Star of Ill-Omen

by Dennis Wheatley

  Kem knew the odds he would be up against—provided Escobar were ever allowed to give the alarm. But he hoped to prevent him. At the first moment of his appearance he had contemplated diving at him and knocking him out. He had refrained only on account of Carmen; for if he left without giving any explanation Escobar was bound to continue to believe that she was his mistress, and even, perhaps, that she had helped him to steal the brief-case. Now, it seemed, was the time to attempt to clear her. With a shrug he said:

  ‘Anyway, you’re completely wrong about your wife.’

  As Kem spoke he had intended to add, ‘I returned neither to make love to her nor to steal her emeralds; but for this!’ then to retrieve the brief-case from the floor and hold it up hoping the suddenness of such a dramatic disclosure instantly to convince Escobar that he was telling the entire truth. But Carmen forestalled him.

  The instant she had finished retying her sash she slid off the bed, and for the last few moments had been standing a few feet away from Kem, staring with dark, anxious eyes alternately at him and her husband. Now, before he could speak again or had made any move towards the brief-case, she snatched it up, flung it on the bed, and cried:

  There! That’s the proof of what he says. That’s what he came here to get. He’s not my lover, but a thief and a spy.’

  Escobar’s eyebrows shot up; then he sprang forward and seized the precious brief-case.

  Kem made no attempt to stop him, but smiled at Carmen a little wryly. ‘I admit it; but at least you might have left it to me to show the proof of your innocence.’

  ‘I require no parody of chivalry by anyone like you to help me clear myself,’ she flared. Then she turned to her husband and hurried on:

  ‘He pretended to be ill at dinner, and went early to bed. None of us suspected anything, and I came up just before one. When I had undressed I went, as I always do, to put my jewels away. As I entered your room I saw by the light from the bathroom that the door of the safe was open. An instant later he sprang upon me and overpowered me. Then he carried me in here. When you found us he was trying to tie me up and gag me.’

  Kem did not blame her for the line she had taken. It was the only one by which she could save herself. Had they not been lovers things might have happened more or less that way. It was not very different from the story he had himself meant to tell Escobar, except that hers had certain holes in it. Intently he watched the Colonel’s face for a sign as to whether or not he would believe her.

  At first his expression showed relief; but suddenly his eyes narrowed, and he asked: ‘Why did you not call for help when he attacked you? A woman’s scream is very piercing; so someone would have heard you.’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ she replied quickly. ‘He had his hand over my mouth.’

  ‘Why didn’t you bite it? He’s not all that bigger than yourself, and it is quite a way for him to have carried you. Surely you could have freed your face for long enough to give a scream. Besides, how did the brief-case get here?’

  ‘I—I don’t know,’ she faltered. ‘He must have brought it in with him.’

  ‘What, while carrying a struggling woman in his arms and preventing her from crying out? As he has not three hands, that would not be possible.’

  She gulped. ‘It’s the truth! At least as near the truth as makes no difference. I was struggling, but I didn’t cry out because I feared that if he were found here it would create a scandal.’

  Escobar’s face had darkened again to a scowl as he snapped: ‘Next I expect you’ll ask me to believe that when burglars crack a safe they always start by taking their trousers off. You’re lying! He is your lover! Yes: and I believe he seduced you into becoming his confederate. Combination safes aren’t easy to crack, and you knew the combination. That’s it. You opened it for him: then, believing me to be safely out of the way, you two beauties meant to have a last fling together.’

  Kem saw that the time had come to intervene. ‘No, it was not like that,’ he said quietly. ‘Since you must be told the truth I’ll tell it you. I’ve already admitted that I am a secret agent. It is part of my job to know a lot about safes. I faked illness to get to bed early, came along here, and cracked yours about midnight. But the thing that Carmen hasn’t liked to tell you is that she knew I was in love with her.’

  ‘He is not!’ interjected Carmen, in sudden fear that he now meant to give everything away. ‘He only endeavoured to make use of me. He is lying! Don’t believe one word he says!’

  Swift as a hawk Escobar seized upon the point. ‘Since you admit that he tried to make use of you, why did you not inform me of it? If there hadn’t been something going on between the two of you, your natural course would have been to ask me to tell him to leave the house.’

  Again Kem intervened. ‘She refers only to the fact that I took advantage of our shipboard acquaintance to get myself invited here.’ Then he turned and looked at Carmen straight in the eyes.

  ‘It is true that I love you. The fact of earning a living the way I do doesn’t make a man any the less liable to fall in love. If you hadn’t appeared to be reasonably happily married and so damnably rich I would have asked you to go away with me tonight.’

  Carmen quivered as though she had been struck, and suddenly an entirely new expression came into her eyes. Momentarily forgetting her husband’s presence, she stammered, ‘Do you—do you really mean that?’

  It was true that during the past week Kem had toyed with the idea, but only as the sort of daydream in which one lets oneself build ‘Castles in Spain’. He had no wish to tie himself up by marriage yet, and, in any case, he could not possibly support a woman like Carmen happily on his slender income, even had she been willing to run away with him. But in the stress of the moment he had voiced the idea because he knew he would not be able to prevent Carmen from calling for help when he made his bid to overcome Escobar unless he could get her on his side, or at least render her temporarily neutral.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I would have begged you to go with me if I’d thought there was a decent chance of my being able to make you happy.’

  For the past twenty seconds Escobar had been glowering at them in silence. Now he snarled at Carmen, ‘Your attitude makes it clear beyond dispute that you have been carrying on an affaire with this man behind my back.’

  Kem swung round upon him. ‘You can hardly call it that; for it was entirely one-sided. I’ve shown that I was in love with her, of course; but that is a compliment any pretty woman may accept. I’ve done nothing that would give her cause to complain of me to you—until tonight. And now you’d better hear what remains to be told about that. Passion can make any man unscrupulous if he feels it strongly enough, and I planned to take both your papers and your wife. When I had burgled the safe I brought the brief-case in here and hid it, as I meant to take it with me when I left by the window of this room. Next I went into Carmen’s boudoir, took off my coat and trousers and waited there. Half an hour later, suspecting nothing, she came up to bed. I gave her time to undress, then came in here.’

  ‘And then?’ Escobar muttered thickly.

  Kem gave a little shrug and went on:

  ‘I was gambling on two fairly good cards. One, that the liking for me she had shown might prove to be a little more than friendship when it was put to the proof, and that if she did not care for you very deeply she might take pity on me. Two, that even if she refused, seeing that I was already half undressed, she would be too frightened of a scandal to call servants and let them find me with her in that state.

  ‘At the moment she saw me she had no reason to assume anything but that I was her socially respectable guest, and guilty only of having fallen so desperately in love with her that I had seized on the chance of your being away to attempt to seduce her. Naturally she didn’t scream, but she wouldn’t let me even start to make love to her, and begged me to go away. I refused. After a few minutes she began to lose her temper, and threatened to ring for the servants. By that time I was terribly wrought u
p. The sight of her with hardly any clothes on made me lose my head, and I was prepared to stoop to any means rather than not have my way with her.

  ‘Suddenly it occurred to me that since she wouldn’t even let me kiss her she must be very much in love with you, and that I might be able to use her love for you as a lever. I produced the brief-case, told her the truth about myself, and offered to strike a bargain. I reckoned she would know how much those papers meant to you, and I offered to leave them behind if she would give way to me. But she wouldn’t, and tried to reach the bell. I seized her and threw her on the bed. That’s how things stood when you came in.’

  It was a good story, as it accounted for everything, and Kem knew that a hot-blooded South American like Escobar would regard it as quite plausible that a young man might go to any lengths when fully roused by passion. That Escobar accepted this last explanation was immediately apparent from his expression. Tapping the brief-case, he said:

  ‘So you could have got away with this if you hadn’t had your wits bemused by thinking about my wife.’

  Kem did not glance at Carmen. He was still unable to guess whether, when the showdown came, she would help or hinder him. Since his prospects of escape hung almost entirely on that, he could have embraced Escobar for his remark, as it enabled him to reply:

  ‘Yes. If I had left as soon as I had done my job I should be outside the military cordon by now. But there are times when love makes fools of us all.’

  The Colonel grunted and remarked sourly, ‘By the time you have done your five years in a fortress for espionage you may have learned that it doesn’t pay to mix women and business.’ Then he suddenly side-stepped and reached out for the gilded bell-rope that dangled beside the bed.

  With extraordinary swiftness Kem was on him. Just as he had been taught during the war, at that school ‘somewhere in southern England’, he threw himself forward with all his force, turned a somersault on the bed and shot off it, to cannon into Escobar and send him flying. But he could not prevent the loud cry that the Colonel let out as he went over backwards.

  For a moment or two they were a whirling mass of arms and legs, as each strove to get an advantageous grip on the other; then, for the second time within ten hours, they became locked in a desperate embrace.

  Kem’s foremost anxiety was to stop the Colonel’s shouts for help, as if they were heard they must prove his ruin. Escobar had already emitted three or four before his young antagonist succeeded in checking them by a sharp jab in the midriff. In the comparative silence that followed one heartening fact impinged on Kem’s brain—Carmen had not added her cries to those of her husband. While he had the chance he grabbed Escobar by the throat, and silently prayed that the yells he had already given had not reached the ears of anyone beyond the hall door of the suite.

  Of the two Escobar was far the stronger. With a violent jerk of his head he broke the grip on his bull-like neck; but he had no breath left for further shouting. Instead, he tensed his powerful muscles and threw Kem from him. Rolling over, Kem came at him again, like a hound at a wild boar. Again they clinched and, panting with their exertions, strove for mastery. It was at that moment that Kem heard a loud knocking on the outer door.

  7

  A Desperate Situation

  At the sound of the knocking Kem was instantly conscious of a nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew that, short of a fluke, it would require the utmost exertions for several minutes yet before he could finally overcome Escobar. The door was not locked, so even if Carmen remained neutral and, to cover herself from not letting in whoever was there, pretended to faint, it would not save him. Should he receive no reply, the person who had heard Escobar’s shouts for help would try the door, find it open and, in less than a minute, come dashing in.

  If he were then still struggling with the Colonel he would be completely at the mercy of the newcomer and must expect to be promptly knocked on the head. On the other hand, if he abandoned the struggle before rendering Escobar unconscious, snatched up the brief-case and made off out of the window, he would not stand a dog’s chance of getting clean away. In either case a hue and cry must start almost immediately, but with Escobar howling-mad on the end of the telephone it was certain to be redoubled in intensity.

  At the moment he was on top of the Colonel, grasping his throat with one hand and using the other clenched to jab him in the ribs and so keep him half-winded. Escobar, too, had one hand on Kem’s throat. With the other he seized Kem’s ear and wrenched at it. The pain was excruciating. Instinctively Kem shut his eyes. Only by clenching his teeth could he prevent himself from yelling.

  Distantly, through a brain clouded by agony, he heard the sort of sharp thud that metal makes on bone. After that, almost instantly, Escobar’s grip relaxed, his hand fell from Kem’s ear and he suddenly went limp as a jelly.

  Opening his eyes Kem saw that the skin of his adversary’s forehead was now broken, and that little globules of blood were already oozing from the abrasion. As he lifted his eyes they fell on Carmen’s legs, then on her long fingers grasping the silver-gilt hand-mirror that she had snatched up from her dressing-table. With it she had struck her husband unconscious.

  As Kem struggled to his knees she held the mirror out to him and said, as if in a daze: ‘Look! I’ve broken it. That’s an omen of terribly bad luck, isn’t it?’

  ‘It was lucky for me you did,’ he gasped. ‘Quick! See who is at the door and try to get rid of them.’

  His swift words seemed to act like a cold douche, and instantly brought her back to her full senses. Turning away, she ran out into the hall. The knocking sounded for the third time, but whoever was making it could not have been there for much more than a minute.

  Kem heard her voice, sharp with annoyance:

  ‘Who is it? What do you want?’

  There came the sound of muttering, then her voice again: ‘Oh, it’s you! No, the shouts you heard are nothing to worry about. Estévan returned unexpectedly ten minutes ago, and he’s in a filthy temper. We were having a private row, that’s all. He’s just gone to the bathroom, and when he’s got the dust from his journey off himself he’ll feel better. I’m sorry you were disturbed. Please go back to bed.’

  A moment later she returned to the bedroom, closing the door behind her. She was deathly pale and her dark eyes were distended with mingled fear and excitement, as she whispered:

  ‘That was Pedro. I told you I thought he would stay up to spy on us. Thank God he didn’t see you come to my room. I expect he saw Estévan pass, though, and knowing that you would not be aware of his return was waiting to see if you would run your head into the hornets’ nest. Estévan’s shouts were not very loud, and I don’t think he could possibly have heard them through both doors unless he had been hanging about outside.’

  Kem had got to his feet, but was still panting from his exertions. He gave her a faint smile. ‘Well, that’s a relief, anyhow. It means there’s very little chance of anyone else having heard them.’ They listened anxiously for a few moments, but could hear nothing. After the violent altercation and the struggle that had just taken place, the house now seemed as silent as the grave.

  Carmen’s glance fell to her husband’s blood-stained head and unconscious body. With a swift intake of her breath she stammered: ‘I haven’t… He’s not dead, is he?’

  ‘Good Lord, no!’ Kem quickly reassured her. Then kneeling down, he turned up one of Escobar’s eyelids and added: ‘He will be out for some time though; and I can never thank you enough for having come to my assistance so splendidly: I wouldn’t have stood a dog’s chance of getting away if you hadn’t.’

  She gave a nervous little shrug. ‘I had to do something. If I had allowed Pedro to come in while you were still struggling it would have been all up with us.’

  Suddenly a look of consternation leapt into Kem’s eyes, and he exclaimed: ‘Oh, God, what a fool I’ve been! I should never have told you to send Pedro away, but simply to lock the door and remain silent
.’

  ‘If I’d done that he would have fetched the servants and broken it down.’

  ‘Of course; but it would have taken him ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. Long enough, anyhow, for me to have laid Estévan out and got away with a flying start. Don’t you see that I’ve allowed you to compromise yourself completely?’

  ‘I had burnt my boats already, by hitting Estévan over the head.’

  ‘No. You could have said that you meant to hit me and hit him by mistake, That very thing happened this afternoon when he tried to smash my head in with a log. I moved just in time and the blow landed on Guido’s face instead. But you would never be believed after having sent Pedro away and told him yourself that everything was all right.’

  ‘What does it matter?… unless.’ Her mouth drooped and she stared at him in sudden doubt. ‘Oh, Kem, you did really mean what you said about wanting me to run away with you, didn’t you?’

  Had his mind not been so fully occupied during the past few moments, he would have realised already that she would never have attacked her husband had she not made up her mind to leave him. And now that she was hopelessly compromised no other course was open to her. His decision, that he must take her with him, was almost instantaneous, and he replied:

  ‘Of course I did. I refrained from saying anything about it before only because I thought you were content to remain with Estévan, and because I can’t possibly afford to give you the sort of life you have been used to.’

  She looked down at her husband’s body. ‘He’s been quite kind to me, so I don’t hate him. But I was forced into marrying him against my will. My father is one of the old Liberal aristocracy. He sacrificed me to secure Estévan’s influence and save himself from being imprisoned for having been involved in a plot against the regime. Our marriage was no more unsatisfactory than many others, I suppose, although he must have found me very cold. Anyhow, I don’t feel that I owe him anything. The first real happiness I’ve ever known was with you, and after that I don’t think I could have stood his making love to me any more. As for money, don’t worry about that. I have plenty of my own.’