Well before twelve they were free to proceed to their real business. The vault consisted of a corridor and a number of locked rooms giving on to it. The banker led them to the bullion chamber and producing his keys unlocked it. The gold was stored in a great stack of small, iron-hooped boxes measuring roughly 15 x 8 x 8 inches and there were 203 of them. It was only when they endeavoured to pick up the first that De Richleau realized the true magnitude of the task before them.
To say it was ‘as heavy as lead’ was no adequate description. Each little box was as much as a strong man could manage to struggle along with. Soon they were stripped to their vests and sweating like stevedores in the uncertain light of their oil lamps. Every one of those absurdly small wooden cases seemed heavier than the last as they levered it from the stack and dragged it the twenty yards from the bullion chamber to the cellars of the Palace, but at least they were free from any threat of disturbance as three steel doors separated them from the offices of the bank.
If they had shouted with all the power of their lungs the night-watchman could not have heard them and, even if he had, he had no keys to the vaults which would have enabled him to come down and investigate. His only resort would have been to ring up the police and Don Lluis’s apartment. Even the police would have had to wait for Don Lluis with his keys before they could have got in and Don Lluis was there, burgling his own bank, and as weary of the job as either of his associates.
For six hours they worked without ceasing, except to take a few rapid puffs at an occasional cigarette, but when, at last, the Duke called a halt, it seemed that they had hardly made any impression on the great pile of little cases.
Don Lluis relocked the bullion chamber. “No one will visit it until a new consignment of gold arrives,” he said thankfully, “and that is not likely to occur in the near future now that the peseta has started to fall. We have a saying in Spain, ‘Mr. Money always knows,’ and the international financiers know what to expect in our case without a doubt. I am worried about the alteration in the position of those wires, though.”
They camouflaged the upper part of the door, over which the wires now ran, by removing the electric globe which hung nearest and tapping it gently on the floor until its loose centre showed that it was broken, before reinserting it in its socket, thus ensuring that when the vault was electrically lit the door would be in shadow. Fortunately the vault side of the door showed no injury to the casual eye as the shattered lock was on the cellar side.
After a last look round to make sure that they had left no traces of their illicit entry, they closed the door behind them and wearily made their way upstairs to the big salon of the Palace.
Having once overcome his scruples at participating in such strange operations Don Lluis found, to his surprise, that he was rather enjoying the game and as, like all city-bred Spaniards, he was a born night-bird, he instantly accepted the Duke’s invitation that he should join them in an early breakfast.
Richard had already unpacked the provisions they had bought the previous afternoon, while the Duke had unearthed some old crystal goblets and paid a visit to Lucretia-José’s wine-cellar, helping himself liberally to a number of bottles of the best. The three of them drew up their chairs to the well-laden table.
For a few moments they ate in silence, almost ravenously after their unaccustomed exertions, but as the generous wine circulated their tiredness seemed to drop from them.
“Am I not right in believing you to be a Catalan?” De Richleau asked the banker.
“Yes, I am a native of Barcelona,” replied Don Lluis.
“Most of Spain’s best business men come from Catalonia, do they not?”
Don Lluis nodded. “That is a large factor in the country’s tragedy. Castile, Aragon, and all the other territories have never produced a middle class. Even to-day 95 percent of the population is still divided into land-owning gentry, officers and officials or, on the other hand, ignorant peasants. In Catalonia alone, owing to the greater industry and initiative of our people, a great bourgeois population developed quite naturally, just as it had done in all the other more advanced States of Europe. Normally these are the very people who would have proved the backbone of the Monarchy. As it is, the central Government has had the incredible folly to antagonize the whole of their Catalan subjects, rich and poor alike.”
Richard had manfully endeavoured to maintain his character as a Scot all night. “Dinna ye get their backs up by trying to break away?” he hazarded.
“No, Mr. McGlusky, that is not so,” Don Lluis replied with some heat. “All we asked was a reasonable degree of local autonomy and to that we were entitled. We were the first people to drive the Moors out of our territories; For three and a half centuries we were an independent Republic and our record as a sea-power in the Mediterranean rivals the glories of Genoa and Venice. We ruled over the adjoining provinces of Murcia and Valencia; Corsica, Sicily and the Balearic Islands were once in our possession. We attacked the Turk in Constantinople and for nearly a century Athens was a Catalan Duchy.
“When we united with the other Iberian States it was as an equal partner in a confederation but, little by little, the Spanish Kings robbed us of our honourable estate. We had to supply our quota of men for the armies but in the commissioned ranks the Castilians always received preference. By reason of our greater industry we were richer than other parts of Spain and our wealth was drained in taxation to keep our Castilian masters in idleness.
“It did not end even there. Everyone knows that we Catalans are as different in race from the other Spanish people as the Hungarians are from their old masters, the Austrians; yet the rulers in Madrid tried to destroy our customs, our pride of race and our very language.”
“Eh, but what about this Catalan tongue ye speak of?” Richard asked. “Will it be spoken still by educated people as well as by the backward peasantry and such?”
“Dios, yes! Unlike the Valencians, Galicians and Basques who only make a parade of greeting each other in their local tongues before dropping into the Castilian which you foreigners call Spanish, we Catalans never dream of speaking anything but Catalan among ourselves. In the past our novelists, poets and playwrights have made a fine contribution to European literature, and even in the days when the use of our language was prohibited by law hundreds of books, periodicals and newspapers continued to appear in it.”
“Since the fall of the Monarchy, though, such restrictions have been abolished,” remarked the Duke.
“True,” agreed Don Lluis. “Primo de Rivera’s hate of Catalonia proved to be the last straw. To finish the Moroccan War and deal our race a mortal blow at the same time, he conscripted practically every able-bodied young man in Catalonia. He even went to the length of ordering the tickets on the exhibits in the Museum to be destroyed and replaced with new ones in Castilian. The result was the Pact of San Sebastian where the representatives of Catalonia met the Socialist leaders of all Spain in August 1930 and agreed to work for the overthrow of the Monarchy in exchange for the restoration of Catalan liberties. Seven months later the Monarchy fell and the Republican Government honoured its bargain.”
“What more would ye be wanting, then?” said Richard.
“And for why is Catalonia so Red to-day?”
Don Lluis spread out his hands. “The Lliga, that is the Catalan Conservative party, lost its prestige owing to its support of the Monarchy. Can you wonder that the Catalan workers turned Anarchist when they were so persecuted? It was the Esquerra, the Catalan Left, which won them the rights for which we had all been striving so long, by helping to kick out the King. Naturally it is Señor Companys and his Esquerra which still rule the roost there to-day.”
“Then you think that in Catalonia a military revolt will stand little chance of success?” enquired the Duke.
. “None at all. The Anarchists are far too strong there. They will only use it as an excuse to murder their political opponents; people like myself who are members of the old Lliga and owners of
factories. They want to run everything themselves by hundreds of little Soviets, each member of which would be responsible only to his own Workers’ Council. The rest of Spain can go hang for all they care. They will suppress the revolt, massacre the rich, and then turn their energies to attempting the sort of thing which failed so lamentably in Russia.”
The Duke nodded. “In that case you will be safer in Madrid as there is a fair chance here of the Army getting the upper hand.”
“Everything depends on the resolution of the Generals. If they fail us we shall all be dead before the summer’s out.”
“As a banker, what view do you take of Calvo Sotelo for Dictator?”
“We could not have a better man. As Finance Minister in Primo de Rivera’s Government he proved most able and he showed great political acumen in resigning just before the Dictator’s fall. Also he is just the right age—forty-three. Old enough to have had experience but young enough to display the energy we need in a National Leader.” Don Lluis stood up. “Well, I must be going. Shall I come again at the same time to-morrow—or rather, to-night?”
“Yes, or earlier if you can,” De Richleau agreed as he led the banker downstairs. “We are more than grateful for all the help you’re giving us.”
It was fully light when he let Don Lluis out into the street and the people of Madrid were emerging from their homes to face another day of torrid heat.
Upstairs Richard was preparing for bed when the Duke rejoined him and remarked, “Well, so far so good.”
“Yes, you’re a wizard,” Richard smiled. “It’s going to be one hell of a job to shift all that stuff but we’ll do it, given a bit of time. Having actually got into the vault and made a start gives you Round Number Two.”
De Richleau nodded. “We’ve been lucky so far. Don’t worry if I’m not about when you awake. I’m going out shortly and I shan’t be back till midday.”
“What?” exclaimed Richard. “But you must get some sleep after a night like we’ve just been through.”
“I can’t spare the time to sleep yet,” the Duke said quietly. “I shall be fresh enough after I’ve had a shave and a tub. You see, I daren’t delay the preparations for Round Three, and we may not win that quite so easily.”
Chapter Nine – The Succession of Culs de Sac
For the best part of a week Richard’s life became one of sheer drudgery. Most of each day he slept the sleep of exhaustion, but for over twelve hours each night he dragged more of the gold from the bullion chamber to its new resting-place in the cellars of the Palace. Those silly little boxes, each one of which contained the equivalent of nearly a quarter of a million shillings, looked as if they could be picked up with one hand yet, when one came to lift them, their weight was so great that they seemed nailed to the floor. His muscles ached intolerably for he had to strain them to their utmost pitch each time he raised a box on to the low, wheeled trolley that Don Lluis had provided on the second night of their wearisome undertaking. Since the trolley could not be got over the ledge of the door, the floor of the cellar being a few inches higher than that of the vault, it had to be unloaded there and the boxes dragged or carried the remainder of the journey.
At times Don Lluis or De Richleau helped him but the panic which was now affecting all rich people in Madrid caused the banker to be overwhelmed with business. Having opened the bullion chamber each night for them after his office closed down, he had to go off to attend urgent conferences and, as he had to work all day as well, he was compelled to snatch what sleep he could in the early hours of the morning before paying another visit to the Palace, on his way to his office, for the purpose of checking the night’s removal and relocking the chamber.
The Duke slept little except during the three hours of the midday siesta. He prepared the meals, at which he was much more adept than Richard, looked after Pédro, and did the shopping. He was strongly against Richard going outside the house since he could not pass as a Spaniard and some officious plain-clothes man might start asking him awkward questions; but he was out himself a good portion of each day and often far into the night.
He accounted for these long absences by saying that since he was described on his fake passport as a metal merchant it was essential that he should live up to the description. In order to do so he had procured certain information from the Madrid Chamber of Commerce and had started in to play the metal market. Whenever he talked of lead, zinc and scrap he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself and he declared that he was making a lot of quick money. All sorts of funny people were buying supplies for, apparently, the oddest reasons, although the regular dealers knew perfectly well that the real destination of these purchases were the secret munition factories which were working overtime to supply the innumerable private armies soon to be loosed by the various political leaders of Spain. The transactions of a rather eccentric Portuguese who insisted on cash settlement for every deal whether he bought or sold therefore aroused little comment.
As prices were rising by leaps and bounds De Richleau could scarcely have failed to make a profit and having an extremely astute financial brain into the bargain he was actually lining his pockets with remarkable speed. Lucretia-José having instructed Don Lluis to debit her personal account with any sums which De Richleau might require while he was in Spain, the matter of finance presented no difficulties; but as he traded on a cash basis the banker did not know the identities of the people with whom the Duke was dealing.
That was the crux of the matter. Richard was naturally intrigued to know what deep game his friend was playing but the Duke could be as close as an oyster when he chose. He had implicit trust in Richard but did not wish to risk any chance remark being made in the banker’s presence which might give away the names of those new cronies of his among the metal merchants of Madrid whom he found it politic to cultivate in the evening as well as for business purposes in the day-time.
In such spare time as De Richleau had between his comings and goings he helped Richard if work was proceeding with the bullion, but if the vault was closed, as it always was during the bank’s office hours, he busied himself with Lucretia-José’s art treasures. He could not bear the thought of leaving so many lovely, irreplaceable things at the mercy of any mob which chose to break into the Palacio during a riot, and was doing his best to protect some of them.
It would have taken months for any one man to have cleared the countless rooms and galleries, but as a connoisseur he was able to select quite a number of the most valuable bronzes, clocks, miniatures, ivories, snuff-boxes and other articles of value for burial in the garden. The furniture, tapestries and books were beyond him, but he removed the pick of the Old Masters from their frames, untacked them from their stretchers and rolled them into two long bundles.
On Saturday, the 11th of July, the last case of gold had been removed from the bullion chamber. Knowing that they were nearing the completion of their work both De Richleau and Don Lluis had remained at the Palacio to help Richard and, when the job was finished, they all ascended to the big salon. The Duke signed the last receipts and handed them over. In return Don Lluis presented him with a great sheaf of assay certificates issued in connection with the gold; each contained the number of one bar, particulars of its exact weight and fineness, the name of the assayer and the date. A fresh bottle from one of Lucretia’s best bins was broached to drink her health coupled with the toast that sanity under a sound Government might soon return to Spain.
Don Lluis looked very tired. The strain of the past week had told heavily upon him but he wished them all good fortune and tactfully refrained from questioning them upon their future plans.
As he rose to go he informed them kindly that, although he might find himself in difficulties during the coming weeks, if there were anything he could do for them they had only to let him know.
“Thank you a thousand times for all you have done already,” the Duke replied. “If we all come safely through this we must foregather next time you come to London. In t
he meantime, if we meet by chance here it is best that we should appear not to know each other.”
“You may, perhaps, require further supplies of money?” Don Lluis hazarded.
De Richleau shook his head. “Many thanks, but I don’t think so. I’ve already drawn sums which must have rather surprised you but, of course, I shall duly account for them to the Condesa. I now have ample moneys in hand to see us through.”
When the banker had departed and the front door was relocked behind him the Duke slowly crossed the great, empty, echoing hall and again climbed the grand staircase.
In the salon Richard was sitting at the table in his shirtsleeves. The night was suffocatingly hot and he was so tired that he had not bothered to put on his coat again after they had finished their work.
De Richleau walked over to the marble mantelpiece they were using as a sideboard and began to take the wire off another bottle of champagne. “What a bore it is that we have no ice,” he said, “but at least we are now free to talk.”
“I’d rather sleep,” Richard murmured. “I would, too, if I wasn’t so damned curious to hear what’s behind all these metal deals and nightly junketings you’ve been at during my hours of solitary toil.”
“Good. You’ve done a fine job, Richard, every bit as important as my own but with none of the fun I’ve had. It has been great fun, by the by, to sting some of these Madrileños. My only regret is that I had not longer to do it in.”
“Yes. You’re an avaricious old brute except where your personal friends are concerned.”
The Duke chuckled. “I suppose that’s true. But, you see, this sort of people paid taxes to keep my ancestors and now it is I who have to pay taxes to keep their poor relations. One must get one’s own back somehow, mustn’t one, especially with the supertax at its present high level.”
Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 03 Page 8
