I thanked him and went back to the car.
Faber was pacing back and forth in his lobby like a big cat whose cage has been missed at feeding time. He ran over and clamped his fingers on my arm. Agitation made him almost incoherent.
“Slow down, Maury,” I said soothingly. “Remember, you have high blood pressure. You’ll pop a blood vessel. What’s eating you?”
“They took Carmen away. Lieutenant Ritchie is holding her as a material witness. You gotta do something, Jordan. You gotta spring her. All this luxury around here; she’s not used to a cell. She’ll go bananas. She—”
I cut him short. “Does he have any new evidence?”
Faber looked ill, his eyelids twitching. “They found a ring under the corner of a mg in Gifford’s room. A three-carat solitaire I bought her last year in Palm Beach. She swears she never went to Gifford’s room, but Ritchie won’t listen. He doesn’t believe her.”
I thought about it. Holding Carmen was the lieutenant’s way of taking her out of circulation while he tried to build a case. A writ of habeas corpus might bring her home, but I had no time to fool around with legal formalities. Faber’s local talent could handle that angle and I told him so. I pointed to the desk of a travel agent in the far corner of the lobby.
“Do you have an account with that outfit?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“I want you to get me on the first available flight to Mexico City.” I forestalled his objections with an upraised hand. “I’m not looking for a free trip, Maury. I have to go down there for some information about Gifford. Relax. I should be back in a few days.”
He was dubious and confused. When he saw that I was implacable, he relented, shrugged in resignation, and headed for the travel desk. Fifteen minutes later he brought a round-trip ticket to my room.
“You’ll need a tourist card,” he told me. “The man says you can pick one up at the Mexican Tourist Department in Miami. Your plane leaves from Miami International tomorrow morning. Start packing.”
The Eastern Airlines jet dipped into the terminal leg of its landing pattern and I heard the flaps thump as the pilot lowered them to reduce air speed. We hit the runway without a bounce, high on the central plateau, still almost a mile and a half above sea level. I moved my watch back one hour. Customs was a brief formality and the hotel room Faber had reserved for me was a pleasant surprise.
Early the next morning I was on a bus heading north. I had planned on renting a car, but one look at the suicidal machismo of Mexican drivers dissuaded me. The bus was air conditioned and had a stewardess who served coffee and cold drinks.
We sped northwest on a good highway, cutting through dry plains blistered by a remorseless sun and dotted in the distance by shapeless villages. Four hours later, from the crest of a steep hill, I spotted San Miguel Allende, a Colonial town that looked as if it hadn’t changed for generations.
I’d heard it was an expatriate haven for pensioners, artists, writers, and a sprinkling of that ubiquitous breed of hirsute youngsters.
The bus wound down cobbled streets past pink, yellow, and salmon walls that insure the privacy of the houses within. Church bells were pealing for no apparent reason, certainly not for my arrival. Despite all the resident gringos, it was a totally alien culture. I saw Indios in wide-brimmed straw hats, women with rebozos, squatting mendicants, and ragged boys hawking gum and an English-language newspaper which I later found was of limited interest.
On the Plaza Principal I checked into the San Francisco Hotel and then spent the rest of the day familiarizing myself with the terrain. Late in the afternoon I settled myself at a conspicuous table of a sidewalk café, ordered Mexican beer, and put a warm friendly smile on my face. In due course I struck up a conversation with a middle-aged couple who had retired to San Miguel a few years ago, had not returned to the United States since, and were starved for gossip about New York. I regaled them with stories for half an hour and eventually got what I needed.
Their local lawyer represented a large segment of the American community. Still active at 70 he had an encyclopedic knowledge of the town and its population. They said they would arrange an appointment for me and told me to be at his office at eleven the next morning.
Senor Ignacio Arruza, el abogado, was a gnarled and fragile antique with the courtly manners of a Spanish grandee. His office contained only the barest essentials, but the furnishings beneath his scalp seemed more than adequate. And his English was far better than my Spanish. After exchanging a few legal bromides he asked, “In what way, Senor Jordan, may I serve you?”
“There is a norteamericano here named Amos Rhodes. Do you know him?”
Arruza nodded, informing me that he had handled details for the purchase of the Rhodes villa in San Miguel, ownership of property being a complicated procedure for foreigners. “It has been many years now and there have been no legal problems since. Senor Rhodes is a man of much privacy. He is old, much older than myself. He does not mingle with his countrymen. He secludes himself behind the walls of his villa. His enferman, a sort of nurse and housekeeper, takes care of him. Heavy work and marketing is usually done by a criada, a maid.”
“A Mrs. Hull is the nurse-housekeeper?”
“That is so. A silent one, a sour creature, not friendly.”
“What about the maid?”
Senor Arruza displayed fine porcelain dentures with a gold tooth winking among them. “Ah, Senor Jordan. Maria Sanchez, a most splendid one. But she is no longer employed. She has been dismissed. I saw her strolling in the Jardin yesterday and we spoke. The Hull woman told her to leave and Maria does not know why.”
“Has anyone taken her place?”
“Maria says no. Perhaps they are economizing.” Arruza frowned. “But that would be most unusual. Help here is inexpensive.” He gave me a short course on the attractions of the dollar vis-a-vis the peso. “Most norteamericanos have several criadas working for them. There is no industry in San Miguel and the local girls need work.”
I asked him how to find the Rhodes villa and he wrote out precise instructions in Spanish, suggesting that I use one of the taxis on the Plaza.
The taxi, a junkyard relic, rattled ominously on the rough cobblestones, but its engine had apparently been tended with loving skill, and it pulled us up a steep hill to a sparsely settled area, stopping finally at high cement wall that must have been built about the time Juarez finished off Maximilian.
“You will be long, Senor?” the driver asked. “Perhaps I should wait for you.”
“Por favor.”
Above a door of heavy zebra wood dangled a pullcord that jangled a bell somewhere inside. I kept it working until the upper half of the door opened to reveal the solid torso of a woman in her fifties. Thinlipped, stern-visaged, an American-Gothic face, inhospitable, and armored against any show of emotion or civility.
“Mrs. Hull?” I asked.
“Yes. What do you want?”
“I’d like to see Amos Rhodes.”
“Mr. Rhodes does not care to see anyone. Who are you?”
“I’m an attorney. I’ve come a long way on an important matter.”
“Important to you perhaps, not to Mr. Rhodes.”
“Would you tell him that I’m here on behalf of Theodore Hoke Prentice, a member of the United States Senate?” I handed her a card.
“Wait here.” The door snapped shut in my face.
It was hot and I began to perspire. Five minutes later she appeared again. “Mr. Rhodes says he never heard of you. American politics no longer interests him. He wishes to be left alone.” This time the door closed with unchallengeable finality.