The pair stood eyeing each other like two fencers, Dick with the crowbar
raised, and pointing at his heart the blade which would pierce it when the
Spaniard dared advance an inch.
I longed to shout “Fling the crowbar at his head!” But if Dick’s eye
released the eye of his opponent he was a dead man, I must not risk
distracting him for the fraction of a second.
It seemed an hour, though it could not have been a minute when, as if my
thought had winged to his brain, the thick iron bar whirled through the
air, and struck the old man full upon the forehead. The Toledo blade
dropped from his hand, and he fell back without a cry, his head inside the
open door.
“Is he dead?” I called.
Dick bent over the limp body; but, after a long moment, he was up again,
waving a big, old-fashioned key.
“No,” he answered. “Heart beating. Bad penny. He’ll be all right. This the
key of spider’s parlour?”
“I think so,” I said. “Dick, you’re just in time to keep me from giving
in. I’m starved.”
He stooped and picked up the crowbar.
“Old brute! I’ve a mind to finish him!” he exclaimed.
“You don’t mean that,” I said. “But look for something to tie him up with.
He may come to himself before we’re off.”
“I guess I’ll just tote him along with me,” said Dick. “Safe bind, safe
find.”
Gathering up the long body as if it had been the form of a sleeping child,
Dick disappeared into the house. I knew that he was looking for the door
of my cage, and presently—for the first time with pleasure—I heard the
slipping back of the bolt and turning of the key.
Already I was at the door, opening it for Dick to come in with his heavy
burden.
“Here’s the bed,” I said, and Dick laid his burden down, not too gently.
Then I think the next thing we did was to shake hands.
“Blessed old man!” exclaimed Dick, a little unsteadily. “What a beastly
business.”
“It’s a mystery,” I said. “And how you got to me—”
“Conduit,” said Dick, “But I’ll tell you all about that, and everything.
Got no electric light here?”
“Nothing but starlight. For Heaven’s sake, tell me about Monica!”
“She’s all right,” said Dick. “Not a Duchess yet, if that’s what worries
you. Look here, if this place has been good enough to box you up in all
this time, it’s good enough to keep _him_ in—” (He nodded towards the
alcove.) “He lives alone here, without servants; I’ve found out all that,
with a lot more; and his master—guess you know who—is in Madrid; so when
this chap comes to himself he can try how he likes your quarters. They
seem rather nice ones, judging from what I can see; but Carmona always
does himself well.”
“Is this Carmona’s house?” I asked.
“You bet it is. Little private sort of place he keeps ready when he wants
to amuse himself in some way which his mother and Monica and other people
mightn’t approve of in Dukes. This old Johnny’s a combination of caretaker
and physician in ordinary to his grace. But let’s get out of this. I can’t
give you a marble bath or Moorish decorations at my hotel, but I shouldn’t
wonder if you’d prefer the accommodation; and after that conduit business
I need a ‘wash and brush up’ as much as you do. Why, old man, what’s the
matter? Not going to crack up, are you?”
“I’m all right,” I said; “but I haven’t had anything to eat since the day
after I saw you off, except milk, and none of that for the last two days.”
“Great Scott! you’re joking. We parted five weeks ago!”
The words gave me a shock in spite of the stubble on my chin and the
whiteness of my hands. Dick had his wet arm round my shoulders, and we
were at the door, which he was about to lock, and I startled him by caving
in a little at the knees.
“See here,” he said, hanging on to my arm as if he were afraid I should
vanish in thin air, “we won’t wait to dine at my hotel. We’ll nose round a
bit in this old Johnny’s larder. You must be bucked up before you go out
into the street. Oh, it’s safe enough. The old brute’s a hermit—for his
own reasons or Carmona’s. Nobody comes near the house, and we can take our
own time. While you’re eating you shall hear everything I’ve got to tell.”
He locked and bolted the door, and helped me down the stairs, up which I
must have been carried unconscious; perhaps by the gypsy, assisted by the
master of the house.
Below stairs the place was dark save for the light which had streamed out
into the _patio_ with the opening door. It came from a good-sized room
evidently intended for a kitchen, but also used by the solitary tenant as
a dining-room. It had a window opening on the court; this, however, was
not only covered with heavy shutters, but protected by a curtain as well,
and ventilation came through an adjoining room from a window that looked
on another small court.
Evidently my gaoler had been interrupted in the midst of his supper, and
hearing a noise in the _patio_ had stopped only long enough to snatch up a
sword-stick. On the table was a simple meal of cold meat, salad,
goats’-milk cheese, and fresh fruit; but to my starved eyes it seemed a
feast. There was also a bottle half-full of red Spanish wine; and I did
not wait for Dick’s suggestion to sit down. I must get back my strength if
I were to be of any use to Monica or myself, and I hardly listened to
Dick’s warning that a starved man must not satisfy his first hunger.
“Eat slowly, and not too much,” he said, with anxious eyes on my face,
which must have been frightful, though he was too tactful to make
comments. As I obeyed, he told me his story, briefly and disjointedly, as
the points came back to him.
“Didn’t hear from you,” he said, “and began wondering what was up. Wired
twice; no answer; was a bit taken up with my own affairs just then, I’m
afraid. Yes, I mean Pilar. After five days, wired the landlord. He
answered you’d left with a friend. I thought that queer, and set out for
Granada by next train, Ropes with me. At the Washington Irving I found
both my telegrams to you and a letter. Landlord said he got a note from
you, dated Motril, telling him you’d met a friend and gone off
unexpectedly in his automobile. You enclosed more than enough money to pay
bill and tips, and asked him to have your luggage packed and kept till
your return, which might be in a few days or not for some time. Naturally,
he hadn’t worried; and as he’d destroyed the letter, I couldn’t tell if it
was your handwriting.
“Well, I thought you _might_ have rushed off suddenly on account of some
lark of Carmona’s; but I soon found out he was still in Granada, slowly
getting better; and the guests hadn’t gone. By the way, I called, but
nobody in the house was seeing visitors. Ropes discovered that your car
was in a stable down in the town, where you’d left it, without saying for
how long. He and I were getting scared, and I went to the police, but
didn’t dare give your real name without your permission, especially as the
authorities had a kind of prejudice against it. Fired off my best Spanish,
though, and insinuated that Carmona wasn’t very fond of you; but when I
began hinting that it might be convenient for his plans that you should
disappear, they wouldn’t take me seriously, were polite, and all that,
promised to look you up, as if you were a stray kitten, but intimated that
most people who vanished had private reasons for doing so.
“After that, I didn’t expect them to find out anything, and they did their
best not to disappoint me. I saw that if anybody was going to do the
Sherlock Holmes’ act, it must be Ropes and me. We sat tight at the
Washington Irving, and looked around; but at the end of a fortnight no one
was any wiser than at the beginning. Then what should happen but the dear
old Colonel and Pilar popped down to see if they could help. Oh, and I
forgot to tell you that meanwhile the people at Carmona’s palace had
cleared out. They’d gone back to Seville again by train; and what should
happen but the Colonel and Pilar met Carmona face to face in the station.”
“Not Monica?” I broke in.
“No. I suppose the others had got into a carriage; he was lingering behind
to give a valet directions about luggage. And then there was a scene.
Pilar told me all about it. Carmona bowed; and before the Cherub could
pull the little girl away, as he tried, seeing danger in her eye, she gave
the Duke a piece of her mind. Said he was a villain, or some kind words of
that sort. He retorted by saying to her father that he could make a lot of
trouble for Cristóbal if they didn’t take care. Pilar said they could
accuse him of worse things than he could them; and somehow or other, in an
evil moment, the subject of Corcito, a grey bull Carmona was once nasty
about, came up. Then, before she knew what she was doing, Pilar flashed
out the name of Vivillo, the beast she wanted to buy, you know. And from
that minute the fat was in the fire as far as she was concerned. But about
that later. What with you and the bull, she was in a dreadful state of
mind when she got here, poor child. However, she put on her thinking cap,
and said she, ‘Try the gypsies. See if they don’t know something.’
“That was enough for me. I took a sudden fancy to Captain Pepe, the chief
of the gypsies, and went every night to see a dance in his cave. But I
soon saw he was straight; and they weren’t a bad lot of people in the
colony. The nasty ones he kicked out, and they had to hustle for
themselves. Captain Pepe told me about one fellow, Juan Castello, who’d
got himself disliked, though he was a nailer with the guitar; and when he
said the chap had a sister who had a fine position in the house of a
titled person, because she was the best seamstress in the country, I
pricked up my ears. You can bet, after I’d heard the titled person was
Carmona, I turned my attention to Mr. Castello, dropped in on him one day,
named a big price, and asked him to give me lessons on the guitar. He
didn’t mind if he did, and we got quite friendly. I spent several evenings
in his cave, where one night I heard a dog howling, as if it was mighty
sick, behind a red curtain.”
“That red curtain!” I exclaimed. “I shouldn’t be where I am now, or have a
scar on the back of my head, if I’d looked behind it.”
“By Jove! Well, I got some idea of that sort. Castello said the dog
belonged to a gentleman in Granada, who lived all alone in the Albaicín,
and kept this beast as a watch-dog; but he was afraid it was going mad,
and told Castello to shoot it. However, it was a valuable animal, and
Castello was undertaking to cure it for his own benefit. Already it was
better, and the owner talked of buying it back if it recovered. The old
gentleman was coming up to see the dog that very evening, perhaps,
Castello said; and being evidently proud of a respectable acquaintance, he
went on talking about him, I encouraging him all I could, because any
friend of his might prove interesting to me.
“The minute I heard the chap was a kind of herb doctor, and sometimes
treated grand people, I nearly jumped off my seat; for you know why
Carmona was supposed to come to Granada?”