‘I can’t,’ she muttered thickly.
He gave a cynical little laugh. ‘D’you expect me to believe that?’
‘Believe it or not, I cannot. He is no longer here.’
‘That we shall see. If he is here, no doubt while strangers are about he will be skulking in your sleeping quarters. You will walk ahead of me and lead me to them. But I warn you, I am a crack shot. Should you attempt to run for it, shout a warning to him as we approach, or play me any other trick, I’ll put a bullet through your ankle.’ With a contemptuous gesture, as he released his hold on her thumbs, he flung her hands away from him.
Without a word she turned and, with her head now held high, set off along the cliff-face. As he followed her, he considered the possibility that she might be telling the truth. If so, he would have had all his trouble for nothing. He had all along been conscious that the evidence for his belief that he would find Sanchez in Granada was very slender. It was based only on the police report that he had taken a ticket to go there when he had fled from Barcelona, and the photograph of La Torcera that he had dropped. She had just admitted that he had been there, but that might have been only to lie low before making his trip to San Sebastian.
On the other hand, if Sanchez had returned he could have got back only that day, and it seemed most unlikely that he would have left again within a few hours. Besides, the Count reasoned, that an obviously primitive and passionate woman like La Torcera would lie to protect her love was where he had slipped up and enabled her to guess that he was not a friend of Sanchez’ but an enemy. Having weighed the pros and cons, worried as he now was that he might be about to suffer a grievous disappointment, he still thought it a fifty-fifty chance that he would surprise Sanchez in her quarters. But it then occurred to him that she might yet try to cheat him, so he said:
‘I have another warning for you. If you take me to the quarters of some other woman, pretending that they are yours, you may fool me for the moment, but you will live to regret it. Tomorrow I can easily bribe someone to check up, and if I find you’ve tricked me I’ll come back here when you least expect it. By the time I’ve done with you you’ll not have the looks ever to attract a man again.’
‘I’ll not trick you,’ she flung back over her shoulder. ‘I’ve no need. I tell you Sanchez has gone from here. There is my lodging, just ahead of us.’
They had rounded a bend in the cliff and were approaching a six-feet high wall of white-washed brick with a low door in its centre, which was evidently the entrance to a small cave. Catching up with her, he took her right hand and switftly twisted it up in a half-Nelson behind her back, as he said softly:
‘Now; no nonsense. I am aware of Sanchez’ skill in throwing a knife and I’ve no mind to have one in my chest. But he won’t throw one at you, so you are going to stand in front of me. You will now call him by name so that he comes to the door of the cave. You are to call his name, mind, and not a word more.’
Obediently she called ‘Sanchez!’ There was no reply. But as no light was filtering through the cracks round the door de Quesnoy thought it possible that Sanchez was sleeping; so he made her call again, louder. Still there came no reply. After waiting a good minute the Count told her to call again, but the cave remained in darkness and there was no sound of movement from within it.
Releasing her arm, de Quesnoy said, ‘It seems that you were telling the truth. Go into the cave now, leave the door wide open and light a candle or a lamp. If you have a knife there I warn you not to touch it. Remember, I can still put a bullet through your foot.’
With a shrug she did as he had told her. Through the open door he saw her light an oil lamp then, with his revolver still at the ready, he followed her inside.
The cave was no more than ten feet deep and a little less in width. From six feet in height at its entrance its rough-hewn ceiling sloped down to four at the back where there was a brick hearth with a chimney and a few iron cooking pots. Along one wall there was a truckle bed, against the other a long trestle table on which stood an enamel basin, toilet things, a mirror, and an array of cosmetics; in front of it stood a single chair.
As the Count put his foot over the door sill La Torcera drew back a little in the confined space, dropped him a mocking curtsey, and said sarcastically, ‘Enter, noble Prince, and be pleased to search my vast apartment; but have care when crawling under the bed lest the giant who lies concealed there should seize upon and devour you.’
De Quesnoy gave her a half-smile. ‘I admit that after all the unnecessary precations I took against Sanchez being warned of my approach, you have the laugh of me. Incidentally, too, I am not a Prince. I used Kropotkin’s name only because I thought you might know it and that it would influence you the more readily to take me to Sanchez.’
‘Neither are you a friend of Sanchez,’ she took him up quickly. ‘That was made very clear from your fear that he would send a knife whizzing at you.’
‘No,’ he agreed. ‘It would be pointless for me to continue to pretend that Sanchez and I are anything but enemies.’
Her black eyes, no longer misted by tears, flashed angrily. Stamping her foot, she burst out, ‘Then why in the name of Shaitan did you not tell me so in the first place?’
‘Because I believed him to be your lover.’
‘What led you to believe that?’
Putting up his revolver, he showed her the photograph of herself and said, ‘On about the twenty-fourth of August Sanchez fled from Barcelona and there was some reason to think that he had gone to Granada. Recently he has been in San Sebastian. Four nights ago I had a fight with him, and this photograph fell out of his pocket. As it was taken in Granada, that confirmed my belief that he had been lying low here. From that it was no great jump to the assumption that he was your lover and you had been hiding him.’
With a glance at the photograph she muttered sullenly, ‘You were right. He came here first last summer on a holiday. He is a handsome devil and I let him have his way with me. That lasted for about ten days. He turned up again this August and told me that he was on the run. I had no permanent lover at the moment; so we took up with one another where we had left off and I let him share my cave.’
‘How long did he remain here this time?’
‘About a fortnight. He left on a Wednesday. I think … yes … it was September the 8th.’
‘And he has not been back since. Today, I mean; even to see you for an hour or leave a message for you?’
‘He neither has been back, nor will be.’
‘You cannot be sure of that. I believe him to be making his way south by slow trains and branch lines. That could easily take him a day longer than I reckoned on. He may quite well turn up tomorrow.’
‘I tell you he will not. He will never return here; no, not if you wait for him till Doomsday.’
‘How can you be so certain of that?’
La Torcera’s face suddenly contorted into a fierce scowl and she cried, ‘Because he knows that if he did I’d stick a knife in his guts. He left me for another woman, and not content with that the swine stole my savings to go off with her.’
Convinced that all this time she had been lying to protect her lover, de Quesnoy had remained blind to any other possibility. But her bitter words had the ring of truth. Now it flashed upon him that he had completely misinterpreted her act of spitting in his face. She had done so not because he had somehow given it away that he was after Sanchez’ blood, but because she had accepted his statement that he was Sanchez’ intimate friend.
He gave a rueful laugh. ‘It seems that for the past quarter of an hour we have been at cross purposes. That was my fault, of course; although I had no means of guessing that Sanchez had given you grounds to hate him. Still, now that we understand one another we must work together, and with luck I’ll be able to aid you in getting your revenge. Have you any idea where he would be likely to have made for after leaving San Sebastian last Tuesday?’
She shook her head. ‘No, none. I wish I
had. I’d give a year’s work to get even with him.’
‘While he was here did he never mention to you any other places in which he had friends who might have hidden him?’
‘No. He spoke little of his affairs, except when following in the newspapers what had occured after he left Barcelona. The school his father ran there was closed by the police, and his father, brother and many of his friends were arrested. He attributed all his ill-fortune to a Conde de Quesnoy who, according to news he received here through the anarchist grape-vine, had had a miraculous escape from death and had denounced them all.’
De Quesnoy smiled. ‘Although I am not a Prince I can give you my word that I am a Conde. I am that Conde de Quesnoy of whom he spoke. It is true that I denounced these anarchists and Sanchez’ having escaped the net is one reason why I am hunting him. But I suppose you have anarchist sympathies yourself; so had you not personal grounds for wishing to be revenged you would refuse to help me catch him.’
She shrugged. ‘I think we gipsies are all anarchists at heart, but we have enough troubles without mixing ourselves up in politics; and all of us thought the attempt to kill the handsome young King and his bride a most wicked thing. That you are an anarchist hater and hunting Sanchez on that account makes no difference to me. I’d still aid you to catch him if I could, but I see no way to do so.’
After a moment’s thought, de Quesnoy asked, ‘What of this woman for whom he deserted you? Tell me about her.’
‘She was not one of the troupe, but a girl of the town named Inez Giudice; a little red-headed bitch in her early twenties.’
‘Was she a native of Granada?’
‘No. After they had gone I made enquiries about her and I learned that she had been living in Granada for only about six months. She is the daughter of a Cadiz shipwright, and had been brought up there.’
‘That may prove a clue worth having,’ murmured the Count. ‘Since Sanchez was being hunted by the police he would still have had to keep under cover, and if she had lived in Cadiz all her life she would have friends there who could hide him; particularly as with your savings they would have had ample money to make it worth while for such friends of hers to aid them. It seems to me that the odds are definitely on their having gone to Cadiz.’
La Torcera nodded. ‘You are probably right. But about the money, I have no wish to mislead you. It was not the savings of a life time; no more than about eight hundred pesetas. I had put by a considerably greater sum, but I confess that last spring I squandered it on a handsome young matador for whom I developed a sudden foolish passion.’
‘Eight hundred pesetas,’ repeated the Count. ‘No, that would not have kept them very long if they had to use money to keep still tongues in other people’s heads. And Sanchez was in no position to earn any money. If he has returned to her they must by now be on their uppers.’
With a shrug and a cynical smile La Torcera replied, ‘At all events they’ll not starve. She is a whore by profession, and you may be sure that Sanchez would feel no scruples about sending her out on to the streets to earn enough to keep him in food and wine.’
‘Did you ever see her?’ the Count asked.
‘Yes; she was twice brought here to see the troupe perform by a man who enjoyed Flamenco. He was, I suppose, one of her regular patrons. Sometimes Sanchez used to watch the dancing from behind the curtain that screens the entrance to the big cave. That is probably how he first saw her and became enamoured of her. But every few nights he became bored from having nothing to do up here, and in spite of the risk he ran I could not prevent him from going down into the city. It must have been on one such occasion that he saw her again and became acquainted with her. In any case, after he had left me, and I was near distraught with grief and rage, the brother of one of the girls in the troupe told me that he had seen them together on the station platform. That is how I know that it was she who took him from me.’
‘Then you would be able to recognise her?’
‘Yes, anywhere,’ La Torcera’s eyes glowed with vindictiveness. ‘And should I ever come upon her I’ll pull every hair from her red head.’
‘I think not,’ said de Quesnoy quietly. ‘At least not until after she has led us to Sanchez.’
La Torcera glowered at him. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean that as there seems a good chance that he went with her to Cadiz and by now has rejoined her there, it is my intention that we too should pay a visit to that ancient port. Since you say you would have no difficulty in recognising her and the city is of no great size, by haunting the bars and public places where prostitutes ply their trade it should not be long before you spot her and can find out where they are lodging. Once you have done that I will settle accounts with Sanchez for both of us; his woman I shall be happy to leave to you.’
Her eyes grew round and she stammered, ‘But the troupe! I … I could not leave them. It … it is my living.’
Putting a hand under his cloak, he unhitched the small sack of gold behind his left hip, produced it, and threw it with a clang on the trestle table. ‘That contains a thousand pesetas,’ he said; ‘more than the sum of which Sanchez robbed you. If we succeed in this business I will give you in addition four times that amount. Whatever happens, any woman who has mastered the art of Flamenco dancing as ably as yourself should have little difficulty in securing employment in another troupe, even if this one will not receive you back; so you can regard the greater part of this money as a bonus.’
Still staring at him a shade uncertainly, she stretched out a hand and lifted the bag. On its weight reassuring her that it really contained gold, she nodded slowly. ‘Very well, then. When do you wish me to start?’
‘Now,’ he replied. ‘As soon as you have packed your things. The sooner we arrive in Cadiz the better.’
‘No!’ she shook her head. ‘That really is not possible. I am due to dance again in about twenty minutes.’
He had made up his mind to take her with him, in case if he left her there till morning she should mention her intentions to any other member of the gipsy fraternity and, through a grape-vine, they should reach Sanchez.
‘That cannot be helped,’ he said firmly. ‘You must cut your dance and come with me. I intend that we should leave Granada by the first fast train going west tomorrow; and that may mean an early start. Get your things together, now; and be quick about it.’
‘I cannot go in these clothes,’ she protested.
‘True. Then I will go outside while you change.’ As he spoke he picked up the bag of gold from the table.
Her eyes suddenly fierce again, she made a snatch at it and exclaimed, ‘You said that was for me! I’ll not leave here without it.’
‘It is for you, but I don’t mean to chance your changing your mind during the night about coming with me to Cadiz.’ Opening the bag he poured about a third of its contents into his palm, laid the little heap of coins on the table, and added, ‘There is an earnest of my good faith. The rest you shall have when we are on the train tomorrow.’
Leaving the cave he walked some way down the hill to the gully in which the carriages that had brought visitors were waiting, found his driver, roused him from sleep and told him to get ready to return to the city. By the time he had climbed the slope again a good ten minutes had elapsed; so, after he had knocked on the door outside the cave and she had told him to come in, he found that she had finished changing.
Her high comb, mantilla and dancer’s frock with its scores of flounces had disappeared. Dressed now in a grey coat and skirt, and wearing elastic-sided black boots and a black sombrero, she was just starting to pack her things into a large, finely-woven oblong basket, which had beside it a similar basket to fit over its top.
While walking back up the hill it had occurred to him as strange that since Sanchez had deserted her for another woman early in September, he should still be carrying her portrait at the end of the month; and he asked her if she could account for it.
She rep
lied that she could not; so he took it out again, showed it to her, and asked if the rows of letters and figures on its back conveyed anything to her.
After looking at it for a moment she said, ‘They don’t mean anything to me; but might not the letters stand for towns and the figures be the times of trains leaving them?’
That possibility had already occurred to de Quesnoy, and he had even thought of attempting to check them against the Spanish timetable; but that would have entailed many hours of work and, even if successful, still left him in ignorance as to which of a score of trains Sanchez might have taken. Now that La Torcera had had the same thought it strengthened his opinion and, if Sanchez had used the back of the photograph to list a number of trains, that would account for his having kept it.
When she had finished packing he helped her put a strap round the big oblong basket. She put out the lamp and locked the door to her dwelling after them; then they walked side by side down the hill to the carriage.
By the time they reached the hotel it was past two o’clock in the morning and there was only a night porter on duty. When the Count asked for a room for La Torcera the man had already taken in the fact that she was a gipsy; but, knowing that it was not for him to question the vagaries of the hotel’s wealthy patrons, he quickly checked his glance of disapproval. If the management chose to make a tactful remonstrance in the morning, that was their affair. Producing the key to a single room at the back on the upper floor, he picked up her basket with barely-concealed reluctance and took her up in the lift.
Meanwhile de Quesnoy had gone behind the porter’s desk, found a timetable and was looking up trains. The direct route from Granada to Cadiz was via Antequera and Ronda, but that meant going by slow trains and making two changes. The alternative was to go round by Seville, which meant an extra fifty miles, but at 8.30 there was an express to Seville and Cadiz was only another forty-odd miles on from there; so he decided on the latter.
On a note pad he wrote a line for La Torcera. ‘I have ordered breakfast to be taken up to you with this at a quarter to seven. Please be packed and ready to leave at eight sharp. You will find me down in the hall, de Q.’
Vendetta in Spain Page 23