Flames Coming out of the Top

by Norman Collins

  “It is the matter which brings you here,” Señor Muras replied gravely. “The matter which removed you from a comfortable position at home and set you wild goose chasing half-way across the world to investigate. You must know as well as I do, Señor Dunnett, that an importing establishment does not suddenly suspend payments to its parent houses without some very good reason; and only your good manners have prevented your asking what it is.”

  “You mean shortage of ready money, I suppose?” Dunnett put in bluntly.

  Señor Muras sounded almost relieved. “You have saved me a great deal of embarrassment,” he said. “Not that it is the first time in the history of wholesale commerce that money has been hard to come by. With us, the real cause is the war; it has destroyed everything. Our bills are not met and yet we are pressed for payment. The market has gone to pieces before our eyes. It is not sewing-machines and patent-medicines that people are wanting any more, but guns. To make money in these days one should be an armaments manufacturer, not a general merchant.” Señor Muras shook his head sadly over the unpeacefulness of the world and the prospect of his vanished profits.

  Dunnett sat back and regarded him. Señor Muras’s wine had mellowed him slightly and he felt strong and confident. “Tell me, Señor Muras,” he said, “which is it you really mind about—all those people getting killed, or your business being run at a loss?”

  Señor Muras considered the point attentively. “I am managing director of a company,” he said simply. “My first duty is towards that. And to make a loss is a betrayal of my duty. I cannot really see that my feelings enter into it.” He paused as though wrestling with some deep inner problem, and then added, “It is our helplessness in the struggle that is so terrible. For my own part I would gladly give everything I have—everything—if only I could stop the carnage. But what good would that do? I should only be the poorer, and the war would go on just the same.”

  They sat for a moment without speaking, and Dunnett waited expectantly for what was to come. He felt pretty sure, from Señor Muras’s manner, that something else was coming. And he was right. The man had cleared a track across the table so that he could lean forward and talk confidentially.

  “Señor Dunnett,” he said with an air of hesitation, “I do not know quite how to proceed. It complicates everything your being an Englishman. If you were Spanish, or Italian, or Portuguese, I should offer you a bribe and there would be no further trouble. But with you, I do not suggest it.”

  “That’s very considerate of you,” Dunnett answered, “because I should inform Mr. Govern immediately if you were to do anything of the kind.”

  Señor Muras made a pacifying movement with his hand. “It is just as I thought,” he said. “You are offended if I only mention it. And yet there is nothing dishonourable in what I want you to do.”

  “Then why try to bribe me?”

  “Because it is a little irregular,” Señor Muras explained, “and I was not sure if you would understand. All that I want you to do is not to act too impetuously, not to jump to rash conclusions. In short, I want you to postpone making any sort of report for another month or six weeks.”

  “What good would that do?” Dunnett enquired.

  “By then,” Señor Muras answered, “I shall have recovered some of the money which I have paid out, and I shall be able to settle my debts in full.” He passed his hand across his eyes. “Those terrible stock rooms,” he murmured. “Full to the ceilings. Shall I ever see them clear again?”

  “You’ve had nine months in which to pay,” Dunnett reminded him.

  “Then why quarrel about a further six weeks?”

  “I’m afraid it’s not possible,” Dunnett said curtly. “My report goes back to Mr. Govern as soon as it’s ready.”

  “Very well,” Señor Muras shrugged his shoulders. “I shall have to sell my goods for what I can get, like a common bankrupt. And that will be nothing—absolutely nothing. It will mean ruin. You will have to find another representative and I shall have to start in business again when things are more settled. But if you are decided-”

  A waiter approached them carrying a letter on a tray. Señor Muras appeared relieved. “Excuse me,” he said “I have been expecting this.” He tore the envelope hurriedly and read the scribbled lines on the thin, crinkled paper. The contents appeared to please him. His smile broke out quite spontaneously and remained upon him. “I am participating in a little affair,” he explained in a whisper, “and I have been awaiting this message. It tells me exactly what I wanted to know: that I may come. To-night, after the Opera. She is singing until midnight and then we meet. I would entertain her at the hacienda but for my wife. The most jealous of women, you understand; at once so sensitive and so highly strung. I must ask you in no circumstances to mention this letter.”

  Dunnett looked at his watch. “I expect you’ll be wanting to get along,” he suggested.

  Señor Muras’s smile broadened. “That is very considerate of you,” he said. “I have one or two things to buy first— some orchids perhaps, or some dark red roses. Music and flowers—could anything be more beautiful?”

  He began groping for his wallet and removed a bundle of notes like floreated wall-paper. He struck the side of his glass with a knife handle and called loudly for his bill. Then he turned to Dunnett, “Please God,” he said, “I shall never grow out of my weakness for women.”

  Dunnett sat alone in his bedroom diligently killing the hour that remained until midnight. In one way, it all seemed so simple now: with Señor Muras out of the way, the assault on the stock rooms was as good as half completed. But it was the waiting itself that was difficult in the heat. Down there, on the level of the sea, the setting of the sun made no difference. The atmosphere merely became more humid and the whole place swam in a sea of torrid vapour. And in such a climate, sleep was always dangerously close at hand.

  He did not leave the hotel until he had actually heard midnight chime. Or rather begin to chime. There were eleven chiming clocks in Amricante and each announced its individual version of the hour. It was ten minutes past twelve by the first of them when the last suddenly broke into mechanical celebration. By then Dunnett was walking rapidly through the sleeping town towards the Compañia Muras.

  It was an odd time for a visit, admittedly. But his visit in itself was odd enough. There hadn’t been anything in the Board’s instructions about waiting until Señor Muras’s back was turned and then going through the pockets of his overcoat to see what he had hidden there. And looked at in the light of day perhaps it wasn’t commercial life at its most honourable. But did honour really enter into it? Dunnett wondered. So far as honour and Señor Muras were concerned there seemed to have been a parting of the ways some distance down the road.

  He reached the Compañia Muras without meeting anyone except a street walker, who murmured something soft as he passed, and a sailor too drunk to stand. Then he set to work to bribe the negro door-keeper.

  The negro did everything in his power to assist him; as soon as he understood that the suggestion was one of bribery he held out his hand through the bars of the ornamental gates and took all that Dunnett offered him. A continuous rumble of thanks came from him. He kept thrusting out his fist like a marmoset in a cage. He did everything, in fact, except open the gates.

  That was not achieved until Dunnett had given him a separate donation of five bolivianos. By then Dunnett was cautious and the money did not actually change hands until the gate was open and he had got his foot inside. The negro appeared to know the manoeuvre and not resent it. He locked the gate after him with a formidable show of efficiency. “To keep people out,” he explained.

  There still remained the business of persuading the negro to let him make a tour of the stock rooms. The man began by pretending that he could not understand—always a bad sign when one is trying to persuade someone to do something illicit. Then he declared that it was as much as his job was worth, and hinted that his life might even be in danger. Only the
offer of a further five bolivianos to be paid on entry overcame his scruples and his fears.

  The night seemed very still when he had gone off for his keys. There was no one else moving in the compound: and the sounds of the harbour and the town came over the high walls rarefied and uninsistent. The mist in the courtyard was scarcely more than waist high: it might have been poured in through the front gate and not been enough to fill the place. The moon, which was bright, cast two shadows—one on the uneven surface of the mist and the other on the ground below. Dunnett shivered as he stood there. He was glad even of the company of the negro when he returned.

  The five main stock rooms stood in a row. Dunnett made for the end one, which was apportioned to Govern and Fryze. He stood back and the negro fitted the key into the lock. It was not an instantaneous process; the key chased the lock round the panel like a greyhound after a hare. When at last the door was open, Dunnett stepped inside. His feet rang out loudly into the gloom in front of him. The negro offered for a consideration to lend him his torch. Dunnett put out his hand and took it for nothing. He switched the light on the floor in front of him and up and down the walls. Then he understood why his feet had started such echoes as he walked. The whole stock room was empty.

  The only occupant seemed to be a lizard.

  The lizard rested in a trance-like posture on the ceiling, its head thrown back as though it had just taken up a strikingly defiant attitude in a world suddenly turned upside down. It clucked softly at him—or at something else: its eyes were examining the boundless inverted hunting-plains of the ceiling —as he passed. Dunnett walked down to the far end of the stock room flashing his torch from side to side. In the belief that something valuable must have been lost, the negro followed almost on all fours searching desperately in the hopes of winning some no doubt substantial reward.

  “When was this stock room cleared?” Dunnett demanded.

  “Motor lorries,” the negro replied, raising himself into an upright position once more.

  “But when?”

  “Four of them.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Last Wednesday at four o’clock in the morning.”

  “Yes, but where?”

  The negro appeared surprised and a trifle hurt. “As I said, Señor,” he replied, “motor lorries. Four of them.”

  “But where were they going?”

  “You mean what place?”

  Dunnett nodded.

  The negro dropped his voice and leant forward. “They smashed my gate,” he said confidentially. “Four of them.”

  Dunnett turned his back on him and walked towards the door. Overhead, the lizard still cluck-clucked at him. But Dunnett was thinking only of one thing: what he was going to say to Señor Muras in the morning. Just as he reached the door it opened of its own accord. The negro gave a little howl of terror. Then a shadow fell across the threshold. It was Señor Muras. His width fitted the doorway. And it was evident that he was not alone. Across the crook of his arm, a long, pale hand rested. He stepped a little to one side and the owner of the hand became visible. She was an imposing-looking woman, like a peroxided and mascara-lidded statue. When she stepped forward, the store room seemed full of scent. All around her capacious bosom she was swathed in white furs as though it were winter, and somewhere amid the furs a spray of dark red roses had been added. Dunnett stood where he was staring at them both; behind him he could hear the negro saying something that sounded like a prayer. Then he was aware that the creature on Señor Muras’s arm was smiling at him, revealing a glint of magnificent gold teeth as she did so.

  Señor Muras came forward, bowing politely. He ignored the negro completely. “We were just speaking of you, Señor Dunnett,” he said, “and my friend, Señorita Pilar—of the Opera, you know—wished to meet you. I felt sure that we should find you here.”

  Chapter VI

  Dunnett woke next morning at the exact point at which he had at last dropped off on the previous night. He was wide awake at once. It was simply as though time had suddenly been set back upon itself and Señor Muras and his enticing companion were still confronting him in the misty courtyard. In his ears were the purring and sinister tones of Señor Muras. They had not spoken much after the initial moment of the encounter. Dunnett had said something guarded but significant about seeing Señor Muras in the morning, and had left them. Their two figures faded into the night behind him. But not so easily from his mind. Señorita Pilar he did not care about: Señor Muras was free to raid what orchards he pleased. But Señor Muras himself was a different matter. Dunnett cursed himself for having been fooled so long.

  As he dressed he went over in his mind the show-down that was coming. He was quite fixed on it this time. He would cable to the London house what he was going to do, and then do it before they could possibly have time to stop it. The first step was to see Señor Muras and give him twenty-four hours in which to find the amount of Govern and Fryze’s bill: the next step—to be made precisely twenty-four hours and five minutes after the first one—was to find a reliable lawyer (were there any of that kind, he wondered, in Amricante?) and secure an injunction preventing Señor Muras from disposing of any other of his property.

  But when he came down to breakfast, there was already a cable waiting for him. “VERY MUCH DISTURBED,” it read, “RELY ON YOU MAKE THOROUGH INVESTIGATION STOP DO YOU SUSPECT FRAUDULENT PRACTICE STOP INSIST YOU KEEP US CLOSELY INFORMED GOVERN,” Dunnett read it through grimly and went on drinking the harsh, bitter coffee. They’ll be disturbed all right, he said to himself, when they get my reply. He broke his morning roll with a great deal of unnecessary force and mentally began composing a reply. When he had got it to his liking he left without troubling to finish his meal.

  “AM CONVINCED WE HAVE BEEN LED ON A STRING,” the Cable ran; “PROPOSE IF NO SATISFACTION BY TOMORROW MIDDAY PLACE EVERYTHING IN HANDS OF GOOD LAWYER STOP REGARD INJUNCTION ESSENTIAL STOP PLEASE AUTHORISE?” As soon as he had sent it off he felt better. It was the first move towards wiping out the shame of last night’s discovery. He now looked forward to telling Señor Muras what he had done.

  The streets were pleasant enough at this time. There was even an air of freshness about everything that belied the heat that was to come. The tramcars, under their bright awnings lurched past as though on the way to some vast garden fête; and from the open windows of every house came the cheerful noise of rugs being shaken out and carpets brushed. Within the town everything was at peace, and away on the skyline the Fiery Mountain smoked in indolent and remote dignity. It was morning of another kind up there, of course, hot, gaseous, volcanic. But there was nothing particularly alarming about it; the Fiery Mountain was simply burning up its internal rubbish with the lazy tediousness of an old slagheap. The only real hint of the stoking that had gone on within it was the spreading pillar of grey that rose up from the centre until it made the mountains below it look squat and flattened.

  Dunnett reached the Compañia Muras at nine-thirty. It had a strangely closed appearance. Even the gates were locked. When he rang the bell, a native Bolivian, one handspring from the Indian, came out and enquired his business; evidently the negro had already been suspended for his conduct on the previous night.

  “I wish to see Señor Muras,” Dunnett told him.

  “Señor Muras is not in,” the man replied.

  “But I’ve got some business with him.”

  “Señor Muras is not in.”

  It was at that point that Dunnett decided that a brief show of temper might prove advantageous: he did not know until he began how naturally it would come to him. Taking hold of the bars as though trying to bend them he began to rattle the two gates until the chains danced. “Just you open these blasted gates,” he shouted, “and be quick about it. I’ll have you turned out of here on your ear if you keep me waiting any longer.”

  The man on the other side regarded him with great interest. “Pardon?” he enquired, and Dunnett realised that he had addressed the doork
eeper in English. He paused and gave the man a serviceable translation in Spanish.

  “Unfortunately,” the gatekeeper replied, “I have orders not to open them.”

  “Who gave you those orders?”

  “Señor Muras gave them before he went away.”

  “Where has Señor Muras gone?” Dunnett demanded.

  The gatekeeper spread his hands. “I do not know,” he said. “Señor Muras does not tell us where he goes. I only know that he is not here.”

  “When will he be back?”

  “He did not say.”

  “Is Señor Olivares here?”

  “Oh yes, Señor Olivares is here.”

  “Then can I see him?”

  “Señor Olivares is not in.”

  “But you just told me that he was here.”

  “He is here but he is not in.”

  “When will he be in.”

  “I cannot say.”

  “Then if you don’t know when he will be in how can you say that he is here?”

  “Because he has not gone away. He said he was coming back.”

  Their conversation at this point was interrupted by the arrival of Señor Olivares himself. He stepped out of one of Amricante’s gay taxicabs—it was an orange and green run-about with a spray of artificial flowers like a bouquet mounted on the partition—and came running across the pavement. He had a bundle of papers crushed under his arm and wore the anxious expression of a man who has some important mission to perform against time. When he saw Dunnett his anxiety increased visibly. “Please to excuse,” he said hurriedly.

  Dunnett stepped in front of him. “Where has Señor Muras gone?” he demanded.

  The little man began side-stepping him like a dancer. “I do not know,” he replied quietly. “Pardon my hurry, but I have work to perform.”

  “Not until you tell me where Señor Muras is.”

  “I have not told you because I do not know.” Señor Olivares’s voice rose into a thin wail of exasperation.