As I went on my errand—I knew of a doctor who lived quite close—I met old Amedeo, lumbering upstairs, half-dressed, and told him what had happened. “He looks very bad,” I added.
Amedeo flung up his hands with pious ejaculations. “As I go by the piano nobile I’ll call Father Garcia, and take him up with me. Don Arsenio’s a good Catholic.”
Yes! That fact perhaps had something to do with the course which events had ultimately taken that night!
When I got back with the doctor—he had gone to bed, and kept me waiting—Arsenio had been moved into his bedroom. The priest was still with him, but, when he was informed of the doctor’s arrival, he came out and Amedeo took the doctor in to the patient, on whom Lucinda was attending.
Father Garcia was a tall, imposing old ecclesiastic, of Spanish extraction, and apparently a friend of the Valdez family, for he spoke of “Arsenio” without prefix. “I have done my office. The doctor can do nothing—Oh, I’ve seen many men die in the war, and I can tell! He’s just conscious, but he can hardly speak—it hurts him to try. Poor Arsenio! His father was a very worthy man, and this poor boy was a good son of the Church. For the rest——!” He shrugged his ample shoulders; he was probably reflecting the opinions of the aristocratic and antiquated coterie which Arsenio had been in the habit of laying under requisitions when he was in Venice. “But a curious event, a curious event, just after his prodigious luck!” Father Garcia’s eyes bulged rather, and they seemed to grow bulgier still as, between sniffs at a pinch of snuff, he exclaimed slowly, “Three million francs! Donna Lucinda will be rich!”
The old fellow seemed disposed to gossip; there was nothing else to do, while we awaited the verdict.
“A gamester, I’m afraid, yes. His father feared as much for him—and a good many of my friends had reason to suspect the same. You’re a friend of his, Mr.—er——?”
“My name’s Rillington, sir,” I said.
He raised his brows above his bulging eyes. “Oh!—er—let me see! Wasn’t Donna Lucinda herself a Rillington—or am I making a mistake?”