that horrible book-maker's men who did it, but of course he can prove
nothing. But his last words to me were, 'Slip it into Percy again this
week.' He has given me one or two things to mention. I don't understand
them, but Aubrey says they will make him wild.”
Roland's flesh crept. The idea of making Mr. Pook any wilder than he
appeared to be at present horrified him. Panic gave him strength, and
he addressed Miss March, who was looking more like a modern Joan of Arc
than anything else on earth, firmly.
“Miss March,” he said, “I realize that this is a crisis, and that we
must all do all that we can for the paper, and I am ready to do anything
in reason--but I will not slip it into Percy. You have seen the effects
of slipping it into Percy. What he or his minions will do if we repeat
the process I do not care to think.”
“You are afraid?”
“Yes,” said Roland simply.
Miss March turned on her heel. It was plain that she regarded him as a
worm. Roland did not like being thought a worm, but it was infinitely
better than being regarded as an interesting case by the house-surgeon
of a hospital. He belonged to the school of thought which holds that it
is better that people should say of you, “There he goes!” than that they
should say, “How peaceful he looks”.
Stress of work prevented further conversation. It was a revelation to
Roland, the vigor and energy with which Miss March threw herself into
the breach. As a matter of fact, so tremendous had been the labors of
the departed Mr. Petheram, that her work was more apparent than real.
Thanks to Mr. Petheram, there was a sufficient supply of material in
hand to enable 'Squibs' to run a fortnight on its own momentum. Roland,
however, did not know this, and with a view to doing what little he
could to help, he informed Miss March that he would write the Scandal
Page. It must be added that the offer was due quite as much to prudence
as to chivalry. Roland simply did not dare to trust her with the Scandal
Page. In her present mood it was not safe. To slip it into Percy would,
he felt, be with her the work of a moment.
* * * * *
Literary composition had never been Roland's forte. He sat and stared at
the white paper and chewed the pencil which should have been marring its
whiteness with stinging paragraphs. No sort of idea came to him.
His brow grew damp. What sort of people--except book-makers--did things
you could write scandal about? As far as he could ascertain, nobody.
He picked up the morning paper. The name Windlebird [*] caught his eye.
A kind of pleasant melancholy came over him as he read the paragraph.
How long ago it seemed since he had met that genial financier. The
paragraph was not particularly interesting. It gave a brief account of
some large deal which Mr. Windlebird was negotiating. Roland did not
understand a word of it, but it gave him an idea.
[*] He is a character in the Second Episode, a fraudulent financier.
Mr. Windlebird's financial standing, he knew, was above suspicion. Mr.
Windlebird had made that clear to him during his visit. There could be
no possibility of offending Mr. Windlebird by a paragraph or two about
the manners and customs of financiers. Phrases which his kindly host had
used during his visit came back to him, and with them inspiration.
Within five minutes he had compiled the following
WE JUST WANT TO KNOW, YOU KNOW
WHO is the eminent financier at present engaged upon one of his
biggest deals?
WHETHER the public would not be well-advised to look a little
closer into it before investing their money?
IF it is not a fact that this gentleman has bought a first-class
ticket to the Argentine in case of accidents?
WHETHER he may not have to use it at any moment?
After that it was easy. Ideas came with a rush. By the end of an hour
he had completed a Scandal Page of which Mr. Petheram himself might have
been proud, without a suggestion of slipping it into Percy. He felt that
he could go to Mr. Pook, and say, “Percy, on your honor as a British
book-maker, have I slipped it into you in any way whatsoever?” And Mr.
Pook would be compelled to reply, “You have not.”
Miss March read the proofs of the page, and sniffed. But Miss March's
blood was up, and she would have sniffed at anything not directly
hostile to Mr. Pook.
* * * * *
A week later Roland sat in the office of 'Squibs,' reading a letter. It
had been sent from No. 18-A Bream's Buildings, E.C., but, from Roland's
point of view, it might have come direct from heaven; for its contents,
signed by Harrison, Harrison, Harrison & Harrison, Solicitors, were to
the effect that a client of theirs had instructed them to approach him
with a view to purchasing the paper. He would not find their client
disposed to haggle over terms, so, hoped Messrs. Harrison, Harrison,
Harrison & Harrison, in the event of Roland being willing to sell, they
could speedily bring matters to a satisfactory conclusion.
Any conclusion which had left him free of 'Squibs' without actual
pecuniary loss would have been satisfactory to Roland. He had conceived
a loathing for his property which not even its steadily increasing sales
could mitigate. He was around at Messrs. Harrison's office as soon as a
swift taxi could take him there. The lawyers were for spinning the thing
out with guarded remarks and cautious preambles, but Roland's methods of
doing business were always rapid.
“This chap,” he said, “this fellow who wants to buy 'Squibs,' what'll he
give?”
“That,” began one of the Harrisons ponderously, “would, of course,
largely depend----”
“I'll take five thousand. Lock, stock, and barrel, including the present
staff, an even five thousand. How's that?”
“Five thousand is a large----”
“Take it or leave it.”
“My dear sir, you hold a pistol to our heads. However, I think that our
client might consent to the sum you mention.”
“Good. Well, directly I get his check, the thing's his. By the way, who
is your client?”
Mr. Harrison coughed.
“His name,” he said, “will be familiar to you. He is the eminent
financier, Mr. Geoffrey Windlebird.”
THE DIVERTING EPISODE OF THE EXILED MONARCH
Fifth of a Series of Six Stories [First published in _Pictorial Review_,
September 1916]
The caoutchouc was drawing all London. Slightly more indecent than the
Salome dance, a shade less reticent than ragtime, it had driven the
tango out of existence. Nor, indeed, did anybody actually caoutchouc,
for the national dance of Paranoya contained three hundred and
fifteen recognized steps; but everybody tried to. A new revue, “Hullo,
Caoutchouc,” had been produced with success. And the pioneer of the
dance, the peerless Maraquita, a native Paranoyan, still performed it
nightly at the music-hall where she had first broken loose.
The caoutchouc fascinated Roland Bleke. Maraquita fascinated him more.
Of all the women to whom he had lost his heart at first sight, Maraquita
had made the firmest impression upon him. She was what is sometimes
called a fine woman.
She had large, flashing eyes, the physique of a Rugby International
forward, and the agility of a cat on hot bricks.
There is a period of about fifty steps somewhere in the middle of the
three hundred and fifteen where the patient, abandoning the comparative
decorum of the earlier movements, whizzes about till she looks like a
salmon-colored whirlwind.
That was the bit that hit Roland.
Night after night he sat in his stage-box, goggling at Maraquita and
applauding wildly.
One night an attendant came to his box.
“Excuse me, sir, but are you Mr. Roland Bleke? The Senorita Maraquita
wishes to speak to you.”
He held open the door of the box. The possibility of refusal did not
appear to occur to him. Behind the scenes at that theater, it was
generally recognized that when the Peerless One wanted a thing, she got
it--quick.
They were alone.
With no protective footlights between himself and her, Roland came to
the conclusion that he had made a mistake. It was not that she was any
less beautiful at the very close quarters imposed by the limits of
the dressing-room; but he felt that in falling in love with her he had
undertaken a contract a little too large for one of his quiet, diffident
nature. It crossed his mind that the sort of woman he really liked was
the rather small, drooping type. Dynamite would not have made Maraquita
droop.
For perhaps a minute and a half Maraquita fixed her compelling eyes on
his without uttering a word. Then she broke a painful silence with this
leading question:
“You love me, _hein_?”
Roland nodded feebly.
“When men make love to me, I send them away--so.”
She waved her hand toward the door, and Roland began to feel almost
cheerful again. He was to be dismissed with a caution, after all. The
woman had a fine, forgiving nature.
“But not you.”
“Not me?”
“No, not you. You are the man I have been waiting for. I read about you
in the paper, Senor Bleke. I see your picture in the 'Daily Mirror!' I
say to myself, 'What a man!'”
“Those picture-paper photographs always make one look rather weird,”
mumbled Roland.
“I see you night after night in your box. Poof! I love you.”
“Thanks awfully,” bleated Roland.
“You would do anything for my sake, _hein_? I knew you were that kind
of man directly I see you. No,” she added, as Roland writhed uneasily
in his chair, “do not embrace me. Later, yes, but now, no. Not till the
Great Day.”
What the Great Day might be Roland could not even faintly conjecture. He
could only hope that it would also be a remote one.
“And now,” said the Senorita, throwing a cloak about her shoulders, “you
come away with me to my house. My friends are there awaiting us. They
will be glad and proud to meet you.”
* * * * *
After his first inspection of the house and the friends, Roland came to
the conclusion that he preferred Maraquita's room to her company. The
former was large and airy, the latter, with one exception, small and
hairy.
The exception Maraquita addressed as Bombito. He was a conspicuous
figure. He was one of those out-size, hasty-looking men. One suspected
him of carrying lethal weapons.
Maraquita presented Roland to the company. The native speech of Paranoya
sounded like shorthand, with a blend of Spanish. An expert could
evidently squeeze a good deal of it into a minute. Its effect on the
company was good. They were manifestly soothed. Even Bombito.
Introductions in detail then took place. This time, for Roland's
benefit, Maraquita spoke in English, and he learned that most of those
present were marquises. Before him, so he gathered from Maraquita, stood
the very flower of Paranoya's aristocracy, driven from their native land
by the Infamy of 1905. Roland was too polite to inquire what on earth
the Infamy of 1905 might be, but its mention had a marked effect on the
company. Some scowled, others uttered deep-throated oaths. Bombito
did both. Before supper, to which they presently sat down, was over,
however, Roland knew a good deal about Paranoya and its history. The
conversation conducted by Maraquita--to a ceaseless _bouche pleine_
accompaniment from her friends--bore exclusively upon the subject.
Paranoya had, it appeared, existed fairly peacefully for centuries under
the rule of the Alejandro dynasty. Then, in the reign of Alejandro the
Thirteenth, disaffection had begun to spread, culminating in the Infamy
of 1905, which, Roland had at last discovered, was nothing less than the
abolition of the monarchy and the installation of a republic.
Since 1905 the one thing for which they had lived, besides the
caoutchouc, was to see the monarchy restored and their beloved Alejandro
the Thirteenth back on his throne. Their efforts toward this end
had been untiring, and were at last showing signs of bearing fruit.
Paranoya, Maraquita assured Roland, was honeycombed with intrigue. The
army was disaffected, the people anxious for a return to the old order
of things.
A more propitious moment for striking the decisive blow was never likely
to arrive. The question was purely one of funds.
At the mention of the word “funds,” Roland, who had become thoroughly
bored with the lecture on Paranoyan history, sat up and took notice.
He had an instinctive feeling that he was about to be called upon for
a subscription to the cause of the distressful country's freedom.
Especially by Bombito.
He was right. A moment later Maraquita began to make a speech.
She spoke in Paranoyan, and Roland could not follow her, but he gathered
that it somehow had reference to himself.
As, at the end of it, the entire company rose to their feet and extended
their glasses toward him with a mighty shout, he assumed that Maraquita
had been proposing his health.
“They say 'To the liberator of Paranoya!'” kindly translated the
Peerless One. “You must excuse,” said Maraquita tolerantly, as a bevy
of patriots surrounded Roland and kissed him on the cheek. “They are so
grateful to the savior of our country. I myself would kiss you, were it
not that I have sworn that no man's lips shall touch mine till the royal
standard floats once more above the palace of Paranoya. But that will be
soon, very soon,” she went on. “With you on our side we can not fail.”
What did the woman mean? Roland asked himself wildly. Did she labor
under the distressing delusion that he proposed to shed his blood on
behalf of a deposed monarch to whom he had never been introduced?
Maraquita's next remarks made the matter clear.
“I have told them,” she said, “that you love me, that you are willing
to risk everything for my sake. I have promised them that you, the
rich Senor Bleke, will supply the funds for the revolution. Once more,
comrades. To the Savior of Paranoya!”
Roland tried his hardest to catch the infection of this patriotic
enthusiasm, but somehow he could not do it. Base, sordid, mercenary
speculations would intrude themselves. About how much was a good,
well-furnished revolution likely to cost? As delicately as he could, he
put the question to Maraquita.
She said, “Poof! The cost? La, la!” Which was all very well, but hardly
satisfactory as a business chat. However, that was all Roland could get
out of her.
* * * * *
The next few days passed for Roland in a sort of dream. It was the kind
of dream which it is not easy to distinguish from a nightmare.
Maraquita's reticence at the supper-party on the subject of details
connected with the financial side of revolutions entirely disappeared.
She now talked nothing but figures, and from the confused mass which
she presented to him Roland was able to gather that, in financing
the restoration of royalty in Paranoya, he would indeed be risking
everything for her sake.
In the matter of revolutions Maraquita was no niggard. She knew how the
thing should be done--well, or not at all. There would be so much for
rifles, machine-guns, and what not: and there would be so much for the
expense of smuggling them into the country. Then there would be so much
to be laid out in corrupting the republican army. Roland brightened a
little when they came to this item. As the standing army of Paranoya
amounted to twenty thousand men, and as it seemed possible to corrupt
it thoroughly at a cost of about thirty shillings a head, the obvious
course, to Roland's way of thinking was to concentrate on this side of
the question and avoid unnecessary bloodshed.
It appeared, however, that Maraquita did not want to avoid bloodshed,
that she rather liked bloodshed, that the leaders of the revolution
would be disappointed if there were no bloodshed. Especially Bombito.
Unless, she pointed out, there was a certain amount of carnage, looting,
and so on, the revolution would not achieve a popular success. True, the
beloved Alejandro might be restored; but he would sit upon a throne
that was insecure, unless the coronation festivities took a bloodthirsty
turn. By all means, said Maraquita, corrupt the army, but not at the
risk of making the affair tame and unpopular. Paranoya was an emotional
country, and liked its revolutions with a bit of zip to them.
It was about ten days after he had definitely cast in his lot with the
revolutionary party that Roland was made aware that these things were a
little more complex than he had imagined. He had reconciled himself to
the financial outlay. It had been difficult, but he had done it. That
his person as well as his purse would be placed in peril he had not
foreseen.
The fact was borne in upon him at the end of the second week by the
arrival of the deputation.
It blew in from the street just as he was enjoying his after-dinner
cigar.
It consisted of three men, one long and suave, the other two short,
stout, and silent. They all had the sallow complexion and undue
hairiness which he had come by this time to associate with the native of
Paranoya.
For a moment he mistook them for a drove of exiled noblemen whom he
had not had the pleasure of meeting at the supper-party; and he waited
resignedly for them to make night hideous with the royal anthem. He
poised himself on his toes, the more readily to spring aside if they
should try to kiss him on the cheek.
“Mr. Bleke?” said the long man.
His companions drifted toward the cigar-box which stood open on the
table, and looked at it wistfully.
“Long live the monarchy,” said Roland wearily. He had gathered in the
course of his dealings with the exiled ones that this remark generally
went well.
On the present occasion it elicited no outburst of cheering. On the
contrary, the long man frowned, and his two companions helped themselves
to a handful of cigars apiece with a marked moodiness.
“Death to the monarchy,” corrected the long man coldly. “And,” he added
with a wealth of meaning in his voice, “to all who meddle in the affairs
of our beloved country and seek to do it harm.”
“I don't know what you mean,” said Roland.
“Yes, Senor Bleke, you do know what I mean. I mean that you will be
well advised to abandon the schemes which you are hatching with the
malcontents who would do my beloved land an injury.”
The conversation was growing awkward. Roland had got so into the habit
of taking it for granted that every Paranoyan he met must of necessity
be a devotee of the beloved Alejandro that it came as a shock to him
to realize that there were those who objected to his restoration to
the throne. Till now he had looked on the enemy as something in the
abstract. It had not struck him that the people for whose correction
he was buying all these rifles and machine-guns were individuals with a
lively distaste for having their blood shed.
“Senor Bleke,” resumed the speaker, frowning at one of his companions
whose hand was hovering above the bottle of liqueur brandy, “you are a
man of sense. You know what is safe and what is not safe. Believe me,
this scheme of yours is not safe. You have been led away, but there
is still time to withdraw. Do so, and all is well. Do not so, and your
blood be upon your own head.”
“My blood!” gasped Roland.
The speaker bowed.
“That is all,” he said. “We merely came to give the warning. Ah, Senor
Bleke, do not be rash. You think that here, in this great London of
yours, you are safe. You look at the policeman upon the corner of the
road, and you say to yourself 'I am safe.' Believe me, not at all so is
it, but much the opposite. We have ways by which it is of no account the
policeman on the corner of the road. That is all, Senor Bleke. We wish
you a good night.”
The deputation withdrew.
Maraquita, informed of the incident, snapped her fingers, and said
“Poof!” It sometimes struck Roland that she would be more real help in a
difficult situation if she could get out of the habit of saying “Poof!”
“It is nothing,” she said.
“No?” said Roland.
“We easily out-trick them, isn't it? You make a will leaving your money
to the Cause, and then where are they, _hein_?”
It was one way of looking at it, but it brought little balm to Roland.
He said so. Maraquita scanned his face keenly.
“You are not weakening, Roland?” she said. “You would not betray us
now?”
“Well, of course, I don't know about betraying, you know, but still----.
What I mean is----”
Maraquita's eyes seemed to shoot forth two flames.
“Take care,” she cried. “With me it is nothing, for I know that your
heart is with Paranoya. But, if the others once had cause to suspect
that your resolve was failing--ah! If Bombito----”
Roland took her point. He had forgotten Bombito for the moment.
“For goodness' sake,” he said hastily, “don't go saying anything to
Bombito to give him the idea that I'm trying to back out. Of course you
can rely on me, and all that. That's all right.”
Maraquita's gaze softened. She raised her glass--they were lunching at
the time--and put it to her lips.
“To the Savior of Paranoya!” she said.
“Beware!” whispered a voice in Roland's ear.
He turned with a start. A waiter was standing behind him, a small, dark,
hairy man. He was looking into the middle distance with the abstracted
air which waiters cultivate.
Roland stared at him, but he did not move.
That evening, returning to his flat, Roland was paralyzed by the sight
of the word “Beware” scrawled across the mirror in his bedroom. It had
apparently been done with a diamond. He rang the bell.
“Sir?” said the competent valet. (“Competent valets are in attendance at
each of these flats.”--_Advt._)
“Has any one been here since I left?”
“Yes, sir. A foreign-looking gentleman called. He said he knew you, sir.
I showed him into your room.”
The same night, well on in the small hours, the telephone rang. Roland
dragged himself out of bed.
“Hullo?”
“Is that Senor Bleke?”
“Yes. What is it?”
“Beware!”
Things were becoming intolerable. Roland had a certain amount of
nerve, but not enough to enable him to bear up against this sinister
persecution. Yet what could he do? Suppose he did beware to the extent
of withdrawing his support from the royalist movement, what then?
Bombito. If ever there was a toad under the harrow, he was that toad.
And all because a perfectly respectful admiration for the caoutchouc
had led him to occupy a stage-box several nights in succession at the
theater where the peerless Maraquita tied herself into knots.
* * * * *
There was an air of unusual excitement in Maraquita's manner at their
next meeting.
“We have been in communication with Him,” she whispered. “He will
receive you. He will give an audience to the Savior of Paranoya.”
“Eh? Who will?”
“Our beloved Alejandro. He wishes to see his faithful servant. We are to
go to him at once.”
“Where?”
“At his own house. He will receive you in person.”
Such was the quality of the emotions through which he had been passing
of late, that Roland felt but a faint interest at the prospect of
meeting face to face a genuine--if exiled--monarch. The thought did flit
through his mind that they would sit up a bit in old Fineberg's office
if they could hear of it, but it brought him little consolation.
The cab drew up at a gloomy-looking house in a fashionable square.
Roland rang the door-bell. There seemed a certain element of the prosaic
in the action. He wondered what he should say to the butler.
There was, however, no need for words. The door opened, and they were
ushered in without parley. A butler and two footmen showed them into a
luxuriously furnished anteroom. Roland entered with two thoughts
running in his mind. The first was that the beloved Alejandro had got an
uncommonly snug crib; the second that this was exactly like going to see
the dentist.
Presently the squad of retainers returned, the butler leading.
“His Majesty will receive Mr. Bleke.”
Roland followed him with tottering knees.
His Majesty, King Alejandro the Thirteenth, on the retired list, was a
genial-looking man of middle age, comfortably stout about the middle
and a little bald as to the forehead. He might have been a prosperous
stock-broker. Roland felt more at his ease at the very sight of him.
“Sit down, Mr. Bleke,” said His Majesty, as the door closed. “I have
been wanting to see you for some time.”
Roland had nothing to say. He was regaining his composure, but he had a
long way to go yet before he could feel thoroughly at home.
King Alejandro produced a cigaret-case, and offered it to Roland,
who shook his head speechlessly. The King lit a cigaret and smoked
thoughtfully for a while.
“You know, Mr. Bleke,” he said at last, “this must stop. It really must.
I mean your devoted efforts on my behalf.”
Roland gaped at him.