Not more than two. But two what?
Well, wives, said Mr Cecil. He was in a terrible taking. “One does wish one had never said, and you must all forget every word of it, promise, promise!”
But forget what? said the ladies, ashen faced.
Just forget that one had ever uttered one single, single word. One was madly keen, said Mr Cecil, enjoying himself hugely, on giving people a second chance—well, in this case a third chance, of course—and that their pasts shouldn’t follow them round. Not that the Major’s pasts could follow him round anyway, because after all they were … Well, that had, no doubt, been the whole purpose of … But no, no—one had already said too much. He would only implore them never to … Well, not to … Well, just to be a little extra careful if ever there was a gun anywhere about. Anything else, poison, ropes, daggers, even high cliffs—all utterly safe, it was just that some people had a Thing about guns.… He named no names, he made no accusations, heaven forbid! He only said, just be tactful, dears, about guns … So, retreating, advancing a little, retreating again, ducking and side-stepping in a sort of one-man verbal quadrille and enjoying himself immensely, he led them like the Pied Piper, filing white-faced and silent after him, up the companion-way and over the narrow gangplank and so ashore; and left them to vanish into a hole in the mountain-side if they would. But when he crept down again to the door of the saloon, discussion of the miraculous thurible had come to an end.
Now in the arena, flares had been lit, a procession was forming, eight biers carried, each with an effigy marvellously fashioned in paper and wood of a hanged man with grue-somely lolling head. These would be borne round the island and launched at last, lightly bobbing, on the current that would carry them to the cemetery on the Italian shore. The single survivor, also in effigy and more macabre than all the rest, jerked its way in capering triumph behind the line of coffins; and all about them the people danced with flares and banners in the dying daylight, men, women and children in a crescendo of music and laughter and chatter and song, a half-hysterical gaiety not entirely arguadiente-induced: for in the midst of life we are in death—and every bier as it passed bore the legend, ‘I today: tomorrow—you!’
El Gerente and Tomaso di Goya took no part in the dancing. Deep in talk, barely conscious of their surroundings, they shouldered and shoved their way through the mob, walking without particularly directing their steps, up to the Gallows Rock. “But, Tomaso …”
“Gerente, ask nothing, know nothing. Forget even, for your own good, that we had this talk just now with the old man. As to rose-scented smoke, this of course is nothing but nonsense. I had to give him some story so that I might have access to the thurible: but what is concealed behind the sliding door, will have nothing to do with roses! As to that, anyway—leave it all to me. Your part is to be ready, to have your men ready, to take control. He who in that moment is prepared, will be strong; and he who in that moment is strong, Gerente, will have San Juan in his hands. And in all San Juan, only you and I will be prepared.”
“But I cannot tell my men——”
Tomaso made fists of his hands and hammered the air. “Fool, idiot! of course you will not ‘tell your men!’ All that is needed is to have them on the alert. Post them at the doors, have a handful strategically placed. All San Juan will be there: you can say you are afraid of panic when the ‘sign’ comes from Juanita, of over-excitement, a scramble forward, perhaps, which in the crowded building may lead to danger …” If the prospect of El Gerente’s men with their bare feet and blunderbusses casting oil on the waters of religious raptures run amok, afforded him a gleam of amusement, he gave no sign of it. “The great thing is that your politio must not be relaxed, on their knees, in the body of the church; they must not be part of the crowd, and so caught up in the general confusion. When the moment comes, they must be ready for a swift, decisive arrest at your command.”
“Very well, Tomaso.”
“This will satisfy the people, will give them a feeling of security; will show them, later on when we may need it, that they can have confidence in you. ‘Look how he handled things after the assassination!’ And above all, it will deflect attention from me. The only question is—who shall we arrest?”
El Gerente shrugged. “That is not of importance.”
“Perhaps not; but one must pay attention to detail. And my attitude, after all, will be reflected here. Is this to be one of my followers? Or not? Is my reaction to be one of rage and horror at the assassination by some firebrand unknown to me?—the rising up of a strong man, in his wrath and indignation, to take control … Or is the slaying to be by one of my own men who, in a moment of over-enthusiastic folly, overcome by the sufferings of the people under the tyrant’s yoke, etcetera, etcetera, has done this thing: foolishly thinking to please me?—and I, plunged in grief at having been so foully misunderstood, take my part in the rehabilitation of the island, reluctantly but by way of atonement. I have a young fellow, for example, devoted to the cause and to me, a sort of cousin. You know Francisco di Goya?”
“A nice boy. He would do very well. And being a member of your family, if you were to order his death …”
“A good point. Who then would suspect me? Very well. His mother is a widow, half-sister to my uncle, his father was a kinsman also. We must show her some compassion when we come to power; some financial help, perhaps, for the loss of her son. It will look well.” El Gerente nodded agreement most readily but Tomaso was far away, already employing the royal ‘we.’ “It is settled then. Francisco di Goya. I will let him run certain errands in the next day or two which will give colour to our accusation. The next problem is: immediate despatch at the hands of your furious gendarmerie?—or public execution two or three days later: say today week?”
“That would have the advantage of giving the people something to look forward to.”
“Very true. And keep their minds occupied. And to have the murderer disposed of too soon after the event, might be an anticlimax. Very well: public execution on the Sunday, after Mass. If we had the Grand Duke’s funeral first,” mused Tomaso, “and Francisco walking after the bier in chains …”
“Will not the people expect the Grand Duke to lie in state? And be embalmed? All the Grand Dukes are.”
Tomaso privately thought it unlikely that enough of this particular Grand Duke would ever be assembled to admit of his lying in any sort of state; that he would prove a fit subject for embalmment was certainly out of the question. “And then,” said El Gerente, “there is the question of succession.”
The Grand Duke’s Heir Apparent, a nephew, was at this time a minor. Whether Tomaso would assume power in a Regency—until he had time to despatch this young sprig in his turn—or do away with hereditary rule from the first, he had not yet decided. “I will deal with all that, leave these things to me, we will see.” They had come to the rock and automatically turned their feet to the curve of rough-hewn steps that led up to it; and so arrived and stood looking down over the heads of the great, weaving, multi-coloured, dancing crowd, shifting and shadowy in the flare of the smokey torches. Beyond, the sea lay like wrinkled black treacle and, a black shadow in a silver patch of moonlight, the Vaporetto de Muerte rocked at her mooring. “Tomaso—the Arcivescovo!”
“What about him?”
“Will he not guess? I mean—the thurible …”
“What of the thurible? He thinks it will belch forth attar of roses as a sign from Juanita.”
“But—afterwards …”
“Perhaps he will think this also was a sign. After all, it is to his advantage that the Grand Duke dies. His life is saved; and I assure you that we shall lose no time in the advancement of his precious Juanita. And he knows that in our hands San Juan escapes into freedom from tyranny. I have taught him my principles and my beliefs, he knows that with me the rights of the people come first and foremost, he knows that with me the Right of the Individual Man is the be-all and end-all of political aspiration, he knows …”
> “He knows—or he will know—that with you lay the death of the Grand Duke,” said El Gerente. “And,” he added anxiously, for this was the hub of the matter, “with me. And when he knows this—what I say is: what if he speaks?”
“He will not speak,” said Tomaso easily.
“He will not speak, you say. That is easy. But I say, Tomaso, again—what if he does?”
“Well, what if he does? Old men are easily silenced,” said the apostle of the Rights of Man.
Winsome Foley came up to them, rising up out of the shadows, tall and angular as the gallows posts themselves. Her long, gangling body was tensed, her hands jerked, her grey-green eyes stared out witlessly from her white face. “Oh, Senor Tomaso—thank goodness …! Oh, Gerente …!” She was exhausted, on the verge of hysteria. Divorced from her party by the defection of Cousin Hat with the Major, she had wandered for the best part of the evening, alone amidst the crowd, unable to extricate herself, her sense of direction soon lost, frightened and insecure: jostled and buffeted, jarred and jolted, affronted at every turn—swung for a moment by the strong brown hand of a dancer passing in some formal set movement, caught and held in half amorous embrace in a patch of shadow; released, cushioned again, helpless, against soft bosom or thigh, cannoning off to reel against a pair of lovers locked in each other’s arms; stumbling away … The air was shrill with laughter and screaming, the high-pitched chatter of women, the whoops of the men. Unashamed, uninhibited, the girls pranced and kicked, plump arms boneless as bolsters, rounded above sleek, dark heads; triumphant in virility, the men leapt and twisted or, on their own axis, spun dizzily round and round and round. Breathless, dishevelled, bruised, terrified, she had come at last to the gallow steps, climbed up out of the surge and sway of the dancing; and there, thank God …! “Oh, Senor Tomaso, oh, Gerente, thank goodness you’re here.…!”
And thank goodness you’re here, thought Tomaso: nothing could have fitted better into his plans. “Senorita!” He made a slight gesture, surreptitiously, of dismissal, and El Gerente, astonished, found himself skulking off like a well-trained dog at his master’s sign. “Senorita! Permit me to assist you. You are alone?”
“Yes. I have come through …” She jerked her trembling hand to indicate the crowds milling twenty feet below.
“But, Senorita—this is not nice for you. They mean no harm but they are rough, they are excited, they have drunk much arguadiente.” He put out his hand to her. “Come, you shall rest and then I will take you back to your grouppa; come and sit for a little while under the olive trees.…”
She went with him, thankfully, exhausted, her nerves all a-quiver, starting like a highstrung horse at every moving shadow; and he held her hand as he might have a child’s and led her away from the rock plateau and into the grey-green glooms of the olive groves, empty but for the murmur and movement of lovers, lying among the twisted tree roots in each other’s arms. They came to a break in the trees, to a grassy sward that looked out over the moonlit sea, and he planted her down on a little mound and sat quietly at her feet. “Be still, Senorita. Be peaceful. All danger is past.” After a short time he got up again. “I leave you for only a little while. Sit quietly here. No one will disturb you. I shall come back.” He came back and brought with him a bottle of light, red wine, some fresh white rolls and a piece of cheese. “Drink: it will refresh you. And then some bread and some cheese—we will have a little picnic together, and soon you will be strong again and forget this fright.”
“You are very, very kind,” she said.
So very kind; a rescuer, coming to her aid in the final moment of her desperation, gentle, understanding, considerate and kind. Impossible, then, to rebuff him when at last he brought the conversation round to their famous plan. “Yes, and what did you mean, you naughty man, coming up to me in front of all those people with some nonsense about the thurible?”
“Some nonsense, Senorita!—this is in deadly earnest,” he said, but still smiling up into her face. “You could not really think that our beautiful plan should end here? No, no, it is magnificent, the Arcivescovo is delighted with it.”
“The Arcivescovo!”
“He alone is in the secret. Of course we had to tell him. Who else should let you have the thurible? It is in his care.”
She put down the glass of wine on the rough grass beside her, her hand searching blindly about for a space for it. “Let me have the thurible? Whatever are you talking about?”
“Senorita, I must have the thurible in my shop. There are hours of work to be done, a whole night of work; I cannot make a place of concealment for the pellet simply by waving my hand over the censer. And there is not much time, the Fiesta di San Juan is in three days time—the Grand Duke himself has commanded our miracle for that day (a little miracle in itself, Senorita, were you not struck by it?). But it means that I must have the thurible by tomorrow.”
“What has that got to do with me?”
“The Archbishop will give you the thurible, you will bring it to my shop.”
“Oh, nonsense!” said Winsome. “I shouldn’t dream of such a thing.” If he and the Archbishop, she said, cared to embroil themselves in so absurd and risky a proceeding, that was up to them: she dismissed it all with her old air of kindly, humorous patronage—two small boys playing cloak-and-dagger games, and foreign small boys at that … “After all, dear Senor Tomaso, what is it to do with me?”
“Only that it was your plan,” said Tomaso.
“Goodness gracious, I never meant it seriously, I disapprove entirely of the whole proceeding.”
“Night before last, Senorita—you did not disapprove.”
“Well, when I say disapprove—I don’t in principle, I agree that it doesn’t matter very much how the Pope is persuaded to grant what we all know Juanita deserves. But … Well, I never for a moment took it seriously, I never thought you’d really go through with it.”
There was a tiny pause.
“Yet you brought me the book,” said Tomaso. “I think you have forgotten, Senorita—together we altered the book.”
A dank hand fastened itself for a moment on her vitals, prodded into her fainting heart a cold finger of fear. Blackmail! He was going to blackmail her through Juanita’s book. But his face was smiling and frank, his eyes were clear, the little chill, if chill there had ever really been, had melted out of his voice. “I only mean, Senorita, that if you had meant it only for an evening’s amusement, you wouldn’t have tampered with the book?”
“I didn’t tamper with it,” she said sharply. “You did.”
“I held the pen. You—as it were—held the book. You and I together, both of us, made up the ‘message.’” He shrugged. “It was half-and-half.” Though of course, he said carefully, it was true that the Senorita alone had had the book in her care. But he laughed, he was warm and gay again, she must not look so startled, he meant only that he was astonished to find her protesting now, that she had not intended their innocent deception to go on.
“Well, I didn’t,” said Winsome, “and I really don’t want anything more to do with it now.”
He was dismayed, heart-broken. All the fun would be gone out of it, if the Senorita withdrew. And since the Archbishop was enthusiastic, surely she need have no qualms?
If the alteration to the book were—discovered, said Winsome, refusing this consolatory side-tracking, there would be trouble, she supposed. But for them both. She repeated: for them both?
Trouble! Good heavens! He threw up his hands to the soft night sky. Tampering with Juanita’s writings—an act of sacrilege! Trouble would not be the word for it if the alteration to the book were ever found out. For himself … He shrugged. His lawyers would argue, no doubt, that there could be no possible proof that the addition had been written in by him—it was not of himself but of the Senorita that they must think. For not all the lawyers in San Juan could disguise that she, a foreigner, had had the sacred book in her care and had handed it over for the purpose of desecration.… A
nd the law in San Juan, of course … At another time he would have been off on the hobby-horse again, and most legitimately so; but now he simply shrugged one of his enormous shrugs and allowed his face to grow preternaturally grave. No relative of Inspector Cockereel of Scotalanda Yarrrda could need very much prompting as to the horrors of crime and punishment on the island of San Juan el Pirata.
And really there was no earthly reason why it should be found out: if both of them kept their mouths shut, added Tomaso. Their original idea had been to draw attention to the ‘miracle’: they were to ‘discover’ the reference, to condition the island for the sign that was to be sent to them on the Day of Roses. This no longer, however, would be necessary; the Grand Duke had done it all for them by his challenge to Juanita to send them a sign that day. Now nothing need be mentioned of the reference in the Diary—when, in due course, it was recognised, all danger would have passed …
“I don’t quite see why,” said Winsome. “If there is danger now—there’d be danger then.”
Tomaso permitted himself one small, ironical smile; but the danger, he assured her, growing florid, growing vague, flinging his hands about in dismissal of her anxieties, would be nothing after—after the next two or three days. By that time with her assistance—with her assistance—he would have rigged up the false bottom to the thurible, concealed the pellet, returned the censer to the Duomo: the trick would be played, the sign would be granted—there would be no more to fear.… It would all depend—on her giving him her assistance.
“I see,” said Winsome. She asked, dully: “What is it you want me to do?”
And after all, it was really very simple. He wanted her to bring the thurible—the base of it only, that was where the work would be—from the Duomo, where the Archbishop would hand it over to her, to his shop. “No one else but us three must know: to tell a secret to one is to tell it to all. But the Archbishop cannot be seen coming to my shop, I cannot be seen bringing anything from the cathedral, it will be best for me not to go near it; and for him and me for the next three days to keep far apart. If the Grand Duke were ever to discover that the censer had been interfered with …”
Three-Cornered Halo Page 12
