Three-Cornered Halo (4 page)

Miss Cockrill strolled down next morning to the quay, in search of the Gerente de Politio, charged with messages from her brother, the Inspector. She found him there, sure enough. In his flat, black-mackintoshy circular hat, cracked across the back and turned up flat against the crown, protected from the strong sunshine by his flowing, calf-length cloak of midnight blue, he was padding up and down on dirty bare feet, superintending the unloading of a cargo of contraband. He greeted her with exuberance, enquiring most animatedly after his dear friend and brother policeman from Scotalanda Yarrrda; but his brow was black and his eyes wore an anxious frown, and he suddenly asked abruptly: “Senorita Cockereel—in Inghil-terra, it is not the habit to take snuff?”

Cousin Hat had, as in duty bound, aided Winsome in her researches into the Juanese tongue during the year of their absence from the island, which had been largely spent in work upon the Diaries; but her familiarity with the language did not rise to such heights as these. The Gerente raised a large, dirty thumb, poked imaginary powder up his nostril, and vigorously sneezed. “Oh—snuff,” said Miss Cockrill. “Well—on the whole—no.”

“Nobody takes snuff?”

“Only artists and people. A grubby habit,” said Cousin Hat.

Only artists. And in San Juan, said the Gerente, not even artists. The tabacca, yes. The tabacca da fiuto—no. And yet … He drew her aside and away from the toiling throng, dived into a pocket and, discarding several packages of habit-forming drugs and a small box of dubious diamonds, showed something that lay like a frost-flower in his great, dirty palm. “Senorita—look at this!”

It was a box, a tiny box of crystal and gold, with a design on its lid of a marguerite, set in pearls. Attached to it was a label, saying quite simply: SMUGLED. It was engraved ‘Mad in San Juan.'

Miss Cockrill recognised it immediately. “That's Tomaso di Goya's work.”

“Tomaso!” said the Gerente gloomily.

“He had some in his shop last year, only they were larger, they were cigarette-cases. He was selling them like hot cakes; I bought one myself, for a present.”

“Cigarette-cases. But this,” said the Gerente, “is not a cigarette-case?”

“Well, no,” said Miss Cockrill. She held the pretty thing in her own small, square hand. “Ah, yes, now I see—a snuff-box?”

“A snuff-box.! This is what Tomaso now says: ‘We can call it a snuff-box.' But nobody on the island of San Juan takes snuff: and in Inghilterra, in America, in all the countries of the touristi, Senorita—they do not take snuff.”

“So how are you to sell the snuff-box?” prompted Miss Cockrill.

“How are we to sell five thousand snuff-boxes, Senorita?—five thousand, ten thousand, for all we know—we have not yet finished unloading the boxes.” And he snatched the pretty thing suddenly from her open hand and flung it with all his might away from him. Its flight through the air made an iridescent rainbow, it fell all a-shimmer in the sunshine to sink between the close-packed prows of the boats, into the dirty water that lapped the quay.

The Gerente de Politio had grown rich of recent years. The smuggling world must pay bribes to him; but he need pay no bribes—indeed there came a time, he had long ago confided to his friend, Inspector Cockrill, when one must decide between buying up the boats and owning them or collecting the bribes from those who did. Others of his wealth would long ago have retired—why work when one might be free to drowse away the rest of life in the Juanese sunshine over a glass of arguadiente and a handful of fat green olives from the Toscanita plain? But he, the Gerente, had many daughters, he could not afford to retire—and to give up one's post as head of the police meant, of course, that the bribes fell away to almost nothing, leaving one with no income but a little desultory blackmail, that dwindled as one's old friends and henchmen died off; for to keep on the boats after one had left the police, would mean paying bribes in one's turn, let alone blackmail, and it simply was not, financially speaking, a proposition. So he remained in harness and prospered and grew rich; but not rich enough, surely, thought the scandalised Miss Cockrill, to toss into the harbour a trinket of crystal and gold. “Well—that was a splendid gesture, Gerente. But expensive.”

The Gerente did not answer. He selected a silver-chased rifle of blunderbuss design from a heap of similar weapons stacked, hay-wise, on the quay, barked a few angry instructions to his men and, shuffling his feet into the filthy white sandshoes which he wore when on duty, took Miss Cockrill respectfully by her skinny arm and marched her off up the hill. “You come with me, Senorita, I pray, and we speak with Tomaso.” If, he added coldly, Tomaso had not already cut his throat; though in that case, before the day was out he, the Gerente, would probably do it for him.

“But not before me,” said Cousin Hat. “I dislike the sight of blood.”

The single street of Barrequitas runs like a rivulet, cobble-bedded, down from the Toscanita ridge, to the quay; and under its sunless banks crouch the little shops, brilliant with colour—white cheeses, the local pottery from the red earth, turquoise and green and scarlet summer cottons, the tawny yellow and blue-black bloom of grapes.… Half-way up is the goldsmith's shop, the Joyeria, a shadowy Rembrandt thrust through with Rembrandt flashes of jewels and gold. From out of its chiaroscuro of shade, Tomaso came forward to meet them, a gipsy figure with sly black eyes and the hands of a craftsman, scarred and brown. “Ah, Senorita, happily to see you, yesterday we spoke upon the vaporetto and last year you were most graciously coming to my shop.…” He exhausted himself in self-congratulation on the Senorita's return visit, but he too wore a very anxious frown; and, dragging forward a chair for her, he put the question that was uppermost in his mind. “Senorita, in Inghilterra——”

“In Inghilterra, do they take snuff?” said the Gerente. “I have asked already. No, they do not.”

Tomaso opened the shop's great safe by the simple expedient of tugging at the handle, and took from among its contents a bottle of arguadiente and three glasses. They sat over the polished counter, their elbows propped in a welter of brooches and bracelets and rings, enamelled boxes, carved jade figurines, tassels of pearls strung on short lengths of silken thread. “It is no use, Tomaso. We have ten thousand snuff-boxes and no market for them at all.”

Tomaso shrugged and grimaced, throwing out expostula-tory hands. “Was it I, Guido Bussaca, who mixed up ‘fiume' with ‘fiuto'?”

“Was it I who wrote down the measurements all wrong?”

“Was it I who tore up the paper and decided to ‘remember'?”

“Was it I who created the smugglers' rule, ‘Nothing written down'?”

“Was it I——? But what use to accuse one another, Guido? A catastrophe has happened: it will not mend it to decide who was at fault.”

“Quite right. Stop quarrelling,” said Miss Cockrill, just as though she were Cousin Hat and back among the nieces, “and tell me what is the matter.”

The matter was, of course, that El Gerente and Tomaso had gone into business together; and had come unstuck. “The cigarette-cases, Senorita. Tomaso did well with them last year, the year before. The emblem of El Margherita on the lid, this was an attraction.…”

“No emblem,” said Tomaso sulkily. “A flower. A pretty design, that was all.”

“Very well, very well—a pretty design. Tomaso is a pagan, Senorita, an agnostic, the name of Mother Church is to him as the red cloak of the matador to the bull. At any rate—they sold. They sold for five gold pesselire apiece. This was good?”

“Very good,” said Miss Cockrill, sourly. She herself had paid six pesselire in Tomaso's shop.

“A profit of three pesselire,” said Tomaso happily, unaware of this check.

“But Senorita, this is expensive, not so many can buy. Therefore, I say to Tomaso, or Tomaso to me, ‘Let us have these boxes made cheaply in Tangiers.' In Naples, Senorita, there is a certain type of glass that will do very well for cut crystal, in Catalonia they make solid pearls from old fish-skins, charmingly iridescent; here in San Juan, Tomaso himself turns out a metal that you could not tell from gold. And in Tangiers there are cheap factories, there is a certain el Hamid, who can turn out such things to a miracle, a hundred at a time.…”

“I see,” said Miss Cockrill, remembering back to the legend, ‘Mad in San Juan,' engraved on the box.

“And all this is very good business, Senorita. For this glass must be carried to Tangiers from Naples, these pearls from Barcelona, from San Juan itself, this gold.” The Gerente bent his large brown face to peer into hers. “You see?”

“Oh, certainly,” said Miss Cockrill. “You have ships.”

“A fleet of ships, Senorita—a smuggling fleet.”

“I see,” said Cousin Hat again.

“And so, Senorita—a ‘Senor Guido' of San Juan places an order with el Hamid in Tangiers for the boxes, specifying this glass, these pearls, that gold. And—Tomaso must produce the gold: and to el Hamid his price is high, my boats must carry the goods: and to el Hamid my price is high. So our profit, Senorita, is doubly great.” He eyed her with a knowing but quizzical air.

“Except that, unless he is a fool,” said Cousin Hat, “el Hamid will raise the price of the boxes to cover the high cost of the transport and the gold.”

Tomaso and El Gerente shook their heads in wonder. You couldn't put anything across the Senorita, that was clear. However, they themselves had not been at a loss. “True, Senorita, when the estimate came from el Hamid, it was very high. So Tomaso and I devised a plan. The price was accepted, the gold was sent, the glass and the pearls delivered, we took our money—for in the smuggling world, Senorita, one pays in cash. In Tangiers the boxes are made, are packed, el Hamid is ready for shipping. But—where are the ships? Here at home, ‘Senor Guido' grows impatient, he sends messages to Tangiers demanding delivery; but in Tangiers they are now having trouble with the Capitano of the smuggling fleet. My Capitano ‘smells danger,' he hints at treachery, he will not sail. No other Capitano will touch the goods, for between smugglers such arrangements are, of course, a matter of honour. So el Hamid frets and threatens; from ‘Senor Guido' come messages—he will wait no longer, already he had lost business, he refuses to accept delivery, he will not pay. El Hamid grows desperate with a cargo of glass boxes on his hands, he lowers the price to ‘Senor Guido,' he raises the price he will pay to my Capitano. But we are patient, we wait, we play our fish ever a little more and a little more.…” He shrugged ruefully, sadly anticipating the ending of his story. “After all, Senorita—this was sound, we would have been foolish to give in too soon?” The Senorita, who had shown such financial genius in her grasp of the fundamental error in their earlier calculations, would clearly appreciate that.

“Strategically speaking,” said Miss Cockrill, not otherwise committing herself, “perfectly sound.”

“And yet … The hour comes, Senorita, the tourist season is at hand, we must have our boxes, we can haggle no longer. ‘Senor Guido' at last succumbs: at a much reduced price, of course—he will accept the boxes. And then, Senorita, can you imagine the perfidy of these Moroccans?—el Hamid refuses to deliver. He has changed his mind, he has found another purchaser for the boxes, he cannot accept our price. Now it is our turn to bargain, for the season is upon us, the touristi flock into the island, Tomaso has concentrated his business on these boxes, he is already short of goods to sell.…” He shrugged again, his great shoulders bruising his ears in the extremity of despair. “Senorita—it is now September. The season of the touristi is nearly over. And today—
today
—at the price that first we made with that robber, el Hamid, paid cash down in Tangiers before my cargo was allowed to sail: today there arrive five thousand—snuff-boxes!” He plunged his bare brown elbows into the heaped trincum-trankums on the counter and buried his face in his hands.

Miss Cockrill maintained a one-minute's silence in respect for departed illusions. It was clear that El Gerente's faith in human nature was sadly shattered. She suggested at last: “Couldn't some other use be found for the boxes? In England, women often carry a little box like that in their handbags—for pills, aspirin, dieting rubbish, that sort of thing.”

“Senorita, in a fortnight the last of the touristi Inghlesi will be gone. For eight months more, there will be no one. And meanwhile,” said Tomaso, “I have to live.”

El Gerente obviously knew the answer to that one; but he controlled himself and only said brokenly that he had many daughters. “And my Pepita, also.”

“And there is my Lorenna.”

“Lorenna!” said El Gerente contemptuously.

“Ah! ‘Lorenna' you say; but I tell you, Gerente, something must be done about this girl. She will do herself a mischief,” said Tomaso complacently, “if I break with her now. She is mad with love, poor thing.”

“She has her work.”

“Since she knew me, she is not happy in her work. Innocenta is kind, but she cannot keep for ever a girl who does nothing but cry. It is fortunate at least that it comes at the end of the season.…”

“Well, well,” said the Gerente impatiently, “we cannot trouble ourselves now with affairs of the heart. The snuffboxes must be sold if you are to eat, Tomaso, if Pepita and I and our children are to eat; and since there will be no touristi, how shall we sell them, here in San Juan?”

“The answer to that is simple,” said Tomaso. He sloshed arguadiente into the little glasses, the bottle smooth, with shifting green shadows, in his scarred brown hand. “We shall not.”

“Unless,” insisted Cousin Hat, “you can think of some use for them.” She tried again. “The boxes have El Margherita's emblem on them—whether Tomaso calls it that or not. Aren't there such things as ‘reliquaries'? All those crumbs, for example, from Juanita's table …?”