These charming people

III: THE HUNTER AFTER WILD BEASTS

Aubrey Carlyle, who is a man of middle years, had never told this story to any one before, and I can only think he told it to me because I had been a great friend to his wife Gloria. I have not seen Gloria Carlyle for three years, though I have very often wished to, for she is a lady of uncommon quality and was a very loyal friend. Of her George Tarlyon once said that she was a gentleman among women; “And that is a very rare thing,” added Shelmerdene, “for the only advantage most women have over men is in the fact that they are not gentlemen.” But that is as it may be.

The last I heard of Gloria Carlyle was that she had settled in Italy and was living in a villa near Florence. And I saw a vision of Gloria in a very white villa among the myrtle and magnolia and waxen camellias of that country, and walking in lanes where green lizards moved swiftly up grey stone walls—dear Gloria of the tiger-tawny hair and the funny crooked smile like a naughty fairy’s. She was a very sweet and thoughtful woman, and her voice never, never intruded, it was like a hidden stream, quite delicious....

Aubrey Carlyle told me that I could tell or write this story as I wished, saying that it might better the knowledge of men about their womenfolk; “for there are too many men,” he said, “who do not know their jobs as regards their women. And I have learnt mine too late.”

My friend Aubrey is a man of an aloof and almost haughty demeanour, which may have perhaps induced that rather abrupt manner that has repelled many people from him; for though a certain aloofness was thought very proper to the looks of an English gentleman of a past time, it is now held to be quite out of place among the corrupt genialities of the democratic state. A tall, dark-looking man he was, and elegant in a tweedy sort of way. Rich always, he had never been a wastrel, and London bored him to distraction—or “to distinction,” as an American out of Texas once said. A Tory landlord of Liberal sympathies, he was always a model administrator of his properties; and chief among these we, their friends, counted Gloria, for she seemed—how can one suggest these shades of understanding?—more particularly and peculiarly his wife than are the wives of less fortunate men. It is said of the Carlyles that they have always been bad to their women and that there has been no charge on the female estate for more than two hundred years; but Aubrey and Gloria were a charming couple. It was always quite evident that she loved him—tall Gloria of the tiger-tawny hair and the funny crooked smile like a naughty fairy’s; while it was equally evident—to those few, of course, who could look beneath the aloof surface of the man—that he treasured her enormously. And then, one day, she left him; and she never came back.

Now Aubrey despised what he called the “trumpery parlour-tricks” of the countryside. He was not civilised enough, he said. The elegant pastime of killing a pretty fowl of the air without any risk to yourself, or of chasing a scared fox across a county—though that was better, for you at least risked a broken collar-bone—did not amuse him very much. He was a hunter after wild beasts. And because you may not kill wild beasts in England, for they walk on two legs and stern laws protect them, the other four continents knew Aubrey Carlyle for many months in the year. And because Gloria was not a hunter after wild beasts she stayed in England, and was much with us in London, and we sometimes with her at Malmanor. But she was an amazingly still woman.

The war came, and Aubrey was very happy at his pastime, legalised at last, in Flanders, and grew to be a brigadier. And Gloria grew to be a woman, for she had somehow seemed very young until then. The war gasped to conclusion, and soon Aubrey was in South America, in the darkness beyond the upper reaches of the Amazon. And when, one evening, he returned to Malmanor, he found that Gloria was gone.

II

In the vast hall-way of the house, with men tramping about the stone floor bringing in his luggage and his trophies, the butler very silently gave him a slim letter. Aubrey Carlyle looked at the handwriting on the letter, and then at the silent servant.

“When did my wire arrive?”

“At six o’clock last night, sir.”

And then Aubrey knew the letter in his hand to hold the greatest shock of his life. But he was not a dramatic man, he did not take his surprises dramatically. He put the letter into his pocket.

“And then, Hunt?”

“Sir?”

“And then?”

“Madam left by the eleven o’clock London train this morning, sir. She took luggage.”

“I will have a bath now. Very hot, tell Vesey. Dinner at the usual time. Thank you, Hunt.” Twenty-five years had Hunt been with his master; ten years longer than Gloria.

Aubrey had his bath, very hot. And then he put on those nice, slack, black things which so advantage a man’s looks at night; and with them he always wore a soft shirt, for Aubrey would have seen the greatest hostess in the land to blazes rather than be uncomfortable in a stiff one. For a long time he sat on the broad window-seat in his bedroom and looked out on the avenue of tall trees that joined his park to the distant shroud of Carmion Wood. The prospect was very fair in the soft evening light. God is like a woman in the evenings, He makes the land look so shy. And then he heard Gloria’s voice, but it was very distant, for it came from across a wide valley. He just heard Gloria’s voice, but he could not make out what she was saying. And he remembered sudden little phrases of hers in her fine, whispering voice, little broken phrases, and how she would smile very crookedly, and how her great eyes would queerly cloud over.

And then he read the letter. It was a very short letter.

It was after ten o’clock when he passed from the dining-room into the drawing-room. Hunt entered after him to draw the curtains across the French windows, but he was told to let them be; and Hunt switched on the lights, but he was told to switch them off again and that nothing more would be required of him that night.

Again Aubrey read the letter. It was a very short letter. “You know why, dear. Good-bye. Gloria.”

He was angry, because he didn’t know why; he had not the faintest idea why. But anger is no sort of a weapon with which to fight solitude, and this was the most solitary moment of Aubrey Carlyle’s life, he who had hunted wild beasts in the loneliest places of the Americas.

He threw wide open the three French windows and prowled about the large dim room. “You know why.” God in Heaven, what was she talking about! How could he know why?—and what was there to know? He prowled about the room....

They had been good friends, amazingly good friends. He had relied on her to understand that. Good Lord, everything he had done to her or had not done to her had been in friendship! Surely she had understood that.... She had seemed to.... Fourteen, fifteen years.... Why, she couldn’t have expected him to behave like an impassioned lover all the time! Fifteen years.... There were moments.... When he came back from any of his travels and saw her, he loved her madly. It was like a choke in the heart when he saw her on his returns, that marvellous tawny Gloria with the funny crooked smile. Oh, child, child, what have you done? He had treated her like a friend.... And what was the use of having a great friend if you had to write letters to her? He never wrote letters when he was abroad; he hated writing letters. Of course she had understood that....

And he prowled about the large dim room, through the clear throbbing stillness, for the face of the moon hung over distant Carmion Wood and leered genially into the room. He did not understand.... At last he sat down in a great chair by the fireplace, and as he sat there he thought how, after his many returns, he had sat on that chair and taken Gloria to his knee and loved her. And Aubrey Carlyle cried for the first time in his life....

III

He sat there, a very solitary man, and his eyes wandered vaguely through the open windows over the bewitched countryside, his gardens and his park and his acres and his forests, shrouded all in a clear gloom as though God was peering at them in the light of a taper. And the heavy moon climbed the heavens. He saw the twisted shapes of tall flowers in the garden, flowers he did not know, for his head-gardener was a man of invention in August. And then, among the tall shapes of the August flowers, he saw one in particular, and this one was the tallest among them, and it moved. But he sat very still and solemn in his chair, watching the shape of the moving flower, between him and the heavy moon. And then it wavered and stood; for a long time it stood, a shadow in the wan countryside. Perhaps it was afraid, all alone there among the flowers. He watched. And then it was framed in the open window, a soft slim shadow. But he did not move.

“What sort of a play is this,” he heard his voice ask, “in which a woman goes away like a coward and comes back like a wraith?”

And into the room she came, and with a sigh she sat down in a chair by the window.

“Oh, dear!” she sighed. “I am so tired....”

His heart was so torn with gladness that for a long time he could not move, he could not speak. And then he walked across the room and stood above her chair. She turned up her little face under the tiger-tawny hair and smiled her funny crooked smile like a naughty fairy’s.

“Poor Aubrey!” she whispered. “Poor Gloria!...”

But he did not touch her.

“Listen, Gloria,” he whispered. “When I found you had gone, my life cracked like an earthenware cup....” And Aubrey Carlyle stopped, amazed by what he had said; for he had never said a thing like that before.

“And now,” he said, “you have mended it again.”

“Have I?” she cried queerly; and the weight of her eyes on him bore him to his knees by her chair. He had not seen her for eight months, but still he did not touch her.

“And my life, Aubrey?”

“But your life is mine, Gloria! We are together!”

And Gloria, the soft, lovely Gloria smiled into his absorbed face....

“Of course,” she said. “Of course! An Englishman and his wife....”

But he was not listening.

“And did you know why, Aubrey?” she asked.

He shook his head. He had not seen her for eight months.

“I just thought you had gone mad, Gloria. Tell me, are you mad?”

“No, dear; I am very sane. And very tired.” And she said that in a voice which seemed to come from the depths of a very deep bowl, the softest voice that a man ever heard, and it broke the poise of his restraint. He had not seen her for eight months. He was very strong, and a lawless man. He carried her away into the depths of the room. She said nothing.

IV

And then, again, they were by the open windows. But a cloud with a satin fringe hid the moon, and it was so dark that the shine of her eyes was all he could see of her face. And Gloria was so tall that her eyes were almost level with his.

“And so you didn’t know why, in my letter?” she asked miserably.

He humoured her....

“Well, why?”

“You hunt wild beasts, don’t you, Aubrey?”

“And I bring the skins for you to walk on, Gloria.”

“And when you come back from your hunting, you ravage me like a wild beast——”

He cried out sharply in amazement, but she went on, like a sibyl:

“And then you go away again. And then again you come back, to ravage me——”

“Gloria, you are mad!”

“No, I am very sane. And very tired. I loved you, Aubrey. I shall never love any one else. I am clotted with your passions, Aubrey. I wanted love, but you ravaged me like a wild beast. And what is left of me now, I want to preserve. Oh, I want to! Please understand ... just a little! All last night I wondered what I would do. I saw you coming back, my dear, the hunter coming back to his fireside and his wife and his holiday—oh, yes, I am your holiday, Aubrey!—and then I saw you going away again, leaving me.... Oh, Aubrey, how you have sinned against love! And so I went away, because of the horror of it. And I have come back, because of the horror of your loneliness. I, who am used to loneliness! And I also came back to see if you were—different....”

“If,” she whispered, “we were living in a past time, I should go into a nunnery, to get assoiled. But as it is, dear, I shall go for a walk....”

“Let me come with you,” he begged humbly.

“No, Aubrey. I’d like to walk quite alone. Towards the moon and back.” But the moon was behind a cloud with a satin fringe.

He watched her as she walked across the garden and was lost in darkness. He waited for a long time, but he knew she would not return. She has never returned.

IV: THE MAN WITH THE BROKEN NOSE

It was a day in July, and we were sitting over luncheon at the Café Royal. It was very warm for the time of the year. I don’t know if I have mentioned it, but I am something in the City. There was, if you remember, a slump in the City in the summer of 1922. I was in that slump. And so, with one thing and another, I sighed....

“Come on,” said Tarlyon firmly. “One must not neglect art. And two certainly mustn’t.” Poor, silly man!

We walked from the Café Royal to Trafalgar Square, which is an untidy walk on a glaring afternoon in July. And then we walked about the Gallery; we looked at paintings with that rapt look which can see All Round and Into a thing; and we stood before “Musidora Bathing Her Feet.”

“What a masterpiece,” Tarlyon sighed, “if only she hadn’t got three legs!” I could not at first see Musidora’s third leg, but after he had pointed it out to me I could see nothing else but that ghostly third leg dangling over her knee between the other two.

“You see,” he explained, “Gainsborough painted one leg badly, and so he painted it out and fitted another—but Musidora’s third leg came back. Say what you like, there is something displeasing about a woman with an exaggerated number of legs, though some people rather like that kind of thing, saying that a woman can’t have too many....”

It was as we turned away, talking loftily about legs, that we were confronted by a tall and dark young man.

“Sir,” he addressed Tarlyon, “I would be obliged if you would tell me in which gallery hang the pictures by Manet?”

One wondered why he didn’t ask one of the many uniformed men who are strewn about the Gallery for the purpose of being asked that kind of thing.

“You are quite sure,” Tarlyon put frankly to him, “that you do not mean Monet?”

“Manet,” said the dark stranger, and looked as though he meant it.

“Well, then, you’re in luck,” said Tarlyon; “for we, too, were just about to view the Manets. We are partial to Manet. This way.”

We followed him like lambs. Tarlyon’s knowledge as to where the Manets were took the form of trying every gallery in which the Manets were not. We repassed Gainsborough’s three-legged lady, Tarlyon commenting. The dark stranger walked silently but firmly. He was a tall young man of slight but powerful build; his nose, which was of the patrician sort, would have been shapely had it not once been broken in such a way that for ever after it must noticeably incline to one side; and, though his appearance was that of a gentleman, he carried himself with an air of determination and assurance which would, I thought, make any conversation with him rather a business. There was any amount of back-chat in his dark eyes. His hat, which was soft and had the elegance of the well-worn, he wore cavalierly. Shoes by Lobb.

At last a picture rose before our eyes, a large picture, very blue. Now who shall describe that picture which was so blue, blue even to the grass under the soldiers’ feet, the complexion of the soldiers’ faces and the rifles in the soldiers’ hands? Over against a blue tree stood a man, and miserably blue was his face, while the soldiers stood very stiffly with their backs to us, holding their rifles in a position which gave one no room to doubt but that they were about to shoot the solitary man for some misdemeanour. He was the loneliest looking man I have ever seen.

“Manet,” said Tarlyon.

The dark young stranger was absorbed; he pulled his hat a little lower over his left eye, so that the light should not obtrude on his vision....

“Come on,” I whispered to Tarlyon, for we seemed to be intruding—so that I was quite startled when the stranger suddenly turned from the picture to me.

“You see, sir,” he said gravely, “I know all about killing. I have killed many men....”

“Army Service Corps?” inquired Tarlyon.

“No, sir,” snapped the stranger. “I know nothing of your Corps. I am a Zeytounli.”

“Please have patience with me,” I begged the stranger. “What is a Zeytounli?”

He regarded me with those smouldering dark eyes; and I realised vividly that his nose had been broken in some argument which had cost the other man more than a broken nose.

“Zeytoun,” he said, “is a fortress in Armenia. For five hundred years Zeytoun has not laid down her arms, but now she is burnt stones on the ground. The Zeytounlis, sir, are the hill-men of Armenia. I am an Armenian.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Tarlyon murmured.

“Why?” snarled the Armenian.

“Well, you’ve been treated pretty badly, haven’t you?” said Tarlyon. “All these massacres and things....”

The stranger glared at him, and then he laughed at him. I shall remember that laugh. So will Tarlyon. Then the stranger raised a finger and, very gently, he tapped Tarlyon’s shoulder.

“Listen,” said he. “Your manner of speaking bores me. Turks have slain many Armenians. Wherefore Armenians have slain many Turks. You may take it from me that, by sticking to it year in and year out for five hundred years, Armenians have in a tactful way slain more Turks than Turks have slain Armenians. That is why I am proud of being Armenian. And you would oblige me, gentlemen, by informing your countrymen that we have no use for their discarded trousers, which are anyway not so good in quality as they were, but would be grateful for some guns. And you would still further oblige me by trying, in future, not to talk nonsense about Armenians. Adieu, gentlemen. You will probably hear of me again. I am in England on public business.”

He left us.

“I didn’t know,” I murmured, “that Armenians were like that. I have been misled about Armenians. And he speaks English very well....”

“Hum,” said Tarlyon thoughtfully. “But no one would say he was Armenian if he wasn’t, would he?”

“Also,” said I, “he is the most aggressive young man I have ever met. Manet indeed!”

“So would you be aggressive, if you had been massacred and made an atrocity of ever since you were a slip of a boy, and had spent your holidays being chased round Lake Van by roaring Turks and hairy Kurds with scimitars dripping with the blood of Circassian children.”

“Oh, not Circassian!” I pleaded, for I have always been very sentimental about Circassian women; but Tarlyon insisted that they generally died young and that they were a fat race....

II

This is what actually happened, towards midnight of that very day, within a stone’s-throw of Claridge’s Hotel, in Brook Street, Mayfair. George Tarlyon and I had been of the same company for dinner and then bridge at a house in Brook Street. Towards midnight a gap in the bridge allowed us to slip away, which we did. Tarlyon had parked his car outside Claridge’s, and thither we walked.

Now Brook Street at that hour is undecided between a state of coma and one of glittering abandon; which means that the deathly silence is every now and then shattered by rich automobiles hurling themselves and lovely ladies all covered in pearls and chrysoprase into the bosom of Grosvenor Square. Claridge’s, of course, has music, so that youth may dance. But of pedestrians along Brook Street there are less than a few ... and of young men in gents’ evening wear running furiously after limousines there is a noticeable scarcity. He simply tore past us, that young man, in the middle of the road, a few yards behind a swiftly going car. The car stopped towards Grosvenor Square, and somehow the young man seemed to disappear. We were more than fifty yards away, and could not determine whether it was a man or a woman who emerged from the car and entered the house, but it looked like a fat little man. Then the car slid away. The pursuing young man had disappeared.

“He can’t have been doing it for fun,” said Tarlyon.

“Perhaps he’s gone to have a bath,” I suggested. For it was a very warm night, and running after motor-cars must have been a wet business.

“We’ll see,” said Tarlyon. We retraced our steps up Brook Street, and passed the house into which the occupant of the car had disappeared. It was a house like another, dark and silent; and as it stood almost at the corner we went round the corner into Grosvenor Square; at least, we were rounding the corner when a young man in a great hurry collided into us.

“Ah!” said Tarlyon.

“Sorry,” said the stranger. I was right about the running—it had made his face very wet.

“So it’s you!” said Tarlyon.

“Good-evening, gentlemen,” said the Armenian, with a sort of furious courtesy. “If you will excuse me, I am in a hurry.” He made to pass us.

“We noticed it,” said Tarlyon. “In fact, we noticed nothing else.”

“Damn!” snapped the Armenian. “So you saw me running?”

“So did he,” I murmured, looking up Brook Street. A policeman was sauntering towards us.

“If you don’t want to be asked any questions by the arm of the law,” Tarlyon suggested, “you had better take a turn round the square with us.”

“I won’t move,” the stranger muttered passionately. “I have found him at last—I won’t move.”

“But neither will he,” I soothed him. “He’s gone into the house....”

“Did you see him go in?”

We nodded.

“Ah, but His Excellency is clever!” said the Armenian viciously.

We grabbed hold of him and hauled him round the square.

“Now,” said Tarlyon, “what’s all this Excellency nonsense?”

“He doesn’t think it’s nonsense,” the young man muttered grimly.

“Look here,” I said, “either this is a plot or it is not a plot. In either case you’ll look rather an idiot, so——”

“You’d better confide in us,” Tarlyon finished. “We, being English, have great sympathy with oppressed peoples——”

“I have noticed it,” said the Armenian grimly. He was obviously a well-educated young man.

We had him walking between us, and he never even pretended that he liked our company.

“I suppose,” said Tarlyon cattishly, “you’ve got bombs all over you.”

“Sir!” snapped the Armenian.

“Sir to you,” said Tarlyon.

“I was merely going to say,” said the Armenian, “that in my opinion you are a fool. Do I look the kind of man to carry bombs? I favour the revolver.”

“Oh, do you?” said I. Sarcastic I was, you understand.

He looked at me with those large, devilish eyes.

“And one shot,” he said gently, “is always enough....”

I gave up.

“And where,” asked Tarlyon reasonably, “does His Excellency come in?”

“He won’t come in anywhere after to-night. His Excellency is going to die. And with that the Armenian suddenly stopped in his unwilling stride, and looked from one to the other of us. His broken nose made fantasy of his dark face, but I remember thinking that it must once have been a handsome enough face of its kind, for not even a broken nose made him quite ugly. He was as tall as Tarlyon, but slighter; his was a dangerous thinness. He addressed Tarlyon. He did not seem to have a very high opinion of me.

“Sir,” he said—an Armenian habit, I suppose, that “sir”—“you have intruded your company on me, but I have accepted you. I have trusted you. I have treated you as gentlemen, being by nature an optimist, and I take it for granted that you will neither betray me nor try to deter me. You will understand the vigour of my purpose when I say that a young girl is concerned in this, that I have sworn a vow, and that if you were in my position you would do what I am going to do. Good-night, gentlemen. I hope we will meet again when I am less occupied with more important business.”

“Hold on,” cried Tarlyon. “What on earth were you chasing that car for? And who the devil is His Excellency? We’d like to know, you see, so as to be able to pick him out from among the other murders in to-morrow’s papers.”

“Achmed Jzzit Pasha, the Young Turk,” said the Armenian softly.

“Ah!” said George Tarlyon. “I see. Enver Pasha, Djemal Pasha, Talaat Pasha, and Achmed Jzzit Pasha, of the Committee of Union and Progress. I see. Talaat Pasha has already been killed, hasn’t he?”

“Four of us,” said the Armenian sombrely, “set out from Armenia last year, and each of us had a mission of revenge. One of us—you will remember?—shot and killed Talaat Pasha in a street in Berlin some months ago. Djemal Pasha was lately slain in Syria. Enver Pasha has fled to Bokhara. A murder has been arranged and will shortly take place in Bokhara. And I, the fourth, have at last found Achmed Jzzit, the foulest murderer of all. There is not an Armenian in the world who would not shoot Achmed Jzzit Pasha on sight if he had the chance—but Armenians who come to Western countries only too soon acquire nasty Western habits of money-grubbing and forget the glory there is in killing. But I, a Zeytounli, have never forgotten it....”

“You speak English very well,” I remarked. “Were you educated at an English public-school?”

“That, sir, is a matter of opinion. But even an English public-school could not make me forget that I am an Armenian, and that an Armenian’s first business is to kill Turks; failing Turks, he may, of course, kill Kurds or ravish Circassian maidens——”

“Oh, not Circassians!” I pleaded.

“Well, Albanian,” he allowed. “During the war I fought through the siege of Zeytoun, and then as an irregular under Andranik; and since the war I have pursued Achmed Jzzit Pasha—and to-night I have found him! He has been here in London for some months, but under an assumed name, for he knows that he is marked by the Dashnakists[A] and the Henchakists,[A] and he is afraid. It is my present business to cure him of his fear for ever.” And with a wrench his arms were free of our gently restraining hands and he was off down the square. But Tarlyon was swift, very swift; I panted up just as he was again “intruding himself” on the Armenian.

“You don’t seem to realise,” breathed Tarlyon, “that you can’t enter a house in Brook Street, kill a Pasha, and get away——”

“I don’t care if I get away or not,” the other broke in fiercely. “Besides, my friend who killed Talaat in Berlin was acquitted. And I cannot believe that your English juries are as thick-headed as you would have me think. So will you please excuse me, sir?”

It was marvellous what venom that broken-nosed young man could put into a simple question!

“I’ve taken rather a fancy to you,” murmured Tarlyon, “and I hate to think of your going off murdering Pashas. Come and have a drink instead, there’s a good fellow.”

“If I tell you,” snapped the Armenian, “that there is a girl in that house, and that I must rescue that girl, then you will perhaps see your way to minding your own business.”

“Has the Pasha got your girl?” I asked kindly.

“She is my sister, O fool,” he said wearily. “And do you think I can allow my little sister to stay in that loathsome old creature’s house one night more than I can help?”

“Collar him,” said Tarlyon to me; and I grabbed the young man’s other arm, though I didn’t in the least want to, and again we began hauling him round the square. As I walked close to him I could feel a solid bulky thing in his hip-pocket, and I did not like the feeling.

“Now,” said Tarlyon, very business-like, “what’s all this about your sister?”

The Armenian almost screamed with impatience.

“Have I not told you all along that if you were in my position you would do exactly what I am going to do? Must I explain to you that my little sister was carried away by that old lecher before my eyes? Must I tell you how Zeytoun on the hill was at last shelled to dust by the batteries of two Army Corps under Achmed Jzzit Pasha, and how the Turks entered the smoking town and gave no quarter to man, woman or child? Must I, just to satisfy your wanton and asinine curiosity, ravage my heart with retailing how my father and mother were bayoneted before my eyes, and how I escaped only because those Turkish swine thought me already dead? Must I tell you how my little sister was carried away to the harem of Achmed Jzzit Pasha, who, on beholding her, swore a mighty swear that he would not rest from disembowelling Christians until he had ravished her? Did she give way? The slaying went on, day by day and night by night, so that a count of the leaves of the trees in your puny but not unattractive Green Park would make but a fraction of the number of the dead bodies that to this day lie rotting in the plain of Mush. An expert killer was Achmed Jzzit Pasha; and whether or not the natural blood-lust of the illiterate Osmanli was heightened by his oath to ravish my sister I do not know, but I do know that there has not been such a tale of dead Christians since Timur passed through the land to meet Bajazet. And that is the man who holds my sister in that house, while you detain me here with the vain questions and idiotic comments peculiar to the high-minded people of your patrician land. I followed him to Paris, but he escaped me. I found him in Bournemouth, but again I withheld my hand while I planned some way of rescuing Anaïs—fool that I was! But the idea in my head was that I must first get the girl to some place of safety—and then to come back, slay him, and pay whatever is the penalty in your country for killing a loathsome animal. But now I have realised that there is no other way of rescuing Anaïs but by killing him first. Always, wherever he goes, he keeps her locked in a room next to his, and thus it must be in this house. Bestial fancies seethe in his brain, wherefore he sleeps lightly. And while the night is dwindling, here I stand satisfying your idle curiosity. You really must excuse me now, gentlemen.”

“But hold on!” cried Tarlyon. “Why kill the wretched man at all? Why not rescue your sister with the charming name and let the Pasha go on being a Pasha until he dies a horrible death by reason of those bestial fancies which you mentioned? He won’t dare come after her—and I don’t see much point in getting your sister back if you have got to swing for it more or less at once. Eh, Ralph?”

“Quite right,” said I. “Come and have a drink instead.”

“This is no time for drink,” snapped the Armenian. “The night is dwindling—and how can I desist from killing him when, as I have told you, I cannot get into her room without awaking him? And it stands to reason that as soon as I see him I shall also see red, and kill—as I must, by reason of my vow and by order of the Dashnakists. As I have told you, I would have preferred to have got Anaïs out of the house first, but that seems impossible....”

Tarlyon opened his mouth and closed it. I knew what was passing in Tarlyon’s mind, and I thought I would let it pass, so that he might think again. But then he re-opened his mouth, and this is what he said:

“My friend and I,” he said, “might perhaps consider giving you a little assistance, if in return you gave us a promise——”

“I promise nothing!”

“Drat the boy!” said Tarlyon. “What I wish to point out is that, if my friend and I help you to get your sister out of that house, you must drop this killing business. We will contrive some way of keeping His Excellency quiet while you rescue your sister—but you must give us your word of honour, or some efficient substitute, that you will not come back and murder the wretched Pasha. Now, I want no back-chat about it—either you will or you will not.”

“But I am bound to the Dashnakists!” cried the Armenian; rather regretfully, I thought.

“Blast the Dashnakists!” said Tarlyon. “Yes or no?”

“I promise,” said the Armenian suddenly.

My native common sense now got the better of me.

“You seem to take it for granted that we just walk into the house. How do we get in?”

“This cuts windows like a knife,” said the Armenian, showing us in the palm of his hands a glittering little thing like a toy dagger. “An Argentine invention.”

“The matter will be further facilitated,” said Tarlyon, “by our first getting my car, which is opposite Claridge’s, and driving in it to the front door. My reason for this step is that no policeman would dare suspect anything wrong in a house while a Rolls-Royce is standing outside it. Especially, Ralph, when your manly appearance is decorating the driving-seat....”

“I shall be in the house,” I said firmly. Not that I wanted to be—but one always says those things, and one always says them firmly.

“Perhaps that would be better,” said the Armenian. “It will certainly take the two of you to keep His Excellency quiet while I break in the first locked door I see and get Anaïs. And a Rolls-Royce car is, I understand, even more impressive empty than when some one is in it—people make it seem possible.”

III

We got the car and drove bravely to the house. We passed two policemen at the corner of Davies Street, but they were not interested in us. I must say burglary is easy when one has a large and rich car to do it from....

Like all Mayfair houses, this had a tradesmen’s entrance; through a little gate on the right of the few steps to the front door, down some steps, and into a little area where was the kitchen door and a window.

“Wait in the car,” said the dark young man, and vanished down to the area. We heard a very faint scratching, one little wicked word, a little more scratching; and then the lights blazed up through the glass above the front door, and it was opened. The Armenian stood in the lighted doorway as though he owned the house. I admired him.

Tarlyon’s first words when we were in the hall of the house were: “Give me your gun, you charming atrocity.”

The Armenian surrendered his revolver without a word; he only sighed. Then he marshalled us.

“Very quiet,” he whispered. “And very quick. We must try the upstairs rooms, to see which is his bedroom. One touch on the door will wake him, so you must muffle him at once, else he will rouse the servants. In the meanwhile I will find my sister; then I will take her straight out of the house, and we will await you in the car. I will blow your horn twice, to show that I am awaiting you. It will be kind of you, then, to drive us to Mr. Ritz’s hotel in Piccadilly, where, perhaps, with your influence, we may get my sister a lodging for the night. But, remember, keep a tight hold on Achmed Jzzit until I blow the horn—muffle him straightway and let him not open his mouth, else he will bring the whole neighbourhood down on us. Let us begin.”

We began with a bit of luck—or so it seemed. Having tiptoed up to the first landing, the very first door we touched held the lightly sleeping Pasha. We knew he was there by the howl that followed our touching the door-knob—indeed, he was a light sleeper, that man of bestial fancies! But we gave him no time to make a real noise; we leapt into the room; I switched on the light, Tarlyon leapt on bed and Pasha, I leapt after Tarlyon, and in a second we held him, making smothered howling noises under the bedclothes. We had not even had time to see if he was young or old, but the shape of him suggested that he was older than most people. His was, however, an active and restless shape. We were very gentle with him, almost too gentle, for once a distinct howl issued from somewhere under the sheets.

“Steady,” said George Tarlyon to the restless shape.

“You’ll throttle yourself,” said George Tarlyon.

To prevent him from doing that we, with a sudden and well-concerted movement, unscrewed his head and muffled him with a handkerchief. We looked upon his face for the first time.

“You’re a nasty, cruel old man,” said George Tarlyon.

Achmed Jzzit Pasha looked all that the Armenian had said he was, and more. A fierce old face it was that looked murder at us. His eyes, under white, bushy eyebrows, were frantic and furious, and never for a second did he cease to struggle. I thought of that fine old Turkish warrior of the last century, the man of Plevna, Osman Pasha; this old man is of the same breed, I thought.

We had so far heard nothing of the Armenian; but that Achmed Jzzit Pasha realised that we two were only accessories was evident, for not even his struggling with us concealed the fact that he was listening, listening intently.

A slight noise, as of a drawer hastily banged, came from the next room. It was only a small noise, but it had a mighty effect on the old slayer of men. His eyes simply tore at us, his fat little body heaved frantically, he bit my finger in trying to howl—he went quite mad, that violent old Turk. I admonished him severely:

“It’s only little Anaïs packing up to go away with her brother,” I told him; but that old Turk knew not resignation nor repentance, and still we had gently to battle with him.

“He’s an infernally long time about it,” grumbled Tarlyon at last—and at that very moment the horn outside blew twice. We welcomed it.

“Now,” said Tarlyon to the heaving old man, “we are about to release you. Your girl has flown, so it’s too late for you to make a noise. So don’t.” And for form’s sake he showed the revolver, though I never saw a man who looked less likely to use it. “You may not realise it,” he added severely, “but we have saved your life. After the first shock has worn off you will thank two disinterested men for having saved you from the wrath of an Armenian.”

With another sudden and well-concerted movement we let go. The Pasha did not make a noise. It was evident he realised that it was too late to make a noise. But in the next few seconds he revealed, for a Turk, an astonishing knowledge of the baser words and idioms of the English language. Then he leapt out of bed, a funny little creature in pink flannel pyjamas, and rushed out of the room. Breathless, we found him in the next room.

Now I have very little acquaintance with girls’ bedrooms, but a glance was sufficient to show me that no girl alive could have a bedroom like that. There was no bed in it, and very little else; just a thing like a tallboy, but made of steel, or so it looked: and that, if I may say so, had certainly been ravished....

Then the old man really began to howl, and we hadn’t the heart to stop him. He howled himself back to the bedroom, and we followed him, looking and feeling like all the things he said we were.

“But aren’t you Achmed Jzzit Pasha?” I pleaded. But the life had suddenly gone out of him; he sat on the edge of the bed.

“My name is Wagstaffe,” he said weakly, “and I have the finest collection of Roman coins in the country. Or rather, I had. My son, Michael Wagstaffe, has them now—thanks to you two idiots!”

Tarlyon had an idea which took him to the window; I had the same idea, and followed him. We looked down upon the face of Brook Street, and behold! it was empty. Never was a Rolls-Royce car with lamps alight so invisible. We went back to Mr. Wagstaffe on the edge of the bed.

“We are sorry,” I muttered, but he seemed not to hear us. George Tarlyon is usually a fine upstanding fellow, and some people have thought him handsome, but now he looked as though he had seen horrid spectres after dining entirely on pâté de foie gras.

Mr. Wagstaffe was whispering, almost to himself: “Two years ago, when I drove him out of the house, he swore that one day he would steal my coins. And now he has stolen my coins. I always knew he would keep his word, for he is a devil. And he always knew that, come what might, I would not prosecute my son for a thief.... My Roman coins!” And Mr. Wagstaffe wept.

We explained our position to him. We gave him a brief outline of the facts. We begged him to understand. We pointed out that if his son really had been an Armenian and if he had really been Achmed Jzzit Pasha we had undoubtedly saved his life. I couldn’t help thinking that he ought to be grateful to us, but I didn’t say that.

He seemed to find a little solace in our discomfiture.

“Ah, he’s a clever boy, Michael,” sighed Mr. Wagstaffe. “He is always on the lookout for what he calls the Mugs. I gather that you two gentlemen are Mugs—the same, perhaps, as what are known in America as Guys. But I, his father, can assure you that he is not an Armenian; nor has he ever been nearer to Armenia than the Bankruptcy Court, but he has been there twice. He calls himself the cavalier of the streets, but when he is up to any of his tricks he disguises himself as an Armenian—the disguise consisting merely of his saying he is an Armenian. It’s so simple, he says, for the Mugs believe him at once, on the ground that no one would say he was an Armenian if he wasn’t. I have only been back from America a week, and he must have been searching all London for me. He probably saw me at the theatre this evening, and was going to raid my house alone when you two intelligent gentlemen got in his way. But he is not a bad boy really—he’s got ideas, that’s what it is; and also Mugs have an irresistible fascination for him. Take your case, for instance. I have no doubt but that he will be ready to return me my coins in exchange for a cheque—though, of course, that depends on the cheque. And I can see, gentlemen, that you are eager to show your regret for breaking into my house and assaulting my person by offering to pay the cheque yourselves. I thank you; though, indeed, it is the least you can do, and an infinitely more convenient way of settling the matter than wearisome arguments in a police-court—provided, of course, that housebreaking and assault are matters for argument. I have never yet heard they were....”

I giggled. I simply couldn’t help it.

“That’s all very well,” said Tarlyon, “but what about my car?”

“What is the matter with your car?” asked Mr. Wagstaffe gently.

“There’s so damn little the matter with it,” snapped Tarlyon, “that it’s probably half-way down the Dover road by now.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Wagstaffe wearily. “I see. Cars have an irresistible fascination for Michael. I see. I am sorry. Was it a good car?...”

“Pity,” said Mr. Wagstaffe. “A great pity. He may, of course, return it. He may. You cannot, of course, compel him to, for it would be difficult for you, in your position, to put the police on him. But he may return it on his own. Michael is not a bad boy, really. He will, I am sure, communicate with me as to what I will offer for the return of my coins. I will then give him the cheque you have so kindly promised to post to me to-night, and perhaps he will soften also as regards your car and return it to you. Naturally, he will expect your cheque to approximate to the value of your car—say, half its value. Michael is something of an expert about the value of cars. That’s why I said it was a pity, sir, a pity that your car was not a cheap car. But I am sure you will have no difficulty in finding a taxi-cab home. They are so abundant in Grosvenor Square that my sleep is often disturbed by them....”

The rest of the story is not at all interesting. George Tarlyon’s car was finally returned, and George Tarlyon is sorry that Mr. Michael Wagstaffe’s nose is already broken.

V: THE LUCK OF CAPTAIN FORTUNE

Of course, you know the Ambassadors. Every one knows the Ambassadors. Every one has passed through its mean but patrician-looking entrance in Bond Street, just between a jeweller’s and a fishmonger’s. It is, of course, a Night-Club, though there is nothing to prevent you going there in the afternoon if you feel that way. It is an exclusive Night-Club. Outside it are posted tall men in brilliant uniforms adorned with medals, and these men have the eyes of hawks, for it is their business to sift out the low and vulgar from the fashionable crowds that perpetually strive for admittance; they are the best sifters of their kind; and on any night of the week you will see at the Ambassadors all the quality and only the quality, toying with their food and calling each other by their Christian names.

The tables are elegantly arranged around the walls, deep sofas and divans are luxuriously set about them, while the centre is left unchallenged to the shimmering parquet floor. Of course all parquet floors shimmer, but none shimmers like this at the Ambassadors. One dines. One sups. Tommy Tittlebat’s Saxophone Six plays. The quality dance. The more Tommy Tittlebat’s Saxophone Six plays the more the quality dance, which is only reasonable. They jump up to dance at the exact moment when their food is put upon the table, and they cease dancing only when their food has become so cold that they have to hold lighted matches under the plates to warm them up. This causes much laughter.

As evening melts exquisitely into night, the quality enter the Ambassadors in their hundreds, all calling each other and the waiters by their Christian names. Some bring well-dressed nobodies with them, some bring Jews, some bring titled what-nots from the provinces or from Labrador: so that by midnight the parquet floor is so crowded that you cannot see the parquet. Then it is great fun to dance.

The game is played like this. As soon as a man and woman, sitting at their table, see a clear square foot of parquet floor they instantly leap on same, and, passionately embracing each other thereon, make movements of their eyebrows, hips, and feet in time to Tommy Tittlebat’s Saxophone Six. That is called dancing. They stay on their square foot of shimmering parquet floor until they get shoved off it by a beefier couple, whereupon the two gentlemen compliment each other in an elegant way—as is the way with persons of ton—or they call each other names (not Christian names)—as is also the way with persons of ton—until one or other of them is thrown out. That is called enjoying yourself, and you have to pay to do it. I paid, on the night I am telling you about. But not even Tommy Tittlebat’s Saxophone Six could drown the charm of Shelmerdene. Dear Shelmerdene....

At the table next to us sat a solitary gentleman. Obviously, we thought, he is waiting for some one, and obviously that some one has let him down. I am not much of a connoisseur as to men’s looks, but Shelmerdene knows about these things, and she said he was handsome. He was, even as he sat, noticeably tall; of strong and manly appearance; and, though swarthy in countenance, so essentially English-looking that it was with a disagreeable shock that, towards midnight, we noticed that his dark eyes were wet with tears. There is, as a rule, a scarcity of six-foot men weeping over supper at the Ambassadors.

“Drunk,” I suggested harshly, but Shelmerdene is a kind woman and she said that he looked like a man haunted by a great calamity.

“That’s all very well,” I said, “but one doesn’t cry about things.” Whereupon Shelmerdene looked at me, those wide and wise and witty eyes looked full at me—men have drowned themselves in Shelmerdene’s eyes—and I saw laughter at all men playing in their dusky-blue depths; and I had to confess to those kind, mocking eyes, that I, Ralph Wyndham Trevor, had also wept, that I had sobbed like a child, and that a woman had seen me at it—the woman who had caused it.

“Exactly,” said Shelmerdene. “For the more virile a man is, the braver and the more adventurous a man is, the more likely he is to weep before a woman and generally make a fool of himself. Fetch me that handsome man, Ralph. Men in love are not generally very reticent, especially Englishmen in love. The reticence of Englishmen is as much an illusion as the good manners of Frenchmen. I am curious. Fetch me that handsome man, Ralph.”

I leant over to the table beside us. The tall, dark young man turned moist, absent-minded eyes upon me.

“Sir,” I said, “forgive this unpardonable intrusion. But my companion and I have observed your solitude, no doubt temporary, and would be delighted if you would join us in a glass of wine.”

“You are very kind,” said the tall, dark young man.

He refused, with a courtly gesture, to take my seat on the sofa beside Shelmerdene, but sat on a chair opposite us. I filled him a glass of champagne.

“Sir,” said he, “your health. And yours, madam.”

But still the tears did not leave those dark, tragic eyes, they smouldered darkly in them. He looked infinitely wretched, though he bravely tried to smile as he addressed Shelmerdene:

“You must not think me unamiable if I do not ask you to dance, but I am not, to-night, in my happiest vein. You must forgive me....”

He looked so very miserable that I was about to say something sympathetic when Shelmerdene kicked me under the table. She murmured something gentle across the table....

“You are so kind and sympathetic,” whispered the handsome stranger, “that I will tell you a story. You are sure it won’t bore you?”

We said we were quite sure, and I filled him a glass of champagne.

“Sir,” said he, “your health. And yours, madam.”

“My story,” he addressed us, “concerns a man and a woman. The man loved the woman. I call her a woman because all words are vain, and to call her a goddess were but to lay myself under the charge of affectation. But if I were to tell you her name, which of course I cannot do, except to say that it rhymes with custard, you would instantly agree with the most abandoned epithets for her beauty; for she is one of the best loved ladies in the land, by reason of her high birth, her peerless carriage, and her amazing loveliness. I tell you, she has no rival in the present, nor can history tell us of her like. If the Lady Circe had had golden hair, which I much doubt, perhaps she may have been a tithe as lovely. It is, as you know, said of the Lady Circe that she turned men into swine, but this lady turns swine into men, and what could be more agreeable than that? It was ever her innocent delight to improve the men she met; and, with such beauty, was there anything she could not do with men? Her beauty appals the epithet. She is divinely tall, gold is but brass beside the sheen of her hair, and white samite is grey beside her complexion. She is without doubt the loveliest woman in England—which, of course, also includes America, for all lovely American women live in England even though they may die in Paris.

“The man met this lady and instantly loved her. Now his was no casual passion. She was young, but the war had already widowed her; and she seemed not unaware of, nor entirely repelled by, her new suitor’s passion, for from her many suitors she chose him as her constant companion. Thus, rumour very soon came to link their names; and rumour, generally so malignant, was then kind enough to find something harmonious in the alliance of that pair. For he was a man of unusual height, of a good name, a distinguished military record, and looks which some have thought handsome while none have denied to be very properly suited to the requirements of an English gentleman.

“She did not, at first, wholly accept him. But no day passed that they did not meet; and, as day exquisitely strung itself to day so that each was another pearl on the necklace of an Olympian goddess, she seemed, by sudden gestures, by sudden impulses, to be growing to love him—she the loveliest lady in the world! And he was happy—Oh, God, he was happy!”

The handsome stranger fell silent, and I thought he was about to break down. I filled him a glass of champagne.

“Sir,” said he, “your health. And yours, madam.”

“I have told you,” he went on, “of her amazing beauty, the golden-white beauty of the world’s last aristocracy. But, as though that were not enough, she was ambitious; she was a lady of parts, and she increasingly sought the company of those with whom she could discuss, deeply and seriously, the current problems of this vexed time. She was, you understand, tremendously interested in improving people; and politically she was, of course, a Die-Hard; for, as the daughter of a great house, her earliest experience in literature was The Morning Toast, to which she had remained faithful even when she grew up, with that tenacity peculiar to all readers of that remarkable journal. And so, when the franchise was extended to women, she, even before Lady Astor, raised the standard of rampant womanhood; and the world was given the rare sensation of seeing, and the House of Commons the rare privilege of welcoming, among its foremost legislators, the loveliest lady in the land, or any land. Words cannot describe the effect she made as she stood, indisputably the first of the twelve other ladies who had won their right of entrance into the Lower House, in all her glorious height and golden beauty among the dolorous decorations of that crypt which the glamour of centuries had raised to the majesty of Britain’s greatest institution.

“It was at this time that the man I have referred to came into her life; and it chanced for her to be a fortunate occasion, for without him her political career had been a barren thing. She could not make up a speech. Memorise and speak a speech she could, so amazingly well that the populace cried out with wonder at one so gifted with brains and elocution as well as with beauty—but she could not make up a speech. The brains in her speeches, which were rapidly winning for her a foremost position among the Die-Hards, were not hers. Her friend wrote her speeches for her. He did them gladly, happy and honoured to be of use to her. He ‘helped’ her with her speeches, so that she seemed not to be aware that his was every idea, every phrase, every epigram, everything—and that was his greatest pleasure, his subtle ‘helping’ her to a place of honour and esteem for something besides her beauty. Himself, though a gentleman, was not a Die-Hard: he was a man of ideas. He had a brain like Clapham Junction, going this way and that way and every way at the same time; and he could, no doubt, have made a great political name for himself, but he was by nature a soldier and by temperament adventurous, so that it pleased him infinitely more to ‘help’ the lady of his dreams to political fame rather than to bid for it in his own person.

“But another soldier came into her life—the most fearless soldier of our time, it has been said. But whether it was that he was the most fearless or the luckiest, we cannot tell. He himself insists on his luck. ‘I cannot lose,’ he is reported to have often said, sometimes unhappily. Whatever he touched became a jewel in his hand: whatever he ventured, he won. A name never expressed a man more perfectly—Victor Fortune! Captain Fortune, V.C., D.S.O., M.C., etc....

“He saw her first from the Strangers’ Gallery in the Lower House. He was, of course, familiar with her beauty—how often had he not seen portraits of her in the fashionable journals of the day!—but her face had hitherto failed to attract him, because of a certain coldness, a certain vapidity, which only his fastidious taste has chosen to discover in it. But those were photographs—now, from his obscure seat in the Gallery, Captain Fortune looked down upon the fairest figure the mind of man could conceive.

“It was the afternoon set apart for the discussion on Fabric Gloves, and the loveliest woman of our time excelled herself in her speech: or, rather, her friend had excelled himself. Captain Fortune, gazing down upon that tall and golden figure, a light in that dark pit of legislation, was enthralled and—yes, appalled by her beauty and her wit. It had needed only her wit, her culture, to add that vivacity to her perfect features which would enslave Captain Fortune’s fastidious heart—Victor Fortune, who never ventured but he won! He met the lady that night, at Lady Savoury’s ball in aid of the Bus-Conductors’ Orphanage.

“Three weeks later her old friend, her ‘helper,’ was stunned to read in The Morning Toast of the engagement of the lady to Captain Fortune, V.C., D.S.O., M.C., etc. He was stunned; then, frantically, he rushed to her house. She was not yet fully dressed, she received him with pretty confusion. She was very sorry about it all, she said. She was frightfully sorry, she said. But she had fallen in love. Victor Fortune was so fine, so magnificent—and it needed but her love and care to help him combat his few weaknesses, which might be counted human in other men but were unworthy and degrading in such a man as Victor Fortune.

“And so he went away, her friend, never to return. He never has returned. He never will return, for thus it is written. And Captain Fortune, who never ventured but he won, married his lady, the lady of his dreams....”

What could we say? We could only say that we were very sorry, frightfully sorry, but his lovely lady had already told him that and it did not seem to have soothed him. Tears smouldered in those dark eyes, and I thought he was going to break down. I filled him a glass of champagne.

“Sir,” said he, “your health. And yours, madam.”

“Of course,” he whispered, “she has never been able to make a speech since. How could she? Without her old friend she is just a lovely woman, a lovely woman whose life centres round her care for Captain Fortune. And her old friend has gone out of her life, he who loved her and still loves her, never to return, never....”

He rose from his chair and looked miserably down on us. Bravely, he tried to smile.

“I am so, so sorry,” murmured Shelmerdene.

And silently we watched his tall figure carving a passage through the quality to the doorway. A broken man is a more miserable thing than a broken toy, and we were sad....

The agreeable and polished M. Risotto, prince of maîtres d’hôtel, chanced by our table.

“Who,” asked Shelmerdene, “was that tall gentleman who has just left us?”

“That, madam,” said the agreeable and polished M. Risotto, “is Captain Fortune, the most gallant gentleman in England....”