Vendetta in Spain

by Dennis Wheatley

  16

  Fate stalks by night

  It was two and a half years before de Quesnoy returned to Europe. He would not have done so then had he not learnt early in March, 1909, that his father had died. In consequence, when he did return it was as the tenth Duc de Richleau.

  One of the blessings granted to mankind is that while it is often possible to recall and, years later, enjoy again in retrospect the most delightful hours of one’s life, the emotion of terror, the sensation of pain, the gnawings of hunger, anxiety and jealousy rarely leave a permanent impression on the mind; and even the memories of long periods of distress become blunted by the balm of time.

  So, when de Richleau entered the first class deck cabin of the de-luxe liner that was to carry him from New Orleans to Hamburg, he did not even give a thought to the very different circumstances in which he had arrived in South America one hundred and thirty-one weeks earlier. By then his mind had telescoped his outward voyage into a few scenes:

  His first interview with Captain Robles. The morning after the tramp had sailed from Cadiz he had been taken up, still in irons, from the lazaret to the Captain’s cabin. He had told Robles his proper name and offered him five hundred pounds to put back and land him in Cadiz or any other European port. The squat, baboon-jawed Captain had laughed in his face, and flatly refused to believe that he was a Count or could lay his hand on one-tenth of that sum. To threaten him, on arrival in South America, with prosecution for kidnapping was obviously futile and, de Quesnoy realised, might even have led to his not being allowed to land when they got to Rio. The only course left to him had been to put as cheerful a face as possible on matters and agree to sign on for the voyage as a deck-hand under his assumed name of Jaime Avila.

  Then of a fight in the fo’c’s’le. The rough seamen who were to be his shipmates were used to minding their own business; so did not enquire into his. An extra hand meant lightening their work so most of them gave him a surly welcome and, between them, fitted him up with spare oddments of kit, such as sea-boots, oilskins and a razor. But they soon began to put upon the landlubber who had arrived in their midst, and he saw that unless he took a stand his life, from being grim, would become intolerable. On the third night out he had refused to dubbin the boots of a brawny character named Vecho. As Vecho was the fo’c’s’le bully the other men did not, as de Quesnoy had feared they might, gang up against him, but stood by while the two of them fought it out. It had been a tough encounter with no holds barred; but after five gruelling minutes de Quesnoy had succeeded in getting a judo hold on Vecho and made him scream for mercy. From then on there were no further attempts to make the slim but formidable new hand do more than his share of the fo’c’s’le chores.

  Lastly, on the ship’s arrival at Rio after three weeks at sea. During them the Count’s lifelong assumption of leadership had soon made itself felt. Most of his tasks as a deck-hand required brawn rather than brains; so he swiftly mastered them and within a few days had, almost unconsciously, assumed the rôle of leading hand in his watch; then he had been singled out by the bosun for any special jobs needing a little ingenuity or skill. That had not been lost on Captain Robles, who had already realised that he was an educated man; yet de Quesnoy’s surprise can be imagined when, on paying him off in Rio, the Captain had offered to sign him on for his next voyage as fourth mate. It had then been the Count’s turn to laugh. But he was conscious that had Robles not shanghaied him he might well have been lynched or suffered some fatal injury before getting away from the Silver Galleon; so in spite of the hard time, wretched food and filthy quarters that he had since been forced to endure, he had taken leave of the tough little tramp skipper without any ill will.

  In 1904, when a guest on the yacht of the American banker Channock Van Ryn, de Quesnoy had made a number of acquaintances in Rio; so he had had no difficulty in establishing his real identity there. The Rio branch of Van Ryn’s bank had made him a substantial loan, which had enabled him to re-equip himself decently and live in a good hotel while arranging for funds to be sent to him from Europe, and he had at once cabled his father and de Vendôme to let them know his whereabouts and that he was safe and well.

  He had also written at length to de Cordoba relating all that had happened in Granada and Cadiz, and saying that it was not his intention to return to Spain. As he pointed out, the trial of the anarchists in Barcelona, having been fixed for October 11th, would by then be over. That he had been rendered incapable of appearing in court to substantiate his personal charges against Francisco Ferrer, his remaining son Benigno, and the others, was unfortunate; but Don Alfonso had been of the opinion that, even without those charges, on the evidence of their anarchist activities found in the Escuela Moderna, they would be lucky if they escaped the death penalty and, at the least, would receive long sentences of imprisonment; therefore no useful purpose could be served by his returning and having them brought to trial again.

  He added that, had there been the least chance of their being set free, he would have taken the first ship back, but it had always been his intention to go to South America after the trial for the purpose of obtaining a commission in the army of one of the Republics; so, Fate having deposited him there—however uncomfortable the means she had chosen—he now took that as a good omen of better luck in Latin America than he had met with in Europe during the past year, and meant to remain there at all events for some time to come.

  In due course he received a reply from the Conde telling him that, owing to his disappearance, the trial of the anarchists had been postponed. The police had traced his movements and learned from La Torcera, who had returned to Granada, that when in Cadiz he had gone out after Sanchez Ferrer. They had found out about Sanchez’ death, but failed to discover what had become of de Quesnoy; so assumed that he had been made away with that same night. In consequence they had written him off as a witness for the prosecution in the Ferrer trial, and were now concentrating their efforts on ferreting out further evidence against the owner and staff of the Escuela Moderna. But there was no likelihood whatever of the prisoners being released or, in due course, not receiving long sentences; so de Quesnoy might rest content with the big contribution he had already made to breaking up the nest of vipers which, until August, had flourished in Barcelona.

  The Conde concluded by conveying to de Quesnoy Don Alfonso’s relief and happiness on learning that he was alive and well, with affectionate messages from Gulia, de Vendôme, the Conde Ruiz, the Infanta Maria Alfonsine, and an expression of his own devoted friendship coupled with the hope that it would not be more than a year or two before they would all enjoy the happiness of having him among them again.

  Meanwhile, through his acquaintances in the beautiful capital of Brazil, de Quesnoy had been exploring the possibilities of entering the Brazilian army. As an ex-Chief Instructor of the French Military Academy of St. Cyr, with several years of distinguished active service in North Africa in addition, his qualifications could not be questioned, and after a few meetings with influential army officers the Minister for War offered him the post of Commandant at the Military College.

  He would have preferred to command troops; but it appeared a good opening, so he accepted. Yet he had not long taken up the post before he regretted his decision. In those days, in Latin America, discipline among officers was still as nebulous as it had been in the European armies opposing Napoleon. Young sparks belonging to powerful families were accustomed to sleep out at nights and cut lectures and parades when they pleased but, all the same, they expected to receive the most sought-after appointments when the course was over. By cracking down on them de Quesnoy made himself intensely unpopular, and he soon learned that these wealthy idlers had complained to their influential fathers, with the result that an intrigue was devloping to oust him from his job. Fighting he considered his business, but not fighting a haughty oligarchy for the right to force its decadent youth to toe the line and learn to become competent officers. In consequence, in the New Year of 1
907 he had resigned and transferred to the army of one of the Central American Republics.

  There he had been given the rank of Brigadier-General and sent to fight Indians. Although he found the troops allotted to him illiterate, ragged, and largely recruited from the gaols, and supplies reached him only in an indequate trickle, he had soon become fascinated by jungle warfare. Not only was it utterly different from his campaigns against well-organised bodies of tribesmen, waged for oases in deserts and through the rocky gorges of the Atlas mountains, it had a much closer resemblance to big-game hunting, which had always been a passion with him. But in his case, instead of stalking dangerous animals for amusement, the object was to make waterways and jungle tracks safe for commerce from attack by murderous savages, and the risk entailed by the hunter was the much greater one of being pipped by a poison-tipped arrow, which could result in a death of excruciating agony.

  After three months he had gone down with jungle fever and been invalided back to the capital. While he was convalescing a revolution had taken place and the new War Minister had decided that he would be of more value in helping to reorganise the army than returning to the jungle. By Central American standards the War Minister had been an honest man, and de Quesnoy had done his utmost to bring order out of chaos; but at every turn he had found his efforts baulked by the rivalries of unscrupulous Generals, graft, and every kind of political chicanery. By midsummer he had become so disgusted with the whole business that he had thrown in his hand and accepted an offer from a neighbouring State to become Inspector-General of its forces.

  There he had fared little better, as its Government and the higher ranks of its rag, tag and bobtail army had proved equally riddled with corruption. But after a time he had managed to change his job for the command of an expedition to survey the upper reaches of an uncharted river and a great area of territory adjacent to it. That he had enjoyed, as it had meant his being his own master and again living dangerously, which was in his blood. It had entailed further encounters with hostile Indians, hunting an immense variety of big game, and the discovery of an ancient Mayan city, ruined and half-submerged in giant creepers yet with many of its intricate carvings still undamaged. But, to his annoyance, the expedition was recalled long before it had completed its work owing to lack of funds to send up to it further essential supplies.

  During the eighteen months that followed he had served with the rank of Major-General in the armies of three other Republics. In time had come to accept the trickery, bribery and ignorance of military matters which was almost universal among his sallow-skinned, black-eyed colleagues, recognising that their standards were as natural to them as a sense of integrity was to the majority of officers in the armies of the great European nations. Even when telling the most flagrant lies their manners were impeccable, they were most hospitable and intensely chivalrous towards women; so he came to regard them rather as selfish, wicked children than near criminals, and became good friends with a number of the more intelligent among them.

  His dream of commanding a Cavalry Division remained as far away as ever since, except for a few squadrons of escort troops of Presidential processions, cavalry hardly existed, and he often thought with regret of the splendidly disciplined and equipped regiment of Spahis he had commanded in North Africa. But the half-Indian peons in the Central American armies were tough little men and earned his admiration.

  For most of the time he lived in cities in which the privileged few enjoyed every luxury while the masses, plagued by disease, poverty and crushing taxation, barely managed to exist in the most appalling squalor. Yet each time resentment at such a state of things, or frustration at the intransigence and incompetence of his colleagues, had boiled up in him to a point at which he began to consider returning to Europe, he was either sent out to clear another jungle area of marauding Indians, or a revolution engineered by some magnate greedy for more wealth and power had to be crushed.

  So far the past two and a half years he had at least lived a life that had not lacked for variety, and frequently provided him with situations in which he could indulge his favourite pastime of gambling his safety against his wits.

  Now, as the Duc de Richleau, he had to reorientate himself for his return to countries in which soldiers were not liable to be shot for minor acts of insubordination, where judges sent people to prison for offering them bribes instead of suggesting that the amount of the bribe should be doubled, where one did not have to take constant precautions against catching some terrible disease, or be liable to stumble in a street at night over the body of some poor wretch either struck down by one or knifed; and, in short, where a state of law and order was the rule rather than the exception.

  Having crossed the Caribbean to New Orleans, as the nearest port from which he could be sure of making his voyage to Europe in a comfortable liner, he had had to wait there for one for eight days, and for a good part of that time he had amused himself by reading in the big City Library papers and periodicals which would bring him up-to-date with events in the Old World.

  In England jovial King Edward VII still occupied the throne, with Asquith as his Prime Minister and a firebrand named Lloyd George as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Led by the latter the Radicals were carrying out a furious agitation to deprive the House of Lords of its age-old right to veto measures passed by the Lower House. The Southern Irish meanwhile were carrying on an equally furious agitation to be given Home Rule. But the British people, as ever the pioneers in all forms of social welfare, had united in applauding a bill which a few months earlier had introduced Old Age Pensions for the needy.

  In France Clemenceau was still Premier, but he was now having great trouble in holding together his coalition of Radicals and Socialists, and there were growing indications that the latter might split off and defeat him at the next election. The suppression of the Paris Commune, and all it stood for, in 1871 was now ancient history; but for a quarter of a century the memory of its threat to property, small as well as large, had made the majority of Frenchmen regard all workers’ movements with the gravest suspicion. Since the ‘nineties, however, they had gained ground by leaps and bounds. Recently the Marxists had fomented a great wave of militant strikes which, by the sabotaging of plant, had cost the country a vast sum, and had been put down only by adopting emergency measures. The anarchists, too, continued to be equally active and, following an attempt to assassinate President Fallières, were jeopardising the effectiveness of the army by a great campaign encouraging desertion and denouncing military service.

  In Germany Kaiser Wilhelm II continued to give his Chancellor, Prince von Bülow, sleepless nights wondering what new tactless and bellicose utterance he might learn in the morning that his Royal master had given out—generally to some foreign correspondent who had played upon his vanity during a private interview. There had been serious trouble in Germany’s Polish provinces and also in Alsace-Lorraine, but a combination of efficient administration backed by the Prussian jack-boot had kept both minorities under control. Commercially, Germany was enjoying an era of great prosperity and there could be no doubt at all that the Kaiser’s policies of Colonial expansion and building a High Seas Fleet that could challenge the British Navy had the full support of his people.

  Italy was still labouring under a vast burden of debt and the backwardness and superstition of her agricultural population. In the South and in Sicily, the government, the priests and the Mafia competed to rob the peasantry of their last centissimi, and the appalling earthquake that had a few months earlier annihilated the great port of Messina had added greatly to the general distress.

  From Vienna the aged Franz-Joseph still ruled his vast multi-racial Empire. It was said that he worked stolidly for longer hours per day than the most conscientious of his civil servants, endeavouring to reconcile Hungarians with Czechs, Poles with Ruthenians, Austrians with Italians and Croats with Serbs; yet none of his subject races was content and, many people thought, they were waiting only for his death to proclai
m their independence.

  Portugal had for a long while been bankrupt, and in a final attempt to restore his country’s finances King Carlos had allowed his Prime Minister to assume the powers of a dictator. This had led, fifteen months earlier, to an attack by a band of assassins on the Royal carriage. The King and Crown Prince had been shot dead; the Queen had miraculously escaped a hail of bullets and her younger son Manuel had been only slightly wounded. Now, aged nineteen, he wore the crown, but was no more than a puppet in the hands of a coalition government which was desperately endeavouring to stave off revolution.

  In Spain no event of outstanding importance had taken place, and since de Richleau was not going there he only glanced through the back numbers of such Spanish periodicals as were available. Whatever countries he might decide to visit later he was going first to Russia, to take up his inheritance; so it was to the state of things in Russia that he gave the lion’s share of his interest.

  Only a year before he had been shipped off to South America the Czar had at last given way to popular pressure and consented to elections being held for the purpose of creating a National Assembly. This first Duma—as it was called—was convened only as a consultative body. But as soon as it assembled it became apparent that its members were not going to be content to act merely as advisers to the government. The two largest parties—the Liberal Democrats and the Socialists—had both demanded that the Duma should control the executive. The Czar had refused to yield and dissolved his first parliament’.

  Thereupon the leaders of the Opposition had crossed the frontier into Finland and issued a violent protest known as the ‘Viborg Manifesto’. It called on the Russian people to refuse to pay taxes or supply recruits to the Army and Navy until the Duma was restored. The government had then counter-attacked by establishing special courts to punish terrorists and agitators. A great purge of Socialists had been carried out and thousands of people sent into exile.