The Three Sentinels by Geoffrey Household Page A

exactly are your present relations with your Union?’
    The committee erupted. At least six indignant voices bellowed simultaneously, with the howl of a passing jet from high note to low, that they had no relations with the dirty sons of whores.
    ‘You pay your dues?’
    ‘Never again!’ Garay answered.
    ‘And if a senior delegate were to come and help us with negotiations ?’
    ‘Into the harbour! And this time no launch to fish him out!’
    ‘That’s hard on me. I am forced to be the Company, your Union, the State and myself all at the same time.’
    ‘Then you won’t need any stamps on the letters, Mr. Manager,’ Delgado said and raised a general laugh.
    ‘Very true. But mine are delivered and yours are not.’
    The retort went home with no reply but muttering. It was time to remind them that he had power as well as good will. He thanked the committee and got up. Except for his calculated slip, terms of
peace had never been mentioned at all. He wondered how many of them were secretly disappointed.
    As he strolled away from the pavilion to his car, speed and intentness of thinking carried on. He had no longer to concentrate on dark, set faces, the watchful eyes waiting for any threat, and
so his searching mind switched into the allied problems which he alone could solve. Henry’s vague suspicions. The approaches made to González. All dropped into place without anything
he could really call reasoning.
    One couldn’t put it past a jealous Union to plan the assassination of Garay, but it was damned unlikely. As for Dave Gunner, murder would never be included or even imagined, whatever
squaring of his chin he had in mind. González was telling the truth all right about turning a blind eye to any Union agent, but had either guessed at the real objective or been deliberately
put off the scent.
    He turned back from the car as if he had left some personal possession behind and called to Garay who with two or three others was politely waiting by the porch of the pavilion to see him drive
off. An instinctive impulse, yes! But the fault, if it was one, had not led him far wrong up to the present.
    ‘A quick word!’ he said as they met on the path half way. ‘Any luck?’
    ‘With what? You think you will have luck because you show your face?’
    ‘With Chepe’s toffee, I meant. It seemed to me you didn’t know where he got it.’
    ‘It could be for you, Mr. Manager.’
    It could indeed. The reply was unexpectedly brutal, but probably the only cause was resentment of himself and his question. The man was naturally on edge after a meeting in which he had been
given little chance to show his hatred of the Company.
    ‘Or for you.’
    ‘No one would dare. I do not count. But no one would dare. So much for your threats!’
    ‘No threat from me, friend. I need you.’
    ‘You? Why?’
    ‘For one thing, nobody else can make a decent coffin.’
    ‘The things you say? We are not bandits. I have told you that you needn’t have a care.’
    ‘Then think a little! If these explosives are not for you or me, could they be for the Charca?’
    ‘Who would do that except the Company?’
    ‘That’s for you to tell me. The Union, perhaps? Any of you can see me whenever you wish.’
    Rafael returned to the pavilion and reported that Don Mateo had suggested as an afterthought that no one need feel embarrassment in calling at the office. As soon as he was alone with Gil
Delgado he repeated the obscure hint but could not bring himself to disclose Chepe’s story of hidden explosives. His son’s affairs were intensely private and to be investigated only by
himself.
    ‘It is a trick,’ Delgado replied at once. ‘He means to cut off our water and pin the blame on someone else.’
    That might be so. Rafael accepted that his colleague was cleverer than he. On the other hand Gil had not the gift of trust. One could not begin to explain to him that a man was not to be judged
wholly by his words or even by his eyes. He was