The Mouse in the Mountain by Norbert Davis (detective books to read TXT) đź“•
"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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“Mr. Doan,” said Janet, “did you get your message off all right?”
“Yes, thanks,” Doan told her. “My little girls will get a great kick out of it.”
“How old are they?”
“Five and seven and nine. Two brunettes and a blonde.”
“What color is your wife’s hair?”
“It changes. It’s red now.”
“Hi-yo, Silver!” Mortimer yelled. He came galloping in through the front door. He had strapped the spurs on over his tennis shoes, and he had to run both bowlegged and pigeon-toed to keep from tripping over them. He had stuffed paper in the band of the sombrero, and it waggled precariously on his head, the enormous brim extending far out beyond his puny shoulders.
“Whoa, Silver,” he commanded belligerently, prancing and kicking out with the spurs. He had a braided leather quirt in his hand, and he slashed furiously at the air around him.
“Where’d you get that whip?” Henshaw demanded.
“Just picked it up,” Mortimer answered.
“Well, you just pick it back again. Do you wanna get me shot or something, you little rummy?”
“Go dive for a pearl,” Mortimer invited. He pranced over to Doan. “Hey, puffy, can I ride the flea-trap?”
“Carstairs?” Doan asked. “Oh, sure. Go right ahead, Mortimer.”
Mortimer straddled the sleeping Carstairs. “Get up!” he yelled, punching Carstairs with the quirt.
Carstairs got up—and fast. Mortimer did a neat back-flip in the air and landed flat on his face on the floor. Carstairs sat down on him.
“I figured that would be it,” said Doan.
Mortimer yelled in a choked, wheezing gasp. Mrs. Henshaw screamed and ran for him. One of Mortimer’s arms stuck out from under Carstairs, and she grabbed that and tugged with all her might.
“Get off, Carstairs,” Doan said. “You’ll squash the little dope.”
Carstairs looked interested but not cooperative. Doan sighed and got up. He took hold of Carstairs’ spiked collar and heaved. Mrs. Henshaw pulled at Mortimer. Nothing happened.
“Quit it, Carstairs,” Doan ordered. He spat on his hands, took a new grip on the collar, and heaved back with all his might.
Carstairs stood up. Doan sat down hard, and so did Mrs. Henshaw. Mortimer’s face was blue, and his mouth was wide open, and his eyes were popped like grapes. He drew in his breath in a strangled gulp and promptly let it go again.
“Yeow! Maw!”
Mrs. Henshaw blubbered over him. “Mama’s poor, poor baby! Don’t you cry! We’ll have the soldiers shoot the nasty, dirty, old dog!”
“The hell we will,” said Henshaw. “We’ll buy him a medal or a beefsteak or something.”
Doan got up and brushed himself off tenderly. “Damn you,” he said to Carstairs. “That floor has got slivers in it.”
Carstairs yawned and walked to the door. He stood there looking back over his shoulder at Doan.
“Well, go on out,” Doan said. “The soldiers are gone now. Nobody will stop you.”
Carstairs mumbled deep in his throat.
“Listen,” said Doan, “you’re a big dog now. You can go out and attend to your private affairs without me supervising you or them.”
Carstairs barked once and made the kerosene lamp jump and jingle on its chain.
“All right,” Doan said. “All right!” He went to the door and bunted Carstairs in the rear with his knee. “Get going then, stupid.”
Mortimer sat up and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
Mrs. Henshaw dabbed and cooed at him in her worried, futile way.
Timpkins opened the kitchen door. “What’s all this noise, now? I ain’t gonna have no riots in my hotel!”
“Timpkins,” said Henshaw quickly, “I didn’t know you were from Canada. That’s a beautiful country, and I’ve always admired it. I went across from Niagara Falls, and that reminds me of our new waterfall flushing system. If you’ll just sit down I’ll explain—”
“Naw!” said Timpkins, and slammed the door.
“He’s weakening,” Henshaw said in a satisfied tone. “I’ll get him.”
Running footsteps made a crisply angry tattoo on the paving outside, and Captain Perona burst through the door.
“Where is he?” he demanded. “Where is that Doan?”
“He just stepped out a second ago to walk his dog,” Janet answered. “What’s the matter?”
Captain Perona had a slip of yellow paper in his hand, and he waved it in front of her face. “Look! Look at this!”
Janet caught at the paper. “It’s a message addressed to Mr. Doan.”
“Read it!” Captain Perona snarled.
The message was printed in block letters in pencil, evidently just as the military wireless operator had taken it down. It said in English:
WHY THE PIG LATIN IT TOOK ME AN HOUR TO FIGURE OUT YOU WERENT DRUNK AND DROOLING BUT YOU HIT THE JACKPOT ALL RIGHT I CALLED VAN OSDEL LAWYERS AND THEY HAD NO IDEA THAT PATRICIAS DEATH WAS MURDER AND HIRED US AT ONCE AT FLAT RATE WITH BONUS IF SOLVED AND OPTION ALL FUTURE FLY GOO BUSINESS CONGRATULATIONS AND HIT THIS ONE HARD WITH NO SHARP SHOOTING OR CHISELING.
The signature, written out in the same block letters, was:
A. TRUEGOLD PRESIDENT SEVERN INTERNATIONAL DETECTIVES.
Janet looked up. “But—but what—”
“Children!” Captain Perona exploded. “Pig’s Latin! That criminal sent a message to his detective agency and got them hired to solve the murder of Patricia Van Osdel!”
“How could he have done that?”
“The names of his children are nothing but a code address—an accommodation address! As soon as the message was received there, it was sent to the agency!”
“But your operator—”
“He understands and reads English, but not well. And Doan deceived him. He gave the operator the message a word at a time, constantly correcting and changing it, until the operator was confused. Doan showed him how to transpose the words, or pretended to, but the operator could not do that in a strange language and send them with corrections all at once.”
“Doesn’t Doan have any children?”
“No! He is not even married!”
“Why, he—he told me—”
“Yes!” Captain Perona agreed fiercely. “He told you! And you told me! You, if you recall, begged me to let him reassure his family! You!”
“Well, I didn’t know—”
Captain Perona leaned close to her. “Senorita, the number of things you do not know constantly amazes me!”
“Is that so?”
“Yes! After this kindly keep your ignorance to yourself and cease annoying me!”
Captain Perona whirled around and ran out the door.
“Acts like he was mad or something,” Henshaw observed.
“He is,” Janet agreed. “And I really don’t blame him.” She started for the door.
“Where you going?” Henshaw asked.
“I’m just tired of people!” Janet said. “I’m going to talk to a stone image!”
“There are sure a lot of whacks around this joint,” Henshaw observed. “I hope it ain’t catching.”
DOAN AND CARSTAIRS WERE ON A NARROW LITTLE street high on the mountainside above the main part of the town. They had arrived there by easy stages, wandering back and forth aimlessly among the crooked lanes, and now Doan stopped and gazed curiously at a ten-foot wall with broken glass making a faint, sinister glimmer along its top. The wall ran for a good hundred yards along the street. There were some fresh cracks in it, mementos of the earthquake, but it still looked formidably solid.
“Hoo!” said a voice suddenly.
Doan looked around and saw a little boy about ten feet behind him.
“Beeg,” said the little boy, pointing at Carstairs. He grinned at Doan. He had three front teeth missing.
“Big and dumb,” Doan agreed. “Haven’t I seen you before somewhere?”
“Gimme dime.”
“I thought so.” Doan took a dime out of his pocket and held it up. “But let’s you earn it this time. Ever hear of a guy named Predilip?”
“Ah?”
“An artist named Predilip.”
The little boy nodded triumphantly. “Boo yet.”
“Boo yet,” Doan repeated thoughtfully. “Boo yet… You bet?”
The little boy nodded again. “Boo yet.”
“Have it your way, then. Where did he live?”
The little boy made flapping motions with his arms and rolled his eyes piously skyward.
“Flying,” said Doan. “Up. Angel? in heaven?”
“Boo yet.”
“I know he’s dead,” said Doan. “Where did he live before he got dead?”
“Live?”
“Home. House. Shack. Domicile.”
“Los Altos.”
Doan sighed. “I know he lived in Los Altos. But where?”
“Los Altos.”
“Okay,” said Doan. “Did you ever see any of his paintings?”
“Ah?”
“Paintings. Pictures.”
The little boy looked around cautiously. “You wanna buy feelthy picture?”
“No!”
“My uncle, he sell. Very good. Very joocy. Oooh, my!”
“I don’t want to buy any dirty pictures. I’m talking about an artist named Predilip.”
“Gimme dime.”
Doan gave him the dime.
“Denk goo,” said the little boy, putting the dime carefully in his shirt pocket. He spun around like a top and ran headlong down the street.
“Hey, you!” Doan called. “Wait a minute! What’s behind this wall here?”
The little boy shrilled over his shoulder._ “Casa del Coronel Callao! Muy malo!“_
“I got part of that, anyway,” Doan said to Carstairs. “It seems that our pal, Colonel Callao, lives back of this Maginot Line somewhere. Let’s go have a chat with him.”
THE WEST SLOPE ABOVE LOS ALTOS WAS MUCH steeper than it looked from the safe distance of the hotel roof, and Janet began to regret her impulse to climb it before she was halfway to the rock-face. The tough, stunted brush tore at her skirt with stubborn, clinging fingers, and there was no breeze to disturb the gleeful jiggle of the heat waves.
A loose pebble got into her shoe, and she had to stop and shake it out. She breathed deeply, and the air was so thin and hot in her lungs that it was not refreshing at all. She almost gave it up then, but she thought of Captain Perona and Doan and his three nonexistent children and man’s deceit to woman in general and put her head down and plodded on.
She reached the stone face at last and leaned against it, puffing. The rock pedestal, too, was much larger than it had seemed from the hotel. She looked despairingly up at the overhang that marked its brows, and then she found a series of weatherworn niches on one side.
She climbed up laboriously, flattened against the rock, fingers clutching frantically at the warm, rough stone, until her face was even with the brow. Now all she had to do was to turn around and look in the direction the stone face was looking. That wasn’t easy. It took her ten minutes and a broken fingernail, and her neck began to ache abominably.
Finally she got the angle. The stone face was looking at the east slope, and Janet did, too, sighting professionally with one eye squinted shut. Miraculously the three pillars lined up for her—the big one, the medium one, and the small one. Their tops made a neat, down-slanting diagonal.
Janet sighted and calculated and figured, trying to fix the point where the line of that diagonal would hit the slope on beyond the three pillars. She thought she had it finally, and she crawled down the pedestal again and started to work her way across the slope.
The heat seemed to have redoubled, and the warmth of the sun was a sharp-edged weight against the back of her neck. Her mouth felt like it was full of absorbent cotton.
She reached the three pedestals and went on grimly past them. A stubby bush tore a jagged rip in her skirt and left a red, angry mark on the calf of her leg. She stopped and stamped her foot and swore, but she kept her eyes pinned on the spot she had marked ahead.
And then, when she got there, she found she wasn’t any place. The spot looked just like the rest of the slope even
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