“Ah, yes; allegro I will be. Good night, my precious wife. Until to-morrow.”
In the solitude of her dreary little coop, while the hoarse shouts of mora players in the restaurant below sounded in her ears, Juno set her wits calmly to the knotty puzzle that the day had brought forth: How to get rid of her husband that she might accept Signor Di Bello’s offer of marriage? A few grains of poison dropped in wine for Bertino to drink would accomplish the needful state of widowhood, but this method, she discerned, had its faults. It was likely to bring man-hunters from the Central Office about one’s head, and detectives were given to putting awkward questions. Moreover, they had a trick of locking up persons whose answers did not suit them. No; in a strictly private matter of this kind it would never do to have the police meddling. That might spoil all. She thought of other plans of removal that she had heard talked about in the Porto quarter of Naples. And while she considered these there darted into her mind one of those mystic shafts of memory that come unbidden by cognate suggestion. It was a Sunday afternoon, and she and Bertino, walking in the suburbs, stood upon Washington Bridge. From the height of the great span she looked down again on the slopes of the Harlem Valley beautiful in the gold and flame of autumn; the sedge marshes that waved to the temperate wind, and far below, growing narrow in the distance, the silvery ribbon of water that glimmered yet faintly in the gloam of sunset. It was one of those Sundays that Bertino brought her a package of bob veal, and she recalled the desire that had seized her to throw him over the parapet. Had she done so in the darkness that soon fell not a soul would have known. What she could have done then she could do now. By this method there would be no police knocking at one’s door and prying into secrets. The quicker he were out of the way the better, and next Sunday, if no moon shone, the thing could be done. With deep satisfaction she viewed her brawny arms and stalwart frame and felt sure of the strength needful to execute the task without bungling. Then she went to bed and slept soundly.
But the morrow had in its teeth a fine marplot for her little tragedy. It happened in the evening in this wise: The shutters of the shop put up, Bertino hastened to the Restaurant of Santa Lucia, where Juno had promised to await him. He opened the door, and what he saw caused him to pause on the threshold, but for only a moment. She was not alone. Seated by her side on the rough wooden bench that flanked the long oil-clothed table was Signor Di Bello. Their backs were turned to the door, but Bertino knew both at first glance. On the opposite side of the board the gaslight fell upon a row of dusky faces, into the caverns of which large quantities of spaghetti coiled about forks were being despatched. In other parts of the low-ceiled room, muggy with smoke of two-cent cigars, coatless men, engaged in furious combats at cards, shouted and rained sledge-hammer blows on the tables. Before any one had seen him enter, Bertino sprang across the floor like a jaguar and snatched from his uncle’s hand a knife with which he was in the act of conveying a bit of sheep’s-milk cheese to his mouth. Then without ado the gudgeon who believed that his wife was annoyed fell to the performance of a husband’s duty. It was a wild thrust, but well enough aimed to have found a mortal course had the tool been of the standard pattern used in Mulberry for odd jobs of this kind—the long thin steel, fine tempered, and needlelike of point. As it chanced, Signor Di Bello’s left shoulder blade was stabbed flesh deep, and a second lunge only slit his coat sleeve, because he dropped sidewise out of harm’s way just as Bertino brought down the knife again. Every eye in the restaurant had witnessed the second blow and the fall of Signor Di Bello from the end of the bench, so the conclusion was instant and general that the odd job had been finished.
It was a wild thrust.
“Fly!” they cried, one and all, rising and pointing to the door. “Your work is done.”
Bertino stood a moment, grasping the knife and looking at Juno; then he flung it down and made for the door. One of the card players held it open for him as he passed out; for the vendetta is a man’s sacred right—a strictly private matter to be settled by him in his own way, free of outside interference. Enough that he use the genteel knife and not the clumsy pistol, which is seldom sure of its mark, and brings the police to make trouble for one’s friends.
CHAPTER XIV
YELLOW BOOTS AND ORANGE BLOSSOMS
Never had a knife-play produced such general commotion in Mulberry. Though the motive for a removal was an affair wherewith outsiders seldom concerned themselves, the whole colony thirsted in this distinguished instance to know the wherefore of Bertino’s desire to have his uncle’s life. This was a tidal wave of opportunity for Sara the Frier of Pepper Pods, and splendidly she rode upon it to renewed fortune. For months she had eaten the wormwood of a dishonoured oracle. She had told the people that rival loves dwelt beneath the roof of Casa Di Bello, and that some day grand trouble would be the fruit; but as time wore on and the volcano gave no hint of eruption Sara’s patrons flung the prophecy in her teeth and bought their fried pepper pods of an upstart competitor from the Porta del Carmine of Naples. Now she was able to brush the under side of her chin with the back of her hand when the aforetime scoffers passed, and ask triumphantly, “Who was it, my stupid one, that foretold grand trouble in Casa Di Bello?” No longer could her soothsaying power be doubted, and the morning after the letting of Signor Di Bello’s blood many an old customer, eager for news, returned to Sara’s frying pan, which sizzled all day with the steady rush of trade. In the singsong staccato of Avelino she told all and much to boot of what she knew touching the great scandal. Who but she had gone to Signor Di Bello and told him how Bertino had been seen to kiss the singer, and who but she had seen the stiletto that her words had caused to gleam in his eye? “But it was the other that played the knife,” her listeners would observe, critically. This was Sara’s cue to nod her head mysteriously, say “No matter,” and look wiser than the plaster cast of Dante that brooded, yellow with age and dusty, in the window of Signor Sereno the Undertaker. And no more light could any one in Mulberry shed on the matter, for Juno and Bertino had made excellent work of guarding the secret of their marriage.
Public interest in the episode declined when, after one day of closure, the shutters were taken down and business went on as usual at the Sign of the Wooden Bunch. A new assistant, to take the place of the fugitive Bertino, was on hand; so was Signor Di Bello, who looked not a hair the worse for the inexpert carving of which he had been the subject. While the patrons came and went he sat near the entrance, sprawled in his low chair, preoccupied, but answering with a grunt the many inquiries about his health. The etiquette of Mulberry permits no closer reference than this to removal matters. A subject of vast import and demanding the grocer’s instant attention had sprouted that morning. It was in a letter received from Carolina. He had just reached a conclusion—a fact he betokened by dealing himself a smart slap on the knee—when the form of Juno appeared between him and the sunshine that poured in at the shop door.