“How about the Monico?” he suggested. “I hardly know London at all but a friend of mine told me that it was quite nice.”
“I don’t know much about London either.” she replied, “and I’m quite content to go anywhere you suggest.” Actually she thought his choice a happy one as it assured her a good dinner, but she would not be running as much risk of recognition there as she would have in some places he might have named.
“And now what shall I call you? For you José sounds strange—since it is a man’s name.”
“I do a man’s work,” she smiled.
He gave a quick glance round, and seeing they were alone in their corner, went on quickly, “Well, I shall call you Doña José. I wonder if you feel about it as I do. This ‘Comrading’ each other all the time and all the other silly jargon these people think it necessary to use makes me positively sick. And I’m none the less an ardent Socialist for that.”
She nodded. “It’ll be rather a relief to talk without the ritual trimmings for a change. You don’t need to tell me you’re as sound as the rest, either. Anyone who’s heard you speak could never doubt that.”
He laughed and it was a deep joyous laugh that gave her a new, happy feeling. “I’m terribly sorry I had to go against you on that motion but we’ve just got to have those Russian planes. Without them we wouldn’t last a week.”
“Well, it’s settled now,” she shrugged. “You must have had a ghastly time in Oviedo.”
Cristoval Ventura’s nice face suddenly went grim. “We did. The worst came after we were forced to throw in our hand, though. The reprisals were brutal beyond belief. My elder brother’s an advocate. He didn’t take part in the fighting. He’s not even one of us, but he made a public protest about the atrocities those devils were inflicting on the wretched miners who’d fought so gamely. The soldiers got him and while some of them held him down on the floor of his office others smashed both his legs to pulp with the butt-ends of their rifles. They did it, they said, so that anyhow he should not be able to stand up when he opened his mouth again.”
“How utterly horrible,” she whispered.
“That’s why,” he went on, “we’ve got to be dead certain next time. It’s victory or death. There can be no half-way and we’ll have to use every devilish weapon the death experts can give us—even poison gas, if need be.”
She wore little make-up at such meetings and her face paled a trifle. “No, not gas,” she pleaded.
“Listen,” he gripped her shoulder. “I’m young yet. There’re a thousand things I want to do and see before I die. But somehow we’ve got to protect the things that are so much more important than ourselves from being trampled in the mire. The only way to do that is to root out the absentee landlords and the Church once and for all. This time we fight with the gloves oft and, much as I love my life, I’ll willingly give it for all that’s best in Spain.”
Lucretia-José raised her hand and laid it on her heart as she said firmly, “Yes. It means a fight to the finish and I too am prepared to give my life for all that is best in Spain.”
He could not know that beneath her dress there lay a small hard object and that she had taken her oath upon a Crucifix.
Chapter V
The Other Side of The Picture
Dinner that night at the Duke’s flat was not a happy meal. Richard Eaton, and his wife, the adorable Princess Marie-Lou, whom they had brought out of Russia with them, were staying with him for a few days as they often did when in London. His guests always looked forward immensely to the quiet evenings they spent with the Duke. De Richleau knew so many interesting people and could discourse with wit and erudition upon a thousand topics.
Normally it was a joy to listen to his beautifully modulated voice recounting amusing incidents or calling up great figures out of the past to relive the secret history that lay behind the shaping of the modern world; but on this occasion he was sanity distrait. He was as solicitous as ever for his guests and, while the well-chosen courses came and went, talked easily and pleasantly, but both of them knew him too intimately to be deceived. The spark of vitality had suddenly gone out of him and they became certain he was hiding some acute worry.
When they moved into the big sitting-room little Marie-Lou went straight over and perched herself on his knee. “What is it, Grey-Eyes darling?” she asked tenderly.
The Duke smiled ruefully. “Do I show it as badly as all that? I’m so sorry. The two of you had better go out somewhere amusing. I’m not fit company for a dog this evening. I’ll feel better tomorrow, I hope, but tonight I’m just a very tired and sad old man.”
“Nonsense,” Richard protested. “Tell us what’s worrying you and you’ll feel better at once.”
“Yes, please tell us, Grey-Eyes,” coaxed Marie-Lou.
“No, no,” he shook his head. “I refuse to let you two young people even hear about this wretched business.”
Richard stood up, turned the key in the lock of the door, and slipped it into his pocket. “Best get on with it,” he said curtly. “You’re not going to bed till you do.”
De Richleau remained silent for a moment. Apart from his great friendship with Rex and Simon both had been under an obligation to him; he had risked his own neck and sanity to save one from life imprisonment and the other from madness. As both were single he had had no hesitation in approaching them, but Richard was married, which had ruled him out from the beginning. Even so, if he were told about the affair might he not feel it up to him to volunteer his aid? No, decided the Duke. Not only does being married put him in a different category but I have no claim on him whatsoever. I can tell him the mess I’m in safely enough without embarrassing him, and Marie-Lou is much too sane to allow him to make any quixotic gestures.
“Very well,” he said, “since you insist. I’ve pledged myself to do something I can’t carry out and, if that were not enough, two out of my four best friends have let me down.”
“Good God!” exclaimed Richard. “You can’t mean Rex and Simon?”
“Who else? Since you are the other two.”
“But how frightful for you!” Marie-Lou’s great violet eyes stared in utter dismay from her little, heart-shaped face.
“It’s impossible,” Richard insisted. “There must be some mistake, but let’s hear about it from the beginning.”
Marie-Lou flung a cushion on the floor near the Duke’s feet and snuggled down with her dark head against his knee. She was Very small, but her well-covered figure was perfectly proportioned and her husband was not the only person who considered her the most perfect thing he had ever seen. Richard, his brown hair brushed smoothly back, sat forward in an arm-chair opposite them, a look of extreme gravity on his nice, clear features.
“Trouble is brewing in Spain,” the Duke began, “and for you to understand the situation I must tell you a little about what’s led up to it.
“As far back as 1924 Spain was on the verge of revolution. With the King’s connivance Primo de Rivera brought off his coup d’état. Primo was a sound man but he antagonised both the Liberals and the Army leaders. In consequence, when he fell from power in 1930 the King, who had sponsored his Dictatorship, found himself utterly alone. Fifteen months later he was again faced with open rebellion. To quell it without shedding blood he left his country.
“As was to be expected after the fall of the Monarchy the first General Election gave the Liberals an easy win, but the bills they passed against the Church, and the natural conservatism of Spain, soon brought about a swing of the pendulum. At the second General Election in 1932 the Conservatives came back with a huge majority.
“All might have gone well then but for the extremists. They refused to accept the verdict of the nation and engineered a succession of general strikes which culminated in an armed rising by the miners of the Asturias in 1934. It was financed b Moscow and led by professional terrorists. Over seven hundred buildings in Oviedo were deliberately fired during the week the Reds held the city, and hundreds o
f property-owners were butchered in their homes. This Bolshevik rising was suppressed and a number of its leaders executed.
“Last February a third General Election was held and the Liberals now have a majority in the Cortes again. But this is not just a normal swing of the pendulum. If the votes of all those who are for the Right had been cast for one party they would have far out-numbered their opponents. As it is they are divided among themselves whereas, in the last election, all the Left parties sank their differences to form a Frente Popular. It is their vote which has put in the Liberals, who are only men of straw.
“Now, the real masters of the new Government are demanding their pound of flesh. They insist that all those who were responsible for suppressing the Asturias rebellion, officers and police chiefs who only did their duty as well as the Ministers who ordered out the troops, shall face a firing squad. Do you realise what that means?”
Richard made a wry face. “By Jove, yes! If the Government give way no Spanish officer or official will ever give or accept an order to suppress a riot again. Why, damn it all, to do so would be as good as signing the warrant for their own execution the moment the Government under which they were acting went out.”
“Exactly. If these representatives of law and order are flung to the mob it strips all future protection from every honest man in Spain. Small shopkeepers and millionaires alike will be at the mercy of any gangster who cares to blackmail them and every crowd of hooligans which decides to beat them up.”
“What happens if the Government stands firm?” Richard asked.
“The extremists mean to seize power by force; knowing that the Liberals they’ve made their cat’s-paws haven’t the strength to resist them. The Anarchists and other rabble have planned a rising for early in August.”
“Well, what’s the remedy?”
“The other side mean to strike first. It’s now the 2nd of July. About the 28th the Army leaders intend to stage a coup d’état and save the country by taking over the Government. However, if certain of the commanders fail to act at the hour agreed they may find themselves overwhelmed by the Reds, who have secret stores of arms.”
“And where do you come into all this?”
“In a private bank in Madrid there are eighty-two million pesetas in gold bars. Should Madrid fall into the hands of the mob they will certainly confiscate it. The only way to protect it was to make it over to a British subject. I have accepted this trust and I am going to Spain to see that this huge sum is not seized by the Terrorists. That’s what I’ve let myself in for.”
“But, Grey-Eyes dearest,” breathed Marie-Lou, “they might even kill you to get it.”
“There, my dear, you have it. I’m not afraid to undertake the mission but I need a second pair of eyes to watch while I sleep and, more important still, someone entirely trustworthy who’ll carry on in my place if any calamity befalls me. The person for whom I’ve undertaken to do this had thought of that. They knew all about our previous exploits together and implored me to secure the help of Rex and Simon. In a moment which I can only now describe as one of reckless and foolhardy confidence I pledged them too.”
“They can’t both have let you down,” Richard insisted.
“I still find it difficult to believe, but it is so. Rex has plans for the first week in August which he says it is impossible to alter, and Simon has been so strongly affected by the Nazi persecutions of his people that he appears to have turned Communist.”
“But, darling, why in the world did you take this on without consulting them first?” Marie-Lou asked sadly.
“I had no choice,” de Richleau shrugged, “and that really is another story.”
“It can’t be,” Marie-Lou objected. “Do go on.”
He smiled down at the exquisite little figure by his side. “Very well, then. Long, long ago I knew a beautiful Spanish lady. We loved each other very dearly and her husband was away on a special mission to one of the Spanish Embassies, in South America. For nearly two months that summer we tasted all the joys that God can give to two young lovers. In those days women were kept very strictly secluded in Spain, but a long purse and a little courage can perform miracles. I used to climb over the wall of her villa outside San Sebastian every night and her well-bribed duenna never disturbed us. But it all ended as such things only too often do. Her husband returned unexpectedly. We didn’t even know he was back in Spain but somebody must have betrayed us. He caught me in the dawn one morning coming down a ladder from her bedroom window.
“There was only one thing for it, of course. I had to give him satisfaction. He wouldn’t even wait for seconds and we repaired to the sands of a near-by cove. I fired first and missed him. The moments while I waited for him to reply were, I think, the longest in my life. But suddenly he raised his pistol and fired it in the air. He had spared me when he had me at his mercy.
“Several years later, by a strange coincidence, we were thrown together again in circumstances where we were compelled to spend the night alone, but for each other’s company. His wife had died only a few months before. He had loved her desperately and knew that I had loved her too. Suddenly the barriers of his pent-up sorrow broke down. He began to speak of her and, so strange is human nature, we found a common bond in our adoration of our dead love. After that strange night together we became firm friends and our friendship only ended with his death last year.
“Now, his only child comes to me. She knew of my devotion to her father and of our duel, but not of its cause. She knows that he spared my life and she is within her rights in claiming that, as a man of honour, I should risk it on her behalf by going to Madrid to protect her fortune from the Reds.”
“There’s only one thing I can’t understand,” said Richard quickly. “You’re the most deadly pistol-shot in Europe. How in the world did you manage to miss this chap?”
De Richleau chuckled. “That, my dear fellow, is the greatest jest of all. It was I who held his life in my hand. But if you, Richard, had robbed a man of his dearest possession—a man of whom you had never heard anything but good and one who had never done you any harm—could you shoot him down in cold blood? Of course not! Any decent man who calls such a tune knows he must pay the piper when the dance is ended. I fired wide on purpose and left it on the knees of the gods whether his bullet would kill or only wound me. But I’ve no intention of telling her that and she’d never believe me even if I did.
“Well, there it is. It’s done me good to tell you about it. I’m laughing again already, you see, and you’ve no need to worry. I’ll manage somehow.”
Richard and Marie-Lou exchanged one swift glance before she spoke. “Grey-Eyes dearest, you know what I am when I’ve made up my mind about a thing and whatever you say you’re going to be overruled in this. I’m afraid for you—horribly afraid. But we can’t let you go alone.”
Chapter VI
The First Round
Richard was not surprised when the Duke shouted something in Spanish at the taxi-driver and the man abruptly turned his cab in a new direction. Spanish was still almost meaningless gibberish to Richard although he had been struggling with a phrase-book for the past few days, but he guessed that de Richleau, having given the man one address five minutes before at the station, had now told him they had changed their minds and wanted to go somewhere else.
Things had been like that ever since they had left England. There is a much greater trade done in forged passports than most people suppose, and the morning after Lucretia-Jose’s visit to him de Richleau had parted with a nice little wad of one-pound notes in a dingy room behind a rubber-goods shop just off Leicester Square. His very careful instructions to the amiable but cross-eyed Swiss, with whom he had conducted numerous other dubious traffickings in the past, had produced just what he wanted that same evening.
In addition to other papers, which he had carefully secreted, he now carried a passport declaring him to be Senhor Joao da Silva, a metal merchant of Oporto and a Portuguese subject. Its numero
us endorsements by frontier officers showed that he had entered and left Spain by it on his lawful occasions at least half a dozen times during the past year. Its most recent stamp was proof that he had crossed the border again only that morning. Richard’s own British passport showed that he had had it properly visaed by the Spanish authorities in London, travelled via Dover-Calais and entered Spain by way of Irun the night before.
Actually neither of them had done any of these things. Both of them had embarked without fuss or bother on Richard’s yacht which was lying in the Solent. At two o’clock in the morning she had quietly slipped her moorings and steamed out to sea. With equal lack of ostentation she had refrained from approaching the Spanish coast when Cape Machichaco was sighted. Instead, they had waited until nightfall before cruising nearer in. Long before dawn a very subdued but brave Marie-Lou had bidden them a tender farewell as they slid over the side of the motor-launch from which she had landed them on a dark deserted shore.
They were a couple of miles inland by the time the sun rose and, looking back, had seen that the yacht was no more than a smudge on the horizon of a placid, dark-green sea. It was only a temporary withdrawal, however. Marie-Lou would hardly sleep while waiting for the wireless that might summon her to that or some other quiet bay again, It might be weeks, it might be months, but she would be cruising in Spanish waters until the job was done; ready to take them off without having to produce their papers, in an emergency.
It had proved a long and fatiguing day. A twelve-mile tramp because the Duke would not risk being eyed by the curious on a wayside station, a two-hour wait mooching about the streets of Bilbao because he would not risk entering a café, and then the dreary journey to Madrid in a crowded second-class compartment, punctuated by intervals spent in lavatories in order to dodge the train police when they came through the coaches to examine travellers’ papers.
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