Complete Works of a E W Mason

by A. E. W. Mason

  My friend Anton de Hoyos, owner and editor of the daily newspaper La Libertad — ill-omened name! — was one of them. I was, therefore, not surprised to receive from him one evening a very urgent summons, written in a very shaky hand. I found his house in the wide Paseo, shuttered from the basement to the attic, so anxious were its inhabitants to escape attention. I rang the bell and the door swung open on the instant. Someone had been waiting for me behind the panels. The hall was as black as a cavern. But for the whine of the hinges I should not have noticed that the door had been opened.

  “Will you come in, please, Senor Peacham?”

  The voice came out of the darkness low and steady but desolate. I recognized it, of course. Otherwise I should not have stepped in so trustfully. It was the voice of old Concepcion Pardo who had been Anton’s nurse and now ruled his widower’s household with a flail. I heard her lock, bolt and chain the door behind me. Then she shuffled along the passage past me and at the end, beyond the stairs, she turned on one small light.

  “Something grave has happened?” I asked foolishly.

  Concepcion was a woman of vociferous outcries and the vocabulary of a Chatauqua lecturer, and it all meant nothing at all. Now she was dumb and her silence was tremendous. She raised both her hands above her head and shook them, and I could see by the feeble light that the tears were running down her wrinkled face. She climbed heavily up the stairs with me at her heels. I don’t think that I have ever had so utter a sense of catastrophe. I had a ridiculous feeling that the big dark house was aching like a person in pain. I am sure that, except for Anton, old Concepcion and myself, it was empty.

  Concepcion showed me into a fine painted room on the first floor and closed the door softly. The room was in the front of the house looking over the Paseo, and though only a single light burned by the bedside, the windows were shuttered and curtained so that not a gleam should escape. The heat of the room was stifling. Anton de Hoyos lay in a great satin-wood bed, his face flushed, the sweat in beads upon his forehead and his eyes glassy with fever — or fear.

  “You are ill, Anton,” I said, as I walked round the great bed to his side, and once more I despised myself for my banality. Everything I said was so far below the occasion.

  “That is nothing,” he said eagerly. “A chill and a touch of fever. I can travel safely enough.”

  It was a curious phrase for a sick man in bed to use. Why should he be in such haste to travel? And why should he be so anxious to convince me that he could travel?

  I took his hand and sat down in the chair placed ready for me by the bed. I felt perfectly certain that I should only say something dreadfully silly and commonplace if I opened my mouth again. So I kept silent. Anton de Hoyos needed no button pushed to set him going.

  “The Government has suppressed La Libertad today.” Certainly La Libertad had not of late been admiring either the efficiency or the incorruptibility of the Government.

  “Just for a day or two, no doubt, to teach you a lesson,” I said, speaking lightly.

  “No, for good,” he answered; and I could no longer pretend to make little of his misfortune. For he revelled in the conduct of his newspaper, magnifying its influence, flaunting its independence, strutting upon an imaginary stage in dazzling armour whilst his wicked enemies quailed before him.

  “Oh, come!” I protested. “That’s too strong a measure even for those gentlemen.”

  Anton de Hoyos shook his head.

  “I have been expecting it for a long while,” he said with a quiet indifference which amazed me at first and then distressed me tremendously. For some shocking danger must needs be threatening him before he could count the loss of that daily battle of such small account.

  “If it was only the paper that was to be suppressed—” he began, and suddenly he shivered to the soles of his feet and broke against his will into little whimperings. I was never so startled nor so distressed in my life. I had never seen fear so stark, so — so abject. “I have one friend amongst them who comes to me secretly,” he continued, rubbing the back of his hand to and fro across his forehead with a curious restless gesture. “He tells me that to-morrow the President will contradict what I say about the corruption at the silver mines and will announce that he is sending me to them with an escort to protect me, so that I may discover the truth for myself.”

  In spite of myself I started back in my chair.

  “Yes, you understand what the escort to protect me means,” said Anton, and he turned his head away upon the pillow so that I should not see the quivering of his lips.

  “The Ley Fuga,” I said in a low voice.

  That convenient simple law which gave any escort the right to shoot any prisoner on the pretence that he was trying to escape. Suppose that a public trial was coming on, which would provoke some awkward talk! You transfer the prisoner to a second prison, and on the way the law of flight takes its course. All the troublesome little revelations are avoided and the prisoner demonstrably guilty — otherwise he wouldn’t have tried to run away. So with Anton de Hoyos shivering here in his bed. Despatched — and despatched is certainly the word — across the mountains to verify his statements, he proves by running away that he daren’t face the facts, and he is protected from causing us any anxiety in the future by the Law of Flight. I could not find a hope in all this for Anton de Hoyos.

  “There is one,” he cried, breaking in upon my thoughts and startling me by his ability to read them. “Just one.” He was leaning up on one elbow, his eyes fixed anxiously upon mine. “They don’t know that I’ve been informed of their intentions. They won’t move until after the President has made his pronouncement. And the Express for the frontier leaves at five o’clock in the morning.”

  “Yes,” said I. “To-morrow’s Sunday, certainly.”

  There was one through train a week which made the two-days’ journey without a change or any halt for longer than half an hour.

  “But I have no visa for your country on my passport,” he went on timidly like someone asking an immense favour.

  “That?” I exclaimed. “I can take your passport down to the office, visa it and bring it back to you now. But—” and I stopped, for he had fallen back upon his pillows, as though every trouble he had in the world was at an end.

  For my part, I couldn’t really see that he was much better off than before and no doubt my face once more showed my hopelessness.

  “You are thinking of money,” he said. “But I am in no anxiety about money. I have been sending money for some years into the United States. I have enough there to start a little printing business at Los Angeles. I shall give lessons in Spanish too. In time I hope to print a small newspaper” — and he ran off cheerfully into this and that speculation and project, making mention of his age, which was forty-three years, and painting all his future in the rosiest tints. Unfortunately, as events proved, I did not listen to these rather hysterical anticipations. I wasn’t thinking about money at all, as he imagined. I was saying to myself:

  “He will have two days in the train before he reaches the border. To-morrow during the morning it will be discovered that he has bolted. Either to-morrow night or the next day he will be picked off the train and for once the Law of Flight will be carried out upon a real fugitive.”

  I could hardly put the point so crudely to Anton de Hoyos, but I managed to convey it discreetly wrapped up. Anton, however, was not troubled at all by any anxiety upon those grounds.

  “So long as I can reach the station, board the train and leave Ensenada City a mile or two behind me, with your visa upon my passport, I have no fear,” he said. He tapped me upon the arm. “Paul Taylor guarantees me.”

  “Guarantee!” I growled, a little too roughly, no doubt. “There’s a word for you! What does it mean? How can Paul Taylor guarantee anything?”

  Anton just smiled indulgently. You and I working along recognized lines are bound to go wrong in forecasting what is likely to happen in those topsy-turvy countries. Anton de Hoyo
s knew exactly what he was talking about. The one person in Ensenada City who could get for you the solitary drawing-room on the solitary Pullman Car on the weekly Express, who could ensure that you would be treated throughout your journey like a Prince of the Blood Royal, was not the station-master nor the chief of the Booking Office in the town, nor even the Minister of the Railways, but just Paul Taylor, the negro porter of the American Club. He had been Pullman Car conductor on the Santa Fe Railway, thence he had moved south to the Ensenada State Railway; now if he came out of his porter’s hutch at the Club and said, “Yes, sir, that goes,” — why, it went and it didn’t cost you so very much either. It was always worth the price. So much I knew. But to guarantee the flight of a man whom the Administration proposed to kill — that was a strong order. However, Anton de Hoyos was satisfied. So I took his passport over to my office, stamped it and signed it and, making sure that I was not followed, I carried it back to the house in the Paseo. Anton clasped it to his breast with a look of exultation in his eyes, just like a hero on the Stage, clasping a reprieve in the shadow of the gallows.

  But if Anton was satisfied, I wasn’t. That word “guarantee” stuck in my throat. It’s a ridiculous word, anyway. It’s thrown about right and left, and people eat it, don’t they? “Is this good whisky?” you ask, and the salesman stares at you as if you were an idiot. “Why, of course it is, it’s guaranteed.” “Will this watch go?” you inquire, having experience of watches which didn’t. “Go?” says the shopman haughtily. “So-and-so’s watches are guaranteed.” And then your whisky lays you out and your watch stops for good on the second day.

  I left the house in the Paseo as discontented as any intellectual. I walked down into the town and dropped into the American Club. Paul Taylor, six feet of broad-shouldered negro, stood in the doorway.

  “Paul,” said I in a low voice. “What of Senor Anton de Hoyos? He’s a friend of mine.”

  Paul’s face became one broad grin and two sets of white flashing teeth.

  “That is all organized from the top to the bottom, yes, sir,” said he.

  And somehow I felt reassured. At all events he used a better phrase than guarantee. And also he was right. The train was searched twice on its way to the frontier, but the assistant in the kitchen, who was Anton de Hoyos, escaped a close inspection on both occasions. No doubt a reasonable sum of money had been paid. Anton settled down at Los Angeles and wrote me a letter full of gratitude. All the fine ideas of which he had told me and to which unfortunately I hadn’t listened, were working out finely. He was full of confidence and, I thought, a trifle arrogant too. I couldn’t help remembering the sick man shivering with terror under his bedclothes. For me, later in the year I was promoted from Vice-Consul to Consul and transferred to Marazan, the big town upon the border.

  III

  Anyone who knows Marazan will realize that a Consul’s position there means time and overtime. The frontier neatly divides the long main street, the Calle Ensenada, into two halves, the southern side being the territory of Ensenada State; and a town which enables you to pass from one country into another by merely stepping across a tramline offers remarkable allurements to a certain type of people. The rabble of a continent washes to and fro in Marazan and I was kept busy. So busy that the Charles Landau Grand Opera Company had completed three weeks of its month’s season before I even thought of taking a seat, passionately fond of music though I am. Others no less fond had been less remiss, so that when I did go to the box-office, the only stall which I could obtain was for the very last night — a gala performance at increased prices, the programme to consist of selections from the various operas of the Repertoire so that the chief singers might say farewell in their favourite characters.

  The Square in front of the Opera House was on that last night as bright as day under the blaze of the great arc-lights and so crowded with onlookers running and pressing to stare into the windows of the motor-cars and the old-fashioned country carriages that every minute I expected some dreadful accident. Inside the auditorium there was a clack-clack of stalls being unfolded like continuous musketry, the women in their shimmering frocks were jewelled from their toes to their hair, and the young bloods had made the rare concession of white ties and swallow-tail coats. There was that atmosphere of suspense and excitement which makes a crowd neighbourly. Everybody was chattering and I soon learned that the great success of the season had been achieved by a young diva, Margarita Sabani, who had made her debut the year before in a minor part at the New York Metropolitan Opera House and was now trying her wings on tour in the great roles.

  Then for a moment there was a sudden hush as a tall, good-looking, fair-haired young man appeared all alone in the big box on the first tier next to the stage. He flung his overcoat into one chair, his hat on to a second, stood for a few seconds surveying the crowded house like a lord and then seated himself with complete unconcern in the middle chair of the row. He was my ideal of an Englishman.

  But he wasn’t an Englishman at all. For the chatter burst out all around me, all the more voluble for that moment of restraint, and very quickly put me wise.

  “That’s Ignacio.”

  “Well, he was certain to be here.”

  A shriller voice rose high above the others.

  “Of course. Ignacio has occupied that box alone every night that the Sabani has sung. My dear, they’re outrageously in love.”

  “It’s whispered that he’s going to marry her.”

  “It’s true. They tell me that his old father roars about the house like a bull all day, and declares that he’d rather see his son lying dead at his feet.”

  The shrill voice died away as the conductor took his place and under the magic of his wand, from the peons in the gallery to the notables in the stalls, the whole house was hushed. But I had my information up to date. Ignacio was the son of Herriberto Reyes, the millionaire landowner, who could boast an unbroken pedigree from a Spanish adventurer of the sixteenth century. Herriberto was seventy-five years of age now, vain of his wealth and proud of his blood, and I could quite imagine him bellowing about his finca over the contumacy of his son.

  Very natural, no doubt, but I was heart and soul for Ignacio as soon as Margarita Sabani stepped out upon the stage. “Madame” of course she called herself, but she was little more than a girl, tall and slim with a face rather classic in its outlines, but redeemed from coldness by a smile which set the dimples playing in her cheeks and by an aura of happiness which enveloped her. The part which she had chosen was that of Cherubino in “The Marriage of Figaro.” And when she took the stage, spruce and trim in her white satin coat and breeches and her scarlet-heeled shoes, she set the house on fire. All through the evening the audience had been waiting just for her and it rose at her with a roar like a great wave breaking upon a beach. She was obviously nervous, and as the applause continued, all of us at all events who were near to the orchestra read an appeal in her big dark eyes to let her get on with her scene before she broke down.

  With her first note, however, her embarrassment vanished. She was in her part and her voice poured from her throat, clear and effortless and liquid like the song of a blackbird on your lawn on a summer’s morning.

  She was entrancing, and I wasn’t surprised to see Ignacio Reyes strain forward over the ledge as though his soul were on the stage with her and only the shell of him in the box.

  And that was the last time in her life that Margarita Sabani sang. Yes! Though she spoke, to be sure. Yes, she spoke two words. For after the curtain had been raised twenty times, after Ignacio, even, had left his box, she was called back once more. She stretched out her hands towards her friends, she cried on a note which soared like a flute above the uproar, “Arrivederci!” — and then clasping her hands over her face she ran headlong from the stage. As I mounted the winding staircase from the stalls, I saw Ignacio waiting halfway up at the little iron door which led on to the stage.

  IV

  The rare enjoyment of an evening lik
e that was not to be frittered away by gossip in a cafe! I took it all home with me to bed. But at three o’clock in the morning I was waked up by a continuous ringing of my doorbell. I looked out of my window and saw the top of a man’s hat and an arm stretched out to the button of the bell.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  The man looked up. He was quite a stranger to me, but I could see by the light of a standard that under his open overcoat he was wearing evening dress.

  “I am Charles Landau,” he said.

  “Of the Opera Company?” I inquired with that sort of foolish redundancy of which one never seems to rid oneself.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” said I.

  Something dejected in the man’s appearance and speech disturbed me. I slipped some clothes on over my pyjamas, let him in, took him into my little library and turned on the light. He was a small round Jewish man who somehow reminded me of an idol. But he was, on the other hand, intensely agitated which, after all, an idol cannot be.

  “Margarita Sabani has disappeared,” he said, standing in front of me, his short arms spread out, his brown gentle eyes actually abrim with tears.

  I couldn’t help smiling. The Opera tour was finished that night. I recollected now that some weeks ago I had stamped my visa on Ignacio Reyes’ passport. This little man must look out for a new prima donna — that was all.