House of All Nations

by Christina Stead

  ‘No, no, no: I’m not saying that. I said such a man could be a spy. No—they have a bloc contre-partie account. All your clients are sold out. Look at these books.’

  He opened them cautiously, showing some pages, but not letting the books out of his hands. Mouradzian looked at him surprised and then gave up trying to take the books. ‘But if you won’t let me see …’

  ‘It’s not that, Mr. Mouradzian. This is all the guarantee I have: they have signed agreements with me. I could only force them to with these books. These books are my life, the life of all of us. You see … I forced them to sign an agreement to restore all the positions.’

  Mouradzian stared. ‘What! All at once?’

  ‘No, no,’ he waved his finger, ‘obviously, not all at once …’

  ‘You have the agreement?’

  After some hesitation, Aristide produced it. The other broker’s man read it carefully. ‘Yes, you are right. It is an acknowledgment in a way.’ He studied Raccamond. ‘Why do you tell me now? It appears that you settled everything already.’

  ‘I think they are trying to scuttle us all; they have brought back Alphendéry …’

  ‘Alphendéry is your refrain! What harm is there in that? He is the only man there who could do it with delicacy, without disturbing the accounts or the markets.’

  ‘Yes, but they promised to do it under my direction. They promised me a partnership at the end.’ He went on with gloomy solemnity. ‘But now, I wouldn’t take it. They couldn’t force it on me. You see, Alphendéry is there to side-step this agreement.’ Mouradzian edged away and turned to face his man. ‘When did you get the books?’

  ‘Over a month ago. I have struggled day and night since to protect the accounts and get my guarantees. It wasn’t easy—they held on like leeches. I forced them to the wall. They showed me their gold; I know where it is … I have been struggling alone all this month, without anyone behind me, against the whole pack. The Comte de Guipatin is with them; Prince Campoverde is with them. I showed them the books. It made no difference to those aristocrats. All the same. You and I as senior men are left standing alone against them all. They are all out to rob us and share the booty.’

  ‘You took your time about telling me, I must observe,’ said Mouradzian.

  Raccamond took him by the lapel. ‘Mr. Mouradzian, don’t bear me a grudge. It took me time. I could not believe my eyes. I heard the rumors long ago. I got the confidence of the accountants in the foreign branches, with a view to controlling the accounts. Anxious themselves, they were glad to show me the accounts. Then I began to divine the cancer in the bank. But still I did not want to believe …’

  ‘Why not? I don’t understand you at all.’

  ‘Listen, Mouradzian: I am a fool, but I’m a good fool. That they sold out my clients, robbed me after all my work for them, when they were, as one says melodramatically, living on the sweat of my brow—why, I couldn’t adjust myself to the idea straightaway. It’s not business—it’s—drama; it’s the sort of thing you see on the stage, rather. You know, I nearly killed myself with worry; I didn’t sleep. My God! I don’t seem to have slept a wink since the day my man—the accountant first telephoned me. And then think of it, I didn’t really have the right to bruit abroad such a thing without getting confirmation: I would be destroying the reputation of a house. I had to get all the details. That’s why I asked the accountant—a poor fellow I got the job for, I knew him before—to confirm or not in the Brussels office to begin with. Because, you know, I had already seen that the Brussels office was important; I sensed it. And I saw orders go through. Then it was said, of course to throw dust in our eyes, that Alphendéry’s clients dealt with Brussels …’

  Mouradzian, who had a client with an anonymous account at Brussels, said nothing for a moment; then, ‘So you got all the Brussels books with the accounts?’

  ‘No, not all. I got those showing some of the anonymous accounts, books ia. and ib. There are others. But what I have here is the bloc account that the bank runs under the name of the London Finance; the rest of the books are here. I got them from the London office and they complete the story of the contre-partie account. You see, there’s no question. I have caught them on all the facts. They knew it, too. They signed everything I asked. I cornered them. They had nothing to say to me. They simply agreed to everything.’

  ‘To restore the shares?—To make you a partner?—And—’

  ‘I have an agreement to make a guarantee fund of two million francs. I am to manage the guarantee fund with Mr. Jules Bertillon. But I have had no dealings with them since, and Alphendéry is back at his old game. What does that look like to you?’

  Mouradzian called the waiter and asked for the bill. ‘Are you staying here, Mr. Raccamond? I have to leave you.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To the bank: I have business to do. Plenty of business. I am going, meantime, to see Mr. Jules Bertillon to ask him if this is true.’ He made a gesture including the books, Raccamond.

  ‘You’re so naïve as to think he’ll say yes?’

  ‘I’ve known him longer than you, Mr. Raccamond. Ever since I came to Paris, fifteen years ago, I’ve heard these rumors about the Banque Mercure—and about other banks. It’s possible that it is so. You have those books and it looks like it. But I have never tried to compare accounts. I have simply made profits for my clients on the whole. They are a good house. They don’t try to sell bad stuff to the clients. They have never pushed shares, they have never given out tips or recommendations, they have never encouraged clients to destroy themselves by overplaying. They simply do stock-exchange business when the clients want it, like any other bank. They don’t solicit business. If they live by contre-partie, how do you account for it? Nevertheless, it’s my duty to find out if Alphendéry is gambling again, and I will find out something from Mr. Bertillon’s attitude rather than from what he says. I am used to doing that …’

  Raccamond stared lamentably at him. ‘Then, Mouradzian, you don’t believe me? You think I’m lying? And what about these books that I brought with me—I got them with difficulty—from Brussels and London? I have his books: they speak louder than words. What more do you want? They are not all here. I have a few more at my house. Will you go home with me? What more do you want to convince you? You are reckless. If anyone came to me and said to me, “Mr. Raccamond, this is a short-selling contre-partie house, in a rising market,” I would fly and get out my clients’ accounts—I wouldn’t hesitate. You are rash. You will see. Every word I have spoken is the truth …’

  ‘I will go with you and see the books,’ said the Armenian, ‘and I will go and put some offhand questions to Mr. Bertillon. Perhaps, if necessary, I will tell him everything. I am old in this business, Raccamond, and I believe nothing easily. You may be right and you may be mistaken.’

  ‘You will regret this,’ Raccamond cried, ‘I have told you the truth.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mouradzian, ‘I am inclined to think so. But you seem very selfish to me, Raccamond. When you found this out, a month ago, you say, you first thought of saving yourself and getting your foot well into the house. Not a word to us of what you thought you had discovered. I believe you: we are used to these things. But supposing it is true—what then? As I said to you two months ago, it is not Mr. Bertillon who would ruin the house but a man like you, who runs round the streets showing the private accounts of a house to anybody, who tries to get complete control and then to get clients to withdraw their accounts; who tries to steal the clients of other men, then tries to form a team of those men, then betrays them in favor of himself and his clients, and then falls back on them and tries to organize a general rout when everything else has failed. You walk about the bank looking like a madman, you get the employees round you telling them all sorts of bogey tales; then you blackmail the boss, then you betray him to his enemy, then you give items to the newspapers, then you m
ake a scene in some café or restaurant. You support all the enemies of the bank, you give away its game, and you are yourself its worst enemy—and you’re the one who shrieks loudest that it will be ruined. You are its ruin. If I think of moving my clients, it is to save them from you. Aren’t you ashamed? You tell me your chief client is in the bank this afternoon withdrawing her account. You have telegraphed another fellow that the bank will close this week. It’s lunacy! Of course, I will fathom it. How can I trust your word. You are neurotic, you are shouting, foaming at the mouth—you talk hysterically. Perhaps you don’t know what you’re saying.

  ‘No, I can’t take your word. Who behaves like you? If you’re so goodhearted, so innocent as you say, you shouldn’t be in business. You can’t enter medicine either, where a certain amount of swindling is essential to money success; you can’t be a schoolteacher. Can you be an artist? There one has to falsify, compromise. Since you have such a sense of smell, since you go by smell, you had better be a perfumer. No, you are fit for nothing at that rate. But, of course, all this is nonsense. You are not so naïve as that. Go home and calm yourself, my friend: I will come and see you this evening and we’ll look at your books and see what to do. Go home, my friend: you look ready to drop …’

  Raccamond, anxious, said with avidity, ‘All right, come this evening. But I have many visits to make before that. It is my duty to sound the tocsin among my clients: I must give the warning. Otherwise I am ruined.’

  Mouradzian looked grave, sat down. ‘Mr. Raccamond, if you provoke a run on the bank, where will we all be tomorrow?’

  ‘How about my clients?’

  ‘Think of the employees of the bank too. If Mr. Bertillon is restoring the position slowly, all can be cured. If you yield to this hysteria, Mr. Bertillon will not be able to meet the demands of the clients, Carrière, and yourself. Sixty employees will be without bread tomorrow: you and I and the other men will be ruined. At our age all our work will have to be begun again. We will have to get new clients; our old clients will be ruined. And by whom? Not by Bertillon. By you. By your hysteria. I don’t understand at all why you wish to do this! You have your agreement. Let it stand; let it work.’

  Raccamond cried, ‘But he is swindling me: he doesn’t intend to fulfill it.’

  ‘You know that? Give him a chance and give them all a chance.’

  Bitterly Raccamond cried, ‘For the others, I don’t give a damn: let them sink or swim. They’ve all been in it; even the accountants have known what was going on. They’ve all been against us. Let them go.’

  ‘Good. Well, go home and I will come straight after you. I just have some orders to receive from London, and I will be with you.’

  ‘Yes. Oh, it’s frightful. But you will see, you will know I haven’t lied.’

  ‘Good. Good afternoon.’

  ‘And, Mr. Mouradzian, remember—remember I warned you first. You remember, two months ago—and now. I thought of your big clients.’

  ‘Thanks for that,’ Mouradzian said dryly.

  But scarcely had Mouradzian left before Aristide had another idea: Mouradzian had only gone to warn his own clients and to get out his accounts before Aristide had a chance: he had repeated, ‘Go home, Aristide, rest, calm yourself.’ Just so. Aristide rushed to a telephone booth and began telephoning his clients one after the other, gasping out his warnings, saying he had terrible evidence against the bank, making appointments with them (for they were alarmed, even so) to show them the books. When Mouradzian got to his house, Aristide had not yet reached home.

  Jules’s conversation with Mme. de Sluys-Forêt began sweetly and ended brusquely, and the Princesse refused to be enchanted by Jules’s delicate conversation and insisted on having her account paid out that afternoon. She told him all, in the meantime, how she had been warned by Raccamond and that he was going round to clients showing them the books and Jules’s promise to retire from the stock-exchange business. She had hardly gone before a telegram arrived from Pharion, Aristide’s client in Spain :

  TRANSFER OUT IMMEDIATELY MY BANK AND STOCK-EXCHANGE ACCOUNTS TO THE CRÉDIT.

  FRED PHARION

  This was followed by a telephone call from the Comtesse de Voigrand: ‘Your strip-jack-naked customers’ man Raccamond has been here: I assure you he’s in a lather, and he’s running round the town shrieking from the housetops that you’re crooks and bankrupts. His own words. He’s mad. Why don’t you shut him up? He’s stolen your books, hasn’t he? Of course, I’m not taking any notice of him. Is Jean de Guipatin there?’

  She wanted to sell her gold, held with Bertillon Frères. The market was going up, and she would buy gold back later on. Jules and Jean dropped their eyes shamefacedly when Jean gave this message. The comtesse was taking her precautions. Jules said, ‘You had better take the train at once to Amsterdam. Claire-Josèphe will go with you and see the gold out …’

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Jean de Guipatin. He did not even try to pretend that his client was loyal to Jules. ‘Jules, why don’t you let me drop this fellow in his tracks? I can get a couple of gangsters tonight who will grab him, take him out in a taxi, and there’ll be another mystery of the milieu for the criminal division to amuse themselves with. It’s all I can do. I don’t dare try to dissuade old Voigrand. He’ll ruin you, Jules. You’ll never get out of this mess alive, financially speaking, if you let him go on.’

  ‘Right, we’ll get somebody to drop a brick on his head,’ said Jules, without conviction.

  Jules often spoke of murder, blackmail, and embezzlement, but he hadn’t the strength or the moral conviction necessary to pull them off. He wanted to dazzle without getting tangled in all sorts of systems: he feared murder, not as murder, but as a machine from whose wheels one could perhaps never escape.

  While they were still there talking about Raccamond, Mouradzian crept in.

  ‘Mr. Bertillon, Raccamond has stolen your contre-partie books and is showing them to everyone. You must stop him. He will ruin us. He started as an egotist and he is ending as a man amok; he is blind to his own interest.’

  ‘Yes, we know, Mouradzian; what can we do with him?’

  ‘I am going to his house tonight. I will try to get the books. But if I had someone to back me up I could perhaps do it. He has his wife and she is the real motor there. He is lost without her. If we could get them apart—I am afraid, just the same, we can do nothing. I will try to get the books for you.’

  ‘He is mad; he is ruining himself, too.’

  ‘No, I am wrong in that,’ emended Mouradzian. ‘He had got himself a provisory position with the Crédit. The rest of us—we can starve. He does not care. You may be sure his charges don’t interest me. I am a man of the world.’

  But by this time Aristide trusted no one. When he arrived at his house, he found Mouradzian there, and he gloomily ate the supper, which Mouradzian refused, at once fatigued and blown up with his maggots, like a fly. After supper he showed Mouradzian the books as promised, but without allowing him to have them out of Aristide’s grasp. Although Mouradzian saw that Aristide’s charges were true he was able to do no good. He explained to Marianne that Aristide would only ruin them all if he provoked a run on the bank, and Marianne seemed impressed by his conversation. Instinctively she liked the hardworking, hardheaded, honorable little fellow. Mouradzian came away with the hope that the wife would urge her husband now, not to further desperate scenes, but to moderation.

  ‘You have Bertillon in a tight place,’ Mouradzian had said. ‘Know how to manage the colt you have caught. Don’t make it worth his while to do you an injury or to default with all his gold abroad!’

  ‘Listen, Mr. Mouradzian,’ she had said. ‘He is overtired now; in the morning I will give him good advice.’

  But in the morning he was feverish, screaming, tossing her arms away when she tried to hold him back.

  ‘Let me go: I must go to the Crédit and get
a position there. I must make sure the Princesse transfers her account there and I get the credit. They are sharks, all those men; you have no idea how I have to fight to keep a single account. Let her only walk into the Crédit, and everyone, even Paul Treviranus, will try to pretend she is his client … I must go.’

  He dressed, his eyes starting: she had to let him go, and he refused her counsels, her advice, her anxiety. She was terrified: she realized what support she would lose if she lost Aristide.

  In the morning, during his absence, an inspector called from the tax department. She managed to find out in the end what it was: ‘Mr. Raccamond has been denounced as a tax evader: a private denunciation.’ He would not say, he did not know, from where the blow came. But where could it come from? Only from the bank! When Aristide arrived home in the late evening, she only told him this because of the urgency of the matter.

  ‘Let’s to go Maître Olonsky at once and transfer the property to my name.’

  ‘I can’t do it; I am all in, Marianne.’

  ‘Let us do this just the same, my dear. Will you sleep tonight, thinking that tomorrow night the officers will be here to make an examination? Make our living safe … our future must be protected. You are one of the few men, besides, who does not have his property in his wife’s name, to reduce assessments. Bertillon has his apartment in his wife’s name, his car in his chauffeur’s; even Claire-Josèphe has her fur coat in her maid’s name …’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I found out.’

  He worried. ‘But it will look like fraud, dated today and no compensation!’

  ‘No, Olonsky will arrange that: he’s an old hand. He knows so much on our family that he couldn’t blackmail us; people would take him for a fantastic dreamer and discredit his whole story …’

  ‘Marianne! You know who did this to me?’

  ‘I should say so: the Bertillons, of course.’

  ‘Yes! I’ll kill them for this. Tomorrow morning, I take those books to the police.’