'Open it and go inside,' he ordered her. She did as she was bid. He saw that it had a window through which she might squeeze herself. But, even if she did, the villa was so far out in the country that there seemed no possibility of her bringing help on the scene before he had accomplished what he had come to do.
Under the brighter light of the oil lamp burning there his features stood out more clearly. Suddenly her pale blue eyes widened, and she exclaimed, 'Chirikov! No; the French spy - de Quesnoy.'
He nodded. Returning her angry stare with a calm scrutiny he saw that her sallow face had grown much older; but that was not to be wondered at as she had spent a year in the dungeons of Montjuich. With an ironical bow, he remarked:
'I recall that we once talked of spending a week-end together on the Costa Brava. As I would cheerfully have murdered you rather than make love to you, you may consider yourself lucky that you have had three more years of life than you deserve. Sit down now and remain quiet. If you start shouting I shall come back and you will die in this place so well suited to the life you have led.'
Taking the key from the inside of the door he transferred it to the outside, shut the door and locked her in. With his pistol at the ready, he opened and threw back the door on the right-hand side of the passage. No sound broke the stillness indicating any reaction to his swift movement. Having listened intently for a moment he stepped inside.
The room was square and evidently used as a study. Opposite the door there was a large desk. As he stood there, facing him on its front was a solid row of thick reference books, and to its right there was a standard lamp that lit it, making a pool of brightness in the otherwise dim room.
De Richleau had little doubt that up to ten minutes ago Ferrer had been working there. At the ring of the doorbell he would have gone into some prepared hiding place. Had it been in England it might have been a priest's hole; but in Spain there had never been any necessity for such secret rooms. In any case, the house was not old enough to have that sort of thing. Therefore, he would be either in the cellars or up in an attic.
Before going in search of him the Duke decided to take a quick look round. Walking forward to the left-hand side of the desk, he glanced at the paper that lay spread out on it. Somewhat to his surprise he saw that it was a Russian newspaper about two weeks old. He then remembered Ferrer's passion for obtaining first-hand news from all parts of Europe. Beside the paper lay a Russian-Spanish dictionary that Ferrer had evidently been using to look up the meaning of words he did not understand.
As de Richleau's eyes fell upon the dictionary his heart suddenly stood still. The sight of it had rung a terrible bell that summoned up past memories. The last time he had seen a Russian-Spanish dictionary had been three years ago in his lodgings down by Barcelona's commercial harbour. He had then been using one to tutor a student that Ferrer had sent him, named Ruben Pineda. The young man had been one of Ferrer's brightest pupils. Later, on the night that de Richleau had so nearly lost his life, it had emerged that it was Pineda who, on Ferrer's instructions, had searched his lodging and been fooled into believing that he really was a Russian refugee.
But now it was he who had been fooled. Pineda had pulled a very clever bluff. Trusting in the beard he had grown, that three years had elapsed since they had met, and that he had since changed his name, he had said that they had become acquainted at the Somaten Club. That had seemed natural enough. But it was not the truth. Pineda had become Veragua.
The Duke stood beside Ferrer's desk, his mind working like a dynamo. He had left Veragua to guard the back entrance. Instead, by now he might have entered the house with the intention of helping his old master to escape. At that moment he heard a faint sound. Swinging round he saw Veragua standing in the open doorway. The young man had a smile on his face and was pointing a pistol at him.
21
The Twice-turned Tables
As de Richleau stared at the tall, smiling anarchist who now threatened his life, the truth about the afternoon's events flashed upon him. It was not, as he had supposed, that some of Ferrer's friends had learned of the investigation he was making and had been trailing him, waiting for some opportunity to murder him in a place where there would be a good chance of their escaping capture.
He had told no one that he was going to endeavour to trace Teresa - no one except Veragua. And he had not even mentioned her to him until after they had left the mill. But he had then confided to the young man that the woman he was going to see had been Ferrer's mistress, so he had good hopes of getting something out of her.
Had he spent only a few minutes with Teresa it seemed probable that, as with the many other inquiries he had made, Veragua would have taken no action, assuming that he had drawn another blank. But he had remained talking to her for the best part of a quarter of an hour.
Evidently that had led Veragua to assume that Teresa was giving away information that might lead to Ferrer's capture; so the time had come to put an abrupt end to 'Senor Goma's' activities. Out there in that quiet suburb he stood much less risk of being seen making his attempt and being captured than he would have in the city. It must have seemed to him now not only urgent to eliminate the Duke, but too good a chance to miss. He had left the automobile, walked up the almost deserted street and lobbed his bomb through the window.
The whole sequence of events was grasped by the Duke's mind in a matter of seconds. He knew now that he probably had only a few more moments to live. Veragua had only to squeeze the trigger of his pistol and he would be dead. To show that he realized the situation would prove fatal. Instead, he gave a quick frown and exclaimed:
'Why the hell are you pointing that thing at me?'
As he spoke he took an unhurried pace sideways and sat down in the chair behind Ferrer's desk.
The smile on the bearded features of the young man deepened, and he said, 'Can't you guess?'
'As a matter of fact I can,' de Richleau replied calmly. 'You are thinking of putting a bullet through me. But I wouldn't, if I were you. Of course, you think you could get away with it by putting in a report that Ferrer shot me while I was trying to arrest him. But you won't. If I die General Quiroga will have you shot.'
'Why should he? There would be no reason whatever for him to suppose that it was I who had killed you.'
'My dear boy. Had you been longer engaged in the sort of game we have been playing you would be aware that it is less dangerous to have close to you an enemy you know than to eliminate him, so that his work is taken over by another that you don't know. And from the beginning I have known you to be Pineda.'
Veragua's bearded mouth dropped open in surprise. The point of his gun also dropped a little. His eyes wide with astonishment, he exclaimed, 'What! You knew all the time and gave me the chance . ..'
He got no further. Under cover of the desk behind which he was sitting, de Richleau had eased out his pistol. Suddenly he jerked it up so that its barrel came just above the line of reference books. It spat flame. Four staccato reports shattered the silence of the house. The first three were from the Duke's automatic. Its bullets ripped into Veragua's stomach. The last was from Veragua's gun as a spasm closed his finger on its trigger. The bullet chipped a splinter low down off the left-hand corner of the desk, then ricocheted off to land in the far wall. With a long-drawn howl the young anarchist collapsed upon the floor.
De Richleau jumped up from the desk. Now that the back entrance of the house was unguarded Ferrer might slip out of it; so he had no time to lose. Veragua, clutching his stomach with both hands, lay writhing in agony in the doorway. The Duke paused only to snatch up the gun that had fallen from Veragua's hand. As he did so he snapped:
'You won't kill any more little children with your bombs, my friend. And I gave it you in the stomach so you should know just how much that poor woman Teresa suffered by your act this afternoon.'
A moment later he had crossed the passage and thrown open a door that seemed the most likely one to lead to the kitchen. It did. No o
ne was there. Beyond it was a small scullery. Entering it, he saw on its far side a door that was evidently the back entrance to the house. The door was bolted and the key was in the lock. Having made certain that it had been turned, he took it out and put it in his pocket. It was certain that Ferrer had not had time to get out of the house since the shooting; so unless Veragua had come upon him lurking in the kitchen quarters and urged him to escape by the back entrance, he was now trapped in it.
De Richleau decided that his best plan would be to search the house from the bottom up, otherwise while he was on an upper floor Ferrer might slip out of a downstairs window. The villa was fairly modern; but most Spanish houses that are larger than a cottage have a cellar, so he swiftly cast round for the entrance to one. He expected to find it somewhere in the back of the premises but a swift scrutiny of the floors convinced him that in none of them was a camouflaged trap-door.
Going out into the hall he paused to listen intently for a moment. He feared now that Ferrer might be making the best of the time he was being given to tie sheets together into a rope; so that he could get away by lowering himself from one of the windows. Not for the first time, the Duke cursed the dubious loyalty of the Catalan police. Had it not been for that he would have brought a score of policemen with him and had the house surrounded; but a leak could have ruined this chance, the like of which might not come again, to catch Ferrer; so he had decided against it.
Dolores had evidently wriggled out of the lavatory window, or was sitting quietly there. The only sound that broke the stillness was Veragua's moaning. Reassured, de Richleau moved a few paces down the hall towards the door opposite that beside which Veragua lay, expecting it to lead to a sitting-room. As he did so he brushed past a red velvet curtain that hung on the side of the hall formed by a straight staircase that ran up from it. Wondering why there should be a curtain in such a pointless place, he pulled it back. The reason became plain. It concealed a door under the stairs. With grim satisfaction he wrenched it open.
The result was a bitter disappointment. Instead of the flight of steps leading downward that he had expected, it was full of coats, macintoshes and a variety of junk. Pushing the door to, he listened again. There was still no sound from upstairs but queer noises were now coming from the lavatory. Dolores was not battering upon its door but seemed to be kicking one of its walls and uttering muffled cries. What she was up to he had no idea, and he did not care.
He again took a pace towards what he believed to be the sitting-room, but it suddenly occurred to him that Ferrer might be crouching at the very far end of the cupboard under the stairs, hidden behind the junk that was in it.
Fetching the lamp from the end of the hall he opened the door again and set it down on the floor just inside the cupboard. Now, he was faced with a very dangerous situation. If he put his head in and Ferrer was lurking there, and had a pistol, he might be shot himself before he could shoot Ferrer.
The cupboard was only about three feet deep but about eight feet long, its roof sloping downwards from inside the doorway to within a foot or so of the floor. With a sudden movement he thrust his pistol round the doorjamb and fired two shots blind in the direction of its far end. If Ferrer had been there he must either have been hit or made some spontaneous movement as the bullets thudded into the underside of the stairs within inches of him. But the crash of the shots was followed by complete silence.
Disappointed again, and more worried than ever that by now Ferrer might be escaping from the house, de Richleau bent down and picked up the lamp. As he did so it lit the whole cupboard. He caught his breath and his eyes widened with excitement. They had fallen upon part of a line on the floor that ran at right angles to the floorboards.
The line emerged from under a big cardboard carton. Quickly he set the lamp down again, pocketed his pistol, and hauled the carton out of the cupboard. It was heavy and full of books. Beyond it there were two others, but the removal of the first was enough to show him that the line he had spotted was one edge of a trap-door. It must lead to a cellar and all the odds were that Ferrer was down in it.
He would have gone to his bolt-hole at the first ring of the front door bell. In her hurry and in the semi-darkness of the cupboard Dolores had failed to pull the cartons into place after he had descended, so that they would completely cover the top. But for that, de Richleau realized, he might have searched the house with a toothcomb, then left it in the belief that either Ferrer had not been there or had escaped before he had had a chance to catch him.
The problem now was how to get at him. To go down the steps into the cellar would be to walk into a death trap. The man at the bottom would have an overwhelming advantage. He had only to stand round the corner to the stairway with his pistol levelled and, as the intruder emerged from it, shoot him. But de Richleau had behind him ample experience of house to house fighting, during which pockets of resistance had to be mopped up. It took him only a minute to decide what to do.
Having thrust the heavy carton of books back, so that with the others on the hinge side of the trap-door their weight would prevent Ferrer coming up and making a desperate bid to get away, the Duke hurried back to the kitchen. There, he collected some bundles of faggots, a tin of oil, some wax tapers and a rolling pin. With these items he returned to the narrow hall and set about preparing to smoke Ferrer out.
First he hauled all the cartons of books out of the cupboard so as to leave the trap-door free. He then poured oil all over the faggots and pushed a wax taper into each. Lastly he tied two of the oil-soaked faggots to raincoats that were hanging in the cupboard. The combination of oil and rubber when on fire would, he knew, produce the most suffocating smoke.
When he opened the trap-door no glimmer of light filtered up from below. That shook him a little, as he felt that Ferrer should have considered himself safe enough down there to light a candle. He became worried then that a man so experienced in being hunted as Ferrer would, quite probably, have made himself an escape exit, and by now might have crawled through a tunnel to emerge in the garden. But the thought did not deter him from putting the matter to the test.
He lit one of the tapers, waited until the oil-soaked wood of the faggot had caught, then pitched it down into the cellar. As quickly as he possibly could he got the others well alight and heaved them, with the raincoats, after them. Flames leapt up at the bottom of the stairs. Above the crackling of the wood the sound of hurried movement came up to him. His handsome, slightly saturnine features broke into a grin. Ferrer was down there all right, and now desperately engaged in trying to put the fire balls out; but the odds against his succeeding were very heavy.
De Richleau quietly lowered the trap-door into place, so that none of the smoke that was now billowing up should escape. Picking up the rolling pin that he had brought from the kitchen, he went up the stairs until he was standing above the door to the cupboard. Leaning over the banister he waited.
The wait seemed interminable. Yet it was no more than three or four minutes. Suddenly there came a loud bang, as the trapdoor was thrust up and thrown back. After that there came the sound of someone gasping for breath, and eddies of smoke began to seep out into the hall. For a full minute nothing further happened. Then a head, that peered swiftly right and left, emerged cautiously from the open doorway of the cupboard.
But, to the Duke's amazement it was not Ferrer's head. Ferrer had had brown hair. This man's was red - startlingly red - the red that is known as 'carrots'. Nevertheless, with the head had appeared a hand that held a revolver. Whoever he was, as an occupant of this villa he must be an enemy. De Richleau leaned forward over the banister and brought his rolling pin down hard on the man's head. Without even a murmur his knees buckled and he fell in a heap on the floor of the narrow hall.
For two minutes de Richleau remained where he was, waiting for Ferrer to follow this other man out of the cupboard beneath him. But no second head appeared, neither was there any sound of footsteps on the cellar stairs. All he could hear we
re Veragua's groans and a continuation of the muffled noises from the lavatory. Putting down the rolling pin, he took out his pistol and came downstairs. Having shut the cupboard door as a precaution against Ferrer surprising him by suddenly emerging from that quarter, he turned the body of the red-headed man over and stared down at him.
His features were clean-shaven except for a carroty toothbrush moustache. For a moment de Richleau did not recognize him, then he realized that, after all, the man was Ferrer. He looked many years older than when the Duke had last seen him, perhaps on account of his year in prison; and the violently red hair, coupled with the fact that he no longer wore a beard, had entirely altered his appearance. Picking up the lamp de Richleau moved it nearer to him so that he could examine at close quarters the hair, now worn en brosse, on the skull. By the brighter light he could see that the violent dye used to change his hair to carrots had also stained the skin of his scalp. That dissolved the Duke's last doubts. The man was Francisco Ferrer.
De Richleau's next problem was to get his prisoner in to Barcelona. To take him as an apparently lifeless body in the open automobile or, worse still, when he came round as a captive shouting for help when they passed through the working class outskirts of the city, could have led to all sorts of trouble. For a moment he remained deep in thought, then he smiled to himself, for it had occurred to him to take a leaf out of the Ferrer family book.
Now he did open the door opposite to the one beside which Veragua lay moaning and retching. It led, as he had expected, into a sitting-room. At one end stood a table which, from the fruit and other things on it, was evidently used for meals; but in its centre the stained floorboards were covered with a coarsely woven Indian rug, measuring about six feet by eight.
Returning to the hall, de Richleau stuffed his handkerchief into the still unconscious Ferrer's mouth, picked him up, carried him into the sitting-room, laid him down at one end of the rug and then proceeded to roll him up in it. Having done that, he secured the tube from unrolling by pulling tight and knotting two curtain ties round it. Heaving the bundle up on to his shoulder he carried it out into the hall, put it down for a minute while he unlocked the front door then rolled it out on to the doorstep.
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