Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  Sassi was silent. He had eaten the bread of the Conti all his life. He glanced at the faded photograph of the Prince, as if to explain, and Malipieri understood.

  “You are an honorable man,” he said. “I can no more tell you why I wish to help Donna Sabina to her rights, if she has any, than I can explain a great many things I have done in my life. When I see a dog kicked, I always kick the man, if I can, and I do not remember to have regretted any momentary unpleasantness that has followed in such cases. I have only seen Donna Sabina once, but I mean to help her if possible. Now tell me this. Has she any legal claim in the value of the palace or not?”

  “I am afraid not,” Sassi answered.

  “Do you know whether she was ever induced to sign any release of her guardians?”

  “She never did.”

  “That might be bad for them. That is all I wished to know. Thank you.”

  Malipieri rose to take his leave.

  “If anything of importance happens, can you communicate with Donna Sabina?” he asked.

  “I can write to her,” Sassi answered. “I suppose she would receive me if I went to the house.”

  “That would be better.”

  “Excuse me,” said the old man, before opening the door to let his visitor out, “am I right in supposing that the work the Baron wishes done is connected with the foundations?”

  “Yes.”

  “At the north-west corner within the courtyard?”

  “Yes,” answered Malipieri, looking at him attentively. “Do you happen to know anything about the condition of that part of the palace?”

  “Most people,” Sassi replied, “have now forgotten that a good deal of work was done there long ago, under Pope Gregory Sixteenth.”

  “Indeed? I did not know that. What was the result?”

  “The workmen came across the ‘lost water.’ It rose suddenly one day and one of them was drowned. I believe his body was never recovered. Everything was filled in again after that. For my own part I do not think the building is in any danger.”

  “Perhaps not,” said Malipieri, suddenly looking bored. “I only carry out the Senator’s wishes,” he added, as if with an afterthought. “It is my business to find out whether there is danger or not.”

  He took his leave and went away, convinced that the old agent knew about other things besides Sabina’s friendless condition, but unwilling to question him just then. The information Sassi had volunteered was interesting but not useful. Malipieri thought he himself knew well enough where the “lost water” was, under the Palazzo Conti.

  It was not far from Sassi’s house to the palace, but he walked very slowly through the narrow streets, and stopped more than once, deliberately looking back, as if he were trying to keep the exact direction of some point in his mind, and he seemed interested in the gutters, and in the walls, at their base, just above the pavement. At the corner of the Vicolo dei Soldati he saw a little marble tablet let into the masonry and yellow with age. He stopped a moment and read the inscription. Then he turned away with a look of annoyance, for it set forth that “by order of the most Eminent Vicar all persons were warned not to empty garbage there, on pain of a fine.” It was a forgotten document of the old papal administration, as he could have told without reading it if he had known Rome better. From the corner he counted his paces and then stopped again and examined the wall and the pavement minutely.

  There was nothing to be seen at all different from the pavement and the wall for many yards further on and further back, and Malipieri apparently abandoned the search, for he now walked on quickly till he reached the entrance of the palace, on the other side, and went in.

  From the low door of the wine shop, Toto, the mason, had seen him, and stood watching him till he was out of sight.

  “He does not know where it is,” Toto said, sitting down again opposite Gigi.

  “Engineers know everything,” retorted the carpenter.

  “If this one knew anything, he would not have stood there looking at the stones. I do not suppose the municipality is going to put up a monument to my grandfather, whom may the Lord preserve in glory!”

  At this Gigi laughed, for he knew that Toto’s grandfather had been drowned in the “lost water” somewhere deep down under that spot, and had never been found. The two men drank in silence. After a long time Toto spoke again.

  “A woman,” he said, with a shrug of the shoulders.

  “A woman drowned him?” asked Gigi. “How could a woman do it?”

  “A man did it. But it was for jealousy of a woman.”

  “The man was a mason, I suppose,” suggested Gigi.

  “Of course. He was working with the others in the morning, and he knew where they would be after dinner. He did not come back with them, and half an hour after they had gone down the water came. How many times have I told you that?”

  “It is always a new tale,” answered Gigi. “It gives me pleasure to hear it. Your father was a young man then, was he not?”

  “Eighteen.” Toto lighted his pipe.

  “And the man who did it died soon afterwards?” Gigi said.

  “Of course,” said Toto. “What else could my father do? He killed him. It was the least he could have done. My father is also in Paradise.”

  “Requiescat!” ejaculated the carpenter devoutly.

  “Amen,” answered Toto. “He killed him with a mattock.”

  “It was well done,” observed Gigi with satisfaction. “I suppose,” he continued after a pause, “that if anybody went down there now, you could let in the water.”

  “Why should I? I do not care what they do. If they send for me, I may serve them. If they think they can do without me, let them try. I do not care a cabbage!”

  “Perhaps not,” Gigi answered thoughtfully. “But it must be a fine satisfaction to know that you can drown them all, like rats in a hole.”

  “Yes,” said Toto, “it is a fine satisfaction.”

  “And even to know that you can make the water come before they begin, so that they can never do anything without you.”

  “That too,” assented the mason.

  “They would pay you a great deal to help them, if they could not pump the water out. There is no one else in Rome who knows how to turn it off.”

  Gigi made the remark tentatively, but Toto did not answer.

  “You will need some one to help you,” suggested the carpenter in an insinuating tone.

  “I can do it alone.”

  “It is somewhere in the cellars of number thirteen, is it not?” asked Gigi.

  He would have given all he had to know what Toto knew, and the bargain would have been a very profitable one, no doubt. But though the mason was his closest friend there were secrets of the trade which Toto would not reveal to him.

  “The numbers in the street were all changed ten years ago,” Toto answered.

  He rose from his seat by the grimy table, and Gigi followed his example with a sigh of disappointment. They were moderate men, and hardly ever drank more than their litre of their wine. Toto smelt of mortar and his fustian clothes and hairy arms were generally splashed with it. Gigi smelt of glue and sawdust, and there were plentiful marks of his calling on his shiny old cloth trousers and his coarse linen shirt. Toto’s face was square, stony and impenetrable; Gigi’s was sharp as a bill and alive with curiosity. Gigi wore a square paper cap; Toto wore a battered felt hat of no shape at all. On Sundays and holidays they both shaved and turned out in immaculate white shirts, well brushed broadcloth and decent hats, recognizable to each other but not to their employers.

  Malipieri was accosted by a stranger at the gate of the palace. The porter, faithfully obedient to his orders, was standing inside the open postern, completely blocking it with his bulk, and when Malipieri came up the visitor was still parleying with him.

  “This gentleman is asking for you, sir,” said the old man.

  The individual bowed politely and stepped back a little. He had a singularly worthy a
ppearance, Malipieri thought, and he would have inspired confidence if employed in a bank; his thick grey hair was parted in the middle, and at first sight Malipieri felt perfectly sure that it was parted down the back. His brown eyes were very wide open, and steady, his slightly grizzled moustache was neither twisted straight up at the ends in the imperial German manner, nor straight out like a cat’s whiskers, nor waxed to fine points in the old French fashion. It grew naturally and was rather short, but it hid his mouth almost completely. The man was extremely well dressed in half-mourning, wore dark grey gloves and carried a plain black stick. He spoke quietly and Malipieri thought he recognized the Genoese accent.

  “Signor Marino Malipieri?”

  “Yes,” answered the architect, in a tone that asked the visitor’s name in return.

  “My name is Vittorio Bruni. May I have a few words with you?”

  “Certainly,” Malipieri answered, with considerable coolness.

  “Thank you. I have been much interested by your discoveries in Carthage, and if you would allow me to ask you one or two questions—”

  “Pray come in.”

  “Thanks. After you.”

  “After you,” insisted Malipieri, standing aside.

  They went in. Before shutting the postern, the porter looked out into the street. It was almost deserted. Two men were standing together near the corner, apparently arguing some question, and stopping in their walk in order to talk more at their ease, as Romans often do. The porter shut the little door with a clang, and went back to his lodge. Malipieri and his visitor were already on the stairs.

  Malipieri let himself in with a small latch-key, for he had ordered a modern patent lock to be put on his door as soon as he moved into the house. Masin appeared almost at once, however, and stood waiting for his master at the door of the sitting-room, like a large, placid mastiff. Malipieri nodded to him, and went in with Signor Bruni.

  They sat down by the open window and Signor Bruni began to talk. In a few minutes it became evident that whether the man knew anything of the subject or not he had read everything that Malipieri had written, and remembered most of it by heart. He spoke fluently and asked intelligent questions. He had never been to Carthage, he said, but he thought of making the trip to Tunis during the following winter. Yes, he was a man of leisure, though he had formerly been in business; he had a taste for archaeology, and did not think it was too late to cultivate it, in a modest way, for his own pleasure. Of course, he could never hope to accomplish anything of importance, still less to become famous like Malipieri. It was merely a taste, and was better than nothing as an interest in life.

  Malipieri protested that he was not famous, but agreed with Signor Bruni about other matters. It was better to follow a serious pursuit than to do nothing with one’s life.

  “Or to dash into politics,” suggested Bruni carelessly, as if he had thought of trying that.

  Perhaps he had heard of Malipieri’s republican newspaper, but if he had thought of drawing the young man into conversation about it, he was disappointed. Malipieri continued to agree with him, listening attentively to all he said without once looking bored.

  “And now,” continued Bruni presently, “if it is not indiscreet, may I ask whether you have any new field of discovery in view?”

  The phrases ran along as if they had been all prepared beforehand. The accent was now decidedly Genoese, and Malipieri, who was a Venetian, disliked it.

  “Not at present,” he said. “I have undertaken a little professional work in Rome, and I am trying to learn more about the Phoenician language.”

  “That is beyond me!” Bruni smiled pleasantly.

  Malipieri looked at him a moment.

  “If you are going to look into Carthaginian antiquities,” he said, with much gravity, “I strongly advise you to study Phoenician.”

  “Dear me!” exclaimed Bruni with a sigh of regret, “I had hoped it might not be necessary.”

  He rose to take his leave, but as if seeing the bookshelves for the first time, asked permission to look at their contents. Malipieri saw that his glance ran sharply along the titles of the volumes, and that he was reading them as quickly as he could.

  “I suppose you live here quite alone,” he said.

  “Yes. I have a servant.”

  “Of course. They tell me that Baron Volterra has not decided what he will do with the palace, and will not give a lease of it to any one.”

  “I do not know what he means to do,” answered Malipieri, looking at the straight part down the back of his worthy visitor’s hair, as the latter bent to look at the books.

  “I suppose he lends you this apartment, as a friend,” said Bruni.

  “No. I pay rent for it.”

  Signor Bruni was becoming distinctly inquisitive, thought Malipieri, who answered coldly. Possibly the visitor perceived the hint, for he now finally took his leave. In spite of his protestations Malipieri went all the way downstairs with him, and let him out himself, just as the porter came out of his lodge at the sound of their footsteps.

  Signor Bruni bowed a last time, and then walked briskly away. By force of habit, the porter looked up and down the street before shutting the door after him, and he was somewhat surprised to see that the two men whom he had noticed half an hour earlier had only just finished their argument and turned to go on as Signor Bruni passed them. Then the porter watched them all three till they disappeared round the corner. At the same moment, from the opposite direction, Toto reached the door of the palace, and greeted the porter with a rough good-evening.

  “I have forgotten the name of this palace,” he added, by way of a joke, meaning that he had not been called to do any work for a long time. “Perhaps you can tell me what it is called.”

  “It used to be a madhouse,” returned the porter in the same strain. “Now that the madmen are gone, a mole lives here. I kept the door open for the lunatics, and they all got out. I keep it shut for the mole, when he does not shut it himself.”

  “I will come in and smoke a pipe with you,” said Toto. “We will talk of old times.”

  The porter shook his head, and blocked the way.

  “Not if you were the blessed soul of my father come back from the dead,” he said. “The Baron’s instructions are to let no one in without the mole’s orders.”

  “But I am an old friend,” objected Toto.

  “Not if you were my mother, and the Holy Father, and Saint Peter, and all the souls of Purgatory at once,” answered the porter.

  “May an apoplexy seize you!” observed Toto pleasantly, and he went off, his pipe in his mouth.

  The porter shrugged his shoulders at the imprecation, shut the door reluctantly, and went in to supper. Upstairs, Malipieri stood at his open window, smoking and watching the old fountain in the court. It was evening, and a deep violet light filled the air and was reflected in the young man’s bronzed face. He was very thoughtful now, and was not aware that he heard the irregular splash of the water in the dark basin at the feet of the statue of Hercules, and the eager little scream of the swallows as they shot past him, upward to the high old eaves, where their young were, and downwards almost to the gravel of the court, and in wide circles and madly sudden curves. The violet light faded softly, and the dusk drank the last drop of it, and the last swallow disappeared under the eaves; but still Malipieri leaned upon the stone window-sill, looking down.

  For a long time he thought of Signor Bruni. He wondered whether he had ever seen the man before, or whether the face only seemed familiar because it was the type of a class of faces all more or less alike, all intensely respectable and not without refinement, expressing a grave reticence that did not agree with the fluent speech, and a polite reserve at odds with the inquisitive nature that revealed itself.

  Malipieri was inclined to think he had never met Bruni, but somehow the latter recalled the hot times in Milan, and his short political career, and the association was not to the man’s advantage. He could not recall the name
at all. It was like any other, and rather especially unobtrusive. Anybody might be called Vittorio Bruni, and Vittorio Bruni might be anybody, from a senator to a shoemaker; but if he had been a senator, or any political personage, Malipieri would have heard of him.

  There was something very odd, too, about his knowledge of Carthaginian antiquities, which was entirely limited to the contents of Malipieri’s own pamphlets. He knew nothing of the Egyptians and very little about the Greeks, beyond what Malipieri had necessarily written about both. He had talked much as a man does who has read up an unfamiliar subject in order to make a speech about it, and though the speech is skilful, an expert can easily detect the shallowness of attainment behind it.

  There could be only one reason why any one should take so much trouble; the object was evidently to make Malipieri’s acquaintance, in the absence of an ordinary introduction. And yet Signor Bruni had quite forgotten to give his card with his address, as almost any Italian would have done under the circumstances, whether he expected the meeting to be followed by another or not. Malipieri spent most of his time in his rooms, but he knew very well that he might go about Rome for weeks and not come across the man again.

  He recalled the whole conversation. He had in the first place expected that Bruni would be inquisitive about the palace, and perhaps ask to be shown over it, but it was only at the last that he had put one or two questions which suggested an interest in the building, and then he had at once taken the hint given him by Malipieri’s cold tone, and had not persisted. On the other hand he had looked carefully at the titles of the books on the shelves, as if in search of something.

  Then Malipieri was conscious again of the association, in his own mind, between the man’s personality and his own political experiences, and he suddenly laughed aloud.

  “What a precious fool I am!” he thought. “The man is nothing but a detective!”

  The echo of his laugh came back to him from across the dusky court in rather a ghostly way.

  The evening air was all at once chilly, and he shut his window and called for Masin, who instantly appeared with a lamp. Masin was always ready, and, indeed, possessed many qualities excellent in a faithful servant, among which gratitude to Malipieri held a high place.