Part 20 (1/2)

”It is,” replied Don Francesco, ”And perhaps you do not know,” he added, turning to the company, ”that there has been another robbery as well, doubtless by the same hand. Yes! I only heard of it an hour ago.

Poor Miss Wilberforce is the victim. She is terribly upset. A number of valuables have disappeared from her house; they must have been ransacked, she thinks, at the time of Mr. Keith's party. I understand she was rather overcome on that occasion. The thief seems to have been aware of her condition, and to have profited by it.”

”Poor Miss Wilberforce!” said everybody. They were all sorry for poor Miss Wilberforce.

It was a rather full dinner-party on the whole. Mr. Heard left at half-past eleven.

Pa.s.sing the Club on his way home, he remembered his intention of looking in there and perhaps doing good to a few of those fellows.

He climbed up the stairs. There was a fearful row going on. The place was crammed with members of various nationalities, drinking and arguing amid clouds of tobacco smoke. They seemed all to be at loggerheads with one another and on the verge of breaking out into violence, the south wind having been particularly objectionable all day long. A good deal of filthy and profane language was being used--it was worse than those hot places he had known in Africa. That pink-faced old drunkard known as Charlie was the only person who made any signs of recognizing him.

He half rose from his chair with a genial: ”h.e.l.lo, Bishop--” and instantly collapsed again. Mr. Muhlen was there; he bowed rather distantly. A tremulous pale-faced youngster invited him pressingly to a drink, and just as the bishop was on the verge of accepting with a view to getting the victim out of that den of vice, the lad suddenly remarked: ”Excuse me, won't you?” and tottered out of the door. They were too far gone to be spoken to with any prospects of success. Things might have been different if the restraining influence of Mr. Freddy Parker could have made itself felt, but that gentleman was at home, his lady being not very well. In the Commissioner's absence, Mr. Richards, the respectable Vice-President, was making his voice heard. Sober or not, he was certainly articulate and delighted with himself as, stroking his beard placidly, he roared out above the crowd:

”I've no use for makes.h.i.+fts. Honesty is a makes.h.i.+ft. A makes.h.i.+ft for saving time. Whoever wants to save time is not fit for the society of gentlemen.”

”Hear, hear!”

”Call yourself a gentleman?” enquired another.

”Just a makes.h.i.+ft. You won't hear honesty talked about in the great periods of the world's history. It's the small tradesman's invention, is honesty. He hasn't the the brains to earn anything more than three and a half per cent. That's why he is always in such a hurry to finish his first little deal and get on with the next one. Else he'd starve.

Hence honesty. Three and a half per cent! Who's going to pick that up?

People who earn three hundred don't cackle about honesty.”

”Call yourself a gentleman? Outside!”

”I've no use for honesty. It's the small man's flapdoodle, is honesty.

This world isn't made for small men! I am talking to you over there--the funny little bounder who made the offensive remark just now.”

”Are you? Well, take that!”

A gla.s.s tumbler, which Mr. Richards dodged in quite a professional manner, came hurtling through the air and missed the bishop's forehead by about four inches.

That crowd was past his aid. He turned to go. As he did so, a curious idea flitted through his brain. This Mr. Richards--was he, perhaps, the burglar? He was; but Mr. Heard dashed aside the horrible suspicion, mindful of the mistake he had made about Angelina's character and how careful one must be in judging of other people. The voice, meanwhile, pursued him down the stairs.

”No, gentlemen! I've no use for an honest man. He always lets you down.

Fortunately, he is rather rare--”

Mr. Heard slept badly that night, for the first time since his arrival on Nepenthe. It was unbearably hot. And that visit to Mrs. Meadows had also troubled him a little.

The Old Town looked different on this occasion. A sullen death-like stillness, a menacing stagnation, hung about those pink houses. Not a leaf was astir under the burning sirocco sky. Even old Caterina, when he saw her, seemed to be afflicted, somehow.

”SOFFRE, LA SIGNORA,” she said. The lady was suffering.

The bishop would not have recognized his cousin after all those years; not if he had met her in the street at least. She greeted him affectionately and they talked for a long time of family matters. It was true, then. Her husband's leave had been again postponed. Perhaps she would travel back to England with him, and there await the arrival of Meadows. She would let him know definitely in a day or two.

He watched her carefully while she conversed, trying to reconstruct, out of that woman's face, the childish features he dimly remembered.