At this season most of the big villas were shut, but the Duke knew a few families who had brought their children down for a summer holiday at the seaside; so he was made a member of the Nobles’ Club and soon acquired a circle of pleasant acquaintances. Among them was a Baron Bezobrazov who owned a charming villa on the slope a mile or so behind the town, and on several occasions de Richleau went out there to lunch or dine.
One night after he had been in Yalta just on a fortnight he was again asked to dine there, and the Baron told him that it would be a men’s party, the piéce de resistance of which would be to drink some old Tokay that his cousin had sent him as a present from Hungary. Eight of them sat down to table and remained at it for close on four hours. It was a typical Russian dinner of its kind, at which ten courses were served with an interval between each for pleasant conversation during which another wine was brought round by the sommelier. Finally they drank the old Tokay with Muscat grapes and nectarines.
Afterwards the Baron suggested a game of faro; so they adjourned to another room and for a further two hours sat round a table gambling gold ten, twenty and fifty rouble pieces on the turn of the pack against the two lines of cards on which they had placed their stakes. By two o’clock de Richleau, who was rarely lucky as a gambler, became weary of consistently losing. As he was down some twelve hundred roubles, no one could suggest that he was withdrawing to conserve his winnings; so he got up from the table and asked his host’s leave to go home.
The Baron made no demur and said that he would ring for a carriage to take the Duke back to his hotel; but as it was a fine, warm night de Richleau begged him not to bother and said that he would much prefer to walk. Having insisted that none of them should leave the table he thanked his host for a most enjoyable evening, nodded goodbye to the others and went out to the hall where a waiting footman gave him his hat and cloak and saw him out of the front door.
As he walked through the garden he sniffed the air appreciatively. There had been a slight shower and the fragrant atmosphere was refreshing after hours spent savouring the aroma of old brandy in a room heavy with cigar smoke. The moonflowers were out and the moon herself lit the scene for most of the time from a sky that was only about one third broken cloud.
For the first part of his way down the slope along a road fringed with other villas in their gardens he could see the moonlight glinting on the sea, then the roofs of the town hid it from him. It was just as he was entering the built-up area formed of solid blocks of lower-class dwellings interspersed with small, shuttered shops, that he got the impression that he was being followed.
The streets were deserted, only an occasional light showed in an upper window; the silence was not broken even by the distant rumble of the wheels of a drosky over cobbles. De Richleau strained his ears. A few more minutes and he became certain that not far behind him footsteps were echoing his own.
He had not the least reason to suppose that anyone was likely to attack him. It might quite well be that whoever was following him was, like himself, simply walking towards one of the big hotels on the promenade. On the other hand it might be some night-hawk robber who had scented money at the sight of his opera cloak and top hat.
To test the situation he turned out of the street through which he was walking into a narrower one that ran parallel with the sea front. The footsteps still followed and soon closed the gap. They were now only about fifty yards behind. He took a quick look over his shoulder, but the curve of the street prevented him from getting a sight of his shadower. Intrigued now by this possibility of a little excitement after three months of quiet life, he deliberately showed his pace for the next hundred yards, then turned into the dark opening of an unlit arcade.
Holding his breath, he waited for a minute or more while the footsteps grew louder. At the entrance of the arcade they halted. Leaning forward from a doorway in which he had partially concealed himself, he glimpsed a slim figure peering in his direction. His shadower must have caught sight at the same instant of the white blob made by de Richleau’s face. Whipping out a knife, with silent ferocity the man leapt at him.
The poor wretch might have fared better had he attacked a man-eating tiger. The duke lunged with his malacca cane straight at the face of his assailant. It caught him in the mouth, knocking out three of his teeth. Next second de Richleau’s left hand had reached out, seized the wrist of the hand that held the knife, and borne down upon it. At the same moment his right foot came up to deliver a sharp kick in his attacker’s groin. Finally, having him off balance, by a violent jerk on his wrist he swung him sideways so that his head smashed the window of the shop in the doorway of which the Duke had taken temporary cover.
De Richleau released his hold and stepped back. The man collapsed and fell in a writhing, groaning heap at his feet. He did not want to go to the bother of charging him, and even felt a twinge of compassion at the terrible punishment he had inflicted. Taking a twenty-rouble gold piece from his pocket he was about to thrust it into one of the man’s hands and leave him there when, attracted by the sound of breaking glass, a policeman came running up.
Had that policeman not happened to be within earshot the incident would have ended there, many things might have panned out very differently, and it is certain that de Richleau’s life for the next few years would not have taken the course it did. But Fate, in the guise of a stolid Russian policeman, having appeared on the scene, the Duke now had no alternative but to give an account of what had happened and agree to charge with assault the man who lay sprawled in the gutter.
Groaning and blubbering the man was got to his feet, but on the policeman’s questioning him he would not answer so much as a word. Fortunately the Police Station was not far off and, partly supported by the burly policeman, he was led there, the Duke bringing up the rear. At the Station de Richleau again told his story to an Inspector. The man was again questioned but could not be induced to reply or even give his name.
This struck both the Duke and the Inspector as strange, since the man had nothing to gain by keeping silent. He was fair-haired, dressed in a decent summer-weight suit of gaberdine and had not the appearance of a common thug. His face was smeared with blood from cuts on the head and the gaps of the three teeth that had been struck from his mouth, and he stood, now handcuffed, with his eyes cast down; but that would not have prevented the police from recognising him had he been a known local criminal.
In exasperation the Inspector turned to de Richleau and said, ‘Your Excellency, I mean to get to the bottom of this. We’ll find a way to make him talk. Wait here, please, for a few minutes.’ Then he signed to two of his men to take the prisoner into the next room, went in after them, and closed the door behind him.
The Duke knew very well the sort of thing that was about to happen behind the closed door; but he had no power to intervene, even if he had wished to do so. It was common practice in the countries in which he had spent the past few years and, with only a slightly lesser degree of brutality, in most European countries as well. Besides, the man had, after all, tried to knife him, yet was not a known criminal; so he was now curious to know who he was and why he had made the attempt.
After about five minutes the door opened again. The prisoner, blubbering once more, his head hanging slack and supported between the two policemen, was dragged out. The Inspector followed and, giving the Duke a puzzled look, said:
‘We haven’t got out of him yet why he attacked Your Excellency, but perhaps you can enlighten us. He is a Spaniard and his name is Benigno Ferrer.’
17
Vendetta
De Richleau could hardly believe his ears, but at the sound of his name being pronounced the prisoner slowly raised his head and stared sullenly at him. In spite of the blood-smeared face and swollen lips the Duke recognised him now. The man was undoubtedly Benigno Ferrer.
In Spanish, the Duke asked him, ‘How do you come to be in Yalta?’
Benigno did not reply, but again let his chin fall on his chest.
The two policemen who were holding his arms gave him a violent shake and one of them kicked him on the ankle. With a word de Richleau checked them and said to the Inspector:
‘You were right. I know this man and I wish to talk to him in private. But it is past three o’clock; so I want to get back to my hotel and to bed. What time will he be brought before the magistrate in the morning?’
‘Ten o’clock, Your Excellency.’
‘Very well, then.’ De Richleau stood up. ‘I will be here at half past nine.’ Taking from his pocket the twenty rouble-piece that he had intended to leave in Benigno’s hand before he knew his identity, he gave it to the policeman who had made the arrest, congratulating him on his alertness; then he said good night to the Inspector and left the Station.
On the short walk to his hotel he ruminated on the surprising encounter with a Spanish anarchist in Russia; but, realising that speculation was futile and that he would learn more about it in a few hours’ time, he dismissed the matter from his thoughts. However, it had recalled to him many memories of the months he had spent in Spain and, while he was undressing, a series of pictures flickered through his mind: Angela lying dead, Gérault exposing him as a spy in the Escuela Moderna, La Torcera spitting in his face, and the back of Sanchez’ head falling limp when his neck was broken—but the most vivid of all was the unforgettable beauty of Gulia de Cordoba when, that last night in San Sebastian, she had walked round the foot of his bed and thrown off her dressing-gown.
It was a long time since he had thought of her and he wondered whether she had become resigned to her position as a neglected wife, or if she had taken a lover. He hoped that she had, for otherwise it seemed certain that she would become embittered and old before her time for having been robbed by convention during the best years of her life of that joy to which every human being was entitled. He felt, too, that for her not to have done so would be a sinful waste, since she had so much to offer and could have brought a period of great happiness to at least one man, and perhaps several.
Not for the first time he cursed his luck that she should have been the wife of a close friend, and that on that account he had felt compelled to deny her and himself the consummation of their mutual passion. Had she been only the wife of an acquaintance for whom he had no affection or respect, he would at least have had the glowing memory of a night in her arms before he had set off after Sanchez; or, had he had no scruples about her husband, they might even have decided to let Sanchez do his damnedest and, had exposure of their affaire resulted, gone off together.
As things had turned out, Sanchez’ photograph having been ruined, he could not, after all, have attempted to blackmail them, and it was by going after him that Richleau had got himself shanghaied to South America. Still thinking of the trick Fate had played him, and of what he had missed to keep face with himself, he drifted off to sleep.
At nine-thirty punctually he arrived at the Police Station. The Inspector was still on duty and made no difficulty about having Benigno brought from his cell to a bare little office room so that the Duke could interview him privately.
As soon as the guards withdrew, they seated themselves on either side of a small table and de Richleau said, ‘Now, Ferrer, you will be good enough to tell me what you are doing in Yalta?’
Benigno shook his head. ‘It is useless to question me. I have been caught, and that is that. But I shall say nothing.’
‘In that case,’ replied the Duke, ‘you will be acting like a fool. And you certainly are not one. I well remember that during our association in Barcelona I came to the conclusion that you had a much better balanced mind than most of your colleagues. Listen carefully now to what I have to say. I am regarded here as a person of considerable importance. That is why I am allowed to see you alone like this. Shortly you will be put into the dock and charged. Upon whether or not you answer my questions your life now hangs. To see you executed would give me considerable pleasure. But it so happens that one of my besetting sins is curiosity. If you are prepared to give me what I feel that I can accept as a reasonably truthful account of yourself I shall simply state in court that I knew you in Spain as a dangerous political, and that you attacked me because you had an old grudge against me. That will result in you being treated as all political criminals are in Russia these days, and exiled to Siberia. On the other hand, if you refuse to talk I shall state that I knew you to be involved in the bomb plot aimed at killing S.M. el Rey y la Reina on their wedding day. That may not be strictly true, but no matter. In your present circumstances, my word will be accepted and under the emergency laws against terrorists which are in force here they will take you away and have you shot. Now, which is it to be?’
‘You fiend!’ Benigno whispered, lifting his red-rimmed eyes to the Duke’s. ‘You fiend!’
De Richleau gave a grim little laugh. ‘On the contrary, you should look on me as an angel. Not many men whose wife you had helped to murder would forgo this chance to see you dead.’
‘I had no hand in that. It is you who are a murderer. You murdered my poor brother.’
‘Poor brother indeed!’ The Duke’s ‘devil’s’ eyebrows shot up. ‘That filthy blackmailing young swine! He got off too easily with the quick death that my situation compelled me to give him. But that is beside the point. In twenty minutes you will be taken into court. The life line I have thrown you is running out as we sit here. You had better snatch at it unless you wish to die.’
For a long minute Benigno wrung his thin hands in silence, then he burst out, ‘You’re right! Even Siberia would be better than a firing squad. What do you wish to know?’
‘Why did you come to Russia?’
‘To kill you.’
Again de Richleau’s eyebrows lifted. ‘You astound me. Since you felt the urge to kill I should have thought there were plenty of people in Spain whom you count your enemies and wish dead. What in the world induced you to undertake such a long and expensive journey and choose as your intended victim a man that for years you had not even seen?’
Benigno’s eyes suddenly blazed with hate. ‘It was you who killed Sanchez. According to your standards he may have had no morals; but he lived as he wished to live and that is how an anarchist should live. I didn’t approve of all his actions but he had the right to do as he liked, and I loved him. I loved him more than anything in the world.’
‘Then I am sorry for you,’ said the Duke, and there was no trace of sarcasm in his tone. ‘Love goes a long way to excusing most things. But tell me; how did you discover my whereabouts?’
‘My father keeps a book in which he writes a brief account of all anarchist triumphs, wherever they may occur. He told me that your father had been killed in the attempt on General Count Plackoff last February. We felt sure that would bring you back to Europe, and we have correspondents in most of the big cities, so we asked for some of those in the ports to keep a look out for you. Your arrival in Hamburg was reported to us, then that you were in Vienna and said to be on your way to claim your estate on the far side of the Carpathians. I would have gone there at once, but I didn’t know a word of Russian; and having been told that in this vile country the police don’t even need a warrant to seize on anyone, I didn’t dare risk being picked up and questioned by them until I could speak enough Russian to pass myself off as a Spanish commercial traveller. For six weeks I swotted at your language; then I travelled to Jvanets. But I missed you by two days. I learned that you had gone down to Odessa, and there that you had gone on to Yalta. I followed you and for over a week I have been hoping for a chance to kill you; but until last night you have always been with other people or driving in a carriage.’
‘Your persistence in making such a journey deserves a better reward than that you should now have to continue it for another few thousand miles to Siberia,’ de Richleau remarked, this time with a cynical smile. ‘But why, since you were prepared to go to such lengths to avenge your brother’s death on me, did you not follow me to South America, instead of waiting
until I returned to Europe?’
‘If I could have, I would,’ Benigno scowled. ‘But at the time Captain Robles shipped you off there I was in prison. It was over a year before I got out. As soon as I had learned the full details of Sanchez’ death and what had happened to you, I wrote to correspondents in Rio. They informed me that you had left Brazil months before and were somewhere in Central America, but no one knew for certain where. I wanted to go out to search for you; but I had very little money and my father wouldn’t help me. He said it would be better to wait until …’
‘Your father!’ exclaimed the Duke. ‘Did he then escape too?’
‘Escape!’ repeated Benigno, giving him a blank look. ‘Why, no; neither of us escaped. After a year in prison all of us who had been arrested at the time the Escuela Moderna was raided were released.’
De Richleau stared at him in astonishment. ‘D’you mean to tell me that when you were tried not even your father received more than a twelve months’ sentence?’
‘We were never brought to trial. Evidently the police decided that they had not enough evidence to convict us; and many influential bodies in Spain who hold Liberal views agitated for us to be given our freedom.’
‘And where is your father now?’
For the first time Benigno’s face showed the flicker of a smile and his reply was tinged with malice. ‘That is no secret. Soon after we were released he started his Escuela Moderna again. Not in the city because, the tyrants having confiscated our property, we could not afford to set up in another big house. The school now occupies an old building in a village just outside Barcelona. But, for having been unjustly imprisoned for a year, as was proved when the police had to let him go without preferring a charge against him, he is now looked on by all the Liberals in Spain as a martyr. No one would dare to lay a finger on him.’
Vendetta in Spain Page 30
