Elvira turned toward Armada and handed him the key.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you, Constable. And I’d prefer if I never saw that damned thing again.”
Armada took the key back, feeling foolish. This whole evening had been wasted. All he’d really accomplished is ruining supper for the Cordoba family. Had they not been through enough?
Armada quickly took his leave and was back out in the night air after some vague promises to return to help the girls with their cut-outs someday again soon. Lying to innocent children seemed the perfect way to round off the evening.
Armada decided not to return to his accommodation immediately, but instead took a walk around the city as it prepared itself for night. There were still a lot of candles and lamps burning, making it easy to see as he wandered the streets, having no clear destination in mind. Much like his cases, sometimes.
His mind eventually came around to this mysterious assistant. That was where he had to start. It had to be someone young. Possibly one of his students. Could Aurelio have been working for Gregorio more closely than he’d let on?
Enrique, perhaps? Was he perhaps lying about how he found the key? It would make sense. To blackmail someone with such an item, you have to know just how valuable it really is, and Armada didn’t quite believe Enrique’s story about how he worked that out. Plus, there was the added bonus that with Gregorio killed, he would not only get to keep the three hundred ducats he’d stolen, but probably win the election, as well.
Perhaps the blackmail went wrong. Gregorio could have agreed to pay the ransom ,and when Enrique arrived to collect, a scuffle ensued that ended up with Gregorio stabbed.
But that wasn’t likely. The corregidor had described the crime scene in detail in his letter to the Holy Brotherhood:
Blood everywhere. It was like a wild beast had been let loose. Not just their body, but their soul. The rage was palpable in the air. You could smell it, feel it fill your lungs with icy tendrils that wormed their way into your soul. Nothing in that office hadn’t been sullied by the violence unleashed that night. I have never been so close to evil as I have that morning I saw Gregorio’s body for the last time.
Gregorio had been bleeding to death while fending off his attacker. The killer had kept at it, stabbing away, spreading the blood everywhere and making sure Gregorio was dead before fleeing the scene. He hadn’t gone to Gregorio’s office that night for something as petty as money. He’d gone there for vengeance.
The letter from the corregidor returned to his thoughts. It hadn’t been necessary for Arturo to go into that much detail. It was poetic, how he described the state of Gregorio Cordoba’s body: exactly how it was positioned, where the pools of blood lay below his fingertips, even devoting an entire paragraph to the expression left on Gregorio’s face. Mouth agape, his neck hanging over the edge of the desk at such an odd angle as to make him look inhuman, and the cold dead eyes staring off toward an unseen horizon, as if suddenly aware of the horrors beyond in the moment before death.
Armada hadn’t sensed such a poet’s soul in his first meeting with Arturo. What was it about seeing Gregorio’s office that had brought it out in him? Was Arturo even aware of what he’d written?
What if…?
Armada was already racing back to the university. It was tenuous, and the thoughts were still unformed in his mind. So many things still didn’t make sense. He ran the risk of being embarrassed tonight. But he was willing to risk it if it meant making a bit more sense of this puzzling case.
Soon, Armada was beating on the door of an office, inside which he could see candlelight still flickering under the door.
The door flung open to Arturo, who stared at him with tired eyes, still holding the quill pen he’d just been writing with and looking quite annoyed.
“Armada. What are you doing here?”
“I’m glad I was able to catch you, corregidor. I had a few questions about this case I was hoping you could help me with.”
“It’s nearly ten o’clock, Constable. I’d like to get home to my wife at some point.”
“This won’t take long.”
Arturo let out a long sigh and let Armada into his office, lit by a single, half-burned candle on the desk next to a stack of papers that he had been attempting to clear.
“Why keep Gregorio Cordoba on if he was such a terrible professor?”
“What? Who told you he was terrible?”
“You did. You said he was rarely here, neglecting his students and his workload in order to take frequent trips to Madrid. You sounded almost angry.”
Arturo rolled his eyes. “I was, but it’s hardly anything new. It’s how things work in university these days. You think Gregorio was the only one to do that? Most of our art faculty rarely steps foot on this campus any more. And any time one of our law professors show any kind of promise, the Cámara come along and offer them a seat on the Royal Council, or a judgeship, or a corregidor post somewhere. It’s what us letrados dream of. And it’s very lucrative, believe me. But it means most of our senior professors have been with us less than two years. Gregorio was just looking for something better, that’s all. Everyone is.”
“How did he get his job initially?”
“Same way everyone else does—an oposición. He didn’t give the best one, but he had a rapport with the students who were there. He could connect with them, make them laugh. Sometimes, that’s more important than knowing your material, which I admit he wasn’t the best at.”
“But you ultimately have to approve his appointment.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you? Surely there were more qualified candidates you could have pushed for at the time.”
Arturo lowered his shoulders in resignation. He meandered around behind his desk and refilled his glass of sherry, then poured another for Armada. Arturo swirled his sherry around in his glass for a moment, considering it, before speaking.
“Loyalty, I guess. We went to school together, in Valladolid. I’ve known that man a long time.”
“Which means you knew what kind of a professor he would be.”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“So why appoint him? Did he pay you?”
“Of course not! Loyalty isn’t something you buy, it’s something you earn!”
Armada took his sherry, but it seemed hypocritical to drink it, although it smelled so nice. It had been ages since he’d had a drop.
“Was there another reason, perhaps?”
“What? What are you getting at?”
“I’m wondering if Gregorio was already in the business of making gunpowder when he arrived at this university.”
Arturo went quiet, his face half-hidden on the edge of the flickering shadows in the room. His silence told Armada everything.
“I heard rumours. That was all.”
“Yet you approved his appointment anyway, despite the trouble his activities could cause for the university. Very loyal, indeed.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“That loyalty wasn’t the only reason you took him on. I am suggesting that you possibly became a participant in his business and you both used his job as a junior professor here as a cover.”
“I had nothing to do with that!” Arturo yelled, jumping to his feet. “They were just rumours! And because he was my friend, I assumed they weren’t true. He assured me they weren’t!”
“So, you asked him about it?”
“Of course I did. It’s my job.”
Armada drank his sherry without thinking, then cursed himself for it. It conceded something to Arturo in a way, accepting his hospitality in the middle of accusing him of crimes. It also made the forbidden oloroso taste so much nicer.
“And you never thought for a moment these rumours could be true?”
“He was my friend. I believed him. He wouldn’t lie to me.”
“And yet, he did.”
Armada put his sherry down, getting it out of his hand before he finished it. At least
he could give some of it back and save some part of his dignity.
“That’s the problem with loyalty,” Armada said. “Sometimes it is unfounded. And if I find you continue to be loyal to your dead friend by lying to me tonight, I won’t hesitate to put you in irons.”
“I am a representative of the Crown,” Arturo said. “And threatening someone in my position brings stiff consequences.”
Armada walked slowly toward the door, wondering if it was worth asking one last question. Not even for the case, it was more for his own morbid curiosity. It rang in his ears so loudly, it was if someone had asked it already and their words were still echoing in the room.
What did it feel like to see your friend’s body that day?
He knew the carefully worded answer Arturo had put in his letter. But he wanted to see it in Arturo’s eyes, that first moment the question was put out into the air. Would there be a thrill at being able to recount it again, going over every last detail of something that, for reasons he didn’t yet understand, excited him? Or would it be revulsion and an evasion of the questions to keep the horrors from his mind?
But with the dying of the candle, which had now spent itself and was in the process of going out, Arturo’s face was becoming lost in the darkness, making it impossible to ever know the answer.
“Thank you, corregidor,” Armada finally said, and left the office.
Chapter Nineteen
It had been a long day, and Armada’s mind was swimming with all the new information he’d gleaned. None of it was connecting anymore, which only spurned his tired mind on. It was time to sleep. He wasn’t going to make any more sense of anything when he was this exhausted.
Armada made his way back to the university, looking forward to bed. He could feel the dull ache in his knees returning. They’d always ached when he was tired, since he was a young boy. It meant he would have trouble getting to sleep tonight, as they would throb for hours once he was in bed. A sure sign he’d pushed himself too far today.
Armada reached the main entrance to find the night porter there as always, burning his perpetual candle just inside the doorway, offering the only bit of light on the street now that most sensible people had gone to bed. The Rúa de San Martín was oddly quiet in such darkness. The only sounds here were the crickets that would spend the night calling to each other from across the road.
As Armada reached the doorway, he smiled and nodded to the man, as always. But his smile was not returned. The porter scrambled to his feet, raced over, and grabbed Armada lightly by the elbow.
“Sir, I was hoping to catch you. You have a visitor who’s been waiting here for hours. Just a moment.”
Armada felt a sinking in his stomach. He was so tired. This was the last thing he wanted. His bed seemed to be getting further away.
He was surprised to find Maria suddenly appearing before him, escorted by the night porter from some unseen corner of his little office. She was yawning and trying to rub the sleepiness from her eyes, which went wide at the sight of Armada.
“Good evening, Constable,” Maria said with a trained hospitality. “I’m sorry to bother you so late.”
“It’s fine, Maria. How long have you been waiting for me here?”
“It’s not important, sir. But there was something I needed to tell you.”
“But not in front of Señora Cordoba?”
Maria froze at the mention of Elvira. Confusion flitted across her face.
“I’m not sure I should have come,” Maria said, mostly to herself.
“It’s all right. Whatever you tell me tonight, it will be held in the strictest confidence. It need not risk your job.”
“It might be nothing. Perhaps I’m just wasting your time.”
“I doubt that,” Armada said.
Maria took a moment to gather her thoughts. Armada felt his exhaustion begin to melt away, replaced by curiosity.
“It’s not…it isn’t something I can tell you. I have to show you.”
Armada caught the eye of the night porter, who was listening intently, glad to have a bit of drama to keep him entertained during what would otherwise be a long, tedious night.
Armada held an arm aloft, signalling for Maria to lead the way. Maria pulled her thin wool coat over her shoulders, more out of nervous habit than for warmth, then began walking back toward the Rúa de San Martín.
Armada followed close behind, trying to avoid the worst of the ruts in the road as they walked through the darkness. There was a half-moon out tonight, giving Armada just enough light to see the outline of the top of Maria’s head, where a coif was pulled tight over her brown hair and tied tight under her chin. She moved through the darkness with skill, probably after years of making her way home after putting the Cordoba family to bed at night. Armada felt the safest thing then was to follow her movements, her footsteps, even, if possible.
But as they moved south toward the southern walls of the city, the tall facades of the buildings fell away, letting more of the moonlight in, and Armada could see they were heading toward the River Gate. Just before they got there, however, they turned west and made the short walk past the castle that loomed over them on the highest hill in the city, and further on to the Arroyo de los Milagros, one of two estuaries that ran through the city to eventually feed into the Tormes River to the south. From the east bank, Armada could make out the outline of the sprawling Benedictine Monastery on the other side, which took up the whole southwest corner of Salamanca. Rumours abounded at how the monks were less than pious, being involved in various corruption schemes and some even claiming to see whores from Santiago entering in the night. As monks, they did not fall under the jurisdiction of the city constables, who were forced to leave it to the ecclesiastical authorities to enforce the law, many of whom were very open to bribes. It gave the whole area a sense of lawlessness that the city could do little about.
As such, it made a fine location for a warehouse district, where shoddy buildings had been hastily put up along the banks of the estuary, most of which were well-protected with large iron bars in the windows and loading doors with thick chains and cast-iron locks. Dogs could be heard barking away in the night in many of them, most of them left underfed to make them more keenly vicious. The contraband that was kept in these warehouses was unimaginable, Armada knew. And for some reason, despite how unwelcoming this part of the city was, this short, stout maid with a tight coif and who looked so vulnerable, was taking him right into the heart of it.
Armada tried to keep close to Maria, in case they came across anyone nefarious in these streets. Maria did not seem so concerned, as she weaved her way down a small alleyway that went in between two of the more non-descript warehouses. Just behind a wall somewhere, a dog heard their footsteps and began growling and barking, clawing at a stone surface.
The alleyway led to the back of these warehouses, where a small clearing had been left between the buildings. Squeezed into this little clearing was a shed, five or ten paces wide, built from the scrap building materials left by the other warehouses. A sloping roof had been cobbled together with several different types of tiles, and there were no windows. Just a large wooden door locked tight.
The courtyard itself was just bare earth, yet was covered in small piles of something Armada couldn’t quite make out in the darkness. But it smelled of coal. The whole courtyard reeked of it.
“What is this?” Armada asked. “Why have you brought me here?”
“This is it, sir. I followed Señor Cordoba here once. I know I shouldn’t of. It wasn’t my business. But I was curious. I couldn’t help it. I knew he wasn’t going to Madrid all those times. I guess I just wanted to see if he was seeing whores. There’s lots of them around here. It wouldn’t have been fair to Señora Cordoba if he had. I love those children, sir, as if they were my own. They deserved to know if….”
Armada put a calming hand on Maria’s shoulder and she stopped. Then he turned his attention to the large wooden door. Specifically, the lock.
“I realised he came here a lot. I thought you should know. I don’t know what he did here. I don’t want to know. But—”
“I think I do,” Armada said. He took Gregorio’s key from his pocket, slid it into the lock, and unlocked it.
Behind him, Maria gasped.
Before she could respond, Armada pulled off the lock and went inside. It was pitch black, but he could make out the outline of a torch hanging on the wall next to the door. Armada knew it would be there. How often had Gregorio come here to work under the cover of darkness?
Armada fumbled around a bit until he found something to light the torch, and suddenly the shed filled with flickering orange light.
The shed was sparse. Just one room, one half of which was filled with a table where tin measuring bowls had been left strewn about. Next them was to a scale and two large mortar and pestles that had been used to grind up a black powder. Just behind the table, a small pile of coal with a spade stuck upright into it.
In the other corner, there were two barrels full of glittering sand that had clumped together in large chunks and had stained brown in places. As Armada moved the light closer, they sparkled more brilliantly.
Maria cautiously stuck her head in, casting her gaze about. From her confusion, the shed wasn’t what she’d thought it would be.
“I don’t understand. What is it?”
“A workshop,” Armada said, examining the crystals in his hand. He touched one to his tongue.
It tasted of soil, with a hint of saltiness.
Saltpetre. And lots of it. Gregorio Cordoba was already preparing his next batch. Aurelio had been busy in the days before Gregorio’s death. Did that mean anything?
Armada twisted suddenly, casting the torch about the room while Maria flinched and instinctively moved her head out of the shed, as if it were about to be bitten off.
“But it doesn’t make sense….”
Armada moved to shine the burning torch in every corner of the shed.
“The charcoal is there. Burned and purified outside, then brought in to this pile to mix in with the saltpetre, which is in those barrels over there. But where is the sulphur?”
The Domingo Armada Mysteries Box Set Page 65