South Wind

by Norman Douglas

  “Oh, we’ll get used to it. Let’s sit down, Mr. Heard.”

  Still distrustful of his companion, the bishop made himself comfortable and glanced around. They were high up; the view embraced half the island. The distant volcano confronting him was wreathed in sullen grey smoke that rose up from its lava torrent, and crowned with a menacing vapour-plume. Then an immensity of sea. At his feet, separated from where he sat by wide stony tracts tremulous with heat, lay the Old Town, its houses nestling in a bower of orchards and vineyards. It looked like a shred of rose-tinted lace thrown upon he landscape. He unraveled those now familiar thoroughfares and traced out, as a map, the more prominent buildings—the Church, the Municipality, the old Benedictine Monastery where Duke Alfred, they say, condescendingly invited himself to dine with the monks every second month in such state and splendour that, the rich convent revenues being exhausted, His Highness was pleased to transfer his favours to the neighboring Carthusians who went bankrupt in their turn; he recognized Count Caloveglia’s place and, at the furthest outskirts, the little villa Mon Repos.

  Where was she now, his cousin?

  Reposing, no doubt, like all sensible folks.

  And his eye wandered to the narrow pathway along the precipice where he had walked with her in the evening light—that pathway which he had suggested railing in, by reason of its dangers. A section of the horrible face of the cliff was exposed, showing that ominous coloration, as though splotched with blood, which he had noticed from the boat. The devil’s rock! An appropriate name. “Where the young English lord jump over….”

  It was the stillest hour of the day. Not a soul in sight. Not a particle of shade. Not a breath of air. A cloudless sky of inky blueness.

  To Mr. Heard’s intense relief Denis had settled down, apparently for ever. He lay on his stomach like a lizard, immovable. His head, sheltered by a big hat, rested upon his jacket which he had rolled up into a sort of cushion; one bare sunburnt arm was stretched to its full length on the seared ground. What a child he was, to drag one up to a place like this in the expectation of seeing something unearthly! Mr. Heard was not quite satisfied about him. Perhaps he was only feigning.

  Time passed. Do what he would to keep awake, the bishop felt his eyelids drooping—closing under the deluge of light. Once more there approached him that spirit of malevolence brooding in the tense sunny calm, that baleful emanation which seemed to drain away his powers of will. It laid a weight upon him. He felt into an unquiet slumber.

  Presently he woke up and turned sharply to look at his companion. Denis had not stirred an inch from his voluptuous pose. A queer boy. Was he up to some mystification?

  The landscape all around was scarred and deserted. How silent a place can be, he thought. An unhealthy hush. And what a heat! The lava blocks—they seemed to smoulder and reel in the fiery glare. It was a deathly world. It reminded him of those illustrations to Dante’s INFERNO. He thought to see the figures of the damned writhing amid tongues of flame.

  His glance fell once more upon the villa of his cousin. Strange! There were two persons, now, walking along the edge of the cliff. Mere specks…. He took up his glasses. The specks resolved themselves into the figures of Mrs. Meadows and Mr. Muhlen.

  The devil! he thought. What’s the meaning of this?

  They were moving up and down, at the same spot where he had moved up and down with her. They seemed to be on friendly terms with one another. Excellent terms. It looked as if they were laughing now and then, and stopping occasionally to glance at something, some book or other object, which the lady carried in her hand. The devil! At times his cousin seemed to be dangerously near the edge—he caught his breath, remembering that sensation of giddiness, of gulping terror, with which he had watched the falcon swaying crazily over the abyss. She was enjoying it, to all appearances. Then, as they retraced their steps, it was the man’s turn to take the outside of the path. He suffered as little as she did, evidently, from vertigo. Laughing, and gesticulating. The devil! What were they talking about? What were they doing there, at this impossible hour of the day? Five or six times they went to and fro; and then, suddenly, something happened before Mr. Heard’s eyes—something unbelievable.

  He dropped his glasses, but quickly raised them again. There was no doubt about it. Muhlen was no longer there. He had disappeared. Mrs. Meadows was walking down towards her villa, in sprightly fashion, alone.

  Mr. Heard felt sick. Not knowing exactly what he was about, he began to shake Denis with needless violence. The young man turned round lazily, flushed in the face.

  “Where—what—” he began. “Rather funny! You saw it too? Oh, Lord! You’ve woke me up. What a bother…. Why, Mr. Heard, what’s the matter with you? Aren’t you feeling well?”

  The bishop pulled himself together, savagely.

  “Touch of the sun, I daresay. Africa, you know! Perhaps we ought to be going. Give me your arm, Denis, like a good boy. I want to get down.”

  He was dazed in mind, and his steps faltered. But his brain was sufficiently clear to realize that his was face to face with an atrocious and carefully planned murder.

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  All the traditions of his race, the uprightness of ages of decent law-abiding culture, the horror of the pure for what is impure rebelled against this thing which nothing but the testimony of his own eyes could have made him believe. He felt humiliated, as though he had received a blow; inclined to slink about and hide his face from other men. There was contamination in the mere fact of having been a witness. Oh, it was villainous. How carefully the hour and place had been chosen!

  And he himself, during that evening walk, had given her the idea. He had said how easily a man could be thrown over at that spot. Very simple….

  His mind would clear up, maybe, in course of time. Meanwhile he remembered about Retlow-ALIASMuhlen. It came to him in a flash. The man was his cousin’s first husband; possibly her only legal husband, seeing that she may not have been able to secure sufficient evidence against him to justify a divorce—had, indeed, lost sight of the scoundrel altogether for several years prior to her elopement with young Meadows. It might well be that Muhlen had heard somehow or other of her presence on Nepenthe, and gone there for the purpose of renewing acquaintance with her. But this foul crime! For it cannot have been a sudden impulse on her part. She had been playing with him—leading him on. His visits to the Old Town, at that quiet hour of the day…. No. She had carried out her infamous plan after ample premeditation.

  Mr. Heard stayed at home, burdened with a hideous secret. Practical questions began to assail him. What should he do? Wait! he concluded. Something would be sure to turn up. He was too dazed to think clearly, as yet. He also disliked that fellow. But one does not murder a man because one happens to dislike him. One does not murder a man … foolish words, that kept on repeating themselves in his mind.

  To pardon—yes. Mr. Heard could pardon to any extent. The act of pardoning: what did it imply? Nothing more than that poor deluded mortals were ever in need of sympathy and guidance. Anybody could pardon. To pardon was not enough for a man of Mr. Heard’s ruthless integrity. He must understand. How understand, how interpret, a dastardly deed like this? What could her motives have been? Of what act of proposal could the man have been guilty to merit, even in her eyes, a fate such as this? For evidently, one does not murder a man because one happens to dislike him—

  Denis came to enquire, in the course of the morning. He was anxious to know how the bishop was feeling after yesterday’s attack of sunstroke.

  “I have been blaming myself bitterly for dragging you out,” he began. “I—really—”

  “Don’t think about it! I shall be better soon. I’ll remain indoors to-day.”

  “You are not looking quite yourself just yet. What a fool I was! I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  “Not worth talking about. You’ll stay to luncheon?”

  The news of Muhlen’s disappearance was spread about that same evening,
and created no surprise whatever. Foreigners had a knack of coming to the island and mysteriously vanishing again; it was quite the regular thing to run up accounts all around and then clear out. Hotel-keepers, aware of this idiosyncrasy on the part of distinguished guests, arranged their scale of charges accordingly; they made the prices so high that the honest paid for the dishonest, as with English tailors. The other tradespeople of the place—the smiling confectioner, the simple-minded bootmaker and good-natured stationer, the ever-polite hosier—they all worked on the same principle. They recouped themselves by fleecing the more ingenuous of their clients.

  In the case of Muhlen’s occultation there was even less surprise than usual. Everybody, judging by his lavish display of gold and showy manner, expected him to depart sooner or later in the orthodox manner—at night-time, by means of a sailing boat secretly hired, conscientiously prepaid. His more intimate friends, the Magistrate and the Commissioner, were less surprised than anyone else. True, Signore Malipizzo was somewhat hurt, because Muhlen had practically invited him to stay at his own native town where every kind of amusement was to be had, the female society being of the choicest. Exuberant women—and rich! It would have been a pleasant change after the trim but tedious gardens of Salsomaggiore. He had strong homes, however, of receiving a letter from some safe place outside the dominions, making an appointment for the holidays. For form’s sake, of course, he promptly initiated the ordinary judicial enquiries. It would look well in the records of the Court.

  As for Mr. Parker, who was brooding in the retirement of his villa whither the news had swiftly spread, he merely thought:

  “Got off scot free. And without paying his Club account, I’ll bet. Bolted. Lucky devil. That’s where the casual visitor has the pull over a resident official like myself. Cleared out! I’m glad I never had any money to lend him. Touched a good few of them, I’ll be bound.”

  Within an hour or so of the magistrate’s formal enquiries led to a startling discovery. Muhlen’s room in the hotel was broken open, and his property searched. No letters could be found conveying any clue as to his whereabouts. But—what was almost incredible—there was loose money lying about. A more minute investigation proved that the gentleman had dressed himself with considerable care prior to leaving the establishment for the last time. He had changed his socks and other underwear—yes, he had donned a clean shirt. The old one, blue-striped, which he had been seen to wear at breakfast, was lying negligently across the back of a chair with a pair of costly enameled links, of azure colour to match, in the cuffs. Moreover, in a small box hidden beneath some collars in a drawer were found a few foreign bank-notes, a ring or two, and a handful of gold coins such as he was in the habit of carrying about his person. The judge, who superintended the researches, caused these valuables to be impounded, sealed, and deposited in the Court of Justice.

  The discovery put a fresh and ominous complexion on the affair. When a man means to bolt, he does not leave portable jewelry—an enameled pair of links—behind him. And even if, in the hurry and scurry of departure, he does overlook such elegant trifles, he never forgets to take his money; least of all a man like Muhlen.

  A lengthy deposition was signed by the hotel proprietor. It set forth, in reference to Muhlen’s general habits, that this gentleman had hitherto not attended to his account; he had not been urgently pressed for a settlement. One did not like to incommode foreign visitors with bills; it annoyed them so much that they sometimes migrated to other hotels and made debts there, debts which in certain unexpected cases were liquidated in full while the former and equally legitimate ones remained unpaid—which was disheartening. In regard to his recent mode of life, the document contained the suggestive fact that Muhlen had not taken his midday meal at the hotel for some time past. He was strangely fond of going out in the late mornings, the proprietor averred; it might be, to bathe; he returned at about five in the afternoon after lunching, presumably, in some small restaurant by the shore.

  This declaration, signed by a respected citizen, soon leaked into publicity. Taken in conjunction with the discovery of his money it was an eye-opener to the whole community, and to nobody more than to the judge himself. Signor Malipizzo argued, with his usual penetration, that Muhlen had intended to return to his quarters as he had always done of late. The ANIMUS REVERTENDI was abundantly proven by the sleeve-links and loose cash. He had not returned. Ergo, something untoward had happened. Untoward things may be divided, for the sake of convenience, into two main classes, sections, or categories:

  1. Accidents. 2. Foul play.

  Which was it?

  Signor Malipizzo dismissed as untenable the hypothesis of a clandestine withdrawal from local creditors. By way of clearing up the last vestige of doubt, however, and also for the sake of appearances (seeing that a wise magistrate is supposed to take nothing for granted) he called for depositions for the sailors and fishermen. It was a superfluous piece of work, a pure formality; he knew beforehand what they would say. They always said the same thing. They said it. Interrogated on oath they declared, one and all, that no person answering to the description of Muhlen had appeared on the beach for a long time; not for the last eight months and twelve days, to be quite accurate; much less had such a one engaged a vessel. The jovial but conservative sea-folk never varied their utterance on those many solemn occasions when a foreigner, for the purpose of evaporating, paid in advance for the hire of a boat, or was supposed to have done so. Albeit even ignorant people attached no significance to this statement, it went for what it was worth as cumulative evidence.

  The sight of that loose cash would have been quite enough for a man of Signor Malipizzo’s discernment. Muhlen had not bolted. Nor was he the kind of man to lose his life by an accident. Not he! Muhlen was careful of his skin. Ergo, his disappearance was due to something which came under the second class, section, or category. He had been done away with.

  The magistrate, thinking of those summer holidays, began to be really vexed; so did Mr. Parker, who soon learned the result of these enquiries and regretted that his mourning retirement prevented him from issuing forth and telling everybody what he thought of this new disgraceful scandal. His English blood revolted at the idea of a harmless tourist, a prominent member of the Alpha and Omega Club, being callously murdered. Would these people never get civilized? He was glad to hear, at all events, that the judge was doing something.

  Signor Malipizzo was doing a good deal. He meant to sift the thing to the bottom. His energy, hitherto simulated, was now set genuinely at work to discover indications of the murderer—indications of his missing friend. But Nepenthe is not a good place for finding corpses. The island is full of fathomless rents and fissures. A good many foreigners, especially such as were known to carry loose gold in their pockets, had been suspected of falling into them without leaving a trace behind. Yet a thorough search was instituted, for he knew that criminals were not always as clever as they thought themselves; some insignificant relic might turn up—a shred of clothing or so forth. Such things were occasionally picked up on Nepenthe; nobody knew to whom they belonged. The Cave of Mercury, on being searched, yielded nothing but a trouser button, apparently of English manufacture. Enquiries were also made as to when the ill-starred gentleman had last been seen, and where. Finally, the judge drew up a list, a fairly long list, of all the suspicious characters on the place with a view to placing them under lock and key, in expectation of further developments. Such was the customary procedure; one must assume the worst. If innocent, they might of course regain their liberty in a year or two.

  It stands to reason that a good many people had noticed Muhlen on the morning of his disappearance. One cannot walk about Nepenthe at that hour of the day without being seen, and Muhlen was sufficiently conspicuous. But everyone knew what was in store for him if he admitted such a fact, to wit, an application of paragraph 43 of the 92nd section of the Code of Criminal Procedure, according to which any and every witness of this kind is liable to be segreg
ated from his family and kept under arrest for an indefinite length of time, pending the instruction of a trial which might take half a century. Nobody, therefore, was fool enough to admit having encountered him—nobody save a half-witted youth who fatuously confided to a policeman that the had met the gentleman somewhere in the neighbourhood of the bibliographer’s villa about the hour of midday. Under ordinary circumstances Signor Malipizzo would have been delighted to lay sacrilegious hands on Mr. Eames, whose Olympic aloofness had always annoyed him and against whom a case could now be got up, on the strength of these indications. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of the villa—that was quite sufficient to warrant an arrest.

  The boy in question happened to be a relation of his arch-enemy, the parish priest. Better still. Chuckling at the happy coincidence, he forgot all about Mr. Eames, and gave orders for the other to be conveyed to the guard-house, searched, and interrogated, arguing plausibly that a person of his mental instability would be sure to give himself away by some stupid remark.

  Things turned out better than he had dared to hope. Under the prisoner’s clothing was discovered a gold coin of foreign nationality attached, by a piece of string, round his neck. For all one knew, it might have been Muhlen’s. The interrogating carbineer who is invested, during such preliminary enquiries, with quasi-judicial functions—being permitted to assume the role of prosecuting or defending counsel, or to remain sternly unbiased, as he feels inclined—desired to learn how he had come by this jewel.

  He received it long ago from his mother, he said, as a talisman against the moonsickness which had tormented him in childhood. Replying, in stammering and dazed fashion, to further questions, he gave it to be understood that nobody had ever set eyes on the coin in question; he was afraid of showing it, lest someone should take it from him by force. He loved the coin. He got it from his mother.