Before she could answer de Vendome came hurrying through the gardens towards the house. Throwing them a quick smile, he called out, 'Aren't you two coming in to change? If you don't, you'll be late for dinner.'
As they stood up, she said, 'There would be difficulties, of course. Every revolution has to go through its birth pangs; but we'll talk of that another time.' Giving him a quick glance, she added, 'Jose is aware that I hold Liberal views, but not that they are so far to the Left. To know that I believe in anarchism might distress him.
I have spoken to you so frankly only because you have now become deeply interested in these problems; but I rely on you to regard all I have said as in confidence.'
He bowed. 'I am greatly honoured that you should have given me your confidence, and you may count on me to respect it. But much as I shall look forward to discussing such matters with you again, as I am leaving for Madrid first thing tomorrow morning, I fear it will not be until my return from Barcelona.'
'Get your business there over quickly, then.' She gave him the full benefit of her ravishing smile. 'And please don't think that because I am an anarchist I would ever dream of shielding an assassin, whatever his politics. If you are after one of those people who aided Morral I hope you get him. Have you any idea how long you are likely to be away?'
'None at all, I'm afraid.'
'Well, we shall be at San Sebastian until the end of September. Do please come to stay with us if you can. Jose would be delighted. You know he is very fond of you, and so am I.'
They had reached the house, and as he held the door open for her he quickly concealed his surprise. Such a declaration by a young woman to a friend of her husband's with whom she had never before held a private conversation was so unconventional as to be startling. But after a moment he decided that he must have misunderstood her. He had a flair for languages and his Spanish was now fluent, but by no means perfect; so he could easily have interpreted wrongly the sense of her remark. She could not have meant that she, too, was very fond of him, but that she, too, would be delighted to see him at San Sebastian.
Nevertheless, as he watched her graceful figure mounting the curved staircase, he found himself thinking that Jos6 was a lucky man to have such a lovely and interesting woman for his wife.
Early the following morning, de Vendome drove the Count into Madrid. Having left the bags he had taken on his trip with his heavier luggage, which was still at the Palacio Cordoba, he went out to make a number of arrangements. He had decided that the best means of penetrating anarchist circles in Barcelona would be to adopt similar measures to those he had used two years before in Paris, when ferreting out the secrets of the Masons, and pose as a Russian refugee; so his first visit was to the Russian Embassy.
The Ambassador, Count Soltikoff, was an old friend of his father's, and had known him from his youth; so he had no hesitation in making certain requests to him and, when asked, giving the true reason for making them.
Having listened to de Quesnoy's plans, the Ambassador thoughtfully stroked his grey mutton-chop side whiskers for a moment, then said, 'I can well understand how eagerly His Majesty must have seized on the chance to engage a really trustworthy man of your adventurous disposition in such an undertaking, but I am by no means sure that you would not be wise to tell him that, having thought matters over, you wish to be released from it.'
'Why should I do that?' de Quesnoy asked in surprise. 'This mission is the very thing I needed to take my mind off the great loss I have suffered.'
'Perhaps; but there are better ways of employing yourself which would do so equally well, and possibly more swiftly.'
'I can think of no better way of using my mind and abilities than in an attempt to bring some of these devilish assassins to justice.'
The Ambassador nodded. 'No one would deny the menace that militant anarchism has become to society, and that the men who plan these callous outrages are deserving of death. But to wage war upon and destroy them is a matter for the State, not a private individual.'
'Surely, Your Excellency, it is the duty of every citizen to help protect his fellows by shooting a mad dog, should he be given the opportunity?'
'Of course, but it is not part of our duty to go in search of mad dogs. Or, if you feel that it is, why did you not long since return to Russia, where the nihilists perpetrate more of these bloody outrages than in any other country, and devote your energies to bringing a number of them to the scaffold?'
De Quesnoy shrugged. 'There is the difference that the Ocrana are to be trusted, whereas the Spanish Secret Police are not; so it is only here that my help might prove of value. Besides, I am personally concerned in this. These inhuman monsters murdered my poor Angela.'
The shrewd eyes of the older man narrowed a little. 'That is precisely the point that I wished you to admit. You are, in fact, proposing to set out on a vendetta, and deliberately ignoring the divine prohibition expressed by the words "Vengeance is Mine, saith The Lord".'
T had not thought of it in that light, but I must confess that there is much in what Your Excellency says. I would certainly not have accepted this mission had it not been for the personal motive.'
'Then I beg you, Armand, to reconsider the matter. In my long experience I have never known good come to a man from allowing bis bitterness, however well justified, to drive him into taking the law into his own hands. In this case it is true that you will have the law behind you but, even so, should your activities lead to the death of some of these people, it is you who will ultimately be called to account for that by the highest of all tribunals.'
For some twenty minutes, they argued the pros and cons of the matter, but de Quesnoy could not be persuaded to forgo the opportunity he had been given to avenge Angela's death and, at length, the Ambassador reluctantly agreed to aid him by supplying him with certain items which, if at any time his belongings were searched, would substantiate his story that he was a Russian.
Next, after trying several shops that sold second-hand luggage, he succeeded in finding a rather battered trunk that had on it a number of old labels including those of hotels in Constantinople and Athens. Taking it away with him in a hired carriage, he then had himself driven to a number of second-hand clothes shops in which he bought two suits, an overcoat, shoes, and a variety of other items that were in good repair but of the inexpensive kind that might have been worn by a minor official. Lastly he obtained from a bookshop in the Puerta del Sol five, mostly well-thumbed, books in Russian, two of which were histories, two novels by Dostoievsky, and one a collection of Communist tracts by Engels.
After lunch he paid another call at the Embassy and collected three partly-used pencils made in Russia, a block of seven Russian stamps in current use, a small wooden frame with wires across it strung with beads - called an abacus, on which all Russians do their calculating - and a bottle of the Eau de Cologne with which many Russians are in the habit of scenting themselves. In addition, the Ambassador had had some of his Spanish pesetas changed into Russian roubles for him, and handed over a list that he had obtained at the Count's request of all the ships that had called at Valencia during the past fortnight. Among them there was not one that had come from Constantinople, but a Greek ship had arrived on the 6th from the Piraeus; she might have brought him from Athens, which suited him just as well, and having memorized her name he destroyed the list.