WHEN HE woke up his head was throbbing and his left shoulder seemed to have solidified into a piece of masonry. But, like his head, the masonry was aching. He was lying, not quite straight out but nearly so, on what seemed to be a cushioned lounge-seat, something like a dentist’s chair that had been racked back to an almost horizontal position. When he moved he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder, and this caused him to relax at once. Then he realised that he was staring up at an absurdly low ceiling, and the room seemed to be swaying.
He studied the sensation for a while. There was no doubt about the oscillation. He had just cleared that up when the whole room made a sudden swooping descent, like a lift plunging down an incline. After it had levelled out, he ignored the painful shoulder and tried to raise himself in the dentist’s chair.
Chavez said: “So you are awake at last! That is good, but please take it easy, señor.”
“Where are we?” Del asked.
“We are in a plane on the way to Trajano. The coastal range is below us and there have been some bad patches.”
“What’s the matter with my shoulder?”
“You were hit by a bullet, but it is nothing much. You will have an inconvenience for a few days.”
Del was trying to grasp everything at once. “Anne?” he cried suddenly. “Did you stop them? Is she safe?”
For the first time Chavez knew for a fact what he had suspected: the missing Anne Page was on the launch that had got away.
He spoke hopefully, out of concern for the young man, but the girl was an insignificant item in his thoughts. He was exultant. He saw promotion at last, an elevation to glory.
“This is a time for prompt action,” his chief had told him, with generous enthusiasm. “Fly to Trajano with your witness, and at last you will be able to convince the doubters. The Commissioner’s own plane is here, waiting to go back. I will arrange it.”
“Will there be no objection?” Chavez asked nervously, remembering the notoriety of the Commissioner as a difficult type.
“When the salvation of the country is in the balance, objections must be overruled.”
It was a nice phrase, even if the chief had caught some of his subordinate’s nervousness in it. The Commissioner’s pilot had certainly raised no objection to jumping his schedule. He was only too anxious to get back to Trajano. And the last of the inspector’s doubts had died in the fire of a rosy dawn over the Andes.
Chavez, the saviour of his country, urged his fellow passenger to cast out dismay.
“The whole police force of San Mateo will go into action,” he said. “If necessary, the army will be mobilised.”
“The army? To find the launch?” Del asked, pressing his hands to his bumping head.
“To stamp out the insurrection. Bartol will never be allowed to set foot again on the soil of our country.”
“Who the hell is Bartol?” Del demanded. “Don’t you realise that Anne Page is on that launch? Why are you taking me to Trajano?”
“To see the Police Commissioner himself. The chief of my department is arranging an appointment by telephone. Perhaps at this very moment he is on the line, talking to the great man.”
He was, but the great man was doing most of the talking.
“You get me out of bed at daybreak for this?” he roared. “You have the temerity to commandeer my plane – my own plane – for this?”
“But the plane was going to leave in a few hours. The pilot said he was free, once he had seen the Peruvian general on his way to Lima.”
“I will sack the pilot. I will sack you. I will sack that imbecile Chavez. A cheap smuggler runs off in a broken-down launch, and you conclude that Bartol is ready to march on the Capital.”
“But, Excellency, the launch is making its way up the Medina River. I don’t think you realise –”
“Madre de Dios, I realise that I have been dragged from my sleep! Enough, enough!”
The Commissioner slammed the receiver down and turned over in bed. The result of it all was that he overslept and he reached his office late and in one of his worst moods. After he had kept Chavez and Del waiting for an hour, he saw them. He was freezingly polite for a few minutes. Then the lava broke through the ice and in another moment he was in full eruption.
“One case of pop-guns in an abandoned boat-house!” he thundered.
“Pardon, Excellency,” Chavez answered. “A case of the most modern machine-guns, left behind because of my timely raid. And Señor Wayne will tell you that many cases were loaded on to the launch. He heard them.”
“He heard them, but did he see them? For all he knows, the cases may have been full of butter or toy trains.”
For once Chavez lost his head.
“Desperate men do not smuggle butter or toy trains,” he snapped back. “I bring you proof that guns are being run into the country. What more do you want? For all any of us know, this launch may have made a dozen trips up the river in the last two months.”
“You are in charge of the waterfront at Santa Teresa, and this is all you know! Señor Wayne overhears talk of a river, and from this you create an army in hiding. Where are these guns being landed up the river? Tell me that.”
“A place was mentioned, but unfortunately Señor Wayne cannot recall it. You must remember that he has just come through a very bad experience. He is still not over the effects.”
“That is a pity. Señor Wayne should be more careful of the company he keeps. He gets in a brawl over a girl because she goes off with these men, and you have to build an insurrectionary mare’s nest out of it.”
Hot blood was pounding in Señor Wayne’s suffering head. “Listen to me!” he exploded. “I don’t give a damn for your insurrections and your mare’s nests. Anne Page has been kidnapped by a bunch of gangsters. What are you going to do about it? I want to know, and I want to know at once, before you waste any more valuable time.”
“That’s enough!” The Commissioner rose, red-faced in wrath. “You will learn, young man, that you cannot dictate to me. Any action that may be necessary will be taken. You, Chavez, are to return to Santa Teresa at your own expense. Your future in the service will be considered by my committee. Meanwhile you are suspended from duty.”
“The fat pig!” Chavez exclaimed when they were out in the street. “I have always suspected that he is a Bartolista. Now I know.” Then, as cold dismay put out his heat, he was a small man, beaten and afraid. “What shall I do?” he moaned. “My wife, my children! What shall I do?”
“Lend me some money,” Del answered, and hailed a passing taxi. “The Opera!” he shouted to the driver as he pushed Chavez into the cab.
“But it is just across the Plaza,” the surprised Chavez protested.
“Quickly!” Del called to the driver. “Stage door!”
The uniformed janitor was formidable and unsympathetic. He was prepared to concede that Don Sebastian Byrne was within, but no callers were permitted to enter without the authority of the director. Rehearsal was about to begin.
Del nudged Chavez, and the inspector produced his badge.
“My dear Del!” Don Sebastian behaved as if they were bosom friends reunited after years of separation. “How is it you are not on the way to Chile?”
Del explained how it was. The more he explained, the more excited Sebastian became.
“Anne!” he cried. “It is impossible, incredible! She must be saved. At once.”
“That’s why I’ve come to you. As Minister of Fine Arts, your father may have some influence to move the police.”
“Move them. He controls them. He is also Minister of the Interior. He will act. This gun-running is a bad business. Carmen was right after all. Perhaps those shots along the river in the Guadelemo district were really –”
Sebastian was about to say significant, but Del broke in on him excitedly. “That’s it! That’s the place. The trucks are to be waiting below Guadelemo.”
“It begins to make sense.” Sebastian took his jacket from a hook. “Guadelemo is a mud village in the high hills above Rosario. You say that Julian Page is dead and Anne’s father is missing. And it was Julian Page who found the uncut emerald at Rosario.”
“What has that to do with it?”
“Perhaps everything. If the Bartolistas are at Guadelemo, they may be at Rosario as well. That Police Commissioner is an idiot.”
“He is a Bartolista.” A woeful Chavez spoke for the first time. “There is no other explanation.”
Don Sebastian wheeled in the act of straightening his jacket. “Who are you?” he demanded.
Del interposed. “This is Inspector Chavez. It was he who pulled in that taxi-driver. If he hadn’t acted so promptly, I wouldn’t be here. He saved my life.”
“Perhaps he has saved all our lives. Come, Chavez! We go at once to my father.”
There was bustle in the corridor outside the dressing-room, and a perspiring figure in shirt-sleeves came rushing after them.
“Sebastian!” he called. “Where are you going? You are wanted on the stage at once. It is the Puccini.”
“Devil take the Puccini!” Sebastian strode on. “I have something more important to do. Tell Bernardo he can rehearse Lucia.”