“She is now,” a voice said. The young Jew had picked himself up. He
looked a mess, fine clothes and all. I thought he would try to rush me,
but not he! He just smiled and said quite calmly: “I’ll make a note of
that, Sir Charles Fasset-Faith. Come on, Manana.”
But I wasn’t letting “Manana” go just yet. The poor kid.
“What’s his name?” I asked her.
She stared at me. I never knew what “white” really meant until I saw
that child’s teeth.
“His name?” I repeated. Gently, you know.
She whispered: “Julian Raphael.”
That young Jew’s voice hit me on the back of the neck like a knife.
“You’ll pay for that, Manana! See if you don’t!”
By the way, it isn’t just rhetoric about the knife. It was like a knife.
But I’ll tell you more about knives later.
“Oh,” she sobbed.
“Look here,” I said to the devilish boy, “if you so much as----”
He laughed. The girl bolted under my arm and joined him. He just
laughed. I said: “Good-night, Manana. Don’t let him hurt you.” She
didn’t seem to dare look at me.
They went, up that muddy lane. He had her by the arm, and you could see
he had her tight. There aren’t many lamps in that _beau quartier_, and a
few steps took them out of my sight. I heard a scream, and then a sob.
That settled Julian Raphael so far as I was concerned. Then another
sob--from the back of that nasty darkness. I couldn’t, of course, go
after them then. It would look too much as though I was bidding for
possession of the young Jew’s love-lady. But at that moment I made up my
mind I’d land that pretty boy sometime soon. That scream had made me
feel just a trifle sick. That was personal. Then I was against Julian
Raphael impersonally because I’ve always been for law and order. You
have too, Hilary. I shouldn’t wonder if that’s not another reason why
women find men like us dull. But some of us must be, God knows, in this
world. And it was against all law and order that young Mr. Julian
Raphael--imagine any man actually _using_ a name like that!--should be
loose in the world. Crook was too simple a word for Mr. Raphael. And he
was worse for being so devilish handsome. One imagined him with
women--with this poor soul of a Manana. Of course, Venice and Napier and
the other people at their potty old club knew nothing about either of
them. They must have just drifted in, they said. They had, into my
life.
The very next morning I rang up our friend H---- at Scotland Yard and
asked him if he knew anything about a Julian Raphael. Oh, didn’t he! Had
a _dossier_ of him as long as my arm. H---- said: “The Prince of the
Jews, that’s Julian Raphael’s pet name. Profession: counterfeiter. But
we’ve never yet caught him or his gang.”
Oh, the cinema wasn’t in it with our fancy young friend. The police had
been after him for about five years. Once they had almost got him for
knifing a Lascar. Murder right enough, but they’d had to release him for
lack of evidence. The Lascar, H---- said, had probably threatened to
give away a cocaine plant, and Julian Raphael had slit his throat.
Suspected of cocaine-smuggling, living on immoral earnings of women, and
known to be the finest existing counterfeiter of Bank of England £5
notes. Charming man, Mr. Julian Raphael.
“I want to land him,” I told H----.
“Thanks very much,” said he. “So do we.”
“Well, how about that girl of his--Manana something?”
“Manana Cohen? Catch her giving him away! She adores the beast, and so
do they all, those who aren’t terrified of him.”