The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (best book club books .TXT) 📕

of the dome of Saint Peter’s, which may be seen long before any other object is distinguishable. No, he merely drew a pocketbook from his pocket, and took from it a paper folded in four, and after having examined it in a manner almost reverential, he said:

“Good! I have it still!”

The carriage entered by the Porta del Popolo, turned to the left, and stopped at the Hôtel d’Espagne. Old Pastrini, our former acquaintance, received the traveller at the door, hat in hand. The traveller alighted, ordered a good dinner, and inquired the address of the house of Thomson & French, which was immediately given to him, as it was one of the most celebrated in Rome. It was situated in the Via dei Banchi, near St. Peter’s.

In Rome, as everywhere else, the arrival of a post-chaise is an event. Ten young descendants of Marius and the Gracchi, barefooted and out at elbows, with one hand resting on the hip and the other gracefully curved above the head, stared at the traveller, the post-chaise, and the horses; to these were added about fifty little vagabonds from the Papal States, who earned a pittance by diving into the Tiber at high water from the bridge of St. Angelo. Now, as these street Arabs of Rome, more fortunate than those of Paris, understand every language, more especially the French, they heard the traveller order an apartment, a dinner, and finally inquire the way to the house of Thomson & French.

The result was that when the newcomer left the hotel with the cicerone, a man detached himself from the rest of the idlers, and without having been seen by the traveller, and appearing to excite no attention from the guide, followed the stranger with as much skill as a Parisian police agent would have used.

The Frenchman had been so impatient to reach the house of Thomson & French that he would not wait for the horses to be harnessed, but left word for the carriage to overtake him on the road, or to wait for him at the bankers’ door. He reached it before the carriage arrived. The Frenchman entered, leaving in the anteroom his guide, who immediately entered into conversation with two or three of the industrious idlers who are always to be found in Rome at the doors of banking-houses, churches, museums, or theatres. With the Frenchman, the man who had followed him entered too; the Frenchman knocked at the inner door, and entered the first room; his shadow did the same.

“Messrs. Thomson & French?” inquired the stranger.

An attendant arose at a sign from a confidential clerk at the first desk.

“Whom shall I announce?” said the attendant.

“Baron Danglars.”

“Follow me,” said the man.

A door opened, through which the attendant and the baron disappeared. The man who had followed Danglars sat down on a bench. The clerk continued to write for the next five minutes; the man preserved profound silence, and remained perfectly motionless. Then the pen of the clerk ceased to move over the paper; he raised his head, and appearing to be perfectly sure of privacy:

“Ah, ha,” he said, “here you are, Peppino!”

“Yes,” was the laconic reply. “You have found out that there is something worth having about this large gentleman?”

“There is no great merit due to me, for we were informed of it.”

“You know his business here, then.”

“Pardieu, he has come to draw, but I don’t know how much!”

“You will know presently, my friend.”

“Very well, only do not give me false information as you did the other day.”

“What do you mean?⁠—of whom do you speak? Was it the Englishman who carried off 3,000 crowns from here the other day?”

“No; he really had 3,000 crowns, and we found them. I mean the Russian prince, who you said had 30,000 livres, and we only found 22,000.”

“You must have searched badly.”

“Luigi Vampa himself searched.”

“In that case he must either have paid his debts⁠—”

“A Russian do that?”

“Or spent the money?”

“Possibly, after all.”

“Certainly. But you must let me make my observations, or the Frenchman will transact his business without my knowing the sum.”

Peppino nodded, and taking a rosary from his pocket began to mutter a few prayers while the clerk disappeared through the same door by which Danglars and the attendant had gone out. At the expiration of ten minutes the clerk returned with a beaming countenance.

“Well?” asked Peppino of his friend.

“Joy, joy⁠—the sum is large!”

“Five or six millions, is it not?”

“Yes, you know the amount.”

“On the receipt of the Count of Monte Cristo?”

“Why, how came you to be so well acquainted with all this?”

“I told you we were informed beforehand.”

“Then why do you apply to me?”

“That I may be sure I have the right man.”

“Yes, it is indeed he. Five millions⁠—a pretty sum, eh, Peppino?”

“Hush⁠—here is our man!” The clerk seized his pen, and Peppino his beads; one was writing and the other praying when the door opened. Danglars looked radiant with joy; the banker accompanied him to the door. Peppino followed Danglars.

According to the arrangements, the carriage was waiting at the door. The guide held the door open. Guides are useful people, who will turn their hands to anything. Danglars leaped into the carriage like a young man of twenty. The cicerone reclosed the door, and sprang up by the side of the coachman. Peppino mounted the seat behind.

“Will your excellency visit Saint Peter’s?” asked the cicerone.

“I did not come to Rome to see,” said Danglars aloud; then he added softly, with an avaricious smile, “I came to touch!” and he rapped his pocketbook, in which he had just placed a letter.

“Then your excellency is going⁠—”

“To the hotel.”

“Casa Pastrini!” said the cicerone to the coachman, and the carriage drove rapidly on.

Ten minutes afterwards the baron entered his apartment, and Peppino stationed himself on the bench outside the door of the hotel, after having whispered something in the ear of one of the descendants of Marius and the Gracchi whom we noticed at the beginning of the chapter, who immediately ran down the road leading to the Capitol at