This Rough Magic (22 page)

I sat in silence for a minute or two, not thinking, but looking down at my hands, twisting and turning the great diamond, and watching the firelight break and dazzle among its facets. Slowly, the stunned feeling faded, and I began to think …

‘Did you suspect Godfrey before?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘why should I? But when I got that message from Yanni, I did wonder why Godfrey hadn’t to be told. After all, it seemed reasonable to keep the news from Spiro’s mother and sister, because they’d be so elated that they might give everything away before Yanni had done the job; but Godfrey was
a different matter. He would presumably be worrying about Spiro, and he has by far the best boat. What’s more, he’s an experienced seaman, and I’m not. I’d have expected him to be in on the rescue, rather than me and Adoni. It wasn’t much, but it did make me wonder. Then when Yanni was found dead next day, on top of Spiro’s odd warning, I wondered still more.’

I said: ‘You’re not suggesting now – you
can’t
be suggesting that Godfrey killed Yanni Zoulas? Max—’

‘What I’ve told you about Spiro is fact: what happened to Yanni is guesswork. But to my mind the one murder follows the other as the night the day.’

‘
Murder
…’ I don’t think I said it aloud, but he nodded as if I had.

‘I’m pretty sure of it. Same method, too. He’d been hit hard on the head and thrown into the sea. The bottle of ouzo was a nice touch, I thought.’

‘He was hit by the boom. The police said there were hairs—’

‘He could also have been hit
with
the boom. Anyone can crack an unconscious man’s head on a handy chunk of wood like that, hard enough to kill him before you throw him overboard – and hard enough to hide the crack you knocked him out with. I’m not bringing this out as a theory: I’m only saying it could have been done.’

‘Why did you go back to the body after we’d left?’

‘After Yanni left us on Sunday night I heard his boat go out, and I did wonder if he’d been stupid enough to go back on his own, and had run into trouble with the coastguards. From all that we’d been able to see he
might have had a bullet hole in him somewhere, or some other evidence that would start a serious investigation. I was pretty anxious in case they started patrolling local waters before I’d got Spiro safely home.’

‘I see. And your own wrist – was that the coastguards?’

‘Yes, a stray bullet, and a spent one at that. It’s honestly only a graze; I’ll get it looked at when I get Spiro’s leg seen to. They must have heard something, and fired blind. We were just about out of range, and well beyond their lights.’

I said, rather wearily: ‘I suppose you do know what you’re saying, but it all seems so … so impossible to me. And I don’t understand even the start of it.’

‘My God, who does? But I told you, it’s all guesswork about Yanni, and there’s no future in discussing that now. The first thing is to talk to Spiro again. I’ve only had time to get the barest statement from him, and I want to hear the rest before I decide what’s best to do. He should be fit enough by now to tell us exactly what happened and, whether he knows it or not, he may have some clue as to why Manning tried to kill him. If he has, it may be a pointer to Yanni’s death. And whatever it is that makes two murders necessary …’ He straightened abruptly, his shoulder coming away from the mantel. ‘Well, you can see that we have to get the boy safely into the hands of the authorities with his story, before Godfrey Manning has even a suspicion that he’s not as dead as Yanni. Will you come with me now and see him?’

I looked up in surprise. ‘Me? You want me to?’

‘If you will. I told you I wanted you to help me, and – if you’ll agree – you’d better know as much as we do about it.’

‘Of course, whatever I can.’

‘Darling. Come here. Now, stop looking like that, and stop worrying. It’s all impossible, as you say, but then this sort of situation is bound to be, when one gets mixed up in it oneself. All we can do is play for safety, and that means, for the moment, believing Spiro. All right?’

I nodded, as best I could with my head comfortably against his shoulder.

‘Then listen. What I’ve got to do, as I see it, is get the boy straight off to Athens in the morning, to the hospital, then to the police. Once he’s told his story there, he’ll be safe to come home.’ He loosed me. ‘Well, shall we go?’

‘Where is he?’

He laughed. ‘Right below our feet, in a very Gothic but reasonably safe dungeon, with Adoni standing guard over him with the one efficient rifle in this damned great arsenal of Leo’s. Come along, then. Straight under the cuckoo clock, and fork right for the dungeons!’

My cellar is in a rock by th’ sea-side,
where my wine is hid
.

II
. 2.

A wide flight of stone steps led downwards from just beyond the door. Max touched a switch, and a weak yellow light came on to show us the way. He shut the ponderous door, and I heard a key grate in the lock behind us.

‘I’ll go first, shall I?’

I followed him, curiously looking about me. The rest of the building had led me to expect goodness knew what horrors down here: it would hardly have come as a surprise to have found mouldering skeletons dangling in chains from the walls. But the underground corridor into which the stairs led us was innocent of anything except racks for wine – largely empty – which lined the wide passageway. The floor was clean, and the walls surprisingly free of the dust and webs which would have accumulated in a similar place in England. The air smelt fresh, and slightly damp.

I said as much to Max, who nodded. ‘You’ll see why in a minute. This is the official wine-cellar, but it leads
off into a natural cave further along. I don’t know where the opening is – it’s probably no bigger than a chimney – but the air’s always fresh, and you can smell the sea. There are more wine racks down there. In the last century, when one drank one’s four bottles a day, rather a lot of room was needed. Anyway, it must have seemed natural to use the caves in the cliff when they built the Castello.’

‘It’s rather exciting. I suppose these are the caves your father was talking about.’

‘Yes. Most of the cliffs along this coast have caves in them, but, as you can imagine, he’d love to think the Castello cave was the original Prospero’s cell. When I point out that it doesn’t look as if it had ever been open to the outside air, he says that doesn’t matter. I gather it’s more “poetic truth”, like the marmosets.’

‘Well, it’s a lovely romantic theory, and I’m all for it! After all, what are facts? We get those every day … Whereabouts are we now, in relation to “outside”?’

‘At present we’re still moving along under the foundations of the house. The cave itself is in the southern headland, fairly deep down. We go down more steps in a moment, and then there’s a natural passage through to the cave. Wait, here we are.’

He had stopped two-thirds of the way along the corridor, and put a hand up to the empty racks. I watched him, puzzled. He laid hold of what looked like part of the wall of racks, and pulled. Ponderously, and by no means silently, a narrow section swung out into the corridor. Beyond where it had been was a gap in the wall, opening on blackness.

‘Goodness me!’ I exclaimed, and Max laughed.

‘Marvellous, isn’t it? I tell you, the Castello’s got everything! As a matter of fact, I have a suspicion that old Forli kept the better vintages down here, out of the butler’s reach … Careful, now, there’s no light from here on. I’ve brought a torch – here, take it for a moment, will you, while I shut this behind us. Don’t look so scared!’

‘It won’t stay shut and trap us here for ever, till our bones bleach?’

‘Not even till morning, I’m sorry to say. There. The torch, please. I’ll go ahead.’

The second flight sloped more steeply down, and, instead of being made of smooth slabs, seemed to be hacked out of solid rock. At the foot of the flight a rock-hewn passage curved away into darkness, still descending. Max went ahead, shining the beam for me. Here and there the walls showed a glint of damp, and the fresh smell was stronger, and perceptibly salty, while the hollow rock seemed – perhaps only in imagination – to hold a faint, echoing hum like the shushing of the sea through the curves of a shell. A moment I thought I heard it, then it was gone, and there was only the still, cold air, and the sound of our footsteps on the rock.

The yellow torchlight flung sharp lights and shadows on Max’s face as he turned to guide me, sketching in, momentarily, the face of a stranger. His shadow moved, distorted and huge on the rough walls.

‘Is it much further?’ My voice sounded unfamiliar, like a whisper in an echo-chamber.

‘Round this corner,’ said Max, ‘and down five, no, six steps – and there’s the watch-dog.’

A flash of the torch showed the pale blur of a face upturned, and a gun barrel gleaming blue.

‘Adoni? It’s Max, and I’ve brought Miss Lucy along. Is he all right?’

‘He’s fine now. He’s awake.’

Behind Adoni hung a rough curtain of some material like sacking, from beyond which came a dim, warm glow. Adoni drew the curtain aside for me and stood back. Max put the torch out and motioned me past him. I went into the cave.

This was large, with a great arched roof lost in shadows where stalactites hung like icicles; but the walls had been white-washed to a height of six feet or so, and were lined with wine racks and crates and the comfortable, bulging shapes of barrels. On one of these, up-turned to make a table, stood an old-fashioned lantern, a coach-lamp of about 1850 vintage, probably borrowed from the museum upstairs, which dispensed a soft orange light and the cheerful twinkle of brass. The air was warmed by a paraffin stove which stood in the middle of the floor, with a pan of coffee on it. Somewhere in the shadows a drip of water fell regularly – some stalactite dripping fresh water into a pocket of rock; the sound was as homely as a dripping tap. The unexpected effect of cosiness was enhanced by the smell of cigarettes and coffee and the faint fumes of the paraffin stove.

The injured boy lay at the far side of the cave, on a bed pushed up against a row of crates. The bed was a
makeshift affair which nevertheless looked extremely comfortable – a couple of spring mattresses laid one above the other, with blankets galore, and feather pillows, and a vast eiderdown. Some sort of cage had been rigged up under the bedclothes to keep their weight off the injured leg.

Spiro, lying there in what looked like a pair of Sir Julian’s pyjamas (pale blue silk with crimson piping), looked comfortable enough, and not at the moment particularly ill. He was propped up on his pillows, drinking coffee.

He looked up across the cup, a little startled at the sight of me, and threw a quick question at Max, who answered in English:

‘It’s Kyria Forli’s sister. She’s my friend, and yours. She’s going to help us, and I want her to hear your story.’

Spiro regarded me steadily, without noticeable welcome, the round dark eyes, so like his sister’s, wary and appraising. I could recognise the boy in the photographs, but only just; there was the thick, springing hair and the stocky body, with obvious strength in the shoulders and thick neck; but the bloom of health and sunlight – and happiness – was gone. He looked pale, and – in the pyjamas – young and unprotected-looking.

Max pulled a box forward for me to sit on. ‘How do you feel?’ he asked the boy. ‘Is it hurting?’

‘No,’ said Spiro. That this was a lie was quite obvious, but it was not said with any sort of bravado. It was simply that one did not admit to weakness, and pain was weakness.

‘He has slept,’ said Adoni.

‘Good.’ Max perched himself half sitting against the cask which held the lantern. His shadow, thrown hugely up the walls, arched brooding and gigantic across the cave. He studied the younger boy for a minute or two, then said, briskly:

‘If you’re feeling better, I want you to tell us exactly what happened to you. All the details this time, please.’

‘All the what?’

‘Everything you can remember,’ said Max, and Adoni, from the head of the bed, added a soft gloss in Greek.

‘All right.’ Spiro drained the coffee-cup and handed it up, without looking, to Adoni. The latter took it, set it quietly aside, then crossed back to the bed and sat down, curling up gracefully, naturally, like a cat, near the head of the bed away from the injured leg. He reached into a pocket for two of the cigarettes he had got from Max, stuck them in his mouth, lit them both, and handed one to Spiro. Spiro took it without word or glance, but there was no suggestion, as there had been with me, of anything withdrawn or unfriendly. It was obvious that these two young men knew each other almost too well to need words. They sat there side by side against the pillows, Adoni relaxed and graceful, Spiro square and watchful and smoking jerkily, with his hand cupped working-class fashion round the cigarette.

He sent one more wary glance at me, then took no more notice of me: all his attention was on Max, almost as if the latter were judging him – at once judge and
saviour and final court of appeal. Max listened without moving, the huge, curved shadow thrown right up the wall and over half the ceiling of the cave.

The boy spoke slowly, with the signs of fatigue deepening in his face. I have no recollection now of what language he spoke; whether his English was good, or whether Max and Adoni eked it out with translation: the latter, I suspect; but whatever the case, the story came over vividly and sharply in that darkened cellar-cave, with the lantern light, and the smell of the cigarettes, and the two boys curled in the welter of bedclothes, and the faint tangy scent from the silk of Julian Gale’s dressing-gown.

I suppose that the strange, secret surroundings, the time of night, my own weariness and recent emotional encounter with Max, had edged the scene somehow; but it seemed real now only as a dream is real. In the dream I found I had already accepted Godfrey’s guilt; I only waited now to hear how he had done it. Perhaps in the light of morning things would take a different dimension; but now it seemed as if any tale could be true, even the old man’s romantic theory that this was Prospero’s cave, and that here on this rough floor the Neapolitan lords had waited to hear the story from the long-drowned Duke, as I now waited to hear Spiro’s.