The Mouse in the Mountain by Norbert Davis (acx book reading TXT) 📖

and insisted on seeing this anthill because he once lived here and it was full of artistic history."

"Monsieur," Mrs. Henshaw corrected. "Monsieur Predilip. This town and its beautiful primitive surroundings were his inspiration."

"They're a pain in the neck to me. Did you feel that earthquake we had, Doan?"

"Faintly," said Doan. "Where's Mortimer?"

"Hi-yo, Silver!" Mortimer screeched. He came sailing across the street carrying a pair of silvered spurs in one fist and a sombrero so big he could have used it for a tent in the other. "Look, Pop! Look what I snitched! Here. Hold 'em while I go back for another load. Boy, I wish the gang was here!"

Henshaw took the spurs and sombrero helplessly. "Now look, you little rat! These belong to somebody!"

"Hi-yo, Silver!" Mortimer yelled. "A-waay!" He pelted back across the street and dived into the broken doorway of a store.

Mrs. Henshaw got up instantly. "Mortimer! You come right out of there! Don't you touch anything! Don't you dare! Mortimer!"

"The hell with it," said Henshaw wearily. "I think I'll get paralyzed myself."

Doan said: "When you get around to it, report back in the square where the bus was parked."

"Was?" Henshaw repeated. "What do you mean--was?"

"A building fell on it."

"No foolin'," said Henshaw. "Well, how do we get back to the Hotel Azteca? Ride a mule?"

"I won't ride one of those nasty little beasts." Mrs. Henshaw snapped. "They're dirty. Don't you argue with me, either! I won't do it, that's all."

"Have you seen any of the other passengers?" Doan asked.

"That bird, Greg, was ahead of us. I haven't seen him since the big shake."

Doan and Carstairs walked on, and behind them Mrs. Henshaw shrieked:

"Mortimer! Put that down! Don't you dare eat that horrible candy! It's got germs!"

Doan and Carstairs detoured around a group of people busily burrowing into what had evidently been a bakery, and then a voice called:

"Doan."

Greg was leaning against a cracked building wall. His handsome face was drawn now, and his lips were pale with agony. He had his scarf wrapped around his right arm above the elbow. He was holding his right forearm cradled across his chest with his left hand.

"Do you know where I can find a doctor?" he asked.

"Back in the square. The big white building on the west side. Want me to help you?"

"No. It's just my arm. It's broken. I fell over that damned horse trough there when the quake came."

"Where is Miss Van Osdel?" Doan asked.

"Who wants to know?"

"I do," said Doan.

"Try and find out," Greg told him, and walked back up the street, leaning over sideways to ease his arm.

"Hey, fatso!"

Amanda Tracy came up at a lumbering run, dragging the easel behind her. Her hair was frizzed more wildly than ever, and her eyes gleamed bright and excited in the leathery toughness of her face.

"Some shimmy, huh? Listen, fat, I'm gonna make my fortune out of it!"

"How?" Doan asked.

Amanda Tracy pulled the canvas out of the easel clamps and thrust it in front of his face. "See that? That's a picture of some buildings, believe it or not. See how squeegeed and cockeyed they look?"

"Yes," Doan admitted.

"Well, they weren't ruins when I painted them, but they are now. Get it? The ruins of Los Altos. I got a lot more pictures just as lousy as this one. I'll sell them for souvenirs of the disaster!"

"If you live in that house where you were when I first saw you--and your pictures are there--you'd better run up and take them in out of the weather."

"Hah?" Amanda Tracy barked.

"You haven't got a roof any more."

"Wow!" said Amanda Tracy. She ran up the street, whacking at anyone who was unfortunate enough to get in her way with the legs of the easel. "Gangway! Gangway!"

Somebody poked Doan in the stomach. He looked down into the face of a little girl who had a smear of dirt around her mouth. Her eyes were black beads that goggled at him excitedly.

"Senor! La senorita rica y la otra senorita turista son..."

Doan was shaking his head.

The little girl shook her head, too.

"No habla Mexicano?"

"I guess not," said Doan.

The little girl dug at her ear with one finger, and then her face lighted up. "Mira!" She struck herself in the head with her fist. "Bong!" She staggered dramatically and fell down in the street.

Doan got it. "Where? Who? Which way?"

The little girl jumped up. "Venga usted!"

They went down a steep side street and through a lane where chickens squawked and scurried frantically to get out of Carstairs' way. They turned to the right and to the left and scattered a family group who were trying to haul a sewing machine out through a shattered window.

"Mil," the little girl shrilled, "Ahieston las senoritas!"

The little group was still there in the lane, and they drew back now, murmuring among themselves. Doan saw Janet Martin and the little man in the faded scrape kneeling down in the dust beside the limp form of Patricia Van Osdel.

"What is it?" Doan asked breathlessly. "Is she hurt?"

The little man shook his head sadly.

Janet said in a stifled voice: "She's dead, Mr. Doan. Her head... I think she died instantly."

"Let me see." Doan knelt down. The golden hair was as soft as mist in his fingers, and then he saw the deep-sunken wound in the back of the small head. "Yes."

He stood up and looked around slowly--at the ground, at the walls of the buildings on either side of the lane.

"Was she moved?" he asked. "Did someone carry her in here?"

"No," said the little man. "No. Was lie here."

"Why?" Janet inquired blankly. "What difference does that make?"

"None right now," said Doan. "You go on up to the main drag and find Captain Perona. He ought to know about this right away. If you can't find him, there's a lieutenant by the name of Ortega in the big white building across from where the bus parked. Tell him. I'll wait here."

"All right," said Janet obediently. She turned and ran out of the lane.

Doan squatted down on his heels.

The little man nodded at him shyly and said, "Es lastima."

"Probably it is," Doan agreed.

A voice, far away, shouted an indistinguishable string of words. Other voices, closer, took up the cry. Excitement gathered like an electric charge in the air, and the little man's eyes were wide and shocked staring into Doan's.

"What's the matter?" Doan asked.

The little man struggled for words. "Puente!" He braced his forefingers together end-to-end and stared at Doan over the top of them. "Puente!"

"Arch," Doan guessed. "Roof." Then he jumped. "Bridge!"

"Si! Si, si! Bridge! Is away!"

"What?"

"Gone. No longer."

"You mean the earthquake shook the bridge down?" Doan demanded.

The little man nodded. "Si. Shook down. Bust."

"That makes everything just dandy," Doan commented.

The small girl with the dirty face burst through the onlookers blubbering words in a stuttering stream. She planted herself in front of Doan and waved both arms at him.

"What's the beef, sister?" Doan inquired.

The girl pointed down at Patricia Van Osdel and then held up one finger.

"One," said Doan, nodding.

The girl pointed back the way she had come and held up two fingers.

"Two," said Doan, and then he leaped to his feet. "What? Another? Who? Where?"

"Venga usted!"

They went down the lane--the girl in front and Doan and Carstairs right behind her, and the little man running along behind with his serape flipping in the breeze of their passage. They went around the corner and up the street and across into another lane.

A muttering, peering crowd of people was huddled close around a fat woman kneeling on the ground. Doan looked over the fat woman's shoulder and saw the long, bony form of Maria, the personal maid, flattened on the dusty ground. Maria's face was pallidly white and empty, and the mole was like a black spider crouched on her cheek.

Doan dropped down beside her and touched one skinny, outstretched arm. "She's not dead! She's--"

The fat woman shoved him angrily. "No! Cuidado!"

"What's your trouble?" Doan asked.

"She feex," said the little man.

"Is she a nurse?" Doan demanded.

"Nurse?" said the little man, testing the word. "No." He pointed to the small girl and then held his hands about a foot apart. "Child," said Doan. "Dwarf. Midget. Baby!"

"Si. Baby."

"You mean the old doll is a baby nurse?"

"No. Middle momma."

"Baby," Doan said. "Middle. Momma. Midwife!"

"Si."

"Well, this is a little out of her regular line of business," Doan commented, "but she probably knows more about it than I do."

A pudgy little man with an enormous mustache bustled out of the house next door carrying a steaming kettle of water carefully in front of him. He had clean cloths folded over both his forearms. He put the kettle down on the ground beside the fat woman. She selected one of the cloths, moistened it in the water, and dabbed carefully at Maria's temple.

"Muy malo," she said.

"Hurts bad," the little man translated.

Doan nodded absently. "Yeah. I can see that."

The fat woman snapped her fingers, and the pudgy man instantly presented her with a pair of blunt surgical scissors. She snipped at Maria's lank hair.

"Sister," said the little man, pointing at the man who had brought the water.

"She's his sister?" Doan inquired.

"No. He."

"He's her sister?"

"Si."

"I don't get that," said Doan. "Sister, sister... Assistant! He assists her!"

"Si. Sisted. Also hatband."

"Hatband," Doan repeated. "Husband?"

"Si, si!"

Doan nodded at Carstairs. "I'm catching on, kid. I'll be able to rattle off Spanish in no time at all."

Carstairs looked skeptical.

The small girl shrieked suddenly: "Soldados!"

Sergeant Obrian was peering around the corner at them. He turned back now and called:

"Captain! I found him! Here he is!"

Captain Perona and Janet came into the lane. There were two soldiers behind them, one carrying a rolled army stretcher on his shoulder.

"Now what is this?" Captain Perona demanded.

"It's Maria!" Janet exclaimed. "She's Miss Van Osdel's maid! Is she--is she--"

"She's not dead," Doan said. "From the looks of her eyes, I think her skull is fractured. She got a smaller dose of the same thing Van Osdel did. You'd better run her up and let Ortega look her over."

Captain Perona nodded to the soldiers. They unrolled the stretcher and lifted Maria on it with the help of Sergeant Obrian and the fat midwife and her assistant.

"Stay here, Sergeant," Captain Perona said.

The two soldiers carried Maria carefully out of the lane.

Captain Perona was staring at Doan. "Just what did you have to do with this?"

"Not a thing," said Doan. "I was sitting over there by Van Osdel, waiting for you, when this little kid--Where'd she go? She was here a minute ago. Anyway, she came along and said there was another casualty down here. So I came to see if I could help. Ask Ignatz, here. He was with me all the time."

"Es verdad?"

Captain Perona inquired, looking at the little man.

"Si, Capitan."

"That rock over there is what hit Maria," said Doan, pointing to a jagged piece of stone slightly larger than a paving brick. "You'd better save it."

"Why?"

"Because I'm pretty sure it's the same one that hit Patricia Van Osdel."

"What?" said Captain Perona, startled.

Doan nodded. "Yeah. There was nothing near the Van Osdel that could have given her the kind of a bat she got. But that rock is just about the right shape. Of course, I could be wrong, but you'd better check up."

"State plainly what you mean!" Captain Perona ordered.

"I don't think either Maria or the Van Osdel was hit by accident. I think they were in that alley where Patricia was found, talking to some third party. When the earthquake let loose, the third party picked up that rock and slammed Patricia with it. Maria ran. The third party chased her and caught her here in this alley and bopped her with the same rock. During the earthquake everyone was yelling and running back and forth like crazy, so no one would pay much attention. Maybe you might find some witnesses, though, if you look."

"What made you think of all this?"

"Patricia Van Osdel was carrying a purse--a big red patent leather affair about the size of a brief case. It's gone."

Captain Perona looked at Janet,