“Then,” said I, “my task is easy. Come with me.”
So we stepped into a gharry (we were staying at a farm a little off the road to Hortiach), and bumped down the Lembet Road, past the funny old cemetery on our right, and stopped importantly in the middle of that disastrously sordid square in which the Rue Egnatia and the road from Lembet meet.
“And that’s that,” remarked Twelves as, having stepped from the gharry, we watched it waggle away.
It was May 1913. The afternoon was late, and a cool breeze swept along the sun-strewn street. My friend had (which I have not) the carriage of a soldier, and, though I could give him at least three inches, I am confident that, in the eyes of the women we met, he appeared to tower above me. I think he was conscious of this, though he seemed to try to hide it. To him, fresh from a tedious voyage from Bahia, Venizelos Street was Paradise, and when we came to the Place de la Liberté, he stood and looked at the gay crowd outside Floca’s with a slow, beguiling smile about his mouth.
“I am beginning to sit up and take notice,” he remarked; “this, if I am not mistaken, is indubitably IT.”
If “IT” meant laughter, light, and delicate linen discreetly displayed, he was right. People from all the countries of Europe were there. The ladies, being large and languid, and the early afternoon having been insufferably hot, wore as little as possible. This, Twelves pointed out with unnecessary particularity, was precisely as it should be.
But I am not going to tell you about Floca’s, for the tragedy did not begin there; indeed, nothing really began until well on in the evening when, as we were starting dinner at the White Tower, the sound of music came to us from the adjoining room.
“It is Debussy’s ‘Les Poissons d’or,’” said Twelves, swallowing whitebait, “and this is just the right atmosphere for it.”
Then, placing his napkin upon the table, he rose from his seat.
“In a minute I shall return,” he said, excusing himself and hastening from the room. But ten minutes passed before he rejoined me, and a single glance at him revealed that something of importance had happened to him in the meantime.