by Ann Bridge
‘We want to establish her whereabouts today, but we think it simpler for you to do that. Will you?—and call me back? You know where I am; you can look up the number.’
Richard was embarrassed by this application in a way the Major could not of course have foreseen.
‘I presume she’s at home—I mean, where she lives,’ he said, rather coldly.
‘Ah, we don’t want presumptions, we want facts,’ Torrens rejoined, dispassionately. ‘Your presumption is a little out of date. She left the place where she lives this morning, in a C.D. car, driven by a man, taking a suitcase with her, and said she might not be back for two or three days.’
‘Good God!’ Richard could not control the exclamation.
‘Quite so,’ Torrens said calmly. ‘You can probably make as good a guess as we can as to the identity of the owner of that car—since it obviously isn’t you! You remember we all dined together not so long ago, outside Lisbon. We thought you might ring up his place of business and learn anything that is known of his movements, and then report back.’
Every word Torrens said increased the fear, jealousy, anger and remorse that had begun to seethe in Richard, joined with a lively and positive hatred of Mme de Vermeil.
‘The editorial we including Julia, I suppose?’ he asked waspishly.
‘Of course. But don’t use names.’ Torrens was quite untroubled. ‘How soon do you think you’ll be able to ring back?’
‘Damn it, why should I make your enquiries for you?’ the young man exploded. ‘Haven’t you got your own machinery?’
‘Yes. Certainly I will do it through them, if you prefer it so. Can you have this call transferred to the little man we both despise?—I’ll put him onto it at once. I have got to find out, you see.’
Richard had been trained to think fast; clouded as his mind was by conflicting emotions, he instantly saw that anything was better than to have the ineffable Melplash prying into Hetta’s movements.
‘No, I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘I shall get more out of them than your ghastly employee. I’ll ring you up when I’ve got something—I can’t say when.’ He rang off.
Sitting back in his chair, he reflected, miserably, on his last conversation with Hetta. ‘I will make other arrangements—please do not concern yourself.’ Yes, of course she would have turned to Townsend, her faithful and uncomplicated slave, to get her up to Gralheira. But what a thing to do, to drive off with a man in a car, from the very door of the hotel. She really was too innocent to live!
The person he decided to ring up was the Counsellor at the American Embassy, a kind shrewd man with a passion for music.
‘Townsend?’ said this individual. ‘Oh yes, he called me last night to ask if he could take two or three days’ leave. No, I didn’t ask any questions—I thought maybe he just wanted to bury his grandmother! People do, you know, now and then. Why? Does it matter?’
‘Not very much. Could you give me the number of his car?’
‘Listen, Richard, do you mean you want to have him traced?’
‘Arthur, I just want to know where he is—there’s nothing to panic about. Someone’s with him,’ Atherley said, unwillingly.
‘Well, so I supposed! All right—I’ll get that number. But don’t do anything embarrassing, will you? What in hell is all this about?’
‘I’ll tell you that some other time. Just let me have that number, there’s a good fellow.’
While he waited for the call from the American Chancery Richard relieved his feelings by ringing up Mme de Vermeil.
‘C’est toi? Bonjour,’ the lady said blithely.
‘Good morning,’ the young man said. ‘I find I shall not be able to dine with you tomorrow night. I must ask you to excuse me.’ He spoke with an icy politeness which was not lost on the Frenchwoman.
‘Quel dommage! Your Ambassador makes difficulties, or la petite?’
‘It is out of my power to come,’ Atherley repeated stiffly, ignoring both questions.
‘Tiens! So some other night? Which?’ Mme de Vermeil still sounded blithe.
‘I cannot say. Possibly never.’ He rang off before she could reply.
When the American Counsellor came through again he first gave Atherley the car number. ‘I happened to meet Perce while I was checking,’ he went on—‘he’s sort of a buddy of Townsend’s, so I just asked casually if he knew what he was up to.’
‘And did he know?’
‘Nothing very definite. Townsend told him, all in a hurry, that he had to take someone who was in trouble up to the North, and might not be back for two or three days. So then I had a word with our telephone operator.’
‘Well?’ Richard asked.
‘She says Townsend booked two rooms, on different floors, at one of the hotels at that spa place near São Pedro do Sul, the Bela Vista. It’s the best hotel anywhere up there except that British place at Canas da Senhorim, so I imagine the trouble is in or near São Pedro do Sul.’
‘Oh bless you, Arthur! Thank you very much,’ Richard said.
‘That tell you anything?’ the American asked curiously.
‘Only what I wanted to know. Goodbye.’
When Mrs. Tomlinson got the Gralheira number the Duke of Ericeira himself answered. Richard recognised his voice, and instead of pronouncing the name ‘Atherley’, as usual, said— ‘Oh, how do you do, Duke. Could I speak to your red-haired visitor?’
He heard Ericeira chuckle before he replied.
‘Certainly. He is here’—and then Torrens said, ‘Richard?’
‘Himself. O Richard, o mon roi! Here’s the dope. Spending two or three nights at the Belle Vue at the spa near St. Peter of the Sun. Can you translate that? If not, you’d better get Julia.’
‘Julia’s here. Perhaps you had better tell her—I’m not so hot on all these names. Hold on.’
Julia was much hotter.
‘Oh yes, I know,’ she said, when Atherley repeated his Anglo-French version of the address. ‘Splendid—how clever you are! With the person we thought?’
‘Precisely. His car number is’—he gave it. ‘His employers charitably assume that he is busy burying his grandmother,’ Richard said, rather sourly trying to conceal his own malaise under the borrowed crack.
Julia gurgled; then she said—
‘Oh nonsense! You know perfectly well she adores you. I expect she just wanted to see the little man we all love, only she more than any. But why didn’t she ask you to bring her up this way?’
‘Damn you, Julia!—have you got second sight?’
‘Oh yes—Highland blood! I see—and for some protocol reason you couldn’t make it, so she turned to the boyfriend from Massachusetts! Well, never mind—we’ll get her all right now. ‘Bye.’
Julia was over-optimistic. After a consideration of time and mileage in the Duke’s study—slightly hampered by the fact that none of them knew what make of car Mr. Townsend Waller drove—they decided that at the best Hetta and her escort were not likely to reach the Bela Vista before half-past four. It was now three-thirty.
‘So we telephone then?’ the Duke said. As in Lisbon that Friday night, Julia realised that he was rather enjoying the whole business.
‘Oh, do we?’ she asked, with a doubtful glance at Torrens. ‘I should have thought drive over and see them.’
‘Certainly,’ Torrens said. ‘There has been a most unfortunate amount of telephoning already.’
‘But surely this can have done no harm? You have all been so clever—it has been an entertainment to listen to you!’
‘Unfortunately the people we are up against are quite clever too,’ the Major said wryly. ‘No, we had certainly better drive over.’
‘And bring her here?—I see. And the American also? There is plenty of room, of course.’
‘No, dear Duke. Boundless as your hospitality is, I think poor Mr. Waller had better stay at the Bela Vista tonight and scoot back alone to Lisbon tomorrow. Miserable for him of course, but we don’t want an unceasing strea
m of CD. cars up your by-road—don’t you think, Hugh?’
‘I do think. So good of you,’ he said to his host,’ but Miss Probyn is right; it is much safer that Waller’s car shouldn’t come here.’
Ericeira, in spite of the novelty to him of these goings-on, was quite quick-witted.
‘I understand,’ he said. ‘Then had you not better drive to São Pedro do Sul in one of my cars? They are a familiar sight there.’
‘That would be admirable, Sir. Thank you.’ Torrens glanced at his watch. ‘How long does it take to get in?’
‘Twenty-six minutes to the town; to go on to the watering-place, another four and a half.’ Times were one of the things about which the Duke was quite unfailing. He lifted the receiver of one of the eight telephones and ordered a car to come round to the house at once. ‘You will do it comfortably,’ he said. ‘Who goes?’
‘I think we’ll both go,’ said Julia. ‘Better for Hetta if I’m there. I’ll just get a coat.’ She went out.
The post at Gralheira only arrived in the afternoon—on her way through the hall Julia took a look at the long walnut table on which letters were always laid out. The post was in, and there was a letter for her from her old and beloved friend, Mrs. Hathaway, forwarded from Lisbon on the very day she left; she read it hurriedly on her way to her room.
It announced Mrs. Hathaway’s arrival in Lisbon that very day. ‘This will only give you very short notice of my advent,’ the good lady wrote, ‘but it was a last-minute decision. Since you left England I have been somewhat tied to the bed-side of an old friend who was lingering with cancer; but in the end he died very suddenly—it has been rather a shock, and I feel like the change. I have managed to get a plane passage on Monday; if you aren’t at the airport—and don’t bother; I know how many claims there are on your time—I shall go straight to the Hotel Lucrezia in Lisbon, which your Treasury friend Geoffrey Consett says is a very nice moderate hotel, near the main shopping street. I do apologise for this short notice, and you must not let me be a bother. But it will be blessed to see you.’ There was a P.S. ‘I have bought a Portuguese phrase-book, with instructions for pronunciation. How very odd that O should be pronounced OO, and OU O! And S as SH! Why have an alphabet?’
Julia laughed, and then frowned, over this missive. Damn! Of course it would have to happen that her precious Mrs. Hathaway must needs arrive in Lisbon in her absence, and while she was so tied up with Hugh’s affairs that she couldn’t race back to look after her old friend. However, once they had got Hetta safely tucked in at Gralheira she might get away tomorrow; anyhow she would ring Mrs. H. up tonight. She slung the orange suède jacket, which so delightfully matched her tawny-blonde hair and apricot complexion, over her shoulders and left her room.
In the corridor she encountered Luzia.
‘Oh, Miss Probyn, you are going out! I saw the car coming up to the door—I thought so. Can’t I come too? I am so dull; and I hate cutting out aprons for Tia Maria Francisca’s wretched lost girls to sew, which is what she will make me do if I am at home. I have hardly seen you today—you have been all the time with Torrens, or the priests! Do say Yes,’ the girl implored, twining an arm cajolingly through that of her ex-governess.
Julia, laughing and releasing her arm, decided instantly that she would say Yes. To drive into São Pedro do Sul, not only in the Duke’s car but accompanied by the Duke’s daughter was an excellent bit of cover for their errand.
‘All right, you can come,’ she said. ‘Go and get a coat —but hurry.’
Chapter 12
Torrens, who had only come that way when it was practically dark, was especially pleased to see the countryside. Passing through the pinewoods clothing the slopes of the Serra they crossed ravine after ravine, each of which was spanned by small curved terraces on which spring crops were growing—they looked like whole strings of bright-green horse-shoes, suspended on silver threads of water between the dark pines.
‘They don’t waste an inch, do they, these people?’ he said.
São Pedro do Sul is a pleasant unpretentious little town, lying, as its name implies, on a southern slope facing the sun. As the car drove into the curious raised square immediately below the Igreja Matriz, the Parish Church, Torrens’ eye was caught by two things: the spectacular front of the Reriz Palace, with its huge impending cornice and innumerable balconies of wrought iron-work, and the exquisite little façade of the Misericordia Church, whose baroque window-frames of dark granite are set, not as usual in pale plaster, but in aqueous blue-and-white azulejos which cover the whole surface of the building.
‘Julia, do for goodness’ sake let us stop for five minutes and look at all this!’ he exclaimed. ‘We’re well on time, and some of these things are fantastically lovely.’
‘Oh very well’—Julia tapped on the glass and told the chauffeur to pull up.
Torrens sprang out at once, and strode off across the square towards the Misericordia, followed much more leisurely by Julia; Luzia got out too, but with her adolescent acuity decided to leave her companions to themselves —they get few enough chances in our house, she thought. She pottered contentedly about the little square in the warm sunshine, taking note of the various cars parked round its edges. Her eye was caught suddenly by the red-and-white number-plate with ‘CD.’ and six figures, which in Portugal makes diplomatic cars unmistakeable—she walked over to it. The car was American; it was empty.
‘Tiens!’ Luzia said to herself. Diplomatic cars were not a very common sight in São Pedro do Sul, especially out of season. She looked about her. As always in Portugal one or two beggars were sitting sunning themselves outside the parish church and she went up to them, feeling in her purse for small coins as she did so—at her approach they held out dirty hands and began their customary gabble.
‘There, O Santinha! There, O Santinho!’ the girl said, dropping money into the outstretched palms of a very old woman and a crippled man. In northern Portugal it is the delightful custom to honour poverty by addressing beggars as ‘Little Saint’; moreover, the giver thanks the beggar for affording him the opportunity of an alms-deed. Automatically Luzia did so now—‘Muitissimo obrigada’ (most greatly obliged) she said; then she briskly addressed the cripple, who looked the more intelligent of the two.
‘What quality of persons came in this carro diplomatico?’ she asked. ‘Did you see them?’
‘Sim, sim, Minha Menina,’ the old man said. ‘There was a Senhor, who appeared to be an Americano, and a Menina —very dark, she was.’
‘And where have they gone?’
‘The Menina went into the Igreja—she gave me silver!’ the beggar quavered excitedly. ‘And the Senhor?’
‘He went to drink wine in that small shop across the praça. While he was within another big carro drove up, with four Senhores; they looked at the carro diplomatico, and as the Menina has done one of them asked us where the pessoas in it were. So I told him; but he gave me no money!’ the old man said angrily.
‘And then?’ Luzia asked.
‘Then they drove the car close up to the entrance of the Igreja Matriz, and three went in, while one waited at the driving-wheel; and presently they came out with the Menina.’
‘Well?’ Luzia pressed him.
‘They put her into the car, and drove away all together.’
‘Without the Americano?’
‘Sim—without him. Curious, was it not?’ the cripple said detachedly.
Julia had not bothered to mention to Luzia the reason for their drive to São Pedro do Sul—for one thing she was confident that the girl would have heard of Hetta’s impending arrival from Nanny anyhow, and she had a firm trust in her pupil’s tact and discretion. Her confidence was well-founded: Nanny had of course told Luzia that ‘we’ were expecting a young lady—‘Hungarian; a Countess it seems, and a great friend of Dom Francisco’s. She’s driving up from Lisbon today.’ It had not taken Luzia long to connect this fascinating fact with their expedition that afternoon, and when she sa
w the car with a diplomatic number-plate it took her exactly one second to leap to the conclusion that it had probably brought the Hungarian young lady to their remote district—hence her questions to the beggar. But she had heard, and guessed, enough of what was going on to be thoroughly disturbed by what the cripple said.
‘How did the four Senhores look?’ she asked, as casually as she could.
‘Foreign—the one who talked with me spoke Portuguese very badly!’ the old man said.
Luzia reflected quickly, then tried a further question.
‘Had one of them a beard, and rolls of fat at the back of his neck?’
‘Sim, sim! They wore grey,’ the beggar added.
The grey conveyed nothing to Luzia, though her mind recorded the fact, but the beard and the fat neck frightened her very much.
‘And did the Menina go willingly with these Senhores?’ she asked.
‘Não, não! She struggled, and the bearded one put his hand over her mouth before they thrust her into the car. Was this not also curious?’
To Luzia it was not so much curious as horrifying. She gave the creature another coin, to stimulate his wits, and asked what the carro of the four foreign Senhores was like?
Black, large, shining, and closed, she was told.
‘And by which road did it leave?’
São Pedro do Sul is the junction for four main roads: north to the valley of the Douro; south-east to Viseu and Guarda, but also to Coimbra and Lisbon; due west to Aveiro and the Atlantic; north-west—a poorish road—to Vale de Cambra and Oporto. But about this the cripple was less clear. The car had driven away very fast; and precisely at that moment a rich, a charitable lady had come up to him, and in speaking with her he had failed to notice which road the big black car took.
‘Did you see its numero?’ Luzia asked, without much hope.
‘Ah no, Minha Menina—I cannot read numbers.’
‘Is the Americano still in the wine-shop?’
‘Não, nã;o—when the big car has left he comes out, he goes into the church, no Menina!—he comes out again, he runs here and there looking for her; I think he is gone to the Policial.’