The Twenty-Third Man Read online

  ‘I’m not going any further!’ cried Caroline, suddenly. ‘Look at where the rocks have fallen! We shall all be killed!’

  Her brother, who was riding immediately behind her, begged her to stop being ridiculous.

  ‘If it weren’t safe, the guide wouldn’t bring us. These fellows always think of their own skins!’ he said. As though the island resented this aspersion on the guide, there was a rumbling sound and a large chunk of rock detached itself from the cliff-face and bounded, in a cloud of dust, down the mountain-side.

  ‘You see!’ Caroline almost screamed. ‘I told you so!’

  The guide, who was bringing up the rear, shouted a guttural command to the mules. These came to a halt, twitching their ears.

  ‘It will be’, said the guide calmly, ‘of no danger to go on. Here always there falls a rock. One expects it. Never has the path to the Virgin seen an accident. It would be bad luck if no rock fell. The mountain signals to the Pine that there will be money to put in the box. Only those without piety will wish to turn back now.’

  He received support from Peterhouse.

  ‘Quite right, you know,’ he said earnestly. ‘Something in these old superstitions. Knew a couple once. Turned back at about this point on the route. Mules ran away with them and galloped them over the edge. Took days to locate the bodies. Smashed to bits. Not one whole bone in either of ’em. Terrible thing. So come along, Mrs Lockerby. Up with the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee.’

  ‘I shall go back to the cave and wait where we picnicked,’ said Caroline. ‘I don’t need anybody with me.’

  ‘I’ll certainly go with you,’ said Mrs Drashleigh. ‘I’ve seen so many of these Catholic shrines. They’re much the same everywhere. We can’t lose the way, guide, can we? It seemed to me there was only one path.’

  ‘No, I’ll go with her,’ said Telham.

  ‘You won’t. You know you want to go on. I shall be quite all right by myself,’ said his sister, in a peevish tone which indicated that she was feeling embarrassed by her own nervous outbursts.

  Mrs Drashleigh, however, insisted that she herself would far rather return to the cave and rest where the party had picnicked than continue the climb, so the two women turned about, with some assistance from the guide in manoeuvring their mules, and the rest went on to the shrine.

  The track soon widened and appeared to be in quadruplicate owing to the flow of the lava streams. Around them were pines and codeso, and, on the left, appeared a small vineyard. Some stumps of trees could be seen, and the guide, with generous gestures, explained that the severed trunks could, from that point, be toppled down the mountain-side into the sea, where they were lumber-jacked into rafts for export to the treeless island of Santa Catalina nearby, whence had come the two Drashleighs and Clement.

  El Pino de la Virgen, with its shrine, stood in a clearing. The guide paid veneration and the visitors contributed money. Above the shrine was the crater, symmetrical, Satanic, and cindery. Dame Beatrice alone, on foot, climbed up to it and gazed down into its depths. She estimated that it was about two hundred feet deep and it was evidently quite extinct. The view, when she turned her back on the lava-streaked hole, was extensive if not exciting. She could see a path, almost wide enough to be called a road, and learned from the guide, when she rejoined the others, that as they had elected to see the shrine, this road would prove the easiest way back to his village where the mules had been hired.

  ‘The mules like it better that way,’ he concluded, in sombre tones.

  ‘We must certainly return for my sister,’ said Telham, shortly, scowling at the fair, broad road. ‘She and Mrs Drashleigh will be expecting us.’

  ‘Look here,’ said Peterhouse, ‘I know that road from here down to Ychos perfectly well. It’s safe enough, too. You go back with Pedro to the cave, young fellow, and I’ll take Dame Beatrice down from here.’

  The guide, having arranged a meeting-place (ostensibly so that he could collect all the mules, but actually to make certain of his gratuity), agreed that the Señor Peterhouse was perfectly capable of taking Dame Beatrice by the safe and easy descent to Ychos, so the party separated, agreeing to meet again at the point from which they had set out.

  Dame Beatrice and Peterhouse were able to ride side by side. The track was an old bridle-path and the mules could be left to look after themselves. The lava streams on either side of it appeared to have run at great and probably terrifying speed, but they were sometimes lost to view, for they had burst down the slopes of the mountain like cascades, whereas the bridle-path meandered in wide bends down the gentlest slopes it could find.

  Soon the landscape became very beautiful. There were orchards and small farms, and a dazzling prospect of the sea. Shy, smiling people met the travellers and offered fruit for sale. Naked or semi-naked children, brown-skinned and timidly cheeky, begged for money or held out small bunches of flowers.

  Lower still there were the villas of the wealthier islanders, with gardens and orange groves. The houses were covered with flowering creepers in startling contrast to the aloes and prickly pear which, here and there, bordered the road.

  ‘What do you think’, said Peterhouse, breaking a silence which Dame Beatrice thought strangely lengthy, ‘is the matter with Mrs Lockerby? She doesn’t strike me as an hysterical type. You’re a psychiatrist, I understand. What, exactly, did you make of her this afternoon? Were her reactions normal? I nearly jumped out of my skin when she yelled out like that in the cave.’

  ‘Did you? Of course, some people are affected very adversely by the sight of mummies, skeletons and, generally, the trappings of death. I was more impressed by her refusal to continue after the boulder had fallen. The odd thing is that she should have preferred to return to the cave, where she had had such a fright, rather than to go on. After all, the guide, who should know, had reassured us. Besides, although I am no geographer or geologist, it was clear to me that the boulders which fall, it seems, with some regularity, do not endanger the safety of people using the mountain road. They fall from the cliff on the right, which is below the level of the trackway. There were no boulders in the cliff-face on our left. If there had been, those might have fallen athwart the road.’

  Peterhouse wagged his head in agreement.

  ‘I understand the brother and sister don’t care about that chap Clun,’ he said, apparently under the impression that he was changing the subject of conversation. ‘Reckless sort of fellow, I should think. Probably did well in the war and has been a fish out of water ever since. Of course, De Bello Gallico might help. One never knows. The Romans were the most extraordinary people the world has ever known. One can understand the Greeks, but the Romans, doing good by stealth and never even blushing to find it fame… Tell me what you think about the Romans.’

  ‘Domineering, profiteering, and engineering.’ He was certainly a little less than compos mentis, she thought.

  From Ychos a double-purpose road, with a firm surface for cars flanked on either side by a kind of Rotten Row for camels, donkeys, and mules, took them back to the village from which they had begun their mountaineering. They waited for half an hour and then the rest of the party joined them. Caroline chattered (exhaustingly for her hearers) all the way back to Reales. Telham was silent, Peterhouse seemed tired.

  CHAPTER 3

  Twenty-four Men

  SEÑOR RUIZ WAS a great believer in gala nights. A this hotel every fifth evening, Sundays included, was a gala night. An extra course was added to the dinner, streamers and balloons were provided, an orchestra, comprising two guitars, two tom-toms, three sets of castanets, a triangle, and a native instrument which consisted of a large jar with a bit of rubber fixed over the opening, was installed in the ante-room adjacent to the dining-room and the lounge, and a good time, it was to be hoped, was had by all.

  The mountaineers returned to the hotel to discover that it was a gala night, and a glimpse of the decorations in the public rooms and the sound of the musicians tuning up in the ante-room persuad
ed Dame Beatrice that she had had a fatiguing day, and would dine in her own room. Staffing was no problem at the Hotel Sombrero. The receptionist, who chanced, on this particular evening, to be Luisa Ruiz, expressed concern, and assured Dame Beatrice that she would put Pilar, the youngest chambermaid, entirely at her service.

  Pilar was pretty and was sixteen years old. In common with most of the girls on Hombres Muertos, she looked at least three years older than she was. She was anxious to attract attention and indicated this by much giggling, a factor which was apt to be embarrassing to the uninitiated. She was engaged to be married to a young man nicknamed Pepe Casita, so called because his mother lived in one of the smallest houses in the town. His real name was Gonzalo Guache, and he was strong and very jealous.

  All this Dame Beatrice received from Pilar while her solitary dinner was being served. Pilar apparently considered it her duty to be in attendance during the whole of the meal, and broke off the conversation only to disappear with the remains of each course. Reappearing with the next dish, she resumed her artless narrative where she had left off. She spoke the bastard Andalusian of the island, but her hearer had little difficulty in following the general plot.

  ‘And where’, asked Pilar, at the end, watching Dame Beatrice peel fruit, ‘did your honour go today? I guessed it was to the mountains, for you were with the Señor Peterhouse, and he goes always to the mountains, unless he sails dangerously to his island.’

  ‘We went to the cave of the dead men, in the care of a guide.’

  ‘Then you were safe from the bandits. They are brothers to the guides and do not molest an expedition.’

  ‘The bandits?’

  ‘Sí. Tio Caballo y José el Lupe.’

  ‘Dear me! But we were safe from them, you say? What a very fortunate thing!’

  ‘The cave of the dead men is a bad place. No one goes there except the guides and the visitors. The guides must make money and the visitors must make foolishness.’

  ‘Foolishness?’

  ‘Sí, señora. La tontería.’

  ‘Have you ever been to the cave?’

  ‘Mother of God, no!’

  ‘Tell me more about Uncle Horse and José the Wolf. You say they are bandits. Do they kill?’

  ‘No, no! That would not pay them so well. One can kill. One can then steal the money. But perhaps the money is not much. Better to take prisoners and ask a ransom.’

  ‘I see. They are kidnappers.’

  Pilar did not understand the word secuestradores, so Dame Beatrice tried her with an explanation which involved the word niños.

  ‘Children!’ exclaimed Pilar. ‘There is one child here who should be taken by Uncle Horse, yes, and retained by him, I think, for the boy is a bandit already.’ She described in detail some of the exploits of Master Clement Drashleigh and concluded, ‘If his good parents did not love him they would be compelled to wish him dead. I think they wish him dead.’

  Dame Beatrice had seen nothing of Clement or his father since her return from the excursion, but she could not help wondering what sort of day Mr Drashleigh had spent. It transpired, after breakfast next morning, when the Drashleighs joined her on the terrace, that Clement had been, for him, fearfully and wonderfully well-behaved.

  ‘In fact,’ said the fond and foolish father, ‘I believe he has turned over a new leaf. I am so pleased with him that I have given him permission to bathe alone this morning.’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ exclaimed Mrs Drashleigh. ‘You shouldn’t have done that! You know how reckless he is!’

  ‘He asked me to show that I trusted him, my dear. We had quite a heart-to-heart talk about things. I could not destroy his confidence.’

  ‘Well, no, of course not. Oh, I dare say it will be all right. There are always plenty of people about down there. But I hope he isn’t going into the water on top of that hearty breakfast.’

  ‘No, no. I warned him of that, and he said that he had no intention of bursting! He is really extremely amusing when he likes.’

  Time passed. Mrs Drashleigh embroidered, Mr Drashleigh read, Dame Beatrice did nothing at all with a great sense of pleasure in being completely idle, and at a quarter to twelve a waiter came out with the mid-morning glasses of sherry. Lunch was served at three. At just after two o’clock Caroline, (who seemed to have forgotten completely her hysteria of the previous day), Telham, and Mrs Angel came up together from the beach, sat on the terrace in bath-robes, and drank cocktails. At half past two they got up to go and get dressed. Mrs Drashleigh looked at her watch.

  ‘You’ll have to go down and get Clement,’ she said to her husband. ‘He’ll be late for lunch and he does so love his food. I must just go up to our room and tidy myself.’

  ‘Oh, dear, he’ll come when he sees everybody leaving the beach,’ said Mr Drashleigh. But when another quarter of an hour had passed and many more guests had come back for lunch, and there was still no sign of the boy, Mr Drashleigh, still unwilling to make the descent and face the long climb back to the hotel if this could be avoided, went from group to group asking whether anybody had seen his son on the beach. Obtaining no satisfaction, he was compelled, even as the gong went for lunch, to go in search of the missing child. Half an hour later he entered the dining-room, red in the face, perspiring, fatigued, and anxious.

  ‘I can’t find him anywhere!’ he said. ‘I suppose he’ll turn up when he’s hungry, but I do wish I knew where he is.’

  He sat down at the table, but made a very poor meal. There was no sign of Clement when lunch was over, and his parents were, by this time, very considerably alarmed. Dame Beatrice had her own ideas. She motored to Ychos, prepared to maintain that the boy had gone to the cave of dead men. She saw Clement, with one of the island guides, descending the last turn of the winding road, just as she got out of the car. ‘I say,’ he said, as soon as he came up to her, ‘there are twenty-four dead men in that cave.’

  ‘Twenty-three. I counted them,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Pay the guide and get into the car. You must be hungry.’

  ‘I am. I’m absolutely starving. I had no idea it would take so long. I say, can you lend me any money?’

  Dame Beatrice paid the grinning guide, and restored the truant to his parents. The last sounds she heard, as she went up to her room for a short siesta, were Clement’s clear, confident tones in argument with his father’s baritone utterance and his mother’s thin, tired voice.

  ‘But there are twenty-four! I counted them twice, I tell you! I could tell you something else, something terribly important, but, as you don’t believe me, I shan’t.’

  ‘Curious,’ she thought. She had considerable faith in the assertions of children when the child could neither gain nor lose by a plain statement of fact. ‘There were only twenty-three when we were there,’ she said over her shoulder as she left.

  She lay in the darkened room and took a cat-nap, but soon was wide awake again. The hotel was very quiet. Everybody, she supposed, was either taking a siesta or was on the beach. From force of habit she began to run a professional ruler over the various people she had met on Hombres Muertos.

  The most obviously interesting, from a psychiatrist’s point of view, were the brother and sister. Caroline’s extraordinary outbursts at the cave were certainly symptomatic of emotional upheaval, and Telham’s altered attitude, from near-hysteria to comparative calm, was, in its way, not very much less startling. That there was a very close tie between brother and sister was evident. What was not evident was the reason for their apparent exchange of parts.

  Karl Emden had put in no further appearance at the hotel. It looked as though the lively and informative American girl had been right, and Dame Beatrice made a mental resolve to visit the troglodyte community. It might make an interesting study, she thought, in more ways than one.

  The ex-gaolbird Clun was another subject for speculation. She wondered why he had not joined the expedition to the cave. It could have been that he thought it might be better to avoid making one of a party whi
ch included Telham and his sister, yet he had not struck her as a young man who would be deterred by any false delicacy from doing anything he had a mind to do.

  She thought of Tio Caballo and José el Lupe, and wondered how Clun would figure as one of the band. She wondered whether to ask him why he had not gone to the cave with the others, but she doubted whether he would make a truthful reply.

  The thought of the visit to the cave brought her to Peterhouse and Mrs Angel. About the former she no longer reserved judgement. He was abnormal and not altogether harmless. In the mind of the fantastic Mrs Angel, however, she thought that something solid, sensible, and even sinister might well have being. In other words, she thought that Peterhouse might be slightly mad, but that Mrs Angel, who seemed to have made herself into a caricariture, was, probably, beneath the façade she had chosen, completely, if unhappily, sane.

  At six Dame Beatrice took a tepid bath and dressed in most leisurely fashion. In this she was assisted by Pilar, who, since dinner on the previous evening, had attached herself to the bedroom and its occupant.

  ‘It is said’, Pilar observed, as she fastened Dame Beatrice’s dinner frock, ‘that the Señora Angel has seen a vision.’

  ‘Well, with a name like that, why not?’ Dame Beatrice demanded. Pilar gave a shocked little giggle.

  ‘The señora does not understand.’

  ‘Don’t I? Well, you had better explain.’

  ‘The Señora Angel has seen the señorito carried away by devils.’

  ‘Why not? It would be a likely fate.’

  ‘The señorito spoke of twenty-four men.’

  ‘And so?’

  ‘There are but twenty-three in the cave.’

  ‘Granted. What of it?’

  Pillar giggled uncontrollably.

  ‘But, see! If there are twenty-four, one is a dead man.’

  ‘They are all dead men.’