The Recipe for Diamonds Part 20

"What! in this rattletrap?"

"Of course," said I.

"But everybody will stare."

"Oh, what the devil does that matter?"

"Why, for myself, I must say that in a fas.h.i.+onable place like this, with a lot of girls about, I----Hullo! that settles it, though."

"What?"

"Look ahead, dear boy. There's a heavy cart just shed a wheel slap-bang in the middle of the _puerto_. The way will be blocked for an hour at least."

"Out we get then, and follow 'em to earth on foot. Thank goodness, the streets are very crowded, so their carriage won't be able to get along at more than a foot's pace."

Our pursuit was not very rapid. Haigh flatly refused to move at anything beyond a smart walk, saying that he should collapse if he did.

I could have run them down if I had wished, but had no hankering for a row in the public streets, and so stayed with my s.h.i.+pmate. And Taltavull we kept with us whether he liked it or not. I do not think, though, that he was very keen to race on alone. "They cannot get out of the island, senores," said he, "as no steamer leaves to-day, and they must understand by this that they cannot escape us. I suspect that they will go to the Fonda de Mallorca, and await us there to treat for terms."

So we wound our way down the narrow, busy streets (wherein every fifth building was put to ecclesiastical uses), and finally landed out into the head of the Calle de Conquistador, where another surprise awaited us.

The hotel is in the middle of the hill, and as we arrived in sight of it we saw our two birds, accompanied by a dark-complexioned chap (whom I took to be Sadi, Pether's confidential valet), get out of the vehicle which had brought them so far, into another smarter one, which drove off at a rapid pace as soon as they were under the tilt.

Taltavull started wringing his hands. "What now? what now?" moaned he.

"The Lord knows," said I. "Where's the nearest hack-stand? Say, quick."

"At the bottom of the street."

"Well, here's a tram going down. Up you jump."

The three of us hung on the tail-board, and rode to the bottom of the Calle de Conquistador, where we exchanged to the most likely-looking vehicle we could see.

"You saw that carriage that just rushed by down towards the harbour?"

"_Si, senor_," grinned the driver.

"Then after it like blue hades, and there's a hundred pesetas for you when we're alongside."

"_Ah, senores, muchos grac----_"

"Drive, you scoundrel; don't talk."

Away we went again, clattering, jolting, rattling, till the teeth of us were fairly loosened in their steps. Sharp to the right it was, past the Longa, and on by the tram-lines alongside the old walls; then an S-turn; and then a sweep round to the left; always with the tram-lines beside our tires. We were heading out for the white suburb which is beneath the Bellver Castle, and what harbourage the fugitives could hope to find in that direction we couldn't for the life of us imagine. But that was their affair. Our business--or the business we made for ourselves--was to get within speaking range.

Up the hill we spun, and through the pretty suburb, with its orange-trees, and its tattered palms, and its sprawling clumps of p.r.i.c.kly pears; and past Porto Pi, the silted-up Carthaginian harbour; and then, leaving population and tram-lines behind, we opened out on to the magnificent road that sweeps round the western horn of Palma Bay.

But always at a fixed distance in front of us hovered a billowing halo of amber-coloured dust, which no frenzied strain on our part could bring a metre nearer.

Once where the road wound in stately zigzags down the cliff of a slope, our driver took the ditch and cut an angle, heading across the rough ground which intervened; but the pace had to be lessened, and the carriage was nearly wrenched to pieces, and the experiment was not repeated. We had lost time by it.

And so the race continued, and the monotony of it dulled our interest in surroundings.

We thought only of the conclusion. Where the actual winning-post could be we had given up trying to conjecture. "It seems," Haigh remarked once, "that those two fools have made up their minds to race round this five-franc bit of an island for so long as we three fools choose to chivy them. It's a mad set-out whichever side you take it from, and the fun's evaporating. I don't know what you chaps are going to do, but the next chance I see I'm going to get down for a drink. I'm parched within an inch of dissolution."

How long this state of things went on I can't tell. I was bruised by the b.u.mping from hat to heel, and was much engaged in fending myself against further abrasions. But at last a sharp cry from the driver roused me to look out of one of the window-ports, and I saw that we had opened out a small bay that was backed by a high rocky island of red and yellow stone. One end of the island showed a curious profile of a man's face, and I recognized it as Dragonera; but what the bay was called I didn't remember, though I had a sort of dim recollection of an anchorage for small craft there.

Anchorage it was sure enough too, for as we rose the inlet further, I saw a small screw boat riding there to some sort of moorings and lifting languidly to the swell. She was an ex-yacht, Cowes or Clyde built for a wager, of the sort one sees in small Mediterranean ports for the petty coasting traffic; a lean, slender craft of some eighty or hundred tons register, with all her pristine smartness thoroughly submerged in southern happy-go-lucky squalor. There was a faint gray pencil of steam feathering away from her escape-pipe, and as we drew nearer I saw she had hove short, and was ready to break her anchor out of the ground at a moment's notice.

Another cry from the driver called off my attention. The carriage ahead had stopped; its three pa.s.sengers had descended, and hand in hand were running over the rough ground towards the sh.o.r.e. A small dinghy was waiting for them at the edge of the s.h.i.+ngle. So there had been method in their mad scurry after all.

Our driver cursed and _arr-e-e'd_ and forced his cattle into a scrambling gallop, and we drew up with the deserted carriage, whose mules were standing straddle-legged, and panting as though they were going to burst. He pulled up there, but Haigh s.n.a.t.c.hed hold of the reins through the front window, and turning the animals off the road, sent them with a yell into the palm scrub that fringed it. The poor beasts took fright and sprang off at fresh gallop, the carriage leaping and b.u.mping after them like a tin kettle at a dog's tail, till at one jolt stronger than the rest it lost balance, and fell over with a splintering crash to its side.

We were all heaped over to leeward amongst a tidy heap of wreckage; but we soon managed to scramble out, and saw the fugitives making rapid going towards their boat.

"Now, Cospatric, ye wiry divil," shouted Haigh, "run for all you're worth, and put Pether in your pocket."

Off I started, and measured my length twice in the first fifty yards.

The ground was awfully uneven, and the palmetto scrub so thick that one could not see where to tread. The trio ahead were close upon their boat, and it seemed to me an absolute certainty that I should be too late. But a fresh cras.h.i.+ng amongst the spiky shrubs behind made me turn my head, and I saw the absurd figure of the old man charging down on a mule that he had cut adrift. He pa.s.sed me like a flash, his face glowering like a fiend's, and he reached the s.h.i.+ngle just as the dinghy had got two boat-lengths away.

The pa.s.sengers were encouraging the two sailors at the oars to every exertion; but Taltavull pulled up as his mule's feet splashed in the water, and whipping out a blue revolver covered the two rowers and sharply bade them stop. They easied in the middle of a stroke, and raised their oar-blades, glistening and dripping.

"And now, Senor Pether, I hold you covered. I am a dead shot, and if you carry the Recipe a yard farther away you bring your fate upon your own head. I, Taltavull, swear it."

I saw Mrs. Cromwell lean over and cover the blind man's body with her own. Sadi also made a movement, apparently for the same purpose. But Pether waved them both back. He slipped a hand into his breast-pocket, and brought out the little mahogany case.

"Here it is, Senor Taltavull. You'll share the contents with your two friends?"

"Yes," exclaimed the old man, stretching out his bony hands; "I have promised."

"Then there you are, Senor Taltavull," said the other quietly. He deliberately drew back the shutter, exposed the yellowy-green film to the full sun-glare, and flung it from him with a sideways jerk.

It flew circling to the anarchist's feet; and for a moment we were all so paralyzed with the action that no one spoke or moved. Sooner than share or surrender, the man had deliberately destroyed the Recipe for good and all.

The anarchist was first to act. Slowly I saw him raise his weapon, and as if fascinated I could not move to interrupt him. With a leathery grin of cruelty he had brought it to bear, and in another moment there would have been murder done. But at that instant a flash of something brown shot by, and Taltavull and his mount were bowled over amongst the palmettos.

A cavalry reinforcement had arrived. Haigh had cut loose another of the mules, and had deliberately ridden the old man down.

"It's an old polo trick," said he, with a pleased grin. "Useful when a man persistently crosses you; quite simple when you know it.--Good-afternoon, Mrs. Cromwell.--Afternoon, Juggins, dear boy. Let me congratulate you on drawing this game. I thought we were going to gather in the beans.--Eh, what's that?"

Taltavull was sitting up amongst the scrubs, and was shaking a trembling fist at the boat and snarling out the word "iconoclast."

"'Iconoclast' indeed. Faith, that's the pot libelling the kettle most unjustly.--I say, Cospatric, just take that melodramatic old fool's gun away from him, and wring his neck if he won't behave himself.--My dear Mrs. Cromwell, I must really apologize for our companion. I a.s.sure you that nothing but stress of circ.u.mstances could have driven us into such dubious society. Well, the fun's all over now, and I hope you and Mr.

Pether bear no ill-will. I'm sure Cospatric and I harbour no grudge."

Mrs. Cromwell gave an order, the boat backed in to the s.h.i.+ngle, and we found ourselves shaking hands with one another, as if we were dear friends who had always worked for one another's welfare.

"Mentone and Paris will be our neighbourhoods for winter and summer,"

said Pether, "and you two men must contrive to beat us up somehow and compare notes over this mutual score."

"Ladies are seldom averse to jewellery," said Haigh. "Will Mrs.