De Richleau would have refused in any case but he was pretty confident that Simon was still the final authority in all matters concerning them and called his bluff. He took the Duke’s stubbornness in good part and having produced a couple of bottles of sherry left them with a friendly handshake. They were not moved to solitary cells.
August was drawing towards its close when they had a new excitement. On the night of the 27th there was a sudden series of loud detonations and they caught the distant drone of aeroplane engines somewhere over the city. Madrid had had its first air raid.
Next morning, in the strange way such things were constantly happening, full particulars were known to practically everybody in the prison. The street lights of the whole of central Madrid had been blacked out with the exception of those in the Gran Via, the Calle Alcala and La Cibeles so that these lanes of light clearly indicated the Telegraph Building and the Ministry of War to the enemy raider. The bombs had been so well aimed that some of them actually fell in the garden of the War Ministry and shattered its windows. A great deal of precious ammunition had been senselessly wasted by the Militiamen firing their rifles into the air.
The raid was not directed against the civil population and only the manipulation of the city’s lights had made the bombing of such an important Military objective possible. The Duke and Richard chuckled a lot at the thought that Lucretia-José and her friends of Franco’s Fifth Column must still be holding key positions in the Red capital. Soon, however, their laughter was cut short by a grim sound that they had learnt to know only too well.
A dread hush had fallen on the long corridor. It was broken only by the occasional slamming of a cell door, the faint shuffling of feet, and a loud fearless voice which spoke in Latin. The speaker was a priest in a distant cell and he was giving a general absolution to those who were being led out to die.
Several such purges had occurred during the twenty-two days Richard and De Richleau had been in prison. This morning the Government was exacting a terrible price for the broken windows of its War Office; many cells were being emptied.
A little murmur of prayer was audible as the guards came for the gay young Conde opposite. He was accused of no crime and had been taken in his bed without warning. His accident of birth was now to cost him his life although his political views were those of the new generation and decidedly Liberal. As he left his cell he said only one thing in ringing tones which all could hear: “May the flowers never bloom again in Spain until this vileness is swept from her soil.”
Farther along the corridor other men of less courage were led out. Some gave way to heartrending screams, others begged and implored the guards to spare them.
Half an hour after it was over a warder came for Richard and the Duke. Evidently further victims were needed to make up the number decreed for this holocaust of vengeance. They went very still at the thought that they too were to take their last walk, but the warder quickly reassured them.
“It’s all right, hombrés,” he said. “Your friend’s called again—the little one—and he wants to see you.”
With unutterable relief they followed the man along the corridor and downstairs to the waiting-room. Simon was there and, apparently oblivious of the horrors which had only just been enacted, smiled a cheerful greeting:
“Thought you’d like to know,” he said, “I’ve found the Coralles fortune.”
Chapter Twenty-two – Out of the Fire Into the Boiling Oil
‘So the game is up,’ thought Richard. ‘Cristoval has mentioned seeing us at Valmojado and Simon has been out there. What hellish luck after the way we sweated blood to conceal it.’
Simon was grinning all over his face. As neither of his friends made any remark he repeated gleefully, “I’ve found it. Told you I would. You haven’t done yourselves the least good by refusing to talk and sitting in prison here. I’ve traced the missing millions.”
“Have you?” said the Duke tonelessly.
“Um. I had it from one of the Guardias Civiles weeks ago that they closed the streets while you loaded it on to eight lorries one night just before the Outbreak. I found a couple of labels you left behind in the salon of the Palacio too—printed ones for Barcelona. But I naturally took that to be a bit of bluff on your part. Just the sort of false trail you would lay. Now I find you pulled a double bluff. You actually did send it to the most unlikely place in Spain—straight to the stronghold of the Anarchists. Damn’ clever. I honestly congratulate you.”
“Thank you, Simon. But it’s I who must congratulate you on having seen through my little ruse.”
“Not a bit. I’d never have thought you’d risk it. Suppose, though, I should’ve realized you’d be certain to take bold measures. Now, I’ll tell you. I’d never have found out what you’d done with it if it hadn’t been for a man I know in the Railwaymen’s Battalion. They’re the crack troops of the Communists. This chap was wounded and invalided back here yesterday. Went to see him just to cheer him up and by pure chance he mentioned a queer consignment he had had to check out some days before the trouble started. Two hundred and three little boxes all weighing about a hundred ton apiece. Heaviest stuff for its size he’d ever handled, he said, all addressed to the Condesa de Cordoba y Coralles and delivered at the station in army lorries manned by regular troops. Dates tallied. It was the morning after you’d had the stuff collected. Simple, wasn’t it?”
“Well,” said Richard, “having been here over three weeks it will be grand to be at liberty again. Can we walk out with you right away and have a drink?”
“Ner,” said Simon quickly.
“Oh, come,” said the Duke. “A victor should always be generous, Simon.”
“Ner,” Simon repeated. “Not unless you tell me to whom the goods were consigned.”
“But you know that already. To the Condesa de Cordoba y Coralles, Barcelona.”
“Um, but care of someone else. Unfortunately my friend’s forgotten that part of it and in the riots all the papers at the railway station were destroyed. Cases are in Barcelona somewhere. Can’t have crossed the frontier. Customs would never allow them to go through. I know, too, they were addressed to a business house—not a person—so I’ll find them. Question is if you’d like to come out now and save me a trip to Barcelona or remain here while I make it.”
“Barcelona is a big city,” remarked the Duke.
“And my time’s precious—so we might as well do a deal.”
“That would be to rob you of your full triumph as a detective. I don’t think we’d care to do that. Do you, Richard?”
“No,” said Richard. “We’ll stay here till the treasure-hunt is over.”
“Oh, all right! Have it your own way,” agreed Simon huffily, but a moment later he was smiling again as he admitted, “Of course I see what you’re up to. You know quite well that every hour I spend on this I have to neglect other important business. Quite legitimate tactics.”
“Why do it then?” De Richleau shrugged. “Now great powers are helping both sides with arms this one fortune, big as it is, becomes relatively of less importance.”
“Don’t you believe it! Even if we’re getting arms from outside and getting them on credit that doesn’t prevent the bottom falling out of the Exchange. We’ve got to have gold to keep the Government peseta at a reasonable level. Must run now. Here’s a little something to console you for my coup. Sorry it’s not the Old Original but that’s harder to find than diamonds in Madrid these days.” The ‘little something’ was a bottle of Green Chartreuse.
Back in their cell Richard and the Duke laughed themselves almost silly at the thought of Simon’s face when he prised open the first of the two hundred and three boxes to find it only contained cement.
They had long since given up worrying about the gold. Even if Lucretia could not shift it they felt there was little fear of Simon tracing it now the maximum period of danger in which Cristoval might have mentioned their presence at Valmojado was safely past. There was no reaso
n to suppose that the factory Committee would cease to function and old Jacinto’s squad could be trusted to guard the secret of the specially-treated stock with their lives.
“Of course,” said the Duke a little later, “Simon only asked the address to which those cases were consigned. If we’d given him that he would have let us out but it would have been sailing pretty near the wind and he’s behaved very decently.”
“Yes,” Richard agreed. “I thought of that too, but I’m glad we didn’t. It wouldn’t really have been fair.”
Within forty-eight hours they were to regret that decision, which sent Simon on a wild-goose chase to Barcelona, more than they had regretted anything for a very long time.
The following afternoon stirring news once again mysteriously percolated through the prison. The two Nationalist Generals, Mola advancing from the north and Franco from the south, had met and joined forces. The Nationalists now held a belt of territory stretching from the Pyrenees to the western coast and right down the Portuguese frontier to the Straits of Gibraltar in the south. Having met during the previous night the united armies were now advancing on Madrid.
The excitement in the prison was intense. Wave after wave of cheering echoed down the long stone corridors and the warders were powerless to check it. The Monarchist Anthem was sung again and again; the captives worked themselves up into an state of absolute delirium and all further exercise had to be cancelled for the day. Wild, impossible rumours began to circulate. The Nationalists were opposite Madrid, they were sweeping all before them, advancing in cars and lorries, the Reds were utterly broken and in full retreat, the Government was abandoning the capital, it would be in the Generals’ hands before morning. They were saved, saved, saved—if the Terrorists did not massacre them all first.
It was that last awful thought which probably started the real trouble; the knowledge, after weeks of almost unbearable suspense during any moment of which they might have been fetched from their cells and shot, that salvation was at last at hand yet they might not be allowed to live to reap the joy of it. The urge to attempt an escape became imperative.
The prisoners battered insanely on their doors and a number of them attacked the warders when the evening ration was brought round. The balance of the issue was cancelled as a general punishment, and to avoid further scenes of violence in which prisoners had to be flung back battered and bleeding into their cells.
An urgent plea for quiet and restraint was then sent round through the secret channels of communication. Nobody knew whence it came and it was assumed by the saner men that some leader or group among the prisoners was plotting a properly organized bid for freedom that night and was, therefore, trying to prevent extra guards being put on. After an hour the emotional storm seemed to have spent itself and, except for isolated cases, things returned to normal.
Few prisoners slept that night. De Richleau and Richard did not attempt to. The Duke felt convinced that something was afoot and he was extremely perturbed about it. His long experience as a General Staff Officer made him quite certain that these rumours of a sudden Nationalist dash on the capital were childish nonsense. It was great news that the Generals had succeeded in joining forces but they were hundreds of miles away and they would have to organize a fresh campaign before deploying eastward. All the Red forces of central Spain would be concentrated to defend Madrid and one great battle, if not a series of them, would have to be fought before there were any prospect of the Nationalists even approaching the city. It would probably be several weeks at least before there could be any real chance of their taking it.
In the meantime he and Richard were reasonably safe where they were under Simon’s protection; but if there were a prison mutiny and they were involved in it all sorts of unpleasant things might happen.
His fears were justified. A little past one in the morning the silence was broken by sudden shouting and sounds of strife in the block on the other side of the courtyard. Within a few moments the whole great building was a raging hell of noise. Every one of the three-thousand-odd prisoners were screaming, cursing, kicking at their doors, clanking their tin pails and calling on those who had already escaped to free them. The crash of rifle-fire in the opposite block added to the row and showed that a number of prisoners had actually succeeded in breaking loose.
For twenty minutes the din went on without cessation. Richard had his eye glued to the spy-hole, the Duke stood anxiously watching by the barred window, but nothing happened in the corridor.
Suddenly, through the hurricane of sound, came the slamming of cell doors, then the thud of running feet. The near-by cries changed from desperate frustration to joy and relief. Someone was hurrying along the corridor letting the prisoners out with a bunch of keys taken from a wounded or murdered warder.
“Bring your mattresses! Bring your mattresses! We’re going to burn down the main door!” the rescuer shouted as he hastened from cell to cell.
At last Richard saw him. He was a little dark slip of a man but his firm features showed intelligence and resolution. As he was about to put the pass key in the door a man just released grabbed him by the elbow and shouting something pointed down the corridor. A cell there had been forgotten in the hurry. The little man dashed off. When Richard saw him again he made for Pépé’s old cell opposite and let out a middle-aged merchant who had taken Pépé’s place. Next, he turned to free the inventor of dirty stories, late of the Spanish Bourse.
“Here!” shouted Richard, “Here!” but his voice was half-drowned by the general pandemonium and the man passed on.
Richard hammered furiously on the door and bawled for help until he was hoarse, but it was useless. All he could see now was a scurry of flying figures; the man with the keys had gone. The corridor was emptying rapidly but a couple of minutes later when Richard was peering out again an eye suddenly stared into his an inch away on the other side of the peephole.
“I thought so,” said a voice. “As I didn’t see you I felt sure he must have forgotten to let you out, so I came back.” It was their neighbour of the Bourse.
“Good man!” cried Richard struggling with some of his newly acquired Spanish. “Where is he? Get him for us! Quick!”
“Wait, hombré! Wait! He’s on the floor above now, but I’ll bring him down.”
They waited there impatiently while the howling din went on; minute after minute, five minutes, ten, fifteen, twenty, but their friend did not return. Perhaps he had failed to find the man with the keys; perhaps he was shot or burnt or trampled to death during the ensuing hour of riot and confusion. They never saw him again.
Hundreds of prisoners were swarming into the courtyard. It was dark down there and only lit by a yellow swathe of light which streamed from a broken-in door, until some warders started firing down into it from the roof-tops. The mob stampeded like cattle and rushed to force their way back into the building through the one narrow doorway. Scores of people were caught there in a solid jam unable to move backwards or forwards while the bullets of the warders smacked into the living target it was impossible to miss.
Another body of the escapers had gained the roof. They rushed the warders and hurled them over into the courtyard below. The crowd eased back as the firing ceased and, seeing what was happening, left their own dead and wounded to trample the last breath of life out of the unfortunate warders who had been flung off the roof-top.
De Richleau tried in vain to stifle his fury at still being locked in the cell. Once out in the corridor he was certain that he and Richard could have got away somehow during a mutiny on such a large scale. He knew his way down to the reception-room blindfold and had made exhaustive mental notes on half-a-dozen possible lines of escape from glimpsing the vistas through half-open doorways on their numerous trips downstairs. They would have left this crazy mob to its own devices and gone off on their own as many of the most quick-witted prisoners must be doing; short of appalling bad luck anyone with nerve and brains could get clear away during such a turmoil.
“Yes,” said Richard, after a moment. “God, what an end, to be burnt alive here.”
“I don’t think we need fear that. Thanks be this is a Model Prison. The whole place is made of steel and concrete. There’s nothing much to burn either. No carpets, curtains, wooden floors, and practically no furniture. But if only we could get out. If only we could get out.”
The Duke was a man of immense resource and indomitable bravery but he knew that this time he was defeated. The walls and floor were concrete, the door and the window had bars of steel. There was no lock in the door which could be picked and on the inside it was flush without any keyhole or handle. There was just nothing to be done.
The fire which had been started was in the block opposite, where the mutiny had begun. After a time they could see clouds of sparks and smoke going up into the night sky. Behind the lower cell windows red flames flickered against which the black bars stood out clearly but there was little wind, and even if the fire got a good hold it was unlikely that it would spread to the other side of the courtyard for some hours to come.
The two prisoners could now hear the distinct rat-tat-tat of machine-guns and the explosion of hand grenades. Evidently the mob had forced its way out of the far side of the building and was being driven back by troops called out to suppress the prison rising.
After a time things quieted down. Then came the trampling of feet in the corridor and the slamming of cell doors again. The exhausted mob having failed in its attempt to break out was being herded back into the blocks and hurled three and four at a time into the nearest cells that offered.
At last the sad morning dawned. Fifty-odd bodies lay sprawled about the courtyard; groans and lamentations came from nearly every cell. No breakfast ration was issued; instead, the tramp of marching feet echoed on the concrete and a squad of Marxists began to pull the prisoners out for examination. Some were taken, others left, according to the names on a long list carried by one of the prison officials. To their dismay Richard and the Duke, having admitted their identity, were ordered to step outside.
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