William McGivern - The Caper of the Golden Bulls

The Canadian girl who looked after the children let Peter in, but only confirmed what the maids had told him earlier; Grace wasn’t at home, and no one seemed to know just where she was, or when she might be back. Peter felt quite deflated. He had been certain she was simply avoiding him.

A child in a white nightgown came into the living-room and smiled tentatively at Peter. “Hello, Mr. Churchman. I thought it was Mommy, maybe. Do you still have that bad cat?”

“Why, hello, Debby.”

“He made a mess on the floor,” Debby explained to the Canadian girl.

“The first time I went to Mr. Churchman’s house with Mommy. He’s all black except for a spot on his chest. Would you like to come and see my sisters, Mr. Churchman?”

“Well, yes, of course. But maybe it’s past their visiting hours.”

“That’s all right,” the Canadian girl said. “They’ve had their supper and tubs. We usually read a while before bedtime, but I’m sure an unexpected visitor will compensate nicely for that.”

“They’re just babies, you know,” Debby said. “Miss Marian, could Mr. Churchman read to them?”

“If he’d like to, yes, dear.”

Debby smiled and took Peter’s hand. “Come on. They’ll fall right asleep. Then if you want I’ll show you my flamenco dress. It’s green and white. Mommy bought it and the maids sewed sequins on it.”

They went down a wide and dimly-lighted corridor, with Debby pulling him along by the hand. She looked wonderfully sweet and well-cared for, like Grace in miniature, he thought sentimentally, with her scrubbed face and shining hair, and her eyes dancing with conspiratorial excitement. There were small blue flowers stitched about the high yoke of her white nightgown, and these, to Peter’s eye, resembled the running lights of a ship, and heightened his illusion that her slender body was breasting the gloom of the hallway like a tiny graceful sail boat. Images, he thought anxiously. Was it something glandular in both mother and daughter that prompted these metaphorical responses? When Debby stopped to look up at him, Peter fancied he saw sparks flashing in her eyes. Bonfires? No. But campfires, anyway.

She opened a door, and they went into an empty bedroom. There was a single lamp on a table, and drapes were drawn over the windows. Peter smiled at Debby. “Well? Where are your sisters?”

“Bend down so I can whisper.”

“Now what’s this all about?”

Debby’s lips brushed his ear, soft and light as feathers. “There’s somebody sneaking around outside in the garden.”

“Oh?” Peter glanced at the drawn drapes. “How do you know?”

“I was playing with Cathy and Elspeth in their room. After our baths. I saw him looking in our window. He was behind a bush.”

“Did he realise you had seen him?”

“I don’t know. He stood behind the bushes for a little while. I kept on playing like I didn’t see him. Then he walked into the garden.”

“Could it have been the gardener?”

“He goes home before dark.”

Peter turned off the lamp and moved to the windows. Debby clutched his hand tightly. Peter drew the drapes back an inch or so, and let his eyes sweep over the gardens. In the darkness there was faint moonlight, faint breezes; trees and bushes were stirring gently, and the swimming pool at the foot of the garden shone like a patch of clouded silver. The gravelled walks gleamed in white irregular patterns where they circled lily ponds and cut through oleander hedges.

“Do you see anybody?” Debby whispered.

“No, everything looks normal.” He let the drapes fall back into place and turned on the lamp. “Maybe you dozed off without knowing it, and had a bad dream.”

“I wasn’t dreaming, I saw him.”

It must have been her imagination, Peter thought; she was indeed her mother’s child, full of fancies and secrets. “Debby, why didn’t you tell your nurse, Miss Marian, about this prowler?”

“Well, because she’s so sensible,” Debby said. “She’s levelheaded, and not afraid of anything. She’s always laughing at the maids. She would have grabbed a flashlight and rushed outside. That might not have been a good thing to do. But I couldn’t have stopped her. That’s why I told you.”

Peter realised that her position was formidably logical. “You stay here,” he said. “Leave the light on, but keep away from the window.”

He gave her a pat on the shoulder, and went swiftly out the door.

A car laboured in the mountains. Fishermen sang in the straw-roofed bars on the dark beaches. Leaves rustled under slow, fragrant winds.

Peter listened intently to every faint sound, his senses scanning the garden like radar screens. Then he drifted along the wall towards the swimming pool. At the base of a lemon tree he found the stub of a Players cigarette. He squeezed the black tip between thumb and forefinger and found it still warm.

Clinging to the shadows, Peter crept about the pool, circled the bath-house, and moved silently up a gravelled path that brought him back to the terrace of the villa.

He crouched in the shadow of an oleander bush, and peered through the green leaves and pink blossoms. He saw the lights in the living-room where Miss Marian was reading and the lights in the bedroom where, hopefully, Debby was waiting for him. He could still hear the labouring engine of the car, and the singing from the beaches. But that was all. The silence bothered him; the garden was too quiet.

Nesting birds and foraging insects were aware their domain had been invaded; tiny feathers and claws and feelers had all become still and motionless.

Suddenly between him and the terrace a footstep sounded on the gravelled walk. He froze. Silence settled again, and Peter knew that single revealing sound had been inadvertent; whoever had made it must now be crouching in the darkness, not daring to move, hardly daring to breathe. Peter took a rapid inventory of what he was wearing, and what he had in his pockets, but found nothing resembling a weapon. No penknife, no belt, not even a tie Again he heard a leather heel crunching softly on the gravel. After a few seconds the sound came again... Peter moved with infinite care about the curving bulk of the oleander bush, and saw the silhouette of a man in a dark suit standing only six or eight feet from him. He was staring up at the stone railing that rimmed the terrace.

Peter rose swiftly and silently through the darkness. “Put your hands up,” he said, in a voice like a cracking whip. “Then freeze.”

“Very well,” the man said, in soft, musical tones, but even as he spoke he flung himself backward, swiftly as a cat, a foot lashing out murderously at Peter’s groin. Peter dodged the blow and struck down at the man’s back, his locked hands coming down like a savagely swung axe.

He thought that would be the end of it, but the man’s forearm swept about viciously and cut Peter’s legs out from under him. They went to the ground in a churning heap, fighting for an advantage in the darkness. Peter struck with the edge of his palm, and was rewarded by a gasp of shock and pain. Then an elbow smashed into his jaw. He ducked another punch, locked an arm about a waist that was like whalebone, and, with a hip-roll, flipped the man into the oleander bush. With sweet and savage expectations, Peter leaped after him to finish the job, but a pair of feet slammed sickeningly into his stomach, and he jack-knifed, staggered, and fell into the murky waters of the lily pond.

Peter tried to get to his feet, but the man’s weight landed abruptly and solidly on his back, as authoritative and unwelcome as an anchor.

He bucked and heaved to get his head from the water and air into his lungs. His hands gathered fistfuls of lapels; he stood with a burst of strength, and snapped his shoulders down, catapulting the man over his head into the lilac hedge beside the pond. Peter splashed out of the water and leaped forward at exactly the right instant to catch a short, chopping blow on the chin that caused batteries of lights to explode before his eyes. Lights were everywhere, flooding the garden.