Gilberto gives chase

A few hours later in the hotel lobby stood a sight that would have left any new arrivals checking in staring in disbelief. In a line were four men, the first was a tall elegant man in a tweed suit and deerstalker who looked rather bemused as if he had just been transported from 19^th century London. Next to him stood a huge black man with, tiny shorts and gigantic feet that were wearing dainty purple velvet slippers.  Then came a short stocky and rather squat looking man who had the look of a psychopath about him, except in one hand he was holding a bunch of wild flowers and the other was clutching a copy of Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton. Finally lent awkwardly against a pair of antique wooden crutches was a lithe, dark haired and handsome man, whose left leg was entirely covered by a plaster cast. Facing them stood another huge figure, he was dressed in a fine dessert coloured suit, with a white panama hat, the black ribbon on it matched the colour and thickness of the man’s moustache and out of his mouth came clouds of hot blue smoke, at that very moment Don Blanco looked like a magnificent dragon. The dragon gestured for the men to follow him into a quiet corner of the lobby, The men followed the Englishman trying to get a notebook out of his pocket dropped his new tin of lemon drops onto the floor, he knelt down trying to rescue them as the slid across the lobby. “Please Mr Sempleton, we do not have time to worry about your lemon drops right now” shouted the Don and so with a heavy heart the detective left the sweets that had scattered around the room and walked over to where the others were standing. The Don lowered his voice to a whisper “gentlemen” but before he could utter another word, Gilberto caught sight of Marek the spindly and sneaky hotel porter peering round from behind the aspidistra plant that behind Don Blanco.

Gilberto shouted “look he is a eavesdropper” the sight of the giant Brazilian in the velvet slippers caused Marek to freeze for a split second with a look of abject terror before quickly turning on his heels and running as fast as his twig like legs could carry him made for the hotel entrance. He just made it through the revolving doors, escaping Gilberto’s grasp by millimetres, then out into the quiet avenue that led down to the canal at Podwale. Marek did not dare look back, he turned right and into the park, his feet trampling the leaves that the winter had started to strip from the trees. Marek felt like he was getting away then suddenly he felt a snap in his leg and then he was airborne, floating above the golden carpet of leaves beneath him. The sensation of flight did not last long however, Marek crashed to the ground, rolling amongst the leaves and shrieking in pain with a high pitched shrill. Couples walked past arm and arm looking down at the pitiful man clutching his leg, which blood was trickling down then walked hurriedly by. Any of them who might have stopped to help the injured porter, took one look at the giant defender stood over him and thought better of it. Gilberto put his huge velvet encased foot on the porters’ chest and looked down at his terror filled eyes with a certain sense of satisfaction. After all the swipe he had felled the eavesdropper with, would usually have resulted in a straight red card as well as the anger of his footballing puritan of a manager. But in this case it had been exactly what the situation required. Ignoring the shrill protestations of the hotel porter, Gilberto grabbed him by his burgundy lapels and dragged him along the ground back to the hotel.