter took it eagerly. “I’ve been wanting some more of those. They may save my stomach until Lee gets back. They’re the best cure for indigestion I know of,” he explained as he opened the box and took out a white wafer. He swallowed it and took a drink of water. “How is Solier?” he asked.
“Seems to be all right. He’s been rather busy and wants to get away for a vacation. That’s the reason he didn’t come down himself.”
Falter sat for a moment with a frown of concentration on his face. He looked up suddenly and met Rennert’s gaze.
“Just what,” he asked, “did Solier tell you about things down here?”
“He told me of the plan to build a hotel that had to be abandoned on account of the change in the route of the highway. He told me about Miss Fahn’s refusal to sell her shares and about the disappearance of the water. He wanted me to persuade Miss Fahn to sell, if possible, and to learn who was responsible for the theft of the water. I am to offer the woman the full price she paid for the shares, if necessary.”
Falter’s short stubby fingers were caressing the sides of the glass. He kept nodding his head as Rennert spoke.
“I’m glad you came,” he said slowly, “although I’m not sure you can do any good. Miss Fahn’s a tough proposition. I’ve got the feeling that it’s not a question of money with her so much as something else. What, I don’t know.”
In his preoccupation Falter took the handkerchief from his mouth. On the right side there was an ugly discolored bruise, from which blood still welled.
“Can you tell me something about her?” Rennert asked. “Give me some pointers on how to approach her?”
“God, no!” Falter shook his head decidedly. “I don’t think she is approachable. Unless,” he eyed Rennert speculatively, “you happen to be a religious man. She’s very much that way, objects to profanity, drinking, gambling,” he paused for a fractional second, “and all that sort of thing.”
Rennert smiled. “I’ll have to restrain my appetites, then.”
“You certainly will if you want to get along with her. Of course if you know anything about plants and flowers, that might make up for other shortcomings.”
“I understood that she was a botanist.”
“Yes, she spends all her time tramping around the hills gathering flowers and leaves and things. By the way, did you bring those postcards she wanted?”
“Yes, one hundred and twenty-six of them. That the right number?”
“Yes, she’s been pestering me for a week to have Solier send some down.”
“She must carry on a lot of correspondence?”
Falter shook his head. “No, that’s the strange thing about her wanting them. She hasn’t gotten any mail or sent any off since she’s been here.”
“You’re sure?” Rennert was interested.
“Yes, Miguel goes in to Victoria twice a week. He always brings all the mail to me when he gets back. There’s never anything for Miss Fahn. I asked him if he ever took any in for her and he said he didn’t.”
“Frankly,” Rennert said, “I’m getting rather curious to meet Miss Fahn. Now, as to the disappearance of the water, do you have any information to give me?”
“Not a thing. It’s got me puzzled. Every night lately a five-gallon glass bottle of water has vanished. The bottle itself is always in place in the morning but the water is gone.”
“Where is the water kept?”
“In the kitchen, in the inner patio.”
“It’s locked at night?”
“Yes.”
“The obvious question: How many people have keys?”
“Maria and I had one apiece. She lost hers several weeks ago and has had to use mine since. I lock up myself at night when she has finished and unlock in the morning. Yet somebody gets in every night. No one person could drink that much water, however.”
“Solier said that you thought someone might be trying to force the occupants of the hacienda to leave.”
“Yes,” Falter pressed the handkerchief more firmly against his mouth, “the thought had occurred to me that that might be the explanation. Who it could be, though, I don’t have any idea.”
“I noticed,” Rennert said, “that the soil out in the patio has been well watered recently. There are the cracks that the sun makes on damp ground. Underneath, there is dampness. I should say,” he looked keenly at Falter, “that water was poured there not later than last night.”
“And last night,” Falter’s face held frank astonishment, “another bottle of water was emptied.”
“Those flowers, too, look as if they had plenty of moisture. Are they watered regularly?”
“No, they haven’t been for several weeks. Maria takes care of them but I told her to quit watering them when the fountain out there went dry.”
There was silence for a moment.
“There’s one more matter I’d like to bring up,” Rennert said. “It’s about George Stahl’s death.”
Falter’s thick eyebrows drew together swiftly. “What do you mean?” he demanded.
“I’d like to have all the particulars that you can recall.”
“Did Solier ask you to inquire into that?” Falter’s voice was perceptibly edged.
“Not precisely.” Rennert’s manner was almost casual. “His instructions were to look into everything of an unusual nature that has happened about here lately. I thought that Stahl’s death would naturally, come under that category.”
“I don’t see how. He died of a sunstroke.”
“Suppose you tell me about it.”
“Good God! There’s nothing more to tell!” Falter broke out in open impatience. “It was early in the afternoon, during the siesta, when the sun is at its hottest. Stahl wasn’t used to it and went out in the patio without a hat on. He was found there, where he had fallen.”
“Who found him?”
“His stepson, Mark Arnhardt.”
“How soon after that did he die?”
“A little after midnight that night.”
“Was he conscious any of the time?”
“Yes, I suppose you’d call it conscious. He acted sort of dazed and afraid and was in a lot of pain—in the stomach and abdomen, it seemed. I think the sun affected his brain. For a long time he kept talking about how yellow the air was.”
Rennert said sharply: “Yellow?”
“Yes.” Falter reached over, filled another glass with water and drank it. “Several times while I was in the room with him he mentioned it.”
“Was anyone with him before he died?”
“Yes, Arnhardt and Ann Tolman took turns staying by his bed.”
Rennert leaned forward to tap ashes into a brown earthenware bowl. His face was grave.
“Were there any flowers in his room?” he asked.
“Flowers? Why, I don’t remember.”
“In what part of the patio,” Rennert persisted, “was Stahl lying when he was found?”
“On the south side, the corner between the main door and your room.”
“Near the bed of yellow marigolds?”
“Yes. In fact, I believe he had actually fallen into the marigolds.” Falter continued to look at him speculatively. “What’s the matter?” There was a tight strained quality to his voice. “What have those flowers got to do with it?”
Rennert didn’t answer for a moment. He raised the cigarette to his lips and inhaled slowly. He let the smoke trickle through his nostrils and said: “Nothing, probably. But don’t you see the coincidence?”
Falter stared at him. There were little beads of perspiration standing out on his forehead.
“You mean with Miguel’s talk about the flowers being yellow?” He spoke as if unwillingly.
“Yes—and with that particular color of flower.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you know what yellow flowers—specifically yellow marigolds—mean throughout the length and breadth of Mexico?”
“No, I can’t say that I do.”
“They mean,” Rennert said quietly, “death.”