Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  A young subaltern of another regiment was sitting at one of the tables with a sheet of paper before him, on which he had written a few words, but he had apparently not been able to get any further, and was glowering at the opposite wall, the picture of despair. He rose hastily on seeing a superior officer enter, and Castiglione nodded to him familiarly and sat down not far away. But he, too, had some difficulty in composing his note, and as he looked round in search of a word, he met the young lieutenant’s eyes gazing at him with an imploring expression. The boy was the son of a former colonel of the Piedmont Lancers who had been promoted, but had lost most of his fortune nearly at the same time. The youth’s allowance was small, therefore, and it was known that he played too high. Castiglione had a sudden inspiration.

  ‘What is the matter?’ he asked kindly. ‘You seem to be in trouble. Can I help you?’

  The young fellow flushed and sat up straight.

  ‘Oh, no, Captain! Thank you very much indeed, but I should not dare — —’

  ‘Have you lost money again?’ asked Castiglione, in the same friendly tone.

  ‘Only five hundred. But you know how it is — we young ones in the regiment never have any cash, you see — —’

  ‘I will help you this time,’ said the elder man. ‘But only on one condition.’

  The lieutenant was overwhelmed with gratitude.

  ‘Oh, how kind you are!’ he cried. ‘Anything — I can repay the money next week — —’

  ‘Nonsense. You will return it when you have it. The condition is that you take my advice.’

  ‘And give up playing altogether! Yes, I know I should, but I cannot promise that.’ His face fell again.

  ‘No, don’t promise me anything. Promise yourself, as a man, that you will never play for more than you have in your pocket. Here are the five hundred francs.’

  He put the notes into an envelope, rose, and handed them to the delighted boy. Not knowing what might happen in the course of the day, he had taken all of his not very large store of cash with him.

  ‘I shall ask you a little service in my turn,’ he said, interrupting his young friend’s voluble thanks. ‘I do not go to gambling-houses myself, but for a strong reason I want the exact address of one which is said to exist in Via Belsiana. Do you happen to remember it?’

  ‘The one that has a little door opening on the street, with a foreign doctor’s door-plate over the bell? Is that the one?’

  ‘Is there any other in the same street?’

  ‘None that I know of. Of course, one goes there in civilian’s clothes, and it is open after three in the afternoon, though there are never many people there till later. The password is made up of three numbers, twenty-six, eight, seventeen. Say that to the man at the door and he will let you in.’

  Castiglione smiled.

  ‘You seem to know all about it,’ he said. ‘That must be the one. If I were you I would not go to such places. Do you remember the number?’

  The young lieutenant remembered it only too well, and gave it glibly.

  ‘You will never tell anybody that I’ve been there, will you, Captain?’ he added.

  ‘Certainly not! It is no business of mine, but I advise you to give it up.’

  Castiglione destroyed the note he had begun to write and went away, delighted with himself, and almost forgetting de Maurienne and Teresa Crescenzi. He looked at his watch. It was now one o’clock. The gambling den did not open till three, but he would have to go home to change his clothes. What he hoped for was that he might find the proprietor in the house before its clients were admitted. The interview might be a long one, but it was important that the right person should be altogether at Castiglione’s disposal while it lasted, and that the place should be quiet. Between three and five there would be plenty of time to find his colonel and to procure two brother officers to see him through the affair.

  He had never fought a duel, but was not much disturbed by the prospect of one, though an ordinary encounter with sabres is a much more serious matter in Italy than in France or Germany. He had never had a quarrel, because he was not the sort of man whom most people cared to meddle with, and also because the life he had led for so many years had never brought him into trouble. A man who does not excite the jealousy of other men, who pays his debts, helps his friends when he can and never asks for help, may easily spend his life in the Italian Army without ever being called out.

  CHAPTER XX

  AN HOUR LATER Castiglione was admitted to the little house in Via Belsiana by a small man with eyes like a ferret and reddish hair, who shut the street door at once but did not seem inclined to let the visitor pass beyond the narrow hall without some further formality.

  ‘The club is not open yet,’ he said, civilly enough. ‘You probably do not know the hours, as this is the first time you have been here, though you have the pass words.’

  Castiglione understood that it was the doorkeeper’s business to know the faces of those who frequented the place. He gave the man twenty francs by way of making acquaintance.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the fellow, who had not failed to notice that the pocket-book from which the notes were produced was well filled. ‘I presume you wish to join the club, sir?’

  He knew his business and was a judge of men at first sight; a glance had assured him that the newcomer was an officer in civilian’s clothes, and was therefore perfectly eligible to the ‘club.’

  Castiglione only hesitated for a moment.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘I should like to see the proprietor.’

  ‘The treasurer, sir,’ said the man, correcting him politely, but with some emphasis, ’is upstairs. If you will kindly step into the reading-room I will ask whether he can see you. I believe he has just finished his breakfast.’

  Castiglione followed him through a long passage that turned to the left, and the man unlocked the door of a room that smelt of stale cigarette smoke. It was dark, but in a moment the doorkeeper turned up a number of electric lights. The walls were full of mirrors, and the furniture was of the description which must be supposed to suit the taste of the wicked, as it is only found in their favourite resorts. There was a vast amount of gilding, red plush and sky-blue satin, and the table was covered with dark green cotton velvet, fastened to the edges with gilt nails, below which hung a green and pink fringe.

  As the place was a reading-room it was natural that there should be something in it to read. The literature was on the table, and consisted of a new railway guide, a small framed and glazed price-list of ‘refreshments,’ in which ‘Cognac’ was offered for the modest sum of twenty-five francs the bottle, and an old number of a disreputable illustrated paper.

  Castiglione was not familiar with low places of any sort, and he looked about him with surprised disgust. He was not left to himself very long; the door opened and a broad-shouldered man with a white face entered and shut it behind him. He wore a dark morning coat, very well cut, and the fashionable collar and tie, but he smelt of patchouli and his light hair curled on his forehead. Castiglione felt an instant desire to throw him out, and would certainly have done so at sight if the man had appeared in his own rooms.

  ‘Good morning. You wish to become a member of the club? Yes? A little formality is necessary. The committee, which I usually represent, decides upon the eligibility of candidates. There is no election, no subscription, and no entrance fee, so that it is a mere form.’

  Castiglione watched the man attentively during this speech, which was delivered in a glib and oily manner, and he wondered to what nation the keeper of the gambling-hell belonged, for he had never seen a specimen of the breed before, though it flourishes from Port Said and Constantinople to San Francisco by way of Paris, London, and New York. Like the cholera, it appears to have its origin in the East. The specimens speak every language under the sun with equal fluency and correctness, but always with a slightly foreign accent, and they are neither Christians, Jews, nor Turks, but infidels of some other kind. He who has not
had business with a Levantine blackleg or a Hindu money-lender does not guess what guile dwells in the human heart.

  Castiglione looked at the ‘treasurer’ and sat down on a gilt chair. The man followed his example, and they faced each other with the table between them.

  ‘Yes,’ said the Captain, as if agreeing to the conditions of membership, which indeed seemed extremely easy to fulfil, ‘I quite understand. But before joining your club I should like to ask for a little information. I am told that the members sometimes play games of chance. Am I right?’

  ‘Occasionally,’ replied the treasurer, ‘they do.’

  ‘Just so. I am an officer, as you may have guessed. Now, in the other clubs to which I belong, you must be aware that we generally play with counters, and that we settle once a week. Is that the practice in your club, too?’

  The treasurer smiled. Castiglione thought his face was like a mask of Mephistopheles modelled in whitish ice-cream.

  ‘No. We play only for cash here.’

  ‘A very good way, too,’ said Castiglione in a tone of approval. ‘But I will suppose a case. If, for instance, a member of the club loses all the cash he has brought with him, and if it is rather late in the evening, and he wishes to go on playing in the hope of winning back something, is there no way by which he can borrow a little money without going home to get it?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ answered the treasurer, falling into the snare. ‘When the committee is quite sure that a member is able to pay we are always glad to accommodate him with whatever he needs.’

  ‘I see! That is just as convenient as our system of counters. The member merely signs a receipt for the money, I suppose, and settles at the end of the week.’

  ‘Not exactly. The committee prefers a stamped draft at eight days, and charges a small interest. You see an accident might happen to the member — —’

  ‘Quite so,’ interrupted Castiglione, ‘and the draft protects the club, of course. There is only one more case about which I should like to ask. Suppose, for instance, that the member in question did not live in Rome, and that you did not know much about him. He might be a rich foreigner, who had joined for a few days, and though he might have come to the end of his cash, he might have something very valuable about him, such as a handsome diamond or ruby. Does the committee make an exception for him and accept anything of that sort as security?’

  ‘Occasionally,’ replied the treasurer, ‘it does.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Castiglione in a thoughtful tone, leaning back in his chair with his hands thrust into the deep pockets of his overcoat. ‘The committee lends money on valuables. That is very convenient.’

  He glanced at the treasurer, who was smoking a huge Egyptian cigarette, which he held with his left hand, while the fingers of his right played a noiseless little tattoo on the green cotton velvet of the table; they were white and unhealthy-looking, and loaded with rings.

  ‘The object of the committee,’ said the man, ’is to meet the wishes of the members as far as possible, and to study their convenience.’

  ‘As in the case of Orlando Schmidt,’ observed Castiglione, keeping his eye on the treasurer’s right hand.

  The fingers at once stopped playing the noiseless tattoo and lay quite still, though the treasurer gave no other sign of intelligence; but that alone might mean a good deal.

  ‘Who is Orlando Schmidt?’ he asked, apparently unmoved.

  ‘Surely you remember him,’ answered Castiglione. ‘You cannot have already forgotten Orlando Schmidt, and Carlo Pozzi of Palermo, and Paolo Pizzuti of Messina!’

  The treasurer’s face did not change, but his right hand moved and disappeared below the edge of the green velvet to get at his pistol. Castiglione was ready, and was too quick for him.

  ‘Keep your hands on the table and don’t call, or I’ll fire,’ he said sternly.

  The treasurer looked down the barrel of a full-sized army revolver, and beyond it he saw Castiglione’s eyes and resolute jaw. There is one point in which the breed to which he belonged does not resemble that of the European adventurer; it is a breed of cowards always ready with firearms but never able to face them. Moreover, Castiglione had the advantage.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ cried the man in manifest terror.

  ‘Sign this or I shall,’ answered Castiglione, not lowering his revolver. With the other hand he pushed across the table a sheet of paper on which he had previously written something; he then took a fountain pen from an inner pocket and laid it before the treasurer. ‘Sign,’ he said.

  The treasurer offered no resistance, and his fingers shook visibly as he took up the pen and bent over the paper.

  ‘Under protest,’ he said feebly.

  ‘If you write anything but your own name I will kill you. I’m watching the point of the pen. Never mind reading what is there. That is my affair. Your business is not to be shot. Don’t sign an assumed name either, or I’ll pull the trigger.’

  In sheer terror of his life the man wrote his own name, or at all events the one he went by in his business: ‘Rodolfo Blosse.’

  ‘You have lost the money you lent to Orlando Schmidt,’ said Castiglione, withdrawing the paper, and quietly waving it to and fro to dry the signature, ‘but you have the advantage of being a live man.’

  The revolver did not change its position.

  ‘You seem to think there are no laws in your country,’ said the treasurer, who was afraid to move.

  ‘On the contrary we have excellent ones, many of which are made for people like you. Now I am going. I shall walk slowly backwards to the door, and if you move before you hear it shut after me you will never move again. Stay where you are, facing the table, and keep both hands on it.’

  All doors in the resorts of the wicked have good locks, and Castiglione turned the key after him and went back to the street entrance, where the ferret-eyed porter was waiting.

  ‘Always after three o’clock, is it not?’ Castiglione asked carelessly.

  The man nodded as he let him out.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he answered respectfully, thinking of the twenty francs he had just received from the new member.

  Castiglione walked briskly to the Piazza di Spagna, and then slackened his pace and drew a long breath before he lit a cigar, and repeated to himself the words that were written on the paper in his pocket. He walked slowly home, and when he was in his own room he spread the sheet out and wrote below Rodolfo Blosse’s signature: ‘Witness, Baldassare del Castiglione, Piedmont Lancers.’ Then he folded the sheet again, placed it in an envelope, which he sealed and addressed to the ‘Reverend Father Bonaventura of the Capuchins.’

  He got into his uniform again, and having placed the envelope in the inner pocket of his tunic, he went to see his colonel, to whom he had telephoned before going to Via Belsiana, asking to be received on urgent business at three in the afternoon. The great clock in the hall rang the Westminster chimes as he entered; it was a remembrance of the time when Casalmaggiore had been military attaché at the Italian Embassy in London.

  He gave Castiglione an enormous Havana as they sat down by the fire, and he lit one himself and offered to have Turkish coffee made. Castiglione had forgotten to eat anything since he had come in from riding in the morning, and he accepted gladly.

  ‘Is it about that mare?’ asked the Duca when he had rung and given the order.

  ‘No, not this time.’ Castiglione laughed. ‘I have come for advice in an affair of honour.’

  ‘Oh!’ The Colonel seemed annoyed. ‘What a nuisance!’ he observed with some emphasis. ‘Wait till the man has brought the coffee. Meanwhile, about that other matter — you have heard of my last offer?’

  The Count of Montalto’s Andalusian mare happened to be the only thing, animate or inanimate, which the Duca di Casalmaggiore wanted and could not get; for he did not even hanker after promotion. There was not an officer in his regiment, old or young, whom he had not employed in some piece of diplomacy in the hope of getting possession of the coveted
animal, and he began talking about her at once, showing little inclination to listen to Castiglione’s story, even when the servant had come and gone and they were drinking their coffee. He quite ignored the fact that Castiglione and Montalto were not on speaking terms, or he pretended to do so, for which the younger man was, on the whole, grateful to him.

  ‘I am very sorry to change the subject,’ said the Captain, at last, ‘but this affair of mine is rather urgent.’

  ‘I had quite forgotten it! Pray excuse me and tell me what the matter is.’

  The Colonel settled himself with a bored expression and listened. He greatly disliked duelling in his regiment, and invariably hindered an encounter if he could. In his young days a great misfortune had happened to him; in a senseless quarrel he had severely wounded a brother officer, who had become consumptive in consequence and had died two years later.

  He listened patiently to Castiglione’s story, and then delivered himself of a general prediction.

  ‘That infernal cousin of mine will be the death of one of us yet!’ He sent an inch of heavy ash from his cigar into the fire with a vicious flick. ‘Why the devil did you go to see her?’ he asked, very unreasonably.

  Castiglione smiled but said nothing. He knew well enough that Teresa Crescenzi had tried to marry Casalmaggiore, and that the latter had been forced to make a regular defence.

  ‘There’s only one way to deal with such women,’ he observed. ‘Marry them and separate within six months. Then you need never see them again! What are you going to do?’

  ‘That is precisely what I have come to ask you, as my chief. The honour of the regiment is the only question that matters to me. I shall do whatever you advise. De Maurienne expects to hear from me after five o’clock. As for the cause of the quarrel, Donna Teresa must be quite mad.’