At the end of dinner he got two surprises. In keeping with her anarchist principles, when the bill was brought she insisted on paying half. The second was more in the nature of a nasty shock. As the waiter went off to get their change, she said, 'Well, shall we go back to your place or would you like to come to mine?'
He had no doubts about what she meant, and silently cursed himself for not having taken into account that the anarchists believed in free love, and that it was considered a point of honour by the most orthodox of their women to give themselves to anyone who wanted them; and he had certainly led her to suppose that he found her very attractive.
After racking his wits for a moment for a way to escape without offending her from the tricky situation in which he had landed himself, he said, 'I've rather peculiar views about that sort of thing. I think that to get the best out of it, the first time should be something one can look back on with special pleasure. I mean not just a roll on a bed and a good-night kiss, but a real long session. Afterwards, of course, one takes any opportunity that offers; but what I would really like is for us to go down to some little place on the Costa Brava for a week-end together. I'm prepared to wait for that, if you are.'
Her pale blue eyes regarded him with faint surprise, then she smiled and said, 'Perhaps you're right. Anyhow it shows that you must like me a lot, and I'm rather flattered. Let's do that, then. But I can't next week-end. I'm already engaged to spend Saturday night with another friend of mine.'
Inwardly he sighed with relief. He had anyhow gained an eleven-day respite; time enough to pump her if that was possible, and later he could think up some excuse to drop her.
Two nights later Sanchez took him out to dinner, and by chance he learned how it was that Ferrer's swarthy younger son always had a pocketful of money. He was wearing a gaudy new jacket and a handsome red satin cummerbund, and late in the evening, after they had been drinking fairly heavily, de Quesnoy congratulated him on his finery, remarking that he was lucky to be able to afford it.
Sanchez closed one of his sloe-like eyes in a leery wink, and replied, 'I paid for them with some of the money from my little Marquesa, and there's plenty more where it came from.'
'You are lucky in having a rich mistress, then,' the Count commented with a smile.
'She's not my mistress, though I don't doubt I could make her let me have her if I wanted to. But she's too skinny for my liking.' Suddenly he lowered his voice and became confidential. 'Her husband is an old dotard and she's having an affaire with her groom. He's a friend of mine and he told me about it. I put up a little scheme to him and we fixed things up between us. They have their fun in the woods when they are out riding together. He took me out and showed me their favourite love-nest among the bushes. I borrowed a camera and after a bit of practice with it went out and lay in wait for them. I got two lovely snaps while he was keeping her good and busy. They were some pictures, I can tell you. Her face was turned sideways and her eyes were closed, but there was no mistaking what they were up to. I sent her a couple of copies and told her where to leave the cash. She's paid up handsomely for the past three months and I split with my friend; although, of course, she doesn't know that and is still potty about him.'
De Quesnoy laughed and, as he was expected to, praised Sanchez's cunning but mentally he promised himself that, when in due course he had collected enough evidence to get the Ferrer brothers arrested, he would see to it that Sanchez received a special beating-up for this despicable blackmail.
On the Saturday Ferrer told 'Senor Chirikov' that he had received a letter from Monsieur Gerault, the new French master, who was also to teach physics, that he would be arriving on Monday; but as his train did not get in until the evening the French classes were to be taken as usual on that day.
By then, owing mainly to the numerous evenings he had spent in the masters' common-room, the Count had acquired a considerably wider knowledge of anarchist affairs and of the divergence of the views expounded by the principal exponents of its philosophy.
He learned that while the pacific Jean Jacques Rousseau and the two most blood-lusting fiends of the French Revolution, Rene Hebert and Anacharsis Clootz, were all looked on as 'Saints' in the movement, Robespierre, who had sent ten times as many people to their death as the last two put together, was anathema to them because he had made himself virtually a dictator.
He had heard discussed the attempt of the Utopian Robert Owen to found a Socialist community at New Harmony, Indiana, and of that made later at Cincinnati by his disciple, Josiah Warren, to run a 'time store' on the principle of exchanging services instead of paying for them in money.
He also became aware of the subtle difference between anarchism and nihilism. The former wished to destroy the existing order, but had plans for building a new one consisting of free Labour groups and free Communes; whereas, with true Russian pessimism, the latter's aim was simply to annihilate every form of authority, then sit back and let matters take whatever course they would.
From his reading and these conversations he formed one definite conclusion. It was that the belief generally held, that all active anarchists were members of a world-wide organization and received their orders from some secret headquarters - probably in London -where their outrages were planned, was a complete myth.
Their first principle - the rejection of all authority - made that belief, even theoretically, untenable; and a careful analysis of their crimes showed beyond all doubt that they did not even have regional headquarters in individual countries or cities.
This explained why such a high proportion of their attempts, particularly against well-guarded Heads of State, had proved failures. Had they been carefully planned and properly financed many more of them must have met with success. But examination showed that nearly all these attempts had been made by individuals who had imbibed anarchist doctrines and were either solitaries or at most had only a very small group of associates.
The travesty of a bomb that Vaillant had thrown in the Chamber of Deputies had been made by himself out of the poorest possible materials. Caserio, on hearing that President Carnot was to open the Colonial Exhibition at Lyons, had set out to assassinate him from the Mediterranean port of Cette, but he had not enough money to buy even a third-class railway ticket for the whole journey; so he had had to walk the last eighteen miles on the afternoon preceding his attack. Luccheni, who stabbed to death the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, purchased a knife for the purpose for twelve francs; but fearing that his money might not last out until he could find an opportunity to strike the Empress down, he induced the shopkeeper to take it back. Instead, he bought for less than one franc a long file set in a wooden handle and, after sharpening it to a needle point, used it as a stiletto to do the deed.
It was obvious that had any of these assassins been directed by some central committee, they would have been furnished with proper weapons and ample money to aid them in carrying out their murderous intent.
However, it did seem to de Quesnoy that there were grounds for believing that the Barcelona anarchists differed from others in this respect. This he believed to be because they were strongly influenced by the Syndicalists who, while accepting anarchist principles, held somewhat more practical views about the establishment of a new social order after the present one had been destroyed. There was also the fact that the bombs used by the Spanish anarchists were no home-made toys, as witness the terrible devastation caused by the one that Morral had hurled at the Royal coach, and this implied that either they were supplied by some central headquarters or that there was such a centre where potential assassins received instruction in making them.