Mystery at Geneva Part 5

"Thought what?"

"Why, this. He always seemed such a white man. My, isn't it queer what people will do?"

Henry, who had been brought up on Dr. Svensen's narrations of his Arctic explorations, and greatly revered him, said, "But I don't believe he's done anything."

"Not done a get-away, you mean? Well now, why should he, after all?

Perhaps he fell right into this deep lake after dining, and couldn't get out, poveretto. Yet he was a real fine swimmer they say."

"Most improbable," said Henry, who had dismissed that hypothesis already. He leant forward and spoke discreetly. "I fancy, Miss Longfellow, there are those in Geneva who could throw some light on this affair if they chose."

"You don't say! Dio mio! Now isn't that quite a notion!" Miss Longfellow was interested. "Why, Mr. Beechtree, you don't suspect foul play, do you?"

Henry nodded.

"I suppose I rather easily suspect foul play," he candidly admitted.

"It's more interesting, and I'm a journalist. But in this case there are reasons----"

"Now isn't this too terribly exciting! Reasons! Just you tell me all you know, Mr. Beechtree, if it's not indiscreet. Non son'

giornalista, io!"

"I don't _know_ anything. Except that there are people who might be glad to get Svensen out of the way."

"But who are they? I thought every one respected him ever so!"

"Respect is akin to fear," said Henry.

On that dictum, the launch took a swift turn to the right, and dashed towards a jetty which bore on a board above it the words, "Chateau Leman. Defense."

"A private jetty," said Henry.

"Yes. The village jetty is beyond. This is my uncle's. That path only leads up to the Chateau."

They disembarked, and climbed up a steep path which led through a wrought iron gate into a walled garden that ran down to the lake's edge. Henry, who was romantic, said, "How very delightful. How old is the Chateau?"

"Chi sa? Real old, I can tell you. Ask Uncle Silvio. He's great on history. He's for ever writing historical books. History and heresy--Dio mio! That is why they turned him out of the Church, you know."

"So I heard.... Are you a Catholic, Miss Longfellow?"

She gave a little shrug.

"I was brought up Catholic. Women believe what they are taught, as a rule, don't they?"

"I hadn't observed it," Henry said, "particularly. Are women so unlike men then?"

"That's quite a question, isn't it. What do you think?"

"I can't think in large sections and ma.s.ses of people," Henry replied.

"Women are so different one from another. So are men. That's all I can see, when people talk of the s.e.xes."

"_Macche!_ You don't say!" said Miss Longfellow, looking at him inquiringly. "Most people always think in large ma.s.ses of people. They find it easier, more convenient, more picturesque."

"It is indeed so," Henry admitted. "But less accurate. Accuracy--do you agree with me?--is of an importance very greatly underestimated by the majority of persons."

"I guess," said Miss Longfellow, not interested, "you're quite a clever young man."

Henry replied truthfully, "Indeed, no," and at this point they turned a bend in the path and the chateau was before them in the evening light; an arcaded, balconied, white-washed building, vine-covered and red-roofed, with queer outside staircases and green-shuttered windows, many of which were lit. Certainly old, though restored. A little way from it was a small belfried chapel.

"Charming," said Henry, removing his eyegla.s.s the better to look.

"Amazingly charming."

A big door stood open and through this they pa.s.sed into a hall lit by large hanging lamps and full of dogs, or so it seemed to Henry, for on all sides they rose to stare at him, to sniff at his ankles, for the most part with the air of distaste commonly adopted towards Henry by these friends of man.

"You're not a dog lover?" Miss Longfellow suggested, and Henry again replied that he could not like or dislike his fellows in large sections; some dogs he liked, others not, as with men, women, and children.

"But I guess they don't like you very much," she returned, shrewdly observing their manners to him. "Now isn't that cute, how they take to some people and not to others. They all love Uncle Silvio on sight.

Stray dogs follow him in the road and won't leave him. Half these are strays.... They know he likes them, that's what it is. Dogs always know, they say, don't they."

"Know what?" asked Henry, suspicious that she meant that dogs know a good character from a bad, which was what "they" ("they" meaning the great collection of noodles who const.i.tute the public) do actually say. The things "they" say! They even say that children too (the most foolish of G.o.d's creatures) have this intuitive knowledge; they say that to drink hot tea makes you cooler, that it is more tiring going down-hill than up, that honesty is the best policy, that love makes the world go round, that "literally" bears the same meaning as "metaphorically" ("she was literally a mother to him," they will say), that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, that those who say least feel most, that one must live. There is truly no limit to what "they,"

in their folly, will say. So Henry, wincing among the suspicious dogs, moodily, and not for the first time, reflected.

Miss Longfellow did not answer his inquiry, but stood in the hall and cried, "Zio!" in a voice like a May cuckoo's.

A door opened, and in a moment Dr. Franchi, small and frail and charming, came forward with a sweet smile and hand outstretched, through a throng of fawning, grinning dogs.

"A pleasure indeed, Mr. Beechtree."

"He is like Leo XIII.," was Henry's thought. "Strange, that he should be a heretic!"

15

They sat at dinner on a terrace, under hanging lamps, looking out at the lake through vine-festooned arches. The moon rose, like the segment of an orange, sending a softly glowing path to them across black water. Here and there the prow lanterns of boats rosily gleamed.

The rest was violet shadow.

How Henry, after his recent experiences of cheap cafes, again enjoyed eating a meal fit for a gentleman. Radiant silver, napery like snow (for, in the old fas.h.i.+on still in use on the continent, Dr. Franchi had a fair linen cloth spread over his dinner-table; there is no doubt but that this extravagant habit gives an old-world charm to a meal), food and wines of the most agreeable, conversation to the liking of all three talkers (which is, after all, the most that can be said of any conversation), one of the loveliest views in Europe, and gentle night air--Henry was indeed fortunate. How kind, he reflected, was this ex-cardinal, who, having met him but once, asked him to such a pleasant entertainment. Why was it? He must try to be worthy of it, to seem cultivated and agreeable and intelligent. But Henry knew that he was none of these things; continually he had to be playing a part, trying to hide his folly under a pretence of being like other people, sensible and informed and amusing, whereas really he was more like an animal, interested in the foolish and fleeting impressions of the moment. He was not fit for a gentleman's dinner-table.

The conversation was of all manner of things. They spoke, of course, of the League.

"It has a great future," said Dr. Franchi, "by saying which I by no means wish to underrate its present."

"Rather capitalist in tendency, perhaps?" the correspondent of the _British Bolshevist_ suggested. "A little too much in the hands of the major states?" But he did not really care.

"You misjudge it," Dr. Franchi said. "It is a very fair a.s.sociation of equal states. A true democracy: little brothers and great, hand in hand. Oh, it will do great things; is, indeed, doing great things now. One cannot afford to be cynical about such an attempt. Anything which encourages the nations to take an interest in one another's concerns----"

"There has surely," said Henry, still rather apathetically voicing his paper, "always been too much of that already. Hence wars. Nations should keep themselves to themselves. International impertinence ...