EXPLOIT THE SIXTH.
HE HONOURS THE GRAND DUKE.
I.
WE MEET THE DUKE.
The character of my friend Bernard O’Hagan is a maze within a maze, a
dædalian labyrinth, to the heart whereof I long since have despaired of
penetrating. His sense of humour is acute, but peculiar. A man, he
declares, who cannot laugh at Mark Twain is a man from whose soul the
joy of life has departed. Yet his idea of bliss would seem to be
existence in a Persian rose-garden with some few congenial spirits, and,
for attendants, only Greek youths and maidens of flawless classic
beauty.
Grotesque anomaly! For I defy any philosopher to reconcile the ideals of
Petronius Arbiter, Omar, and Samuel Clemens!
“Alas, O’Hagan,” I say, “this world of ours is a grey place.”
But he turns to me in surprise, monocle raised, and studies my face with
a certain apprehension.
“How can you say so, Raymond? Have I not repeatedly demonstrated that
Romance lurks in hiding amid the most prosaic surroundings? Adventure,
my boy, is for the adventurous! It is only the blind who deny the
existence of fauns. I will undertake to find you a nymph in any wood.
Villains profound as the darkest dreams of Tolstoy regularly take tea in
the drawing-rooms of Mayfair; heroes loftier than Charlemagne jostle one
in the Strand!”
Potential Cleopatras and Trojan Helens, I take it, abound in London.
Only lacking is that clash of Circumstance and the Man, which, in
history, has cast up such wondrous beings.
As I glance at my picturesque friend, head aloft, purple-lined cloak
swung well back, and note the air of smiling defiance wherewith he faces
the world, I perceive the _Man_, and with pleasurable anticipation await
the Circumstance. I shall always remember one conversation of this kind,
for the reason that it directly preceded our meeting with the Grand
Duke.
We had just quitted the theatre. My proposal in reference to supper had
discovered the interesting circumstance that our joint capital equalled
three-and-nine.
“Had _you_ come out without money,” said O’Hagan, “I should not have
been surprised. Had _I_ come out without money I should not have been
surprised. But for us both, on the same evening, to do so, reveals the
finger of Fate.”
O’Hagan, as he stood with one half of his face and figure lighted up by
the glare of the theatre lamps, and the other blacked out in contrasting
shadow, bore a resemblance rather more marked than usual to the Monarch
of merry memory. Withal, he looked strikingly handsome. He is the only
man of my acquaintance who can successfully wear a flowing, black dress
tie.
Captain Bernard O’Hagan is a figure unforgettable.
“Well?” I said, impatiently watching the theatre-goers driving
supperward. “Shall we have something at the club?”
“No, Raymond,” replied my friend, reflectively. “That would be
capitulating. Is it possible that two honourable gentlemen, chancing to
be without half a sovereign or so, are forced to sup on credit? I recall
an episode in the career of my ancestor, Patrick.”
He is fond of recounting episodes in the career of this ancestor,
Patrick—some time of the Musketeers of Louis XIII.—a gentleman who
would seem to have been chiefly notable for suave ruffianism.
The nature of the episode I was not destined to learn, however, at the
time; for as O’Hagan lighted a cigarette, a block in the traffic
occurred at the corner of Wellington Street (do not misunderstand me to
mean that the incidents were correlative); and a handsome limousine was
held up immediately in front of us. The interior was brilliantly
illuminated, and a gentleman who lounged upon the fawn-coloured cushions
glanced curiously in our direction.
This gentleman, the sole occupant, was distinguished by fiery
moustachios and a squarely trimmed beard. My association with what
O’Hagan terms “the lower journalism” has familiarised me with the faces
of notabilities.
“That is the Grand Duke John of Siresia,” I volunteered, idly.
“So it is,” said O’Hagan with lively interest. “So it is!”
And ere I could say another word he had stepped to the door of the car,
opened it, and engaged the distinguished foreigner in conversation!
Whilst I knew O’Hagan’s visiting-list to be extensive and peculiar, I
hitherto had been unaware that he was acquainted with the Siresian
autocrat. His action took me completely by surprise. Then, just as the
policeman ahead released the pent-up traffic, my friend turned and
beckoned to me.
Full of a great wonder, I joined him at the open door.
“Get in, Raymond!” he directed briefly, and thrust me, speechless with
astonishment, into a seat opposite the great personage.
The chauffeur glanced back. The footman leapt down and came to the step.
As in a dream, I heard rapid, guttural instructions. The footman saluted
and leapt to his place. The car moved smoothly onward.
O’Hagan raised his monocle, gazing at the bearded nobleman; then waved
it gracefully in my direction.
“You may not have met my friend, Mr. Lawrence Raymond,” he said, with
the lordly condescension which he, alone, knows how to assume.
“Raymond—His Highness the Grand Duke John of Siresia!”
—————
II.
WE IMPROVE THE ACQUAINTANCE.
O’Hagan’s friendship is a passport from the commonplace to the amazing.
In acknowledgment of this off-handed introduction I bowed, and was mute.
The Grand Duke nodded. His eyes constantly sought my nonchalant friend.
“How fortunate,” said the latter smoothly, “that the traffic chanced to
be delayed.”
Bewildered, utterly, I acquitted myself of an ambiguous nod.
“Where are they?” asked the Grand Duke suddenly. His delivery was thick,
unmusical.
“If you will be good enough to glance rearward,” replied O’Hagan, “you
will perceive a car which is following closely!”
We were, at that moment, turning around by Trafalgar Square; so that
this prediction impressed me as being a peculiarly safe one. The Grand
Duke, however, peering through a little window at the back, turned again
to O’Hagan with palpable uneasiness. His heavy, dull features marked him
a man of bulldog tenacity and autocratic stupidity.
“A green car?” he inquired.
O’Hagan, twisting about one finger the black ribbon attached to his
monocle, inclined his head gravely. The tone of the Grand Duke’s query
had been peremptory—that of one accustomed to command and to be
slavishly obeyed. My friend’s mode of reply—the graceful and dignified
inclination of the head, the lowering of the eyelids—had subtly
defined, and with exquisite artistry, his attitude toward the Grand
Duke.
In that simple inclination he had conveyed: “Duke”—(it were impossible
to imagine O’Hagan addressing any man breathing as “Your
Highness”)—“Duke, you are in the company of a gentleman at present
amicably disposed toward you, but of a gentleman who would as promptly
tweak your nose, should you forget what is due to him, as he would tweak
any other.”
It was a silent declaration of aristocracy, typically and peculiarly
O’Haganish.
A faint shade of difference crept into the Grand Duke’s voice. I doubt
if the man has lived, since Napoleon Buonaparte, who, meeting Captain
the Honble. Bernard O’Hagan, could have escaped enmeshment within his
catholic patronage. O’Hagan would patronize the shade of Julius Cæsar.
“What,” inquired the Grand Duke awkwardly, “do you propose?”
“First,” said my friend, holding his monocle between second and third
fingers, and waving it roofward, “extinguish these interior lights. It
was most indiscreet to travel so publicly.”
Association with Bernard O’Hagan renders one more or less accustomed to
the _outre_. The amazing ceases to amaze, the appalling to appal;
wonders lose their potency, and one’s pulse remains normal amid singular
adventures.
It afforded me small surprise to see my friend’s injunction instantly
obeyed. (It would afford me small surprise to see the Premier blacking
O’Hagan’s boots.)
“Next,” continued the Captain, “direct your man to drive to your
embassy.”
The obedient Grand Duke bent forward and called gutturally into the
tube.
(“There is one thing,” O’Hagan tells me, “which a nobleman of the Grand
Duke’s race can never appreciate—the doctrine of aristocratic equality.
He must always dominate or be dominated. My ancestor, Patrick, had this
from the lips of Cardinal Richelieu—a singularly shrewd observer,
Raymond, and a gentleman.”)
“I have no intention,” resumed the Grand Duke, “of handing them over to
the ambassador.”
O’Hagan shrugged his shoulders impatiently, turning his eye-glass upon
the speaker with the air of a wise man weary of folly.
“_Will_ you allow me to advise?” he said, with a certain disdain. “Do
_they_ know that?”
“They cannot possibly,” replied the other. “It is what they most
fear—eh?”
“Very well, then,” drawled O’Hagan, yawning discreetly under cover of a
gloved hand, “they will abandon the pursuit and no attempt will be made
upon your private apartments.”
“I do not fear their attempts!” growled the Grand Duke, with truculent
contempt.
“My good Duke!” said O’Hagan languidly—“my dear Duke—do you wish every
paper in Europe to discuss your affairs? Do you wish all the world to
hear of an attempt to burgle your rooms?”
“What! do you think they would dare?”
Captain O’Hagan surveyed him, pebble uplifted, as one surveys a
surpassing fool.
“Dare!” he said icily. “Dare! My good, dear Duke—where is your common
sense?”
(“That expression marked the psychological moment, Raymond,” he later
was good enough to inform me. “I was deliberately tightening the screw.
If he submitted. I knew that the man was mine.”)
The Grand Duke glared for a moment. Then:
“No; you are right!” he agreed, grudgingly.
Bernard O’Hagan would be a dazzling ornament to the diplomatic service.
One can imagine his prevailing upon the united monarchies of Europe to
present a fleet of dreadnoughts to Great Britain as a little token of
esteem.
Is it necessary, by the way, that I mention here how all this
extraordinary conversation was so much Sanscrit to me? I think not. I
perceived no gleam of light through the darkness. I was a man in a
tunnel leading he knows not whither, surrounded by he knows not what.
My bewildered surmisings had come to a hazy meridian, I think, when the
car drew up before the embassadorial residence.
“If he is at home, what excuse shall I make for my call?” asked the
Grand Duke.
“Any excuse!” said O’Hagan drily. “You may profess to have heard rumours
that he is troubled with a return of his gout——”
“He has no gout!”
“His wife’s gout, then! Anything—anything!”
Grunting uncouthly, the Grand Duke alighted and disappeared in the
darkness. Coincident with the footman’s reclosure of the door, burst
forth my dammed up torrent of queries.
“_Ssh!_” O’Hagan raised his hand. “I will explain later, Raymond.
Exhibit no surprise. Merely agree with me—tacitly agree!”
“But where did——”
“_Ssh!_”—impatiently. “These servants are spies!”
I felt curiously like a screw-stoppered bottle of some highly aerated
mineral, which has been partially unscrewed. Questions literally
_sizzled_ from me. But I must perforce contain myself; and we were
presently rejoined by the Grand Duke. He glanced up and down the street
ere entering. Giving a brief order to the man:
“Where are they?” he growled, as he took his seat.
“They have left their car,” replied my friend; “but two of them are in
hiding near the corner.”
“Do you know either of these?”
“_He_ is one!” said O’Hagan impressively.
“Whom?” snapped the Grand Duke.
Now, Captain O’Hagan is rarely at a loss for the right word at the right
time. He holds it churlish to stammer and stutter, and wholly
inconsistent with that grand manner of which, if I be not mistaken, he
is the only surviving master. Yet, now, he seemed somewhat taken aback.
Later, I understood why. But——
“Need you ask?” he returned, with very brief hesitancy.
“Not Leo?” the Grand Duke demanded, hoarsely.
O’Hagan smiled and inclined his head.
The Siresian nobleman struck his huge fist into the palm of his hand,
furiously. He was a truly formidable man.
“Curse him ten thousand times!” he shouted, wildly. “How has _he_ found
out that I have them?”
“I fear you have been indiscreet, Duke,” murmured O’Hagan.
“Indiscreet!” roared the Grand Duke. “Not a living soul can have seen me
meet Casimir! Ah, but——”
He broke off, evidently struck by a new idea.
“Was he followed?” he demanded.
“I fear so!” gravely answered my friend.
“They—have him?”—jerkily.
“I fear so!”
The Siresian swore, stormily.
“Ah, well,” he concluded. “He was well paid for the risk—poor devil!”
And now we were in the heart of hotel-land. The car drew up before the
dazzling portals of the New Louvre. The footman threw open the door and
stood rigidly to attention. On the car-step the Grand Duke hesitated,
turned, and was delivered of a new idea.
“Now that I have the letters and the photographs, what have I to fear?”
he snapped, in an angry voice. “They cannot reach them here! And do they
not think that I have delivered them to the embassy?”
O’Hagan placed a gloved finger to his lips, and directed a rapid glance
through his monocle toward a hotel servant who stood immediately behind
the footman.
“It is good of you to bring us along to supper, Duke!” he cried loudly
and breezily. “Fancy running into you at the Folly of all places!”
The Grand Duke accepted the guidance of this accomplished diplomat. In
single file we entered the hotel—the nobleman frowning thunderously at
the liveried servant silently impeached of espionage by O’Hagan. To a
suite of apartments furnished with opulent magnificence we made a
stately progress. When, for a few moments, my surprising friend and I
found ourselves alone, the mental volcano which raged within me burst
into active eruption, casting forth questions in a burning torrent.
O’Hagan, hand raised: “My dear Raymond!”