_Chapter two_
Dr. Varela Ansaldo was traveling with his assistant, a young Dr. Marina,an American nurse named Geraldine Olmstead, and a Dominican passport.This much Hall was able to observe at the ground station, before thepassengers for San Hermano and way points boarded the Stratoliner.
The Dominican passport interested Hall. He knew that the passports werefor sale at an average price of a thousand dollars. Refugees starved andborrowed and sold their souls to scrape together a thousand dollars forone of the precious passports. When you met a Spaniard with a newDominican passport, you seldom had to ask questions; you knew you weremeeting a man whose life was not worth a nickel in Spain. And yet, inthe day-old issue of _Time_ the Clipper had flown in from Miami, thebiography of Ansaldo carried no hint of the doctor's being in disfavorwith Franco. Nor did the biography mention the physician's Dominicancitizenship.
Hall read the _Time_ biography again. _Scrupulously impartial during theSpanish Civil War, Ansaldo took no sides, remaining at his post as ahealer under both nationalist and loyalist flags. With the end of war,Ansaldo accepted a Chair offered by the Penn Medical Institute inPhiladelphia, assuming new position in October, 1939._ The story went onto describe some of the new operations Ansaldo had since performed.
Hall unbuckled his seat belt. He had a single seat on the left of theplane, the third seat from the front. Ansaldo's nurse had the seat infront of his. She sat across the aisle from Marina and Ansaldo, whoshared a double seat. Hall sat opposite a pink-cheeked Dutchman of sixtywho shared a seat with a very dark Brazilian. A State Department courierhad the seat in front of the nurse. The other passengers included thewife of an American Army officer, some Panair officials, two StandardOil engineers, and some quiet Latin American government officials ontheir way back from Washington.
Most of the passengers, now that the plane had gained altitude, weretrying to sleep. The little Hollander was wide awake, virtuously andhappily wide awake with the morning heartiness of a man who has beengoing to bed and rising early all of his life. He beamed at Hall. "I seeyou and I are the only ones who had a good night's sleep, Mr. Hall."Then, laughing, he explained that he had recognized Hall from thepicture on the jacket of his book before he had even heard his nameannounced by the steward on boarding ship. His accent was slight, butdefinite.
"Yesterday," he said, gesturing at Hall's seat, "Miss Prescott--acharming lady, by the way--and today another American writer. Ah, well,the damn wheel turns and comes up twice with the same value. Oh, Iforgot. My name is Wilhelm Androtten."
Hall extended his hand across the aisle, gripped the hand Androttenoffered him. It was a pudgy little hand, soft and white and pink.
"Yes," Androtten sighed. "I have quite a hell of a story of my own totell about enemy actions. I too have been an actor in the drama. But ofcourse I'm not a writer. Ah no, Mr. Hall," he waved a stiff little indexfinger back and forth in front of his glowing face, "I'm not going tosuggest that you write my story. To me it is important as hell. But tothe world? It is not as dramatic as the sinking of the _Revenger_. Athousand times no!"
The Hollander pulled an immense old-fashioned silver cigarette case fromthe pocket of his brown-linen suit. "Have an American cigarette? Good.Yes, mine is only the story of how the damn Japanese Army drove a poorcoffee planter off his estates and then out of Java. And that is all,sir, except that as you may have guessed--I was the planter. Now I am,so to speak, a real Flying Dutchman, flying everywhere to buy coffeefrom the other planters and then flying everywhere to sell it again. ButI try to be jolly as hell and to bear my load like a Dutchman should,Mr. Hall."
"That _is_ a story, Mr. Androtten," Hall said. "A real one." The stronglight above the clouds rasped his sleep-hungry eyes. He put on his darkglasses, leaned his head back against the padded roll of the recliningchair.
"Do you really think my story is worth while, Mr. Hall? I would behonored as hell to tell you the whole story with all the damn facts, ifyou desire. I ... Are you getting off at Caracas?"
"No. I'm sorry. I go all the way through to San Hermano."
"Good, Mr. Hall. I go to San Hermano myself. Do you know the Monte Azulbean, sir? It's richer than the Java. A little Monte Azul, a littleBogota, some choice Brazilians--and you have a roast that will delightthe rarest palates. Yes, San Hermano is my destination. San Hermano andthe damn Monte Azul bean."
Hall gave up trying to stifle a series of yawns. "I'm sorry," he said."I guess I didn't get enough sleep after all."
"Please sleep," Androtten said. "We'll have plenty of time to talk inSan Hermano."
"Sure. Plenty of time." Hall opened the collar of his shirt, sank into alight sleep almost at once. He slept for over an hour, waking when theStandard Oil engineers in the rear seats laughed at a joke told by theArmy officer's wife. The steady drone of the engines, the continuingsharpness of the light made remaining awake difficult. Hall closed hiseyes again but there was no sleep.
Androtten and the Brazilian had found a common tongue, French, and inthe joy of this discovery had also discovered a common subject. TheBrazilian was holding forth on the exotic virtues of one rare coffee,the huge diamond on his finger ring catching and distributing the lightas he gestured. Androtten was trying to describe the various blends ofJava.
Hall thought of Ansaldo and Marina and the nurse. Marina was aboutthirty, too dapper, too fastidious, his plaid sports jacket fitting toosnugly over his rounded hips. On boarding the plane, the nurse hadbrushed against his arm, which he withdrew with a subconscious gestureof revulsion. Hall watched him now, buffing his nails with a chamoisboard. Ansaldo had also awakened, was reading one of the pile of medicalmagazines he had carried into the plane. The nurse was a blank, so far.All he could see of her was the soft roll of strawberry hair. She had afew faint freckles on her nose and full lips and it was ten to one thatshe was from the Midwest. But a blank.
The older doctor, Ansaldo, was about fifty, and had a stiff correctnessthat Hall had noticed immediately in the airport. He wore glasses whosehorn rims were of an exaggerated thickness. His iron-gray hair, cutshort and combed straight back, had an air of almost surgical neatness.He had the long horse face of an El Greco Cardinal, and behaved eventoward his assistant and his nurse with a detached politeness. Marina'sobvious and fawning devotion to the older man seemed to bounce offAnsaldo without effect. Hall put him down as an extremely cold fish, buta cold fish who would bear watching for reasons Hall himself could notquite define.
When the plane stopped in Caracas for refueling, Ansaldo, carrying athick medical journal with his finger still marking his place, took aslow walk in the shade, Marina following at his heels like a puppy. Hallgot out and lit a cigar and when he noticed the nurse looking at theexhibit of rugs and dolls set up in a stand at the edge of the airfieldhe walked to her side. "Indian-craft stuff," he said. "If you'd care to,I'll be your interpreter."
The girl took off her dark glasses, looked at Hall for a moment, andthen put them on again. "I can't see too well with these darn things,"she laughed. "Do you think I could get a small rug without giving up myright arm?"
"Your right arm is safe with me around, Madam. Perhaps you never heardof me, Madam, but in these parts I'm known as Trader Hall. MatthewHall."
"You're hired. My name is Jerry Olmstead."
They sauntered over to the stand. The afternoon sun ignited the fires inher hair. She was taller than most women, and though her white sharkskinsuit was well creased from travel, Hall could see that she had the kindof full shapely figure which made poolroom loafers whistle and trustedbank employees forget the percentages against embezzlers. Feature forfeature, Jerry Olmstead's was not the face that would have launched evena hundred ships. Her forehead was too high, and it bulged a bit. Herblue eyes were a shade too pale for the frank healthiness of her skin.Her nose was straight and well shaped, but almost indelicately large.When she smiled, she displayed two rows of glistening healthy teethwhich were anything but even and yet not uneven enough to be termedcrooked.
Hall helped her select a small rug, agreed at once to the price asked bythe Indian woman at the stand, and then had a long discussion in Spanishwith the peddler about the state of affairs at the airport before givingher the money. "You see," he said to Jerry, "unless you bargain withthese Indians, you're bound to get robbed." The rug cost Jerry somethinglike sixty cents in American money.
"You'll be able to pick up some wonderful beaten-silver things in SanHermano," Hall said. "I'd be glad to show you around when we get there.In the meantime, can I get you a drink?"
"I'd love one."
The only drinks for sale in the canteen were cold ginger ale andlemonade. They had the ginger ale, and Hall learned that this was thegirl's first trip out of the United States. "It's all so different!" shesaid, and Hall thought he would grimace but then the girl smiled happilyand he watched the skin wrinkle faintly at the bridge of her nose and hesmiled with her. "You'll like San Hermano," he said. "And I'd like toshow it to you when we get there."
"Did you spend much time there?"
"Only a few days. I took a freighter back from Cairo two years ago andit put in at San Hermano."
"Say, what do you do, anyway?" Jerry asked.
"Don't sound so surprised. I'm a newspaperman."
"Were you a war correspondent?"
Hall nodded. "I even wrote a book."
Jerry looked into her glass. "I know it sounds terrible," she said, "butI haven't read a book in years. Was yours about the war?"
"Let's talk about it in San Hermano. Do I show you the town?"
"It's a date."
"That bell is for us," Hall said. "We'd better get back to the plane."
They left the canteen. Ansaldo and Marina were still walking in a slowcircle. "Come on," Jerry said. "Meet my boss."
She approached Ansaldo. "Dr. Ansaldo," she said, "I'd like you to meetMr. Matthew Hall. He's a newspaperman from the States. And this is Dr.Marina.
"Mr. Hall is showing me around San Hermano when we get there."
"How nice," Ansaldo said, and from his tone Hall knew that he meantnothing of the sort.
"But now we must hurry," Ansaldo said. "The plane is about to depart."He took Jerry's arm and they walked on ahead of Marina and Hall.
"Senor Hall, if you are going to write about the doctor's forthcomingoperation," Marina said, "I would gladly help you. The doctor is thegreatest surgeon of our times, perhaps, who knows, of all times. He ismagnificent. In his hands, the scalpel is an instrument of divinity. Itis more, it is divinity itself. I must tell you the story of thedoctor's greatest operations, although all of them are great. I willhelp you. You will write a great article about the great operation."
"I am very grateful to you, doctor. I hope that in San Hermano you willhave enough time to give me your counsel. After you, doctor." Hall tooka last drag at his cigar as Marina climbed the plane ladder.
* * * * *
There was a mountain--the Monte Azul which produced the beans ofAndrotten's rhapsodies--and a plateau in the clouds and below theplateau lay the ocean and the city of San Hermano. The lights were goingon in the city when Flight Eighteen ended on the airport in the plateau,for the city was five miles farther from the sinking sun of the moment.On the plateau, the airport lights blended with the brown-orange shadesof dusk; in the city the lights cut through the classic blackness ofnight.
A smartly dressed colonel and a top-hatted functionary of the ForeignOffice were waiting with two black limousines for the Ansaldo party. Theman from the Foreign Office had cleared all the passport and customsformalities. Jerry had just enough time to tell Hall that she and thedoctors were to stay at the Bolivar before the cars started down thewinding hill to San Hermano.
Hall rode to town with the rest of the passengers in the sleek Panairbus. He and Androtten were also bound for the Bolivar.
Riding into the valley, the bus descended into the night. It was a nightmade blacker by the war, as were the nights in San Juan and Havana andNew York. San Hermano was the capital of a nation still at peace, butthe maws of the war across the seas reached for the oil and coal of theworld, and San Hermano could not escape this world. Three lights inevery four on the Plaza de la Republica were out, for coal and oilfurnished the power for the city's electricity. Two years earlier, Hallhad asked Anibal Tabio why coal and oil had to turn the city's dynamoswhen the nation abounded in thousands of mountain streams which could beharnessed by men with slide rules and logarithm tables, and the gentlePresident had answered him in a sentence. "Because, my dear Hall, SanHermano has been in the twentieth century for barely a decade, whileyour own nation has been in our century for forty years." And tonight,looking at the ancient Plaza from the window of his room on the thirdfloor of the Bolivar, Hall remembered Tabio's words with disturbingclarity.
From the balcony of his hotel room, Hall could see both San Hermanos,the Old City and the New. Everyone spoke of the two cities in theseterms--the geographers, the tourist guides, the inveterate _Hermanitos_themselves.
The Old San Hermano had been founded by the Conquistadores in thesixteenth century, a walled speck on the shores of an ocean, a fortressand a thatched church, a handful of flimsy huts. In a century, thethatched church became a proud, gloomy Cathedral; one of the walls wasknocked down, and in its place was the cobbled Plaza de Fernando eIsabel. The Plaza was Spain in the New World; opening on to its cobblesstood the huge Moorish stone palaces designed by architects brought overfrom Seville, the palace of the Captains-General who served as colonialgovernors, the fortified mint, the Cathedral, the home of the Governor'selder brother, the Duke of La Runa. Enslaved Indians and later chainedNegroes from the African coasts had carried on their backs the squarestones Spanish masons cut and formed for the edifices of the Plaza,first the Cathedral, next the Governor's Palace and the Mint.
Then, in the days of Hidalgo, Bolivar, and San Martin, the ancient Plazaof the Conquistadores became the Plaza de la Republica, and for a fewglorious hours the new nation was in tune with its century. But thegreat Liberators of the times were to die in embittered exile, far fromthe scenes of their brightest victories. For one swing of the pendulumthe liberated lands teetered on the dizzy heights of freedom, and thenthe pendulum swung back and stopped swinging for a century. The landremained in the hands of the Spanish nobles, and they won their waragainst the Industrial Revolution, and all that remained of the hour oftriumph was the name the Liberators had given the old Plaza and a hollowRepublic controlled by the landowners.
In ways more subtle, but no less real than the old ways, the Republicbecame a colony again, except that the nation was no longer ruled by acrown but by new and even more potent symbols: the sign of the pound,the sign of the dollar, the sign of the franc. The new order brought anew San Hermano, a new Western city built around the rims of the oldfortress seaport. It was a strange and often beautiful melange of Frenchvillas and British banks and American skyscrapers and German townhouses.
The old Constitution of the Liberators gave way to a series of nativedictators who waxed rich as the servants of the foreign owners of themetals and minerals discovered under the nation's soil, of the foreignbusiness men who never saw San Hermano but built vast abattoirs near thewharves where skinny _Hermanitos_ earned a few pennies a day forslaughtering and then loading endless herds of native cattle in the darkholds of foreign ships.
They were ruthless men, the dictators who sat in San Hermano aspro-Consuls of the foreigners and the landowners, ruthless men who, fortheir share of the profits of the foreigners, of the endless rivers ofpesetas the landowners sent to Spain, maintained armies of cutthroats toput down any attempt at rebellion against the new existing order.
The last of these dictators to sit in San Hermano was General AgustoSegura. More than a decade had passed since Segura had died in bed and ajunta of professors and miners wrested the control of the nation fromSegura's henchmen. There had been little bloodshed when the Junta tookover; after thirty years, the Segura regime, or what was left o
f it, hadjust collapsed of its own rottenness.
Hall thought of Segura, and the state he had ruled, and then, againthinking about Tabio while he stared into the shadows of the darkenedPlaza de la Republica, Hall remembered Tabio's quiet remark about hiscountry's having been in the twentieth century for barely a decade. Aslim decade, which began with a world in confusion and was now endingwith a world in flames. But if the country weathered these flames, itwould be because Tabio, instead of running for the Presidency after therevolution which swept out the remnants of Segurista power, had chosento serve as Minister of Education for nearly ten years. Hall was willingto stake his life on this, ready to bet that the phenomenal freeeducational system Tabio had set up for children and adults would, inthe final analysis, be one of the nation's chief bulwarks againstfascism.
He changed his clothes and went out for a walk through the crookedstreets of Old San Hermano before turning in. Many lights were burningin the fourth floor of the Presidencia, the floor on which the Presidenthad his apartment. Military guards were standing listlessly at theentrances to the gilded building.
Hall walked along the Plaza until he came to the Calle de Virtudes,which led to a little cafe on the street opposite the rear entrance ofthe Presidencia. It had no windows but giant shutters which were foldedagainst the wall when the cafe was open for business. The cafe itselfstood on a corner, the sidewalks on both sides of the place covered withtables and chairs. Wooden lattice fences, painted a bright orange,screened the tables from the pedestrian's section of the sidewalk.Inside, near the bar itself, two boys with guitars were playing andsinging the tragi-comic peasant songs of the south.
He took a sidewalk table, ordered a meat pie and a bottle of beer, andthen went to the small hotel next to the cafe to buy a sheet of paper,an envelope, and an air-mail stamp. He asked for a telephone book,looked up the names under Gomez, copied the address of one Juan Gomez,and returned to his table. There he bought a newspaper from a boypeddling the latest edition of the evening. The front page carried astory about Ansaldo: the distinguished visiting medico was to spend thenext day conferring with local doctors who had been treating thePresident. In one of the back pages, under Arrivals, there was a lineabout the illustrious author and war correspondent Dr. M. Gall whoreached San Hermano by Clipper; Dr. Gall was the noted author of _TheRevenger_, even now being produced in Hollywood.
The paper was put aside for the meat pie. When he was done with thefood, Hall pushed his plates away and spread his sheet of lined writingpaper on the table before him. He called for some ink, filled hisfountain pen, and wrote a letter in Spanish to a "Dear Pedro."
It was a rambling, innocuous letter which started out with family gossipabout a forthcoming marriage of a cousin, the marriage prospects of thewriter's eligible daughter, the letter received from Cousin Hernando whowas happy on his new ranch and whose good wife was expecting anotherchild soon. Then the letter went on to say that "I suppose you have readin the Havana papers that our President is ailing. Today there arrivedin our city the distinguished Spanish doctor Varela Ansaldo. He is totreat the President. Perhaps I am very stupid, but is he not the surgeonwho operated so well on the throat of your dear Uncle Carlos?" Theletter then continued on for another page of family gossip and regardsand requests that Pedro embrace a whole list of dear cousins and aunts.It was signed, simply, "Juanito."
Hall read the letter twice, sealed it, and addressed the envelope toPedro de Aragon, Apartado 1724, La Habana, Cuba. Pedro de Aragon was amyth. Mail at this box was picked up by Santiago Iglesias, an officer ofthe Spanish Republican Army whom Hall had met again in Havana. Iglesiasdid at one time have an uncle named Carlos; the uncle had died on theJarama front from a fascist bullet that tore through his throat andkilled him instantly. Hall had arranged to write to Iglesias under nameschosen from the phone books of different cities if the need arose. Hescribbled the name and address of Juan Gomez on the back of theenvelope, left some money on the table, and walked back to the Plaza.There he dropped the letter in a mailbox and continued on his way to theBolivar.
There was a new clerk on duty when Hall reached the hotel, a wiry man offorty-odd whose yellow silk shirt clashed with both his black mohairjacket and his long, lined face. Hall asked for the key to Room 306 inSpanish.
The clerk cleared his throat and answered in English. "There wasmessages," he said, handing the key to Hall with a sheaf of slips. "Andalso this." From under the counter he drew a sealed letter written onheavy paper and bearing the neat blue imprint of the American Embassy atSan Hermano on the envelope.
Hall frowned and tore open the envelope.
"Senorita the Ambassador's daughter telephoned twice," the clerk said.
"Thank you."
"It's on this slip, Mr. Hall."
"Thanks again." He read the few handwritten lines of the letter. It wasan invitation from the Ambassador's daughter, Margaret Skidmore, toattend the Ambassador's party at the Embassy on the 5th. That was twonights off.
There was a message from Jerry Olmstead. She had phoned from her room toleave word that she had retired for the evening but would meet him inthe dining room at ten for breakfast. Hall noticed that the clerk waswatching him intently as he read the girl's message, but when he startedto read the next slip the clerk interrupted him.
"It's from Mr. Roger Fielding," he said. "I took the message myself. Heis a very nice person. An Englishman."
On the slip the clerk had written, "Mr. Fielding is very sorry you werenot in because it is important. He will call you again."
"My name is Fernando Souza," the clerk said, extending his hand. "I amvery happy to meet you."
Hall put the papers down on the desk and shook hands with the clerk.They had a meaningless chat about the rigors of wartime travel and thedimout in peaceful San Hermano and Hall learned that the EnglishmanFielding was in the tall Lonja de Comercio building and very decent. "Ihave been at this desk for many years and in this position one meetsmany people," the clerk said, and he went on amiably chatting about whatone could see on different one-day tours from the city.
"It is very sad about the President," Hall said, and then the clerkreddened and he forgot to speak English. "The Educator must live,"Fernando Souza said. "If the Educator goes, the nation goes."
"I know," Hall said. "I admire Don Anibal greatly."
"_Momentico, Senor. El telefono._" After nine, the night clerk had tohandle the switchboard at the Bolivar.
It was Fielding again. Hall picked up the phone on the marble counter."Yes, Mr. Fielding," he said, "I'm sorry I missed your first call."
"Not at all, old man. Not at all. Damned decent of you to answer my callnow, what with the hour and all that." The voice which came throughHall's receiver was the raspy, crotchety, bluff voice of a movieBritisher, the diction almost too good to be true. "I must say it was agood surprise, a good surprise. The paper tonight, I mean, even if theycalled you Dr. Gall. But what can they do if the H is silent inSpanish?"
"I've been called Gall before."
"Of course you have, of course you have." The man at the other end ofthe wire cleared his throat with a loud harumph. "What I'm callingabout, Mr. Hall, is--well, damn it all, what with the war and all that Iguess we have a right to keep a tired traveler from going to bed thesecond his plane reaches the end of his road. I think it rather urgentwe have a bit of coffee and a bit of a chat tonight. Really, old man, Ithink it is urgent."
"At what time?" Hall asked.
"I'm at home now," Fielding said. "I can get to Old San Hermano in anhour. Souza can tell you how to get to my office. Nice chap, that Souza.Straight as a die."
"Good."
"The office is about ten minutes from the Bolivar by cab, if Souza canget you a cab. Suppose I ring you at the Bolivar when I reach theoffice?"
"That will be fine. See you soon." Hall put the phone down and turned toSouza. "He said you are straight as a die," he said.
"Mr. Fielding is a very decent Englishman," Souza said. He offered nofurther inform
ation about Roger Fielding, and Hall decided againstasking any questions.
"If you are meeting him at his office, I had better get you a cab,"Souza said, and then, sensing the hesitation in Hall's eyes, he quicklyadded, "it would be better. Walking at night is dangerous, especially inOld San Hermano, since the lights went out. There are many--accidents."
"O.K.," Hall said. "Look, I'm going upstairs to catch a little sleep.When Fielding calls back, get me that cab and send up a pot of coffee.And it's been good meeting you, even if Fielding does say you arestraight as a die."
Souza did not get the joke, but he knew that Hall was trying to joke andhe laughed.
Hall went to his room, took off his shoes and his suit, and fell acrossthe bed. He dozed off wondering why he had agreed so readily to meet theman with the tailor-made British diction.
At ten-fifteen his phone rang. "Mr. Fielding called ten minutes ago. Ihave your cab ready now. He is a very reliable driver."
"Good. How about my coffee?"
Souza laughed. "The only waiter on duty is a _cabron_, Senor. Mr.Fielding will have much better coffee for you, anyway."
Hall chuckled as he washed the sleep out of his eyes with cold water andcombed his hair. The waiter is a _cabron_! There was one for the book.Hall made up a song while he dressed, a song about yes we have no coffeetoday because the son of a gun is a dirty _cabron_ so we have no coffeetoday.
Souza slammed his palm down on the bell twice when the elevator let Hallinto the lobby. "Pepito!" he shouted.
The biggest cab driver Hall had ever seen outside of the United Statesbounded into the lobby from the blackness of the San Hermano night. Headvanced toward the desk in seven-league strides, wiping his right handon the blouse of his pale-blue slack suit and taking off his whitechauffeur's cap with the other hand. He hovered over Hall like a motherhen.
"Pepito," Souza said, "this is Senor Hall." This he said in Spanish. InEnglish, he again told Hall that the man was a very reliable driver.
"_Con mucho gusto_, Senor 'All. _Me llamo_ Delgado." Sheepishly, thegiant offered his hand to Hall.
"I am much pleased," Hall said. "Shall we start now?"
Pepito Delgado led Hall to a blue 1935 LaSalle parked in front of theBolivar. "She is my own machine after I make the last payment nextmonth," Delgado said. "I am glad you speak Spanish. It is the onlylanguage I know." He drove Hall to the ten-story Comercio building in afew minutes.
When Hall tried to pay him, Delgado shook his head happily. "You'll payme later," he smiled. "I'll wait for you."
"But I may be hours," Hall protested.
Delgado called upon the Saints in a series of genially blasphemousexhortations. "Mother of God," he said, "it is bad luck not to make around trip with the first American of the season. I'll wait and notcharge you more than two pesos for the whole trip."
"I do not wish to rob you," Hall said. "Wait, and we shall make a fairprice later."
He entered the Comercio building, but as the doors of the elevatorclosed and he started on his way up to the seventh floor Hall knew thatDelgado was only playing the fool and was in fact no man's fool at all,and it bothered him. The right side of his face twitched slightly as heleft the car and walked down to the bend in the hall leading to Room719.