he had feared, that it would not give him the slightest pleasure to
break any of them. There might be a little excitement about bearing
false witness against your neighbour, but then that would entail
appearing in a law court and listening to the pitiful humour of some
fussy judge. As for the rest of the commandments, they suggested nothing
amusing. There was nothing to be done with the fifth, because his father
and mother had been dead for years; the sixth implied blood and
violence, and violence was foreign to his nature. But for a moment he
lingered over the picture of strangling Lord Peebles and burying him in
the straw in Park Lane. There was something grotesquely attractive in
the notion, but probably the coroner’s jury would give their verdict
that he had been strangled by natural causes, and that death had been
accelerated by the immediate prospect of a peerage.
He himself had thrice been offered a peerage, once by the Liberals, once
by the Conservatives, and once prospectively by the Labour Party. His
invariable answer had been that previous engagements prevented him
accepting their kind invitation. That had amused him at the time; now it
seemed deplorably witless. But could he not devise something for Lord
Peebles that should spoil his pleasure? Why should Lord Peebles have
that secret twinkle in his eye? Why should he, at his age, be still
enjoying life? Whately felt a murderous impulse towards his friend’s
mirth.
But he could think of nothing, and with a sigh he took up a copy of that
unique journal which is so justly famed for chronicling that which has
not occurred and prophesying that which will not possibly happen, and
scarcely glancing at the leader, probably inspired by Ananias, and the
fashionable intelligence, certainly gleaned by Sapphira, he turned to
the more reliable records of the police courts. There had been a brutal
murder--apparently the transgression of the sixth commandment was not
wholly unattractive to people less tiresomely fastidious than
himself--and a certain blameless archdeacon whom he knew slightly had,
after the receipt of a series of threatening letters, to which answers
were requested to be sent (accompanied by stout remittances) to A. M.,
Martin’s Library, Wardour Street, reluctantly taken proceedings against
the blackmailer, who had been rewarded with five years of enforced
seclusion.
Arthur Whately wondered whether he himself would have the courage to
prosecute a blackmailer. Probably not; with his wealth it would be
easier to satisfy the most rapacious. It was brave of the archdeacon;
no doubt his artificially fostered sense of duty sustained him.
His thoughts wandered on as he stared at the newspaper. Would he himself
ever have the courage to blackmail anyone else? It must be the most
exciting game, and to play it successfully would demand an extraordinary
amount of intuition and knowledge of human nature. All depended on the
character of your proposed victim. It would be as hopeless to try to
extract money with threats out of some men, however scarlet the secrets
of which you had possessed yourself, as, singlehanded, to extract a
lion’s teeth. Others, no doubt, would equally certainly yield at once to
the most veiled menace....
Suddenly the paper which he held began to rustle with the involuntary
tremor of the hand that held it, and an eager excitement shot up like
the light of a petroleum-soaked beacon in his dulled eye. He need no
longer seek for agitation. He had found, when he least expected it, the
answer to his fruitless appeals to the universe to supply him with
interest. In the excitement of the moment he poured a liberal dose of
whisky into a tumbler, but next minute poured it back. He had to keep
his head cool; artificial stimulant only led to subsequent reaction and
torpidity of thought. But through the prison bars his spirit grasped
hands with the archdeacon’s victim. He would certainly blackmail
somebody.
There were two questions to settle. Whom should he blackmail, and what
had his victim done? A moment’s incisive thought told him that the
second question, as to what the supposed crime had been, was alien and
superfluous. The poor man need not have done anything. He need only be
told that the events which occurred between, say, August 2 and August 10
of the year before last were known to his persecutor. All else depended
on the selection of a suitable victim. If an unsuitable subject was
chosen, one whose life (could such be found) was of virtue so
monstrously Spartan, that he would not mind the events of August 2 to
10, or those of any other date, being known, it was clearly impossible
to proceed. On the other hand, if his life was so voluminous a catalogue
of crime that there were terrible affairs in every week of it, a
notified period like this would create no particular impression.
Yes, it was the character of the victim that must be studied if the
æsthetic blackmailer was to have any fun, for, of course, in the case of
Arthur Whately, the mere extraction of two or three hundred pounds
(thousands, perhaps, if his prey was wealthy) meant nothing at all. And
the largest ingredient in the fun would be the uncertainty as to how the
victim would behave, whether he would take proceedings or pay. He must
therefore be cast in no iron mould; there would be little sport in
writing just one letter and then being sent to join the poor worm so
grindingly crushed by the heel of the valiant archdeacon, nor, on the
other hand, would there be any zest in the punctual receipts of cheques
whenever demanded. He had to think of somebody not too good and not too
bad, not too brave and yet not pigeon-livered. For a while his mind
hovered, singing like a skylark in the exultation of this absorbing
preoccupation, then suddenly it dropped to earth again. There was none
so fit as Lord Peebles.
His hand trembled for the pen that was mightier than the sword, and
after a few moments’ concentrated thought, he dashed off these cold,
cruel lines, which would serve as the basis for attack:
MY LORD,--While congratulating your lordship on the well-deserved
honour which the King has paid you, I feel it my duty to let your
lordship know that the events which took place between August 2 and
August 10 of the year before last are completely in the possession
of the undersigned, and are supported by documentary evidence of
such sort that nobody who saw it could ever doubt its authenticity.
I am prepared to give up to you all such papers as are in my
possession for the sum of £2,000.
I am a poor man, and a desperate one, but am strictly honourable in
all business matters such as this, and on receipt of that sum _in
gold_ I will strictly carry out my obligations. Should your
lordship take no notice of this communication or refuse to comply
with my request, the whole affair will be made public.
I am well aware that I put myself within reach of the law in thus
addressing you, but I would ask your lordship carefully to consider
the results to yourself if you prosecute me. The circumstances of
which I am possessed will then all come out, and while it matters
very little to me whether I pass the next few years in prison or
not, I think that the consequences to you will not be so lightly
regarded by self and family. You have a great deal to lose; I have
nothing.
Kindly communicate with me at Martin’s Library, Wardour Street, by
to-day week at latest. Having no club or settled address at
present, I call there daily for letters and occasional
parcels.--Faithfully yours,
GEORGE LORING.
In obedience to the business-like qualities which had raised him to the
position of multi-millionaire his mind instantly went into committee
over details. It was but very rarely that he employed his own hand in
writing, for his correspondence was entirely dealt with by secretaries
and typewriters, but it would be well to disguise his ordinary
caligraphy. Or, stop--there was a safer way, and the next minute the
Remington typewriter which stood in the corner of the room was opened
and gleamed with bared keys. He was no adept at this clattering
finger-exercise, but after a few abortive trials he made a clumsy
transcript of the letter, and directed an envelope by the same
mechanical device.
Already the cautious instincts of the habitual criminal had awoke in
him, and after replacing the cover on the typewriter he carefully burned
both his manuscript draft and the insane gibberish of his first typed
attempts, and opening his window let the blackened ashes float down into
the straw-covered roadway. It would never do, again, to let the
incriminating document lie among the other letters for post, and he hid
it below the shirts in a wardrobe drawer in his bedroom in order to post
it himself at some central letter-box next morning after verifying the
existence of Martin’s Library. Then, since it was already very late, he
went to bed with eager anticipation for the morrow and many morrows.
The next week was full of delightful interests; it passed in a spasm of
absorbing moments, and he was astonished and disgusted at himself for
not having entered sooner on a course of blackmail. True artist that he
was, he did not pay constant visits to Martin’s Library, as soon as it
was possible that there might be an answer to his letter, and ask if
there was anything for George Loring, but with a higher æstheticism,
preferred to taste the delights of suspense, and determined not to make
any inquiries till the notified week had elapsed. But he could not avoid
haunting Wardour Street, picturing to himself with artistic gusto his
official visit to the library. Once only was the flesh too strong, and,
though the week of grace had not yet expired, he could not resist the
temptation of entering the library.
The shop was empty, and, somewhat to his disappointment, showed no lines
of filled and fitted shelves, as he had hoped. He had imagined the smell
of leather bindings, bookcases full of venerable volumes of the fathers,
a dignified and courtly librarian. Instead, he found a small deal
counter, on which were displayed the more odious of penny publications,
and a stout old woman of comfortable appearance looked up from her
knitting as he entered. But behind her--and his heart beat quicker at
the sight--were rows of capacious pigeon-holes, each initialled with a
letter of the alphabet. But, even as she asked him in a hoarse, fruity
voice what she could do for him, he called on his finer instincts again,
and instead of asking if there happened to be anything for George
Loring, contented himself with buying “Society Pars” and “Frivol and
Fashion.” With these prints in his hand, he left the shop without even
looking at letter L.
But after all, perhaps, the commonplace sordidness of the establishment
was of greater artistic value than his preconceived idea of it; it was a
grimmer affair like this; it was more piquant, more trenchant that
white-faced men, trembling and unmanned by the possibility of dreadful
disclosures coming to light, should bring their forfeits to this
ordinary little establishment, that their unseen and terrible persecutor
should ask for letters from a comfortable old lady over a dingy deal
counter.
Hardly had he emerged when there drove by a motor in which, of all
people, Lord Peebles was sitting, who waved an absent welcome to him. He
saw at once how dangerous had been his visit. Supposing he had asked for
letters for George Loring and had staggered out of the shop with a
scarcely manageable parcel of gold, to encounter such a meeting, it was
distinctly within the bounds of possibility that that nobleman would
connect him with George Loring. His blood ran cold at the thought, and
yet it was a pleasing shiver which at once suggested a further
precaution, delightful in the devising. A disguise was imperatively
necessary.
He hailed a taxicab and spent an enraptured afternoon. George Loring had
probably done this sort of thing before, and it might be supposed that
though poor and desperate, he retained from the fruits of his last crime
clothes of a flashy and ill-fitting description. Such as he would
certainly wear a gaudy check suit and cheap patent leather boots. His
tie, of the Brussels carpet type, would assuredly be pinned with
something too magnificent to be possibly valuable; detachable cuffs and
dicky, a hat with a furrow in it would complete his detestable array.
Arthur Whately himself was clean shaven and solidly English in face; a
moustache and imperial, therefore, suggesting a Polish conjurer were
indicated. These must be of convincing make, incapable of detection; and
a visit to an expensive perruquier’s, with a brilliant tale of a
fancy-dress ball, made the last visit of a thrilling afternoon. And that
night, when the great house in Park Lane was silent, and the electrical
apparatus in the fan-room adjusted, a figure, appalling to contemplate,
strutted and pirouetted before the big looking-glass in his locked
bedroom.
All this, so exquisite to his pleasure-jaded palate, was but the
material aspect of his adventure. Far sweeter and more recondite was the
psychical honey of it. For, two days after George Loring had sent his
letter, Lord Peebles telephoned to know whether Arthur Whately would
play golf with him, and though he detested and despised the game, he
gave an enthusiastic affirmative, and drove down with him to the
Mid-Surrey links at Richmond. Certainly Lord Peebles looked worried and
anxious, and the grey streak above his ears seemed to the vigilant eye
of his friend to have assumed greater prominence.
“It’s so good of you to ask me to play,” said Whately as they started.
“I am a wretched performer, and I know your prowess.”
“Oh, I expect we shall have a very even match, a very even match,” said
the other. “And I needed a day off, though it is not Saturday. But there
has been some worrying business lately, and I wanted to get into the
country and forget all about it. Very worrying business.”
Whately’s eye gleamed secretly; these worries fed his soul.
“Indeed, I am sorry to hear that,” he said.
“Thank you, thank you. A purely private affair. Don’t let us talk of it.
Pretty the country looks. What’s that river we are crossing?”
“The River Thames,” said Whately almost tremulously.
“Perhaps,” said Lord Peebles.
He cleared his throat. “The Thames,” he began, and then changed the
subject to something amazingly foreign to that topic.
“It is strange how one’s memory plays tricks with one,” he said. “A
couple of days ago I was trying--quite idly--to recollect where I spent
the early days of August the summer before last, and was totally unable
to recall what I had been doing. My wife remembers that we went to
Scotland on the 11th, but she, too, has quite forgotten what we did just
before. She inclines to think that I was paying some visits without her.
Curious!”
Arthur Whately laughed in a sprightly, rallying manner.
“Ah, ah,” he said, “she is probably right, eh? Trust a wife’s memory, my
dear fellow, on that sort of point.”
“No doubt she is right,” returned the other, “but it is strange that we
can neither of us recollect where I went.”
“Perhaps you never told her,” said Whately gaily. “But come, dismiss
those evasive topics. Let the past bury its dead. It is only the present
that is truly ours.”
They had arrived at the club-house, and Whately stepped out, followed by
the heavier-footed peer. It was almost too good to be true, that by
sheer accident he had lighted on days that seemed hard to account for,
and, treading on air, he hurried into the dressing-room, where, in
momentary privacy, he was forced to indulge in a few toe-pointing capers
of delight. And, after all, though the emotions with which he had
supplied his friend were of anxious and ominous description, still,
emotions after all, of whatever sort, are the salt of life, and here was
a new one for him, something with a strong flavour about it. But he
could afford to be generous, since he himself was being so richly
entertained, and he did not grudge him one pang of the worry and anxiety
inseparable from his position.
Arthur Whately’s golf was generally of the most wayward description; he
cut balls savagely to point and topped them _ventre à terre_ into
cavernous bunkers, while Lord Peebles played a dreadfully steady game,
that, as a rule, walked arm-in-arm with bogey round the links. But
to-day a strange upset of form took place, for while Lord Peebles
seemed unable to hit any ball in the requisite direction or with the
requisite force, Arthur Whately, by virtue of the inscrutable laws that
govern golf, performed with incredible excellence, and not unnaturally
concluded that blackmailing is very good for the eye. Not for years had
he felt so keenly the zest and ecstasy of living, and while watching his
unfortunate opponent digging his ball out of tussocks of rank grass and
eviscerating bunkers, he planned many similar adventures for the future.
He felt as if he had awoke at last to his true nature; by accident he
was a millionaire and the architect of his own colossal fortune, but by
instinct and birth he seemed to be an æsthetic criminal. And the
discovery had come upon him, though late, yet not too late. There might
be many ecstatic years in store for him yet.
The days of that enchanted week passed slowly, and each moment that
brought him nearer Friday morning, when he would don his atrocious
disguise and visit Martin’s Library, brought him no nearer any firm
conjectures as to what he should find there. It so happened that he met
his victim several times in the course of the week, and if, as on the
occasion of their golf match, his mental and physical aspect seemed to
indicate that he would assuredly lack the courage of the archdeacon and
obediently pay his fine, on other occasions he showed a calmness and
control that was consistent with more aggressive proceedings. To
Whately’s knowledge he transacted during that week a very difficult and
intricate financial undertaking that caused certain bankers in Berlin to
curse his acumen, and later he won the Mid-Surrey monthly medal, which
looked as if his aberration had been only temporary. And the uncertainty
and suspense thrilled and fascinated his persecutor.
* * * * *
It was about twelve o’clock on the Friday morning that a dejected
four-wheeler stopped opposite Martin’s Library, and the ambulatory
population of Wardour Street, accustomed to all manner of
eccentricities, looked with wonder at the garish figure that emerged.
Two hours before, Arthur Whately had set off from Park Lane with a small
portmanteau and had driven to the Charing Cross Hotel, having adjusted
moustache and imperial with the aid of a small looking-glass in the cab,
and had taken a room for a widower of the name of George Loring, paying
for one night’s habitation. There he had effected his change of clothes
and left the valise containing the outer garments of Arthur Whately, at
present in a state of suspended existence.
He entered the library with a strutting martial air, and, as once
before, the comfortable old lady looked up from her knitting and asked
how she could serve him.
“I have called for letters and parcels for Mr. George Loring,” said
Whately in a falsetto voice, which was the result of diligent practice.
But a glance at pigeon-hole L showed him that it was empty....
“Yes, parcel and letter for Mr. George Loring,” said the old dame, “but
the parcel was too big to put in the pigeon-hole, let alone lifting it.
So I put them together somewhere. Deary me, now, where was it?”
“This is a strange way to conduct a public library,” said Whately,
forgetting all about the assumed falsetto, “that the librarian should
not know where she has deposited the property of her subscribers. Mr.
Martin would be far from pleased. I am pressed for time, madam. Business
in the city----”
The old lady turned slowly round and beamed on him.
“And if I wasn’t sitting on it all the time,” she said, “just for
safety, as you may say. There, young man, you’ll find it heavy, and
there’s sixpence to pay.”
“A most reasonable charge, madam,” said Whately. “And--and can you tell
me who left the parcel--what he looked like?”
She nodded at him.
“Such a fur coat I never see,” she said, “and his motor fair stopped the
traffic. I didn’t take much account of his face, though I would swear to
a beard.”
“A shrewd observer!” said Whately in his most genial tones, and
staggering out of the shop with his parcel, deposited it on his own toe
as he stepped into the cab. The pain was severe, and for the moment
damped his ecstasy and caused him a loss of self-control.
“Charing Cross Hotel, you old idiot!” was his unjustifiable direction to
his cabman.
As he drove there he tore open the note. It ran as follows:
“DEAR SIR,--You have me completely in your power, and I send the
money you demand. Kindly forward me at once the documentary
evidence you speak of.
Faithfully yours,
PEEBLES.”
Again he felt vaguely disappointed. The fish had given him less play
than he hoped; he had but towed its sulking carcass to land. But, then,
he did not know that there followed him, threading the intricacies of
traffic close behind him, a taxicab in which was sitting a quiet-looking
gentleman with pince-nez. Its destination also appeared to be Charing
Cross Hotel.
The hall porter opened the door of his cab, and Whately indicated his
parcel.
“Move that into the bureau, if you will be so kind,” he said. “It
contains a--a model, a metal model, and is heavy. I am going upstairs to
change my clothes, and will be down again in ten minutes.”
Less time than that was sufficient for him to resume the habiliments of
Arthur Whately, and stow the apparel of the vanished George Loring in
his bag. His imperial and moustache he still wore, for it was his
intention to use depilatory measures in the cab which took him back to
Park Lane lest the complete transformation might prove too staggering
for the hall porter. This time he himself took the parcel, a wooden box,
clearly, wrapped up in brown paper, to his cab, put it, not on his own
foot, but on the seat opposite, and genially told the driver to take him
to Park Lane. Close behind him followed the taxicab containing the
gentleman with pince-nez, modest, secluded, and unobserved. And from a
few doors off he saw Mr. Arthur Whately, burdened with the parcel he had
brought from Wardour Street, stagger into his own house. His business
seemed to be not yet finished, for having seen him home he drove back to
an office in the City, and was at once taken in to see the head of the
firm. His interview lasted about half an hour, and he left behind him
when he went a very much astonished gentleman, over whose mobile face a
succession of queer secret smiles chased one another like gleams of
sunshine on a cloudy day. Excellent business man though he was, he gave
for the rest of the day but a tepid attention to his work.
Arthur Whately meantime was closeted with his gold. With the aid of a
pair of nail-scissors (for prudence counselled secrecy) he succeeded in
raising the lid of the box, and found it packed inside with smooth,
discreet little sausages of white paper. A couple of these he unfolded,
and from each flowed out a stream of clinking sovereigns. In each were a
round hundred, and the little sausages were twenty in number. He put a
liberal handful of gold in his pocket; he locked the rest into the safe
that stood in the bedroom. And those two thousand pounds were somehow
sweeter to him than his whole unnumbered fortune: they seemed to him the
reward of a cleverness that was more peculiarly his own than that which
had amassed so huge a harvest in South African mines and American
options. They were doubly sweet, for they were both the fruit of secret
criminal processes and had been wrung by terror out of his friend.
He lunched out that day. His soul basked in the heaven of high animal
spirits which had so long been lost to him, and in the stimulus which
the last week had brought to him he felt like a peri who had regained
Paradise. Perhaps reaction would come, but for the present it held
aloof, and in case it did he could always, as he phrased it to himself
as he walked lightly down Bond Street, apply the squeezers again to poor
Peebles. The vocabulary as well as the spirits of a schoolboy had come
back to him; long-forgotten slang tripped off his tongue, and he
examined shop-windows with eager enthusiasm. There was a beautiful
Charles II. rat-tail spoon in a shop of old silver, and he entered and
bought it, paying for it on the spot with fifteen of his newly acquired
sovereigns. The purchase gave him more pleasure than any he had made for
years: it was the fruit of his splendid stroke of blackmail.