Puzzle of the Blue Banderilla Read Free

the middle sections of the Pullman, cards and chips strewn over the table hooked under the windows.
    And then the conductor, a tall pumpkin-faced mestizo, bent above them. “Señores, it is not permitted!” was the gist of his potpourri of Spanish-English. His words and manner were apologetic, but there was the faintest twinkle of satisfaction in his dark eyes.
    “That’s okay, we’re honored guests of the Republic,” they told him. But the conductor only shook his head. “It is not permitted,” he repeated.
    When he had gone the four card players looked at each other. Then three turned to face the fourth, a gaunt cadaverish person with a bluish chin, who reminded the inspector somehow of one of the great brown buzzards who had been hovering over the train since they wound out of Laredo fifteen minutes ago.
    He had introduced himself as Rollo Lighton, newspaperman of Mexico City. The newspaperman, he intimated. Sent up to cover the ceremonies of the opening of the Pan-American Highway.
    “Well, that’s that,” Lighton said. “It seems that the presidente has signed an edict forbidding gambling on trains. We’re over the Rio Grande now, you know …”
    So that muddy ditch had been the Rio Grande! At that moment the train stopped on the edge of nowhere with an unexpected jerk. A stack of white chips slid into the lap of the inspector, who was sitting in the corner next the window, fanning himself with a new straw sun helmet.
    “Cripes!” said that worthy gentleman in deep disgust.
    The tubby little man beside him stooped to help pick up the chips. He wore shiny black clothes, a large undented Stetson which narrowly escaped being of rodeo proportions, and an innocent and childlike smile.
    “You want to watch that hombre Hansen, pal,” advised Rollo Lighton. “I’ve heard that money and chips stick to his fingers.”
    Hansen flashed a wider smile from under the hat. “Only blue chips, friend.” He pushed the rescued stack toward their owner. “We’re stopped for customs,” he explained to the others. “When they get through the baggage we might move into your drawing room where it’s private?”
    He was addressing the alderman. Francis X. Mabie, Manhattan district leader (and devoutly wishing himself back there at the moment) turned on his warm professional smile. “We’ll see, we’ll see about that.” It was the tone he used in promising to secure a low license number, promising to fix a speeding ticket. “If Mrs. Mabie has no objections … He folded his hands comfortably across his plump facade. Alderman Mabie wore with dignity what the Chinese call “the curve of well-being.”
    “Your new frau isn’t down on poker, is she?” pressed the inspector, presuming a little on the basis of old acquaintance.
    “Feeling the heat a little, that’s all,” Mabie said. They were all feeling the heat. For three days they had been jammed in Laredo with a mob of tourists, lost in a fog of band music and oratory, sweltering in an oven of actual and figurative hot air.
    Now that the presidente of Mexico and the vice president of the United States had collaborated on the final severance of a sagging ribbon across the International Bridge, the ceremonies were over. Nothing remained except the trip to the Mexican capital as guests of the sunny southern Republic. Most of the captains and the kings had departed over the new highway via the motorcade, but there happened to be a few pessimistic dignitaries who had heard that the lovely old valley of Monterrey basked in a temperature of 115 degrees, that certain hotels in small towns along the new auto route boasted fleas as big as cockroaches and roaches big as mice. It was also pointed out that about eighty miles of the new highway, from Tamuzunchale over the very tops of the highest Sierras Madre, were still unpaved.
    These less adventurous souls had chosen the more prosaic if more dependable ferrocarril, with its highly recommended “climas artificiales.”