The Portuguese Escape (33 page)

‘Oh very well; never mind. Just come here'—and taking the elegant man by his green elbow she propelled him firmly towards the grey car and opened the door. ‘Look there.' While he stared in at the helpless form on the back seat Mrs. Hathaway opened her handbag and drew out the piece of rag. ‘Please look at this, too,' she said—‘I myself pulled it out of her mouth not two minutes ago.'

The official in green picked the horrid object up in gloved fingers, and examined it.

‘You say this was in her mouth?'

‘Yes. I saw it and pulled it out. My taxi was run into by this car,' Mrs. Hathaway stated in explanation, ‘and I thought the behaviour of the men in it so very odd that I
looked and found this girl—gagged. To
me
it seems rather abnormal; but of course I am a stranger to Portugal.'

The man threw her a shrewd glance.

‘This is abnormal in Portugal also, Madame, believe me,' he said.

‘Well, what are you going to do? Oughtn't she to have attention? She's alive, I felt her pulse; but I think she's very ill. Can't I take her into my hotel and look after her while you make your enquiries? I think a doctor should see her.'

Mrs. Hathaway saw the expression of official obstructiveness reappear in the man's face.

‘Where is your hotel, Madame?' he asked.

‘The Lucrezia—it's just up there.'

‘This young lady is known to you?'

‘Not in the least! I've just found her. But she's ill, and needs help. Isn't that sufficient?'

‘Your charity does you credit, Madame,' the man in green said smoothly, still stalling. ‘But this is obviously a case for police enquiries and the utmost caution; and, frankly, I have no idea who you are.'

‘Of course not,' Mrs. Hathaway replied, as smoothly as he. She took her passport from her bag and handed it to him. ‘Naturally this tells you nothing but that I am an English visitor,' she pursued, still smoothly. ‘If you want further credentials I suggest that you ring up Gralheira, the Duke of Ericeira's country-house; my friend Miss Probyn, who is staying there at present, can tell you all about me—I have come to Portugal at her invitation.'

This told. Mrs. Hathaway saw the green-clad official prick up his ears at the mention of the Duke's name, though he said nothing except to ask how to spell PROBYN while he jotted down notes in a pocket-book.

‘Thank you, Madame,' he said politely. ‘This shall be done.'

‘Yes, but what about this poor girl? You can't just leave her lying in a car in the street while you telephone; it's monstrous! Do let us get her into bed, and call a doctor. I certainly shall not run away, and she
can't.'

Mrs. Hathaway's mixture of commonsense and imperiousness might have prevailed anyhow; combined with the
Ericeira connection they did—though slowly. The official summoned yet another policeman to watch over the grey car, and invited Mrs. Hathaway to wait in it, which she did; he asked for her room-number at the hotel, and went away. From the car window Mrs. Hathaway saw the three men in grey being led off in custody; then she waited. At last a stretcher was brought and the unconscious girl placed on it and carried to the Lucrezia, accompanied by the man in the green uniform and Mrs. Hathaway; she noticed that a policeman now stood at the entrance to the hotel, and when they reached her bedroom another was standing outside the door.

‘Oh, excellent,' Mrs. Hathaway said. ‘Will he stay?'

‘Yes, he will stay,' the official replied, with the hint of a smile.

Mrs. Hathaway had the unknown girl placed on her own bed. ‘I
know
this is aired,' she said. ‘Can you arrange to have a doctor sent immediately?'

‘I will. And will you, Madame, be on the look out for any marks or labels which might identify this young lady? —and if she speaks note down what she says?'

‘Of course. The Doctor must speak
French,'
Mrs. Hathaway added firmly. ‘I know no Portuguese.'

‘He shall,' the official said, now smiling openly. ‘Au revoir, Madame; I shall return soon.'

One of the Portuguese words Mrs. Hathaway had carefully memorised on the plane was
boracha
, which means hot-water bottle; she used it freely now, while she took off the girl's overcoat and suit and removed her shoes, stockings, and suspender-belt; and soon several
borachas
, carefully wrapped in towels, had been disposed all round the figure in the bed. It was during these operations that Mrs. Hathaway's attention was caught by the beauty of the monograms with H. P. on the delicate underclothes. She had only just finished when the doctor arrived, a tall man with an intelligent square face who spoke, not French, but extremely good English. He felt the pulse, lifted the eyelids, put a stethoscope to the heart, and turned to Mrs. Hathaway.

‘Drugged!' he pronounced.

‘What with?'

‘I don't know.' He drew back the bed-clothes again, examined the bare arms, and showed a tiny pink spot to Mrs. Hathaway. ‘An injection here, do you see?'

‘Well, what do I do?'

‘You order black coffee, very strong, and when it comes make her drink it. I will give an injection; I am guessing, but it is probably a barbiturate.'

While the doctor prepared his injection Mrs. Hathaway rang the bell; when a servant appeared she said, ‘Doctor, will you order the coffee? They may not understand me.' The doctor gabbled vigorously in Portuguese, and then asked Mrs. Hathaway to turn the helpless body onto its side —she did so, and he jabbed a needle into the buttock; then he turned the girl back onto the pillows and washed his instruments. As he was finishing the coffee appeared, brought by a waiter. Mrs. Hathaway tasted it.

‘Yes, that's quite strong, but I shall want someone to hold her up while I get it down,' she said. ‘Will you have a chambermaid sent, please?'

Like the police official, the doctor smiled.

‘Madame, you are a hospital in yourself! Perhaps you have nursing training?'

‘Certainly not—just commonsense,' said Mrs. Hathaway rather repressively, as she pushed the bell. When it was answered the doctor demanded the manager, and on his appearing, nervous and troubled by all these goings-on, the doctor asked him to send ‘a strong and discreet' chambermaid, to assist the Senhora Inglesa in carrying out his treatment. ‘Let her bring a small basin,' he added. Then he bowed over Mrs. Hathaway's hand.

‘I shall return in an hour or two, but continue with the coffee; give it over and over again,' he said. ‘It is the best of all antidotes. If she is sick, so much the better—that will help to clear off the poison.'

Only those who have actually undergone the experience of trying to restore a drugged person to life—fortunately they are few—can realise what Mrs. Hathaway now went through. To begin with it was all quite new to her—far more than the doctor she was ‘guessing'—and moreover she had to carry out this unwonted task labouring under the terrible sense of helplessness engendered by being in a
country where one cannot speak the language, a thing quite extraordinarily defeating. When an elderly chambermaid with a severe and rather negroid face appeared, carrying a small enamel bowl, Mrs. Hathaway had to indicate to her by signs that they must lift the inert figure up to drink the coffee, which she had already cooled in the wash-basin; but an unconscious person is astonishingly heavy and clumsy to handle, and though when Mrs. Hathaway pushed the flaccid lips open and held the cup to them the girl gulped and swallowed automatically, a lot was spilt—the maid clucked in dismay at the dirtied sheets.

‘Bring the bath-towel,' Mrs. Hathaway said, but of course the woman didn't understand; she went and fetched it herself, but by the time she returned to the bed the flabby body had collapsed again. Patiently Mrs. Hathaway heaved it up once more and placed the maid's hands under the clammy armpits—‘Hold her
so,'
she said, with an emphasis which transcended language, while she spread the bath-towel in front of the girl and placed a soft shawl over her bare shoulders. Then she applied the cup again.

They kept on at it for what seemed like an eternity to Mrs. Hathaway. Before the first lot of coffee was exhausted she sent for another; half-way through the second brew the girl was sick—Mrs. Hathaway held out the basin almost in time, but not quite; the maid clucked again, but very intelligently hustled out and returned with fresh bath-towels, shortly followed by a waiter with yet more coffee. So they went on: the girl gulping down, being sick, gulping down again. At last the vomiting ceased, and it seemed to Mrs. Hathaway that the swallowing was performed more consciously; still guessing, she decided that they had done enough for the moment, and shook her head when the chambermaid held out the coffee-tray questioningly. The pulse seemed to her stronger; quite definitely the hands were getting warm, and that chilly perspiration had stopped. She put another blanket over the girl, and drawing an armchair up to the bed sat down in it; she suddenly felt extraordinarily tired.

But she had only been resting for five minutes when she was summoned by a page to the telephone. The Hotel
Lucrezia has one of these on each landing, and edging out past the small policeman Mrs. Hathaway took the call from Julia Probyn already recorded; in the middle of it the official in green reappeared, and Mrs. Hathaway, ignoring Julia's protests, rang off.

‘How is she?' he asked.

‘Better, I think. Come in,' Mrs. Hathaway said, once more by-passing the policeman, who raised his hand in salute to the officer.

‘She has not spoken?' the man said, after glancing at the figure on the bed.

‘No—and as she seems to be sleeping fairly naturally I think she should be left alone. But I rather
think
, from what I heard on the telephone just now, that she was abducted by Communists.'

The official suddenly became very alert.

‘May I know to whom you were telephoning?'

‘I wasn't, at all. My friend Miss Probyn rang me up from Gralheira. But she said that they had been out half the night chasing after a girl who had been carried off by Communists; so I asked if she was short and dark, and whether her initials were H. and P.? And Miss Probyn said she was, and they were,' Mrs. Hathaway said, not very lucidly.

‘These are the initials, H. P.?'

‘Yes, they're on all her underclothes.'

‘No papers in her pockets?'

‘Oh really, Senhor, I didn't look,' Mrs. Hathaway protested. ‘I have been trying to revive her! I'm not a detective! Do by all means search her clothes yourself.'

The official slid a practised hand into the pockets of M. Lilas's trim little suit and the pretty matching overcoat, and drew out a rather grubby handkerchief, and a tiny copy of St. Thomas à Kempis; the hanky bore the monogram H. P., and on the fly-leaf of
The Imitation of Christ
was written—‘P. H. from H. A., Easter, 1953'.

‘So!' the green-clad official said thoughtfully. ‘H. A.— or A. H., perhaps. The other initials are reversed also.' He put the little book in his pocket. ‘Please excuse me if I leave you now. I must make a report.'

‘
No
,' Mrs. Hathaway said firmly. ‘I see you have learned
something. Do
you
think that this is the girl Miss Probyn was hunting for last night? If so, I think you ought to tell me what you found out?'

At this the green-clad official laughed out loud.

‘Madame, you are
impayable
! In strict confidence I may tell you that we believe the three men we hold to be what you suspect.'

‘And my patient? What does H. A. or A. H. tell you? Something, I can see.'

But here the man in green was firm.

‘Madame, I am sorry that I can really tell you no more at present. But I am most grateful for what you have done. If the young lady becomes sufficiently conscious to speak, please ask her her name and anything she can tell you of what happened to her—especially as to whether she was questioned, and revealed any facts under pressure? This could be of the utmost importance, and the sooner we know it the better.' He drew out a small card on which was printed—

‘T. Soubrinho de Almeida'. On this he scribbled a telephone number, and handed it to Mrs. Hathaway.

‘If you will have this number rung up and mention my name, I or another officer who speaks English will come round immediately. But I cannot impress on you sufficiently that the very greatest discretion is essential. As you see, I am reposing great confidence in you,' he ended, and bowed and went away.

Mrs. Hathaway returned to her chair by the bed. She asked the grim chambermaid her name—most unsuitably, it was Flora—and indicated by signs that she would ring four times if she wanted any more assistance; the woman departed, and Mrs. Hathaway sat reflecting on what she had just heard. The man in the green uniform certainly knew more than he was willing to say. Well, quite soon she must ring Julia up again—she had promised to—and then she might learn more; but she would rest a little first. That struggle to get the coffee down had been quite exhausting; it was so
tiresome
, how fatigue got the better of one as one grew older. Thinking how tiresome old age and fatigue were, Mrs. Hathaway, in her armchair, fell into a doze.

When Julia Probyn got up off the wine-case outside the pantry at Gralheira her first intention had been to tell Major Torrens what she had heard, but in the hall she changed her mind and went along the corridor to the priests' study. To relieve Father Antal's anxiety was more important than anything else; if the girl in Mrs. Hathaway's room
was
Hetta she was safe anyhow, with the indomitable Mrs. H. in charge, and English-speaking police officers—damn the man, turning up just then!—popping in and out.

Father Antal was alone. The Monsignor was still giving Atherley the treatment out in the knot-garden; beyond the high windows their figures could be seen passing to and fro. The old Hungarian was sitting at the table, his head sunk in his hands; he raised it as Julia came in.