`If I could believe you, of course I would. But I'm not certain that I do. Give me the names of the ringleaders in this conspiracy and perhaps I might.'
`Don Alberuque is the king pin. His principal lieutenant is a Father Lopez.'
Ramon gave a cynical laugh. `Do you take me for a simpleton? Alberuque is a clever and important man, but he is not a Prince of the Church. This is an attempt by the Church to regain her temporal power in Mexico by using these half baked Indians. It is the names of the prelates we want the really big boys who are behind this thing.'
`You are barking up the wrong tree,' Adam replied earnestly. `I'm convinced that they are not involved. They know nothing about it. With a very few exceptions, this revolt is to be led by Mestizos and Indian clergy who are still half pagan and besotted with superstition.'
`I very much doubt that. It's much more likely that the wool has been pulled over your eyes and that those who stand to gain most if the revolution came off are still keeping under cover.'
Adam shrugged. `Well, you've got another fortnight or three weeks in which to find out. The party at Uxmal was only what they termed a ceremony of Recognition, held so that local leaders
from all over the country could vouch for it that they had seen Quetzalcoatl in the flesh with their own eyes. They are back in
their towns and villages by now, spreading the good word. But that is going to take time. The plan was that I should not appear again until everything was ready, and that when I did it should be the signal for the balloon to go up.'
'Then it never will go up,' Ramon gave a sardonic smile, `because, for a long time to come, you will be sweating it out as a convict in a labour gang. Having been idiot enough to incite these people to revolt, that is the price you will have to pay.'
`Thanks,' Adam retorted bitterly. 'But at least I'll have one consolation. That scheming bastard Alberuque will be wielding a pick beside me.'
Maybe; but quite possibly not. The government's policy is the less said about this thing the better. Alberuque has not been pulled in yet, nor anyone else except yourself. And that was not intended. The Police Chief down at Merida was a bit over zealous. Information about your party reached him only at the last moment. He could not raise enough police on the nod to rope in the whole congregation; so he sent the few he could lay his hands on, with orders to ignore everything else and concentrate on bringing in the principal performer. As you were the star of the show, they naturally went all out to get you.'
`I see. Then I, although an innocent party, am booked to carry the can for all those who are really guilty?'
`That's what it looks like. If you are innocent and I'm still inclined to doubt it. There will be no fuss or bother. You will be tried in camera and quietly put away for a term of years.'
`You can't mean that!' Adam cried desperately. `You can't. I am innocent, I swear I am.'
Ramon shook his curly head. `You may swear until you are blue in the face that you are; but you are not. I'll grant that you may not have intended to provoke a civil war, but the fact is that you made a speech calling on the people to overthrow the government. You can't laugh that off and, even if I would, I couldn't help you. What is coming to you is the price you must pay for having let Chela make use of you.'
Adam had gone white. In a low voice he said, 'Chela; what has become of her?'
`Oh, Chela's all right,' Ramon shrugged. `I had to fly up to Monterrey on Wednesday, otherwise I would have come to see you yesterday. But I got back last night and saw Chela dancing at the jacaranda. She may be a bit peeved about having lost your services, but she didn't show it.' After a moment he pressed a bell and added, `I don't think there is any more to be said, so I'll have you taken down to your cell.'
Utterly stricken, Adam allowed himself to be led away. As ion as the door of his cell had been locked behind him, he sat down on his truckle bed and buried his head in his hands. Too late, he realised what a lunatic he had been not to let Ramon know that he had agreed to act as Quetzalcoatl. If he had really set his wits to work on the problem he could surely have found some excuse to use the telephone which would have fooled Chela. It occurred to him now that he could have said that he had to phone the British Embassy, have got on to Jeremy Hunterscombe, and asked him to give Ramon a simple message such as `Gordon has agreed to play principal lead'. In retrospect, it also seemed probable that his fears of the postal censorship had been greatly exaggerated and that he could easily have got off a letter before setting out for Merida. But the fact was that he had been too absorbed in his love affair with Chela to give the matter serious thought or realise its importance. Then, when it was too late, he had been pushed into his act without even five minutes' warning. The thought of a ten year sentence in a Mexican prison was to awful to contemplate; but Ramon had been right in saying that, even if his intention had been to make a further report on he progress of the conspiracy as soon as he had a chance, the fact remained that he had made a speech to its leaders from all over he country, inciting them to revolt.
He wondered for a moment whether he could plead insanity, but dismissed the idea at once. He could not bring a tittle of evidence to show that he had ever been abnormal, so no doctor would certify him.
Added to his tormented speculations concerning his future was what Ramon had said about Chela. How could she go out and dance at a night club, knowing him to be in prison and about to face a trial the outcome of which was almost certain to be that they would never see one another again?
He recalled their bitter quarrel when, after his rescue by Father Suarez he had flatly refused to continue playing the part of Quetzalcoatl. It must be that she had decided to break with him on that account. Yet from the fierce passion of her embraces and unvarying sweetness towards him at Oaxaca, Acapulco and at Uxmal, he could have sworn that she loved him. Perhaps she had, but only in so far as was possible to her on account of her nature. she was twenty six and had freely admitted that she had been the mistress of other men. It might well be that her hot Indian blood craved constant sexual satisfaction and that she had been sleeping with a succession of men ever since her teens. That possibility was reinforced by the fact that her mother had deliberately left her
native village to enter on a life of vice, and in such matters heredity often played a decisive part. If the reason for Chela's conduct was that she was secretly a nymphomaniac, it followed that, having lost one lover, she would soon seek another. Perhaps then, knowing that an arbitrary end had been put to their affair, although she had loved him after her fashion, she had decided that the best way to get him out of her mind was to go dancing with some other man. It was even possible that she had slept with him.
The mental picture of her doing with some new lover the sort of things she had done with him caused Adam suddenly to be stricken with almost insane jealousy. He wrung his hands and groaned aloud. The long hours of the day that followed were the worst he had ever spent.
Night fell at last, but he could not sleep. In vain he endeavoured to quieten his mind with thoughts of other things; but persistently they returned to himself, spending endless months in prison, barely existing on coarse, monotonous food, forced to slave at some uncongenial task and, for his only companions, ignorant, brutalized felons from among the scum of the earth. Alternatively he thought of Chela, moaning with passionate enjoyment beneath some muscular young man.
The hours dragged on until, close on midnight, a key grated in the lock of his cell. Starting up as the door opened, he saw the battered face of the gorilla like warder. The mail told him in a gruff voice that he was wanted upstairs.
With a sigh, he left the bed, tidied himself as best he could and went out into the passage, wondering why he had been summoned. It could hardly be that they wanted to interrogate him again, as Ramon already knew all there was to know about his case.