Read Cause for Alarm for Free Online Page B

bed and unableto see anyone. I did not know a signor Vagas, I had never heard of a signor Vagas and I was feeling too tired to do anything about it now. But I hesitated. The fact that I personally did not know the name of Vagas was beside the point. I knew nobody in Milan. The man might conceivably be an important buyer, a Spartacus customer. I ought not to take any risks. I ought to see him. The name did not sound particularly Italianate, but that was beside the point. I certainly
ought
to see him. What on earth could he want? With a sigh, I told the clerk to send him up.
    I have wondered since what would have happened subsequently if I had yielded to my aching desire for a hot bath and refused to see him. Probably he would have called again. Possibly, on the other hand, he might have made other arrangements. I don’t really know enough about what went on behind the scenes to say. In any case, such speculations are unprofitable. My only reason for raising the point is that it seems to me that a state of society in which such trivialities as the desire of one insignificant engineer for a hot bath are capable of influencing the destinies of large numbers of his fellow-creatures, has something radically wrong with it. However, I
did
postpone my bath and I
did
see General Vagas. But if I had known then what the consequences of that piece of self-denial were going to be, I should, I am afraid, have been inclined to let my fellow-creatures go hang.
    He was a tall, heavy man with sleek, thinning grey hair, a brown, puffy complexion and thick, tight lips. Fixed firmly in the flesh around his left eye was a rimless monocle without a cord to it. He wore a thick and expensive-looking black ulster and carried a dark-blue slouch hat. In his other hand he held a malacca stick.
    His lips twisted, with what was evidently intended to be a polite smile. But the smile did not reach his eyes. Dark and small and cautious, they flickered appraisingly from my head to my feet. Almost instinctively my own eyes droppedto the stick in his hand, to his fat, delicate fingers holding it loosely about a third of the way down. For a minute fraction of a second we stood there facing one another. Then he spoke.
    “Signor Marlow?” His voice was soft and husky. He coughed a little after he had said it.
    “Yes, signor Vagas, I believe?
Fortunatissimo
.”
    The small eyes surveyed my own. Slowly he drew a card from his pocket and presented it to me. I glanced at it. On it was printed: “
Maggiore Generale F. L. VAGAS
,” and an address in the Corso di Porta Nuova.
    “I beg your pardon, General. The clerk did not give me your name correctly.”
    “It is quite unimportant, Signore. Do not concern yourself, I beg you.”
    We shook hands. I ushered him in. He walked with a slight limp over to a chair and put his coat, hat and stick carefully on it.
    “A drink, General?”
    He nodded graciously. “Thank you. I will take cognac.”
    I rang the bell for the waiter.
    “A chair?”
    “Thank you.” He sat down.
    “A cigarette?”
    He looked carefully at the contents of my case.
    “English?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good, then I will smoke one.”
    I gave him a match and waited. His eyes wandered for a moment or two round the room, then they returned to me. He adjusted the monocle carefully, as if to see me better. Then, to my surprise, he began to speak in tolerably accurate English.
    “I expect, Mr. Marlow, you are wondering who I am and why I have come here to visit you.”
    I murmured something about it being, in any case, a pleasure. He smiled. I found myself hoping that he would not consider it necessary to do so a third time. It was a grimace rather than a smile. Now that I knew him to be a General it was easier to sum him up. He would look better in uniform. The limp? Probably a war wound. And yet there was a quality of effeminacy about the way he spoke, the way he moved his hands, that lent a touch of the grotesque to the rest of him. Then I noticed with