THE MASCOT

ARSENIO opened the door of the apartment with his latchkey and stood aside to let me pass in first. The door of his sitting room, the long, narrow room which I have described before, stood slightly ajar, and a light shone through it. I advanced across the passage—the hall could hardly be called more—and flung the door wide open as I entered, Arsenio following just behind.

There, in the middle of the room, two or three paces from the big bureau, one side of which flapped open, showing shelves and drawers, stood Louis the valet, the waiter from that “establishment” of Arsenio’s at Nice, the seller of the winning ticket, the author of Arsenio’s luck. In his left hand he held, clasped against his body, a large black leather portfolio or letter case; in his right was the revolver which his master had given him to clean.

He stood quite still, frightened, as it seemed, into immobility, glaring at us with a terrified face. He had thought that we were safely bestowed, round the table downstairs, for some time to come. Our footsteps on the stairs had disturbed him when his work was almost finished; our entrance cut off his retreat. Even if he had had the presence of mind to bar the door, it would have given him only a brief respite; escape by the window was impossible; but he did not look as if he were capable of reckoning up the situation, or his chances, at all. He was numb with fear.

“Drop that thing, you scoundrel!” I cried; and it is my belief to this day that he would have obeyed me, put down his weapon, and meekly surrendered, if he had been let alone. He was certainly not built for a burglar or for deeds of violence, though I suppose the possession of the revolver had nerved him to this enterprise of his.

But Arsenio did not let him alone, or wait to see the effect of my order. Even as I spoke, he dashed forward in front of me, uttering a wild cry; it did not sound like fear—either for his money or for his life—or even like rage; really, it sounded more like triumph than anything else. And he made straight for the armed man, utterly regardless of the weapon that he held.

Thus put to it, Louis fired—once, twice. Arsenio ran, as it were, right on to the first bullet. I had darted forward to support his attempt to rush the thief—if that really was what he had in his mind—and he fell back plump into my arms, just as the second bullet whizzed past my head. Then with a yell of sheer horror—at what he had done, I suppose—Louis dropped the revolver with a bang on the floor, dropped the fat portfolio too with a flop, and, before I, cumbered with Arsenio’s helpless body, could do anything to stop him, bolted out of the room like a scared rabbit. I heard his feet pattering down the stairs at an incredible pace.

Arsenio was groaning and clutching at his chest. I supported him to his shabby old sofa, and laid him down there. Then I violently rang the bell which communicated with the ground floor where Amedeo abode.

The next moment Lucinda came into the room—very quickly, but calmly. “Did he do it himself, after all?”

“No, Louis; he’d been rifling the bureau; and the revolver——”

“Ah, it was Louis that I heard running downstairs! I’ll look after him. Go for a doctor.” There were no telephones in the old palazzo; the owner had not spent his precarious gains in that fashion!

“I thought of sending Amedeo——”

“You’ll be quicker. Go, Julius.” She knelt down by Arsenio’s sofa.

As I went on my errand—I knew of a doctor who lived quite close—I met old Amedeo, lumbering upstairs, half-dressed, and told him what had happened. “He looks very bad,” I added.

Amedeo flung up his hands with pious ejaculations. “As I go by the piano nobile I’ll call Father Garcia, and take him up with me. Don Arsenio’s a good Catholic.”

Yes! That fact perhaps had something to do with the course which events had ultimately taken that night!

When I got back with the doctor—he had gone to bed, and kept me waiting—Arsenio had been moved into his bedroom. The priest was still with him, but, when he was informed of the doctor’s arrival, he came out and Amedeo took the doctor in to the patient, on whom Lucinda was attending.

Father Garcia was a tall, imposing old ecclesiastic, of Spanish extraction, and apparently a friend of the Valdez family, for he spoke of “Arsenio” without prefix. “I have done my office. The doctor can do nothing—Oh, I’ve seen many men die in the war, and I can tell! He’s just conscious, but he can hardly speak—it hurts him to try. Poor Arsenio! His father was a very worthy man, and this poor boy was a good son of the Church. For the rest——!” He shrugged his ample shoulders; he was probably reflecting the opinions of the aristocratic and antiquated coterie which Arsenio had been in the habit of laying under requisitions when he was in Venice. “But a curious event, a curious event, just after his prodigious luck!” Father Garcia’s eyes bulged rather, and they seemed to grow bulgier still as, between sniffs at a pinch of snuff, he exclaimed slowly, “Three million francs! Donna Lucinda will be rich!”

The old fellow seemed disposed to gossip; there was nothing else to do, while we awaited the verdict.

“A gamester, I’m afraid, yes. His father feared as much for him—and a good many of my friends had reason to suspect the same. You’re a friend of his, Mr.—er——?”

“My name’s Rillington, sir,” I said.

He raised his brows above his bulging eyes. “Oh!—er—let me see! Wasn’t Donna Lucinda herself a Rillington—or am I making a mistake?”

“Only just,” said I. I couldn’t help smiling. “Donna Lucinda all but became a Rillington——”

“Ah!” he interrupted. “Now I remember the story. Some visitors from London brought it over in the early days of the war—I think they were propaganda agents of your nation, in fact. It was before Italy made the mis——it was before Italy joined in the war.”

“Donna Lucinda’s maiden name was Knyvett. Her mother and she once rented this very apartment from Arsenio, I believe.”

“Yes, and I think I remember that too.” However, he did not seem to remember too much about it, for he went on. “And so the romance started, I suppose! She’s a very beautiful woman, Mr. Rillington.”

The expression in his eyes justified my next remark. “Whatever else one may say about the poor fellow, he was a devoted lover to his wife, and she was—absolutely true to him.”

“I’m old-fashioned enough to think that that covers a multitude of sins. She’s not, I gather, a Catholic?”

“No, I believe not.”

“A pity!” he said meditatively; whether he was thinking of Lucinda’s soul or of her money, I didn’t know—and I will forbear from speculating. If he was thinking about the money, it was, of course, only with an eye—a bulging eye—on other people’s souls—as well as Lucinda’s.

“Pray, sir,” I asked, on a sudden impulse, “do you know anything of a friend of Arsenio’s here—Signor Alessandro Panizzi?”

“I know what everybody knows,” he replied with a sudden fierceness—“that he’s a pestilent fellow—a radical, a freemason, an atheist! Was he a friend of Arsenio’s?”

“Oh, well, I really don’t know. I happened to meet them walking together on the Piazza this afternoon, and Arsenio introduced me.”

“Then he kept worse company than any of us suspected,” the old priest sternly pronounced. If the opinion thus indicated was a just one, Signor Panizzi must be a very bad man indeed! I was just adding hastily that I knew nothing of the man myself (he had looked the acme of respectability) when Lucinda opened the door of the room and beckoned to me. With a low bow to Father Garcia, who was still looking outraged at the thought of Signor Panizzi, I obeyed her summons.

“He has only a few minutes to live,” she whispered hurriedly, as we crossed the passage. “He seems peaceful in mind, and suffers little pain, except when he tries to speak. Still I’m sure there’s something he wants to say to you; I saw it in his eyes when I mentioned your name.”

He was in bed, partly undressed. The end was obviously very near. The doctor was standing a yard or two from the bed, not attempting any further ministration. I bent over Arsenio, low down, nearly to his pale face, and laid my hand gently on one of his. He did look peaceful; and, as he saw me, the ghost of his monkeyish smile formed itself on his lips. He spoke, with a groan and an effort: “I told you—Julius—that fellow would—bring me luck. But you never believed—you never believed—in my——” His voice choked, his words ended, and his eyes closed. It was only a few minutes more before we left him to the offices of old Amedeo and the old wife whom he summoned from their cupboard of a place on the ground floor.

By this time the police were on the scene; there is no need to detail their formalities, though they took some time. The case appeared a simple one, but Lucinda and I were told that we must stay where we were, pending investigations, and the arrest and trial of Louis; we knew him by no other name, and knew about him no more than what Arsenio had told me. They let Lucinda retire to her apartment soon after midnight, and me to mine half an hour later; one of them remained on duty in the hall of the palazzo; and, of course, they took that portfolio away with them.

In the end the formalities proved to be just that, and no more. Two days later a body was found in the Grand Canal, having been in the water apparently about thirty hours. Amedeo and I identified it. The inference was that, although Louis had no stomach for fighting, he had that form of courage in which his master had at the last moment failed; it is probable that he was not a good Catholic. I felt indebted to him for the manner of his end; it saved us a vast deal of trouble. Poor wretch! I do not believe that he had any more intention of killing Arsenio than I had myself. The knowledge of all that money overcame his cupidity; perhaps he felt some proprietary right in it! The possession of the revolver probably screwed him up to the enterprise. But the actual shooting was, I dare swear, an instinctive act of self-defense; Arsenio’s furious, seemingly exultant, rush terrified him. Anyhow, there was an end of him; the mascot had brought the luck and, having fulfilled its function, went its appointed way.

But by no means yet an end of Don Arsenio Valdez! That remarkable person had prepared posthumous effects, so characteristic of him in their essence, yet so over-characteristic, that he seemed to be skillfully burlesquing or travestying himself: in those last days he must have been in a state of excitement almost amounting to light-headedness (he had seemed barely sane at the banquet), a complete prey to his own vanity and posturing, showing off on the brink of the grave, contriving how to show off even after it had closed over him; and speculating—I do not in the least doubt—how all the business would impress Lucinda. One thing fails to be said about it: he succeeded in stamping it with that vinegary comedy which was the truest hall mark of Monkey Valdez.

Quite early on the morning after the catastrophe—if that be the right word to use—I was sitting in my room, musing over it and awaiting a summons from Lucinda, when I was favored with a call from that eminently respectable (?), most pestilent (?) person, Signor Alessandro Panizzi. After elaborate lamentations and eulogies (it would have warmed Arsenio’s heart to hear them), and explanations of how he, in his important position, was in close touch with the police authorities, and so heard of everything directly it happened, and consequently had heard of this atrocious crime as soon as he was out of his bed—he approached the object of his visit. I was, he had understood from the deceased gentleman, his confidential friend; also an intimate family friend of Donna Lucinda; was I aware that Don Arsenio had made a disposition of his property on the afternoon of the very day of his death?—“a thing which might impress foolish and superstitious people,” Signor Panizzi remarked with a sad but superior smile. He himself, as a notary, had drawn up the document, which Don Arsenio had executed in due form; it was in his custody; he produced from his pocket a copy, or rather an abstract, of the operative part of it. To sum up this instrument as briefly as possible, Arsenio bequeathed: First, ten thousand lire to the Reverend Father Garcia, in trust to cause masses to be said for his soul, should Holy Church so permit (it sounded as if Arsenio had his doubts, whether well-founded or not, I do not know, and, as things had turned out, immaterial); secondly, the entire residue of his estate to his wife, the most excellent Signora Donna Lucinda Valdez, his sole surviving near relative; but, thirdly, should the said most excellent Lady, being already fully provided for (!), accept only the palazzo—as it was his earnest wish that she should accept it, his ancestral residence—and renounce the inheritance of his personal estate, then and in that case, he bequeathed the whole of that personal estate to Signor Alessandro Panizzi and two other gentlemen (I forgot their names, but they were both, I subsequently learnt from Father Garcia, “pestilent” friends of Panizzi’s, one may suppose, and naturally pestilent), on a trust to apply the same, in such ways as the law permitted, to the use and benefit of the City of Venice and its inhabitants, which and who were so dear to the heart of the adopted but devoted son of the said City, Arsenio Valdez.

“It is prodigious!” said Signor Alessandro Panizzi. He handed me the abstract, adding, “You will perhaps like to show it to the Excellent Lady?” He paused. “It is, of course, a question what course she will adopt. The sum is a large one, I understand.”

The anxiety that showed itself in his voice was natural and creditable to a Venetian patriot—and quite intelligible too in a gentleman who saw himself with the chance of handling an important public trust. There would be kudos to be got out of that! But I did not pay much attention to his anxiety.

“You’re right. It is prodigious,” I said, smiling broadly in spite of myself. How Arsenio must have enjoyed giving those instructions! No wonder he had looked complacent when I met him with Panizzi on the Piazza; and no wonder that Panizzi had been so deferential. A foretaste for Arsenio of the posthumous praise which he was engineering—the talk of him after his death, the speculation about him! Because, of course, he was quite safe with Lucinda—and he knew it. He was obliged, I believe, though I do not profess to know the law, to leave her part of his property. But it was handsome, more gallant and chivalrous, to give it all to her—in the sure and certain knowledge that she would not take the money brought by the winning ticket! And, next to her in his heart came his dear City of Venice! If not beloved Lucinda, then beloved Venice! The two Queens of his heart! What a fine flourish! What an exit for himself he had prepared! The plaudits would sound loud and long after he had left the stage.

“It is, of course, possible,” I found Signor Panizzi saying, “that our lamented friend had discussed the matter with his wife and that they had——”

“Well, that’s not at all unlikely. You’d like me to tell her about this?”

“It would, no doubt, be convenient to have, as soon as possible, an indication of her——”

“Naturally. I’ll speak to her, and let you know her views as soon as possible. It is a large sum, as you say. She may desire to take time for consideration.” I knew that she would not take five minutes.

“I may tell you—without breach of confidence, I think—that our lamented friend was at first disposed to confine his benefaction, in the event of its becoming operative by his wife’s renunciation, to distinctly ecclesiastical charities. I allowed myself the liberty—the honor—of suggesting to him a wider scope. ‘Why be sectional?’ I suggested. ‘The gratitude, the remembrance, of all your fellow citizens—that would be a greater thing, Don Arsenio,’ I permitted myself to say. And the idea appealed to him.”

“Really, then,” I remarked, “Venice is hardly less indebted to you—Venice as a whole, I mean—than to poor Arsenio himself!”

“No, no, I couldn’t allow that to be said. But I’m proud if I, in any way, had a humble——”

“Exactly. And if that comes out—and surely why shouldn’t it?—everybody will be very grateful to you—except perhaps the distinctly ecclesiastical charities! By the way, do you know this Father Garcia? He’s living in this house, on the first floor, and we called him in to see Arsenio—last night, you know,—before he died.”

“I don’t know Father Garcia personally,” he said stiffly, “but very well by repute.” He paused; I waited to see what he would say of Father Garcia. “An utter reactionary, a black reactionary, and none too good an Italian.” He lowered his voice and whispered, “Strongly suspected of Austrian sympathies!”

“I see,” I replied gravely. He had almost got even with the old priest’s “pestilent.”

He rose and bade me a ceremonious farewell. As he went out, he said, “This bequest—and whether it comes into operation or not, it must receive publicity—coming from a member of the old reactionary nobility—from a Spanish Catholic—may well be considered to mark a stage in the growing solidarity of Italy.”

That seemed as much as even Arsenio himself could have expected of it!