Jeopardy Is My Job. Marlowe Stephen
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Название: Jeopardy Is My Job
Автор: Marlowe Stephen
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Зарубежные детективы
isbn: 9781479429493
isbn:
“Not me.”
“You were seen driving off with him.”
“I stood up and said, “Hey, wait a minute.”
“Facts, Mr. Drum, are facts,” Sergeant Martinez said blandly but wistfully. “Why dispute them? Do you still insist Mr. Huntington was dead before the crash?”
“Keep talking,” I said.
“Because if he was, and if you were seen with him in Fuengirola earlier, and if indeed the night before you were seen with his wife on the terrace of La Atalaya in Torremolinos, and if she is a woman known to—well, if she were Spanish and a Catholic she would have much to confess to her padre—”
“Spell it out,” I said.
“If Huntington were dead before the crash, if he were murdered instead of the unfortunate victim of an automobile accident, if anyone wants to stubbornly insist he had been murdered, we need look no further than this room for our suspect.” Martinez said all that to the window. He turned on me to ask, “What were you doing at the cave of Fuentes?”
“Governor Hartshorn of Maryland sent me here to find his son.”
“In the cave of Fuentes?”
“In orbit around the moon if that’s where he happens to be.”
“We of the Guardia Civil will find the missing man. That,” Martinez said stiffly, “is our job.”
“Like getting to the bottom of a murder is your job?”
“Like investigating an accident is our job.” Martinez snickered, managing to make that sound wistful too. “You American tourists. Spain, the land of mystery. Our Moorish blood, the mountains everywhere on a landscape whose bones protrude like those of dead prehistoric animals, the gypsies, the forlorn wail of a flamenco and the brave bulls feeding the poor after their moment of truth on the sand of the arena. Please, Mr. Drum. Things happen here much as they happen in your country. Accidents too. Will you be content with that?”
I said nothing.
“What led you to the cave of Fuentes?”
“The last anyone knew, Hartshorn was on his way to see Ruy Fuentes.”
“Why, Mr. Drum?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Very well, don’t. After all it is as I have said. You are no detective here, but only a tourist.”
“Yeah, I know. And I was involved in a messy car accident and my driving companion died and if I’m a good boy you might let me stay in Spain a while longer—say, long enough to pack my bag.”
Martinez looked hurt. “But no, Mr. Drum. Either you insist foolishly it was murder, and for example see my superiors in Malaga, in which case we investigate you and everything about you and probably have you followed and possibly have you denounced; or you recognize an accident when you see one, as a witness who incidentally was not even in the car, and you are perfectly free to enjoy Spain however you wish. The choice is yours.”
“If I do it your way?”
“I told you. You are free to enjoy Spain. But then in all truth I would strongly urge you not to return to the cave of Fuentes.”
I didn’t ask why. I thought I knew why. He smiled wistfully and I smiled, not wistfully, and said, “Okay, I won’t go jousting with any windmills.”
“You know our literature?” he asked, pleased. “Then perhaps you know The Four Horsemen as well? War, plague, famine and death? Spain is a hard land, Mr. Drum, and of the four horsemen in the end it is only one that matters: death. But of course, death no longer matters to its victim. Keep that in mind: death no longer matters to its victim.”
“You mean regarding Huntington?”
“Regarding all the world. It is a truth we of Spain understand.”
I was impressed. I have been threatened with guns, knives, forty-watters, blunt instruments and cement boots, but that was the most erudite threat I’d ever received. He had me, though, and the threat wasn’t necessary. If I made noises about murder, I could be kept on ice until the bureaucratic wheels went around and around, or maybe regarded as a suspect in the frame he’d started to nail into place before we’d even met. Either way, the best I could hope for was a one-way ticket from Malaga to Madrid and from Madrid to points west. That wouldn’t help Huntington; Martinez was right: nothing would help him. But that wouldn’t find Robbie Hartshorn either.
“Pues, señor?” Martinez demanded. “Lo que digo o lo que Vd. dice?”
“Huh?” I said innocently. “I’m sorry. I don’t have enough Spainsh to read a menu.”
“A pity. I asked: your way or mine?”
I said, “It was an accident, sergeant.”
“I’m delighted to hear that, Mr. Drum. I like you, but I hope we never have to meet again. You understand?”
I said I understood. I didn’t say it was inevitable that we’d meet again, but that was what I thought.
“Adiós, Mr. Drum.”
I told him to give my regards to Sancho Panza. He laughed wistfully.
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