“To be sure. I should feel the same in your circumstances,” he responded. Then as Weir turned to his car, he continued: “The inquest to-morrow morning should be over early. I’ll visit you in the afternoon as planned.”
“Don’t forget that letter,” Weir called out.
Martinez marveled. Kill a man, and still remember a letter! That magnified his respect immensely. Cool, that fellow! Then a slight shiver as if a chill from those black peaks west of the town had struck through 80 his flesh rippled along his spine; for he had been over at the jail with the crowd and had viewed that dead body lying there on the stone floor. Not only cool, but dangerous and deadly, this engineer. He, Martinez, must be discreet; it would not do to risk gaining Weir’s enmity. That cold-faced man could not be “monkeyed with.”
Martinez gnawed his mustache and eyed the dully illuminated office window. He wondered if those four men inside had not at last found their match, perhaps their master. Any one with half a brain could see there was going to be a desperate struggle between the four and the one, and he was not exactly sure yet that he wanted to venture farther into the affair. But the very danger fascinated him with its subtle and obscure features, exactly suited to his manipulation.
A man who had been standing apart sauntered nearer.
“Señor,” he addressed the lawyer in Spanish.
Martinez whirled about.
“Ah, it’s only you, Naharo.”
“He is a bad fighter, eh?” And the man, almost white because of intermixed blood, moved a hand in the direction Weir’s car had gone.
“Perhaps not bad. Quick with a gun, however,” was the careful reply.