A Dangerous Fortune(118)

“Put it on, then.”

She put it over her head.

The pendant did not show to best advantage against the front of her nightdress. “It will look better with a low-cut evening gown,” Hugh said.

Nora gave him a coquettish look and began to unbutton her nightdress. Hugh watched hungrily as she exposed more and more of her chest. The pendant hung in the swelling of her cleavage like a drop of rain on a rosebud. She smiled at Hugh and carried on undoing buttons, then she pulled the nightdress open, showing him her bare breasts. “Do you want to kiss them?” she said.

Now he did not know what to think. Was she toying with him or did she want to make love? He leaned over and kissed her breasts with the jewelry nestling between them. He took her nipple into his mouth and sucked it gently.

“Come to bed,” she said.

“I thought you said—”

“Well … a girl has to show she’s grateful, doesn’t she?” She drew back the covers.

Hugh felt sick. It was the jewelry that had changed her mind. All the same he could not resist the invitation. He shrugged out of his dressing gown, hating himself for being so weak, and climbed in beside her.

When he came, he felt like crying.

With his morning mail there was a letter from Tonio Silva.

Tonio had vanished shortly after Hugh met him in the coffeehouse. No article had appeared in The Times. Hugh had looked rather foolish, having made such a fuss about the danger to the bank. Edward had taken every opportunity to remind the partners of Hugh’s false alarm. However, the incident had been eclipsed by the drama of Hugh’s threatened move to Greenbournes.

Hugh had written to the Hotel Russe but got no reply. He had been worried about his friend, but there was no more he could do.

He opened the letter anxiously. It came from a hospital, asking Hugh to visit. The letter finished: “Whatever you do, tell no one where I am.”

What had happened? Tonio had been in perfect health two months ago. And why was he in a public hospital? Hugh was dismayed. Only the poor went to hospitals, which were grim, unsanitary places: anyone who could afford it had doctors and nurses come to the house, even for operations.

Mystified and concerned, Hugh went straight to the hospital. He found Tonio in a dark, bare ward of thirty close-packed beds. His ginger hair had been shaved and his face and head were scarred. “Dear God!” Hugh said. “Have you been run over?”

“Beaten up,” said Tonio.

“What happened?”

“I was attacked in the street outside the Hotel Russe a couple of months ago.”

“You were robbed, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a mess!”

“It’s not quite as bad as it looks. I had a broken finger and a cracked ankle, but otherwise it was only cuts and bruises—although rather a lot of them. However, I’m almost better now.”

“You should have contacted me before. We must get you out of here. I’ll send my doctor to you, and arrange a nurse—”

“No, thanks, old boy. I appreciate your generosity. But money isn’t the only reason I stayed here. It’s also safer. Other than you, only one person knows where I am: a trusted colleague who brings me beefsteak pies and brandy and messages from Cordova. I hope you didn’t tell anyone you were coming.”

“Not even my wife,” Hugh said.

“Good.”

Tonio’s old recklessness seemed to have vanished, Hugh thought; in fact he was going to the other extreme. “But you can’t stay in hospital for the rest of your life to hide from street ruffians.”

“The people who attacked me were not just thieves, Pilaster.”

Hugh took off his hat and sat on the edge of the bed. He tried to ignore the intermittent groaning of the man in the next bed. “Tell me what happened,” he said.

“It wasn’t a routine theft. My key was taken and the thieves used it to get into my room. Nothing of value was stolen but all the papers pertaining to my article for The Times were taken, including the affidavits signed by the witnesses.”

Hugh was horrified. It chilled his heart to think that the immaculately respectable transactions taking place in the hushed halls of Pilasters should have any link with violent crime in the streets and the battered face in front of him. “It almost sounds as if the bank is under suspicion!”

“Not the bank,” Tonio said. “Pilasters is a powerful institution, but I don’t believe it could organize murders in Cordova.”

“Murders?” This was getting worse and worse. “Who has been murdered?”

“All the witnesses whose names and addresses were on the affidavits that were stolen from my hotel room.”

“I can hardly believe it.”

“I’m lucky to be alive myself. They would have killed me, I think, were it not that murders are investigated more thoroughly here in London than they are back at home, and they were afraid of the fuss.”

Hugh was still dazed and disgusted by the revelation that people had been murdered because of a bond issue by Pilasters Bank. “But who is behind all this?”

“Micky Miranda.”

Hugh shook his head incredulously. “I’m not fond of Micky, as you know, but I can’t believe he would do this.”

“The Santamaria railroad is vital to him. It will make his family the second most powerful in the land.”