Sir,
I am the man who drove the carriage to Lisbon in the so-called Mystery of the Sintra Road that has recently come to public notice through the letters of Doctor ***. With my black satin mask, I am now a familiar figure to all those who may have been following the doctor’s extraordinary revelations, in which he describes me as ‘the tall masked man’. I am he. I never imagined that I would find myself in the deplorable situation of having to write to your newspaper in order to give my side of the story. However, on reading the trumped-up, illogical and inaccurate accusations levelled at the doctor and at me, I owe it both to myself and to my regard for the doctor’s unassailable probity, to clear up all these contradictory hypotheses and unfounded speculations and place before you the whole implacable, indisputable truth. I was initially deterred from doing so by the strongest scruple any proud man can have: I would have to speak of a woman and drag through the pages of a newspaper the thing that is truest and deepest in any woman: the story of her heart. Today, I am no longer under that constraint, for on my desk, beside the sheet of paper on which I am writing, I have this simple, noble note:
I saw the accusations levelled at you and your friends and at the worthy Doctor ***. Write the truth, print it in the newspapers. Disguise my name by using a false initial. I no longer belong to the world or to its theories and judgements. If you do not do this, I will hand myself over to the police.
However, despite these fine, sincere words, I have made up my mind not to speak of the crime, but to describe only the events that brought me into contact with that unfortunate young man – now tragically dead – the events that led to his presence in Lisbon and determined what happened in the lonely room of that strange house, by the feeble light of a candle and beside a vase of withered flowers. I leave it to others to tell what took place that night. I will not. I do not wish to hear paperboys shouting out the painful, heartfelt story of someone I esteem.
Three years ago, I spent much of my time in Lisbon at a house where a place was always set for me at table, where I could always find partners for a game of whist and where I could speak gaily of my joys and confide my woes; that house belonged to a nobleman whom I shall refer to as the ‘Count of W.’ The countess was my cousin.
She was a singularly attractive woman, not pretty, no, worse than that: she had charm. She had admirably thick, fair hair, and when it was plaited and curled, it gleamed soft and golden, like a nest of light. If you were to take a single strand and stretch it out like a violin string, it would glow as brightly as if you were holding in your hands a thread taken from the very heart of the sun.
Her eyes were a deep Mediterranean blue and, at once, so imperious they could quell the most rebellious spirit and so tender and mysterious that any man might dream of drowning in them.
She was tall enough to be commanding, but not so tall that she could not rest her head upon the breast of he who loved her. She moved with the same rhythmic, swaying gait with which one imagines mermaids swimming.
And she was, besides, utterly without pretension and full of wit.
It would be an act of foolish pride to say that my eyes never rested amorously on the flawless purity of her brow or on the curve of her breast, for when I first began visiting that house, I did harbour vague feelings of love – a genteel fantasy, an ethereal desire – for that dear creature. Once, I even told her so; she laughed and I laughed too, and we solemnly shook hands. That night we played écarté, and afterwards she drew a caricature of me on a sheet of paper. From then on, we were friends, and I never again noticed her beauty, happy to consider her merely as one of the chaps. I told her all about my love affairs, my debts, my sorrows, and she listened sympathetically and always had just the right, consoling words to say. Later, she would confide in me about her nerves, her bouts of melancholy.
‘I have a fit of the blue devils today,’ she would say, using the English expression.
So we would sit by the fireside, drink tea and talk. She was weary of her husband. He was a cold man, she said, vulgar and dissolute, narrow-minded, cowardly and morally lax. His mistresses were common and uncouth, he was an inveterate pipe-smoker, spat on the floor, and could barely spell. Yet his defects were somehow unexceptional and went almost unremarked. An astonished Lord Grenley once said of him:
‘What a strange man! He’s an unattractive dolt, who can’t ride or spell, has no dress sense at all, and yet he’s not an unpleasant fellow.’
The refined and aristocratic countess concealed her aversion for this trivial, boring person. He, on the other hand, held her in high regard. He gave her jewellery and sometimes brought her a bouquet of flowers, but he did all this in the same casual manner with which he drove his dogcart.
The count took a great shine to me, thought me the kindest, cleverest and bravest of men, attached himself proudly to my arm, quoted me, recounted my bold deeds, and imitated me in my choice of cravats.
The countess began to grow pale and thin. The doctors recommended a voyage to Nice, Cádiz, Naples, or some other Mediterranean city. A family friend who had just returned from India, where he had been Secretary-General, spoke enthusiastically of Malta. The mail boat from India had run into difficulties, and he had been delayed for five days in Malta, where he had enjoyed the streets, the beauty of the bay, the heroic architecture of its palaces, and the brazen, lively Maltese women with their large Moorish eyes.
‘How do you fancy going to Malta?’ the count asked his wife one night.
‘I’ll happily go anywhere, but I do, for some reason, feel very drawn to Malta. Yes, let’s go to Malta. You could come too, cousin.’
‘Of course he’ll come!’ bellowed the count.
And he vowed that he would not make the trip without me; I was his chess partner, his sole source of happiness, his discoverer of cravats; he would shanghai me and make me his heir.
I gave in. The countess was delighted at the prospect. She hoped there would be a storm; she wanted to go on afterwards to Greece, to Alexandria, to drink the water of the Nile. She declared that we would have to hunt jackals, go to Mecca in disguise and a thousand other such hare-brained schemes that made us all laugh.
In Lisbon we boarded a French steamer for Gibraltar, where we would catch the British mail boat to India.
As we passed Cape St Vincent, a magnificent moon was rising behind it, lending a dark severity to the rugged silhouette of that famous promontory and casting upon the rough sea a vast, luminous net. The countess was sitting in a wicker armchair on the poop deck, her head drooping, her eyes closed, her hands still, a look of contentment on her face and in her posture too.
‘Do you know,’ she said suddenly in a slow, quiet voice, ‘I have such a feeling of happy plenitude, of desires fulfilled…’ Then more quietly:
‘…and somehow a feeling of love, too. How do you explain that?’
The count was asleep; we were alone on the high seas, in the calm moonlight, beneath which the slowly swelling waves resembled a sighing breast. I could already feel the magnetic heat of Africa. I took her hands in mine and whispered:
‘You look very lovely, you know!’
‘Oh cousin!’she said, laughing. ‘Don’t be so silly! We’re old friends. But that’s what comes from being alone with someone on a moonlit night and mentioning the word “love”! Ah, my friend, you must believe that, inexplicable as it may seem, the love I spoke of was not for you, thank heavens, but for someone I don’t even know, whom I haven’t yet met, but whom I might perhaps meet. You see? It was like a premonition… that’s what it was. Goodness me, how treacherous the moonlight is, and at my age too!’
I was about to respond and make a joke of it all. A light shone in the distance through the night mist. The ship’s captain came over to us.
‘Do you recognise that light?’ he asked.
‘I’ve never travelled on this sea before, captain,’ I replied.
‘You’re Portuguese, aren’t you? Well that is the lighthouse at Ceuta.’
It was a humble, melancholy light, and neither of us had any interest in Ceuta. A few minutes later, we went down to our respective cabins. I was surprised at the countess. She had never opened her heart to me in that way before. She was in that dangerous mood when love can take complete possession of a life.
What would happen if, one night, beneath just such a moon, a noble, strong, handsome man were to kneel before her and swear undying love to her?
The following morning, the Rock of Gibraltar hove into view. We went ashore. In a square at the entrance to the docks, some red-coated English soldiers were marching up and down to Offenbach’s ‘Air du Général Boum’.
‘I loathe the English,’ said the countess.
‘What!’ cried the count indignantly. ‘You loathe the English?’
He turned to me, looking profoundly shocked and dismayed.
‘Do you hear that, boy, she loathes the English!’