"Infernally odd!"
And Charles Grammont, bearded, bloated, unclean, unwholesome, stepped into the sunlight and poisoned it.
"Who is this fellow?" asked Arthur quietly.
"Charles Grammont," I answered.
"Charles Grammont?" he repeated; and then, hastening to obliterate the memory of his unlucky speech, he plunged into an explanation of his concerns with Grammont, and I withdrew a little. But in a moment I heard Grammont"s voice raised in high anger.
"And what brings Arthur Clyde acting as my sister"s messenger? Could they find n.o.body but a ------"
If I should repeat here on paper the epithets the man used, I should be almost as great a blackguard as he was to use them. They were words abominable and horrible. I know by my anger at them now--then I had no time to feel for myself--that if a man had used them to me, and I had held a weapon in my hand, I should have killed him. Arthur raised his cane, and, but that I seized his wrist, he would have struck the insulter across the face. It was an impulse only, and when I felt his wrist relaxing I released it, and it fell down by his side.
"Come away, Calvotti," he said, "or I shall disgrace myself and do this man a mischief."
But if I could share at the moment in the feeling of anger which Grammont"s hideous insults had inspired, I could not and I cannot understand the bitter and pa.s.sionate resentment with which Arthur nourished the memory of them. For days after, not a waking hour pa.s.sed by without a break of sudden anger from him when he recalled the words to mind. I did my best to calm him, and in each case succeeded in persuading him that it was less than useless to retain the memory of insult so conveyed by such a man. But in a little while he broke out again, and after a time I allowed him to rage himself out.
"Why did you restrain me?" he cried one day as we walked together. "The ruffian deserved a thrashing. I care nothing for what he said of me, but a man who could speak of his sister in that way is not fit to live. For G.o.d"s sake, Calvotti, let us go away somewhere out of reach of this man.
I am not safe. I hardly know myself. If I met him I should kill him then and there."
"My dear Arthur," I said at last, "this is childish, and unworthy of you. The man is a ruffian by nature, and was mad with drink. Forget him, and any mad and drunken thing he may have said."
"Well," said Arthur, with a visible effort, "the blackguard disappears from my scheme of things. I have done with him. There! It"s all over.
What shall we do to-night? Let us go out together and look at Giovanna"s Palace by moonlight. A blow on the bay would do me good, and you might find an inspiration for a picture. Who knows? Will you go?"
I consented, and we walked back to the town at once to make arrangements. We secured a boat, and a bottle or two of wine and a handful of cigars having been laid in as store, we started. On the way to the boat, by bitter misfortune, we met Grammont. This wretched man"s drunkenness had three phases--the genial, the morose, and the violent.
He was at the first when we were so unhappy as to meet him. He insisted upon accompanying us, and I could see the pa.s.sion gathering in Arthur"s face, until I knew that if some check were not put upon him there would be an outbreak.
I took upon myself to get rid of the intruder.
"Well, Clyde," I said, "at the Caffe d" Italia at six. Till then I leave you to your appointment. Good afternoon. Will you walk with me a minute, Grammont?"
Arthur took my hint and went away. Grammont lurched after him, but I took him by the sleeve and said I had something to say to him. He stood with drunken gravity to listen, and whilst I beat about in my own mind for some trifle which could be made to a.s.sume a moment"s importance, he forgot everything that had pa.s.sed, and himself began to talk.
"You thought I should be through my five thou, before now, didn"t you, old Stick-in-the-Mud? Well, I"ve got the best part of it now, my boy.
They can"t suck me in Naples, I can tell you. Not much they can"t. Look here! English notes. I don"t care who sees "em. There you are. There"s more than four thousand in that thundering book. Look here."
He took from his pocket-book a number of English bank-notes for one hundred pounds, and flourished them about and thumbed them over, and laughed above them with drunken cunning and triumph. A man lounged by us this minute, and took such special notice of us both that I was compelled to notice him. He was a swarthy bearded fellow in a blouse, like that of a French ouvrier. He did not look so particularly honest that I had any pleasure in knowing that he saw the great bundle of notes in Grammont"s hands, and I said to Grammont hurriedly--
"It is not wise to exhibit so much money in this public place. Put it up."
The man still regarded us, until at last he attracted the attention of my unwelcome companion, who turned round upon him, and cursed him volubly in Italian.
The man, speaking with a very un-Italian accent, though fluently enough, answered that he had as much right there as Grammont, and then moved away, still turning his eyes curiously upon us at intervals.
"Look here," said my unwelcome companion, "I am going to have a sleep on this bench," He pointed to a stone seat on the quay, and rolled towards it.
"You are not so mad as to sleep in the open air with all that money about you," I urged. Heaven knows I disliked the man, but one did not want even him to be robbed.
"Oh," he answered drunkenly, "I"m all right," and so lay down at full length with his felt hat under his head, and fell asleep.
The man in the blouse still lingered, and I, knowing that he had seen the notes, felt it impossible to leave Grammont alone in his company.
The Chiaja was very lonely just there.
At last an idea occurred to me, and I called the man. It was growing so near to six o"clock that I was afraid of missing Clyde. I tore a leaf from my pocket-book, scrawled a line to Clyde asking him to wait for me, took a franc from my purse, and asked the man to take a "message to the Caffe d" Italia, and there give it to the person to whom it was addressed. Regarding the man"s dress and the foreign accent with which he had spoken just now, I addressed him in French.
"Pas du tout!" he responded. "Je ne suis pas un blooming idiot. C"est impossible. Allez-vous donc."
"Ah!" I said, "you are English. I beg your pardon. I suppose you did not understand. I wish you to be so good as to take this note to the Caffe d" Italia for Mr. Arthur Clyde. I will give you----"
"I am not anybody"s messenger," the man answered, and walked away again.
There was n.o.body else within call, and I was compelled, therefore, to resign myself as best I could. My efforts to awaken Grammont had proved quite fruitless. I lit a cigar, and walked to and fro. The man in the blouse also lit a. cigar, and paced to and fro, pa.s.sing in every journey the bench on which Grammont lay asleep. Suspecting him as I did, I never took my eyes from him for a moment when he was near Grammont, and he, in his catlike watch of me, was equally vigilant. At last, growing tired of this watchful promenade, I addressed him--
"It is of no use for you to linger here. You will not tire me out. I shall stay until my friend awakes."
"Oh!" he said, removing his cigar, and taking a steady look at me.
"You"ll stay until your friend awakes, will you? Then--so will I."
He began his walk again, and I, regarding the man more closely, had formed a new idea.
This man suspected me of designs upon those bank-notes, I began to think, and was possibly lingering here to guard a stranger, from some such motive as my own. Still, it was scarcely safe to trust him alone, and I was not disposed to do so. The idea of his suspecting me amused me for a minute and then amazed me, but I continued my promenade as if no such thought had occurred to me. So we went on until my watch marked half past seven o"clock, when Grammont awoke. We were not far from the cabstand, and I led him thither, a.s.sisted him to enter the vehicle, gave the driver his half-franc, and bade him drive to the Ba.s.so Porto. The man in the blouse followed, and watched closely all the time, and my later belief concerning him was quite confirmed. Dismissing him from my mind, I entered a biroccio and drove to the Caffe. Arthur had left long since, with a message for me to the effect that he would be at home at Posilipo at eleven o"clock. Perhaps he had gone to the Opera, I thought, and with the intention of discovering him I wandered from the Caffe. The evening was very beautiful, and I changed my mind. I would roam along by the bay and enjoy the sunset, and give myself up to the delights of the country. As I wandered on, my thoughts ran back to Cecilia, and I had another inward battle with myself. I found myself, in the excitement of my thoughts, walking faster and faster until I was far from the city, and alone in a country lane with the moonlight. The moon was up, and up at the full, before the sun was down; and so soon as the gathering twilight gave her power, she bathed the landscape in so lovely a light that even my sore and troubled heart grew tranquil to behold it. I stood near an abrupt turning in the lane, and watched the tremor in the soft l.u.s.tre of the bay, which looked as though innumerable great jewels rose slowly to its surface and there melted and were lost, whilst all the time innumerable others took the place of these dissolving gems, themselves dissolving in their turn, whilst countless others slowly rose. Here and there was a light upon the water, and here and there the shadow of a boat. And, far away, like the audible soul of the sea, was the soft, soft sound of music, where some boating party sang together.
To say that the cry came suddenly would be to say nothing. There came a shriek of appalling fear close by, which tore the air with terror.
I took one step and listened. For a second I heard the rumbling of carriage wheels at a distance, and not another sound, but that of the faint music far away. Then came a foot-step at racing pace nearer and nearer, then a trip and a long stagger, as though the runner had nearly fallen, and then the headlong pace again. And then, with the soft broad moon-light full upon his face, a man came darting round the corner of the lane. I strove to move aside, but before I could lift a foot he was upon me like an avalanche. I knew that we fell together, and that the man arose and resumed his headlong course. I tried to call after him, but found no voice. I tried to rise, but could not move a limb. Then a sickly shudder ran through me, and I fainted.
Out of a sort of vaporous dream came the slow sound of carriage wheels b.u.mping along the ruts of the road; then a light which was not of the moon; then a sudden pause in the noise of wheels and the sound of a coa.r.s.e, strong voice speaking in tones of great excitement.
"Body of Bacchus! What a night for adventures! Here is another of them!"
The light came nearer, and another voice burst out in English, "By the Lord! That"s the man!"
The voices both grew dim, and though they still talked, they sounded like the noise of running water, wordless and indistinct. Then I felt myself lifted into a carriage, and until I awoke here I knew nothing. It was the jar of bolts, and the rattling fall of a chain, and the grating noise of a key in a lock which awoke me. I turned and recognised the man who entered--an officer, by name Ratuzzi, to whom I had done some service in old days. I asked him feebly where I was and how I came there.
"In the town gaol," he answered gravely, and the solemnity of his face and tone chilled me.
"In the town gaol?" I repeated. "Why was I brought here?"
"I am very sorry, signor," he said in the same tone. "In whatsoever I can serve you, you may command me. Shall I give orders to send for a doctor?"
"Why was I brought here?" I asked again.
He made no reply, and weak and shaken as I was, I sat up and reiterated my question.
"You are charged with the murder of Carlo Grammont."
"Charles Grammont? Murder?" I repeated.