Face to the Sun (3 page)

The natural explanation was that her husband didn’t know that she had taken it abroad. In Malpelo she probably wore it only for prestige – a gala night at the opera, for example, or
a party for the generals of the Republic on Independence Day. It emphasised her unity with Malpelo and her position as official Mother of the Country. The folly of taking it with her to Europe
would have been due only to feminine vanity: the vision perhaps of an invitation to dinner at Buckingham Palace. The sun would certainly have made a spectacular lid to her cavernous cleavage.

I had been wondering how on earth I could return her jewels and collect a reward without walking straight into a police trap. The position now was somewhat different. I was the only person in
London – apart from her daughter – who knew she had with her a national treasure and had lost it. Obviously she did not want to risk the unpredictable anger of a Father of the Country.
Nor did I. So our interests were the same: to keep the British police right out of it. Besides the romantic story of her past, that obliging paper had given me the essential information that she
was staying at Claridge’s. There I had to contact her. I spent the morning in the British Museum examining Andean exhibits. There was nothing resembling my sun, but I came across a casual
reference to a golden disk which had been the banner and supreme god of the Inca Empire. So again I gave myself a very satisfactory lunch in the hope that claret and a brandy would continue to
provide inspiration. They did. My sun could be a miniature or model of the god.

Wearing gloves I tore off the headline of the news­paper report and wrote on the back of it in small capitals and with my left hand:

I posted this to Miss Juana Romero at Claridge’s, choosing her maiden name since I was pretty sure that she would receive a number of such letters from cranks or former
friends or lovers, inspired by the newspaper article. She would read these from curiosity or in the hope of running across an old companion, and if the police had advised her to show them all
suspicious communications she could pocket mine before handing them over.

Two days later I opened the paper eager to see if feminine ingenuity had any proposal for exchanging the sun for money which would ensure there were no police witnesses.

On the face of it that offered no guarantee and was detestably risky. Lady McMurtrie’s could be packed with detectives. But in my sudden excess of nervousness I had
forgotten that on no account must police be allowed to know of the loss of the golden sun. She had been intelligent enough to understand that this opening move was to arrange time and place for a
meeting where the transaction could be completed in a privacy essential to us both.

I spruced myself up, took the plunge and asked at Claridge’s desk for Lady McMurtrie.

‘I believe she is expecting me,’ I added.

I was shown up to a room on the fifth floor. I recognised Lady McMurtrie at once. She had been at that table in Harrods. When the door was opened, she sprang forward with every appearance of
greeting an old friend with delight. As soon as it was safely shut again she stood with reserved neutrality facing me. She was one of those striking women, tall and fair with a faultless figure but
too stern to be immediately desirable. It was evident that she was also a woman of courage and character. I might have come to knock her out and add to my loot.

‘What are you?’ she asked. ‘British?’

‘Harry. Box 715.’

‘Any other – well, identification?’

‘Yes, an ear-ring. But if I produce it you have only to ring for the hotel detective.’

‘My dear man, is it likely that I would?’

‘And you are?’

‘I am Juana’s daughter. She will be here in a minute. Now, tell me who else is behind this blackmail.’

‘No one. You do not recognise me? I passed you twice in Harrods.’

‘You expect me to believe that you were working alone?’

‘I assure you, Lady McMurtrie, I had no idea what the black crocodile bag contained. Neither of you were paying any attention to it. I was starving and so I stole. I expected only money.
When I found the sun and read that your mother did not report its loss to the police I realised its value and, I must admit, was a little frightened. A dictator has a long arm.’

‘Yet you look to me like a man of honour.’

‘If I could afford to be a man of honour, I would give your mother what she needs, for she is in worse trouble than I, if I am not mistaken.’

‘And if we allow you to keep the tiara?’

‘Useless, I cannot sell it, or even a piece of it, without being immediately arrested.’

There was a knock of distinctive rhythm on the door.

‘Well, here is my mother.’

La Presidenta sailed in. It was clear that she, too, was unaware that she had ever set eyes on me before. She was dressed to kill – this time in deep crimson. She had not forgotten that
she was once Juana Romero to whom nothing that she badly wanted could be denied. She was more subtly provocative than in Harrods and for a man whose taste was for dimension rather than delicacy she
may still have been enticing. I bowed respectfully.

‘Lady McMurtrie found it hard to believe that I did not know what your bag contained when I picked it up,’ I said. ‘But if I did know I must also have known that you had come
to England with the sun, and known that it was in the bag. Doesn’t it seem to you more likely that you put it down where it was a temptation and that you yourself gave away its importance by
not mentioning the disastrous loss to the British police?’

‘I’d rather have my tiara back,’ she replied.

‘Even if it meant that Cayetano could accuse you of making away with his precious model?’ her daughter asked her with gentle irony.

‘I have never submitted to blackmail, Carlota, and I will not start now.’

Lady McMurtrie must have been well accustomed to putting the brakes on her mother’s obstinacy since early days in Hollywood.

‘Then Harry will hand the sun to the British police anonymously which will do none of us any good,’ she said, and coming straight to business, added to me, ‘What is your asking
price?’

The intrinsic worth of the sun seemed to be surpassed by its political value. As I had no idea what that was, I quoted low.

‘Shall we say two hundred thousand pounds for the lot?’

La Presidenta swelled with such indignation that I listened for some complex of underwear to explode. Her daughter, knowing that my price was very reasonable for the tiara alone and much less
than she expected for the sun, waved her down and did not attempt to haggle. I think that from then on she believed my story.

‘In cash, I suppose,’ she said.

‘I flatly refuse to carry that amount about with me,’ Dona Juana protested. ‘I will give him a cheque on my personal account with a Swiss bank.’

‘A banker’s cheque would be preferable, Doña Juana, though I am quite sure that your own would be honoured. But to whom would it be made out? Naturally I do not want to
identify myself.’

I certainly did not. The further this conversation developed the more clearly I saw that I had not worked out the details. Honesty is said to be the best policy. Like hell it is! Dishonesty
demands far more experience and technique. If it had not been for the admirable Lady McMurtrie, the Presidenta might have handed me over to the police in a rage.

‘And now, how and where am I to return your bag with all its contents and receive the money at the same time?’

‘Here in this room, of course.’

‘Good. Then I will arrive with a suitcase and the bag inside it. If anything is missing you can pick up the telephone and have me arrested. If you do not pay I shall walk out with my
suitcase and inform the police where the sun is.’

‘I don’t give a damn if you do,’ she retorted. ‘I am entitled to wear it.’

Her daughter closed her eyes in resignation.

‘Then why, dear mamma, didn’t you declare its loss to the police and the newspaper man?’

‘Well, I had an emerald set in the centre. But that won’t harm it. It’s only glued.’

‘Nonsense! You were afraid of what Cayetano would say if he knew that you had taken it abroad and that you had allowed it to be stolen.’

Lady McMurtrie sat down for the first time, crossed her delightful spidery legs and took over the negotiations with the aplomb of a slightly crooked company director.

‘Now, mamma, when you draw out two hundred thousand, what are you going to say it was for?’

‘Good grief! He doesn’t care what I spend.’

‘No, so long as he knows what you spend it on. Well, I suppose we could say you lost it at one of the gambling clubs. But I think you must pay Harry cash. He will have trouble in opening a
bank account with a false name and address.’

The telephone rang and Carlota answered it.

‘It’s Hector, mamma.’

‘Oh God, what does your husband want?’

‘He wants to know if the Punchao was in the bag that was stolen. You never said it was, so do you have it?’

‘Why should he think I have?’

‘Because he knows you, dear … No, she hasn’t got it, Hector. At least not yet. It was in the bag that was stolen and we are just negotiating with the thief … No, I
don’t know what she is going to do with it … She is terrified that on his return from the northern frontier Cayetano will find out that she took it with her to London and she can’t
see any way of putting it back in time. You had better come up to London … No, not Claridge’s. Keep away from us … All right, the Hyde Park.’

‘Where did the President keep it?’ I asked when she put down the telephone.

‘In his private office where he could discuss it with the goldsmiths. He lets me wear it on state occassions. Tell Harry what it all means, Carlota. Cayetano never talks politics with me
and he does with you.’

‘I don’t know if you have any sympathy for dictators,’ Carlota said to me. ‘They have ideals of their own and they work very hard to realise them.’

‘I have had dealings with one, Lady McMurtrie, and as you see I escaped with my life.’

She remarked drily that I certainly wouldn’t in Malpelo, and gave me a thumbnail sketch of General Cayetano Heredia. I could see that she admired his ruthless energy. Her attitude had some
resemblance to mine towards the Father of his Country.

‘The golden image of the sun,’ Carlota explained, ‘was the High God of the Inca Empire. It disappeared, melted down or dispatched to Spain, within a hundred years of the
Conquest. This in your hands is a small replica of the original which came to rest in the Museum of Malpelo, though there is no record of how it travelled so far from Peru. It is known as the
Punchao del Dia, the Moment of Daybreak.’

She went on to tell me that the sun was to be the symbol of Heredia’s government like Hitler’s swastika. It was to demonstrate that he represented the Indian and the Spaniard alike.
A replica of it was to be everywhere – on the flag, over the gateway to the palace, behind his presidential seat in the assembly and at times on the bosom of his wife.

‘The Mother of the Country,’ I murmured.

She answered coldly, putting me in my place, that her mother could play that part to perfection, whenever she pleased. The Punchao had to be copied in a variety of sizes and frames. That was why
he kept it readily available for conferences, designers and goldsmiths. The disks and the rays had to be standardised, which was infernally difficult.

‘I think I should have doubled my price,’ I said.

That was only a jest. Two hundred thousand pounds would be tricky enough to bank; to hold out for more was merely greedy.

But Doña Juana was near hysteria. She would lose all her influence over him. He would think up some vile indignity to punish her. She demanded that I should give her the sun then and
there. She would pay me by a cheque on her Swiss bank for any amount.

‘And cancel it tomorrow?’

‘Oh, you beast! What shall I do, Carlota?’

‘Fly to Zurich and draw cash. We’ll be back here by dinner-time and leave not a trace behind us. And you – call with the sun and tiara about eight.’

I left Lady McMurtrie’s and went down to the vestibule where I could keep the main door under observation. They were only five minutes behind me and I watched them jump into a taxi and
drive off. They had not asked at the desk for the flight times. Very sensible. Lady McMurtrie was not going to leave any clue to the flight. I gave them a few minutes to get clear and then took a
taxi to Heathrow myself.

There was a flight to Zurich in half an hour. From a safe distance, I saw them book seats and vanish into the departure lounge. So far all was in order and I sat down in the bar to consider the
next move. I had accepted Lady McMurtrie’s plan on the spur of the moment; on second thoughts, it appeared to me far too risky to hand over the jewels and receive the cash at
Claridge’s. My first visit would pass, but now I could be sure that police or the hotel security service would be keeping a discreet eye on the Presidenta and her visitors; so the exchange
had to take place in some neutral, undiscoverable room which meant that I must meet the pair as soon as they arrived back at Heathrow. That should be easy. They would take the flight which left
Zurich at 6.30 p.m. No later plane would allow them to keep the appointment for eight at Claridge’s.

I returned to London by the underground, feeling that it would be as well to economise until I had my two hundred thousand. I took my imposing briefcase from the bank and walked with it to Gower
Street, looking, I hoped, like a financial consultant on his way to a meeting with a bankrupt board. Safe in my room – the only place where I did feel safe – I settled down to doze over
a book until it was time to start for Heathrow. In case of accidents I took the precaution of leaving my passport behind. I was not yet ready to disclose my true identity.