«Dear Mr. Dyar! How kind of you to ring me! Did you get back safely last night? What vile weather! You’re seeing the place at its very worst. But keep a stiff upper lip. One of these days the sun will be out and dry up all this fearful damp. I can’t wait. Jack is very naughty. He hasn’t telephoned me. Are you there? If you see him, tell him I’m rather put out with him. Oh, I wanted to tell you, Tambang is better. He drank a little milk. Isn’t that wonderful news? So you see, our little excursion to his room did some good». (He tried to dismiss the memory of the airless room, the needles and the smell of ether.) «Mr. Dyar, I want very much to see you». For the first time she paused to let him speak. He said: «Today?» and heard her laugh. «Yes, of course today. Naturally. I’m insatiable, yes?» As he stammered protests she continued. «But I don’t want to go to Jack’s office for a particular reason I shall have to tell you when I see you. I was thinking, we might meet at the Faro Bar on the Place de France. It’s just around the corner from the tourist bureau. Darling old snobbish Jack wouldn’t be caught dead in the place, so we shall be running no risk of seeing him. You can’t miss it. Just ask anyone». She spelled out the name for him. «It’s sweet of you to come. Shall we say about seven? Jack closes that establishment of his at half past six. I have so much to talk to you about. And one enormous favor to ask you, which you don’t have to grant if you don’t want». She laughed. «The Faro at seven». And as he was trying to decide quickly how to word his bread-and-butter phrase for last night’s hospitality, he realized that she had hung up. He felt the blood rush to his face; he should have got the sentence in somehow at the beginning of the call. The man at the desk asked him for one peseta fifty. He went back to his table annoyed with himself, and wondering what she thought of him.
The check was for thirty-three pesetas, including the service. He had fifty céntimos left, which he certainly could not leave as a tip. He left nothing, and walked out whistling innocently in the face of the waiter’s accusing stare. But after he had gone a short way he stopped under the awning of a tobacco shop and took out his two little folders of American Express checks. There was a book of fifties and one of twenties. On the ship he had counted the checks every few days; it made him feel a little less poor to see them and reckon their aggregate. He would have to stop into a bank now and get some money, but the examination of his fortune was to be done in the privacy of the street. Whatever one wants to do in a bank, there are always too many people there watching. There would be six left in the first book (he counted them and snapped the cover shut), which meant eight in the other. He shuffled them almost carelessly, and then immediately went through them again, to be certain. His expression became intense; he now counted them with caution, pushing his thumb against the edge of each sheet to separate a possible two. He still found only seven. Now he looked at the serial numbers: it was undeniable that he had only seven twenty-dollar checks — not eight. $440. His face assumed an expression of consternation as he continued to recount the checks uselessly, automatically, as though it were still an instant before he had made the discovery, as though it were still possible for something different to happen. In his mind he was trying to recall the time and place of the cashing of each check. And now he remembered: he had needed an extra twenty dollars on board the ship, for tips. The remembering, however, did not make the new figure emotionaly acceptable; he put his checks away profoundly troubled, and began to walk along looking down at the pavement.
There were many banks, and each one he came to was closed. «Too late,» he thought, grimly. «Of course».
He went on, found Wilcox’s office easily. It was upstairs over a large tearoom, and the entire building smelled appetizingly of pastries and coffee. Wilcox was there, and made him feel a little better by saying with a wide gesture: «Well, here’s your cage». He had half expected him to make some sort of drastic announcement like: «Listen, old man, I guess it’s up to me to make a confession. I’m not going to be able to use you here. You can see for yourself why it’s out of the question». And then he might have offered to pay his fare back to New York, or perhaps not even that. Certainly Dyar would not have been extremely astonished; such behavior would have been in keeping with his own feeling about the whole undertaking. He was prepared for just such a bitter blow. But Wilcox said: «Sit down. Take the load off your feet. Nobody’s been in yet today, so there’s no reason to think they’ll come in now». Dyar sat down in the chair facing Wilcox at his desk, and looked around. The two rooms were uncomfortably small. In the antechamber, which had no window, there were a couch and a low table, piled with travel booklets. The office room had a window which gave on a narrow court; besides the desk and the two chairs there was a green filing cabinet. The room’s inhospitable bareness was tempered by the colored maps covering the walls, drawing the eye inevitably to their irregular contours.
They talked for an hour or so. When Dyar remarked: «You don’t seem to be doing a rushing business, do you?» Wilcox snorted disgustedly, but Dyar was unable to interpret his reaction as one of sincere discontent. The Marquesa was obviously correct: there was a slight mystery about his set-up. «I’ve got to change some money,» he said presently. Wilcox might just possibly suggest an advance.
«What have you got?» asked Wilcox.
«Express checks».
«I’ll cash whatever you want. I can give you a better rate than most of the banks, and a good deal better one than the money stalls».
Dyar gave him a fifty-dollar check. When he had his wallet stuffed with hundred-peseta notes and felt a little less depressed about his finances, he said: «When do I start work?»
«You’ve started,» Wilcox replied. «You’re working now. There’s a guy coming in here this afternoon, a customer of mine. He travels a lot, and always books through me. He’ll take you down to meet young Ramlal. You’d have to meet him anyway, sooner or later. The Ramlals are great friends of mine. I do a hell of a lot of business with them». This monologue made no sense to Dyar; moreover he had the impression that Wilcox was on the defensive while delivering it, as if he expected to be challenged. Soon enough, he thought, he would know what it was all about. «I see,» he said. Wilcox shot him a glance which he did not at all like: it was hard and unfriendly and suspicious. Then he went on. «I’ve got to be at somebody’s house for drinks around five, so I hope to God he comes soon. You can go down with him and come right back. I’ll wait till you get here. At six-thirty just go out and shut the door behind you. I’ll have a set of keys for you tomorrow». The telephone rang. There ensued a long conversation in which Wilcox’s part consisted mainly of the word «yes» uttered at irregular intervals. The door opened and a tall, slightly stooped gentleman wearing heavy tweeds and a raincoat stepped into the antechamber. Wilcox cut his telephone conversation short, stood up, and said: «This is Mr. Dyar. This is Mr. Ashcombe-Danvers. I sold him a ticket to Cairo the day after I opened this office, and he’s been coming back ever since. A satisfied client. Or at least I like to think so».