The Honorary Consul Read Online Free Page A

difference."
           "Yes, you could say he married on his Cadillac. But I'm surprised that woman of his needed the price of a Cadillac. Surely a Morris Minor would have done."
           "I'm being unfair," Doctor Plarr said. "It wasn't only because he looked after royalty. There were quite a number of Englishmen in the province in those days—you know that better than I do. And there was one who got into a mess over the border—the time when the guerrillas went across—and Fortnum knew the local ropes. He saved the Ambassador a lot of trouble. All the same he was lucky—some ambassadors are more grateful than others."
           "So now if we are in a spot of trouble we have to depend on Charley Fortnum. Check."
           Doctor Plarr had to exchange his queen for a bishop. He said, "There are worse people than Charley Fortnum."
           "You are in bad trouble now and he can't save you."
           Doctor Plarr looked quickly up from the board, but the old man was only referring to the game. "Check again," he said. "And mate." He added, "That shower has been out of order for six months. You don't always lose to me as easily as that."
           "Your game's improved."
     
     
     
     
     
    2
     
     
    Doctor Plarr refused a third game and drove home. He lived on the top floor of a block of yellow flats which faced the Paraná. The block was one of the eyesores of the old colonial city, but the yellow was fading a little year by year, and anyway he couldn't afford a house while his mother was alive. It was extraordinary how much a woman could spend on sweet cakes in the capital.
           As Doctor Plarr closed his shutters the last ferry was approaching across the river, and after he got into bed he heard the heavy thunder of a plane which was making a slow turn overhead: it sounded very low, as though it had lifted off the ground only a few minutes before. It was certainly not a long-distance jet overflying the city on the way to Buenos Aires or Asunción—in any case the hour was too late for a commercial flight. It might, Plarr thought, be the American Ambassador's plane, but he had never expected to hear that. He turned off the light and lay in the dark thinking of all the things that could so easily have gone wrong as the noise of the engine faded, beating south, carrying whom? He wanted to lift the receiver and dial Charley Fortnum, but there was no excuse he could think of for disturbing him at that hour. He could hardly ask: did the Ambassador enjoy the ruins? Did the dinner pass off well? I suppose at the Governor's you must have had some decent steaks? It wasn't his habit to gossip with Charley Fortnum at that hour—Charley was an uxorious man.
           He turned his light on again—better to read than worry, and as he knew now what the ending would be without any possibility of mistake, Doctor Saavedra's book proved, a good sedative. There was little traffic along the river front; once a police car went by with the sirens screaming, but Plarr soon fell asleep with the light still burning.
           He was awakened by the telephone. His watch stood at exactly two in the morning. He knew of no patient likely to ring him at that hour.
           "Yes," he asked, "who are you?"
           A voice he didn't recognize replied, with elaborate caution, "Our entertainment was a success."
           Plarr said, "Who are you? Why tell me that? What entertainment? I'm not interested." He spoke with the irritation of fear.
           "We are worried about one of the cast. He was taken ill."
           "I don't know what you are talking about."
           "We are afraid the strain of his part may have been too great."
           Never before had they telephoned him so openly and at such a suspect hour. There was no reason to believe that his line was tapped, but they had no right to take the smallest risk. Refugees from the north were often kept under a certain