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Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol

<h2>V</h2> THE ADVENTURE OF THE PIG’S HEAD Once upon a time Aristide Pujol found himself standing outside his Paris residence, No. 213 bis, Rue Saint Honoré, without a penny in the world. His last sou had gone to Madame Bidoux, who kept a small green grocer’s shop at No. 213 bis and rented a ridiculously small back room for a ridiculously small weekly sum to Aristide whenever he honoured the French capital with his presence. During his absence she forwarded him such letters as might arrive for him; and as this was his only permanent address, and as he let Madame Bidoux know his whereabouts only at vague intervals of time, the transaction of business with Aristide Pujol, “Agent, No. 213 bis, Rue Saint Honoré, Paris,” by correspondence was peculiarly difficult. He had made Madame Bidoux’s acquaintance in the dim past; and he had made it in his usual direct and electric manner. Happening to walk down the Rue Saint Honoré, he had come upon tragedy. Madame Bidoux, fat, red of face, tearful of eye [Pg 142] and strident of voice, held in her arms a little mongrel dog—her own precious possession—which had just been run over in the street, and the two of them filled the air with wailings and vociferation. Aristide uncovered his head, as though he were about to address a duchess, and smiled at her engagingly. “Madame,” said he, “I perceive that your little dog has a broken leg. As I know all about dogs, I will, with your permission, set the limb, put it into splints and guarantee a perfect cure. Needless to say, I make no charge for my services.” Snatching the dog from the arms of the fascinated woman, he darted in his dragon-fly fashion into the shop, gave a hundred orders to a stupefied assistant, and—to cut short a story which Aristide told me with great wealth of detail—mended the precious dog and gained Madame Bidoux’s eternal gratitude. For Madame Bidoux the world held no more remarkable man than Aristide Pujol; and for Aristide the world held no more devoted friend than Madame Bidoux. Many a succulent meal, at the widow’s expense—never more enjoyable than in summer time when she set a little iron table and a couple of iron chairs on the pavement outside the shop—had saved him from starvation; and many a gewgaw sent from London or Marseilles or other such remote latitudes filled her heart with pride. Since my acquaintance with Aristide I myself have [Pg 143] called on this excellent woman, and I hope I have won her esteem, though I have never had the honour of eating pig’s trotters and chou-croûte with her on the pavement of the Rue Saint Honoré. It is an honour from which, being an unassuming man, I shrink. Unfortunately Madame Bidoux has nothing further to do with the story I am about to relate, save in one respect:— There came a day—it was a bleak day in November, when Madame Bidoux’s temporary financial difficulties happened to coincide with Aristide’s. To him, unsuspicious of coincidence, she confided her troubles. He emptied the meagre contents of his purse into her hand. “Madame Bidoux,” said he with a flourish, and the air of a prince, “why didn’t you tell me before?” and without waiting for her blessing he went out penniless into the street. Aristide was never happier than when he had not a penny piece in the world. He believed, I fancy, in a dim sort of way, in God and the Virgin and Holy Water and the Pope; but the faith that thrilled him to exaltation was his faith in the inevitable happening of the unexpected. He marched to meet it with the throbbing pulses of a soldier rushing to victory or a saint to martyrdom. He walked up the Rue Saint Honoré, the Rue de la Paix, along the Grands Boulevards, smiling on a [Pg 144] world which teemed with unexpectednesses, until he reached a café on the Boulevard des Bonnes Filles de Calvaire. Here he was arrested by Fate, in the form of a battered man in black, who, springing from the solitary frostiness of the terrace, threw his arms about him and kissed him on both cheeks. “Mais, c’est toi, Pujol!” “C’est toi, Roulard!” Roulard dragged Aristide to his frosty table and ordered drinks. Roulard had played the trumpet in the regimental band in which Aristide had played the kettle drum. During their military service they had been inseparables. Since those happy and ear-splitting days they had not met. They looked at each other and laughed and thumped each other’s shoulders. “Ce vieux Roulard!” “Ce sacré Pujol.” “And what are you doing?” asked Aristide, after the first explosions of astonishment and reminiscence. A cloud overspread the battered man’s features. He had a wife and five children and played in theatre orchestras. At the present time he was trombone in the “Tournée Gulland,” a touring opera company. It was not gay for a sensitive artist like him, and the trombone gave one a thirst which it took half a week’s salary to satisfy. Mais enfin, que veux-tu? It was life, a dog’s life, but life was [Pg 145] like that. Aristide, he supposed, was making a fortune. Aristide threw back his head, and laughed at the exquisite humour of the hypothesis, and gaily disclosed his Micawberish situation. Roulard sat for a while thoughtful and silent. Presently a ray of inspiration dispelled the cloud from the features of the battered man. “Tiens, mon vieux,” said he, “I have an idea.” It was an idea worthy of Aristide’s consideration. The drum of the Tournée Gulland had been dismissed for drunkenness. The vacancy had not been filled. Various executants who had drummed on approval—this being an out-week of the tour—had driven the chef d’orchestre to the verge of homicidal mania. Why should not Aristide, past master in drumming, find an honourable position in the orchestra of the Tournée Gulland? Aristide’s eyes sparkled, his fingers itched for the drumsticks, he started to his feet. “Mon vieux Roulard!” he cried, “you have saved my life. More than that, you have resuscitated an artist. Yes, an artist. Sacré nom de Dieu! Take me to this chef d’orchestre.” So Roulard, when the hour of rehearsal drew nigh, conducted Aristide to the murky recesses of a dirty little theatre in the Batignolles, where Aristide performed such prodigies of repercussion that he was forthwith engaged to play the drum, the kettle-drum, the triangle, the cymbals, the [Pg 146] castagnettes and the tambourine, in the orchestra of the Tournée Gulland at the dazzling salary of thirty francs a week. To tell how Aristide drummed and cymballed the progress of Les Huguenots, Carmen, La Juive, La Fille de Madame Angot and L’Arlésienne through France would mean the rewriting of a “Capitaine Fracasse.” To hear the creature talk about it makes my mouth as a brick kiln and my flesh as that of a goose. He was the Adonis, the Apollo, the Don Juan, the Irresistible of the Tournée. Fled truculent bass and haughty tenor before him; from diva to moustachioed contralto in the chorus, all the ladies breathlessly watched for the fall of his handkerchief; he was recognized, in fact, as a devil of a fellow. But in spite of these triumphs, the manipulation of the drum, kettle-drum, triangle, cymbals, castagnettes and tambourine, which at first had given him intense and childish delight, at last became invested with a mechanical monotony that almost drove him mad. All day long the thought of the ill-lit corner, on the extreme right of the orchestra, garnished with the accursed instruments of noise to which duty would compel him at eight o’clock in the evening hung over him like a hideous doom. Sweet singers of the female sex were powerless to console. He passed them by, and haughty tenor and swaggering basso again took heart of grace. [Pg 147] “Mais, mon Dieu, c’est le métier!” expostulated Roulard. “Sale métier!” cried Aristide, who was as much fitted for the merciless routine of a theatre orchestra as a quagga for the shafts of an omnibus. “A beast of a trade! One is no longer a man. One is just an automatic system of fog-signals!” In this depraved state of mind he arrived at Perpignan, where that befell him which I am about to relate. Now, Perpignan is the last town of France on the Gulf of Lions, a few miles from the Spanish border. From it you can see the great white monster of Le Canigou, the pride of the Eastern Pyrenees, far, far away, blocking up the valley of the Tet, which flows sluggishly past the little town. The Quai Sadi-Carnot (is there a provincial town in France which has not a something Sadi-Carnot in it?) is on the left bank of the Tet; at one end is the modern Place Arago, at the other Le Castillet, a round, castellated red-brick fortress with curiously long and deep machicolations of the 14th century with some modern additions of Louis XI, who also built the adjoining Porte Notre Dame which gives access to the city. Between the Castillet and the Place Arago, the Quai Sadi-Carnot is the site of the Prefecture, the Grand Hôtel, various villas and other resorts of the aristocracy. Any little street off it will lead you into the [Pg 148] seething centre of Perpignan life—the Place de la Loge, which is a great block of old buildings surrounded on its four sides by narrow streets of shops, cafés, private houses, all with balconies and jalousies, all cramped, crumbling, Spanish, picturesque. The oldest of this conglomerate block is a corner building, the Loge de Mer, a thirteenth century palace, the cloth exchange in the glorious days when Perpignan was a seaport and its merchant princes traded with Sultans and Doges and such-like magnificoes of the Mediterranean. But nowadays its glory has departed. Below the great gothic windows spreads the awning of a café, which takes up all the ground floor. Hugging it tight is the Mairie, and hugging that, the Hôtel de Ville. Hither does every soul in the place, at some hour or other of the day, inevitably gravitate. Lawyers and clients, doctors and patients, merchants, lovers, soldiers, market-women, loafers, horses, dogs, wagons, all crowd in a noisy medley the narrow cobble-paved streets around the Loge. Of course there are other streets, tortuous, odorous and cool, intersecting the old town, and there are various open spaces, one of which is the broad market square on one side flanked by the Théâtre Municipal. From the theatre Aristide Pujol issued one morning after rehearsal, and, leaving his colleagues, including the ever-thirsty Roulard, to refresh [Pg 149] themselves at a humble café hard by, went forth in search of distraction. He idled about the Place de la Loge, passed the time of day with a café waiter until the latter, with a disconcerting “Voilà! Voilà!” darted off to attend to a customer, and then strolled through the Porte Notre Dame onto the Quai Sadi-Carnot. There a familiar sound met his ears—the roll of a drum followed by an incantation in a quavering, high-pitched voice. It was the Town Crier, with whom, as with a brother artist, he had picked acquaintance the day before. They met by the parapet of the Quai, just as Père Bracasse had come to the end of his incantation. The old man, grizzled, tanned and seamed, leant weakly against the parapet. “How goes it, Père Bracasse?” “Alas, mon bon Monsieur, it goes from bad to worse,” sighed the old man. “I am at the end of my strength. My voice has gone and the accursed rheumatism in my shoulder gives me atrocious pain whenever I beat the drum.” “How much more of your round have you to go?” asked Aristide. “I have only just begun,” said Père Bracasse. The Southern sun shone from a cloudless sky; a light, keen wind blowing from the distant snow-clad Canigou set the blood tingling. A lunatic idea flashed through Aristide’s mind. He whipped the drum strap over the old man’s head. [Pg 150] “Père Bracasse,” said he, “you are suffering from rheumatism, bronchitis, fever and corns, and you must go home to bed. I will finish your round for you. Listen,” and he beat such a tattoo as Père Bracasse had never accomplished in his life. “Where are your words?” The old man, too weary to resist and fascinated by Aristide’s laughing eyes, handed him a dirty piece of paper. Aristide read, played a magnificent roll and proclaimed in a clarion voice that a gold bracelet having been lost on Sunday afternoon in the Avenue des Platanes, whoever would deposit it at the Mairie would receive a reward. “That’s all?” he enquired. “That’s all,” said Père Bracasse. “I live in the Rue Petite-de-la-Réal, No. 4, and you will bring me back the drum when you have finished.” Aristide darted off like a dragon-fly in the sunshine, as happy as a child with a new toy. Here he could play the drum to his heart’s content with no score or conductor’s bâton to worry him. He was also the one and only personage in the drama, concentrating on himself the attention of the audience. He pitied poor Roulard, who could never have such an opportunity with his trombone.... The effect of his drumming before the Café de la Loge was electric. Shopkeepers ran out of their shops, housewives craned over their balconies to [Pg 151] listen to him. By the time he had threaded the busy strip of the town and emerged on to the Place Arago he had collected an admiring train of urchins. On the Place Arago he halted on the fringe of a crowd surrounding a cheap-jack whose vociferations he drowned in a roll of thunder. He drummed and drummed till he became the centre of the throng. Then he proclaimed the bracelet. He had not enjoyed himself so much since he left Paris. He was striding away, merry-eyed and happy, followed by his satellites when a prosperous-looking gentleman with a very red face, a prosperous roll of fat above the back of his collar, and the ribbon of the Legion of Honour in his buttonhole, descending the steps of the great glass-covered café commanding the Place, hurried up and laid his finger on his arm. “Pardon, my friend,” said he, “what are you doing there?” “You shall hear, monsieur,” replied Aristide, clutching the drumsticks. “For the love of Heaven!” cried the other hastily interrupting. “Tell me what are you doing?” “I am crying the loss of a bracelet, monsieur!” “But who are you?” “I am Aristide Pujol, and I play the drum, kettle-drum, triangle, cymbals, castagnettes and [Pg 152] tambourine in the orchestra of the Tournée Gulland. And now, in my turn, may I ask to whom I have the honour of speaking?” “I am the Mayor of Perpignan.” Aristide raised his hat politely. “I hope to have the pleasure,” said he, “of Monsieur le Maire’s better acquaintance.” The Mayor, attracted by the rascal’s guileless mockery, laughed. “You will, my friend, if you go on playing that drum. You are not the Town Crier.” Aristide explained. Père Bracasse was ill, suffering from rheumatism, bronchitis, fever and corns. He was replacing him. The Mayor retorted that Père Bracasse being a municipal functionary could not transmit his functions except through the Administration. Monsieur Pujol must desist from drumming and crying. Aristide bowed to authority and unstrung his drum. “But I was enjoying myself so much, Monsieur le Maire. You have spoiled my day,” said he. The Mayor laughed again. There was an irresistible charm and roguishness about the fellow, with his intelligent oval face, black Vandyke beard and magically luminous eyes. “I should have thought you had enough of drums in your orchestra.” “Ah! there I am cramped!” cried Aristide. “I have it in horror, in detestation. Here I am free. [Pg 153] I can give vent to all the aspirations of my soul!” The Mayor mechanically moved from the spot where they had been standing. Aristide, embroidering his theme, mechanically accompanied him; and, such is democratic France, and also such was the magnetic, Ancient Mariner-like power of Aristide—did not I, myself, on my first meeting with him at Aigues-Mortes fall helplessly under the spell—that, in a few moments, the amateur Town Crier and the Mayor were walking together, side by side, along the Quai Sadi-Carnot, engaged in amiable converse. Aristide told the Mayor the story of his life—or such incidents of it as were meet for Mayoral ears—and when they parted—the Mayor to lunch, Aristide to yield up the interdicted drum to Père Bracasse—they shook hands warmly and mutually expressed the wish that they would soon meet again. They met again; Aristide saw to that. They met again that very afternoon in the café on the Place Arago. When Aristide entered he saw the Mayor seated at a table in the company of another prosperous, red-ribboned gentleman. Aristide saluted politely and addressed the Mayor. The Mayor saluted and presented him to Monsieur Quérin, the President of the Syndicat d’Initiative of the town of Perpignan. Monsieur Quérin saluted and declared himself enchanted at the encounter. Aristide [Pg 154] stood gossiping until the Mayor invited him to take a place at the table and consume liquid refreshment. Aristide glowingly accepted the invitation and cast a look of triumph around the café. Not to all mortals is it given to be the boon companion of a Mayor and a President of the Syndicat d’Initiative! Then ensued a conversation momentous in its consequences. The Syndicat d’Initiative is a semi-official body existing in most provincial towns in France for the purpose of organising public festivals for the citizens and developing the resources and possibilities of the town for the general amenity of visitors. Now Perpignan is as picturesque, as sun-smitten and, in spite of the icy tramontana, even as joyous a place as tourist could desire; and the Carnival of Perpignan, as a spontaneous outburst of gaiety and pageantry, is unique in France. But Perpignan being at the end of everywhere and leading nowhere attracts very few visitors. Biarritz is on the Atlantic coast at the other end of the Pyrenees; Hyères, Cannes and Monte Carlo on the other side of the Gulf of Lions. No English or Americans—the only visitors of any account in the philosophy of provincial France—flock to Perpignan. This was a melancholy fact bewailed by Monsieur Quérin. The town was perishing from lack of Anglo-Saxon support. Monsieur Coquereau, [Pg 155] the Mayor, agreed. If the English and Americans came in their hordes to this paradise of mimosa, fourteenth century architecture, sunshine and unique Carnival, the fortunes of all the citizens would be assured. Perpignan would out-rival Nice. But what could be done? “Advertise it,” said Aristide. “Flood the English-speaking world with poetical descriptions of the place. Build a row of palatial hotels in the new part of the town. It is not known to the Anglo-Saxons.” “How can you be certain of that?” asked Monsieur Quérin. “Parbleu!” he cried, with a wide gesture. “I have known the English all my life. I speak their language as I speak French or my native Provençal. I have taught in schools in England. I know the country and the people like my pocket. They have never heard of Perpignan.” His companions acquiesced sadly. Aristide, aglow with a sudden impudent inspiration, leant across the marble table. “Monsieur le Maire and Monsieur le Président du Syndicat d’Initiative, I am sick to death of playing the drum, the kettle-drum, the triangle, the cymbals, the castagnettes and the tambourine in the Tournée Gulland. I was born to higher things. Entrust to me”—he converged the finger-tips of both hands to his bosom—“to me, Aristide Pujol, [Pg 156] the organisation of Perpignan-Ville de Plaisir, and you will not regret it.” The Mayor and the President laughed. <hr style='width: 45%;' /> But my astonishing friend prevailed—not indeed to the extent of being appointed a Petronius, arbiter élegantiarum, of the town of Perpignan; but to the extent of being employed, I fear in a subordinate capacity, by the Mayor and the Syndicat in the work of propagandism. The Tournée Gulland found another drum and went its tuneful but weary way; and Aristide remained gloriously behind and rubbed his hands with glee. At last he had found permanence in a life where heretofore had been naught but transience. At last he had found a sphere worthy of his genius. He began to nourish insensate ambitions. He would be the Great Benefactor of Perpignan. All Roussillon should bless his name. Already he saw his statue on the Quai Sadi-Carnot. His rise in the social scale of the town was meteoric, chiefly owing to the goodwill of Madame Coquereau, the widowed mother of the Mayor. She was a hard-featured old lady, with a face that might have been made of corrugated iron painted yellow and with the eyes of an old hawk. She dressed always in black, was very devout and rich and narrow and iron-willed. Aristide was presented to her one Sunday afternoon at the Café on the [Pg 157] Place Arago—where on Sunday afternoons all the fashion of Perpignan assembles—and—need I say it?—she fell at once a helpless victim to his fascination. Accompanying her grandmother was Mademoiselle Stéphanie Coquereau, the Mayor’s niece (a wealthy orphan, as Aristide soon learned), nineteen, pretty, demure, perfectly brought up, who said “Oui, Monsieur” and “Non, Monsieur” with that quintessence of modest grace which only a provincial French Convent can cultivate. Aristide’s heart left his body and rolled at the feet of Mademoiselle Stéphanie. It was a way with Aristide’s heart. It was always doing that. He was of Provence and not of Peckham Rye or Hoboken, and he could not help it. Aristide called on Madame Coquereau, who entertained him with sweet Frontignan wine, dry sponge cakes and conversation. After a while he was invited to dinner. In a short space of time he became the intimate friend of the house, and played piquet with Madame Coquereau, and grew familiar with the family secrets. First he learned that Mademoiselle Stéphanie would go to a husband with two hundred and fifty thousand francs. Aristide’s heart panted at the feet of Mademoiselle Stéphanie. Further he gathered that, though Monsieur Coquereau was a personage of great dignity and importance in civic affairs, he was as but a little child in his own house. Madame Coquereau held [Pg 158] the money-bags. Her son had but little personal fortune. He had reached the age of forty-five without being able to marry. Marriage unauthorized by Madame Coquereau meant immediate poverty and the testamentary assignment of Madame Coquereau’s fortune to various religious establishments. None of the objects of Monsieur Coquereau’s matrimonial desire had pleased Madame Coquereau, and none of Madame Coquereau’s blushing candidates had caused a pulse in Monsieur Coquereau’s being to beat the faster. The Mayor held his mother in professed adoration and holy terror. She held him in abject subjection. Aristide became the confidant, in turn, of Madame’s sour philosophy of life and of Monsieur’s impotence and despair. As for Mademoiselle Stéphanie, she kept on saying “Oui, Monsieur” and “Non, Monsieur,” in a crescendo of maddening demureness. So passed the halcyon hours. During the day time Aristide in a corner of the Mayor’s office, drew up flamboyant circulars in English which would have put a pushing Land and Estate Agent in the New Jerusalem to the blush, and in the evening played piquet with Madame Coquereau, while Mademoiselle Stéphanie, model of modest piety, worked pure but nameless birds and flowers on her embroidery frame. Monsieur le Maire, of course, played his game of manilla at the café, after dinner, [Pg 159] and generally came home just before Aristide took his leave. If it had not been for the presence of Mademoiselle Stéphanie, it would not have been gay for Aristide. But love gilded the moments. On the first evening of the Carnival, which lasts nearly a fortnight in Perpignan, Aristide, in spite of a sweeter “Oui, Monsieur” than ever from Mademoiselle Stéphanie, made an excuse to slip away rather earlier than usual, and, front door having closed behind him, crossed the strip of gravel with a quick step and flung out of the iron gates. Now the house had an isolated position in the new quarter of the town. It was perky and modern and defaced by all sorts of oriel windows and tourelles and pinnacles which gave it a top-heavy appearance, and it was surrounded by a low brick wall. Aristide, on emerging through the iron gates, heard the sound of scurrying footsteps on the side of the wall nearest to the town, and reached the corner, just in time to see a masquer, attired in a Pierrot costume and wearing what seemed to be a pig’s head, disappear round the further angle. Paying no heed to this phenomenon, Aristide lit a cigarette and walked, in anticipation of enjoyment, to the great Avenue des Plantanes where the revelry of the Carnival was being held. Aristide was young, he loved flirtation, and flirtation flourished in the Avenue des Plantanes. [Pg 160] The next morning the Mayor entered his office with a very grave face. “Do you know what has happened? My house was broken into last night. The safe in my study was forced open, and three thousand francs and some valuable jewelry were stolen. Quel malheur!” he cried, throwing himself into a chair, and wiping his forehead. “It is not I who can afford to lose three thousand francs at once. If they had robbed maman it would have been a different matter.” Aristide expressed his sympathy. “Whom do you suspect?” he asked. “A robber, parbleu!” said the Mayor. “The police are even now making their investigations.” The door opened and a plain clothes detective entered the office. “Monsieur le Maire,” said he, with an air of triumph, “I know a burglar.” Both men leapt to their feet. “Ah!” said Aristide. “A la bonne heure!” cried the Mayor. “Arrest him at once,” said Aristide. “Alas, Monsieur,” said the detective, “that I cannot do. I have called on him this morning and his wife tells me that he left for the North yesterday afternoon. But it is José Puégas that did it. I know his ways.” [Pg 161] “Tiens!” said the Mayor, reflectively. “I know him also, an evil fellow.” “But why are you not looking for him?” exclaimed Aristide. “Arrangements have been made,” replied the detective coldly. Aristide suddenly bethought him of the furtive masquer of the night before. “I can put you on his track,” said he, and related what he knew. The Mayor looked dubious. “It wasn’t he,” he remarked. “José Puégas, Monsieur, would not commit a burglary in a pig’s head,” said the policeman, with the cutting contempt of the expert. “It was a vow, I suppose,” said Aristide, stung to irony. “I’ve always heard he was a religious man.” The detective did not condescend to reply. “Monsieur le Maire,” said he, “I should like to examine the premises, and beg that you will have the kindness to accompany me.” “With the permission of Monsieur le Maire,” said Aristide. “I too will come.” “Certainly,” said the Mayor. “The more intelligences concentrated on the affair the better.” “I am not of that opinion,” said the detective. “It is the opinion of Monsieur le Maire,” said Aristide rebukingly, “and that is enough.” [Pg 162] When they reached the house—distances are short in Perpignan—they found policemen busily engaged with tape measures around the premises. Old Madame Coquereau in a clean white linen dressing jacket, bare-headed, defying the keen air, stood grim and eager in the midst of them. “Good morning, Monsieur Pujol, what do you think of this?” “A veritable catastrophe,” said Aristide. She shrugged her iron shoulders. “I tell him it serves him right,” she said, cuttingly. “A sensible person keeps his money under his mattress and not in a tin machine by a window which anyone can get at. I wonder we’ve not been murdered in our beds before.” “Ah, Maman!” expostulated the Mayor of Perpignan. But she turned her back on him and worried the policemen. They, having probed, and measured, and consulted with the detective, came to an exact conclusion. The thief had climbed over the back wall—there were his footsteps. He had entered by the kitchen door—there were the marks of infraction. He had broken open the safe—there was the helpless condition of the lock. No one in Perpignan, but José Puégas, with his bad, socialistic, Barcelona blood, could have done it. These brilliant results were arrived at after much clamour and argument and imposing procès verbal. Aristide [Pg 163] felt strangely depressed. He had narrated his story of the pig-headed masquer to unresponsive ears. Here was a melodramatic scene in which he not only was not playing a leading part, but did not even carry a banner. To be less than a super in life’s pageant was abhorrent to the nature of Aristide Pujol. Moodily he wandered away from the little crowd. He hated the police and their airs of gods for whom exists no mystery. He did not believe in the kitchen-door theory. Why should not the thief have simply entered by the window of the study, which like the kitchen, was on the ground floor? He went round the house and examined the window by himself. No; there were no traces of burglary. The fastenings of the outside shutters and the high window were intact. The police were right. Suddenly his quick eye lit on something in the gravel path and his heart gave a great leap. It was a little round pink disc of confetti. Aristide picked it up and began to dance and shake his fist at the invisible police. “Aha!” he cried, “now we shall see who is right and who is wrong!” He began to search and soon found another bit of confetti. A little further along he discovered a third and a fourth. By using his walking stick he discovered that they formed a trail to a point in [Pg 164] the wall. He examined the wall. There, if his eyes did not deceive him, were evidences of mortar dislodged by nefarious toes. And there, mirabile visu! at the very bottom of the wall lay a little woollen pompon or tassel, just the kind of pompon that gives a finish to a pierrot’s shoes. Evidently the scoundrel had scraped it off against the bricks while clambering over. The pig-headed masquer stood confessed. A less imaginative man than Aristide would have immediately acquainted the police with his discovery. But Aristide had been insulted. A dull, mechanical bureaucrat who tried to discover crime with a tape-measure had dared to talk contemptuously of his intelligence! On his wooden head should be poured the vials of his contempt. “Tron de l’air!” cried Aristide—a Provençal oath which he only used on sublime occasions—“It is I who will discover the thief and make the whole lot of you the laughing-stock of Perpignan.” So did my versatile friend, joyously confident in his powers, start on his glorious career as a private detective. “Madame Coquereau,” said he, that evening, while she was dealing a hand at piquet, “what would you say if I solved this mystery and brought the scoundrel to justice?” “To say that you would have more sense than [Pg 165] the police, would be a poor compliment,” said the old lady. Stéphanie raised cloistral eyes from her embroidery frame. She sat in a distant corner of the formal room discreetly lit by a shaded lamp. “You have a clue, Monsieur?” she asked with adorable timidity. Aristide tapped his forehead with his forefinger. “All is there, Mademoiselle.” They exchanged a glance—the first they had exchanged—while Madame Coquereau was frowning at her cards; and Aristide interpreted the glance as the promise of supreme reward for great deeds accomplished. The mayor returned early from the café, a dejected man. The loss of his hundred and twenty pounds weighed heavily on his mind. He kissed his mother sorrowfully on the cheek, his niece on the brow, held out a drooping hand to Aristide, and, subsiding into a stiff imitation Louis XVI chair, rested his elbows on its unconsoling arms and hid his face in his hands. “My poor uncle! You suffer so much?” breathed Stéphanie, in divine compassion. “Little Saint!” murmured Aristide devoutly, as he declared four aces and three queens. The Mayor moved his head sympathetically. He was suffering from the sharpest pain in his pocket [Pg 166] he had felt for many a day. Madame Coquereau’s attention wandered from the cards. “Dis donc, Fernand,” she said sharply. “Why are you not wearing your ring?” The Mayor looked up. “Maman,” said he, “it is stolen.” “Your beautiful ring?” cried Aristide. The Mayor’s ring, which he usually wore, was a remarkable personal adornment. It consisted in a couple of snakes in old gold clenching an enormous topaz between their heads. Only a Mayor could have worn it with decency. “You did not tell me, Fernand,” rasped the old lady. “You did not mention it to me as being one of the stolen objects.” The Mayor rose wearily. “It was to avoid giving you pain, maman. I know what a value you set upon the ring of my good Aunt Philomène.” “And now it is lost,” said Madame Coquereau, throwing down her cards. “A ring that belonged to a saint. Yes, Monsieur Pujol, a saint, though she was my sister. A ring that had been blessed by His Holiness the Pope——” “But, maman,” expostulated the Mayor, “that was an imagination of Aunt Philomène. Just because she went to Rome and had an audience like anyone else——” “Silence, impious atheist that you are!” cried the old lady. “I tell you it was blessed by His [Pg 167] Holiness—and when I tell you a thing it is true. That is the son of to-day. He will call his mother a liar as soon as look at her. It was a ring beyond price. A ring such as there are few in the world. And instead of taking care of this precious heirloom, he goes and locks it away in a safe. Ah! you fill me with shame. Monsieur Pujol, I am sorry I can play no more, I must retire. Stéphanie, will you accompany me?” And gathering up Stéphanie like a bunch of snowdrops, the yellow, galvanized iron old lady swept out of the room. The Mayor looked at Aristide and moved his arms dejectedly. “Such are women,” said he. “My own mother nearly broke her heart because I would not become a priest,” said Aristide. “I wish I were a Turk,” said the Mayor. “I, too,” said Aristide. He took pouch and papers and rolled a cigarette. “If there is a man living who can say he has not felt like that at least once in his life he ought to be exhibited at a fair.” “How well you understand me, my good Pujol,” said Monsieur Coquereau. The next few days passed busily for Aristide. He devoted every spare hour to his new task. He scrutinized every inch of ground between the study [Pg 168] window and the wall; he drew radiating lines from the point of the wall whence the miscreant had started homeward and succeeded in finding more confetti. He cross-examined every purveyor of pierrot shoes and pig’s heads in Perpignan. His researches soon came to the ears of the police, still tracing the mysterious José Puégas. A certain good-humoured brigadier whose Catalan French Aristide found difficult to understand, but with whom he had formed a derisory kind of friendship, urged him to desist from the hopeless task. “Jamais de la vie!” he cried—“The honour of Aristide Pujol is at stake.” The thing became an obsession. Not only his honour but his future was at stake. If he discovered the thief, he would be the most talked of person in Perpignan. He would know how to improve his position. He would rise to dizzy heights. Perpignan-Ville de Plaisir would acclaim him as its saviour. The Government would decorate him. And finally, both the Mayor and Madame Coquereau would place the blushing and adorable Mademoiselle Stéphanie in his arms and her two hundred and fifty thousand francs dowry in his pocket. Never before had so dazzling a prize shimmered before him in the near distance. On the last Saturday night of the Carnival, there was a special corso for the populace in the Avenue des Plantanes, the long splendid Avenue of plane [Pg 169] trees just outside the Porte Notre Dame, which is the special glory of Perpignan. The masquers danced to three or four bands. They threw confetti and serpentins. They rode hobby-horses and beat each other with bladders. They joined in bands of youths and maidens and whirled down the Avenue in Bacchic madness. It was a corso blanc, and everyone wore white—chiefly modifications of Pierrot costume—and everyone was masked. Chinese lanterns hung from the trees and in festoons around the bandstands and darted about in the hands of the revellers. Above, great standard electric lamps shed their white glare upon the eddying throng casting a myriad of grotesque shadows. Shouts and laughter and music filled the air. Aristide in a hideous red mask and with a bag of confetti under his arm, plunged with enthusiasm into the revelry. To enjoy yourself you only had to throw your arm round a girl’s waist and swing her off wildly to the beat of the music. If you wanted to let her go you did so; if not, you talked in the squeaky voice that is the recognized etiquette of the carnival. On the other hand any girl could catch you in her grip and sweep you along with her. Your mad career generally ended in a crowd and a free fight of confetti. There was one fair masquer, however, to whom Aristide became peculiarly attracted. Her movements were [Pg 170] free, her figure dainty and her repartee, below her mask, more than usually piquant. “This hurly-burly,” said he, drawing her into a quiet eddy of the stream, “is no place for the communion of two twin souls.” “Beau masque,” said she, “I perceive that you are a man of much sensibility.” “Shall we find a spot where we can mingle the overflow of our exquisite natures?” “As you like.” “Allons! Hop!” cried he, and seizing her round the waist danced through the masquers to the very far end of the Avenue. “There is a sequestered spot round here,” he said. They turned. The sequestered spot, a seat beneath a plane tree, with a lonesome arc-lamp shining full upon it, was occupied. “It’s a pity!” said the fair unknown. But Aristide said nothing. He stared. On the seat reposed an amorous couple. The lady wore a white domino and a black mask. The cavalier, whose arm was around the lady’s waist, wore a pig’s head, and a clown or Pierrot’s dress. Aristide’s eyes fell upon the shoes. On one of them the pompon was missing. The lady’s left hand tenderly patted the cardboard snout of her lover. The fierce light of the arc lamp caught the hand and revealed, on the [Pg 171] fourth finger, a topaz ring, the topaz held in its place by two snakes’ heads. Aristide stared for two seconds; it seemed to him two centuries. Then he turned simply, caught his partner again, and with a “Allons, Hop!” raced back to the middle of the throng. There, in the crush, he unceremoniously lost her, and sped like a maniac to the entrance gates. His friend the brigadier happened to be on duty. He unmasked himself, dragged the police agent aside, and breathless, half-hysterical, acquainted him with the astounding discovery. “I was right, mon vieux! There at the end of the Avenue you will find them. The pig-headed prowler I saw, with my pompon missing from his shoe, and his bonne amie wearing the stolen ring. Ah! you police people with your tape-measures and your José Puégas! It is I, Aristide Pujol, who have to come to Perpignan to teach you your business!” “What do you want me to do?” asked the brigadier stolidly. “Do?” cried Aristide. “Do you think I want you to kiss them and cover them with roses? What do you generally do with thieves in Perpignan?” “Arrest them,” said the brigadier. “Eh bien!” said Aristide. Then he paused—possibly the drama of the situation striking him. “No, wait. Go and find them. Don’t take your [Pg 172] eyes off them. I will run and fetch Monsieur le Maire and he will identify his property—et puis nous aurons la scène à faire.” The stout brigadier grunted an assent and rolled monumentally down the Avenue. Aristide, his pulses throbbing, his heart exulting, ran to the Mayor’s house. He was rather a panting triumph than a man. He had beaten the police of Perpignan. He had discovered the thief. He was the hero of the town. Soon would the wedding bells be playing.... He envied the marble of the future statue. He would like to be on the pedestal himself. He dashed past the maid-servant who opened the door and burst into the prim salon. Madame Coquereau was alone, just preparing to retire for the night. Mademoiselle Stéphanie had already gone to bed. “Mon Dieu, what is all this?” she cried. “Madame,” shouted he, “glorious news. I have found the thief!” He told his tale. Where was Monsieur le Maire? “He has not yet come back from the café.” “I’ll go and find him,” said Aristide. “And waste time? Bah!” said the iron-faced old lady, catching up a black silk shawl. “I will come with you and identify the ring of my sainted sister Philomène. Who should know it better than I?” [Pg 173] “As you like, Madame,” said Aristide. Two minutes found them on their journey. Madame Coquereau, in spite of her sixty-five years trudged along with springing step. “They don’t make metal like me, nowadays,” she said scornfully. When they arrived at the gate of the Avenue, the police on guard saluted. The mother of Monsieur le Maire was a power in Perpignan. “Monsieur,” said Aristide, in lordly fashion, to a policeman, “will you have the goodness to make a passage through the crowd for Madame Coquereau, and then help the Brigadier Pésac to arrest the burglar who broke into the house of Monsieur le Maire?” The man obeyed, went ahead clearing the path with the unceremoniousness of the law, and Aristide giving his arm to Madame Coquereau followed gloriously. As the impressive progress continued the revellers ceased their revels and followed in the wake of Aristide. At the end of the Avenue Brigadier Pésac was on guard. He approached. “They are still there,” he said. “Good,” said Aristide. The two police-officers, Aristide and Madame Coquereau turned the corner. At the sight of the police the guilty couple started to their feet. Madame [Pg 174] Coquereau pounced like a hawk on the masked lady’s hand. “I identify it,” she cried. “Brigadier, give these people in charge for theft.” The white masked crowd surged around the group, in the midst of which stood Aristide transfigured. It was his supreme moment. He flourished in one hand his red mask and in the other a pompon which he had extracted from his pocket. “This I found,” said he, “beneath the wall of Monsieur le Maire’s garden. Behold the shoe of the accused.” The crowd murmured their applause and admiration. Neither of the prisoners stirred. The pig’s head grinned at the world with its inane, painted leer. A rumbling voice beneath it said: “We will go quietly.” “Attention s’il vous plaît,” said the policemen, and each holding a prisoner by the arm they made a way through the crowd. Madame Coquereau and Aristide followed close behind. “What did I tell you?” cried Aristide to the brigadier. “It’s Puégas, all the same,” said the brigadier, over his shoulder. “I bet you it’s not,” said Aristide, and striding swiftly to the back of the male prisoner whipped off the pig’s head, and revealed to the petrified [Pg 175] throng the familiar features of the Mayor of Perpignan. Aristide regarded him for two or three seconds open-mouthed, and then fell back into the arms of the Brigadier Pésac screaming with convulsive laughter. The crowd caught the infection of merriment. Shrieks filled the air. The vast mass of masqueraders held their sides, swayed helplessly, rolled in heaps, men and women, tearing each other’s garments as they fell. Aristide, deposited on the ground by the Brigadier Pésac laughed and laughed. When he recovered some consciousness of surroundings, he found the Mayor bending over him and using language that would have made Tophet put its fingers in its ears. He rose. Madame Coquereau shook her thin fists in his face. “Imbecile! Triple fool!” she cried. Aristide turned tail and fled. There was nothing else to do. And that was the end of his career at Perpignan. Vanished were the dreams of civic eminence; melted into thin air the statue on the Quai Sadi-Carnot; faded, too, the vision of the modest Stéphanie crowned with orange-blossom; gone forever the two hundred and fifty thousand francs. Never since Alnaschar kicked over his basket of crockery was there such a hideous welter of shattered hopes. If the Mayor had been allowed to go disguised [Pg 176] to the Police Station, he could have disclosed his identity and that of the lady in private to awe-stricken functionaries. He might have forgiven Aristide. But Aristide had exposed him to the derision of the whole of Roussillon and the never ending wrath of Madame Coquereau. Ruefully Aristide asked himself the question: why had the Mayor not taken him into the confidence of his masquerading escapade? Why had he not told him of the pretty widow, whom, unknown to his mother, he was courting? Why had he permitted her to wear the ring which he had given her so as to spite his sainted Aunt Philomène? And why had he gone on wearing the pig’s head after Aristide had told him of his suspicions? Ruefully Aristide found no answers save in the general chuckle-headedness of mankind. “If it hadn’t been such a good farce I should have wept like a cow,” said Aristide, after relating this story. “But every time I wanted to cry, I laughed. Nom de Dieu! You should have seen his face! And the face of Madame Coquereau! She opened her mouth wide showing ten yellow teeth and squealed like a rabbit! Oh, it was a good farce! He was very cross with me,” he added after a smiling pause, “and when I got back to Paris I tried to pacify him.” “What did you do?” I asked. “I sent him my photograph,” said Aristide. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 177] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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