Vendetta in Spain ddr-2

by Dennis Wheatley

  Her black eyes, no longer misted by tears, flashed angrily. Stamping her foot, she burst out, 'Then why in the name of Shaitan did you not tell me so in the first place?'

  'Because I believed him to be your lover.'

  'What led you to believe that?'

  Putting up his revolver, he showed her the photograph of herself and said, 'On about the twenty-fourth of August Sanchez fled from Barcelona and there was some reason to think that he had gone to Granada. Recently he has been in San Sebastian. Four nights ago I had a fight with him, and this photograph fell out of his pocket. As it was taken in Granada, that confirmed my belief that he had been lying low here. From that it was no great jump to the assumption that he was your lover and you had been hiding him.'

  With a glance at the photograph she muttered sullenly, 'You were right. He came here first last summer on a holiday. He is a handsome devil and I let him have his way with me. That lasted for about ten days. He turned up again this August and told me that he was on the run. I had no permanent lover at the moment; so we took up with one another where we had left off and I let him share my cave.'

  'How long did he remain here this time?'

  'About a fortnight. He left on a Wednesday. I think . . . yes . . . it was September the 8th.'

  'And he has not been back since. Today, I mean; even to see you for an hour or leave a message for you?'

  'He neither has been back, nor will be.'

  'You cannot be sure of that. I believe him to be making his way south by slow trains and branch lines. That could easily take him a day longer than I reckoned on. He may quite well turn up tomorrow.'

  'I tell you he will not. He will never return here; no, not if you wait for him till Doomsday.'

  'How can you be so certain of that?'

  La Torcera's face suddenly contorted into a fierce scowl and she cried, 'Because he knows that if he did I'd stick a knife in his guts. He left me for another woman, and not content with that the swine stole my savings to go off with her.'

  Convinced that all this time she had been lying to protect her lover, de Quesnoy had remained blind to any other possibility. But her bitter words had the ring of truth. Now it flashed upon him that he had completely misinterpreted her act of spitting in his face. She had done so not because he had somehow given it away that he was after Sanchez's blood, but because she had accepted his statement that he was Sanchez's intimate friend.

  He gave a rueful laugh. 'It seems that for the past quarter of an hour we have been at cross purposes. That was my fault, of course; although I had no means of guessing that Sanchez had given you grounds to hate him. Still, now that we understand one another we must work together, and with luck I'll be able to aid you in getting your revenge. Have you any idea where he would be likely to have made for after leaving San Sebastian last Tuesday?'

  She shook her head. 'No, none. I wish I had. I'd give a year's work to get even with him.'

  'While he was here did he never mention to you any other places in which he had friends who might have hidden him?'

  'No. He spoke little of his affairs, except when following in the newspapers what had occurred after he left Barcelona. The school his father ran there was closed by the police, and his father, brother and many of his friends were arrested. He attributed all this ill-fortune to a Conde de Quesnoy who, according to news he received here through the anarchist grape-vine, had had a miraculous escape from death and had denounced them all.'

  De Quesnoy smiled. 'Although I am not a Prince I can give you my word that I am a Conde. I am that Conde de Quesnoy of whom he spoke. It is tfue that I denounced these anarchists and Sanchez's having escaped the net is one reason why I am hunting him. But I suppose you have anarchist sympathies yourself; so had you not personal grounds for wishing to be revenged you would refuse to help me catch him.'

  She shrugged. 'I think we gipsies are all anarchists at heart, but we have enough troubles without mixing ourselves up in politics; and all of us thought the attempt to kill the handsome young King and his bride a most wicked thing. That you are an anarchist-hater and hunting Sanchez on that account makes no difference to me. I'd still aid you to catch him if I could, but I see no way to do so.'

  After a moment's thought, de Quesnoy asked, 'What of this woman for whom he deserted you? Tell me about her.'

  'She was not one of the troupe, but a girl of the town named Inez Giudice; a little red-headed bitch in her early twenties.'

  'Was she a native of Granada?'

  'No. After they had gone I made inquiries about her and I learned that she had been living in Granada for only about six months. She is the daughter of a Cadiz shipwright, and had been brought up there.'

  'That may prove a clue worth having,' murmured the Count. 'Since Sanchez was being hunted by the police he would still have had to keep under cover, and if she had lived in Cadiz all her life she would have friends there who could hide him; particularly as with your savings they would have had ample money to make it worth-while for such friends of hers to aid them. It seems to me that the odds are definitely on their having gone to Cadiz.'

  La Torcera nodded. 'You are probably right. But about the money, I have no wish to mislead you. It was not the savings of a lifetime; no more than about eight hundred pesetas. I had put by a considerably greater sum, but I confess that last spring I squandered it on a handsome young matador for whom I developed a sudden foolish passion.'

  'Eight hundred pesetas,' repeated the Count. 'No, that would not have kept them very long if they had to use money to keep still tongues in other people's heads. And Sanchez was in no position to earn any money. If he has returned to her they must by now be on their uppers.'

  With a shrug and a cynical smile La Torcera replied, 'At all events they'll not starve. She is a whore by profession, and you may be sure that Sanchez would feel no scruples about sending her out on to the streets to earn enough to keep him in food and wine.'

  'Did you ever see her?' the Count asked.

  'Yes; she was twice brought here to see the troupe perform by a man who enjoyed Flamenco. He was, I suppose, one of her regular patrons. Sometimes Sanchez used to watch the dancing from behind the curtain that screens the entrance to the big cave. That is probably how he first saw her and became enamoured of her. But every few nights he became bored from having nothing to do up here, and in spite of the risk he ran I could not prevent him from going down into the city. It must have been on one such occasion that he saw her again and became acquainted with her. In any case, after he had left me, and I was near distraught with grief and rage, the brother of one of the girls in the troupe told me that he had seen them together on the station platform. That is how I know that it was she who took him from me.'

  'Then you would be able to recognize her?'

  'Yes, anywhere,' La Torcera's eyes glowed with vindictiveness. 'And should I ever come upon her I'll pull every hair from her red head.'

  'I think not,' said de Quesnoy quietly. 'At least not until after she has led us to Sanchez.'

  La Torcera glowered at him. 'What do you mean by that?'

  'I mean that as there seems a good chance that he went with her to Cadiz and by now has rejoined her there, it is my intention that we too should pay a visit to that ancient port. Since you say you would have no difficulty in recognizing her and the city is of no great size, by haunting the bars and public places where prostitutes ply their trade it should not be long before you spot her and can find out where they are lodging. Once you have done that I will settle accounts with Sanchez for both of us; his woman I shall be happy to leave to you.'

  Her eyes grew round and she stammered, 'But the troupe! I . . . I could not leave them. It ... it is my living.'

  Putting a hand under his cloak, he unhitched the small sack of gold behind his left hip, produced it, and threw it with a clang on the trestle table. That contains a thousand pesetas,' he said; 'more than the sum of which Sanchez robbed you. If we succeed in this business I will give you in additio
n four times that amount. Whatever happens, any woman who has mastered the art of Flamenco dancing as ably as yourself should have little difficulty in securing employment in another troupe, even if this one will not receive you back; so you can regard the greater part of this money as a bonus.'

  Still staring at him a shade uncertainly, she stretched out a hand and lifted the bag. On its weight reassuring her that it really contained gold, she nodded slowly. 'Very well, then. When do you wish me to start?'

  'Now,' he replied. 'As soon as you have packed your things. The sooner we arrive in Cadiz the better.'

  'No!' she shook her head. 'That really is not possible. I am due to dance again in about twenty minutes.'

  He had made up his mind to take her with him, in case if he left her there till morning she should mention her intentions to any other member of the gipsy fraternity and, through a grape-vine, they should reach Sanchez.

  'That cannot be helped,' he said firmly. 'You must cut your dance and come with me. I intend that we should leave Granada by the first fast train going west tomorrow; and that may mean an early start. Get your things together, now; and be quick about it.'

  'I cannot go in these clothes,' she protested.

  'True. Then I will go outside while you change.' As he spoke he picked up the bag of gold from the table.

  Her eyes suddenly fierce again, she made a snatch at it and exclaimed, 'You said that was for me! I'll not leave here without it.'

  'It is for you, but I don't mean to chance your changing your mind during the night about coming with me to Cadiz.' Opening the bag he poured about a third of its contents into his palm, laid the little heap of coins on the table, and added, 'There is an earnest of my good faith. The rest you shall have when we are on the train tomorrow.'

  Leaving the cave he walked some way down the hill to the gully in which the carriages that had brought visitors were waiting, found his driver, roused him from sleep and told him to get ready to return to the city. By the time he had climbed the slope again a good ten minutes had elapsed; so, after he had knocked on the door outside the cave and she had told him to come in, he found that she had finished changing.

  Her high comb, mantilla and dancer's frock with its scores of flounces had disappeared. Dressed now in a grey coat and skirt, and wearing elastic-sided black boots and a black sombrero, she was just starting to pack her things into a large, finely-woven oblong basket, which had beside it a similar basket to fit over its top.

  While walking back up the hill it had occurred to him as strange that since Sanchez had deserted her for another woman early in September, he should still be carrying her portrait at the end of the month; and he asked her if she could account for it.

  She replied that she could not; so he took it out again, showed it to her, and asked if the rows of letters and figures on its back conveyed anything to her.

  After looking at it for a moment she said, 'They don't mean anything to me; but might not the letters stand for towns and the figures be the times of trains leaving them?'

  That possibility had already occurred to de Quesnoy, and he had even thought of attempting to check them against the Spanish timetable; but that would have entailed many hours of work and, even if successful, still left him in ignorance as to which of a score of trains Sanchez might have taken. Now that La Torcera had had the same thought it strengthened his opinion and, if Sanchez had used the back of the photograph to list a number of trains, that would account for his having kept it.

  When she had finished packing he helped her put a strap round the big oblong basket. She put out the lamp and locked the door to her dwelling after them; then they walked side by side down the hill to the carriage.

  By the time they reached the hotel it was past two o'clock in the morning and there was only a night porter on duty. When the Count asked for a room for La Torcera the man had already taken in the fact that she was a gipsy; but, knowing that it was not for him to question the vagaries of the hotel's wealthy patrons, he quickly checked his glance of disapproval. If the management chose to make a tactful remonstrance in the morning, that was their affair. Producing the key to a single room at the back on the upper floor, he picked up her basket with barely-concealed reluctance and took her up in the lift.

  Meanwhile de Quesnoy had gone behind the porter's desk, found a timetable and was looking up trains. The direct route from Granada to Cadiz was via Antequera and Ronda, but that meant going by slow trains and making two changes. The alternative was to go round by Seville, which meant an extra fifty miles, but at 8.30 there was an express to Seville and Cadiz was only another forty-odd miles on from there; so he decided on the latter.

  On a note pad he wrote a line for La Torcera, T have ordered breakfast to be taken up to you with this at a quarter to seven. Please be packed and ready to leave at eight sharp. You will find me down in the hall, de Q.'

  When the porter returned he gave the note to him with instructions about breakfast for himself and his guest, and asked that his bill should be ready without fail at five minutes to eight. Then he tipped the man well and went up to bed.

  Next morning at the station he asked La Torcera if she would like a book for the journey or only magazines. She replied that she had had little schooling and could read only large print slowly; so he bought her some picture papers to look at, and also a box of chocolates. These unexpected attentions by him removed the expression of rather sullen suspicion she had worn during their drive down from the hotel, and after he had fulfilled his promise to give her the rest of the gold in the little sack he felt confident that, in spite of the high-handed way in which he had treated her, he had now won her allegiance.

  Although they were leaving the mighty range of the Sierra Nevada behind, the greater part of the journey was through desolate but picturesque mountain country. For much of the time the train was winding its way round bends along a narrow track with a precipitous gorge on one side, so, although termed an express its speed often dropped to thirty miles an hour. But to some extent it made up for that on entering the comparatively flat country farther west and they reached Seville a little before half-past one.

  After a meal in the station restaurant, they drove to a small hotel that the Count had noticed during his first visit to the city, which appeared pleasant but unpretentious. There he booked a room for La Torcera and, having given her some more money, told her to go out and buy a hat and clothes of a more fashionable kind than those she had on at the moment, then to return and get changed. He too went out on a brief shopping expedition to buy for her a leather portmanteau, an eyeshade, a crooked stick and, at a secondhand shop for a few pesetas, a greasy old black cotton hood and robe such as were worn by the poorest elderly peasant women.

  Having completed his purchases he put the robe in the suitcase and returned to the hotel. Finding that it was still only four o'clock and as the evening train for Cadiz did not leave till six, he sent the portmanteau up to La Torcera's room with a message that ran: 'Repack your things, the old robe, and the clothes you were wearing in this, and give your travelling basket to the chambermaid. Please be down in the hall ready to leave at half past five.' Then he went out to pay another visit to the Alcazar.

  The last time he had been in the old Moorish Palace had been barely a fortnight after Angela's death, so he was now in a much more suitable frame of mind to appreciate its beauties. This time he found even more to wonder at in the Salon de Embajadores and the patios de las Munecas and de las Doncellas, with their slender pillars and stone tracery mirrored in the brightly-polished marble floors, and he could not now make up his mind if these glorious Courts or those of the Alcazar in Granada were the more beautiful. But afterwards, when he took a short stroll in the garden, he saw at once that he had been right in thinking it far superior to that of the much vaunted Generalife.

  Soon after his return to the little hotel, La Torcera came downstairs. She was now wearing a dress that swept the ground, of smooth fawn cloth decorated with applique wor
k, had huge puffed out sleeves and a ruched collar. On her head was balanced a large hat crowned by a mountain of violets.

  He smiled his approval and had a carriage summoned to take them to the station. On the way she asked him why he had sent her up the filthy old robe, and he replied, 'Because, much as I regret having to ask you to do so, you will shortly have to wear it instead of your pretty new clothes. We cannot afford to risk having Sanchez or his woman recognize you, and perhaps take alarm; so it is part of a disguise that I have bought for you.'

  The journey from Seville to Cadiz took only a little over an hour and the last ten miles of it was along a narrow isthmus that ran from south to north with a bulge at its extremity on which stood the city. The western side of the isthmus, washed by the Atlantic, formed part of the coastline running up towards Portugal, while the eastern side faced a mile-wide lake or, rather, gulf. This vast land-locked harbour made Cadiz one of the finest natural ports in Europe, and as de Quesnoy gazed at it from the window of the train he visualized the great fleets of galleons that once must have lain sheltered there, either assembling before setting sail for the Indies, or just returned laden with gold and silver from Mexico and Peru.

  He then recalled that it was here that Sir Francis Drake had, as they said, 'Singed the King of Spain's beard.' The English

  Admiral had caught assembling there a powerful squadron that was intended to form part of the Armada and, having sailed right in, had burnt or sunk the greater part of it. 'What bold courageous devils those islanders were; and they're still at it today carrying their Union Jack into all the still-unclaimed parts of Africa, Asia and the Pacific,' was the thought that ran through the Count's mind. Then, to the surprise of La Torcera, he burst out laughing, for he had suddenly remembered that he was now of British nationality himself.

  Dotted along the peninsula there were villages and one quite considerable town. At all of them on both shores, tents, rows of bathing huts, concert platforms on the sand just above the tide level, roundabouts, swings and booths, showed that these long beaches were favourite holiday resorts. But now most of them were closed and there were only a few groups sitting or strolling in the evening light; for it was the 1st of October and the holiday season was over.