Aristide pressed his lips together. ‘Then you’re immoral,’ he said thickly, articulating with some difficulty. ‘All this is just to tickle—your vanity. I understand now. There is no bank. You just think it’s a booth in a bazaar. But I’ll settle the affairs of the bank without you. I’ve got your books and I can force you. It’s not just your toy!’ he said loudly. ‘It’s a public institution … there’s public money in it, the money of the people. I’ll put it right without you. I’ll clean it out and if you won’t co-operate I’ll force it from you and run it honestly: that’s my duty. I see where all this has been leading to. I’m not satisfied with your attitude or your gold and I’m going to crush the bank like match-wood unless you give me a written promise to co-operate with me.’
‘Help!’ cried Jules. ‘I say, Aristide, you’re crazy. You better go slow.’
‘Otherwise I go straight to the police.’
Alphendéry encountered them in the hotel lobby. He intervened, ‘We have more gold—elsewhere … you can see that if you want to.’ He spoke with authority. ‘Aristide, don’t you realize one thing, that we may cover the position today to suit you, and tomorrow the crash in prices will come that we’ve been waiting for? You would have made us cover too soon, at a loss. We would lose everything. What is the use of waiting so long, if we don’t wait till the end? You don’t seem to understand that this was not an imbecile operation done for the sake of being evil.’
Aristide turned his back on Michel and spoke to Jules.
‘If I saw enough gold, I would say yes,’ Aristide explained, ‘I’d wait till the collapse came. Then I’d insist on your covering. But the danger is too great. You must have made immense profits: where are they?’
‘In my gold deposits.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Go to hell then.’
Alphendéry said eagerly, ‘You can see them, Aristide: some are in Belgium, some Switzerland, some London.’
Aristide saw that Alphendéry believed this; at last he said, ‘I will consider it. In Paris I will let you know my decision. As it is now, I am very disappointed.’
They parted. Jules looked after him, said negligently, ‘Don’t worry: I’ll get him. He’ll never get back to Paris.’
But that was the last of it, and Aristide did get back, and reported to Marianne with horror the small amount of gold he had seen. He came to the bank the following morning, primed with indignation, moral superiority, and masterful intentions. Marianne had warned, ‘Don’t travel with them any more. Ask to see the gold receipts of the brokers—they are dangerous men and may take you for a ride, as they say. And not too much about the Parquet … that’s your trump card but you don’t want to play it. You don’t want to go to the Parquet; you want to get the bank in your hands. You can do it now. Bertillon is weakening. He’s neurotic. The game is ours. A high tone, a little more bluff, and he’ll take you in as partner. After that, no more threats. Work along with him. You’ll soon get to be known as the man that saved Bertillon’s and, even by your Comtes, as a strong man. They will work in with you.’
In the meantime, Alphendéry had learned that Jules really had no other gold that he would show Raccamond. (He only had the gold shipped to Oslo which he would not mention to anyone.) He remained in Amsterdam with Henri Léon, and two days later appeared in the Bank in Paris, full of joy, the messenger of miraculous news. For his sake (said Alphendéry), Léon offered, of his own accord, to put his vaults in Switzerland at Jules’s disposal, to convince Raccamond that Bertillon was a Midas. Aristide insisted on seeing seven and a half million gold francs: he had seen four million.
Léon had in two vaults in Switzerland, under a private number, the equivalent of more than twenty million paper francs of his own. Léon was willing to write a letter to his Geneva bank announcing that a gentleman, with the keys and the private number of the vault, would visit the bank, in Léon’s company, and that this gentleman was to be shown round, shown the gold, and to be treated as Léon’s agent. Léon would be in attendance, as witness, but only as a witness. For business reasons, Léon wished the person presenting the keys to be treated as the owner of the vault. Léon did immense business with the bank and believed that they could only obey this order. Alphendéry had believed up to this moment that Léon was, as he loved to paint himself, a ‘mean bastard,’ a man who couldn’t play straight, who had to get his rake-off even out of his sister’s dowry or a whore’s pocketbook, a man who hedged even happiness, who courted women on the deposit technique, and dealt with fellow Balkans because he loved to outcheat them, as he had when a boy at home. Alphendéry now found out that Léon was capable of an act of generosity, almost unprecedented in the business world. Why was it? Jules refused to see anything surprising in Léon’s offer, but Alphendéry puzzled for days. Was it for some superstitious reason? Was it to appease the old White Rabbi of Botoshani, whose denunciations had frightened Léon on several visits? Was it because, in some way, Léon associated himself with the fate of Jules, like himself a meteor following the orbit of great planets? Was it in dislike of Raccamond and his ways? It might have been that Léon, like many others, hated to see that delightful fellow, Bertillon, in a mess; and it might have been Jules’s astonishing luck.
Alphendéry was now sure that Jules was saved, and that he himself, after this one act of grace, could leave the bank forever and take up one of the jobs offered him by Stewart and Léon. He would not feel that the friendship for William or love for Jules was spoiled, or that he was leaving them to a dark and shameful future. It was the ideal, unhoped-for, incredible solution.
Jules said carelessly, ‘Yes, I’ll accept the offer.’
But Raccamond would not go to Geneva. ‘It is only some trick,’ he said, and though they argued he stood firm. Jules was disinclined to be in Léon’s debt, also.
* * *
Scene Ninety-seven: Man of Destiny
Now Aristide was walking about with his three agreements in his pocket and his books and papers, ‘the evidence,’ in a safe at home; but he felt he was a startling personality and should be heard from every day, one way or another. It was difficult for him to wait for his reign to begin; there were weeks, months, six months, and much work to be done. And it had to be done underhand, in the dark; it had to be slowly painted on people’s minds, the picture of his importance. He could not understand why now he got nothing but rebuffs, although he was in the right, with the law on his side, and all the evidence that anyone could ask for. That he was a blackmailer, he never for a moment admitted; he was an injured man serving himself and others. Now that he was ventripotent with destiny, he brooded at the relative secrecy of the whole business. He had shouted, clamored, and his cries had fallen on deaf ears.
Alphendéry had returned to the bank; he was there every day and in his old post: was he being used to manipulate the accounts and restore the shares? Aristide knew nothing of Alphendéry’s occupations still. He went to Jules and asked.
‘Alphendéry is doing my private business. Go and get clients, Raccamond.’
‘No. If he remains I must advise my clients to withdraw their accounts.’
Jules’s pale thin face as it hardened looked like an old man’s or a corpse’s. ‘Another house won’t take them. What are you going to transfer, may I ask?’
‘Mme. de Sluys-Forêt,’ proclaimed Aristide forcibly.
‘Do so.’
‘You can’t pay her out!’
‘Try me.’
‘Ah, you don’t think I’ll do it, but I will.’
Wearily Jules replied, ‘I wish you’d get out. I really do. Take your clients with you.’
Aristide rushed out of the room, crossed Alphendéry in the corridor, passed him without speaking, and pale and emotional, ran down to the board room. He came close to Jacques Manray and although the board room was full of people said to him in a dramatic sotto voce, ‘You will see
the denouement soon. A man like me cannot stay here.’ He sank down in the armchair alongside Jacques and watched the roomful of people. Some of them looked at him curiously, but immediately looked away: the market was rising and they were all excited. At last, perhaps, prosperity had begun again.
Aristide said to Jacques, ‘When one of Alphendéry’s orders comes through signal me.’ He leaned back again, breathing huskily.
‘I don’t know them from the others,’ Jacques explained helplessly.
‘You don’t?’ He was suspicious. ‘Who knows them?’
‘Mr. Alphendéry is the only one.’
Aristide fell farther back in his chair, his eyes open. This was only what he expected. Alphendéry had been brought back to outwit him. Alphendéry had never gone to Zurich anyhow. He had found out that Alphendéry had arrived immediately in London. The whole house was against him and intended to outwit him. They would not get away with it. Never!
‘Jacques,’ he said, ‘show me every order that goes up. I am going to confirm them.’
‘Mr. Raccamond, what has come over you? I can’t do that. It would make a scandal. The clients see all we do here.’
‘But not upstairs, not upstairs, that’s where Alphendéry comes in.’ He started. Alphendéry came into the room at that moment, from the other end. ‘I’ll show him up; I’ll tell everyone what he does,’ he said aloud.
Jacques turned round. ‘Mr. Raccamond, ask Mr. Bertillon about Alphendéry, not me; I know nothing and neither do you. I’m busy, do let me send these orders up, Mr. Raccamond. You see the market’s rising and everyone’s going into it. Do give me a chance.’
‘I’m going to withdraw my clients,’ said Aristide, ‘every one: they won’t have my clients. I’m going to take them out. I’ll ruin them.’
Jacques said nothing. At the same moment providentially, Alphendéry went out of the room again and upstairs. Aristide rushed out of the board room and stood at the bottom of the staircase slowly veering round as Alphendéry mounted, his lips moving. He watched him go along the gallery. He was bowed and trembling. The clients, who in the midst of their fortune-making had had time to look at him when he brushed past, turned to each other and repeated the current rumor: that fellow Raccamond had general paresis and was now in the stage of megalomania.
Aristide took a taxi home, there telephoned Mme. de Sluys-Forêt, and with his books went straight over to her house. He showed her the books he had stolen from London and Brussels. She must withdraw her account at once. The market was going up. Bertillon had sold out all the accounts; he would have to buy them back at higher prices, and a multimillionaire would not be able to pay the losses. She must withdraw her account at once before the bankruptcy. He might close his doors any night, perhaps after the market closing tonight! Bertillon had no guarantees in France. Some of his money was tied up in lawsuits and that was all he had in France. He paid Carrière’s famous drafts out of clients’ accounts; his own gold, his own bonds, he kept abroad. Aristide named the places.
Mme. de Sluys-Forêt was very much startled. She rang up Bertillon while Aristide was there and asked for an immediate interview. She was flustered. She called out her car and went immediately to the bank. Aristide proposed to accompany his client, but she firmly refused. Aristide could come and see her the next day.
This first real victory excited Aristide beyond measure. He followed the lady back to the bank, made sure that she was upstairs, and while he was there heard Jacques Manray answer the telephone: ‘Mme. de Sluys-Forêt. Yes, I’ll send you what she has on the books still, as soon as I get a moment. O.K. I’ll ask Henri Martin.’ Aristide, justified, flew into an ecstasy of terror and self-righteousness. He laid his hand on Mouradzian’s arm and dragged him out of the doorway in which he was standing watching the course of the market.
‘Mr. Mouradzian, come with me quickly. I must speak to you. I have something monstrous, absolutely monstrous to reveal to you. Not here! Not here!’
At his air, Mouradzian was frightened. ‘What is it?’
‘Not here, not here, come to the Bar Florence with me.’
At this moment a client called Mouradzian, and he could only whisper, ‘If it’s serious, later in the Cinzano Bar. I’ll be down that way, say, twenty minutes.’
Aristide looked round. He suddenly thought, ‘If I tell Mouradzian all now, he’ll withdraw all his people, and mine will be ruined. I won’t get my money.’ He had thought this many times before; but he had no sequence in his motives: he thought of things, forgot them, remembered them in nightmares, forgot them in excitement, remembered them in an off hour and forgot them again, because he lived in too many torments! What a life! Not a life for him. And all to make a miserable living—for he was crushed with debts. And on top of all this, he had to protect the clients, some of them millionaires, some of them making easy money chirping in public or pulling long faces on the screen. He was crazy to bother about others the way he did: who thanked him for it? The other men were calm enough.
Mouradzian! He told him months ago what he suspected and did Mouradzian care? That crooked Oriental simply went on doing business. With a chasm opening under his feet. He did not care for his clients, only for his salary, his commissions, even if he was commissioning them into a swindler’s den. Ah, ah, all the same Aristide was not like that. He would rescue his clients, willy-nilly; he was not so blindly egotistic. ‘I will go to them all, this afternoon.’
He thought, ‘Mr. Pharion is abroad, he is in Spain—I can’t get him. He has a paying account, too. I can’t transfer it. What am I to do?’
He ran to the telegraph office and sent telegrams to Pharion and to his biggest client, Weimar, now at Cap Ferrat, thus conceived:
CONFIDENTIAL: HAVE SECRET INFORMATION THAT MERCURE BANK WILL CLOSE SATURDAY AT LATEST. TELEGRAPH INSTRUCTIONS TO TRANSFER YOUR ACCOUNT TO CRÉDIT IMMEDIATELY. KEEP IN TOUCH WITH ME.
RACCAMOND
Aristide rushed down to the Cinzano Bar and there found Mouradzian waiting.
‘What is the matter, Mr. Raccamond? You seem sick to me: you’re not yourself at all. What could you have found out to put you into this state? Calm yourself; whatever it is, calm yourself.’
Aristide sat down, planked the books beside him, put his face in both hands, on the café table. ‘I am ill, horribly ill. I haven’t slept for weeks. A catastrophe is rushing upon us, there’s a sword suspended over our heads as we sit here, as we breathe—but it isn’t that only. I suffer horribly in my mind: I have suffered this way for weeks, carrying the whole terrible, terrible secret myself. Protecting others, carrying it myself. I can’t bear it any longer. I am not myself, Mr. Mouradzian, excuse me, bear with me, when you hear—’ he turned to Mouradzian, his mouth trembling, his eyes wide open, pale.
‘But what, what then? Take something first: a coffee for me, waiter, and Mr. Raccamond, a—’
‘A cognac,’ said Raccamond. ‘Listen, friend, I will tell you everything. You are in danger; there are many people in danger. We are threatened with ruin!’ He stared terrified at Mouradzian, who quizzed him: these Frenchmen are such actors, half neurotic, half cunning. ‘Perhaps we are ruined as we sit here! Mr. Bertillon is nothing but a swindler!’
Mouradzian’s look questioned him and the books. But Aristide would not unseal his secret so soon. First the drama. ‘Bertillon is our enemy. It’s hard to believe the worst of Mr. Bertillon, I know. He is charming, disarming, in fact, I still think he is better than the game he plays. He is superior to it but he has been dragged into it. I firmly believe that it was not Bertillon who began this crookery, but the other, this vile Boche Alphendéry. Bertillon could not have thought of selling out to begin with: he isn’t the type. Someone showed it to him, engaged him in it. And to begin with I denounce this German. They’re all like that: they think treason with jolly-Robin airs; they get you along with them, they propose some little trip, some little evening, and whe
n you’re fond of them and believe in their good natures and simple hearts, they hit you on the head and plunder you. They would if we weren’t too smart. But we, the cunning ones, are not so smart. We’re led. They’re clever fellows, such men. They don’t use a poniard like an Italian, or a sword or wordplay like the French; they’re not of our Latin race. They employ the basest methods, the kiss of Judas. I’m certain that this so-called Alsatian Alphendéry is a secret agent. He’s too smooth and simple on top, too friendly. He paws you, laughs into your eyes. He’s a German agent, probably; dupery is second nature to him. He has no position in the bank. He is paid from abroad. “Clients,” he says. What clients? I can imagine. He has “big clients,” they say. Who are they? No one has seen them here. We don’t know their names. And then, you know, Henri Martin, the cashier? That’s the proof of what I’m saying.’
‘What do you mean?’ questioned Mouradzian, completely astonished.
‘You know he was a spy in the war?’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’ Aristide triumphed. ‘Now what is he doing there in the bank? Did you ever see a spy who ceased to be an agent of some sort? He is perhaps there to watch Alphendéry.’
‘No, no.’
‘And Alphendéry goes about telling everyone, brokers, rich clients, he told the Princesse, the Comtesse de Voigrand, Dr. Carrière, that he is a communist. A blind, eh? A blind for his real politics? It’s clear to me.
Mouradzian almost imperceptibly raised his shoulders: he drank the rest of his coffee. ‘And what have you in the books there?’
Raccamond suffocated, paler still. A group of drinkers at a corner table had begun to watch him. Mouradzian caught the low-spoken words of one of the men: ‘He’s in some trouble,’ one said.
A second man replied, ‘No, I would say a settling of accounts. Look out!’
‘Here? This is not a café where—’
‘Mr. Raccamond,’ Mouradzian said briefly, ‘people are looking at us. Come to the point. What is this horror? It’s a house that employs spies?’
House of All Nations Page 84
