Three-Cornered Halo Read Online Free PDF

suddenly from her open hand and flung it with all his might away from him. Its flight through the air made an iridescent rainbow, it fell all a-shimmer in the sunshine to sink between the close-packed prows of the boats, into the dirty water that lapped the quay.
    The Gerente de Politio had grown rich of recent years. The smuggling world must pay bribes to him; but he need pay no bribes—indeed there came a time, he had long ago confided to his friend, Inspector Cockrill, when one must decide between buying up the boats and owning them or collecting the bribes from those who did. Others of his wealth would long ago have retired—why work when one might be free to drowse away the rest of life in the Juanese sunshine over a glass of arguadiente and a handful of fat green olives from the Toscanita plain? But he, the Gerente, had many daughters, he could not afford to retire—and to give up one’s post as head of the police meant, of course, that the bribes fell away to almost nothing, leaving one with no income but a little desultory blackmail, that dwindled as one’s old friends and henchmen died off; for to keep on the boats after one had left the police, would mean paying bribes in one’s turn, let alone blackmail, and it simply was not, financially speaking, a proposition. So he remained in harness and prospered and grew rich; but not rich enough, surely, thought the scandalised Miss Cockrill, to toss into the harbour a trinket of crystal and gold. “Well—that was a splendid gesture, Gerente. But expensive.”
    The Gerente did not answer. He selected a silver-chased rifle of blunderbuss design from a heap of similar weapons stacked, hay-wise, on the quay, barked a few angry instructions to his men and, shuffling his feet into the filthy white sandshoes which he wore when on duty, took Miss Cockrill respectfully by her skinny arm and marched her off up the hill. “You come with me, Senorita, I pray, and we speak with Tomaso.” If, he added coldly, Tomaso had not already cut his throat; though in that case, before the day was out he, the Gerente, would probably do it for him.
    â€œBut not before me,” said Cousin Hat. “I dislike the sight of blood.”
    The single street of Barrequitas runs like a rivulet, cobble-bedded, down from the Toscanita ridge, to the quay; and under its sunless banks crouch the little shops, brilliant with colour—white cheeses, the local pottery from the red earth, turquoise and green and scarlet summer cottons, the tawny yellow and blue-black bloom of grapes.… Half-way up is the goldsmith’s shop, the Joyeria, a shadowy Rembrandt thrust through with Rembrandt flashes of jewels and gold. From out of its chiaroscuro of shade, Tomaso came forward to meet them, a gipsy figure with sly black eyes and the hands of a craftsman, scarred and brown. “Ah, Senorita, happily to see you, yesterday we spoke upon the vaporetto and last year you were most graciously coming to my shop.…” He exhausted himself in self-congratulation on the Senorita’s return visit, but he too wore a very anxious frown; and, dragging forward a chair for her, he put the question that was uppermost in his mind. “Senorita, in Inghilterra——”
    â€œIn Inghilterra, do they take snuff?” said the Gerente. “I have asked already. No, they do not.”
    Tomaso opened the shop’s great safe by the simple expedient of tugging at the handle, and took from among its contents a bottle of arguadiente and three glasses. They sat over the polished counter, their elbows propped in a welter of brooches and bracelets and rings, enamelled boxes, carved jade figurines, tassels of pearls strung on short lengths of silken thread. “It is no use, Tomaso. We have ten thousand snuff-boxes and no market for them at all.”
    Tomaso shrugged and grimaced, throwing out expostula-tory hands. “Was it I, Guido Bussaca, who mixed up