Suddenly Peter blinked in surprise. He had always been vain about his eyesight, which was like that of eagles, but now, of all times, it appeared to be letting him down.
For there seemed to be two beams of light crisscrossing the barred windows at the base of the wall.
"Have you lost something, senior?"
Peter turned, smiling blankly. The second beam of light moved up to his face. The man directing it at him was a policeman. Peter had a shadowy impression of brass buttons, red epaulets, a young unsmiling face.
"As a matter of fact, I seem to have lost my way."
"What address were you looking for?"
"Well, I don't know. I'm trying to find the Banco de Bilbao. Someone told me it was near here."
"He misinformed you, I'm afraid."
"Perhaps I misunderstood."
"Yes, that's possible. You realise the Banco de Bilbao is closed?"
"Yes, I know. But I wanted to find it so I could get there first thing in the morning."
The policeman smiled. "You're not far from it right now." He rapped his knuckles against the brick wall. "It's on the other side of this building. Twenty or thirty feet away."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. But unless you can walk through solid walls, I don't think that will help very much."
Peter smiled too. "No indeed."
The policeman embroidered his little joke. "And I don't imagine you'd want to buy some dynamite and blast your way into the bank."
"No, I certainly wouldn't."
The policeman took Peter's arm and led him back along the passageway to the square. "In that case, I think the best thing would be to walk around the block. You'll be at the door of the Banco de Bilbao in a matter of minutes."
"Well, thanks very much. And good night."
"It's nothing, senior Good night."
***
The policeman, whose name was Carlos, smiled after Peter.
Tourists never seemed to be at home, he reflected philosophically.
Always losing their way, forever straying into strange places, and then smiling like shy children, like naughty children, when someone set them straight. With a tolerant shrug, Carlos turned and strolled off in the opposite direction, hands clasped behind his back, his clear dark eyes alertly roving the streets for anything amiss. Then Carlos frowned faintly, stopped and looked over his shoulder.
Peter was already out of sight. Carlos stood indecisively for a moment, his head tilted in thought. At last he took a pencil and notebook from his pocket, moistened the tip of the pencil with his tongue, and began to write an account of the incident.
Carlos was a meticulous policeman; he bored his superiors with extensive and accurate accounts of all happenings on his beat which seemed to him in any way curious or suspicious.
Carlos knew how his superiors felt towards him, but he had a notion they might not be bored with this particular report. Not if the rumours going around about the Banco de Bilbao turned out to be true.
***
Peter returned to his hotel room with a headful of worrisome considerations, none of which, however, was related to his plans for stealing the jewels and gems of the Virgins during the coming week.
Cursing himself for a mooning, irrelevant ass, he flung his hat and coat in the general direction of a chair, and reached for the light switch.
He was troubled by guilt, troubled by innocence, troubled by the dubious purity of past and present motives; he was behaving as idiotically, as witlessly, as a man on a scaffold worrying about whether the drop would disturb the part in his hair.
Peter's hand froze on the light switch; he stood motionless, hardly breathing, while his remarkable senses scanned the dark and silent room for danger. Fool, he thought, irrelevant fool! Troubled by harmless thunder; ignoring the fatal lightning bolt.
He dipped a hand quickly into his pocket and took out a cigarette lighter. Gripping it tightly in his fist, he extended it at arms' length, parallel to the floor.
"Ecoutez, mes amis," Peter said quietly. "Don't move; don't talk. I am holding three ounces of tri-nitro-cellulose in my hand. Should I be forced to drop it Pouf! Et finis!"
A gasp sounded behind Peter.
He snapped on the lights.
"Darling, what are you raving about?" Grace asked him anxiously.
CHAPTER FIVE
"How did you get in here?"
"I told the desk clerk I was a friend of yours. He said that made us friends, since you and he are friends. We all have passion, he said, and let me in. But please don't try to change the subject. Why were you going on that way in French?"
"As a matter of fact, I was expecting someone else."
"Yes. Tri-nitro whatever it was. Pouf. Finis! I guess you were."
She smiled uncertainly. "Peter, what's wrong? You're different, somehow. You've changed."
And so had she, Peter realised sadly. He had always thought of her in images and metaphors. Silver trees, golden bonfires, stately clippers.
Now in this transparent and cruelly realistic northern air, she seemed less mysterious, less a creature of magic and enchantment; she was human, after all, lovely beyond words to be sure, but weighable and measurable now, an entity composed of readily ascertainable details.
She wore a dress the colour of cocoa, a short coat of natural wool, and narrow black boots with tops of brown fur which fitted snugly about her fine ankles. There was a smudge of dust on her cheek. A tendril of fine hair had escaped a sleek coiffure to prance on top of her head like a tiny golden sea-horse. She must have come straight from the train, he thought with a pang of sympathy. She would probably love a bath and a nap. Somehow details he had never noticed before made her even more precious and dear in his eyes.
"Peter, you can't go ahead with this business," she said quietly.
"Dear, I've got to."
"But it's insane. It's worse. It's stupid and sentimental. When you told me about it at first, it sounded sweet and splendid. Like listening to a dear old uncle reading fairy tales before a cosy fire. But it won't work, Peter. There's no place for romantic gestures outside of books. I want you to be practical. To be sensible."
Yes, he thought, she was real enough now, no doubt of it. Sensible. Practical. But what had happened to the bonfires and cellos? Where had the enchantment gone? And yet, he thought, it probably wasn't her fault. It wasn't deliberate, at any rate. She must have been lulled to sleep, as he had been, by insidious and deceptive southern breezes.
He remembered what Antonio, the policeman, had told him about the north and south of Spain. It made a sad kind of sense now. The south sold gypsies and romance, ogres riding the west winds. While the north sold the things of the real world good hotels and electricity, shops full of handbags and brass candlesticks. In the south, dreams of innocence and passion were understood and accepted as fancies borne on the African trades. But here in the north they were neither understood nor accepted; they were not sensible, not practical. But where, Peter wondered unhappily, did passion and innocence exist? In the needle of a compass? Or in the beat of a heart?
"Please listen to me, Peter. Please." He saw the tremor of her lips, the fear in her lovely eyes, and the way her hands were twisting together at her breast, and he thought wistfully of tall, silver trees, of stately clipper ships. How he missed them now!
"Yes?"
"I've got enough money for both of us. In twenty-four hours we could be half-way around the world. In Melbourne, Tokyo, or anywhere you like. Please come away with me, Peter."
"I can't. It just wouldn't work."
"Do you think this business will work? You're all alone, Peter. With no one to help you. You'll be caught and sent to prison, or you'll be shot and killed. Don't you realise that?"
"Yes, I suppose I do. But I can't help it."
"And I can't help caring about you. That's all I do care about, Peter."
"I wish my commitments were so simple," he said with a sigh.
"I am selfish and mean. Yo
u are loyal and pure. Is that what you're telling me?"
He said quietly: "You know I'm not taking a high moral stand. As you suggested, I'm trying to be practical. If I ran off with you and left my friends to hang, I'd hardly be the man you think you're in love with. I'm not sure who I'd be then. The change might even be an improvement. But you wouldn't have what you wanted, and neither would I. You'd have a nice sensible coward; and I'd have a woman who wanted a nice sensible coward. Neither of us would care for that. After a bit, we'd have difficulty looking at one another. Don't you see it wouldn't work?"
Unexpectedly she smiled and said, "Of course. You're absolutely right, Peter. You couldn't possibly come away with me. I see that now. So I'll have to stay with you. It's that simple."
"Don't talk like a fool!"
"But you've got no one else to trust. Your old friends aren't at your side. And Angela and Francois will sell you out the minute the job is done. They'll have to throw you to the police to protect themselves. Don't you realise that?"
"Of course. I'm not a complete idiot. But I'll have something to say about that when the time comes."
"But you can't watch both of them. Please, Peter." She came closer to him and put her hands on his shoulders. There was a strange challenge in her smile, exciting lights in her splendid eyes. "Let me help you."
"Now you're talking like an idiot. You women pride yourselves on being realists. At bottom you're all as frivolous as tinkers." He pulled her hands down from his shoulders. He was quite angry. "This isn't a game we're playing. I'm not a knight in armour. I'm a thief. What I'm going to do what I must do is dangerous and wrong. Legally and morally. Will you get that into your silly head?"
"What's so immoral about it? What good are all those jewels doing strung about the necks of plaster statues?" There was a flash of mutinous tears in her eyes. "When families are cold and children are hungry? How can stealing them be morally wrong? You won't be depriving a single human being of comfort or solace."
He sighed. "That's very glib. If a man looks at a beautiful statue of the Virgin and says a prayer, who are we to measure what comfort and solace that may bring to him?"
"I can measure it. It would probably fit in a thimble, with lots of room left over."
"I'm not that omniscient, my dear." There was a touch of lofty admonition in his tone, and, sensing it, Peter resolved not to be presumptuous, regardless of provocation. "I am a sinner," he continued more equably. "You are not. And I've never paid for my sins. That's the difference between us."
"Oh, how smug you are! It's the ultimate vanity, Peter, to accuse everyone else in the world of innocence. Because you equate it with naivety and stupidity."
"I'm sorry. But I do not."
"Yes, you do. You think some special cachet attaches itself to sinners. While the mark of the booby is stamped on the innocent. Well, thank you very much, but I'm not a booby." He was confused and stirred by her emotion, her closeness to him; the hot tears in her eyes melted the steel of his resolution. The drums and bugles were sounding once more; the tiny golden sea-horse on top of her head seemed to be prancing to the challenge of the music. He prayed for strength.
"Peter, please let me help you," she said, and as she whispered the words, the lights in the room coated her long full lips with a patina of shimmering silver.
"No, no, no!" he said. "The only way you can help is by leaving me alone."
She studied his face and eyes. Then she nodded and turned slowly to the door. "All right, Peter, I'll go, if that's what you want." She sighed and straightened her shoulders. "I have a confession to make. It doesn't matter in the least now, but I'm not pregnant."
"Oh? Is that all right? I mean, you're not disappointed or anything?"
She smiled quietly. "You're such a good man. Who else would think of such a thing now? It makes me feel rather small. Because I lied to you. I wasn't pregnant, darling."
"But you went to Paris and saw your husband. You said'
She interrupted him. "No, I saw my lawyer. About some odds and ends of business. My husband's been dead four years. This is all very difficult, Peter. I told you he was alive and wanted me back because I didn't want you to feel responsible for me. If you wanted to throw me over, I didn't want you having conscience pangs about it." She sighed again. "You were upset about my children, and I realised I hadn't been fair to you. I wanted to give you, well an out."
"I'm rather surprised at your estimate of me. Had I previously behaved in a fashion that led you to anticipate shrieks of prudish revulsion at what is, after all, a fairly natural condition?"
"You're spacing your words, Peter. You do it when you're upset."
"Damn it, why did you tell me this now?"
She turned quickly to him, her eyes bright with hope, "I thought it might make a difference. About helping you, I mean. I am, in fact, a perfectly proper widow with three adorably well-mannered children. I'm not a divorcee with shadowy ex-husbands and lovers. Don't you see the difference? It's such a perfect cover. I could come up here next week with my children and keep an eye on Francois and Angela. I could run errands for you, and help you with your plans. And no one would ever suspect me."
"God Almighty!" he cried explosively. "Didn't you hear me? Do you still think I'm trying to steal the plays of the Vassar volleyball team? You must be out of your mind! You want to help me?" He caught her shoulders and stared into her eyes. "All right. Find me cracksmen dynamiters, human flies, judo experts. Get me Aristide Broualt! Christopher Page! Stuart Carmichael! Or Jimmy Fingers or even the Ace of Diamonds or the Count of Soho!"
"The Ace of Diamonds? The Count of Soho? What are you talking about?"
"You wouldn't understand if I spelled it out letter by letter. It doesn't matter. They are thieves. Geniuses, artists, virtuosos of crime. That's what I need. Not your proper widow's weeds and adorably well-mannered children."
"But they're all I have to offer you! How can you be so unfeeling?"
"It's not difficult at all, since it's my neck that's on the block." He picked up her purse and gloves and thrust them into her hands. "Now, will you do me two favours?"
"You're going to ask me to leave," she said miserably "And you'll have the poor grace to consider that a favour. What else do you want, Peter?"
"I'd like you to say good-bye without rancour, without tears, without hysterics. And go out that door without looking back."
"You're so stubborn, Peter. You've made up your mind and nothing will change it. You can't think clearly any more."
"There is nothing left to think about," he said.
"If you weren't such a fool, you'd think about why I lied to you. And you'd wonder that I was able to. But you're not even curious. You're not only unfeeling and insensitive, you're rigid, and that's the worst possible drawback in your line of work."
"My work is running a bar. My cross is robbing banks. Will you please say good-bye now?"
"You're hateful."
Peter walked to the windows and stood with his back to her, his shoulders squared, arms folded, staring out at the winking lights of the old Basque town.
He was ready for this moment, quite ready for it. "Good-bye, Grace," he said quietly. But ready as he was, he was still surprised by the sharp edge of the words, surprised at the way they hurt his throat.
"Oh, good-bye, you bastard," she said.
Peter raised his eyebrows. That wasn't like her, he thought sadly. He heard the doorknob turn; the hinges creak; the tap of her heels.
***
There was another sound then, a hiss of disturbed air that was like silk cloth being torn by angry hands. Something bright and shimmering flashed past Peter's startled eyes and impaled itself in the wall beside his head with a metallic thunk.
He ducked and wheeled about, but the door had already swung shut with a dry and final click. The room was empty; she was gone.
Peter stared at the slim little knife, which still quivered in the wall like a tuning fork. No, he thought, with some agitation,
this wasn't like Grace at all. He worked the tip of the knife free from the plaster, and wondered what in heaven's name had got into her. Then his jaw dropped as he saw the playing card impaled to the hilt on the knife's gleaming blade The Ace of Diamonds. And on it a gryphon's head drawn in bold strokes.
The floor shifted giddily beneath Peter's feet. His mind turned an ana grammatical somersault, and the truth reverberated in his head with a crash.
The Ace of Diamonds with a gryphon!
The Grace of Diamonds!
The implications streaked through his mind like the shock waves of an earthquake. Grace! A criminal! Oh no, no. It wasn't possible. She was practical. Sensible. That was the reality; the bonfires had been an illusion, a chimera. Yes, that was it. It must be a joke. Of course. Laugh, you idiot, laugh. Ha, ha, ha!
Dear God, he thought, and rushed across the room and pulled open the door.
He collided with a tall man in a black raincoat.
"Excuse me, I was just going out," Peter said.
He stepped to one side, but the man moved quickly in front of him, blocking his way. Something hard and cold prodded Peter's stomach.
"Inside," the man said.
Peter glanced down and saw the shiny blue muzzle of a revolver. "Well, of course," he said, and stepped back into his room. The tall man looked down the corridor, nodding, and Peter took that opportunity to slip the knife and playing card into his pocket. Another man, with hard brown features and hair the colour of old silver, joined the man in the black raincoat.
They came in and closed the door.
"Let me introduce myself," the older man said to Peter.
"That won't be necessary," Peter said. "You're Colonel Paul Brissard. He is Phillip Lemoins. I'm Peter Churchman and this is my room. So would you mind awfully telling me what this is all about?"
The colonel glanced at Phillip, then at Peter, his expression puzzled and suspicious. "You know who we are?"
"Yes. I spotted you a day or so ago. In a grey Citroen cruising about everywhere I went. You might as well have sent up rockets. I tagged you back to your hotel yesterday afternoon, and the clerk told me who you were." Peter smiled.
The Caper of the Golden Bulls Page 6
