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Updated: June 4, 2025
Valentine had travelled with me as far as Milan, while Bindo had taken train, I believe, to Berlin. At Milan my pretty companion had wished me adieu, and a month later I had taken up my residence in Leghorn, and there led an idle life, wondering when I was to hear next from Bindo. Before we parted he gave me a fairly large sum of money, and told me to remain at Leghorn until he joined me.
"Bindo ordered me to say nothing," was his reply. "You ought surely to know by this time that when he has a big thing on he never talks about it. That is, indeed, the secret of his success." "Yes, but in certain circumstances he ought to let me know what is intended, so that I may be forearmed against treachery." "Treachery!" he echoed. "What do you mean?" "What I say.
Come, let's get on again;" and he re-screwed the cap over one of the finest hauls of jewels ever made in modern criminal history. "Well I'm hanged!" I cried, utterly dumbfounded. "But what of Mademoiselle's father?" Bindo merely raised his shoulders and laughed. "Mademoiselle may be left to tell him the truth if she thinks it desirable," he said.
He was dressed as foppishly as usual, and certainly betrayed no evidence that he was a "crook." "Well, Ewart?" he asked. "And how goes things? Who's this old crone we've got in tow? A soft thing, Bindo says." I told him all I knew concerning her, and he appeared to be reassured.
Since my association with Bindo and his friends I had, I admit, become as unscrupulous as they were. Before my engagement as the Count's chauffeur I think I was just as honest as the average man ever is; but there is an old adage which says that you can't touch pitch without being besmirched, and in my case it was, I suppose, only too true.
It was he who idled about the most expensive hotels at Aix, Biarritz, Pau, Rome, or Cairo, and after fixing upon likely jewels displayed by their proud feminine possessors, mostly wives of aristocrats or vulgar financiers, would duly report to Bindo and his friends, and make certain suggestions for obtaining possession of them.
About the same time he made a portrait of that Messer Bindo, which was a very good figure and a beautiful portrait; and this was afterwards sent to his villa of S. Mizzano in the Valdarno, where it still is. He then painted for the Church of S. Francesco a Ripa a very beautiful altar-picture of the Annunciation in oils, which was executed with the greatest diligence.
All day I had been on the look-out to see either Bindo or his companions, but they were evidently in hiding. When I returned, just in time to dress for dinner, I asked Valentine what progress her lover was making, but she merely replied "Slow very slow. But in things of this magnitude one must have patience.
Their reason for this reticence was that they believed I might show the white feather. They could not yet rely upon my audacity or courage. Within a week Bindo was the most popular man in the house-party, the humorist of the dinner-table, and an expert in practical jokes, of which many were being played, one half the party being pitted against the other half, as is so often the case.
It was, however, very apparent that Bindo, the good-looking adventurer, had wormed himself entirely into the Chameleon's good graces. Both he and Halliday escorted the ladies over the ruins, and after tea at the old-fashioned "George," we made a quick and enjoyable run home in the sunset by way of Eye, Peterborough, Castor, and Wansford.
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