Authors: Philip McCutchan
Shaw smiled at him gratefully. “Yes, it sounds as though you have indeed. Anything else?”
Felipe shook his head slowly, “No more, señor.”
“Nothing about a ship called the
Ostrowiec
?”
“Nothing. Except that she is here in the port of Malaga, and that her sailing date is uncertain.”
“D’you think she might be used to get this man out of the country?”
Felipe shrugged. “It is perfectly possible, señor. But if I hear anything I will find a way of letting you know.”
Shaw said, “You can contact me through Don Jaime de Castro at Torremolinos, but for now you can take it that I’m heading for Vercín as soon as possible.” He got to his feet, held out his hand. “I’d better be going. Thank you for what you’ve done, and good luck with the police, señor Felipe!”
He met the man’s eye, and smiled. Felipe spat noisily, messily, on the floor. “The dogs! But, you see, there are my friends. The policia will have a long wait. A few pesetas dropped into the right pockets—they still speak many words in Spain. And long may the Virgin keep it so.”
When Shaw left that house, with the news of Ackroyd’s mental state to nag at him now, he didn’t linger. He went as fast as was consistent with not appearing to be on the run, and he didn’t breathe freely until he was out of the Calle Santa Marta and its filth. At the end he found two policia sauntering. They moved in to take a closer look at him, but they let him pass. He fought down the impulse to go back and warn Domingo Felipe. He had no right to take a risk like that, and the
policia
didn’t seem to be anxious to venture along the alleyway anyhow.
Shaw roused Don Jaime himself and gave him a brief recap of what had happened. “Can you let me have transport?” he asked urgently.
“Of course.” Don Jaime, yawning hugely, reached for a house telephone. “I will give orders at once. A fast car will be at your disposal in five minutes. Will you drive yourself —or do you wish a chauffeur?”
“I’ll drive, thanks. We don’t want anyone else in on this, but thanks for the offer, Don Jaime. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to do one more thing for me?”
“But of course!” The brown eyes gazed up at Shaw’s taut face. “What is it, my friend?”
“Would you telephone the Guardia Civil at Vercín? Tell them to hold on to this man until I get there? Whatever happens—until I get there. I believe the woman may be on the way from Ronda.”
“That will be done. Good luck, Commander—and take care.”
Shaw nodded, and hurried from the room. As he went along to his own bedroom he passed Debonnair’s. She was standing in the doorway, looking seductive in nylon pyjamas; he thought she’d never appeared so damnably desirable. She said lightly, disregarding the frown which touched his eyes when he realized why she was there:
“Hey, Esmonde, you’re going somewhere, aren’t you, darling? I heard a bit of a racket, so I got up.”
“I’m going somewhere all right.” Shaw took her face in his hands, gently, looked into the hazel eyes. “And you’re going right back to bed, nice and safe till I get back.”
She said sweetly, “Oh, but that’s what you think! I can handle a gun if I have to, and if you’re driving you’ll want some one for that, darling, won’t you?”
He was impatient. “Just listen—”
“I told you earlier not to waste time arguing. I’m coming.”
Debonnair’s determined little chin was up, and he saw the old flash in her eyes. She was pale and taut, fully conscious of what she was letting herself in for, but determined just the same. And, looking at her, Shaw guessed that if she didn’t come with him she’d beg, borrow, or steal another car from Don Jaime after he’d gone; she’d get after him somehow, and he’d rather, if that was to be, that they were together. He took her in his arms, ruffled her hair a little, feeling his inside go cold.
She said softly, “Esmonde, my darling, I don’t want you to get hurt just for the want of a gun-hand who isn’t preoccupied with driving on foul roads, and you’d better just make up your mind to it.”
Within twenty minutes they were speeding down the blank darkness of the Malaga-Algeciras road towards its junction with the San Pedro road where they would turn up for Vercín, Shaw driving with set concentration and gazing out through a windscreen already spattered with the burst bodies of countless night-insects. The cool night wind tore in at the open driving window, blowing up his brown hair. He drove fast, sending the car along the road like a big black arrow, its twin headlights beaming out along the track, and Debonnair’s body pressed close and warm against his. In the glove compartment in front of Debonnair was a revolver which Don Jaime had lent her just before they started out. Shaw’s was in its shoulder-holster. They could need both soon; Debonnair must be told some of the truth about Ackroyd.
Before Rosia del Cuatro Caminos left Ronda for Vercín an hour or two later that night (it was actually the early hours of the next morning) she went down the stairs of the little pension where she had stayed so briefly and into the telephone cubicle which smelt of stale sweat and the odours of cooking-oil which had strayed in from the entrance-hall. She puffed irritably at a cigarette which hung loosely from her lips as she waited for the call to be answered, snapped at the constantly reiterated
Oiga
and
Digame
, the “Can you hear me?” and the “Speak to me” of the operator in the exchange. When the voice of the man she wanted came through she spoke to him briefly, and then put down the receiver.
She went back upstairs to her bedroom, wrinkled her nose once again at the stuffy smell of the bugs which crawled in the bed. Quickly she crossed over to the open window, flung the curtains back. She stood there looking out over the mountains. Ronda was set on the edge of a sheer cliff, its front falling precipitously into a deep valley which lay in shadow stretching to the distant ranges brought into relief by a silver moon. Somewhere beneath that moon was Commander Esmonde Shaw.
Karina knew from the grapevine that he’d got free of the casilla at La Linea, that he had been snooping around Torremolinos; she realized that very likely he had the same information as she had as to the whereabouts of the man Ackroyd. That, she thought, was just the trouble in Spain—the grapevine was excellent; too excellent, for it was impartial in its broadcasting, and that was not good. When she had heard not long ago that Ackroyd was safe in Vercín she had had a delectable moment in which she saw herself with Mr Ackroyd aboard the ship, sailing out of Malaga for Gdynia, sailing in triumph through the Straits of Gibraltar, under the very noses of the British, past the Rock itself.
She had quickly realized that that wasn’t quite ‘on.’
She knew Esmonde Shaw’s tenacity, didn’t doubt that he’d have ways and means of finding out about the
Ostrowiec
; suppose Shaw didn’t come to Vercín, where arrangements had been made for his reception, suppose he preferred to wait his chance in Malaga, watch the ship . . . even, perhaps, take the extreme step of having her searched at sea by the British Navy?
These things were possibilities.
Karina, however, had the answer.
Within ten minutes of her phone-call there was a light knock at her door, and she went quickly over and jerked it open. A tall, thin Spaniard, whose poor-quality suit with the sharply padded shoulders gave him a scarecrow appearance, came into the room. Shutting the door, Karina asked:
“No one saw you come?”
“No one, señorita.”
She pulled the door open again, quietly and quickly, looked along the passage, then shut it again carefully. There was a dead silence in the house but she kept her voice low.
She said, “Now, listen. For the Vercín end, all is arranged.”
“The señorita has made contact with El Caballero?”
Impatiently she nodded. “The señorita has! Indirectly only, but I have every confidence that he will not let me down.” El Caballero, one of the hill-bandit remnants of the Civil War, had been recommended to her even before she left her own country. “He meets me on the road below Vercin. He has been told to cut the telephone wire into the town, so we should have time in which to act before anything is known about our movements—and if Shaw should get there first El Caballero knows what to do.” She tapped the thin man on the chest, hard, and his willowy body swayed back a little. “My friend, what I want of you is this: I have fresh orders for the captain of the
Ostrowiec
, and you will take them yourself to Malaga at once.”
Karina spoke quietly for five minutes. She made the man repeat his orders, and then he left. Karina went slowly over to her dressing-table, picked up her handbag, felt for the small jewelled pistol. She fondled it. It wasn’t a lot of use, admittedly, but it gave her comfort; and the heavier arms would be in the car, the new car which she had been forced to hire at such outrageous expense after the fool in the lorry had driven into hers.
She looked at her watch.
Abruptly then she snapped the clasp of her handbag, slung it from her shoulder on its thin leather strap. She went out of the room. Slim, elegantly dressed, with that expensive perfume to seduce the thoughts of men, she might have been a moneyed tourist, a rich girl from New York or London or Paris enjoying the unaccustomed sensation of roughing it for a few days in the little pension. She went quickly down the stairs; there was no question of paying her bill—better that as many people as possible should think she intended remaining in Ronda, or at least intended coming back, and when they found her personal belongings in her room that would be what they would think. She let herself out of the
pension
and walked away, across the narrow bridge running high above the tremendous rocky gorge that splits Ronda. As she walked a car came up behind her slowly, and stopped a little way ahead. There were two men in it. The man beside the driver slid out to open the door for her, and she got into the back.
When she was in the man made as though to climb in beside her, his dark eyes lecherous and searching. She stopped him. “In front with Garcia,” she said curtly.
The man protested, smiling at her now ingratiatingly, white teeth visible in the dark face. “But, señorita—”
“Out!” She spoke quietly, but there was steel in her eyes. “I do not wish to be pawed all the way to Vercín by you, Massias, my friend!”
Sulkily the dark man backed from the door and got into the front seat again. As he did so Karina noticed the snout of the sub-machine-gun wedged down beside the seat. That was comforting. Neither of the two men spoke again; they knew their orders. They drove at normal speed through the difficult streets of Ronda; when they were outside the city limits Karina leaned forward, eyes hard.
“Fast now,” she said harshly. “We may have little time. But drive carefully also. I do not wish to end up smashed against a tree like the others.”
The driver inclined his head. The car gathered speed, became a scarlet, silver, and black bullet descending from the dark heights of Ronda to the thin white strip of roadway which wound away beneath them.
Shaw, speeding out from Torremolinos for the frightening hairpin bends of the San Pedro road, was still a long way behind when the headlights of Karina’s car swept on to the wreckage around that cork-oak below Vercín, and sent the night-birds soaring in a whirl of wings.
At a word from Karina her driver eased down and stopped alongside the wreck.
Karina looked out at the broken, twisted bodywork of the car. She saw no movement; the wreckage was empty and lifeless. The dead men had gone, probably taken by the Civil Guard up to Vercín at the same time as the man Ackroyd. Karina felt contempt for the two dead Spaniards—it had been their own fault for travelling at such speed on that shocking road, when by using the San Pedro road to Ronda they would have in fact made better time, even if the distance was greater -—and would have been alive, and she and Ackroyd away from Spain by now. She had no pity. Her face was like a mask, then—expressionless. As she watched a red lantern winked from out of the scrub off the roadway to the right, and animation came back to her. She reached out a hand and switched on the car’s interior light briefly—once, twice, three times. One more answering flash came from the red lantern.
Massias dropped a hand towards the grip of the automatic. As he brought the weapon up to his knees Karina said with contempt, “Massias, you are quite safe. It is only El Caballero.”
Massias muttered something about every one being bandits’ meat in Spain, kept his hand on the gun. Karina’s window was wound down now, and she leaned out, feeling the cool night air on her cheek. She saw a man approaching out of the shadows, mounted on a thin, scraggy horse—a mere bag of bones, it looked; behind him, their faces dimly visible as lighter blurs against the dark countryside, were more mounted men. Moonlight brought up silver streaks on the metal fittings of rifles, on bandoliers. Karina called softly:
“El Caballero?”
“Si, señorita.”
The voice was calm, deep, authoritative. The kind of voice which expects, and gets, obedience. Karina had never met El Caballero, but she had heard plenty about him. She studied him as he dismounted and came up to the car window. He appeared to be a small man, thin and wizened. A thick white thatch of hair waved on his head in the light breeze as he came forward, giving him a ghostly aura, making an almost spectral figure on that lonely road, a road where even in daylight the number of cars passing in as long as a week could be numbered on the fingers of a hand. His face was strong, and burnt almost to blackness by years of exposure on the Adalusian hills, in fierce sun and sometimes in biting wind and cold and snow.
Karina knew, from all she had heard, that El Caballero was a man of culture. Once, before the Civil War, he had been Professor of Russian History in Madrid University; he had been a gentle man, and kindly, with a wife and three sons whom he adored. He had kept open house in his Cha-martin home for a variety of friends and colleagues who were, like himself, liberal-minded men and women, and among whom was represented a fair sprinkling of the arts; he had enjoyed the theatre, the opera, good reading, and afternoons spent lingering over the paintings in the Prado; he had been a Member of the Academy of History and a Knight of the Order of Alfonso XII. But with the Civil War all that had very quickly gone—had changed, in fact, almost overnight, and the Professor of Russian History had become an outcast. His wife, the three boys—all had disappeared in the first fighting, and to this day El Caballero did not know what had happened to any of them. Sometimes even now, when things were bad with him and he lay sleepless on some lonely hillside or in the comparative comfort of the cave in which he and his companions lived, he would think horrible things, his mind would be filled with dreadful imaginings, visions of small bodies on the points of bayonets, of a once beautiful woman held at the mercy of the soldiery, drunken men, under the ceaseless sound of the guns.