The Twenty-Third Man Read online

  ‘I mean recently dead,’ said Pilar. ‘Do you believe in dreams, Señora?’

  ‘Only when I have considerable knowledge of the dreamer.’

  ‘Would you believe that the señorito could be carried away by devils?’

  ‘As I said before, judging from the little I know of him, I should think it not at all unlikely.’

  ‘You jest, Señora. Yet he did go to the cave, and he did say he saw twenty-four dead men. One of them could be Señor Emden. If not, how can one account for the flight of the birds? Ah, I knew it had significance! I knew it!’

  ‘The flight of the birds?’

  ‘Twenty-five quails, Señora. I see now what was meant. I can count, can I not? It is the adding together that matters.’

  ‘I believe so, in spite of Mr Chesterton. He maintained if I understand his writings, that two and two do not necessarily make four.’

  ‘But God has made it so! Listen: twenty-three kings, and one man murdered, and one who has killed him. Twenty-five. No?’

  ‘What makes you think it is Mr Emden who makes the twenty-fourth man in the cave? And why should anyone wish to murder him?’

  ‘That has arranged itself, if you knew all, Señora.’

  ‘Is there any reason why I should not know all?’

  ‘Knowledge is worth a little money, Señora.’

  ‘I am obliged and grateful for the information.’

  Pilar looked at her distrustfully.

  ‘You do not pay?’ she asked. Dame Beatrice shook her head.

  ‘Not for gossip which can be picked up on the Mole, in the plaza, in the restaurants, in the lounges of this hotel, no.’

  ‘Then I shall tell you for nothing. I trust in your generosity. I am your camarera, am I not?’

  ‘Not only my chambermaid but the inspiration of Pepe Casita, I believe.’

  Pilar giggled.

  ‘You have the understanding heart, although you are old,’ she said.

  ‘Because I am old,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Now cease to talk nonsense about money you will not be given, and unburden yourself.’

  Pilar seated herself on the edge of a hard chair, held herself as erect as a nun, folded her hands in the lap of her short black skirt, and addressed herself to the task in hand by enquiring:

  ‘Do you know that Señor Peterhouse owns an island?’

  ‘It would not surprise me if he did.’

  ‘He has taken my Pepe there. It is not more than a rock. They have climbed. Madre de Dios, how they have climbed!’

  ‘For what purpose?’

  ‘What purpose ever have men?’

  ‘The riddle of the Sphinx.’

  ‘I do not understand you.’

  ‘What else should I know, that I know not yet?’

  ‘Ah, that! What expedition makes your honour tomorrow?’

  ‘I go to the island of Zlotes.’

  ‘Who is to say whether you go there or not? You know, Señora, it is a puzzle where goes anyone from this hotel. The beach, the garden, the excursion into the mountains, the steamer to Zlotes, the little boat from which men may fish off Puerto del Sol – who shall bear witness? Often I say to myself – yes, I, Pilar, who should be thinking about my marriage or my next confession or a new dress – I say, instead, that I do not know what one or another does when he has had breakfast or lunch at the hotel and then makes an expedition. What, I ask myself, of the Señora Angel? What of the Señor Peterhouse? What, even, of the couple who have yoked themselves with the wild boy who came to them, an orphan, in their old age?’

  ‘You give me food for reflection. Accept this poor token of my gratitude.’

  ‘A thousand thanks, Señora. You understand that I must take a marriage portion to Pepe when I marry him? But why did you refuse it before?’

  ‘I have my own ways of doing things. Will Pepe make a good husband?’

  ‘He will, at any rate, make a husband. One cannot ask more.’

  Dame Beatrice went by steamer to Zlotes on the following morning, and it needed only an hour until dinner when she returned to the hotel. Her trip had been interesting and informative and she was tired enough to find pleasure in the thought of relaxing on the terrace for twenty minutes before she needed to go up to dress.

  Of relaxation that evening, however, there was to be none at all. The whole hotel was humming with excitement. Clement Drashleigh had not been seen since breakfast. Search parties had been out; he had been traced as far as the Mole, but there he had disappeared and further search had been unavailing.

  Mr Drashleigh had upset the whole economy of the hotel by offering so large a reward for news which would lead to the recovery of his son that every servant who could manage to sneak away had deserted his task and was organizing his own search-party from among his relatives and friends.

  Dame Beatrice, confronted by the news as soon as she set foot on the terrace, went to her room and rang the bell. Pilar appeared and was catechized.

  ‘Tell me more about Mrs Angel and her vision.’

  ‘But there is no more to tell. You see, it was true. She dreams. The niñito goes. All are in search. What do you think? What will be, will be. No?’

  ‘I suppose the police have been told?’

  ‘Of what avail? All the hotel is searching. The police could do no more.’

  ‘All the hotel?’

  ‘Of a truth. I am the only person to wait at the tables except for Mercedes, from the kitchen, and she is loco. All the waiters are gone, all the cooks. There is Berto, the head waiter, and myself, also Mercedes. No others.’

  ‘Good gracious me! And here am I in a state of semi-starvation!’

  ‘When night falls, they will return. I will bring you a fish and some bread, here, in this room. Also wine. You shall not die.’

  She was as good as her word. Dame Beatrice ate as much of a three-pound bass as she could, drank half a bottle of a local wine which tasted not unlike Marsala, and felt equal to dealing with the problem of Clement’s disappearance. She had her own solution, and lost no time in testing it. She rang again for Pilar.

  ‘Tio Caballo y José el Lupe,’ she said.

  ‘Yes?’ Pilar looked puzzled. Then her face lightened. ‘Ah, those types! Yes, it is more than possible. If the little boy had gone again to visit the cave of dead men – if Uncle Horse knew he was going –’

  ‘Had, perhaps, dared him to go there again?’

  Pilar nodded, put her hands on her hips, and swayed excitedly.

  ‘Yes, yes! It could be! I think it was like that. But what can we do? We cannot hunt brigands during the wilds of the night.’

  Dame Beatrice agreed, displaying a gravity that befitted the situation.

  ‘Will the bandits ill-treat the boy?’ she asked. Pilar looked astounded.

  ‘Ill-treat him? Would anyone on Hombres Muertos ill-treat a child? No, no! Have no fear for that. If the child is made to vomit, it will be with rich food; if to cry, it will be after much wine; if he should seem to moan, it will be the bagpipes they teach him to play; if to scream, it will be with the laughter they make up there.’

  ‘In other words, he’ll be safe enough tonight and we may as well leave it until the morning before we attempt to rescue him?’

  ‘It will be easier to pay the money. It will cost less in the end,’ said Pilar.

  ‘That may be so, but nobody pays money if he can get what he wants for nothing. Tell me, Pilar, everything you can about Mrs Angel.’

  ‘That one? But I am forbidden to discuss the guests with other guests.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. You know perfectly well what I want to know. If you do not, I will tell you in words that cannot be misinterpreted.’

  Pilar gave a wilder giggle than usual, glanced round the room, drew nearer to the small, spare figure in the dragon-strewn dressing-gown, and whispered:

  ‘It’s true. They sell their daughters to that wicked old woman. Yes! Three or four years she lives here, and always the cave girls, they go.’

&nbs
p; ‘The cave girls?’

  ‘Sí, Señora. No one else will sell daughters. They are needed for the cultivation – the bananas, the terraced lands, the sugar-cane. But the cave people have no cultivation. They are the old people of the island. Not Spaniards, not anything now. There is nothing up there, nothing. They go into the cigar factories and spend their money on finery, so their fathers and brothers sell them to Mrs Angel and she pays for them to go to South America, and they are never heard of again. But it is lawful, so they tell me, because the girls all say they want to go.’

  ‘I see. That might explain the field-glasses, I suppose. No wonder she was flustered when I mentioned David and Bathsheba.’

  ‘Please?’

  ‘Not a story you would know, Pilar. Does Mrs Angel really watch birds?’

  ‘Oh, yes. It is true. The boatmen take her round the coast to the wild places. They say she climbs cliffs. She is bold and strong. Also they say that she can make bird-call, and that eagles feed out of her hand.’

  Dame Beatrice ruled out the eagles, but was inclined to believe the rest of the report. Mrs Angel, it seemed, was a woman of parts compounded of good and bad, like the curate’s egg.

  ‘And Mr Peterhouse?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

  ‘He? He has great curiosity. He takes much interest in everything, but for no information is there payment. Pepe has complained much of that.’

  ‘What information does he seek?’

  ‘Of the fish, the birds, the soil, the rocks, the crops, the houses, the number of children, the age of marriage, the cave people, the bandits – everything.’

  ‘Including, I suppose, the plants and flowers.’

  ‘No, Señora. Never of the plants and flowers.’

  ‘I thought he collected orchids.’

  ‘It may be so; he does not speak of them to Pepe. However, he climbs much, and always alone. Sometimes he puts out to sea and climbs mountains in other islands.’

  ‘Is that not dangerous?’

  ‘It may be dangerous. I know nothing of that. He makes maps.’

  ‘Maps?’

  ‘Sí, Señora. When I have taken coffee to his room I have found him busy making maps.’

  ‘How do you know they were maps?’

  ‘He has said so,’ replied Pilar, with dignity. ‘What is more, they were very pretty, with colours of green and yellow and red.’

  ‘Brown?’

  ‘Not brown, but I think to remember purple.’

  Dame Beatrice went to bed thoughtful. Early next morning she set out, with Pilar’s Pepe Casita for guide and guarantee, to look for Clement Drashleigh.

  CHAPTER 4

  Uncle Horse and José the Wolf

  ‘WHERE DO WE go, Señora?’ asked Pepe Casita.

  ‘To the cave of dead men. You may sit in front, beside the driver of the taxi-cab.’

  ‘Very good. And then?’

  ‘Then I shall wait upon inspiration and rely upon your acquaintance with the bandits.’

  ‘But, Señora, I know nothing of the bandits except what I have heard.’

  Dame Beatrice was not inclined to take notice of this disclaimer. The taxi took them to the village from which Peterhouse had hired the mules on Dame Beatrice’s first visit to the cave. The negotiations were conducted by Pepe, who haggled for twenty minutes and then returned to announce that he had secured two reliable animals at a low fee. They mounted these and soon were being borne along the mountain path to the cave.

  ‘Look after the mules. I am going inside to count the bodies,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  ‘Alone, Señora?’

  ‘Certainly. Fear not for me. I have my little gun.’

  ‘I fear dead men, not living ones, Señora.’

  ‘To each his own fears and his own precautions. Does Uncle Horse suffer in health from living up here among the mountains?’

  ‘It is said’, replied Pepe, cautiously, ‘that he suffers from a fall he had two months ago. He has a pain in his back – here.’

  ‘Well, you had better get in touch with him whilst I am in the cave. Tell him I can put him to rights and that I will do so, provided that he hands over the señorito safe and sound, and at once.’

  ‘I do not know the bandits,’ reiterated Pepe, with a charming smile and a shrug of his thin shoulders.

  ‘It will be worth your while to get to know them, then. Whistle them up. They can’t be far away, if they continually lie in wait for those rash persons who choose to visit the caves without a guide.’

  With these confident words she gave a slight nod and walked in at the mouth of the cave. She had brought the torch which she always kept on her bedside table in case the electric light in the hotel failed. She switched it on, and counted the seated bodies. There were twenty-three of them. She searched each corner of the cave, lighting up every cranny with the torch, but of Clement’s twenty-fourth man there was no sign. She was about to make closer investigation of the twenty-three who were there, when she heard a shout from the mouth of the cave.

  ‘Señora, el señorito!’

  Dame Beatrice emerged into the sunlight. There stood Clement, hatless and grimy. He was leading a mule and wore a slightly defiant smile.

  ‘No bandits?’ enquired Dame Beatrice, removing her own chip straw hat and placing it on his head. ‘I shall not suffer from the heat of the sun, but you may, dear child. Wear this, on pain of death, until we get to the village. I repeat: no bandits?’

  ‘They wouldn’t come. They’re shy. They’re awfully decent, though,’ said Clement, banging the hat well down upon his head. ‘Still, the food was pretty lousy, and there wasn’t any ice-cream, and all we had to drink was goats’ milk and the local wine – both completely foul.’

  ‘What made you visit the cave again? – I suppose that is how you came to be captured?’

  ‘Well, yes. I simply had to, you know. I expect you can guess why.’

  ‘I imagine’, said Dame Beatrice, patting her animal’s neck, ‘that you counted the bodies again and discovered that, after all, there were twenty-three and not twenty-four of them.’

  ‘Well, at any rate, I had to give Chiquito the ten pesetas I’d betted him. I had just given them to him when we found ourselves surrounded. Ugly chaps, most of them were. They sent Chiquito home after he’d sworn by various saints and people that he wouldn’t breathe a word about where I was, but they grabbed me and my mule, and took me to their den. How did you guess where I was? – or did Chiquito unfold a tale after all?’

  ‘As far as I know, he kept his word to the bandits.’

  ‘If he had told, I should have had my revenge on him. Revenge is sweet.’

  ‘Revenge? An outmoded conception. Experience teaches that it really is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.’

  Clement, it was clear, was not prepared to endorse this view. They rode down the narrow and forbidding mountain track in silence until he said:

  ‘The trouble with these islanders is that they’re not nearly tough enough. I was amazed at my treatment, especially as I told old Caballo right at the beginning, when he grabbed me, that my parents, far from paying money to get me back, would thank him for hanging on to me. Luckily, I can speak a fair amount of island Spanish – I learnt it on our own island, you know – but old Tio Caballo doesn’t know any English except O.K. Everything, according to him, was O.K. The only thing that wasn’t O.K. was the food and drink – in my opinion, at any rate. I shan’t be at all sorry to get back to the hotel and eat a decent meal.’

  When they did reach the Hotel Sombrero, his parents attempted to carry out their plan of doing nothing to inhibit him, but for once it broke down. Mrs Drashleigh was obviously affected by the reunion, and proved this by an outburst of nagging. Mr Drashleigh said:

  ‘Now see what you’ve done to your mother! It has been very inconsiderate of you, Clement. Fancy going again to that cave, foolish boy!’

  Clement defended himself with a mixture of fact and fiction.

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nbsp; ‘Well, I had to take a dare, didn’t I? You wouldn’t want me to look a fool in front of a native like Chiquito Daria! And how was I to know that the bandits were on the prowl? I didn’t ask to be kidnapped, did I? And I’ve saved you an awful lot of money, let me tell you! How? Well, all night long I howled like a wolf. It always gets on your nerves when I do, so I thought maybe it would get on theirs, and it did. I thought they’d gag me, but they hate being unkind to children, so they put up with it as long as they could, and then bribed me to leave off. I did, because my throat was getting sore, but I made them promise to let me go. I made them take a Church oath. They’re terribly religious, you know. But Pilar’s Pepe came along before they actually freed me, and talked a lot of Spanish like an automatic weapon and they seemed only too glad to see the last of me. And you’d better give Pepe some money. I think he left them a lot of cigarettes. They were terribly pleased, because it’s difficult for them to shop down here in the town. They get their food and wine from the villages, but they can’t get smokes that way – not American ones, which is what they like. I shall probably go along and see them again, some time, and take them some more cigarettes, if you go on at me much longer. I’ve had a worrying time, let me tell you.’

  ‘Well, now you had better get some sleep,’ said Mr Drashleigh. ‘And, another time, learn to curb your curiosity. It is morbid in so young a boy to want to see dead people.’

  ‘You took me to the British Museum, when I was eight, to see the Egyptian mummies,’ argued Clement. ‘But that was educational, I suppose!’

  ‘You are not be impudent,’ said Mr Drashleigh.

  ‘Well, if it wasn’t educational, I don’t see why you took me. Mother, when you went to the cave, did you actually count the bodies?’

  ‘No, dear, but I thought they were very impressive.’

  ‘Was one a lot taller than the rest?’

  ‘Taller? It might have been. I couldn’t be positively sure.’

  ‘Ah, well, it’s just as well I did go to the cave, then. The first time I went, there were definitely twenty-four bodies, as I told people when I got back, but now there are only twenty-three. I had plenty of time to count them and look round a bit before the bandits caught me. And, I tell you, one of the dead men was quite noticeably taller than the rest. He was there when there were twenty-four, and he was still there when there were twenty-three, yet you say you didn’t notice him. You must have noticed him, Mother. I bet Dame Beatrice noticed him.’