Mum's the Word for Murder Page 8

  There are native things displayed in the windows, of course, shawled women and sombreroed men on the streets. But it was old stuff to both of us and we rode along in the official car without paying any attention to the “quaint, old-world charm.”

  The Juarez chief of police and his full staff greeted us at headquarters, uniforms resplendent enough for hotel doormen. They were very sympathetic and seemed pleased that the publicized murder was to be pulled off in their jurisdiction. Every member of the force had been called upon for the special duty of patrolling the entire city after eleven o’clock.

  Burke didn’t have any particular suggestions to make except that a special watch be kept for any suspicious character armed with a rifle and to request permission to take charge of the investigation if a murder occurred.

  This was cordially assented to, and again we had plenty of time with nothing to occupy it. The chief introduced us to a young officer named Juan something-or-other who spoke English and who had been detailed as our escort and interpreter for the evening. There didn’t seem to be much point in sticking around the police station for almost two hours, so Burke suggested we go out and have a drink.

  Juan flashed a smile of agreement and suggested El Gato Pobre. Burke demurred a trifle, but Juan explained that the other places would soon be closing with the closing hour of the bridge, and that El Gato Pobre was our best bet.

  He drove us there in a police car which he left parked outside the entrance. The café was crowded in contrast to the last time we were there. Many of the tables were occupied by Americans, but they were beginning to thin out as zero hour for crossing the bridge approached.

  We found a table without creating any stir, and all ordered highballs. A string quartet was giving a lively rendition of a Mexican marching song on a small stage in the center of the room and there was a low babble of voices from diners all about us.

  A Mexican girl came on and sang a plaintive folk song after the quartet finished, and the entertainers went out to the sound of mild applause. The Mexicans evidently were not impressed with her singing and most of the Americans were hurrying to finish their drinks and get away.

  Juan seemed very much at home in the place and was carrying on an animated conversation in his native tongue with a dusky beauty at the next table. Burke was in the depths of a brown study which I didn’t feel like interrupting. Left to my own devices, I began studying the faces of the parties surrounding us, making up life stories to fit each set of features.

  One party of six interested me particularly. They were two tables removed from us, directly against the stage where the entertainers had been. I was first attracted to them because, although Americans, they showed no inclination to follow the general exodus of El Pasoans and tourists.

  Three young couples who were drinking more than young couples should. After watching them a little, I decided they weren’t as young as they first seemed. Or younger, maybe. They were what I have heard described as young-old persons. Young in years, but old in boredom. A type peculiarly American.

  Thirty, perhaps, in years. Caught while very young in some hysteria of sophistication and heavy drinking; old in knowledge and in sinning; they are, now, flotsam left upon the shore. Pitiable, in a way. They don’t quite know what it’s all about. Tossing aside all the old standards when they were too young to formulate new ones, they find themselves without the stability of a single conviction. Aggressively determined to assert themselves, they are bewildered to find they possess nothing worth asserting; and worse, that their antics are now viewed with tolerant smiles rather than alarm.

  All three couples were about the same age. I gathered by casual observation that two of them were married, and I played a little game of picking out husbands and wives who belonged to each other. It wasn’t difficult. Knowing the type, I guessed that the women toward whom the men were amorously inclined were not their wives. Those four were easily catalogued. The men were ruddy and outwardly prosperous, the women too heavily rouged and openly bored with their rightful mates. I mentally assigned them to suburban homes, a mortgage, not-quite-big-enough incomes, and no children.

  The other couple did not so easily fall into a groove. I guessed that neither was married and that the man was desperately in love with the woman. Her face was vaguely familiar to me: Soft brown hair was disheveled; eyebrows in a straight line above brilliant black eyes; dark circles underneath which gave the impression of careful cultivation; dead-white cheeks without a trace of rouge; vividly carmined, full lips; a determined little chin with the flesh beginning to sag almost imperceptibly beneath; a lithe body, wearing a gown which audaciously revealed a vast amount of smooth flesh.

  Her companion was lean-bodied and broad-shouldered; a hawkish face and unpleasantly tight lips. His features, too, were subconsciously familiar, though I couldn’t place either of them as I searched my memory for a clue.

  The girl wore a wide diamond bracelet that looked genuine, and a number of diamond rings. Both of them looked like society and wealth, and a little out of place with their suburban companions.

  There was something feverishly intense about the girl’s attitude. As though she waited for something and dared it to happen. She was drinking champagne cocktails—a great many of them—without apparent effect.

  The air of her companion was more moody and brooding. I discerned in him, too, an attitude of waiting; different from that of the girl, in that I instinctively felt he shrank from what he knew was to come.

  It’s foolish, of course, for one to gather all those impressions by watching two people at another table. It’s a fascinating game, one of which I never tire because, perhaps, I never learn the facts and thus never discover how far wrong I am in my analysis.

  Burke finished his cocktail and emerged from the depths just as the string quartet came back to the stage and lights all over the room were dimmed. A spotlight was thrown on the stage as they began strumming a Spanish tango. A man and a girl, dancers, appeared.

  The girl was very young and extremely beautiful. She wore a streamlined costume and jeweled combs in her black hair. The man, too, was beautiful. In the curiously virile way in which men of the Latin races can be beautiful. Both were exquisite dancers. Little murmurs of approval went up about the room as they gracefully executed a difficult step. I saw that our escort was watching them, and asked who they were.

  “Ricardo and Conchita,” he told me. “Conchita ees ze toast of Juarez. She ees veree beautiful, no?”

  I agreed that she was and couldn’t refrain from adding that Ricardo, too, was beautiful.

  “Oh, sí.” Juan nodded affably. “Ze ladies are crazee ovair heem.”

  That was when I noticed the girl at the other table watching Ricardo. I knew it had happened. What she was waiting for. Her face was animated, and glowed in the reflection of the spotlight. She leaned forward with her elbows on the table.

  Ricardo was not oblivious to her presence or her regard. He took it as his due, but one could discern that he was inwardly pleased to receive her attention. The other two actors in the little drama, Conchita and the lean American, were just as patently displeased. Conchita whirled Ricardo about every time he smiled at the girl, and it wasn’t difficult to see what part she played.

  I said to Juan, “There’s one lady who doesn’t make any secret of being crazy over him.”

  Juan nodded. No one could help noticing the play she was making. “She ees come here often. Conchita, I theenk, weel tear out her eyes one night.”

  “If that broad-shouldered bird with her doesn’t slap her down first,” Burke grunted.

  I couldn’t repress a faint chuckle. It seemed that my imagination hadn’t been so far wrong. “How do people like that get back across the river after the bridge closes?” I asked Juan.

  He shrugged his shoulders with official apathy. “They drive fast car. Go to Ysleta, maybe. Quién sabe? She nevair go till Ricardo ees dance las’ time.”

  The little affair dragged on without gettin
g anywhere. The American’s face wasn’t pleasant, and Conchita didn’t try to hide the fact that she was plenty burned up. It didn’t bother her dancing any. Personally, I thought Ricardo was displaying poor judgment in looking beyond his dance partner for something in woman-flesh.

  But it distinctly wasn’t any of my business, and I tried to forget it after the dance team left the stage. I couldn’t help seeing what went on, though, while I sipped another cocktail, and it wasn’t pretty.

  The American girl and her escort were having words. That is, he was having words and she was being disdainful. Her attitude said: You can like it or get out.

  He didn’t like it, and he didn’t make any move to get out. The other couples were pretty well hooched-up, and they were entering into the argument when Burke suggested it was time for us to get back to the police station to be on hand if anything turned up. He said if, but I knew he was thinking when.

  I disliked to leave before the argument was ended, but it was beginning to look like one of those squabbles that go on and on, so I agreed with Burke and we went out to the car with Juan.

  It was a little after eleven when we reached police headquarters. Everything was quiet and peaceable. There were half a dozen policemen grouped around the chief’s desk. We sat down with them to wait for the call.

  I couldn’t get that girl at El Gato Pobre out of my mind. There was something supremely pitiful about her. It’s hard to put it into words. I couldn’t help thinking that she wasn’t entirely to blame for the distorted slant she had on life. There’s something tragic about a girl like that with every material thing in the world to make for happiness, burned out with life at thirty, bumming around Juarez at midnight trying to drum up a little thrill.

  I only get philosophic about once in a coon’s age. And thinking about the girl made the time pass quickly.

  It couldn’t, though, keep me from being subconsciously aware that the hands of the clock were moving along toward midnight—and that a woman was marked for death.

  I kept glancing aside at Jerry Burke, wondering what he was thinking about. He was carrying on a desultory conversation with Juan, but it was easy to see his mind wasn’t on it. His gaze kept wandering to the clock, and a furrow deepened between his eyes.

  The waiting was tough enough on me, but I suddenly realized that it must be infinitely tougher on Burke. I was merely a spectator, more or less disinterested, certainly in no way responsible for what was to come.

  Inside of Jerry Burke there must have been a damning sense of futility as he sat there waiting for something he was powerless to avert—something it was his duty to avert.

  Outwardly Burke didn’t show any sign of strain. To look at him casually one would have received the impression that he didn’t give a whoop what happened. But I happened to know how Burke feels about a responsibility or trust reposed in him, and I could guess the mental anguish he was feeling.

  The sharp ring of the phone was a welcome sound, somehow. At least it meant action.

  Juan answered it, jabbering excitedly in Mexican. I glanced at the clock with an all-gone feeling inside me. It was ten minutes until midnight.

  We were all standing up when Juan hung up the phone. He spat some Mexican words at the others and hurried to the door with Burke and me. They crowded into another car.

  “An American señorita,” Juan said, as he got behind the wheel. “Stabbed on ze street two blocks from El Gato Pobre” He cut in his siren and went like hell.

  Chapter Eleven

  THE STREET WAS DARK AND NARROW, lined with small frame and adobe dwellings. The victim was the girl from El Gato Pobre. Somehow, as soon as Juan had made his dramatic announcement after answering the phone, I had known it was going to be. She lay crumpled on the boardwalk on her right side. Her right arm was flung out with fingers clenched as though she futilely clutched at departing life. Her diamonds were intact, and glittered mockingly in the full ray of a flashlight.

  A narrow-bladed knife was buried to the hilt in her side just below her left breast. The knife had a curiously carved ivory handle and a gold hilt. Squads of Juarez police were there before us, forming a cordon to keep curious spectators away. A police car was drawn up close, with the spotlight on the body. Within the uniformed circle, the girl’s five companions were gathered in a hysterical huddle.

  It wasn’t a nice scene. Different, somehow, from going to Malvern’s study and viewing his body. Death had been impersonal the first time. I hadn’t felt the impact of it. An air of dispassionate officialdom had pervaded that inquiry.

  There wasn’t anything impersonal or dispassionate about this scene. Mexicans don’t view sudden death as stolidly as our American officials. And here lay a woman whom I had seen in life a short time ago.

  She was dead. The stiletto had been shrewdly driven deep into her heart. There was no evidence of a struggle.

  Burke didn’t make any specific suggestions about handling the case. The death weapon was carefully withdrawn to be examined for possible fingerprints. Jammed up against the hilt, with the blade slashed through it cleanly, was a blood-soaked calling card. Burke and I knew what would be found typewritten upon it before we looked. It was precisely the same as the Malvern card, except it was blood-spattered on the back side. Number 2. Mum’s the word.

  They loaded the body into an ambulance and took it away. Then herded all the witnesses into a patrol wagon and took them to the station. The two American women were sobbing hysterically and raving that they didn’t know who did it. The two husbands were pretty drunk and plenty scared. The escort of the murdered girl seemed completely sobered. All five were placed in separate cells at the station and brought in singly to be interrogated.

  Burke and I sat with the police chief and Burke conducted the examination of the Americans. A Mexican-English speaking stenographer took down a transcript of the testimony. The chief spoke English fluently enough to follow the questions and answers. Burke was later given a copy of the testimony. It is here included verbatim.

  The hawk-faced man was first brought in. He was composed, and inclined to answer contemptuously.

  QUES. What is your name, address, and business?

  ANS. Anthony Gray. I live in Obispo Apartments, El Paso. I’m a bachelor and stockbroker.

  QUES. Who is the murdered woman?

  ANS. Mrs. Dorothy Ullendorf. Divorced. She has an apartment on the floor below mine.

  QUES. What was the relationship between you?

  ANS. We were good friends.

  QUES. Who killed her?

  ANS. I don’t know. I caught just a glimpse of her assailant and I believe it was Ricardo, the dancer.

  QUES. Tell us just what happened.

  ANS. There were six of us in a party at El Gato Pobre. We had dinner there, and a number of drinks. Mrs. Ullendorf drank more champagne cocktails than even she can carry. I protested but she wouldn’t listen to me. She’s been carrying the torch for Ricardo in a small way and flirted with him when he danced. I warned her to keep out of foreign entanglements with Mexican entertainers. She laughed at me. I think she enjoyed the thrill of danger in flirting with Ricardo while Conchita looked daggers at her. Ricardo came to our table after the dance was ended. We—there was a slight argument. Conchita came from backstage and joined in. She had an idea it would be delightful fun to claw Dorothy’s eyes out. We dissuaded her and left the café. All of us were pretty well lit and someone suggested going for a stroll around Juarez before getting our car. The others were pretty hilarious, and Dorothy lagged back. She acted as though she was expecting to meet someone. I urged her to come on with the others and she—well, she told me to mind my own business. I didn’t want to argue with her on the street, and I moved on slowly about halfway between her and the other four. The street was pretty dark and I thought she was coming on along. The first thing I knew of anything wrong was a sort of gurgled gasp. I looked back and saw a figure crumpled on the sidewalk and a running figure that looked like a man—like Ricardo. I caught ju
st a glimpse of him as he went around a corner. I shouted to the others and ran to Dorothy. She was dead when I reached her. I didn’t touch the knife or change the position of her body.

  QUES. You were the first person to reach her?

  ANS. Yes.

  QUES. What did you do?

  ANS. I shook her shoulder and begged her to speak to me.

  QUES. She didn’t answer?

  ANS. No. She was dead.

  QUES. You didn’t make any effort to pursue the murderer?

  ANS. No. Things were naturally all mixed up. The others came running, and several policemen popped up almost at once. I told them about the figure and they went in pursuit.

  QUES. Do you speak Mexican?

  ANS. Enough to make myself understood. One picks it up on the Border.

  QUES. That is all, for the time being.

  Anthony Gray was led back to his cell. He impressed me as having told a straightforward, truthful story. I had a feeling that his identification of his companion’s assailant might be colored by jealousy but that he was honest in his belief that the fleeing man was Ricardo.

  As soon as he had given his name and the name of his companion, I knew why their faces had been vaguely familiar to me. Gray was one of the best-known younger men in El Paso. A wealthy bachelor and sportsman, his picture was often in the newspapers.

  Mrs. Ullendorf was also a much-publicized figure. Twice divorced at thirty, the second court action had been bitterly contested by her millionaire husband twice her age. There had been many unsavory aspects of the case, including charges and countercharges of immorality. I dimly recalled that she had been awarded a fabulous settlement when she received a final decree. That had been two or three years ago.

  One of the American men was next brought in. His ruddy face was blanched and his eyes terrified. His name was Malcolm Summers, an insurance salesman, married, childless, owning a suburban home. The important part of his testimony follows: