Caesar or Nothing Part 25

"Yes, I should say he is," replied Preciozi. "Your sister and you will be the only heirs," said Cittadella.

"Of course," agreed Preciozi.

"Has he made a will?" asked Caesar.

"All the better if he hasn't," said one of the abbes.

"If we could only poison him," sighed Caesar, with melancholy.

"Don't talk of such things just as we are going to eat," said Preciozi.

The dinner was brought, and the two abbes did it the honour it deserved.

Preciozi deserved congratulations for his excellent selection. They ordered good wines and drank merry toasts.

"What an admirable secretary Preciozi would be, if I got to be a personage!" exclaimed Caesar. "Twenty thousand francs or so salary, his board, and the duty of choosing the dinner for the next day. That's my proposal."

The abbe blushed with pleasure, emptied his gla.s.s of wine, and murmured:

"If it depended on me!"

"The fact is that the way things are arranged today is no good," said Caesar. "A hundred years ago, by the mere fact of being a Cardinal's nephew, I should have been somebody."

"That's true," exclaimed Preciozi.

"And as I should have no scruples, and neither would you two, we would have plunged into life strenuously, and sacked Rome, and the whole world would be ours."

"You talk like a Caesar Borgia," said Preciozi, aroused. "You are a true Spaniard."

"Today one must have something to stand on," said Cittadella, coldly.

"Friend Cittadella," retorted Caesar, "I, as you see me here, am the man who knows the most about financial matters in all Spain, and I believe I shall soon get to where I can say, in all Europe. I put my knowledge at the service of whoever pays me. I am like one of your old _condottieri_, a mercenary general. I am ready to win battles for the Jewish bank, or against the Jewish bank, for the Church or against the Church."

"For the Church is better. Against the Church we cannot a.s.sist you,"

said Preciozi.

"I will try first, for the Church. To whom can you recommend me first?"

The two abbes said nothing, and drank in silence.

"Perhaps Verry would see him," said Cittadella.

"Hm!..." replied Preciozi. "I rather doubt it."

"What sort of a party is he?" asked Caesar.

"He is one of those _prelati_ that come out of the College of n.o.bles,"

said Cittadella, "and who get on, even if they are no good. Here they consider him a haughty Spaniard; they blame him for wearing his robes, and for always taking an automobile when he goes to Castel Gandolfo. The priests hate him because he is a Jesuit and a Spaniard."

"And wherein does his strength lie?"

"In the Society, and in his knowing several languages. He was educated in England."

"From what you two tell me of him, he gives me the impression of a fatuous person."

A bottle of champagne was brought in and the three of them drank, toasting and touching gla.s.ses.

"If I were in your place," said Cittadella, after thinking a long while, "I shouldn't try to get at people in high places, but people who are inconspicuous and yet have influence in your country."

"For instance...."

"For instance, Father Herreros, at the convent in Trastevere."

"And Father Miro too," added Preciozi, "and if you could talk to Father Ferrer, of the Gregorian University, it wouldn't be a bad idea."

"That will be more difficult," said Cittadella.

"You could tell them," Preciozi suggested, "that your uncle the Cardinal sent you, and hint that he doesn't want anybody to know that he is backing you." "And if somebody should write to my uncle?"

"You mustn't say anything definite. You must speak ambiguously. Besides, in case they did write, we would fix it up in the office."

Caesar began to laugh navely. Afterwards, the two abbes, a little excited by the food and the good wine, started in to have a violent discussion, speaking Italian. Caesar paid the bill, and pretending that he had an urgent engagement, took leave of them and went out.

_A SPANISH MONK_

The next day Caesar went to look up Father Herreros. He had not yet succeeded in forming a plan. His only idea was to see if he could take advantage of some chance: to follow a scent and be on the alert, in case something new should start up on one side or the other.

Father Herreros lived in a convent in Trastevere. Caesar took the tram in the Piazza Venezia, and got out after crossing the Tiber, near the Via delle Fratte.

He soon found the convent; it had a yellow portal with a Latin inscription which sang the gymnastic glories of Saint Pascual Bailon.

Above the inscription there was a picture, in which a monk, no doubt Bailon, was dancing among the clouds.

On the lintel of the gate were the arms of Spain, and at the sides, two medallions bearing hands wounded in the palm.

The convent door was old and quartered. Caesar knocked.

A lay-brother, with a suspicious glance, came out to admit him, told him to wait, and left him alone. After some while, he came back and asked him to follow him.

They went down a small pa.s.sage and up a staircase, which was at the end, and then along a corridor on the main floor. On one side of this corridor, in his cell, they found Father Herreros.

Caesar, after bowing and introducing himself, sat down, as the monk asked him to do, in a chair with its back to the light. Caesar began to explain why he had come, and as he had prepared what he was going to say, he employed his attention, while speaking, on the cage and the kind of big bird which were before his eyes.

Father Herreros had a big rough head, black heavy eyebrows, a short nose, an enormous mouth, yellow teeth, and grey hair. He wore a chocolate-coloured robe, open enough to show his whole neck down to his chest. The movement of the good monk's lips was that of a man who wished to pa.s.s for keen and insinuating. His robe was dirty and he doubtless had the habit of leaving cigarette stubs on the table.

The cell had one window, and in front of it a bookcase. Caesar made an effort to read the t.i.tles. They were almost all Latin books, the kind that n.o.body reads.

Father Herreros began to ask Caesar questions. In his brain, he was doubtless wondering why Cardinal Fort's nephew should come to him.