Crossed Trails in Mexico / Mexican Mystery Stories #3

Peggy nudged Jo Ann and pointed to the sign ahead: "Speed limit, 80 miles."

Jo Ann's dark brown eyes twinkled. "It's plain to see we're out in the Texas open now-the wide open."

"Too bad poor old Jitters can't accept the invitation to do eighty. She's doing well when she makes forty or fifty. But even if she could go faster, Florence wouldn't let her." Peggy gestured toward the small, trim, fair-haired girl at the wheel.

"Florence has lived in Mexico so long that she's slow but sure like the Mexicans. She's always saying, 'Why the great rush? There's plenty of time!' If I were driving, now-" Jo Ann nodded her mop of unruly black curls vigorously-"I'd encourage Jitters to go her limit, especially since she has brand-new tires."

"Here too. Weren't we lucky to find such a bargain in a car? I'll admit she's not much on looks and that she shakes till she deserves the name of Jitters-but she's ours, all ours." Peggy's hazel eyes gazed admiringly upon their old battered Ford.

"And look where she's carrying us: to Mexico! All the way to the land of mystery and romance!"

"I can hardly wait to get back down there again. I wonder if we'll run into as thrilling adventures as we did last summer when we were visiting Florence."

Peggy smiled. "You will. You're always getting out of one mystery only to tumble headlong into another."

Jo Ann nodded toward the prim, erect, gray-haired woman on the front seat beside Florence and murmured, "Miss Prudence'll keep me on my good behavior this time. Even if some tremendous mystery bumps right into me this trip, I'm not going to pay one bit of attention to it."

"Straight from Missouri am I," Peggy replied, laughing.

"From Mississippi, you mean. From a year's hard work in good old Evanston High. The work's agreed with us, hasn't it? We're both four or five pounds heavier. School's agreed with Carlitos, too." Jo Ann leaned forward to smile at the round-faced eleven-year-old boy sitting on the other side of Peggy. "He's as fat as a butter ball now."

Ever since the five had started on their long automobile journey, Carlitos had been too busy viewing the scenery to talk, but at Jo Ann's words he opened his blue eyes wide and asked in broken English, "Butter ball-what is dat?"

Both Jo Ann and Peggy exchanged smiles. It seemed strange to them that Carlitos could not understand the most commonplace phrases, yet when they stopped to think that he had spoken Spanish altogether till he had come to the States last fall, they marveled that he talked as well as he did.

While Jo Ann was explaining to him the meaning of the words "butter ball," Peggy was mentally reviewing his strange life. When he was about a year old his parents had come from New Jersey to a remote Mexican village where his father, Charles Eldridge, owned a silver mine. A few months later Mr. Eldridge had met his death at the hands of a treacherous Mexican foreman, and shortly afterwards Mrs. Eldridge had died from the combined effects of shock and pneumonia, leaving the tiny Carlitos in the care of a poor ignorant Indian nurse. The foreman, who had taken possession of the mine, then tried to kidnap Carlitos, the rightful heir. Alarmed at this threatened danger, the nurse had fled across the mountains with Carlitos and her family where they were befriended by Jo Ann, Florence, and herself. Due to their efforts Carlitos's uncle, Edward Eldridge, had been found and the mine restored to Carlitos. So dismayed had his uncle been at finding that his nephew could not speak English that he had sent him to Massachusetts to live with his aunt, Miss Prudence Eldridge.

Peggy smiled to herself as her thoughts wandered around to the New England spinster aunt who had come down by train with Carlitos to Mississippi and was accompanying them the rest of the way to Mexico. Miss Prudence's never-ceasing astonishment at having a half-grown nephew who was just learning to speak English was a source of amusement to her and Florence and Jo Ann.

Just then Carlitos broke into an excited exclamation: "We come to big city! See-big high houses!"

"Fine!" Jo Ann ejaculated. "That must be Houston. We've made much better time than I thought. We'll be there by seven o'clock."

With a broad smile Peggy remarked low-voiced to Jo Ann, "Don't forget that you drew Miss Prudence for your roommate tonight. I heard her say she always rises at five-thirty, so I see where you'll have to get up with the chickens."

"If I have to get up at that ghastly hour, I'll wake you and Florence, too. It'll be specially good for you to get up early. As Miss Prudence said last night, 'Remember, the early bird catches the worm'!"

Peggy made a funny little grimace. "But I don't want to catch worms-I don't like 'em."

"You'll have to acquire a taste for them then," Jo Ann retorted between giggles. A moment later she added, "We really ought to get an early start tomorrow morning, sure enough, since we may go by way of Brownsville."

On reaching the city a half hour later, they drove straight to one of the larger hotels.

"I just adore going into strange hotels," remarked Peggy, starting to get out of the car.

Miss Prudence turned in time to see her rising and said quickly, "You girls wait here while I go in and look around. One can't be too particular about the kind of hotel one chooses, even to stay for a few hours."

Disappointed, Peggy dropped back into her seat.

"Never mind, Peg, when we get to Mexico she'll let Florence and us take the lead, since she's never been there before."

In a few minutes the girls saw Miss Prudence returning, followed closely by a porter.

"Come on," she called out briskly to them. "I've registered for us all."

She hurried them on inside the hotel and into the elevator so rapidly that Peggy declared afterwards that she wouldn't have known she was in a hotel if she hadn't seen a bellboy.

When the porter stopped at the first room and asked which baggage he was to carry in, Miss Prudence pointed to her suitcase, then hesitated a half second.

Peggy grasped this opportunity to put in, "Jo says she's going to be your roommate this time."

Miss Prudence smiled over at Jo Ann. "Fine. Carlitos's room connects with ours; then you and Florence have the one next to his. All of you hurry and get cleaned up, now, so we can get something to eat right away. Then we'll come straight up and go to bed. We have to get an early start in the morning, you know."

The three girls exchanged swift glances but did not protest.

Once inside their room, however, Peggy groaned loudly to Florence, "Miss Prudence acts as if we were still in rompers. Putting us to bed as soon as we've eaten our suppers! What's the fun of coming to a new city if you can't see anything?"

By nine o'clock, still inwardly protesting but outwardly calm, the girls were marshaled back to their rooms by Miss Prudence.

Jo Ann bade Peggy and Florence good night and remarked with a teasing smile, "You'll hear me knocking at your door about 5:30 A.M."

"Don't you dare!" both girls exclaimed in the same breath. Florence added, "Surely you wouldn't be that cruel!"

"Oh yes, I would. Misery needs companionship. Be sure to leave the sliding panel of your door down as it is now, so you can hear my first tap." Jo Ann indicated the top section of the door which was screened by a Venetian blind, as were the doors of all the other rooms.

It seemed to Jo Ann she had hardly been asleep two winks that night when she heard a voice saying in her ear, "Sorry, my dear, but it's time you're getting up."

Miss Prudence! Surely it couldn't be morning! She suppressed a groan and turned over for another nap, only to hear the insistent voice: "Sorry, my dear, but--"

Jo Ann managed to mumble a sleepy "All right."

After much stretching and yawning she reluctantly slipped out of bed. She stood blinking sleepily at Miss Prudence in her blue kimono and thinking how Chinesey she looked with her long, gray, braided pigtail down her back.

Miss Prudence's next words were anything but Chinese: "Call the girls and Carlitos before you start to dress. Both Peggy and Florence are slower than you, and it'll take them a long time to get ready."

"Some of my clothes are in Peg's bag, so I'll have to go in and get them before I can dress. I'll wake them then." Thoroughly roused at last, Jo Ann thrust her feet into her slippers, slipped into her negligee, and started down the hall.

Just as she reached the girls' door a man's earnest voice sounded startlingly clear through the screened panel of the door directly across the hall. Her heart gave a sudden frightened leap at hearing someone say, "I'm afraid I'm going to lose my life before this is over."

So distinct were the words that it seemed as if the man were talking to her. In danger of losing his life! And he was! There was no mistaking the conviction in his voice. It was not the broken trembling voice of a coward. It had been firm, strong, even though he was sure he was in grave danger. He must be talking to someone over the phone-there was no audible answer. Why was he in such terrible trouble? What had he done? Was he a criminal or a detective?

Standing statue-like at the girls' door Jo Ann listened intently for his next words. "I was hot on their trail," the voice went on, "but had two flats, and that delayed me.... Yes, in the usual place."

Before she could realize that the conversation had ended, the door opened suddenly, and a tall, stalwart man wearing a broad-brimmed tan felt hat stepped out. On seeing Jo Ann he halted and shot a piercing glance at her from gray eyes so penetratingly keen that she felt as if they were cutting straight through her.

She flushed with embarrassment. It had been unpardonably rude to eavesdrop that way. What must that man think of her? Hurriedly she began knocking on the girls' door.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw that the man, after hesitating a fraction of a second, had gone on down the hall toward the elevator.