Although it was now past eleven at night Richard knew that the performance was not yet over. The bottle of mineral water, bottle of wine and assortment of foodstuffs purchased ten minutes before at the buffet of the North Station, showed that de Richleau did not intend to let him have a civilised dinner in a decent restaurant.
He did not mind playing up a bit if it was necessary but, for the life of him, he could not see the point of all these extreme precautions. It was not as if they were escaping criminals or being hunted down by the police for some political oftence. Spain was at peace with the world and Madrid showed no signs of the coming Revolution. There seemed no reason whatever why they should not have arrived in a perfectly normal way and established their claim to the gold without all this bother. He had a shrewd suspicion that the Duke was thoroughly enjoying himself and he certainly seemed ten years younger since he had started out on this expedition; but Richard preferred comfort to silly mystifications and the tiring journey had made him distinctly irritable.
“What’s the idea now?” he asked crossly, as the taxi plunged into a maze of side-streets. “Even if we eat our supper standing on the pavement we’ve got to sleep in an hotel, haven’t we? Why, for God’s sake, not drive there straight away?”
“My poor friend,” replied the Duke pityingly, “surely you don’t think I should go to so much trouble to avoid having our passports examined and then go straight to an hotel, where we should have to hand them over to the management for police inspection, directly we got there—do you?”
“Well, we must sleep somewhere. Or is it your idea of fun that we should pass the night on a bench in the local park?”
“Of course not.” De Richleau spoke testily. “You shall have a bed and a perfectly good one. But I can’t guarantee that you won’t have to sleep in your clothes as the sheets will probably be either damp or dirty. I think we’ll stop this fellow now and walk the rest of the way.” He leaned forward and rapped sharply on the window of the taxi.
As they got out the driver became abusive at this second change of plan and the Duke itched to tell him, with appropriate Spanish epithets, that his mother would never have taken a prize in even a village dog show. Instead, he paid the man off with a reasonable, but not too generous tip, as the best way of fading quickly from his memory.
A couple of turns brought them into the Gran Via which severs Madrid roughly from West to East. In normal times Madrid does not go to bed as early as other cities and the streets were still crowded with strolling people enjoying the cool air after the long, hot summer day. De Richleau and Richard mingled among them without receiving a single curious glance. Both had left the clothes, tailored with such an eye to easy elegance by Mr. Scholte of Savile Row, behind them on the yacht. They had likewise abandoned their Sulka shirts, Beale and Inman ties, Lobb shoes and Scott hats. Instead, the Duke had provided decent-quality ready-mades with appropriate trimmings. They carried no luggage except the bag of provisions and would have passed anywhere as two office workers just returning to their apartment after having been out to buy a cold snack for supper. The fact that both had large-calibre automatics, two hundred rounds of ammunition, and several hundred pounds in English bank notes concealed on them, was not apparent.
At La Cibels, the Oxford Circus of Madrid, they turned left into the broad, tree-lined Paseo de Recoletos which, with its continuation of the Paseo de la Castellana to the north and Paseo del Prado to the south, constitutes the other main artery of the Spanish capital. Crossing the Recoletos about half-way along its length, de Richleau led the way down a side turning. It was quiet there after the bustle of the main streets. Five hundred yards farther on he turned north again into a short, narrow way parallel with the Recoletos. Tall buildings rose on either side, mostly blocks of flats, but others were large private houses, recalling the days when this was Madrid’s most favoured residential quarter.
The Duke paused and stared up at a huge stone frontage that occupied more than one-half of the short street. It was a grim, silent pile as strong as a fortress. Ornamental iron grilles bellied away from the windows on the street level and the glass behind them was thick with the accumulated dust of years. The long rows of upper windows were shuttered and not a singe light showed in the whole building.
“Here we are,” said de Richleau. “This is it.”
“And what is it?” inquired Richard dubiously.
“Really, Richard!” the Duke protested. “I happen to know you’re an extraordinarily intelligent person, but at times, to hear you talk anyone would imagine you an utter fool. This is the Palace of the Cordoba y Coralles, in which we are going to spend the night.”
“What a gloomy barrack of a place. I hope you’re right about there still being a couple of beds in it.”
“Its contents would probably fetch a million if they were put up to auction at Christie’s.” As he spoke the Duke stepped up to the great arched porch and, grasping the ancient iron bell-pull, jerked it down.
Its clanging echoed hollowly from somewhere below the street level, coming up to them through a grating close by in the pavement. They waited a few minutes then de Richleau rang again. Another wait and a panel slid back in the door. From behind the iron grille that covered it a pair of eyes stared at them.
The Duke drew a letter from his pocket and, folding it, thrust it between the bars. “From the Condesa,” he said in Spanish.
A knotted hand reached up for the paper and the eyes disappeared, but through the opening they could now see the upper part of a squat, thick-necked man thrown up by the light of a lantern which he had evidently set down on the floor beside him. Holding the paper sideways so that the light shone on it his lips began to move slowly, as he laboriously spelt out the contents of the letter.
Satisfied, apparently, he thrust it into an inner pocket and set about unbolting the heavy door. An old-fashioned key grated in the lock and the door swung back. Directly they were inside he turned his back on them to re-lock it.
Swift as a flash the Duke’s hand rose in the air. Richard caught one glimpse of the lead-weighted leather black-jack grasped firmly in it and the weapon descended with a soft thud on the back of the Spaniard’s head. He slipped to his knees, gave one long groan, and rolling over on his side, lay still.
“Good God!” gasped Richard. “What the devil d’you do that for? The poor chap hadn’t done us any harm.”
De Richleau was already kneeling by his victim. Thrusting his hand into the man’s pocket he pulled out the Condesa’s letter and rammed in back into his own.
Receiving no reply, Richard went on a shade anxiously, “I say, you haven’t killed him—have you?”
“Of course not,” muttered the Duke producing two lengths of whipcord. “I didn’t hit him hard and he’ll be round in a few minutes. Get that door fastened up. I’ll look after him.”
Richard did as he was bid and when he turned again the man was lying with his hands tied behind his back, his feet trussed up, and the half of a large handkerchief protruding from his mouth.
“Take the lantern,” ordered the Duke. “Our first job is to find this fellow’s rooms.”
“He’d have led us to them himself, I don’t doubt, if you hadn’t been so mighty impatient to go into action. You seem to have forgotten that the Revolution hasn’t even started.”
“No, but our mission has, and if I hadn’t acted when I did he would have heard you endeavouring to exercise your feeble wit. I speak the language well enough to pass as a Spaniard and I didn’t want him to get even an idea that either of us is English.”
Pulling out an electric torch de Richleau led the way out of the vestibule up the marble steps into a great, lofty hall where the light from the lantern scarcely touched the walls.
The beam of the torch flashed round, streaking across a wide curved staircase with a richly ornamental balustrade, up which in times past, all the haughty Grandees of Spain and their noble ladies had mounted to the reception rooms above. For a second the beam l
it a thing like a balloon overhead, a huge chandelier cased in an enormous, dust-proof bag, then it flickered down to a row of three doors under the great staircase.
De Richleau advanced and shone his torch on their handles. All of them were thickly coated with dust, as now they drew nearer to it, they could see was also the staircase and balustrade. The chequered marble flags of the hall had been kept swept, however, so there were no traces to indicate the way down to the basement. A moment later a shiny door-knob showed it to them.
“Leave your lantern here,” said the Duke, taking out his automatic. “The caretaker’s a single man. I learnt that much from Lucretia, but he may be housing friends or relatives. If so, we’ll have to ensure their silence, too.”
They crept down the stone stair. No sound came up to them but a light glimmered dully, throwing an angle of the wall at the bottom into relief. De Richleau peered cautiously round it and saw before him a long, vaulted passage. The light came from a room about half-way along it. Motioning Richard to remain where he was he padded softly down the passage like some huge grey cat, his gun thrust out ready before him. One swift glance was enough to show him that the room was empty and that, with the adjoining bedroom, it comprised the caretaker’s living quarters.
Ten minutes later they had the man down there and tied to his bed. He had not come round but was making horrible snuffling sounds. Seeing that the basement window of the room was hermetically sealed and faced on to an interior courtyard, instead of the street, De Richleau removed the gag while Richard made the injured man’s head as comfortable as he could on the pillows.
The rooms and passage had dirty electric globes dangling from their ceilings but as the switches failed to work it was clear that owing to his long absence the dead Conde had had the supply cut off.
Taking the oil lamps from the caretaker’s bed-and sitting-rooms, the two friends secured the man’s keys and proceeded upstairs. Little clouds of dust rose with each footfall as they made their way up the grand staircase and when the Duke unlocked the doors of the great salon at its head a scene of chill desolation met their gaze.
The old masters, which the Duke remembered so well, Goyas, Murillos, Velasquezs were covered in grey sheeting, the chandeliers encased in grimy bags, the chairs and sofas ranged against the walls were shrouded in their dust-covers, and thick dust lay like a velvet pall over everything.
“We may as well feed here as anywhere,” the Duke remarked. “I don’t doubt all the other rooms are in much the same state. While you’re getting the things out I’ll go and have a look round upstairs.”
By the time he returned Richard had cleaned a lovely inlaid table with the aid of a dust-sheet pulled from one of the chairs, and spread out their provisions upon it.
De Richleau perched himself on a corner of the table and filled a cardboard cup with wine. “I’ve found two rooms facing on the the courtyard that will do for us,” he said cheerfully. “I was half-choked with dust when I shook out the coverlets but I’ve collected half a dozen extra ones from other rooms since there’s no bedding. We’ll probably be able to make ourselves a little more comfortable tomorrow but anyway we’ll be safe here for the next few weeks.”
“Few weeks!” echoed Richard aghast. “Surely you don’t mean we’ve got to stay in this place indefinitely?”
“Why not? We’ve got about two hundred rooms to share between us, a splendid library and some of the finest art treasures in the world to examine at our leisure.”
“But what about the poor devil you slogged, downstairs?”
“He’ll have to remain our prisoner, I fear. You see, if I hadn’t shown him that letter he would never have let us in. Now he’s seen it he knows that two friends of his mistress have been given the run of the house. He would naturally have thought it unusual if we had proposed staying here, seeing the state it’s in. Worse, the letter was among the documents Lucretia-José prepared before she came to see me and, later, I had no opportunity to get her to write another. As my real name was mentioned in it this chap is the one person in Madrid who knows that I am in Spain. He’s certain to have cronies of his own and I dared not risk his gossiping about our presence here. But you need not worry yourself over him. He’ll be all right by tomorrow and I’ll make him a present of a year’s wages before we leave.”
“If you do that he’ll wish you came along and laid him out once a month regularly,” Richard grinned. His fine white teeth met in a ham roll and he munched for a moment before adding: “But if he’s got cronies what happens when they come round to pass the time of day with him?”
“I’ve told you that I speak Spanish well enough to pass myself off as a Spaniard. I shall answer the door and tell them that one of his aunts who has a little property is dying in the country and I’ve taken his place while he’s gone off to see that his family don’t do him out of his fair share.”
“Well, that’s that,” Richard agreed. “But honestly, is all this melodramatic stuff really necessary? Secret landings, snooping about in ready-mades and pigging it here—I mean?”
De Richleau smiled indulgently. “My dear boy, you hardly seem to appreciate the rather remarkable feat we have performed. There was nothing whatever to prevent our arriving in Spain in a normal manner but, had we done so, the Government would have had us, our address and our description duly pigeon-holed. We are ‘aristos’, remember, and all our kind are under suspicion now. The Seguridad police would most probably have had us followed and tumbled to our game. In any case we should have had hell’s own job to get away without trouble once the storm breaks.”
“And now——” Richard prompted.
“And now, we’ve taken the game out of the hands of our potential enemies before it’s even started. Mr. Richard Eaton and the Duke of Richleau vanished from the face of the earth when they stepped on board your yacht in the Solent. No official of any nationality has the faintest idea where we are and we have succeeded in penetrating to the scene of operations without even showing our faked passports. The Madrid police do not even know of our existence; yet here we are, in the centre of the city, with a roof over our heads and beds to sleep in as long as we care to use them. We have succeeded in making ourselves a sort of microscopic lost legion—an unknown cypher. We can strike or disappear at will just whenever we like. Surely you see the immense advantage of that?”
A slow smile lit Richard’s face. “Yes. You’re a wily old fox and I take off my hat to you for having got clean away with the first round.”
Chapter VII
The Duke Makes Soup; But Not For Supper
When Richard woke next morning he felt much more cheerful. The scanty bed coverings had proved ample owing to the warmth of the summer night, and seven hours’ dreamless slumber buried in the feather mattresses had restored his normal good spirits.
By the time he was up he found that de Richleau had already dealt with the caretaker. Pédro, as his name proved to be, had become so stiff from being trussed up all night that when he was unbound he had been incapable of showing resistance. His position was fully explained to him and, after his first outburst of colourful oaths, he had seen the wisdom of retiring from the business end of the Duke’s gun into a large but windowless storeroom selected as his prison.
As Pédro’s small stock of eatables included four fresh eggs the problem of breakfast had been solved without difficulty. De Richleau’s interest in food was by no means merely academic. He could have earned a comfortable income any time as chef in a good hotel and the omelette he produced on this occasion was a joy to taste. Baths were not quite so easy as Pédro apparently never indulged himself in that manner but they made do with some large kettles of water boiled on his stove.
The first job was to get in touch with Señor Trueba, the manager of Lucretia’s bank. It was situated close by in the Paseo de Recoletos but de Richleau had no intention of showing his face there. Since there are no street call-boxes in Madrid he went into a tobacconist’s, bought some of the little slotted bra
ss coins that are necessary for operating a public telephone, and rang up the bank.
When he got through, all he said to Trueba was that the person he was expecting had arrived and was speaking from No. 81702. Would he leave his office and ring that number from another estanco at once.
This resulted in a call coming through a few moments later during which even the telephone operator at the central, and only, exchange would have been hard put to it to identify either of the speakers. An appointment was made for ten-thirty just inside the south-west gate of the Retiro Park, and the two friends set off in that direction.
Richard had only visited Madrid once before and that had been in Primo’s time. He remembered the magnificent motor roads that the Dictator had built from one end of the country to the other and how the streets of Madrid were then so much cleaner than any stranger, who had heard tales of the proverbial dirtiness of Spanish cities, might have expected.
He noted that things had sadly deteriorated. It was not that the streets were actually ill-kept, but many of the better-class shops showed empty windows with ‘to let’ posters pasted over them, and instead of the crowds circulating swiftly, intent on their business, an atmosphere of uneasy expectancy caused them to congregate in the open spaces. Month after month of strikes by dozens of different unions affiliated to the U.G.T. or C.N.T. had brought commerce almost to a standstill. Each day witnessed the closing of more private houses and the flight of their owners abroad. In the broad Paseo del Prado there was a certain activity as numerous booths and fun-fair attractions were being erected for the summer festival, but even here there were many more loungers than helpers.
Little groups of police stood silent on the corners. They looked tired and despondent. It was a long time now since the Government had proclaimed a ‘State of Emergency’ throughout Spain, and for weeks past they had been called on to intervene in almost constant clashes between the Fascists and the Red-Shirts.
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