Dennis Wheatley - Vendetta in Spain

The beadle then took him down a flight of steps to a level below the huge tombs, where there was a glass panel through which he could see the actual dust-covered coffins of these two sovereigns who, by their marriage, had brought Spain under one crown and made her a great nation.

In the sacristy he saw the crown, sceptre and mass-book used by Isabella, and King Ferdinand's sword. Then, having had enough of churches for the day, he went out to wander round the streets of the old town. The Moorish bazaar delighted him, as it consisted of a series of open arcades criss-crossing one another, and each lined on both sides with shops only the width of a single narrow arch, in which craftsmen of all kinds were still plying ancient trades.

On returning to his hotel he asked the hall-porter to find out for him if a dancer known as La Torcera was still living in the gipsy settlement and, if so, how he could locate her habitation. After lunch he slept through the afternoon, then before dinner he went for a walk through the woods which covered the greater part of the Alhambra height, on which the hotel was situated.

He was thinking only of Gulia, and wondered what he had better do about her. To disclose frankly to de Cordoba that they had fallen desperately in love and intended to run away together was certainly not as despicable as entering on an adulterous liaison behind his back; yet it seemed to de Quesnoy that even the former course was highly reprehensible since, had his friend not shown his trust in him by allowing him to spend so much time alone with Gulia, the present situation would never have arisen.

There was another side to the matter, too. If Gulia was right in her belief that her husband was indifferent to her entering on an affaire , provided she was discreet, and Jose found out that they had become lovers, he might not mind very much; whereas he might mind very much indeed if his whole life were disrupted by his wife being taken away from him.

With a wry smile de Quesnoy thought how, in his case, history was repeating itself, in that for the second time in his life he should be contemplating running away with a married woman. He recalled the many times he and Angela had wrestled with the pros and cons of an elopement. In her case he would not have had the least scruple about taking her from her villainous husband, but she had had a greater sense of loyalty than Gulia and had insisted on remaining with her husband until he could surmount his financial difficulties. Gulia, on the other hand, was willing not only to sacrifice a much greater name and position for him, but also to share with him the uncertainties of a soldier's life in South America -a thing that Angela would never have agreed to even after they were legally married.

'Legally married'; he repeated the words in his mind. It was over the difficulty of their becoming so, as long as Angela's husband had been alive, that had caused them such harassing doubts about whether they should gamble everything by her cutting loose and their first living together openly in, so-called, sin. And that, now, would apply equally with Gulia. There could be no divorce, and de Cordoba might quite well refuse to countenance an appeal to Rome for an annulment of their marriage. Even if he did not obstruct the appeal the Church might refuse to grant it. At best it would take two or three years to come through. And in the meantime Gulia would be living a furtive existence with him under an assumed name, and - a thought that made him see red - be in constant dread of being subjected to slights and insults from people who knew that she was not 'legally married' to him.

After a two hours' walk he decided that, greatly as he desired her, he was neither prepared to disrupt the life of his friend nor place her in such an invidious position; and that he was certainly not going to go back on his original refusal to betray his friend's trust by taking her in secret as his mistress.

Having made this resolve it followed that in no circumstances should he again become a member of the de Cordoba household, either at San Sebastian or in Madrid; for to do so could result only in placing an appalling strain on both Gulia and himself. His first job was to hunt down Sanchez. After that he would have to appear at the Barcelona trial, but that was now barely a fortnight away; so it would be easy to make some excuse for not returning to San Sebastian in the meanwhile. When the trial was over he would spend six or eight weeks with his father in Southern Russia, then he would go to South America and see whether, in a year or so, he could not after all achieve his lifelong ambition to be given command of a Cavalry Division.

That evening the hall-porter reported that La Torcera was still living in the gipsy settlement and working in the best troupe of Flamenco dancers, who gave displays in the biggest cave for the wealthier tourists. He then asked if de Quesnoy would like a guide to take him there at ten o'clock, when the dancing started.

The Count replied that he would not be going there until the following evening, and then he would not require a guide but only a carriage to take him to the settlement and bring him back.

The porter pressed him to take a guide, giving as his reason that unless strangers were properly sponsored the gipsies could prove troublesome, as the men were a lawless lot and had been known to demand money with menaces before they would let solitary visitors leave their settlement. But de Quesnoy had no intention of saddling himself with a companion, and he assured the porter that he was quite capable of looking after himself.

His reason for delaying for twenty-four hours before getting in touch with La Torcera was based on a nicely balanced assessment of possibilities. Assuming that after Sanchez's flight from Barcelona he had been living with this woman and, following his stay in San Sebastian, intended to return to her, since he had not caught the Madrid express he could not have got back to Granada before that evening at the earliest. On the other hand, if he meant to return he should be back for certain by the following night. To have questioned La Torcera about him before he arrived would have meant running a grave risk, even if she were heavily bribed, of her warning him directly he did put in an appearance that his hide-out had been discovered; upon which it was certain that he would disappear and again become very difficult to trace.

If Sanchez was living with the gipsies it seemed most unlikely that he would show himself at any of their performances, as to do so would have been to risk some police agent among the spectators identifying him; so while strangers were about he would most probably lie low in the woman's hut. De Quesnoy's hope was that he would be able either to fool or bribe La Torcera into betraying Sanchez by pointing out her hut to him. He could then go straight to it, take Sanchez by surprise and, at the point of his revolver, compel him to give up the incriminating negative.

Next morning, as he had another day to kill, he decided to spend it up on the Alhambra height visiting the world-famous Moorish Palaces with which it was crowned.

First he went to the Generalife, one of the smaller palaces which had been used as a summer residence by the Caliphs and was said to have the loveliest gardens in Spain. He found its long walks of tall clipped hedges a pleasant sight, but no better than those he had seen in similar formal gardens elsewhere. There were, too, roses in great profusion, though their beds were ragged and ill-kept; and by and large he considered the garden of the Alcazar in Seville to be much more beautiful. However, the Generalife possessed one unique feature that it had been well worth coming to see - a very long narrow canal with a hundred fountains playing into it from either side and so forming a continuous arcade of sparkling water-drops rainbow-hued in the brilliant sunshine.