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

IT WAS MORNING, AND THE SUN WAS gleaming and grinning generously, regardless of earthquakes, murders, or even Hitler. Janet sat on the parapet that circled the roof of the Hacienda Nueva Inglesa and kicked her heels against the rough plaster, relaxing luxuriously. There was just a slight breeze, and the air felt dry and gentle touching her face.

Los Altos spread away under her—crooked little streets jogging between red, scarred roofs—each detail clear and perfect in miniature. People were splotches of color—serapes and rebozos and white sombreros—moving busily about their affairs like jerky, self-satisfied bugs. Occasionally she could hear the faint overtones of their voices—the thin chittering of words in the mass.

Far on down below, beyond the borders of the town, the Canyon of Black Shadow was like a blue, crooked vein laid against the pink flesh of the earth. So clear was the air that Janet could see the toylike soldiers working around the jagged needle of the bridge support on the far side. A heliograph near them blinked a constant barrage of bright signals at other soldiers on the near side.

Janet breathed deeply, enjoying it all. She turned after a little to look the other way, up the slope of the mountain. The houses above frowned down on her like white, dull faces.

Off to her right, west of the town, the slope stretched upward in a brown, tangled sweep, and Janet looked across its waste absently until her eyes caught and came back to an upthrust of queerly shaped rock. She studied it casually until she could make out a blocky, rough-cut profile. It was as though some giant had taken an oversize ax and cut out nose and mouth and bulge of brows with three expert blows.

Janet turned to her left, still lazily indifferent, and looked up the east slope. They were there—three square, stone monuments in a line like the three bears, big and then medium and then small. Janet smiled a vague greeting at them and wondered how she knew they were where they were. She decided she would have to think about the matter some time when she was more industrious and less comfortable.

From somewhere far off there came a faint, humming buzz. It had no direction at first. It resounded in the whole limitless vault of the sky. Janet stared, shielding her eyes against the glare with a cupped hand.

The buzz deepened to a drone. It localized itself toward the north, faded away, and then swept down with redoubled strength, coming closer with incredible rapidity.

At last Janet’s eyes found it—a blurred, black dot moving across the blue of the sky. The drone blended into deep, smooth thunder, and the dot picked up stubby little crossbars on either side.

Heels made a sudden racket on the rickety steps that led up to the roof’s trapdoor, and Captain Perona popped breathlessly into sight.

“Pardon, senorita. But this is the best place… Where is it—the plane?”

Janet pointed. “There.”

The black dot heeled over and became a stubby cross as the plane swerved and dipped down toward the canyon. The heliograph flickered at it.

The engine roared in a sudden blast of power, and the plane climbed steeply and then came down over the town in a smooth, careful glide with the engine punctuating it in nervous blurps. Janet could see now that it was a short-winged, short-bodied military pursuit ship with an enormous barrel of an engine.

“Yes!” Captain Perona shouted triumphantly. “It is Enrique!”

“Who?” Janet asked.

“My brother. He is a lieutenant—a pilot. He is bringing medicine—anti-tetanus vaccine for Lieutenant Ortega. Watch! Watch now!”

The plane dipped over the plaza, very low, like a swiftly dangerous bird of prey, and blurred little blobs fell out behind it—one, two, three. They jerked and skittered in the slipstream, and then suddenly blossomed out. They were small green parachutes, and they settled down toward the ground, swaying dignifiedly, while soldiers ran and shouted under them, trying to plot their course.

The plane bored upward into the air in tight spirals.

“Your scarf!” Captain Perona begged. “Give me your scarf, please!”

Janet pulled it from her neck. “But why—”

Captain Perona jumped up on the parapet and balanced there, waving the scarf in wild circles around his head.

“He can’t see you,” Janet said.

“But, yes! He knows I am here! He will be looking!”

The plane suddenly flattened out. The stubby wings waggled up and down, reflecting the sun in dazzling streaks.

Captain Perona waltzed precariously on the parapet. “You see? That Enrique! He has eyes like a hawk!”

Janet caught one booted leg. “Come down off that parapet! You’ll fall!”

Captain Perona landed beside her breathlessly. “He saw me! Watch, now! Look!”

The plane rolled over with a sort of deadly precision and then dove straight down at them. The power was full on, and the sound deepened and bellowed until it was like a giant drum in Janet’s head. The plane came down and down like an enormous bullet, and Janet could feel her knees trembling with the vibration, and then it flipped up and away, and its black shadow touched them and was gone.

Captain Perona laughed gleefully. “That Enrique! He tried to scare us!”

“He—he did?” Janet asked, swallowing.

Captain Perona grinned. “Enrique is the best pilot in Mexico. Watch him!”

The plane found altitude incredibly fast, and now it came slanting down again, sideslipping. It went past the roof so close that Janet thought she could have reached up and touched it. It was canted over at an impossible angle, and she caught one flashing glimpse of the opened, bonnet-like glassine that covered the cockpit. The pilot was leaning out, pointing with one stiff, black-clad arm.

“Yes!” Captain Perona shouted, making wildly affirmative gestures with his arms and head. “Stand up on the parapet, senorita!”

“Wh—what?” said Janet.

“Quick! So he can see you more plainly!”

Before Janet could move, he caught her around the waist with both hands and swung her up on the parapet. Janet opened her mouth to shout, and then the plane was back again, going much faster now, but closer and lower. She swayed dizzily in the tempest of its passage, and she had an eye-wink sight of the pilot’s sinisterly helmeted head peering at her.

Captain Perona swung her down off the parapet again. “Now watch!”

The plane flipped over and roared at them, and as it went by Janet saw the pilot’s arms sticking up straight out of the cockpit. He was shaking hands with himself like the victor in a prizefight.

Captain Perona laughed. “That Enrique! He is congratulating me!”

“What for?” Janet asked dizzily.

“Because he agrees with what I said about you.”

“What you said… When did you tell him anything about me?”

“Over the military wireless—before he started on this trip.”

The plane engine growled ominously.

Janet cringed. “Please tell him to go away!”

“He is going now. See?”

The plane came over the roof, much higher, and then scooted down over the soldiers on the far side of the canyon and waggled its wings at the heliograph. It climbed very rapidly and changed back into a black dot and disappeared over the mountain.

“He would have shown us more tricks,” Captain Perona said, “only he is very busy now, and that is one of our newest pursuit ships, and he is not supposed to stunt needlessly with it. Here is your scarf, senorita. Thank you.”

“What did you tell him about me?” Janet asked suspiciously, taking the scarf.

“I told him that you were very pretty and very silly.”

“Silly!” Janet echoed.

“Oh, that is nothing personal, and besides he would know you were even if I had not told him.”

“Well, why would he?”

“He knows all about young ladies from the United States, because be went to school there.”

“Where?” Janet demanded. “What school?”

“A place called Harvard. It was very unfortunate, but we could do nothing about it,”

“Unfortunate?” Janet repeated. “Why?”

“He is the third son, you see, and we could not afford to give him a good education.”

“Good… Why, Harvard is one of the finest universities in the United States!”

“As you say—in the United States.”

Janet glared at him. “Well, where did you go to school?”

“I was very lucky. My family could afford to give me the best education. I studied in Mexico and Spain and Peru at the finest universities in the world. I know a great deal about everything, which is why I found your pretensions to learning so ridiculous.”

“Oh, you did, did you? I’ll have you know that the school system in the United States is the best there is anywhere!”

“You are mistaken.”

“I am not!”

“Then why are there so many stupid people in the United States?”

“Why are there so many stupid people here?”

“Where?” asked Captain Perona politely.

“Very—near—here!”

“You are referring to me, no doubt?” said Captain Perona.

“Yes!”

“You think I am stupid?”

“Yes!”

“You see? Now you are being silly. You do not have the capability to appreciate true learning. And it was silly of you to tell me that falsehood about your being a professor.”

“Now you look here!” said Janet. “Now you just look here! I studied nights and weekends and summers and all the rest of the time, and I have an A.B. and a M.A., and I have qualified for an associate professorship in two different colleges!”

“In what field?” Captain Perona inquired.

“Romance languages!”

Captain Perona raised his eyebrows. “Romance?”

“And it’s not what you think, either!”

“I trust not. Have you anything more to say to me at this time, senorita?”

“You just bet I have!”

“Then do you mind if I sit down, please, while I give you my full attention? I am very tired.”

“Oh,” said Janet. “Haven’t you had any sleep?”

“None,” Captain Perona admitted ruefully. “I was sitting up all the night waiting for Senorita Tracy to regain consciousness, and then at dawn I started the searching parties and laid out territories and areas for each of them to cover.”

“How is Miss Tracy?” Janet asked.

“She is all right now. She can leave the hospital this evening. The blow was painful but not serious.”

“And Mr. Lepicik?”

“When I last saw him, he was sleeping on my bed. He looked as though he were enjoying himself thoroughly.”

“I feel so sorry for him,” Janet said. “That terrible tragedy…”

“Save your sympathy for Greg,” Captain Perona advised. “I think he will need it.”

“Have you found him yet?”

“No.”

“What did Miss Tracy tell you about him?”

“It was as Timpkins suggested. She did not think my warning applied to her, and besides she is very sure of her ability to take care of herself. She went to her house to get some bedding and some clothes after dark last night. On her way back she saw Greg near the back of the hospital, and she spoke to him in the bold way she has. He struck her with a stone he was carrying.”

“But why?”

“He was waiting to sneak in the hospital, then, I think. So he could find and kill Maria before she could give evidence that he was the one who had murdered Patricia Van Osdel and attacked Maria.”

“Have you found Bautiste Bonofile?”

“No!” said Captain Perona. He made an angrily frustrated gesture. “And it is a thing that is not possible! Look, senorita. One can see the whole of this small town from this roof. Every