The Just Men of Cordova. Edgar Wallace
attitude was that of a beggar, but the voice was that of an educated Englishman.
“Manfred,” he said earnestly, “you must see this man Essley. I have a special reason for asking.”
“What is he?”
The beggar smiled.
“I am dependent upon memory to a great extent,” he said, “the library at my humble lodgings being somewhat limited, but I have a dim idea that he is a doctor in a suburb of London, rather a clever surgeon.”
“What is he doing here?”
The redoubtable Gonsalez smiled again.
“There is in Cordova a Dr. Cajalos. From the exalted atmosphere of the Paseo de Gran Capitan, wherein I understand you have your luxurious suite, no echo of the underworld of Cordova comes to you. Here”—he pointed to the roofs and the untidy jumble of buildings at the farther end of the bridge—“in the Campo of the Verdad, where men live happily on two pesetas a week, we know Dr. Cajalos. He is a household word—a marvellous man, George, performing miracles undreamt of in your philosophy: making the blind to see, casting spells upon the guilty, and creating infallible love philtres for the innocent! He’ll charm a wart or arrest the ravages of sleeping sickness.”
Manfred nodded. “Even in the Paseo de la Gran Capitan he is not without honour,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “I have seen him and consulted him.”
The beggar was a little astonished. “You’re a wonderful man,” he said, with admiration in his voice. “When did you do it?”
Manfred laughed softly.
“There was a certain night, not many weeks ago, when a beggar stood outside the worthy doctor’s door, patiently waiting till a mysterious visitor, cloaked to his nose, had finished his business.”
“I remember,” said the other, nodding. “He was a stranger from Ronda, and I was curious—did you see me following him?”
“I saw you,” said Manfred gravely. “I saw you from the corner of my eye.”
“It was not you?” asked Gonsalez, astonished.
“It was I,” said the other. “I went out of Cordova to come into Cordova.”
Gonsalez was silent for a moment.
“I accept the humiliation,” he said. “Now, since you know the doctor, can you see any reason for the visit of a commonplace English doctor to Cordova? He has come all the way without a halt from England by the Algeciras Express. He leaves Cordova to-morrow morning at daybreak by the same urgent system, and he comes to consult Dr. Cajalos.”
“Poiccart is here: he has an interest in this Essley—so great an interest that he comes blandly to our Cordova, Baedeker in hand, seeking information of the itinerant guide and submitting meekly to his inaccuracies.”
Manfred stroked his little beard, with the same grave thoughtful expression in his wise eyes as when he had watched Gonsalez shuffling from the Café de la Gran Capitan. “Life would be dull without Poiccart,” he said.
“Dull, indeed—ah, señor, my life shall be your praise, and it shall rise like the smoke of holy incense to the throne of Heaven.”
He dropped suddenly into his whine, for a policeman of the town guard was approaching, with a suspicious eye for the beggar who stood with expectant hand outstretched.
Manfred shook his head as the policeman strolled up.
“Go in peace,” he said.
“Dog,” said the policeman, his rough hand descending on the beggar’s shoulder, “thief of a thief, begone lest you offend the nostrils of this illustrious.”
With arms akimbo, he watched the man limp away, then he turned to Manfred.
“If I had seen this scum before, excellency,” he said fiercely, “I should have relieved your presence of his company.”
“It is not important,” said Manfred conventionally.
“As for me,” the policeman went on, releasing one hand from his hip to curl an insignificant moustache, “I have hard work in protecting rich and munificent caballeros from these swine. And God knows my pay is poor, and with three hungry mouths to fill, not counting my wife’s mother, who comes regularly on feast days and must be taken to the bull-fight, life is hard. More especially, señor, since she is one of those damned proud Andalusian women who must have a seat in the shade at two pesetas.[1] For myself, I have not tasted rioja since the feast of Santa Therese—”
Manfred slipped a peseta into the hand of the uniformed beggar. The man walked by his side to the end of the bridge, retailing his domestic difficulties with the freedom and intimacy which is possible nowhere else in the world. They stood chattering near the principal entrance to the Cathedral.
“Your excellency is not of Cordova?” asked the officer.
“I am of Malaga,” said Manfred without hesitation.
“I had a sister who married a fisherman of Malaga,” confided the policeman. “Her husband was drowned, and she now lives with a señor whose name I forget. She is a pious woman, but very selfish. Has your excellency been to Gibraltar?”
Manfred nodded. He was interested in a party of tourists which was being shown the glories of the Puerta del Perdon.
One of the tourists detached himself from his party and came towards them. He was a man of middle height and strongly built. There was a strange reserve in his air and a saturnine imperturbability in his face.
“Can you direct me to the Passeo de la Gran Capitan?” he asked in bad Spanish.
“I am going that way,” said Manfred courteously; “if the señor would condescend to accompany me—”
“I shall be grateful,” said the other.
They chatted a little on divers subjects—the weather, the delightful character of the mosque-cathedral.
“You must come along and see Essley,” said the tourist suddenly. He spoke in perfect Spanish.
“Tell me about him.” said Manfred. “Between you and Gonsalez, my dear Poiccart, you have piqued my curiosity.”
“This is an important matter,” said the other earnestly. “Essley is a doctor in a suburb of London. I have had him under observation for some months. He has a small practice—quite a little one—and he attends a few cases. Apparently he does no serious work in his suburb, and his history is a strange one. He was a student at University College, London, and soon after getting his degree left with a youth named Henley for Australia. Henley had been a hopeless failure and had been badly ploughed in his exams., but the two were fast friends, which may account for their going away together to try their luck in a new country. Neither of them had a relation in the world, except Henley, who had a rich uncle settled somewhere in Canada, and whom he had never seen. Arrived in Melbourne, the two started off up country with some idea of making for the new gold diggings, which were in full swing at that time. I don’t know where the diggings were; at any rate, it was three months before Essley arrived—alone, his companion having died on the road!”
“He does not seem to have started practising,” Poiccart went on, “for three or four years. We can trace his wanderings from mining camp to mining camp, where he dug a little, gambled a lot, and was generally known as Dr. S.—probably an abbreviation of Essley. Not until he reached Western Australia did he attempt to establish himself as a doctor. He had some sort of a practice, not a very high-class one, it is true, but certainly lucrative. He disappeared from Coolgardie in 1900; he did not reappear in England until 1908.”
They had reached the Passeo by now. The streets were better filled than they had been when Manfred had followed the beggar.
“I’ve some rooms here,” he said. “Come in and we will have some tea.”
He