The Mouse in the Mountain by Norbert Davis (detective books to read TXT) 📕

to sell one of my smears to. Don’t let Perona worry you. If he tries to arrest you, I’ll push him in the puss with this easel.”

“You are flouting military authority,” Captain Perona warned her. “Besides, I am escorting the senorita on a sightseeing tour.”

“Is he?” Amanda Tracy asked Janet.

“Well, he started to.”

“I will continue it,” said Captain Perona stiffly.

“To the jail?” Janet asked.

Captain Perona cleared his throat. “Not at the moment. To the museum. It is very beautiful, senorita. Full of many ancient treasures.”

“I’d like to go,” said Janet, “but not if you’re going to threaten me and—and accuse me—of things.”

“If he does,” said Amanda Tracy, “just come and tell me. I’ll run him clear out of town.”

“Bah!” said Captain Perona. “Good day.” He took Janet’s arm firmly and started to lead her away.

“Hey, Perona,” said Amanda Tracy. “There’s another tourist wandering around you’d better keep an eye on. A little fat number called Doan. He’s a crook if ever I saw one.”

“Mr. Doan’s a detective,” Janet told her.

Amanda Tracy shrugged husky shoulders. “Maybe so. That wouldn’t mean he wasn’t a crook. Better watch him, Perona. He’s a tough cookie, and that dog of his is a bad dream.”

“I am watching him,” said Captain Perona. “Kindly attend to your painting and leave my business to me.”

“From me to you—phooey.” said Amanda Tracy. “So long, dearie. See you later.” She walked on into the market square, easel trailing behind her.

“She is an artist,” Captain Perona told Janet. “She lives here and paints and paints, and everything she paints is most horrible, but tourists buy it and pay good sums for it. I think tourists are crazy, myself.”

“I’m one,” Janet reminded.

“Senorita, you are trying to trick me into insulting you, as I understand is the custom of women from the United States. They trick a man into insulting them, and then they threaten to have the man arrested unless he marries them. They are so unattractive they cannot get a husband in any other way. But it is useless for you to try that method on me. I refuse flatly to marry you.”

“Why, you—you arrogant, ignorant—”

“Never mind,” Captain Perona comforted. “Perhaps you can find someone more stupid and marry him. Shall we proceed?”

Janet was speechless. She tried to drag back, scuffling her heels, but Captain Perona pulled her along with no effort at all. They turned a corner and followed a straggling street down the steep slope of the mountain.

“This is the older part of the town,” Captain Perona explained. “Some has been rebuilt, of course. But some is very ancient, indeed.”

The buildings here looked lower and thicker, and their windows were mere slits. Their walls were not white, either, but faded to a mottled gray by age and weather.

“There is the museum,” Captain Perona said.

It was a long one-story building nudged in sideways against the slope. The front had once been built up high, like the false front of a western store, but it had crumbled away in jagged, cracked crevices. The immense black door was slightly ajar.

It was old, this building. But the word old was not enough to express the aged, tired look of it. There was an air of decay—of ancient-ness beyond expression. It was a thing of another age—something that had been left behind in the march of the centuries and was now forlorn and deserted and alone.

Janet breathed in deeply, staring at it with a sort of awed fascination, forgetting all about her quarrel with Captain Perona.

“It was a church once, as you know,” he said softly. “The very first church in this whole state. It was built by a priest, who came with Lieutenant Emile Perona and Gil De Lico, with the help of my ancestor’s soldiers and converted Indians. Services were held here for many, many years, and then a hundred and fifty years ago there was an earthquake that shook it badly. You can see the front—how it is broken away. After that it wasn’t thought to be safe, and another and larger church was built in the center of town.”

Janet didn’t answer. Captain Perona was watching her with a sympathetic little smile.

“It takes one’s breath away if one imagines all it has seen and endured. The people, when they left it, thought there would be other earthquakes, but there have been no serious ones. Of course, if we ever have another bad one the old church will surely be destroyed. It will collapse. Shall we go inside, senorita?”

“Yes,” said Janet.

They went up the steps, and the great iron hinges squealed as Captain Perona pushed the heavy door open wider. The air in the tiny vestibule was thin and dry, and dust motes danced in the narrow shaft of sunlight that filtered through a side window. The shadows were as old and patient as time.

“Yes?” said a soft voice. “Yes? May I help you?”

He was standing in the doorway ahead of them—tall and dressed in black that rustled slightly when he moved. His face had the delicately soft pallor of old ivory, and his eyes were long and slanted at little at the corners, luminously black.

“This is Tio Riquez,” Captain Perona said to Janet. “He has been the keeper of this museum for many years. The senorita is a North American, Tio, but not ignorant like most of them. She knows much of our history and is very interested in it.”

“You shall see my treasures, senorita,” said Tio Riquez, smiling. “They are very beautiful. Come.”

Janet followed him through the doorway into a long, narrow room with age-blackened beams across its ceiling. The floor was stone, and through the centuries shuffling feet had worn smooth little pathways in it.

“Oh!” said Janet breathlessly.

The windows were narrow niches, with the sun bright and piercing back of them. Its yellow shafts were like spotlights focused on the displays along the walls. They were not moldering relics, these ancient things. They had been cleaned and restored with infinite care.

“You like this?” asked Tio Riquez.

Janet nodded wordlessly.

The sunlight reflected from burnished conquistador armor, from gold hammered Damascus steel, from the linked plates that had protected the chest of a horse when there were only sixteen horses in all of America. A bell-mouthed harquebus slanted over the red leather of a high-backed saddle, and two pistols as long as a man’s arm crossed their clumsy barrels above a thinly wicked lance.

There were native weapons, too, jag-toothed and ugly. And handwoven cloths with the colors in them still brightly defiant. And on beyond the weapons were household goods—drinking cups and plates and even a lopsided spoon beaten out of copper ore. There was the frail shadow of a wooden water canteen and vases made with delicate, sure grace. And then, also, the clumsy tools that had chipped and scraped the rock of Los Altos four hundred-odd years ago.

Janet wandered like a child lost in a candy store, gasping as she saw and comprehended each new wonder. She made the circuit of the room once and then again and then came back and sat down beside Captain Perona on a hand-carved wooden bench.

“They’re wonderful,” she said, sighing. “Are they all_ yours,_ Mr. Riquez?”

“No,” said Tio Riquez, chuckling. “They belong to the state, senorita. I speak of them as mine because I have been here with them so long. It gives me pleasure to see you admire them, too. Many people nowadays are bored with the old and beautiful.”

“They’re just wonderful,” Janet repeated. “I’d like to look and look… May I see the cellar, too?”

The sound of her voice echoed a little and fell in the stillness.

“Pardon?” said Tio Riquez. “The what?”

“The cellar,” Janet said. “Underneath here”

“There is no cellar,” said Tio Riquez.

“But there is,” said Janet. She turned to Captain Perona. “It tells all about building this church in Gil De Lico’s diary. They dug a cellar in solid rock because they wanted a storage place for supplies and seed they were leaving for the priest in charge.”

“It was filled up long ago,” said Tio Riquez.

“Why?” Janet asked. “Why would they fill it up? It was very difficult to dig, and they put a concealed door on it—a balanced and pivoted stone.”

“The church was built over many times,” said Tio Riquez. “They cemented up the doorway.”

“Why, no,” said Janet. “That’s it, there. That oblong stone. You just push at the top. Let me show—”

“Senorita,” said Tio Riquez, “it is forbidden to tamper with the property of the museum.”

“Of course it is,” Captain Perona said. “Naturally. Come along now, senorita. We are not interested in imaginary cellars, and it is boring and close in here.” He jerked at her arm urgently.

Janet pulled back. “I’m not going! I want to sit here and look and look and look. Why, I saved for years and came thousands of miles—” She stared at Captain Perona. “What? What is it?”

Captain Perona’s face was white. He didn’t answer.

Tio Riquez said mockingly. “Captain Perona is surprised. He has been looking for me so industriously, you see, and now he has suddenly found me where I was all the time—right under his nose. Stand still, Captain.”

Tio Riquez had a revolver in his hand. It was a big revolver with a pearl handle and a long, elaborately silvered barrel.

Captain Perona had his right hand inside the loose front of his coat.

“No,” warned Tio Riquez. “Don’t. It is too late for that now, Captain. You didn’t think fast enough or act quickly enough. You were too interested in the senorita.”

“What—what’s the matter?” Janet demanded.

“She knows nothing about this—or you,” Captain Perona said. “She is just a harmless tourist.”

“No,” Tio Riquez denied. “Not harmless any more. The cellar is there, senorita. You will see it now. You and Captain Perona. Push the stone as you suggested. It works very easily.”

Janet swallowed. “What’s the matter with the cellar? What—what’s down there?”

Tio Riquez smiled at her. “Guns, senorita. Rifles. A great many of them. A trifle obsolete, but not as much as you’d think. Many of the troops in your up-to-date country are armed with Springfield rifles of a similar model. Captain Perona has been hunting them and some others I know about. Hunting me, too. Releasing old companions of mine and following them, hoping they knew where to find me. They didn’t know, as a matter of fact, Captain. They knew ways they could make themselves known, so I could contact them if I wished. They didn’t know my identity or where I was hiding. I contacted Garcia and had him come here. I could have used him in a little project I have in mind.”

Janet said: “The rattlesnake! You’re the one—”

“Yes,” said Tio Riquez. “I thought that was rather clever of me, didn’t you? I didn’t know just what would happen when I threw the snake in with the soldier, but I imagined the results would have been violent enough to warn Garcia, and in that way I didn’t have to risk revealing myself to him or to anyone else.”

“Who are you?” Janet asked.

“Hasn’t Captain Perona told you? I am Bautiste Bonofile, and I’ve been convicted of murder, armed rebellion, train robbery, kidnapping and a few other things I can’t recall at the moment. Do you know what that means—to you?”

Janet shook her head wordlessly.

“I can’t let you go now, senorita. I’m sorry, but it took me many years and much effort to build up this identity, and I like it. Open the cellar door. And you, Captain Perona. Don’t move at all. You are going to die anyway, as you know, but it would take you much