The Fencing Master (24 page)

Sensing him approach, Cárceles stirred feebly. "No ... I beg you," he murmured in a mere thread of a voice, while tears and blood ran down his cheeks. "For pity's sake ... no more. That's all I know ... I've told you everything. Merciful God, no ... Enough, for the love of God!"

His plea became a scream. His staring eyes were fixed on the candle flame, and his chest fluttered as if he were taking his dying breath.

Reaching out a hand, Don Jaime touched his forehead. It burned as if there were a fire blazing inside. His voice was like a whisper, strangled by horror. "Who did this to you?"

Cárceles moved his eyes slowly in his direction, struggling to recognize the person speaking to him. "The devil," he said in a moan of infinite pain. A yellowish scum bubbled in one corner of his mouth. "They are ... the devil."

"Where are the documents?"

Cárceles rolled his eyes, trembled, sobbed. "For pity's sake, take me away from here. Don't let them go on. Take me away, I beg you. I've told them everything. He has them, Astarloa. I have nothing to do with it, I swear. Go see him, and he'll tell you. I only wanted ... I don't know any more. For pity's sake, that's all I know."

Don Jaime started when he heard his name on the dying man's lips. He didn't know who the executioners were, but it was clear that Cárceles had betrayed him. He felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck. There was no time to lose; he must...

Something moved behind him. Sensing an alien presence, Don Jaime half-turned, and that probably saved his life. A hard object brushed past his head and hit him on the neck. Stunned by the pain, he had enough presence of mind to jump to one side. A shadow leaped at him just as the candle fell from his grasp, going out as it rolled across the floor.

He stepped back, bumping into furniture in the darkness, hearing his attacker's breathing immediately before him. With a kind of desperate energy he seized the walking stick that he still had in his right hand and held it out in the open space his attacker would have to cross to reach him.

If he had had time to analyze his state of mind, he would have been surprised to find that he felt no fear at all, just an icy determination to give as good as he got. It was hatred that gave him the strength to fight, and the strength of his arm, tense as a spring, responded to the desire to harm, to kill the murderer. He thought of Ayala, Cárceles, Adela de Otero. By God, they weren't going to slaughter him as they had the others.

Waiting for the attack that would come from the shadows, Don Jaime instinctively assumed the on-guard position. "To me!" he shouted defiantly into the darkness. Then he felt someone close at hand breathing hard, and something touched the end of his walking stick. A hand grasped the end hard, trying to pull it from his hand. Don Jaime laughed silently when he heard the sound of the lower half of the walking stick slipping over the steel blade, which it served as a scabbard. That was exactly what he had expected; the attacker had just exposed the blade, at the same time revealing approximately where he was and at what distance. The fencing master drew his arm back, pulling the blade completely free of the scabbard, and, dropping to his bent right leg, lunged three times into the shadows. Something solid interposed itself in the path of the third lunge, and someone gave a cry of pain.

"To me!" Don Jaime shouted again, moving in the direction of the door with his sword before him. He heard furniture being knocked over, and an object flew past him, shattering against the wall. The harmless lower half of the walking stick hit him rather feebly on the arm when he passed the place where his enemy must have been.

"Get him!" yelled a voice barely two feet from him. "He's heading for the door! He stabbed me."

So the murderer had only been wounded. What was worse, he wasn't alone. Don Jaime hurled himself through the door and ran out into the passage, fencing wildly at the darkness.

"To me!"

The way out must be to the left, at the end of the corridor, on the other side of the curtain that he had seen when he came into the house. A dark shape stood in his way, and something hit the wall near him. Don Jaime lowered his head and stepped forward, his weapon in his hand. He heard panting, and a hand grabbed him by his shirt collar; he smelled the sour odor of sweat as two strong arms tried to hold him fast. The arms closed tightly around his chest. Suffocated by the pressure, unable to get far enough away to use the sword, Don Jaime managed to free his left hand and reach up; he touched an ill-shaven cheek. Then, mustering his waning strength, he grabbed his opponent by the hair and pulled the head forward as hard as he could, striking him with his own forehead. He felt a sharp pain between his eye-brows, and something crunched beneath the impact. A hot,
viscous fluid ran down his face; he didn't know if it was his blood or if he had managed to break his attacker's nose, but at least he was free again. He pressed himself against the wall and slid along it, describing semicircles with the tip of his blade. He knocked over something that fell to the floor with a crash.

"Here, scum!"

Someone did in fact move toward him. He felt the man's presence even before he touched him, heard the scuff of feet on the floor, and lunged blindly, forcing whoever it was to step back. He leaned against the wall again, panting, trying to recover his breath. He was exhausted and didn't think he could go on for much longer; but in the dark he couldn't find the way out. On the other hand, even if he did find the door, he wouldn't have time to turn the key in the lock before they were on him again. "This is as far you go, old friend," he said to himself, peering without much hope into the surrounding gloom. He didn't particularly mind dying here; it only saddened him to have to go without learning the answer.

There was a noise to his right. He lunged in that direction, and the blade of his sword bent as it came in contact with something hard; one of the murderers was using a chair to protect himself as he advanced. Don Jaime again slid along the wall to the left, until his shoulder came up against what was possibly a wardrobe. He used the sword like a whip, enjoying the whistle of the blade as it cut the air; his enemies would hear it too, and the sound would warn them to be careful. For Don Jaime that might mean a few more seconds of life.

They were closing in again; he could sense them before he heard them move. He jumped forward, bumping into invisible furniture, knocking objects onto the floor, and reached another wall. There he stood still, holding his breath, because the noise of the air coming in and out of his mouth and nose prevented him from hearing the other noises in the room. To his left, very close, something crashed to the floor. Without hesitating for a moment, he put all his weight on his left leg and lunged again, twice. He heard a furious moan:

"He stabbed me again!"

The man was obviously an imbecile. Don Jaime seized the opportunity to change position, this time without bumping into anything. Smiling to himself, he thought that this was beginning to resemble a game of musical chairs. He wondered how much longer he could hold out. Not long, of course, but this wasn't, after all, such a bad way to die. Much better than, in a few years' time, fading away in some home for the infirm, with the nuns diddling him out of his last meagre savings stashed away under the bed and with him cursing a God in whom he had never quite been able to believe.

"To me!"

This time, his now flagging call to arms rang out in vain. A shadow flitted past, crunching over some broken shards, and suddenly a rectangle of light opened up in the wall. The shadow slipped rapidly through the open door, followed by another fleeting silhouette that limped. In the gallery he could hear the voices of neighbors who had been woken by the fight. There was the sound of footsteps, of shutters and doors opening, voices raised in alarm, the cries of old women. The fencing master staggered to the door and leaned, near to fainting, against the door frame, gulping in lungfuls of cool night air. He was drenched with sweat, and the hand holding the sword was trembling like a leaf. It took him a while to accept the idea that he was going to go on living.

Gradually, various nightshirted neighbors crowded around, peering at him and lighting him with candles and oil lamps while they cast fearful glances into the apartment, which they did not dare to enter. A night watchman was coming up the stairs, bearing his lamp and pole. The neighbors made way for this figure of authority, who looked suspiciously at the sword that Don Jaime still held in his hand.

"Did you catch them?" Don Jaime asked, without much hope.

The night watchman scratched the back of his head. "Afraid not, sir. A neighbor and myself pursued two men who were running at fall tilt down the street, but near the Puerta de Toledo they got into a carriage that was waiting for them and escaped. Has there been some trouble?"

Don Jaime nodded, pointing into the house. "There's a man inside who's very badly wounded. See what you can do for him. You'd better call a doctor." All the energy that the fight had injected into his body was disappearing now, giving way to a great lassitude; he suddenly felt very old and tired. "You'd better send for the police too. It's vital that someone contact the chief of police, Don Jenaro Campillo."

The night watchman proved most obliging. "Right away," he said, looking attentively at Don Jaime and noticing with concern the blood on his face. "Are you wounded yourself, sir?"

Don Jaime touched his forehead with his fingers. His eyebrows seemed swollen, doubtless from the head blow he had dealt one of his opponents. "It's not my blood," he said with a faint smile. "And if you need a description of the two men who were here, I'm afraid I can't be of much help. I can only say that one of them probably has a broken nose and the other has two sword wounds somewhere on his body."

T
HE
fish eyes were looking at him coldly from behind their spectacles. "Is that everything?"

Don Jaime stared at the dregs of coffee in the cup he was holding. He was quite embarrassed. "Yes, that's everything. Now I really have told you everything I know."

Campillo got up from his desk, took a few steps about the room, and stood looking out the window, his thumbs hooked in the armholes of his vest. After a moment, he turned slowly and gave Don Jaime a disapproving look. "Señor Astarloa, allow me to say that your behavior throughout this whole affair has been that of a child."

Don Jaime blinked. "I'm the first to admit that."

"Oh, so you admit it, well ... But I ask myself what damn use it is to us now for you to admit it. Someone has been slicing away at this Cárceles fellow as if he were a side of beef, and all because you got it into your head to play the hero."

"I just wanted..."

"I know very well what you wanted. I prefer not to think about it too much, so as not to give in to the temptation to throw you in prison."

"My intention was to protect Doña Adela de Otero."

The chief of police gave a sarcastic little laugh. "I might have known," he said, shaking his head like a doctor presented with a hopeless case. "And we've seen how effective your protection turned out to be: one corpse, another on the way, and you, by some miracle, still alive. And that's not even counting Luis de Ayala."

"I never wanted to get involved..."

"Just as well. If you had really put your oar in, all hell would have broken loose." Campillo took a handkerchief out of his pocket and started carefully polishing the lenses of his glasses. "I don't know if you realize the seriousness of the situation, Señor Astarloa."

"I do. And I'm prepared to take the consequences."

"You tried to protect a person who might have been implicated in the murder of the marquis. Or, rather, who was implicated, because not even her death undoes the fact that she was an accomplice in the intrigue. Indeed, that may have been precisely what cost her life."

Campillo paused, put on his glasses and used the handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his brow.

"Just tell me one thing, Señor Astarloa. Why did you conceal from me the truth about that woman?"

A few moments passed. Then Don Jaime slowly raised his head and looked straight through the chief of police, at some invisible point beyond him, in the distance. He half-closed his eyelids, and the expression in his gray eyes grew steelier.

"I loved her."

Through the open window came the noise of carriages rattling along the street below. Campillo did not move or speak; it was clear that, for the first time, he was at a loss for words. He paced the room; he cleared his throat, embarrassed, and went and sat down behind his desk again, not daring to look Don Jaime in the face.

"I'm sorry," he said after a while.

Don Jaime nodded without replying.

"I'm going to be quite honest with you," added the chief of police after a judicious pause, long enough for the echo of the last words they had exchanged to die away between them. "The more time passes, the more unlikely it is that we will resolve this matter, that we will ever nab the guilty parties. Your friend Cárceles, or what remains of him, is the only person alive who knows them; let's hope he lives long enough to tell us. Did you really not manage to identify either of the individuals who were torturing the poor wretch?"

"How could I? It all happened in the dark."

"You were very lucky last night. You could easily have ended up in a certain place with which you are already familiar, lying on a marble slab."

"I know."

For the first time that morning, the policeman smiled slightly. "I understand that you proved a pretty hard nut to crack," he said, making a few two-handed gestures in the air. "At your age, too ... I mean, it's unusual. A man of your age taking on two professional murderers like that..."

Don Jaime shrugged. "I was fighting for my life, Señor Campillo."

The policeman raised a cigar to his mouth. "That's a pretty weighty reason," he said, with an understanding look. "A very weighty reason indeed. Do you still not smoke, Señor Astarloa?"

"No, I still don't smoke."

"It's odd, sir," said Campillo, lighting a match and breathing in the first few mouthfuls of smoke with evident pleasure. "But despite your rather foolish intervention in this affair, I can't help feeling a certain sympathy for you. I mean it. Will you allow me to place before you a rather daring simile? With all due respect, of course."