House of All Nations

by Christina Stead

  Aristide commented quietly. ‘Now, Mr. Bertillon, we must have a further guarantee to cover operations at the end of the six-months’ limit. You must write me a letter from you and your brother, that will suffice, saying that you are giving up your stock-exchange department at the end of six months, and do not intend to go into this business in France or England at any future time: and that you will allow me to transfer out my clients’ accounts when I please, whether they are completely restored or not, and that, further, if I find another position, or set up a stock-exchange business myself, you will give me preference over any other house for orders that your bank clients may require; and that I have conducted your stock-exchange business here and you recommend me as highly competent and that I have been your “confidential man.”’

  Jules laughed. Jean de Guipatin looked helplessly at the two brothers who were soft as butter and made no move; then said to Aristide, ‘Raccamond, you have the whip hand, but you are too greedy. Let go half the nuts, you know the story? You can’t come to any good if you seize and plunder in this way. It would really pay people to put you out of the way. Don’t you understand that?’

  ‘I know,’ said Aristide grandly.

  William waved his hand. ‘We’ve told you a hundred times. We got books and books and we can get up books and books when we want to.’

  ‘Bluff,’ said Aristide. ‘I know your style. You are all bluff. It doesn’t work with me. I will write out what I want.’ He made alterations on a paper from his pocket and handed them the following draft letter:

  The brothers Bertillon (four names), sole partners in the Banque Bertillon Frères, confirm by this letter that as it will take time to align and liquidate and otherwise arrange the clients’ accounts now in the house, and the clients must be allowed time to make their own arrangements, the brothers Bertillon will only give up this business gradually and progressively and within the same period of from three to six months, and pay Mr. Aristide Raccamond, director of the Bank a chief customers’ man and comptroller of the stock-exchange accounts, a person in whom they have absolute confidence, six months’ advance salary.

  Maître Lemaître refused to give his consent to the agreement or this letter. Jules seemed on the verge of hysteria and showed it by wisecracking, cynicism, compliance with Raccamond’s most insolent demands, slackness, and a refusal to admit that he had hung himself by these papers.

  ‘What are you going to do with such a paper?’ asked Guipatin.

  ‘I am going to show it round to get new business for myself, in due course. It is a guarantee that Mr. Bertillon will restore the positions, and that he will execute all the terms of our agreements.’

  ‘You have feathered your nest—’ said William (Aristide turned his rounded fat back contemptuously), ‘—with porcupine feathers,’ finished William. ‘You are too smart, my hearty.’

  ‘You are contemptible,’ said Maître Lemaître. ‘I say it to your face.’

  Raccamond smiled palely. ‘You are a great lawyer, I know. Tell me one thing: what explains the terms of these contracts, what explains their weakness before me, if not their guilt and their fear that I will show them up! You are not here to insult me: you are here to save them; but you cannot, although you are one of the greatest lawyers in France: because your clients are guilty men. They are thieves and swindlers. There is not an ounce of honor in them or in any member of their staff. They have corrupted everyone. And you are paid, my dear maître, to look out for the interests of thieves and crooks. You have nothing to say to me. You don’t like this agreement: it means their ruin. But you don’t dare advise them not to sign it.’

  ‘I do advise them!’

  ‘You don’t dare force them not to sign it, though. I am going to force them back into plain business where they will barely make their livings, for they’ll have to make them honestly and—it suffices! If they go out of business, what does it matter to me or to France? They are the scourge of business: they should be driven out.’ He picked up the papers, read the signatures, folded them into his pocket. ‘Don’t try any hold-ups at night, any Chicago stuff. Your books are not with me: I have given them into safekeeping, and if anything happens to me, they will go straight to the Public Prosecutor.’

  ‘So you have us sewed up,’ jeered William. ‘Well, if he isn’t the smart little negotiator!’

  Aristide looked at William with soft solemnity, nodded. ‘At the first hint of bad faith or trouble, the books go to the Criminal Division. That is my last word. I am protected. And now I will see your gold.’

  Jules leapt up. ‘What, you want to see the gold after gouging those letters out of me! Get to hell out of here.’

  Aristide flamed. ‘You were lying to me again? Perhaps you have no gold. Unless I see it, I will send in my books this afternoon.’

  Jules began to laugh weakly. ‘The books, the books, the books. Raccamond’s raven cry: ‘The books, books, books, books, books.’ Listen, Aristide, do me a favor. Come back this afternoon. I’m going to have lunch. We’ll talk about the gold. We’ve got to arrange an itinerary: it’s in different countries …’

  ‘I’ll see the biggest deposit first,’ said Aristide. ‘I’ll be back this afternoon at three. In the meantime, I am putting these agreements into safe hands.’ He went out full of importance.

  ‘Mr. Bertillon,’ said Lemaître, ‘only ruin can come out of this. I advise you once and for all, shut the bank and take a holiday. This fellow is the worst kind of blackmailer. He is capricious, unstable, and inflated; he has some sort of megalomania. His demands will never be satisfied. Personally, I think you would do better to refuse to recognize all your agreements with him, say that he forced you to sign them when you were ill, or delirious, or at the point of the revolver, whatever you like, and refuse to hold to them. Let him send in the books. What do they prove, after all? That you have kept bloc accounts abroad, which more or less correspond with and nullify the positions held by your clients. These bloc accounts are in the names of corporations, legally constituted. It might be a breach of trust, but it is not criminal. Why don’t you fight him?’

  ‘I can’t fight,’ said Jules. ‘I’m too tired. None of them is going to get a cent.’

  The maître hopelessly said good-by to them and went, only asking after Alphendéry whose advice he thought of as invaluable at this moment. Jules, seizing on every straw, feebly and superstitiously, cried, ‘That’s it. Why didn’t we send for him before? What’s he doing away? Tell him to come back immediately. Let him fight for me: I gave him lots of money. I gave him all the money he has; tell him I want him. He’ll come.’

  ‘He mightn’t,’ said William who didn’t want to complicate things again. ‘You were pretty crude with him.’

  Jules began laughing foolishly, almost crying. ‘He’ll come back for me. He loves me. He told me he’d do anything for me. He’s well off through me. Send for him; he’s my friend. He’s my only friend. He wouldn’t have made any bargains with Raccamond. He wouldn’t have sent Bomba to London the way you people did.’

  William shrugged silently. Jules continued, ‘He is the only one that cares for me. What’s he doing away? Tell him we’ll give him six months’ pay at once. Tell him I’m terribly sick and I can’t do anything: I need him. Well!’ he cried angrily to William, ‘why don’t you do it?’

  William wrote.

  Alphendéry did not return.

  * * *

  Scene Ninety-four: The World Against One

  In an empty, gilded restaurant, in a whorehouse street off the Boulevard de la Madeleine, they were eating a good, cheap lunch. Jean de Guipatin called the manager, sent back a wineglass smirched with lipstick. He looked at the plush seats, and at William.

  Jean said frankly, ‘You act like a man with either no money or a lot of money hidden away.’

  William uttered another of his blanket remarks. ‘I have taken my precautions. Wait ti
ll Noseybob sees our gold: he won’t rest till he’s thought of a way of doing Carrière out of it and till he’s got his own fingers glued on to it.’

  Jean was somewhat cheered. ‘You’re really going to show him the gold?’

  ‘Sure! What’s he going to do? He can’t run to the police and report us for that.’

  ‘I hope he’ll be satisfied then.’

  ‘We’re good for eighteen months—two years yet, and Aristide can go to hell,’ said William with unparalleled calm. ‘We’ll all live to see him in jail even if we only live another six months; and that day we’ll have enough dough to celebrate the event. I’ll go and see him behind bars. I didn’t know there was still a pleasure in life.’ He smirked. ‘Don’t you worry, Jean: even Jules doesn’t know everything I’ve been doing.’ He toyed with his spoon. ‘And I don’t know what he’s been up to: that’s the weakness of our strength.’

  No sooner were they back than the telephonist rang through and told them that Raccamond had been trying to speak to them for three-quarters of an hour. In five minutes he was on the wire again. Jules was out; William said irritably, ‘What do you want now? You’ve gouged our eyes out, slit our ears, bit our noses, sold our tripes for cat’s meat: what else? We’ve only got our underwear.’

  Raccamond said, ‘We have forgotten the guarantee fund. We must have an agreement on that!’

  ‘Go to hell,’ repeated William and rang off.

  ‘I never saw a man with such epiloguing wits,’ remarked Jean de Guipatin. ‘Every time he leaves us he’s calm and satisfied, and in half an hour he’s boiling again.’

  ‘His wife, or else Carrière: he runs like an office boy to them to report his messages of the morning.’

  When Jules came in they wearily went over the old ground and Jules said, ‘Thank God someone has told him to go to hell.’

  At this moment young Campoverde strolled in and said, ‘I say, that man of yours, Raccamond is running all over Paris showing your books, you know. He’s saying you’re going out of business in his favor. He said he had a letter. He said he’d stolen your books. Shall I get someone to lock him up?’

  ‘The rat,’ cried Jules. ‘We’ve signed everything away and he doesn’t keep his word a minute.’

  ‘All the honors go to Raccamond,’ William said agreeably.

  ‘Is it true then?’ insisted young Campoverde, startled.

  ‘On the understanding, expressly stated, that we were to have three to six months to clean up, you know, and in that time naturally we intended to get rid of him. We couldn’t at the moment. He had us in a jam. How did you get to hear of it?’

  ‘Why, he came to me at lunch hour all out of breath, begged me for a minute, told me a garbled tale I couldn’t make out, except I thought he wanted me to go in with him in some move against the bank—he showed me the books he’s taken, finally: he had them wrapped up in his overcoat. He said he had two agreements but wouldn’t show them—said it was a question of honor—’ Jules laughed. Campoverde said to him sadly, ‘What made you give in to him, Jules? It’s so damaging. Before, anybody would have had to have an accountant to find out what it’s all about; now it’s a perfect admission.’

  Jean de Guipatin looked at the young aristocrat intently. ‘You think the charges he makes, then, are true, Campoverde?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said simply. They studied him. He sat on the corner of Jules’s desk. ‘Of course, Jules, I was surprised in a way. I know, why everyone in Paris has known for years, that you were a big speculator and everyone thought you ran a bucket shop.’ He laughed his candid boy’s laugh. ‘I didn’t know of course that you were in so deep; but I didn’t come here to say that. It’s not my business … I, and everyone like me who came here, first heard all the rumors about you and we all figured the same: he’s safe because he’s lucky and he’s got some system. We left our money here because we trusted your star, Jules. You’re a big man. You’re a financial genius. No, no, I wasn’t knocked over, not a little bit, by his books. I take my gruel. So do we all. And you’ve protected me with that agreement on my mother’s estate. But what I’m here to say is—you’ve got a bad case on your hands. I would have given him a horsewhipping or knocked him down if you’d called me in and told me to, Jules, and that would have gone miles farther than all these thug agreements he’s got out of you … He’s an outsider, a cad, and a coward. A touch of the stick and he would have cried with terror. He worships titles and he worships cash: I say, you’ve got a regular hedge of janissaries round you, Jules: anyone of us would have given him a beating for you … Why didn’t you tell me? You can trust me, you know that?’

  They all looked at Campoverde with surprise and admiration. Jules and William distrusted aristocrats as a matter of course and regarded their friend Jean de Guipatin as something of a freak.

  ‘How did he get the books?’ inquired Campoverde. ‘I thought you didn’t have any books, anyhow: you told me Michel remembered it all or something, or I thought you did.’

  ‘No: a memory like Michel’s might be dangerous if it turned wrong,’ Jules said caustically.

  Campoverde who knew nothing of the rift said, ‘Jules, how?’

  ‘Oh, suppose he went nutty. He’s a neurotic as it is. I suppose a freak memory and freak learning like Michel’s make a man a bit unbalanced. Like a cousin of my mother’s. She had hair six feet long. I’ve seen photographs of it trailing on the ground. Horrible, bughouse. She died of continual headache and tuberculosis. Couldn’t make a living for the hair. Supposing Michel’s memory got a bit longer: he might get moral tuberculosis like Raccamond has. Michel’s unhealthy. I don’t want unhealthy types round me. I want to clean them out. I want barbarians who can just sign their names, that’s all.’ They all shivered at this freakish treachery on Jules’s part. Everyone became aware at the same time that Jules was on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

  Jean de Guipatin said slowly, ‘What we have to do now is to put the gag on Raccamond somehow. The damage is done and I’m afraid to look forward. He seems fated to do this. He ruined Claudes’, he’s practically done it here: we’ve allowed him to get away with it. Here we are, all sane and sound, and yet he’s got away with everything. There’s a positive fatality in it. He acts like a madman, but he’s reasonable: he takes us in our worst moments.’ He fell silent. They all looked at him appraisingly. In this interval, Aristide appeared in the door. Jean de Guipatin looked up and said, ‘Ah, Aristide! We were just talking about you.’

  He was pallid and suspicious; he came forward with his lagging tread. He looked at Campoverde and walked to him. ‘Has Bertillon been getting you into his toils again? Why do you go near this place? I warned you, Prince. He has the ability to charm anyone out of their last franc. If he has tried to explain things, it is only because he is going to run away with your money. Why did you come here? Listen, Prince, I know what he’s done … I’ve got his books, and yet he is able to charm me, too: I go away from here forgetting what I came to do. Don’t listen to him: he is sick, he is insane, he’s an insane liar and swindler.’

  His voice had risen: there was a suppressed scream in it. ‘He wants to be a Kreuger; he’ll never get that high; I’ll never let him swindle thousands of poor people who believed in him … he’ll get everything out of you.’ He stopped, breathing hard and let his round eyes sink into Jules’s face and figure.

  Jules laughed harshly. ‘I wish it was true. Sit down, Aristide. Is it true you want another agreement? I don’t mind. I’m born to sign agreements. You are the charmer round here. Bring them along. I’ll sign anything.’ He rollicked, hysteria still not far off.

  William’s rattling throat went into operation. ‘Raccamond is getting more reasonable: he only wants us to put up a two-million-franc guarantee. He knows that we have to pay Carrière, that three hundred thousand is tied up with the Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern suit, one hundred thousand with the Parouart suit, one hundred
thousand more with the Wades, and he doesn’t see why he shouldn’t have his couple of million. Our whole operating capital got up in red ribbons like a Christmas tree. Perhaps Aristide will take over the bank, or rather give us a short lecture on how we can run it in these circumstances?’

  Aristide was ill with thinking of the money already tied up and lost to his clients. How could he have been so lax, so credulous, so kindly, so that everyone with a less claim had got in before him? He was too good, as Marianne said, too soft. They said, ‘Take us on our word,’ and by heaven he did. Others were not so childish. He saw the Bertillons escaping, being gazetted as embezzlers or bankrupts, everyone running in for their cut and himself involved with them, probably sued by the clients along with them. By what frauds had they involved him with themselves?

  ‘You can take over the bank, Aristide,’ Jules offered freakishly with a hint of anger.

  Just so! They would leave him the wreck.

  ‘You’ve got to pay me off: what’s the use of your gold in Amsterdam! You won’t bring it here to pay my clients, will you?’

  ‘No fear. Do you think we’re crazy, with everyone trying to get our money?’

  ‘I’ll ruin you. You’re trying to defraud me. You won’t get away with it: I’ll ruin you. I don’t care for anyone. I’ll bring down the house, to show you you can’t treat me like this. You’re in my power. I’ll show the books to everyone. I’ll go to every client. I’ll brand you as swindlers everywhere … you’ll never dare to show your face here again. You’ll say all your lives, “Raccamond ruined us: curse Raccamond. Raccamond was our end. We tried to fool Raccamond but Raccamond wasn’t a fool like the others. We swindled him but he showed us up.” Raccamond,’ he said intensely to Jules, ‘think of the name: it’s going to be synonymous with ruin. I’ll show you all up. William Bertillon, who has been secreting funds in anonymous corporations abroad for years, so that he could fly and leave nothing in the till; Jean de Guipatin, Comte, a sort of Bourbon, out of our best families, goes to all the fashionable weddings and helps two thieves to pick the pockets of their clients. You’re as bad as they are, Monsieur le Comte. You know what they are doing and you say nothing: you stick with them. Prince Campoverde, standing with swindlers, in the hope that they’ll give you a share. All standing together, all standing against me. But I’ll show you all up. I’ll ruin you all. I’ll go straight to the Prosecutor with my books and you won’t have time, Monsieur le Comte. The place will be closed and the funds will be sealed to those who have a right to them, not to a lot of parasites trading on their titles.’