Simon the Jester

CHAPTER X

“Ay!” says Touchstone; “now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was at home I was in a better place.”

Now am I in Algiers; the more fool I; et cetera, et cetera.

It is true that from my bedroom window in the Albany I cannot see the moon silvering the Mediterranean, or hear the soft swish of pepper-trees; it is true that oranges and eucalyptus do not flourish in the Albany Court-yard as they do in this hotel garden at Mustapha Superieur; it is true that the blue African sky and sunshine are more agreeable than Piccadilly fogs; but, after all, his own kennel is best for a dying dog, and his own familiar surroundings best for his declining hours. Again, Touchstone had not the faintest idea what he was going to do in the Forest of Arden, and I was equally ignorant of what would befall when I landed at Algiers. He was bound on a fool adventure, and so was I. He preferred the easy way of home, and so do I. I have always loved Touchstone, but I have never thoroughly understood him till now.

It rained persistently in Paris. It rained as I drove from the Gare du Nord to my hotel. It rained all night. It rained all the day I spent there and it rained as I drove from my hotel to the Gare de Lyon. A cheery newspaper informed me that there were torrential rains at Marseilles. I mentioned this to Rogers, who tried to console me by reminding me that we were only staying at Marseilles for a few hours.

“That has nothing to do with it,” said I. “At Marseilles I always eat bouillabaisse on the quay. Fancy eating bouillabaisse in the pouring rain!”

As usual, Rogers could not execute the imaginative exercise I prescribed; so he strapped my hold-all with an extra jerk.

Now, when homespun London is wet and muddy, no one minds very much. But when silken Paris lies bedraggled with rain and mud, she is the forlornest thing under the sky. She is a hollow-eyed pale city, the rouge is washed from her cheeks, her hair hangs dank and dishevelled, in her aspect is desolation, and moaning is in her voice. I have a Sultanesque feeling with regard to Paris. So long as she is amusing and gay I love her. I adore her mirth, her chatter, her charming ways. But when she has the toothache and snivels, she bores me to death. I lose all interest in her. I want to clap my hands for my slaves, in order to bid them bring me in something less dismal in the way of fair cities.

I drove to the Rue Saint-Dominique and handed in my card and letter of introduction at the Ministere de la Guerre. I was received by the official in charge of the Bureau des Renseignements with bland politeness tempered with suspicion that I might be taking a mental photograph of the office furniture in order to betray its secret to a foreign government. After many comings and goings of orderlies and underlings, he told me very little in complicated and reluctant language. Captain Vauvenarde had resigned his commission in the Chasseurs d'Afrique two years ago. At the present moment the Bureau had no information to give as to his domicile.

“Have you no suggestion, Monsieur, to offer?” I asked, “whereby I may obtain this essential information concerning Captain Vauvenarde?”

“His old comrades in the regiment might know, Monsieur.”

“And the regiment?”

He opened the Annuaire Officiel de l'Armee Francaise, just as I might have done myself, and said:

“There are six regiments. One is at Blidah, another at Tlemcen, another at Constantine, another at Tunis, another at Algiers, and another at Mascara.”

“To which regiment, then, did Captain Vauvenarde belong?” I inquired.

He referred to one of the dossiers that the orderlies had brought him.

“The 3rd, Monsieur.”

“I should get information, then, from Tlemcen?”

“Evidently, Monsieur.”

I thanked him and withdrew, to his obvious relief. Seekers after knowledge are unpopular even in organisations so far removed from the Circumlocution Office as the French Ministere de la Guerre. However, he had put me on the trail of my man.

During my homeward drive through the rain I reflected. I might, of course, write to the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 3rd Regiment at Tlemcen, and wait for his reply. But even if he answered by return of post, I should have to remain in Paris for nearly a week.

“That,” said I, wiping from my face half a teacupful of liquid mud which had squirted in through the cab window—“that I'll never do. I'll proceed at once to Algiers. If I can get no news of him there, I'll go to Tlemcen myself. In all probability I shall learn that he is residing here in Paris, a stone's throw from the Madeleine.”

So I started for Algiers. The next morning, before the sailing of the Marechal Bugeaud, one of the quaint churns styled a steamship by the vanity of the French Company which undertakes to convey respectable folk across the Mediterranean, I ate my bouillabaisse below an awning on the sunny quay at Marseilles. The torrential rains had ceased. I advised Rogers to take equivalent sustenance, as no lunch is provided on day of sailing by the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique. I caught sight of him in a dark corner of the restaurant—he is too British to eat in the open air on the terrace, or perhaps too modest to have his meal in my presence—struggling grimly with a beefsteak, and, as he is a teetotaller, with an unimaginable, horrific liquid which he poured out from a vessel vaguely resembling a teapot.

My meal over, and having nearly an hour to spare, I paid my bill, rose and turned the corner of the quay into the Cannebiere, thinking to have my coffee at one of the cafes in that thoroughfare of which the natives say that, if Paris had a Cannebiere, it would be a little Marseilles. I suppose for the Marseillais there is a magic in the sonorous name; for, after all, it is but a commonplace street of shops running from the quays into the heart of the town. It is also deformed by tramcars. I strolled leisurely up, thinking of the many swans that were geese, and Paradises that were building-plots, and heroes that were dummies, and solidities that were shadows, in short, enjoying a gentle post-prandial mood, when my eyes suddenly fell on a scene which brought me down from such realities to the realm of the fantastic. There, a few yards in front of me, at the outer edge of the terrace of a cafe, clad in his eternal silk hat, frock coat, and yellow gloves, sat Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos in earnest conversation with a seedy stranger of repellent mien. The latter was clean-shaven and had a broken nose, and wore a little round, soft felt hat. The dwarf was facing me. As he caught sight of me a smile of welcome overspread his Napoleonic features. He rose, awaited my approach, and, bareheaded, made his usual sweeping bow, which he concluded by resting his silk hat on the pit of his stomach. I lifted my hat politely and would have passed on, but he stood in my path. I extended my hand. He took it after the manner of a provincial mayor receiving royalty.

“Couvrez-vous, Monsieur, je vous en prie,” said I.

He covered his head. “Monsieur,” said he, “I beseech you to be seated, and do me the honour of joining me in the coffee and excellent cognac of this establishment.”

“Willingly,” said I, mindful of Lola's tale of the long knife which he carried concealed about his person.

“Permit me to present my friend Monsieur Achille Saupiquet—Monsieur de Gex, a great English statesman and a friend of that gnadigsten Engel, Madame Lola Brandt.”

Monsieur Saupiquet and I saluted each other formally. I took a seat. Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos moved a bundle of papers tied up with pink ribbon from in front of me, and ordered coffee and cognac.

“Monsieur Saupiquet also knows Madame Brandt,” he explained.

“Bien sur,” said Monsieur Saupiquet. “She owes me fifteen sous.”

Papadopoulos turned on his sharply. “Will you be silent!”

The other grumbled beneath his breath.

“I hope Madame is well,” said Papadopoulos.

I said that she appeared so, when last I had the pleasure of seeing her. The dwarf turned to his friend.

“Monsieur has also done my cats the honour of attending a rehearsal. He has seen Hephaestus, and his tears have dropped in sympathy over the irreparable loss of my beautiful Santa Bianca.”

“I hope the talented survivors,” said I, “are enjoying their usual health.”

“My daily bulletin from my pupil and assistant, Quast, contains excellent reports. Prosit, Signore.”

It was only when I found myself at the table with the dwarf and his broken-nosed friend that I collected my wits sufficiently to realise the probable reason of his presence in Marseilles. The grotesque little creature had actually kept his ridiculous word. He, too, had come south in search of the lost Captain Vauvenarde. We were companions in the Fool Adventure. There was something mediaeval in the combination; something legendary. Put back the clock a few centuries and there we were, the Knight and the Dwarf, riding together on our quest, while the Lady for whose sake we were making idiots of ourselves was twiddling her fair thumbs in her tower far beyond the seas.

Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos broke upon this pleasing fancy by remarking again that Monsieur Saupiquet was a friend of Madame Brandt.

“He was with her at the time of her great bereavement.”

“Bereavement?” I asked forgetfully.

“Her horse Sultan.”

He whispered the words with solemn reverence. I must confess to being tired of the horse Sultan and disinclined to treat his loss seriously.

“Monsieur Saupiquet,” said I, “doubtless offered her every consolation.”

“He used to travel with her and look after Sultan's well-being. He was her——”

“Her Master of the Horse,” I suggested.

“Precisely. You have the power of using the right word, Monsieur de Gex. It is a great gift. My good friend Saupiquet is attached to a circus at present stationed in Toulon. He came over, at my request, to see me—on affairs of the deepest importance”—he waved the bundle of papers—“the very deepest importance. Nicht wahr, Saupiquet?”

“Bien sur,” murmured Saupiquet, who evidently did not count loquacity among his vices.

I wondered whether these important affairs concerned the whereabouts of Captain Vauvenarde; but the dwarf's air of mystery forbade my asking for his confidence. Besides, what should a groom in a circus know of retired Captains of Chasseurs? I said:

“You're a very busy man, Monsieur le Professeur.”

He tapped his domelike forehead. “I am never idle. I carry on here gigantic combinations. I should have been a lawyer. I can spread nets that no one sees, and then—pst! I draw the rope and the victim is in the toils of Anastasius Papadopoulos. Hast du nicht das bemerkt, Saupiquet?”

“Bien sur,” said Saupiquet again. He seemed perfectly conversant with the dwarf's polyglot jargon.

“To the temperament of the artist,” continued the modest Papadopoulos, “I join the intellect of the man of affairs and the heart of a young poet. I am always young; yet as you see me here I am thirty-seven years of age.”

He jumped from his chair and struck an attitude of the Apollo Belvedere.

“I should never have thought that you were of the same age as a bettered person like myself,” said I.

“The secret of youth,” he rejoined, sitting down again, “is enthusiasm, the worship of a woman, and intimate association with cats.”

Monsieur Saupiquet received this proposition without a gleam of interest manifesting itself in his dull blue eyes. His broken nose gave his face a singularly unintelligent expression. He poured out another glass of cognac from the graduated carafe in front of him and sipped it slowly. Then he gazed at me dully, almost for the first time, and said:

“Madame Brandt owes me fifteen sous.”

“And I say that she doesn't!” cried the dwarf fiercely. “I send for him to discuss matters of the deepest gravity, and he comes talking about his fifteen sous. I can't get anything out of him, but his fifteen sous. And the carissima signora doesn't owe it to him. She can't owe it to him. Voyons, Saupiquet, if you don't renounce your miserable pretensions you will drive me mad, you will make me burst into tears, you will make me throw you out into the street, and hold you down until you are run over by a tramcar. You will—you will”—he shook his fist passionately as he sought for a climactic menace—“you will make me spit in your eye.”

He dashed his fist down on the marble table so that the glasses jingled. Saupiquet finished his cognac undisturbed.

“I say that Madame Brandt owes me fifteen sous, and until that is paid, I do no business.”

The little man grew white with exasperation, and his upper lip lifted like an angry cat's, showing his teeth. I shrank from meeting Saupiquet's eye. Hurriedly, I drew a providential handful of coppers from my pocket.

“Stop, Herr Professor,” said I, eager to prevent the shedding of tears, blood, or saliva, “I have just remembered. Madame did mention to me an unaquitted debt in the South, and begged me to settle it for her. I am delighted to have the opportunity. Will you permit me to act as Madam's banker?”

The dwarf at once grew suave and courteous.

“The word of carissima signora is the word of God,” said he.

I solemnly counted out the fifteen halfpence on the table and pushed them over to Saupiquet, who swept them up and put them in his pocket.

“Now we can talk,” said he.

“Make him give you a receipt!” cried Papadopoulos excitedly. “I know him! He is capable of any treachery where money is concerned. He is capable of re-demanding the sum from Madame Brandt. He is an ingrate. And she, Monsieur le Membre du Parlement Anglais, has overwhelmed him with benefits. Do you know what she did? She gave him the carcass of her beloved Sultan to dispose of. And he sold it, Monsieur, and he got drunk on the money.”

The mingled emotions of sorrow at the demise of Sultan, the royal generosity of Madame Brandt, and the turpitude of his friend Saupiquet, brought tears to the little man's eyes. Monsieur Saupiquet shrugged his shoulders unconcernedly.

“A poor man has to get drunk when he can. It is only the rich who can get drunk when they like.”

I looked at my watch and rose in a hurry.

“I'm afraid I must take an unceremonious leave of you, Monsieur le Professeur.”

“You must wait for the receipt,” cried the dwarf.

“Will you do me the honour of holding it for me until we meet again? Hi!” The interpellation was addressed to a cabman a few yards away. “Your conversation has made me neglect the flight of time. I shall only just catch my boat.”

“Your boat?”

“I am going to Algiers.”

“Where will you be staying, Monsieur? I ask in no spirit of vulgar curiosity.”

I raised a protesting hand, and with a smile named my hotel.

“I arrived here from Algiers yesterday afternoon,” he said, “and I proceed there again to-morrow.”

“I regret,” said I, “that you are not coming to-day, so that I could have the pleasure of your company on the voyage.”

My polite formula seemed to delight Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos enormously. He made a series of the most complicated bows, to the joy of the waiters and the passers-by. I shook hands with him and with the stolid Monsieur Saupiquet, and waving my hat more like an excited Montenegrin than the most respectable of British valetudinarians, I drove off to the Quai de la Joliette, where I found an anxious but dogged Rogers, in the midst of a vociferating crowd, literally holding the bridge that gave access to the Marechal Bugeaud.

“Thank Heaven, you've come, sir! You almost missed it. I couldn't have held out another minute.”

I, too, was thankful. If I had missed the boat I should have had to wait till the next day and crossed in the embarrassing and unrestful company of Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos. It is not that I dislike the little man, or have the Briton's nervous shrinking from being seen in eccentric society; but I wish to eliminate mediaevalism as far as possible from my quest. In conjunction with this crazy-headed little trainer of cats it would become too preposterous even for my light sardonic humour. I resolved to dismiss him from my mind altogether.

Yet, in spite of my determination, and in spite of one of Monsieur Lenotre's fascinating monographs on the French Revolution, on which I had counted to beguile the tedium of the journey, I could not get Anastasius Papadopoulos out of my head. He stayed with me the whole of a storm-tossed night, and all the next morning. He has haunted my brain ever since. I see him tossing his arms about in fury, while the broken-nosed Saupiquet makes his monotonous claim for the payment of sevenpence halfpenny; I hear him speak in broken whispers of the disastrous quadruped on whose skin and hoofs Saupiquet got drunk. I see him strutting about and boasting of his intellect. I see him taking leave of Lola Brandt, and trotting magnificently out of the room bent on finding Captain Vauvenarde. He haunts my slumbers. I hope to goodness he will not take to haunting this delectable hotel.

I wonder, after all, whether there is any method in his madness—for mad he is, as mad as can be. Why does he come backwards and forwards between Algiers and Marseilles? What has Saupiquet to do with his quest? What revelation was he about to make on the payment of his fifteen sous? It is all so grotesque, so out of relation with ordinary life. I feel inclined to go up to the retired Colonels and elderly maiden ladies, who seem to form the majority of my fellow-guests, and pinch them and ask them whether they are real, or, like Papadopoulos and Saupiquet, the gentler creatures of a nightmare.

Well, I have written to the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 3rd Regiment of Chasseurs at Tlemcen, which is away down by the Morocco frontier. I have also written to Lola Brandt. I seem to miss her as much as any of the friends I have left behind me in England. I cannot help the absurd fancy that her rich vitality helps me along. I have not been feeling quite so robust as I did when I saw her daily. And twinges are coming more frequently. I don't think that rolling about in the Mediterranean on board the Marechal Bugeaud is good for little pains inside.