by Mathew Carr
“The science of improving the population by controlled breeding,” Mata replied.
“Yes, but that’s not all there is to it, is it?” Lawton said. “In one of Foulkes’s books he talked about removing or separating certain groups of people from society. What he called unwanted or inferior stock.”
“You’re not suggesting that’s what this Explorers Club has been doing?”
“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”
They had reached the Ramblas now, and Mata stood tapping his stick as they waited for a break in the traffic. “Well I know quite a few people who would like to eliminate the anarchists—my father-in-law for example. And some think we have too many feebleminded people in Spain. But nobody recommends killing them.”
“My father was a sailor,” Lawton said. “He traveled a lot. One time he told me about a tribe of savages in South America who killed their sick and old people. They just put them in a canoe and pushed them off a waterfall. Everyone accepted it. That was how the tribe survived.”
“Spain is a nation, not a tribe, Harry. And what about the bites and wounds? If all you want to do is eliminate unwanted people, you don’t have to do it like that. And why drain their blood?”
“Weygrand and Zorka talked about ancient gods during their show,” Lawton replied. “Some kind of kingdom where people could talk to each other with their thoughts. At the time I thought it was just gibberish. But the robes in Foulkes’s house? That symbol on the wall? What if this Explorers Club was some kind of cult or sect?”
“Like the Freemasons?”
“As far as I know the masons don’t go around murdering people. Not the ones I knew in London, anyway.”
“And you think your Dr. Foulkes was involved in this?”
Lawton shook his head. “Foulkes is dead. All these murders have taken place since he died. But maybe he knew what was going to happen and he didn’t want it.”
“And that’s why they killed him,” Mata said.
“After taking his money.”
“Well that does sound plausible,” Mata agreed. “But it does raise another question.”
“What’s that?”
“What in the name of all the devils has Barcelona done to deserve this?”
* * *
It soon became clear why Mata wanted a companion as they walked through the Raval. Even by day its evil-smelling streets made the East End look almost prosperous, but here the misery and wretchedness seemed even more glaring and pitiful beneath the cloudless blue sky. It did not seem the kind of neighborhood in which to find a palace, but Mata said many members of the old aristocracy had lived in the Raval before the extensions of the last century, and some still did, because their palaces were too large to sell or rent.
After about ten minutes they came to a cracked and slightly crumbling tenement building overlooking a narrow square. It looked no different from all the others, except for the large curved wooden doors that were wide enough to take a carriage. Mata said that this was the Arenales palace, and he knocked loudly on the great metal door knocker. There was no response, and the shuttered windows gave no sign of life. Mata knocked again, and once again there was no answer.
Lawton glanced up at the shuttered windows. For a moment he thought that someone was looking down at him through the slats. He could not be sure, and after what had happened after Weygrand’s performance he did not trust himself enough to voice it. After Mata knocked one more time without an answer he suggested that they look for the anarchist Santamaría.
As a policeman, Lawton had never had much to do with anarchists, who generally came under the jurisdiction of the Special Branch. His knowledge of anarchists and anarchism consisted mostly of what he had gleaned from Lombroso and the occasional stories that appeared in the press, which were almost always associated with attempted bombings and the discovery of bomb parts, or the occasional gunfight between foreigners and police. In Britain the Special Branch had the anarchists mostly under control, and that was partly because there were so few of them. From time to time he read of anarchist outrages on the Continent that reminded him of why such vigilance was necessary, whether it was bombings and assassinations or desperate suicidal shootouts with police that invariably seemed to involve Russians.
Now they walked back and forth through the streets on either side of the Ramblas, and visited anarchist cafés and taverns, printing presses and workingmen’s clubs. He was surprised to find that most of the men and women they met were not raving fanatics, but polite, mild-mannered, and ordinary working men and women who were mostly devoid of any obvious Lombrosian features.
“Very domesticated anarchists you have here,” Lawton observed.
“Not all of them,” said Mata. “We still have some wild men left. Bombers and crazies who dream of killing kings and heads of state and frying the bourgeoisie. But the propagandists of the deed are a minority now. The Barcelona anarchists are mostly syndicalist. Workers’ solidarity and the general revolutionary strike—that’s the strategy. Still the same utopian nonsense, of course. The same belief in human perfectibility. In this sense the anarchists are even more bourgeois than the bourgeoisie they want to overthrow.”
“They seem to like you, though.”
“They like me because I supported Ferrer,” Mata replied. “And anarchists are fond of poets. But Lerroux and the Radicals are the ones who control the Raval now. The anarchists are falling behind.”
As they walked through the neighborhood, Mata pointed out some of the Radical Party cafés, clubs, and neighborhood associations. Even in Lerroux’s absence, he said, his party remained the dominant political force in most of the workers’ districts, with an infrastructure that the anarchists could not match.
For the rest of the morning they continued to walk back and forth across the Ramblas, and each time they came to the thoroughfare there seemed to be more people running back and forth or conferring in huddled groups on street corners, and there also seemed to be more police. In the early afternoon they heard cheers coming from the Ramblas, and a group of workers came running toward them shouting “Strike! Strike on Monday!” at passersby and the people looking down from the balconies above them.
“Looks like the federation has made its decision,” said Mata.
They ate lunch at a café on the Ramblas as crowds of workers marched triumphantly past the police and Civil Guard, as if the strike had already begun. A group of workers were sitting at a nearby table talking excitedly about the strike, and Mata asked them what had happened. One of the men said that the federation had not been allowed to enter the meeting hall. Instead the delegates had taken the vote in small groups in cafés and even in the streets.
“That’s that, then,” Mata said to Lawton under his breath. “Expect all hell to break loose.”
After lunch they continued their search. A few anarchists had heard of Salvador Santamaría, but no one knew where he was. Finally Mata spoke to an anarchist he knew, who directed them to a bodega near the port where Santamaría was often found drinking. Once again they threaded their way through the Raval, until they came to a little tavern with a low vaulted ceiling and stained barrels of wine stacked up against the walls. At the back of the room a bearded man with a mane of white hair and the red cheeks of a long-term drinker was sitting hunched over a glass of sherry.
“Señor Santamaría?” asked Mata.
“Who wants to know?” the old man replied in a slurred, rasping voice.
“I’m Bernat Mata from La Veu de Catalunya.”
Santamaría looked unimpressed. “I don’t like separatists. Or newspapermen.” He looked at Lawton. “I’m not partial to coppers either.”
“I’m not a policeman.” Lawton said. “I’m a private investigator. From London.”
“From London! Not one of Mr. Arrow’s little helpers?”
“He isn’t.” Mata sat down at the table. “We just wanted to ask you some questions—about your friend Hermenigildo Cortéz.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Well that’s strange.” Mata pulled up a stool and Lawton did the same. “Because I understand that Hermenigildo used to be in the Sons of Whores—and that you were too.”
“Dunno who told you that.”
“The same person who told me he was visited by a foreign gentleman before his death. And that you were the one who introduced them.”
Santamaría’s face was blank. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s not what Hermenigildo’s woman told me.” Mata reached into his wallet. “Now she’s dead, too.”
“That’s too bad,” Santamaría said. “But it’s nothing to do with me.”
Mata laid some coins on the table. “Perhaps this will refresh your memory?”
Santamaría glanced at them disdainfully. “I think the Catalan bourgeoisie can pay a little more than that for my memories.”
Lawton pulled a silver twenty-peseta coin from his pocket and added it to the pile. Santamaría swept up the coins and slipped them into his pocket. “I don’t know who this foreigner was,” he said. “He just came in here last month. Said he’d got my name from an Italian comrade and he wanted someone to carry out an action in the city.”
“What kind of action?”
“He didn’t say. Just that it was going to be something big and he needed someone special to carry it out. Of course I thought it was a setup. And not a very good one. Anarchists don’t walk around in white suits—not the kind I respect, anyway. And they don’t walk around offering to pay people they don’t know to carry out ‘special actions.’ It was obvious he was some kind of provocateur.”
“So what did you tell him?” Mata asked.
“I sent him to Hermenigildo. As a joke! Hermenigildo was always talking about doing something big. He was going to shoot the king. Assassinate the captain-general. Throw a bomb at the opera house. We all thought he was a police agent, too. Or a fool.” Santamaría grinned and Lawton saw that most of his front teeth were missing. “Turns out Hermenigildo had a pair of cojones after all.”
“What was this foreigner’s name?” Lawton asked.
“He didn’t say. But I know he was German.”
“How do you know?” Mata asked.
“His accent. The Kaiser’s men are always whoring around the neighborhood. Believe me I know a German when I hear one.”
Lawton showed him the photograph of the Explorers Club and pointed out Weygrand. “Was this the man you spoke to?”
Santamaría peered at the picture, and Lawton saw that he had a cataract in one eye. “Not that one!” He jabbed a yellow forefinger at the bearded man with the duelling scar. “This is the man.”
“Are you sure?” asked Lawton.
“ ’Course I’m sure. I’m not blind.”
“Did you tell this to Lieutenant Ugarte?”
“Ugarte?” Santamaría held up his hands, and Lawton saw that his fingernails were missing. “The Brigada did this to me back in ’97, after Corpus Christi. The lieutenant was just a humble little torturer back then.” Santamaría’s face was stiff with hatred. “I haven’t seen him in at least two years. But I can tell you this. If I was ever still tempted to believe in hell it would only be in the hope that Ugarte might end up there. So no, señores, I have not spoken to him about anything.”
Neither Mata nor Lawton had any more questions, and they left Santamaría brooding at his table.
“As I told you, not all our anarchists have been tamed,” Mata said, as they stepped outside. “That bodega was one of Rull’s hangouts. The Ramblas bomber. He also used to be a member of the same group.”
“I’ve heard that name—from Inspector Arrow.”
“Arrow knew a lot about him. And he suspected even more.”
As they walked back through the backstreets Mata explained that Joan Rull I Queraltó was both an anarchist and police informer who had carried out dozens of bombings around the Ramblas, before his arrest and execution the previous summer. At his trial, Mata said, it was revealed that many of Rull’s bombings had been carried out in order to convince the police that his services were required.
“You mean he was blowing things up to get the police to pay him?” Lawton asked in amazement.
“That’s what the prosecutor claimed. And it wasn’t just Rull. His mother and his brother were helping him. They were pardoned, but Rull got the death penalty. Rull always insisted he was innocent, right up to the end. He was still saying it even with the garotte around his neck.”
“Did you believe him?”
“No. And nor did Arrow. And a lot of people agreed with him that there was more to it.”
“Such as?”
“So many possibilities! Some people said Rull was working for the Spanish state—planting bombs to discredit the nationalists and justify a state of emergency. Some said Catalan businessmen were paying Rull to discredit the Spanish government and prove that the state had lost control over the city—another justification for independence. Then were those who said Rull was working for both sides at the same time. There were even rumors that he was working for the last civil governor!”
“And what did you believe?”
“Like I told you, this is a complicated city, Harry. But I don’t believe Catalans would pay a man like that to blow up our people. Catalonia doesn’t need men like Rull. Spain does.”
Just then Lawton heard a murmur of voices and the sound of someone coughing behind him. He glanced around and saw a gang of about ten young men coming toward them. All of them were wearing loose-fitting trousers, clogs, and floppy caps, and some were carrying wooden clubs and knives.
“I think we have trouble,” he said, as five more youths came sauntering toward them from the opposite end of the street. Mata looked around at the oncoming groups with a fearful expression. One of the hooligans was beating a club against the palm of his hand with a slack grin, and Lawton thought that he must be the leader. It was not a promising situation, and he was still trying to think how to get out of it when he noticed that one of the nearby doors was open.
“Run!” He pushed Mata toward the doorway. He had just managed to reach it himself when the leader came running toward them. Lawton swung around and ducked to avoid the circular swing of the club, which smacked into the wall. Before the hooligan could raise it again Lawton delivered a sharp jab to his abdomen, and then brought his knee up to his face as he doubled over. The leader let out a howl and fell back, holding his bleeding nose, as Lawton jumped back into the open doorway and slammed the door behind him.
The hooligans surged in a pack toward the doorway, and one of them forced his club in through the gap as Lawton tried to push the door shut. Lawton wrenched it from his hand and ran back into the hallway. Mata had already reached the next landing and was staring helplessly down at him. Lawton had forgotten all his pains and bruises now as the hooligans came pouring into the building. Outside in the street he knew he would have had no chance against them, but the narrow hallway and the stairway gave him a temporary advantage as he backed up the stairs, lashing out with the club and taking care to keep his distance so that they could not drag him down.
Mata was clearly not intending to make any contribution to this, and Lawton was wondering how long he could keep the gang at bay by himself, when he heard the leader calling them back out into the street. The gang immediately withdrew, and Lawton heard their footsteps trail away as he stood panting in the gloom. He waited until the noises had receded before going back downstairs. The street was deserted now, and it was only then that Mata emerged from the building behind him, looking relieved and also slightly awed.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,” he said. “I’m a man of the pen not the sword. But you—”
“We all have our talents,” Lawton said. “Any idea who they were?”
“A TB gang,” Mata replied. “They’ve all got tuberculosis. There are lots of these gangs in the slums. They’ll be lucky to make it past twenty-five
. They don’t care what they do. Mostly they just rob people.”
“Well they weren’t trying to rob us.” Lawton’s shoulder was aching now and he stretched his arm to relieve it. “Someone sent them to do more than that. And that means Weygrand is still in Barcelona.”
* * *
From the back seat of the Delaunay-Belleville, the man in the top hat and fur-collared coat stroked the leather seat with a gloved hand as the automobile throbbed beneath him. Below him he could see the spiked cathedral spire and the factory towers, and the chain of streetlamps that stretched from the mountains to the sea. Beyond the port the lights of fishing boats sparkled like fireflies as they headed out toward the dark horizon. Most of the inhabitants of Barcelona would be settling down for the night now, ready to begin another day that would be no different from all the others. There were millions of people like them all over Europe, sleepwalkers living lives without purpose in their teeming anthill cities. They copulated and gave birth. They scrabbled for their daily bread in the slums or wallowed in wealth that they had not earned or fought for. Incapable of nobility or grandeur, they lived out their insect lives without having done a single thing to deserve the gift of life.
The man in the Delaunay-Belleville knew that this was not his role. He was fully awake and fully conscious. Unlike the insectoid swarm down below, his life had meaning, greatness, and beauty. Even now, as he looked up at the fortress and saw the two men coming toward him, dragging a third man between them, he had no doubt that his name would be remembered. The prisoner’s hands were bound behind him and his head was lolling on his chest as the driver got down from the front seat.
The driver opened the side door without a word, and the two men brought their prisoner to the side of the car. The man in the top hat reached out and held the captive’s head upright in the palm of his hand. He turned it briefly from side to side, and then gave a nod of approval. The two men hauled the prisoner up into the back seat, where he sat with his head slumped forward and turned slightly to one side, like a drunken reveller returning from a party. The driver handed an envelope to one of the two escorts, and they walked back to the castle. Behind them the driver returned to the wheel and drove the Delaunay-Belleville slowly back down the hill.