The Lives and Times of Bernardo Brown Read Online Free PDF Page B

Russia.
    ‘To-morrow or the next day that intolerable major will call here and ask me what I did with you. I shall reply that I offered you a bath, fed you and turned you loose with apologies. Inevitably you are going to be suspected of murder, but that has nothing to do with the Empress Zita.’
    The more Bernardo considered his story, the more unlikely it appeared. He could not even decide whether it was better for him to have been seen in the water or whether Count Kalmody should keep quiet about it.
    ‘I think I could clear myself, you know,’ he said nervously. ‘Spanish justice is slow and I might spend a long time in gaol and lose my job. But the British consul would help and I’d be all right in the end.’
    ‘We should not be so lucky and found guilty of God knows what barbarities. And so, Mr. Brown, I cannot allow you to be interrogated. You must cease to exist.’
    ‘But you can’t! I mean ...’
    ‘My dear chap, that sort of thing starts east of Hungary! What I propose is to save you from all this absurd embarrassment and let the Arabian Nights carry on instead. You’re a young man. You’ll have the time of your life as my guest.’
    ‘Wouldn’t you be taking a big risk if you hid me here?’
    ‘I should indeed! However, I possess a remote and beautiful estate. The Romanians have stolen half of it, but a lot remains. What do you enjoy? Horses? Shooting? Girls?’
    ‘I don’t know much about horses and shooting.’
    ‘You shall learn. Just girls wouldn’t be good for you.’

 
     
     
     
     
II
Magda
    ‘One seldom heard of kidnappings in those days,’ said Mr. Brown. ‘It was a very rare crime. And look at it now! Political extremists hard at it, and any poor sod they collar is damn lucky if he doesn’t get his throat cut! They all take themselves too seriously. Vulgar impatience—that’s the trouble with them. One should always find time for manners. Myself, I had nothing to complain of, nothing at all except a bit of a headache.’
    Count Kalmody had shown him his bedroom, locked the door and gone off to dine with Her Majesty whose peaceful retirement Bernardo had embarrassed. He was certain that there would be no mention to her of his plebeian presence under her roof, and that amused him. Inevitably a shade of exhilaration was mixed up in his general alarm. Kalmody, he suspected, did not wholly believe him and would believe him even less if he ever had an opportunity to examine that cliff, but for the moment relations were cordial. The window offered a way of escape on to a lower balcony. He was not tempted, for escape was only going to land him in Bilbao police station. His future was so plainly unpredictable that there was no point in fussing about it. Being still hungry, he sat down to the refreshments which were laid out on a delicate mahogany table at the foot of his bed.
    Bernardo woke up to find himself in a small but comfortable basket chair enclosed on three sides by a windscreen.Beyond the windscreen was the back of the driver. It puzzled him that there was no passing scenery. He sat up and looked over the side of the car to see the road. There wasn’t any. Some five thousand feet beneath him was the sea.
    ‘Hell! Must be an aeroplane!’ he said aloud.
    A voice behind him asked if he was feeling all right. He turned round. In another basket chair behind him was a man in his fifties or so with a shock of white hair and a grin on his face.
    ‘You’ve woken up too soon, young fellow. Istvan reckoned you wouldn’t start eating again till midnight. What an appetite!’
    ‘Where are we?’
    ‘Coming down to refuel. That’s Italy over there.’
    Even allowing for ex-empresses, Bernardo could not make out how his Arabian Nights magnate had materialised a flying carpet in the course of half a night. He asked where they had started from, expecting that he would not be told. Far from it. His talkative companion shouted a flood of information into his ear.
    ‘Pasajes. It’s