Chief of Police he was still called—there was a Prefect of the City who dealt with rioting, and a Prefect of National Discipline who had charge of the prisons, so that his power was shorn while his usefulness remained unimpaired. He was a small, grizzled man, with an eye that fixed you only to disconcert you with a twinkle, and a sardonic habit of speech. When he came round to Almeda’s house next morning he carried a vast jacket of official papers with him, the result of the researches he had made during the midnight hours. So brisk was he, so fully master of the situation, that you would never take him for a man robbed of his night’s sleep.
‘I begin with the time-factor,’ he announced, when Almeda had asked him for a full preliminary statement. ‘The lamented Inspirer of the People finished broadcasting at the hour of seventeen minutes past ten; at least, that was when he switched off his microphone, and it became possible for the studio orchestra to continue their interrupted programme. And you, General, must have left him almost as soon as he had finished?’
‘Yes; I don’t suppose we talked for more than a minute and a half before I took my leave. He seemed tired, and I wanted him to have all the rest possible.’
‘He was going to bed?’
‘No, he said he had a little work to do.’
‘To be sure; that is why the light burned in his study. It was at 10.44 that the policeman on duty in the Street of April the First looked up at the outside of the suite, and saw smoke and sparks coming out by the balcony window. There was some delay, as Your Excellency knows, about breaking down the door, and it is not certain at what precise moment Captain Varcos and the others ascended the stairs. But the hoses began to play on the front of the house, it seems, a few minutes afterwards; and we have the time of that—10.57. The body was found a quarter of an hour later. The abominable incident therefore took place between about 10.20 and about 11.15; that is all the time margin at our disposal.’
‘One moment, Colonel; that light which Varcos saw burning in the study—did it go out before the alarm of fire? The sentries, if so, must have noticed it.’
‘It went out, apparently, when the lights fused. It was then that the sentries lost their heads, and ran round to the front. These irregulars, General—I always said it—should never have been trusted with such an employment. Now, as to the persons who ascended the stairs. Captain Varcos was first, with two of his men, Ladero and Munoz—both of them highly trusted. The policeman says that he fell on his face when the door finally gave, and ran upstairs in pursuit of the four men who had got ahead of him. At the top of the stairs, however, finding that there were other unauthorized persons coming up, he very properly devoted himself to barring the way, and succeeded in turning them all back. The names and addresses of these persons were taken at the main door; but they are not in custody.’
‘You mean the people whom the policeman turned back?’
‘Precisely. The four who got past him are in custody. One, Luiz Banos, is a volunteer member of the fire brigade; his statement is that he was passing at the time, and thought he could do more good by rushing in at once, instead of reporting himself at the station. His political views are unknown. The second was a priest, Domingo Sanchez, who tells us that he saw the fire from the street, and ran up with the sole idea of rescuing some saint’s relic or other, which remained in the chapel. He was a Carmelite before the Order was disbanded, and is reported to have said in a Sunday school, last February, that the Pope was a more important person than Don Gamba. The third is an old friend of ours, Gomez—the man who edited an Anarchist paper before the Liberation, and has been in custody since, more than once. He says that he lives in an attic on the opposite side of the Street of April the First; that he ran out when he heard the noise, and went to the rescue (as he calls it) because he thought it was his duty as a citizen. The fourth, James Marryatt, is correspondent, as Your Excellency knows, of the London Daily Shout, and he acted as he did because he thought it was his duty to his paper. It is, I apprehend, the only sort of duty that young man recognises. The previous movements of all these persons have been checked, and found to be in accordance with their own statements.’
‘It is more important to know what were their movements at the time.’
‘I was coming to that, General. The policeman, by all accounts, did not go further than the top of the stairs, and then spent his time shepherding the intruders out of the building. Captain Varcos directed the two guards, Ladero and Munoz, to do what they could with the fire, while he himself went to look for the Inspirer. It is not clear whether they obeyed his orders, because accounts differ about the number of people who were in the chapel, trying to put out the fire. Varcos says he did not meet either of them again, while he was searching the house. There are no rooms of any size in the suite except the dining-room, study, bedroom, and conference-room. But there is a quantity of cupboards; and Varcos says he wasted time looking in all of these.’
‘What made him do that?’
‘He was not certain which were the practicable doors. Also, he says, he had begun to fear foul play; with the fire isolated in the chapel, it was hard to explain why Don Gamba had not come running downstairs to meet them. The lights were out, and Varcos’ torch was not too good. It took him about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour to search the rooms. He could find no trace of Don Gamba; he saw no one, except two of the intruders who had broken in with him.’
‘Ah! You have their movements checked?’
‘The fireman was squirting the ceiling with an extinguisher he had found on the landing. Gomez was trying to beat out the flames with his umbrella. They corroborate each other’s accounts. On their own admission, Sanchez and Marryatt followed the Captain in his search of the house. If they are to be trusted, the priest wanted to give Don Gamba absolution; the journalist wanted to ask him for an interview. They are, you see, optimists by profession.’
‘And does anybody claim that he heard a shot fired, in all this time?’
‘Nobody. But it is to be remembered that there was a prodigious amount of cracking and banging in the chapel, so that those inside it would hardly notice a pistol report. As for the others—’ Weinberg shrugged his shoulders.
Almeda sat drumming his fingers on the table. Neither man liked to ask the other, outright, what Varcos had been doing, that he should have heard no shot fired. At last Almeda said, ‘It is certain that the wound was inflicted before the body was thrown from the window?’
‘Captain Varcos will tell you that when he and the sentry Ladero found the body in the area, the scarf of Don Gamba’s uniform was tied round the head. There was blood on the scarf, but no hole through it.’
‘Yes. … And Varcos found no signs of any struggle in the course of his search? None have been found since?’
‘None, General. I know what you mean—Don Gamba was not a man who would easily be overpowered or taken by surprise.’
‘He might have been knocked out by the fumes, though. They were fairly strong, even when I reached the place.’
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