He had not expected to meet Mr. Mudge within the week, but he had not expected to be in the South Ward within the week, either. Someone had reported to him that a certain item of horse-furniture was in a certain popular pawnshop there, and someone had said that—not having been redeemed when the loan expired—the item (it was a mere ornament, but then, too, perhaps the horse which first had borne it had also borne the last Byzantine Emperor) was now for sale.
“Impossible,” said a familiar voice outside the pawnship.
And another voice, less familiar, but . . . familiar . . . said . . . asked, “ ‘Impossible’? Impossible for you to do it when two Emperors and one King have already done it?”
There was D. Cosimo D., looking as though he would be away, and there was Mr. Mudge, looking as though he would not let him go. “I do not know other than nothing of it,” said Cosimo.
Mudge said he would ‘explain the matter yet again.’ The briefly reigning King Amadeus of Spain had been pleased to give Mr. Mudge a gift of jewels. Louis Napoleon, Emperor of the French, had given him some other jewels. And a third such royal gift had come from Alexander, late Czar of all the Russians. “By the merest coincidence,” said Mudge, “they contained elements of the so-called Pasqualine Diamonds. That is to say, I now have them all. I can show you the Deeds of Gifts.”
“I wish not to see them. Gifts!”
“That is to say, all but the thumb-ring of Duke Pasquale. Without it, the set is incomplete. You may name a price. Money, lands; lands and money—whatever. I shall execute a will demising the jewels all to your noble house. I—”
“I, sir. know nothing. Have nothing to sell. Desire nothing to obtain. Ah, my son”—to Eszterhazy—“You have heard? Am I not right?”
And Eszterhazy said, “The King of the Single Sicily is right.”
A week later, as Eszterhazy emerged from his club in Upper Hunyadi Street, a tall man seemed to uncoil from a bench, and, in an instant, stood before him. It was Melanchthon Mudge. Melanchthon Mudge was before him, the bench was alongside of him, a stone pillar of the colonnade was behind him. Only one way of passage remained, but he did not seek to take it. The man wished to do it so? well, let him do it so, then.
“Be quick,” he said.
“Dr. Eszterhazy,” said the tall, thin man, earnestly; “you have twice affronted me.” Eszterhazy looked at him with a face which was absolutely expressionless, and said absolutely nothing. Mudge seemed rather disconcerted at this; and, a moment having passed, he compressed his lips, something like a frown beginning to appear: this vanished almost at once. A smile replaced it; one might easily see how very many had regarded it as a charming smile. Very often. “You have, Doctor, twice affronted me, I say. But I cannot believe that you ever meant to do so. This being the case, you will take no affront when I explain to you what the affronts were”—and still, Eszterhazy did not move. He continued to gaze with motionless eyes.
Mudge cleared his throat. Then he held up one finger of his left hand and he pressed upon it with one finger of his right. “To begin with, although perfectly aware of my perfect reasons for wishing to purchase the Pasqualine Ring, you urged its present owner not to part with it.” He paused. No reaction. No reply. A second finger came forward on the extended left hand, was pressed upon with the forefinger of the right. “You also, doubtless purely as a jape, counterfeited—by some species of parlor trick which in another and lesser man I should term ‘charlatanry’—counterfeited those great gifts which are mine as donatives of the Spirits. Now, sir, I do urge you, Dr. Eszterhazy, not to presume to affront me a third time. I am in process of taking a most important step in my personal life. It would mean that we would meet so very often that I should desire to be upon no terms with you save the very friendliest. But if you—”
Eszterhazy’s eyes shifted suddenly, transfixed the other man with such a sort of look that the man winced. A brief cry, as of pain, was torn from his throat. “Wretch, rogue, and scoundrel,” Eszterhazy said; “I well know that you have it in your black mind to propose marriage to my cousin’s cousin, the Highlady Charlotte of Damrosch-Pensk. This, it does not lie within my power to prevent; that is, her mother being in something close to vassalage to you, we both know why, you may propose. I shall tell you what does lie within my power. By the terms of her late father’s will, the Highlady Charlotte is in effect a ward of the Emperor until her thirtieth year—unless she is lawfully married before that day. I have already seen to it that a full statement of your depraved behavior in other countries, your disgusting statements set by your own hand in writing in regard to another lady, and the abhorrent circumstances under which you became, first famous, and then rich—I have with a great and grim pleasure seen to it that the Lord President of the Privy Council now knows it all. The present Emperor will never give his assent without consulting the Lord President. And—”
But this next sentence was scarcely begun when something unseen stuck Eszterhazy a blow and sent him with great force reeling against the pillar from where he had been standing several feet away. It was of course painful, it left him breathless and without power of speech: all his effort went into remaining upright; he clutched the pillar, backwards, with both his hands.
Even as he felt himself stagger, he saw the medium, face set for one fearful second into a rictus of rage, go striding away and down the steps. His cloak flew almost level with the ground. There was another voice echoing in Eszterhazy’s ears, very faint it was, very faintly echoing. There are spirits of light, sir; and there are spirits of darkness. That one’s gifts never came from the light . . .
Eszterhazy, coming up the slum stairs to where the old couple lived, was not at first surprised to hear the sounds of altercation. The place was, after all, a slum, and slum-dwellers tend when angered not merely to speak out but to shout. What surprised him was to hear the old noblewoman’s voice raised, even briefly. What could—Ah. Ahah. The local muckman was trying to collect garbage fees. So. True, that the work was damnably hard. True that in the South Ward the fees were often damnably hard to collect. True, that it was hard to imagine the old couple’s scanty diet producing enough garbage to be worth feeing. And, true, bullying was a time-established way of collecting the fees. Or trying to.
A fat, foul smell, filthy and greasy, announced its owner even before the sight of the fat, foul body on the landing by the door—fat, foul, smelly, greasy—voice coarse, loud, hectoring. “—wants me entitles!” the voice shouted. “Wants me ten copperkas!” Fat, smeary shoulders thrusting at partially closed door. “ ’r I takes the tea-pot off the cloth and the cloth off the table and—” The third take was never mentioned, the door flew open wider, there stood the dauntless little ‘Queen,’ something glinted, something flashed. The muckman gave a hoarse howl and fell back, struggling for balance. The door closed. The muckman whirled around, flesh quivering; flesh, where a hand fell for a moment away, flesh bleeding. Scratches on the rank, besmeared arm. Made by—made by what? “That she-cat,” grumbled the man, fear giving way to mere astonishment and dull defeated rage—made by small embroidery shears? or—