Dennis Wheatley - Vendetta in Spain

'I came to release you only because there is one of your murderous fraternity in the study who is on the point of dying in considerable pain. I have to get back to Barcelona quickly. Otherwise I may find myself with a corpse rolled up in a carpet on my hands; and I prefer that your friend Ferrer should be legally tried and executed. But if you have any morphia, laudanum or even aspirin in the house, give the lot to that misguided young fool who is dying.'

Turning on his heel he left her and hurried back to Ferrer. Heaving the roll of carpet up on to his shoulder, he plodded with it down the garden path and along the road to the triangle of grass on which Veragua had parked the automobile. Panting, he laid the roll in the back, cranked up the engine, then climbed up on to the high driver's seat and set off towards the city.

Twenty-five minutes later he pulled up in front of the Police Headquarters. Two uniformed men carried the roll of carpet in for him and upstairs to Urgoiti's office. As they set it down on the floor, the fat, bald Chief of the Security Bureau gave de Richleau a puzzled look, and said:

1 thought you meant to make an arrest. What's the idea of turning up with that old carpet?'

The Duke waited until the uniformed men had left the room, then knelt down, undid the ties, rolled the carpet back and removed the gag from Ferrer's mouth. Ferrer had recovered consciousness during the journey. He looked grey in the face, and woebegone. Struggling up into a sitting position he gave a violent sneeze. Kneeling behind him de Richleau smiled at Urgoiti, and said:

'I brought him wrapped up like this because I didn't want any trouble with him on the way. But here he is. The celebrated Senor Francisco Ferrer.'

The Police Chief had risen behind his desk. For a moment he stared at the captive, then he said, 'You've got the wrong man. That's not Ferrer.' 'Oh yes it is,' replied the Duke.

'It's not. I often used to see Ferrer taking his aperitif outside the Cafe Ronda. He was one of the best-known figures in Barcelona. He is a much younger man; he has brown hair and a beard.'

'Don't let his appearance deceive you. It's easy to shave off a beard, and his hair is dyed. As for his age, his year in prison wouldn't have made him look any younger.'

The red-headed man had come to his feet. Suddenly he burst into a violent spate of words. T don't know what you are both talking about, but I'll have the law on you for this. My name is Hernando Olozaga and I can bring a hundred people to prove it. This man,' he jabbed a finger towards de Richleau, 'broke into my house with another villain. I live out in the country. No amount of shouting would have brought help, and I was scared; so I hid in a cupboard. While I was there they must have quarrelled. There was a lot of shooting. When I thought they'd gone I peeped out of the cupboard. I saw the other fellow, a young chap with a beard, lying wounded on the floor of my workroom. He was clutching his stomach, and looked to me about all in. Next thing I knew, this man had coshed me and knocked me out.'

Urgoiti frowned at de Richleau. 'Explain, please. Where is Veragua?'

The Duke frowned. 'What our prisoner says about him is correct. He is probably dead by now.'

'Dead!' repeated the Police Chief, his eyes widening. 'Is it really true, then, that you shot him?'

'Yes. I had to; otherwise he would have shot me. It was only a minute before he held me up that I recognized him. By taking him on as a detective you have been nurturing a viper in your bosom. His name was not Veragua but Pineda. I knew him as a young anarchist and a student of Ferrer's when I was in Barcelona three years ago.'

'I cannot believe it.' Urgoiti shook his head. 'It is impossible that the police should have had such a deception practised upon them. And what, may I ask, were you doing in the city at that time?'

'Surely General Quiroga told you about me,' de Richleau said quickly. 'I was hunting anarchists, just as I have been doing these past two days; but then I was working on my own and posing as a Russian refugee.'

'Ha!' exclaimed the red-headed man. 'I recognize him now. He was pointed out to me by a friend of mine as a Russian nihilist, and his name ... his name . . . yes, it is Nicolai Chirikov.'

De Richleau laughed. 'Of course he remembers me. It would be extraordinary if he did not. I got a temporary job in his school for assassins and succeeded in breaking it up.'

Urgoiti gave him a queer look. 'But you are a foreigner, aren't you? Your name is not really Carlos Goma. The other evening, when we first met, Veragua also said he believed you to be a Russian refugee.'

'I am half Russian by birth. But what the devil has that to do with it? General Quiroga personally vouched for me to you, did he not?'

'Yes, yes; but he may have been deceived.'

'Deceived! What nonsense!'

Tt is not nonsense. It is much more likely that he should have been deceived about you, who arrived here only forty-eight hours ago, than that I should have been deceived about Veragua, who has worked for me for months.'

'You are quite wrong about that. General Quiroga has had incontestable proof of my true identity. What is more, I first met him three years ago, soon after this man Ferrer had failed in an attempt to have me murdered.'

'I tell you the man is not Ferrer.'

'I tell you he is,' de Richleau retorted stubbornly. 'I agree that his appearance is greatly changed, but that is mainly because he has dyed his hair. You have only to look at his scalp to see that it is dyed.'

Tt is not a criminal offence to dye one's hair, and he says he can bring plenty of people to swear to it that he is a Senor Olozaga.'

'Plenty of anarchists who are prepared to perjure themselves, no doubt; but there are many ways in which his real identity can be proved.'

'It seems to me that it is your identity that stands in greater need of proving.'

'God give me patience!' exclaimed the Duke angrily. 'I thought you an intelligent man, but tonight you are acting as though your head were made of wood.'

Urgoiti's plump figure stiffened with resentment. 'You will kindly refrain from insulting me.'

'And you will kindly refrain from questioning my integrity,' snapped back the Duke. 'Believe it or not, the man I have brought in is Ferrer. In General Quiroga's name I charge you to hold him for questioning. Should you fail to do so, I promise you it will cost you your job.'

'I'll hold him,' grunted the Police Chief, 'just to be on the safe side. But it looks to me as if he's someone you've got your knife into privately and are trying to frame.'

'Damn your impudence!' roared de Richleau. Tt now exceeds even your stupidity. I've had enough of this. I am going straight back to the Fortress to lodge a complaint about you with the Captain-General.'

'Oh no you're not.' Urgoiti pressed a bell-push on his desk. 'I'm holding you too. This man says you are a Russian nihilist named Chirikov. It wouldn't surprise me if you are, after what's happened to poor young Veragua. It looks to me as if he stumbled on the truth about you, and you shot him to keep him quiet. Anyhow, you admit yourself that you left him dying of wounds that you inflicted on him; so even if you turned out to be a Grandee of Spain, General Quiroga couldn't blame me for detaining you until we find out a bit more about what did happen. You're going to pass the night in a cell.'

That the Police Chief should have hit a bull's eye when making what he obviously thought to be the wildly improbable suggestion that Senor 'Carlos Goma' might turn out to be a Grandee of Spain, almost made the Duke laugh. But to have declared at this stage that he was one would only have made Urgoiti still more sceptical about his bona fides , and the situation that had developed was now no laughing matter. To have triumphed in his mission only to be told that he had arrested the wrong man was bad enough; to have to spend a night in prison because he had succeeded in saving his own life, at the expense of that of a youth who had been on the point of murdering him, seemed positively intolerable. Yet the last word, in this place, definitely lay with Urgoiti.