Free The Marquis of Bolibar by Leo Perutz Page B

his hands, half incensed, half abashed, with the look of one who has swallowed mouse dirt instead of aniseed candy.
    "Señores," he said, "there are nights when we, too, like to tear a bed-sheet other than our own."
    One could see, as he looked at our laughing faces, what an effort it cost him to master his annoyance.
    "There are women in our town far lovelier than the ladies who lean at night against the pillars of the colonnades in the Palais Royal," he proclaimed, clearly as proud of the fact that his town vaunted such beauties as he was of having travelled so far afield. He was almost as much at home in Paris, he implied, as he was in La Bisbal.
    "I've yet to see many choice morsels in your streets," Eglofstein said scornfully.
    "Coarse bran, coarse bran!" the alcalde exclaimed. "What you have hitherto seen, se ñ or, is fit only for the likes of us. For officers and gentlemen such as you, I know of some fine white flour." He shut his eyes and smacked his lips, chuckling.
    "White flour indeed!" sneered Donop. "White lead, more like. The women smear their wrinkled cheeks with it, and underneath they look like unshaven ox-hide — I know that trick of old."
    "Shame on you, señor!" said the alcalde, looking affronted. "If you once set eyes on the girl I have in mind, you would find neither white lead nor any other substance on her cheeks. Monjita is barely eighteen years old, but the menfolk are after her like meadow frogs after a red rag."
    "Here with her, then!" yelled Brockendorf from his corner, wide awake in a trice on hearing all this talk of women. "Eighteen, eh? That fires my blood like water on unslaked lime."
    "Who is this Monjita?" Eglofstein asked disdainfully. "A tailor's daughter? A wig-maker's trollop?"
    "Her father, señor, is a nobleman - one of those that are respected by all as persons of quality, yet are so poor that they don't possess an undarned shirt to their name. Times are hard, and he cannot afford to pay his rent and taxes. He will esteem it a great honour if Your Excellencies find his daughter worthy of their attention."
    "What trade does he follow?" Donop inquired. "If it puts no bread on his table, why doesn't he abandon it?"
    "He paints pictures," the alcalde explained, "— pictures of emperors and kings, prophets and apostles, which he hawks at the church door by day and in taverns by night. He's exceedingly skilful — he can paint everything, man and beast alike. St Rochus he depicts with a dog, St Nicasius with a mouse, and Paul the Hermit with a raven."
    "And his daughter?" asked Günther. "She may well be no older than seventeen, but the girls hereabouts are like our German bagpipes at that age: they squeal if you so much as touch them."
    "His daughter," said the alcalde, "is well-disposed toward Your Excellencies."
    "Then allons, forward! What are we waiting for?" Brockendorf cried eagerly. "I yearn to stew in her little cook-pot."
    "But not tonight," the alcalde objected, with an uneasy glance at the tipsy Brockendorf. "Another time, señores — perhaps tomorrow after dinner. Señor Don Ramon de Alacho will already be asleep at this late hour. For now, I think it would be better if we all retired to bed."
    "Have you done?" Eglofstein barked at him. "Yes? Then say no more until you're spoken to. Forward! Take the light and lead on!" He turned to the captain of the Horse Guards, who was pacing restlessly up and down the room. "Will you not come with us, Salignac?"
    "I'm waiting for my servant, Baron. He's gone, though I ordered him to stay. Can you tell me where he went?"
    "Comrade," said Eglofstein, putting on his cloak, "you were unfortunate in your choice of a travelling companion. Your servant was a thief — he stole a purse from one of my men this morning. He had it on his person, though the thalers had gone."
    Salignac was not in the least surprised or taken aback.
    "Did you hang him?" he inquired without looking round.
    "Wrong, comrade! We shot him outside in the courtyard. The