The Sneaky Spy had an adequate command of the English language, and he could usually prepare enough foreign vocabulary in order to survive when he made visits to various parts of the world. He would often make errors attempting to form literal translations of the words contained within a phrase, rather than availing himself of the extensive knowledge of foreign idiom. For example, Percy was greeted with laughter in Berlin when he used the sentence „Sie sind recht", to a friendly newfound acquaintance. „Sie", „sind", „recht" are indeed the translations of the words "You", "are", and "right" respectively. However, the correct German idiumatic phrase for "You are right" is „Sie haben recht," because, as Percy was to discover, it is not the case that German people are  right. Instead, they have  right.

Notwithstanding Percy's difficulties in correctly translating foreign idium, the Sneaky Spy had almost no difficulty at all in communicating with people of Mexico City during a brief holiday visit which he had chosen to make. 

In one sense, the  Sneaky Spy was always on holidays, because he had inherited a large sum of money, and other items of wealth, from his grandparents; and relished the fact that he would never need to spend his time shuffling paper for business firms amidst daily office politics, or building road constructions in an attempt to accentuate the traffic problems and safety hazards faced by the local councils.

In another sense, the Sneaky Spy was never on holidays, because he could never anticipate the moment when he would again be launched into an adventure requiring his physical and mental talents as well of the psychological value of his extraordinairily open mind. 

For the moment, however, he was able to relax at Henrico's, a respectable restaurant with a large stage for its many entertainers. The Sneaky Spy had faced many challenging dangers and mysteries in his adventurous lifetime, but he could muster neither the courage nor the particular sense of taste required, to navigate his way through an entire meal of nachos. The mountains of meat, cheese, pasta and tacos were as attractive a meal when eaten individually as they would be when combined in a mixture; but Percy Dale had a chronic fear of coming in close contact with the adhesive green mixture which can often be found in a nachos dish in the mexican restaurants one encounters in Australia. Consequently, it was a plateful of ordinairy tacos, including the accompanying mincemeat, which occupied the digestive organs of the Sneaky Spy, as his eyes and ears absorbed the music and dancing of the Louisiana Quintet, a group of performers who were currently engaged in Mexico City.

"Mm, this must be their best little number so far," thought the Sneaky Spy, "I never thought I could enjoy a Mexican cabaret act to the extent that I am able to savour this one."

On the other side of the room a man put down his cutlery, rose to his feet, removed his napkin and made his way out into the hall.

"I find it rather odd, that anybody could choose to leave at this point in the procedings," thought the Sneaky Spy, "It would appear that the other customers - who are many in 

number - are as captivated by the sound of this song as I am. I would loathe the thought of my being of sufficiently narrow mind as to expect everybody to sympathise with  my musical interests, but I cannot help but suspect that the man who has just departed might have a suspicious reason for leaving."

Percy followed the man out of the main room, and observed his destination: a telephone. Instinctively taking a small device from his pocket, Percy approached the man.

"Excuse me. I am in a terrible hurry. May I use this telephone before you?" said the Sneaky Spy.

"No you cannot!" snapped the other fellow, "I was here first! This is urgent for me also. Now go away!"

"No need to become aggressive," said the Sneaky Spy, as he seized the man by the lapels on the fellow's coat. To the frightened Mexican, it appeared that Percy was merely demonstrating a poor standard of conduct in the hallway of a respectable restaurant. However, the Mexican was not aware that the Sneaky Spy had concealed a tiny audio monitoring device between two of his fingers. When Percy seized the Mexican, he allowed the tiny transmitter - which contained a powerful miniature microphone - to slip from his fingers and land in the coat pocket of the disrupted recipient.

"Excuse me, Sir. I meant no harm. It's just that I was here before you," said the Mexican.

"Indeed you were," said the Sneaky Spy, releasing his captive, "So I will try the upstairs hallway, in search of another telephone."

Percy ascended the stairs, rounded the corner and checked to see that the upstairs hallway was empty. Then he took out a small earpiece from inside his pocket, and put it to his ear as he peeked around the corner and down at the Mexican. The subject of the Sneaky Spy's relentless scrutiny was indeed a flustered fellow, who removed - from the inner pocket of his coat - a photograph. The Sneaky Spy was unable to see clearly enough to identify the person who had been pictorially immortalised, but his earpiece relayed the low muttering of the Mexican in order to inform Percy of the reasons for the man's untimely departure from the main room.

"Hello...Carlos here. I have found the girl...yes...Yes she is positively the one in the photograph...Yes...I shall kill the damsel in distress."

There was a long pause. Percy's transmitter could not pick up the words spoken by the person at the other end of the line. The Sneaky Spy listened again.

"No, I cannot do it here, Senor...but....si, si, Senor. I will not fail you like the others."

The Mexican soon replaced the receiver, and Percy followed him out of the restaurant. The Mexican made his way to an apartment several blocks away and entered his own room, locking the door from inside.

The Sneaky Spy waited outside, listening to a series of clicks and rattles, after which the tread of footsteps preceded the unlocking and reopening of the door. Percy grabbed the man's neck and pushed him up against the side of the doorway's rectangular structure. The Sneaky Spy's left hand was as rigid as a carpenter's vice. The man nearly choked as Percy's right hand instinctively reached into the Mexican's inner pocket for the photograph which he had seen earlier. Failing to find it, the Sneaky Spy's right hand then seized the second item on the agenda of his several second search: a loaded automatic pistol. Percy tossed it into the room, forced the man down onto his own floor, closed and locked the door and then heaved the Mexican onto his feet.

"Alright, now who were you planning to use that on, Mister?"

"Nobody. It is protection from thugs, Senor."

"Nonsense! Who is your target? Who's the 'damsel in distress' to whom you referred?"

"Listen, I am not aware of what you mean."

"Look, I am not here to waste time repeating all of my questions," said the Sneaky Spy as he grabbed the man's tie and shirt collar at the front of his neck, "because I know that you're some sort of contract hitman, and I know you have a contract on a girl. Oh believe me, I know."

The Sneaky Spy's free hand removed the transmitter from Carlos' pocket.

"I know most of it already, because your lack of appreciation for the Louisiana Quintet prompted me to leave you this present during the scuffle which assisted with my earlier pretense of needing the telephone in a hurry. Now you had better tell me who it is that you are after. In fact, you can give me the photograph."

"No I cannot. Ha ha. I destroyed it, burnt it as soon as I got in. You don't think that I'd leave evidence like that lying around when I am planning a hit, do you, Senor?"

"No, of course you wouldn't, but you'll tell me who it is, or I'll send you across the room so fast that you'll -"

"Let him go and raise your hands, Senor!" grated a voice behind a gun. 

Percy obeyed.

"It's a good thing that I was in the bathroom at the time. Carlos can whisper, you know. You didn't fool him one little bit by following him here and hiding outside the door. You're not going to know anything else, but you'll do well to survive what I've got planned for you."

"Let me kill him now, Senor Skinn," said Carlos.

"No! It's too noisy, and too hard to get the body out unnoticed afterwards. I'll take care of him my way. You'd better get on with the job."

Carlos recovered his gun from the floor and departed, while Percy's captor kept a gun trained on his spine, while tying his hands firmly behind his back with his free hand. He then pushed the Sneaky Spy onto the bed, and sat down at a table to eat some dinner.

"You really believe in making your guests feel comfortable, don't you?" said the Sneaky Spy, rolling over on the bed to look at the man, which now positioned his tightly tied hands behind his back and therefore out of Senor Skinn's probing optic endowments.

"And who am I making comfortable right now? Are you a policeman or just some smart guy who cannot mind his own business?"
"My friends and not-so-friendly acquaintances have learnt to call me the Sneaky Spy" said Percy, "It's a thing my grandmother initiated several years ago actually."
"Well you won't be living to see any grandchildren of your own Senor Sneaky Spy. I am not going to leave living loose ends like you around to cause me trouble."

"So who is this damsel in distress?" asked Percy as he reached for the knife in the sheath concealed under his left sleeve. This process by which Percy Dale would free his hands from a rope binding had become habitual, and almost mechanical. His real concern was the identity of Carlos' victim.

"I shan't be telling you who, but she used to be a lover of mine, until she discovered my underworld hobbies. I did not know that she had found out until I discovered a letter on my bed stating that she had learned of my illegal enterprises and had no choice but to leave me. Now I must see to it that she not only leaves me but this world as well. It is my only way of preventing any further interference."

"Of course, I quite understand," laughed the Sneaky Spy as his knife silently sawed through the last bit of rope, "but I don't like the thought of dying in order to further the cause of your continuing to be a naughty Mexican gangster. So if you could be very understanding about this, I would really appreciate it."

Percy's knife shot toward the gun, knocking it off the table, as the Sneaky Spy jumped forwards from the bed and pushed the table into Skinn's chest, knocking him over. Percy leapt over the table, and his foot landed on Skinn's wrist before it could reach the fallen gun. He turned to question the man, only to see that Skinn's other hand had stabbed Skinn's own chest with a dart which undoubtedly contained a serum that would send Skinn into the realm of the sandman.

"Too late to ask me now and too late to stop it," mumbled Skinn, "By the time you're finished trying, I'll be awake and free again. You cannot save a damsel in distress."

* * * *

Percy turned all the clues over in his mind as he ran back towards the restaurant. He had not even wasted any time on tying up Skinn. A murder had to be prevented. He would worry about Skinn later.

"Well it must be one of the Louisiana Quintet," thought the Sneaky Spy, "because that naughty Carlos had his eye on the stage immediately before he got up and left. He must have identified one of the Quintet as the 'damsel in distress'. But which one?"

There was something about the significance of that expression. Why had the Mexican not used the words 'broad', 'blond', 'lady', 'girl', or 'senorita'?

Percy reached the restaurant to find that the evening's performance was over, and the members of the Quintet had each gone to their separate rooms upstairs. Carlos would be off to do the job, with a silencer. A professional hit man would enter the room from the outside window after climbing up the drainpipe.

Percy simply did not have the time to check the five rooms and prepare for an unexpected entrance in each of them.

He suddenly remembered something about the Louisiana Quintet. He ran to the reception desk and solicited the urgent undivided attention of one of the bellboys.

"Donna Scarlot, the red haired girl from the Quintet. Where is she?"

"You mean the one who dyed her hair red to match her name?"

"Her namesake sound-alike indeed. Which room is she staying in? You must tell me fast and lend me the spare key. It is a matter of life and death," said the Sneaky Spy, thrusting several rations of Mexican currency into the hand of the lad.

"Well... alright. Room 17 upstairs. I'll give you the key if you return it soon."

"Trust me," said Percy, taking the key and darting for the stairs. In little time, he had located room seventeen and opened the door with his borrowed key.

"Hello Donna, no time to explain things," said the Sneaky Spy as he ran to the window to see that he had guessed correctly. Carlos was ascending the drainpipe hoping that the pre-recorded music emanating from the restaurant's speakers would cover the noise which he made with his approach.

"Hello Carlos, are you and your Tommy gun doing a spot of nocturnal plumbing?" questioned the Sneaky Spy, as Carlos jumped down to the ground and ran out to the street. Percy descended the drainpipe at a dangerous pace and pursued Carlos until he was within the firing distance of Percy's tranquiliser dart gun. Then the Sneaky Spy took it from his pocket and fired it. 

He dragged the Mexican into Henrico's, telephoned the local constabulary, alerting them to the location of Senor Skinn, and then attempted to explain the matter to Donna Scarlot.

* * * *

"Senor Dale, you saved me, but how did you know I needed saving? I didn't know myself."

"Well I saved Carlos too actually. If he ever reforms, he'll be glad that he never got the chance to commit a murder, the consequences of which he would have to live with for the rest of his life. Anyway, to answer your question, I noticed that Carlos departed during the third song of your performance - which was my favourite of the three that I saw - so I followed him, planted a transmitter on his person, equipped with a listening device, overheard of his contract to kill a 'damsel in distress', followed him home, surprised him, questioned him, was interrupted by a surprise of my own, discovered that I had in fact neither surprised him nor his associate being your former lover Senor Skinn; and managed to escape and deduce that the damsel in distress was actually you."

"How?"

"Well it's that expression I heard. You're also a fashion model, aren't you? An American fashion model turned songstress. Quite an achievement."

"Yes, go on."

"And Carlos and Skinn are Mexicans. They actually confused me with their pronunciation. Their true description of you was that you were 'a damsel in dis dress'. The dress, of course, was the one you were wearing in the photograph which Carlos had used to identify you. It was probably something of a tribute to your photogenic appearance, but we'll never know now, because Carlos arranged its incendiary epitaph before I ever had a chance to retrieve it and caption the back of it with that persistently confusing phrase."

So it was that Donna Scarlot threw herself at the Sneaky Spy, and the Louisiana Quartet came into being as Donna left Mexico and the band. She would occasionally perform solo gigs in Australia.

* * * *

In the days ahead, the Sneaky Spy returned to Australia, and was soon involved in helping another girl in trouble. Her name was Karro, and she was an innocent suspect in a series of attacks on girls of her old school. 

In a brief brush with a police inspector who was investigating the case, the Sneaky Spy did not exactly endear himself to the man, but was able to clear Karro from further suspicion. The adventure is hardly worthy of mention here except for one thing. The last time he had been to that school, he had been somewhat smaller, and had been carried out in the pocket of Ingrid, while wondering whether or not she had decided to gobble him whole for her supper. Donna was attractive, but not nearly as tall as Ingrid, and for that matter shorter than Percy. 

She also had no desire to eat him, and that made her less desirable than Ingrid. Would he ever get her out of his system?