Part 7

(“You see,” goes O’Hagan’s explanation of this episode, “the cab was the last in the rank, and I had an appointment. Haverley may have had one also. But pedigree before pork, Raymond.”)

—————

IV. DONOHUE’S ORDERS.

The morning was young, and O’Hagan discussing rolls and coffee when Donohue announced Captain Haverley and Mr. Salter.

O’Hagan rose ceremoniously. He wore a slate-grey lounge suit, with a silver-grey plush French knot in lieu of a tie. This combination suits him admirably and affords Donohue great scope for discrimination in the selecting of a soft shirt to harmonise with the scheme.

Entered Haverley, accompanied by a tall and preternaturally thin gentleman who carried, a leather case. O’Hagan bowed coldly to the captain, and upon his companion turned the monocle.

“This,” he said frigidly, sweeping his hand toward Mr. Salter, “I assume to be your horse-whip?”

“Mr. Salter is my solicitor!” replied Haverley loudly. “I have decided that a public exposure is what you require! We have therefore——”

(O’Hagan pressed a bell.)

“—I say we have therefore called formally to advise you——”

(Donohue entered.)

“—That a police-court summons for drunken assault and——”

O’Hagan, waving monocle Salterward:

“Donohue, kindly see this person to the door.”

Mr. Salter, who was opening his brief-case looked up alarmedly.

“My solicitor,” shouted Haverley, who was rapidly losing control of himself, “is——”

“Donohue!”

Donohue bowed to Mr. Salter and held wide the door.

Salter: “Captain O’Hagan, as legal adviser——”

“_Donohue!_”

Donohue stepped forward and took up Mr. Salter’s case. Within his right arm he linked the left of Mr. Salter, and with the gentle firmness of a Milo of Crotona led him rapidly from the room. Came a quavering cry:

“You will pay dearly for this insult!”

Haverley, eyes aflame, bounded to the door. It was locked. He turned to where O’Hagan, lolling against the mantelpiece, studied the morning’s manœuvres through upraised glass.

“I do not,” explained O’Hagan icily, “allow solicitors in these chambers.”

Haverley leant back against the door, almost as though he were preparing for a spring. He was a man swept by a tornado of passion, and before its force he quivered and shook.

“The law is the weapon of churls,” continued O’Hagan. “You are a soldier—as I regret to remind you. Upon the table on your right are French foils, Italian rapiers, and three types of sabre. You clearly maintain your right to Lady Rundel’s society. I forbid you to see her again. We will settle the point.”

Haverley cleared his throat, and spoke huskily:

“You are a madman—and I will see that you are treated as such——”

“Before we commence,” added O’Hagan, taking up a writing-block, “we will each write a note to the effect that we were practising a new mode of mounted attack, and that the affair was an accident. One of these notes will afterwards be destroyed.”

“Open the door!” demanded Haverley, tensely.

Captain O’Hagan observed him with a kind of unpleasant curiosity.

“As a soldier, and as a gentleman, you cannot refuse, of course!”

“Open that door! Do you hear me? You are mad!”

O’Hagan swung the monocle, and smiled upon the rapidly-breathing Haverley with undisguised contempt.

“Captain Haverley,” he said, “Sir Roger Rundel is my friend; and whilst I live, any gay Lothario who seeks to gratify his vanity by compromising my friend’s wife shall find at least one obstacle in his path. You will either hand me a written undertaking to secure a transfer to the 5th, vice Captain Macklin, invalided—leaving for Burma on the 19th—or remove that obstacle. You quit this room upon no other condition.”

“Open the door!” roared Haverley, clenching his fists and grinding his teeth with animal fury. “Open the door! By God! I’ll clap you in custody before another hour has passed!”

“If you decline,” said O’Hagan, coldly, “I will ring for the door to be opened as you desire——”

Haverley drummed his right fist into the palm of his left hand and stamped upon the floor with his foot. He was literally gasping in his fury.

“—In order,” resumed the chilly voice, “that my man may thrash you. I offer you, for the last time, the satisfaction of a gentleman——”

“Damn your impudent speeches! Open the door!”

Captain O’Hagan pressed the bell.

The door opened so suddenly and violently as to precipitate Haverley forward into the room. He recovered himself, turned, and sprang with a cry upon Donohue.

(“Donohue,” O’Hagan has informed me, “is not of course an adept of the _Higher_ Arts of Jiu-Jitsu; but he has a pleasing proficiency in the more ordinary holds and falls.”)

Donohue, then, met the attack in a novel way. He received Captain Haverley in a loving embrace. Then, like a teetotum, Haverley was spun right-about, and held, purple-faced, eyes starting hideously, with his arms locked behind him by the human manacle of Donohue’s iron grip.

Donohue: “Yes, sir?”

“You have your instructions, Donohue,” said O’Hagan—and passing the inarticulate Haverley, strode out of the room.

—————

V. REVELATIONS.

“The worse a man’s reputation,” Bernard O’Hagan holds, “the more the women like him. In French comedy we find the jealous husband held up to ridicule—hence the superiority of the lover. Failing the sword, Ridicule, my boy, is the weapon to cut short the career of Gallantry.”

Remembering this, let us accompany Captain O’Hagan to Lady Rundel’s.

He was admitted. Following upon such an affair as that of the previous evening, it is more than doubtful if another had enjoyed the privilege of admission. But Bernard O’Hagan is unused to refusals.

Lady Rundel received him with studied coldness. He bent low over her hand in his remote, courtly fashion.

“I have an explanation to offer of my conduct of last night,” he explained blandly.

“I am curious to hear it!”

“That I do not doubt, Lady Rundel; for you must have perceived that I strongly disapproved of the man Haverley!”

She was caressing a miniature dog, but at that she glanced up, flushing.

“It is a pity,” she began——

“It is!” agreed O’Hagan, toying with his monocle. “It is indeed a thousand pities, for you are such a charmingly pretty woman!”

“Captain O’Hagan! I fail to understand you!” But her eyes were less angry than her tones. “You presume too far, even for so old a friend, when you attempt to control my choice of acquaintances!”

“Dear Lady Rundel”—he bent forward and patted her hand soothingly—“it annoyed me so deeply (you know how acutely sensitive I am) to hear people laughing!”

“Laughing?”

Lady Rundel met his eyes interrogatively.

“I felt that the position was so very undignified. Sir Roger——”

“Captain O’Hagan—are you insinuating that people are laughing at my husband That——”

“At your husband! At Sir Roger!” O’Hagan stared amazedly through the pebble. “No one would dare to laugh at Sir Roger Rundel, believe me!”

A far-away look came into Lady Rundel’s eyes at these words. O’Hagan was glad to see that look; glad for Sir Roger’s sake. He knew, then, that his curious duty was almost accomplished—that Captain Haverley was merely a passing amusement.

Lady Rundel rose slowly from her chair. O’Hagan observed her slim figure with smiling, aesthetic appreciation. She walked across to a small table, glancing at some trifle which it bore—and turned, leaning back upon the table-edge.

“What do you mean, then?” she asked. “At whom are they laughing?”

O’Hagan shrugged his shoulders with feigned embarrassment.

“A man who has been tarred and feathered,” he began——

“Tarred and feathered!” Her eyes were opened widely. “Captain O’Hagan! Whatever do you mean?”

“—Casts ridicule upon any woman who consents to be seen in his company!”

“Captain O’Hagan, be so good as to explain yourself!”

O’Hagan raised his monocle.

“What! you did not know—about Haverley?”

“Frankly, I cannot believe it!” she cried, flushing deeply. “I am sure—I am almost certain—that Captain Haverley would not submit to such an indignity from _any_ man!”

“It _is_ an indignity, is it not?” he said, confidentially.

“Oh! I _cannot_ believe it! And it is _known_?”

“That is the singular part of the thing! I have never been able to understand why Haverley did not remain abroad. It was my scamp, Donohue, who perpetrated the outrage!”

“Your _man_! Your man tarred and feathered Captain Haverley?”

“He did, the rogue! I would have discharged the fellow, but he is the only man in England who knows how to pack dress trousers in a suit-case!”

Lady Rundel was watching O’Hagan. When he really gets into his stride, my friend’s mendacity is fascinating. He becomes supernormally fluent; his truthless discourse holds one enthralled.

“The car is ready,” she said slowly. “I should like to hear this unsavoury story from the man Donohue himself!”

It was designed for a home thrust, but O’Hagan rose delightedly.

“Dear Lady Rundel,” he said. “By all means You honour me.”

—————

VI. DONOHUE AGAIN.

Some delay occurred at the door of O’Hagan’s chambers.

“Donohue cannot have gone out,” said he. “How careless of me to have forgotten my key!”

He rang impatiently. Once—twice—thrice. Then the door was opened some three inches and Donohue’s face peered through the aperture.

“Excuse me, sir,” said that treasure, ignoring O’Hagan’s icy stare; “but would you, sir—I don’t ask a favour often—would you come back in half an hour, sir?”

Captain O’Hagan thrust the door open, and swept Donohue against the wall.

“What do you mean?” he demanded fiercely. “Consider yourself discharged, Donohue! What . . .”

An uproarious banging and shouting drowned further speech. Lady Rundel clearly was afraid to enter. Donohue shrank away before the fierce glare which sought him through the pebble.

“_Donahue!_”—portentously.

“Sir!”

“What is that unseemly disturbance proceeding from the store-room?”

Donohue, with great hesitancy:

“I’m sorry, sir! You can discharge me if you like—excuse me, sir, you _have_! But he came here calling you such dirty names, sir, and—excuse me, m’lady—said things about her ladyship!——”

“Donohue!” interrupted O’Hagan, in a voice of freezing calm—“unlock the store-room door!”

“Sir——”

“Donohue! unlock the store-room door! Then pack your box.”

Donohue, with a sort of badly veiled truculence—(“I have always distrusted that man!” whispered Lady Rundel)—walked to and unlocked the door indicated.

Whereupon Lady Rundel uttered a stifled shriek.

For out into view leapt a nightmare apparition—a man who had sky-blue hair and only half a moustache! Furthermore, that surviving half was grass-green!

“Come out, you piebald spalpeen!” cried Donohue, throwing restraint to the winds—“come out and show what I’ve done to you!”

Lady Rundel slowly raised her hands to her face.

“Heavens!” she said, in a smothered voice, “it is Bobby Haverley! Captain O’Hagan, your man must be given in char. . . .”

Her voice trailed off into a suppressed ripple.

“Lady Rundel!” shouted Haverley frantically—“This is a conspiracy! I have been lashed to a chair——”

But Lady Rundel already was half way down the stairs, and her laughter, no longer to be denied, came back in mocking answer. O’Hagan stood in the doorway, monocle raised Haverley, by a tremendous effort, regained control of himself.

“Captain O’Hagan,” he said, his voice grating harshly, “you will be in jail to-morrow.”

“Possibly,” replied O’Hagan; “but let us survey the facts. If you care to give me the written undertaking to which I referred—merely a matter of form, _now_—you may enjoy the use of the hot and cold water in my bathroom. The dye will wash out. I will even lend you a razor. If you decline, you are at liberty to depart into Whitehall—as you are! Finally, Donohue has taken your photograph! You did so, Donohue?”

Donohue: “I did, sir.”

“It will, of course, be reproduced in the press during the course of the case. The bathroom is on your immediate left.”

Is it necessary to pursue this matter further? I think not. O’Hagan has not been prosecuted. He never will be, I fancy. Recently, he related to Lady Rundel the true facts of the affair; and I thought that she would have never ceased laughing.

Captain Bernard O’Hagan’s policy is, Do it hard, and face the music. One sighs for a ministry of O’Hagans.

EXPLOIT THE SIXTH.

HE HONOURS THE GRAND DUKE.

EXPLOIT THE SIXTH. HE HONOURS THE GRAND DUKE.

I. WE MEET THE DUKE.

The character of my friend Bernard O’Hagan is a maze within a maze, a dædalian labyrinth, to the heart whereof I long since have despaired of penetrating. His sense of humour is acute, but peculiar. A man, he declares, who cannot laugh at Mark Twain is a man from whose soul the joy of life has departed. Yet his idea of bliss would seem to be existence in a Persian rose-garden with some few congenial spirits, and, for attendants, only Greek youths and maidens of flawless classic beauty.

Grotesque anomaly! For I defy any philosopher to reconcile the ideals of Petronius Arbiter, Omar, and Samuel Clemens!

“Alas, O’Hagan,” I say, “this world of ours is a grey place.”

But he turns to me in surprise, monocle raised, and studies my face with a certain apprehension.

“How can you say so, Raymond? Have I not repeatedly demonstrated that Romance lurks in hiding amid the most prosaic surroundings? Adventure, my boy, is for the adventurous! It is only the blind who deny the existence of fauns. I will undertake to find you a nymph in any wood. Villains profound as the darkest dreams of Tolstoy regularly take tea in the drawing-rooms of Mayfair; heroes loftier than Charlemagne jostle one in the Strand!”

Potential Cleopatras and Trojan Helens, I take it, abound in London. Only lacking is that clash of Circumstance and the Man, which, in history, has cast up such wondrous beings.

As I glance at my picturesque friend, head aloft, purple-lined cloak swung well back, and note the air of smiling defiance wherewith he faces the world, I perceive the _Man_, and with pleasurable anticipation await the Circumstance. I shall always remember one conversation of this kind, for the reason that it directly preceded our meeting with the Grand Duke.

We had just quitted the theatre. My proposal in reference to supper had discovered the interesting circumstance that our joint capital equalled three-and-nine.

“Had _you_ come out without money,” said O’Hagan, “I should not have been surprised. Had _I_ come out without money I should not have been surprised. But for us both, on the same evening, to do so, reveals the finger of Fate.”

O’Hagan, as he stood with one half of his face and figure lighted up by the glare of the theatre lamps, and the other blacked out in contrasting shadow, bore a resemblance rather more marked than usual to the Monarch of merry memory. Withal, he looked strikingly handsome. He is the only man of my acquaintance who can successfully wear a flowing, black dress tie.

Captain Bernard O’Hagan is a figure unforgettable.

“Well?” I said, impatiently watching the theatre-goers driving supperward. “Shall we have something at the club?”

“No, Raymond,” replied my friend, reflectively. “That would be capitulating. Is it possible that two honourable gentlemen, chancing to be without half a sovereign or so, are forced to sup on credit? I recall an episode in the career of my ancestor, Patrick.”

He is fond of recounting episodes in the career of this ancestor, Patrick—some time of the Musketeers of Louis XIII.—a gentleman who would seem to have been chiefly notable for suave ruffianism.

The nature of the episode I was not destined to learn, however, at the time; for as O’Hagan lighted a cigarette, a block in the traffic occurred at the corner of Wellington Street (do not misunderstand me to mean that the incidents were correlative); and a handsome limousine was held up immediately in front of us. The interior was brilliantly illuminated, and a gentleman who lounged upon the fawn-coloured cushions glanced curiously in our direction.

This gentleman, the sole occupant, was distinguished by fiery moustachios and a squarely trimmed beard. My association with what O’Hagan terms “the lower journalism” has familiarised me with the faces of notabilities.

“That is the Grand Duke John of Siresia,” I volunteered, idly.

“So it is,” said O’Hagan with lively interest. “So it is!”

And ere I could say another word he had stepped to the door of the car, opened it, and engaged the distinguished foreigner in conversation!

Whilst I knew O’Hagan’s visiting-list to be extensive and peculiar, I hitherto had been unaware that he was acquainted with the Siresian autocrat. His action took me completely by surprise. Then, just as the policeman ahead released the pent-up traffic, my friend turned and beckoned to me.

Full of a great wonder, I joined him at the open door.

“Get in, Raymond!” he directed briefly, and thrust me, speechless with astonishment, into a seat opposite the great personage.

The chauffeur glanced back. The footman leapt down and came to the step. As in a dream, I heard rapid, guttural instructions. The footman saluted and leapt to his place. The car moved smoothly onward.

O’Hagan raised his monocle, gazing at the bearded nobleman; then waved it gracefully in my direction.

“You may not have met my friend, Mr. Lawrence Raymond,” he said, with the lordly condescension which he, alone, knows how to assume. “Raymond—His Highness the Grand Duke John of Siresia!”

—————

II. WE IMPROVE THE ACQUAINTANCE.

O’Hagan’s friendship is a passport from the commonplace to the amazing. In acknowledgment of this off-handed introduction I bowed, and was mute. The Grand Duke nodded. His eyes constantly sought my nonchalant friend.

“How fortunate,” said the latter smoothly, “that the traffic chanced to be delayed.”

Bewildered, utterly, I acquitted myself of an ambiguous nod.

“Where are they?” asked the Grand Duke suddenly. His delivery was thick, unmusical.

“If you will be good enough to glance rearward,” replied O’Hagan, “you will perceive a car which is following closely!”

We were, at that moment, turning around by Trafalgar Square; so that this prediction impressed me as being a peculiarly safe one. The Grand Duke, however, peering through a little window at the back, turned again to O’Hagan with palpable uneasiness. His heavy, dull features marked him a man of bulldog tenacity and autocratic stupidity.

“A green car?” he inquired.

O’Hagan, twisting about one finger the black ribbon attached to his monocle, inclined his head gravely. The tone of the Grand Duke’s query had been peremptory—that of one accustomed to command and to be slavishly obeyed. My friend’s mode of reply—the graceful and dignified inclination of the head, the lowering of the eyelids—had subtly defined, and with exquisite artistry, his attitude toward the Grand Duke.

In that simple inclination he had conveyed: “Duke”—(it were impossible to imagine O’Hagan addressing any man breathing as “Your Highness”)—“Duke, you are in the company of a gentleman at present amicably disposed toward you, but of a gentleman who would as promptly tweak your nose, should you forget what is due to him, as he would tweak any other.”

It was a silent declaration of aristocracy, typically and peculiarly O’Haganish.

A faint shade of difference crept into the Grand Duke’s voice. I doubt if the man has lived, since Napoleon Buonaparte, who, meeting Captain the Honble. Bernard O’Hagan, could have escaped enmeshment within his catholic patronage. O’Hagan would patronize the shade of Julius Cæsar.

“What,” inquired the Grand Duke awkwardly, “do you propose?”

“First,” said my friend, holding his monocle between second and third fingers, and waving it roofward, “extinguish these interior lights. It was most indiscreet to travel so publicly.”

Association with Bernard O’Hagan renders one more or less accustomed to the _outre_. The amazing ceases to amaze, the appalling to appal; wonders lose their potency, and one’s pulse remains normal amid singular adventures.

It afforded me small surprise to see my friend’s injunction instantly obeyed. (It would afford me small surprise to see the Premier blacking O’Hagan’s boots.)

“Next,” continued the Captain, “direct your man to drive to your embassy.”

The obedient Grand Duke bent forward and called gutturally into the tube.

(“There is one thing,” O’Hagan tells me, “which a nobleman of the Grand Duke’s race can never appreciate—the doctrine of aristocratic equality. He must always dominate or be dominated. My ancestor, Patrick, had this from the lips of Cardinal Richelieu—a singularly shrewd observer, Raymond, and a gentleman.”)

“I have no intention,” resumed the Grand Duke, “of handing them over to the ambassador.”

O’Hagan shrugged his shoulders impatiently, turning his eye-glass upon the speaker with the air of a wise man weary of folly.

“_Will_ you allow me to advise?” he said, with a certain disdain. “Do _they_ know that?”

“They cannot possibly,” replied the other. “It is what they most fear—eh?”

“Very well, then,” drawled O’Hagan, yawning discreetly under cover of a gloved hand, “they will abandon the pursuit and no attempt will be made upon your private apartments.”

“I do not fear their attempts!” growled the Grand Duke, with truculent contempt.

“My good Duke!” said O’Hagan languidly—“my dear Duke—do you wish every paper in Europe to discuss your affairs? Do you wish all the world to hear of an attempt to burgle your rooms?”

“What! do you think they would dare?”

Captain O’Hagan surveyed him, pebble uplifted, as one surveys a surpassing fool.

“Dare!” he said icily. “Dare! My good, dear Duke—where is your common sense?”

(“That expression marked the psychological moment, Raymond,” he later was good enough to inform me. “I was deliberately tightening the screw. If he submitted. I knew that the man was mine.”)

The Grand Duke glared for a moment. Then:

“No; you are right!” he agreed, grudgingly.

Bernard O’Hagan would be a dazzling ornament to the diplomatic service. One can imagine his prevailing upon the united monarchies of Europe to present a fleet of dreadnoughts to Great Britain as a little token of esteem.

Is it necessary, by the way, that I mention here how all this extraordinary conversation was so much Sanscrit to me? I think not. I perceived no gleam of light through the darkness. I was a man in a tunnel leading he knows not whither, surrounded by he knows not what.

My bewildered surmisings had come to a hazy meridian, I think, when the car drew up before the embassadorial residence.

“If he is at home, what excuse shall I make for my call?” asked the Grand Duke.

“Any excuse!” said O’Hagan drily. “You may profess to have heard rumours that he is troubled with a return of his gout——”

“He has no gout!”

“His wife’s gout, then! Anything—anything!”

Grunting uncouthly, the Grand Duke alighted and disappeared in the darkness. Coincident with the footman’s reclosure of the door, burst forth my dammed up torrent of queries.

“_Ssh!_” O’Hagan raised his hand. “I will explain later, Raymond. Exhibit no surprise. Merely agree with me—tacitly agree!”

“But where did——”

“_Ssh!_”—impatiently. “These servants are spies!”

I felt curiously like a screw-stoppered bottle of some highly aerated mineral, which has been partially unscrewed. Questions literally _sizzled_ from me. But I must perforce contain myself; and we were presently rejoined by the Grand Duke. He glanced up and down the street ere entering. Giving a brief order to the man:

“Where are they?” he growled, as he took his seat.

“They have left their car,” replied my friend; “but two of them are in hiding near the corner.”

“Do you know either of these?”

“_He_ is one!” said O’Hagan impressively.

“Whom?” snapped the Grand Duke.