Chapter VIII: Part III: I (2)

This investigator of the secret discontents and aspirations of his time had never shut his ears to the mere social gossip that came in his way. He had lived long, he remembered much. For instance, he could remember things that were said about Sir Charles Latham long before Cosmo was born. As to the story of the Montevesso marriage, that had made noise enough in its time in society and also amongst the French émigrés. Its celebration, the subsequent differences, reconciliations, recriminations, and final arrangement had kept idle tongues wagging for years. Of course it was that match which had given that dubious Montevesso his social standing; and what followed had invested that absurd individual with the celebrity of a character out of a Molière comedy: "Le Jaloux." The elderly jealous husband. Comic enough. But that was the sort of comedy that soon takes a tragic turn. A special provocation, a sudden opportunity are enough. What puzzled the doctor was the suddenness of the problem. Yet one could not tell what an orientalized brute, no stranger probably to palace murders, had not the means of doing. He might have been harbouring in that barn of a palace some retainers of a deadly kind. A Corsican desperado, or a couple of rascals from his own native mountains. Had he not two unattractive old peasant women concealed there?

The doctor believed that unlikely things happened every day. This view was not the result of inborn credulity but of much acquired knowledge of a secret sort. A serious, fastidious, and obviously earnest-minded young man, like Latham, was particularly liable to get into trouble of a grave kind. A manifestation of perfectly innocent sympathy could do it, and even less. An unguarded glance. An unconscious warmth of tone. Confound it! Yet he could not let a young countryman of his, a nice, likable young gentleman, vanish from under his nose without taking some steps.

The doctor stepped out into the hall, attractively dim and cool in the middle of the day. Spire had disappeared, but the doctor had given up the hope of Cosmo's return. In a dark corner he perceived the shadowy shape of a cocked hat, and made out the old lieutenant leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed and his chin on his breast. He had a bottle of wine and a glass standing in front of him.

"I suppose," thought the doctor, "this is what he comes ashore for."

The product of twenty years of war. The reeking loom that converted such as he into food for guns had stopped suddenly. There would be no demand for heroes for a long, long time, and somehow the fact that the fellow had all his limbs about him made him even more pathetic. The doctor had almost forgotten Cosmo. He did not notice Spire coming down the stairs, and he started at the sound of the words, "I beg your pardon, sir," uttered almost in his ears. The elderly valet was very much shaken. He said in a low murmur, "I am nearly out of my mind, sir. My master . . ."

"I know," interrupted the doctor. He pounced upon Spire like a bird of prey. "Come, what do you know about it?"

This reception roused Spire's dislike of that sour and off-hand person like no medical man he had ever seen and certainly no gentleman. On the principle, "like master like man," Spire was more sensitive to manner than to any trait of personality. He pulled himself together and steadied his voice. "I know nothing, sir, except that you were the last person seen speaking to Mr. Latham."

"You don't think I have got him in my pocket, do you?" asked Doctor Martel, noting the hostile stare. "Don't you attend your master when he retires for the night?"

"I got dismissed early last night. I am sorry to say I sat downstairs after supper very late, listening to tales about one thing and another. I . . . I went to sleep there," added Spire with a sort of desperation.

"Listening to tales," repeated the doctor jeeringly. "Pretty tales they must have been, too. Zillers is no company for a respectable English servant. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Well, and then?"

"I went up, sir, and . . ."

"In the middle of the night," suggested the doctor.

"It was pretty late. I . . ."

He faltered at the remembrance. The waking up in the cold dark kitchen, the cold dark staircase, the light shining through the keyhole of Mr. Cosmo's bedroom, the first vague feeling that there was something wrong, the empty room. And most awful of all, the bed not slept in, and the candles in the candelabras burning low. He remembered his horror, incredulity, his collapse into an armchair where he sat till broad daylight in a pitiable state of mental agitation.

A slight tremor passed through his portly frame before he forced himself to speak.

"Mr. Latham had emptied his pockets, sir, as if he were making ready to go to bed. All the change and the keys were lying on the mantelpiece. One would think he had been kidnapped. Of course it can't be," he added in a low, intense tone.

"Do you mean to say he disappeared without his hat?" asked the doctor.

"No, sir, hat and cloak aren't there." And to the doctor's further questions Spire confessed that he had spoken to no one in the house that morning. He would only have been told lies. He did not think much of the people in the inn.

"So I took the liberty of speaking to you, sir. Mr. Latham may turn up any moment and I don't know that he would like to find that I have been to the police already."

"No, perhaps he wouldn't," assented the doctor reflectively.

"That's just it, sir," murmured Spire. "Mr. Cosmo is a very peculiar young gentleman. He doesn't like notice to be taken."

"Doesn't he? Well then, you had better wait before you go to the police. We had better give him till four o'clock."

"Very well, sir," said Spire, fighting down his feeling that nothing in the world would be worse than this waiting. The doctor nodded dismissal, then at the last moment:

"By the by, hadn't you better look up all the papers that may be lying about?"

Spire was favourably impressed by the suggestion.

"Yes, sir, we have a small strong box with us. I will go and do it at once."

During that colloquy, conducted in low tones at the foot of the grand staircase, nobody had appeared in the hall. Not even the vigilant Cantelucci. But the elderly lieutenant had raised his head, and his dull uninterested eyes followed the doctor across the hall and out through the door into the sunshine of the square. In all its vast and paved extent only very few figures were moving. The doctor's tastes and even his destiny had made of him a nocturnal visitor to the abodes of the great. At this time of the day, however, there was almost as little risk of being seen entering the Palace of the Griffins as in the middle of the night. The populace, the shopkeepers, the Austrian garrison, the gendarmes, the _sbirri_, the spies, and even the conspirators were indulging in midday repose. The very team of dapple-gray horses, harnessed to an enormous two-wheeled cart drawn up in the shade, dozed over their empty nosebags. Dogs slumbered in the doorways in utter abandonment; and only the bronze griffins seated on their narrow pedestals of granite before the doorway of the Palace preserved their alert wide-awake pose of everlasting watchfulness. They were really very fine. And the doctor gave them an appreciative glance before crossing the empty quadrangle. He felt the only wide-awake person in a slumbering world. He wondered if he would succeed in getting admitted to the Palace. If not, he confessed to himself, he would be at a loss what to do next. Very disagreeable. He had, however, the memorandum for the Marquis in his pocket as a pretext for his visit.

All was still without and within; but in the noble anteroom at the foot of the marble staircase he was met by a sight characteristic of the easy Italian ways. Extended face downward on one of the red and gold benches, one of the footmen in shirt-sleeves and with his breeches untied at the knees was sleeping profoundly. His dishevelled head rested on his forearm. At an unceremonious poke in the ribs he jumped up to his feet, looking scared and wild. But Doctor Martel was ready for him.

"What's the matter, my friend?" he asked softly. "Is there a price set on your head?"

The man remained open-mouthed as if paralysed by the caustic enquiry.

"Fetch the major-domo here," commanded the doctor, thinking that he had seldom seen a more bandit-like figure. While waiting, the doctor reflected that a livery coat was a good disguise. It occurred to him also that in the house of a man having such retainers all sorts of things might happen. This was Italy. The silence as of a tomb, which pervaded the whole house, though nothing extraordinary in the hour of siesta, produced the effect of sinister mystery. The arrival of the sleek Bernard did not destroy that bad impression. The doctor, who had never seen him before by daylight, said to himself that this was no doubt only another kind of villain. On learning that the Marquis had been very ill during the night and that Bernard could not think of taking in his name, the doctor inquired whether Madame de Montevesso would see him on most important business. To his great relief (because he had been asking himself all along how he could contrive to get private speech with the Countess) Bernard raised no objections. He simply went away. And again the dumbness around him grew oppressive to Doctor Martel. He fell into a brown study. This palace, famed for the treasures of art, for the splendours of its marbles and paintings and gildings, was no better than a gorgeous tomb. Men's vanity erected these magnificent abodes only to receive in them the unavoidable guest. Death, with all the ceremonies of superstitious fear. The sense of human mortality evoked by this dumb palazzo was very disagreeable. He was relieved by the return of the noiseless Bernard, all in black and grave like a sleek caretaker of that particular tomb, who stood before him saying in a low voice: "Follow me, please."

Bernard introduced the doctor into a comparatively small, well-lighted boudoir. At the same moment Madame de Montevesso entered it from her bedroom by another door. The doctor had an impression of a gown with a train, trimmed with ribbons and lace, surmounted by a radiant fair head. The face was pale. Madame de Montevesso had been up most of the night with her father. The Marquis was too ill to see anybody.

The doctor expressed his regret in a formal tone. Meantime he took out of his pocket the memoir and begged Madame la Comtesse to keep it under lock and key till she could hand it over to her father. He was also in possession of information which, he said, would be of the greatest interest to the French court; but he could disclose it only to the French King or to Monsieur de Jaucourt. He was ready to proceed to Paris should the Marquis be impressed sufficiently by the memoir to procure for him a private audience from the King or the minister.

This curt, businesslike declaration called out a smile on that charming face--just a flicker--a suspicion of it. He could not be offended with that glorious being. He felt only that he must assert himself.

"I cannot deal with lesser people," he said simply. "This must be understood in Paris. I make my own conditions. I am not a hireling. Your father has known me for years. Monsieur le Marquis and I met in other, dangerous times, in various parts of Europe. Each of us was risking his life."

The Marquis had often talked with his daughter of his past. She had heard from him of a certain agent Martel, a singular personage. Her curiosity was aroused. She said:

"I know. I believe he was indebted to you for his safety on one occasion. I can understand my father's motives. But you will forgive me for saying that as to yours . . ."

"Oh! It was not the love of absolutism. The fact is, I discovered early in life that I was not made for a country practice. I started on my travels with no definite purpose, except to do a little good--here and there. I arrived in Italy while it was being revolutionized by Jacobins. I was not in love with them either. Humane impulses, circumstances, and so on, did the rest."

He looked straight at her. This tête-à-tête was a unique experience. She was a marvellous being somehow and a very great lady. And yet she was as simple as a village maid--a glorified village maid. The trials of a life of exile and poverty had stripped her of the faintest trace of affectation or artificiality of any kind. The doctor was lost in wonder. What humanizing force there was in the beauty of that face to make him talk like that the first time he saw her! And suddenly the thought, "her face has been her fortune," came to him with great force, evoking by the side of her noble unconscious grace the stiff wooden figure of Count de Montevesso. The effect was horrible, but the doctor's hard gray eyes betrayed neither his horror nor his indignation. He only asked Madame de Montevesso, who was locking up his memoir in the drawer of a little writing table, if it would be safe there, and was told that nobody ever came into the room but a confidential mulatto maid who had been with the Countess for years.

"Yes, as far as you know," the doctor ventured significantly. With this beginning he found no difficulty in discovering that Madame de Montevesso knew nothing of the composition of the household. She did not know how many servants there were. She had not been interested enough to look over the Palazzo. Apart from the private apartments and the suite of rooms for small receptions she had seen nothing of it, she confessed, looking a little surprised. It was clear that she knew nothing, suspected nothing, had lived in that enormous and magnificent building like a lost child in a forest. The doctor felt himself at the end of his resources, till it occurred to him to say that he hoped that she was not specially anxious about her father. No, Madame de Montevesso was not specially anxious. He seemed better this morning. Doctor Martel was very much gratified; and then, by a sudden inspiration, added that it would be a pleasure to give the good news to Mr. Latham whom he hoped to see this evening.

Madame de Montevesso turned rigid with surprise for a moment at the sound of that name. "You have met Mr. Latham . . ." she faltered out.

"Oh! By the merest chance. We are staying at the same inn. He shares my table. He is very attractive."

Madame de Montevesso looked no longer as though she expected her visitor to go away. The doctor had just time to note the change before he was asked point-blank:

"Did Mr. Latham tell you that he was a friend of ours?"

He answered evasively that he knew very little about Mr. Latham, except what he could see for himself--that Mr. Latham was very superior to the young men of fashion coming over in such numbers from England since the end of the war. That generation struck him as very crude and utterly uninteresting. It was different, as far as Mr. Latham was concerned. A situation had arisen which would make a little information as to his affairs very desirable.

"Desirable?" repeated Madame de Montevesso in a whisper.

"Yes, helpful. . . ."

The deliberate stress which he put on that word augmented Madame de Montevesso's bewilderment.

"I don't quite understand. In what way? Helpful for you--or helpful for Mr. Latham?"

"You see," said the doctor slowly, "though our acquaintance was short my interest was aroused. I am a useful person to know for those who travel in Italy."

Madame de Montevesso sank into a _bergère_, pointing at the same time to a chair which faced it. But the doctor, after a slight bow, only rested his hand on its high back. At the end of five minutes Adèle was in possession of all the doctor knew about Cosmo's disappearance. She sat silent, her head drooped, her eyes cast down. The doctor was beginning to feel restive when she spoke, without looking up.

"And this is the real motive for your visit here."

The doctor was moved by the hopeless tone. It might have been an attempt to appear indifferent, but, only in a moment, she seemed to have become lifeless.

"Well," he said, "on the spur of the moment it seemed the only thing to do. . . . There is somebody in the next room. May I shut the door?"

"It's only my maid," said Madame de Montevesso. "She couldn't hear us from there."

"Well, then perhaps we had better leave the door as it is. It's best to avoid all appearance of secrecy." The doctor was thinking of Count Helion, but Madame de Montevesso made no sign. The doctor lowered his voice still more.

"I wanted to ask you if you had seen him yesterday--last night. No? But he may have called without your knowledge."

She admitted that it was possible. People had been sent away from the door on account of her father's illness. There had been no reception in the evening. But Mr. Latham would have asked for her. She thought she would have been told. The doctor suggested that Mr. Latham might have asked for the Count. Madame de Montevesso had only seen her husband for a moment in her father's bedroom the day before, and not at all yet this day. For all she knew he may have been away for the day on a visit in the country. "But I know nothing of his interests, really," she said in a little less deadened voice.

She could not explain to the doctor that she was a stranger in that house; an unwilling visitor with an unsympathetic host whose motives one cannot help suspecting. Beyond the time she spent by arrangement every year at Count de Montevesso's country house she knew nothing of his life. What could have been the motives which brought him to Genoa, she had and could have not the slightest idea. She only felt that she ought not to have accepted his pressing invitation to this hired palazzo. But then she could not have come with her father to Genoa. And yet he could not have done without her. And indeed it seemed but a small thing. The alarming thought crossed her mind that, all unwittingly, she had taken a fatal step.

The doctor, who had quite an accurate notion of the state of affairs, hastened to say:

"After all, I don't know that this is of any importance. I have heard that Mr. Latham was busy writing all yesterday. If he had come to Italy with some sort of purpose," he continued as if arguing with himself, "one could . . ." Then sharply: "You couldn't tell me anything, could you?" he asked Adèle.

"This is the first time I have seen him for ten years." Madame de Montevesso raised her eyes, full of trouble, to the doctor's face. "Since we were children together in Yorkshire. We talked of old times. Only of old times," she repeated.

"Of course--very natural," mumbled the doctor. He made the mental remark that one did not disappear like this after talking of old times. And aloud he said, "I suppose Mr. Latham made the acquaintance of Count de Montevesso."

"Certainly."

"I presume that they had an opportunity to have a conversation together."

"I don't think that Cosmo--that Mr. Latham made any confidences to Count de Montevesso." While saying those words Adèle looked the doctor straight in the face.

He was asking himself whether she could read his thoughts, when she got up suddenly and walked away to the window, without haste and with a grace of movement which aroused the doctor's admiration. He could not tell her what he had in his mind. He looked irresolutely at the figure in the window. It was growing enigmatic in its immobility. He began to feel some little awe, when he heard unexpectedly the words:

"You suspect a crime?"

The doctor could not guess the effort which went to the uttering of those few words. It was the stunning force of the shock which enabled Adèle de Montevesso to appear so calm. It was the general humanity of Doctor Martel's disposition which dictated his answer.

"I suspect some imprudence," he admitted in an easy tone. At that moment he drew the gloomiest view of Cosmo's disappearance, from the sinister conviction that twenty-four hours was enough to arrange an assassination. "The difficulty is to imagine a cause for it. To find the motive. . . ."

Madame de Montevesso continued to face the window as if lost in the contemplation of a vast landscape. "And you came to look for it here," she said.

"I don't think I need to apologize," he said, with a movement of annoyance like a man who has received a home thrust. "Of course I might have simply gone about my own affairs, which are of some importance to a good many people. My advice to Mr. Latham was to leave Genoa, since he did not seem to have any object in remaining and seemed to have a half-formed wish to visit Elba. I suggested Leghorn as the best port for crossing over."

It was impossible to say whether the woman at the window was listening to him at all. She did not stir, she seemed to have forgotten his existence. But that immobility might have been also the effect of concentrated attention. He made up his mind to go on speaking.

"His mind, his imagination seemed very busy wit! Napoleon. It seemed to me the only reason for his travels." He paused.

"I believe the only reason for Mr. Latham coming to Genoa was to see us." Madame de Montevesso turned round and moved back towards the _bergère._ She was extremely pale. "I mean Father and myself," she explained. "He came to see me the day before yesterday in the morning. I invited him to our usual evening reception. He stayed after everybody else was gone. I asked him to. But my father needed me and I had to leave Mr. Latham with Monsieur de Montevesso."

The doctor interrupted her gently. "I know, Madame. I was in the Palazzo with the Marquis, in the very room, when he sent for your husband."

"I forgot," confessed Madame de Montevesso simply. "But Mr. Latham got back to his inn safely."

"Yes. He was writing letters next day till late in the evening, and seems to have been spirited away in the middle of that occupation. But people like Mr. Latham are not spirited out of their bedrooms by main force. I advised the servant to wait till four o'clock, then I came straight here."

"Till four o'clock," repeated Madame de Montevesso under her breath.

The doctor, a man of special capacity in confronting enigmatical situations, showed himself as perplexed before this one as the most innocent of mortals.

"I don't know. It seems to me that a man who puts on his hat and cloak before vanishing like this must turn up again. He ought to be given a chance to do so at any rate. He left all his money behind, too. I mean even to the small change."

The glimpse of helpless concern in that man affected Adèle with a feeling of actual bodily anguish. She got brusquely out of the _bergère_ and moved into the middle of the room. The doctor, letting go the back of the chair, turned to face her.

"I am appalled," she murmured.

This came out as if extracted from her by torture. It moved the doctor more than anything he had heard for years. His voice sank into a soothing murmur.

"I do believe, Madame, that if there had been a murder committed last night anywhere in this town I would have heard something about it this morning. My inn is just the place for such news. I will go back there now. I shall question his servant again. He may give us a gleam of light."

Her intent, distressed gaze was unbearable, yet held him bound to the spot. It was difficult to abandon a woman in that state! He became aware of the sound of voices outside the door. Some sort of dispute. He hastened to make his bow, and Madame de Montevesso, moving after him, whispered eagerly: "Yes! A gleam of light! Do let me know. I won't draw a free breath till I hear something."

Her extended arms dropped by her side a moment before the door flew open and Bernard was heard announcing with calm formality:

"Signorina Clelia."

The doctor, turning away from Madame de Montevesso, saw "that little wretch" standing just within the room, evidently very much taken aback by the unexpected meeting. He guessed that she had snatched at some opportunity to escape from the old women. It had given her no time to pull on her stockings, a fact made evident by the shortness of the dark petticoat which, with a white jacket, comprised all her costume. She had managed to thrust her bare feet into a pair of old slippers, and her loose hair, tied with a blue ribbon at the back of her head, produced a most incongruous effect of neatness. Her invasion was alarming and inexplicable. The doctor, as he passed out, compressed his lips and stared fiercely with some idea of scaring her into good behaviour. She met this demonstration with a round stupid stare of astonishment. The next moment he found himself outside in the corridor alone with Bernard, who had shut the door quietly and remained with his back to it. The exasperated doctor looked him up and down coolly.

"How long have you been in the habit of hanging about your lady's door, my friend?" he asked with ominous familiarity.

The simple-minded factotum of the London days, the love-lorn naïve swain of the mulatto maid, was a figure of the past now. The doctor was confronted by a calm unmoved servant of much experience, somewhat inclining to stoutness, made respectable by the black well-fitting clothes. He did not flinch at the question, but he took his time. At last he said with the utmost placidity:

"Many years now. Pretty near all my life."

The tone was well calculated to surprise the doctor. Taking advantage of the latter's silence, Bernard paused before he continued reasonably: "Was I to let her rush in unannounced on Madame la Comtesse while you were there? I tried to send her away but she would think nothing of filling the air with her screams. I kept her back as long as it was prudent. . ." He raised his open hand, palm outwards, warning the doctor to remain silent, while with conscientious gravity he applied his big ear to the door. When he came away he did not apparently intend to take any further notice of the doctor, but stood there with an air of perfect rectitude.

"Is that your constant practice?" asked the astonished doctor, with curiosity rather than indignation. "Suppose I told on you," he added with a glance at the door. "Suppose somebody else gave you away. . . ."

"You would not be thanked," was the unexpected answer.

"I wouldn't be believed--is that it? Well, I confess that I can hardly believe my own eyes."

"Oh, you would be believed," was the ready but dispassionate admission. Bernard's trust in his interlocutor's acuteness was not deceived.

"Do you mean that you have been found out already?" said the doctor in a changed tone. "Whew! You don't say! Well, stranger things have happened. Whose old retainer are you?"

"I have always belonged to Madame la Comtesse," said the old retainer without looking at the doctor, who, after some meditation, accepted the statement at its face value.

"I am staying at Cantelucci's inn," he said in an ordinary conversational tone. "And I would be glad to see you there any time you like to call. Especially if you had anything to tell me of Mr. Latham." Bernard not responding in any way to that invitation, the doctor added, "You know what I mean?"

"Oh, yes, I know what you mean." That answer came coldly from the lips of the respectable servant, who said nothing more while conscientiously escorting the doctor to the anteroom at the foot of the grand staircase. A little bowed old woman in black clothes clung to the balustrade half way down the marble steps, in the act of descending, while another, taller and upright, hovered anxiously on the landing above. Bernard's scandalized, "Go away! Go back!" sounded irresistibly authoritative. The doctor had no doubt that it would send the two crones back to their lair, but he did not stop to see.

Bernard went up the staircase slowly to the first landing, where he watched the retreat of the two weird apparitions down a long and dim corridor. They were very much intimidated by this man in black and with a priestly aspect. One of them, however, made a stand, and screamed in an angry cracked voice, "Where's the child? The child! We are looking for her."

"Why don't you take her back to your village and keep her there?" he cried out sternly. "I have seen her. She won't get lost."

A distant door slammed. They had vanished as if blown away by his voice; and Bernard with a muttered afterthought, "More's the pity," continued up one flight of stairs after another till he reached the wilderness of the garrets that once upon a time had been inhabited by a multitude of servants and retainers. The room he entered was low and sombre, with rough walls and a vast bare floor. His wife Aglae sat on the edge of the bed, with her hands in her lap and downcast eyes which she did not raise at his entrance. He looked at her with a serious and friendly expression before he sat down by her side. And even then she did not move. He took her tragic immobility in silence as a matter of course. His face, which had never been very mobile, had acquired with years a sort of blank dignity. It had been the work of years, of those married years which had crushed the last vestiges of pertness out of the more emotional Aglae. When she whispered to him, "Bernard, this thing kill me a little every day," he felt moved to put his arm round his wife's waist and made a mental remark which always occurred to him poignantly on such occasions, that she had grown very thin. In the trials of a life which had not kept its promise of contented bliss, he had been most impressed by the loss of that plumpness which years ago was so much appreciated by him. It seemed to give to that plaint which he had heard before more than once an awful sort of reality, a dreadful precision. . . . A little. . . . Every day.

He took his arm away brusquely and got up.

"I thought I would find you here," he remarked in an indifferent marital tone. "That man has gone now," he added.

With a deep sigh the maid of Madame de Montevesso struggled out of the depths of despondency, only to fall a prey to anxiety.

"Oh, Bernard, what did that man want with Miss Adèle?"

Bernard knew enough to have formed a conjecture that English fellow must have either left some papers or a message for the Marquis with Madame de Montevesso.