Olura

by Geoffrey Household

  Affronting the Civil Guard, they said, was a most serious offence. If my goddaughter or I knew where Dr Ardower was to be found, would we please advise him to get back over the frontier the way he had come and thus allow them to forget about the case?

  The effect of this news upon Olura was a most difficult mood compounded of joy and restlessness. She treated me, with the best will in the world, as an encumbrance like the table which got in the way of her stride and the meals which annoyingly had to be eaten at expected times. Her conversation—or that small part of it which deserved the name—largely consisted of impossible schemes for letting Ardower know that she was not in danger and would join him in France. She was also in that sensitive mood when, if a man makes a general remark of some intelligence, the woman takes it as a personal remark of none. Both sexes, if intelligent, passionate and in love, are sufficiently insane to be shut up like cats. In the case of Philip Ardower I should also block the chimney.

  This tension was abruptly dispelled by Lieutenant Gonzalez when he called on us a week later with the news that a South African named Piet Duyker had been brutally done to death not far from Deva and that Ardower was wanted for the murder. He had been deputed, I suppose, to confirm that Olura knew nothing. After a few formal questions to which she quietly replied, he sensibly left her alone.

  Over his usual sherry-and-bittters he gave me such details as he knew. It seemed very possible that the impulsive Ardower had committed this act of utter folly, believing the South African to be responsible for the unpleasant episode in the hotel. We both assumed that there had been a violent quarrel, though reserving judgment as to why either of them should have been so unwise as to accompany the other into remote fastnesses of the mountains.

  I at once telephoned Paris, requesting my partners to arrange for me a conference with one of the departmental heads of the Deuxième Bureau whose name I need not specify, and flew up the following day. The fate of Ardower did not concern me so much as the charges hanging over Olura and the threat of more to come. I desired to express my conviction that General Sauche and Major Vigny were responsible for the murder of Livetti and to enquire whether the French Government had or could be persuaded to have any interest in the case.

  My private démarche was politely rejected. In fact I was told that Sauche and Vigny could stew in their own juice until the Spaniards were tired of them. Paris was sensitive. The recent kidnapping from Germany of one of Sauche’s fellow conspirators had not only disturbed the love affair with the old enemy but had suffered a bad press throughout the world.

  I was not proposing any such illegalities, but was treated as if I had. The French have still a nineteenth-century view of the power of a financier. It was impressed upon me that Sauche must not on any account meet with an accident in Spain unless the innocence of the French Government were obvious and transparent. Private enterprise would be unhesitatingly denounced and the agents who were watching the General—discreetly and at a distance—would be instructed to prevent it. I was gratified to learn that there were such agents.

  I returned to Maya disheartened. There was no help to be had in Spain or France. The only consolation was that all the details of this unsavoury case still remained hidden in ministerial files. I thought it best that they should stay there. It would be time to call in our own diplomatic representatives when publicity was no longer avoidable.

  I told Olura something of my failure. She hardly listened. She was unrecognisable. Never had I seen her so serenely beautiful. There was about her an air of determination of having grown up and yet of feverish gaiety. I was haunted by some memory as exasperating as a tune which one can neither recapture nor dismiss. Her expression, I at last decided, had reminded me of contemporaries in 1917 returning from Paris leave to the Western Front.

  She told me that she had spent a day with Ardower. I exclaimed against such folly when he was wanted for murder. She laughed and replied that she was absolutely certain she had not been followed, and that I had better not know where he was. When she had soothed me into such a state of comfort that I was prepared to pay attention, she gave me Ardower’s version of the death of Duyker—which struck me, I must admit, as less credible than the commonsense account which Vigny had rendered to the police. It is always hard for my generation to believe in unprincipled private violence. God knows we have lived through enough of it! But a man is conditioned by the ethical standards prevailing in his youth.

  I said that the courts must decide between them. To that she replied that the courts couldn’t, because Ardower was dead. She rolled her eyes at me in a soulful imitation of grief which I found in poor taste.

  I shall now permit myself to adopt the convention of direct speech which Ardower frequently employed in his narrative and appears to me worthy of sedulous imitation. His verbatim records of conversations are of no value as evidence, being merely remembered and edited, but I find them economical.

  I answered her with some impatience, probably saying:

  ‘Well, who the devil killed him?’

  ‘I haven’t decided yet whether it should be Vigny or Duyker. I thought you might advise me. You’re such an old fox.’

  ‘But what, my dear Olura, is the point of deception which must inevitably be exposed?’

  ‘The point, Uncle Henry, is that these cruel crooks know that they cannot be found guilty of the murder of Livetti. But they can’t be at all sure that they won’t be tried for the murder of Philip.’

  I told her that the whole idea was preposterous, and that I flatly refused to tamper with the administration of justice.

  ‘Philip was shocked, too,’ she said.

  ‘If he’s the man I hope he is, he will take his medicine. The innocent have nothing to fear.’

  I have never seen her so angry. I really was not surprised that otherwise sane people suspected her of being an active anarchist. She let me have her opinions of Justice. In England ignorant magistrates, the Establishment, wigs, black caps, mediaeval mummery to stop fools thinking! In Spain Secret police, civil guards shooting on suspicion, torture, military law!

  ‘You’re all content to play at Justice by the rules!’ she cried. ‘Since they meant to kill Philip, what does it matter whether they did or not? They are guilty!’

  A wholly irrelevant tirade! The rules might or might not suit her, but the penalties for tinkering with them were severe. She would only make matters worse, I said. At least we could trust the Spanish censorship to handle so delicate a case with caution. And in London I would see that it was made clear to the papers that any unjustified inferences founded upon her behaviour in Spain would be met by ruthless actions for libel.

  She retorted that she did not give a damn for the Sunday papers, but that I did. Her attack on me was wholly unjustified. I will quote what I remember of it:

  ‘Think of all those faces in your club trying to pretend they have heard nothing! Olura again! Bribing Livetti to assassinate Leopold, or is it Sauche? Persuading her lover to commit murder to cover it up! Are you a fit person to conduct a great merchant bank, Uncle Henry, and advise the Church Commissioners on their investments? And the French partners! Méfiants! Beautifully, Frenchly méfiants! I’ve laid you open to blackmail by the enemies of de Gaulle. I’ll bet that has occurred to them already!’

  Naturally these considerations, though not so grossly exaggerated, had also occurred to me. I replied that I was prepared to excuse her hysteria, understanding that it was due to her anxiety for Dr Ardower, but that she would do better to appeal to my affection. What steps exactly did she wish me to take?

  ‘The first thing is to persuade Gonzalez that Philip is dead.’

  ‘I have no evidence.’

  ‘Those French agents you mentioned told you about a man with a bandaged head leaving the Zarauz villa.’

  I was on the point of asking how I was to know that so unlikely a story was true, but thought better of it. I remarked instead that what Gonzalez believed would depend on how well she could ac
t.

  ‘Don’t you remember me when you first arrived?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you see that time and again I have tormented myself with the thought that Philip might be dead? And now when he could be garrotted by the public strangler? I don’t have to act at all, Uncle Henry. I only have to be a half of myself.’

  With deepest misgivings I gave way to her. One should not at my age be faced by such a distasteful alternative—treachery to the enduring object of one’s senile love or treachery to one’s social responsibilities and class, which must be above suspicion. My only comfort was that I could swear I had been misinformed if the police unearthed Ardower alive and showing his teeth.

  When Gonzalez arrived in answer to my telephone call, I at least had no acting to do at all. I have no doubt that I appeared peevish, pompous and reluctant to talk.

  ‘You are aware that your Don Felipe is dead?’ I asked.

  He was greatly shocked—and not only, I think, because justice had been defeated. Half jealous, half romantically unbalanced, he was emotionally involved with his pair of criminals.

  ‘And Mlle Manoli?’ he asked anxiously.

  I showed him Olura. She sat at a corner of the terrace with her head on her arms, buried in the folds of a shabby red cloak which she insisted on wearing day in and day out. To my mind she looked far too much like a Racine heroine in the last five minutes of a Comédie Française production. But she knew her man. Gonzalez, all the unofficial part of him Latin to the core, expected a dramatic expression of grief from a dramatic character, and he got it. A simple English policeman would have suspected insincerity.

  He requested the source of my information. I made a mystery of it, implying that Mr Mgwana was bringing pressure to bear on the French Government and that I was collaborating with their agents.

  ‘I do not see what interest the French could have in Dr Ardower,’ he replied stolidly.

  ‘No? When your government has extended its hospitality to de Gaulle’s bitterest enemy? When you know that he and this Major Vigny planted Livetti on my goddaughter?’

  He did not cross-question me. The file at Police Headquarters which recorded my past activities and international connections was sure to mention that our Paris house was in close touch with some of the Ministers who preserved in the Chamber the tradition of French democracy. That I should have reliable informants was easily credible.

  ‘We cannot prove they planted Livetti,’ he said. ‘Mere suspicion against an incontestable alibi is not enough. Please go on, M. Sequerra.’

  ‘I will tell you exactly what happened. Ardower knew that one of them killed Livetti. When he illegally returned from France, he was fool enough to call at their villa in Zarauz and threaten them with exposure. I do not know what proof he had. Whatever it was, they decided that he was too dangerous and must be removed. Vigny and Piet Duyker took him out and executed him.’

  ‘Then who killed Duyker?’

  ‘Take your pick! Vigny to ensure his silence? Ardower in self-defence?’

  ‘What evidence have you?’ he asked.

  ‘That is your business. I am just a reliable and anonymous source. The police have only to find where Ardower’s body is buried. Meanwhile can you obtain authority to interview Sauche?’

  He replied that he did not need any, that he was still in charge of the Livetti case so far as it concerned Mr Mgwana.

  ‘Then I suggest, my dear lieutenant, that you tell him you are enquiring into the death of Philip Ardower. Ask him who was the person with a bandaged head who was driven away from their house about 10 p.m. on the night of August 25th! The reactions of Vigny and the general to that simple question may well interest you professionally.’

  Gonzalez extracted a few unimportant details from me, which I gave with reluctance as if fearing to compromise the French agents, and appeared very ready to show himself a more subtle interrogator than civil police. He delicately requested that I would present his compliments to Mlle Manoli whenever I considered that she was in a fit state to receive them.

  For the next three days Olura did not leave the villa. Once or twice the good Elena came up from the inn to visit her. I assumed that she had heard the news and, in the absence of any other female companionship, felt it her duty to support and comfort. They were both very clever and did not allow me to guess that Elena was in the secret.

  After the energy of her dispute with me Olura had become indecisive. She wanted to visit Madrid and interview that Mary Deighton-Flagg. She asked me if I believed Miss Deighton-Flagg’s story of the anonymous telephone call which sent her up hotfoot to the Hostal de las Olas. Ardower and Gonzalez had both accepted it; but Olura, who knew the women well, thought it most unlikely that she would spend money—which might compel a week without a decent meal—on so slender an indication of scandal. A lie was there anyway, she said, so we might as well have one which would be helpful.

  I could not pretend to be shocked, for I had heard exactly the same remark from a distinguished and punctilious Queen’s Counsel. So I merely suggested that the coaching of witnesses should be left to professionals. That she accepted this pusillanimous advice was, as I now see, due to her inability to tear herself away from the proximity of Ardower.

  Meanwhile Lieutenant Gonzalez had interviewed our two military men. He was under no obligation to report the result to me, but he did. He told me that they had been shaken by the news of Ardower’s death and that their reactions had been compatible with guilt, though perhaps to be explained by surprise. They blankly denied any knowledge of a bandaged patient in a car and could only repeat what they had already stated to the police: that Ardower and the late Piet Duyker had driven away from their villa in the late evening, that they believed Ardower had escaped from prison and wished to help him in spite of his aggressive and difficult attitude.

  Gonzalez was ill at ease. No doubt about it. I had the impression that the real purpose of his visit was to give me some friendly warning which conflicted with duty and could not, when it came to the point, be boldly inserted into a silence. I wondered if I were about to be interrogated in less pleasant surroundings by one of the chiefs of his service. He looked more than ever like the manager of a small branch bank refusing a perfectly sound loan because it was against the policy of head office.

  What he had heard from his superiors and did not say was only too plain next morning. A tedious functionary of police named Captain Feria called on us indecently early and arrested Olura on a charge of concealing a murder. I protested that if such was the prerogative and necessity of the Law, it should not have waited a month before taking action.

  Olura was magnificent. I half expected the practices of civil disobedience, but she showed the good civic manners of her upbringing. She was guilty of a felony and there was no more to be said. She absolutely refused to allow me to accompany her, saying that it was essential I should stay. She told me quickly that Ardower was on the Ermita and that Elena and Captain Allarte knew it. If there was little or no chance of her release I must try to get him out of the country.

  So long as she was unafraid, I was ready to remain in Maya. I looked forward to being free to dictate terms to Ardower and extracting for myself, once and for all, the truth. Meanwhile I thought it best to tell this Captain Feria that I refused to allow my goddaughter to be escorted only by a male policeman. He assured me that there was a respectable woman of his service in the car. I looked out, and there was. To my eyes she appeared considerably more villainous than he did.

  Left alone in the villa, I understood that there had been a covert declaration of war. Any more mention of bandaged heads, and Olura Manoli stands trial! It was highly improbable that Vigny and Sauche knew who was Gonzalez’s informant. Ardower, if he were after all alive? French agents? Myself? Even Mgwana? But whoever it was would appreciate the threat and perhaps offer a profitable bargain.

  I do not suggest for a moment that Sauche alone could influence the Spanish Ministry of Justice. What I think may have happened was that after Go
nzalez’s questioning he called on any friends he had in high places, pretending alarm and renewed plots against his life. That was the last straw for authorities already in the mood to damn all foreigners and their obscure intrigues. No doubt the excuses which had been good enough to keep the Italian Embassy quiet went nowhere near satisfying the Consul-General of South Africa. So the police were instructed to hold Olura until the truth came out for the crime to which she had confessed.

  I now return to the night of Ardower’s arrival. When I had left him to sleep, I cleared up the puddles on the floor and wondered for how long I could conceal his presence if I decided to do so at all.

  Our domestic arrangements were simple. A respectable old body named Concha came in every morning to clean the villa and prepare our breakfast and a light lunch. She then returned home to her own responsibilities. I could think of nothing better than to stage an exhibition of elderly distrust and obstinacy and refuse to allow her to clean Olura’s room on the grounds that it contained an unknown quantity of valuable dresses and jewellery.

  This worked more effectively than I had foreseen. She screamed at me that she had always been a woman of honour and that she would rather steal from the Church than the poor señorita. She left the house with dignity, bursting into tears as soon as she was in the garden. Poor woman! I would have trusted her with a bookmaker’s bag of unidentifiable pound notes.

  Meanwhile Ardower had stayed quiet in the locked room. When Concha had gone we had breakfast. I found him less emotional—indeed clear-sighted and self-disciplined. I was prepared unhesitatingly to sacrifice him if there were any benefit to be gained for Olura. Though my thoughts had remained unspoken, I was taken aback to find that he agreed with them. He declared that he could never marry Olura, that the vast discrepancy of income could only lead to never-ending strain on their mutual affection, however much each considered the susceptibilities of the other, and that though one could love eternally one could not be an eternal lover. He personally would prefer long absence studying the languages of Mgwana’s forests to a long sentence in a Spanish gaol, but one or the other was probably the right solution for Olura.