This is the tale of the late Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Fasset-Faith,
K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O. This distinguished torpedo officer was advanced
to flag rank only last June, having previously been for two years
Commodore of the First Class commanding the ---- Fleet. Throughout the war
he was attached to the submarine service; and for the vigilance and
fearlessness of his command his name came to be much on men’s lips. His
early death, at the age of forty-five, will be regretted by all who knew
him. He never married. This is also the tale of Julian Raphael the Jew
and of Manana Cohen, his paramour.
One summer evening a gentleman emerged from the Celibates Club in
Hamilton Place; and, not instantly descending the few broad steps to the
pavement, stood a while between the two ancient brown columns of the
portico. The half of a cigar was restlessly screwed into the corner of
his mouth in a manner that consorted quite oddly with his uneager
English eye; and that, with the gentleman’s high carriage, might have
reminded a romantic observer of the President of the Suicide Club. His
silk hat, however (for he was habited for the evening), was situated on
his head with an exact sobriety which would seem to rebuke the more
familiar relations customary between desperate gentlemen and their hats;
and he appeared, at his idle station at the head of the broad steps, to
be lost in peaceful contemplation.
The Admiral made thus a notable mark for any passing stranger with a
nice eye for distinction: he stood so definitely for _something_, a very
column of significance, of conduct. Unusually tall for a sailor, and of
powerful build, his complexion was as though forged--it is the exact
word--in the very smithy of vengeful suns and violent winds: his pale
dry eyes, which would, even in a maelstrom, always remain decidedly the
driest of created things, in their leisure assumed that kindly, absent
look which is the pleasant mark of Englishmen who walk in iron upon the
sea: while short brown side-whiskers mightily became the authority of
Sir Charles’s looks.
The hour was about ten o’clock, and the traffic by the corner of
Hamilton Place and Piccadilly marched by without hindrance. The din of
horns and wheels and engines, as though charmed by the unusual
gentleness of the night, swept by inattentive ears as easily as the
echoes of falling water in a distant cavern. The omnibuses to Victoria
and to the Marble Arch trumpeted proudly round the corner where by day
they must pant for passage in a heavy block. Limousines and landaulettes
shone and passed silently. The very taxis, in the exaltation of moderate
speed, seemed almost to be forgetting their humble places in the
hierarchy of the road. Every now and then figures scuttled across the
road with anxious jerking movements.
“A fine night!” sighed the commissionaire of the Celibates Club. His
face was very lined and his old eyes clouded with the stress of
countless days of London fog and London rain. “A taxi, Sir Charles?”
The Admiral cleared his throat and aimed the remnant of his cigar into
the gutter. “Thanks, Hunt, I think I’ll walk. Yes, a fine night.”
Omnibus after omnibus tore down the short broad slope from Park Lane and
galloped gaily across the sweep of Hyde Park Corner. There was half a
moon over St. George’s Hospital, and the open place looked like a park
with the lamps for flowers.
“The buses _do_ speed up at night!” sighed the commissionaire.
“Don’t they! But see there, Hunt!” Sir Charles, suddenly and sharply,
was waving his cane towards the opposite side of the road, towards the
corner by the massive Argentine Club. “See that man?”
The commissionaire with the lined face followed the direction of the
cane.
“That constable, Sir Charles?”
“No, no! That Jew!”
The commissionaire, mistrustful of his ancient eyes, peered through the
clear night. He sighed: “God knows, Sir Charles, there’s Jews enough in
Mayfair, but I can’t see one just there.”
The Admiral thoughtfully took another cigar from his case. His eyes were
of iron, but his voice had lost all its sudden sharpness as he said:
“Never mind, Hunt. Just give me a light, will you?”
But, as he made to walk down Piccadilly, to join in a rubber at his
other club in St. James’s Street, Sir Charles did not let the dark lean
man on the other side of the road pass out of the corner of his eye. The
young Jew crossed the road. That did not surprise our gentleman. He
walked on and, once on Piccadilly, walked at a good pace.
The Piccadilly scene was seldom crowded between ten and eleven:
cinema-theatres, music-halls and playhouses held the world’s attention,
while the night was not yet deep enough for the dim parade of the
world’s wreckage. Sir Charles would always, at about this hour, take a
little exercise between his clubs in Hamilton Place and St. James’s.
He had passed the opening of Half-Moon Street before the young Jew
caught up with his shoulder. Sir Charles walked on without concerning
himself to look round at the dark, handsome face. Handsome as a black
archangel was Julian Raphael the Jew. Sir Charles vaguely supposed that
the archangels had originally been Jewish, and it was as a black
archangel that the looks of Julian Raphael had first impressed him. It
was altogether a too fanciful business for the Admiral’s taste; but he
had no one to blame for it but himself, since he had originally let the
thing, he’d had to admit often, run away with him.
“Well?” he suddenly smiled over his shoulder. There was, after all, a
good deal to smile about, if you took the thing properly. And it had
needed more than a handsome Jew to prevent Sir Charles taking a thing
properly. But Julian Raphael did not smile. He said gravely:
“When I first saw you, Sir Charles, I thought you were only a fool. But
I am not sure now. You show a resignation towards fate unusual in your
sceptical countrymen. It is scepticism that makes men dull, resignation
that makes men interesting. It is a dull mind that believes in nothing:
it is an interesting mind that expects nothing and awaits the worst.
Your waiting shall be rewarded, Sir Charles.”
The Admiral walked on with a grim smile. He was growing used to
this--even to this! They passed beneath the bitter walls of what was
once Devonshire House. The beautiful Jew said softly:
“You have a broad back, Sir Charles. It is a fine mark for a well-thrown
knife. Have I not always said so!”
Our gentleman swung round on the lean young Jew. A few yards from them a
policeman was having a few words with the commissionaire of the Berkeley
Restaurant about a car that had been left standing too long by the curb.
It was Julian Raphael who was smiling now. Sir Charles said sternly:
“Am I to understand that you are trying to frighten me with this
ridiculous persecution? And what, Mr. Raphael, is to prevent me from
giving you in charge to that policeman? You are, I think, wanted for
murder.”
Julian Raphael’s black eyes seemed to shine with mockery. “There’s
nothing in the world to prevent you, Sir Charles, except that any
policeman would think you mad for asking him to arrest air. Not, as you
suggest, that he wouldn’t, in the ordinary way, be pleased to catch the
Prince of the Jews. May I offer you a light for that cigar?”
And as Sir Charles lit his cigar from the match held out to him he was
not surprised to find himself looking into the ancient eyes of Hunt, the
commissionaire outside his club in Hamilton Place. His walk up
Piccadilly, his talk with the young Jew, had taken no longer than it
takes to light a cigar. This was the third time within a fortnight that
the Admiral had been privileged to see his old enemy, to walk with him
and talk with him; and his awakening had each time been to find that not
more than a couple of seconds had passed and that he had never moved
from his station.
Sir Charles abruptly reentered the club and, in the smoking-room,
addressed himself to his old friend Hilary Townshend.
“Hilary,” said he, “I have a tale to tell you. It is very fanciful, and
you will dislike it. I dislike it for the same reason. But I want you,
my oldest friend, to know certain facts in case anything happens to me
in the course of the next few days--or nights. In my life, as you know,
I have not had many dealings with the grotesque. But the grotesque seems
lately to be desiring the very closest connection with me. It began two
years ago when I officiously tried to be of some service to a young
Jewess called Manana Cohen. God help me, I thought I was acting for the
best.”
There follows the tale told by Admiral Sir Charles Fasset-Faith to Mr.
Townshend.