Читать книгу Now or Never - Cyril Henry Coles - Страница 6

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They breakfasted late the following morning, went out for a short stroll to air themselves, and came back to the Ambassador Hotel for a pre-lunch sherry. They were discussing, as they strolled through the lounge, what they would do that afternoon, and anyone near enough to be within earshot might have noticed that they were talking Spanish; it is natural to continue speaking in whatever language one has just been using, so they ordered their drinks in that language. Continental bar-tenders are accustomed to being addressed in every language of the more habitable parts of the globe, and this man had no difficulty in understanding and answering them. Presently they were aware, without looking round, that two men had stopped near them. The next minute a voice behind them offered apologies in Spanish. Forgan and Campbell turned in the friendliest manner possible and slipped off their high stools.

“The senores will find it difficult to forgive my unwarranted intrusion,” said the stranger, “but it is very pleasant to hear one’s own tongue in a foreign land.”

“No apology is necessary,” said Forgan genially. “We are gratified that the senor should have chosen to address us.”

“My friend and I,” said the first speaker, “can both speak French sufficiently when we have to, you understand, but it is not a language in which we find ourselves at home. All the time we are aware that we are translating, and there is the conscious effort to remember what we were told at school about the uses of the subjunctive.”

“On holiday,” said Campbell, “one does not wish to be trammelled with subjunctives.”

“The real trouble, no doubt,” said the second Spaniard gloomily, “is that it is too long since we were at school.”

“You would not wish to return, senor?” said Forgan. “No; nor I. But the thought appears to depress you, dare I offer sherry to Spaniards? Or perhaps there is something else you would prefer.” He caught the bar-tender’s eye and a discussion upon vintages followed.

The Spaniard who had spoken first was a tall, slim man whose black hair had retreated some distance from his forehead and turned silver at the temples; he had good features, a distinguished appearance and the unembarrassed manners of an assured social position. The other was a small, stout man with a bulbous nose and a permanently worried expression. They were not men one would have expected to be travelling together.

The sherry question having been settled, the tall Spaniard reverted to the topic of language. “I think—am I right?—you two gentlemen are not from Spain itself, but from the Argentine, is it not so?”

“Our unfortunate accent,” murmured Forgan; and the other hastened to apologize.

“Not at all, not at all. One does but notice those minor differences, which I find so interesting.”

“Has the senor visited Buenos Aires?” asked Campbell.

“Not yet; but it is my ambition to go there some day. Perhaps next year. A beautiful city, is it not?”

“Beautiful,” said Forgan with emotion, “beautiful. The houses are palaces, the gardens are like those in Paradise, the streets are gay and life is a song. The women walk like empresses and have hearts like loving children ...”

“Golden hearts,” said Campbell dreamily; “pure gold is what they have at heart.”

“The senores are poets,” said the tall Spaniard.

“No, no; we have no words,” said Forgan humbly. “We are but bond-slaves of beauty, lackeys of loveliness.”

“Groomsmen of grace,” murmured Campbell, gazing absently into the distance. He lifted his glass as for a toast, kissed the rim and swallowed the contents.

After which it was with a sense of anti-climax that the tall Spaniard introduced the subject of what they ought to see in Paris. “I have been here but once before in my life. I blush to say it. I was a boy of fourteen; my tutor brought me. We stayed with a most correct family and, to be frank with you, I remember nothing but the circus. And you, Piccione?”

“Never before,” said the small Spaniard; “never.”

“How long do the senores propose to stay?” asked Forgan.

“Alas, only five days. We must leave again on Sunday the eleventh.”

Forgan, Campbell and the bar-tender went into committee forthwith and laid out for them a series of tours and visits of inspection. The Louvre, Notre Dame, the tomb of Napoleon, the Sainte Chapelle, the Morgue, the Catacombs, Versailles, the Petit Trianon, Les Halles at five in the morning, the Café de l’Enfer at midnight.

The Spaniards brightened up a little at this last suggestion and Forgan added quickly that they need have no qualms, the place was nowadays of the utmost respectability and the most unsophisticated visitor would be quite safe there. “It is but the décor which is designed to amaze,” he said.

The bar-tender came to the rescue with a suggestion that the Spaniards should start by making a couple of motor-coach tours about the city. He produced a leaflet on the subject. There was one tour of the new part and another of the old part. “By this means the senores will, in a very short time, obtain a general idea of Paris which would otherwise take weeks to acquire. The senores can then decide what most interests them and arrange their visits accordingly. There is a tour this afternoon at half-past fourteen hours and the reception clerk would book seats for them.”

The Spaniards seized upon this suggestion, disengaged themselves gracefully and hurried off towards the reception desk. Forgan and Campbell finished their sherry and walked leisurely across the lounge to the dining-room.

“Since one is Piccione,” began Forgan in a low, tone.

“The other is D’Almeida,” finished Campbell. “And they are going away on the 11th.”

“They’re the blokes,” said Forgan. “If we give them the rest of to-day and most of to-morrow to absorb culture, I should think they’d be ready to be amused by to-morrow night.”

“D’Almeida is the sort of man who might really like pictures.”

“Yes; but Piccione isn’t. To-morrow evening will see him through.”

Late the following afternoon D’Almeida and Piccione were found sitting in two of the most comfortable chairs in the lounge—not so much sitting as sunk into them. Their eyes were slightly glazed, but not with drink; Campbell, waiting in the lounge for Forgan, went over and spoke to them.

“I hope you have had an amusing time,” he said.

“Interesting,” said D’Almeida; “very interesting.”

“Instructive,” groaned Piccione; “very instructive.”

“Why,” said Campbell with a smile, “wasn’t that what you wanted?”

Piccione closed his eyes and at that moment Forgan came up to them.

“I hope you have had a pleasant time,” he said.

“Hush,” said Campbell. “Our friends are tired.”

“This sightseeing,” said Forgan sympathetically. “It tires the feet severely.”

Piccione waggled his disconsolately, but D’Almeida gathered his forces together and sat upright.

“But the senores are standing,” he said in a horrified voice. “Chairs—let me——”

“I beg,” said Forgan, and brought chairs for himself and Campbell.

“I think that what my friend and I are suffering from,” said D’Almeida, “is not so much physical fatigue as mental exhaustion. One owes it to the treasures we have seen yesterday and to-day to spread wide the eager arms of appreciation——”

“But the mere posture is exhausting,” said Campbell. “Even the patriarch Moses, a tough guy if ever there was one, found it so.”

“What the senores need,” said Forgan, “is a little innocent relaxation.”

“You anticipate my very words,” said D’Almeida. “We should like to see something of the justly famous night life of Paris, to go to a cabaret show, perhaps, to drop into a café here, a bistro there, the brasserie on the corner. Not the places to which they conduct the tourists, but the small places to which Parisians themselves resort.”

“Well, why don’t you?” said Forgan. “There is no difficulty. Just turn your faces towards Montmartre and keep on.”

Piccione opened his eyes and displayed interest.

“But there is a difficulty, senor,” said D’Almeida.

“Difficulties exist in order to be overcome, senor,” said Campbell.

“If it is not a private matter——” began Forgan.

“Put briefly,” said D’Almeida, “it is this. We are men sent upon a mission of some importance and we represent in our unworthy persons the dignity of those who sent us. Suppose there were a little trouble, a minor fracas, and the police came demanding to see papers—suppose we were summoned in our own names as witnesses——”

“It would not do,” said Forgan. “The senores are gentlemen of the most delicate sense of honour, and they are perfectly right. It would not do at all.”

“In Madrid,” pursued D’Almeida, “if it were desirable to furnish a gentleman with different papers for occasions when he rightly wishes to remain anonymous—in Madrid, I say, we should know where to go. But here, in Paris, we are strangers, we are as children.”

There was a short pause.

“It should be possible,” said Forgan slowly. “Yes. Listen, senores. My friend and I have an appointment in ten minutes’ time, it will not take long, but we must keep it. Let the senores rest a little longer and then dine. When we return we will see what can be done.”

Campbell and Forgan left the hotel with the rapid strides of men who are pressed for time; when they were well away Campbell said: “Those Argentine passports I suppose?”

“If they’re not sold. And their luggage too. I’ve had a whale of an idea.”

Forgan and Campbell returned to the Ambassador two hours later and asked if D’Almeida and Piccione were in the hotel. The desk-clerk said that they were in their rooms and had left word that the gentlemen were to be taken up to them at once. The desk-clerk bowed, the lift-boy sprang to attention and the lift whirled up to the third floor.

The Spaniards certainly intended to be comfortable. They had a small suite of two excellent bedrooms with a bathroom between, all shut off from the passage by an outer door. Campbell knocked upon it, Piccione opened the door and D’Almeida called to them to come in and be welcome.

Forgan said that he and his friend had been trying to get some passports for the senores, but had unfortunately been unsuccessful. “It seems that Spanish or Argentine passports are hard to come by,” he said. “We were offered Czech, Greek and Iranian, but we did not think that they would suit. We therefore——”

“My dear friends,” said D’Almeida, “the trouble we have given you——”

“Not at all, a pleasure. We therefore thought that the obvious plan was to lend you ours for the evening. We are not going out to-night—we are expecting friends. If you return them to us in the morning, that will do well.” Forgan unfolded two sheets of stiff paper, grubby from much handling, worn through at the folds and stained with various vintages. The worst stains had been hastily dried before an electric fire in Baptiste’s room, and it was upon his carpet that the photographs had been rubbed until they were nearly unrecognizable. “I apologize for their condition,” said Forgan. “There was a farewell party on the ship. This is my friend’s,” he added, handing over a passport in the lovely name of Giacomo Xavier Bonamour, “and this is mine, Diego Cierra, at your service. Both of Buenos Aires, as you see.”

“I hardly like——” began D’Almeida, hesitating.

“To touch them,” finished Campbell. “It is no wonder; they are a matter for tongs.”

“Indeed, no, Senor Bonamour,” said D’Almeida warmly. “I was only thinking what an appalling disaster it would be if we lost them—suppose our pockets were picked——”

“It is simple,” said Forgan cheerfully. “It is but to go to the Argentine Legation, fortified by your company as witness to our respectability, and get new ones. They will at least be clean.”

“We will tell the Legation a sad story about how we came to lose them,” said Campbell. “We will each of us devise a story and tell whichever one is the most worthy of belief. Besides, why should you lose them? Put them in an inside pocket.”

“I cannot see why we should lose them,” said Piccione.

“Very well,” said D’Almeida. “I give in. We will borrow your passports, senores, and if any mischance should come of our having done so, I, Alfonso Demetrio D’Almeida, will deal with it. Will our own be safe in these drawers, do you think?”

“I should hide them,” said Forgan. “The hotel staff come in when they will.”

Piccione took both the Spanish passports and looked round the room for somewhere to hide them.

“Under the mattress?”

“They turn down the beds,” said Campbell. “Heaven knows what that process involves, but something happens to the beds.”

“In the loop of the curtain?”

“They draw the curtains,” said D’Almeida. “I noticed that last night.”

“I remember now,” said Forgan with an obvious effort of memory, “a hiding-place of which I was once told. Now, you have a private bathroom and in it is also a lavatory cistern, no doubt. Yes, well, you lift off the lid of the cistern (they are never fastened down) and put your passports inside the lid, fastening them there with cellophane tape. No one looks for papers in a cistern of water. I have a roll of tape if——”

“I have some,” said D’Almeida, hunting in a small attache-case. “Piccione, the cistern lid. Senores, your inexhaustible ingenuity staggers me.”

The passports were put together. At the last moment the Spaniards added their travellers’ cheques to the packet and gleefully stowed it away. Forgan and Campbell stood back and looked on with the indulgent air of uncles watching the children enjoy themselves.

“To add a final item to our list of indebtedness to you,” said D’Almeida, “have you any suggestions to make as to where we should go?”

“Anywhere in the Montmartre district should prove amusing,” said Campbell. “You know where that is? Turn left when you leave the hotel, take the third turning to the left and carry straight on. As for any special places——” he paused and looked at Forgan who named a café running a cabaret show and a bistro where the brandy was a matter for poetry.

“Talking about poets,” said Campbell, and told them where to find some.

“Or if you like pictures,” said Forgan, “modern French art, some of them will be valuable some day,” and he described where to find them.

“But the absolute place——” began Campbell at the same moment as Forgan started: “The one spot you mustn’t miss——” And they looked at each other and laughed.

“Continue, senores, I beg,” said D’Almeida. “This place?”

“Le Chat sans Queue,” said Forgan. “It is a bit warm, but we are men of the world and our wives are not with us.”

“The what?” asked Piccione.

“El Gato sin Rabo,” said Campbell, translating. “The Tailless Cat. Whatever else you don’t see, you must go there. If only our friends weren’t coming,” he added to Forgan, who sighed.

“Never mind, we can go there to-morrow night,” he said. “It is not necessary to arrive there too early, senores; the later the more cheerful. I will tell you exactly where it is,” and he did so in some detail while Piccione made notes.

They saw the Spaniards off at the door of the hotel and stood there for a few minutes after they were out of sight.

“Well, I hope they remember all that,” said Forgan. “Now, if Baptiste does his stuff properly——”

Some hours later, well after midnight, Forgan and Campbell strolled up a narrow, twisting street in the Montmartre district towards a café which displayed in the middle of its window a coloured transparency of a bright pink cat with large blue spots and no vestige of a tail. They did not enter; as they passed they caught the eye of a short, stout gentleman sitting at a table just inside the door. He appeared to be watching for them and came out at once to join them.

“All goes well, messieurs. The Spanish gentlemen are asleep. Look! In the far corner.”

They peered in at the doorway. D’Almeida was sprawled forwards across a table and one long arm hung down till its fingers touched the floor; Piccione, who had been sitting on a padded seat against the wall, was lying along it with his knees up. Nobody in the café, which was fairly full, was taking the slightest notice of them.

“Well done,” said Forgan softly. “Baptiste! You left them the passports?”

“But certainly they have the passports. As for the rest, I thank you.”

Campbell said it was nothing, and Baptiste courteously contradicted him. “I will not say it was a fortune, but it was far from nothing,” he said. “Here is the key to their rooms in the hotel.”

The Englishmen took the key, nodded and walked away. The street led into a small square where there was a policeman standing about looking ornamental. They went up to him and asked, in English, what the procedure was if one wished to report the theft of a wallet containing money. The policeman understood English if the words used were simple and slowly spoken, so Campbell tried again.

“Men take my money,” he said. “In wallet, like that.” Forgan showed his. “I want to tell some man official.”

The policeman got that. “You know who stole, no?”

Campbell nodded. “Think so, yes. Two men.” He held up two fingers. “Two Argentines.”

“Two Argentines,” repeated the policeman.

“At least, they said they were Argentines, but they may have been stringing us along,” said Forgan, and the policeman turned a blank stare upon him.

“You too fast enough,” said Campbell reprovingly. “This gentleman no get.”

“Sorry, I’m sure,” said Forgan.

“Come,” said Campbell to the policeman. “Men in this café.”

“Eh?” said the policeman. “You know where men is, yes?”

“Yes. When they go, we find money gone. We follow. Long way. Many places. Now there,” and Campbell pointed to Le Chat sans Queue.

“Un moment,” said the policeman, and signalled to a colleague, who came quickly. They had a short conference in rapid French of which Forgan caught only the phrase “ces Anglais imbéciles” and the first policeman turned to Campbell.

“Come,” he said. “Show.”

They moved off together to the doorway of Le Chat sans Queue and Campbell took the policeman by the arm.

“In there,” he said. “At back. Far back. Why,” he added in a tone of surprise, “they’re asleep! Or ill. Gone bye-byes, yes?”

The policeman disengaged himself from Campbell and said: “Wait. Wait. Compris?”

“Compree,” said Campbell, nodding eagerly. The two policemen marched into the café and along the centre gangway towards the table at the back. Baptiste was no longer there, but several of the other customers, seeing the police uniforms, suddenly remembered important engagements and went out quickly. Forgan and Campbell were lost to view behind them.