“Of course, but now I’ve finished with Don Lluis and Señor Gomara I propose to change my identity again. Yesterday I bought new sets of clothes for the two of us. As Mr. Richard Eaton, factory owner, you must have better garments than you are wearing at present. You may not like them very much as they are of the rather flashy, sporting variety, but just the thing that foreigners expect an Englishman to wear abroad, and they’ll give you quite a different appearance. For myself I have bought much cheaper and rather eccentric things. Also I shall become more youthful by dying my hair black. From this evening on I carry my second fake passport which describes its owner as Hypolite Dubois, French chef. I shall accompany you out to Valmojado as your cook, valet and interpreter—in fact a very handy man to have about the house.”
“That seems all right,” Richard admitted, “except for one small point. Don Lluis does know that you had another Englishman, or rather Scotsman, with you. If he’s forced to tell all he knows mightn’t the people we are up against start looking for me?”
“My dear boy,” laughed the Duke, “there are thousands of Britons in Spain, and we told Don Lluis that you were my secretary, Mr. McGlusky. A secretary normally accompanies his employer. If they ever get as far as that it only brings the hunt back to João da Silva and—Mr. da Silva, where is he? Disappeared into the blue, my friend. If you’re visited by the Seguridad Police at the factory all you have to do is to produce your own papers which cannot be questioned. You’ve never heard of Mr. da Silva and, for all you know, he’s sitting on a walrus sailing out to sea.”
“You are a tough baby, as clear old Rex would say, and...” Richard broke off suddenly to exclaim delightedly, “Good God! Talk of the devil!”
De Richleau’s glance had followed his. Facing them in a moving car only a few yards away sat Rex and Simon. With one shove that nearly threw Richard off his feet the Duke thrust him behind the side awning of a café they were passing and dived in after him.
“What the devil are you up to?” cried Richard striving to regain his balance.
“Hell!” exclaimed the Duke. “I hope to God neither of them recognized us. Fortunately Simon was looking the other way.”
“But hang it, man, why shouldn’t they recognize us? Don’t you see what’s happened? They’ve both thought better of it. They come out here to find us and lend a hand.”
The car had sped on. De Richleau shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid that’s not it, Richard. I didn’t tell you. I didn’t know myself for certain—although I had a pretty shrewd idea they were up to something. I knew both of them were lying to me anyhow.”
“What on earth d’you mean?”
“Rex said he had lost his nerve for flying—which is absurd. He told me he couldn’t give me his help because he had pledged himself to go abroad with someone else in August. Who could possibly have a claim on him that he would not have tried to wriggle out of, for my sake, except Simon?
“When I was last at Simon’s house the place was full of people. He tried to bluff me that it was a charity meeting but I soon saw that all unawares I’d stumbled into a hotbed of Communists. He had obviously got at Rex before I had the chance.”
“But—surely you don’t mean that our two best friends are on the other side?” gasped Richard.
“That’s just what I do mean.” De Richleau’s voice was hoarse and strained. “It never entered my head that they would actually come to Spain. And civil war’s a horrible thing. Brother will fight brother. Every man will go armed and shoot before he thinks. God save us from coming up against these two when the fighting begins.”
Chapter Ten – Death in Madrid
Lucretia-José and Cristoval Ventura sat down at a corner table in the first-floor room at Botin’s. The little restaurant was famous the world over for its sucking-pig and for the huge brick oven on the ground floor where the piglets were baked, the fire of which was reputed not to have gone out for over a hundred years.
Since their first meeting at Simon’s house in London the two had seen a lot of each other. They had travelled back to Spain together and Cristoval having ‘for certain private reasons’ arranged his transfer from Oviedo to the Madrid headquarters of the U.G.T., they had spent most of their free time in each other’s company since their return to the capital.
Both were desperately busy, as affairs in Spain had now reached the boiling-point, but since they were ostensibly working for the same cause their undertakings brought them into frequent official contact and every evening they managed to snatch a few hours together.
That afternoon he had taken her to the Bull-Ring but not in the cheap, unshaded seats, because he was not that kind of Socialist. The fact that they had enjoyed the shelter of the big canopy and had sat among the rich bourgeoisie had not prevented him from putting in the best part of four hours at his office afterwards collecting the confidential reports concerning the safe delivery of supplies of illicit arms to various Trade Union bodies all over Spain; nor her from making a flying visit to the Anarchist H.Q., after which she had turned in several very useful pieces of information to a fruit-seller who was one of the pillar-boxes of the Monarchist organization, Renovacion Española.
They had met again at ten o’clock for dinner; a late hour to dine according to the rest of Europe but quite a normal one for Spaniards. Offices in Madrid open at the usual hour but the siesta, during which most Spaniards usually undress and go to bed, cuts the three hottest hours out of the day. To adjust the loss of time offices and shops keep open till eight or nine.
Foreign visitors find with surprise that the thés-dansants do not begin in the big hotels till seven, that ten o’clock is the hour for dinner, that theatres start at eleven and that the night-clubs do little business until the crowd arrives at two o’clock in the morning.
Lucretia-José and Cristoval were used to the late night meal. They sat down very happily opposite each other and ordered the dish of the house—sucking-pig—with a bottle of Rioja.
While they sipped their bone-dry Tio-Pepe sherry and waited for the dish to be prepared they did not talk Marxist theories or Communist experiments but just those delightful nonsenses that two young people of the opposite sex talk the world over when they are having an evening off to which they have looked forward immensely.
He was head over heels in love. Her serene, beautifully chiselled face came perpetually between him and his work, and it required an immense effort to keep her out of his thoughts each time he had to concentrate on important papers. As he looked at her now the curve of her cheek and the contour of her breasts filled him with unfathomable joy. Just to be sitting opposite her was the most heavenly bliss and, happiness piled on happiness, she obviously enjoyed being with him.
Like most Spaniards he was of a violently jealous temperament, and the very idea that she might be even casually interested in another man would have torn him with agony. As it was she gave him her time, apart from the great work, whenever he asked for it and she never so much as mentioned the name of another male acquaintance. There was not a thing in the world to mar those perfect moments for him. He thought her the most intelligent, companionable and beautiful woman he had ever met and he adored her utterly.
After their first few meetings Lucretia-José had found herself in a very queer state. She had tried to analyse it but failed completely. Two short-lived but hectic affairs, both before she was twenty and both with Englishmen whom she had met at the country houses of ex-school friends, had convinced her that she knew all about love, but her intense preoccupation with her work and the surroundings in which she did it had barred her from the social acquaintances she would normally have made during the past five years. Plenty of her male associates had shown a desire for her company in no way concerned with the cause of the proletariat, but she had skilfully evaded their advances. In a few cases where the interest displayed had not been too openly amorous, pleasant friendships had developed, one particularly with a University Professor who came from Granada, but every one of
the Socialist speakers and leaders she knew lacked some quality which might have been able to stir passion in her. The fact was that she had been drawn to the two young Englishmen only physically and to a few Spanish intellectuals only mentally, so she really knew very little about love at all.
Cristoval Ventura had attracted her immediately. His vibrant voice, strong, well-kept hands, merry eyes and quick, decisive manner singled him out for the admiring glances of many women and, in addition, Lucretia found him her intellectual equal. From the first she had accepted his invitations readily for the double reason that he was not only a man of some importance in his party, and therefore a possible new source of information, but also because she enjoyed being with him. Soon she woke up to the fact that although she was automatically passing on any new bits and pieces about the Red organization that he casually let drop she was not even attempting to worm any secrets out of him deliberately. That was a nasty shock and for twenty-four hours she had panicked badly.
It seemed inconceivable to her that she had fallen for a Red. It was one thing to consort with them for her own purposes and while doing so to forget, at times, the great gulf fixed; but quite another to admit for a second that she could really care for one of these mentally-warped, atheistic monsters who were out to destroy all that was best and finest in her dearly loved Spain.
At first she would not admit it, although she recognized some of the symptoms she had experienced with each of the young Englishmen; a sudden thrill when his hand touched hers accidentally, a deplorable preoccupation with his likes, dislikes and opinions, a reacting in her own mind all that he had said and done at their last meeting and sometimes, at nights, a terrifying pleasure in imagining what it would be like to feel his strong hands gripping her fiercely.
She was utterly horrified at the position in which she found herself and would have broken with him if she could, but their work brought them constantly together as long as she remained in Madrid and to leave the city at this fateful time would have been a direct betrayal of her cause. Those panic hours had driven her half crazy, but calm came again when she realized that she could neither fight nor run. She decided that the future must sort itself whatever pain it might bring her. Now that the hour of trial was at hand, to abandon her hard-won position in the confidence of the Red Leaders was unthinkable but she must dissociate Cristoval with them entirely in her mind. That was the only way, and if love had come to her it must take its course however inevitable the bitterness of its ending between them must surely be.
Since the taking of that decision she had lived only for the moment; working feverishly still to assure the success of the coup d’état but refusing to think of it as a thing that was actually going to happen, bringing blood and death, in which Cristoval might be involved, to Madrid’s streets. She never allowed their talk to drift in that direction and, as he was only too glad to get off the subjects which occupied most of his days and nights, they sometimes spent hours together happily forgetful of the day or month and the black shadow that was ever drawing nearer.
At the moment they were talking of the bull-fights they had seen that afternoon. Like most Spaniards they considered the horses killed in the ring of little moment. The poor brutes were invariably old crocks which would otherwise have gone to the knacker for slaughter, and they were now always put out of their pain within a few moments of being wounded. Their participation was necessary in order to tire the bull sufficiently for the matador to play it with that superb grace and skill which renders bull-fighting as great and exacting an art as the ballet. Both of them were genuine aficionados who understood the extraordinary subtleties of the sport, and they spoke with accustomed ease of adornos, pase de pechos and media veronicas.
In Cristoval’s opinion no matador of the present day could compare with that magnificent killer of bulls, Juan Belmonte, and he began to describe in detail a beautiful corrida he had seen the famous veteran fight two years before.
The relation of this epic had only just got under way when Lucretia’s heart missed a beat. From two tables away a man was regarding her quietly but fixedly. He looked about fifty and was rather poorly dressed. His dead-black hair was parted very far over to the left and on the right it was brought in a flatly plastered, downward-curving sweep across his forehead, thereby giving the impression that he was a very low-brow type indeed; while over one of his cheeks and a part of his chin there spread the purplish stain of a sadly disfiguring birthmark.
Lucretia dropped her glance for a second, then quickly looked again. There was only one face in which she had ever seen grey eyes of such piercing brilliance. There could be no question about it; that vaguely shabby and distinctly unprepossessing individual was Monseigneur le Duc de Richleau.
She had reckoned that by this time he would certainly have reached Madrid but had imagined that he would have arrived under his own colours and have stayed openly at the Ritz or the Savoy, relying on the power of his Embassy to protect him in the event of riots. Several times since their meeting in London she had rather regretted not having confided in him fully that secret work compelled her to fraternize with supporters of the other side. That would have ensured his respecting her incognito if they ran up against each other in Spain, but such a chance meeting had seemed unlikely since she rarely went to such places as she anticipated he would frequent.
Now she reprimanded herself for having let Cristoval take her to Botin’s. It was only a small place but of the sort that foreigners who were rich gourmets were liable to ferret out. If De Richleau had been staying at the Ritz he might quite well have come along to eat a sucking-pig and, finding her there, have gaily greeted her as “Condesa.” Such a situation would have been utterly catastrophic and she would probably have paid for her lack of forethought with her life before she could do the Reds further damage. Quite a number of people had been quietly put out of the way in Madrid by both sides during the last few weeks.
Her pulse steadied with the realization that De Richleau himself being quite obviously disguised there was little likelihood of his making some frightful faux pas which would give her away, but she still felt that queer tightening inside which always came to her when she had been skating on dangerously thin ice.
The Duke had purposely stared at her until she recognized him although he was perfectly well aware of the fright that seeing him there might cause her. He was delighted at this chance encounter because he had been hoping to run across her for several days. Pure chance had informed him that she was ostensibly in the ranks of the enemy, and not knowing how far Don Lluis Trueba was in her confidence he had not dared to question the banker about her; but he needed her help now urgently.
Richard was heartily tucking into his portion of sucking-pig all unaware of the mental disturbance which his friend’s presence had caused at another table. After having been confined to the dusty seclusion of the Palacio for a week he was delighted to be at liberty again and thoroughly enjoyed this little celebration which the Duke had proposed.
De Richleau’s voice, pitched very low and almost toneless, recalled him from vague speculations as to how the roses were looking in the gardens of his lovely old home, Cardinal’s Folly. “Richard, we are in luck. Don’t look round, but the woman for whom we came out here is at the corner table behind you. It’s essential that I should talk to her. She’s with a man but presently we must join them. This is going to be a ticklish operation because the opposition firm think she is one of their supporters and I don’t know the name she works under. She doesn’t know I’m—er—a French chef, either. I must have a little time to think out the best procedure.”
“Take as much as you like,” said Richard amiably. “The longer the better as far as I’m concerned. I’m enjoying my dinner.”
The ruins of the sucking-pig were removed and an omelette flambée took its place. De Richleau gave Richard time to eat his half and then said softly:
“This is the drill. In a minute you will glance round casually. She’s dressed ver
y simply but you can’t mistake her because she’s incredibly beautiful—at least, I think so. Anyhow, she’s the only woman in the room with golden hair. Directly you see her looking at you, get up and go over to her table. As we’re in Spain and we don’t want to precipitate a riot you will first apologize to the man for breaking in on them. Then say to her, ‘excuse me, Señorita, but I feel sure we met at my friend Simon Aron’s house when you were in London a fortnight ago. If you remember you were kind enough to express the hope that we should meet again when I came to Spain.’ That she’s never seen you in her life doesn’t matter. The mention of Simon will give her the tip that we’re on to her game and that she has nothing to fear. Spaniards are always very courteous so it’s almost certain that they’ll ask you to sit down. If they don’t you must make conversation till they do. When that happens ask permission to bring me over. Jokingly you will infer that I’m an awful Bolshevik and an old employé of yours who is travelling with you because he can speak a little Spanish. You’re here because you’ve heard there’s trouble brewing and you love any form of excitement. Use your own name. But don’t mention the factory. Off you go.”
Lucretia-José saw the Duke’s companion turn and catching her eye suddenly half-smile at her. As he rose from his table she noticed that he was a rather nice-looking young man but wearing a hideous, mustard-coloured jacket and obviously English. With quick trepidation she wondered what was going to happen now, but Richard’s opening gambit soon reassured her.
The whole affair was settled with surprising ease and swiftness. Cristoval immediately asked Richard to join them and Lucretia said at once that as he was with another man he must bring his friend to their table too.
Monsieur Hypolite Dubois was duly presented, more wine was ordered and they settled down cheerfully to one of those interminable discussions in which any Spaniard will joyfully participate until daylight.
Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 03 Page 10
