Despair's Last Journey

by David Christie Murray

He fixed in his mind ten o’clock as the earliest possible hour at which he could venture to have the note delivered, and until then he must needs have patience. When he went to place his missive in the hands of the concierge, with instructions for the time of its delivery, the servants had only just begun to stir about the house. He had come down great-coated and gloved, as if for an early walk, but the walk was no more than a pretext to allay some remotely imaginable suspicion on the part of the concierge.

‘Imust leave this with you now,’ he said, ‘because it must be delivered at ten o’clock precisely, and I shall probably not be able to return till later. The messenger will wait for an answer.’

The man promised that his instructions should be obeyed, and he walked into the streets feeling quite aimless and forlorn, and with the fatigues of the night still heavy on him. He had not gone far when he found a fiacre, and bade the man drive to the Bois and back, and fill up two hours with the journey. Now, the chill morning air and the bright light falling on tired eyes began to work upon him, and in a little while he was peacefully asleep. The cocher awoke him at the door of his hotel. He looked at his watch, and it was ten o’clock to the minute. His heart turned a somersault as he thought that this was the hour at which Gertrude would receive his letter. Breakfast was out of question, but by this time either the Bodega or the English bar would be open, and he needed a stimulant of some sort before he could face an interview if such a favour were to be accorded him. It would be unreasonable to expect that the messenger would return in less than half an hour, and he spent that time in the society of a glass of well-watered absinthe and the English newspapers of yesterday. He read industriously, but the only printed words which reached his consciousness were those of the theatrical advertisement which told him that the joint work of Messrs. George Darco and Paul Armstrong was still being played nightly to crowded houses. That did not interest him in the least, and the news of Parliament and the police courts might as well have been written in Sanscrit for all the impression it made upon him.

He endured his own impatience resolutely for the stated time, and then walked back to the hotel. His messenger had not yet returned, but there in the vestibule was Ralston, in his brigandish sombrero and his black velvet jacket, looking so fit and wholesome that Paul envied him.

‘I have just met two of the boys,’ said Ralston, ‘and we are going to breakfast at the Poule d’Or at twelve o’clock. Will you make one of us? I can promise you good talk, and honest fare, and wholesome wine.’

‘I should like it,’ Paul answered awkwardly; ‘but the fact is, I can’t tell whether I am free to go. I dare say I shall be able to give you an answer in an hour, if that will do?’

‘We must make it do,’ said Ralston, and at that instant Paul’s messenger returned, and handed to him a large envelope of faint saffron tone.

It bore an armorial device on one side in gold and scarlet, and on the other a superscription in a handwriting which had been so trained to affectation that it was recognisable at a glance to anyone who had once seen it.

‘You will excuse me,’ said Paul; ‘I may have to answer this at once.’

He stepped a little on one side and broke the envelope open with the certainty in his mind that Ralston had noticed his eagerness and saw how his fingers trembled. The thick embossed notepaper held three words only, or, rather, two words and an initial: ‘Breakfast, noon.—G.’ His face flushed with triumph, and he turned impulsively on Ralston.