Fergus paused and beckoned to a waiter.
Norman said, “Is that all?”
“For the moment. I’m giving you boys a chance to scintillate. There you have all the factors up to that point. All right: Why was Miller calling himself ‘doctor’?”
“He wasn’t practicing,” Norman said slowly. “And he wasn’t even running a fake medical racket by mail, as people have done from Mexico to avoid the U.S. Post Office Department.”
“And,” I added, “he hadn’t assumed the title to impress people, to attain social standing, because he had nothing to do with his neighbors. And he wasn’t carrying on any experiments or research which he might have needed the title in writing up. So he gained nothing in cash or prestige. Ail right, what other reason is there for posing as a doctor?”
“Answer,” said Fergus leisurely: “he wasn’t posing as a doctor. Look; you might pose as a doctor with no props at all, thinking no one would come in your house but the housekeeper. Or you might stage an elaborate front complete with instrument cabinets and five-pound books. But you wouldn’t try it with just one prop, an anatomical skeleton.”
Norman and I looked at each other and nodded. It made sense. “Well then?” I asked.
The fresh drinks came, and Fergus said, “My round. Well then, the skeleton was not a prop for the medical pose. Quite the reverse. Turn it around and it makes sense. He called himself a doctor to account for the skeleton.”
I choked on my first sip, and Norman spluttered a little, too. Fergus went on eagerly, with that keen light in his green eyes, “You can’t hide a skeleton in a tiny house. The housekeeper’s bound to see it, and word gets around. Miller liked the Indians and he liked peace. He had to account for the skeleton. So he became a ‘doctor.’”
“But that—” Norman objected. “That’s no answer. That’s just another question.”
“I know,” said Fergus. “But that’s the first step in detection: to find the right question. And that’s it: Why does a man live with a skeleton?”
We were silent for a bit. The Top of the Mark was full of glasses and smoke and uniforms; and despite the uniforms it seemed a room set aside that was not a part of a world at war—still less of a world in which a man might live with a skeleton.
“Of course you checked the obvious answer,” I said at last.
Fergus nodded. “He couldn’t very well have been a black magician, if that’s what you mean, or white either. Not a book or a note in the whole place dealing with the subject. No wax, chalk, incense or what-have-you. The skeleton doesn’t fit any more into a magical pattern than into a medical.”
“The Dead Beloved?” Norman suggested, hesitantly uttering the phrase in mocking capitals. “Rose-for-Emily stuff? A bit grisly, but not inconceivable.”
“The Mexican doctor saw the skeleton. It was a man’s, and not a young one.
“Then he was planning an insurance fraud—burn the house down and let the bones be found while he vanished.”
“A, you don’t burn adobe. B, you don’t let the skeleton be seen by the doctor who’ll examine it later. C, it was that of a much shorter man than Miller.”
“A writer?” I ventured wildly. “I’ve sometimes thought myself a skeleton might be useful in the study—check where to inflict skull wounds and such.”
“With no typewriter, no manuscripts, and very little mail?”
Norman’s face lit up. “You said he sketched. Maybe he was working on a modern Totentanz—Dance of Death allegory. Holbein and Dürer must have had a skeleton or two around.”
“I saw his sketches. Landscapes only.”
I lit my pipe and settled back. “All right. We’ve stooged and we don’t know. Now tell us why a man keeps house with a set of bones.” My tone was lighter than necessary.
Fergus said, “I won’t go into all the details of my investigation. I saw damned near every adult in Tlichotl and most of the kids. And I pieced out what I think is the answer. But I think you can gather it from the evidence of four people.
“First, Jim Reilly, mining engineer. Witness deposeth and saith he was on the main street, if you can call it that, of Tlichotl on November 2. He saw a stranger, ‘swarthy but not a Mex,’ walk up to Miller and say, ‘Frank!’ Miller looked up and was astonished. The stranger said, ‘Sorry for the delay. But it took me a little time to get here.’ And he hadn’t finished the sentence before Miller dropped dead. Queried about the stranger, witness says he gave his name as Humbert Targ; he stayed around town for a few days for the funeral and then left. Said he’d known Miller a long time ago—never quite clear where, but seemingly in the South Seas, as we used to say before we learned to call it the South Pacific. Asked for description, witness proved pretty useless: medium height, medium age, dark complexion . . . Only helpful details: stranger wore old clothes (‘Shabby?’ ‘No, just old.’ ‘Out-of-date?’ ‘I guess so.’ ‘How long ago? What kind?’ ‘I don’t know. Just old—funny-looking’) and had only one foot (‘One leg?’ ‘No, two legs, just one foot.’ ‘Wooden peg?’ ‘No, just empty trouser cuff. Walked with crutches’).
“Second witness, Father Gonzaga, and it’s a funny sensation to be talking to a priest who wears just a plain business suit. He hadn’t known ‘Dr.’ Miller well, though he’d said a mass for his soul. But one night Miller had come from the pulquena and insisted on talking to him. He wanted to know how you could ever get right with God and yourself if you’d done someone a great wrong and there was no conceivable way you could make it up to him. The padre asked why, was the injured person dead? Miller hesitated and didn’t answer. He’s alive, then? Oh no,
