was not hot. It was just the breath of a summer in ambush. It was the afternoon of November 12, 1953 and Kuperman Sergio had left the hotel carrying in his jacket pocket a telegram which had previously stuck in between the letters and newspaper clippings. Salta was dated 12 November 1951, ie, exactly two years ago. He said only this: "Your brother Sebastian is dead", and signed a companion whom he knew Sebastian.
He read it again and smiled because he had been a great idea. Carefully pape broke one end of l-¬ just what is necessary so that the river and seem accidental - to turn off the record of the year and only read "November 12, ...".
After a while he walked through the town, a nostalgic village of plain, white and dusty as an old crank stuck to their traditional pain. The circus had arrived and set up his tent not far from the slender five-story building surrounded by lush gardens, it was the hotel. Five floors! It was a building of two bodies, something really unusual at the scene of flat bricks, countrymen gone from sleepy and skinny chickens and horses half calcined. Sergio
Kuperman arrived at the hotel to dinner. He shared his room at the third floor with Leonardo Trauves, the trapeze artist, who stood before the mirror, and wearing their best clothes because that night a residence outside a party offered him the members of the troupe.
- Do you still like that? When you dress? We must go down to eat y. ..
- Right now, right now. Tend to rush Ludmila while. Trauves put the finishing touches to his bow.
- my way.
And hardly had he left alone, Sergio Kuperman rummaged through the bags until you find a tube of sleeping pills, which contained two painkillers replaced vulgar. Then put the tube in a compartment light table mediated between the two beds. I got dressed and went apresuradamen ¬.
Right below her room on the second floor, was staying Ludmila Pavlova, the ecuyère, a pretty girl with blonde hair and cheeky smile, graceful as a pin and so slight that it seemed more than a materialization of candor. In functions burst into the arena wearing a tight grid of multicolored sequins, riding jauntily a well-fed red pony. In addition to operating the Becquerian ventricle of the heart of men, Ludmila fulfilled another function (although not as artistic as) was the lover of Eric Reagan. Sergio
Kuperman knew she would not contest the party that night, precisely because the old Eric had forbidden him to go. But also was surprised when he entered the room Ludmila, who finished grooming, and beat him Trauves:
- You know she not come?
He was easy to get to the heating radiator and open up the key to allowing access to heat.
- No, I will not. I am very tired. Incidentally found
satisfied that all the windows were closed. Dined. Kuperman Sergio got up before everyone else and went to the lobby. In a completely natural extract some corresponding simulated ¬ dence of his locker, he pretended to read it and, when warned someone coming, he made great distress accounts just crush it. Trauves and Cordeiro, the machinist, soon to participate in his dejection. Their anguish was so obvious that soon became the hub of the wheel of solidarity and not quite resigned endured handshakes, clapping and phrases of consolation.
- Sebastian ... Poor brother!
In fact, the safety of everyone, absolutely everyone, ¬ ban ignores the death of his brother had taken place two years ago, Kuperman Sergio gave strength to carry on their tragedy. For a moment he had a vision: he was on a big stage, wrapped in black silk, skull in his right hand and face powdered, ¬ declaim do "That is the question ...".
The old Eric, as he was interested in and tight, or even distracted, one minute nice falsehoods.
- Go to sleep, Sergio - he said -. Tomorrow we will make special function and you need to is fine. His brother is dead. It is a fait accompli. Instead the role is tomorrow and should do well ... Sergio
Kuperman apologized to his friends and urged them not to lose the party for him. There was hesitation, whispering, tugs of conscience, how he would be left alone, but ultimately, and unsurprisingly they all left, except Cordeiro, who accompanied him to his room, and Ludmila and Eric Reagan, that were playing cards, and every night before bedtime.
As soon reached his fourth Sergio Kuperman fell on the bed and asked Cordeiro you reach the pipe sedatives.
- not abuse ...
- The need for sleep.
He brought a glass of water and swallowed the two painkillers Kuperman. - Two? - -. Insisted friend One had secured a ten-hour sleep ...
When the stagehand went and Sergio Kuperman was alone again, fresh and more alert than ever, calmly reviewed the details of his plan. And something else: the unfathomable extracted file on your mind the memory of his love for Ludmila. Yes, indeed, was not that the time to chronicle a silly romance, something ended forever, but could not forget that cooing, cuddling and promises led to a mutual insurance adjusted to a more seductive clause ¬ Ludmila Torah itself: either that died during the survivor gave rise to a small fortune. As he always ordered to pay the fees, she soon forgot their existence. Asked, yes, he once, but the answer eluded Sergio Kuperman and she certainly imagined that the policy had lapsed.
smiled maliciously. Through the window, observed that it was a splendid night, calm. Thought with joy that the doors of the rooms overlooking the passage could not be opened on the outside, which was needed for her key and Trauves, who had a no return in less than three hours.
He opened his window and slipped outside. The shadow swallowed it immediately. The hotel was almost deserted and all the silence of the universe was crushed against the ground as if to possess and fruitful solitude.
On November 12, 1951, under an old canvas circus, died Kuperman older brother Sergio. He was fixing the rigging of a trapezoid, twenty feet high, when he lost his footing and fell through the cracks. He was hit just above the bed of spikes on the fakir who used to work out, though - this is in honor of the truth, had died the same from falling onto the sand on the track.
The incident occurred in the morning and no one could see it. Who discovered his body was found wounded by mortal mind ¬ nails and above it, high, swaying a trapezoid distorted.
Sergio Sebastian had been a friend and teacher, and I cried in those days when you actually received the telegram of the partner. But in two years, Sergio Kuperman he too had joined a troupe and had learned to accept as a logical chance to lose his footing at any one time and lead, at last, the joy of the public. Now there was
scruples and had taken advantage of jealously guarding the telegram from newspaper clippings, because it was the starting point of a subtle combination that culminates tonight ¬ ria ... A Kuperman Sergio faith, that night he would commit a perfect crime. Clinging to the outgoing
construction fell to the floor mediate. Ludmila's room. Through the window peered inside and saw the shadow that no one was there. She would still be playing cards, game after another, more and more bored, because that was part of the prize that was required to wear the sequins and appear on billboards and have a few pesos.
From the side of the window tore a steel cable running through the gap between the two building block. A taut steel cable ... Sergio Kuperman, the juggler, you should perform the same number every day, only this time expected to be without an audience. He crossed slowly, reached the other end and stopped on the other ledge. Again he glanced at the window in front of him (it would take to get the old Eric would give him a kiss and go paternal) and above, yours, a very black nest to return soon. Below lay the garden alone. Sergio
A Kuperman occurred to him that everything around him - the garden, white walls, night, silence studded cricket - ¬ icip part of their expectation, are allied in their favor with the nerves and heart hard drummer. Commit a crime it was just an extraordinary adventure ¬. Ludmila
suddenly appeared. On the light and Eric Reagan kissed her forehead, and immediately left. Sergio Kuperman put on gloves. She closed the door, took two steps, somewhat surprised. A setback, hesitated a moment, then resolutely, ran the heater and turned off the faucet. That devilish
hot! Ludmila Pavlova was born and brought up at the foot of the Transylvanian Alps, between the snow and had so hardened the ice wheezing steppe now hated the stifling warmth radiating from these machines .... Ludmila surprised his companions sleeping with the windows open even in the most intemperate winter nights. No, even though they mocked not stand the heat.
Abyss by Sergio Kuperman had taken all the provi ¬ trends. In his hand and a gleaming steel. He held his breath: Ludmila walked to the window - which opened from the inside, one of those sliding sheets, such as the train, which can only be operated from inside, "a couple of meters to kilometers seemed to him.
When she finally opened window and began to inhale the first breath of fresh air, a knife, deftly released, rent the space and was to hurt her in the neck. ("In the throat Sergio Kuperman thought, 'to prevent screams.) Ludmila
fell forward and simultaneously closed the window, because the impact had not had time to secure the brackets. Deep calm. Before returning to cross the gap, Sergio Kuperman found that no one had witnessed the spectacle of his crime. He paused a few seconds in the window of his victim, enough to ensure that lay dead and everything was fine. He climbed to his room and then herself, carried out the task, took sleeping pills and lay on the bed.
Everything had gone well, in fact, and fate had smiled. Feared for his boldness when he thought that anyone could see it from other windows and sounding the alarm that may have fallen into the void, especially since in the dark could hardly see the cable you should tread, that was a possibility that successful with the release of the knife (ignoring skill in the circus and for which he had been training secretly), and, finally, that she may not have driven as you did and how he had calculated.
What did Sergio Kuperman before falling asleep was to examine whether Ludmila deserved this purpose. Although he believed that human merit is something so superfluous that it was not worth to consider. Best not to deal with them but for jokes or to establish the degree of dissociation with the law that should govern man, through God.
The next morning the hotel was filled with waterproof lords were wandering through the corridors and the garden and looked out the corner of my eye, as if in a web of roof or cigarette butts scattered everywhere or behind the curtain was the key enigma. Police saw a rush in front of a cleverly contrived murder, one of those crimes that hardly occur in reality and one can only see in movies or read in magazines specialized, but extolling the red columns of newspapers.
The perfect crime! While Sergio Kuperman slipped on latex gloves among the rags she used the knife thrower, lamented the paltry glory he could claim an intellectual like him. She felt a little artist, sculptor or poet somewhat since delivering his work to arbitration by a public eager for chronic horrendous. A Perfect Murder arouses admiration after all, and was quite delighted intimately. Tingling pleasure secretly enraged him and encouraged him when, that afternoon, was brought before the commissioner Baliari.
Baliari was a placid type, as the landscape. Was identified with the village and the plain was an ancestral man's face and had recently been lifted from a long nap. However it was a police beating. He had told an officer knocked on the Kuperman and that meant he had caught a tip of the iceberg and that soon to the other.
- Am I looking for?
There he was now in front of you. That was. He studied a while Untes to open his mouth.
- Yes - said after -. I wanted to talk with you so Ludmila Pavlova.
"At your service.
- Thank you ... Explain then how. Sergio
Kuperman shivered.
- do not know what I spoke - said, trying to look the other kind of surprise.
- The others were far away, at the party. Baliari
showed cruelly parsimonious.
- Not all, not all ... Moreover it does not mean ...
- but you can not. I talked to some people ... With the owner of the circus, with Leonardo Trauves with a man named Cibernelli ... Did you know?
- The knife thrower.
Commissioner smiled imperceptibly.
- It lacks a finger on his right hand, is not it? Sergio
Kuperman nodded. Commissioner lit a cigarette and was entertained watching the curls of smoke. Kuperman was convinced, nevertheless, that no details had escaped him, no one had ever seen and the only thing the police were trying to fathom for a final clue.
- If you fail to represent the farce of the suspects - said more reassured - I will be able to help and work with these gentlemen pipe coming and going by the hotel, without getting anything other than tripping each other.
- It happens, Mr. Kuperman - Baliari leaned back in his leather chair and took a patriarchal air of a philosopher - it sometimes happens that two events that bear no relation to each other, the providence ¬ ence tends a line of contact, and disparate facts, disjointed, separated by time and distance, joint suddenly are a kind of fatalism. I might not understand, Mr. Kuperman ...
"No, I do not understand.
-course. Before you may want to clarify what are the reasons why I tend to believe in his guilt. Sergio
Kuperman now wondered whether the Commissioner would be trying to make him lose his head. The only fear was that his manner calm succeeded exacerbate it. In the same vein the commissioner continued,
- I learned about the death of his brother - said, almost without moving his lips and you received a telegram with the bad news.
"Yes."
- But that actually happened a couple of years. I have informed the post, this morning, and there do not know anything about that message. It is very rare, is not it? -Kuperman could not help to -. ¬ estremecimien Furthermore, security has lost the form he showed yesterday at his comrades.
- Yes, I lost.
- Sure .., "dancers sucked his cigarette again. The expression on his face changed suddenly. We would be better to admit that his brother died exactly the November 12, 1951. Shorten much, Mr. Kuperman.
Commissioner before him knew he was a hunted man who may deserve some satisfaction. He explained:
- A few weeks ago, coincidentally, said Ludmila Eric Reagan during a trip to the city had gone to some insurance company, and that she told him (to his surprise) that your policy payments were up to date. Of course this proves nothing ... Nor have just found in the wagon Cibernelli a latex glove for your right hand and, without doubt, has been used recently by someone who does not lack the ring finger. Sergio
Kuperman, who had paled a little while before, he frowned.
- How do you know?
- Because latex gloves Mr. Cibernelli, right hand, keep the powder in the hole for the finger that he lost. Is a detail, of course ... Baliari
produced a pause crushing the cigarette butt in the ashtray, a pause that took Kuperman as special commissioner ¬ raba: giving up.
- now tell us how you did it ... In truth, I have no doubt it was you, but I fail to understand how he has succeeded. A locked room crime is not something you see every day ...
- Tell me how he came so easily before me - Kuperman muttered.
The chubby face of the Commissioner for little stains of shame.
- Oh, well ... The death of his brother was a good excuse to carry out their plan. A good excuse, right. But you ignored the police I could not forget that what happened in 1951. Impossible to forget a very special circumstance, because his brother was killed. Sergio
Kuperman jumped and fell almost cavalier about the humanity of the commissioner. The clerk and corporal of the guard looked up.
- Murdered? Did you say ...?
- Yeah, I said. And you understand that the police had secretly mainte ¬ Nerl for a simple reason of principle. His brother Sebastian fell on a bed of spikes, in effect, but not by mere accident, as was said, but because he was injured while fixing a trapeze, twenty feet high. The expertise was determined that among the many wounds that you were the nails, had a completely different characteristics. It can be assumed he was stabbed up there and that therefore he was dead before the crash. The criminal gun disappeared, as expected.
Commissioner stood up and walked around the room. Sergio Kuperman, thinking of his brother (his friend and teacher), slumped in his seat, had all the appearance of a man killed.
- That's why I spoke of the contact lines and fatalism that contain certain facts. In this case, two seemingly unrelated crimes ¬ te, which hold the key to a riddle, to be frank, I am unable to fathom. How did he do, Mr. Kuperman?
But the man thought of his brother killed ... And so it seems that a glimmer of redemption in his eyes flashed. When he spoke, after a while, his voice had the cadence of a lament.
- at least tell me who killed him ... Commissioner Baliari
interrupted his tour, he also worried.
- I'd be happy - he said - but unfortunately I think that it has been a perfect crime.
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