The Flanders Panel

He had discreetly interrogated the porter in the building opposite, whom he knew by sight. From him, Cesar had found out a few useful facts. For example, around twelve, just when he was finishing sweeping the hallway, the porter had seen a tall young man, his hair in a ponytail, come out of the front door of Julia’s building and walk up the street to a car parked by the kerb. Shortly afterwards – and Cesar’s voice grew hoarse with sheer excitement, as it did when he was recounting some high-class bit of social tittle-tattle – perhaps half an hour later, when the porter was taking in the rubbish bin, he’d passed a blonde woman wearing dark glasses and a raincoat. Cesar lowered his voice as he said this, looking around apprehensively, as if the woman might be sitting at one of the nearby tables. The porter, it seems, didn’t get a good look at her because she was walking up the street, in the same direction as the young man. Nor could he say with certainty that the woman had come out of Julia’s front door. He’d simply turned round with the rubbish bin in his hand and there she was. No, he hadn’t told the policemen who questioned him that morning because they hadn’t asked him about that. He wouldn’t have thought of it, the porter confessed, scratching his head, if Don Cesar hadn’t asked him. No, he didn’t notice if she was carrying a large package. He’d just seen a blonde woman walking along the street. And that was that.

“The street,” said Munoz, “is full of blonde women.”

“All wearing dark glasses and a raincoat?” commented Julia. “It could have been Lola Belmonte. I was with Don Manuel at the time. And neither she nor her husband was at home.”

“No,” said Munoz, “by midday you were already with me, at the chess club. We walked for about an hour and got to your apartment about one o’clock.” He looked at Cesar, whose eyes responded with a flicker of mutual intelligence that did not go unnoticed by Julia. “If the murderer was waiting for you, he must have had to change his plans when you didn’t turn up. So he took the painting and left. Perhaps that saved your life.”

“Why did he kill Menchu?”

“Perhaps he wasn’t expecting to find her there and eliminated her as an inconvenient witness,” Munoz said. “The move he’d planned might not have been queen takes rook. It’s possible it was all a brilliant improvisation.”

Cesar raised a shocked eyebrow.

“Calling it ‘brilliant’ is a bit much, my dear.”

“Call it what you like. Changing the move like that, on the spur of the moment, coming up with an instant variant appropriate to the situation and placing the card with the corresponding notation next to the body…” The chess player reflected on this. “I had a chance to have a look at it. The note was even typed, on Julia’s Olivetti, according to Feijoo. And there were no fingerprints. Whoever did it acted with great calm, but also with speed and efficiency. Like a machine.”

Julia suddenly remembered Munoz, hours before, while they waited for the police to come, kneeling by Menchu’s corpse, not touching anything and saying nothing, studying the murderer’s visiting card as coolly as if he were sitting before a chessboard at the Capablanca Club.

“I still don’t understand why Menchu opened the door.”

“Because she thought it was Max,” suggested Cesar.

“No,” said Munoz. “He had the key, which we found on the floor when we arrived. She knew it wasn’t Max.”

Cesar sighed, turning the topaz ring round and round on his finger.

“I’m not surprised the police are hanging onto Max for all they’re worth,” he said, sounding demoralised. “There aren’t any other suspects. And at this rate, soon there won’t be any more victims left either. If Senor Munoz continues to stick strictly to his deductive systems, it’s going to end up – I can see it now – with you, my dear Munoz, surrounded by corpses, like the final act of Hamlet, and being forced to the inevitable conclusion: ‘I am the only survivor, therefore, according to strict logic, discounting all impossible suspects, that is, those who are already dead, the murderer must be me…’ and then giving yourself up to the police.”

“That’s not necessarily so,” said Munoz.

“That you’re the murderer? Forgive me, my dear friend, but this conversation is beginning to sound dangerously like a dialogue in a madhouse. I never for one minute thought…”

“I don’t mean that.” The chess player was studying his hands, holding his empty cup. “I’m talking about what you said a moment ago: that there are no more suspects.”

“You don’t mean,” murmured Julia, “that you’ve got someone else in mind?”

Munoz looked at her for a long time. Then he clicked his tongue, put his head a little to one side and said:

“Possibly.”