How do I come to be writing in a prison? How do I come to be living in a
prison? How is it that I, who never lifted a hand in anger against even
a dog, lie here under a charge of murder, execrated by the populace of
my native town?
I can remember that I wrote, when I took up my story, that it might, for
anything I knew, be a year before I should go on with it. It is twelve
months to-day since I set those words upon paper. I take it up again,
here and now, in dogged and determined defiance to that Circumstance
which has pursued me through my life, and which shall not subdue me even
with this last stroke--no, nor with any other.
Let me premise, before I go on with my own narrative, that Charles
Grammont, with whose murder I lie charged, developed a remarkable and
unexpected characteristic. A reckless spendthrift whilst penniless, he
became a miser when he found himself possessor of five thousand pounds.
He had returned to Naples, and had for some time engaged himself in
drinking, to the exclusion of all other pursuits. But he drank sullenly
and alone, and had dismissed from his society that disreputable
compatriot of mine, Giovanni Fornajo, who had accompanied him to my room
on the evening of our first meeting. When I reached Naples I had some
trouble with this personage, who, with the peculiar faculty which
belongs to the race of hangers-on and spongers, had somehow found me
out, and came to borrow money. It was enough for his limitless impudence
to remember that he had once been within my walls in London. I knew that
to yield once would be to make myself a tributary to his necessities for
ever. I refused him, therefore, and dismissed him without ceremony. He
retired unabashed, and came to the charge again. I was strolling along
the Chiaja, when I saw him and turned into the Caffè d'Italia to avoid
him. He had seen me and followed. I professed to be absorbed in the
contents of an English journal, but he sat down at the same table, and
entered into conversation, or rather into talk, for I let him have it
all to himself. He talked in English, which he really spoke very well,
though with a marked accent. I paid but little heed to him, and only
just made out that he complained of the conduct of his late associate,
who had, so he said, borrowed money of him when they were poor together,
and had thrown him over now without repaying him.
'It comes to this,' he said, after a long and rambling discursion on his
wrong; 'when I was the only man in Naples who could speak English and
would have to do with him, he used me; and now that he is at home here,
and can speak the language, and has plenty of money, he will have no
more to do.'
'My good friend,' I said, breaking in, 'I will have no more to do, since
you prefer to put it so, I am tired of you. I do not desire to know you.
Oblige me by not knowing me in future.'
'Maledizione!' he said. 'But you are impolite, Signor Calvotti.'
'And you, Signor Fornajo, are only unbearable. I have the pleasure to
wish you goodbye.'
He rose and retreated, but returned.
'Signor Calvotti,' he said, reseating himself, 'I shall ask you to do me
a favour. You know Grammont and you know his friends. He will listen to
you where he will not look at me. Will you do me the favour to speak for
me to ask him to pay me?'
I thought I saw a way to be rid of him.
'How much does he owe you?' I asked him.
'Cento franchi,' he answered.
'Very good. Bring me pen, ink, and paper.'
He called one of the camerieri and ordered these, and I read quietly
until they came.
'Now,' I said, 'write to my dictation.'
He took the pen and wrote--
'I have this day informed Signor Calvotti that Mr. Charles Grammont owes
me the sum of One Hundred Francs, and in consideration of this receipt
Signor Calvotti has discharged Mr. Grammont's debt.'
This he signed, and I gave him a bank-note for the amount.
'Now,' I told him, 'I do not in the least believe that Mr. Grammont owed
you anything, and if you come near me again I will use this document. I
have a great mind to try it now.' 'Ah, signor, sapete cosa vuol dire la
fame?' I own that touched me. I _have_ known what hunger is, and I could
guess what it would do with a creature of this kind. 'Go your way,' I
said, 'and trouble me no more'--he bowed his head and spread out his
hands in assent--'but remember!'
'Signor Calvotti,' he said, 'I thank you, and I will trouble you no
more.'
Young Clyde had written to me saying that he was tired and overworked,
and that he needed a month's holiday, and meant to take it. He had never
been in Italy, and naturally proposed to join me in Naples. During the
whole ten months which had gone between my farewell to England and
my receipt of this letter from Arthur, I had striven, and not
unsuccessfully, to banish from my mind all painful and regretful
thoughts of Cecilia. Love is a great passion, but, like everything else
but fate, it is capable of subjection by a resolute will. That soul,
believe me, is of a barren soil indeed, wherein the flower of love has
once been planted, if the flower wither or can be rooted up. But a man
who gardens his soul with resolute and lofty hopes can train the first
poor weed of passion to a glorious bloom, whose perfume is not pain but
comfort. This is a base thing, that a man shall say he loves a woman too
well to be happy whilst she can be happy with another. For me, my divine
Cecilia looks down upon me in my waking hours and in the dreams of
sleep, a thing so far away that I can but worship without a hope of
ownership, or any longer a desire. I am content, I have loved, and I
have not been unworthy. O mia santissima, mio amore no longer--my saint
for ever, my love no more--so you were happy, I were happy. But there
are clouds about you, though you know them not.
Arthur had come to Naples by one of the boats of the Messagerie
Impériale, and had come to share my little house at Posilipo. He brought
with him kindest remembrances from Cecilia and from her sister. I had
mentioned them both freely in my letters, and had sent little things
through his hand to both of them now and then. My old patron, Mr.
Gregory, had given Arthur two or three commissions, and one of his works
had been hung on the line at Burlirgton House, side by side with mine.
In his old, frank, charming way he said--
'If those old buffers on the committee had laid their heads together to
please me, they couldn't have done it more successfully than by hanging
me next to you, old man. When I went in and saw it there, I was better
pleased at being next to you than I was at being on the line. I'm
painting Gregory's portrait for next' year--a splendid subject, isn't
it?'
I took him to walk that morning to the scene I had painted in the work
he spoke of,' He recognised it with enthusiasm, and we walked back
together full of friendship and enjoyment. He had one or two commissions
for Charles Grammont from his sisters, and asked me to help in finding
him. When I learned that the young Englishman was living in the Basso
Porto I was amazed, and when Clyde saw the place he was amazed also.
'Has he got through all his money already,' Arthur asked me, 'that he
lives in a hole like this?'
'I am told,' I said, 'that he has become a miser, spending money on
nothing but drink, and living in a continuous sullen debauchery.'
Clyde faced round upon me as we stood in the doorway of the house
together.
'I haven't seen the fellow for years,' he exclaimed, 'but can you fancy
such an animal being a brother of Cecilia's?'
'Odd, isn't it?' said an English voice from the darkness of the stairs.
'Infernally odd!'
And Charles Grammont, bearded, bloated, unclean, unwholesome, stepped
into the sunlight and poisoned it.
'Who is this fellow?' asked Arthur quietly.
'Charles Grammont,' I answered.
'Charles Grammont?' he repeated; and then, hastening to obliterate the
memory of his unlucky speech, he plunged into an explanation of his
concerns with Grammont, and I withdrew a little. But in a moment I heard
Grammont's voice raised in high anger.
'And what brings Arthur Clyde acting as my sister's messenger? Could
they find nobody but a ------'
If I should repeat here on paper the epithets the man used, I should
be almost as great a blackguard as he was to use them. They were words
abominable and horrible. I know by my anger at them now--then I had no
time to feel for myself--that if a man had used them to me, and I had
held a weapon in my hand, I should have killed him. Arthur raised
his cane, and, but that I seized his wrist, he would have struck the
insulter across the face. It was an impulse only, and when I felt his
wrist relaxing I released it, and it fell down by his side.
'Come away, Calvotti,' he said, 'or I shall disgrace myself and do this
man a mischief.'
But if I could share at the moment in the feeling of anger which
Grammont's hideous insults had inspired, I could not and I cannot
understand the bitter and passionate resentment with which Arthur
nourished the memory of them. For days after, not a waking hour passed
by without a break of sudden anger from him when he recalled the words
to mind. I did my best to calm him, and in each case succeeded in
persuading him that it was less than useless to retain the memory of
insult so conveyed by such a man. But in a little while he broke out
again, and after a time I allowed him to rage himself out.
'Why did you restrain me?' he cried one day as we walked together. 'The
ruffian deserved a thrashing. I care nothing for what he said of me, but
a man who could speak of his sister in that way is not fit to live. For
God's sake, Calvotti, let us go away somewhere out of reach of this man.
I am not safe. I hardly know myself. If I met him I should kill him then
and there.'
'My dear Arthur,' I said at last, 'this is childish, and unworthy of
you. The man is a ruffian by nature, and was mad with drink. Forget him,
and any mad and drunken thing he may have said.'
'Well,' said Arthur, with a visible effort, 'the blackguard disappears
from my scheme of things. I have done with him. There! It's all over.
What shall we do to-night? Let us go out together and look at Giovanna's
Palace by moonlight. A blow on the bay would do me good, and you might
find an inspiration for a picture. Who knows? Will you go?'
I consented, and we walked back to the town at once to make
arrangements. We secured a boat, and a bottle or two of wine and a
handful of cigars having been laid in as store, we started. On the way
to the boat, by bitter misfortune, we met Grammont. This wretched man's
drunkenness had three phases--the genial, the morose, and the violent.
He was at the first when we were so unhappy as to meet him. He insisted
upon accompanying us, and I could see the passion gathering in Arthur's
face, until I knew that if some check were not put upon him there would
be an outbreak.
I took upon myself to get rid of the intruder.
'Well, Clyde,' I said, 'at the Caffe d' Italia at six. Till then I leave
you to your appointment. Good afternoon. Will you walk with me a minute,
Grammont?'
Arthur took my hint and went away. Grammont lurched after him, but I
took him by the sleeve and said I had something to say to him. He stood
with drunken gravity to listen, and whilst I beat about in my own mind
for some trifle which could be made to assume a moment's importance, he
forgot everything that had passed, and himself began to talk.
'You thought I should be through my five thou, before now, didn't you,
old Stick-in-the-Mud? Well, I've got the best part of it now, my boy.
They can't suck me in Naples, I can tell you. Not much they can't. Look
here! English notes. I don't care who sees 'em. There you are. There's
more than four thousand in that thundering book. Look here.'
He took from his pocket-book a number of English bank-notes for one
hundred pounds, and flourished them about and thumbed them over, and
laughed above them with drunken cunning and triumph. A man lounged by
us this minute, and took such special notice of us both that I was
compelled to notice him. He was a swarthy bearded fellow in a blouse,
like that of a French ouvrier. He did not look so particularly honest
that I had any pleasure in knowing that he saw the great bundle of notes
in Grammont's hands, and I said to Grammont hurriedly--
'It is not wise to exhibit so much money in this public place. Put it
up.'
The man still regarded us, until at last he attracted the attention
of my unwelcome companion, who turned round upon him, and cursed him
volubly in Italian.
The man, speaking with a very un-Italian accent, though fluently enough,
answered that he had as much right there as Grammont, and then moved
away, still turning his eyes curiously upon us at intervals.
'Look here,' said my unwelcome companion, 'I am going to have a sleep on
this bench,' He pointed to a stone seat on the quay, and rolled towards
it.
'You are not so mad as to sleep in the open air with all that money
about you,' I urged. Heaven knows I disliked the man, but one did not
want even him to be robbed.
'Oh,' he answered drunkenly, 'I'm all right,' and so lay down at full
length with his felt hat under his head, and fell asleep.
The man in the blouse still lingered, and I, knowing that he had seen
the notes, felt it impossible to leave Grammont alone in his company.
The Chiaja was very lonely just there.
At last an idea occurred to me, and I called the man. It was growing so
near to six o'clock that I was afraid of missing Clyde. I tore a leaf
from my pocket-book, scrawled a line to Clyde asking him to wait for me,
took a franc from my purse, and asked the man to take a 'message to
the Caffè d' Italia, and there give it to the person to whom it was
addressed. Regarding the man's dress and the foreign accent with which
he had spoken just now, I addressed him in French.
'Pas du tout!' he responded. 'Je ne suis pas un blooming idiot. C'est
impossible. Allez-vous donc.'
'Ah!' I said, 'you are English. I beg your pardon. I suppose you did not
understand. I wish you to be so good as to take this note to the Caffè
d' Italia for Mr. Arthur Clyde. I will give you----'
'I am not anybody's messenger,' the man answered, and walked away again.
There was nobody else within call, and I was compelled, therefore, to
resign myself as best I could. My efforts to awaken Grammont had proved
quite fruitless. I lit a cigar, and walked to and fro. The man in the
blouse also lit a. cigar, and paced to and fro, passing in every journey
the bench on which Grammont lay asleep. Suspecting him as I did, I never
took my eyes from him for a moment when he was near Grammont, and he, in
his catlike watch of me, was equally vigilant. At last, growing tired of
this watchful promenade, I addressed him--
'It is of no use for you to linger here. You will not tire me out. I
shall stay until my friend awakes.'
'Oh!' he said, removing his cigar, and taking a steady look at me.
'You'll stay until your friend awakes, will you? Then--so will I.'
He began his walk again, and I, regarding the man more closely, had
formed a new idea.
This man suspected me of designs upon those bank-notes, I began to
think, and was possibly lingering here to guard a stranger, from some
such motive as my own. Still, it was scarcely safe to trust him alone,
and I was not disposed to do so. The idea of his suspecting me amused me
for a minute and then amazed me, but I continued my promenade as if no
such thought had occurred to me. So we went on until my watch marked
half past seven o'clock, when Grammont awoke. We were not far from the
cabstand, and I led him thither, assisted him to enter the vehicle, gave
the driver his half-franc, and bade him drive to the Basso Porto. The
man in the blouse followed, and watched closely all the time, and my
later belief concerning him was quite confirmed. Dismissing him from my
mind, I entered a biroccio and drove to the Caffè. Arthur had left long
since, with a message for me to the effect that he would be at home at
Posilipo at eleven o'clock. Perhaps he had gone to the Opera, I thought,
and with the intention of discovering him I wandered from the Caffè. The
evening was very beautiful, and I changed my mind. I would roam along by
the bay and enjoy the sunset, and give myself up to the delights of the
country. As I wandered on, my thoughts ran back to Cecilia, and I had
another inward battle with myself. I found myself, in the excitement of
my thoughts, walking faster and faster until I was far from the city,
and alone in a country lane with the moonlight. The moon was up, and
up at the full, before the sun was down; and so soon as the gathering
twilight gave her power, she bathed the landscape in so lovely a light
that even my sore and troubled heart grew tranquil to behold it. I stood
near an abrupt turning in the lane, and watched the tremor in the soft
lustre of the bay, which looked as though innumerable great jewels rose
slowly to its surface and there melted and were lost, whilst all
the time innumerable others took the place of these dissolving gems,
themselves dissolving in their turn, whilst countless others slowly
rose. Here and there was a light upon the water, and here and there the
shadow of a boat. And, far away, like the audible soul of the sea, was
the soft, soft sound of music, where some boating party sang together.
To say that the cry came suddenly would be to say nothing. There came
a shriek of appalling fear close by, which tore the air with terror.
I took one step and listened. For a second I heard the rumbling of
carriage wheels at a distance, and not another sound, but that of the
faint music far away. Then came a foot-step at racing pace nearer and
nearer, then a trip and a long stagger, as though the runner had nearly
fallen, and then the headlong pace again. And then, with the soft broad
moon-light full upon his face, a man came darting round the corner of
the lane. I strove to move aside, but before I could lift a foot he was
upon me like an avalanche. I knew that we fell together, and that the
man arose and resumed his headlong course. I tried to call after him,
but found no voice. I tried to rise, but could not move a limb. Then a
sickly shudder ran through me, and I fainted.
* * * * *
Out of a sort of vaporous dream came the slow sound of carriage wheels
bumping along the ruts of the road; then a light which was not of the
moon; then a sudden pause in the noise of wheels and the sound of a
coarse, strong voice speaking in tones of great excitement.
'Body of Bacchus! What a night for adventures! Here is another of them!'
The light came nearer, and another voice burst out in English, 'By the
Lord! That's the man!'
The voices both grew dim, and though they still talked, they sounded
like the noise of running water, wordless and indistinct. Then I felt
myself lifted into a carriage, and until I awoke here I knew nothing. It
was the jar of bolts, and the rattling fall of a chain, and the grating
noise of a key in a lock which awoke me. I turned and recognised the
man who entered--an officer, by name Ratuzzi, to whom I had done some
service in old days. I asked him feebly where I was and how I came
there.
'In the town gaol,' he answered gravely, and the solemnity of his face
and tone chilled me.
'In the town gaol?' I repeated. 'Why was I brought here?'
'I am very sorry, signor,' he said in the same tone. 'In whatsoever I
can serve you, you may command me. Shall I give orders to send for a
doctor?'
'Why was I brought here?' I asked again.
He made no reply, and weak and shaken as I was, I sat up and reiterated
my question.
'You are charged with the murder of Carlo Grammont.'
'Charles Grammont? Murder?' I repeated.
'Would you wish to see a doctor or an avvocato?'
I could only moan in answer.
'Charles Grammont murdered! Oh, my poor Cecilia! My angel and my love!'
For the face of the man in the lane was the face of Arthur Clyde, and
the moonlight had shown to me, oh! too, too clearly, the blood that
smeared his brow.