‘Why should anyone try to poison you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Two strange stories -they cancel out. Probably there was no poison and the dog just died. I gather it was an old dog. But you must admit, Mr Wormold, that a lot of trouble seems to go on around you. Perhaps you are like one of those innocent children I have read about in your country who set poltergeists to work.’
‘Perhaps I am. Do you know the names of the poltergeists?’ ‘Most of them. I think the time has come to exorcise them. I am drawing up a report for the President.’
‘Am I on it?’
‘You needn’t be. I ought to tell you, Mr Wormold, that I have saved money, enough money to leave Milly in comfort if anything were ever to happen to me. And of course enough for us to settle in Miami if there were a revolution.’ ‘There’s no need for you to tell me all this. I’m not questioning your financial capacity.’
‘It is customary, Mr Wormold. Now for my health that is good. I can show you the certificates. Nor will there be any difficulty about children. That has been amply proved.’
‘I see.’
‘There is nothing in that which need worry your daughter. The children are provided for. My present encumbrance is not an important one. I know that Protestants are rather particular about these things.’
‘I’m not exactly a Protestant.’
‘And luckily your daughter is a Catholic. It would really be a most suitable marriage, Mr Wormold.’
‘Milly is only seventeen.’
‘It is the best and easiest age to bear a child, Mr Wormold. Have I your permission to speak to her?’
‘Do you need it?’
‘It is more correct.’
‘And if I said no…’
‘I would of course try to persuade you.’
‘You said once that I was not of the torturable class.’
Captain Segura laid his hand affectionately on Wormold’s shoulders. ‘You have Milly’s sense of humour. But seriously, there is always your residence-permit to consider.’
‘You seem very determined. All right. You may as well speak to her. You have plenty of opportunity on her way from school. But Milly’s got sense. I don’t think you stand a chance.’
‘In that case I may ask you later to use a father’s influence.’
‘How Victorian you are, Captain Segura. A father today has no influence.
You said there was something important…’
Captain Segura said reproachfully, ‘This was the important subject. The other is a matter of routine only. Would you come with me to the Wonder Bar?’ ‘Why?’
‘A police matter. Nothing for you to worry about. I am asking you a favour, that is all, Mr Wormold.’
They went in Captain Segura’s scarlet sport scar with a motor-cycle policeman before and behind. All the bootblacks from the Paseo seemed to be gathered in Virdudes. There were policemen on either side of the swing-doors of the Wonder Bar and the sun lay heavy overhead.
The motor-cycle policemen leapt off their machines and began to shoo the bootblacks away. Policemen ran out from the bar and formed an escort for Captain Segura. Wormold followed him. As always at that time of day, the jalousies above the colonnade were creaking in the small wind from the sea. The barman stood on the wrong side of the bar, the customers’ side. He looked sick and afraid. Several broken bottles behind him were still dripping single drops, but they had spilt their main contents a long while ago. Someone on the floor was hidden by the bodies of the policemen, but the boots showed the thick over-repaired boots of a not-rich old man. ‘It’s just a formal identification,’ Captain Segura said. Wormold hardly needed to see the face, but they cleared a way before him so that he could look down at Dr Hasselbacher.
‘It’s Dr Hasselbacher,’ he said. ‘You know him as well as I do.’ ‘There is a form to be observed in these matters,’ Segura said. ‘An independent identification.’
‘Who did it?’
Segura said, ‘Who knows? You had better have a glass of whisky. Barman!’ ‘No. Give me a daiquiri. It was always a daiquiri I used to drink with him.’
‘Someone came in here with a gun. Two shots missed. Of course we shall say it was the rebels from Oriente. It will be useful in influencing foreign opinion. Perhaps it was the rebels.’
The face stared up from the floor without expression. You couldn’t describe that impassivity in terms of peace or anguish. It was as though nothing at all had ever happened to it: an unborn face.
‘When you bury him put his helmet on the coffin.’
‘Helmet?’
‘You’ll find an old uniform in his flat. He was a sentimental man.’ It was odd that Dr Hasselbacher had survived two world wars and had died at the end of it in so-called peace much the same death as he might have died upon the Somme.
‘You know very well it had nothing to do with the rebels,’ Wormold said.
‘It is convenient to say so.’
‘The poltergeists again.’
‘You blame yourself too much.’
‘He warned me not to go to the lunch, Carter heard him, everybody heard him, so they killed him.’
‘Who are They?’
‘You have the list.’
‘The name Carter wasn’t on it.’
‘Ask the waiter with the dog, then. You can torture him surely. I won’t complain.’
‘He is German and he has high political friends. Why should he want to poison you?’
‘Because they think I’m dangerous. Me! They little know. Give me another daiquiri. I always had two before I went back to the shop. Will you show me your list, Segura?’
‘I might to a father-in-law, because I could trust him.’
They can print statistics and count the populations in hundreds of thousands, but to each man a city consists of no more than a few streets, a few houses, a few people. Remove those few and a city exists no longer except as a pain in the memory, like the pain of an amputated leg no longer there. It was time, Wormold thought, to pack up and go and leave the ruins of Havana. ‘You know,’ Captain Segura said, ‘this only emphasizes what I meant. It might have been you. Milly should be safe from accidents like this.’ ‘Yes,’ Wormold said. ‘I shall have to see to that.’
The policemen were gone from the shop when he returned. Lopez was out, he had no idea where. He could hear Rudy fidgeting with his tubes and an occasional snatch of atmospherics beat around the apartment. He sat down on the bed. Three deaths: an unknown man called Raul, a black dachshund called Max and an old doctor called Hasselbacher; he was the cause and Carter. Carter had not planned the death of Raul nor the dog, but Dr Hasselbacher had been given no chance. It had been a reprisaclass="underline" one death for one life, a reversal of the Mosaic Code. He could hear Milly and Beatrice talking in the next room. Although the door was ajar he only half took in what they were saying. He stood on the frontier of violence, a strange land he had never visited before; he had his passport in his hand. ‘Profession: Spy.’
‘Characteristic Features: Friendlessness.’
‘Purpose of Visit: Murder:’ No visa was required. His papers were in order.
And on this side of the border he heard the voices talking in the language he knew.
Beatrice said, ‘No, I wouldn’t advise deep carnation. Not at your age.’
Milly said, ‘They ought to give lessons in make-up during the last term.
I can just hear Sister Agnes saying, “A drop of Nuit d’Arnour behind the ears.” ‘Try this light carnation. No, don’t smear the edge of your mouth. Let me show you.’
Wormold thought, I have no arsenic or cyanide. Besides I will have no opportunity to drink with him. I should have forced that whisky down his throat. Easier said than done off the Elizabethan stage, and even there he would have needed in addition a poisoned rapier.
‘There. You see what I mean.’
‘What about rouge?’
‘You don’t need rouge.’