The Best Short Stories of 1918 Part 13

"Oh, that is easy! For instance, once in London I lodged next door to my victim. We became capital friends. And he was always calling me in for a bite of something to eat. Nothing elaborate-a bun and a cup of tea, or coffee and cake. Very much as we are doing now. He died in six months.

It is no trick, you know, to poison a man who eats and drinks with you-especially drinks!"

As he said this the hunchback reached for the coffee-pot and poured Fernet another cupful. Then he uncorked the vial again and dropped a pellet into the steaming liquid.

"I do not think that I wish any more," protested Fernet.

"Nonsense! You are still s.h.i.+vering like an old woman with the palsy. Hot coffee will do you good."

"No," said Fernet, desperately, "I never drink more than one cup at a sitting. It keeps me awake, and next morning my hand shakes and I am fit for nothing. I need a steady hand in my business."

"And what may that be, pray?"

"At present I am a draftsman. Some day, if I live long enough, I hope to be an architect."

"If you live long enough? You forget that you have laughed at _me_, my friend."

Fernet tried to appear indifferent. "What a droll fellow you are!" he cried, with sudden gaiety, rubbing his hands together. And without thinking, he reached for his coffee-cup and downed the contents in almost one gulp. He laid the cup aside quickly. He could feel the sweat starting out upon his forehead.

"There, you see," said Minetti, "the coffee has done you good already.

You are perspiring, and that is a good sign. A hot drink at the right moment works wonders."

The next morning Pollitto stopped Fernet as he swung out the front gate to his work.

"What is the matter with you?" exclaimed the beggar, in a surprised tone.

"Why ... what?" demanded Fernet, in a trembling voice. "Do I look so ...? Pray, tell me, is there anything unusual about me?"

"Why, your face.... Have you looked at yourself in the gla.s.s? Your skin is the color of stale pastry."

Fernet tried to laugh. "It is nothing. I have been drinking too much coffee lately. I must stop it."

It was a fine morning. The sun was s.h.i.+ning and the air was brisk and full of little rippling breezes. The bay lay like a blue-green peac.o.c.k ruffling its gilded feathers. The city had a genial, smiling countenance. But Fernet was out of humor with all this full-blown content. He had spent a wretched night-not sleepless, but full of disturbing dreams. Dreams about Minetti and his London neighbor and the empty sugar-bowl. All night he had dreamed about this empty sugar-bowl.

It seemed that as soon as he had it filled Minetti would slyly empty it again. He tried stowing sugar away in his pockets, but when he put his hand in to draw out a lump a score or more of pellets spilled over the floor. Then he remembered saying:

"I shall call on Minetti's London neighbor. Maybe he will have some sugar."

He walked miles and miles, and finally beat upon a strange door. A man wrapped in a black coat up to his eyebrows opened to his knock.

"Are you Flavio Minetti's London neighbor?" he demanded, boldly.

The figure bowed. Fernet drew the cracked sugar-bowl from under his arm.

"Will you oblige me with a little sugar?" he asked, more politely.

The black-cloaked figure bowed and disappeared. Presently he came back.

Fernet took the sugar-bowl from him. It struck him that the bowl felt very light. He looked down at his hands. The bowl had disappeared; only a gla.s.s vial lay in his palm. He removed the cork-a dozen or more tiny round pellets fell out. He glanced up quickly at Minetti's London neighbor; a dreadful smile glowed through the black cloak. Fernet gave a cry and hurled the vial in the face of his tormentor. Minetti's London neighbor let the black cloak fall, and Andre Fernet discovered that he was staring at himself.... He awakened soon after that and found that it was morning.

When he brushed his hair his hand had shaken so that the brush fell clattering to the floor. And he had spilled the cream for his morning coffee over the faded strip of carpet before the bureau. It had ended by his eating no breakfast at all. But he had drunk gla.s.s after gla.s.s of cold water.

After Pollitto's words he trembled more and more like a man with the ague, and before every saloon-door mirror he halted and took a brief survey of his face. Pollitto was right-his skin was dead and full of unhealthy pallor. It was plain that he could not work in his present condition. His trembling fingers could scarcely hold a pencil, much less guide it through the precise demands of a drafting-board. He decided to go to the library and read. But the books on architecture which always enthralled him could not hold his s.h.i.+fting attention. Finally in despair he went up to the librarian and said:

"Have you any books on poison?"

The woman eyed him with a cold, incurious glance.

"Historical or medical?" she snapped out, as she went on stamping mysterious numbers in the pile of books before her.

"Both!"

She consulted a catalogue and made a list for him.

He sat all day devouring books which the librarian had recommended. He did not even go out for lunch. He read historical and romantic instances with a keen, morbid relish; but when it came to the medical books his heart quickened and he followed causes and effects breathlessly. By nightfall he had a relentless knowledge of every poison in the calendar.

He knew what to expect from a.r.s.enic or strychnine or vitriol. He learned which poisons destroyed tissues, which acted as narcotics, which were irritants. He identified the hemlock, the horse-chestnut, the deadly toadstools. In short, he absorbed and retained everything on the subject. It seemed that the world teemed with poisons; one could be sure of nothing. Even beautiful flowers were not to be trusted.

He was so upset by all he had read that he could scarcely eat dinner. He went to an obscure _pension_ in a wretched bas.e.m.e.nt, where he was sure he would be unknown, and, after two or three mouthfuls of soup and a spoonful of rice boiled with tomato, he rose, paid for his meal, and went out to tramp up and down past the tawdry shops of middle Kearny Street. He was trotting aimlessly in the direction of Market Street when he felt a tug at his coat-sleeve. He turned. Minetti was smiling genially up at him.

"Come," said the hunchback, "what is your hurry? Have you had coffee yet? I was thinking that-"

Fernet's heart sank at once. And yet he managed to say boldly: "I have given up drinking coffee. You can see for yourself what a wretched complexion I have. And to-day I have scarcely eaten."

"Pooh!" cried Minetti. "A cup of coffee will do you good."

Fernet began to draw away in futile terror. "No!" he protested, with frightened vehemence. "No, I tell you! I won't drink the stuff! It is useless for you to-"

Minetti began to laugh with scornful good-humor. "What has come over you?" he drawled, half-closing his eyes. "Are you afraid?"

And as he said this Fernet glanced instinctively at the puny wrists, no bigger than a pullet's wing, and replied, boldly:

"Afraid? Of what? I told you last night I need a steady hand in my business, and to-day I have not been able to do any work."

Minetti's mirth softened into genial acquiescence. "Well, maybe you are right. But I must say you are not very companionable. Perhaps the coffee you have been drinking has not been made properly. You should take _something_. You do look badly. A gla.s.s of brandy?... No?... Ah, I have it-coffee made in the Turkish fas.h.i.+on. Have you ever drunk that?"

"No," replied Fernet, helplessly, wondering all the time why he was foolish enough to tell the truth.

"Well, then," announced the hunchback, confidently, "we shall cross over to Third Street and have some Turkish coffee. I know a Greek cafe where they brew a cup that would tempt the Sultan himself. Have you ever seen it made? They use coffee pounded to a fine powder-a teaspoonful to a cup, and sugar in the same proportion. It is all put in together and brought to a boil. The result is indescribable! Really, you are in for a treat."

"If it is sweetened in the making," flashed through Fernet's mind, "at least we shall have no more of that pellet business."

"Yes-the result is quite indescribable," Minetti was repeating, "and positively no bad effects."

And as he said this he slipped his arm into Fernet's and guided him with gentle firmness toward the Greek cafe in question. Fernet felt suddenly helpless and incapable of offering the slightest objection.

A girl took their orders. She had a freckled nose and was frankly Irish.

Naturally, she did not fit the picture, and Fernet could see that she was scornful of the whole business.

"Two coffees ... medium," Minetti repeated, decisively. "And will you have a sweet with it? They sell taffy made of sesame seeds and honey. Or you can have Turkish delight or a pastry dusted with powdered sugar.