James Chase - Miss Shumway Waves a Wand

I sat up in alarm. One of the horsemen was immensely tall and fat. That was enough for me.

“Quick, Doc,” I said. “Get inside and phone for the Federal troops. These guys are bandits.”

Ansell stiffened in alarm. “What do you mean?” he asked, sitting like a paralysed rabbit.

“Okay, okay, stay where you are. They’ve seen us.”

Myra looked at me blankly. “What are you talking about?”

“Hornets, my pet,” I said grimly, and she caught her breath in a little gasp.

From the group of sixteen men, three detached themselves and walked towards the verandah steps. The others remained with the horses, watching. One of the three men was immensely fat and tall. He walked just ahead of the other two. He came up the verandah steps that creaked under his weight.

It was the fat party we had met on the mountain road and he had a mean look on his dark greasy face as he stood under the lamp, looking at us. Particularly he looked at Myra. Then he took out a pale silk handkerchief and blew his nose. While he was doing this, his eyes remained on Myra’s face.

Myra eyed him up and down. She was in no way disturbed to meet him again.

“Haven’t we seen that fat boy before?” Myra said to me.

The fat party moved a little nearer. His companions remained in the shadows.

Bogle, suddenly feeling the hostile atmosphere, decided that he ought to assert himself.

“Lookin’ for anyone, pal?”

The fat party felt in his pocket. “Somewhere I had a very interesting notice,” he said.

“Now, where did I put it?” He fumbled again, frowning slightly.

“Try your paunch,” Myra said, lighting a cigarette and flipping the match into the darkness. I tapped her arm. “Would you mind keeping quiet?” I said pleadingly. “It’s not much to ask in these days of acute crisis.”

The fat man pulled out a crumpled newspaper and began smoothing it between his great hands. He peered at it and then at Myra. Then his face lit up and he actually smiled. It didn’t reassure me. You know how it would be if you met a snake and it smiled at you, it wouldn’t reassure you.

“Yes,” he said, “here it is. Very interesting. Very interesting indeed.”

“He seems happy enough talking to himself,” Myra said, yawning. “Don’t you think we can go to bed?”

“I have a sneaking idea that before very long we’ll get involved in his monologue,” I said helplessly. “I think we ought to be as cautious as possible.”

Bogle blinked at the fat party, muttered to himself and then eased his great muscles. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Who’s this guy, anyway?”

“I am Pablo,” the fat party returned with a furtive look at Myra. “You are strangers to this country, you would not know me.”

Ansell started as if he’d been stung.

“Pablo,” Myra repeated. “Sounds like something to rub on your chest.”

The fat party smiled again. “The little man has heard of me. Is it not so, seńor?”

I’d heard of him, too, and when Ansell said “Yes” very feebly, I sympathized with him.

“Then tell your friends who I am,” Pablo went on. “Tell them that Pancho Villa and Zapata finished where I began. Tell them about my fortress in the mountains and of the men that have been bricked up in its walls. Tell them of the excellent fellows that work under me, and of the trains we have dynamited. Come, seńor, where is your tongue?”

Ansell looked round at us and nodded his head. “That’s the boy,” he said nervously.

“If Samuel will play the harmonica, we’ll give him a civic reception,” Myra said lightly.

“After which he’ll be presented with a little flag and a string beg to keep his silly looking hat in and then, with luck, we’ll all go to bed.”

I felt she wasn’t being exactly helpful.

Pablo played with his handkerchief. “It is Myra Shumway… that is the name, yes?”

“Fame at last,” Myra said, a little surprised. “How are you, Doctor Livingstone?”

“And you, seńor, Ross Millan?”

Bogle sat up. “I’m Sam Bogle,” he said. “Please to meet you.”

“Shut your mouth, you dog,” Pablo said, his eyes boring holes into Bogle, “or I will cut your tongue out.”

Bogle gaped at him. “Well, I’ll be…!” he gasped.

I kicked his chin under the table and told him to take it easy.

Pablo wandered over to the table, drew up a chair and sat down near Myra. He moved very lightly for his bulk.

Myra drew away from him.

“There is much to talk about,” he said, reaching for the jar of wine that stood on the table. He poured the sour red wine into Myra’s glass, then held the glass up to the light of the lamp.

“Your pretty mouth leaves marks,” he said smiling at Myra. “Your kisses could be dangerous,” and he shook with a spasm of laughter.

“Mind you don’t bust your corset,” Myra said, alarmed.

Pablo crushed the glass in his hand. The wine and glass splinters spattered the table. Bogle half started from his chair, but I again touched him under the table. I could have smacked Myra. Either she was being the dumbest of all blondes or else she had more guts than I and the rest of us put together. Whichever way it was, she was making things bad for us all.

The men in the Square made a move forward. Several of them dropped their hands to their gun butts.

Pablo wiped his hand on his handkerchief and looked with interest at the cut on his palm.

“That was careless of me,” he said, looking at Myra.

“Don’t apologize,” Myra returned. “I had a cousin who was also a mental defective. He had to have cast-iron feeding utensils. I dare say I could arrange the same thing for you at a cut rate.”

“When my women are insolent,” Pablo said dreamily, “I peg them out in the hot sun on an ant-hill.”

Myra twisted round, facing him. “But, I’m not your woman, fat boy,” she said. “You can take your little bandits out of here and feed them through a sausage machine.”

I said quickly: “Don’t mind her. That’s just her sense of humour.”

Pablo wrapped his handkerchief round his hand. “Very interesting sense of humour. If my woman talks like that I cut her tongue out. She loses her sense of humour very quick then.”

I felt it was time to take a more active part in the conversation. “Tell me, seńor, is there something particular that you wish to discuss with us?” I asked, offering him a cigarette from my case.

“Yes,” he said, waving away the cigarette. “Something very important” He picked up the newspaper which he had dropped on the floor. I recognized the Recorder. “You will see why I am interested in the seńorita,” and he spread the newspaper on the table.

I knew what was coming, but even then I hardly dared to look at the splash headlines that were smeared across the front page. Somehow, this thug had got hold of the issue containing Maddox’s story of the kidnapped blonde. There was a big shot of Myra and in the biggest type of all was the announcement about the 25,000-dollars reward.

“Brother,’ I thought. “Have you got to be smart to talk yourself out of this?’

Before I could stop her, Myra had snatched up the paper, while Bogle and Ansell crowded round her.

“That’s quite a good likeness of you they’ve got there,” I said carelessly. “I always thought the Recorder was unreliable, but this is the end. Kidnapped by bandits indeed. That is a laugh.”

Myra looked at me over the top of the paper. There was a disagreeable look in her eye.

“Isn’t it?” she said, between her teeth. “I’m suffocating with mirth.”

There was a long silence while the three of them went through the article, then Myra folded the paper with slow deliberation and put it on the table.