CHAPTER XVI
THE GENTLEMAN IN THE TWEED SUIT
It was nine o'clock when Mr. Povey left the little modern red-brick post-office situated in one of the principal thoroughfares, that ran steeply inland from the boulevard, and made his way down the hill.
Nine o'clock was an important hour of the twenty-four to the inhabitants of Corbo, for it was then that the late edition of El Imparcial de Corbo made its appearance. The editor and proprietor of that enterprising journal had an arrangement by which the latest European news was sent to him direct from a relative employed on the staff of one of the great Parisian papers. There was another paper published in Corbo, but it was not one that appealed to the sensation-loving San Pietrians. El Dia was a heavy mass of stodgy reading matter, that was run, only too evidently, for political reasons and in the interests of Spain. It is little wonder, then, that as nine o'clock approached a little flutter of excitement and anticipation manifested itself in the crowds that thronged the cafés and boulevards.
Edward called to a little bare-footed, black-eyed urchin, who was calling his papers, and bought a copy. He had no desire, in his present state, nor did he think it a correct thing, to be seen at any of the fashionable haunts facing the gaily lighted promenade, and he turned and walked slowly up the street, keeping his eye open for a place where he could take his refreshment and read his paper in peace.
He decided upon a corner café that did not seem to be too well patronized, and made his way to one of the little round marble-topped tables sheltered by the glass wind-screen, by which the proprietor protected his guests from the sharp gusts which at times beat through the narrow streets of this part of the town.
Calling a waiter, Edward ordered a coffee and cognac, and, lighting a cigar, opened his paper. It was a badly printed sheet, still damp from the press, and smelling evilly of inferior printers' ink. As he gazed idly down the columns, Edward could well understand the popularity of the wretched rag. Sensation was evidently the keynote of its policy—that and scare and scandal. To the editor of the Impartial de Corbo nothing was sacred. Povey read first a long leader on the career of King Enrico, of whose health the reports had the last few days been again more favourable. The tone of the article plainly showed that the editor resented this temporary recovery of a monarch whom he evidently considered to be of more worth dead than on the throne of San Pietro. It mattered nothing to him that the Royal victim of his pen lay dying within a mile of his printing press. Ruthlessly the ruler of San Pietro was attacked—virulently and viciously. His mode of legislature, his family quarrels, his private morals, all came under the lash of the pen. On the question of morals the writer, scenting something to whet the appetite of his readers, had let himself go with a vengeance.
The useful relative in Paris had kept him well supplied with anecdotes and paragraphs relating to Enrico's frequent visits to the French capital. These, while the king had been in good health, he had not dared to publish; but now, when any moment might be the last, he was drawing on the stores of his pigeon-holes, with the result that the café loungers of Corbo were given something to talk about.
Edward put down the paper in disgust. It seemed to his English way of thinking, a poor thing, this attacking of a dying man, who, if report spoke true, must be having a bad enough passing as it was.
He looked up to where, between the gables of the opposite houses, the palace rose up gaunt and sombre above the town. The portion of the building which came within his vision was in darkness, save where in the eastern wing a short row of windows showed little patches of yellow light. It was in those rooms that he understood the dying king lay.
Edward pictured the scene behind those windows, the evil-living man helplessly waiting for what he must hope would be annihilation. He imagined the men round the bed, men intent on plunder, and who could barely wait until the breath left their royal master's body. He wondered what visions were disturbing the king's last hours, and he thought of the many things he had heard of the monarch's past life.
He remembered the tales of murdered and mutilated natives in the rubber plantations of the tiny colony in West Africa which was under the rule of San Pietro. He thought of Enrico's sisters and brothers, all of whom had put their relative out of their lives—and of the heir, travelling where no one knew. The death couch of the King of San Pietro must be an uneasy one indeed.
The words of Fagin ran through his mind as he watched the windows; how did they go—"as it came on dark, he began to think of all the men he had known who had died.... They rose up in quick succession, that he could hardly count them."—Yes, Enrico's last hours must be very like those spent by the old Jew in his Newgate cell.
Edward shuddered a little and took a sip of cognac. Then he picked up the paper again idly and turned to the home news. There were the usual amusement notes and the statistics of play at the tables in the Casino. He read with little interest how a wealthy Austrian nobleman had had a successive run of seventeen on the black, and how he had been forced to have the assistance of one of the attendants to carry the spoil to the hotel.
He looked in vain for an account of the accident on the Alcador road. Galva's death had been soon forgotten, the readers of El Imparcial de Corbo were no more interested in it than in the suicide two days previously of the young American, a ruined gambler, who had thrown himself into the sea from the rocks east of the bay.
As he rose to pay his bill, voices at a near table arrested him, and he sat down again and lit the stump of his cigar. Two men, of the middle class, were discussing the motor-car fatality. One of them had remarked how Lieutenant Mozara should have known that road better than to have had such an accident. The speaker himself had seen him often start out that way, and he had a sister, the wife of an innkeeper at Alcador, who had told him that the lieutenant seldom missed the bull-fights that took place periodically in the Plaza of that town. Edward, with his eyes glued to the paper he held before him, drank in every word. It seemed to him corroboration of Anna Paluda's doubts. There was only one direct road to Alcador, and it was difficult to imagine for one moment that such an experienced driver as Lieutenant Mozara undoubtedly was would forget the dangerous bend that wound above the Ardentella rapids.
And yet he said to himself that Gaspar Mozara was scarcely the man to take the risk of the fall. He would be running the same danger as Miranda, and yet here he was in Corbo, to the best of Edward's belief, unhurt. The next words from the adjoining table made matters a little clearer. It was the other man who was speaking now.
"——I was on the road when they were getting the wrecked car out of the water. I gave them a hand, and, although the machine was badly smashed, one thing struck me as very curious. The brakes had not been applied—whatever happened, the car had gone through the wall at full speed."
The lieutenant's words of the afternoon returned to the man who was listening behind the newspaper, how he had put on the brakes when he had seen the danger. Edward was now convinced that Mozara was lying, but even then he was no nearer the solution of the mystery. Perhaps, after all, Miranda had been in the car, but Edward would not allow himself to think that.
He felt sure that some sign further than the hat and cloak would have been found. It was barely possible that the girl's body would be so separated from the car as to leave a hat and cloak only. It was all but a certainty that she would have been pinned beneath the wreckage. The dainty motor bonnet, too, tied tightly, as he remembered, beneath the chin—how could that have become detached?
No, the more Edward Povey thought of the affair the more certain he became that the girl was being held prisoner by some one who suspected her identity. The lieutenant was, no doubt, acting under the orders of others, and she would be kept in captivity until Dasso, after the king's death, was secure on the throne. Her's was too valuable a life to dispose of, unless it were absolutely necessary.
All these things passed through Edward's mind as he made his way in the direction of Venta Villa. The boulevard was crowded with its usual throng of pleasure seekers. From the interior of the café came the clattering of dishes and the laughter of those who were drinking or supping. Each place, too, had its little orchestra, the uniforms showing hazily through the smoke-laden atmosphere.
As Povey passed the Café de l'Europe, the largest and most fashionable in Corbo, he ran his eyes over the people seated at the little tables. Gaily dressed women smoked cigarettes and drank tiny liqueurs as they joked with bored-looking men in evening attire. Here and there the gorgeous uniform of the King's Own Hussars splashed a note of barbaric colour over the scene.
With a little catch of the breath, Edward suddenly pulled up short and slipped back into the shadow of a newspaper kiosk. From behind this he peeped cautiously at the figure of an elderly gentleman who was seated alone before a table on which stood a stone tankard of Pilsener. Then he passed hastily up the little avenue between the crowded tables and entered the main body of the Café de l'Europe.
Here were blotters containing paper and envelopes, and he drew a sheet towards him and wrote a short note. Then, calling a waiter, he asked him to hand it to the gentleman in the tweed suit who was drinking beer outside. He also, ascertaining that this particular waiter spoke a little English, told the man to tell the gentleman in the tweed suit that the writer of the note would be glad of a word with him in private. Then he leaned back and watched through the large plate-glass windows.
*****
Mr. Jasper Jarman, as the waiter touched him on the shoulder and handed him the note, started violently. For him a touch on the shoulder meant but the one thing, in fact he had been dreaming night and day, ever since his arrival on the island, of touches upon the shoulder.
"Ze gentleman, sir, he speak with m'sieu."
"The devil he will." Jasper Jarman rose hastily and grabbed up his hat and umbrella. "I don't know a soul in the dam island, waiter, and I don't want to. You have made a mistake, my good man."
Jasper unfolded the note as he spoke, and his eye travelled to the signature. He gave a gasp and turned again to the waiter.
"Where is he?"
The man bowed, and pointed to the interior of the café.
"I will show m'sieu."
Edward, however, had risen, and he met his uncle as he edged his way between the crowded tables.
"Not a word here," he said, and, taking the old man's arm, he led him out of the sight of the people, some of whom he noticed were already giving them their attention.
They crossed the crowded pavement and the road to the other side of the promenade. This part, bordered as it was by a low sea wall, and without shops or cafés, was practically deserted, and the two men made their way eastward until they came to a flight of a few shallow steps leading down to the well-kept gardens that were the pride of Corbo.
Edward, still with his hand affectionately linked in his uncle's arm, led the way through shrub-bordered paths to a stone seat that, half hidden in a mass of palm foliage, faced the sea. Here it was quiet, the sound of the promenaders reaching them only in a confused murmur. Little lights gleamed here and there from the yachts anchored in the bay.
"So, uncle, there you are," began Edward, unconsciously quoting Hamlet.
"Yes, Edward Povey, I'm here, through your rotten criminal acts, you—you—jail-bird, you——"
"There is no need, I assure you, my dear Uncle Jasper, to be offensive," said Edward Povey.