Complete Short Stories (41 page)

(How fortunate, Don Roberto, that at this particular stage of my story Isabel has gone off, to wash the dishes, I suppose, and feed the hens; otherwise I should have been forced to
omit the subsequent incident. In any case, I must keep it short.)

Well, Mr Estrutt understood me before the words were well out of my mouth. ‘If there is nothing else, my friend Toni, this can readily be arranged,’ said he, ‘but I had feared to make any suggestion that might offend your sensibilities. Not being members of the Metropolitan Police force, I thought you might consider yourselves
less free in certain respects than I am. Very well, I shall at once telephone to an associate of mine who orders such matters. I promise that you will have no further cause to complain of having been deceived.’

He kept his word. That night after coffee, we heard a soft knocking at the door and in walked three beautiful smiling blondes, all wearing the tightest of silk dresses. Mr Estrutt at once
made the necessary introductions, taking care to give us fictitious names. Then he uncorked a prodigiously large bottle of champagne and filled seven glasses. I quickly engaged the attention of the leading young lady; and Damián was not far behind me in securing the second. But Sentiá, who, as usual, had not been informed of the arrangement, sat perplexed and paralysed, goggling like a great moribund
fish, when he saw the two young ladies perch on our knees. The third had addressed herself to Mr Estrutt, who explained, however, that the shy gentleman in the corner was her chosen sweetheart; he himself would merely be our interpreter. Although disappointed, she flung herself on Sentiá with a fine pretence of enthusiasm. Sentiá leaped up, knocking over his chair, and retreated to the bathroom;
but the determined girl thrust her foot between the door and the jamb, calling on Mr Estrutt for help. Mr Estrutt pushed the door open, and when she had entered, locked it behind her.

I shall say no more than that Damián and I needed no interpreter… But, Lord, how ashamed of himself Sentiá was afterwards, and how we laughed! Of one thing we could be sure: once safely home again, he would never
reveal one word of the proceedings, not even in the confessional!

The Viscountess came to visit us the next morning, with her usual tale of how God and the Virgin would uphold the right, and how greatly she appreciated our chivalrous defence of her Catholic home. Then, noticing suddenly how ill-at-ease Sentiá appeared to be, she laid a black-gloved hand on his shoulder to comfort him. ‘My poor
fellow,’ she cried, ‘you must miss your wife deeply!’

At that, Sentiá Dog-beadle wept like a little child. Fearful that he would make some foolish remark, I hastened to say: ‘Yes, my lady, Sebastián here misses his Joana terribly, not having expected to be away so many weeks. Nor is he the only one of us who suffers. Don Damián and I are equally sensitive; but, for the sake of your unfortunate
daughter, we try to suppress our misery.’

The Viscountess promised that we should never regret our visit, and charitably dabbed Sentiá’s eyes with her scented black lace handkerchief. But even that did not console him!

Two days later, the divorce case began. Mr Estrutt sat with us in the Law Court and explained in a whisper who was who, and what was happening. The foxhunter had presented four
or five charges of adultery in respect of the short-haired girl, but Mr Jonés and his squadron of lawyers chose from them only those two that seemed easiest to prove: namely, the affair with the Bulgarian artist at Damián’s hotel, and an earlier affair in Paris with a rich Escottish manufacturer named Simon Macwilly. Mr Macwilly was married and, shocked to find himself cited as co-respondent in
this case, had agreed to pay the short-haired girl’s defence, so as to protect himself against the complaints of his wife.

It appears that an official of the British Embassy at Paris had lent Mr Macwilly his apartment during a temporary absence, and that the short-haired girl passed the night there with Mr Macwilly. This Embassy official, however, did not wish to be accused of pandering to his
friend’s vices, and when Mr Estrutt and Mr Jonés went to make inquiries of him, immediately sent his two servants away into the country, thus preventing them from becoming witnesses. The only relevant evidence could now come from a taxi-driver who had conducted the couple, with their bags, to the door of the apartment; and this would, perhaps, be found insufficient. Yet Mr Estrutt, by studying the
calendar, reckoned that the short-haired girl must have spent another night somewhere in Paris, after vacating the Embassy official’s apartment. Therefore, during our long wait at the Gare du Nord, he had persuaded his friends among the French Police to scrutinize the registers of certain hotels. Sure enough, they found a small hotel on the left bank of the
Sena
where Mr Macwilly had signed the
register for himself and Mrs Macwilly on the night in question. The French hotelkeeper and his wife demanded an expense fee which Mr Jonés thought excessive, but which they refused to make less; to give the required evidence, they said, might injure their establishment’s name for discretion. The Viscountess, however, would pay almost anything for this testimony, and an agreement was reached.

The charge of having committed adultery with Mr Macwilly was heard first. Now, on the previous afternoon the advocate, a King’s Councillor, had explained to us just what questions he would ask, and how we should reply. This drama we rehearsed over and over again with the help of an
interpreter; but Sentiá Dog-beadle proved so slow at learning his lesson that the advocate cried impatiently: ‘Man,
man, I hardly dare call you as a witness; for fear you may ruin our case! Your companions have far greater agility of mind.’ We implored Sentiá to gather his wits, since three thousand pesetas hung on our satisfying the Judge; but he seemed like a lost man.

‘You will be called next, boys!’ Mr Estrutt warned us, as the first witness appeared and took the oath on a large Bible, which he kissed.
Sentiá went whiter than a sheet at the warning, and began crossing himself like a madman. I felt uneasy myself, though with little cause, being now word-perfect in my lesson.

To be brief: the French hotelkeepers identified the short-haired girl, who was now wearing black in competition with the Viscountess, and swore to her presence at their establishment that night, in company with the fat,
bald man who signed the register as Simon Macwilly. The couple had engaged two bedrooms with a communicating door, the key of which was on the short-haired girl’s side.

When summoned to give evidence herself, the short-haired girl admitted having spent a night in that hotel, but strongly denied the charge of adultery. Mr Macwilly, she said, was liable to heart attacks and, as his only reliable
friend in Paris, she had wished to be at hand to attend him if he were taken ill during the hours of darkness. Our advocate put it to her that misconduct had certainly taken place between them. She pretended to be outraged and cried: ‘Misconduct, why, that is ridiculous! Mr Macwilly is an ancient man of sixty!’

It was a grave error in tactics. At once our advocate addressed the Judge (who was
wearing an enormous wig, I did not ask why). Having observed the Judge’s angry expression when the short-haired girl implied that, at sixty, a man is ancient and altogether spent, he said very shrewdly: ‘My Lord, I shall call no more witnesses; but let my plea rest upon the evidence you have now heard.’ For this Judge had not only just celebrated his sixtieth birthday: he had emphasized it by a third
marriage!

Mr Estrutt had difficulty in repressing his joy when he heard these words spoken. He clapped Sentiá on the shoulder and whispered in his ear: ‘My lad, you are saved!’ Then he similarly told Damián and me: ‘You also are saved. You will not be required to give evidence after all.’

Damián flew into a temper and asked in a loud voice: ‘What of my thousand pesetas? I am being robbed. Why
should I not give evidence?’

The Judge glared at Damián in great anger, calling for order in Court.

Mr Estrutt whispered: ‘You madman, of course you will be paid!’

At that, Damián subsided, muttering.

We listened to the Judge’s summing-up, and his decision that he could not believe the story told by this shameless young woman, and doubted whether anyone else present could believe it either.
Then he praised our
advocate for his great restraint in not pressing the second charge, and thus perhaps exposing the wretched woman as a common prostitute – since two proved charges of adultery, she must be aware, would under English Law earn her that disgraceful appellation!

In brief, he granted the divorce, and ordered the short-haired girl to pay all the legal costs of the case. Her advocate
did not appeal from this decision, and so the case ended…

But that is not quite the end of my story. When the Judge and all the fashionable spectators had dispersed, there remained in Court only ourselves, the French hotelkeeper and his wife, several lawyers and their clerks, some ushers, the short-haired girl and the Viscountess. The costs of the case having been paid by Mr Macwilly’s lawyers,
the Viscountess came running up with eyes that shone like stars, and kissed us each in turn on both cheeks, including Mr Estrutt. She cried: ‘God and the Virgin have listened to my prayers!’

It then amused me to say: ‘Heartiest congratulations, my lady. Yet your poor daughter there seems quite overcome by distress. Perhaps she grieves for the fate of that Bulgarian heretic? Or could it be that
she fears you will never forgive her?’

‘Indeed, friend!’ she cried. ‘How stupid I am! I must make my peace with her at once.’

She hurried across to the short-haired girl, followed by Mr Estrutt, who was a most inquisitive man. He heard her say: ‘My dear girl, you put up a very good fight, I must admit, and I do not wish to triumph over your misery, having suffered this sort of trouble myself
once. What do you propose to do now?’

The short-haired girl smiled back at her faintly and replied: ‘How can I tell? I have lost everything! Though Mr Macwilly has paid the costs of the case, his wife would never agree to a divorce, even if I consented to marry him, which I have no intention of doing. Boris is the man I love. Yet I have not a copper to call my own, and neither has Boris.’

The
Viscountess kissed her on the forehead. ‘My poor innocent,’ she said, cooing like a pigeon. ‘You should never have chosen an artist as your prospective husband, and really, were you not rather imprudent to tease the old Judge as you did? How much money would put you right with the world again?’

The short-haired girl thought for a moment. Then she said slowly: ‘I fear I could hardly manage with
less than ten thousand pounds. Boris and I might start some business with that, I suppose.’

‘Let me make it twenty thousand!’ cried the Viscountess in a burst of commiseration, producing her cheque-book and a gold fountain-pen. She signed the cheque then and there.

We Majorcans, too, profited from her generosity to the extent of still another thousand pesetas each; and six months later, we heard
that she
had married her foxhunter. On the very same day, but in a different city, the short-haired girl was united with the Bulgarian artist. They bought a
pensión
near San Sebastián, which is now very luxurious and always crowded; so Mr Estrutt recently informed me on a picture postcard. He wrote that his wife had accompanied him to San Sebastián for a holiday, and that he wished Damián Frau
and I could have been present to share their fun. He did not specify which wife; but perhaps he had recently married a fifth, unknown to us, with the money that the Viscountess paid him.

You may wonder, as we all did, why the Viscountess, however fabulously rich, wasted so much money on the case when, by offering the short-haired girl twenty thousand pounds before the trial, she might have persuaded
her not to defend the action. Well, the answer, supplied by Mr Estrutt, was that Mr P. P. Jonés advised against this course, which would have been a crime known as ‘collusion’, and therefore in conflict with his high moral principles. Besides, why should he deprive himself of an excessively profitable legal case? Again, the short-haired girl prided herself on having shown such prudence that
no charge could possibly be proved against her; but she had not reckoned with a detective of the experience and perspicacity possessed by my friend, Mr Charley Estrutt!

AFTER COLLECTING THE
family mail at five o’clock one Friday afternoon, in Majorca, where I live, I stopped by at the village café, and found everyone disturbed and excited. I asked what was wrong. ‘The Count of Deià is dead,’ Catalina told me, from behind the bar. She and her husband, as proprietors of the café, know all the news. I could see that she had been crying.

‘But
I met him only a few hours ago!’ I exclaimed. ‘He seemed in perfect health and full of jokes, though perhaps rather sad ones.’

‘Where was that, Don Roberto?’

‘On the path near the Ass Rock.’

‘At what time?’

‘Just after the midday Angelus.’

‘Then you must have been the last man to see him alive. What did he say?’

‘He asked me for a cigarette. I told him that I had no blond tobacco, only black.
“All the better,” he said. “I do not enjoy smoking straw.” I handed him my old sealskin pouch and a packet of cigarette papers. We sat down together on a rock. He rolled a cigarette, and I offered matches, but he excused himself and used a small burning glass to light his cigarette. He said that this was a more economical procedure, and besides the sun was his friend.’

‘Did he make any other
remark?’ Catalina asked.

‘That the sun was indeed his only friend now.’

‘The poor gentleman!’

‘I had wine in my basket and gave him a drink. He took a sip, and then considerately wiped the mouth of the flask with a clean handkerchief. After discussing a Latin poet admired by both of us, we shook hands, whereupon he went up the hill, hoping that I would soon pay him a visit.’

‘He was found
in the Ass Rock reservoir, at three o’clock – may his soul find peace! Don Julián hurried there, followed by the doctor, who tried artificial respiration. The Count had tied a heavy stone to his feet, but Don Julián, who is a very good priest, always ready to give sinners the benefit of every doubt, insisted that this had been an ill-advised means of
reaching the reservoir bottom in search of
a fallen coin or some other small object. In effect, that the poor gentleman was the victim of an accident. He pointed out that the Count’s gold watch and pocketbook had been placed for security on the wall. Then, although the doctor at last pronounced him dead, Don Julián would not believe it. He bent over the Count, asking him to make a sincere act of repentance. No reply came, but Don Julián says
that the Count’s face expressed humble assent, and that he therefore felt justified in giving him absolution. The deceased will be buried tomorrow, with the customary rites, the judge having now signed a certificate of accidental death.’