The Lives and Times of Bernardo Brown Read Online Free PDF

only in war that you English are at your best. That goes for the Spanish half, too. Why the devil did you pull Number One up on the beach?’
    ‘We had shared the boat for so long. And for all I knew he might only have been caught with his pants down by somebody’s husband.’
    ‘That remark is not in the best of taste, Mr. Brown. Where’s the suitcase?’
    ‘It went down with the boat.’
    ‘Think again!’
    ‘Look here, my lord! You can’t climb a cliff carrying a suitcase. And what’s funny about that?’
    ‘I am laughing because I have to like you. Nobody in England ever calls a foreign nobleman “my lord”. They just say “count” or “baron”.’
    ‘Do we? I didn’t know.’
    ‘Damn it! If only there were just the original body, Alfonso would be able to fix it.’
    ‘Alfonso?’
    ‘The King of Spain. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of him!’
    ‘Couldn’t Bobo sort of join the party?’
    ‘Mr. Brown, this is going to be difficult for you to understand. In these days whatever my country does is wrong. We are guilty of starting the war though we voted against it. Because we governed minorities speaking other languages, it’s now considered right that they should have independence and govern Hungarian minorities. We are guilty because we won’t take that lying down. And, worst of all, we are guilty of being the only civilised nation in Eastern Europe.’
    ‘I think we all feel rather sorry for you in England,’ Bernardo said.
    ‘Oh, in England! You don’t even know where Hungary is without looking at a map. But the French do and their allies do. If they can pin a crime on us, they will. Who assassinated two harmless tourists in Spain? The Hungarians of course! The gangsters of Europe!’
    Bernardo protested that he was surely exaggerating. The Count, ignoring this squeak from the tennis club, asked—more to himself than his guest—why and for what Bobo had been employed.
    ‘We can rule out bombs and common burglary,’ he said.‘What’s left? Compromise her and us in some way so that the bloody newspapers have a stinking, international scandal to play with? I don’t see how, but I’ll bet that is what they were after. And they have got it, though not in the way they intended. Perhaps you can be of great help to us.’
    ‘If I can, I will,’ said Bernardo stoutly.
    He had a pleasant vision of being received by Her Majesty and invested—if that was the right word—with some ancient and magnificent order, third class.
    ‘Well, Corpse No. 1 gives us no trouble. A thief tried to break into Her Majesty’s villa, perhaps mistaking it for a richer establishment. He was challenged by the Civil Guard and shot, but managed to escape. Finish! That’s all anybody knows.’
    Bernardo pointed out that the bullet in his body would probably be different from those fired by the carbines of the Civil Guard.
    ‘A most intelligent remark,’ the Count said. ‘But I am sure instructions will be given that the Civil Guard bagged him whether they did or not. Now have some more brandy and shut up while I consider that tourist who fell down the cliff. Suicide? Bolshevik assassins? An interest in gulls, if gulls nest there?’
    ‘Ravens do.’
    ‘Ravens then. In any case this tragedy which happens yearly on all savage coasts has nothing to do with burglars, Hapsburgs or Hungary. Obviously there must be a connection between the two bodies but no one knows what and their employers won’t talk.’
    ‘But my identity card is in Bobo’s pocket,’ Bernardo objected.
    ‘I was coming to that. And Mr. Brown will be recognised by his description as the chap who had been in the sea and was walking to Bilbao. I cleared him—casually and convincingly, I hope—of the attempt on the villa. I shall never mention that I saw his face in the water. But Mr. Brown, ifhe is available, will be arrested and perhaps tried. The law is the law. And, worse still, Bobo was about fifth in succession to the throne of