'My dear, he is your husband, and . . .'
'He is no longer so. He lost that right when I found him out. Since then I have looked on my body as my own, to do as I will with.'
Again he shook his head, but she went on swiftly. 'As things are between him and me what difference does it make that we are still married? If you and I were deeply religious that would be a different matter. For priest-ridden women who five like nuns for the rest of their lives after their husbands have deserted them, I have only contempt. And you, Armand. I cannot believe that you mean to repel me because you fear to be troubled by remorse at having committed adultery.'
'Adultery, no,' he gave a grim little laugh. 'On that score I've already plenty to answer for. Yet in such cases as I have made love to married women, it has proved no burden on my conscience. You speak, though, of my repelling you. How can you use such a word when you must know that I'm aching to embrace you?'
'Oh my darling!' she gave a quick sigh of relief. 'For a moment you really frightened me. I thought that through some foolish scruple you were about to drive me from you.'
Again she put out her arms and now stooped her head towards his.
His pulses were racing and his brain in a turmoil. He was a virile man and had known no woman since Angela's death, now four months ago. And here was this most lovely creature, whose charm and mind and body all combined to make her so utterly desirable, offering herself to him.
With a desperate effort he fought down his desire, brushed her outstretched hands aside, rolled over and slipped out of the far side of the bed.
'Armand!' she cried, her voice sharp with renewed fear that, after all, she was about to lose him.
'No, Gulia! No!' he gasped, now facing her across the bed. 'You did not let me finish just now when I said that Jos6 was your husband. I was about to add that he is also my friend.'
'Your friend. Yes, of course,' she replied impatiently. 'But what of it? You have just admitted that you have several times committed adultery with other women. The husbands of some of them must have been your friends.'
He shook his head. 'You are wrong there. Some were acquaintances, but none my friends. I have never taken the wife of a friend, and never will.'
'Then you shall tonight.' She spoke softly now, but with quiet .determination. 'You have admitted that you want me.'
*Of course I do. I am half mad for you, but. .
"Then I'll not let you rob yourself and me of the bliss we could ?know together.' As she spoke she undid her dressing-gown and let it fall to the floor. With his heart beating like a sledgehammer he watched her walk round the foot of the bed towards him.
She was wearing a nightgown of pale blue chiffon. It was goffered under the breasts to accentuate their outline, but otherwise absolutely plain and transparent. When she came round the end of the bed he saw the full perfection of her body, and his breath caught in his throat.
As she approached he backed a little towards the window, but she took a quick step forward, placed both her hands on his shoulders, and murmured: 'Armand, I beseech you to be sensible. Jose will never know. What difference can it make to him?'
'That's not the point,' he muttered thickly. He was trembling now and made no move to push her hands from his shoulders. 'Not the point. It is that . . . that he trusts me. If he did not he would never have allowed us to spend so much time virtually alone together. I ... I can't betray him.'
'Darling, he left us alone because he does not care. He is happy with his dancing girls, and you know yourself that he is not mean-spirited. Naturally he would be furious if I openly disgraced him by taking a lover, or even getting myself talked about. But what the eye does not see the heart does not grieve over. He wouldn't wish to know that I had been unfaithful to him, but he would not grudge me a little happiness; and less so if it was with a man like yourself whom he respects and admires. It would not surprise me if he half suspects that we have already become lovers. No man who really minds about his wife would have given another the opportunities that he has given you to persuade me to become your mistress.'
It was a point of view that had not occurred to de Quesnoy. Perhaps, he thought, she is right. Jos6 must realize that she is made of flesh and blood, and now, at twenty-three, subject to all the urges of a fully-developed woman. Since he neglects her, how could he expect her to remain chaste. And I suppose most men, if left with her day after day, would have had few scruples about doing their best to persuade her to go to bed with them. Perhaps I am making a mountain out of a molehill, and throwing away this wonderful thing for a point of honour that, in the circumstances, Jos6 himself would find laughable.
The heady scent she was wearing came like incense to his nostrils. The nearness of her body set his own on fire. Her eyes fixed on his were moist with desire; her red lips were a little parted showing her teeth gleaming white. She slid her arms over his shoulders and held her flower-like face up for his kiss.
Yet from somewhere inside him he almost heard a voice say, This is forbidden. She is my friend's wife. He has trusted me with her. I have no right to assume that he would not mind if I took her. That he will never know makes no difference. I shall still have lost my own self-respect.'
He put up his hands to break her hold and push her from him, determined now that, whatever she might say, he would resist temptation. As he moved, her eyes shifted from his to a point over his left shoulder and she gave a sudden cry.
Turning his head he looked towards the window. From behind the central pillar of the patio a man had emerged. He was standing now within two feet of the right hand panel of the french window with something that looked like a black box held up to his face.
Next second there came a blinding flash. Instantly de Quesnoy's muscles tensed themselves to meet the shock of the explosion. For a moment the room and the portico were as bright as on the brightest day. The light was blinding and for seconds after it went out he could see the outline of the window and the man outside it silhouetted in dead black against a deep orange background. But no explosion followed; the window remained un-shattered. No deadly fragments of glass and iron came whizzing through the air to tear the flesh of Gulia and himself to ribbons.
It was only when the black and orange dissolved into grey, and he could see again the familiar features of that side of the room, that he realized what had happened. It had been no bomb that the man had set off, but a magnesium flare, and the boxlike thing he had been holding up before his face had been a camera.
Thrusting Gulia from him, de Quesnoy cried, 'Back to your room! Don't lose an instant! I'm going after him. The flash and the noise may wake someone. You must not be found here.'
Before he had finished speaking he had the window open. He had not forgotten the revolver in his bedside cupboard, but feared that if he paused to collect it he would lose track of the intruder. Dashing across the little patio, he halted a second to glance right and left. To his right, now thirty yards away, he glimpsed between two groups of palms a dark figure running hard. Launching himself forward he raced down the gravel path. His feet were bare so the stones cut into them but in the emergency of the moment he hardly noticed that.
As the man ahead crossed the open space by the fountain, the Count had a better sight of him. He was taller and had a longer stride so de Quesnoy's hopes of overtaking him dwindled. For a second he thought of rousing the household by shouts of 'Stop thief'; but to do so could not have brought help in time and if Gulia had not at once obeyed him her presence at the end of the house in which his bedroom lay might lead to most unwelcome speculations among the servants.
When he reached the fountain luck came to his aid. His quarry had taken a short cut across some flower-beds to reach a partly open wrought-iron gate between two pillars in a tall yew hedge. Failing to see in the semi-darkness that in the centre of one of the beds there lay a shallow lily pool, the leaves of the plants in which almost covered its surface so that no gleam of moonlight showed on the water, he splashed right into it, tripped and fell
.
He scrambled to his feet but had lost a precious minute in which de Quesnoy had thrown all his strength into a spurt. Before the man could j ump clear of the pond the Count was on him and they fell in a tangled heap together.
The pond was one of a pair at that end of the garden. It contained only miniature aquatic plants, so was no more than six feet by four and about eight inches deep. The man's legs and body were half submerged in it but his head and shoulders were on dry ground. He was on his back with de Quesnoy on top of him, and the pale moonlight now revealed his features. He was Sanchez Ferrer.
'I thought it might be you . . .' panted the Count, as he strove to get a grip on Sanchez's throat, . . from the description of the man ..
He got no further, but gave a sudden grunt. Sanchez had brought up his right leg with a violent jerk and kneed him in the stomach. The breath was driven from his body. Automatically he let go of Sanchez's neck, doubled up and rolled over gasping with agony. The strapping young anarchist kicked his legs free from the Count's body, struggled up into a sitting position, and whipped out a knife from a sheath under his cummerbund.
Staring upward with bulging eyes, de Quesnoy saw his danger. The twisting muscles of his stomach were still paining him fiercely. He was still incapable of fighting back. His heart missed a beat as Sanchez raised the knife to stab downwards with it. By a superhuman effort he threw himself sideways. The knife, aimed to bury itself beneath his ribs, passed under his arm as he flung himself over, and buried itself in a wire basket containing a lily root.
With a curse, Sanchez jerked upon it to pull it free. At the second tug it came out, but he had had to exert so much strength on it that he went over backwards. In a second he was sitting upright again, but even that brief respite had enabled de Quesnoy to draw a little air down into his tortured lungs. As Sanchez raised the knife to stab with it again, the Count's hand shot up and grasped his wrist.
There ensued a tense, silent struggle that lasted a full minute. But de Quesnoy's slim fingers were as strong as steel. Gradually he twisted and forced back his would-be murderer's wrist. Sanchez let out a blasphemous oath, and the knife tinkled on the stone surround of the lily pool.
Flexing his knees, Sanchez heaved himself upright. Still clutching his wrist, the Count was dragged up on to his knees after him. But now he made a fatal error. Slung from a long strap over the anarchist's shoulder there dangled the black leather box that held the camera. It was that, with the damning photograph it must contain, that de Quesnoy felt it all-important to secure. Leaving go of Sanchez's wrist, he made a grab at the box, but missed it.
In an instant Sanchez had turned and, with head down, was again racing towards the wrought-iron gate. Floundering to his feet de Quesnoy dragged them from the mud of the pool and went pelting after him. Ignoring all obstacles Sanchez plunged into a bed of flowering shrubs. His having to force his way through them enabled de Quesnoy to catch him up. Again, the Count made a snatch at the camera case. He missed it, but his fingers grasped the loose skirt of Sanchez's light cotton jacket. Halting in his tracks he attempted to pull the anarchist back by it. There came a tearing sound but the piece of material that he had clutched was wrenched from his hand, and Sanchez bounded forward on to the path on the far side of the bed.
De Quesnoy burst his way through the bushes in pursuit; but it was now his turn to be brought up in mid-career by the unexpected. His foot caught on an exposed root. He was flung violently forward and came down flat across the path, his chin striking one of the stones that formed its further edge. Again the breath was driven out of his body, and the blow to his chin temporarily knocked him out.
It was some minutes before he was sufficiently recovered to pick himself up, and by then he knew that any further attempt to pursue Sanchez would be futile.
As he scrambled painfully to his feet his eye fell upon a nearly square white object lying in the middle of the path. On touching it he realized that it was a piece of cardboard. It was almost four inches long by three wide. Turning it over, he saw it to be a portrait, and the moonlight was just sufficient for him to make out that it was of a woman. Evidently when he had seized Sanchez's coat and dragged upon it, the tear had also ripped the inside pocket and the photograph had fallen out of it.
Carefully now, a lump rising on his chin, his knees grazed and the soles of his bare feet on the sharp ground causing him to wince with every step he took, he made his way back towards his bedroom.
As he approached the house he saw Gulia leaning out of an upstairs window. She called softly down to him, 'Armand; what happened? I pray God you're not hurt.'
'No,' he called back. 'I'm all right; but he got away. It was Sanchez Ferrer. I'll tell you all about it in the morning.'
Going inside, he looked at the portrait under the light. It was of a gipsy dancer, and had been taken by a photographer in Granada. Getting out fresh night clothes he changed out of his mud-covered ones into them, then went along to the cloakroom off the hall to wash himself and bathe his hurts. Back in his room he lowered himself into the armchair and considered for a while what was best to be done.
As it was impossible to guess even in which direction Sanchez had made off it was pointless to telephone the police. Moreover, the police were the last people that de Quesnoy now wished to bring into the matter. He knew little about photography, but was inclined to suppose that it was by no means easy to take good pictures by artificial light; so that taken by Sanchez might not come out. On the other hand it was unlikely that he would have taken it if he had not thought there was a good chance that it would. And if it did it could lead to most appalling trouble.
Gulia, in her transparent nightgown, had been as near naked as made no matter, and she had been facing the window. At the angle from which the picture had been taken his body would probably have shielded one side of her, but as she was nearly as tall as he was her face musfhave appeared in it over his shoulder, and she had had her arms round his neck. It compromised both of them beyond all possible argument, and for it to fall into the hands of the police would be nearly as bad as if it were shown straight away to Jos6. Therefore, by hook or by crook he must get the negative back.
On re-examining the photograph that Sanchez had dropped he saw that on the back there were scrawled a number of letters and numbers, in most cases having dashes between them. But he could think of no clue to these hieroglyphics.
Glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece, he saw that it was now a quarter past two; so if he woke at six he could still get in the best part of four hours' sleep. Getting into bed he put out the light.
Gulia's visit had greatly disturbed him, but he was decidedly relieved that he had not allowed her to persuade him to make love to her; and Sanchez's appearance on the scene had now given him an excuse to escape further situations in which her beauty might lead him to succumb to temptation. He felt no righteous glow in having rejected her advances. On the contrary he was inclined to think that in refusing so lovely a gift of the gods he might, at times, look back with regret on this lost opportunity to take as his mistress a woman so gifted in so many ways; but at least he was able to go to sleep without any twinge of conscience.
As a soldier, he had long since trained himself to wake at any hour, and within a few minutes of six he opened his eyes. A slight ache in his chin recalled to him at once the events that had taken place during the night and for a short while he lay turning them over in his mind. Then he got out of bed, put on his dressing-gown and walked along to the library. There, he wrote two letters. Both were to Gulia. The first ran:
Dear Dona Gulia,
The intruder who was seen in the garden two nights ago was here again last night. He made an attempt to get into my room, but fortunately the noise he made trying to force the lock of the window woke me. I jumped out of bed, chased him through the garden and caught, but failed to hold him. (/ fear that as a result of our encounter one of your lily pools has suffered sadly.) However, the light was good enough for me to
identify him as Sanchez Ferrer.
He will naturally expect me to report the occurrence to the police, as a result of which the San Sebastian district would become too hot to hold him; so the odds are that he will go into hiding again further afield. Last time he was in danger of arrest the police had reason to believe that he went to earth in Granada, and during our struggle last night he dropped a photograph taken in Granada, which makes it as good as certain that he did. But he cannot know that the police suspect that he has a hide-out there so I think it highly probable that he will return to it.
Having considered turning the matter over to the police I have decided against that. There would certainly be delays while statements are taken and passed on to Granada, and it is most unlikely that any of the Granada police could identify Sanchez on sight. Therefore, with the aid of the photograph he dropped, if I act promptly I consider that I stand a better chance of laying him by the heels myself.
Please forgive me for not delaying to make my formal adieux to you, but I am loath to disturb you so early in the morning and must leave the house soon after eight if I am to catch the nine-five for Madrid. (There is just a chance, too, that Sanchez may be on it.)
One more thing. As a knife will be found in or near the lily pool it would be foolish of me to conceal from you that Sanchez attempted to kill me. In consequence, if my idea is correct and I run him to earth in Granada, there is always the possibility that in another attempt he might prove more successful, or that I might be laid up there for a while with another wound.
Therefore, just in case anything prevents my returning to San Sebastian, I would like to express how deep is my gratitude to you, to Josi and to Francois for the wonderful care you have taken of me since I was brought to you as a shattered wreck. That I am whole and strong again so soon is due entirely to the unceasing thought that you have so generously given to my nursing and well being. It is a debt that I shall never be able to repay. But I have every hope of returning safely from Granada and later expressing the above sentiments to you in person.
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