ES-SINDIBAD OF CADOGAN GARDENS
Upon the night following the ill-omened banquet in Park Lane was held a
second dinner party, in Cadogan Gardens. Like veritable gourmets, we
must be present.
It is close upon the dining hour.
"Zoe is late!" said Lady Vignoles.
"I think not, dear," her husband corrected her, consulting his
celebrated chronometer. "They have one minute in which to demonstrate
the efficiency of American methods!"
"Thank you--Greenwich!" smiled her vivacious ladyship, whose husband's
love of punctuality was the only trace of character which six months of
marital intimacy had enabled her to discover in him.
"You know," said Lord Vignoles to Zimmermann, the famous _littérateur_
of the Ghetto, "she is proud of Yankee smartness. Only natural." And his
light blue eyes followed his wife's pretty figure as she flitted
hospitably amongst her guests. Admiration beamed through his monocle.
"Lady Vignoles is a staunch American," agreed the novelist. "I gather
that your opinion of that nation differs from hers?"
"Well, you know," explained his host, "I don't seriously contend--that
is, when Sheila is about--I don't contend that their methods aren't
smart. But it seems to me that their smartness is all--just--well, d'you
see what I mean? Look at these Pinkerton fellows!"
"Those who you were telling me called upon you this morning?"
"Yes. They came over with Oppner to look for this Séverac Bablon."
"What is your contention?"
"Well," said Vignoles, rather flustered at being thus pinned to the
point, "I mean to say--they haven't caught him!"
"Neither has Scotland Yard!"
"No, by Jove, you're right! Scotland Yard hasn't!"
"Do you think it likely that Scotland Yard will?" asked the other.
But Lord Vignoles, having caught his wife's eye, was performing a
humorous grimace, and, watch in hand, delivering a pantomimic indictment
of American unpunctuality. At which moment Miss Oppner was announced,
and Lady Vignoles made a pretty _moue_ of triumph.
Zoe Oppner entered the room, regally carrying her small head crowned
with the slightly frizzy mop of chestnut hair, conscious of her fine
eyes, her perfect features, and her pretty shoulders, happy in her slim
young beauty, and withal wholly unaffected. Therein lay her greatest
charm. A beautiful woman, fully aware of her loveliness, she was too
sensible to be vain of a gift of the gods--to pride herself upon a
heavenly accident.
"Why, Zoe!" said Lady Vignoles, "what's become of uncle?"
"Pa couldn't get," announced Zoe composedly; "so I came along without
him. Told me to apologise, but didn't explain. I've promised to rejoin
him early, so I shall have to quit directly after dinner. The car is
coming for me."
Lord Vignoles looked amused.
"_Les affaires!_" he said resignedly. "These Americans!"
Dinner was announced.
The usual air of slightly annoyed surprise crept over the faces of the
company at the announcement, so that to the uninitiate it would have
seemed that no one was hungry. However, they accepted the inevitable.
Then Vignoles made a discovery.
"I say, Sheila," he exclaimed, "where is your American efficiency? We're
thirteen!"
His wife made a rapid mental calculation and flushed slightly.
"Anybody might do it!" she pouted; "and it's uncle's fault, anyway!"
"Why!" exclaimed Zoe Oppner, "you're surely not going to make a fuss
over a silly thing like that!"
"A lot of people don't like it," declared Lady Vignoles hurriedly. "I
shouldn't mind, of course, if it happened at somebody else's house."
Zimmermann strolled up to the group.
"I gather that we number thirteen?" he said.
"That is so," replied Vignoles; "but," dropping his voice, "I don't
think anyone else has noticed it yet."
"A romantic idea occurs to me!" smiled the novelist. "I submit it in all
deference----"
"Oh, go on, Mr. Zimmermann!" cried Zoe, with sparkling eyes.
"Why not, upon the precedent of our ancient Arabian friend, Es-Sindibad
of the Sea, summon to the feast some chance wayfarer?"
"Oh, I say!" protested the host mildly. "Do you mean to go outside in
Cadogan Gardens and stop anybody that comes along?"
"Well," said Zimmermann, "it should, strictly, be some pious person who
tarries there to extol Allah! But if we waited for such a traveller I
fear the soup would be spoiled! You are a gentleman short, I think? So
make it, simply, the first gentleman."
"But he might be a tramp or a taxi-driver, or worse!" protested
Vignoles.
"That is true," agreed the other. "So let us determine upon a criterion
of respectability. Shall we say the first man, provided he be agreeable,
who wears a dress-suit?"
"That's just grand!" cried Zoe Oppner enthusiastically. "It's too cute
for anything! Oh, Jerry, let's! Make him do it, Sheila!"
Jerry, otherwise Lord Vignoles, clearly regarded the projected Oriental
experiment with no friendly eye.
"I mean to say----"
"That's settled, Zoe!" said the pretty hostess calmly. "Never mind him!
Alexander!"
The footman addressed came forward.
"You will step out on the front porch, Alexander, and say to the first
gentleman who passes, if he's in evening dress: 'Lady Vignoles requests
the pleasure of your company at dinner.' If he says he doesn't know me,
reply that I am quite aware of that! Do you understand?"
Alexander was shocked.
"I mean to say, Sheila----" began his lordship.
"Did you hear me, Alexander?"
"I've got to stand out in Cadogan Gardens, my lady----"
"Shall I repeat it again, slowly?"
"I heard you, my lady."
"Very well. Show the gentleman into the library. You have only five
minutes."
With an appealing look towards Lord Vignoles, who, having ostentatiously
removed and burnished his eyeglass, seemed to experience some difficulty
in replacing it, Alexander departed.
"_I_ claim him!" cried Zoe, as the footman disappeared. "Whoever he is
or whatever he's like, he shall take me in to dinner!"
"What I mean to say is," blurted Vignoles, "that it would be all right
at a country-house party at Christmas, say----"
"It's going to be all right here, dear!" interrupted his wife,
affectionately squeezing his arm. "Why, think of the possibilities! New
York would just go crazy on the idea!"
A silence fell between them as, with Zoe Oppner and the Zimmermanns,
they made their way to the library. Only a few minutes elapsed, to their
surprise, ere Alexander reappeared. Martyr-like, he had performed his
painful duty, and a beatific consciousness of his martyrdom was writ
large upon him. In an absolutely toneless voice he announced:
"Detective-Inspector Pepys!"
"Here! I mean to say--we can't have a policeman----" began Vignoles, but
his wife's little hand was laid upon his lips.
Zoe Oppner, with brimming eyes, made a brave attempt, and then fled to a
distant settee, striving with her handkerchief to stifle her laughter.
The guest entered.
From her remote corner Zoe Oppner peeped at him, and her laughter
ceased. Lady Vignoles looked pleased; her husband seemed surprised.
Zimmermann watched the stranger with a curious expression in his eyes.
Detective-Inspector Pepys was a tall man of military bearing, bronzed,
and wearing a slight beard, trimmed to a point. He was perfectly
composed, and came forward with an easy smile upon his handsome face.
His clothes fitted him faultlessly. Even Lord Vignoles (a sartorial
connoisseur) had to concede that his dress-suit was a success. He looked
a wealthy Colonial gentleman.
"This pleasure is the greater in being unexpected, Lady Vignoles!" he
said. "I gather I am thus favoured that I may take the place of an
absentee. Shall I hazard a guess? Your party numbered thirteen?"
His infectious smile, easy acceptance of a bizarre situation, and
evident good breeding, bridged a rather difficult interval. Lord
Vignoles had had an idea that detective-inspectors were just ordinary
plain-clothes policemen, and had determined, a second before, to assert
himself, give the man half-a-sovereign, and put an end to this
ridiculous extravaganza. Now he changed his mind. Detective-Inspector
Pepys was a revelation.
Vignoles (to his own surprise) offered his hand.
"It is very good of you," he said, rather awkwardly. "You are sure you
have no other dinner engagement, Inspector?"
"None," replied the latter. "I am, strictly speaking, engaged upon
official duty; but bodily nutriment is allowed--even by Scotland Yard!"
"You don't mind my presenting you to--the other guests--in
your--ah--unofficial capacity--as plain Mr. Pepys? They might--think
there was something wrong!"
He felt vaguely confused, as though he were insulting the visitor by his
request, and with the detective's disconcerting eyes fixed upon his face
was more than half ashamed of himself.
"Not in the least, Lord Vignoles. I should have suggested it had you not
done so."
The host was resentfully conscious of a subtle sense of inward gratitude
for this concession. Of the easy assumption of equality by the detective
he experienced no resentment whatever. The circumstances possibly
warranted it, and, in any event, it was assumed so quietly and naturally
that he accepted it as a matter of course.
Since Lord Vignoles' marriage with an American heiress the atmosphere of
his establishments had grown very transatlantic; so much so, indeed,
that someone had dubbed the house in Cadogan Gardens "The Millionaires'
Meeting House," and another wit (unknown) had referred to his place in
Norfolk as "The Week-end Synagogue." Furthermore, Lady Vignoles had a
weakness for "odd people," for which reason the presence of a guest
hitherto socially unknown occasioned no comment.
Mr. Pepys having brought in Zoe Oppner, everyone assumed the late
arrival to be one of Lady Vignoles' odd people, and everyone was
pleasantly surprised to find him such a charming companion.
Zoe Oppner, for her part, became so utterly absorbed in his conversation
that her cousin grew seriously alarmed. Zoe was notoriously eccentric,
and, her cousin did not doubt, even capable of forming an attachment for
a policeman.
In fact, Lady Vignoles, who was wearing the historic Lyrpa Diamond--her
father's wedding-present--was so concerned that she had entirely lost
track of the general conversation, which, from the great gem, had
drifted automatically into criminology.
Zimmermann was citing the famous case of the Kimberley mail robbery in
'83.
"That was a big haul," he said. "Twelve thousand pounds' worth of rough
diamonds!"
"Fifteen!" corrected Bernard Megger, director of a world-famed mining
syndicate.
"Oh, was it fifteen?" continued Zimmermann. "No doubt you are correct.
Were you in Africa in '83?"
"No," replied Megger; "I was in 'Frisco till the autumn of '85, but I
remember the affair. Three men were captured--one dead. The
fourth--Isaac Jacobsen--got away, and with the booty!"
"Never traced, I believe!" asked the novelist.
"Never," confirmed Megger; "neither the man nor the diamonds."
"It was a big thing, certainly," came Vignoles' voice; "but this Séverac
Bablon has beaten all records in that line!"
The remark afforded his wife an opportunity, for which she had sought,
to break off the too confidential _tête-à-tête_ between Zoe and the
detective.
"Zoe," she said, "surely Mr. Pepys can tell us something about this
mysterious Séverac Bablon?"
"Oh, yes!" replied Zoe. "He has been telling me! He knows quite a lot
about him!"
Now, the dinner-table topic all over London was the mystery of Séverac
Bablon, and Lady Vignoles' party was not exceptional in this respect. It
had already been several times referred to, and at Miss Oppner's words
all eyes were directed towards the handsome stranger, who bore this
scrutiny with such smiling composure.
"I cannot go into particulars, Lady Vignoles," he said; "but, as you are
aware, I have a kind of official connection with the matter!"
This was beautifully mysterious, and everyone became intensely
interested.
"Of such facts as have come to light you all know as much as I, but
there is a certain theory which seems to have occurred to no one." He
paused impressively, throwing a glance around the table. "What is the
notable point in regard to the victims of Séverac Bablon?"
"They are Jews--or of Jewish extraction," said Zoe Oppner promptly. "Pa
has noticed that! He's taken considerable interest since his mills were
burned in Ontario!"
"And what is the conclusion?"
"That he hates Jews!" snapped Bernard Megger hotly. "That he has a
deadly hatred of all the race!"
"You think so?" said Pepys softly, and turned his eyes upon the gross,
empurpled face of the speaker. "It has not occurred to you that he might
himself be a Jew?"
That theory was so new to them that it was received in silent
astonishment. Lady Vignoles, though her mother was Irish, had a marked
leaning towards her father's people, and, as was usually the case, that
ancient race was fairly represented at her dinner-table. Lord Vignoles,
on the contrary, was not fond of his wife's Semitic friends--in fact,
was ashamed of them; and he accordingly felt the present conversation to
be drifting in an unpleasant direction.
"Consider," resumed Pepys, before the host could think of any suitable
remark, "that this man wields an enormous and far-reaching influence. No
door is locked to him! From out of nowhere he can summon up numbers of
willing servants, who obey him blindly, and return--whence they came!
"He would seem, then, to be served by high and low, and--a notable
point--no one of his servants has yet betrayed him! His wealth clearly
is enormous. He invites the rich to give--as _he_ gives--and if they
decline he takes! For what purpose? That he may relieve the poor! No
friend of the needy yet has suffered at the hands of Séverac Bablon."
"I believe that's a fact!" agreed Zoe Oppner. "He's my own parent, but
Pa's real mean, I'll allow!"
Her words were greeted with laughter; but everyone was anxious to hear
more from this man who spoke so confidently upon the topic of the hour.
"You may say," he continued, "that he is no more than a glorified Claude
Duval, but might he not be one who sought to purge the Jewish name of
the taint of greed--who forced those responsible for fostering that
taint to disburse--who hated those mean of soul and loved those worthy
of their ancient line? It is thus he would war! And the price of defeat
would be--a felon's cell! Whom would he be--this man at enmity with all
who have brought shame upon the Jewish race? Whom could he be, save a
monarch with eight millions of subjects--a royal Jew? I say that such a
man exists, and that Séverac Bablon, if not that man himself, is his
chosen emissary!"
More and more rapidly he had spoken, in tones growing momentarily louder
and more masterful. He burned with the enthusiasm of the specialist.
Now, as he ceased, a long sigh arose from his listeners, who had hung
breathless upon his words, and one lady whispered to her neighbour, "Is
he something to do with the Secret Service?"
"Mr. Bernard Megger is wanted on the telephone!"
"How annoying!" ejaculated Lady Vignoles at this sudden interruption.
"Oh, I have said my say," laughed Pepys. "It is a pet theory of mine,
that's all! I am alone in my belief, however, save for a writer in the
_Gleaner_, who seems to share it."