South Wind Part 44

An hour went by. Fatigue was beginning to tell upon Mr. Heard. They had left he cultivated ground behind and were now ascending, by a cindery track of pumice-stone, among grotesque blocks of lava and scoriae that glowed like molten metal. Tufts of flowery broom scented the air. The soil, so recently drenched by the miraculous shower of rain, was once more dry and dusty; its fragile flowers wilted in the sirocco. And still the young man marched ahead. Always upwards! The landscape grew more savage. They bent round a corner and gound themselves skirting a precipice. The bishop glanced down in trepidation. There lay the sea, with not a boat in sight. As he continued to look the horizon oscillated; the ground sank under his feet and blue waters seemed to heave and rise up towards him. He shut his eyes in a fit of dizziness and grasped a rock. Its burning touch revived him.

Then on again. Always upwards.

"Do walk a little more slowly," said the bishop, puffing and wiping his face. "We must be well above the level of the Old Town by this time. A wild scramble. How much higher are we going?"

"Here we are. This is the place I meant."

"Charming, I must say! But aren't we a little too near the edge of the cliff? It makes me feel funny, as if I were in a balloon."

"Oh, we'll get used to it. Let's sit down, Mr. Heard."

Still distrustful of his companion, the bishop made himself comfortable and glanced around. They were high up; the view embraced half the island. The distant volcano confronting him was wreathed in sullen grey smoke that rose up from its lava torrent, and crowned with a menacing vapour-plume. Then an immensity of sea. At his feet, separated from where he sat by wide stony tracts tremulous with heat, lay the Old Town, its houses nestling in a bower of orchards and vineyards. It looked like a shred of rose-tinted lace thrown upon he landscape. He unraveled those now familiar thoroughfares and traced out, as a map, the more prominent buildings--the Church, the Munic.i.p.ality, the old Benedictine Monastery where Duke Alfred, they say, condescendingly invited himself to dine with the monks every second month in such state and splendour that, the rich convent revenues being exhausted, His Highness was pleased to transfer his favours to the neighboring Carthusians who went bankrupt in their turn; he recognized Count Caloveglia's place and, at the furthest outskirts, the little villa Mon Repos.

Where was she now, his cousin?

Reposing, no doubt, like all sensible folks.

And his eye wandered to the narrow pathway along the precipice where he had walked with her in the evening light--that pathway which he had suggested railing in, by reason of its dangers. A section of the horrible face of the cliff was exposed, showing that ominous coloration, as though splotched with blood, which he had noticed from the boat. The devil's rock! An appropriate name. "Where the young English lord jump over...."

It was the stillest hour of the day. Not a soul in sight. Not a particle of shade. Not a breath of air. A cloudless sky of inky blueness.

To Mr. Heard's intense relief Denis had settled down, apparently for ever. He lay on his stomach like a lizard, immovable. His head, sheltered by a big hat, rested upon his jacket which he had rolled up into a sort of cushion; one bare sunburnt arm was stretched to its full length on the seared ground. What a child he was, to drag one up to a place like this in the expectation of seeing something unearthly! Mr.

Heard was not quite satisfied about him. Perhaps he was only feigning.

Time pa.s.sed. Do what he would to keep awake, the bishop felt his eyelids drooping--closing under the deluge of light. Once more there approached him that spirit of malevolence brooding in the tense sunny calm, that baleful emanation which seemed to drain away his powers of will. It laid a weight upon him. He felt into an unquiet slumber.

Presently he woke up and turned sharply to look at his companion. Denis had not stirred an inch from his voluptuous pose. A queer boy. Was he up to some mystification?

The landscape all around was scarred and deserted. How silent a place can be, he thought. An unhealthy hush. And what a heat! The lava blocks--they seemed to smoulder and reel in the fiery glare. It was a deathly world. It reminded him of those ill.u.s.trations to Dante's INFERNO. He thought to see the figures of the d.a.m.ned writhing amid tongues of flame.

His glance fell once more upon the villa of his cousin. Strange! There were two persons, now, walking along the edge of the cliff. Mere specks.... He took up his gla.s.ses. The specks resolved themselves into the figures of Mrs. Meadows and Mr. Muhlen.

The devil! he thought. What's the meaning of this?

They were moving up and down, at the same spot where he had moved up and down with her. They seemed to be on friendly terms with one another. Excellent terms. It looked as if they were laughing now and then, and stopping occasionally to glance at something, some book or other object, which the lady carried in her hand. The devil! At times his cousin seemed to be dangerously near the edge--he caught his breath, remembering that sensation of giddiness, of gulping terror, with which he had watched the falcon swaying crazily over the abyss. She was enjoying it, to all appearances. Then, as they retraced their steps, it was the man's turn to take the outside of the path. He suffered as little as she did, evidently, from vertigo. Laughing, and gesticulating. The devil! What were they talking about? What were they doing there, at this impossible hour of the day? Five or six times they went to and fro; and then, suddenly, something happened before Mr.

Heard's eyes--something unbelievable.

He dropped his gla.s.ses, but quickly raised them again. There was no doubt about it. Muhlen was no longer there. He had disappeared. Mrs.

Meadows was walking down towards her villa, in sprightly fashion, alone.

Mr. Heard felt sick. Not knowing exactly what he was about, he began to shake Denis with needless violence. The young man turned round lazily, flushed in the face.

"Where--what--" he began. "Rather funny! You saw it too? Oh, Lord!

You've woke me up. What a bother.... Why, Mr. Heard, what's the matter with you? Aren't you feeling well?"

The bishop pulled himself together, savagely.

"Touch of the sun, I daresay. Africa, you know! Perhaps we ought to be going. Give me your arm, Denis, like a good boy. I want to get down."

He was dazed in mind, and his steps faltered. But his brain was sufficiently clear to realize that his was face to face with an atrocious and carefully planned murder.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

All the traditions of his race, the uprightness of ages of decent law-abiding culture, the horror of the pure for what is impure rebelled against this thing which nothing but the testimony of his own eyes could have made him believe. He felt humiliated, as though he had received a blow; inclined to slink about and hide his face from other men. There was contamination in the mere fact of having been a witness.

Oh, it was villainous. How carefully the hour and place had been chosen!

And he himself, during that evening walk, had given her the idea. He had said how easily a man could be thrown over at that spot. Very simple....

His mind would clear up, maybe, in course of time. Meanwhile he remembered about Retlow-ALIASMuhlen. It came to him in a flash. The man was his cousin's first husband; possibly her only legal husband, seeing that she may not have been able to secure sufficient evidence against him to justify a divorce--had, indeed, lost sight of the scoundrel altogether for several years prior to her elopement with young Meadows.

It might well be that Muhlen had heard somehow or other of her presence on Nepenthe, and gone there for the purpose of renewing acquaintance with her. But this foul crime! For it cannot have been a sudden impulse on her part. She had been playing with him--leading him on. His visits to the Old Town, at that quiet hour of the day.... No. She had carried out her infamous plan after ample premeditation.

Mr. Heard stayed at home, burdened with a hideous secret. Practical questions began to a.s.sail him. What should he do? Wait! he concluded.

Something would be sure to turn up. He was too dazed to think clearly, as yet. He also disliked that fellow. But one does not murder a man because one happens to dislike him. One does not murder a man ...

foolish words, that kept on repeating themselves in his mind.

To pardon--yes. Mr. Heard could pardon to any extent. The act of pardoning: what did it imply? Nothing more than that poor deluded mortals were ever in need of sympathy and guidance. Anybody could pardon. To pardon was not enough for a man of Mr. Heard's ruthless integrity. He must understand. How understand, how interpret, a dastardly deed like this? What could her motives have been? Of what act of proposal could the man have been guilty to merit, even in her eyes, a fate such as this? For evidently, one does not murder a man because one happens to dislike him--

Denis came to enquire, in the course of the morning. He was anxious to know how the bishop was feeling after yesterday's attack of sunstroke.

"I have been blaming myself bitterly for dragging you out," he began.

"I--really--"

"Don't think about it! I shall be better soon. I'll remain indoors to-day."

"You are not looking quite yourself just yet. What a fool I was! I can't tell you how sorry I am."

"Not worth talking about. You'll stay to luncheon?"

The news of Muhlen's disappearance was spread about that same evening, and created no surprise whatever. Foreigners had a knack of coming to the island and mysteriously vanishing again; it was quite the regular thing to run up accounts all around and then clear out. Hotel-keepers, aware of this idiosyncrasy on the part of distinguished guests, arranged their scale of charges accordingly; they made the prices so high that the honest paid for the dishonest, as with English tailors.

The other tradespeople of the place--the smiling confectioner, the simple-minded bootmaker and good-natured stationer, the ever-polite hosier--they all worked on the same principle. They recouped themselves by fleecing the more ingenuous of their clients.

In the case of Muhlen's occultation there was even less surprise than usual. Everybody, judging by his lavish display of gold and showy manner, expected him to depart sooner or later in the orthodox manner--at night-time, by means of a sailing boat secretly hired, conscientiously prepaid. His more intimate friends, the Magistrate and the Commissioner, were less surprised than anyone else. True, Signore Malipizzo was somewhat hurt, because Muhlen had practically invited him to stay at his own native town where every kind of amus.e.m.e.nt was to be had, the female society being of the choicest. Exuberant women--and rich! It would have been a pleasant change after the trim but tedious gardens of Salsomaggiore. He had strong homes, however, of receiving a letter from some safe place outside the dominions, making an appointment for the holidays. For form's sake, of course, he promptly initiated the ordinary judicial enquiries. It would look well in the records of the Court.

As for Mr. Parker, who was brooding in the retirement of his villa whither the news had swiftly spread, he merely thought:

"Got off scot free. And without paying his Club account, I'll bet.

Bolted. Lucky devil. That's where the casual visitor has the pull over a resident official like myself. Cleared out! I'm glad I never had any money to lend him. Touched a good few of them, I'll be bound."

Within an hour or so of the magistrate's formal enquiries led to a startling discovery. Muhlen's room in the hotel was broken open, and his property searched. No letters could be found conveying any clue as to his whereabouts. But--what was almost incredible--there was loose money lying about. A more minute investigation proved that the gentleman had dressed himself with considerable care prior to leaving the establishment for the last time. He had changed his socks and other underwear--yes, he had donned a clean shirt. The old one, blue-striped, which he had been seen to wear at breakfast, was lying negligently across the back of a chair with a pair of costly enameled links, of azure colour to match, in the cuffs. Moreover, in a small box hidden beneath some collars in a drawer were found a few foreign bank-notes, a ring or two, and a handful of gold coins such as he was in the habit of carrying about his person. The judge, who superintended the researches, caused these valuables to be impounded, sealed, and deposited in the Court of Justice.