“I have a susceptible throat, and with the windstorm … When the letter arrived I came right away. Of course, by then the storm was already over.”
This system of questions and answers, this enigmatic catechism, was beginning to exasperate me. Aubry’s poor manners, and the pharmacist’s as well, which excited our sincere curiosity, made me angry. I hesitated over several efficient interventions, any one of which would have overcome Aubry’s resistance and obliged him to show us the letter. I asked him:
“Why don’t you show us that letter?”
As his whole answer he gave it to me. I read the following lines, written in pencil, with a firm and impersonal handwriting:
Señor Paulino Rocha,
Farmacia Los Pinos,
Bosque del Mar
Dear friend:
You will be surprised by the reason for this letter, but you are my only friend and I have behaved very badly with you.
Andrea and Esteban are my aunt and uncle, but I don’t love them. They don’t even let me kill birds and other animals. You know that I had the albatross hidden among the trunks. They wanted me to be examined by the doctor, but I scared him off right away. He was more skittish than the otters that Dad and I used to embalm.
Did you know the Gutiérrez sisters? I loved them dearly, especially Mary. Now that she’s died I don’t hold any grudge against her. I loved her so much, and every time I went to give her a kiss she’d get angry, as if it were something bad. She was always nice to me when people were around, but if we were alone, she didn’t even want to talk to me. I tried to explain, but she’d get angry.
If I tell you what I did later you’re not going to forgive me and I want us to be friends forever. When I went to the pharmacy to look for arsenic for the albatross and for the algae, I stole a bottle of strychnine that was on the middle shelf, under the clock.
The night they all went out to look for Miss Emilia, Mary had gotten very angry with me. I hid in the hallway and when Atwell was going to meet up with the others, to go out looking for Emilia, Mary blocked his path, pushed him away from the light of the staircase and kissed him in such a way that I started crying. I heard her say to him, laughing: “Tomorrow remind me to tell you what happened to me with the kid.”
I thought: “I’m going to do something terrible.” Now I understand that I did what anyone would have done in my place.
I went down to my room, looked for the strychnine, went to Mary’s room and put half of the little bottle into the cup of hot chocolate that she always had before going to bed. I mixed it with the spoon so that the poison would dissolve completely and when I was drying it off I heard Mary’s footsteps. While I was escaping, I dropped the bottle. I didn’t have time to pick it up. I went out through Emilia’s room.
The next day I returned to look for the bottle, but it wasn’t there. I wanted to take the strychnine, just as Mary had.
I would have explained everything to the Commissioner in order to avoid unpleasantness for Emilia, but I can’t talk because I am a child.
You know that I made my little house in the abandoned boat on the beach. I have many bottles of water, biscuits and a little bag of maté in there. The sea is rising with the storm. I’m going to the boat now to wait for the water to carry it away. When you read this letter, the waves and the water will have covered your faithful and little friend.
MIGUEL FERNÁNZEZ
P.S.: Please send the albatross to my parents.
I returned the letter to the Commissioner. In silence I crossed the dining room and peered out of a window facing the sea. Miguel’s boat was not on the beach.
Emilia confirmed what Miguel had said about the bottle of strychnine. She found it the morning of Mary’s death. She hid it, because from the very first moment she thought that her fiancé was the murderer. For the same reason she made the cup of chocolate disappear.
Of the Joseph K and Miguel there was no news. Commissioner Aubry considered that Miguel’s letter was sufficient proof and no longer suspected Emilia.
As for me, I have written the pages you’ve read, because some friends of my mother—the only women friends I have—wanted my role in the investigation to be documented. I protested, said that the part I played was minimal, that I had simply guessed correctly … But they insisted, so here I am, apologetic and blushing, putting the Finis coronat opus to this chronicle of my unexpected detective adventures.
All that’s left for me to add is that Emilia and Atwell have married and, as far as I know, they are happy. At times I wonder about the intimate life of this pair who so often looked at each other believing the other a criminal and yet never ceased to be in love.
THE NEVERSINK LIBRARY
AFTER MIDNIGHT
by Irmgard Keun 978-1-935554-41-7
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THE ETERNAL PHILISTINE
by Ödön von Horvath 978-1-935554-47-9
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THE LATE LORD BYRON
by Doris Langley Moore 978-1-935554-48-6
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THE TRAIN
by Georges Simenon 978-1-935554-46-2
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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF A SUPER-TRAMP
by W. H. Davies 978-1-61219-022-8
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FAITHFUL RUSLAN
by Georgi Vladimov 978-1-935554-67-7
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THE PRESIDENT
by Georges Simenon 978-1-935554-62-2
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THE WAR WITH THE NEWTS
by Karel Capek 978-1-61219-023-5
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AMBIGUOUS ADVENTURE
by Cheikh Hamidou Kane 978-1-61219-054-9
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THE DEVIL IN THE FLESH
by Raymond Radiguet 978-1-61219-056-3
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THE MADONNA OF THE
SLEEPING CARS
by Maurice Dekobra 978-1-61219-058-7
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THE BOOK OF KHALID
by Ameen Rihani 978-1-61219-087-7
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YOUTH WITHOUT GOD
by Ödön von Horváth 978-1-61219-119-5
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THE TRAVELS AND
SURPRISING ADVENTURES
OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN
by Rudolf Erich Raspe 978-1-61219-123-2
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SNOWBALL’S CHANCE
by John Reed 978-1-61219-125-6
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FUTILITY
by William Gerhardie 978-1-61219-145-4
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THE REVERBERATOR
by Henry James 978-1-61219-156-0
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THE RIGHT WAY TO DO WRONG
by Harry Houdini 978-1-61219-166-9
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A COUNTRY DOCTOR’S
NOTEBOOK
by Mikhail Bulgakov 978-1-61219-190-4
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I AWAIT THE DEVIL’S COMING
by Mary MacLane 978-1-61219-194-2
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THE POLYGLOTS
by William Gerhardie 978-1-61219-188-1
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MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
by Charlie Chaplin 978-1-61219-192-8
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WHERE THERE’S LOVE,
THERE’S HATE
by Adolfo Bioy Casares
and Silvina Ocampo 978-1-61219-150-8
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THE DIFFICULTY OF BEING
by Jean Cocteau 978-1-61219-290-1
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THE OASIS
by Mary McCarthy 978-1-61219-228-4
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COLLEGE OF ONE
by Sheilah Graham 978-1-61219-283-3
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Adolfo Bioy Casares, Where There's Love, There's Hate
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