Message From Malaga by Helen MacInnes

shivers. There was silence in the room. Ferrier looked up to see Tavita watching him. Her anger hadvanished. She knelt beside him, touched Jeff’s brow, smoothed back his hair. Then she rose, crossing herself quickly, and turned toward the staircase. There were heavy tears on her face.
    “I must change,” she said, her voice quite calm, even businesslike. “I have to dance.” She ran up the stairs, lifting her wide skirt before her. “Magdalena! Magdalena!” No anger now; no tears; just her eyes on the clock. Halfway up to the landing, she remembered to call to Esteban, “Go back into the courtyard. Watch Rodriguez. Do not let him enter. If he is curious, keep talking. Keep him out of here!” She was running again, her dark-red skirt filling the stairway, her black hair fallen loosely down her back.
    Esteban had been watching Reid with a mixture of compassion and worry on his gaunt face. “He will be all right,” he predicted, and moved toward the courtyard. “I shall send Jaime to be with you.”
    “Who is Rodriguez?” Ferrier asked, rising, dusting off his trouser legs. Jaime, for Christ’s sake—that kid! He wished he had Esteban’s confidence about Jeff Reid’s recovery, too.
    “Captain Rodriguez is State Security,” Esteban said, his face quite expressionless.
    “Oh, the policeman.”
    Esteban almost smiled, and went into the courtyard.
    Ferrier sat down cross-legged on the floor beside Jeff. He lit a cigarette, smoked it slowly, started to wonder. What was Tavita trying to hide? Allowing for that old business-as-usual, the-show-must-go-on routine, there was yet something else. Secrecy. Reid’s accident was to be kept quiet; no one was to know about it, especially Captain Rodriguez. And Jeff, too, hadn’t wanted any attention drawn to him. When Ferrier hadtucked the blanket around him, told him an ambulance was on its way, he had said, “Stay here, Ian. Until it comes.” Then he had made a special effort and added, “No fuss. Don’t sound any alarm.” At the time, Ferrier had thought Reid was trying to let Tavita’s dance end without any distractions, but now he was beginning to believe that there was something more involved. Which, in the cold light of day, would seem ridiculous. Only, this was not the cold light of day. This was a room of shadows off a moonlit courtyard, with an injured man lying on the floor beside him. He finished his cigarette, decided he would have to alter his own plans, remain some extra days in Spain until Jeff was out of danger and had become reconciled to a long stay in a hospital bed. He might even have to cancel that side jaunt to northern Italy, perhaps even his visit to England. The tracking stations in both those places weren’t official, anyway: just two interesting, and successful, amateur efforts that had aroused his curiosity and appealed to his sense of humour. In an age of giant, expensive machines, it was encouraging to see what a little money and a lot of human ingenuity could do.
    Jaime came into the room, looking both alarmed and excited. He stood over Reid, and Reid—eyes opening at the sound of his footsteps—let out a small, strangled cry.
    “Okay, okay,” Ferrier said quickly. “It’s Jaime.” He looked at his friend curiously, offered the smelling salts again.
    “No need—I’m feeling better. It’s the leg that really bothers me now.”
    “It’s the one that got busted before?”
    Reid nodded.
    “That figures.”
    “I was lucky that you—”
    “Don’t try to talk. Just take it easy.”
    “But I must—” Reid’s face twisted with pain. He recovered, but hesitated, looked at Jaime.
    “Jaime, would you please check on the ambulance?” Ferrier tried, in a mixture of Spanish and English. Jaime caught the meaning. He hurried toward the back of the room, disappeared through its doorway. So that’s the way we’ll make our exit, Ferrier thought, by some back entrance to a small street. No procession through the courtyard, no