"It's from Mr. Roger Fielding," he said. "I took the message myself. He is a very nice person. An Englishman."

On the slip the clerk had written, "Mr. Fielding is very sorry you were not in because it is important. He will call you again."

"My name is Fernando Souza," the clerk said, extending his hand. "I am very happy to meet you."

Hall put the papers down on the desk and shook hands with the clerk.

They had a meaningless chat about the rigors of wartime travel and the dimout in peaceful San Hermano and Hall learned that the Englishman Fielding was in the tall Lonja de Comercio building and very decent. "I have been at this desk for many years and in this position one meets many people," the clerk said, and he went on amiably chatting about what one could see on different one-day tours from the city.

"It is very sad about the President," Hall said, and then the clerk reddened and he forgot to speak English. "The Educator must live,"

Fernando Souza said. "If the Educator goes, the nation goes."

"I know," Hall said. "I admire Don Anibal greatly."

"_Momentico, Senor. El telefono._" After nine, the night clerk had to handle the switchboard at the Bolivar.

It was Fielding again. Hall picked up the phone on the marble counter.

"Yes, Mr. Fielding," he said, "I'm sorry I missed your first call."

"Not at all, old man. Not at all. d.a.m.ned decent of you to answer my call now, what with the hour and all that." The voice which came through Hall's receiver was the raspy, crotchety, bluff voice of a movie Britisher, the diction almost too good to be true. "I must say it was a good surprise, a good surprise. The paper tonight, I mean, even if they called you Dr. Gall. But what can they do if the H is silent in Spanish?"

"I've been called Gall before."

"Of course you have, of course you have." The man at the other end of the wire cleared his throat with a loud harumph. "What I'm calling about, Mr. Hall, is--well, d.a.m.n it all, what with the war and all that I guess we have a right to keep a tired traveler from going to bed the second his plane reaches the end of his road. I think it rather urgent we have a bit of coffee and a bit of a chat tonight. Really, old man, I think it is urgent."

"At what time?" Hall asked.

"I'm at home now," Fielding said. "I can get to Old San Hermano in an hour. Souza can tell you how to get to my office. Nice chap, that Souza.

Straight as a die."

"Good."

"The office is about ten minutes from the Bolivar by cab, if Souza can get you a cab. Suppose I ring you at the Bolivar when I reach the office?"

"That will be fine. See you soon." Hall put the phone down and turned to Souza. "He said you are straight as a die," he said.

"Mr. Fielding is a very decent Englishman," Souza said. He offered no further information about Roger Fielding, and Hall decided against asking any questions.

"If you are meeting him at his office, I had better get you a cab,"

Souza said, and then, sensing the hesitation in Hall's eyes, he quickly added, "it would be better. Walking at night is dangerous, especially in Old San Hermano, since the lights went out. There are many--accidents."

"O.K.," Hall said. "Look, I'm going upstairs to catch a little sleep.

When Fielding calls back, get me that cab and send up a pot of coffee.

And it's been good meeting you, even if Fielding does say you are straight as a die."

Souza did not get the joke, but he knew that Hall was trying to joke and he laughed.

Hall went to his room, took off his shoes and his suit, and fell across the bed. He dozed off wondering why he had agreed so readily to meet the man with the tailor-made British diction.

At ten-fifteen his phone rang. "Mr. Fielding called ten minutes ago. I have your cab ready now. He is a very reliable driver."

"Good. How about my coffee?"

Souza laughed. "The only waiter on duty is a _cabron_, Senor. Mr.

Fielding will have much better coffee for you, anyway."

Hall chuckled as he washed the sleep out of his eyes with cold water and combed his hair. The waiter is a _cabron_! There was one for the book.

Hall made up a song while he dressed, a song about yes we have no coffee today because the son of a gun is a dirty _cabron_ so we have no coffee today.

Souza slammed his palm down on the bell twice when the elevator let Hall into the lobby. "Pepito!" he shouted.

The biggest cab driver Hall had ever seen outside of the United States bounded into the lobby from the blackness of the San Hermano night. He advanced toward the desk in seven-league strides, wiping his right hand on the blouse of his pale-blue slack suit and taking off his white chauffeur's cap with the other hand. He hovered over Hall like a mother hen.

"Pepito," Souza said, "this is Senor Hall." This he said in Spanish. In English, he again told Hall that the man was a very reliable driver.

"_Con mucho gusto_, Senor 'All. _Me llamo_ Delgado." Sheepishly, the giant offered his hand to Hall.

"I am much pleased," Hall said. "Shall we start now?"

Pepito Delgado led Hall to a blue 1935 LaSalle parked in front of the Bolivar. "She is my own machine after I make the last payment next month," Delgado said. "I am glad you speak Spanish. It is the only language I know." He drove Hall to the ten-story Comercio building in a few minutes.

When Hall tried to pay him, Delgado shook his head happily. "You'll pay me later," he smiled. "I'll wait for you."

"But I may be hours," Hall protested.

Delgado called upon the Saints in a series of genially blasphemous exhortations. "Mother of G.o.d," he said, "it is bad luck not to make a round trip with the first American of the season. I'll wait and not charge you more than two pesos for the whole trip."

"I do not wish to rob you," Hall said. "Wait, and we shall make a fair price later."

He entered the Comercio building, but as the doors of the elevator closed and he started on his way up to the seventh floor Hall knew that Delgado was only playing the fool and was in fact no man's fool at all, and it bothered him. The right side of his face twitched slightly as he left the car and walked down to the bend in the hall leading to Room 719.

_Chapter three_

The frosted gla.s.s door of Room 719 bore the words, "Roger Fielding Y Cia." The anteroom was dark, but Hall could see the dim form of a man sitting in a lighted inner room. He knocked on the gla.s.s without trying the k.n.o.b. In a moment, the light snapped on in the anteroom, and the man from the inner office opened the hall door.

"Mr. Hall?" he asked. "I'm Roger Fielding. Welcome to San Hermano. And please come inside."

Fielding fitted to the last detail the mental image Hall had conjured of the man on the phone. Genial, peppery, he not only talked like a Hollywood Englishman, he was a casting director's dream. Let the call go out for a man to play a retired India colonel, a British Amba.s.sador, the Duke of Gretna Green, the popular professor of Chaldean Culture at Oxford, the Dean of Canterbury or the Chief of Scotland Yard, and Fielding was the man who could slip into the role without even changing from street clothes to costume. Fielding was the man, complete to the faintly grizzled face with the gaunt features, the dazzling plaid jacket, the thick-walled Dunhill pipe with the well-caked bowl.

He ushered Hall into the inner office, whose shades were all drawn to the sills. There was a large mahogany desk at the window; against the wall stood a long table bearing a row of gla.s.s coffee makers, a tray of demi-ta.s.se cups, and a series of earthen canisters. On the wall above this table hung a large sepia-tinted photograph of London, taken about 1920. It faced a large print of a cottage and a brook in the Shakespeare country. This engraving hung over a row of four filing cabinets with steel locks. The walls were further decorated with framed certificates of Fielding's membership in coffee a.s.sociations of San Hermano, Rio and New Orleans.

"Sit down, sit down," Fielding urged, pulling a comfortable leather chair to the side of his desk for Hall, and taking the swivel chair behind the desk for himself. The highly polished desk was bare, except for a calendar pad and a folded red-leather picture frame whose picture faced Fielding.

"I'm in coffee, you see."