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Enter Three Witches
By Paul McGuire
To Tony Grant, the Spanish Steps was the most fasci-
nating place in Rome. One evening as he stood there in
the purple shadows, a girl spoke to him and he thought
she was the loveliest thing he had ever seen.
Like Tony, she was English and, surprisingly, she
claimed to know him. The encounter was as mystifying
as the shadows in which they stood, and when she
left, Tony was afraid he would never see her again.
Then he received an invitation to spend a weekend
with a famous woman he had never met and he
promptly packed his bags. He was a journalist—adven-
ture was looking his way and he found it exciting.
Marie Beuil's huge villa was full of strange guests.
When Tony found she wanted him to do her a service,
he might not have stayed if he hadn't discovered there
the girl of the Spanish Steps. It was as if a witches' curse
forced the guests to move in a design already prede-
termined. Gradually Grant was drawn into the pattern
and the evil that lurked in the halls of the villa began
to walk. The girl was involved. He had to stay. But
there was danger for all of them ahead. . . .


also by Paul McGuire
A FUNERAL IN EDEN


PAUL MCGUIRE
Enter
Three Witches

WILLIAM MORROW & CO.
NEW YORK 1940


ENTER THREE WITCHES
COPYRIGHT - - - 1940
BY PAUL MC GUIRE
254303
GIFT
JAN 6 '41
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES


Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Scala di Spagna 3
II. Castello Feroce 28
III. In the Night 53
IV. What Happened After That 89
V. Sunday Morning 120
VI. Excursion to Rome 143
VII. The Portrait 177
VIII. The Second Evening 203
IX. Mr. Flannagan's Adventure 231
X. Finale 258





Author's Note
Even where this story approaches reality, it belongs
to the months before September, 1939, an epoch now
as remote as the First Byzantium or Little Boy Blue.
There is some evidence that the author did inhabit
that distant age, but the plot and characters have
no relation to any of his contemporaries there.





Enter
Three Witches


.


CHAPTER ONE
Scala di Spagna
The dome of st. peter's hung
like a bubble in the sky, in its own green evening air,
while below, the shadows deepened in the streets of the
tawny town.
Grant leaned upon the balustrade which crowns that
sweep of the Pincio from the Spanish Steps and by the
Borghese Gardens, loud now with children. He had played
once in the Gardens himself, during a winter of his child-
hood, and the soft plashing of fountains had always since
recalled his thoughts to the dripping Cupids and the Four
Horses. He remembered still the argot of his contemporary
urchins. It had made him always in some part a Roman.
Not a Roman of the classic Rome, which must have been
a distressingly progressive sort of place. When Augustus'
marble was new, and the place was clamorous with rich
wheat merchants and urgent concessionaires from the new
provinces and ambitious, loud-mouthed lawyers, Rome
must have been like the Chicago of the nineteen-twenties.
Nor was he a Roman of Rome's latest melodrama. He was
a Roman of the perennial Rome: of the cool wine-shops
under stone arches and of the gossips at the corners and
of the violet evenings in the narrow streets towards the
Tiber; of the Rome which endures, the Rome which has
discovered through its ages the essential human things, the
Rome which knows that men and empires are tomorrow's
3


4 ENTER THREE WITCHES
dust, and which has seen in a crumbling and buried Forum
what all our eloquence and our great policies must come
to at the end of the day. Yet that Rome too is entertained
with the passing show, and there is a good deal to say for
the new Italian uniforms. The long, lined cloak with its
elegant sweep, the flash of braid, the Fascist dagger: a man
can cut a figure in these things, and what is an army for if
soldiers do not cut figures? The Italian is a child, a child
and an artist. A child, and trailing clouds of glory. He has
all his centuries and all their experience behind him. Per-
haps he is taken in by the modern solemnities, playing at
them as a child plays, with deadly seriousness. But beneath
he knows, surely, as a child knows, that it is all a phase of
the drama which men invent to fill a tedium between the
womb and the grave. At heart, he is too wise to take all our
modern earnestness, our noise, our Mechanic's Progress at
more than its silly worth. It is, anyhow, comforting to hope
so.
The crowds went up and down, as they have done im-
memorially at evening on the Pincio: soldiers and students
and laughing girls and a long crocodile of seminarians
coming from their afternoon walk, artists, and trim little
old ladies from the pensions in the Ludovisi and about the
Via Sistina, blowsy washerwomen, coifed nuns, plump busi-
ness men, and officials in the leaner fashion of the new
regime, strolling sailors, a private or two in the helmets and
khaki of the colonial battalions, a brace of tall Abyssinians,
a Coptic priest. The show of Rome, Rome from which so
many sources spring, Rome which renews the spirit of man.
Grant grinned. His own spirit was in urgent need of
renewal. It was worn to tatters.


SCALA DI SPAGNA 5
And the fragments of his calico drawers
Was a-fluttering in the breeze.
Twice before he had come to Rome when he was a thing
of shreds and patches. Twice before Rome had mended
him, sealing and healing. Now it was all to do again.
What were the things that soothed one here, in spite of
the contemporary clamour of politics and politicians? The
dome of St. Peter's, heavy-bearded friars from Ohio and
students in red soutanes from the Rhine, German beer in
low, cellared places, yellow candles and old women praying
in the corners of churches, baroque, and the historic dust,
carozzas trotting slowly in sun and leafy shadow towards
the Pons Vaticanus, gewgaws in shop windows, girls brown
as autumn leaves, caffe-crema, and wine in rosy carafes,
American bishops eating beefsteaks in that little place off
the Via Condotti, lunch under the Colonnade of St. Peter's.
There were fasces and swastikas pasted in windows, but
there was peace in the stones and the dust of Rome. Peace,
after the storm and blood of Spain.
He thought of the last two years. It had become possible
now to think of them with some sort of order and propor-
tion: to think of an aged woman pulped beside her door,
of savage winter nights in the passes of the Pyrenees, of a
long line of dazed refugees stumbling along frozen, secret
paths in the high hills, of winds that cut one's bones, of a
burst of yellow flame and houses dissolving in slow clouds
of rubble and mortar, of the whining air, and of the
blanched, unshaven faces of militiamen staring upwards
at a sky that crashed upon them. He could even think,
steadily, of Michael, who used to take his truck by in-


6 ENTER THREE WITCHES
credible ways down from Andorra to gather hunted men
from the villages, and of the fierce sunlight in which
Michael died. And of Hughes, in his ancient battered ship,
who had flown six times out of Spain with fugitives before
his nerve broke. And of the endless boredom of journeys
between Paris and the frontier in third-class carriages, and
of oddly ineffective spies drinking coffee in the station-
buffet at Bayonne.
Well, it was done with now, and now again the dome of
St. Peter's floated in the sky, as it had floated for his child-
hood. It had always strangely reassured him, that so vast a
work of men's hands could be so light a thing: that all
men's works were weighed in another dimension than
theirs.
He dropped his eyes to the lovely sweep of the Spanish
Steps beneath him. They were all that he wanted of Spain,
now and for years. He remembered his nurse who had
toiled up them beside him, past the house where Shelley
once lived and Keats died, on and up to Sallusts' Obelisk,
which had seemed so remote from the Square below. He
remembered how, in his adolescence, he had read the Ode
to a Nightingale, sitting there, a few feet from the room
where Keats wrote it, by Bernini's Fountain of the Boat:
and how, often in the pearly mornings, he had wondered
if the girls sitting amongst the flowers were models waiting
for artists' hire.
A girl was sitting there now, on the curve of the fifth
flight, and her face, lifted towards him, was like a white
petal dropped upon the shadows. The streets beyond were
already-purple canyons of dusk, but the light still fell here
as if the Steps went down into a pool of bronze. It was one


SCALA DI SPAGNA 7
moment's exquisite effect. He hoped that she would not
stir before he went away.
Then he smiled wryly. She had stirred. She had risen,
and he saw that she was very tall. She walked up the steps
towards him. And still, in that light she had a curious grace,
as if she were coming through a buoyant element.
He turned away, not wishing to look at her. He had al-
ways been so much of a sentimentalist that he strove to
preserve a chance effect: he would be unreasonably irritated
if the girl became some lanky English tourist with an Ox-
ford Shelley underneath her arm.
She was English. At least, she spoke English. She said,
"Good evening, Mr. Grant."
He turned sharply. The light was a golden glow on the
clean line of her jaw. She was smiling.
"It is annoying, isn't it, to have one's Rome interrupted
by casual acquaintances? I am an acquaintance, you know."
She paused, and smiled again. "I mean, we have been in-
troduced, even if you have forgotten me utterly."
"Why, yes, of course," he said. He saw her face now in the
full, and if a girl who looked like something of Luini's
wished to claim his acquaintance, who was he to deny her?
She frowned. "I'm not sure that we ever were introduced.
Properly. And that's very honest of me, because you have
certainly forgotten about it in any case."
"Incredible," said Grant, and he meant it.
"I met you on a raft," she said.
"Of course," said Grant. "It was a very nice raft. We had
been shipwrecked, hadn't we? Where the remote Ber-
moothes ride, or thereabouts." He looked at her again and


8 ENTER THREE WITCHES
. U-?5!!
thought it a plausible shot. One may have been enchanted
and not know it.
"No, I'm sorry. It was only a diving raft, off the Hotel
Bristol at La Napoule. Around the Bay from Cannes. Don't
you remember?"
"Of course," muttered Grant, hauling at his subconscious.
"Where all the English go." He gave a tug. "And the bus
is always late." He looked at her again, in the sense that he
looked at her more intently. He had yet to find an adequate
reason for not looking at her. "But it's ten years since I sat
on a raft opposite the Hotel Bristol at La Napoule. Oh dear,
is it actually ten years?"
"It is. And that, I hope, is why you don't remember me.
I was fourteen and very school-girl. Plaits, though you may
not believe it, and awkward legs, like a calf's."
"I think that there is a great deal to say for calves' legs,"
said Grant. "But how did you manage plaits, in an age
so given to the shears?"
"A convent education, a romantic father and a firm
Mother Superior. A very firm Mother Superior. You were
staying with the Wilds, in that Moorish lighthouse sort of
place up on the cliffs, where the hot tap in the bathroom
runs in icy spurts."
"Bill and Jane. Good lord, yes. Jane and Bill."
"Do you remember me now?"
"Of course I do. I've been remembering you for years.
Plaits and calf's legs and all. What did we do on the raft,
though?"
"I bumped my head on it, and you had pity and took m-
in. We dived off it a good deal, too. That is what it wa
there for."


SCALA DI SPAGNA 9
"Why didn't I take you to dinner sometime?" said Grant.
"I was fourteen years old. I was never invited. There
were also the plaits, the legs, the immeasurable superiority
of an undergraduate, and . . . wasn't there a lady who
played something in a band at Juan?"
Grant jumped. "By jove, so there was! I'd almost for-
gotten, myself. She was a clarionet. Solo, too. She had
yellow hair, very yellow hair. But she did play solo. It is
comforting to think of that." He made a gesture and almost
shook the girl. "Now how did you know about her?"
"One can be very interested in romances, at fourteen," she
said. "Do you remember my name?"
"Of course I do," he said, resolving to discover it.
"That's good. Then you don't really mind me speaking
to you like this? And after all these years?"
"My dear lady, I feel as if my Uncle Joe, who went to
Australia in 1892 and who has, I trust, made a fortune
since we last heard of him, had died and left it all to me."
"Am I something like a bolt from the blue?"
"No, that was Uncle Joe."
"What are you doing in Rome?" she asked, and her
voice quickened a little.
Grant had the impression that now she was coming to
business.
"I'm reporting," he said, "for a newspaper. I am Our
Special Correspondent."
"I knew that you wrote things," she said. "I did not know
that you made it a labour."
"It isn't. It's a love. At any rate, Rome is. And what one
writes doesn't much matter. It's impossible to find out
anything important, so I don't try, much. If I say anything


10 ENTER THREE WITCHES
against the regime, I shall get thrown out of the country.
If I say anything in favour of it, I shall be sacked by my
newspaper, which is Liberal and positively reeking of
Democracy. So I write between the lines and try to avoid
offence."
"Several of your people have already been expelled,
haven't they?"
"People on my paper? Yes. We're always being kicked
across one frontier or another. In fact, our supply of spe-
cial correspondents has been almost used up. That is how
I got the job."
"How?"
"Well, I wanted to come to Italy and they wanted some-
one to come to Italy and I happened to meet the Manag-
ing Editor one day at the club, just underneath two busts
and a fine oil, all of Gladstone, and it was all arranged
like that. I was not even asked to make a profession of
faith, though I did recall the Midlothian campaign. But
you won't mention that, I hope, in Rome."
"Yes, but the newspaper seems to have been only the
opportunity. What are you really doing in Rome?"
"Breathing its atmosphere, and the dust of ages. I like
them to settle on my soul."
She laughed a little. "Yes, I know. 'Sceptre and crown
must tumble down, and in the grave be equal made, with
the poor crooked scythe and spade.' That sort of feeling.
One can believe, in Rome, that time, after all, will con-
found their politics and frustrate their knavish tricks, or
however the thing goes."
Grant nodded. "And then, as I was just saying to my-


SCALA DI SPAGNA 11
self, I like Franciscan friars and cowled Dominicans who
talk in the richest notes of Illinois and Sioux Falls."
"I can understand that too," she said quickly, and
Grant was surprised that she should have understood it.
"It gives you some hope of a new civilisation ... of a new
synthesis. When there is so little hope here." She made
a sweep with her hand, and he took it to include all
Europe. "Here the old and the new collide. And crack.
Smash. Wasn't that the root of the matter in Spain?"
Once more her voice quickened as if she approached
the point of this curious conversation.
"Traditions are not necessarily cast-iron, you know,"
he said. "That has been the strength of Europe. It has been
a dynamic culture. It has grown."
"Yes, but in Spain . . ." She had been a trifle too eager.
"Were you ever in Spain?"
"Oh, yes, I've been in Spain."
"Lately? During the war?"
"Well, yes. I had rather hoped that it was notorious
that I had been in Spain. I wrote about it."
"Yes, of course, I knew that." She stopped, and he saw
that she was a little flustered. She was apparently new to
chicanery. He decided to help her.
"Until I sickened of politics and of writing about politics
and of all the hell and hate that politics can loose. Then I
tried to make myself useful."
"How?" She turned sharply, and now he knew that she
was after something; but what, he could not imagine,
"Oh, sometimes someone might drop in on me and tell
me about someone else—a grandmother, say—stranded in
some odd corner of Spain and having a very thin time. I


12 ENTER THREE WITCHES
used to note the details and then persuade one of my
friends to go and bring the old lady out."
"But how could your friends do that?"
"They were very ingenious fellows. One of them had
a truck which he could convert into an ambulance or back
into a truck within about five minutes, if he found a quiet
road. Very baffling to the constabulary. And he knew some
back ways in and out. Bumpy ways, but lacking traffic
cops."
"Did he save very many people?"
"Quite a few."
"Was he ever caught?"
"He was. One is, you know, if one goes in for that sort
of thing overmuch."
"What happened to him?"
"He was shot. Against a white wall, at two o'clock in
the afternoon. It was a very hot day, so they buried him."
"How else did people get out?"
He considered her question and her curiosity in general.
They were normal enough; and there was no need to be
silent now, now that it was all over, no need to be silent
unless it wrung the marrow of one's bones to talk. He
felt himself grimace and thought that these questions were
still her prelude. She had something more coming.
He decided to let it come.
"Sometimes they walked through the lines. Sometimes
they had to be led. Sometimes they could not walk at all.
Like the grandmother I was thinking of just now. Her
husband had been kicked to death in their garden, and
she . . . well, she could not walk. So one of my friends
brought her out by plane."


SCALA DI SPAGNA 13
She stared. "But how could he do that?"
"Oh, he just flew over and landed in a field at the back
of the village. Then he walked across to her house and
knocked. She had three other old ladies living in her house,
one in her bathroom and one in her wine-cellar and an-
other up the backstairs, so he brought them all. He was
lucky to get out. He had landed in a turnip-field, and the
take-off was sticky."
"And . . . was he caught too?"
"No. He lost his nerve, so we persuaded him to take a
holiday. He went to Newfoundland. He was very busily
trying to invent a way to balance the local budget or
something of the sort, the last I heard. Entirely in an un-
official capacity. He is always pushing a nose of unofficial
capacity into other people's worries."
"I should rather like to know him," she said. And she
suddenly shivered.
Grant felt that shiver. "Look here, what's up?" he said.
"Why all these questions?"
"Oh, I don't know. Aren't we just talking? It's getting
dark, isn't it?"
She leaned out over the balustrade and stared down into
the shadows of the Steps; and now he realised that she had
been staring down the Steps for minutes.
"Waiting for someone?" he said.
"Who, me? Oh, no. Why, did I look like ... who would
I look like if I were waiting for someone?"
"You could look like Juliet. But was she expecting
Romeo?"
"I certainly am not."
"Penelope, twenty years on? Patience on a monument?"


14 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"It is very rude of me, in any case, to look as if I am
looking for someone while I am talking to you."
But it was only for a moment that she withdrew her
eyes from the shadowy Steps.
"What are you doing in Rome yourself?" said Grant.
"Holidaying," she said, and she plainly lied.
"You seem to be holidaying every time we meet," he
said. "First, the Riviera, and then Rome."
She laughed, but he knew that she was hardly attending
to him. "I haven't been holidaying all these ten years. Not
all of them."
"What have you been doing?"
"Discovering life. Or I like to think so. What does one
do? Eat and sleep and lie a little in the sun. Read a few
books, buy a few clothes, take a few jobs, feel a little of
... of winter and rough weather." She shivered again,
sharply, and he realised that her body was tensed. He too
looked down at the Steps and into the Piazza, where
Bernini's fountain now loomed like a vast grotesque in the
half light, that light after dusk before the night is wholly
come, when the street-lamps only cast more shadows, and
men who need to hide their faces may most safely walk.
"This is the twilight, this is the dark," she said, "in all
that was Europe. One does think about the past in Rome,
and it all seems to lie in a clear day. But now it is after
sunset. Is that silly to you? Does one look at the world
only through one's own glass?"
"A good deal, I suppose. But why should your glass be
dark?"
"The air is melancholy."
A group drifted down from the foot of the Steps and


SCALA DI SPAGNA 15
were gone in the depths of the street. But out of its shad-
ows came another shape, moving slowly to the Steps, a
heavy figure in a long cloak that flowed into the gloom.
As he climbed, he took form; and his stick clicked sharply
against each step. The noises of the town were suddenly
stilled, unless the impression of quiet spread from an
intensity of silence in the woman beside him. Her fingers
were crooked at the edge of the balustrade, and a thin
gleam of light shone on her white knuckles.
The man came on, nine flights, ten flights, the eleventh:
and halfway up those last twelve steps, where there is
light from the tall lamp, he raised his head as if to be
sure that he approached the top. Grant, his own back
to the light, stared straight into the face; and his heart
turned with a queer, sickening little shock, for he was
looking into the face of a man who had been dead and
rotten these eighteen months.
The girl had only glanced at the man, but she was
staring at Grant.
"Do you know him?" she said.
He leaned back, stretching his arms from the parapet,
and watched the heavy cloak and its dark hat crossing
towards the Via Gregoriana. Was that only a casual ques-
tion?
"You looked as if he might have been a ghost," she
said. "I see ghosts too, in Rome."
"I have never seen a ghost with quite such a healthy
beard before," said Grant
.


16 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"Oh, but didn't you know that hair grows in the grave?"
She laughed, and it was not a pleasant laugh.
"Hair grows in the grave," said Grant. "So it does.
Would you like a drink? There's a place over there in the
Via Sistina which has a little court. Pot-plants and palms
and wicker chairs, you know. In fact, why not stay to
dinner, now that you've shed your plaits?"
She looked at her watch. "I should love to, some other
time. I'm late now, and that is very annoying of me. Will
you ask me some other evening?"
"Where can I find you?"
"Let me find you. Here, one night on the Spanish Steps.
That will be much more fun, don't you think?"
"It sounds ominously vague."
"If you are not here the night that I come, I shall come
another night. If you don't want to be pestered with me,
you can always escape as I come up the Steps."
"How do you know that I usually hang about here in
the evenings?"
"Oh, one does, doesn't one, in Rome?" She held out her
hand. "Good night. I'm glad we've met again. I've always
been grateful for the use of the diving raft."
"There is quite a good raft of my acquaintance at Ostia,"
he said, half reluctant to let her go, "if you would care to
honour it sometime."
"Sometime, perhaps," she said, and then she was gone,
running down the Steps.
He watched her, and for a moment he was tempted to
follow. But she would see him if she glanced back and up
at the Steps. Was that why she had gone that way?


SCALA DI SPAGNA 17
He turned to stroll home. With deliberate effort, he
cleared his mind and began at the beginning.
Who was the girl? He was quite, quite certain that he
had not met her at La Napoule or anywhere else, ten
years ago or since. A girl's appearance may change a great
deal in the ten years between fourteen and twenty-four,
but he would have remembered her. He had a cultivated
knack for remembering faces. He had recognised imme-
diately and unmistakably that other face tonight . . . even
though it had grown a beard in the tomb.
He had not recognised her, but she had recognised him.
Well, even a modest man may know when he has some
small reputation in the world and perhaps he had been
pointed out to her. But she had not only recognised him;
she knew something of him, even of one trivial passage in
his life which he* had almost forgotten. The Wilds could
have babbled to her of the blonde in the band, or perhaps
she had really been at La Napoule, a child who had gath-
ered and retained some gossip. He had been a bumptious
youth and excessively undergraduate in the mode of that
season. Doubtless, people had been pleased to find a little
fun in him.
But why had the girl come to him tonight, and why had
she lied to make an excuse for talking to him? She was
plainly not a practised liar. She had blundered about his
newspaper work, for instance. If she knew that his prede-
cessors had been expelled from Italy, then she must have
known, before they met, what he did here in Rome. He
found it difficult to believe that she had lied merely to
make his acquaintance, even assuming that his acquaintance


18 ENTER THREE WITCHES
could offer her any prospect of pleasure. She had another
motive than his beaux yeux.
It had something to do with the man who came up
the steps, the man who was dead. She had led the
conversation to Spain, and she had waited, staring into
the shadowy depths of the Steps, until the man appeared.
Yet when he had appeared, she had seemed more inter-
ested in Grant himself than the ghost. Though when
the man had come and gone, Grant must have served
whatever purpose she had had with him, for almost at
once she remembered some appointment for which she
was late.
He turned into the Via Venti Settembre, and then he
thought of Hawker. So he went and pulled at the bell of
Hawker's flat.
Hawker was dressing for dinner.
"Hullo," he said. "Have some sherry. I'm getting some
decent sherry from the Spaniards again, now that we've
resumed relations. What do you want? If it's something
for your scandal sheet you'd better agitate at the Embassy.
They don't tell us poor bloody consulars anything, even
when they've got anything to tell."
Grant sat on the edge of the bed and poured himself a
sherry. "I want to know about a girl," he said.
"A girl or any girl?" said Hawker, fixing his collar.
"A girl. English. Up towards six feet, barring a couple
of inches. A voice that was obviously meant for a dulcimer.
Very long hands. Good clean line of jaw. Good bony
structure altogether."
"Have you been taking snapshots with an X-ray? Doesn't
sound very decent to me."


SCALA DI SPAGNA 19
"Brownish to dark hair—the light wasn't very good—
and a skin that might have been marbled. Twenty-four
years of age, and she pronounces place names with an
exactness which suggests that she speaks both French and
Italian well. Contemplative disposition. "The world is too
much with us' kind of thing. But she would probably
manage very well at a party. Not your kind of party, but a
nice party. Distinctly intelligent, and worried about some-
thing." He hesitated. "Very worried. Got her on your files
at the consulate?"
"My dear chap, we don't enter up every big-boned British
female who arrives in Rome. We don't even know who
has arrived, unless they come and tell us. And they don't
do that unless they get into trouble with the police."
"I was really thinking of that. The lady has something
on her mind."
Hawker frowned. "A police sort of something?"
"I don't know. I shouldn't think so, but possibly. The
point'is, do you know her? You would remember her if
you had seen her."
"Well, as I don't remember her, I couldn't have seen her.
If she is a large item in your life, I'll sniff about, though.
Is she?"
"I don't know, yet."
"What is her name?"
"I don't know that, either. That's why I came to you."
"One of those casual encounters, eh? No dirty work
attached, Grant?"
Grant met Hawker's shrewd eyes. "I sincerely trust not."
"But you're not so sure. You newspaper people do seem
to breed bother. For us, sometimes, as well as for yourselves.


20 ENTER THREE WITCHES
We have had quite enough nuisance of late to last out
my time here. If you are walking into trouble, at least give
me fair warning."
"I'm not looking for trouble, I assure you."
"Have another sherry." Hawker pulled his tie straight.
"But you know what mysterious ladies, who speak several
languages and do not leave their names, mean in the
novels. And not only in the novels, sometimes. Did she put
pressing questions?"
"Questions, yes. Oh no, nothing that the regime would
be interested in, any longer. I thought of that at the time,
but she was too well-dressed for any sort of a police agent.
I know something about women's clothes. And police
agents."
Hawker hooked his braces over his shoulders and reached
for his waistcoat. "Well, if your choice is between some
salon languorous with scented air and being found in the
Tiber with your throat slit, choose the salon. If you get
into gaol, ring me up and I'll send round your toothpaste
and some gramophone records. Have another sherry? Sorry
I can't ask you to eat, but I have to go and chow with a
cove who wants to invest money in Abyssinia or some-
where."
Grant shook his head. "I don't think she means any of
those sorts of things. Good night, Hawker. Thanks for the
sherry."
He resumed his homeward stroll, chewing the cud. He
was more and more aware of his ill-ease. One could hardly
expect that all the ghosts of Spain were laid: but why had
this particular ghost been shown to him?


SCALA DI SPAGNA 21
On an impulse, he swung aside and turned to a post-office.
And there he addressed a telegram to Bill Wild:
WHO IS A TALL ENGLISH GIRL ACED TWENTY-FOUR WHO
HAS LATELY BEEN ASKING YOU QUESTIONS ABOUT MY
FLIRTATION WITH THE FIRST CLARIONET AT JUAN TEN
YEARS AGO WHEN I WAS STAYING WITH YOU AT NAPOULE
STOP DISTINCTLY ATTRACTIVE AND PRONOUNCES ENGLISH
TOO WELL TO HAVE BEEN EDUCATED IN ENGLAND STOP SHE
IS FAMILIAR WITH YOUR PLUMBING AT NAPOULE AND
MAY HAVE STAYED THERE REGARDS
TONY GRANT
He felt a trifle better after that, and reflected upon the
inevitability of rusty pens, even in the new splendour of
Italian post-offices. Then he went home.
Metro was waiting for him in his flat. Metro had been
Metro to several generations of special correspondents, partly
because his name sounded sufficiently like that and partly
because he went round and round his theme, in the manner
of the Inner Circle. He was one of Grant's sources of infor-
mation, and sometimes, Grant suspected, an avenue of mis-
information. But he had the gossip of the newspaper offices
in Rome and a talent for producing curious conclusions from
official statistics. Grant's newspaper was very fond of curi-
ous conclusions from official statistics.
He was drinking Grant's vermouth and smoking one of
Grant's cigarettes.
"Good evening," he said. "What have we today?"
"What have you got?" grunted Grant and tossed his hat
across the room.


22 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"Not even an international crisis. It has been a very dull
day. II Duce was laying bricks at the new city in the Pon-
tine, very vigorously, with Fascist fire. But the bricks
occupied his attention. And your Prime Minister, no doubt,
is fishing. There must still be many fish in England, in spite
of his efforts. They have such good weather for it there, of
course,"
"For fish?" Grant mixed himself a drink. "Well, there's
something in that, certainly. Has there been any more talk
of that business in Tunis?"
"Talk, yes, talk, but only talk."
"Anything from Madrid?"
"Only that the Ambassador called on the Minister and
that the Minister dined with the Ambassador. The Minister
likes bouillabaisse, one is informed. The French are very
heartened since they heard of it. Orders have been given for
the demobilisation of three further divisions, an editor was
arrested in Vizcaya, and it is reported that the Caudillo has
strong views on the matter of bathing gowns. But that may
be merely blague." He sighed. "It has been a dull day. And
M. Izinir has arrived in Rome."
That was characteristic of Metro, saving his one item until
the last. It was a habit which probably doubled his con-
sumption of other people's liquor.
Grant snapped. "What the devil is Izinir doing in Italy?"
"Looking for cargoes, perhaps. After all, he has lost a
great many. And perhaps trade is dull, in an interval be-
tween wars. And perhaps he is looking for new insurance
brokers. His old ones must be a trifle tired of him."
"But what about the authorities here? He can hardly be
persona grata in Italy?"


SCALA DI SPAGNA 23
"And why not? His cargoes were very evenly distrib-
uted between our friends and their enemies. It is true that
his cargoes were not consigned to our friends, but it is
a great thing to have command of the seas, my dear Grant,
as an Englishman should know."
Grant whistled. "Has he seen anyone in Rome?"
"He gave a dinner at the Europa last night for that new
contralto from Turin."
"You know what I mean. Has he seen anyone official?"
"How should I know?" Metro lit one of his own foul
cigarillos, and Grant opened the shutters. "I imagine that
he is here to enjoy himself. Rome, after all, is a pleasant
place for a man with money. It is not Paris, but it is Rome.
And M. Izinir must now have a great deal of money. Run-
ning blockades was always a profitable trade, and nowa-
days, when the world is filled with, insurance men, what
you lose on the swings you pick up on the roundabouts."
"And you think that Izinir can pay a holiday visit to
Rome without attracting the attention of your police?"
"Everything attracts the attention of our police, Mr. Grant.
But we are not ogres. If a man wishes to pass a pleasant holi-
day in Italy, why should he be prevented? Especially if he
is a man in good credit. And M. Izinir must have much
good credit."
Grant reached for his pipe, partly in self-defence agaiast
Metro's cigarillos. "I suspect that you know more than you
are saying, Metro. I don't want stuff for my paper about
Izinir. Not at the moment, anyhow. But as background, he
may be important."
"Oh, I realise that perfectly, good Grant. And I am, of
course, curious. I shall do my best to gratify my curi-


24 ENTER THREE WITCHES
osity, and yours. Izinir is a very lucky man. When I first
knew of him, he was buying fish on the waterside at Con-
stantinople. But that is a long time ago."
"How long?" said Grant.
"Oh, during our trouble with Turkey. The Tripoli aflair,
you remember. When you were a child, no doubt."
Grant sucked at his pipe. "A man buying fish on the
quays at Constantinople might have had his uses to Italy
then."
"Possibly, possibly. But I was hinting at nothing. You
have the correspondent's imagination, my friend. And that
was a very long time ago. Before our New Era, years before
it."
Grant swung his legs on to the window-sill, and Metro
poured himself another drink.
"Metro, what chance would a man have of getting into
this country on a false passport?"
"Are we still speaking of M. Izinir?"
"No. I am considering a purely hypothetical case for a
short story which I shall write next summer, or maybe the
summer after."
"In fiction, anything is possible."
"But it should have a certain verisimilitude. What would
be the prospects?"
"We have a very efficient police, and passports are care-
fully inspected. But there have been very neat forgeries, and
if our suspicions were not aroused, then it would not be
difficult in itself. You know how it is on the Rome Express,
or when a shipload of passengers are disembarking at Naples
or Genoa."


SCALA DI SPAGNA 25
"Yes, of course."
"Unless the officers notice something suspicious, a suffi-
ciently plausible passport should carry one through. But it is
a dangerous trick. The passport may be checked again when
you put up at your hotel, when you apply for a permit to
stay in the country, and so on."
"Yes, of course, I know all that."
"Or it may be checked back to the country of origin.
There are all sorts of chances that must be taken. But per-
haps if you describe to me the case of your friend . . ."
"Of my villain," said Grant, "in the short story. He is a
man who has lost his own identity. He has found it nec-
essary to shed himself. But passing, he has left behind him
footsteps on the sands of time. In other words he does not
dare to use his old passport. He needs a new one. He prob-
ably needs a new personality to go with it, but we can leave
that. He somehow acquires another passport, with a descrip-
tion and a photograph sufficiently like to serve. He comes
into the country and settles down to a quiet life, a very quiet
life. Now, what are his chances?"
"If he should give the police no concern, no occasion for
enquiries, I think he might live here very comfortably.
There would always be a risk, naturally. Where did he ac-
quire his false passport?"
"I don't know," said Grant. "I haven't got to that yet.
If you have any ideas, you might tell me."
Metro beamed. "I am very good at short stories myself. I
shall offer you some I have written for you to read at your
convenience."
"Thank you," said Grant. "Have another drink. And then


26 ENTER THREE WITCHES
I shall have to get my contribution off to London. If I
didn't send it, someone would be sure to miss it. What was
that about II Duce laying bricks ...?"
He drifted into the bathroom and turned on the taps. He
had a prejudice that upon the Continent you should always
let the water run.
"Have you ever heard, Metro," he said through the open
door, "of a Spanish writer named Bergante?"
Metro looked up idly from Grant's unopened mail.
"Bergante? Yes, I think I have. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, he wrote short stories. I think you'd like them."
"I shall borrow them, my dear fellow, if you recommend
them. But now I see that you are going to wash yourself.
I shall go, and until tomorrow, addio."
"Addio," said Grant and walked to open the door. Metro
gathered his stick, his gloves, his hat, his black leather
satchel, and bowed.
"Addio," he said in the doorway.
"Addio," said Grant, and closed the door.
He went to look at his mail himself. The fourth envelope
was large and square and saffron edged. Almost before he
opened it, he knew that it was the letter which he had
awaited for three weeks. It read:
My dear Mr. Grant,
Would you care to come to Castello Feroce for the
week-end? You can surely get away from Rome until
Monday morning, at least. And I have the most solemn
assurances that there will not be a war before Monday
afternoon.
Bring your tennis-racquet, if you care about that


SCALA DI SPAGNA 27
sort of thing and have a liking for your own. Wc
swim here, too, in the lake.
I do hope you can manage.
Very sincerely yours,
Marie Beuil
He turned over the envelope again, and then he rang for
his man.
"When did this come?" he asked. "It wasn't posted."
The servant glanced at the clock. "About half an hour
ago, sir. It was delivered by hand, just before you came in."
"Who delivered it?"
"A boy from the Hotel Italia, sir."
Grant grunted. An invitation from Marie Beuil was
charged with possibilities. "Childe Roland to the dark
tower came" or "Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an
Englishman."
He sat down and wrote a note of acceptance. But even
then he wondered whether a tennis-racquet was sufficient
protection for a week-end at Feroce.


CHAPTER TWO
Castello Feroce
Castello feroce is between
Rocca di Papa and Frascati, in the Alban Hills, with a
view from its terraces that ranges from Tusculum, whence
Cicero wrote to Atticus and where the Caesars lounged, to
Monte Cavo where the Cardinal Stuart built his Passionist
Convent above the ruins of Jupiter Latiaris. From its high
tower one can see the blue waters of Albano, and the
soaring stones of the Papal Villa; and in the clear light at
evening, a finger of Lake Nemi.
Grant took the road across the Campagna and then by
Mount Compatri, with its sweeping view towards Tivoli
and Arsoli and Subiaco in the Sabine mountains. He
always felt the present reduced to its right proportions
when he had so much history under his eye; and it is an
attractive landscape in itself, with just that hint of the
sinister which its long career requires, in sharp rocks and
dark woods and hanging streams. Yet it is shaped and
ordered in the valleys, the fields, the orchards, the little
towns, the vineyards, and the shrines, by man's long use
and custom. He had wandered across most of it in his
days, sitting where lizards sunned on the rocks of fallen
forts in craggy places, climbing upwards through the woods
in cool dawns, eating his bread and drinking his wine
beneath the fig trees by wayside taverns, rowing across to
Genzanno in the rich evening light.
Amongst the Alban Hills, one could still believe in
Europe. The cities were filled with loud-voiced men and
28


CASTELLO FEROCE 29
cynical brokers, cocktail bars and contraceptives, usurers
and narrow-hipped women, back alleys, and men whose
stomachs rolled in broad armchairs, furtive whispers, glib
literacy, and all the Seven Deadly Sins. But in the Hills
are still the peasants who make the earth fruitful and who
people it with sons, who renew its cultures and restore its
life: dull, slow men trudging after ploughs and women
picking grapes underneath the sun with blackened hands
and sharp, wrinkled skin, girls driving goats to the pastures,
boys leading high, painted carts. Cicero had known them
and Virgil and the great industrialists of the Silver Age,
the manufacturers and the merchants who had driven up
to their lavish villas and looked upon those labourers in
the fields as a Wall Street broker might look from his
private car on the dull fields of the Dakotas. The Bar-
barians, marching and burning across their trampled
meadows, had known them. The condottiere had known
them and the great Scholastics and the smooth savants
come out of the Greek world with their New Learning.
Popes and saints and soldiers and Garibaldi's Nationalists
and Liberal politicians and Fascist chiefs and the rein-
carnations of Petronius' profiteers came and went, but the
farmer remained, ploughing his stubborn acres, the reser-
voir of all humanity.
There must have been women like Marie Beuil in
Petronius' day and in that day when the learned Machia-
velli was writing a handbook on government for a
promising Borgia prince. No doubt they had their villas
here in the hills, and their swift carriages and their pieds-
h-terre wherever the world's money and its masters con-
gregated.


30 ENTER THREE WITCHES
Grant had met Marie Beuil only twice before, but he
knew, as most people familiar with their Europe know,
a good deal about her. He knew enough of her to know
that at their earlier meetings he had hardly been worth
more than a moment of her consideration, and enough to
have now expected an invitation to Feroce since he had
heard that she was again in Italy. As a wandering short
story writer or an amateur Scarlet Pimpernel, he had been
of little consequence in her large scheme of things. He had
been only on the remote fringe of her world. But as spe-
cial correspondent of a major London daily, he acquired
significance. He belonged now to the people who make
news and the people who make news make events and
policies, markets, and the movements of money. Marie Beuil
was very interested in the movements of money. She had
graduated by all the backstairs of Europe, and she was
now in the upper chamber. A special correspondent might
still be on the lower steps, but at least he belonged to the
Society of the Staircase.
When one was invited to Marie Beuil's flat in Knights-
bridge or to her charming little chateau at Chantilly or to
her Castello Feroce, one could take it that one was becom-
ing a person of real consequence in the world; that one
belonged to those who know things: the line a newspaper
would take, a government's policy on the exchanges, a
confidential report upon the new Western Australian gold-
fields, the point about the tactical exercises in the Eastern
Triangle, the supplementary estimates, the amount of the
Secret Service fund, the sentiment in the Senate on silver
policy, insurance investments, wheat purchases, the rates
of black reichsmarks, the proposals for barter in canned


CASTELLO FEROCE 31
salmon and Mexican oil, the intentions of a pressure-group,
or the prospective backers for the Sheikh of Tebu.
Grant, whose general view was cynical, was yet a little
flattered by invitation. He did not cherish the values of
Marie Beuil's world, but he knew that it is the important
world. He knew that it is not an intelligent world, not a
world in which reason or even an enlightened self-interest
prevailed, but a world moved by rumours and phantasies.
The people who know do not necessarily know or under-
stand facts: they form opinions and make assumptions and
breed suspicions, but their opinions and assumptions and
suspicions are important, because all their world acts on
the prevailing opinions and assumptions and suspicions.
History and the fate of the toiling millions are determined
by the gusty airs which blow up and down those back-
stairs. The important thing for a Marie Beuil and all her
kind is to know which way those winds will blow: puffs
of rumour, explosions of vanity in great men, forced
draughts. These shape history, and prompt the movements
of stocks and shares. If one can gauge their direction and
velocity, one makes fortunes. And Marie Beuil had made
fortunes.
There was a fortune spent here in the gardens alone, in
the deep terraces, the lawns, the peaches on warm walls,
the exquisite vistas through the dark Italian trees, the
sudden glimpse of white marble where a faun danced in
a fountain or the walks opened to a slender colonnade.
Somewhere hereabouts, Grant remembered, there had been
an Etruscan burying-ground, and in the Middle Ages a
strong place and refuge of one of the great Roman families.
Some part of the castle's stones as well as its name re-


32 ENTER THREE WITCHES
mained to the villa, whose long front belonged to the
eighteenth century and the French influence. Its style is
bastard, but time and mellow airs have given it harmony
with its landscape; and its vastness chimes well enough
with the huge crag of rock behind it.
It should have looked a sinister house, (jfant reflected
as he drove up to the main doorway: actually, it looked
large and somnolent and comfortable, like a house that an
East India merchant might have built himself near Bath in
the days of the Regent. It matched its mistress, sitting now
in an immense room along the terrace, looking large and
comfortable and a trifle somnolent too, like a cream-fed
cat curled in a sunny window.
Marie Beuil was somewhere on towards fifty, a ponder-
ous woman who dressed in black, with no more than a
touch of colour, as sensible fat women do. Her hair went
back in smooth waves, and Grant realised that a very
artful hairdresser had secured that modish yet restrained
effect for her large face. She wore two rings. Her hands
were large and smooth, and her skin was clear olive and
like a young girl's. She sat before a tea-table, and she was
obviously awaiting him.
"I'm so glad you've come." He bent slightly above her
hand. "I have been hoping to see you again since that night
at Sir Edward's."
Grant lifted his brows a little: she had troubled to re-
member where she saw him last.
"I only heard the other day that you had come to Rome.
You must have been having a frightfully busy dme here.
But newspaper work has its own fascination, hasn't it? I
was in newspapers once myself, you know."


CASTELLO FEROCE 33
"That still encourages us," said Grant. "Yes, cream if I
may. Just a little."
She poured the tea, and he wondered how a French-
woman had achieved such perfection of style in pouring
tea. It reminded him of his three aunts in Cheltenham.
And the tea-service was almost incredibly in keeping:
Royal Doulton and solid early-Victorian silver. Even the
jams were English, and there were scones for tea.
"Sugar? Two lumps. I'm afraid I take three. I used to
diet and I grew steadily larger. Now I eat what I like and
remain very much as I am. And my temper has improved."
She reached for a dish. "You probably eat as many cream-
cakes as you please with a splendid masculine indifference.
You're thin enough, certainly. Have you been very busy?
Most writing-men grow fat. I suppose that it is sitting
around thinking so much."
"I stride up and down the Spanish Steps two or three
times a day," he said.
"So I have been told," she said, and chuckled, and as he
raised his brows again, "Now, now, it doesn't matter who
tells me things, does it?"
"I should think it sometimes matters a good deal," said
Grant.
"I've made a certain position in Europe merely by the
ability to sit and listen," she said, smiling. "My mother
always told me that the ability to sit and listen was the
virtue most prized in a woman, and that in the long run
it counted for much more than mere looks. And then, I
had always that comfortable disposition in which people
believe they can safely confide. It all sounds very old-
fashioned and perhaps it does not work very well in


34 ENTER THREE WITCHES
America, where women have so much conversation, but
Europe is becoming old-fashioned again now, don't you
think?"
"One could wish that it was," said Grant, eating a cream-
cake, and thinking of the strings that reached out from
those plump fingers to London and Paris, Brussels, Berlin,
New York and Kamchatka.
"We are going to have a quiet week-end, I hope," she
said. "Do you mind quiet week-ends? There are only a
handful of people. I always treat this as a sort of refuge
after Paris, you know. I come here when I am tired. As a
kind of retreat."
"It hardly has an ascetic air," said Grant.
"I'm afraid I'm not much given to asceticism." She
sighed. "But I do sometimes like a quiet week-end."
He was to remember that phrase about a quiet week-end
often and ironically before the week-end was out.
"I've a charming young woman to entertain you, and a
man or two. Three or four men. And there's Lady Bessie
Robinson. She walked across Arabia once, you remember,
and knows a great deal about the Mayas, and talks very
firmly to II Duce. At the moment, she is trying to interest
me in a silver mine which nobody but some extraordinary
man she met in Rangoon has ever seen. By the way, you
have been in Spain, haven't you? We were talking after
lunch about some Spanish writer whom you may know
. . . what was his name, now? Oh, Bergante. Is that it?"
"Bergante," said Grant, "yes, he wrote short stories. About
the miseries of the peasantry and things like that. He had
a sort of feudal estate on the borders of Catalonia and
owned a couple of mills in Barcelona."


CASTELLO FEROCE 35
"Yes, that is the man. I think I met him once in Paris,
in the days when I used to go to literary affairs. At some
luncheon, was it? Do you know him?"
"I knew him," said Grant.
"What has become of him now?" Marie Beuil poured
hot water into the teapot. "Another cup? Do try those
eclairs. I have a French pastrycook here with me. Yes, Lady
Bessie was talking about him. She had been reading some
book of his, and we wondered what had happened to him."
"He died," said Grant, "suddenly. Eighteen months ago,
up in his place on the borders of Catalonia."
"Died! How?"
"Possibly his peasants grew tired of him writing about
the miseries of their hangdog lives and up and shot him.
Anyhow, he was shot."
"By the Left or the Right?"
"That remains vague. Perhaps he was caught between
two fires. I imagine that either side might have found
cause."
"You were in Spain then, doing special articles."
"I was doing articles, not very special."
"And you knew that Bergante had been killed?"
"I didn't see him being killed, but there is a certain
plausibility in the reports, you know."
"Had you known him, yourself?"
"We tippled a few times together in Barcelona, and I
once wrote a piece on him for an English review. It was
not a very good piece, but then, he was not a very good
writer."
"But he was a man, of course, with other resources, as
you said," remarked Madame Beuil; and Grant reflected,


36 ENTER THREE WITCHES
as he had reflected before, that a writer may still be toler-
ated in good society if he has sufficient money. He was
reflecting also upon other things: the coincidence that had
prompted talk at this moment of Bergante, if it were a
coincidence. Coincidences in the neighbourhood of Madame
Beuil should, he assumed, be regarded with the gravest
suspicions. He was certainly suspicious. In fact, he suddenly
felt himself bristling like a blood-hound.
Perhaps Marie Beuil noticed it. "Would you like to swim
before dinner?" she said. "We have a pool here, you know,
in a little arm of the lake. I put in a weir, and the swim-
ming is very good. There's a shallow ledge if you prefer
the shallows, and there is very deep water under the old
walls if you prefer that. Myself, I dabble on the ledge.
You'll find two or three of the others down there, I think.
I'll send someone to show you the way when you have
undressed."
It seemed an idea to Grant. He was rather curious about
the two or three others, and especially curious to know
what was Marie Beuil's notion of a quiet week-end.
As he undressed, he looked out from his window on to
the terrace below. Perched on the balustrade and engaged
in profound meditation on a cactus in a pot was an
enormous bulk of man who had been apparently poured
halfway into his clothes before he stuck.
Grant stared at him and stared again. Then, "Hey!" he
shouted.
The contemplative stirred.


CASTELLO FEROCE 37
"Hey, you! Flannagan."
Mr. Flannagan rolled from his perch and swung towards
the window.
"It's you, is it? I heard you were coming up today."
"What on earth are you doing here?"
Flannagan, who was even bigger than he looked, swung
himself up to the little balcony.
"I'm employed," he said, "by the old geyser that owns
the place."
"Employed?" Grant reached for his bathing-trunks.
"What on earth do you do?"
"Shoot craps with her of an evening." Flannagan
grinned. "Run down to the corner store with her orders.
Exercise the horses, feed the dawgs, carry her knitting and
corrupt the maids. She's interested in Spain and I used to
be a bull-fighter."
Which was perfectly true. Flannagan came from some-
where in Texas, near San Antonio, and he looked it. He
was given to boasting of Texas a good deal in his cups,
and Grant had first met him in his cups on a wild night in
Malaga when he had sung the lowest varieties of Spanish
songs in a vile Mexican accent before he smashed half the
tables and all the glassware in the cafe of his choice. And
he had been cheered all the way home because he had
killed two bulls that afternoon both with the first thrust.
Flannagan said that he disliked killing bulls, but that it
was a way of earning a living with considerable dignity
and very little trouble. He had discovered his talents in
Mexico, where he had drifted as Texan cattlemen will
drift. But he had gambolled with steers since he was a
child, and he always held that there was considerably more


38 ENTER THREE WITCHES
fun in wrestling a young bull than in sticking things into
it. He was an entertaining fellow who lied a great deal
about his experiences, but you could always distinguish
his lies because they were so much duller than his facts.
He had an extraordinary lightness on his feet, as Grant had
just noticed again when he swung up towards the balcony;
and his huge bulk and its agile poise had driven the Mexi-
can crowds frantic with excitement. He must have looked
rather odd in the trappings of his trade too, in the tight
pants and the white stockings: and this, no doubt, had also
pleased the customers. But even in tight pants, he had
endurance that could outlast any bull. Inevitably, he had
been engaged for Seville.
"What on earth have you been doing since I saw you
last?" said Grant.
"I've been home to the States. Working on a dude ranch.
But I got tired of trailing young women up hills and down
hills all the afternoon, and I couldn't never remember them
hill-billy songs we was supposed to sing round the camp-
fires in the evening. You ever sing round a camp-fire in
the evening, Grant?" He grinned and rolled a cigarette in
his tremendous paw. "I'm getting a bit too old for that
sort of thing, especially when the mosquitoes are biting.
And the gals' panties used to embarrass me a lot. I guess
I've lived too much amongst the conventional Spaniards."
"Were you in Spain when the war broke?"
"Yes, sir. I would've stayed on and enjoyed it, too, but
they spoiled the damned thing. It was a good war when
it started. Grandfather's musket and hayforks and sporting
rifles and that sort of thing. You went out into a paddock
and took a pot at someone, and they took a pot at you, and


CASTELLO FEROCE 39
if you both missed and were satisfied, you took time off
for a drink. But when they started in with tanks and
machine-guns and airplanes and interrupting your siesta,
I went home. They should have left that war to the
Spaniards."
"But how did you come here then?"
"I met up with the old lady again in Paris. Bull-
fighting's a useful trade, you know. I guess I'm getting old
and fat for it now, but I still got a range of elegant ac-
quaintances. And I like a country where you can get a
bucket of wine when you want it. They only drink Scotch
in Texas."
"It is all very odd," said Grant, "and I hope that you're
behaving. You're not doing any strong-arm stuff for the
boss, are you?"
"Well, she hasn't so far mentioned anything in particu-
lar," said Flannagan, "but maybe it's a general idea. She
has some doubtful characters up here, ambassadors and
newspaper fellers and ship-owners and so on."
"Ship-owners?" said Grant, with just an edge to his
voice.
"We've got one now. If you like to stand up here on this
pot and look over that there second terrace, you'll see an
umbrella. Under that umbrella there's a chair and table.
On the table there's a box of cigars, a siphon of soda, and
a bottle of pineapple juice. On the chair is a human frog,
name of Izinir. He's asleep. I'd been rather thinking of
sticking a healthy young cactus plant I found down there
underneath him."
"Izinir," said Grant. "I've heard the name."
He put on his dressing-gown and slipped his cigarettes


40 ENTER THREE WITCHES
into his pocket. "Show me the way to the lake, will you?"
"Going swimming?" said Flannagan.
"Well, I don't put on trunks for a social call."
Flannagan grinned. "You'll enjoy it," he said. "Wait till
you see what's there."
What was there was a tall, a very tall, slim girl in a sky-
blue suit. She was poised to dive as Grant came down the
steps: and he again observed, before she sprang, the clean
lines that mean long, straight bones.
He dived from his side, and they met at the anchored
raft.
"This does seem to be rather a habit of ours, doesn't it?"
he said. "And, by the way, I'm quite finished with that first
clarionet at Juan-les-Pins."
"I'm glad. I'm sure she dyed her hair."
"But every undergraduate should have at least one passage
with dyed hair. I only wish I had taken the opportunity to
learn the clarionet."
"Do you think you could ever have been really serious
about the clarionet?" She hauled herself up on the raft, and
brushed the water from her eyes. He regarded her.
"Your legs have improved, I think. Where did you learn
to dive?"
"At La Napoule. Have you quite forgotten?"
"I've half a mind to haul you off and to shake you."
For a moment he was actually on the point of having it out
with her. Afterwards, he was to wonder how the course of
things would have changed if he had challenged her then.
He shoved himself off from the raft with his foot. "Have
you met Mr. Flannagan?"
"Yes, of course. Was he really a Texas Ranger once?"


CASTELLO FEROCE 41
"I shouldn't be in the least surprised. Yes, I should. He
may have been a Marine. Did he tell you that he used to
fight bulls?"
"No. Did he?"
"That is characteristic. He'd think it much more ro-
mantic to appear a Texas Ranger than a bull-fighter."
"I think he's fascinating," she said.
"He must have been at pains to impress. Did he tell you
that his father rode with Custer?"
"No, but he said that he was born during a round-up.
His mother was a cow-girl at home on the range."
"He's saving Custer for a moonlit night. What do you
think of Mr. Izinir?"
He had hoped to prod her a little. "I think he is very
like Mr. Izinir," she said. "He must have eaten enormous
quantities of olive-oil in his time."
"And has he been lying for you too? I should think he
has some good stories and his own technique."
"I have only seen him asleep. I walked around his chair
three times to inspect him from all sides, but he wouldn't
wake." She frowned. "I'm sorry now that I didn't put some-
thing into his mouth. An egg, say."
"Hadn't you met him before?"
"I haven't met him at all yet. Why?"
"Oh, I thought you might have common interests."
"What are his interests?"
"They are very, very various." He swung himself on to
the raft beside her. "This is a nice lake. I like its denizens.
One could, I suppose, dive off those old walls up there,
above the deep side."
He looked the place over. The water, green along the


42 ENTER THREE WITCHES
ledge, deepened under the high walls to an intense blue,
dark in the shadow of the cliff as the unfathomable gulfs
of the Pacific. The pool was almost two hundred yards
long, sixty to eighty across, and its waters lapped against
solid rock. Lakewards, there was an antique water-gate:
the weir, which Marie Beuil had spoken of, was below it,
he assumed. Steps were cut in the rock along the shallow
side, so that one could walk down from the gardens above
right into the water. It was a beautiful piece of water, with
the mellow brick and golden stones of the garden walls
and the long terrace reflected in the shallows; but the
depths were sullen, and Grant felt a malignity in their
darkness.
"I'll race you to the water-gate," he said. "Come on,
one, two, three."
They struck the water together, and he was astounded
at the speed of her stroke, a long clean side-stroke that cut
the water like an easy oar, with no feathering.
Grant went into the Australian crawl, but she touched
the iron staple of the gate two feet ahead of him and
swung up onto the bar. He clambered up beside her. The
gate was held at both sides by pairs of bars; and you could
stand on the lower and cling to the higher.
"The water is quite dead," he said. "I suppose they let
it out over the weir at intervals. But where is the intake?"
"It feeds from the hills behind. The torrents are canalised
and come down a sort of chute beyond the terraces. Madame
Beuil had a lot of trouble with the water when she first
took this house. It had been very neglected."
"Have you been here before?"


CASTELLO FEROCE 43
"I've been staying here mostly for the last three weeks,
since we came from Paris."
"You came down with the Beuil then?"
"Yes, didn't you know? I'm a sort of secretary person.
I read the English papers for her every day and make clip-
pings and things."
"What an appalling occupation! But she reads English.
She speaks it like a native of Belgrave Square."
"Yes, but she hasn't time to read everything. She is a busy
woman, you know."
"And I suppose Flannagan reads the Spanish papers. I
should like to see him making clippings. How long has he
been here?"
"He came last week. But I think he knew Madame Beuil
before."
Grant looked up. "I say, who is this coming to join us?
With Flannagan?"
Flannagan had appeared on the steps from the terrace.
He was just, with considerable aplomb, taking a bath-wrap
from the shoulders of an incredibly thin and angular
woman, a long lath of humanity clad in one of those
double-piece, antique bathing suits which hang disconso-
lately towards the knees. She also wore a large mop of a
shapeless bathing-cap, like the caps which London slaveys
used to wear.
"That's Lady Bessie. Lady Bessie Robinson. Don't you
know her? You must."
"Is it, by gum?" She looked an old, old woman, with
raddled worn face and lean, toughened flesh. Even from
here, one could see the thin wisps of grey and yellow hair
which escaped the voluminous cap. She approached the


44 ENTER THREE WITCHES
water gingerly, trying it with one big toe and then the
other. Then she went cautiously down the steps. But when
she was waist-deep, she suddenly plunged and struck out,
and she reached the diving raft with ten superb strokes.
"Well, I'm damned," said Grant.
"Yes, she does affect people like that. Let's go and talk
to her."
"Wait a minute."
Lady Bessie had swung on the raft, and now she stood to
dive. She took the water as cleanly as the girl herself had
done, and she swam towards them with the same stream-
ing, clean stroke.
"Did she teach you to swim, by any chance?" said Grant.
"Me? Why, how do you mean?" The girl laughed. "She
does swim well, doesn't she? I'm going in." And she took
the water herself in a dive that carried her twenty yards
across the pool before she broke surface.
Lady Bessie, under the gate, turned on her back and
paddled. She looked up at Grant.
"Am I interrupting your colloquy with Frances? You're
the newspaper man, of course. Anthony Grant, isn't it?
Think I knew your father. Didn't he hunt with the East-
down? Rifle Brigade, wasn't he?"
"Yes," said Grant.
"Killed in the war before next, wasn't he? What are you
doing in newspapers? Never read them myself."
"I'm a symptom of the general decline," said Grant.
"Write books too? Well, there have been some good
books. Not many, but some. Ruskin wrote some good
books, but they wouldn't take any notice of him. So did
Carlyle, though he wasn't a gentleman. And Matthew
*


CASTELLO FEROCE 45
Arnold. He was too much of a gentleman. But the poli-
ticians wouldn't read 'em. Politicians won't read. You can't
do anything with politicians. They read newspapers, I
suppose." She pushed backwards in the water and floated;
and her upturned nose seemed the very image of contempt.
It was very thin and red, Grant observed.
"Haven't you written a book or two yourself?" said
Grant.
"Had to. Twisted a leg on Mount Rainier, and I would've
gone mad playing solitaire. But it's absurd to sit about
writing books while you can use your legs. Unless you get
enormous quantities of money for 'em. Do you make much
money?"
"My needs are humble, fortunately," said Grant.
"I suppose they pay you more in this newspaper business.
Funny world. Very hard on the deserving."
"Who are the deserving?" said Grant.
"Washerwomen, butchers, agricultural labourers, road-
menders, mothers, cooks. People who do the important
things. You and I haven't any use. We're surplus. By-
products. Social accidents. We batten on the people who
work. What use are newspapers? I never read 'em, but I
always know what's going on in the world. People who do
read 'em get their heads filled with a lot of nonsense. Look
at Marie Beuil. If she hadn't grubbed in all this muck of
civilisation, she might have made a sensible wife and
mother, and dug potatoes and kept fowls and been of
some use in the world. Might even have been of some use
myself if I hadn't been born with a silver spoon in my
mouth." She chuckled hoarsely. "Can you swim? Let's see
you."


46 ENTER THREE WITCHES
Grant took to the water, somewhat self-consciously. She
paced him towards the raft and they reached it together.
"Where'd you learn that crawl?" she said. "In surf?"
"I had three months once in Sydney," said Grant.
"Must go there some day. I've swum at Waikiki. Stepped
on the stomach of a film-star, and I hope it did him good.
D'you happen to have brought any cigarettes down with
you?"
Grant swam to the steps and climbed up to his dressing-
gown. Flannagan was standing there with a melancholy air.
"Why don't you come in?" said Grant.
"I've got my best suit on," said Flannagan.
"Well, you can always take it off."
"I'm shy about my legs," said Flannagan, "before the
ladies."
"They won't look at your legs. You flatter yourself."
"You don't know her ladyship," said Flannagan gloomily.
"She'd comment on them, and she has a nasty tongue."
"For a man who's fought with bulls, you're very timid."
"Bulls is one thing, her ladyship's different. You can
argue with a bull, one gentleman to another."
"Push him in," shouted Lady Bessie from the raft. "He's
a cry-baby."
"What'd I tell you!" said Flannagan. "She's a very sharp
tongue, her ladyship."
The girl on the raft jumped up and waved. "Michele!"
she cried.
Grant turned. A young man was coming down the steps,
a lean and dark and excessively handsome young man, with
smooth, supple muscles and long black hair.


CASTELLO FEROCE 47
"Lecchino," said Flannagan. "An Italian lizard." Ap-
parently Mr. Flannagan disliked him.
"Friend of the girl's?" said Grant and hoped that he
sounded disinterested.
"Might be one of her family," said Flannagan and
grunted.
"Who else is staying here?"
Flannagan's eyes followed Lecchino malevolently. "An
Englishman named Warner. He's in Rome today. And
Izinir, of course."
"And what's going on here, Flannagan?"
Flannagan looked at him. "It's what they call a house-
party," he said, "in English." But there were still two points
of fire in Mr. Flannagan's eyes. "They're favourite settings
for murders in the detective books."
The great hall was gloomy with only the one circle of
yellow light from the candles on the table. The walls were
hung with sombre tapestries and with what Grant, strain-
ing his eyes, took to be tattered pennants and banners. The
serving men came and went noiselessly from some shad-
owed door at the end. The long windows on the terrace
were closed, though the night outside was mild and the
air within excessively warm and heavy with oversweet
roses. Somewhere, in the corners of the room, there were
huge bowls of them. There had been roses too in his room,
dark and full and overblown.
They were six at table. Marie Beuil sat with her back to
the window, so that the last light outside was behind her


48 ENTER THREE WITCHES
in a curious green glow. She wore black again, but her
massive and splendid shoulders were bare. Her pearls were
the warm Timor pearls, Grant thought, that best suit
blondes; but on her they seemed almost the colour of
her skin. He had noticed, as they sat there, how impassive
her face was, how little it reflected what was passing be-
hind the eyes. He had noticed too her pride in her hands,
which came to repose on the table. They were strong hands,
too strong for a woman's hands.
Izinir sat at her right, Grant himself at her left. Izinir
was, surprisingly, fair of skin, from some Caucasian strain
perhaps, but he was quite bald, except for two tufts of
flaxen eyebrows. His cheek-bones were flat and high, his
mouth small and red, with thick lips. He might have
passed for an East Prussian, but he had the belly which is
no longer fashionable in Prussia. His conversation was ap-
parently limited. He gave the impression that he was much
on the defensive. He talked as a man talks who fears that
any casual word may betray him in something to his lis-
teners. It was not merely a social embarrassment. Izinir
seemed singularly indifferent to the impression which his
manners might create. He was not mincing, in the fashion
of the self-conscious climber. He had, in fact, no manners
at all and was perfectly frank about it. He seemed to Grant
a man of some consequence, much in command of himself,
and that made his caution of speech noteworthy. He was
obviously not awed by Madame Beuil, but he was, never-
theless, on his toes, and under some strain.
They were all under some strain, Grant thought. The
girl, sitting opposite, next to Izinir, had sat with her eyes


CASTELLO FEROCE 49
before her through most of the meal. Once she had drawn
Marie BeuiFs fire: "Alice," she said, and Grant had twitched
at that, "you're very dull tonight."
The girl smiled with that ironic little twist which Grant
had seen before.
"Are you tired?" Marie Beuil's voice had a thin note of
hostility.
"Oh, a little drugged with sun and air. I've been swim-
ming most of the afternoon." The younger voice was
edged too. There was a cross-current here evidently. And
she did not speak at all as a secretary speaks to her em-
ployer. For that matter, Marie Beuil did not speak as an
employer should speak to her secretary. She would prob-
ably have been a trifle more polite to her secretaries. Grant
remembered now that he had caught these same notes dur-
ing the minutes before dinner, when they had all drunk a
cocktail on the terrace, all except Izinir. He had asked for
tomato-juice. Grant noticed now that the wines in his
glasses were untouched.
"I think young people are always overdoing things nowa-
days," said Marie Beuil. "My mother's idea of an after-
noon's exercise was a stroll through the gardens with a
parasol."
"That's why you're so fat, Marie," said Lady Bessie, "and
your mother ought to have had more sense."
Marie Beuil laughed. "Perhaps that's true." She was not,
apparently, in the least offended. Lady Bessie had the final
aristocratic gift: the ability to say whatever came into her
mind without the slightest qualm or respect for persons.
But the conversation, all through dinner, had been much
at that level.


50 ENTER THREE WITCHES
Lady Bessie ate and drank with astonishing gusto, giving
both food and wine the attention they deserved.
Grant had, he hoped, been amiable, but very little more
had been expected of him, he assumed, than polite answers
to polite questions. He had not felt it necessary to make
the going. He shared Lady Bessie's appreciation of the
food and drink, and food and drink are much more satis-
factory than idle chit-chat. He preferred to watch and
listen, and to touch, to make tangible, that odd unease
which was in the room. He felt that the others, too, were
watching and listening, and why were they uneasy? He
felt that he had been brought to Feroce not for an
ordinary social occasion, but for some purpose, still undis-
closed. Did they all feel a purpose undisclosed? And had
they all guilty consciences?
"Alice, you are not eating." It was Marie Beuil's voice
again, intimate, slightly proprietorial, but unquestionably
sharp. She disliked the girl. And one could almost read the
tart answer that the girl suppressed, her face slowly redden-
ing: not a schoolgirl blush, but the red of anger. Why did
Marie Beuil pick at her like that? It was not at all Marie
Beuil's habit, and she herself now seemed slightly ashamed
of it. Was it a symptom of their general disquiet? Or did
something in the girl provoke her? The girl's angry flush
had not risen for a single chance remark, harmless in itself.
It was an item in a train of incident. And again, Lady
Bessie thrust in her oar.
"The younger generation was not born with our stom-
achs, Marie. We grew up in the fat years, you know. I
never see a man eat now like my father ate. I've a lean and
hungry look myself, but that is an accident of nature."


CASTELLO FEROCE 51
"There is no career for fat men nowadays," said Lec-
chino at Lady Bessie's left. "I must exercise my waist every
morning or forfeit my ambitions. It is my one criticism of
the Regime." Lecchino had been making better conversa-
tional going than any of them. He had all the social gifts.
They almost glittered. He was very much the young man
about town, with the latest gossip and admirably selected
anecdotes from the higher reaches. His entertainment value
was considerable, and Grant wondered whether he was a
guest because of it. He and Lady Bessie seemed the only
people here wholly at their ease, and one could not be
certain of Lady Bessie. Her tough exterior might cloak a
storm of feeling: it would be difficult to imagine anyone
less likely to wear her heart upon her sleeve.
Lecchino made six, the sixth at table. But the table was
set for two more.
Two more. Who were they, and why had Marie Beuil
left those places set?
One would be for Warner, the man from London, who
had gone that day to Rome. But whose was the other place?
Marie Beuil caught his eye. "We are expecting a guest,"
she said, "another guest."
And what was it in her voice that suddenly chilled him,
chilled the air of that warm room? He caught himself
staring at Izinir; and Izinir was staring at Marie Beuil with
animal eyes. Izinir would be like an angry beast, if he
ever found his foot near a snare. Grant's vague feelings
took form and point. Something was brewing here, and
beginning to seethe in the depths. Marie Beuil smiled and
leaned backwards from the light; was she the witch who
mixed the brew? Afterwards Grant remembered an oddity:


52 ENTER THREE WITCHES
not one of them had asked her whom she was expecting.
It was a curious silence. Marie Beuil pushed her cham-
pagne glass aside. The meal was ended. He half expected
her to rise. There would surely be port. But she still sat
there. They all sat there, in silence.
And then the bell at the great door clanged. Grant was
struck by the fact that it should echo through the house.
He remembered now the antique pull.
They were all looking at Marie Beuil. She looked at her
watch.
"He is here," she said.
Afterwards, again, Grant thought it curious that she
should have said he and not they. For they were two men
who stood presently in the doorway, where it opened, a
long rectangle of light, from the hall. One of them was tall
and squarish.
"Come in, Mr. Warner," said Marie Beuil.
The other was short and thick. "May I bring in M.
Emisolous," said Warner, "a gentleman from Greece?"
But it was not a gentleman from Greece on whom Grant
looked. It was Bergante, a Spanish writer of short stories,
who had been dead in some Spanish ditch for eighteen
months or more.


CHAPTER THREE
In the Night
Grant's first sensation was
of relief, almost of comic relief. The whole thing had
been steamed up to this piece of melodrama, apparently.
It was hardly worthy of Marie Beuil. He had been brought
here for a showdown, as a man who could identify Ber-
gante without question or hesitation. The performance on
the Spanish Steps the evening before last had been a pre-
liminary rehearsal, and the girl had been sent to make
certain that he did recognise Bergante. When she was
satisfied, he had received his invitation to Castello Feroce.
It all seemed rather silly.
Then he saw Izinir's face. It was set like a mask, an
ugly mask. He was looking, not at Bergante, but at Marie
Beuil. And his eyes were glaring.
All that was in one instant. Bergante stood, pressing
against the door, and itjwash'e who locked Jikjp" a hounded
beast. Warner gripped Ms*'arm aaA smiling'' a "little, urged
him forward. And the'girl'oppo^r^turiietfih htr chair and
watched him with aft ;almost?" passionate- intensity. Lady
Bessie picked up her glass and put it down again: and
nothing, Grant thought, could have revealed her more than
that one awkward gesture.
Then he knew that this was not the showdown. It was
the beginning of something, not the climax. And Marie
Beuil spoke. "Won't you both sit here? We've finished, but
we can get you something." She pressed a bell beside her.
53


54 ENTER THREE WITCHES
She rose. "You'll join us afterwards. And we can leave the
introductions until then. So sit down, M. Emisolous."
M. Emisolous sat down. He had not spoken a word.
In the long lounge, Grant made for the window-seat . He
wanted to watch. He also wanted to think. What exactly
was his role? He had been left to make it for himself. He
had recognised Bergante, and Bergante had recognised him,
surely, unless terror had dulled his vision. He had been
terrified. One thing at least was certain: Bergante had
entered that room with no sense of what awaited him. But
what had terrified him? Whom had he recognised, if not
Grant, or as well as Grant? Grant could not imagine that
he had terrified the Spaniard; and if Bergante had recog-
nised Madame Beuil or the girl, then they must have known
him previously, and, in that case, they need not have
bothered to procure Grant's identification. And the man
must have known that he was coming to Marie Beuil's
house. A man in hiding, a man afraid of his own name
and identity, would not have come if he had known of
anything to: fear- from lier. ....;;;
Was it IziruVthepprX-ady |5?ssie who had provoked that
sudden .animal panicf ;Yct if they knew him too, he was
known to most; of, the .party. Then-why all this pretence?
Why not a showdown at once?
Marie Beuil was pouring coffee.
"M. Emisolous is a countryman of yours, M. Izinir. Oh,
will you take brandy?"
"I was born in Smyrna," said Izinir.
"You've never met before?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "I meet many people."


IN THE NIGHT 55
"So do I. And I always remember faces."
"And I remember how men deal with me, how they
treat me," he said, and there was a snarl in the sentence
that brought Grant up off his cushions. He wandered across
and sat beside the girl, and took his coffee.
"I seem to have seen M. Emisolous before," he said
loudly; and immediately, he knew, the rest were listening.
He was plagued to know his part. Was he expected to
spill the beans or was he not? Marie Beuil must certainly
know Bergante. There had been too much preliminary play
for ignorance on her part. This afternoon, for instance, she
had questioned the extent of his acquaintance with Ber-
gante. But now she was willing, it seemed, that Bergante
should continue Emisolous, a gentleman from Greece.
When Bergante walked into her dining-room she knew
who he was. The alternative was an incredible coincidence.
She was playing a game then. Grant had always found
it sound practice in strange games to hold his hand. So he
said, "The other evening, on the Steps. Don't you remem-
ber? The man with the beard and the long cloak and the
big hat. He hasn't his hat or cloak on now, of course, but
he still has the beard."
"Oh, yes, I know." Frances tapped a cigarette nervously
on her nail. "He came up from the Piazza."
Izinir had slewed round. "Perhaps the young lady has
seen him before, too," he suggested. "Before that."
It was a disconcerting remark. It disconcerted Marie
Beuil and Lady Bessie and the girl.
"Why should she have seen him before?" demanded
Lady Bessie.
Izinir spread his hands. "I do not know. But we are


56 ENTER THREE WITCHES
making conversation about him, aren't we? Have I a
cigar?"
"There is a box beside you," said Marie Beuil.
"This thing, oh, it is a cigar-box." He reached a fat paw.
He suddenly seemed to loom largely in the room. He was,
as Grant had observed, a man of considerable force, and
now he had gathered his force to him. If Marie Beuil had
nursed some notion of surprising or frightening him, she
had mistaken him. Grant thought he saw some realisation
of that in her own eyes.
"I did not know that you two had met," said Lady
Bessie, turning on Grant and the girl.
"We met the other afternoon in Rome," said Grant.
"And years ago at La Napoule," said the girl.
She said it with emphasis, and Grant felt that if this went
on much longer he would begin to believe in La Napoule
himself. The girl spoke as if she expected him to believe it.
She must surely realise that he had cast back through all
the recesses of his mind since their first meeting. She spoke
now almost defiantly, as if in challenge to him. A chal-
lenge or a signal. Was she signalling to him?
He looked at her again. She sat with her shoulders
bowed a little, her long arms stretched, her hands twisted
in her lap. She was exquisite, and she was utterly unhappy.
There could be no mistaking the sudden drooping of the
whole figure and the nervous tension of the hands. And
then she straightened and smiled.
"I'm afraid he is a little bored with La Napoule. I re-
mind him of it so often."
"I'm full of enthusiasm for it," he said, and he hoped
that she could read an answering signal.


IN THE NIGHT 57
And then he noticed that Lecchino was not in the room.
He must have gone like a cat, sidling under the furniture.
And Izinir stood up.
"I may use the telephone," he said, "from my bedroom?"
"Or from the hall if you prefer," said Marie Beuil.
"Shall I be overheard," said Izinir, "on other lines in the
house?" He grinned: and again Grant was impressed by
the man's readiness to take his fences. There were wrinkles
of sardonic amusement at the corners of his eyes.
"The telephone in the hall is quite, quite private," said
Marie Beuil, and one could almost see the flash of steel.
The swords were crossed now.
He rolled out.
"Not a nice man," said Lady Bessie, "but nobody's fool,
Marie." There might have been a note of warning in the
phrase.
Marie Beuil nodded. "Nobody's fool, as you say."
Lady Bessie rose. "I'm going upstairs," she said, "to say
my prayers."
Marie Beuil nodded again. "Remember me."
"I shall," said Lady Bessie.
Both sounded as if they meant it.
Marie Beuil followed her to the door. "Why don't you
two go and walk in the rose garden? It is unbelievably
lovely in the night. I had better attend for a moment to
my other guests." She closed the door firmly behind her.
Grant looked at the girl. "Do you care for rose gardens?"
She hesitated a moment, looking backward at the door
that had closed. Then she stood up. "Yes, let's. We'll be
out of the house, at least."
"Out of the house?"


58 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"Oh, yes, that was silly. But this house oppresses me.
The rooms are so immense, and one loses oneself in the
long passages."
"I shouldn't have thought you particularly susceptible to
bogies in the corner," said Grant.
"I'm not actually." He opened the doors and they walked
out on to the terrace. "But an Italian castle is a trifle over-
whelming after service flats."
"Have you been living lately in London?"
"Yes, these last two or three years."
"Where were you educated?"
"Oh, all up and down the Continent. My father thought
I ought to have languages. And he lived a lot in Paris. The
roses are strong, aren't they? I did not know that they
grew so well here in the hills. One goes down this way to
the garden."
They strolled in the gardens for twenty minutes or so,
until they found a stone seat by a fountain.
"Rather odd," he said, "our Greek friend turning up
like that."
"Why odd?" she said quickly.
"Well, a coincidence."
"Yes, I suppose so. Madame Beuil expected him, it
seemed. He must be a friend of Mr. Warner."
"He did not look particularly friendly with anyone when
he walked in that door. Who is Warner?"
"Oh, he comes from London. He has a three-storied
house in its own grounds at Streatham, a bungalow at Sand-
banks, he plays golf every Saturday afternoon and Sunday,
he has his hair cut regularly every second Tuesday, he does


IN THE NIGHT 59
things in the city, he has a wife and three children, two
motor-cars, two gardeners and a nice taste in tweeds. That
sort of Englishman. Sometimes I think they're the salt of
the earth and sometimes they exasperate me beyond all
human reason. You haven't a wife and three children, have
you?"
"Not even two motorors. Mr. Warner talks about them,
does he?"
"He is encouraging me to domesticity. He talks about
them earnestly and often."
"Sounds rather an unusual fish for Marie Beuil's net."
"Oh, I think he's quite an important person in his own
way. In the city."
"Frances. . . . Alice. I say, which is your name?"
"Frances. Why?"
"Well, Lady Bessie calls you Frances and the Beuil
woman calls you Alice. It's confusing. One might go around
the place shouting, Trances, Frances,' and meaning 'Alice'
all the time. Or vice versa."
She laughed. "I suppose that Lady Bessie does not like
calling me Alice and Madame Beuil does not like calling
me Frances. But I'll answer to either. People do have more
than one name sometimes, don't they?"
He looked down at her. Had she covered that neatly, or
was he merely developing a lot of silly suspicions?
"Frances," he said, "what's the trouble?"
She was on the defensive at once, and he could almost
have groaned. "Trouble?"
"Yes, trouble. I may look like the village idiot, but I am
not completely without my points. My legs are crooked


60 ENTER THREE WITCHES
and I need grooming, but I'm good-tempered, alert, playful
with children and I need only be thrown an occasional
bone. Wouldn't you like to make some use of me?"
"Yes, of course." She was amused, damn her eyes. "But
what use?"
He was annoyed. "Why am I here? Why did I get an
invitation within sixty minutes of your leaving me at the
Spanish Steps? Didn't you intend . . ."
"Why, it was just that I met Madame Beuil after I left
you. She was waiting for me, to drive back here. And
whtn I told her that I had met you, she asked whether it
wouldn't be nice to have you here for the week-end. I said
that I thought it would, so she sat down and wrote a
note and sent it off by a boy from the hotel. Is there any-
thing very curious about that?"
"No," he said, "no, there isn't." And there was not.
Doubtless, it was exactly what had happened. But it was
not all that had happened: it was not all that was implied.
Yet what did the girl herself know? Was she just an in-
strument of Marie Beuil's?
"How long have you known Marie Beuil?"
"How long?" She examined the question carefully be-
fore she answered it. "A long time. Since I was a child."
"Do you like her?"
"What extraordinary questions you ask. You are an
inquisitive person, aren't you?" She drew in her long legs.
"She has been kind to me."
"And you have been useful to her?" He made it a ques-
tion rather than a statement. "A kind of working alliance."
And when he said it he knew that his impression of their
relationship had crystallized. All that nagging at the girl


IN THE NIGHT 61
meant some persistent personal distaste; but it did not
preclude an alliance. "You read the English newspapers and
communicate their intelligence. She acts on the intelli-
gence."
"Oh!" Frances laughed. "I didn't know what you were
talking about for a moment."
"You'll get used to that with me. Often I don't know
what I'm talking about myself. I hope you'll get used to it.
Will you?"
"I'll have to have the opportunity," she said.
"That's what I mean. You know, you're a deplorably at-
tractive young woman and I shall probably hang about
your feet with the most unconscionable disregard for being
trodden on."
"I shan't tread on you. I'm not rough-shod. Sometimes
I wish I was."
That had been earnestly meant, but what did she mean
by it? She was not a woman lacking in will of her own.
She might subdue her will, Grant thought, but she would
never wholly abdicate it. She could probably be, on her
occasions, a thoroughly tough little guy.
Grant had something of the artist in him, though his
books were not especially distinguished; and he had known
many women, and some few well. He approached them
with both cynicism and awe; which is, after all, perhaps
the way of approach to all humanity. He had never out-
lived his wonder at them: at their profound loyalties and
at their petty machinations. He was also cautious of gen-
eralisations. If there were women without deceit, there were
women too without loyalty; but one could usually assume a


IN THE NIGHT 63
"What on earth's the matter, man?" shouted Grant
.
Flannagan came roaring. His hair was bedraggled across
his forehead and dripping with water, and he had a pair
of boots in his right hand and what might have been a
crumpled towel in his left, and there was such anger in his
face as has hardly been in any face since Moses descended
on the Golden Calf.
"They've tooken the pants," he roared, "and the coat of
my best suit that cost me forty-five bucks in Fort Worth,
Texas, only last summer. And if I find the misbegotten
and unlawful son of Hades who done it . . ." He sighted
Frances. "Pardon me, young lady, but there are moments
when a man's entitled to bad language." He dropped his
boots and wrapped his towel around his middle, tucking it
into the top of his underpants.
"Good lord!" said Grant. "Who took your pants and how
did they take your pants and what were you doing out of
your pants and . . . you've been in the water?"
Flannagan shook his head like a dog. "Of course I've
been in the water. I went down twenty minutes ago for a
swim and I undressed there in the little pavilion. I hung
my pants up on a peg by the belt. And the coat over them."
"Wait a minute. What in heaven's name were you swim-
ming for at this time of night?"
"I often go down at night. I like it. I guess I can grunt
and blow as much as I like at night. I hung my pants up
by the belt, and the coat..."
"Someone playing japes," said Grant. "They've been
stuffed under a seat or something. Let's go and look."
"I hope you'll pardon my underwear, miss." He tucked


64 ENTER THREE WITCHES
in the towel to make sure. "But I'm not responsible for the
circumstances."
"You should dry your hair," she said, "and put your
boots on. You'll catch cold."
"Maybe you're right." He solemnly turned his back on
her and withdrew the towel from his middle; he dried his
hair much as he might have wrestled a bull in his native
corrals. Then he put on his boots. "They don't seem right,
somehow," he said, "with underpants."
Grant led the way to the little pavilion above the lake.
Flannagan looked confoundedly funny, but it was an odd
sort of joke. Grant could not imagine that anyone in the
house had been much in joking mood, unless the servants,
and it was difficult to believe that the servants would have
played such a joke on a man of Flannagan's temper. It
looked more like a petty thief.
"Has that light been burning all the time?" asked Grant,
looking in over the half wall.
"I turned it off before I finished undressing, in case any
of the maids should happen down this way and see me,"
said Flannagan.
"Was it on while you were in the water?"
"No, I left it off until I come out. I got out of my trunks
and rubbed myself down and then put on me underpants
and shirt. I hope you'll pardon the details, miss. Then I
turned up the light and reached for me pants. They should
have been hanging from that peg there, by the belt. But
they were . . ."
"Gone," said Grant, looking about. "What did you have
in your pockets, Flannagan?"


IN THE NIGHT 65
"Wallet, keys, handkerchiefs, matches, and a packet of
smokes."
"Look for them."
They dived under the cushioned seat that ran around the
pavilion. The pavilion was of stone, open except for a half
wall on three sides, and with a little gilded gate; a pleasant
place to loll and take tea after swimming or to sit on
summer evenings.
"Here is a bunch of keys," said Frances, "and a wallet.
And a handkerchief and a packet of cigarettes."
They were scattered under the seat.
Flannagan opened the wallet. "The money's gone," he
said. "Eight hundred lire. So that was it, eh!" His face was
very ugly.
"Rather considerate of them, if you ask me," said Grant.
"They could have run off with the lot. Somebody who
doesn't smoke, apparently."
"And, by the same argument, doesn't blow his nose,"
said Flannagan, picking up his handkerchief.
"I can understand his taking the money," said Frances,
"but why your clothes? Very few people could fill your
clothes."
"He could cut them up for the kids," said Flannagan
gloomily. "Or sell 'em to the Jews. That suit cost me forty-
five dollars in Fort Worth only last summer."
"It has the professional touch," said Grant. "Wallet left,
because wallets are identifiable. And probably wiped with
your handkerchief, in case of fingerprints. And not inter-
ested in your cigarettes." He looked over the brand. "Well,
I don't wonder. Are you going to make a police matter of


66 ENTER THREE WITCHES
it, Flannagan? If so, we'd better leave things as they are."
"I'll see what the Madame says, up at the house."
"Didn't you see anyone at all about while you were
swimming?"
"Do you think I'd have been loitering since if I had?"
"Hear anyone?"
"No, sir."
"Did the light go on at all? Would you have noticed if
it had?"
"I guess so. I only sort of paddle in the shallows."
"Then whoever it was knew his way about here?" Grant
frowned. "Sounds like somebody from the house. Any of
the servants with a particular dislike for you?"
Flannagan's face darkened. "I'll think that over," he said.
"I'd call the police," said Grant.
"I'll talk to Madame Beuil about it. She mightn't want
the police snooping about the place." He gathered his re-
maining things. "I wonder whether you'd mind fetching
me a pair of pants if I walk up to the terrace with you,
Grant? A man can't track through the house in his under-
pants and boots. You can throw them out of my window,
I guess."
2.
That was the beginning.
Grant saw Frances indoors and found his way to Flanna-
gan's room and wardrobe. He selected a pair of striped
flannels, admiring their ample seat, leant through the win-
dow, whistled, and tossed them out.
Flannagan made a clean catch and disappeared under
the wall.


IN THE NIGHT 67
As Grant came out of the door, he met Lecchino. The
Italian eyed him officiously, Grant thought, although he
might have been a trifle sensitive.
"Flannagan in?" said Lecchino.
"No, as a matter of fact, he isn't."
"That's his room, isn't it?"
"Yes, that's his room."
"Just making a call?"
Grant was annoyed. "I was collecting a pair of trousers.
For Flannagan. You'll find him in the shrubbery putting
them on, if you care to look."
"Where are the trousers?" Lecchino asked with a note of
incredulity.
"In the shrubbery. And," Grant looked at his watch, "on
Flannagan now, I assume. Good night."
He walked downstairs to look for a drink. The house
was unexpectedly quiet. Had everyone gone off to bed in
this last hour? He wandered into the lounge. There was
whisky on the table, glasses and siphons. He mixed a drink
and lit a cigarette and dropped into a chair.
It had been a curious evening, and the silence and the
emptiness of the long rooms and passages were something
of an anti-climax. He had felt that the evening was work-
ing up to bigger things. Now it had gone flat.
He walked across to the terrace windows and looked at
the moon, going towards the ragged black ridge of the
hills. It had been a good moon, the sort of moon to prompt
apt tags and sentiment and recollections of romance. He
had not made enough of it in the rose garden. Now ap-
parently he could only emulate it and go to bed. But he was


68 ENTER THREE WITCHES
not in the least inclined for bed. If he went to bed, he would
lie awake for hours.
He wondered whether everyone else in the house was
lying awake now. It was curious that they should all have
disappeared. The time was only a trifle after half past
twelve. He sighed and yawned and stretched. A door closed
somewhere along the terrace. That was Flannagan coming
in, no doubt. He thought of intercepting him. Then he
thought of a book and another whisky. He wandered back
into the room. There were illustrateds, French and English
and American and Italian, on the table. He turned them
over idly. And all the time he was aware of an undercurrent
of expectation running beneath his boredom.
Then he heard a long, low whistle from the terrace: a
cautious whistle but urgent, and after it a tinkle which
puzzled him for a moment, until he realized that some-
body had thrown a handful of gravel at a window. It was
somewhere to the right, and the window must be on the
floor above.
He stood and stretched and stubbed out his cigarette.
He turned towards the terrace and yawned as widely as
his jaws would stretch. He swung on his heel and went
to the door. He turned out the lights and opened the door
and went into the hall. Then he doubled, and bending
low, shot back into the darkened room.
He padded across to the terrace windows, oblongs now
of dull light, and looked out. He cautiously opened them
and stepped on to the terrace.
He worked to the right, keeping in the shadow of the
wall and thankful that the moon was not entirely gone.
There was a light in the angle, shining out on a litde


IN THE NIGHT 69
balcony: and a figure was moving against it, someone
looking down from the balcony to the terrace. Someone
playing Juliet to a loitering Romeo?
He calculated the rooms. Most of the guests were in
the other wing of the house. He found himself distinctly
pleased that Frances was in the other wing. He would have
been annoyed if she had come to Romeo's whistle. He
backed away from the wall to the edge of the shadow
and looked. This was the only window lit along the whole
wing. He crouched beside a jardiniere to watch.
There was another whistle, lower, much lower, from
immediately under the balcony, from someone sheltered
against the wall. The figure on the balcony peered down.
"Who's there?" it said in Italian. Grant guessed at
rather than heard the whispered words.
But he heard the answer. "Come down. I've put a gar-
dener's ladder against the wall to your right." This was
in awkward Spanish, and Grant, straining to catch the
words, missed the accent. But it was a man's voice, thick,
like Flannagan's. Grant edged out a little from the jar-
diniere.
There was protest from above, urgency from below, with
what was undoubtedly a violent expletive in yet another
language. Then, in Spanish: "Put out your light. I'm
coming up. You damned fool, put out your light."
The damned fool stepped back through his window, and
Grant saw the round head and the flowing beard. It was
Bergante. The fight went out, and the balcony now was
a black blot against the lesser gloom of the wall. The lad-
der was shifted and settled with a low, rasping sound.
Grant slipped off his evening shoes and sped back to the


70 ENTER THREE WITCHES
wall. From that heavier darkness, he by his jardiniere
might now have become visible.
He could hear the cautious grunts of the man ascending,
and apparently Bergante was on the balcony again, for
there were mutterings. Then came a major grunt and a
suggestion of heavings: the visitor was clambering across
the balustrade.
There is no particular reason, of course, why people
should not climb through windows if they prefer to enter
rooms that way. Grant had climbed through windows him-
self, but these had been on romantic occasions; and he had
not had to fetch his ladder. It was queer and a trifle ridicu-
lous. Why should anyone who must grunt and scramble
want to climb through balcony windows when there are
passageways and doors? If caution is required, it is usually
better to slip through a door than to climb up a ladder.
Unless, of course, the door is watched. Caution, apparently,
was required, for the light had not come on again. The
conference was being held in camera. Grant cursed at that,
because it would be a trifle risky to go after his shoes if
Bergante and friend were looking from their darkness.
And then he cursed again, for someone else was coming
along the wall from the opposite direction, working quietly
to a place under the balcony. Grant had thought of that
himself: and now he developed an almost uncontrollable
curiosity about his competitor.
Grant edged along, inch by inch, and very slowly. He
heard, for a moment, a mutter of voices from above. Then
one was raised, as if its owner had come closer. He had.
He had come to shut the balcony doors. Well, that was
one in the eye for the other snooper.


IN THE NIGHT 71
What was he up to now? He had come out from the wall,
for he was a distinct blob against the witching sky. There
was the faintest scraping noise. And then Grant realised
that he was walking away with the ladder, very quietly,
very swiftly.
The evening was beginning to offer some further enter-
tainment after all. But the gentleman up top would not be
entertained if he climbed over the balcony and put out
his foot for a ladder which was not there.
Grant felt that he needed a cigarette, but decided against
it. With all these comings and goings, it was better to
detect than be detected. But he went on working towards
the window, wondering what he would do if the man
above reappeared on the balcony with evident intentions
of stepping into space. There was no sound whatever or
glimmer of light from the room; and Grant had the dis-
turbing sensation of loneliness which comes with the sus-
picion that one is not as much alone as one should be.
Then every bush becomes a bear. He wondered what had
become of the man with the ladder. Perhaps he was climb-
ing in at some other window. Grant felt inclined to smile.
Almost anything seemed possible at Castello Feroce.
He halted; and then he congratulated himself on his
discretion in keeping to the deeper dark, for someone or
something was moving beyond the parapet of the terrace.
In the faint sheen, hardly stronger now than the light
of stars, he had caught the movement. Someone or some-
thing was climbing up over the parapet.
For an instant, a figure shaped itself, balancing; and
then it dropped to the terrace and ran.
Grant ran too. He thought he knew who this was, and


72 ENTER THREE WITCHES
he put on an extra spurt. He caught her near the main
door.
"Hullo," he said, "taking your evening constitutional?"
She panted. "You frightened me. Why did you chase me
like that?"
"I thought it was hare-and-hounds, open to all comers."
"Why . . . why didn't you speak then?"
"It took all my breath to catch you." She was, he saw,
wearing dark slacks and a dark sweater. "Do you always
run across Italy before bed?"
"Where were you?"
"Sitting thinking about you." It was not an excessive
lie, or utterly without foundation.
"Do you usually take off your shoes to think? Where
are your shoes?"
"I left them in a jardiniere. They were pinching my
toes."
"Anthony, what were you doing on the terrace?" It was
the first time that she had used his Christian name and he
was appropriately exhilarated.
"Very much what you were doing behind the parapet,"
he said. "Eye-dropping. Did you see the things I saw or
was I only seeing things?"
"I was on the lower terrace," she said.
"No, you were not. It's eight feet down and you didn't
jump that high. You were -hanging on behind the parapet,
and it was a good position. I wish I had thought of it
myself. And I wish that you wouldn't think it necessary
to pervert the facts. Anyhow, I thought that you had gone
to bed."
"I couldn't sleep," she said.


IN THE NIGHT 73
"I know. It was a distracting moon. I've thought of a
number of things I should have said beneath it. Perhaps
you'll let me try again some other moon. But you weren't
just exercising your fancy while you clung to that parapet."
"No," she said, "I was not just exercising my fancy. Do
you mind if I go inside?"
"Enormously. Who was it that shinned up the drain-
pipe?"
"The man who went up the ladder was Izinir. Please
do let me go. I'm terribly tired."
He caught her hand. "Frances, I'm probably being a
boor, a lout, a clout, a churl and a silly ass, but why don't
you tell me what the trouble is?"
"It isn't only mine to tell," she said, and she took back
her hand with a little tug.
"All right," he said. "If that's how it is." And he walked
away up the terrace. There are times when one does much
better to walk away up the terrace.
She came after him. "Anthony, I'm sorry. I didn't mean
to be beastly about it."
"Blast!" he said, stubbing his shoeless toe against an
uneven stone in the paving. "Damn and blast! Why can't
stones He neatly in their beds? Why can't you he neatly
in your bed? Come on, you'd better go home. I'll see you
up the stairs. Heaven only knows," he added gloomily,
"what's lurking on them."
Nothing was lurking on the stairs except Lecchino. He
was sitting on the upper flight, just high enough, it oc-
curred to Grant, to command all the three passageways
that went off from the landing. He also had a good view
across the great hall, with its main entrance, and the doors


74 ENTER THREE WITCHES
opening off to the dining-room and to the lounge. One
did not notice him until one was on the stairs. He was
still in his dinner-suit, with a large red carnation in the
lapel. His hair was as sleek as silk, but he had a smear of
dust on his shoulder. Grant wondered whether he had
been moving ladders.
"Counting sheep?" he asked.
Lecchino stared. "Sheep?"
"Going over a stile. One, two, three, and by the time
you reach four thousand you should be thoroughly awake."
"Ah, I remember, that is an English habit, counting
sheep," he said, and he seemed to be pleased that he had
remembered it. "Counting chickens too, that is an English
habit."
"No politics, please," said Grant, "at this time of night."
"You have been enjoying the air?" he said, looking up
at Frances. Grant did not like either the look or the tone,
but Frances smiled.
"It's delicious out. Fresh and cool."
"Mr. Grant had better be careful then that he does not
get a chill in his feet."
Grant, who had been trying to work round him without
a display of tattered socks, grunted. "I like to walk in my
socks. It hardens the soles of one's feet."
"What was Mr. Flannagan trying to harden when he
went walking without his trousers? Or is this some new
sort of game? First, Mr. Flannagan loses his pants and
then you lose your shoes."
"Did you know that you had a cobweb on your shoul-
der?" said Grant, not thinking of any better retort.
"Ah, I have been walking under the vines." He brushed


IN THE NIGHT 75
at his coat with long, thin fingers. "And in the shrubbery."
"Did you find Flannagan then?"
"I brought him in and gave him a drink."
"That's an idea," said Grant, "that's nearly always an
idea. What about you, Frances Alice?" He thought it as
well to use both names. Lecchino might call her Alice.
Grant felt that he would be tempted to swipe Lecchino
if he ever heard him call her Frances. But he was feeling
rather badly about Lecchino at the moment. He had given
Frances a very oncoming glance just now.
She shook her head. "I'm going to my room," she said,
"thank you."
Lecchino jumped up. "Let me see you along the pas-
sage."
"I am already seeing her," said Grant, and took her arm.
"And she is a trifle nervous."
Frances laughed. "You're an idiot, Anthony."
Grant hoped that Lecchino had absorbed the Anthony.
"Michele's very good-looking, don't you think?" she
said, as they went out of earshot.
"Very," said Grant. "He reminds me of the advertise-
ments for Kollege Kollars."
"Do you dislike him as much as that?"
Grant sniffed. "I'm one of those querulous English-
men," he said, lest he should appear too vicious. "I always
feel that foreigners are so un-English somehow. Never
played cricket and all that sort of thing."
"Why," she said promptly, "have you taken a dislike
to Michele?"
"I don't like red carnations in buttonholes. And I'm
perverse. And I very much wonder what he is doing on


76 ENTER THREE WITCHES
the stairs at something past one in the morning. Was he
waiting for you, do you think?"
She flushed. "Now you're being stupid."
"I know. That is what makes it so irritating. Frances,
wouldn't you like that drink? We could sit in the lounge."
His heart leapt, for she hesitated: though she said "No,"
she did hesitate.
She opened her door a little. "It would be fun," she said.
"But not tonight. And don't be so bad-tempered with
Michele."
"I'm probably jealous," he said gloomily.
"Good night." She dropped her hand on his for an in-
stant. "Good night, Anthony. And thank you, for lots of
things. Especially for La Napoule."
He was looking into a corner of her room. There was a
long mirror there. "La Napoule," he said, "was bagatelle.
Why don't you try me out on something really worth-
while, like Nice or Algiers or ..."
"Good night."
And then he almost jammed his foot into the door, to
prevent it closing. For in the last second before it closed,
he saw a movement in the long mirror. Somebody was
already in Frances' room, waiting for Frances. But the
lock clicked.
3-
He leaned against the lintel, listening. There was not
the slightest sound from within. He could imagine Fran-
ces standing there beyond the door, her fingers to her
lips. For she had seen whoever it was. That was why she
had snapped the door home.


IN THE NIGHT 77
What did one do now? Knock on the door and ask if
he might join the party? He smiled grimly. Perhaps he
would not be welcome. Yet supposing it was someone of
whom Frances stood in fear, in danger? This damnable
house had not finished with its surprises yet. He decided
to take a chance, and knocked on the door. It opened
immediately. She had been standing against it, then, wait-
ing for him to go away.
"Yes," she said.
"I wondered whether you would care to come swimming
in the morning. Shall I hammer at your door?" He looked
in the mirror. Nothing moved there now.
"I should like it," she said, "if you're not too early."
"I always give the worms a sporting chance." He had
edged a little into the doorway and could see about a
third of the room. Heaven knew what she thought he was
trying to do. "And I just felt a bit uneasy. Silly, but odd
things seem to be happening about the place. Would you
like me to look under your bed?"
"No," she said, "thank you. I've already looked."
That was a lie, but it was also a conclusion. There was
not much left but to back away and look foolish and to
remember that it was her own affair whom she had in
her room.
He walked back to the stairs and sat down beside Lec-
chino. "Keeping tags on the traffic?" he said, "or do you
just like the draught?"
"I was thinking," said Lecchino, "of the peculiarities of
human behaviour."
"No wonder you had to sit on the stairs. You mean
jitterbugs, and elderly women with platinum hair, and


78 ENTER THREE WITCHES
people running up and down ladders, and all that sort
of thing."
Lecchino did not so much as blink, and surely he would
have blinked if he had lately walked off with a ladder.
"No. I was wondering about your shoes."
"They do seem to recur in your conversation, don't they?
Do you just sit here all night or do you occasionally go to
bed?"
"I often go to bed," said Lecchino, "when I am tired.
How well, Grant, do you know Miss Alice?"
"Oh, awfully well. I've known her since she was a child.
Years and years."
"Did you know her father?"
"Her father?" This was the kind of difficulty which
arises when first you practise to deceive. "Yes, very well.
And her grandfather. I should probably have met her
great-grandfather too, if I had been alive. He was an old
family friend."
"Who exactly was her father?"
"Oh, an Englishman." Grant reflected sourly that he was
not even positive of that
"Yes, I know, but what did he do?"
"Well, what do Englishmen do? Shoot tigers and make
cotton-goods and go to Lords twice each summer and walk
about Scotland every August in kilts. You must have seen
them."
Lecchino smiled. "Was he that sort of Englishman?"
"Oh, not more than any other Englishmen. All English-
men are odd. You must take them in gross to observe the
tribal peculiarities. Look at Shakespeare, for instance, and
Milton, and Oliver Cromwell, and Gordon Harker."


80 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"They are outside, are they?" said Lecchino. "How very
curious."
Grant gave him a mark. He was disposed to give him
several marks. Lecchino was less of a fool than he looked,
and perhaps it was only prejudice which suggested that
he looked a fool. Grant resented these neat young men.
His own clothes always tended to flop about him and
his general aspect was shaggy. Lecchino would certainly
carry a comb in his pocket. But he might also carry brains
in his skull. He was not to be ignored, especially as he
seemed to have his own approach to this imbroglio. If
he knew, as he said, why Grant was here, he unquestion-
ably had more information than Grant. Perhaps he should
have been cultivated. Grant hesitated and looked back up
the stairs. Lecchino was still standing, smiling his com-
placent smirk. It decided Grant. He could only be at a
disadvantage against Lecchino's superior information, and
he was not disposed to give the young man any further
lead until he had discovered more about him. He had all
the style of the villain of the piece, and Grant emphatically
did not like the way he had spoken of Frances. Who was
he, anyhow, to interest himself in whatever interested
Frances? Who, for that matter, was Frances, and who was
her father, and why did she have someone in her room,
and who the devil had such familiar access to her?
He was both in a bad temper and miserable. A man was
an idiot to put much credence in women, anyhow. They
were filled with deceits and stratagems; and very like men
in that, when all was said and done. He grinned at his
conclusion. It was something, anyhow, to recognise the
universality of original sin. He had not reverted entirely


IN THE NIGHT 81
to youthful heroics. The great thing was to expect nothing
of people, and then they sometimes gave you pleasant sur-
prises. But young women of Frances' age were pretty sin-
ister and far too subtle for a man of his.
He opened the front door. A house not locked at nights
would seem to offer good hunting to the gentleman who
walked off with pants and ladders. He was, presumably, one
gentleman, though the criminal potentialities of the house-
party were probably pretty high. Still, Izinir and Bergante
had been together upstairs, and Izinir, at least, with all
his cargoes' profits, could hardly have had a yearning for
Mr. Flannagan's pants.
Grant felt that he should continue to be amused at the
whole affair, but the jest was wearing thin. On the dark
terrace now, he went cautiously. His nerves tautened, and
it would take very little to set them twanging. He realised
that they had actually been under strain the whole evening.
There was still no light in Bergante's window. Perhaps
Izinir had gone by the door. He may have discovered that
the ladder was missing. And then Grant swore, violently,
but he caught his words before they reached the open air.
For he had walked into the ladder. It was leaning once
more against Bergante's balcony.
Could Izinir then whistle it up at will, or had he an
ally who lowered and raised the ladder to his convenience?
Or had someone else gone up to Mr. Bergante?
There was a stir on the balcony above. He must have
made some noise. He walked off swiftly into the dark, and
found again his giant jardiniere. He dropped beside it:
and, being in the neighbourhood, he felt for his shoes.
They were gone. He hunted round, he stood and felt


82 ENTER THREE WITCHES
amongst the geraniums, but the shoes were indisputably
departed. Someone was having a profitable evening.
Grant felt a natural indignation. Flannagan's trousers
were one thing, but his shoes were another. He had
barked his toe, too, against the confounded ladder. A sen-
sible man, he decided, would have gone to bed long ago,
but he was obviously not a sensible man. That would be
apparent to the merest observer. And then he wondered
if there was an observer. Something had stirred again
on the balcony.
Somebody was coming down the ladder, and not with
grunts or heavings. Grant could have sworn that the bal-
cony-door had not opened. Whoever this was must have
been lurking on the balcony. Did anyone go to bed at
Feroce or did its inhabitants all spend their nights popping
up and down ladders?
He was certain that this was not Izinir. The figure
that sped along the wall was slim and dark, and Grant
had a sudden crashing notion that Frances was loose
again. She had slipped out of her own window and come
back to spy on the pair upstairs. He raced after her as he
had raced before, but with more caution. She doubled
the corner of the house and made for the left wing. Grant
took the corner quietly. There was a dim light behind cur-
tains. He counted windows. It was Frances' light, he felt
reasonably sure. The fleeing figure ceased to flee. She
was standing beneath Frances' balcony, dragging at some-
thing. She whistled softly. There was a movement on the
balcony, and the light in the room was switched off.
They had learnt a trick from Izinir and Bergante, the
old masters. But who had switched off the light, for Fran-


IN THE NIGHT 83
ces was still lugging something, pulling and tugging here
below?
It was a garden seat and she was hauling it beneath the
balcony. The supply of ladders was presumably limited.
She must have dropped from the balcony on her exit, but
one cannot drop up to balconies.
The second party was out on the balcony now and low-
ering something. It scraped, and then there was a muttered,
"I've got it." A chair, Grant guessed, to balance on the
seat.
But why all this skipping in and out of windows? And
then he thought of Signor Lecchino, lurking on the stairs.
Lecchino had the passageways under review, and the com-
pany knew it. It pleased Grant to think of Lecchino sit-
ting in the draughts while people hopped nimbly up and
down ladders and in and out of windows. Lecchino was
missing a great deal of fun. Grant wished that he could
go and teH him. But why did Lecchino have the house
under what he imagined was observation?
Frances had swung up to the balcony. Something
scraped against the stone. They were hauling in the chair,
which must have been on a cord or string.
He considered the ethics of Peeping Toms. He was
desperately eager to look into that room, and it was un-
likely that Frances had started to shed her slacks. The
light had gone on behind the half-drawn curtains, and
with a long jump from the bench and his reach he could
clutch at the bottom of the balcony. He ran to it, before
his conscience should overtake him, or his better judgment.
The leap was not as long as he had expected, and he
swung in comparative comfort from the ornamental iron-


84 ENTER THREE WITCHES
work, hauling himself slowly up and feeling that there
was something to say, after all, for taking exercise now
and then. He began to whistle The Daring Young Man on
the Flying Trapeze, but thought better of it.
Between the scroll-work, he looked into the room, and
at two people, both in navy slacks. But Lady Bessie and
not Frances was brushing the dust from her knees.
He dropped back into the darkness. It was a long drop
and he jarred his legs. But he remembered that Lady Bessie
had once climbed Mount Rainier. He sat on the bench and
considered.
Lady Bessie had been waiting when Frances returned
to her room. Grant felt better about that. Frances had told
Lady Bessie of Izinir's excursion up the ladder, and Lady
Bessie's curiosity had stirred. She had dropped out of the
window, while Frances waited, and gone off to find the
ladder herself. Perhaps Frances had seen, from her obser-
vation-post under the terrace, whither the ladder had been
removed. Anyhow, Bessie had smelt it out and set it against
the wall once more. But had she gone up to join the con-
ference or to eavesdrop? Grant felt a dark suspicion that
she had gone to eavesdrop. It was a chancey thing to do,
but Lady Bessie would take chances where her interest
was engaged. She could scuttle down the ladder if the
conference showed signs of concluding. Even if she were
caught in the act, a gentlewoman of Lady Bessie's calibre
could certainly produce a good, round, thumping lie. She
could say, for instance, that she had seen the ladder against
the wall and thought it proper to investigate.
It was a trifle curious that Frances should have let her


IN THE NIGHT 85
go alone, but perhaps Frances had not expected her to
climb up ladders. Lady Bessie, too, would be a hard nag
to check once she had the bit between her formidable
teeth. But there was plainly a close alliance between Fran-
ces and Bessie. Was that what Frances had meant when
she had said that the trouble was not only hers to tell?
Meanwhile, what of the fellow who had removed the
ladder in the first place? Izinir now had his ladder back.
Was that, by any chance, Bessie's intention? Did the alli-
ance extend, on the left wing, to Izinir? In any case, the
removal artist was thwarted, unless he was keeping up
with events. That notion sent Grant off about the corner
of the house again.
There was someone on the terrace. Grant saw a little
red pinpoint of light by the main door. Someone was stand-
ing there, smoking. Perhaps Lecchino had grown tired of
the stairs.
As the fellow was smoking there was no point in exces-
sive caution. Grant strolled on and up to him. But it was
not Lecchino. It was Mr. Warner of London, whom Grant
had almost forgotten.
"Hullo," said Warner breezily, "not in bed?"
"Not that I know of," said Grant. "You're Warner and
I'm Grant. We were to have been introduced after dinner."
"Aw, yes, quite so. How do you do? Marie Beuil told me
you were coming up. Writer, aren't you?"
"Almost as bad as that," said Grant. "Nice night. We
don't seem to be able to sleep."
"Fine air, up in these hills." He sucked at it.
"Yes, it's perfectly amazing what Mussolini has done for
the country."


86 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"Oh, the air was always good up here," said Mr. Warner
solemnly. "Even in Tully's time. Cicero, you know."
"Yes, I know," said Grant.
"You'd wonder how it could remain good so long," said
Warner, and he laughed at his own joke. Perhaps he saw
it.
"You haven't noticed a man walking round with a lad-
der, I suppose," said Grant.
"With a ladder. I was walking round with a ladder
myself just now."
"You were what?"
"My dear chap, surely you heard me!" Mr. Warner
sounded as if he would bounce the waiters at his club.
"You asked about a man with a ladder. I had a ladder. I
came out for a breath of fresh air just now and what should
I almost walk into but a confounded ladder leaning up
against one of these balconies. Damned stupid. You never
know who might get into the house. Gardener must have
left it there. You can never depend on these Latins to
finish a job properly. So I took it and put it down alongside
the wall."
"Well, if someone wants to get into the house, he can
put it up again," said Grant.
"Yes, but laid flat, it isn't such a temptation. And it's
not so evident. I collided with the confounded thing."
Grant was busily reckoning. If Mr. Warner had col-
lided with the ladder, he must have come upon the scene
within a few minutes of Lady Bessie's homeward canter
and Grant's pursuit of her. They all might have collided.
He could not recall any other houseparty which had lit-


IN THE NIGHT 87
tered its guests so profusely across the midnight scene.
"Perhaps your intruder has already been tempted. He
may be inside."
"Well, now he'll stay inside unless he's good at jumping
out of windows. But I don't imagine anything of the sort.
Just some lazy hound of a gardener."
"I thought you might be on patrol at the front door."
Warner guffawed. "My dear chap!"
"Just enquiring, you know," said Grant. "You haven't
seen Lecchino about, by any chance?"
"No. I just popped out for a breath of fresh air before
I turned in," said Warner, who was given, as Frances had
remarked, to explaining things fully.
"I've had several breaths myself, so I think I shall turn
in," said Grant, and made for the steps. He felt mildly
relieved that Warner, at least, had not observed the absence
of his shoes, especially as he now suspected that his socks
were hanging in tatters from his ankles.
Lecchino was still on the stairs, but his head had slumped
on to his knees. Grant gave him a kick in passing, and
Lecchino jumped.
"Why don't you go to bed? You're obstructing the right-
of-way. All the household has been walking up and down
and round you."
Lecchino blinked and looked unbelieving. Grant was
inclined to agree with him, for he did not think that Lec-
chino had been as much asleep as he had appeared. But if
Lecchino had been keeping his watch on the stairs, how
had Warner gone out without seeing him? Assuming,
of course, that Warner had just gone out.


88 ENTER THREE WITCHES
Grant went on up to his room and peeled off the frag-
ments of his socks. He undressed and climbed into his
pyjamas. He went to the bathroom to clean his teeth. He
was quite prepared to go to bed. He felt that the evening
had probably done its damndest.
And that, for the moment, was that.


CHAPTER FOUR
What Happened After That
Of course, grant could not
sleep. He was not certain that he had intended to sleep,
but it was time that someone made a gesture of going to
bed. If they all went on prowling like this, it might become
a bad habit: and he had promised to take Frances swim-
ming in the morning.
He awoke sharply, two hours later. What had awakened
him, he was sure, was a hard, stifled sob: and it had been
very near. He swung his legs out of bed and listened.
There was no sound, except his own heart. He believed
that his hair was standing on end, but he did not care to
investigate it. Someone was very frightened and he thought
that it might be himself.
He dropped his feet to the floor and stood up. He wanted
very badly to turn on his light, but he resisted. He crept
across towards his window. He rather hoped that it was
only a ghost. And then he shivered. A man had come back
from the dead to this house; perhaps, in the still hours,
he returned whence he had come. Grant had heard of such
things in the Western Isles of his childhood.
He shook himself: this was hardly the moment to indulge
infantile thrills. The noise had come from outside his
window, and from someone in sorrow or in pain or fear.
It was not the sound itself, but its intensity of emotion
which had broken through the veils of his sleep. Someone
was out there in the dark.
89


90 ENTER THREE WITCHES
He leaned across the sill: and he heard steadily paced
footsteps coming remotely from the terrace. He listened.
They were marching this way and they suggested a police-
man on his beat. Mr. Warner might be finishing his breath
of air before he went to bed.
But the owner of that steady footstep had not broken
his rest. He was too far away, and if his sober striding
meant anything, he was not in a paroxysm of emotion.
And now, listening, Grant thought he could hear some-
one breathing beneath him. He was imagining that, per-
haps, but he was certain that there was someone there,
someone from whom that sleep-murdering sob had been
wrenched. Then the pacing footsteps stopped, somewhere
by the corner of the terrace. There was silence, though it
seemed to Grant that his own breathing must be audible.
The feet had halted, perhaps to admire the view. But
now they began again, and they were going in the opposite
direction. Their proprietor had turned on his heel. From
under the window came a distinct sigh.
Grant was tempted to enter into communication. He
was curious about the effects of a sudden cough or a gruff,
"Who's there?" He was curious to know who was there.
But he checked himself. Whoever was there had been terri-
fied by those advancing feet; and it hardly seemed sporting
to open a conversation which might bring the feet back
at a double. Moreover, Grant suspected that a woman was
here below him. The memory of the irrepressible sob
came to him from the depths of sleep; and he doubted
whether he would have awakened as abruptly for any man.
It might be Lady Bessie beneath him or it might be Fran-
ces, and if there were any sides in this haywire affair, he


WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT 91
had decided that he was on their side, pro tempore at least,
and until he learnt better.
But he was tantalized, all the same. His breath was
steadier now and he was not concerned that he should be
overheard. But presently there came the slightest noise
from below. His company was on the move.
It moved with remarkable quiet, for Grant hardly knew
that it was gone before it darted across from the shadow
of this wing to the shadow under the terrace; and then
Grant cursed his chivalry, for in the owl's light between,
he saw that it wore trousers and bulked large. He almost
shouted, "Is that you, Flannagan?"
He watched the less shadowy corner by the terrace end
and the dim light of the parapet. The moving shadow
should show there whichever way it went, for terrace and
slope stood against a sky that had already lightened a little,
though there was still more than an hour before the first
peep of dawn, and two hours before the sun. But the
shadow did not appear. And then Grant remembered a
door at the corner of the terrace which he had noticed
while he loitered over his dressing before dinner. The
main entrance was not the only door into the house on
that front, then. But where did the passage from this side
door enter?
He ran across to his bedroom door and opened it softly.
If prowling continued the fashion, then let him be fashion-
able. He was thoroughly awake, anyhow, and if he went
to bed again he would probably have nightmares. He crept
into a passage darker than pitch. Scouting about in an
unfamiliar house without a light was not an exhilarating
pastime, and the man who had sobbed was a very silent


92 ENTER THREE WITCHES
traveller. It might be embarrassing if they collided in the
dark. Grant could always say that he had been walking
in his sleep. If one walked in one's sleep in unfamiliar
houses, did one bump into things? The man who had
sobbed was apparently familiar with the layout, for he
had made straight to the lower door, avoiding any further
risk of encounter with the footsteps on the terrace above.
Grant paused at his fourth stride, and decided to investi-
gate those steps. If one was watched over in one's sleep,
it would be comforting to know it. He felt in need of
comfort. The night was dark, and his pyjamas were thin,
and half past three in the morning is not a cheerful hour,
unless one is happily drunk. Which way should he go?
He would prove equally an ass whichever way he went.
The left was towards the great central staircase. If he went
that way he might fall over Lecchino. To the right was
a service door and, presumably, a service staircase. He
could always go and sit on that if he wanted a staircase
to himself.
A service staircase: that was probably the way up from
the side door under the terrace. It was a menial route up
from the terrace and the gardens and the lake, the way
that servants took tea things and cocktails to the terrace.
And it was the way by which the man was coming, if he
had not already come and gone.
Grant went down the passage with his hands stretched
out in front of him. He did not want to knock over any
stray furnishings, and if he bumped into the bulky gentle-
man from below, he meant to bump him at arm's length.
He reached the service door with slow and cautious tread,
and he opened it gently. The stairs were in utter darkness,


WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT 93
but far below was the faintest glimmer. Grant began to
creep down.
The glimmer hardly grew, but Grant's agitation did. The
one thing to say for his present situation was that if he
crashed the fellow now he would be on top. Given suf-
ficient warning, he could probably kick him in the stomach.
He suddenly stopped. An odd sensation which had been
tickling his feet these last few steps made appeal to his
consciousness. He raised one foot and felt his bare sole.
He stooped and felt with his fingers on the steps. There
was a distinct wet patch.
Surely Flannagan had not gone swimming again. He felt
on the next step and the next. Someone had just come up
those steps, on wet feet. Grant wondered whether he could
find a light, and if he found it, risk it. And what an unmiti-
gated idiot he was not to have brought matches! If he had
known what to expect, he could have equipped himself
properly for Castello Feroce. A dark lantern would have
been much more useful than his tennis-racquet.
He went on down. There was the glimmer at the foot
of the stairs to investigate, and one is as well hanged for a
sheep as for a lamb. The wet feet too must have gone up.
They had hardly come paddling down from a bath-tub.
The door was open. The light was no more than the
glimmer of the world outside. And now that he was out-
side, he might as well look about. He struck across towards
his own window. The footsteps on the terrace had not
recurred. The paving was cold beneath his own feet. He
hoped that there was no gravel.
He shivered in the wind which comes from the hills
before dawn, and he hunted about with groping hands.


94 ENTER THREE WITCHES
He did not know what he was hunting for, but he found
it: a distinctly wet patch on the stones beneath his window.
He slipped back to the side door. This time he closed
it behind him, and then stood listening for a minute which
he counted out in tedious seconds. Then he hunted for a
switch which took some time to find, for the Italians always
place their switches in the least likely places.
He was in a little vestibule with a two-way staircase,
down and up. The descending steps presumably went to
basements and cellars. Within the door there was just
perceptible a drying patch of damp and two or three faint
stains, as if someone had stood there for a minute and
dripped. On the steps themselves the patches were already
gone. But whoever had passed here had been very damp
and not only damp underfoot. The drips must have come
from wet clothing. Wet shoes alone do not leave a long
trail.
It occurred to him that possibly rain had fallen while he
slept and that the night prowler had been caught in it. But
Grant had not noticed signs of rain as he had walked bare-
footed outside. And it would need to have been a soaking
rain.
The nearest water presumably was in the fountains and
lakes. He had been tempted to sit in a fountain himself,
but never at half past three in the morning. The reason-
able conclusion was that his fellow wanderer of the night
had fallen in the lake, perhaps as a lesson to all prowlers.
It was hopeless to try to follow the footprints up the
stairs. They had all dried now. But it might be interesting
to know if anyone was taking a hot bath after that cold
douche, and to listen in the morning for someone sneezing.


WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT 95
He turned out the light and went carefully up the stairs.
He himself would probably be sneezing in the morning.
When Marie Beuil had modernised the villa, she had by
no means checked up on all the draughts that sighed
through these long passages, if these were only draughts
that sighed. They suggested, abominably, doors ajar and
crouching watchers of the dark, and thin whispers in hid-
den corners. The darkness was heavy like hanging velvet,
like a substance that might take form. He thought of a
beastly line from Lepanto:
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs
creep in.
The airs in the hollows of this deep staircase-well did
creep out and in. Perhaps there had been some time in the
long past of the house when great ladies had kept here
dwarfs, hunchbacks and wizened little negroes out of
Africa, cossets of their whims, to fondle and to browbeat:
little men who had known all the passages and the secret
places, who had spied upon their ladies' confidences and
had still lived here their occult lives. They must have
moved in these corridors and up and down these stairs
as quietly as the soft wind of fans, creeping beneath the
level of men's eyes. There are pygmies in the sunless forests
of Africa who can see to creep upon one in the dark. They
come with little darts steeped in venom. Their victims die
in sleep.
Anthony grunted. He was not likely to die in sleep
tonight, pygmies or no pygmies. He was much more likely
to bark his shins, and he already felt battered in his lower


96 ENTER THREE WITCHES
quarters. Next time he came to Castello Feroce, if he was
ever lured this way again, he would pack sticking-plaster
as well as a dark lantern.
He was through the door again into his own passage. He
hoped it was his own passage. The service staircase went
on. It had doors opening to each level of the house. He
felt reasonably sure that he had left it by the right door,
but he was not at all sure now how he found his own bed-
room door. It was ahead, of course, and it must be to the
left, because he had turned right when he came from it to
these stairs. But how many doors distant was it? There
were several rooms between it and the staircase.
He remembered once blundering about an old English
inn trying to find his room. Before he succeeded, he had
awakened one married couple, a commercial traveller, a
lady who had completely misinterpreted his intentions, and
something that had sounded like curried Colonel. If one
could create such commotion when one's conscience was
clear and one's explanation valid and simple, what would
happen now if one brought half the household from its
beds?
It occurred to him again but with renewed force that he
had been behaving in asinine fashion, and he reflected
bitterly that if he had to behave like an ass, he might at
least have had enough sense to recognise his own stall.
He had not walked in the light from his room towards
the service stairs. If he went on as far as the main staircase
and then turned back, he would be on more familiar
territory. His room was certainly the fourth from the
landing there.


98 ENTER THREE WITCHES
that he had been disturbed by furtive noises, as he certainly
had. He recalled that he had seen light-switches here on the
landing, by an immense tapestry. He reached the corner
of the tapestry and felt his way along. He explored for the
lights. And by the time he had found them, he wanted
them very badly. For someone was here on the landing
with him, someone who had come out of that passageway
and was standing now, straining to hold back breath.
Grant stumbled into a chair, and as he stumbled, his
hand found the switch, a main switch that flooded all the
landing and the staircase in a dozen lights, from the vast
chandelier to the bracket lamps which revealed the details
of the tapestry.
Frances stood, thrusting against the wall, trying to push
herself through it. Her hand was at her mouth, as if to
stifle a cry.
"Oh dear," said Grant, "I don't think we need all this
illumination." He found the side-switches and cut out the
lights one by one until only a bracket was burning. "Been
visiting?" he asked.
"I ... I must have been walking in my sleep."
"I thought of that one too, but it isn't very satisfactory.
Do you usually carry a torch when you walk in your
sleep?"
She stared at the thin pencil torch in her hand as if
she had never seen it before. He regarded her dressing-
gown and the hems of her pyjamas and her fluffy slippers.
They were not wet.


WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT 99
"Anthony," she made a move towards him, "let me pass.
Someone may find us here."
"You have already been found here, young woman," he
said, "and I could bear an explanation." He hoisted at his
pyjama pants. He was grateful that they were his best pair.
"Anthony, we must not be found here," she said.
"Why not?" he said. "We both look very elegant." But
he was not entirely indifferent to her plea. "And I want
to know what you have been doing." His face darkened.
"You came out of a room along the passage behind you.
It wasn't your own room."
She flushed. "What if I did?" she said defiantly. "It
isn't any business of yours. And if you think . . ." She
stopped and bit her lip. She was very red, angry and
mortified.
"Bergante's room," he said. "What were you doing
there?" It was something of a blind shot, but it hit the
mark.
"I went to look for something," she said. "Will you
please let me go!"
"Was Bergante interested in your search? Did he pop
out of bed and lend a hand?" Grant was surprised by the
anger in his own voice. He did not really doubt her as
much as that.
"Bergante is not in his room," she said: and she suddenly
stared at him, startled.
"So you knew that the gentleman from Greece was
Bergante all the time?" said Grant, with some sardonic
satisfaction at tripping her up. "Where is he if he is not in
his room?"
"Gone," she said, "gone out."


WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT 101
"May I go now?" she said, and though her voice was
steady, it had finality too.
He stepped aside and let her pass.
Grant had never learnt what to do with the hours be-
tween four and six of a wakeful dawn. If there was a sun,
one could look at its rising, but the sun came late above
these ragged hills. One could not read, there was nothing to
eat, it was hardly an hour for music, his bed was uninviting.
He stared at himself in a mirror, but his person was repul-
sive. The room was singularly uninteresting in the drab
light, though last evening he had liked its admirable
eighteenth-century etchings and its period furnishings. He
wandered about and looked at the etchings again. He even
made some estimate of their current market values. He was
properly impressed that Marie Beuil could decorate a guest-
room to the tune of seventy or eighty thousand lire. He
considered his own thoughts. They were depresssing and
not to be encouraged. He felt as if something had upset his
digestion, but nothing ever did upset his digestion.
He cleaned his teeth, an operation which frequently
cheered him. He recalled his tattered socks and stuffed them
into the bottom of his bag. He found a stub of pencil and a
pad of copy-paper and began a dispatch. None of this
entertained him in the least, though he was something of a
potterer by nature. So he went and shaved. That, after all,
had its uses for the day.
While he was shaving, he considered Bergante's beard.
Bergante, as Grant remembered him in other days, had


102 ENTER THREE WITCHES
been something of a fop in the elegant Spanish style. His
shirts were always made in Paris, his suits were of English
cloth, his hair was neatly cut, and the silk handkerchief
in his breast-pocket was always slightly scented. He had
carried himself with a flourish and with pride of appear-
ance. He had worn a brief toupee where his hair had
receded. One might, of course, be baldish above and still
grow a beard. But always in Spain, he had been clean-
shaven.
But Bergante resurrected was slovenly and he had
allowed his waist to sag and his face to go under a bush
of beard. Presumably he had been through shattering
experiences, but Grant did not believe that Bergante was
the sort of man to fly asunder. His temperament had always
bounced like a rubber ball, and as if nothing could shatter
his amour-propre. Appearances had been so much a part
of his existence, that they sometimes seemed his whole
existence. Pain and danger and the horrors of whatever
dark places he had known might demoralise his inner
being, for what that was worth; but Bergante could never
grow indifferent to the crease of his trousers.
He had been much the same in his writing. The content
was never of much consequence, but the manner was
superlative as manner, intensely stylised. His whole life was
stylised, and the style was, in literal fact, the man. Perhaps
that is why they had not been able to kill him. A bullet is
not effective against a flourish of style, and a bayonet
might well have punched through that appearance into
nothingness.
This, thought Grant, is excessively catty. He had been
impressed once by Bergante's polish and flair; but he had


WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT 103
been a young man then and only learning his Spanish,
with all the novice's enthusiasm for meretricious tricks.
One always likes the wrong people at one's first approach
to a literature, before one understands its essential spirit.
His old essay on Bergante must have been a priggish piece
of work. He wondered if all one's buried scripts arise against
one at the Judgment Day. The Angel was surely too busy
with his Book of Life to bother about contributions to
the weekly reviews.
But Bergante had, until lately, all the appearances of
success and of immeasurable self-satisfaction. His books
made money, he had inherited two of Barcelona's most
profitable mills. He had his estate, his vines and olives
and cork-trees, his little village and his peasantry. And he
had managed to plant a foot in both main camps. His
philosophy was radical and secular, and he could phrase
his politics to any liberal company. But a discreet propor-
tion of his writing was reactionary. He professed a mod-
ernist contempt for Spanish traditions while he made what
profit he could from them. He was, in some sense, typical
of the Latin who has rejected his God but is not quite so
certain of the devil. Except that Bergante had probably
imagined himself more than a match for the devil who
must now be old and very tired and far from modern in
his outlook and techniques.
The Spaniard retains an intense consciousness of sin, of
evil, of injustice. He is not yet tempered to the Higher
Indifference. But Bergante approached it. He was almost a
man of the modern world. In some sense, he represented
the modern world to Spain. It was very much his pose,


104 ENTER THREE WITCHES
at least. Perhaps that was why both sides had claimed the
honour of shooting him, thought Grant grimly.
When a man tries to keep a foot in each camp, he some-
times finds himself in the delicate and ambiguous situation
which is somewhere between the frying-pan and the fire.
Bergante, who had looked upon the mass of men as fools,
had thought himself clever enough to trick them all. Per-
haps he had not even meant to trick them. There are people,
chameleon-like, who take the colour of their backgrounds;
and a multiple role must have been attractive to a man
who dramatised himself as Bergante did. He would like
to seem, amongst anarchists, the most anarchistic of them
all. Amongst caballeros, he would be the caballero. But
Grant doubted if he would ever have taken the caballeros
in, though the anarchists might sometimes listen and drink
his wine. A gentleman in Spain is still a gentleman, even
when (as he most often is) he is a labouring peasant. But
no one could mistake Bergante for a gentleman in any
proper antique sense. He belonged rather to the society of
luxury hotels.
He would have continued to do well by himself in most
modern countries; but he had, until the end, mistaken his
Spain. He had missed the omens. The man who imagines
that all other men are fools often does. Neither Spain in
crisis would tolerate Bergante. Anarchist and caballero alike
detested his ostentation, his lavishness, his conceit, his
women. His women had been notorious from Barcelona to
Seville, and the blinded fool mistook that fierce Spanish
consciousness of evil for a silly envy. Bergante, a Spaniard,
had never learnt that Spain is far removed from Monte
Carlo.


WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT 105
So they had killed him: and now he had to grow a
beard lest they discover that he was not dead. Disguise was
the only meaning of that beard, and of the shabby clothes,
and of the fallen stomach (Grant had always suspected
Bergante of corsets). Doubtless there were charges pend-
ing against him in Spain under the new authority.
But where had he grown the beard? He might, of course,
have hidden in Spain, or he might have huddled in some
obscure Italian corner, but apparently he had come hither
from Greece. Presumably, if he went now under a Greek
name, he had acquired a Greek passport, authentic or
forged. The interest of M. Izinir in his case was probably
relevant. The Italian Government would have some inter-
est in a refugee from Spain: but perhaps the Italian Gov-
ernment was unaware of Bergante's antecedents. It was
curious that Bergante should be here in Italy at all, but
Grant reminded himself that the country of a refugee's
choice is not always the country where he expects most
toleration, but the country whose language he can speak
and the country which he succeeds in entering. If the
Italians caught him with a forged passport and discovered
his identity, they might make things very hot; but so might
any Government in days when all Governments are afraid
of homeless men, and charity is measured out in quotas.
Here, at least, was the meaning of Bergante's beard.
Grant was glad to have made meaning out of something.
But he wished he knew what had become of Bergante in
the night, and he wished he knew what Frances had
known of his departure.
For his own part, though he had never liked the man
beyond that one undergraduate enthusiasm for his stories,


106 ENTER THREE WITCHES
he was willing to help if Bergante needed help. In the last
years, there had been enough of misery and blood and
unrelenting steel; and Grant had come to think that if
anything at all mattered in a cock-eyed world it was the
flesh and blood and the agonised soul of man: not man
massed in battalions or man as raw material for great
policies, but individual sons and lovers and husbands,
fathers, mothers, daughters, wives; litde men in little
houses who wanted only to get on with the business of
living, of eating, drinking, sleeping, of ploughing their
fields and buying new hats and backbiting their neigh-
bours, of boozing, belching, thieving, each according to his
chances. They were poor stuff enough, but the best that
there was; and Grant had no such sense of his own
superiority to the common lot that he felt Bergante of a
different species than himself. Bergante, admittedly, was
one of the less agreeable specimens, but he had such title
as all men have to consideration: for that title does not
belong to any merits in the creature.
He was ready to do what he could for Bergante, what
he could in reason do. It was as well to have a saving
clause. He smiled ironically at himself in the mirror. For
all his heroics, his charity too came in rational quotas. But
he could at least talk to Bergante. The man had given him
some pleasure once, and a profit of eight guineas for that
ancient article.
And then it occurred to him that perhaps he could have
helped Bergante in the night if it had been Bergante who
had stood in fear beneath his window. No man in the
house was more likely to produce that convulsive sob.
He cleaned his razor and brushed his hair. The morning


WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT 107
now could be regarded as under way. What was one to do
with it? He recalled his overnight intention to go swim-
ming, and the sun should now have taken the first chill
off the lake. He gathered his trunks and towel and strolled
downstairs.
He was to have knocked on Frances' door, but she
would hardly thank him if she was at last asleep; and he
was not ready for Frances. The matter of Frances required
grave thought, and he was not good at grave thought until
after breakfast, long after breakfast and usually on towards
lunch.
The morning was clear and clean with warmth already
in the sun. In these southern places, the sun does behave
like the sun and not like its languid deputy. He strolled
by Bergante's window. The ladder was gone, back pre-
sumably to its gardening shed. He inspected too the vicinity
of the jardiniere and wondered who had been bothered
to take his shoes and for what purpose.
Grant went down the terrace steps with a sudden access
of the irritation which had been working under his skin
throughout the whole affair. Things seemed to go on hap-
pening without any of them making sense. Normally, as
one accumulated facts they made evidence. When one has
enough pieces of a jig-saw they suggest some meaning.
Here was a whole load of pieces, but none of the right
pieces, unless those two corners where Bergante seemed to
fit with Izinir and where Frances and Lady Bessie unmis-
takably clicked together. But what sense was there in the
rest: Flannagan's pants and his own shoes, Lecchino and
his vigil on the stairs, the sob in the night, the footprints
wet at the service door, Mr. Warner and his relations with


108 ENTER THREE WITCHES
Bergante, Marie Beuil's stage-managership of them all? For
Marie Beuil had staged a scene last night when she assem-
bled them to await Bergante's coming. But what had
become of Marie Beuil after that? Had she gone quietly
off to bed and left her guests to their capers? If she had,
there was at least one sensible person about the place.
He came to the pavilion and hung his dressing-gown on
the peg whence Flannagan's unhappy pants had disap-
peared. There was nothing to see that he had missed last
night, unless it was that one of the sun-blinds had been
drawn down. He did not remember any sun-blinds at all
last night, but now he saw their neat rolls above the
pavilion.
If a blind had been drawn last night, surely he would
have noticed it then. He pulled at a cord. And then he
stood on the bench and reached for another. But this one
was cordless, and so was the next and the next. He tried
the rest. There were twelve blinds but only eight had cords.
Perhaps someone had been short of fishing line.
He went down to the water and found it cold, distinctly
cold. He struck out vigorously for the raft. But the raft
was not yet in the sun, and it looked chilly. He turned
and swam to the water-gate, where he had balanced yester-
day afternoon upon the iron bar in its staples.
The gate was in the morning sun, so he hauled himself
up again by the top bar. His feet felt for the one below.
But there was not one below.
That, thought Grant, was very curious, because iron
bars do not usually remove themselves from their staples.
It had certainly been here yesterday afternoon, when he had
balanced on it while he talked to Lady Bessie. He tried


WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT 109
the upper bar. It could be drawn out without much effort,
but it could not have worked out while the staples held;
and the staples looked good for a thousand years.
He dived but could not touch bottom in the deeps under
the gate. So he came up and paddled about. A small boat
was tied under the wall, for use probably when the weir
was opened. Its oars were awkwardly shipped. He saw
something floating by the boat. He swam to it. For a
moment he thought it was a bird's nest. But it was not a
bird's nest. It was like a piece of horsehair padding, it was
very like a sodden wig.
He caught at it and swam back to the steps. The water
was suddenly much colder, dead and smooth as molten
metal, and it seemed a very long way to the steps, as if
his arms and legs could only trudge slowly in the heavy
water.
One should not, perhaps, go swimming in mountain lakes
before breakfast.
4-
Breakfast was served, for gross English appetites, from a
sideboard in the dining-room. Lady Bessie was already
down and doing very well by bacon and eggs, sausages
and crumpets.
"Hullo," she said. "You're up early for a literary man.
The only literary man I ever knew who got up early had
a bad liver and a bad conscience. But it was the liver that
disturbed him."
Grant drank some grapefruit juice. He was inclined to
ask Lady Bessie whether it was her liver or her conscience
which had disturbed her. Her eyes were tired, but other-


110 ENTER THREE WITCHES
wise she seemed singularly spry for an old lady who
dropped off balconies and charged up and down ladders
through the night. He wondered whether she had seen
Frances since the encounter on the landing; and he won-
dered -how much Frances had told her of his own part
in the gambols overnight.
"I've been swimming," he said.
She stabbed at an egg. "Very good for you too. I'll read
your books. May be something to them if you can stand
cold water before breakfast. The test is whether it makes
you bad-tempered."
Grant felt bad-tempered, and it may have been that which
overcame his normal hesitancy. He took Lady Bessie by the
horns. "How well do you know Bergante?" he said.
Her answer was prompt. "Don't know him at all. Marie
Beuil said she'd introduce him last night, but she disap-
. peared and he disappeared and I haven't seen either of them
since."
"But you knew that he was Bergante when he came in
here last night with Warner?"
"Of course. Didn't you?"
The answer startled Grant. He had grown used to eva-
sions of late.
"Yes, I recognised him," he said slowly. "I thought I
wasn't meant to."
"The man has a certain right tovhis nomme-de-guerre,
hasn't he? If he liked to call himself that impossible Greek
name, why shouldn't he? Though he should have chosen
something simpler if he wants people to remember it. But
these days beggars can't be choosers. Might have to dis-
guise myself as a Hottentot yet, if things go on as they're


WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT 111
going. I'm not so sure about a grass skirt though. Must
tickle your legs."
"You grease them first," said Grant, "with mutton fat.
But surely you are an alarmist."
"In my day," said Lady Bessie, "Europe was gQverned
by gentlemen. Everybody knew everybody else, and we'd
all had classical educations. My father, who was in the
Embassy, could talk to Bismarck as he might talk to a
Scottish peer. They all had the same tags out of the Latin
grammars. The most serious problem in Europe was the
difference between the Continental pronunciation and ours.
For my part, I never did believe that Caesar said, 'Weni,
Widi, Wici.' People had the same sort of gossip. Half of
us were intermarried, anyhow, though I always thought
the Westphalian baron whom my sister married was un-
mistakably not from Eton. But it was all very comfortable.
If a man became Prime Minister or Chancellor or some-
thing of the sort, you had always known him for twenty
years at least. If he had needed it, he'd been groomed and
taught house-manners. Everyone knew where his money
was and whether he slept with his wife or made other
arrangements. Europe was civilised."
"It must have been very comfortable," said Grant, "if
you belonged to the comfortable classes."
"It was more comfortable for everybody. Working men
were abominably ill-paid, but I don't notice that they are
much better off now. The beer was better and so was the
bread. A German could grow a stomach and there was
still good cooking in France. You could buy decent boots
and honest cloth at honest prices. The Funds were steady.
There was English butter in England. We had wars but


112 ENTER THREE WITCHES
we managed them with a trifle more decency. There was
very little to say for us, perhaps, taken over all ... I
remember Manchester and the old East End . . . but we
made a better job of things than our successors."
"The fact remains," said Grant, "that you had succes-
sors. People were not entirely at ease in your world."
"We dropped the reins. Lost our nerve. Since the French
Revolution the people have wanted Napoleons, when what
they needed were gentlemen. The gentlemen are all dead,
anyhow. I'm old enough to have known their straggling sur-
vivors. There was something to say even for Napoleon.
He'd been trained to an honourable profession. But I
always remember that the other young men disliked him
at his school."
Grant nodded. "I suppose that a good many potential
Prime Ministers must have missed their chance before they
left Eton."
"Quite so. The old ruling caste in England knew its
members like the members of a family know one another.-
It was a great strength."
"But all that couldn't possibly survive," said Grant.
"And what'd you get out of your revolt of the masses?
Your men of the people? The blacksmith, the housepainter,
the spoiled priest. Until you educate your people to the
job, you'd better leave government to those who by educa-
tion or tradition can understand the need for general prin-
ciples, the need for law."
"You sound rather cynical," said Grant, "and very young."
She chuckled hoarsely. "That's the most ingenious com-
pliment I've been paid since I was forty-seven. And I was


WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT 113
still a good-looking woman at forty-seven, though you
would hardly suspect it now."
Grant did feel old beside Lady Bessie. His only belief
now was in the occasional startling goodness of all men
and in the general perversity of most. He had some faith
in the honesty and sense of common men, some even in the
honesty and sense of the great; it was a firm enough faith
in its way, but it expected little of either lord or com-
moner. Only one doctrine made much sense of man, the
doctrine of original sin. Yet when you had faced the worst,
you could be cheered by the best. He felt himself far less
of a cynic now than when he had expected more of men.
Humanity, on the whole, warmed the cockles of his heart.
It made such messes of things. It was Othello, not Iago,
more a fool than a knave. He had understood that in him-
self.
Lady Bessie cocked a brightening eye. She flourished,
evidently, on debate. She was almost skittish and her com-
bination of youthful resilience with the experience of sixty-
odd years was very formidable.
"What is Bergante doing here?" he said, pushing away
his plate and wondering why he had eaten so many eggs
unless it was under Lady Bessie's inspiration.
"Marie Beuil invited him. At least, she asked Warner
to fetch him."
"But why?"
Lady Bessie sniffed. "He must have information to sell
or to be stolen," she said.
"Had she met him before?"
"She certainly knew of him," said Lady Bessie grimly.
"And you knew of him?"


114 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"Yes, I knew of him."
"Well, I wish someone would tell me why I have been
dragged into this," he said gloomily.
"Marie Beuil wanted someone who could identify Ber-
gante, beyond doubt or denial. Bergante had been very
carefully covering his tracks. You were the only person
she could think of here in Rome who had known him well
and who could be trusted for discretion."
"Who wouldn't put any spokes in her wheel, you mean."
"You have your own brand of cynicism, young man."
"Where does Frances come in? Merely as an agent of
the Beuil?"
Lady Bessie flushed angrily. "Frances is not an agent
of Marie Beuil's."
"Well, what's her interest?" asked Grant abruptly.
"She has a strong and particular personal interest in
Seiior Bergante," said Lady Bessie; and there was an
unmistakable flash of tooth and claw.
"So she forms a working partnership with Marie Beuil,
but each for her own end. I see." Grant was sour.
"You form your judgments quickly, Anthony Grant."
"I've held them in suspense too damned long. I've started
thinking too late."
"What do you mean by that?" He had struck the old
lady's armour, but missed the chink, if there were any
chinks. She clanged and bridled for battle.
"I mean what I said. I've held my hand too long."
"Have you a hand to play? Are you sure about that?"
Her small eyes twinkled maliciously.
"Certain of it. Did you tear your trousers last night?"
"Did I . . . what are you talking about?"


WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT 115
'"Sliding down the ladder. Why were you eavesdropping
on Bergante's balcony?"
"Because I wanted to hear what Izinir was saying to
Bergante and what Bergante was saying to Izinir." She
flashed her teeth in a quick grin. "And if you think you
can startle any admissions out of me, young Grant, you
might as well know that I've had a reputation for the
vigorous offensive myself, hard-earned over fifty years, I'm
all for guerre <J outrance."
"And what do you think has happened to Bergante
now?"
"How should I know? He's in bed, I suppose."
"He was not in his bed at four o'clock this morning.
Didn't Frances tell you that?"
"How should Frances know?" But the lips had drawn
thin. "And why should she tell me?"
"I don't know why she should tell you, but she knew, all
right. She was doing a little housebreaking on her own
account."
"You seem to have been up all night, young man, unless
you were dreaming."
"It's beginning to seem like a nightmare, and a damned
nasty one, with repercussions."
Grant pushed back his chair and let that sink in. He
filled his pipe and, as he might have expected, filled it too
tight. He swore and began to pick at the tobacco with a
match. The old woman watched him. "Here, let me lend
you a penknife," she said, and reached for her handbag.
If he had been less annoyed, he would have laughed. The
penknife was more like a boy's claspknife, and wholly char-


116 ENTER THREE WITCHES
acteristic of Lady Bessie. It had, he observed, a screw-
driver and a corkscrew attached.
"Why did Frances tackle me on the Spanish Steps?"
"Because you usually loiter there in the evenings."
"How did she know that Bergante would come up that
way?"
"Because he always takes his exercise in the dusk. It's
safer then."
"Why should he take it in that particular line of march?"
"He had done it regularly for a week. He walks in the
back streets by the Borghese Gardens." She had some zest
of her own in answering his questions as bluntly as he put
them. Grant congratulated himself on his psychology. She
had probably prided herself all her life on being forthright,
and old habit is not easily broken, especially when a chal-
lenge is offered. Then he touched wood. He had usually
found that those moments when he was most satisfied with
himself were the moments before he put his foot firmly into
some idiotic mess.
"I haven't noticed him before. I was on the Pincio four
evenings last week."
"You usually moon about, and you seldom stay late
enough."
"So Frances was sent to hold me in conversation? And to
watch my face?"
"Oh, she enjoyed the conversation." The old teeth flashed
again. They were rather yellow. "Don't climb on your
stupid high horse."
"I haven't a high horse, only a medium-sized one. But it's
getting its back up," said Grant. "Who had been spying
on me?"


WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT 117
"I had."
"Oh, had you!"
"I had. I watched you on each of those evenings last
week until the desire for a dry vermouth overcame your
sentimental soliloquy on the Roman sunset. And I must
agree that the sunset is very good from the Pincio, usually."
"I'm sorry that I had not made your acquaintance," said
Grant. "We could have drunk vermouth together."
"We did. On Thursday evening, I sat behind you at the
Monte for half an hour. Personally, I think vermouth is
much overrated stuff."
"You don't happen to represent the Pinkerton Agency,
do you?" said Grant.
"Well, all my people were Diplomatic Service." Lady
Bessie was enjoying herself and, Grant had a nasty sus-
picion, at his expense.
"Lady Bessie, this may all have started as a comedy, but
it may take quite another turn. I think it would be very
much safer if you and Frances put your cards upon the
table."
"I've never been disposed to do a thing because it was
safer than another thing," said Lady Bessie, "and if you
thought this a comedy you were mistaken." She thrust out
a long, bony jaw. "It may have had some comic accidentals,
but they were accidentals. And I'd want to know about the
distribution of the other tricks before I put down my hand."
"What of Frances?" He believed that there might be
some appeal there to sentiment in Lady Bessie.
"She came into this entirely of her own will and at her
own wish."


WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT 119
She looked a tired, ageing woman. She had been making
up her face too, not with the nicest discretion. She looked
blowsy and raddled, much as barmaids are reputed to look
but very seldom do.
"Ah, there you are, dear people. I hope you are all enjoy-
ing your breakfasts. That was Irish bacon, frightfully diffi-
cult to get in Italy nowadays." She plumped herself into a
chair. She did not now resemble either of Grant's maiden
aunts in Cheltenham. For one thing, she was frightened;
and Grant had never known his maiden aunts in Chelten-
ham frightened of anything larger than a mouse. Grant
was frightened himself, but he wondered what had shaken
Marie Beuil.
"We were just talking about the gentleman from Greece,"
he said deliberately.
"Oh, yes, Mr. . . . what is his name? Mr. Warner's
friend."
"Emisolous," said Lecchino, "is the name."
"Of course, yes. But it isn't an easy name to remember,
is it? He has gone."
"Gone!" said Grant sharply.
"Yes. I think he only intended to stay the night. D<d you
want to meet him?"
"I wanted to meet him very much," said Grant.
"That is unfortunate. But perhaps Mr. Warner can ar-
range something."
"I hope he can," said Grant, and he meant it more than
he would have believed possible. But he doubted whether
Mr. Warner's influence extended into those dark and lonely
depths where Bergante was gone. . «


CHAPTER FIVE
Sunday Morning
That took them until
twenty past nine. At five minutes to ten Grant found him-
self standing again beside the lake staring at the blue depths
under the ancient walls.
Frances came to him there, and his thoughts had gone so
far that she spoke before he noticed her.
"Anthony!"
"Oh, hullo," he was shocked at the change in her since
yesterday. Her eyes were dark and her face drawn and
pinched. "Hullo, Frances."
"You were going to knock at my door this morning.
Lady Bessie says that you went for a swim."
"You needed sleep. Have you had any?"
She nodded, and then she smiled. "That was a lie, really,
that nod."
"I thought so. How do you expect me to take any pride
in your appearance if you stay up all night?"
"Do I look as appalling as that? I avoided the mirror
after one glance this morning."
"Frances," he said, "I want to talk to you. Earnestly."
Her lips trembled. "Couldn't we . . . just not talk? I'm
so tired of talking."
"I must know one thing. When did you last see Ber-
gante?"
"Bergante? He has gone, hasn't he? Madame Beuil told
me that he went early this morning."
120


SUNDAY MORNING 121
"Yes, but when did you last see him?"
She hesitated. "I think it was almost an hour before we
... before you turned on the lights near the staircase."
"Where was he?"
"Going down the stairs." Her face now was white and
frozen.
"How did you happen to see him? Were you wandering
about the house at that hour?"
"I'd been to Lady Bessie's room. I was coming out and
I heard a soft sound, like someone walking and yet trying
to be terribly quiet. I crept to the corner of the passage, and
I saw him."
"Were the lights on?"
"There was a dim light, a night light, I suppose, burning
on the landing."
"Who turned it off? It wasn't burning when I arrived."
"I turned it off when I went to his room. I thought I
might be seen myself, and I had my own torch."
"Yes, you had a torch. Do you always carry a torch about
with you?"
"Nearly always. Whenever I am staying in strange
houses."
"It seems a useful hint for travellers and week-end guests.
I'll remember it. You are positively certain that it was
Bergante who went down the stairs?"
"As certain as I could be. And his room was empty."
"How long was it before you went to his room?"
"Forty or fifty minutes. I didn't mean to go at first. But
I sat in my room, thinking and thinking. And then I went
out into the passage again. I thought I heard things moving
in the house."


122 ENTER THREE WITCHES
J
"That's not surprising," said Grant. "What did you think
that you heard?"
"Only the wind. The draught along those long corridors.
It's a horrible house."
"I'm beginning to agree. Are you perfectly sure that it
was only the wind?"
"How can one be sure? One imagines all sorts of things."
"One-certainly does. But try to remember any specific
sounds."
"I thought I heard a door close. I thought I heard people
whispering. I thought ... oh, I thought all sorts of things."
"H'mph. Well, anyhow, you thought the noises worth
investigating?"
"That sounds courageous. I didn't feel like that. I wanted
to get out of my room, more than anything."
"Why?"
"I don't know. Some of the noises seemed to come
through my window."
"I had grave doubts of my own window last night," said
Grant. "We seem to have a window-climbing population.
Though I, personally, should very much hesitate to play
follow-my-leader to Lady Bessie's mastership."
"She told me just now that you had seen her. Anthony,
what are you thinking of us ... of her, and me?"
"I'm trying not to think until I've sufficient to think
about. At the moment, I'm short on material, and heaven
knows* my mind needs to be fed."
"All that business at the Spanish Steps? Are you angry
about that?"
"I've had it out with Lady Bessie, anyway," he said
brusquely. "And I see something of a line through it. The


SUNDAY MORNING 123
Spanish Steps are not bothering me now, but Bergante is.
Pick up your narrative. You went out into the passage be-
cause you thought someone was outside your window, but
remembering to collect your torch. . .."
"I'd had that in my hand all the time," she said quietly,
"since I left Lady Bessie's room. I didn't think anyone was
really trying to get into my room. It was all imagination."
"Was it? Those whispering voices, did you think they
were in the house or outside your window?"
"Yes, yes, they seemed to come from somewhere outside.
But it could only have been the murmur of the wind. Some-
times it whistles round the house."
"I'll bet it does. But it was not whistling round the house
last night. How long after Bergante had passed down the
stairs did you hear voices?"
"Anthony, I don't even know that I did hear them. I
don't believe that there were any voices."
"How long?"
"A few minutes. I think it was only a few minutes."
"And you still stayed on in your room for some time after
that?"
"Yes, I ... it was something else I heard, thought I
heard."
"Footsteps on the terrace?"
"Yes, I heard those."
"What else?"
"It couldn't have been anything else. I was imagining
things, sitting there in the dark."
"This conversation would proceed a good deal faster if
I didn't have to repeat every question."


124 ENTER THREE WITCHES
Her chin went up a trifle, which was good to see. "I
thought I heard a woman crying."
"A woman crying?"
"Just once. Hardly a cry. Like a pitiful sob."
"Here," said Grant, "how far is your window from
mine?"
"Both our windows look out on the same path, except
that mine faces east and yours south. I suppose it is only
about thirty or forty feet, isn't it?" She looked at him.
"Why?"
"We probably share auditions as well as views. Why did
you think that it was a woman you heard?"
"Wasn't it? I can't believe that a man could sob like
that."
Grant, who had seen men torn and broken, who had seen
men beaten and huddled against bloody walls, who had
heard men scream with fear, shook his head. "It wasn't all
imagination if you heard it clearly enough to form an
opinion about its sex."
"I don't know what I thought then. It is you who are
making me think of it now. Last night, it could have been
a lost soul."
"Let me get the sequence clear. First, you saw Bergante
fading down the stairs. Then a few minutes later you
thought you heard whispers outside your window. Then,
perhaps thirty minutes later you heard something that you
now believe could have been a woman's sob, also outside
your window. It begins to suggest a coherent narrative. I'm
glad you heard that sob. I'd begun to think that perhaps
I'd been imagining things myself."
"Then you heard it too?"


SUNDAY MORNING 125
"I had a sort of impression of it. It woke me up." He
stared at her with a moody eye. Her narrative, in spite of
the protests, had developed sequence, a surprising degree of
sequence. Had she, by any chance, been outside his window
herself? "You're not wearing your slacks this morning," he
said.
She smiled at that. "No, why?"
"Oh, just an aimless venture of an idle mind. Well, after
these alarms, you made an excursion. What sent you to
Bergante's room?"
She bit her lip, and he thought for a moment that she
would refuse to answer, but the struggle resolved in his
favour. "I wanted to see his papers." She made a gesture
towards him and then she dropped her hands. "I know
what you must be thinking, Anthony."
"I wish that everyone," he said irritably, "would not de-
cide that I know more than I know and think more than
I do. What do you mean exactly by papers? Did you want
to go through his pawn tickets or his private correspondence
or his old dance-programmes or what?"
"His identification papers," she said.
"His passport and his police-card and that sort of thing?"
"Yes." She was a trifle defiant now. Apparently she had
decided that he must think what he would.
"Did you have any luck?"
"No," she said. "His bags were locked."
"You must remember to add a collection of skeleton-keys
to your kit," he said. That stung. It had been meant to,
though he felt a pig about it. "Now, what did you want
with Bergante's identification papers?"


126 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"I wanted to know," she said, and she sounded as if she
hated him, "whose passport Bergante had."
Grant was surprised. "He has a Greek passport, surely."
"I thought he might have another," she said.
"But passports don't grow on trees."
"No," she said, and there was bitterness in her tone,
"passports do not grow on trees."
He hesitated. He had approached now, he was certain,
the core of her mystery. But he was equally certain that he
had reached a wall of resistance. She would tell him nothing
more if he persisted in this direct approach. She would
revolt; and it would be a pity to lose the ground he had
painfully won. If she were bracing herself to refuse a direct
question, it would be better tactics to miss it out.
"How many bags did Bergante have in his room?"
She was obviously relieved and immediately expanded, as
people often will. He had counted on that. "There were two
bags, a large, old-fashioned portmanteau and a dressing-
case. The dressing-case was new and cheap, and the other
bag had fragments of labels pasted over it. He had tried to
scrape them off, I think, but there was one pasted over
initials on the side of the bag. I scraped that." She suddenly
checked herself. Her face was working.
"It is hard to believe that Bergante ever travelled with
anything cheap or old-fashioned," he said. "What initials
did you find? His own, of course, pasted over. But that was
indiscreet of him. Someone else might have peeled the
label. And if he could afford a new dressing-case, he could
surely afford a new suitcase, even if he had only escaped
from Spain with the first bag he could snatch."
"They were not his initials," she said, and her face again


SUNDAY MORNING 127
had a terrible white stillness. "It was not his bag. They were
my father's initials and it was his bag."
Grant's jaw dropped. Of all the things he had conjectured,
he had thought of nothing like this. He had been a fool.
He should have thought of something like this.
He did not intend it, but his voice was rough. "How did
you know of that when you went to Bergante's room? You
did know of it, didn't you I"
"I was not sure. I had to go to make sure. I had to go."
"Were you lying j ust now about his identification papers?"
"No, no. When I was in the room I wanted to find them
too."
"But it was the bag you went to see first?"
"Yes, I went to look at the bag." The steel had gone out
of her now, and she seemed pitiably tired.
"Frances, why, in the middle of the night, did it occur to
you to go and look at that bag?".
"Someone told me of it, someone who had seen it and
thought that it might be my father's bag."
"Someone told you that in the middle of the night?" he
said incredulously.
"He hadn't been able to reach me before, not alone. He
came to my window and climbed up to the little balcony,
and whispered, asking whether I was awake. Oh, I had not
meant to tell you all this."
"The man who sobbed?" he said, staring.
"No. The man whose footsteps you heard on the terrace.
He was walking away when I heard that dreadful sobbing
noise."
"Who the devil was it then?" he demanded.
"It was Flannagan. He had seen Bergante leave the house.


128 ENTER THREE WITCHES
He had seen the luggage carried in from the car, when
Bergante arrived. And he had travelled once with my father
in Spain."
"I see," said Grant. "I see."
But he wondered whether he saw enough.
Warner came striding down the steps. In the light of full
day he was bigger than Grant had thought, and a for-
midable-looking cuss. He had flat blonde hair and a bristling
little ginger moustache. His pin-striped grey flannels were
exactly right for the contemporary Sunday morning. He
might belong to the city, but obviously he golfed three
times a week, and exercised for his waistline, ten minutes
every morning before an open window, with careful count
and unfailing regularity. His digestion was probably fault-
less and one felt immediately that he could always be
depended upon for the right thing when the right thing
was sufficiently obvious. He was hearty but he was shrewd,
too, and possibly with more than animal cunning. He had
some suggestion of Bulldog Drummond, but that may have
been cultivated. Given three guesses, Grant was sure that
he could pick two of the fellow's clubs. He would drive
expansive sporting models but not with unnecessary uproar.
In war, he would sooner or later get his battalion. And in
peace or war he would usually get what he wanted. Grant
was impressed and a little surprised at the distaste he had
taken for the man. Generally, he got on very well with
hearties, and Warner was certainly a hearty. But there was
something more than heartiness in the eyes: there was cal-
culation there and something which could turn to craft.
He was simple, hearty now. "Hullo," he said, and then
inevitably, "hullo, hullo."


SUNDAY MORNING 129
"How do you do?" said Grant peevishly. He could have
thrown something at the fellow for interrupting just then,
and he had a vicious suspicion that the fellow knew it.
Warner's smile was militantly bland.
"There's mail for you in the hall, Grant," he said.
"It can wait. It always can wait," said Grant.
"Came up by a special delivery," said Warner.
"I arranged to have it sent on from my office," said Grant.
"Always like to get my letters opened and answered.
Writing fellows never answer letters, of course."
"If I get mail in the morning," said Grant stiffly, recog-
nising an occasion to stretch the truth, "I always answer by
noon."
"Must be very comforting to your correspondents." Grant
wondered that Warner did not drop his g's. Fifty years ago
he would probably have dropped his h's, as the eldest of
Grant's aunts in Cheltenham earnestly still did.
"It's a courtesy I affect," said Grant and was irritated that
he sounded such a prig. Like called to like, perhaps, across
the depths, because there was also an unmistakable if latent
shade of prig in Warner.
"You look very fit this morning, if I may say so, Miss
Frances."
She smiled amiably, too amiably for Grant. But Warner
was the sort of man that women like. He would always be
able to find a taxi and he would tip a little above normal;
he would let them pretend that they knew something about
wine, and he would always know somebody who knew
somebody who knew what they wanted to know. He was
probably very breezy at parties, the sort of man to make


130 ENTER THREE WITCHES
a party go. He would give them innocuous tips about the
stock exchange. Grant grinned at himself for going on like
a jealous schoolboy.
"I feel rather Sunday-morningish," she. said.
"I know. I miss my golf too." Warner was sympathetic.
"We could," said Grant, "go to church. They have
churches in Italy, you know."
Warner laughed. Perhaps he didn't believe it.
"Lady Bessie has gone to church," said Frances. "With
her Anglican prayer book. She prefers Anglican churches,
but she admits that it is possible to pray amongst the
Papists, when they keep still in their seats."
"Lady Bessie belongs to a world which still has a proper
respect for Higher Authority," said Grant, and he felt rather
warmly for Lady Bessie. She had given him the opportunity
to strike a superior attitude. Perhaps he was a little too
eager to strike superior attitudes this morning.
"Been a bit off Sundays since I was a boy in Scotland,"
said Warner. "I've a lot of sermonising to work off. I can
still hear the hum of bluebottles on summer Sunday after-
noons." He looked at Frances. "We could play tennis, if
you'll give me a point now and again." He laughed jovially,
and Grant resisted a temptation to kick him once, firmly,
in the pants.
"What about you, Anthony?" She turned to him. "Can
we gather a four? I don't feel horridly energetic."
"I," he said morosely, "am going to read my mail."
"Got to get all those replies off by twelve, eh, old boy,"
said Warner.
Anthony grunted and walked up the steps.


SUNDAY MORNING 131
He stared at the fold of notepaper. Bill Wild had never
written more than six consecutive lines at any one time in
his life unless as an imposition in his grubby days at Har-
row: and here was a fold of half a dozen sheets. Then he
opened them out and grinned: for Bill still ran to form.
Dear Tony,
The girl's probably Frances Cheviot. She was asking
about you the other week. She's a clinker. The missus
insists on writing about her. Vide encl. Good hunting,
if that's what you mean.
Yours ever,
Bill Wild.
P.S. She stayed with us at La Napoule lately.
Grant turned to the enclosure. He sighed. Plainly, Jane
Wild's romantic fancies had been started and when once
they were started no power on earth could check them until
somebody was happily or unhappily married.
Tony dear,
Your telegram excited us frightfully, especially Bill,
because he's an awfully romantic old stick as you know
and always trying to arrange other people's love affairs.
I tell him that people should at least be allowed to
manage sometimes for themselves, but when once he
smells orange-blossom, there is no restraining him. And
I must say he does it awfully well, going to weddings,
I mean. He looks frightfully smart in his topper, but
perhaps you've seen him.
Because it is a love affair, isn't it? I mean, your tele-
gram couldn't have meant anything less, could it? And
it's time you were, I think. Married, I mean. We've been


132 ENTER THREE WITCHES
frightfully curious ever since Frances was so curious
about you. Because it just must be Frances Cheviot. It
couldn't be anyone else. Or could it? I shall be fright-
fully disappointed if it is anyone else, and you had
better break it off at once and then I shall arrange for
you to meet Frances. But we can't even think of any-
one except Frances, so it is, isn't it? I mean, who's been
enquiring about you.
And she's a charming girl, and you know that I am
not often enamoured of my sex. And she is frightfully
intelligent, which is the sort of wife you need, don't
you? She speaks an enormous number of languages
too, I've forgotten how many, but I always envy her
frightfully when I go through the customs. It's so use-
ful to speak languages well, don't you think, with hair-
dressers and all those sorts of people.
She said that she wanted to talk to you because you
knew so much about Spain. You do know a lot about
Spain, don't you? She's been anxious about her father,
I think. He went to Spain, you remember.
He is Rupert Cheviot, of course. You must know
about him. Half the women in Europe dislike Frances
because she is not their daughter. And half of their sons
will detest you if you marry his daughter. The compe-
tition has been frightfully keen. When she was staying
with us at La Napoule, we had to more or less throw
them out in shovelfuls every night. Though Frances
isn't in the least a flirt. You can be quite, quite reas-
sured on that score. I've always thought she was rather
hard-hearted about her followers. But then she's not at
all like her father, and perhaps she reacted against it.
Don't they say that the children of drunkards always
detest drink?
He was a fascinating man, and I suppose he still is.
I haven't seen him for years and years, but he used to
give me a thrill, and you know how impervious I am
'


SUNDAY MORNING 133
to anything except Bill. He used to paint. Not Bill, of
course, but Rupert Cheviot. He was one of the first of
those painters that you can't make anything of. Of their
pictures, I mean. Lots of women thought they could
make something of Rupert Cheviot.
I think it was because he was so callous to them that
they liked him so much. Or perhaps he had other
moments which made up for that. I don't know, be-
cause Bill has been the one Love of my Life. They used
to say that he (Rupert Cheviot, I mean) left broken
hearts behind him all over Europe, but that was only a
sentimental way of talking. We've learnt better than
that now since all the psychologists and novelists and
people became so frightfully cynical. I should feel it
frightfully though if anything ever happened to Bill.
Why don't you both come and stay with us for a
week or two? You could see one another nearly all
the time then, and you know how frightfully tactful
Bill and I can be. Shall I write to Frances? If you like,
we could make it seem frightfully casual, and as if it
were quite an accident, both of you coming to stay at
once, because of course I don't know how far it has
gone yet, and you simply must write and tell me all
about it, or nearly all about it.
I do want to insist that Frances has not at all her
father's amatory disposition. At least, she may have it,
but only for the one man. I mean, she has not got his
roving eye. I don't believe that heredity has anything
to do with these things, do you? Of all the girls I know,
I think she is far the nicest, and we shall be terribly,
frightfully anxious to hear your news.
Dear Tony, good luck,
Yours,
Jane
P.S. What did you mean in your telegram about our
plumbing? Is there something wrong with it?


134 ENTER THREE WITCHES
P.P.S. Wouldn't it be too frightful if all this was a mis-
take and it wasn't Frances at all? I think I should cry.
P.P.P.S. I'm sure Bill would.
P.P.P.P.S. Bill says that I should have told you this in
the letter and I would have too if I had thought it im-
portant, but it didn't occur to me. Lady Bessie Robin-
son was here with Frances one day and she was very
interested in you too. But it couldn't possibly be Lady
Bessie, could it? I mean, she's frightfully old, at least
twenty years older than I am, and sometimes I feel
that I am getting quite old. Do you know Lady Bessie?
She was a cousin of Frances' mother, you know, and
everyone always said that she had been in love with
Rupert Cheviot herself, but that she was a perfect pet
about it when Rupert married her cousin. She just
went off quietly and lived amongst the Mayas or the
Incas. She wrote a book about them, their marriage
customs and all that sort of thing. It caused a frightful
scandal before the War, I think, unless I am thinking
of somebody else. Anyhow, she was frightfully fond of
her cousin as well as of Rupert, so she was quite con-
tent to go off and live in the desert for years and years.
Rupert was quite monogamous then, too, while he was
married to Frances' mother. It was frightfully sad,
I've always heard. Frances' mother dying, I mean,
though it must have been sad for Lady Bessie too. But
doubtless she found solace in sacrifice. It must be a
frightful sacrifice to live amongst the Incas.
I do wish that you had said more about the plumb-
ing. I'm quite worried now.
J.W.
Grant folded the letter thoughtfully. It was very like Jane
herself, repetitive, flourishing and somewhat ecstatic, but
still with a good deal to it.
v-


SUNDAY MORNING 135
Frances Cheviot, daughter of Rupert Cheviot. He re-
called what he had heard here and there of the man: of a
cynical philanderer, of great talents ill-used, of a man
familiar in all societies, from the highest to the lowest, and
wholly welcome in none. Cheviot was something of a
legend across Europe, a legend stained and soiled from
much mouthing in bars and smoking-rooms and cafes: and
torn, no doubt, by shrewish tongues in drawing-rooms and
dressing-rooms and about tea-tables. Grant shrugged his
shoulders. He was not given to judging men by the gossip
of their friends: he knew, as must all men who have lived
much in the world, what vices malice makes of human
foibles. Even the good love to speak scandal of their neigh-
bours, and a reputation may suffer less from what the
owner does than from the envy and injured vanity of his
friends. All the same, Cheviot's reputation had been fairly
purple. One could understand the reason for the pain be-
hind Frances' eyes.
There had been some good pictures and perhaps there
had been some good passages in his frolic of a life. And
perhaps it had not all been frolic. Jane's letter suggested
both a good passage and a bitter tragedy. There had been
Frances' mother and she had died. But it must have been
years before Frances was even born that Lady Bessie had
gone off to live, as Jane characteristically put it, amongst
the Incas or the Mayas. One could still recognise in the old
woman great capacities for love and hate.
She was the cousin of Frances' mother and she had
loved Rupert Cheviot. Grant paced up and down his room,
from door to window and from window to door. What had
become of Rupert Cheviot, and what did his daughter and


136 ENTER THREE WITCHES
a woman who had once loved him want with a Spanish
writer of short stories?
He turned and wrenched open his door, and he went
down the passage and across the landing above the great
stairs and towards Bergante's room. Two maidservants were
working in it.
"Has the baggage gone?" he said.
They looked at him nervously, wondering perhaps who
he was. "You can see, there is no baggage here," said one.
He looked into the room. It had been remade.
"Did he take his bags with him this morning?"
They looked at one another. "We do not know when he
went," said the one who had spoken before.
He swung on his heel and went to Flannagan's room. He
pounded at the door.
"Come in, come in," roared Flannagan.
The Texan was lying on his bed in his shirt-sleeves, with
his large feet in the air over the end of his bed. He was
reading a Spanish novelette. From the cover, its theme was
bull-fighting and romantic love.
"Hello, son," he said. "Like a drink?" There was a bottle
of Scotch on the table. Mr. Flannagan had not wholly
abandoned the customs of his people. "I'll ring for a set-up."
He swung off the bed.
"I can do without ice," said Grant, "and there's soda
here."
"I drink it raw," said Flannagan, subsiding again. He
half filled both their glasses. "Thanks for the pants last
night. If I'd met the guy who got off with my suit, I'd have
taken him to town."
"Your suit hasn't come back then?"


SUNDAY MORNING 137
"It has not."
"Things here do come and go. Flannagan, what's become
of Bergante?" He glared. "You knew it was Bergante,
didn't you?"
"I did." Flannagan grinned. "I guess he must've felt
nervous. He ran."
"When did he run?"
"Sometime overnight. The Madame's not pleased."
"You saw him go."
Flannagan looked up. "What d'you mean by that,
Grant?"
"Frances Cheviot told me."
"Sure, if she told you, that's all right, and I saw him go."
"But he wasn't carrying his bags, Flannagan."
"No, you're right, son, he wasn't carrying his bags."
"Did he come back for them?"
"Maybe he did. I couldn't wait up to see. I seem to get
sleepy round about four and five in the morning. I guess
I'm not as young as I was. Finish your Scotch and have
another. I don't like the stuff. You're doing me a favour by
drinking it."
"Flannagan, you were interested in that baggage."
"Sure, I was interested all right, if Frances says so."
"Has Bergante sent for it?"
"Not as I've heard."
"It's gone."
"Has it? Then he must have sent for it or come back
for it."
Grant gritted his teeth. "Are you quite certain that
Bergante has left the premises, Flannagan?"
"Me? I only know what I'm told. He isn't here, is he?"


138 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"Flannagan, how did you know Rupert Cheviot's bag
when you saw it?"
"It'd be hard to forget. I travelled with old Cheviot in
Spain. He was stuck on bull-fighting, you know. Sure
stuck on bull-fighting. And other things. He painted me
and a bull. He said it was me killing a bull, and maybe it
was. He'd sit at the courses and sketch. He wanted to fight
bulls himself when he was anyways drunk."
"You remembered his bag so well that you recognised it
again as soon as you saw it?"
Flannagan grinned. "I used to dig in it for my ties and
cravats. He'd borrow my ties and cravats. He was always
pulling off his own and leaving them behind him when he
went places. And, son, how he went places! He must have
had a lot of someone's money, the way he spent it."
"He was a wealthy man," said Grant, "if he'd kept his
money."
"There was a lot he didn't keep. I've spent money myself
in my time like most bull-fighters, but alongside old man
Cheviot we was just a bunch of pikers. He was always
losing that bag too. He was always losing everything except
his blasted paint box. If it'd been him who lost his suit
last night, I shouldn't've been surprised. I remember the bag
because I've hunted it twenty or thirty times. And from
listening to his descriptions of it until I knew them by
heart. He was a swell little gentleman, but he was a bloody
nuisance."
"I've heard a good deal about hjm," said Grant, "but
I've never thought of him as a swell little gentleman."
"It depends a good deal on how you take a man, I reckon.
He was a holy horror when there was women about and he


SUNDAY MORNING 139
drank like a fish and I've never heard anyone swear in six
languages all at once before and he was always leaving his
belongings behind him, but he was a Christian and a gentle-
man. Have another Scotch?"
"Is that why you're here, because you knew Cheviot?"
"That was the Madame's idea. She sent for me to find
out what I knew about him. You see, he'd been all round
Spain with me. He got me into more cafe brawls in eight
weeks than I'd been in all my life long. He was a quarrel-
some cuss. Yet it wasn't that his disposition was bad. He'd
give a stray beggar at a church door enough to live on for
a month. He could have the manners of a grandee. He
was a grandee when it suited him. But there was some-
thing gnawing at his vitals. Something that made him
drink himself sick and fight and riot and make love to any
woman he saw. He was afraid of thinking too much. Maybe
that's what made his painting so cock-eyed."
Flannagan leaned forward on the edge of the bed, his
massive arms across his thighs. "I've seen him take a knife
and slash one of his pictures to rags, when he was in a bad
way. He was in a bad way when he was sober, cold sober.
He had bouts of sobriety and then he did have the devil in
him. I often thought that maybe once he loved a good
woman too much. Frances' mother, maybe. But he never
let out a word of it, drunk or sober." He got up and
stretched himself, and Grant wondered what thing it could
have been in the dissolute English gentleman that had
struck so deep into Flannagan's sentiment. "Hell, have an-
other drink. He was a good scout."
"He has disappeared, of course," said Grant.
"Yeh."


140 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"Dead?"
"I guess he must be. The girl tries not to think so, but
I guess he's dead." Flannagan stared out of the window.
"If he was still alive, I'd hear the bloody uproar some-
where." Flannagan's voice was oddly moved. "A bottle
smashing against a wall, someone screaming, whistles . . .
aw, hell, take another drink, son."
This time Grant took another drink. "Was he an old
man?"
"Older than he should have been. Old and sick. But he'd
never admit to it. He was like a flame, burning out. And
if they killed him, then I guess he wasn't sorry to go. He
wasn't the sort to kill himself. There was too much life,
somehow, in the little man for that. But I guess the bul-
lets'd have sung him a sweet song."
"A broken gentleman," said Grant.
"A gentleman," said Flannagan. He swung from the
window. "Don't get a wrong notion. The little man was a
gentleman. And if he smashed things in cafe brawls, he
went to dinner in the best houses of Spain. And he'd change
his clothes, right down to the skin, twice a day. He might
be so drunk that he couldn't stand, but you'd never mistake
what he was. And he never forgot it himself. Even when
he set out to wreck a joint, you'd know it was only a gentle-
man with peculiar ideas of enjoying himself. It was a flair,
like fighting bulls. Maybe that's why we got on together."
"Did he ever talk to you of his daughter?" said Grant.
"I never heard him say a word about daughter or wife.
I never knew he had them until the Madame sent for me
in Paris. And maybe that's one of the things I mean when
I say that he was a gentleman."


SUNDAY MORNING 141
"Yes," said Grant, "it could be."
He lit a cigarette.
"Flannagan," he said, "what is Marie Beuil's concern in
this?"
"She's a friend of the girl's," said Flannagan slowly; but
in the tone Grant heard an echo of his own doubts.
"Is she?"
Flannagan moved uneasily. "I'm not sure about that . It's
worried me. I'm not much used to their sort of women. I
don't know what makes 'em tick. I don't know what they've
got in their minds. Sometimes, I reckon I don't understand
their language. But I can understand their looks." The
big man had been disturbed. Grant wondered what long
thoughts must have gone to the making of that speech.
"Marie Beuil is an important woman in her world and
her world is an important world. She has real power. I've
been thinking of her as something like a gigantic spider
sitting here in this house with her web stretched out,
stretched a very long way out. Think how she has drawn
us all together here, Cheviot's daughter and you who knew
Cheviot, I who knew Bergante, Bergante himself. What
has she in her mind, Flannagan?"
Flannagan's face hardened. "I could bear to know that,"
he said.
"What have these other people to do with it, Warner
and Lecchino?"
"I could bear to know that too."
"Did you talk to her last night? Did you tell her about
your suit?"
"I did."
"What did she say?"


142 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"She said, 'We shall have to see about a new suit for
Mr. Flannagan.'"
"She was against calling the police?"
"Yes. I knew she wouldn't have that, anyway."
"Why? How did you know that?"
Flannagan grinned. "It'd upset the household."
Grant stood up and flung his cigarette out of the win-
dow. "What is the connection between Cheviot and Ber-
gante?"
"The last that was heard of Cheviot he was staying with
Bergante in the hills. No one here has heard of him since.
No one here knows—unless Bergante knows." Flannagan's
hands slowly clenched.
"And didn't Bergante tell?" said Grant. "Didn't Bergante
tell before he died?"


CHAPTER SIX
Excursion to Rome
"He would have talked,"
said Flannagan, "if I'd had the handling of him."
"You know that he's dead then?"
"It was you who said it, son." Flannagan's face was like a
block of wood.
"When did you see him last?"
"Scuttling down the staircase on towards four this
morning."
"You didn't go to his room yourself?"
"I watched the main door while Miss Frances went."
"Patrolling the terrace? He might have got back some
other way."
"There wasn't another way he knew of unless he walked
up the wall."
"Yet someone got into the house by that service door
under the terrace while you were supposed to be watching,
Flflnnagan."
Flannagan grunted. "I didn't think of that. I'm a bull-
fighter, not a bloody cop. How'd Bergante have known
about that, anyhow?"
"I suppose you were going to hold him in conversation
if he returned," said Grant acidly. "Did you see anybody
else out there while you were communing with the stars?"
"No," said Flannagan. "I guess I didn't."
"Well, you threw a heavier fright into someone than
you've ever thrown into a bull, if it gives you any satisfac-
tion. Where did Bergante live in Rome?"
143


144 ENTER THREE WITCHES
Flannagan jerked at a drawer in his bureau. "You're on
the right side in this, Grant? If you're not . . ."
"You'll screw my neck. I know. Give me that address."
Flannagan passed a scrap of dirty paper with a pencil
scrawl, presumably in his own unformed hand. It was a
number in an alley behind the Corso Umberto. Grant
memorised it and passed it back.
"Good," he said, "if you see Madame Beuil you might
make my apologies. Tell her I've gone to lunch with some
friends at Valmontone."
He went downstairs at a run, and then he almost can-
noned off the man Izinir. Izinir was standing by the foot
of the stairs, and the fumes from his cigar were clouding
half the reaches of the hall. From above, his head resem-
bled an inverted alabaster bowl, of the pink and shiny sort.
He apologised to Grant though it was Grant who had
almost jumped on his foot. Izinir was a solid junk of man,
and not elegant, though he wore a silver bracelet, and
superbly pressed trousers, cream flannels with a bright
blue stripe. His skin was curiously soft, like a baby's, and
his eyes were very dark against it. Grant was surprised
that the man had apologised with such lush courtesy.
His overnight impression had been that Izinir was a boor
and rather proud of it. And then he saw, with fresh sur-
prise, that Izinir wanted to detain him.
"Mr. Grant," said Izinir, "have you ever earned in a
few minutes a large amount of money or have you always
been an honourable man?"
Grant smiled. "Well, I've never earned a large amount
of money in a few minutes. The rest of the question is a
trifle ticklish."


EXCURSION TO ROME 145
"Would you consider earning a large amount of money
in a few minutes?"
"And lose my tattered shreds of self-respect? How much
money?" Grant, like most journalists, had heard curious
propositions before, but none with such a direct approach.
Izinir sighed. "More than I can afford. But if you care
to let me explain, perhaps we could walk on the terrace.
This house has ears." He raised his voice a little. "Will
you smoke a cigar?"
"No, thanks," said Grant, following towards the door
and wondering whether this was to be a waste of valuable
time.
"These are very good cigars. They are green cigars."
"So I had noticed," said Grant.
They emerged into the sun, and Grant thought again
how shadowy the hall behind them was. But he took it
that Mr. Izinir had made certain that they were not over-
heard before he had advanced his quaint suggestion.
"If we stroll up and down here," said Izinir, "we shall
seem to be having only a pleasant friendly chat."
"I hope it is going to be a pleasant friendly chat," said
Grant.
"I, myself, hope that. Mr. Grant, I am a plain man, and
I lack finesse. I am always at a disadvantage with subtle
people. I am accustomed to say, 'How much?' or 'This is
my price.' I am a man who says yes when he means yes
and no when he means no."
"It must be very comfortable," murmured Grant, "to
be firm-minded."
"When I have a proposal to make, I make it clearly
and without ambiguity. You understand me? Good. And


146 ENTER THREE WITCHES
I am grateful for a direct and clear answer. If it is unfavour-
able, then I am content, and there need be no ill-feeling.
Every man must consider his own best interest. You under-
stand me?"
"Yes, I understand you," said Grant, who thought that
for a man of his directness, Mr. Izinir was an uncon-
scionable time coming to the point.
"I am an Englishman in that, I sometimes feel. I am a
great admirer of the English, Mr. Grant They are an out-
spoken, direct people. An Englishman's word is his bond."
"I'm sure that he would be very pleased to hear you say
so." Grant began to be annoyed. Had he only delayed to
hear this rigmarole?
"Consequently, I feel that the best way to deal with you
is to be completely frank. I offer to bribe you, Mr. Grant."
"Good lord," said Grant. This was frank enough with a
vengeance.
"I propose to offer you five hundred pounds." He was
watching Grant's face. Grant frowned. "I propose to offer
you seven hundred and fifty pounds, to be paid to your
private account in London or to any account you may
designate or to be paid by currency in hand within forty-
eight hours."
Grant wondered whether a sour grimace would have
raised the stake to a thousand. "Do I have to elope with
somebody or merely commit a murder?"
"You have to lay an information with the police."
Grant was really startled at that. He turned the phrase
over and looked at it again. "Lay an information with
the police? Did I hear you?"
"You heard me," said Mr. Izinir, and the corners of his


EXCURSION TO ROME 147
mouth twitched. He may have had a sense of humour then:
perhaps this was his idea of humour.
"Whom do I put on the spot?" said Grant.
"Does this interest you? Shall I continue?"
"By all means. Nothing pleases me more than getting
people into trouble with the police, at seven hundred and
fifty pounds a time. Or was it a thousand?"
"It could be a thousand," said Izinir, "but that is my
top. And for a thousand pounds, I shall require one thing
more, one small piece of information which is in your
possession."
"I'd no idea," said Grant, "that the odd clutter of my
mind could be worth tuppence to anybody. It just shows
that one should never despise the merest item of knowl-
edge."
"It will not require that you tell a lie or, to the best
of my belief, make any public appearance against the man."
"I see," said Grant, and jumped, for he did see. "YoU
want me to put the Italian police on to Bergante. Whew!"
"I congratulate you on your perception," said Izinir.
"As you remarked, an Englishman always comes to the
point. This is dirty work, Mr. Izinir."
Izinir smiled. "One does not easily earn a thousand
pounds for clean," he said. "But why need it trouble you?
He has broken the laws of this country, entered it and
lived here under an assumed name and with a false pass-
port. It is the duty of any citizen to denounce him."
"But I don't happen to be a citizen hereabouts. I'm one
of the outer barbarians, like St. Peter. Perhaps it's as well.
Look what happened to St. Paul. Anyhow, why don't you
denounce him yourself and save your cash?" The ques-


148 ENTER THREE WITCHES
tion was apt, and Grant hoped that Mr. Izinir would
exercise his well-known frankness in answering it.
"I am not an Italian subject, and I prefer not to have
dealings with the Italian police."
"Don't we all?" said Grant fervently.
Izinir waved an impatient hand. "You misunderstand
me. I have business associations and connections here
which I must be careful not to compromise in the slightest
degree."
"I'll bet you must," said Grant. "So, for that matter,
have I. I don't know anyone who treads more delicately
than a foreign correspondent in Italy these days. Every
time you blink your eyes, there's another gone across the
border. It reminds me of brave Douglas and his men, if
I've got the reference right."
"Who was Douglas?" said Mr. Izinir with suspicious eye.
"He may not be the man I mean. But I still don't see
why I should do your dirty work when you could easily
do it yourself."
"Not even for one thousand pounds, Mr. Grant?"
"Oh, of course, the thousand pounds. I was forgetting
that in the excitement of the chase. But why am I a
particularly suitable person for the job? Do I look the sort
of bloke who goes round pitching people into quad?"
Mr. Izinir showed his teeth, in what was, Grant decided,
a smile. "You are the one person here who has been
acquainted with Bergante in the past. You have already
been persuaded to identify him, haven't you?"
"Now what put that into your head?"
"Bergante knows that you recognised him the other
evening on the Spanish Steps. You were with the girl.


EXCURSION TO ROME 149
When he came here last night, and saw both you and the
girl ..."
"He looked a damned sight more startled at the sight
of you."
Izinir showed his teeth again. This time it was not a
smile.
"That is as may be, Mr. Grant. The fact remains that
these people have persuaded you to identify Bergante."
"You've been talking to him, then. He must have told
you this himself."
"What of it?"
"So that's why you take your exercise on ladders."
Izmir's eyes narrowed. "What exactly do you mean by
that, Mr. Grant?" Then he laughed, but not as if he were
much amused. "Ah, you saw me last night. I was talking
to Bergante from the ground, from the terrace here. He
was on his balcony there. He suggested that we finish our
conversation in his room. It is a long way round to walk
through the house and somebody has left a ladder con-
veniently near, so we laughed, and I said, 'Why not?' and
put it against the wall."
"Yes, I heard Bergante laughing," said Grant. "He must
have enjoyed it. Is that why you want him chucked into
clink?"
Izinir shrugged his shoulders. "I am not offering you
one thousand pounds and my private reasons, Mr. Grant,
but only one thousand pounds. Take it or leave it."
"What else do I do for the money?" asked Grant.
"Supply one piece of information. I can find it out, any-
how, but it will save me time and trouble to have it from
you."


EXCURSION TO ROME 151
know that this man was a Spaniard and not a Greek?"
Izinir played with his bracelet, and shook his head like
a tolerant school-master. "I am not paying you to ask me
questions, Mr. Grant."
"But they will pop up. You want to get him out of Italy
because in some way or another he is a damned nuisance
to you. He recognised you last evening and didn't much
like the sight. You recognised him, too, and didn't cry
out with joy. Wasn't your previous acquaintance mutually
profitable? He must be something of a thorn in your flesh
if you think it worth a cool thousand to extract him. And
your own situation in Italy must be delicate if you can-
not drop the police a hint yourself."
"You think too much," said Izinir. "It is an unhealthy
habit. What was it that Shakespeare said of Hamlet? I
seem to remember a phrase."
"'Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.' Are you
threatening me, by any chance?"
"My dear Grant, why should I threaten you?"
"I don't know. But people sometimes do. Perhaps I look
timid. But haven't I stated the case fairly? You can hardly
expect me to take your thousand quid and not exert my
intellect a trifle."
"Then you will do what I ask?" said Izinir, with just a
shade of over-eagerness.
"What was your previous association with him, Izinir?"
"I knew him for a distinguished man of letters. Like
yourself." Certainly, thought Grant, the fellow has a sense
of humour.
"I incline to agree that distinguished men of letters
should be handed over to the police without further ado,"


152 ENTER THREE WITCHES
said Grant, "but have you had as much acquaintance with
them as I've had? Unless your critical perceptions are
highly developed, you can't think his books sufficient rea-
son for throwing him to the hungry cops."
"You are making a jest of me," said Izinir. "I have
already said that I do not like that."
"It's only an Englishman's rough island habit. In the
English climate, there is nothing to do but to sit round
making fun. Gloomily. But I'm really in earnest now. I
want to know why we feed Bergante to the lions. Has it,
by any chance, something to do with his Greek passport?
And his beard? I've been worrying a lot about that beard.
It must have grown somewhere. As well as on his chin, I
mean. Of course, he could have grown it in Spain, but did
he have time?"
"What do you mean?" Izinir almost shouted.
"I don't know what I mean," said Grant, with perfect
truth. "I shall have to think about it."
"For the last time," said Izinir, who had stiffened per-
ceptibly, "will you or will you not do what I ask?"
"I'll have to think about that too," said Grant. "A thou-
sand pounds is a lot of money. I might go to the bad and
break the hearts of three maiden aunts in Cheltenham.
By the way, they'd be interested to meet you. They once
went on an excursion to Greece with the Panhellenic Asso-
ciation and saw the Acropolis by moonlight. Did you know,
Izinir, that Bergante had run?"
"Run? Run? What do you mean?"
"Well, he may only have walked, but he's gone. Very
far gone, I'm afraid. Boots, bags and horses. Boots, any-
how. I thought you might know about the bags."


EXCURSION TO ROME 153
"You mean he has left here?"
"I mean that he has not only left here but left without
saying good-bye. Or even being introduced. I wonder why
he wasn't introduced. That's another thing I must think
about. But he has unmistakably gone. And I am going to
look for him. I sincerely hope that I find him. But until I
do, perhaps we may defer this matter of handing him over
to the constabulary. I'm feeling shy of the very thought of
constabulary just now. And I'm willing to bet that I am
not the only bashful person hereabouts."
Without a word, Izinir swung and made for the door of
the house. Grant took time to watch him for a moment and
to light a cigarette; and then he scuttled for the distant
stables. He hurried but, he hoped, without too much the
appearance of hurry. He had no desire to promote an un-
toward interest in his morning's excursion.
The stables were eighteenth century and somewhat re-
sembled a French Town Hall, though the clock probably
kept better time than the clock of any Town Hall. But
within, was all the equipment of a modern service-station.
When Marie Beuil did things, she did them with formid-
able efficiency. It was one reason why he refused to believe
that Bergante had slipped, unseen, from under her redoubt-
able wing.
Her own cars stood on the further side away from the
others: an incredibly long blue limousine, a lean black and
bronze roadster, and a vast baggage van which presum-
ably transported her toothbrush, comb and serving-men
when she moved from place to place. He remembered hear-
ing that she always travelled by road. Her transport was
very magnificent: but then, wasn't it said that she had


154 ENTER THREE WITCHES
made a fortune with every stabilisation of the franc and
each revaluation of the lira? Why was a woman with such
weight of cannon spending her ammunition on Bergante's
little bumboat? Izinir perhaps offered more respectable
shooting. Was she gunning for Izinir then?
He backed his own machine and hoped that it had not
been embarrassed by the snobs about it. He swung into
the main drive, and let her have it.
This road took him through the village under the crags
and walls of the park. It was an amiable village, he re-
called, with memories of Horace and Suetonius and of
painters of the Roman schools; and with a pleasant restau-
rant overlooking the greater lake. Its houses were inclined
to lean across the street and the rather mean little church
had stones in it from a temple of Augustus, which Tiberius
had built in pious recollection. Somewhere here a Caesar's
mistress had coursed with hounds a pack of slaves, and
had raced her chariots on the mountain roads. The village
had seen a good deal of entertaining variety in human
nature.
It was being entertained now. Grant swore and jammed
on his brakes as he turned the corner of a precipitous
street and almost crashed into a roaring crowd which lined
the main route through the town. Three of the polizia and
twenty-five uniformed members of the local Fascisti yelled
at him with one breath and it almost blew him out of his
seat. Three dogs and eight children appeared from the
neighbourhood of his front wheels, grinning. He had,
apparently, almost achieved a holocaust. The uproarious
crowd took no notice whatsoever.
Grant climbed on the roof of his car to see what it was


EXCURSION TO ROME 155
all about. The local Fascisti were explaining, but they all
explained at once, and it was obviously simpler to find out
for himself. He had a difficult view over the crowd because
half the crowd had climbed on the other half's shoulders.
Every window was crowded and there was a storm of
waving flags and dust and general abandon: old ladies
hung perilously from balconies, waving violent scarves and
shawls, small boys bounded on the straining canvas of
street-shades, the parish priest and all his altar-servers were
on the steps of the church, an icecream fell with a dull
splosh on to the bonnet of Grant's car, and a party of the
military were suspended from the village fountain. Italy
was being entirely herself. Then a bugle blasted wildly,
and between the heads of the multitudes, Grant saw a green
cap go flashing past at somewhere about sixty kilometres
an hour, and then a red one, then a black, then a blue, then
a purple and gold, then a puce and crimson, and then
Grant groaned with dismay. He had barged into the Grand
All Round Italy Bicycle Race. He was stuck for a good
forty minutes, with not the slightest possibility of backing
out. It would be Use majesti, and anyhow, it could not be
done in this damned jammed corner, with the whole local
Party anxious to demonstrate authority and thirty-eight
children settled like flies on the car. They were probably
beneath it too, unscrewing nuts. So he soothed his fuming
temper and bought an icecream and was mildly grateful
that his late adventures in Spain had taught him the tech-
nique of waiting. They had chiefly consisted in waiting:
sitting about in cafes and on railway platforms and in the
dull foyers of hotels. And, to a man who loves humanity
or even takes a passing interest in it, an Italian crowd is


EXCURSION TO ROME 157
fifty years ago. He tugged at the bell-pull, but no bell
sounded in response. So he opened the door and walked
into what was apparently a human warren, the sort of
place from which the working masses are being emptied
into the new suburbs over the tracks; but the Housing
Commission still had to get round to this.
There were names painted on a cracking board, and
stained cards, but no directions to the quarters of M.
Emisolous, the gentleman from Greece. Grant sniffed, and
wondered how the fastidious Bergante had tolerated these
smells and the foul airs; but perhaps M. Emisolous had
known nastier things than smells since Senor Bergante
had died.
He found an old woman propped in a chair at her door-
way, where she could observe two flights and a landing.
She was like a withered twig, but her little eyes were like
the yellow eyes of a bird.
"The foreign gentleman?" she said. "On the ground
floor, the second back." And Grant was struck again by
the courtesy of the Italian poor.
"He is in?" said Grant.
"I do not know. One seldom sees him come or go." She
chuckled. "I am an old woman, and I do not see as well
as I used to see when I was young. And often I go to sleep
in my chair. And often I am not in my chair. I attend to
my room, I go to the market, my daughter comes to visit
me, I go to visit my sons."
"Of course," said Grant, feeling in some peril of her
life's history and thinking that the world was much the
same world everywhere. Allowing for differences of place
and race and money, she was very like his eldest aunt in


158 ENTER THREE WITCHES
Cheltenham. His eldest aunt washed herself more often,
perhaps. "He is a man of few visitors, too."
"His visitors do not need to ask for his room, one in-
fers," she said. "Probably, as you say, he has few visitors."
But he had had a visitor recently, as Grant saw a minute
later when he stared at a door which opened too easily.
The lock had been forced.
The lock had been forced and the drawers from a poor
chest under the window had been jerked out. The ward-
robe of cheap yellow pine was open. A suitcase in the
corner had been wrenched open. And behind the door were
the two pieces of luggage which Bergante had taken with
him to Castello Feroce.
They fitted the description, at least: a cheapish dressing-
case and an ancient and battered portmanteau. He dropped
beside it and turned it over. There were the initials on
the side, where a label had been peeled, an R. and a C.
Grant tried its lock. It too had been forced. He jerked
the bag open. Then he sat on his haunches and stared, for
stuffed into the top of the portmanteau were his own miss-
ing shoes. He threw them out on to the floor. A suit, a
dark suit, was rolled tightly and pushed into the bottom.
He hauled it out, and held up the coat in his hands. It was
a large coat, too large, surely, for the gentleman from
Greece. He turned back the collar and stared at a mer-
chant's tag, a merchant in Fort Worth, Texas.
He stared from the coat to his shoes and from his shoes
to the coat. He picked up Flannagan's pants. They were
still dampish to the knees.
Mr. Flannagan's best suit had been out in the wet.
There were other items in the bag: the kit Bergante


EXCURSION TO ROME 159
had taken with him to Feroce. Bu&in the room itself there
was pitifully little: an iron bed, and a wash-basin of
cracked enamel in a wooden stand, two ricketty chairs, a
cup and a plate and a saucer and a knife, all sour with the
remains of a breakfast at least two days gone. There were
three empty Chianti flasks in the room, dry bread in the
cupboard by the bed, a little pot < of rancid butter, stale
salami, three stark slices of cured ham, two chipped glasses.
Bergante had evidently done for himself during the days,
perhaps slipping out to some cheap dinner on his evening
prowls. He had done for himself poorly. Grease was
splotched on the floor and cupboard. The room was a long
cry from Bergante's elegant flat in Barcelona. It was oddly
pathetic and a little repulsive.
He looked at the ravaged drawers again and turned over
the few poor things that had been their contents. They
and the room bore all the marks of grim poverty.
But what had happened here? Was he wrong, and had
Bergante returned, after all, from Feroce? If so, then his
visit here had been a stage in a hasty flight. He must have
come back for something which he could not afford to leave
behind, and abandoned all these, the rest of his belongings,
lest they should somehow betray him as he fled. Yet what
had Bergante wanted with Flannagan's suit and his own
shoes? Grant shook his head. He did not believe that Ber-
gante had returned from the hills. Bergante was still at
Feroce.
Who had come here then in his place? Come recently
too, for the air was still foul in the room, though the
window stood open. Grant sat on the unmade bed, eyeing
with distaste the dirty sheets and the stained grey blankets.


160 ENTER THREE WITCHES
If he had not been delayed by the Race Around Italy, he
might have had an interesting encounter. Someone from
Feroce had got here before him. But who knew that he
was coming to Rome? Flannagan, of course: and perhaps
Izinir had guessed. But why had Flannagan, Izinir, or
anyone else bothered to bring back Bergante's bags? And
why were Flannagan's suit and his own shoes stuffed into
the portmanteau?
He lit a cigarette. He was not concerned at the possi-
bility of interruption. He would have welcomed interrup-
tion from someone or something tangible.
It was, of course, one way to dispose of the bags, by
returning them to Bergante's own quarters. Baggage is dif-
ficult stuff to get rid of, unless you have access to a fiery
furnace. They could have been tossed into the lake, but
that would have meant a special excursion to the lake in
the dark hours. The fellow who had sobbed and dripped
must have been reluctant to make another journey to the
lake. Whereas, if they were found in Bergante's own room,
as ultimately they would be found, the finder might
assume that Bergante himself had brought them back.
Grant himself had jumped to that assumption that Ber-
gante was alive and that he had left Feroce on his own
two feet, hurriedly perhaps, but still in good health. While
the theft of suit and shoes, apart from whatever use it had
already served, would suggest to an enquiring policeman
that Bergante was a cheap sneak-thief, a fly-by-night.
Even if nothing broke at Castello Feroce, sooner or
later the police must come sniffing here. Bergante's absence
and the shattered lock would be noticed, or the police
themselves would come to investigate an alien who had


EXCURSION TO ROME 161
ceased to report. They would find these few poor things
and items which must look to them like stolen goods. They
might press their enquiries, for the Italian police are sensi-
tive to the behaviour of aliens, but they would not think
the matter of vast importance. Ultimately they would shrug
their shoulders and gradually drop the matter, for even
Italian policemen are human, and they are hard-worked
men. An insignificant, friendless Greek subject would have
disappeared: and, incidentally, Izinir would have been
saved some trouble and a thousand pounds. Grant grinned,
and then he stopped grinning, for unquestionably Izinir
would have been saved some trouble.
Grant halted on that for a moment before he completed
the sentence which formed in his mind. Had Izinir been
really much concerned to gaol Bergante, or had he made
his curious offer to Grant because he wanted to establish,
in a reputable witness's mind, the notion that at eleven
o'clock on Sunday morning he still believed Bergante
to be alive and kicking?
For a minute, Grant wondered whether he was invent-
ing a phantasy; but then he looked at the outraged locks,
and solemnly shook his head. Bergante's keys had sunk
with him.
Frances had seen the bags in Bergante's room. Suit and
shoes must have been stuffed into them after her visit; and
then the bags carried out, before dawn, perhaps to a car in
the garage and hidden until the car could be conveniently
driven away and into Rome.
The bags then had to be brought into this house without
attracting curious eyes. Grant turned to the open window.
He leaned out, and he saw that the window provided a


162 ENTER THREE WITCHES
way of going and coming alternative to passageway and
doors. Bergante had chosen his room with an eye to its
tactical possibilities. One could step from the window on
to a wooden box, a gas-meter or something of the sort, and
thence down into a little yard which had access to a second
lane leading towards the Via Del Tritone. Grant grunted.
Bergante had not been much noticed in the passage be-
cause he could skip in and out here much as he pleased;
and whoever had brought home his bags knew it. But if
the bags had come through the window, why had the door
been forced?
Grant looked at it again. There were splinters of wood
near the lock and the soft wood had been crushed by some-
thing levered against the frame: a thin piece of steel, per-
haps, like a screwdriver or a small chisel. An amateurish
attempt had previously been made to pick the lock, and
from outside. He stooped and peered into the keyhole,
and then he found a match in his pocket and probed the
hole. A little piece of twisted steel tinkled on the floor. He
bent and picked it up. Someone was evidently more accus-
tomed to drawing corks than picking locks.
Two people had preceded him here, one who came
through the window, another who found it necessary to
force the door. Unless the bags had been brought first to
the door and then their porter had made his escape through
the window.
He looked again at the little screw of metal in his hand
and scratched his head.
He considered his shoes, and decided that he could
hardly take them to lunch; and he was certainly going to


EXCURSION TO ROME 163
lunch before he did anything else. Hadn't Napoleon said
that the Surete travelled on its stomach?
He climbed slowly through the window, looking care-
fully up and down and round and about. If this was Ber-
gante's customary route he might as well sample it: and,
in any case, he did not want to imprint his face on the
recollections of the beldame in her chair.
He reached the lane with reasonable assurance that one
might pop in and out like that a number of times without
being noticed; and then he considered where he should eat
his lunch. He found himself moved by a better idea: in-
stead of eating his own lunch, he would go and eat some-
one else's. He recovered his car and drove to Hawker's flat.
He expected to find Hawker in because Hawker had
played golf with him the previous Sunday and the Sunday
before that, and this must be his routine-turn to spend a
Sunday within call of the Consulate. Hawker was in, sit-
ting morosely in flannels and reading Italian comic papers,
which sometimes have their own peculiar interest for the
curious observer.
"Hullo," he said, "this is good of you. That's a conven-
tional courtesy. You probably want something."
"Lunch," said Grant.
"How much lunch do you want?"
"A lot. I don't come to lunch with you every day."
"We'll see what there is. I put it off as long as possible
when I'm here on Sundays, so that there will be something
to anticipate." He roared for his servant and told him to
treble the supplies. "Mr. Grant lives off the country," he
explained.


164 ENTER THREE WITCHES
They had a drink and then they had another and pres-
ently they had lunch: and they talked of this and that and
of their common acquaintance, with the amiable malice of
Englishmen; and Hawker told Grant what he thought of
the political situation and Grant told Hawker what he
thought of the political situation; and they canvassed the
prospects of war in the autumn as they had been doing for
weeks; and they both agreed that they were bored with
politics, for politics, like the English weather, should be
sworn at and then, if possible, forgotten. And Hawker pro-
duced some port which was very good and some coffee
which was very vile, for he held in coffee to the brutal
British tradition and to his father's percolator.
"What are you doing in Rome on a fine Sunday?" said
Hawker.
"I'm not in Rome. I'm spending a week-end in the Alban
Hills."
"It looks like an entertaining party."
"It is. Only I had to come into town for an hour or two."
"Your editor sitting on your tail at last. Well, I don't
blame him. Have you located your mysterious lady yet?
The one with bones and a contemplative disposition.
Sounds a bit like a plump young heifer."
"I have," said Grant. "She's a fellow-guest."
"At the house-party? Jove, that's fast work. Who's your
host?"
"She's a hostess. Marie Beuil."
"Good lord, how does a drivelling pen-pusher like you
get invitations from Marie Beuil?"
"She's very sensitive to the press. Hidebound officials
safely dug into fat Government posts—people in the Con-


EXCURSION TO ROME 165
sular Service and so on—may sneer at the press but others
abide our question. And the young lady took a fancy to
me. I will say that for her."
Hawker sniffed. "Marie Beuil is a queer kettle of fish.
Friend of yours, Grant?"
"Well, at the moment, she's the hand that feeds me.
Saving your Honour, of course."
Hawker sighed. "I suppose she feeds you damned well
up there. I should have gone into the diplomatic side. Here,
wait a minute! Why does my humble lunch interest you
when you could be gorging in the hills?"
"As I said, I had to come into Rome. And I'd much
rather eat your lunch than pay for my own."
Hawker grunted. "You've an ulterior motive up your
sleeve somewhere."
"It was reasonably good veal," said Grant dreamily, "and
the port was excellent. You'll have to do something about
your coffee before I come again, but I shall come again.
There's a bloke named Warner at the Castel'. Big, bulking
Englishman with fat hands and rather haw-haw. Sounds
a bit like you. He'd have a long, clean drive and he can
probably putt. He has a putting sort of eye. He'd always
beat you and when he beat you, he'd insist on buying the
drinks. He'd insist a little too much. In fact, he's a little
too much altogether. He's a little too much public-school
and a little too much something in the city and a little
too much three clubs that I could mention and a little too
much Scotland in August and guns amongst the grouse
and all that. I'm beginning to wonder whether he's
authentic."
"I've got him," said Hawker. "He went round the other


166 ENTER THREE WITCHES
day in eighty-four at Acqua Santa and apologised because
he was off his game. He's been to us once or twice about
things. He's some kind of insurance chappie."
"Insurance?" said Grant.
"He investigates claims and that sort of thing. Acts for
some of the London and Paris houses."
"A sort of enquiry agent?" said Grant.
"If you mean a glorified private detective, no. He's a
lawyer, I imagine. Probably quite a big pot in his line. I
think he's been investigating some of the Spanish shipping
cases. Quite a lot of money's been involved, you know, in
various claims for ships sunken or stolen or gone astray."
"Yes," said Grant. "Yes, of course." He shook himself.
"Quite a lot of money, I suppose."
"Quite a lot of money," said Hawker.
"Whose money?" said Grant.
"Oh, the insurance johnnies' money, if the claims suc-
ceed. Or the shippers' money or the Spanish Government's
money or ... by gum, where did I hear that?"
"Where did you hear what?" said Grant.
"Did you say that Warner was staying up at the Beuil's
place?"
"Yes, and if it adds anything to your collection and
spurs you to further agitation, so is Izinir, who owns a
tribe of ships, unless they've all been posted to Davy Jones
or General Franco."
Hawker stared. "Hell's bells," he said, "are you going to
make a story out of this, Grant, for your blasted paper?"
"It seems to be making a story out of me," said Grant,
"only I can't discover yet whether I'm the romantic hero,
or Sherlock Holmes, or just the amiable dolt who wanders


EXCURSION TO ROME 167
round getting into people's way and dragging all the red
herrings after him."
"What I mean is this. If I say what has just come into
my head, shall I read my words in print the next time I
pick up your bleeding rag?"
"You won't read your words in our print," said Grant.
"Ours is a respectable newspaper. Its proprietors are re-
spectable, its editor is respectable, and only its advertise-
ments are low. You may take it for granted that anything
you say will be treated with the utmost discretion and
propriety, unless, of course, it's news."
"I was thinking," said Hawker, "that somewhere or
other, somehow or other, in this or those circumstances, I
heard that Marie Beuil had been mixed up with Spanish
cargoes. There has been money to make, you know."
"Got any data on it?"
"Not offhand."
"Could you get any?"
"That would depend a good deal upon who wanted it
and why. A consulate is not a general information bureau."
"Any chance of screwing it out of you if I weep on
your doorstep?"
"Doubtful."
"Would you commit an indiscretion if I got you drunk?"
"I should first have to get the information, anyhow.
Who else is up there?"
"Well, there's the girl and Lady Bessie Robinson. . . ."
"Lady Bessie Robinson! Blue blazes!" Hawker swung
out of his chair and reached for the port.
"You've described her very well," said Grant.
"Then the girl must be Frances Cheviot. It is, eh? WelL


EXCURSION TO ROME 169
... a literary man, Hawker, would have said from the
Caspian to the Caribbean." Grant was actually a trifle ex-
cited, but it might not do to let Hawker notice that. "He
must have been killed in Spain."
"Oh, must he!" said Hawker. "Then perhaps you can
explain why the Spanish authorities — the late Spanish
authorities — had a record of his departure from Barcelona
in January of 1938."
"Do you mean that?" said Grant, his excitement break-
ing through.
"He left, all right. But the difficulty is that he has not
arrived anywhere since."
Grant sank back. "I'll have another port, too. What do
you mean? That he walked out of Barcelona into noth-
ingness?"
"Damned like it, anyhow. Our people in Barcelona
looked him up quite early in the show. They found him,
and he said that he was very comfortable. He was going
off to stay with a friend of his . . ."
"Fellow named Bergante?" said Grant.
"Here, how much do you know of this?" said Hawker
suspiciously.
"Not as much as you, I hope, are about to tell me."
"Grant, if you're up to tricks, I'll have your blood."
"Save your irritation for the office-boy and tell me about
Cheviot. He went up into the hills. We'd got that far.
My information is that he never came down again, unlike
Jack and his girl friend, Jill."
"We're not acquainted with them at the Consulate. Prob-
ably they weren't British subjects. Cheviot came down all
right, or at least his passport did. It was inspected at


170 ENTER THREE WITCHES
Barcelona and he was issued with a permit to depart. And,
apparently, he departed."
"Who checked his passport?"
"The officers on duty, presumably."
"Experienced men or appointments of the Barcelona
regime r
"People in authority, anyhow. I suppose that they were
recent appointments."
"Did they keep any details of the inspection?"
"His name and occupation, nationality, and the number
of the passport. There isn't much doubt that it was his
passport, Grant."
"Yes, but was it Cheviot? It wouldn't be difficult to
substitute one passport photograph for another if the writ-
ten descriptions sufficiently tallied."
"The photograph is stamped."
"I could manufacture a stamp in an hour."
"You think that someone else got away on Cheviot's
passport?"
"It's a possibility, surely, especially with things as they
then were in Barcelona."
Hawker grunted. He had an official faith in the inviola-
bility of passports. "Oh, maybe."
"Did Cheviot go near the Consulate at Barcelona to
report himself or check through or ask for assistance?"
"Not even to eat the Consul's lunch. He appears to have
gone through Barcelona at the double. He told the Span-
iards that he was taking ship for Marseilles. Possibly he
did. My own notion is that he got a ship that same night
bound for Alexandria, Smyrna, and points east. But, as


EXCURSION TO ROME 171
far as our people have been able to discover, he has never
reached Marseilles, Alexandria, Smyrna, or points east,
west, north or south."
"Perhaps he fell overboard," said Grant, "or was pushed."
He felt for his pipe. "The Spaniards didn't have any note
of his departure?"
"It was well on in the year before anyone bothered to
ask. Perhaps there had been a note on some embarkation
forms, if they had troubled to keep former forms, but by
the time that our people began to make fresh enquiries,
the collapse had come, the officials were on the run, and
most of the offices had been burnt."
"Anyhow, if he'd had a bit of money in hand, he could
have bought his way out. Especially on a ship bound for
Smyrna and points east. But why did he? Unless he
wanted to disappear. Why should Cheviot want to disap-
pear? After all that time in Spain, you'd expect him to
be yearning for his own hearth and home and a hot-water
bottle."
"People do these things," said Hawker. "Perhaps they
get tired of themselves. Or, as you say, he could have fallen
or been pushed into the ditch."
"It looks, much more, as if the man who presented the
passport wasn't Cheviot at all, but someone who used his
passport to get out of the country and then disappeared
somewhere along your points east."
"How could he do that without another passport?"
"How many people get into Palestine every year without
passports? And how many of them do our very efficient
coppers catch? And it is possible to acquire a false pass-


EXCURSION TO ROME 173
but that he may go on from success to success. My particu-
lar worry is that I do not know which garter holds the
stiletto, so to speak. I may ask the fellow in for an inno-
cent drink, I may even be making love to the lady on the
terrace, and whish, before you could say Jack Robinson
I am eyeing the Recording Angel with an embarrassed air.
I wonder if Jack Robinson, by the way, is any relation
of Lady Bessie's."
"Do you mean that someone has been punctured with a
stiletto?" Hawker's eyes were very narrow.
"I don't know yet. I haven't seen the corpse. The stiletto
was by way of being a figure of speech. Hawker, if I spill
a few beans, will you refrain from gathering them in a can
and taking them to the police?"
"If your house-party is sprouting corpses," Hawker moved
restlessly, "you'd better go straight to the police yourself."
"I haven't any concrete evidence. Not much, anyhow."
Grant rose. "Only a man who isn't there, and an iron bar
that isn't there, and one or two things like that. Things
have an extraordinary habit of going missing at Feroce.
First a suit, and then a pair of shoes, and then a step-
ladder, and then a man, and then some sun-blind cords,
and then an iron bar. The suit, the shoes, the stepladder
have all reappeared. I'm rather horribly afraid that the
man is going to reappear and perhaps the blind-cords and
iron bar."
"You realise, of course, that this makes no sense to me
whatever," said Hawker.
"That's how we'd better leave it. I haven't said enough
to compromise your official conscience. You don't feel an
overwhelming urge to rush off to the police, do you?"


174 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"I feel a very strong inclination to rush you off to a
psychiatrist."
Grant ignored him. "But if anything does happen, you'll
be able to put one and one together to make two, perhaps."
"If anything happens to you, you mean?"
"If I took cramp, for instance, while I was swimming in
a lake. Or if, after several months of indifference, you
looked up and noticed that my chair at the club had been
unoccupied for all that time."
"Is this some blasted story you are inventing?" Hawker
was watching him and there was an odd look in Hawker's
eyes.
"I hope so," said Grant, "I fervently hope so."
"I could probably afford to drop the responsibilities of
office for about two minutes," said Hawker, "and go into a
doze. If you are really feeling the need of a prophylactic
against bogies, you could fool about in that third drawer.
But don't let me see you."
Grant opened the third drawer in Hawker's desk. Under-
neath two worn ties, a collection of old accounts, and an
empty ink-bottle, there was a neat brown-leather holster
for an automatic pistol.
"No, thanks," said Grant. "It might go off. And what I
really need is more in the nature of a lifebelt, I imagine."
His eyes warmed a little. "That was very decent of you,
Hawker. I'd thought that you were actually taking me for
a lunatic."
"So I am," said Hawker, "but you're sometimes an enter-
taining lunatic and I shouldn't like to lose you from the
golf-club. You're the only member I can be sure of licking."


EXCURSION TO ROME 175
"Strange, what tricks the human memory plays," said
Grant.
"I'm really rather relieved that you're not taking the
pop-gun," said Hawker. "They do sometimes damage peo-
ple. It would certainly damage me if you started potting
people off with my weapon. I gather, Grant, that you
don't want me to know any more just now."
"Take it, unless you have deplorable evidence to the
contrary, that I am a lunatic, a lover, or a poet, and of
imagination all compact."
"And if they bring your body on a litter?"
"You know where I've been spending my last week-
end. Recall the missing suit, the missing shoes, the miss-
ing ladder, the missing man, the missing cords, and the
missing lump of iron. And didn't I say something about
lifebelts or water-wings? You pop along to the police and
babble all that. You can say that you didn't take me seri-
ously at the time . . . you don't, do you? And send my
regards to my editor. Tell him I died unwillingly but, on
the whole, well. I can't say that I feel very well at the
moment, but perhaps my spirits will rise before the end."
"I don't like this, you know," said Hawker.
"Neither do I."
"If I didn't know you had such an extraordinary capacity
for pushing your nose into other people's affairs and get-
ting it away unbattered, I should take some action."
"We have quite enough action at the moment, without
you starting the slow and cumbrous processes of official-
dom in motion. Anyhow, I bet you can't think of what
action you could take if you would take action."


176 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"That," said Hawker, "is the difficulty which has con-
fronted me these last ten minutes."
"Good. You can consider it while I'm away. You said
that Warner was an insurance cove, didn't you?"
"Yes. Why? Thinking of taking out a policy while
there's time?"
"It may be a notion," said Grant.


CHAPTER SEVEN
The Portrait
Grant reached the villa
again in the late afternoon, when the hills already had
their sharp evening definition against a limpid sky. He
garaged his car and counted its companions: Marie Beuil's
collection, a lean French sports-model which looked like
Warner, an aged and rakish Bentley with a British regis-
tration and an irresistible suggestion of Lady Bessie, a
new Fiat which might belong to Izinir; a second sports-
model with a Roman registration which he took to be
Lecchino's. They were all there: they had all been there
this morning, except Lady Bessie's, which had presum-
ably taken her to church. But which of them had since
been on the road?
A detective would, of course, have checked the mileage
on the speedometers at morning and at evening; or he
might have compared the dust on the tires with the dust
of Rome. He might even have asked the chauffeur who
was leisurely polishing the bodywork of Marie Beuil's
roadster. But Grant was weak at speedometers and all he
knew of Roman dust was that it made him thirsty, though
one imperial blob of it had possibly stopped a hole to
keep the wind away, if Shakespeare was to be credited.
Grant felt diffident about chauffeurs. They are a suspicious
race who talk a language of their own. They sometimes
report matters to their employers, too, and Grant was not,
at the moment, eager to seek a bubble reputation.
He walked on up to the house, curiously quiet now in
177


178 ENTER THREE WITCHES
the lovely light of afternoon. Bees buzzed drowsily in the
cups of flowers and bright dragon-flies flitted by the paths.
The sun shone with a golden light on the mellowing
walls, and Grant thought of an ancient house in Somerset.
The heavy scents in the garden might have come from
English phlox and lavender. He wondered vaguely if
there would be cream and honey for tea.
But this afternoon there was no tea. The long terraces
were empty, without their summery shades, bright tables
and chairs. The great door of the house stood open, but
already the hall was shadowy. He came into it and looked
about: he looked into the lounge and then he looked into
the library. They were deserted. It might still have been
the hour of siesta. It might even have been that house
in Somerset on a lazy Sunday afternoon. But never, in
Somerset, had he felt the sudden chill of loneliness which
he felt now, standing by the library door.
This house had other household gods.
He walked down the length of the library to the tall
windows which overlooked the terrace. They were of deep,
stained glass, and the light fell in pools of red and purple
on walls and floor. He was interested in his own reac-
tions at this return to the house. Driving from Rome, he
had come back to much of his normal self. The familiar
levels of the Campagna, the friendly faces of people, the
Sunday traffic of cars and bicycles and cheerful peasants'
carts, of families in trucks, and fathers pushing prams, and
people singing in the wayside cafes had all reduced him
to his customary ease with the world. The proceedings
of the recent hours had seemed something of that phan-
tasy which Hawker had suspected. He had even begun


THE PORTRAIT 179
to wonder whether his imagination had exaggerated the
testimony of his senses, and whether he was not engaged
in the questionable operation of turning molehills into
mountains. But now, as he re-entered the house, its mood
came in on him again, flowing like a tide in all the courses
of his being; and he knew that whatever thing it was
that lived in this house, it was immeasurably and horribly
remote from the cheerful and commonplace world he had
left behind on the sunlit roads. Houses have their own
genius. He had never entered that house in distant Somer-
set without the belief that there men had lived decent and
contented lives. But this vast place amongst the Roman hills
was possessed, for all its sunny walls and sweet gardens,
by another spirit. One felt it now as a presence, as more
than a presence, as the medium in which one lived and
had one's being. One belonged to it as one belongs to the
air one breathes: it invested one, it entered one, it passed
into the blood-stream, into the dark caverns of life, its
essence crept into one's brain and along one's nerves, it
influenced thought and will.
His hands were sweating a little, and he knew that he
was afraid. He turned sharply, to break by physical action
the queer spell; and Marie Beuil was looking at him from
a wall of the room.
He might have glanced at that picture a hundred times
without realising its subject. Only perhaps in that mood
and in that light would he have known it: and even now,
as he looked, the likeness went out of it. But it did not go
from his mind. He had recognised it with startling certi-
tude, like the flash of an illumination.
He stared at it for a long time. It was a queer, distorted


180 ENTER THREE WITCHES
piece, done in the first green days of the futurists. A woman
by the wall of a house, a drooping tree, a calf, a lamb,
a kitten playing at her feet, symbols of young life. They
were angular and elongated beasts, and the house and the
tree leaned on one another in an inebriated lurch; the
colouring was vicious, and the line execrable, even for an
experimentalist of the period; but the woman was painted
with vicious realism. It shocked Grant, at least, to see so
presented a woman whom he knew. He wondered why she
cared to hang it in a public room of her house: and then
his eyes turned to the face again. Who would ordinarily
recognise it? Something in the eyes had caught his atten-
tion, something which people did not often see in the
veiled eyes of Marie Beuil; but Grant had his own curious
knack of recalling a face from some single feature or ex-
pression. It was a strange expression for a woman as young
as the woman in the picture, a woman in her state. But
he saw now in the painting what he had seen last night
when Marie Beuil had looked at Frances, looked as if
she saw someone else sitting here in Frances' place. Had
she looked once like that at the artist? Grant knew who
the artist was before he glanced at the bold initials: and he
wondered what that look had meant to Rupert Cheviot
that he should have caught it so well in pigments. She
must have been a strange woman then, in her twenties.
Perhaps Cheviot had painted her and fled. In the picture
she already foresaw his flight.
Grant walked, strangely moved, up to his own room and
threw open the window. The evening sun was streaming
now in red on the dark hills. The ancients would have
found an omen in that bloody sunset.


THE PORTRAIT 181
Below, on the terrace, a man came walking. His stick
was tapping on the stones, tapping quickly and nervously,
as if he could not restrain his hand. And after him, walking
at a distance, came Warner. He came like an actor from
the wings on to a stage. He made a good entrance. Grant
wondered in what role.
Izinir halted, his stick at rest. He too had a suggestion
of drama. He awaited Warner, and Warner came on, until
the two men stood face to face. Warner was smiling, but
Izmir's back was turned on the house. Grant thought for a
moment that he would not hear the dialogue; but then
he realised that they had been standing in silence, for
Izinir's voice, raised suddenly, came clear on the still eve-
ning air.
It was raised in a note of vindictive passion. "What have
you done with Bergante?" he said.
Warner answered him with his own words but in an
even tone, more deadly than Izinir's. "What have you
done with Bergante?"
"He has not returned to Rome," said Izinir harshly.
"How do you know that?"
"Do you think I am a fool?"
"No, I have never made that mistake," said Warner, still
smiling. "So it was your agent that you telephoned last
night?"
"In the company I keep, it is necessary to take precau-
tions."
"Bergante was my witness, Izinir. If you have corrupted
him, there will be trouble for you. Was Bergante fool
enough to give you his address when you were having your
acrobatic interview last night?"


THE PORTRAIT 183
arms. "Unless he has taken fright and bolted on his own
initiative. What did you say to him last night, Izinir? Did
you scare him off?"
"Is this house filled with spies?" said Izinir.
"My dear chap, if you will climb ladders, you must ex-
pect to be noticed. Why did you climb a ladder, anyhow?
Because you did not want it to be known that you had
talked with Bergante, and because Signor Lecchino was
on the stairs?"
"Naturally," said Izinir, with that admirable directness
which Grant had already approved. "You bring this man to
the house and you confront him with me. Then, though
he was to have been introduced to us all, he is bustled off
to bed. It is perfectly clear to me that you brought him
here because you yourself were not satisfied with his testi-
mony. You wished to question him again, after he had
seen me here as a guest in this house and obviously ac-
quainted with you. Is that not it, Mr. Warner?"
Warner laughed his cheerful, booming laugh. "Well, I
don't put a witness in the box unless I am satisfied about
his story. If Bergante has been lying, you should be grate-
ful. I'll be frank with you, Izinir. I haven't been wholly
satisfied with him, but the man is damnably clever with his
tongue . . ."
"Words have been his trade," said Izinir.
"He'd stuck to his story very well. If his story is true,
you lose your claim. But we are not out to pick your
pocket. Neither I nor my principals are going to cheat you
if your claim is valid. The evidence hinges mostly on
Bergante. Is he lying or is he not? I haven't been satisfied
that he was telling the truth. Trouble was, that I couldn't


184 ENTER THREE WITCHES
trip the blighter. Last night's scene was my final resort.
Now I've washed my hands, anyway."
"And Madame Beuil assists you to stage this litde
playlet?"
"Madame Beuil has an interest, as you know very well."
"And you patrolled the grounds while Lecchino sat on
the stairs, to prevent me having any conversation with
Bergante?"
"Any access whatsoever," said Warner cheerfully.
"In other words, you were hoping not only to frighten
Bergante, but to alarm me by his presence. To alarm me,
perhaps, into a settlement out of court, by demonstrating
that you were not only in contact with Bergante but had
him more or less under lock and key."
"That makes it all sound a bit sinister," said Warner.
"Bergante was what would be called in America a material
witness."
"I am not often frightened into settlements out of court,
Mr. Warner, even when I am confronted with a material
witness." Mr. Izinir chuckled. "And I am not easily kept
from a room when I wish to enter it."
"You diddled us there, all right." Warner sounded almost
amiable. "I hadn't really thought of you climbing through
the window. You look a bit ponderous for that sort of
thing. But we had thought that Bergante might climb out.
He was a pretty startled rabbit, and rabbits can run. Why
did you take your evening pumps off to climb the ladder,
though?"
"I didn't," said Izinir.
"Then whose were the shoes that I found on the terrace?
Somebody else was pussyfooting, eh?"


THE PORTRAIT 185
Izinir did not seem much interested.
"So Marie Beuil is sufficiently interested in Spanish insur-
ance to arrange this little house-party," he said.
"Marie Beuil is interested in anything which has the
authentic ring," said Warner, "from a sou to a guinea
piece."
"This little matter of mine is not the only thread she is
weaving," said Izinir.
"Maybe not. But it is all that concerns me," said Warner.
"It would help a good deal if you told me what you said
to Bergante and what Bergante said to you."
"Possibly it would. One thing he said to me, Mr. Warner,
was that he had been very reluctant to come here to
Feroce."
"He was a trifle shy."
"So. But you gave him the alternative of coming here
and receiving help or of being recognised, shall we say, by
some inquisitive member of the police."
"Not at all," protested Warner indignantly. "The man
has been promised nothing more than his witness' fees and
his expenses. As far as the police are concerned, we merely
reminded him that he must not lose contact with us, and
that if he did, we should have to find him."
"There are ways of putting things," said Izinir. "But
now perhaps you will explain what has become of him.
Did you achieve your purpose with him, and have you
now spirited him away so that he cannot be interviewed
by my . . ." he paused.
"By your lawyers, let's say. No, I haven't. To the best
of my belief when I awoke this morning, Bergante was in
his bed. It is from you, Izinir, that we want explanations.


186 ENTER THREE WITCHES
Bergante's disappearance is not in any interest of ours. But
his presence might have been very uncomfortable for you."
"Hi!" said Grant from his window. He had been grow-
ing more and more curious at the publicity they were
giving one another. "Is this a private conversation or can
anyone join in?"
They both looked up. "We didn't know that you were
listening," said Warner on a frozen note.
"Didn't you? What'd you expect me to do? Block my
ears? And what did you do with my shoes, Warner?"
"I brought them in and put them in the cloak room off
the hall. Where the dogs and the peasantry couldn't get at
them. They're your shoes, are they?"
"They are. What are you fellows doing? Each trying to
explain to a listening world that you, at least, know noth-
ing of the strange disappearance of the interesting Greek?
Getting a trifle disturbed, are you? Or is all this the be-
ginning of what is called settlement by negotiation?"
Izinir performed one of his bellyish chuckles, but Warner
may have been a httle disconcerted.
Grant leaned further out of his window. "Come closer,
and let's have the whole story. I'll be able to testify that
you both made honest men of yourselves before the body
was found."
He thought for an instant that Warner was going to
explode: but then his blown indignation subsided as though
the balloon was pricked.
"That's a startling thing to say, Grant."
"You two have been standing there saying startling
things for the last ten minutes. What was Bergante to you,
Izinir? Did he get away from Spain on one of your ships?"


THE PORTRAIT 187
Izinir looked at Warner. Warner shrugged his shoulders,
and said, "It'll come out in court, anyhow."
They seemed to have drawn into some sort of working
alliance. Grant could understand that. Things had suddenly
begun to happen about them for which they could not
account. But it was not an entente cordiale.
Grant repeated his question, and Izinir answered.
"Yes, he took passage in one of my ships. By arrange-
ment with the captain. I knew nothing of it."
Grant could accept that . A good many skippers trading
into Spanish ports had made a profitable sideline of smug-
gled refugees. The British passport had got Bergante his
sailing permit, but he would not have presumed upon the
passport overmuch. He would have tried to slip quietly out
of port, avoiding further questions. The captain had doubt-
less obliged for a consideration.
"Which of his names did he sail under?" asked Grant.
"He signed under an English name, Cheviot," said Izinir.
"And what name did he land under?"
"A name suggested by my captain."
"Where did he land?"
"At Merkos, in Asia Minor."
"Where the passport inspection is not very rigid?" asked
Grant.
"He was put ashore in a small boat, wasn't he, Izinir?"
said Warner.
"When I got the truth from my captain, he admitted that
he had put the man ashore at night, yes."
"Mr. Izinir has an agency at Merkos." Warner grinned.
"He sometimes trans-ships cargoes there. He stands well
with the local authority."


188 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"I gather, from the indiscretions you've both been pour-
ing into my ears, that you gave Bergante a job, Izinir.
Or did he just observe your operations with more than
friendly interest?"
"I employed him," said Izinir. "He was a refugee down
on his luck, and my captain gave him a good character."
"He could also speak Spanish, of course, which must have
been useful."
"It was useful," said Izinir.
"And his Spanish connections?"
"He was not anxious to recall his Spanish connections."
"Still, he was very useful to you."
"I am not denying it. He was worth rather more than the
money I paid him, perhaps."
"He has a grievance on that count," said Warner. "It was
one of the things which made me suspicious of him. He
seemed very ready to knife you, Izinir."
"He has a vindictive temperament," said Izinir. "I have
observed it in others of his profession."
"But how could he hurt you?" said Grant.
"He could give false testimony regarding cargoes I
shipped. He could swear that they were not according to
the insurance provisions and the manifests. He could
perjure himself and declare that the courses of my ships
were known to the enemy blockade and that they were
sunk or captured with my prior knowledge, in order that
I might collect the insurance money. He could pour out a
stinking heap of lies like that and he could find gentlemen
like Mr. Warner here willing to turn over his vomit."
"Here, I say," said Warner, "that's coming it rather
strong, you know. It's my business and obligation to con-
s'


192 ENTER THREE WITCHES
Why should I pay for his silence when I am indifferent to
his noise?"
"He did try to blackmail you, then?"
"He tried to bluster me." Mr. Izinir smiled an ironic
smile. "Foolishly."
"He was more or less asking for trouble, eh?"
"Put it that way if you please."
"Well," said Grant, "he appears to have got it."
Grant walked down the passage to Frances' door and
knocked.
"Come in," she called.
She was sitting in a deep chair by the window, and as
she turned to greet him, her profile was against the fading
sky.
Grant gave one second to unqualified admiration.
"Hawker was right," he said.
She smiled, and he reflected that women can scent a
compliment through all the forty-nine Circles of Obscurity
and the Seven Skins of the Universe. "Who's Hawker?"
she said. "And why is he right?"
"I don't know," he said, "unless it is because he stands
as a sort of local proxy for the British Empire, which is
always right."
"And on which, of course, the sun never sets."
"It wouldn't dare," said Grant. "What are you doing?"
"I'm reducing myself to some sort of order."
"Frances," he said, but he said it reluctantly, for it


THE PORTRAIT 193
seemed a savage thing to say. "You've realised at last that
your father is dead, haven't you?"
She nodded quietly. "That is what I meant. I have been
trying to put my world together again. You see it has been
. .. rather dislocated."
"You realised it last night, when you found his bag in
Bergante's room."
"I think I've known for a long time. But now, I've ac-
cepted it." Her lips trembled slightly, but he would not
have noticed if he had not been watching them. "I shall
try not to be sad about him. I think he was glad to die.
He had wrung life dry . . . and it tasted bitter to him.
Poor, impossible daddy." Her eyes filled slowly.
Grant nodded.
Her long thin hands dropped in her lap, as he had seen
them last night: but now they were at rest.
"He was a fantastic man. Perhaps that is why one loved
him as one did. They say that he was a man whom one
could love even for his vices, as Flannagan loved him. I
could not. They were hateful to me. I do not know how
long I have known about his way of living, but it is a
long time. Since I was hardly more than a child. It was
difficult to be Rupert Cheviot's daughter and not to know."
He was silent. It would have been appallingly easy to
say some fatal thing. But he understood with what stern
pride the girl must have brought herself to an understand-
ing of the man who had been her father.
"He tried to hide it from me. There was my long suc-
cession of convents across half of Europe. Sometimes I did
not see him for a year. But I knew. And I loved him and
hated the things he did. He hated them himself, sometimes.


194 ENTER THREE WITCHES
He broke every loyalty that had bound him to my mother.
But I think that he broke them because he was in despair."
"He had loved your mother very much," said Grant.
"I never knew my mother, but she was his life. She came
out of a small country house in Dorsetshire to marry him,
a house under those heather-covered hills that sweep down
to the sea, west of Bridport. I don't know how many cen-
turies her family had lived there and kept their land in
sober English decency. Do you know any of those really
old families that are neither noble nor very rich but count
back through immemorial generations? Who keep their
land and worship their God and all come at last to the
same small churchyard in the same green fields that have
nurtured and buried them, son after father and his son
after him?"
"I know," said Grant. "They still think William the
Conqueror was something of a careerist."
She laughed a little.
"I never heard my grandfather speak uncharitably of
any man or thing in the world except Henry VIII." She
paused. "My grandfather did not speak much of my father.
I often spent my summers in Dorset. They wanted me
altogether, but my father would not give me up to them.
He kept me in that procession of convents." She looked
at him. "I don't know why I am talking to you like this,
except that I want you to know about my father. He was
a strange, bitter, wayward man, but he was not the man
that people painted."
"I want to know about your father too," said Grant.
"If you can see my grandfather, you can understand
what my mother did when she married. Her family had


THE PORTRAIT 195
always kept their own place, kept their honour, kept their
faith. There were bishops and a martyr, soldiers and sailors.
One founded a colony for the Crown, another was a poet.
One was a Viceroy of India and disgraced himself by going
to the House of Lords, another was a Justice of the King's
Bench. But the heart and core of it all was that grey house
under the Dorset hills where eldest son after eldest son
stayed at home to keep his fields and the tradition. What-
ever one of them did in the larger world was always less
than the part of the elder son, for the elder son was the
Head, and the Line, and the House. Can you understand
all that?"
"Yes," said Grant, "I can understand it. That was Eng-
land."
"My grandfather believed that privilege carried obliga-
tion. I suppose he was what you really mean by a Christian.
My father never understood that. I think my grandfather
could have loved women as my father did, but he could
not have corrupted them. It was not the sexual offence in
itself which he detested, but the injustice which was com-
mitted. Am I making him clear to you, both of them clear
to you?"
"Yes," said Grant. "It is the injustice that God punishes."
"There was all that gulf between her father and Rupert
Cheviot," said Frances, "yet my mother insisted on marry-
ing Rupert Cheviot. She married him because she saw
something in him that others refused to see. She believed
that she could remake him. Oh, I know it sounds silly, but
that is what she believed. And she was right. When they
married his talents were in wreck and his name was
notorious, almost as notorious then as it became again."


196 ENTER THREE WITCHES
She flushed. "Does this sound horrible to you from his
daughter?"
"His daughter could not have continued to love him
unless she had learnt to see him clearly," said Grant.
"That is true," she said; and suddenly she reached out
and touched his hand. "Thank you," she said.
"They were married four years. My grandfather must
have hated the marriage, but he accepted it. He was a man
not wise perhaps in himself, but he had the wisdom which
lives from generation to generation, which is in the ex-
perience of a family when men remember their fathers
and their fathers' fathers."
"Yes," said Grant. "That is what we lost when we broke
the old world. Now we forget our grandfather's name."
"My father began to paint again. To paint well. They
lived in St. John's Wood. He had money. And they were
happy. I believe that they were very happy. And then my
mother died. When I was eight months old."
"I have heard," said Grant, "that it broke your father's
life."
"I only saw the marks of it upon him in the years after,
but they were the marks of fire. I think that he hated God.
I think that he even came to hate my mother because she
had died and left him. I think that he pursued other
women because it was his answer to her death. He wanted
to be unfaithful to her, and to defy the God who had taken
her from him. He was a man in hell."
Her face was very white against the shadows of the
curtains.
Grant moved a little. "I can understand that too, a little,"
he said.


THE PORTRAIT 197
"It was an agony of loss, and an agony o£ fury and
despair. He hated my mother for dying and he still loved
her with everything in him that was capable of love. The
scars were on him. That is why I think he was content to
die. And I think that God has forgiven him. I could under-
stand it and yet forgive him. Surely God, who understood
it all, forgave him too."
"God would not refuse him to your mother," said Grant.
"Frances," he said, "I want you to go away. I want you
to leave here tonight."
She did not seem surprised: she might even have been
expecting him to say it.
"Why, Anthony?"
He rose and stood by the window. Above the hills, the
sky had turned to purple, not the purple of the peaceful
southern dusk but a fierce passion of mounting cloud.
"There is going to be a storm," he said. "You had better
get away before it breaks upon the mountain roads. You
can be in Rome for dinner and catch the eleven-thirty for
Genoa and be across the frontier tomorrow morning. If
you'll pack a few things, I'll rope Lady Bessie and put her
in the car."
"She will kick," said Frances, smiling.
"I don't doubt it."
Frances joined him at the window. The clouds were
flying in angry tatters, like the banners of an army ad-
vancing in array: the main columns massed, sullen and
formidable, behind.


198 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"It is too late," said Frances, "the storm is nearly here."
"I was thinking of another storm," said Grant.
She shook her head. "I can't go."
"You must. It's madness to stay here. And Lady Bessie
must leave with you. Frances, you know about your father,
and there is nothing you can do. Why should you wait?"
"What is going to happen here?" she said.
"I don't know. I'm not sure. But I'm afraid."
"Are you staying?"
"Yes."
"Is it less my business than yours, then?"
"We needn't argue that. The thing is to get you both
out of the place before . . ." He stopped and bit his lip.
"Before what?"
"Before the storm breaks."
She leant out of the window and looked up at the sky.
"I'm going to stay," she said, "and I have the reputation of
being the most pig-headed young woman in Europe. Was
that what Mr. Hawker at the Consulate told you?" She
turned and laughed at him with the sudden gaiety of a
mettlesome boy.
"Pretty much. He under-estimated the weight of the pig.
Frances, once and for all, will you get out of this? You
can't possibly do any good now by staying, and it may
mean a devil of a lot of trouble."
Tor me?"
"Yes, for you. And for Lady Bessie."
"Anthony, do you seriously think I could drag Lady
Bessie away from a prospect of trouble?"
"I can imagine her talking down an angry tiger. And I
suppose that if she met a herd of wild elephant she would


THE PORTRAIT 199
just put up her umbrella. But we're not dealing with tigers
and wild elephant. We're dealing with the brute Man, a
much more formidable beast."
"Anthony, she won't go, and I can't. There are things
I still must know."
"About your father?"
"Yes, about my father. I must know how he died."
"Do you expect Bergante to tell you?"
"He must tell."
"Frances, Bergante escaped from Spain on your father's
passport. Do you imagine that he is going to be chatty about
that?"
Her mouth set. "We brought him here so that he would
talk," she said. "We found him once. We shall find him
again." She turned to him quickly. "Anthony, this is not
your affair. We brought you into it only to make certain
of Bergante's identity. All that Warner had to go on for
his insurance enquiries were some poor photographs. We
needed someone who knew the man himself, and we in-
vited you up here in case I had mistaken your expression
on the Steps the other night or in case Bergante himself
denied his identity. But why should you be dragged into
it further?"
"I've been dragging myself into it," said Grant, "by the
scruff of the neck and the back of the pants. Believe me, if
I hadn't hung on to myself and hauled, I'd have broken in
the opposite direction at a general average speed of one
hundred and fifty kilometres an hour."
"But why? What have you been doing?"
Grant thought of what he had said to Warner and Izinir
and to Flannagan. "I've been sowing dragons' teeth," he


THE PORTRAIT 201
"I've a notion that it is," said Grant. "But how on earth
did we get to it so soon? Do you mind very much?"
"Anthony, you are an ass!"
"I know that I'm being idiotically tactless." He was gen-
uinely annoyed with himself. "But how was I to know
what those dragons would lead to? They seemed a thor-
oughly safe line of conversation, designed only to add a
little dramatic effect to the dialogue. And to prompt you to
caution. Caution!" he groaned.
She looked at him curiously. "You are a complicated
person, aren't you, Anthony?"
"No, I'm actually very simple. Like an amoeba, or one
of its tribe. It isn't I that's complicated, but the contortions
into which I tie myself." And he did feel very confused.
"You're unbelievably shy, of course," she said, with an
air of detachment. "You depreciate yourself. You are a
skin short."
"The only way to get at one's real value is to depreciate a
great deal, don't you think? I mean, if I always thought
of myself with that happy optimism which infests my more
ingenuous moments, I should be unbearable. Worse, one
day I might meet my real self and not recognise me. I do
hope that I am not making myself clear."
"You are making yourself a little clearer." She smiled
uncertainly. "Anthony, are you frightened of me? I begin
to feel rather like the dragon myself. And you begin to
look like ... I don't know what you look like."
"What is technically known as a goose, I should say.
Frances, listen and let me get it out in proper form and
order. One feels that these things ought to be done strictly
according to Emily Post. But, damn it, what does Emily


CHAPTER EIGHT
The Second Evening
Grant found lady bessie in
a chaise-longue under a walnut tree. It had not occurred
to him that she might sometimes lie recumbent: he had
imagined that if she slept at all she slept on her feet. She
was working on a small frame a cross-stitch sampler, with
an ominous phrase which might have been her family
cipher:
"he bien n'a jamais fait tres bon minage
avec les pantoufles."
He came straight to the point. "Frances and I are going
to be married," he said.
She nodded, with complete aplomb. "I was afraid that
Frances had settled on it. That is the worst of these
emotional situations. They accelerate matters beyond all
decency. However, perhaps she'll change her mind. And if
she doesn't your family is respectable, which is something
decidedly something nowadays." She threaded one of her
thick needles with yellow wool.
He filled his pipe. "Mind if we talk a bit?" he said.
She looked at the sky and gathered her things. "Come
inside then. The storm is going to break at any minute,
and it is too dark to work." She swung her legs lightly out
of the chair. "You can carry the frame thing."
So he carried her frame and they went up to the house
at Lady Bessie's swinging pace.
203


THE SECOND EVENING 205
was dark, and there was always a kind of earthiness. No,
that isn't the word. She was too detached, calculating. She
hadn't that honest abandon which you sometimes find in
earthy women. What I am trying to say is that she be-
longed to the heavier elements, to earth and water. There
was nothing in her of fire or air. Fire, perhaps. Yes, cer-
tainly fire, but deep, smouldering fire. Molten rock, lava.
You recognised it by the smoke, so to speak. And some-
times, in her darker moods, you saw the reflected glow. In
fact, she was very like Stromboli."
"She sounds formidable," said Grant.
"She is formidable," said Lady Bessie, and there was a
look in her eyes that one sometimes sees in the eyes of
very old people whose thoughts rest more in the past than
in the present. "She was always formidable. People who
lack spiritual perceptions are. She belongs entirely to mate-
rial things. Such women and men live by their ambitions.
Marie Beuil always was an ambitious woman. Her ambi-
tions brooded over her mind, not with bright wings."
"San Remo," said Grant. "Was she born an Italian
then?"
"Her father was an Italian, her mother was French, from
across the frontier. She was bilingual. She belonged, as
far as she could belong to anything, to both cultures. It is
a powerful combination."
"Catherine de' Medici," said Grant.
"I first got to know her when I spent a winter on the
Italian Riviera. It wasn't overrun in those days. For the
English, it still had memories of Shelley. I once met an
old boatman who swore that he could remember that sud-


208 ENTER THREE WITCHES
my memories. Marie came to my villa a lot, all through
that winter. She'd examine my clothes, my jewels, read
my papers, glance at my books. Not that she was ever
interested in books, for their own sakes, but she learnt a
lot from them. She took her manners, when she thought
fit to have any, from books. She learnt her conversation
from them. She accepted them seriously as a picture of the
world. She thought that Englishwomen in society really
spoke like the women in George Meredith. She practised,
I am sure, Meredithean phrases. But she learnt quickly
when I took her home, at the end of the winter. If I had
known what I was starting I think I would have pre-
ferred to take her quietly upstairs and drown her in the
bathtub."
"What persuaded you to take her home?" said Grant
.
"Her father persuaded me. My private opinion is that
she made his life a hell until he came to me. You can
follow her line? I was the nearest thing to a lady of the
great world that she had ever met. In her remote Italian
village she might not meet another for years and years. I
was not only her model, but her avenue of escape from that
drowsy village, her avenue of approach to the world she
dreamed of day and night. Her father's story was that she
ought to improve her English. She had very little English
then."
"It is almost perfect now," said Grant. "She pours out
tea with a Bath accent."
"She has always learned. She is always learning. And
she has an infinite capacity for taking pains. Aren't I
quoting something?"
"A prosaic definition of genius," said Grant.


THE SECOND EVENING 209
"Well, in her prosaic way, she is a genius. She watched,
she observed, and presently she began to practise. Every-
thing she has ever done has been well done, except for
that one disastrous break with Rupert Cheviot. But she
hadn't had opportunity to rehearse that. And sometimes
I wonder whether it was disastrous. He taught her too.
She turned him to account. His knowledge of the world,
his connections, the very pity that people felt for her when
he pulled up his hooks and ran."
"I thought it might be something like that when I
looked at the picture," said Grant. "He was already seeing
something in her eye which he did not like."
"There were all too many things that Rupert Cheviot
did not like. Common decency, for instance. Perhaps, as
he said afterwards, Marie was an impossible woman to
live with, but my sympathy has always been with her in
the matter. I am not blind. I do not think that she was an
innocent, ignorant victim. She has never yet been any man
or woman's fool. But she did love him, in her own way.
She did thrust aside many cautious considerations which
must have been strong in her calculating mind. Rupert
swore that she made use of him. But, allowing for that
and everything like it, he still behaved abominably."
"How did they meet?" asked Grant.
"Through me. That is why I've felt so strongly about it.
I did what her father asked me: I took her to England and
settled her in my brother's house, as a kind of assistant
governess to his children. We have always been diplomatic
service, as I've probably told you before . . . my friends
say that I mention it tediously often, though why I should,
heaven knows! . . . and we've always learnt languages in


THE SECOND EVENING 211
understand how the great world wags, and who wags it.
She learnt that lesson like she learnt all others. But one
could be days in the house and not be so much as aware
of her. It is a useful talent, that. I am certain that Rupert
Cheviot never noticed her until one day I remarked on it."
"Was Cheviot a familiar in the house?" said Grant,
knowing that he trod on delicate ground.
"He came to us a good deal. He met two women who
had much to do with the shape of his life, in my brother's
house: Marie Beuil and the woman he married, Frances'
mother, my cousin." She stared for a moment at the wall
again. "Turn on a light," she said. "I don't like this
gloom."
He rose and found a switch, and stood for a moment
looking out at the darkening of the night. The rain had
begun with a low whisper of wind from the hills.
"Give me a cigarette," she said.
He handed her the box again, and held a match for her.
"I was one of the first women in England who smoked
cigarettes. I wanted to be different, I suppose. Poor, vain
fools we all are. I smoked on the lawn at Cowes in 1898,
while the Old Queen was still alive. She heard of it, as
she heard of everything, and I never went to Court again
till Edward came in. I was a very silly girl, and I'm some-
times afraid that I'm a very silly old woman. What do you
think, young Grant?"
"I agree with the general statement that we are all fools,
each in our province. It rather includes the particular cases,
doesn't it?"
She croaked out her old chuckle. "You have an acid
flavour that I hope Frances will appreciate. It's the one


212 ENTER THREE WITCHES
virtue I find in you. You may yet grow to be an adult.
You are tolerant as well as acid, I hope." She turned sharply
to him. It was very like the movement of a long-necked,
curious bird.
"I am too tolerant for my peace of mind," he said. "It
would be much more comfortable to go in for prejudices
and strong dislikes. I find humanity a little too much like
human beings, too much like myself."
"You'll probably get yourself into trouble one of these
days then. But it will be the right sort of trouble. I wonder
if there have been any truly civilised men in Europe since
Sir Thomas More. They cut off decency and gentleness and
tolerance when they cut off his head." She stiffened in her
chair, though she had already been sitting as if her spinal-
cord had been once replaced by a ramrod. "As I get older,
the Golden Age recedes. Perhaps there never was a Golden
Age. Perhaps there were only, here and there, golden souls.
But the world did take a definite turn when they killed
More. He was at the dawn of a day that never came.
Shakespeare saw that, and was haunted by it, and Shake-
speare had a great deal to him. Not everything, but a
great deal. For a Midlands man, he was very intelligent.
I'm beginning to ramble. Have you noticed that? It's been
coming on during the last six months, and I find it rather
pleasant. I've held out as long as I could, and it has been
a senseless battle, and old age a tedious long time coming.
Now I think I shall cheerfully put my feet in the chimney-
corner and be an old woman. There are great compensa-
tions in being an old woman. I've always had cold feet,
but only an old woman can wantonly flaunt hot-water
bottles in the face of the world."


THE SECOND EVENING 213
"I knew a man once," said Grant irrelevantly, "who
wore a hot-water bottle under his waistcoat."
"He must have been something of a hero, and he must
have sounded very rude," said Lady Bessie.
"Both," said Grant.
"I think I shall borrow you sometimes from Frances, to
share my chimney-corner. We gossip together like two con-
tented cronies. But I was telling you about Cheviot. I drew
his attention to the unnoticed governess, and her very ob-
scurity and reserve piqued him from the first. He was
curious that he had not noticed her, and perhaps he
thought that it must be a very unusual woman whom he
would fail to notice. She may have presented some of the
effect, to him, of terra incognita. He had an exploratory
turn of mind. He was a strange man. His acquaintances
dispute the case, chiefly according to their own moral
prejudices, but I have always thought him more to be
blamed than pitied. It isn't true that he broke loose only
after his wife's death. He returned then to his vomit. It is
well that Frances should make the best of him, and there
was a best that most women and a few men saw. But
he was a man without conscience. However cool and cal-
culating and self-possessed Marie seemed to him, he still
behaved like a man who has no conscience. He ran away
with her, he took her first to Paris and then here to Rome.
He set her up as his mistress. And then, quite cynically, he
deserted her."
"Remembering that portrait," said Grant, looking up at
it again, "do you think it was only cynicism?"
"The thing that he put into her eyes?" she asked.


214 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"He was afraid of her. The man who painted that picture
deserted her because he was afraid."
"But why was he afraid? Wasn't it because he knew
that he would desert her, knew that she knew it? I've
continued that argument through all the changes of my
mind," she said, "and for year after year, while we all
grew old, and the fevers cooled in us. But I still reach no
judgment. That rests, I imagine, in the mind of God, who
has the evidence."
"You speak of Cheviot always as if you were sure that he
is dead," said Grant.
"I am sure. For Frances' sake I do not say so aloud."
"Why are you sure?"
"Rupert Cheviot could not be alive in the world and I be
unaware of him," she said.
He remembered what Flannagan had said of Cheviot:
'If he was still alive, I reckon I'd hear the bloody uproar
somewhere.' Rupert Cheviot had certainly impressed his
contemporaries.
"He made an extraordinary impact on people," said
Grant.
"I was in love with him," said Lady Bessie harshly. "I
have always been in love with him. Marie Beuil and I. We
both know that he is dead. We have agreed upon one fact
in his career at last. We know that he is dead. But we have
both, like women, wanted to know the manner of his
passing. I, because I am old and near the parting myself,
have wanted to know whether he made his peace with
• God. And perhaps Marie Beuil thinks now a little of God,
too. You heard her ask me, last evening, to pray for her."


THE SECOND EVENING 215
Grant stirred uneasily. He had not expected Lady Bessie
to strip her soul.
"It embarrasses you to hear me talk like this. If a woman
of my age cannot tell the truth, when can it be told? The
only things one need be ashamed to tell are lies. Do you
hear me, young Grant? This has been my life. I am sorry
for it, I repent of it. But I haven't any silly queasy embarrass-
ment in face of it. I shall have to answer for it, with each
word and act and thought weighed as in a balance. But
I shall answer for it honestly. And I might as well start
practising." She croaked out her chuckle. She was like
some shrewd and ancient bird which has seen the best and
the worst of the world and been reasonably entertained.
"I once thought," he said, "that you would never wear
your heart upon your sleeve."
"For friends to peck at? I don't. I have been at con-
siderable trouble to keep my heart concealed, but now I
doubt whether it was worth the trouble. As a heart, it was
very ordinary, and it will make dust soon enough."
He knocked his pipe against his heel. "So Marie Beuil
remained in love, even after Cheviot deserted her."
"What is love? I have had occasion enough to examine
it, and I have made no sense of it. She still had her attach-
ment to him, whatever that was. Sometimes I thought that
she felt herself in his debt, even while he stood in such
debt to her. He did make her. She got what she wanted.
In Paris and in Rome she mixed with his friends as she
could not then have done in England. His friends in Paris
and in Rome were another sort of people, both better and
worse, perhaps, than us in England. He knew artists and
writers and newspaper people and most of the men who


218 ENTER THREE WITCHES
lived, Cheviot might have grown into a man. So I have
been told. I did not see it. I had left England."
"How much does Frances know of all this?"
"Most of it, of course. You can't keep that from a child
for ever, and her father had sense enough to realise it."
"I see. So that when her father went missing in Spain,
she turned to Marie Beuil."
"She came to me and we both went to Marie Beuil. I
set the diplomatic side of the investigation moving, but
Marie had other and better resources. Marie was alarmed
before we were. You must remember that Cheviot was her
son's father."
"Now she's made use of Warner's machinery to get
Bergante here, where you could all tackle him. Was
that it?"
"That was it. Marie is interested in Warner's side of
it too. She has a knack for killing two or three birds with
one stone. You look startled."
"I was," said Grant. "All right, all right, go on with
what you were saying, please."
"I'm not accustomed to being put off like that, young
man. But I was about to say that you mustn't mistake her.
Her major interest in this has been Rupert Cheviot." She
looked up yet again at the picture. "The human heart is
a curious thing. And since this began, I've sometimes
thought that Marie Beuil may have a human heart after
all. Perhaps she found one somewhere, going cheaply."
"What did you get out of Bergante?"
"Nefther Frances nor I got anything. We have not
talked to him."


222 ENTER THREE WITCHES
thing: "Could a man need a wig and still grow a beard?
Yes, of course."
"He was not very bald when I knew him," said Grant,
"but he was a vain man. Strange that a murder might be
betrayed by the victim's vanity."
She suddenly quivered and all the lines of her face
seemed to melt. "I do not believe it."
"You have to believe it," he said. "And you must leave
this house."
She stared at him with strange eyes. "I do not believe
it, Anthony."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Explain the facts then. Why
should Bergante throw his wig into the lake? And if he
did, what of the iron bar? Did he throw that into the
lake, too?"
Lady Bessie steadied herself against the chair.
"Suicide," she said. "Marie Beuil said that he threatened
suicide unless she helped him."
"So Marie Beuil said that!" He walked again to the
window and back. "It was not suicide. A suicide need not
lash himself to an iron bar."
"How could one get that bar out of the water? I remem-
ber it."
"There is a boat," said Grant.
She rose again and walked as he had walked to the
window. She stood there for a minute.
"When it rains in these hills, it rains heavily," she said.
"If it continues, all the torrents will be raging. How do
you know, Anthony, that the murderer returned to the
house?"
"I found his track upon the service stairs."


THE SECOND EVENING 223
"Blood?" she said.
"Water. He brought the boat to the stairs, I imagine, and
carried the body down to it. He had to take two or three
steps in water."
"He came in by the service stairs, you say."
"Yes."
"Izinir knew of the service stairs, Anthony. He told
Bergante of them."
"I have been thinking of that. Marie Beuil knew too.
And Flannagan. And you, Frances, all the servants, Lec-
chino probably. I found them. It isn't sufficient evidence to
hang Izinir with, Lady Bessie."
"No. No. I didn't mean it like that." She shook her
head, and now she seemed an old, old woman.
They stood watching one another; and then she said:
"What is it that you are afraid to say to me?"
He squared his shoulders. "Well, we've got to come to
it. Lady Bessie, why did you go to Bergante's room in
Rome this morning when you were supposed to be at
church in the village?"
"How did you know that I had gone? I'm not denying
it, but what evidence did I leave behind?"
"You had trouble in opening the door. Before you
finally forced it with the screwdriver in your knife, you
had broken the point of your corkscrew, trying to pick
the lock, I suppose."
"I once succeeded in picking a lock with a corkscrew."
She smiled. "A very poor lock."
"Here is the broken point of your corkscrew, anyway."
He took it from his pocket. "And I think you had better


224 ENTER THREE WITCHES
get rid of that knife, the whole gadget, or give it to me
to dispose of, before any enquiries begin."
She smiled again. "Destroying evidence. That almost
makes you an accessory, doesn't it?"
"Why did you take Bergante's bags back to his room?"
Her narrow brows contracted sharply. "I did not. They
were there when I arrived. I was going to ask you that a
moment ago. How did Bergante's bags go back to his
room unless he took them? And why?"
He frowned now. "Lady Bessie, somebody came and, I
believe, went by the window of Bergante's room. When I
saw the door broken open, I knew that you had broken
it, perhaps because you wanted an alternative line of
retreat."
She protested. "If I had known that you could get in by
the window, I should not have stood there in the hall like
a fool, trying to force the door and praying that no one
would turn into that passage while I was at it. How could
I have known about the window?"
"You'd watched Bergante and myself for a week. You
knew the route of his nightly walk. You must have known
his address. I suppose Warner provided you with that in
the first instance."
"Yes, Warner had the address." She rose and sat down
again. "But I insist that I knew nothing of a back way
into the house. Warner's agents first reported Bergante's
habit of walking at dusk every day by the Via de due
Macelli and the Spanish Steps to a little restaurant behind
Sant' Isidore It was the only time in the day when Ber-
gante left his room. He would buy supplies for his other
meals on the way home."


THE SECOND EVENING 225
"Then Warner presumably knew about the window.
Interesting chap, Warner. He seems to have covered all
this with remarkable efficiency."
"A great deal of money is involved," she said, "and it
is his business."
"He begins to doubt Bergante's use as a witness. Mr.
Warner would be annoyed to have wasted his time and
resources, I imagine. I wonder . . ." He paused and lit a
cigarette.
"What do you wonder?"
"How annoyed Mr. Warner could be if Mr. Warner
were really annoyed." He splintered the match between
his fingers and dropped it into a tray. "What prompted
you to go to Rome this morning, Lady Bessie?"
"Your talk at breakfast and Marie Beuil's announcement
on top of it. You almost upset my digestion between you,
and I usually have the digestive resources of an ostrich."
"When she walked into the room and mentioned vaguely
that Bergante was gone?"
"Yes, and that as far as she knew, he had only intended
to stay the night. I knew then that something had hap-
pened which she either did not understand or understood
too well. She was far too blithe about it, and neither vague-
ness nor blitheness are Marie's habit."
"You went to see if Bergante had skipped back to his
room in Rome?"
"Yes. And when I saw his bags, I thought that he had.
Who else took them?"
"Someone who wants it thought that Bergante did go
back to Rome, with Flannagan's suit and my shoes stuffed
into his luggage." He smoothed back his hair. "If people


THE SECOND EVENING 227
and you linger about the premises. That is why I want
you to clear out."
"You could have gone to them in Rome this afternoon."
"I know. But the same arguments pretty largely apply.
And policemen are stolid men. Their mills grind slowly,
though sometimes they grind exceedingly small. They'd
want to check up on me, to check up on Bergante, to con-
sult the immigration officials and their own indices of
visitors' permits. The night is already upon us ... a
damned dirty night too, by the sound of the rain and
the wind."
"Haven't you done anything about it at all?" There
were points of fire in her little eyes.
"I've been broadcasting sulphurous hints, in the belief
that they might provoke a whirlwind."
"Why do you want a whirlwind?" she said.
"To trouble the waters of the lake."
"If all that you are saying is true," she said bitingly,
"you are playing a dangerous game, Grant. You may reap
the whirlwind yourself."
"I seem to be mixing my crops a little," said Grant,
"what with whirlwinds and dragons. But I haven't entirely
neglected the police. That, in a case of murder, would be a
discourtesy, and you know how the Italians rest on a
punctilio."
"What do you mean?" she said, and she turned her back
on the fireplace to face him.
"I have a friend in Rome to whom I sometimes drop
hints. They breed slowly in him, but they do breed. His
grandfather was a Scotsman, his mother came from York-
shire, and he has the Official Mind. I have considerable


228 ENTER THREE WITCHES
respect for the Official Mind when it is accompanied by
an Official Conscience. He has an Official Conscience. At
this moment, he is wrestling with it." Grant looked at his
watch. "I'd give it another hour before the Official Con-
science scores a knock-out. It will k.o. his Official Sense
of Discretion. Then, I think, he will go for a walk, and
call on a friend, also an Official Mind and an Official
Conscience, but attached to the Italian Service. The theme
will be introduced gradually, because the O.M. prefers
to let things dawn slowly on it, like the moon rising over
dark waters, and one O.M. always respects this preference
in another O.M. But sooner or later, tonight or tomorrow
or perhaps next week, the whole thing will get round to
the police. That is why I gave you back your piece of
corkscrew. And that again is why you and Frances should
trot off across the border, pronto."
"You arc not such a fool as you look, Anthony."
"I sincerely hope not. Now, what about running along
and packing your things?"
"I," she said, "am going to talk to Marie Beuil, if I
have to break down doors to get at her."
"That's annoying," he said.
"Why is it annoying?"
"Because I wanted to talk to Marie Beuil myself."
"You leave Marie Beuil to me, young man. I can make
her talk."
"I think I am rather good at making people talk."
"Yes," she said, "you are."
"I was probably born with a request for a special inter-
view in my mouth. I must ask my aunts about it. They
almost certainly disapproved at the time and thought it


THE SECOND EVENING 229
was something my mother had eaten, against their con-
sidered and emphatic advice."
She cackled. "If you mean those three old ladies in
Cheltenham, I agree. Especially your Aunt Emily."
"Do you know Emily? Good lord," he said.
"I was at school with her. I've been thinking what a
strong family likeness there is. Except that your Aunt
Emily, in these circumstances, if you can conceive your
Aunt Emily in any circumstances that were not completely
under her own control, would have gone to the police long
ago. And given them a piece of her mind, probably."
"You do know Aunt Emily," he said.
She cackled again. "I should like to see Emily's face
when she hears that you are going to marry a connection
of mine. The thought is enough to make me encourage
the match. Now I'm going to Marie Beuil, and we shall
see whether we cannot get some sense into this affair, in-
stead of all your meandering, literary periods. That is the
worst of you people. You like to hold on to a situation, to
get the final relish out of it, to exercise your imagination.
It is time all this was brought to earth."
"That's very unfair," said Grant. "I've been behaving
like a detective in a novel, the best sort of detective in the
best sort of novel."
"That's what I'm complaining of," she said. "Now we
shall have a little real life." She made for the door.
"Here, stop!" he said. "There's something else I want to
know. Marie Beuil's baby. What became of Marie Beuil's
baby?"
"I wondered whether you were going to let that pass,"
she stopped in her stride and looked at him. "I told you


230 ENTER THREE WITCHES
that the boy was born in Rome. He was bred and educated
here too. Marie Beuil was still an Italian citizen, then,
and she could not have the child in Paris. She thought she
couldn't. He might have interfered with her career. A
quarter of an hour ago he was staring in at us through the
window, and he looked very peculiar. One does, you know,
when one's nose is pressed to glass. And her maiden name,
if I haven't mentioned it, was Marie Lecchino."


MR. FLANNAGAN'S ADVENTURE 233
though why they should have been, I don't know. There
are lights enough."
"They were lit when I started down," said Flannagan,
patting his head gingerly. "They went out on me just
before I reached the first landing. There's a main switch
there."
"They're all right now," said Grant.
"They were all right as soon as I turned them on," said
Lecchino, "so it couldn't have been a fuse."
"How do you feel, Flannagan?"
"I feel hard-used. First, my suit is pinched, and then
I'm bashed over the head by the spectre of an invisible
man."
Grant jumped. "You were hit? You mean that you
didn't just fall?"
"Of course I didn't just fall. Why the hell should I
fall down because the lights go out? Someone up and
slugged me, though there wasn't no one there." He stood
on his feet, unsteadily. "I better get up to my room and
wash this muck off my head. Give me my raincoat. I
guess I'd just started to put it on as I came down."
"It was all tangled up with you when I came on the
scene," said Lecchino. "I pulled it off you to make a pil-
low. You'd better sit here for a few minutes longer while
you get your wind and your legs. Would you like a drink?"
"Yes," said Flannagan. He looked upstairs and down.
"But it can wait. Let's see how the hell this happened. I
started to put on my raincoat as I got to that landing up
there. I was just stepping on to the first step of this flight
when the lights goes off. Then a cannon-ball hit me. But
there wasn't anybody but me on the landing."


236 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"What was the count? How long were you down?"
"Three or four minutes, I reckon, before Mr. Lecchino
walked in the door. I could have got up before, but I
thought that while I was there I might as well take it
easy."
"You didn't yell or anything?"
"I didn't see much point in yelling. I knew I was com-
ing along nicely."
Grant turned to Lecchino and noticed that he had
gathered up another raincoat with Flannagan's. It was wet.
"You'd been out?"
"I'd been walking in the rain." Lecchino grinned. "It's a
habit of mine. I like catching colds."
"Were you trying to catch a cold, by any chance?" said
Grant, remembering a sneeze that he had not heard.
"Catch a cold!" Flannagan jumped, and then produced
a hollow groan. His head did not approve of jumps. "The
feller that hit me sneezed. I remember that now. I heard
a sneeze, just before the light went. He tried to muffle
it, and it did come from behind that door. Fancy me for-
getting that, now."
"That sneeze cost you a crack on the head," said Grant.
Flannagan grunted. "How come?"
"He is a nervous subject. He was afraid that you might
look for the sneezer. He was certainly shy, and he must
have had a weapon in hand!"
"Next time I hear anyone coughing, I'll start to run,"
said Flannagan, "hard."
"But why the sneeze?" asked Lecchino.
"Because he got his feet wet last night," said Grant, "and
was slow about changing his socks."


MR. FLANNAGAN'S ADVENTURE 237
Lecchino shrugged his shoulders. "I suppose this makes
some sort of sense to you," he said.
Grant turned on him. "Lecchino, what actually were you
doing outside just now? Playing ducks and drakes?"
Lecchino laughed. "Does it matter very much? If it
does, I was down at the pool. I went to look at the level
of the water. With a cloud-burst like this, we may get a
flood from the hills."
"What happens then? Does the weir have to be opened?"
"If the water comes with a rush, we let it through. It
brings trees and a devil of a lot of silt at times. I've known
it to bring cows. You let that sort of debris out, you know."
"I see," said Grant. "I suppose a good freshet of water
scours out the lake pretty well. Cleans it. What are the
prospects of a flood?"
"The rain seems to be stopping. It depends now on what
they have had in the hills. Some of the water takes twelve
hours to get here. Then we usually have adequate warning.
Sometimes you can hear it roaring for fifty or sixty minutes
before the main body hits us."
"That's interesting," said Grant. "Very. Do you think
that Flannagan was as conscious as he claims to have been
when you came through the door?"
"Almost, anyhow. He was able to swear at me. There
are one or two good words in Italian that he doesn't know,
and I'm proposing to trade them for some of his English
and Spanish."
"If he was conscious enough to swear in Italian, he must
have been coming round," said Grant.
"My Texan and Mex had gotten monotonous by then,"
said Flannagan.


238 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"Oddly enough, I was standing outside the door there
for a minute or two before I came in," said Lecchino,
"shaking the water out of my eyes. And listening."
"Listening?"
"To Frances singing. Her window is not very far from
the "door, you know. And I was glad to hear her singing.
I wondered why she sang."
Grant stared, and then he felt his heart sink and sink.
His face too must have lost its colour, for they both stared
at him.
"What's the matter?" said Lecchino. "Why should you
turn yellow when I mention Frances singing? She has a
very nice voice."
"It isn't that," said Grant. "I've just put two and two
together, and I don't like the answer. What a fool, what a
blasted fool I am! Don't you see, the killer is in the house."
"The killer . . .?" Lecchino began.
"Don't argue. We've got to check on everybody in the
place. He didn't pass Flannagan, and anyhow, you didn't
see him slip out. He must have doubled back into the
house. He must have been coming in when Flannagan met
him on the stairs." Grant snatched at the service door and
tore through into the hall.
Lecchino stared after him. "What does he mean by a
killer?"
Flannagan stared at another face gone yellow in that
light. "I'm evidence, even if I am walking." And he shot
after Grant. He shouted over his shoulder. "You might
tell somebody to send an ice-pack and a bottle of Scotch
and some iodine to my room. I'll get round to them before
the evening's out, I guess."


MR. FLANNAGAN'S ADVENTURE 239
Frances was in her room. She stopped abruptly on a
high note and stared at him.
"Anthony, what's the matter?"
"Thank heaven you're still singing." He wiped his fore-
head with the back of his hand. "Come on! You're coming
with me and you are going to stay with me until we get
to the bottom of this business, even if I have to sleep on
your door-mat."
"What is it?"
"Come on!" He grasped her by the hand. "I'll tell you
when I get some surplus breath. I want to find your
aunt."
They ran along the corridor to Lady Bessie's room.
Grant banged once at the door and then invaded it. He
hoped that Lady Bessie was not in the bath, but that had
to be chanced.
"Look in the bathroom," he said to Frances.
He himself looked into the wardrobes and under the bed.
"She's not here. Anthony, do you mean that something
has happened to her?"
"I don't know. She may have happened to somebody. I
want to find her, that's all."
He ripped out of the room, Frances at his heels. Flanna-
gan was coming along now, like thunder.
"Where is Madame Beuil's room?"
"Next floor," said Frances and Flannagan together.
The main staircase was nearest. Grant went up it three
at a time, but Frances was still on his heels at the top.


240 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"Right," she said, "and then right again. The second
door."
He hammered on it. "Open it," he said to Frances, "and
warn me if the lady is in her panties."
Frances opened and looked in. "There's no one."
"You take the bathroom again while I attend to the
furnishings." He turned on his heel, staring round the
room. It was a beautiful room, forty or fifty feet long,
with deep hanging curtains and a vast dressing table. The
bed was like a Renaissance barge; there were huge chairs
with elaborate seats and backings of brocade; the walls
were tapestried with scenes from the chase; and a contem-
porary oil of Catherine de' Medici was set back into the
wall, in its own niche. He had hit a mark when he com-
pared Marie Beuil to Catherine de' Medici.
Frances caught his eye. "The whole room is designed
as a setting for that picture. Some of this furniture actually
went with Catherine to France and all the rest is authentic
period."
"Is that picture in a safe?" said Grant.
"A steel shutter can be drawn down out of the wall.
There's some sort of combination lock that works it. And
you can swing the picture back and find a little strong-
box in the wall behind it."
"What the devil is it doing open then?"
"Oh, it's always open while Marie Beuil is here. She can
light the picture from a switch by her bed. I think she must
he there in the darkness sometimes and look at Catherine
the Queen. She is a strange woman."
"You've said it." Flannagan had toiled after them.


MR. FLANNAGAN'S ADVENTURE 241
Frances stared at him and his towel. "What's the matter,
Mr. Flannagan? Have you a headache?"
"It isn't a headache. It's an earthquake."
"You've blood on you," she said. "Anthony, what has
happened?"
"I fell down the stairs," said Flannagan, "bottom up, if
you'll permit the expression, Miss."
"And we don't particularly want to alarm you, but
someone pushed him," said Grant.
Flannagan protested. "You needn't have told the young
lady that, making her nervous. It was only a ghost, miss,
with a cold in the head."
"That, of course, is designed to soothe anyone's nerves."
She laughed outright, and it occurred to Grant to wonder
whether she, like himself, was ridiculously happy in spite
of the prevailing grimness. "I hope it doesn't spread its
germs."
Flannagan was examining the picture. "I don't know
why wet feet should fly to your head," he said. "This is a
damned fool arrangement. Does the Madame keep any-
thing valuable here?" He found something that clicked
and he swung the picture back. There was a small round
wooden door behind it.
"She says that the picture and this box behind it—it's
really a kind of little box-safe—both belonged to Cath-
erine."
"I could crack that door with a small chisel," said
Flannagan.
"I don't think it is meant to be tremendously strong. It
was just a hiding-place behind the picture. When the steel-
shutter is down, of course, it is strong, because that is the


242 ENTER THREE WITCHES
door of a modern safe of steel built into the wall. The pic-
ture itself and the box are the valuables. When she goes
away, she can lock the whole thing up."
"She's a fool if she leaves anything valuable there while
the thing is open, anyhow," said Flannagan.
Lecchino stood in the doorway. "Making a round of
visits?" he said.
"That's exactly what we're doing and we'd better get
on," said Grant. "Warner next."
Warner was lying on his bed reading a novel. He had,
Grant saw, a proper taste in literature: the corpse on the
dust-cover was very messy.
"Hullo," he said, "is this a surprise party? Hullo, Miss
Frances. Hullo, hullo, hullo, what have you done to your
head, Flannagan?"
"Mosquitoes," said Flannagan.
"Are you alive and whole, Warner?" said Grant.
"Yes, thank you very much."
"Been out in the weather?"
"In that weather!" He raised his brows.
"Heard anyone charging about the house in odd fash-
ion?"
"Only you people. Flannagan looks very odd. What on
earth have you been doing, man?"
"Mind if I look at your shoes?" said Grant.
"My good chap, what is this?"
"We're playing a game," said Grant. "Hunt the slipper.
Where are yours?"
"In the cupboard there. But . . ."
"It's a secret," said Grant. "We'll tell you some day.
Meanwhile be a sportsman."


MR. FLANNAGAN'S ADVENTURE 243
Warner rallied to the colours. "Go right ahead, old boy.
Isn't it something I can join in? Jolly old wet-weather
game, eh? We've had some frightful fun like that at a
house in Kent where I sometimes stay. Always seem to
get wet week-ends in Kent somehow."
"You haven't seen anything of Lady Bessie or Madame
Beuil?"
"No, not for hours and hours, old boy. Don't mean to
say that they are the hares, what?" He guffawed. "Wouldn't
put it past Lady Bessie. Great old gel."
"If you spot them, you might tallyho, fox and away,"
said Grant. All the shoes in the cupboard were clean. He
slammed its door and opened the bathroom's. "Mind if I
draw this covert, Warner? They might've left a clue here.
You never know with Lady Bessie." There were no shoes
in the bathroom. Grant dropped to his knees and crawled
under the bed. "Never know," his voice rose from the
depths, "what Lady Bessie might get up to or down to.
She's not here." He emerged and grabbed one of War-
ner's feet. His shoes were quite dry. "And no messages
chalked on your soles. Well, thanks very much. We'll have
to be going."
They went, but Warner pounded after them. "I'll take
the attics," he shouted. "I'm very hot amongst the attics."
"Good," said Grant, "mind the cobwebs." There seemed
no more useful way in which Warner might be occupied.
Izinir was in his bathrobe when he opened his door.
He stared at them, and snapped.
"What do you want?" He glared at Frances. "Do I call
you Miss Cheviot or not?"
"You are entitled to call me names," she said. "I'm


244 ENTER THREE WITCHES
sorry, Mr. Izinir, but we were afraid that Bergante would
not come if he heard that Rupert Cheviot's daughter was
here."
"Mind if we come in?" said Grant.
"All of you?" Izinir turned on Flannagan and Lecchino
in the rear, and drew his lips back over his teeth. He
plainly did not like the look of them. "What's the matter
with that man's head?" he demanded.
"I skidded on a snake," said Flannagan, "and bumped
myself. We're looking for the snake."
"We think it's in the house," said Grant. "Came in out
of the rain, probably."
"It is not here," said Izinir. "And I do not believe you."
"Sorry, but we can't have an adder wandering about the
place because you refuse to believe us. What's that under
your bed?" He shoved and dived. "Only the lace of your
boot. I could have sworn I saw it move. Look in the bath-
room, Flannagan."
Izinir was almost dancing with rage. Lecchino was at
his wardrobe and Grant was pulling shoes from the cup-
board. Izinir actually did begin to dance. "What nonsense,
what intolerable nonsense is this?"
"Snakes and ladders," said Grant. "Ladders last night,
snakes today, checkers tomorrow. Any luck in that ward-
robe, Lecchino?"
"Like Mother Hubbard, it is bare."
"It wasn't Mother Hubbard who was bare, except on
bath-nights. What about you, Flannagan?"
"Dry as the bone," said Flannagan, appearing with two
pairs of Izinir's shoes. "Okay?"
"Okay," said Grant. "Well, you seem to have escaped so


MR. FLANNAGAN'S ADVENTURE 245
far, Izinir. But I'd take a poker to bed with me tonight,
if I were you. Beat up the mattress before you get in, too.
Good-bye."
"This is . . . this is . . . this is . . ." They left Izinir
spluttering; his admirable English had failed him at last.
"What next?" said Lecchino, "and what are we looking
for?"
"The whole house," said Grant, "and I don't know." He
stopped and stared. "Who are we looking for?"
"I'm looking for the guy that hit me," said Flannagan.
"I know, I know, but . . ." He glanced back at Izinir's
door. "He needn't have been out in the rain at all, of
course. He could have been in the house the whole time.
Flannagan, you know something. You know too much.
What is it that you know? Think, man. Think like blazes."
"I'm thinking like blazes right now," said Flannagan,
his hand to his head, "and red-hot pokers. I never thought
a man's head could feel so much like a house on fire.
What're you getting at, Grant?"
"You think that Flannagan was attacked," said Lecchino
in his exact English, "because he has knowledge which
could be dangerous to someone in this house."
"Yes," said Grant, "I do. At least, I'm beginning to."
"I'm sticking to the sneeze," said Flannagan. "It makes
sense. Nothing in my head does."
"Anyhow," said Grant, "I want to see Lady Bessie and
Madame Beuil. Where the deuce can they have got to?
We'd better find them."
But they did not find them. They hunted upstairs and
down and through all the reaches of the house. They went
through the servants' quarters, they questioned the butler,


246 ENTER THREE WITCHES
they rediscovered Warner now sitting in an attic smoking
cigarettes and trying to play with a child's Punchinello.
"The strings are rotted. It no longer performs," said
Lecchino, flushing a little. It had been his, perhaps, in his
childhood.
At half past eight, they were in the garage. Lecchino
looked over the cars. "Lady Bessie's old Bentley is gone,"
he said. He shouted for the chauffeur. The man came out
and stared.
"I was at my supper," he said. "I did not hear a car
leave."
They looked at one another in the dim light. And Grant
hoped that Frances did not feel the cold fear which was
clutching him about the heart.
It was a forlorn dinner-table. Three chairs stood empty
now, for Bergante's place, oddly, was still set, as if Marie
Beuil had forgotten to speak to the servants. And presently
four were empty, for Lecchino, at the end of soup, rose and
muttered some excuse and went out. Grant almost started
after him; but then he looked at Warner and at Izinir
and settled back in his seat. He was staying close to
Frances, very close, until more light appeared.
Izinir was sullen, so sullen that Grant wondered whether
he was cloaking other emotions. He kept his eyes on the
plates before him, but his fingers fidgeted with his bread,
crumbling it and crumbling it. Tonight he was drinking
wine, in gulps. He showed unmistakable evidences of
strain, and perhaps, thought Grant, of fear.


250 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"I've one bet," said Grant. "Whether Bergante went
in that car or not, Bergante's baggage did. Finished, Fran-
ces? Will you gentlemen excuse us? We've promised to
join Lecchino."
Frances nodded, eager and grateful. She stood up.
"Anything wrong, Grant? Seriously wrong?" said War-
ner, and his eyes went again to the empty chairs.
"Oh, I hope not," said Grant, and left them to their
digestions.
Outside the door, Frances took his arm. "I didn't know
how to get away from them. I'm glad that I'm marrying a
man who can be sufficiently rude on occasion. But you
will be tame in the house, won't you, Anthony? And I
am still going to marry you, aren't I?"
"My dear lady, you are going to marry me even if the
heavens fall, and the earth cracks and the seas are sucked
into abysmal chasms and we have to dash about in the void
to find a clergyman. Have you any preference in clergymen,
by the way? I mean, as between archdeacons, say, and a
rural dean. I've an uncle who bishes, if you would like
to be married by a bishop. He'd probably send us off in
style."
"I might have known there was a bishop in your blood,"
she said. "You have a pontifical air in your more sinister
moments."
"Well, it's not the sort of thing that comes out in every
generation, you know. Sometimes it skips three or four
entirely. Our children will probably go into the turf-com-
mission business. Very profitable, too, I'm told. Do you
mind if we have several little bookies?"
She laughed. "I don't think I shall mind very much,


252 ENTER THREE WITCHES
who has just taken aboard a considerable quantity of chi-
anti. He greeted them warmly, perhaps as a diversion
from his grief.
"Old ladies shown up?"
"No, they haven't," said Grant.
Flannagan got out of his chair. "Better start looking
again," he said.
"Sit down," said Grant firmly. "Listen, Flannagan. Miss
Cheviot and I are going out, in my car. We are going to
be gone for an hour. Lecchino has disappeared. That leaves
you to look after the house. Get me?"
"Izinir and Warner?" Flannagan heaved out of his chair
again. "Okay, you're the boss. Like 'em locked in the coal
cellar?"
"That may not be necessary, but don't let either of them
run, if you can help it. Izinir ate his dinner as if he ex-
pected to get supper somewhere else. He's like a cat on
hot bricks, undecided which way to jump. At the moment,
he's licking his pads, and pretty surly about it. But as
soon as he sees a landing place, he'll take off."
"Take off," said Flannagan, looking very oddly at the
ceiling.
"Warner is being too bovinely British to be true. He'll
bear watching. He isn't a fool, and it takes a good deal
of intelligence to look one if you're not. I don't think
Warner will bolt. It is difficult to imagine anything that
he would bolt from, especially when he's interested or
curious or concerned in the doings. But he may be brew-
ing something. Watch him, Flannagan. Can't you get 'em
to settle down to a little steady crap-shooting or something,
under your eye?"


254 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"I'm refusing to believe anything," he said doggedly.
"Except that a corpse in the pool may get washed away out
into the lake, if the weir is opened. Unless it breaks loose
from its anchor there'll not be a chance of recovering it.
We're going to get somebody on this job who has author-
ity to keep the weir closed until the water settles."
"I see," she said. "It does mean the Police, of course.
Anthony, you know what we have been thinking of Ber-
gante?"
"Which of your thinks?"
"We think that in some way he was responsible for my
father's death. He stole the passport, the baggage, so that
he could save himself. But how could he have stolen them
if my father had not been dead? And if my father was
dead, it was surely Bergante's office as a friend to let us
know. Even the merest acquaintance would have done that
kindness."
"Perhaps. But Bergante was a man in flight, hiding,
disguised, and desperate. He may have felt the risk too
great."
"That would be contemptible," she said.
"Maybe so. He was pretty much of a rat. But that does
not make him a murderer."
"I don't know," she said slowly, "that any of us put
it . . ."
"So bluntly," he said. "If the shadow of that suspicion
was in your mind, it was in the mind of the others too."
He stopped the car again. The significance of what they
had said came over him like a tide.
"Frances," he said. "I'm going to turn back."
"No," she said. "No. You can't do that. You have made


MR. FLANNAGAN'S ADVENTURE 255
up your mind to the course which seems to you right. If
you do not take it, you will never forgive yourself. And you
will never forgive me."
"Does Michele believe that his father was murdered by
Bergante?"
"None of us know what to think." Her voice was very
flat. "I do not believe that Michele killed Bergante. I
should never believe that, wholly. But, if I were wrong, you
realise what it would mean between you and me."
"Yes," he said harshly.
"I am glad that we need not argue it. Now, Anthony,
drive on."
He sat for one moment. Then he started the car.
"It has to be cleared up," he said. "None of us will rest
until it is. Pray that Michele does not open the weir. Pray."
They had come into the village before he spoke again.
"It isn't only Michele of whom we must think. There's
Lady Bessie, too."
"You are going to telephone?" she said. "We can't drive
to Rome and back in an hour, and I suppose that your
friend is in Rome."
"Yes. I didn't want to risk a call from the house. There's
a public telephone somewhere in this place."
He found it in a little box near the Post Office; and he
put a call through to Hawker.
"Alio, alio, alio. Is that Mr. Hawker's residence? Mr.
Hawker? Oh, hullo, Hawker, Grant here. No, at Feroce.
I'm speaking from a public 'phone. Didn't want to risk it
from the house. Look here, things have begun to move,
and I'm afraid the corpse may move too, which will inter-
fere with my waiting tactics. And Lady Bessie has gone


256 ENTER THREE WITCHES
missing with Madame Beuil. I think that something should
be done about it, but I thought I'd take your advice be-
fore you called the police. Yes, you. Yes, man, yes. It'd
probably take me an hour to find the local cop and get
him out of bed. If you'll stir somebody in Rome, we can
get much better action. All right, all right, here's the situ-
ation. One of the guests, a Spanish refugee named Ber-
gante, mentioned in our conversation of this date, dis-
appeared last night. Early this morning, to be exact. He
was the man, you remember, with whom Rupert Cheviot
was supposed to be staying when Cheviot put off this
mortality. Yes, I'm satisfied that Cheviot is dead. Yes, yes.
Bergante . . . B-E-R-G-A-N-T-E ... B for beer, E for eau,
R for rum, G for Guinness, A for Ale, N for nutrimento,
T for telefonata, E for evviva, elefante, and epa . . . got
it right? Bergante disappeared last night. So did the iron
bar and things which I mentioned today. He's in the lake,
and very dead by now, I imagine. And there's been a
cloudburst on the hills, which may mean that he will be
washed away unless authority insists that the weir is kept
closed. Furthermore, Lady Bessie and Marie Beuil have
not been seen since an hour or so before dinner. They are
not in the house, and no one has had any explanation of
their absence. I'm becoming queasy. Do you think you
can get things under way? If a good man is sent up at
once from Rome, I'll talk to him. You can call one of
your friends in the Bureau or your friends' friends, can't
you? What? What did you say? It's been what? Reported
already? Good lord, man, who reported it? Yes, I know
now that I should have, but I thought I was acting sensibly
at the time. Yes, I'll take the rap, too. But who? What I


MR. FLANNAGAN'S ADVENTURE 257
am asking you is this," Grant almost shook the 'phone to
pieces, "who reported it and when? You don't know? All
right, all right, all right. All right. But make them hurry.
Insist that it is serious. Get on to them again. They should
send someone up tonight. Good man! Yes, at once. All
right. Thanks, Hawker. Thanks."
He hung up and stood for a moment, thinking. The
first thing to do now was to get back to the house, quickly.
If the police had not been stirred to vigorous action by the
report already made, Hawker would get behind them, and
they would probably telephone the house at once. He had
better reach the telephone and sit by it. But who had made
the report to them? Was that the meaning of Warner's
heartiness? Warner almost certainly had acquaintances in
the police. But, somehow, one had not expected that War-
ner would be eager to call in the police. And then he
grunted. Lecchino? It was time to get on, anyway.
Grant walked out to the car. It was empty. Frances was
gone.


FINALE 259
Anthony, something very odd has happened at the house.
I'm afraid."
"What?" He took her arm and helped her into the car.
She was trembling.
"The Bentley is back. Parked at the side of the house, in
the drive, where nobody ever leaves a car. The butler heard
it and ran out. But . . . but there was no one there."
"What's the butler doing?"
"He doesn't know what to do. If Lady Bessie has come
back, or Marie Beuil, why would they leave the Bentley in
the drive and run off into the night?"
"We'll go and look." He swung the car.
"What do you think, Anthony?"
"I don't like it," he said bluntly. "Frances, somebody has
been to the police. Things may begin to move now, very
fast. You're to stick to,me like my shadow. I'm sorry I
haven't a very elegant shadow, but ape it. If I lose sight
of you for two minutes, I shall probably go completely hay-
wire. Perhaps I ought to pop you straight into the local
lock-up and leave you there for the night."
"They say Italian jails are very comfortable. I might
refuse to come out in the morning. Oh, Anthony, I'm
worried about Lady Bessie."
"Stop it. I'm doing enough worrying for several of us.
Remember that she once investigated the marriage-customs
of the Incas or somebody. As she survived that, anything
else should be child's play to her."
"The Incas haven't any marriage customs. They're all
dead. And Lady Bessie would not dream of investigating
other people's marriages. She'd consider it distinctly Nosey
Parker."


260 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"I'm only reporting Jane Wild. She says that Lady Bessie
consorts with Incas and Mayas, and if Jane says it, then
it must be so, even if all the Incas and the Mayas have
had to be resurrected to substantiate her story. You have
heard of Jane Wild, of course?"
"Of course I have. I'm awfully fond of her. And you
stayed at La Napoule with the Wilds."
"You're like Jane. You do stick to your story, don't you?"
They swept in through the gates of the villa. The house
showed darkly at their left.
"Somebody might light a window or two. Looks pretty
grim, doesn't it? Where did the butler say that the Bentley
was?"
"Here, where the drive swings round at the side of the
house."
Grant braked. "Well, it isn't here now."
They stared at the long stretch of gravel, dull grey be-
tween the trees in the dim moon.
"Things do seem to come and go about here, don't they?"
said Grant. "We'd better get inside. I'll drive up to the
door. One of the men-at-arms can put away the car."
The hall was empty. Grant stood, uncertain, and then
he said: "We'd better have the butler."
Frances found a bell and rang.
The man appeared at the end of the hall, and for the
first time Grant saw him quicken his portly pace.
"What's become of the car?" barked Grant. "It isn't in
the drive."
"I told Madame Beuil's chauffeur to put it away, sir. I
thought it might be the cause of an accident where it
stood."


FINALE 261
"Were the lights on when you found it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Ignition key in it?"
"Yes, sir."
"No indication of anything odd, peculiar, of anything
wrong?"
"No, sir, except the place where it was and the absence
of the ladies. I understood that Madame Beuil had gone
out in it with her Ladyship."
"Quite so. Have you looked about the grounds? Turned
the staff out to look?"
"I did not like to take the responsibility, sir. It would set
the staff talking. Madame Beuil would not care for that."
"No, I don't suppose she would. Where are the other
guests? And Mr. Flannagan?"
"I have not seen them since I served coffee and brandy
in the lounge, sir. Mr. Flannagan, I assume, is in his room.
He has had something of an accident . Would you suggest,
sir, that I make some further search?"
"I don't know. Wait a while, anyhow. Does Signor
Lecchino know of this?"
"I have not been able to find him, sir. I imagine that he
is down at the lake. I instructed the chauffeur to go down,
after he had put away the car. He has not yet returned,
sir. I did not care, myself, to leave the house in these
circumstances."
"I'm going up to Mr. Flannagan's room. There may be a
telephone call from Rome. Probably it will be for Madame
Beuil. Put it through to me, will you, if there is a connec-
tion in Mr. Flannagan's room."


FINALE 265
He thought it well to leave on that, and pulled Frances
through the door.
Izinir came into the passage after them. "What do you
mean, what is that about the police?" All the fury had
gone out of him.
"You'd better wait about and see," said Grant. "I'll find
you some trousers." He took Frances' arm. "Warner now,"
he said to her, "if you can bear all these exposures."
"Oh dear," she said, "do you think that Mr. Warner is
in his shorts too?"
"Unless the technique varies," said Grant, and knocked
on Warner's door.
"Come in," shouted Warner, "if the door's not locked. If
it is, you might bring an axe."
"The key's out here," said Grant. He opened the door
and looked round it. "Have you got your trousers on?
Because Miss Cheviot is here."
"I'm wearing pyjama pants, but I'll add the eiderdown.
One minute, Miss Frances. Right-ho, now."
"So he got yours too," said Grant, following Frances in.
"Perhaps he's having revenge."
"Well, I must say that he was very nice about it," said
Warner. "He just walked in at the door and said, 'I want
all your pants. Do we fight for them or can we negotiate?'
Well, you know, he's rather a big sort of chappie and I
didn't see much further use for my trousers until morning,
so we negotiated."
"I hope he promised to bring them back before morning,"
said Grant.
"Oh, yes, he entered into solemn covenant."


266 ENTER THREE WITCHES
Grant sat on the bed. "Do you mind if I sit, Frances?
I feel rather overcome."
"Oh, I say, do sit. Won't you have this chair, Miss
Frances?"
"I told him," said Grant, "to keep tags on everyone. I
thought a bullfighter could be depended on for some
finesse. Oh dear."
"He explained that it was a kind of precautionary meas-
ure, but I thought he was acting on his own initiative. If
I'd known you were behind it, Grant, I'd have come and
argued. You're more my weight."
"I didn't tell him to pinch your pants," said Grant. "Oh
lord, where is the man? I'll get them back for you. I've
got to get a pair for Izinir too."
"Well, it's some consolation to know that he debagged
Izinir. What's it all about, Grant? You're taking rather a
lot on yourself, aren't you?" Warner's voice was suddenly
edged.
"Yes," said Grant, "but let me assure you that I didn't
intend this. Flannagan is a trifle too ingenious." He made
for the door. It was the shortest way out. "I'll talk to him,
strongly."
Flannagan was lying on his bed, his feet rising over the
end, like the twin Pillars of Hercules at the Mediterranean's
gate: Africa on one side, so to speak, Europe on the other.
He was still engaged with his bullfighting novelette and
he had been mortifying his flesh again with Scotch. He had
his ice-pack on his head, and on the floor were two mounds
of trousers.
"Hullo, folks," he said.


FINALE 267
"I only hope," said Grant, eyeing the trousers, "that you
haven't got them mixed, that's all."
"I'll be able to tell them by the girth." He removed the
ice carefully from his head and stood up. "Howdy, Miss
Frances. What do we do next?"
"You," said Grant, "go and return the trousers to their
respective owners. Izinir will probably bite you. I don't
care what you do after that. I wash my hands of you and
of all your works. You could busy yourself, en route, think-
ing up some explanation to offer Izinir."
Flannagan knitted his brows. "I could tell him I took
'em away to be pressed," he said.
"He should enjoy that, after forty minutes in the bath-
room."
"Yeh, I did lock the bathroom, didn't I?"
"Come on, Frances," said Grant and they went.
"I think you were rather hard on Flannagan," she said
as they descended the stairs. "He only did what you asked,
in his own way."
"Trust a woman," said Grant, "to fall for a bullfighter."
"I'm sure that he fought his bulls very nicely. Are we
going out, Anthony? To the lake? We must do something."
"Yes," he said. "We're going to the lake. At least, I'm
going to the lake." He hesitated.
"I'm coming too then," she said, "like your shadow."
"I wonder . . ."
"Come on. We're wasting time, and if we don't do
something I shall . . . shall start to think."
He gripped her arm. "Come on then."
They ran across the terrace and down the steps to the
second terrace. The moon was moody behind fitful clouds.


FINALE 269
"It's unbelievable," muttered Grant.
"Anthony," she said in a voice that he had never heard
before, "that is a light below the surface, and it is rising.
Something is walking out of the lake. Not swimming, but
walking up out of the lake."
He bit at his lip. If he had been alone he would have
known that his senses were lying. But she saw too what
he saw. Something was coming up from the dark depths
of the lake, something which moved in its own light,
moved as a man moves, walking slowly.
"It's near the surface," she said. "It is coming to the top."
He wanted to run, but he knew that his feet would not
obey.
"Anthony, what are we going to do?"
"I'm going to meet it," he said, "if I can get my feet
moving."
Her fingers were biting into his arm. "No," she
whispered. "No. Look!"
The thing had broken water, and a long beam of yellow
light shone to the steps. Behind it was a huge bulk, a
shadow that was the shadow of a man and yet like no man
that ever walked amongst the men of earth. It stood now,
half out of the water, and two arms rose slowly, like the
fantastic wings of some vast-bellied bird.
"The light is shining from its head," said Frances, and
he could hardly hear her voice. "It's moving again, it's
coming up towards the pavilion. Anthony, what is it doing
to its head?"
And then he saw. "It's unscrewing its helmet," he said.
"It's a diver."


270 ENTER THREE WITCHES
And they both began to laugh, wildly.
He jerked at himself. It had not been a pleasant laugh;
and this was not a joke.
She stopped as suddenly.
"That gave me what my aunts in Cheltenham would
call a turn," he said. "Frances, you realise what it means?
The police are here."
They walked down to the next level of the terraces; and
as they came, a shadow detached itself from the balustrade.
It spoke. "Who's there?"
"Us," said Grant. "Is that Lady Bessie?"
"Anthony? Who's with you? Frances? Frances, you had
better go back to the house. This is no place for people
who need not be here."
"What is happening?" said Frances. "What are they
doing?"
"Dragging the pool," she said. "The diver has been under
the Watergate, where the drag won't go. They are working
that end now from the boat."
Grant heard the faint plash of distant oars. "Who
brought the police?" he said.
"I did. What else could I do after your story?"
They stood together gazing down at the lake. Another
man had appeared and was helping the diver out of his
helmet.
"Did you find Marie Beuil? Where is she?"
"I have not seen Marie Beuil since early afternoon."
Lady Bessie did not lower her voice and yet it somehow
seemed as remote as the voices of policemen in the distant
boat.


FINALE 271
"But you went to look for her . . ."
"I did not find her. Frances, will you please me and go
back to the house?"
"Yes," said Frances. "Yes." She took Grant's arm.
"I'll walk back with you," he said, "and deposit you in
the lounge."
But he halted at the front door. "You go in. You'll be
all right now, I think."
"What are you going to do?"
"Talk to Lady Bessie."
"Anthony, you know. You know who the murderer is."
"I think I know," he said. "I think I've known since the
beginning." He turned and went down the steps again,
terrace by terrace, to Lady Bessie.
"Did the police bring the diving-suit?" he said.
She nodded. "It's a new suit they have been trying out
in the Tiber. The diver belongs to the River Police."
"You got rapid action."
"I went to Hawker at the Consulate first. He and I both
know some of the senior people."
"He would not tell me who had reported it. I guessed at
you."
"The police warned him not to, until this was done. We
had to hurry, in case the flood came down."
"Have they . . ." Grant paused, groping for a phrase,
". . . caught anything yet?"
"No, nothing. I am praying that they won't."
"Where is Lecchino?" Grant asked.
"With the police, in the boat."
"And his mother?"


272 ENTER THREE WITCHES
"None of us knows."
"Lady Bessie, how did Rupert Cheviot die?"
He sensed the sudden rigidity of her muscles. "Why do
you ask that now?"
"Because I believe that Bergante told Marie Beuil before
he died. And Marie Beuil told you."
"Why should she have told me?"
"Because you would not have rested until she had told
you. I do not believe that Bergante fobbed Marie Beuil off
with some story of a casual shell. And I do not believe that
Marie Beuil could have satisfied you with that fumbling
lie, even if she had wanted to."
She turned on him. "What is it to you how Rupert
Cheviot died?"
"I am going to marry Frances. Frances is entitled to the
truth, equally with Marie Beuil and her son."
"Marie Beuil has not told her son how his father died.
She never will."
"That is her decision. Neither she nor you have a right
to decide for Frances."
"It is better that Frances should not know."
"It cannot be only your secret now."
"Anthony," she said. "I shall tell you. But I do not believe
that you will want to tell Frances, now or ever."
"I shall judge that," said Grant, and he pulled his wrists
from her grip.
"Her father died drunk, madly, like a beast. He was in
a cafe, drinking, drinking, as he had drunk for twenty
years. Trying to wash out the thing which would not be
washed out, hating his life as he has always hated his life


FINALE 273
since his wife died. The place was filled with men. A
truckload of militiamen from one of the cities had come
into the village. They were drinking too, singing and
drinking. And Rupert quarrelled with them. He quarrelled
with them, fought one. The man threw him across a table.
The others cheered. Cheviot sprang up and caught at a bot-
tle. He threw it. It smashed against the man's rifle. They
taunted him, laughed at him, jeered. I can see it. I shall
always see it. He was a madman in his drunken rages.
He hurled himself at the soldiers, shouting and fighting
like a wild animal. He smashed one man's jaw. And then
he began to cry out, Arriba Espana, Viva el Rey. What
did he care for Spain or its king? He was mad, mad. And
they were men without an officer, a wandering band of
guerrillas. They dragged him to the door, they threw him
out into the street, and there in the gutters the man whose
jaw he had broken shot him like a dog." She swung on
him. "Is this a story to tell Frances?"
"No," said Grant. "No, I shall not tell her that story.
What else did Bergante say to Marie Beuil?"
"He told her that he had escaped, by a back way. He was
afraid now that the militiamen would hunt him. They
did. But he got back to his house before they came after
him. He took Cheviot's passport and Cheviot's bag. He
knew that once the hue and cry was out, his own passport
might prove his death-warrant, but he had some chance
of getting through with the Englishman's. He was hiding
in a ditch, two hundred yards away, when the militiamen
arrived. They burnt his house, and then they went off
again, on their wild career. Bergante worked down to the
coast. But the villagers believed that he had died in the



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