"Our Mr. Shylock"
I have often wondered in what pause or phase of our conversation Raffles
hit upon the plan which we duly carried out; for we had been talking
incessantly, since his arrival about eight o'clock at night, until two in
the morning. Yet that which we discussed between two and three was what
we actually did between nine and ten, with the single exception
necessitated by an altogether unforeseen development, of which the less
said the better until the proper time. The foresight and imagination of a
Raffles are obviously apt to outstrip his spoken words; but even in the
course of speech his ideas would crystallise, quite palpably to the
listener, and the sentence that began by throwing out a shadowy idea
would culminate in a definite project, as the image comes into focus
under the lens, and with as much detail into the bargain.
Suffice it that after a long night of it at the Albany, and but a bath
and a cup of tea at my own flat, I found Raffles waiting for me in
Piccadilly, and down we went together to the jaws of Jermyn Street. There
we nodded, and I was proceeding down the hill when I turned on my heel as
though I had forgotten something, and entered Jermyn Street not fifty
yards behind Raffles. I had no thought of catching him up. But it so
happened that I was in his wake in time to witness a first _contretemps_
which did not amount to much at the time; this was merely the violent
exit of another of Dan Levy's early callers into the very arms of
Raffles. There was a heated apology, accepted with courteous composure,
and followed by an excited outpouring which I did not come near enough to
overhear. It was delivered by a little man in an aureole of indigo hair,
who brushed his great sombrero violently as he spoke and Raffles
listened. I could see from their manner that the collision which had just
occurred was not the subject under discussion; but I failed to
distinguish a word, though I listened outside a hatter's until Raffles
had gone in and his new acquaintance had passed me with blazing eyes and
a volley of husky vows in broken English.
"Another of Mr. Shylock's victims," thought I; and indeed he might have
been bleeding internally from the loss of his pound of flesh; at any rate
there was bloodshed in his eyes.
I stood a long time outside that hatter's window, and finally went in to
choose a cap. But the light is wicked in those narrow shops, and this
necessitated my carrying several caps to the broad daylight of the
threshold to gauge their shades, and incidentally to achieve a swift
survey of the street. Then they crowned me with an ingenious apparatus
like a typewriter, to get the exact shape and measure of my skull, for I
had intimated that I had no desire to dress it anywhere else for the
future. All this must have taken up the most of twenty minutes, yet after
getting as far as Mr. Shylock's I remembered that I required what one's
hatter (and no one else) calls a "boater," and back I went to order one
in addition to the cap. And as the next tack fetches the buoy, so my next
perambulation (in which, however, I was thinking seriously of a new
bowler) brought me face to face with Raffles once more.
We shouted and shook hands; our encounter had taken place almost under
the money-lender's windows, and it was so un-English in its cordiality
that between our slaps and grasps Raffles managed deftly to insert a
stout packet in my breast pocket. I cannot think the most critical
pedestrian could have seen it done. But streets have as many eyes as
Argus, and some of them are always on one.
"They had to send to the bank for it," whispered Raffles. "It barely
passed through their hands. But don't you let Shylock spot his own
envelope!"
In another second he was saying something very different that anybody
might have heard, and in yet another he was hustling me across Shylock's
threshold. "I'll take you up and introduce you," he cried aloud. "You
couldn't come to a better man, my dear fellow--he's the only honest one
in Europe. Is Mr. Levy disengaged?"
A stunted young gentleman, who spoke as though he had a hare-lip or was
in liquor, neither calamity having really befallen him, said that he
thought so, but would see, which he proceeded to do through a telephone,
after shifting the indicator from "Through" to "Private." He slid off his
stool at once, and another youth, of similar appearance and still more
similar peculiarity of speech, who entered in a hurry at that moment, was
told to hold on while he showed the gentlemen up-stairs. There were other
clerks behind the mahogany bulwark, and we heard the newcomer greeting
them hoarsely as we climbed up into the presence.
Dan Levy, as I must try to call him when Raffles is not varnishing my
tale, looked a very big man at his enormous desk, but by no means so
elephantine as at the tiny table in the Savoy Restaurant a month
earlier. His privations had not only reduced his bulk to the naked eye,
but made him look ten years younger. He wore the habiliments of a
gentleman; even as he sat at his desk his well-cut coat and well-tied tie
filled me with that inconsequent respect which the silk pyjamas had
engendered in Raffles. But the great face that greeted us with a shrewd
and rather scornful geniality impressed me yet more powerfully. In its
massive features and its craggy contour it displayed the frank pugnacity
of the pugilist rather than the low cunning of the traditional usurer;
and the nose in particular, while of far healthier appearance than when I
had seen it first and last, was both dominant and menacing in its
immensity. It was a comfort to turn from this formidable countenance to
that of Raffles, who had entered with his own serene unconscious
confidence, and now introduced us with that inimitable air of
light-hearted authority which stamped him in all shades of society.
"'Appy to meet you, sir. I hope you're well?" said Mr. Levy, dropping one
aspirate but putting in the next with care. "Take a seat, sir, please."
But I kept my legs, though I felt them near to trembling, and, diving a
hand into a breast pocket, I began working the contents out of the
envelope that Raffles had given me, while I spoke out in a tone
sufficiently rehearsed at the Albany overnight.
"I'm not so sure about the happiness," said I. "I mean about its lasting,
Mr. Levy. I come from my friend, Mr. Edward Garland."
"I thought you came to borrow money!" interposed Raffles with much
indignation. The moneylender was watching me with bright eyes and lips I
could no longer see.
"I never said so," I rapped out at Raffles; and I thought I saw approval
and encouragement behind his stare like truth at the bottom of the well.
"Who _is_ the little biter?" the money-lender inquired of him with
delightful insolence.
"An old friend of mine," replied Raffles, in an injured tone that made a
convincing end of the old friendship. "I thought he was hard up, or I
never should have brought him in to introduce to you."
"I didn't ask you for your introduction, Raffles," said I offensively. "I
simply met you coming out as I was coming in. I thought you damned
officious, if you ask me!"
Whereupon, with an Anglo-Saxon threat of subsequent violence to my
person, Raffles flung open the door to leave us to our interview. This
was exactly as it had been rehearsed. But Dan Levy called Raffles back.
And that was exactly as we had hoped.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" said the Jew. "Please don't make a cockpit of my
office, gentlemen; and pray, Mr. Raffles, don't leave me to the mercies
of your very dangerous friend."
"You can be two to one if you like," I gasped valiantly. "_I_
don't care."
And my chest heaved in accordance with my stage instructions, as also
with a realism to which it was a relief to give full play.
"Come now," said Levy. "What did Mr. Garland send you about?"
"You know well enough," said I: "his debt to you."
"Don't be rude about it," said Levy. "What about the debt?"
"It's a damned disgrace!" said I.
"I quite agree," he chuckled. "It ought to 'ave been settled months ago."
"Months ago?" I echoed. "It's only twelve months since he borrowed three
hundred pounds from you, and now you're sticking him for seven!"
"I am," said Levy, opening uncompromising lips that entirely disappeared
again next instant.
"He borrows three hundred for a year at the outside, and you blackmail
him for eight hundred when the year's up."
"You said 'seven' just now," interrupted Raffles, but in the voice of a
man who was getting a fright.
"You also said 'blackmailing,'" added Dan Levy portentously. "Do you want
to be thrown downstairs?"
"Do _you_ deny the figures?" I retorted.
"No, I don't; have you got his repayment cards?"
"Yes, here in my hands, and they shan't leave them. You see, you're not
aware," I added severely, as I turned to Raffles, "that this young fellow
has already paid up one hundred in instalments; that's what makes the
eight; and all this is what'll happen to you if you've been fool enough
to get into the same boat."
The money-lender had borne with me longer than either of us had expected
that he would; but now he wheeled back his chair and stood up, a pillar
of peril and a mouthful of oaths.
"Is that all you've come to say?" he thundered. "If so, you young devil,
out you go!"
"No, it isn't," said I, spreading out a document attached to the cards of
receipt which Raffles had obtained from Teddy Garland; these I had
managed to extract without anything else from the inner pocket in which I
had been trying to empty out Raffles's envelope. "Here," I continued, "is
a letter, written only yesterday, by you to Mr. Garland, in which you
say, among other very insolent things: 'This is final, and absolutely no
excuses of any kind will be tolerated or accepted. You have given ten
times more trouble than your custom is worth, and I shall be glad to get
rid of you. So you had better pay up before twelve o'clock to-morrow, as
you may depend that the above threats will be carried out to the very
letter, and steps will be taken to carry them into effect at that hour.
This is your dead and last chance, and the last time I will write you on
the subject.'"
"So it is," said Levy with an oath. "This is a very bad case, Mr.
Raffles."
"I agree," said I. "And may I ask if you propose to 'get rid' of Mr.
Garland by making him 'pay up' in full?"
"Before twelve o'clock to-day," said Dan Levy, with a snap of his
prize-fighting jaws.
"Eight hundred, first and last, for the three hundred he borrowed a
year ago?"
"That's it."
"Surely that's very hard on the boy," I said, reaching the conciliatory
stage by degrees on which Raffles paid me many compliments later; but at
the time he remarked, "I should say it was his own fault."
"Of course it is, Mr. Raffles," cried the moneylender, taking a more
conciliatory tone himself. "It was my money; it was my three 'undred
golden sovereigns; and you can sell what's yours for what it'll fetch,
can't you?"
"Obviously," said Raffles.
"Very well, then, money's like anything else; if you haven't got it, and
can't beg or earn it, you've got to buy it at a price. I sell my money,
that's all. And I've a right to sell it at a fancy price if I can get a
fancy price for it. A man may be a fool to pay my figure; that depends
'ow much he wants the money at the time, and it's his affair, not mine.
Your gay young friend was all right if he hadn't defaulted, but a
defaulter deserves to pay through the nose, and be damned to him. It
wasn't me let your friend in; he let in himself, with his eyes open. Mr.
Garland knew very well what I was charging him, and what I shouldn't
'esitate to charge over and above if he gave me half a chance. Why should
I? Wasn't it in the bond? What do you all think I run my show for? It's
business, Mr. Raffles, not robbery, my dear sir. All business is
robbery, if you come to that. But you'll find mine is all above-board and
in the bond."
"A very admirable exposition," said Raffles weightily.
"Not that it applies to you, Mr. Raffles," the other was adroit enough to
add. "Mr. Garland was no friend of mine, and he was a fool, whereas I
hope I may say that you're the one and not the other."
"Then it comes to this," said I, "that you mean him to pay up in full
this morning?"
"By noon, and it's just gone ten."
"The whole seven hundred pounds?"
"Sterling," said Mr. Levy "No cheques entertained."
"Then," said I, with an air of final defeat, "there's nothing for it but
to follow my instructions and pay you now on the nail!"
I did not look at Levy, but I heard the sudden intake of his breath at
the sight of my bank-notes, and I felt its baleful exhalation on my
forehead as I stooped and began counting them out upon his desk. I had
made some progress before he addressed me in terms of protest. There was
almost a tremor in his voice. I had no call to be so hasty; it looked as
though I had been playing a game with him. Why couldn't I tell him I had
the money with me all the time? The question was asked with a sudden
oath, because I had gone on counting it out regardless of his overtures.
I took as little notice of his anger.
"And now, Mr. Levy," I concluded, "may I ask you to return me Mr.
Garland's promissory note?"
"Yes, you may ask and you shall receive!" he snarled, and opened his safe
so violently that the keys fell out. Raffles replaced them with exemplary
promptitude while the note of hand was being found.
The evil little document was in my possession at last. Levy roared down
the tube, and the young man of the imperfect diction duly appeared.
"Take that young biter," cried Levy, "and throw him into the street. Call
up Moses to lend you a 'and."
But the first murderer stood nonplussed, looking from Raffles to me, and
finally inquiring which biter his master meant.
"That one!" bellowed the money-lender, shaking a lethal fist at me. "Mr.
Raffles is a friend o' mine."
"But 'e'th a friend of 'ith too," lisped the young man. "Thimeon Markth
come acroth the thtreet to tell me tho. He thaw them thake handth
outthide our plathe, after he'd theen 'em arm-in-arm in Piccadilly, 'an
he come in to thay tho in cathe--"
But the youth of limited articulation was not allowed to finish his
explanation; he was grasped by the scruff of the neck and kicked and
shaken out of the room, and his collar flung after him. I heard him
blubbering on the stairs as Levy locked the door and put the key in his
pocket. But I did not hear Raffles slip into the swivel chair behind
the desk, or know that he had done so until the usurer and I turned
round together.
"Out of that!" blustered Levy.
But Raffles tilted the chair back on its spring and laughed softly
in his face.
"Not if I know it," said he. "If you don't open the door in about one
minute I shall require this telephone of yours to ring up the police."
"The police, eh?" said Levy, with a sinister recovery of self-control.
"You'd better leave that to me, you precious pair of swindlers!"
"Besides," continued Raffles, "of course you keep an _argumentum ad
hominem_ in one of these drawers. Ah, here it is, and just as well in my
hands as in yours!"
He had opened the top drawer in the right-hand pedestal, and taken
therefrom a big bulldog revolver; it was the work of few moments to empty
its five chambers, and hand the pistol by its barrel to the owner.
"Curse you!" hissed the latter, hurling it into the fender with a fearful
clatter. "But you'll pay for this, my fine gentlemen; this isn't sharp
practice, but criminal fraud."
"The burden of proof," said Raffles, "lies with you. Meanwhile, will you
be good enough to open that door instead of looking as sick as a cold
mud-poultice?"
The money-lender had, indeed, turned as grey as his hair; and his
eyebrows, which were black and looked dyed, stood out like smears of ink.
Nevertheless, the simile which Raffles had employed with his own
unfortunate facility was more picturesque than discreet. I saw it set Mr.
Shylock thinking. Luckily, the evil of the day was sufficient for it and
him; but so far from complying, he set his back to the locked door and
swore a sweet oath never to budge.
"Oh, very well!" resumed Raffles, and the receiver was at his ear without
more ado. "Is that the Exchange? Give me nine-two-double-three Gerrard,
will you?"
"It's fraud," reiterated Levy. "And you know it."
"It's nothing of the sort, and _you_ know it," murmured Raffles, with
the proper pre-occupation of the man at the telephone.
"You lent the money," I added. "That's your business. It's nothing to do
with you what he chooses to do with it."
"He's a cursed swindler," hissed Levy. "And you're his damned decoy!"
I was not sorry to see Raffles's face light up across the desk.
"Is that Howson, Anstruther and Martin?--they're only my solicitors, Mr.
Levy.... Put me through to Mr. Martin, please.... That you, Charlie? ...
You might come in a cab to Jermyn Street--I forget the number--Dan
Levy's, the money-lender's--thanks, old chap! ... Wait a bit, Charlie--a
constable...."
But Dan Levy had unlocked his door and flung it open.
"There you are, you scoundrels! But we'll meet again, my fine
swell-mobsmen!"
Raffles was frowning at the telephone.
"I've been cut off," said he. "Wait a bit! Clear call for you, Mr. Levy,
I believe!"
And they changed places, without exchanging another word until Raffles
and I were on the stairs.
"Why, the 'phone's not even _through!_" yelled the money-lender,
rushing out.
"But _we_ are, Mr. Levy!" cried Raffles. And down we ran into the street.