Jules wrathfully got up and went outside to kick the lawn. Then he disappeared into the town. While there he telegraphed Theodor Bomba in London:
IF FREE TAKE YOUR VACATION IN THIS TOWN: SOME INTERESTING VIEWS TO SHOW YOU.
MERCURE
Then he went home smiling and they all knew he had started a secret game again. They frowned on him and he sulked; and William, who was most anxious about him, suddenly became sunny and brotherly. But Jules knew William, and Jules said nothing. William kept a weather eye open and the next day intercepted a telegraph boy at the gate. Theodor Bomba had cabled back:
MERCURE STILL MY BRIGHT STAR: NOT FREE BUT COULD BE WITH UNIVERSAL SOLVENT ENOUGH FOR FARE. WILL SEE VIEWS WITH YOUR EYES. EVER DEVOTEDLY,
THEODOR BOMBA
William tore this to pieces and went in to lunch with content.
But Jules thought William looked too lardy with content and immediately after lunch telephoned the telegraph office, found that a telegram had been sent, and asked for a copy. In a few days Bomba arrived in Reval and was lodged in a hotel of medium standing. Jules strolled down and saw him there, and was followed by the suspicious William.
‘Glad you came. I can’t sit here and enjoy myself. I’ve got to be doing something. I’m no wood violet. But the police here, though kind, are watchful and I’ve got to go over borders to do any business. I say, will you go to Oslo for me and see about some office space I’ve been telephoning about? I want to take it just for six months and I’ve sent the chap my references, under the name of Mr. Jules Simla, but he won’t do anything unless he sees my representative or me. I said I’d send my private secretary or my brother. But William is grouchy—he wants to sleep here the rest of his life and the twins are just pups. Don’t tell Dannevig.’
‘Dannevig? He’s bankrupt.’
‘Bankrupt! Where did you get that bedtime story?’
‘Why he was in Schiltz and Company, wasn’t he? When they went down he was sued along with the other directors, he was thrown off the grain exchanges and later declared a bankrupt. Everyone knows he’s bankrupt. He’s sold his car and his house: I know for a fact that the bank he’s been doing business with for fifteen years refused some bills countersigned by him and he was furious, but they stuck to their ground.’
Jules twinkled darkly and the cunning Bomba immediately assumed an expression of great foxiness and winked. Jules said shortly, ‘He sold his house and immediately rented it back from the same man. Ptt! People are easily fooled … Now, Bomba, are you going to work with me? I need a man and I need secrecy at the beginning. Later on, people will be glad to know it’s me.’
Jules rather feverishly pushed some visiting-cards (the lawyer’s and the landlord’s) and some correspondence across the table. He added to them a couple of pages of new letterheads with the title, Oslo Deposits Corporation, beautifully engraved, and with the address tentatively printed underneath.
‘There you are, there’s the name and the address: there’s the letter with the name of the renting office, the landlord’s lawyers, and so on. When can you go? I’m still being watched by detectives; the crowd is still convinced I’ve got their money hidden somewhere. If you’re afraid, I’ll telegraph to Alphendéry—’ he looked at Bomba with an appealing imperiousness which touched Bomba’s heart, as much as his cupidity and jealousy.
William, listening at the door, following the light and shade of his brother’s conversation as if he had been in the room, bit his lip to see Jules so little himself. The secretly admired and loved brother begged for Bomba’s courage as he had never begged for William’s loyalty. He thought to himself, ‘This damned hue and cry has ruined Jules’s nerve: will he ever be himself again?’ He distrusted the business which began with the leech Bomba. He would rather have seen Jules magnificent in ruin, rash, splendid, wild, mad, as he had been for a day or two at first, than humbly crooked, raggedly proud, menially enterprising like any twopenny swindler, like a Parouart, some jail-shocked confidence man grubbing for a crust. He did not like to cross him openly, for he knew his brother’s irritable temper and pride, and he feared that he might run away altogether to get away from the family and get into danger, confide in someone less reliable than Bomba who, after all, was bought and loyal for a salary.
So he was pleased when Bomba swept the papers into his hand and said, ‘Sure, I’ll go and if I can’t do it at the last minute, I’ll telegraph Alphendéry myself, if you want me to. Alphendéry got out before me, and if I’m recognized in Oslo, Alphendéry would not be. I’ll keep in touch. Pay my checks into the Oslo Banking Company …’
Curious evasion, thought William, and looked calmer still, in his fear. In whose pay was Bomba?
But Bomba was erratically loyal, according to his needs for friendship and drama: and the same afternoon William had a telephone call from him.
‘I must see you—about Jules’s new business,’ in a little voice, shot with secret pride, intimate with virtue.
He came and put the papers in William’s hand. ‘Keep them, William: I don’t want to go into this business yet and I don’t think Jules should; I see Jules isn’t in form. You keep in touch with me and tell me when I should move. Jules insists on giving me a stipend. If I didn’t accept it, he’d think it pretty strange, but if you like I’ll return you half : I don’t want to fatten on a man who isn’t in trim: it’s not good nature, simply bad luck!’
Bomba then was one of these temperamental, Sarah-Bernhardt crooks. William breathed freer. ‘O.K. Thanks. I’ll keep in touch with you.’ He put the papers in his pocket. ‘And well forget this, in any case; let him secrete a few more ideas first. You’ll be in the swim, evidently. No need to think I’m sabotaging you …’
Bomba crinkled his eyes. ‘Ah, someone gave me away! You have paid me back in your coin—calm and confidence. Thanks, William. I’m your man. Don’t hesitate to call on me. And what shall I do about the half-salary?’
‘If you get it—’ said William, shamelessly, ‘you can send me half back until you do some work. I’ll chalk it up against what you owe the firm.’
‘Still the old William: he grumbles but he has a heart of gold.’ And Bomba could be seen to be already regretting his generosity! William smiled maliciously.
‘My heart may be of gold; it has never been touched. I’ll be seeing you around, Bomba, one of these days. Good-by for the present.’
‘Then it’s friendly warfare.’ Bomba tried to be gay.
‘It’s my brother Jules that counts and nothing else—that’s all,’ William said stiffly as he held open the door.
He went immediately to Jules, irritated, going beyond his plans. ‘Where are you going to get the money to pay Bomba?’
‘Oh, hang that: a man can’t sit about without making some money. We’ve got to eat. I can’t retire.’
‘No. Now don’t lose your temper. No one’s asking you to retire. Only keep cool. You made such a brilliant exhibition of yourself lately that your only move is to stay undercover and let someone else begin quietly for you. Leave the theatricals, the façades, the leeches, the Bombas until later, will you? Listen, Bomba had a moment of pity for you, which I profited by. Cut him out. Pay his fare back and give him a couple of crowns if you like, but don’t start paying him. I’ll do this business for you. I’m cool. I’ll go to Oslo and I’m really your brother, so there’ll be no aliases, or anything phony at the beginning. Understand. I don’t give a damn about the extradition: I’ll take my chance because, you poor muff, I see you’re going to land yourself in a high-class penitentiary otherwise.’
‘You give those papers to Bomba right away and see how much he’ll need for expenses,’ said Jules in the royal manner of old. William liked that tone.
‘I’ll see to it,’ he said coolly and got up to go. ‘Now stop fooling around with your harem of Bombas. I’m your chief mate, and don’t forget it.’ He went in to his mother, who
m he loved very much, and asked her not to irritate Jules; Jules was getting ideas, and if they were not careful might fly away from them, get into some mess. ‘I suppose I’ll have to shake myself and tail him if he goes off. I have nothing else to do after all; you and the twins can look after Claire and her children. He thinks I’m a dumbbell and I think he’s goofy: that’s how well we get on. But everyone else is after his skin. That is no way for our Jules to live. He’ll go crooked or go under.’
The fresh small mother, young for her age, said irritably, ‘Jules is crazy: he never went straight. I don’t know who he takes after—not after my side.’
William did not contradict his mother, who, in some mysterious way, was right, even when she was totally wrong (and she was always wrong on Jules). His eyes fell, and he thought in a flash of ‘our Jules’ who was only his Jules, the irresistible, tender, harmonious creature that Jules had always been, different from the characterless, twin egotists, from the wastrel Clément, and from himself, a natural ‘Dutch uncle.’ He saw him also in a flash, for years ahead, an irritable anxious baffled impish vampire, using his charm and his connections to no purpose, flying out in a dozen illegal ways, sitting presently in some birdlime of the law. He sighed.
‘Do you feel well, Will dear?’ The buxom little mother smiled confidingly at her eldest son.
‘Yes. Should you like to go to Oslo, Mother? It’s pretty tedious here.’
‘Oh, yes. Your grandfather is getting so old and dear Claire is busy with the children. Let’s run away by ourselves.’
They went off the next week while Jules champed at Reval.
Campoverde, having burned his fingers badly and lost his father’s estate in high finance (money which had been made in armaments, artificial silks, and gold mines), could not think of anything better to do than to go into finance for himself. He had hoped to inherit some of the Bertillon invisible estate, and for over a year had risked his family money to get near to Jules, whose type of banking and financing he had guessed pretty well from the very first. He was an ace aviator, always went in for the Italian high-speed trials, and always came off honorably: thus a little flier in finance was a mere morning spin to him. He had stuck to Jules at the last and held his hat ready to catch the money when Jules’s pocket burst open.
When the crash came Campoverde first consulted the distinguished Mme. Quiero, was assured of Jules’s wealth, and thereupon immediately began to get a team of men together to work with him. He had something on the Legris firm and would open a business in Amsterdam. Although he looked drawn and occasionally faint from the long anxiety he had gone through and the family explanations with his father, the gleam of the financier was in his eyes, and he recovered from the crash like a young dog from a hurt. He had sat now for a few months and listened to them all, stories of how Jules began, what he had done all along, how he made his money, what connections he had, how he had swindled them all, as they saw it, and he made careful notes in a large black-leather book at home of all he heard. His impatient haughty young blood was fired: Jules was a good scout, a thoroughbred, but harum-scarum; what Jules had done badly, Campoverde would do well. He was younger, he had the same ingenuity but more strictness, the same worldly disillusion and social relations but more method and less mad generosity. Campoverde saw his way very clear … In a little while when all was set on foot, he would get in touch with Mouradzian, who had believed in Jules to the last, and now lamented daily, detested him, but who had already got together another fine clientele, all Orientals, all rich, all ingenious, all disabused. When he returned from his present visit to Constantinople, Campoverde would buttonhole him.
Jean de Guipatin remained and Campoverde had doubts about this soft aristocrat: true, he was loyal to Jules and had stayed to the very last, after William had fled, had seen the wreck of the bank through its worst batterings, had answered clients and employees and police officials alike; but Jean de Guipatin was the liberal and even radical younger son, not the sort the hard young Campoverde wanted. Campoverde wanted the sportsmen, the heirs apparent, the clubmen, the beaux, and the monarchist-royalist-fascist crowd, men of the new world. His life was going to be built in the new world. He was born during the war and he knew nothing soft or broad-minded: he only knew his own wants, his own age, and his determination to belong to the governors of the future … But he discovered something. After Jean de Guipatin had routed the police, he was away for some time—with his mother, it was thought. But it was now discovered that he had gone to Esthonia to see Jules. To start a new business? To discover the whereabouts of the missing gold? Who knew. Therefore, tentatively, Campoverde wrote a friendly boyish letter to Guipatin and mentioned that he had some plans he would discuss with him, when he returned. Perhaps also Jules had funds he could not use himself, and might secretly back Campoverde. But Campoverde would never allow Jules in his bank as a partner …
The next news was that Cornelis Brouwer was also in Esthonia! And then Jan Witkraan from Amsterdam. And last of all Dick Plowman, the old backer of Jules. What was on foot? Another bank perhaps! Campoverde languished a little at the thought that Jules might become his competitor before he was properly established. Once established, he felt he could beat Jules.
The news about Brouwer and Witkraan was true. But as for Dick Plowman, he only went to Esthonia to see the country. He was found by Brouwer staying in the same hotel as himself. Brouwer naturally asked Jules how he got on with Plowman now and was surprised to find that Jules did not know Plowman was in Esthonia. He exclaimed in shocked surprise, ‘Plowman? Why he’s never been near me, never even wrote me a note. I can’t understand it,’ and it became evident that Jules had the feeling that all members of his class should rather applaud him than otherwise for what he had done, even if they had lost money in the venture.
‘Why,’ Jules went on indignantly, ‘he knows I never meant him any harm. He knows that I’ll pay him back when I get my affairs in order. It’s just in trust. He can trust me. He always did. And I know he’s not broke. I know quite well he’s rich. Imagine,’ he went on with some wrath, ‘Dick used to tell me he kept every cent with me, and now I find he had nearly half a million sterling in various banks of the Big Five in England and two hundred thousand crowns with Dannevig’s trust company. That’s not honest; he wasn’t open with me … Then I’ve heard of a safety vault, too. It’s funny, isn’t it? You’d swear a man’s your friend for years. Why, he used to live at our house. Then you suddenly find he’s been lying to you all along.’
He brooded a little, though, over Plowman’s silence. Plowman, after making what inquiries he could about Jules and setting a detective to watch for him, in case Jules went to any bank vaults, or made any move to export gold or bonds, went back to England. He had already entered his name along with the French creditors. This to him unexpected enmity disturbed Jules and made him feel that his star had fallen. He was an unquiet, bad-tempered person; he had lived in a fairy world and thought he would be fate’s spoiled darling to the end of time. He began to nourish a stout grudge against Plowman, whom he now thought of as going about telling his tale to people and ruining what little amiability they had for him.
But Plowman went to see Alphendéry, when he returned from Alsace to Amsterdam, in his new employ with Henri Léon. He went out to dinner with the two and, when Léon had gone routing to the telephone, said in a low voice, ‘I was in Esthonia but I didn’t see Jules. He rang me up but I didn’t speak to him.’ He stopped speaking and looked bitter and sad. ‘I always looked on Jules as my own son. Well, a good many sons have given their fathers bad hours.’ He tried to laugh. His face was old, almost as if he had had a stroke; it grimaced away, out of his control.
But Rhys of Rotterdam, the next day, lunching with Léon and Alphendéry, had no sympathy. ‘Really I don’t think he’s entitled to any pity. I don’t think the financial district of the world gives a sou for Plowman’s hurt feelings or his pocketbook, and Jules Bertill
on needn’t worry about that. When a man’s been in banking in every quarter of the compass, all his life, the way Plowman has, and he allows himself to be stung that way, by a very obvious flimsy promoter like Bertillon—and after how many warnings!—I have no sympathy for him, I assure you. He ought to be ashamed of himself.’
Alphendéry laughed. ‘You never met Jules: he was irresistible. Even if he’d told people the whole story, I believe they would have trusted him.’
‘I’ve heard that said. That’s what damned him. It all came too easily. He must have been a knockout of a young fellow, though. I can easily see how poor old Plowman might get soft that way. His own sons are such hunting-and-shooting gawks. His own fault. Our sons are our wives’ revenge on us …’ Rhys turned his healthy little face to Alphendéry seriously. ‘Mr. Alphendéry, a personal question … no need to answer it. Will you ever have any idea of going to Esthonia for a visit?’
Alphendéry laughed. ‘No, I’m through with finance for ever and a day. I’m in tangible goods now. You are afraid I will go in again with Bertillon?’
Rhys’s beryl eyes glinted pleasantly. ‘Yes, I am afraid. You see, you are too fond of him.’
‘I have other dreams now: I’m getting older. I’ve given my whole youth to this sterile business. I’m not a boy any longer. I never thought the day would come when I would feel as independent and—cold as I feel today … Myself first, the rest nowhere; that’s not blatant—that’s what finance has brought me down to … Maybe I’ll get out of it some day.’
Rhys nodded, then grew serious. ‘Mr. Alphendéry, I must ask you: is there any truth in the statement in some French papers that you are a communist, a Soviet agent?’
House of All Nations Page 90
