There was in this, however, hardly any element of joy. I was back to my normal self, but not to what you might call good form. I was perfectly able to do anything required, but the idea of doing it didn’t appeal. I thought a bath and a shower would put me right; and I certainly felt a very different man by the time I had got my clothes on.
When I came back into the sitting-room, I found Lou dancing daintily round the table. She went for me like a bull at a gate; swept me away to the couch and knelt at my side as I lay, while she overwhelmed me with passionate kisses.
She divined that I was not in any condition to respond.
“You still need your nurse,” she laughed merrily, with sparkling eyes and flashing teeth and nostrils twitching with excitement. I saw on the tip of one delicious little curling hair a crystal glimmer that I knew.
She had been out in the snowstorm!
My cunning twisted smile told her that I was wise to the game.
“Yes,” she said excitedly, “I see how it’s done now. You pull yourself together with H. and then you start the buzz-wagon with C. Come along, put in the clutch.”
Her hand was trembling with excitement. But on the back of it there shimmered a tiny heap of glistening snow.
I sniffed it with suppressed ecstasy. I knew that it was only a matter of seconds before I caught the contagion of her crazy and sublime intoxication.
Who was it that said you had only to put salt on the tail of a bird, and then you could catch it? Probably that fellow thought that he knew all about it, but he got the whole thing wrong. What you have to do is to get snow up your own nose, and then you can catch the bird all right.
What did Maeterlinck know about that silly old Blue Bird?
Happiness lies within one’s self, and the way to dig it out is cocaine.
But don’t you go and forget what I hope you won’t mind my calling ordinary prudence. Use a little common sense, use precaution, exercise good judgment. However hungry you may happen to be, you don’t want to eat a dozen oxen en brochette. Natura non facit saltum.
It’s only a question of applying knowledge in a reasonable manner. We had found out how to work the machine, and there was no reason in the world why we shouldn’t fly from here to Kalamazoo.
So I took three quite small sniffs at reasonable intervals, and I was on the job once more.
I chased Lou around the suite; and I dare say we did upset a good deal of the furniture, but that doesn’t matter, for we haven’t got to pick it up.
The important thing was that I caught Lou; and by-and-by we found ourselves completely out of breath; and then, confound it, just when I wanted a quiet pipe before lunch, the telephone rang, and the porter wanted to know if we were at home to Mr. Elgin Feccles.
Well, I told you before that I didn’t care for the man so much as that. As Stevenson observes, if he were the only tie that bound one to home, I think most of us would vote for foreign travel. But he’d played the game pretty straight last night; and hang it, one couldn’t do less than invite the fellow to lunch. He might have a few more tips about the technique of this business anyhow. I’m not one of those cocksure fellows that imagine when they have one little scrap of knowledge, that they have drained the fount of wisdom dry.
So I said, “Ask him to be good enough to come up by all means.”
Lou flew to the other room to fix her hair and her face and all those things that women always seem to be having to fix, and up comes Mr. Feccles with the most perfect manner that I have ever observed in any human being, and a string of kind inquiries and apologies on the tip of his tongue.
He said he wouldn’t have bothered us by calling at all so soon after the case of indiscretion, only he felt sure he had left his cigarette case with us, and he valued it very much because it had been given him by his Aunt Sophronia.
Well, you know, there it was, right on the table, or rather, under the table, because the table was on top of it.
When we got the table on its legs again, we saw, quite plainly that the cigarette case had been under it, and therefore must have been on top of it before it was overturned.
Feccles laughed heartily at the humorous character of the incident. I suppose it was funny in a sort of way. On the other hand, I don’t think it was quite the thing to call attention to. However, I suppose the fellow had to have his cigarette case, and after all, when you do find a table upside down, it’s not much good pretending that you don’t notice it. And very likely, on the whole, the best way to pass over the incident pleasantly is to turn it into a kind of joke.
And I must say that Feccles showed the tact of a perfect gentleman in avoiding any direct allusion to the circumstances that caused the circumstances that were responsible for the circumstances that gave rise to the circumstances which it was so difficult to overlook.
Well, you know, this man Feccles had been a perfect dear the night before. He had seen Lou through the worst of the business with the utmost good taste at the moment when her natural protector, myself, was physically unable to apply the necessary what-you-may-call-it.
Well, of course, the way things were at the moment, I wished Feccles in the place that modern Christianity has decided to forget. But the least I could do was to ask him to lunch. But before I had time to put this generous impulse into words, Lou sailed in like an angel descending from heaven.
She went straight up to Feccles, and she positively kissed him before my eyes, and begged him to stay and have lunch. She positively took the words out of my mouth.
But I must admit that I wanted to be alone with Lou – not only then, but for ever; and I was most consumedly glad when I heard Feccles say:
“Why, really, that’s too kind of you, Lady Pendragon, and I hope you repeat the invitation some other day, but I’ve got to lunch with two birds from the Bourse. We have a tremendous deal coming off. Sir Peter’s got more money already than he knows what to do with, otherwise I’d be only too glad to let him in on the rez-de-chaussée.”
Well, you know, that’s all right about my being a millionaire, and all that. It’s one thing being a single man running round London perfectly happy with a shilling cigar and a stall at the Victoria Palace, and it’s quite another being on a honeymoon with a girl whom her most intimate friends call “Unlimited Lou.”
Feccles did not know that I had spent more than a third of my annual income in a fortnight. But, of course, I couldn’t tell the man how I was situated. We Pendragons are a pretty proud lot, especially since Sir Thomas Malory gave us that write-up in the time of Henry VIII. We’ve always been a bit above ourselves. That’s where my poor old dad went gaga.
However, the only thing to do was to beg the man to find a date in the near future to fight Paillard to a finish.
I think Paillard is the best restaurant in Paris, don’t you?
So out comes a little red pocket-book, and there is Mr. Feccles biting his pencil between his lips, and then cocking his head, first on one side and then on the other.
“Confound Paris,” he said at last. “A man gets simply swept away by social engagements. I haven’t a thing for a week.”
And just then the telephone rang. Lou did a two-step across to the instrument.
“Oh, it’s for you, Mr. Feccles,” she said. “However did any one know you were here?”
He gave his funny little laugh.
“It’s just what I’ve been telling you, Lady Pendragon,” he said, as he walked over to the receiver. “I’m a very much wanted man. Every one seems to want me but the police,” he giggled, “and they may get on to me any minute now, the Lord knows.”
He became suddenly serious as he talked on the phone.
“Oh, yes,” he said to the caller. “Very annoying indeed. What’s that? Four o’clock ? All right, I’ll be round.”
He hung up. He came back to us radiant, holding out his hands.
“My dear friends,” he said. “This is a special providence – nothing less. The lunch is off. If your invitation holds, I shall be the happiest man in Europe.”
Well, of course, there couldn’t be two men like that in Europe. I was infernally bored. But there was nothing to do except to express the wildest joy.
It didn’t add to my pleasure to see that Lou was really pleased. She broke out into a swift sonata.
“Let’s lunch up here,” she said. “It’s more intime. I hate feeding in public. I want to dance between the courses.”
She rang down for the head waiter while I gave Feccles a cigarette, lamenting my lack of forethought in not having insinuated a charge of trinitro-toluol amid the tobacco.
Lou had a passionate controversy with the head waiter. She won on points at the end of the sixth round. Half an hour later we started the grey caviare.
I don’t know why every one has to rejoice on grey caviare; but it’s no use trying to interfere with the course of civilisation. I ate it; and if I were in similar circumstances tomorrow, I would do it again.
In the immortal words of Browning, “You lied. D’Ormea, I do not repent.” Beside which, this was no ordinary lunch. It was big with the future.
It was an unqualified success from the start. We were all in our best form. Feccles talked freely and irresponsibly with the lightness of champagne. He talked about himself and his amazing luck in financial matters; but he never stayed long enough on any subject to make a definite impression or, you might say, to allow of a reply. He interspersed his remarks with the liveliest anecdotes, and apologised towards the end of the meal for having been preoccupied with the deal which he had on at the moment.
“I’m afraid it’s literally obsessing me,” he said. “But you know it makes, or rather will make, a big difference to my prospects. Unfortunately, I’m not a millionaire like you, old thing. I’ve been doing very well, but somehow, it’s gone as easy as it came. But I’ve scraped up twenty thousand of the best to buy an eighth share in this oil proposition that I told you about.”
“No,” put in Lou, “you didn’t tell us what it was.”
“I made sure I had,” he laughed back; “I’ve got it fairly on the brain, especially since that lunch was put off. I need another five thou’, you see, and I was going to dig it out of those birds. The only difficulty was that I can’t exactly borrow it on my face, can I? And I don’t want to let those birds into ‘the know’ – they’d simply snap the whole thing up for themselves. By the way, that reminds me of a very good thing I heard of the other day – ” and he rattled off an amusing story which had no connection with what he had been saying before.
I didn’t listen to what it was. My brain was working very fast with the champagne on top of the other things. His talk had brought to my mind that I should have to wire for another thousand today or tomorrow. I was aware of a violent subconscious irritation. The man’s talk had dealt so airily with millions that I couldn’t help recognising that I was a very poor man indeed, by modern standards. Five or six thousand a year, and perhaps another fifteen hundred from the rents of the Barley Grange estate, and that infernal income tax and so on – I was really little better than a pauper, and there was Lou to be considered.
I had always thought jewellery vulgar; a signet ring and a tie pin for a man – for a woman, a few trinkets, very quiet, in good taste – that was the limit.
But Lou was absolutely different. She could wear any amount of the stuff and carry it off superbly. I had bought her a pair of ear-rings in Cartier’s yesterday afternoon – three diamonds in a string, the pendant being a wonderful pear-shaped blue-white, and as she ate, and drank, and talked, they waggled behind the angle of her jaw in the most deliciously fascinating way, and it didn’t vulgarise her at all.
I realised that, as a married man, it was my duty to buy her that string of pearls with the big black pearl as a pendant, and there was that cabochon emerald ring! How madly that would go with her hair. And then, of course, when we got back to England, she must be presented at Court, not but what we Pendragons don’t feel it a little humiliating – that meant a tiara, of course.
And then you know what dressmakers are!
There’s simply no end to the things that a civilised man has to have when he’s married! And here was I, to all intents and purposes, a case for out-door relief.
I came out of my reverie with a start. My mind was made up.
Lou was laughing hysterically at some story of a blind man and a gimlet.
“Look here, Feccles,” I said. “I wish you’d tell me a little more about this oil business. To tell you the truth, I’m not the rich man you seem to think –”
“My dear fellow – ” said Feccles.
“In fact, I assure you,” said I. “Of course, it was all very well when I was a bachelor. Simple tastes, you know. But this little lady makes all the difference.”
“Why, certainly,” replied Feccles, very seriously. “Yes, I see that perfectly. In fact, if I may say so, it’s really a duty to yourself and your heirs, to put yourself on Easy Street. But money’s been frightfully tight since the war as you know. What with the collapse in the foreign exchanges, the decrease in the purchasing power of money, and the world’s gold all locked up in Washington, things are pretty awkward. But then, you know, it’s just that sort of situation which provides opportunities to a man with real brains. Victorian prosperity made us all rich without our knowing anything about it or doing anything for it.”
“Yes,” I admitted, “the gilt edges seem to have come off the gingerbread securities.”
“Well, look here, Pendragon,” he said, pulling his chair half round so as to face me squarely, and making his points by tapping his Corona on a plate, “the future lies with just two things as far as big money’s concerned. One’s oil, and the other is cotton. Now, I don’t know a thing about cotton, but I’ll give any sperm whale that ever blew four thousand points in twelve thousand up about oil, and you can lay your shirt on the challenger.”
“Yes, I see that,” I replied brightly. “Of course, I don’t know the first thing about finance; but what you say is absolutely common sense. And I’ve got a sort of flair for these things, I believe.”
“Why, it’s very curious you should say that,” returned Feccles, as in great surprise. “I was thinking the same thing myself. We know you’ve got pluck, and that’s the first essential in any game. And making money is the greatest game there is. But beside that, I’ve got a hunch that you’ve got the right kind of brain for this business. You’re as shrewd as they make ’em, and you’ve got a good imagination. I don’t mean the wild fancies that you find in a crank, but a good, wholesome, sound imagination.”
In the ordinary way, I should have been embarrassed by so direct a compliment from a man who was so evidently in the know, a man who was holding his own with the brightest minds all over the world. But in my present mood I took it as perfectly natural.
Lou laughed in my ear. “That’s right, Cockie, dear,” she chirruped. “This is where you go right in and win. I’ve really got to have those pearls, you know.”
“She’s quite right,” agreed Feccles. “When you’re through with this honeymoon, come round with me, and we’ll take our coats off and get into the game for all we’re worth and a bit more, and when we come out, we’ll have J. D. Rockefeller as flat as a pancake.”
“Well,” said I, “no time like the present. I don’t want to butt in, but if I could be any use to you about this deal of yours – ”
Feccles shook his head.
“No,” he said, “this isn’t the sort of thing at all. I’m putting my last bob into the deal; but it’s a risky business at the best, and I wouldn’t take a chance on your dropping five thou’ on the very first bet. Of course, it is rather a good thing if it comes off!”
“Let’s have the details, dear boy,” I said, trying to feel li
ke a business man bred in the bone.
“The thing itself’s simple enough,” said Feccles.
It’s just a case of taking up an option on some wells at a place called Sitka. They used to be all right before the war – but in my opinion they were never properly developed. They haven’t been worked ever since, and it might take all sorts of money to put them on the map again. But that’s the smaller point. What I and my friends know and nobody else has got on to is that if we apply the Feldenberg process to the particular kind of oil that Sitka yields, we’ve got practically a world’s monopoly of the highest class oil that exists. I needn’t tell you that we can sell it at our own price.”
I saw in a flash the magnificent possibilities of the plan.
“Of course, I needn’t tell you to keep it as dark as a wolf’s mouth,” continued Feccles. “If this got out, every financier in Paris would buy the thing over our heads. I wouldn’t have mentioned it to you at all except for two things. I know you’re on the square – that goes without saying; but the real point is this, that I told you I rather believe in the Occult.”
“Oh, yes,” cried Lou, “then, of course, you know King Lamus.”
Feccles started as if he had received a blow in the face. For a moment he was completely out of countenance. It seemed as if he were going to say several things, and decided not to. But his face was black as thunder. It was impossible to mistake the meaning of the situation.
I turned to Lou with what I suppose was rather a nasty little laugh.
“Our friend’s reputation,” I said, “appears to have reached Mr. Feccles.”
“Well,” said Feccles, recovering himself with a marked effort, “I rather make a point of not saying anything against people, but as a matter of fact, it is a bit on the thick side. You seem to know all about it, so there’s no harm in my saying the man’s an unspeakable scoundrel.”
All my hatred and jealousy surged up from the subconscious. I felt that if Lamus had been there I would have shot him like a dog on sight.
Diary of a Drug Fiend Page 9
