DELORA
I found Louis, during that short drive, most unaccountably
silent. Several times I made casual remarks. Once or twice I tried to
learn from him what sort of a place this was to which we were
bound. He answered me only in monosyllables. I was conscious all the
time of a certain subtle but unmistakable change in his manner. Up to
the moment of his suggesting this expedition he had remained the
suave, perfectly mannered superior servant, accepted into equality for
a time by one of his clients, and very careful not to presume in any
way upon his position. It is not snobbish to say this, because it was
the truth. Louis was chief _maitre d'hotel_ at one of the best
restaurants in London. I was an ex-officer in a cavalry regiment,
brother of the Earl of Welmington, with a moderate income, and a more
than moderate idea of how to spend it. Louis was servant and I was
master. It had pleased me to make a companion of him for a short time,
and his manner had been a perfect acknowledgment of our relative
positions. And now it seemed to me that there was a change. Louis had
become more like a man, less like a waiter. There was a strength in
his face which I had not previously observed, a darkening anxiety
which puzzled me. He treated my few remarks with scant courtesy. He
was obviously thinking about something else. It seemed as though, for
some inexplicable reason, he had already repented of his suggestion.
"Look here, Louis," I said, "you seem a little bothered about taking
me to this place. Perhaps they do not care about strangers there. I am
not at all keen, really, and I am afraid I am not fit company for
anybody. Better drop me here and go on by yourself. I can amuse myself
all right at some of these little out-of-the-way places until I feel
inclined to go home."
Louis turned and looked at me. For a moment I thought that he was
going to accept my offer. He opened his mouth but said nothing. He
looked away into the darkness once more, and then back into my
face. By this time I knew that he had made up his mind. He was more
like himself again.
"Monsieur Rotherby," he said, "if I have hesitated at all, it was for
your sake. You are a gentleman of great position. Afterwards you might
feel sorry to think that you had been in such a place, or in such
company."
I patted him on the shoulder reassuringly.
"My dear Louis," said I, "you need have no such fears about me. I am a
little of an adventurer, a little of a Bohemian. There is no one else
who has a claim upon my life, and I do as I please. Can't you tell me
a little more about this mysterious cafe?"
"There is so little to tell," Louis said. "Of one thing I can assure
you,--you will be disappointed. There is no music, no dancing. The
interest is only in the people who go there, and their lives. It may
be," he continued thoughtfully, "that you will not find them much
different from all the others."
"But there is a difference, Louis?" I asked.
"Wait," he answered. "You shall see."
The cab pulled up in front of a very ordinary-looking cafe in a side
street leading from one of the boulevards. Louis dismissed the man
and looked for a moment or two up and down the pavement. His caution
appeared to be quite needless, for the thoroughfare was none too well
lit, and it was almost empty. Then he entered the cafe, motioning me
to follow him.
"Don't look around too much," he whispered. "There are many people
here who do not care to be spied upon."
My first glance into the place was disappointing. I was beginning to
lose faith in Louis. After all, it seemed to me that the end of our
adventure would be ordinary enough, that I should find myself in one
of those places which the touting guides of the Boulevard speak of in
bated breath, which one needs to be very young indeed to find
interesting even for a moment. The ground floor of the cafe through
which we passed was like a thousand others in different parts of
Paris. The floor was sanded, the people were of the lower
orders,--rough-looking men drinking beer or sipping cordials; women
from whom one instinctively looked away, and whose shrill laughter was
devoid of a single note of music. It was all very flat, very
uninteresting. But Louis led the way through a swing door to a
staircase, and then, pushing his way through some curtains, along a
short passage to another door, against which he softly knocked with
his knuckles. It was opened at once, and a _commissionnaire_
stood gazing stolidly out at us, a _commissionnaire_ in the usual
sort of uniform, but one of the most powerful-looking men whom I had
ever seen in my life.
"There are no tables, monsieur, in the restaurant," he said at
once. "There is no place at all."
Louis looked at him steadily for a moment. It seemed to me that,
although I was unable to discern anything of the sort, some sign must
have passed between them. At any rate, without any protest or speech
of any sort from Louis the _commissionnaire_ saluted and stood
back.
"But your friend, monsieur?" he asked.
"It will be arranged," Louis answered, in a low tone. "We shall speak
to Monsieur Carvin."
We were in a dark sort of _entresol_, and at that moment a
further door was opened, and one caught the gleam of lights and the
babel of voices. A man came out of the room and walked rapidly toward
us. He was of middle height, and dressed in ordinary morning clothes,
wearing a black tie with a diamond pin. His lips were thick. He had a
slight tawny moustache, and a cast in one eye. He held out both his
hands to Louis.
"Dear Louis," he exclaimed, "it is good to see you!"
Louis drew him to one side, and they talked for a few moments in a
rapid undertone. More than once the manager of the restaurant, for
such I imagined him to be, glanced towards me, and I was fairly
certain that I formed the subject of their conversation. When it was
finished Louis beckoned, and we all three turned towards the door
together, Louis in the centre.
"This," he said to me, "is Monsieur Carvin, the manager of the Cafe
des Deux Epingles. He has been explaining to me how difficult it is to
find even a corner in his restaurant, but there will be a small table
for us."
Monsieur Carvin bowed.
"For any friend of Louis," he said, "one would do much. But indeed,
monsieur, people seem to find my little restaurant interesting, and it
is, alas, so very small."
We entered the room almost as he spoke. It was larger than I had
expected to find it, and the style of its decorations and general
appearance were absolutely different from the cafe below. The coloring
was a little sombre for a French restaurant, and the illuminations a
little less vivid. The walls, however, were panelled with what seemed
to be a sort of dark mahogany, and on the ceiling was painted a great
allegorical picture, the nature of which I could not at first
surmise. The guests, of whom the room was almost full, were all
well-dressed and apparently of the smart world. The tourist element
was lacking. There were a few men there in morning clothes, but these
were dressed with the rigid exactness of the Frenchman, who often,
from choice, affects this style of toilet. From the first I felt that
the place possessed an atmosphere. I could not describe it, but,
quite apart from Louis' few words concerning it, I knew that it had a
clientele of its own, and that within its four walls were gathered
together people who were in some way different from the butterfly
crowd who haunt the night cafes in Paris. Monsieur Carvin himself led
us to a small table against the wall, and not far inside the room. The
_vestiaire_ relieved us of our coats and hats. A suave _maitre
d'hotel_ bent over us with suggestions for supper, and an attendant
_sommelier_ waited by his side. Monsieur Carvin waved them away.
"The gentlemen have probably supped," he remarked. "A bottle of the
Pommery, Gout Anglais, and some biscuits. Is that right, Louis?"
We both hastened to express our approval. Monsieur Carvin was called
by some one at the other end of the room and hurried away. Louis
turned to me. There was a curious expression in his eyes.
"You are disappointed?" he asked. "You see nothing here different? It
is all the same to you."
"Not in the least," I answered. "For one thing, it seems strange to
find a restaurant de luxe up here, when below there is only a cafe of
the worst. Are they of the same management?"
"Up here," he said, "come the masters, and down there the
servants. Look around at these people, monsieur. Look around
carefully. Tell me whether you do not see something different here
from the other places."
I followed Louis' advice. I looked around at the people with an
interest which grew rather than abated, and for which I could not at
first account. Soon, however, I began to realize that although this
was, at first appearance, merely a crowd of fashionably dressed men
and women, yet they differed from the ordinary restaurant crowd in
that there was something a little out of the common in the faces of
nearly every one of them. The loiterers through life seemed absent.
These people were relaxing freely enough,--laughing, talking, and
making love,--but behind it all there seemed a note of seriousness, an
intentness in their faces which seemed to speak of a career, of things
to be done in the future, or something accomplished in the past. The
woman who sat at the opposite table to me--tall, with yellow hair, and
face as pale as alabaster--was a striking personality anywhere. Her
blue eyes were deep-set, and she seemed to have made no effort to
conceal the dark rings underneath, which only increased their
luminosity. A magnificent string of turquoises hung from her bare
neck, a curious star shone in her hair. Her dress was of the newest
mode. Her voice, languid but elegant, had in it that hidden quality
which makes it one of a woman's most attractive gifts. By her side was
a great black-moustached giant, a pale-faced man, with little puffs of
flesh underneath his eyes, whose dress was a little too perfect and
his jewelry a little too obvious.
"Tell me," I asked, "who is that man?"
Louis leaned towards me, and his voice sunk to the merest whisper.
"That, monsieur," said he, "is one of the most important persons in
the room. He is the man whom they call the uncrowned king. He was a
saddler once by profession. Look at him now."
"How has he made his money?" I asked.
Louis smiled--a queer little contraction of his thin lips.
"It is not wise," he said, "to ask that question of any whom you meet
here. Henri Bartot was one of the wildest youths in Paris. It was he
who started the first band of thieves, from which developed the
present hoard of _apaches_."
"And now?" I asked.
"He is their unrecognized, unspoken-of leader," Louis whispered. "The
man who offends him to-night would be lucky to find himself alive
to-morrow."
I looked across the room curiously. There was not a single redeeming
feature in the man's face except, perhaps, the suggestion of brute,
passionate force which still lingered about his thick, straight lips
and heavy jaw. The woman by his side seemed incomprehensible. I saw
now that she had eyes of turquoise blue and a complexion almost
waxenlike. She lifted her arms, and I saw that they, too, were covered
with bracelets of light-blue stones. Louis, following my eyes,
touched me on the arm.
"Don't look at her," he said warningly. "She belongs to
him--Bartot. It is not safe to flirt with her even at this distance."
I laughed softly and sipped my wine.
"Louis," I said, "it is time you got back to London. You are living
here in too imaginative an atmosphere."
"I speak the truth, monsieur," he answered grimly. "She, too,--she is
not safe. She finds pleasure in making fools of men. The suffering
which comes to them appeals to her vanity. There was a young
Englishman once, he sent a note to her--not here, but at the Cafe de
Paris--at luncheon time one morning. He was to have left Paris the
next day. He did not leave. He has never been heard of since!"
There was no doubt that Louis himself, at any rate, believed what he
was saying. I looked away from the young lady a little reluctantly. As
though she understood Louis' warning, her lips parted for a moment in
a faint, contemptuous smile. She leaned over and touched the man
Bartot on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear. When I next
looked in their direction I found his eyes fixed upon mine in a
steady, malignant stare.
"Monsieur will remember," Louis whispered in my ear softly, "that I am
responsible for his coming here."
"Of course," I answered reassuringly. "I have not the slightest wish
to run up against any of these people. I will not look at them any
more. She knew what she was doing, though, Louis, when she hung blue
stones about her with eyes like that, eh?"
"She is beautiful," Louis admitted. "There are very many who admire
her. But after all, what is the use? One has little pleasure of the
things which one may not touch."
We were silent for several minutes. Suddenly my fingers gripped Louis'
arm. Had I been blind all this time that they had escaped my notice?
Then I saw that they were sitting at an extra table which had been
hastily arranged, and I knew that they could have only just arrived.
"Tell me, Louis," I demanded eagerly, "who are those two at the small
round table on the left,--the two who seem to have just come in,--a
man and a girl?"
Louis turned his head, and I saw his lips come together--saw the quick
change in his face from indifference to seriousness. For some reason
or other my interest in these two seemed to be a matter of some import
to him.
"Why does monsieur ask?" he said.
"The idlest curiosity," I assured him. "I know nothing about them
except that they are distinctive, and one cannot fail, of course, to
admire the young lady."
"You have seen them often?" Louis asked, in a low tone.
"I told you, Louis," I answered, "that my mission in Paris is of the
nature of a search. For ten days I have haunted all the places where
one goes,--the Race Course, the Bois, the Armenonville and Pre
Catelan, the Rue de la Paix, the theatres. I have seen them nearly
every day. To-night they were at the Opera."
"You know nothing of them beyond that?" Louis persisted.
"Nothing whatever," I declared. "I am not a boulevarder, Louis," I
continued slowly, "and in England, you know, it is not the custom to
stare at women as these Frenchmen seem to do with impunity. But I must
confess that I have watched that girl."
"You find her attractive," murmured Louis.
"I find her delightful," I assented, "only she seems scarcely old
enough to be about in such places as these."
"The man," Louis said slowly, "is a Brazilian. His name is Delora."
"Does he live in Paris?" I asked.
"By no means," Louis answered. "He is a very rich coffee-planter, and
has immense estates somewhere in his own country. He comes over here
every year to sell his produce on the London market. I believe that he
is on his way there now."
"And the girl?" I asked.
"She is his niece," Louis answered. "She has been brought up in France
at a convent somewhere in the south, I believe. I think I heard that
this time she was to return to Brazil with her uncle."
"I wonder," I asked, "if she is going to London with him?"
"Probably," Louis answered, "and if monsieur continues to patronize
me," he continued, "he will certainly see more of them, for Monsieur
Delora is a client who is always faithful to me."
Notwithstanding its somewhat subdued air, there was all the time going
on around us a cheerful murmur of conversation, the popping of corks,
the laughter of women, the hurrying to and fro of waiters,--all the
pleasant disturbance of an ordinary restaurant at the most festive
hour of the night. But there came, just at this moment, a curious
interruption, an interruption curious not only on its own account, but
on account of the effect which it produced. From somewhere in the
centre of the room there commenced ringing, softly at first, and
afterwards with a greater volume, a gong, something like the siren of
a motor-car, but much softer and more musical. Instantly a dead silence
seemed to fall upon the place. Conversation was broken off, laughter
was checked, even the waiters stood still in their places. The eyes of
every one seemed turned towards the door. One or two of the men rose,
and in the faces of these was manifest a sudden expression in which
was present more or less of absolute terror. Bartot for a moment
shrank back in his chair as though he had been struck, only to recover
himself the next second; and the lady with the turquoises bent over
and whispered in his ear. One person only left his place,--a young man
who had been sitting at a table at the other end of the room with one
of the gayest parties. At the very first note of alarm he had sprung
to his feet. A few seconds later, with swift, silent movements and
face as pale as a ghost, he had vanished into the little service room
from which the waiters issued and returned. With his disappearance the
curious spell which seemed to have fallen upon these other people
passed away. The waiters resumed their tasks. The room was once more
hilariously gay. Upon the threshold a newcomer was standing, a tall
man in correct morning dress, with a short gray beard and a tiny red
ribbon in his button-hole. He stood there smiling slightly--an
unobtrusive entrance, such as might have befitted any habitue of the
place. Yet all the time his eyes were travelling restlessly up and
down the room. As he stood there, one could fancy there was not a face
into which he did not look during those few minutes.