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responsible for discipline and security. Security is important, as I’m sure you’ll understand.’
    I nodded.
    ‘Each of the staff has a security cupboard which is, of course, kept locked at all times. The keys are kept in the special key box in the Ambassador’s office. On no account must those keys be taken out of the building. Understand?’
    I nodded again.
    ‘Charaguay is very friendly and very peaceful. H.E. and Mrs. Mallenport are held in great affection. H.E. is a very even-tempered, philosophical man, famed for having a proverb to suit every occasion.’ Mr. Fitzgerald smiled as if to warn me he was a very different cup of tea. ‘Being on an Embassy staff carries an extra responsibility and an extra risk. You become suddenly not Miss Bradley but a representative of Great Britain. Take proper precautions. Don’t go out too late on your own. If you do go for a trip anywhere let me know the time and place. It’s just common sense, isn’t it?’
    I agreed that it was.
    ‘Charaguayans will treat you well. They are a very circumspect race. Which brings me back,’ James Fitzgerald said evenly, ‘to your friend of yesterday, Don Ramón de Carradedas.’
    ‘You’ve already told me,’ I protested mutinously, feeling that this man sitting: across the desk from me intended to keep me like a puppet on a string.
    ‘I’ve already told you that you must not encourage him,' James Fitzgerald corrected sharply. ‘I now propose to give you some indication of why.’
    If the measured explanation which followed was meant to put me off Don Ramón it did quite the reverse.
    It would appear that when Don Ramón had said proudly that he was Charaguay, he had been partially right. Not only was he one of the descendants of the noblest of the Spanish conquistadors, but rumour had it that he was also descended from the Incas themselves. About this alliance there was a story, James Fitzgerald told me, possibly apocryphal and certainly romantic. At this point the Head of Chancery, that man of the locked and secret heart, raised his level brows and his grim mouth curled cynically.
    According to folklore, the sixteenth-century Don Ramón Carradedas had been one of the conquistadors who had daringly captured the Inca, whom the Indians revered as a god. These conquistadors, dazzled by the gold and jewels of the Inca temples, had demanded literally a king’s ransom. All except Don Ramón Carradedas. A man of humanity as well as courage, he had allowed the captive Inca’s family to visit him in prison, among them his beautiful sixteen-year-old daughter.
    ‘You can guess the rest,’ the Head of Chancery said briskly as if it demeaned him even to repeat such a foolish story.
    ‘Not completely.'
    I could guess it, but for some reason I wanted him to tell me.
    ‘He fell in love with her,' James Fitzgerald said impatiently. ‘He renounced his share of the ransom for her hand in marriage.'
    ‘Did he get it?’
    ‘Of course,' Mr. Fitzgerald replied drily. ‘The Incas were highly intelligent men who knew the value of such an alliance.’
    ‘You’re a cynic,' I protested, thinking I could imagine the present-day Don Ramón acting in exactly that manner—giving up all his fortune if he really loved a woman.
    ‘No, I’m a realist, Miss Bradley.'
    ‘Was she in love with him?'
    ‘That I am not competent to answer.'
    ‘Were they happy?'
    ‘If folklore is to be believed, extraordinarily so. But we digress. Carradedas never returned to his native Spain. He brought over his possessions. He imported Spanish horses. He farmed the land, and built settlements. His young wife bore him many children, of which El Presidente and Don Ramón are descendants. El Presidente is Don Ramón's elder half-brother. There has always been a Carradedas in power. El Presidente takes his duties very soberly and seriously, but Don Ramón takes pleasure in flouting the conventions.'
    ‘And is that the problem?'
    ‘Happily that is only Charaguay and El