Джозеф Конрад - Suspense

Rage kept Cantelucci dumb. He was as shocked by what he had heard as the most rigid moralist could desire. But he was a conspirator, and all he could see in this was the criminal conduct of those young people who ought to have thought of nothing but the liberation of Italy. For Attilio had taken the oath of the Carbonari; and Checca belonged to the women’s organisation of that secret society. She was an ortolana , as they called themselves. He had initiated her and was responsible for her conduct. The baseness—the stupidity—the frivolity—the selfishness!

By severe exercise of self–restraint he refrained from throwing her out into the street all in tears as she was. He only muttered awfully at her: “Get out of my sight, you little fool,” with a menacing gesture; but she stood her ground; she never flinched before his raised hand. And as it fell harmless by his side she seized it in both her own, pressing it to her lips and breast in turn, whispering the while all sorts of endearing names at the infuriated Cantelucci. He heard the sounds of his staff beginning the work of the day, their voices, their footsteps. They would wonder—but his niece did not care. She clung to his hand, and he did not get rid of her till he had actually promised to send her news directly he had heard something himself. And she even thought of the means. There was that fine sailor with black whiskers in attendance on the English officers frequenting the hotel. He was a good–natured man. He knew the way to the wine–shop.

This reminded her of her husband. What if he should wake in her absence! and still distracted she ran off at last, leaving Cantelucci to face the situation.

He was dismayed. He did not really know what had happened—not to his messenger, but to the documents. The old conspirator, battling with his thoughts, moved so silent and stern amongst his people that nobody dared approach him for a couple of hours. And when they did at last come to him with the news of the young “milor’s” disappearance, he simply swore at them. But as the morning advanced he came to the conclusion that for various reasons it would be best for him to seek his old benefactor. He did so with a harassed face, which caused the doctor to believe in the story of a sleepless night. Of course, he spoke only of Cosmo’s absence.

The doctor leaning back against the edge of his dressing–table gazed silently at the innkeeper. He was profoundly disturbed by the intelligence. “Got your snuff–box on you?” he asked.

The alacrity of Cantelucci in producing his snuff–box was equalled by the deferential flourish with which he held it out to his benefactor.

“The young English signore,” he remarked, “visited the Palazzo of the Griffins the evening before.”

The doctor helped himself to a pinch. “He didn’t spend the night there though,” he observed. “You know who lives in the Palazzo, don’t you, Cantelucci?”

“Some Piedmontese general, I understand, your Excellency,” said Cantelucci, who had been in touch with Count Helion ever since the Austrian occupation, and had even forwarded secretly one or two letters for the count to Elba. But these were addressed to a grain merchant in Porto Ferraio. “I will open all my mind to your Excellency,” continued Cantelucci. “An English milor is a person of consequence. If I were to report his disappearance, the police would be coming here to make investigation. I don’t want any police in my house.”

The doctor lost his meditative air. “I daresay you don’t,” he said grimly.

“I recommend myself to your Excellency’s protective influence,” murmured Cantelucci insinuatingly.

The doctor let drop the pinch of snuff between his thumb and finger. “And he may have come back while we are talking here,” he said hopefully. “Go down, Cantelucci, and send me my courier.”

But the doctor’s man was already at the door, bringing the brushed clothes over his arm. While dressing the doctor speculated on the mystery. It baffled all his conjectures. A man may go out in the evening for a breath of fresh air and get knocked on the head. But how unlikely! He spoke casually to his man, who was ministering to him in gloomy silence.

“You will have to step over to the police presently and find out whether anything has happened last night. Do it quietly.”

“I understand,” said the courier surlily. The thought that the fellow had been drunk recently crossed the doctor’s mind.

“Who were you drinking with last night?” he asked sharply.

“The English servant,” confessed the courier–valet grumpily. “His master let him off his service last night.”

“Yes. And you made him pay the shot.” With these words the doctor left the room. While crossing the great hall downstairs he had the view of Spire’s back framed in the entrance doorway. The valet had not apparently budged from there since seven. So Mr. Latham had not returned. In the dining–room there were only two naval officers at the table reserved for them: the elderly gentleman in his usual place at the head, and a round–faced florid person in a bobbed wig, who might have been the ship’s surgeon. During their meal the doctor did not hear them exchange a single remark. They went away together, and after the last of the town customers had left the room too, the doctor sat alone before his table toying with a half–empty glass thoughtfully. His grave face was startlingly at variance with the short abrupt laugh which he emitted as he rose, pushing his chair back. It was provoked by the thought that only last evening he had been urging half–jestingly his young countryman to leave Genoa in one of the conventional ways, by road or sea, and now he was gone with a vengeance—spirited away, by Jove! The doctor was startled at the profound change of his own feelings. Count Helion’s venomous “I don’t want that popinjay here” did not sound so funny in his recollection now. Very extraordinary things could and did happen under the run of everyday life. Was it possible that the word of the riddle could be found there? he asked himself.

This investigator of the secret discontents and aspirations of his time had never shut his ears to the mere social gossip that came in his way. He had lived long, he remembered much. For instance, he could remember things that were said about Sir Charles Latham long before Cosmo was born. As to the story of the Montevesso marriage, that had made noise enough in its time in society, and also amongst the French émigrés . Its celebration, the subsequent differences, reconciliations, recriminations, and final arrangement, had kept idle tongues wagging for years. Of course it was that match which had given that dubious Montevesso his social standing; and what followed had invested that absurd individual with the celebrity of a character out of a Molière comedy: Le Jaloux. The elderly jealous husband. Comic enough. But that was the sort of comedy that soon takes a tragic turn. A special provocation, a sudden opportunity, are enough. What puzzled the doctor was the suddenness of the problem. Yet one could not tell what an orientalised brute, no stranger probably to palace murders, had not the means of doing. He might have been harbouring in that barn of a palace some retainers of a deadly kind. A Corsican desperado, or a couple of rascals from his own native mountains. Had he not two unattractive old peasant women concealed there?

The doctor believed that unlikely things happened every day. This view was not the result of inborn credulity, but of much acquired knowledge of a secret sort. A serious, fastidious, and obviously earnest–minded young man, like Latham, was particularly liable to get into trouble of a grave kind. A manifestation of perfectly innocent sympathy could do it, and even less. An unguarded glance. An unconscious warmth of tone. Confound it! Yet he could not let a young countryman of his, a nice, likeable young gentleman, vanish from under his nose without taking some steps.