patio, he halted a second to glance right and left. To his right, now thirty yards away, he glimpsed between two groups of palms a dark figure running hard. Launching himself forward he raced down the gravel path. His feet were bare so the stones cut into them but in the emergency of the moment he hardly noticed that.
As the man ahead crossed the open space by the fountain, the Count had a better sight of him. He was taller and had a longer stride so de Quesnoy's hopes of overtaking him dwindled. For a second he thought of rousing the household by shouts of 'Stop thief'; but to do so could not have brought help in time and if Gulia had not at once obeyed him her presence at the end of the house in which his bedroom lay might lead to most unwelcome speculations among the servants.
When he reached the fountain luck came to his aid. His quarry had taken a short cut across some flower-beds to reach a partly open wrought-iron gate between two pillars in a tall yew hedge. Failing to see in the semi- darkness that in the centre of one of the beds there lay a shallow lily pool, the leaves of the plants in which almost covered its surface so that no gleam of moonlight showed on the water, he splashed right into it, tripped and fell.
He scrambled to his feet but had lost a precious minute in which de Quesnoy had thrown all his strength into a spurt. Before the man could j ump clear of the pond the Count was on him and they fell in a tangled heap together.
The pond was one of a pair at that end of the garden. It contained only miniature aquatic plants, so was no more than six feet by four and about eight inches deep. The man's legs and body were half submerged in it but his head and shoulders were on dry ground. He was on his back with de Quesnoy on top of him, and the pale moonlight now revealed his features. He was Sanchez Ferrer.
'I thought it might be you . . .' panted the Count, as he strove to get a grip on Sanchez's throat, . . from the description of the man ..
He got no further, but gave a sudden grunt. Sanchez had brought up his right leg with a violent jerk and kneed him in the stomach. The breath was driven from his body. Automatically he let go of Sanchez's neck, doubled up and rolled over gasping with agony. The strapping young anarchist kicked his legs free from the Count's body, struggled up into a sitting position, and whipped out a knife from a sheath under his cummerbund.
Staring upward with bulging eyes, de Quesnoy saw his danger. The twisting muscles of his stomach were still paining him fiercely. He was still incapable of fighting back. His heart missed a beat as Sanchez raised the knife to stab downwards with it. By a superhuman effort he threw himself sideways. The knife, aimed to bury itself beneath his ribs, passed under his arm as he flung himself over, and buried itself in a wire basket containing a lily root.
With a curse, Sanchez jerked upon it to pull it free. At the second tug it came out, but he had had to exert so much strength on it that he went over backwards. In a second he was sitting upright again, but even that brief respite had enabled de Quesnoy to draw a little air down into his tortured lungs. As Sanchez raised the knife to stab with it again, the Count's hand shot up and grasped his wrist.
There ensued a tense, silent struggle that lasted a full minute. But de Quesnoy's slim fingers were as strong as steel. Gradually he twisted and forced back his would-be murderer's wrist. Sanchez let out a blasphemous oath, and the knife tinkled on the stone surround of the lily pool.
Flexing his knees, Sanchez heaved himself upright. Still clutching his wrist, the Count was dragged up on to his knees after him. But now he made a fatal error. Slung from a long strap over the anarchist's shoulder there dangled the black leather box that held the camera. It was that, with the damning photograph it must contain, that de Quesnoy felt it all-important to secure. Leaving go of Sanchez's wrist, he made a grab at the box, but missed it.
In an instant Sanchez had turned and, with head down, was again racing towards the wrought-iron gate. Floundering to his feet de Quesnoy dragged them from the mud of the pool and went pelting after him. Ignoring all obstacles Sanchez plunged into a bed of flowering shrubs. His having to force his way through them enabled de Quesnoy to catch him up. Again, the Count made a snatch at the camera case. He missed it, but his fingers grasped the loose skirt of Sanchez's light cotton jacket. Halting in his tracks he attempted to pull the anarchist back by it. There came a tearing sound but the piece of material that he had clutched was wrenched from his hand, and Sanchez bounded forward on to the path on the far side of the bed.
De Quesnoy burst his way through the bushes in pursuit; but it was now his turn to be brought up in mid- career by the unexpected. His foot caught on an exposed root. He was flung violently forward and came down flat across the path, his chin striking one of the stones that formed its further edge. Again the breath was driven out of his body, and the blow to his chin temporarily knocked him out.
It was some minutes before he was sufficiently recovered to pick himself up, and by then he knew that any further attempt to pursue Sanchez would be futile.
As he scrambled painfully to his feet his eye fell upon a nearly square white object lying in the middle of the path. On touching it he realized that it was a piece of cardboard. It was almost four inches long by three wide. Turning it over, he saw it to be a portrait, and the moonlight was just sufficient for him to make out that it was of a woman. Evidently when he had seized Sanchez's coat and dragged upon it, the tear had also ripped the inside pocket and the photograph had fallen out of it.
Carefully now, a lump rising on his chin, his knees grazed and the soles of his bare feet on the sharp ground causing him to wince with every step he took, he made his way back towards his bedroom.
As he approached the house he saw Gulia leaning out of an upstairs window. She called softly down to him, 'Armand; what happened? I pray God you're not hurt.'
'No,' he called back. 'I'm all right; but he got away. It was Sanchez Ferrer. I'll tell you all about it in the morning.'
Going inside, he looked at the portrait under the light. It was of a gipsy dancer, and had been taken by a photographer in Granada. Getting out fresh night clothes he changed out of his mud-covered ones into them, then went along to the cloakroom off the hall to wash himself and bathe his hurts. Back in his room he lowered himself into the armchair and considered for a while what was best to be done.
As it was impossible to guess even in which direction Sanchez had made off it was pointless to telephone the police. Moreover, the police were the last people that de Quesnoy now wished to bring into the matter. He knew little about photography, but was inclined to suppose that it was by no means easy to take good pictures by artificial light; so that taken by Sanchez might not come out. On the other hand it was unlikely that he would have taken it if he had not thought there was a good chance that it would. And if it did it could lead to most appalling trouble.
Gulia, in her transparent nightgown, had been as near naked as made no matter, and she had been facing the window. At the angle from which the picture had been taken his body would probably have shielded one side of her, but as she was nearly as tall as he was her face musfhave appeared in it over his shoulder, and she had had her arms round his neck. It compromised both of them beyond all possible argument, and for it to fall into the hands of the police would be nearly as bad as if it were shown straight away to Jos6. Therefore, by hook or by crook he must get the negative back.
On re-examining the photograph that Sanchez had dropped he saw that on the back there were scrawled a number of letters and numbers, in most cases having dashes between them. But he could think of no clue to these hieroglyphics.
Glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece, he saw that it was now a quarter past two; so if he woke at six he could still get in the best part of four hours' sleep. Getting into bed he put out the light.
Gulia's visit had greatly disturbed him, but he was decidedly relieved that he had not allowed her to persuade him to make love to her; and Sanchez's appearance on the scene had now given him an excuse to escape further situations in which her beauty might lead him to succumb to temptation. He felt no righteous glow in having rejected her advances. On the contrary he was inclined to think that in refusing so lovely a gift of the gods he might, at times, look back with regret on this lost opportunity to take as his mistress a woman so gifted in so many ways; but at least he was able to go to sleep without any twinge of conscience.
As a soldier, he had long since trained himself to wake at any hour, and within a few minutes of six he opened his eyes. A slight ache in his chin recalled to him at once the events that had taken place during the night and for a short while he lay turning them over in his mind. Then he got out of bed, put on his dressing-gown and walked along to the library. There, he wrote two letters. Both were to Gulia. The first ran:
