A Romance of the Seine.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8174, 6 August 1906, Page 4

A Romance of the Seine.

" I confess," said Munco, " I have committed most crimes once. -Did I ever tell vou how I blackmailed a man, and got £IOOO oat erf him ? Then there was my murder, quite an artistic affair." There were four of us loafing in the club leading room. It r.n, a blight but cold afternoon, and the iirn blazed in the gr.ite. We were all ranged ..bout it, sprawling in Baddle back chairs. There fas Masters, the lawyer, who meant to do something some day; there was old Tafnell, the comedian, who had done all he meant to do twenty yeara ago; there was myself, the youngest of the groop, an unacted playwright; and there was Munro. No one qnite knew what Munro did for a living. He was a wanderer, and would absent himself from oar set for months at a time, but he always tamed up at the club sooner or latter. He was a man of 45 or so, hair grizzled about the temples, face strong and hard, eyes keen, bat kind. "Let's have the mnrder," said Masters with a yawn. " A really artistic mnrder should possess dramatic possibilities," remarked the comedian ponderously, " and may be of service to ouryoung friend here." The bid man indicated me with a patronising gesture. Munro took his pipe from his mouth, and thoughtfully polished the bowl on the sleeve of his coat. "The beginning of the business was in the summer of *97," he began presently. "I felt at ii moment's notice. Eventually I found myself in Turkey hobnobbing with a wicked old pasha of my acquaintance. One day I was with him m his house, which was more like a palace, when a dealer brought some newly captured slave girls for bis inspection. •' My friend rejected the majority with BOorn; but one beautiful Greek girl found favor in bis sieht, and after a lot of huggling with the dealer be purchased her. " The girl, when sbe learned her fate, was terrified, and made a painful scc-ne. 41 1 am aot as you know, a ladies' man, but I confess the scared look in the girl's eyes made me feel qualmish. " At the pasha's request I spoke to her in ber own language, but could get nothing from her except a despairing request to save her from her new master. «■ The end of it was that I offered to repurchase her. My friend wa3 amazed and much amused, but he good naturally consented, and so Nads became my property. I offered to send the girl back to her people, but it appeared that they had been ruthlessly slaughtered when she was captured, and she swore that she would never leave me. The situation was embarrassing, and I anticipated all sorts of trouble. But Nada behaved splendidly. It is true she followed me about like a dog, but sbe never obtruded herself upon my notice, and yet w.is always at hand ti render me any service within her power. "All went well for a time, and I had got quite used to her being about the place, and even found myself missing her when she wa3 absent.

"Then in the autumn of '90,1 went to Paris. There! found a certain M. lonides lording it in fashionable society. He was it appeared, a Greek merchant, who had made a fortune out of currants. He occupied a magnificent hotel, kept a retinue of servants bad a gorgeous equipage, and entertained in a mo3t lavish aod princely fashion.

•' He was enormously rich, enormously fat, and as ugly as a satyr. We had been in Paris about a week, when tbis M. louidcs saw Nada, and at ooce took a fancy to her. I think I hare told you the girl xrw really strikingly pretty. People turned in the streets to look at her. Well, the Greek was l&Bcinated by his countrywoman, and the revolt was that one day Nada crime dying to me for protection. 1 soothed her, and thooght no more of the matter, but on the morrow 1 had a visit from the great man. He was pretty frank, talking like a man accustomed to pay for what he wanted and to get it. He understood the young lady was my ward. Would 1 transfer my office to him ? Between men of the world any sum I might name, would I mention a figure, and go forth. "Hooked at bis ugly face, his great penduloos cheeks, the puffy mounds of lieoh Under bis beady eyes; and then I thought of Kadt, delicate, innocent, childlike. 1 11 In the end I told M. lonides cautiously that to my extreme regret the matter could Dot be arranged. " He smiled and shrugged his fat shoulders but, as he went out, he remarked softly that In his experience he had always found it possible to arrange such matters. " A few days later I had to leave Paris on business. I wis away about forty eight hoars. When I returned I was informed that Nada bad disappeared. "Immediately I suspected the fat Greek, and decided to call upou the gentleman whan I had dined. ** However, I had just finished the inea! in my own house in tiie liue liarbet de Jo.iy, and was sipping my- coffee alone, when tho door of the room unceremoniously liung open. " I sprang to my feet and confronted a wild, mad looking creature. Her hair was disheveled, her clothes torn and wet, her face distorted, her eyes fixed and glaring. Nevertheless, itwasNiida. "The girl was quite mad. At times she would fall on the ground at my feet moaning piteously, then in a frenzy of hysteria she woold rave at me, and then again she would tnrn shiveringly from me and, crouching in a corner, would sulk iutilence. No connected story, hardly an intelligent senten •, could I get from her. I sent for assistance and she was put to bed. The good woman whose services I had requisitioned came to me in about half an hour, and her face was grave. She told me that the girl had been terribly ill used. She was a mass of bruises, and across her shoulders were the livid marks made by the lash of a whip. "When I beard that I gave instructions that she should be properly cared for, then lit a cigar and walked across to the hotel of M- lonides. "I found bim alone in bis magnificent apartment, seated behind a richly inlaid oak table. I thought I detected amused expectation in his tiny eyes, but there was certainly no shadow of fear in them. Evidently the fat rascal felt secure behind his rampart of gold. Evidently, too, his creatures were near at hand to protect him from present violence, perhaps crouching behind the heavy curtains which bung at his side. "Indeed, as I drew near to the table his great puffy right hand rested on it within an inch of a button of an electric bell. " 1 took all this in at a glance, and between the door and the table, a matter of five paces, I had made up my mind how I should kill this oily, smng-faced villian, for I knew that if I challenged him he would not fight " I apologised for the lateness of my call* ' The Uct is,' I said, laughing, •1 am detoured by cariosity. You kept your word and you have got the girl; but how the dickens did you manage it ?' " He was taken aback a little, I think, bat he readily fell into my humor. He laughed and chuckled over his achievement till bis great side shook. Then he offered me money. I would not listen to this, assuring him that I considered myself fairly beaten, and I congratulated him on hid adroitness*

"Ho was delighted. 4 You nre a man after my own heart,' he declared. 4 13ut you need not coiigrutulo me. The business turned out most unfortunately. The girl was a fool. \\ by, my dour air, she tried to kill me! Of course I had logive her a lesson, but it didnoguod.' He raised his fat, bcringed hands in a gesture of disgust.' 'Yon know my little place on the Seine? ;i was locked up in a room high above the river, but shu jumped out of the window and was drowned.'

u From that time," went on Munro in his queer, emotionless, monotone, 41 I cultivated tile acquaintance of M. loniiks, and we became inseparable. Do you know I fount) him an amu.iing companion ? "One forenoon we were drinking wine together in a famous cafe-lie ate and drunk at all hours—and he happened to turn his ponderous bulk away so as to stare in comfort at a pretty woman at a distant table. I took the opportunity to drop a little white pellet into his glass. " You know I have made a study of poisons. In this country there is ft prejudice against them nowadays, I know, but it was not always so. The drug I usod was an old Italian poison. I believe originally it came from the east, but ii owes its fame to the extensive use made of it by the Borgias in Italy. Its peculiarity, which is also its great virtue, is that it does not kill its victim until the expiration of thirty days or thereabouts. u I stayed with M.lonides until he had drained his glass. Then I left him. 44 My next step was to persuade Nada to write a letter to her countryman in which she prophesied his early death. The girl was still quite out of her senses, but with me she was submissive and obedient.

"Every day a letter to the same purport was sent to the Greek, and each letter was signed 4 Xada of the Seine.' 44 A week passed before I saw M. lonides again, lie was greatly changed. He was paler, and less grossly fat, and his great face had lost its complacent simper. Ho conlided in me, whom he declared to be his one true friend in Paris. He told me that he experienced qaecr and alarming pains in his head, and he admitted that he was worried by an anonymous letter writer. 1 01 course, it is ridiculous,' he declared ; 4 but she—that is, I mean the writer of these confounded letter— says I shall not live beyond the 2'Jth of this month. And—and, well, ic is now the Bth. I tell you, my friend, I don't like it!'

"The days went by. The Greek grew thinner, more worried, and the pains in his head became more frequent. The most famous doctors of Paris could make nothing of his complaint and asked him if he had any secret worry.

" Every day I called upon him to watch him as be slowly died. It was, I remember on the 23rd that he met me in a stormy and rebellious mood. 'I wiil throw this thing off,' hesbrieked. "Six more days to live 1 Bali! I am scaring myself into the grave. This cursed scribbler tells me I shall die on Friday next. Well, it is a lie. I will live I On Saturday next I will give a banquet suelt as Paris has not seen for many a year, and all society shall be present. Thus I will celebrate my triumph.' " I cordially approved of the plan, telling him that in the preparations for the banquet he would forget his vain fears. With feverish eagerness he pursued the idea. The short woek went swiftly by. The fatal Friday came and went, and the Greek stiii lived. I found him Saturday morning almost mad with delight. A great weight seemed to have beeu lifted from his soul. All fear of death had pass d away from him. Even the pains which had been his constant companions for a month appeared to have vanished. That night I attended the banquet at the lonides mansion—a banquet still talked of in Paris. It is easy to sneer at the vulgarity of wealth, but it is hard not to be fascinated by the splendor it can purchase. 4 "The cream of Paris fashion, boauty and talent assembled round the Greek merchant 's table.

" Never had I seen the man so exultant, so vivacious, so full of life. He and I were probably the two happiest persons in the room. He did not know, and I did, that in an adjoining room a woman, closely veiled, wa.j :L.,.Liliijg my signal. ** Sl:g sat alone, swaying gently to and fro, and crooning softly to hcrs'.-If. " The hours pissed swiftly with good food, good wine, and good talk. The ullair was at its height. Some one proposed the toast, ' The Giver of the Feast.' It was drunk with acclamation, and the unweildy Greek to reply.

"Then I gave my signal, and at the same time slipped quietly out of my scat at tho foot of the table. "Mypliicc was taken by a figure dressed wholly in black. "All eyes were turned upon her ac she drew off her veil. 41 White as the damask cloth on thn hblc, but more beautiful than I had ever s>.:i.-n her, the htoud hili-nt and imuion!e.>s. " lun:d<-> 1-wA heavily 0:1 tho table with both hands, and stared ;u iiur wiiii tjis alas wild iaod lix.-l :i> [;1 y.vu. ly, pointed ut him with a gesture quite mechanical, and uttered the one sentence I ha-1 rehearsal to her u thousand times during the last week The Seine gives up its dead.' 44 The Greek's jaws moved, the muscles of his face were convulsed, and the veins stood out on bis forehead. Again and again he tried to speak, but no words passed his lips. Then suddenly be straightened himself up, bis great arms sawed the air, hi» . clashing fingers clawed at nothingness, and "it last a cry, shrill, piercing and blood-cui Jiing, escaped hiui, a cry of mingled agony and hor ror. " Then he fell forward and crashed down upon the table among the gold, silver, shuttered glass, and there he lay like a great loathsome frog, ugly, and disgusting. 110 was quiu, dead. I touched Nada on the arm, and she followed me like an obedient child. I had thought the shock might restore her. That was my chief reason for confronting her with her countryman. But it wna not a success. She never recovered her sanity." Munro ceased speaking and began to refill his pipe. Masters yawned and rose to his feet. " Did you ever try to write a novel, Munro? " he asked with his irritating drawl. Tufnell and I laughed, both a little relieved I think, at being brought back to the sauo world after the gruesome recital. Munro said nothing, but, taking a letter from his pocket, flung it over to rae. I caught it, and the other two leaned ovei my shoulder as I read. It was a brief notification from the superintendent of a private asvlum, and it ran thus: 44 Dear Sir : I have to inform you that tho patient known as Nada is seriously ill. If you care to see her you may do so at any time of the day or night on presentation of this paper." I noted that the letter bore a date two days old. I banded it back to Munro in silence. Ha twisted it into a spill and took a light for hia pipe from the lire. Then he moved toward the door. 44 You went, of course," I said impulsiyelj--44 Is she better?" 44 Yes," ho replied Bimply. 11 Slib dlsd in my arms last night." I