Ibiza Surprise (17 page)

The cat stalked in, giving a view of a small, heavily-furnished room with a fire smouldering behind a wrought-iron guard. It was quite empty.

Johnson smiled, and heaving the door slightly ajar, came back to me. ‘Come on,’ he said, and made for the other door, the workroom door right beside us.

Seen in the light of the torch, the workshop looked like any room used by craftsmen. The broken floor tiles were littered with curls of metal and shavings, and the heavy benches were piled with raw materials and work in various stages of process, together with all the appliances – the vices, the lathes, the soldering and welding equipment – needed for the trade of repair and reproduction of jewellery.

‘Three men, perhaps,’ said Johnson. ‘Under Jorge, the old fellow you saw.’

If you looked closely, you could see the empty packets of cigarettes, the greasy sandwich paper which hadn’t fallen into the square box of rubbish; the stained jackets hanging on rough hooks by the wall. On the opposite wall was a safe. It was the only receptacle with a lock in the room.

I remember Johnson stood before it for a long time, just looking, until I got impatient and said: ‘Gregorio will be coming back. What is it?’

‘It hasn’t got an alarm,’ Johnson said.

‘Poor thing,’ I said.

‘What does it matter? We couldn’t open it.’

Johnson walked forward briskly.

‘With the aid,’ he said, ‘of a stick of well-cooked spaghetti, any child over the age of six months could open that safe. Observe.’ And indeed, he had hardly touched it when it did actually swing open. Inside was a packet of gold leaf and some worn bank notes, packed beside a tray of rather dishy, reproduction antique rings. The total value of the whole thing was probably about twenty quid.

‘So?’ I said.

“So there’s a safe somewhere else,’ Johnson said. ‘Not upstairs. If they’re doing anything shady, they don’t want to be carrying stuff about through the hall. I know.’

I followed him along that hellish corridor again, bleating. He paid no attention but, reaching the door at the end, listened for a moment again, then gave it a push and went in.

The cat, which had settled comfortably this time in front of the fire, looked up, recognised him, and bristled with superior hate. Johnson went on in, and I followed.

It was a room devoted to the total dominion of cloth. You could tell a Spaniard, or so Daddy said, because he liked his cutlet frills done up with tassels. All the furniture was square, heavy and dark; the religious paintings were hellish; and the lampshade had bobbles and went up and down.

‘It would fetch a fortune in Lord and Taylor’s,’ said Johnson. ‘Where do you suppose he keeps his money?’

‘There,’ I said, lifting the Prodigal Son.

‘It seems a bit obvious,’ said Johnson.

‘It’s a safe,’ I said. ‘In the wall. Under the picture. Not everyone has seen as many old movies on telly as you have.’

He said, with slightly more interest: ‘This one has an alarm,’ and started in to disconnect it. I made no comment. The time one might expect Senor Gregorio to remain at his devotions was running out fast. I wanted out.

The safe door creaked open, and Johnson’s black head disappeared inside. After a moment, he withdrew it.

‘About two hundred pounds in pesetas and nine thousand used dollar bills, a bundle of personal papers, some rather good silver plate, some old-fashioned family jewellery, and two tins of cat food,’ Johnson said.

‘Let’s put the cat in beside it,’ I said. I hated that cat. ‘No rubies?’

‘No,’ said Johnson absently. He was still staring at the safe.

‘Come on, then,’ I said. The cat moved, stretched, and arching its back, leaped from the hearth rug to a dusty, plush armchair and lay down again, watching us. Coinciding with the soft pad of its landing, I thought I could hear, somewhere in the house, a double click which could have been a key in a lock. I pulled Johnson’s arm.

He shut the safe door with a blessed alacrity. ‘Back to the workroom,’ he said. The cat bristled.

I said: ‘Someone’s coming!’

‘Well, if it’s Gregorio, he’ll come in here, won’t he?’ said Johnson reasonably. ‘Back to the workshop. I’ve got an idea.’

I could feel all the little octopuses lying dead at the bottom of my paella. I said: ‘Why can’t we get out?’

‘Because there are two people on the floor above,’ said Johnson. He had, I admit, a logical brain. He also had nothing wrong with his hearing. As we hared along the dark corridor in the direction of the other room at the end, I could make out the quiet footsteps too, coming along the hall above from the direction of the front door. They walked up to the head of the stairs and went, so far as I could judge, to the study.

‘Hell,’ said Johnson, placidly.

‘Why?’ We were in the workroom again, with the door shut.

‘They’ll feel the draught from the window.’ He was moving, very fast, back to the safe, and in two seconds, he had it open again. He said: ‘Stand behind the door, Sarah, will you? If they come in, try and slip upstairs and out through the front door.’

All the time he was speaking, the beam of his little torch was probing inside the safe. I saw the small circle of light dim as he put his hand in and heard him say something, quietly under his breath as I felt my way, in the dark, to the door.

I had hardly got there when it opened, slamming into my arm.

Light from the main switch sprang, dazzling, into the room. I had a picture of Johnson turning, his arm dropping from the still-open safe, the other hand in his pocket. There was a terrific report, like a lorry backfiring, and a sort of popping sound immediately after. Johnson crashed to the ground, and behind my door, someone yelped sharply. There strode into the room a tall, heavily built man followed by another clutching his rib cage and groaning. The wounded man was Austin Mandleberg. The other was Anthony Lloyd, Janey’s father, and he had a smoking gun in his hand.

Letting go the door, I ran round it to Austin, and held him up. He looked fearfully surprised, in a dazed kind of way, and then let me ease him down on to a stool. I can’t bear to see people hurt. It’s the retriever instinct, Daddy used to say. Then I remembered I wasn’t supposed to, and looked round at Mr Lloyd and at Johnson.

Johnson wasn’t hurt, he had just taken cover in time. There was a hole in his jacket pocket, and a gun with a long thing on its muzzle was still in his hand.

Mr Lloyd said: ‘Good God.’ Then he said: ‘Put your gun down.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Johnson. He put down his gun. ‘Have I hurt you, Mr Mandleberg? But really, you shouldn’t let your friends fire on people unseen. Mr Lloyd might have killed me.’

Austin Mandleberg’s voice had got very high.

‘He was doing me a favour,’ he said. ‘Anyone is perfectly justified in defending his home against thieves.’

‘I’ve lost my pipe,’ said Johnson, hunting. ‘Oh, there it is.’ He picked it up and, fishing out tobacco, started to load it.

Moving very quietly for a man of such bulk, Mr Lloyd walked forward and confronted Johnson. His revolver made a small movement.

‘We’ll have your attention, please,’ said Janey’s father. ‘What are you doing here? And Sarah?’

Johnson sighed.

‘Playing at detectives,’ he said. ‘An obvious error. But we were not, I promise you, attempting to steal anything. Rather, to save Mr Mandleberg some trouble.’

‘Detectives?’ said Austin. He sat up, jerking the rolled-up handkerchief out of my hand. Blood was spreading over the side of his cream jersey suit. It would never dry-clean.

‘There was gold leaf and money in that safe. How did you get it open? I don’t know what pretext you’ve thought up to take Sarah with you, but you are a thief, sir. The fact that you carry a gun is quite proof enough.’

The bifocals looked surprised. ‘Mr Lloyd carries a gun.’

Anthony Lloyd said: ‘I’m a businessman living in a foreign country. I don’t pretend to be a painter on holiday. Are you a painter? Or is your name perhaps not Johnson at all?’

Johnson looked down at his pipe. A torn sheet of tracing paper lay on the workbench beside him. Leaning over, he knocked the pipe bowl into it, hard, and then laying it aside, ground his thumb into the brown charcoal mess and straightening, considered Mr Lloyd for a moment, his head on one side, his glasses repeating: two large men, two steady revolvers. Then he ran his thumb softly over the tracing paper in a half circle, another; a line, a line, a dot, a squiggle, a mass of soft ruffled shadow.

Anthony Lloyd’s shadowy face lay on the workbench before us.

‘They call me Rembrandt Bloggs in the underworld,’ Johnson said.

‘Why, then?’ said Austin. His rib had started bleeding again.

Johnson told them. Not the detail, but the substance: how I had caught sight of some jewellery I had later realised was identical with the Saint Hubert rubies; how it occurred to us something odd was going on in Mr Mandleberg’s absence; how, after a visit to the wine garden (Johnson’s voice was apologetic), we thought we would see if we were mistaken or not.

‘You didn’t think to get in touch with Mr Mandleberg, who could have investigated the thing properly? It was, after all, his business, not yours?’ Mr Lloyd said. ‘Or was this a drunken fantasy, with no substance at all? I am quite prepared to believe that Sarah saw something, but that she could have seen that particular collar is highly unlikely. I don’t suppose the thought would even have occurred to her if you hadn’t put it into her head.’

I opened my mouth, and the glasses flashed in my direction.

‘I fear I did lead She-she astray,’ said Johnson contritely. ‘But we were passing the house, and I wanted to show off my safe-cracking technique. It’s very handy, you know. I once painted a stockbroker who’d come up via Wormwood Scrubs, and he paid me in kind. You do it.’

And Johnson swung the door shut and took out his hairpin. After a moment’s hesitation, Mr Lloyd laid down his gun and craned forward.

They opened and shut the door twice, Johnson’s voice instructing Mr Lloyd, while I got Austin a glass of water and found the first- aid box for him. It was full of Beecham’s pills. The bullet had gone, he said, right through his side, and he was looking quite frightful. He wouldn’t let me send for a doctor.

It was all very well, not wanting trouble, but I felt that Johnson had rather asked for any trouble he’d got. Austin didn’t even listen to what I was saying. When there was a break in the burglary class, he called: ‘Mr Lloyd!’

Johnson came over, even quicker than Janey’s father.

‘Our wounded! I do apologise. There you sit suffering, while we amuse ourselves with safe-blowing. I’m afraid I returned Mr Lloyd’s shot quite instinctively. I had no intention in the world of inconveniencing you.’

I was furious.

I said: ‘He’s got a hole right through his ribs, and he’s bleeding.’

‘A doctor,’ said Johnson. ‘Mr Lloyd, where can we get a doctor?’

‘I’ll ring one,’ said Lloyd. He looked at Johnson. ‘If I do, you know it’ll mean trouble.’

Austin said, weakly: ‘I want Mr Lloyd to do something first.’

I never knew anyone so hopeless as men for sheer waffling. I let him go, wet pad and all, and went off to find a telephone. I don’t know how Johnson got to the door ahead of me but he did, and tucked my hand in a friendly way under his arm. I tugged.

Austin went on speaking.

‘If what Sarah here says is correct, then there’s something far wrong. I’d like to know first what it is. Mr Lloyd, would you look in that safe?’

‘There’s nothing there,’ said Johnson, helpfully. My muscles cracked under his arm.

‘There’s nothing there,’ said Mr Lloyd, a moment later. ‘No rubies, that is.’

‘Right,’ said Austin. ‘Then if I may trouble you, sir, there is another safe in Senor Gregorio’s room.’

He described where it was and repeated the number. I looked at Johnson, but Johnson was sucking his empty pipe, his glasses raised to the ceiling. A moment later, Lloyd called from the other room.

‘Nothing here, either.’

He reappeared in the doorway just as Johnson said: ‘Are these all the safes you have, Mr Mandleberg?’

‘Yes,’ said Austin. He swayed. ‘Could I have . . .?’ Mr Lloyd jumped forward, but Johnson had already taken a hip flask from one of his pockets and was holding it out.

‘Try that,’ he said. ‘I have news for you. You have one more safe than you thought.’

It seemed to be brandy, which has not much, medically, to recommend it, but Austin didn’t complain. He handed the flask back, his eyes bleary, and said, draggily: ‘What?’

‘Didn’t you notice?’ said Johnson. ‘It’s very cleverly hidden: you should come here and look. There’s a safe inside the safe.’

He let go my hand, and I helped Austin to his feet. Mr Lloyd was already there, swinging open the old safe door as far as it would go, while Johnson shone his small torch inside. There was nothing to see, except for the money and the leaf gold at first. Then Johnson put in his muscular fingers and pressed something hard. The grain of the wood moved, like a ship being launched, from one side to the other, revealing a small recessed dial. Austin’s eyes were like blue plastic marbles. Mr Lloyd’s voice had lost a lot of its measurable warmth.

‘I should like to see you open that,’ said Janey’s father.

‘You open it,’ said Johnson, cheerfully. ‘If you look, I’m sure you’ll find the combination in Senor Gregorio’s safe.’

He did, too, and opened it. We all craned round while he felt about and brought out the only thing that was lying inside. I don’t think any of us were surprised by then to see a replica of the Saint Hubert rubies.

‘Gregorio,’ said Austin, and fell back against the edge of the workbench. “Or Jorge.’

Mr Lloyd stood, looking at the elaborate collar. He said, still studying it: ‘It isn’t an offence to copy fine jewellery.’

‘No,’ said Johnson. ‘But it is a little disturbing when the copy is so painstakingly hidden. Gregorio couldn’t make this himself?’

‘No! No,’ said Austin. ‘Jorge, my goldsmith – he must have made it under Gregorio’s instructions. The three others are juniors and recently added to the staff. I would not expect them to know anything. May I see?’