Adventure stories; British -- Portugal -- Fiction; Lisbon (Portugal) -- Fiction; Love stories
“Tell me. You can surely trust me,” she urged.
“You could only help me by betraying your former friends. Do you know a
Dr. Barosa?”
“By name, yes. There is nothing you can ask me I will not tell you. You
believe that as I am sure you believe I will keep everything you say
secret.”
A few seconds decided me to tell her enough to make the position
clear--that what I wanted was to know where to look for Barosa.
“I do not know that I could help you much in any case. It is very
difficult,” she murmured, her face troubled and her manner expressing
both perplexity and wistful anxiety.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“You said I might have to betray my former associates. Does that mean
that you will take the police with you?” She paused and sat biting her
lip in great distress. “If you ask me, I cannot refuse.”
“If I can find Mademoiselle Dominguez without the police it is all I
want.”
She brightened instantly. “Can you get me some disguise?” Seeing my
surprise, she explained, “I would go without it, but it would not help
you. Since we parted this morning, I have had a very narrow escape from
arrest in my own name. The police are swarming near my lodging, and
it is in that district we must search. I was on my way there when by
good fortune I met a friend--a girl who had lived in the same house as
myself. She warned me not to go near it because the police were in it.
Her brother had been arrested and she herself was flying. To go as I
am, therefore, would not help you.”
“You must not go at all. Tell me where to go,” I said.
She hesitated again. “If I hesitate, you will understand me. Let me be
frank. Some of the people have been very kind to me and to put them
into the hands of the police would be an ill return.”
“I will not take the police with me. Tell me where to search, and I’ll
find means of doing what I need without the police.”
“A little to the west of the Theatre of Donna Amelia and close to the
Square of Camoes is a nest of streets; and many of the houses are those
of our friends where any refugees are certain of a ready shelter. It is
there I should expect to find those whom you seek. But you must go not
as you are. It would be not only useless but dangerous, and you must be
careful to have help at hand. If your object were suspected, you would
look in vain for a friend in all that district.”
I opened a map and she pointed the neighbourhood out to me and
indicated a spot at the corner of the Square which would be the best
for my purpose.
“There are three theatres close there, and the hawkers always stand
about there to catch the people going to them. You could thus watch
without being suspected;” she explained.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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