After being locked in his neighbor Heitor’s house, who had vanished with his wife Melinda without a trace, Durval had tried to exit through the back without success, as his attention was diverted by the enigmatic and hypnotic skull with horns in the library. Then someone began to ring the doorbell insistently, as if the world were about to end, without pauses, unbearable. When he returned to the living room and looked out the window, Durval discovered that it was his wife Dolores ringing the bell, waving her hand and shouting: “The killer is inside with you!”
Durval didn’t understand at first:
— What is it, Dodô? I can’t get out. The door is locked. What did you say?
Dolores repeated slowly: — The killer… is… inside… with you!
Durval froze.
Dolores shouted once more: — Get out of there, now!
Immediately, Durval raised his cane with both hands. Even risking a fall, it was better to have a makeshift weapon than to submit to whoever it was. If he was going to die, he would do so fighting until the end; he was not a coward. He turned with the cane raised and stared at the empty room.
He leaned the cane back on the ground and tilted his body to see the entire length of the hallway. It was also empty. Dolores must have gone crazy. There was no one inside the house with him. He had gone out and come back through that hallway and could guarantee that the house was completely empty.
He turned back to the living room window. Dolores was still at the street gate.
— There’s no one here, Dodô! You’re mistaken.
— Get out of there for God’s sake! He’s inside!
— Who is he, anyway?
— Botelho!
— I’ll go out through the back.
Durval set off once again down the blessed hallway of Heitor’s house. He didn’t know how he would exit through the street gate since it must be locked too, but he would think about that later. One thing at a time.
If Botelho was indeed the killer and intended to kill him, he wouldn’t do it with Dolores outside as a witness. But who knows what goes on in the mind of a murderer? If all of this were true, Botelho had already tried to kill him when he pushed him off the cliff inside his Corcel. The broken leg and the cane were the scars he still bore today. Could it be that the scoundrel biology teacher, who claimed to be his friend, had tried to murder him? And why? Neither he nor Dolores knew anything about the corpse that had appeared a few days ago in his kitchen. If anyone should be in the killer’s sights, it was Heitor, who knew everything about Botelho and the man with horns. In any case, Heitor had disappeared along with his wife. Would Durval and Dolores be next?
He was already in the middle of the hallway when he spotted the library door still ajar. As he passed, he distinctly noticed, through the doorway, a shadow moving inside. There was indeed someone there with him.
Episode LVI continues in the next edition.
JOSÉ GASPAR
Writer, trader, and collector of strange words
www.historiasdooutromundo.com
www.josegaspartrader.com