Part 4

His great grand-uncle, Edmond, is a favourite source of anecdote; but the impression left upon my mind is that a more truculent, bloodthirsty swashbuckler never breathed God’s air.)

“I am very delighted to have met you, Captain O’Hagan,” said the press agent, whose name was Alex. Dewson. “I would like to put up a proposition right now!”

O’Hagan fumbled, impressively, for the broad black ribbon upon which depends his monocle. He raised the glass, and, holding it at some little distance from his right eye, surveyed the speaker. O’Hagan’s right eye, magnified by the pebble, can show, on occasions, as a large grey orb of intolerance.

“You interest me, Mr. Dewson.”

“I’ll interest you some more yet, sir!” declared Dewson, with cheery confidence. “It’s likely you’ll have heard of a little author called Ronald Brandon?”

He spoke the words waggishly; as one might say: “You may have heard a little Stratford fellow, called Shakespeare, mentioned?”—or, “You’ve perhaps seen the name of a rather likely figure painter, known as Michelangelo?”

In point of fact, Ronald Brandon really _was_ a “little” author; and, as it happened, O’Hagan never had heard of him. He has never heard of _any_ modern fictionists; he regards them _all_ with immeasurable contempt. Mr. Dewson’s question was purely a rhetoric question, however, and he proceeded without pausing for a reply:

“His new book (it’ll break all the windows) is ‘Jules Sanquin, Duellist.’ He’s placed his press work in my hands, and I’ve been looking for an introduction to you, Captain, for over a week! I can put up a proposition to net you a pile!”

“Indeed!” said O’Hagan, icily.

(“Such people as Dewson,” he has confided to me, “are calculated to bring disgrace upon a national character. He was the type of man who would have sought an audience with His Holiness the Pope, and ‘put up a proposition’ to boom St. Peter’s.”)

“My client, as you’ll know,” continued the irrepressible press agent, “is top-hole as a swordsman. Took out the team a year ago that beat the Frenchmen.”

Captain O’Hagan stared.

“They tell me _you’re_ pretty handy,” resumed Dewson; “so here’s the goods in a nutshell: I’ll send down a shorthand-typist to your chambers to take a few notes; put a sound man to work; and in a week or a fortnight ‘My Affaires of Honour and Gallantry, by Captain the Hon. Bernard O’Hagan,’ will be in the press! I can promise you an _advance_ of £500, my dear sir! Meanwhile, you insult Brandon, and meet him with rapiers on the French coast—press, cinema men, etc., in attendance. Out comes ‘Jules Sanquin, Duellist’—five editions subscribed. Out comes ‘My Affaires of Honour and Gallantry’—libraries gasping! How d’you like the title? _Affaires_—see? French. Get the literary flavour right on the cover! How d’you like the proposition?”

The intolerant grey eye scrutinized the brogues upon Mr. Dewson’s feet and rose by gradations to the Stetson felt adorning the apex of his commercial brain.

“Is this delightful scheme a child of your own fecundity, Mr. Dewson, or has Mr. Ronald Brandon any share in its parentage?”

“I’m out raising no man’s laurel wreaths,” declared Dewson. “The proposition’s Brandon’s. How does it appeal to you?

“That portion of the ‘proposition,’” said O’Hagan, with frigid courtesy, “which has reference to a meeting on the French coast appeals to me keenly!”

—————

II. LA BELLE LOTUS.

Those of you who have the privilege to be acquainted with my friend Bernard O’Hagan will find much scope for wonderment in the circumstance that Mr. Dewson proceeded thus far and survived, intact. No one but a successful press agent could possibly have mistaken the significance of the Captain’s icy calm. Anyone who, knowing him, had adventured upon such a proposal, must have been aware that, so doing, he carried his life in his hand. Mr. Dewson remained placidly ignorant of the fires which he was coaling.

“Will you come along now to Brandon’s flat?” he suggested, in his brisk way.

“It will afford me great pleasure. I am most anxious to meet Mr. Brandon!”

Passing over the short journey, then—throughout which almost every word of Mr. Dewson’s inspired O’Hagan with a new wonder at the shamelessness of the times, and added fuel to his resentment—enter the house of Ronald Brandon, novelist.

“Here he is, Brandon!” cried the press agent. “He’s coming in on it!”

Ronald Brandon was a tall and good-looking young man, carrying a certain athletic arrogance with poor grace. From his perfectly groomed fair hair to his white spatted, immaculately glossy boots he was an incarnate error of judgment. He had been encouraged to think himself a celebrity—and the whole thing was a mistake. He was not even in the same flight with the double of Napoleon III.

His casually extended hand Captain O’Hagan failed to observe. O’Hagan bowed with exceeding fine formality.

“Going to have a little bout with me, Captain?” laughed Brandon lightly.

“I am looking forward to it,” was the reply, “provided your status admits of my crossing swords with you.”

Dewson and Brandon stared uncomprehendingly.

“I mean, are you of gentle blood? To what Brandons do you belong?”

The novelist continued to stare.

“My governor is James Brandon, K.C., if that’s what you’re driving at!”

“Professional people?” said O’Hagan with exquisite condescension. “Never mind. For our present purpose, sufficiently respectable.”

What the now incensed Brandon might have said to that will never be known, for he was interrupted by the ringing of the bell, by the almost immediate entrance of a loudly pretty woman who was furiously overdressed, who struck the vision a sharp blow, from which one’s outraged eyes blinkingly recoiled. She was arrayed in a long coat of leopard’s skin, wore a motor bonnet of the same material, from the left side whereof, rearward, swept a golden plume of incredible length. Her hair was of the hue sometimes called Titian, but would have made Titian weep blood.

This lady—who proved to be French—was introduced as La Belle Lotus.

“Another client of mine, Captain!” explained Dewson, affably anxious to dissipate the thundery atmosphere which had settled upon the establishment. Brandon was scowling ferociously. “She is the latest sensation in dancers, sir. Her ‘Dance of Delilah’ is the talk of London! This is the lady you’ll quarrel about. Savvy? Three birds with one stone! All town will rush to see the girl two big men have fought over. Up go her bookings! How’s that for a three-handed boost? The limit?”

O’Hagan raised his glass.

“It strikes me as being appreciably beyond the limit!” he drawled. “But what has led you to suppose that I am desirous of publishing my memoirs?”

“You’re not out throwing away thousands, I take it?”

“On the contrary, Mr. Dewson. But, emphatically, I shall not publish any kind of book. You may omit that item from your ‘proposition.’”

La Belle surveyed the speaker appreciatively. Brandon watched him in angry perplexity. Dewson’s round eyes grew rounder.

“You don’t mean to say——”

“I have no intention of disturbing your admirable arrangements, Mr. Dewson. You may rely upon me to meet Mr. Brandon.”

“But ‘My Affaires’”——

“Dismiss the idea. It is out of the question.”

“Then what are you doing it for?”

O’Hagan, having examined minutely the visible attractions of La Belle Lotus—so minutely as to make her blush—dropped his glass.

“Your proposal is of such a nature, sir,” he replied calmly, “that no gentleman could decline to accept it.”

“I want to know how we stand,” burst in Brandon, his choler enhanced by the evident inability of the lady to withstand O’Hagan’s frank gaze. “Are you——”

“Am I going to meet you on the French coast, sir?” O’Hagan anticipated. “Emphatically, yes! Rely upon me!”

“That’s good,” rapped Dewson. “We’ll talk about the book, later. When you see eye to eye with me you won’t want to drop it. But you’re game for the little passage of arms? That’s the talk! Well, talking’s dry work. What about——”

“Excuse me.” O’Hagan raised his hand. “Pray excuse me!”

“But we’ve made no arrangements.”

“I am listening, Mr. Dewson.”

Dewson felt that he was being hustled.

“Well, I’d planned it to start on Wednesday night. Brandon and Yvette—La Belle—are having supper at Varano’s. I’m there, too; but not at the same table. Press boys there, of course. You blow in, and say or do something which Brandon’s supposed to take as an insult.”

O’Hagan, his head attentively tilted, nodded. La Belle was watching him, now, fascinatedly.

“I shall observe your wishes implicitly, Mr. Dewson!”

“Bit of a scene. Cards exchanged. Pars in the press.”

“A proviso, sir. My name shall not be mentioned.”

“Not mentioned!”

“Let all the credit be Mr. Brandon’s. I remain anonymous.”

“It’s sure to come out later. I don’t understand——”

“I am aware of that, Mr. Dewson! On the following morning, if I do not mistake you, Mr. Brandon’s friends call upon me, and the meeting is arranged?”

“That’s it! We’re supposed to be hushing it up, see? But it kind of leaks out!”

“Precisely. At what hour will Mr. Brandon be supping?”

“Say half-past eleven.”

“It is an appointment.”

Captain O’Hagan bowed to the leopard lady, looking challengingly into her eyes—turned from Messrs. Brandon and Dewson, and walked to the door. Upon Brandon’s tongue unutterable things trembled. Mr. Dewson was not entirely at his ease.

—————

III. THE BOOM.

Captain O’Hagan entered Varano’s at half-past eleven on Wednesday evening. No more need be said. A sensation amongst the guests is understood.

For a moment he paused, glass raised. His pose was a poem in grace; his mode of surveying those who supped was a tribute so deliciously keen as almost to be insulting. He focussed the table whereat Ronald Brandon and the dancer were seated. Amid a cathedral silence, impressive and oppressive, he traversed the supper-room. To say that he crossed it would be inaccurate and inadequate; he traversed it.

“Sir!”—he bent over Brandon—“one moment. Mademoiselle!”—he smiled upon La Belle Yvette—“might I entreat you to step aside with me?”

She glanced at Brandon, flushing with excitement now that the moment of the “boom” was come. Brandon, who vainly had besought Dewson to recast the comedy—omitting O’Hagan—examined his finger nails. He was acting poorly. In fact he was pronouncedly “fluffy.”

La Belle rose and stepped aside with O’Hagan. She wore an amazingly daring and dazzlingly brilliant evening toilette; a tight-fitting silk gown coloured in imitation of a leopard’s skin. Dewson identified his clients with certain “make-ups” or trademarks. Thus, La Belle Lotus was “the leopard lady.”

Imagine every eye in Varano’s supper-room to be centred upon this wildly picturesque pair. O’Hagan, his cloak cast back in purple splendour, rested one hand upon his hip with a gesture which had not been inconsistent with the act of depressing a rapier hilt.

“Are you quite sure”—he bent towards her with inimitable gallantry—“that a scene here will enhance your professional reputation?”

She glanced up rapidly—and down again, shyly. She could not recall having feared to meet any man’s eye prior to encountering Captain O’Hagan.

“Mr. Dewson—he says so; and Mr. Dewson is so clever. He never makes mistakes.”

“I concede that Mr. Dewson is clever; but nevertheless he makes mistakes, mademoiselle. I am impartial. I can insult Mr. Brandon without involving you in any way. But, if you wish to be involved, command me.”

La Belle felt singularly helpless. Instinctively she divined that the forceful Mr. Dewson and the imperious Captain O’Hagan were advancing to no common end.

“It is better that we keep to Mr. Dewson’s arrangements, I think.”

“Very well.”

O’Hagan proffered his arm. He led her doorward. A sibilant chorus of gasps arose. Brandon was up, now. His face flushed deeply, and paled, vying in its pallor with the serviette which he crushed in one shaking hand. He thrust back his chair.

A staccato cough drew his gaze to a distant table. Mr. Dewson—conscientious stage-manager—feared that one of the cast was like to overact his rôle. Brandon hesitated, fuming.

La Belle Yvette knew a fearful joy. Her inordinate vanity was gratified by this scene, but even her great daring recoiled from that which pended. Yet she offered no real resistance. True, she placed her hand upon O’Hagan’s, but he calmly clasped it in his own.

“Act as I direct,” he said, bending his picturesque head and looking into the half-fearful eyes.

He glanced aside to where the head-waiter stood, a figure of pitiable indecision, a study in fatuous ineptitude.

“My man—this lady’s cloak.”

Upon the hushed silence of the supper-room the words rang out sharply.

The head-waiter hesitated. The head-waiter at Varano’s is a person of proper proportions and seemly dignity. It is no part of his important functions menially to run for hats and cloaks. O’Hagan’s unoccupied hand raised the glass.

“Were you aware that I gave you an order?”

The head-waiter became aware of the awesome fact. He departed.

Brandon’s chair fell backward. A wine-glass was dropped with a crash upon the floor beside Mr. Dewson’s table. But the prompting of the ingenious press agent now was unheeded. The novelist strode down the room. One or two of the male visitors half rose. Some of the women began to look frightened.

“Damn your impudence! Release that lady!”

Dewson slipped from his place and joined the interesting group. He placed his hand warningly upon Brandon’s shoulder.

“Don’t lose your wool!” he whispered. “It’s going great!”

Brandon shook him off.

“Do you hear me? Release that lady! Yvette! stand aside, I beg of you! I have something to say to this person!”

La Belle looked from face to face. All was not well here. Only Captain O’Hagan seemed at ease: he should be the star of her guidance!

The head-waiter returning, the Captain assisted mademoiselle to endue her leopard-skin cloak.

Brandon’s fists clenched and re-opened convulsively.

“Yvette!” He almost choked. “You are not going _away_?—not going to leave me here—a laughing-stock——”

“Mr. Ronald Brandon!” O’Hagan placed his arm protectingly about mademoiselle’s shoulders and stared through the monocle at the novelist’s pale face. “I do not approve of this lady’s being in your company!”

Brandon fell back (O’Hagan’s divine audacity can strike as a physical blow) into the arms of Mr. Dewson.

“Stick to your part!” hissed the latter in his ear; and held him firmly. “This is a treat! All the restaurant heard what he said! Heard your name, too!”

“Curse you! Let go!”

The veins swelled upon Brandon’s forehead; his eyes protruded.

Captain O’Hagan, serenely:

“Come, mademoiselle! This vulgar brawler is no fit companion for us!”

Half the guests were upon their feet now. Someone had gone for the manager. The horror-frozen head-waiter met the Gorgon gaze which hypnotically sought him through the pebble. He turned and swung wide the door.

Brandon made a savage leap. Dewson grabbed his coat tails.

Mademoiselle, trembling slightly, having quitted the room, O’Hagan turned, and tossed his card at Brandon’s feet.

“You may care further to discuss the matter at some future time,” he said coldly. “I am otherwise engaged this evening!”

Brandon broke loose at that, but collided with the head-waiter, who began to feel faint. A tremendous buzz of conversation arose. Above it sounded the shrill note of a whistle. O’Hagan, without, had ordered a taxi. Then someone laughed—a pressman there for the “story.”

The novelist whisked around upon the detaining Mr. Dewson.

“Curse you and your ‘boosts’!” he snarled. “You’ve made me the laughing-stock of London! I’ll kill that damned O’Hagan!”

“Good business!” said the press agent. “Do it. Double our sales!”

—————

IV. ECHOES OF THE BOOM.

O’Hagan called upon me. His entrances possess electric properties. One’s schemes melt; O’Hagan becomes the scheme of all things terrestrial. The future shrinks, bounded by O’Hagan. The universe is “a universe after Captain the Hon. Bernard O’Hagan.” An unexpected call by the Tsar of all the Russias could not be more exciting, and one would be less impressed if the Mikado dropped in for a pipe and a Scotch-and-soda.

“I have selected you, Raymond”—he toyed with his monocle—“to act for me in a little affair on the French coast. You will be associated with Lieutenant the Chevalier Camille d’Oysans.”

That was bad hearing.

The Chevalier, according to O’Hagan, is “the last of the _grand seigneurs_.” I think O’Hagan may be right; and trust he is. This fire-eating Frenchman in my opinion constitutes a menace to society. He would any day rather cut a man’s throat than shake hands with him.

(His recent decoration for having personally dispatched a larger number of Boches than any other man in the armies of France, will be a memory fresh in my reader’s mind.)

“And I do not expect you to withdraw, Raymond,”—coldly.

Since, on more than one recent occasion, I had been so unfortunate as to incur O’Hagan’s displeasure, I perceived that a path was cut for my feet—a path of peril, from which, nevertheless, I might not stray. I understand that Charles II., when it pleased him, could be a king indeed. The fact that O’Hagan inherits a similar capacity from someone or another is not necessarily destructive of what posthumous reputation remains to the lady of his race who ornamented the Stuart court.

He passed to me a press cutting. The paragraph related how an anonymous gentleman had had a public misunderstanding with Mr. Ronald Brandon, the famous author, whose forthcoming work, etc., etc. The misunderstanding had been due to the presence of La Belle Yvette Lotus, the beautiful dancer, etc., etc.

“D’Oysans has already arranged the preliminaries,” explained O’Hagan. “So all that you have to do, my boy, is to meet me at Victoria to-night at ten-thirty.”

“This is incredible!”

“Not at all.”

“We shall all stand to be arrested!”

“Never fear. These little affairs are better managed in France!”

“For heaven’s sake, what weapons?”

“Swords!”

“In what way are you interested in this girl?”

“In no way. Not in the slightest.”

O’Hagan stood up and gracefully executed the Grand Salute with his cane.

“I badly need a little practice,” he said. “That is all, Raymond!”

“This man, Ronald Brandon, has some reputation as a swordsman.”

“So I hear,” replied O’Hagan languidly. “He has grossly insulted me; so that I am quite looking forward to meeting him. Although he merely comes of a race of attorneys, he appears to have a fine reach.”

He yawned slightly. There came a ringing of my door bell, which I proceeded to investigate.

“Might I inquire who the blazes your distinguished visitor is?”

Thus O’Hagan, critically examining a very large size in formidable ruffians who had forced his way past me into the study.

“Which of you is O’Hagan?” demanded the caller, truculently.

He was a man fully six feet two in his boots; wore a peculiarly racy tweed suit, cut morning-coat fashion; a pink soft collar, and a green tie adorned with a big diamond. He was bullet-headed, close shaven, and rejoiced in a prominent jaw of marine blue. He threw a soft hat into a corner and addressed a ferocious glare to each of us in turn.

“You have a broken nose,” said the Captain, with icy distaste.

“That’s done it! You’re ’im!” proclaimed the visitor. “An’ you’ll ’ave a broken neck in ’alf a mo!”

He stripped off his coat and hurled it amongst the litter of my writing-table. He removed the diamond and placed it in his waistcoat pocket. He tore his collar from his ox-like neck and cast it on the carpet. He began to unbutton his vest.

“This is not a public bath,” said O’Hagan, observing these manœuvres through his monocle. “You can have a wash for twopence at the lower end of Langham Place.”

The other proceeded stolidly with his immodest toilet, divesting himself of his waistcoat and rolling up his sleeves over his hirsute, brawny arms. No reply he made; he was a man too full for words.

O’Hagan rose from the Chesterfield which is his favourite lounge and stretched himself languidly. He poked the fire and left the poker between the bars.

“Raymond,” he drawled, “shall I go and find a constable to throw this low dog down stairs?”

The man leapt to the door with extraordinary agility, locked it, and slipped the key into a back pocket of his trousers. He faced us, a formidable figure, stripped to the pink shirt, which revealed the enormous development of his pectoral muscles. O’Hagan moves amid singular proceedings.

“Now, my bonny gentleman! My name’s ‘Trooper’ Belcher—an’ I’m ’er husband!”

“I trust you refer to Mrs. Belcher?”—O’Hagan.

Belcher: “My wife’s La Belle Lotus!”

The Captain studied Mr. Belcher with a new curiosity.

“I gather that you are a music-hall pugilist. Am I also to conclude that you are a bully acting on behalf of Mr. Brandon, whom I have to meet at seven in the morning outside Calais?”

“_I_ met Mr. bloomin’ Brandon at seven this evenin’ outside Oxford Circus!” shouted Belcher. “_You’ll_ meet ’im in Middlesex ’Ospital!”

My wits had deserted me. From the moment that the man had thrust his way into my rooms up to that when he had thus proclaimed himself the assailant of Brandon, I had stood helplessly watching his outrageous proceedings.

(“A gentleman, to-day,” O’Hagan has informed me, “is utterly at the mercy of the first lusty ruffian who cares to attack him. The only offensive and defensive art which survives to any extent—brutal pugilism—is extensively practised among the lower classes. Where is the gentleman’s sword? Taken from him! The Higher Jiu-jitsu, my dear Raymond, or Art of Gentle Thought, should be included in the curriculum of every preparatory establishment.”)

Belcher executed a charge which, I think, would have swept a healthy bullock from its feet. O’Hagan, with a lightning rapidity of action apparently peculiar to pupils of Shashu Myuku of Nagasaki, secured and presented the poker.

The man touched it with one huge fist and recoiled, screaming hoarsely.

“By God! that’s ’ot!” he panted.

“It is,” replied O’Hagan, again thrusting the point amid the coals; “red hot!” With his left hand he waved his monocle in my direction. “One cannot soil one’s hands with the persons of low fellows, Raymond!”

Belcher snatched up a heavy chair as though it had had no greater weight than a matchbox. A lightning, rapier lunge with the poker—an unpleasant _sizzling_ sound—and the chair crashed harmlessly to the floor. The now painfully singed “trooper” fell back on to the Chesterfield, groaning.

Again my bell rang.

“Hand the key to Mr. Raymond, my man,” ordered O’Hagan; “and replace your filthy rags upon your indecently nude person.”

Belcher threw the key across the carpet. My mind had assimilated a profound truth of the Higher Jiu-Jitsu: brute courage falters in the presence of hot pokers. I went to the door, and upon the landing stood a dazzling vision in leopard skins.

“My ’usband!” (The vision had a French accent.) “Is he here? Yes? Quick!”

She slipped past me, as an animal growl sounded from within. My rooms no longer were my own, but were become a rendezvous for insane meetings—for nightmare encounters. I re-entered the bear-garden which I had been wont to call my study.

The leopard lady was kneeling beside the wounded Mr. Belcher and explaining in voluble syncopated English that his suspicions were groundless, that it was a “boom,” no more; that he must _not_ kill Captain O’Hagan.

“My impression, Raymond,” said the latter, focussing me across the room, “is that our friend Belcher has recently left jail.”

“What if I ’ave!” roared that maltreated ruffian, starting to his feet.