The others nodded agreement, except for Gerault, who continued to clamour nasally for the prisoner's death. Instead of listening to him they began to discuss ways and means of getting the Count out to the mill.
With his nerves as taut as piano wires de Quesnoy had listened to every word of the heated argument on how, with the least risk, to terminate his earthly existence. Now, he could at least breathe again. Even this respite of an hour or two might provide him with some chance to escape from the clutches of his enemies. Yet he was not even remotely sanguine. It seemed certain that he could not expect Ferrer to aid him in any way, and the others, with the possible exception of Jovellenos, were set upon his death. Their only concern was to avoid committing any act which might later be cited to show that they had taken a hand in murdering him. Benigno's caution had resulted in a very temporary postponement of sentence, but it could not be counted as more than that.
It was Dolores who suggested rolling the Count up in a carpet, and Benigno who improved upon this ruse for camouflaging his being got out of the house by the idea of also loading on to the cart some chairs and packing cases; so that passers-by should get the impression that they were engaged in moving some odds and ends of furniture.
Sanchez went off to get the horse and cart from a mews a little way down the street. Schmidt produced a somewhat grubby handkerchief and gagged de Quesnoy with it, while the others pushed back the furniture. When the Count was hauled to his feet he made no attempt to struggle. He knew that to do so would be futile, and he was still weak and in great pain. He could only hope that the ride in the cart would be a long one; so that by the time they reached the mill he would have got enough strength back to stand some chance in a bid to regain his freedom.
Zapatro gave him a push from behind and hooked one of his legs from under him, so that he fell on his face. Gerault then gave him a vicious kick on the side of the head that again rendered him nearly unconscious, and he was only vaguely aware through a mist of pain that he was being rolled up in the threadbare carpet that had long done duty in the masters' common-room.
Presently he felt himself lifted and carried some distance, then down the front steps. A minute later he was heaved up and thrown down with a bump on the floor of the covered cart. The sickening jolt to his injured head sent such a spasm of agony through it that he fainted.
When he came to, his heart was pounding heavily from its effort to draw enough air down into his lungs. His head was some way from the nearest open end of the carpet and, in addition, a corner of the handkerchief gagging his mouth had flapped up in front of his nostrils, so for a moment he feared that he was about to suffocate. But by exerting his will he managed to change his breathing from desperate gasps to slow regular intakes, so that the corner of the handkerchief was no longer drawn with each breath tight up against his nose.
Inside the tube that encased him it was black as pitch. His hands were still bound behind him and he could make no movement, except slight ones with his feet. The Escuela Moderna was not distinguished by its cleanliness, so the old carpet was gritty with dust and stank of the tobacco ash and wine that had been spilt upon it. For how long he had been unconscious he did not know, but now he hoped desperately that the journey would soon be over and so bring him relief from his agonizing imprisonment.
Actually he had been out only for a few minutes. The cart was moving up-hill and at a walking pace. As it jogged on he was given ample opportunity to think over the events of the evening and the terrible plight in which G6rault's arrival had landed him. Even while waging his fight for sufficient air and striving to ease his cramped muscles, he was bitterly aware of the irony of the situation. He had set out to secure evidence that Ferrer was the brain behind the militant anarchists of Spain, and he had got it.
Zapatro had said that Ferrer was attending a meeting that was planning the attempt on Quiroga, and the Quiroga referred to could hardly be anyone other than the Captain-General of Barcelona. The others, too, evidently feeling it no longer necessary to exercise caution about what they said in front of a man they had already condemned to death, had made several mentions of Ferrer's care to divert suspicion from himself and his ingenuity in eliminating without trace spies and traitors. In de Quesnoy's mind there was no longer a shadow of doubt that the whole staff of the Escuela Moderna were militant anarchists and that Ferrer was the king-pin of the movement. But now there seemed little hope of his being able to use the information, let alone warn General Quiroga that a plot was on foot to assassinate him.
At last the nightmare journey came to an end. The covered cart rumbled to a halt, but de Quesnoy was not taken out of it. For a further ten minutes he lay half stifled and sweating profusely in his smelly cocoon while, as he rightly supposed, those who had come with the cart were making a full report about him to Ferrer. Then he heard the back-board of the cart smack down, was drawn out of it, carried some way and dropped with a bump that again sent spasms of agony shooting through his wounds. Next moment he was rolled over and over till free of the carpet, then pulled to his feet.
Temporarily dazzled by the light, he at first registered only that he was in a low-ceilinged room with a number of people staring at him. After a few blinks his sight cleared and he saw that he was in the sort of parlour to be found by the thousand in the suburbs of any big city. At a small table in its centre Ferrer was sitting; on his right there was a giant of a man with a bushy upturned moustache, on his left was a bald man of about fifty, and beside him a youth with the wide-spaced eyes of a fanatic. Behind Ferrer, Benigno was standing. Schmidt and Sanchez, as the Count saw by a swift glance to left and right, were the two men who had dragged him up on to his feet.
Benigno had laid the illustrated magazine, opened at the page carrying the damning photograph, on the table in front of his father. As they looked first at it and then at him, the bald man said, 'It's him right enough. But I am amazed, Francesco, that you did not vet him before taking him into your employ, even temporarily.'
Ferrer gave an angry shrug. T did, Manuel, as far as was possible, soon after I first met him. I sent Ruben Pineda, a young student, to take Russian lessons from him, and later Pineda returned to search his room after he had gone out. There were all sorts of things in it that only a Russian would normally have possessed, and the branch of the Somaten he joined confirmed that he had come from Constantinople via Greece and Valencia.'
'Gerault told us that he is a past-master at such tricks,' Benigno put in. 'Apparently he really is half-Russian and succeeded in passing himself off in Paris for several months as a refugee from Tsarist persecution.'
The giant on Ferrer's right poured himself another glass of wine from a carafe that stood on the table, and said, 'To rake up the past is only waste of time. All we have to do is to make certain that after tonight he never again has a chance to play stool-pigeon to the police.'
'Of course,' Ferrer agreed, 'but remember, Pedro, that he has been employed at the school and I don't want the police descending on it and carting us all off to be grilled, as they certainly would if there is the least suspicion that his life had been taken because he had found out too much about us.'
'Why not put him on a railway line near a level crossing,' suggested the young man with the widely-spaced eyes. 'It would be assumed that, finding the gates shut, he became impatient, thought he could cross in time, but just failed to do so.'
Ferrer shook his head. 'No, Alvaro. Since the police must be aware that he has got in amongst us his death, even apparently by accident, would arouse their suspicions and lead to an exhaustive investigation. He must disappear, so that there is no body for them to examine and no point at which to start their inquiry.'
'Gerault suggested that we should bury him in the woods,' remarked Sanchez.
'I don't like that idea,' announced the bald-headed Manuel. 'It is a dark night. We'd need lanterns to select a suitable spot for a grave, to dig it and then clear up afterwards so that it wouldn't be obvious that the ground had been re
cently disturbed. We might easily be caught red-handed while at the job, or seen and spied on by a couple of lovers, then followed back here and afterwards denounced to the police.'
'There is also the danger of dogs or wild-pigs rooting up a newly buried body,' put in Benigno. 'It would not be the first time that has happened.'
'It is a pity that we no longer have access to Garcia's lime kiln,' Ferrer murmured. 'We could have got rid of him there as we did that traitor Zorrilla.'
'We might get rid of him in the mill,' said the giant Pedro thoughtfully.
De Quesnoy did his best to suppress a shudder. The thought of being crushed and slowly ground to death between two great millstones was very nearly as bad as that of being burnt alive. But that was not what Pedro had in mind and, after a short pause he went on:
Tf we threw him down the shaft into the flour he couldn't possibly get out, and the odds are that within ten minutes he'll be dead from suffocation. Anyhow, when we start to grind that would finish him.'
With his recent experience of stifling in the roll of carpet still vivid in his thoughts, this proposal struck the Count as even grimmer than being crushed to death. The night was hot and he was sweating already, but he broke out into a new sweat as his captors gave Pedro's suggestion serious fconsideration and discussed its possibilities in detail.
It transpired that some years before a workman, unseen by his companions, had fallen from a gallery that ran high up round the interior of the mill-shaft. It had been supposed that he had disappeared for some reason of his own, and the truth had come to light only some months later, as the flour chamber was completely emptied and cleaned out only two or three times a year. Between cleanings, two big doors in the base of the shaft were opened every few days and whatever quantity of flour required to fill orders was shovelled out into sacks. But Conesa, as resident foreman of the mill, could enter the chamber at any time. He would see to it that the Count's body lay buried well away from the doors and undiscovered until the next cleaning, which would not take place until a little before Christmas. When the body came to light its features would be unrecognizable and the face would have grown hair, so it could be suggested to the local authorities that the corpse was that of a tramp, and probably a drunken one, who had broken in to steal, but by a door that led only up to the top of the building, and there had the ill-luck to fall from the gallery. In any case, the chances of the body being identified as that of the monarchist spy who had disappeared in the late summer would be so remote as to be negligible.
While de Quesnoy listened, his blood chilled again. As he had no connection with the police no search would be made for him anyway. In due course de Vendome, the Cordobas and, perhaps, Don Alfonso, would become puzzled at not hearing from him and set inquiries on foot about him; but long before that was likely to happen he would be a desiccated corpse buried under several feet of flour, or in a pauper's grave as an unidentified tramp.
Having decided that Pedro's suggestion met their requirements, Ferrer said to him, 'Very well. You go with Sanchez and Schmidt. Take him away and make certain that he does not survive. I can settle the final details for the attempt on Quiroga with the others.'
De Quesnoy was still suffering from blinding pains in the head, and his breathing continued to be painful from the dust he had drawn down into his lungs during the three-quarters of an hour that he had lain rolled up in the carpet. As the grip of Sanchez and Schmidt tightened on his arms to drag him from the room he kicked out, began to struggle violently and to gurgle pleas and protests through the gag that was still tied over his mouth. Yet he knew that neither the little strength that was left in him, nor prayers if he could have made them coherently, would avail to save him.
When they had pushed and pulled him out of the house he glimpsed the covered cart in which they had brought him there, and realized that it was a dark night with no moon; but a myriad stars were shining overhead and gave enough light for him to get some idea of his surroundings. The small house stood in a corner of a big walled yard, next to it was a building that might be used as offices in the daytime, and beyond that a lofty warehouse. Opposite them the mill towered up into the darkness with, to one side of it, the long upward-sloping tunnel through which the buckets of grain were hoisted on an endless chain up to the grinders. The mill itself formed a square stack about forty feet in height, and before he had had time to take in more his captors had hustled him over to it.
Pedro produced a key and unlocked a door in its base which gave on to a dark stairway. The Count's struggles had become feeble now, and the three of them half-dragged, half-carried him up several flights of stairs to its top. There they came out on a small landing, and while they paused there to get their breath back Pedro shone a torch round.
Its beam, first levelled straight ahead, lit up the grinders, then, as he flashed it about, showed a catwalk which ran round all four sides of the building and was obviously used by workmen to reach the machinery when it needed oiling or repairs. The grinders formed a circular mass, which at that level filled the whole chamber except for the width of the catwalk and in each corner a triangular space. De Quesnoy was pushed along the narrow gallery till he was standing opposite the corner space to the left of the door by which they had entered. Pedro directed his torch downward and its beam was reflected on the white sea of milled flour that lay twenty feet below them.
Sanchez untied the Count's wrists. Pedro held his arms while Schmidt removed the gag from his mouth. Futile as he knew it to be, he began to shout for help with all his remaining strength;
but Pedro gave him a sharp jab under the chin. It made his teeth rattle, sent another blinding pain through his head, and temporarily silenced him.
Next moment the giant foreman picked him up bodily, lifted him over the rail of the catwalk and let him drop. With arms and legs splayed out in all directions, he hurtled head downwards into the deep suffocating bed of flour.
8
The Ordeal in the Mill
Had de Quesnoy fallen from that height on to a harder substance his neck must have been broken, but the powder-fine flour was not even packed tightly, as would have been the case had it been shovelled from one place to another; it was just as it had floated down from the grinders so almost as aerated as if it had been a vast cushion of feathers.
Head first, he plunged into it and seconds later was immersed up to the hips, with even his outstretched arms buried a foot or more deep; yet the impact had been sufficient to drive the breath out of his body.
Instinctively, he gasped for air. As his mouth opened the flour fell into it and more flour trickled down, filling his nostrils. He knew then that he was on the very brink of death. Unless he could free his head in the next few minutes he would suffocate. Already, with little air left in his lungs, there was a terrible constriction in his chest. It felt as though iron bands had been passed round it and were swiftly being screwed tighter.
Summoning up his will-power he forced himself to remain still for a moment, then with his remaining breath he blew down his nostrils. As it cleared them he made a desperate effort with his hands and forearms to force himself upward. It was only partially successful, but it brought him temporary relief. The pressure he had exerted had forced the flour beneath him into a solid mass and so created what amounted to an air bubble about his head and shoulders. He was able to draw in a breath of air before more flour fell in from above and filled the gap.
Now, although still half buried, to his unutterable relief it flashed upon him that there was a way in which he could save himself.
The whole bed of flour was so highly aerated that he only had to keep pressing it down in front of his face to get more air. Yet he was still not out of the wood. The mouthful of flour that he had gulped in now threatened to choke him. In vain he tried to spit it out. It had formed into a paste cloying all round his teeth and such of it as he had tried to swallow had stuck in his gullet.
In great pain and with failing strength, but no lessening of
endeavour, he continued his fight for life. Several more seemingly endless minutes passed while he writhed and struggled in the darkness. At last, his resolution was rewarded. Somehow he had freed his head and shoulders and pulled himself out of the morass of flour. Now, lying spreadeagled on his back, he gradually recovered from his exertions.
A good twenty minutes passed before he made any attempt to explore his surroundings, then he sat up and looked about him. Already it had dawned on him that although when Pedro had shone his torch downward the flour chamber had appeared to be a pit of utter blackness, it was not so in fact. It was very faintly lit by starlight percolating through two dirt-encrusted windows set high up in opposite walls.
The chamber itself was about twenty feet square and, judging by the glimpse that de Quesnoy had caught of it from outside, he believed it to be about forty feet high. As the grinding machinery must occupy the upper ten feet, and he was lying some twenty feet below it, it could be assumed that the bed of flour was about ten feet deep. If that were so, the doors that Pedro had mentioned, by which the flour was shovelled out as required into sacks, must be well below the surface; so even if he could find them, it would be impossible to force them open.
Assuming that the flour was ten feet deep, the windows were a good bit more than half-way up the walls so could not be reached, and the walls, being sheer, and without protrusions of any kind, were completely unscaleable. However, it occurred to him that if he could make a solid mound of flour under one of the windows, he might be able to jump up to it.
Getting to his feet he ploughed his way over towards the nearest. With each step he took his foot sank knee-deep into the flour, as though it was the lightest form of snow, and at every movement he made, a big puff of it rose up filling the air with a little cloud of particles. Standing beneath the window he found that its sill was a good seven feet above the level of the flour and, as his feet were sunk nearly a foot deep in the flour, when he stretched his hands up as far as they would go his finger-tips were still some eighteen inches short of the sill.
Vendetta in Spain ddr-2 Page 13