Face to the Sun Read Online Free PDF Page A

will come up to say goodbye and then be off. I leave it to you to choose a taxi from the rank and choose the hotel. When you have left the
hotel with the contents of this briefcase, don’t direct the taxi to Claridge’s. Get him to drop you somewhere, say, in Bond Street and walk from there.’
    They approved, but Carlota said she didn’t know any hotel on the way to the centre of London. I replied that it didn’t matter where it was on the way so long as it was not an airport
hotel. She then suggested a Richmond hotel where she and her husband had once stayed a night.
    When we arrived, I booked a room for myself and said that the two ladies would be off in half an hour. Meanwhile could I have a bottle of champagne sent up to my room for a farewell drink. As
they were both eminently rich and respectable there was no objection.
    As soon as the waiter had come and gone I unlocked the briefcase and drew out from one compartment the Presidenta’s black crocodile bag and from the other her jewellery cases. She gave a
yelp of delight as the Punchao flashed from its bed of velvet. The tiara in the case alongside looked almost vulgar, but I could imagine the former Juana Romero sweeping into a state banquet with
her dark hair crowned by such a splendour of emeralds and diamonds. She was a stupid woman and it was then hard for me to understand the influence which she apparently had over her husband; it was
that of a trained actress. She was a whole school of drama in herself. As a lean and ruthless military man, General Heredia must often have needed her advice on how to play warmth and
generosity.
    She handed over the cash with a regretful smile. There was so much of it that the leather of the briefcase bulged and the steel braces bent. I explained that one of the reasons why I had to keep
it was to carry the cash; the other was that I had to possess some kind of overnight baggage. I added that they should carry the sun and tiara in their handbags or anywhere on their persons where
they would be safer than in the black bag which could so easily be snatched or picked up by, well, somebody like me.
    ‘Are you content that you have it all?’
    They were, and I drew the ear-ring from my pocket.
    ‘You forget this, Doña Juana,’ I said. ‘I am delighted to be able to return it.’
    ‘My daughter told me that you looked to her like a man of honour,’ she said. ‘She is seldom wrong.’
    She held out a hand, palm downwards, to be kissed. Beautifully done. End of Act III. The house in tears.
    I had to come downstairs to see them off although it meant leaving my stuffed briefcase all alone in the bedroom.
    ‘And you must come and see your new godson as soon as you return,’ Carlota said to me as the taxi drew up. A most intelligent remark. Obviously I was a godfather who had rushed over
for the ceremony and stayed the night.
    I returned to my room to find the briefcase as I had left it. It was a damned nuisance. I couldn’t deposit it in the hotel safe since it supposedly held my pyjamas and toilet articles. I
couldn’t walk about with it indefinitely. I was a rich man stuck in the eye of a needle. I stuffed a few hundred into an inside pocket and went to bed looking forward to breakfast and an hour
or two of peace.
    In the morning I set out to leave the briefcase with the bank where I had first deposited it and then to return to Gower Street, the only home I had, to re-enter the world as a free man. As a
vague precaution I decided not to take a taxi – a little too late, but one cannot think of everything – and walked to Richmond station. In Richmond Green a black car passed me and
stopped close to the empty pavement some fifty yards ahead. A man got out as if to call at a house, leaving the car door open behind him. When I came abreast of him, he grabbed me with a speed
which must have resulted from long training, hurled me into the car which was already moving and stuck a needle into my backside while I