With these things, and others, as a beginning, I began to add page to
page, phase to phase; and, in a time the shortness of which astonished
myself, I had pretty well covered the whole of the first ten years of our
friendship. Maschka called rather less, and Schofield rather more
frequently, than I could have wished; and my surmise that he, at least,
was in love with her, quickly became a certainty. This was to be seen
when they called together.
It was when they came together that something else also became apparent.
This was their slightly derisive attitude towards the means by which I
had attained my success. It was not the less noticeable that it took the
form of compliments on the outward and visible results. Singly I could
manage them; together they were inclined to get a little out of hand.
I would have taxed them fairly and squarely with this, singly or
together, but for one thing--the beautiful ease with which the "Life" was
proceeding. Never had I felt so completely _en rapport_ with my subject.
So beautifully was the thing running that I had had the idle fancy of
some actual urge from Andriaovsky himself; and each night, before sitting
down to work, I set his portrait at my desk's end, as if it had been some
kind of an observance. The most beautiful result of all was, that I felt
what I had not felt for five years--that I too was not "doing" my work,
but actually living and being it. At times I took up the sheets I had
written as ignorant of their contents as if they had proceeded from
another pen--so freshly they came to me. And once, I vow, I found, in my
own handwriting, a Polish name, that I might (it is true) have
subconsciously heard at some time or other, but that stirred no chord in
my memory even when I saw it written. Maschka checked and confirmed it
afterwards; and I did not tell her by what odd circumstance it had issued
from my pen.
The day did come, however, when I found I must have it out with Schofield
about this superciliousness I have mentioned. The _Falchion_ had just
begun to print the third series of my _Martin Renard_; and this had been
made the occasion of another of Schofield's ponderous compliments. I
acknowledged it with none too much graciousness; and then he said:
"I've na doubt, Harrison, that by this time the famous sleuth-hound of
crime has become quite a creature of flesh and blood to ye."
It was the tone as much as the words that riled me; and I replied that
his doubts or the lack of them were a privacy with which I did not wish
to meddle. From being merely a bore the fellow was rapidly becoming
insolent.
"But I opine he'll get wearisome now and then, and in that case poor
Michael's 'Life' will come as a grand relaxation," he next observed.
If I meant to have it out, here was my opportunity.
"I should have thought you'd have traced a closer connection than that
between the two things," I remarked.
He shot a quick glance at me from beneath his shaggy russet brows.
"How so? I see varry little connection," he said suspiciously.
"There's this connection--that while you speak with some freedom of what
I do, you are quite willing to take advantage of it when it serves
your turn."
"'Advantage,' Harrison?" he said slowly.
"Of the advertisement _Martin Renard_ gives you. I must point out that
you condone a thing when you accept the benefit of it. Either you
shouldn't have come to me at all, or you should deny yourself the
gratification of these slurs."
"Slurrrrs?" he repeated loweringly.
"Both of you--you and Miss Andriaovsky, or Maschka as I call her, _tout
court_. Don't suppose I don't know as well as you do the exact worth of
my 'sleuth-hound,' as you call him. You didn't come to me solely because
I knew Andriaovsky well; you came because I've got the ear of the
public also; and I tell you plainly that, however much you dislike it,
Michael's fame as far as I'm of any use to him, depends on the
popularity of _Martin Renard."_
He shook his big head. "This is what I feared," he said.
"More," I continued, "you can depend upon it that Michael, wherever he
is, knows all about that."
"Ay, ay," he said sagely, "I misdoubt your own artistic soul's only to be
saved by the writing of poor Michael's 'Life,' Harrison."
"Leave that to me and Michael; we'll settle that. In the meantime, if you
don't like it, write and publish the 'Life' yourself."
He bent his brows on me.
"It's precisely what I wanted to do from the varry first," he said. "If
you'd cared to accept my symposium in the spirit in which it was offered,
I cannot see that the 'Life' would have suffered. But now, when you're
next in need of my services, ye'll mebbe send for me."
He took up his hat. I assured him, and let him take it in what sense he
liked, that I would do so; and he left me.
Not for one single moment did I intend that they should bounce me like
that. With or without their sanction and countenance, I intended to write
and publish that "Life." Schofield--in my own house too--had had the
advantage that a poor and ill-dressed man has over one who is not poor
and ill-dressed; but my duty first of all was neither to him nor to
Maschka, but to my friend.
The worst of it was, however, that I had begun dimly to suspect that
the Lancastrian had hit at least one nail on the head. "Your artistic
soul's only to be saved by writing poor Michael's 'Life,'" he had
informed me... and it was truer than I found it pleasant to believe.
Perhaps, after all, my first duty was not to Andriaovsky, but to myself.
I could have kicked myself that the fool had been perspicacious enough to
see it, but that did not alter the fact. I saw that in the sense in which
Andriaovsky understood Sin, I had sinned....
My only defence lay in the magnitude of my sin. I had sinned
thoroughly, out-and-out, and with a will. It had been the only
respectable way--Andriaovsky's own way when he had cut the company
of an Academician to hobnob with a vagabond. I had at least instituted
no comparison, lowered no ideal, was innocent of the accursed attitude
of facing-both-ways that degrades all lovely and moving things. I was, by
a paradox, too black a sinner not to hope for redemption....