The Greatest Works of Aleister Crowley. Aleister Crowley

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СКАЧАТЬ he rather had me there. I didn't know how long I'd been away from England. I couldn't have told him the day or the month on a bet.

      Lou helped me out.

      " We left Paris three weeks ago to-morrow," she said positively enough, though the tone of her voice was weak and weary, with a sub-current of irritation and distress. I hardly recognised the rich, full tones that had flooded my heart when she chanted that superb litany in the " Smoking Dog."

      " We spent a couple of days here," she said, at the Museo-Palace Hotel. Since then, we've been staying at the Caligula at Capri; and our clothes, our passports, our money, and everything are there."

      I couldn't help being pleased by the way in which she rose to the crisis ; her practical good sense, her memory of those details that are so important in business, though the male temperament regards them as a necessary nuisance.

      These are the things that one needs in an official muddle.

      " You don't know any Italian at all ? " asked the consul.

      " Only a few words," she admitted, " though, of course, Sir Peter's knowledge of French and Latin help him to make sense out of the newspapers."

      " Well," said the consul, rising languidly, " as it happens, that's just the point at issue."

      " I know the big words," I said. " It's the particles that bother one."

      " Perhaps then it will save trouble," said the consul, if I offer you a free translation of this paragraph in this morning's paper."

      He reached across, took it from the commissario, and began a fluent even phrasing.

      " England is always in the van when it comes to romance and adventure. The famous ace, Sir Peter Pendragon, V.C., K.B.E., who recently startled London by his sudden marriage with the leading society beauty, Miss Louise Laleham, is not spending his honeymoon in any of the conventional ways, as might be expected from the gentleman's bold and adventurous character. He has taken his bride for a season's guideless climbing on the Jostedal Brae, the largest glacier in Norway."

      I could see that the commissario was drilling holes in my soul with his eyes. As for myself, I was absolutely stupefied by the pointless falsehood of the paragraph.

      " But, good God ! " I exclaimed. This is all absolute tosh."

      " Excuse me," said the consul, a little grimly, " I have not finished the paragraph. "

      " I beg your pardon, sir," I answered curtly.

       " Taking advantage of these facts," he continued to read, " and of a slight facial resemblance to Sir Peter and Lady Pendragon, two well-known international crooks have assumed their personalities, and are wandering around Naples and its vicinity, where several tradesmen have already been victimised."

      He dropped the paper, put his hands behind his back, and stared me square in the eyes.

      I could not meet his glance. The accusation was so absurd, so horrible, so unexpected ! I felt that guilt was written on every line of my face.

      I stammered out some weakly, violent objurgation. Lou kept her head better than I.

      " But please, this is absurd," she protested. " Send for our courier. He has known Sir Peter since he was a boy at school. The whole thing is shameful and abominable. I don't see why such things are allowed."

      The consul seemed in doubt as to what to do. He played with his watch-chain nervously.

      I had sunk into a chair-I noticed they hadn't offered us chairs when we came in-and the whole scene vanished from my mind. I was aware of nothing but a passionate craving for drugs. I wanted them physically as I had never wanted anything in my life before. I wanted them mentally, too. They, and they only, would clear my mind of its confusion, and show me a way out of this rotten mess. I wanted them most of all morally. I lacked the spirit to stand up under this sudden burst of drum fire.

      But Lou stuck to it gamely. She was on her mettle, though I could see that she was almost fainting from the stress of the various circumstances.

      " Send for our courier, Hector Laroche," she insisted. The consul shrugged his shoulders. " But where is he ? "

      " Why," she said, " he must be looking for us all over the town. 'When he got to the Fauno Ebbrio and found we weren't there, and heard what had happened, he must have been very anxious about us."

      " In fact, I don't see why he isn't here now," said the consul. " He must have known that you were arrested."

      " Perhaps something's happened to him," suggested Lou. " But that would really be too curious a coincidence."

      " Well, these things do happen," admitted the consul. He seemed somehow more at his ease with her, and better disposed, than when he was talking to me. Her

      magnetic beauty and her evident aristocracy could not help but have their effect.

      I found myself admiring her immensely, in quite a new way. It had never occurred to me that she could rise to a situation with such superb aplomb.

      " Won't you sit down ? " said the consul, " I'm sure you must be very tired,"

      He put a chair for her, and went back to his seat on the sofa.

      " It's a little awkward, you see," he went on. " I don't, as a matter of fact, believe all I read in the papers. And there are several very curious points about the situation which you don't seem to see yourself. And I don't mind admitting that your failure to see them makes a very favourable impression."

      He paused and bit his lip, and pulled at his neck.

      " It's very difficult," he continued at last. " The facts of the case, on the surface, are undeniably ugly. You are found in disguise in one of the worst places in Naples, and you have actually arms in your hands, which is strengst verboten, as they say in Germany. On the other hand, you give an account of yourself which makes you out to be such utter fools, if you will forgive the frankness of the expression, that it speaks volumes for your innocence, and there's no doubt about your being British-" he smiled amiably, " and I think I must do what I can for you. Excuse me while I talk to my friend here."

      Lou turned on me with a triumphant smile; one of her old proud smiles, except that it was wrung, so to speak, out of the heart of unspeakable agony.

      Meanwhile, the commissario was gesticulating and shouting at the consul, who replied with equal volubility but an apparently unsurmountable languor.

      Then the conversation stopped suddenly short. The two men rose to their feet.

      " I've arranged it with my friend here on the basis of his experience of the bold, bad, British tourist. You will come with me to the consulate under the protection of two of his men," he smiled sarcastically, " for fear you should get into any further trouble. You can have your things back except the guns, which are forbidden."

      How little he knew what a surge of joy went through us at that last remark !

      " I will send one of my clerks with you to Capri," he said, " and you will get your passports and money and whatever you need, and come back to me at once and put the position on a more regular footing."

      We got our things СКАЧАТЬ