A late hansom came swinging round the corner into Lennox Gardens,
cutting it so fine that the near wheel ground against the kerb and
jolted the driver in his little seat. The jingle of bells might have
warned me; but the horse's hoofs came noiselessly on the half-frozen
snow, which lay just deep enough to hide where the pavement ended and
the road began; and, moreover, I was listening to the violins behind the
first-floor windows of the house opposite. They were playing the
"Wiener Blut."
As it was, I had time enough and no more to skip back and get my toes
out of the way. The cabby cursed me. I cursed him back so promptly and
effectively that he had to turn in his seat for another shot.
The windows of the house opposite let fall their light across his red
and astonished face. I laughed, and gave him another volley. My head
was hot, though my feet and hands were cold; and I felt equal to cursing
down any cabman within the four-mile radius. That second volley
finished him. He turned to his reins again and was borne away defeated;
the red eyes of his lamps peering back at me like an angry ferret's.
Up in the lighted room shadows of men and women crossed the blinds, and
still the "Wiener Blut" went forward.
The devil was in that waltz. He had hold of the violins and was weaving
the air with scents and visions--visions of Ascot and Henley; green
lawns, gay sunshades, midsummer heat, cool rivers flowing, muslins
rippled by light breezes; running horses and silken jackets; white
tables heaped with roses and set with silver and crystal, jewelled
fingers moving in the soft candle-light, bare necks bending, diamonds,
odours, bubbles in the wine; blue water and white foam beneath the
leaning shadow of sails; hot air flickering over stretches of moorland;
blue again--Mediterranean blue--long facades, the din of bands and King
Carnival parading beneath showers of blossom:--and all this noise and
warmth and scent and dazzle flung out into the frozen street for a
beggar's portion. I had gone under.
The door of the house opposite had been free to me once--and not six
months ago; freer to me perhaps than to any other. Did I long to pass
behind it again? I thrust both hands into my pockets for warmth, and my
right hand knocked against something hard. Yes . . . just once. . . .
Suddenly the door opened. A man stood on the threshold for a moment
while the butler behind him arranged the collar of his fur overcoat.
The high light in the portico flung the shadows of both down the crimson
carpet laid on the entrance-steps. Snow had fallen and covered the
edges of the carpet, which divided it like a cascade of blood pouring
from the hall into the street. And still overhead the "Wiener Blut"
went forward.
The man paused in the bright portico, his patent-leather boots twinkling
under the lamp's rays on that comfortable carpet. I waited, expecting
him to whistle for a hansom. But he turned, gave an order to the
butler, and stepping briskly down into the street, made off eastwards.
The door closed behind him. He was the man I most hated in the world.
If I had longed to cross the threshold a while back it was to seek him,
and for no other reason.
I started to follow him, my hands still in my pockets. The snow muffled
our footfalls completely, for as yet the slight north-east wind had
frozen but the thinnest crust of it. He was walking briskly, as men do
in such weather, but with no appearance of hurry. At the corner of
Sloane Street he halted under a lamp, pulled out his watch, consulted
it, and lit a cigarette; then set off again up the street towards
Knightsbridge.
This halt of his had let me up within twenty paces of him. He never
turned his head; but went on presenting me his back, a target not to be
missed. Why not do it now? Better now and here than in a crowded
thoroughfare. My right hand gripped the revolver more tightly.
No, there was plenty of time: and I was curious to know what had brought
Gervase out at this hour: why he had left his guests, or his wife's
guests, to take care of themselves: why he chose to be trudging afoot
through this infernally unpleasant snow.
The roadway in Sloane Street was churned into a brown mass like
chocolate, but the last 'bus had rolled home and left it to freeze in
peace. Half-way up the street I saw Gervase meet and pass a policeman,
and altered my own pace to a lagging walk. Even so, the fellow eyed me
suspiciously as I went by--or so I thought: and guessing that he kept a
watch on me, I dropped still further behind my man. But the lamps were
bright at the end of the street, and I saw him turn to the right by the
great drapery shop at the corner.
Once past this corner I was able to put on a spurt. He crossed the
roadway by the Albert Gate, and by the time he reached the Park railings
the old distance separated us once more. Half-way up the slope he came
to a halt, by the stone drinking-trough: and flattening myself against
the railings, I saw him try the thin ice in the trough with his
finger-tips, but in a hesitating way, as if his thoughts ran on
something else and he scarcely knew what he did or why he did it.
It must have been half a minute before he recovered himself with a shrug
of his shoulders, and plunging both hands deep in his pockets, resumed
his pace.
As we passed Hyde Park Corner I glanced up at the clock there: the time
was between a quarter and ten minutes to one. At the entrance of Down
Street he turned aside again, and began to lead me a zigzag dance
through the quiet thoroughfare: and I followed, still to the tune of the
"Wiener Blut."
But now, at the corner of Charles Street, I blundered against another
policeman, who flashed his lantern in my face, stared after Gervase, and
asked me what my game was. I demanded innocently enough to be shown the
nearest way to Oxford Street, and the fellow, after pausing a moment to
chew his suspicions, walked with me slowly to the south-west corner of
Berkeley Square, and pointed northwards.
"That's your road," he growled, "straight on. And don't you forget it!"
He stood and watched me on my way. Nor did I dare to turn aside until
well clear of the square. At the crossing of Davies and Grosvenor
Streets, however, I supposed myself safe, and halted for a moment.
From the shadow of a porch at my elbow a thin voice accosted me.
"Kind gentleman--"
"Heh?" I spun round on her sharply: for it was a woman, stretching out
one skinny hand and gathering her rags together with the other.
"Kind gentleman, spare a copper. I've known better days--I have
indeed."
"Well," said I, "as it happens, I'm in the same case. And they couldn't
be much worse, could they?"
She drew a shuddering breath back through her teeth, but still held out
her hand. I felt for my last coin, and her fingers closed on it so
sharply that their long nails scraped the back of mine.
"Kind gentleman--"
"Ay, they are kind, are they not?"
She stared at me, and in a nerveless tone let one horrible oath escape
her.
"There'll be one less before morning," said I, "if that's any
consolation to you. Good night!" Setting off at a shuffling run, I
doubled back along Grosvenor Street and Bond Street to the point where I
hoped to pick up the trail again. And just there, at the issue of
Bruton Street, two constables stood ready for me.
"I thought as much," said the one who set me on my way. "Hi, you!
Wait a moment, please;" then to the other, "Best turn his pockets out,
Jim."
"If you dare to try--" I began, with my hand in my pocket: the next
moment I found myself sprawling face downward on the sharp crust of
snow.
"Hullo, constables!" said a voice. "What's the row?" It was Gervase.
He had turned leisurely back from the slope of Conduit Street, and came
strolling down the road with his hands in his pockets.
"This fellow, Sir--we have reason to think he was followin' you."
"Quite right," Gervase answered cheerfully, "of course he was."
"Oh, if you knew it, Sir--"
"Certainly I knew it. In fact, he was following at my invitation."
"What for did he tell me a lie, then?" grumbled the constable,
chapfallen.
I had picked myself up by this time and was wiping my face.
"Look here," I put in, "I asked you the way to Oxford Street, that and
nothing else." And I went on to summarise my opinion of him.
"Oh! it's you can swear a bit," he growled. "I heard you just now."
"Yes," Gervase interposed suavely, drawing the glove from his right hand
and letting flash a diamond finger-ring in the lamp-light. "He _is_ a
bit of a beast, policeman, and it's not for the pleasure of it that I
want his company."
A sovereign passed from hand to hand. The other constable had
discreetly drawn off a pace or two.
"All the same, it's a rum go."
"Yes, isn't it?" Gervase assented in his heartiest tone. "Here is my
card, in case you're not satisfied."
"If _you're_ satisfied, Sir--"
"Quite so. Good night!" Gervase thrust both hands into his pockets
again and strode off. I followed him, with a heart hotter than ever--
followed him like a whipped cur, as they say. Yes, that was just it.
He who had already robbed me of everything else had now kicked even the
pedestal from under me as a figure of tragedy. Five minutes ago I had
been the implacable avenger tracking my unconscious victim across the
city. Heaven knows how small an excuse it was for self-respect; but one
who has lost character may yet chance to catch a dignity from
circumstances; and to tell the truth, for all my desperate earnestness I
had allowed my vanity to take some artistic satisfaction in the sinister
chase. It had struck me--shall I say?--as an effective ending, nor had
I failed to note that the snow lent it a romantic touch.
And behold, the unconscious victim knew all about it, and had politely
interfered when a couple of unromantic "Bobbies" threatened the
performance by tumbling the stalking avenger into the gutter! They had
knocked my tragedy into harlequinade as easily as you might bash in a
hat; and my enemy had refined the cruelty of it by coming to the rescue
and ironically restarting the poor play on lines of comedy. I saw too
late that I ought to have refused his help, to have assaulted the
constable and been hauled to the police-station. Not an impressive
wind-up, to be sure; but less humiliating than this! Even so, Gervase
might have trumped the poor card by following with a gracious offer to
bail me out!
As it was, I had put the whip into his hand, and must follow him like a
cur. The distance he kept assured me that the similitude had not
escaped him. He strode on without deigning a single glance behind,
still in cold derision presenting me his broad back and silently
challenging me to shoot. And I followed, hating him worse than ever,
swearing that the last five minutes should not be forgotten, but charged
for royally when the reckoning came to be paid.
I followed thus up Conduit Street, up Regent Street, and across the
Circus. The frost had deepened and the mud in the roadway crackled
under our feet. At the Circus I began to guess, and when Gervase struck
off into Great Portland Street, and thence by half-a-dozen turnings
northward by east, I knew to what house he was leading me.
At the entrance of the side street in which it stood he halted and
motioned me to come close.
"I forget," he said with a jerk of his thumb, "if you still have the
entry. These people are not particular, to be sure."
"I have not," I answered, and felt my cheeks burning. He could not see
this, nor could I see the lift of his eyebrows as he answered--
"Ah? I hadn't heard of it. . . . You'd better step round by the mews,
then. You know the window, the one which opens into the passage leading
to Pollox Street. Wait there. It may be ten minutes before I can
open."
I nodded. The house was a corner one, between the street and a by-lane
tenanted mostly by cabmen; and at the back of it ran the mews where
they stabled their horses. Half-way down this mews a narrow alley cut
across it at right angles: a passage un-frequented by traffic, known
only to the stablemen, and in the daytime used only by their children,
who played hop-scotch on the flagged pavement, where no one interrupted
them. You wondered at its survival--from end to end it must have
measured a good fifty yards--in a district where every square foot of
ground fetched money; until you learned that the house had belonged, in
the 'twenties, to a nobleman who left a name for eccentric profligacy,
and who, as owner of the land, could afford to indulge his humours.
The estate since his death was in no position to afford money for
alterations, and the present tenants of the house found the passage
convenient enough.
My footsteps disturbed no one in the sleeping mews; and doubling back
noiselessly through the passage, I took up my station beside the one low
window which opened upon it from the blank back premises of the house.
Even with the glimmer of snow to help me, I had to grope for the
window-sill to make sure of my bearings. The minutes crawled by, and
the only sound came from a stall where one of the horses had kicked
through his thin straw bedding and was shuffling an uneasy hoof upon the
cobbles. Then just as I too had begun to shuffle my frozen feet, I
heard a scratching sound, the unbolting of a shutter, and Gervase drew
up the sash softly.
"Nip inside!" he whispered. "No more noise than you can help. I have
sent off the night porter. He tells me the bank is still going in the
front of the house--half-a-dozen playing, perhaps."
I hoisted myself over the sill, and dropped inside. The wall of this
annexe--which had no upper floor, and invited you to mistake it for a
harmless studio--was merely a sheath, so to speak. Within, a corridor
divided it from the true wall of the room: and this room had no window
or top-light, though a handsome one in the roof--a dummy--beguiled the
eyes of its neighbours.
There was but one room: an apartment of really fine proportions, never
used by the tenants of the house, and known but to a few curious ones
among its frequenters.
The story went that the late owner, Earl C--, had reason to believe
himself persistently cheated at cards by his best friends, and in
particular by a Duke of the Blood Royal, who could hardly be accused to
his face. The Earl's sense of honour forbade him to accuse any meaner
man while the big culprit went unrebuked. Therefore he continued to
lose magnificently while he devised a new room for play: the room in
which I now followed Gervase.
I had stood in it once before and admired the courtly and costly
thoroughness of the Earl's rebuke. I had imagined him conducting his
expectant guests to the door, ushering them in with a wave of the hand,
and taking his seat tranquilly amid the dead, embarrassed silence: had
imagined him facing the Royal Duke and asking, "Shall we cut?" with a
voice of the politest inflection.
For the room was a sheet of mirrors. Mirrors panelled the walls, the
doors, the very backs of the shutters. The tables had mirrors for tops:
the whole ceiling was one vast mirror. From it depended three great
candelabra of cut-glass, set with reflectors here, there, and
everywhere.
I had heard that even the floor was originally of polished brass.
If so, later owners must have ripped up the plates and sold them: for
now a few cheap Oriental rugs carpeted the unpolished boards. The place
was abominably dusty: the striped yellow curtains had lost half their
rings and drooped askew from their soiled vallances. Across one of the
wall-panels ran an ugly scar. A smell of rat pervaded the air.
The present occupiers had no use for a room so obviously unsuitable to
games of chance, as they understood chance: and I doubt if a servant
entered it once a month. Gervase had ordered candles and a fire: but
the chimney was out of practice, and the smoke wreathed itself slowly
about us as we stood surrounded by the ghostly company of our reflected
selves.
"We shall not be disturbed," said Gervase. "I told the man I was
expecting a friend, that our business was private, and that until he
called I wished to be alone. I did not explain by what entrance I
expected him. The people in the front cannot hear us. Have a cigar?"
He pushed the open case towards me. Then, as I drew back, "You've no
need to be scrupulous," he added, "seeing that they were bought with
your money."
"If that's so, I will," said I; and having chosen one, struck a match.
Glancing round, I saw a hundred small flames spurt up, and a hundred men
hold them to a hundred glowing cigar-tips.
"After you with the match." Gervase took it from me with a steady hand.
He, too, glanced about him while he puffed. "Ugh!" He blew a long
cloud, and shivered within his furred overcoat. "What a gang!"
"It takes all sorts to make a world," said I fatuously, for lack of
anything better.
"Don't be an infernal idiot!" he answered, flicking the dust off one of
the gilt chairs, and afterwards cleaning a space for his elbow on the
looking-glass table. "It takes only two sorts to make the world we've
lived in, and that's you and I." He gazed slowly round the walls.
"You and I, and a few fellows like us--not to mention the women, who
don't count."
"Well," said I, "as far as the world goes--if you must discuss it--
I always found it a good enough place."
"Because you started as an unconsidering fool: and because, afterwards,
when we came to grips, you were the under-dog, and I gave you no time.
My word--how I have hustled you!"
I yawned. "All right: I can wait. Only if you suppose I came here to
listen to your moral reflections--"
He pulled the cigar from between his teeth and looked at me along it.
"I know perfectly well why you came here," he said slowly, and paused.
"Hadn't we better have it out--with the cards on the table?" He drew a
small revolver from his pocket and laid it with a light clink on the
table before him. I hesitated for a moment, then followed his example,
and the silent men around us did the same.
A smile curled his thin lips as he observed this multiplied gesture.
"Yes," he said, as if to himself, "that is what it all comes to."
"And now," said I, "since you know my purpose here, perhaps you will
tell me yours."
"That is just what I am trying to explain. Only you are so impatient,
and it--well, it's a trifle complicated." He puffed for a moment in
silence. "Roughly, it might be enough to say that I saw you standing
outside my house a while ago; that I needed a talk with you alone, in
some private place; that I guessed, if you saw me, you would follow with
no more invitation; and that, so reasoning, I led you here, where no one
is likely to interrupt us."
"Well," I admitted, "all that seems plain sailing."
"Quite so; but it's at this point the thing grows complicated."
He rose, and walking to the fireplace, turned his back on me and spread
his palms to the blaze. "Well," he asked, after a moment, gazing into
the mirror before him, "why don't you shoot?"
I thrust my hands into my trouser-pockets and leaned back staring--
I daresay sulkily enough--at the two revolvers within grasp. "I've got
my code," I muttered.
"The code of--these mirrors. You won't do the thing because it's not
the thing to do; because these fellows"--he waved a hand and the ghosts
waved back at him--"don't do such things, and you haven't the nerve to
sin off your own bat. Come"--he strolled back to his seat and leaned
towards me across the table--"it's not much to boast of, but at this
eleventh hour we must snatch what poor credit we can. You are, I
suppose, a more decent fellow for not having fired: and I--By the way,
you did feel the temptation?"
I nodded. "You may put your money on that. I never see you without
wanting to kill you. What's more, I'm going to do it."
"And I," he said, "knew the temptation and risked it. No: let's be
honest about it. There was no risk: because, my good Sir, I know you to
a hair."
"There was," I growled.
"Pardon me, there was none. I came here having a word to say to you,
and these mirrors have taught me how to say it. Take a look at them--
the world we are leaving--that's it: and a cursed second-hand,
second-class one at that."
He paced slowly round on it, slewing his body in the chair.
"I say a second-class one," he resumed, "because, my dear Reggie, when
all's said and done, we are second-class, the pair of us, and pretty bad
second-class. I met you first at Harrow. Our fathers had money: they
wished us to be gentlemen without well understanding what it meant: and
with unlimited pocket-money and his wits about him any boy can make
himself a power in a big school. That is what we did: towards the end
we even set the fashion for a certain set; and a rank bad fashion it
was. But, in truth, we had no business there: on every point of
breeding we were outsiders. I suspect it was a glimmering consciousness
of this that made us hate each other from the first. We understood one
another too well. Oh, there's no mistake about it! Whatever we've
missed in life, you and I have hated."
He paused, eyeing me queerly. I kept my hands in my pockets. "Go on,"
I said.
"From Harrow we went to College--the same business over again.
We drifted, of course, into the same set; for already we had become
necessary to each other. We set the pace of that set--were its apparent
leaders. But in truth we were alone--you and I--as utterly alone as two
shipwrecked men on a raft. The others were shadows to us: we followed
their code because we had to be gentlemen, but we did not understand it
in the least. For, after all, the roots of that code lay in the
breeding and tradition of honour, with which we had no concern. To each
other you and I were intelligible and real; but as concerned that code
and the men who followed it by right of birth and nature, we were
looking-glass men imitating--imitating--imitating."
"We set the pace," said I. "You've allowed that."
"To be sure we did. We even modified the code a bit--to its hurt;
though as conscious outsiders we could dare very little. For instance,
the talk of our associates about women--and no doubt their thoughts,
too--grew sensibly baser. The sanctity of gambling debts, on the other
hand, we did nothing to impair: because we had money. I recall your
virtuous indignation at the amount of paper floated by poor W---- towards
the end of the great baccarat term. Poor devil! He paid up--or his
father did--and took his name off the books. He's in Ceylon now, I
believe. At length you have earned a partial right to sympathise: or.
would have if only you had paid up."
"Take care, Gervase."
"My good Sir, don't miss my point. Wasn't I just as indignant with W--?
If I'd been warned off Newmarket Heath, if I'd been shown the door of
the hell we're sitting in, shouldn't I feel just as you are feeling?
Try to understand!"
"You forget Elaine, I think."
"No: I do not forget Elaine. We left College: I to add money to money
in my father's office; you to display your accomplishments in spending
what your father had earned. That was the extent of the difference.
To both of us, money and the indulgence it buys meant everything in
life. All I can boast of is the longer sight. The office-hours were a
nuisance, I admit: but I was clever enough to keep my hold on the old
set; and then, after office-hours, I met you constantly, and studied and
hated you--studied you because I hated you. Elaine came between us.
You fell in love with her. That I, too, should fall in love with her
was no coincidence, but the severest of logic. Given such a woman and
two such men, no other course of fate is conceivable. She made it
necessary for me to put hate into practice. If she had not offered
herself, why, then it would have been somebody else: that's all.
Good Lord!" he rapped the table, and his voice rose for the first time
above its level tone of exposition, "you don't suppose all my study--
all my years of education--were to be wasted!"