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 [pg 334]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.
“After that, I didn't expect them to find out anything, and [pg 335]they did their best not to disappoint me. I saw that if anybody was going to do the Sherlock Holmes' act, it must be Ropes and me. We sat tight at the Washington Irving, and looked around; but at the end of a fortnight no one was any wiser than at the beginning. Then what should happen but the dear old Colonel and Pilar popped down to see if they could help. Oh, and I forgot to tell you that meanwhile the people at Carmona's palace had cleared out. They'd gone back to Seville again by train; and what should happen but the Colonel and Pilar met Carmona face to face in the station.”
“Not Monica?” I broke in.
“No. I suppose the others had got into a carriage; he was lingering behind to give a valet directions about luggage. And then there was a scene. Pilar told me all about it. Carmona bowed; and before the Cherub could pull the little girl away, as he tried, seeing danger in her eye, she gave the Duke a piece of her mind. Said he was a villain, or some kind words of that sort. He retorted by saying to her father that he could make a lot of trouble for Cristóbal if they didn't take care. Pilar said they could accuse him of worse things than he could them; and somehow or other, in an evil moment, the subject of Corcito, a grey bull Carmona was once nasty about, came up. Then, before she knew what she was doing, Pilar flashed out the name of Vivillo, the beast she wanted to buy, you know. And from that minute the fat was in the fire as far as she was concerned. But about that later. What with you and the bull, she was in a dreadful state of mind when she got here, poor child. However, she put on her thinking cap, and said she, ‘Try the gypsies. See if they don't know something.’
“That was enough for me. I took a sudden fancy to Captain Pepe, the chief of the gypsies, and went every night to see a dance in his cave. But I soon saw he was straight; and they weren't a bad lot of people in the colony. The nasty ones he kicked out, and they had to hustle for themselves. Captain Pepe told me about one fellow, Juan Castello, who'd got himself disliked, [pg 336]though he was a nailer with the guitar; and when he said the chap had a sister who had a fine position in the house of a titled person, because she was the best seamstress in the country, I pricked up my ears. You can bet, after I'd heard the titled person was Carmona, I turned my attention to Mr. Castello, dropped in on him one day, named a big price, and asked him to give me lessons on the guitar. He didn't mind if he did, and we got quite friendly. I spent several evenings in his cave, where one night I heard a dog howling, as if it was mighty sick, behind a red curtain.”
“That red curtain!” I exclaimed. “I shouldn't be where I am now, or have a scar on the back of my head, if I'd looked behind it.”
“By Jove! Well, I got some idea of that sort. Castello said the dog belonged to a gentleman in Granada, who lived all alone in the Albaicín, and kept this beast as a watch-dog; but he was afraid it was going mad, and told Castello to shoot it. However, it was a valuable animal, and Castello was undertaking to cure it for his own benefit. Already it was better, and the owner talked of buying it back if it recovered. The old gentleman was coming up to see the dog that very evening, perhaps, Castello said; and being evidently proud of a respectable acquaintance, he went on talking about him, I encouraging him all I could, because any friend of his might prove interesting to me.