Man of Destiny (4 page)

Inside the hotel vestibule she found Senhor de Capuchos pacing up and down and waiting for her in a kind of contained fury. Hardly had she entered the vestibule than he pounced on her, gripping her bare, smooth arm and vaguely recognising that she was wearing a striped sun-suit instead of the tailored shantung in which she had departed from the Aviz that morning, and carried an enormous shady hat in her hand and a pair of dark glasses—like any ordinary tourist with nothing at all on her mind, and no guilty secret to conceal.

“Where is
he?”
he demanded, his voice like the drip of ice, although his dark eyes were actually flaming with fury, and she felt as if they seared her as they bored into hers. “Where is Ricardo, and why is he not with you
?
What have you done with him
?
Where is he
?”

Caroline stood absolutely still while his hard, strong fingers carelessly bruised her arm, and a group of people near the reception desk turned and stared at
them. Another group of people entering the hotel also stared.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Caroline’s voice was also clear and cold, although inside her a wave of uneasiness was spreading like an agitated torrent. “I haven’t seen Richard since last night. When I left this morning I imagined he was still in bed in his room.”

“He was. But he wasn’t in his room at ten o’clock, and since then no one has seen him. It’s no use you saying you know nothing about it, because you must have planned this. You took him sightseeing with you, yes?”

The ‘yes
?
’ was like a pistol shot.

“Don’t be absurd,
senhor
.” Although she was badly startled her tone was quite unruffled. “As if I would arrange to take Richard sightseeing when it was by your wish that I said goodbye to him last night! If he’s missing I know nothing about
it...
”
And then a rush of concern invaded her voice. “But if he is missing
where is he
?
We must find him at once! Oh,
senhor,
we
must
find him!”

Suddenly realising he was still grasping her arm, he released it. He stood back and looked at her without any apology in his expression, however.

“Don’t worry,
senhorita,
we will find him. As you say, we must!” His tone was grim.

Caroline felt suddenly appalled. She faced
him
stiffly.

“If he has run away it’s your fault,” she said.

CHAPTER FIVE

NO sooner had she uttered the words than she felt faintly dismayed.

“I’m sorry,
senhor
,”
she said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It doesn’t matter.” He half turned away from her. “What does matter is that we should cease accusing one another and start looking for the boy. I was so certain he was with you that I didn’t inform the police, but I will rectify that omission now. You will go to your room and wait until you hear from me.”

“But can’t I help you look for him?” It was bad enough to know that Richard was missing, but to be expected to sit still and do nothing while others searched for him was too much to expect
of her ...
more than she was prepared to agree to. “He can’t have got very far—he’s so
small...”

“He has been missing since ten o’clock this morning, remember?” His tone was very grim. “In that time he could have travelled quite a distance, even on his small feet. Unless you can supply some reason for him running away there is nothing else you could do that would be really
useful ...
That is why I request that you stay here.”

“I think,” she said slowly, avoiding his eyes, “that if Richard ran away he ran away to look for me.”

“But that is nonsense!” he declared. “The child couldn’t hope to find you.”

“He might have thought he could find me.”

“Where?” His voice was like a pistol shot, his eyes hard and searching. “Where would he begin to look for you? Have you any idea?”

“The docks ... the airport!”

“And how,” with heavy sarcasm, "would he succeed in reaching the docks or the airport?”

“I don’t know. I simply think his intention was to look for me, when, and if, he ran away.”

“
We know that he has run away. There is no suspicion that anyone decoyed him outside the hotel.” He left her standing alone beside the reception desk, and she made her way up to her room, and paced up and down it for a long time while she wondered whether there wasn’t something she,
personally, could do. After all, if Richard had run away because of her it was up to her to do her best to find
him ...
And so certain was she in her own mind that Richard had run away because of her that she began to go over in her mind events of the evening before, when Senhor de Capuchos had visited the sitting-room of their suite and ordered
C
aroline to be ready to leave early the following day. It was possible that Richard had not been asleep when she left him, and during the course of the conversation he had had his ear glued to the crack of the door, or the keyhole, and had heard everything that had transpired
... or
certainly the relevant parts. And being a strange, sensitive, at times curiously obstinate small boy he had made up his mind there and then that Caroline was not going to disappear out of his life without some effort being made on his
part to stop her.

But how he had proposed to stop her she couldn’t
think very clearly. And how he had proposed to
find
her was a problem that not merely refused to yield up an answer, but it raised the terrifying question of how a small boy with no knowledge at all of his present surroundings, who couldn’t even speak the language and had no money in his pocket, was going to
set out
to look for her.

She was beginning to feel she was going slightly mad as a result of her enforced inactivity, and the various explanations that kept darting through her head, when the telephone rang in the room, and a female voice behind the reception desk spoke to her in English.

“Miss Worth?”

“Yes, yes,” she answered. “What is it?”

The reply caused such a wave of relief to flood over her that her voice sounded quite faint when she spoke again.

“On their way up in the lift? Thank you! Yes, of course I’ll let Senhor de Capuchos know. Or perhaps you’d better phone him at the Aviz. And notify the police!”

Then she jammed down the receiver and raced for the door, and as soon as she flung it open she saw Richard standing there, his face so small and puckered and weary that it made her want to cry, his smart black patent-leather shoes white with dust, and his cream silk shirt and matching shorts grey and black in places. She held out her arms to him and he hurled himself into them, and the awkward-looking taxi-driver who stood beside him sighed exaggeratedly with relief.

“Well, at least he knew what he was looking
for ...
And it was the truth he told
me!”
he said in a mixture of English and Portuguese. He removed his cap and held, it awkwardly in his hands. “Your pardon,
senhorita
!” He was staring so hard that she would have felt embarrassed under ordinary circumstances.
“
The little lad said it was an English lady he was looking for, and she was in a hotel in
Lisbon
but he wasn’t sure which hotel.”

Caroline looked down at Richard with misty eyes, and he nodded his head with its disordered black curls.

“I heard Senhor de Capuchos say you were to go to a hotel,” he confessed, “and I had to find the hotel.
It took me a long time, and I hid in a
taxi ...
this man’s taxi,” indicating him with a jerk of his
c
hin
.
I went for a long ride first, and I was beginning to be frightened because I thought I would never find my way back to
Lisbon ...
But Jerez was kind when he found me under the seat. Very kind!”

“The
senhorita
will understand that I had no idea he was hiding in the back of my
cab ...
no idea at all!” Jerez sought to impress this fact on Caroline, and he looked so distressed in case she failed to appreciate how innocent a party he had been, and so overawed by the glimpse of thick carpet and golden satin drapes through the open door of her room, that she was at a loss to know what to do with him,
or how even to thank him for performing such a miraculous function as restoring Richard to her.

She was certain that he ought to receive some sort of a reward, and she tried to get him to accept a wad of notes from her handbag. But he was so afraid of being implicated or suspected of having some part or lot in an attempted kidnapping that he shook his head violently and refused. He had returned the boy,
and he was happy they had found the right
lady...

He kept repeating this over and over again, while Richard started to wilt in her arms, to yawn and whimper and even to cry a little, and she realised he was probably very hungry, having had nothing to
eat all day, and the telephone started to ring shrilly on the desk in her room, and footsteps came briskly along the corridor from the direction of the lift.

She lifted her head like someone scenting the approach of danger—or, in this case, a highly welcome relief party—and Senhor de Capuchos came to a standstill not far from the taxi-man, his eyes fixed on Richard.

“So!” he said. “It was not a false report I received downstairs. Ricardo is back!”

The taxi-man wheeled on him, and all his explanations poured forth afresh.

“The
senhor
will understand! It was nothing whatever to do with me! I merely found the boy ... The
senhor
will appreciate that I returned him at once! I started looking for the
lady ...
the English lady. I enquired at all the
hotels ...
Indeed,
senhor,
I have been searching most diligently few some
time...”

“Yes, yes,” de Capuchos cut him short, with his high-bred air of being indifferent to explanations. He removed his own wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket and doled out a sum of money that was far more considerable than the amount Caroline had been able to spare from her handbag. “And I’ve no doubt you expected a reward, which you now receive, so please
go!”
He repeated, “Go!” and Jerez, the taxi-man, shot away along the corridor in such an excess of relief that it would have been laughable if the situation hadn’t contained so many serious implications that even Caroline, who should have felt triumphant, could barely summon up a smile.

The Portuguese looked down at her from his infinitely superior height, and his expression was bleak.

“I’ve no doubt you feel extremely gratified that a small boy of seven thought so highly of you that he risked the dangers of the unknown to try and find you,
”
he remarked. And then his expression relaxed a little, the hard dark eyes grew definitely almost soft, and he laid a hand on Richard’s head—bowed in shame and embarrassment, as well as weariness—and gave it a surprisingly gentle pat, the long dark fingers straying for a second in the thick hair.

“Ah, well, it is a good thing to know one’s own mind,” he observed. “And you apparently know yours, Ricardo! You have formed an attachment at a
n
early
age!”

His eyes lost some of the softness as he glanced once more at Caroline.

“I will request another room for Ricardo, and you will see to it that he is properly fed before he goes to bed. I will have some of his things sent round, and in the morning I will collect you both. You will be ready and waiting, Senhorita Worth
?
”

She gazed back at him levelly.

“I have a plane to catch tomorrow morning,” she reminded him. “If I am to be at the airport in good time I shall have very little time to spare here. You won’t forget that, will you,
senhor
?
”

For answer he looked back at her in complete silence for a moment. And then one
corner
of his mouth turned downwards in a dry manner.

“I won’t forget it,
senhorita,”
he promised. “It will be necessary to collect a refund on the ticket since you will not, after all, be using it. I must make a note of that in my diary, and my secretary can attend to the matter later on if it s
li
ps my own mind.” Caroline felt Richard’s fingers give hers a sudden, convulsive squeeze, and at the same moment her
heart bounded queerly. It wasn’t just relief, or triumph. It was triumph tinged with amazement, and not entirely free from doubt. She could hardly believe her ears.

“You mean,
senhor,
that you don’t wish me to return to England ... Not yet
?
”

A quizzical gleam lit his eyes. He shrugged his
shoulders.

“I am a bachelor,
senhorita.
I am not accustomed to dealing with children. My employer, the Marques de Fonteira, is even less accustomed to dealing with them, and I have a feeling he would agree that you have a certain—competence, shall we say
?
—in handling them. Richard, in any case, is quite determined that you have, so for the time being we will say nothing further about putting him in the care of anyone else ... Unless you yourself feel very strongly that you would like to return to England?”

Richard waited breathlessly for her reply, and Caroline didn’t keep him long in doubt.

“No,
senhor,
I am not anxious to return to England—immediately.”

A dry expression chased itself across the handsome, mobile lips of Senhor de Capuchos.

“I understand, Miss Worth. The next time we wish you to leave we will give you fair warning. Is that agreed, Ricardo?”

The next morning Caroline awakened with a strange, carefree feeling that sent her bounding to the window to inhale the freshness of Lisbon at that hour. And when she went next door to Richard’s room to wake him. He, too, when he opened his eyes, looked as if there was nothing very much wrong with his world. He even announced that he wanted a big breakfast, an English breakfast
.
“
Not just coffee and rolls. I would like sausages and tomatoes, and before that fruit juice and cornflakes ... lots of cornflakes
!”
His brown eyes were sparkling. “Yesterday I had nothing at all all day until Jerez found me, and then he took me to a restaurant—one of those places with tables on the pavement—and tried to get me to eat sardines. They made
me feel sick!”

He sprang from his bed, and turned on his own taps in the bathroom, in order to be of assistance.