Lifting his right foot the Count drew back his bent leg. Next second he brought his knee up hard against Sanchez’ rump. The anarchist’s body reacted to the blow by shooting forward. At the same instant de Quesnoy gave a sudden wrench on his hair, jerking his head violently back. There came the sound of a sharp crack. Sanchez’ head suddenly dragged like a ton weight on the hand that grasped his black curls. The Count let go and the limp body slumped across the edge of the bed. He had broken Sanchez’ neck.
Swivelling round, de Quesnoy dashed into the small room to secure Inez and muffle her shouts. He was too late. At the very instant he had put an end to Sanchez she had got the door open. As she pushed it wide, her ankles still being tied, she had lost her balance and fallen. Her red hair and most of her body were now out in the corridor and she was screaming at the top of her voice. Still worse, her earlier shouts for help must have been heard, for the Count caught the sound of footsteps pounding up the stairs only twenty feet away.
The corridor was a cul-de-sac ending in a window between the big bedroom and another room opposite. Jumping over Inez’ prostrate body de Quesnoy ran to it. From the reconnaissance he had made of the inn before going into its bar, he felt certain that the window overlooked the central courtyard and, as the rooms of the old building had low ceilings, he knew that he would not have far to drop.
But he had overlooked the fact that in old inns windows giving on to landings and passages are rarely opened. When he reached it he found it stuck fast. As he turned away he saw several men, one behind the other, charging down the corridor towards him. Turning, he dashed through the door to the bedroom, slammed it behind him and shot its bolt. The window in there would, he knew, open, because Inez had gone to close it on account of the storm.
Having bolted the door to the corridor had not secured his retreat. The men who were after him could still come through the slip-room. The question which now agitated his racing brain was ‘Could he get the window open and drop from it before they were upon him?’
He decided that he could not. That precious minute trying to get the window in the corridor open had robbed him of the vital leeway needed to escape. But there was still a chance. He felt sure he had seen a bolt on the communicating door. If he could close and bolt that he would be temporarily safe.
He sprang round the bed, leapt towards the door and slammed it shut. But only in the nick of time. The leading man, a crop-headed fellow who looked like a Scandinavian bosun, had just stumbled past Inez and was within six feet of him. His fumbling fingers found the bolt on the door. With a gasp of thankfulness, he shot it.
Turning again, he jumped over Sanchez’ sprawling legs, pulled the dressing-table aside, and reached the window. Grasping its lower sash he pulled it up and gratefully gulped in the cool night air. At that second there came a resounding crash. The connecting door between the two rooms was only a flimsy affair. The muscular square-head had burst it open with one kick of his heavy boot.
Again, there was not much more than six feet between them. De Quesnoy knew that he could not get through the window before the sailor grabbed him. He had only one course left; to hold him and the others back and, if possible, drive them from the room under the threat of his revolver. Wrenching it out he pointed it at the seaman and shouted:
‘Halt! Another step forward and I fire.’
The Scandinavian halted in his tracks. Behind him was a dark-visaged Spaniard. Covered by the bulky form of the man in front of him, he drew a knife. For a moment all the figures in the room were still: the Count standing beside the dressing-table with his revolver levelled, the little mob of men who had come to get him crowded into the doorway and slip-room beyond it. Then, leaning sideways, the Spaniard threw his knife.
De Quesnoy saw his movement just in time and sprang aside. His swift action saved him. The knife flashed past him through the open window. But calamity followed. One of his feet came down in some spilt blood, either from his own nose or Sanchez’ chin. He slipped and went over backwards. As he hit the floor his revolver was knocked from his hand.
For a moment he thought it was all up with him, but as the square-head dived at him he kicked out blindly. It was a lucky stroke. The toe of his boot caught the seaman on the point of the chin. His teeth clicked and he crashed to the floor out cold. The Spaniard had also sprung forward but tripped over the square-head’s body and fell upon him. The Count rolled over twice, came up on his feet and grabbed the dressing-table mirror. He had always been told that to break a mirror was an unlucky thing to do, but it was the only weapon close at hand. As the Spaniard rose to come at him again de Quesnoy brought it smashing down on his head. It splintered into a hundred fragments. With blood streaming down his face the Spaniard sank back with a groan on to the unconscious body of the Scandinavian.
Four more men were crowded into the doorway, the brawny grizzled landlord among them. But seeing the way in which the Count had dealt with two of their companions, the nearest of the group—a lean, sallow-faced youngster—now showed reluctance to tackle him. With shouts and curses the other three both urged him on and tried to push past him. The indecision of the young fellow gave de Quesnoy the moment’s respite he so badly needed. In one stride he reached the table on which stood the oil lamp. Picking it up he hurled it at them.
With a tinkle of glass its chimney broke. The oil in the continer spurted out over two of the men, Sanchez’ recumbent body and the side of the bed. Instantly rivulets of fire were running in half-a-dozen different directions and flames leaping up. Cries of terror came from the men and fresh screams from Inez added to the din.
De Quesnoy wasted no time waiting to see the results of his bombshell. Having thrown it, he stepped back to the window, threw one leg over its low sill, then the other, squirmed over on to his stomach, ducked his head and wriggled out. For a moment he hung from the sill by his hands, then he let himself drop.
As his feet hit the cobbles he tried to flex his knees, but one of his ankles turned over and he pitched sideways to measure his length on the ground. Picking himself up, he darted in the direction of the archway, but as he put his right foot to the ground he gave a cry of pain. He had twisted his ankle badly. All the same, he knew that unless he ran for it, and ran hard, he might yet be caught.
Ignoring the pain that shot through his ankle with every stride he took, he gained the archway at a loping run and dived into it. As he did so two men entered its far end from the street. They turned towards the door to the bar, then noticed him and stopped. For him there could be no turning back, and it was too late to pretend, by dropping into a walk, that he was not trying to get away from the place quickly. Running on, he made a sudden swerve and attempted to dart past the two men. But the nearer grabbed him by the arm, swung him round to a halt, and demanded:
‘Hi, mate! Where are you off to in such a hurry?’
‘It’s none of your business! Let me go!’ he cried angrily, and strove to drag his arm free. The man had a firm grip on his coat sleeve and refused to be shaken off. For half a minute their tug-of-war continued, then de Quesnoy’s heart sank. Faint but clear, coming through the archway there were shouts of:
‘Stop thief! Murder! Murder! Stop thief!’
Both the men heard them. The first shot out his free hand and grasped the Count’s wrist. The other cried, ‘Hang on to him, Emile!’ and closed in on de Quesnoy’s other side. Able now to bear his own weight only on one foot, he was no match for them. Within a minute they had him fast with one of his arms twisted up behind his back.
They had hardly done so when the burly landlord came crashing down the stairs and out of the door opposite the bar. Taking in the situation at a glance, he cried:
‘So you’ve caught the swine! Well done, lads! Bring him in here.’
Another man had followed the landlord out. With him leading, the other three lugged de Quesnoy up the stairs and back along the corridor to the scene of the affray. Someone had fetched another lamp from one of the other rooms, and du
ring the past five minutes several newcomers had arrived on the scene. As there had been a number of people present when the fire started it had soon been beaten out; so the only signs remaining of it were some oily smoke and the stench of burnt clothing.
At the sight of the prisoner Inez, now freed from her bonds, let out a yell of vindictive delight, and the others shouted their congratulations to his captors.
By the time he had been pushed and pulled into the bedroom it was packed to suffocation. Sanchez’ body had been lifted on to the bed and a towel laid over its face, but the bed was shared by the Spaniard over whose head the Count had broken the mirror. He lay moaning beside the corpse while another man mopped at the blood that seeped from cuts on his forehead, nose and ears. The square-head had regained consciousness and was sitting on a chair nursing his injured chin. In addition there were at least ten other people, including Beatriz who had appeared from somewhere in a dressing-gown; and the noise of their excited voices now made a positive babble.
The landlord took charge and shouted loudly for silence; then when their voices fell to a mutter, he said to Inez:
‘Now tell us, girl. What happened? How did this start?’
‘He’s a thief!’ she cried. ‘The dirty low-down blackguard. We’d only been up here a few minutes when he came round behind me and gave me a wallop on the head. It knocked me right out for about ten minutes. When I came round he had tied me hand and foot and to the bed; and he was in here rummaging through our things to see what he could pilfer. A long time later Sanchez came in and took him by surprise. Then they fought, and I wriggled off the bed to try to get help.’
As she ceased speaking her glance fell on Sanchez. It seemed that in the general excitement it was not until that moment that she realised that he was really dead. With a heartrending wail she cast herself upon his body. Beatriz pushed through the crowd, put her arms about her shoulders and sought to comfort her. Inez’ wails continued and it was only after some minutes, during which everyone burst into speech again, that they were reduced to a passionate sobbing.
Her outburst of grief had given de Quesnoy time to recover a little from the rough-handling he had received. A glance round the room was enough to show him that his position was desperate. He had killed an inmate of the house, injured two other men and inflicted nasty burns on several more. His best hope lay in the fact that most of the frequenters of the Silver Galleon, although a little rough, looked fairly respectable; so there was a fair hope that they might hand him over to the police. If they did, he felt that he had nothing worse to fear than a few nights in the cells, for he could counter a charge of murder by stating that Sanchez had been a wanted criminal and he had killed him in self-defence while endeavouring to secure him so that justice might take its course; and de Cordoba’s influence would then get him a quick release. But, as he glanced round the crowded room he saw that everyone who was looking in his direction was glaring at him, and he realised that it needed only a spark to their anger for the whole lot of them to set about lynching him.
Again the landlord called for silence, then swung round on de Quesnoy and snarled at him, ‘She’s given us the truth, hasn’t she? You can’t deny it.’
‘I do,’ retorted the Count hotly. Having had a few minutes to think up a line of defence, he went on in a firm voice. ‘The señorita is lying to cover up for her dead fancy-man. I was with her in the little room and I heard movements in here, so I came through. I found him about to take a photograph of us through a big slit in the door. I saw at once that blackmail was his game, and went for him. We fought, he went over backwards, hit his head on the chest of drawers and broke his neck. You can’t blame me for that. Meanwhile she had followed me in and was about to rouse the house. Seeing what had happened I knew that if I was caught here I’d be for the lockup, and perhaps held there for months while the police went into the question of the fellow’s death. Who would want that, if there was a chance of avoiding it, eh? I stopped the hussy’s cries and tied her up. But my luck was out. She broke free and her yells brought some of you on the scene before I could get away. That’s the truth.’
It was a good story, but Inez raised her tousled red head from Beatriz’s shoulder and screamed, ‘He’s lying! He’s lying! He’s a thief and a murderer. By the Holy Virgin I swear he’s lying.’
‘It’s the truth, you bitch,’ cried the Count, using this term as suitable to the occasion, and the indignation he was feigning as his best hope of convincing his audience so that he might get out of the place alive.
At the foot of the bed lay the leather satchel with the negatives and prints he had taken from it in a little pile near by. Pointing at them, he went on indignantly. ‘There’s the proof of what I’ve told you. Just look at them. That’s the sort of photograph her pimp was about to take of her and me when I caught him at it.’
Taking a quick step forward the landlord swept the pile into the satchel, tucked it under his arm and said gruffly, ‘I’ll take charge of those. They’re just a lot of old snaps and I’ve seen them before.’
At his action de Quesnoy’s hopes sank. It was a clear indication that the landlord knew about the blackmail racket that Sanchez and Inez had been running, and had been taking a cut from the results of their activities. It swept from beneath his feet the ground of his best line of defence.
Meanwhile Inez had begun to shout again. ‘He murdered Sanchez! He murdered him after he’d tied me up. He came here as a thief, I tell you. Look at all my things scattered over the floor.’
Her cry distracted the others from the landlord, preventing any of them looking at the photographs; and she had made a point for which the Count could offer no explanation. As they glanced round at the junk on the floor and two still open drawers, a tall man with a grey moustache said. ‘He’s a thief all right. You can see that from the way the room’s been searched. He killed her fellow, too. No doubt about that. We must get the police.’
‘All right,’ de Quesnoy volunteered. ‘I’m sticking to my story and quite prepared to tell it to them.’
‘No you won’t,’ the landlord cut in quickly. ‘I’m not having the police here.’ Glancing round, he added truculently, ‘You can’t be such a lot of fools as to want the police called in. Those of you who are off ships won’t be allowed to sail in them. You’ll be held as witnesses. We’d all land ourselves in for weeks of trouble.’
‘He’s right. That’s sense.’ ‘Yes, we must keep the police out of this,’ murmured several of the others.
The Scandinavian stopped massaging his jaw, looked up and said in broken Spanish, ‘Then what will we do with him? He has killed a man, hasn’t he? That he should go free is wrong.’
‘Kill him!’ shouted Inez. ‘Stick a knife in his belly.’
Her shout was ignored, so she went on. ‘Go to it, one of you. A life for a life. That’s fair, isn’t it? We don’t need the police to settle his account. We can do it ourselves.’
Still they ignored her; so she cried, ‘You lousy lot of cowards! Give me a knife, one of you, and I’ll do it myself.’
The Spaniard whose face had been so badly cut about by the mirror sat up on the bed. With feverish eyes he stared at de Quesnoy, then his features broke into a cruel grin, and he rasped, ‘You may spare yourself, señorita. The privilege shall be mine.’
‘Shut your trap, Filipo,’ snapped the landlord. ‘There’s been one murder here tonight. I’ll not have another done before my eyes.’
A chorus of voices supported him. ‘No!’ ‘Not that! Not that!’ ‘No! The police might trace him.’ ‘No, no; we’d all be held responsible.’
‘But what will we do with him?’ the square-head persisted. ‘He has killed a man. That he should be let go free is not just.’
A tubby little man wearing a good reefer jacket and a brand new peaked cap, who had been one of the last to arrive on the scene, replied contemptuously, ‘What is there so frightful about a killing? We all know that they happen from time to time in fo’c’s’le fi
ghts; and in port, like this, when there is trouble over a woman.’
The landlord nodded. ‘True enough, Captain Robles. But it’s not right that we should let him get away with it altogether. What do you suggest?’
With new hope surging in his breast de Quesnoy stared at the Captain. He had lank black hair, tiny little eyes and an enormously developed jaw. After a moment he said, ‘My ship is sailing for Rio in two hours’ time. He looks like a seafaring type. I’m short of hands and could do with an extra man in the fo’c’s’le. If he doesn’t behave we’ll soon teach him manners. Slug him under the jaw, one of you, and we’ll escort him aboard as though he were a drunk.’
De Quesnoy listened appalled. But with the exception of Inez everyone else accepted Captain Robles’ idea as an excellent solution to the problem. The Scandinavian lumbered to his feet, delighted at the chance to avenge himself for the kick under the jaw he had received. The two men who were holding the Count’s arms tightened their grip on him. The sailor clenched his big fist and struck him a violent blow on the side of the chin. A black curtain descended in front of his eyes, red stars and circles flashed upon it; then he passed out.
When de Quesnoy came to he found himself in irons. He was lying on a thin straw-filled palliasse in a dark noisome hole. A rocking motion and the noise of a churning propeller told him that he was in a ship at sea. His head was aching abominably, but into his still bemused brain there drifted a picture of red-headed Inez, then of himself smashing the mirror. That had brought him ill-luck indeed.
Then another thought came to him. It was of Count Solitikoff saying ‘Vengeance is Mine, saith The Lord’. Sanchez was dead, and his father and the others would shortly be on trial for their lives. But that was little consolation now. By taking the law into his own hands this was where he had landed himself. And there was no escape. He was faced with having to work his way to South America under a brutal captain as a seaman before the mast.
Vendetta in Spain Page 27
