The Mouse in the Mountain by Norbert Davis (detective books to read TXT) 📕
"Here he comes," said Janet.
Bartolome trotted down the terrace steps and leaned in the door. "Starting instantly in a few moments. Have the kindness of patience in waiting for the more important passengers."
"Who are they?" Henshaw demanded, interested.
"The lady of incredible richness with the name of Patricia Van Osdel and her parasites."
"No fooling!" Henshaw exclaimed. "You hear that, Doan? Patricia Van Osdel. She's the flypaper queen. Her old man invented stickum that flies like the taste of, and he made fifty billion dollars out of it"
"Is she married?" Mrs. Henshaw asked suspiciously.
"That is a vulgarness to which she would not stoop," said Bartolome. "She has a gigolo. They come! Prepare yourselves!"
A short, elderly lady as thin as a pencil, dressed all in black that wrinkled and rustled and glistened in the sun, came out on the terrace and down the steps. She had a long, sallow face with a black wart on one cheek and t
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“Think! I never think! I see him with these eyes. I see him say to my husband he is going to bury him in Mexico! Then comes the earthquake! Grrrrumble-boom-boom! Right away the fats jumps on my husband and beats him and kicks him and hits him on the head and chokes him and bites him with the big, dumb dog!”
“I’m so sorry,” said Lepicik, “but you really didn’t see any of that.”
Concha glared at him. “You are a little, skinny, big liar!”
“No,” said Lepicik, “because I saw you on the Avenida Revolution going away from the house toward the market square just before the earthquake. I noticed you particularly because you are so beautiful.”
“Hah?” said Concha, startled.
“Beautiful,” Lepicik repeated. “Very. And photogenic, too.”
“What’s does that mean?” Concha demanded suspiciously.
“It means you would photograph well. Your features are superbly proportioned, and —if you will pardon me —you have a lovely figure. I trunk you would be an outstanding success in motion pictures.”
“Why you think that?”
Lepicik smiled apologetically. “I’m a motion picture director.”
“Hah! You? Where you work?”
“I’m temporarily at liberty, but I think I can arrange for you to have a screen test, if you wish.”
Concha’s eyes glistened. “I wish lots!”
“Senora Eldridge,” said Captain Perona, “did you see Doan kill your husband?”
“Me?” Concha asked. “No. I am in the streets being beautiful where the skinny one sees me.”
“You were lying, then.”
“Sure,” said Concha. “I don’t like the fats. We got no troubles until he comes and kills my husband, I guess.”
“Get out of here!” Captain Perona snarled. “And stay out!”
Concha put her thumbs in her ears and wiggled her fingers at him. “Pah! Pooey!” She stuck out her tongue and made a horrid face.
Captain Perona made a move toward her, and she whirled and ran gracefully out the door.
“Goom-by,” said Colonel Callao placidly.
“You are right for once, you drooling donkey,” said Captain Perona in his smoothest tones. “We are leaving. You tourists, remember what I have told you and govern yourselves accordingly. You will hear from me again soon.”
“Not too soon, I hope,” Greg told him.
Captain Perona ignored him. He and Sergeant Obrian escorted Colonel Callao politely out the door.
“I got to go get some more of my junk,” Amanda Tracy stated. “See you later, kids.”
“If you will pardon me,” said Lepicik, “I think I will continue my nap.”
He went back up the stairs, and Henshaw followed him quietly and purposefully.
“Wilbur,” said Mrs. Henshaw. “Where are you going?”
Henshaw didn’t answer.
“Wilbur!” Mrs. Henshaw shouted. “Don’t you dare sneak in and strike Mortimer! Wilbur!” She got up and ran up the stairs after Henshaw.
“I think I’m drunk enough for the present,” Greg said. “I’m a little short of cash. I’ll let you pay for the gin.”
“Well, thanks,” said Doan. “You’re too good to me.” He waited until Greg had gone upstairs and then nodded to Janet. “Have you got your purse with you?”
“Yes ” said Janet, picking it up from the chair beside her. “Here.”
“Let me see it, will you? Just throw it over.”
She tossed the purse to him. It was a large one made of composition leather, and Doan opened it and fumbled around in its interior while Janet stared at him in amazement. He finally came up with a .25 caliber automatic hardly larger than a package of cigarettes.
“You’d be a sucker for a pickpocket,” he said.
“Did you—did you put that in there?” Janet asked.
Doan nodded. “Yeah. I was afraid I might be met by a welcoming committee here and searched like I was just now.” He searched in the purse again and found an extra magazine for the automatic.
“Mr. Doan,” said Janet, “you lied to Captain Perona. You did have another weapon, and you should have given it to him when he asked you to.”
“He doesn’t need it. He’s got lots of guns.” Doan put the automatic and the extra magazine in the breast pocket of his coat. It made no noticeable bulge. “Have a drink?”
“I don’t drink.”
“What a pity,” said Doan, having one himself.
Carstairs growled at him.
“Mr. Doan,” said Janet, “I think he’s right. I don’t think you should impair your faculties when everyone suspects you of—of everything.”
“I don’t have any faculties to impair,” Doan answered. He leaned down and blew his breath at Carstairs.
Carstairs looked at him with a martyred air and then got up and walked over to Janet. He sat down beside her and put his head in her lap.
“Sissy,” said Doan. He beat time in the air with his forefinger and sang hoarsely: “‘Oh, it’s a great day for the Irish!’ “
Carstairs mumbled to himself in disgust.
“I’d like to hear you do better,” Doan told him. “Janet, did you ever hear of a painter named Predilip?”
“Yes,” Janet said. “I don’t know much about art, but I’ve read about him. I believe he’s a sort of a modernist, on the order of Van Gogh.”
“Is he dead?”
“Oh, yes. I think he died about 1911. He used to live here in Los Altos, you know. His pictures are one of the reasons why the town is famous.”
“Yeah. Are his pictures worth much?”
“In money? Yes, they are. I read in a newspaper a little while ago that one had been sold at auction in New York for nine thousand dollars, and that wasn’t a good one. His best ones were painted here just before he died.”
“Oh,” said Doan, taking another drink.
“Mr. Doan,” Janet said, worried, “are you sure you feel all right?”
“Marvelous,” Doan answered.
“Well, I’ve never had much experience with intoxicants. I’ve never seen anyone just sit down and—and get drunk.”
“Stick around, kid,” Doan told her. “Stick around.”
JANET AWOKE AND FOUND SHE WAS sitting bolt upright in bed with terror like a cold hand clutching at her throat. For what seemed like eons her faculties fought to free themselves of numbing layers of sleep and exhaustion.
She couldn’t remember where she was, and the bare room looked enormous and shadowy with the windows like heavy-lidded eyes in their deep niches in the opposite wall and the high, ugly head of the bed looming over her in silent menace.
And then the yell came again. It was choked and half muffled, but the unadorned terror in it was like an electric shock. Janet threw the covers aside and thrust herself to the edge of the bed, ready to flee somewhere, anywhere.
The bedroom door thundered under a series of heavy blows, and Captain Perona’s voice said sharply:
“Open this! Open it at once!”
The door thundered again, jumping against its hinges.
“Wait!” Janet cried. “I’m coming!”
She stumbled against a chair and then felt the twist of the iron latch under her groping hand. She turned the big key, and the lock creaked. Instantly the door slammed back against her, knocking her into the corner, and then Captain Perona gripped her arm with fingers like metal hooks.
“Is there anyone in here with you?” he demanded.
“Wha—what?” Janet said dazedly.
Two soldiers thrust past them. One carried a big flashlight, and its brilliant round eye flicked questioningly through the darkness. The second soldier had a carbine, and the steel of its bayonet flashed savagely as he prodded under the bed and into the cubbyhole closet.
“Let go of me!” Janet cried. “What do you mean—coming in this way… Stop that!”
Captain Perona released her. “Senorita, is it your custom to greet visitors unclothed?”
Janet looked down at herself. “Oh! Oh, my!” She turned her back and then turned around again and crouched down protectively.
Captain Perona picked up her dress from a chair and dropped it on top of her as though it were something unclean. “Please put this on and stop offending my modesty.”
Janet fought with the dress. “I can’t… It’s caught… Don’t you touch me!”
Captain Perona yanked the dress down over her head. “Please, senorita! This is no time to be flirtatious!”
Janet’s head emerged from the dress. “Oh! You—you—You know very well I had no nightclothes with me, and I had to wash out my underthings, and I didn’t have anything—”
“No doubt,” said Captain Perona.
He shoved her at the soldier with the carbine. The soldier took her arm and hustled her out into the hall. It was a flickering nightmare tunnel with flashlights reflecting from the cold blue of gun barrels, from gleaming brass buttons. There were more soldiers, crowded so close Janet had no chance to count them, their faces dark and tense, excitedly eager.
The one who had hold of her hurried her along, steered her down the stairs at a stumbling run. The big kerosene pressure lamp was lighted, swinging violently on its chain, and its shadows chased and jumped crazily over more soldiers. There were three of them at the door, peering in, and more at the window and the door into the kitchen. The one who was escorting Janet let go of her and ran upstairs again.
“Pardon me,” said Doan, “while I put on my pants.” He hopped industriously on one leg and then the other.
Carstairs sat on the floor looking rumpled and sleepily indignant. Lepicik was sitting at a table beside the staircase. He was fully dressed and as neat as ever. He was even carrying his green umbrella. He was not at all concerned by the uproar. His expression was one of vaguely polite interest.
“My dress!” Janet exclaimed, pulling at it frantically. “And—and I haven’t got any shoes on!”
“Neither have I,” said Doan cheerfully. He sat down and put his bare feet up on a chair. “The Captain seemed to be in a bit of a rush.”
“What is it?” Janet demanded. “What’s the matter?” She looked at the soldiers._ “Querasa?“_
One soldier shrugged. The others shook their heads at her.
“That clears everything up,” Doan observed.
“Are you sober now?” Janet asked him suspiciously.
Doan nodded. “Just about.”
“Well, do you feel—awfully bad?”
“No,” said Doan.
“I thought people always felt bad after they got drunk.”
“You have to have brains to get a hangover,” Doan told her. “I’m never troubled.”
“You_ were_ very drunk, you know. You sang questionable songs and beat on the table and told jokes that had no point and spilled three drinks.”
“That’s me,” Doan agreed. “That’s your old pal, Drunken Doan, when he gets curled.”
“Carstairs was very angry with you.”
“He’s an evil-tempered brute,” Doan said. “He’s always mad at something.”
The Henshaws, all three of them, came rumbling down the stairs like a group of frightened sheep with a soldier herding them along with judicious thrusts of his carbine butt.
“Say!” Henshaw said, struggling with his suspenders. “What gives here, anyway? Are we invaded?”
Mrs. Henshaw screamed: “I’ll tell the President! I’ll write him a letter! He’ll send a battleship right down here and blow you all up!”
“Yeow!” Mortimer screeched. “Maw!”
Mrs. Henshaw enveloped him in a stranglehold. “Don’t cry, baby! I won’t let the beasts shoot you!”
Henshaw was tucking in his shirttail. “This is sure a fine way to treat tourists and allies. Just wait until I talk before the Rotary Club. I’ll sure put the blister on these birds.”
“What were you yelling about a minute ago?” Doan asked him.
Henshaw looked sheepish. “You hear me? Well, I was havin’ a nightmare. A lulu, too. You know this mountain range is supposed to be a sleeping woman. I dreamed she was lying there all peaceful when a big mouse that looked like Carstairs came sneaking along, and she jumped up and let out a screech and shook her
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