The Caper of the Golden Bulls

Chapter three

Antonio Gonzalez y’Najera, the policeman, accepted Peter’s cheque with a gratified smile.

“You’re most generous, Peter. Are you ill?”

“I beg your pardon!”

“Oh. Forgive me.” Antonio laughed apologetically. “It was an unfortunate implication. Totally accidental. No. The glass of whisky at your elbow prompted my question. Are you coming down with a cold?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“I was sure of it. I couldn’t imagine you drinking whisky this early in the day. You’re pale, too.”

“I didn’t sleep well last night.”

The policeman chuckled sympathetically and adjusted his plump frame to a more comfortable position in the chair beside Peter’s desk. “It’s going around the village. I had an ache in my back this morning. And a heaviness behind my forehead. You find that a whisky helps?”

“Oh, yes.” Peter called for Mario. Whisky was provided for the policeman.

“Ah, it seems better already.”

“Mario, leave the bottle.”

The policeman’s mood became expansive. “The procession of the Virgins at San Fermin will be a glorious sight. Think of it. Centuries of precious stones and metals to blind the eyes of tourists. Are you going up to Pamplona for the fiesta?”

“Well, I’m not sure. Another touch?”

“If you’ll join me. I think it’s helping.” He looked judicious. “Yes, definitely. Thank you. But you must go to Pamplona.”

“If I must, I must,” Peter said sighing.

“You’d better have another drink. You sound hollow. You need a holiday. I promise you this: the treasures that will adorn the Virgins of Spain at Pamplona have no equals anywhere in the world. Think of it! Precious stones and metals which haven’t been displayed in public for centuries. The Contessa of Altamira’s Net and Trident of diamonds, for instance. Locked away in Seville since the time of Phillip the Second. And just think! The Silver Slippers of Saint Peter will grace the feet of the Virgin of Cordoba. The Duke of Bourbon-Parma is lending the Ropes of Pearls to the Virgin from Granada. And the Blue Tears of Santa Eulalia. The Lacrimi Christi will sparkle at the breast of Madrid’s Virgin. The Golden Oars have been promised by the House of Navarre. Barcelona is sending the Evening Stars and the Golden Bulls of the Popes of Avignon. Just a bit more, Peter. No. seriously. Only a drop. Then there will be the Diamond Flutes of Carlos...”

Dear God, Peter thought; the splendour of the images evoked by the policeman made him dizzy. His soul swooned as he heard in fancy the lids of all the treasure chests in Spain slowly creaking open; as he saw through the cobwebs of time the shimmering glories of a nation’s art and faith and history. The bullion of the conquistadors; the jewels of mighty monarchs; the masterworks of artisans down the centuries all of it collected in one place at one time, all of it glowing and blazing from the statues of the Virgins at Pamplona.

The policeman was chanting on like a herald at a ball. “Isabella’s coronet of diamonds; Ferdinand’s Sighs of Barbara; the Marques de Santander’s ruby and emerald Crown of Thorns; the platinum spark plugs from Hispano-Suiza; the—”

“What!”

“The platinum spark plugs? Oh yes. Industry is participating, too. But they lack the baubles the old families collected over the years. So they’re contributing in kind, you might say. Platinum spark plugs from Hispano-Suiza. Gold wine goblets with precious gems from the Fundador brandy people.”

This seemed to remind him of something; he looked in mild wonder at his empty glass. Peter filled it.

“Oh, thank you.” The policeman sighed and crossed his booted feet at the ankles. “I find it all very confusing, Peter.” He sipped his drink. “Once there was a nice division of activity between the north and south of Spain. We sold the tourists — as it were gypsies, bandits, romance, tall tales.” He laughed softly. “Ah, yes... maidens fleeing from storm devils. Their little nipples pinched by the hot figures of ogres riding the west wind. It went over nicely with tourists. The north, on the other hand, sold good plumbing, comfortable hotels, and shops full of handbags and brass candlesticks. And that went over nicely too. But now the north wants to borrow our poverty and mix it up with their coal mines and real estate.”

Peter’s head was beginning to ache.

“Peter, let me give you a recipe for a tourist boom. Only one thing is necessary. Comfortable seats from which visitors may examine the edifying old virtues of hunger and poverty. That is the only reason the administration of Pamplona has invited our little peasant Virgin to the Fiesta. Amidst the splendour of the grand Virgins, poor little Santa Maria with her cracked eyeball and broken fingers will provide the touch of poverty which is essential to the contentment of tourists. They must have someone to pity; someone to patronise. That is all we are providing. I ache with the shame of it, Peter.”

The maids had been sniffling about the same thing this morning, Peter recalled; Santa Maria had nothing to wear to the ball. Only seed pearls and tarnished bracelets.

Peter’s phone rang. It was Grace.

“You didn’t come by last night, Peter. Are you sulking?”

“No, of course not.”

“Not about my children? Or the other thing?”

“No.”

“Then why did you stand me up?”

“I had a cold. I went to bed.”

“How very prudent of you!”

The phone clicked in his ear.

The policeman had not stopped talking. “Of course they won’t admit it. They discussed the security regulations with me quite gravely. Just as if our poor Virgin owned anything worth stealing.” He laughed and poured himself Scotch. “This might interest you, Peter. All the treasures will be kept in one bank. And that bank was chosen by lot. Interesting? Guess what bank they chose?”

“Antonio, I don’t think you should tell me.”

The policeman looked blank. “Why not?”

“Obviously it’s a matter of security.”

“Ha, ha. You don’t want to be tempted, eh?” The policeman laughed heartily; Peter’s headache grew worse. “No, I trust you, Peter. The treasures will be kept in the vaults of the Banco de Bilbao. In all seriousness, that is a secret. But it doesn’t matter. There is no point to robbing banks in Spain.”

“You’re quite sure of that?”

“Oh, yes. Remember when those Greeks stole the money from the Banco de Navarre? The Guardia Civil apprehended them on the road to Algeciras. They formed a semi-circle about the car, machine-gunned the occupants to death. Fortunately, they were indeed the culprits. Examples of that sort, plus the fact that the garrotte is used in capital crimes, encourages criminals to take a prudent view of things. They can rob and steal with great confidence in other countries. But they stay out of Spain. Look at Aristide Broualt, for example. One of the most formidable thieves to ever operate in Europe. Correct?”

“Well, I suppose so. But there was something vulgar about him, I felt.”

“Notifying the police in advance, that sort of thing? Well, perhaps you’re right. But he was enormously clever. And yet, he never tried his tricks in Spain. Nor did the one the papers dubbed the Ace of Diamonds.”

“Frankly, Antonio, as a policeman, didn’t you find him rather tiresome? Take that playing card and stiletto he always left at the scene of the crime. With gryphons drawn on it! Trademarks are childish, to start with. But theatrical ones are downright embarrassing.”

“Yes, I agree. But the custom is an ancient one. Perhaps he was an old man. But young or old, he kept out of Spain. And so did Christopher Page, the Englishman. They were wise, Peter. Jimmy Fingers, Karl Maganer, and the one they called the Count of Soho they were supreme in their line of work, but they all stayed out of Spain.”

“Supreme? That’s an interesting point. Would you say, for instance, they were more accomplished than the American, Stuart Carmichael?”

“Oh, definitely, Peter. Definitely.”

“Then how about the Black Dove?”

“The Black Dove?” The policeman frowned and shook his head slowly.

“The Black Dove? I don’t recall that one. Was he a man or a woman?”

“You must remember, Antonio. Think, for heaven’s sake.”

“I have just a vague memory.”

“The Banco Commerciale in Lisbon. The Credit Lyonnais in Paris. The Nationale in Rome. To name only a few.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” Antonio said. “I remember now.”

“I should rather think you would.”

“Yes, the Black Dove. A clever one. But again, Peter, he never set foot in Spain. But this is idle talk. No intelligent person would bother stealing the jewels from the Virgins.”

“Why do you say ‘bother’?”

“Because they are priceless; therefore worthless.”

That was neatly put, Peter thought with a touch of envy. He might have used it in his journal. Things beyond value have no value. Or something like that. But the policeman’s was better. The jewels were priceless; therefore worthless. He wondered if Angela had considered that.

Antonio stood with care. “I must be going.” He looked through his pockets. “By the way, I found your parking summons. Lucky thing, eh?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Peter, you’re pale. You don’t look well. I’d have a drink, if I were you.”

He went fluidly through the door. Peter sighed and put his fingertips to his temples. Then he frowned faintly, and considered the policeman’s last words. At last he began to smile. Relief flooded through him, sluicing away his headache. Scooping up the phone he dialled the Pez Espada. “Angela? I’ve got to see you and Francois. Immediately.”

“Is anything wrong?”

“I’ve got ghastly news.”

He hung up on a hiss of angry questions. Smiling thoughtfully, Peter strolled to the bar and told Mario he wanted a whisky. Reconsidering, he said, “Better make it a double.”

On the terrace of Peter’s bar, Mr. Shahari was explaining the rate to an American named Morgan and an Englishman named Quince, while under their table a mongrel dog fed on peanuts and the husks of shrimp.

“Yes, the rate of exchange is sixty-seven in Tangier, Mr. Morgan. You’ve got it quite right. It is sixty-nine in Fez, as a matter of fact. And in Dakar it is even higher. But unfortunately, here on the southern coast of Spain it is only fifty-eight.”

Morgan was an uncommonly fat young man with a round vulnerable face, a huge blond beard, and eyes that were clear and blue and wholly mad.

“Wherever you go the rate drops,” he cried wrathfully.

“But I have nothing to do with the rate!” Mr. Shahari exclaimed in mild surprise. The Indian was small, neatly dressed, and he glittered; his spectacles, his fountain pens, his rings, his gold teeth, all sparkled brightly in the clear sunlight. “The rate is a constant, Mr. Morgan.”

“Then why is it always changing? Why am I always getting screwed by it?” The mountainous ranges of fat on Morgan’s ribs trembled indignantly. “Just tell me that!”

“The rate in one place is not the same as the rate in another place,” Mr. Shahari explained with an air of exhaustive lucidity. “Now. How many dollars do you wish to exchange?”

“All I’ve got. Twenty-eight.”

“Mr. Quince?”

“I’ve got twelve pound ten.”

Quince was as thin as Morgan was fat. A thoughtful man, one of his favourite fancies was to imagine what might happen if a group of mice learned how to link arms. Might they then attack rats?

Mr. Shahari counted out pesetas, collected dollars and pounds in return, moved to another table. Morgan stared after him furiously.

Strange wild thoughts blew about inside his head.

“I’d like to kill him,” he said to Quince. “There’s the true evil of the world. The middleman. Clipping a fat profit from both sides of every deal. In Hong Kong, Calcutta, Tangier, Paris; they’re everywhere. Stealing our money whenever we cross a border. They’ll have it all one of these days.”

“Now then, Ah wouldn’t kill ’im,” Quince said thoughtfully. “Ah wouldn’t do that. Cause a bloody row, it would.”

“It wouldn’t be a murder; it would be an execution.” Morgan’s excitement grew; his mad eyes sparkled happily. “It should be in public; with crowds to witness it. In a mood of holiday, of fiesta. Amidst music and fireworks, Mr. Shahari should be terminally collected for his sins against humanity. Don’t you think that would be appropriate?”

“Ah wouldn’t execute ’im either,” Quince said doubtfully. “Cause a bloody row, it would.”

Morgan smiled at clouds that were like wisps of cotton on the horizon, and called up a vision of Biblical retribution and justice, which was tinged, however, with respectable existential overtones. Pamplona? He nodded slowly, his chins rising and falling like pneumatic shock absorbers. Appropriate, he thought, most appropriate.

“Angela, I simply cannot do it,” Peter said. “It’s not a matter of spirit, but of flesh. You commented on my drinking yesterday. You asked if it were something new. I wish to God it were. But it’s been going on for years. And lately it’s been accelerating at a cyclical rate of increase. Francois, give me a glass of whisky. One ice cube, if you will.”

Peter paced the floor of their suite, his eyes rolling about in his head, his movements jerky and erratic. “Just look at my hands! Do you remember how I used to take watches apart without tools? I tried it last night. It was ghastly! Screws and wheels clattering all over the place.”

“I think you’re lying, Peter.”

“Why should I lie about it? I’ve deteriorated badly, Angela. Would you like your life hanging on my skills? My reflexes? They’re shot, I tell you. Gone.”

Francois did something unexpected then, something which rather surprised Peter. He took a revolver from his pocket and swung the butt in a vicious arc at Peter’s head.

Peter thought fleetingly of defending himself with a basic judo take-down which would in all likelihood have broken the Frenchman’s wrist and elbow. But he decided against this.

He moved his head and let the gun butt whistle by. As Francois lost his balance, Peter plucked the gun from his hand and spun him into a chair.

“Now that was very stupid,” he said quietly. “I dislike physical violence.” Peter broke the gun, knocked the bullets from its chambers.

“Let me tell you something, Francois. If you ever try anything that silly again, I shall pound one of these bullets up each of your nostrils. It’s the quickest and most painful way to deviate a septum I know of.”

Francois was smiling. So was Angela.

“I was only checking your reflexes,” Francois said casually.

“Oh,” Peter said. Fool, fool, fool! he thought.

Francois stood and took the revolver from Peter. “Give me the bullets.”

Angela said mildly, “Peter, that wasn’t like you. It was extremely foolish. Please don’t make us impatient with you. Remember your friends.”

That night Peter wrote gloomily in his journal: Do not feel antagonistic towards people who are cleverer than you. They may have advantages you lack: i.e. brains.

That wasn’t too bad, he decided. The aptness of the phrasing cheered him; it lay like balm on his wounded ego. He continued writing. The superior person is always surrounded by inferiors; that is the curse of excellence. How trying it must be for God! To look down and find everyone on his knees! Begging favours. Give me money, God. Please don’t let them score, God. I don’t want to be pregnant, God, I’m a good girl But did God listen?

That was a scary notion.

Of course, He listens. What else does He have to do? God is love and grace. The association tempted him towards cliffs of blasphemy. Slowly he wrote: God is Grace. But the words seemed to form a happy union, innocent of disrespect or cheekiness. God is trumpets and bugles, he wrote. God is surrender. God is cellos.

Made whole again by these annealing reflections, Peter raised a glass of brandy to his reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. “They have heard the lion whimper,” he said. “Now they shall hear him roar.”

“Que dice, senior—”

“Nothing, Adela, nothing at all,” he said to the maid who stood in the doorway. She went away frowning.

Peter picked up the telephone and called the Pez Espada.

“Pepe, this is Senor Churchman. Listen. Monsieur and Madame Morel. Is there any way you can get them out of their rooms for about half an hour?”

“But of course, Peter. I shall tell them the suite needs to be fumigated.”

“Perfect. Will you do it right away?”

“Of course, Peter.” There was a pause. “Is that all?”

“Yes. And thank you, Pepe.”

Peter fancied he heard a sigh as he replaced the receiver in its cradle.

Morgan found Mr. Shahari in a bar on the beach. The Indian was tallying his scores. Stacks of cheques and bills covered the table.

“Well, this is a break. Mind if I sit down?”

“I’m busy, Mr. Morgan.”

“I wondered. Are you going up to Pamplona?”

Morgan sank into a chair. The swell of his vast stomach caused the table to rise and tilt mysteriously, as it might have under the hands of a swami at a seance. “Watch it,” he said.

Mr. Shahari clutched at cheques and bills. “No, I am not going to Pamplona, Mr. Morgan.”

“Well, what if I have to change some money? There’s a pound note behind your chair, I think.”

Mr. Shahari’s voice came from beneath the table. “How much do you have to change?”

“Well, right now, nothing. But next week I’ll have quite a lot.”

Mr. Shahari’s head rose in the air. Morgan’s stomach swelled once more and drove the edge of the table against the Indian’s gullet.

“Damn, I’m sorry. Watch those cheques.”

“How much will you have to change?” Mr. Shahari said hoarsely.

“They’ve just settled my father’s estate. I get twenty thousand dollars next week.”

Mr. Shahari made it his business to know bits and pieces about his clients; even such a little fish as Morgan, whose father he knew to be an international lawyer of formidable reputation, and to be if last week’s issue of Time could be trusted in excellent health.

“I congratulate you, Mr. Morgan. Good-bye.”

“Then you’re not going up to Pamplona?”

“Most certainly not. Good-bye.”

Morgan confided his disappointment to Quince. “It’s just that he doesn’t trust me, you see. But he’ll come all right. If someone he knows has money. That’s what’s so flawless about it. So perfect. A symbol of greed annihilated by greed. You’ve got to help me, Quince.”

“Take my word, Morgan. Killin’ ’im will cause an awful bloody row. It will get around, you know.”

In dark slacks and a black shirt Peter drifted like a shadow to the side of the Pez Espada which faced the sea. In the parking lot on the other side of the hotel, car doors slammed and high-pitched laughter came floating through the night. Music rose and fell in tinkling loops.

The first floor terrace was three feet above Peter’s head. He crouched, measured the distance, sprang upward through the darkness.

His hands caught the edge of the terrace. He secured his grip, chinned himself, swung up on top of the railing which rimmed the terrace.

Balancing himself, Peter peered into a room in which a tall man with a cold face was practising putting.

The man tapped a golf ball towards a mechanical gadget six feet away.

The ball disappeared into a hole, popped out, and rolled back to him.

Clever, Peter thought. The man sank nine putts in a row. The tenth hung on the rim of the hole. The man stamped on the floor. With a glance over his shoulder, he strolled to the gadget, his putter swinging casually. He tapped the ball in without looking at it. A woman appeared in the bedroom door.

“Ten in a row, dear,” he said.

“Wonderful.”

Peter leaped up through the darkness. On the second floor an American couple played backgammon. On the third, an elderly woman in a bathrobe scolded a small dog. The room on the fourth floor was dark. God bless Pepe, Peter thought, as he swung lightly over the railing He let himself into Angela’s suite and moved silently to the bedroom.

From his hand a beam of light probed the darkness like a slender lance.

It took him only a few minutes to check the closets, drawers, and luggage. He noticed a steamer trunk at the foot of the bed. A hasp and combination lock secured its lid.

Peter settled himself before the trunk, rubbed his hands together to warm them, then began delicately to manipulate the dial on the lock.

The tumblers fell with no more sound than feathers on velvet, but to Peter’s sensitive fingertips they were noisy as castanets.

Smiling, he opened the lock, raised the lid of the trunk.

Something cold touched his temple.

“Get up,” Francois said.

Light flooded the room. Peter swivelled his eyes sideways and saw the muzzle of Francois’s revolver inches from his head.

“Peter, I’m becoming very cross with you,” Angela said.

Peter stood slowly, remembering Pepe’s sigh and cursing himself for a bloody fool.

Angela stood in the doorway to the living-room. She wore a short, ice-blue evening dress, and slippers with rhinestone heels. Under the shining cap of black hair, her face was white with anger.

“You look smart, I must say,” Peter said.

“This is your last chance, Peter. Your very last.”

Francois wore a dinner jacket. Peter didn’t like the fear and anger in his eyes, nor the way his knuckles had whitened on the butt of the gun.

“Don’t kill him, Francois,” Angela said quietly.

“Tell me why not? He’s no good to us. We returned to our room, found a prowler, I shot him. Tell me why that isn’t the intelligent thing to do! The only thing to do, as a matter of fact.”

“Peter, will you give me your word? No more tricks?”

“I have no choice.”

“San Fermin starts a week today. Will you promise to go to Pamplona tomorrow and look things over?”

“Yes.”

“Will you promise to do exactly what you agreed to yesterday?”

“I promise.”

Francois looked at her angrily. “And you’ll take his word?”

“I should have thought of it before. He is very serious about promises. Aren’t you, Peter?”

“It all comes down to how one was brought up, I imagine.”

“Then I have your word. No more tricks.”

“You have my word.”

“This seems too simple,” Francois said drily. The gun in his hand was still aimed at Peter’s belt buckle. “He gives us a promise like a Boy Scout, and then everything is all right. Mr. Churchman, listen to me: Angela is after money, but I am fighting to save my life. There’s a difference. I hope you understand it.”

There was a subtle change in the Frenchman’s manner now, and Peter attempted to assay it with care and accuracy, for his instincts warned him of danger. The gun, that was it; the gun made the difference. It gave him weight and substance. Until this moment Peter had looked through Francois as he would a pane of glass. But now he fancied he saw something alive and sinister at work behind the greedy eyes, the pointlessly handsome features. The potential of the gun seemed to magnify Francois in an odd fashion; in this new dimension the very neutrality and ordinariness of his features became a fact of curious significance.

Peter said: “I’m going to do all I can to save my friends, you can be sure of that. I’ve given you my word; I’ll try my best. That’s all I can promise you, now isn’t it?”

“Let me give you a promise in return,” Francois said quietly. “If you don’t get what we want, I’ll kill you. Is that clear?”

“Oh, yes. And I’ll certainly keep it in mind. Goodnight, Angela.”

In the lobby Peter listened ruefully to Pepe. “They were suspicious when I told them it would be necessary to fumigate their rooms. They offered me money.”

Peter sighed. “And I didn’t. It was stupid of me, Pepe. I forgot. I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right, Senor Churchman.”

“It wasn’t intentional, you realise. No hard feelings?”

“Of course not. Such things shouldn’t come between friends.”

“Good night, Pepe.”

“Good night, Senor Churchman.”

In a chair near the entrance to the hotel, a tall and formidably proportioned man in a black raincoat lowered his newspaper and watched Peter pass through the revolving doors. Then he popped a mint into his mouth and sucked on it. There was an odd lack of animation in his face and eyes; like a sluggish, heavy animal behind a fence, he seemed to regard the world without interest or curiosity. He might have been thirty or forty; his blond hair was clipped short, and his eyes were clear and patient under a pattern of scars that were drawn on his forehead as precisely as the lines in a tick-tack-toe game. When he stood, however, slapping the newspaper under his arm and stepping out towards the information desk, it was evident he had been trained to handle his big body with economy and precision. At the counter, he smiled at Pepe, and said in careful, unaccented English: “The man you were speaking with a moment ago can you tell me something about him?”

He analysed Pepe’s expression and drew out a wallet.

Peter went home and drank four large brandies before going to bed. As sleep began to circle him like a vast but silent typhoon, he wondered drowsily if the film had really and truly been hidden in Angela’s steamer trunk. It made very little difference one way or the other now, but he disliked not knowing; it nagged at him. Ask Angela? No.

No good. Go back and take another look? No. There was his promise... No more tricks. “God help me,” he murmured despairingly and fell asleep.

Peter tried valiantly the following morning. He rose, showered, brushed his teeth, thought calmly of what lay ahead of him, and then went wearily back to bed.

Much later came soft footsteps, an aroma of coffee.

“Take it away, Adela. Please.”

“It’s not Adela, it’s me,” Grace said. “May I open the curtains?”

“Good God, no.”

“What’s the matter, Peter? Why are you avoiding me?”

The bed sank slightly with her weight. Waves of sluggish liquids sloshed about in Peter’s head.

“It has nothing to do with you, darling.”

“It’s cruel of you not to tell me what’s wrong.”

He turned his head. She sat on the edge of the bed, her back hollowed out as if she were on a show horse. She wore a white dress and her shoulders were bare. In the gloom she towered above him like a lovely iceberg floating serenely on dark polar seas.

“I’m desperate,” he said.

“I feel so helpless. Do you want to go to bed with me?”

“No darling.” This was a first, he realised with a touch of panic. He felt his head. “Have I gone bald, by any chance?”

“Of course not, you silly man. What ever gave you that idea? Anyway, if you comb it sideways, no one would notice such a little spot. Not for years.”

God, he thought. The bad things were happening at last. He saw himself locked in a prison cell, impotent, bald as an egg.

“Please tell me why you’re acting so strangely. I can’t bear to see you like this.”

Peter looked into her splendid loving eyes, luminous now with unshed tears, and came to a decision: He told her everything.

“What a horrid little bitch this Angela must be! Would she really throw your old friends to the wolves?”

“She most certainly would!”

“Peter, you aren’t pulling my leg, are you—”

“Damn it, of course not!”

“Seriously. You went about Europe breaking into banks, stealing all kinds of money?”

“In England too.”

“But why? And please don’t say because they were there. You must have had a good reason.”

“Of course. I wanted the money.”

“Peter, you’re teasing me. I’m really curious He managed to sip some coffee. Since he had gone this far, there seemed no point in not making a clean breast of things.

“All right. I’ve never told anyone before. And I’d appreciate it if you’d keep all this to yourself. It makes me appear an even greater fool than I actually am.” He sighed. “During the war I bombed a cathedral by mistake. It was at night so I didn’t kill anybody. But I felt terrible about it. I couldn’t get over it. Such staggering carelessness. It preyed on my mind. Imagine how you’d feel if you ran through a red light and killed Albert Schweitzer! Or dropped a Sevres bowl and smashed it to bits! Well, I felt even worse.”

“Oh, darling, I do love you. I can imagine how you must have felt. But aren’t you being too hard on yourself? It was wartime. You were flying a mission. You were over enemy territory.”

“No. I was returning from a mission. I was over Manchester, as a matter of fact.”

She sighed. “Well, I suppose that makes a difference.”

“It was eight hundred years old,” he said gloomily. “It had taken three generations of labourers and artisans to build it. I found all this out later, of course. They all had to go to confession before starting work in the morning. Each stone was put into place by men with theoretically spotless souls. Think of it! Then I fly by, mooning about steaks and beer and girls, and drop a bomb on it. The bomb-release mechanism is secured by throwing a switch to the right. To the right! That’s printed in block capitals in the manual. I yawned and threw it to the left. My silly name made it all the more ghastly.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Churchman. Peter Churchman. I’m not particularly religious or anything. But something is definitely wrong when a man named Churchman destroys a cathedral. It made me feel the butt end of a very stupid joke, I can tell you.”

“You poor dear. Only an exquisite sort of person would grieve about a thing like that.”

“Well, I decided to send them a contribution. It seemed the least I could do. I went into business, at which I was no good at all. Then I had an inspiration. I saved some money and tried my luck at Monte Carlo. I didn’t see how I could miss. I was doing the Lord’s work. God was my partner. But I lost every dime. And I never heard from God at all.”

She smiled and touched his cheek. “He was a silent partner, darling.”

Peter felt a stab of envy. How nicely that would have looked in his journal! The irrelevance of his thoughts depressed him, for he knew at heart he wasn’t a serious man; in the profound recesses of his being there sat a child grinning at comic books.

“I do understand now,” she said gently. “You robbed the banks to pay for the cathedral.”

“Yes. I deducted only my expenses. Of course, I had no way of determining the value of a cathedral. Costs have risen a lot since it was built, you know. But I settled on a million dollars. I collected that and sent it to the City Council of Manchester, with my apologies.”

“Oh, Peter. Did you tell them who you were or anything?”

“I couldn’t do that. I just said it was from a repentant airman, and hoped they realised it had been a mistake and so forth.”

The light in her eyes was like a bonfire whipped by high winds, splendid and exciting.

“Darling, how magnificent!”

He moved her dress and kissed her bare knees. Suddenly he felt much better; confession had eased his soul. He listened to the mounting tempo of his heart, and decided that things were quite all right again.

Things were unbelievably good once more, he realised, as his fingertips slowly rounded the delicious curves of her legs.

“Darling, lock the door.”

“Why?”

“I would love to merge with the infinite.”

“Oh, how sweetly you put things.”

She locked the door, undid straps and stepped from her dress and sandals. The light in the room was the colour of pearls now, the colour of southern seas at dawn, and through this shimmering translucence she came to Peter like a stately white clipper under gentle homing winds.

Mr. Shahari fled up an alley. Morgan cunningly plotted his probable course, waddled along side streets and caught him near the church square.

“Now look. About my father. I got that wrong. It was my uncle who died. But I’ll have the money next week. There’s no doubt of that. None at all.”

“I wish you happiness with it. But I am not going to Pamplona. This is my area. This is where I work.”

“Ah, come on. You’ll have fun.” Morgan winked and moved closer to Mr. Shahari. “Let me tell you about the girls who come down from Biarritz.”

Mr. Shahari backed away from the vast rounded prow of Morgan’s stomach. He sat down abruptly in the burros’ drinking fountain.

“Damn you, great fat fool! No, no, no.”

Morgan told Quince about it later. “He put on a good act, but he’s got the hook in his mouth. He’ll come to Pamplona, don’t worry. And there we shall kill him, eh Quince! With ritual and spectacle, eh Quince?”

Quince was silent. He believed he had already expressed himself more than adequately on this subject.