Part 81

“Is he dead?” I called.

Dick bent over the limp body; but, after a long moment, he was up again, waving a big, old-fashioned key.

“No,” he answered. “Heart beating. Bad penny. He’ll be all right. This the key of spider’s parlour?”

“I think so,” I said. “Dick, you’re just in time to keep me from giving in. I’m starved.”

He stooped and picked up the crowbar.

“Old brute! I’ve a mind to finish him!” he exclaimed.

“You don’t mean that,” I said. “But look for something to tie him up with. He may come to himself before we’re off.”

“I guess I’ll just tote him along with me,” said Dick. “Safe bind, safe find.”

Gathering up the long body as if it had been the form of a sleeping child, Dick disappeared into the house. I knew that he was looking for the door of my cage, and presently—for the first time with pleasure—I heard the slipping back of the bolt and turning of the key.

Already I was at the door, opening it for Dick to come in with his heavy burden.

“Here’s the bed,” I said, and Dick laid his burden down, not too gently. Then I think the next thing we did was to shake hands.

“Blessed old man!” exclaimed Dick, a little unsteadily. “What a beastly business.”

“It’s a mystery,” I said. “And how you got to me—”

“Conduit,” said Dick, “But I’ll tell you all about that, and everything. Got no electric light here?”

“Nothing but starlight. For Heaven’s sake, tell me about Monica!”

“She’s all right,” said Dick. “Not a Duchess yet, if that’s what worries you. Look here, if this place has been good enough to box you up in all this time, it’s good enough to keep him in—” (He nodded towards the alcove.) “He lives alone here, without servants; I’ve found out all that, with a lot more; and his master—guess you know who—is in Madrid; so when this chap comes to himself he can try how he likes your quarters. They seem rather nice ones, judging from what I can see; but Carmona always does himself well.”

“Is this Carmona’s house?” I asked.

“You bet it is. Little private sort of place he keeps ready when he wants to amuse himself in some way which his mother and Monica and other people mightn’t approve of in Dukes. This old Johnny’s a combination of caretaker and physician in ordinary to his grace. But let’s get out of this. I can’t give you a marble bath or Moorish decorations at my hotel, but I shouldn’t wonder if you’d prefer the accommodation; and after that conduit business I need a ‘wash and brush up’ as much as you do. Why, old man, what’s the matter? Not going to crack up, are you?”

“I’m all right,” I said; “but I haven’t had anything to eat since the day after I saw you off, except milk, and none of that for the last two days.”

“Great Scott! you’re joking. We parted five weeks ago!”

The words gave me a shock in spite of the stubble on my chin and the whiteness of my hands. Dick had his wet arm round my shoulders, and we were at the door, which he was about to lock, and I startled him by caving in a little at the knees.

“See here,” he said, hanging on to my arm as if he were afraid I should vanish in thin air, “we won’t wait to dine at my hotel. We’ll nose round a bit in this old Johnny’s larder. You must be bucked up before you go out into the street. Oh, it’s safe enough. The old brute’s a hermit—for his own reasons or Carmona’s. Nobody comes near the house, and we can take our own time. While you’re eating you shall hear everything I’ve got to tell.”

He locked and bolted the door, and helped me down the stairs, up which I must have been carried unconscious; perhaps by the gypsy, assisted by the master of the house.

Below stairs the place was dark save for the light which had streamed out into the patio with the opening door. It came from a good-sized room evidently intended for a kitchen, but also used by the solitary tenant as a dining-room. It had a window opening on the court; this, however, was not only covered with heavy shutters, but protected by a curtain as well, and ventilation came through an adjoining room from a window that looked on another small court.

Evidently my gaoler had been interrupted in the midst of his supper, and hearing a noise in the patio had stopped only long enough to snatch up a sword-stick. On the table was a simple meal of cold meat, salad, goats’-milk cheese, and fresh fruit; but to my starved eyes it seemed a feast. There was also a bottle half-full of red Spanish wine; and I did not wait for Dick’s suggestion to sit down. I must get back my strength if I were to be of any use to Monica or myself, and I hardly listened to Dick’s warning that a starved man must not satisfy his first hunger.

“Eat slowly, and not too much,” he said, with anxious eyes on my face, which must have been frightful, though he was too tactful to make comments. As I obeyed, he told me his story, briefly and disjointedly, as the points came back to him.

“Didn’t hear from you,” he said, “and began wondering what was up. Wired twice; no answer; was a bit taken up with my own affairs just then, I’m afraid. Yes, I mean Pilar. After five days, wired the landlord. He answered you’d left with a friend. I thought that queer, and set out for Granada by next train, Ropes with me. At the Washington Irving I found both my telegrams to you and a letter. Landlord said he got a note from you, dated Motril, telling him you’d met a friend and gone off unexpectedly in his automobile. You enclosed more than enough money to pay bill and tips, and asked him to have your luggage packed and kept till your return, which might be in a few days or not for some time. Naturally, he hadn’t worried; and as he’d destroyed the letter, I couldn’t tell if it was your handwriting.

“Well, I thought you might have rushed off suddenly on account of some lark of Carmona’s; but I soon found out he was still in Granada, slowly getting better; and the guests hadn’t gone. By the way, I called, but nobody in the house was seeing visitors. Ropes discovered that your car was in a stable down in the town, where you’d left it, without saying for how long. He and I were getting scared, and I went to the police, but didn’t dare give your real name without your permission, especially as the authorities had a kind of prejudice against it. Fired off my best Spanish, though, and insinuated that Carmona wasn’t very fond of you; but when I began hinting that it might be convenient for his plans that you should disappear, they wouldn’t take me seriously, were polite, and all that, promised to look you up, as if you were a stray kitten, but intimated that most people who vanished had private reasons for doing so.