Free Puzzle for Pilgrims by Patrick Quentin Page B

bracelets.
    There was no pulse.
    Jake was squatting at my side. His thigh brushed against mine, solid and warm and in violent contrast to the chill of that dead wrist.
    “Well,” he said.
    As we crouched there, Sally’s voice, light and pretty with its suppressed giggle, seemed to weave in my mind with the music from the Zocalo. Peter, I like you. I shivered. Maybe I’ll never go to the police—if you come. She’d said that. She’d changed her mind. Marietta might have been saved from jail. Martin might have got his divorce. Iris might have got Martin.
    Everything might have been all right—without this.
    My hand moved from her wrist up her arm. Jake pushed it roughly away.
    “Don’t touch. Mexican law’s death on touching.” He paused. “Back broken, eh?”
    “Yes.”
    He got up, flexing the muscles of his legs. His steady eyes considered the gaping hole in the balustrade above us.
    “Must have leaned against it and it gave way.”
    “Yes.”
    As I said that, a thought splashed through my mind like acid. The broken strip of balustrade had been lying across Sally’s legs. If she’d leaned against the balustrade and it had given way, it would have reached the ground before her. It could never have landed on her legs.
    It couldn’t have happened that way.
    I thought of Iris above us, hunched in the porch chair, and I felt a kind of despair. Sooner or later Jake would realize about the balustrade. He’d remember when he looked back, because he was the one who had pulled the broken wood off Sally.
    We stood there, over the little body, both big men, watching each other.
    “Yeah,” he said almost casually. “She was alone on the terrace; she leaned against the balustrade, maybe admiring the view—and the balustrade gave way.”
    “I guess so,” I said, hardly believing he could be that unobservant.
    “Sure. That’s the way it was.” He thrust his hands into his pockets. “Well, guess there’s nothing more we can do down here. Better call the police, eh?”
    “Yes.”
    He started swinging himself up toward the terrace. I followed. His legs dangled in my face. I looked back once, and the metal hair still gleamed down there in the moonlight.
    On the balcony, Iris was standing, the coat on her shoulders, gazing down at the sparkle of Taxco below. She was smoking a cigarette. The carnival sounds trailed up, the moan of the pipe organ and the dry whirring of the revolving carrousel.
    When she turned, I knew she had got a grip on herself.
    She asked quickly, “Is she dead?”
    I could trace the artificiality of her voice, but it was steady—steady enough, I hoped, to fool a stranger.
    “I’m afraid so, Iris.”
    Jake laid a hand on her shoulder.
    “What d’you know? We come calling on a dame and she has to fall off of a balcony. And with no liquor in the house. What sort of hospitality is that?”
    The facetiousness grated, but I supposed that was his idea of easing the tension.
    Iris asked, “The police?”
    “Yeah. We’re going to call them now.”
    “I hope someone speaks English,” I said.
    “Spanish not so good, Peter?” Jake shrugged. “Don’t you worry. No, sir. These spick lingoes don’t bother me. Just relax. Uncle Jake takes over from now on.”
    He started through the French windows into the lighted living room. For a couple of bleak moments Iris and I stayed together on the terrace. I was half hoping, half dreading she would confide in me. But she didn’t. We went on into the living room. We found Jake looking down at the spilled vase of tuberoses on the yellow carpet. With a little cluck, he bent and replaced the vase on its table. He wiped the wet patch on the carpet with his handkerchief.
    “Sloppy dame,” he murmured.
    He moved into the center of the room. His eyes darted about. They fell on the silver slipper sprawled near the couch. He began to whistle hissingly through his teeth, no particular tune.
    “Leaving her slippers all over the place. Anyone’d think she was