Tales of Mysteries & Espionage - John Buchan Edition. Buchan John
chose them for their brains out of the rascality of the globe… Then there are the three ruffians you sent with him to Olifa. What were their names?”
“Carreras, Judson, and Biretti.”
“Yes. Well, you may be sure they will come back, if indeed they are not back already… I do not like it, Senor. They are dangerous grit to get into our wheels. I should be happier if I knew that they were in their graves.”
“So should I. But I don’t let that outfit worry me. I reckon they’re part of the legitimate risk of war. Anything more?”
“The Conquistadors.”
Blenkiron laughed aloud. “That pie-faced bunch! Say, Luis, you’re getting fanciful. What harm can those doped owls do us? They’ll be waiting for Lossberg and making a fuss about their comforts. It’s him they’ll bite, not us.”
“I wonder again. Lariarty was in the round-up which Lord Clanroyden organised. He was consorting with the Bodyguard. Is there not something there to make us think?”
“Why, Luis, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Except for Castor, I reckon I know the Conquistadors better than any other man, and I’ve sized them up long-ago. They’re the most dangerous stuff on earth, so long as Castor has the handling of them, but without him they’re no more good than dud shells. They’ve powder enough, but, lacking Castor, they haven’t the current to fire the charge. Let ‘em alone, and they’ll just moon about and rot.”
“And yet Lariarty was at the meeting which was nearly the end of Lord Clanroyden. He sat in the judge’s chair. It is right to assume that he had some part in the plot… I think you are wrong, Senor. I think the Conquistadors are like sick wolves—dying, if you like, but with enough strength to turn and bite. And, remember, their bite will be deadly, because it is poisoned.”
Blenkiron looked perturbed. “I can’t bring myself to think that. What could they do? They won’t fit in with Lossberg.”
“No, indeed. General Lossberg, if I understand him, will make nothing of them. He is a conventional soldier, and will fight his battles in the old professional way… But what if the Conquistadors keep the same company that we found Lariarty keeping? They have no scruples. What if a dull anger and a craving for their drug—for presently they will get no more of it—what if that kindles their wits and screws up their nerves sufficiently for one desperate throw? The remnants of the Bodyguard, if they can find them, will be their executants. They will think chiefly of getting to Castor, and, failing that, of revenge.”
“It will be hard to reach the Courts of the Morning.”
“Maybe. But it may be less hard to reach you—or Lord Clanroyden. Our army is not a machine, but a personal following. A well-aimed bullet might make it a rabble.”
Blenkiron sat brooding for a moment. “I think you put the risk too high,” he said at last, “but we can’t neglect any risk. Have you put Intelligence on to the job?”
“Senor Musgrave and his young men have been too busy fighting battles. I have done a little myself.”
“You have told me what gunmen survive, but you haven’t located them. How about the Conquistadors?”
Luis took up another paper. “Lariarty, whom Peters wanted to lock up, was set free by Lord Clanroyden. He has been living quietly in his rooms, playing much music on his piano. There are five others in the Gran Seco, and they profess to be waiting till the Mines are started again, whether by Lossberg or ourselves. They shrug their shoulders, and behave as if there were no war. The dandyism of their clothes has not changed, and they feed solemnly together at the Club or the Regina. What they do beyond that I cannot tell.”
“Who’s here beside Lariarty?”
Luis read from his paper.
“Senores Frederick Larbert, Peter Suvorin, Maximilian Calvo, Jacques D’Ingraville, Luigi Pasquali.”
Blenkiron considered. “After Lariarty I should say that D’Ingraville was the danger. He’s not so deeply dipped, and he’s the youngest. Funny to think that he was once a French flying ace.”
“I have something more to tell you. Romanes is returning. I had information this morning that two days ago he landed in Olifa and that he is now with Lossberg.”
“H’m! I don’t like that. Europe has a bad effect on those lads—breaks their temper and quickens their brains. And he won’t get the dope to quiet him—not unless he goes into the Poison Country, and Peters will have a word to say to that… Darn you, Luis, you’ve given me a thorn to lie on, just when I was feeling comfortable and meaning to hog it on my bed till sundown. What are you going to do?”
“I would beg leave of absence till eight o’clock. You have no need, I think, for my services, and there are one or two inquiries I wish to make before we leave the city.”
So, while Blenkiron, who had slept less than six hours in the past three days, did his best that afternoon to make up arrears, Luis de Marzaniga set out on his own errands.
He visited the Club, and saw in a corner of the deserted dining-room three men lunching. They were just beginning, and in the dislocation of the service their meal was bound to be a slow one. Satisfied with his survey, he joined a young man, who was waiting for him in the street, and the two made a round of domiciliary visits. This young man knew his business, and the outer doors of three flats were neatly opened without damage to the locks. Two of the flats—those of Larbert and D’Ingraville—were in normal order, full of books and bibelots and queer scents, but the third, that of Peter Suvorin, was in a state of supreme untidiness. Its owner had been burning papers in the stove, his bedroom was littered with clothes, while a half-packed valise stood on the bed. “It seems,” said Luis to his companion, “that Senor Suvorin is about to make a journey.”
His next visit was alone, and to the Regina Hotel. There it was plain that he had a friend, for a word to the head-waiter in the almost empty restaurant got him an immediate interview with a servant in a little room behind the office.
“Senor Pasquali’s apartments?” he asked. “You have watched them as I directed?”
“With assiduity. The Senor is going away soon. Where, I do not know, but he has had his baggage prepared as if for a rough journey. Also he has received every night at the hour of ten a visitor.”
The visitor was described: a tall man, with a long dark face and high cheek-bones, like an Indian’s. No, not an Indian—certainly a white man. There was a white scar on his forehead above his right eye. He spoke with Senor Pasquali in French.
Luis whistled. “That is our friend Radin,” he said to himself. “Radin beyond doubt. What has that ugly rogue from the gutter to do with the superfine Pasquali, who plays Scriabin so ravishingly? They may be going travelling together—perhaps also with Suvorin. Luis, my dear, these things must be looked into.”
Luis went out into the glare of the afternoon with a preoccupied face. He walked for a little down the Avenida Bolivar, and then struck through a nest of calles in the direction of the smelting works. His preoccupation did not prevent him keeping a sharp look-out, and presently in a jostle of market-women at a corner he saw a face which made him walk quietly back a little, slip up a side street, and then run his hardest to cut it off. He failed, for the man had disappeared. After a moment’s reflection Luis returned to the Administration Buildings and sought out the room given up to the headquarters of the Air Force. The true air base was the Courts of the Morning, but there was an aerodrome and a single squadron behind the city. There he cross-examined the officer in charge as to whether any Olifa planes had recently crossed their lines. He was told that four had been brought down, but that to the best of Headquarters’ knowledge no voluntary landing had been made.
“But we cannot tell,” said the officer. “We are not holding a continuous line—only two sectors.”
“Then an Olifa plane might land someone in a place from which he could make his way here?”
“It