Shaw knew that Patricia O’Malley, who had travelled up with him from Buenos Aires, where he had left the North Dakota, would be waiting for him in her car outside the Pentagon; but before he left Pullman’s office he made a long-distance telephone call. It was to a hacienda near Concepción, in Bolivia; it was both a thank-you call for services rendered in contacting the British Ambassador in Buenos Aires, and at the same time it was an exploratory one. And it took some while. But at last he appeared. Patricia, tapping her fingers impatiently on the wheel and checking on a brand-new hair-do in her mirror, watched his tall, rangy figure approaching.
He was looking, she decided, mighty thoughtful about something and she had a shrewd idea what it might be.… As he neared the car she smiled up at him and pushed the door open. She said, ‘Well now, that took a long while, Esmonde.’
‘Did it? I suppose… well, there was quite a lot to say, one way and another.’ He added almost casually but with an underlying regret for things past that made her look sideways at him in concern, ‘I’ve been asked to an engagement party. At least I think that’s what it’ll be.’
‘Uh-huh.’ She avoided looking at him. ‘Going?’
‘No. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. I have to get back to London and report.’
‘Oh. When?’
He grinned down at her open, freckled face. ‘Pronto!’ he said lightly.
She crinkled her nose. ‘But not exactly right away?’
He didn’t answer at once; he seemed rather far off, she thought. Then he came back and smiled at her nicely. ‘Not right away,’ he admitted. ‘Know somewhere good for a drink and a meal?’
‘Why, surely!’ She let in the clutch and slid away smoothly. ‘It’s on Rainbow Boulevard. Number 1391—remember? The lady’s not such a bad cook and she can fix a whisky-sour with the best of them!’