“Ay!” says Touchstone; “now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was
at home I was in a better place.”
Now am I in Algiers; the more fool I; et cetera, et cetera.
It is true that from my bedroom window in the Albany I cannot see
the moon silvering the Mediterranean, or hear the soft swish of
pepper-trees; it is true that oranges and eucalyptus do not flourish
in the Albany Court-yard as they do in this hotel garden at Mustapha
Superieur; it is true that the blue African sky and sunshine are more
agreeable than Piccadilly fogs; but, after all, his own kennel is
best for a dying dog, and his own familiar surroundings best for his
declining hours. Again, Touchstone had not the faintest idea what he was
going to do in the Forest of Arden, and I was equally ignorant of what
would befall when I landed at Algiers. He was bound on a fool adventure,
and so was I. He preferred the easy way of home, and so do I. I have
always loved Touchstone, but I have never thoroughly understood him till
now.
It rained persistently in Paris. It rained as I drove from the Gare du
Nord to my hotel. It rained all night. It rained all the day I spent
there and it rained as I drove from my hotel to the Gare de Lyon.
A cheery newspaper informed me that there were torrential rains at
Marseilles. I mentioned this to Rogers, who tried to console me by
reminding me that we were only staying at Marseilles for a few hours.
“That has nothing to do with it,” said I. “At Marseilles I always eat
bouillabaisse on the quay. Fancy eating bouillabaisse in the pouring
rain!”
As usual, Rogers could not execute the imaginative exercise I
prescribed; so he strapped my hold-all with an extra jerk.
Now, when homespun London is wet and muddy, no one minds very much.
But when silken Paris lies bedraggled with rain and mud, she is the
forlornest thing under the sky. She is a hollow-eyed pale city, the
rouge is washed from her cheeks, her hair hangs dank and dishevelled,
in her aspect is desolation, and moaning is in her voice. I have a
Sultanesque feeling with regard to Paris. So long as she is amusing and
gay I love her. I adore her mirth, her chatter, her charming ways. But
when she has the toothache and snivels, she bores me to death. I lose
all interest in her. I want to clap my hands for my slaves, in order to
bid them bring me in something less dismal in the way of fair cities.
I drove to the Rue Saint-Dominique and handed in my card and letter
of introduction at the _Ministere de la Guerre_. I was received by
the official in charge of the _Bureau des Renseignements_ with bland
politeness tempered with suspicion that I might be taking a mental
photograph of the office furniture in order to betray its secret to
a foreign government. After many comings and goings of orderlies
and underlings, he told me very little in complicated and reluctant
language. Captain Vauvenarde had resigned his commission in the
Chasseurs d'Afrique two years ago. At the present moment the Bureau had
no information to give as to his domicile.
“Have you no suggestion, Monsieur, to offer?” I asked, “whereby I may
obtain this essential information concerning Captain Vauvenarde?”
“His old comrades in the regiment might know, Monsieur.”
“And the regiment?”
He opened the _Annuaire Officiel de l'Armee Francaise_, just as I might
have done myself, and said:
“There are six regiments. One is at Blidah, another at Tlemcen, another
at Constantine, another at Tunis, another at Algiers, and another at
Mascara.”
“To which regiment, then, did Captain Vauvenarde belong?” I inquired.
He referred to one of the dossiers that the orderlies had brought him.
“The 3rd, Monsieur.”
“I should get information, then, from Tlemcen?”
“Evidently, Monsieur.”
I thanked him and withdrew, to his obvious relief. Seekers after
knowledge are unpopular even in organisations so far removed from the
Circumlocution Office as the French _Ministere de la Guerre_. However,
he had put me on the trail of my man.
During my homeward drive through the rain I reflected. I might, of
course, write to the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 3rd Regiment at Tlemcen,
and wait for his reply. But even if he answered by return of post, I
should have to remain in Paris for nearly a week.
“That,” said I, wiping from my face half a teacupful of liquid mud
which had squirted in through the cab window--“that I'll never do. I'll
proceed at once to Algiers. If I can get no news of him there, I'll go
to Tlemcen myself. In all probability I shall learn that he is residing
here in Paris, a stone's throw from the Madeleine.”
So I started for Algiers. The next morning, before the sailing of the
_Marechal Bugeaud_, one of the quaint churns styled a steamship by the
vanity of the French Company which undertakes to convey respectable folk
across the Mediterranean, I ate my bouillabaisse below an awning on the
sunny quay at Marseilles. The torrential rains had ceased. I advised
Rogers to take equivalent sustenance, as no lunch is provided on day of
sailing by the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique. I caught sight of him
in a dark corner of the restaurant--he is too British to eat in the
open air on the terrace, or perhaps too modest to have his meal in
my presence--struggling grimly with a beefsteak, and, as he is a
teetotaller, with an unimaginable, horrific liquid which he poured out
from a vessel vaguely resembling a teapot.
My meal over, and having nearly an hour to spare, I paid my bill, rose
and turned the corner of the quay into the Cannebiere, thinking to have
my coffee at one of the cafes in that thoroughfare of which the natives
say that, if Paris had a Cannebiere, it would be a little Marseilles. I
suppose for the Marseillais there is a magic in the sonorous name; for,
after all, it is but a commonplace street of shops running from the
quays into the heart of the town. It is also deformed by tramcars. I
strolled leisurely up, thinking of the many swans that were geese, and
Paradises that were building-plots, and heroes that were dummies, and
solidities that were shadows, in short, enjoying a gentle post-prandial
mood, when my eyes suddenly fell on a scene which brought me down from
such realities to the realm of the fantastic. There, a few yards in
front of me, at the outer edge of the terrace of a cafe, clad in
his eternal silk hat, frock coat, and yellow gloves, sat Professor
Anastasius Papadopoulos in earnest conversation with a seedy stranger of
repellent mien. The latter was clean-shaven and had a broken nose,
and wore a little round, soft felt hat. The dwarf was facing me. As
he caught sight of me a smile of welcome overspread his Napoleonic
features. He rose, awaited my approach, and, bareheaded, made his usual
sweeping bow, which he concluded by resting his silk hat on the pit of
his stomach. I lifted my hat politely and would have passed on, but he
stood in my path. I extended my hand. He took it after the manner of a
provincial mayor receiving royalty.
“_Couvrez-vous, Monsieur, je vous en prie_,” said I.
He covered his head. “Monsieur,” said he, “I beseech you to be seated,
and do me the honour of joining me in the coffee and excellent cognac of
this establishment.”
“Willingly,” said I, mindful of Lola's tale of the long knife which he
carried concealed about his person.
“Permit me to present my friend Monsieur Achille Saupiquet--Monsieur de
Gex, a great English statesman and a friend of that _gnadigsten Engel_,
Madame Lola Brandt.”
Monsieur Saupiquet and I saluted each other formally. I took a seat.
Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos moved a bundle of papers tied up with
pink ribbon from in front of me, and ordered coffee and cognac.
“Monsieur Saupiquet also knows Madame Brandt,” he explained.
“_Bien sur_,” said Monsieur Saupiquet. “She owes me fifteen sous.”
Papadopoulos turned on his sharply. “Will you be silent!”
The other grumbled beneath his breath.
“I hope Madame is well,” said Papadopoulos.
I said that she appeared so, when last I had the pleasure of seeing her.
The dwarf turned to his friend.
“Monsieur has also done my cats the honour of attending a rehearsal.
He has seen Hephaestus, and his tears have dropped in sympathy over the
irreparable loss of my beautiful Santa Bianca.”
“I hope the talented survivors,” said I, “are enjoying their usual
health.”
“My daily bulletin from my pupil and assistant, Quast, contains
excellent reports. _Prosit_, Signore.”
It was only when I found myself at the table with the dwarf and his
broken-nosed friend that I collected my wits sufficiently to realise
the probable reason of his presence in Marseilles. The grotesque little
creature had actually kept his ridiculous word. He, too, had come south
in search of the lost Captain Vauvenarde. We were companions in the Fool
Adventure. There was something mediaeval in the combination; something
legendary. Put back the clock a few centuries and there we were, the
Knight and the Dwarf, riding together on our quest, while the Lady for
whose sake we were making idiots of ourselves was twiddling her fair
thumbs in her tower far beyond the seas.
Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos broke upon this pleasing fancy by
remarking again that Monsieur Saupiquet was a friend of Madame Brandt.
“He was with her at the time of her great bereavement.”
“Bereavement?” I asked forgetfully.
“Her horse Sultan.”
He whispered the words with solemn reverence. I must confess to being
tired of the horse Sultan and disinclined to treat his loss seriously.
“Monsieur Saupiquet,” said I, “doubtless offered her every consolation.”
“He used to travel with her and look after Sultan's well-being. He was
her----”
“Her Master of the Horse,” I suggested.
“Precisely. You have the power of using the right word, Monsieur de Gex.
It is a great gift. My good friend Saupiquet is attached to a circus at
present stationed in Toulon. He came over, at my request, to see me--on
affairs of the deepest importance”--he waved the bundle of papers--“the
very deepest importance. _Nicht wahr_, Saupiquet?”
“_Bien sur_,” murmured Saupiquet, who evidently did not count loquacity
among his vices.
I wondered whether these important affairs concerned the whereabouts of
Captain Vauvenarde; but the dwarf's air of mystery forbade my asking for
his confidence. Besides, what should a groom in a circus know of retired
Captains of Chasseurs? I said:
“You're a very busy man, Monsieur le Professeur.”
He tapped his domelike forehead. “I am never idle. I carry on here
gigantic combinations. I should have been a lawyer. I can spread nets
that no one sees, and then--pst! I draw the rope and the victim is
in the toils of Anastasius Papadopoulos. _Hast du nicht das bemerkt_,
Saupiquet?”
“_Bien sur_,” said Saupiquet again. He seemed perfectly conversant with
the dwarf's polyglot jargon.
“To the temperament of the artist,” continued the modest Papadopoulos,
“I join the intellect of the man of affairs and the heart of a young
poet. I am always young; yet as you see me here I am thirty-seven years
of age.”
He jumped from his chair and struck an attitude of the Apollo Belvedere.
“I should never have thought that you were of the same age as a bettered
person like myself,” said I.
“The secret of youth,” he rejoined, sitting down again, “is enthusiasm,
the worship of a woman, and intimate association with cats.”
Monsieur Saupiquet received this proposition without a gleam of interest
manifesting itself in his dull blue eyes. His broken nose gave his face
a singularly unintelligent expression. He poured out another glass of
cognac from the graduated carafe in front of him and sipped it slowly.
Then he gazed at me dully, almost for the first time, and said:
“Madame Brandt owes me fifteen sous.”
“And I say that she doesn't!” cried the dwarf fiercely. “I send for him
to discuss matters of the deepest gravity, and he comes talking about
his fifteen sous. I can't get anything out of him, but his fifteen sous.
And the _carissima signora_ doesn't owe it to him. She can't owe it
to him. _Voyons_, Saupiquet, if you don't renounce your miserable
pretensions you will drive me mad, you will make me burst into tears,
you will make me throw you out into the street, and hold you down until
you are run over by a tramcar. You will--you will”--he shook his fist
passionately as he sought for a climactic menace--“you will make me spit
in your eye.”
He dashed his fist down on the marble table so that the glasses jingled.
Saupiquet finished his cognac undisturbed.
“I say that Madame Brandt owes me fifteen sous, and until that is paid,
I do no business.”
The little man grew white with exasperation, and his upper lip
lifted like an angry cat's, showing his teeth. I shrank from meeting
Saupiquet's eye. Hurriedly, I drew a providential handful of coppers
from my pocket.
“Stop, Herr Professor,” said I, eager to prevent the shedding of tears,
blood, or saliva, “I have just remembered. Madame did mention to me an
unaquitted debt in the South, and begged me to settle it for her. I am
delighted to have the opportunity. Will you permit me to act as Madam's
banker?”
The dwarf at once grew suave and courteous.
“The word of _carissima signora_ is the word of God,” said he.
I solemnly counted out the fifteen halfpence on the table and pushed
them over to Saupiquet, who swept them up and put them in his pocket.
“Now we can talk,” said he.
“Make him give you a receipt!” cried Papadopoulos excitedly. “I know
him! He is capable of any treachery where money is concerned. He is
capable of re-demanding the sum from Madame Brandt. He is an ingrate.
And she, Monsieur le Membre du Parlement Anglais, has overwhelmed him
with benefits. Do you know what she did? She gave him the carcass of her
beloved Sultan to dispose of. And he sold it, Monsieur, and he got drunk
on the money.”
The mingled emotions of sorrow at the demise of Sultan, the royal
generosity of Madame Brandt, and the turpitude of his friend Saupiquet,
brought tears to the little man's eyes. Monsieur Saupiquet shrugged his
shoulders unconcernedly.
“A poor man has to get drunk when he can. It is only the rich who can
get drunk when they like.”
I looked at my watch and rose in a hurry.
“I'm afraid I must take an unceremonious leave of you, Monsieur le
Professeur.”
“You must wait for the receipt,” cried the dwarf.
“Will you do me the honour of holding it for me until we meet again?
Hi!” The interpellation was addressed to a cabman a few yards away.
“Your conversation has made me neglect the flight of time. I shall only
just catch my boat.”
“Your boat?”
“I am going to Algiers.”
“Where will you be staying, Monsieur? I ask in no spirit of vulgar
curiosity.”
I raised a protesting hand, and with a smile named my hotel.
“I arrived here from Algiers yesterday afternoon,” he said, “and I
proceed there again to-morrow.”
“I regret,” said I, “that you are not coming to-day, so that I could
have the pleasure of your company on the voyage.”
My polite formula seemed to delight Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos
enormously. He made a series of the most complicated bows, to the joy
of the waiters and the passers-by. I shook hands with him and with
the stolid Monsieur Saupiquet, and waving my hat more like an excited
Montenegrin than the most respectable of British valetudinarians, I
drove off to the Quai de la Joliette, where I found an anxious but
dogged Rogers, in the midst of a vociferating crowd, literally holding
the bridge that gave access to the _Marechal Bugeaud_.
“Thank Heaven, you've come, sir! You almost missed it. I couldn't have
held out another minute.”
I, too, was thankful. If I had missed the boat I should have had to wait
till the next day and crossed in the embarrassing and unrestful company
of Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos. It is not that I dislike the
little man, or have the Briton's nervous shrinking from being seen
in eccentric society; but I wish to eliminate mediaevalism as far as
possible from my quest. In conjunction with this crazy-headed little
trainer of cats it would become too preposterous even for my light
sardonic humour. I resolved to dismiss him from my mind altogether.
Yet, in spite of my determination, and in spite of one of Monsieur
Lenotre's fascinating monographs on the French Revolution, on which
I had counted to beguile the tedium of the journey, I could not get
Anastasius Papadopoulos out of my head. He stayed with me the whole of
a storm-tossed night, and all the next morning. He has haunted my
brain ever since. I see him tossing his arms about in fury, while the
broken-nosed Saupiquet makes his monotonous claim for the payment
of sevenpence halfpenny; I hear him speak in broken whispers of the
disastrous quadruped on whose skin and hoofs Saupiquet got drunk. I
see him strutting about and boasting of his intellect. I see him taking
leave of Lola Brandt, and trotting magnificently out of the room bent on
finding Captain Vauvenarde. He haunts my slumbers. I hope to goodness he
will not take to haunting this delectable hotel.
I wonder, after all, whether there is any method in his madness--for mad
he is, as mad as can be. Why does he come backwards and forwards between
Algiers and Marseilles? What has Saupiquet to do with his quest? What
revelation was he about to make on the payment of his fifteen sous?
It is all so grotesque, so out of relation with ordinary life. I feel
inclined to go up to the retired Colonels and elderly maiden ladies, who
seem to form the majority of my fellow-guests, and pinch them and ask
them whether they are real, or, like Papadopoulos and Saupiquet, the
gentler creatures of a nightmare.
Well, I have written to the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 3rd Regiment of
Chasseurs at Tlemcen, which is away down by the Morocco frontier. I have
also written to Lola Brandt. I seem to miss her as much as any of the
friends I have left behind me in England. I cannot help the absurd fancy
that her rich vitality helps me along. I have not been feeling quite
so robust as I did when I saw her daily. And twinges are coming more
frequently. I don't think that rolling about in the Mediterranean on
board the _Marechal Bugeaud_ is good for little pains inside.