MANY NAPOLEONS
Having yawned luxuriously, Merrihew sighed with perfect content. The
pretty woman sitting opposite smiled at him tenderly, and he smiled
back, abstractedly, as a man sometimes will when his mind tries to
gather in comprehensively a thought and a picture which are totally
different. Before him, in neat little lustrous stacks, stood seven
thousand francs in gold, three hundred and fifty effigies of Napoleon
the Little. And this was the thought which divided the smile with the
picture. Seven thousand francs, fourteen hundred dollars, more than half
the sum of his letter of credit! And all this prodigious fortune for a
little gold put here, and a little gold put there, wisely,
scientifically; for he would have strenuously denied that it was due to
bald, blind luck. If only the boys at the club could see him now! He wet
his lips suggestively, but the lust for gold was stronger than the call
of tobacco. Tobacco could wait; fortune might not. Still, he took out a
cigar, bit off the end, and put it back in his pocket. And where the
deuce had Hillard gone? Twenty minutes to eleven, and no sign of him
since the play began.
He counted off ten coins and placed them on the second dozen. The ball
rolled into number twenty-three. He leaned back again with a second
sigh, and the pretty woman smiled a second smile, and the wooden rake
pushed the beautiful gold over to him. He was playing a system, one bet
in every three turns of the wheel, in stakes of forty and eighty
dollars. To be sure he lost now and then, but the next play he doubled
and retrieved. Oh, the American Comic Opera Company should be well taken
care of. He could play the good Samaritan after the manner of a prince,
if, indeed, princes ever elected to play that role. Two more bets, and
then he would pocket his winnings and go. He laid forty francs on number
twenty-six and four hundred on black, leaned upon his elbows and studied
the pretty woman, who smiled. If she spoke English.... He scribbled the
question on a scrap of paper and pushed it across the table, blushing a
little as he did so. She read it, or at least she tried to read it, and
shook her head with the air of one deeply puzzled. He sighed again,
reflecting that there might have been a pleasant adventure had he only
understood French. Hang the legend of the Tower of Babel! it was always
confronting him in this part of the world.
Twenty-six, black and even!
Merrihew slid back his chair and rose. He swept up the gold by the
handful and poured it into his pockets, casually and unconcernedly, as
if this was an every-day affair and of minor importance. But as a matter
of fact, his heart was beating fast, and there was a wild desire in his
throat to yell with delight. Eighteen hundred dollars, nine thousand
francs! A merry music they made in his pockets. Jingle, jingle, jingle!
Not only the good Samaritan, but the accursed thousand, that baneful
thousand, that Nemesis of every New Year, might now be overtaken and
annihilated. O happy thought! His pockets sagged, he could walk but
stiffly, and in weight he seemed to have gained a ton. And then he saw
Hillard coming across the hall. Instantly he forced the joy from his
face and eyes and dropped his chin in his collar. He became in that
moment the picture of desolation.
"Is it all over?" asked Hillard gravely.
"All over!" monotonously.
"Come over to the cafe, then. I've something important to tell you."
"Found them?" with rousing interest.
"I shall tell you only when we get out of this place. Come."
Merrihew followed him into the cloak-room; and as they came out into the
night, Hillard put out a friendly hand.
"I am sorry, boy; I wanted you to win something. Cheer up; we'll shake
the dust of this place in the morning."
Merrihew took off his hat and tossed it into the air hilariously. As it
came down he tried to catch it on the toe of his pump, but active as he
was he missed, and it rolled along the pavement. He recovered it
quickly.
"Oh, for a vacant lot and a good old whooper-up! Feel!" he said,
touching his side pockets. Hillard felt. "Feel again!" commanded
Merrihew, touching his trousers pockets. Hillard, with increasing
wonder, felt again.
"What is it?" he asked.
"What is it? It is four hundred and fifty napoleons!"
"What?" sharply, even doubtfully.
"That's what! Eighteen hundred dollars, more than three hundred and
sixty pounds, nearly a million centesimi, and Heaven only knows what it
would be in Portuguese. My system will have no funeral to-night. Pretty
fair returns for two hours' work, by George! Now, come on."
He caught Hillard by the sleeve and fairly ran him over to the cafe.
Here he pushed him into a chair and ordered the finest vintage he could
find on the card. Then he offered one of the fatal cigars and lighted
one for himself.
"Nearly two thousand!" murmured Hillard. "Well, of all the luck!"
"It does seem too good to be true. And what's more, I'm going to hang on
to it. No more for me; I'm through. For the first time in my life I've
won something, and I am going to keep it.... I say, what's the matter
with your cravat?"
Hillard looked down at the fluttering end and reknotted it carelessly.
"I saw Kitty to-night," he said.
To Merrihew it seemed that all the clatter about him had died away
suddenly. He lowered his cigar and breathed deeply. "Where is she?" He
rose. "Sit down. I don't know where she is. I'll explain what has
happened. And this is it."
Merrihew listened eagerly, twisting his cigar from one corner of his
mouth to the other. Once he made a gesture; it was reproachful.
"And why did you bother about him? Why didn't you hold on to Kitty?"
"I confess it was stupid of me. But the gentleman with the scar was an
unknown quantity. Besides, why should Kitty, in an episode like this,
run away from me, of all persons? That's what is troubling me. And why,
when I spoke to them in the Casino, did they ignore me completely?"
"It's your confounded prima donna; she's at the bottom of all this, take
my word for it. Something's desperately wrong. Persons do not wear masks
and hide in this manner just for a lark. And we have lost them again!
Why didn't you knock him down?" hotly.
"I wanted to, but it wasn't the psychological moment. He recovered
himself too quickly. You can't knock a man down when he practically
surrenders."
"You're too particular. But what's the matter with Kitty? I don't
understand. To see you was to know that I was round somewhere. She ran
away from me as well as from you. What shall we do?"
"Start the hunt again, or give it up entirely. There are some villages
between here and Nice. It must be in that direction; they were about to
board the car for Nice. If you hadn't been gambling, if you had been
sensible and stayed with me--"
"Come, now, that won't wash. You know very well that you urged me to
play."
"You would have played without any urging."
The wine came, but the joy of drinking it was gone; and they emptied the
bottle perfunctorily. To Merrihew everything was out of tune now. Why,
Kitty Killigrew was worth all the napoleons in or out of France. And
Kitty had run away! What was the meaning of it?
"And who is this Italian, anyhow? And why did he run after your prima
donna?"
"That is precisely what I wish to find out," answered Hillard. "The lady
whom you call my prima donna knew him and he knew her, and she must have
had mighty good reasons for running."
"I'm afraid that Kitty has fallen among a bad lot. I'll wager it is some
anarchist business. They are always plotting the assassination of kings
over here, and this mysterious woman is just the sort to rope in a
confiding girl like Kitty. One thing, if I come across our friend with
the scar--"
"You will wisely cross to the opposite side of the street. To find out
what this tangle is, it is not necessary to jump head first into it."
"A bad lot."
"That may be, but no anarchists, my boy."
Hillard was a bit sore at heart. That phrase recurred and recurred: "A
lady? Grace of Mary, that is droll!" As he turned it over it had a
bitter taste. The shadow of disillusion crept into his bright dream and
clouded it. To build so beautiful a castle, and to see it tumble at a
word! The Italian had spoken with a contempt which was based on
something more tangible than suspicion. What was she to him, or, rather,
what had she been? If she was innocent of any wrong, why all this
mystery? Persecution? That did not necessitate masks and veils and
sudden flights. Well, he was a man: even as he watched this cloud of
smoke, he would watch the dream rise and vanish into the night.
Merrihew solemnly spun his wine-glass, but made no effort to refill it.
"I'm thinking hard," he said, "but I can't make out Kitty."
"No more can I. But if she ran away from me, she had a definite purpose,
and some day we'll find out just what it was. I am more than half
inclined to give up the chase entirely. You will see Kitty in New York
again, and the whys and wherefores will be illumined. But if I keep on
thinking of this masquerading lady, I shall get into a mental trouble
which will not be at all agreeable. I would to Heaven that she had sung
under any window but mine."
"All right. Kitty doesn't wish to meet us. So we'll light out for Venice
in the morning. I'm not going to be made a fool of for the best woman
alive."
"There is still the Campo Formosa. If they return to Venice, and
doubtless they will, for I believe they came here to replenish their
purses, we'll hunt up the Campo and make inquiries. It is not anarchism.
Anarchists always need money, and they wouldn't let me slip through
their fingers, once having taken hold of my curiosity in this way. You
may be sure it is something deeper than that. Anarchism wouldn't
interest a sensible little woman like Kitty."
"You never can tell what will interest a woman," said Merrihew owlishly.
"There's truth in that. But Kitty isn't romantic; she has her bump of
caution."
"I agree to that. She refused me."
They both laughed quietly.
"Well, if nothing happens in Venice, we'll go to Verona, buy a pair of
good saddle-horses, and take the road to Florence. That will be
something worth while. And it will clear this romantic fog out of our
heads."
"That's the most sensible thing you've said in a long time," said
Merrihew, brightening considerably. "A leg up and a couple of hundred
miles of these great roads! You've hit it squarely, by George! And out
of my winnings we can buy ripping hunters. The American Comic Opera
Company be hanged! But I'd give half of my winnings if I knew what was
at the bottom of it all. Seems as if fate were moving us round for a
pastime. We have probably passed and repassed the two women a dozen
times."
"And but for those cigars--"
"Will you kindly forget that?"
"If you insist upon it."
"Thanks. We came over to see Italy; let's see it. Now, I'm for turning
in. A bit headachey; infernally hot in the roulette room."
In truth, all the enthusiasm was gone from Merrihew's heart. Since Kitty
evinced a desire to avoid him, the world grew charmless; and the fortune
of Midas, cast at his feet, would not have warmed him. On the way over
to the hotel, however, he whistled bravely and jingled the golden
largess in his pockets. He bade good night to Hillard and sought his
room. Here he emptied his pockets on the table and built a shelving
house of gold. He sat down and began to count. Clink-clink! Clink-clink!
What a pleasant sound it was, to be sure. It was sweeter than woman's
laughter. And what symphony of Beethoven's could compare with this?
Clink-clink! Three hundred and ninety, four hundred, four hundred and
ten; clink-clink! And Hillard, turning restlessly on his pillow, heard
this harsh music away into the small hours of the morning.
In the meantime the lamps in and about the Casino had been extinguished,
and the marble house of the whirligig and the terraces lay in the pale
light of the moon. Only the cafes remained open, and none but stragglers
loitered there. The great rush of the night was done with, and the
curious had gone away, richer or poorer, but never a whit the wiser. In
the harbor the yachts stood out white and spectral, and afar the sea
ruffled her night-caps. The tram for Nice shrieked down the incline
toward the promontory, now a vast frowning shadow. At the foot of the
road which winds up to the palaces the car was signaled, and two women
boarded. Both were veiled and exhibited signs of recent agitation. They
maintained a singular silence. At Villefranche they got out, and the car
went on glowingly through the night. The women stopped before the gates
of a villa and rang the porter's bell. Presently he came down the path
and admitted them, grumbling. Once in the room above, the silence
between the two women came to an end.
"Safe! I am so tired. What a night!" the elder of the two women sighed.
"What a night, truly! I should like to know what it has all been about.
To run through dark streets and alleys, to hide for hours, as if I were
a thief or a fugitive from justice, is neither to my taste nor to my
liking."
"Kitty!" brokenly.
"I know! In a moment I shall be on my knees to you, but first I must
speak out my mind. Why did you lose your head? Why did you not stand
perfectly still when you saw that we were followed from the Casino? He
would not have dared to molest us in the open. No, you had to run!"
"He would have entered the car with us, he would have known where we
were going, he would have had the patience to wait till he saw beneath
our veils. I know that man!" with a hopeless anger.
"It was your flight. It told him plainly that you recognized him."
"I was afraid, Kitty. It was instinct which caused me to fly, blindly."
"And there you left me, standing like a fool, wondering whether to run
or not." Kitty was angry for half a dozen reasons. "And why should you
run from any man?"
La Signorina did not reply, preferring to hold her tongue, lest it
overthrow her. She unwound the thick veil and unpinned her hat. Her
hands trembled, and in her eyes and about her mouth there was the
weariness of ages. Yet, not all this weariness, not all these transitory
lines of pain, took away one jot of her beauty.
"Kitty," she began sadly, "in this world no one trusts us wholly. We
must know why, why; loyalty must have reasons, chivalry must have facts.
You have vowed your love and loyalty a hundred times, and still, when a
great crisis confronts me, you question, you grow angry, you complain,
because my reasons are unknown to you. Because I am lonely, because I
feel the need of even your half-hearted loyalty, I shall tell you why,
why. Do you know what terror is? No. Well, it was blind terror which
made me run. I counted not the consequences; my one thought was of
instant flight. I shall tell you why I am lonely, why the world, bright
to you, is dark. I am proud, but I shall bend my pride." With a quick
movement she lifted her head high and her eyes burned into Kitty's very
heart. "I am--"
"Stop! No, no! I forbid you!" Kitty put her hands over her ears. She
might gain the secret, but she knew that she would lose the heart of the
woman it concerned. "I am wrong, wrong. I have promised to follow you
loyally, without question. I will keep that promise. I am only angry
because you would not let me speak to Mr. Hillard. And when he called me
by name, it was doubly hard. Had I not seen your hand waving from the
doorway, I should have spoken. Who this Italian is I do not care. It is
sufficient that you fear him. And I myself harbor no kind feelings
toward him," rubbing her bruised wrist. "And if he comes down one side
of the street I shall take to the other, to say nothing of dodging round
the nearest corner. But he is very handsome," Kitty added thoughtfully.
"Are vipers handsome?"
"He is strong, too."
"Strong and cruel as a tiger. How I hate him! But thank you, Kitty,
thank you. Sooner or later, if we stay together, I must tell you. The
confidence will do me good. Look into my eyes." Kitty approached, and La
Signorina drew her close. "Look in them. They will tell you that I have
neither conspired nor plotted, save for my own happiness; that I have
wrought harm to no one. But on my side they will tell you that I have
been terribly wronged. And all I wish is to be left alone, alone. It was
cruel of me to forbid you to speak to Mr. Hillard. But I do not want him
tangled up in this miserable, hopeless labyrinth. I wish him to
recollect me pleasantly, as a whimsical being who came into his life one
night and vanished out of it in two hours."
"But supposing the memory cuts deeply?" ventured Kitty. "Men fall in
love with less excuse than this."
"He does not even know what I look like; he knows absolutely nothing
except the sound of my voice."
"It is all a blind man needs--a voice."
"Nonsense!" La Signorina opened the window to air the room. She
lingered, musing. "You are very good to me, Kitty."
"I can't help being good to you, you strange, lovely woman! For your
sake as well as for mine, I hope my letter from home will be in Venice
when we arrive. Now I am going to write a letter."
La Signorina still lingered by the window.
* * * * *
Merrihew was pocketing currency in exchange for his gold, when Hillard
passed an opened letter to him. It was early in the morning; the sky was
as yellow as brass; patches of dew still dampened the sidewalks, and the
air was still with the promise of heat in the later day. Merrihew
stuffed the last bill into his wallet and gave his attention to the
letter. He was not long indifferent, for the letter was from no less a
person than Kitty. It was, however, addressed to Hillard.
My dear Mr. Hillard--Do not seek us. It will be useless. This
sounds terribly ungrateful, but it must be so. If Mr. Merrihew is
with you, and I suspect he is, tell him that some day I will
explain away the mystery. At present I know no more than you do.
But this please make plain to him: If he insists upon searching for
me, he will only double my unhappiness.
Kitty Killigrew.
Merrihew soberly tucked the letter away. "I knew it," he said simply.
"She is in some trouble or other, some tangle, and fears to drag us into
it. Who left a letter here this morning?" he asked of the concierge.
"A small boy from Villefranche."
"Just my luck," said Merrihew, his hands speaking eloquently. "I said
that it would be of no use to hunt in the smaller towns. Well, we had
better take the luggage back to the rooms."
"Why?" asked Hillard.
"I am going to Villefranche."
"You will be wasting time. After what happened last night, I am certain
that they will be gone. Let us not change our plans, and let us respect
theirs, hard as it may seem to you."
"But you?"
"Oh, don't bother about me. I have relegated my little romance to the
garret of no-account things, at least for the present," said Hillard,
with an enigmatical smile. He sought his watch. "Make up your mind at
once; we have only twenty minutes."
"Oh, divine afflatus! And you lay down the chase so readily as this?"
Merrihew was scornfully indignant.
"I would travel the breadth of the continent were I sure of meeting this
woman. But she has become a will-o'-the-wisp, and I am too old and like
comfort too well to pursue impossibilities."
"But why did she leave you that mask?" demanded Merrihew. "She must have
meant something by that."
"True, but for the life of me I can't figure out what, unless she wished
to leave with me the last page of the adventure."
"But I don't like the idea of leaving Kitty this way, without a final
effort to rescue her from the clutches of this fascinating adventuress.
For you must admit that she is naught else."
"I admit nothing, my boy, save that the keenness of the chase is gone."
Hillard balanced his watch idly. "As for Kitty, she's a worldly little
woman, and can take good care of herself. She is not likely to blunder
into any serious conspiracy. Her letter should be sufficient."
"But it isn't. A woman's 'don't' often means 'do.' If Kitty really
expects me to search for her and I do not, she will never believe in me
again."
"Perhaps your knowledge of women is more extensive than mine," said
Hillard, without the least irony.
But this flattery did not appeal to Merrihew. "Bosh! There's something
you haven't told me about that makes you so indifferent."
This was a shrewd guess, but Hillard had his reasons for not letting his
friend see how close he had shot. "A lady? Grace of Mary, that is
droll!" He could not cast this out of his thought. He floated between
this phrase and Mrs. Sandford's frank defense of her girlhood friend.
Perhaps he was lacking in some particle of chivalry; perhaps he was not
in love at all. And of what use to offer faith to one who refused it?
"Time flies," he warned. "Which is it to be?"
"We'll go on to Venice. It would be folly for me to continue the hunt
alone. And if you went with me, your half-heartedness would be a damper.
We'll go on to Venice."
"Have you any cigars left?" smiling.
"I have thrown away the boxes and filled my pockets."
"That's better. But the Italians are not so severe as the French. We
shan't have any trouble recrossing into Italy. All aboard, then."
Merrihew solemnly directed the porter to paste the scarlet labels on his
cases. He was beginning to take a certain blase pride in his luggage.
Already it had the appearance of having traveled widely. It would look
well on week-end trips at home.
At seven that evening they stepped out of the station in Venice. The
blue twilight of Venice, that curves down from the hollow heavens,
softening a bit of ugliness here, accentuating a bit of loveliness
there; that mysterious, incomparable blue which is without match or
equivalent, and which flattens all perspective and gives to each scene
the look of a separate canvas! Here Merrihew found one of his dreams
come true, and his first vision of the Grand Canal, with its gondolas
and barges and queer little bobtailed skiffs, was never to leave him.
What impressed him most was the sense of peace and quiet. No one seemed
in a hurry, for hurry carries with it the suggestion of noise and
turmoil. Hillard hunted for his old gondolier, but could not find him.
So he chose one Achille whose ferrule was bright and who carried the
number 154. With their trunks, which they had picked up at Genoa, and
small luggage in the hotel barge, they had the gondola all to
themselves.
Instead of following the Grand Canal, Achille took the short cut through
the Ruga di San Giovanni and the Rio di San Polo. It was early
moonlight, and as they glided silently past the ancient marble church in
the Campo San Polo the fairy-like beauty of it caught Merrihew by the
throat.
"This is the happy hunting grounds," he said. "This beats all the
cab-riding I ever heard of. And this is Venice!" He patted Hillard on
the shoulder. "I am grateful to you, Jack. If you hadn't positively
dragged me into it, I should have gone on grubbing, gone on thinking
that I knew something about beauty. Venice!" He extended his arms as a
Muezzin does when he calls to prayer. "Venice! The shade of Napoleon, of
Othello, of Portia, of Petrarch!"
Hillard smiled indulgently. "I love your enthusiasm, Dan. So long as a
man has that, the rest doesn't matter."
Out into the Grand Canal again, and another short cut by the way of the
Rio del Baccaroli. As they swept under the last bridge before coming out
into the hotel district, Hillard espied a beggar leaning over the
parapet. The faint light of the moon shone full in his face.
"Stop!" cried Hillard to Achille, who swung down powerfully on his
blade. Hillard stood up excitedly.
The beggar took to his heels, and when Hillard stepped out of the
gondola and gained the bridge, the beggar had disappeared.
"Who was it?" asked Merrihew indifferently.
"Giovanni!"