valentine imroth.
dr. fabos meets the jew.
imagine a man some five feet six in height, weak and tottering upon crazy knees, and walking laboriously by the aid of a stick. a deep green shade habitually covered protruding and bloodshot eyes, but for the nonce it had been lifted upon a high and cone-shaped forehead, the skin of which bore the scars of ancient wounds and more than one jagged cut. a goat’s beard, long and unkempt and shaggy, depended from a chin as sharp as a wedge; the nose was prominent, but not without a suggestion of power; the hands were old and tremulous, but quivering still with the desire of life. so much a glare of the furnace’s light showed me at a glance. when it died down, i was left alone in the darkness with this revolting figure, and had but the dread suggestion of its presence for my companion.
“dr. fabos of london. is it not dr. fabos? i am an old man, and my eyes do not help me as once they did. but i think it is dr. fabos!”
i turned upon him and declared myself, since any other course would have made me out afraid of him.
“i am dr. fabos—yes, that is so. and you, i think, are the polish jew they call val imroth?”
he laughed, a horrible dry throaty laugh, and drew a little nearer to me.
“i expected you before—three days ago,” he said, just in the tone of a cat purring. “you made a very slow passage, doctor—a very slow passage, indeed. all is well that ends well, however. here you are at santa maria, and there is your yacht down yonder. let me welcome you to the villa.”
so he stood, fawning before me, his voice almost a whisper in my ear. what to make of it i knew not at all. harry avenhill, the young thief i captured at newmarket, had spoken of this dread figure, but always in connection with paris, or vienna, or rome. yet here he was at santa maria, his very presence tainting the air as with a chill breath of menace and of death. my own rashness in coming to the island never appeared so utterly to be condemned, so entirely without excuse. this fearful old man might be deaf to every argument i had to offer. there was no crime in all the story he had not committed or would not commit. with general fordibras i could have dealt—but with him!
“yes,” i said quite calmly, “that is my yacht. she will start for gibraltar to-morrow if i do not return to her. it will depend upon my friend, general fordibras.”
i said it with what composure i could command—for this was all my defence. his reply was a low laugh and a bony finger which touched my hand as with a die of ice.
“it is a dangerous passage to gibraltar, dr. fabos. do not dwell too much upon it. there are ships which never see the shore again. yours might be one of them.”
“unberufen. the german language is your own. if my boat does not return to gibraltar, and thence to london, in that case, herr imroth, you may have many ships at santa maria, and they will fly the white ensign. be good enough to credit me with some small share of prudence. i could scarcely stand here as i do had i not measured the danger—and provided against it. you were not then in my calculations. believe me, they are not to be destroyed even by your presence.”
now, he listened to this with much interest and evident patience; and i perceived instantly that it had not failed to make an impression upon him. to be frank, i feared nothing from design, but only from accident, and although i had him covered by my revolver, i never once came near to touching the trigger of it. so mutually in accord, indeed, were our thoughts that, when next he spoke, he might have been giving tongue to my apprehensions:
“a clever man—who relies upon the accident of papers. my dear friend, would all the books in our great library in rome save you from yonder men if i raised my voice to call them? come, dr. fabos, you are either a fool or a hero. you hunt me, valentine imroth, whom the police of twenty cities have hunted in vain. you visit us as a schoolboy might have done, and yet you are as well acquainted with your responsibilities as i am. what shall i say of you? what do you say of yourself when you ask the question, ‘will these men let me go free? will they permit my yacht to make europe again?’ allow me to answer that, and in my turn i will tell you why you stand here safe beside me when at a word of mine, at a nod, one of these white doors would open and you would be but a little whiff of ashes before a man could number ten. no, my friend; i do not understand you. some day i shall do so—and then god help you!”
it was wonderful to hear how little there was either of vain boasting or of melodramatic threat in this strange confession. the revolting hawk-eyed jew put his cards upon the table just as frankly as any simpering miss might have done. i perplexed him, therefore he let me live. my own schemes were so many childish imaginings to be derided. the yacht, europe, the sealed papers which would tell my story when they were opened—he thought that he might mock them as a man mocks an enemy who has lost his arms by the way. in this, however, i perceived that i must now undeceive him. the time had come to play my own cards—the secret cards which not even his wit had brought into our reckoning.
“herr imroth,” i said quietly, “whether you understand me or no is the smallest concern to me. why i came to santa maria, you will know in due season. meanwhile, i have a little information for your ear and for your ear alone. there is in paris, rue gloire de marie, number twenty, a young woman of the name of?——”
i paused, for the light, shining anew, showed me upon the old man’s face something i would have paid half my fortune to see there. fear, and not fear alone: dread, and yet something more than dread:—human love, inhuman passion, the evil spirit of all malice, all desire, all hate. how these emotions fired those limpid eyes, drew down the mouth in passion, set the feeble limbs trembling. and the cry that escaped his lips—the shriek of terror almost, how it resounded in the silence of the night!—the cry of a wolf mourning a cub, of a jackal robbed of a prey. never have my ears heard such sounds or my soul revolted before such temper.
“devil,” he cried. “devil of hell, what have you to do with her?”
i clutched his arm and drew him down toward me:
“life for a life. shall she know the truth of this old man’s story, the old man who goes to her as a husband clad in benevolence and well-doing? shall she know the truth, or shall my friends in paris keep silence? answer, old man, or, by god, they shall tell it to her to-morrow.”
he did not utter a single word. passion or fear had mastered him utterly and robbed him both of speech and action. and herein the danger lay; for no sooner had i spoken than the light of a lantern shone full upon my face, while deep down as it were in the very bowels of the earth, an alarm bell was ringing.
the unknown were coming up out of the pit. and the man who could have saved me from them had been struck dumb as though by a judgment of god!
