This Rough Magic

by Mary Stewart

  All at once we were running through a village I knew, and he was slowing down. We ran gently between walls of black cypress, past the cottage in the lemon-grove, past the little tea garden with its deserted tables under the pine, and up to the Castello gate, to stop almost between the pillars.

  The youth put his feet down and turned inquiringly, jerking a thumb towards the drive, but I shook my head. It was a long walk up through the grounds of the Castello, but until I knew what was going on I certainly wasn’t going to advertise my homecoming by roaring right up to the front door.

  So I loosed my limpet-clutch from the leather jacket, and got rather stiffly off my perch, shaking out the pretty embroidered skirt, and pulling my own bedraggled cotton dress from the carrier.

  When I tried to thank my rescuer, he smiled and shook his head, wheeling the machine back to face the way we had come, and shouting something which, of course, must mean: ‘It was a pleasure.’

  As his hand moved on the controls I put mine out quickly to touch it.

  ‘Your name?’ I knew the Greek for that. ‘Your name, please?’

  I saw him grin and bob his head. ‘Spiridion,’ he said. ‘God with you.’

  Next second he was nothing but a receding roar in the darkness, and a cloud of dust swirling to settle in the road.

  21

  Thou dost here usurp

  The name thou ow’st not, and hast put thyself

  Upon this Island, as a spy …

  I. 2.

  There was no light in the Castello. The house loomed huge in the starlight, turreted and embattled and almost as romantic-looking as its builder had intended. I walked round it to the terrace, treading softly on the mossed tiles. No light there either, no movement, nothing. The long windows were blank and curtained, and – when I tried them – locked.

  Keeping to the deepest shadows, I skirted the terrace till I reached the balustrade overhanging the cliff and the bay. The invisible sea whispered, and all round me was the dark, peppery smell of the cypresses. I could smell the roses, too, and there were bats about, cutting the silence with their thin, knife-edge cries. A movement caught my eye and made me turn quickly – a small slither of pale colour vanishing like ectoplasm through the stone balustrade, and drifting downhill. The white cat, out on his wild lone.

  Then I caught a glimpse of light. This came from somewhere beyond the trees to the right, where the Villa Rotha must lie. As softly as the white cat, and almost as silently as the ghost from the sea that I was, I crept off the terrace and padded down through the woods towards the light.

  I nearly fell over the XK 150, parked among the trees. He must simply have driven her away from the house, so that a chance caller would assume he was out with the car, and look no further.

  A few minutes later I was edging my way through the thicket of myrtle that overhung the bungalow.

  This was, as I have said before, the twin of the Forli house. The main door, facing the woods, had a cleared sweep of driveway in front of it, and from this a paved path led round the house to the wide terrace overlooking the sea. A light burned over the door. I parted the leaves and peered through.

  Two cars stood on the sweep, Max’s big, shabby black Buick, and a small car I didn’t know.

  So he was back, and it was battle-stations. I wondered if the other car was the police.

  My borrowed rope soles made no sound as I crept round towards the terrace, hugging the house wall.

  The terrace, too, was the twin of Phyllida’s, except that the pergola was covered with a vine instead of wistaria, and there was no dining-table, only a couple of large chairs and a low table which held a tray with bottles and glasses. I bypassed these quietly, making for the french windows.

  All three were shut and curtained, but the centre one showed a gap between the curtains some three inches wide through which I could see the room; and as I reached it I realised that I would be able to hear as well … In the glass beside the windowcatch gaped a big, starred hole where someone had smashed a way in …

  The first person I saw was Godfrey, near the window and to one side of it, sitting very much at his ease in a chair beside the big elm-wood desk, with a glass of whisky in his hand. He was still dressed in the jersey and dark trousers, and over the back of his chair hung the navy duffel coat which I had torn free of before I went into the sea. I was delighted to see that one side of his face bore a really classic bruise, smeared liberally with dried blood, and that the good-looking mouth appeared to hurt him when he drank. He was dabbing at a swollen lip with his handkerchief.

  The room had seemed at that first glance full of people, but the crowd now resolved itself into a fairly simple pattern. A couple of yards from Godfrey, in the middle of the floor and half turned away from me, stood Max. I couldn’t see his face. Adoni was over beside the door, facing towards the windows, but with his attention also riveted on Godfrey. Near me and just to one side of my window was Spiro, sitting rather on the edge of a low chair, with the injured leg in its new white cast thrust out awkwardly in front of him, and Miranda crouched on the floor beside his chair, hugging its arm against her breast as (it seemed) she would have liked to hug Spiro’s. The two faces were amazingly alike, even allowing for the difference of male from female; and at the moment the likeness was made more striking still by the expression that both faces shared; a pure, uncomplicated hatred, directed unwinkingly at Godfrey. On the floor beside the boy’s chair lay a rifle, and from the way his hand hung near it, twitching from time to time, I guessed that only a forcible order from the police had made him lay it down.

  For the police were here. Across the width of the room from Godfrey, and near the door, sat a man I recognised as the Inspector (I didn’t know the Greek equivalent) from Corfu who had been in charge of the inquiry into Yanni’s death. This was a stoutish, grey-haired man with a thick moustache and black, intelligent eyes. His clothes were untidy, and had obviously been hastily put on, and in spite of the deadpan face and calm, steady stare I sensed that he was not quite sure of his ground, even ill at ease.

  Godfrey was speaking in that light, cool voice that I knew so well, so very well.

  ‘As you wish, Mr Papadopoulos. But I warn you that I’m not prepared to overlook what happened down in my boathouse, or the fact that these two men have apparently broken into my house. As for the girl, I’m not quite sure what it is that I’m supposed to have done with her, but I have given you a complete account of our movements this afternoon, and I’m sure you can find any number of people who will bear me out.’

  ‘It’s your movements tonight that we’re interested in.’ Max’s voice was rough, and only precariously controlled. ‘For a start, what happened to your face?’

  ‘An accident with the main-boom,’ said Godfrey shortly.

  ‘Another? Rather too common, these accidents, wouldn’t you say? How did it happen?’

  ‘Are you a yachtsman?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then don’t ask stupid questions.’ Godfrey gave him a brief, cold look. ‘You’ve had your turn, damn you. Back down. You’ve no more right to question me than you had to manhandle me or break in here to ransack the place. If you hadn’t telephoned for the police, you can be very sure I’d have done so myself. We’ll talk about your methods later.’

  Papadopoulos said heavily: ‘If you please, Max. Now, Mr Manning, you have told us that you have not seen Miss Lucy Waring since shortly after seven this last evening, when you took her home?’

  ‘That is so.’ To the Inspector his tone was one of tired but patient courtesy. He was playing his part to perfection. All his dislike of Max was there, patent through tonight’s more immediate outrage, with weariness and puzzlement and a nice touch of worry about me. ‘I took her home before dinner. I myself had to go out again.’

  ‘And you have not seen her since?’

  ‘How often must I—? I’m sorry, Inspector, I’m a little tired. No, I have not seen her since.’

  ‘You have given us an
account of your movements after you took Miss Waring home. Now, when you finally went down to take out your boat you found the boat-house still locked, and as far as you are aware there was nobody there?’

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘There was nothing to indicate that anyone – Miss Waring or anyone else – had been there, and gone again?’

  I thought Godfrey hesitated, but it was barely perceptible. He must be very sure that he had sunk me without trace. ‘No.’

  ‘You heard what this girl had to say?’

  ‘Miranda?’ Godfrey’s tone was not even contemptuous, merely lightly dismissive. ‘She’d say anything. She’s got some bee in her bonnet over her brother, and she’d invent any tale to see me in trouble. Heaven knows why, or where the boy’s got this incredible idea of his from. I’ve never been happier about anything in my life than I was to see him here tonight.’

  Spiro said something in Greek, one short, vicious-sounding phrase whose import there was no mistaking, and which drew a shocked glance from his sister. He made it clear. ‘I spit,’ he said, and did so.

  ‘Spiro!’ said Max sharply, and Godfrey raised an eyebrow – a very civilised eyebrow – at the Inspector, and laughed.

  ‘Satan rebuking sin? Always an amusing sight, don’t you think?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Papadopoulos. ‘You will control yourself, Spiro, or you will go. Let us go back, Mr Manning. You must excuse me, my English is not so very good; I do not follow this about Satan, and bees, was it? Bees in the bonnet?’ He glanced up at Max, who hesitated, and Adoni snapped out some phrase in Greek. ‘I see.’ The stout man sat back. ‘You were saying?’ to Godfrey.

  ‘I was saying that whatever Miranda accuses me of, the fact remains that she did not see Lucy Waring enter my boat-house or go near my boat. There is nothing to show that she did either.’

  ‘No. Well, Mr Manning, we’ll leave that for the moment … Yes, Max, I know, but there is nothing more we can do until Petros gets up here from the boat-house and reports on his search there. He will be here before long. Meanwhile, Mr Manning, with your permission, there are a few other questions I want to ask you.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Forgetting about Miss Waring’s movements for the moment, I should like to hear about yours … after you went down to your boat-house. When Mr Gale met you on your return, and accused you—’

  ‘Attacked me, you mean.’

  ‘As you wish. When he asked you where you had been, you told him this was a “normal trip”. What do you mean by a “normal trip”, Mr Manning? Fishing, perhaps?’

  Adoni said, without expression: ‘His cameras were in the cabin.’

  ‘So you were out taking photographs, Mr Manning? May one know where?’

  There was a short silence. Godfrey took a sip of whisky, then sat for a moment staring down at the glass, swirling the spirit round gently. Then he looked up, meeting the policeman’s eyes, and gave a faint smile that had the effect of a shrug.

  ‘I can see that I’ll have to make a clean breast of it. I never thought you’d get on to me. If it hadn’t been for this misunderstanding about the girl, I doubt if you would have … Or were you tipped off?’

  There was no change in the Inspector’s expression, but I saw Max stiffen, and Adoni was staring. Capitulation, when they hadn’t even brought up a gun?

  ‘If you please,’ said Papadopoulos courteously, ‘I do not understand. If you would use simpler English—’

  ‘More idioms,’ said Adoni. ‘He means that he knows you’ve been told about him, so he’s going to confess.’

  ‘I meant no such thing. Keep your pretty mouth shut, if you can. This is between men.’ Godfrey flung it at him without even a glance, indifferently, as one might swat a midge. Adoni’s eyes went back to him, and his expression did not change, but I thought, with a queer jump of the heart: Your mistake, Godfrey …

  ‘Please,’ said Papadopoulos. ‘Let us not waste time. Well, Mr Manning?’

  Godfrey leaned back in his chair, regarding him coolly. You’d have thought there was nobody else in the room. ‘With your man down there searching my boat it’s not much use pretending I have been taking photographs, is it? You have only to look at the cameras … No, as a matter of cold truth, I had business over the other side.’

  If the room had been still before, it was stiller now. I thought dazedly: He can’t just confess like that … Why? Why? Then I saw. Miranda had told the police what she knew, and Godfrey realised now that she had been with me on the shore. I did not think that the cave or the packages had been mentioned yet in front of him, but he could guess that she had seen as much as I, and must have told the police about the packages. Moreover, a police constable was now searching the Aleister, and, if he was even half good at his job, he would find the cache under the cabin floor. I guessed that Godfrey was intent on getting some relatively harmless explanation in before the inevitable discovery was made.

  ‘Whereabouts on the other side?’ asked Papadopoulos.

  ‘Albania.’

  ‘And the business?’

  ‘Shall we call it “importing”?’

  ‘What you call it does not matter. This, I understand perfectly.’ The Greek regarded him for a moment in silence. ‘So you admit this?’

  Godfrey moved impatiently. ‘I have admitted it. Surely you aren’t going to pretend you didn’t know that this went on? I know you’ve shut your eyes to the way Yanni Zoulas was killed, but between ourselves—’

  ‘Yanni Zoulas?’ I saw Papadopoulos flash a glance at Max. Godfrey was taking the wind out of this sail, too, before it had even been hoisted.

  ‘Ah,’ said Godfrey, ‘I see you understand me. I thought you would.’

  ‘You know something about Zoulas’s death that you didn’t tell the police?’

  ‘Not a thing. I’m only guessing, from my own experiences with the coastguard system the other side. It’s quite remarkably efficient.’

  ‘So you think he ran into trouble there?’

  ‘I think nothing. I was only guessing. But guesses aren’t evidence, are they?’ The grey eyes touched Max’s briefly. ‘I only mean that if one runs the gauntlet of those coasts often enough, it’s not surprising if one gets hurt. What was surprising was that the police made so little of it. You must have known what he was doing.’

  ‘What was Zoulas’s connection with you?’

  ‘With me? None at all. I didn’t know the man.’

  ‘Then how do you know this about him?’

  Godfrey smiled. ‘In the trade, word goes round.’

  ‘He was not connected with you?’

  ‘I’ve answered that. Not in any way.’

  Papadopoulos said: ‘It has been suggested that Spiro here, and after him Yanni Zoulas, discovered something about your business …’

  I missed the rest. From somewhere behind me, below the terrace, came the moving flicker of a torch, and the sound of footsteps. This would be the constable coming up from his search of the boat-house. I drew away from the lighted window, wondering if I should approach him now and tell him about the package I had sunk in the boat-house; then I remembered that he probably spoke no English. He passed below the end of the terrace, and trod gently round the house.

  I tiptoed back to the window. It was just possible that the man had found the package, and if so, I might as well wait a little longer, and hear what Godfrey’s defence would be, before I went in to blow it apart.

  He had changed his ground, and was now giving a fine rendering of an angry man who has got himself in hand, but only just. He said, with controlled violence: ‘And perhaps you will tell me what in hell’s name I could be doing that would drive me to wholesale murder?’

  ‘I cannot,’ said Papadopoulos regretfully. ‘From what you are telling me of the type of goods you “trade in”, I cannot. Radio parts, tobacco, antibiotics? And so on and so on … The usual list, Mr Manning. One wonders merely why it should have paid you … The rent of this house, your boat, the troub
le to make the contacts, the risks … You are not a poor man. Why do you do it?’

  ‘Christ,’ said Godfrey, ‘is it so hard to understand? I was stuck here working on my damned book, and I was bored. Of course I don’t need the money. But I was bored, and there was the boat, and the promise of a bit of fun with her …’ He broke off, turning up a hand. ‘But do you really want all that tonight? Say I do it for kicks, and leave it at that. Apollo will translate.’

  Adoni said gently: ‘He means that he likes risks and violence for their own sakes. It is a phrase that irresponsible criminals use, and adolescents.’

  Max laughed. Godfrey’s hand whitened on his glass. ‘Why, you little—’

  ‘Markos!’ Max broke across it, swinging round on the Greek. I saw his face for the first time. ‘None of this matters just now! I’m sorry, I realise that if this man’s smuggling across the border it’s very much your affair, but all that really matters here and now is the girl. If he insists that—’

  ‘A moment,’ said Papadopoulos, and turned his head. Adoni put a hand to the door beside him and pulled it open, and the constable came into the room.

  He had obviously not found the package, and apparently nothing else either, for when his superior barked a question at him he spread empty hands and shrugged, answering with a swift spate of Greek. Max asked another question in Greek, and the man turned to him, speaking volubly and with many gestures. But I no longer paid him any heed. As I had craned forward to see if the package was in his hands, I must have made some movement that caught Adoni’s attention. I found myself meeting his eyes, clear across the room.

  Nobody was looking at him; all eyes were for the new-comer, except Spiro’s, whose flick-knife gaze never left Godfrey. Nobody seemed to notice as Adoni slipped quietly out through the open door, pulling it shut behind him.

  I backed quickly away from the window, out of the fringe of light, and soft-footed my way back round the corner of the house.

  A light step beside me in the darkness, and a whisper: