Читать книгу Four For A Fortune - Albert Lee - Страница 3

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It was in April, 1894 (as I have said), that we met Carquemort. All the afternoon the rain had been coming down in streaks from a mass of dark, woolly clouds overhead, and humanity was soaked in discontent. Earlier in the day we had agreed, Thatcher and I, to brighten the evening with a modest meal at Chiffard’s; and thus the dinner-hour found us picking our way over the glistening, puddly pavements of South Fifth Avenue towards Washington Square. Near Fourth Street we turned into a narrow doorway that broadens out into a dark, square hall—damp, stone-paved, and heavy with an odor of cooking—and entered the cheerful little French restaurant that occupies the lower floor of the dingy tenement. The two small rooms, set with a dozen white tables, were warm and well lighted; but it was a bad night for business, and only three guests had preceded us. The violinist and his wife sat in the corner as usual, and across the room was a bearded, broad-shouldered fellow who scarcely glanced up as we entered. He appeared thoroughly unconscious of any one’s else presence, and punctuated his indifference with a noisy mouthing of his pot-au-feu.

Madame Chiffard, who was at her post behind the little marble counter, placidly hemming a new dozen of napkins, smiled benignly as the door opened before us, and exclaimed in her most gracious manner:

“Ah, messieurs, mais vous avez choisi da bien mauvais temps pour venir nous voir!”

Then, turning her head in the direction of the shaft where the rickety little dumbwaiter rattled incessantly in its excursions to the lower regions, she called out:

“Philippe! Ces messieurs sont là!”

I do not know whether we were the only messieurs who patronized Chiffard’s, or whether Madame had in her heart a softer spot for us than for her other customers; but whenever she announced to Chiffard, who watched over the pots and kettles below, that “ces messieurs” were “là,” we could always confidently look forward to the enjoyment of an unusually well-cooked dinner. Thatcher was exceedingly jealous of this preference, and he had long ago made me promise never to bring any one to dine at Chiffard’s, or even to tell my friends of the little restaurant’s existence. He may have been justified in this secretiveness, for, as he explained when he exacted the promise:

“It is bad enough to sit around and dine with a lot of newspaper men and Bohemians” (all the same, Thatcher numbered many a good friend and cherished companion among these same newspaper men and Bohemians!), “but when they take their privacy and sell it at space rates, it is time to retire from their company. There is no telling when you yourself will be taken as a subject for a Sunday special. You know how good Binetti’s was, two years ago? And you remember those jolly summer evenings we used to spend at Dagorre’s? Well, those fellows had to go and write about it all, didn’t they? And reprint pictures stolen from the Paris weeklies to give their stories ‘local color?’ Bah! And now Binetti’s is full of dry-goods clerks and addle-pated youths who call nightly for Chianti (which they never get!); and Dagorre’s has had such a run of the herd that I would not stall my horse there—if I had one!”

Fortunately Thatcher’s autocratic boycott of Bohemians and newspaper men did not seem to injure Chiffard’s business. He derived a good trade from the French folk of the quarter, and prospered. One day he consulted with Thatcher about advertising in an afternoon paper. Thatcher nearly fainted at the suggestion, and forthwith painted the results of newspaper advertising in such black colors that the frugal Frenchman at once gave up all idea of ever seeing his name in print.

“The day will come soon enough,” Thatcher said to me afterwards, “when Chiffard will believe himself the only restaurant-keeper who ever successfully boiled a bouillabaisse south of the Arch. Then he will move up into the Tenderloin, hire a place with a white-painted front and plate-glass windows—and fail!”

Thatcher was at times inclined to be cynical.

But to return to this eventful evening of the year of the Devil 1894. By the time the coffee and cheese were placed upon the table, it was near nine o’clock. It was improbable any more customers would come in. Madame stepped down from her high perch behind the counter and brought her sewing to our table, where her husband had already joined us. He wore his immaculate cook’s hat on the back of his head, and the sleeves of his spotless white coat were turned well up so as to display a pair of well-developed tattooed arms, for Chiffard had served in the French Navy. He rolled cigarette after cigarette and puffed the room full of light-blue smoke, while we all talked and laughed and told stories, as you always do at Chiffard’s, and drank pretty-colored, queer-named liqueurs out of funny little thimble-like glasses, and Thatcher said “Sacré!” at most inopportune moments—and altogether we had a very good time. Our conversations in the little restaurant were, of course, always carried on in French; but as this is neither a stenographic report nor a dialectic essay, I shall not attempt to reproduce the cook’s wild rhetoric or Thatcher’s utter disregard of the rules set down by Noel and Chaptal. The topics we discussed ranged from soup to politics, with eloquence for the former and true Gallic vehemence for the latter, for Chiffard was what Stevenson would have described as a veritable petard of a fellow, although by no means worn to skin and bone, like the host of the inn at Origny-Sainte-Benoîte. Our host was fat. His petardism was at times trying to my nerves; but Madame, who was a quiet little body herself, used to notice this; and I think she sympathized with me, for frequently, with one hand placed upon her spouse’s brawny arm, she would adroitly turn the drift of the conversation from politics back again to soup. And I was duly grateful.

On this particular rainy evening, however, the petard appeared distracted and thoughtful. He did not talk so boisterously as of wont, and he acted as a man does whose mind is set upon another matter. Frequently he looked over his shoulder at the bearded guest in the other room. The fellow had finished his dinner and sat, pipe in mouth, reading the French newspapers. The violinist and his wife had left long since, and I wondered why the stranger lingered. After a while Chiffard said:

“That man used to be a quartermaster in the French Navy.”

“He looks more like a pirate,” said Thatcher.

“I think he deserted,” continued Chiffard. “He does not say much about it. I knew him ten years ago on the Cuverville, and befriended him once.”

“I suppose he wants a meal on the strength of his reminiscences,” I suggested.

“No. He pays. It is not that he wants.” Chiffard glanced over his shoulder again, and then leaning forward to us, he whispered: “He showed me a chart!”

This statement evidently did not impress either Thatcher or me as much as Chiffard had intended it should.

“Is there anything particularly odd about a sailor having a chart?” I asked, noticing his disappointment.

“You do not understand,” whispered Chiffard again. “It is gold—it is treasure!”

“Oho!” exclaimed Thatcher, laughing. “Mr. Bunco, eh? How much did he want you to invest in the chart?”

“Ah, it is not that. He will not sell the map. He does not know where the place is. He wants me to tell him of some one who can help him to find out.”

“Well, bring him over here,” suggested Thatcher, “and tell him I am an authority on Captain Kidd and buried treasure and mysterious islands. Tell him I’ll find the gold for him if he will give me half the spoils!”

“I fear he will not trust you Americans,” said Chiffard, who seemed to take the treasure chart most seriously. “You see, he waits for you to go. He wants to come and talk to me again.”

We urged Chiffard to invite the stranger to our table, and although he demurred considerably at first, he finally turned towards the man and said:

“Eh, Monsieur Carquemort! Venez donc prendre quelque chose avec nous.”

Carquemort looked up from his paper, grunted something that sounded like “Merci bien,” and went on reading again.

“What a bear!” remarked Madame.

“You see, he will not,” said Chiffard, shrugging his shoulders. But Thatcher was not to be so easily denied. He called upon our host to go over and persuade the seaman to join us, and when Chiffard persistently objected Thatcher threatened to go and get him himself. Thereupon Chiffard rose reluctantly and went over to Carquemort and sat down beside him. They talked for several minutes in undertones.

“All that fellow needs to make him look like a genuine pirate,” observed Thatcher, as we watched them, “is a red handkerchief tied around his head, a cutlass in his hand, and a brace of pistols in his belt.”

I looked at him again, and could not but appreciate the force of the remark. Little did I suspect that under three months I should see this same Carquemort in practically the outfit suggested by Thatcher, standing on the deck of a vessel at sea, cursing and fighting—a real pirate in appearance and at heart, if ever there was one. The greatest blessing Divine Providence has wasted on humanity is ignorance of the future.

After ten minutes of conversation with Chiffard, Carquemort consented to accept our hospitality. When Madame saw him coming, she gathered up her napkins and bade us good-night, saying she found no pleasure in the society of the villains her husband was occasionally forced to entertain.