Dennis Wheatley - Vendetta in Spain

It had been explained to him that the whole object of the elaborate playing of the bull was to wear down its strength, so that the great muscles in its neck tired until, when facing the Matador, it could no longer hold up its head, thus enabling him to plunge his sword between its horns and through its shoulder straight down into its heart; and that for the mounted men to rear their horses right on to the bull, so that it had to take the whole weight of horse and man on its horns, was simply a part of the wearing-down process. Even so, it shocked and amazed him that thousands of women as well as men could burst into excited applause at the sight of a screaming horse falling with its guts torn out by the horns of a bull.

Their cruelty, too, was not confined to animals. In the Carlist wars few prisoners had been taken, and both sides had committed unmentionable barbarities on hundreds of the enemy they had captured. Worse still, if possible, had been their treatment of nuns and priests during the frequent revolts and revolutions of the past century. It had been common practice to rape the younger nuns to death, and burning priests had become a favourite sport.

But de Quesnoy was not now thinking of either bullfights or the devilish cruelties of the civil wars - only that hatred could turn Spaniards from delightful companions into merciless fiends in less time than it took to eat a meal; and if there was any conceivable way in which he could save himself from the ghastly death proposed for him.

During the years he had been exiled to dreary garrison duty in Madagascar he had occupied his mind almost exclusively by an intensive study of the occult. It was an English missionary who had first interested him in it, by telling him that as the people of the huge island were a mixture of negro stock and Polynesians, who had arrived there on fleets of rafts during a great migration, the present witch-doctors had inherited a knowledge of both African and Pacific magic, so were probably more skilled in practising it than any others in the world. His prolonged study of the secret art had taught him many things; among them how to hypnotize, and how, by methods similar to Yoga, to render his body almost impervious to normal cold or heat.

Any attempt to hypnotize the hostile group now staring at him, in a few moments and in his present condition, he knew to be hopeless; and that to prevent oneself from being burnt when thrust into a white-hot furnace was beyond the powers of even the greatest Mage. But there remained the possibility that he might succeed in throwing himself into a self-induced trance.

If he could succeed in that he would, for all practical purposes, be temporarily dead, and so not feel the searing of the flames. Yet he had no sooner thought of the idea than he abandoned it. To achieve complete immunity such a trance would have to be of extreme depth, and to bring about such a state required time, solitude and complete quiet; all of which, in his present circumstances, would be denied him. By a great effort, he might force his spirit out of his body, but only on to the lowest astral plane; and the intense pain as his nerves began to scorch would bring it back to his body almost instantly.

These thoughts flashed through his mind within a few seconds of Sanchez having spoken. Then another swiftly took their place. The question of disposing of his body quickly and without trace had arisen only because Dolores had put into the heads of the others that he was in league with the police and that, if he failed to make his nightly report to them, some time before morning they would raid the house to find out what had happened to him. He must tell them that he was acting on his own, had no connection whatever with the police then they might adopt Jovel-lenos's suggestion of locking him up in a cupboard upstairs until Ferrer returned in the morning. Anything was better than being roasted in the furnace. But would they believe him? No; not even if he swore by everything he held holy that they had nothing to fear from the police. Why should they?

Yet it was their fear of a police raid that decided matters. For a few moments they had all stood silent, considering Sanchez's proposal. Then Schmidt spoke, in awkward Spanish with a heavy accent.

'To burn him is no good. The fat of human corpses makes a smell most horrible. It would the house stink out. Also in a short time to destroy all traces is not possible. Pieces of calcined bones would be found, buttons from his clothes, other things. If we had twenty-four hours, yes, perhaps. But if the house raided before morning is, enough evidence they will find to prove him murdered by us.'

De Quesnoy's heart gave a bound of relief, for he knew that the German's argument was unchallengeable; but he also knew that, even if he had escaped burning, his life was not worth an hour's purchase, and Zapatro confirmed him in that belief by saying angrily:

'But we cannot let him go. That is out of the question.'

The tall Jovellenos eyed the architect dubiously. T suppose you are right, but I have a feeling that he may prove more dangerous to us dead than alive. After all, there is no certainty that the police will raid the house just because he has failed to report to them on a single occasion. Anyway, I am still in favour of locking him up until Senor Ferrer returns and gives us a ruling on what is to be done with him.'

For some minutes Gerault had ceased moaning. Now, he took his hands from his battered face and, his throat still half-choked by blood from his broken nose, gulped out, 'He must die . . . In the name of the Grand Lodge of the Orient, I demand it .. . You do not know this man as I do ... He is resolute, resourceful and cunning as a serpent . . . Unless you kill him while you have the chance he will find some means to escape . . . Then he will get us all arrested ... He is the arch-enemy of us all . . . Kill him, I say . . . Kill him or you will have cause to regret it.'

Dolores nodded. 'You are right, Monsieur. But we come back to the question of how to set about it without leaving any traces.'

'In the poison cupboard of the laboratory prussic acid I have seen,' volunteered Schmidt. 'A dose we could give him and all is over very quickly.'

'Escobedo always locks the cupboard up before he goes home, and takes the key with him,' said Jovellenos. 'We would have to break it open, and it is a stout one. We would also have to provide Escobedo with some explanation to give his class in the morning; otherwise it is certain that on finding the lock of the cupboard broken they would start asking awkward questions.'

'Why waste time and go to so much trouble?' Gerault's thick, half-choked voice came again. With a gesture towards Sanchez, he went on. 'Look at those great hands of yours . . . Are they not strong enough to strangle him?'

Once more Benigno intervened. 'You are all talking like fools. However we killed him we would still be left with his body, and in disposing of it have to run a considerable risk. We dare not bury it in the cellar or the yard. If the police do come they would find . . .'

'We are not such fools as to do that,' Zapatro interrupted him.

'I did not suppose you were,' Benigno retorted icily. 'But the only alternative is to carry it out of the house. A body is not an easy thing to disguise. We might run into the police on the doorstep.'

'If we don't waste endless time arguing there is little chance of that,' Dolores shrugged. 'It is most unlikely that they will come to find out what has happened to him for hours yet.'

'I agree. But, as I was about to add, other people are certain to see us. Say we put the body into a big trunk and loaded it on to our covered cart, you can be sure that when the police started to make inquiries they would learn about it, and want to know what was in the trunk and where we took it. Another thing: where do you suggest that we should dump his body?'