Dennis Wheatley - Vendetta in Spain

Had he spent only a few minutes with Teresa it seemed probable that, as with the many other inquiries he had made, Veragua would have taken no action, assuming that he had drawn another blank. But he had remained talking to her for the best part of a quarter of an hour.

Evidently that had led Veragua to assume that Teresa was giving away information that might lead to Ferrer's capture; so the time had come to put an abrupt end to 'Senor Goma's' activities. Out there in that quiet suburb he stood much less risk of being seen making his attempt and being captured than he would have in the city. It must have seemed to him now not only urgent to eliminate the Duke, but too good a chance to miss. He had left the automobile, walked up the almost deserted street and lobbed his bomb through the window.

The whole sequence of events was grasped by the Duke's mind in a matter of seconds. He knew now that he probably had only a few more moments to live. Veragua had only to squeeze the trigger of his pistol and he would be dead. To show that he realized the situation would prove fatal. Instead, he gave a quick frown and exclaimed:

'Why the hell are you pointing that thing at me?'

As he spoke he took an unhurried pace sideways and sat down in the chair behind Ferrer's desk.

The smile on the bearded features of the young man deepened, and he said, 'Can't you guess?'

'As a matter of fact I can,' de Richleau replied calmly. 'You are thinking of putting a bullet through me. But I wouldn't, if I were you. Of course, you think you could get away with it by putting in a report that Ferrer shot me while I was trying to arrest him. But you won't. If I die General Quiroga will have you shot.'

'Why should he? There would be no reason whatever for him to suppose that it was I who had killed you.'

'My dear boy. Had you been longer engaged in the sort of game we have been playing you would be aware that it is less dangerous to have close to you an enemy you know than to eliminate him, so that his work is taken over by another that you don't know. And from the beginning I have known you to be Pineda.'

Veragua's bearded mouth dropped open in surprise. The point of his gun also dropped a little. His eyes wide with astonishment, he exclaimed, 'What! You knew all the time and gave me the chance . ..'

He got no further. Under cover of the desk behind which he was sitting, de Richleau had eased out his pistol. Suddenly he jerked it up so that its barrel came just above the line of reference books. It spat flame. Four staccato reports shattered the silence of the house. The first three were from the Duke's automatic. Its bullets ripped into Veragua's stomach. The last was from Veragua's gun as a spasm closed his finger on its trigger. The bullet chipped a splinter low down off the left-hand corner of the desk, then ricocheted off to land in the far wall. With a long-drawn howl the young anarchist collapsed upon the floor.

De Richleau jumped up from the desk. Now that the back entrance of the house was unguarded Ferrer might slip out of it; so he had no time to lose. Veragua, clutching his stomach with both hands, lay writhing in agony in the doorway. The Duke paused only to snatch up the gun that had fallen from Veragua's hand. As he did so he snapped:

'You won't kill any more little children with your bombs, my friend. And I gave it you in the stomach so you should know just how much that poor woman Teresa suffered by your act this afternoon.'

A moment later he had crossed the passage and thrown open a door that seemed the most likely one to lead to the kitchen. It did. No one was there. Beyond it was a small scullery. Entering it, he saw on its far side a door that was evidently the back entrance to the house. The door was bolted and the key was in the lock. Having made certain that it had been turned, he took it out and put it in his pocket. It was certain that Ferrer had not had time to get out of the house since the shooting; so unless Veragua had come upon him lurking in the kitchen quarters and urged him to escape by the back entrance, he was now trapped in it.

De Richleau decided that his best plan would be to search the house from the bottom up, otherwise while he was on an upper floor Ferrer might slip out of a downstairs window. The villa was fairly modern; but most Spanish houses that are larger than a cottage have a cellar, so he swiftly cast round for the entrance to one. He expected to find it somewhere in the back of the premises but a swift scrutiny of the floors convinced him that in none of them was a camouflaged trap-door.

Going out into the hall he paused to listen intently for a moment. He feared now that Ferrer might be making the best of the time he was being given to tie sheets together into a rope; so that he could get away by lowering himself from one of the windows. Not for the first time, the Duke cursed the dubious loyalty of the Catalan police. Had it not been for that he would have brought a score of policemen with him and had the house surrounded; but a leak could have ruined this chance, the like of which might not come again, to catch Ferrer; so he had decided against it.

Dolores had evidently wriggled out of the lavatory window, or was sitting quietly there. The only sound that broke the stillness was Veragua's moaning. Reassured, de Richleau moved a few paces down the hall towards the door opposite that beside which Veragua lay, expecting it to lead to a sitting-room. As he did so he brushed past a red velvet curtain that hung on the side of the hall formed by a straight staircase that ran up from it. Wondering why there should be a curtain in such a pointless place, he pulled it back. The reason became plain. It concealed a door under the stairs. With grim satisfaction he wrenched it open.

The result was a bitter disappointment. Instead of the flight of steps leading downward that he had expected, it was full of coats, macintoshes and a variety of junk. Pushing the door to, he listened again. There was still no sound from upstairs but queer noises were now coming from the lavatory. Dolores was not battering upon its door but seemed to be kicking one of its walls and uttering muffled cries. What she was up to he had no idea, and he did not care.

He again took a pace towards what he believed to be the sitting-room, but it suddenly occurred to him that Ferrer might be crouching at the very far end of the cupboard under the stairs, hidden behind the junk that was in it.

Fetching the lamp from the end of the hall he opened the door again and set it down on the floor just inside the cupboard. Now, he was faced with a very dangerous situation. If he put his head in and Ferrer was lurking there, and had a pistol, he might be shot himself before he could shoot Ferrer.

The cupboard was only about three feet deep but about eight feet long, its roof sloping downwards from inside the doorway to within a foot or so of the floor. With a sudden movement he thrust his pistol round the doorjamb and fired two shots blind in the direction of its far end. If Ferrer had been there he must either have been hit or made some spontaneous movement as the bullets thudded into the underside of the stairs within inches of him. But the crash of the shots was followed by complete silence.

Disappointed again, and more worried than ever that by now Ferrer might be escaping from the house, de Richleau bent down and picked up the lamp. As he did so it lit the whole cupboard. He caught his breath and his eyes widened with excitement. They had fallen upon part of a line on the floor that ran at right angles to the floorboards.

The line emerged from under a big cardboard carton. Quickly he set the lamp down again, pocketed his pistol, and hauled the carton out of the cupboard. It was heavy and full of books. Beyond it there were two others, but the removal of the first was enough to show him that the line he had spotted was one edge of a trap-door. It must lead to a cellar and all the odds were that Ferrer was down in it.