Dennis Wheatley - Vendetta in Spain

Her eyes grew round and she stammered, 'But the troupe! I . . . I could not leave them. It ... it is my living.'

Putting a hand under his cloak, he unhitched the small sack of gold behind his left hip, produced it, and threw it with a clang on the trestle table. That contains a thousand pesetas,' he said; 'more than the sum of which Sanchez robbed you. If we succeed in this business I will give you in addition four times that amount. Whatever happens, any woman who has mastered the art of Flamenco dancing as ably as yourself should have little difficulty in securing employment in another troupe, even if this one will not receive you back; so you can regard the greater part of this money as a bonus.'

Still staring at him a shade uncertainly, she stretched out a hand and lifted the bag. On its weight reassuring her that it really contained gold, she nodded slowly. 'Very well, then. When do you wish me to start?'

'Now,' he replied. 'As soon as you have packed your things. The sooner we arrive in Cadiz the better.'

'No!' she shook her head. 'That really is not possible. I am due to dance again in about twenty minutes.'

He had made up his mind to take her with him, in case if he left her there till morning she should mention her intentions to any other member of the gipsy fraternity and, through a grape-vine, they should reach Sanchez.

'That cannot be helped,' he said firmly. 'You must cut your dance and come with me. I intend that we should leave Granada by the first fast train going west tomorrow; and that may mean an early start. Get your things together, now; and be quick about it.'

'I cannot go in these clothes,' she protested.

'True. Then I will go outside while you change.' As he spoke he picked up the bag of gold from the table.

Her eyes suddenly fierce again, she made a snatch at it and exclaimed, 'You said that was for me! I'll not leave here without it.'

'It is for you, but I don't mean to chance your changing your mind during the night about coming with me to Cadiz.' Opening the bag he poured about a third of its contents into his palm, laid the little heap of coins on the table, and added, 'There is an earnest of my good faith. The rest you shall have when we are on the train tomorrow.'

Leaving the cave he walked some way down the hill to the gully in which the carriages that had brought visitors were waiting, found his driver, roused him from sleep and told him to get ready to return to the city. By the time he had climbed the slope again a good ten minutes had elapsed; so, after he had knocked on the door outside the cave and she had told him to come in, he found that she had finished changing.

Her high comb, mantilla and dancer's frock with its scores of flounces had disappeared. Dressed now in a grey coat and skirt, and wearing elastic-sided black boots and a black sombrero, she was just starting to pack her things into a large, finely-woven oblong basket, which had beside it a similar basket to fit over its top.

While walking back up the hill it had occurred to him as strange that since Sanchez had deserted her for another woman early in September, he should still be carrying her portrait at the end of the month; and he asked her if she could account for it.

She replied that she could not; so he took it out again, showed it to her, and asked if the rows of letters and figures on its back conveyed anything to her.

After looking at it for a moment she said, 'They don't mean anything to me; but might not the letters stand for towns and the figures be the times of trains leaving them?'

That possibility had already occurred to de Quesnoy, and he had even thought of attempting to check them against the Spanish timetable; but that would have entailed many hours of work and, even if successful, still left him in ignorance as to which of a score of trains Sanchez might have taken. Now that La Torcera had had the same thought it strengthened his opinion and, if Sanchez had used the back of the photograph to list a number of trains, that would account for his having kept it.

When she had finished packing he helped her put a strap round the big oblong basket. She put out the lamp and locked the door to her dwelling after them; then they walked side by side down the hill to the carriage.

By the time they reached the hotel it was past two o'clock in the morning and there was only a night porter on duty. When the Count asked for a room for La Torcera the man had already taken in the fact that she was a gipsy; but, knowing that it was not for him to question the vagaries of the hotel's wealthy patrons, he quickly checked his glance of disapproval. If the management chose to make a tactful remonstrance in the morning, that was their affair. Producing the key to a single room at the back on the upper floor, he picked up her basket with barely-concealed reluctance and took her up in the lift.

Meanwhile de Quesnoy had gone behind the porter's desk, found a timetable and was looking up trains. The direct route from Granada to Cadiz was via Antequera and Ronda, but that meant going by slow trains and making two changes. The alternative was to go round by Seville, which meant an extra fifty miles, but at 8.30 there was an express to Seville and Cadiz was only another forty-odd miles on from there; so he decided on the latter.

On a note pad he wrote a line for La Torcera, T have ordered breakfast to be taken up to you with this at a quarter to seven. Please be packed and ready to leave at eight sharp. You will find me down in the hall, de Q.'

When the porter returned he gave the note to him with instructions about breakfast for himself and his guest, and asked that his bill should be ready without fail at five minutes to eight. Then he tipped the man well and went up to bed.

Next morning at the station he asked La Torcera if she would like a book for the journey or only magazines. She replied that she had had little schooling and could read only large print slowly; so he bought her some picture papers to look at, and also a box of chocolates. These unexpected attentions by him removed the expression of rather sullen suspicion she had worn during their drive down from the hotel, and after he had fulfilled his promise to give her the rest of the gold in the little sack he felt confident that, in spite of the high-handed way in which he had treated her, he had now won her allegiance.

Although they were leaving the mighty range of the Sierra Nevada behind, the greater part of the journey was through desolate but picturesque mountain country. For much of the time the train was winding its way round bends along a narrow track with a precipitous gorge on one side, so, although termed an express its speed often dropped to thirty miles an hour. But to some extent it made up for that on entering the comparatively flat country farther west and they reached Seville a little before half-past one.

After a meal in the station restaurant, they drove to a small hotel that the Count had noticed during his first visit to the city, which appeared pleasant but unpretentious. There he booked a room for La Torcera and, having given her some more money, told her to go out and buy a hat and clothes of a more fashionable kind than those she had on at the moment, then to return and get changed. He too went out on a brief shopping expedition to buy for her a leather portmanteau, an eyeshade, a crooked stick and, at a secondhand shop for a few pesetas, a greasy old black cotton hood and robe such as were worn by the poorest elderly peasant women.

Having completed his purchases he put the robe in the suitcase and returned to the hotel. Finding that it was still only four o'clock and as the evening train for Cadiz did not leave till six, he sent the portmanteau up to La Torcera's room with a message that ran: 'Repack your things, the old robe, and the clothes you were wearing in this, and give your travelling basket to the chambermaid. Please be down in the hall ready to leave at half past five.' Then he went out to pay another visit to the Alcazar.