Chapter IV: Part 4

"I don't know, Mr. Hall. I guess he just presumed. Every one wants to interview Mr. Gamburdo these days. If it keeps up I guess he'll make the cover of _Time_, don't you think?" She sat down and propped up a flower sagging over the rim of the crystal vase on her desk. "Our pretty tropical blooms are too darned delicate, don't you think?"

"Oh, yes," Hall said, thinking not of the broken blossom but of the speed with which the text of his cable had reached Gamburdo's new Press Secretary.

Miss Vardieno brushed an imaginary fleck of dust from her skirt. "Well, anyway," she said in her best bored-with-it-all nuance, "he's going to be a vast improvement over Tovarich Tabio."

"I'll be seeing you," Hall said.

"Don't be a stranger now," Miss Vardieno said. "It's such a relief to speak English during office hours."

Hall closed the door behind him and started to whistle the ballad about the graft that built the marble halls of Gobernacion's _edificio magnifico_. "You're right," he told the old attendant. "Valenti can never wear Don Pascual's _pantalones_."

The old man's dry cackle followed Hall down the swirling marble stairs. Hall walked out to the Avenida de la Liberacion, looked in all directions for the man who had followed him the night before. The yellow straw hat was nowhere in sight. He turned his steps toward the fashionable shopping district directly south on the avenue. If his shadow were on him, he would flush him by walking down the broad, sunny avenue.

The shopping district brought no sign of the "little dog." Hall shopped the plate-glass windows, hoping to catch a tell-tale glimpse of anyone who might be on his heels. He went into a department store, bought a tropical dinner suit, and arranged to have it altered and delivered to the Bolivar at five. Then, after selecting a maroon tie and a shirt, he found a phone booth and called Fielding's office.

A Spanish-speaking secretary answered the phone. Fielding was in Alcala at an auction, she said. "Please have him call Father Arupe's secretary," Hall said.

The hot noon-day sun forced Hall to abandon his ideas of taking a leisurely stroll to the Bolivar. He found a rickety cab and relaxed on the dusty cushions. Fielding was the man he needed now, Fielding might be able to make Androtten show his cards, Fielding might have some of the answers about the new Press Chief and his brand-new secretary. And if Souza could find out who owned the Renault Androtten and the little dog used, maybe Fielding could tie the information into some of his own data and come up with something. Then when the boys in Havana answered that screwy letter perhaps they'd all have something to go by. In three days at the outside there would be word from Havana. Three days of waiting and accepting Souza and Pepe and even Fielding on faith.

At the Bolivar, the desk clerk told Hall that Pepe had called to say that he was having some minor engine trouble and would be delayed for about an hour. Hall noted the word "minor" and put it down to a delay in reaching Souza or Juan Antonio. He ordered a jug of iced pineapple juice sent up and went to his room. The long walk down the Avenida de la Liberacion under the broiling sun had covered Hall with sweat. He stripped and went to the bathroom. A slow gust of air hissed out of the faucets when Hall turned the taps. He washed his face with cold water at the basin while waiting for the pressure to force up the water to the bath faucets.

But no water came. The hissing ceased, the faucets went bone dry. Hall phoned the news down to the desk.

"I am so sorry, Senor," the clerk said. "But all the baths on your line seem to have gone dry. The manager has sent for a plumber."

Hall stretched out on his bed and tried to relax.

The desk clerk phoned him back. "Can I send the plumber up?" he asked.

"Sure." Hall put on his pants and a pair of slippers. More than anything else, at this moment, he wanted to wallow in a cold tub. The plumber, who looked enough like Pepe Delgado to be his twin, had other ideas.

"It is very serious, Senor," he complained. "There will be no water from these rotted pipes in a century." He banged the pipes with one tool and twisted them with another, cursing them as he worked. "It is very serious," he concluded. "I can do nothing on them today."

"Mother of God!" Hall said, and then he saw the sly smile on the plumber's massive face.

"Even She couldn't get any water from these pipes," the plumber said.

"How am I going to bathe?"

"Who knows? Maybe the manager will give you another room where the bath still works."

"Maybe. Well, thanks for trying."

"For nothing, Senor." The plumber picked up his tools and left.

Hall dressed and joined Pepe in the car. "What did the plumber say?" Pepe asked.

"Enough. Let's have a quick lunch somewhere."

"Souza is changing your room tonight. He is also changing the rooms of four other guests. They have no water either."

"Good work. Where are we eating?"

"When I stop the car you'll find out."

"Is the plumber your brother?"

"My cousin. I also spoke to Juan Antonio. He made that telephone call."

"Are you very hungry?" Hall asked. "I want to buy you half a steer."

"I could eat half a steer, _companero_. And I know where to get it, too." He drove to an old garden restaurant near the beach. "Here they serve the best meat in San Hermano. And at low prices, too."

Pepe did ample justice to a tremendous steak. He washed it down with a quart of beer, chiding Hall for confining his luncheon to a simple roast-beef sandwich. "Such food is all right for little children, Senor Hall. But you are a man."

"Call me Mateo."

"You should eat like a man, _Companero_ Mateo."

"I don't feel like eating."

"Then go to a good doctor. Or take that red-headed woman into your bed for a night. You'd eat in the morning, _chico_!"

Hall laughed. "I'd rather see a doctor," he said.

"A doctor?" Pepe grew serious. "Is anything wrong?"

"Who knows? This Dr. Gonzales you mentioned. Is he a medico?"

"Yes. Would you like to see him, _Companero_ Mateo?"

"Could we see him after lunch?"

"Now is the best time. He's surely taking a little siesta, and it is better not to telephone. His daughter is at school all day. Come on, I'll drive you over."

They got into the car and Pepe swung into a street with a trolley track that led them to a middle-class suburb. He stopped in front of a gray frame house similar to any doctor's house in an American town. A fat and ancient Persian cat was sleeping in the shadiest part of the porch. Pepe meowed at the cat. She opened a lazy eye, yawned, and went back to sleep.

"The cat and her master always take their siesta at the same time," Pepe explained. "It is a very intelligent cat." He opened the screen door.

"Is there no bell?"

"He disconnects the bell when he naps." Pepe led Hall into a cool, shaded living room. There was no rug on the highly polished redwood floor. The furniture was made by native craftsmen of bamboo and wicker, although the designs reflected the functional modernism of the Bauhaus school. It was the first modern furniture Hall had ever seen in South America.

Pepe noticed Hall's interest. "The doctor has many peasant projects," he explained. "He brought some Spanish refugees from Madrid to the country to teach the peasants how to make good furniture. They have a big co-operative shop in the southern province near the Little River. Sit down in one of these new chairs. I'll get him."

Hall relaxed in one of the low-slung chairs while Pepe went to the rear part of the house. "He's not on the couch in his office," Pepe said. He went to the foot of the stairs leading into the foyer. "_Hola!_ It's Delgado! _Hola!_ Don Manuel, it's Delgado!" His shouts would have roused the dead. He turned around and winked to Hall. "_Abajo_ Anibal Tabio!" he shouted. "_Viva_ Gamburdo! _Viva_ Segura! _Abajo_ Tabio!"

Upstairs there was the sound of a book or a heavy shoe dropping to the floor. "Bandit!" someone shouted, and then a tall graying man in his stockinged feet shuffled to the head of the stairs, rubbing his eyes and cursing Pepe with a mock cantankerousness. "_Bulto_," he shouted. "Give a man a chance to put on his shoes. Show some respect for my degrees!"

Pepe made a low, courtly stage bow. "Forgive me, Your Eminence," he pleaded. "I am only a simple petitioner."

"_Momentico, companero._" The doctor went to his room for a pair of huaraches.

"Doctor, I want you to meet _Companero_ Mateo Hall."

"_Companero_ Hall!" The doctor started to speak English. "It is so good to finally meet you. Don Anibal gave me your book on Spain for Christmas when it was printed. He spoke to me about you very highly. Please, sit down. You will find these chairs very comfortable."

"Pepe has been telling me about your co-operative."

"It is not very large. Here, try this chair. It is my favorite."

Pepe reminded the doctor that Hall was in need of his professional services. "Excuse my bad manners, doctor," he said, "but when you start to talk about your projects ..."

"He is right," the doctor smiled. "Sometimes I do talk too much. I like to talk, even when people don't really listen to me. Even in my sleep I talk. About many things. Art. Weaving. World politics. The war."

"I like to listen," Hall said. "Where did you learn your English, doctor?"

"My English?" The doctor leaned back in his chair, the smile of a man enjoying a highly private joke on his face. "I am afraid, _companero_, that I learned my English in the same sort of a place where you learned your excellent Spanish. That is, in a dungeon built by the Kings of Spain."

"In Spain?"

"No. I am not a Spaniard. My grandfathers were Spaniards, but my father and I were born here." He pointed to a framed flag of the Republic which hung on the wall over Hall's chair. "That flag hung in my cell in El Moro for three years, and that flag was in my hands the day Segura's death opened the prison gates to all of us." The doctor was not aware that he was now speaking in Spanish.

"The doctor was in El Moro with Don Anibal," Pepe said.

"That is true," the doctor admitted. "Nearly every patriot on the faculty and so many of the students were there, too. I had just taken my degree in medicine but I was still at the University as an instructor in biology when the arrests began. But don't think it was all tears and terror. Don Anibal and his late cousin Federico formed the so-called University Behind Bars. We had Chairs in Latin, English, biology, history, art, literature--everything. The soldiers, who were with us, smuggled in our books and papers. Later, when the Seguristas were out of power, the students who were in prison were able to take their examinations in the University of San Hermano, and the new Regents gave them full academic credit for their studies at El Moro."

"He is a sick man, doctor," Pepe said. "Examine him first and talk to him later."

"Pepe is right, _Companero_ Hall. I do talk too much."

"Nonsense. Any man who did three years in jail has a lot of talking to catch up on when he gets out."

"Will the examination take very long?" Pepe asked. "I have to go back to town. I can pick you up later."

"Have you an hour?" the doctor asked Hall.

"I have all day."

Pepe got up. "I'll be back in two hours," he laughed. He walked out to the porch. They heard him meow at the cat. Then the cat screeched and Pepe howled.

"A cat is never completely civilized," Dr. Gonzales said. "Poor Pepe refuses to believe it. And now Grisita has scratched him again."

"Your wild beast!" Pepe roared. "She clawed me!"

"Come inside, and I'll fix it, Pepe."

"No, thanks. I've got iodine in my car."

Hall expected the doctor to be amused. Instead, a wave of profound sadness gripped the man. He took out a pocket handkerchief and ran it over his forehead. "What's wrong, doctor?"

"Not much," Gonzales said. "I just can't stand the way they spare me. Since my illness it's been hell. For twelve years I was the National Minister of public health education. Don Anibal appointed me when he was Minister of Education. He created the job for me. Now I live on a pension, and outside of the few hours I put in every week as a consultant at the University and my handicraft projects, I do nothing. Biologically I am now a vegetable. And my good friends, the people of San Hermano ..."

"_Claro._ You mean they are too kind ..."

The doctor nodded. "But they are my friends," he said. "They do not do this to hurt me. And now, what bothers you?"

"My back. I think that I may have strained it."

"I can examine you better in my office. It's in the next room."

"Thank you. But first, I'd like to talk to you about some other things. I don't know what's going on, but I do know that something is wrong. I knew Don Anibal in Geneva, and I know that if he were well, your country would break with the Axis...."

The doctor sighed. "You are not alone," he said. "Don Anibal is a very sick man. No one seems to know what is wrong, exactly. He is paralyzed from the hips down, and he grows weaker every day. The mind is still strong, but it must rest so much that none of us dare to tax Don Anibal with worries other than his health. In the meanwhile, Gamburdo has taken over."

"And Gamburdo? Is he honest?"

"Gamburdo is not a man of good will. He is a clever lawyer and a very intelligent man. His family prospered under Segura, but the General seduced a Gamburdo daughter, and that turned them against the Seguristas. Gamburdo volunteered his services as a lawyer when Tabio and the Republican junta was in jail. But this offer was a calculating gamble. He knew that Segura's days were numbered; he knew that the leaders of the junta would be the new government of the nation. He joined the Party of Radical Socialism, but when he became its head, he saw to it that, like himself, the party became neither radical nor socialist."

"He was for Franco, you know," Hall said.

"I know. He was for Franco and the Falange and against Tabio. But he is very intelligent. He managed to keep these things nicely hidden. When Tabio was elected President and created the new government of national unity, Gamburdo joined forces with Don Anibal--but only to destroy this unity from within.

"This is the least of his sins. It seems that he has kept all the Republican doctors from the Presidencia. The only doctors Gamburdo has permitted are the reactionaries, the old servants of the Seguristas. We tried to talk to Don Anibal, but you know him and his saintly faith in the goodness of Man. I think that, deliberately, he has placed his life in Gamburdo's hands as a lesson to all of his old friends in the need for real unity. It is as if he means to prove to us, by getting well, that unity is the most important issue in the nation today."

"And Dr. Ansaldo? Is he really good?"

"He has a great reputation. But it is a gamble for Gamburdo alone. If Don Anibal recovers, Gamburdo and his friends will say that it was a Spaniard who saved the President. If he dies--even a great Spanish doctor could not save him. Either way, Gamburdo stands to gain."

In the office Hall took a chair facing the microscope on the doctor's white enameled metal desk. He watched the doctor hunt through the instrument cases along the wall. On a lower shelf, the doctor found his stethoscope.

"Would you please remove your shirt?"

Hall shook his head. "No," he said. He gently took the stethoscope from the doctor's hands, carefully folded it and put it away in a small wooden box he found on the desk. "This is what I really came for, doctor."

"My stethoscope?"

"Exactly." He explained to the doctor that with such instruments one could easily hear through an average indoor wall. "I have a queer feeling," he said, "that with your stethoscope I can perhaps get a hint as to what is actually wrong with Don Anibal,--or, at least, in San Hermano."

The doctor gave Hall his hand. "I won't ask you any questions," he said. "But may I wish you luck?"

"Thank you."

"Now let me fix you a cold drink. I'm not very good in the kitchen, but we'll see what we can both do."

Pepe returned with news for Hall about the change of rooms at the hotel. Hall now had the room next to Ansaldo's sitting room. He also told him that the Spanish Republican societies were planning an _homenaje_ for Hall. "They formed a committee to arrange it with you, but I told them that you didn't want to see them until next week."

"I hope you were pleasant," Hall said.

"Of course I was, Mateo. I just thought you didn't want too much noise about you in San Hermano for the next few days."

"Maybe you're right, Pepe."

"What do you want to do now?"

"Take a bath. I'm going to a party at the American Embassy tonight. But tomorrow I think we'll have a lot of work to do, _companero_."

"I wonder what happened to the little dog?"

"Maybe I'll know some more about him tonight."

"What have you got in the box?"

"Medicine."

Pepe snorted. "_Mierda!_" he laughed. "What you really need is ..."

"I know," Hall said, sharply. "That girl with the red hair."

"Excuse me," Pepe said. "I am not a doctor."

"You are too modest, _ilustre_."

"Have a good time tonight. I'll be waiting for you in the morning. Or, if you change your mind, leave word with Fernando."

"Good. Until tomorrow, then." Hall got the key to his new room from the clerk, as well as the packages he had ordered earlier in the day.

The new room was larger than the other one. His clothes and bags had already been moved in, and the chambermaid had made a creditable effort to put them away as Hall had previously done. Hall went to the window, saw that it looked out on the Plaza. He adjusted his window shutters for privacy. The wall between his room and Ansaldo's sitting room had only a bureau against it. Hall moved the chest slightly to one side, made room for a small, solid chair. Then he took his bath.

He was shaving when he heard Ansaldo return to the Bolivar. He wrapped a towel around his middle, put the plastic prongs of the stethoscope in his ears, and sat down on the little chair facing the wall. The hearing end of the stethoscope picked up only footsteps. The sounds told their own story. The man in the next room was walking to the window, then opening the shutters, then sitting on the couch. There were other footsteps, lighter and less pronounced. Perhaps another person in the room was wearing soft slippers or going barefooted, like Hall himself.

"Are you tired, _ilustre_?" It was Marina.

"No. Why should I be tired?" Ansaldo.

Marina giggled.

"Did you find out?" Ansaldo asked.

"Not yet, _ilustre_. What was it like to examine Tovarich Tabio?"

Ansaldo laughed. "Let me take care of the Tovarich, please. And don't act too happy at the Embassy tonight."

"I am not a fool, _ilustre_. Didn't the Caudillo himself personally decorate me for bravery?"

"Now you are being a boor. I detest boors."

"I am sorry, _ilustre_."

"Try to find out if they are coming in tonight."

"They would not be coming by Clipper," Marina said. "Too dangerous."

There was the rustle of paper, followed by the padded footsteps. Then someone--Hall guessed it was Marina--sat down in a creaky armchair. The man with the shoes got up and walked in the direction opposite from Hall's room. Hall heard a door open, followed a few seconds later by the rush of water into a tub. He remained in his chair, his stethoscope still against the plaster.

The phone near Hall's bed started to ring. He got up very quietly, tiptoed over to the bed. He hid the stethoscope under his pillow before he answered.

"Hello, it's me."

"Yeah, Jerry."

"Speak louder. I can't hear you."

"Sure." He went on speaking with his hand around the mouthpiece to muffle the sound. "Can you hear me now?"

"Just about. Listen, I've got lots to tell you. I was with Doctor when he examined the President, and he was magnificent!"

"The patient?"

"No, you dope. The doctor. What are you doing now?"

"Nothing. Getting dressed."

"Me too. Buy me a drink and I'll tell you all about it."

"Right now?"

Jerry laughed.

"I know," he said. "You're not wearing a thing at the moment."

"Just a second. There. Now you're right about one thing, anyway."

"Don't tempt me," he warned. "I might decide to check up for myself."

"Not now you won't! Meet you downstairs in about twenty minutes. O.K.?"

Hall finished his shave and dressed, toying all the while with the notion of walking down the corridor to Jerry's room before she had a chance to leave. Pepe would heartily approve, he thought, and, besides, since that hour in the woods on top of Monte Azul, Jerry had not exactly indicated that he would be unwelcome if he made a try. But while he speculated, Jerry phoned him again from downstairs. "Daydreaming?" she asked, and he answered, "Yes, about you."

She met him at the elevator in the lobby. "Come on," she laughed, "let's go to that place in back of the Cathedral. The little Dutch drip was around here a second ago. He wants to tell you the story of his life, he told me."

"O.K. Let's just keep walking."

She took his arm as they left the hotel. "Miss me?" she asked.

"I did."

"You're a liar."

Hall winced. "Is that the best you have to say? How about the magnificent doctor?"

"He's really good, Matt. I'm not kidding. I've worked with some corking medics in my day, but this guy is tops." She told Hall about the masterly way in which Ansaldo had taken command of the situation, kicking all the San Hermano doctors out of the sick room and examining Tabio only in the presence of Marina, Jerry and Tabio's son.

"What's the matter with him?"

"Ansaldo has an idea. But he has to make certain."

"What does it look like to you?"

"It could be many things. What's good to drink here?"

"Anything. Scotch and soda?"

"Oke. But really, Matt, you should have seen Doctor in that sick room." She launched into a long and enthusiastic account of the doctor at work.

The girl was on the point of repeating herself when Hall cut her short. "Listen," he said. "Let me tell you something about Anibal Tabio and his generation of young democrats who walked out of jail and started to make history." He told her of the schools and the hospitals which had been built in the country in the last decade, of the minimum-wage laws, of the work of Tabio followers like Dr. Gonzales.

He told her how he first met Tabio in Geneva. "His was supposed to be just a small voice in the League; a little South American dressing to make the whole show look good. But a month after he got there, Mussolini started to pop his goo-goo eyes at Ethiopia. Hoare and Laval and Halifax were so nice and ready to give the Italian steamroller a healthy shove downhill to Addis Ababa. Then one afternoon Litvinov got up to fire some heavy shots. But that was expected. Then del Vayo started, and the fun began. Because, when Vayo was through, it was Tabio's turn. And lady, what Anibal Tabio did to hot shots like Hoare and Laval without even raising his voice was just plain murder."

Jerry put her hand on Hall's arm. "I suppose I read about it in the papers at the time. It didn't mean much to me then. I'm afraid it didn't mean much to me until right now, Matt."

"Weren't you interested in what happened in the world?"

"Not too much, I'm afraid. I was interested in myself. I was making up my mind to go to Reno, and then I sat in Reno for six weeks cramming on my old school books, and then I was off to nursing school."

"Didn't Ethiopia, and later Spain, make any impression upon you?" Hall's question was very gently stated.

"Of course it did, Matt. I was sorry for the Africans and I was sorry for the Spaniards. I wanted Mussolini to get licked and I wanted the Loyalists to win. But most of all I wanted to get through nursing school and then earn enough money to study medicine."

"In other words, if Geraldine Olmstead got her M.D., all would be right with the world, eh?"

She avoided his eyes. "It sounds stupid and mean," she said. "But I guess I deserve it. I'm afraid that was the idea."

"When did the idea die?"

"About ten seconds ago, when you put it into words," she admitted. "I never thought of it in that way before. But I wasn't the only one, Matt."

"Hell, no! You were in a majority when the war started. The whole country was sitting back and, as it thought, minding its own business. We thought we were wonderfully immune until the bombs began to drop on Pearl Harbor."

"Now you're being gallant," she laughed. "There were plenty of people in the country like--like you, Matt. Have we time for another drink?"

Hall was staring into space. Suddenly he exploded. "_Madre de Dios!_ Now I remember!"

"Remember what? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I have." Hall tapped his head. "In here."

Jerry laughed. "I wish someone would come along and tell me what this is all about."

"There's no time. Let's get back to the hotel. I've got to change clothes and there's a guy I want to see before I go to the party."

"But what's it all about?"

"I'll tell you later."

Walking back to the hotel, he asked Jerry if she had ever found the solution to a problem in a dream. "Because just now I did. Do you remember when you woke me up this morning that I sounded like a guy in a fog? Well, I was. But just a few minutes ago at that table on the sidewalk, the fog lifted."

"And now you feel better?"

"Sure. It's all over."

"I think you're lying. I think that whatever it is, it's just beginning."

"No. It's over."

Jerry was right. But what she did not know was that the fog had lifted on Dr. Varela Ansaldo. The doctor was the Spanish officer of Hall's dream, the one at whose back Hall hurled the knife. And at the table, sipping his second drink, Hall had recalled in a flash where he had seen Varela Ansaldo before. It had happened in Burgos, in April of 1938, during a review of the 12th Division of the fascist army. Ansaldo, wearing the uniform of a Franco major, with a big Falange yoke and arrows sewn over the left breast pocket, had shared a bench on the reviewing stand with an Italian and a German officer. Directly behind them, on that day, had flown the flags of Imperial Spain, The Falange, Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. Hall remembered the tableau vividly, remembered so clearly perhaps because while watching the review from the sidewalk he had been annoyed by the staff photographer of Franco's _Arriba_, who must have shot a hundred pictures of the officials in the stands that day and who had also shoved Hall aside or stepped on his toes before shooting each picture.

"I'll see you at the Embassy tonight," he said.

"Oke. But get that scowl off your face first," she smiled. "You promised to be nice tonight, and right now you look as if you are planning to kill someone with your bare hands."

_Chapter six_

The American Embassy was three blocks beyond the Presidencia. Hall wanted to walk to the party, but when he reached the street he became self-conscious about his palm-beach tuxedo jacket, and he hailed a strange cab.

The Embassy was housed in an old Spanish palace which a former Ambassador had left to the United States Government in his will. After the first World War, when the government had taken title to the palace, Washington sent an architect and an office efficiency man to San Hermano to redesign the structure. The outside remained more or less intact. But inside, many changes had been effected. The spacious street floor, designed as the slave quarters in the seventeenth century and later converted to storerooms and servants' quarters, was now a hive of offices and waiting rooms. The second floor was devoted largely to a tremendous ballroom, a state dining room, and the tapestried private offices of the Ambassador himself. The living quarters of the Ambassador took up the third floor, while the low-ceilinged fourth floor, originally designed for soldiers, was now given over to servants' rooms.

A secretary at the entrance checked Hall's name off against a list on a teak table. He took the carpeted stairs to the ballroom. Two butlers stood at a screen in the doorway to the big room. The first butler announced his name, but not loud enough to disturb any of the Ambassador's two hundred-odd guests. The second butler nodded to Hall, and led the way through a maze of dignitaries, diplomats' wives, and young people trying to dance to the music a rumba band was producing from a bandstand in a corner. Hall followed him patiently, looking for a sign of Jerry's red hair. The butler nodded gravely at a young girl dancing with a thin Latin in tails. She left her dancing partner and advanced on Hall with an outstretched hand.

"Mr. Matthew Hall, Miss Margaret," the butler whispered.

"I'm so glad you came, Mr. Hall. I'm Margaret Skidmore." Her hand, thin and remarkably strong, was covered with a white net glove that reached to her elbow.

"It's nice of you to have me," Hall said.

Margaret Skidmore took his arm. "We must get you a drink," she said, "and introduce you to some of the more interesting people here. And oh, yes, to my father. But I warn you, he's not in the first category." She was short; much smaller than Jerry, Hall thought, but a bird of a different color. As they crossed the room, a wisp of the black hair piled on top of her head dropped over her eye. Hall was amused by the way she blew the hair to one side twice before deciding to lift it with her gloved hand.

"This is my Dad's favorite punch," she said at the buffet table. "I forgot to tell you that the party is to celebrate the third anniversary of his mission."

Hall ladled out two cups. "Here's to the next three years," he toasted.

"The next three years are the ones that will count," Margaret Skidmore said. She was smiling at Hall and at some other guests when she said it, but it was not polite banter.

"The Press Secretary of the Embassy is sore at you," she said. "He's angry because you tried to get to Gamburdo without him."

"I'm sorry," Hall said. "If you'll introduce me to him, I'll try to make amends."

"Don't bother," she laughed. "Smitty's a stuffed shirt who needs to be taken down a peg or two. But I must say that you look a lot different than I thought you would, Mr. Hall."

"I know. I'm supposed to look like a hero and I have the face of a mugg. Or a gorilla." He was still looking for Jerry. "You're a surprise, too."

"Am I so different?" There was coquettish amusement in her hazel eyes. She tilted her fragile doll's nose, forced a haughty cast to her small-girl's face. "Is an Ambassador's daughter supposed to be a high-and-mighty lady like this?"

"No. I like you better the other way."

"Thanks. It's my only way."

Hall spotted Jerry on the dance floor with Varela Ansaldo. Jerry looked very happy, and Ansaldo had lost some of his undertaker's grimness. He tried in vain to catch her eye.

"Here comes my father."

Hall found himself shaking hands with a portly, middle-aged American who wore tails as if to the manor born. J. Burton Skidmore had the most imposing head of wavy gray hair in the entire hemisphere, and he knew it. His face, still ruddy and youngish, was pink and smelled of fine cologne.

"_Con mucho gusto_," the Ambassador said, holding Hall's hand and bowing slightly from the waist.

"I'm glad to meet you, sir," Hall said.

"Father, Mr. Hall is an American. He is Matthew Hall, the writer. You know. Matthew Hall." The childish, well-bred-daughter smile on Margaret Skidmore's face could not conceal the acid contempt in her voice. "Mr. Hall is an American, from New York."

"Oh, yes, oh, yes, indeed. Hall. Of course, Mr. Hall. Been in San Hermano long, Mr. Hall?"

"No, sir. Less than a week."

"Fine place, Mr. Hall. Fine people. Have you met Smitty yet? Dear, have you seen Smitty? I think he and Mr.--Mr. Hall could find much in common, Margaret."

"Tomorrow," Margaret Skidmore said, and the Ambassador helped himself to a cup of punch.

"_Amigo Mateo!_"

Without turning around, Hall said, in Spanish, "Only one man in all the world has a scratchy voice like that," and then he turned around and embraced Felipe Duarte.

"What brings you to San Hermano?" he asked Duarte.

"I am now a diplomat. First Counselor of the Mexican Embassy in San Hermano and guest professor of literature at the University."

Hall and Duarte had last met in Spain, where Duarte had served as a Lieutenant-Colonel with the regular Spanish People's Army. "_Coronel_ Pancho Villa" was the name his men gave him, and the thin, gangling Mexican scholar had fought like a terror to live up to this name. Of Duarte, the General Staff officers said that he was as bad a strategist as he was brave a man, which would have made him one of the worst strategists in military history. But during the Ebro retreat, Duarte had taught the veteran professional officers a few things about the tactics of guerrilla warfare which raised his standing as a soldier.

Duarte took Margaret Skidmore's hand and raised it to his lips. "_Enchante_," he sighed, and she knew at once that he was laughing at her.

"Senor Ambassador," Duarte said, speaking rapid Spanish, "this is one of the most magnificent parties I have ever attended. How do you manage to give such splendid parties with only your chit of a daughter to help you shove food down the ulcerous throats of these sons of whore mothers, dear Senor Ambassador? It is stupendous. It is colossal."

The Ambassador smiled, shook Duarte's hand, and bowing slightly, he murmured, "_Con mucho gusto_." Then, still smiling, he turned and walked away.

"Don't let this guy fool you," Hall said to the Ambassador's daughter. "He speaks English as well as we do."

"Better," Duarte said. "Ah learned mah English in Texas, Ah'll have yo'all know, suh. And Mateo, don't let Margaret's innocent smile fool you. She knows almost enough Spanish to know what I just told her distinguished papa."

"Some day I'm going to know enough," Margaret laughed. "And when I do, you're going to get your face slapped in front of everyone, I'm afraid. Tell me, Mateo, does _hijos de la gran puta_ mean what I think it does?"

"That sounds like slang to me," Hall said. "I learned my Spanish on the Linguaphone."

"You're a fast boy, Matt," she said. "Call me Margaret, if you wish." She straightened Hall's tie with a perfumed glove. "I'll give you a little time with Felipe, and then I'll steal you back. There are many people here tonight who want to meet you."

"Hurry back," Duarte said. "He bores me stiff when I have him on my hands too long."

"You bastard," Hall said. "You're a diplomat now. Don't you ever stop clowning?"

"Sure. When I kill fascists I am very serious. You know that, Mateo. But here, if I did not clown, I would die of boredom. For example, when Skidmore gives a party, the politicos in my Embassy, they all find reasons for being out of town. I am not a politico. I am a professor of literature and a killer of fascists, by profession; a diplomat because someone wanted to do Lombardo a favor and at the same time remove my face from the domestic scene. _Claro?_ So it is clown or die. And if I must die, I prefer to die having a second crack at Franco."

"_Claro, amigo._ But must you wear a suit like this one?"

Duarte's evening clothes were his cloak of independence. He wore a cheap tuxedo he had bought in New York for twenty dollars and a pair of worn patent-leather shoes that creaked as he walked. On state occasions, he wore the medals he had earned on the battlefields in Spain. For private parties, he simply wore an enameled gold Mexican flag on his lapel. Tonight, he wore only the flag.

All this he explained to Hall in his gay, rasping Spanish. "When the Falangist Embassy was still on good terms, I wore my Republican medals all the time. But just before Don Anibal took sick, he insulted the Caudillo in a speech before the University faculty, and when the Franco Ambassador called to ask for an apology Tabio told him that the truth called for no apologies. So the Caudillo got sore and he called his Ambassador home. The Embassy is still open, but a clerk is in charge, and there isn't a Spanish diplomat in San Hermano of high enough standing to be invited to any Embassy."

Jerry joined them, and when Hall presented her to Duarte, the Mexican kissed her hand and murmured, "_Enchante_."

"Miss Olmstead is Dr. Ansaldo's nurse," Hall said.

"How very interesting," Duarte said. "May I have this dance with the nurse of Dr. Ansaldo?" and before she had a chance to say that her feet were killing her, the dexterous Duarte was guiding her through the steps of an intricate rumba he improvised at that moment.

Hall took another glass of punch. Duarte was his friend, but at the moment he wanted to break his neck. He wanted Jerry for himself, and he hated the idea of admitting or showing it. He watched them so intently that he failed to see Margaret return to the punch bowl.

"Deserted?" she asked. "Our friend Felipe would desert his mother for a redhead."

"He's quite a guy," Hall laughed.

"Come on," she said. "There's a crowd that's been dying to meet you. The country's biggest publisher and some of the more important business men."

"Fernandez?"

"That's right. He publishes _El Imparcial_. Confidentially, his paper is getting the Cabot Prize this year. Dad arranged it."

Fernandez was standing with a group of three Hermanitos and a blonde fortyish woman in a tight dress whom Hall recognized instantly as an American. "I'm Giselle Prescott," she said, her smile revealing flecks of lipstick on her yellow teeth.

"Take care of the amenities, will you, Gis?" Margaret Skidmore said. "Dad is flagging me over at the other end." She picked up her skirts, hurried to her father's rescue.

Giselle Prescott introduced Hall to Jose Fernandez, tall, handsome, in his early fifties. Fernandez presented him to Segundo Vardieno, Francisco Davila, and Alfonso Quinones. Davila was a man of one age and build with Fernandez, the other two were shorter and about ten years younger. Breathlessly, Giselle Prescott told Hall that Vardieno and Quinones were among the ten largest landowners in the nation, and Davila its leading attorney. They all made modest denials.

Quinones asked Giselle to dance, and she accepted gladly. Her myriad blonde ringlets neatly blocked her partner's forward view.

"Very accomplished writer," Hall said. "In the popular magazine field, Miss Prescott is supreme."

"She is very able," Davila said. Like Quinones and Vardieno, he wore the emblem of the Cross and the Sword in his lapel. Fernandez wore only the ribbon of the French Legion of Honor.

"My niece told me that you had some difficulties at the Press Bureau today," Vardieno said.

"Your niece?" Then he remembered the golden Cross and Sword dangling from the thin golden chain. "Oh, yes, the young lady who speaks English so well."

Vardieno explained to Fernandez that Hall had been unable to arrange for an interview with Gamburdo. "Don't you think you could help Senor Hall?" Davila asked, and Fernandez assured the three men that the matter would be taken care of in the morning. Of course, it might not be possible until after the Congress convened, but then politics in San Hermano being what they were, the illustrious colleague from North America would surely be understanding.

"What's the inside on the political picture?" Hall asked, and the three men, talking in unison and talking singly gave him one picture.

Their picture was very detailed. "El Tovarich--our Red President, you know," had lined up the unruly elements behind a dangerous program of confiscating the estates of their rightful owners and turning them over to communist gunmen. In addition to this land-piracy scheme, Tabio also intended to drive the Catholic Church underground and impose heavy penalty taxes on the parents who sent their children to Catholic parochial schools. To aid in this program, Tabio was throwing open the gates of the nation to Red agitators disguised as Jewish and Spanish refugees.

"So it's as bad as that," Hall said.

"Worse." Fernandez looked around him. "Come closer," he said. "There's something I must tell you about your own safety."

"My safety?"

"Yes, Senor." Fernandez had his right hand on Hall's shoulder. "Late this afternoon I received a confidential information that the Communist Party in San Hermano had privately denounced you to its members."

"Denounced me? But why?"

"Yes, Senor. And it was a most dangerous denunciation, too. A prominent communist leader telephoned the editor of the official Red paper and denounced you for being an enemy of Tovarich Tabio and a supporter of Senor Gamburdo."

Hall smiled. "But that couldn't be so bad," he demurred. "The Reds are always denouncing someone. Tomorrow the Communist Party paper will attack me as a fascist, and I guess that will be the end of the whole thing."

"No, that is not what will happen," Segundo Vardieno insisted. "Tell him the rest of the information, Don Jose."

Again Jose Fernandez looked around to make sure that he was not being overheard. "Senor Vardieno is right, my friend. You see," he said, "the Red who phoned the _Mundo Obrero_ ordered the editor _not_ to print a word about you--yet. Do you understand what that means?"

Davila, the lawyer, explained. "What Don Jose means," he said, "is that a secret denunciation generally precedes an assassination. You see, Senor Hall, if the Reds denounce you in their press, you would be marked before the world as an enemy of the Tovarich. Then, if anything happened to you--they are not only blameless, but even after killing you they can make great propaganda about how the alleged fascists killed you because you are a noted American patriot who stands for free enterprise."

"Pretty clever," Hall said.

"Jewish cleverness!" Segundo Vardieno was shaking with rage. "Give a Jew a hundred pesos and in a day he has a thousand and you'll never know how he did it. But will he apply his cleverness for the good of the country? No! Only for communism."

"Is Tabio a Jew?" Hall asked.

"Confidentially," Vardieno answered, "El Tovarich is a Sephardic Jew. But we're not making it public because we are gentlemen."

"And only because we are gentlemen," Fernandez added. "I don't think El Tovarich will be among us much longer."

"Is he really that sick?"

"Oh, yes," Davila said. "You know what happened to him, don't you? No? Well, it's almost like the Hand of Divine Retribution." He told Hall that Tabio had turned over to one of his henchman a vineyard confiscated from an old family, and that in gratitude the henchman had started to distill a special brandy for the Tovarich. "And now, the excess alcohol from too much of the stolen grape has taken its toll."

"Well, what do you know!" Hall said.

"It is the gospel truth," Fernandez said. "I have ways of confirming the story."

"Some mess, isn't it?" Hall said.

"It is filled with dangers," Vardieno said. "Your calmness is admirable, Senor Hall, but you had better watch out. The Reds are out to kill you."

Hall accepted a cigar from Jose Fernandez, took his time about lighting it before answering Vardieno. "Oh, I don't know," he said, casually. "Perhaps you might know that earlier in this war, I was on board a British warship which the Nazis sunk with aerial torpedoes. I not only survived, but I came through without a scratch. Since then I just can't get too excited about a threat." He looked at the three men to see if his braggart's act succeeded. Fernandez was obviously the most impressed of the three.

"_Bueno! Muy caballero!_" Fernandez said. "But you had better be careful. The Reds in San Hermano have none of the sporting codes of the Nazi airman."

"Well, now that you mention it," Hall said, "I did catch some bastard following me the other day."

In a small voice, Davila asked, "Did you get a good look at him?"

"I most certainly did. He was a big, clumsy brute in the white linen suit of a respectable business man and a panama hat. But I'll bet a good box of Havana cigars that he was a longshoreman or a miner. I know the type."

Davila looked at Vardieno and Fernandez. A slow grin crept over the lawyer's face, and then the other two Hermanitos were grinning too. "So they started, eh?" he said. "Well, don't let that big one worry you too much. Should he, Don Jose?"

The publisher grunted. "No. Don't worry about that one." Hall could sense that Fernandez was picking up his cue from the lawyer.

"As a matter of fact," Davila said, "I'll wager that you can find the picture of the man in the white suit in Don Jose's confidential file on the Reds. He keeps it in his office in the _Imparcial_ building."

"I would be honored if you visited me in my office," Jose Fernandez said to Hall.

"Perhaps I can make it this week," Hall said.

"Sst," Davila warned. "Miss Prescott is coming back. Let's change the subject."

"Of course," Vardieno said. "There is no sense in involving her in this."

"This is quite a turnout," Hall was saying when Giselle Prescott and Quinones rejoined the group. "I think that every nation is represented by its Ambassador here."

"Every nation but Spain," Quinones said. "El Tovarich took care of that by insulting the Ambassador and the Chief of the Spanish State."

"It's true," Vardieno said. "Spain is a good customer for our nation, but El Tovarich is so angry at Generalissimo Franco for destroying communism in the Motherland that he is deliberately trying to destroy this trade in order to get even with Franco."

"He not only insulted Spain," Quinones said. "In his speech to the University, El Tovarich said that only the so-called fascists in San Hermano supported Franco."

"Sounds like our pinkos back home," Giselle Prescott said to Hall.

Fernandez exploded. "I am a good Catholic," he snapped. "I am pious. During the Civil War I supported Franco. I was proud to support him. I not only supported Franco, but I was delighted to hail Hitler and Mussolini as noble allies in the struggle against Jewish Bolshevism. But am I a fascist? I defy any man to call me a fascist or a Falangist to my face!"

Davila turned to both Hall and Giselle Prescott. "Now don't jump to any false conclusions about Don Jose," he smiled. "After all, you Americans are not Reds because you welcome the godless Russian armies of Stalin as your allies in this present war, are you?"

"Bull's-eye!" Giselle Prescott laughed. "I'm delighted to hear you both talk like this. Back home only the Reds and the pinkos were for the so-called Spanish Loyalists during the war." She opened her tiny purse and found a leather address book. "Gimme a pencil or a pen, will you, Hall?"

"Sure. What for?"

"I want to put down what Senor Fernandez and Senor Davila just said before I forget. I'm doing a piece for a mag and these quotes would just fit in. May I quote you, gentlemen?"

"I have nothing to conceal," Fernandez said proudly.

Davila was very gracious. "Of course you may use these remarks. But please don't use Don Jose's name in your article. It might be misunderstood. You see, Don Jose has many enemies in the Jewish and radical press in your country."

"On my honor as a Girl Scout," she said, "I'll use the quotes but not the names."

"You've got quite a story there," Hall said. He was looking into the mob on the dance floor for a sign of Jerry. Her red hair was not to be found, but Margaret Skidmore, dancing with a bemedaled diplomat, caught his eye and gestured that she would join him at the end of that dance. She took him away from the group in a few minutes and led him toward the American bar she had rigged up for the party.

"They sure were talking at you for a while," she said. "I could see them giving it to you with both barrels."

"That they were. What is the lowdown, anyway? Are those boys completely right about Tabio?"

Margaret was amused. "Oh, they're a gang of hotheads, I warn you. But nice. I suspect that our friend Giselle is going to find Don Jose particularly nice."

"Meow!"

"I'm not a cat. I just know Giselle."

"Let's talk about San Hermano politics. I think you know plenty in that little head of yours."

"Oh, I do. But tonight's a party. I've got to be Daddy's good little Hostess."

"Like it?"

"Bores me silly," Margaret said.

"Perhaps we can talk some other time?"

"Tomorrow would be swell. I have to go to my place in Juarez early in the morning. Why don't you come out for lunch? It's a two-hour ride by train from San Hermano. I think you can make a train at eleven."

"Tomorrow?" Hall hesitated.

"I wish you'd make it," the girl said with a sudden intensity.

"It's a date."

"I'll meet you at the station."

They joined her father and one of the Embassy secretaries at the bar. Hall had a Cuba Libre, and was introduced to a South American painter. He listened to the painter talk to the Ambassador about the beauties of Arizona, watched J. Burton Skidmore gravely shake hands with the painter and mutter, "_Con mucho gusto_." Then the painter asked Margaret to dance and, when she left, Hall wandered off to look for Jerry.

He found her at the punch bowl with Ansaldo. "May I ask Miss Olmstead for this dance?" he asked the doctor.

"Just this one dance," Jerry said, "I'll be right back."

She put her cheek against his, softly hummed the tune the band was playing.

"It's nice to have you in my arms," he said.

"It's nice to be in your arms."

He held her closer. They danced well together. So well that when Jerry said it would be better if they did not dance again that night, Hall made up his mind to leave at once. "I can't hang around and watch you dancing with Ansaldo all night," he said.

"Why, Massa Hall," she said, "Ah swain Ah do believe you-all are jealous!"

"Did Duarte give you English lessons in one rumba, too?"

"You're a goof," she laughed.

He took her back to Ansaldo, paid his respects to the Ambassador, and looked for Duarte. The Mexican was talking to the tall young wife of the Vichy Ambassador.

"Felipe," Hall tugged at Duarte's sleeve, "I am afraid that I must go now."

"I'll go with you, if you're alone. Madame, _enchante_ ..." He winked at Hall as he kissed Madame la Comtesse's hand. "Now we must pay our respects to our host."

"I already have."