Vendetta in Spain

by Dennis Wheatley

  He again took a pace towards what he believed to be the sitting-room, but it suddenly occurred to him that Ferrer might be crouching at the very far end of the cupboard under the stairs, hidden behind the junk that was in it.

  Fetching the lamp from the end of the hall he opened the door again and set it down on the floor just inside the cupboard. Now, he was faced with a very dangerous situation. If he put his head in and Ferrer was lurking there, and had a pistol, he might be shot himself before he could shoot Ferrer.

  The cupboard was only about three feet deep but about eight feet long, its roof sloping downwards from inside the doorway to within a foot or so of the floor. With a sudden movement he thrust his pistol round the doorjamb and fired two shots blind in the direction of its far end. If Ferrer had been there he must either have been hit or made some spontaneous movement as the bullets thudded into the underside of the stairs within inches of him. But the crash of the shots was followed by complete silence.

  Disappointed again, and more worried than ever that by now Ferrer might be escaping from the house, de Richleau bent down and picked up the lamp. As he did so it lit the whole cupboard. He caught his breath and his eyes widened with excitement. They had fallen upon part of a line on the floor that ran at right angles to the floorboards. The line emerged from under a big cardboard carton. Quickly he set the lamp down again, pocketed his pistol, and hauled the carton out of the cupboard. It was heavy and full of books. Beyond it there were two others, but the removal of the first was enough to show him that the line he had spotted was one edge of a trap-door. It must lead to a cellar and all the odds were that Ferrer was down in it.

  He would have gone to his bolt-hole at the first ring of the front door. In her hurry and in the semi-darkness of the cupboard Dolores had failed to pull the cartons into place after he had descended, so that they would completely cover the top. But for that, de Richleau realised, he might have searched the house with a toothcomb, then left it in the belief that either Ferrer had not been there or had escaped before he had had a chance to catch him.

  The problem now was how to get at him. To go down the steps into the cellar would be to walk into a death trap. The man at the bottom would have an overwhelming advantage. He had only to stand round the corner to the stairway with his pistol levelled and, as the intruder emerged from it, shoot him. But de Richleau had behind him ample experience of house to house fighting, during which pockets of resistance had to be mopped up. It took him only a minute to decide what to do.

  Having thrust the heavy carton of books back, so that with the others on the hinge side of the trap-door their weight would prevent Ferrer coming up and making a desperate bid to get away, the Duke hurried back to the kitchen. There, he collected some bundles of faggots, a tin of oil, some wax tapers and a rolling pin. With these items he returned to the narrow hall and set about preparing to smoke Ferrer out.

  First he hauled all the cartons of books out of the cupboard so as to leave the trap-door free. He then poured oil all over the faggots and pushed a wax taper into each. Lastly he tied two of the oil-soaked faggots to raincoats that were hanging in the cupboard. The combination of oil and rubber when on fire would, he knew, produce the most suffocating smoke.

  When he opened the trap-door no glimmer of light filtered up from below. That shook him a little, as he felt that Ferrer should have considered himself safe enough down there to light a candle. He became worried then that a man so experienced in being hunted as Ferrer would, quite probably, have made himself an escape exit, and by now might have crawled through a tunnel to emerge in the garden. But the thought did not deter him from putting the matter to the test.

  He lit one of the tapers, waited until the oil-soaked wood of the faggot had caught, then pitched it down into the cellar. As quickly as he possibly could he got the others well alight and heaved them, with the raincoats, after them. Flames leapt up at the bottom of the stairs. Above the crackling of the wood the sound of hurried movement came up to him. His handsome, slightly saturnine features broke into a grin. Ferrer was down there all right, and now desperately engaged in trying to put the fire balls out; but the odds against his succeeding were very heavy.

  De Richleau quietly lowered the trap door into place, so that none of the smoke that was now building up should escape. Picking up the rolling pin that he had brought from the kitchen, he went up the stairs until he was standing above the door to the cupboard. Leaning over the banister he waited.

  The wait seemed interminable. Yet it was no more than three or four minutes. Suddenly there came a loud bang, as the trap door was thrust up and thrown back. After that there came the sound of someone gasping for breath, and eddies of smoke began to seep out into the hall. For a full minute nothing further happened. Then a head, that peered swiftly right and left, emerged cautiously from the open doorway of the cupboard.

  But, to the Duke’s amazement it was not Ferrer’s head. Ferrer had had brown hair. This man’s was red—startlingly red—the red that is known as ‘carrots’. Nevertheless, with the head had appeared a hand that held a revolver. Whoever he was, as an occupant of this villa he must be an enemy. De Richleau leaned forward over the banister and brought his rolling pin down hard on the man’s head. Without even a murmur his knees buckled and he fell in a heap on the floor of the narrow hall.

  For two minutes de Richleau remained where he was, waiting for Ferrer to follow this other man out of the cupboard beneath him. But no second head appeared, neither was there any sound of footsteps on the cellar stairs. All he could hear were Veragua’s groans and a continuation of the muffled noises from the lavatory. Putting down the rolling pin, he took out his pistol and came downstairs. Having shut the cupboard door as a precaution against Ferrer surprising him by suddenly emerging from that quarter, he turned the body of the red-headed man over and stared down at him.

  His features were cleanshaven except for a carroty toothbrush moustache. For a moment de Richleau did not recognise him, then he realised that, after all, the man was Ferrer. He looked many years older than when the Duke had last seen him, perhaps on account of his year in prison; and the violently red hair, coupled with the fact that he no longer wore a beard, had entirely altered his appearance. Picking up the lamp de Richleau moved it nearer to him so that he could examine at close quarters the hair, now worn en brosse, on the skull. By the brighter light he could see that the violent dye used to change his hair to carrots had also stained the skin of his scalp. That dissolved the Duke’s last doubts. The man was Francisco Ferrer.

  De Richleau’s next problem was to get his prisoner in to Barcelona. To take him as an apparently lifeless body in the open automobile or, worse still, when he came round as a captive shouting for help when they passed through the working class outskirts of the city, could have led to all sorts of trouble. For a moment he remained deep in thought, then he smiled to himself, for it had occurred to him to take a leaf out of the Ferrer family book.

  Now he did open the door opposite to the one beside which Veragua lay moaning and retching. It led, as he had expected, into a sitting-room. At one end stood a table which, from the fruit and other things on it, was evidently used for meals; but in its centre the stained floor boards were covered with a coarsely woven Indian rug, measuring about six feet by eight.

  Returning to the hall, de Richleau stuffed his handkerchief into the still unconscious Ferrer’s mouth, picked him up, carried him into the sitting-room, laid him down at one end of the rug and then proceeded to roll him up in it. Having done that, he secured the tube from unrolling by pulling tight and knotting two curtain ties round it. Heaving the bundle up on to his shoulder he carried it out into the hall, put it down for a minute while he unlocked the front door, then rolled it out on to the doorstep.

  Leaving it there, he walked back up the hall and unlocked the door of the lavatory. The strange sounds that had come from it were then explained. Dolores had attempted to escape through the narrow window, but got stuck in it. Someth
ing about her fat posterior, from which depended skinny legs and feet shod in heavy brogues, the toes of which were beating a violent tattoo against the wall, struck him as incredibly funny. He roared with laughter, then with his open hand dealt her a mighty slap on the bottom. Her squawk of indignation came faintly back to him. Controlling his mirth, he took her by the ankles, stood back, and pulled hard upon them. She gave an agonised groan as the sharp tug freed her. Stepping forward he caught her as she fell.

  Her eyes blazing hatred, she swivelled in his embrace, raised both her hands and clawed at his face. Instead of throwing his head back in an attempt to avoid her vicious attack, he brought it forward and downward in a swift strong jerk. His forehead came into hard collision with her fleshy Semitic nose. She let out a scream, her hands flailed helplessly and, as he let go of her, she flopped down on to the lavatory seat.

  Indifferent to the suffering of this woman who had helped to cause so much more suffering to others, he gave only a moment to looking down at her now hideous face: the nose flattened and streaming blood, the eyes blinded by tears. Then he said:

  ‘I came to release you only because there is one of your murderous fraternity in the study who is on the point of dying in considerable pain. I have to get back to Barcelona quickly. Otherwise I may find myself with a corpse rolled up in a carpet on my hands; and I prefer that your friend Ferrer should be legally tried and executed. But if you have any morphia, laudanum or even aspirin in the house, give the lot to that misguided young fool who is dying.’

  Turning on his heel he left her and hurried back to Ferrer. Heaving the roll of carpet up on his shoulder, he plodded with it down the garden path and along the road to the triangle of grass on which Veragua had parked the automobile. Panting, he laid the roll in the back, cranked the engine, then climbed up on to the high driver’s seat and set off towards the city.

  Twenty-five minutes later he pulled up in front of the Police Headquarters. Two uniformed men carried the roll of carpet in for him and upstairs to Urgoiti’s office. As they set it down on the floor, the fat, bald Chief of the Security Bureau gave de Richleau a puzzled look, and said:

  ‘I thought you meant to make an arrest. What’s the idea of turning up with that old carpet?’

  The Duke waited until the uniformed men had left the room then knelt down, undid the ties, rolled the carpet back and removed the gag from Ferrer’s mouth. Ferrer had recovered consciousness during the journey. He looked grey in the face, and woebegone. Struggling up into a sitting position he gave a violent sneeze. Kneeling behind him de Richleau smiled at Urgoiti, and said:

  ‘I brought him wrapped up like this because I didn’t want any trouble with him on the way. But here he is. The celebrated Señor Francisco Ferrer.’

  The Police Chief had risen behind his desk. For a moment he stared at the captive, then he said: ‘You’ve got the wrong man. That’s not Ferrer.’

  ‘Oh yes it is,’ replied the Duke.

  ‘It’s not. I often used to see Ferrer taking his aperitif outside the Café Ronda. He was one of the best-known figures in Barcelona. He is a much younger man; he has brown hair and a beard.’

  ‘Don’t let his appearance deceive you. It’s easy to shave off a beard, and his hair is dyed. As for his age, his year in prison wouldn’t have made him look any younger.’

  The red-headed man had come to his feet. Suddenly he burst into a violent spate of words. ‘I don’t know what you are both talking about, but I’ll have the law on you for this. My name is Hernando Olozaga and I can bring a hundred people to prove it. This man,’ he jabbed a finger towards de Richleau, ‘broke into my house with another villain. I live out in the country. No amount of shouting would have brought help, and I was scared; so I hid in a cupboard. While I was there they must have quarrelled. There was a lot of shooting. When I thought they’d gone I peeped out of the cupboard. I saw the other fellow, a young chap with a beard, lying wounded on the floor of my workroom. He was clutching his stomach, and looked to me about all in. Next thing I knew, this man had coshed me and knocked me out.’

  Urgoiti frowned at de Richleau. ‘Explain, please. Where is Veragua?’

  The Duke frowned. ‘What our prisoner says about him is correct. He is probably dead by now.’

  ‘Dead!’ repeated the Police Chief, his eyes widening. ‘Is it really true, then, that you shot him?’

  ‘Yes. I had to; otherwise he would have shot me. It was only a minute before he had me up that I recognised him. By taking him on as a detective you have been nurturing a viper in your bosom. His name was not Veragua but Pineda. I knew him as a young anarchist and a student of Ferrer’s when I was in Barcelona three years ago.’

  ‘I cannot believe it.’ Urgoiti shook his head. ‘It is impossible that the police should have had such a deception practised upon them. And what, may I ask, were you doing in the city at that time?’

  ‘Surely General Quiroga told you about me,’ de Richleau said quickly. ‘I was hunting anarchists, just as I have been doing these past two days; but then I was working on my own and posing as a Russian refugee.’

  ‘Ha!’ exclaimed the red-headed man. ‘I recognise him now. He was pointed out to me by a friend of mine as a Russian nihilist, and his name … his name … yes, it is Nicolai Chirikov.’

  De Richleau laughed. ‘Of course he remembers me. It would be extraordinary if he did not. I got a temporary job in his school for assassins and succeeded in breaking it up.’

  Urgoiti gave him a confused look. ‘But you are a foreigner, aren’t you? Your name is not really Carlos Gomá. The other evening, when we first met, Veragua also said he believed you to be a Russian refugee.’

  ‘I am half Russian by birth. But what the devil has that to do with it? General Quiroga personally vouched for me to you, did he not?’

  ‘Yes, yes; but he may have been deceived.’

  ‘Deceived! What nonsense!’

  ‘It is not nonsense. It is much more likely that he should have been deceived about you, who arrived here only forty-eight hours ago, than that I should have been deceived about Veragua, who has worked for me for months.’

  ‘You are quite wrong about that. General Quiroga has had incontestable proof of my true identity. What is more, I first met him three years ago, soon after this man Ferrer had failed in an attempt to have me murdered.’

  ‘I tell you the man is not Ferrer.’

  ‘I tell you he is,’ de Richleau retorted stubbornly. ‘I agree that his appearance is greatly changed, but that is mainly because he has dyed his hair. You have only to look at his scalp to see that it is dyed.’

  ‘It is not a criminal offence to dye one’s hair, and he says he can bring plenty of people to swear to it that he is a Señor Olozaga.’

  ‘Plenty of anarchists who are prepared to perjure themselves, no doubt; but there are many ways in which his real identity can be proved.’

  ‘It seems to me that it is your identity that stands in greater need of proving.’

  ‘God give me patience!’ exclaimed the Duke angrily. ‘I thought you an intelligent man, but tonight you are acting as though your head were made of wood.’

  Urgoiti’s short, plump figure stiffened with resentment. ‘You will kindly refrain from insulting me.’

  ‘And you will kindly refrain from questioning my integrity,’ snapped back the Duke. ‘Believe it or not, the man I have brought in is Ferrer. In General Quiroga’s name I charge you to hold him for questioning. Should you fail to do so, I promise you it will cost you your job.’

  ‘I’ll hold him,’ grunted the Police Chief, ‘just to be on the safe side. But it looks to me as if he’s someone you’ve got your knife into privately and are trying to frame.’

  ‘Damn your impudence!’ roared de Richleau. ‘It now exceeds even your stupidity. I’ve had enough of this. I am going straight back to the Fortress to lodge a complaint about you with the Captain-General.’

  ‘Oh no you’re not.’ Urgoiti pressed a bell-push on his des
k. ‘I’m holding you too. This man says you are a Russian nihilist named Chirikov. It wouldn’t surprise me if you are, after what’s happened to poor young Veragua. It looks to me as if he stumbled on the truth about you, and you shot him to keep him quiet. Anyhow, you admit yourself that you left him dying of wounds that you inflicted on him; so even if you turned out to be a Grandee of Spain, General Quiroga couldn’t blame me for detaining you until we find out a bit more about what did happen. You’re going to pass the night in a cell.’

  That the Police Chief should have hit a bull’s eye when making what he obviously thought to be the wildly improbable suggestion that Señor ‘Carlos Gomá’ might turn out to be a Grandee of Spain, almost made the Duke laugh. But to have declared at this stage that he was one would only have made Urgoiti still more sceptical about his bona fides, and the situation that had developed was now no laughing matter. To have triumphed in his mission only to be told that he had arrested the wrong man was bad enough; to have to spend a night in prison because he had succeeded in saving his own life, at the expense of that of a youth who had been on the point of murdering him, seemed positively intolerable. Yet the last word, in this place, definitely lay with Urgoiti.

  In vain de Richleau asked to be allowed to speak to General Quiroga on the telephone. Urgoiti, evidently still smarting under his insults, flatly refused. A uniformed man appeared in answer to the Chief’s summons, others were sent for and the Duke and the red-headed man were both marched away, the latter loudly protesting that it was an outrage and that his name was Olozaga.

  Locked in a solitary cell, the Duke took stock of the situation. When he had calmed down a little he had to admit to himself that he was in part to blame for what had happened. He had made a particular point with Quiroga about not wanting it to become generally known among the police that he was that Count de Quesnoy who had three years before worked against the anarchists and brought about the closing of the Escuela Moderna; but he had assumed that, before his arrival in Barcelona, the General had confided his true identity to the Police Chief. Evidently that was not so and the General could only have told Urgoiti that he was expecting a special investigator that evening to whom he wished him to give his full cooperation.