Days of the Dead.pdf - Upgrade Systems

"Which I did," Hannibal confessed. "The more fool I. Honi soit qui mal y pense. I was still at
Consuela’s flat in town-Valla begged me not to tell her. Valla slipped me the letter, I gave her the
translation the next time we were here; she must have spent all night writing a reply, which I then took
and translated into English.
This wimpled, whining, purblind wayward boy,
This senior junior, giant-dwarf Dan Cupid;
Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans. . . .
"Her shining knight of the north must have gotten her letter somehow-I have no idea how they exchange
letters, but if it were me I'd have a drop-box somewhere in the hills-because the next time I came here
there was another letter from him, longer but no better spelled...."
"And the correspondence flourished," concluded January grimly. "As such correspondences will. I
under­stand your not wanting to smirch the young lady's name by accusing her of trading letters with a
man her father almost certainly wouldn't approve of, but since Fernando had learned already that she was
exchanging love-letters with someone...”
"Why didn't I tell Fernando it wasn't me?" Hannibal leaned back against the bedpost. Like most of the
house­hold, he was somberly dressed, his trousers and short Mexican jacket both black out of respect
for the family's grief, and a black silk scarf tied over his long hair, vaquero-­fashion. "I asked Valla about
it first, of course-I had de­duced, from being slammed up against a wall and half-strangled, that Fernando
had found the love-letters. She then assured me that she had burned the originals, and that she was
prepared to swear that not only had I written all the letters to her myself, but that I had sneaked into the
women's courtyard at night and attempted to rape her. The light of love, the purity of grace / The
mind, the music breath­ing from her face. . ."
January said, "Hmmn."
"You can see why I am extremely glad that somebody showed up who at least believes me." The
fiddler fell silent for a time, chewing on a corner of his graying mustache, watching January with somber,
coffee-black eyes. "Which I appreciate, by the way," he added. "Especially as I realize that this-er-new
addition to the evidence in no way lessens my motivation for killing Fernando. Or offers an al­ternative
source of poison in the approximately three min­utes between the conclusion of supper and my entry to
his study, glass in hand."
"I'm not so sure about that." January touched the side of the tea-pot with the backs of his fingernails.
"What can you tell me about Sacripant Guillenormand?"
Voices in the corredor. Don Prospero's: "Their President would never dare to enter into war with
Mexico, my Eagle! And the Americans themselves are few and cow­ardly. You have nothing to concern
yourself with."
"I have to concern myself with that scoundrel chargé d'affaires Butler and those troublemakers he calls
his secre­taries.... Ah, my beautiful lady Rose!"
January and Hannibal traded a glance, then both went out into the arcade, January pausing only long
enough to stow the little pot of tea in the bottom of the chest, tucked carefully in with Rose's petticoats.