A Knife for the Juggler by Manning Coles

Author:Manning Coles
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, adventure
Publisher: Rare Treasure Editions
Published: 1953-06-15T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XI

HOTEL ARCADIA

Hambledon saw nothing of Forgan and Campbell that night or the following morning. When he passed through the lounge on his way to a rather late lunch they were sitting in the far corner surrounded by a lot of dishevelled newspapers. Hambledon knew that the expected news was not in the papers for he had already seen them himself. He merely nodded and passed on, before he had finished the first course the model-makers had quietly disappeared.

On the following morning there were paragraphs in most of the Paris papers on the subject of an outbreak of fires at Flores del Sol, a small fishing village on the Biscayan coast of Spain, near Gijon.

Hambledon put down the papers for a moment's thought. Flores del Sol was the name on that hotel card he had himself found in the pockets of the blond young man who had been stabbed to death at Montmartre. The Hotel Arcadia, yes. So the card was significant and not accidental. He picked up his newspapers again.

Some of the paragraphs were brief and dignified and some were vaguely alarmist, but one newspaper had apparently been so fortunate as to have one of its staff somewhere in the neighbourhood at the time. This correspondent, Hambledon felt, had taken off his coat, squared his elbows and got down to it properly. He might be on holiday—he probably was—but this was a piece of cake. The item was headed: "Trouble among the Flowers."

Flores del Sol, that is, The Sunflowers, is the charming name of a fishing village on the romantic Biscayan coast of Spain. Normally its peaceful simple-hearted inhabitants have little to worry them but the monstrous rollers of the dread Bay thundering upon their coasts and the piscine vagaries of the sardine shoals which provide them with their frugal livelihood. To-day, however, Flores del Sol awakes to find itself in the news, for the dread hand of Arson is at work in its cobbled streets.

Late in the evening of the day before yesterday, consternation was caused in the harbour area by a sudden outbreak of fire in one of the upper rooms of a café which normally provides amusement and recreation for the less cultured Florians. The fire apparently burst out suddenly and with such inconceivable violence that such persons as happened to be upon the upper floors of the house had to cast themselves from the windows in order to escape burning. Several of them are said to have lost all their possessions. Scarcely had the population of Flores recovered from this shock when a fresh alarm was raised, a vessel at anchor in Flores' little bay was seen to be blazing furiously. Flames leapt the height of the masthead to incarnadine the water and paint with crimson the sombre hills around.

Half an hour later an even worse terror smote the hearts of Flores, already trembling. Their great hotel, the Arcadia, their pride and joy, which brings to this secluded spot the glitter and glamour of the gay world beyond its hills, was also seen to be on fire.

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