The Silent Bullet [108]
we were rewarded by the first flutter of an eyelid. Then Miss Guerrero gazed wildly about.
"He is dead," she moaned. "They have killed him. I know it. My father is dead." Over and over she repeated: "He is dead. I shall never see him again."
Vainly I tried to soothe her. What was there to say? There could be no doubt about it. Torreon must have gone down directly after we left Senora Mendez. He had seen a light in the loft, had entered with a policeman--as a witness, he had told Craig over the telephone --had heard Guerrero fall, and had sent for the ambulance. How long Guerrero had been there he did not know, for while members of the junta had been coming and going all day in the office below none had gone up into the locked loft.
Kennedy with rare skill calmed Miss Guerrero's dry-eyed hysteria into a gentle rain of tears, which relieved her overwrought feelings. We silently withdrew, leaving the two women, mistress and servant, weeping.
"Craig," I asked when we had gained the street, "what do you make of it? We must lose no time. Arrest this Mendez woman before she has a chance to escape."
"Not so fast, Walter," he cautioned as we spun along in a taxicab. "Our case isn't very complete against anybody yet."
"But it looks black for Guerrero," I admitted. "Dead men tell no tales even to clear themselves."
"It all depends on speed now," he answered laconically.
We had reached the university, which was only a few blocks away, and Craig dashed into his laboratory while I settled with the driver. He reappeared almost instantly with some bulky apparatus under his arm, and we more than ran from the building to the near-by subway station. Fortunately there was an express just pulling in, as we tumbled down the steps.
To one who knows South Street as merely a river-front street whose glory of other days has long since departed, where an antiquated horsecar now ambles slowly uptown, and trucks and carts all day long are in a perpetual jam, it is peculiarly uninteresting by day, and peculiarly deserted and vicious by night. But there is another fascination about South Street. Perhaps there has never been a revolution in Latin America which has not in some way or other been connected with this street, whence hundreds of filibustering expeditions have started. Whenever a dictator is to be overthrown, or half a dozen chocolate-skinned generals in the Caribbean become dissatisfied with their portions of gold lace, the arms-and ammunition-dealers of South Street can give, if they choose, an advance scenario of the whole tragedy or comic opera, as the case may be. Real war or opera-bouffe, it is all grist for the mills of these close-mouthed individuals.
Our quest took us to a ramshackle building reminiscent of the days when the street bristled with bowsprits of ships from all over the world, an age when the American merchantman flew our flag on the uttermost of the seven-seas. On the ground floor was an apparently innocent junk dealer's shop, in reality the meeting-place of the junta. By an outside stairway the lofts above were reached, hiding their secrets behind windows opaque with decades of dust.
At the door we were met by Torreon and the policeman. Both appeared to be shocked beyond measure. Torreon was profuse in explanations which did not explain. Out of the tangled mass of verbiage I did manage to extract, however, the impression that, come what might to the other members of the junta, Torreon was determined to clear his own name at any cost. He and the policeman had discovered Senor Guerrero only a short time before, up-stairs. For all he knew, Guerrero had been there some time, perhaps all day, while the others were meeting down-stairs. Except for the light he might have been there undiscovered still. Torreon swore he had heard Guerrero fall; the policeman was not quite so positive.
Kennedy listened impatiently, then sprang up the stairs, only to call back to the policeman: "Go call me a taxicab at the ferry, an electric cab. Mind, now, not a gasoline-cab--electric."
We found the victim lying
"He is dead," she moaned. "They have killed him. I know it. My father is dead." Over and over she repeated: "He is dead. I shall never see him again."
Vainly I tried to soothe her. What was there to say? There could be no doubt about it. Torreon must have gone down directly after we left Senora Mendez. He had seen a light in the loft, had entered with a policeman--as a witness, he had told Craig over the telephone --had heard Guerrero fall, and had sent for the ambulance. How long Guerrero had been there he did not know, for while members of the junta had been coming and going all day in the office below none had gone up into the locked loft.
Kennedy with rare skill calmed Miss Guerrero's dry-eyed hysteria into a gentle rain of tears, which relieved her overwrought feelings. We silently withdrew, leaving the two women, mistress and servant, weeping.
"Craig," I asked when we had gained the street, "what do you make of it? We must lose no time. Arrest this Mendez woman before she has a chance to escape."
"Not so fast, Walter," he cautioned as we spun along in a taxicab. "Our case isn't very complete against anybody yet."
"But it looks black for Guerrero," I admitted. "Dead men tell no tales even to clear themselves."
"It all depends on speed now," he answered laconically.
We had reached the university, which was only a few blocks away, and Craig dashed into his laboratory while I settled with the driver. He reappeared almost instantly with some bulky apparatus under his arm, and we more than ran from the building to the near-by subway station. Fortunately there was an express just pulling in, as we tumbled down the steps.
To one who knows South Street as merely a river-front street whose glory of other days has long since departed, where an antiquated horsecar now ambles slowly uptown, and trucks and carts all day long are in a perpetual jam, it is peculiarly uninteresting by day, and peculiarly deserted and vicious by night. But there is another fascination about South Street. Perhaps there has never been a revolution in Latin America which has not in some way or other been connected with this street, whence hundreds of filibustering expeditions have started. Whenever a dictator is to be overthrown, or half a dozen chocolate-skinned generals in the Caribbean become dissatisfied with their portions of gold lace, the arms-and ammunition-dealers of South Street can give, if they choose, an advance scenario of the whole tragedy or comic opera, as the case may be. Real war or opera-bouffe, it is all grist for the mills of these close-mouthed individuals.
Our quest took us to a ramshackle building reminiscent of the days when the street bristled with bowsprits of ships from all over the world, an age when the American merchantman flew our flag on the uttermost of the seven-seas. On the ground floor was an apparently innocent junk dealer's shop, in reality the meeting-place of the junta. By an outside stairway the lofts above were reached, hiding their secrets behind windows opaque with decades of dust.
At the door we were met by Torreon and the policeman. Both appeared to be shocked beyond measure. Torreon was profuse in explanations which did not explain. Out of the tangled mass of verbiage I did manage to extract, however, the impression that, come what might to the other members of the junta, Torreon was determined to clear his own name at any cost. He and the policeman had discovered Senor Guerrero only a short time before, up-stairs. For all he knew, Guerrero had been there some time, perhaps all day, while the others were meeting down-stairs. Except for the light he might have been there undiscovered still. Torreon swore he had heard Guerrero fall; the policeman was not quite so positive.
Kennedy listened impatiently, then sprang up the stairs, only to call back to the policeman: "Go call me a taxicab at the ferry, an electric cab. Mind, now, not a gasoline-cab--electric."
We found the victim lying