Holding his breath, Kem listened while footsteps crossed the hall and there came the sound of another door opening. Then, without the loss of a second, he swept up the letters, crammed them and their box back in the safe, and closed its door. There was no time to reset the combination and lock it, as he had meant to do, but he quickly rehung the picture over it. Switching out the light, he tiptoed into the bathroom and stood there in the dark, listening intently.
There was no light in the bedroom; so whoever it was must have gone into the boudoir. He had been there only a moment when the bedroom lights were switched on and Carmen’s voice called softly:
‘Kem! Where are you?’
Greatly relieved, he let go his breath and stepped through the doorway. She gave a little cry of delight and came running to him.
Next moment he had her tightly in his arms.
After a few breathless kisses, he said: ‘Darling, you gave me such a fright. However did you manage to get away so early?’
‘They say lucky at cards unlucky in love, but I get it both ways tonight,’ she laughed at him. ‘Knowing you were waiting for me here, every moment I had to remain down there was torture. From midnight on I bancoed every hand, in the hope that if I lost enough it would give me a good excuse to stop playing. But, I had a fantastic run of luck; so it was the others who declared I had won quite enough for one night and asked me to pack up the game.’
‘My sweet, how clever of you to think of a way of gaining us an extra half-hour. And every moment is precious, as I must leave well before dawn, otherwise one of the servants might spot me climbing down from your balcony.’ As Kem spoke he picked her up and began to carry her towards the bed.
‘No, Kem, no!’ she protested in a swift whisper. ‘Please put me down. Don’t spoil everything by being too impatient. This is the only chance we’ve ever had to make love properly.’
With a smile, he set her on her feet, and said: ‘What a vandal you must think me. I’d deserve to be shot if I failed to make the utmost of being without fear of interruption in this perfect setting. I meant only to kiss you some more before undressing.’
Taking a step away from him she shook her head, and he saw a sudden blush spread over her magnolia-petal cheeks. ‘No, please!’ she protested. ‘You may think it silly of me, but I’m really terribly shy. I’d rather not undress in front of you. Please, darling, go into my boudoir and take your things off there while I get ready for bed. I promise you I won’t be long.’
He knew that she had never taken a lover before she had been carried away by himself on those last three moon-mad nights in the liner, and he thought once more how doubly attractive the combination of sophisticated elegance and inward modesty made her; so he said at once:
‘Just as you wish, my sweet.’
‘Oh, darling!’ she laughed. ‘How I adore you!’
They embraced again, then he went into her boudoir, pulling the door to, but not quite closing it behind him.
After he had glanced at his watch, it suddenly occurred to him that he might have suggested undressing in Escobar’s room, as he could then have seized the opportunity to relock the safe. But the thought had come to him too late. It would not be fair to re-enter Carmen’s bedroom now that she had started to undress, and anyway he could think of no plausible excuse for making the change. For a moment he contemplated tiptoeing across the hall; but if he did she might hear him, and that would necessitate awkward explanations. Then second thoughts told him that whether Escobar found the safe locked or unlocked when he got back next day made not the least difference; so he dismissed the matter from his mind and filled in the lead he had promised Carmen by looking through her books.
When the five minutes were up he took off his coat and trousers and laid them on a chair. He had just unstrapped the shoulder holster that contained his gun, and pushed it under them, when he heard Carmen calling him. Her voice was low, but urgent with alarm:
‘Kem! Kem! Quickly! Come here!’
On stepping through the door into her room he saw that she had switched out most of the lights. It was now lit only by a rosy glow that came from among the silk draperies of a small canopy over the head of the bed. She had on only a pair of lace scanties and long silk stockings, but was in the act of wriggling into a dressing-gown. As she hurriedly tied its broad sash round her waist she exclaimed:
‘Oh, Kem! This is the most ghastly luck! The safe’s been burgled.’
‘Are you certain?’ His voice held swift concern that sounded natural to her, but was inspired by very different reasons from her own.
‘Yes. I’ve just found it unlocked.’
‘Perhaps Estévan forgot to lock it,’ he suggested, in the forlorn hope that she might accept such an explanation. But she shook her head.
‘No. When I went to put away the jewels I was wearing I found everything upside down. It’s been thoroughly ransacked.’
Her jewels! So that was what had given the game away. Mentally he cursed himself for not having foreseen that it was probably her custom to lock away those she had worn, before going to bed. To gain a moment’s time he asked, ‘Are any of your others missing?’
‘I don’t think so. I only looked to see if my emeralds were there, and they are still in their cases.’
‘That’s a bit of luck, anyhow.’
‘Luck!’ she cried bitterly. ‘But don’t you see, Kem, that this makes it impossible for you to remain here. Oh, just to think that of all nights it should have happened on this—the one night we had a chance to spend together!’
‘Why shouldn’t we do so still? It was probably my coming in here that disturbed the burglar. If he had to make a hurried exit without taking anything you can easily straighten up the contents of the safe. Then if you say nothing about having found it unlocked, no one will be the wiser.’
‘But he did take something. Estévan’s brief-case is gone.’
‘He may have taken it with him to Buenos Aires.’
‘No, he always leaves it in the safe. When he has papers he wants to take he uses another—a green one.’
‘What do you intend to do then?’
‘Telephone the police. Oh, Kem!’ Her voice was near to tears. ‘Our night is ruined; but what alternative have I? You must leave me and get back to your room as quickly as possible, so that I can rouse the servants.’
‘There is nothing they can do.’
‘They can search the grounds. The thief may still be lurking somewhere about.’
‘No. I’ve been in your suite for a good bit over an hour; so the job must have been done before a quarter to twelve. It’s a certainty that he will have got clean away by now.’
‘He may not have got through the military cordon, though; and when I telephone the special police at the plant they will turn out the whole garrison.’
‘Even then,’ Kem argued tenaciously, ‘in the bush, on a dark night like this, he’ll stand a good chance of eluding the patrols. He may have done the job while we were at dinner. If so he would have had ample time to have slipped through them already.’
‘We can’t be certain of that, and if I telephone at once there may still be a chance that they’ll catch him.’
‘If you do the police will come up here to investigate. On their motor-cycles they’ll be here within ten minutes. That means we won’t even have time to say good-bye to one another properly.’
‘I know. Oh, it’s tragic! But what else can I do?’
Suddenly he took a pace forward and grasped her hands. ‘Carmen, my love! Why should we let this misfortune deprive us of our last hours together? Let’s forget it till the morning. No one will ever know at what hour you found that the safe had been robbed, and you might not have discovered it till then.’
‘I daren’t, Kem. Estévan knows that I always lock my jewels away at night. Besides, his brief-case contains the most vital secrets, and it is the utmost importance to him that everything possible should be done to recover it.’
‘Listen!�
�� he said firmly. ‘It is also of the utmost importance to me that you should not call in the police tonight. As you know, I meant to leave tomorrow morning, anyway. Now I shall set off much earlier than I intended, leaving a note for you that you can show to the others, excusing my hurried departure on the grounds that I have enjoyed myself so much here that I forgot the date, and should have left today to keep an appointment in Buenos Aires at mid-day tomorrow. You don’t usually get up until nine o’clock, and if you put off telephoning the police till then, by that time I shall be well outside the cordon.’
She gave him a puzzled look. ‘But why all this mystification, Kem? And what have you to fear from the police?’
‘Surely, my sweet, you must realise that, as the only foreigner here, suspicion is bound to fall on me. If you call in the police tonight, it’s a certainty that they won’t let me go tomorrow. You know how arbitrary the police are here. Unless they catch the man who did the job I’ll be lucky if my Embassy is able to get me out of their clutches in under a month.’
Suddenly he saw suspicion dawn in her eyes. Her face went deathly white and her mouth opened a little. Then she whispered: ‘You… you pretended to be ill at dinner, and … and you were upstairs on your own for nearly three hours. Oh, Kem! I believe… Yes, it must have been you who forced that safe.’
Since her discovery that the safe had been rifled, he felt that he had played a poor hand as skilfully as possible; but he knew now that he had not a single lie left that would take a trick. If he denied her accusation she would never believe him. The circumstantial evidence in itself was pretty damning, and he had further blackened his case by admitting his anxiety to evade questioning by the police.
Only two courses were open to him—swiftly to overcome her, gag her and leave her tied up there, and one other. He chose the latter.
Walking over to the french windows, he pulled out the brief-case from behind the draperies and threw it on the bed. As it slipped off on to the floor, he said:
‘Well! There you are. What are you going to do about it?’
For a moment she stared at him, then her voice came a trifle hoarsely. ‘Kem, why did you do this? Was it for money?’
He shrugged and replied with a cynical smile: ‘Partly, since I earn my living by doing jobs like this. But not altogether. Have you ever heard the phrase “Making the world safe for democracy”? It was coined by Lloyd George, though he didn’t manage to do much about it, as since his day we’ve had a Second World War, and at any time may find ourselves up to our necks in a third. Anyway, the honest achievement of that old election-winning catchphrase is still the faint hope of the United Nations, and I am an agent employed by one of them. The job of people like myself is to find out, and if possible counter, any ugly surprises that the dictator countries may have up their sleeves for us; so that if it does come to a showdown there may still be a reasonable chance of freedom not perishing from the world. There isn’t much real freedom anywhere today; but what there is I, personally, would go to any lengths to preserve. And I can honestly tell you that if I had a private income I would go on doing the work I am doing without any pay, simply for its own sake.’
Carmen’s dark eyes looked intolerably sad as she said, ‘You need not have told me that you would go to any lengths—seeing the uses you have made of me.’
‘Oh, Carmen!’ he said softly. ‘I admit that I used you; but owing to the set-up here I saw no possible alternative. It does not in the least alter the fact that I love you.’
‘How can I possibly believe that,’
‘I swear it!’ he exclaimed.
As he spoke he knew that, now it seemed that he had lost her, he really did love her, and more than he had ever loved any woman before.
For a moment they stared at one another in silence, but her expression gave no indication whatever that she had been touched by his approval. Seeing no spark of response in her sad eyes, he said abruptly:
‘Since you won’t believe me, I’ll—go now. I have no alternative left. And I dare not take the risk of your setting the police on to me. There is too much at stake, I’ve never had to do anything that I hated more, but I’ve got to tie you up and gag you, so that you can’t alarm the house. I beg you not to make things more difficult for me than they need be.’
As he spoke he took a step towards her. She sprang away and tried to dodge him; but he was on her in a flash. Seizing her round the waist with one hand he clapped the other over her mouth and forced her back against the bed. She went over on it backwards. Carmen was lithe and strong: she struggled violently, but made no attempt to shout when he took his hand from her mouth for a moment to get a better grip on her.
As they wrestled they caught their breath and went rigid. They had heard the outer door of the hall open.
Releasing his hold, Kem jumped back off the bed on to his feet; but Carmen remained panting where she lay.
6
Awkward Explanations
Having flung the door wide, Escobar halted in his tracks. For a moment all three of them remained utterly still, as though posed in a tableau vivant. Escobar, big, burly, his scant hair ruffled and his clothes disordered, just as Kem had left him ten hours earlier; his heavy face suffused with rage as he stared at his wife. Carmen still lay stretched out on the bed. Had a photograph of the scene been produced in court no jury could have failed to give Escobar a verdict on his having caught his wife in flagrante delicto.
Suddenly they all came to life. Carmen grabbed the folds of her dressing-gown and pulled it over her; Kem took a pace backwards; from the far side of the bed Escobar roared at him:
‘So this was the reason you held me up and planned to force me to spend the night in the bush! You swine! By God, I’ll kill you for this—and her too!’
Long training in facing difficult situations had given Kem a capacity for remaining calm at moments of major crisis. His brain was working with incredible swiftness. He knew that his only course now was to fight his way out and head for the frontier as though all the devils in hell were after him. He had left his gun in the next room; but Escobar was not carrying a weapon either, otherwise he would have produced it. Apparently, too, he had not expected to find his now unwelcome guest still there, or he would have roused the house on his arrival and brought the servants to help to capture him. He must have let himself in and, with the thought of finding out whether Carmen’s emeralds had been stolen uppermost in his mind, come straight up to his own suite.
It was for her that Kem was now principally concerned. He was also troubled by the guilty knowledge that, once having got possession of the brief-case, he ought not to have prejudiced the successful conclusion of his mission by staying on, even for an hour, to make love to her. When he had planned his coup the temptation to do so had been so great that he had easily persuaded himself that a few hours either way could make little difference, provided he left her before dawn; now he was terribly conscious that by lingering there after he could have got away he had jeopardised everything, including his own life. But that was no fault of hers. In fact, although unconscious of his major motive, she had endeavoured to dissuade him from taking the risk of coming to her room at all.
That she was guilty in having already become his mistress, and had been incredibly careless in failing to lock the door of the suite, made no difference. Those nights on the liner were hidden in oblivion; her marriage would have remained safe if he had kept his mind on his job, and refrained from taking advantage of a situation that had exposed her to discovery.
Somehow, he decided swiftly, he must save her from becoming the victim of his folly; and within thirty seconds of Escobar’s shouted threat he replied firmly:
‘You have plenty of cause to abuse me, Colonel; but none whatever to imply a gross insult to your wife. I assure you that you are entirely mistaken in supposing—’
‘Mistaken!’ Escobar snarled. ‘D’you take me for a child, or think to deceive me against the evidence of my own eyes? There’s only one re
ason that I know of for a woman to undress in her bedroom with a man who is not her husband. If I hadn’t been a trusting fool I’d have guessed as much from the way the two of you have been looking at one another during the past week. How long have you been her lover?’
‘I am not her lover,’ Kem insisted. ‘If you’d give me a chance I could explain.’
‘You’re lying! All that hold-up stuff this afternoon was just a clever bluff to get me out of the way. You’re no professional thief, although you took my money. That was just part of the act you put on, so that you could sleep with her tonight without my suspecting her afterwards. But I’ll make you pay for this, and I’ll flay the hide off her back with a whip before I kick her out of the house.’
Kem saw that as long as Escobar’s furious anger lasted there could be little hope of persuading him of Carmen’s innocence. But his attitude was already just a trifle less like that of an enraged bull; so, to give him further time in which to calm down, he put the question:
‘How did you manage to get back here?’
Escobar gave a harsh laugh. ‘There was one thing you left out of your calculations. Today was market day in Parera. A party of drunken Indians who had been in to sell their mangy cattle noticed the car this evening when returning to their village. If you hadn’t made off with the sparking plugs I’d have been back hours ago. As it was I had to tramp to Parera before I could get another car; then as Guido was in such poor shape I felt bound to go out of my way to collect him and have him patched up at the hospital in Basavilbaso. Nom de Dios! That gives me an idea. Instead of turning you over to the police right away, I’ll put you in the cellar for the night, then give you to Guido for him to bash your face in, before I have you hauled off to prison.’
‘Thanks, but it’s best first to catch your goose before thinking of refinements in ways of cooking it.’
‘You’re caught all right. I’ve only to shout for the servants. And don’t think you can get away by climbing over the balcony. A call from me to the plant will bring two hundred police and three thousand troops out. They’ll catch you before you’ve gone a mile.’
Star of Ill-Omen Page 6
