Сердца трех / Hearts of Three

�Within two hours the Comisario himself and two gendarmes found me bending over Alfaro’s body in a back street in the town. He’d been knifed in the back, and I’d stumbled over him on the way to the beach. Explain? No such thing. There were the quarrel and the threats of vengeance, and there I was, not two hours afterward, caught dead to right with his warm corpse. I haven’t been back in San Antonio since, and I didn’t waste any time in getting away. Alfaro was very popular, you know the dashing type that catches the rabble’s fancy.

Why, they couldn’t have been persuaded to give me even the semblance of a trial. Wanted my blood there and then, and I departed very pronto.

�Next, up at Bocas del Toro, a messenger from Leoncia delivered back the engagement ring. And there you are. I developed a real big disgust, and, since I didn’t dare go back with all the Solanos and the rest of the population thirsting for my life, I came over here to play hermit for a while and dig for Morgan’s treasure… Just the same, I wonder who did stick that knife into Alfaro.

If ever I find him, then I clear myself with Leoncia and the rest of the Solanos and there isn’t a doubt in the world that there’ll be a wedding. And now that it’s all over I don’t mind admitting that Alfaro was a good scout, even if his temper did go off at half-cock.’

�Clear as print,’ Francis murmured. �No wonder her father and brothers wanted to perforate me.

Why, the more I look at you, the more I see we’re as like as two peas, except for my mustache-’

�And for this…’ Henry rolled up his sleeve, and on the left forearm showed a long, thin white scar. �Got that when I was a boy. Fell oft a windmill and through the glass roof of a hothouse.’

�Now listen to me,’ Francis said, his face beginning to light with the project forming in his mind. �Somebody’s got to straighten you out of this mess, and the chap’s name is Francis, partner in the firm of Morgan and Morgan.

You stick around here, or go over and begin prospecting on the Bull, while I go back and explain things to Leoncia and her people.’

�If only they don’t shoot you first before you can explain you are not I,’ Henry muttered bitterly. �That’s the trouble with those Solanos. They shoot first and talk afterward. They won’t listen to reason unless it’s post mortem.