The Portuguese Escape (38 page)

‘Then another man says, “So had we not better stop and do the questioning of the little one now, that you may profit by what she knows?” Oh, Yulia, when I heard that I was so much afraid!'

‘Darling Hetti, I don't wonder! But do tell me everything. You'll feel better when you've got it all out, and we must know because of Father Antal.' She was full of nervous distress herself, dreading what might be coming.

‘Him! That is just the thing! But I must ask you to try to understand,' Hetta said, speaking with a curious quietness. ‘I am very tired, and I am also very hungry; it is now four in the morning, and I had last eaten with Waller at one o'clock the day before. Also these men do not allow me to go to the lavatory in that small inn where they ate, nor to leave the car; so for
fourteen
hours I do not go, and I am quite
miserable!
'

‘Hetta, I do understand. Frightful!'

‘Then the car stops,' Hetta said, speaking slowly now, ‘and in bad French they ask me, “Would you like to get out, and go to the side of the road?”—grinning most vulgarly! They have switched on the light inside the car. “Yes,” I answer. “You shall,” they say, “when you have answered one quite small question: where is now Dr. Antal Horvath?” At that I shut my mouth; I think No, better endure shame, stain my clothes, be disgusting, than do this! When I shake my head the one with the beard strikes me across the face with the palm of his hand, first one side, then the other—five, six times! This is a horrible thing,' Hetta said flatly, ‘but I do not speak, except to say
No. Then they untie my arms, and twist them so hard that it hurts very much, and the bearded man slaps my face again, but still I do not speak. Then he looks at his watch, and says, quite furiously—“We cannot lose any more time; it is dangerous. She
must
speak.” And they whisper together, and I am more afraid than ever! Another says, aloud—“Let us search her first; we have not done that yet.” And they begin to feel me all over, in my pockets and inside my clothes, also touching me in a very disgusting way. But one takes my handbag and looks in that, and suddenly he gives a shout—“I have it! Give yourselves no more trouble; here is what we want!'”

‘What had he found?' Julia asked.

‘This is what is awful of me! I had written a note to Father Antal, and put the name Gralheira on it. I thought I would make Townsend drive by the house, and that we could send it in by a servant, and then the Father could get someone, you perhaps, to telephone to me at this hotel where we were to stay. It was quite
id-yot
, I should have known better; in Hungary I should never have put a name and a place on paper. But that is what I did, and what they found. After I was taken from the church I ought of course to have eaten the letter,' Hetta said matter-of-factly, ‘but I was confused at first, and by the time I thought of this, my hands were tied. So now they are all quite cheerful, and say “Very well; now you can get out”. But one stands near and flicks the torch on me; it may be in order that I should not escape, but I think also to humiliate me! For where could I escape to, in the night, in Portugal? And I am so—Yulia, I cannot express it properly, but
weak
with relief—that I just go back afterwards to the car, like a silly person!' Hetta said, with an expression of profound distaste.

‘I don't see what else you could have done, Hetti dear; if you
had
tried to run away they would simply have caught you,' Julia said. ‘What happened after that?'

‘They offered me wine and bread, but I would not take them!' Hetta said, with a lift of the head. ‘Accept anything from such animals?—no! Those two go on talking in German—so stupid, this, to think that I should not understand German, brought up in Hungary!—and I heard one
say: “We must be careful as we enter Lissabon; she must not make a
Geschrei.”
Then they push some piece of stuff into my mouth, so that I cannot speak; this dries the mouth quite up; my mouth is still sore. But he with the beard says, “If we do not tie her hands again she may pull it out, and shout, and we cannot drive her through the streets with bound hands; it could be seen. Better to make her
ohnmächtig.”
And he turns on the inside light of the car again, and tells the chauffeur to stop, and takes out a little case and fills a syringe from an ampoule. I
see
all this, while the others hold me!' Hetta said, in a tone which brought that moment vividly before Julia. ‘Then he pulls off my coat and jacket, and pushes up my sleeve, and gives me the
piqûre
. I remember them putting on my jacket and coat, and the car starting, and after that
nothing
, till I wake in bed in Mrs. Hattaway's room.'

It seemed to Julia that Hetta had very little to reproach herself with. (The idea of
eating
compromising letters she had only encountered up to now in books about the
maquis.)
Still, Torrens must be apprised of the fact that the bearded man knew, and had known for thirty-six hours, that Father Antal was at Gralheira. She kissed and consoled Hetta, told her to lie down till she was called to dress for dinner, and then went off to see if the Major had returned. Elidio informed her that he had, and was in His Excellency's study; Julia betook herself there, and poked her leonine-golden head round the door.

‘Oh, but come in,' the Duke said, rising.

‘Please, no—I've just come to snatch away the Major, thank you so much.' She gestured with her head at Torrens.

‘Our new guests arrived safely, I hear,' her host said.

‘Yes. They adore Gralheira already! Do excuse us'— and she swept the obedient Torrens out of the room.

In the smoking-room she told him, without any details, what the Communists had found in Hetta's handbag, and how the ‘bearded man' had proposed to leave the car at Santarem.

‘Yes, Marques said they'd only pinched three of them,' Torrens said. ‘Well, we'd better let him know at once. That ghastly telephone in the passage, I suppose?'

Even heads of Security Police must, one imagines, sometimes eat; anyhow on this occasion Colonel Marques was not to be got on the telephone. They tried for Colonel Campbell, but he too was out.

‘Well don't attempt to get Melplash,' Julia said. ‘Stupid clot, he'd only make a muddle. Let's try the Colonel again after dinner. Nothing much can happen between now and then.'

Dinner that night was rather late. The Bentley only crackled over the raked gravel to the front door at eight-thirty, and Gralheira was not a house where people were told not to bother to change for dinner; Atherley and the Monsignor hurried away to their rooms. Julia had warned the Duke that they would almost certainly be late, so he was not fussing acutely when the rest of the company assembled in the drawing-room, Julia shepherding Mrs. Hathaway and Hetta. The Duke greeted Hetta with warm kindness, his sister with her usual rather pinched courtesy; Townsend was duly presented to Mrs. Hathaway, and wrung Hetta's hand in almost speechless relief and apology. The girl spoke gently to him, but her eyes were straying round the enormous room; this actually contained as many as five lamps, but it was nevertheless out of a certain degree of shadow that Father Antal's voice came, saying—' My child?'

They all heard it; for a moment they all watched her as she flew to him and kissed his hand. Then in the blessed half-dark the pair spoke together in that impossible language, Hungarian, which no one else could understand. The Duke with his impeccable courtesy began a conversation with Mrs. Hathaway, Julia did the same with Dona Maria Francisca. Presently Elidio appeared to announce that
Os Senhores
had returned, and that in
mais dez minutos
(ten minutes more) they would come down. The Duke nodded and looked at his watch; then he glanced round the room and observed that two of the company, who should have been there, were missing.

‘My sister, where are Luzia and Miss Brown? They do not seem to be present.'

They were not—and they were still not present when Atherley and the Monsignor came in, followed by Elidio,
who whispered in his master's ear that the young Condessa and Meess Brown begged to be excused from dining; they would eat upstairs. The Duke frowned—this was unheard-of—and muttered a question to Elidio; he was answered by the ineffably evasive shrug of the old and privileged Portuguese servant. ‘My sister, we will not wait for Nanny and Luzia,' Ericeira said authoritatively, and they all trooped into the great dining-room, where the Duke, as Julia had foreseen, was quickly beguiled by the cheerful astringent quality of Mrs. Hathaway's conversation. Hetta, of course, sat beside Father Antal, and neither had eyes or ears for anyone else; but Atherley, seated next to Julia, asked uncompromisingly—‘Where on earth
are
Luzia and Nanny? I thought everyone simply had to show up for meals, here.'

‘I haven't a clue,' Julia said airily, though in fact she was quite as curious as Atherley could be about the reason for their absence. Atherley was not a very lively companion that evening; his eyes strayed constantly across the table to where Hetta, her face pale, but alight with happiness, talked eagerly and incomprehensibly with the old priest. ‘Have you found out if she had a bad time?' he asked anxiously.

‘Uncomfortable, but nothing serious,' Julia told him. ‘They found a note in her bag addressed to Dom Francisco,
here
, before they resorted to extreme measures; and as that was all they wanted, they just drugged her and took her on to Lisbon.'

Atherley was much relieved.

‘Does Marques know they know he's here?' he asked.

‘No. We couldn't get him before dinner; Hugh's going to ring him up afterwards. That will give him something to think about!' Julia said, with what Atherley thought misplaced levity.

But when Major Torrens did eventually ring up Colonel Marques he had something rather unexpected to tell the Chief of the Security Police. In the drawing-room after dinner Elidio, holding out a silver tray with small cups of weak coffee to Julia, murmured that Meess Brown desired to speak with Meess Probyn in the schoolroom. Julia drank the cheerless coffee hastily, made her excuses to her hostess, and hastened upstairs.

In the schoolroom she found Nanny and Luzia tucking into cold chicken and salad, on both their faces a remarkable expression of smug triumph, as of two cats who have each swallowed an out-size canary.

‘Well, Miss Probyn, I hope His Grace isn't too much upset, but really there seemed to be nothing else to do,' Nanny began, in a busy sort of voice.

‘Nanny, please!' Luzia interjected. ‘Do let
me
tell Miss Probyn. Did I find him or did you?'

‘Tell away, tell away,' Nanny replied cheerfully. ‘Blow your own trumpet!—I will say this time you have the right to.'

‘Oh do get down to it, Luzia!' Julia said impatiently. ‘Who have you found?'

‘Him! This “principal” of whom Torrens spoke, the one with the beard, who was not taken in Lisbon with the others,' Luzia announced triumphantly.

‘Where, for goodness' sake?' Julia asked, half incredulous.

‘In the kitchen. You see after I heard Torrens yesterday telling Papa in the study that he had escaped, and that we must continue to take all precautions, I went out last night to the kitchen to look at the travellers who were eating there, to see if any looked suspicious. None did; just poor Portuguese working-people. Tonight I went again, and there at the table, eating with the rest, sat a man with a beard, in poor clothes, but they do not fit him very well; and, moreover, he had rolls of fat on the back of his neck!' said Luzia, her eyes like saucers.

‘Gracious! Well?'

‘So I went round the table greeting all the people, there were only six or seven tonight, and at last I came to him, and he spoke
very
bad Portuguese, just as the beggars said of the man at São Pedro do Sul. I said nothing then, but went to find Nanny.'

‘Well, Miss, of course I went down at once,' Nanny said, taking up the tale with evident pleasure. ‘Luzia was quite right not to say anything in front of the servants, but to come to me. And I find my gentleman talking to one of the kitchen-maids as she served his food, asking if there weren't foreign ecclesiasticos staying in the house? The cheek of it!' said Nanny indignantly.

‘Goodness! What on earth did you do?'

‘Well, I felt sure you and the Major would wish to see this person, but the chef was just about to send dinner in, and I knew I couldn't get you then. So I spoke to the man myself, and said, if he wanted to see the foreign priests I could arrange it, if he would make it worth my while, and come with me.'

‘And did he?' Julia asked.

‘Indeed he did; he got up at once and came along as meek as a lamb. I gave a sort of wink to the chef and old Maria do Carmo, so they made no trouble—for as you know, Miss, those people never come through into the house, except for Mass. And I just caught Elidio in the passage, and sent the message to his Grace. But then I had to think where to put him.'

‘Heavens, yes! Well, where
did
you put him?' Julia was beginning to gurgle with laughter; this performance on the part of Nanny and Luzia was too superb, if it really was ‘the principal' whom they had got.

‘Out in the old night-nurseries, Miss Probyn. You see there are bars on the windows, so he can't get out. His Grace had them put in for the little Count, God rest his soul!' Nanny said, sadness for her long-dead baby boy for a moment eclipsing the satisfaction in her sensible time-worn face. ‘And those rooms are right at the far end of the East corridor, and give onto the garden, so he can scream his head off, and no one will hear!' the good woman pursued, triumph again returning to her expression.

‘And he's there now?'

‘Yes. I told him the priests were just about to sit down to dinner, and it would be an hour or more before he could see them; but that he
should
see one of them, if he made it worth my while. I repeated that, so as to lull his suspicions, as you might say,' Nanny concluded, looking smugger than ever.