“It’s an awfully difficult situation, Plarr. You see, something which is everybody’s responsibility is always nobody’s responsibility. The General is down here in the south fishing and refuses to discuss the matter while he’s on holiday. The Foreign Minister says it’s a purely Paraguayan affair, and the President can’t be expected to bring pressure on the General, when he’s a guest of the nation. Of course the police are doing their best, but they’ve probably been told to act as discreetly as possible. For Fortnum’s own sake.”
“But the Americans… Surely they can bring pressure on the General. He wouldn’t exist twenty-four hours in Paraguay without their help.”
“I know all that, but it makes it the more awkward, Plarr. You see the Americans take the sensible view that these kidnappings have to be discouraged-even if it means, well, how shall I put it? a certain danger to life. Like that German Ambassador they killed-where was it? Guatemala? In this case, to be quite frank… well, an Honorary Consul is not an Ambassador. They feel it would be a bad principle if they interfered. The English are not very popular with the General. Of course if Fortnum were an American he would probably take a different view.”
“The kidnappers thought he was. So the police say. They think the kidnappers were looking for a diplomatic car in the dark and CC is awfully like CD.”
“Yes, how often we’ve told the damned fool not to fly a flag or show CC plates. An Honorary Consul hasn’t the right to use them.”
“Still a death sentence seems a bit severe.”
“What more can I do, Plarr? I’ve been twice to the Foreign Ministry. Last night I spoke unofficially to the Minister of the Interior. He was having dinner with Wilbur-I mean the American Ambassador. I can’t do a thing more without instructions from London, and London has a remarkable sense of-well-unurgency. By the way how is your mother? It all comes back to me now. You are that Plarr. Your mother often has tea with my wife. They both like sweet cakes and those things with dulce de leche.”
“Alfajores.”
“That’s the name. Can’t stand them myself.”
Doctor Plarr said, “I know what a nuisance I must seem to you, Sir Henry, but my father is in one of the General’s jails if he’s still alive. Perhaps this kidnapping is his last chance. That makes me suspect to the police, so I feel personally concerned. And besides there’s Fortnum. I can’t help feeling responsible a bit for him. He’s not a patient of mine, but Mrs. Fortnum is.”
“Wasn’t there something odd about that marriage? I got a letter from up there, from some old busybody called Jeffries.”
“Humphries.”
“Yes. That was the name. He wrote to me that Fortnum had married an ‘undesirable’ woman. Lucky man! I’ve reached the age when I never meet anyone of that sort.”
“It did occur to me,” Doctor Plarr said, “that I might be able to make contact with the kidnappers. They may telephone Mrs. Fortnum if they find they are getting nowhere with the authorities.”
“A bit improbable, my dear chap.”
“But not impossible, sir. If something like that did happen and I had some hope to offer them… Perhaps I could persuade them to extend their time limit-say for a week. In that case surely there might be a chance to negotiate?”
“If you want my honest opinion you would only be extending the agony-for Fortnum and Mrs. Fortnum. If I were Fortnum I’d prefer a quick death.”
“But surely something could be done?”
“I’m sure of this, Plarr, I’ve seen Wilbur twice and the Americans won’t budge. If they can discourage kidnapping by letting an Honorary British Consul, in an obscure province, take the rap, they’ll be very satisfied. Wilbur says Fortnum is an alcoholic-he brought two bottles of whisky to their picnic at the ruins and the Ambassador only drinks Coca-Cola. I looked up our file on him, but there wasn’t anything very definite about alcoholism, though one or two of his reports… well, they did sort of ramble. There was a letter too from that man-Humphries?—saying he had flown the Union Jack upside down. But you don’t need to be an alcoholic to do that.”
“All the same, Sir Henry, if the kidnappers could be persuaded to delay only a little…”
Sir Henry Belfrage knew the time for his siesta was irrevocably lost-the new Agatha Christie would have to wait. He was a kind man and a conscientious one, and he was modest into the bargain. He told himself that in Doctor Plarr’s situation he would have been unlikely to fly in the November heat to Buenos Aires to help the husband of a patient. He said, “There is something you might try to do. I very much doubt if you would be successful, but all the same…”
He hesitated. With a pen in his hand he was a master of compression: his reports were admirably short and lucid, and a telegram never presented him with the least difficulty. He was at home in his Embassy as he had been at home in his nursery. The chandeliers glittered like the glass fruit on a Christmas tree. In the nursery he could remember building neatly and quickly with his coloured bricks. “Master Henry is a clever boy,” his nurse always said, but sometimes when he was let out on the vast green spaces of Kensington Gardens he strayed wildly. There were moments with strangers-just as there still were at his annual cocktail party-when he nearly panicked.
“Yes, Sir Henry?”
“I’m so sorry, my dear chap. My mind was wandering. I’ve got a terrible head this morning. That wine from Mendoza… Cooperatives! What can a Cooperative know about wine?”
“You were saying…”
“Yes, yes.” He put his hand into his breast pocket and touched his ballpoint pen. It was like a talisman. He said, “A delay would be only useful if we could get people sufficiently interested… I’ve been doing all I can, but nobody at home knows Fortnum. Nobody cares about an Honorary Consul. He doesn’t belong to the Service. And to tell you the truth I advised getting rid of him six months ago. That letter will certainly be on the files. So everyone at home will be relieved when the dateline is passed and there are no more minutes to write-and he’s released as I believe.”
“And if he’s killed?”
“I’m afraid the P. O. will take the credit for that too. It will be a sign of firmness; it will show they won’t treat with blackmailers. You know the kind of words they’ll use in the Commons. Law and order. No Danegeld. They’ll quote Kipling. Even the Opposition will applaud.”
“It’s not only Charles Fortnum. There’s his wife… she’s having a baby. Suppose the press took it up…”
“Yes. I see what you mean. The woman who waits, etcetera. But from what that man Humphries wrote I don’t think the kind of wife Fortnum has married will arouse the right sort of sentiment in the English press. Not family reading. The Sun might use the real story of course or the News of the World, but it would hardly have the effect we want.”
“What do you suggest, Sir Henry?”
“You must never, never quote me on this, Plarr. The F. O. would put me out to grass if they knew I had suggested anything of the kind. And I don’t suppose for a moment my idea would do any good. Mason is not the right material.”
“Mason?”
“I’m sorry. I meant Fortnum.”
“You haven’t suggested anything yet, Sir Henry.”
“Well, what I was getting at… There’s nothing a civil servant hates more than a yelp in respectable papers. Sometimes the only way to get action is the right publicity. If you could organize some reaction in your city… Even a telegraphed appeal from the English Club to The Times. Tribute to his…” He touched his pen again as though he might draw from it the correct official jargon. “…. his untiring pursuit of British interests.”