Africa had boiled most of the starch out of Mr. Heard. But his acquaintance with some of the saddest and wildest aspects of womanhood only deepened his conviction of the sanctity of the sex. Some called him old-fashioned or quixotic, because he was not altogether in sympathy with modern feministic movements; they called him an idealist, because he had preserved his belief in the sacred mission of women upon earth—his childlike faith in the purity of their souls. They were a humanizing influence, the guardian angels of mankind, the inspirers, the mothers, the protectors of innocence. It pleased him to think that woman had softened harsh dealings between man and man; that every mitigation of savagery, every incitement to worthy or heroic actions, was due to her gentle words, her encouraging example. From the very dawn of history woman had opposed herself to deeds of violence. What was it Count Caloveglia had said? "Temperance. All the rest is embroidery." How well the old man could put things! Temperance. . . . His cousin, from what he could guess of her character, agreed with that description. Mr. Heard would have maintained against the whole world that a woman, a true woman like this, could do no wrong.

And now he gathered that she was in trouble of some kind. Then why not allow him to help? He had asked for an early reply to his note. Well, perhaps it would arrive by the evening post.

Slightly vexed none the less, he laid down the stump of his cigarette, preparatory to retiring for the hot hours of the day. One owes something to oneself, N'EST-CE PAS? At that moment there was a knock at his door.

Denis entered. His face, shaded under a broad-brimmed hat, was ruddy with the heat. He wore light flannels, and was carrying his jacket on his arm. There was a large parcel in his hand. He looked the picture of health.

Mr. Heard, on rising, gave him a critical glance. He remembered his trip in the boat, and the suicide's rock—that black, ominous cliff; he remembered the thoughts which had passed through his mind at the time. Was this the kind of boy to kill himself? Surely not. Keith must have been mistaken. And Count Caloveglia—was he mistaken too? Evidently. There was nothing tragic about Denis. He was brimming over with life. His troubles, whatever they were, must have been forgotten.

"I've been lunching with Keith," he began. "He made me tell him a fairy-tale."

"Sit down and have some coffee! You came away very early."

"He told me he wanted to go to sleep after luncheon. And one or two other nice things."

Ah, thought Mr. Heard, Keith was acting up to what he had said in the boat; he was being good to the boy; that was right of him.

"I'm sure," he said, "that Keith has been speaking kindly to you."

"Kindly? It's like talking to an earthquake. He told me to dominate my reflexes. He called me a perambulating echo. He said I was a human amoeba—"

"Amoeba. What's that?"

"A sort of animal that floats about trying to attach itself to something which it can't find."

"I think I see what he means. Anything else?"

"He said I was a chameleon."

"A chameleon!"

"A chameleon that needed the influence of a good woman. Then he gave me this box of Cuban chocolates, to keep me from crying, I suppose. Have one! They're not nearly as nasty as they look."

"Thanks. A chameleon. That is really interesting, as Keith would say. I have seen thousands of them. Outlandish beasts, that anchor themselves by their tails and squint horribly. Let's have a look at you, Denis. No, I fail to detect any striking resemblance."

"I believe he meant that I take on the colour of other people and have none of my own. Then he told me to go and murder somebody."

"I wouldn't do that, Denis," laughed the bishop. "Murders are so dreadfully vulgar."

"He said it might make a man of me. He forgets that I'm not quite his age."

"You had better not tell him that! Any other advice?"

"Nothing new. He said I made a mistake in paying attention to what human beings said and did, and that I ought to forsake mankind for a while, and art and books and so on. You know the way he talks! He said it would give me a stronger individuality if I came into contact with nature and thought things out for myself instead of listening to other people. He advised me to sit among the rocks at midnight and in the hot afternoons, conversing with the genii of earth and air. It would correct my worldly perspective. I think he may be right, in a way. There is something in it. So I asked him to climb into the hills with me, then and there, in order to get into touch with elemental Powers. He said he thought highly of my character, but as to climbing about in this heat—he said he'd be damned if he would. Those were his very words. He wanted to sleep. He was too old for that sort of thing."

"Very sensible, I'm sure."

"You think so? Because then—then he told me that you were the proper person for an expedition of that kind. He suggested I should come and see you about it at once—it would allow him time to get his usual afternoon nap. That is why I'm here. So do! It isn't so very hot, once you get used to it. We are sure to see something funny."

"Oh!"

This, thought the bishop, was a pretty example of that doctrine of benevolent egotism which Keith had expounded to him once or twice. A very pretty example!

"He said that?"

Denis nodded.

The notion was distasteful to Mr. Heard. To go out into this torrid sunshine. . . . He, too, was not exactly young; moreover, he was still rather delicate—he needed all the rest he could get. He was looking forward with positive delight to the coming hours in his cool bedroom.

"You really want me to climb to the top of a mountain at this hour of the day and sit there in the heat, waiting for some wretched demon to reveal himself? Aren't you a little too old for that sort of thing? Come now! Does it strike you as a reasonable proposition? With the thermometer at seventy-eight in this room?"

"Keith said you liked nothing better. He said you might take offence if I didn't ask you to come."

He seemed to be disappointed.

There were not many people for whom Mr. Heard would have put himself out just then in that particular way; and Denis, up to a few days ago, was certainly not one of them. The bishop had never been drawn towards this rather precious youth. He was not Mr. Heard's type of boy. There was a lack of grit and stamina about him—something soft, both in manner and appearance; something dreamy, ambiguous, almost epicene. Mr. Heard had not quite lost his old British instinct as to the fundamental uselessness of all art. A young fellow who, instead of taking up some rational profession, talked about Cimabue and Jacopo Bellini . . . there was something not quite right with him. Jacopo Bellini! But even while thinking what to reply, he was conscious of having undergone a slight change of feeling lately. He was growing more tolerant and benign, even in trifles like this. Jacopo Bellini: why not? Meanwhile, he bethought himself of a way of escape.

"Suppose you go alone? Or why not try the midnight expedition first? I might manage midnight."

"I've tried it."

"Alone?" he laughed. "No success?"

"None whatever," said Denis. And it seemed as if a shadow flitted across his face at these words.

That cloud, that change of tone—what did they portend? Something might be wrong, then, after all. Perhaps Keith had been correct in his diagnosis when he observed that a susceptible mind like this could be shaken out of its equilibrium by the influence of Nepenthe—"capable of anything in this clear pagan light." It was not Mr. Heard's habit to probe into the feelings of others—as to those of a person like Denis he did not pretend to understand them. Artistic people! Incalculable! Inconsequential! Irresponsible! Quite another point of view! Yet he could not help thinking of that doleful black rock, with the turquoise-tinted water at its foot. Remembering these things he felt a sudden access of sympathy towards this lonesome fellow-creature. Instead of pursuing the subject of the expedition he asked, quite abruptly:

"Tell me, Denis, are you happy here?"

"How odd that you should come with that question! I had a letter from my mother this morning. She wants to know the same thing. And hanged if I know what to say."

Mr. Heard made up his mind.

"Hanged if you know? Then I'll tell you. Write to say that you have met the Bishop of Bampopo, who seems a perfectly respectable old fellow. Uncommonly respectable! Tell her you rather like him. Tell her she can find out all about him in Crockford or the Red Book. Tell her that he will be happy to correspond with her, if she will allow it. Tell her you feel sure he will look after you these last few days, before we all go away. Tell her—oh, everything nice you can think of. You'll do that, won't you? And now I will climb any mountain you like. Where are we going?"

"I have thought of a good place. Rather high up, but well worth it. I feel sure something funny is going to happen to-day. Don't you notice a kind of demonic influence in the air?"

"I notice a kind of infernal heat, if that is the same thing. Seventy-eight in this room! You will have to walk slowly. I am not in good condition just yet. Wait a moment. I must take my field-glasses. I never go without them."

Mr. Heard, resigned to his fate, was filled at the same time with anxiety. He could not drive Keith's words out of his head. Perhaps Denis was really up to some mischief. Who could tell? His eagerness—his curious language! That note of exaltation in his voice. . . . And what did he mean by saying that something funny would happen? Was he contemplating—? Above all, his dread of being unaccompanied! Mr. Heard was aware that persons of unbalanced mind are apt to experience before some critical outbreak a pathetic horror of solitude, as though, dimly conscious of what was about to happen, they feared to trust themselves alone.

He meant to keep a sharp eye on Denis.

Often, in later times, he recalled that trivial conversation. Every word of it was graven on his memory. How more than strange that Denis should have dragged him away that afternoon, to that particular spot, at that very hour! By what a string of accidents had everything happened. . . .



CHAPTER XXXIII



It was nearly two o'clock. To step out of doors was like passing into a furnace. Streets were deserted. The houses showed glaring white against the cobalt of the firmament; their inhabitants lay asleep within, behind closed shutters. Heat and silence brooded over the land.

Climbing slowly aloft by a lava-paved lane they reached the bibliographer's residence and paused awhile near its entrance. Mr. Heard tried to picture the scholar's life in this two-roomed cottage; he regretted having had no chance of visiting that amiable person in his own abode. (Mr. Eames was chary of issuing invitations.) A life of monastic severity. There was a small outhouse attached to one side of the wall; it was the kitchen, Denis explained; Eames' only servant being a boy whom he borrowed for an occasional morning's work from a neighbouring farm which supplied him with dairy produce.

"It isn't often used, that kitchen," said Denis. "He lives mostly on bread and milk. Does his own marketing in the early hours. I met him one day before breakfast, walking with a large brown basket on his arm. Said he was buying anchovies. There was a big haul of them overnight. He had heard about it. A penny a pound, he said. I noticed some lettuce as well. A couple of oranges. Fine chap! He knows what he wants."

The bishop looked over the gate. An air of friendly seclusion reigned in this place. There was no pretence at a garden—not so much as a rose tree or a snapdragon; the vines, of daintiest green but sternly utilitarian, clambered up to the door-lintel, invading the very roof. He pictured to himself the interior. Bare walls and floorings, a print or two, a few trunks and packing cases utilized as seats, a bookshelf, a plain table littered with manuscripts; somewhere, in that further room, a camp bedstead whereon this man of single aim and purpose, this monk of literature, was even then at rest like all sensible folks, and dreaming—dreaming, presumably, of foot-notes. Happy mortal! Free from all superfluities and encumbrances of the flesh! Enviable mortal! He reduced earthly existence to its simplest and most effective terms; he owed no man anything; he kept alive, on a miserable income, the sacred flame of enthusiasm. To aspire, that was the secret of life. Thinking thus, Mr. Heard began to understand the bibliographer's feeling for Mrs. Meadows. She lived for her child—he for his work. They were alike; calm and self-contained, both of them; incapable of illusions, of excesses in thought or conduct.

Without the doorway, in a small triangle of shade, sat is fox-terrier, alert, head poised on one side in knowing fashion, ready to bark if the visitors only touched the handle of the gate. Denis remarked:

"He told me that dog was sick the other morning, just like Keith."

"It had probably been eating something. I suppose they couldn't be unwell, could they? What a heat, Denis! It's addling my old brains. More slowly, please."

An hour went by. Fatigue was beginning to tell upon Mr. Heard. They had left he cultivated ground behind and were now ascending, by a cindery track of pumice-stone, among grotesque blocks of lava and scoriae that glowed like molten metal. Tufts of flowery broom scented the air. The soil, so recently drenched by the miraculous shower of rain, was once more dry and dusty; its fragile flowers wilted in the sirocco. And still the young man marched ahead. Always upwards! The landscape grew more savage. They bent round a corner and gound themselves skirting a precipice. The bishop glanced down in trepidation. There lay the sea, with not a boat in sight. As he continued to look the horizon oscillated; the ground sank under his feet and blue waters seemed to heave and rise up towards him. He shut his eyes in a fit of dizziness and grasped a rock. Its burning touch revived him.

Then on again. Always upwards.

"Do walk a little more slowly," said the bishop, puffing and wiping his face. "We must be well above the level of the Old Town by this time. A wild scramble. How much higher are we going?"

"Here we are. This is the place I meant."

"Charming, I must say! But aren't we a little too near the edge of the cliff? It makes me feel funny, as if I were in a balloon."

"Oh, we'll get used to it. Let's sit down, Mr. Heard."

Still distrustful of his companion, the bishop made himself comfortable and glanced around. They were high up; the view embraced half the island. The distant volcano confronting him was wreathed in sullen grey smoke that rose up from its lava torrent, and crowned with a menacing vapour-plume. Then an immensity of sea. At his feet, separated from where he sat by wide stony tracts tremulous with heat, lay the Old Town, its houses nestling in a bower of orchards and vineyards. It looked like a shred of rose-tinted lace thrown upon he landscape. He unraveled those now familiar thoroughfares and traced out, as a map, the more prominent buildings—the Church, the Municipality, the old Benedictine Monastery where Duke Alfred, they say, condescendingly invited himself to dine with the monks every second month in such state and splendour that, the rich convent revenues being exhausted, His Highness was pleased to transfer his favours to the neighboring Carthusians who went bankrupt in their turn; he recognized Count Caloveglia's place and, at the furthest outskirts, the little villa Mon Repos.

Where was she now, his cousin?

Reposing, no doubt, like all sensible folks.

And his eye wandered to the narrow pathway along the precipice where he had walked with her in the evening light—that pathway which he had suggested railing in, by reason of its dangers. A section of the horrible face of the cliff was exposed, showing that ominous coloration, as though splotched with blood, which he had noticed from the boat. The devil's rock! An appropriate name. "Where the young English lord jump over. . . ."

It was the stillest hour of the day. Not a soul in sight. Not a particle of shade. Not a breath of air. A cloudless sky of inky blueness.

To Mr. Heard's intense relief Denis had settled down, apparently for ever. He lay on his stomach like a lizard, immovable. His head, sheltered by a big hat, rested upon his jacket which he had rolled up into a sort of cushion; one bare sunburnt arm was stretched to its full length on the seared ground. What a child he was, to drag one up to a place like this in the expectation of seeing something unearthly! Mr. Heard was not quite satisfied about him. Perhaps he was only feigning.

Time passed. Do what he would to keep awake, the bishop felt his eyelids drooping—closing under the deluge of light. Once more there approached him that spirit of malevolence brooding in the tense sunny calm, that baleful emanation which seemed to drain away his powers of will. It laid a weight upon him. He felt into an unquiet slumber.

Presently he woke up and turned sharply to look at his companion. Denis had not stirred an inch from his voluptuous pose. A queer boy. Was he up to some mystification?

The landscape all around was scarred and deserted. How silent a place can be, he thought. An unhealthy hush. And what a heat! The lava blocks—they seemed to smoulder and reel in the fiery glare. It was a deathly world. It reminded him of those illustrations to Dante's INFERNO. He thought to see the figures of the damned writhing amid tongues of flame.

His glance fell once more upon the villa of his cousin. Strange! There were two persons, now, walking along the edge of the cliff. Mere specks. . . . He took up his glasses. The specks resolved themselves into the figures of Mrs. Meadows and Mr. Muhlen.

The devil! he thought. What's the meaning of this?

They were moving up and down, at the same spot where he had moved up and down with her. They seemed to be on friendly terms with one another. Excellent terms. It looked as if they were laughing now and then, and stopping occasionally to glance at something, some book or other object, which the lady carried in her hand. The devil! At times his cousin seemed to be dangerously near the edge—he caught his breath, remembering that sensation of giddiness, of gulping terror, with which he had watched the falcon swaying crazily over the abyss. She was enjoying it, to all appearances. Then, as they retraced their steps, it was the man's turn to take the outside of the path. He suffered as little as she did, evidently, from vertigo. Laughing, and gesticulating. The devil! What were they talking about? What were they doing there, at this impossible hour of the day? Five or six times they went to and fro; and then, suddenly, something happened before Mr. Heard's eyes—something unbelievable.

He dropped his glasses, but quickly raised them again. There was no doubt about it. Muhlen was no longer there. He had disappeared. Mrs. Meadows was walking down towards her villa, in sprightly fashion, alone.

Mr. Heard felt sick. Not knowing exactly what he was about, he began to shake Denis with needless violence. The young man turned round lazily, flushed in the face,

"Where—what—" he began. "Rather funny! You saw it too? Oh, Lord! You've woke me up. What a bother. . . . Why, Mr. Heard, what's the matter with you? Aren't you feeling well?"

The bishop pulled himself together, savagely.

"Touch of the sun, I daresay. Africa, you know! Perhaps we ought to be going. Give me your arm, Denis, like a good boy. I want to get down."

He was dazed in mind, and his steps faltered. But his brain was sufficiently clear to realize that his was face to face with an atrocious and carefully planned murder.



CHAPTER XXXIV



All the traditions of his race, the uprightness of ages of decent law-abiding culture, the horror of the pure for what is impure rebelled against this thing which nothing but the testimony of his own eyes could have made him believe. He felt humiliated, as though he had received a blow; inclined to slink about and hide his face from other men. There was contamination in the mere fact of having been a witness. Oh, it was villainous. How carefully the hour and place had been chosen!

And he himself, during that evening walk, had given her the idea. He had said how easily a man could be thrown over at that spot. Very simple. . . .

His mind would clear up, maybe, in course of time. Meanwhile he remembered about Retlow-ALIASMuhlen. It came to him in a flash. The man was his cousin's first husband; possibly her only legal husband, seeing that she may not have been able to secure sufficient evidence against him to justify a divorce—had, indeed, lost sight of the scoundrel altogether for several years prior to her elopement with young Meadows. It might well be that Muhlen had heard somehow or other of her presence on Nepenthe, and gone there for the purpose of renewing acquaintance with her. But this foul crime! For it cannot have been a sudden impulse on her part. She had been playing with him—leading him on. His visits to the Old Town, at that quiet hour of the day. . . . No. She had carried out her infamous plan after ample premeditation.

Mr. Heard stayed at home, burdened with a hideous secret. Practical questions began to assail him. What should he do? Wait! he concluded. Something would be sure to turn up. He was too dazed to think clearly, as yet. He also disliked that fellow. But one does not murder a man because one happens to dislike him. One does not murder a man . . . foolish words, that kept on repeating themselves in his mind.

To pardon—yes. Mr. Heard could pardon to any extent. The act of pardoning: what did it imply? Nothing more than that poor deluded mortals were ever in need of sympathy and guidance. Anybody could pardon. To pardon was not enough for a man of Mr. Heard's ruthless integrity. He must understand. How understand, how interpret, a dastardly deed like this? What could her motives have been? Of what act of proposal could the man have been guilty to merit, even in her eyes, a fate such as this? For evidently, one does not murder a man because one happens to dislike him—

Denis came to enquire, in the course of the morning. He was anxious to know how the bishop was feeling after yesterday's attack of sunstroke.

"I have been blaming myself bitterly for dragging you out," he began. "I—really—"

"Don't think about it! I shall be better soon. I'll remain indoors to-day."

"You are not looking quite yourself just yet. What a fool I was! I can't tell you how sorry I am."

"Not worth talking about. You'll stay to luncheon?"

The news of Muhlen's disappearance was spread about that same evening, and created no surprise whatever. Foreigners had a knack of coming to the island and mysteriously vanishing again; it was quite the regular thing to run up accounts all around and then clear out. Hotel-keepers, aware of this idiosyncrasy on the part of distinguished guests, arranged their scale of charges accordingly; they made the prices so high that the honest paid for the dishonest, as with English tailors. The other tradespeople of the place—the smiling confectioner, the simple-minded bootmaker and good-natured stationer, the ever-polite hosier—they all worked on the same principle. They recouped themselves by fleecing the more ingenuous of their clients.

In the case of Muhlen's occultation there was even less surprise than usual. Everybody, judging by his lavish display of gold and showy manner, expected him to depart sooner or later in the orthodox manner—at night-time, by means of a sailing boat secretly hired, conscientiously prepaid. His more intimate friends, the Magistrate and the Commissioner, were less surprised than anyone else. True, Signore Malipizzo was somewhat hurt, because Muhlen had practically invited him to stay at his own native town where every kind of amusement was to be had, the female society being of the choicest. Exuberant women—and rich! It would have been a pleasant change after the trim but tedious gardens of Salsomaggiore. He had strong homes, however, of receiving a letter from some safe place outside the dominions, making an appointment for the holidays. For form's sake, of course, he promptly initiated the ordinary judicial enquiries. It would look well in the records of the Court.

As for Mr. Parker, who was brooding in the retirement of his villa whither the news had swiftly spread, he merely thought:

"Got off scot free. And without paying his Club account, I'll bet. Bolted. Lucky devil. That's where the casual visitor has the pull over a resident official like myself. Cleared out! I'm glad I never had any money to lend him. Touched a good few of them, I'll be bound."

Within an hour or so of the magistrate's formal enquiries led to a startling discovery. Muhlen's room in the hotel was broken open, and his property searched. No letters could be found conveying any clue as to his whereabouts. But—what was almost incredible—there was loose money lying about. A more minute investigation proved that the gentleman had dressed himself with considerable care prior to leaving the establishment for the last time. He had changed his socks and other underwear—yes, he had donned a clean shirt. The old one, blue-striped, which he had been seen to wear at breakfast, was lying negligently across the back of a chair with a pair of costly enameled links, of azure colour to match, in the cuffs. Moreover, in a small box hidden beneath some collars in a drawer were found a few foreign bank-notes, a ring or two, and a handful of gold coins such as he was in the habit of carrying about his person. The judge, who superintended the researches, caused these valuables to be impounded, sealed, and deposited in the Court of Justice.

The discovery put a fresh and ominous complexion on the affair. When a man means to bolt, he does not leave portable jewelry—an enameled pair of links—behind him. And even if, in the hurry and scurry of departure, he does overlook such elegant trifles, he never forgets to take his money; least of all a man like Muhlen.

A lengthy deposition was signed by the hotel proprietor. It set forth, in reference to Muhlen's general habits, that this gentleman had hitherto not attended to his account; he had not been urgently pressed for a settlement. One did not like to incommode foreign visitors with bills; it annoyed them so much that they sometimes migrated to other hotels and made debts there, debts which in certain unexpected cases were liquidated in full while the former and equally legitimate ones remained unpaid—which was disheartening. In regard to his recent mode of life, the document contained the suggestive fact that Muhlen had not taken his midday meal at the hotel for some time past. He was strangely fond of going out in the late mornings, the proprietor averred; it might be, to bathe; he returned at about five in the afternoon after lunching, presumably, in some small restaurant by the shore.

This declaration, signed by a respected citizen, soon leaked into publicity. Taken in conjunction with the discovery of his money it was an eye-opener to the whole community, and to nobody more than to the judge himself. Signor Malipizzo argued, with his usual penetration, that Muhlen had intended to return to his quarters as he had always done of late. The ANIMUS REVERTENDI was abundantly proven by the sleeve-links and loose cash. He had not returned. Ergo, something untoward had happened. Untoward things may be divided, for the sake of convenience, into two main classes, sections, or categories:

1. Accidents. 2. Foul play.

Which was it?

Signor Malipizzo dismissed as untenable the hypothesis of a clandestine withdrawal from local creditors. By way of clearing up the last vestige of doubt, however, and also for the sake of appearances (seeing that a wise magistrate is supposed to take nothing for granted) he called for depositions for the sailors and fishermen. It was a superfluous piece of work, a pure formality; he knew beforehand what they would say. They always said the same thing. They said it. Interrogated on oath they declared, one and all, that no person answering to the description of Muhlen had appeared on the beach for a long time; not for the last eight months and twelve days, to be quite accurate; much less had such a one engaged a vessel. The jovial but conservative sea-folk never varied their utterance on those many solemn occasions when a foreigner, for the purpose of evaporating, paid in advance for the hire of a boat, or was supposed to have done so. Albeit even ignorant people attached no significance to this statement, it went for what it was worth as cumulative evidence.

The sight of that loose cash would have been quite enough for a man of Signor Malipizzo's discernment. Muhlen had not bolted. Nor was he the kind of man to lose his life by an accident. Not he! Muhlen was careful of his skin. Ergo, his disappearance was due to something which came under the second class, section, or category. He had been done away with.

The magistrate, thinking of those summer holidays, began to be really vexed; so did Mr. Parker, who soon learned the result of these enquiries and regretted that his mourning retirement prevented him from issuing forth and telling everybody what he thought of this new disgraceful scandal. His English blood revolted at the idea of a harmless tourist, a prominent member of the Alpha and Omega Club, being callously murdered. Would these people never get civilized? He was glad to hear, at all events, that the judge was doing something.

Signor Malipizzo was doing a good deal. He meant to sift the thing to the bottom. His energy, hitherto simulated, was now set genuinely at work to discover indications of the murderer—indications of his missing friend. But Nepenthe is not a good place for finding corpses. The island is full of fathomless rents and fissures. A good many foreigners, especially such as were known to carry loose gold in their pockets, had been suspected of falling into them without leaving a trace behind. Yet a thorough search was instituted, for he knew that criminals were not always as clever as they thought themselves; some insignificant relic might turn up—a shred of clothing or so forth. Such things were occasionally picked up on Nepenthe; nobody knew to whom they belonged. The Cave of Mercury, on being searched, yielded nothing but a trouser button, apparently of English manufacture. Enquiries were also made as to when the ill-starred gentleman had last been seen, and where. Finally, the judge drew up a list, a fairly long list, of all the suspicious characters on the place with a view to placing them under lock and key, in expectation of further developments. Such was the customary procedure; one must assume the worst. If innocent, they might of course regain their liberty in a year or two.

It stands to reason that a good many people had noticed Muhlen on the morning of his disappearance. One cannot walk about Nepenthe at that hour of the day without being seen, and Muhlen was sufficiently conspicuous. But everyone knew what was in store for him if he admitted such a fact, to wit, an application of paragraph 43 of the 92nd section of the Code of Criminal Procedure, according to which any and every witness of this kind is liable to be segregated from his family and kept under arrest for an indefinite length of time, pending the instruction of a trial which might take half a century. Nobody, therefore, was fool enough to admit having encountered him—nobody save a half-witted youth who fatuously confided to a policeman that the had met the gentleman somewhere in the neighbourhood of the bibliographer's villa about the hour of midday. Under ordinary circumstances Signor Malipizzo would have been delighted to lay sacrilegious hands on Mr. Eames, whose Olympic aloofness had always annoyed him and against whom a case could now be got up, on the strength of these indications. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of the villa—that was quite sufficient to warrant an arrest.

The boy in question happened to be a relation of his arch-enemy, the parish priest. Better still. Chuckling at the happy coincidence, he forgot all about Mr. Eames, and gave orders for the other to be conveyed to the guard-house, searched, and interrogated, arguing plausibly that a person of his mental instability would be sure to give himself away by some stupid remark.

Things turned out better than he had dared to hope. Under the prisoner's clothing was discovered a gold coin of foreign nationality attached, by a piece of string, round his neck. For all one knew, it might have been Muhlen's. The interrogating carbineer who is invested, during such preliminary enquiries, with quasi-judicial functions—being permitted to assume the role of prosecuting or defending counsel, or to remain sternly unbiased, as he feels inclined—desired to learn how he had come by this jewel.

He received it long ago from his mother, he said, as a talisman against the moonsickness which had tormented him in childhood. Replying, in stammering and dazed fashion, to further questions, he gave it to be understood that nobody had ever set eyes on the coin in question; he was afraid of showing it, lest someone should take it from him by force. He loved the coin. He got it from his mother.

"Ah!" said the friendly policeman. "And your mother, now—could she perhaps tell us when she gave it to you?"

"My mother is in Paradise."

"Dead, is she? H'm. That looks queer, my young friend. Very fishy. You should be more careful in little things like that. She ought to have been kept alive, you know. Anybody can say they had gold coins given them by dead mothers, don't you see? Rather a thin trick. Can't you suggest something better? Cheer up, boy! You needn't tremble all over. Look, I am writing it down, and you must put your name to it afterwards. Think—little. A living uncle, for instance—if he came into Court and testified that he had given you the coin, why, it might make all the difference and get you out of a nasty scrape. Surely you've got an uncle or something? How about His Reverence the PARROCO? Couldn't he swear—?"

"My mother is in Paradise."

"In Paradise, is she? That's where you ought to be, my son. Just sign this declaration, please. Then perhaps you will meet your mother sooner than you expect. Can't read or write? Well, put your cross to it and may the Madonna help you! For I can't. I've done my best to be impartial, but God alone can steer a fool. He makes a specialty of it, they tell me. If so, you've got a sporting chance. . . ."

Overjoyed with this incriminating deposition, His Worship gave orders for the prisoner's formal arrest. Aloud he remarked:

"What have I always said? Beware of wimple folks. They are the deep ones. Their naivete is nothing but a disguise. Here we have a case in point. This boy, from all accounts, is the pure type of the callous murderer. He stutters. He makes uncalled-for gurglings of a bestial nature. He has pendulous ears, and certain other stigmata of degeneration which are familiar to all conversant with criminal anthropology. Of course he denies everything. But mark my words! After six or seven months, when the prison diet begins to take effect, he will confess. I know the species; it is all too common. Meanwhile we must congratulate ourselves on having tracked down the culprit so soon."

To condemn for homicide the cousin of a Catholic priest warmed the cockles of his free-thinking heart. In fact, on second thoughts, it was better than if he had caught the real murderer who might have turned out to be an atheist, which would have been bad enough—or possibly a freemason, which would have been really awkward. The news spread rapidly over the island, and caused wild rejoicings among the anti-clericals.

The rejoicings were of brief duration.

Torquemada, as usual, was in fighting trim. Like all God-fearing ascetics, he was a man-eater at heart. He made up his mind long ago to eat the judge, whom he considered an offence to Heaven and earth—the official mouthpiece of the devil. Up to the present he had bided his time, waiting for a good opportunity. The time was now ripe.

Not that he greatly loved his cousin. The family to which the unhappy youth belonged was of no credit or use to himself, and this particular member was worse than useless, being afflicted with an unpardonable vice—lack of judgment. His stupidity had already got him into a number of minor scrapes. As a child he annoyed foreigners by ingenuous requests for money, stole flowers from neighbours' gardens because they were so irresistibly pretty, tied saucepans to their cats because they had such irresistibly long tails and made such irresistibly droll movements and noises in order to get rid of them, frightened old ladies by making faces at them; sometimes, by way of a change, he threw off a fit; later on, he had taken to smashing crockery, mooning about the vineyards, forgetting errands entrusted to him, throwing stones at passing carriages and making a general nuisance of himself. The PARROCO knew that he had been dismissed as incompetent by tradespeople to whom he was apprenticed, by farmers who had employed him as a labourer. He could not even repeat his Ave Maria without producing sinister crepitations from his gullet. And now he had crowned all by this surpassing act of imprudence. If he had only kept his mouth shut, like everybody else. But there! What could you expect from a fool?

A genuine murderer—it was most irreligious, of course. Still, some homicides were fairly justifiable, others almost meritorious; and a criminal of this kind showed, in every case, undeniable traces of manliness; one could not help respecting him in an oblique sort of fashion. But a fool! Torquemada, the zealous priest, the man of God, could never quite repress the promptings of his blood. He had all the fanatic's appreciation of violent methods; all the Southerner's fondness for a miscreant, and contempt for a simpleton. A mere fool—what's the use of him on earth? Had the culprit been any ordinary Christian, His Reverence would not have dreamt of interfering; gladly would he have let him spend the remainder of his day sin prison which everybody knew to be the best place for stupid people—it kept them out of mischief.

But this was not an ordinary Christian. He was a relation. A relation! That meant that one must show fight for him, if only for the sake of public appearances.

He held a hurried council with his family and, half an hour later, a second one with the more influential members of the priesthood. It was decided, in both cases, that the occasion was favourable for a long-deferred contest between the Powers of Light and the powers of darkness, the Catholic Church and modernism, the Clergy of Nepenthe and the secular authority of law and order as personified by that judge in whom all evil, public and private, flowed together. A noble parting cheque which he had just received from Mr. van Koppen for some urgent repairs to the parish organ came in handy. It would enable him to face the adversary with good hopes of success. To his friends he said:

"An insult to my family! I shall not take it lying down. Let them see what a humble servant of God can do."

So saying, he girded his loins for the fray, walked in person to the post office and wrote out a lengthy telegram to the redoubtable Don Giustino Morena, the parliamentary representative of Nepenthe who, as readers of the newspapers were aware, happened to be taking a brief holiday among his own people in the South. It was a judiciously flattering dispatch. It prayed the famous lawyer-politician to undertake the defence of a relation, an orphan, a mere child, unjustly accused of murder and arbitrarily imprisoned, and to deign to accept a pitiful honorarium of five thousand francs—the largest sum which a parish priest, poor but jealous of the honour of his family, could scrape together. If the great man accepted the offer, he might arrive by the nest day's boat. There was a chance, thought the PARROCO, of his doing so. Don Giustino was an ardent Catholic; he might be favourably impressed by the modest petition of a clergyman in his constituency. He had promised over and over again to visit his Nepenthean constituents. He would now be killing two birds with one stone.

Five minutes, under ordinary circumstances, were wont to elapse ere an item of private news could percolate out of the post office and become public property. Such was the portentous import of this message that it did not percolate at all. It flashed, and produced forthwith a feeling of joyous elation at the prospect of lively events in the near future—of a battle between the Vatican and the Quirinal. Coming on the top of Muhlen's murder—which was a decided improvement upon his alleged flight—it caused the citizens to talk in excited and almost random fashion about what was coming next. Alone, the members of the Alpha and Omega Club, thanks to the benign influence of Parker's poison, received the successive waves of information with composure, and preserved from beginning to end their sense of proportion.

"Heard the news? Muhlen's bolted."

"I thought he would."

"They say he owes a good deal."

"Obviously. Else he wouldn't have bolted. Good riddance, anyhow."

"That's what I say. But he owes me a lot of whiskies, the blighter."

"You're lucky. Gone off with thirty francs of mine."

"Damn his eyes. I expect we're not the only ones."

"Not by a long chalk. Come and have a drink."

"Heard the news? Muhlen's murdered."

"Serve him bloody well right. The blackguard owes me two francs fifty. I'll bet it was some money business."

"Not a bit of it. A little girl, you know. Got a knife in the stomach. About eleven at night, from all accounts. They heard him squealing a mile off."

"I don't believe it. He was not that kind."

"Not that kind? What do you mean?"

"Not that kind."

"Not THAT kind? Really? Go on. You don't say so, by Jove! What makes you think it?"

"Think? I don't think. I happen to know. You pay for my peg and I'll tell you all about it. . . ."

"Heard the news? Don Giustino's coming over."

"The old assassin. What of it?"

"Good business! One in the eye for Mali—what's his name. There'll be the hell of a row. We ought to be grateful to Muhlen for this amusement."

"Damned if we ought. Unless he got himself killed on purpose to amuse us. And even then it would have amused me more if he had paid me back those seventeen francs."

"You're very hard to please to-day."

"So would you be, if you'd been as raddled as I was last night. You ought to see the inside of my head, you ought. There's room for a coal barge, in there."

"That's easily remedied. Toss up for drinks."

"Don't mind if I do. . . ."

Signor Malipizzo heard the news as he was sitting down to luncheon. At first he thought the priest had gone crazy. Don Giustino—good God! Five thousand francs. Where had he found the money? Then he remembered hearing about old Koppen's cheque for the organ. Those confounded foreigners, always mixing themselves up in local concerns! If the PARROCO were really poor, as these hypocrites of Christians professed to be, he could never have run to it. Don Giustino. What an awful turn of events. And all because Muhlen got himself murdered. These confounded foreigners!

His heart sank within him. He had looked forward to keeping the priest's cousin for a year or two in gaol, previous to his trial. That would have to be altered. If Don Giustino came, the proceedings must be fixed for next morning—it was the merest act of courtesy towards a man of his standing, a man whom one must conciliate at any cost. He blamed himself for arresting that young idiot. It threatened to bring him into undesired prominence. Hitherto, by reason of his sheer insignificance, he had escaped the great Catholic deputy's eye. As Magistrate of Nepenthe, who cared what political or religious views he professed or in what manner he administered the law? All this was now changed. He was in the limelight. It might end—who knows where? He had other enemies on the island beside the clericals; the arrival of Don Giustino might lead to a general revision of his judicial labours. To-morrow perhaps he would have to confront the monster. Don Giustino! He knew him by reputation. A Camorrista of the blackest dye. He took no chances. He never threatened; he performed. Everybody knew that. Signor Malipizzo did not like the prospect of losing his lucrative job. Still less did he fancy the notion of receiving a charge of buck-shot in his liver, one evening from behind a wall. That was Don Giustino's cheerful way with people who annoyed him. Those infernal clericals; their sanguinary, out-of-date methods! Papacy and Camorra—interconvertible terms—who could plumb their depths? The Masons were different. They fought for the enlightenment of a people deluded by priestly snares and intimidated by the threats of assassins. Don Giustino. Holy Mother of God! What would to-morrow bring?

Thinking thus, the judge eyed his victuals resentfully. His appetite was gone—he was beginning to feel sick. Suddenly he pushed his plate away from him and hobbled out of the room, even forgetting to finish his wine. He limped across the broiling market-place to give the necessary orders to his faithful and experienced clerk who, having likewise got wind of that telegram, was not unprepared for some change of mind on the part of his chief.

"The young idiot must come up for trial to-morrow, if the assassin arrives."

"A sound suggestion," the grey-haired one replied. "It will take the wind out of his sails. It will prove—"

"Of course it will. And now, Don Carlo, go and take your little nap. I will stay here, to put my papers in order. May your dreams be happy."

The judge was dowered with extreme irascibility of temper, due to his chronic valetudinarian condition. He, too—within the limits of propriety—was not going to take things lying down. So much was certain. At first he was too agitated to be able to collect his thoughts. Gradually, as he moved about those rooms, calmness and confidence returned. He was alone. It was very warm and quiet here, amid these scenes of his many little triumphs. The look of the archives, the familiar smell of the place, was reassuring. He began to feel at ease once more. Ideas came to him.

He signed warrants for the arrest of the Messiah, Krasnojabkin and some fifteen others of those who had escaped his wrath on the previous occasion. They would be under lock and key within two hours. Don Giustino would never interfere on behalf of these aliens. Nor would any one else. An inspiration! It would proclaim his zeal for the public order—his official independence of mind.

And—yes. There was one other little thing.

He hobbled to where the various PIECES JUSTIFICATIVES were lying in their sealed envelopes. He took up the receptacle containing the gold talisman which had been sequestrated from the priest's nephew, and broke it open. It could always be sealed up again. The coin, attached to its string, fell out; it was an old-fashioned medal—Spanish, apparently. He fingered it awhile. Then, opening the packet which held Muhlen's gold, he carefully examined the contents. Five or six of these coins were of the same kind. French Napoleons. That was lucky. Any stick was good enough to beat a dog with. This was a particularly good stick. He bored a hole through one of the Napoleons and placed it on the culprit's string, after removing the original talisman, which he bestowed in his own pocket. That done, he sealed up the two parcels again, conscientiously.

"There!" he said. "He laughs best who laughs last. Don Giustino is a clever man. But the devil himself could not prove the prisoner innocent, in the face of evidence like this. Down with the Pope!"

Never had he felt so enlightened, so gloriously freemasonish.



CHAPTER XXXV



The commendatore Giustino Morena—familiarly known as Don Giustino or, by his enemies, as "the assassin"—was a Southerner by birth, a city product. From low surroundings he had risen to be a prominent member of the Chamber of Deputies and one of the most impressive figures in the country.

As a child he was apprenticed to a cobbler. There, bending over his work on the pavement outside the shop-door, his blue eyes and curly fair hair, his rosy cheeks, his winning smile, his precocious retorts, attracted the most favourable comment from the passers-by and secured him an unfailing supply of chocolates and cigarettes. People liked him so much that he quickly learned not only how to mend shoes but a good many other things which they were anxious to teach him. His grown-up friends vied with one another for a place in his affections and a certain scandalous affair with knives, which somehow or other got into the daily press where it had no business to be, put the seal on his reputation in the quarter.

"That boy will go far!" the old men and women used to say. "Only look at his blue eyes. Blessed the mother that bore him, whoever she was"—for nobody even pretended to know.

They were right; as old folks are apt to be. The victor in the disreputable affray happened to be a gentleman of middle age, a distinguished ornament of the Black Hand. No happier fate could have been devised for Giustino than to live under the patronage of such an individual. He took charge of the little fellow, and was not slow in discovering that his protege possessed not only a muscular framework and ready wit, but the malice, the concentrated ruthlessness and rapacity of fifty devils rolled into one. Something could be made out of that boy, he concluded; the Society, always ready to adopt promising neophytes on the recommendation of a qualified practitioner like himself, would doubtless enrol him in due course. Meanwhile he instructed him, by precept and example, how to be religious in the manner most pleasing to the Madonna. He narrated the Lives of the Saints, forced him to attend Mass and confess himself to one of the Society's trusted priests and taught him, above all things, to hate the Government because it oppressed the Pope and the poor. One day he said:

"You must now attend evening classes. I think you will do well at our school of the Holy Cross. Your outfit is exceptional. Among other things you have the great advantage that the first and second fingers of both your hands are of equal length. That augurs well! God has favoured you, for many lads have to lengthen the first one artificially, which is apt to weaken the joints."

The Master and Director drew good salaries from the numerous pupils at this institution. Everything useful to young boys was taught here save only religion. Seeing that all the scholars were drawn from families distinguished for their piety and adherence to the Pope, the Director considered a religious training to be superfluous—his pupils learnt these things on their mothers' knees. Giustino soon acquired the jargon; he passed his examination in fifteen articles, in secrecy, swiftness of foot and nimbleness of hand. The latter was taught on a clothed wooden figure out of whose pockets the students were obliged to extract handkerchiefs, gold watches and jewelry with such dexterity that not one of the little bells, which dangled from its hat, gave forth the slightest sound; that stage passed, the art was practised on the person of the Director himself who, walking through the streets as an ordinary citizen, was supposed to have his pockets picked in the approved professional manner. Those who failed to come up to the standard were thrashed savagely three or four times; if they still failed, they were sent back to their parents with a polite recommendation that they should be taught some other trade. Giustino was seldom punished. On the contrary, the Director was so enamoured of his progress and blue eyes that he entered him as a fox long before the regular three years' course was up, and offered to tattoo the symbol of proficiency, a cross, on the back of his right hand.

The patron, while proud of his young friend, did not intend to spoil his chances in after life by an indelible bodily mark of this kind however honourably attained. He had other designs for him. To pass the next year or two, he made arrangements for Giustino, now grown lean and wolfish, to be officially received into the Black Hand. As probationer he was the delight of his superiors; he went through the various tests with phenomenal rapidity and gave abundant proofs of manliness. At the age of sixteen he had already killed three men—one of them being a policeman who was suspected of infidelity towards the Society. It was then that the protector, who was no fool, spoke to him a second time, saying:

"As you know, my son, I can neither read nor write. Those were not considered respectable accomplishments, in my day, for a lad of spirit or a man of honour. Devil's work! But we live in an effeminate age. Virtue is at a discount. The wise man, while observing these things with regret, adapts himself to them. He marches with the times. They call us reactionaries. It depends upon boys like you to show the world what reactionaries are good for. The whole town has already learnt to respect your manly instincts. You must now go further and learn to read and write. You will then enter the University. There you will study law and politics. You will then enter Parliament. There you will represent our cause. The means—the money? Trust the Society! Only be a credit to your friends, defend the poor, and never forget to say your prayers. Then the good God will reward your efforts."

This is precisely what the good God did. Within a short space of time the young deputy had made a name for himself; he was recognized as one of the few representatives of the Black Hand whose word could be implicitly relied upon. He had a share in everything; commissions and percentages poured in upon him. After making an example of half a dozen tiresome persons by having them quietly stabbed or shot—nothing was ever proved against him though everybody knew it was his work—he experienced no further opposition in his political career. Morena never threatens, they say; he performs. A safe man! From a timorous Liberal Government, his avowed enemies, he extorted the title of Commendatore; not because he attached any value to such outward distinctions but because, like a true Camorrista, he never lost an opportunity of showing that he could do what he pleased with everybody, Government included. It was an open secret that the next vacant portfolio of Justice would be at his disposal. All this of course was years and years ago.

To these arts of statecraft he added a quite unusual legal acumen and forensic ability. For the last fifteen years he had been in receipt of large annual retaining fees from the principal commercial firms of the country; that of one shipping company alone amounted to fifty thousand francs. They found it worth their while since, without doing a stroke of work for them, he gave his tacit support to their most nefarious undertakings. A useful man! As a lawyer in private cases his reputation was tremendous. Judges and juries had been known to faint with emotion at his dramatic gestures, his fiery eloquence. He could pull anybody out of a scrape. Wherever he spoke the Court was crowded to listen to his impassioned arguments, to look upon the cold fire of his blue eyes, his carefully adjusted dress, his fair hair turning to grey, his smooth face which he kept shaven for no other reason—so he used to declare—than because he reverenced the fashions of the old papal regime. "Just like an Englishman," people said.

He had lately put on flesh; it inspired confidence. Moreover, he never married; that also was something out of the common—it pointed to independence, to lack of ordinary human frailties. In short, he was so perfect a compound of vice and intelligence that even his dearest friends could not put their finger on the exact spot where the one began and the other ended. And the whole of this unique mixture was placed at the disposal of the Vatican. Don Giustino was the implacable enemy of modernism, a living disproof of the vulgar assertion that freemasonry is the sole key to success in modern Italy. A formidable man! And growing more formidable every day, as his wealth increased. His income was already such that he could afford to be honest; nothing but the force of old habits kept him from developing into a positive saint.

It stands to reason that a person of this caliber would have sniffed at a paltry remuneration of five thousand francs offered by an obscure country priest. But Don Giustino was a good son of the Church. He had never forgotten the recommendation of his old patron to succour the humble and distressed; he specialized, as a lawyer, in defending murderers and rescuing them from the secular arm. They were enthusiasts suffering under a sense of wrong; they belonged to the class of the honest poor; they were victims of governmental greed and social injustice. Motives, not deeds! he would say. And the motives of the poor must be judged by other standards than those of the rich. They have other lives, other temptations. Trust the people. The people, under proper guidance of the priests. . . .

Although it was hardly likely that the great man would deign to accept Torquemada's invitation, yet half the town was assembled at the harbour to await the arrival of the evening boat and catch a glimpse, if possible, of the famous Camorrista. And there he was! He leaned over the taffrail, easily recognizable from his pictures in the illustrated papers. He was dressed in a felt hat, brown boots, and light grey clothes—just like anybody else. Presently he descended to the quay, followed by a tall and solid-looking young valet. He was wreathed in smiles. A whiff of political life, of busy deeds in the capital, exhaled from his person. The Mayor of Nepenthe, a devout Catholic, deferentially shook hands and introduced the PARROCO and other notabilities. They drove up together. It was all delightfully breezy and informal. But men were aware that in this little episode there lurked more than met the eye; that the arrival of Commendatore Morena was an occasion worthy to be chronicled in the annals of the island. Not only was it his first appearance as a deputy among his constituents. That alone would have been an event. The avowed purpose of his visit, to rescue a criminal from the properly constituted authorities, gave it the character of a pro-Vatican demonstration—a slap in the face of King and Constitution.

An intimate little dinner had been arranged by the parish priest in order to give the principal clergy and a few favoured laymen of their party an opportunity of paying their respects. No one knew what took place at this repast save that the distinguished guest was in wonderful humour; he joked and laughed and told funny stories; he was enchanted with the wine and the excellent local crayfish and announced his intention of buying a little villa wherein to spend the evening of his days, after his public labours were over. An ideal spot! Lucky people, he called them. It was most unfortunate that he would be obliged to leave by to-morrow's midday boat, and so miss the greater part of the festival of Saint Eulalia.

Another little item of news was allowed to filter out and sedulously propagated, to the effect that the Commendatore had refused, politely but firmly, to accept any remuneration for his services. Such a thing could not be thought of! Pleasure and duty rarely coincided as in this case, where it was both a pleasure to come to this charming island and a duty to say a few words in Court about this unfortunate young man—to defend the oppressed to the utmost of his miserable ability, and thereby approve himself a good son of the Church.

"Your servant in everything!" he added. "And if you would now accept from me a humble donation of one thousand francs to be distributed, as His Reverence thinks best, among the needy poor of Nepenthe, you would indeed make me your debtor for life!"

Such was the great man's speech, as reported. It was a pure invention on the part of Torquemada who, being a high-principled ecclesiastic, had clear-cut orthodox views anent the utility of pious legends. He knew it would sound well among the populace. He hoped it would vex the envious magistrate into a fit of colic. He argued that the great man himself, in the event of its coming to his ears, would not be otherwise than gratified by a godly fable so strictly in keeping with his character.

Don Francesco alone, the smiling terrestrial beast, the lover of wine and women, held aloof from the entertainment, alleging a gastric indisposition and doctor's orders. He did not see eye to eye with Torquemada on matters such as these. Don Francesco disliked all measures of violence, Camorra or freemasonry, Vatican or Quirinal—disliked them so much that he would have hated them had he been built, like the PARROCO, on hating lines. He was too unwieldy, too fond of life, too indulgent towards himself and others to experience at mention of Don Giustino's name anything but a certain feeling of discomfort—a feeling which his acute intelligence, embedded under those rolls of fat, enabled him to formulate with warmth and precision.

"I know quite well," he said to Torquemada, "that he calls himself a good son of the Church. So much the worse for the Church. I understand he is a prominent member of the Government. So much the worse for the Government. And I realize that, but for his intervention, this harmless individual might spend the remainder of his life in prison. So much the worse for all of us, who derive justice from so tainted a source. As to dining at the same table with him—no. Does not the whole world know his history? The animal! He would make me vomit. And you will believe me when I say, my dear PARROCO, that I do not look my best on such occasions."

Torquemada shook his head, mournfully. It was by no means the first time that he had suspected his popular colleague of being a lukewarm Christian.



CHAPTER XXXVI



The market-place was filled to over-brimming. Everybody discussed the near events in the Court of Justice. It promised to be a bad day for Signor Malipizzo. And yet people could not help admitting how clever he had been to lock up those Russians. It was the best thing he could have done under the circumstances. It proved his freedom from anti-Catholic prejudices. It made him look icily objective.

Torquemada, on hearing that the prisoner's gold coin corresponded with those others which had been in the possession of the murdered man, thought it deplorable. Here was plain evidence of his cousin's guilt! Most deplorable. Still, the victim being not only a foreigner but a Protestant was a considerable mitigation of the offence from the moral and religious point of view, and possibly from the legal one as well. Anyhow, what did legal aspects matter? Had he not engaged Don Giustino? Innocent or guilty, the prisoner would be released. And, on second thoughts, he discovered him to be worthy of the great man's golden eloquence. He was not altogether a fool. There was a touch of manliness about him; he was decidedly a brighter lad than he looked. He deserved to be released.

Ten o'clock sounded.

The Court had never been so crowded. There was barely standing room. Sunlight poured in through the windows which had not been cleaned for many long months; the atmosphere was already rather oppressive. It was a stuffy place at all times, reeking of old tobacco smoke and humanity.

Everybody was still save the old grey-headed clerk who fussed about with papers. Signor Malipizzo, after a deferential but dignified bow to the famous lawyer, had taken his seat on the raised platform facing the public whence he was wont to dispense justice. Nailed against the wall, directly over his head, was a large white paper bearing the printed words "La Legge": the law. It dominated the chamber. On one side of this could be seen a coloured portrait of the Sovereign in the bersagliere uniform; a fierce military glance shot out of his eyes from under that helmet whose plume of nodding feathers made it look three sizes too large for his head. On the other side hung a representation of the Madonna, simpering benignly in a blue tea-gown besprinkled with pearls and golden lace. The spittoon, which His Worship required continually during the audiences, was wont to be placed immediately below this latter picture; it was the magistrate's polite freemasonish method of expressing his reverence for the Mother of God. Everybody noticed that on the present occasion this piece of furniture was located elsewhere. It stood below the Sovereign's portrait. A delicate compliment to the formidable lawyer-champion of Catholicism, sworn enemy to the House of Savoy. People commented favourably on this little detail. How artful of him! they said.

All eyes were fixed upon Don Giustino. He sat there quietly. If he was bored he certainly did not show it. Now that he was here he would give these good people a taste of his quality. He knew all about the gold coin; he was profoundly convinced of the prisoner's guilt. This was lucky for the young man. Had he thought otherwise he would probably have refused to take up the case. Don Giustino made a point of never defending innocent people. They were idiots who entangled themselves in the meshes of the law; they fully deserved their fate. Really to have murdered Muhlen was the one and only point in the prisoner's favour. It made him worthy of his rhetorical efforts. All his clients were guilty, and all of them got off scot free. "I never defend people I can't respect," he used to say.

He began his speech in a rambling, desultory sort of fashion and quite a low tone of voice, as if he were addressing a circle of friends.

A charming place, Nepenthe! He would carry away the pleasantest memories of its beauty and the kindliness of its inhabitants. It was like a terrestrial paradise, so verdant, so remote from all danger. And yet nothing on earth was secure. That volcanic eruption the other day—what a scare it must have given them! What a lucky escape they had, thanks to the Divine intervention of the Patron Saint! Hardly any damage done; no victims worth mentioning. The fertile fields were intact; mothers and fathers and children could once more go out to their daily tasks and return in the evening, tired but happy, to gather round the family board. Family life, the sacred hearth! It was the pride, the strength, the mainstay of the country; it was the source whence the rising generation drew their earliest notions of piety and right conduct. Nothing in the world could replace home influence, the parents' teaching and example—nothing! And this poor boy, now threatened with imprisonment, had a mother. He had a mother. Did the Court appreciate the import of those words? Did they realize what it meant to shatter that hallowed bond, to deprive the parent of her offspring's help and consolation—the child of its mother's fostering care? Let them consider the lives of all t hose great men of the past who were known to have had mothers—Themistocles, Dante, Virgil, Peter the Hermit and Madame de Maintenon—why had they achieved distinction in the world? What was the secret of their greatness? A mother's affectionate guidance in youth. They had not been torn, as children, from her loving arms.

A good many people were already sobbing. But the orator had noticed that something was wrong. He consulted a small scrap of paper and then continued in the same conversational tones as before.

He had no mother. He was an orphan. An orphan! Did the Court realize what it meant? No, he dared not ask them to picture to themselves all that was implied in that bitter word. An orphan. Nobody to instil those early lessons of piety . . . to grow up wild, neglected, despised. . . . It was impossible for a man to avoid going astray in such terribly unnatural conditions. Everybody else had parents to counsel and direct them; he alone was bereft of this blessing. It was cruel, it was illogical, to apply the same standard to him as to those fortunate other ones. Let the Court call to mind the names of those who had deviated from the narrow path of duty; did they not all belong to this unhappy class? It might safely be inferred that they had no mothers! Such person were to be pitied and helped, rather than condemned for what was the fault not of their natures but of their anomalous situation in life. To rescue a motherless young soul from the brink of perdition was the noblest task of a Christian. And this was still, thank Heaven, a Christian country, despite the ever-swelling invasion of that irreligious foreign element which threatened to break up the old faith in God. The Madonna was still worshipped; together with the Saints. Their precious relics and other holy amulets still proved their efficacy in the hour of danger.

Amulets—ah, that reminded him.

To kill a man with a view to possessing yourself of his substance was an unpardonable crime. Now what had this boy done? Let them take the so-called robbery first. Well, no robbery had been committed, in spite of the notorious fact that this Protestant, this foreigner was known to be loaded with money. His client had fought down the temptation, the almost irresistible temptation, of appropriating the gold. Let them remember that! The minutest investigation failed to reveal anything save a single coin which he had attached to a string and hung about his neck. Motives, not deeds! What were his motives for this strange act? An unconscious application of the homoeopathic principle. He had taken it as a safeguard, an amulet, in the childish belief that it might protect him on future occasions against insults such as those he had undergone.

Then, while the audience were still puzzling what the last words meant, he suddenly indulged in one of those abrupt transitions for which he was famous, and burst out:

"Down with foreigners! We Catholics know what foreigners are, how they work for evil in places high and low. One cannot take up a daily paper without seeing some exposure of their many-sided viciousness. They contaminate the land with their godless depravity. Nobody can count on immunity. The highest officials in the land, the very Ministers of the Crown, are subjected to their vile disguised attempts at bribery and corruption, no humble peasant girl, no child, is safe from the befoulment of their filthy minds. We know them—our police records, the archives of our Courts of Justice, testify to their demoralizing agency. A pest, a contagion! Who can tell what proposals were made in this particular case—what degrading proposals, backed by the insidious offer of foreign gold? A weak character might have succumbed. But the victim was made of different stuff. He belonged to another type—the heroic type. Suffering anguish of soul, he yet preferred honour to baseness. In self-defence—"

At this point the great Deputy ceased to speak. Signor Malipizzo had swooned away. He had to be carried out of Court.

It mattered little, for the proceedings were at an end save for a few formalities. The case was won.

People were rather annoyed at being deprived of one of Don Giustino's far-famed perorations. It could not be helped. Better luck next time. Then they asked themselves why the judge had fainted. Some thought it might be the heat, or a touch of his old complaint. The majority were agreed that the attack was due to the Deputy's eloquence. And it was true that he was greatly impressed by the speech, but not quite as much as all that. He had decided to faint at a critical moment, for the sake of appearances. It was clever of him. He did it beautifully too; he had been rehearsing half the night. Don Giustino, on his part, shared the common opinion and was charmed with this tribute to his genius. Altogether, the local judge had made a favourable impression on him; his attitude had been irreproachably correct. He was not a bat fellow, for a freemason. One might do worse than leave him in possession of his present appointment on Nepenthe.

The Deputy freed his prisoner; it was unavoidable. But the Russians remained in gaol, and this was always something to the credit of Signor Malipizzo. . . .

Madame Steynlin, on hearing of Peter the Great's arrest, was stricken dumb. She wept the bitterest tears of all her life. Then, with returning calmness, she remembered Mr. Keith whose friendship with the magistrate was the common talk of the place. Would he be able to do anything? Impulsive by nature, she called on that gentleman and poured out her griefs to him. Mr. Keith was sympathetic. He declared he understood perfectly. He promised to do his utmost, that very day.

The Master, meanwhile, languished in prison. He had nobody to take his part, not even among the Little White Cows; the new section, that clique of young extremists, were only too delighted to have him out of the way. The communal doctor alone interceded on his behalf, imploring the judge in the name of the sacred brotherhood of freemasons that he, the Messiah, should be excarcerated in order that he, the physician, might be enabled to continue the daily treatment to which the old man had grown accustomed and for which he was being regularly remunerated. "Think of my wife and children!" he said to the magistrate.

Signor Malipizzo on this occasion did not mean to be baulked of his prey. He was in bad humour; Don Giustino had got on his nerves. By means of a lightning-like discharge of symbols intelligible only to the Elect he retorted that a physician, who depended for his livelihood upon a legitimate practice among BONA FIDE patients, was not fit to be a freemason.

Then the doctor urged the humanitarian aspects of the case. The old man needed the treatment which could be given in prison just as well; the fees would doubtless be paid sooner or later.

The magistrate proved inexorable, adamantine. What was good enough for a native, he argued, was good enough for a vicious old alien. A stomach-pump in prison! What more? They would be wanting fried fish and asparagus next.

As a special concession to the Master's age and rank a separate upper chamber, described as very airy, had been allotted to him in the local gaol. The poor old man did not know how he got there; they had thrust him into this strange place and locked the door on him. Long hours had passed. He sat on an uncomfortable cane-bottomed chair, his hands folded across his stomach. There was already a slight sense of oppression in that region of his body. His head, too, felt heavy. Without knowing how or why, he had fallen into a trap, after the manner of some dumb beast of earth. When would they take him out again? And when would that kind gentleman with the machine arrive?

Daylight entered through a small but thickly grated window. Looking out from where he sat, he could detect neither men nor houses nor trees—nothing but four rectangular patches of deep blue. The sea! Often had he wondered about the sea, and why it was there. It had ever been an enigma to him, this purposeless mass of water. Not even good to drink. He knew nothing of those fables of the pagans—of old Poseidon and white-armed Leucothea and the blithe crew of Triton and silver-footed Thetis moving upon the placid sunlit waters; nothing of that fair sea-born goddess whose beauty swayed the hearts of men. His Venus ideals had been of a more terrestrial nature—the wives or daughters of army generals and state functionaries who desired advancement, and sometimes got it.

Not even good to drink! There was nothing like this in Holy Russia. God would never have allowed it. The uselessness of this sea had always been to him a source of perplexity and even vague apprehension. The spectacle of this shining immensity troubled his world-scheme. Why did God create water, when land would have been so much more useful? Often had he puzzled on the subject. . . . Why?

But now, in the evening of his life and the extremity of his anguish, the truth was made manifest. A Revelation drew nigh. It just came to him.

The fishes.

It was a dying gleam of intelligence, his last inspired thought, his swan-song. How else could the fishes live save in the water? All these long years he had remained ignorant of the truth. Ah, if only his disciples were at hand, to jot it down into that GOLDEN BOOK!

But why—why must the fishes live in water? And why so much water for so few fishes? Why cannot fishes live on land? Then everybody would be satisfied. Inscrutable are the ways of God. . . .

And his glazed eye moved wearily from that disquieting expanse of blue along the wall of his chamber which had once been white and was now scrawled over with obscene jests and drawings, product of the leisure hours of generations of prisoners. The writing, like all writing, was unintelligible to him. But some of the artistic efforts left little to the imagination. He was saddened, less by homely pictures than by the unfamiliar script. He had always distrusted the written word. Why all these strange letterings—so unnecessary, so dangerous to the life of an orthodox Christian? What one brother has to tell another—why write it down?

He saw the straw pallet destined for his nocturnal repose. It reminded him dimly of a similar resting-place during his monastic life. Then, too, he had slept on a couch near the floor. Flickering visions came to him of those days, so long ago, ere yet the First Revelation was given to the world. A breath of old Russia was wafted into his nostrils. He remembered the lusty, jovial country folk, the songs and dances at hay-making, the fragrance of the land, the sluggish rivers rolling their brown mud about the plains, the mild long-drawn evenings. He felt again that all-pervading charm of sadness, of tender yearning, that hangs in the pale Russian sky and penetrates to the very soul of the endless country.

Gloomy autumn days—wet leaves and lowering horizons. The long winter within doors. Faces appeared to him, faces of old, an endless procession of faces clear-cut as ever . . . his brother monks, bearded and unkempt . . . debauched acolytes . . . pilgrims from the Holy Land . . . glittering festal robes . . . vodka orgies, endless chants and litanies, holy lamps burning, somber eikons with staring eyes . . . the smell of greasy lukewarm cabbage soup, of unwashed bodies and boot leather and incense. Holy Russia—it all moved before his eyes in a kind of melodious twilight. Then the First Revelation. The Man-God.

Man-God. The word filtered through his intelligence. How strange it sounded. The Man-God—what could it mean.

A sudden change. A life of glory and intrigue. Food on platters of gold, sparkling wines and laughter. A diamond cross, an imperial gift, the reward of faithful services. Everybody cringing. Showers of bribes. Women—always women. A divine life! Nothing but women. . . .

Darkness. Something had happened; they had carried him into a place full of endless penances, floggings, starvings. Then they accused him of doing wrong. What was it? The flesh of warm-blooded beasts. . . . He had preferred the service of God to that of his earthly master. For this they banished him and made him suffer. He was dying now—dying to save mankind. He was giving up his life for sinners. Someone else had once done the same thing. Who was it? He could not remember. People who read and write—they know these things. Some saint, possibly; or at least a man from another province—someone he had never met or spoken to. A good Russian, whoever it was. But the name—the name had slipped out of his mind. He always had a good memory for faces, but a bad one for names.

He was so ill and oppressed too. Worse than before. He felt himself rotting earthwards, like a fungus of his own native forests under autumn rains. His body remained inert but his eye, roaming away from the straw pallet, fixed itself upon the door. When, when would that kindly gentleman with the instrument arrive?



CHAPTER XXXVII



Concerning the life and death of Saint Eulalia, patroness of Nepenthean sailors, we possess ample and accurate information.

She was born in 1712 at a remote village in the Spanish province of Estramadura. Various divine portents accompanied her birth. Her mother dreamed a strange dream about a sea-serpent; her father was cured of a painful gouty affection; the image of Saint James of Compostella in the local church was observed to smile benignly at the very hour of her entry into the world. At the age of two years and eleven months she took the vow of chastity. Much difficulty was experienced in keeping the infant alive; she tormented her body in so merciless a fashion. She refused to partake of food save once in every five weeks; she remained immovable "like a statue" for months on end; she wore under her rough clothing iron spikes which were found, after death, to have entered deeply into her flesh. She was never known to use a drop of water for purposes of ablution or to change her underwear more than once a year, and then only at the order of her confessor who was obliged to be in daily contact with her. The heat of her body was such that it could not be touched by human hands. During her frequent trances she spoke accurately in sixty-nine different languages; there was no hair whatever on her head which was "spotless as an egg." She put baskets of sea urchins into her bed and, as a penance for what she called "her many sins," forced herself to catch the legions of vermin that infested her brown blanket, count them, separate the males from the females, set them free once more, and begin over again. She died at the age of fourteen years and two months. Her corpse forthwith became roseate in colour, exhaled a delicious odour of violets for twenty weeks, and performed countless miracles. On dissection, a portrait of Saint James of Compostella was discovered embedded in her liver.

Saint Eulalia appeared too late to find her proper niche in Monsignor Perrelli's ANTIQUITIES or to be commemorated in some worthy architectural monument by the Good Duke Alfred; too late—and this is doubtless a lucky circumstance—to become the victim of one of Father Capocchio's offensive sneers. Whoever is interested in her saintly career may purchase at Nepenthe, for the small sum of sixpence, an admirable biography by a young Canon of the Church, Don Giacinto Mellino. It gives a full account of her life and of those nine hundred and seventy-two miracles of hers which have been authenticated by eye-witnesses. No need, therefore, to expatiate further.

It stands to reason that Mr. Eames possessed a copy of this treatise. An ideal annotator, he rarely indulged in speculation; his business was to discover and co-ordinate references. Nevertheless, in regard to the earthly life of this particular saint, he used to say: "There are some things a man cannot help puzzling about." It irked him—her success on Nepenthe. He knew the sailormen to be a horny-handed, skeptical, worldly brood. Why had they imported the cult of Eulalia from Spain; why had they chosen for their patroness a mawkish suffering nonentity, so different from those sunny goddesses of classical days? He concluded, lamely, that there was an element of the child in every Southerner; that men, refusing to believe what is improbable, reserve their credulity for what is utterly impossible; in brief, that the prosaic sea-folk of Nepenthe were like everybody else in possessing a grain of stupidity in their composition—"which does not bring us much further," he would add. . . .

At the time of this year's festival Mr. Eames was supremely happy. Another pamphlet had come into his hands, an anonymous pamphlet making fun of the Duchess whose reception into the Roman Church had been fixed for the day of Saint Eulalia's festival. It bore the objectionable title THE DIPPING OF THE DUCHESS and had presumably been indited by some wag at the Alpha and Omega Club who disapproved of water in every shape, even for baptismal purposes. The stuff was printed on the sly and hastily circulated about the island—some people maintained that Mr. Richards, the respectable Vice-President of that institution, was its author. It was a scurrilous anti-Catholic leaflet, grossly personal and savouring of atheism. The Duchess, on hearing of it—everything got about on Nepenthe—was so distressed that she decided to cancel, or at least postpone, the ceremony of her public conversion. At a meeting of urgency convened by the priests, who were bitterly disappointed at her attitude, it was agreed that this was no time for half-measures. A round sum of money was voted wherewith to buy back the pernicious pamphlet from its respective owners with a view to its destruction.