Message From Malaga by Helen MacInnes Page B

world.
    Ferrier made his way cautiously over the tiled floor, avoiding collision with the furniture—the pieces were fortunately few, but they were massive stuff, hand-carved and solid, painful for an unsuspecting thigh or shin bone—and reached a high-backed chair. He had sat there, that evening, and he remembered thehuge wrought-iron lamp that stood behind it. It was dark in this corner, darker than he imagined as he had paused at the hall’s threshold. He groped his way around the chair, cursing silently. His hands, held out blindly before him, struck a large vellum shade and set it quivering. He steadied it, cursed himself for having burned his matchbook, and fumbled for some kind of switch. Was it twist or pull? At that moment, a door opened somewhere down that kitchen corridor. Footsteps, light and quick, were coming in this direction. So Concepción wasn’t asleep, as he had imagined. He was about to call out and give warning that he was there, that he couldn’t find the damned switch; would she turn on some lights? But a man’s voice was speaking, briefly, in a hoarse whisper. Concepción was answering. And Ferrier was standing there with his Spanish phrases stuck on his tongue.
    “To your left!” she was saying as they came into the room, and she flicked on a wall switch that illuminated the staircase and the landing above. “Quick, quick!” She was dressed for bed, with a cotton wrapper over a nightdress, her lank hair in braids down her back.
    The man moved swiftly. He was already half-way up the stairs. Then he seemed to sense something. He stopped abruptly, looked down into the room, reached into his jacket. It was that movement that kept Ferrier quite still, his lips now tightly closed, his eyes narrowing as he watched the man. Thick, dark but greying hair, black eyebrows; deeply tanned face, heavily furrowed; medium height, medium weight; well dressed. And armed.
    “It is only Jaime,” Concepción reassured the man impatiently. The boy had entered from the corridor, carrying a suitcase. The stranger’s hand came out from his jacket, and he startedclimbing the rest of the stairs. Concepción was at his heels, and then came Jaime with the suitcase. The strange procession vanished. In the upper hall, footsteps faded, suddenly ended.
    Ferrier gave up the lamp—no matter what he turned or tugged, it refused to light. He started toward the archway where Concepción had managed to make something work. And at that point, Jaime came running downstairs. He slowed as he saw Ferrier, completed the last steps hesitantly. Several emotions passed over his young honest face: astonishment, worry, fear. Then they cleared away as he noticed Ferrier’s smile. “But, señor,” he began, “we heard no doorbell. How did—”
    “Keys. Señor Reid gave them to me.”
    “When did you—”
    “A few minutes ago. Before you carried the suitcase upstairs.”
    Jaime’s eyes widened. Anxiety was back.
    Ferrier had reached the arch. He examined the array of push buttons set into its heavy wall. “I was looking for some light to get me into the study.” He pressed several of the buttons as he spoke, and the whole room lit up: four standing lamps, one in each corner; eight wall brackets; two table lamps. “I certainly got it.”
    Jaime was worrying about the suitcase. “An emergency, Señor Ferrier. Esteban’s house was full. No room left. There is a bullfight on Sunday; everyone is coming to see it. So I have to sleep here, and so has my cousin Pépé, who is a banderillero. And we also brought his—his manager.”
    Ferrier noticed the hesitation. The pleasant thing about honest people was that it really hurt them to tell a lie. “That one?” he asked, pointing up the staircase. “One of the sixty-percenters? No wonder he can afford to dress in silver-grey.”
    “Señor Reid has met him. Señor Reid knows my cousin. Esteban said Señor Reid would not object.” Jaime, still anxious, followed Ferrier over to the