Джозеф Конрад - Suspense

Cosmo regretted more than ever not being able to make them an offer. It would have been probably successful, as they seemed to be in doubt what to do next. He mentioned he was living at the Casa Graziani. “If one of you will go with me there you shall be recompensed for your trouble.” No answer was made to that proposal, except that one of the men coughed slightly. Their chief in a hat with an enormous brim seemed lost in deep thought, and his immobility in front of Cosmo appeared to the latter amusingly mysterious and sinister. A sort of nervous impatience came over Cosmo, an absurd longing to tear himself away and make a dash for liberty, and then an absurd discouragement, as though he was a criminal with no hiding–place to make for. The man in the big hat jerked up his head suddenly, and disclosed the irritable state of his feelings at the failure of getting hold of that furfante . “As to that Englishman,” he continued in his rasping voice, not corresponding to his physical bulk, “let him be taken to the guard–room. He will have to show his papers.”

Cosmo was provoked to say: “Do you expect a gentleman to carry his papers with him when he goes out for a walk?”

He was disconcerted by an outburst of laughter on three sides of him. The leader in the hat did not laugh; he only said bitterly: “We expect papers from a man we find hiding.”

“Well, I have no papers on me,” said Cosmo, and immediately in a sort of mental illumination thought, “Except in my hat.” Of course that object reposing on the top of his head was a bundle of papers, dangerous documents. Attilio was a conspirator. Obviously! The mysterious allusion to something he was to find and hand over to Cantelucci became clear to Cosmo. He felt very indignant with his mysterious acquaintance. “Of course he couldn’t foresee I was going to get into this predicament,” he thought, as if trying to find an excuse for him already.

“ Avanti ,” commanded the man in front of him.

The grip on his arm of the two others tightened, resistance was no use, though he felt sorely tempted again to engage in a struggle. If only he could free himself for a moment, dash off into the darkness and throw that absurd packet away somewhere before they caught him again! It was a sort of solution; but he discovered in himself an unsuspected and unreasoning loyalty. “No! Somebody would find it, and take it to the police,” he thought. “If we come near the quay I may manage to fling it into the water.”

He said with lofty negligence: “You needn’t hold my arms.”

This suggestion was met by a profound silence. Neither of the men holding him relaxed his grasp. Another was treading close on his heels, while the police–hound in the big hat marched a couple of paces in front of him, importantly.

Before long they approached the guard–house close enough for Cosmo to see the sentry at the foot of the steps, who challenged them militarily. The sbirro in the hat advanced alone, and made himself known in the light streaming through the door. It was too late to attempt anything. As he was impelled by his two captors inside the guard–room, which was lighted by a smoky lamp and also full of tobacco smoke, Cosmo thought: “I am in for it. What a horrible nuisance. I wonder whether they will search me?”

At Cosmo’s entrance with his escort several soldiers reclining on the floor raised their heads. It was a small place which may have been used as a store for sails or cordage. The furniture consisted of one long bench, a rack of muskets, a table and one chair. A sergeant sitting on that chair rose and talked with the head sbirro for a time in a familiar and interested manner about the incidents of the chase, before he even looked at Cosmo. Cosmo could not hear the words. The sergeant was a fine man, with long black moustaches and a great scar on his cheek. He nodded from time to time in an understanding manner to the man in the hat, whom the light of the guard–room disclosed as the possessor of very small eyes, a short thick beard and a pear–shaped yellow physiognomy, which had a pained expression. At the suggestion of the sbirri (they had let him go) Cosmo sat down on a bench running along the wall. Part of it was occupied by a soldier stretched at full length, with his head on his knapsack, and with his shako hung above him on the wall. He was profoundly asleep. “Perhaps that’s the fellow who took those shots at me,” thought Cosmo. Another of the sbirri approached Cosmo and with a propitiatory smile handed him his cloak. Cosmo had forgotten all about it.

“I carried it behind the signore all the way,” he murmured with an air of secrecy; and Cosmo was moved to say: “You ought to have brought it to me at Cantelucci’s inn,” in a significant tone. The man made a deprecatory gesture, and said in a low voice: “The signore may want it to–night.”

He was young. His eyes met Cosmo’s without flinching.

“I see,” whispered Cosmo. “What is going to be done with me?” The man looked away indifferently and said: “I am new at this work; but there is a post of royal gendarmerie on the other side of the harbour.”

He threw himself on the bench by Cosmo’s side, stretched his legs out, folded his arms across his breast, and yawned unconcernedly.

“Can I trust him?” Cosmo asked himself. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to him. The sbirro in the hat bustled out of the guard–room in great haste; the other two remained on guard; the sergeant, sitting astride on the chair, folded his arms on the back of it and stared at the night through the open door. The sbirro by Cosmo’s side muttered, looking up at the ceiling: “I think Barbone is gone to find a boatman.” From this Cosmo understood that he was going to be taken across the harbour and given up to the gendarmes. He thought: “If they insist upon searching me, I would have to submit, and in any case a hat is not a hiding–place. I may just as well hand the packet over without a struggle.” A bright idea struck him. “If those fellows take me over there in a boat to save themselves the trouble of walking round the harbour, I will simply contrive to drop my hat overboard—even if they do hold my arms during the passage.” He was now convinced that Attilio belonged to some secret society. He certainly was no common fellow. He wondered what had happened to him. Was he slinking and dodging about the low parts of the town on his way to some refuge; or had he really found the excitable man and the grumpy man still waiting under the tower with a boat? Most unlikely after such an alarming commotion of yells and shots. He feared that Attilio, unable to get away, could hardly avoid being caught to–morrow, or at the furthest, next day. He himself obviously did not expect anything better; or else he would not have been so anxious to get rid of those papers. Cosmo concluded that conspirators were perfectly absurd with their passion for documents which were invariably found at a critical time, and sent them all to the gallows.

He noticed the eyes of the sergeant, a Croat, with pendent black moustaches, fixed on his hat, and at once felt uneasy, as if he had belonged to a secret society himself. His hat was the latest thing in men’s round hats which he had bought in Paris. But, almost directly, the sergeant’s eyes wandered off to the doorway, and resumed their stare. Cosmo was relieved. He decided, however, to attempt no communication with the young police fellow, whose lounging attitude, abandoned and drowsy, and almost touching elbows with him, seemed to Cosmo too suggestive to be trustworthy. And indeed, he reflected, what could he do for him?

His excitement about this adventure was combined in a strange way with a state of inward peace which he had not known for hours. He wondered at his loyalty to the astute Attilio. He would have been justified in regarding the transaction as a scurvy trick; whereas he found that he could not help contemplating it as a matter of trust. He went on exercising his wits upon the problem of those documents (he was sure those were papers of some kind) which he had been asked to give to Cantelucci (how surprised he would be), since apparently the innkeeper was a conspirator too. Yet, he thought, it would be better to destroy them than to let them fall into the hands of the Piedmontese justice, or the Austrian military command. “I must contrive,” he thought, “to get rid of them in the boat. I can always shake my hat overboard accidentally.” But the packet would float and some boatman would be sure to find it during the day. On the other hand, by the time daylight came the handwriting would probably have become illegible. Or perhaps not? Fire, not water, was what he needed. If there had been a fire in that inexpressibly dirty guard–room he would have made use of it at once under the very noses of those wild–looking Croats. But would that have been the proper thing to do in such a hurry?