I turned around and put my arms on the bar the way Walter Huston had done in
“Because I can simply pull the trigger on the gun I am holding under the eave of this bar and make a very large hole in your side.”
“And then you’d be caught,” I said reasonably.
“Yes, but if you don’t tell me, I’ll be caught anyway. This way I might be able to make an escape. I think I am being clear and logical.”
“La Paloma” burst out of the radio. It sounded like the same group that had sung it the first time I entered Hijo’s. Jean Alvero joined in, in a rather nice cracking soprano.
“You had me fooled,” I said with a shake of my head. “You really did, but how long did you think you could carry it off?”
I turned to look my killer full in the face now, and he looked back at me, putting down his empty bottle of beer. Something approaching a smile touched his face.
“Who would peg Alfred Hitchock as a murderer?” he said, showing me the gun beside his medicine ball of a stomach.
16
“You are one bedbug,” I said. “I saw a picture of the real Hitchcock in a movie magazine in a railroad station yesterday. Anyone could have spotted you at any time.”
The man I had known as Alfred Hitchcock hunched his shoulders up. “It was a risk worth taking,” he said. “If worse came to worse, and it has, it really has, I planned to confess that I was a circus buff and that I merely used Hitchcock’s name because of my resemblance to him to gain access to the grounds.”
An argument had started at the end of the bar. Lope and Carlos were part of it. Some of it was in Spanish. I had the feeling it was a debate over who was going to listen to the radio and who was going to listen to Jean Alvero.
“There isn’t any witness,” I said, turning away from the killer. “That was just to bring you out in the open.”
“I thought it might be,” he sighed, “but I couldn’t take a chance. Besides, all is not lost. You are responsible for my brother’s death. I’m the last of the family.”
“And he went like the others,” I said, picking at my teeth with a fingernail. “Mind telling me your name? I can’t keep calling you Mr. Hitchcock.”
“Marish,” he said, bowing slightly. “Miles Marish. My family were the Flying Marishes.”
He paused as if I was supposed to know who the Flying Marishes were.
“The Flying Marishes,” I repeated.
Down the bar, the bartender had intervened in the discussion by turning off the radio.
“The circus killed my family,” he said. “My father and sister fell from the wire in 1937. My brother was disfigured, and I was trampled by an elephant. Under these trousers is a disfigured leg.
“I wanted only to destroy the elephants, all the elephants,” he said. “The people were Thomas’ idea. There were no killings until the circus came to Mirador, where he had been living. It was I who had followed circuses, destroying and describing it to him. The circus is …”
“I know,” I interrupted, “he told me before he took his leap.”
“You are not a sympathetic man,” said Marish, all trace of English accent now gone.
“Some innocent people have been killed,” I answered. “They have my sympathy, along with their families.”
“The aerialist saw me electrocute the elephant. We had to do something. Then the woman …”
“Rennata Tanucci,” I supplied.
“She followed me to Thomas’ and threatened to have that elephant go wild. I hate elephants. She forced us …”
Shoving and the tense ramble of voices came from the end of the bar. The battle was about to begin. The circus had invaded Lope’s retreat, and his honor demanded satisfaction. Elder moved from his table to try to restore order.
“Do we have anything further to discuss?” said Marish evenly.
“One or two more things,” I said. “Can we retire to my office?” I pointed to the back of the saloon, where a painted green light indicated a toilet.
Marish nodded, put his gun in his pocket, and followed me toward the back. We had gone about five feet when Emmett Kelly stepped in front of me.
“Toby, you look …”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just someone I ate.”
I pushed past him, and he eyed Marish, who gave him his Hitchcock grin. We moved past Elder, who was holding back his roustabout with one hand and talking furiously with Lope. Elder was speaking Spanish rapidly and comfortably. It seemed to calm Lope of the single eye. But I wasn’t calm as I pushed open the door under the green light and stepped in with Marish behind me. He locked the door and faced me.
There wasn’t much room, just a toilet, some toilet paper hung by wire from the wall, a small basin with a dripping faucet and a dirty brown sink. The small mirror over the sink looked as if someone had soaped it for Halloween and no one had bothered to clean it. A newspaper was on the floor. I caught part of the headline and realized that the British were either winning or losing in Burma.
“It was most cooperative of you to come back here,” said Marish pleasantly. Then his voice turned harsh. “I am most distressed about what you did to my brother.”
“Your brother?” I asked, sitting on the sink. He backed away from me with the small gun out and sat on the closed toilet. My brother and I had once had a similar talk when he was about seventeen and I was fourteen. My older brother had given me some advice then, and I had made a wise comment. The result was a five-inch cut on my head. I had more to lose this time.
“Charles Marish, whom you sent to his death last night,” said Marish angrily.
“But he was a killer,” I answered, folding my arms.
“We have been over that,” he said. “I told you why he and I killed those people. You clearly have no sympathy or understanding. You clearly don’t understand the shallow corruption the circus represents, the squalid lives, the cheapness. The world would be better off without circuses.”
“And you’re personally going to destroy them all?”
“I would that it were possible,” he said. “But I will have to be content to carry on for my brother and do what little I can. Now …” He held up the pistol.
“Did you try to kill Emmett Kelly, or was that your brother?” I asked.
“One of our few failures,” he sighed, reminding me of the man he had impersonated.
“Why Hitchcock?” I asked quickly.
“I became an actor after the elephant accident,” he explained. “I worked in England as an extra on
“Afraid?” I pushed away from the sink. The rear of my pants was wet.
“I will enjoy it,” he said.
“I think I’ll just have to deprive you of that pleasure,” I said.
He shook his head. I looked into the corner over that shaking head and fixed on the transom. Curiosity took him, but he didn’t turn.
“I’m looking at a shotgun,” I said. “Through the transom. Sheriff’s been listening to all this. His office is right next door. This toilet and the sheriff’s share a transom. Flush the toilet in there, Sheriff.”
A toilet flushed almost instantly, and Marish looked up at the transom. I went for his gun as he glanced up, and hell broke loose. I slammed his hand away and the bullet hit the wall, followed by an explosion and the
