House of All Nations

by Christina Stead

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘oh, go ahead, Marianne. I’m not stopping you. What do you want to do?’

  ‘Listen: I’ve thought it all out. I have interviewed a lot of people. Marcuzo will help me at the beginning. You must too. I’m going to start a financial tip sheet in opposition to Marthe Hanau: I won’t sail so close to the wind to begin with. There are plenty of people who think women are lucky in finance.’

  He sulked. ‘Who is going to put up the money?’

  ‘Marcuzo, perhaps others: I don’t know yet. I intend to run it alone. When it is going, you can say, That is my wife’s sheet.’ That’s all. And it will—’ she stopped: she was going to say, ‘Give you prestige: people will think you’re behind me; that will start up rumor as to the powers behind me,’ but she just shook her head slightly and let the sentence die.

  ‘It will—what?’

  ‘It’s fortunate, I made a point of meeting everyone,’ she said. ‘We met the new American ambassador last month. Connections are everything.’

  ‘I admire you, Marianne.’

  She was pleased, nevertheless. ‘Why? It’s nothing. You see, I fool them: they will all say, ‘Who is behind her?’ Men never believe a woman can do anything: they let her through, unsuspecting. An immense opportunity for a career.’ She regretted saying that but it gradually disappeared into the waters of the ensuing silence.

  ‘About Raoul, we will not have to worry so much,’ murmured Aristide. ‘I have managed to get him into the Biarritz office. Bertillon seems quite pleased to have him in. That gives him three thousand a month of which I told him he must pay one thousand a month to me, to make up the …’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  A dismal affair of a check passed without provision: the casino, the bathing heiresses, a young man’s head is turned—and that was not the only escapade. There was a Voisin stolen for a joy ride, from the automobile showroom, where he had been salesman. Aristide had settled that. Where did Raoul get this gallant streak?

  ‘I think,’ said Aristide, ‘I may be able to get Bertillon’s permission for a car when I’m running through the resorts on the Argent Coast. It looks better considering the class of client: purely a business car.’

  Marianne’s eyes brightened. ‘Well, that’s really an idea. Then you can leave me the Ford to run about in.’

  ‘Good.’

  She hesitated, then, ‘And as to the bank, dear—I have only one motto in all these things: sound the Jew and you reach the bottom of the mystery.’

  ‘The Jew.’

  ‘This Jew, Alphendéry, is at the bottom of all that’s hazy and bizarre in the bank. I had a conversation with Bertillon’s old friend, the banker Plowman. He was head of the Timor and Arafura Banking Corporation. He’s well known in London. He told me that before they took on Alphendéry it was all plain sailing but Alphendéry brought in an intellectual diablerie, too cunning for Bertillon and yet so glittering that Bertillon was induced to take it up …’

  ‘What on earth does that mean?’

  ‘I only conjecture. On his advice, contracts are not paid, checks held up: transfers of funds delayed, bearer bonds sold out and bought in again when called for, and so on, and so on. You know better than I do. He’s never shown any positive profits except for his great foreign clients—evidently, since he still manages their accounts: as far as the Bertillons go, merely guile and negative suggestions. If you had only come into the bank an hour before he did. I hear Bertillon picked him out of the street, literally.’

  ‘It’s not possible, that.’

  ‘Indeed, it is. I know lots of things about the history of the bank. I did not waste time in London … And you, my dear, have underrated Alphendéry. Don’t let yourself be set up on strings: the other puppets dance for him. Be advised. Find out something about him? He’s brilliant. He was formerly with a house in Nancy. Find out why he left them; why a man like that was wandering in the streets of Paris; why he appears to be poor even now, lives in a cheap flat; find out the scandal about his wife. Arm yourself, Aristide. A moment will come, and it is not far off now, I judge, when you will need ammunition against Alphendéry, both for yourself and for the good of the bank. Bertillon will thank you. Plowman will aid you. You can move into the bank on proper terms—perhaps a partnership. You know as much about the market as Alphendéry; you are better situated, you have even visited the U.S.A … You had nothing but the one letter from your man in Amsterdam?’

  ‘No: I had another today. There are at least two secret journals A and B respectively which the head accountant keeps himself and will not let him see.’

  ‘Good … We must get at them.’

  ‘He says he has a plan.’

  ‘That’s a good type of fellow. Should you send him something?’

  Aristide was scandalized. ‘Wait till he’s found out something. Don’t let him think money is easy to come by.’

  She let the question drop. ‘I think I’ll write a note to Mme. Haller, explaining.’ She wrote and also slipped in a story of the strange visit they had paid to the Hallers’ flat. Mme. Haller wrote back at once and explained that they always left Anna in charge of the flat; she never let anyone in, she was a perfectly good watchdog: she regarded it as her flat till they came back and she was very angry indeed if the Hallers came back before the appointed day. This two months was her reward for the whole year: she queened it over the empty apartment and the goods in it; it rang with her voice and her songs. She went out once a day to do her shopping but spoke to no one and after an hour or two trailing the streets, looking in shopwindows and making to herself strictures on the behavior and clothes of the women, came back to ‘her apartment’ a free personage, for once. She was not mad by any means, said Mme. Haller; she worked for very little and she really did not need money: she sent it all to a brother much younger than herself and sick, in Transylvania.

  She had been with the Hallers twenty years, and was well content, for Mme. Haller always saw that she had good shoes and hats. Naturally, she had been too ugly, poor thing, ever to have a man and Mme. Haller had tried to make it up to her by giving her a new dress on her birthday every year. ‘Thus, my dear Mme. Raccamond, our house is the only home she knows. She loves Mr. Haller better than me, for he is a man and he has a big voice, but I manage. One day I heard her laughing to herself in the pantry and talking and singing in rather a strange way over the washing-up and I went straight in and said, “Anna, you must stop that, or you must leave me. You know you need not do that. You must control yourself.” And, this is all I have to say to her when she gets queer. She is odd. I often have to laugh at her. When she does talk, she talks about her troubles. We have known her for twenty years as I say, and she was brought up in my mother’s house. She was there from the time she was twelve, so you see there is nothing in her life we are ignorant of. And she has never had any troubles. She has always been protected, in a way: no husband, perhaps a drinker or a man who would have beaten her, no children, no slavery in a cottage! Always getting better food than peasants eat, too. But she so often talks about her “troubles” that I really do think at times that she is getting a little queer. What do you recommend, dear Mme. Raccamond ? I am sure you are perfect in your management of servants! But no, don’t answer me this in a letter. Mr. Haller would be very angry. I am not to tell about Anna, he says. But you understand, you are a woman, dear Mme. Raccamond. We will talk of this again, one day and perhaps you can think of something Anna would like. Naturally, I think about her. Why not? She is, after all, a human being. Do you think it is so wrong, dear Madame? No, I am sure you don’t. I know your kind and rational nature … We are doing splendidly and the food is so good. Of course, Swiss food is very, very good, almost as good as our own …’

  ‘You see, Aristide, it pays to write letters, my dear: she is a real friend now; and only because I have written her a letter or two. So few people know this secret!’


  ‘Yes, and yet it is such a farce: people tell such lies in letters!’

  ‘Oh, you have no sense of comedy; you are not grateful. You do not see that a letter is a work of fiction written specially for one person. It must give excessive pleasure.’

  * * *

  Scene Sixty-one: A Sanitary Measure

  September, 1931.

  London was wild in those weeks. The torpid Englishman could be heard, in the underground, the buses, in Leadenhall Street, in Maiden Lane and in Oxford Street, coming out of warehouses, pubs, and offices, walking to lunch, waiting for the tram and standing in the gutter, discussing not only politics, but the currency. This had even been going on in the months of July and August and one felt that this race of century plants was waking from one of its cyclical sleeps. Meanwhile, in the cafés round the Baltic, the Royal Exhange, and in the dives off Throgmorton Street and its associated alleys, many schemes both rich and wild were heard for keeping the pound on gold, many speculations were made about the amount of gold in the great Bastille in London’s heart, the Bank of England.

  On September eighteenth (this was the last act, not the first), it was announced that the stabilization of the pound was threatened because of naval unrest and the report that a general election was imminent. The conversion of British funds into foreign exchange was attacked by the press. People talked of a foreign conspiracy and ‘attacks from abroad’ on the pound, Englishmen always having the strange illusion that (far from their living coming from abroad), harpy nations and bandit races are always trying to rifle the boundless treasure of the little island. On the twentieth the pound was pegged, the possibility of its going off gold everywhere announced: the pound was then below gold shipping point. On the twenty-first the Bank of England suspended the gold standard and immediately the congratulations started and the suspension was ‘seen by bankers as a first step towards the solution of our economic problems.’ Nevertheless, there was a violent reaction in Berlin, Vienna, Copenhagen, Tokyo. The stock exchanges closed in many parts of the world till values were readjusted. The congratulations went on, to cover this and stop a panic. ‘The attempt to stabilize at prewar parity led to the European economic situation. Now prosperity would come on.’ J. P. Morgan called the suspension a ‘hopeful event,’ a ‘second step towards financial recovery.’ Hoover spoke of the ‘good’ to come.

  Commodity prices in the U.S.A. had fallen and Léon, forewarned, had not only made considerable money selling short, but his expected advices had come through from Copenhagen and Swiss informants and his ‘check technique’ had worked … Jules, in so far as he owned gold in his branches abroad, found his position worse on the books. Towards the end, just before the steel trap closed, he had sold the pound short in a small quantity, and the gold he owned abroad (a virtual short sale on the pound) resulted in another profit. But he sat and mourned the ‘lost opportunity.’

  ‘Down on the Côte d’Azur I said I was going to sell the pound till Kingdom Come and that fellow Bomba talked me out of it; and Stewart with his ‘everything’s splendid,’ and Plowman, with his patriotism!’ He laughed helplessly. Hardly had he said it than Carrière appeared in their midst, very jolly.

  ‘Well, Jules, I had you that time! Eighteen months to go on my brewery contract! What do you say to that? I called the turns nicely. Ah-ha, I bet that’ll just about clean you out, my boy.’

  ‘Don’t stay awake at night congratulating yourself,’ jeered Jules. ‘I can always pay your drafts out of my petty-cash drawer.’

  ‘Indeed? I hope to see it. Well, I’m celebrating on the strength of it. I’ll be seeing you.’

  ‘Can’t you keep bad news to yourself?’ Jules joked. ‘Don’t spend too much: Snowden’s going to limit the pound.’

  When Carrière had gone and William had cleared out Plowman, Cambo, and the great crowd of lively folk who had come in to discuss the pound, he inquired, ‘Carrière seems to think you’re still going to pay him on those drafts?’

  ‘He thinks so. I’ll see. If I have the petty cash, I’ll pay him. If not, not.’

  * * *

  ‘

  Scene Sixty-two: Sealed Orders

  First,’ said Jules, ‘let’s send Constant to England again to find out about the Carrière brewery transaction: I know there’s something very fishy about it. The Comtesse de Voigrand told me his mother, Madame de Benezech, was very persuasive about it and begged Voigrand to put me into the bet with Carrière.’

  William said their English solicitors, Ledger, Ledger, and Braves, could find out more than a lost Frenchman like Constant. But no, Jules had to send his own envoy. He haggled and heckled for Constant. William was cantankerous and asserted that he only wanted to attach a good honest hard-working boy to his team of necromancers. Alphendéry, out of friendship for Constant, exclaimed, ‘Why no: Constant is ideal. No one will suspect him; no one but Ledger knows him. He can represent himself as a student, say of finance, at the London School of Economics: that explains his inquiries, his accent.’

  They called in Adam.

  ‘Adam, I want you to go to London. Can you leave this afternoon?’

  ‘Yes. What am I to do?’

  ‘Never mind that. We’ll tell you before you leave. You must have lunch with Mr. Alphendéry. You can leave by the 4.40 this afternoon?’

  ‘Yes … When will I get my instructions?’

  ‘At lunch. Run home and get your bag now, and meet Alphendéry for lunch. Tell Mr. Husson to arrange for a first-class return ticket for you, for this evening’s train.’

  Alphendéry said hastily, officiously, ‘If you’ll kindly have lunch with me at one at the Brasserie Universelle, downstairs first: I’ll tell you over the apéritif …’

  When Constant had gone, dazed, Alphendéry said, ‘Now what do you want Constant to do, Jules? I don’t know more than he does.’

  Jules was surprised at the rapidity of events himself, but he passed it off. ‘Oh you just leave it to Constant: he’ll find it all out. He’s smart. We don’t have to give him instructions. Let him work it out his own way. Just sketch it: you know how. We want to find out about Carrière’s alleged sale of a brewery. Tell him to go to Ledger and Braves, in High Holborn. They’ll go over it with him. He’ll probably suggest something to them.’

  ‘Good gracious! they don’t know anything about it themselves. And they don’t need his help.’

  ‘Well, let Adam tell them what we want and let them put their heads together. Let him find a way. Say, he’s maybe smarter than all of us.’

  ‘But, it’s not necessary.’

  ‘I want him to go to London for me.’

  ‘You ought to have an ambassador permanently in London,’ said William.

  ‘That’s an idea too,’ Jules smiled back, impudently. ‘I’ll consider it. You’re coming along nicely.’

  At lunch Adam brought out a notebook and pencil. ‘Will you let me itemize everything I have to do? I want to use my time economically, and I had the curious feeling last time that I hadn’t got the gist of the thing at all: I mean, I felt ridiculous, I didn’t understand my mission, or its importance.’

  Alphendéry said, ‘To tell the truth, Mr. Bertillon and I had little time to go over it this afternoon. I can give you an outline. I’m going to go to his home this evening and go over things with him quietly. The best thing is for you to take this afternoon’s train—he’s very keen on that, and I don’t want to disappoint him—and then I’ll telegraph you at your hotel first thing tomorrow if there are extra instructions … You may as well get straight away; the sooner, the better.’ Adam looked puzzled. Alphendéry laughed. ‘In the meantime, another St.-Raphaël? My favorite.’

  ‘Yes, thanks, but the? …’ Constant was baffled: he wondered, if by some trick of strained attention, he had missed out a whole sentence of Alphendéry, explaining the purpose of his visit. Alphendéry suddenly spilled the who
le affair, though.

  ‘Dr. Jacques Carrière signed an exchange contract with Mr. Jules Bertillon some six months ago, whereby Mr. Bertillon was to receive drafts in pounds sterling and to change these into the equivalent in francs and to pay to Dr. Carrière the stipulated amount in francs. You see, it is a long-term exchange operation. The pound sterling was always to be paid out at a rate of 122 francs in the pound. In other terms, Mr. Bertillon bet that the pound would not fall and that when the draft came in, the pound would be either at 122 francs or even above that figure. And Dr. Carrière bet that the pound would fall to below 122 francs, and arranged that even if the pound fell to say, one hundred francs, Mr. Bertillon would be obliged to pay him at the rate of 122 francs and therefore would be twenty-two francs out of pocket for every pound in the draft. These drafts are still coming in: therefore Mr. Bertillon is still losing money, the pound having dropped considerably. Clear, so far?’

  Adam made a grimace. ‘Yes, I’ve heard about it and the brewery at Burton-upon-Trent …’

  ‘Now, although I have not seen the contract, I believe it is in order and that Mr. Bertillon is obliged to pay out this loss unless it is proved that the alleged sale of the brewery did not take place. In which case, Dr. Carrière is guilty of misrepresentation and the contract (which I am pretty sure exists, although I have not seen it) can be contested …’

  ‘Hasn’t Mr. Bertillon a copy of the contract?’

  ‘If he has, he won’t show it to us.’ Alphendéry grinned, looked round, then softly: ‘A secret: he says there isn’t one; but we are pretty sure—never tell this to anyone, not even Ledger, Ledger, and Braves. Just act as if the contract existed. It does, I’d stake my last franc— However, you see how it stands. If no sale of the brewery ever took place, then Carrière is just having his agent present drafts in sterling at pleasure. His theory, you see, was that he was to be paid for the brewery by two-monthly drafts of two thousand pounds each. He did not want to lose on the two thousand pounds in terms of francs, if the pound were to fall. Therefore he got his guarantee of 122 francs per pound from Mr. Bertillon. The pound is now at 96 … But if the brewery was not sold, then he is simply presenting drafts of two thousand pounds each two months, through a dummy agent, the two thousand pounds (devalued) coming out of his own pocket. Do you see? In other words, he is paying Jules two thousand pounds at 96 francs to the pound and receiving at the rate of 122 francs to the pound; or he is giving Jules 192,000 francs and receiving from him in exchange 244,000 francs, a profit of fifty-two thousand francs every two months, for nothing! You understand! Now, if Jules had made the contract outright, there would be no help for it. But as the contract was made theoretically for payments on a brewery, we could charge misrepresentation … Do you think you could by any means discover whether that brewery was sold or not?’