With a jerky bow and a monkey smile, the official bobbed his head into the car.
"It is very hot," he said to Allard. "So, senor, I must lower the window
curtains. It is not good that you should get the sunstroke."
The driver lowered his curtain, too, the real purpose obviously being to
prevent the visitors from seeing too much of Libertad until their status could
be properly determined. As they rode along, Allard turned a curtain slightly
and let Margo peer through the crack.
"You won't see much, anyway," he told her. "I've been to Libertad before,
back in the days when the town had a more appropriate name. This driver is
taking us through all the back streets, to reach the consulate."
"Will it be like this," asked Margo, "all the time we're here?"
"Quite the opposite," assured Allard. "After I've chatted with the consul,
we'll be welcome. It takes awhile for the proper word to reach a dictator like
Louis Castenago. Those chaps usually become cordial when it is good policy to
do so."
A SHORT stop was made at the consulate, and after they left, Margo
observed that the blinds were no longer drawn in the car. However, the trip to
the hotel was very short, and Margo saw little other than white walls and a
broad, sleepy avenue, where even the palms were too tired to wave in the
brilliant tropical sun.
She noted that the avenue was called "Avenida Castenago" and that the
Imperial Hotel fronted a broad, parklike square - termed "Plaza del
Libertador," which probably meant Castenago, too.
The dictator's pretense of being a liberator struck Margo as quite ironic.
She wondered what Castenago looked like, and she found out, to a slight degree,
when she bought some postage stamps at the hotel desk.
On the way up to her room, Margo noted that the stamps bore Castenago's
portrait, that of a wide jawed man whose smudgy eyebrows gave the stamps a
canceled look. Not much to judge Castenago by, but Margo decided that she
wouldn't like him if she met him. By this time, she was feeling the oppressive
heat of Libertad and decided to take a siesta, as the natives did.
She had hardly begun her nap before the telephone bell rang. Answering
sleepily, Margo heard Allard's voice. It had the sharp clip of an order.
"Be ready at six o'clock," he said. "We're banqueting with Luis Castenago.
If there's anything you need in the way of an evening gown, or what not, just
call the desk and give the order. They'll make the local shops deliver anything
that's needed. Don't worry about prices. If they're too high, Castenago will
print some more money and pay the bills."
From her window, Margo took another look at the stilled green of the Plaza
del Libertador. The silence of that deserted area seemed to reflect the ominous
tyranny of Castenago, whose word was law in Centralba. She wondered if the
plaza would ever be alive before the dictator's regime ended.
Alive!
Margo wondered, too, if that term still applied to Colin Nayre, so
recently returned to Centralba in defiance of Castenago's power!
CHAPTER IX
