EXPLOIT THE THIRD.
HE MEETS THE LEOPARD LADY.
I.
THE BOOM-MAKER.
My friend Captain O’Hagan frequently is misunderstood; his studied
singularity of appearance is falsely ascribed to a desire for notoriety.
Whereas he eschews and abominates publicity of any kind, and merely
seeks to establish a visible distinction betwixt the aristocrat and the
plebeian.
The ever-increasing facilities for airing one’s grievances in long
primer, he contends, are destructive of that chaste reserve once
characteristic of our race. I agree with O’Hagan. He declares that we
love to be interviewed.
“Is it not true, Raymond,” he cries, “that for the sake of seeing her
photograph (retouched) in the columns of a daily paper, Mrs. Brown-Jones
will reveal to the blushing public the secret of her corsets? Does she
not draw attention to the graceful contour of her form, and she (the
mother of a family) take the man in the street into her confidence,
imparting to him intimate particulars respecting her wardrobe which, if
used indiscreetly, would prove most compromising?
“Alas, O’Hagan,” I reply, “it is so.”
He throws himself back in his chair, purple-lined cloak widely flying;
picturesque, hatless head raised in scorn. He is the focus of a hundred
gazes.
“A young lady,” he continues, “whom one might assume from her picture in
the advertisement column to be not wholly destitute of modesty, will
inform edified readers that ‘until Mrs. Hodge brought me a box of Nippo
Ointment my face was one red mass of pimples!’ She will declare that
formerly she was unable to sleep at night owing to the itching of her
back!”
His scorn is terrible; superbly fearful. Advertisement is anathema.
We are seated in the Park, wherein at the moment no one else is talked
of but my distinguished friend. Those who have the honour of his
acquaintance acquire a new popularity with the less fortunate. Several
countesses and a charming duchess have repassed us no fewer than nine
times. But O’Hagan, serenely insensible to the admiration which he
excites in so many bosoms, lounges regally aloof, as one upon a lofty
minaret who scarce glances down to the throngs beneath him.
An author of “costume” romances passes. His studiously cultivated
resemblance to Napoleon III. usually earns him a buzz of acknowledgment.
This morning he moves amid the chill of unrecognition, and raises his
prominent moustache fiercely and rudely as he glares at my companion,
who usurps all homage.
“That fellow stares in an unwarrantable manner,” says O’Hagan; and
taking my arm, he proceeds in the same direction.
We overtake the author, despite my lagging footsteps; for I perceive
that my friend is bent upon some extravagant act.
“Pardon me, sir!”
The author turns, glaring.
“But are you connected with the house of Buonaparte?”
The author, puzzled, faintly gratified:
“Not directly, sir. But what——”
“I regret that, sir. I cherish an antipathy from the family which I may
term hereditary. Your reply deprives me of the pleasure of trimming your
_moustachios_!”
The man is stricken speechless. It is such an encounter as he has
portrayed (on paper) a score of times. But in the actuality it finds him
lacking.
“For your whole appearance is most distasteful to me,” concludes the
Captain. “Good morning.”
(We proceed.)
A trembling voice which says something about “a letter from my
solicitor,” reaches our ears, faintly.
“The solicitor again, Raymond!” laughs O’Hagan. “Never the friend to
measure the length of one’s blade! Your knights of the pen make sorry
cavaliers!”
I grant it. And the worst of my bad dreams is that
wherein—unaccompanied by the magnificent and terrible O’Hagan—I
encounter some of those whom he has browbeaten in my presence!
But, as I think I already have stated, O’Hagan sometimes is
misunderstood.
At a certain club, of which O’Hagan is not a member, my friend was
introduced to an American gentleman who proclaimed himself a press
agent.
(“I like Americans—real, full-blooded, whole-hearted Americans,”
O’Hagan has told me. “I can even appreciate how, in an American,
commercial acumen and gentility may be wedded. My great grand-uncle,
Edmond, distinguished himself, as you remember, in the Civil War.”
His great grand-uncle, Edmond, is a favourite source of anecdote; but
the impression left upon my mind is that a more truculent, bloodthirsty
swashbuckler never breathed God’s air.)
“I am very delighted to have met you, Captain O’Hagan,” said the press
agent, whose name was Alex. Dewson. “I would like to put up a
proposition right now!”
O’Hagan fumbled, impressively, for the broad black ribbon upon which
depends his monocle. He raised the glass, and, holding it at some little
distance from his right eye, surveyed the speaker. O’Hagan’s right eye,
magnified by the pebble, can show, on occasions, as a large grey orb of
intolerance.
“You interest me, Mr. Dewson.”
“I’ll interest you some more yet, sir!” declared Dewson, with cheery
confidence. “It’s likely you’ll have heard of a little author called
Ronald Brandon?”
He spoke the words waggishly; as one might say: “You may have heard a
little Stratford fellow, called Shakespeare, mentioned?”—or, “You’ve
perhaps seen the name of a rather likely figure painter, known as
Michelangelo?”
In point of fact, Ronald Brandon really _was_ a “little” author; and, as
it happened, O’Hagan never had heard of him. He has never heard of _any_
modern fictionists; he regards them _all_ with immeasurable contempt.
Mr. Dewson’s question was purely a rhetoric question, however, and he
proceeded without pausing for a reply:
“His new book (it’ll break all the windows) is ‘Jules Sanquin,
Duellist.’ He’s placed his press work in my hands, and I’ve been looking
for an introduction to you, Captain, for over a week! I can put up a
proposition to net you a pile!”
“Indeed!” said O’Hagan, icily.
(“Such people as Dewson,” he has confided to me, “are calculated to
bring disgrace upon a national character. He was the type of man who
would have sought an audience with His Holiness the Pope, and ‘put up a
proposition’ to boom St. Peter’s.”)
“My client, as you’ll know,” continued the irrepressible press agent,
“is top-hole as a swordsman. Took out the team a year ago that beat the
Frenchmen.”
Captain O’Hagan stared.
“They tell me _you’re_ pretty handy,” resumed Dewson; “so here’s the
goods in a nutshell: I’ll send down a shorthand-typist to your chambers
to take a few notes; put a sound man to work; and in a week or a
fortnight ‘My Affaires of Honour and Gallantry, by Captain the Hon.
Bernard O’Hagan,’ will be in the press! I can promise you an _advance_
of £500, my dear sir! Meanwhile, you insult Brandon, and meet him with
rapiers on the French coast—press, cinema men, etc., in attendance. Out
comes ‘Jules Sanquin, Duellist’—five editions subscribed. Out comes ‘My
Affaires of Honour and Gallantry’—libraries gasping! How d’you like the
title? _Affaires_—see? French. Get the literary flavour right on the
cover! How d’you like the proposition?”
The intolerant grey eye scrutinized the brogues upon Mr. Dewson’s feet
and rose by gradations to the Stetson felt adorning the apex of his
commercial brain.
“Is this delightful scheme a child of your own fecundity, Mr. Dewson, or
has Mr. Ronald Brandon any share in its parentage?”
“I’m out raising no man’s laurel wreaths,” declared Dewson. “The
proposition’s Brandon’s. How does it appeal to you?
“That portion of the ‘proposition,’” said O’Hagan, with frigid courtesy,
“which has reference to a meeting on the French coast appeals to me
keenly!”
—————
II.
LA BELLE LOTUS.
Those of you who have the privilege to be acquainted with my friend
Bernard O’Hagan will find much scope for wonderment in the circumstance
that Mr. Dewson proceeded thus far and survived, intact. No one but a
successful press agent could possibly have mistaken the significance of
the Captain’s icy calm. Anyone who, knowing him, had adventured upon
such a proposal, must have been aware that, so doing, he carried his
life in his hand. Mr. Dewson remained placidly ignorant of the fires
which he was coaling.
“Will you come along now to Brandon’s flat?” he suggested, in his brisk
way.
“It will afford me great pleasure. I am most anxious to meet Mr.
Brandon!”
Passing over the short journey, then—throughout which almost every word
of Mr. Dewson’s inspired O’Hagan with a new wonder at the shamelessness
of the times, and added fuel to his resentment—enter the house of
Ronald Brandon, novelist.
“Here he is, Brandon!” cried the press agent. “He’s coming in on it!”
Ronald Brandon was a tall and good-looking young man, carrying a certain
athletic arrogance with poor grace. From his perfectly groomed fair hair
to his white spatted, immaculately glossy boots he was an incarnate
error of judgment. He had been encouraged to think himself a
celebrity—and the whole thing was a mistake. He was not even in the
same flight with the double of Napoleon III.
His casually extended hand Captain O’Hagan failed to observe. O’Hagan
bowed with exceeding fine formality.
“Going to have a little bout with me, Captain?” laughed Brandon lightly.
“I am looking forward to it,” was the reply, “provided your status
admits of my crossing swords with you.”
Dewson and Brandon stared uncomprehendingly.
“I mean, are you of gentle blood? To what Brandons do you belong?”
The novelist continued to stare.
“My governor is James Brandon, K.C., if that’s what you’re driving at!”
“Professional people?” said O’Hagan with exquisite condescension. “Never
mind. For our present purpose, sufficiently respectable.”
What the now incensed Brandon might have said to that will never be
known, for he was interrupted by the ringing of the bell, by the almost
immediate entrance of a loudly pretty woman who was furiously
overdressed, who struck the vision a sharp blow, from which one’s
outraged eyes blinkingly recoiled. She was arrayed in a long coat of
leopard’s skin, wore a motor bonnet of the same material, from the left
side whereof, rearward, swept a golden plume of incredible length. Her
hair was of the hue sometimes called Titian, but would have made Titian
weep blood.
This lady—who proved to be French—was introduced as La Belle Lotus.
“Another client of mine, Captain!” explained Dewson, affably anxious to
dissipate the thundery atmosphere which had settled upon the
establishment. Brandon was scowling ferociously. “She is the latest
sensation in dancers, sir. Her ‘Dance of Delilah’ is the talk of London!
This is the lady you’ll quarrel about. Savvy? Three birds with one
stone! All town will rush to see the girl two big men have fought over.
Up go her bookings! How’s that for a three-handed boost? The limit?”
O’Hagan raised his glass.
“It strikes me as being appreciably beyond the limit!” he drawled. “But
what has led you to suppose that I am desirous of publishing my
memoirs?”
“You’re not out throwing away thousands, I take it?”
“On the contrary, Mr. Dewson. But, emphatically, I shall not publish any
kind of book. You may omit that item from your ‘proposition.’”
La Belle surveyed the speaker appreciatively. Brandon watched him in
angry perplexity. Dewson’s round eyes grew rounder.
“You don’t mean to say——”
“I have no intention of disturbing your admirable arrangements, Mr.
Dewson. You may rely upon me to meet Mr. Brandon.”
“But ‘My Affaires’”——
“Dismiss the idea. It is out of the question.”
“Then what are you doing it for?”
O’Hagan, having examined minutely the visible attractions of La Belle
Lotus—so minutely as to make her blush—dropped his glass.
“Your proposal is of such a nature, sir,” he replied calmly, “that no
gentleman could decline to accept it.”
“I want to know how we stand,” burst in Brandon, his choler enhanced by
the evident inability of the lady to withstand O’Hagan’s frank gaze.
“Are you——”
“Am I going to meet you on the French coast, sir?” O’Hagan anticipated.
“Emphatically, yes! Rely upon me!”
“That’s good,” rapped Dewson. “We’ll talk about the book, later. When
you see eye to eye with me you won’t want to drop it. But you’re game
for the little passage of arms? That’s the talk! Well, talking’s dry
work. What about——”
“Excuse me.” O’Hagan raised his hand. “Pray excuse me!”
“But we’ve made no arrangements.”
“I am listening, Mr. Dewson.”
Dewson felt that he was being hustled.
“Well, I’d planned it to start on Wednesday night. Brandon and
Yvette—La Belle—are having supper at Varano’s. I’m there, too; but not
at the same table. Press boys there, of course. You blow in, and say or
do something which Brandon’s supposed to take as an insult.”
O’Hagan, his head attentively tilted, nodded. La Belle was watching him,
now, fascinatedly.
“I shall observe your wishes implicitly, Mr. Dewson!”
“Bit of a scene. Cards exchanged. Pars in the press.”
“A proviso, sir. My name shall not be mentioned.”
“Not mentioned!”
“Let all the credit be Mr. Brandon’s. I remain anonymous.”
“It’s sure to come out later. I don’t understand——”
“I am aware of that, Mr. Dewson! On the following morning, if I do not
mistake you, Mr. Brandon’s friends call upon me, and the meeting is
arranged?”
“That’s it! We’re supposed to be hushing it up, see? But it kind of
leaks out!”
“Precisely. At what hour will Mr. Brandon be supping?”
“Say half-past eleven.”
“It is an appointment.”
Captain O’Hagan bowed to the leopard lady, looking challengingly into
her eyes—turned from Messrs. Brandon and Dewson, and walked to the
door. Upon Brandon’s tongue unutterable things trembled. Mr. Dewson was
not entirely at his ease.
—————
III.
THE BOOM.
Captain O’Hagan entered Varano’s at half-past eleven on Wednesday
evening. No more need be said. A sensation amongst the guests is
understood.
For a moment he paused, glass raised. His pose was a poem in grace; his
mode of surveying those who supped was a tribute so deliciously keen as
almost to be insulting. He focussed the table whereat Ronald Brandon and
the dancer were seated. Amid a cathedral silence, impressive and
oppressive, he traversed the supper-room. To say that he crossed it
would be inaccurate and inadequate; he traversed it.
“Sir!”—he bent over Brandon—“one moment. Mademoiselle!”—he smiled
upon La Belle Yvette—“might I entreat you to step aside with me?”
She glanced at Brandon, flushing with excitement now that the moment of
the “boom” was come. Brandon, who vainly had besought Dewson to recast
the comedy—omitting O’Hagan—examined his finger nails. He was acting
poorly. In fact he was pronouncedly “fluffy.”
La Belle rose and stepped aside with O’Hagan. She wore an amazingly
daring and dazzlingly brilliant evening toilette; a tight-fitting silk
gown coloured in imitation of a leopard’s skin. Dewson identified his
clients with certain “make-ups” or trademarks. Thus, La Belle Lotus was
“the leopard lady.”
Imagine every eye in Varano’s supper-room to be centred upon this wildly
picturesque pair. O’Hagan, his cloak cast back in purple splendour,
rested one hand upon his hip with a gesture which had not been
inconsistent with the act of depressing a rapier hilt.
“Are you quite sure”—he bent towards her with inimitable
gallantry—“that a scene here will enhance your professional
reputation?”
She glanced up rapidly—and down again, shyly. She could not recall
having feared to meet any man’s eye prior to encountering Captain
O’Hagan.
“Mr. Dewson—he says so; and Mr. Dewson is so clever. He never makes
mistakes.”
“I concede that Mr. Dewson is clever; but nevertheless he makes
mistakes, mademoiselle. I am impartial. I can insult Mr. Brandon without
involving you in any way. But, if you wish to be involved, command me.”
La Belle felt singularly helpless. Instinctively she divined that the
forceful Mr. Dewson and the imperious Captain O’Hagan were advancing to
no common end.
“It is better that we keep to Mr. Dewson’s arrangements, I think.”
“Very well.”
O’Hagan proffered his arm. He led her doorward. A sibilant chorus of
gasps arose. Brandon was up, now. His face flushed deeply, and paled,
vying in its pallor with the serviette which he crushed in one shaking
hand. He thrust back his chair.
A staccato cough drew his gaze to a distant table. Mr.
Dewson—conscientious stage-manager—feared that one of the cast was
like to overact his rôle. Brandon hesitated, fuming.
La Belle Yvette knew a fearful joy. Her inordinate vanity was gratified
by this scene, but even her great daring recoiled from that which
pended. Yet she offered no real resistance. True, she placed her hand
upon O’Hagan’s, but he calmly clasped it in his own.
“Act as I direct,” he said, bending his picturesque head and looking
into the half-fearful eyes.
He glanced aside to where the head-waiter stood, a figure of pitiable
indecision, a study in fatuous ineptitude.
“My man—this lady’s cloak.”
Upon the hushed silence of the supper-room the words rang out sharply.
The head-waiter hesitated. The head-waiter at Varano’s is a person of
proper proportions and seemly dignity. It is no part of his important
functions menially to run for hats and cloaks. O’Hagan’s unoccupied hand
raised the glass.
“Were you aware that I gave you an order?”
The head-waiter became aware of the awesome fact. He departed.
Brandon’s chair fell backward. A wine-glass was dropped with a crash
upon the floor beside Mr. Dewson’s table. But the prompting of the
ingenious press agent now was unheeded. The novelist strode down the
room. One or two of the male visitors half rose. Some of the women began
to look frightened.
“Damn your impudence! Release that lady!”
Dewson slipped from his place and joined the interesting group. He
placed his hand warningly upon Brandon’s shoulder.
“Don’t lose your wool!” he whispered. “It’s going great!”
Brandon shook him off.
“Do you hear me? Release that lady! Yvette! stand aside, I beg of you! I
have something to say to this person!”
La Belle looked from face to face. All was not well here. Only Captain
O’Hagan seemed at ease: he should be the star of her guidance!
The head-waiter returning, the Captain assisted mademoiselle to endue
her leopard-skin cloak.
Brandon’s fists clenched and re-opened convulsively.
“Yvette!” He almost choked. “You are not going _away_?—not going to
leave me here—a laughing-stock——”
“Mr. Ronald Brandon!” O’Hagan placed his arm protectingly about
mademoiselle’s shoulders and stared through the monocle at the
novelist’s pale face. “I do not approve of this lady’s being in your
company!”
Brandon fell back (O’Hagan’s divine audacity can strike as a physical
blow) into the arms of Mr. Dewson.
“Stick to your part!” hissed the latter in his ear; and held him firmly.
“This is a treat! All the restaurant heard what he said! Heard your
name, too!”
“Curse you! Let go!”
The veins swelled upon Brandon’s forehead; his eyes protruded.
Captain O’Hagan, serenely:
“Come, mademoiselle! This vulgar brawler is no fit companion for us!”
Half the guests were upon their feet now. Someone had gone for the
manager. The horror-frozen head-waiter met the Gorgon gaze which
hypnotically sought him through the pebble. He turned and swung wide the
door.
Brandon made a savage leap. Dewson grabbed his coat tails.
Mademoiselle, trembling slightly, having quitted the room, O’Hagan
turned, and tossed his card at Brandon’s feet.
“You may care further to discuss the matter at some future time,” he
said coldly. “I am otherwise engaged this evening!”
Brandon broke loose at that, but collided with the head-waiter, who
began to feel faint. A tremendous buzz of conversation arose. Above it
sounded the shrill note of a whistle. O’Hagan, without, had ordered a
taxi. Then someone laughed—a pressman there for the “story.”
The novelist whisked around upon the detaining Mr. Dewson.
“Curse you and your ‘boosts’!” he snarled. “You’ve made me the
laughing-stock of London! I’ll kill that damned O’Hagan!”
“Good business!” said the press agent. “Do it. Double our sales!”
—————
IV.
ECHOES OF THE BOOM.
O’Hagan called upon me. His entrances possess electric properties. One’s
schemes melt; O’Hagan becomes the scheme of all things terrestrial. The
future shrinks, bounded by O’Hagan. The universe is “a universe after
Captain the Hon. Bernard O’Hagan.” An unexpected call by the Tsar of all
the Russias could not be more exciting, and one would be less impressed
if the Mikado dropped in for a pipe and a Scotch-and-soda.
“I have selected you, Raymond”—he toyed with his monocle—“to act for
me in a little affair on the French coast. You will be associated with
Lieutenant the Chevalier Camille d’Oysans.”
That was bad hearing.
The Chevalier, according to O’Hagan, is “the last of the _grand
seigneurs_.” I think O’Hagan may be right; and trust he is. This
fire-eating Frenchman in my opinion constitutes a menace to society. He
would any day rather cut a man’s throat than shake hands with him.
(His recent decoration for having personally dispatched a larger number
of Boches than any other man in the armies of France, will be a memory
fresh in my reader’s mind.)
“And I do not expect you to withdraw, Raymond,”—coldly.
Since, on more than one recent occasion, I had been so unfortunate as to
incur O’Hagan’s displeasure, I perceived that a path was cut for my
feet—a path of peril, from which, nevertheless, I might not stray. I
understand that Charles II., when it pleased him, could be a king
indeed. The fact that O’Hagan inherits a similar capacity from someone
or another is not necessarily destructive of what posthumous reputation
remains to the lady of his race who ornamented the Stuart court.
He passed to me a press cutting. The paragraph related how an anonymous
gentleman had had a public misunderstanding with Mr. Ronald Brandon, the
famous author, whose forthcoming work, etc., etc. The misunderstanding
had been due to the presence of La Belle Yvette Lotus, the beautiful
dancer, etc., etc.
“D’Oysans has already arranged the preliminaries,” explained O’Hagan.
“So all that you have to do, my boy, is to meet me at Victoria to-night
at ten-thirty.”
“This is incredible!”
“Not at all.”
“We shall all stand to be arrested!”
“Never fear. These little affairs are better managed in France!”
“For heaven’s sake, what weapons?”
“Swords!”
“In what way are you interested in this girl?”
“In no way. Not in the slightest.”
O’Hagan stood up and gracefully executed the Grand Salute with his cane.
“I badly need a little practice,” he said. “That is all, Raymond!”
“This man, Ronald Brandon, has some reputation as a swordsman.”
“So I hear,” replied O’Hagan languidly. “He has grossly insulted me; so
that I am quite looking forward to meeting him. Although he merely comes
of a race of attorneys, he appears to have a fine reach.”
He yawned slightly. There came a ringing of my door bell, which I
proceeded to investigate.
“Might I inquire who the blazes your distinguished visitor is?”
Thus O’Hagan, critically examining a very large size in formidable
ruffians who had forced his way past me into the study.
“Which of you is O’Hagan?” demanded the caller, truculently.
He was a man fully six feet two in his boots; wore a peculiarly racy
tweed suit, cut morning-coat fashion; a pink soft collar, and a green
tie adorned with a big diamond. He was bullet-headed, close shaven, and
rejoiced in a prominent jaw of marine blue. He threw a soft hat into a
corner and addressed a ferocious glare to each of us in turn.
“You have a broken nose,” said the Captain, with icy distaste.
“That’s done it! You’re ’im!” proclaimed the visitor. “An’ you’ll ’ave a
broken neck in ’alf a mo!”
He stripped off his coat and hurled it amongst the litter of my
writing-table. He removed the diamond and placed it in his waistcoat
pocket. He tore his collar from his ox-like neck and cast it on the
carpet. He began to unbutton his vest.
“This is not a public bath,” said O’Hagan, observing these manœuvres
through his monocle. “You can have a wash for twopence at the lower end
of Langham Place.”
The other proceeded stolidly with his immodest toilet, divesting himself
of his waistcoat and rolling up his sleeves over his hirsute, brawny
arms. No reply he made; he was a man too full for words.
O’Hagan rose from the Chesterfield which is his favourite lounge and
stretched himself languidly. He poked the fire and left the poker
between the bars.
“Raymond,” he drawled, “shall I go and find a constable to throw this
low dog down stairs?”
The man leapt to the door with extraordinary agility, locked it, and
slipped the key into a back pocket of his trousers. He faced us, a
formidable figure, stripped to the pink shirt, which revealed the
enormous development of his pectoral muscles. O’Hagan moves amid
singular proceedings.
“Now, my bonny gentleman! My name’s ‘Trooper’ Belcher—an’ I’m ’er
husband!”
“I trust you refer to Mrs. Belcher?”—O’Hagan.
Belcher: “My wife’s La Belle Lotus!”
The Captain studied Mr. Belcher with a new curiosity.
“I gather that you are a music-hall pugilist. Am I also to conclude that
you are a bully acting on behalf of Mr. Brandon, whom I have to meet at
seven in the morning outside Calais?”
“_I_ met Mr. bloomin’ Brandon at seven this evenin’ outside Oxford
Circus!” shouted Belcher. “_You’ll_ meet ’im in Middlesex ’Ospital!”
My wits had deserted me. From the moment that the man had thrust his way
into my rooms up to that when he had thus proclaimed himself the
assailant of Brandon, I had stood helplessly watching his outrageous
proceedings.
(“A gentleman, to-day,” O’Hagan has informed me, “is utterly at the
mercy of the first lusty ruffian who cares to attack him. The only
offensive and defensive art which survives to any extent—brutal
pugilism—is extensively practised among the lower classes. Where is the
gentleman’s sword? Taken from him! The Higher Jiu-jitsu, my dear
Raymond, or Art of Gentle Thought, should be included in the curriculum
of every preparatory establishment.”)
Belcher executed a charge which, I think, would have swept a healthy
bullock from its feet. O’Hagan, with a lightning rapidity of action
apparently peculiar to pupils of Shashu Myuku of Nagasaki, secured and
presented the poker.
The man touched it with one huge fist and recoiled, screaming hoarsely.
“By God! that’s ’ot!” he panted.
“It is,” replied O’Hagan, again thrusting the point amid the coals; “red
hot!” With his left hand he waved his monocle in my direction. “One
cannot soil one’s hands with the persons of low fellows, Raymond!”
Belcher snatched up a heavy chair as though it had had no greater weight
than a matchbox. A lightning, rapier lunge with the poker—an unpleasant
_sizzling_ sound—and the chair crashed harmlessly to the floor. The now
painfully singed “trooper” fell back on to the Chesterfield, groaning.
Again my bell rang.
“Hand the key to Mr. Raymond, my man,” ordered O’Hagan; “and replace
your filthy rags upon your indecently nude person.”
Belcher threw the key across the carpet. My mind had assimilated a
profound truth of the Higher Jiu-Jitsu: brute courage falters in the
presence of hot pokers. I went to the door, and upon the landing stood a
dazzling vision in leopard skins.
“My ’usband!” (The vision had a French accent.) “Is he here? Yes?
Quick!”
She slipped past me, as an animal growl sounded from within. My rooms no
longer were my own, but were become a rendezvous for insane
meetings—for nightmare encounters. I re-entered the bear-garden which I
had been wont to call my study.
The leopard lady was kneeling beside the wounded Mr. Belcher and
explaining in voluble syncopated English that his suspicions were
groundless, that it was a “boom,” no more; that he must _not_ kill
Captain O’Hagan.
“My impression, Raymond,” said the latter, focussing me across the room,
“is that our friend Belcher has recently left jail.”
“What if I ’ave!” roared that maltreated ruffian, starting to his feet.
“This,” replied O’Hagan with suppressed ferocity, “that if you are
present in another minute I shall send you back again! _Madame!_”—he
bowed to La Belle—“kindly remove your property from my friend’s
apartment—I would suggest that you deposit it in cold storage—and
permit me to say that I had credited you with nicer taste!”
He placed a cigarette between his lips, igniting it with the now
white-hot poker.
—————
V.
BELCHER THE THOROUGH.
“It is singularly illustrative of the obscure psychology of the lower
orders,” said Bernard O’Hagan, “this marrying habit of Continental
music-hall artistes. The female of the species may drive, take supper,
and accept diamonds from men of pedigree; but she always marries a
prize-fighter or a bookmaker. It is a process of natural selection,
Raymond. When out of the proceeds of a successful professional career
she invests in a husband, she ‘backs her fancy.’ I have known Spanish
dancers who were adored by reigning monarchs to have unsavoury husbands
concealed in all sorts of filthy alleys; and one lady circus rider to
whom I was presented in Budapest proved to be lawfully wedded to a
retired Paris sewerman. Zoologically, the habit has interest.”
Our inquiries at the hospital discovered Mr. Brandon to be on the danger
list.
“The most promising meeting since I encountered Baron Verneux,” murmured
O’Hagan, “indefinitely postponed! The Chevalier Camille d’Oysans will be
keenly disappointed. He had made all the necessary arrangements for
flying the country!”
We learned that the police were in quest of Mr. Brandon’s assailant. A
call at Mr. Alex. Dewson’s hotel provided a surprise.
“I shall not chastise him,” explained my friend. “The depths of his
ignorance are pathetic. But I feel it to be my duty to tell him that he
is a disgrace to the great nation which includes in its roll of honour
the name of Edmond O’Hagan.”
Mr. Dewson could receive no visitors. Captain O’Hagan swept the servant
aside and waved to me to follow. It needs something more than a verbal
rebuff to exclude O’Hagan—something in the nature of a double-barred
iron door or a squad with fixed bayonets.
My friend honoured Mr. Dewson’s apartment. And Mr. Dewson, a heavily
bandaged figure hunched up in an armchair by the fire, observed our
intrusion with his one visible eye.
“Raymond,” said O’Hagan, as he focussed this crippled apparition, “the
‘Trooper’ has forestalled us again!”
“You bet he has, Captain!” whispered a weak voice.
O’Hagan turned to me.
“In the thoroughness of Mr. Belcher’s method,” he said, “I find
something almost admirable, Raymond! The ‘Trooper’ is a loss to the
service.”
That he was a loss which speeding Time should rectify, we, being but
human, could not foresee. But is it not history how Sergeant Belcher, at
a spot not a hundred miles from Ypres, acquired the most coveted
distinction in the gift of His Britannic Majesty for rescuing a badly
wounded officer under heavy fire? And is it not written in deathless
annals that the name of that gallant officer was Captain the Hon.
Bernard O’Hagan, V.C., D.S.O.?