Stone's Fall (54 page)

“I have no idea,” he replied. “It seems Macintyre does not like the lady.”

“He tried to get rooms there once. She wouldn’t have him and he was offended,” Cort said.

“That explains it,” Longman said cheerfully. “I wondered how he might have come across her. Not through me, at any rate. I didn’t think he took enough time off to sleep. He works on that machine of his from dawn to dusk.”

“Machine?” I asked. “What machine is this?”

“Nobody knows,” said Drennan with a smile. “It is Macintyre’s secret obsession. He has, so he says, been working on it for years, and has poured his entire fortune into it.”

“He has a fortune?”

“Not anymore. He is—or was, until he settled here a few years back—a travelling engineer. Hiring himself to the highest bidder. A shipyard in France, railway project in Turin, a bridge in Switzerland. A very skilled man.”

“Personally, I prefer the life of the mind, of study and reflection. And, as you may have noticed, he is not best suited for getting on with others. He never stays anywhere long,” Longman commented.

“Is he married?”

“His wife died in childbirth, poor man. So he is left with a daughter, who is about eight. A most unfeminine creature,” Longman continued, even though I had asked for no elaboration. “Utterly uneducated, with the looks of her father. He can just about get away with it, but what is almost tolerable in a man…”

He did not finish. He had successfully painted a picture of what was to come: a lonely old spinster, fending for herself, cut off from any good or proper company. He shook his head slowly to indicate his distress.

“I think she’s a sweet kid,” Drennan said. “Nice smile. Not much to smile about, though.”

And so the conversation proceeded. It improved in tone and temper once the effects of Macintyre faded, and Cort, to my surprise, proved the most entertaining. He was, perhaps, the person most like myself in temperament if not in character, and I found his wit congenial. I had known many like him at school; he blossomed under my appreciation and was in a rare good humour by the time the meal was finished and the small party began to break up. Longman and Drennan decided to head to Florian’s for brandy, Cort and I declined the idea, and were left standing by the doorway as the others disappeared.

I turned to thank him for his company, and as I did so, a most remarkable change came over him. He grew tense and pale, his jaw clenched tightly in distress, and he gripped me by the elbow as we shook hands in farewell. He seemed to be looking aghast at something behind me, so I turned round swiftly to see what had so grabbed his attention.

There was nothing. The street which contained the restaurant was dark but entirely empty. At the end a broader street crossed over it, and this was lit by the faint flicker of torch flame, but that, too was deserted.

“Cort? What is it?” I asked.

“It’s him. He’s there again.”

I looked at him blankly, but Cort did not respond. He continued staring, as though frightened out of his wits.

I touched him gently on the arm to stir him; he did not react immediately, but eventually his eyes moved away from the blank point they were staring at, and he looked at me. He seemed dazed and confused.

“Whatever is the matter?” I asked, feeling a quite genuine concern as much as a very real curiosity. My mind went back to what Longman had said about Cort having a breakdown from the strain of his task at the palazzo. Was this a manifestation of his troubles? I had little enough experience of such things.

“I do beg your pardon,” he said eventually in a faltering voice. “Quite absurd of me. Please forget it. I must go now.”

“Certainly not,” I replied. “I have no idea what is distressing you, but I could not possibly leave you alone just yet. Come! I will walk with you. It is no trouble, and I feel like a stroll in any case. If you do not wish to talk, we will pace the streets together in solemn silence and enjoy the night air. Have no fear that I wish to pry into your affairs. Although I do, of course.”

He smiled at that, and allowed me to lead him towards the alley’s end. Then he pointed to the left, away from San Marco, and indicated that we should head in that direction. He said nothing for a long while. We had passed the Rialto before he groaned loudly and scratched his head furiously with both hands. “You must forgive that performance,” he said with an effort to return to normal. “I must have seemed absurd.”

“Not at all,” I replied in what I hoped was a reassuring manner, “but you did alarm me. Do you wish to tell me what it was that so distressed you?”

“I would, were I not afraid that Longman would hear of it. He is a terrible gossip, and I do not wish to become an object of ridicule.”

“Have no fear of that,” I replied. “I would not tell Mr. Longman anything of importance. Should you come to know me better you will realise that any confidence consigned to my care is perfectly safe.”

Which was true. A natural tendency on my part had been confirmed by my experiences in the City, where knowledge is all. Exclusive possession of a fact is worth far more than money. Money you can borrow; knowledge has a higher price. Say (for example) that you hear a company has struck gold in South Africa. It is easy enough to borrow some money to buy shares in it before they rise, and make a profit. All the money in the world will not help you if you do not discover this fact before everyone else. I have never in my life traded without advance knowledge, and I do not know of anyone with sense who has done so either.

“Well, then. I would like to relate my experiences, if you are prepared to listen, and also promise to stop me should you find my story ridiculous or dull.”

“I promise.”

He took a deep breath and began.

“I mentioned that I was sent here by my uncle, to fulfil a contract with the Albemarle family. I arrived some five months ago with my family, and took up operations as best I could. It has not been easy, and would have strained even a native speaker with more experience than I possess. The house is in far worse shape than I was led to believe, the workforce is erratic, and finding the right materials difficult and expensive. My wife did not want to come, and is deeply unhappy, poor woman.

“You might not believe it from what you have seen, but I have made progress, although every advance is matched by some setback. Everything is way behind schedule and far above the budget, of course, but that is because the family had no conception whatsoever of the task they had taken on.

“That is not what is giving me such concern, although I am quite prepared to countenance the idea that the strain makes me more susceptible. I have always been of a nervous disposition. I do not imagine for a moment that someone like you—who seem very sound and sensible—let alone a man like Macintyre, would be subject to the torments I have endured in the past few weeks.

“In brief, I have become the victim of hallucinations of the most terrible kind. Except that I cannot fully accept that this is what they are. They are too real to be fictitious, yet too bizarre to be real.

“I should tell you that I am an orphan; my mother died giving birth to me, and my father shortly thereafter. That is why I was brought up by my mother’s sister, and her husband, the architect. My mother died in Venice. They had been travelling Europe on an extended honeymoon and stopped here for a few months while they prepared for my birth.

“I lived; she died. There is nothing else to add, except to say that my father was heartbroken. I was sent back to England to my aunt and he continued his travels to recover. Alas, he caught a fever in Paris while on the verge of returning to England, and died as well. I was two years old at the time. I remember nothing of either of them, and know only what I have been told.

“Please do not think I am talking off the point when I mention this. I was perfectly healthy in mind and body until I came here. I was brought up properly and well; I am not certain I was suited by nature to be an architect, but I may in time turn out to be perfectly competent. There is nothing in my past at all to foreshadow what has been happening to me here, the place of my mother’s death.

“It all began when I was walking along a street, going to a mason’s yard, as I recall, and I saw an old man walking towards me. There was nothing about him to excite any interest, and yet I found myself looking at him in the way you do when you see something that fascinates, yet know you should not look. You look away and find your eyes straying back again, and again.

“As he drew near he bowed, and then we passed, each going on his separate way. I turned round to look at him again, and he was gone.”

“That was it?” I asked in some surprise, as he seemed to think that nothing more needed to be said.

“The first time, yes. As your tone suggests, there was nothing to cause any concern; indeed, it was not even clear why I should have noticed him. Nonetheless, it disturbed me, and I found my mind going back to the moment. Then it happened again.

“I was walking along the Riva this time. It was midafternoon, and the loafers and wastrels were all there, sitting on the ground, cluttering up the steps of the bridges, idling away the hours as is the custom. I was in a hurry; I had an appointment and I was late. I was walking up the steps of a bridge and looked up, and there he was again. I slowed down, just a little, when I saw him, and he reached inside his coat, pulled out a watch and looked at it. Then he smiled at me as if to say, You’re late.

“I hurried past, feeling almost stung by the implied reproach and determinedly kept on my way. This time I didn’t look back. He knew I was late, you see. He knows about me. He must be watching me, finding out about me.”

“But you know nothing about him?”

“No.”

“And this person you were going to visit. He couldn’t have said something? Did you ask?”

“Impossible,” he said shortly.

“Describe this man to me.”

We were walking slowly, and as far as I was concerned, aimlessly. I assumed that Cort knew where he was going. Certainly he turned left and right as though he was following some course, rather than wandering lost in thought as he talked. Walking the silent, deserted streets, our footfalls echoing between the buildings, accompanied by the lap of water and the occasional reflection of moonlight in the canals when the clouds cleared, created a strange and wonderful atmosphere that Cort’s tale enhanced rather than dissipated.

“He was quite short, dressed in an old-fashioned manner, slightly stooped. There was nothing particularly remarkable about his gait, although he can travel quickly and silently when he wishes. It is his face that grabs the attention. Old, but nothing in it weakened or enfeebled. Tell me he is as old as the city and I would believe you. It is the face of generations, paper pale, tired beyond belief, and filled with sadness. See it, and you must keep looking at it. Dottore Marangoni practises hypnotism on his patients sometimes. He believes that the personality of the operator is more important than any technique; that what he does is an imposition of his will on the subject. That is what I felt like: that this man was trying to take over my mind.”

I let his words evaporate in the night air for a while as I considered whether Cort was being melodramatic, deliberately trying to create some sort of impression for his own ends. Certainly my inclination was to believe that I was hearing a manifestation of the breakdown that Longman considered imminent. But I was aware of my own vision shortly after I arrived in the city; of the old man and the serenade. That, also, had wrought a strange effect on me. Either we were both mad, or neither of us was, and I held firm to a belief in my own sanity.

“That seems a grand claim to make on the basis of two momentary encounters, when you didn’t even speak,” I said in a reasonable tone.

“They weren’t the only ones,” he answered, anxious to allay my suspicions. “Over the next few weeks I saw him more and more often. He is following me. Everywhere I go.”

His voice was becoming more high-pitched and hysterical, so I endeavoured to calm him.

“He offers you no injury? Does not threaten you? From your description he could do no harm even if he wanted.”

“No. In that respect he does me no harm.”

“Has he ever spoken to you?”

“Once. Once only. I saw him in a crowd last week as I was walking home from work. He was coming towards me and nodded in greeting as I approached. I could take it no more, so I tried to grab him by the arm to stop him. But I could not. I reached out for his arm, but it was as though it wasn’t there. Almost as if my hand passed right through him. He kept on walking, and I called out to him, ‘Who are you?’

“He stopped, and turned round, and answered in English, as I had spoken to him. ‘I am Venice,’ he said. That was all. Then he hurried off again and in a few seconds was lost to sight.”

“He was Italian?”

“He spoke in Venetian. But you see? He is following me, for some purpose of his own. Why else would he say such a thing? Who can he be? Why is he doing this to me? I feel I am going mad, Mr. Stone.”

The panic was back, rising higher in his voice. I gripped his arm tightly, trying to inflict pain on him to bring him back to his senses before he lost control. I dared not say that I considered it more likely that this encounter was yet another hallucination, that he should seek medical advice before it turned into a full hysteria. But neither did I mention my own vision; I do not know why. I think that I was slightly revolted by his show of weakness. I saw myself as a man of strength and rationality, and wished to keep my distance.

“Calm, my friend, calm,” I said gently, still gripping tightly. Slowly he relaxed, and obeyed. Then I realised he was shaking with sobs, as his efforts at self-control, at manly dignity, crumbled. I could say nothing; I was deeply embarrassed by the spectacle. It was undignified, we were in a public place and I hardly knew the man. My better self said that Cort must be in dreadful straits to so unburden himself to me; the rest of me wished fervently he had not.

“I am most dreadfully sorry,” he said eventually when he regained control of himself. “This has been a nightmare, and I do not know where to turn.”