We sprang apart, for all the world like a guilty pair surprised. Luckily the room was in its normal dim state of illumination, so that to one suddenly entering, the expression on our faces was not clearly visible; on the other hand, the subdued light gave a romantic setting to the abominable situation.
Lola saved it, however. She rushed to Dale.
“Do you know what Mr. de Gex was just telling me? His illness—it is worse than any one thought. It's incurable. He can't live long; he must die soon. It's dreadful—dreadful! Did you know it?”
Dale looked from her to me, and after a slight pause, came forward.
“Is this true, Simon?”
A plague on the woman for catching me in the trap! Before Dale came in I was on the point of putting an airy construction on my indiscreet speech. I had no desire to discuss my longevity with any one. I want to keep my miserable secret to myself. It was exasperating to have to entrust it even to Dale. And yet, if I repudiated her implied explanation of our apparent embrace it would have put her hopelessly in the wrong. I had to support her.
“It's what the doctors say,” I replied, “but whether it's true or not is another matter.”
Again he looked queerly from me to Lola and from Lola back to me. His first impression of our attitude had been a shock from which he found it difficult to recover. I smiled, and, although perfectly innocent, felt a villain.
“Madame Brandt is good enough to be soft-hearted and to take a tragic view of a most commonplace contingency.”
“But it isn't commonplace. By God, it's horrible!” cried the boy, the arrested love for me suddenly gushing into his heart. “I had no idea of it. In Heaven's name, Simon, why didn't you tell me? My dear old Simon.”
Tears rushed into his eyes and he gripped my hand until I winced. I put my other hand on his shoulder and laughed with a contorted visage.
“My good Dale, the moribund are fragile.”
“Oh, Lord, man, how can you make a jest of it?”
“Would you have me drive about in a hearse, instead of a cab, by way of preparation?”
“But what have the doctors told you?” asked Lola.
“My two dear people!” I cried, “for goodness' sake don't fall over me in this way. I'm not going to die to-morrow unless my cook poisons me or I'm struck by lightning. I'm going to live for a deuce of a time yet. A couple of weeks at least. And you'll very much oblige me by not whispering a word abroad about what you've heard this afternoon. It would cause me infinite annoyance. And meanwhile I suggest to you, Dale, as the lawyers say, that you have been impolite enough not to say how-do-you-do to your hostess.”
He turned to her rather sheepishly, and apologised. My news had bowled him over, he declared. He shook hands with her, laughed and walked Adolphus about on his hind legs.
“But where have you dropped from?” she asked.
“Berlin. I came straight through. Didn't you get my wire?”
“No.”
“I sent one.”
“I never got it.”
He swung his arms about in a fine rage.
“If ever I get hold of that son of Satan I'll murder him. He was covered up to his beastly eyebrows in silver lace and swords and whistles and medals and things. He walked up and down the railway station as if he owned the German navy and ran trains as a genteel hobby. I gave him ten marks to send the telegram. The miserable beast has sneaked the lot. I'll get at the railway company through the Embassy and have the brute sacked and put in prison. Did you ever hear of such a skunk?”
“He must have thought you a very simple and charming young Englishman,” said I.
“You've done the same thing yourself!” he retorted indignantly.
“Pardon me,” said I. “If I do send a telegram in that loose way, I choose a humble and honest-looking porter and give him the exact fee for the telegram and a winning smile.”
“Rot!” said Dale, and turning to Lola—“He has demoralised the whole railway system of Europe with his tips. I've seen him give a franc to the black greasy devil that bangs at the carriage wheels with a bit of iron. He would give anybody anything.”
He had recovered his boyish pride in my ridiculous idiosyncracies, and was in process of illustrating again to Lola what a “splendid chap” I was. Poor lad! If he only knew what a treacherous, traitorous, Machiavelli of a hero he had got. For the moment I suffered from a nasty crick in the conscience.
“Wouldn't he, Adolphus, you celestial old blackguard?” he laughed. Then suddenly: “My hat! You two are fond of darkness! It gives me the creeps. Do you mind, Lola, if I turn on the light?”
He marched in his young way across to the switches and set the room in the blaze he loved. My crick of the conscience was followed by an impulse of resentment. He took it for granted that his will was law in the house. He swaggered around the room with a proprietary air. He threw in the casual “Lola” as if he owned her. Dale is the most delightful specimen of the modern youth of my acquaintance. But even Dale, with all his frank charm of manner, has the modern youth's offhand way with women. I often wonder how women abide it. But they do, more shame to them, and suffer more than they realise by their indulgence. When next I meet Maisie Ellerton I will read her a wholesome lecture, for her soul's good, on the proper treatment a self-respecting female should apply to the modern young man.
Dale filled the room with his clear young laugh, and turned on every light in the place. Lola and I exchanged glances—she had adopted her usual lazy pantherine attitude in the armchair—and her glance was not that of a happy woman to whom a longed-for lover had unexpectedly come. Its real significance I could not divine, but it was more wistful than merely that of a fellow-conspirator.
“By George!” cried Dale, pulling up a chair by Lola's side, and stretching out his long, well-trousered legs in front of the fire. “It's good to come back to civilisation and a Christian language and a fireside—and other things,” he added, squeezing Lola's hand. “If only it had not been for this horrible news about you, dear old man——”
“Oh, do forget it and give me a little peace!” I cried. “Why have you come back all of a sudden?”
“The Wymington people wired for me. It seems the committee are divided between me and Sir Gerald Macnaughton.”
“He has strong claims,” said I. “He has been Mayor of the place and got knighted by mistake. He also gives large dinners and wears a beautiful diamond pin.”
“I believe he goes to bed in it. Oh, he's an awful ass! It was he who said at a public function 'The Mayor of Wymington must be like Caesar's wife—all things to all men!' Oh, he's a colossal ass! And his conceit! My word!”
“You needn't expatiate on it,” said I. “I who speak have suffered much at the hands of Sir Gerald Macnaughton.”
“If he did get into Parliament he'd expect an armchair to be put for him next to the Speaker. Really, Lola, you never saw such a chap. If there was any one else up against me I wouldn't mind. Anyway, I'm running down to Wymington to-morrow to interview the committee. And if they choose me, then it'll be a case of 'Lord don't help me and don't help the b'ar, and you'll see the derndest best b'ar fight that ever was.' I'll make things hum in Wymington!”
He went on eagerly to explain how he would make things hum. For the moment he had forgotten his enchantress who, understanding nothing of platforms and planks and electioneering machinery, smiled with pensive politeness at the fire. Here was the Dale that I knew and loved, boyish, impetuous, slangy, enthusiastic. His dark eyes flashed, and he threw back his head and laughed, as he enunciated his brilliant ideas for capturing the constituency.
“When I was working for you, I made love to half the women in the place. You never knew that, you dear old stick. Now I'm going in on my own account I'll make love to the whole crowd. You won't mind, Lola, will you? There's safety in numbers. And when I have made love to them one by one I'll get 'em all together and make love to the conglomerate mass! And then I'll rake up all the prettiest women in London and get 'em down there to humbug the men—”
“Lady Kynnersley will doubtless be there,” said I; “and I don't quite see her—”
He broke in with a laugh: “Oh! the mater! I'll fix up her job all right. She'll just love it, won't she? And then I know a lot of silly asses with motor-cars who'll come down. They can't talk for cob-nuts, and think the Local Option has something to do with vivisection, and have a vague idea that champagne will be cheaper if we get Tariff Reform—but they'll make a devil of a noise at meetings and tote people round the country in their cars holding banners with 'Vote for Kynnersley' on them. That's a sound idea, isn't it?”
I gravely commended the statesmanlike sagacity of his plan of campaign, and promised to write as soon as I got home to one or two members of the committee whom I suspected of pro-Macnaughton leanings.
“I do hope they'll adopt you!” I cried fervently.
“So do I,” murmured Lola in her low notes.
“If they don't,” said Dale, “I'll ask Raggles to give me an unpaid billet somewhere. But,” he added, with a sigh, “that will be an awful rotten game in comparison.”
“I'm afraid you won't make Raggles hum,” said I.
He laughed, rose and straddled across the hearthrug, his back to the fire.
“He'd throw me out if I tried, wouldn't he? But if they do adopt me—I swear I'll make you proud of me, Simon. I'll stick my soul into it. It's the least I can do in this horrid cuckoo sort of proceeding, and I feel I shall be fighting for you as well as for myself. My dear old chap, you know what I mean, don't you?”
I knew, and was touched. I wished him God-speed with all my heart. He was a clean, honest, generous gentleman, and I admired, loved and respected him as he stood there full of his youth and hope. I suddenly felt quite old and withered at the root of my being, like some decrepit king who hands his crown to the young prince. I rose to take my leave (for what advantage was there in staying?) and felt that I was abandoning to Dale other things beside my crown.
Lola's strong, boneless hand closed round mine in a more enveloping grip than ever. She looked at me appealingly.
“Shall I see you again before you go?”
“Before you go?” cried Dale. “Where are you off to?”
“Somewhere south, out of the fogs.”
“When?”
“At once,” said I.
He turned to our hostess. “We can't let him go like that. I wonder if you could fix up a little dinner here, Lola, for the three of us. It would be ripping, so cosy, you know.”
He glowed with the preposterous inspiration. Lola began politely:
“Of course, if Mr. de Gex——”
“It would be delightful,” said I, “but I'm starting at once—to-morrow or the day after. We will have the dinner when I come back and you are a full-blown Member of Parliament.”
I made my escape and fled to my own cheerful library. It is oak-panelled and furnished with old oak, and the mezzo-tints on the walls are mellow. Of the latter, I have a good collection, among them a Prince Rupert of which I am proud. I threw myself, a tired man, into an armchair by the fire, and rang the bell for a brandy and soda. Oh, the comfort of the rooms, the comfort of Rogers, the comfort of the familiar backs of the books in the shelves! I felt loth to leave it all and go vagabonding about the cold world on my lunatic adventure. For the first time in my life I cursed Marcus Aurelius. I shook my fist at him as he stood on the shelf within easy reach of my hand. It was he who had put into my head this confounded notion of achieving eumoiriety. Am I dealing to myself, I asked, a happy lot and portion? Certainly not, I replied, and when Rogers brought me my brandy and soda I drank it off desperately. After that I grew better, and drew up a merry little Commination Service.
A plague on the little pain inside.
A plague on Lady Kynnersley for weeping me into my rash undertaking.
A plague on Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos for aiding and abetting Lady Kynnersley.
A plague on Captain Vauvenarde for running away from his wife; for giving up the army; for not letting me know whether he is alive or dead; for being, I'll warrant him, in the most uncomfortable and ungetatable spot on the globe.
A plague on Dale for becoming infatuated with Lola Brandt. A plague on him for beguiling me to her acquaintance; for bursting into the room at that unfortunate moment; for his generous, unsuspecting love for me; for his youth and hope and charm; for asking me to dine with Lola and himself in ripping cosiness.
A plague on myself—just to show that I am broad-minded.
And lastly, a plague, a special plague, a veritable murrain on Lola Brandt for complicating the splendid singleness of my purpose. I don't know what to think of myself. I have become a common conundrum—which provides the lowest form of intellectual amusement. It is all her fault.
Listen. I set out to free a young man of brilliant promise, at his mother's earnest entreaty, from an entanglement with an impossible lady, and to bring him to the feet of the most charming girl in the world who is dying of love for him. Could intentions be simpler or more honourable or more praiseworthy?
I find myself, after two or three weeks, the lady's warm personal friend, to a certain extent her champion bound by a quixotic oath to restore her husband to her arms, and regarding my poor Dale with a feeling which is neither more nor less than green-eyed jealousy. I am praying heaven to grant his adoption by the Wymington committee, not because it will be the first step of the ladder of his career, but because the work and excitement of a Parliamentary election will prohibit overmuch lounging inmychair in Lola Brandt's drawing-room.
Is there any drug I wonder which can restore a eumoirous tone to the system?
Of course, Dale came round to my chambers in the evening and talked about Lola and himself and me until I sent him home to bed. He kept on repeating at intervals that I was glorious. I grew tired at last of the eulogy, and, adopting his vernacular, declared that I should be jolly glad to get out of this rubbishy world. He protested. There was never such a world. It was gorgeous. What was wrong with it, anyway? As I could not show him the Commination Service, I picked imaginary flaws in the universe. I complained of its amateurishness of design. But Dale, who loves fact, was not drawn into a theological disputation.
“Do you know, I had a deuce of a shock when I came into Lola's this afternoon?” he cried irrelevantly, with a loud laugh. “I thought—it was a damnable and idiotic thing to come into my head—but I couldn't help thinking you had cut me out! I wanted to tell you. You must forgive me for being such an ass. And I want to thank you for being so good to her while I was away. She has been telling me. You like her, don't you? I knew you would. No one can help it. Besides being other things, she's is such a good sort, isn't she?”
I admitted her many excellencies, while he walked about the room.
“By Jove!” he cried, coming to a halt. “I've got a grand idea. My little plan has succeeded so well with you that I've a good mind to try it on my mother.”
“What on earth do you mean?” I asked.
“Why shouldn't I take the bull by the horns and bring my mother and Lola together?”
I gasped. “My dear boy,” said I. “Do you want to kill me outright? I can't stand such shocks to the imagination.”
“But it would be grand!” he exclaimed, delighted. “Why shouldn't mother take a fancy to Lola? You can imagine her roping her in for the committee!”
I refused to imagine it for one instant, and I had the greatest difficulty in the world to persuade him to renounce his maniacal project. I am going to permit no further complications.
I have been busy for the past day or two setting my house in order. I start to-morrow for Paris. All my little affairs are comfortably settled, and I can set out on my little trip to Avernus via Paris and the habitat of Captain Vauvenarde with a quiet conscience. I have allayed the anxiety of my sisters, whispered mysterious encouragement to Maisie Ellerton, held out hopes of her son's emancipation to Lady Kynnersley, played fairy godmother to various poor and deserving persons, and brought myself into an enviable condition of glowing philanthropy.
To my great relief the Wymington committee have adopted Dale as their candidate at the by-election. He can scarcely contain himself for joy. He is like a child who has been told that he shall be taken to the seaside. I believe he lies awake all night thinking how he will make things hum.
The other side have chosen Wilberforce, who unsuccessfully contested the Ferney division of Wiltshire at the last general election. He is old and ugly. Dale is young and beautiful. I think Dale will get in.
I have said good-bye to Lola. The astonishing woman burst into tears and kissed my hands and said something about my being the arbiter of her destiny—a Gallic phrase which she must have picked up from Captain Vauvenarde. Then she buried her face in the bristling neck of Adolphus, the Chow dog, and declared him to be her last remaining consolation. Even Anastasius Papadopoulos had ceased to visit her. I uttered words of comfort.
“I have left you Dale at any rate.”
She smiled enigmatically through her tears.
“I'm not ungrateful. I don't despise the crumbs.”
Which remark, now that I come to think of it, was not flattering to my young friend.
But what is the use of thinking of it? My fire is burning low. It is time I ended this portion of my “Rule and Example of Eumoiriety,” which, I fear, has not followed the philosophic line I originally intended.
The die is cast. My things are packed. Rogers, who likes his British beef and comforts, is resigned to the prospect of Continental travel, and has gone to bed hours ago. There is no more soda water in the siphon. I must go to bed.
Paris to-morrow.
“Ay!” says Touchstone; “now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was at home I was in a better place.”
Now am I in Algiers; the more fool I; et cetera, et cetera.
It is true that from my bedroom window in the Albany I cannot see the moon silvering the Mediterranean, or hear the soft swish of pepper-trees; it is true that oranges and eucalyptus do not flourish in the Albany Court-yard as they do in this hotel garden at Mustapha Superieur; it is true that the blue African sky and sunshine are more agreeable than Piccadilly fogs; but, after all, his own kennel is best for a dying dog, and his own familiar surroundings best for his declining hours. Again, Touchstone had not the faintest idea what he was going to do in the Forest of Arden, and I was equally ignorant of what would befall when I landed at Algiers. He was bound on a fool adventure, and so was I. He preferred the easy way of home, and so do I. I have always loved Touchstone, but I have never thoroughly understood him till now.
It rained persistently in Paris. It rained as I drove from the Gare du Nord to my hotel. It rained all night. It rained all the day I spent there and it rained as I drove from my hotel to the Gare de Lyon. A cheery newspaper informed me that there were torrential rains at Marseilles. I mentioned this to Rogers, who tried to console me by reminding me that we were only staying at Marseilles for a few hours.
“That has nothing to do with it,” said I. “At Marseilles I always eat bouillabaisse on the quay. Fancy eating bouillabaisse in the pouring rain!”
As usual, Rogers could not execute the imaginative exercise I prescribed; so he strapped my hold-all with an extra jerk.
Now, when homespun London is wet and muddy, no one minds very much. But when silken Paris lies bedraggled with rain and mud, she is the forlornest thing under the sky. She is a hollow-eyed pale city, the rouge is washed from her cheeks, her hair hangs dank and dishevelled, in her aspect is desolation, and moaning is in her voice. I have a Sultanesque feeling with regard to Paris. So long as she is amusing and gay I love her. I adore her mirth, her chatter, her charming ways. But when she has the toothache and snivels, she bores me to death. I lose all interest in her. I want to clap my hands for my slaves, in order to bid them bring me in something less dismal in the way of fair cities.
I drove to the Rue Saint-Dominique and handed in my card and letter of introduction at theMinistere de la Guerre. I was received by the official in charge of theBureau des Renseignementswith bland politeness tempered with suspicion that I might be taking a mental photograph of the office furniture in order to betray its secret to a foreign government. After many comings and goings of orderlies and underlings, he told me very little in complicated and reluctant language. Captain Vauvenarde had resigned his commission in the Chasseurs d'Afrique two years ago. At the present moment the Bureau had no information to give as to his domicile.
“Have you no suggestion, Monsieur, to offer?” I asked, “whereby I may obtain this essential information concerning Captain Vauvenarde?”
“His old comrades in the regiment might know, Monsieur.”
“And the regiment?”
He opened theAnnuaire Officiel de l'Armee Francaise, just as I might have done myself, and said:
“There are six regiments. One is at Blidah, another at Tlemcen, another at Constantine, another at Tunis, another at Algiers, and another at Mascara.”
“To which regiment, then, did Captain Vauvenarde belong?” I inquired.
He referred to one of the dossiers that the orderlies had brought him.
“The 3rd, Monsieur.”
“I should get information, then, from Tlemcen?”
“Evidently, Monsieur.”
I thanked him and withdrew, to his obvious relief. Seekers after knowledge are unpopular even in organisations so far removed from the Circumlocution Office as the FrenchMinistere de la Guerre. However, he had put me on the trail of my man.
During my homeward drive through the rain I reflected. I might, of course, write to the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 3rd Regiment at Tlemcen, and wait for his reply. But even if he answered by return of post, I should have to remain in Paris for nearly a week.
“That,” said I, wiping from my face half a teacupful of liquid mud which had squirted in through the cab window—“that I'll never do. I'll proceed at once to Algiers. If I can get no news of him there, I'll go to Tlemcen myself. In all probability I shall learn that he is residing here in Paris, a stone's throw from the Madeleine.”
So I started for Algiers. The next morning, before the sailing of theMarechal Bugeaud, one of the quaint churns styled a steamship by the vanity of the French Company which undertakes to convey respectable folk across the Mediterranean, I ate my bouillabaisse below an awning on the sunny quay at Marseilles. The torrential rains had ceased. I advised Rogers to take equivalent sustenance, as no lunch is provided on day of sailing by the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique. I caught sight of him in a dark corner of the restaurant—he is too British to eat in the open air on the terrace, or perhaps too modest to have his meal in my presence—struggling grimly with a beefsteak, and, as he is a teetotaller, with an unimaginable, horrific liquid which he poured out from a vessel vaguely resembling a teapot.
My meal over, and having nearly an hour to spare, I paid my bill, rose and turned the corner of the quay into the Cannebiere, thinking to have my coffee at one of the cafes in that thoroughfare of which the natives say that, if Paris had a Cannebiere, it would be a little Marseilles. I suppose for the Marseillais there is a magic in the sonorous name; for, after all, it is but a commonplace street of shops running from the quays into the heart of the town. It is also deformed by tramcars. I strolled leisurely up, thinking of the many swans that were geese, and Paradises that were building-plots, and heroes that were dummies, and solidities that were shadows, in short, enjoying a gentle post-prandial mood, when my eyes suddenly fell on a scene which brought me down from such realities to the realm of the fantastic. There, a few yards in front of me, at the outer edge of the terrace of a cafe, clad in his eternal silk hat, frock coat, and yellow gloves, sat Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos in earnest conversation with a seedy stranger of repellent mien. The latter was clean-shaven and had a broken nose, and wore a little round, soft felt hat. The dwarf was facing me. As he caught sight of me a smile of welcome overspread his Napoleonic features. He rose, awaited my approach, and, bareheaded, made his usual sweeping bow, which he concluded by resting his silk hat on the pit of his stomach. I lifted my hat politely and would have passed on, but he stood in my path. I extended my hand. He took it after the manner of a provincial mayor receiving royalty.
“Couvrez-vous, Monsieur, je vous en prie,” said I.
He covered his head. “Monsieur,” said he, “I beseech you to be seated, and do me the honour of joining me in the coffee and excellent cognac of this establishment.”
“Willingly,” said I, mindful of Lola's tale of the long knife which he carried concealed about his person.
“Permit me to present my friend Monsieur Achille Saupiquet—Monsieur de Gex, a great English statesman and a friend of thatgnadigsten Engel, Madame Lola Brandt.”
Monsieur Saupiquet and I saluted each other formally. I took a seat. Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos moved a bundle of papers tied up with pink ribbon from in front of me, and ordered coffee and cognac.
“Monsieur Saupiquet also knows Madame Brandt,” he explained.
“Bien sur,” said Monsieur Saupiquet. “She owes me fifteen sous.”
Papadopoulos turned on his sharply. “Will you be silent!”
The other grumbled beneath his breath.
“I hope Madame is well,” said Papadopoulos.
I said that she appeared so, when last I had the pleasure of seeing her. The dwarf turned to his friend.
“Monsieur has also done my cats the honour of attending a rehearsal. He has seen Hephaestus, and his tears have dropped in sympathy over the irreparable loss of my beautiful Santa Bianca.”
“I hope the talented survivors,” said I, “are enjoying their usual health.”
“My daily bulletin from my pupil and assistant, Quast, contains excellent reports.Prosit, Signore.”
It was only when I found myself at the table with the dwarf and his broken-nosed friend that I collected my wits sufficiently to realise the probable reason of his presence in Marseilles. The grotesque little creature had actually kept his ridiculous word. He, too, had come south in search of the lost Captain Vauvenarde. We were companions in the Fool Adventure. There was something mediaeval in the combination; something legendary. Put back the clock a few centuries and there we were, the Knight and the Dwarf, riding together on our quest, while the Lady for whose sake we were making idiots of ourselves was twiddling her fair thumbs in her tower far beyond the seas.
Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos broke upon this pleasing fancy by remarking again that Monsieur Saupiquet was a friend of Madame Brandt.
“He was with her at the time of her great bereavement.”
“Bereavement?” I asked forgetfully.
“Her horse Sultan.”
He whispered the words with solemn reverence. I must confess to being tired of the horse Sultan and disinclined to treat his loss seriously.
“Monsieur Saupiquet,” said I, “doubtless offered her every consolation.”
“He used to travel with her and look after Sultan's well-being. He was her——”
“Her Master of the Horse,” I suggested.
“Precisely. You have the power of using the right word, Monsieur de Gex. It is a great gift. My good friend Saupiquet is attached to a circus at present stationed in Toulon. He came over, at my request, to see me—on affairs of the deepest importance”—he waved the bundle of papers—“the very deepest importance.Nicht wahr, Saupiquet?”
“Bien sur,” murmured Saupiquet, who evidently did not count loquacity among his vices.
I wondered whether these important affairs concerned the whereabouts of Captain Vauvenarde; but the dwarf's air of mystery forbade my asking for his confidence. Besides, what should a groom in a circus know of retired Captains of Chasseurs? I said:
“You're a very busy man, Monsieur le Professeur.”
He tapped his domelike forehead. “I am never idle. I carry on here gigantic combinations. I should have been a lawyer. I can spread nets that no one sees, and then—pst! I draw the rope and the victim is in the toils of Anastasius Papadopoulos.Hast du nicht das bemerkt, Saupiquet?”
“Bien sur,” said Saupiquet again. He seemed perfectly conversant with the dwarf's polyglot jargon.
“To the temperament of the artist,” continued the modest Papadopoulos, “I join the intellect of the man of affairs and the heart of a young poet. I am always young; yet as you see me here I am thirty-seven years of age.”
He jumped from his chair and struck an attitude of the Apollo Belvedere.
“I should never have thought that you were of the same age as a bettered person like myself,” said I.
“The secret of youth,” he rejoined, sitting down again, “is enthusiasm, the worship of a woman, and intimate association with cats.”
Monsieur Saupiquet received this proposition without a gleam of interest manifesting itself in his dull blue eyes. His broken nose gave his face a singularly unintelligent expression. He poured out another glass of cognac from the graduated carafe in front of him and sipped it slowly. Then he gazed at me dully, almost for the first time, and said:
“Madame Brandt owes me fifteen sous.”
“And I say that she doesn't!” cried the dwarf fiercely. “I send for him to discuss matters of the deepest gravity, and he comes talking about his fifteen sous. I can't get anything out of him, but his fifteen sous. And thecarissima signoradoesn't owe it to him. She can't owe it to him.Voyons, Saupiquet, if you don't renounce your miserable pretensions you will drive me mad, you will make me burst into tears, you will make me throw you out into the street, and hold you down until you are run over by a tramcar. You will—you will”—he shook his fist passionately as he sought for a climactic menace—“you will make me spit in your eye.”
He dashed his fist down on the marble table so that the glasses jingled. Saupiquet finished his cognac undisturbed.
“I say that Madame Brandt owes me fifteen sous, and until that is paid, I do no business.”
The little man grew white with exasperation, and his upper lip lifted like an angry cat's, showing his teeth. I shrank from meeting Saupiquet's eye. Hurriedly, I drew a providential handful of coppers from my pocket.
“Stop, Herr Professor,” said I, eager to prevent the shedding of tears, blood, or saliva, “I have just remembered. Madame did mention to me an unaquitted debt in the South, and begged me to settle it for her. I am delighted to have the opportunity. Will you permit me to act as Madam's banker?”
The dwarf at once grew suave and courteous.
“The word ofcarissima signorais the word of God,” said he.
I solemnly counted out the fifteen halfpence on the table and pushed them over to Saupiquet, who swept them up and put them in his pocket.
“Now we can talk,” said he.
“Make him give you a receipt!” cried Papadopoulos excitedly. “I know him! He is capable of any treachery where money is concerned. He is capable of re-demanding the sum from Madame Brandt. He is an ingrate. And she, Monsieur le Membre du Parlement Anglais, has overwhelmed him with benefits. Do you know what she did? She gave him the carcass of her beloved Sultan to dispose of. And he sold it, Monsieur, and he got drunk on the money.”
The mingled emotions of sorrow at the demise of Sultan, the royal generosity of Madame Brandt, and the turpitude of his friend Saupiquet, brought tears to the little man's eyes. Monsieur Saupiquet shrugged his shoulders unconcernedly.
“A poor man has to get drunk when he can. It is only the rich who can get drunk when they like.”
I looked at my watch and rose in a hurry.
“I'm afraid I must take an unceremonious leave of you, Monsieur le Professeur.”
“You must wait for the receipt,” cried the dwarf.
“Will you do me the honour of holding it for me until we meet again? Hi!” The interpellation was addressed to a cabman a few yards away. “Your conversation has made me neglect the flight of time. I shall only just catch my boat.”
“Your boat?”
“I am going to Algiers.”
“Where will you be staying, Monsieur? I ask in no spirit of vulgar curiosity.”
I raised a protesting hand, and with a smile named my hotel.
“I arrived here from Algiers yesterday afternoon,” he said, “and I proceed there again to-morrow.”
“I regret,” said I, “that you are not coming to-day, so that I could have the pleasure of your company on the voyage.”
My polite formula seemed to delight Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos enormously. He made a series of the most complicated bows, to the joy of the waiters and the passers-by. I shook hands with him and with the stolid Monsieur Saupiquet, and waving my hat more like an excited Montenegrin than the most respectable of British valetudinarians, I drove off to the Quai de la Joliette, where I found an anxious but dogged Rogers, in the midst of a vociferating crowd, literally holding the bridge that gave access to theMarechal Bugeaud.
“Thank Heaven, you've come, sir! You almost missed it. I couldn't have held out another minute.”
I, too, was thankful. If I had missed the boat I should have had to wait till the next day and crossed in the embarrassing and unrestful company of Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos. It is not that I dislike the little man, or have the Briton's nervous shrinking from being seen in eccentric society; but I wish to eliminate mediaevalism as far as possible from my quest. In conjunction with this crazy-headed little trainer of cats it would become too preposterous even for my light sardonic humour. I resolved to dismiss him from my mind altogether.
Yet, in spite of my determination, and in spite of one of Monsieur Lenotre's fascinating monographs on the French Revolution, on which I had counted to beguile the tedium of the journey, I could not get Anastasius Papadopoulos out of my head. He stayed with me the whole of a storm-tossed night, and all the next morning. He has haunted my brain ever since. I see him tossing his arms about in fury, while the broken-nosed Saupiquet makes his monotonous claim for the payment of sevenpence halfpenny; I hear him speak in broken whispers of the disastrous quadruped on whose skin and hoofs Saupiquet got drunk. I see him strutting about and boasting of his intellect. I see him taking leave of Lola Brandt, and trotting magnificently out of the room bent on finding Captain Vauvenarde. He haunts my slumbers. I hope to goodness he will not take to haunting this delectable hotel.
I wonder, after all, whether there is any method in his madness—for mad he is, as mad as can be. Why does he come backwards and forwards between Algiers and Marseilles? What has Saupiquet to do with his quest? What revelation was he about to make on the payment of his fifteen sous? It is all so grotesque, so out of relation with ordinary life. I feel inclined to go up to the retired Colonels and elderly maiden ladies, who seem to form the majority of my fellow-guests, and pinch them and ask them whether they are real, or, like Papadopoulos and Saupiquet, the gentler creatures of a nightmare.
Well, I have written to the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 3rd Regiment of Chasseurs at Tlemcen, which is away down by the Morocco frontier. I have also written to Lola Brandt. I seem to miss her as much as any of the friends I have left behind me in England. I cannot help the absurd fancy that her rich vitality helps me along. I have not been feeling quite so robust as I did when I saw her daily. And twinges are coming more frequently. I don't think that rolling about in the Mediterranean on board theMarechal Bugeaudis good for little pains inside.
When I began this autobiographical sketch of the last few weeks of my existence, I had conceived, as I have already said, the notion of making it chiefly a guide to conduct for my young disciple, Dale Kynnersley. Not only was it to explain to him clearly the motives which led to my taking any particular line of action with regard to his affairs, and so enable me to escape whatever blame he might, through misunderstanding, be disposed to cast on me, but also to elevate his mind, stimulate his ambitions, and improve his morals. It was to be a Manual of Eumoiriety. It was to be sweetened with philosophic reflections and adorned with allusions to the lives of the great masters of their destiny who have passed away. It was to have been a pretty little work after the manner of Montaigne, with the exception that it ran of its own accord into narrative form. But I am afraid Lola Brandt has interposed herself between me and my design. She had brought me down from the serene philosophic plane where I could think and observe human happenings and analyse them and present them in their true aspect to my young friend. She has set me down in the thick of events—and not events such as the smiling philosopher is in the habit of dealing with, but lunatic, fantastic occurrences with which no system of philosophy invented by man is capable of grappling. I can just keep my head, that is all, and note down what happens more or less day by day, so that when the doings of dwarfs and captains, and horse-tamers and youthful Members of Parliament concern me no more, Dale Kynnersley can have a bald but veracious statement of fact. And as I have before mentioned, he loves facts, just as a bear loves honey.
I passed a quiet day or two in my hotel garden, among the sweet-peas, and the roses, and the geraniums. There were little shady summer-houses where one could sit and dream, and watch the blue sky and the palms and the feathery pepper trees drooping with their coral berries, and the golden orange-trees and the wisteria and the great gorgeous splash of purple bougainvillea above the Moorish arches of the hotel. There were mild little walks in the eucalyptus woods behind, where one went through acanthus and wild absinthe, and here and there as the path wound, the great blue bay came into view, and far away the snow-capped peaks of the Atlas. There were warmth and sunshine, and the unexciting prattle of the retired Colonels and maiden ladies. There was a hotel library filled with archaic fiction. I took out Ainsworth's “Tower of London,” and passed a happy morning in the sun renewing the thrills of my childhood. I began to forget the outer world in my enchanted garden, like a knight in the Forest of Broceliande.
Then came the letter from Tlemcen. The Lieutenant-Colonel commanding the 3rd Regiment of Chasseurs d'Afrique had received my honoured communication but regretted to say that he, together with all the officers of the regiment, had severed their connection with Captain Vauvenarde, and that they were ignorant of his present address.
This was absurd. A man does not resign from his regiment and within a year or two disappear like a ghost from the ken of every one of his brother officers. I read the letter again. Did the severance of connection mean the casting out of a black sheep from their midst? I came to the conclusion that it did. They had washed their hands of Captain Vauvenarde, and desired to hear nothing of him in the future.
So I awoke from my lethargy, and springing up sent not for my shield and spear, but for an “Indicateur des Chemins de Fer.” I would go to Tlemcen and get to the bottom of it. I searched the time-table and found two trains, one starting from Algiers at nine-forty at night and getting into Tlemcen at noon next day, and one leaving at six-fifty in the morning and arriving at half-past ten at night. I groaned aloud. The dealing unto oneself a happy life and portion did not include abominable train journeys like these. I was trying to decide whether I should travel all night or all day when the Arab chasseur of the hotel brought me a telegram. I opened it. It ran:
“Starting for Algiers. Meet me.—LOLA.”
It was despatched that morning from Victoria Station. I gazed at it stupidly. Why in the world was Lola Brandt coming to join me in Algiers? If she had wanted to do her husband hunting on her own account, why had she put me to the inconvenience of my journey? Her action could not have been determined by my letter about Anastasius Papadopoulos, as a short calculation proved that it could not have reached her. I wandered round and round the garden paths vainly seeking for the motive. Was it escape from Dale? Had she, womanlike, taken the step which she was so anxious to avoid—and in order to avoid taking which all this bother had arisen—and given the boy his dismissal? If so, why had she not gone to Paris or St. Petersburg or Terra del Fuego? Why Algiers? Dale abandoned outright, the necessity for finding her husband had disappeared. Perhaps she was coming to request me, on that account, to give up the search. But why travel across seas and continents when a telegram or a letter would have sufficed? She was coming at any rate; and as she gave no date I presumed that she would travel straight through and arrive in about forty-eight hours. This reflection caused a gleam of sunshine to traverse my gloom. I was not physically capable of performing the journey to Tlemcen and back before her arrival. I could, therefore, dream among the roses of the garden for another couple of days. And when she came, perhaps she would like to go to Tlemcen herself and try the effect of her woman's fascinations on the Lieutenant-Colonel and officers of the 3rd Regiment of Chasseurs d'Afrique.
In any case, her sudden departure argued well for Dale's liberation. If the rupture had occurred I was quite contented. That is what I had wished to accomplish. It only remained now to return to London, while breath yet stayed in my body, and lead him diplomatically to the feet of Maisie Ellerton. Then I would have ended my eumoirous task, and my last happy words would be a paternal benediction. But all the same, I had set forth to find this confounded captain and did not want to be hindered. The sportsman's instinct which, in my robust youth, had led me to crawl miles on my belly over wet heather in order to get a shot at a stag, I found, somewhat to my alarm, was urging me on this chase after Captain Vauvenarde. He was my quarry. I resented interference. Deer-stalking then, and man-stalking now, I wanted no petticoats in the party. I worked myself up into an absurd state of irritability. Why was she coming to spoil the sport? I had arranged to track her husband down, reason with him, work on his feelings, telegraph for his wife, and in an affecting interview throw them into each other's arms. Now, goodness knows what would happen. Certainly not my beautifully conceivedcoup de theatre.
“And she has the impertinence,” I cried in my wrath, “to sign herself 'Lola'! As if I ever called her, or could ever be in a position to call her 'Lola'! I should like to know,” I exclaimed, hurling the “Indicateur des Chemins de Fer” on to the seat of a summer-house, built after the manner of a little Greek temple, “I should like to know what the deuce she means by it!”
“Hallo! Hallo! What the devil's the matter?” cried a voice; and I found I had disturbed from his slumbers an unnoticed Colonel of British Cavalry.
“A thousand pardons!” said I. “I thought I was alone, and gave vent to the feelings of the moment.”
Colonel Bunnion stretched himself and joined me.
“That's the worst of this place,” he said. “It's so liverish. One lolls about and sleeps all day long, and one's liver gets like a Strasburg goose's and plays Old Harry with one's temper. Why one should come here when there are pheasants to be shot in England, I don't know.”
“Neither your liver nor your temper seem to be much affected, Colonel,” said I, “for you've been violently awakened from a sweet sleep and are in a most amiable frame of mind.”
He laughed, suggested exercise, the Briton's panacea for all ills, and took me for a walk. When we returned at dusk, and after I had had tea before the fire (for December evenings in Algiers are chilly) in one of the pretty Moorish alcoves of the lounge, my good humour was restored. I viewed our pursuit of Captain Vauvenarde in its right aspect—that of a veritable Snark-Hunt of which I was the Bellman—and the name “Lola” curled itself round my heart with the same grateful sensation of comfort as the warm China tea. After all, it was only as Lola that I thought of her. The name fitted her personality, which Brandt did not. Out of “Brandt” I defy you to get any curvilinear suggestion. I reflected dreamily that it would be pleasant to walk with her among the roses in the sunshine and to drink tea with her in dusky Moorish alcoves. I also thought, with an enjoyable spice of malice, of what the retired Colonels and elderly maiden ladies would have to say about Lola when she arrived. They should have a gorgeous time.
So light-hearted did I become that, the next evening, while I was dressing for dinner, I did not frown when the chasseur brought me up the huge trilingual visiting-card of Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos.
“Show the gentleman up,” said I.
Rogers handed me my black tie and began to gather together discarded garments so as to make the room tidy for the visitor. It was a comfortable bed-sitting-room, with the bed in an alcove and a tiny dressing-room attached. A wood fire burned on the hearth on each side of which was an armchair. Presently there came a knock at the door. Rogers opened it and admitted Papadopoulos, who forthwith began to execute his usual manoeuvres of salutation. Rogers stood staring and open-mouthed at the apparition. It took all his professional training in imperturbability to enable him to make a decent exit. This increased my good humour. I grasped the dwarf's hand.
“My dear Professor, I am delighted to see you. Pray excuse my receiving you in this unceremonious fashion, and sit down by the fire.”
I hastily completed my toilette by stuffing my watch, letter-case, loose change and handkerchief into my pockets, and took a seat opposite him.
“It is I,” said he politely, “who must apologise for this untimely call. I have wanted to pay my respects to you since I arrived in Algiers, but till now I have had no opportunity.”
“Allow me,” said I, “to disembarrass you of your hat.”
I took the high-crowned, flat-brimmed thing which he was nursing somewhat nervously on his knees, and put it on the table. He murmured that I was “Sehr aimable.”
“And the charming Monsieur Saupiquet, how is he?” I asked.
He drew out his gilt-embossed pocket-book, and from it extracted an envelope.
“This,” said he, handing it to me, “is the receipt. I have to thank you again for regulating the debt, as it has enabled me to transact with Monsieur Saupiquet the business on which I summoned him from Toulon. He is the most obstinate, pig-headed camel that ever lived, and I believe he has returned to Toulon in the best of health. No, thank you,” he added, refusing my offer of cigarettes, “I don't smoke. It disturbs the perfect adjustment of my nerves, and so imperils my gigantic combinations. It is also distasteful to my cats.”
“You must miss them greatly,” said I.
He sighed—then his face lit up with inspiration.
“Ah, signor! What would one not sacrifice for an idea, for duty, for honour, for the happiness of those we love?”
“Those are sentiments, Monsieur Papadopoulos,” I remarked, “which do you infinite credit.”
“And, therefore, I express them, sir,” he replied, “to show you what manner of man I am.” He paused for a moment; then bending forward, his hands on his little knees—he was sitting far back in the chair and his legs were dangling like a child's—he regarded me intently.
“Would you be equally chivalrous for the sake of an idea?”
I replied that I hoped I should conduct myselfen galant hommein any circumstances.
“I knew it,” he cried. “My intuition is never wrong. An English statesman is as fearless as Agamemnon, and as wise as Nestor. Have you your evening free?”
“Yes,” I replied wonderingly.
“Would you care to devote it to a perilous adventure? Not so perilous, for I”—he thumped his chest—“will be there. But stillmolto gefahrlich.”
His black eyes held mine in burning intensity. So as to hide a smile I lit a cigarette. I know not what little imp in motley possessed me that evening. He seemed to hit me over the head with his bladder, and counsel me to play the fool like himself, for once in my life before I died. I could almost hear him speaking.
“Surely a crazy dwarf out of a nightmare is more entertaining company than decayed Colonels of British Cavalry.”
I blew two or three puffs of my cigarette, and met my guest's eager gaze.
“I shall be happy to put myself at your disposal,” said I. “May I ask, without indiscretion—?”
“No, no,” he interrupted, “don't ask. Secrecy is part of the gigantic combination.En galant homme, I require of you—confidence.”
With an irresistible touch of mockery I said: “Professor Papadopoulos, I will be happy to follow you blindfold to the lair of whatever fire-breathing dragon you may want me to help you destroy.”
He rose and grasped his hat and made me a profound bow.
“You will not find me wanting in courage, Monsieur. There is another small favour I would ask of you. Will you bring some of your visiting-cards?”
“With pleasure,” said I.
At that moment the gong clanged loudly through the hotel.
“It is your dinner-hour,” said the dwarf. “I depart. Our rendezvous—”
“Let us have no rendezvous, my dear Professor,” I interposed. “What more simple than that you should do me the pleasure of dining with me here? We can thus fortify ourselves with food and drink for our adventure, and we can start on it comfortably together whenever it seems good to you.”
The little man put his head on one side and looked at me in an odd way.
“Do you mean,” he asked in a softened voice, “that you ask me to dine with you in the midst of your aristocratic compatriots?”
“Why, evidently,” said I, baffled. “It's only an ordinary table d'hote dinner.”
To my astonishment, tears actually spurted out of the eyes of the amazing little creature. He took my hand and before I knew what he was going to do with it he had touched it with his lips.
“My dear Professor!” I cried in dismay.
He put up a pudgy hand, and said with great dignity:
“I cannot dine with you, Monsieur de Gex. But I thank you from my heart for your generous kindness. I shall never forget it to my dying day.”
“But——”
He would listen to no protests. “If you will do me the honour of coming at nine o'clock to the Cafe de Bordeaux, at the corner of the Place du Gouvernement, I shall be there.Auf wiedersehen, Monsieur, and a thousand thanks. I beg you as a favour not to accompany me. I couldn't bear it.”
And, drawing a great white handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped his eyes, blew his nose, and disappeared like a flash through the door which I held open for him.
I went down to dinner in a chastened mood. The little man had not shown me before the pathetic side of the freak's life. By asking him to dinner as if he were normal I had earned his eternal gratitude. And yet, with a smile, which I trust the Recording Angel when he makes up my final balance-sheet of good and evil will not ascribe to an unfeeling heart, I could not help formulating the hope that his gratitude would not be shown by presents of China fowls sitting on eggs, Tyrolese chalets and bottles with ladders and little men inside them. I did not feel within me the wide charity of Lola Brandt; and I could not repress a smile, as I ate my solitary meal, at the perils of the adventure to which I was invited. I had no doubt that it bore the same relation to danger as Monsieur Saupiquet's sevenpence-halfpenny bore to a serious debt.
Colonel Bunnion, a genial little red-faced man, with bulgy eyes and a moustache too big for his body, who sat, also solitary, at the next table to mine, suddenly began to utter words which I discovered were addressed to me.
“Most amazing thing happened to me as I was coming down to dinner. Just got out of the corridor to the foot of the stairs, when down rushed something about three foot nothing in a devil of a top-hat and butted me full in the pit of the stomach, and bounded off like a football. When I picked it up I found it was a man—give you my word—it was a man. About so high. Gave me quite a turn.”
“That,” said I, with a smile, “was my friend Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos.”
“A friend of yours?”
“He had just been calling on me.”
“Then I wish you'd entreat him not to go downstairs like a six-inch shell. I'll have a bruise to-morrow where the crown of his hat caught me as big as a soup-plate.”
I offered the cheerily indignant warrior apologies for my friend's parabolic method of descent, and suggested Elliman's Embrocation.
“The most extraordinary part of it,” he interrupted, “was that when I picked him up he was weeping like anything. What was he crying about?”
“He is a sensitive creature,” said I, “and he doesn't come upon the pit of the stomach of a Colonel of British Cavalry every day in the week.”
He sniffed uncertainly at the remark for a second or two and then broke into a laugh and asked me to play bridge after dinner. On the two preceding evenings he and I had attempted to cheer, in this manner, the desolation of a couple of the elderly maiden ladies. But I may say, parenthetically, that as he played bridge as if he were leading a cavalry charge according to a text-book on tactics, and as I play card games in a soft, mental twilight, and as the two ladies were very keen bridge players indeed, I had great doubts as to the success of our attempts.
“I'm sorry,” said I, “but I'm going down into the town to-night.”
“Theatre? If so, I'll go with you.”
The gallant gentleman was always at a loose end. Unless he could persuade another human being to do something with him—no matter what—he would joyfully have played cat's cradle with me by the hour—he sat in awful boredom meditating on his liver.
“I'm not going to the theatre,” I said, “and I wish I could ask you to accompany me on my adventure.”
The Colonel raised his eyebrows. I laughed.
“I'm not going to twang guitars under balconies.”
The Colonel reddened and swore he had never thought of such a thing. He was a perjured villain; but I did not tell him so.
“In what my adventure will consist I can't say,” I remarked.
“If you're going to fool about Algiers at night you'd better carry a revolver.”
I told him I did not possess such deadly weapons. He offered to lend me one. The two Misses Bostock from South Shields, who sat at the table within earshot and had been following our conversation, manifested signs of excited interest.
“I shall be quite protected,” said I, “by the dynamic qualities of your acquaintance, Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos, with whom I have promised to spend the evening.”
“You had better have the revolver,” said the Colonel. And so bent was he on the point, that after dinner he came to me in the lounge and laid a loaded six-shooter beside my coffee-cup. The younger Miss Bostock grew pale. It looked an ugly, cumbrous, devastating weapon.
“But, my dear Colonel,” I protested, “it's against the law to carry fire-arms.”
“Law—what law?”
“Why the law of France,” said I.
This staggered him. The fact of there being decent laws in foreign parts has staggered many an honest Briton. He counselled a damnation of the law, and finally, in order to humour him, I allowed him to thrust the uncomfortable thing into my hip-pocket.
“Colonel,” said I, when I took leave of him an hour later, “I have armed myself out of pure altruism. I shan't be able to sit down in peace and comfort for the rest of the evening. Should I accidentally do so, my blood will be on your head.”