Free The Twenty-Third Man by Gladys Mitchell

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CHAPTER 5
The Living Troglodytes
    THE HOTEL GRAPE-VINE , it appeared, had apprised most of the guests of Dame Beatrice’s determination to visit the community of cave-dwellers.
    ‘Nothing could be easier,’ Mrs Angel assured her. ‘And on no account take any notice of Mr Peterhouse. He specializes in jeremiads. He believes that the poor old cave-dwellers deal in witchcraft and less innocuous matters. He really is a silly old man.’
    ‘ Less innocuous matters?’
    ‘Sodom and Gomorrah couldn’t hold a candle to that man’s mind, and, if they did, it would explode.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘You sound incredulous. My Talkie has gone! It was that wretched Karl Emden.’
    ‘It is in the hope of seeing him that I propose to visit the troglodytes.’
    ‘Their caves are extremely insanitary. Have you brought a small-tooth comb? But, whether you have or whether you have not, remember to take no notice of anything Mr Peterhouse tells you. A most unreliable man, and hopelessly misinformed. You need to beware of him, you know. I do not believe he can distinguish between fat and fiction, and his memory is faulty, too. He would make a very bad witness in a court of law. And on no account allow him to accompany you. The cave-dwellers do not like him.’
    Dame Beatrice certainly did not propose to seek his company on her visit to the troglodyte community, yet she agreed with him that it might be as well to take a guide. She spoke of this to Pilar.
    ‘Your Pepe. Is he at liberty to escort me to the community of cave-dwellers?’
    ‘For how much?’ inquired Pilar, who believed in the direct approach.
    ‘That is for him to say.’
    ‘Then it will be too much. Offer fifty pesetas. It is plenty.’
    ‘What about thirty?’
    ‘That’, said Pilar readily, ‘would also be plenty. Give him twenty-five.’
    ‘Very well, and here are ten pesetas for yourself. Please ask Pepe to undertake the hire of the mules.’
    ‘No, no. You must not hire mules for that excursion. You go there in state, in a motor car.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘The cave-dwellers have their pride. They are always visited by motor car. No one would think of anything else. There is quite a good road.’
    So Dame Beatrice, accompanied by a newly shaven Pepe Casita, journeyed to the caves of Nuestra Doña de Mercedes in a hired limousine of 1935 vintage driven by a reckless islander named Ignacio Verde on Pilar’s idea of a good road.
    ‘We are here,’ announced Ignacio, skidding to a halt on the edge of a thousand-foot drop. ‘I wait two hours. Or more. Or less. As you wish. Your time is mine. Let us say two hours, shall we?’
    They said two hours; then Pepe led the way to the caves. These as Peterhouse had stated, formed part of what had been a stronghold of the islanders before the time of the Spanish conquerors and it overlooked a deep river valley. The entrances were walled up except for the narrow doors. These were all closed and there was nobody to be seen.
    ‘They heard the sound of the automobile,’ said Pepe, a graceful, sad-eyed youth wearing a distressing pin-striped suit of navy-blue and a fancy hat like a fringed lampshade. ‘They are within. I shall shout.’
    This he did, and, without waiting for the result, retired to the car which had brought them. A boy’s face appeared round the edge of a door and was immediately withdrawn. A moment later a lacquer-haired, full-faced woman of about twenty-five appeared in the doorway and beckoned to the visitor.
    ‘We are here since twelve hundred years,’ she announced, ‘and we are the native peoples of the island. Before us we have photography showing my father’s family, my mother’s family, and an iron candlestick, property of Philip II, Spanish Armada, of Madrid, the Escorial. You are English lady, yes? Please to look around, and then I sell you the island pottery, not made on a wheel, secret of this place since ancient history times. I am educated in a convent. You may rely on me.’
    Dame