Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 03

by The Golden Spaniard

  Simon refrained from replying but De Richleau spoke for him. “Shut up, Richard. We’re Simon’s guests and it’s not for us to criticize how he chooses to run his household.”

  In order to keep the bandages on the backs of their heads and necks they gingerly adjusted their hats and went out into the corridor. The lifts were still working and as they stepped into one two other men coming from the opposite direction entered it behind them. De Richleau’s back was turned towards the strangers and his dyed hair hidden by the hat and bandage. One of them suddenly slapped him on the shoulder and cried cheerily, “Hallo! da Silva, you old ruffian. What have you been up to?”

  Turning, the Duke recognized him instantly as a metal merchant with whom he had done considerable business and whom he had cultivated socially during the week that Richard had been transferring the gold from the vaults of the bank to the cellars of the Coralles Palace. De Richleau could have killed the man cheerfully but his face remained quite impassive as he said, “I’m afraid there’s some mistake. I don’t think we’ve met before.”

  The Spaniard’s jaw dropped directly he saw the black swathe of hair across De Richleau’s forehead and the ugly birthmark over cheek and chin. “Sorry,” he murmured, “My fault, but from behind you look just like a Portuguese with whom I recently had some dealings.”

  As they left the lift and the two men walked on ahead Simon suddenly bent his bird-like head and chuckled into his hand. “Grand disguise you’ve got—particularly the birthmark—and your Spanish is so good even a Castilian might mistake you for a Catalan or a Portuguese.”

  De Richleau shrugged and forbore to reply.

  The great, circular lounge, where the most elegant demi-mon-daines of Madrid were wont to sip their cocktails and receive billets-doux from the gallants who desired a date with them, was now full of men. Among them De Richleau recognized several well-known Spanish politicians and, although they were all in civilian clothes, many of the men present had pistols strapped to belts round their waists.

  Some of the larger tables were being used as desks and the men behind them were constantly stamping or signing papers for those who queued up in front of them. Others were issuing instructions to various groups or talking earnestly together over rounds of drinks as they waited for news or orders. There was much coming and going and it was obvious that the hotel was now being used as some sort of Socialist Headquarters.

  The three friends did not get their magnum, but after a while a waiter produced two bottles of drinkable champagne stuffed head to tail in a bucket of ice. When Simon took out money to pay, the waiter shrugged, and with a wave of his hand, walked off. Most of the people round about were drinking champagne but no one except an Englishman could be sufficiently mad to think of paying for it on such a night.

  The first bottle was despatched virtually at a draught apiece and the cool wine went down like nectar. Over the second they lingered for some time. Their burns were easier now and the natural reaction from their ordeal having set in they were half-torpid from fatigue; yet so relaxed that it meant an effort to drink up and go to bed. Their weariness had affected their brains as well as their bodies and this, with the fact that a temporary armistice on political differences had been agreed with Simon, had lulled the Duke into a false sense of security. He would never otherwise have exposed himself to recognition by lingering unnecessarily in a place so packed with potential enemies. Even his encounter with the metal merchant had not revealed the full risk he was running, to him, but that risk came home to him like an electric shock when he saw Cristoval Ventura coming towards them.

  Richard had told Cristoval that he had met Lucretia-José at Simon’s house when he had done nothing of the kind. They had used Simon’s name to win the confidence of the Socialist leader. If that came out the fat would be in the fire with a vengeance. Lucretia had played up to Richard. If the story of their meeting was proved a lie Cristoval would not only mark them down as probable spies but, far worse, suspect Lucretia-José.

  The moment when Cristoval paused before their table De Richleau held his breath. His brain was racing wildly but he could think of nothing, nothing, nothing which might avert the threatening danger. There seemed no option but to let things take their course and deal with eventualities to the best of his ability when the moment came.

  The young Spaniard was dressed as usual except for an automatic on his hip. His smile took in all three of them as he said, “So you have been making wars already—you are all bandage up.”

  Richard got in before the Duke, “My friend Dubois and I had the good luck to pull Aron out of a bit of a mess. Some of the Comrades are over-excited to-night and they mistook him for a bloated capitalist because he was driving in a car.”

  “Then you know each...” Simon began, but De Richleau cut in quickly, “Would you believe it, they were about to throw him alive into a burning church.”

  “Demonios!” exclaimed Cristoval. “But you arrived to pull your friend from flames in time, eh? Good works that, good works!”

  Richard plunged into a description of the scene. Whenever he faltered the Duke leapt into the breach with comments and additions. Simon sat glancing backwards and forwards from them to Cristoval, a benign smile on his face. De Richleau, on tenterhooks, watched him covertly, striving to judge if he had accepted the fact of their knowing Cristoval and Cristoval knowing that they were friends of his, or if that amiable smile cloaked the preparation of a dozen awkward questions which might come popping out.

  In an endeavour to break the party up at the earliest possible moment, De Richleau gave a prodigious yawn and rose slowly to his feet while Richard was still speaking. Simon followed suit and Richard made to do so but, in rising he put his hand behind him and his gun dropped out of his hip pocket on to the chair seat.

  “Oh, damn,” he said. “I shall never get used to carrying one of these things.”

  Cristoval smiled, “At present it is wise, yes. But soon we hope it will not be necessary.”

  “Well, we’re for bed,” declared Simon. “I didn’t know you knew my friends but we must all meet again. Throw a party when the muddle’s over.”

  “Si, si. That would be good. I met Mr. Eaton and Comrade Dubois last week...”

  “At Botin’s,” cut in the Duke. “The sucking-pigs there are marvellous. We must eat one together...”

  But Cristoval was not listening. He had turned to Richard who, having picked up his pistol had started to unload it, and asked, “Since that night at Alhambra, have you seen our friend, the beautiful...?”

  God help us, thought the Duke, here it comes.

  Chapter Fourteen – Lady in Distress

  A shattering report drowned the rest of the Spaniard’s sentence. Richard’s gun had gone off. The bullet thudded into the carpet, and a little cloud of acrid blue smoke curled up from its barrel.

  There was a sudden hush in the big lounge, followed by a terrific clamour. Everyone there was in a state of high nervous tension. Nearly every seated person in the room sprang to his feet. Two or three tables were overturned and the crashing of glass added to the pandemonium. On all sides men whipped pistols from their holsters and pockets while above the din sounded a piercing whistle and a shouted order, “Guard the doors! Guard the doors!”

  Richard and his party were instantly surrounded by a score of excited Socialists crying, “What has happened? Is it a spy? Was it an attempt at assassination?”

  Cristoval Ventura stood with his feet splayed apart and his hands on his hips rocking with laughter. “No, no,” he assured them in voluble Spanish. “It is my friend, here. He was unloading his gun and it went off by accident. He is an Englishman and not used to handling weapons, but he and his companion, the Comrade Dubois, saved Comrade Aron to-night from being roasted to a cinder by a mob of lunatics. It is all right, I tell you. An accident. An accident which might happen to anyone not used to firearms.”

  Richard apologized profusely for his carelessness. Fortunately no harm had
been done and, reassured, the crowd went back to their urgent business of organizing the Revolution or resting from their labours.

  “Well, I must make off,” Cristoval extended his hand. “I have much to do before sunrisings.”

  The other wished him good night and walked towards the lift together. Simon said he would see his guests to their room on the third floor. As they walked down the corridor he remarked to the Duke, “I—er—gather you’re calling yourself Comrade Dubois.”

  “Yes. Did you not advise me yourself that it would be unwise for me to travel in Spain under my own name?”

  “Um,” Simon nodded. “I’m glad you took my tip.”

  The double room was a big one and it had a private bathroom attached but both had already been occupied. The sheets of the bed were turned back and rumpled. An expensive crêpe-de-Chine frock had been thrown over the back of a chair and some girl’s lace-trimmed chiffon undies lay scattered on the floor. A man’s hat and gloves reposed incongruously among them. Two large wardrobe trunks and a hat-box stood open displaying other feminine garments. In the bathroom used towels were lying about and the whole place smelt deliciously of a subtle, heady perfume.

  “Your friends don’t seem to have given the people here much time to clear out,” the Duke remarked to Simon.

  “Ner. They seem to have gone to bed early. Hard luck on them but Revolutions can’t be kept waiting for lovers or honeymooners or whatever they were.”

  Richard picked up a silk stocking of cobwebby texture. “I wonder where the owner of this pretty thing is now. I wouldn’t care to be in her place if they lugged her away in the things she stood up in.”

  “Don’t be an ass,” said Simon irritably. “Naturally they’d have let her dress but she probably chose tweeds or something sensible. If she’s a foreign visitor she’ll be safe in her own Embassy by this time. If not, she’ll have taken refuge in one of the convents.”

  De Richleau gave an angry grunt. “Much protection a convent would be. The mob will burn them directly they’ve finished with the churches. But let’s not think of such horrors. I shall fall asleep where I stand if we don’t get to bed.”

  Simon nodded. “We’d all better sleep late. I’ll come along and collect you early in the afternoon. In the meantime you won’t walk out on me, will you? You see, I don’t know what your game is and...”

  “No, no,” De Richleau cut him short. “We won’t abuse your hospitality by blowing up the place and we’ll see you again before we depart. Good night and happy dreams.”

  “Thanks. Good night, Richard,” Simon paused just inside the open doorway to add, “and—er—sleep well, dear Comrade Hypolite.”

  “Eh?” the Duke swung round. “How the devil...?”

  Simon’s dark eyes twinkled in his tired face. “Saw it on your passport, old chap, when you showed it to the Anarchists. That’s how I was able to register you and Richard for a room here without asking what names you were going under.” He softly closed the door behind him.

  De Richleau locked the door, pulled off his coat and slumped down on the bed. “We should never have come to this place,” he said bitterly. “I’m getting old, Richard. I completely lost my head.”

  “Nonsense,” Richard answered with a tired smile. “How could either of us think clearly after being so damn’ near death and half-roasted into the bargain? Naturally we took the first chance that offered of somewhere we could be sure of a good night’s sleep. Particularly as it came from Simon. I wonder, though, how much he really twigged?”

  “He knows that I’m Hypolite Dubois and he knows that I was passing as da Silva, the Portuguese, but nothing’s come out to connect us with the factory at Valmojado and, praise be to all the gods, you scotched his learning that we know Lucretia-José. Letting off that gun was a superb piece of work, Richard absolutely superb.”

  Richard looked doubtful. “It saved our bacon for the moment but I’m still scared he may have tumbled to why I did it. He knows so well that I’ve carried a gun too often to go letting it off by mistake—and he’s sharp as a needle.”

  “Yes. Ordinarily he would have seen through your little trick in a second; but remember he’s as done in as we are to-night.”

  “But we’re not out of the wood yet. A similar situation may arise later on.”

  “I doubt that. People normally raise the question as to where mutual acquaintances have met only when they first learn that they know each other. However, nothing will induce me to sit about in that lounge again.”

  Rolling into the broad bed in their pants and vests, the delicious perfume of its recent occupant strong in their nostrils they switched out the light and fell instantly asleep.

  Richard dreamed, and a very strange dream it was. For hours on end he was fighting hooligans and trying to prevent them from throwing somebody into a burning church, but their intended victim was not Simon. It was his own wife, the adorable Marie-Lou. A ghost then seemed to rise out of the hideous, screaming mob; a pale, serene-faced, haloed figure carrying a little child. The human beasts shrank back terrified cowering away from the radiant light that shone all about the calm wraith of the Holy Virgin. She walked slowly through their midst and, picking up Marie-Lou, Richard dived into the lane formed in the crowd by the holy apparition.

  After a moment the figure faded and the mob was after him again, but now they were in a big hotel. He ran through a crowded lounge still carrying Marie-Lou and somebody fired a pistol at him. For days, it seemed, he lurched with leaden feet down interminable corridors with the mob hard on his heels. Then he was in a bedroom looking frantically for a place to hide her before the rabble broke in. He could think of nowhere but the wardrobe. It was a huge affair nearly eight feet in length, but as he wrenched it open he saw that it was nearly filled with shelves and drawers. The hanging space was absurdly small and would not hold her. Suddenly it occurred to him to push her up on to its top. If she lay flat there behind the foot-high ornamental woodwork nobody in the room would be able to see her. No sooner thought of than done. Marie-Lou was up there but she was lying on her side staring at him and would not put her head down. He knew that the mob would break in at any second and tried to shout a warning to her but, to his horror, he found he could not speak. Her body was hidden but her head and shoulders protruded above the woodwork screen. She did not look frightened but just lay there gazing at him, her head resting on one hand and a miserable, hopeless expression on her features.

  He then saw that she wasn’t Marie-Lou at all. This girl’s hair was dark, but not dark chestnut, and her face was a pretty one but there the resemblance ended. There was no sound of the trampling mob now. That had faded away and Richard knew he was lying on his back in an extremely comfortable bed between cool linen sheets. Suddenly he realized that his eyes were half open, but, of course, he was still dreaming. Very cautiously he stretched out a hand under the clothes until it came in contact with the Duke. The events of the previous night were now clear in his mind. He gave De Richleau a gentle prod.

  The Duke coughed, turned over, and opened his eyes. The girl’s head disappeared at the same second as he jerked himself up.

  “So you saw it too,” said Richard quietly. “Then I wasn’t dreaming.”

  “I saw something move on the top of that wardrobe,” declared De Richleau, grabbing his gun.

  “You can dispense with the heavy armaments,” laughed Richard, sitting up. “If you saw anything it was only the poor girl whose bed we’ve been sleeping in. Don’t be afraid, Señorita. We won’t hurt you.”

  Slowly the head of the girl appeared again. “You no hurt,” she said with a frightened look. “You no hurt.”

  De Richleau quickly reassured her in Spanish and asked her how she came to be up there; upon which any little bird on the window-sill might have observed the strange sight of two gentlemen sitting up side by side in bed holding grave converse with a lady clad only in the thinnest of nightdresses perched on the top of a high wardrobe.

  The lady
was Doña Favorita de los Passos-Inclán. This with the fact that her father was General de los Passos-Inclán, emerged only in the later part of the conversation when she had become convinced that the Duke and Richard, far from being foreign Anarchists, were people who might be trusted completely.

  She had been very foolish, she confessed, as her father had sent her out of Spain over a fortnight before and she was supposed to be staying with an English aunt who had a summer villa at Biarritz. The aunt, apparently, had not taken her duties as a chaperon as seriously as is customary in Spain and had raised no objection at all when Doña Favorita, who was twenty-three years old, had tentatively suggested going off to Paris for a few days’ shopping. Consent to her expedition having been duly obtained, the charming Doña Favorita had hopped into the first train back to Madrid for the very laudable purpose of healing the heart of a Catholic Deputy which had been quite broken on her departure. One indiscretion, alas, had led to another and she had allowed the handsome Don Palacio Alverado to come up to her room on the night before in order that they might discuss his injured heart in reasonable privacy. They had in fact been in the very middle of the heart-healing process when a couple of shots and a great deal of tumult had aroused them to the fact that the Reds were taking over the hotel.

  Don Palacio had hidden her on top of the wardrobe, giving her the eiderdown from the bed to lie on, and gallantly allowed himself to be taken quietly in order to get the invaders out of the room as quickly as possible. When they had gone Doña Favorita had wept a great deal since she greatly feared that poor Don Palacio’s heart was now past any healing. She then tried to think what she had better do about herself and decided that in case anyone else came into the room it would be best to stay where she was until the early hours of the morning when, the hotel being quieter, she would stand a better chance of dressing without interruption and slipping out of it unobserved. Unfortunately, lying up there in the dark she had cried herself very quietly to sleep. The next thing she knew was when the light clicked on and all hope of escape was cut off by some Englishmen taking possession of her room.