The Listening Walls

19.

Señor Escamillo yanked open the door of the broom closet and found Consuela with one ear pressed against her listening wall.

“Aha!” he cried, pointing a fat little forefinger at her. “So, Consuela Gonzales is up to her old tricks again.”

“No, señor. I swear on my mother’s body...”

“You could swear on your father’s horns and I do not believe you. If I were not so desperate for experienced help I would never have begged you to come back.” He thought briefly of the real reason he’d asked her to come back; perhaps he’d been a fool to lend his services to such a wild, American scheme. He consulted his big, gold pocket watch, which didn’t keep good time but served as a useful prop to hold his staff in line. “It is now seven o’clock. Why are you not placing fresh towels in the rooms and turning down the beds?”

“I have already attended to most of the rooms.”

“And why not all of them, pray? Are the towels so heavy, such a burden, that you must stop to rest every five minutes?”

“No, señor.”

“I wait for the explanation,” Escamillo said, with cold dignity.

Consuela looked down at her feet, wide and flat in their straw espadrilles. Clothes, she thought, it’s clothes that make the difference. Here I am dressed like a peasant, so he treats me like a peasant. If I had on my high heels and my black dress and my necklaces, he would be polite and call me senorita, he wouldn’t dare to say my father had horns.

“I wait, Consuela Gonzales.”

“I have attended to all the rooms except 404. I was prepared to do that one too, but when I stopped at the door I heard noises from inside.”

“Noises? How so?”

“People were arguing. I thought it would be wiser if I didn’t disturb them, if I waited until they went out for the evening.”

“People were arguing in 404?”

“Yes. Americans. Two American ladies.”

“You swear it on your mother’s body?”

“I do, señor.”

“Oh, what a liar you are, Consuela Gonzales.” Escamillo put his hand over his heart to show how much the situation pained him. “Or else you have lost your judgment.”

“I heard them, I tell you.”

“You tell me, yes. Now I tell you. The suite 404 is empty. It has been empty for nearly a week.”

“That can’t be. I heard, with my own ears...”

“Then you need new ears. Four hundred four is empty. I am the manager of this establishment. Who would know better than I which rooms are occupied and which are not?”

“Perhaps, while you were away from the desk for a few minutes, someone checked in, two American ladies.”

“Impossible.”

“I know what I hear.” Consuela’s cheeks were the color of red wine as if the blood in her veins had fermented with fury.

“This is bad,” Escamillo said, “to hear things other people do not.”

“You haven’t tried. If you would place your ear here, at the wall...”

“Very well. The ear is here. And now?”

“Listen.”

“I am listening.”

“They are moving around,” Consuela said. “One of them is wearing many bracelets, you can hear them clanking. There. Now they are talking. Do you hear voices?”

“Certainly I hear voices.” Escamillo stepped briskly out of the broom closet, brushing lint off the sleeves and lapels of his suit. “I hear your voice and my voice. From an empty room I hear nothing, praise Jesus.”

“The room is not empty, I tell you.”

“And I tell you once again, stop this nonsense, Consuela Gonzales. I think you have not been saying your beads often enough lately and God is angry with you, making noises that you alone can hear.”

“I have done nothing to make Him angry with me.”

“We are all sinners.” But Escamillo’s tone implied strongly that Consuela Gonzales was the worst of the lot and she was to expect only a minimum of mercy, if any. “You had better go down to the bar and ask Emilio for one of those new American pills that ease the mind.”

“There is nothing the matter with my mind.”

“Is there not? Well, I am too busy to argue.”

She leaned against the door of the broom closet and watched Escamillo disappear into the elevator. Globules of sweat and oil stood out on her forehead and upper lip. She brushed them off with a corner of her apron, thinking, he is trying to frighten me, embarrass me, make me out a fool. I will not be made out a fool. It is easy to prove the room is occupied. I have a key. I will unlock the door, very quietly, and open it, very suddenly, and there they will be, arguing, moving around. Two ladies. Americans.

Her ring of keys, suspended from a rope belt around her waist, struck her thigh and tinkled like coins as she moved toward 404. She hesitated at the door, hearing nothing now but the traffic from the avenida below and the quick rhythmical drumming of her own heart.

Only a month ago, two American ladies had occupied this very room. They too had argued. One of them wore many bracelets and a red silk suit, and painted her eyelids gold. And the other...

But I must not think of those two. One is dead, the other is far away. I am alive and here.

From her key ring she chose the key labeled apartamientos and inserted it quietly into the lock. A quick turn of the key to the left and of the doorknob to the right and the door would open to reveal the occupants of the room and Escamillo would be proved the cowardly liar that he was.

The key would not turn. She tried one hand and then the other, and finally both together. She was a strong woman, used to heavy work, but the key wouldn’t budge.

She rapped sharply on the door and called out, “This is the chambermaid. I must change the towels. Please let me in. I have lost my key. Please open the door? Please?”

She caught her lower lip with her teeth to stop its trembling. The room is empty, she thought. Escamillo is right, God is punishing me. I hear voices no one else can hear, I talk to people who are not there, I listen at walls that say nothing.

She hesitated only long enough to cross herself. Then she turned and ran down the corridor to the service stairway. In flight, she tried to pray. Her mouth moved but no words came out, and she knew it was because she had not said her beads for a long time; she could not even remember where she had put them.

Four flights down, and she was in the little room behind the bar where Emilio and his assistants came to sneak cigarettes and finish off the dregs of bottles and count the day’s tips.

She had made so much noise crashing down the steps that Emilio himself hurried back to see what the fuss was about.

“Oh, it’s you.” Emilio was bold and elegant in a new red bolero trimmed with silver buttons and orange braid. “I thought it was another earthquake. What do you want?”

She sat down on an empty beer case and held her head in her hands.

“How’s Joe?” Emilio said.

The American was waiting in Escamillo’s office, pacing up and down as if he couldn’t find a door to escape through. He looked worried, as worried as Escamillo felt. Escamillo, from the beginning, had had grave doubts about the situation, but Mr. Dodd was very persuasive. He’d made the plan sound both reasonable and practicable.

Escamillo was afraid it was neither, although so far he hadn’t indicated his misgivings. He said simply, “Everything is in readiness. They are arguing very well together, very real.”

“And Consuela is listening?”

“Certainly. Listening, it is a long habit with her.”

“Did you have the lock changed?”

“Just as I was instructed, so everything has been performed. She can gain access to the room only when the ladies are ready to receive her. Also, the silver box — I gave it to Emilio as you told me to do. However, I do not understand about the silver box. Why was it necessary to purchase an exact duplicate? I begin to wonder.” Escamillo’s face, normally as bland as a marshmallow, was contorted in anticipation of disaster. “I begin to have doubts.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Señor?”

“We all have doubts,” Dodd said flatly. “Let’s just hope hers are bigger.”

“She is not a fool, you know. A cheat, a liar, a thief, all those, but not a fool.”

“She’s superstitious and she’s scared.”

“She is scared, ha! And who is not? I feel my liver turning cold and white like snow.”

“There’s nothing to be scared of. Your part in this is finished.”

“I must remind you that this is my hotel, my reputation is at stake, I am responsible for...” The telephone on Escamillo’s desk began to ring. He darted across the room and picked it up. His small pudgy hands were quivering. “Yes? That is good, very good.” He put the phone down and said to Dodd, “It has worked so far. She is with Emilio. He is very clever, you can trust him.”

“I have to.”

“Señor Kellogg will be here soon?”

“He’s waiting in the lobby now.”

“Suppose there is violence? Violence distresses me.” Escamillo pressed his hand against his stomach. “You have not taken me entirely into your confidence, senor. A little voice keeps telling me that there is something questionable about all this, perhaps even something illegal.”

A little voice kept telling Dodd the same thing but he couldn’t afford to listen.

“How is Joe?” Emilio repeated.

“Joe?” She raised her head and stared at him blankly. For a moment the blankness was genuine — Joe was long ago and far away and dead. “Joe who?”

“You know Joe who.”

“Oh, him. I haven’t seen him. He was no good. He ran off with another woman.”

“An American?”

“Why do you say that?”

“He sent me 250 pesos that he owed me. It was marked on the envelope, San Francisco.”

“Ah, so? Well, I hope she is very rich so he will be very happy.”

There’d been two rich ladies, Consuela thought. They were ready to be plucked like chickens, but all Joe got out of it was a second-hand car and a few clothes to be buried in, because he lost his nerve, he began feeling sorry for people. His mind had turned soft as his belly.

No, no, I must not think of that, of the blood...

“What happens with you?” Emilio said. “You look bad, like a ghost.”

“I have a — a headache.”

“Perhaps you would like a bottle of beer?”

“Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

“Do not thank me so hard,” Emilio said dryly. “I expect you to pay.”

“I will pay. I have money.”

She thought, I have money I can’t spend, clothes I can’t wear; I have bottles of perfume, yet I must go around smelling like a goat. You would steal the smell off a goat, Joe had said.

It seemed funny to her now. She began to laugh softly, cupping her mouth in her hands so that no one would hear her and want to know why she was laughing. It would be too hard to explain; she wasn’t quite sure of the reason herself.

Emilio returned carrying a bottle of cheap beer. He gave her the beer, then held out his hand for the money. She put a peso in it, grudgingly, as if it were her last.

“This,” he said, “is not enough.”

“It is all I have.”

“I hear different. I hear you had a winning ticket last week.”

“No.”

“This is what I hear, that you took all your money and hid it away. If this is so...”

“And it is not.”

“But suppose it is. Then you are in luck, because I have a fine bargain for you.”

“I have seen too many of your fine bargains.”

“Not like this.” From one of the higher shelves behind the door Emilio took an object wrapped in a copy of Grafico. He removed the newspaper and held out, for her to see, a box of hammered silver. “A beauty, is it not?”

She pressed the cold bottle against her burning forehead like a poultice.

“As you can see,” Emilio said, “it has a damage, a dent. That is why I am offering it at the absurd price of two hundred pesos. Go on, take it, feel its weight. It’s genuine silver, as heavy as a mourner’s heart, and what could be heavier than that, eh, Consuela?”

“Where,” she said, “where did you get it?”

“Ah, that is my little secret.”

“You must tell me. I must know.”

“Very well. I found it.”

“Where?”

“A lady left it behind in the bar, on one of the seats.”

“What lady?”

“If I knew the lady I would return the box,” he said severely. “I am an honest man, I would never keep what belongs to another, never. But,” he added with a shrug, “since I do not know the lady’s name, and since she looked very rich, with many gold bracelets, yes, even gold on her eyelids...”

The telephone rang in 404. Both the women jumped, as if they’d heard a shot. Then the one in the red silk suit crossed the room and picked up the telephone. “Yes?”

“She’ll be back up soon,” Dodd said. “Leave the door partly open so she can get in. Is Mrs. Kellogg all right?”

“Yes.”

“And you?”

“I’m nervous. I feel so grotesque in this getup, with all this paint on. I don’t know if I can go through with it.”

“You have to, Pat.”

“But I’m not an actress. How can I fool her?”

“Because she’s ready to be fooled. The others have done their part — Escamillo, Emilio. Now it’s your turn. Kellogg will be there shortly. So will I. I’ll be in the other room, so don’t worry.”

“All right,” Miss Burton said. “All right.” She put down the telephone and looked across the room at the woman sitting on the edge of one of the twin beds. “She’s coming up soon. We must be ready.”

“Oh God,” Amy whispered. “I’m not sure. Even now, I’m not sure.”

“Everyone else is. All of us. We’re sure.”

“How can you be, if I’m not?”

“Because we know you and your character. We know you couldn’t possibly...”

“But I tell you, sometimes I remember, I remember quite clearly. I picked up the silver box, I was going to throw it over the balcony as Wilma had challenged me to do. She tried to grab the box from me, and we struggled, and then I hit...”

“You can’t remember what didn’t happen,” Miss Burton said sturdily.

“... and a beautiful silk suit,” Emilio said, “the color of blood. My most favorite color. Your most favorite too, Consuela?”

She didn’t hear the question. She was staring at the silver box as if it contained all the imps of hell. “The woman who left it, you said you’d never seen her before?”

“Wrong. I told you I did not know her name. Of course I have seen her before. She and her friend, one night in the bar they had a long talk with Joe, very gay, very merry, lots of tequila.”

“No. I don’t believe you. It’s not possible.”

“Ask Joe,” Emilio said, “next time you see him.”

“I won’t be — seeing him.”

“Ah, you might be surprised. One of these days you might open a door, expecting nothing, and there he’ll be...”

“No, that is imposs—”

“There he’ll be, the same as ever, as good as new.” Emilio was grinning nervously. “And he’ll say, ‘Here I am, Consuela, I have come back to you and your warm bed and I will never leave you again. Always I will be at your side, you will never get rid of me.’ ”

“Quiet,” she screamed. “Pig. Liar.” She was holding the bottle of beer by the neck as if she intended to use it to silence him. The beer gurgled out on the wooden floor and through the cracks, leaving a trail of bubbles. “He will never come back.”

Emilio’s grin had disappeared and a white line of fear circled his dry mouth. “Very well. He will never come back. I do not argue with a lady with so many muscles and a bad temper.”

“The box — the woman — it’s all a trick.”

“How do you mean this, a trick? I do not play tricks.”

“Señor Kellogg gave you that box. And there is no such woman as you claim.”

Emilio looked genuinely puzzled. “I know no Senor Kellogg. As for the woman, well, I saw what I saw. My eyes are not liars. She and her little brown-haired friend came in about 5:30. I served them myself. I said, ‘Good afternoon, señoras, it is a great pleasure to see you once more. Have you been away?’ And the señora in the blood- colored suit said, ‘Yes, I have been away on a long, long journey. I never thought I would get back, but here I am, here I am again.’ ”

“My beads,” she said, and the beer bottle dropped from her hand and rolled, unbroken, across the wooden floor. “I must find my beads. The closet — perhaps I left them in the closet. I must go and find them. My beads... Hail Mary, full of Grace...”

Rupert and Dodd waited in the bedroom.

“A devil on the one hand,” Rupert said, “and a delusion on the other. And I was trapped between them. I could do nothing but stall for time, keep Amy hidden away until she was able to think clearly again, to distinguish between what had happened and what Consuela claimed had happened. I had to keep her hidden not only from the police but from her family or anyone else she might try to ‘confess’ to. I couldn’t afford the risk of somebody believing her confession. There were times I almost believed it myself, it was so sincere and so plausible. But I knew my wife, I knew her to be incapable of violence against another human being.

“Consuela’s lies started the delusion, but it was aggravated by Amy’s own feeling of worthlessness. All her life she had suffered from a nameless guilt. Now Consuela had given it a name, murder. And Amy accepted it, because it is sometimes easier to accept one specific thing, no matter how bad, than to go on living with a lot of obscure and indefinite fears. But there were other reasons too for her acceptance. She was beginning to feel hostility toward Wilma and to resent Wilma’s domination. These feelings were later translated into guilt. Also, remember that Amy was drunk, and consequently had no clear recollection of the facts to counteract Consuela’s false version of them.”

“You claim it’s false,” Dodd interrupted. “But are you sure?”

“If I weren’t sure, would I have confided in you and put myself at your mercy? Would I have brought you and Amy down here, dragged Miss Burton into this, broken any number of laws? Believe me, Mr. Dodd, I’m sure. It’s Amy who isn’t. That’s why we’re here now. We can’t let her spend the rest of her life thinking that she killed her best friend. She didn’t. I know that, I knew it from the first.”

“Then why didn’t you give Consuela a quick, firm brushoff?”

“I couldn’t. By the time I reached Amy at the hospital, the damage had already been done. Amy was convinced she was guilty and Consuela stuck to her story. If it had been a simple matter of dealing with the girl alone, there would have been no problem. But there was Amy too. And on my side, I had no evidence at all, only my knowledge of my wife’s character. Bear in mind, also, that we were in a foreign country. I was completely ignorant of police procedure, of what the authorities might do to Amy if they believed her confession.”

When Rupert paused for breath, Dodd could hear the two women in the adjoining room talking, Amy softly, nervously, Miss Burton with brisk assurance, as if by putting on Wilma’s clothes and make-up she had assumed some of Wilma’s mannerisms. The stage was set but the leading character had yet to appear. The silver box should do it, he thought. She’s got to come back up to check Emilio’s story about the two Americans.

“I had no choice,” Rupert continued, “but to yield to Consuela’s demands and to stall for time. I talked it over with Amy and she agreed to do what I suggested, stay out of sight for a while. We got off the plane at L.A. and I checked her into a rest home under a different name, without even her own clothes to identify her.”

“That’s why you let the luggage go through to San Francisco?”

“The luggage and Consuela,” he added grimly. “She was sitting across the aisle from us. I was able to get official papers for her by pretending I was hiring her as a nurse-companion for my wife.”

“Didn’t Mrs. Kellogg object to the idea of entering a rest home?”

“No, she was quite docile about it. She trusted me and knew I was trying to help her. I felt reasonably certain that in a rest home, no matter what story she told, no one would believe her. As it turned out, she kept her secret to herself. And she obeyed my orders, gave me her power of attorney before we left Mexico City, wrote the letters I dictated in order to forestall any suspicions on the part of her brother Gill. I arranged with a business associate to have one of the letters postmarked New York but Gill wasn’t taken in. I didn’t realize how strong his suspicions would be or the extent of his dislike for me.

“As soon as I did realize, thanks to Helene, I began to get rattled and make mistakes. Big mistakes, like leaving Mack’s leash in the kitchen and giving Gerda Lundquist a chance to catch me in that fake telephone call. It seemed that with each mistake I made, the next one became easier. I could no longer think clearly, I was so worried about my wife. I had relied heavily on the theory that the passage of time would bring Amy to her senses. I was too optimistic. Time alone couldn’t do the trick; something more positive was needed. But I could do nothing positive, not even go down to Los Angeles to see her, to reason with her. I was trapped in San Francisco, with you and Gill Brandon on my tail. It was, ironically, Consuela herself who forced me to do something positive.”

They’d met, by prearrangement, in the back row of loges of a movie theater on Market Street. Rupert arrived first and waited for her. When she finally arrived, she had doused herself so extravagantly with perfume that before he saw or heard her approach he could smell her as she walked up the carpeted steps.

It was not the time or place for amenities, even if she’d known or cared about them. She said bluntly, “I need more money.”

“I haven’t any.”

“Get some.”

“How much were you thinking of?”

“Oh, a lot. There are two of us now.”

“Two?”

“Joe and I, we got married yesterday. I have always wanted to get married.”

“For God’s sake,” Rupert said. “Why did you have to drag O’Donnell into this?”

“I dragged no one. I simply wrote him a letter because I was lonesome. You do not understand how it is, being without friends, seeing only people who hate you and wish you dead. So I wrote Joe a letter, telling him how well I was doing, and about my pretty clothes and jewelry and my new hair, more blond than his even. I think it made him jealous. Anyway he borrowed some money and came up here by bus. Seeing him again, I thought, well, now that he’s here we might as well get married and regain the blessing of the Church. So now there are two of us.”

“To be supported by me.”

“Not you. Your wife. You have done nothing to be ashamed of. Why should you pay? It is Mrs. Kellogg who must pay.”

“This is blackmail.”

“I do not concern myself with words, only money.”

“You’ve told O’Donnell everything, I suppose?”

“We are man and wife,” she said virtuously. “A wife must confide in her husband completely.”

“You’re a damned fool.”

He felt her stiffen in the seat beside him. “Not such a fool as you might think.”

“Do you realize the penalty for blackmail?”

“I realize that you cannot go to the police and complain against me. If you do, they will have to question Mrs. Kellogg and she will admit her guilt.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said quickly. “My wife no longer believes your story about Mrs. Wyatt’s death. She remembers the truth.”

“What a bad liar you are. I can always tell a bad liar, I being such a good one.”

“Yes, I know that well.”

“Only I do not lie about vital matters, like Mrs. Wyatt’s death.”

“Don’t you?”

“Must I keep telling you? I was in the broom closet, sleeping, and I woke up when I heard someone screaming in 404. I rushed in. The two women were struggling over the silver box — they’d been arguing about it when I was in the room before. As I approached, Mrs. Kellogg got hold of the box and struck Mrs. Wyatt on the head. The balcony doors were open. Under the force of the blow, Mrs. Wyatt stumbled backwards out on to the balcony and fell over the railing. My mind is very quick. I thought immediately, what a terrible thing if the police accuse Mrs. Kellogg of murder. So I picked up the box and threw it over the railing. Mrs. Kellogg had fainted from shock. I poured some whiskey down her throat from the bottle on the bureau, and when she came to a little, I said to her, ‘Don’t worry. I am your friend. I will help you.’”

Friend. Help. Rupert stared in silence at the oversized movie screen where a man was stalking a woman, intent on killing her. He had a brief, childish wish that he were the man and Consuela the woman. If Consuela died, naturally, or by accident, or by design...

No, he thought. It would solve nothing. I must try to save Amy, not to punish Consuela. With Consuela dead I would have no chance of proving to Amy that she is suffering from a delusion. I must keep the devil alive because without her I cannot kill the delusion.

“The sea and the fog,” Consuela was saying. “They do not agree with my health. I want to go back home where it is high and dry. But of course I will require money.”

“How much?”

“Fifteen thousand dollars.”

“You must be crazy.”

“Oh, I know it sounds like a great deal, but once you have paid, you will be rid of me. Is it not worth that much to be rid of me.” She added softly, “Joe is not stupid. He has investigated. He has found out about the piece of paper you have that lets you cash checks on your wife’s account.”

“A check that large is bound to attract attention”

“You have already attracted much attention. A little more won’t matter. You will get the money?”

“I guess I have to.”

“Very well. Tomorrow, at noon, I’ll come to the restaurant where you eat lunch, Lassiter’s. I’ll sit down beside you, as if by accident, and when you give me the money, that will be the end of the whole thing.”

“Why meet at such a public place as a restaurant?”

“Simply because it is a public place. With so many people around, you won’t change your mind and try to do something foolish. I am not afraid of you, but then I can’t trust you either; you love that little wife of yours too desperately. How does it happen, such a love as this?”

“That’s something,” he said grimly, “you’ll never find out.”

They missed contact at Lassiter’s because of Helene’s surprise appearance. Rupert went home, and later in the afternoon...

“...About 3:30,” Rupert continued, to Dodd, “they drove up to the house in a second-hand car O’Donnell had bought with some o£ the money I’d already paid Consuela. They came around to the back door and I let them into the kitchen. They’d obviously been quarreling. Consuela was in a temper and O’Donnell seemed very nervous and frightened. I think he’d begun to realize that he had a tiger by the tail and the only thing he could do was to let go, run like hell, and hope for the best. O’Donnell’s mistake was in announcing his intention of letting go. It gave the tiger a chance to prepare to spring.

“As soon as I handed the money over to Consuela, O’Donnell told her he wanted out, that he didn’t intend to go with her back to Mexico City or any other place. I got the impression that they often had violent quarrels and that this one was no different. I went into the den. I could hear her screaming about marriage vows and the blessing of the Church. Then he said something to her in Spanish, and everything suddenly became very quiet. When I went back into the kitchen O’Donnell was lying in front of the refrigerator, dead, and Consuela was standing with the knife in her hand, looking surprised.

“The whole thing was so quick, so incredible, that it seemed to be taking place in a dream. I was too stunned to think clearly or to make plans. I could only act, automatically, by instinct. I tried to clean up the mess with bath towels, but it was no use, there was too much of it. Consuela kept crying and moaning, partly in regret over what she’d done, but more, I think, in dismay over what was going to happen to her now. It was at this point that I realized I had accepted too passive a role in the whole business. If I was to help Amy, I had to do something more positive. I couldn’t just sit back and wait for time to restore her to her senses. And so it was, as I said, Consuela herself who forced me to action by her killing of O’Donnell.

“Armchair critics, and people who’ve never been in my position, may censure me for not immediately calling the police. But you know, Dodd, that I couldn’t afford to; that if I had, my wife might very well be in jail right now. Consuela would have told the authorities her story of Wilma’s death, and Amy, ten chances to one, would have confirmed it. So in order to protect my wife, I had also to protect Consuela. For a time, anyway.

“We started out, using O’Donnell’s car for obvious reasons. When I stopped at the kennel to get Mack, I had some wild notion of ditching Consuela, picking up Amy at the rest home, and just taking off with her and Mack and disappearing. But I knew this wouldn’t work out, that in some way I must get Amy and Consuela to confront each other. I figured that Amy was a little more sure of herself by this time, and Consuela a great deal less. From such a meeting I hoped the truth would emerge. That’s why I called you from the Big Sur, and asked your help in arranging it. I’m aware that I’ve put you in a very difficult position, but believe me, it’s for a good cause. My wife’s whole future is at stake.”

So is mine, Dodd thought, and started making a mental list of the number of laws he’d broken in the interests of Amy’s future. He stopped at seven; the project was too depressing.

In the adjoining room the telephone began to ring and Dodd went to answer it. The two women watched in silence as he picked up the phone. “Yes?”

“I sent Pedro up with the silver box,” Escamillo said. “Did you receive it?”

“Yes.”

“Emilio is now in my office. He tells me she is on her way upstairs.”

“Thanks.” Dodd replaced the phone and turned to Amy, who was sitting on the edge of the bed looking pale and bewildered, as if she’d somehow wandered into the whole affair by mistake. “Are you ready, Mrs. Kellogg?”

“I guess I am.”

“How do you feel?”

“All right. I guess all right.” Her hands plucked listlessly at one of the chenille roses of the bedspread. “I wish Rupert were here.”

“He’s right in the next room.”

“I wish he were here.”

Exasperation showed in his face and posture. “Mrs. Kellogg, I needn’t remind you that a lot of people have gone through a great deal for your sake, especially your husband.”

“I know. I know that.”

“You’ve got to cooperate.”

“I will.”

“Of course she will,” Miss Burton said in a hearty voice, but her bracelets clanged nervously and one of her golden eyelids twitched in dissent.

When Dodd had left, Amy sat on the bed repeating his words to herself: A lot of people have gone through a great deal for my sake. Especially Rupert. I’ve got to cooperate. Because a lot of people have gone through a great deal for my sake I’ve got to cooperate — got to...

As soon as Consuela opened the door of her broom closet she could hear the voices again. They were indistinct, until she pressed her ear to the listening wall, and then she heard, quite clearly, the sound of her own name, Consuela. And again, Consuela, as if they were calling her, summoning her.

No, she thought, no, that is impossible. Escamillo said the suite was empty, and I went to the door myself, and knocked, and no one answered. The voices are heard by me alone. Perhaps I have a fever. That must be it, of course. In a fever the mind often plays tricks; one imagines, one sees and hears things that are not so.

She raised one hand and touched her forehead. It felt moist and cool, like a newly peeled peach. No trace of a fever. Still, it must be there, she thought. So far it is all on the inside and hasn’t yet come to the surface. I must go home and take precautions against the evil eye that someone has cast upon me.

But when she stepped out into the corridor she saw that the door of 404 was partly open. She knew it could not have been blown open by the wind — half an hour ago it had been so securely fastened that her passkey wouldn’t budge in the lock.

She crept along the wall to the half-open door and peered inside. There were two women in the room. One of them, the small brown-haired one sitting on the bed, was alive. The other, standing in front of the open balcony door, had died almost a month ago. Consuela had seen her die from this very doorway, had heard her final scream. Now she had stepped from her coffin, groomed and jeweled as if she’d been to a party, wearing the same red silk suit and the same fur coat, untouched by any worms or mildew or decay. A month of death hadn’t changed her at all; even her expression, when she saw Consuela, was the same, annoyed and impatient.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said. “Again. Every time I take a breath around this place someone comes creeping in to change the towels or turn down the beds. I feel as if I’m being spied on.”

“They just try to give us good service,” her companion said.

“Good service? The towels all stink.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“You smoke too much. Your sense of smell isn’t as sharp as mine. They stink.”

“I don’t think you should talk like this in front of the girl.”

“You can tell from her face she doesn’t understand a word I’m saying.”

“But the travel agency said everyone on the hotel staff spoke English.”

“All right, why don’t you try her out?”

“I will,” Amy said. “What’s your name, girl? Do you speak English? Tell us your name.”

Consuela stood, mute as a stone, her right hand clutching the little gold cross she wore around her neck, her eyes fixed on the hammered silver box lying on the coffee table. It has all happened before, she thought, and it will all happen again. It is not that the American lady died and has come back from her grave. It is that we are all dead, all three of us, dead and in hell. This is what hell is, everything goes on repeating and repeating, forever and ever, and nobody can change it. The whole thing has happened before, and it will happen again. Pretty soon they will start to quarrel about the silver box, they will struggle over it. And I will stand here and watch her die, and listen to her last scream...

“No! No! Please! No!” She fell forward on her knees, pressing the little gold cross against her dry lips, mumbling in Spanish the words of her childhood: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

She went on praying, only partly aware of other people rushing into the room, of men’s voices shouting at her, asking her questions, calling her names.

“Liar.”

“You must tell us the truth.”

“What happened to Mrs. Wyatt?”

“You killed her yourself, didn’t you?”

“You came into this room and found Mrs. Kellogg unconscious, and Mrs. Wyatt too drunk to defend herself. And you saw your big chance.”

“You must tell us the truth.”

She began again, for the fifth time, “Hail Mary, full of Grace. Blessed art thou amongst women...” But the words were automatic and had no connection with her thoughts: I am in hell. This is another corner of it, when you tell the truth and no one believes you because you have lied in the past. So you must lie to be believed.

“Consuela, do you hear me? You must give us the truth.”

She raised her head. She looked stunned, as if someone had struck a blow in a vital place, but her voice was quite clear. “I hear you.”

“What happened when you came into this room?”

“She was standing on the balcony with the silver box in her hands. She leaned over the railing and disappeared. I heard her scream.”

“And Mrs. Kellogg had nothing to do with it?”

“Nothing.” She kissed the little cross. “Nothing.”