She had been in his room often enough when he was out for it to hold no surprise for her. There was the six-foot-wide hammock woven of the fibres of the toucan palm, as soft and as pliant as the finest Panama hat and the most comfortable of all beds for use in a hot climate. There were several pieces of furniture, tables, a chest of drawers and a big cabinet in which he kept his clothes.

They, with the furniture in the outer cave, were old Spanish pieces, gracious, dignified and of great antiquity, and Skye knew that they came from the estancia that El Diablo had been driven from by General Alejo.

As in her own bedroom there was no outer door to El Diablo’s cave, only a window, also with an iron grille that overlooked the terrace.

Skye looked on the tables and on the top of the chest of drawers for a bottle of disinfectant or of iodine. There was a various assortment of articles, but not what she wanted and cautiously she tried the drawers of the chest.

The two top ones were filled with ties and handkerchiefs, the next one contained underclothes and the bottom one shirts. She was then about to try the big cabinet when she noticed that the small table beside El Diablo’s bed had a drawer in it.

It was too narrow to contain a bottle and yet, inquisitively, since she had started to look around, she thought that she would also search there.

She pulled at the drawer – it was locked. She gave it another tug from impatience rather than the thought that it would open and to her surprise and momentary consternation a piece of wood holding the lock in position fell away and clattered on to the floor.

Skye realised then that the table was as old as the rest of the furniture. Beautifully inlaid, it had the appearance of exquisite old marquetry and she realised uncomfortably that her roughness had damaged a centuries-old piece of craftsmanship.

She picked up the piece of wood that had fallen to the floor, wondering if she could stick it back again. Then she saw that the open drawer contained papers.

Her curiosity was aroused. What, she wondered, could be of such importance that El Diablo kept it here beside his bed rather than in the desk in the outer cave where, she knew, the majority of his things were housed?

She pulled the drawer a little further open. They were legal documents, she thought.

Then, as she moved the papers tentatively with one hand, she saw what looked unmistakably like a British passport.

She pulled it out.

For a moment the disquieting thought came to her that she was prying into things that did not concern her and then, with a little toss of the head, she told herself that anything was permissible when she was dealing with someone like El Diablo.