The Primadonna

  CHAPTER XVI

  Sir Jasper Threlfall did not know how long it would be before Mr.Feist could safely be discharged from the establishment in whichLogotheti had so kindly placed him. Dr. Bream said 'it was as bad acase of chronic alcoholism as he often saw.' What has grammar to dowith the treatment of the nerves? Mr. Feist said he did not want to becured of chronic alcoholism, and demanded that he should be let outat once. Dr. Bream answered that it was against his principles todischarge a patient half cured. Mr. Feist retorted that it was aviolation of personal liberty to cure a man against his will. Thephysician smiled kindly at a view he heard expressed every day, andwhich the law shared, though it might not be very ready to support it.Physically, Mr. Feist was afraid of Dr. Bream, who had played footballfor Guy's Hospital and had the complexion of a healthy baby and aquiet eye. So the patient changed his tone, and whined for somethingto calm his agitated nerves. One teaspoonful of whisky was all hebegged for, and he promised not to ask for it to-morrow if he mighthave it to-day. The doctor was obdurate about spirits, but felt hispulse, examined the pupils of his eyes, and promised him a calminghypodermic in an hour. It was too soon after breakfast, he said. Mr.Feist only once attempted to use violence, and then two large men cameinto the room, as quiet and healthy as the doctor himself, and gentlybut firmly put him to bed, tucking him up in such an extraordinary waythat he found it quite impossible to move or to get his hands out; andDr. Bream, smiling with exasperating calm, stuck a needle into hisshoulder, after which he presently fell asleep.

  He had been drinking hard for years, so that it was a very bad case;and besides, he seemed to have something on his mind, which made itworse.

  Logotheti came to see him now, and took a vast deal of trouble to beagreeable. At his first visit Feist flew into a rage and accused theGreek of having kidnapped him and shut him up in a prison, wherehe was treated like a lunatic; but to this Logotheti was quiteindifferent; he only shook his head rather sadly, and offered Feist avery excellent cigarette, such as it was quite impossible to buy, evenin London. After a little hesitation the patient took it, and theeffect was very soothing to his temper. Indeed it was wonderful, forin less than two minutes his features relaxed, his eyes became quiet,and he actually apologised for having spoken so rudely. Logotheti hadbeen kindness itself, he said, had saved his life at the very momentwhen he was going to cut his throat, and had been in all respects thegood Samaritan. The cigarette was perfectly delicious. It was aboutthe best smoke he had enjoyed since he had left the States, he said.He wished Logotheti to please to understand that he wanted to settleup for all expenses as soon as possible, and to pay his weekly billsat Dr. Bream's. There had been twenty or thirty pounds in notes in hispocket-book, and a letter of credit, but all his things had been takenaway from him. He concluded it was all right, but it seemed ratherstrenuous to take his papers too. Perhaps Mr. Logotheti, who was sokind, would make sure that they were in a safe place, and tell thedoctor to let him see any other friends who called. Then he askedfor another of those wonderful cigarettes, but Logotheti was awfullysorry--there had only been two, and he had just smoked the otherhimself. He showed his empty case.

  'By the way,' he said, 'if the doctor should happen to come in andnotice the smell of the smoke, don't tell him that you had one ofmine. My tobacco is rather strong, and he might think it would do youharm, you know. I see that you have some light ones there, on thetable. Just let him think that you smoked one of them. I promise tobring some more to-morrow, and we'll have a couple together.'

  That was what Logotheti said, and it comforted Mr. Feist, whorecognised the opium at once; all that afternoon and through all thenext morning he told himself that he was to have another of thosecigarettes, and perhaps two, at three o'clock in the afternoon, whenLogotheti had said that he would come again.

  Before leaving his own rooms on the following day, the Greek put fourcigarettes into his case, for he had not forgotten his promise; hetook two from a box that lay on the table, and placed them so thatthey would be nearest to his own hand when he offered his case, but hetook the other two from a drawer which was always locked, and of whichthe key was at one end of his superornate watch-chain, and he placedthem on the other side of the case, conveniently for a friend to take.All four cigarettes looked exactly alike.

  If any one had pointed out to him that an Englishman would not thinkit fair play to drug a man deliberately, Logotheti would have smiledand would have replied by asking whether it was fair play to accuse aninnocent man of murder, a retort which would only become unanswerableif it could be proved that Van Torp was suspected unjustly. But tothis objection, again, the Greek would have replied that he had beenbrought up in Constantinople, where they did things in that way;and that, except for the trifling obstacle of the law, there wasno particular reason for not strangling Mr. Feist with the Englishequivalent for a bowstring, since he had printed a disagreeable storyabout Miss Donne, and was, besides, a very offensive sort of personin appearance and manner. There had always been a certain directnessabout Logotheti's view of man's rights.

  He went to see Mr. Feist every day at three o'clock, in the most kindway possible, made himself as agreeable as he could, and gave himcigarettes with a good deal of opium in them. He also presented Feistwith a pretty little asbestos lamp which was constructed to purifythe air, and had a really wonderful capacity for absorbing the ratherpeculiar odour of the cigarettes. Dr. Bream always made his roundin the morning, and the men nurses he employed to take care of hispatients either did not notice anything unusual, or supposed thatLogotheti smoked some 'outlandish Turkish stuff,' and, because he wasa privileged person, they said nothing about it. As he had broughtthe patient to the establishment to be cured, it was really not to besupposed that he would supply him with forbidden narcotics.

  Now, to a man who is poisoned with drink and is suddenly deprived ofit, opium is from the beginning as delightful as it is nauseous tomost healthy people when they first taste it; and during the next fouror five days, while Feist appeared to be improving faster than mighthave been expected, he was in reality acquiring such a craving forhis daily dose of smoke that it would soon be acute suffering to bedeprived of it; and this was what Logotheti wished. He would havesupplied him with brandy if he had not been sure that the contrabandwould be discovered and stopped by the doctor; but opium, in thehands of one who knows exactly how it is used, is very much harderto detect, unless the doctor sees the smoker when he is under theinfluence of the drug, while the pupils of the eye are unnaturallycontracted and the face is relaxed in that expression of beatitudewhich only the great narcotics can produce--the state which Baudelairecalled the Artificial Paradise.

  During these daily visits Logotheti became very confidential; that isto say, he exercised all his ingenuity in the attempt to make Feisttalk about himself. But he was not very successful. Broken as the manwas, his characteristic reticence was scarcely at all relaxed, and itwas quite impossible to get beyond the barrier. One day Logotheti gavehim a cigarette more than usual, as an experiment, but he went tosleep almost immediately, sitting up in his chair. The opium, as amoderate substitute for liquor, temporarily restored the habitual toneof his system and revived his natural self-control, and Logotheti soongave up the idea of extracting any secret from him in a moment ofgarrulous expansion.

  There was the other way, which was now prepared, and the Greek hadlearned enough about his victim to justify him in using it. The cypherexpert, who had been at work on Feist's diary, had now completed hiskey and brought Logotheti the translation. He was a rather shabbylittle man, a penman employed to do occasional odd jobs about theForeign Office, such as engrossing documents and the like, by which heearned from eighteenpence to half-a-crown an hour, according to thestyle of penmanship required, and he was well known in the criminalcourts as an expert on handwriting in forgery cases.

  He brought his work to Logotheti, who at once asked for the long entryconcerning the night of the explosion. The expert turned to it andread it aloud. It was a s
tatement of the circumstances to which Feistwas prepared to swear, and which have been summed up in a previouschapter. Van Torp was not mentioned by name in the diary, but wasreferred to as 'he'; the other entries in the journal, however, fullyproved that Van Torp was meant, even if Logotheti had felt any doubtof it.

  The expert informed him, however, that the entry was not the originalone, which had apparently been much shorter, and had been obliteratedin the ordinary way with a solution of chloride of lime. Here andthere very pale traces of the previous writing were faintly visible,but there was not enough to give the sense of what was gone. Thisproved that the ink had not been long dry when it had been removed,as the expert explained. It was very hard to destroy old writing socompletely that neither heat nor chemicals would bring it out again.Therefore Feist must have decided to change the entry soon after hehad made it, and probably on the next day. The expert had not foundany other page which had been similarly treated. The shabby little manlooked at Logotheti, and Logotheti looked at him, and both nodded; andthe Greek paid him generously for his work.

  It was clear that Feist had meant to aid his own memory, and hadrather clumsily tampered with his diary in order to make it agree withthe evidence he intended to give, rather than meaning to produce thenotes in court. What Logotheti meant to find out was what the manhimself really knew and what he had first written down; that, and someother things. In conversation, Logotheti had asked him to describe thepanic at the theatre, and Cordova's singing in the dark, but Feist'sanswers had been anything but interesting.

  'You can't remember much about that kind of thing,' he had said in hisdrawling way, 'because there isn't much to remember. There was a crashand the lights went out, and people fought their way to the doors inthe dark till there was a general squash; then Madame Cordova beganto sing, and that kind of calmed things down till the lights went upagain. That's about all I remember.'

  His recollections did not at all agree with what he had entered in hisdiary; but though Logotheti tried a second time two days later, Feistrepeated the same story with absolute verbal accuracy. The Greek askedhim if he had known 'that poor Miss Bamberger who died of shock.'Feist blew out a cloud of drugged tobacco smoke before he answered,with one of his disagreeable smiles, that he had known her prettywell, for he had been her father's private secretary. He explainedthat he had given up the place because he had come into some money.Mr. Bamberger was 'a very pleasant gentleman,' Feist declared, andpoor Miss Bamberger had been a 'superb dresser and a first-classconversationalist, and was a severe loss to her friends and admirers.'Though Logotheti, who was only a Greek, did not understand every wordof this panegyric, he perceived that it was intended for the highestpraise. He said he should like to know Mr. Bamberger, and was sorrythat he had not known Miss Bamberger, who had been engaged to marryMr. Van Torp, as every one had heard.

  He thought he saw a difference in Feist's expression, but was not sureof it. The pale, unhealthy, and yet absurdly youthful face was notnaturally mobile, and the almost colourless eyes always had rather afixed and staring look. Logotheti was aware of a new meaning in themrather than of a distinct change. He accordingly went on to say thathe had heard poor Miss Bamberger spoken of as heartless, and hebrought out the word so unexpectedly that Feist looked sharply at him.

  'Well,' he said, 'some people certainly thought so. I daresay she was.It don't matter much, now she's dead, anyway.'

  'She paid for it, poor girl,' answered Logotheti very deliberately.'They say she was murdered.'

  The change in Feist's face was now unmistakable. There was a drawingdown of the corners of the mouth, and a lowering of the lids thatmeant something, and the unhealthy complexion took a greyish shade.Logotheti was too wise to watch his intended victim, and leaned backin a careless attitude, gazing out of the window at the bright creeperon the opposite wall.

  'I've heard it suggested,' said Mr. Feist rather thickly, out of aperfect storm of drugged smoke.

  It came out of his ugly nostrils, it blew out of his mouth, it seemedto issue even from his ears and eyes.

  'I suppose we shall never know the truth,' said Logotheti in an idletone, and not seeming to look at his companion. 'Mr. Griggs--do youremember Mr. Griggs, the author, at the Turkish Embassy, where wefirst met? Tall old fellow, sad-looking, bony, hard; you remember him,don't you?'

  'Why, yes,' drawled Feist, emitting more smoke, 'I know him quitewell.'

  'He found blood on his hands after he had carried her. Had you notheard that? I wondered whether you saw her that evening. Did you?'

  'I saw her from a distance in the box with her friends,' answeredFeist steadily.

  'Did you see her afterwards?'

  The direct question came suddenly, and the strained look in Feist'sface became more intense. Logotheti fancied he understood very wellwhat was passing in the young man's mind; he intended to swear incourt that he had seen Van Torp drag the girl to the place where herbody was afterwards found, and if he now denied this, the Greek, whowas probably Van Torp's friend, might appear as a witness and narratethe present conversation; and though this would not necessarilyinvalidate the evidence, it might weaken it in the opinion of thejury. Feist had of course suspected that Logotheti had some object inforcing him to undergo a cure, and this suspicion had been confirmedby the opium cigarettes, which he would have refused after the firsttime if he had possessed the strength of mind to do so.

  While Logotheti watched him, three small drops of perspirationappeared high up on his forehead, just where the parting of his thinlight hair began; for he felt that he must make up his mind what tosay, and several seconds had already elapsed since the question.

  'As a matter of fact,' he said at last, with an evident effort, 'I didcatch sight of Miss Bamberger later.'

  He had been aware of the moisture on his forehead, and had hoped thatLogotheti would not notice it, but the drops now gathered and rolleddown, so that he was obliged to take out his handkerchief.

  'It's getting quite hot,' he said, by way of explanation.

  'Yes,' answered Logotheti, humouring him, 'the room is warm. You musthave been one of the last people who saw Miss Bamberger alive,' headded. 'Was she trying to get out?'

  'I suppose so.'

  Logotheti pretended to laugh a little.

  'You must have been quite sure when you saw her,' he said.

  Feist was in a very overwrought condition by this time, and Logothetireflected that if his nerve did not improve he would make a badimpression on a jury.

  'Now I'll tell you the truth,' he said rather desperately.

  'By all means!' And Logotheti prepared to hear and remember accuratelythe falsehood which would probably follow immediately on such astatement.

  But he was disappointed.

  'The truth is,' said Feist, 'I don't care much to talk about thisaffair at present. I can't explain now, but you'll understand one ofthese days, and you'll say I was right.'

  'Oh, I see!'

  Logotheti smiled and held out his case, for Feist had finished thefirst cigarette. He refused another, however, to the other's surprise.

  'Thanks,' he said, 'but I guess I won't smoke any more of those. Ibelieve they get on to my nerves.'

  'Do you really not wish me to bring you any more of them?' askedLogotheti, affecting a sort of surprised concern. 'Do you think theyhurt you?'

  'I do. That's exactly what I mean. I'm much obliged, all the same, butI'm going to give them up, just like that.'

  'Very well,' Logotheti answered. 'I promise not to bring any more. Ithink you are very wise to make the resolution, if you really thinkthey hurt you--though I don't see why they should.'

  Like most weak people who make good resolutions, Mr. Feist did notrealise what he was doing. He understood horribly well, forty-eighthours later, when he was dragging himself at his tormentor's feet,entreating the charity of half a cigarette, of one teaspoonful ofliquor, of anything, though it were deadly poison, that could rest hisagonised nerves for a single hour, for ten minutes, for an
instant,offering his life and soul for it, parching for it, burning, sweating,trembling, vibrating with horror, and sick with fear for the want ofit.

  For Logotheti was an Oriental and had lived in Constantinople; andhe knew what opium does, and what a man will do to get it, and thatneither passion of love, nor bond of affection, nor fear of man orGod, nor of death and damnation, will stand against that awful cravingwhen the poison is within reach.