"Right now all he'll talk is plat.i.tudes. But you might get him to talk off the record. He's gotten around to telling me things. And stop looking at your watch. I'll lock up and we can start back to town at once. You'll be back in plenty of time to sleep with her tonight."

"With whom?"

"Whoever you have that date with. I know I should be nasty about it. But I never demanded fidelity and I always hated men who demanded it of me.

That's the way we both are, darling, and as long as it goes off as good as it did upstairs today we can expect to do it often." She left the settee, walked over to Hall's chair, and kissed his ear. He slapped her trim b.u.t.tocks, shouted, "Cut it out!"

"Let's get going," she said. "Time's a-wasting."

Hall thought, as Margaret drove him back to San Hermano, that Pepe Delgado would have approved of her skill as a driver just as much as he would disapprove of her politics. The ledger on her lap, she pushed the roadster through hairpin curves and back-country roads with a confidence as cold as her reasoning about her manganese properties.

"I'll walk to my hotel from the Emba.s.sy," he said, when they reached the suburbs of San Hermano. "I could stand a little walk."

"So you're meeting her in the lobby," Margaret laughed. She kissed him fondly when she stopped the car near the Emba.s.sy. "Darling," she said, "don't ask me to the Bolivar. But I have to go back to the farm in a few days. I'll let you know ahead of time, and we can have a night together."

"Call me," Hall said. "Or I'll be calling you."

An hour later he met Duarte in the home of one of the secretaries of the Cuban Emba.s.sy. The Mexican had borrowed the home for the evening. "We have at least two hours to talk here," Duarte told Hall. "My friend is at the cinema."

Duarte opened two bottles of cold beer, set one before Hall. He took a long look at Hall and burst into laughter. "Did she give you any information, Mateo?"

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Hall said.

Felipe Duarte doubled over with laughter. "Mateo the Detective!" he chortled.

"O.K.," Hall laughed. "So I was raped."

"Raped is the right word, _chico_."

"When did she take you into her bed, Felipe?"

"Long ago. My first week in San Hermano. Then once more after that. I gave way for an American aviator who came here to sell planes to the government. He was succeeded in a week by two men, a local _senorito_ named Madariaga and the First Secretary of the French Emba.s.sy. After that I just stopped noticing."

"Who is her husband?"

"She has no husband."

"She was wearing a wedding ring, Felipe."

"That's a new development. I never heard of her having a ring or a husband."

"She's a very clever girl, Felipe. And a confirmed fascist."

"She's only a rich _puta_, Mateo. The h.e.l.l with her."

"She might be useful, Felipe. What happened to you today? Did you learn anything?"

Duarte shrugged his shoulders. He had little real information. "I saw Commander New. He looked down his nose at me during our whole interview, and then, like an English trader, he started to bargain with me. About the week, I mean. He said that a week was too long. He would only give me three days. Then--if I gave him no more information than you got from the _puta_ today, he goes to the police."

"That's not so good."

"Who knows? The counsellor of the British Emba.s.sy spent the whole day going through Fielding's files with the widow. If they found those reports you saw that night, maybe the Intelligence officer will give us that full week."

"Did you find out anything about Harrington?"

"Commander New never heard of him, he says. Then I thought I would make a real surprise for you. Souza arranged with some smart boys to search Ansaldo's room with a fine comb. But they combed not a louse, Mateo.

They found nothing of interest except that Ansaldo's _maricon_ is a morphine addict."

Hall lit a black cigar from the Cuban's private collection. "Where the h.e.l.l is my letter from Havana?" he said.

"Take it easy, _chico_." Duarte opened a fresh bottle of beer for his friend.

"I'll be all right," Hall said. "I won't explode tonight."

Duarte recalled an earlier occasion in a Madrid hospital, when a phone call from the Paris office of the AP had made Hall lose his head. "To my dying day," he told Hall, "I'll never forget those curses that shot out of your guts."

"Don't remind me," Hall said. "I get sick when I think of it again. That was the time they held up my story on Guadalajara because they weren't satisfied that I had definite proof that the troops captured by the Republic were Italian regulars."

The Mexican laughed. It was a laugh made bitter by the silver plate in his skull. It covered an injury he had suffered in fighting the Italian regulars at Guadalajara.

Hall understood. "There are too many b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in this world," he said.

"I wish curses alone could stop them. But we've got work to do. Pepe didn't bring me here. He was busy on something else. I'll have to use your driver. Have him drive me to some decent restaurant. I wish you'd come along too."

"Why didn't you tell me you're hungry?"

"I forgot. But there's one thing your driver can do for us. Do you know where the Compania Transatlantica Espanola pier is located? Good. Just have him drive very slowly past the pier on the way. I want to look it over."

_Chapter eight_

Shortly after eight in the morning, Hall sat down at a table in a waterfront cafe and ordered coffee and rolls. It was a small place with a zinc bar in one corner, patronized largely by longsh.o.r.emen and petty customs officials. Hall chose a table which gave him a good view of the Compania Transatlantica Espanola dock diagonally across the street.

On the dock there were the unmistakeable signs that the _Marques de Avillar_ was coming in on time. Minor customs officials in their blue uniforms stood around in small, important looking knots, their hands filled with papers and bundles of official forms. The pa.s.senger gangplank, with the line's name splashed on its canvas sides in crimson and gold letters, had been hauled on to the pier and lay waiting like a rigid, outstretched hand for the incoming ship. A row of motley cabs were lined up facing the pier, their drivers dozing or reading the morning papers behind their wheels as they waited for the business from the ship. Pepe was not only one of these drivers, but through the transport union he had arranged to fill the cab line with trustworthy anti-fascist drivers.

Hall could see Pepe slouched behind the wheel of the LaSalle, his white cap pushed way to the back of his ma.s.sive head. The cab strategy was Pepe's inspiration. It did away with the necessity of following any of the cabs which picked up pa.s.sengers whose moves might be of interest to Hall. As a further precaution, Souza had arranged through members of his union to get an instant line on any of the _Marques de Avillar_ pa.s.sengers who registered at a San Hermano hotel that day.

A letter written in Spanish with purple ink in a fine, delicate woman's hand lay on the metal table between the b.u.t.ter pat and the carafe of water. Hall read it again as he stirred his coffee.

"Beloved Mateo," the letter began, and Hall chuckled at Santiago's current dodge, "Why did you leave me so suddenly without even giving me a chance to explain? It is you and you alone whom I love, _carino_, and any thoughts that you have to the contrary you must banish from your dear head at this instant. Oh, _carino_, since you left without a further word I have had no rest, no peace, no sleep...." He skimmed through the first two pages of such protestations, then carefully reread the casual lines: "You are so wrong; it is true that I did know the doctor before, but he was never my lover. I knew him only because he treated dear Carlos, but as a man I hate and detest him. How can I tell you again that you are wrong, that he is an abomination not only in my eyes but also in the eyes of my entire beloved family?"

Nearly three lachrymose pages of love frustrated followed these lines.

"And so before I close my letter, I must beg you to drop everything if you love me and fly back to Havana, even if only for a day. Oh, my beloved, if you would only come back to Havana for one day, I am sure that I can resolve all the doubts that are in your mind, Mateo. In the name of all that we have shared, of all that is dear and sacred to us, please fly back to my arms, my love, my kisses--and then you will know!"

The letter was signed, "Maria."

Hall folded the letter carefully and put it in his wallet. It told him what he wanted to know about Ansaldo. _He treated dear Carlos--he is an abomination in the eyes of my beloved family._ Santiago's style as a writer of love letters might be a little on the turgid side, but he knew how to make himself clear. And nothing could be clearer than his line on Ansaldo. An abomination. A man who marched with the men who put that fascist bullet through the throat of Uncle Carlos. A b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

The dock was growing more crowded. Over the near horizon, a ship pointed its high white face at San Hermano. A long throaty whistle came from its front funnel. Then five short blasts, and in a moment the tugs which had been getting up steam in the harbor were heading out toward the growing ship.