by Mathew Carr
If Weygrand was not at his hotel, it was at least possible that the theater might have another address for him. As he turned into the Ramblas he was surprised to find that the top part of the central thoroughfare was covered in sand, and he saw two wagons filled with sand moving slowly down the promenade. On both sides of the wagons, workmen in blue smocks were shoveling and spreading the sand all around them, in accordance with instructions from an army officer on horseback.
Lawton knew enough about policing crowds to know that these preparations were intended to stop horses from slipping on the cobblestones, and he wondered what had happened to make them necessary. The plane trees provided some relief from the sun, till he reached the Conde del Asalto, and walked past a group of armed police standing on the corner to the Edén Concert. Outside the theater a workman was taking down Weygrand’s poster, and the box office attendant said that Weygrand had canceled his remaining concert due to illness and returned to Vienna.
Once again Lawton was not surprised to hear this. He was just walking away when it occurred to him that there was still one more thing he could do. He crossed the Ramblas and walked down to Escudellers, where he followed the curve around to the Veu de Catalunya offices. He was relieved to find Mata sitting in front of his typewriter in a half-empty room, with his sleeves rolled up, and Mata looked equally relieved to see him.
“Harry!” he said. “I thought you might have given up on us. I wouldn’t blame you.”
“I’ve been to Vernet-les-Bains,” Lawton replied. “Looking for Madame Babineaux.”
“Did you find her?”
“No. But someone found me.” Lawton lowered his voice as a typesetter hurried past in an ink-stained apron. “Can we go somewhere?”
“Of course.”
Mata picked up his jacket and put on his wide floppy hat. With his long beard and broad shoulders, he looked not unlike a Boer, Lawton thought, except that it was very difficult to imagine a man of his bulk and girth riding a horse. Mata picked up a newspaper from his desk and they went out to a café on the other side of the street, where Lawton told him about his visit to Vernet-les-Bains. He spoke angrily and quickly, and Mata looked increasingly incredulous when he described his visit to Foulkes’s house.
“You didn’t see who threw the grenade?”
“No. But whoever it was, Weygrand sent him. He’s the only one who knew I was going there. Do you have a pen and paper?”
Mata handed him his notepad and pen, and Lawton drew the cross with the wide points that he had seen in Foulkes’s basement. “Do you know what this is?” he asked.
“Of course,” Mata said. “It’s a Templar Cross.”
Lawton looked blank, and Mata explained that the Knights Templar was a crusading order from the Middle Ages. “I found it in Foulkes’s basement—on some robes,” Lawton said.
“What kind of robes?”
“Hooded robes. The kind monks wear.”
Mata looked confused. “So the basement was some kind of chapel?”
“Not any kind of chapel I’ve ever seen.” Lawton drew the black sun and told Mata about the bloodstained cup and the other objects and images he had found in Foulkes’s basement. “That’s the same sun I saw during Weygrand’s performance, and you see these spokes? The ones that look like lightning flashes? They’re called sig-runes. It’s some kind of Viking letter. I saw it in Foulkes’s laboratory in London.”
“You’re sure it was blood in this… chalice?” Mata asked.
“Definitely. Probably chicken’s blood. And look at these.”
Lawton showed him the photographs of the Explorers Club, and pointed to the sig-rune banner. “Here it is again. It was the stamp of Foulkes’s Greenland expedition in 1906. And this man—the one sitting next to Weygrand and Foulkes—he was on that expedition, too. I don’t know the others.”
“Well I can help you there,” Mata pointed to the thin-faced man with the silvery hair. “That’s the Count of Arenales.”
Mata explained that the Count of Arenales was the son of a well-known Catalan Indiano—an emigrant to the Indies, who had returned to Cuba in the middle of the previous century after selling his estates there. Arenales’s father had invested his money in armaments and textiles, and bought himself a title, but his famously eccentric son had not shown the same entrepreneurial instincts. In his youth Arenales had spent much of his time traveling abroad, and he had variously been an amateur scientist, an art critic, and a poet, who had published mediocre books with his father’s money that no one could remember. For some years he had lived a reclusive life, Mata said, dividing his time between his estate in the Collserola hills outside the city and a palace in the old city.
“Arenales is a crank,” he said. “And he’s also a terrible reactionary. He used to write occasionally for the Catholic papers. All strikes should be banned. No trade unions. Anarchism should be declared illegal, that kind of thing. He once wrote a piece saying women shouldn’t be allowed to ride bicycles because the seats might arouse them. I haven’t heard from him in years, and I heard he’d become a recluse. But if this Weygrand is the kind of man you say he is, he will know that Arenales has a lot of money. And Arenales would certainly be drawn to this kind of mystical quackery. But what kind of club is this Explorers Club?”
“I don’t know, but Weygrand does. And I need to find him. Foulkes’s bank has the address of this Babineaux woman. If I find that address I might be able to find Weygrand, but they won’t give it to me. Not without a police request.”
“From Inspector Arrow?”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll take you to him. But first I have something to show you.”
Mata unfolded the copy of La Veu de Catalunya and showed him the two-page article with the headline, QUI ES EL MONSTRE? The article had been modeled on the maestro Émile Zola, Mata said proudly, and he had written it in the same spirit of indictment. Lawton had no idea who Émile Zola was, but Mata proceeded to summarize the contents of his own article. In it he had rejected the idea that the Raval Monster was a beast, a vampire, or a member of the Church. Without naming names, he had accused certain police departments and individuals of failing to follow up lines of investigation and overlooking or ignoring autopsy results that made it clear that the victims had been killed by someone with a basic knowledge of medical science.
The article continued onto the next page, and Mata opened the broadsheet to reveal three close-up photographs of corpses lying on a mortuary slab. “The motive for these crimes remains unclear,” Mata read out aloud. “But the authorities appear to have little interest in investigating the murders of men and women who had little value to society when they were alive.”
Some of the other customers were staring at them now, and Mata lowered his voice and looked at Lawton expectantly. “Well?” he asked. “What do you think?”
“Very good.” Lawton was not entirely sure what Mata wanted him to comment on. “So you’re saying this Monster is some kind of doctor?”
“That’s what Quintana says. Someone who knows how to perform blood transfusions.”
“Has there been any reaction to this?”
Mata shrugged. “Not yet. But right now the city has other priorities. Tomorrow the workingmen’s federation is supposed to vote on a general strike against the war. The civil governor has banned the meeting, but this is Spain not England. Over there you allow things and they don’t happen. Here you ban something and it always becomes more likely. Let’s go and look for Mr. Arrow. You can keep this as a souvenir.”
Mata handed him the newspaper, and they walked back up the Ramblas once again and across the Plaza Catalunya and up the wide avenue of the Passeig de Gràcia till they reached the Novedades restaurant. Lawton followed Mata into an enormous hall filled with billiard tables and lined with cubicles where groups of mostly men were eating and drinking. They found Arrow at the far end of the hall, bent over one of the tables in a shirt and waistcoat, lining up his cue while his opponent and a small gr
oup of spectators looked on. Lawton noticed the little pile of money on a nearby table, and he and Mata watched as Arrow expertly racked up a break of forty. Lawton could see that Arrow was winning and it was not until the game was over and he had actually won that he came over toward them.
“Mr. Lawton,” he said. “Didn’t take you for a sporting man. Nor you Bernat, for that matter.”
“Could we have a word, Charles?” Mata asked.
Arrow made no attempt to conceal his displeasure. He pocketed his winnings and asked his friends to save the table for him, before following Lawton and Mata out onto the street.
“So what can I do for you gentlemen?” he asked.
“I need some information, sir,” Lawton said. “In connection with Randolph Foulkes.”
Arrow sighed. “I thought I’d made it clear that I have neither the time nor the desire to get involved in a private investigation.”
“I know that sir. But I believe Dr. Foulkes was defrauded and murdered. I believe the man who blew up the Bar la Luna may also be connected to the Raval Monster. In London this combination would normally attract the attention of the police.”
Arrow looked slightly more interested as Lawton told him what he knew about Weygrand and described the attempt on his life in Vernet-les-Bains.
“So you’re saying that this—mesmerist hypnotized Foulkes in order to take his money?” Arrow asked. “And then sent him to his death by putting him in a trance? That’s quite a story, Mr. Lawton. I’ve never heard of anything like it.”
“Nor have I,” Lawton admitted. “But Foulkes’s bank has the address of his female beneficiary. If I find her I’ll also find Weygrand. But they won’t give me her details. Surely there’s enough circumstantial evidence to justify a request from the Office of Criminal Investigation?”
“Such a grand title.” Arrow said sadly. “If only I’d been able to justify it. Very well, I’ll see what I can do. But you know the bank doesn’t have to accept such a request. If it refuses that’s as far as I’m prepared to take it.”
Lawton and Mata thanked him, and the two of them walked back down the avenue as Arrow returned to his billiards.
“So you got what you wanted,” Mata said.
“Like pulling teeth.”
“Would you like some supper Harry? Sylvia and the children are going to Puigcerdà tomorrow morning, but I’m sure we can find room for you.”
Lawton was hungry, but he felt wrung-out and dirty and his body seemed to hurt almost everywhere. Even above the noise of the city he could hear the whining in his head and he noticed that Mata’s face was beginning to blur. He tried to blink it away, but the Catalan’s face seemed to be cracking in front of him, like a jigsaw or a piece of shattered glass, and he felt suddenly unsteady on his feet. “Thanks,” he said. “But I could use an early night after what’s gone on the last two days.”
“Of course. But I have a proposal for you. Why don’t we go and visit Arenales tomorrow? He might be in the city. And perhaps we can try and find the anarchist Santamaría—the one who introduced our bomber to the foreign gentleman. Unless you have other plans?”
“No that’s fine.”
Mata looked pleased. “I’ll come by your hotel at one o’clock then.”
Lawton’s shirt was damp with sweat now and his collar felt tight as Mata’s blurred, bearded face continued to fragment in front of his eyes.
“Are you all right Harry?” Mata looked at him with concern. “You don’t look well.”
“Just the heat.” Lawton smiled weakly. “We’re not used to it in London.”
“Would you like a cab?”
“No need for that.” Lawton would not have minded a cab, but to accept Mata’s offer seemed like an admission of weakness, if only to himself. If he was to have a fit, he would rather have one surrounded by strangers than in the presence of someone he knew. But what he wanted most of all was to be alone in a room with four walls around him and no one to see whatever might be about to happen, and Mata’s concerned expression only made him more anxious to get away.
* * *
The gas lights were only just coming on as he hurried back down the Ramblas, past the carriages, bicycles, and trams moving past him in the dusk. Apart from the police and militia there were not many people on the thoroughfare, but now, for the first time since coming to Barcelona, he had the feeling that someone was following him. He stopped and pretended to peruse a kiosk that was still open, but no one stood out among the shadowy pedestrians moving back and forth. In London there was no reason for anyone to follow him, and he was more likely to be following other people. Yet even there he sometimes felt the same sensation, as if invisible eyes were pressing against the back of his skull. Now he was in Spain, and it was little more than twenty-four hours since Weygrand had sent someone to kill him, and only a few days since the police had nearly deported him. Even though the doctor was supposedly in Vienna, Lawton sensed the bulbous eyes staring fiercely down at him from some place he could not see. He cursed the illness that produced such foolish delusions, even as he quickened his pace to put them behind him.
By the time he reached the hotel the faces and objects around him had begun to regain their solidity. Even the sight of Señor Martínez’s smooth bald head and scowling visage seemed like a comforting barometer of normality. Señor Martínez did not ask where he had been, and Lawton did not tell him, but he was pleased to find that his old room was still empty. He took some of the potassium and broke open a vial of amyl nitrate before undressing for bed. That night he kept the wooden bit on the bedside table beside him as he lay on top of the sheets in his underclothes. Despite the heat and his aches and pains, he quickly fell asleep. In the mountains he had had no dreams at all. Now he dreamed of Boers in their bush hats, of horses surging through bloody rivers, and trenches filled with bodies. He was woken up by a gunshot. At first he thought he was still dreaming, then he sat up as the shots continued in a short ragged exchange before the night fell silent once again. His watch gave nearly four o’clock, and he lit a cigarette and listened to the streetcar rattling northward from the direction of the Ramblas.
He was just about to lay down again when he found himself thinking of the skulls and Bertillonage mugshots in Foulkes’s house and his museum-laboratory in London. In the same moment he thought of the pictures in Mata’s newspaper, and he felt suddenly awake. He lit the lantern and opened up the newspaper. Years ago he had attended a lecture at Scotland Yard, where a visiting professor of criminology had explained Cesare Lombroso’s theory of atavism. According to the professor, Lombroso believed that certain categories of crime were carried out by men and women who had slipped down the ladder of evolution and civilization to an earlier phase of human development. This reversion included not only ordinary forms of criminality and moral insanity but political crimes such as anarchism.
Lawton had never taken these theories seriously, but Foulkes clearly did, and the skulls of the murdered cretin and the anarchist Tosets would have fit easily into his collection. Tosets bore all the physical hallmarks of the Lombrosian throwback, with his wide brachycephalic skull, his close-set eyes, and large ears, while the cretin-boy Ignasi looked much like the other lunatics and idiots on the walls of Foulkes’s museum. The more Lawton considered these similarities, the more it seemed to him that he might have found an explanation for the Raval Monster.
18
Even before the first rays of sunlight lit up the square, he was already dressed and shaved. After breakfast he went to the post office to see if there were any telegrams or letters for him. There was only a telegram from Mrs. Foulkes acknowledging his identification of her husband’s body, and informing him that he was free to make this information public. Lawton sent a telegram to Maitland, reminding him of his earlier request about Foulkes and the Everdale Asylum, and returned to the hotel to wait for Arrow or Mata.
Mata arrived just after one o’clock. He looked more relaxed than the previous night, and said that his wife a
nd children had left for Puigcerdà with his in-laws. He was relieved they were out of the city, he said, the way things were, and he looked forward to joining them at the beginning of August. Lawton also hoped that he would be gone by then. Perhaps it was the aches and bruises, but he felt a sudden yearning for murky English light and summer drizzle, for a cup of tea and a Cornish pasty, for his gramophone records and his street full of Jews. To his surprise he even felt fondly toward the widow Friedman, and thought that he might send her a postcard. As they walked across the square, Lawton told Mata that he had received permission from Foulkes’s widow to make her husband’s identity public.
“I don’t think there’s much interest in the Luna Bar bombing now,” Mata said. “The Moroccan expedition is already coming apart. While you were away our reservists were attacked in Melilla. They’d only just got off the boat. I’m sure the workingmen’s federation will be thinking about that when—if—they vote today.”
“What if I told you the Explorers Club was murdering people in the streets of Barcelona? Would your readers be interested in that story?”
Mata stared at him. “Well I certainly would.”
“Have you ever heard of Cesare Lombroso?”
“Of course.”
“What’s the word for eugenics in Spanish?”
“Eugenesia. Hombre, I’m impressed. All Arrow thinks about is billiards and his pension. And some of our detectives here can’t even read, and here you are talking about Lombroso and eugenics. But what does this have to do with the Explorers Club?”
“A lot—I think. Last night I was looking at the photographs in your newspaper and I thought of the pictures and skulls in Foulkes’s study and the ones I saw in Vernet. Three victims: An anarchist, an idiot, and a prostitute. As you said yourself, people who had no value to society when they were alive.”
“I don’t see—”
“What is eugenics?” Lawton asked.