They had agreed that it was much too risky for her to be seen visiting the British Embassy Annexe but that de Richleau would not be running any very grave risk if he left the flat by way of the garage for an hour at night, provided he was equipped with proper papers. Lucretia provided these in the form of documents signed by members of the Junta-de-Defensa and it was arranged that she should be at a small café in a street near the Fernando el Santo between nine and ten that evening.
Although winter was now approaching the fashion of going about hatless, which had come in with the Revolution, was still followed by a large number of Madrileños and for this expedition de Richleau decided to adopt it. During the fourteen weeks he had been confined in the Model Prison and the Finnish Legation his hair had grown sufficiently for the black dye favoured by Hypolite Dubois to have passed out of it and he was now grey again; a state in which very few people had seen him between his coming to Spain and his capture. To change his appearance further, they equipped him with a uniform jacket, breeches and leggings once worn by the Marquesa’s chauffeur.
The Duke had been confined for ninety-four days; at five minutes to nine on the evening of 7th November he stepped once more, a free but hunted man, into the streets of Madrid.
Chapter XXVI
De Richleau Speaks of other Things Than War
Madrid is six thousand feet above sea-level, and once its summer heats are past, it suffers an extreme change of climate. The chill winds of winter were already driving people indoors early in the evenings and few pedestrians passed de Richleau as he put his best foot forward. Comparatively little damage had been done in this quarter of the city by artillery and aerial bombardment but the streets had a woefully unkempt appearance and were permanently darkened now on account of air raids. In the distance the heavy crump of shells falling on the banks of the Manzanares could be heard as Franco’s gunners strove to break down the desperate last stand of the Reds.
The café was almost empty but Lucretia was already there, seated alone at a corner table, when the Duke arrived. They greeted each other casually; only the quick brightening of their eyes showed how delighted they were to see each other again.
“Can we talk freely here?” he asked in a low voice.
She nodded. “The proprietor and waiter are both with us. They’ll see that none of the tables near is occupied. You’ve had a terrible time, I’m afraid, and it’s all my fault for bringing you out here.”
“The last three months have hardly been amusing,” he smiled, “and once or twice we’ve really thought our goose was cooked—but we’re still alive and kicking. By the by, many thanks for the pickaxe.”
“I knew you’d guess how to use it, and stirring up Simon with a fake message was the only way to help I could think of. When I heard about the shootings after the mutiny at the prison, though, I was nearly frantic. You see, I was on a conference at Valencia when it happened.”
As usual she was chain-smoking and de Richleau held a match to a cigarette she had just taken from a fresh packet as he remarked, “Yes, I got your note but we’d undertaken not to communicate with anyone outside, and a bargain is a bargain. Anyway, ‘all’s well that ends well’. We’re reasonably safe now and our young friend at the Annexe thinks he can get us out of the country in a week or two. I only wanted to make certain that by this time you’ve been able to get in touch with Franco’s people and arrange for the removal of the gold.”
Her mouth drew into a hard line. “No. I got a message through immediately Valmojado was taken—it’s no longer there.”
“What!”
She nodded. “I can’t think what’s happened but somebody tampered with all those kitchen utensils after you were arrested.”
“Simon may have found it.”
“No. He traced the boxes filled with concrete we sent to Barcelona but since then he seems to have been completely stumped. The Reds haven’t got it. I’m certain of that.”
“Then who the devil has? It took us three weeks to salt it and if you cut out the time occupied on the painting it would take at least ten days to remove the gold linings from all those thousands of pots and pans. Then there’s the question of shifting it—the immense weight.”
Lucretia shrugged. “Well, it’s gone. The pots and pans are still there but their gold linings have been removed. Roughly two months elapsed between your arrest and the town being taken. Somebody must have found out what you were up to and, after you were caught, got to work on it.”
“The devil! But who? There were only a limited number of people who could have tumbled to our game and I’d stake anything on old Jacinto doing his damnedest to protect our interests. Is he still alive, d’you know?”
“That’s one of the troubles. My lines of communication go mostly via neutral countries to Burgos. They can’t give me any detailed information about a little place like Valmojado. The Reds massacred a lot of people there just before it was taken and our people carried out the usual reprisals the night they entered it. That’s all I know.”
“As the place was in Red hands until quite recently, it looks to me as if some private gang got hold of the bullion and are endeavouring to keep it hidden until the war’s over. They may have buried it there or, more probably, as they would not want to lose their hold on it, brought it back to Madrid when the Nationalists began to get dangerously near Valmojado.”
“In any case the key to the mystery must lie there.”
“True. Therefore Richard and I had better get ourselves evacuated with Talbot’s help as quickly as we can and return to Spain, landing in Nationalist territory.”
“You’ve done so much,” Lucretia sighed. “I hardly like to ask you to do that.”
De Richleau smiled and placed his hand over hers. “There’s no question of your asking, my dear. Having taken this job on neither Richard nor I could go home happily leaving it uncompleted.”
“Well, at least you’ll be in no danger behind the Nationalist lines.”
“Yes, and for that reason I think I’ll send Richard. He’s the legal owner of the factory so he has every right to make inquiries. Moreover, he can speak Spanish quite fluently now so he’ll have no difficulty in carrying out a full investigation. I shall stay on here at the Annexe until he can give me a line, via you, to go upon.”
“But why? You’ve risked your life enough and I shan’t be happy until you’re out of Red territory. Besides, what can you do here?”
“Nothing, for the moment, but if I once leave Government Spain I might have considerable difficulty in returning to it. As I’ve said, my own belief is that the gold has been brought back to Madrid, but that couldn’t have been done without leaving plenty of traces. Richard can pick them up in Valmojado and if they do lead to Madrid I shall still be here on the spot ready to enter the game again.”
“That would mean your exposing yourself to fresh dangers.”
“Not necessarily. Richard has to be got out of Spain and come back. Then we must give him a few days for his investigation. By the time we hear from him it’s quite on the cards that Madrid will have fallen.”
“I hope you’re right. But say the gold is here, wouldn’t whoever’s got it be likely to shift it again before the city’s taken?”
“Possibly. But as you’ve pointed out, two months elapsed between our arrest and the Nationalists arriving in Valmojado—plenty of time for the thieves to have brought it back here bit by bit. To move it at short notice would be much more difficult. If they’ve got it cached here it’s almost certain they’d not move it again but stay with it. Anyhow, I shall remain in Madrid until we can get some line to go on, whether Franco succeeds in taking the city or not. It looks as if he’s going to, though, any day now.”
“It did look like it up till yesterday but I’m very much afraid now that Madrid will not fall, anyhow, for the next few weeks.”
“Why? He’s right at its gates. They’re fighting on the banks of the Manzanares as we sit here.”
“I know,
but his effort has almost spent itself. He would break through tomorrow or the next day if the two forces were left to fight it out, because the Reds are even more exhausted than our men, but I fear he won’t be able to.”
“What’s to prevent him?”
“The International Brigade is on its way up from the coast by train. Poles, French, Germans, English, Americans, Hungarians, and goodness knows who else. About sixteen thousand of them and all red-hot Communists. An advance party of their officers got in at midday and were taken for a tour round the trenches this afternoon. The Junta-de-Defensa are holding a sort of ‘Welcome to Madrid’ party for them tonight.”
De Richleau smiled. “The old Palace Hotel must have been the scene of some strange sights since the coming of the Revolution.”
“It has, but the party’s not there. The Palace was converted months ago into a hospital and refuge for orphans. One wing of it is now the residence of His Excellency the Soviet Ambassador. This show is to be held in the Prado Art Gallery because that’s one of the places Franco never bombs. I’m one of the bevy of bloodstained beauties invited to entertain our dear foreign Comrades.”
“God! I don’t envy you your job.”
“It’ll be all right. Cristoval will be there and plenty of other men I know.”
“What damnable luck that these International Troublemakers should be arriving on the scene just in time to rob Franco of his victory.”
Lucretia nodded. “Yes. They’ll only get themselves killed, of course, because we’re bound to win in the end. But their presence will delay a final decision, and in the meantime the lives of many thousands more Spaniards will be sacrificed on both sides. That’s the real tragedy.”
“Couldn’t you and your friends bring about a rising of Nationalist sympathisers in Madrid to help Franco take the city before the International Brigade can be put in the line?”
“We intended to do so but orders have come through against it. The secret Fifth Column can only wait now for fresh instructions. At the moment my most harassing worry is a personal matter.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“You are a Catholic, aren’t you?” she asked suddenly.
“I was baptised a Catholic as an infant but it’s a great many years since I was a practising one.”
“Don’t you believe in it at all, then?”
“I believe that like all religions it contains certain elements of the truth and that others have been obscured by its dogmas.”
“Do you believe in heaven and hell?”
“I believe that we make our own.”
“What, here?”
“Not necessarily.”
“You do believe in an after life, then?”
“Not in the sense of Last Judgments or Allah’s Paradise full of houris, or the Valhalla of the Vikings,” smiled de Richleau.
She frowned. “I don’t understand you at all.”
“I’ll try to explain. Some people consider me something of a mystic. That is only because I have spent much time studying most of the great religions and philosophies which have influenced mankind as far back as our very limited knowledge carries us. They divide themselves into two kinds. Those which teach survival and those which do not.
“There’s plenty of evidence to show that each human being is animated by something which continues to function after the physical body is dead. If a person refuses to accept that, there’s nothing more to be done about it. It is no good arguing. They are just in a very low state of development and will learn in time.
“The teachings which preach survival are divided into three kinds. The most primitive are those in which the worshippers bow down to something they can see; trees, wooden idols, Priest Kings whom they regard as living personifications of their God. The next stages are those in which people bow down to something which they cannot see; an invisible but personal God, such as the Jehovah of the Jews, the Allah of the Mohammedans, and the Father and Son of the Christian Trinity. The third and highest types are obviously the philosophies like Taoism and the purer Buddhism, which teach that we are not puppets jigging to a strange tune played by some invisible superman but that each of us carries within ourselves a spark of that divine fire which animates creation.
“Now what do the wise men through the ages offer us by way of a future? Christianity and Mohammedanism, which are both offshoots of Judaism, say that we have one life and one life only. Upon that we shall be judged and either lifted to the heights or damned eternally. If there is a God He must be a perfect one and, therefore, just. Is it just that some should be born for their one and only trial physically deformed, in the direst poverty, or even mentally deficient as compared to others like you and I who have been given all this world’s advantages?”
“Perhaps greater things are expected of us because we have these advantages,” Lucretia-José broke in.
“They are,” agreed the Duke. “But that is not the teaching of these religions. Crippled or healthy, poor or rich, idiot or intellectual, they promise salvation to all who follow the same set of rules. That is manifestly unfair to the more heavily handicapped.”
“And what have the philosophers to offer?”
“Most of them postulate that we go from here to take up life afresh on some higher plane.”
“Is that what you believe?”
“Yes, and no. That the most advanced among us should do so is entirely reasonable, but what would be the sense of sending the spirit of a man-eating savage to a higher plane when he is still ten thousand years behind the most enlightened type of human living here already?”
“Surely you don’t believe in reincarnation?”
“I do. It is the only belief which is entirely logical and utterly just. ‘As ye sow so shall ye reap.’ That is the great truth which lies at the core of all religions and all philosophies which preach survival. Examine the teachings of Christ or Moses, Gautama Buddha or Láo-tsze, of the Ancient Egyptians, or the Aztecs or the Redskins, and you will find it so. It is the one thing common to them all in their original purity. Life is not of today or tomorrow, but eternal.
“This is a school and in it we are all learning. The lessons to be learnt are courage, compassion, and wisdom. You and I have had countless incarnations. We have been black and yellow and white and brown. We have been cripples and blind, royal and humble, male and female, beautiful and plain. We have had happy lives and ones that seemed accursed. In each we have learned something. Many times we have slipped back and as in each life we have to learn many things afresh we shall slip back again. But as the aeons of time pass we are steadily advancing. You and I have climbed a long way already to have reached our present state. The sort of deal we get in our next incarnation depends on how we pass the tests in this one.”
“It sounds a long and painful business.”
“There are holidays in this great school of ours and they are longer than the terms. I and many others know enough of our past lives to tell you that we reincarnate about every two or three hundred years. Between incarnations we are with those dear friends who are making the journey with us, some of whom we meet here in each of our lives on earth. These periods of rest refresh us for each new ordeal we have to go through. We may also renew our spiritual strength each time we sleep once we have learnt consciously to retain our memories of the places to which our spirit travels while we slumber.”
“But what is the object of this extraordinary pilgrimage? Where does one arrive at its finish?”
“That, it is not given to any man to know. The beginning and end are beyond the power of the human intellect to comprehend; just as it cannot conceive eternity or grip the fact that if the universe is contained in some vast invisible ball there must be something outside that and again something outside that something, and so on indefinitely. We can only be certain that the spirit animating each individual is slowly but surely gaining in power and beauty.”
“What must one do to advance further?”
“Practise
courage and compassion and strive after wisdom. There are also two things which you must not do—commit suicide or surrender your personality by allowing your physical body to be used as a medium. We have all done both, we may again, but such a Karma takes a long time to pay off. Suicides are earthbound and remain going through the same horror of those last few moments, action for action, again and again, until some spirit that owes them something releases them. Mediums spend their next, and sometimes several, incarnations as imbeciles. Having surrendered their individuality voluntarily they are punished by having it taken from them against their wish.”
“That is logical, I suppose.”
“Far more so than the barbarous idea that an unjust God deliberately foists the sins of a father on to his physical children, and then gives those blameless children only one chance. The true interpretation of the saying is that in each incarnation we are creating the child who is to be our next incarnation, and if we give ourselves over deliberately to evil in this, it will be reckoned against us even to our third and fourth incarnation to come. In other words, it may take us that amount of time to make up the ground we have lost.”
“But we know that certain diseases are hereditary. That is a proven fact.”
“Of course it is, my dear; and that is all part of the great plan. If you commit excesses and abuse your body this time you will not be given such a good one when you return to earth again. If you are due to learn fortitude through suffering you will be born the child of diseased parents. If as a parent you have been cruel to your children or allowed them to suffer through neglect, you’ll pay for it later by being given deformed or ailing children that will wring your mother’s heart with constant pain.”
“That sounds logical too. But there are so many standards of conduct. The canons of a woman like myself are so utterly different from those of, say, a Persian woman in a harem or a negress living in the bushveld. If one is right the others must surely be wrong.”
“Not at all. The fact that customs vary up and down the world does not matter in the least. Provided each lives as her conscience tells her, each is living rightly for the purpose of her present incarnation.”
The Golden Spaniard Page 37