_By_ CHARLES CALDWELL DOBIE
From _Harper’s Magazine_
_Copyright, 1918, by Harper and Brothers._
_Copyright, 1919, by Charles Caldwell Dobie._
“It happened just as I have said,” Fernet reiterated, tossing the
wine-dregs from his glass.
The company at the table looked instinctively toward the kitchen. Berthe
was bringing a fresh pot of coffee. They all followed Fernet’s example,
lifting their empty glasses for her to serve them in their turn.
The regular boarders of the Hôtel de France, after the fashion of folks
who find their meal a duty to be promptly despatched, had departed, but
the transients still lingered over their _café noir_ and cognac in the
hope that something exciting might materialize.
As the sound of Fernet’s voice died away, a man who had been sitting in
an extreme corner of the room scraped back his chair and rose. Fernet
looked up. The man was a hunchback, and, instead of paying for his meal
and leaving, he crossed over and said to Fernet, in the most perfect
French imaginable:
“I see, my young fellow, that you are discussing something of interest
with your friends here. Would it be impertinent for me to inquire into
the subject?”
Fernet drew out a chair for the newcomer, who seated himself.
“By no means. We were discussing a murder and suicide. The murdered man
was an Italian fisherman who lodged at the Hôtel des Alpes Maritimes,
the suicide was a musician named Suvaroff.”
“Ah,” said the hunchback, cracking his fingers. “Why a murder and
suicide? Why not two murders?”
“Because,” returned Fernet, pompously, “it was abundantly proved to the
contrary. This man Suvaroff suffered from neuralgia; the Italian
fisherman was given to playing the accordion at all hours of the night.
Suvaroff was, in addition, a musician—a high-strung person. The
Italian’s playing was abominable—even his landlady says as much. In
short, Suvaroff deliberately killed this simple-minded peasant because
of his music. Then, in a fit of remorse, he killed himself. I leave it
to any one here to dispute the fact. Besides, I was on the coroner’s
jury. I should know what I am talking about.”
“Oh, without doubt,” agreed the hunchback, smiling amiably. “But, as I
remember, the knives in both cases were plunged hilt-deep into the backs
of the victims. One does not usually commit suicide in this fashion.”
Fernet coldly eyed the curiously handsome face of his antagonist. “It
seems you know more about this thing than a coroner’s jury,” he sneered.
“It seems I do—granting that such an important item was left out of the
evidence.”
“Then, my good sir, will you be good enough to tell me who _did_ kill
Suvaroff, since you do not admit that he died by his own hand?”
The hunchback cracked his fingers again. “That is simple enough.
Suvaroff was killed by the same person who stabbed the Italian.”
“And who might that be, pray?”
The hunchback rose with a malignant smile. “Ah, if I told you that you
would know as much as I do, my friend.”
And with that he walked calmly over to the proprietor, put down
thirty-five cents for his meal upon the counter, and without another
word left the room.
A silence fell upon the group. Everybody stared straight ahead, avoiding
the eye of his neighbor. It was as if something too terrifying to be
remarked had passed them.
Finally, a thick-set man at Fernet’s right, with a purple wart on his
cheek, said, uneasily, “Come, I must be going.”
The others rose; only Fernet remained seated.
“What,” said another, “haven’t you finished?”
“Yes,” returned Fernet, gloomily, “but I am in no hurry.”
He sat there for an hour, alone, holding his head between his hands.
Berthe cleared off the soiled plates, wiped the oilcloth-covered tables,
began noisily to lay the pewter knives and forks for the morning meal.
At this Fernet stirred himself and, looking up at her, said:
“Tell me who was the hunchback who came and sat with us? Does he live
here—in San Francisco?”
“His name is Flavio Minetti,” she replied, setting the lid back upon an
uncovered sugar-bowl. “Beyond that I know nothing. But they tell me that
he is quite mad.”
“Ah, that accounts for many things,” said Fernet, smiling with recovered
assurance. “I must say he is strangely fascinating.”
Berthe looked at him sharply and shrugged. “For my part, he makes me
shiver every time I see him come in the door. When I serve him my hand
shakes. And he continually cracks his fingers and says to me: ‘Come,
Berthe, what can I do to make you smile? Would you laugh if I were to
dance for you? I would give half my life only to see you laughing. Why
are you so sad?’ ... No, I wish he would never come again.”
“Nevertheless, I should like to see him once more.”
“He comes always on Thursdays for chicken.”
“Thanks,” said Fernet, as he put on his hat.
――――
Fernet walked directly to his lodgings that night. He had a room in an
old-fashioned house on the east side of Telegraph Hill. The room was
shabby enough, but it caught glimpses of the bay and there was a gnarled
pepper-tree that came almost to its windows and gave Fernet a sense of
eternal, though grotesque, spring. Even his landlord was unusual—a
professional beggar who sat upon the curb, with a ridiculous French
poodle for company, and sold red and green pencils.
This landlord was sitting out by the front gate as Fernet entered.
“Ah, Pollitto,” said Fernet, halting before the old man and snapping his
fingers at the poodle who lay crouched before his master, “I see you are
enjoying this fine warm night.”
“You are wrong,” replied the beggar. “I am merely sitting here hoping
that some one will come along and rent my front room.”
“Then it is vacant?”
“Naturally,” replied the old man, with disagreeable brevity, and Fernet
walked quickly up to his room.
“Why do I live in such a place?” he asked himself, surveying the four
bare walls. “Everything about it is abominable, and that beggar,
Pollitto, is a scoundrel. I shall move next week.”
He crossed over to the window and flung it open. The pepper-tree lay
before him, crouching in the moonlight. He thought at once of Flavio
Minetti.
“He is like this pepper-tree,” he said, aloud, “beautiful even in his
deformity. No, I would not trade this pepper-tree for a dozen of the
straightest trees in the world.” He stepped back from the window, and,
lighting a lamp, set it upon a tottering walnut table. “Ah, André
Fernet,” he mused, chidingly, “you are always snared by what is unusual.
You should pray to God that such folly does not lead you to disaster.”
He went to the window and looked out again. The pepper-tree seemed to be
bending close to the ground, as if seeking to hide something. Presently
the wind parted its branches and the moonlight fell at its feet like a
silver moth before a blackened candle.
André Fernet shivered and sighed. “Yes,” he repeated, again and again,
“they are alike. They both are at once beautiful and hideous and they
have strange secrets.... Well, I shall go on Thursday again, and maybe I
shall see him. Who knows, if I am discreet he may tell me who killed
this ridiculous musician Suvaroff.”
And with that he suddenly blew out the light.
On the next Thursday night, when Fernet entered the dining-room of the
Hôtel de France his glance rested immediately upon Flavio Minetti. To
his surprise the hunchback rose, drawing a chair out as he did so, and
beckoning Fernet to be seated next him. For a moment Fernet hesitated,
Berthe was just bringing on the soup.
“What! Are you afraid?” she said, mockingly, as she passed.
This decided Fernet. He went and sat beside Minetti without further ado.
“Ah, I was expecting you!” cried the hunchback, genially, as he passed
the radishes.
“Expecting _me_?” returned Fernet. His voice trembled, though he tried
to speak boldly.
“Yes. Women are not the only inquisitive animals in the world. What will
you have—some wine?”
Fernet allowed Minetti to fill his glass.
Other boarders began to drift in. Minetti turned his back upon Fernet,
speaking to a new-comer at his left. He did not say another word all
evening.
Fernet ate and drank in silence. “What did I come for and why am I
staying?” he kept asking himself. “This man is mocking me. First of all,
he greets me as if I were his boon companion, and next he insults me
openly and before everybody in the room. Even Berthe has noticed it and
is smiling. As a matter of fact, he knows no more than I do about
Suvaroff’s death.”
But he continued to sit beside the hunchback all through the meal, and
as fruit was put on the table he touched Minetti on the arm and said,
“Will you join me in a _café royal_?”
“Not here ... a little later. I can show you a place where they really
know how to make them. And, besides, there are tables for just two. It
is much more private.”
Fernet’s heart bounded and sank almost in one leap. “Let us go now,
then,” he said, eagerly.
“As you wish,” replied Minetti.
Fernet paid for two dinners, and they reached for their hats.
“Where are you going?” asked Berthe, as she opened the door.
Fernet shrugged. “I am in his hands,” he answered, sweeping his arm
toward Minetti.
“You mean you will be,” muttered the hunchback, in an undertone.
Fernet heard him distinctly.
“Perhaps I had better leave him while there is yet time!” flashed
through his mind. But the next instant he thought, contemptuously: “What
harm can he do me? Why, his wrist is no bigger than a pullet’s wing.
Bah! You are a fool, André Fernet!”
――――
They stepped out into the street. A languorous note was in the air; the
usual cool wind from the sea had not risen. A waning moon silvered the
roof-tops, making a pretense of hiding its face in the thin line of
smoke above Telegraph Hill.
The hunchback led the way, trotting along in a fashion almost Oriental.
At the end of the second block he turned abruptly into a wine-shop;
Fernet followed. They found seats in a far corner, away from the
billiard-tables. A waiter came forward. They gave their orders.
“Be sure,” said Minetti to the waiter, “that we have plenty of anisette
and cognac in the coffee.”
The man flicked a towel rather contemptuously and made no answer.
“Now,” Minetti continued, turning a mocking face toward Fernet, “what
can I do for you, my friend?”
Fernet was filled with confusion. “I ... you ...” he stammered. “Really,
there is nothing. Believe me—”
“Nonsense,” interrupted Minetti. “You wish to know who killed Suvaroff.
But I warn you, my friend, it is a dreadful thing to share such a
secret.”
He looked at Fernet intently. The younger man shuddered. “Nevertheless,
I should like to know,” Fernet said, distinctly.
“Well, then, since you are so determined—it was I who killed him.”
Fernet stared, looked again at the hunchback’s puny wrists, and began to
laugh. “_You!_ Do you take me for a fool?” And as he said this he threw
back his head and laughed until even the billiard-players stopped their
game and looked around at him.
“What are you laughing at?” asked the hunchback, narrowing his eyes.
Fernet stopped. He felt a sudden chill as if some one had opened a door.
“I am laughing at you,” he answered.
“I am sorry for that,” said Minetti, dryly.
“Why?”
The hunchback leaned forward confidentially. “Because I kill every one
who laughs at me. It—it is a little weakness I have.”
The waiter came with two glasses of steaming coffee. He put them down on
the table, together with a bottle of cognac and a bottle of anisette.
“Ah, that is good!” cried the hunchback, rubbing his hands together.
“The proprietor is my friend. He is going to let us prepare our own
poison!”
Fernet felt himself shivering. “Come,” he thought, “this will never do!
The man is either mad or jesting.” He reached for the anisette.
“Let me pour it for you,” suggested Flavio Minetti. “Your hand is
shaking so that you will spill half of it on the floor.”
The hunchback’s voice had a note of pity in it. Fernet relinquished his
hold upon the bottle.
“Don’t look so frightened,” continued Minetti. “I shall not kill you
here. The proprietor is a friend of mine, and, besides—”
“What nonsense!” cried Fernet, with a ghastly smile. “But I must
confess, you did make my blood run cold for a minute.”
Minetti stirred some cognac into his glass. “And, besides,” he finished,
coldly, “I give everybody a sporting chance. It adds to the game.”
――――
That night André Fernet was restless. He lay on his bed looking out at
the blinking lights of the harbor. “I must stop drinking coffee,” he
muttered to himself.
Finally he fell asleep, and when he did he had a strange dream. It
seemed that the pepper-tree outside his window suddenly began to move in
the night breeze and its long green boughs became alive, twisting like
the relentless tentacles of a devil-fish. Its long green boughs became
alive, crawling along the ground, flinging themselves into the air,
creeping in at André Fernet’s open window. He lay upon the bed as he had
done earlier in the evening, watching the harbor lights. Slowly the
green boughs writhed over the faded carpet, scaled the bedpost and fell
upon the bed. André Fernet waited, motionless. He felt the green
tentacles close about his legs, clasp his hands, slide shudderingly
across his throat. Yet he made no move to free himself. It was only when
he felt a breath upon his cheek that he turned slightly, and instead of
the tentacle-like boughs of the pepper-tree he fancied himself staring
down at the hands of Flavio Minetti.... He awoke with a start. The sun
was pouring in at the open window. He got up quickly. A noisy clatter
issued from the passageway. Fernet opened his door. Two men were
carrying a trunk up the stairs. Pollitto, the beggar, walked behind.
“Ah, I see you have rented your front room,” said Fernet, stepping out.
“Yes,” returned the other. “It was taken as early as six o’clock this
morning—by a hunchback.”
Fernet stopped breathing. “A hunchback? Was his name Flavio Minetti?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
Fernet tried to smile. “He is a friend of mine,” he answered, as he
walked back into his room. “Perhaps it would be better if I moved away,”
he thought. “I do not like this room. Heaven knows why I have stayed
this long. Is this fellow Minetti really mad or merely making sport of
me? I should not like to have him think that I am afraid of him. As for
his story about Suvaroff, that is, of course, ridiculous. If I thought
otherwise I should go at once to the.... No, it is all a joke! I shall
stay where I am. I shall not have it said that a little, mad, puny,
twisted fellow frightened André Fernet out of his lodgings. Besides, it
will be curious to watch his little game. What a beautiful morning it
is, after all! And the pepper-tree—how it glistens in the sun! I should
miss that pepper-tree if I moved away. But I must stop drinking _cafés
royal_. They upset one. I do not know whether it is the coffee, or the
cognac, or the anisette, or all three. Of course, that dream I had
toward morning means nothing—but such dreams are unpleasant. I hate this
place. But I shall not move now. No, I shall wait and see what happens.”
――――
Fernet did not see Minetti for some days. Indeed, he had dismissed the
whole thing from his mind, when, one night, returning home early to get
out of a drizzle, who should stop him on the stairway but the hunchback.
“Ah, so here you are!” called out Fernet, gaily, in spite of his rapidly
beating heart. “I have been waiting for you to call on me ever since I
heard that you were lodging under the same roof.”
“I have been busy,” replied the hunchback, laconically.
Fernet threw open his bedroom door and waved Minetti in.
“Busy?” he echoed, as he struck a light. “And what do you find that is
so absorbing, pray?”
“You know my specialty,” replied Minetti, flinging off his cap.
Fernet looked up sharply. A malignant look had crept into the
hunchback’s face.
“Oh, there is no doubt of it, he is quite mad!” said Fernet to himself.
Then aloud: “Yes, I have been wanting to talk to you more about this.
Take a seat and I shall make some coffee. For instance, do you always
employ the knife in despatching your—”
“Scarcely,” interrupted Minetti, quickly. “Slow poison has its
fascinations. There is a very delicate joy in watching a gradual
decline. It is like watching a green leaf fading before the breath of
autumn. First a sickly pallor, then a yellowing, finally the sap dries
completely, a sharp wind, a fluttering in the air, and it is all over. I
have tried nearly every slow way—except mental murder. I fancy that,
too, would be exquisite.”
“Mental murder.... I do not understand.”
Minetti stretched himself out and yawned. “Accomplishing the thing
without any weapon save the mind.”
Fernet picked up the coffee-pot and laughed. “Why, my dear fellow, it is
too absurd! The thing cannot be done. You see I am laughing at you
again, but no matter.”
“No, as you say, it is no matter. You can die only once.”
Fernet’s laughter stopped instantly. He went on with his preparation for
coffee. Minetti changed the subject.
It turned out that there was no sugar in the cracked bowl. Fernet was
putting on his hat to go out for some, when the hunchback stopped him.
“Sugar will not be necessary,” he said. And as he spoke he drew a vial
from his vest pocket and laid it upon the table beside the cups. “You
know what these are, of course.”
“Saccharine pellets?” inquired Fernet as he threw aside his hat.
Minetti replied with a grunt. Fernet poured out the coffee, set a spoon
in each saucer, laid three French rolls upon a blue plate. Then he sat
down.
“Permit me!” said Minetti, reaching for the vial and rolling a tiny
pellet into his palm.
Fernet held up his cup; the hunchback dropped the pellet into it. Then
he corked the vial tightly and laid it aside.
“You forgot to serve yourself,” said Fernet.
“So I did!” answered Minetti, nonchalantly. “Well, no matter. I very
often drink my coffee so—without sweetening.”
Fernet drew back suddenly. Could it be possible that.... The hunchback
was staring at him, an ironical smile was on his lips. Fernet shuddered.
“Drink your coffee!” Minetti commanded, sneeringly. “You are on the
verge of a chill.”
Fernet obeyed meekly. He felt for all the world like an animal caught in
a trap. He tried to collect his thoughts. What had the hunchback been
talking about?
“Slow poison!” muttered Fernet, inaudibly to himself.
“What is that you are saying?” demanded the other.
“You were speaking of slow poison. How do you go about it?”
“Oh, that is easy! For instance, once in London I lodged next door to my
victim. We became capital friends. And he was always calling me in for a
bite of something to eat. Nothing elaborate—a bun and a cup of tea, or
coffee and cake. Very much as we are doing now. He died in six months.
It is no trick, you know, to poison a man who eats and drinks with
you—especially drinks!”
As he said this the hunchback reached for the coffee-pot and poured
Fernet another cupful. Then he uncorked the vial again and dropped a
pellet into the steaming liquid.
“I do not think that I wish any more,” protested Fernet.
“Nonsense! You are still shivering like an old woman with the palsy. Hot
coffee will do you good.”
“No,” said Fernet, desperately, “I never drink more than one cup at a
sitting. It keeps me awake, and next morning my hand shakes and I am fit
for nothing. I need a steady hand in my business.”
“And what may that be, pray?”
“At present I am a draftsman. Some day, if I live long enough, I hope to
be an architect.”
“If you live long enough? You forget that you have laughed at _me_, my
friend.”
Fernet tried to appear indifferent. “What a droll fellow you are!” he
cried, with sudden gaiety, rubbing his hands together. And without
thinking, he reached for his coffee-cup and downed the contents in
almost one gulp. He laid the cup aside quickly. He could feel the sweat
starting out upon his forehead.
“There, you see,” said Minetti, “the coffee has done you good already.
You are perspiring, and that is a good sign. A hot drink at the right
moment works wonders.”
――――
The next morning Pollitto stopped Fernet as he swung out the front gate
to his work.
“What is the matter with you?” exclaimed the beggar, in a surprised
tone.
“Why ... what?” demanded Fernet, in a trembling voice. “Do I look so
...? Pray, tell me, is there anything unusual about me?”
“Why, your face.... Have you looked at yourself in the glass? Your skin
is the color of stale pastry.”
Fernet tried to laugh. “It is nothing. I have been drinking too much
coffee lately. I must stop it.”
It was a fine morning. The sun was shining and the air was brisk and
full of little rippling breezes. The bay lay like a blue-green peacock
ruffling its gilded feathers. The city had a genial, smiling
countenance. But Fernet was out of humor with all this full-blown
content. He had spent a wretched night—not sleepless, but full of
disturbing dreams. Dreams about Minetti and his London neighbor and the
empty sugar-bowl. All night he had dreamed about this empty sugar-bowl.
It seemed that as soon as he had it filled Minetti would slyly empty it
again. He tried stowing sugar away in his pockets, but when he put his
hand in to draw out a lump a score or more of pellets spilled over the
floor. Then he remembered saying:
“I shall call on Minetti’s London neighbor. Maybe he will have some
sugar.”
He walked miles and miles, and finally beat upon a strange door. A man
wrapped in a black coat up to his eyebrows opened to his knock.
“Are you Flavio Minetti’s London neighbor?” he demanded, boldly.
The figure bowed. Fernet drew the cracked sugar-bowl from under his arm.
“Will you oblige me with a little sugar?” he asked, more politely.
The black-cloaked figure bowed and disappeared. Presently he came back.
Fernet took the sugar-bowl from him. It struck him that the bowl felt
very light. He looked down at his hands. The bowl had disappeared; only
a glass vial lay in his palm. He removed the cork—a dozen or more tiny
round pellets fell out. He glanced up quickly at Minetti’s London
neighbor; a dreadful smile glowed through the black cloak. Fernet gave a
cry and hurled the vial in the face of his tormentor. Minetti’s London
neighbor let the black cloak fall, and André Fernet discovered that he
was staring at himself.... He awakened soon after that and found that it
was morning.
When he brushed his hair his hand had shaken so that the brush fell
clattering to the floor. And he had spilled the cream for his morning
coffee over the faded strip of carpet before the bureau. It had ended by
his eating no breakfast at all. But he had drunk glass after glass of
cold water.
After Pollitto’s words he trembled more and more like a man with the
ague, and before every saloon-door mirror he halted and took a brief
survey of his face. Pollitto was right—his skin was dead and full of
unhealthy pallor. It was plain that he could not work in his present
condition. His trembling fingers could scarcely hold a pencil, much less
guide it through the precise demands of a drafting-board. He decided to
go to the library and read. But the books on architecture which always
enthralled him could not hold his shifting attention. Finally in despair
he went up to the librarian and said:
“Have you any books on poison?”
The woman eyed him with a cold, incurious glance.
“Historical or medical?” she snapped out, as she went on stamping
mysterious numbers in the pile of books before her.
“Both!”
She consulted a catalogue and made a list for him.
He sat all day devouring books which the librarian had recommended. He
did not even go out for lunch. He read historical and romantic instances
with a keen, morbid relish; but when it came to the medical books his
heart quickened and he followed causes and effects breathlessly. By
nightfall he had a relentless knowledge of every poison in the calendar.
He knew what to expect from arsenic or strychnine or vitriol. He learned
which poisons destroyed tissues, which acted as narcotics, which were
irritants. He identified the hemlock, the horse-chestnut, the deadly
toadstools. In short, he absorbed and retained everything on the
subject. It seemed that the world teemed with poisons; one could be sure
of nothing. Even beautiful flowers were not to be trusted.
He was so upset by all he had read that he could scarcely eat dinner. He
went to an obscure _pension_ in a wretched basement, where he was sure
he would be unknown, and, after two or three mouthfuls of soup and a
spoonful of rice boiled with tomato, he rose, paid for his meal, and
went out to tramp up and down past the tawdry shops of middle Kearny
Street. He was trotting aimlessly in the direction of Market Street when
he felt a tug at his coat-sleeve. He turned. Minetti was smiling
genially up at him.
“Come,” said the hunchback, “what is your hurry? Have you had coffee
yet? I was thinking that—”
Fernet’s heart sank at once. And yet he managed to say boldly: “I have
given up drinking coffee. You can see for yourself what a wretched
complexion I have. And to-day I have scarcely eaten.”
“Pooh!” cried Minetti. “A cup of coffee will do you good.”
Fernet began to draw away in futile terror. “No!” he protested, with
frightened vehemence. “No, I tell you! I won’t drink the stuff! It is
useless for you to—”
Minetti began to laugh with scornful good-humor. “What has come over
you?” he drawled, half-closing his eyes. “Are you afraid?”
And as he said this Fernet glanced instinctively at the puny wrists, no
bigger than a pullet’s wing, and replied, boldly:
“Afraid? Of what? I told you last night I need a steady hand in my
business, and to-day I have not been able to do any work.”
Minetti’s mirth softened into genial acquiescence. “Well, maybe you are
right. But I must say you are not very companionable. Perhaps the coffee
you have been drinking has not been made properly. You should take
_something_. You do look badly. A glass of brandy?... No?... Ah, I have
it—coffee made in the Turkish fashion. Have you ever drunk that?”
“No,” replied Fernet, helplessly, wondering all the time why he was
foolish enough to tell the truth.
“Well, then,” announced the hunchback, confidently, “we shall cross over
to Third Street and have some Turkish coffee. I know a Greek café where
they brew a cup that would tempt the Sultan himself. Have you ever seen
it made? They use coffee pounded to a fine powder—a teaspoonful to a
cup, and sugar in the same proportion. It is all put in together and
brought to a boil. The result is indescribable! Really, you are in for a
treat.”
“If it is sweetened in the making,” flashed through Fernet’s mind, “at
least we shall have no more of that pellet business.”
“Yes—the result is quite indescribable,” Minetti was repeating, “and
positively no bad effects.”
And as he said this he slipped his arm into Fernet’s and guided him with
gentle firmness toward the Greek café in question. Fernet felt suddenly
helpless and incapable of offering the slightest objection.
A girl took their orders. She had a freckled nose and was frankly Irish.
Naturally, she did not fit the picture, and Fernet could see that she
was scornful of the whole business.
“Two coffees ... medium,” Minetti repeated, decisively. “And will you
have a sweet with it? They sell taffy made of sesame seeds and honey. Or
you can have Turkish delight or a pastry dusted with powdered sugar.
Really they are all quite delicious.”
Fernet merely shrugged. Minetti ordered Turkish delight. The girl wiped
some moisture from the marble table-top and walked toward the
coffee-shelf.
“So you were not able to work to-day?” Minetti began, affably. “How did
you put in the time?”
“At the library, reading.”
“Something droll? A French novel or—”
“Books on _poison_!” Fernet shot out with venomous triumph. “I know more
than I did yesterday.”
“How distressing!” purred Minetti. “Ignorance is more invulnerable than
one fancies. Of course we are taught otherwise, but knowledge, you
remember, was the beginning of all trouble. But you choose a
fascinating, subject. Some day when we get better acquainted I shall
tell you all I know about it. Poison is such a subtle thing. It is
everywhere—in the air we breathe, in the water we drink, in the food we
eat. And it is at once swift and sluggish, painful and stupefying,
obvious and incapable of analysis. It is like a beautiful woman, or a
great joy, or love itself.”
Fernet glanced up sharply. The hunchback had slid forward in his seat
and his eyes glowed like two shaded pools catching greedily at the
yellow sunlight of midday. Fernet shuddered and looked about the room.
Groups of swarthy men were drinking coffee, or sipping faintly red
draughts of cherry syrup and sweet soda. At a near-by table a group of
six shuffled cards and marked their scores upon a slate. And, of course,
there were those who played backgammon, rattling the dice and making
exaggerated gestures as they spurred on their adversaries with genial
taunts.
The girl came back carrying cups of thick steaming coffee and soft
lemon-colored sweetmeats speared with two tiny silver forks. She set the
tray down. Minetti reached for his coffee greedily, but Fernet sat back
in his seat and allowed the waitress to place the second cup before him.
As she did so the table shook suddenly and half of the hot liquid
spilled over on the marble tabletop. Fernet jumped up to escape the
scalding trickle; the girl gave an apologetic scream; Minetti laughed
strangely.
“It is all my fault!” cried the hunchback. “What stupidity! Pray be
seated. My young woman, will you give the gentleman this coffee of mine?
And get me another.”
“Pardon me,” Fernet protested, “but I cannot think of such a thing!” And
with that he attempted to pass the coffee in question back to Minetti.
But the hunchback would have none of it. Fernet broke into a terrified
sweat.
“He has dropped poison into it!” he thought, in sudden panic. “Otherwise
why should he be so anxious to have me drink it? He kicked the table
deliberately, too. And this cup of his—why was it not spilled also? No,
he was prepared—it is all a trick!”
“Come, come, my friend,” broke in Minetti, briskly, “drink your coffee
while it is still hot! Do not wait for me. I shall be served presently.
And try the sweetmeats; they are delicious.”
“I am not hungry,” replied Fernet, sullenly.
“No? Well, what of that? Sweetmeats and coffee are not matters of
hunger. Really, you are more droll than you imagine!” Minetti burst into
a terrifying laugh.
“He thinks I am afraid!” muttered Fernet.
And out of sheer bravado he lifted the cup to his lips. Minetti stopped
laughing, but a wide smile replaced his diabolical mirth. The girl
brought fresh coffee to the hunchback. He sipped it with frank
enjoyment, but he did not once take his gaze from Fernet’s pale face.
“Well,” thought Fernet, “one cup of poison more or less will not kill
me.... It is not as if he has made up his mind to finish me at once. He
is counting on the exquisite joys of a prolonged agony.” And he
remembered Minetti’s words: “It is like watching a green leaf fading
before the breath of autumn. First a sickly pallor, then a yellowing, a
sharp wind, a fluttering in the air....” He tossed off the coffee in one
defiant gulp. “He thinks that he has me in his power. But André Fernet
is not quite a fool. I shall go away to-morrow!”
――――
They went home as soon as Minetti finished his coffee. Fernet felt a
sudden nausea; by the time he reached his lodgings his steps were
unsteady and his head reeled. Minetti was kindness itself.
“Let me help you into bed,” he insisted. “You must have a congestion.
Presently I shall heat some water and give you a hot gin.”
Fernet was too sick to protest. Minetti started the gas-stove and filled
the kettle and went into his room for gin. Fernet dragged himself out of
his clothes and crawled in between the sheets. Minetti came back. Fernet
lay with his eyes half-closed, shivering. Finally the water boiled, and
the hunchback brought Fernet a huge tumbler of gin and water with bits
of lemon-peel and cloves floating in it. It tasted so good that Fernet
forgot his terror for the moment. But when the tumbler was empty he felt
helpless; he could scarcely lift his arms; so he lay flat upon his back,
staring up at the ceiling. He tried to recall scraps of what he had been
reading all afternoon. What was the name of the poison that left one
paralyzed? He could not remember. He found his movements becoming more
and more difficult; he could scarcely turn in bed. Minetti brewed
another toddy. Fernet could not hold the glass! He tried to push the
tumbler away from his lips, but his efforts were useless. Minetti
hovered above him with a bland, gentle smile, and Fernet felt the warm
liquid trickling into his mouth and down his throat. In the midst of all
this he lost consciousness.... Once or twice during the night Fernet had
a wakeful interlude. Whenever he opened his eyes he saw Minetti sitting
before the open window, gazing down at the twisted pepper-tree.
“Yes, they are both alike!” passed dimly through his mind. “They both
are at once beautiful and hideous and they have strange secrets! It is
no use, I must go away—to-morrow.”
In the morning Minetti was standing by the bed. “I have sent for the
doctor,” he said. But his voice sounded far away.
――――
The doctor came shortly after ten o’clock. He was a little wizened,
dried-up old man with a profound air.
“He is a fraud!” thought Fernet. “He knows nothing!”
“Ah,” said the doctor, putting a sly finger against his sharp nose, “our
friend here has a nervous collapse. He should have a nurse!”
“A nurse!” exclaimed Minetti, with indignation. “And, pray, what do you
call me? Do you not think that—”
“Well, we shall see! we shall see!” replied the doctor, rubbing his
hands together. “But he will need all sorts of delicacies and—”
Minetti moistened his lips with sleek satisfaction. “You cannot name a
dish that I am not able to prepare.”
“How about a custard? To-day he should eat something light.”
“A custard is simplicity itself,” answered the hunchback, and he cracked
his fingers.
Minetti went out with the doctor, and came back shortly, carrying eggs
and a bottle of vanilla extract and sugar. Fernet lay helpless, watching
him bustling about. Finally the delicacy was made and set away in a pan
of water to cool. At noon Minetti brought a blue bowl filled with
custard to the bedside. It looked inviting, but Fernet shook his head.
“I am not hungry,” he lied.
The hunchback set the bowl down on a chair so that Fernet gazed upon it
all day. The hunchback did not leave the room. He sat before the open
window, reading from a thick book. Toward nightfall Fernet said to him:
“What do you find so interesting?”
Minetti darted a sardonic glance at his patient. “A book on _poison_. I
did not realize that I had grown so rusty on the subject. Why, I
remember scarcely enough to poison a field-mouse!”
He rose and crossed over to the bedside. “Do you not feel ready for the
custard?”
Fernet cast a longing eye upon the yellow contents of the blue bowl.
“No. To tell the truth, I never eat it.”
Minetti shrugged.
“But I should like a glass of water.”
The hunchback drew water from the faucet. Fernet watched him like a
ferret.
“At least,” thought Fernet, “he cannot drop poison in the water
secretly. It is well that I can see every move he makes at such a time.
I should not like to die of thirst.”
A little later Minetti removed the bowl and threw out its contents.
Fernet looked on with half-closed eyes.
“What better proof could I have?” he mused. “If the custard were
harmless he would eat it himself. I must get away to-morrow.”
But the next day he felt weaker than ever, and when the doctor came
Minetti said, in answer to questions:
“I made a delicious custard yesterday and he ate every bit.... An oyster
stew? ... with milk? I shall see that he has it at noon.”
“God help me!” muttered Fernet. “Why does he lie like this? I must get
the doctor’s ear and tell him how things stand. I shall eat
nothing—nothing! Thank Heaven I can drink water without fear.”
At noon the oyster stew was ready. But Fernet would have none of it.
“Oysters make me ill!” he said.
Minetti merely shrugged as he had done the previous day, and set the
savory dish upon a chair before the bed. It exuded tantalizing odors,
until Fernet thought he would go mad with longing. Toward evening
Minetti threw out the stew. And as before, when the doctor called the
hunchback said:
“He ate a quart of stew and there were plenty of oysters in it, I can
tell you. Do you think that a chicken fried in olive-oil would be too
hearty?”
Fernet groaned. “This is horrible—horrible!” he wept to himself. “I
shall die like a starving rat with toasted cheese dangling just beyond
reach. God help me to rouse myself! Surely the effects of the poison he
has given me must soon wear off.... There he is, reading from that big
book again. Perhaps he is contriving a way to put poison in my water
even though I am able to watch him when he draws me a drink....
Poison—poison everywhere. It can even be administered with the prick of
a needle. Why did I read about it? Chicken fried in olive-oil ... what
torture!”
――――
The chicken fried in olive-oil was a triumph—Fernet knew all this by the
wisps of appetizing fragrance which drifted from the sizzling pan.
Minetti made a great stir over the preparations. The tender flesh had to
be rubbed thoroughly with garlic and well dusted with salt and pepper.
And a quarter of a bottle of yellow-green olive-oil was first placed in
the pan. When everything was ready and the chicken cooked to a turn,
Minetti carried it to Fernet with a great flourish. Fernet gritted his
teeth and turned his face away. He did not have the courage to invent an
excuse. Minetti laid it on the chair as usual. For two hours Fernet was
tortured with the sight of this tempting morsel, but at the sound of the
doctor’s step upon the stair the hunchback whisked away the chicken.
“His appetite?” Minetti said, echoing the doctor’s query. “Why, one
could not wish for better! Only this morning he despatched a chicken as
if it had been no more than a soft-boiled egg. As a matter of fact, he
is always hungry.”
“Well, well,” beamed the doctor, “that is the best of signs, and it
happens that way very often in nervous cases. You are a capital nurse,
my good man, and by the end of the week, if you keep feeding him up in
this fashion, he should be as hearty as a school-boy.”
At that moment Minetti was called down-stairs by his landlord. Fernet
struggled to lift himself; the doctor bent toward him.
“This hunchback,” Fernet gasped, “he is trying to poison me. Already I
have drunk four or five of his concoctions, and that is why I am in this
condition ... helpless. And he is lying when he says that I have eaten.
I have touched nothing for three days.”
The doctor laid the patient back upon the pillow.
“Poison you, my friend? And for what reason?”
“Because I laughed at him. In God’s name, Doctor, see that you keep a
straight face in his presence or else—”
The doctor patted Fernet’s hand and straightened the sliding bedclothes.
By this time Minetti had come back. The doctor and the hunchback
whispered together in a far corner. Minetti laughed and tapped his head.
At the door Fernet heard the doctor say:
“Just keep up the good work and the idea will pass. It happens that way
very often in nervous cases. I shall not look in again until the first
of next week unless....”
Fernet groaned aloud.
“I must get away to-morrow.... I must get away to-morrow!” he kept on
repeating.
――――
By the end of the week the smell of food held no temptations for Fernet.
Minetti stopped cooking. And when a glass of water was drawn from the
faucet Fernet had difficulty in forcing his vision to answer the strain
of a searching gaze.
“When my sight fails me,” Fernet thought, dimly, “I shall either die of
thirst or take the consequences.”
When the doctor finally came again Fernet closed his eyes and pretended
to be asleep.
“He seems thinner,” remarked the doctor, as if he had made an important
discovery.
“Well, to tell the truth,” replied the hunchback, “he has lost his
appetite. I have fed him milk and eggs, but—”
“There is nothing to do but be patient,” said the doctor. “Medicine will
do him no good. Just rest and food. Even a little starvation will not
hurt him. People eat too much, anyway.”
At this Fernet opened his eyes and broke into a laugh that startled even
Minetti. The doctor looked offended.
“Well, he is in your hands,” the old fraud said, pompously, to the
hunchback. “Just keep up the good work—”
Fernet laughed again.
“He is hysterical,” proclaimed the doctor, with an air of supreme
wisdom. “It happens that way very often in nervous cases.”
And he walked out with great solemnity.
“Ah, I have offended him!” thought Fernet. “Well, now they will finish
me—_together_!”
――――
There followed days of delicious weakness. Fernet lay for the most part
wrapt in the bliss of silver-blue visions. It seemed as if years were
passing. He built shining cities, received the homage of kings,
surrendered himself to the joys of ripe-lipped beauties. There were
lucid intervals shot through with the malignant presence of Minetti and
the puttering visits of the doctor. But these were like waking moments
between darkness and dawn, filled with the half-conscious joy of a
sleeper secure in the knowledge of a prolonged respite. In such moments
Fernet would stir feebly and think:
“I must get away to-morrow!”
And there would succeed almost instantly a languid ecstasy at the
thought that to-morrow was something remote and intangible that would
never come.
At times the hunchback seemed like nothing so much as a heartless gaoler
who, if he would, might open the door to some shining adventure.
Gradually this idea became fixed and elaborated. Fernet’s sight grew
dimmer and dimmer until he followed the presence of Minetti by the
sounds he made.
“He is jingling something,” Fernet would repeat, weakly. “Ah, it must be
his keys! He is searching for the one that will set me free!... Now he
is oiling the lock.... He has shut the door again. I am to be held
awhile longer.... I am a caged bird and just beyond is the pepper-tree.
It must be glistening now in the sunlight. Well, let him lock the door,
for all the good it will do him. Is not the window always open? When the
time comes I shall fly out the window and leave him here—alone. Then we
shall see who has the best of this bargain.”
And all the silver-blue visions would steal over him again, to be
pierced briefly by the arrival of the wizened doctor.
“It is he who keeps me here!” Fernet would say to himself. “If it were
not for him I could fly away—forever. Well, presently even he will lose
his power.”
One day a strange man stood at his bedside. Minetti was there also, and
the old fraud of a doctor. The strange man drew back the covers and put
his ear to Fernet’s fluttering heart and went through other tiresome
matters.... Finally he smoothed back the covers again, and as he did so
he shook his head. He spoke softly, but Fernet heard him distinctly.
“It is too late.... You should have called me sooner. He wishes to
die.... There is nothing to be done.”
“Yes, yes—it happens this way very often in nervous cases.”
“I have done my best. I have given him food and drink. I have even
starved him. But nothing seemed to do any good.”
“No,” said the stranger; “it is his mind. He has made up his mind
that.... You can do nothing with a man when....”
Fernet closed his eyes.
“A man! They think I am a man. What stupidity! Can they not see that I
am a bird?... They have gone out. He is locking the door again.... I can
hear the keys jingle.... Well, let him lock the door if it gives him any
pleasure. The window is open and to-night....”
The footsteps of the departing visitors died away. A chuckling sound
came to André Fernet and the thump of ecstatic fists brought down upon a
bare table-top. The voice of Flavio Minetti was quivering triumphantly
like the hot whisper of a desert wind through the room:
“Without any weapon save the mind! Ha! ha! ha!”
Fernet turned his face toward the wall. “He is laughing at _me_ now.
Well, let him laugh while he may.... Is not the window open? To-morrow I
shall be free ... and he?... No, _he_ cannot fly—he has a broken
wing.... The window is open, André Fernet!”