The Mouse in the Mountain by Norbert Davis (best books to read in your 20s .TXT) 📕

Chapter 1

WHEN DOAN AND CARSTAIRS CAME down the wide stairway and walked across the pink-tiled floor that was the pride and joy of the Hotel Azteca, the guests in the lobby stopped whatever they were doing to pass the time away and stared open-mouthed. Doan was not such-a-much, but Carstairs usually had this effect on people, and he left a whispering, wondering wake behind him as he stalked across to the glassed side doors and waited with haughty dignity while Doan opened one of the doors. He ambled through it ahead of Doan into the incredibly bright sunlight on the terrace.

Doan halted and drew in a deep breath of air that felt clean and dry and thinly exhilarating. He stared all around him with frank appreciation. He was short and a little on the plump side, and he had a chubby, pink face and a smile as innocent and appealing as a baby's. He looked like a very nice, pleasant sort of person, and on rare occasions he was.

He was wearing a white suit and a wide-brimmed Panama hat and white crepe-soled shoes.

"Breathe some of this air, Carstairs," he ordered. "It's wonderful. This is ideal Mexican weather."

Carstairs yawned in an elaborately bored way. Carstairs was a fawn-colored Great Dane. Standing on four legs, his back came up to Doan's chest. He never did tricks. He considered them beneath him. But had he ever done one that involved standing on his hind feet, his head would have hit a level far above Doan's. Carstairs was so big he could hardly be called a dog. He was a sort of new species.

A girl came very quickly out of the door behind Doan and said Uh! in a startled gasp when she saw Carstairs looming in front of her.

Carstairs didn't move out of her way. He turned lazily to stare at her. So did Doan.

She was a small girl, and she looked slightly underfed. She had very wide, very clear blue eyes. They were nice eyes. Nothing startling, but adequate. Her hair was brown and smooth under a white turban, and she wore a white sports dress and a white jacket and white openwork sandals. She had a clear, smooth skin, and she blushed easily. She was doing it now.

"I'm sorry," she said breathlessly. "He--he frightened me."

"He frightens me, too, sometimes." said Doan.

"What's your name?"

The girl looked at him uncertainly. "My name? It's Janet Martin."

"Mine's Doan," said Doan. "I'm a detective."

"A--a detective?" Janet Martin repeated, fumbling a little over the word. "You don't look like one."

"Of course not," Doan told her. "I'm in disguise. I'm pretending I'm a tourist."

"Oh," said Janet, still uncertain. "But--do you go around telling everybody about it?"

"Certainly," said Doan. "My disguise is so perfect no one would know I was a detective if I didn't tell them, so naturally I do."

"Oh," said Janet. "I see." She looked at Carstairs. "He's beautiful. I mean, not beautiful but--but magnificent. Does he bite?"

"Quite often," Doan admitted.

"May I pet him?"

Doan looked at Carstairs inquiringly. "May she?"

Carstairs studied Janet for a moment and then came one step closer to her and lowered his head regally. Janet patted his broad brow.

"Don't scratch his ears," Doan warned. "He detests that."

A long brown bus pulled around the curve of the drive and stopped in front of the terrace steps. A little man in a spic-and-span brown uniform popped out, clicked his heels snappily, and said, "The tour of sight-seeing presents itself to those who wish to view the magnificence with educated comments."

"Oh, you're the one I was looking for," Janet said. "I'm going on the tour to Los Altos. This is the bus that takes me there, isn't it?"

The little man bowed. "With comfort and speed and also comments."

"I was afraid I was late. What time do you start?"

"On schedule," said the little man. "Always on the schedule--we start when it says. I am Bartolome--accent on the last syllable, if you please--chauffeur licensed and guide most qualified, with English guaranteed by the advanced correspondence school, conversational and classic. Do me the honor of presenting me your ticket."

Janet gave it to him, and he examined it with suspicious care, even turning it over and reading the fine print on the back.

"In order most perfect," he admitted. "Do me the graciousness of entering and sitting. We will start instantly or when I locate the other passengers."

"Here's two more," said Doan, handing him two tickets.

"Ah, yes," said Bartolome, and examined them as carefully as he had Janet's. "Is most fine. But there are the two tickets and of you only one. Where is the other?"

"There," said Doan, pointing.

Bartolome looked at Carstairs, turned his head away quickly, and then looked again. "It has a resemblance to a dog," he said slowly and cautiously.

"Some," said Doan.

"It is a dog!" Bartolome exclaimed. "A dog of the most incredible monstrousness! A veritable nightmare of a dog!"

"Be careful," Doan warned. "He insults easily."

Bartolome looked at the tickets and then at Carstairs. "One of this is for him?"

"Yes."

"No," said Bartolome.

"Yes," said Doan.

"Of a positively not, senor."

Carstairs sprawled himself out on the warm tiles and closed his eyes sleepily. Arguments offended his sense of the fitness of things, so he ignored them.

Bartolome stared narrowly at Doan. "The ticket of the sight-seeing magnificence is not sold for dogs."

"This one was."

"Dogs do not ride in the luxury of the bus that precedes itself to Los Altos."

"This one does."

"No!" Bartolome shouted suddenly. "Not, not, not! It is the outrage most emphatic! Wait!" He darted through the glassed door into the lobby.

"I'm sorry," Janet told Doan.

"Why?" he asked, surprised.

"Because you can't take your dog to Los Altos"

"I can," said Doan. "And I'm going to. We always have little difficulties like this when we go places. It's a routine we go through."

A fat man wearing a magnificently tailored white suit and a painful smile came out on the terrace ahead of Bartolome. Bartolome pointed at Carstairs and said dramatically, "There is that which is not to go! Never!"

The fat man said: "I am so sorry. It is not permitted for dogs to ride on the bus."

Doan held up the two tickets and pointed eloquently first to himself and then to Carstairs.

The fat man shook his head. "I'm so sorry, sir, but that ticket does not cover a dog."

"It's made out in his name," said Doan.

The fat man shrugged. "But, you see, when your reservations at the hotel and your tickets for this trip were ordered we did not know that one was for a dog. The dog can stay at the hotel--yes. But he cannot ride on the bus."

Doan nodded casually. "All right. He stays here, then. But you'd better chain him up. He's going to get mad if I go away and leave him."

"Mad?" the fat man repeated doubtfully, looking at Carstairs.

Carstairs didn't open his eyes, but he lifted his upper lip and revealed glistening fangs that were as long as a man's little finger. He growled in a low, deep rumble.

The fat man backed up a step. "Is he dangerous?"

"Definitely," said Doan. "But delicate, too. He will attack anyone who tries to feed him, except me. And if he doesn't eat, he'll die. If he dies, I'll sue you for an enormous sum of money."

The fat man closed his eyes and sighed. "He rides in the bus," he said wearily to Bartolome.

"What?" Bartolome shouted, outraged.

"He rides!" the fat man snarled. "Do you hear me, or shall I repeat myself with a slap in the face?"

"I hear," said Bartolome glumly. He waited until the fat man had strutted back through the door into the lobby and then added: "You obese offspring of incredibly corrupt parents." He turned to Doan and made shooing motions. "Kindly persuade yourselves inside."

A woman opened the glass door and put her head out and shouted deafeningly: "Mortimer!" Instantly she pulled her head in again and slammed the door.

The echoes of her shout hung quivering in the still air, and Carstairs raised his head and waggled his pricked ears uncomfortably.

The door opened and a man put his head out and yelled: "Mortimer!" He waited while the echoes died, eyeing the people on the terrace accusingly. "You seen him?"

"I don't recall it," Doan told him.

The man said: "I'll kill that little devil one of these days. Mortimer! Come here, damn you!" He got no results, and he sighed drearily and came out on the terrace. He was squat and solid-looking, and he had a red, heavy-jowled face. His clothes were new, and his shoes squeaked. "My name is Henshaw--Wilbur M. Henshaw."

"Mine's Doan. This is Miss Janet Martin."

"Pleased," said Henshaw. "You sure you haven't seen Mortimer? He's my kid. He looks something like Charlie McCarthy."

"How will that do?" Doan asked, pointing at a feather duster that was poked up over the balcony railing.

"Mortimer, you little stinker!" Henshaw shouted. "Come out from behind that chicken!"

The feather duster waggled coyly, and a wizened, freckled, incredibly evil face slid up into sight and peered at them gimlet-eyed through a tangle of bright red hair.

"What's the beef, punchy?" Mortimer said to his father.

"Now, damn it, I'm going to wring your neck if you don't stick around," Henshaw promised grimly. "I mean it. We're going on a sightseeing trip to Los Altos, and I'm not going to spend the whole day chasing you."

"Go chase yourself, glue-brain," Mortimer advised, "and forget to come back." He swarmed up over the railing like a pint-sized pirate boarding a ship. He was wearing the feather duster for a hat, and he had on khaki scout shorts and a khaki blouse. "A dog!" he exclaimed gleefully. "Watch me give him the hotfoot!"

He took a kitchen match from his pocket and began to stalk the sleeping Carstairs like a big game hunter. Janet started to protest, but Doan winked at her and shook his head.

When Mortimer was still about a yard away, Carstairs sat up and looked at him. Sitting, Carstairs' face was on a level with Mortimer's. Slowly Carstairs opened his mouth until it was wide enough to take in Mortimer's whole head with room to spare. Mortimer stood paralyzed with shock, staring into the yawning red cavern.

Carstairs leaned forward and closed his jaws with a viciously grinding snap just an inch in front of Mortimer's nose.

"Yeow!" Mortimer shrieked. "Yeow! Maw! Maw!" He blew across the terrace and through the door into the lobby in a blurred, rust-tipped streak.

"Mister," said Henshaw enthusiastically, "I'll buy that dog! How much?"

"I couldn't sell him," Doan said. "He wouldn't allow it, and besides he supports me in my off-seasons."

"He does?" Janet asked. "How? Does he work?"

"Well," said Doan. "Yes and no. It's a rather delicate subject. You see, there are certain lady Great Danes who clamor for his attentions..."

Janet blushed again. "Oh!"

"Well, would you rent him to me by the day?" Henshaw requested. "I'll be awfully nice to him."

Doan shook his head. "I'm afraid not. I'll have him scare Mortimer for you whenever you want, though, if we're around."

"Friend," said Henshaw, "you do that, and you've got a lifelong pal, and I mean it. I'm in the plumbing business--'Better Bathrooms for a Better America.' What's your line?"

"Crime," Doan told him.

"You mean you're a public enemy?" Henshaw asked, interested.

"There have been rumors to that effect," Doan said. "But I claim I'm a private detective:"

"Oh," said Henshaw indifferently. "One of them, huh? Well, I always say a man's got to make a living some way."

The woman who had previously shouted for Mortimer appeared. Mortimer was close behind her, peering around her, first on one side and then the other, as she advanced.

"Now, Mortimer," she said firmly, "you show me that dog that attacked you and I'll--Oh! Oh! Wilbur, save me!"

"From what?" Henshaw asked sourly.

The woman pointed a plump, quivering finger at Carstairs. "From that--that horrible thing!" She was wearing a peasant smock and a