REVENGE
A week after Anna had taken up her residence at No. 9, Dorrington
Street, Senor Gabriel Dasso, as usual, left the house about eight
o'clock. He had seen his fellow-lodger for the first time when he had
passed her in the dimness of the stairs that night as he went out.
But the heavily veiled lady conveyed nothing to him at the moment, and
the stairs disguised the height, which was so strong a characteristic
of Madame Paluda. Dasso had merely raised his hat and passed on.
For some reason a bad mood was upon the ex-dictator of San Pietro. He
dined as usual at an exclusive little restaurant in Soho, but his
favourite dishes gave him no pleasure, and although he drank twice as
much wine as was his custom, the black dog had settled firmly on his
back and refused to be dislodged.
The hole-and-corner life he was leading was becoming very wearisome to
a man of his tastes, and his long daylight sittings in the little
Bloomsbury room were getting sadly on his nerves. As he sat over his
coffee and cognac he asked himself whether all this hiding was
necessary, after all.
It was only the memory of the man he had seen reading the _Imparcial_
in Paris which had prompted him to this secrecy. After all, it may
have been a coincidence. True, the man had also been seen at Dieppe,
but perhaps that was another coincidence. He had certainly not
embarked on the _Arundel_ with him, and at Newhaven Dasso had noticed
nothing suspicious.
No, it was absurd; in the morning he would leave Dorrington Street and
take up his residence at some hotel and live a life more fitted to his
tastes. Mozara's body, he told himself, would have been burnt out of
all recognition in the fire--and ashes tell no tales.
Curiously enough, however, the woman he had passed on the stairs would
come unbidden into his mind. Perhaps some turn of the head, some
gesture, some mannerism, reminded him of some one he had seen before.
Later, as he walked round the promenade of the Empire the memory of the
woman on the stairs remained with him. He was drinking heavily
to-night, and as he drank the depression he had felt earlier in the
evening returned to him tenfold; something seemed to tell him that
retribution was on his heels, and little devils hammered at the cells
of his brain telling him that his hour had come.
He walked home to Bloomsbury, but the exercise in the night air gave
him no relief. He was full of fancies--there were steps behind
him--hands stretched out and touched his shoulder. Once he seemed to
hear his name called. He cursed softly and told himself that it was
nerves. He had no right to coop himself up in these dingy
surroundings. It was life he wanted, rich and full.
It was nerves, again, he said, that made him imagine that a bitter
taste came into his mouth after he had drank his _consomme_ that night;
perhaps that infernal Liz had put too much salt in it.
As he undressed, a curious feeling of lassitude came over him. He
forgot his fears, forgot everything but that he wanted to sleep. He
sat on the edge of the little bed and fumbled with unhandy fingers with
his collar stud, but he did not undo it. With a little sigh his hands
dropped nerveless into his lap and he fell back on the shabby
eiderdown, his face pale and his breath coming in short, uneven gasps.
* * * * *
In the night Dasso dreamed a strange dream. It seemed to him that he
awoke to find the room hazy with the grey light of the dawning.
Through the little crevices between the slats of the Venetian blinds
the pale radiance edged its way, giving to objects in the room a
ghostly and unwonted appearance. Between the man on the bed and the
window there seemed to stand the tall shadowy figure of a woman, a
figure which, as he looked, moved steadily towards him.
It seemed to Dasso that the woman bent over him and that two black
piercing eyes burnt into his very soul. He tried to speak but could
not. Then he heard a voice. The figure was speaking to him in a
whisper, low and vibrant with passion, telling him what the little
devils had been hammering into his brain--that his hour had come.
"--_your_ hour, Gabriel Dasso, and _my_ hour. For fifteen years I have
waited for this moment, and I have never doubted but that it would
come----"
The figure rose up and it seemed to Dasso that he watched her as she
glided silently about the room. It seemed to him that she took up the
basin which had contained his _consomme_ and emptied the little liquid
which remained into the mould of a pot containing a palm which stood in
the alcove by the window. The whisper went on, and now Dasso told
himself that this was Miranda's companion who was in the room with him.
"--and it is curious, is it not? that so experienced a conspirator as
Gabriel Dasso, master of plot and counterplot, should fail to notice
that his soup had, shall we say, a _distinctive_ taste? Is it not
curious that he should not have noticed that the lock of his door had
been tampered with? You have been insensible some hours now--and you
are bound and gagged. But you are awake, Dasso, and you can see what I
am doing."
The figure came again over to the bed and bent down again above the
bound figure.
"I am a woman of peace, Dasso, and it is no crime I am committing--only
an act of justice. For fifteen years I have put the thought of
vengeance out of my mind, considering the living before the dead.
After to-night I will take my place again in the world, without regret
and without exultation--I am a tragic figure, am I not? the mother of a
murdered child.
"Any time in those fifteen years I could have killed you, you did not
know me well and it would have been easy. But I _wanted_ you to know
me and to know why I am doing this. Perhaps God will let your agony be
your expiation."
The figure rose up and crossed over to the little gas stove that stood
in the fire-place. In even tones she went on--
"I am turning on the taps, here, Dasso, and all the crevices in the
room are stopped up. In a little while--when--when you are quite dead,
I will put a cloth over my mouth and come in and cut off the scarves
which bind you--they are silk and will leave no marks. Then I will
rouse the house and complain of a smell of gas, and afterwards there
will be----"
The vision of the woman with the piercing eyes grew gradually fainter
.... and it seemed to Dasso that he awoke suddenly.
* * * * *
The room was quite light now. It had been a bad dream. Dasso tried to
rise--why, what was this?
His hands and legs were firmly bound and his jaws ached with the strain
of the gag. The air of the room was heavy with the fumes of gas, and
his chest pained him as though it would burst. In his ears were weird
noises and he felt the sweat of fear wet upon his forehead.
Air--he must have air. The window near him seemed to mock him with its
promise of life. With an effort he managed to turn on his side, and
inch by laborious inch, he worked his way to the edge of the bed--then
on to the floor.
He lay for a moment, breathing heavily, his heart beating in great
blows against his ribs. He struggled on to his knees and began a
series of grotesque hops towards the window.
But with each movement the effort grew more difficult and the strain on
his heart grew tenser. Twice he fell forward on to his face, once he
struggled again to his feet. The second time he remained lying where
he had fallen, his head buried in the dusty fur rug beneath his goal.
Below, in the street, he heard the jangle of milk cans. Then a man
cried cheerily to his horse and a cart rattled past the house. Some
sparrows flew past the window chirping and quarrelling--they made a
shadow on the blinds and were gone.
If only he could throw something and break a pane of glass.
Air--air--not two feet away--and life----
With a superhuman effort Dasso was on his knees again--then, a look of
despair and a great fear came into the white staring face, and with no
sound he rolled over and lay still.