Vendetta in Spain ddr-2

by Dennis Wheatley

  'I understand that you are a Russian nihilist and that last night you killed a detective. If thbse are the facts I don't think there is much that I can do for you; but if you have any line of defence let me hear it and I'll put it to the Court.'

  Thank you,' said the Duke. There is only one thing you can do for me. That is to go up to the Fortress at once and tell General Quiroga that. . .'

  He got no further. Take a message from a prisoner to that old tiger,' interrupted the Lieutenant derisively. Ts it likely? He'd have my head off.'

  'Very well then, let it be a written message that you can deliver without seeing him.'

  'Prisoners awaiting trial are not allowed to send letters to anyone outside the jail.*

  De Richleau drew in a sharp breath. Then I fear there is nothing that you can do for me. I prefer to defend myself.'

  'That is not permitted. If all the rebels who have been before the Court during the past month had been allowed to talk their heads off the Court would never have got through. It would still be sitting next Christmas.'

  'Do you mean,' asked the Duke with rising alarm, 'that I shall not be allowed to say a word in my own defence? That I must leave it to you to put the bare bones of anything I tell you before the Court, and that on that alone my life will hang?'

  Navarez nodded. 'That's the usual procedure in these routine cases. And the Court doesn't take long to reach a verdict. If it does turn out that you didn't kill this 'tec you'll be a free man by about half past ten. If not. . . well.'

  'Well what?'

  For the first time the young man looked slightly uncomfortable. Fingering his small moustache, he muttered, 'You may as well know what to expect. These Courts are convened to administer summary justice. Establishing them was the only way to stop bombs being thrown into the better-class restaurants and officers walking in the streets being shot from windows. They have succeeded in that; but only because it is now known by everybody that any prisoner found guilty is given no second chance. In the yard behind the building in which the Court sits a firing squad is always kept in a state of readiness. If it's thumbs down you'll be taken out to it straight away.'

  De Richleau had paled under his tan. He realized now that he was in desperate danger. Urgoiti had known the procedure and counted with well-founded confidence on events taking the course usual in such cases. It might be all over before Quiroga heard a word about it. Afterwards Urgoiti, with his tongue in his cheek, would bow to the storm and accept a reprimand. But he need not fear anything worse as he could plead a belief that it was Quiroga who had been deceived, and all he had done was to send up for trial a Russian nihilist who, to prevent himself being exposed in his true colours, had shot a detective.

  'Well?' said Navarez. 'Time's getting on. If you have got a plea to make you'd better let me hear it.'

  'If I told you the truth you would never believe me,' replied de Richleau bitterly.

  'No harm in trying me,' remarked the lieutenant with calm indifference.

  'Very well then. My proper style and title is His Excellency Major-General the Duke de Richleau, Count de Quesnoy, Count Konigstein, Knight of the Most Exalted Order of the Golden Fleece. I am a British subject and a personal friend of your King, with whom I have sat at table three times during the past month. I arrived in Barcelona . . .'

  'That's enough!' snapped Navarez. 'What sort of a fool do you take me for? But perhaps you're trying to be funny. If so, let me tell you this is no time for joking.'

  'As it is I who look like shortly facing a firing squad, and not you, it is unnecessary to remind me of that.'

  'Let's have the truth then.'

  'Apart from sparing you some of my lesser titles and honours I have told it; but I also told you first that you would not believe me. I don't suppose you will believe either that for the two nights preceding this last one, I was staying up at Montjuich as General Quiroga's guest.' *

  'Of course I don't,' the young officer's voice had become impatient. 'Is it likely that the Captain-General would entertain a nihilist?'

  'You have no shadow of proof that I am a nihilist,' retorted de Richleau angrily. 'Do I look or speak like one?'

  The Lieutenant shrugged. 'I am told that some of them are educated men who have become mentally deranged. One of the most famous is a Russian Prince. I forget his name but it begins with K.'

  'Kropotkin,' supplied the Duke. 'All right. You have me there. But at least I ask you to believe that for most of my life I have been a soldier. You are a soldier, too, so we both know that the quickest way to earn promotion is to display courage.'

  'What has this to do with your case?'

  'That it gives you a chance to display your courage. Go and see General Quiroga for me,* or even telephone to him. He cannot eat you. On the contrary he will think the better of you for having bearded him rather than see a man condemned who may be innocent. I swear to you by all I hold sacred . . .'

  'What? That you did not kill this detective?'

  'No. I do not deny that I shot him, but. . .'

  'Since you admit your guilt I'll be damned if I'll beard the Captain-General on your account.'

  De Richleau sat down on the truckle bed and put his head between his hands. He had been in many a tight corner before but in nearly all of them he had at least had the chance to fight his way out. This time there was no such chance. He had been trapped under a false identity and caught up in a swift-moving judicial process designed only as an emergency measure to crush a serious revolt. It really began to look as though, should he fail to get word of his plight to Quiroga, he would find himself facing a firing squad before the morning was out. For a minute or more he racked his brains for a way to persuade or bully Navarez into acting as his messenger. Then a new idea occurred to him. Springing to his feet, he cried:

  'I am a British subject. I demand to see the British Consul.'

  'You told me you were when you made all those other damn fool claims about yourself,' the Lieutenant replied coldly. 'Have you any papers to prove it?'

  'No. But as a British national I demand to see my Consul.'

  'You are in no position to demand anything.'

  'All right then. I request, beg if you will, that he should be brought here.'

  Navarez shook his head. 'We've had dozens of foreign nationals through our hands: Frenchmen, Italians, Greeks; mostly seamen from ships in the docks who joined the revolutionaries. With the city under Martial Law they were treated like the rest. In an emergency formalities such as notifying Consuls have to be waived, and the emergency is still on.'

  Again they remained silent for a minute while the Duke strove desperately to think of a way out. Then the Lieutenant said, 'Your best plan is to cut out the fireworks about your being the King of Siam and plead that you shot this fellow in self-defence.'

  T did. If I hadn't shot him he would have shot me. But do you think the Court will believe that?'

  T doubt it,' again the young man fingered his moustache, 'still, it's about your only chance.'

  As he was speaking a key grated in the lock, and the door was thrown open. Navarez stepped out into the corridor and two warders entered the cell. One of them snapped a handcuff on to the Duke's right wrist and snapped the other on to his own left wrist. Then they filed out and up to the ground floor of the building.

  In front of it a prison van was waiting. As the Duke stepped out into the bright morning sunshine, he cast a swift look up and down the street. There were plenty of people in it going about their morning's business. If he could have cut and run for it he might have got away in the crowd. But as he was handcuffed to the warder such an attempt was out of the question. Filled now with such apprehension that he had broken out into a slight sweat, he allowed himself to be hustled into the van.

  It set off at a trot, then as its pace slowed he knew that the horses were drawing it up the long hill of Montjuich. All the time his brain was working furiously, but it had now become sterile of ideas by which he might attempt to save
himself. His one hope lay in the chance that when it reached the fortress some member of the General's staff who knew him by sight might be about, so that he could shout to them for help. But when the van pulled up and he was pushed out of it he saw that it had halted on the far side of the fortress from the General's quarters. Two minutes later his warders had marched him through a door and down a passage into a small bleak waiting-room.

  Navarez left them, and for ten minutes de Richleau remained there, still cudgelling his wits without avail. Now that he was alone with the two warders he contemplated the desperate step of attempting to overcome them. Had he been free he might have succeeded, but he was still handcuffed to one of them. He knew that even if he had knocked the man unconscious, he would never be able to get the key and unlock the steel bracelet while the other attacked him, before shouts brought some of the soldiers he had seen at the entrance to the fortress.

  An N.C.O. appeared at the door of the room and beckoned to them. Turning, he led the way down the passage, the Duke and the warders following closely on his heels. They went out through a door and crossed a small courtyard.

  Twelve soldiers and a sergeant were lounging near their stacked rifles. De Richleau needed no telling that they were the firing squad that Navarez had mentioned as always being kept in a state of readiness.

  The north wall of the courtyard was blank, without doors or windows. Half-way along it and about four feet from the ground there showed a long, irregular patch where the stone-work had been pitted by innumerable bullets. Obviously it was there, with their backs to that stretch of wall, that during the past six weeks hundreds of mob-leaders, anarchists, syndicalists, Communists, and probably quite a number of honest but unlucky workers, had met their death. The Duke lowered his eyes and could not prevent a shudder running through him.

  They passed through another door, turned right and entered a largish room furnished only with a number of deal tables, chairs and benches. In the middle of a long table at the far end of the room three officers were seated close together: a Major, a Captain and a Lieutenant. Anxiously the Duke scrutinized their faces in an endeavour to assess the characters of the three men who were about to try him. The Major was elderly, square-headed and somewhat morose-looking. De Richleau judged him to be past further promotion at his age, so probably disappointed in his career and a harsh disciplinarian. The Captain was about twenty-six, a dark, handsome fellow with a fine upturned moustache. The Lieutenant was a vapid-looking youth wearing a monocle.

  At smaller tables to either side and a little in front of the long one two other officers were sitting; one was Lieutenant Navarez, the other - a dark round-faced man of about thirty - de Richleau knew would act as Prosecutor. To the latter's right and a little behind him Comandante Urgoiti was sitting. At a fourth table, forming a T with the long one at the top, there was another officer with a number of papers and books in front of him. He belonged to the Legal branch and was there to play the part of Clerk of the Court. At the same table there were two N.C.O.s with pens behind their ears. Except for a uniformed policeman and two men who looked like detectives, the benches were empty.

  In the doorway the warder to whom the Duke was handcuffed quickly unlocked the bracelet round his wrist. Both warders stepped aside then went to sit on the bench next to the policeman. Two soldiers with rifles and fixed bayonets took their place one on either side of de Richleau and marched him up to the end of the middle table.

  The Legal Officer asked his name, and he replied in a firm voice, 'Jean Armand Duplessis, tenth Duke de Richleau. I have been brought here owing to a most iniquitous . . .'

  He got no further. The officer cut in. 'Your name is given on the charge sheet as Nicolai Chirikov.'

  'That was a nom de guerre used by me only for a few weeks when I was here in 1906, seeking evidence to bring to justice certain anarchists believed to have been concerned in the wedding-day attempt on His Majesty King Alfonso. I arrived here three days ago for a similar purpose. I was received by General Quiroga and spent two nights as his guest. I . . .'

  The Major, who was acting as the President of the Court, rapped sharply on the table with his gavel and said, 'The Prisoner seeks to waste the time of the Court. Expunge his remarks from the record and proceed.'

  The few preliminaries were soon over and the charge read out: 'That the said Nicolai Chirikov, being temporarily employed as a member of the special police, did on the evening of September 10th wilfully kill by shooting Detective-Officer Rodrigo Veragua, who had gone out to the village of San Cugat in his company.'

  To that de Richleau replied, 'Not Guilty. The man I shot was an anarchist named Ruben Pineda.'

  Urgoiti whispered to the Prosecuting Officer, who rose and said, 'We shall bring evidence before the Court to show that the murdered man was in fact Rodrigo Veragua.'

  The first witness was called: a frightened-looking old woman who, after a moment, the Duke recognized as the landlady of the pension at which he had stayed during his first visit to Barcelona. After peering at him she identified him as Nicolai Chirikov; upon which he said:

  'I have already admitted to having carried out investigations to the advantage of the State under that name.'

  'Silence!' said the President loudly. 'The Prisoner will speak only when he is addressed.'

  The second witness was a foxy-looking little man who deposed that during August, 1906, he had been a frequenter of the branch of the Somaten that had premises down by the docks; that he had on several occasions seen the prisoner there and heard him talk with enthusiastic approval of the outrages committed by militant anarchists, and say that he had himself been exiled from Russia for nihilist activities.

  De Richleau let that pass, only thinking grimly that Urgoiti must have spent a very busy night raking up these witnesses against him.

  The third and fourth witnesses were the two detectives. They deposed to having been sent out to San Cugat the previous night at about half past ten. They then described the circumstances in which they had found Veragua's dead body and the injuries he had sustained. They also stated that they had known the dead man for a number of years as Rodrigo Veragua.

  As Urgoiti would have been certain to choose men of his own kidney to go out to Ferrer's recent hiding-place, de Richleau felt sure that the two detectives had perjured themselves; but there was nothing he could do about it.

  The next witness to be called was a sandy-haired little man with pince-nez. He proved to be a ballistics expert. The Duke's automatic was produced and three bullets that had been extracted from Veragua's body, which he testified had been fired from the weapon.

  The Duke held up his hand. The President nodded. 'You may speak.'

  'Sir,' said de Richleau firmly, 'I do not deny that I shot this man, but when I first met him he was an anarchist using the name of Pineda. And my name is not Chirikov. You have only to confront me with General Quiroga and he will order this wicked charge to be withdrawn immediately. He is aware of my true identity and I swear to you that he will vouch for it.'

  The Major looked a little uncertain and whispered to his two colleagues. Hope rose in de Richleau's breast, but Urgoiti had been murmuring to the Prosecutor. The latter rose to his feet and said:

  'May it please the Court, evidence has already been given that the Prisoner is in fact Nicolai Chirikov. I submit that to request His Excellency the Captain-General to leave his urgent duties in order to attend this Court, only to tell it that he has known the Prisoner under another name, would be a most unjustified waste of His Excellency's time.'

  The three officers who formed the Court again whispered together. Pale with anxiety the Duke watched them, waiting for their all-important decision. At length it came. The President said:

  'The Court is satisfied that the Prisoner is the nihilist Chirikov. In the circumstances it would be pointless to request His Excellency the Captain-General to attend and give evidence. Let the case proceed.'

  The Prosecutor was still on his feet. He bowed and
again addressed the Court. 'The Prosecution has shown that Veragua was slain by bullets from the Prisoner's pistol. It remains only to show that he was on the premises where the murder was committed at the time it took place. Next witness.'

  De Richleau glanced round to the door by which the witnesses entered. To his utter amazement he saw Ferrer walk in. That Urgoiti should have had the audacity to produce him seemed positively staggering. Yet there he was, looking more than his age despite his head of carrot-coloured hair, but his bright, intelligent eyes proclaimed that his mind was as active as ever.

  When questioned by the Prosecutor, he told the same story as he had at Police Headquarters the previous night, with only a few embellishments. He lived alone out at San Cugat with only a daily woman who came in to do for him. He had been working in his study when he had heard a window smash at the back of the premises.. Fearing robbers who would do him violence he had hidden in a cupboard under the stairs, and so on.

  As de Richleau listened he could hardly believe that he was not dreaming. That Ferrer of all people should be standing there swearing his life away seemed so fantastic that it could not possibly be true. Yet he was horribly aware that he was not suffering from a nightmare; this macabre travesty of justice was actually taking place.

  The moment Ferrer stopped speaking the Duke burst into speech. Pointing an accusing finger at Ferrer he declared with passionate sincerity:

  The witness has told a tissue of lies. He is not the peaceful citizen, Olozaga, that he claims to be. He is Francisco Ferrer, the notorious anarchist. It was he who ran the Escuela Moderna, the school for assassins. He has been responsible for more murders than any man in Barcelona. I demand . . .'

  'Silence!' roared the President, banging on the table with his gavel. 'Silence!'

  The Duke ignored him and cried above the din, 'I demand that General Quiroga be fetched so that I can prove my true identity. I demand that Ferrer, this man who has instigated outrages that have led to the death of hundreds of innocent people, be brought to trial. This Court dare not condemn me. I am here as a result of a conspiracy. Comandante Urgoiti is at the bottom of it. He has hatched this plot to have me shot so that Ferrer may go free.'