CHAPTER VII

The next morning Corsini presented himself at the palatial premises in Old Broad Street where the Baron evolved his vast financial schemes. After he had waited in an anteroom for a couple of minutes, a slim young man, who looked like a confidential secretary, appeared from an inner apartment, and led him down a long corridor to Salmoros’s private sanctum.

It was a handsome apartment, beautifully furnished. Your feet sank in the thick Turkey carpet; the easy-chairs were models of artistic design and comfort. There were only a few pictures on the walls, but each one was a gem. The Baron was a lover of art in every shape and form, and one of the best-known collectors in Europe. In his business, as well as his leisure hours, he loved to surround himself with beautiful things.

Few, save a few old friends, knew anything of his family or antecedents. The name suggested a Greek origin, although of course most of his enemies would have it that he was a pure Jew. His fine, clear-cut features, however, had no affinity to those of that celebrated race.

He smiled kindly at the young man, and shook hands cordially with him: he had the greatest respect for all persons connected directly with the arts. After a few commonplace remarks, he asked for the letter.

Nello handed it to him, and at the same time showed him the glittering Order of St. Louis.

“This is one of the few things my poor old friend had in his possession when he died in that poor house in Dean Street, Baron. I have no doubt, in my own mind, that he was once a man of position and distinction.”

The Baron glanced at the Order, and nodded his head. It was evident common persons did not come into possession of such valuable things. Then he opened the letter, and read.

When he had perused it and laid it down on the desk in front of him, a strangely soft expression had come over his fine, intellectual face.

“My poor old friend Jean!” he murmured in a low voice. “How very strange! I believed him dead long ago. There was a rumour that he had been shot in those terrible days of the Commune. Poor Jean! My once dear friend Jean!”

“I am right in saying that the name of Péron was assumed?” asked Nello timidly.

The Baron bent his keen glance on him. “You know absolutely nothing of his real history?”

“For the purposes of identification, nothing, sir. The only thing that he ever let drop was that long ago he had been a pianist of eminence. That I could well believe, for even at the age at which I knew him, his touch was that of a master.”

“Ah, that is all you could gather. Well, my poor old friend was always a little fond of mystery. His real name was Jean Villefort, and he was one of the finest and most successful artists of his generation. You are a musician yourself; you must have heard of him, although, of course, he was long before your time.”

Yes, Nello had heard of him as one of the great masters of the past. “Then he must have amassed a great fortune, Baron. How came it that he died so poor and friendless?”

The Baron spoke slowly, in a musing tone, as if following the thread of his recollections. “Yes, he made plenty of money in his time; he had a tremendous vogue on the Continent and was a special favourite of Napoleon the Third; I do not think he ever achieved much success in England or America. I know he was greatly dissatisfied with both his tours in those countries.”

The Baron paused, much to Nello’s disappointment. He was eager to know all the details of the past life of this strange old man who had passed away under such tragic circumstances. Especially curious was he to learn what had become of all his wealth.

Salmoros looked up and caught the gleam of interrogation in the young man’s eyes.

“Naturally you are curious. Well, no doubt my poor old friend made plenty in his time; but he was very lavish, charitable, and open-handed. Still, his fortune could have endured the strain placed upon it by the possession of such amiable qualities. Alas! he was a confirmed gambler; the racecourse and the card-table swallowed up any surplus he ever possessed.”

“I understand,” said Nello. “And when was it, may I ask, Baron, that you lost sight of him?”

“He disappeared from Paris—you may say, from the world—about twenty-five years ago, or thereabouts. I was one of his most intimate friends, although he was about seven years my senior. From that day to this, to the moment that you have brought me this letter, I have never heard a word from him. His sudden disappearance was a nine days’ wonder, but the world rolled on and the great artist, Jean Villefort, was forgotten.

“That sudden disappearance, the abandonment of such a brilliant career in a moment of despair, was, I need hardly say, the outcome of a tragedy. Also needless to add that, as usual in such cases, a woman was at the bottom of it. The few details that filtered out enabled us to piece together certain things.”

“And the certain things?” queried Nello eagerly.

Salmoros spoke in his low, deliberate voice—the voice of the man who, with his vast experience of the world, had known and seen everything, and was surprised at nothing.

“Let me put it to you as shortly as possible. An elderly husband, married to a charming and beautiful young woman some fifteen, perhaps twenty, years his junior. The husband, a member of the old French nobility, a little dull, not gifted with any mentality. The wife, ardent, romantic, a lover of music and all the arts, not a single bond of union between her and her unappreciative husband. You follow me? You are an artist yourself. You will soon see the beginning of the romance that ended in tragedy. In a very inspired mood, you could express it on your violin.”

Nello nodded. His life had been so hard up to the present moment, that he had enjoyed scant leisure to indulge in the softer emotions of life. But, in a vague sort of way, he could appreciate something of the tragedy of Papa Péron’s past.

“Tell me something more, if you please. I am very interested.”

Salmoros continued in his slow, deliberate tones. “The femme incomprise, a more or less bovine husband, a man almost as old as her husband, but ardent and impetuous, ten years younger in spirit than his real age. What happens? The woman falls in love with him for his genius. He bewitches her with his beautiful art. With his deft and skilled fingers, and by Heaven he was almost the finest pianist I have ever heard, he drew out from her her very soul.”

“Ah! I can understand he must have been very wonderful,” interjected Nello. “Even at his age, there were times when he thrilled me.”

Salmoros nodded. “You can understand the spell he would cast over a comparatively young woman. Well, let us get to the end of this. My poor old friend Jean sleeps in peace, why wake up those old faint memories?”

“But they are very interesting, Baron,” urged Corsini.

“I know, my young friend. Even I have a melancholy interest in them, because they take me back to the days of comparative youth. Well, to be brief—a romance in a nutshell. A violent altercation between husband and lover, a duel, the husband is wounded, not mortally, carried to his house. The charming young wife, innocent, or perhaps guilty, cause of all this dire misfortune, commits suicide. Jean Villefort, apprised of her tragic end, disappears. He might have thrown himself into the Seine. For days his friends searched for him in the morgue to no purpose. And, through you, I have at last unearthed the mystery. Jean Villefort did not avail himself of the coward’s resource.”

“Ah, Baron, dear Monsieur Péron—I prefer to call him by that name—was no coward,” interjected Nello eagerly.

“I quite agree. He left a world which held no further joys or triumphs for him. Mon Dieu, what a strange temperament! Why don’t these fellows make art and sentiment a part of their life only, and put in some common sense on the other side?”

“You speak from the great financier’s point of view, Baron?” suggested Nello shrewdly.

Salmoros smiled his slow, appreciative smile. “I see, young man, you have got a head on your shoulders. Well now, let us come to this letter.”

Nello was only too anxious that he should.

“I am waiting for that, Baron. Of course I can only guess at the contents that he has recommended me to you.”

“That he does in the warmest terms, and for the sake of our old friendship I am prepared to comply with his request. In this letter, which is not dated—he explains that by the fact that he does not know how soon his death will take place—he states that you are hoping to establish yourself as an artist, that he has already secured you a small, but fairly remunerative, engagement at the Parthenon.”

“That is quite true, sir.”

“Then, I take it, this letter was antecedent to your considerable success at the Covent Garden Concert. In that comparatively short space of time, your remuneration has gone up by leaps and bounds?”

Nello assented for the second time. “Perfectly correct, sir.”

“Then how do we stand? Of course, if you were quite a poor man, I would find you a post at once for the sake of my old friendship with Jean Villefort. But, candidly, do you want my assistance? I am not dissatisfied with my lot, Signor Corsini, I can assure you——”

And Nello murmured, half under his breath: “I should think you were not, Baron, you a financier of European renown.”

A whimsical smile overspread the other man’s features. “And yet I will tell you a little secret. Music is a passion with me. I am a financier by profession, but art, art alone absorbs my soul. I have tried, oh how hard! to be an executant on more than one instrument. Signor Corsini, I would pay you a hundred thousand pounds to-morrow, if you could teach me to play that exquisite little romance as you played it last night. I feel every note in my soul, but when my feeble fingers touch the strings, they are powerless.”

Nello looked at him compassionately. There was in his composition the hard Latin fibre; but here was a new experience for him. Here was a man who had achieved eminence in one of the most difficult professions, a man who could write a cheque for one or two millions. And here he was, lamenting his incapacity to succeed in an art for which nature had given him no equipment.

“It is very sad, Baron,” breathed the young Italian softly. “But in your case, the gods have given so generously. Why should you complain that they have withheld this one small gift, the gift of the executant?”

“You call it a small gift, do you?” replied Salmoros in his deep, sonorous tones. “I call it the greatest gift of all.” He paused, reflected a second, and then became again the man of affairs.

“Now, Signor Corsini, to your immediate business. How can I help you for my good old Jean’s sake and your own? What are your own views as to the present situation? Are you satisfied, or not?”

Corsini was quite frank. “In a way, yes; in a way, no. Degraux and dear Papa Péron both gave me very good advice——”

“The sum of which was——?” interjected the white-haired Salmoros.

“That unless you make a very great success, the artistic career is of all the most uncertain.”

Salmoros nodded his massive head. “I quite agree. Poor dear old Jean was shrewder than I thought. And yet, how simple in some things. Why did he not apply to me instead of drawing his last breath in that miserable house? I would have given him an annuity for life.”

“I am sure you would, sir, but the dear old Papa was too proud to accept charity. Surely it was to his credit that he did not sponge on his old friends?”

“Just like him, just like him, a dear, kindly, impracticable creature. Well, now to your affairs. Do you want to stick to the artistic line, or not?”

“Not if there is anything better in prospect, Baron,” answered the shrewd Nello.

The Baron swept him with his keen glance.

“I am rather a judge of men. You seem just the sort of man who would make good. Let me think a little. There is something running in my mind. You might serve my immediate purposes, and at the same time, I might help you in your artistic career. You might have two strings to your bow. What do you think?”

“I am quite in your hands, Baron,” was Nello’s answer.

The mind of the great financier worked swiftly. He took up two letters, one in French, the other in Italian.

“Take these over to the table by the window, and translate the French into Italian and the Italian into French. Take your time, but do them well.”

Nello complied with his patron’s request. Salmoros was evidently a man who thought swiftly.

While Nello was engaged on his task, the Baron’s private secretary entered.

“The Prince Zouroff wishes to see you, sir.”

The Baron frowned. There were certain persons in the great world who were in his good books. The Russian Ambassador was certainly not. He knew a little too much about him.

He held up a warning finger to his secretary and crossed over to Nello.

“The Prince Zouroff is asking for an interview. You have played at the Russian Embassy; do you want to meet him?”

“No,” said Nello shortly; “I don’t think I do. I have heard that he is a bit of a brute.”

“Quite right, but, on account of his position, we have to cotton to him in a way. With your head over your desk you won’t see each other.”

The private secretary ushered in Prince Zouroff, the Russian Ambassador.

The Prince was a very overbearing and truculent personage; but he knew full well that even ambassadors have to preserve a modest demeanour, even as their sovereigns, in the presence of all-powerful financiers.

“Greetings to you, my dear Salmoros!” The Prince was always flamboyant. “The Czar has recalled me to St. Petersburg.”

Salmoros affected surprise. But he was not surprised in the least. He had received intimation of the news two days ago from the Russian Foreign Office itself.

“Ah, I have heard the rumour,” he said in his slow, suave accents. “You are to be Governor of Kieff, a post you have long been coveting, eh? I congratulate you, my dear Prince, although your friends in London will be very sorry to lose you.”

“You are mistaken,” replied the Ambassador shortly. “Though I have tried several times to obtain the governorship of Kieff my Imperial Master will not give it to me. It is my right by inheritance, because my estates are in that province. I hear that I may be appointed Governor of Archangel; in the meantime, I am to present myself at the Court of St. Petersburg.”

Salmoros did not betray by a flicker of the eyelid that the information was priceless to him.

Zouroff, after a brief sojourn at the Court of St. Petersburg, was to be advanced to the governorship of Archangel.

Salmoros knew what this meant. The Czar was as well aware of the fact as he was. Zouroff was a great nobleman, but also a traitor. The Government was going to proceed by easy steps. From Archangel to Siberia and life-long imprisonment would be a facile progression and create no great scandal, excite very little comment. Prince Zouroff would simply disappear, under this most autocratic of all autocratic governments.

After a short conversation the Baron held out his hand. In his heart he had a little sympathy for this truculent Ambassador, brute as he was, who was going to his doom, the victim of an iron and despotic Government. But perhaps his sympathy was wasted. Zouroff was a traitor, a man who would bite the hand that fed him.

When he had dismissed the Ambassador, he crossed over to the desk where Nello had just finished his translations.

“They are here, Baron. Will you read them?”

The Baron read them. “Very good, very good, indeed,” he said. “Now, Signor Corsini, I think you and I will have a little serious talk.”