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Show yif BLACK pim- SOMBREROf WbCLIFFORD KNIGHT SEVvY 1 Elsa Chatfleld, Hollywood artist. Is disinherited dis-inherited by her Aunt Kitty, who died from an overdose of morphine. Hunt Rogers, professional sleuth, and Barry Madison, an amateur detective, r,o to Mazatlan, Mexico, to solve what they believe to be Kitty Chatfield's murder. Oa arrival, they find that Elsa'i party had preceded them by plane. During a fiesta at the ranch of Sam Chatfleld (Elsa's father), James Chcscbro Is murdered. mur-dered. Lombardo, chief of the Mexican police, questions Pedro, the pulque man, after questioning all the guests. They re-enact re-enact the prologue to the death of Chese-bro. Chese-bro. While this is going on Pedro, the star witness, makes his escape Into the mountains. CHAPTER XI "It's a nice little puzzle so far, Barry," observed Rogers. "We'll not solve It tonight probably not tomorrow. to-morrow. It can very quickly be solved If Lombardo and his man Friday will catch up with Pedro. Suppose we sleep on it." We did sleep on it, rocking gently gen-tly in our stateroom on board the Orizaba anchored In the harbor. In the light of a new day, after a leisurely lei-surely breakfast with Margaret and Dwight, at which time we spoke softly and with respect for the now murdered James Chesebro, we waited wait-ed for the launch to take us ashore. Suddenly Dwight's body stiffened. "Look! Did you see that?" he cried. "Look!" Before our eyes some hundreds of yards away a huge fish leaped clear of the water and then fell back with a great splash. "There's your marlin, darling," said Margaret sweetly, "come to play with you." "Let's go fishing now." Dwight's voice was excited. "Come on, fellows." fel-lows." "Sorry," said Rogers. "I'd planned some other things about Chesebro's slayer." "Well, eo on, then; the launch Is waiting for you. As soon as it's back I'm going after that fellow. Hunting me up, is he? Wanting to - play with me?" said Dwight as Rogers Rog-ers and I went down the ladder. We landed at the wharf, found one of those ancient two-wheeled aranas like the one Elsa had ridden in that first day, climbed in and set off. ' "It's probably like hunting for the needle in the haystack, Barry," he remarked, after an extended conversation con-versation with the driver which explored ex-plored the fellow's acquaintances among the pulque sellers. At first the driver, a sleepy-eyed fellow with a bushy mustache, had not been able to comprehend why we should search for a pulque seller when liquor liq-uor of many kinds was easily obtainable ob-tainable almost anywhere. When he realized, however, that we were looking for a particular dealer in pulque, he believed that he knew several Pedros. And so we started out. We stopped at one thatched hut which our driver said was the home of Pedro, the pulque seller. But the man who answered Rogers' summons sum-mons was fat and small, with a smile that was well nigh Irresistible. Did we wish to buy pulque? He Indicated In-dicated a nearby contrivance which was just a frame on wheels with holes for the brown clay jars. No, we did not We sought Pedro, the pulque seller, who was a thin man with small eyes. He knew such a man farther down the street, and counted the houses for us and bade us a courteous good 'morning. But the second Pedro was not our pulque man, either. At last our dispirited horse pulled up with a sigh before a thatched hut near the end of the street. A small shy woman came to the door when Rogers knocked. "Does Pedro, the pulque seller, live here, senora?" Rogers inquired In Spanish. "Yes, sir," the woman replied hesitantly, hes-itantly, a frightened look In her deep, dark eyes. "Is he Pedro, the pulque seller, who last evening went to deliver pulque at the rancho of Senor Chat-fleld?" Chat-fleld?" "Yes, sir." "May we speak with Pedro, tenor te-nor a?" inquired Rogers, smiling. The woman shook her head vaguely. vague-ly. Finally she said: "He Is not at home, sir." "Wnere can I nnd him?" "He ia away, sir." 'When will he return?" The woman shook her bead and did not reply. "He Is away, sir," she repeated. We were getting nowhere. Rogers Rog-ers suddenly looked up at the little tre en parrot overhead, held up a forefinger invitingly against the green breast and the parrot prompt ly climbed on and was lowered to the level of our eyes. "What is he called, senora?" Rogers Rog-ers asked. , "He is called Pepe, sir." ' ' "He is not a young bird, senora, the yellow patch of feathers on his head is large. It is, like gray hair with us, a sign of age." "Yes. sir; he Is very old." "Did your husband return home last night from his trip to the rancho of Senor Chatfleld?" "Briefly, sir; and then made haste to depart." "Did he go far, senora?" "To the mountains, sir," she replied, re-plied, with a gesture that indicated the distant range. "And he will return soon?" , The woman shook her head. "He is away, sir. I do not know when he will return." . A man was lurking inside the house as we talked. Just beyond our view. I had heard him and so had Rogers. At last overcome by curiosity curi-osity he appeared suddenly behind the woman in the doorway. It was not, however, Pedro as I suspected, but a man whose face was familiar. Rogers glanced at him, "Good morning," he said and smiled. The man returned the greeting greet-ing hesitantly. "My brother, Jose," the woman said, "And did the old dog die, senor?" inquired Rogers. I recognized then the Individual who the morning of Elsa's attack on Chesebro was putting put-ting to death with chloroform an old dog near the stables. "Oh, yes, sir. Quickly, as you said he would." "Senor," began Rogers, "the chloroform tell me again who gave it to you." "Senora Chatfleld, sir." "Senora Chatfleld?" "Yes. She of the golden hair" Rogers suddenly elevated Pepe to the thatch of the roof where with a flutter of wings and wildly clutching feet he re-established himself, wheeled about to stare down at us with his wicked little eyes and ut- "What is he called, senora?" ter a squawk of pleasure. We prepared pre-pared to take our departure; Rogers bowed and smiled. "I wish your husband a safe journey, jour-ney, senora, and a speedy return," he said, and we withdrew to our arana, tagged by the still silent children, chil-dren, while the pulque seller's wife stood in the doorway of the hut to observe our departure. We had jogged along for some distance dis-tance in the direction of the business busi-ness district when I remarked, "Some grist for the mill there." "Yes, Barry. There is confirmation confirma-tion of the conclusion we reached last night. Pedro ran out on us at Sam Chatfleld's, hurried home, remained re-mained briefly and then fled to the mountains for an indefinite stay. He carried with him the belief that he not only saw the murderer of Chesebro, Chese-bro, but can identify him. He fears the consequences if he is made to identify him." "You're right, of course," I sighed. "But where does that leave us. Hunt?" "It leaves us with a simple explanation ex-planation of the crime when Pedro is captured and returned to Mazatlan. Mazat-lan. To the jefe del policla, Senor Otilio Lombardo, will fall the honor of solving the murder of Kitty Chat-field, Chat-field, as well as that of Chesebro, when his men bring in Pedro." "But there's no evidence that the two were done by the same hand." "No," admitted" Rogers, as we drove along the shady streets, "there is no evidence of it; there's only a hunch on my part, and a very, very faint hunch at that. Perhaps Per-haps no more than a wish that it be so. Simplify things enormously, wouldn't it. Barry?" he said, looking look-ing at me with a twinkle in his mild blue eyes. "Let's go and talk with Lombardo and urge upon him our belief, and perhaps spur him on to greater effort in bringing back Pedro." He turned to the driver and said in Spanish: "Senor, take us, please, to the police station." Rogers asked for Lombardo at a small desk, and the courteous occupant occu-pant assured us that we should see the jefe at once. But it was some ten minutes before we were shown into a small room where Lombardo sat alone. "We came," Rogers said slowly, "only to offer what help you think we can give toward the solution of the murder of our friend, James Chesebro." "That is very kind of you, gentlemen." "Our opinion, reached after considerable con-siderable reflection, senor, is that it is vital to capture Pedro, the pulque seller, who fled last night when we were about to require him to identify the slayer." "Yes, of course," was the laconic response. "Undoubtedly Pedro knows who the slayer is." "I believe so, gentlemen." "We understand that he fled last night to the mountains." "Ah, so?" Lombardo's eyebrows shot upward. "You know that too?" "Yes, from the man's wife. You. of course, have questioned her?" "Of a certainty, senor. Already the order has been given to bring the man back from the mountains." "It would be helpful, gentlemen," he said carefully, "if you could pro- vide us with additional motives to be put with those we already have when it comes to the trial." "You " he began hesitantly. "Is it possible you have reached a decision, de-cision, senor?" "We have made the arrest, this morning. The murderer is now in custody, gentlemen. I would appreciate appre-ciate it if you could supply, perhaps, additional motives, although what we have are ample, I am sure." We both were silent, stunned a little at this announcement of an ar- rest in the case so early, before even Pedro had been returned to j Mazatlan. "May we ask, senor" began Rogers. "Of course," Lombardo replied, his white even teeth showing in a magnificent smile. "I have arrested arrest-ed Senor Reed Barton" "Barton!" I exclaimed. "Yes, Senor Madison. It was not difficult to discover the fact that he is guilty. There was the testimony of Pedro last night; not testimony in so many words, gentlemen, but by his actions. He was terrified of having hav-ing to identify the murderer who was at the moment re-enacting the role before our eyes." "But" Rogers attempted to protest pro-test Lombardo ignored the effort courteously and with the same magnificent mag-nificent smile. "Moreover, senores, yesterday Senor Se-nor Barton and Senor Chesebro quarreled violently in the office of the mining company. Senor Barton was discharged; there were threats exchanged. The quarrel was over Senorita Chatfleld. All this has been told us by Senor Costillo, the clerk in the office, who was a witness." Reed Barton was sitting in his cell smoking a cigarette with the air of one upon whom has descended a vast and philosophic calm. His dark blue eyes indicated that there had been no strain, no loss of sleep. His handclasp through the bars of his cell was vigorous and warm, and he looked at us with a faint expression expres-sion of amusement at our concern for his predicament. "I didn't dream, Reed," I said, "when we parted at Sam Chatfleld'a last night; that we would find you here this morning." "Neither did I, Barry. Mexico not only is a land of romance, but, in the threadbare observation, anything can happen in it" "And does, apparently," remarked re-marked Huntoon Rogers, a wry twist to his lips. "I'm sorry that this has happened, Reed. It is much too soon to make an arrest." We spoke in English, to which the guard lounging near by paid no attention. . , - - "When were you arrested, Reed?" I inquired. "At the very moment when I was sleeping my best, just before sunrise. sun-rise. They came knocking on my door, made me dress and brought me here." "But they haven't anything in the way of evidence that a good attorney attor-ney couldn't shoot holes through at least back home it would be so," I said. Reed cocked his head and looked at me. "This is different Barry," he remarked. "I don't know what they've got. Except for one thing the police picked up a paper knife in my room while I was dressing. It seemed to have its effect." "Yes, it was a small, thin-bladed weapon that killed Chesebro. But there's more than that of course," Rogers explained. "Lombardo seems to have been swayed a great deal by what a clerk in your office told about you and Chesebro quarreling." quar-reling." "Costillo?" said Reed. "He would, of course. We did have quite a go the Chief and I. I guess I told you about it, Barry. We unloaded everything every-thing we had been storing up for each other for several months. Chiefly concerning Elsa, you know; but even if I do say it he rather started talking about Elsa. Down here, of course, things like that amount to fighting words." Steps along the corridor interrupted interrupt-ed our conversation;- the guard sat more erect in his chair and shot a glance at us as if he meditated bringing our conference to a. halt. Walking rapidly around the corner came the short rather thick figure of Sam Chatfleld. He saw us standing stand-ing outside Reed Barton's cell and came directly toward us, a smile lighting his rather serious face. i (TO BE CONTINUED) |