ON THE QUEEN'S CANAL.
“There's not a crime--But takes its proper change still out in crime
If once rung on the counter of this world.”
Cornish went back to The Hague immediately after Lord Ferriby's funeral
because it has been decreed that for all men, this large world shall
sooner or later narrow down to one city, perhaps, or one village, or a
single house. For a man's life is always centred round a memory or a
hope, and neither of those requires much space wherein to live. Tony
Cornish's world had narrowed to the Villa des Dunes on the sandhills of
Scheveningen, and his mind's eye was always turned in that direction.
His one thought at this time was to protect Dorothy--to keep, if
possible, the name she bore from harm and ill-fame. Each day that
passed meant death to the malgamite workers. He could not delay. He
dared not hurry. He wrote again to Percy Roden from London, amid the
hurried preparations for the funeral, and begged him to sever his
connection with Von Holzen.
“You will not have time,” he wrote, “to answer this before I leave for
The Hague. I shall stay on the Toornoifeld as usual, and hope to arrive
about nine o'clock to-morrow evening. I shall leave the hotel about a
quarter-past nine and walk down the right-hand bank of the Koninginne
Gracht, and should like to meet you by the canal, where we can have a
talk. I have many reasons to submit to your consideration why it will
be expedient for you to come over to my side in this difference now,
which I cannot well set down on paper. And remember that between men of
the world, such as I suppose we may take ourselves to be, there is no
question of one of us judging the other. Let me beg of you to consider
your position in regard to the Malgamite scheme--and meet me to-morrow
night between the Malie Veld and the Achter Weg about half-past nine. I
cannot see you at the works, and it would be better for you not to come
to my hotel.”
The letter was addressed to the Villa des Dunes, where Roden received
it the next morning. Dorothy saw it, and guessed from whom it was,
though she hardly knew her lover's writing. He had adhered firmly to
his resolution to keep himself in the background until he had finished
the work he had undertaken. He had not written to her; had scarcely
seen her. Roden read the letter, and put it in his pocket without a
word. It had touched his vanity. He had had few dealings with men of
the standing and position of Cornish, and here was this peer's nephew
and peer's grandson appealing to him as to a friend, classing him
together with himself as a man of the world. No man has so little
discretion as a vain man. It is almost impossible for him to keep
silence when speech will make for his glorification. Roden arrived at
the works well pleased with himself, and found Von Holzen in their
little office, put out, ill at ease, domineering. It was unfortunate,
if you will. Percy Roden was always ready to perceive his own
ill-fortune, and looked back later to this as one of his most untoward
hours. Life, however, should surely consist of seizing the fortunate
and fighting through the ill moments--else why should men have heart
and nerve?
In such humours as they found themselves it did not take long for these
two men to discover a question upon which to differ. It was a mere
matter of detail connected with the money at that time passing through
their hands.
“Of course,” said Roden, in the course of a useless and trivial
dispute--“of course you think you know best, but you know nothing of
finance--remember that. Everybody knows that it is I who have run that
part of the business. Ask old Wade, or White--or Cornish.”
The argument had, in truth, been rather one-sided. For Roden had done
all the talking, while Von Holzen looked at him with a quiet eye and a
silent contempt that made him talk all the more. Von Holzen did not
answer now, though his eye lighted at the mention of Cornish's name. He
merely looked at Roden with a smile, which conveyed as clearly as words
Von Holzen's suggestion that none of the three men named would be
prepared to give Roden a very good character. “I had a letter, by the
way, from Cornish this morning,” said Roden, lapsing into his grander
manner, which Von Holzen knew how to turn to account.
“Ah--bah!” he exclaimed sceptically. And that lurking vanity of the
inferior to lessen his own inferiority did the rest.
“If you don't believe me, there you are,” said Roden, throwing the
letter upon the table--not ill-pleased, in the heat of the moment, to
show that he was a more important person than his companion seemed to
think.
Von Holzen read the letter slowly and thoughtfully. The fact that it
was evidently intended for Roden's private eye did not seem to affect
one or the other of these two men, who had travelled, with difficulty,
along the road to fortune, only reaching their bourn at last with a
light stock of scruples and a shattered code of honour. Then he folded
it, and handed it back. He was not likely to forget a word of it.
“I suppose you will go,” he said. “It will be interesting to hear what
he has to say. That letter is a confession of weakness.”
In making which statement Von Holzen showed his own weak point. For,
like many clever men, he utterly failed to give to women their
place--the leading place--in the world's history, as in the little
histories of our daily lives. He never detected Dorothy between every
line of Cornish's letter, and thought that it had only been dictated by
inability to meet the present situation.
“I cannot very well refuse to go since the fellow asks me,” said Roden,
grandly. He might as well have displayed his grandeur to a statue. If
love is blind, self-love is surely half-witted as well, for it never
sees nor understands that the world is fooling it. Roden failed to heed
the significant fact that Von Holzen did not even ask him what line of
conduct he intended to follow with regard to Cornish, nor seek in his
autocratic way to instruct him on that point; but turned instead to
other matters and did not again refer to Cornish or the letter he had
written.
So the day wore on while Cornish impatiently walked the deck of the
steamer, ploughing its way across the North Sea, through showers and
thunderstorms and those grey squalls that flit to and fro on the German
Ocean. And some tons of malgamite were made, while a manufacturer or
two of the grim product laid aside his tools forever, while the money
flowed in, and Otto von Holzen thought out his deep silent plans over
his vats and tanks and crucibles. And all the while those who write in
the book of fate had penned the last decree.
Cornish arrived punctually at The Hague. He drove to the hotel, where
he was known, where, indeed, he had never relinquished his room. There
was no letter for him--no message from Percy Roden. But Von Holzen had
unobtrusively noted his arrival at the station from the crowded retreat
of the second-class waiting-room.
The day had been a very hot one, and from canal and dyke arose that
sedgy odour which comes with the cool of night in all Holland. It is
hardly disagreeable, and conveys no sense of unhealthiness.
It seems merely to be the breath of still waters, and, in hot weather,
suggests very pleasantly the relief of northern night. The Hague has
two dominant smells. In winter, when the canals are frozen, the reek of
burning-peat is on the air and in the summer the odour of slow waters.
Cornish knew them both. He knew everything about this old-world city,
where the turning-point of his life had been fixed. It was deserted
now. The great houses, the theatre--the show-places--were closed. The
Toornoifeld was empty.
The hotel porter, aroused by the advent of the traveller from an
after-dinner nap in his little glass box, spread out his hands with a
gesture of surprise.
“The season is over,” he said. “We are empty. Why you come to The Hague
now?”
Even the sentries at the end of the Korte Voorhout wore a holiday air
of laxness, and swung their rifles idly. Cornish noticed that only half
of the lamps were lighted.
The banks of the Queen's Canal are heavily shaded by trees, which,
indeed, throw out their branches to meet above the weed-sown water.
There is a broad thoroughfare on either side of the canal, though
little traffic passes that way. These are two of the many streets of
The Hague which seem to speak of a bygone day, when Holland played a
greater part in the world's history than she does at present, for the
houses are bigger than the occupants must need, and the streets are too
wide for the traffic passing through them. In the middle the canal--a
gloomy corridor beneath the trees--creeps noiselessly towards the sea.
Cornish was before the appointed hour, and walked leisurely by the
pathway between the trees and the canal. Soon the houses were left
behind, and he passed the great open space called the Malie Veld. He
had met no one since leaving the guard-house. It was a dark night, with
no moon, but the stars were peeping through the riven clouds.
“Unless he stands under a lamp, I shall not see him,” he said to
himself, and lighted a cigar to indicate his whereabouts to Roden,
should he elect to keep the appointment. When he had gone a few paces
farther he saw someone coming towards him. There was a lamp halfway
between them, and, as he approached the light, Cornish recognized
Roden. There was no mistaking the long loose stride.
“I wonder,” said Cornish, “if this is going to the end?”
And he went forward to meet the financier.
“I was afraid you would not come,” he said, in a voice that was
friendly enough, for he was a man of the world, and in that which is
called Society (with a capital letter) had rubbed elbows all his life
with many who had no better reputation than Percy Roden, and some who
deserved a worse.
“Oh, I don't mind coming,” answered Roden, “because I did not want to
keep you waiting here in the dark. But it is no good, I tell you that
at the outset.”
“And nothing I can say will alter your decision?”
“Nothing. A man does not get two such chances as this in his lifetime. I
am not going to throw this one away for the sake of a sentiment.”
“Sentiment hardly describes the case,” said Cornish, thoughtfully. “Do
you mean to tell me that you do not care about all these deaths--about
these poor devils of malgamiters?” And he looked hard at his companion
beneath the lamp.
“Not a d--n,” answered Roden. “I have been poor--you haven't. Why, man!
I have starved inside a good coat. You don't know what that means.”
Cornish looked at him, and said nothing. There was no mistaking the
man's sincerity--nor the manner in which his voice suddenly broke when
he spoke of hunger.
“Then there are only two things left for me to do,” said Cornish, after
a moment's reflection. “Ask your sister to marry me first, and smash
you up afterwards.”
Roden, who was smoking, threw his cigarette away. “You mean to do both
these things?”
“Both.”
Roden looked at him. He opened his lips to speak, but suddenly leapt
back.
“Look out!” he cried, and had barely time to point over Cornish's
shoulder.
Cornish swung round on his heel. He belonged to a school and generation
which, with all its faults, has, at all events, the redeeming quality
of courage. He had long learnt to say the right thing, which
effectually teaches men to do the right thing also. He saw some one
running towards him, noiselessly, in rubber shoes. He had no time to
think, and scarce a moment in which to act, for the man was but two
steps away with an upraised arm, and in the lamplight there flashed the
gleam of steel.
Cornish concentrated his attention on the upraised arm, seizing it with
both hands, and actually swinging his assailant off his legs. He knew
in an instant who it was, without needing to recognize the smell of
malgamite. This was Otto von Holzen, who had not hesitated to state his
opinion--that it is often worth a man's while to kill another.
While his feet were still off the ground, Cornish let him go, and he
staggered away into the darkness of the trees. Cornish, who was lithe
and quick, rather than of great physical force, recovered his balance
in a moment, and turned to face the trees. He knew that Von Holzen
would come back. He distinctly hoped that he would. For man is
essentially the first of the “game” animals and beneath fine clothes
there nearly always beats a heart ready, quite suddenly, to snatch the
fearful joy of battle.
Von Holzen did not disappoint him, but came flying on silent feet, like
some beast of prey, from the darkness. Cornish had played half-back for
his school not so many years before. He collared Von Holzen low, and
let him go, with a cruel skill, heavily on his head and shoulder. Not a
word had been spoken, and, in the stillness of the summer night, each
could hear the other breathing.
Roden stood quite still. He could scarcely distinguish the antagonists.
His own breath came whistling through his teeth. His white face was
ghastly and twitching. His sleepy eyes were awake now, and staring.
Each charge had left Cornish nearer to the canal. He was standing now
quite at the edge. He could smell, but he could not see the water, and
dared not turn his head to look. There is no railing here as there is
nearer the town.
In a moment, Von Holzen was on his feet again. In the dark, mere inches
are much equalized between men--but Von Holzen had a knife. Cornish, who
held nothing in his hands, knew that he was at a fatal disadvantage.
Again, Von Holzen ran at him with his arm outstretched for a swinging
stab. Cornish, in a flash of thought, recognized that he could not meet
this. He stepped neatly aside. Von Holzen attempted to stop stumbled,
half recovered himself, and fell headlong into the canal.
In a moment Cornish and Roden were at the edge, peering into the
darkness. Cornish gave a breathless laugh.
“We shall have to fish him out,” he said.
And he knelt down, ready to give a hand to Von Holzen. But the water,
smooth again now, was not stirred by so much as a ripple.
“Suppose he can swim?” muttered Roden, uneasily.
And they waited in a breathless silence. There was something horrifying
in the single splash, and then the stillness.
“Gad!” whispered Cornish. “Where is he?”
Roden struck a match, and held it inside his hat so as to form a sort
of lantern, though the air was still enough. Cornish did the same, and
they held the lights out over the water, throwing the feeble rays right
across the canal.
“He cannot have swum away,” he said. “Von Holzen,” he cried out
cautiously, after another pause--“Von Holzen--where are you?”
But there was no answer.
The surface of the canal was quite still and glassy in those parts that
were not covered by the close-lying duck-weed. The water crept
stealthily, slimily, towards the sea.
The two men held their breath and waited. Cornish was kneeling at the
edge of the water, peering over.
“Where is he?” he repeated. “Gad! Roden, where is he?”
And Roden, in a hoarse voice, answered at length “He is in the mud at
the bottom--head downwards.”