The Paliser case. Saltus Edgar

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      From the room they went on into a wide, crowded hall, beyond which was another room, enclosed in glass, where there were tables and palms.

      As they entered, a captain approached. There was a smell of pineapple, the odour of fruit and flowers. From a gallery came the tinkle of mandolins. Mainly the tables were occupied. But the captain, waving the way, piloted them to a corner, got them seated and stood, pad in hand.

      Paliser looked at Cassy Cara. She was hungry as a wolf, but she said indifferently: "A swallow of anything."

      "One swallow does not make a supper," Paliser retorted and looked at the Tamburini who appeared less indifferent.

      "Ham and eggs."

      Without a quiver, the captain booked it.

      "Also," Paliser told him, "caviare, woodcock, Ruinart." From the man he turned to the girl. "It was very decent of Lennox to introduce me to you."

      Cassy put her elbows on the table. "He could not be anything else than decent. Don't you know him well?"

      Paliser shrugged. "Our intimacy is not oppressive."

      "He saved her father's life," the Tamburini put in. "Her father is a musician – and authentically marquis," she added, as though that explained everything.

      "We are Portuguese," said Cassy, "or at least my father is. He used to play at the Metro. But he threw it up and one night, when he was coming home from a private house where he had been giving a concert, he was attacked. There were two of them. They knocked him down – "

      "Before he had time to draw his sword-cane," the fat woman interrupted.

      "Yes," Cassy resumed, "and just then Mr. Lennox came along and knocked them down and saved his violin which was what they were after."

      "It's a Cremona," said the Tamburini who liked details.

      "But that is not all of it," the girl continued. "My father's arm was broken. He has not been able to play since. Mr. Lennox brought him home and sent for his own physician. He's a dear."

      "Who is?" Paliser asked. "The physician?"

      But now a waiter was upon them with a bottle which he produced with a pop! Dishes followed to which Cassy permitted the man to help her. Her swallow of anything became large spoonfuls of rich blackness and the tenderness of savorous flesh. She was not carnal, but she was hungry and at her home latterly the food had been vile.

      The Tamburini, with enigmatic ideas in the back of her head, ate her horrible dish very delicately, her little finger crooked. But she drank nobly.

      Paliser too had ideas which, however, were not enigmatic in the least and not in the back of his head either. They concerned two young women, one of whom was patently engaged to Lennox and the other probably in love with him. The situation appealed to this too charming young man to whom easy conquests were negligible.

      He had been looking at Cassy. On the table was a vase in which there were flowers. He took two of them and looked again at the girl.

      "Sunday is always hateful. Couldn't you both dine with me here?"

      The former prima donna wiped her loose mouth. She could, she would, and she said so.

      Paliser put the flowers before Cassy.

      "Le parlate d'amor," the ex-diva began and, slightly for a moment, her deep voice mounted.

      Cassy turned on her. "You're an imbecile."

      With an uplift of the chin – a family habit – Paliser summoned the waiter. While he was paying him, Cassy protested. She had nothing to wear.

      She had other objections which she kept to herself. If it had been Lennox she would have had none at all. But it was not Lennox. It was a man whom she had never seen before and who was entirely too free with his eyes.

      "Come as you are," said the Tamburini, who massively stood up.

      Paliser also was rising. "Let me put you in a cab and on Sunday – "

      Cassy gave him a little unsugared look. "You take a great deal for granted."

      Behind the girl's back the Tamburini gave him another look. Cheerful and evil and plainer than words it said: "Leave it to me."

      Cassy, her perfect nose in the air, announced that she must get her things.

      Through the emptying restaurant Paliser saw them to the entrance. There, as he waited, the captain hurried to him.

      "Everything satisfactory, sir?"

      "I want a private dining-room on Sunday."

      "Yes, sir. For how many?"

      "Two."

      "Sorry, sir. It's against the rules."

      Paliser surveyed him. "Whom does this hotel belong to? You?"

      The captain smiled and caressed his chin. "No, sir, the hotel does not belong to me. It is owned by Mr. Paliser."

      "Thank you. So I thought. I am Mr. Paliser. A private dining-room on Sunday for two."

      But now Cassy and the Tamburini, hatted and cloaked, were returning. The chastened waiter moved aside. Through the still crowded halls, Paliser accompanied them to the street where, a doorkeeper assiduously assisting, he got them into a taxi, asked the addresses, paid the mechanician, saw them off.

      Manfully, as the cab veered, the Tamburini swore.

      "You damn fool, that man is rich as all outdoors."

      IV

      The house in which Cassy lived was what is agreeably known as a walk-up. There was no lift, merely the stairs, flight after flight, which constituted the walk-up, one that ascended to the roof, where you had a fine view of your neighbours' laundry. Such things are not for everybody. Cassy hated them.

      On this night when the taxi, after reaching Harlem, landed her there and, the walk-up achieved, she let herself into a flat on the fifth floor, a "You're late!" filtered out at her.

      It was her father, who, other things being equal, you might have mistaken for Zuloaga's "Uncle." The lank hair, the sad eyes, the wan face, the dressing-gown, there he sat. Only the palette was absent. Instead was an arm in a sling. There was another difference. Beyond, in lieu of capricious manolas, was a piano and, above it, a portrait with which Zuloaga had nothing to do. The portrait represented a man who looked very fierce and who displayed a costume rich and unusual. Beneath the portrait was a violin. Beside the piano was a sword-cane. Otherwise, barring a rose-wood table, the room contained nothing to boast of.

      "You're late," he repeated.

      His name was Angelo Cara. When too young to remember it, he had come to New York from Lisbon. With him had come the swashbuckler in oil. He grew up in New York, developed artistic tastes, lost the oil man, acquired a wife, lost her also, but not until she had given him a daughter who was named Bianca, a name which, after elongating into Casabianca, shortened itself into Cassy.

      Meanwhile, on Madison Avenue, then unpolluted, there was a brown-stone front, a landau, other accessories, СКАЧАТЬ