Vendetta in Spain

by Dennis Wheatley

  Moreover, he realised now that if he wanted to get out of the hospital alive he must secure police protection. If he sent for the police he was still much too weak to give them a full account of himself, and they might not be inclined to pay very much attention to the fears of a Russian refugee; whereas the name de Quesnoy would ring a bell with them. Angela’s having been assassinated during the wedding day attempt on the King and Queen, and his having come to Barcelona with the idea of avenging her death on the anarchists made obvious sense: they provided an adequate reason for his now needing protection from them. He would, of course, maintain that it had been an entirely private venture, so Don Alfonso’s interest in it would continue to remain secret.

  That evening he spoke coherently for the first time and asked the nun in whose care he was what had happened to the man who had fallen off the ladder with him. Crossing herself, she said, ‘He is dead; God rest his soul. He fell on his head, and they say that his great weight caused it to smash like an eggshell; so he could have known little about it.’

  This news was a great relief to the Count, as it removed his most immediate danger. When she asked his name he gave it simply as de Quesnoy, then added weakly that in the morning he wished to make a statement to the police.

  When morning came the house surgeon arrived early at his bedside, congratulated him on the improvement he had made, and said: ‘I understand you wish to make a statement to the police about how the accident occurred, but I don’t think it in the least necessary, particularly as the inquest on the man who fell with you is now over. In any case I couldn’t possibly allow you to strain yourself by talking for any length of time. It will be some days yet before you are fit to do that.’

  For a minute the Count considered this unexpected hitch in his plans. He was not strong enough to enter into a full explanation, or argue; yet if he failed to get police protection fairly soon now he might pay for it with his life. So also, if a bomb was used, might many other unfortunate people in the ward, as the anarchists were completely ruthless about killing the innocent if in a general massacre there was a fair chance of including the person they wished to assassinate.

  At length he said, ‘Send a telegram … please.’

  Producing a pencil from the pocket of his jacket, the doctor lifted his note-pad and, expecting that his patient wanted to notify some relative of his whereabouts, smiled amiably.

  ‘His Highness the Duke de Vendôme,’ the Count began slowly.

  Lowering his note-pad the doctor frowned. ‘When you were brought in they said you were a tramp. You cannot be serious in wishing to send a telegram to a member of the Royal Family.’

  ‘I am a Knight of the Golden Fleece’, de Quesnoy said with a faint smile.

  The doctor almost dropped his note-pad, then wondered if he was being made a fool of, but decided that his patient was too ill to play practical jokes. Meanwhile the Count went on. ‘Banco de Coralles, Madrid … Am helpless … and in great danger … require police protection urgently … General Quiroga also in danger … Armand de Quesnoy.’

  Having taken down the message the doctor looked up quickly and said, ‘Are you … surely you must be the Conde de Quesnoy whose Condesa was among …’

  De Quesnoy nodded; then, exhausted by his effort, he closed his eyes. He had no idea of François’ present whereabouts and thought it unlikely that he was in Madrid, but the Bank would be certain to know where he was and forward the telegram to him immediately.

  Late that evening his action took effect. The Captain-General of the City himself came striding into the ward followed by the Superintendent of the Hospital, the doctor who had been looking after de Quesnoy, and numerous other people.

  General Quiroga had met the Count at a pre-wedding reception at the Royal Palace in Madrid. Halting at his bedside he peered for a moment at the bandaged head, then turning to the others he said, ‘Yes. It is no hoax. This is the Conde de Quesnoy.’

  Turning back to the Count, he went on. ‘I am indeed sorry to find you in such a bad way, Señor Conde. But be assured that from this moment you may set your mind at rest with regard to your safety. Can you tell me what danger it is that threatens you and, it seems, also myself?’

  ‘Anarchists,’ replied the Count. ‘I got in among them … but was found out … They are plotting to kill you … Don’t know any details … Mustn’t talk much yet … either.’

  The broad-shouldered General gave a grim smile. ‘The attempt on me was made on Wednesday, by a young man named Alvaro Barbestro. We caught him, but I escaped, as I have several times before. I expect they’ll get me one day, though; so thanks for the intended warning. Are there any particular precautions you would like me to take in your own case?’

  ‘Ferrer,’ de Quesnoy murmured. ‘Whole staff of Escuela Moderna nest of murderers … Good thing if you could … could hold them on some pretext … till I … I … well enough to bring charge.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ announced the doctor. ‘He really must not talk any more for the present, Your Excellency.’

  The General nodded. ‘Of course; of course. Anyhow, that is all I want to know for the moment. Please see that he has every possible attention; and have him moved to a private ward—that is, if being moved would not be too great a strain on him.’

  ‘I’d prefer not to move him yet,’ the doctor replied, ‘but you may rely on us to make him as comfortable as we can.’

  To the Count, the General said, ‘Señor Conde, my compliments and best wishes for your speedy recovery. Should you desire anything you have only to command me.’ Then he touched his gold-braided kepi in salute, gave some swift instructions to a member of his staff, and strode away.

  The patients in the beds on either side of de Quesnoy were moved and the beds taken away to be replaced by screens, which had the effect of creating a private ward for him. Two Guardia Civil then sat down on chairs where one of the beds had been. They were armed with pistols and under orders that one or other of them should remain with him night and day. Considerably relieved by these precautions for his safety, he drifted off to sleep and had his first really good night.

  Monday passed without incident but on Tuesday morning de Vendôme appeared. He had received the Count’s telegram, relayed from Madrid, at San Sebastian, where he was staying with his step-uncle and aunt at their villa. The train service across country was so bad that he had decided that it would be quicker to take the express down to Madrid, then come up from there to Barcelona on the night train. Owing to his devotion to de Quesnoy he had suffered acute anxiety about him for the past thirty-six hours; so he was greatly relieved to find him safe and over the crisis that had threatened his life.

  The guards temporarily withdrew and, as the Count could now talk for a while without exhausting himself, he gave his young friend an outline of his misadventure. Having assured himself that the invalid lacked for nothing the Prince went off to see General Quiroga.

  Later in the morning he returned to report that the General had had Ferrer and a number of masters at the Escuela Moderna arrested, and produced a list of their names. Benigno, Gérault, Zapatro, and Jovellenos were among them, but not those of Sanchez or Schmidt, and there was no mention of Dolores Mendoza. De Quesnoy asked that the last three should be picked up if possible. With the same object he also gave descriptions of the bald-headed Manuel, who had been with Ferrer when he was brought to Pedro’s house. The young man with the widely-spaced eyes who had been with them was obviously Alvaro Barbestro, and he had already been caught after making his attempt on General Quiroga.

  After telephoning this message to the Captain-General, de Vendôme again returned to the Count and said, ‘since several of the assassins who have reason to fear you are still at large, General Quiroga feels that the sooner you are out of Barcelona the better. The anarchist movement is so strong here that they can call on innumerable people to help them, and by killing you they could still save Ferrer and the rest, because there would then be no one to bring a case ag
ainst them. In spite of the guard at your bedside, as these people are desperate they may take any risk to get you, or perhaps chuck a bomb through the window on the off-chance that you might be among its victims. There is no doubt that you would be much safer somewhere outside Catalonia.’

  ‘But I can’t leave Barcelona before I’ve given evidence against Ferrer and these other devils that the General has laid by the heels,’ the Count protested.

  De Vendôme smiled. ‘There is no reason why you shouldn’t. Owing to there having been so many anarchist outrages here many civil rights have for a long time been suspended. Under his powers as Captain-General of the City Quiroga can hold them on suspicion for as long as he likes. You won’t be fit to go into court for several weeks yet and you can convalesce just as well elsewhere—better in fact. In any case it is my intention to move you as soon as you are up to it, and take you back to San Sebastian with me. When you are fully recovered you can return here for the trial.’

  ‘In that case,’ murmured de Quesnoy, ‘by all means speak to my doctor and make whatever arrangements you like.’

  That afternoon two doctors made a thorough examination of the Count. Their verdict was that they would not normally have allowed his removal for another week; but in view of the danger to himself and, possibly, other patients in the hospital as long as he remained there, providing he did not have a relapse he could be moved after a further forty-eight hours.

  On the Thursday morning de Vendôme told him the latest news from General Quiroga. It was that Dolores had been arrested at Port-Bou while attempting to get over the frontier into France; but the other two had evidently decided to take no chances and left the Escuela Moderna the day after the attempt on de Quesnoy. A man answering Sanchez’ description was said by a booking clerk at the railway station to have taken a ticket for Granada, where he was now being hunted, and the German was known to have left Spain via Puigcerda.

  It had been decided that the invalid was less likely to suffer a set-back if moved by slow trains than expresses; so instead of going down to Madrid they were to travel via Lerida, Huesca and Pamplona. In the late afternoon, having thanked all those who had looked after him, de Quesnoy was carried on a stretcher down to an ambulance and, accompanied by de Vendôme and two nurses the Prince had hired, started on the first stage of his journey.

  Normally they would have had to change trains three times, but to save his friend from unnecessary jolting and exposure on station platforms de Vendôme had arranged for a special coach in which they could all eat, sleep and remain permanently until reaching San Sebastian. That this meant the coach having to be shunted into sidings and remaining there for several hours was a good rather than a bad thing, as it enabled the Count to get three long periods of complete rest during the journey. Even so, when the trains were moving, the rhythmic thudding of their turning wheels jarred the newly-set breaks in his bones and gave him the worst headache he had had for some days.

  By the second day he was running a high temperature and, when in the afternoon they reached San Sebastian, de Vendôme was acutely worried about him. At the station they were met by de Cordoba, a doctor, two more nurses and one of the new motor ambulances. With it moving at little more than fifteen miles an hour, the sick man was taken the last three miles to the Conde’s villa outside the town.

  There Doña Gulia was waiting to welcome her invalid-guest, but he did not even recognise her, as his relapse had brought on a period of delirium. She had had one of the ground-floor rooms with french-windows looking out on the garden turned into a bedroom for him, because de Vendôme had telegraphed particulars of his injuries and she had realised that with a game leg stairs would be awkward for him for some time to come. He was put to bed and everything that the doctor and nurses could do for him was done.

  For a few hours he lay in a drug-induced sleep, then late in the evening became conscious for the first time since he had left the train. At the sight of the comfortably furnished room and the face of a strange nurse at his bedside he realised that the nightmare journey was over. She took his temperature, noted with relief that though still high it had gone down a point, gave him a cooling drink, then began to bathe his forehead with eau-de-cologne. The gentle massage soothed his pain and soon he dropped off to sleep again.

  Sometime during the night he had a dream. He was still in the same room and a figure was standing at his bedside. He knew instinctively that it was not that of the nurse, and as he raised his eyes to the face now bent above him he saw that it was Gulia.

  The nightlight on the table on the far side of his bed lit up her pale face against the frame of her Titian hair, which was parted Madonna fashion in the centre and fell in two thick plaits on either side of her matt-white cheeks. The flame of the nightlight was reflected in her great dark eyes and bright enough to show the colour of her full, rich red lips. Behind her all was darkness.

  As he gazed up at her he was thinking, ‘How dazzling her beauty is. She is like some superb marble statue, yet it is easy to guess that in the arms of a lover she would take fire and melt in soul-shaking passion.’ Then he rebuked himself. ‘She is José’s wife so I must not allow myself to think of her like that, even in a dream.’

  The figure moved, turned a little and extended two hands. Gently they took his pillowed head between them. Their palms felt as cool as alabaster against his cheeks. Slowly the lovely head came down and for a full minute the soft warm lips were pressed on his.

  He closed his eyes, drawing in the fragrance that was now all about him. The lips and hands were gently withdrawn. When he opened his eyes the ghostly figures had disappeared. It was only a dream. It could have been only a dream. Yet he distinctly heard a click, and could have sworn that it had been made by the latch on the closing of his bedroom door.

  10

  The beautiful anarchist

  It took another thirty-six hours for de Quesnoy to make up the ground lost through his set-back; but after that he began to recover rapidly, and on the 10th of September he was allowed to get up in his room for an hour in the late afternoon. Sixteen days had elapsed since his fall, all his bruises had disappeared, the cuts on his head had healed, his ribs and collar-bone had mended and, owing to his excellent health, his body had made good the blood it had lost. At times he still suffered from severe headaches, but it was now only his broken leg that kept him a prisoner. When the plaster cast was removed from it the doctor had pronounced the mend to be satisfactory and it was a great relief to exchange the rigid casing for a much more comfortable supporting bandage, but he was not allowed until some days after that to put his foot to the ground.

  As soon as he had been in a condition to do so he had dictated to de Cordoba a full account of all that had befallen him in Barcelona, for transmission to the King, who was in residence at San Sebastian. From then onward the Conde and de Vendôme came in three or four times a day to sit with him for a while, but he knew that on many of these occasions de Cordoba would normally have been immersed in his banking affairs and that the Prince, in addition to certain duties he had to perform, would, while at this seaside resort, normally be amusing himself playing tennis or polo or bathing with parties of other young people; so as de Quesnoy grew stronger he told them that he would soon be about again and urged them to resume their usual activities.

  After some pressing they agreed to look in on him after breakfast each morning and not make any long visits till the evenings. It was then he learned, too, that normally the Conde’s business necessitated his spending one or two nights a week in Madrid. But by his thought for his friends the Count penalised himself considerably, as he was left with no one to talk to all day and he found that reading soon brought on his headaches. Doña Gulia often accompanied her husband or de Vendôme on visits to him, and when she learnt that he could not read for any length of time she volunteered to read to him. In consequence, by the time he was well enough to leave his bed it was already an established custom that Gulia and her duenna, Doña Eulalia,
shoud sit with him for an hour or more in the mornings and again after the siesta.

  On his second time up he was allowed to try out his crutches and, although he felt rather shaky, he managed to walk with them round the small flower-bordered patio on to which his room faced. After that he took his meals at an iron table out there and received his visitors at it.

  Three days later the doctor agreed to Gulia’s suggestion that it would do the patient good to have a dip in the sea, providing someone was close at hand all the time to support him should he lose his balance. A private bay lay on the far side of the house. It was a quarter-mile-wide half-moon of lovely golden sand screened at either end by pinecovered headlands. At one side of it there stood a row of gaily painted wooden huts with a group of chairs, tables and striped sun umbrellas in front of them.

  A footman named Ricardo, who had been allotted to the Count as his valet, and another footman, carried him in a chair with two poles lashed to it down to one of the huts. Ricardo helped him to undress and change into a borrowed bathing dress then, acting as a human crutch, escorted him out to the surf line. As they reached it he looked back and saw Gulia emerge from one of the other huts. Her burnished hair was now hidden under a big white mackintosh cap, which made her face look unusually small, and she was wearing an elaborate dark blue costume piped with white. It was of thickish material with a yoke from the shouders and a full, short skirt; so actually much less could be seen of the upper part of her person than when she was in evening dress; but her legs, normally hidden on all occasions by long skirts, were now bare from just below the knee, and he noted that they were slender and shapely.

  On the Biscay coast the sea is nearly always rough and some way out great white combers were breaking over a submerged sand-spit, but nearer inshore it was moderately calm. Even so, neither of them went far out, and on his first day the Count contented himself with paddling and sitting down in the shallows to let the waves wash over him.