Грэм Грин - The Comedians

'Does the British Embassy know?

'No. But I do not think they can help very much. These things have to take their course. They are not ill-treating him as yet.'

'What would you advise, Petit Pierre?'

'It is probably a misunderstanding — but then there is always the question of amour propre. The chief of Police suffers a great deal from amour propre. Perhaps if Mr Smith spoke to Doctor Philipot, Doctor Philipot might speak to the Secretary for the Interior. Major Jones could then be fined for a merely technical offence.'

'But what is his offence?'

'That question is in itself a technicality,' he said.

'But you have just told me Doctor Philipot is in the north.'

'True. Perhaps Mr Smith ought rather to see the Secretary for Foreign Affairs.' He waved the papers proudly. 'He will know how important Mr Smith is, for he will undoubtedly have read my article.'

'I shall go at once and see our chargй.'

'It is the wrong method,' Petit Pierre said. 'It is far easier to satisfy the amour propre of the chief of police than to satisfy national pride. The Haitian Government does not accept protests from foreigners.'

It was much the same advice as the chargй gave me later that morning. He was a hollow-chested man with sensitive features which reminded me the first time I met him of Robert Louis Stevenson. He spoke with many hesitations and an amused air of defeat — it was the conditions of life in the capital that had defeated him, not the inroads of tuberculosis. He had the courage and the humour of the defeated. For example he carried a pair of black glasses in his pocket which he always put on when he saw a member of the Tontons Macoute, who wore them as a uniform, to terrify. He collected books on Caribbean flora, but he had sent all but the most common of them home, just as he had sent his children, for there was always the risk of sudden fire aided by a tin of petrol.

He listened to me without interruption or impatience while I told him of Jones's predicament and Petit Pierre's advice. I felt sure he would have shown no more surprise if I had told him of the Secretary for Social Welfare dead in my bathing-pool and the way in which I had disposed of the body, but think he would have been secretly grateful to me that I had not called him in. When I finished my story, he said, 'I had a cable from London about Jones.'

'So did the captain of the Medea. His cable came from the owners in Philadelphia. It wasn't very specific.'

'Mine you might say was cautionary. I was not to be unduly helpful. I suspect some consulate somewhere has been taken for a ride.'

'All the same a British subject in prison …?'

'Oh, I agree that is a little too steep. Only we have to remember, don't we, that even these bastards may have acted with good reason. Officially I shall proceed with caution — as the cable suggests. A formal inquiry to begin with.' He made a movement with his hand across the desk and laughed. 'I shall never lose the habit of picking up a telephone.'

He was the perfect spectator — the spectator of whom every actor must sometimes dream, intelligent, watchful, amused and critical in just the right way, a lesson he had learnt from having seen so many performances good and bad in different plays. For some reason I thought of my mother's words to me, when I saw her for the last time, 'What part are you playing now?' I suppose I was playing a part — the part of an Englishman concerned over the fate of a fellow-countryman, of a responsible business man who saw his duty clearly and who came to consult the representative of his Sovereign. I temporarily forgot the tangle of legs in the Peugeot. I am quite sure that the chargй would have disapproved of my cuckolding a member of the diplomatic corps. The act belonged too closely to the theatre of farce.

He said, 'I doubt if my inquiries will do much good. I shall be told by the Secretary for the Interior that the affair is in the hands of the police. He will probably give me a lecture on the separation of the judicial and executive functions. Did I ever tell you about my cook? It happened while you were away. I was giving a dinner for my colleagues and my cook simply disappeared. No marketing had been done. He had been picked up in the street on the way to market. My wife had to open the tins we keep for an emergency. Your Seсor Pineda did not appreciate a soufflй of tinned salmon.' Why did he say my Seсor Pineda? 'Later I heard that he was in a police cell. They released him the next day when it was too late. He had been questioned about what guests I entertained. I protested, of course, to the Secretary for the Interior. I said I should have been told, and I would have arranged for him to go to the police station at a convenient hour. The Minister simply said that he was a Haitian and he could do what he liked with a Haitian.'

'But Jones is English.'

'I assume so, but I doubt all the same whether our Government in these days will send a frigate. Of course, I'm anxious to help to the best of my ability, but I think Petit Pierre's advice is quite sound. Try other means first. If you get nowhere, of course I'll protest — tomorrow morning. I have a feeling that this is not the first police cell Major Jones has known. We mustn't exaggerate the situation.' I felt a little like the player king rebuked by Hamlet for exaggerating his part.

When I got back to the hotel the swimming-pool was full, the gardener was pretending to occupy himself by raking a few leaves off the surface of the water, I heard the voice of the cook in the kitchen, everything was near to normal again. I even had guests, for there in the pool, avoiding the gardener's rake, swam Mr Smith, wearing a pair of dark grey nylon bathing-pants which billowed out behind him in the water, giving him the huge hindquarters of some prehistoric beast. He swam slowly up and down using the breaststroke and grunting rhythmically. When he saw me he stood up in the water like a myth. His breasts were covered with long strands of white hair.

I sat down by the pool and called out to Joseph to bring a rum punch and a Coca-Cola. I was uneasy when Mr Smith trundled to the deep end before he emerged — he was passing so close to the spot where the Secretary for Social Welfare had died. I thought of Holyrood and the indelible mark of Rizzio's blood. Mr Smith shook himself and sat down beside me. Mrs Smith appeared on the balcony of the John Barrymore suite and called down to him, 'Dry yourself, dear, or you might catch cold.'

'The sun will dry me quickly enough, dear,' Mr Smith called back.

'Put the towel round your shoulders or you'll burn.'

Mr Smith obeyed her. I said, 'Mr Jones has been arrested by the police.'

'My goodness. You don't say. What has he done?'

'He hasn't necessarily done anything.'

'Has he seen a lawyer?'

'That's not possible here. The police wouldn't allow it.'

Mr Smith gave me an obstinate look. 'The police are the same everywhere. It happens often enough at home,' he said, 'in the south. Coloured men shut up in jail, refused a lawyer. But two wrongs don't make a right.'

'I've been to the embassy. They don't think they can do much.'

'Now that is scandalous,' Mr Smith said. He was referring to the attitude of the embassy rather than to the conditions of Jones's arrest.

'Petit Pierre thinks that the best thing at the moment would be for you to intervene, to see the Secretary of State perhaps.'

'I'll do anything I can for Mr Jones. There's obviously been a mistake. But why does he suppose I would have any influence?'

'You were a presidential candidate,' I said, as Joseph brought the glasses.

'I'll do anything I can,' Mr Smith repeated, brooding into his Coca-Cola. 'I very much took to Mr Jones. (I don't know why it is I can't get round to calling him Major — after all there are some good men in all armies.) He seemed to me the best type of Britisher. There must have been a foolish mistake somewhere.'