THE DIVING DAMES AFFAIR

THERE WERE TWO BLONDES in the red convertible. White teeth gleamed in tanned faces as the car swept past Miguel Oliveira on his mule and then braked for the first of the hairpin bends leading down the mountainside to the main road and to Rio de Janeiro. The old man turned and watched it out of sight around a corner of the sun-baked rock face. Plenty of young people drove up here in the weekends, but it was unusual to see two girls in a car alone. He listened to the squealing of tires and the rising bellow of the exhaust as the convertible accelerated away from the turn, then transferred his gaze to the brush-covered rocky precipice dropping away to his right. Presently the car reappeared on a loop of road far below him, chrome glinting in the bright light as it arrowed down towards the last of the bends.

Sixty feet below the parapet guarding the curve, the broad highway to the state capital bisected the valley. And just beyond the corner, hidden from the girls in the low sports car but clearly visible to Miguel Oliveira, the driver of a decrepit truck who had found he was on the wrong road was laboriously turning.

The convertible entered the hairpin too fast. Oliveira saw its brake lights blaze as the blonde driver stamped on the pedal. The car slewed sideways, was expertly corrected, and snaked out of the bend to find the roadway almost completely blocked by the truck. Again the twin lights glowed - and then the girl, realizing that she could never stop in time, swung the wheel over in a desperate attempt to squeeze through between the radiator of the truck and the parapet. But the car, already partially out of her control, lurched sideways again and slammed into the low wall.

As Oliveira watched, horrified, it burst through the parapet, rose into the air, and hung for an instant motionless before plunging out of sight onto the steep slope linking the side road with the highway below. While the truck driver was erupting from his cabin to run to the edge, a cloud of dust mushroomed up over the shattered wall.

Seconds later, it seemed to the old man, the sound of the impact floated up the mountainside.

---

"Will they live?" the police captain asked the hospital intern later.

The young doctor raised white-coated shoulders in a professional shrug. "Barring unforeseen complications," he said. "It was fortunate for them that it was an open car. They were both thrown out before it landed upside down on the rock."

"And their injuries?"

"Multiple contusions and extensive lacerations in each case. The girl who was driving broke both legs against the steering wheel as she came out, but the other one's really worse off: there were boulders where she landed, and she has a cracked skull, a fractured pelvis and several broken ribs."

"They're still unconscious, both of them?"

The intern nodded. "And likely to remain so for some time. It was nearly half an hour before the ambulance got to them - and the sun's fierce at that time in the afternoon."

The policeman sighed. "I suppose we'd better go through the motions, then," he said, flicking a speck of dust from his olive green jacket. "I'll have to make a report, get in touch with next of kin, and so on. Shall we have a look at their effects?"

The doctor nodded again and led the way to an anteroom at the far end of the rubber tiled hospital corridor. A highway patrolman sprang to attention and saluted as the two men entered. Behind him, the sounds of suburban traffic filtered through green shutters closing out the dusk.

"Ah, Gomez," the police captain said, returning the salute. "What have we found out about these unfortunate ladies?"

The man looked uncomfortable. "Captain," he said, "I am very sorry, but… there is nothing."

"Nothing? But their names, surely? Their addresses?"

Gomez shook his head slowly. "Nothing," he repeated. "No driving license, no insurance certificate, no passports, no papers at all. I think they are Americans, but so far I have been unable to find out anything about their identity."

The captain stared in disbelief. "That is very curious," he said at last. "Let us see if perhaps their clothes…"

He moved across the room to a table on which were laid out two handbags and their contents, a pair of shattered sunglasses, shoes, several tourist's road maps, an entertainment guide to Rio, and two piles of blood stained clothing.

"I'm afraid we had to cut the clothes quite a bit," to get them off…" the doctor began apologetically.

"It does not matter," the policeman said. He picked up the ripped garments gingerly, one by one, and examined them: brightly colored blouses, underclothes, a skirt, a garter belt, what had once been a pair of white slacks. Finally he dropped the last one back on the table and turned to the doctor.

"The man is right," he said. "This is very odd: not one of these things has a name tag on it, Moreover, the labels and makers' names have been removed also."

"It is the same with the handbags, Captain," the patrolman interrupted. "See - cigarettes, lighters, money, lipsticks and compacts, keys, suntan oil, tissues… but no letters, no papers of any kind."

"Evidently," the captain said, "these are ladies who wished to remain incognito. But we have our duty to perform. We must find out who they are so that their relatives can be informed. We must force ourselves to be ungallant enough to unmask them."

Gomez smiled dutifully. "Yes, Captain," he murmured. "No doubt the laboratory could eventually trace them through these clothes and the shoes, but for an ordinary road accident it hardly seems…" The captain pause "What about the accident, by the way?" he inquired. "How did it happen? What do the witnesses say?"

"There were witnesses in three different cars on the highway. But all they saw was the second part of the accident, as it were. They saw the car bounce down the bank after it had broken through the parapet of the road above."

"Were there no witnesses up there?"

"We have found none."

"But what caused the accident? Why did the car break through the parapet?"

"We could find no reason for that either. There are two skid marks just after the hairpin, about a hundred and fifty yards before the place where the wall is breached - as though someone had braked hard there. But of course they could have been made by some other car."

"Quite," the captain said dryly. "So there are no marks at all - other than the broken wall - where the car left the road?"

"No, sir. None at all."

"This begins to get very puzzling. What about the car itself?"

"It was an Alfa Romeo 2600 - a beautiful car," Gomez said, his face lighting up with the enthusiasm of the car aficionado. "It is completely wrecked. Beyond any hope of repair."

"Yes, Gomez, yes," the captain prompted gently. "No doubt. But what I meant was - what is its number, where does it come from, and was there anything interesting in it?"

"Oh, I see. I'm sorry, sir... No, there was nothing at all in it of interest. A Japanese transistor radio and a pair of string gloves in the cubbyhole; a flask of brandy that was smashed in a door pocket. No papers."

"And the owner's name?"

"It was a rented car, Captain. Locally registered and belonging to a garage two blocks inland from Copacabana.

"Ah. No doubt the rental company can give us a lead on the person who rented it, then."