JК
Sharpes Devil :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 46 из 209" Marquinez's servant brought cigars, and Marquinez hospitably offered a burning spill to Harper. "So you're staying with Mister Blair?" he asked when the cigars were well lit. "Poor Blair! His wife refused to travel here, thinking the place too full of dangers! Still, if you keep Blair filled with gin or brandy he's a happy enough man. Your Spanish is excellent, permit me to congratulate you. So few of your countrymen speak our language."
"We both served in Spain," Sharpe explained.
"You did! Then our debt to you is incalculable. Please, seat yourselves. You said you had a letter of introduction?"
Marquinez took and read Dona Louisa's letter which did not specifically describe Sharpe's errand, but merely asked any Spanish official to offer whatever help was possible. "Which of course we will offer gladly!" Marquinez spoke with what seemed to be a genuine warmth. "I never had the pleasure of meeting Don Bias's wife. He died, of course, before she could join him here. So very tragic, and such a waste. He was a good man, even perhaps a great man! There was something saintly about him, I always thought." The last compliment, uttered in a very bland voice, somehow suggested what an infernal nuisance saints could be. Marquinez carefully folded the letter's pendant seal into the paper, then handed it back to Sharpe with a courtly flourish. "And how, sir, might we help you?"
"We need a permit to visit Puerto Crucero where we want to exhume Don Bias's body, then ship it home." Sharpe, encouraged by Marquinez's friendliness, saw no need to be delicate about his needs.
Marquinez smiled, revealing teeth as white and regular as a small child's. "I see no extraordinary difficulties there. You will, of course, need a permit to travel to Puerto Crucero." He went to his table and riffled through his papers. "Did you sail out here on the Espiritu Santo?"
'Yes."
"She's due to sail back to Spain in a few days and I see that she's ordered to call at Puerto Crucero on her way. There's a gold shipment ready, and Ardiles's ship is the safest transport we have. I see no reason why you shouldn't travel down the coast in the Espiritu Santo and, if we're fortunate, you might even take the body back to Europe in her hold."
Sharpe, who had been prepared by Blair for every kind of official obstructiveness, dared not believe his good fortune. The Espiritu Santo could indeed solve all his problems, but Marquinez had qualified his optimism with one cautious word that Sharpe now echoed as a tentative query.
"We both served in Spain," Sharpe explained.
"You did! Then our debt to you is incalculable. Please, seat yourselves. You said you had a letter of introduction?"
Marquinez took and read Dona Louisa's letter which did not specifically describe Sharpe's errand, but merely asked any Spanish official to offer whatever help was possible. "Which of course we will offer gladly!" Marquinez spoke with what seemed to be a genuine warmth. "I never had the pleasure of meeting Don Bias's wife. He died, of course, before she could join him here. So very tragic, and such a waste. He was a good man, even perhaps a great man! There was something saintly about him, I always thought." The last compliment, uttered in a very bland voice, somehow suggested what an infernal nuisance saints could be. Marquinez carefully folded the letter's pendant seal into the paper, then handed it back to Sharpe with a courtly flourish. "And how, sir, might we help you?"
"We need a permit to visit Puerto Crucero where we want to exhume Don Bias's body, then ship it home." Sharpe, encouraged by Marquinez's friendliness, saw no need to be delicate about his needs.
Marquinez smiled, revealing teeth as white and regular as a small child's. "I see no extraordinary difficulties there. You will, of course, need a permit to travel to Puerto Crucero." He went to his table and riffled through his papers. "Did you sail out here on the Espiritu Santo?"
'Yes."
"She's due to sail back to Spain in a few days and I see that she's ordered to call at Puerto Crucero on her way. There's a gold shipment ready, and Ardiles's ship is the safest transport we have. I see no reason why you shouldn't travel down the coast in the Espiritu Santo and, if we're fortunate, you might even take the body back to Europe in her hold."
Sharpe, who had been prepared by Blair for every kind of official obstructiveness, dared not believe his good fortune. The Espiritu Santo could indeed solve all his problems, but Marquinez had qualified his optimism with one cautious word that Sharpe now echoed as a tentative query.