He no longer felt like giving her his gift, but he had bought it and he did not want to take it back to the shop. “Well, anyway, I got you this, to commemorate your triumph at Maisie Greenbourne’s ball,” he said rather dolefully, and he gave her the box.
Her manner changed instantly. “Oh, Hugh, you know how I love presents!” she said. She tore off the ribbon and opened the box. It contained a pendant in the shape of a spray of flowers, made of rubies and sapphires on gold stems. The pendant hung from a fine gold chain. “It’s beautiful,” she said.
“Put it on, then.”
She put it over her head.
The pendant did not show to best advantage against the front of her nightdress. “It will look better with a low-cut evening gown,” Hugh said.
Nora gave him a coquettish look and began to unbutton her nightdress. Hugh watched hungrily as she exposed more and more of her chest. The pendant hung in the swelling of her cleavage like a drop of rain on a rosebud. She smiled at Hugh and carried on undoing buttons, then she pulled the nightdress open, showing him her bare breasts. “Do you want to kiss them?” she said.
Now he did not know what to think. Was she toying with him or did she want to make love? He leaned over and kissed her breasts with the jewelry nestling between them. He took her nipple into his mouth and sucked it gently.
“Come to bed,” she said.
“I thought you said—”
“Well … a girl has to show she’s grateful, doesn’t she?” She drew back the covers.
Hugh felt sick. It was the jewelry that had changed her mind. All the same he could not resist the invitation. He shrugged out of his dressing gown, hating himself for being so weak, and climbed in beside her.
When he came, he felt like crying.
With his morning mail there was a letter from Tonio Silva.
Tonio had vanished shortly after Hugh met him in the coffeehouse. No article had appeared in
Hugh had written to the Hotel Russe but got no reply. He had been worried about his friend, but there was no more he could do.
He opened the letter anxiously. It came from a hospital, asking Hugh to visit. The letter finished: “Whatever you do,
What had happened? Tonio had been in perfect health two months ago. And why was he in a public hospital? Hugh was dismayed. Only the poor went to hospitals, which were grim, unsanitary places: anyone who could afford it had doctors and nurses come to the house, even for operations.
Mystified and concerned, Hugh went straight to the hospital. He found Tonio in a dark, bare ward of thirty close-packed beds. His ginger hair had been shaved and his face and head were scarred. “Dear God!” Hugh said. “Have you been run over?”
“Beaten up,” said Tonio.
“What happened?”
“I was attacked in the street outside the Hotel Russe a couple of months ago.”
“You were robbed, I suppose.”
“Yes.”
“You’re a mess!”
“It’s not quite as bad as it looks. I had a broken finger and a cracked ankle, but otherwise it was only cuts and bruises — although rather a lot of them. However, I’m almost better now.”
“You should have contacted me before. We must get you out of here. I’ll send my doctor to you, and arrange a nurse—”
“No, thanks, old boy. I appreciate your generosity. But money isn’t the only reason I stayed here. It’s also safer. Other than you, only one person knows where I am: a trusted colleague who brings me beefsteak pies and brandy and messages from Cordova. I hope you didn’t tell anyone you were coming.”
“Not even my wife,” Hugh said.
“Good.”
Tonio’s old recklessness seemed to have vanished, Hugh thought; in fact he was going to the other extreme. “But you can’t stay in hospital for the rest of your life to hide from street ruffians.”
“The people who attacked me were not just thieves, Pilaster.”
Hugh took off his hat and sat on the edge of the bed. He tried to ignore the intermittent groaning of the man in the next bed. “Tell me what happened,” he said.
“It wasn’t a routine theft. My key was taken and the thieves used it to get into my room. Nothing of value was stolen but all the papers pertaining to my article for
Hugh was horrified. It chilled his heart to think that the immaculately respectable transactions taking place in the hushed halls of Pilasters should have any link with violent crime in the streets and the battered face in front of him. “It almost sounds as if the bank is under suspicion!”
“Not the bank,” Tonio said. “Pilasters is a powerful institution, but I don’t believe it could organize murders in Cordova.”
“Murders?” This was getting worse and worse. “Who has been murdered?”
“All the witnesses whose names and addresses were on the affidavits that were stolen from my hotel room.”
“I can hardly believe it.”
“I’m lucky to be alive myself. They would have killed me, I think, were it not that murders are investigated more thoroughly here in London than they are back at home, and they were afraid of the fuss.”
Hugh was still dazed and disgusted by the revelation that people had been murdered because of a bond issue by Pilasters Bank. “But who is behind all this?”
“Micky Miranda.”
Hugh shook his head incredulously. “I’m not fond of Micky, as you know, but I can’t believe he would do this.”
“The Santamaria railroad is vital to him. It will make his family the second most powerful in the land.”
“I realize that, and I don’t doubt that Micky would bend a lot of rules to achieve his aims. But he’s not a killer.”
“Yes, he is,” Tonio said.
“Come on.”
“I know it for sure. I haven’t always acted as if I knew — in fact I’ve been a damn fool about Miranda. But that’s because he has a devilish charm. For a while he made me think he was my friend. The truth is that he’s evil through and through and I’ve known it since school.”
“How could you?”
Tonio shifted in the bed. “I know what really happened thirteen years ago, the afternoon Peter Middleton drowned in the swimming hole at Bishop’s Wood.”
Hugh was electrified. He had been wondering about this for years. Peter Middleton had been a strong swimmer: it was most unlikely that he had died by accident. Hugh had long been convinced that there had been some kind of foul play. Perhaps at last he was going to learn the truth. “Go on, man,” he said. “I can’t wait to hear this.”
Tonio hesitated. “Could you give me a little wine?” he said. There was a bottle of Madeira on the floor beside the bed. Hugh poured some into a glass. While Tonio sipped it, Hugh recalled the heat of that day, the stillness of the air in Bishop’s Wood, the scarred rock walls of the swimming hole, and the cold, cold water.
“The coroner was told that Peter was in difficulty in the pool. He was never told that Edward was ducking him repeatedly.”
“I knew that much,” Hugh interrupted. “I had a letter from Hump Cammel in the Cape Colony. He was watching from the far side of the pool. But he didn’t stay to see the end.”
