_ PART I CHAPTER V. DE PROFUNDIS
It was pouring with rain, and the man with the flute at the corner shivered and pulled his rags more closely about him. He had not been lucky that day, or, indeed, for many days, as the haggard eyes that stared out of his white face testified.
He had spent the past three nights in the open, but to-night--to-night was cruelly wet. He questioned with himself what he should do.
In his pocket was that which might procure a night's lodging or a meagre supper; but it would not supply both. He had to decide between the two, unless he elected to go on playing till midnight in the drenching rain on the chance of augmenting his scanty store.
Though it was June, he was chilled to the bone. In the intervals between his flute-playing his teeth chattered. He looked horribly ill, but no one had noticed that. Men who wander about the streets with musical instruments seldom have a prosperous appearance. Passers-by may fling them a copper if they have one handy, but otherwise they do not even look at them. There are so many of these luckless ones, and each looks more wretched than the last. Most of them look degraded also, but, save for his rags, this man did not. There was a foreign air about him, but he did not look the type of foreigner that lives upon English charity. There was nothing hang-dog about him. He only looked exhausted and miserable.
At the suggestion of a policeman he abandoned his corner. After all, he was doing no good there. It was not worth a protest. He turned and trudged up a side-street, with head bent to the rain.
It was growing late, high time to seek some shelter for the night if that were his intention. But he pressed on aimlessly with dragging feet. Perhaps he had not yet decided whether to perish from cold or hunger, or perhaps he regarded the choice as of small importance. Possibly even, he had forgotten that there was a choice to be made.
The street he travelled was deserted, but he heard the buzz of a motor at a cross-road, and mechanically almost he moved towards it. He was not quite master of himself or his sensations. He may have vaguely remembered that there is sometimes money to be earned by opening the door of a taxi, but it was not with this definite end in view that he took his way. For, as he went, he put his flute once more to his lips, and poured a sudden, silvery melody--the "_Aubade a la Fiancee_"--that a young French officer had onced hummed so gaily among the rocks of Valpre--into the rain and the darkness.
It began firm and sweet as the notes of a thrush, exquisitely delicate, with the high ecstasy that only music can express. It swelled into a positive paen of rejoicing, eager, wonderful, almost unearthly in its purity. It ended in a confused jumble like the glittering fragments of a beautiful thing shattered to atoms at a blow. And there fell a silence broken only by the throbbing of the taxi, and the drip, drip, drip, of the rain.
The taxi came to a stand close to the lamp-post against which the flute-player leaned, but he made no move to open the door. The light flared on his ashen face, showing it curiously apathetic. His instrument dangled from one nerveless hand.
A man in evening dress stepped from the taxi. His look fell upon the wretched figure that huddled against the lamppost. For a single instant their eyes met. Then abruptly the new-comer wheeled to pay his fare.
"He's in for a wet night by the looks of him," observed the chauffeur facetiously.
"The gentleman is a friend of mine," curtly responded the man in evening dress.
And the taxi-cab driver, being quite at a loss, shot away into the darkness to hide his discomfiture.
The flute-player straightened himself with a manifest effort and turned away. If he had heard the words, he had not comprehended them. His wits seemed to be wandering that night, but he would not even seem to beg an alms.
But a hand on his shoulder detained him. "Monsieur de Montville!" a quiet voice said.
He jerked round, bringing his heels together with instinctive precision. Again, in the glare of the lamp-post their eyes met.
"I have not--the pleasure," he muttered stiffly.
"My name is Mordaunt," the other told him gravely. "You will remember me presently, though not probably by name. Come in out of the rain. It is impossible to talk here."
He spoke with a certain insistence. His hand held the Frenchman's arm. It was obvious that he would listen to no refusal. And the man in rags attempted none. He went with him meekly, as if bewildered into docility. His single flash of pride had died out like the final flicker of a match.
With the Englishman's hand supporting him, he stumbled up a flight of steps that led to the door of one of the houses in the quiet street, waited till the turning of a latch-key opened the door, and again numbly yielded to the steady insistence that drew him within.
He stood on a mat under a glaring electric lamp. The wet streamed down him in rivulets; he was drenched to the skin.
Mechanically he pulled the cap from his head and tried to still his chattering teeth. His lips were blue.
"This way," said the quiet voice. "Take my arm."
"But I am so damp, monsieur," he protested shakily. "It will make you damp also."
"What of it? I daresay I shall survive it if you do." Very kindly the voice made answer. He could not see the speaker plainly, for his brain was in a whirl. He even wondered in a dull fashion if it were all a dream, and if he would wake in a moment from his uneasy slumber to hear the rain splashing down the gutters and the voice of a constable in his ear bidding him move on.
He went up a flight of stairs, moving almost without his own volition, the Englishman's arm around him, urging him upwards.
They came to the threshold of a room of which Mordaunt switched on the light at entering, and in a moment more the tottering Frenchman found himself pressed down into a chair. He covered his face with his hands and sat motionless, trying to still the confusion in his brain. He was shivering violently from head to foot.
There followed a pause of some duration, during which he must have been alone; then again his unknown friend touched him, patted his shoulder, spoke.
"Here's a hot drink. You will feel better when you have had it. Afterwards you shall go to bed."
He raised his head and stared about him. Mordaunt, holding a cup of steaming milk that gave out a strong aroma of brandy, was stooping over him. There was another man in the room, evidently a servant, engaged in kindling a fire.
Slowly the vagabond's gaze focussed itself upon Mordaunt's face. He saw it clearly for the first time and gave a slight start of recognition.
"I have seen you before," he muttered, frowning uncertainly. "Where? Where?"
"Never mind now," returned the Englishman gently. "Drink this. You need it."
He lifted a shaking hand and dropped it again. All the strength seemed to have gone out of him.
"Monsieur will pardon my feebleness," he murmured almost inarticulately. "I am--a little--fatigued. It is nothing. It will pass."
"Drink!" Mordaunt said insistently.
He held the rim of the cup against the trembling lips, and perforce the Frenchman drank, at first slowly, then with avidity, till at last he clasped the cup in both his quivering hands and drained it.
His eyes sought Mordaunt's apologetically as he gave it back. The apathy had gone out of them. They looked out of his pinched face with brightening intelligence. His lips were no longer blue.
"Ah!" he said, with a deep breath. "But how it was good, monsieur!"
He glanced downwards, discovered himself to be sitting in a chintz-covered chair, and blundered hastily to his feet.
"Tenez!" he exclaimed almost incoherently. "But how I forget! See, I have--I have--"
He groped out before him suddenly, words failing him, and only Mordaunt's promptitude spared him a headlong fall.
"Bit light-headed, sir?" suggested the servant, glancing round with an inscrutable countenance.
"No, he'll be all right. Go and turn on the hot water," said Mordaunt.
To the Frenchman as the man departed he spoke as to an equal. "Monsieur de Montville, I am offering you the hospitality of a friend, and I hope you will accept it. In the morning if you are well enough we will talk things over. But to-night you are not fit for anything beyond a hot bath and bed."
The Frenchman nodded. Certainly his senses were returning to him. His eyes were growing brighter every instant. "It is true," he said. "I was ill. But your--so great--kindness has revived me. I will not, then, trespass upon you longer, except to render to you a thousand thanks. I am well now. I will go."
"No," Mordaunt said gently. "You will stay here till morning. You are not well. You are feverish. And the sooner you get to bed the better. Come! We are not strangers. Need we behave as if we were?"
Again de Montville looked at him doubtfully. "I wish that I could recall--" he said.
"You will presently," Mordaunt assured him. "In the meantime, it really doesn't matter, and it is not the time for explanations. I am very glad to have met you. You surely will not refuse to be my guest for a few hours."
He spoke with the utmost kindness, but also with inflexible determination. The Frenchman still looked dubious, but quite obviously he did not feel equal to a battle of wills with his resolute host. He uttered a sigh and said no more.
He firmly declined the assistance of Mordaunt's man, however, and it was Mordaunt himself who waited upon him, ignoring protest, till his shivering _protege_ was safe in bed.
He seemed to resign himself to his fate then, being too exhausted to do otherwise. A heavy drowsiness came upon him, and he very soon fell into a doze.
Mordaunt sat in an adjoining room, opening and answering letters. His demeanour was quite serene. Save that he paused now and then and leaned back in his chair to listen, there was nothing about him to indicate that anything unusual had taken place.
It was nearing midnight when his man came softly in with a cup of beef-tea.
"All right, Holmes! I'll see to him. You can go to bed," he said then.
Holmes paused. "I've made up the bed in the spare-room, sir," he said.
"Oh, thanks! I shall not want it though. I will sleep on the sofa here."
"Very good, sir." Holmes still paused. He never expressed surprise at anything his master saw fit to do; he only did his utmost to give his proceedings as normal an aspect as possible. His acquaintance with Mordaunt also dated from a South African battlefield; they knew each other very well indeed.
"I was only thinking to myself," he said, in answer to Mordaunt's look, "I could just as easy attend to the gentleman as you could, sir. I'm more or less up in night duty, as you might say, and I'll guarantee as he wants for nothing if you'll put him in my charge."
Holmes had been a hospital orderly in his time, and Mordaunt knew him to be absolutely trustworthy in a responsible position. Nevertheless he declined the offer.
"Very good of you, Holmes! But I would rather you went to bed. I shouldn't be turning in yet in any case. I have work to do. I don't fancy he will give any trouble. If he does, I will call you."
Holmes withdrew without further argument, and a few minutes later Mordaunt, armed with the beef-tea, went to his guest's bedside.
He found him dozing, but he awoke at once, looking up with fever-bright eyes to greet him.
"Ah! but you are too good--too good," he said. "And I have no hunger now. I am only yet a little fatigued. I shall repose myself, and I shall find myself well."
"Yes, you will be better after a sleep," Mordaunt said. "You shall settle down when you have had this, and sleep the clock round."
He was aware once more of the Frenchman's puzzled eyes watching him as he submissively took the nourishment, but he paid no heed to them. It was not his intention to encourage any discussion just then.
Outside, the rain pattered incessantly, beating against the windows. At a sudden gust of hail de Montville shivered.
"Monsieur," he said, choosing his words with care, "your great kindness is such as I can never hope to repay, but permit me to assure you that my gratitude will constrain me to regard myself your debtor till death. If it is ever in my power to serve you, I will render that service, cost what it may. You have called me by my name. It appears that you know me?"
He paused for an answer.
"Yes, I know you," Mordaunt said.
"And for that you extend to me the hand of friendship?" questioned the Frenchman, his quick eyes still searching the Englishman's quiet face.
Mordaunt's eyes looked gravely back. "I also happen to believe in you," he said. "Otherwise I should probably have helped you because you needed it; but I most certainly should not have brought you here."
"Ah!" Sudden understanding flashed into de Montville's face; he leaned forward, stuttering with eagerness. "You--you--I know you now! I know you! You are the English journalist, the man who believed in me even against reason, against evidence--in spite of all! I remember you well--well! I remember your eyes. They sent me a message. They gave me courage. They told me that you knew--that you were my friend--the only friend, monsieur, that was not ashamed of me. And I thanked _le bon Dieu_ that night--that terrible night--simply because I had looked into your eyes."
He broke off in quivering agitation. Trevor Mordaunt's hand was on his shoulder. "Easy--easy!" the quiet voice said. "You are exciting yourself, my dear fellow, and you mustn't. You must go to sleep. This matter will very well keep till morning."
De Montville's face was hidden in his shaking hands. "If I could thank you--if I could make you comprehend--" he murmured brokenly.
"I do comprehend. I comprehend perfectly." Mordaunt's voice was soothing now, almost motherly. He stroked the bent shoulders with a consoling touch. "Come, man! You are used up; you are ill. Lie down and rest."
He coaxed his forlorn guest down upon the pillows again and drew the bedclothes over him. Then for a space he sat beside him, divining that he would recover his self-command more quickly with him there than left to his own devices.
A nervous hand, bony as a skeleton's, came hesitatingly forth to him at length, and he gripped and held it for several quiet seconds more.
Finally he rose. "I'll leave you now. If you are wanting anything, you have only to ask for it. I shall be in the next room. Quite comfortable?"
Yes, he was quite comfortable. He assured him of this in unsteady tones, and begged that Mr. Mordaunt would give himself no further trouble on his account. He would sleep--he would sleep.
As the assurance was uttered somewhat incoherently, through lips half closed, Mordaunt judged that he could be trusted to carry out this intention, and so left him, to return to his writing-table in the adjoining room.
Ten minutes later he crept back noiselessly and found him in a deep sleep. He stood a moment to watch him, and noted with compassion a faint, pathetic smile that rested on the worn features.
But he did not guess that Bertrand de Montville had returned in his dreams to a land of enchantment, where the sun was always shining, and the sea was at peace, even that land where first he had forgotten the great goal of his ambition and had halted by the way to listen to a girl's light laughter while he drew for her his pictures in the sand. _