Here was a link in the chain he must forge! Staring him straight in the face. He realised that he had been drifting listlessly towards swamps of despair and self-pity, ignoring the challenges he faced, doubting his own strength and skills. Enough of it, he thought, springing to his feet.
He hailed the tinker and went over to him. They talked for a few minutes. The old man named a price, which Peter slashed in half to indicate he meant business. After a series of proposals and counter-proposals, each made in final and regretful tones, they struck a bargain which they sealed with smiling handshakes.
"You can depend on me, senor. Absolutely."
"I'm sure of it. Thank you very much."
Peter climbed into his car then and headed for the road which twisted up through the mountains to Grace's villa.
The Canadian girl who looked after the children let Peter in, but only confirmed what the maids had told him earlier; Grace wasn't at home, and no one seemed to know just where she was, or when she might be back. Peter felt quite deflated. He had been certain she was simply avoiding him.
A child in a white nightgown came into the living-room and smiled tentatively at Peter. "Hello, Mr. Churchman. I thought it was Mommy, maybe. Do you still have that bad cat?"
"Why, hello, Debby."
"He made a mess on the floor," Debby explained to the Canadian girl.
"The first time I went to Mr. Churchman's house with Mommy. He's all black except for a spot on his chest. Would you like to come and see my sisters, Mr. Churchman?"
"Well, yes, of course. But maybe it's past their visiting hours."
"That's all right," the Canadian girl said. "They've had their supper and tubs. We usually read a while before bedtime, but I'm sure an unexpected visitor will compensate nicely for that."
"They're just babies, you know," Debby said. "Miss Marian, could Mr. Churchman read to them?"
"If he'd like to, yes, dear."
Debby smiled and took Peter's hand. "Come on. They'll fall right asleep. Then if you want I'll show you my flamenco dress. It's green and white. Mommy bought it and the maids sewed sequins on it."
They went down a wide and dimly-lighted corridor, with Debby pulling him along by the hand. She looked wonderfully sweet and well-cared for, like Grace in miniature, he thought sentimentally, with her scrubbed face and shining hair, and her eyes dancing with conspiratorial excitement. There were small blue flowers stitched about the high yoke of her white nightgown, and these, to Peter's eye, resembled the running lights of a ship, and heightened his illusion that her slender body was breasting the gloom of the hallway like a tiny graceful sail boat. Images, he thought anxiously. Was it something glandular in both mother and daughter that prompted these metaphorical responses? When Debby stopped to look up at him, Peter fancied he saw sparks flashing in her eyes. Bonfires? No. But campfires, anyway.
She opened a door, and they went into an empty bedroom. There was a single lamp on a table, and drapes were drawn over the windows. Peter smiled at Debby. "Well? Where are your sisters?"
"Bend down so I can whisper."
"Now what's this all about?"
Debby's lips brushed his ear, soft and light as feathers. "There's somebody sneaking around outside in the garden."
"Oh?" Peter glanced at the drawn drapes. "How do you know?"
"I was playing with Cathy and Elspeth in their room. After our baths. I saw him looking in our window. He was behind a bush."
"Did he realise you had seen him?"
"I don't know. He stood behind the bushes for a little while. I kept on playing like I didn't see him. Then he walked into the garden."
"Could it have been the gardener?"
"He goes home before dark."
Peter turned off the lamp and moved to the windows. Debby clutched his hand tightly. Peter drew the drapes back an inch or so, and let his eyes sweep over the gardens. In the darkness there was faint moonlight, faint breezes; trees and bushes were stirring gently, and the swimming pool at the foot of the garden shone like a patch of clouded silver. The gravelled walks gleamed in white irregular patterns where they circled lily ponds and cut through oleander hedges.
"Do you see anybody?" Debby whispered.
"No, everything looks normal." He let the drapes fall back into place and turned on the lamp. "Maybe you dozed off without knowing it, and had a bad dream."
"I wasn't dreaming, I saw him."
It must have been her imagination, Peter thought; she was indeed her mother's child, full of fancies and secrets. "Debby, why didn't you tell your nurse, Miss Marian, about this prowler?"
"Well, because she's so sensible," Debby said. "She's levelheaded, and not afraid of anything. She's always laughing at the maids. She would have grabbed a flashlight and rushed outside. That might not have been a good thing to do. But I couldn't have stopped her. That's why I told you."
Peter realised that her position was formidably logical. "You stay here," he said. "Leave the light on, but keep away from the window."
He gave her a pat on the shoulder, and went swiftly out the door.
***
A car laboured in the mountains. Fishermen sang in the straw-roofed bars on the dark beaches. Leaves rustled under slow, fragrant winds.
Peter listened intently to every faint sound, his senses scanning the garden like radar screens. Then he drifted along the wall towards the swimming pool. At the base of a lemon tree he found the stub of a Players cigarette. He squeezed the black tip between thumb and forefinger and found it still warm.
Clinging to the shadows, Peter crept about the pool, circled the bath-house, and moved silently up a gravelled path that brought him back to the terrace of the villa.
He crouched in the shadow of an oleander bush, and peered through the green leaves and pink blossoms. He saw the lights in the living-room where Miss Marian was reading and the lights in the bedroom where, hopefully, Debby was waiting for him. He could still hear the labouring engine of the car, and the singing from the beaches. But that was all. The silence bothered him; the garden was too quiet.
Nesting birds and foraging insects were aware their domain had been invaded; tiny feathers and claws and feelers had all become still and motionless.
Suddenly between him and the terrace a footstep sounded on the gravelled walk. He froze. Silence settled again, and Peter knew that single revealing sound had been inadvertent; whoever had made it must now be crouching in the darkness, not daring to move, hardly daring to breathe. Peter took a rapid inventory of what he was wearing, and what he had in his pockets, but found nothing resembling a weapon. No penknife, no belt, not even a tie Again he heard a leather heel crunching softly on the gravel. After a few seconds the sound came again… Peter moved with infinite care about the curving bulk of the oleander bush, and saw the silhouette of a man in a dark suit standing only six or eight feet from him. He was staring up at the stone railing that rimmed the terrace.
Peter rose swiftly and silently through the darkness. "Put your hands up," he said, in a voice like a cracking whip. "Then freeze."
"Very well," the man said, in soft, musical tones, but even as he spoke he flung himself backward, swiftly as a cat, a foot lashing out murderously at Peter's groin. Peter dodged the blow and struck down at the man's back, his locked hands coming down like a savagely swung axe.
He thought that would be the end of it, but the man's forearm swept about viciously and cut Peter's legs out from under him. They went to the ground in a churning heap, fighting for an advantage in the darkness. Peter struck with the edge of his palm, and was rewarded by a gasp of shock and pain. Then an elbow smashed into his jaw. He ducked another punch, locked an arm about a waist that was like whalebone, and, with a hip-roll, flipped the man into the oleander bush. With sweet and savage expectations, Peter leaped after him to finish the job, but a pair of feet slammed sickeningly into his stomach, and he jack-knifed, staggered, and fell into the murky waters of the lily pond.
Peter tried to get to his feet, but
the man's weight landed abruptly and solidly on his back, as authoritative and unwelcome as an anchor.
He bucked and heaved to get his head from the water and air into his lungs. His hands gathered fistfuls of lapels; he stood with a burst of strength, and snapped his shoulders down, catapulting the man over his head into the lilac hedge beside the pond. Peter splashed out of the water and leaped forward at exactly the right instant to catch a short, chopping blow on the chin that caused batteries of lights to explode before his eyes. Lights were everywhere, flooding the garden.
Peter's patience was at an end; he swung hard and savagely, one, two, three times, and the sounds of his fists landing were like the sound of pile drivers slamming into hard-packed earth.
He jumped on his fallen foe, but the man laughed and struck him in the stomach with a blow that caused the air to burst from his lungs.
Peter got a grip on his throat and prepared to kill him.
"Stop it! Stop it, you fools!"
Dazed, stupefied, gasping for breath, Peter turned and stared blearily in the direction of that marvellously familiar voice.
The outdoor lights were shining, flooding the gardens and the terrace.
They gleamed in Grace's eyes, gleamed in her golden hair, as she towered above him on the terrace like a splendid angry statue. At her side was a small round man with a bald head and shy eyes. Shock streaked through Peter like bolts of electricity.
He stared incredulously at the man he was sitting on, at the hawk-faced man he had been trying to kill; his head reeled; the tugs of reason strained at their moorings.
"No," he gasped weakly.
"I got here ahead of them, so I thought I'd take a look around. Lucky they arrived in time, eh?"
"Paddy, I might have killed you!"
"Ah, you old bastard," the Irishman said smiling. "It's good to see you, lad, even if you are choking the life out of me. Let me up now.
This calls for stronger waters than you've got in that bloody fishpond."
Peter rolled off the Irishman and lay flat on his back, more spent and helpless than he had ever been in his life, while all the bright stars revolved about him in wild derisive circles.
"Let me give you a hand, lad."
"Easy now, you're all right," he heard Bendell say gently.
"Oh, darling, you do need a drink," said Grace.
Tenderly and gently, they took him up the stairs and into the villa.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The sound of the engine trembled on the night air, diminishing and fading as the car followed the curving road down the mountains to the coastal highway. When the sound died away and only the wind stirred the silence, Peter sighed unhappily, for he felt very weary then, and very much alone.
"Oh, you're such a stubborn man," Grace said. "Worse than that, you're wilful and selfish. You don't care a bit about your old friends. Or about me. How could you send them away, Peter?"
"Do you imagine it was easy?" He couldn't keep a trace of bitterness from his voice. "Don't you realise how much I'd like them with me? And how much I need them?"
Grace touched her eye with a handkerchief. "When I found Mr. Bendell in Liege, he was overjoyed at the chance to help you. But he felt you'd balk at using Canalli. That's the only reason we didn't send for him. They didn't dream you'd turn them down, Peter."
It had not been easy, he thought sadly. He had told Bendell and the Irishman that there was no place for them in his plans, and they had had to take his word for it. But the Irishman, his eyes bright and hard as diamonds, had said, "Just one question, lad. Is the little bitch forcing you into this? Has that black hearted harpy got something on you?"
"No, of course not."
"Peter!"
"Grace, keep out of this."
"What is it, lad? Give us a straight answer, for the love of Mary. Has that rotten God-blasted bitch, Angela, got you where the hairs are short?"
"No."
Bendell had sighed and said: "Peter, my instincts tell me you are being noble."
"You should know me better than that."
"I do know you, Peter. I know you are generous and loyal beyond the boundaries of simple sanity. But as it was in the past, so it shall be now. You led and the rest of us followed. If you truly don't need us, Peter, we will go. Our presence here would only be dangerous to you."
"I truly don't need you, old friends."
They had sighed and raised their glasses to him in a last salute.
Now they were gone. Even the sound of the car had died away in the windy mountains.
Grace walked to the bar at the end of the long living-room, and there was a suggestion of defiance in the decisive tap of her high heels on the cold marble floor. "I have a good notion to get drunk." She wore a black suede dress and black nylons, and her body seemed to merge with the shadows; in Peter's fancy, her bright face shone through the gloom like a glorious star mounted on a pedestal of exquisitely wrought ebony. "I should have told them the truth," she said, splashing whisky recklessly into a cut-glass tumbler. "Yes. I should have told them about Angela and the film. And that you're risking your life to keep them safe and free."
"I'm very grateful you didn't."
"It was cruel not to. How do you imagine they'll feel when they learn the truth? When they pick up a newspaper one morning and find that you've been shot and killed? Or are in prison?"
"Damn it, they're not going to learn the truth. Stop worrying about me. I should think you'd have plenty to do just worrying about yourself?"
"What do you mean by that?"
Peter took the Ace of Diamonds from his pocket. It was quite soggy from his dunking in the lily pond; the gryphon's head was streaked and blurred almost beyond recognition. "Let's talk about you now," he said. "I became a thief for what may have been a ridiculous reason, but my motives were serious and honourable. What excuse did you have?"
"I didn't have any excuse. I didn't need one."
"There. That's something to worry about."
"Oh! What a moral snob you are! You look at me in disdain because I didn't have a nice, sentimental justification for stealing things. Supposing I told you I accidentally set off a landslide that wiped out a convent? And that I stole money so the nuns could rebuild it? Would that make you feel better?"
"Grace! Is that true?"
"Of course not, you silly man. I don't boast about what I did. But I don't apologise for it."
"Then you are simply an amoral criminal. I don't see anything cute or funny about that."
"I wish you wouldn't be so unhappy about it. Does it really mean that much to you?"
Peter slumped into a sofa and put his sodden shoes up on a coffee table. "Yes," he said gloomily. "It means everything."
Unexpectedly her mood changed; she smiled gently and tremulously, and sat beside him. She kissed his cheek and put her head against his shoulder. "Do you know why I love you so much? It's because you care about my soul. You'd like it to be as fair as my body, wouldn't you?"
She turned her head and kissed the corner of his mouth. "As fresh and fragrant as a bowl of spring roses. I'd do anything to please you, Peter. But I can't do anything about my soul. I mean, I can't get at it with a pail and scrub brush. Would you like to hear the story of my life?"
"Would it be the truth?"
"I suppose you have a right to be beastly. I did lie to you once. But I won't now. My father died when I was a little girl. My mother remarried a few years later. He was a jolly little man with waxed moustaches and cheeks like apples. I loved him very much. Paul travelled a lot and when he came home he always brought me presents. Combs, mirrors, hair bows boxes of candy, dresses with lots of petticoats. When I learned, much later, of course, that he was a thief, it didn't really make any difference to me. Paul never hurt anyone in his life. He would have fainted away at the notion of carrying a knife or a gun. And he only stole from the rich, of course."
"That's because the rich have the money. Robin Hood figured that out, too."
She smiled and tilted her head to one side. "Now you sound more like yourself, darling. Anyway, Paul got old and couldn't work, and we became poor. There were various uncles and aunts living with us by then, and the pinch was uncomfortable. It was very hard on Paul! He sat in the garden sighing over the past, and planning jobs just to keep busy, the way some people do crossword puzzles. The plans were so clever it seemed a pity not to use them. So I used them. It seemed quite normal, like carrying on the family business."
"So you all lived in luxury once again?"
"Well, we were comfortable at least."
"Grace, this is terrible. This flip, casual tone, this total lack of remorse, is ghastly."
She sighed. "I told you I couldn't do anything about my soul."
"All right then, why did you give it up?"
"It was because of Debby. When she was two-and-a-half or three, she told me she wanted to be a fireman. No, I'm quite serious. It made me think. You see, I had decided that there was something hereditary about what I did. Some compulsion that I wasn't responsible for. Naturally, I thought Debby and the other children would grow up with the same well, proclivities. But here was Debby, a mere babe, striking out in a totally different direction." Peter sighed with relief. "So you realised that what you were doing was wrong."
"No. I realised that stealing wasn't inevitable. I had enough money, so I gave it up."
"And you made no attempt to make amends? You have no remorse for what you did?"
"No. I guess not. Actually, I never thought about it very much." She put her hands on his cheeks, and turned his head to make him meet her eyes. "It's not important now, Peter," she said softly and urgently.
"All that matters is that you stay alive and stay free. Please take me in your arms, and love me as I love you. And say you'll let me help you in Pamplona."
"No. Absolutely no."
"You think I'm not good enough. Is that it?"
"In a way you won't understand, yes."
The Caper of the Golden Bulls Page 9