The Kissed Corpse by Brett Halliday Page A

the man continued. “For ze murder of anozzer gringo … Meester Leslie Young.”

7
    Laura’s head snapped up and she gasped: “Leslie Young? Murdered! ”
    â€œ Si, Senorita. ” The Mexican nodded gravely while I wondered if she could possibly be putting on an act. If so, she was doing a good job of it, popping excited questions at the policeman to which he responded with a stolid shaking of his head.
    Then they were herding us out and down the long hall to the stairway. Holding my arm tightly, Laura whispered:
    â€œYou knew about Les, didn’t you? How? Tell me what all this means.”
    I concentrated on keeping my mouth shut and my eyes open. I wasn’t worried about the arrest, of course. Burke would fix that up with the Juarez police. But I hated to be hustled away from the hacienda with so many unanswered questions hanging fire.
    I didn’t learn any of the answers on the short trip out to the front door, which Pasqual held open unsmilingly. The curtains were tightly drawn across both archways leading off the hall, and there was silence inside as we were pushed past.
    Outside, I tried to argue with our captors, but Mexican cops are hell on wheels when it comes to carrying out orders. They hustled Laura into the front seat of the police car they had driven down, put me in the driver’s seat of my car while a cop got in the back. He ordered me to follow along behind the other car, and Laura leaned out to wave mockingly as they pulled away from in front of the hacienda .
    Nothing happened on the road to Juarez. I pulled up behind the police car in front of the Juarez station, and my shadow and I got out behind Laura and her escort.
    The first person I saw inside the police station was Jerry Burke. He was lounging against the railing talking to the officer in charge, and he blinked his eyes and stared when Laura and I were led in.
    Then he began laughing.
    That gave me the idea he had engineered the entire arrest and it made me sore as hell. I didn’t laugh. I said:
    â€œMaybe it’s funny to you, but my sense of humor is out of joint.”
    He quit laughing and did some rapid explaining to the officer in charge of the desk. The Mexican knew Burke, and very politely turned us over to him with the explanation that he knew nothing about the matter except a telephone from the Hacienda del Torro to send men to arrest a couple of people who were impersonating Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Young of El Paso. While the cops were waiting for us to be brought in it seemed that Burke had just happened to turn up at the police station in the nick of time to identify us.
    While Burke was shaking hands and matching the Mexican’s politeness, I moved over beside Laura and said:
    â€œYou’d better come along with us and answer some questions that Jerry will want to ask you.”
    She looked through me. “So you’re a stooge for the cops?”
    Burke was coming across the room toward us. I turned to him and said:
    â€œLet me present Miss Laura Yates. She messed things up for me at the hacienda and she’s admittedly been friendly with Young and if she kissed a man the stain would stay on his mouth a long time.”
    He glanced at my mouth and grinned. “Is that what you were proving when you accumulated that war paint?”
    I got out my handkerchief and rubbed my lips. The shock of being arrested had caused me to forget that moment in the barred room just before the police came.
    Burke didn’t rub it in. He went on casually: “I drove over in my car. Suppose we all go out to your place to talk this thing over, Asa.”
    â€œYou’d better bring Miss Yates in your car,” I told him stiffly.
    Jerry Burke turned on her with that slow grin of his that spreads all over his square face. Her white evening gown looked incongruous as hell in that drab setting but she was just as self-possessed as ever.
    I went out and got in my car, drove over the Sante Fe