reason for her being downstairs so unusually early.
Stepping back behind the door she said quickly, 'Armand. As that flash went off I saw that the man was holding up a camera. I was staring straight into it. I had to know if you got the camera from him or, if not, what we should decide to do. I dressed like this and came down meaning to send Ricardo to suggest that you should come for a ride with me. Then I found your letter.'
'You've read it?' he asked.
'Yes; and I think your interpretation of the way that Sanchez's mind has worked is most probably right. What ghastly luck for us that this should have occurred; still worse that you should now have to go into danger again.'
He gave her a reassuring smile. 'Be of good heart. This time it is I who will be able to choose my moment to attack. With a little luck I'll catch him napping.'
'Oh, do be careful!' she begged, suddenly putting up her hands and grasping the lapels of his coat. 'I think I'd die if anything happened to you.'
He placed his hands over hers, but did not seek to loosen her hold on him. 'At least I'll promise not to take any unnecessary risks; but by hook or by crook I must destroy that negative.'
'I know. How long do you think this wretched business will take?*
Tt is impossible to say. My guess that he will go back to Granada may be wrong. But anyway I think I'll get a lead to him from there. If not I'll have to wait until you send on to me the letter that I feel pretty certain he will send here. Then it will be up to me to counter any trap he may set for me with a better one of my own.'
'And when you do get back . . . what of the future?'
He shook his head. 'We can't possibly discuss that now. We haven't the time. If I don't go soon, I'll miss my train.'
'But you must have formed some idea what you mean to do when the Barcelona trial is over.'
'Oh that!' He tried to prevent his voice from showing his relief that her question appeared to be impersonal. 'I haven't really decided anything, but I expect I'll take up soldiering again. I've always wanted to command a cavalry division, and I might be given one if I went out to one of the South American Republics.'
'Armand.' She hesitated a second. 'About last night. I do understand how you feel about Jose. It is just like you to consider yourself bound by the code of chivalry. But it was the thought of deceiving him that really distressed you, wasn't it? I mean . . . Well, you would feel differently if we ... if we took the bull by the horns and were open with him.'
'Yes,' he nodded. 'That would be quite a different matter. But think of the implications.'
'I did, for most of the night. I love you, Armand. I would go anywhere with you; and I'd like to go to South America.'
He shook his head. 'I'd love to take you there. But I couldn't, Gulia. It's out of the question. You are a Roman Catholic; so you can't get a divorce. How could I expose a woman like you to social ostracism when it leaked out that we were not married?'
T don't see why it should become known out there if we planned things carefully.'
'Such things always do. But, Gulia, we really mustn't attempt to settle anything without giving the whole matter most careful thought. And I must go now, or I'll miss my train.'
'Very well, then. Kiss me before you go.'
As he took her in his arms she put hers round his neck and drew his face towards hers. Their mouths met in a long, rich kiss. For a full minute they held one another in a firm embrace, then she released him and murmured, 'Go now, dear love. May God protect you and bring you safely back to me.'
Half dazed by the heady emotion her kiss had aroused in him, he gave her a lingering smile, then turned and walked quickly from the room.
in the gipsy's cave
Looking after him, she put her hand upon her wildly palpitating heart, while saying to herself, 'I've put my seal upon him. He doesn't realize it yet, but he is now mine.'
12
In the Gipsy's Cave
De quesnoy had intended to arrive at the station half an hour before the train was due to leave. Gulia's having waylaid him had cut down that margin a little but he still had plenty of leeway. After buying his ticket he sent a porter ahead with his bags and to keep him a first-class corner seat as near the rear of the train as possible; then he took up a position behind a newspaper kiosk from which he could watch, without making himself conspicuous, the passengers going through the barrier to the Madrid express. It was not until the barrier was about to be closed that he darted through it, ran down the platform, threw a tip to his porter and jumped up into the train.
He had satisfied himself that during his twenty minutes' vigil no one remotely resembling Sanchez had passed the barrier; but there was still the possibility that the anarchist had reached the station before him. As it was an express to the capital from Spain's most fashionable summer resort, the train had no third-class carriages and the firsts and seconds were the newly-introduced corridor coaches. Having taken his seat and given the passengers and attendants time to settle down, he made two slow progresses, first up to the front of the train, then to the guard's van, and back. It took him nearly half an hour, as he paused at every compartment to scan its occupants; but when he had finished his inspection he felt certain that Sanchez was not travelling on the express.
That did not surprise him, for he knew that although the younger Ferrer brother had no great brain he was well endowed with peasant cunning; so he had probably walked or driven during the night to some small town ten or fifteen miles from San Sebastian and would begin his journey south by catching an early-morning local train from there.
On arriving in Madrid, de Quesnoy booked a sleeper on the night express to Granada, then had an early dinner at Boca's, choosing for his main course a dish for which the ancient restaurant was famous - a boiled chicken which was served covered with a yellow sauce made from eggs and sherry, and having some resemblance to a
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He had never before been to this famous city from which for centuries a line of Caliphs had dominated south-eastern Spain, and which later, after the Moors had been driven out, had been greatly embellished by the Catholic Sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella. It was set in a vast, fertile plain enclosed by great ranges of mountains, and no finer view of it could be obtained than from the new de-luxe hotel to which the Count had wired from Madrid for rooms.
When he had had a bath and changed he went out on to the balcony. The hotel had been built on the very edge of the precipitous south-western slope of a high plateau that divided the modern city and the old Christian quarter from the original Moorish town. His room looked out over the former and from the balcony on which he stood he could have pitched a peseta down into the nearest street which lay two hundred feet below. The city lay sizzling in the sun but the air up there was cool and invigorating, and the atmosphere crystal clear. Beyond the great huddle of spires, domes and roofs the plain stretched away interminably, walled in on either side by unbroken chains of lofty mountains, those to the left having snow on their peaks gleaming white against the cloudless azure sky.
He took out the photograph that Sanchez had dropped and studied it again. It was a three-quarter length of a sultry-looking beauty. She was wearing a black, flat-crowned, wide-brimmed Andalusian hat tilted sideways on her head, and a fringed silk shawl twisted tightly round her body. Her pose was that traditional with Flamenco dancers: one hand on hip, the other crooked above her head holding castanets. The name of the photographer, which was stamped below the portrait, was Elio, and his studio was in the Calle de San Jeronimo.
De Quesnoy hired a carriage and had himself driven down to the studio. Judging him to be a possible customer of means Senor Elio willingly supplied him with such information as he could. He remembered the woman well. She had not been wearing fancy dress but was a professional Flamenco dancer known as La Torcera - which de Quesnoy later learned meant The Wriggler'. The photograph had been taken about six months ago, and on referring to his ledger Senor Elio said that he could not give her address because she had called for the prints. He added, however, that she was certainly a gipsy, so the Count should have no difficulty in finding her if he made inquiries at the gipsy settlement on the hillside beyond the old Moorish town that lay on the far side of the city.
