Алистер Маклин - Caravan to Vaccares

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You will. You are a danger, you have been a great danger and you have to go, that’s all. You will die this afternoon and within the hour so that no suspicion will ever attach to us.’

It was, Bowman thought, as laconic a death sentence as he’d ever heard of. There was something chilling in the man’s casual certainty.

Czerda went on: ‘You will understand now why I didn’t injure your face, why I wanted you to go into that bullring unmarked.’

‘Bullring?’

‘Bullring, my friend.’

‘You’re mad. You can’t make me go into a bullring.’

Czerda said nothing and there was no signal. Searl, eagerly assisted by a grinning Masaine, caught hold of Cecile, forced her face downwards on to a bunk and, while Masaine pinned her down, Searl gripped the collar of the Arlésienne costume and ripped it down to the waist. He turned and smiled at Bowman, reached into the folds of his clerical garb and brought out what appeared to be a version of a hunting stock, with a fifteen-inch interwoven leather handle attached to three long thin black thongs. Bowman looked at Czerda and Czerda wasn’t watching anything of what was going on: he was watching Bowman and the gun pointing at Bowman was motionless.

Czerda said: ‘I think perhaps you will go into that bullring?’

‘Yes.’ Bowman nodded. ‘I think perhaps I will.’

Searl put his stock away. His face was twisted in the bitter disappointment of a spoilt child who has been deprived of a new toy. Masaine took his hands away from Cecile’s shoulders. She pushed herself groggily to a sitting position and looked at Bowman. Her face was very pale but her eyes were mad. It had just occurred to Bowman that she was, as she’d said, quite capable of using a gun if shown how to use one when there came from outside the sound of a solid measured tread: the door opened and Le Grand Duc entered with a plainly apprehensive Lila trailing uncertainly behind him. Le Grand Duc pushed the monocle more firmly into his eye.

‘Ah, Czerda, my dear fellow. It’s you.’ He looked at the gun in the gypsy’s hand and said sharply: ‘Don’t point that damned thing at me!’ He indicated Bowman. ‘Point it at that fellow there. Don’t you know he’s your man, you fool?’

Czerda uncertainly trained his gun back on Bowman and just as uncertainly looked at Le Grand Duc.

‘What do you want?’ Czerda tried to imbue his voice with sharp authority but Le Grand Duc wasn’t the properly receptive type and it didn’t come off. ‘Why are you–’

‘Be quiet!’ Le Grand Duc was at his most intimidating, which was very intimidating indeed. ‘I am speaking. You are a bunch of incompetent and witless nincompoops. You have forced me to destroy the basic rule of my existence – to bring myself into the open. I have seen more intelligence exhibited in a cageful of retarded chimpanzees. You have lost me much time and cost me vast trouble and anxiety. I am seriously tempted to dispose of the services of you all – permanently. And that means you as well as your services. What are you doing here?’

‘What are we doing here?’ Czerda stared at him. ‘But – but – but Searl here said that you–’

‘I will deal with Searl later.’ Le Grand Duc’s promise was imbued with such menacing overtones that Searl at once looked acutely unhappy. Czerda looked nervous to a degree that was almost unthinkable for him, El Brocador looked puzzled and Masaine had clearly given up thinking of any kind. Lila simply looked stunned. Le Grand Duc went on: ‘I did not mean, you cretin, what you are doing in Mas de Lavignolle. I meant what are you doing here, as of this present moment, in this caravan.’

‘Bowman here stole the money you gave me,’ Czerda said sullenly. ‘We were–’

‘He what?’ Le Grand Duc’s face was thunderous.

‘He stole your money,’ Czerda said unhappily.

‘All of it.’

‘All of it!’

‘Eighty thousand francs. That’s what we’ve been doing – finding out where it is. He’s about to show me the key to where the money is.’

‘I trust for your sake that you find it.’ He paused and turned as Maca came staggering into the caravan, both hands holding what was clearly a very painful face.

‘Is this man drunk?’ Le Grand Duc demanded. ‘Are you drunk, sir? Stand straight when you talk to me.’

‘He did it!’ Maca spoke to Czerda, he didn’t appear to have noticed Le Grand Duc, for his eyes were for Bowman only. ‘He came along–’

‘Silence!’ Le Grand Duc’s voice would have intimidated a Bengal tiger. ‘My God, Czerda, you surround yourself with the most useless and ineffectual bunch of lieutenants it’s ever been my misfortune to encounter.’ He looked round the caravan, ignoring the three manacled men, took two steps towards where Cecile was sitting and looked down at her. ‘Ha! Bowman’s accomplice, of course. Why is she here?’

Czerda shrugged. ‘Bowman wouldn’t cooperate–’

‘A hostage? Very well. Here’s another.’ He caught Lila by the arm and shoved her roughly across the caravan. She stumbled, almost fell, then sat down heavily on the bunk beside Cecile. Her face, already horror-stricken, now looked stupefied.

‘Charles!’

‘Be quiet!’

‘But Charles! My father – you said–’

‘You are a feather-brained young idiot,’ Le Grand Duc said with contempt. ‘The real Duc de Croytor, to whom I fortunately bear a strong resemblance, is at present in the upper Amazon, probably being devoured by the savages in the Matto Grosso. I am not the Duc de Croytor.’

‘We know that, Mr Strome.’ Simon Searl was at his most obsequious.

Again displaying his quite remarkable speed, Le Grand Duc stepped forward and struck Searl heavily across the face. Searl cried out in pain and staggered heavily, to bring up against the wall of the caravan. There was silence for several seconds.

‘I have no name,’ Le Grand Duc said softly. ‘There is no such person as you mentioned.’

‘I’m sorry, sir.’ Searl fingered his cheek. ‘I–’

‘Silence!’ Le Grand Duc turned to Czerda. ‘Bowman has something to show you? Give you?’

‘Yes, sir. And there’s another little matter I have to attend to.’

‘Yes, yes, yes. Be quick about it.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I shall wait here. We must talk on your return, mustn’t we, Czerda.’

Czerda nodded unhappily, told Masaine to watch the girls, put his jacket over his gun and left accompanied by Searl and El Brocador. Masaine, his knife still drawn, seated himself comfortably. Maca, tenderly rubbing his bruised face, muttered something and left, probably to attend to his injuries. Lila, her face woebegone, looked up at Le Grand Duc.

‘Oh, Charles, how could you–’

‘Ninny!’

She stared at him brokenly. Tears began to roll down her cheeks. Cecile put an arm round her and glared at Le Grand Duc. Le Grand Duc looked through her and remained totally unaffected.

‘Stop here,’ Czerda said.

They stopped, Bowman ahead of Czerda with a silencer prodding his back, El Brocador and Searl on either side of him, the Citroën ten feet away.

‘Where’s the key?’ Czerda demanded.

‘I’ll get it.’

‘You will not. You are perfectly capable of switching keys or even finding a hidden gun. Where is it?’

‘On a key ring. It’s taped under the driver’s seat, back, left.’

‘Searl?’ Searl nodded, went to the car. Czerda said sourly: ‘You don’t trust many people, do you?’

‘I should, you think?’

‘What’s the number of this deposit box?’

‘Sixty-five.’

Searl returned. ‘These are ignition keys.’

‘The brass one’s not,’ Bowman said.