Complete Short Stories (40 page)

I laughed. ‘Ka, man, it is all the same to Damián and me,’ I said, ‘so long as we are paid according to our contract.’

Mr Estrutt slapped my back and cried: ‘I like your spirit, Toni, if I may call you that? And you must call me Charley, as everyone else does who is anyone at all! Now, another thing. When you asked for those extra ten pesetas a day, I informed Mr Jonés that, being staunch Catholics,
you were dead against the marriage of divorced persons, and must therefore obtain at least thirty pesetas in all before testifying in a matter that so little interested you. Now I have said enough; but I wager that we will enjoy a wonderful time in London. By the bye, you must not let my lovesick old baggage of a Viscountess know that I have given you the true story; and it would be well,
surely, not to let the good Sentiá into our secret, either. It might unsettle his ideas about me.’

Then we refilled our glasses and toasted the Viscountess, the late Viscount, the short-haired girl, the fox-hunting officer, Mr P.P. Jonés and the Judge, together with many other persons more remotely connected with the affair, in a multitude of
coñacs
. Mr Estrutt did not restore his loss of sleep
during that particular night.

Despite our excesses we reached port safely, and later ate a grand meal at the Hotel
Palacio
of Barcelona, with lobster mayonnaise, French wines, and everything of the best. Sentiá Dog-beadle, feeling much embarrassed by the elegant ambience, opened his mouth only a little when he introduced food and kept his enormous red hands under the table while not using them.
But Damián gloried in this brief return to the high life he had enjoyed at the Presidential Palace of Buenos Aires, and recounted more about his past than I should ever have believed, though we had known each other twenty years or longer.

After a night spent on a train with very narrow beds, we came to Paris and were taken in a taxi to the Gare du Nord. At once Mr Estrutt said: ‘Boys, will you
do me a great favour? I am off into the city. Please wait for me in the restaurant yonder, order what food and drink may be convenient, but be careful to enter into conversation with no one at all! My orders from the Viscountess are never to leave you out of my sight. I shall be back in time to catch our train.’

Damián asked: ‘What is this great favour worth to us, Don Charley?’

He answered:
‘If you protect me, Damián, I shall protect you. Is that not sufficient?’

Since Mr Estrutt had all the money and our tickets, his answer could not fail to satisfy Damián. Yet it was embarrassing that two Palma businessmen whom I knew by sight should enter the Station Restaurant and greet me. I gazed blankly at them and pretended to be German. I even turned to Damián, saying: ‘
Heute ist Sonntag
!’ which was all the German I knew. Damián, who is quick-witted enough, shook his head and answered:
‘Donnerwetter
!’ which was all the German
he
knew. The two Palma men sat down at a table in the far corner, and from there stared at us. We three dared not talk to one another in our own language until they had gone out again. The food, by the way, was not good.

This was two o’clock. Our train to
Calais would depart at six o’clock; but four o’clock had passed, and five, and half past five, and a quarter to six, and still there we sat. At ten minutes to six, Damián said: ‘I like this very little. What can have happened to Mr Estrutt?’

‘Patience!’ said I. ‘He’s a good fellow and will keep his word.’

But Sentiá grew more and more nervous. He cried out that we should never have come: we
have been decoyed to Paris for some business of the Devil, he said – to be sold in slavery to the Moors, it might be. Had he not been plagued by a black foreboding on the day of the contract?

We made no reply. At last Damián stood up: ‘Well,’ he said, ‘let us put on our overcoats and have everything ready. Mr Estrutt will, I have no doubt, appear mathematically at the last moment.’

Even as he
spoke, Mr Estrutt burst into the restaurant, paid our small bill with a single large banknote, and rushed us off to the platform. We caught the Calais train with thirty seconds to spare.

‘My God, that was close!’ exclaimed Mr Estrutt, sinking into his seat. ‘Nevertheless, I found what I went out to find!’

Damián asked: ‘Was it a nice tender chicken?’

Mr Estrutt took the joke in good part. ‘Alas,
no,’ he answered, ‘this was serious business, not gastronomic pleasure. You shall hear about it one day. But I thank you very much for your great patience, boys! Now, what about a game of cards?’ So we played
truc
until we reached Calais.

Contrary to all we had heard, the English Channel was as smooth as glass, and on the other side we found an altogether different country again, green and beautiful!
Though it was already autumn, the sun shone without pause all the time we spent there. I cannot imagine why Spaniards call the English climate a bad one. At Dover, a huge Rolls-Royce limousine took us by road to London, in which we drove for hours, it seemed, through a wilderness of streets, and across the river
Támesis.
Finally we came to Piccadilly Circus with its fantastic coloured signs, and
its hurrying crowds. Close by stood the Regent
Palacio
Hotel, where a
private suite awaited us on the first floor, complete with two bathrooms, a dining-room, and every comfort in the world, including waiters to wait on us and a barber to shave us every day after breakfast!

Mr Estrutt was a humorous man. On the next morning he took Damián and me aside, and said: ‘When the old hen enters to greet
you, do not omit to condole with her on the fate of her poor daughter. The more profuse your condolences, the more it will disturb her conscience because of the kidnapping fiction; and the less carefully will she examine our expense account. Flatter her, too! I should have explained that we occupy this private suite owing to her fear of your making contact with the general public. I myself suggested
that, were the short-haired girl’s lawyer to hear of your presence here, he would surely try to impress the true story upon you; with the result that you might not wish to testify. It is a situation very useful for us. We shall play on these fears of hers, and enjoy a marvellous life together; and I shall never (in theory) let you stray from my sight.’

Scarcely had he spoken, when the Viscountess
herself came through the door, wearing a fur-coat of black sable-skins, a black hat, and black gloves. She also kept a black-edged handkerchief pressed to her black eyes. After welcoming us in fluent Spanish, broken by many sobs, she thanked us from the bottom of a mother’s heart for our readiness to rescue her daughter from that criminal Bulgarian heretic – whom the police, thanks be to the
Virgin of Guadelupe! now held in safe custody. Sentiá wept too, and Damián assured her that he also had suffered a like tragic sorrow – his own daughter having once been decoyed away from home by an English Lord, ruined and cast aside like an old glove. Damián, as you know, is childless; and can lie without a tremor of his wicked face, which resembles carved mahogany. This tale impressed even Mr Estrutt,
who patted Damián on the back and said in admiration: ‘I wonder, Señor Frau, that your heart ever permitted you to forgive the English aristocracy. It must be ruled by a very pious spirit.’

A comedy, in short! For myself, I told the Viscountess that only so great a distress as hers could have persuaded me to abandon my island, my wife and my children, and venture to this unknown, this most terrifying
city. The Viscountess, still occupied with her handkerchief, replied that only a Spaniard could have spoken so nobly. She was no less devout a Catholic than I, she declared, and God and the Virgin would bring the righteous cause to triumph.

I spoke what came into my mind. ‘The Bulgarian heretic looked a veritable ruffian,’ I said. ‘Let us hope that they hang him high! Imagine any well-nurtured
girl trusting herself to the beast! Yet that your poor daughter did so, must surely be a sign of her formidable innocence… But what surprises me in this painful affair is how you, Señora Viscountess, can be her mother – you do not look half old enough!’

‘I married very young,’ she explained, drying her eyes again.

When she went away, we opened the windows in order to drive out the strong perfume
of violets and sandalwood which she had left behind.

The trial was postponed for a fortnight, because of some legal complication; we should now be absent for another three weeks at least, but none of us cared a tassel. On Mr Estrutt’s advice, however, we told Mr Jonés that our business would surely go to ruin in our absence, and that we should need fifty pesetas a day, and one thousand at the
close. The Viscountess was delighted to meet our demands, and we were delighted to sign a new contract. Never in my life had I earned so much money for nothing at all!

Mr Estrutt, I should tell you, had that same enormous Rolls-Royce limousine at his disposal whenever we wished to take an outing. He showed us the principal sights of London: the Tower and the Tower Bridge, and the Historical Waxworks,
and the Museum of Animals and Birds, and the Docks, and the wonderful Botanical Gardens where one enters a tropical palm-house and nearly dies of the heat! Also the Law Courts, where we would soon give evidence, and many other places; with
cines
or music-halls nearly every evening.

Mr Estrutt also took us to visit his wives, first explaining to Sentiá that polygamy was customary among the Metropolitan
Police force. Two of these wives lived in different parts of London – each occupying a small red brick house with a flower garden. We Majorcans sat in the sunny garden drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, while Mr Estrutt went upstairs to talk family affairs with his wife. Each wife also had a little boy, with whom we played, throwing a ball about on the lawn. We next met a third wife,
who had a big house near Brighton. She seemed very rich, though not nearly so beautiful as the other two. The rich one gave us whisky and cigars, while we Majorcans sat on the lawn and played with a poodle-dog. Mr Estrutt afterwards showed us a new gold cigarette-lighter, his birthday present from this lady. The fourth wife, however, who lived many kilometres to the north of London, was old, ugly
and ill-tempered. To judge from her curt greeting to Mr Estrutt, she must have been the head-wife. Or so Damián said, who had seen similar behaviour in Moorish families while doing his military service at Melilla; the head-wife was invariably jealous and spiteful.

One day Mr Estrutt took me aside and said: ‘Toni, my friend, I think we need a little change. I have no complaint to make against
the
Palacio,
but even the best hotel grows wearisome after three weeks. Nor should I wish my old clothes-rack of a Viscountess to think that I have forgotten the serious task that she has imposed on me. Be prepared, therefore, to move at midnight; but, as usual, not a word to Sentiá!’

That night, Sentiá retired at about eleven o’clock and was soon snoring. Then Mr Estrutt telephoned the Viscountess,
speaking in tones of great seriousness. Damián and I heard her frightened voice ring high through
the apparatus. Mr Estrutt answered: ‘Yes, yes, yes, my lady!’ several times. He told her, I believe, that though a Spanish-speaking waiter had been bribed by the short-haired girl’s lawyer to provide us with the true story, his own prompt appearance fortunately interrupted the conversation as soon
as it started. The Viscountess urgently begged Mr Estrutt to remove us to another hotel at once.

We packed our bags and woke Sentiá. Damián said: ‘Lad, we are in great danger! The Bulgarian heretic has discovered us. Pack for your life!’

The Rolls-Royce limousine was waiting at the hotel door when we emerged. The Viscountess sat inside, very nervous, and wearing a purple scarf pulled over her
face so that she might not be recognized. Mr Estrutt agreed that no time should be lost, and the chauffeur drove off without delay. We purred away at great velocity, but the Viscountess felt certain that we were being pursued. She ordered the chauffeur to dodge down side-streets at random, twisting and turning until we had shaken off the pursuit. The chauffeur obeyed but, however wild his course,
she continued to peer through the rear-window and cry: ‘There it is! The same car again!’ Sentiá sweating with terror, kept crossing himself and asking: ‘Do you think they will kill us?’

After an hour of this foolishness we reached open country. The chauffeur backed the Rolls-Royce down a lane, and turned off its lights. We sat in the darkness for another hour, while a stream of cars raced by.
When at last the Viscountess was confident that she had cheated our pursuers, we turned back by devious ways, and at two o’clock in the morning found a new private suite awaiting us in the Estrand
Palacio
Hotel (hardly a kilometre distant from the Regent
Palacio)
where, for secrecy, we were admitted by the service door. Strange, was it not, that each of the hotels we visited on our journey was
named the
Palacio?
But poor Sentiá had died a hundred deaths that night!

We wrote home once every week to say we were well, that business prospered, and that we trusted all would end normally; adding those graceful concluding phrases which one learns at school. Our families replied in the same manner, though more religiously. Nothing of importance had happened to the village during our absence,
except that a great thunderstorm had torn many branches from my olive grove, and caused the walls of three terraces to collapse.

One day Mr Estrutt asked me: ‘My friend, do you still enjoy this life?’

I answered: ‘Enormously! Only think! under this new contract I shall soon have gained enough money for the purchase of a fine American car; giving my old Studebaker in partial payment. A just reward
for all my hard labours! But, Don Charley, in one thing you have deceived us!’

‘How deceived you?’ he asked with surprise.

‘Well,’ I answered, ‘you have fed us nobly, you have given us good beds, good drinks, and admirable Havana cigars, you have taken us often
to the
cine
and the music-halls and once, even, to the Opera, besides showing us the famous sights of London… But you have not ministered
to other pressing needs of ours! That is, as we say in Majorca, like asking children to view the confectioner’s shop, but buying them no caramels. Though we are all good Catholics, none of us happens to be a monk.’