Farrel stood up. "Well, that's all I wanted to see you about, Bill.
That, and to say 'thank you' until you are better paid."
"Well, I'm on my way, Miguel." The old contractor shook hands with
Father Dominic and Farrel, cranked his car, turned it and headed back
up the San Gregorio, while Father Dominic guided Don Mike into the
Mission refectory, where Father Andreas and the lay brothers sat around
the dinner table, discussing a black scale which had lately appeared on
their olive trees.
At the entrance to the palm avenue, Bill Conway stopped his car and
proceeded afoot to the Farrel hacienda, which he approached cautiously
from the rear, through the oaks. A slight breeze was blowing down the
valley, so Conway manoeuvred until a short quick bark from one of
Farrel's hounds informed him that his scent had been borne to the
kennel and recognized as that of a friend. Confident now that he would
not be discovered by the inmates of the hacienda, Bill Conway proceeded
boldly to the barn. Just inside the main building which, in more
prosperous times on El Palomar, had been used for storing hay, the
touring car stood. Conway fumbled along the instrument board and
discovered the switch key still in the lock, so he turned on the
headlights and discovered the limousine thirty feet away in the rear of
the barn. Ten minutes later, with the spark plugs from both cars
carefully secreted under a pile of split stove wood in the yard, he
departed as silently as he had come.
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