“Do you have any idea why they wanted to kill you?”
“No.”
“Where did you get that stolen .45 automatic pistol. Is it your father’s?”
Clete was silent.
“All right. Now I will tell you what I believe happened,” Martín said. “You returned from your uncle’s home, and did not raise the blinds because you thought there might be an attempt on your life. You believed this because you earlier met the German, el Capitán von Wachtstein, at the Alvear Palace Hotel. For reasons I cannot imagine, he warned you that the Germans would try to have you killed. That also explains why you went out on the servants’ balcony with a pistol.
“When the attempt was made, you killed one of the men and wounded the other. You went looking for Señora Pellano, found her with her throat cut in the kitchen, lost your professional detachment, and returned here and shot the other man, who had by then dragged himself into the bathroom. The bullets ricocheted off the tile of the bathtub, which explains the blood on your body. And the human flesh, which I think is brain tissue.”
Clete said nothing.
“Killing the one and wounding the other was self-defense. Coming back here and killing the wounded man was murder…unless, should the matter reach trial, your lawyer pleads a crime of passion, based on your close personal affection for Señora Pellano.”
“Those bastards didn’t have to kill her,” Clete heard himself saying. “She never hurt anybody in her life.”
“I’m surprised to hear you say that,” Martín said. “Of course they had to kill her. It was at no cost to them. They were going to kill you, and they can only hang you once for murder. Killing her removed a potential witness against them.”
“You’re a cold-blooded bastard, aren’t you?”
“I am beginning to suspect that I have more experience in these matters than you do,” Martín said. “Professional judgment does not make me cold-blooded.”
Clete exhaled audibly.
“This is the story we will tell,” Martín said. “On your return from the Duarte mansion, you came to your apartment. You were surprised by armed robbers. You managed to put your hands on the old Colt and killed them both with it. Since the six-shooter was empty, you picked up the robbers’ gun, the automatic, went downstairs, and found Señora Pellano murdered in the kitchen. At that point, Comandante Habanzo knocked at the door. You let him in and gave him the robbers’ gun.”
“There’s a couple of large holes in that story,” Clete said. “For one thing, the Colt has not been fired. And what about the automatic?”
“Anything else?”
“There’s a trail of blood on the floor, leading to the bathroom.”
“That robber crawled in there during the gunfight,” Martín said. “Where he threatened you with the .45. So you killed him with the old revolver.”
“The old revolver has not been fired.”
Martín ignored him.
“You are more seriously injured than you think you are,” he said. “You will require immediate emergency medical treatment. I am going to summon an ambulance from the Military Hospital, which is nearby. You will be treated and placed under protective custody. I doubt if the Policía Federal can gain entrance to you in the hospital, but if they somehow manage to—I really don’t know how cooperative el Coronel Savia-Gonzalez will be in this; he is not an admirer of your father—you will refuse to answer any of their questions without a lawyer.”
“The .44-40 hasn’t been fired,” Clete repeated. “The bullets in the bodies are .45 ACP, not .44-40.”
“Your professionalism, Teniente, is returning,” Martín said approvingly. He went to the desk and picked up both pistols. He went into the bathroom and pressed the .45 against the right hand of the man with the bullet hole in his forehead, then stood up. He took the Colt .44–40 revolver, fired two cartridges into the body, then went to the body of the man in the bedroom and fired two cartridges into his body. Finally he walked to the desk and fired two cartridges into the wall, one next to the bathroom door, the other through one of the closed blinds.
Then he laid both pistols back on the table.
“The revolver has less recoil than the automatic,” he observed calmly. “I would have thought the reverse.”
A few seconds later, puffing from the exertion of running up the stairs, Comandante Habanzo rushed into the room with a .32 ACP Colt automatic in his hand.
“What are you doing with that?” Martín asked.
“I heard shots.”
“You heard a car backfiring,” Martín said. “Habanzo, do you remember offhand the number of the Military Hospital?”
“No, mi Coronel.”