Tour de Force

by Christianna Brand

  The teeny knock was not answered, nor were teeny cries of enquiry and concern and gradually heightening alarm. Fernando shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘She is in her bathroom or she has gone out.’

  ‘I hope she’s all right,’ said Leo Rodd again.

  Louli Barker leaned back on her elbows against the rail of the verandah. ‘Why don’t you just look in and see?’

  ‘Well, but, ducky, would she like that …?’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ said Louli. ‘Either she’s there or she isn’t. If she’s there, why doesn’t she answer? If she isn’t, she won’t know that we looked.’ The sun gleamed through the tangle of the curly red hair tossing about her shoulders; against the white satin of the Bikini, her skin was almost as smoothly white. She twirled the gay red plastic bag by its gay red strings. ‘Go on, Miss Trapp, I dare you – have a bash!’

  A crimson shawl had been thrown across the bed so that, with her dark hair, still wet from the bathe, spread all about her head, she looked like some modern Ophelia afloat on a lake of blood. But the four tall posts, the looped back white curtains, made of the bed a catafalque; and upon the catafalque, she had been ceremonially laid out, pale face composed, pale feet placed neatly together, pale hands loosely clasped upon her heart: wrapped in a long white garment like a shroud, laid out ceremonially upon a crimson shawl, with something that looked like crimson rose petals scattered upon her breast. For a moment you might think it some monstrous joke, might suppose it simply a girl asleep on a curtained, four-poster bed: until you caught sight of the dagger handle between the lax fingers – and saw that the crimson rose petals were not rose petals at all.

  Chapter Five

  COMMUNICATIONS on the island of San Juan el Pirata are inclined to be slow; but there is as a last resort the telefono and by this extravagant means a message was finally conveyed to El Gerente de Politio just as he was about to board his ship with the rest of the smuggling fleet. The Gerente, torn between regret and excitement, collected his men from their various vessels and despatched them off home to change back into uniform. All except Jose: Jose had better stay behind and prepare Number 1 cell for reception of an inmate – the bales of illicit tobacco could go into the corridor, the hashish had better be put in the safe if it could be crammed in and the coffee must stay where it was – it wouldn’t leave much room but criminals couldn’t be choosers. The goats must certainly be accommodated elsewhere. If the she-goat had kidded, Jose must use his discretion as to what had best be done with mother and child, but they couldn’t go into the office, it didn’t look well.… Puffed up with these triumphs of organization, he hurried off home to change too.

  Meanwhile, at the hotel, aghast and bewildered, the handful of tourists who – however slight the acquaintance – had best known the dead girl, huddled together in the chill shade of her murder. Horrible, terrifying, shocking, incredible – but true! At half-past four on that sun-baked afternoon, she had left them, walking off, splendid and vital in her blue-black bathing suit, up the narrow path to her hotel room. Less than three hours later, they had found her there – dead. ‘And it was I who made her go,’ sobbed Miss Trapp, sick with the shock and distress of it. ‘If I hadn’t made her go …’

  ‘Don’t upset yourself, Miss Trapp, think rather of me who must arrange all these matters. The Company – the Company will want investigations,’ stammered Mr Fernando, grey to the gills.

  ‘So incongruous,’ said Mr Cecil, wretchedly. ‘Lying there dead, with all that sunshine outside!’

  ‘And the dagger still – still …’

  ‘A dagger like the ones we bought in the town.’

  Louvaine sat white and silent in her wooden armchair, out on the flower-gay terrace, not a stone’s throw from where the girl lay dead – dead and murdered, laid out ceremonially on a four-poster bed. ‘I suppose I was the last person who ever spoke to her.’

  ‘Except for the murderer,’ said Leo quickly.

  ‘Except for the murderer. But otherwise – I was the last.’

  ‘I don’t know that I’d insist upon it, ducky; considering the nature of the conversation. I mean,’ said Mr Cecil, looking round with rising excitement, ‘I suppose we’re all suspects now, my dears, aren’t we?’

  ‘Together with some fifty other souls,’ said Leo Rodd. He looked for confirmation to Inspector Cockrill. ‘I should think the local talent will find itself a trifle daunted when it does arrive.’

  The Gerente, marching in some time later at the head of a straggle of men, was inclined to agree with him. The choice of possible culprits amounted to sixty – a depressed and anxious bunch of British tourists, assorted guests of various nationalities and fifteen members of the hotel staff. These last, however, he speedily dismissed with not a stain on their characters: they were natives of San Juan, the men, out of the tourist season, valued members of the smuggling fleet, and men and women alike very properly provided with two hundred pelire apiece, done up unobtrusively in little paper packages; and loud with promises of more to come if that were not enough. He sent them all off rejoicing. So! Ten minutes work and already the list was reduced to forty-five. It only showed what a man could achieve, who understood his job. He eyed the rest of them speculatively.

  A senor stepped forward, very splendid, with teeth of solid gold, weaving his way with rigidly outstretched arm, dividing up the company into two uneven clumps like a host about to institute some intricate drawing-room game for the reluctant amusement of his guests, and broke into eloquent Spanish. The Gerente, who spoke only the Spanish-Italian argot of the island, understood about half of what he said; but it did seem that the larger group had been, without possibility of doubt, far away from the premises at the relevant times, on a jaunt to the palatio, safe from suspicion beneath the very wing of El Exaltida himself. They would have to be released. He made a tiny but unmistakable sign to the beautiful senor with the golden teeth and the senor sighed and regretfully shook his head. It was bad, but it only confirmed his doubts: he must positively let forty rich suspects go and not a pelire the richer himself.

  And now they were seven. In the centre of the great, cool, whitewashed room with its shining wood floor and elephantine Iberian-Abbotsford furniture, Fernando argued, his arms nearly wrenched out of their sockets by the eloquence of his gesture. The rest drew together in a sort of protective huddle, Cockie resentful and cross, the Rodds and Miss Trapp very grave, Mr Cecil and Louli gone suddenly madly gay. ‘I feel,’ said Leo Rodd to Cockie, struggling with his one hand to light a cigarette, ‘that all this is coming unpleasantly near.’

  Cockie produced tobacco and paper and rolled a cigarette for himself: ‘It’s as well to get rid of the lot that were up at the palace. They’re obviously out of it,’

  ‘Still, while they were in it, they did serve to complicate the issue.’

  Cockie looked up, bright eyed, over the first puff of his cigarette, ‘Do you want the issue complicated?’

  ‘I only think,’ said Leo, ‘that all this may be very comic-opera and engaging, but it’s too terrifying for words.’

  Mr Cecil and Louli burst into their patter. But their hats! Their cloaks! Those guns, my dear! That dog!

  Their hats were apparently made of black patent leather, with circular crowns and circular brims, and the circular brims were broken sharply across the back and turned up flat against the circular crowns. The cloaks were of midnight blue, too utterly dramatic, said Mr Cecil, only just the wrong length to be really smart. They were worn over dirty white trousers with cylindrical legs; and even dirtier bare feet, except in the case of the Gerente whose dignity was served by the addition of a pair of filthy white tennis shoes. They carried what appeared to be flintlocks, splendidly chased in silver and black. The dog was a fearsome Alsatian bitch with an angry eye, obviously bred on a diet of human flesh. ‘My dears, up to one’s room for one’s sketching books this minute, if only one dared!’

  ‘Well, I agree with Leo,’ said Helen Rodd. ‘I think it’s not funny
at all, but most terribly sinister.’

  ‘You surely don’t imagine …?’ said Miss Trapp, mud-grey once more.

  ‘I just didn’t care for the look of El Exaltida’s prison.’

  ‘What would our position be?’ said Leo Rodd to Cockrill. ‘Are we subject to Spanish law or Italian or what?’

  ‘You’re subject to the law of San Juan el Pirata,’ said Cockie. ‘If a crime is committed here, it’s their affair.’

  ‘But surely international law … I mean, our Government …’

  ‘That is international law,’ said Cockie. ‘It’s on their soil and it’s their affair. The British Government will no doubt represent and request and all the rest of it, but the Exalteeder or whatever he calls himself, doesn’t give a tuppenny damn about the British Government, I don’t suppose, or any other government: so I quite agree with you, it’s not funny at all.’ He added with some relish that the penalty for murder here, was hanging, same as at home; and that after the intervening weeks of Juanese justice, it was understood to come under the general heading of a Merciful Release.

  In the centre of the room, Fernando continued to argue, flinging expostulative arms. Now and again he pointed to one or other of them, identifying, explaining, defending – promising? ‘Really,’ said Louli, ‘did you ever feel more like slightly unsaleable fatstock at a market fair? “What – twenty pelire for that poor spavined old scrag …?” Oh! – sorry, Miss Trapp, I didn’t mean you.’

  ‘I hope not, Miss Barker,’ said Miss Trapp icily. Inspector Cockrill hoped so too. It was not like Louli to be unkind; not that kind of unkind.

  ‘The Gerente is looking at me rather doubtfully,’ said Cecil. ‘What can Fernando be saying?’

  ‘Oh, yes, and Inspector, now it’s you. He’s looking at you most oddly!’

  Inspector Cockrill was not used to being looked at oddly. He arose, stubbed out his cigarette and marched across to Fernando. Behind his back, Cecil and Louvaine went into a comedy act, thumbs into armholes, knees bend, shoot out one leg, ’ere, ’ere, ’ere, wot’s all this going on? It appeared to afford them a good deal of entertainment; the rest of the party contained their mirth without any visible effort.

  Mr Fernando was exhausted. He wiped the sweat from his glistening brow with the sleeve of his summer suit. ‘Inspector – I fight. I fight for my party, I fight for my helpless ones.’ He made an encircling gesture with his arm, though he had hardly strength left to lift it. ‘All my tourists, they are my people, they are in my care.’

  ‘Never mind the others,’ said Cockie crossly. ‘You fight for the ones that were not at the Palacio. That’s us.’

  Fernando lifted his arms and flopped them down again immediately, though whether from sheer despair or because he could no longer hold them up, Mr Cockrill could not discern. ‘Inspector – I tell you: I fight. I fight for Mr and Mrs Rodd: the senor has but one arm, poor man, the senora is beautiful – be merciful, Gerente, I say, and let them go. Besides, they are rich, and shall they not be grateful? And the young senorita, a great book writer, Gerente, and she also is beautiful and also rich. And the pale senor, like a lady, he has many shops in London, shall he not send you dresses, Gerente, when he gets safely home, beautiful dresses for your Inez, your Isabellita, your Carmen, your Pepita … I searched for the name of his wife, Inspector, you understand, but his Spanish is not good, he thought that I told him the poor Mr Cecil is the father of many daughters.’ He lifted his weary shoulders only half-way to his ears. ‘However, it was the same in the end. The Gerente too has many daughters. Also I told him that Mr Cecil is rich.’

  ‘And Miss Trapp is rich?’ said Inspector Cockrill.

  Fernando looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘Ah – Miss Trapp. You understand, senor, that with Miss Trapp it is a matter of delicacy. The Gerente is sympathetic towards Miss Trapp.’

  ‘Well, I trust the Gerente is sympathetic towards me,’ said Cockie. ‘Nobody need think I’m rich.’

  ‘No, no, Inspector, but you are agente de politio, to him you are a brother.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Cockie. He looked about him and finally enquired, delicately: ‘Then who …?’

  Fernando looked about him too, cheerfully smiling. ‘There are still …’ But there was no one. His smile grew less, he began to tick them off rather feverishly on his fingers. ‘Mr and Mrs Rodd; yourself, Inspector, Miss Trapp, Mr Cecil, Miss Barker …’ There was nobody left. Fernando had fought for his helpless ones, not wisely but too well, and now was a helpless one himself; and what friend would fight for him? The Gerente made a sign to his men and two of them stepped forward purposefully. Fernando said in a voice that was suddenly sharp with fear: ‘Inspector – he says that I shall go with them.’

  ‘Go with them? But why you?’

  ‘After all,’ said Fernando, reasonably, ‘there is no one else.’

  ‘Then he must begin again.’

  ‘Why should he?’ said Fernando, quite seeing the Gerente’s point, ‘when he has me?’

  Inspector Cockrill thought swiftly. ‘Tell him – point out to him that if you aren’t here, there’ll be no one to interpret for him.’

  Fernando translated. ‘He says that the Hotel Manager, El Diretore – he knows some English.’

  ‘Tell him I don’t understand the Dirrytory’s English. If I can’t have you to interpret, I shan’t be able to assist him with his investigations.’

  Fernando looked unhappy. ‘Inspector, he replies that he does not need you to assist him with his investigations.’

  ‘Have you explained to him who I am? Tell him I’m a police inspector, tell him that’s a very high and important position, higher than his own …’

  But Fernando was already telling him. He looked more unhappy than ever. ‘Inspector, he says – he says that you are too old.’

  ‘Too old,’ said Cockie, in a voice of doom.

  ‘In San Juan, a policeman of such rank would have retired long ago, Inspector, very rich. All policemen of any rank are rich – the smugglers must pay them bribes and with the bribes they may buy more boats and need not themselves pay bribes. It is only because of so many daughters that El Gerente himself has not retired; and,’ said Fernando, frankly, ‘it can be seen that he is much, much younger than yourself, Inspector.’

  ‘You mean that he does not believe that I am a policeman?’

  ‘A policeman, yes; but – what is a policeman? That you are a Gerente, higher than El Gerente himself – well,’ said Fernando, regretfully, ‘no.’

  Inspector Cockrill decided that the time had come when he must speak – and speak in Spanish. He stepped forward, looked into the Gerente’s beaming face and, banging himself smartly on the chest, said very loudly: ‘Me – Scotalanda Yard!’

  The Gerente’s face lost its complacency. ‘Scotalanda Yarrrrrda?’

  ‘Very big,’ said Cockie, spreading his arms like some euphoric angler looking forward to the day’s catch, ‘very important. Importanta!’ He had been to Scotland Yard perhaps half a dozen times in his life, on visits to other people.

  The Gerente gave Fernando an enquiring glance. ‘Si, si, si,’ said Fernando, eagerly. ‘Scotalanda Yarda!’

  It was electrifying. The Gerente fell upon Cockie’s neck and embraced a blood brother, bussing him upon his withered cheeks till, in their seats in the stalls, Mr Cecil and Louli had to stuff their handkerchiefs into their mouths, to stifle the hysteria of their laughter. But Inspector Cockrill, extricating himself from the enveloping folds of the Gerente’s cloak, agreed with Leo Rodd: it might be all very comic-opera and amusing, but in its very absence of all sense, all reason, all responsibility, it was so utterly sinister as to turn him cold with fear; murder and the suspicion of murdering, were not, after all, very funny.

  Mr Fernando did not think so either. He stood there between his squat guards, not smiling; and suddenly even the giggles in the background ceased. Brown faces, black-whiskered as brigands, shadowed beneath shiny black-mackintoshy hats; blue cloaks, mysterio
usly folded, glint of gold ear-rings against swarthy cheeks, glint of silver chasing upon evil glint of steel: bare brown feet shuffling beneath grimy stove-pipe trousers – shuffling in eagerness to be off and away, off and away with the prisoner, any prisoner, the innocent, the guilty, anyone who would serve to string up, some convenient day, upon the old gallows in the market-place; or moulder away, forgotten, in the dank, bottomless grave of the black old fortress on its rocky cliff. For questioning? There would be no questions, or none that the Gerente, in his need for a victim, would not ask and answer to his own satisfaction; no evidence taken, or none recorded; no public trial, unless, possibly, the Gerente should think it politic to get hold of his friend the Magistrato and agree to squeeze one in, some time before Easter – there is always a little spare time about then for, though it would be too much to ask the Juanese to give up smuggling for Lent, it is a fact that, profoundly pious, they do almost universally refrain on all the special days of fasting and abstinence and right through Holy Week …

  ‘Tell him,’ said Inspector Cockrill firmly, ‘that we will go up to the girl’s room now, and I will assist him in his investigations. Tell him that you will come with me as interpreter.’

  It was half past nine. Outside on the terrace, the Stainless Ones were at the trough, heads down, eyes bright with divided excitement and simple greed. Leo Rodd summoned El Diretore who arrived pale and breathless, in evident expectation of being murdered on the spot if he failed in giving immediate attention to these foreign savages. ‘We can’t eat out there,’ said Leo Rodd to him, gesturing towards the diners on the terrace. ‘Put a table on the balcony above and send something up to us there. And send up some wine, molto vino or whatever you call it, and a round of double Juanellos, or whatever anyone fancies.’ He led the way through into the central hall and up the stairs, through his and Helen’s room and so out on to the balcony. ‘We’ll make them fix us up in this corner here, and then we can be out of the way of those goopers, and at the same time keep an eye on the Inspector and his boy friend and their goings-on.’ To Miss Trapp’s anxious quackings he replied briefly that they were not yet murdered and while they yet lived, they must eat. ‘My dear, I do think your boy friend is so masterful,’ said Cecil to Louvaine. ‘Someone has to act,’ said Louli shortly.