Puzzle of the Blue Banderilla Read Free Page A

But the cooling system was not yet making any appreciable difference in the dusty heat of the cars, nor did the view of Nuevo Laredo’s backyards serve to inspire anyone.
    “Those customs boys are taking hell’s own time to get through this train,” Hansen observed, looking at a large timepiece of yellow gold. “Anyway, aren’t we supposed to receive the courtesy of diplomatic immunity, or whatever it is?” Alderman Mabie demanded.
    Lighton rasped his dark chin with a long curved fingernail. “This is just like any other train,” he pointed out. “You should have gone on the motorcade if you wanted fanfares and salutes. Anyway, don’t worry about customs here. With my drag …”
    “Don’t tell me anything about customs,” Al Hansen put in, pushing his Stetson over one eye. “Say, I once got three bullets through my hide—right there it was too—from these customs boys. Just because I was trying to deliver some goods to a customer of mine south of the river …”
    “What sort of goods?” the alderman asked, to fill in the pause.
    “Machine guns, for Pancho Villa,” Hansen enlightened them. “It was in the spring of 1913, and I had the guns disguised in beer casks, only I forgot to wet the outside of the casks—”
    “I’m too dry to listen,” the alderman cut in. “Right now I’d like some of this Mexican beer we’ve heard so much about. But it doesn’t seem to be any use punching this bell …”
    It wasn’t much use. Somewhere else a bell was being rung again and again, so that sharp staccato buzzes came from the porter’s closet.
    “Portero!” called Lighton hoarsely. Nothing happened.
    “PORTER!” Hansen’s voice was like a foghorn. A baby down the aisle began to whimper softly, and the old couple from Peoria who wore Texas Centennial hatbands awakened and looked hopefully around for signs of bandits.
    Somewhere a door opened, slammed again, and then the porter went past the four men at a jog trot. His swarthy Indian face was impassive as ever, but he seemed to have difficulty in speaking. As he passed he spewed a few words in Spanish over his shoulder and then disappeared toward the front of the car.
    Rollo Lighton’s jaw dropped open, showing yellow snags of teeth. “He says something about the lady in the drawing room!” he gasped.
    “Something that sounded like ‘muerte’ ,” chimed in Hansen. “I know damned little Spanish, but I know that …”
    They all tried to stand up at once, struggling out of the cramped seats. Oddly enough it was the quiet little Irishman next to the window who was first into the aisle, somehow gaining stature as he elbowed the others out of his way. The straw sun helmet rolled forgotten under the seat as Oscar Piper, veteran inspector of the Homicide Division, New York City Police, galloped forward like an old fire horse at the clanging of a three-alarm.
    Up until this moment his much-anticipated share in the junket of the New York Democratic delegation had turned out to be one unutterable bore, but now, if only “muerte” meant what it sounded like …
    Down the aisle, along the narrow washroom corridor, to the door of Drawing Room A. Piper threw it open, then drew sharply back, barring the doorway with his arm to the others. He sniffed, frowning.
    “Don’t go in there!” he ordered. “Let it clear!”
    His keen gray eyes, professionally trained to notice everything, snapped a picture of that Pullman drawing room, a picture in such clear focus that he could have described it under oath in court a year later.
    A little room, crowded with much-labeled luggage, a room with two bodies on the floor.
    The man was in the dull-gray uniform of a customs examiner for the Republic. His boyishly lean face was of an unearthly ashen-gray color now, and he was staring at the ceiling with wide bloodshot eyes. He looked pitiful and faintly comic, all akimbo as he was—like a dropped and forgotten marionette.
    Piper knelt beside him, looked up with a deep