Part 31

He reappeared presently, however, his suspicions allayed. “Beastly hole,” he remarked; “almost bad enough for Philip, though he did grill some of my best ancestors.”

I took a couple of matches, lighting them on the Duke’s box; then, bending my head low, and pushing in one shoulder at a time, I squirmed through the aperture. In so doing, however, I contrived to trip over Carmona’s foot, which must have been thrust forward, staggered against the opposite wall of the narrow cell, and lost both my lighted vestas. Carmona exclaimed, I stumbled, and almost simultaneously the door slid into place with a sharp click.

There was not space to fall at length. I merely lost my balance, and saved my head from a bump by shielding it with a raised arm, I steadied myself in a second or two; but I was in black darkness. Outside I could hear a confused murmur of voices, and would have given something to know what Dick was saying at the moment.

I was thinking that I should not like to be a prisoner in this hole (only large enough for the swing of Philip’s scourge) for many hours on end, when there came an imperative tapping. “Holloa!” I answered, expecting to hear Dick speak in return; but it was Carmona’s voice which replied. Evidently he was speaking with his mouth close to the secret door.

“I’m very sorry for this accident,” said he distinctly. “When you stumbled, you knocked my arm, and made me touch the spring. Unfortunately the door closed with such a crash, that the spring seems out of order, and I can’t move it. But if you’ll be patient a few minutes, I’ll look for an attendant who understands the thing, to bail you out of gaol.”

If I had been Lieutenant Cristóbal O’Donnel I would have heard no more in the rhyming junction of those words “gaol” and “bail” than met the ear, but being the man I was—the man he suspected me to be—I did hear more; and I believed that he wished me to catch a double meaning.

“Does he mean to hand me over to the police now, on suspicion?” I wondered in my black cell—“before Monica’s eyes?” But aloud I said, “Thanks; don’t be too long, or I shall be tempted to smash the door.”

“You’ll find that impossible,” answered Carmona. “Don’t worry if I seem to be gone an age. There’s only one man on duty to-day who knows the secret of this room; I asked for him when we came, but his comrade said he was away on leave till four o’clock. It must be that now, and I’ll have him here as soon as possible. He will be the more pleased to set you free, as he’s an old friend of yours. You remember little Rafael Calmenare?”

I was silent, seeing, as if by the glare of lightning, the whole design of the trap, and seeming to see also the triumph which must be in Carmona’s eyes. But the pause had not lengthened to a second, when I heard Pilar’s voice, speaking also close to the door.

“Of course you remember, Cristóbal. Rafael Calmenare of the Duke’s ganaderia. But it’s a long time since he went away.”

“After he was gored by Nero and lost his health, through the influence of a friend at Court I got him a place here,” I heard Carmona say. Then raising his voice for my ears, he went on, “Poor Rafael will be pleased to see you again. You must have played with him when a boy. I’m off to find him now.”

Silence followed these last words. I could picture the consternation of Dick and Pilar. Neither could do anything to help me, nor could I help myself. I could but wait in this suffocating black hole for the moment when a stranger should give me light, and exclaim, “This is not Don Cristóbal!”

Almost I admired Carmona for his quick wit. After a few moments of rage, at sight of the suspected man of Burgos Cathedral on his track in the red motor-car, the thought of the Escurial and his old servant must have sprung into his mind.

Had Calmenare been available at first, Carmona would have been spared the trouble of shutting me up in Philip the Bigot’s torture-chamber; but hard pressed for an excuse to keep us at the Escurial till his man came back, he had put me where I could be kept while needed. And now that he was gone in search of Rafael, we three loyal comrades could not discuss the situation, because of Lady Vale-Avon’s presence.

A brilliant stroke of Carmona’s to have me betrayed by another than himself, so that Monica might not bear him a grudge! Who was this person masquerading as an officer of the Spanish army? would be the first question of the police. And the answer need not be long in coming. The Duke had reason to congratulate himself; I had been a fool to drop like a fly into his net, and now that I was in, I saw no way out.

“Oh, how I wish we could open the secret door!” I heard Monica exclaim.

“I can’t even see exactly where it is now,” Pilar said. “Cristóbal?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Poor little Rafael; a good fellow, wasn’t he?”

“Very good,” I replied. To what end was she working? I wondered. But I was not to be made wiser. Before she had time to finish the hint I heard Carmona speaking.

“I’ve sent for Calmenare, who has returned, and will be here in a few minutes,” he called to me. It was like him to hurry back, so that by no possible means could the three suspected ones reach any understanding.

The moments dragged on, and I could have lashed myself with Philip’s scourge in fury at the rashness which might involve the whole O’Donnel family in my disaster. Never had I been able to think less clearly; but perhaps it was the stifling atmosphere of the cell which made me feel that fingers in a mailed glove were clenched round my temples.

Outside, voices buzzed; but those who spoke must have stood at a distance, for I could catch no words. Then, at last, there was a new voice in the room. Calmenare had come.

“How do you do, Don Rafael?” Pilar exclaimed, as politely as if she had addressed an equal. “I’m glad to see you again. I’ve been waiting for you impatiently. Only think, my dear brother Cristóbal, whom you know so well, is in that dreadful place and can’t get out, because the Señor Duque shut him in—by mistake—and broke the spring.”

“I do not find that it is broken, señorita,” answered the new voice.

“I couldn’t make it work,” Carmona said hastily.

Click! went the spring under skilled fingers. The door sliding back gave me a rush of light and air which set me blinking for a second or two; and there I stood at the stranger’s mercy.

What I saw, when my suddenly contracted pupils expanded, was a little man in the palace livery; a pale little man with insignificant features, and large, steady eyes. There was absolutely no expression in his face as for one brief instant our glances met. Then—“God be with you, Don Cristóbal,” said he. “I am glad to have been even of this slight service. I hope, señorito, you have not suffered from lack of air?”