Miss Shumway Waves A Wand

Myra hesitated, then keeping the whisky bottle she moved back to her chair.

I snapped the bottle out of her hand as she passed. “I’ll have what’s left,” I said and took a long pull from the bottle.

Myra sat down again. “Well, we’re right where we started, aren’t we?” she said. “We’ve spent the best part of an hour listening to Samuel’s drivel about floating women.”

“Yeah,” I said. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“What I want to know,” Ansell said, sitting up, “is what happened in that hut? Did you or did you not get anything out of Quintl?”

“Of course, I didn’t,” Myra said. “I’ve told you over and over again. He put me in a hut and I went to sleep. I don’t remember a thing.”

“Well, that’s that,” I said dismally. “You can kiss your snake-bite remedy good-bye. Now Quintl’s dead no one will have it.”

“It looks like it,” Ansell said. “And yet… why was he in the hut with her? She was alone when she went to sleep, yet we find Quintl with her when we break in. There’s something behind all this.” He scratched his chin, staring at Myra with questioning eyes. “You don’t feel any different, do you?” he asked cautiously.

“You mean do I want to start floating or something like that?” Myra asked tartly. “Are you going nuts, too?”

“Maybe there’s something in what Bogle said,” Ansell went on. “Maybe he wasn’t mistaken.”

“A pair of them,” Myra said to me. “Good Lord! Put them in strait jackets.”

I stared at Ansell in alarm. “What are you getting at?”

Before he could reply a party of horsemen rode into the Square, scattering dust and breaking the stillness of the evening.

“What’s this?” Myra asked, looking over her shoulder at the dark group of horsemen. “A rodeo?”

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.