Murray Leinster

“ For weeks to come there would be indignation and anger at his calm defiance of the law and the power of the United States, while here in Bahia del Toro he would live openly and happily, frankly glorifying in the crime he had committed, respected and feared by the people.
There were the newspapers. The murder of Hugh Conway would be good for a scarehead on the front page.
Beckwith spread out the paper with his uninjured hand and ran his eye over the head lines. Hugh Conway—Hugh Conway. Where was it? Not on the first page. Beckwith glanced at the date with a frown. ”

“ Down in the city the band played faintly in the plaza, while the long lines of dark-eyed señoritas promenaded primly in a duenna-guarded circle, listening decorously to the music, but casting liquid glances at the olive-skinned young men who less primly strolled in the other direction, twirling their budding mustaches for the admiration of the fairer sex. ”

“ Their owners O. K.’d the scheme and the murder was kept absolutely secret from the public and the press.
“We gave you two weeks to get worried, and then announced Conway’s bequest to charities—it was really in his will—and printed a picture or so of him. You rose to the bait, all right. We couldn’t touch you in Nueva Bolivia, but as soon as you boarded the steamer, we had you. We let you come on to New York alone, though, to save trouble. We’re much obliged to you, I’m sure.”
Beckwith suddenly understood. He had not won his revenge and freedom after all. ”

“ When the next mail came, in seven days more, the newspapers would spread the news of Conway’s death and Wells’s humiliation, with Beckwith’s triumph as their principal theme. A man who so defiantly flouted the law, who sneered at the police to the extent of giving them his address, would surely be made much of by the press, even if they denounced him. ”

“ The newspapers might not have printed details of Conway’s murder, but Melton, the American consul, would surely have been cabled.
Beckwith had told in his sarcastic note to Wells that he would make for Bahia del Toro, and Wells would certainly wire the consulate to find if he had actually appeared. Beckwith grinned as he thought of the touching faith of the civilian American in the efficacy of a demand by a consular representative. Wells would insist that the Nueva Bolivian government turn the criminal over to justice. ”

“ The conventional phrases of the newspaper reporter, “Mr. Conway refused to be interviewed.” “At his home it was said that Mr. Conway did not wish to add anything to the statement of his attorneys, who have completed the arrangements for the gift.” All the evasions and artifices of men who have failed to see an important man were used.
Through the mist of incredulous amazement, Beckwith could gather only one impression. Conway had not been seen. No one had looked upon his living form to write of him recently. Beckwith knew why, of course. Conway was dead. ”

“ Bewilderment and unreasoning suspicion, then poignant disappointment, finally a persistent hope. He could not examine them all thoroughly in the launch. The wind threatened to blow them overboard, but he put them together in a compact package and waited impatiently until he could go over them in detail at his home. ”