Vendetta in Spain

Vendome on the throne, and later you passed yourself off under the name of Vasili Petrovitch. It was you who bribed that absinthe-besotted traitor, Bidegain, to steal the fiches from the files of the Grand Lodge, and letters from the War Minister to our Secretary-General, Vadecard. I would know you again anywhere.'

'I haven't an idea what you are talking about,' stormed the Count. 'I've never seen you before in my life.'

As he made the latter statement he would have been prepared to swear to it. The lined face, beady brown eyes and thin drooping moustache of the Frenchman were entirely strange to him; but during the months he had lived in a Montparnasse boarding-house

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as Petrovitch he had been introduced to scores of Freemasons and attended a dozen or more Lodge meetings, so he could not have remembered the faces of a tenth of those he had met or rubbed shoulders with.

On the other hand, as the wrecker of their attempt to sabotage the French Army, they had ample cause to remember him; and not just vaguely as a man they had seen a few times, for his description had been circulated by the police and photographs of him had appeared in all the papers. Ten months earlier his participation in the abortive conspiracy to place de Vendome on the throne had brought him nation-wide publicity, so the Press had seized on his reappearance in Paris as front-page news, and his features had temporarily become as well known as those of the atheist War Minister whom he had succeeded in hounding out of office.

It was that which made his return to France, even temporarily and under another name, still almost certain to lead to his arrest; but as he was in Spain and it was getting on for two years since such notoriety had been thrust upon him, he had considered negligible the chances of his being recognized by one of the class of people with whom he intended to mix in Barcelona. He had even regarded the risk as so remote that he had contemplated joining a Masonic Lodge there; so he felt that fate had played him a really scurvy trick in confronting him with an enemy who could swear to his identity.

Hiding his apprehension that he might fail in his attempt to bluff matters out, he gave a swift glance round at the other occupants of the room. Dolores and Jovellenos had come to their feet. The tall, stoop-shouldered mathematics master was peering through his spectacles at Gerault; but Dolores's pale-blue eyes now seemed to be protruding slightly and were fixed on him with evident suspicion. Zapatro and Herr Schmidt he could not see, as both of them were standing a little behind him; but Sanchez's low brow was furrowed and his mouth grim, while Benigno was regarding him with a puzzled frown.

Meanwhile Gerault had returned to the attack. Wrinkling up his nose he retorted with a vicious sneer, 'So you have never seen me in your life, eh? No doubt the noble Count considered me too insignificant a person to register in his aristocratic memory. But I have seen him, with Lazare, with Forain and with others whom he deceived with his glib tongue so that he might lie his way into our Brotherhood. I tell you, comrades, he is a traitor; a spy. If we had caught him in Paris we'd have had him garrotted by apaches and paid them handsomely for their trouble.'

De Quesnoy was well aware that there were plenty of dock-rats in Barcelona who, with no questions asked, would prove ready enough to play a similar part for a few hundred pesetas. Whether these people of Ferrer's were militant anarchists or only abettors, unless he could convince them that Gerault was mistaken, he thought it more than probable that they would decide to arrange matters so that next morning his corpse would be found floating in the harbour. His heart was beating quickly now but he realized that his best hope lay in maintaining a calm appearance. He said more quietly:

'Really, this is fantastic. All of you here have known me for quite a while. Have you ever heard me say anything which might lead you to suppose that I am this French Count of whom Monsieur Gerault speaks?'

'If you are, you would not be such a fool as to do so,' said Benigno in a non-committal voice.

'But I am not a Frenchman, and I have never been to France,' lied the Count.

'Yet I am told you speak French like a native, although you say you are a Russian,' Gerault put in. 'Colonel de Quesnoy also spoke French fluently, while pretending to be a Russian refugee.'

'Perhaps, but what of it? There are thousands of Russians who have fled from Tzarist persecution and are now scattered over western Europe. French is the second language of all educated Russians, and unless they spoke it fairly well few people outside Russia would understand them.'

'Yes, yes; but that is only a minor point. I recognize you. Those eyes of yours are unmistakable. Your face and figure too all tally with those of the man who called himself Petrovitch. If we were in Paris I could easily turn up a photograph . . .'

'This is absurd,' the Count broke in. 'A mere resemblance. How can you possibly be certain when it is close on two years since you saw this man Petrovitch?'

The words were no sooner out of de Quesnoy's mouth than he knew that he had blundered. Drawing back his lips in a snarl Gerault spat at him, 'So you are aware how long ago it is since Petrovitch - or to give him his real name, the Comte de Quesnoy -escaped from France? Yet when I spoke of him a minute ago you asserted that you had no idea what I was talking about.'

'That's true!' exclaimed Sanchez, his dark eyes narrowing still further.

'He is a spy all right,' Dolores cried with sudden venom. 'I suspected that he might not be quite what he seemed when he took me out to dinner and tried to pump me. This makes it certain.'

Zapatro spoke from behind de Quesnoy's left shoulder. 'If he is, although we have been cautious at times when he has been with us, he could have picked up quite a lot from our conversation; so we must look on him as dangerous.'

In an effort to restore the situation the Count rounded on him and said sharply, 'All this is no more than speculation, and most unjust to me. The very first day I came to this house, on entering the laboratory I found Sanchez and Benigno busy putting together an infernal machine. If I had come here as a spy that would have been evidence enough for me to have had the place raided and them arrested. But I did nothing of the kind. Instead I suggested a method by which they could make the bomb more efficient.'

'That is certainly the truth,' Benigno agreed. 'But I think I may be able to provide an indisputable answer to this riddle. For years past Father has taken the best illustrated papers of France, England and Germany; and he keeps the back numbers up in his study. I feel sure I remember reading an article about the Vendome conspiracy and it is bound to have had photographs of the principal participants.' Turning to Gerault, he added, 'Tell me the dates to look for; then I'll go upstairs and see if I can find the article.'

'He was last hunted by the police in Paris in November, 1904,' replied the Frenchman quickly. 'But the conspiracy was unmasked in December, 1903. Round about either time you should find articles about him.'

As Benigno hurried from the room, slamming the door behind him, de Quesnoy found himself faced with a dilemma that might spell life or death for him. As Petrovitch, he had worn a beard and shaved off the upper points of his 'devil's' eyebrows. But no photographs had ever been taken of him like that. All those used by the Press had been of him as a Chief Instructor at St. Cyr and, except that he had then had a cavalry moustache, they differed very little from his appearance as it was at present. Therefore if Benigno found an illustrated article it would prove conclusive evidence against him.

But Benigno might fail to find any proof of his identity. If so, de Quesnoy wondered, what then? It would be his word against Gerault's. In that case they could hardly do otherwise than let him go. But either way this meant an end to 'Nicolai Chirikov's' activities in Barcelona. It was certain that having come under such grave suspicion Ferrer and Co. would not trust him an inch further. They would, too, send out a warning about him to all their associates. To clinch matters Gerault would, no doubt, go hurrying off to the City Library and there turn up illustrated articles about the

Vendome conspiracy to prove himself right. After, or even before, that happened, the Count now realized, the sooner he was out of Barcelona the better for his health.

With a jerk his mind came back to the present, and the disturbing knowledge that he had first to get out of that room alive.

As had been his custom since arriving in Barcelona he had on him a small pearl-handled revolver. He carried it thrust into his trouser top just above his left hip. It was scarcely more than a toy affair, for had he carried a larger weapon the bulge under his coat would have been noticeable; but its bullets were big enough to kill a man if fired at close range.

All the same, he felt distinctly dubious about the prospects of his suddenly whipping out such a miniature