Part 11 (1/2)
”He comes always on Thursdays for chicken.”
”Thanks,” said Fernet, as he put on his hat.
Fernet walked directly to his lodgings that night. He had a room in an old-fas.h.i.+oned house on the east side of Telegraph Hill. The room was shabby enough, but it caught glimpses of the bay and there was a gnarled pepper-tree that came almost to its windows and gave Fernet a sense of eternal, though grotesque, spring. Even his landlord was unusual-a professional beggar who sat upon the curb, with a ridiculous French poodle for company, and sold red and green pencils.
This landlord was sitting out by the front gate as Fernet entered.
”Ah, Pollitto,” said Fernet, halting before the old man and snapping his fingers at the poodle who lay crouched before his master, ”I see you are enjoying this fine warm night.”
”You are wrong,” replied the beggar. ”I am merely sitting here hoping that some one will come along and rent my front room.”
”Then it is vacant?”
”Naturally,” replied the old man, with disagreeable brevity, and Fernet walked quickly up to his room.
”Why do I live in such a place?” he asked himself, surveying the four bare walls. ”Everything about it is abominable, and that beggar, Pollitto, is a scoundrel. I shall move next week.”
He crossed over to the window and flung it open. The pepper-tree lay before him, crouching in the moonlight. He thought at once of Flavio Minetti.
”He is like this pepper-tree,” he said, aloud, ”beautiful even in his deformity. No, I would not trade this pepper-tree for a dozen of the straightest trees in the world.” He stepped back from the window, and, lighting a lamp, set it upon a tottering walnut table. ”Ah, Andre Fernet,” he mused, chidingly, ”you are always snared by what is unusual.
You should pray to G.o.d that such folly does not lead you to disaster.”
He went to the window and looked out again. The pepper-tree seemed to be bending close to the ground, as if seeking to hide something. Presently the wind parted its branches and the moonlight fell at its feet like a silver moth before a blackened candle.
Andre Fernet s.h.i.+vered and sighed. ”Yes,” he repeated, again and again, ”they are alike. They both are at once beautiful and hideous and they have strange secrets.... Well, I shall go on Thursday again, and maybe I shall see him. Who knows, if I am discreet he may tell me who killed this ridiculous musician Suvaroff.”
And with that he suddenly blew out the light.
On the next Thursday night, when Fernet entered the dining-room of the Hotel de France his glance rested immediately upon Flavio Minetti. To his surprise the hunchback rose, drawing a chair out as he did so, and beckoning Fernet to be seated next him. For a moment Fernet hesitated, Berthe was just bringing on the soup.
”What! Are you afraid?” she said, mockingly, as she pa.s.sed.
This decided Fernet. He went and sat beside Minetti without further ado.
”Ah, I was expecting you!” cried the hunchback, genially, as he pa.s.sed the radishes.
”Expecting _me_?” returned Fernet. His voice trembled, though he tried to speak boldly.
”Yes. Women are not the only inquisitive animals in the world. What will you have-some wine?”
Fernet allowed Minetti to fill his gla.s.s.
Other boarders began to drift in. Minetti turned his back upon Fernet, speaking to a new-comer at his left. He did not say another word all evening.
Fernet ate and drank in silence. ”What did I come for and why am I staying?” he kept asking himself. ”This man is mocking me. First of all, he greets me as if I were his boon companion, and next he insults me openly and before everybody in the room. Even Berthe has noticed it and is smiling. As a matter of fact, he knows no more than I do about Suvaroff's death.”
But he continued to sit beside the hunchback all through the meal, and as fruit was put on the table he touched Minetti on the arm and said, ”Will you join me in a _cafe royal_?”
”Not here ... a little later. I can show you a place where they really know how to make them. And, besides, there are tables for just two. It is much more private.”