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Quinoa Food Politics and Agrarian Life in the Andean
Highlands 4th Edition Linda J. Seligmann Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): Linda J. Seligmann
ISBN(s): 9780252044793, 0252044797
Edition: 4
File Details: PDF, 9.26 MB
Year: 2023
Language: english
QUINOA
FOOD POLITICS and AGRARIAN LIFE
in the ANDEAN HIGHLANDS

LINDA J. SELIGM AN N
QUINOA
Interpretations of Culture in the New Millennium

Norman E. Whitten Jr., General Editor

A list of books in the series appears at the end of the book.

QUINOA
FOOD POLITICS and AGRARIAN LIFE
in the ANDEAN HIGHLANDS

Linda J. Seligmann
Publication of this book was supported in part by the
University of Illinois Press Fund for Anthropology.

Photos courtesy of the author unless otherwise noted.

© 2023 by the Board of Trustees

of the University of Illinois
All rights reserved

Cataloging data available from the Library of Congress

isbn 9780252044793 (hardcover)
isbn 9780252086885 (paperback)
isbn 9780252053849 (ebook)
 This book is dedicated to the memory of my father,
Albert L. Seligmann, to my mother, Barbara B. Seligmann,
as always to John and Mina,
and to my companions, teachers, and friends in Huanoquite.
Allinlla kawsakuychis (May you live well).
 Contents

Acknowledgments ix
List of Acronyms and Initialisms xiii

Introduction: Quinoa Prospects 1

Part One. Backstories: Land Struggles, the Allure of

Infrastructure, and Development Desires in Huanoquite

1 Agrarian Reform, Revolution, and Reversals 31

2 The Power and Seduction of Infrastructure 43
3 Contesting Development, Alternative Paths 56

Part Two. Soup and Superfood: The Politics of

Quinoa Production and Consumption

4 The Expansion of Quinoa Production 77

5 Food Sovereignty, Food Security, and Sustainability 103
6 To Be Strong and Healthy 117
7 Voracious Consumption 144
Conclusion: Pragmatic Spirituality and Quinoa Desires 159
 Notes 165
References 179
Index 193
 Acknowledgments

The inspiration for this book emerged while I was working on a project docu-
menting changes in the livelihoods of market women in Cusco, Peru. Tour-
ism was booming, and businesses everywhere were celebrating Indigenous
Quechua music, dress, and foods. Assorted snacks made from quinoa could be
found in grocery stores and myriad window displays. And in the United States,
quinoa was being heralded as a great food for all sorts of reasons. I began to
wonder how Quechua cultivators of quinoa were experiencing this celebration
of a crop they had grown for thousands of years that was now being promoted as
an export commodity and a significant dimension of culinary tourism. A little to
my surprise, when I returned for a visit to Huanoquite, where I had done many
prior years of field research, a major quinoa-promotion project was underway.
It led me to get to work puzzling out the hidden story that underpinned this
transformative moment when a modest cultigen was being redefined as a major
driver of future well-being. I could never have completed this project without
the unwavering support, kindness, insights, and generosity of so many individu-
als and institutions. I am immensely grateful to the counsel of Michael Muse
and the funding for this research provided by the Wenner-Gren Foundation
for Anthropological Research. The people of Huanoquite have taught me, over
many years, more than I can put into words, and I do not take their trust in me or
my research lightly. When this book is translated into Spanish, I hope that it will
serve as a source they can turn to as they determine which paths to take in order
 Acknowledgments

to nurture their families and their livelihoods, and to protect their territory and
water sources. In particular, I would like to thank Demetrio, Victoria, Deyvic,
María Elena, and Rómulo for always making me feel welcome, no matter what,
and the community and district authorities of Huanoquite for permitting me to
undertake this research. The members of the Quinoa Cultivators Association
as well as many nonmembers went out of their way to share with me their per-
spectives and practices. I expect they will recognize who they are, but for their
own protection, I provide here only their first names: Agripino, Aleja, Andrés,
Balbino, Demetrio, Domingo, Emilio, Erasmo, Ermenegildo, Ernesto, Felicia,
Florencio, Francisco C., Francisco P., Fredi, Jidión, Guillermo, Hector, Hugo,
Irene, Isabel, José Antonio, Juana, Julia, Julián, Julio, Justo, Juvenal, Lastenia,
Leonardo, Leoncio, Lorenzo, Lucio, María, Margarita, Mario Eduardo, Mar-
tha, Miguel, Nilton, Paulina, Paulo, Pedro, Renato, Ricardo, Richard, Rolando,
Rudolfo, Rufino, Sadith, Sara, Teodoro, Tomás, Valentín, Victor, and Zenovio.
My thanks to engineer Rigoberto Estrada, director of the National Institute of
Agricultural Innovation (INIA), and engineer Adrian Wendell Olivera Ayme,
director of the Cusco Region Project for the Improvement of the Competitive-
ness of Organic Andean Quinoa and Cañehua, for permitting me to interview
them and for their forthrightness in sharing with me their experiences working
with the Cusco region quinoa project.
The hospitality of friends and colleagues in Cusco made a big difference to
me. Jean-Jacques Decoster was amazing in his willingness to help others despite
everything on his own plate, and he and Sara and Kori made me feel like I had a
home away from home—delicious food, good company, and introductions to
many others whom I never would have had a chance to meet otherwise. Bruce
Mannheim and I have crossed paths many a time in Cusco, creating our own
kind of ritual tinku and shared history—conversations and food and drink late
into the night, and reflections on life, in general, and academia, in particular.
Daniel Guevarra was my research assistant for my earlier work on markets and
is now with the Sub-directorate of Interculturality, which is part of the Ministry
of Culture in Cusco. Guevarra, his wife, Carla, and his mother, Julia Rodríguez
Tamay, have always helped open doors for me in Cusco that I did not even
know existed, and just as importantly, made me laugh and feel part of a family,
again and again. Thanks also to Cecilia and Adriana Peralta, who offered me
a comfortable place to stay while I was in Cusco; to Rosalía Puma Escalante,
who assisted in providing me with quick and precise translations into Spanish
of exchanges in Quechua that were recorded under challenging conditions, to
say the least; and to Eliana Rivera, whose legal expertise on a domestic abuse
case was invaluable.

x
 Acknowledgments

The ups and downs of academic publishing are a challenge. Norman E. Whit-
ten Jr. began the University of Illinois series Interpretations of Culture in the
New Millennium, and he has sustained a lifelong commitment to scholarship
on the Andes that has benefitted anthropologists across the world, including
me. My book Peruvian Street Lives was the first one accepted for the series. This
book on quinoa is being published as the series comes to an end. The close
reading and constructive suggestions of the anonymous reviewers of this book
have been of great help in making it more coherent and nuanced. Daniel Nasset
was very excited about the initial project and helped shepherd my book through
the review process and changes at the press with respect and responsiveness;
Jennifer Argo and Mariah Mendes Schaefer did an excellent job of overseeing
the editorial process and attending to my many questions; Ellen Hurst did a
fine and meticulous job of copyediting my book; and Angela Burton, Jennifer
Fisher, Emerald Oaks, and Roberta Sparenberg each made significant contribu-
tions to the publication process of this book. I owe Scott White a special thanks
for his cartography skills and for bearing with me as he sought to produce ac-
curate maps that relied on far fewer data sources than one would like for such
a purpose. Many people took great interest in this book project. Special thanks
are due to Sydney Silverstein for sharing her quinoa experiences with me and
to Kevin Kinsella for taking the time to find his documents related to his early
efforts to promote quinoa for domestic consumption in Peru.
While I was doing this longue durée fieldwork, our daughter Mina grew up.
Always curious, always passionate about language, she has been a model for
me of how to write lucidly and craft arguments carefully, and of never forget-
ting independence of thought and creativity. My husband John eagerly and
bravely accompanied me to Huanoquite even though he does not speak Span-
ish or Quechua. A few of his fabulous photos grace this book, and he helped to
prepare all the book’s photos for publication. His observations and analytical
bent challenged me to think harder about some of my own assumptions, and
his companionship and presence helped make sure I stayed well on my first trip
back to Huanoquite after five years. As I write these words, my mother, who is
ninety-five years old, remains engaged and is eagerly awaiting the opportunity
to read this book to satisfy her own intellectual thirst for understanding the
world better; she is a great role model! Especially as the COVID-19 pandemic
roared around the world, I felt lucky to be fortified, despite grieving the loss of
friends and colleagues, by my family, including my sisters, Susan Seligmann-
Moreno, Ann Lyons, and Wendy Seligmann.
I would like to extend my profound gratitude to Kathleen S. Fine-Dare. In
facing our respective challenges, we became closer and have stuck with each

xi
 Acknowledgments

other through thick and thin. I have benefitted from our intellectual compan-
ionship and our personal friendship, which have endured and matured in good
ways. I would also like to thank Ralph Bolton, who first introduced me to the
Andean region when I was an undergraduate, and the students at George Ma-
son University who were so enthusiastic when I taught my “Food and Culture”
class. Many of them were refugees or immigrants, and the essays they wrote
about food and family powerfully revealed their experiences of the entangle-
ment of violence, loss, love, and food. Last but hardly least, Florence Babb, Ana
Mariella Bacigalupo, Christine Harris Charest, Alma Gottlieb, Steve and Sally
Herman, the “Lunch Bunch,” Deborah Poole, and Susan Trencher are among
the many people whose guidance and friendship I have benefitted from, and
who have made life better for others.

xii
 List of Acronyms and Initialisms

AIQ International Year of Quinoa (Año Internacional de Quinoa)

APEGA Peruvian Society of Gastronomy (Sociedad Peruana de Gas-
tronomía)
CBD Convention on Biological Diversity
CDO Certification of Denomination of Origin
CVR Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Peru (La Comisión
de la Verdad y Reconciliación del Perú)
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization
FISE Social Energy Inclusion Fund (Fondo de Inclusión Social
Energético)
ILO International Labor Organization
INDECOPI National Consumer Protection Authority of Peru (Autoridad
Nacional de Protección del Consumidor)
INIA National Institute of Agricultural Innovation (Instituto Na-
cional de Innovación Agraria)
MIDIS Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion (Ministerio de
Desarrollo e Inclusión Social)
MINAGRI Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (Ministerio de Agricul-
tura y Riego)
MINCETUR Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism (Ministerio de Com-
ercio Exterior y Turismo)
 List of Acronyms and Initialisms

OCM Observatory of Mining Conflicts in Peru (Observatorio de

Conflictos Mineros en el Perú)
PROMPERÚ Commission for the Promotion of Peru for Export and Tour-
ism (Comisión de Promoción del Perú para la Exportación y
el Turismo)
QCA Quinoa Cultivators Association
UNSAAC National University of San Antonio Abad of Cusco (Univer-
sidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco)

xiv
QUINOA
 Introduction
Quinoa Prospects

In 2018, I returned to Huanoquite in the southern Andean highlands of Peru

after a five-year hiatus, grateful that my journey, which had once taken eight
to nine hours to make from Cusco, had only taken two. I had hardly caught
my breath when my friend and compadre (fictive kin)1 Lorenzo, who was also
a well-respected farmer, strode up the road, exclaiming “Comadre, biénvenido!”
(“Co-mother, welcome!”). After we embraced each other, he announced that
we would go to harvest his quinoa (pronounced keen-wa) fields the next day
in a place called Salvidayuq. I was exhausted, but Lorenzo asked if I wanted to
take a look at the field that afternoon, so I went with him. His wife, Margarita,
fragile and a little unsteady on her feet, met us there a little later. I had been
told that she had been feeling unwell. We sat at the edge of the fields where
Margarita shared thirst-quenching fruit with us. Marco, their grandson and my
godchild, periodically set off bottle rockets to scare away the birds from the
quinoa. Lorenzo walked the fields and confirmed that tomorrow was the day
and that I should be at the house at 7:30 a.m. sharp.
The next day, along with eating, drinking, and working hard to harvest the
quinoa with rarely a break, I listened as a lively discussion—most of it in Que-
chua—unfolded among the ten workers that Lorenzo had persuaded to help
him out for a modest daily wage. Some of the conversation was about quinoa
itself—complaints about the engineer who was supposed to teach them how
to use a new piece of machinery but who had not shown up, the quality of the
 Introduction

Figure 0.1. Lorenzo, member of the Quinoa Cultivators Association and my compadre
(Photo taken by John R. Cooper)

harvest, and the effects of soil and weather on the quinoa—but most of the
talk concerned the incursion of mines of all sorts (copper, gold, and iron) to
the Huanoquite region. Some of the workers insisted that this incursion was a
good thing because the Cusco Regional Government supported and invested
in the mines and there was lots of work available in them. Others quietly com-
mented that the mines would destroy their way of life because mercury and
other poisons would leach into the soil and wreck the environment and the
water on which Huanoquiteños depended. Still others conjectured that the
mines would increase the population of Huanoquite as a result. Gold was on
everyone’s mind, it seemed. One man confided to the group that when he was
younger, he had come across what he thought was sand. But when he picked it
up and ran it through his fingers, it sparkled like gold. It turned out that it was
gold, but when he went back to the same spot, it was gone, as was the sand.
Another chimed in that gold nuggets would periodically appear in a nearby
spring in Llaspay, one of Huanoquite’s communities. And yet another soberly
observed that along with the benefit of jobs at the mines, workers suffered
terrible injuries from the machines they used. As we wended our way back to
Huanoquite at dusk, one man whispered to me that most people in Huanoquite
were opposed to the mines and were holding demonstrations and blockades
against them. And several workers remarked that the fields were “cold” because
after growing quinoa, other crops such as barley would not grow in them.

2
 Quinoa Prospects

Figure 0. 2 . Sharing a meal at noon break by edge of quinoa fields

Lorenzo’s quinoa harvest piqued my curiosity because it seemed to be about

so much more than sowing and harvesting a food crop for purposes of con-
sumption and exchange on the market. It quickly become apparent to me that
the cultivation of quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) was part of a panoply of
initiatives and projects unfolding in the district that had a long history. Quinoa
entered the vocabulary of Westerners and their dietary palate as a superfood in the
twenty-first century, long after its incorporation into the diet of Andean highland
peoples, around seven thousand years ago. A native seed, it has been celebrated
as “an exquisite grain” that, tiny as it is, contains a remarkably high percentage of
protein, important amino acids, minerals, and vitamins. It has surged in popular-
ity, hand in hand with a passionate preoccupation among many westerners with
the properties of foods they ingest and how they affect their personal physical
and mental health and contribute to environmental sustainability.
To give readers an idea of quinoa’s growing popularity, Peru’s quinoa exports
went from approximately 18.67 million kilograms of quinoa with an export
value of $79.5 million in 2013, rising to almost 49.5 million kilograms with an
export value of almost $137 million in 2019. It is the world’s largest exporter
of quinoa, and in 2019, nearly 37 percent of its production was bound for the
United States, followed by the European Union. Bolivia was the second largest
exporter of quinoa, following close behind Peru. In 2019 Peru accounted for
over 55 percent (89,775 metric tons) of the global production volume of quinoa,
which was approximately 161,000 metric tons.2

3
 Introduction

Figure 0.3 . Quinoa plants

growing (Photo taken by
John R. Cooper)

The Peruvian government and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)

have worked hard to promote quinoa as a nontraditional export since as early
as 2006, and with heightened enthusiasm in 2013 when the Food and Agricul-
ture Organization of the United Nations named Peru’s then first lady Nadine
Heredia and Bolivia’s then president Evo Morales as Special Ambassadors for
the International Year of Quinoa. In Huanoquite, where I did my research,
quinoa had always been grown as a minor yet cherished cultigen, but global
demand for it had led state agencies and NGOs to herald it as future “gold” for
those living in the countryside. The Peruvian government began encouraging
the establishment of quinoa cultivator associations in many highland commu-
nities, targeting both men and women. For the farmers of Huanoquite, quinoa
constituted their first experience cultivating a nontraditional export crop, and
like many Quechua inhabitants of the Andean highlands, they welcomed the
prospect of expanding its cultivation for the global market. Yet the story turned
out to be far more complicated, with many challenges.

4
 Quinoa Prospects

I began this book project to understand what happened when quinoa went
from being a minor crop to a major export commodity in Huanoquite, but I
soon found myself asking bigger questions that I address in this book: What
ways are Indigenous inhabitants living in Andean highland communities con-
fronting the consequences of the relentless demands of neoliberal globaliza-
tion? How have they adapted to these demands?3 Not surprisingly, the answers
to these questions are neither wholly negative nor wholly positive. The mecha-
nisms of adaptation that Huanoquiteños have pursued to perpetuate their agrar-
ian livelihoods have included a wide range of new initiatives to supplement and
complement their agricultural production while pushing back against devel-
opment projects that show little or no understanding of the dynamics of their
economic, cultural, and political lives and values. They have taken advantage
of the benefits of becoming folkloric icons, especially for tourists, while trying
not to ignore the mountain, water, and earth entities that they must vigorously
attend to, to provide balance in their world. They have turned to exhausting
and unstable transnational migration while funneling back into the district
new kinds of knowledge and experiences they can use for their own purposes,
including as weapons to confront state and bureaucratic machinations. They
have organized, from time to time, into complex, heterogeneous, and dispersed
social movements, and they have elaborated innovative kinship ties for pur-
poses of expanding their communities beyond a diminishing agrarian land base
and/or Indigenous territory. I posit that these adaptive mechanisms “work” for
them but have also taken tolls on their well-being that are not just economic
but also affective. There is an extractive dimension to them that has resulted in
a more precarious livelihood than Huanoquiteños openly articulate. The most
sobering prospect looming over Huanoquiteños has been the establishment
of mining concessions and mining near them that would permanently create
an unhealthy state of being for them and their world and whose effects go far
beyond their ability to cultivate quinoa for a global market.
The pages that follow shed light on how food politics, development initia-
tives, and Huanoquiteños’ agrarian history have intervened in the expansion
of their quinoa production and how the expansion of quinoa production has
affected the place and power of men and women in Huanoquite’s households
and communities, including those of brokers who have mediated quinoa’s pro-
motion and marketing. Ingesting food is about more than satisfying hunger.
The meanings and feelings people associate with quinoa’s production and con-
sumption diverge, partly in accordance with assumptions that structure how
they view their place in the world and in the cosmos. The interactions and in-
tersubjectivities that have emerged among cultivators and consumers of quinoa,

5
 Introduction

some of whom are Indigenous, others of whom are not, illuminate important
differences in how people are situated in the cosmos and the economic and
political forces that structure that cosmos. These differences bear on deeper
and more fraught questions, such as the best ways to achieve well-being in the
universe.
A final subject of this volume—the establishment of mining concessions
near Huanoquite—might seem, at first glance, somewhat removed from the
topic of quinoa in the Andes but is on everyone’s mind because the ability of
Huanoquiteños to perpetuate their agrarian livelihoods stands in the balance,
given the potential environmental destructiveness of the mines. Hence, this
is a story not only about quinoa but also about the broader ramifications of
activities that constitute the economic and political regimes of our lives today,
including the interactions among productive and extractive undertakings and
the point at which a productive activity becomes extractive.

The District of Huanoquite: A Brief Overview and History

I began my first fieldwork in the southern Andean highland district of Huano-
quite in 1984. Located in the Cusco region of Peru in the province of Paruro,
it was renowned for its agriculture. At the time, I was interested in learning
about farmers who had come to be recognized and respected by fellow vil-
lagers as knowledge brokers and how they acquired and disseminated their
knowledge and practices related to agrarian activities. Most of the district’s
inhabitants spoke Quechua and considered themselves Indigenous. Over the
years, I periodically returned there to do follow-up work on other topics and to
visit people, many of whom had become good friends and some, compadres.
Located at 3,402 msl. (meters above sea level), Huanoquite is the second-
largest district in the province of Paruro, comprised of nineteen communities
and two annexes, with a total estimated population of 5,775 (see Maps 1 and
2).4 Home mainly to Quechua-speaking farmers for centuries, it attracted many
Spanish-speaking landed estate owners (hacendados) from the inception of
the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the late 1500s onward. Most of its
inhabitants speak and understand Spanish, but the preference, even among
younger people, is to talk among themselves in Quechua.5 The district is blessed
with plentiful irrigation and a wide range of microecological zones in terms of
altitude, light, soil, and slope, making it optimal for growing multiple varieties
of quinoa and permitting households to diversify their crop production across
the annual growing cycle. It has long been considered a major breadbasket
for the entire Cusco region, and Huanoquiteños fondly refer to their home as
“Cusco’s little food dispensary.”

6
Map 1. Cusco Region, Province of Paruro, District of Huanoquite (Map prepared by Scott
White). Data sources: Esri, Inc., UNOCHA HDX, Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN).

7
8
Map 2 . Communities of Huanoquite and neighboring provinces and regions (Map prepared by Scott White). Data
sources: Esri, Inc., UNOCHA HDX, Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN), Latlong.net, Seligmann 1995.
 Quinoa Prospects

These qualities have made it an ideal site for experimenting with expand-
ing quinoa cultivation, and it has now become the main quinoa-producing
district in Paruro. Most households market part of their produce and purchase
goods from the market to supplement what they cultivate. Cusco is a major
marketing nexus and easily accessible from Huanoquite. In addition, whole-
salers traveled from Arequipa and Cusco to Huanoquite to buy up quinoa and
other agricultural products. Huanoquiteños also traveled extensively nationally
and internationally, especially to Arequipa, Lima, Juliaca, Puno, Quillabamba,
Maldonado, and Tingo María, and to Spain, Italy, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, and
Argentina.
At the outset, I want to say a few words about the terms that I use to refer
to the main subjects of this account. The process of deciding on an appropri-
ate system of terminology with which to refer to Huanoquite’s inhabitants
reveals the multifaceted ways that past, present, and future collide and inflect
one another in a fluid and entangled fashion. Terms like Indigenous and non-
Indigenous are problematic because they suggest dichotomies that are hardly
clear-cut and certainly not apparent from the physical appearance of inhabit-
ants alone. From the early days of the Spanish invasion onward, mixing took
place between Indigenous Quechua inhabitants of the Andes and the Spanish,
so distinguishing clearly between them rapidly became impossible. Here I have
decided to use Indigenous and non-Indigenous in a sociocultural and political
fashion to distinguish those who embrace Indigenous practices, values, and

Figure 0. 4 . Center of the District of Huanoquite

9
 Introduction

Figure 0.5 . Diverse production zones of Huanoquite

beliefs, even as they incorporate non-Indigenous ones and make them into
their own, on the one hand, and those who not only embrace non-Indigenous
practices, values, and beliefs but also frequently denigrate Indigenous inhabit-
ants, on the other hand. That is, the expression and exercise of racial discrimi-
nation is, to a large extent, built into the distinction. Even so, there is no easy
way to avoid the pitfalls of essentialism. In order to take advantage of tourists’
desires to interact with Indigenous culture, for example, a wide range of people
may perform Indigeneity for economic gain; some of these people have roots
in Indigenous communities, and others have none and, in fact, may have no
affinity for Indigenous culture or lifeways. Or Indigenous people may enact
an idealized Indigeneity for purposes of mobilizing politically and gaining the
attention of the international community to defend their resources and terri-
tory; that idealized projection of Indigeneity may become incorporated into
their sense of who they are and their history.6 In a somewhat contrasting vein,
some Indigenous inhabitants may be far from fluent speakers of Quechua but
embrace their Indigenous heritage. Regardless of the terms used, differences
exist among Huanoquite’s inhabitants. Indigenous people are not monolithic,
and in the case of Huanoquiteños, they themselves deploy these terms and
personas for their own purposes. There is a fluidity to identity that uneasily
coexists with categorical labels. Given these complexities, throughout the book,
I will use the terms Huanoquiteños or Indigenous Quechua inhabitants to refer

10
 Quinoa Prospects

to those who consider themselves Indigenous, either within Huanoquite or,

more generally, in the Andean highlands. Similarly, I will use non-Indigenous
Huanoquiteños or non-Indigenous inhabitants to refer to those who do not con-
sider themselves Indigenous. The terminology is intended to draw attention
to individuals who embrace the kinds of distinctions I have specified above.
Among the most useful discussions of ethnic and racial relationships in the
Andes are those of Bourricaud (1970), Cotler (2013), De la Cadena (2000),
Larson and Harris (1995), Quijano (1980), Seligmann (1989), and Wade (2010).
It is also important to understand that most, but not all, Huanoquiteños are
also peasants (campesinos). Their relatively small landholdings provide for their
household’s needs, and the majority sell a part of what they produce on the
market.
A second conundrum for me as an ethnographer has been the question of
whether or not to identify my interlocutors. All of them gave me permission to
interview them and take photos of them. Some of them—mostly non-Indig-
enous Huanoquiteños or organizational representatives in Cusco—were also
public figures. In addition, a General Assembly of elected community authori-
ties from throughout the district voted to permit me to pursue this research
and the district’s mayor signed a formal document to that effect. Nevertheless,
I know that communities are fractious and politics can be dangerous. Hence,
I have used pseudonyms for my interlocutors, although I have identified well-
known public officials who consented to interviews with me.

Development and the Projection of Development

The story of quinoa raises questions about what development means for Huano-
quiteños and for agents of the state and NGO personnel. It illuminates why
particular projects and policies are initiated, who catalyzes them, who ben-
efits from them and why, and what values are at stake. Many quinoa-growing
communities of the Andean highland have encountered conditions like those
I found in Huanoquite. Agrarian reform; subsequent measures to reprivatize
land; infrastructural modernization and construction projects of roads, health
posts, and educational centers; the entrenchment of neoliberalism; and the pro-
motion of extractive economies as an engine of national growth were among the
most important general forces and events that had contributed to the form and
content that development projects and policies had taken in Huanoquite. The
assumptions that catalyzed development projects in Huanoquite had embed-
ded within them attitudes about food, hunger, race, gender, and progress. Many
of these projects showed little understanding of the livelihoods and values of

11
 Introduction

Indigenous people of the Andean highlands; at their worst, they represented

a distressing continuity with prior racist and gender-biased projects in which
Quechua people’s lives were expendable even when their images might be val-
ued commodities for consumption. All these attitudes made their appearance
in Huanoquite, alongside some genuine efforts of NGOs to adapt their projects
and expectations to the reality of Huanoquiteños’ lives. Huanoquiteños also
undertook their own projects that often unfolded with more success.
Edward Fischer and Peter Benson (2006), in their ethnography of the global
export of broccoli grown by Maya farmers in Guatemala, discuss the ambiva-
lence of desire and moral projects among them. My own understanding of
how development dynamics colored life in Huanoquite conforms to Fischer
and Benson’s argument that contradictions within the spheres of economic
production and consumption are mediated by moral discourses—those of
development agents, Huanoquiteños themselves across generation, gender,
and class divides, and by ethnographers with their own research agendas (like
me). While researchers—through their moral projects—may seek to discern
and explain the dangers of globalized economies, for example, they may in-
advertently ignore the experiences that structure the daily lives, desires, and
profound concerns of the people with whom they work (Fischer and Ben-
son 2006, 17). Huanoquiteños simultaneously held out hope and desire that
infrastructural and development projects introduced to their communities
would improve their lives while recognizing that their past experiences with
such projects had been negative, or at least less than satisfactory, in achieving
constructive transformations for themselves and their communities. In docu-
menting the long history of development initiatives in Huanoquite—including
the most recent efforts to expand quinoa cultivation for the global market—I
try to show the kinds of contradictory desires and aspirations embedded in
development projects and what their moral implications might be. I also try
to hold at arm’s length some of my own more pejorative perceptions of prior
development initiatives with which I was familiar, in order to better listen to,
observe, and convey what my interlocutors felt.

Nourishment, Knowledge, and the Food Politics of Quinoa

Over the centuries, Huanoquite has regularly attracted interest from outsiders
because of its remarkable diversity of ecological zones and its proximity to the
city of Cusco, ancient capital of the Incas and tourist mecca. In learning about
quinoa’s physical characteristics, hearing about farmers’ experiences growing it,
and talking with women about how they processed, cooked, and marketed it, I

12
 Quinoa Prospects

realized that, in addition to taking account of the long history of development

projects in the district, I needed to better grasp the ways quinoa was under-
stood and embraced as both a soup and superfood. The relationships between
food and culture have long intrigued anthropologists who recognize that food
nourishes the body, and simultaneously expresses, reflects, and sometimes
challenges class, ethnic, and gender ideologies. Contradictory historical and
cultural experiences and imaginaries are expressed through food in particular
contexts. Quechua women have long overseen quinoa foodways, including its
arduous processing prior to use, and they have helped to select quinoa varietals
that are best suited for the purpose to which they will be put, whether for food,
ritual meals, flour, beer, medicinal remedies, barter, retail exchanges, or regional
market transactions. Although quinoa has rarely been a central component
of Indigenous meals but rather a complement—in contrast to potatoes, for
example, which are a staple of Andean highland communities (and Huano-
quite is famous for its potatoes)—it is regarded as quintessentially Quechua
and a gauge of women’s contributions to the well-being of their households,
especially when it is consumed as a soup or beverage. Too often there has been
a disregard for the power and knowledge of women and relationships of gen-
der, even when women exert political agency and are “central to rural life and
the production and consumption of foods” (Andrée et al. 2014b, 28). Thus, in
addition to learning what the agricultural and economic effects of the rise in
quinoa cultivation were, I look at the place quinoa occupied in meals, nour-
ishment, and reciprocal labor exchanges in the Andes. I talked to Indigenous
women about their views of quinoa as a food, sat in the kitchen with them as
they prepared and served it, and compared their relationships to quinoa with
those of nonproducers of quinoa inside and outside of Peru.
What is quinoa as a food? Scholars in the field of critical food studies have
looked at the effects that the growing demand for Indigenous and “healthy”
food products from across the globe, such as quinoa, have wrought on produc-
ers and consumers alike. Debates revolve around whether the demand for foods
produced from native crops such as quinoa have resulted in the improvement
of the standard of living of those who grow them; who controls the marketing
of these products; how value is added to them across commodity chains; and
what happens when national governments and private corporations invoke,
manipulate, and encourage the circulation of images of Indigeneity, whether
for purposes of encouraging consumption of Indigenous food products or
for promoting tourism in general.7 Even as the state, often in tandem with
international and transnational entities such as the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, as well as corporations have implemented

13
 Introduction

neoliberal globalization measures which encourage export-based economies,

a move away from food production for domestic consumption, and mono-
cultivation, these policies take place in the context of local knowledge, needs,
interests, and pressures—what Peter Andrée et al. call “localized globalism.” We
therefore need to document the concrete ways that these policies are “adopted,
adapted, or resisted in multiple ways, and with what kinds of impacts” since
they are almost always “contested processes, and small-scale or subsistence
farmers are far from disappearing” (Andrée et al. 2014a, 4).
These studies also raise important concerns about satisfying international
demand for “miracle” foods like quinoa, which are described in scientific and
biomedical terms, and simultaneously encouraging their domestic consump-
tion in the interest of improving local health and nutrition (McDonell 2015).
Development initiatives pay lip service to improving the health of Indigenous
communities and may, at times, move beyond rhetoric, instituting instructional
seminars or food programs, but their health improvement projects, rather than
addressing deeper causes of hunger and undernourishment, frequently focus
most of their attention on women, whom they expect to learn to prepare and
serve foods with specific micronutrients. In turn, this creates an additional
burden on women, holding them responsible for the health and nutrition of
their families.
Aya Hirata Kimura (2013) has persuasively argued that the emphasis on
“charismatic nutrients” as a stimulus to create demand and encourage the mar-
keting and consumption of specific foods is one aspect of global economic neo-
liberalism. This kind of focus on healthful nutrients breaks down food products
into distinct components and assumes that the onus of not providing proper
nutritional elements rests on households and, more narrowly, on mothers,
rather than on causes of inequality that prevent robust health. Kimura found
that these kinds of assumptions have caused international donors to focus on
the dyad of mother-child “as a scientific necessity” to reduce hunger and supply
children with proper nutrition, and to increase the surveillance of mothers and
their bodies and hold them responsible for meeting their children’s nutritional
needs. Women are often held responsible for “the lack” of iron, protein, or
calcium in their children’s diet. Viewing hunger in this way is easier as a policy
than recognizing and arriving at ways to deal with the many other variables that
intervene in the nutritional status of households (Kimura 2013, 32). Kimura puts
it well when she contrasts the satisfaction of viewing lack of food as something
that can be rectified through simply providing the right nutrients and the much
thornier problem of dealing with questions of access to land, environmental
degradation, patriarchy, systemic racism and marginalization, and the pres-
sures to pursue monocropping, for example. In her words, while the image of

14
 Quinoa Prospects

hunger “as a matter of missing nutrients can be institutionally and culturally

appealing because of its simplicity, that very simplicity belies the much messier
reality of the global food problem. Falling outside the aura of charisma are less
glamorous actors and multiple layers of problems that pervade the world food
system” (2013, 21).
The attention to quinoa as a “healthy” food because of its micronutrients
has also raised concerns among political activists and scholars who argue that
the surge in demand for quinoa internationally has made it unaffordable to
those who grow it and as has been true of many other export crops, led to a
reduction in the varieties of quinoa that farmers are growing. These effects
could bode ill for Quechua inhabitants who have, through experimentation
in different microenvironmental conditions over the centuries, introduced
at least three thousand landraces of quinoa and about one hundred cultivars
(Gamwell and Howland 2017). Rojas et al. (2015) document that, accord-
ing to the FAO, there are globally more than 16,263 ex situ accessions of the
genus Chenopodium, including quinoa, its wild variants, and related species,
in fifty-nine genebanks across thirty-nine countries (56). This is one reason
why it is so important to connect the dots between the global celebration of
Indigenous foods and the agrarian world and lives that have produced them
over millennia.8
Whether we have at our disposal exact numbers or not, it is the case that
Indigenous inhabitants of the Andes have adapted quinoa, a remarkably ver-
satile cultigen, to a dizzying number of water, soil, altitudinal, and weather
conditions, as well as taste preferences (See, for example, Andrews 2017; Bazile
2015; Gamwell and Howland 2017; and Urdanivia 2014). There has always been
confusion about the difference between crop varieties and landraces. Deborah
Andrews offers some clarity on this, explaining that a landrace is a local variety
of a domesticated plant species that has developed largely through adaptation to
the natural and cultural environment in which it lives. It differs from a cultivar,
which has been selectively bred to conform to a particular standard of charac-
teristics as a variety. Landrace populations are often variable in appearance, but
they can be identified by their appearance and have a certain genetic similarity.
Landraces have a continuity with improved varieties. The relatively high level
of genetic variation of landraces is one of the advantages that these can have
over improved varieties. Although yields may not be as high, the stability of
landraces in the face of adverse conditions is typically high. As a result, new
pests or diseases may affect some but not all the individuals in the population
(Andrews 2017, 19). This matters as, increasingly, quinoa is promoted for export
and more emphasis placed on quinoa cultivators to produce improved varieties
rather than landrace populations for the international market.

15
 Introduction

Production and Extraction

The promotion of quinoa and the expansion of its production must take ac-
count of the complicated ways in which Huanoquiteños’ livelihood activities
involve at one and the same time productive and extractive dimensions. The
willingness of the Peruvian government to grant mining concessions to trans-
national corporations in regions proximate to Huanoquite has meant that the
very foundation of agrarian life in Huanoquite is being threatened due to the
pollution of water sources and the destruction to roads and fields because of
mining traffic. Further, as Eric Hirsch (2022) eloquently describes, based on his
research in the Arequipa region of Peru, many governmental or parastatal-NGO
development initiatives proposed for purposes of production or tourism—ac-
tivities that on the surface seemed constructive—turned out to catalyze the
excessive extraction of Indigenous inhabitants’ time, labor, and even their iden-
tities. This could readily be seen among Huanoquiteños who participated in
the Quinoa Cultivators Association (QCA) and a number of other top-down
development projects. I found that their capacity to adapt to conditions of late
capitalism, neoliberalism, and tourism prospects—often celebrated—resulted
too often in sacrifices and negative consequences for them. These consequences
included the exacerbation of gender and income inequalities, exploitative labor
practices, the narrowing of landraces they cultivated because of pressures to
satisfy export demands, and the exhaustive burden of taking on excessive risks
that led to anxiety and struggles to recover from failure.

Pragmatic Spirituality: Living and Engaging in Cosmopolitics

In telling the story of quinoa in Huanoquite, I wanted to better understand
how Huanoquiteños saw themselves in the world, and more broadly, how they
conceptualized the universe and their place(s) in it. These are questions of
ontology that have received renewed attention from scholars doing research
on Indigenous Quechua political thinking and mobilization.9 In her research,
Marisol de la Cadena (2010, 2015) found, as have others (e.g., Allen 2002), that
Indigenous Quechua people considered themselves part of a universe inhabited
by sentient beings, whether the beings had a tangible materiality in the form
of earth, rock outcroppings, mountains, plants, or springs or a more intangi-
ble presence, as deceased ancestors or light, for example. These power beings,
places, and objects are called wacas in Quechua. For many Huanoquiteños, their
well-being depended on their capacity to operate within, tap into, and engage
in reciprocal relationships with the powers of the universe, which included

16
 Quinoa Prospects

human sentient beings and so many other beings. Huanoquiteños were alert
to the vitality of their environment and its destructive and beneficent potenti-
alities. They channeled or harnessed the power of these beings in the present
for purposes of modulating deleterious events of the past, nurturing multiple
other species and elements and ensuring their future well-being in the form
of good harvests, health, and safety. Their multitemporal worlds overlapped
and inflected each other. Their named mountains (apus) and rocks (wacas),
which had different qualities that they recognized when they made blessings
to them (samincha), required their attention, especially at times of sowing and
harvesting their crops, illnesses, taking long journeys, or in general, at important
transformative moments or occasions. For example, they were always careful
to bless Yachikauri and Huanakauri, two prominent wacas in the form of rock
outcroppings, located on either side of Huanoquite, because “they shelter the
village, protecting it like doors,” and they were also like “a wall of defense.” They
viewed San Miguel, a massive and extensive mountain, as both “an apu and an
angel,” the most ferocious and angry of their mountain spirits,” and therefore
“in need of appeasement.”
At the same time, pragmatism, a vibrant dimension of Quechua ontology,
has been remarked on by scholars but has nevertheless gotten muffled by a
tendency to characterize Andean people’s ontology in a romanticized way
that overemphasizes its spiritual nature. Huanoquiteños’ understanding of
the universe, their place in it, and the resources they drew upon for their social
reproduction was intensely pragmatic. They were open to using the power of
literacy, law, bureaucracies, and western scientific knowledge if it served their
needs, along with mountain spirits, earth beings, and water and coca transmit-
ters and mediators. De la Cadena (2010, 2015) discusses Quechua Indigenous
cosmology as “cosmopolitics” and writes dramatically and vividly about the
clash of Quechua ontology and that of western bureaucrats in her life history
of a Quechua political leader who sought to retain and regain control over his
community’s lands, which had been taken by landed estate owners. Whereas
Quechua leaders and shamans were open to tapping into and channeling what-
ever power and knowledge weapons were at their disposal that they thought
they could use constructively—sentient beings, their observational powers,
writing, and legal documents alike—non-Indigenous politicians and bureau-
crats generally disdained and denigrated the reality of sentient beings and the
capacity of Indigenous people to skillfully wield documents, knowledge, and
demeanors that constituted the legitimacy of audit culture.
As I show in the pages that follow, in order to protect or enhance their live-
lihoods, Huanoquiteños drew on their pragmatism as a critical resource that

17
 Introduction

was integral to their characterization of the sentient beings of their universe

and the relationships among them. Sophie Chao, in her research among the
Marind, an Indigenous people of West Papua, discusses their relationship to
oil palm as hunters, gatherers, and fishermen, and how the establishment of
oil palm plantations had caused them to experience systemic and disturbing
changes in their multispecies interactions. From reciprocal relationships with
more “wild and free plants” they were now experiencing “violent care” as plant
lives had become imposed, domesticated, and harnessed for a world market,
leading to cosmological imbalances that they expressed in dreams and night-
mares (Chao 2018, 629). In a similar fashion, the shift among Huanoquiteños
from their modest cultivation of myriad and dispersed landraces and varietals
of quinoa—which entailed subtle interrelationships with all manner of species,
both plant and animal (including humans)—to large-scale production of only
a few types of quinoa, incentivized by the Peruvian state for the global mar-
ket, had perturbed and intrigued them as they scrambled to acquire as much
knowledge as possible about how to handle the consequences of these shifts
for themselves and the networks of the multispecies universe in which they
lived. At the same time, as Chao found in her work, Huanoquiteños encounter-
ing and participating in these changes felt considerable ambivalence because
they were operating with partial knowledge, and some of these changes and
their consequences were neither visible nor tangible, and it could take time
for their effects to be felt (Chao 2018, 640). Using everything they had at their
disposal—including their imaginations—they sought to diminish and control
disruptions to their ontological positioning, and one of the main resources they
relied on in this process was their down-to-earth pragmatism. That pragma-
tism was honed from knowledge they had accumulated over centuries as peas-
ant farmers who had studied the physical environment, worked the land, and
traded and sold their surplus. Their pragmatic spirituality had also very much
emerged from their embeddedness in regimes of colonialism, capitalism, and
neoliberal globalization, and from their interactions with non-Indigenous in-
habitants whose reach into their lives entailed navigating an infuriating maze of
bureaucracies that constituted the Peruvian state. Bringing together the power
of pragmatism with the powers of a universe of sentient beings provided them
with negotiating weapons and tools of persuasion they could sometimes use
effectively with agents and organizations. It served as a bastion of a resilient
and distinctive Indigenous Quechua praxis. At the same time, their labyrin-
thine maneuvering of the contradictory powers in the world exposed them to
vulnerability, a double-edged sword in their efforts to figure out the best course
of action they could take when encountering dangers, needs, opportunities,

18
 Quinoa Prospects

and obstacles. The very spiritual-pragmatic fusion of these dimensions of their

ontology meant that, unlike so many development experts or agents of the
state, they were skeptical of any single “silver bullet” that would solve all their
problems.

Present and Past Lives:

The Anthropology of Long-Term Fieldwork
A final strand that informs this book is my experience as an anthropologist
who has done long-term field research in the Andean highlands. I returned
to Huanoquite to do this research because I felt that context and historical
depth would permit me to better understand the relationship between qui-
noa and Andean livelihoods in general. Many excellent studies of quinoa have
taken place at the macro-level but few tell us about more nuanced ways that
the drive to export quinoa is shaping people’s lives on the ground in Andean
highland agricultural communities.10 I had done extensive field research over
a forty-five-year period in the southern Andean highlands in rural and urban
settings, including four highland agrarian and herding communities, and my
doctoral research on agrarian reform and its consequences had taken place
over more than a year’s time in the district of Huanoquite between 1984 and
1985. My returns there for shorter periods of time over the following thirty-
five years provided me with a wealth of longitudinal data I could draw on to
grasp how agrarian practices, including crop diversity and arrays, land tenure
arrangements, labor regimes, and political organization had changed over the
years; in what ways the expansion of quinoa cultivation might be contributing
to those changes; and how Huanoquiteños themselves experienced and felt
about these changes. In short, I could take a longer view in documenting and
analyzing changes in agrarian lives in the district.
Before the 1980s, ethnographic research among Indigenous Quechua com-
munities in Peru had flourished. That research diminished dramatically because
of a civil war in Peru that took place between 1980 and 1992, leading fewer an-
thropologists to return to fieldwork in the countryside afterwards, even when
the violence of the war subsided.11 The magnitude of urban migration that took
place in Peru and the recognition among anthropologists that even though
people might live in one place, such as a rural community, they were very much
embedded in far-flung social, economic, political, and informational flows, led
to a decline in research in Peru’s highland regions, some of which were located
at great distances from cities, and an increase in research in urban areas or on
the nature of the flows themselves (Gose 2011, i-ii). For these reasons, it seemed

19
 Introduction

even more urgent to me to return to Huanoquite and learn what people were
doing in a substantially changed agrarian landscape.
Because of the many years I had spent doing research in Huanoquite and
the changes in my own life, I found myself reflecting more and more on my
relationships with people in Huanoquite whom I had known for a long time,
especially during the course of my research trips there in the summers of 2018
and 2019. I realized with a sense of profound sadness and excitement that it
might be the last time I had the chance to interact with Huanoquiteños whom
I had known across three generations. The very young children I had met so
long ago were now full-fledged authorities of communities in some instances,
and many of them remembered my presence from the 1980s, mirrored in tat-
tered black and white photographs of their families that I had given them when
they had so graciously permitted me to visit them in their homes, accompany
them to their fields, and interview them.12 Community leaders and young adults
who had been generous enough to take risks talking to me, especially during
the throes of Peru’s civil war, and who had opened local archives to me so
that I could learn more about the details of the history of Huanoquite, were
now elders and more dependent than ever on the labor of their children and
grandchildren—in Huanoquite and other places—to keep their lands and
livestock intact. More than a few older Huanoquiteños I had known had died,
although some remained, and a new generation had made its appearance. Many
of them trusted me enough to share with me their ideas about what direction
Huanoquite’s future should take, and their opinions and desires about par-
ticular practices, material culture, organizations, and not least, about me as the
visiting anthropologist. Because of this, I was much better poised to reflect on
continuities and disjunctures that were circulating among Huanoquiteños in
the district and beyond.
From where I stood, Huanoquiteños, in general, and younger ones, espe-
cially, seemed far less interested in knowledge per se and far more interested
in how they could pragmatically convert that knowledge into fulfilling needs
or desires that they or their communities had. This was partly because they no
longer acquiesced to power relationships that had prevailed in the past between
themselves and outsiders, such as anthropologists and government bureaucrats,
and also because they were better able to exercise their own agency as citizens.
While welcoming this shift and recognizing how I might have been partly com-
plicit in perpetuating inequalities, most of the time I was in Huanoquite, I was
acutely aware of how my own nostalgia colored the ways I saw and talked about
things, even as I was documenting and taking account of all that was ongoing,
had changed markedly, or in some cases, had vanished.

20
 Quinoa Prospects

Sentiments not dissimilar to my own sense of nostalgia prevailed among

Huanoquiteños in their attitudes toward me. Many Huanoquiteños had frozen
me in time from decades earlier when I had spent over a year in the district,
younger, energetic, capable of traveling up and down the mountains by foot in
a way that I could no longer do. They, too, entertained a sentimentalism about
who I had been, and it was hard for them to understand my aging process and
the changes in my own thinking and behavior. Taking account of generational
perspectives and reassessing my prior analyses of life in Huanoquite has defi-
nitely colored my interpretations of Huanoquiteños’ concerns in the twenty-
first century.13 Quite frankly, I harbored my own nostalgia, wishing that I had
the energy to keep up with the younger generation of Huanoquiteños to better
understand how they were managing to knit together the multiple strands of
their lives that spanned worlds and territories in ways that built on what their
forebears had done but were infused with intriguing innovations to meet the
challenges that faced them. They carried both the burden and possibilities of
interculturality.

The Plan of the Book

This book is divided into two parts. The first lays out the history of past politi-
cal regimes and the overwhelming racialized topography that has character-
ized daily life for Indigenous inhabitants of the Andean highlands of Peru. It
analyzes key moments and policies that have shaped efforts of Indigenous
Quechua inhabitants both to maintain and regain control of their agrarian land
base, and the conflicts that have ensued as a result. It also reviews the history
of the establishment of infrastructure between and within Huanoquite and
the nature of the promotion of development in Huanoquite. The trajectories
roads take, the technologies that are introduced and predominate, and the as-
sumptions underlying development projects tell us a great deal about Huano-
quite’s relationships with the state and private capital, and about the desires
of Huanoquiteños themselves. These backstories underpin why Huanoquite
and other similar regions have become sites for expanding the cultivation and
export of quinoa for a global market. They also help to explain what is at stake
for Huanoquiteños in prioritizing a nontraditional agricultural export at the
same time that the Peruvian state has been granting mining concessions to for-
eign corporations without paying greater attention to their deleterious impact
on highland agrarian and herding communities.
Chapter 1 summarizes the impact that a far-reaching and radical agrarian
reform, implemented in Peru in 1969, had on Huanoquite and then turns to a

21
 Introduction

discussion of what the consequences were when the state subsequently turned
back the agrarian reform and promoted the privatization and individual titling
of lands in the countryside. These changes in land tenure regimes help to explain
how the demand for quinoa has affected the lives of Huanoquiteños. Com-
munity household rights to land had become more tenuous than ever before
because of the rise of private holdings. The ability of communities to act in a
unified fashion existed in tension with growing inequality among households
and their individualized efforts to find ways to sustain themselves, albeit in often
innovative ways. While some of these projects and plans at first glance seemed
to be noteworthy creative success stories, they were also often high-risk. They
revealed specific ideologies of the state and its bureaucrats (and sometimes
their absence) and showed how Huanoquiteños’ options were structured by
expectations and value systems that they themselves often regarded ambiva-
lently. The paths Huanoquiteños had pursued to make a living in Huanoquite
were hardly Manichean choices, but rather complex and contradictory.
Chapter 2 looks at the power of infrastructure as it has intervened in the
choices Huanoquiteños face. Changes in infrastructure that have taken place
over the last half-century have been as important as agrarian policies in trans-
forming the livelihoods of Huanoquiteños. In 1984, the journey to Cusco from
Huanoquite took between eight and nine hours and had been fraught with
landslides, accidents, and the whims of truck drivers who might simply decide
to have a break and drink well into the night at a rickety roadside bar, mak-
ing subsequent travel even more hazardous. A beautiful Inca road, paved with
stone, had been far more reliable and a straight shot (almost) to Cusco, taking
four to five hours walking. However, it was generally not an option for anyone
carrying heavy loads, unless they had a burro or llama. In 2016, the vehicular
road from Cusco to the district was redesigned and paved until it reached Yau-
risque, a notorious truck stop for drivers because of its bars and restaurants.
From there, the road split into three arteries. A paved road continued eventually
to the open-pit copper mines of Las Bambas; another paved road went to the
district of Paccaritambo; and an unpaved road continued the rest of the way
to Huanoquite. Because the road has been paved partway between Cusco and
Huanoquite, the journey now only takes one to two hours. The impact of this
has been explosive, permitting far more connections among people, places, and
goods and more entrepreneurial opportunities. In 2013, no one had a cell phone.
By 2018, almost everyone did. At the same time, people were well aware that
the only reason the road had been paved a good part of the way to Huanoquite
was because of the state’s support of mining concessions. This overshadowed
many of the positive changes that were underway.

22
 Quinoa Prospects

When I returned in 2018, the district had become the site for all sorts of in-
novative economic activities, many of which had not been foisted on villagers
by state or development agencies. The more far-flung travels of villagers, their
keen observational powers, and the knowledge they had tapped into via the
internet had led them to try out these ventures. One man had established a
trout farm; a group of women had formed a textile association; several families
had become beekeepers; the municipality was gathering up milk for cheese
and making yoghurt; a chauffers’ association, fifty-two young men strong, had
appeared; large greenhouses were thrown up where strawberries and flowers
were being grown under irrigation; and the first internet café was coming into
being.
Chapter 3 asks why, at this point in time, so many Huanoquiteños were ex-
ploring a wide range of entrepreneurial ventures and how they differed from
state- and NGO-sponsored initiatives. The voices of elders and youth chal-
lenged the assumption that there was a unidirectional arrow that relentlessly
led to migration from countryside to city. These ventures should not simply be
viewed as celebratory products of ingenuity and entrepreneurial verve. They
were partly catalyzed by the needs of households that were being squeezed to
find complementary economic activities that would permit them to remain in
Huanoquite and farm their lands. Huanoquiteños also wanted to explore new
avenues of economic mobility while retaining control over their livelihoods,
as well as over where they chose to live and with whom. They had a deep ap-
preciation of the beauty of their home’s landscape, history, and culture, and that
appreciation has grown over the last twenty years, partly due to social media,
tourism, and a celebration by Peruvians of Indigeneity, and this, too, is part of
the story behind agrarian livelihoods of the twenty-first century in the Andes.
Huanoquiteños are bent on imagining new ways of living in a very old place.
Part 2 of the book is dedicated to unpacking the assumptions that have
guided how Huanoquiteños are cultivating their lands as they encounter and
participate in globalization, the pressures to migrate, and state policies that sup-
port mining and agroindustry. It discusses the long- and short-term strategies
and the cultural resources that Huanoquiteños are drawing on to perpetuate
their communities and territorial bonds and to resist the incursion of corpora-
tions and state policies that threaten their livelihoods.
Chapter 4 provides readers with an understanding of the stages of quinoa
production and documents the efforts of state and non-state actors to expand
quinoa production in Huanoquite. It shows what motivated some households
and not others to cultivate quinoa in greater amounts and looks at the differ-
ences in the assumptions and expectations, with respect to quinoa cultivation

23
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
arm, and Wendover and Armadale got out and walked down the
beach.
“This is Inspector Armadale, Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux,” the
chief constable said, as they came up. “He wants to ask you some
questions about Friday night, when you were at that rock over
there.”
He pointed to Neptune's seat as he spoke. Mme. Laurent-
Desrousseaux seemed completely taken by surprise. For a moment
or two she stood glancing uneasily from one to another; and her
eyes showed something more than a tinge of fear.
“I am much surprised, Sir Clinton,” she said at last, her accent
coming out more markedly than usual in her nervous voice. “I had
supposed that you were friendly to me; and now it appears that,
without making a seeming of it, you have been leading me into what
you call an English police-trap, isn't it? That is not good of you.”
Armadale had picked up his cue from Sir Clinton's words.
“I'm afraid I must ask you to answer my questions, ma'am,” he
said, with a certain politeness. Obviously he was by no means sure
of his ground.
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux eyed him in silence for some
moments.
“What is it that you desire to know?” she demanded finally.
Before Armadale could formulate a question, Sir Clinton
intervened.
“I think, madame, that it will make things easier for us all if I tell
you that the inspector is preparing a case against someone else. He
needs your deposition to support his charge. That is the whole truth,
so far as he is concerned. You need not have any fears, provided
that you tell us all that you know about Friday night.”
Wendover noticed the double meaning which might be attached
to Sir Clinton's words; but he could not feel sure whether the chief
constable wished to deceive or merely to reassure his witness. Mme.
Laurent-Desrousseaux's face cleared slightly as she grasped the
meaning of Sir Clinton's speech.
“If such is the case,” she said cautiously, “I might recall to myself
some of the things which happened.”
 Armadale seemed a trifle suspicious at this guarded offer, but he
proceeded to put some questions.
“You knew this man Staveley, ma'am?”
“Nicholas Staveley? Yes, I knew him; I had known him for a long
time.”
Sir Clinton interposed again.
“Perhaps you would prefer to tell us what you know of him in
your own words, madame. It would be easier for us if you would do
so.”
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux nodded her agreement. She seemed
to have conquered her nervousness.
“It was during the war, messieurs, in 1915. I was Odette Pascal
then, a young girl, an honest girl—what you English call straight,
isn't it? It was later that I became Aline Laurent-Desrousseaux, you
understand? I encountered this Nicholas Staveley in Paris, where I
was employed in a Government office. He was very charming, very
caressing; he knew how to make himself loved.”
She made a gesture, half cynical, half regretful, and paused for a
moment before she continued in a harder tone:
“It did not last long, that honeymoon. I discovered his character,
so different from that which I had believed it. He abandoned me,
and I was very rejoiced to let him go; but he had taught me things,
and forced me to work for him while he had me. When we separated
ourselves, in fact, I was no longer the gentle, honest little girl that I
had been. All that was finished, you understand?”
Wendover saw that the inspector was taking notes in shorthand.
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux paused for a time to allow Armadale to
catch up.
“The rest is without importance. I became Aline Laurent-
Desrousseaux, and I had not any need of Nicholas Staveley. During a
long time I had no need of him; but from time to time I heard speak
of him, for I had many friends, and some of them could tell a little;
and always he was the same. Then is come the report that he was
killed at the Front.”
She paused again, with her eye on the inspector's pencil.
 “The time passed,” she resumed, “and I desired only to forget
him. I believed him well dead, you understand? And then, from one
of my friends, I learned that he had been seen again after the war. I
disinterested myself from the affair; I had no desire to see him. But
suddenly it became of importance to me to satisfy myself about him.
It is much complicated, and has nothing to do with him—I pass on.
But it was most necessary that I should see him and get him to
consent to some arrangements, or an affair of mine would be
embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed,” Armadale repeated, to show that he was ready to
continue.
“I have consulted my friends,” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux
pursued. “Some among them have been able to help me, and I have
discovered where he was living in London. It was most necessary for
me to speak with him. Thus I came over to England, to London. But
he is no longer there; he is gone to Lynden Sands, one says. So I
procure his address—at Flatt's cottage—and I come myself to
Lynden Sands Hotel.”
Armadale's involuntary upward glance from his note-book
betrayed the increase in his interest at this point.
“I arrive here; and at once I write him a letter saying I go to
Flatt's cottage to see him on Friday night. There is no response, but
I go to Flatt's cottage as I had planned. When I knocked at the door,
Staveley appeared.”
“What time on Friday night was that?” Armadale interposed.
“In my letter I had fixed a rendezvous at half-past nine. I was
exact—on time, you say, isn't it? But it seemed that this Staveley
could not see me alone there; others were in the cottage. Then he
said that he would meet me later—at half-past ten—at some great
rock beside the sea, the rock one calls Neptune's Seat.”
“So you came away, and he went back into the cottager”
Armadale demanded.
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux assented with a slight bow.
“I came away,” she continued. “To pass the time, I walked on the
road, and perhaps I walked too far. It was late—after the hour of the
rendezvous—when I arrived opposite the rock, this Neptune's Seat. I
went down on to the sands and attained to the rock. Staveley was
there, very angry because I was ten minutes late. He was much
enraged, it appears, because he had a second rendezvous at that
place in a few minutes. He would not listen to me at all at the
moment. I saw that it was no time for negotiating with him, he was
so much in anger and so anxious to deliver himself of me. I fixed
another rendezvous for the following day, and I left him.”
“What time did you leave him on the rock?” Armadale interjected.
“Let us see.” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux halted for a moment to
consider. “I passed some minutes with him on the rock—let us put
ten minutes at the least.”
“That would mean you left the rock very shortly before eleven
o'clock, then?”
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux agreed with a gesture.
“I went away from the rock by the same road as I had come,”
she went on. “I was much agitated, you understand? It was a great
disappointment that I had attained to no arrangement at that
moment, I had hoped for something better, isn't it? And that
Staveley had been very little obliging—unkind, isn't it? It was very
desolating.
“As I was crossing the sands, a great automobile appeared on
the road, coming from the hotel. It stopped whilst I was waiting for
it to pass; and the chauffeur extinguished its projectors. Then a
woman descended from the automobile, and walked down on to the
sands towards the rock.”
Wendover could read on Armadale's face an expression of
triumph. The inspector was clearly overjoyed at getting some direct
evidence to support his case against Cressida; and Wendover had to
admit, with considerable disquietude, that Mme. Laurent-
Desrousseaux's narrative bore out Armadale's hypothesis very neatly.
“When I again regarded the automobile, the chauffeur also had
vanished. He was not on the road. Perhaps he also had gone down
to the rivage.”
“Shore,” Sir Clinton interjected, seeing Armadale's obvious
perplexity at the word.
 “I was standing there for some minutes,” Mme. Laurent-
Desrousseaux continued. “Against one like that Staveley one must
utilise all weapons, isn't it?—even espionage. I had a presentiment
that something might eventuate. Staveley and a woman, you
understand? I was hoping that something, anything, might arrive to
give me an advantage over him.
“I have forgotten to say that the sky was obscured by great
clouds. It was a little difficult to see clearly. On the rock they
discussed and discussed, but I could hear nothing; and in the end I
grew tired of attending.”
“How long did you stand there?” Armadale asked.
“It would be difficult to say, but perhaps it was about a quarter-
hour. I was quite tired of attending, and I walked—quite slowly—
along the road away from the hotel. I avoided the automobile, you
understand? I desired no embarrassments. It was not my affair—
isn't it?—to discover the identity of this woman. All that I desired
was an arm against Staveley. There was nothing else at all.
“A little after, I returned; it seemed to me longer, perhaps, than it
really was; and I was believing that they must be gone, those two.
Then, all at once, I heard the report of a firearm down at the rock
——”
“A single shot?” Sir Clinton questioned. “Un seul coup de feu?”
“One only,” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux answered definitely. “I
hastened back along the road in the direction of the automobile. I
had the idea of an accident in my head, you understand? It was very
sombre; great clouds were passing on the moon. I could see with
difficulty the woman's figure hasten up from the rock towards the
automobile; and almost at once the chauffeur rejoined her. When
they were getting into the automobile I was quite close; I could hear
them speak, although it was too dark to see them except most
dimly. The woman spoke first, very agitated.”
Her three listeners were intent on her next words. Armadale
looked up, his pencil poised to take down her report. Wendover felt
a catch in his breath as he waited for the next sentences which
would either make or break the inspector's case.
 “She said,” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux continued, “She said
these very words, for they were stamped on my memory since they
meant so much to me: ‘I've shot him, Stanley.’ And the chauffeur
demanded: ‘Have you killed him?’ And you can understand,
messieurs, that I listened with all my ears. The woman responded: ‘I
think so. He fell at once and lay quite still. What's to be done?’ And
to that the chauffeur made the reply: ‘Get you away at once.’ And he
made some movement as if to put the motor in march. But the
woman stopped him and demanded: ‘Aren't you going down to look
at him—see if anything can be done?’ And to that the chauffeur
made the response in anger: ‘It's damn well likely, isn't it?’ Just like
that. And he pursued: ‘Not till I've seen you in safety, anyhow. I'm
not running any risks.’ ”
Wendover felt that his last shred of hope had been torn away.
This reported conversation might have been concerted between
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux and Armadale beforehand, so neatly did
it fit into its place in the inspector's case. He glanced up at Sir
Clinton's face, and saw there only the quiet satisfaction of a man
who fits a fresh piece of a jig-saw puzzle into position.
“Then,” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux continued, “the chauffeur
set his motor in march and reversed the automobile. I stepped aside
off the road for fear that they should see me; but they went off
towards the hotel without illuminating the projectors.”
She stopped, evidently thinking that she had told all that was of
importance. Armadale suggested that she should continue her tale.
“Figure to yourselves my position,” she went on. “Staveley was
lying dead on the rock. The automobile had gone. I was left alone. If
one came along the road and encountered me, there would be
suspicion; and one would have said that I had good reason to hate
Staveley. I could see nothing but embarrassments before me. And
the chauffeur had suggested that he might return later on. What
more easy, if he found me there, than to throw suspicion on me to
discredit me? Or to incriminate me, even? In thinking of these
things, I lost my head. My sole idea was to get away without being
seen. I went furtively along the road, in trembling lest the
automobile should return. No one met me; and I regained the
gardens of the hotel without being encountered. As I was passing
one of the alleys, I noticed standing there the great automobile, with
its lights extinguished. I passed into the hotel without misfortune.”
“What time did you get back to the hotel, madame?” Armadale
asked, as she halted again.
“Ah! I am able to tell you that, Monsieur l'Inspecteur, and exactly.
I noted the hour mechanically on the clock in the hall. It was
midnight less five minutes when I arrived.”
“It's a twenty to twenty-five minute walk,” Armadale commented.
“That means you must have left the beach somewhere round about
half-past eleven. Now, one more question, madame. Did you
recognise the voices of the man and the woman?”
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux hesitated before replying.
“I should not wish to say,” she answered at last unwillingly.
A frown crossed Armadale's features at the reply, and, seeing it,
she turned to Sir Clinton, as though to appeal to him.
“The automobile has already been identified, madame,” the chief
constable said, answering her unspoken inquiry. “You can do no one
any harm by telling us the truth.”
His words seemed to remove her disinclination.
“In this case, I reveal nothing which you ignore? Then I say that
it was the voice of the young Madame Fleetwood which I have heard
in the night.”
Armadale bestowed a glance on Wendover, as much as to say
that his case was lock-fast. Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux, now that
she had got her narrative off her mind, seemed to be puzzled by
something. She turned to Sir Clinton.
“I am embarrassed to know how you came to discover that I was
at the rock on that night. May I ask?”
Sir Clinton smiled, and with a wave of his hand he indicated the
trail of footmarks across the sands which they had made in their
walk.
“Ah, I comprehend! I had forgotten the imprints which I must
have left when I went down to the rock. It was dark, you
understand?—and naturally I did not perceive that I was leaving
traces. So that was it, Sir Clinton?”
 Armadale was obviously puzzled. He turned to Mme. Laurent-
Desrousseaux.
“What size of shoe do you wear, madame?”
She glanced at her neatly shod feet.
“These shoes I have bought in London a few days ago. The
pointure—the size, you call it, isn't it?—was No. 4.”
Armadale shrugged his shoulders, as though to express his
disbelief.
“Measure these prints on the sand here, inspector,” Sir Clinton
suggested.
Armadale drew out his tape-measure and took the dimensions of
the footmarks left by Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux.
“And the length of step also, inspector,” Sir Clinton suggested.
“They correspond with the tracks down to the rock, true enough,”
the inspector admitted, when he completed his task. “But only a 3½
shoe could have made them.”
Sir Clinton laughed, though not sneeringly.
“Would you lend me one of your shoes for a moment, madame?”
he asked. “You can lean on me while it's off, so as not to put your
foot on the wet sand.”
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux slipped off her right shoe and held it
out.
“Now, inspector, there's absolutely no deception. Look at the
number stamped on it. A four, isn't it?”
Armadale examined the shoe, and nodded affirmatively.
“Now take the shoe and press it gently on the sand alongside a
right-foot print of Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux—that one there will
do. See that you get it square on the sand and make a good
impression.”
The inspector knelt down and did as he was told. As he lifted the
shoe again, Wendover saw a look of astonishment on his face.
“Why, they don't correspond!” he exclaimed. “The one I've made
just now is bigger than the other.”
“Of course,” the chief constable agreed. “Now do you see that a
No. 4 shoe can make an impression smaller than itself if you happen
to be walking in sand or mud? While you were hunting for people
with 3½ shoes, I was turning my attention to No. 4's. There aren't
so many in the hotel, as you know. And it so happened that I began
with Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux. She was good enough to go for a
walk with me; and by counting her steps I gauged the length of her
pace. It corresponded to the distance on the tracks.”
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux was examining Sir Clinton with
obvious admiration, not wholly unmixed with a certain uneasiness.
“You seem to be very adroit, Sir Clinton,” she observed. “But
what is this about the length of my pace?”
“The inspector is accustomed to our English girls, madame, who
have a free-swinging walk and therefore a fairly long step. From the
length of the steps on the sand he inferred that they had been made
by someone who was not very tall—rather under the average height.
He forgot that some of you Parisians have a different gait—more
restrained, more finished, shall we say?”
“Ah, now I see!” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux exclaimed, not at
all unsusceptible to the turn of Sir Clinton's phrase. “You mean the
difference between the cab-horse and the stepper?”
“Exactly,” Sir Clinton agreed with an impassive face.
Armadale was still puzzling over the two footprints. Mme.
Laurent-Desrousseaux, evidently wearying of standing with one foot
off the ground, recovered her shoe from him and slipped it on again.
Sir Clinton took pity on his subordinate.
“Here's the explanation, inspector. When you walk in sand, you
put down your heel first. But as the sand's soft, your heel goes
forward and downward as you plant your foot. Then, as your body
moves on, your foot begins to turn in the sand; and when you've
come to the end of your step, your toe also is driven downwards;
but instead of going forward, like your heel, it slips backward. The
result is that in the impression the heel is too far forward, whilst the
toe is in the rear of the true position—and that means an impression
shorter than the normal. On the sand, your foot really pivots on the
sole under the instep, instead of on heel and toe, as it does on hard
ground. If you look at these impressions, you'll find quite a heap of
sand under the point where the instep was; whilst the heel and toe
are deeply marked owing to each of them pivoting on the centre of
the shoe. See it?”
The inspector knelt down, and Wendover followed his example.
They had no difficulty in seeing Sir Clinton's point.
“Of course,” the chief constable went on, “in the case of a
woman's shoe, the thing is even more exaggerated owing to the
height of the heel and the sharpness of the toe. Haven't you noticed,
in tracks on the sand, how neat any woman's prints always look?
You never seem to find the impression of a clumsy foot, simply
because the impression is so much smaller than the real foot. Clear
enough, isn't it?”
“You are most ingenious, Sir Clinton,” Mme. Laurent-
Desrousseaux commented. “I am very glad indeed that I have not
you against me.”
Sir Clinton turned the point.
“The inspector will bring you a copy of the evidence you have so
kindly given us, madame, and you will do us the favour to sign it. It
is a mere formality, that; but we may need you as a witness in the
case, you understand?”
Rather ungraciously, Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux agreed. It was
evident that she had hoped to escape giving evidence in court.
“I do not desire to offer testimony against the young Madame
Fleetwood if it could be averted,” she said frankly. “She was good to
me once or twice; very gentle, very kind—not like the others in the
hotel.”
The inspector shrugged his shoulders, as though the matter were
out of his hands; but he made no reply.
“You will, of course, say nothing about this to anyone, madame,”
Sir Clinton warned her, as they walked across the sands to the car.
At the hotel, Sir Clinton was met by a message from Cargill
asking him to go up to his room. Wendover accompanied him, and
when they had inquired about his wound and been reassured by a
good report from the doctor which Cargill was able to repeat, the
Australian plunged into the matter which he wished to lay before the
chief constable.
 “It's that thing I told you about before,” he explained. “This is
how it happened. I was so sore last night that I forgot all about it.”
He felt under his pillow, and drew out a crumpled envelope.
“I was in the writing-room one day lately, and Mme. Laurent-
Desrousseaux—that French high-stepper—was writing something at
one of the tables. She made a muddle of her addressing of the
thing, and flung a spoiled envelope into the waste-paper basket
beside her. Then she addressed another envelope, sealed up her
letter, and went out.
“I happened to have some jottings to make; and, as her waste-
paper basket was just at my elbow, I leaned over and fished out the
old envelope, to save myself the bother of getting out of my chair
for a piece of paper. I scribbled down the notes I wanted to make,
put the envelope in my pocket, and left it there. It wasn't for a while
after that—yesterday—that I needed the jottings I'd made. I fished
the envelope out, and was reading my notes, when suddenly my eye
was caught by the spoiled address on the envelope.” He handed the
paper across to Sir Clinton, who read:

Monsieur Nicholas Staveley,

Flatt's Cotage,
Lynden Sands.

“You see, she'd spelt ‘cottage’ with one ‘t,’ ” Cargill pointed out
unnecessarily. “That's what made her throw away the envelope, I
expect.”
Sir Clinton took the envelope and examined it carefully.
“That's extremely interesting,” he said. “I suppose I may keep
this? Then would you mind initialling it, just in case we need it for
reference later on?”
He handed Cargill a pencil, and the Australian scribbled his initials
on one corner of the envelope. The chief constable chatted for a few
minutes on indifferent matters, and then retired, followed by
Wendover.
“Why didn't you tell him he was a day after the fair?” Wendover
demanded, as they went down the stairs. “The only value that
envelope has now is that it further confirms Mme. Laurent-
Desrousseaux's evidence. And yet you treated it as if it were really of
importance.”
“I hate to discourage enthusiasm, squire,” Sir Clinton answered.
“Remember that we owe the second cartridge-case to Cargill's
industry. If I had damped him over the envelope, he might feel
disinclined to give us any more assistance; and one never knows
what may turn up yet. Besides, why spoil his pleasure for him? He
thought he was doing splendidly.”
As they reached the first floor, they saw Paul Fordingbridge
coming along the corridor towards the stairs.
“Here's someone who can perhaps give us more valuable
information,” Sir Clinton added in a low tone.
He stopped Paul Fordingbridge at the head of the stairs.
“By the way, Mr. Fordingbridge,” he asked, glancing round to see
that there was no one within earshot, “there's just one point I'd like
you to clear up for me, if you don't mind.”
Paul Fordingbridge stared at him with an emotionless face.
“Very glad to do anything for you,” he said, without betraying
anything in his tone.
“It's nothing much,” Sir Clinton assured him. “All I want is to be
clear about this Foxhills estate and its trimmings. Your nephew owns
it at present?”
“If I have a surviving nephew, certainly. I can offer no opinion on
that point, you understand.”
“Naturally,” Sir Clinton acquiesced. “Now, suppose your nephew's
death were proved, who are the next heirs? That's what I'd like you
to tell me, if you don't mind. I could get it hunted up at Somerset
House, but if you'll save me the trouble it will be a help.”
“Failing my nephew, it would go to my niece, Mrs. Fleetwood.”
“And if anything happened to her?”
“It falls to me in that case.”
“And if you weren't there to take it by then?”
“My sister would get it.”
“There's no one else? Young Fleetwood, for instance, couldn't
step in front of you owing to his having married your niece?”
 “No,” Paul Fordingbridge answered at once. “The will took
account of seven lives, and I suppose that was sufficient in the
ordinary way. My sister, if she gets it, can leave it to anyone she
chooses.”
Sir Clinton seemed thoughtful. It was only after a slight pause
that he took up a fresh line of questions.
“Can you tell me anything about the present management of the
thing? You have a power of attorney, I believe; but I suppose you
leave matters very much in the hands of lawyers?”
Paul Fordingbridge shook his head.
“I'm afraid I'm no great believer in lawyers. One's better to look
after things oneself. I'm not a busy man, and it's an occupation for
me. Everything goes through my hands.”
“Must be rather a business,” Sir Clinton criticised. “But I suppose
you do as I would myself—get a firm of auditors to keep your books
for you.”
Paul Fordingbridge seemed slightly nettled at the suggestion.
“No. Do you suppose I can't draw up a balance-sheet once a
year? I'm not quite incompetent.”
It was evident that Sir Clinton's suggestion had touched him in
his vanity, for his tone showed more than a trace of pique. The chief
constable hastened to smooth matters over.
“I envy you, Mr. Fordingbridge. I never had much of a head for
figures myself, and I shouldn't care to have that kind of work thrust
on my hands.”
“Oh, I manage very well,” Paul Fordingbridge answered coldly. “Is
there anything else you'd like to know?”
Sir Clinton reflected for a moment before replying.
“I think that's everything. Oh, there's one other matter which you
may know about, perhaps. When does Mrs. Fleetwood expect her
lawyer to turn up?”
“This afternoon,” Paul Fordingbridge intimated. “But I understand
that they wish to consult him before seeing you again. I believe
they'll make an appointment with Inspector Armadale for to-
morrow.”
 Sir Clinton's eyebrows lifted slightly at the news of this further
delay; but he made no audible comment. Paul Fordingbridge, with a
stiff bow, left them and went on his way downstairs. Sir Clinton
gazed after him.
“I'd hate to carry an automatic in my jacket pocket continuously,”
he remarked softly. “Look how his pocket's pulled all out of shape by
the thing. Very untidy.”
With a gesture he stopped the comment that rose to Wendover's
lips, and then followed Fordingbridge downstairs. Wendover led the
way out into the garden, where he selected a quiet spot.
“There's one thing that struck me about Mme. Laurent-
Desrousseaux's evidence,” he said, as they sat down, “and that is: It
may be all lies together.”
Sir Clinton pulled out his case and lit a cigarette before
answering.
“You think so? It's not impossible, of course.”
“Well, look at it squarely,” Wendover pursued. “We know nothing
about the woman. For all we can tell, she may be an accomplished
liar. By her own showing, she had some good reason for wanting
Staveley out of the way.”
“It wouldn't be difficult to make a guess at it,” Sir Clinton
interjected. “I didn't want to go beyond our brief this morning, or I'd
have asked her about that. But I was very anxious not to rouse her
suspicions, and the matter really didn't bear directly on the case, so
I let it pass.”
“Well, let's assume that her yarn is mostly lies, and see where
that takes us,” Wendover went on. “We know she was at the cottage
all right; we've got the footprint to establish that. We know she was
on the rock, too, for her footprints were on the sands, and she
doesn't contest the fact of her presence either. These are the two
undeniable facts.”
“Euclidian, squire. But it leaves the story a bit bare, doesn't it?
Go on; clothe the dry bones with flesh, if you can.”
Wendover refused to be nettled. He was struggling, not too
hopefully, to shift the responsibility of the murder from the shoulders
of Cressida to those of another person; and he was willing to catch
at almost any straw.
“How would this fit, then?” he demanded. “Suppose that Mme.
Laurent-Desrousseaux herself was the murderess. She makes her
appointment with Staveley at the cottage as she told us; and she
goes there, just as she said she did. She meets Staveley, and he
refuses to see her. Now assume that he blurts out the tale of his
appointment at 11 p.m. at Neptune's Seat with Mrs. Fleetwood, and
makes no appointment at all with Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux for
that evening. That part of her tale would be a lie, of course.”
Sir Clinton flicked the ash from his cigarette on to the seat beside
him, and seemed engrossed in brushing it away.
“She goes to the shore near 11 p.m.,” Wendover continued, “not
to meet Staveley, as she told us, but to eavesdrop on the two of
them, as she confessed she did in her tale. She waits until Mrs.
Fleetwood goes away; and then she sees her chance. She goes
down to the rock herself then and she shoots Staveley with her own
hand for her own purposes. She leaves the body on the rock and
returns, as her footmarks show, to the road, and so to the hotel.
What's wrong with that?”
“Nothing whatever, squire, except that it omits the most damning
facts on which the inspector's depending. It leaves out, for instance,
the pistol that he found in Mrs. Fleetwood's golf-blazer.”
Wendover's face showed that his mind was hard at work.
“One can't deny that, I suppose,” he admitted. “But she might
quite well have let off her pistol to frighten Staveley. That would
account for——”
He broke off, thought hard for a moment or two, then his face
cleared.
“There were two cartridge-cases: one at the rock and one at the
groyne. If Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux killed Staveley, then the
cartridge-case on the rock belongs to her pistol; and any other shot
fired by the Fleetwoods—at the groyne. That means that Stanley
Fleetwood, behind the groyne, fired a shot to scare Staveley. Then,
when the Fleetwoods had gone, Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux went
down and shot him on the rock. That accounts for everything,
doesn't it?”
Sir Clinton shook his head.
“Just think what happens when you fire an automatic. The
ejector mechanism jerks the empty case out to your right, well clear
of your shoulder, and lands it a yard or two behind you. It's a pretty
big impulse that the cartridge-case gets. Usually the thing hops
along the ground, if I remember rightly. You can take it from me that
a shot fired from where Fleetwood crouched wouldn't land the
cartridge-case at the point where Cargill showed us he'd picked it
up.”
Wendover reflected for a while.
“Well, who did it, then?” he demanded. “If the shot had been
fired on the rock, the cartridge-case couldn't have skipped that
distance, including a jump over the groyne. And there were no other
footmarks on that far side of the groyne except Fleetwood's.”
Again he paused, thinking hard.
“You said there was a flaw in the inspector's case. Is this it, by
any chance?”
Looking up, he saw the figure of Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux
crossing the lawn not far from them.
“That's very opportune,” he said, glancing after her. “Any
objection to my asking your witness a couple of questions, Clinton?”
“None whatever.”
“Then come along.”
Wendover managed matters so that it appeared as though they
had encountered Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux by a mere accident;
and it was only after they had talked for a few minutes on indifferent
matters that he thought it safe to ask his questions.
“You must have got drenched before you reached the hotel on
Friday night, madame, surely? I hope there have been no ill-
effects?”
“Yes, indeed!” Mme Laurent-Desrousseaux answered readily. “It
was a real rain of storm—how do you say that in English?”
“Thunderstorm; heavy shower,” Sir Clinton suggested.
“Yes? Une pluie battante. I was all wetted.”
 “When did the rain start, do you remember?” Wendover asked
indifferently.
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux showed no hesitation whatever.
“It was after the automobile had started to return to the hotel—a
few minutes only after that.”
“You must have got soaked to the skin yourself,” Wendover
commiserated her. “That reminds me, had Staveley his coat on—his
overcoat, I mean—or was he carrying it over his arm when you met
him at the rock?”
Again the Frenchwoman answered without pausing to consider.
“He carried it on his arm. Of that I am most certain.” Wendover,
having nothing else to ask, steered the talk into other channels; and
in a short time they left Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux to her own
affairs. When they were out of earshot, Sir Clinton glanced at
Wendover.
“Was that your own brains, squire, or a tip from the classic?
You're getting on, whichever it was. Armadale will be vexed. But
kindly keep this to yourself. The last thing I want is to have any
information spread round.”
 Chapter XII.
The Fordingbridge Mystery
“Tuesday, isn't it?” Sir Clinton said, as he came in to breakfast
and found Wendover already at the table. “The day when the
Fleetwoods propose to put their cards on the table at last. Have you
got up your part as devil's advocate, squire?”
Wendover seemed in high spirits.
“Armadale's going to make a fool of himself,” he said, hardly
taking the trouble to conceal his pleasure in the thought. “As you
told him, he's left a hole as big as a house in that precious case of
his.”
“So you've seen it at last, have you? Now, look here, squire.
Armadale's not a bad fellow. He's only doing what he conceives to
be his duty, remember; and he's been wonderfully good at it, too, if
you'd only give him decent credit for what he's done. Just remember
how smart he was on that first morning, when he routed out any
amount of evidence in almost less than no time. I'm not going to
have him sacrificed on the Fleetwood altar, understand. There's to
be no springing of surprises on him while he's examining these
people, and making him look a fool in their presence. You can tell
him your idea beforehand if you like.”
“Why should I tell him beforehand? It's no affair of mine to keep
him from making an ass of himself if he chooses to do so.”
Sir Clinton knitted his brows. Evidently he was put out by
Wendover's persistence.
“Here's the point,” he explained. “I can't be expected to stand
aside while you try to make the police ridiculous. I'll admit that
Armadale hasn't been tactful with you; and perhaps you're entitled
to score off him if you can. If you do your scoring in private,
between ourselves, I've nothing to say; but if you're bent on a public
splash—why, then, I shall simply enlighten the inspector myself and
spike your gun. That will save him from appearing a fool in public.
And that's that. Now what do you propose to do?”
“I hadn't looked at it in that way,” Wendover admitted frankly.
“You're quite right, of course. I'll tell you what. You can give him a
hint beforehand to be cautious; and I'll show him the flaw
afterwards, if he hasn't spotted it himself by that time.”
“That's all right, then,” Sir Clinton answered. “It's a dangerous
game, making the police look silly. And the inspector's too good a
man to hold up to ridicule. He makes mistakes, as we all do; but he
does some pretty good work between them.”
Wendover reflected that he might have expected something of
this sort, for Sir Clinton never let a subordinate down. By tacit
consent they dropped the subject.
Half-way through breakfast they were interrupted by a page-boy
with a message.
“Sir Clinton Driffield? Miss Fordingbridge's compliments, sir, and
she'd like to see you as soon as possible. She's in her private sitting-
room upstairs—No. 28, sir.”
When the boy had retired, Sir Clinton made a wry face.
“Really, this Fordingbridge family ought to pay a special police
rate. They give more trouble than most of the rest of the population
of the district lumped together. You'd better come up with me. Hurry
up with your breakfast, in case it happens to be anything important.”
Wendover obviously was not much enamoured of the prospect
opened up by the chief constable's suggestion.
“She does talk,” he said with foreboding, as though he dreaded
the coming interview.
They found Miss Fordingbridge waiting for them when they went
upstairs, and she broke out immediately with her story.
“Oh, Sir Clinton, I'm so worried about my brother. He went out
last night and he hasn't come back, and I don't really know what to
think of it. What could he be doing out at night in a place like
Lynden Sands, where there's nothing to do and where he hasn't any
reason for staying away? And if he meant to stay away, he could
have left a message for me or said something before he went off,
quite easily; for I saw him just a few minutes before he left the
hotel. What do you think about it? And as if we hadn't trouble
enough already, with that inspector of yours prowling round and
suspecting everyone! If he hasn't more to do than spy on my niece,
I hope you'll set him to find my brother at once, instead of wasting
his time.”
She halted, more for lack of breath than shortage of things to
say; and Sir Clinton seized the chance to ask her for some more
definite details.
“You want to know when he went out last night?” Miss
Fordingbridge demanded. “Well, it must have been late—after
eleven, at any rate, for I go to bed at eleven always, and he said
good night to me just before I left this room. And if he had meant to
stay away, he would have told me, I'm sure; for he usually does tell
me when he's going to be out late. And he said nothing whatever,
except that he was going out and that he meant to take a walk up
towards the Blowhole. And I thought he was just going for a breath
of fresh air before going to bed; and now it turns out that he never
came back again. And nobody in the hotel has heard anything about
him, for I asked the manager.”
“Possibly he'll put in an appearance shortly,” Sir Clinton suggested
soothingly.
“Oh, of course, if the police are incompetent, there's no more to
be said,” Miss Fordingbridge retorted tartly. “But I thought it was
part of their business to find missing people.”
“Well, we'll look into it, if you wish,” Sir Clinton said, as she
seemed obviously much distressed by the state of things. “But really,
Miss Fordingbridge, I think you're taking the matter too seriously.
Quite possibly Mr. Fordingbridge went for a longer walk than he
intended, and got benighted or something; sprained his ankle,
perhaps, and couldn't get home again. Most probably he'll turn up
safe and sound in due course. In the meantime, we'll do what we
can.”
But when they had left the room, Wendover noticed that his
friend's face was not so cheerful.
 “Do you notice, squire,” the chief constable pointed out as they
went downstairs, “that everything we've been worried with in this
neighbourhood seems to be connected with this confounded
Fordingbridge lot? Peter Hay—caretaker to the Fordingbridges;
Staveley—married one of the family; and now old Fordingbridge
himself. And that leaves out of account this mysterious claimant,
with his doubtful pack of associates, and also the suspicious way the
Fleetwoods are behaving. If we ever get to the bottom of the affair,
it'll turn out to be a Fordingbridge concern entirely, either directly or
indirectly. That's plain to a village idiot.”
“What do you propose to do in this last business?” Wendover
demanded.
“Get hold of a pair of old Fordingbridge's shoes, first of all. We
might need them; and we might not have time to come back for
them. I'll manage it through the boots, now. I could have got them
from Miss Fordingbridge, I expect, but she might have been a bit
alarmed if I'd asked her for them.”
With the shoes in an attaché-case, Sir Clinton set out for the
Blowhole, accompanied by Wendover.
“Not much guidance, so far,” he commented, “so we may as well
start at the only place she could mention.”
When they reached the Blowhole, out on the headland which
formed one horn of the bay, it was only too evident that very little
trace was to be expected there. The turf showed no marks of any
description. Sir Clinton seemed rather resentful of the expectant
manner of Wendover.
“Well, what do you expect me to do?” he demanded brusquely.
“I'm not an Australian tracker, you know. And there don't seem to be
any cigar-butts or cigarette-ash or any of these classical clues lying
around, even if I could use them if I'd found them. There's just one
chance—that he's gone down on to the sands.”
As he spoke, he stepped to the cliff-edge and gazed down on the
beach.
“If those tracks on the sand happen to be his,” he said, “then
we've got at least one bit of luck to start with.”
 Wendover, coming to the chief constable's side, saw the
footprints of two men stretching clean-cut along the beach until they
grew small in the distance.
“We'll go down there and see what we can make of it,” Sir Clinton
suggested. “I've telephoned to Armadale to come out from Lynden
Sands and meet us. It's handy that these tracks stretch out in that
direction and not into the other bay.”
They descended a steep flight of steps cut on the face of the cliff
for the convenience of hotel visitors; and when they reached the
sands below, they found the footprints starting out from the bottom
of the stair. Sir Clinton opened his attaché-case and pulled out Paul
Fordingbridge's shoes, which he had procured at the hotel.
“The boots told me that Fordingbridge had two pairs of shoes,
both of the same pattern and both fairly new; so it should be easy
enough to pick out his tracks, if they're here,” he said, taking one
shoe and pressing it into the sand to make an impression of the
sole. “That looks all right, squire. The nail pattern's the same in the
shoe and the right-hand set of footmarks.”
“And the mark you've just made is a shade larger than the
footprint,” Wendover commented, to show that he had profited by
Sir Clinton's lesson of the previous day. “That fits all right. By the
way, Clinton, it's clear enough that these two fellows met up at the
top of the stairs and came down together. If they'd met here, there
would have been a second set of tracks for Man No. 2, which he'd
have made in coming towards the foot of the stairway.”
Sir Clinton nodded his agreement with this inference, put the
shoes back in his attaché-case, and set out to follow the tracks
across the sands. In a short time they passed Neptune's Seat, where
Sir Clinton paused for a few moments to inspect the work of his
diggers.
“That seems an interminable job you've set them,” Wendover
commented as they walked on again.
“The tides interfere with the work. The men can only work
between tides, and each incoming tide brings up a lot of sand and
spreads it over the places they've dug out already.”
 “What are you looking for, Clinton, damn it? It seems an awful
waste of energy.”
“I'm looking for the traces of an infernal scoundrel, squire, unless
I'm much mistaken; but whether I'll find them or not is another
question altogether. It's a pure grab in the dark. And, as I suspect
I'm up against a pretty smart fellow, I'm not going to give any
information away, even to you, for fear he infers something that
might help him. He's probably guessed already what I'm after—one
can't conceal things on the open beach—but I want to keep him
guessing, if possible. Come along.”
The tracks ran, clearly marked, across the sands of the bay in the
direction of the old wreck which formed a conspicuous landmark on
the shore. The chief constable and his companion followed the trail
for a time without finding anything which called for comment.
“They don't appear to have been hurrying,” Sir Clinton said,
examining the tracks at one point. “They seem just to have
sauntered along, and once or twice they've halted for a moment. I
expect they were talking something over.”
“The second man must have been a pretty big fellow to judge by
the size of the footmarks,” Wendover ventured cautiously. “Apart
from that, there's nothing much to see.”
“No?” Sir Clinton retorted. “Only that his impressions are very
shallow—much shallower than Fordingbridge's ones. And his stride's
not longer than friend Paul's, either. Also, the impression of the
sole's quite smooth—looks like crêpe-rubber soles or something of
that sort. If so, there's nothing to be got out of them. That kind of
shoe's sold by the thousand.”
Wendover made no reply, for at this moment he caught sight of
the inspector plodding along the road above the beach. Sir Clinton
whistled shrilly, and Armadale, catching sight of them, left the road
and descended to the sands. In a few minutes he reached them, and
Sir Clinton gave him a summary of the facts which had come to light
since he had telephoned.
“There's just one thing that's turned up since I saw you last, sir,”
the inspector reported in his turn. “I've had Flatt's cottage watched,
as you ordered; and there's a third man there now. He keeps himself
under cover most of the time; but I gave Sapcote a pair of good
field-glasses, and he recognised the fellow as soon as he saw him—
knew him quite well. His name's Simon Aird. He used to be valet at
Foxhills, but he got fired for some cause or other, and hasn't been
near Lynden Sands since. Then I asked the fishermen if they'd
recognised the man who opened the door to them when they went
to borrow the boat, and they recalled that it was Aird. They hadn't
thought anything about it, of course, until I questioned them.”
“Now, that's something worth having,” Sir Clinton said
appreciatively. “But let's get on with the job in hand. That tide's
coming in fast; and, if we don't hurry, it'll be all over these tracks.
We never seem to get any time to do our work thoroughly in this
place, with all that water slopping up and down twice a day.”
They hurried along the beach, following the trail. It seemed to
present nothing of particular interest until, as they drew near the old
wreck, Sir Clinton's eye ranged ahead and picked up something
fresh.
“See that new set of tracks—a third man—coming out from
behind the old wreck's hull and joining the other two?” he asked,
pointing as he spoke. “Keep well to the landward side as we come
up to them, so as not to muddle them up with our own footprints. I
think our best line would be to climb up on top of the wreck and
make a general survey from above.”
They followed his advice; and soon all three had climbed to the
deck of the hulk, from which vantage-point they could look down
almost straight upon the meeting-point of the three trails.
“H'm!” said Sir Clinton reflectively. “Let's take No. 3 first of all. He
evidently came down from the road and took up a position where
the hull of the wreck concealed him from the other two. The moon
must have risen three or four hours before, so there would be light
enough on the beach. You'd better make a rough sketch of these
tracks, inspector, while we're up here. We shan't have much time
before that tide washes everything out.”
The inspector set to work at once to make a diagram of the
various tracks on the sand below, while Sir Clinton continued his
inspection.
 “No. 3 evidently hung about behind the wreck for a long while,”
the chief constable pointed out. “You can see how the sand's
trampled at random as he shuffled around trying to keep himself
warm during his waiting. Now we'll suppose that Fordingbridge and
No. 2 are coming up. Look at their tracks, squire. They came up
almost under the lee of the wreck; and then they turned right round,
as if they intended to retrace their steps. It looks as though they'd
come to the end of their walk and meant to turn back. But they
seem to have stood there for a while; for the prints are indistinct—
which is just what happens if you stand long enough on wet sand.
The water oozes, owing to the long displacement of the sand
particles, and when you lift your foot it leaves simply a mass of
mushy stuff where you stood, with no clean impression.”

He glanced again over the tracks before continuing.

“I'd read it this way. While they were standing there, with their
backs to the wreck, No. 3 started into activity. He came out from the
cover of the hull and walked up to where they were standing. He
must have gone quietly, for they don't seem to have turned to meet
him. You see that, squire? Do you see anything else?”
Wendover was staring at the tracks with a puzzled look on his
face. The inspector, who had just reached this point in his diagram,
gave a smothered exclamation of surprise as he examined the sand
below him. Wendover was the first to find his voice.
“Where's the rest of Fordingbridge's track?” he demanded. “It
simply stops short there. He didn't turn; he didn't walk away; and—
damn it, he can't have flown away. Where did he go to?”
Sir Clinton ignored the interruption.
“Let's take the tracks as we find them. After No. 3 came up
behind the others, it's clear enough that No. 2 and No. 3 went off
side by side, down towards the sea. Even from here you can see
that they were in company, for sometimes the tracks cross, and No.
2 has his prints on top of No. 3, whereas farther on you see No. 3
putting his feet on top of No. 2's impression. Have you finished with
that jotting of yours, inspector? Then we'll go and follow these
tracks down the beach to the tide edge.”
He dropped neatly down from the wreck as he spoke, and waited
for the others to rejoin him.
“Both No. 2 and No. 3 must have been wearing crêpe-rubber
shoes or something of that sort,” the inspector remarked, stooping
over the tracks. “And they've both got fairly big feet, it seems.”
“No. 3 seems to have been walking on his toes,” Wendover
pointed out. “He seems to have dug deeper with them than with his
heels. And his feet are fairly parallel instead of having the toes
pointing outwards. That's how the Red Indians walk,” he added
informatively.
Sir Clinton seemed more interested in the general direction of the
tracks. Keeping to one side of them, he moved along the trail,
scanning the prints as he went. Armadale, moving rather more
rapidly on the other side of the route, came abruptly to a halt as he
reached the edge of the waves. The rest of the trail had been
obliterated by the rising tide.
“H'm! Blank end!” he said disgustedly.
Sir Clinton looked up.
“Just as well for you, inspector, perhaps. If you'd hurried along at
that rate at low tide you'd have run straight into the patch of
quicksand, if I'm not mistaken. It's just down yonder.”
“What do you make of it, sir?”
 “One might make a lot of it, if one started to consider the
possibilities. They may have walked off along the beach on the part
that's now swamped by the tide. Or they may have got into a boat
and gone home that way. All one really knows is that they got off
the premises without leaving tracks. We might, of course, hunt along
the water-line and try to spot where they came up on to high-and-
dry ground; but I think they're fairly ingenious, and most likely they
took the trouble to walk on shingle above the tide-mark if they came
ashore. It's not worth wasting time on, since we've little enough
already. Let's get back to the meeting-point.”
He led the way up the beach again.
“Reminds one a bit of Sam Lloyd's ‘Get off the Earth’ puzzle,
doesn't it?” he suggested, when they came back to the point where
the three tracks met. “You can count your three men all right, and
then—flick!—there are only two. How do you account for it, squire?”
Wendover scrutinised the tracks minutely.
“There's been no struggle, anyhow,” he affirmed. “The final
tracks of Fordingbridge are quite clear enough to show that. So he
must have gone voluntarily, wherever he went to.”
“And you explain his going—how?”
Wendover reflected for a moment or two before answering.
“Let's take every possibility into account,” he said, as his eyes
ranged over the sand. “First of all, he didn't sink into the sand in any
normal way, for the surface isn't disturbed. Secondly, he didn't walk
away, or he'd have left tracks. That leaves only the possibility that he
went off through the air.”
“I like this pseudo-mathematical kind of reasoning, squire. It
sounds so convincing,” Sir Clinton commented. “Go ahead. You never
fail to combine interest with charm in your expositions.”
Wendover seemed untouched by the warmth of this tribute.
“If he went off through the air, he must have managed it either
by himself or with the help of the other two; that's self-evident. Now
it's too far for him to have jumped backwards on to the wreck and
climbed up it; we can rule that out. And it's hardly likely that he was
enough of a D. D. Home to manage a feat of levitation and sail up
into the air off his own bat. So that excludes the notion that he
vanished completely, without any extraneous assistance, doesn't it?”
“ ‘He who has truth at his heart need never fear the want of
persuasion on his tongue’—Ruskin,” quoted Sir Clinton, with the air
of reading from a collection of moral maxims. “You've made the
thing crystal-clear to me, squire, with the exception of just one or
two trifling points. And these are: First, why did that very solid and
unimaginative Mr. Paul Fordingbridge take to romping with his—
presumably—grown-up pals? Second, why didn't he return home
after these little games? Third, where is he now? Or, if I may put it
compendiously, what's it all about? At first sight it seems almost
abnormal, you know, but I suppose we shall get accustomed to it.”
Armadale had been examining the tracks on the sand without
paying Wendover even the courtesy of listening to him. He now
broke in.
“If you'll look at No. 3's tracks, sir, you'll find that they're quite
light up to the point where he came directly behind Fordingbridge;
and then they get deeply marked on the stretch leading down to the
sea.”
“That's quite correct, inspector,” Sir Clinton agreed. “And if you
look again you'll find that when they're light, the toes turn out to a
fair extent; but on the heavier part of the track No. 3 walked—as Mr.
Wendover pointed out—like a Red Indian. Does that interest you?”
The inspector shook his head.
“I don't quite get it, sir.”
“Ever been in France, inspector?”
“Just for a trip, sir.”
“Ah, then you may not have chanced to come across Père
François, then. If you met him, he might have helped you a bit in
explaining these levitation affairs.”
Wendover pricked up his ears.
“Who's your French friend, Clinton?”
“Père François? Oh, he was one of the pioneers of aviation, in a
way; taught men to fly, and all that. ‘Get off the Earth’ was his
motto.”
 “There's not much of the strong, silent man about you, Clinton,”
said Wendover glumly. “I never heard anyone to beat you for talking
a lot and saying nothing while you're doing it.”
“Père François not mentioned in the classics? Well, well. One
can't drag in everything, of course. But don't let's dwell on it. What
about the business in hand? We must have a theory to work on, you
know. How do you account for Mr. Paul Fordingbridge's quaint
behaviour, squire? That's really of some importance.”
Wendover pondered for a time before taking up his friend's
implied challenge.
“Suppose that No. 3 had a chloroformed pad in his hand when he
came up behind Fordingbridge,” he suggested at last, “and that he
clapped it over Fordingbridge's mouth from behind; and then, once
he was unconscious, they both carried him down to a boat.”
“You can chloroform a sleeping man without any struggle,” the
inspector commented acidly, “but you can't chloroform a normal man
without his making some sort of struggle. There's no trace of a
struggle here.”
Wendover had to admit the flaw.
“Well, then,” he amended, “I suppose one must assume that he
voluntarily allowed himself to be lifted down to the boat.”
Armadale hardly troubled to conceal his sneer.
“And what earthly good would that be?” he demanded. “Here are
his tracks stretching back for the best part of a mile over the sands.
Lifting him for twenty yards or so at the end of that doesn't seem
much use. Besides, as I read the tracks, that's an impossibility. No.
2's tracks are mixed up with No. 3's in the second part of the trail,
and sometimes one was ahead and sometimes the other of them.
Two men don't waltz round like that when they're carrying anyone,
usually. It's impossible, for their footmarks show they were both
walking straight ahead all the time; and if they were carrying a man
between them they'd have had to reverse somehow if the front man
changed round to the rear. That's no good, Mr. Wendover.”
“What do you propose then, inspector?” Wendover inquired,
without troubling to repress a nettled tone in his voice.
 “I propose to take casts of their footprints and hunt up shoes to
match, if I can.”
“I shouldn't trouble, inspector,” Sir Clinton interposed. “Look at
the marks. They seem to me to be about the biggest size of shoe
you could buy. The impressions are light; which seems to suggest a
medium weight distributed over an abnormally large foot-area. In
other words, these shoes were not fits at all; they were probably
extra-sized ones padded to suit or else, possibly, put on above
normal shoes. Compare the lengths of the steps, too. If these men
had heights anything in proportion to the size of their shoes, they
would be six-footers on any reasonable probability, whereas their
pace is no longer than mine. There's no certainty, of course; but I'm
prepared to bet that you'll get nothing by shoe-hunting. And by this
time these shoes have been destroyed, or thrown away in some
place where you'll never find them. These fellows are smarter lads
than you seem to think.”
Rather mollified by the inspector's failure, Wendover tried to
draw the chief constable.
“What do you make of it yourself, Clinton?”
Somewhat to the surprise of both his hearers, Sir Clinton
extended the range of the subject under discussion.
“Motive is what interests me at present,” he confessed. “We've
had the Peter Hay case, the Staveley affair, the shooting of Cargill,
and this vanishing trick of Fordingbridge's. There must have been
some incentive at the back of each of them. Eliminate Cargill's affair
for the present, and the other three are all concerned with one or
other of the Foxhills people. The odds against that happening by
accident are a bit too heavy for probability, aren't they?”
“Obviously,” Wendover admitted.
“Then it's reasonable to look to the Foxhills affairs for motives,
isn't it?” Sir Clinton continued. “What's the big thing in the Foxhills
group about which they might come to loggerheads? It stares you in
the face—that old man's will. You've seen already that it's led to
friction. Paul Fordingbridge won't recognise the claim of this nephew
of his—we'll call him the claimant for short. He sat tight with his
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