Puzzle of the Blue Banderilla Read online

  Inch by inch, as the young matador rose on slippered toes, the sword went into the humped shoulder just in front of the gay fluttering darts which hung there. The sword disappeared, down to the hilt.

  For an instant bull and man stood linked in a strange embrace, as if a film had suddenly been stopped.

  “‘The Moment of Truth,’ so the Spanish call it,” Julio explained.

  The bull plunged on, turned suddenly. Men ran out with pink capes, but the young matador waved them back, dancing like a madman in front of the bull. Toro braced himself to charge, shaking his head and planning just where to place the horn now that his tormentor was within reach. He lowered his head …

  Then suddenly, wearily, he lay down on the sand and was still.

  The crowd arose and cheered. There was a frantic snowstorm of handkerchiefs waving in the opposite stands. “They want the matador to have the ear of the bull as a reward,” Julio explained, his voice suddenly gone dull.

  “You’re not applauding,” Piper said, looking curious.

  Julio shook his head. “One outgrows all this,” he confessed. “My country will outgrow it soon. You see, my father raises bulls on a big rancho in Sonora. They are very brave and very stupid, no antagonists for a man.”

  “Then why,” pressed Miss Withers, “are you here?”

  He hesitated for a moment. “What else is there to do on Sunday afternoons?”

  Down in the front row, far below them, they could see Al Hansen’s great Stetson hat waving in the air.

  A broad-beamed lady in purple, presumably one of the sirens who had smiled so fruitlessly upon Mr. Ippwing, stood beside him with her hand on his shoulder. As the jubilant matador trotted past on his circuit of the arena to receive the applause and bouquets and offerings of straw hats which came skimming down, the lady in purple screamed vociferous Spanish words of adoration and then tossed down a large long-heeled purple evening slipper.

  As with the hats, it was picked up and tossed back by the ring followers. “Odd how women can worship bullfighters,” Miss Withers remarked disapprovingly.

  “Yeah, even the Prothero girl, it looks like,” said Piper, pointing.

  Away to the right in the very first row, almost against the high iron barrier dividing the sombra from the sol, stood Miss Dulcie Prothero, a small and at the moment a very noisy person.

  “Yoo hoo!” she was crying.

  The man who sat beside her, a tall, faintly amused man with beautiful gray temples, patted her shoulder. But it seemed that Dulcie would not sit down, in spite of what Mr. Michael Fitz said to her.

  The matador looked up, smiled genially through the sweat that dripped from his low forehead, but she looked past him.

  A dozen or so ring servants in blue uniforms with bright red jackets were running about in the arena, smoothing and spreading sand over the hoof marks and the bloodstains in preparation for the next bull. A trio of trotting mules came in, and their chain was hooked around the horns of the dead champion. Toro was dragged ingloriously across the ring.

  “Wait!” Dulcie Prothero cried, but they did not wait. She sank slowly to her seat. Everyone else was sitting down, and the band broke into an old heartstirring tune.

  “Listen,” Julio said. “They play ‘El Novillero’—the song of the young bullfighter who goes out not knowing if as the price of his glory he pays with his life.”

  The last of the ring servants was running out with the brooms and shovels, and from high overhead a trumpet sounded its pure sweet summons to the next bull to come out and be killed. And then the crowd rose to its feet again.

  Dulcie Prothero was stealing the show.

  “She’s jumped!” gasped Julio Mendez. “The crazy one!”

  Suddenly the red head of Dulcie Prothero appeared down in the callejón, the narrow runway below the seats. She was waving, crying out something lost in the roar of the crowd. Across the ring, in a gateway next to where the dead bull had been dragged, a door was being unlatched.

  The girl was leaning on the barrier itself, seeming about to mount it and dash out on the sands of the arena, armed only with a handbag and a scarf.

  The bull, a great plunging beast, came flashing across the sand, but even as his eyes caught sight of the girl she was rudely snatched from his horizon. A swarm of gold-spangled picadors, silver-clad peones, sword carriers and water boys had seized ruthlessly upon Miss Dulcie Prothero and borne her out of sight.

  Julio rose to his feet, as suddenly sat down. “They won’t arrest her, probably,” he said, half to himself. “And if they do—”

  “And if they do I suppose you’ll use your influence and have her set loose?” the inspector asked, with a touch of sarcasm.

  Julio nodded. “One way or another,” he said slowly.

  “I don’t see why she would want to do that,” Piper went on.

  “In this country,” Julio explained, “we have what we call “The Madness of the Bull Ring.’ Every so often some spectator leaps the barrier and tries to play torero. It looks so easy.”

  “Fiddlesticks!” Miss Withers put in. “That girl wasn’t trying to play bullfighter.”

  Julio didn’t answer. “Anyway, since her escort sits there calmly and lets her get into troubles, we may as well do the same, no? For the time being, anyway. Watch this bull.”

  It was a bull to watch. He stood half again as high as the preceding sacrifice, this toro—a red-grayish beast with fine wide horns, deep chest, and a neck and shoulder humped high with power.

  “A good bull,” Julio Mendez said. “Maybe too good.”

  Already the impetuous gringa girl was forgotten, and all eyes were on the bull, who raced around the arena hooking at the capes which were being fluttered along the barrier.

  “Perhaps it’s just as well having Dulcie Prothero out of the way for a while,” Miss Withers whispered to Piper. “I’d feel safer if several other people were locked up too.”

  A peon ran out suddenly, dodged as the bull charged him, and then dashed across the ring, trailing his wide cape slowly from side to side in front of the pursuing beast. Julio pointed to a pale young face above the farther barrier, a face beneath the odd flat cap of the matador. “That Nicanor, he is to kill this bull. He watches now to see which horn the bull favors—the one he must dodge.”

  The imminence of death rested so heavily upon the place that Miss Withers imagined she could smell and taste it. She had to keep reminding herself why they had come. “Oscar, do you see Mrs. Mabie anywhere?”

  He grunted. “Bother that woman! Let her wait and get murdered after this is over.”

  She understood, somehow, how he felt. There was something atavistic in the appeal of this spectacle older than Rome or Byzantium. It was something which reached down into dark uncharted corners of the human soul, took command of the emotions.

  Perspectives were all out of focus, murder and the possibilities of murder became dwarfed in importance. At any moment one expected to see the ring cleared for a battle royal between unicorns and lions, or to watch a row of oil-soaked Christians blazing merrily.

  Nicanor, he of the glittering gold jacket and the white face, was in the arena now, for the preliminary work with the capeta. Feet together he stood, moving the cape with wrists and fingers so that it seemed to float in front of that charging mountain of flesh. Again …

  There was a rumbling of thunder and the strong scent of moisture in the air. But the skies held off, as if waiting for the death of this bull among bulls. “I should think the bull would have sense enough to forget the cloth and go for the man!” Miss Withers said.

  Julio Mendez smiled. “You think, lady, that they don’t? The man tries to keep the bull’s eye fixed, but there comes a day—and a bull …” He shrugged. “Bullfighters do not die in bed.”

  There was a trumpet call, and the bull, his wind back after a moment’s rest, saw two more enemies come forth, in the shape of gaunt and ridiculous horses mounted by tremendous fat men with cockades on their hats and la
nces in their hands.

  “Los Rocinantes!” howled the crowd delightedly.

  “I—I think I’ll go and look for Mrs. Mabie somewhere else,” Miss Withers suggested, her voice strained, after the first charge of the bull against a horse.

  There was thunder, and a few thick fat drops of rain came down. Instantly a surge of spectators rushed back to the shelter of the boxes and gallery; others, hardier, went forward to take their places.

  And then suddenly there was Adele Mabie in the entrance gate, her arms loaded with a bundle.

  “Mrs. Mabie!” shrieked Miss Withers.

  The woman looked up, waved. “Have you seen my husband?” she cried.

  “He went home—won’t you sit with us?” the schoolteacher invited. “It’s dry here.”

  Adele hesitated, shook her head. “I want to see!” she called. She signaled frantically to one of the umbrella vendors who were passing up and down crying “¡Paraguas! Paraguas se vende!”

  They watched from their high but dry seats as Adele Mabie took an umbrella. Like all the others it was painted gaily to insure its being left behind at the end of the day. It was a bright umbrella, with white and red concentric circles around the top. She raised it jauntily and went forward, taking advantage of the departure of a large party of tourists from one of the front rows. They saw her plump herself down, saw the gay umbrella settle snugly over her shoulders.

  “Good heavens!” gasped Miss Withers. “Do you see what I see?”

  The inspector looked blank, but Julio slowly nodded. “That umbrella, it looks like a thing that you hit with the bow and arrow, eh? How do you say?”

  “‘Target’ is the word,” Miss Withers told him. The bugle had just blown to signify that the affair of the horses was over, the bull having borne three times the punishment of the picador. The gaunt mounts were being hurried, limping, through the gates.

  “Once toro has wet his horn, let the matador take care,” Julio said.

  Miss Withers was silent, being busy with the mental composition of a letter to the S.P.C.A., an organization of which she had for many years been a loyal and active member. She saw without any special attention that Al Hansen, hat and all, was hurrying up the steps and through the exit, leaving his newly acquired lady friend behind.

  “And another turista bit the dust!” announced Julio, as if it gave him pleasure. “Sometimes we have as many as a dozen fainting in their seats.”

  Piper was counting on his fingers. “You ought to relax, Hildegarde,” he said. “Our party of suspects is thinning out. First Mabie has a weak stomach, then the Prothero girl gets locked up or chucked out on her ear, now Al Hansen sneaks away—”

  “And Mr. Lighton didn’t seem to be able to get in at all, as far as we know,” the schoolteacher added. “There’s nobody left but the Ippwings—and us.”

  Julio cocked his head thoughtfully and said that they’d have to be watching each other, then. Which, Miss Withers thought, showed an odd perception on the part of the Gay Caballero.

  For a moment the bull stood alone, master of the arena. And then his enemies returned.

  A man in a silver jacket ran out onto the sand, holding a long slender banderilla in either hand, darts covered with twisted paper frills of black and gold. Bull and man converged, the one in silver swinging sidewise as they met, posing for an instant like a high diver or a fencer.

  As they separated the man sprinted away, while the bull paused to hook fruitlessly at two stinging barbs that had entered his humped shoulder muscles. “Mucho!” roared the crowd, indicating approval.

  Another man, another charge, and this time a pair of mauve and green darts dangled in the bull’s hide. And a third man, who failed to plant one of his blue-gold darts, and who flung himself over the barrier only a split second before a half ton of infuriated beast struck head on against the heavy planking.

  “Aw, he got away,” said Piper, who was strictly rooting for the bull.

  And now the trumpet sounded for the faena, the last act of the tragedy. “Nicanor has got to kill this bull now,” Julio said.

  The youth in the gold-embroidered jacket seemed in no hurry. He deliberated over swords, discarding one because it was too whippy and another because it was too stiff. He found fault with the muletas of soft scarlet serge, and when he finally decided upon one insisted that it be wetted so that it would hang more heavily against the breeze.

  “Poor old bossy looks sort of peaceful now,” the inspector said.

  “He is tired from lifting horses, from chasing capes, and from the pikes and darts in his back,” Julio admitted. “But now he is most dangerous, for the last affair has taught him defeat. He knows that this is to be fighting to the finish.”

  In spite of the breeze and the drizzle of rain there was a heavy thickish smell in the air, an ammoniacal smell mingled of blood and sweat and fear.

  Julio consulted his watch. For some time, Miss Withers had noticed, he had been fidgeting like a schoolboy kept in at recess. Now he stood up. “Sorry I must tearing myself off,” he explained. “But I have—I have a date with a señorita.”

  He hurried off down the steps. “To keep a date with the señorita, eh?” said Miss Withers thoughtfully. “You know, that young lady of his needs a shave.” She pointed.

  On the exit platform below Julio Mendez was listening to questions from one of the agentes. He seemed to protest at something and then gave in with a shrug and went through the exit.

  The inspector and Miss Withers looked at each other wonderingly. “Are the Mexican police investigating this case after all?” she mused. “Have they got something on the Gay Caballero?”

  “Probably parked against a fireplug,” Piper decided. Another spatter of rain swept over the place, heavy enough so that they watched the ensuing scene above a sea of umbrellas. The crowd was damp, uneasy and impatient, and across the ring in the ranks of the cheap sol seats some wag loudly inquired if the matador was waiting for the bull to drown in the rain.

  The big clock over the Glaxo sign showed that three minutes of the allotted twelve were gone. But it was young Nicanor’s sense of humor and not his nervousness which kept him back. The other novices, in fact, all the hangers-on in the runway, were still laughing at the spectacle of the young lady from yanquilandia who had leaped down from the front seats—with a display of silk stockings which was not bad, either—leaving her escort alone, high if not very dry.

  Hence the point of Nicanor’s joke. The crowd would appreciate it, the newspaper critics would certainly mention it among the bright spots of the afternoon. It was the sort of whimsy which makes a crowd follow an ambitious young bullfighter, gives him color.

  Young Nicanor marched along the barrier, passed into the arena, and then, with a wary eye out for the bull in the distance, looked up at the front row of the audience.

  “Señor!” cried the novice matador, waving to a handsome man who sat glumly in the front row, wrapped in a gabardine coat. Mr. Michael Fitz blinked as he was startled out of his apathy.

  “To you, señor!” And Nicanor whipped off his funny little pancake of a hat, tossed it neatly up into the American’s lap. “To you I dedicate this bull!” he cried in Spanish. “As solace for the loss of your querida!”

  There was a pause, and then a ripple of half-friendly, half-jeering applause. Mike Fitz had no choice but to stand up, wave the hat. He was caught, he knew he was caught, for, according to the ancient tradition of the bull ring, that hat had to be thrown back to the triumphant matador full of bank notes when the bull was dead.

  Now Nicanor left the barrier and ran stiff-legged across the damp sand of the arena. There was a faint “Ah” from the crowd, a shared sense that the curtain was going up on the last act. They had come to smell, to taste, the presence of death. Death was the invisible companion of every spectator, death mingled chummily with the young toreros in the runway, and death hovered over that loneliest of all, the red-gray bull.

  Until today that bull had had no pract
ice in fighting dismounted men. According to the theory of the bull ring he was to achieve that knowledge as he died.

  He charged, and charged again, that muleta. He charged like an express train along a track, in the manner which offers the matador the finest opportunities in the world for stunting. Again and again Nicanor drew the bull, working now on his knees, now in sharp quick pases naturales which made the bull swing around himself in a quarter circle.

  The crowd howled with delight, howled louder as young Nicanor, drunk with success, set out to emulate not only Belmonte but also Chaplin. He jeered at the bull, he hung a straw hat on one horn as it whirled past him.

  “Disgusting,” said Mrs. Ippwing. “To sit in the rain and watch clowning!” And she and her husband rose and departed. “We’ll come back to Mexico in the wintertime when they have real Spanish fighters,” she insisted.

  Nicanor made two brilliant pases de la muerte, snatching the scarlet rag up and over the bull’s back so that the great beast tried valiantly to do a back somersault. Toro was tiring now, head low enough so that the vital spot between his shoulders was exposed.

  It was time, Nicanor knew, for the swift and beautiful thrust of the steel. He profiled himself, sighted along the sword held at eye level. His left arm made a cross under his right, shaking the scarlet rag enticingly alongside his knee where the bull’s head must go by.

  The photographers, perched in their tiny nests around the lip of the stands, had their lenses trained on him now, he knew. As the bull prepared for a last charge Nicanor saw nothing but those photographs.

  He raised himself on his right tiptoe so that he could fall sidewise, gypsy fashion, against the bull. It was a stunt that one dared try only with a brave and stupid bull who charged carril fashion along a track. He took a short step backward, flapped the cloth.

  The bull raised his tail and, faster than a horse can run, his head held beautifully low, came dashing to meet the thirsty blade. It was a work of art, as perfect as a Brancusi statue, as a demonstration in Euclid, as swift and sure and easy as Astaire in dancing shoes or Perry with a racquet. Perfect, only …