Damián stopped, gazed at me in wonder, spat with emphasis, and said: ‘Ka, man, you would be a fool to refuse! Myself, I would gladly go without pay – if only to escape from this dull hole and see grand civilization again.’
Damián, you must understand, had earned his nickname himself as coachman to the President of the Argentine Republic, and still remembered those days of glory. He added: ‘But what, in the Devil’s name, has the kidnapping case to do with you?’
‘Patience, friend,’ said I. ‘First advise me whether the fee is correct in principle.’
He considered the matter. Then he spat again and said: ‘In principle, Toni, you should insist upon thirty pesetas a day. The English, as a rule, allow fifty per cent for bargaining where Spaniards are concerned.’
‘And five hundred pesetas on top of that!’
‘A tidy sum, by God! I wish I had the chance to earn so much by a three weeks’ holiday.’
‘Then be joyful, Damián! You are invited too!’
He took this for a joke, but when he heard my story he threw his hat so high into the air that it sailed over the terrace, down the valley and into the torrent, and was not found again.
We went off together at once and acquainted Sentiá with his luck. As Sentiá was earning hardly five pesetas a day, a casual labourer’s wage at that time, his eyes truly bulged with greed. Yet we had to pour a deal of coñac down his throat before we could persuade him to join us. Never having left the island in his life, Sentiá cherished a tremendous fear of being drowned by a tempest at sea. Finally, however, he agreed; and after Damián and I had won the extra ten pesetas a day from Mr Jonés, without a struggle, we took Sentiá along to the Mayor, who was the local Justice of the Peace, and persuaded him to witness the amended contract. In effect, we all signed the document, which had been prepared by a Spanish notary. Sentiá scrawled his name and rubric with a trembling hand, saying: ‘God grant that this be not my death warrant!’
Nobody from our village had ever seen the shores of England, and it seemed a great thing for us three to be the first. Naturally, our wives did not favour the adventure, unless they could come too; is that not so, Isabel? But Mr Estrutt declared that such an arrangement would be most unwise, even if we cared to pay those extra passages and expenses out of what we should earn. Then Sentiá’s wife created a scandal. She called us fools for not asking fifty pesetas a day, and a thousand at the close, Mr Jonés having agreed to our demand so readily. She knew in her heart, she shrieked, that I had been bribed by the Englishmen to keep the payment low. But Isabel here, and Damián’s wife, Angela, told her to be silent, since the offer was a handsome one and the document had now been securely signed.
Nothing more. After promising to write frequently, and making our wives promise to behave themselves during our absence and keep the children in good order, we declared, hands on heart, that we should never have dreamed of leaving the village even for three weeks, were the preservation of a Catholic home not at stake. Indeed, the women of this island are hardly less zealous in this matter than Mr Estrutt suggested; and I doubt whether any of the three concerned would have let us go for the money alone. I learned later that, while we were away, Isabel here spent half her days in church, praying for my safety and for the spiritual consolation of the unhappy widow.
Well, you have made that journey more than once, Don Roberto, so it is nothing new to you, but for me it was tremendous once we had crossed the frontier into France! It seemed a miracle that within half a mile of country the aspect of so many things could suddenly change: the clothes, the language, the uniforms, the telegraph-poles, the colour of the mailboxes, the very shape and taste of the bread!
Mr Estrutt had fetched us by taxi from the village in order to shepherd us through the customs, the passport inspections, and other troubles. He seemed a very different man, once he had emerged from the shadow of the serious Mr Jonés: being dressed now in a cream-coloured gaberdine suit, a hard straw-hat with a canary-yellow ribbon, and carrying a gold-headed cane. He also began to tell us jokes of the sort we call ‘green’. He arrived at my house somewhat fatigued, having spent the previous night at the Bar Macarena. Perhaps you know the Macarena? If so, you will consider it no small feat that he escaped alive from those gipsies and even contrived to preserve his wallet, his pearl tie-pin, and his gold-headed cane. The Metropolitan Police must be a race of lions.
We embarked on the night-boat to Barcelona, and the tears streamed down our wives’ faces as they waved us good-bye from the quay; and I confess that, for a moment, I wondered whether my decision had been a prudent one. As for Sentiá, he was in a lamentable condition, and Mr Estrutt made him swallow a tablet which rapidly put him to sleep.
As soon as we were clear of Palma harbour, Mr Estrutt invited Damián and me to join him in the Bar. Over a coñac, he said: ‘Boys, presently I shall go to the cabin to restore my loss of sleep, but first let me be honest with you. That kidnapping story, you must understand, is a work of fantasy. The old Viscountess and I thought it out together as a means of convincing your wives that it was their duty to let you go. Moreover, we decided that we should say no word about it to Mr Jonés. Though an intelligent lawyer, he is insular and highly moral, and would never practise a little deception even to assist a good cause.’
‘Well, then for God’s sake tell us the truth at once!’ Damián demanded fiercely.
‘The truth,’ he replied, ‘is that this old witch of a Viscountess lost her husband, the Viscount, three months ago – he fell from the balcony of their bedroom at the Hotel Espléndido, Cannes, and perhaps it truly was an accident – who can say? But no matter! The widow is now enamoured of a retired officer in the King’s Bodyguard; and this officer, whose profession is to direct a pack of foxhounds, possesses a large estate, but little money to maintain it – only a mountain of gambling debts. In fact, he is willing to marry the old trout, who is not bad-looking by candle light, if one places the candle well behind her and wears sunglasses. The sole bar to their union has been his young wife, an actress, who married him not long ago, thinking he was rich but, finding that he had cheated her, now considers herself free to take what consolation she can find in the company of others. Yet she carefully covers her tracks when she goes hunting – hunting men, not foxes, of course. She is good-looking, you agree?’
Since Mr Estrutt was clearly referring to the short-haired girl, Damián and I pronounced that, yes, she was a delicious morsel, though a little thin perhaps, and her eyes of too pallid a blue.
Mr Estrutt went on. ‘So you see, boys, that your testimony will be most valuable to the Viscountess. If the fox-hunting officer wins his decree of divorce from the short-haired girl, the Viscountess can them marry him, having paid all the expenses of the trial. Now, this is how I enter the story. Last May, the short-haired girl was invited to stay with her elder sister at Tossa on the Costa Brava; but when the Viscountess sent me there in July to make inquiries, I found that after only a single morning at Tossa the girl had crossed over to Majorca at the side of the Bulgarian artist, whom she had met on the Paris train. I discreetly followed their tracks and obtained your names, without visiting your village, from a friendly corporal of Coastguards. With such information I went back to London, where Mr Jonés resolved to make the Viscountess pay a capital sum for his corroboration of my story. I should add that other acts of adultery are charged against the short-haired girl; but this is the only one which Mr Jonés at present dares to bring into Court. Well, boys, do you forgive me for the lies I told you?’
I laughed. ‘Ka, man, it is all the same to Damián and me,’ I said, ‘so long as we are paid according to our contract.’
Mr Estrutt slapped my back and cried: ‘I like your spirit, Toni, if I may call you that? And you must call me Charley, as everyone else does who is anyone at all! Now, another thing. When you asked for those extra ten pesetas a day, I informed Mr Jonés that, being staunch Catholics, you were dead against the marriage of divorced persons, and must the
refore obtain at least thirty pesetas in all before testifying in a matter that so little interested you. Now I have said enough; but I wager that we will enjoy a wonderful time in London. By the bye, you must not let my lovesick old baggage of a Viscountess know that I have given you the true story; and it would be well, surely, not to let the good Sentiá into our secret, either. It might unsettle his ideas about me.’
Then we refilled our glasses and toasted the Viscountess, the late Viscount, the short-haired girl, the fox-hunting officer, Mr P.P. Jonés and the Judge, together with many other persons more remotely connected with the affair, in a multitude of coñacs. Mr Estrutt did not restore his loss of sleep during that particular night.
Despite our excesses we reached port safely, and later ate a grand meal at the Hotel Palacio of Barcelona, with lobster mayonnaise, French wines, and everything of the best. Sentiá Dog-beadle, feeling much embarrassed by the elegant ambience, opened his mouth only a little when he introduced food and kept his enormous red hands under the table while not using them. But Damián gloried in this brief return to the high life he had enjoyed at the Presidential Palace of Buenos Aires, and recounted more about his past than I should ever have believed, though we had known each other twenty years or longer.
After a night spent on a train with very narrow beds, we came to Paris and were taken in a taxi to the Gare du Nord. At once Mr Estrutt said: ‘Boys, will you do me a great favour? I am off into the city. Please wait for me in the restaurant yonder, order what food and drink may be convenient, but be careful to enter into conversation with no one at all! My orders from the Viscountess are never to leave you out of my sight. I shall be back in time to catch our train.’
Damián asked: ‘What is this great favour worth to us, Don Charley?’
He answered: ‘If you protect me, Damián, I shall protect you. Is that not sufficient?’
Since Mr Estrutt had all the money and our tickets, his answer could not fail to satisfy Damián. Yet it was embarrassing that two Palma businessmen whom I knew by sight should enter the Station Restaurant and greet me. I gazed blankly at them and pretended to be German. I even turned to Damián, saying: ‘Heute ist Sonntag!’ which was all the German I knew. Damián, who is quick-witted enough, shook his head and answered: ‘Donnerwetter!’ which was all the German he knew. The two Palma men sat down at a table in the far corner, and from there stared at us. We three dared not talk to one another in our own language until they had gone out again. The food, by the way, was not good.
This was two o’clock. Our train to Calais would depart at six o’clock; but four o’clock had passed, and five, and half past five, and a quarter to six, and still there we sat. At ten minutes to six, Damián said: ‘I like this very little. What can have happened to Mr Estrutt?’
‘Patience!’ said I. ‘He’s a good fellow and will keep his word.’
But Sentiá grew more and more nervous. He cried out that we should never have come: we have been decoyed to Paris for some business of the Devil, he said – to be sold in slavery to the Moors, it might be. Had he not been plagued by a black foreboding on the day of the contract?
We made no reply. At last Damián stood up: ‘Well,’ he said, ‘let us put on our overcoats and have everything ready. Mr Estrutt will, I have no doubt, appear mathematically at the last moment.’
Even as he spoke, Mr Estrutt burst into the restaurant, paid our small bill with a single large banknote, and rushed us off to the platform. We caught the Calais train with thirty seconds to spare.
‘My God, that was close!’ exclaimed Mr Estrutt, sinking into his seat. ‘Nevertheless, I found what I went out to find!’
Damián asked: ‘Was it a nice tender chicken?’
Mr Estrutt took the joke in good part. ‘Alas, no,’ he answered, ‘this was serious business, not gastronomic pleasure. You shall hear about it one day. But I thank you very much for your great patience, boys! Now, what about a game of cards?’ So we played truc until we reached Calais.
Contrary to all we had heard, the English Channel was as smooth as glass, and on the other side we found an altogether different country again, green and beautiful! Though it was already autumn, the sun shone without pause all the time we spent there. I cannot imagine why Spaniards call the English climate a bad one. At Dover, a huge Rolls-Royce limousine took us by road to London, in which we drove for hours, it seemed, through a wilderness of streets, and across the river Támesis. Finally we came to Piccadilly Circus with its fantastic coloured signs, and its hurrying crowds. Close by stood the Regent Palacio Hotel, where a private suite awaited us on the first floor, complete with two bathrooms, a dining-room, and every comfort in the world, including waiters to wait on us and a barber to shave us every day after breakfast!
Mr Estrutt was a humorous man. On the next morning he took Damián and me aside, and said: ‘When the old hen enters to greet you, do not omit to condole with her on the fate of her poor daughter. The more profuse your condolences, the more it will disturb her conscience because of the kidnapping fiction; and the less carefully will she examine our expense account. Flatter her, too! I should have explained that we occupy this private suite owing to her fear of your making contact with the general public. I myself suggested that, were the short-haired girl’s lawyer to hear of your presence here, he would surely try to impress the true story upon you; with the result that you might not wish to testify. It is a situation very useful for us. We shall play on these fears of hers, and enjoy a marvellous life together; and I shall never (in theory) let you stray from my sight.’
Scarcely had he spoken, when the Viscountess herself came through the door, wearing a fur-coat of black sable-skins, a black hat, and black gloves. She also kept a black-edged handkerchief pressed to her black eyes. After welcoming us in fluent Spanish, broken by many sobs, she thanked us from the bottom of a mother’s heart for our readiness to rescue her daughter from that criminal Bulgarian heretic – whom the police, thanks be to the Virgin of Guadelupe! now held in safe custody. Sentiá wept too, and Damián assured her that he also had suffered a like tragic sorrow – his own daughter having once been decoyed away from home by an English Lord, ruined and cast aside like an old glove. Damián, as you know, is childless; and can lie without a tremor of his wicked face, which resembles carved mahogany. This tale impressed even Mr Estrutt, who patted Damián on the back and said in admiration: ‘I wonder, Señor Frau, that your heart ever permitted you to forgive the English aristocracy. It must be ruled by a very pious spirit.’
A comedy, in short! For myself, I told the Viscountess that only so great a distress as hers could have persuaded me to abandon my island, my wife and my children, and venture to this unknown, this most terrifying city. The Viscountess, still occupied with her handkerchief, replied that only a Spaniard could have spoken so nobly. She was no less devout a Catholic than I, she declared, and God and the Virgin would bring the righteous cause to triumph.
I spoke what came into my mind. ‘The Bulgarian heretic looked a veritable ruffian,’ I said. ‘Let us hope that they hang him high! Imagine any well-nurtured girl trusting herself to the beast! Yet that your poor daughter did so, must surely be a sign of her formidable innocence… But what surprises me in this painful affair is how you, Señora Viscountess, can be her mother – you do not look half old enough!’
‘I married very young,’ she explained, drying her eyes again.
When she went away, we opened the windows in order to drive out the strong perfume of violets and sandalwood which she had left behind.
The trial was postponed for a fortnight, because of some legal complication; we should now be absent for another three weeks at least, but none of us cared a tassel. On Mr Estrutt’s advice, however, we told Mr Jonés that our business would surely go to ruin in our absence, and that we should need fifty pesetas a day, and one thousand at the close. The Viscountess was delighted to meet our demands, and we were delighted to sign a new contract. Never in my life had I earned so much money for no
thing at all!
Mr Estrutt, I should tell you, had that same enormous Rolls-Royce limousine at his disposal whenever we wished to take an outing. He showed us the principal sights of London: the Tower and the Tower Bridge, and the Historical Waxworks, and the Museum of Animals and Birds, and the Docks, and the wonderful Botanical Gardens where one enters a tropical palm-house and nearly dies of the heat! Also the Law Courts, where we would soon give evidence, and many other places; with cines or music-halls nearly every evening.
Mr Estrutt also took us to visit his wives, first explaining to Sentiá that polygamy was customary among the Metropolitan Police force. Two of these wives lived in different parts of London – each occupying a small red brick house with a flower garden. We Majorcans sat in the sunny garden drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, while Mr Estrutt went upstairs to talk family affairs with his wife. Each wife also had a little boy, with whom we played, throwing a ball about on the lawn. We next met a third wife, who had a big house near Brighton. She seemed very rich, though not nearly so beautiful as the other two. The rich one gave us whisky and cigars, while we Majorcans sat on the lawn and played with a poodle-dog. Mr Estrutt afterwards showed us a new gold cigarette-lighter, his birthday present from this lady. The fourth wife, however, who lived many kilometres to the north of London, was old, ugly and ill-tempered. To judge from her curt greeting to Mr Estrutt, she must have been the head-wife. Or so Damián said, who had seen similar behaviour in Moorish families while doing his military service at Melilla; the head-wife was invariably jealous and spiteful.
One day Mr Estrutt took me aside and said: ‘Toni, my friend, I think we need a little change. I have no complaint to make against the Palacio, but even the best hotel grows wearisome after three weeks. Nor should I wish my old clothes-rack of a Viscountess to think that I have forgotten the serious task that she has imposed on me. Be prepared, therefore, to move at midnight; but, as usual, not a word to Sentiá!’