by Mary Stewart
‘Good heavens! But surely, with children of his own—’
‘He managed.’ Max’s voice was suddenly grave. ‘We’re not rich, heaven knows … and an actor’s life’s a darned uncertain one at best … but it’s rather frightening how little a Greek family can manage on quite cheerfully. He kept them completely till Maria went out to work, and even after that he more or less kept them until the children could work, too.’ He stretched out a foot and shoved the log deeper on its bed of burning ash. ‘We came over here for holidays most years; that’s where I learned my Greek and the kids their English. We had a whale of a time, and father always loved it. I was thankful I had somewhere like this to bring him when the crash came … it was like having another family ready-made. It’s helped him more than anything else could have done. Being wanted does.’
‘Good heavens, the thousands that want him! But I know it’s different. So he came back here for peace to recover in, and then Spiro was killed. It must have hit him terribly.’
‘The trouble was,’ said Max, ‘that Maria wouldn’t believe the boy could be dead. She never stopped begging and praying my father to find out what really happened to him, and to bring him back. Apparently she’d made a special petition to St Spiridion for him, so she simply wouldn’t believe he could have drowned. She got some sort of idea that he’d gone after his father, and must be brought home.’
The second cigarette stub went after the first. It hit a bar of the fire, and fell back on the hearthstone. He got up, picked it up and dropped it on the fire, then stayed on his feet with a shoulder propped against the high mantel.
‘I know it wasn’t reasonable, not after Manning had told her what had happened, but mothers don’t always listen to reason, and there was always the faint chance that the boy had survived. My father didn’t feel equal to handling it, and I knew that neither he nor Maria would have any peace of mind till they found what had become of his body, so I took it on. I’ve been having inquiries made wherever I could, here and on the mainland, to find out in the first place if he’d been washed ashore, dead or alive. I’ve also had someone in Athens trying to get information from the Albanian side. Where Spiro went in, the current sets dead towards the Albanian coast. Well, I did manage to get through in the end, but with no results. He hadn’t been seen, either on the Greek coast or the Albanian.’
I said: ‘And I read you a lesson on helping other people. I’m sorry.’
‘You couldn’t know it was any concern of mine.’
‘Well, no, it did rather seem to be Godfrey’s.’
‘I suppose so; but the local Greeks at any rate assumed that it was my father’s job – or mine – to do it. So the police kept in touch with us, and we knew we’d get any information that was going. And when Yanni Zoulas went across on his routine smuggling trip on Saturday night, and did actually get some news of Spiro through his Albanian “contact”, he came straight to us. Or rather, as straight as he could. You saw him on his way up to see us, on Sunday evening.’
I was bolt upright in my chair. ‘News of Spiro? Good news?’
I knew the answer before he spoke. The gleam in his eyes reminded me suddenly, vividly, of the way Adoni had looked at me on the staircase, glowing.
‘Oh, yes. He came to tell us Spiro was alive.’
‘Max!’
‘Yes, I know. You can guess how we felt. He’d been washed ashore on the Albanian side, with a broken leg, and in the last stages of exhaustion, but he’d survived. The people who found him were simple coast folk, shepherds, who didn’t see any reason to report things to the People’s Police, or whatever it’s called over there. Most people know about the smuggling that goes on, and I gather that these folk assumed that Spiro was mixed up in something of the sort, so they kept quiet about him. What’s more, they informed the local smuggler, who – naturally – knew Milo, Yanni’s “contact”, who in turn passed the news along to Yanni on Saturday.’
‘Oh, Max, this is marvellous! It really is! Did Yanni actually see him?’
‘No. It all came at rather third hand. Milo hasn’t much Greek, so all that Yanni got from him were the bare facts, and an urgent message that Spiro somehow managed to convey that no one, no one at all – not even Maria – had to be told that he was still alive, except myself, my father, and Adoni … the people who’d presumably get him out somehow.’ He paused, briefly. ‘Well, obviously we couldn’t go to the police and get him out by normal channels, or the people who’d rescued him would be in trouble, not to mention Yanni and Milo. So Yanni fixed up a rendezvous to bring the boy off by night.’
‘And he went back last night after he’d seen you, and ran into the coastguards and got hurt?’
But he was shaking his head. ‘He couldn’t have gone back alone; getting that boy off wasn’t one man’s job – don’t forget he was strapped to a stretcher. No, when Yanni came up on Sunday night, he came to ask me to go across with him. The rendezvous was fixed for tonight; Milo and his friend were to have Spiro there and Yanni and I were to take him off. So you see—’
I didn’t hear what he was going to say. It had all come together at last, and I could only wonder at my slowness in not seeing it all before. My eyes flew to his bandaged wrist, as the events of the night came rushing back: the secrecy of his journey through the woods, the impression I had had of more than one man passing me there, the owl’s call, Adoni’s vivid face …
I was on my feet. ‘The catch! Adoni and the catch! You took Adoni, and went over there yourself tonight! You mean it’s done? You’ve actually brought Spiro home?’
His eyes were dancing. ‘We have indeed. He’s here at this moment, a bit tired, but alive and well. I told you our night’s work had been worth while.’
I sat down again, rather heavily. ‘I can hardly take it in. This is … wonderful. Oh, Maria will be able to light herself a lovely candle this Easter! Think of it, Maria, Miranda, Sir Julian, Godfrey, Phyl … how happy everyone’s going to be! I can hardly wait till daylight, to see the news go round!’
The glow faded abruptly from his face. It must have been only imagination, but the gay firelight seemed dimmer, too.
He said sombrely: ‘I’m afraid it mustn’t go round yet, not any further.’
‘But—’ I stared, bewildered – ‘not to his mother or sister? Why on earth not, if he’s safely home? Surely, once he’s out of Albania he has nothing to fear? And Milo needn’t be involved at all – no one need even know Spiro was ever on Albanian soil. We could invent some story—’
‘I’d thought of that. The story will be that he was thrown ashore on one of the islands in the strait, the Peristeroi Islands, and that he managed to attract our attention when we were out fishing. It won’t fool the Greek police, or the doctor, but it’ll do for general release, as it were. But that’s not the point.’
‘Then what is?’
He hesitated, then said, slowly: ‘Spiro may still be in danger … Not from the other side, but here. What touched him, touched Yanni, too. And Yanni died.’
Something in his face – his very reluctance to speak – frightened me. I found myself protesting violently, too violently, as if by protesting I could push the unwanted knowledge further away. ‘But we know what happened to Spiro! He went overboard from Godfrey’s boat! How can he be in any danger now? And Yanni’s death was an accident! You said so!’
I stopped. The silence was so intense that you could hear the crazy ticking of the cuckoo clock, and the scrape of silk on flesh as my hands gripped together in my lap.
I said quietly: ‘Go on. Say it straight out, you may as well. You’re insinuating that Godfrey Manning—’
‘I’m insinuating nothing.’ His voice was curt, even to rudeness. ‘I’m telling you. Here it is. Godfrey Manning threw Spiro overboard, and left him to drown.’
Silence again, a different kind of silence.
‘Max, I – I can’t accept that. I’m sorry, but it isn’t possible.’
‘It’s fact, no more nor less.
Spiro says so. Yes, I thought you were forgetting that I’ve talked to him. He says so, and I believe him. He has no reason to lie.’
Seconds were out with a vengeance. Now that he had decided he must tell me, he hurled his facts like stones. And they hit like stones.
‘But – why?’
‘I don’t know. Neither does the boy. Which, when you come to think about it, makes it the more likely that he’s telling the truth. It’s something he’d have no reason to invent. He’s as stunned by it as you are.’ He added, more gently: ‘I’m sorry, Lucy, but I’m afraid it’s true.’
I sat in silence for a minute or two, not thinking, but looking down at my hands, twisting and turning the great diamond, and watching the firelight break and dazzle among its facets. Slowly, the stunned feeling faded, and I began to think …
‘Did you suspect Godfrey before?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘why should I? But when I got that message from Yanni, I did wonder why Godfrey hadn’t to be told. After all, it seemed reasonable to keep the news from Spiro’s mother and sister, because they’d be so elated that they might give everything away before Yanni had done the job; but Godfrey was a different matter. He would presumably be worrying about Spiro, and he has by far the best boat. What’s more, he’s an experienced seaman, and I’m not. I’d have expected him to be in on the rescue, rather than me and Adoni. It wasn’t much, but it did make me wonder. Then when Yanni was found dead next day, on top of Spiro’s odd warning, I wondered still more.’
I said: ‘You’re not suggesting now – you can’t be suggesting that Godfrey killed Yanni Zoulas? Max—’
‘What I’ve told you about Spiro is fact: what happened to Yanni is guesswork. But to my mind the one murder follows the other as the night the day.’
‘Murder …’ I don’t think I said it aloud, but he nodded as if I had.
‘I’m pretty sure of it. Same method, too. He’d been hit hard on the head and thrown into the sea. The bottle of ouzo was a nice touch, I thought.’
‘He was hit by the boom. The police said there were hairs—’
‘He could also have been hit with the boom. Anyone can crack an unconscious man’s head on a handy chunk of wood like that, hard enough to kill him before you throw him overboard – and hard enough to hide the crack you knocked him out with. I’m not bringing this out as a theory: I’m only saying it could have been done.’
‘Why did you go back to the body after we’d left?’
‘After Yanni left us on Sunday night I heard his boat go out, and I did wonder if he’d been stupid enough to go back on his own, and had run into trouble with the coastguards. From all that we’d been able to see he might have had a bullet hole in him somewhere, or some other evidence that would start a serious investigation. I was pretty anxious in case they started patrolling local waters before I’d got Spiro safely home.’
‘I see. And your own wrist – was that the coastguards?’
‘Yes, a stray bullet, and a spent one at that. It’s honestly only a graze; I’ll get it looked at when I get Spiro’s leg seen to. They must have heard something, and fired blind. We were just about out of range, and well beyond their lights.’
I said, rather wearily: ‘I suppose you do know what you’re saying, but it all seems so … so impossible to me. And I don’t understand even the start of it.’
‘My God, who does? But I told you, it’s all guesswork about Yanni, and there’s no future in discussing that now. The first thing is to talk to Spiro again. I’ve only had time to get the barest statement from him, and I want to hear the rest before I decide what’s best to do. He should be fit enough by now to tell us exactly what happened and, whether he knows it or not, he may have some clue as to why Manning tried to kill him. If he has, it may be a pointer to Yanni’s death. And whatever it is that makes two murders necessary …’ He straightened abruptly, his shoulder coming away from the mantel. ‘Well, you can see that we have to get the boy safely into the hands of the authorities with his story, before Godfrey Manning has even a suspicion that he’s not as dead as Yanni. Will you come with me now and see him?’
I looked up in surprise. ‘Me? You want me to?’
‘If you will. I told you I wanted you to help me, and – if you’ll agree – you’d better know as much as we do about it.’
‘Of course, whatever I can.’
‘Darling. Come here. Now, stop looking like that, and stop worrying. It’s all impossible, as you say, but then this sort of situation is bound to be, when one gets mixed up in it oneself. All we can do is play for safety, and that means, for the moment, believing Spiro. All right?’
I nodded, as best I could with my head comfortably against his shoulder.
‘Then listen. What I’ve got to do, as I see it, is get the boy straight off to Athens in the morning, to the hospital, then to the police. Once he’s told his story there, he’ll be safe to come home.’ He loosed me. ‘Well, shall we go?’
‘Where is he?’
He laughed. ‘Right below our feet, in a very Gothic but reasonably safe dungeon, with Adoni standing guard over him with the one efficient rifle in this damned great arsenal of Leo’s. Come along, then. Straight under the cuckoo clock, and fork right for the dungeons!’
12
My cellar is in a rock by th’ sea-side,
where my wine is hid.
II. 2.
A wide flight of stone steps led downwards from just beyond the door. Max touched a switch, and a weak yellow light came on to show us the way. He shut the ponderous door, and I heard a key grate in the lock behind us.
‘I’ll go first, shall I?’
I followed him, curiously looking about me. The rest of the building had led me to expect goodness knew what horrors down here: it would hardly have come as a surprise to have found mouldering skeletons dangling in chains from the walls. But the underground corridor into which the stairs led us was innocent of anything except racks for wine – largely empty – which lined the wide passageway. The floor was clean, and the walls surprisingly free of the dust and webs which would have accumulated in a similar place in England. The air smelt fresh, and slightly damp.
I said as much to Max, who nodded. ‘You’ll see why in a minute. This is the official wine-cellar, but it leads off into a natural cave further along. I don’t know where the opening is – it’s probably no bigger than a chimney – but the air’s always fresh, and you can smell the sea. There are more wine racks down there. In the last century, when one drank one’s four bottles a day, rather a lot of room was needed. Anyway, it must have seemed natural to use the caves in the cliff when they built the Castello.’
‘It’s rather exciting. I suppose these are the caves your father was talking about.’
‘Yes. Most of the cliffs along this coast have caves in them, but, as you can imagine, he’d love to think the Castello cave was the original Prospero’s cell. When I point out that it doesn’t look as if it had ever been open to the outside air, he says that doesn’t matter. I gather it’s more “poetic truth”, like the marmosets.’
‘Well, it’s a lovely romantic theory, and I’m all for it! After all, what are facts? We get those every day … Whereabouts are we now, in relation to “outside”?’
‘At present we’re still moving along under the foundations of the house. The cave itself is in the southern headland, fairly deep down. We go down more steps in a moment, and then there’s a natural passage through to the cave. Wait, here we are.’
He had stopped two-thirds of the way along the corridor, and put a hand up to the empty racks. I watched him, puzzled. He laid hold of what looked like part of the wall of racks, and pulled. Ponderously, and by no means silently, a narrow section swung out into the corridor. Beyond where it had been was a gap in the wall, opening on blackness.
‘Goodness me!’ I exclaimed, and Max laughed.
‘Marvellous, isn’t it? I tell you, the Castello’s got everything! As a matter of fact, I have a suspicion that o
ld Forli kept the better vintages down here, out of the butler’s reach … Careful, now, there’s no light from here on. I’ve brought a torch – here, take it for a moment, will you, while I shut this behind us. Don’t look so scared!’
‘It won’t stay shut and trap us here for ever, till our bones bleach?’
‘Not even till morning, I’m sorry to say. There. The torch, please. I’ll go ahead.’
The second flight sloped more steeply down, and, instead of being made of smooth slabs, seemed to be hacked out of solid rock. At the foot of the flight a rock-hewn passage curved away into darkness, still descending. Max went ahead, shining the beam for me. Here and there the walls showed a glint of damp, and the fresh smell was stronger, and perceptibly salty, while the hollow rock seemed – perhaps only in imagination – to hold a faint, echoing hum like the shushing of the sea through the curves of a shell. A moment I thought I heard it, then it was gone, and there was only the still, cold air, and the sound of our footsteps on the rock.
The yellow torchlight flung sharp lights and shadows on Max’s face as he turned to guide me, sketching in, momentarily, the face of a stranger. His shadow moved, distorted and huge on the rough walls.
‘Is it much further?’ My voice sounded unfamiliar, like a whisper in an echo-chamber.
‘Round this corner,’ said Max, ‘and down five, no, six steps – and there’s the watch-dog.’
A flash of the torch showed the pale blur of a face upturned, and a gun barrel gleaming blue.
‘Adoni? It’s Max, and I’ve brought Miss Lucy along. Is he all right?’
‘He’s fine now. He’s awake.’
Behind Adoni hung a rough curtain of some material like sacking, from beyond which came a dim, warm glow. Adoni drew the curtain aside for me and stood back. Max put the torch out and motioned me past him. I went into the cave.
This was large, with a great arched roof lost in shadows where stalactites hung like icicles; but the walls had been white-washed to a height of six feet or so, and were lined with wine racks and crates and the comfortable, bulging shapes of barrels. On one of these, up-turned to make a table, stood an old-fashioned lantern, a coach-lamp of about 1850 vintage, probably borrowed from the museum upstairs, which dispensed a soft orange light and the cheerful twinkle of brass. The air was warmed by a paraffin stove which stood in the middle of the floor, with a pan of coffee on it. Somewhere in the shadows a drip of water fell regularly – some stalactite dripping fresh water into a pocket of rock; the sound was as homely as a dripping tap. The unexpected effect of cosiness was enhanced by the smell of cigarettes and coffee and the faint fumes of the paraffin stove.
