I won’t eat it, she thought. It was probably poisoned. She wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole.
She turned away, resolute.
In a few seconds, aroused by the aroma of the dinner on the floor, she swung her legs over the bed and looked at it. What did it matter if it was poisoned? That would be better than having one’s throat cut.
It was delicious. She ate every morsel. After a while the door opened again and the man came in.
He looked at the empty plate, and then held out his hand. There were four tablets; she took them.
“Aspirin,” he said.
He waited while she put them in her mouth and then washed them down with the glass of red wine she hadn’t touched. She said thank you, and he bowed, picked up the tray. He went out and took the flashlight with him. He murmured something, which might have been “Good night,” but she wasn’t sure. The door closed, with a firm thud, and a bolt was drawn. She was alone again, in the darkness. She got up after a while, felt every inch of the wall for a light switch, but found nothing.
She sat quietly on the edge of the bed for a long time, until she couldn’t bear her thoughts any longer. The aspirin had calmed her and, in spite of everything, she slept. It was an excessively warm night, but she pulled the covers over her, nesting inside them. She was, of course, exhausted. Even fright had left her. There was only a deep sopor.
There was something so wonderful about sinking into forgetfulness. All thoughts left her, and she lay, supine, a part of the black night.
• • •
It was just past nine when Steve called Lisa Comstock’s room.
Her voice was blurred and thick.
“Yes?”
“This is Steve Connaught.”
“Who?”
“Please,” he said. “Wake up, would you mind? The girl’s not back yet.”
“Oh.”
“I have to talk to you.”
“Yes.” She really did sound concerned. “I’m so sorry.” There was a short silence and then she said, “Oh, yes, just let me get myself together. Could you wait … about an hour, that’s all. My God, how terrible. What could have happened?”
“I don’t know, maybe you can shed some light,” he said.
“Oh, I hope so. Is Richard all right?”
“Richard’s fine.”
“What time is it?”
“A little after nine.”
“In the morning?”
“Yes, Mrs. Comstock. In the morning. A.M.”
She groaned.
“Mrs. Comstock, you will come down?” he said, gritting his teeth. “You must realize how important it is.”
“Oh, yes. I’ll be right down. Just as soon as I can.”
“Please hurry. I’ll be waiting for you in the lounge.”
“Yes.” She was obedient. “I’ll get right up. I promise.”
• • •
“Tell me what happened,” Steve said to Lisa. “From the time you got to Madrid.”
“Well. I had a flight from Rome. Then I got a taxi to Constant’s house. He was horrid. He hates me. I hate him too. He’s an opportunist, I always told Lawrence that.”
“So you left the airport and went to the Villa Bondadoso. You had a talk with your brother-in-law?”
“He was so irritating.”
“You were upset about Richard.”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“I guess so. You stayed there overnight?”
“Yes, but I couldn’t sleep. So I called the airport and booked a flight here.”
She put a hand to her throat. “I’m dry,” she said. “Order me a drink, will you? Vodka on the rocks.”
He called the waiter over.
“That’s better,” she said, when the drink came. “Thank you.” She was almost humble. “You seem to be a decent man. You understand about these things, don’t you?”
Yes, he understood about a lot of things. Who was he to cast the first stone? He was gentle. But he had to pick her brain. “You booked your flight, what then?”
“Uh … the flight was for six o’clock in the evening.”
She fished in her handbag for cigarettes. Kelly had nice things, good clothes and all the rest of it. But women like this, like Richard’s mother and Dolores Comstock, had alligator bags that ran into the hundreds of dollars. Pucci stuff, Gucci stuff. They were bitches, really, while Kelly worked hard.
Anger surged through him.
He fished for his lighter and just then she brought forth some matches from her handbag. He picked them up and lit her cigarette.
The matchbook lay on the table between them. She started talking again, but he wasn’t listening. He was looking at the matchbook. At first it didn’t mean all that much, but his subconscious absorbed it and then it meant a great deal.
“Where did you get this?” he asked Lisa.
“Get what?”
“These matches.”
“I don’t know. How should I know?”
“You have to remember. It’s important. Where did you get them?”
“For God’s sake, with all that’s happened, I’m supposed to remember where I got some matches?”
She was very nearly hysterical. She picked up the book of matches and hurled it to the floor. “So much for your God damned questions,” she cried. “Are you crazy?”
Steve bent down and picked up the matchbook. The name on the cover was Hotel Indepencia, Madrid, Spain.
Where he and Kelly had gone to hunt up the Nascimentos, who had checked out a couple hours earlier.
“You took a cab from the Madrid airport?”
“Yes.”
“Then you stayed overnight at the Villa Bondadosa.”
“Yes.”
“And then decided to come to Seville.”
“Yes!”
“Who drove you to the airport in Madrid? Did you take a cab?”
“I was driven.”
“By whom?”
“The family.”
“Constant?”
“No. Dolores.”
“She was at the wheel of the car?”
“Certainly not. The chauffeur was at the wheel. Jose.”
“I see,” he said, his brain whirling. So that was the way it had been.
“What does it matter?”
“There were just the three of you? Dolores, Jose and you?”
“Yes, but what are you trying to — ”
“Did you smoke in the car?”
“I don’t know! I always smoke. Of course I — ”
“Do you have a lighter?”
“I did. It was stolen. Pure gold. Someone stole it. What does it matter?”
“So you needed matches to light your cigarette.”
“So what?”
“Who lit your cigarette?”
“Who? The chauffeur, of course. Who else, Santa Claus?”
“So the chauffeur provided the matches.”
“No, Jesus Christ did,” she said profanely, and her face was ugly, ugly.
“You needed a light and the chauffeur slowed the car and passed back the matches. Is that right?”
“Naturally! What was he supposed to do, rub sticks together?”
She followed his eyes, looking at the matchbook with its gilt lettering, Hotel Indepencia. And a shred of intelligence, of honest concern, lit her eyes.
“Do these mean anything?” she asked.
They meant everything, Steve thought, staring at the matchbook. The Hotel Indepencia, where he and Kelly had gone to talk to the Nascimentos, who had checked out with no forwarding address. That meant that there was a tie-in between the South American couple and the Comstock family in Madrid. That meant —
“What is it, what is it?” the woman was asking. “Tell me, for God’s sake. What are you thinking?”
He looked up.
“Why, your relatives want to get Richard away from you,” he said. “It’s as simple as that. They want it so badly that they arranged for your sudden demise.
I know who they’re working with. This matchbook tells me that. Only they mistook Kelly for Richard’s mother, for you.”
The woman’s face paled. “You’re not talking sense.”
“Yes I am. I’m talking sense. And now there’s only one thing left to do. Put it squarely in the lap of the American Consul.”
His face worked.
“And hope for the best,” he said, out of a tight throat. “I can’t put it off any longer. Maybe I’ve waited too long as it is.”
CHAPTER 16
A dream about green grass, and the smells thereof, and the gentle swish of leaves in the trees. Cool, fresh air, the sounds of animal life …
It was, of course, the sound that brought her out of sleep.
A stealthy sound, a key turning in the lock.
Her body gathered itself together in the blackness.
The lock turned and there was the sound of someone sliding into the room. It was not the good man. The good man hadn’t come in so furtively. This was different, was terribly different.
So tense that the calves of her taut legs hurt, she slid out from under the covers. Thank God, now, for the darkness. She was as quiet as a mouse. She had to be so terribly quiet. Because …
Because she knew it, sensed it. This was the bad man.
Trembling, she tiptoed round to where the picture was on the wall.
Now, she thought. It was her only chance. Now.
There was the gust of a wine-soaked breath.
Her eyes were accustoming themselves to the dark. But his weren’t. She had a very slight advantage. She heard him groping his way to the bed. Heard his hard breathing. Knew, at once, his intention. So then, it was the pig, the sadist. She was slated for death, but before that this animal was determined to use her body.
She stopped shivering. Now she knew that she wanted to kill. She wasn’t afraid any longer; she was filled with hate. She would do it.
Standing there, scarcely breathing, she waited. And heard him go down on the bed. Hard, vicious, brutal … only a disgusting animal.
In less than five seconds he knew she wasn’t there. She heard his oath.
Now, she thought. It had to be now.
She reached up, freed the picture from the wall. It was heavy … that was good, but her hands had started trembling again. She had to do this. She had to.
His curses rang out. He was no longer quiet. A vicious barrage of Spanish was unleashed, and he stumbled about; in the dim light she saw his flailing arms. She felt when he neared her; smelled it, too. The disgusting breath was on her cheek. And then fingers touched her. Her flesh crawled and suddenly she was totally calm, totally prepared. He grasped her arm, gloating and with a loud cry of triumph. The sweaty hand slid up her arm, to the shoulder, and then she raised the heavy picture and brought it down on his head.
The metal frame hit against bone.
The sound was horrendous, bringing water into her mouth.
There was a thick cry of agony, and then a ghastly groan. The hand on her arm slid away, like soft bananas, rotten and decayed. It was so hard for her not to scream, not to give way to frayed nerves. But she was silent. The heavy body hit the floor. And the place where the picture frame had smashed down on him was wet … slimy, hot, slippery. Her hands touched the wet place; she smelled the hot, new letting of blood, retched, turned away, circled the inert body and placed, with utmost precision and caution, the picture on top of the bed. Then she moved slowly and silently to the door.
It was open.
Scarcely believing it, pausing fearfully for one paralyzed moment, she stepped out into the hall.
There was utter quiet.
It couldn’t be this easy, she thought. Someone would come and hit her again.
It couldn’t possibly be this simple.
But it was.
The house was dark. She maneuvered the stairs and got to the bottom. In the pale light from outdoors she saw the door, went to it, saw a bolt, prayed, and slid it back.
It made scarcely a sound.
And then she was outside.
She didn’t have time to think. She simply walked, her muscles taut and controlled, through the courtyard to the open road beyond. She walked quietly and purposefully for about a quarter of a mile. And then started running. A shoe came off; she found it and slipped into it again. And ran on. It was a main highway, but there were no cars. It was the middle of the night. There was nothing, only the empty road and the dark night. She was glad for the darkness, praying only that there would be no blinding headlights suddenly, no big, black car zooming up behind her.
Blisters formed on her heels. But she scarcely felt them.
It was impossible to know how long she had been walking. There was still no sign of light in the sky. Her watch had stopped: she hadn’t thought to wind it. It could be midnight, or it could be, four in the morning.
She had no idea where she was headed.
She sat down finally. She was out of breath and she had the feeling that she was all alone on planet earth. She was the last living person in the world. Loneliness was a killing thing.
There must, sooner or later, be a house somewhere.
She got up again and trudged on, her feet sore and swollen. The road turned, a low-lying branch brushed against her cheek, moist with dew and cobwebbed.
Ugh. And then, rounding the bend, she saw the lighted towers in the distance, thought first that it was a mirage, and then knew what lay ahead, just over the hill.
An airport.
The conning towers, winking their lights, rise high.
The Sevilla Airoporto.
It was, it was!
The airport.
She was home.
“For you,” the night desk clerk said to Steve, who was sitting in the lobby, waiting for morning.
He sprang up.
“Yes?” He spoke into the phone.
“Mr. Connaught?”
“Yes, yes. This is he.”
“Someone to speak to you. Please hold on.”
An interminably long silence and then a golden voice, a beautiful, beloved voice.
“Steve? It’s Kelly.”
“Jesus Christ, it’s about time,” he said, putting a hand to his mouth. “Where the hell are you?”
“At the airport. San Pablo. Could you come and get me?”
“Are you all right, Kelly?”
She might have been playing bridge with friends. Her voice was as cool as glass.
“Sure. I’m fine. But will you come?”
“I don’t know how long it takes to get there,” he said. “But if you budge I’ll break every bone in your body. Just sit. I’ll be there.”
“I won’t move,” she said, and laughed.
“Good-bye,” he said. “And I love you.”
• • •
It was daylight when they started back to the Hotel Madrid. The sky was pink and violet and the sun was beginning to shine through clouds.
“Gee, I’m sorry, Steve,” Kelly apologized once or twice, as she fell over, dozing, against his shoulder. “Am I interfering with your driving?”
“You’re interfering with my breathing,” he said. “But then you did from the beginning. You smell like a rose, and I always did go for roses.”
“I sweat like a pig,” she said. “It was so hot in that house. I’m sure I’m rancid. How can you stand it?”
“Put your little feet up,” he said tenderly. “Just be comfortable. You’re sure they didn’t hurt you?”
“No. But I may have killed someone.”
“I hope you did,” he said harshly. “I hope he suffered, the way I … and you …”
But he was talking to the air. She was fast asleep. He gunned the motor. This sweet kid has to get to bed, he thought.
CHAPTER 17
Madrid, June fourteenth, 1970.
Richard wrote the date on Hotel Ritz stationery. He and his mother were staying there, instead of at Uncle Constant’s, before returning to the Sta
tes.
He nibbled the top of the pen and then addressed his letter.
“Dear Aunt Elizabeth.”
He put the pen down. What a wonderful time they’d had, he and Steve and Kelly. What a glorious time.
Why couldn’t things always be like that?
He took the pen again and started writing.
“Incredible things have happened in the last week or so. I’m sure you’ve had some word sent to you, about everything. Of course I suspected Uncle Constant, but it was Dolores and the chauffeur. You see, Dolores thought that, with Mummy out of the way, she and Uncle Constant could have me, since I seem to be worth a great deal of money, through Grandma’s trust fund. Kelly, my friend, was kidnaped, and almost lost her life, but in the end justice triumphed.
“I feel sorry for Mummy, but she has problems I don’t understand. I wish, you know, that I could live with you. I don’t know whether you would like that, but — ”
He read over what he had written, and then tore the paper into little pieces and sat there, despondent.
It will never be like that, he thought. I have a mother, and I have to live with her.
• • •
Constant Comstock was in his library. He had just returned from a two hour session with the American Counsul in Madrid. He had cleared himself of a heinous charge, but it was, nevertheless, a black mark against him. In all his years as a career diplomat there had never been the slightest suggestion of wrong-doing.
Now, at this late date, there was.
His own wife had negotiated with a shady South American couple — not even Spanish — for a kidnaping and death. The very name was an insult … Nascimento, meaning “birth.”
Death-dealers … with a name like that.
And Dolores, in the most devious way, had rifled his files, found the information on the subject pair and used it to her advantage.
Truly, women were vile creatures.
Vile and filthy.
Three persons were now under surveillance. Lucia and Jorge Nascimento. And Jose Chavez. They would be caught in the net, all three of them.
These facts were all neatly arranged in a manila folder labeled COMSTOCK, CONSTANT.
They had dirtied his name. His good name.
My brother was lucky, he thought. My brother died.
He was alone to handle this … this ugly, dirty thing.
Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances Page 64