Читать книгу The Day the World Ended - Arthur Henry Ward - Страница 6

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“Very quiet to-night,” said I, glancing around the deserted bar.

“Yes.” The barman set my liqueur before me. “There is a dance at the Casino.”

“Ah, is that it?”

I studied George interestedly. Here was a possible source of information hitherto untapped. Barmen are students of humanity and reliquaries of strange secrets. For the cocktail breaks down reticence and makes the dumb speak.

“Nothing but dancing nowadays,” he went on. “I like dancing myself; but it’s bad for business.”

“Really? You surprise me. I should have thought it promoted thirst.”

“Bah!” George’s expressive features registered scorn. “They drink soft drinks, the dancing men. If it wasn’t for the women my trade would be finished!”

I invited him to join me and broached the subject uppermost in my mind—tactfully. The effect was extraordinary.

The man paused, syphon in hand, thumb on the lever, and stared at me in a way which I can only describe as reproachful. Then he glanced about the empty bar fearfully. At last:

“I shouldn’t go in for that sort of thing, sir,” he said, and squirted soda so nervously that some of his whisky was lost—“not if you’re on a holiday.”

“Why? What is there to be afraid of?”

Craning over the counter to assure himself that no eavesdropper was near:

“Have you asked anybody else?” said he.

“Yes,” I replied irritably—“a dozen at least!”

“Then, sorry as I shall be to see you go, sir,” was George’s astonishing remark, “take the Rheingold Express to-morrow!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

George beckoned me closer, and:

“Have you seen the cemetery above the town?” he asked with apparent irrelevance, and gestured to indicate its direction.

“I have not.”

“It’s full of new graves,” said George. “Good-evening, sir!”

I started, turned—and found a man seated on the next stool to my own!

“Good-evening. Beer,” the newcomer responded.

He nodded, as our glances met.

“Very warm,” he observed.

He was Mr. Aldous P. Kluster. The presence of the middle initial indicates the American generation to which he belonged. He was lean, clean-shaven, ax-faced, and sallow. He wore a perpetual cigar which was rarely alight. He had a perfect mane of well-brushed gray hair and he dressed carefully but badly.

“Very,” I agreed.

I was taciturn to the point of rudeness; and for two reasons. I strongly suspected him of having spied upon me in my conversation with George. And, as our eyes had met, his habitually languid expression had been assumed too late.

Mr. Aldous P. Kluster had a regard like a gimlet. He was interested in me. Why?

As I lighted a cigarette:

“Not dancing to-night?” said he.

And, as he spoke, a possible explanation of his odd behaviour occurred to me. On the previous evening I had danced once or twice with Mme. Yburg. Kluster and Madame were apparently old friends. The theory presented itself that he was her lover—and a very jealous lover.

I recalled his almost open rudeness to a good-looking and debonair Frenchman who had succeeded me as Madame’s partner and who had monopolized her throughout the rest of the evening.

“I dance very rarely,” I said.

“The French acrobat makes up for you.”

“M. Paul? Yes. He dances almost too well.”

My theory, I considered, had received confirmation. Kluster disliked any man who approached his charming friend. I glanced at him curiously, as he set down his glass and replaced a stub of cigar in his thin, flexible mouth. He made an odd figure of a lover. Given a goatee and a high beaver hat with a stars-and-stripes band, he would have taken first prize at any carnival as Uncle Sam.

I registered a sincere prayer that, at Mr. Kluster’s age, the tender passion might no longer disturb my peace. Conversation languished, and I stepped down to go.

“Good-night,” I said.

“Good-night, sir,” George called.

“Good-night,” said Kluster, adding, as I left the bar, “Beer.”

Outside, I turned right and walked along to the gardens. I followed the private path beside the little dancing trout stream. Along the parallel public path on the other bank of the Oos, Baden-Baden took the air. Here were family groups, courting pairs, and isolated strollers. Distinguished strangers taking the waters, and townsfolk to whom the beauty of the enchanted valley was a commonplace.

On my left, half hidden by flowers, were many lighted windows on the ground floor of the Regal. In one might be glimpsed an intimate party, in another some solitary figure unable or disinclined to join the promenaders.

Through the trees ahead came odd strains from the dance band in the Casino, and now I could see many twinkling fairy lights and detect moving figures.

A crescent moon hung in a sky dark and starry as that of Egypt. A delicious sense of coolness was conveyed by the laughing chatter of the tiny stream. And, when a slight breeze stirred, the fragrance of a million pines was borne down from the embracing forest.

“You have three days ...”

I opened the communicating gate and strolled up to the Casino.

One of my three days was nearing its close.

The scene presented great animation and considerable elegance. Smart people from three continents were here. A maharajah famous for his racing stud, his family jewels, and his generosity to his lady friends was holding informal court at one table. At another presided a New York hostess whose Park Avenue parties were no less celebrated than the dances she gave in Bruton Street, and to whom Baden-Baden came as a rest from Juan les Pins.

There were a fair number of dancers, but very few of them either young or attractive. Mme. Yburg was not present. And a premonition that I should find her there in the company of the dazzling M. Paul—which would have accounted for Kluster’s solitary beer drinking—was proved to have been misleading.

I looked on for awhile, but could see no friend or acquaintance anywhere. The nearly ceaseless moaning of the saxophones began to depress me.

Oddly, perhaps, I find in the music of this instrument something eerie. It does not stimulate in me a desire to dance or make love; it rather speaks of orgiastic rites beneath an African moon. I found myself thinking of George’s words:

“Have you seen the cemetery above the town? ... It’s full of new graves....”

I left the Casino, not by way of the gardens, but by the door opening on to Schiller Strasse.

A big car passed, going toward the Regal. Its only occupant stared hard in my direction. If he saw me, recognized me, it was impossible to say. But his expression, as he peered out, affected me most unpleasantly.

It was the Frenchman, M. Paul.

An apprehension of being hunted formed the main factor in this strange expression which so deeply impressed me. His was a fugitive look.

“Three days ...”