6

That was a nice slap in the face from a woman I’d picked up out of the rain and brought along like a weak-minded samaritan. I didn’t know what to say next. I was plenty on the spot. There was the note addressed to Leslie Young in my pocket, of course, but I knew I couldn’t keep up the imposture very long if I was questioned closely.

So, I set my teeth together hard and kept my mouth shut while a strained silence held all of us in a sort of hypnotic spell, as if we waited for a witch to serve a potion which would unleash our tongues.

In the silence, Michaela stepped close to Laura Yates and studied her face through low-lidded eyes.

Laura stood the inspection without wavering. She was the first to recover, and she asked, “You’re Miss O’Toole?” as if renewing an old acquaintance at a pink tea.

The shining black head nodded. “I am Michaela O’Toole.” She relaxed; her voice held the liquid warmth of tropical sunlight.

I knew I was sunk if the two women made up to each other the way they started out. The note would be nothing but a scrap of paper. I cursed myself for the world’s greatest fool when Laura went on pleasantly:

“My name is Laura Yates. Mr. Young had asked me to come here with him tonight, but he didn’t meet me as prearranged. This man came along … it was pouring rain … and I accepted a ride after discovering that he intended to pose as Leslie Young. I came to … warn you against him.”

I started to protest, but decided that the less I said the better chance I would have. Michaela had turned her head and was looking past Laura at me, Irish eyes flaming. She was young … not more than twenty, I thought … but the tropics breed maturity at that age. Rich warm blood suffused her creamy cheeks close to the surface. Her upper lip was sensuously short, and she used no make-up anywhere on her face.

Her beauty was extraordinary and, somehow, dangerous. There was a hint of fanaticism in her whole expression, but it was dominated by a coldly calculating personality which robbed her of any taint of feminine weakness.

Looking directly into my eyes, she asked: “Who are you?”

It was one of those moments. I could feel destiny in the making. Here I was on an important mission for Jerry Burke and on the verge of being checkmated by two women. I am a man slow to anger, but it was a pang of outraged anger which saved me … and determination to be loyal to Burke.

I said: “Leslie Young, of course. I don’t know why this woman lies about me. You wrote me a note asking me to come tonight. You can readily see,” I went on, taking the note from my pocket and handing it to her, “that this woman who calls herself Laura Yates is an ingrate, so I am not surprised that she lies.”

There was a faint gasp from Laura. She moved to one side and stared at me with a puzzled frown.

Michaela glanced at the note and handed it back to me. She looked doubtfully at Laura and said:

“What makes you say this man is not Mr. Young? I sent him this note yesterday.” There was an undertone of imperious anger in her voice.

The American stepped forward from where he had been standing all the while. He spoke suavely before Laura could reply:

“It seems to me, Miss O’Toole, that it would be better …”

He was interrupted by a harsh American voice in the hall beyond the curtain shouting:

“Mr. and Mrs. Young you say? I don’t believe it.”

The curtains parted and the owner of the voice came into the room. His face was vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn’t place him at the moment. When he strode forward under the light, I recognized Raymond Dwight.

He was a short dark man with bushy hair. Between forty and fifty years of age. His heavy features were deeply tanned by the sun, and every inch of his short stature exuded self-conscious arrogance. He was a man, one knew instinctively, who had bulled his own way ahead in the world by sheer force of a ruthless character; a man who enjoyed meeting obstacles for the perverse pleasure of riding over them roughshod; a bully of a man with a thin veneer of suavity which clung to him as awkwardly as did his obviously expensive tweed suit. He had a stub of a black cigar between thick lips, and his gaze jerked suspiciously from Laura to me.

He rumbled: “Pasqual said Mr. and Mrs. Young were here.” It was more a challenge than a statement.

Michaela’s perfect eyebrows moved slightly upward. “Do you know Leslie Young … and his wife?”

“I’ve … met them. Who are these people?”

“He says he is Mr. Leslie Young. She” Michaela indicated Laura, “says he is not. I think there is some mistake.”

“He is not Young.” The short American ground out the words. “I don’t know the woman, but …” He stopped, his small pale eyes going over Laura, thick lips pursed pleasurably.

“If you’ll just let me explain …” Laura begged.

Michaela turned on her with a flame of anger in her eyes. “We wish to hear no more.” She spoke then to Hardiman, who appeared acutely uncomfortable: “Your pardon for this happening, Senor. It is not of our making, I assure you.”

Facing the curtained doorway, Michaela clapped her hands sharply and called: “Pasqual!”

The swarthy Mexican who had met us at the door came through. His hand held the hilt of a half-drawn dagger, his mouth was a thick, cruel slit. He moved stealthily, his black eyes upon Michaela in complete adoration.

She made an imperious gesture. “You will take these … guests … to the front upstairs room, Pasqual. See that they make no trouble.”

I was watching my chance. Laura and I were nearer the curtained doorway than the others. I grabbed her wrist in a hard grip and jerked her around. Together we made for the door. With Burke outside, we’d be all right if we could make it through the door.

Half-way down the hall I could hear the swift thud of running feet, then Pasqual was upon us. By the dim light of the one candle I saw the gleam of steel in his hand. His grip on my arm was like iron claws, and his dagger hand went up. In the excitement, I had held to Laura as she wriggled to get away.

A sharp voice came from the curtains:

“Pasqual!” and a crisp command in Spanish which I could not interpret.

The Mexican grudgingly loosened his grip. The weapon clattered to the floor and his other free hand closed upon Laura. With the brute strength of a giant he forced us back along the hall.

“See here,” growled Dwight, “I don’t like this.”

“Nor do I, Senor.” Michaela silenced the short man with a wave of her slender hand. “I think we will not talk of it until they are safely upstairs.”

Laura started to say something, but didn’t. Pasqual was pressing close to me and I felt the muzzle of his pistol prodding my ribs.

Michaela spoke softly: “You will go with Pasqual to the room, and no harm will come to you.”

I saw the uselessness of a further attempt at escape. With mock courtesy I offered my arm to Laura as we went up the stairway at the end of the hall, Pasqual close behind, holding a candle in his left hand.

At the top of the stairs he motioned forward with the candle and we went down an unlighted, bare hall with only the faint gleam to guide us. At the end, he opened a door and we went into a big square bedroom. Pasqual closed the door and a key clicked in the lock outside.

There was only the cold gleam from stars and a slitted moon coming through high barred windows to light the room. Laura’s hand dropped from my arm and she moved away from me. I stood just inside the door and said:

“This is a hell of a jam you’ve gotten us into.”

“Isn’t it?”

God! how I hated that woman’s self-control. I was pretty shaky inside, and I’m afraid my voice wasn’t wholly steady. She, however, sounded quite interested and amused.

There was the creak of bedsprings in the direction in which she had gone. I lit a cigarette and held the match high above my head. There was a four-poster bed in one corner, two straight chairs, and a massive chest of drawers. Laura was sitting on the bed, tranquilly watching me. The musty odor of a long unused room was suffocating.

I went to the windows and found them all tightly closed. I loosened a rusty catch and went to work on one, finally getting it open after barking my knuckles. The iron bars outside were heavy and solid. Directly below was the hedge, and I strained my eyes downward and made out a skulking figure beneath the window. It was Jerry Burke all right. He was looking up, motioning.

He moved away along the side of the house as I watched, and some of the empty feeling went out of my belly. If worst came to worst, I knew Jerry would take a hand.

Leaning on the sill, I breathed the first deep breath I’d had since entering the house, but it didn’t relieve the sick feeling that I had fallen down completely on the job Burke had assigned to me.

It was all Laura’s fault. I decided then and there that gallantry and sleuthing didn’t mix. Yet, I couldn’t put too much of the blame on her. By exposing me as an imposter she had simply rushed ultimate exposure. Dwight would have ruined things even if Laura hadn’t been along.

I stood at the window a long time before the thought struck me forcibly that Laura Yates might fit into the scheme of things in a terrific way. If she had murdered Young as Mrs. Young intimated, wouldn’t she pull just such a stunt as she did tonight? To throw suspicion away from her?

Whirling from the window, I asked directly: “Why was Young bringing you with him tonight?”

“Because I asked to come.” She spoke impatiently.

“Do you generally keep your dates under a cottonwood tree on rainy nights?”

“We agreed to meet there this afternoon … before it started raining. I came down on a bus from Juarez late this afternoon.” She paused, then went on coolly: “Mrs Young has a very jealous nature and doesn’t approve of me. Naturally, it was best for her not to know Les and I were meeting tonight.”

“You made the arrangement this afternoon? Where?”

“I don’t see how that can concern you.”

I didn’t tell her that it was going to concern the police. Instead, I persisted:

“What time did you see Young this afternoon?”

She didn’t answer for a time. I struck another match and started toward the bed. She was lying back as if she had suddenly grown weary.

“Well … what time?” I asked again.

She sprang up to a sitting position. “Why the cross-examination?” she flared. “It seems to me you’re the one who should be answering questions. Why are you pretending to be Les? Where did you get that note you showed the girl downstairs? What’s it all about?”

“Don’t try to be naive all of a sudden,” I grated.

She stood up and went to the window and I walked over and stood beside her. She was tight-lipped and quiet. Her shoulder was touching my arm. I was thinking hard about her heavily rouged lips, and about the rouge found on Young’s dead face and mouth.

Suddenly my hands gripped her shoulders and shook her. “You’d better come clean and answer some questions. This isn’t any time for smart repartee.”

Her flesh was softer under my fingers than I had supposed it would be. She let me shake her without offering any resistance.

The faint moonlight touched her face. Her red lips mocked at me and there was a gurgle of laughter in her throat.

“You wouldn’t be wanting to take … advantage of me … locked up in a place like this, would you?”

She was taunting me and I knew it. She was one of those women who recognize a man’s feelings before he, himself, is aware of them. Her words brought me to a realization that beneath my anger another emotion surged.

My fingers were tight on her shoulders, but I wasn’t shaking her any more. She was leaning back, laughing up into my face, a shaky, baffling sort of laugh. The pliant warmth of her body was pressed close to me, and her lips parted beneath mine in the semi-darkness.

Perhaps there is a psychological tie-up between the presence of danger and the sex-urge. Many psychologists argue that this is true. Explain it any way you want to … or let it pass … but instead of hurling leading questions at a woman who might be a murderess, I was holding her in my arms and kissing her—when a key grated in the lock.

The beam of a flashlight was on us before we were wholly untangled. Two uniformed Mexican policemen were dimly outlined in the back-glow of a candle. One of them spoke in broken English:

“You weel both come weeth me to ze jail in Juarez.”

Laura clung to my arm as I stepped forward and said heatedly: “You can’t arrest us. What the hell have we done? We’re American citizens and I demand …”

Both policemen held revolvers. “Eeet ees for murder,” the man continued. “For ze murder of anozzer gringo … Meester Leslie Young.”