“You go back a long way back, my Colonel.”
“I go back so damn far back that it isn’t funny.”
“Do you remember everything from the old days?”
“Everything,” the Colonel said. “Carroll was the man’s name.”
“I have heard of him.”
“You weren’t born then.”
“Do you think it is necessary to have been born at the time to know about things that have happened in this town, my Colonel?”
“You’re perfectly correct. Tell me, does everybody always know about everything that happens in this town?”
“Not everybody. But nearly everybody,” the waiter said. “After all, sheets are sheets and some one has to change them, and some one has to wash them. Naturally I do not refer to the sheets in a hotel such as this.”
“I’ve had some damn good times in my life without sheets.”
“Naturally. But the gondoliers, while they are the most cooperative and, for me, the finest people that we have, speak among themselves.”
“Naturally.”
“Then the clergy. While they would never violate the secrecy of the confessional, talk among themselves.”
“It is to be expected.”
“Their housekeepers talk among themselves.”
“It is their right.”
“Then the waiters,” Arnaldo said. “People talk at a table as though the waiter were stone-deaf. The waiter, according to his ethics, makes no attempt to ever overhear a conversation. But sometimes he cannot escape from hearing. Naturally, we have our own conversations among ourselves. Never in this hotel of course. I could go on.”
“I believe I get the point.”
“Not to mention the coiffeurs and the hair-dressers.”
“And what’s the news from the Rialto now?”
“You will get it all at Harry’s except the part you figure in.”
“Do I figure?”
“Everyone knows everything.”
“Well, it’s a damn pleasant story.”
“Some people don’t understand the Torcello part.”
“I’m damned if I do sometimes myself.”
“How old are you, my Colonel, if it is not indiscreet to ask?”
“Fifty plus one. Why didn’t you find out from the concierge? I fill out a slip there for the Questura.”
“I wanted to hear it from you yourself and to congratulate you.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Let me congratulate you anyway.”
“I can’t accept it.”
“You are very well liked in this city.”
“Thank you. That is a very great compliment.”
Just then the telephone buzzed.
“I’ll take it,” the Colonel said and heard Ettore’s voice say, “Who speaks?”
“Colonel Cantwell.”
“The position has fallen, my Colonel.”
“Which way did they go?”
“Toward the Piazza.”
“Good. I will be there at once.”
“Do you want a table?”
“In the corner,” said the Colonel and hung up.
“I am off for Harry’s.”
“Good hunting.”
“I hunt ducks day after tomorrow before first light in a botte in the marshes.”
“It will be cold, too.”
“I dare say,” the Colonel said and put on his trench coat and looked at his face in the glass of the long mirror as he put on his cap.
“An ugly face,” he said to the glass. “Did you ever see a more ugly face?”
“Yes,” said Arnaldo. “Mine. Every morning when I shave.”
“We both ought to shave in the dark,” the Colonel told him, and went out the door.
CHAPTER IX
AS Colonel Cantwell stepped out of the door of the Gritti Palace Hotel he came out into the last sunlight of that day. There was still sunlight on the opposite side of the Square but the gondoliers preferred to be sheltered from the cold wind by lounging in the lee of the Gritti, than to use the last remaining heat of the sun on the wind-swept side of the Square.
After noting this, the Colonel turned to the right and walked along the Square to the paved street which turned off on the right. As he turned, he stopped for a moment and looked at the church of Santa Maria del Giglio.
What a fine, compact and, yet, ready to be air-borne building, he thought. I never realized a small church could look like a P47. Must find out when it was built, and who built it. Damn, I wish I might walk around this town all my life. All my life, he thought. What a gag that is. A gag to gag on. A throttle to throttle you with. Come on, boy, he said to himself. No horse named Morbid ever won a race.