Part 28 (1/2)
At the end of an hour, he found himself in the town, and inquired for Batis...o...b... It seemed as though fate favoured Carantoni at the outset, for he found his name at once on the register of the hotel, and found also the man who had waited on Julius. This servant had been told that a lady had come in great haste soon after seven on the previous evening, and had stayed more than half an hour. As soon as she was gone, Mr.
Batis...o...b.. had sent for his bill and had ordered his boat to be ready at eleven,--the servant had heard the order. The man guessed there was something wrong from Marcantonio's face, but Batis...o...b..'s sudden departure had excited no remark. He had arrived late at night in his boat, as many people had done, and as the moon was full it was natural enough that he should sail away as he had come. People arrive continually at Sorrento in yachts, and no one takes any notice of them.
His luggage? Yes, he had taken most of his things with him, except one large box, which he had ordered to be sent to Turin. It had gone to Castellamare at once. Mr. Batis...o...b.. had been in the hotel before. He was a very good signore.
At this hint Marcantonio gave the man a heavy fee. Did he happen to know the address on the box? There was no address, except his name. The box was to be left at Turin until called for. It was to go by fast train, and Mr. Batis...o...b.. had left money to pay for its carriage in advance.
Mr. Batis...o...b.. paid his bills by cheques on a banker in Rome.
Marcantonio might have the name if he pleased. Before leaving he had paid his bill and given a cheque for five or six hundred francs more.
The proprietor knew him very well, and was always glad to oblige him, so he had procured a little cash. Before going he had sent for a silk merchant--there are hundreds in Sorrento--and had bought a quant.i.ty of things of him. He had left the hotel at eleven by the steps to the sea, and the servant had seen him into his boat,--for which parting civility, Batis...o...b.. had given him ten francs. The man had watched the boat for a few minutes. She did not make sail, but pulled away towards Castellamare.
That was all, absolutely all, that the man could tell Marcantonio. But it was sufficient for the present. It was clear that Julius had taken Leonora from the landing of the villa. She must have slipped out soon after midnight. The barking of the dogs suddenly came back to Marcantonio's memory, and the scream of the poor cat. He sprang into his carriage, and drove furiously homeward.
”Where are the dogs?” he asked, as soon as he alighted.
The groom did not like to answer. He thought Marcantonio would be angry and visit their death on him. But, as his master insisted, he went away without saying a word, and brought a large basket. In it lay the two dead terriers and the dead kitten, all three side by side.
”The dogs killed the cat,” said the man, apologetically. ”There are the marks of their teeth, eccellenza.”
”But the dogs? How were they killed?” asked Marcantonio savagely.
”Eccellenza, their necks are broken. I cannot understand how it could have been done. We found them all dead near the descent, the cat on the path, and the dogs under the trees a few paces away.”
Carantoni took up one of the terriers in his hands, and looked at it.
”So you killed my dogs, did you, you brute?” he muttered. ”I will kill you.”
He unconsciously used Batis...o...b..'s own words. His face was yellow, and his eyes bloodshot. He dropped the dead beast into the basket.
”Bury them,” he said aloud, and turned on his heel, going into the house.
He had accomplished a great deal in a few hours. He had ascertained that they had fled by sea; that Julius had a bank account in Rome with a banker whose address he had got; that Julius had sent his box to Turin, where he would most likely be ultimately heard of. More than that he could not know for the present. It was four o'clock in the afternoon. He could still catch the train to Rome. He could do nothing more in Sorrento, and he could no more remain inactive for one moment than he could give up the whole pursuit. While his things were being hastily packed he thought of Diana. It was the first time, since the morning, that he had realised that he was not absolutely alone in the world. He sat down and wrote a telegram, intending to send it from the station.
It was brief and to the point.
”She has left me. Can you meet me anywhere? Answer to Rome.”
There are doubtless people in the world who take a morbid and unwholesome delight in the contemplation of sorrow. They can amuse themselves for many hours in studying the effect of grief upon their friends,--and they can even find a curious diversion in their own troubles, so long as they can keep them far enough away to secure their bodily comfort. They have neither the strength to sin, the honesty to be good, nor the common sense to be happy. And so they feebly paddle in their shallow puddles of woe, neither dry nor wet, and very muddy, when they might just as well sit on the clean, hard ground and enjoy the cleanliness and solidity of it, if they can enjoy nothing else. But they will not. They will lie in the mud, and kick and scream and swear that they are s.h.i.+pwrecked, when they are a hundred miles from the sea, and would take to their heels on the first sight of it.
One of the favourite hobbies of these individuals is a mysterious thing they call a ”sweet sadness.” Their ideas about sorrow are not even artistic. They might at least understand that even the intensest grief, apart from its causes, has no grandeur. The contemplation of sorrow is not elevating unless it breeds a strong desire to alleviate it; nor is the study of vice and crime in the least edifying unless it exhibits the n.o.bility and power of purity in a highly practical light. No vicious criminal was ever reformed by realistic pictures of wickedness, any more than he can be improved by daily a.s.sociation with other vicious criminals. And a very little realism will throw a great ideal into the shade, as far as most people are concerned.
Marcantonio may therefore be allowed to go to Rome without being watched on the journey. His bitter suffering had settled about him and taken a shape and a complexion of its own, thinking its own thoughts and acting its own acts, without reference to the real Marcantonio, the easy, cheerful, happy man of a few short weeks ago. It was no change of character now, but rather the entire disappearance of the character beneath the flood of strong pa.s.sions that had come from without, sweeping away the landmarks and beacons of all moral responsibility. One idea had taken possession of him, and destroyed his consciousness of good and evil, and his comprehension of the common things of life; his body and intelligence had become the mere tools of this idea, and would strain their strength to carry it out until one or the other gave way.
Man is said to be a free agent, and so long as he remembers the fact, he is; but when he forgets it, the freedom is gone.
That morning, when the blow first struck him, he had still some vague thought that there was a course to follow which should be right as well as brave and honourable; it was the fast vanis.h.i.+ng outline of his former self, used always to the ways of honour; it was vague and uncertain, and he had no time nor inclination to think about it, but it was present.
The day wore on, bringing a fuller realisation of his desperate case, and the possibility of good in so much evil disappeared. When he was at last in the express train on his way to Rome he was only conscious of one thing--the determination to find Julius Batis...o...b.., and to kill him ruthlessly, be the consequences what they might.
Rome looked much as usual when he at last came out of the great ugly station upon the Piazza dei Termini. It was morning, and not yet eight o'clock, but the pitiless August sun drove its fire through everything--through flesh and bone and marrow of living things, through the glaring stones and dusty trees, and even the great jet of water looked like bright melting metal that would burn if it touched one.