by John Creasey
Palfrey was nervously apologetic.
The girls took their glasses, Mepita handed one to Palfrey, Margarita one to Clive. They drank; Palfrey coughed a little, and Mepita laughed.
He finished his drink, coughed again, bowed to the girls with careful dignity, and staggered a little as he moved from the table.
He stumbled up the stairs.
‘I can’t understand it,’ he muttered to Clive. ‘It—er—must be the heat. I felt perfectly all right ten minutes ago. That last drink was too much, perhaps. A pity.’ He reached the top of the stairs, and then the foyer, where Manoel came forward to greet them.
Clive and Manoel exchanged quick glances.
The girls went off, both blowing kisses and laughing. Palfrey leaned on Clive for support.
Once in the street with the cooler, clearer air blowing from the sea not far away, he felt better, but after a few steps, and while Manoel’s farewells were ringing in their ears, he stopped and gasped:
‘My head—swimming. Clive, I think—I think I must be—drunk.’
‘You’ll be all right,’ Clive assured him.
As he spoke, figures loomed out of the shadows, soft-moving but quick on their feet. Palfrey stood quite still, supported by Clive’s arm, until the figures materialised into men. Palfrey blinked, Clive stepped aside. A rough hand was pressed over Palfrey’s mouth, and others gripped his forearms. He uttered a low-pitched exclamation, and then stumbled forward.
A voice muttered in Catanese: ‘It has worked, then.’
‘Get him away quickly,’ said Clive urgently.
‘It will keep him that way for an hour,’ said Manoel, who appeared from behind them. ‘Afterwards he will need strong coffee, but will be all right. Señor Clive, one day I shall repay you for this. You have only to say what you require, and it is yours.’
‘I’ll remember that,’ said Clive with meaning.
He watched two of the men carrying Palfrey towards a corner, and saw them bundle him into the back of a car. Then he walked swiftly towards the boulevard and the Hotel del Roso, whistling a little under his breath.
He hurried up the stairs to the second floor, went into his room, took off his coat, and put on a lightweight mackintosh, turning the collar well up so that his chin was covered. He pulled the brim of a trilby hat well down over his eyes, then took a key from his pocket swiftly and stepped into the passage. It was a master-key, obtained by a moderate bribe from a chambermaid earlier that day. He walked along two passages and reached Palfrey’s rooms. He tapped, but there was no response. He opened the door and slipped through, finding himself in a small reception room, comfortably and even luxuriously furnished.
‘He isn’t sparing expense,’ he mused aloud. ‘I’m beginning to get very curious about you, Dr. Palfrey.’
Without moving either his collar or his hat, Clive went into the next room, a sleeping-chamber as luxuriously appointed as the first. Two suit-cases were standing by a satinwood wardrobe. Clive bent down by them, and found them locked. He took another key from his pocket, a thin piece of rounded steel hooked at one end, and began to work on the lock of the first case. In a few seconds it opened, and he searched the contents. He found nothing of particular interest, and tried the other case. He had finished that, and started to examine the clothes in the wardrobe, within ten minutes, working swiftly and thinking now and again of Palfrey.
Clive had finished his search, and was back in his own room, when Palfrey’s eyes opened in a room some distance away.
The doctor did not know where he was; he found a soft light near him, but even that was bright enough to hurt his eyes. He closed them again, and heard a faint movement by his side. He kept still, but after a few moments a firm hand was put beneath his shoulders, and he was eased to a sitting position. He gasped.
‘Oh, my head!’
‘In a little moment you will be all right, señor? a man said softly, ‘Please to understand you will be all right. And drink this, señor; it is coffee—coffee of the best in Orlanto!’
Palfrey forced himself to open his eyes once more.
The room went round, there were noises like hammers striking on anvils inside his head, but after a few seconds he grew easier. His mouth was parched, and the coffee, poor stuff, at least helped that. By the time he had finished it he was able to keep his eyes open.
Only one man was with him, a short, broad-shouldered man with a wide moustache and a pale face, who peered at him anxiously.
The room was small, the wallpaper horrific in colours and flowers unknown to nature. Palfrey was sitting on a divan, his head resting against the wall, a pillow at his back. He was fully clad, his shoes resting on a bright red bedspread. Cheap furniture was dotted about the room. The single electric light was over a dressing-table set in one corner; brown paper was tied about it, to make it dim.
‘What the devil am I doing here?’ demanded Palfrey. ‘What is it all about? Where am I?’
‘You will be safe enough, señor; please to understand that and to keep quiet.’ The man seemed ill-at-ease, and glanced at the door. ‘In a little minute another will come, and to him you can talk.’
After a while, footsteps sounded outside.
The broad-shouldered man hurried to the door, opened it, and peered out. A new voice followed, and another man stepped into the room. The first went out, closing the door. The newcomer turned and locked it, then slid the key into his pocket.
Palfrey stared at him.
Tall, painfully thin, with sharp, aquiline features and immense eyes, the stranger was clad in a dark cloak which covered him from shoulders to knees, and a wide-brimmed, low-crowned hat. The pallor of his face was accentuated by the lustreless black of hat and cloak. He might have stepped from the pages of history into the moment, and stood like a great, white-faced bird, staring down at Palfrey, whose breathing grew quicker but steadied as he asked:
‘Who—who are you?’
Palfrey was astonished at the mellow voice which answered in good, but pedantic, English.
‘That need not interest you, Dr. Palfrey. Suffice it to know that I am aware of your identity.’
I insist on being told what is happening to me!’ snapped Palfrey with a sudden burst of spirit. ‘What is the meaning of this outrage? I shall make an immediate complaint to the police unless I am released at once.’
The tall man said: ‘No complaint will help you, doctor. I wish you to understand that, subject to certain conditions, no harm will befall you. It happens that you can perform for me a considerable service, one of great importance.’
‘That is nonsense. I don’t know you.’
‘You are a great doctor, señor. I need the services of such a man. I know that you came here to attend Don Salvos, and I have heard of the miracle you have performed with him. I shall expect you to repeat the miracle.’
Palfrey stared, his eyes widening, and then drew a deep breath.
‘Have you got the insolence to stand there and tell me I’ve been—been manhandled like this because you want to consult me? It’s outrageous, it—it’s nonsensical!’
The other received the outburst calmly.
‘You misunderstand me in some ways, señor, and there are many things which you do not understand. Because the patient is a man of great importance his presence in Orlanto is not known. He is gravely ill, suffering from the same malady as Don Salvos. To Catania, the continued health of Don Salvos is a matter of importance which cannot be over-emphasised, yet to other people the health of the man whom you are to visit is equally important. There are many who would gladly see him dead, señor, many in this city who are searching for him now. To approach you through the normal channels would be useless. Your promise to keep silent could perhaps be obtained, but it is not possible to be sure that you would keep it. There are, also, other difficulties. It was necessary for me to make sure that you did not know where you were going, equally necessary for you to understand that you must do for your new patient what you have done for Do
n Salvos, whatever the circumstances.’
Palfrey put his head on one side, regarding the other in silence for some seconds, and then spoke in a quieter voice.
‘Obviously you’ve got some bee in your bonnet, but understand this: I resent being consulted in so arbitrary a fashion. And get this quite clear, too: If your man has gone beyond a certain stage, nothing I or others can do will help him.’
The luminous eyes seemed to grow larger.
‘He must be helped, señor. There is no question of failure.’
He opened the door, and the broad-shouldered man came into sight. The passage beyond was long and narrow, and two other men were standing in the shadows, unmoving and unspeaking. ‘Precede me, señor.’
Palfrey walked towards the left.
At the end of the passage there was a flight of stairs. He went down cautiously, for the lighting was poor. The stranger kept close behind him, while on the first landing a pallid-faced man was lounging nonchalantly. From an open window there came a strange lapping sound.
‘What is that?’ Palfrey asked, while moving.
‘The River Guan,’ said the other briefly.
Palfrey’s heart beat faster.
Yet another flight of stairs ended at a closed door which was guarded by a man almost as tall as Palfrey’s companion. Without speaking, the man opened the door. Palfrey stepped through with the other in close attendance.
He entered a long, low-ceilinged room, illuminated by a single electric lamp. The mustiness was more apparent there, the air seemed damp. But Palfrey was less interested in the dankness of the room than in the single truckle bed on which a man lay staring towards him with feverishly bright eyes.
‘My oath!’ exclaimed Palfrey, sotto voce.
There was someone else in the room – a girl. She stared at Palfrey, but he did not see her. Narrow-eyed, he stepped towards the bed. The man lying there made no attempt to move, although his unnaturally bright eyes followed Palfrey’s movements, and then turned towards the man in the cloak.
‘Hermandes.’ His voice was weak, little more than a whisper. ‘Hermandes, is this the man?’
‘Yes, señor.’
‘God be praised!’ The feverish eyes were turned towards Palfrey, a fleshless hand made a slight movement.
Palfrey saw cheeks so sunken that the skin was stretched tautly from bone to bone. The sick man was a living skeleton, his flesh wasted to nothing. His face held an unearthly pallor relieved only by two burning spots of red. Thick, snow-white hair lent an even more unnatural touch to the sick man, whose breathing was shallow and irregular. As Palfrey drew nearer, the other gave a short, dry cough, and his features twisted in pain. He wore a nightshirt, wide open at the neck and showing his emaciated chest; but Palfrey saw more than emaciation: great weals, partly healed, cut across the skin.
‘Get me hot water, please. A sponge, and some towels. And a small bowl.’ He smiled at the man on the bed, and his own thin, rather vacuous face took on a softer expression. ‘Señor, had I known that you needed me I would have come before.’
The tension which had seized the fleshless body eased, and the man relaxed.
The subterranean room was very silent.
Palfrey finished his examination at last, after seeing that the man had been washed recently, and the weals treated as well as could be, although the lacerated skin on the unknown’s back, thighs and stomach, as well as his chest, made him feel nauseated. He stood up, breathing more freely, and smiled into the feverish eyes.
‘I can help you, señor,’ he said confidently. ‘You will need careful treatment, but much of your illness is due to confinement in such a room as this, and to malnutrition. That is, poor food!’ He was almost jocular. ‘But for those factors you would not be coughing and spitting blood, and with them remedied you can be cured.’
Hermandes moved softly forward.
‘Until he can walk, this is the only place in Orlanto where he can be at peace, señor’
Palfrey swung round towards him.
‘He must be moved without loss of time. I can save him, I think, but that is an imperative condition. Another one is that I am allowed to go away from here and back to my hotel, with freedom of movement as I wish. Without that I cannot get the necessary drugs, and you cannot get them for me.’ He was aggressive, giving no hint of diffidence or uncertainty, although his hands were unsteady.
Hermandes said softly:
‘How can I know that you will not betray us?’
‘You can’t know,’ snapped Palfrey. ‘But if I talk, what of it? I don’t know his name, I don’t know where I am. But am I likely to do anything to add to the sufferings of a man who has been brutally whipped and starved and tortured? If I took any steps it would be to find out who treated him that way, and by heaven they would suffer!’ He looked at Hermandes. ‘Do you know who they were?’
‘I know,’ said Hermandes softly. ‘And one day they will suffer, señor, but not at your hands.’
Chapter Three
Dr. Palfrey Receives an Inspiration
Palfrey returned the man’s gaze steadily, showing no signs of apprehension, but feeling inwardly cold.
‘I have done everything I can while we both remain here.’
‘I have told you, I dare not move him.’
‘Then you’re a damned fool!’ snapped Palfrey.
‘You talk very carelessly,’ Hermandes said ominously.
‘I talk facts.’
‘Hermandes.’ The girl interrupted, coming forward into the small radius of light. ‘The señor is right, it is clear that he is right. We need to trust him.’
‘You can’t do anything at all unless you do,’ said Palfrey. ‘Where has he been?’
‘I see that your curiosity is aroused at last,’ said Hermandes curtly. ‘He has been where many other fine men have been, to be broken and smashed and made old before they have reached middle age. He has been to Dachau, señor, and from Dachau he escaped, to find brief sanctuary here. But still he is hunted, still the Gestapo is on his heels. The Gestapo, and others.’
‘But Catania offers refuge to such men,’ said Palfrey softly. ‘I have always been told that.’
‘It is not safe! They are watching everywhere for him, and I dare not let it be known that he is here!’ Hermandes raised his voice, then went on abruptly: ‘I know my business, señor, be good enough to confine yourself to yours.’
Palfrey shrugged.
‘As you like. But there is a man in Orlanto who thinks that he owes me a considerable debt, and might be persuaded to help,’ he said quietly.
The girl exclaimed: ‘Who do you mean?’
‘The man who is more popular in Orlanto than anyone else,’ returned Palfrey. Señor Rodriquez y Taza Salvos—Don Salvos, as you call him.’
‘Salvos!’ the girl exclaimed.
‘It is impossible!’ declared Hermandes.
‘Nothing is impossible,’ said Palfrey irritably. ‘Don Salvos believes that he owes me his life, and perhaps he does. He will grant me any reasonable request, and if I ask for a room in his house, overlooking the Guan, it will be a small thing for him to give. Any man would be safe in the home of Don Salvos.’
The girl’s tired eyes were bright with a sudden fervour. Palfrey stared at her, frowning a little, puzzled at what he saw in her face. There was a short, tense pause before Hermandes turned, putting a hand on the girl’s arm.
‘We will talk outside,’ he said.
Palfrey watched the door close behind them, then stepped to the table and leaned against it. No whisper of voices came from outside, not even the lapping of the Guan insinuated itself into the dank chamber.
Abruptly, the door opened, and Hermandes came in without the girl. He did not close the door but stepped forward, speaking as he moved.
‘We have decided to let you go free, señor.’
‘So I should think!’ exclaimed Palfrey, thrusting his hands into his pockets. He felt weak at the knees and stomach with relief.
Palfrey shrugged, and turned to the door. ‘It makes no difference.’ He reached the stairs, seeing the doorkeeper again, and walked up with Hermandes in his wake, the other men watching silently; menacing, sinister. Palfrey shivered a little, and jumped when, at the top of the stairs, Hermandes touched his shoulder.
‘You will be blindfolded,’ Hermandes said.
Palfrey started to protest, then changed his mind. A scarf was tied about his eyes, not tightly but securely enough to make sure that he could not see. He was led down another flight of stairs and through long passages. Once a distant sound of radio music reached his ears, and on another occasion he heard the whine of a car, not far away. He judged that he was near a window, but it proved to be a door.
‘I shall send for news from you tomorrow,’ Hermandes said.
A different hand touched Palfrey’s. He was led along cobbled streets for a long time, following his leader blindly. Then the other stopped, and he was told to untie the scarf. As it fell from his eyes darkness met him, relieved only by distant light.
He heard the man say in a Catanese accent:
‘Hotel del Roso, Hotel del Roso.’
To the right the neon sign of his hotel blazed in red and yellow. He turned towards it, walking quickly and breaking into a cold sweat. He went past the commissionaire, and was half-way to the lift before he remembered his key. He returned for it, then went upstairs, clutching the key in one hand and his case in the other.
He did not look about the rooms, but went immediately to the bathroom of the suite, stripped off his coat, collar and tie, and rolled up his shirt-sleeves. He plunged his head and face into cold water, then kept bathing his face with it until he felt clearer-headed and fresh.