The Shadowcutter (43 page)

“Explain a little further, sir, if you please?” said Don Luiz, glancing at him.

“The thing is, sir, you may not be aware of this, but recent legislation has outlawed such traditional gatherings in this country. If it were to emerge you attended such an event it would be perhaps a little embarrassing for a man in your position, or perhaps, I should say, in your future position?”

Now Don Luiz came and sat down opposite him.

“I had heard something to this effect,” he said. “A regrettable piece of legislation, I think, sir, to deny the common countryman his entertainments. Now, might I ask how you heard I was there?”

“I saw you myself,” Giles said.

“You did. Ha! How interesting.”

“You may be assured of my discretion, as I said.”

“Because you wish for mine, perhaps?” said Don Luiz with a laugh. “I see you are a sportsman, Major Vernon. It is a shame I did not know you then – it would have been interesting to hear your opinions, and perhaps lay a wager or two with you.”

“Those Irish dogs were impressive,” said Giles.

“Yes! How I would like to take such a pair of hounds back with me to Santa Magdalena, and a couple of bitches too. But alas, I will have no leisure.”

“That, as I said, I had heard also.”

“You are a well-informed man, Major Vernon,” Don Luiz said, laying his palms down on his massive thighs and looking at him carefully. “This murdered man?”

“Yes, I saw you in his company. Fellow named John Edgar. You were drinking together – with two young women as well, I could not help observing.”

“Edgar? I am not sure I remember.“

“You remember the girls, surely,” Giles said. “I do. A dark-haired girl in pink dress and the other, small and pretty, with nice white teeth. She would have been my choice,” he added.

Don Luiz exhaled.

“If I did speak to him, how does it help you?”

“Edgar was a criminal,” said Giles, “and I was hoping he might have made a proposition to you, offered you something for sale? Any information you can give me will be of great assistance, sir.”

“I do vaguely remember the man,” he said. “But that is all. I am sorry sir, sorry not to be able to help.”

-0-

Felix followed Bryce into his little office, where without saying another word, Bryce handed over the letter.

“I’d better go and see if the Major is all right,” said Felix, tucking the letter into his coat. The Major’s display of bravado had been impressive but alarming.

“I will make him some tea,” said Bryce.

Don Luiz was just leaving the dressing room as Felix went in. He gave a civil bow and said, “Perhaps you gentlemen would honour us by joining us for luncheon? I know that my sister-in-law would like to repay your kindness to my late cousin.”

“Yes, we would be honoured,” said Major Vernon.

Major Vernon was sitting down, dressed in only his shirt. His colour was high and his skin looked glazed with sweat. His gaze, in addition, was a little glassy. Felix sat down beside him, and took his pulse and checked his temperature. Both, he was relieved to find, were settling to normality.

“I needn’t have wasted my breath,” Major Vernon said. “He admitted to nothing.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Felix. “Hasn’t he just invited us into the lion’s den?”

“True,” said Major Vernon. “We can have another tilt at the lists.”

“I have the letter,” Felix added.

“Excellent. I only wish I had a clean shirt.”

Chapter Forty-one

When they arrived at the Queen’s Hotel, they were met in the hall by none other than Dona Blanca.

“I must speak to you both alone,” she said. “Come, we do not have much time.”

With which she hurried them outside into the gardens again, and led them briskly down a path to one of those secluded bowers in which they had talked the other day.

“This will have to do. When Don Luiz said he had seen you both this morning, and invited you to lunch, I was alarmed. I think Lord Rothborough’s visit the other day was most dangerous. He may have guessed that there is an important connection between us,” she said glancing at Felix. “If that is known, it will cause me great difficulty.”

“You do not trust him to be discreet about it?” Major Vernon said.

She shook her head.

“I have not trusted him for some time. Even before my husband’s death, I was wary of him, although Juan trusted him. In fact, Juan trusted him too much.”

“And yet you decided to travel with him?” Felix said.

“I was not yet certain. I am still not. I could not afford to break from him until I was. That dispatch case which I gave you may have the evidence I need. I hope you still have it safe?”

“I have it here,” said Felix tapping his coat.

“I wish you did not!” she said.

“I should tell you, ma’am,” said Major Vernon, “that we have both read those documents.”

“I see,” she said. “So you know what my suspicions are.”

“About the death of your husband?” Major Vernon said. “I understand a little, but it is hard for me to form a clear picture.”

“It is a complex business,” she said. “I have never believed that the man who murdered him was anything but a hired assassin. I spoke to him on the night before his execution. He was a devil, but he was in the pay of another devil.”

“And you think that devil might be Don Luiz?” said Major Vernon.

“Perhaps. So what do you think of them,” she said. “As evidence, I mean?”

“It’s a little hard to judge,” Major Vernon said. “They paint a clear picture of a conspiracy, and Don Luiz is certainly implicated in it. But a great deal is hearsay – and without first hand accounts from witnesses, it is difficult to pin anything on him.”

She nodded and sighed.

“This has been the problem all along. He is cunning. And poor Xavier risked so much to get those to me. I ought to have never confided my fears to him. He should have stayed with his order, and he might still be alive, instead of dying alone, so wretchedly far from his home.”

“Mr Carswell was with him,” Giles pointed out.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “And that strikes me as the strangest thing of all. I had not expected my prayers to be answered in such a fashion, and I am still wondering what the lesson in that is for me.”

“There is another letter,” Felix said, reaching into his coat. “Don Xavier hid it behind a picture at Mr Bryce’s fencing rooms. Perhaps this is the one you need to settle the matter for once and for all.”

He took out the document and handed it to her. Her hand touched his as they did, and he wondered at her strength and calmness in the face of such impossible intrigues.

“Perhaps,” she said. “Excuse me, while I look at this.”

She went sat down on a rustic bench and began to read the letter.

“You will need some time, I shall go and stall Don Luiz,” Giles said. “You stay here, Carswell.”

Felix went and sat at the far end of the bench as she continued to read. She glanced at him for a moment and then went on with her reading. He stared ahead of him, wondering what might happen if Major Vernon failed to keep Don Luiz at bay.

At length she folded the letter and held it out to him.

“It is best you keep it with the others,” she said.

“What did it say? Is it of use?”

“It may be,” she said.

“So what will you do? Surely you should detach yourself from him, for your own sake, now? Lord Rothborough has heard Don Luiz is peddling a fake gold mine to get support for his coup. You can’t associate with him any longer, surely, if that’s true?”

“That mine is not fake,” she said, with a sigh. “That is one of my difficulties. My husband commissioned the survey from Herr Valk. It is an impeccable piece of work. We made sure that it was, and dear Lord, we were so happy when we saw it first, to know how much it would help the country! But it was our downfall. I think that was the reason Juan had to die. Luiz could not resist such a prize.” She pressed her face to her hands for a moment. “I wish I could walk away, but I can’t.”

“You can,” said Felix. “You must.”

She uncovered her face and reached for his hand, and squeezed it for a moment before letting it go. “Oh, how sweet it would be to stay here forever, to turn my back on it all, but it is quite impossible.” She gazed at him, long and hard. “I never dared dream that you would have grown so handsome. But you were such a beautiful child – but now – and even with this!” Her finger traced the scar on his cheek. “However did you come by that?”

“It’s a long story and not a pleasant one,” he said, as lightly as he could.

“Oh dear. I hope you do not have too many of those,” she said. “I hope life is kind to you.” He gave slight shrug, and looked away from her searching eyes.

“I have all I need,” he managed to say.

“That’s a troubling answer,” she said.

“Please don’t be troubled on my account,” he said.

“I can hardly prevent it,” she said. “Can I? I have never stopped loving you, Felix, not for a moment. Every day I have thought of you, and wondered, and longed and now, here you are, looking stoop-shouldered and wretched!”

He flushed a little at the warmth of this and found himself speculating what sort of life it would have been for him, for them both, had she not given him over to Lord Rothborough. To have grown up her son, in that shifting, ambiguous world, where plenty reigned at one moment and poverty another? Martinez would never have married her with a little bastard in tow, that was certain. His presence would have ruined all her chances of respectability, and his own life would have been equally blighted. That they should now be strangers was the great price she had had to pay to save themselves.

He straightened himself a little and said, “It’s nothing, really, please don’t worry about me. You have already done so much for me. More than anyone should have to do, in fact.”

She smiled briefly at that and got to her feet.

“We should go in,” she said. “They’ll be wondering where I am.”

“There is something else you should know,” Felix said. “It might help you. That bracelet that Dona Clara is wearing – the one with the rubies on it?” She nodded. “It was stolen from Holbroke and we think Don Luiz bought it from a fence, knowing it was stolen. Major Vernon could arrest Don Luiz for buying stolen goods and make the charge stick, I’m sure of it.”

“Oh, is that where it came from?” she said.

“Yes. Will that not help you?”

“It might,” she said.

“It would raise a great many questions about his general conduct. It will make a certain amount of noise, and with luck, lose him what support he has garnered. But he needs to be made to admit it.”

“That is the great difficulty,” she said. “He never admits to anything.”

“But something might be contrived,” said Felix. “In fact, I have an idea of what might be done to catch him out.”

“You must not do anything foolish,” she said. “Please.”

“It won’t be foolish,” he said. “And I must do something. Your life might be in danger.”

She seemed to reflect on what he had said for a long moment. Then she laid her hands on his shoulders briefly, and said, “If I am not allowed to trouble myself about you, then you must do the same for me.”

He did not know how to answer this and she gave him no chance. “Come,” she said, and they began to walk back towards the the hotel.

A moment later, Major Vernon appeared, coming down the path to find them.

“I’ve excused ourselves from lunch,” he said. “You are right, ma’am, he is interested in Mr Carswell and asking a great many questions. I have deflected him for now, I think, but I judged it better that he does not lay eyes on him just now.”

“That is for the best,” said Dona Blanca. “I will go straight up. Good day, gentlemen, and thank you,” with which she hurried away.

“What was in the letter?” Major Vernon asked.

“Nothing startling, it seems. But that gold mine is real.”

“It is?”

“She thinks that is why her husband was murdered. For the gold.”

“That makes perfect sense.”

“Don Luiz may murder her yet,” Felix said. “If he knows what she knows she does not stand a chance. We must do something. I’ve had an idea. About the bracelet.”

“Yes?”

“Obviously he will not admit to it being fenced. He is too wily for that. But the fact is he has done it once and might be persuaded to do it again. What if we suggest to him that there is another to match it and at a better price? Could we tempt him into a compromising situation?”

“That’s a good thought. Dona Clara was there just now, and she was still wearing it. She is clearly infatuated with it. Perhaps she is the one we should be tempting? If she were to hear that there is another? I wonder how we could contrive this. There must be a way, I am sure of it. But first, let’s go and get something to eat. I need to sit down.”

They went into the coffee room of the hotel and settled themselves in a quiet corner.

Felix was glad of the chance to gather his own thoughts. His conversation with Dona Blanca had unsettled him. He could not understand how he was supposed to feel towards her, or how he could feel anything but confusion. She was familiar and yet so strange to him.

They had just finished their lunch and Felix was wondering if the Major would allow him to light a cheroot, when a man came running into the coffee room and asked, in a very agitated manner,

“Is there a doctor here? There has –” He broke of, seeing Felix rise from his seat.

“I am,” he said. “What is the trouble?”

“Thank God!” said the man.“Will you come at once, sir? There has been a terrible accident.”

Chapter Forty-two

Giles went with Carswell, presenting his own credentials to the man, who turned out to be the hotel manager.

“This way,” he said, leading them out onto the south side of the hotel and the broad terrace opening from it. At the far end were two men crouched by a prone body. They had both removed their hats.

Carswell ran the last distance towards them and threw himself on his knees and began to check for any signs of life.

“I believe the gentleman is...” began the manager as they drew nearer.

“Don Luiz Ramirez,” said Giles. His form was unmistakable, large and muscled, but now lying prone like a giant felled in a nursery tale.