I can remember that I wrote, when I took up my story, that it might, for anything I knew, be a year before I should go on with it. It is twelve months to-day since I set those words upon paper. I take it up again, here and now, in dogged and determined defiance to that Circumstance which has pursued me through my life, and which shall not subdue me even with this last stroke—no, nor with any other.
Let me premise, before I go on with my own narrative, that Charles Grammont, with whose murder I lie charged, developed a remarkable and unexpected characteristic. A reckless spendthrift whilst penniless, he became a miser when he found himself possessor of five thousand pounds. He had returned to Naples, and had for some time engaged himself in drinking, to the exclusion of all other pursuits. But he drank sullenly and alone, and had dismissed from his society that disreputable compatriot of mine, Giovanni Fornajo, who had accompanied him to my room on the evening of our first meeting. When I reached Naples I had some trouble with this personage, who, with the peculiar faculty which belongs to the race of hangers-on and spongers, had somehow found me out, and came to borrow money. It was enough for his limitless impudence to remember that he had once been within my walls in London. I knew that to yield once would be to make myself a tributary to his necessities for ever. I refused him, therefore, and dismissed him without ceremony. He retired unabashed, and came to the charge again. I was strolling along the Chiaja, when I saw him and turned into the Caffè d'Italia to avoid him. He had seen me and followed. I professed to be absorbed in the contents of an English journal, but he sat down at the same table, and entered into conversation, or rather into talk, for I let him have it all to himself. He talked in English, which he really spoke very well, though with a marked accent. I paid but little heed to him, and only just made out that he complained of the conduct of his late associate, who had, so he said, borrowed money of him when they were poor together, and had thrown him over now without repaying him.
'It comes to this,' he said, after a long and rambling discursion on his wrong; 'when I was the only man in Naples who could speak English and would have to do with him, he used me; and now that he is at home here, and can speak the language, and has plenty of money, he will have no more to do.'
'My good friend,' I said, breaking in, 'I will have no more to do, since you prefer to put it so, I am tired of you. I do not desire to know you. Oblige me by not knowing me in future.'
'Maledizione!' he said. 'But you are impolite, Signor Calvotti.'
'And you, Signor Fornajo, are only unbearable. I have the pleasure to wish you goodbye.'
He rose and retreated, but returned.
'Signor Calvotti,' he said, reseating himself, 'I shall ask you to do me a favour. You know Grammont and you know his friends. He will listen to you where he will not look at me. Will you do me the favour to speak for me to ask him to pay me?'
I thought I saw a way to be rid of him.
'How much does he owe you?' I asked him.