Tales of Mysteries & Espionage - John Buchan Edition. Buchan John
his. Of this loyalty there could be no doubt; they had lost the capacity for treason, since treason implies initiative.
But on certain matters he kept his own counsel. There were letters from Europe and the United States, specially marked, which he opened himself, and which were never answered or filed by his most efficient secretaries. There were visits to various South American cities of which no report existed in the Gran Seco offices, though at the other end, in various secret Government bureaus, there may he been some record. In recent months these curious activities had increased. Messages in the Gobernador’s most private cypher had been more frequent. He had begun to take minute interest in the policing of his province, the matter of passports, in the safeguarding of every mile of the frontier. Distant police officials had been badgered with questions, and the special bodyguard of the Administration had been increased. Also the Sanfuentes of the younger branch, who was Olifa’s Minister for External Affairs, had twice journeyed to the Gran Seco—an unheard of affair—and had been closeted for hours with the Gobernador, and on the second visit he had been accompanied by Senor Aribia, the Minister of Finance. New business, it appeared, was on the carpet, and for a fortnight the Gobernador did not appear at the Administration luncheons.
There was an air of tension, too, in the province, which like an electric current, made itself felt in more distant quarters. It affected Olifa, where there was an unwonted bustle in various departments, and high officials went about with laden brows and preoccupied eyes. It affected the foreign consulates and embassies of various South American states. It was felt in certain rooms in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, and Rome, large rooms decorated and furnished in the deplorable style of Government offices, where behind locked doors anxious men talked far into the night.
There was even a little extra stir in the dovecotes of Moscow, here a pale young man, who spoke bad French, had an interview with five others whose power was so great that even the governing caste knew them only by numbers, and thereafter a dozen insignificant-looking people crossed the Russian frontier with passports for various remote lands.
It especially affected Mr Roderick Wilbur, the American consul in Olifa. That heavy man spent two energetic days, and a still more energetic night, which was largely occupied burning papers. Then, leaving his office in the charge of his assistant and under the general care of Don Alejandro Gedd, he announced that he was about to take a holiday, and departed for the capital of an adjacent republic. There his holiday consisted in sitting in the office of the British Consul, and, being permitted to use his cypher, in sending, by way of the British Embassy in Washington, a series messages which brought two of his Ministers out of bed at one in the morning.
Yet in the midst of this activity the Gobernador must go a-journeying. His mission was, he said, to Europe, and in two months he would return. To Senor Rosas, the Vice-President of the Company, he committed the temporary charge. As the two sat in the big bright room on the first or of the great Administration Headquarters, into which travellers on the top of the tramcars could stare, while the clack of typewriters around them was like the noise of frogs in a pond at night, they made an interesting contrast. Both were big men, but while the Gobernador was hard and trim and spare, the Mexican looked sallow and flabby, as if he had been meant for a fat man but was kept lean by overwork and anxiety. Nevertheless his eye was clear and healthy. There was no intimacy between the two, but there was obviously respect. For Senor Rosas had under his special charge the most difficult element in the community—the white foremen and engineers, who did not belong to the close brotherhood of the Conquistadors or the Bodyguard, and were not subject to the harsh discipline of the mine labourers. They were the nearest approach in the Gran Seco to a free society, and needed careful handling.
Instructions were given, minute instructions, reports were referred to, diagrams consulted, calculations made, and the Mexican took many notes. Then the Gobernador pushed the papers aside, and his penetrating eyes dwelt on the other’s face. There was no cordiality between these two, only the confidence of a business partnership. They addressed each other formally, as was the custom in the Gran Seco.
“I am not satisfied with the Police, Senor,” he said. “I have information that there is a leakage somewhere. It is certain that in recent months unlicensed persons have bee inside our border. They may still be here. If they have gone, what have they gone to do? I have given instructions to make the mesh closer. That is not your province, know, but as my substitute I look to you to see that the work is done.”
The Mexican met the steady gaze of the other with a almost childlike candour. The hard lines of the jaw an cheek-bones made his large ruminant eyes at once innocent and unfathomable. English was being talked, and he replied in the drawl which he had learned in the States.
“I reckon you can trust me, Excellency, to hand over the territory to you a little bit more healthy than when you left it. I’m to expect you back in two months’ time?”
The other smiled. “That is my official leave. I may return earlier… I have much to do, but it may take less time than I expect. Perhaps in a month… or less… “
“Then you’ve got to fly to Europe.”
“Europe is for the public, Senor. My business may be done nearer home. As yet I cannot tell.”
“Say, you’re taking precautions? You’re not going alone? You’re a lot too valuable a commodity to be touring about like an ordinary citizen. There’s heaps of folk that are keeping something for us. You got to take precautions.”
The Gobernador frowned. “It has never been my custom, as you know, Senor. A man who goes in fear of his life is a fool—he had better be dead.”
“That’s sound as a general principle. But I guess this in a special emergency, and I can’t have you running risks. You got to take the three men you had when you last went north. You know the bunch—Carreras, and Dan Judson, and Biretti. I’ll have them washed and tidied up so as in do you credit. They won’t obtrude themselves, and they’ll do as they’re bid, but they’ll be at hand in case of dirty work. If there’s any shooting, I’ll say they shoot first. You aren’t justified in taking risks, Excellency. There’s a darned lot too much depends on you. I reckon you’re too big a man and too brave a man to be afraid of having some fool say you take mighty good care of your skin.”
The frown relaxed. “I suppose that is common sense. I will take the men with me.”
In Olifa the Gobernador did not go to a hotel. He had his rooms in the great Gran Seco building in the Avenida in la Paz. He did not leave the building much—at any rate of day; but he was a magnet to draw the eminent thither. Senor Vicente Sanfuentes and Senor Aribia visited him here, and on two occasions the President himself, modestly in foot, and not accompanied by the tossing plumes and bright harness of the Presidential Guard. Also General Bianca, the Minister of War, who had been in a dozen of the old wars of Olifa, came to pay his respects, and with him came the departmental heads, the Chief of Staff, the Director-General of Transport, the officer commanding the Olifa district, all youngish men, who had found in Olifa a market for professional talents which were no longer valued in Europe.
Among the callers was Colonel Lindburg, the commissioner of police of one of the provinces. He had a report to make. “Acting upon your instructions, Excellency, I have inquired into the doings of our friend Don Luis in Marzaniga. He spends his time between the country house where he lives alone with his widowed mother, and the cattle-ranch in the Vulpas valley. In an ancient car he is at all times bumping over the roads between the two. Also he is often at Veiro, for he advises the old Don Mario about his young stock. I am satisfied that every movement of Don Luis for the past month can be amply explained.”
“And Veiro?”
“You yourself have seen, Excellency. Don Mario has entertained the young English baronet and his wife, and the American girl, Senorita Dasent. They were sent to him by his foolish cousin, Don Alejandro Gedd. I have had the place watched, and, except for Don Luis, no one else has visited there.”
The Gobernador appeared to be satisfied, and, after compliments, Colonel Lindburg withdrew. But when the policeman had gone the great man opened a dispatch-box and took from it a small memoranda book. He reread it a message which he