THE
EXPLOITS OF
CAPTAIN
O’HAGAN
BY
SAX ROHMER
Author of “The Yellow Claw,”
“Dr. Fu Manchu,” etc.
Bookfinger
New York City
1968
Portions of this book appeared serially in McClure’s
Magazine during 1913-14
First Printed, Jarrolds, London,
December, 1916
First American Edition
| Contents | ||
| Exploit the First | ||
| He Patronises Pamela | ||
| Chapter | Page | |
| I. | The Hat of Mr. Parkins | [11] |
| II. | “The Art of Gentle Thought” | [17] |
| III. | Pamela Returns | [25] |
| IV. | A Musical Interlude | [31] |
| Exploit the Second | ||
| He Clears the Course for True Love | ||
| I. | The Gloomy Cavalier | [51] |
| II. | The Other | [60] |
| III. | Natural Selection | [66] |
| IV. | At Fig Tree Court | [72] |
| Exploit the Third | ||
| He Meets the Leopard Lady | ||
| I. | The Boom-Maker | [87] |
| II. | La Belle Lotus | [95] |
| III. | The Boom | [102] |
| IV. | Echoes of the Boom | [110] |
| V. | Belcher the Thorough | [119] |
| Exploit the Fourth | ||
| He Buries an Old Love | ||
| I. | The Lonely Lady | [125] |
| II. | At the Stage Door | [131] |
| III. | In the Dressing-Room | [140] |
| IV. | The Snows of the Yukon | [149] |
| Exploit the Fifth | ||
| He Deals with Don Juan | ||
| I. | Haverley of the Greys | [159] |
| II. | According ot Myuku | [168] |
| III. | Introducing Donohue | [171] |
| IV. | Donohue’s Orders | [178] |
| V. | Revelations | [184] |
| VI. | Donohue Again | [189] |
| Exploit the Sixth | ||
| He Honors the Grand Duke | ||
| I. | We Meet the Duke | [195] |
| II. | We Improve the Acquaintance | [201] |
| III. | The Maid and the Ring | [215] |
| IV. | The Conspirators | [219] |
A NECESSARY FOREWORD.
In presenting for perusal a selection of private notes dealing with the sometimes eccentric doings of my gallant friend and compatriot, Captain the Hon. Bernard O’Hagan, V.C., D.S.O., I desire in the first place to assure my reader that O’Hagan is in no degree related to anyone else of the name.
Recent circumstances have led him to resume military duties; but the splendid response of Democracy to the trumpet-call “Pro Patrià” has in no way unsettled his singular opinions. In the face of evidence to the contrary which many regard as conclusive, he maintains that the ideal form of government is government by an absolute monarchy.
It forms no part of my plan either to support or to seek to disprove the theories of Captain O’Hagan. In justice to my distinguished friend, I must add that support and opposition alike are matters of indifference to him. He stands alone—aloof—aloft. Neither as apologist nor as eulogist do I pen these lines, but merely as the chronicler of remarkable events in the career of a remarkable man.
EXPLOIT THE FIRST.
HE PATRONISES PAMELA.
EXPLOIT THE FIRST.
HE PATRONISES PAMELA.
I.
THE HAT OF MR. PARKINS.
A very wilderness is Bernard O’Hagan, which no man could hope thoroughly to explore; a most picturesque figure in the satin-lined cloak which he loves to wear in defiance of fashion and indeed of civilised custom, singularly resembling the Merry Monarch whom a lady of his race once entertained right regally at the ancestral home of the O’Hagans. The unexpectedness of the man is one of the most marked features of his character—the one that makes his society at once delightful and alarming.
“My boy,” he will burst out, as we sit in a crowded café, “that gentleman yonder is unduly interested in my appearance.” And, stepping over to the offensive one: “Sir, you are staring at me. I suspect you of being a bum-bailiff!”
“What!” says the other, in all probability—whilst, my friend and I the observed of many observers, I tremble for the outcome of the affair—“how dare you! Damn it! how dare you!”
“Because,” replies O’Hagan, with a sort of calm ferocity, “I desire to pull your nose, and only await a fitting opportunity! You are a puppy, sir! There is my card!”
The man leaps in anger to his feet. Others arise, too, and waiters approach.
“You will regret this outrage!” says the man, pale or inflamed. “You will hear from my solicitor!”
Then O’Hagan throws back his picturesque head and laughs.
“The solicitor again!” he cries, snapping his fingers. “Always the solicitor—or the police! Is there no man alive to-day who can fight his own battles?”
He quietly returns to his table. The other speaks to the manager, and, if he be a good customer, the manager comes across to O’Hagan. O’Hagan rises slowly, fixing his eyes upon him. And, somehow, O’Hagan is never ejected. A devil of a fellow.
To the charge that he is a polished kind of bully he will reply calmly, arguing that he is merely of a sensitive and aristocratic temperament and suffers affront where one more callous would be conscious of none. He will submit to rudeness from no man, be he premier or potman; yet he is never vulgarly embroiled.
O’Hagan rarely wears a hat during the day. There is a simple explanation. At one time in his chequered career, the only presentable hat he possessed was a crush-hat. It was then that he cultivated the hatless fashion. This habit of going hatless directly led to his meeting with Pamela.
Captain O’Hagan was walking along a crowded, shop-lined thoroughfare, with that swinging stride which he will tell you runs in the family, and which enabled his ancestor Patrick to secure enrolment in the ranks of the Musketeers of Louis XIII. Before the door of a newsagent’s establishment—quite an unpretentious little shop—two men stood. One of them, elderly, waved a tweed cap—to a girl more than ordinarily pretty who was making her way up the steps to the roof of a moving motor bus. The girl carried a neat brown leather case, and, having gained a seat, turned and waved her handkerchief. The younger man smiled sourly, but did not join the elder in his waving.
O’Hagan, delighted with the girl’s animation and beauty, halted by the two, smiling at the retreating figure. Quite mechanically he raised the hard felt hat from the head of the younger and less enthusiastic man, and waved it with a vigour even more marked than that of the elder waver.
He was recalled to the scene from which the girl now had disappeared amid the motley traffic, by a violent punch in the ribs.
“Blighter!” said a coarse voice. “My ’at!”
Another than Captain O’Hagan had turned quickly, with arm raised to ward off another possible blow. But with O’Hagan the cult of the unusual is a creed to which he sacrifices daily. Some difficulty he experienced in suppressing a gasp, but he turned unhastily, calmly, and looked into the bright little eyes of the hat’s owner. These were set upon him wickedly, and a truculent, blue-shaded jaw was thrust forward in menace.
“You’ve properly asked for it,” continued the man, tensely, “and you’re goin’ to get it!”
“Jem!” protested the older man, fearfully. “Not here——”
Straight from the shoulder a piston stroke was launched at O’Hagan. It was a blow with brawn to drive it, with science to direct it. It was aimed—and well—in accordance with ring traditions of the “knock-out.” But one who takes unwarrantable liberties with unknowns’ hats must be prepared for reprisals.
O’Hagan is fond of showing his friends the tricks learned of Shashu Myuku of Nagasaki; he is equally prompt to demonstrate them to others. Without employing his right hand, which was engaged in holding the felt hat, he struck down the impending blow (any but a pupil of Myuku must have endeavoured to strike it up), thrust his left foot rapidly against his opponent’s advanced right shin, and, by a simple process of natural law the pugilist pitched forward on to the pavement, propelled by all the force of his own attacking impetus.
Much shaken, and with a rivulet of blood trickling down his nose from a damaged forehead, he got upon his feet again. Captain O’Hagan deliberately hurled the bowler far out into the stream of traffic, and fixed his large eyes upon its white-faced owner.
“One word,” he said, in that tone of suppressed ferocity wholly inimitable, “and I will throw you after it! You ape!”
The dazed and much-insulted man glanced from a shapeless dark mass which, prior to the passage of a brewer’s traction-engine, had been a felt hat, to the face of O’Hagan; and began with his handkerchief to wipe blood from his wounds. O’Hagan cast his eyes upward to the legend: “J. Crichton, Newsagent,” and took the elder man by the arm.
“A word with you, Mr. Crichton!” he said, sweeping that astonished old tradesman into the shop, and ignoring the knot of interested spectators gathered at the door.
—————
II.
“THE ART OF GENTLE THOUGHT.”
A chair stood by the journal-strewn counter.
“Sit down,” said O’Hagan kindly, “and answer a few questions! Who is that person whose hat I honoured?”
The newsagent, who momentarily was expecting to awaken from this bad dream, shook his head ominously.
“It’s Jem Parkins, sir,” he replied, with that respect bordering upon awe which O’Hagan inspires in the plebeian soul. “He’s got the Blue Dragon now, but he’s ex-middleweight champion. There’ll be the devil to pay when he’s pulled hisself together, sir!”
“Reserve your speculations, Mr. Crichton,” said O’Hagan, “and confine yourself to facts. The young lady on the bus—your daughter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She takes after her mother.”
Mr. Crichton stared.
“Did you know Polly—Mrs. Crichton, sir?”
“No. I was referring to your daughter’s good looks. She dresses neatly.”
Mr. Crichton had something of the British tradesman’s independent spirit, and even the awe inspired by O’Hagan’s tremendous presence could not wholly smother his paternal resentment.
“I’d have you know that Pamela’s a lady, sir! And I’d have——”
“Pamela is quite an unusual name for a girl of the lower classes. In what way is Parkins interested?”
The mild eye of Mr. J. Crichton smouldered into faint flame.
“The lower classes! The——”
“I asked you a question.”
Mr. Crichton hesitated, glanced around his shop—his own shop—noted that his pugilistic friend was entering the door with an air of business-like truculence, and took his elusive courage in both hands.
“I decline to be cross-examined—by you—or—by——”
Mr. Parkins closed the shop-door, bolted it, and pulled down the blue blind. He began deliberately to remove his coat.
“Half a mo, Mr. C.,” he interrupted in a quivering voice. “Sorry to put you out, but it’s got to be done. I’ll smash ’im; then you can call for the police and give ’im in charge!”
O’Hagan raised the monocle swung upon the broad black ribbon, and holding it at some distance from his right eye, surveyed the speaker.
“I thought I forbade you to address me?” he remarked icily.
Parkins, removing a collar and shirt-front combined, began to whistle.
“I’ll show you comin’ buttin’ in and runnin’ after respectable girls!” he announced hoarsely. “Blighter!”
O’Hagan dropped the monocle and laid his cane upon the counter. At the moment that Parkins stood upright and squared his chest, the Captain snatched up Mr. Crichton’s day-book—a heavy, leather-bound volume—and hurled it full at the pugilist’s head. One of the precepts of the Higher Jiu-jitsu, or “Art of Gentle Thought,” he will tell you, is to avail yourself of any missile within reach. His aim, then, is deadly. The day-book struck Parkins edgewise across the face, felling him like a stricken bullock—felling him utterly, brutally.
He crashed into the corner by the door—and lay still. (“A dreadful blow was struck at every gentleman when the sword was taken from him,” O’Hagan will say. “One cannot soil one’s gloves with the blood of churls.”)
“If you compel me to deal with you,” said the Captain, as Parkins returned to groaning consciousness of his injuries, “I shall cut your ears off!”
Do not judge my friend harshly. He was born three centuries too late, that is all. The claim of Democracy to an equality with Aristocracy is as unintelligible to him as it must have been to Denis O’Hagan, who upheld the Stuart cause whilst he had breath, and died at last like a gentleman at Worcester, having demonstrated his distaste for plebeian company by personally dispatching seven Roundheads. Or perhaps the autocratic soul of Patrick O’Hagan lives again within Bernard. This member of the family, sometime of the Mousquetaires du roi, narrowly escaped the Bastille for decapitating a Paris grocer who insulted a lady and attaching the erring tradesman’s head to his own shop-sign.
Parkins dizzily strove to get upon his feet. Mr. Crichton, trembling, was seeking to reach the telephone.
“Sit down, Mr. Crichton,” directed O’Hagan, turning the monocle upon him.
“This is my shop—and that’s one o’ my friends——”
“Sit down, Mr. Crichton.”
Mr. Crichton sat down.
“You”—to the tottering pugilist—“put on your filthy rags, and get out.”
Parkins steadied himself against the door.
“What d’you mean, get out? I’ve got more right ’ere than you! Just wait, you cowardly skunk! I’ll ’ave you yet! I’ll quod you for this!”
“You have one minute to get out. If I hear from you again, I shall give you in charge for assault and battery!”
O’Hagan, lolling against the counter, swung the monocle carelessly. The amplitude of his nonchalance prevailed. Parkins, recalling that he had struck the first blow, stuffed his “dicky” into his coat, resumed that garment, and began to unbolt the door.
With never a backward glance, the discredited Mr. Parkins made his exit. One of a curious group, without, entered on the pretence of buying a halfpenny paper. He was served by the trembling newsagent, but save for the presence of a hatless, distinguished gentleman, saw nothing to satisfy his curiosity in Mr. Crichton’s shop.
“Now, Mr. Crichton,” said O’Hagan, the customer departed, “in reference to Pamela: has the fellow, Parkins, pretensions?”
Mr. Crichton, pro tempore, was past protest.
“He’s an old pal o’ mine,” he explained, unsteadily, “and well off—and——”
“Pamela does not approve him?”
“Well, she’s got such superior ideas. But Parkins——”
“It is out of the question, Crichton. Dismiss the idea. Mrs. Crichton was a woman of higher social standing than yourself?”
The newsagent felt suffocation to be an imminent danger.
“She was the daughter of a lit’r’y gentleman——”
“Singular that she should have married you! Her father was badly in debt, possibly?”
“Look here——!”
“I say, possibly the late Mrs. Crichton’s father was financially indebted to you?”
Crichton, cowed:
“I pretty well kept him, for years!”
“Ah! poor girl! A tragedy of poverty! But you have not neglected Pamela’s education?”
“She’s had the best that money could give her!”
O’Hagan seized the hand of the bewildered Mr. Crichton and wrung it warmly.
“There are redeeming features in your character, Crichton!” he said. “For your endeavours on the girl’s behalf I can forgive you much. Rely upon my friendship! And Pamela has literary inclinations?”
“No, sir,” answered the newsagent, whose world was being turned topsy-turvy, who alternately believed that he was in the company of a madman or that he himself was mad. “She’s a musician; I’ve had her properly taught; she composes!”
Above all the chaos reigning in his mind, paternal pride asserted its sovereignty and his voice proclaimed it.
“Ah! composes? She has just gone to see a publisher? She had music in the leather case?”
“Her new piece, sir. She reckons it’s goin’ to make her!”
“What has she published?”
Mr. Crichton, crestfallen:
“Nothing, sir! You see, she’s unknown. They won’t give her a chance.”
“She will return to lunch?”
The newsagent stared.
“Pamela’ll be home to dinner!” he said.
“The midday meal? Exactly. I will lunch with you, Crichton. My name is Captain O’Hagan.”
His mode of patronage was superb, incomparable.
—————
III.
PAMELA RETURNS.
Pamela arrived late, a dainty figure in her neat serge costume; but the very curl that floated across her brow, the limp little hand that held the music-case, spoke of dejection. Her charming face was not habitually pale, O’Hagan felt assured, nor were such glorious eyes meant to be dimmed with threatening tears.
“Hullo, Pam!” began her father heartily—and hesitated. “Why—won’t they take it?”
A forlorn little shake of the head.
“That horrible Ritzmann offered to publish it—if I would let him have it for nothing!”
“For nothing! Didn’t he offer to pay anything?”
“Not after I had declined to go to lunch with him!”
Pamela laughed; not mirthfully.
“Cheer up, Pam,” said Mr. Crichton, in a voice of abysmal gloom. “A—er—a friend——”
“A friend, yes, Crichton,” interrupted O’Hagan. “Don’t be nervous.”
“A friend of mine—Captain O’Hagan—has called to see us!”
Pamela blushed delightfully; O’Hagan bowed inimitably.
“Didn’t Mr.—Parkins—stay?”
Crichton coughed.
“He couldn’t stop, after all!” He replied.
Pamela removed her hat. “Good job, too,” she muttered under her breath.
And then began that singular repast, throughout which O’Hagan talked as only O’Hagan can talk; talked himself into the hearts of the Crichtons. The old man’s natural resentment—which hitherto had not become wholly dispersed—melted before the geniality of his distinguished guest; Mr. Parkins was forgotten. Pamela forgot her troubles and became all smiles. Crichton burned with pride to note that Captain O’Hagan treated her as an intellectual equal. Of the Captain’s honourable and friendly intentions no man could doubt after thirty minutes in his company; and so that was a happy hour spent at the newsagent’s humble table.
The meal despatched:
“Now for the music!” said O’Hagan, and crossing the little room, he opened the piano.
Pamela stared.
“May I try over your new piece, Miss Crichton?”
“Oh!” cried the girl. “You play?”
“A little. I should like, as a pleasure, to hear your own rendering; as a matter of business I should prefer to play the piece myself.”
“A matter of business——”
“You hope to place these compositions?”
“Oh!” said Pamela blankly; “yes,” and took the MS. from her music-case, adjusting it upon the piano-rack.
Few people have heard O’Hagan play the piano. He never plays unless requested and the many being ignorant of his accomplishment, he rarely is requested. But from the moment that his long, white fingers caressed the keys in the opening bar until that when they leapt back from the final chord, his audience of two listened spellbound. The piece was a delicate, feminine morsel; individual, charming; upon an elusive melody, which haunted the ear, which spelt Popularity. For a moment there was silence. O’Hagan swung around and faced Pamela.
“Miss Crichton,” he said, “you will make a large sum of money with your music. One day you will be famous.”
Pamela blushed; her lips trembled. She had never heard her dainty composition played before by hands other than her own. It was something of a revelation to its composer—this rippling, fascinating cascade of harmony which had flown out under the subtle touch of the visitor. Tears were not far from her eyes again.
“Give me more of your pieces—all you can find,” directed O’Hagan.
Glad enough of an excuse to hide her emotion, the girl ran to a little escretoire and took out six or seven neatly-written compositions. O’Hagan placed them before him, and played through them all, without hesitation, without error; with intense sympathy and understanding. Soon she was beside him, turning over the familiar pages; her wayward curls brushed his cheek. When the master-touch had sounded the finale of the last piece, old Crichton pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose in clarion fashion.
“What terms were you asking of—er—Ritzmann?” said the Captain abruptly.
“The usual ten per cent.,” replied Pamela, “with—something on account.”
“How much on account?”
“Ritzmann, I have heard—I know—usually gives ten guineas.”
She spoke the words with awe. Ten guineas on account of a composition of hers—of her very own! It was a dream!
“Ah! Ten guineas on account of a ten per cent, royalty? Let me see: we have eight pieces here. Can you find two more?”
“There is a suite of three short numbers.”
“Bring that.”
Pamela found it, and brought it. O’Hagan played it, and was delighted.
“Four sharps,” he criticised, “are bad in a composition designed for general popularity. Would it lose by transposition into a more simple key?”
“I think not,” said Pamela.
“Well,” continued O’Hagan, “it is a matter for discussion later. May I take these with me?”
“Of course!” said Pamela. “But——”
“Can you give me until Thursday to place them for you?”
“To place them! To place all of them?”
“All of them! Can you give me until Thursday?”
Pamela’s pretty eyes were widely staring.
“You overwhelm me! Do you really mean it?”
“Will you wait until Thursday and see?”
“Of course!” said Pamela.
—————
IV.
A MUSICAL INTERLUDE.
O’Hagan entered my rooms with the impressive dignity of a Richelieu; in the very distinction of the man there is something opulent. His refined insouciance surpasses anything of the kind one could imagine.
“Will you do me a trifling service, Raymond?”
“Consider it as done.”
He threw himself into the blue Chesterfield lounge with the native grace no lesser man could hope to imitate. His pose suggested that a rapier hung at his hip and must be taken into consideration. A plumed hat would have struck no discordant note but merely have harmonised with the purple-lined cloak. O’Hagan’s head one might surmise to be from a study by Van Dyck.
“I am running around to Ritzmann’s, the music-publishers, in Berners Street.”
Now, I noted that he carried a full portfolio.
“At last you have decided to enter the field? You do wisely.”
“I am acting on behalf of a friend—a lady.”
“Indeed. What part do I play?”
“Come along. I will explain.”
We walked up Oxford Street to the corner of Berners Street. O’Hagan creates a sensation wherever he appears: I am hardened to this.
“You will reconnoitre, Raymond. You will send in a card—anybody’s card but your own—to Mr. Paul Ritzmann.”
“What!”
“You are representing Messrs. Angelo Morris, of Monte Video! Probably there is no such firm; I invented the name. You are prepared to handle Ritzmann’s dance-catalogue throughout the southern continent. If he declines to do business, no matter; if he is interested, make an appointment at your hotel—the Savoy sounds substantial without being gaudy.”
“What is the object of this mendacity?”
“To learn if there is a second door to Ritzmann’s office; another than that opening on the shop. If there is, come out by it at all costs, and note where it leads you to. I think, and hope, it will open on a corridor communicating with the street. From what I know of Ritzmann I feel confident that there will be such a private entrance. You will note, also, where the other end of this hypothetical passage leads to. Probably it will be to a stair. Finally, you will report respecting the occupant of the suite of offices above—the suite to which this stair should conduct you.”
“I am not confident,” I said; “but I will do my best.”
Three minutes later I was ushered into the Semitic presence of Mr. Paul Ritzmann. Mr. Ritzmann had a corpulent person, a bald head, and an oily smile. He wore diamond rings on his left hand as well as on his right, by which token I knew that he was really rich. A Hebrew of the Ritzmann type buys a diamond ring as soon as he can afford it, and displays it upon his right hand. That is an advertising investment; it signifies that he is ambitious. But when his right hand is full and he begins to adorn his left it implies that his ambition is realised.
He made no plunge at my South American offer. He was very cautious.
“I will give you a ring at the hotel, Mr. Eddington.” (I had sent in the card of Harry Eddington, who at the time was with an expedition looking for the South Pole.) “I dare say we may be able to fix something up.”
“Good morning.”
I made a plunge for a door on the left of his desk.
“This way out, Mr. Eddington,” came after me; but I was in the corridor, and closed the door behind me.
A white hand with extended fingers was painted on the further wall, and, beneath it, the words:
Harris & Harris,
Domestic Employment Agency.
Turning to the right, I passed out into Berners Street.
“It is well,” said O’Hagan, musingly, when I had made my report. “You will now get back to the said corridor, without permitting yourself to be seen from Ritzmann’s shop; you will wait by Ritzmann’s private door, but on the stair side, so that when I come out he won’t notice you. I shall hand you something; you will go up Harris and Harris’s stair like a rocket, concealing, of course, the object referred to, and see about a cook. Then go home.”
One pays for the privilege of O’Hagan’s friendship.
I had not been at my post more than half a minute, when I saw O’Hagan pass in the street and enter the Ritzmann shop. I began to make notes in a note-book to excuse my loitering. Leaving me so engaged, you will please follow the Captain.
To a counter-clerk:
“Kindly inform Mr. Ritzmann,” he said, “that the gentleman he is expecting will see him.”
“Yes, sir. Certainly, sir. Will you take a seat!”
This, the shop staff were decided, was either a distinguished Russian composer or a gentleman of title interested in a new musical comedy for the “Gaiety.”
A moment later:
“Mr. Ritzmann will see you at once, sir. This way, if you please.”
O’Hagan swung grandly office-ward, and entered to find Ritzmann standing to greet him.
The clerk was about to retire.
“My good fellow,” called O’Hagan, “Mr. Ritzmann and I are not to be interrupted upon any account.”
The clerk bowed and retired. Ritzmann stared.
“You say I was expecting you, Mr.——?”
O’Hagan smiled, waving his hand reassuringly.
“Pray be seated, Mr. Ritzmann.”
Mr. Ritzmann accepted the invitation, and O’Hagan sat upon the edge of the desk facing him. O’Hagan was between Mr. Ritzmann and the bell.
“I have decided to place with you for immediate publication a parcel of charming compositions—nine in all.”
Ritzmann’s eyes began to protrude.
“They are these.”
O’Hagan opened the portfolio and set the heap of MSS. on the desk.
With frequent sideway glances at his extraordinary visitor, Mr. Ritzmann began to look at the music.
“Why,” he burst out, suddenly, pushing the whole of it towards the Captain, “all this stuff has been submitted by post, and declined! All but this thing; and Miss Crichton was here only the other day with it. I don’t want the junk, my dear sir! If I’d known that’s what you——”
O’Hagan waved him to silence.
“Of all these things I am fully aware, Mr. Ritzmann; but I thought I had explained that I had selected you to publish these compositions?”
The other clutched the arms of his chair.
“Selected me?”
“That was my expression. Had the music been worthless——”
“It is worthless! Piffle!”
“Had the music been worthless I should not have offered it to you. But each of these nine items is a sound speculation. We shall require nine agreement-forms.”
Ritzmann, staring, rose slowly to his feet.
“Sit down, Mr. Ritzmann.”
Ritzmann moistened his thick lips preparatory to comment.
“Sit down, Mr. Ritzmann.”
He sat down; and his fleshy hands were not quite steady; the diamonds danced and sparkled. He managed to achieve coherent speech:
“This is a damn big bluff! But if you bluff from now——”
“You have royalty-forms in your desk; we shall require nine.”
Ritzmann got on his feet and plunged for the bell. He was hurled back with violence; and his eyes protruded unnaturally at sight of the pistol which pointed at his bald skull.
“Nine forms, Mr. Ritzmann.”
“You must—be mad. You—dare not——”
“There you are in error. I would shoot you without compunction. If I failed to escape I should shoot myself. I have nothing to live for, and I should go to eternity with that one good deed to my credit. I will dictate the titles of the nine pieces and you will fill in the forms.”
Ritzmann’s face grew ashy. He looked a stricken man. The bundle of forms shook and rustled like autumn leaves in a breeze. Unemotionally, O’Hagan read out the titles; shakily, all but illegibly, the publisher wrote them in. Form after form was filled updated and signed. Two, O’Hagan rejected as quite illegible. But at last he was satisfied, and pocketed the nine.
“Ten guineas on account of each,” he said; “that will be a cheque for ninety-four pounds, ten shillings, payable to Miss Pamela Crichton.”
Ritzmann’s face showed that he was contemplating rebellion.
“I shall count ten, Mr. Ritzmann!”
The cheque was drawn up and signed. O’Hagan carefully folded and placed it in his pocket-book.
“Good day,” he said, and backed towards the door.
He opened it and stepped out into the passage. He had not closed it ere with bell and husky voice Ritzmann was summoning assistance.
O’Hagan handed me the pistol. He took out his cigarette-case and selected a cigarette. Before he had found his matchbox I was upstairs and inside Messrs. Harris and Harris’s office. It must have been at about the moment when I was stating my lack of a suitable parlourmaid, that three clerks, rushing out of the shop, intercepted the Captain, as, match in hand, he stood at the street-end of the passage.
They would have seized him; but O’Hagan’s eyes can quell.
“Your dirty hands off! The meaning of this outrage?”
Trembling, grey-faced, Mr. Ritzmann joined the three clerks. A fourth, who had been detailed to that duty, returned from an adjacent corner with a constable.
“Arrest that man! He has robbed me!”
O’Hagan closed his matchbox with a click and fixed his eyes upon the officer.
“Constable,” he said, with dignity, “step into the shop. This is an outrage for which Mr. Ritzmann shall pay. Step inside if you please—all of you.”
The wide-eyed clerks returned to the shop. Ritzmann, never taking his gaze from O’Hagan, but keeping at a safe distance, entered behind the Captain, clutching at the perplexed policeman and whispering: “He has robbed me! He’s got my cheque in his pocket!”
Having entered the shop,—to the excited clerks:
“Return to your duties, good fellows!” ordered O’Hagan. “I am not accustomed to be made an object of vulgar curiosity! Mr. Ritzmann, lead the way to your office. Constable—follow.”
The odd trio entered Ritzmann’s sanctum. O’Hagan closed the door.
“He’s dangerous!” cried the publisher. “He carries a pistol!”
O’Hagan raised his hand.
“The officer, Mr. Ritzmann,” he said, “is prepared to do his duty. But you have not stated your case. Of what am I accused?”
“Of extorting money from me, at the point of a pistol!”
“Officer! You have my permission to look for the weapon!”
The constable ran his hands over O’Hagan.
“Excuse me, sir,” he reported to Mr. Ritzmann, who was now regaining colour and perspiring freely, “but the gentleman hasn’t got any pistol on him!”
“He’s dropped it in the passage!” yelled Ritzmann. “He——”
Again O’Hagan raised the forceful hand.
“One of your clerks can go and look; and would you be good enough to request your manager to join us?”
The necessary instructions were given, and the manager appeared. O’Hagan threw down his bunch of agreements and displayed the cheque.
“Sir,” he said to the manager, “are these in order?”
“He made me do it!” cried Ritzmann hoarsely, “at the point of a pistol!”
A shopman entered to report that there was no pistol in the passage. Ritzmann began to swear.
“Silence!” thundered O’Hagan. “Silence! you contemptible scoundrel!” To the manager: “Are those agreements and this cheque quite regular?”
“Well,” said the manager, glancing deprecatingly at his employer—“I can see nothing irregular about them. They are in your writing, Mr. Ritzmann!”
“He held a pistol to my head!” cried the publisher. “You’re a pack of fools! Fools! Officer! will you do your duty and arrest that thief!”
O’Hagan took a stride towards the speaker.
“Stop him!” quavered Ritzmann, paling. “He——”
“Mr. Ritzmann,” said O’Hagan calmly, “you are a low blackguard! Repenting of your bargain, you invented this cock-and-bull story as a means of evading it! Knowing me to be a man who has led an adventurous life, you thought yourself safe in charging me with carrying arms! I have several witnesses to the fact that you have grossly slandered me. That your charge is absurd—insane—worthy of a ‘penny-dreadful’—renders it none the less slanderous. You will either apologise, here and now, or—there is my card. My solicitor will take charge of the matter in the morning!”
Down on to the desk before the bewildered Ritzmann, O’Hagan cast his card. Like everything appertaining to that remarkable man, his card is impressive, unusual, striking; a battery. Mr. Ritzmann, his manager and the constable, read the following:
| Capt. the Hon. Barnard O’Hagan, | ||
| V.C., D.S.O. | ||
| Junior Guards’ Club. | ||
The constable stood stiffly to attention, and saluted.
“What am I to do, sir?” he asked—of O’Hagan.
“Ring up Gerrard 04385!”
Ritzmann dropped into his chair and sat there with bulging eyes. The constable, amid a surprising silence, took up the telephone and got the desired number.
“Ask if that is the Junior Guards,” directed O’Hagan.
Yes, it was the Junior Guards.
“See if Colonel Sir Gerald Fitz Ayre is in the house.”
The name of that celebrated soldier electrified the Captain’s audience. Fitz Ayre was found and came to the telephone. O’Hagan took the receiver from the now extremely respectful officer.
“That you, Fitz Ayre? Yes; O’Hagan speaking. My confounded eccentricities of costume have got me into hot water again! Will you please describe me to the person who is now coming to the ’phone! Yes. Thank you.”
Ritzmann, summoned imperiously, took the receiver in his trembling hands. But he did not listen to the Colonel’s florid description of O’Hagan’s person; for his mind was otherwise engaged. He knew himself the victim of a tremendous bluff, but, now, he knew the bluffer for one above his reach; he knew, moreover, that he lacked evidence, and that he had been guilty of a slander which might cost him thousands. Pamela Crichton’s music was quite saleable. He would lose nothing by the deal; he would see to that. His course was clear.
“Thanks. Good-bye.”
Ritzmann turned to O’Hagan.
“I apologise, Captain O’Hagan!” he said. “I was mad! Officer—a sovereign for you!”
* * * * *
“May I present my friend, Mr. Lawrence Raymond?” said O’Hagan. “This is Miss Pamela Crichton, the clever composer I spoke about! Isn’t she a picture?”
She was. But she blushed furiously. O’Hagan handed her a bundle of agreements. As she looked through them, her flushed cheeks grew quite pale. When a cheque for ninety guineas was placed in her hands, frankly, I thought she would have swooned.
Old Crichton, hovering about in the dingy background, showed as a man who is dazed beyond comprehension.
“Oh, Captain O’Hagan,” began Pamela, and her pretty eyes were troubled, “how can I thank you! Why have you done this—for me?”
“Because you are you, Pamela!” said O’Hagan. “Because you are so very charming, and because one day you will be so very famous!”
Pamela met his eyes frankly—and was content.
Throughout our brief stay, O’Hagan’s treatment of the girl was worthy of the days of chivalry. Never, for a moment, did he presume upon that superiority of blood which is so real in his eyes, nor upon the service he had done this newsagent’s daughter. When we took our leave he kissed her hand in his astonishing, cavalierly way, tactfully ignoring her sweet confusion, clapped her father patronisingly upon the back—and swung out of the shop, a gentleman full three hundred years behind his time—the only living being who has recovered the Grand Manner.
You would like to meet my friend O’Hagan.
EXPLOIT THE SECOND.
HE CLEARS THE COURSE FOR TRUE
LOVE.
EXPLOIT THE SECOND.
HE CLEARS THE COURSE FOR TRUE LOVE.
I.
THE GLOOMY CAVALIER.
That class distinctions should be marked by insuperable barriers is a theory that amounts to a religion with O’Hagan. The caste system of India is delightful to his exclusiveness. I think, between patricians and plebeians, he would like to erect a series of stone hedges. To the voice of Democracy he is deaf, and would have a governing body selected from the oldest families in the kingdom.
“To-day,” he will declare, “there are many gentlemen externally indistinguishable from grocers’ assistants. I know dukes who look like head waiters, and head waiters who look like earls.”
He throws back the folds of his astonishing satin-lined cloak, more fully to reveal its inner splendour.
“I, myself,” he confides, “have been mistaken for an impresario, and once for a professional conjuror. I have repeatedly been compelled to thrash my man in order to check attempts at familiarity.”
He sighs for the days when nobility unmistakably proclaimed itself; when an aristocrat was disgraced who dabbled in commerce and a tradesman castigated who raised his eyes above the level prescribed for him.
“A gentleman,” says O’Hagan, “is never at a loss for the right word at the right time. He knows when to throw down the gauntlet, and when to apologise (to his equals). In this way, factitious gentility often is unmasked.”
In support of this contention Captain O’Hagan will tell you a story.
One evening, at about seven o’clock, he chanced to be standing upon the corner of a prosperous suburban avenue in an exclusive, if slightly snob-ridden, district. As my memory serves me, he was waiting for a cab.
Merely to say that Captain O’Hagan stands upon a corner is to do poor justice to the verity. O’Hagan not only stands upon a corner; he occupies and ornaments it. With picturesque head, hatless, aloft—something of a rebuke to the Lady O’Hagan who was a contemporary of Charles II.—one gloved hand resting upon the heavy ebony cane, two fingers of the other dangling the large monocle, dependent on its black silk ribbon, his is a figure for long remembrance.
From the avenue came a lady escorted by a gentleman. The lady was young and pretty; her face peeped out from her wraps bewitchingly; and she carried one of those feminine sachet arrangements, in which, by the light of the street lamp, she anxiously searched. Her companion ransacked his overcoat pockets, his dress-coat pockets, his waistcoat and trousers pockets; and even looked in his crush-hat. When, following a hurried colloquy, he retraced his steps.
O’Hagan, his monocle held some three inches from his left eye, surveyed the charming figure, which now added a new beauty to the corner, with critical aesthetic appreciation. Do not suppose the attention a rude one. O’Hagan is incapable of rudeness to a woman. In another it had been rudeness—yes; but O’Hagan’s frank interest, though embarrassing, is an exquisite flattery. His approval is a superb tribute.
He approved. The lady was not unaware of this, nor in the slightest degree displeased. Returning the forgetful cavalier, the pair moved away past the Captain. And two bright eyes acknowledged admiration with a discreet glance swift as a rapier thrust.
But Jealousy has as many heads and as many eyes as Siva; nor has it a lesser malignancy. The man turned; strode back to O’Hagan.
“What do you mean, sir, by staring at my friend in that way?”
His voice, his gaze, his attitude, were truculent. O’Hagan was delighted with such a display of spirit. He dropped the glass and bowed.
“If your friend has complained of me, sir, I shall never forgive myself.”
“I await no complaint from her. I am complaining, confound your impudence!”
O’Hagan raised the glass again, measuring the depths of the speaker’s resentment. He considered the words ill-chosen and ill-mannered; and instantly had revised his estimate of the speaker’s character.
“An entirely different matter, sir,” says he. “You can go to the devil.”
The other flushed and thrust himself nearer to the suave Captain.
“You overdressed puppy!” he rapped furiously. “I have a mind to knock you down!”
Dropped the monocle; and a slip of pasteboard was thrust into the hand of the irate man.
“Your card, sir!” demanded O’Hagan. “At a more fitting time I will afford you every facility.”
“I only exchange cards with gentlemen! sneered the other, savagely; and tore into fragments the one he held.
“Your card, sir!” repeated O’Hagan sternly. “You have insulted me, and I demand an opportunity to reply to you. Your card, sir!”
“Be damned to you!” said the other—and walked off to rejoin the lady.
O’Hagan was but a pace later beside her. He bowed, as no man has bowed in England since the days of plumes and lace.
“Madam, permit me to offer you my most humble apologies for having annoyed you!”
Innocent eyes, with an imp of mischief dancing in their shadowed pools, met the Captain’s.
“You are mistaken, sir. You have not annoyed me in the slightest!”
(“She was a born coquette,” O’Hagan has confided to me; “but devilish pretty and full of spirit. Too joyous a nature by far to dovetail with the sour-jowl who had insulted me.”)
“Then permit me to apologise for your friend,” continued the amazing Captain, “who forces this necessity upon me by declining his card!”
“How dare you!” cried the friend, breathless. “Hang it all! I’ll give you in charge if you continue to annoy me!”
“Your card, sir,” persisted O’Hagan. “It is unavoidable that you afford me satisfaction for the insult placed upon me.”
“Come along, Moira,” breathed the enraged man, and offered his arm to the girl. “We shall be late for dinner. Never mind this lunatic!”
They proceeded. O’Hagan paced gloomily beside them. Some twenty yards thus; then:
“Clear out, confound you!” cried the man, turning upon O’Hagan with a leaping blaze of passion. “By heaven, you will make me forget myself!”
“You have done so already—for which reason I demand to know where I may find you.”
Choking—wrought upon to the limit of his endurance—the other stood, mouth atwitch, hands clenched.
“Your card, sir,” said O’Hagan icily.
The man addressed snatched again at the girl’s arm and hurried her onward. Speech, now, was denied to him; his companion could feel how he quivered and shook in the gale of his emotions. Somewhat, she was frightened; but in part, too, the novelty of the situation pleased the romantic within her. She knew not what to say apposite to the strange impasse, so wisely said nothing.
Captain O’Hagan completed the silent trio.
Through a gate whose opening discovered a carriage-sweep they passed. Upon a neat lawn lights blazed out from every visible window of a substantial mansion. The obstinate and enraged stranger recovered command of his tongue.
“How dare you follow me into these premises!”
“I am not a spy, to follow any man,” retorted O’Hagan. “I am accompanying you!”
The bell’s ring brought a trim maid. In the cosy hall, where a fire crackled good cheer, and a well-assorted array of hats and coats bespoke a convivial gathering, several loungers were revealed. As the sour man and the pretty girl entered, the unbidden visitor heard the former mention the name of the host, “Major Trefusis.”
Captain O’Hagan the maid eyed doubtfully. The new arrival smiled an evil triumph. But O’Hagan calmly handed his card to the girl.
“Request Major Trefusis to step this way!” he said.
His pose, as, standing just within the hall, he raised his glass and surveyed the guests, was a liberal education in deportment; his supreme self-possession a pure delight, a thing humanly inimitable.
—————
II.
THE OTHER.
Major Trefusis, retired, with an Indian liver but a warm heart, made a rushing entry, O’Hagan’s card in hand.
“What! brought a friend. Repton? Delighted to have you, Captain!”
The sour and wrath-sore Repton raised a protesting hand. His hat and coat the maid had taken charge of; his pretty companion, not daring to dally longer, had escaped into a drawing-room, with a smothered peal of musical laughter.
“One moment, Major!” Mr. Repton drew his sandy eyebrows together and glared upon the intruder. “This fellow is no friend of mine, he imagines that I have offended him and has followed me here, demanding my name and address like a confounded policeman!”
O’Hagan fixed his eyes upon Mr. Repton with quelling glance.
“You have likened me to a confounded policeman, sir. For which new insult I shall pull your nose!” He turned to Major Trefusis, in that hour the most surprised man from Land’s End to John O’Groats. “Mr. Repton is your guest, Major, and of him I shall say nothing, except that he has insulted me; deliberately, and several times. Our cause of misunderstanding is no concern of yours, happily; but as a brother officer and a gentleman you will support my claim to know where I may call upon Mr. Repton to-morrow?”
The Major’s prominent, Cambridge eyes regarded the quivering Mr. Repton, whose wrath yet was badly bottled, and escaped in divers sibilant exclamations.
“Don’t you know, Repton”—he said; “I mean to say, Repton, the Captain is within his rights, damme if he’s not! Why the blazes won’t you give him your card—what?”
“Because I don’t choose to hand my card to any ruffian who cares to ask for it, Major!”
Thus, Mr. Repton, making an effective exit by the same opening as the lady.
Major Trefusis watched him go, and his red face grew redder, and his wiry moustache more aggressively porcupinish. He snorted, cleared his throat, and turned to O’Hagan—who anticipated him:
“I regret this incident exceedingly, Major. Pray accept my very sincere apologies——”
“Not at all, Captain—not at all! You’re the O’Hagan who was with the —th Irish Guards in South Africa—what? Heard of you! heard of you! Delighted to meet you! It’s an ill wind—what?”
They shook hands warmly.
“If Repton wasn’t my guest—and my sister’s guest,” continued Major Trefusis, “I’d say he was a puppy and that I’d always thought so! But he’s in my house, and I can’t tell you what he doesn’t want to tell you himself. You’re just in time for dinner, Captain!”
“But, Major——”
“Give me your coat, man——”
“Really, Major——!”
“Brothers in arms and all that, what! Damme! you’ve got to stay!”
“I fear I am intruding——”
“Tut! tut! Come and have a peg. Just time! Were you in Kandahar when——” etc., etc.
And the pair, arm-in-arm, drifted off together—more strangely met than any two the classic muse has sung. O’Hagan’s reluctance in a degree was sincere, for he had formed a strong attachment for the Major at sight and would not gladly have inconvenienced him. But, on the other hand, no human power, save of course physically superior force, could have moved him from that house until his scrupulous honour was satisfied. Had his host proved of a different kidney, then O’Hagan patiently would have patrolled the neighbourhood until the reappearance of his man.
It is recorded, O’Hagan will tell you, that his ancestor Patrick, sometime of the Musketeers of Louis XIII., on one occasion waited for eight hours in the snow outside the hotel of the Duchesse de C——, in order to reprimand an unknown nobleman who had trodden on his corn. But within eight minutes from the time of the gentleman’s coming out, Patrick O’Hagan had aroused the concierge of the Hotel de C—— to take him in again, summoned a surgeon, summoned a priest, summoned an undertaker, and reported for duty at the Louvre. A bloody ancestor for any man.
My friend’s code, then, is peculiar, but iron-bound. He scrupulously avoided the topic of Mr. Repton with his host; but when, later, Mrs. Lestrange, the Major’s sister, came in to dinner on the arm of Captain O’Hagan, the countenance of Repton would have served as model for a Notre Dame gargoyle.
The Major, too, had been whispering to one man: “The O’Hagan! You recall the incident at so-and-so?” And to another: “O’Hagan, V.C.! One of the O’Hagan’s of Dunnamore!” To a girl: “You must have read how the Boers ambushed a company of the So-and-So’s at So-and-So? Kipling has written about it! Well, this is Captain O’Hagan, who,” etc., etc.
So that, altogether, my friend has assured me that he recalls no more enjoyable evening. His conversation is always brilliant, but on this occasion, I gather, he surpassed himself. All eyes were fixed upon the handsome, debonair visitant from an older world of romance; for O’Hagan is at heart a Musketeer. Moira Cumberley in particular found him wholly entrancing; and each glance of her bright eyes which rested upon the cavalierly figure, likewise poured gall and wormwood into two souls. One of these souls was the sombre soul of Repton; the other was the joyous but hungry soul of a certain Mr. Bruce McIvor.
(“I could see how the wind blew,” O’Hagan will explain. “McIvor was the favoured swain, and naturally enough; for he was a fine lad and descended from Robert Bruce. When, later in the evening, I was presented to Mrs. Cumberley—Moira’s mother—I discovered the fly in the ointment. Repton had money—but no blood, my boy; no family—and poor McIvor, though he could trace back to Bruce, was a mere free-lance journalist. Mrs. Cumberley also lacked breed, but worshipped Pluto. She had banned the McIvor and encouraged Repton. I saw my course plainly.”)
When my friend Bernard O’Hagan sees his course plainly, there are squalls a-brewing for any unhappy wight who queries the Captain’s navigation.
—————
III.
NATURAL SELECTION.
Moira sat out a dance with O’Hagan in the conservatory. Needless to say, the Captain does not dance. McIvor’s sighful acknowledgment of the girl’s disappearance rose above the music. Repton’s Mephistophelian glare pierced palm and fern. But Moira blushed, and settled down tête-à-tête.
“My dear little girl,” said O’Hagan blandly, “you are so very pretty and charming, that I am going to talk to you seriously about your lovers.”
Moira gasped as the amazing Captain took her hand and patted it paternally. Without preamble he had placed the conversation upon a thrilling level. It was a unique experience, but she rather liked it.
“Now, I sincerely hope you do not care for Mr. Repton,” continued O’Hagan; “because late to-night or early to-morrow morning I propose to pull his nose!”
“Oh!” said Moira. But the language of her eloquent eyes added: “Do him good!”
“He has asked you to marry him?”
(A rebellious glance).
“Has he not?”
(Slight nod).
“You have not yet given him your answer?”
(Head-shake).
“I am glad of that; because I want you to marry Bruce McIvor,” explained O’Hagan judicially.
“Indeed!” snapped Moira, with a mutinous shrug of pretty shoulders.
“Yes,” said O’Hagan. “I will tell you why. He is a handsome, fine man, and one of a brave and ancient race. He loves you in a way altogether different from Repton’s way.”
“Has he told you so?”—frigidly.
“No. I have not had an opportunity to speak to him yet! But it is so. With the stimulus of your affection, Moira, with the chance of such a prize as you, he will go far. I understand men of family, my dear, and I tell you that Bruce is a splendid fellow. As for you, Moira, I can only say that I should like to marry you, myself! But since that is impossible, I want it to be Bruce.”
He was curiously impersonal; a kind of directing Beneficence which from an Olympic height smoothed the tangled skeins of lesser lives. But there was a finality in his pronouncements against whose thrall the girl fought stubbornly with all the armoury of her woman-soul. For another than Bernard O’Hagan thus to have championed McIvor must have spelled ruin for McIvor’s cause; but if O’Hagan had been pressing the suit of an unknown, and not that of one towards whom the girl was predisposed favourably, his advocacy must have told. Moira experienced a sense of weakness; later, of absolute futility.
Once submit to the yoke of O’Hagan’s regal patronage, and you are lost. You become a mere pawn. His majestic interference is a stupendous force.
Mr. Repton appeared to claim a dance.
Muffled thunder seemed to be called for and a little incidental music in the form of a sustained chord in G minor.
“I have been having a chat with Moira, sir,” said O’Hagan, haughtily, rising as Repton entered.
The muscles of Repton’s jaws stood out, lumpish.
“We have decided,” continued the cool voice, “that your suit must be withdrawn! It is distasteful to Moira—and distasteful to me!”
Repton’s face, in the dimness, showed a greyish white. He swallowed noisily—and took a step towards Captain O’Hagan. Moira clutched at the Captain’s arm. She did not fully realise what had happened. Only she knew that this strange man, who half fascinated and half frightened her, had precipitated a climax in her life; had, from no personal motive that she could fathom—unless antipathy from Repton and friendliness to a descendant of Bruce—brought her love affairs violently to a head.
Resentment found place in her heart. Captain O’Hagan was a mere chance acquaintance. Yet—wondrous, expansively human O’Hagan!—she gladly sank her individuality in the overflowing lake of his own and was not philosopher enough to know the source of her contentment. Repton had been very attentive, had spent his money lavishly, but he had been more exacting than his position warranted. What a pity that Bruce was so poor!
For the world (so Moira’s mother taught) was ruled by a gilded Providence with a rod of iron: a rod of iron tipped with a magical talisman—a bright new sovereign.
Mr. Repton achieved speech.
“Is it—true . . . what this . . . ruffian . . . says?”
“I note that you call me a ruffian, sir,” said O’Hagan icily.
Moira Cumberley was trembling.
“I am—awfully sorry,” she answered, speaking with difficulty, “that this has come about. Don’t think I want to be bad friends, Mr. Repton. I want us to be friends always. But——”
“She cannot entertain marriage with a man whose nose I shall pull in the morning!” concluded O’Hagan. “I have other plans for her future. Your card, sir—and you may go!”
Is there another living could have framed such a speech?—another who could have carried such a situation in such a manner? I challenge you to produce him.
Repton turned on his heel. Of words he was bereft again; action was impossible.
—————
IV.
AT FIG TREE COURT.
I.
Captain O’Hagan entered my rooms whilst I was at breakfast—hatless, as is his custom; debonair, as he cannot fail to be. His presence has the curious effect of changing relative values. His individuality absorbs: one can no longer describe the scene: the scene is Captain O’Hagan. As he lounges upon the blue Chesterfield, with that odd pose of the hip which suggests that a rapier swings there, I often think that had he flourished contemporaneously with Velasquez he had surely inspired the artist to a supreme achievement. “Portrait of the Chevalier Bernard O’Hagan,” must have been counted the Spanish master’s chef d’œuvre.
“My dear Raymond, are you acquainted with a person of the name of Repton?”
“Sidney Repton, company promoter, newspaper proprietor, and so forth?”
“That will be the fellow! He gave me the slip last night! My position, as a guest, precluded the possibility of obtaining his address from another guest; and the fellow left without his hat. But his address was not in his hat. Where does he live?”
“39A, Fig Tree Court.”
“Will you come around with me?”
“For what, purpose?”
“I am going to pull his nose!”
“He will probably prosecute you!”
“I think not. But I am entirely at his service. And what about Bruce McIvor?”
“McIvor is a man of great promise. He has been unfortunate. He would make an ideal leader-writer. But he lacks the necessary influence to secure such a post.”
O’Hagan frowned thoughtfully.
“He lacks incentive, Raymond,” he said. “A man who can trace his ancestry to Robert Bruce requires no influence other than that of blood. Blood, my boy! that is the secret of success! When he is engaged to the girl he loves—the girl I have chosen for him—he will go far. Mark my words, Raymond; he will go far.”
“I was unaware that he was a friend of yours.”
“I have never spoken to him! But it is unnecessary. A leader-writer, you say? On behalf of an old-established and soundly Conservative organ, of course? Such vacancies, I take it, are rare?”
“Very rare. The leader-writer of the Universe is about to become editor. That will create a vacancy. But poor McIvor is not in the running.”
“How is that?”
“Well—your friend, Repton, is a big shareholder—managing director. And Repton—for some reason—is no friend to McIvor.”
“The reason is evident to me, Raymond. But I am wasting time. I shall be too late to pull Repton’s nose; and, owing to other engagements, the pleasure would have to be unduly postponed if I missed him this morning. Are you ready?”
“My dear fellow, you really must excuse me!”
O’Hagan rose, picked up his cane as though it were a sword, swung his shoulders as though to adjust a bandolier, and sighed sadly.
“I am disappointed in you, Raymond. Your ancestor, who helped to hold Limerick, would be disappointed in you, too, I fear. You are tainted with the modern heresies which substitute the solicitor for the second, the divorce-court for the rapier. Good morning.”
The dignified displeasure of the Hon. Bernard O’Hagan is a dire penalty for any man to incur. The Captain retired from my rooms as who should say, “There is a plebeian strain somewhere here!” It was a Charles rebuking a Buckingham; save that the Buckingham was a sorry Villiers, and the Charles a credit to the house of Stuart.
Leaving me to my breakfast and my humiliation, proceed with O’Hagan to No. 39A, Fig Tree Court.
His loud and long ring upon the bell of Repton’s chambers brought that monied and harried bachelor in person to the door. Repton wore slippers and a dressing-gown. His pale, blonde face faded a tone upon recognition of his early caller. Some dread there was, mingled with the anger of a man used to the servility which Talent accords to Capital; for the calmly persistent and imperious truculence of Captain O’Hagan is awesome.
O’Hagan extended his arm and seized Repton’s prominent nose in a vice-grip.
Uttering a furious imprecation, Sidney Repton struck out at him. But a pupil of Shashu Myuku (Grand Master of the Higher Jiu-jitsu) is elusive as a marsh-light. There are not six Europeans, my friend has assured me, initiated in the occultry of Japanese super-force.
Repton’s fists met vacancy. Obedient to a power which, seemingly percolating from his nose through every nerve of his body, rendered him helpless—log-like—Repton dropped, panting, to his knees. O’Hagan thrust him prostrate, entered, and closed the door behind him. The feat apparently was performed effortless; such is the outstanding wonder of this science (called, I believe, judo).
“Police!” gasped the outraged man. “Help! Police!”
“Sir,” said O’Hagan sternly, “I should not exploit these arts upon a gentleman. But your whole conduct has shown me plainly that you are not one. However, I shall now resort to the ordinary methods employed to chastise an offensive churl.”
He removed, a light grey glove (imbrued with the blood of Repton), cast it contemptuously from him; and, as Repton rose, clutching the maltreated organ, O’Hagan grasped his heavy cane with unmistakable intent.
“Now,” said O’Hagan, standing on the threshold, “you will recall having referred to me as an ‘overdressed puppy’! I have yet to deal with you in regard to the offensive terms ‘lunatic,’ ‘ruffian,’ and ‘confounded policeman!’ ”
“Curse you! I’ll kill you!” panted Repton and crouched, looking up to O’Hagan with glaring, malignant eyes which, at that moment indeed, mirrored a murderous soul.
“I think not,” was the reply. “Others have attempted the feat; but I am here to-day, alive to resent insult.”
The other did not rise. Repton already was defeated. The business-like ferocity of O’Hagan, the absolute efficiency of his methods, caused to evaporate what remained of the quality vaguely labelled Courage, leaving only the brine of bitter anger and mortification.
“What do you want?” he said slowly, racking his muddled brains for a mode of retribution which should not render him ridiculous.
He stood up and backed toward his desk.
“Remain where you are!” directed O’Hagan, pointing his cane. “Attempt to reach any weapon, and I shall thrash you until I am tired!”
“I am unarmed,” muttered Repton sullenly. “You have a heavy stick.”
The situation was wildly bizarre—unlike anything within his experience; of which he had dreamed. The querulous voice did not seem his own.
O’Hagan placed his cane upon a chair, and raised the monocle.
“Do you contemplate an attack?” he asked, with a kind of pleased surprise.
Repton dropped into an armchair, and sank his face in his hands. His inflamed nose robbed the scene of a certain pathos which otherwise had found place there.
“You will sit at your desk,” said O’Hagan, “and write a note to the new editor of the Universe informing him that Mr. Bruce McIvor will be his leader-writer.”
Repton was galvanised. He started up; clutched the chair-arms.
“I shall not! Your damned interference in my affairs——” His voice broke.
“Very well.” O’Hagan took up his cane. “The alternative is equally pleasing to me.”
“Look here!” Repton was on his feet again, hands twitching. “I’ve got no chance with you! You’re a bully!——”
“I warn you that I regard those words as a new insult. Indeed, that is the greatest insult of all. Should you term one a bully who sued you for slander?” O’Hagan’s eyes were bright. “Learn, that when you insult a gentleman, the choice of weapons is his! The law is a weapon for those who cannot fight their own battles, not for such as I!”
Ah! what would you have given to have heard him deliver that speech? But you cannot even picture him, head aloft, foot advanced; hear the ringing voice; quail before the flashing eye.
Repton wrote.
“Now, a letter to McIvor, giving him the appointment at the same salary as his predecessor.”
Repton grasped at the desk. The ferrule of O’Hagan’s cane tapped upon the writing-pad.
“At the same salary as his predecessor, Mr. Repton.”
The note was written.
“Ring up all your fellow-directors, or all whom you can,” ordered the Captain, “and tell them of this appointment.”
Repton hesitated. To comply was to burn his boats. The cane quivered in O’Hagan’s nervous grasp.
“It’s irregular. It may be annulled at Wednesday’s meeting.”
“If it is annulled I shall thrash you in public, when and where I next meet you. You will be at liberty to take what steps you please.”
Lifting the receiver from the hook, Sidney Repton made several calls, briefly communicating to those who ruled the Universe that Mr. Bruce McIvor was a desirable acquisition to the literary staff. He was vanquished. In aught save exact compliance he saw ridicule—the contempt of Fleet Street.
He turned to O’Hagan, pale faced, eyes flaming. Words trembled unspoken upon his tongue.
“Stop!”
O’Hagan spoke the word imperiously, and raised his hand.
“You have bought immunity,” he continued, “in respect of your insults from ‘overdressed puppy’ to ‘bully.’ Any you may utter henceforward I shall deal with separately.”
He strode toward the door; turned in a flash . . . and struck a revolver out of Repton’s hand. Stooping, he picked it from the carpet.
“I shall consider my action in the matter of this murderous assault, Mr. Repton,” he said icily. “My behaviour will largely depend upon your own.”
He slipped the weapon into his pocket, and turned again. The door slammed behind him.
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