Part 10

She tried not to stammer as she said: “I can’t help it. Julian’s after you. He’s out to kill. He hates you once and he hates you twice because he thinks I’m in love with you. I don’t know why. He’s just mad jealous. I know Julian. And they’ll never catch him. Never. The fool police! I just thought I’d warn you. Go away, please go away--out of London. I feel if you die it will be my fault. He’ll throw you if you don’t go away. I know Julian. You’ll be walking up Piccadilly one evening, this evening perhaps. Suddenly, swish, knife in your back. No one will know who threw it, in the crowd. He could throw it from the top of a ’bus and no one notice. He never misses.”

I said: “So, Manana, he thinks you love me. Why does he think that?”

She wasn’t blushing now. She was quite calm now. She had never moved from the open door. Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine. They shone like anything in that white face. She just said: “Now I’ve warned you, I must go back. He will miss me. I’m glad I warned you. I think you must be a good man. Good-bye. But go away, please go away at once! Good-bye.”

I couldn’t stop her by touching her, else she would have got scared. I just told her not to go back East. We were going to raid Julian Raphael’s place that night.

“You came to warn me,” I said, “but I was just coming to warn you. My friend and I don’t want you to go to prison, Manana. You had better stay away from there for the present. I can find you somewhere to stay to-night, if you like. You can trust me.”

She opened her eyes very wide, but all she said was: “I must go back at once.”

I began to protest, but she went on tonelessly: “You don’t understand. I came to warn you because you are a good man. You are, aren’t you? I’m sorry I was led into laughing at you that night. He pinched my arm when I didn’t laugh. But I must stand by Julian. He is my man, good or bad. You see? He has been kind to me in his way. He loves me. I must go back to him at once. If you make me promise not to tell him about the police, I won’t. I won’t tell him anyway, I think. He must go to prison. It is time, because he will do more murders. I hate murders. But I will go with him to prison. And that will make it all right between Julian and me. Good-bye.”

It was good-bye. I knew it was no use arguing. With some women one doesn’t know when it’s any good or not, with a few one does. They’re the ones who count. I could hold her by force, of course--for her own good. Dear God, the lies we can tell ourselves! If I held her by force from going back to Julian Raphael it would not have been so much for her own good as for mine. I hated her going, I wanted her. But she must do as she thought right. Everyone must always, in spite of everything. I’m glad I’ve never married, Hilary, I would have made a mess of it just by always seeing my wife’s point of view.

I saw Manana downstairs to the door. It was raining the deuce, and the difference between twilight and night was about the same as that between a man of colour and a nigger. Manana and I stood close together in the open doorway. It was good-bye. I said: “Perhaps they will let you off. I will do my best. Come to me for help later on. Good-bye, Manana. Thank you.”

She smiled. The first and last smile I ever saw light that face. “I must never see you again,” she said, and then the laughter of Julian Raphael tore the smile from her face.

My rooms, as you know, are in Curzon Street: at the rather grubby end where Curzon Street, as though finally realising that it is deprived of the residential support of the noble family of that name, slopes helplessly down to a slit in a grey wall called Lansdowne Passage. I don’t know if you ever have occasion to go through there. When it is dark in London it is darker in Lansdowne Passage. It leads, between Lansdowne House and the wreck of Devonshire House, to Berkeley Street. There is a vertical iron bar up the middle of each opening, which I’m told were originally put there to prevent highwaymen making a dash through the Passage to the open country round Knightsbridge. Against that vertical iron bar leant Julian Raphael. I remember he had a pink shirt on. Our young dandy always showed a stretch of cuff. Between us and him there was one of those very tall silver-grey lamp-posts. You could see him round the edge of it, a black lean lounging shape. And that pink shirt.

“Manana, I followed you!” he cried. And he laughed.

The girl whispered frantically to me: “Get in, get in, get in!”

I said “What?” like a fool. She tried to push me inside the doorway. I was looking at her, not at Julian Raphael. I didn’t understand. There was a scream from the twilight: “Mind out, Manana!” Manana jumped in front of me. That’s all.

I held her as she fell backward. She just sighed.

“Manana!” the voice screamed again. Oh, in terror! The knife was up to the hilt in her throat.

I think I lost my head completely for the first time in my life. I made a dash towards the figure in the opening of Lansdowne Passage. He didn’t move, didn’t even see me coming. He was sobbing like a baby. Then I changed my mind and rushed back to Manana. Lay a flower on a pavement in the rain, and you have Manana as I last saw her. Her eyelids fluttered once or twice. The rain was washing the blood from her throat into the gutter. My man had come down and was doing his best. I looked through the twilight at the crumpled black figure against the iron bar.

“She’s dead, Raphael!” I called, whispering to my man: “Go get him!”

He did his best, poor devil. Raphael yelled: “Yes, for you! And I’ll never throw but one more knife--but I’ll do that if I have to come back from hell to do it!” He was gone, through Lansdowne Passage. My wretched man hadn’t a chance. That night and for days there wasn’t a port in England that H---- left unwatched for Julian Raphael. But, as in the story-books, he has never been seen or heard of again. H---- has an idea he is somewhere in the Americas.

But it’s not quite true (the Admiral added) that Julian Raphael has never been seen or heard of again. I have seen him and heard him, quite lately--in a sort of way. Of course, it can be no more than a trick of the imagination. He has probably been more on my mind recently than I had realised. But the illusion is quite definitely vivid and unpleasant. And I can tell you it gets rather on a man’s nerves, this comic talk of knives on Piccadilly. Imagination, Hilary, can play us queer dark tricks sometimes. And it’s no good trying to explain them with spirit talk. The mind is a dark place and we don’t know what’s in the sky and that’s all there is to it.

* * * * *

Mr. Townshend had listened gravely. A grey man, of the type conscientiously sad, Mr. Townshend found no aspect of this our life on earth which was not a proper occasion for the exercise of gravity, command of temper and forbearance. He therefore forbore to make any comment on his friend’s tale, but merely remarked:

“You ought not to stay in London, Charles. An unhealthy place, at best. Why not come down to Magralt with me to-morrow? Guy de Travest is coming. There’s some fishing. Not much, and that little is poor, but you can always smoke in peace.”

Sir Charles laughed. “You talk like Manana! But, anyhow, I am due at Portsmouth the day after to-morrow. No, no, I’ll see my time out in London. I’ve been in most corners of the world, Hilary, and never found romance but in London.”

“Hm!” said Mr. Townshend thoughtfully. “You have an odd idea of romance, Charles. Romance! And I don’t, as a general rule, believe in apparitions. Hm! Have you rung up H---- to tell him of the reappearance of this remarkably unpleasant youth?”

“And he laughed me to scorn! Was ready, in fact, to lay a pony against Raphael’s being within a thousand miles of London or England.”

“You never know,” said Mr. Townshend thoughtfully.

“Never know what, Hilary?”

“Where you are,” said Mr. Townshend thoughtfully. “With Jews.”

It was on the night following this conversation that the Admiral, on emerging from the Celibates Club, made an astonishing suggestion to Hunt the commissionaire.

“Hunt,” says Sir Charles, “do you mind walking with me down to the Piccadilly corner? I will know then that I am actually moving and not just standing here and thinking I’m moving. You see my point, Hunt?”

“Certainly, Sir Charles. I quite understand.”

“I’m glad someone does!” sighed our gentleman.

The commissionaire with the lined face, whose own antipathy to wine in his youth had not been insuperable, could sympathise with the Admiral’s probable condition, while admiring the correct address with which, as became a gentleman of the sea, he bore his suffering.

“See any Jews about, Hunt?” the Admiral asked as they came to the Piccadilly corner.

“Not definitely, Sir Charles. But a couple of Rolls-Royces have just passed. Good-night, Sir Charles.”

“Good-night, Hunt.”

Those were the last words the ancient commissionaire was ever to hear from his good friend the Admiral. For as Sir Charles made to cross Piccadilly from Albemarle Street to St. James’s Street he heard that “whizz” behind him. He had been expecting it, but it startled him. He half-turned and jumped sideways, colliding with the bonnet of a fast-moving car.

There was a terrific din about him as he raised himself to his hands and knees. It deafened him, the din of engines and voices. Many voices seemed to be arguing. Then, as he rose to his feet, the din happily receded. There was silence, but the silence of a pleasant voice. He walked on to St. James’s Street, glad things had been no worse. Then he saw the face of Julian Raphael. It was just in front of him, smiling. He was holding out his hand to Sir Charles, smiling. He was beautiful. Behind his shoulder was Manana. She was laughing at Sir Charles’s bewilderment. Then, as he stared at them, they pointed over his shoulder. They were still laughing. Behind him, in the middle of Piccadilly, there was a great crowd around a large motor-car and a prostrate figure that looked oddly like a dingy travesty of himself. That is how it was, but still he did not understand. Julian Raphael and Manana laughed at him and each took him by an arm and walked with him down the slope of St. James’s Street. There was a valley at the foot of St. James’s Street, and over the valley a golden cloud as large as a continent. Many people were walking about, looking calm and clean and happy. Manana was still laughing happily.

“Julian died last night in Paris,” she told Sir Charles. “He was just coming over to London to kill you. Isn’t it idiotic? I don’t say he loves you now, but he’s willing to consider an intelligent friendship. Aren’t you, Julian? Death isn’t at all what the Salvation Army thinks, Charles. You’ll be surprised. You’re just yourself, that’s all. Funny you have to die before you’re allowed to be yourself. Oh, look! Look, Charles! Isn’t it beautiful! Charles, let’s walk and walk and walk!”

“Just look at those asses behind!” cried Julian Raphael, shouting with laughter. But now the people at the head of St. James’s Street were very faint, the clear golden air of the sun triumphant was falling between Sir Charles’s eyes and the people grouped round the prostrate figure that looked oddly like a dingy travesty of himself.

“If they only knew,” said Manana gravely, “that living is worth while just because one has to die! Come on, Charles, let’s walk!”

“Here, and me!” cried Julian Raphael.

“Young man,” said the Admiral severely, “you just stay where you are. I have been waiting a long time for this walk with Manana.”

“I’ll follow you. Where are you going to walk to?”

“You can’t follow us, Julian,” laughed Manana. “They won’t let you, yet. Naturally, dear, considering how awful you’ve been. You can have a drink while we’re gone.”

“A drink?” said Sir Charles. “But, good Lord, he can’t have a drink here, can he?”

“But why not?” Manana laughed. “There’s only one hell, dear, and that’s on earth. Come on, come on! We’ll walk towards that golden cloud and back!”

VI. THE THREE-CORNERED MOON

I

The structure, economy and polity of our time do not incline the meek and lowly to a particular regard for persons of condition. Nor is the patronage of princes and the favour of lords solicited to any noticeable degree by the poets and scientists of the day. The most superficial survey of history will discover that the condescension of a gentleman of the _haut ton_ was once regarded as almost an essential of a poet’s success: while the craftsman, was he never so cunning and exquisite, must rely for his fame on the caprice of the young men of fashion, who were, it is to be presumed, not the less generous because they were invariably in debt and had not the worse taste because they were nearly always in wine.

In our generation, however, we have progressed so far in the liberal arts that, should a man of letters so mask himself with the impertinence of fashion as to be remarked at Ascot in clothes which, with a deplorable want of faith in the dignity of letters, have been cut to fit his person, he shall at once be convicted by all really intelligent people of a lack of feeling for all that is genuine in art and literature. That cannot be altogether just. An effeminate manner and unusual habits should not, on the other hand, invariably be taken for sure signs of genius in the mental sciences; and laymen should be warned against regarding soiled linen as an essential of the successful ascent of Parnassus.

In the face of this illiberal attitude towards the upper sort, the popular interest in the young Duke of Mall is the more surprising; and to that gentleman’s familiars and dependents it has for long been a source of gratification to observe how the esteem in which he is held by the people of England is rivalled only by the interest shown in the table-manners of the most famous pugilists and the respect extended to the tireless energies of the most beloved prince in Christendom.

Nor was the young Duke’s greatness unheralded, his birth without good omen: historians the world over will know the legend of the Dukedom of Mall, how it was prophesied by a sibyl of the Restoration that on the birth of the greatest of that house the golden cock on the weather-vane of St. James’s tower would crow thrice, and on his death it would also crow thrice. And only those most steeped in the modern vice of scepticism will disbelieve the unanimous evidence of every club servant in St. James’s Street, that this miracle attended the birth of the seventeenth Duke; while we vulgar lovers of England’s might and enemies to the Socialist tyranny can only pray that the second manifestation of that miracle be averted for the longest span of God’s mercy to the most gallant of His creatures.

There follow, then, some sidelights on the recent life of the young Duke of Mall and his splendid lady. Than these two, history will say, history must say, there never was a more comely pair; for such is the unknowable wisdom of the All-Wise, that opposites will discover the sweetest harmony. The differences referred to are, of course, those of breeding and nationality, for the lady was an American out of Chicago, in the State of Illinois. But to attempt to describe Miss Lamb were to challenge contempt and defy the limitations set by the gods upon human speech. Let it suffice that she was beautiful: the quality of her colour comparable only to that of a garden in tempered sunlight, the texture of her complexion the envy of silkworms, while the glory of her hair has been described by a minor poet as a cap of beaten gold and autumn leaves. As for the lady’s eyes, shall a phrase attempt where a thousand photographs have failed?

The Duke, then, was tender of this lady: he wooed her, was mocked, he entreated, was beguiled, he pleaded, was provoked, he stormed, was dismissed, he worshipped, was accepted. The wedding paralysed the traffic of London for several hours and the newspapers of England and America for several days. The happy pair spent their honeymoon at the Trianon at Versailles, lent to the young Duke by the French Government in recognition of his gallant services as a _liaison_ officer during the war.

It should be noted that the wedding-present of the bride’s father to the young Duke was an ocean-going yacht of gratifying tonnage. White and graceful, the yacht _Camelot_ rode the seas like a bird. The Duke, who liked birds, was very impressed.

II

That, however, was some time ago. Now, alas, not the most kindly observer of society can but have remarked that the recent life of the young Duke and his Duchess has been as conspicuous for its private dolour as for its public splendour. There have been rumours, there has been chatter. This has been said, and that, and the other. Gossip, in fact, has been rife. But it is the austere part of the historian to deal only in facts. The facts are as follows:

South of the lands of the old troubadours, between the heights of the Southern Alps and the languor of the Mediterranean, lies the pretty town of Cannes. The year we tell of was in its first youth. The flower and chivalry of England and America were promenading in the sunlight of the pretty town or commenting at their ease on the brilliant tourneys of tennis and polo. Here and there about the links the sun lit up the brilliant Fair Isle sweaters of Jews, Greeks and Argentines where they were playing a friendly match for the empiry of the world. The mimosa was at its full glory of fresh-powdered gold. Brilliant sun-shades lit the walks. From the gardens of white villas could be heard the laughter of children and millionaires. The beach was strewn with jewels, and ladies walked in beauty. Great automobiles loitered between the Casino and the Carlton Hotel, while youth in swift Bugatti or Bentley challenged time to a race from Cannes to Monte Carlo. The waters slept profoundly in the full kiss of the afternoon sun. There, as a dove on a spacious lawn, rode a fair white yacht. From its stern hung a cluster of golden cherries, for such was the pretty nautical device of the young Duke of Mall.

It must be granted by the most fastidious that the scene was set for enchantment. The sea slept under the sun, the sun upon the mountains, the chauffeurs at their driving-wheels, the _croupiers_ in the Casino, the diplomats at a conference, the _demi-mondaines_ near the diplomats. Yet in the yacht raged a storm: the Duke of Mall was having a row with his lady.

It will be incredible that it was not their first. It must be incredible that it looked like being their last. At the moment of our intrusion, my Lord Duke, in point of fact, was saying:

“By Heaven, Leonora, I am sick and tired of it!”

That small, lovely head, those wide, deep, gentle eyes! Yet stern Juno herself did sometimes walk the earth in those very eyes. She was not more than twenty-four, this lady, yet with what proud calm and disdain she could at one glance enwrap her husband! Not, however, that it always advantaged her case, for sometimes it might be he was too sleepy to notice or maybe he would be too busily engaged in disdaining her, which on occasions he could do very handsomely.

Gently said she: “You say you are sick and tired of ‘it.’ ‘It,’ my dear, my well-beloved? Am I, by ‘it,’ to understand that you mean me?”

The young Duke pointed his indifference with the application of a match to a rough surface and the application of the match to a cigar. “You may,” said he, “understand what you like. I said what I said.”

Tenderness was never yet so fitly clothed as by this lady’s voice. “Shall I, then,” said she, “tell you _all_ that I understand by what you said?”

The Duke need not have waved a hand skyward, need not have smiled, have yawned, and said: “Am I God, to stop you talking! But maybe it is not necessary for me to add that I wish I were, if only for that purpose.”

The Duchess said: “However, I will not be provoked. It is too hot. I will content myself merely with remarking that in my considered opinion the ancient Dukedom of Mall does at present grace one with the manners of a boor and the habits of a stable-boy.”

“Leonora, you go too far!”

She sighed: “Dear, had I, before marrying you, gone even a little further, how much more comfortably I had fared!”

For as long as it takes to say a forbidden word of one syllable the young Duke’s fair features wore the air of a battlefield: thereon anger fought with apathy: but was, by the grace of God and a public-school education, repulsed.

“Not, mind you,” said the Duchess, “that I can blame the pretty dolls whom you encourage to pursue you under my very nose.”

The Duke remarked that she had a very beautiful nose, a very small nose.

The Duchess thanked him.

“But,” said the Duke, “by the number of things which you accuse me of doing under it, any one would think it cast as long a shadow as Lord Nelson’s column. For the sake of your own beauty,” he pleaded earnestly, “may I beg you to leave your nose, much as I admire it, out of my supposed infidelities?”

The Duchess remarked that she could quite well understand why women pursued him with their attentions. Yet, as she spoke, no spark of bitterness pointed her low light voice, no trace of jealousy marred her urbanity. She remarked that he was very rich. His rank was second only to his King’s. He was very handsome. He was charming.

The Duke thanked her.

“However,” said the Duchess.

“Ah, that’s not too good,” sighed the Duke. “I knew there was a catch somewhere.”

“However,” said the Duchess, “the beauty that you most admire in any woman is the beauty of her not being a woman you already know: the only charm of which you never are tired is the charm of novelty.”

“One likes a change,” sighed the Duke. “If that’s what you are talking about.”

“It certainly is,” said the Duchess.

“Well, don’t let me hinder you,” said the Duke. He was rude. “I am all attention. But should I interrupt you, sweet, you must forgive me, for I am apt to talk in my sleep.”

“Oh, but haven’t I made quite a collection of names like Dolly and Lucy and Maudie!”

The Duke said one word. It expressed all the volumes that could be written by the men who, alas, cannot write. But the Duchess had now been in England for four years and knew that the facility with which an Englishman can swear at his wife does not detract in the least from his deep respect for Womanhood, else would England be what England undoubtedly is?

She said: “Maximilian, I want to tell you that you are a _most_ extraordinary man. In public, for instance, you are all that is charming; and many who know of our private disagreements can’t but think the fault is mine, since in public you are so very _right_ and seem never for a moment deficient in the manners, graces and consideration proper to a great gentleman.”

The Duke expressed a hope that she would put that down in writing, so that he could send it as a reference to any lady, or ladies, to whom he might be paying his suit, or suits.

“However,” said the Duchess, “when we come to examine you in the home, what a different picture do we find! Your manners are monstrous, your graces those of a spoilt schoolboy, while your consideration for your wife such that, far from concealing from me your preference for the company of low women, you will actually,” said she, “bring them on board this yacht and make love to them under my very----”

The Duke, he sighed.

“In,” snapped the Duchess, “my company. And now,” she added calmly, “I will say good-bye.”

“Child,” said the Duke softly, “must you go? Must you really? Can’t I tempt you to stay? Very well, then,” said he, “good-bye.”

“Captain Tupper!” the Duchess called.

“Captain Tupper,” the Duchess said, “I am going ashore. You will please see to it at once. I think my maid has everything packed. Thank you.”

The Duke opened his eyes. It was an effort, for he was sleepy.