VULTURES IN THE SKY

Murder strikes a Pullman coach bound for Mexico City from San Antonio, and then strikes again and again in this reprint from 1935.

The third of six adventures featuring U.S. Treasury agent Hugh Rennert finds the trip already underway after agent Edgar Graves has apparently fainted (he’s actually been given a lethal injection of nicotine) on the departure platform back in the San Antonio train station. Hardly have the bland characters—cotton mill owner Jackson Saul King, albino William Searcey, novelty salesman Preston Radcott, journalist Ed Spahr, French political activist Paul Xavier Jeanes, unflappable Trescinda Talcott, San Antonio realtor Eduardo Torner, and Long Island socialite Coralie Van Syle—introduced themselves to Rennert and each other that one of them is treated to another dose of nicotine. Rennert is businesslike but so self-effacing that you have to wonder if he’ll finish questioning the suspects before the next victim dies. The murders are clearly connected to the kidnapping of 3-year-old Antonio Montes, who was found dead in a burning car crash soon after being taken from his wealthy father, and they may well be connected to a mysterious speech King’s wife, who he says got off the train earlier even though the porter never saw her leave, overheard back in San Antonio. Downing (1902-1974) doles out Mexican local color in small but expertly teasing doses, gets excellent mileage out of a cheap stickpin and several other physical clues, and produces a surprisingly varied chain of incidents in the course of whittling down the passenger list.

A limited but highly proficient exercise in deduction by a forgotten author: a welcome rediscovery.