Mediterranean Nights (9 page)

THE CRIPPLED LADY

V
IVIEN
P
AWLETT
-B
ROWNE
was his brilliant father's greatest disappointment. At sixteen he failed to take his School Certificate for the second time, and at nineteen all hope of his getting into Sandhurst had to be abandoned; but old ‘Frosty' Forsyth had an utter contempt for the examination system and he liked the boy, so he gave him a chance. Vivien became plain V. Brown on the register of the highly secret department that Sir Charles Forsyth ran, and henceforth began to receive instruction on many curious matters.

At twenty-six, with a private income of his own, Vivien exactly answered the description of a smart young man-about-town. Tall, he walked with an affected stoop and was to be seen everywhere among that crowd of happy socialites whose only worry in life is what to do next. His lazy smile and brown eyes with their ridiculous curling lashes might have caused him to be thought effeminate, had it not been for his good jaw and strong, well-shaped hands.

It was early one Monday morning that Sir Charles sent for him and said abruptly: ‘Know anything of Lady Hoarding?'

‘Nothing, sir; except that she's Sir Oliver's wife, a recluse, a cripple, and lives in Thurloe Square.' Vivien's reply was prompt.

Sir Charles's chill manner always discouraged any superfluous remarks by his subordinates. It was that and his snow-white hair that had earned him the nickname of ‘Frosty'.

‘Well, she's German-born and facts concerning Sir Oliver's department, which only he could have known, have been getting through. I proved that conclusively this week-end. It's not him; he's a fool, but honest. So it must be her. But she never leaves the house and hardly ever receives visitors. Their telephone has been tapped, their servants tailed and all her mail passes through our hands, yet we've drawn a complete blank. I want to know how she is communicating with the enemy.'

Vivien smiled slowly. ‘I'll find out, sir.'

Outside the office he hailed a taxi and directed it to his flat in Green Street. For nearly two hours he sat with the
Medical
Directory
open on his knees ringing up numbers in the Thurloe Square district. As each call was answered he said: ‘I've been recommended by Lady Hoarding; Doctor “So-and-so” does attend her, doesn't he?'

At last when a voice replied: ‘Yes; Doctor Peters attends Her Ladyship,' Vivien quietly hung up the receiver.

Half an hour later he rang through again and in a slightly altered voice booked an appointment for himself for that afternoon.

His interview with Doctor Peters was brief. He described some rheumatic symptoms with which he was not afflicted and after giving him the address of a masseuse the doctor wrote him out a prescription. Just as he was leaving, Vivien said casually: ‘By the by, you look after Lady Hoarding, don't you?'

The doctor nodded: ‘Yes, poor old thing—she's absolutely riddled with arthritis; has even to be lifted from her bed to her wheeled chair.'

‘What a life—I'd go crazy with boredom.'

Doctor Peters smiled. ‘Oh, she manages to keep amazingly cheerful, looking after her tropical fish and translating books into Braille for the blind.'

As Vivien left the doctor he was whistling thoughtfully to himself.

For three days a dirty, unshaven organ-grinder haunted Thurloe Square, his long-lashed eyes flickering continually towards the green door of Sir Oliver's house. His organ was too old and muted to attract unwelcome attention and nobody noticed him as he slipped down Sir Oliver's area steps early each morning to examine the contents of the dust-bin.

On the fourth day Vivien went to see Sir Charles. ‘I think I've got a line on the Hoarding woman, sir,' he said. ‘Can you plant a special piece of information on Sir Oliver tomorrow—something that only he must know, and the day after arrange to have the electricity cut off at his house from lunchtime on?'

‘Good boy,' Sir Charles smiled his frosty smile. ‘I'll see that's done.'

At a quarter to three, two afternoons later, a lanky electrician arrived at the house with the green door, was taken down to the basement, and having been shown the main fuse
boxes was left alone, He lit a cigarette and undid his bag of tools. After messing around for a good half hour, he called the butler and said: ‘I fink the trouble's on the first floor, mate; in the drorin-room maybe.'

He was ushered upstairs and into a large, sunny room; an elderly woman was there, seated in an invalid chair.

‘The electrician, Your Ladyship,' murmured the butler.

Vivien glanced slowly about him. The woman hadn't turned her head. She was leaning over the arm of her chair feeding her fishes with little pieces of spaghetti. They were in six low glass tanks which completely lined one wall of the room.

‘Why, there's another dead, Your Ladyship—that's four in three weeks,' the butler said, peering down at the floating body of a Japanese goldfish in the nearest tank.

‘Yes, it's the cold weather,' Lady Hoarding replied, swivelling round to face him. ‘Take the poor thing away, Jenson.'

As the man scooped it out of the water, Vivien grabbed his hand and shook the fish from it on to a near-by table.

‘If you'll allow me…' he said disarmingly.

Lady Hoarding gave a startled gasp. ‘What are you doing?' she demanded harshly.

Vivien just smiled, pushed the scarlet-faced butler impatiently aside and, slitting the fish open with his penknife, took out a little cylinder of macaroni. Inside it was a tiny roll of paper.

‘I thought as much,' he said quietly, after one glance at the writing on it. ‘One touch of cyanide on a piece of spaghetti, the fish dies and comes to the top, your butler takes it down to the dust-bin and your outside agent collects it from there. Lady Hoarding, it will be my duty to place you under arrest for communicating with the King's enemies.'

STORY VI

H
ERE
we are back once more on the shores of the blue ‘Mare Nostrum', as Mussolini once termed it with insolent and baseless optimism. Taranto, Matapan, and a score of British naval victories, not to mention the splendid defence of Malta, have since pricked the bubble of his pride and taught him otherwise.

A portion of this story is set in Italy in the days when he was all-powerful there, and could never have dreamed that later his own stupidity and greed would reduce him to the sorry role of Hitler's tattered lackey. The old Marchesa's estimate of him was, of course, based upon the prejudice of her class, and the fact should be faced that, during the seventeen years that he ruled in peace, Mussolini made Italy a far more law-abiding and less smelly place than he found it, and performed that miracle without, apparently, interfering very much with the happiness of the average Italian. But I like the fiery old lady and her inconsequent, love-bewitched son.

The Hotel
Surmer
at Cavaláire, and its volatile little proprietor, Monsieur Fandini, are taken from life. That small white building placed upon a rocky headland between the pinewoods and a secluded bay has scores of pleasant memories for me. It is a perfect place to spend a honeymoon, and I had the good fortune to spend mine there. As for Gandini, he had been a
maître d'hôtel
at the Negresco in Nice before he started in his own tiny place, and he could cook a
langouste
in a sauce of whipped eggs and Grand Marnier which rivalled anything that I have ever tasted. But when last I saw him, just before the war, he had left the house on the hill for a straggling bungalow right on the sands where they sift into the streets of the town. His object had been to cater for a larger, if not so exclusive, clientele, and he had succeeded. The place was full of French
petite bourgeoisie
in the strange clothes they consider appropriate to
their hard-earned annual holiday
au bord de la mer
; fat, blowzy women and screaming children. He cooked us a
langouste
according to his famous recipe as of old, but somehow, in those surroundings, the glory had departed. We left Gandini and drove back through the warm night a little saddened by what we had seen.

The story was taken by Mr. Heitner, and published by him in
Britannia and Eve
. It was written about a year later than
Borrowed Money
which I, personally, consider a somewhat better plot; but by the time I wrote
Madame Ribereau
I had found my feet, and it displays, to my mind, a far greater ease of character drawing and sureness of touch.

THE NOTORIOUS MADAME RIBEREAU

I
WAS
a good bit older than Nero, but I had known him intimately for several years; you see, he and my younger brother had been at ‘The House' together, and during his time at Oxford he stayed with us in Norfolk quite a bit.

Afterwards, too, whenever he came to England he always put in a little time with us at Denham Hall, and treated it as a sort of second home—which in fact we had encouraged him to do. That's why I had no sort of hesitation in proposing myself for a visit to his castle on Lake Garda when I decided in favour of an Italian holiday last summer.

Nero wrote back by return saying how delighted he would be to have me, and that I must stay much, much longer than I had at first intended. All sorts of interesting and amusing people would be in his house-party at the Castello Neroni, and he ended up with minute directions about the latter part of the journey. You can imagine, then, how surprised I was when I got off the train at the little local station to find no one there to meet me.

My Italian isn't too good, but once I managed to get it into the thick skull of the swarthy individual who did duty as station-master, signalman, clerk and porter, that I was a friend of the Count Neroni, he became all smiles and helpfulness—led me down the ancient village street—shook a
tousled-looking peasant out of his afternoon siesta—helped him harness a knock-kneed horse into a rickety
carrozza
—and with a series of bows that would have done credit to an Elizabethan courtier sped me on my way.

It was a good four miles' drive along a twisting valley road with new vistas opening up as we rounded every corner. Lounging beneath the shade of the tasselled canopy while the old horse clopped along at a gentle pace, I wondered idly what sudden whimsy could be occupying the mercurial Nero's mind to the extent of making him forget to send his car for me.

We turned a sharp corner, and there below us lay the castle and the lake. The castle itself was a strange hybrid structure: a long, low stucco-fronted house with gardens running down to a little bay—behind it a mass of rambling, nondescript buildings obviously erected centuries apart—and there beyond, raised upon slightly higher ground, stood the father of all these queer excrescences—a good old fifteenth-century fortress.

My creaking chariot rumbled up to the pillared porch of the modern wing. The doors stood open and inviting, but there was not a soul about, and not a sound disturbed the drowsy silence of the afternoon.

The driver climbed from his box, and cupping his hands before his mouth, yelled lustily. A small and very dirty child ran out from another entrance, stared at me for a moment with wide frightened eyes and then ran in again. As I entered the cool shadow of the wide hall I wondered if Nero and his guests were sleeping through the heat of the afternoon, or were out on some boating expedition across the lake.

Suddenly a small, bent old man appeared from behind some hangings. One glance from his sharp black eyes was enough for him to guess my nationality—he asked what he could do for me in stilted English. Immediately I inquired for the Count Neroni he clasped his shrivelled yellow hands and bowed deferentially.

‘The Count lives for some time now in Verona, Signor.'

‘Verona!' I exclaimed. ‘But isn't he expecting me?' and then I told old parchment-face about my visit.

‘It is not the Count's pleasure always to tell us of his intentions, Signor,' the old man said gravely, ‘but Giuseppe
shall go in the Fiat to inform him of your arrival. Verona is no more than thirty kilometres—in the meantime, gracious Signor, please to follow me.'

The old man led me up a broad flight of shallow stairs and along endless corridors to a pleasant suit of rooms overlooking the gardens and the bay.

I knew that Nero had spent a small fortune modernising the house, so I was not surprised at the spacious tiled and chromium-plated bathroom, where I had a much-needed wash while a footman unpacked my bags, but I was a little startled when old parchment-face appeared again and asked if the gracious signor would refresh himself with a highball, a Martini, or a Bronx.

I punted for a highball, and when I came downstairs he served it with all the solemnity that would have done honour to Imperial Tokay. Then he left me in a spacious library where the shelves of old calf-bound volumes looked down on tables laden with modern periodicals and the startling covers of the latest detective fiction.

I settled down there to await the return of the truant Nero.

The roar of his great Isotta-Fraschini made me aware of his arrival minutes before he actually appeared, but the noise had hardly ceased with a grinding scream of brakes before he leapt in through the high french windows—tall, dark, smiling—overwhelming me with a torrent of apologies.

Never could he forgive himself—a stupidity unpardonable—it was the 7th, and he had thought that I was arriving on the 17th—but no matter, it would give him ten days more of my delightful company—I would forgive him instantly if I but knew how great, how joyous, was the surprise…

Well, for the moment I believed him—and who, woman or man, could ever refuse to forgive Nero anything! He called for drinks—and more drinks—took old parchment-face by the ear and pinched it affectionately so that even that living mummy smiled his pleasure at his master's return.