While Simon was mixing the drinks De Richleau stared out of the window. Quite a number of people were now making their way up the covered path. Comparatively few of them were British in appearance and although their faces showed them to be mainly intellectual types their clothes were mostly of the ready-made variety and the women among them were definitely dowdy.
On Simon’s touching his elbow he turned away and for a couple of minutes the two friends exchanged amenities over their drinks. The Duke then plunged into the business that had brought him.
Simon’s first reaction to his friend’s plea for help was quiet but definite assent. Yet, as De Richleau began to give particulars Simon started to rub one finger up and down the great arc of his unquestionably Semitic nose; a certain sign that he was extremely worried.
Suddenly he jerked out, “This is a muddle—a really nasty muddle. I don’t like the sound of it a little bit. I’d rather you didn’t tell me any more about it either, because—well, if there is going to be a blow-up in Spain my sympathies will be on the other side.”
De Richleau sat up and stared. “Good God, Simon! You can’t mean that! You’re out of your senses!”
“I’m not. Look what’s happened in Italy and Germany. No one can call their souls their own. D’you think I want to see Spain go the same way?”
“Never mind Spain. How about this country? If you had to choose would you rather live under a Fascist or Communist Dictatorship?”
“Communist every time.”
“But, my dear Simon, you’re a capitalist—and a darned rich one. They’d not only take part of your money as the Fascists might, but the lot, and put you up against a brick wall in addition.”
“They might rob me of my money and, because of it, of my life, but at least my people would not be persecuted on account of their race.”
De Richleau sighed. “I’m sorry, Simon. I appreciate your feelings, but it never occurred to me that you would associate the Spanish Conservatives with the Nazis. Actually, of course, they are poles apart.”
“Don’t you believe it,” Simon flared. “When the Spanish Right was in power its methods were identical with those of these German bullies—moral and physical torture applied to anyone who opposed them. Besides, if the Communists are going to try to get control of the country the anti-Communists have got to line up with the Fascists—haven’t they? It’s their only chance.”
A worried frown creased the Duke’s broad forehead. Apart from the fact that they had risked their lives for each other in the past his friendship with Simon was based upon their mutual love of beautiful things. When they met they rarely talked politics but discussed their latest discoveries in the world of art, and both of them could linger lovingly over a jade carving or a page of prose. Never before had De Richleau heard his gentle, diffident young friend speak with such heated vehemence; he was seriously perturbed and at the same time extremely curious as to what lay behind this outburst.
Normally Simon was far too quick-witted ever to give away anything that he did not wish another person to know, but Monseigneur le Duc de Richleau was a wily man and he saw in a flash that if only Simon could be induced to carry on his tirade his present agitation might cause him to let something slip out which would give his listener a clue.
Suppressing his annoyance, therefore, the Duke murmured with a mildness completely foreign to his nature, “Dear me. I had no idea you were an atheist, Simon.”
“Atheist!” repeated Simon, his nice brown eyes still hard with anger. “I’m no more an atheist than you are. And what’s that got to do with it?”
“Aren’t Communists all atheists?” asked De Richleau innocently.
“Who cares what the Communists are.” Simon gave an impatient shrug. “In Spain they’re only a handful. Not more than a couple of thousand members of the Party in the whole country. Their only use is as a possible rallying point against these Fascist swine in an emergency, because they’re well organized. What concerns thinking people is all the millions of honest, decent men and women who ask nothing but their right to live in reasonable freedom and security under an enlightened Republican Government. There’s been religious toleration ever since Alfonso was kicked out and people can be Catholics, Protestants, Freethinkers, anything they like—just as they can here. Who but a criminal lunatic would ever want Spain to return to the state when those dirty, blackbeetle priests had the power to order everybody’s life from the cradle to the grave—and grew fat on their blackmailers’ profits?”
De Richleau shrugged. It was not his game to be drawn into an argument. “If there aren’t many Communists, there are plenty of Anarchists. What’s that huge organization of theirs called?” he pretended to search his memory. “The U.C.T., isn’t it?”
“You’re getting muddled,” Simon replied quickly. “There’s the U.G.T., Union General de Trabajadores. That’s the great Trade Union which practically embodies the whole Spanish Socialist movement. Its strength is in the workers of Madrid and the miners of the Asturias. But I think you mean the C.N.T., Confederacion Nacional de Trabajadore. That’s pretty well as big but its members are all Anarchists and their stronghold is Barcelona.”
“That’s it, that’s it, the C.N.T. Well, surely you wouldn’t like to see these Anarchists killing half the people in Spain— would you?”
Simon wriggled his narrow shoulders uncomfortably. “But you don’t understand! They wouldn’t kill anybody unless it was absolutely necessary. People here have the most crazy ideas about Anarchists. Seem to think they’re all just bloodthirsty ruffians. It isn’t so at all. Most of them are fine, friendly, simple people. Real idealists who feel that the world’s in such a filthy muddle that it’d be best to scrap everything and start all over again with a clean slate. Hell of a lot in it, you know, when you think where all the old corrupt systems have landed us. Of course—Spanish people always have been idealists. That’s why the Anarchists’ doctrines have been accepted as a life-line by hundreds of thousands of Spaniards while they’re almost unknown in every other country. I’m not talking only of the city workers either. It is a staggering fact that there are as many Anarchists among the backward peasants of Estremadura as there are in Barcelona. They’re tough, too, and they’ll fight like hell when it comes to a show-down.”
De Richleau had learned all he wanted to know, so he remarked with sudden acidity, “You seem to be very well up in Spanish affairs, Simon?”
“Ner.” Simon suddenly began to wonder if he had been talking too much and his eyes flickered swiftly from side to side. “Ner,” he repeated. “Only know enough to protect my interests in the markets.”
“I see.” The Duke glanced casually out of the window again; another little group was walking up the path. “Forgive my curiosity, Simon, but who are all these queer people?”
“They’re arriving for the meeting I told you about—it’s in aid of a charity I’m interested in.”
“Really?” De Richleau’s smile was bland. “They don’t look a very useful lot for such a purpose. Not very prosperous, I mean.”
“It’s not one of those Mayfair shows where the helpers expect to eat half the profits and grumble at the band.”
“I should be delighted to contribute to anything in which you are interested.”
Simon’s eyes flickered uneasily again. “Awfully kind of you but—well, it’s hardly your affair. You see it’s a Jewish charity to help these poor devils who’ve been slung out of Germany.”
“How very queer.”
“Queer? I don’t get you.”
“Why, in view of what you say, that at least eighty percent of the people who have arrived at your house in the last quarter of an hour should be as Aryan as I am.”
Simon was on guard now. His full mouth slowly broadened into a wide grin and, with a sudden gesture peculiar to himself, he gave a little nervous laugh, stooping his bird-like head with its great beak of a nose to the hand that held his cigarette.
“Well now, I’ll tell you,”
he chuckled. “Like most non-Jews, a good half of the time you don’t know a Jew when you see one. Out of the forty-odd million practising Jews scattered up and down the world you might spot a fair proportion but the rest have intermarried so now. Takes another Jew to detect the more subtle characteristics of his own race in a stranger. The best of us still stick together though, when it comes to helping our own people. That’s why this crowd looks a bit different from what you might expect.”
De Richleau nodded. The explanation was clever and sound enough but he was not taken in by it. He had seen plenty of fair-haired Jews in his time and knew straight-nosed ones to be by no means uncommon; quite apart from the red herring of intermarriage which Simon had sought to draw across the trail. Yet he would have bet his last penny that the great majority of the people arriving at the house had not got a drop of Jewish blood in them. Simon was lying, but there was nothing to be gained by saying so. Instead, the Duke remarked quite pleasantly, “Perhaps I was misled owing to there being so many foreigners among them.”
“That’s it,” Simon agreed, patting him on the shoulder. “Charity’s a world affair. Representatives of nearly every country meet here and the same thing happens in other centres, New York, Paris, Warsaw, Prague and so on. Gives us a chance to exchange information and—er—arrange emigration lists.”
“Yes, yes, I quite understand.” The Duke was hardly listening to him now. It hurt him abominably that Simon should consider it necessary to lie to him and the ugly truth that not one but both his friends had failed him was coming home with all its strange and worrying significance. He was not afraid to take the field alone but he knew that his chances of success would be decreased enormously and, in addition, he was bitterly disappointed that what might have proved a dangerous but stimulating adventure in the company of his old companions must now be a desperate and lonely ordeal.
Finishing his drink he stood up. “Well, Simon, I’m afraid we’ve drifted rather from the affair on which I came to see you. Politics are devilish things and one of their worst evils is that, at times, even the best of friends can’t see each other’s points of view. However, I do understand your very natural bias against anything which might be even remotely connected with Fascism, and I can only say how sorry I am you find it impossible to help me.”
“Wish to God you weren’t going,” Simon burst out. “Can’t you call it off?”
“No. That’s out of the question.”
“Well, er—don’t know what you’re going out to Spain to do but, whatever it is, do your damnedest to get it over before the month is out.”
“I doubt if that is possible.”
Simon’s eyes flickered wildly. “That’s bad—damn bad. But watch your every step then, and—don’t use your own name. Dukes aren’t very popular in Spain these days. Of course it’s only a money-market rumour—at least—can’t tell you how I know, but I’m pretty certain there’s going to be blue murder there the first week in August.”
“Thank you, my friend.” De Richleau had a very shrewd idea how much it had cost Simon to give that warning and he spoke with genuine appreciation. “I’ll take care of myself. Fortunately I’ve had a little practice at that sort of thing. I’d better go now and I do hope I haven’t kept you too long from your meeting.”
“Ner. It hasn’t started yet. They’re still arriving.” Simon jerked his head towards the window.
The Duke was already moving towards the door but, as he caught one swift glimpse of a slim figure before it was hidden from view by the porch of the house, he suddenly stopped dead. Her clothes were different from those of the beautifully-turned-out girl who had lunched with him that day; these were mannish and ill-fitting while the golden hair was drawn back skin-tight into a small bun on the neck instead of being charmingly coiffeured in curls on top of her head. Yet he knew he could not be mistaken as he said lightly, “I see your new friends aren’t all unattractive. That girl seemed a bit severe but she’s devilish good-looking. Who is she?” Tense as a cat about to spring he waited for Simon’s answer. At last it came.
“She’s only been here once before. Her Christian name’s José, I think, but they call her The Golden Spaniard.”
Chapter Four – The Most Dangerous Woman in Europe
For all he saw of the streets and the people on his way back to his flat De Richleau might as well have been a blind man. His mind was entirely preoccupied with the fact that, impossible as it seemed, his two friends had deserted him. He must set out now alone and face unsupported any dangers which might arise through his strange trusteeship.
That there would be dangers he had little doubt as he reflected on the proverbial dilatoriness of Spanish Generals. King Alfonso’s unpopularity and eventual fall were mainly due to the way his incompetent Army chiefs had allowed the Moroccan War to drag on year after year; draining the life-blood from Spain in constantly recurring demands for fresh levies of conscripts until Primo de Rivera had become Dictator and, at long last, settled it once for all. But Primo had died, an exile in Paris, only a few weeks after his fall, and what other strong man did Spain possess?
Primo’s son, José Antonio, head of the Falange Española, was almost an unknown quantity and very young to assume such an enormous responsibility. Gil Robles, the Catholics’ champion, had already lost much of his prestige by his hopeless shilly-shallying. Calvo Sotelo certainly appeared the best bet but would he be able to control the Generals?
It was clear enough too that the other side was equally busy preparing its own bid for power, and it seemed to De Richleau that whichever way things went there were bound to be several days of fierce street fighting, with its attendant horrors of looting and murder by uncontrollable mobs.
One thing gave him a sad consolation. The reason for Rex’s pathetic excuses to escape joining him was now clear. Rex could be enthused into anything by either Simon or myself, De Richleau argued, and he’s booked to go abroad in the first week of August—the very week Simon warned me that the Revolution is timed to start.
On the question of what they were planning the Duke had already made up his mind. He thanked his stars that there was little fear of his coming up against them in Spain—that would have been too ghastly. No, Simon disliked physical violence far too much to get himself mixed up in any actual fighting. But he was busying himself with the affairs of the Revolutionaries, not a doubt of that. His charity meeting was pure moonshine. The people arriving at his house had been Socialist delegates; De Richleau knew the type too well to mistrust his judgment.
What were they meeting about? Simon’s game was finance, and Money was a powerful weapon. That was just where he could be supremely useful to them if he chose to place his far-seeing brain at their disposal.
What part was Rex destined to play in all this, the Duke wondered. If he were going abroad early in August it was almost certain that Simon meant to go too and he would never send Rex to risk his life in Spain alone. If it were not Spain to which they were going, where else could it be? Russia, perhaps, so that Simon could act as a connecting link between the Spanish Bolshies and their Moscow backers. The Russians had no cause to love either Rex or Simon but stranger changes of heart had been witnessed in these days of constantly shifting international line-ups. The Kremlin’s outlook was very different from what it had been when they had pitted their wits against it six years before. What if they had shot up a few Soviet soldiers and secret police in the old days? There were a million and a half more candidates for the same jobs coming of age every year. If Simon and Rex turned up in Moscow draped in Red Flags, with hammers and sickles plastered all over them and well vouched-for by the Spanish Revolutionary leaders, they would be given more caviare and sweet champagne than they could comfortably tackle, instead of a cell in the Lubyanka.
That was the game, then. Rex was to fly Simon back and forth from Moscow whenever necessary because he had taken on some sort of advisory post with the Spanish Reds about their finances.
Having reached this co
nclusion the Duke’s thoughts reverted to Lucretia-José. She had been the very-last person he had expected to see at Simon’s house but the reason for her presence there was abundantly clear. She had spoken of her ‘work’ for the restoration of the Spanish Monarchy after lunch. As the houses of her family had been closed ever since Don Alfonso’s withdrawal it was clear that her father had deliberately kept her from any contact with the Spanish nobility. Instead he must have schooled her to assume a dual personality and, under an alias, gradually to worm her way into the councils of the enemy. That she had succeeded was beyond doubt, otherwise she would never have been appointed as a delegate to this secret meeting that was being held in London.
De Richleau considered for a moment getting in touch with her in order to find out if his surmise about the part Simon was to play were correct. He would have liked to see more of her in any case—a lot more—but he decided that he must not risk it. She had said herself that it would be wiser if they were not seen together while she was in England, and now he knew the truth about her he could appreciate that there was a twofold reason for her caution. If the Reds learned that he was associating with the heiress to the Coralles millions he would be a marked man from the moment he entered Spain, and if one of the agents who knew her as The Golden Spaniard spotted her in the company of a Duke with known Monarchist sympathies her whole position in their organization might be undermined.
As he thought of the patience and courage Lucretia-José must have displayed in her long climb from the ranks of the Revolutionaries to a seat on their inner councils he was filled with wondering admiration. It meant that for years she must have played a lone hand with extraordinary skill, all unsuspected by her enemies. Real brains, razor-sharp wits, and nerves of iron were requisite to pass unscathed through such an ordeal when the least slip meant exposure, and De Richleau counted these qualities beyond all praise. Even so he hated the idea that she should be mixed up in such a desperately dangerous business and have to associate with what he mentally called ‘that blood-lusting rabble. ‘
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