‘Well!’ Inez chided him, breaking in on his thoughts. ‘Don’t look so serious. Just put my little present on that shelf over there, and I’ll show you that a Spanish girl can give you a better time than an English one.’
‘I doubt it,’ he replied with a laugh. ‘But get your things off and we’ll see.’
As he spoke he produced some money, counted out the agreed amount of pesetas and laid them on the shelf. With a nod of acknowledgement she plucked with both hands at the ruching of her long full skirt and pulled it inside out over her head. For a second he contemplated seizing her and using its folds to muffle her cries; but he decided that his original plan for dealing with the sort of situation that had arisen would save a struggle and prove more satisfactory.
Unbuttoning his square jacket, he took it off. She had rid herself of her petticoat and was standing in bloomers and a cotton bodice. With a well-practised gesture she pushed the bloomers down, gave them a swift kick with her right foot lifting a shapely leg high into the air and, as the bloomers left her toe, caught them in her right hand.
As he unknotted his muffler he laughed his appreciation of her little trick, while thinking that many a sailor home from the seas might travel farther and fare worse than with this lively little red-head.
She then sat down on the edge of the bed to undo the suspender clips that attached her stockings to her long whale-boned stays. It was for her to sit down that he had been waiting. Moving round behind her, ostensibly to hang his coat on a peg in the door to the other room, he pulled from his left hand pocket a silk sock, tied at the top, with a big fist-full of sand inside. As he swung the sock the sand formed a ball in its toe. With a swish, he brought it down hard on the back of her head.
Stunned by the impact, without even a moan, she heeled over sideways and slipped off the bed. Picking her up, he laid her back on it at full length. From a pocket in his coat he took some lengths of tape with which he tied her wrists and ankles, then he picked up from the floor a handkerchief she had dropped, and stuffed it into her mouth. As the handkerchief was quite small it did not make a very efficient gag, but had he used a large one there would have been a possibility that she might suffocate while unconscious, and he felt confident that the little ball of linen between her tongue and palate would be quite sufficient to prevent her, when she did come to, from making a noise loud enough to attract attention. Finally, he used another length of the tape to make a loop round her neck, than tied its end to the iron bed-rail above her head, so that, with her ankles and wrists bound, she could not get off the bed without choking herself.
As he looked down at his handiwork he thought ‘Poor little devil, I expect that by this time next week she will be working for some other blackguard; but with luck tonight I’ll rid her of a murderer.’ Then, to console her for the blow on the head, he took some more money from his pocket and made the amount on the shelf up to a hundred pesetas.
Readjusting his muffler, he put on his jacket and, while doing so, he saw that the door on which he had hung it had, at about chest level, an oblong slit like a letter-box in it. He had not noticed it before, because on the far side of the door it was masked by a strip of material the same colour as the paintwork. For a moment he wondered what purpose it served, then decided that it was probably used as a spy-hole so that anyone in the big bedroom could lift the flap, peep through and see what was going on in the smaller. But, having more important things to think about, he quickly dismissed it from his mind.
Picking up the lamp he carried it into the larger room and set it down on a small table. At his first swift glance round his eye lit on a camera hanging by a strap from a hook on the door giving on to the corridor. From what he had seen of Sanchez’ as they had struggled together in the moonlight it looked the same. A moment later he had verified that it was because the leather was stained from its having been partly submerged in the lily pool. Opening it up he removed the spool, unrolled the film and held it up to the light to find that it was a new one, no part of which had been used.
There was no desk or bureau in the room so he decided that the chest of drawers was the best place to start his hunt for the negative. Its contents were almost entirely clothes belonging to Inez. Quickly he turned them over and thrust his hands into the corners of the drawers, one after another, but they yielded nothing of interest. Next he tried the wardrobe. One hanging space held Inez’ dresses, the other garments belonging to Sanchez. He went through the latter most carefully but the pockets had in them only a few old bills, lottery tickets and betting vouchers. The shelves and drawers of the central compartment were evidently shared, and contained scarves, mantillas, socks and shirts. Less hopefully he went to the dressing-table; its two shallow drawers had in them only Inez’ manicure and makeup things.
Anxiously now, he stared round for likely hiding places then, stooping, looked under the bed. Beneath it there were three corded wooden boxes. Pulling one of them out he got the cord undone and with the aid of a long steel buttonhook prised the case open. Its contents revealed that Inez was a born hoarder. The box held the oddest collection of junk, valueless except to its owner. He prised open the second box and, to save time, upended it so that its contents spilled out over the floor. Among the pile of old handbags, bull-fight programmes, small gaudily painted figures of saints, garter rosettes, a pack of fortune-telling cards and some fancy scent bottles, were two albums. One was half-filled with picture postcards, mostly of a low comic variety or of holiday resorts; the other held photographs, but they were only faded snaps of Inez at various ages and, presumably, her family and friends. The third box held another medley of souvenirs from her perhaps more innocent past.
Angrily, de Quesnoy pushed the three boxes and most of the junk they had contained back under the bed, scrambled to his feet and cast around afresh. His searching eyes stopped again at the wardrobe as the thought came to him that there might be something on top of it. Pulling over a chair, he stepped up on to it and peered into the hollow behind the cornice. Hidden there from ground level lay a flat leather satchel. Seizing it, he jumped down and tried to open it but found it to be locked. Praying that he had at last found what he sought, and not a collection of love letters to Inez, he again used the long steel buttonhook to force its lock. Taking the satchel by its ends he tipped its contents out on to the bed. Twenty or thirty negatives and photographs shot out. One glance at them was enough. His eyes lit with triumph.
Quickly he shuffled through them, seeking the one of Gulia and himself, but he could not find it. Then it struck him that nearly all the prints were very similar. They had a blob of light up in the right hand top corner and vague whitish figures lower down to the left. Picking up two of them he carried them over to the lamp.
As he examined them under the better light he gave a grim smile. They revealed the use to which the letter-boxlike slit in the communicating door between the two rooms was put. While Inez entertained her clients Sanchez took photographs through it. The blob of light was the lamp up on a shelf, turned low; the whitish figures now spoke for themselves.
On examining some of the others the Count found that in many of them Inez’ face was turned away but in every one that of the man showed. As photographs all of them were very poor, but in the majority the man’s features were clear enough to identify him.
It was easy to see the vile game Sanchez was playing. Having taken his photograph he waited until Inez’ customer left her, then slipped out and followed him. Judging by the men down in the bar most of them would be mates and bosuns from cargo vessels, or passengers who had come ashore for the evening from small coasters. On such birds of passage Sanchez would have wasted his time. But all the odds were that quite a number of port officials and local tradesmen also patronised the Silver Galleon. Those who had also patronised Inez would have been traced by Sanchez to their homes and, no doubt, several of the married men among them were now being squeezed by him for a quota of pesetas every week.
De Quesnoy recalled h
ow Sanchez had boasted to him in Barcelona about blackmailing the unfortunate little Marquesa. It would have been his success in that which had led to him adopting as a regular occupation this infamous way of making money. In disgust the Count threw the prints he was holding back on the bed.
Among them he had seen no print that could possibly have been of Gulia and himself, but he had not yet examined the negatives. Gathering them together he took them to the lamp and, one by one, held them up to the light. As he looked at the sixth he gave a little gasp of delight. This was it, and as he stared at the negative he could hardly believe his good fortune.
In the left upper corner there showed the sharply outlined profile of a small bronze bust one of a pair that had stood on the top of a low secretaire in his room at San Sebastian. For him that identified beyond all doubt the place of which the shot had been taken, but there was nothing else that could, and the only other thing visible on the negative was a little less than half of a woman’s body from her raised arm to her foot. Gulia’s elbow protruded because her arm had been round his neck. The blinding flash of the magnesium flare made her limbs in the negative dead black, and the diaphanous nightdress she had been wearing had not even blurred the lovely outline from bust to waist and along the curve of her hip. But where her face should have been, and the back of his head and body, the negative was completely blank.
In an instant he guessed the reason. When Sanchez had tripped and fallen flat in the lily pool the camera case must have come into violent contact with the stone rim of the pool or the ground. The jolt must have damaged the camera itself, so that before Sanchez had a chance to develop the film a little light had seeped in and ruined it.
With a sigh of thankfulness he put it in his pocket.
No damning print could have been made from it, so there was no longer the least risk that José de Cordoba would ever learn of his wife’s desperate infatuation or believe that his friend had betrayed him with her. Even if by some freak of chance he did see the ruined negative and thought he recognised the bronze bust in it, there was nothing whatever to prove that the portion of woman’s body was Gulia’s. It might have been another similar bust in another house and any well-made tallish woman. That being the case, the Count decided to keep it as a memento of a night upon which he had been tempted almost beyond endurance.
The fact that the negative had been spoilt explained why Sanchez had made no use of it, and why no blackmailing letter had been forwarded on by Gulia. As de Quesnoy realised that, he wondered what Sanchez was up to now. Inez had said that he spent most of his nights drinking and arguing at a political club. Perhaps on some nights he did, and this was one of them. But he certainly did not spend all of them that way, as was shown by the photographs spread out over the bed.
Suddenly an idea came to the Count that made him laugh. How surprised Sanchez would have been if he had remained lurking in the room that night and, on hearing Inez bring a customer up to the room next door, got his camera ready, then on peering through the letter-box slit found that her customer was the deadly enemy that he believed to be still in San Sebastian.
It was at that moment that he was taken by surprise himself. He heard a noise behind him. Swinging round he saw that the door to the corridor had opened, and framed in the doorway stood Sanchez.
15
The broken mirror
The explanation for Sanchez’ unexpected arrival flashed instantly upon de Quesnoy. To guard, as far as possible, against Inez having been picked up by some other man before he reached the Silver Galleon he had gone there early. It could not have been much after a quarter past ten when she had taken him up to her room. Most nights she would probably not have succeeded in attracting a customer who would pay her price until about eleven. His search of the bedroom and looking through the photographs must have taken him longer than he thought and had brought him up to the time when, normally, Sanchez would return with the hope of finding that she had a man with her whom he might be able to photograph and blackmail.
As those thoughts coursed through his mind his hand leapt behind him to pull his revolver from his hip pocket. But Sanchez had recognised and was too quick for him. Giving one shout of surprised rage at finding his hideout had been discovered, the brawny young Spaniard flung himself upon his enemy. The impact was like that made by the charge of a young bull upon an unskilful amateur matador. The Count went over backwards on the bed with Sanchez on top of him. Half the breath was knocked out of his body. His arms had been flung out sideways. Bringing his hands together he grasped Sanchez by the throat. Sanchez dug his powerful chin down just in time and prevented the grasp becoming a stranglehold. With his left fist he struck downward at de Quesnoy’s face. The Count jerked his head aside but the blow caught him on the cheek and the side of his aquiline nose. Sanchez’ right hand had slid down to his cummerbund. It reappeared holding a long, thin blade. The fist that held it swept up above the prostrate Count. By the light of the lamp he caught the glint or murder in Sanchez’ dark eyes. Letting go his hold on Sanchez’ neck he shot out a hand and grabbed the wrist that held the knife.
For a few moments there was a tense, desperate struggle. Only the sound of gasps came from the two men. Suddenly the Count raised his head and fixed his teeth in Sanchez’ chin. Sanchez let out a howl of agony. At the same instant de Quenoy gave a violent twist and the knife dropped from the anarchist’s hand.
Again they wrestled fiercely. The sweat was pouring off them both. The Count’s left hand still grasped Sanchez’ right wrist. With their free hands they strove to strike or grasp one another. The blood from the Spaniard’s chin mingled with that from de Quesnoy’s nose. Making a feint, the Count thrust his hand under Sanchez’ guard, seized him by the left ear and pulled upon it. The anarchist gave another yelp of pain. To prevent his ear from being torn off he was forced to roll sideways. The Count gave a heave, threw him over and next moment was on top of him.
But only for a moment. With all his strength Sanchez brought up his right knee. It would have been the finish of de Quesnoy had he not jerked his thighs together and taken the brunt of the blow upon them. Even as it was, he in turn gave a sharp cry followed by a groan, and the upward thrust unseated him. Yet their hands and arms were still interlocked. Simultaneously both gave a violent twist in the same direction. They slid off the bed and landed with a crash on the floor.
Sanchez was underneath. The back of his head struck the boards first, with a hard resounding thud. His body went limp. With a surge of relief the Count realised that he had him at his mercy. It was at that moment, in the sudden silence succeeding the noise of their struggle, that he heard a dragging sound in the next room.
Panting and still trembling from his exertions, he staggered to his feet. He had left the communicating door to the other room partly open, but it was dark in there. Grabbing the door handle, he pulled the door wide. Now there was enough light for him to see inside. Somehow Inez had managed to gnaw through the tape he had put round her neck and tied to the head of the bed. He could see about eight inches of its end still tied to the rail. And she was no longer on the bed. Her wrists and ankles were still tied but she was dragging herself along the floor towards the door that gave on to the corridor.
Taking in the situation at a glance, de Quesnoy guessed that she must have been conscious and working to regain her freedom for some time. Knowing that Sanchez would be returning soon after eleven she had probably been lying there, not daring to move till he came on the scene, but ready to act the moment he did. As she had managed to gnaw through the tape it seemed certain that she had first succeeded in working the gag out of her mouth. At any moment she might scream for help.
De Quesnoy moved to dive through the doorway. His arms were outstretched to seize her, but his hands clutched empty air. A strong arm had been thrown round his neck. It dragged him back. Sanchez had either only feigned being stunned, or his thick skull had saved him from being knocked out for more than a few seconds. He had come swiftly and sil
ently to his feet behind his enemy, and suddenly gained the advantage over him.
For a few moments de Quesnoy strove in vain to break Sanchez’ grip. Gasping for breath he felt himself being pulled over backwards by his more powerful antagonist. In desperation he lifted his right foot and kicked out behind him with all his might. He heel caught Sanchez on the shin bone. The sickening pain caused him to relax his hold. De Quesnoy swivelled round within it and jabbed him hard in the stomach. Sanchez was still groggy from having struck his head on the floor. Reeling backwards with the wind knocked out of him, he half doubled up.
Finding herself discovered Inez began to shout. She had now reached the door and was endeavouring to struggle up on to her knees. De Quesnoy knew that if he could not deal with them both in the next few minutes he would be caught like a rat in a trap. But he could not deal with both of them simultaneously.
Although bent half double Sanchez was reaching out a hand across the bed. On it lay the knife that he had been forced to drop. The Count dared not let him snatch it up. With his left hand he grabbed a handful of the Spaniard’s coarse black curly hair and hauled him back.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Inez, still yelling murder. She had got to her feet and was striving to get a grasp on the door knob. Her hands having been bound palm to palm made that by no means easy; but if she succeeded in opening the door, her shouts would echo down the corridor and carry double the distance they did at the moment.
Des Quesnoy decided that if he was to save himself there was only one thing to do. When he had first come upon the cunning, coarsely handsome oaf he now held by the hair, he had been making a bomb in the very laboratory in which it was virtually certain that Morral had learned to make the type of bomb that had killed Angela. A few weeks later he had first wanted to cut de Quesnoy’s throat, then suggested roasting him alive, and finally lent a willing hand in an attempt to murder him by suffocation. If more was wanted he was the lowest form of criminal cur who lived on the immoral earnings of women and blackmail.
Vendetta in Spain Page 26
