And Caldwell snapped back that apparently Murieta’s view of the rights of the private citizen included the right to take drugs and indulge in sexual perversions, because this was what Sigueiras specialized in providing.

There was a charge — uttered with the theoretical approval of the city health department — that really called for an answer. But Caldwell didn’t stop there. I never found out how anyone allowed him to get away with it, but he topped off his list of charges with a flat statement that Murieta was little better than a professional pimp.

In the twenty-four hours that preceded Murieta’s return from New York, rumors followed this story like weeds sprouting on burned ground. I heard them, even. I was told confidentially how, in the dim recesses of Sigueiras’s slum, children, virgin girls, and raddled old hags were made available at a stiff price to wealthy and debauched patrons; I was told how the air was never free of the stink of marijuana; I was even informed that the livestock in the shantytowns was kept for other purposes than feeding people.

Myself, I wondered how the putative “patrons” of Murieta’s supposed vice ring would have enjoyed indulging their tastes in the uncomfortable and insanitary condition below the monorail central. But only a very few Vadeanos who repeated the rumors had any idea of the real state of things down there, and doubtless assumed that the clients would appreciate a sordid setting for their sordid activities.

By Monday the whole matter had gone past a joke, and tempers were running high. Inoffensive peasants from the shantytowns had been stoned on the streets; police had twice had to be called to the monorail central to drive away indignant bands of demonstrators and enthusiastic would-be customers; and, much to the annoyance of business people and the city tourist bureau, a large party of statesiders had noisily canceled their visit to Vados because they got wind of what was being said about the city’s morals.

Caldwell turned up again in Angers’ office on Monday morning, looking bloody but unbowed — not, this time, specifically to talk about Murieta, but on formal health department business. Nonetheless, Angers and I both went for him, and from his reaction I gathered that we weren’t the first by a long way.

“I t-tell you I’ve s-seen all th-this for myself!” Caldwell kept insisting, his voice shaking with rage. The fourth or fifth repetition was too much for me.

“If you have,” I snapped back, “you’re probably Murieta’s only customer yourself!”

I thought for a long instant that he was going to throw himself at me like a wild animal, and I automatically tensed to beat him off. But at that very instant the door was thrust open and one of Angers’ assistants, looking harassed, put his head into the office.

“Señor Angers,” he began, “por favor—”

He got no further before he was pushed to one side bodily by a huge bull of a man in an open shirt and canvas trousers which stretched so tight across his seat they threatened to split at every step he took. He was very large and very dark, and it seemed for a moment that he filled the entire doorway, shutting out the light beyond.

“Caldwell aquí?” he demanded; then his eyes fell on Caldwell who had dropped back into his chair as the door opened, and he gave a grunt of satisfaction. Turning, he signaled to someone behind him.

This was a rather small man, immaculately dressed in a snow-white summer suit and cream Panama hat, smoking a king-size cigarette and holding a silver-knobbed walking cane. He had a thin moustache and brilliantly white teeth.

Caldwell remained frozen to his chair. The newcomer raised his cane and pointed it as though it had been a gun at Caldwell’s chest. “You will pardon this intrusion, señores,” he said without taking his eyes off Caldwell’s chalk-white face. “But I have business with this cur.”

Angers got to his feet with dignity. “What do you mean by walking uninvited into my office?” he snapped.

“I,” said the intruder calmly, “am Pedro Murieta. I am informed that Señor Caldwell has told lies about me. He has said that I, a citizen of Ciudad de Vados against whom no man has ever breathed a foul word, am a pander. A pimp. A trafficker in immorality of the vilest kind. It is not true, before God it is not true!”

The cane whined across Caldwell’s face, raising a tiny red weal where the very tip touched the skin of his cheek.

“Sayit is not true, misbegotten son of a mangy mongrel bitch!”

And Caldwell burst into a flood of tears.

Bewildered, Angers glanced from him to Murieta to me, his eyes demanding explanation. While Murieta dropped the end of his cane to the floor and leaned on it, watching Caldwell with considerable satisfaction, I said, “Señor Murieta, do you know why he has been saying — saying this about you?”

“He is sick in the mind,” said Murieta after a long pause. He straightened up and turned away, sighing. “I am not a vindictive man, señor, but this I had to do when I learned what he had published to the world about me. Yes, no doubt he is sick in the mind. We have been to his apartment this morning in search of him — with the police, for he has committed a crime in our law — and we have found certain books and pictures which suggest that he is not normal.”

His sharp black eyes flashed to my face. “Did you not know? Could you or another not have stopped him? Although we shall show what he said was mere lunatic raving, it will nonetheless do me very great harm.”

I said wearily, “Señor, I cannot care any longer what happens in Ciudad de Vados. I live only for the day when I can leave it.”

“Leave it, then!” snapped Murieta, and turned his back on me.

The enormous man who had come in with him had lumbered out again; now he returned, with a policeman and two white-jacketed male nurses. Seeing them, Caldwell began to scream.

The complete disintegration of a human being is not pleasant. When it was over, and Caldwell was in the ambulance, I suggested we go out for a drink, and Angers, shaking like a leaf, agreed instantly.

Over a whiskey in a nearby bar, he said dully, “Who’d have expected it? He’s always been such a steady fellow — hardworking, reliable — and then all of a sudden, this!”

I said after a moment’s thought, “I’ll make a wild guess. I’ll bet you that when they go into the matter they’ll find that Caldwell probably laid some tart or other in one of the shantytowns some while back, and he’s collected a load of guilt in consequence. I imagine that he’s always suffered because of that speech impediment; he’s acquired a string of complexes a mile long.”

“All this is just words,” said Angers impatiently. “What I want to know is — what’s it going to do to the project? We relied on what the health department was saying, and so did the public. When it turns out that it was all the raving of an idiot, what will happen then?”

“They’ll probably laugh like demons,” I said. And I was right.

Having a pretty primitive attitude toward mental illness, most of the Vadeanos did laugh — loudly, long, and often. Not only at Caldwell, but also at everyone else who had swallowed his story, if only for a day.

The worst sufferer, naturally, was Professor Cortes, who had allowed the story currency in Liberdad. It was extremely galling for him to have to order the printing of a full-scale retraction. He tried to cover himself and distract attention from the matter by going for Miguel Dominguez again. But the lawyer’s personal position was now virtually unassailable, because of the way he had successfully demolished Andres Lucas and showed up his complicity in the fate of Fats Brown. He laughed the whole thing off.

I had half forgotten my own worries in the atmosphere of tension that followed Caldwell’s breakdown, but I still kept one eye open for any further rash statements by O’Rourke. I preferred not to provoke trouble with him so long as he didn’t repeat what he had apparently said about throwing me out of the country. And at the present moment he seemed to have something else on his mind — more exactly, someone else. Dr. Ruiz, in fact.