Message From Malaga by Helen MacInnes Page B

said gently. “I’ll see to it.”
    “You’ll remember everything?”
    “I’ll remember.”
    Reid relaxed for the first time. “Thank God you’ve—you’vea good memory.” He closed his eyes.
    There was a movement on the landing. Ferrier looked up quickly. Tavita was just about to come downstairs, her new dress billowing out in a froth of white and yellow. Her hair was perfect, her face freshly made up. She carried a pink cushion in one hand, held the railing with her other as she started down. Behind her, keeping step by step, was Magdalena, holding up the wide hem of the long skirt to keep it from sweeping the staircase. Everything Tavita did, thought Ferrier as he rose to his feet, had a sense of drama.
    She came forward, holding out the cushion, saying, “Put this under his head.”
    “Just leave him as he is,” Ferrier said.
    Her magnificent eyes took him in, from head to toe. Her voice was cold. “He will be much more comfortable.”
    “What he needs is an ambulance. Did you telephone the hospital to make sure someone is coming?”
    She bit her lip in annoyance, controlled her temper. She did not enjoy a reprimand, however tacit. “Magdalena made very sure. She even telephoned his own doctor.”
    I hope so, thought Ferrier. The waiting had put him on edge.
    “Tavita,” Reid said, opening his eyes. “Don’t worry. It takes more than a fall—”
    “It was only a fall?”
    Magdalena broke in. “I told you,” she scolded, “Tomás was back in his room. He was nowhere—” She saw Ferrier looking at her. She took the cushion roughly, said in a mumble, “I told you it was a fall.”
    Tavita shook her head with real sympathy, regret, impatience—a strange mixture that fascinated Ferrier. The anger and fear shehad displayed to Esteban had gone; so had her annoyance with him. “Oh, Jeff, Jeff!” she said slowly. (But she had trouble in pronouncing the first syllable, and it sounded more like Hyeff. Well, thought Ferrier, I can stop worrying about my lousy Spanish accent. We all have our tongue-twisting troubles.) “Why did it have to happen at this time?” She looked at Ferrier. “Please.”
    “Of course.” He moved away quickly, stood just within the shelter of the doorway, looked at the stage with its tableau of bright colour and postures, listened to the guitars instead of Tavita’s voice. They are friends, he decided, not lovers; at least, not permanently. And the idea startled him. He had assumed, somehow, that Reid’s interest in El Fenicio was a matter of passionate romance. That would have been his own interest, he admitted to himself. She was the most beautiful, tantalising, upsetting, and annoying woman he had ever met. If he had had ten years of experience less, if he were in his twenties instead of the less vulnerable thirties, he’d be in love with Tavita and probably thoroughly destroyed emotionally. It might be worth it at that, he thought. He sensed her behind him, turned to look at her. “You make the most beautiful picture,” he blurted out, watching the angle of her head, the slender neck, the soft skirt ruffling out from tightly moulded waist and hips.
    She didn’t even hear the unwilling compliment. “You are his friend,” she said, studying his face. She looked at the steady grey eyes, the pleasant but firm lips, the marked bone structure that gave strength to his features, and found them reassuring. “I think you are a good friend,” she added softly, her eyes lingering on his. “You will help me?” She didn’t even wait for an answer, but—listening to the music, timing the moment of reappearance—stepped into the courtyard, and with thatexquisite grace made her way toward the stage.
    Esteban was beside him. “Everything is all right.”
    “Captain Rodriguez is not interested?” Ferrier asked with a small smile. And interested in what? He wondered if Esteban would tell him who Tomás was. Or why the feeling of secrecy, of some small conspiracy, inside