CHAPTER V.
WANTED, A PASSAGE.
It had been agreed that we were to start off next morning by the 7.10train, and half an hour before that time saw me standing before theColumbus statue in the Piazza Acquaverdi. Weems was such a mightysqueamish little creature about the proprieties that I thought an olddunnage-sack would scandalize him, and so had purchased a drabportmanteau for my kit at the cost of half my remaining capital. Iintended to have no more breezes with him if it could be avoided.
The minute-hand of the clock above the central entrance of the stationcrept up to the vertical, and began to droop. Cab after cab rolled upover the flagstones and teemed out people and properties. Still my mancame not. He had distinctly said he would be in good time, as he hadbaggage to be registered, and disliked being hurried. It began to look,in spite of his bragging about never having overslept himself in hislife, as if he had been late in turning out.
The clock showed three minutes past the hour, and the big hand, beingon the down grade, began to race. I walked through the rank of waitingcabs, and stood by the pillars of the central doorway. If we missedthis train we should lose a day. The 9.35 didn't go through, as we hadseen from the time-table overnight. It only landed one at Marseille.
The crowd of incoming people began to lessen, and finally ceasedaltogether. The last passenger passed through on to the platform, andthe officials locked the waiting-room doors. We had missed that blessedtrain.
I cursed Weems vigorously, and set off to Isotta's, where he wasstaying, to beat him up, swinging the drab portmanteau in my fist, as Ididn't want to pay for leaving it, as somehow or other economy seemedto me at that moment to be a strong line.
The Swiss day-porter was just coming down. He was a gorgeous personagewho could have saved the architect of Babel his great disappointment,and at first he knew nothing of Mistaire Weem. Evidently theschoolmaster had not been generous. So I inquired in the bureau for myman's number, intending to beat up his room then and there, but was metby the staggering announcement that the signor had cleared by theMarseille train which left Genoa at 3.30 in the morning. But there wasa letter for me.
I tore the limp envelope, and read:--
"GRAND HOTEL ISOTTA, _Genova, Tuesday_.
"DEAR SIR,--Upon consideration I must return to my original decision. I fear I shall have left Genoa before you receive this, but do not trouble to give me any thanks. The balance of the circular ticket is very much at your service.--Yours faithfully,
"R. E. WEEMS.
"--COSPATRIC, ESQ."
The little beast had done me brown.
It was getting on for eight o'clock then. I glanced at a time-table. Hewas due to leave Marseille at 8.4. By Jove, if I could have trumped upany charge that would have held water a minute I'd have had himarrested by wire. Anything to delay him! I was just savage mad. And Iwas as helpless as a figure-head.
I swung out into the Via Roma wondering what to do next. Common sensesaid go and take up my berth on the American steamer, and quit cryingfor the moon now that it had bounced out of reach again. But I was fartoo wild to listen to any sane sober plan like that. I couldn't swimout to Minorca, and I could not fly; but I told myself grimly that Iwas going somehow, and if Weems had got there first and collared theRecipe, he'd just have to hand over--or--well, it would be the worsefor Weems. I shouldn't buy lavender kid gloves to handle him with.
All that day I hunted about, trying to get a passage across to theislands; needless to remark, without success. The mail steamers runthere from Valencia and Barcelona only, and though there are occasionalorange boats passing between Soller in North Mallorca and Marseille,they aren't to be depended on. By a singular irony of fate, I did comeacross an old white--painted barque which had just come out of Palma inballast; but her skipper only told what I knew full well in my ownheart, that I might very likely wait three years before I found a craftgoing the other way.
There seemed nothing for it but to go like a sensible Christian bytrain round the coast, and then across from one of the two Spanishports by the regular ramshackle mail steamer. And so I bowed to fate,and converted the drab portmanteau and all its contents into thecompactest form. The lot didn't fetch much. By dint of tedioushaggling, I scraped together twenty-three lire thirty; and withoutselling the clothes on my back, and one other item, which I had rathersell the teeth out of my head than part with, I didn't see apossibility of getting more by that sort of trade. However, I had onlycollected this slender store in the hopes of increasing it, and as soonas night came down and such places are open, I marched off to agambling hell which I knew of in the low part of the town near theharbour side. The way lay through many passages and up many steps, andit was by no means a place to which the general public were admitted.In fact, in its style it was far more exclusive than the _salle dejeu_ run by Monsieur Blanc's successors at Monte. But I had beenthere before, and knew how to get the _entree_.
The whitewashed walls were grimy, the two naked gas-jets jumped andhooted spasmodically, and those who knew said that the atmosphere wasreminiscent of a slaver's hold. The officials wore their shirt-sleevesrolled up for greater ease in movement, and no gentleman was allowed toenter the room till he had deposited his knife outside the door.
With the fluctuating population of a seaport, one might reasonablyexpect to find most nationalities represented at such a seductive spot;but, as a point of fact, the operators on that night were almostexclusively Italians. The sailor, take him in the bulk, is a tolerablefool all the world over; but the northerner has some grains of sensethough he is a sportsman, and roulette with twenty-six numbers and azero is a trifle too strong an order even for him.
I had fixed my desires at a hundred and twenty lire. Less would not seeme through; more I was not going to try for.
In that assembly a man who plunges half-lire pieces on every spin ofthe ball is a man who means business; and the _dilettanti_ soonlet me press through to a stool at the table. Going on _pair_ and_impair_ or the colour was not to my taste. Either luck was goingto stand by me that evening, or I was going to be broke; so I plankedmy money haphazard on four numbers every time, and didn't handicapmyself with a system. I'd a distinct suspicion that the bank had even agreater pull than was apparent on the surface; but there was no chanceof investigation, and I submitted to the fact that chances all-toldstood about two to one against me.
The play was slow, and for ordinary people unexciting, though you canguess it did not send me to sleep. I won a little, and lost a little;but on the whole was able to shove a ten-lire note every now and againinto my pocket. It doesn't do to leave such trifles about in someplaces.
A clock outside chimed ten, and I could count up sixty-four lire fifty.What with Italian tobacco and Italian garlic and Italian humanity, theair had got something too awful for words. The arteries inside my skullwere playing some devil's tune of _Thumpetty Bump_ that caused meto see mistily, and to wish for an earthquake which would rearrangeterrestrial economy. In short, I couldn't stand it any longer, and sowent out for a few minutes' spell in the open.
But I didn't luxuriate over-long. The thought occurred to me that Weemswas already at Cerbere, and in another hour and forty minutes would behaving his baggage examined by an individual in green cotton gloves atPort Bou, previous to pursuing his career of conquest down into Spain.And by this time my grudge against that schoolmaster person had grownto be a very big one indeed. So I gave up parading the muddypaving-stones, and turned back into the _biscazza_.
A new arrival had turned up during my absence, a long, lean Englishmannamed Haigh, whom I had met casually once before. His nerves seemed ina delicate condition, for when the water-logged gas jumped, he jumpedtoo, and, moreover, tried to do it as unobtrusively as possible, as ifconscious and not over-proud of the failing. But he was gambling keenlyand coolly enough, picking his notes one by one from a leatherpocket-book, blinking over them to make sure of their value, andwatching them unfailingly gathered up by the grimy paw of the
croupierwithout an outward sign of regret.
I looked on a minute, thinking what a queer fish he was, and thenelbowing in to the table started afresh on my own trading.
Fortune seemed to have improved by the rest. Three rattles of the peabrought my total up to a hundred and fifteen francs in Greek, French,and Italian money.
A hundred and twenty was certainly the original goal, but I had aprecious great mind then to let the other five slide. In fact, I drewaway from the table intending to stop. But instead of quitting theplace there and then, I was fool enough to argue the position outsolemnly to myself, with the result that I eventually decided the wholeaffair from beginning to end to be entirely of the nature of a gamble,and naturally felt bound to test whether the luck was going to hold anylonger.
Indecision's my strong point, and many's the time I've had to pay forit. If I'd cleared out on the first impulse, I should have beencomparatively affluent. As it was, ten more minutes beside that greasybaize cleared me down to the lining.
However, if I had made a donkey of myself, it wasn't an altogethernovel experience, and I was philosopher enough not to weep over it. SoI crammed my fists into my pockets by way of ballast, and sauntered tothe door for a trifle of property which the regulations had made meleave there.
Whilst I was picking my own particular weapon from amongst the armouryHaigh joined me, announcing that he also was cleaned out; and addingthat he was not altogether sorry, as those flickering gas-jets botheredhim.
The observation, if slightly illogical, was very explanatory; and sothinking that he'd be none the worse for being looked after, I said I'dstroll back up into the town with him. As we went up through the narrowstreets he imparted a long detail of woe; but he maundered over itconsiderably, and whether the lady who was mostly in question was hisown wife, or some one else's wife, or no wife at all, was a point stillhidden from me when we sheered up in front of his hotel. Here he gotmore mournful still, and quitted the tale of his past ill-treatment fora more pressing question of the present.
"Yes, here we are, old chap, and I'm awfully sorry I can't ask you into have something. But the fact is, I'm not in very good odour therejust at present. My bill d'ye see's been galloping for the last threeweeks, and at lunch to-day the proprietor fellow said he couldn't waitany longer for my remittances. He said that if they didn't come byevening he'd rather I went, leaving my baggage behind by way ofsouvenir. I'm afraid the two portmanteaus aren't worth very much, asI've--er--disposed of most of the contents, and supplied the weight bypieces of iron kentledge done up in one or other of the daily papers. Ihad a notion that I should have raised funds this evening, butcircumstances intervened which--er--you understand, made me somewhatworse off than before. Of course if I went in there they might put meup again for to-night; but that proprietor fellow might be about, and Ishouldn't care to meet him. He's such a nasty way of looking at a chap.So I think, on the whole, I shall just go down and sleep on my boat."
"Your boat?" I repeated in a dazed sort of way.
"Yes," said Haigh, blinking at me anxiously; "just a little cutter I'vegot down there in the harbour. But I say, dear chappie, you aren'ttaking it unkindly that I don't ask you in here, are you? 'Pon myhonour, if I weren't dead stony broke I'd give you a drink either inthis place or----"
"Damn your drinks, you lucky man. If your boat and my knowledge doesn'ttransmogrify us from a pair of stone-brokes into a couple of bloatedmillionaires, I'm a Dutchman. Come along, man. Come along now."
The Recipe for Diamonds Page 6
