THE NEXT MORNING WE MOVED THE DINING room table against one of the windows, and the Commissioner, Montes and I had breakfast while keenly staring at the sandy beach, the tamarisk bushes, the New East End Hotel, the pharmacy, the sky—which all formed again, after the endless storm, an orderly world, shining serenely in the sunlight, like an enormous flower.
I was having the breakfast from my periods of intense literary work—black tea, hard-boiled eggs, toast and honey—when I saw in the lion-colored expanse of sand a slight man in a blue sweater and light gray trousers approaching us.
We were so busy arguing about who the little man could be, and who saw farther, mountain men, plainsmen, or seamen, and even about what was the farthest distance human sight could reach, that we were surprised by the news that someone had arrived at the hotel.
“It’s the pharmacist,” Esteban explained. “He wants to talk to the Commissioner.”
“Have him come in,” the latter said, and stood up.
The pharmacist—in the blue sweater and light gray trousers—entered the dining room. He was a poker-faced man, with swollen eyes and a smooth complexion; when he made any movement he sighed, as if the inevitable waste of energy were worrisome. He greeted us parsimoniously and began a laborious conversation with Aubry in one corner of the room. Then he took a letter out of his pocket. Aubry read it nervously.
The two men sat down at our table. Aubry ordered Esteban:
“A cup of coffee for Señor Rocha.” He then addressed the latter: “Did you know him from before? The day he went to see you, did he seem normal?”
“No, not normal. But, as you know, he was strange.”
“Crazy?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. He was intelligent, or rather, studious.”
“Why do you say ‘was’?” Aubry asked. “I am not sure that he’s dead.”
“I’m not sure either. However, I think it’s likely.”
“When did you notice that he had stolen the poison?”
“I told your officer the truth. I haven’t sold any strychnine for years.”
“But why didn’t you verify whether you had the bottle?”
Paulino Rocha gently lowered his eyes.
“I noticed it the other day. You know, life in the country …”
“Why didn’t you come right away to give me the news?”
“I have a susceptible throat, and with the windstorm … When the letter arrived I came right away. Of course, by then the storm was already over.”
This system of questions and answers, this enigmatic catechism, was beginning to exasperate me. Aubry’s poor manners, and the pharmacist’s as well, which excited our sincere curiosity, made me angry. I hesitated over several efficient interventions, any one of which would have overcome Aubry’s resistance and obliged him to show us the letter. I asked him:
“Why don’t you show us that letter?”
As his whole answer he gave it to me. I read the following lines, written in pencil, with a firm and impersonal handwriting:
Señor Paulino Rocha,
Farmacia Los Pinos,
Bosque del Mar
Dear friend:
You will be surprised by the reason for this letter, but you are my only friend and I have behaved very badly with you.
Andrea and Esteban are my aunt and uncle, but I don’t love them. They don’t even let me kill birds and other animals. You know that I had the albatross hidden among the trunks. They wanted me to be examined by the doctor, but I scared him off right away. He was more skittish than the otters that Dad and I used to embalm.
Did you know the Gutiérrez sisters? I loved them dearly, especially Mary. Now that she’s died I don’t hold any grudge against her. I loved her so much, and every time I went to give her a kiss she’d get angry, as if it were something bad. She was always nice to me when people were around, but if we were alone, she didn’t even want to talk to me. I tried to explain, but she’d get angry.
If I tell you what I did later you’re not going to forgive me and I want us to be friends forever. When I went to the pharmacy to look for arsenic for the albatross and for the algae, I stole a bottle of strychnine that was on the middle shelf, under the clock.
The night they all went out to look for Miss Emilia, Mary had gotten very angry with me. I hid in the hallway and when Atwell was going to meet up with the others, to go out looking for Emilia, Mary blocked his path, pushed him away from the light of the staircase and kissed him in such a way that I started crying. I heard her say to him, laughing: “Tomorrow remind me to tell you what happened to me with the kid.”
I thought: “I’m going to do something terrible.” Now I understand that I did what anyone would have done in my place.
I went down to my room, looked for the strychnine, went to Mary’s room and put half of the little bottle into the cup of hot chocolate that she always had before going to bed. I mixed it with the spoon so that the poison would dissolve completely and when I was drying it off I heard Mary’s footsteps. While I was escaping, I dropped the bottle. I didn’t have time to pick it up. I went out through Emilia’s room.
The next day I returned to look for the bottle, but it wasn’t there. I wanted to take the strychnine, just as Mary had.
I would have explained everything to the Commissioner in order to avoid unpleasantness for Emilia, but I can’t talk because I am a child.
You know that I made my little house in the abandoned boat on the beach. I have many bottles of water, biscuits and a little bag of maté in there. The sea is rising with the storm. I’m going to the boat now to wait for the water to carry it away. When you read this letter, the waves and the water will have covered your faithful and little friend.
MIGUEL FERNÁNZEZ
P.S.: Please send the albatross to my parents.
I returned the letter to the Commissioner. In silence I crossed the dining room and peered out of a window facing the sea. Miguel’s boat was not on the beach.
Emilia confirmed what Miguel had said about the bottle of strychnine. She found it the morning of Mary’s death. She hid it, because from the very first moment she thought that her fiancé was the murderer. For the same reason she made the cup of chocolate disappear.
Of the Joseph K and Miguel there was no news. Commissioner Aubry considered that Miguel’s letter was sufficient proof and no longer suspected Emilia.
As for me, I have written the pages you’ve read, because some friends of my mother—the only women friends I have—wanted my role in the investigation to be documented. I protested, said that the part I played was minimal, that I had simply guessed correctly … But they insisted, so here I am, apologetic and blushing, putting the Finis coronat opus to this chronicle of my unexpected detective adventures.
All that’s left for me to add is that Emilia and Atwell have married and, as far as I know, they are happy. At times I wonder about the intimate life of this pair who so often looked at each other believing the other a criminal and yet never ceased to be in love.