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‘’Morning, Miss Pagan. ’Morning, Harris.’ Thus F. X., hanging up his light grey, somehow dashing-looking hat.
‘Good-morning, Mr Benedik,’ said Miss Pagan, her sad, blond beauty illumined by one of her rare smiles.
‘’Morning, sir,’ said Harris.
‘Mr Rickforth in, Miss Pagan?’
‘Yes, Mr Benedik. I think he’s in your room. He said he wanted to see you particularly before you started work.’
‘Mr Anthony here?’
‘Not yet, Mr Benedik. Mr Anthony wired from Liverpool that he was coming in on the twelve-fifty; would you wait lunch for him?’
F. X. crossed the room, stood with his fingers upon the baize door which separated this outer office of his from the corridor leading to the partners’ rooms.
‘Anything else, Miss Pagan?’ he said. ‘I don’t want you to come in with the letters just yet. Wait until I’ve seen Mr Rickforth.’
‘Very well, Mr Benedik.’ Another of Miss Pagan’s rare and sadly beautiful smiles. ‘No, nothing else except Mr Marsh.’
A frown marred the pleasantness of the senior partner’s tanned face. ‘Marsh,’ he said. His voice grated on the ear. ‘Has he been bothering you?’
Miss Pagan shrugged elegant shoulders. ‘Well, not bothering, Mr Benedik, but he’s rung up twice this morning; the second time only five minutes before you got here. He seems to want you very urgently.’
‘Ever know him,’ growled F. X., ‘when he didn’t want to see me very urgently?’
Miss Pagan shook her blond head. ‘I’ve never seen Mr Marsh, Mr Benedik. I must say, though, on the telephone he always does sound cross.’
‘Crosser than his letters?’ said F. X.
‘That,’ said Miss Pagan, ‘would be impossible … Anyhow, he said would you please telephone him as soon as you got here.’
F. X. raised his eyebrows. ‘Number?’ he said.
‘I asked him for the number, Mr Benedik, and he wouldn’t give it.’ Miss Pagan’s eyebrows suggested that Mr Benedik should know by this time what Mr Marsh was like. ‘All he’d say was “the Kensington number”.’
F. X. laughed, a snorting contemptuous laugh. ‘That’s like the fool!’ he said. ‘All right, I’ll get on to him. I’ll see Mr Rickforth now. I’ll ring when I want you, Miss Pagan.’
2
‘But good gracious me!’ said Rickforth. ‘My dear Benedik, I daresay that I have not your push, your ability to handle big things courageously, but I do know, and I think that you know too, that I’m a man with a certain amount of business knowledge, and what I say, Benedik—’
F. X., whose gravity throughout this interview had amounted to more than sadness, suddenly grinned. The whole man, with that flash of white teeth, shed twenty hard-fought years. He said:
‘Sam, my boy, when you clasp your hands over that pot-belly of yours and start calling me Benedik, I can’t help it, but I want to kick your bottom. You know, Sam, the trouble with you is that you’ve got the ability of a Hatry, the tastes of a sexless Nero, and the conscience of an Anabaptist minister. You’re a mess, Sam, an awful mess, but you’re not a bad fellow as long as you don’t hold your belly and call me Benedik, and’—momentarily the smile faded—‘and as long as you don’t try to teach F. X. Benedik his job. Good Lord, man, don’t you think that I know what state the business is in? You seem to forget, as a matter of fact, that I made the damn business. I know how deep we are in it, but I know, too, how high we’re going to soar out of it after this waiting business is over, so for God’s sake stop moaning. If you want to get out, get out! Go for a holiday or something. Go and hold your belly in a cinema. Don’t come here and try to make that fat face of yours all long. I can’t stand it and I won’t!’
Samuel Harvey Rickforth laughed; but it was a laugh that had in it an undercurrent of fear.
‘My dear F. X.,’ he said, ‘I’m not being what I suppose you’d call “a wet sock.” I’m merely trying to show you the sensible point of view. RYNOX gave up practically all their other interests for the Paramata Synthetic Rubber Company. You did it. You backed your own judgment and we, very naturally, followed you. But even at the time—at the beginning, I mean—I freely confess I got nervous. I thought to myself, can he pull it off? … What’s the matter? …’
F. X. had sunk into an armchair of deep and yielding leather. His long legs were thrust stiffly out before him. A large white silk handkerchief covered his face. His hands were folded over his chest in the manner of a sleeping Crusader. From under the handkerchief his voice came hollow:
‘Nothing’s the matter. Go on, Samuel, go on!’
Again Rickforth laughed. ‘It’s all very well,’ he said, ‘but I will finish. It’s my opinion, F. X., and I’m not joking, that you’ve done what you’d call “bitten off more than you can chew.” Look at us, overdrawn here, overdrawn there; creditors beginning to get uneasy, and what are we waiting for? Orders that may come but equally may not, and … and …’ His fat, well-to-do voice grew suddenly sharp. ‘And, F. X., RYNOX is unlimited! You would have it, and it is, and whereas I might not say all this if we were a limited company, as a partner in an unlimited company I must say all this.’
The handkerchief flew a foot into the air as F. X. let out his pent breath. Suddenly he hoisted his bulky length from the chair, took two steps, and clapped a lean brown hand—which to Samuel Harvey Rickforth felt like the end of a steel crane—upon Samuel Harvey Rickforth’s shoulder.
‘My dear Sam!’ said F. X., ‘if you don’t know me by this time well enough to know that I wouldn’t let a blue-nose go into your house and sell your glass while you’re drinking out of it, you’re an old fathead! Now, for God’s sake, go out, buy yourself a couple of bottles of Pol Roget ’19 and charge ’em down to the travellers’ expenses. And when you come back, for God’s sake come back cheerful. I’ve got enough troubles without seeing those podgy hands of yours clasping that obscenity you call a stomach. What you wear those buff waistcoats for, I can’t make out! They only accentuate it. What you want, Sam, is a bit more of your daughter’s spirit. If I were to tell Peter what you’ve been saying this morning—’
‘I say, F. X., you wouldn’t do that, would you?’ Mr Rickforth was alarmed.
F. X. put back his head and laughed. ‘By God, Sam! I believe I’ve got you!’ he said. ‘I haven’t tried it before, but I’ll try it now. If I have any more of this S.O.S. stuff, I’ll tell Tony and then you’ll get it hot all round. Now, buzz off, you old blight!’
Rickforth went, but the door was only just closed behind him when it opened again. It admitted his round pink-and-white face, somehow frightened-looking under the ivory white sheen of his baldness.
‘I say, F. X.’ said the face, ‘you won’t really tell Peter, will you? I mean, damn it, business is business …’
The 193—edition of the Directory of Directors smote the door with all its half-hundredweight of matter one-tenth of a second after Samuel Harvey Rickforth had closed it.
F. X. reached out for the telephone; picked it up; lay back in the chair with the receiver at his ear and the body of the instrument cuddled closely against his chest. He always spoke. like many men who have lived at least half their lives, in very different places from city offices, very loudly over the telephone. ‘Kensington,’ he shouted, ‘four-double-nine-nine-oh … Is that Kensington four-double-nine-nine-oh? …’ His voice was thunderous. ‘Can I speak to Mr Marsh? … Eh? … What’s that? … Mr Marsh, I said. M for Marjorie, A for Ambrose Applejohn, R for rotten, S for sausage, H for How-d’ye-do … Marsh … Oh, right. I’ll hold on.’
He reached out a long arm, the receiver still at its end, and pressed that one of the buttons on his desk which would bring Miss Pagan. When Miss Pagan came he was talking again. He was saying:
‘Well, certainly, we’ve got to get this matter settled. I can’t make you see reason by writing, so I suppose we’d better meet. Now, I’m very busy. I suggest we should meet some evening, as soon as you like. Not tonight. I’ve got a dinner party. Tomorrow night, say. Just a moment, I’ll ask my secretary … All right, keep your shirt in! Keep your shirt in! Keep letting it hang out like that and you’ll be arrested for exhibitionism.’
He looked up from the telephone, clasping the mouthpiece firmly to his waistcoat.
‘Miss Pagan,’ he said, ‘got my book?’
‘Yes, Mr Benedik.’ Miss Pagan’s tone was faintly injured. Of course she had his book.
‘Am I doing anything tomorrow night?’
‘There’s nothing in this book, Mr Benedik.’
‘Well, I don’t know of anything,’ said Benedik; then into the telephone: ‘Marsh, still there? … Look here, Marsh, I’m free tomorrow night. Come along to my house and see me, will you? And I want to assure you that we’re going to settle. You worry the life out of me and you worry the life out of my people and your voice is beastly over the telephone anyhow! Understand what I’m talking about? I’m going to settle! Are you free tomorrow night? … Right, ten o’clock suit you? … Right. Well, come to my place ten o’clock … What’s that? … You great sap, you know damn well where I live. Oh, well, perhaps you’re right, perhaps I never told you; thought you might come round worrying the servants or something. 4 William Pitt Street, West one … No, Mayfair … Yes, come through the market if you’re coming from the Piccadilly side. Four. That’s right … Right, ten o’clock tomorrow night. Good-bye!’
He replaced the receiver with a savage click; set the telephone down upon his desk with a bang. ‘And,’ he said, looking at it, ‘God blast you!’ He looked up at Miss Pagan. ‘Shove that down, will you? Ten p.m., house—for tomorrow this is, you understand—ten p.m., house, Marsh. And put it in big red capital letters. And I’d like to tell you this, Miss Pagan, that if ever that’—he drew a deep breath—‘if ever that person—I can’t say more in front of a gently nurtured English girl—if ever he puts his wart-hog’s nose in this office after tomorrow night, you have my instructions to crown him with the heaviest thing you can lay your hands on. And if he rings up, ring off … Mr Anthony back yet?’
‘Not yet, Mr Benedik. Shall I ask him to come and see you as soon as he gets in?’
‘Please,’ said F. X. ‘And now you might bring me that last lot of composers’ reports from Lisbon, and tell Mr Woolrich to come and see me.’
The Lisbon reports had been brought and read and digested before Woolrich came. Twice F. X., now alone, had looked at his watch before there came a soft tapping upon the door and round its edge Woolrich’s sleek fair head.
F. X. looked up. He said:
‘Enter Secretary and Treasurer with shamefaced look. And you’d better hurry, too.’
Woolrich came in.
‘I’m awfully sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘Afraid I missed my train this morning. I’d been down to … down to … to the country.’
F. X. looked at him. F. X., after one frosty instant, smiled. ‘You’re always,’ he said, ‘going down to the country. You know, Woolrich, you ought to be careful of that country. I’m not sure it’s doing you much good … in fact, if you weren’t such a damned good man I should have a great deal more to say about the country … Sit down!’
Woolrich moved over to the big chair at the far side of the desk. He was a tall and broad-shouldered and exquisitely-dressed person of an age difficult to determine. He might have been anything between twenty-five and forty. Actually he was thirty-six. His tan was as deep almost as F. X.’s own, and his ash-blond hair was bleached by the sun and open air … but under the startlingly blue eyes were dark and lately almost permanent half-moons.
‘Look here, Woolrich!’ F. X. leaned forward. ‘I’ve just been looking over this last lot of reports from Lisbon. I expect you’ve read ’em.’
Woolrich nodded. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘I could say them over by heart.’
‘You mean,’ said F. X., ‘you know you could … Look here, there’s only one thing that worries me, and that’s Montana. You know and I know that Montana’s not square—unless it pays him to be—and is it paying him?’
Woolrich nodded. He said, with emphasis:
‘It is. If he went over to real rubber he’d never get the money. There aren’t any flies on Montana. You know that, sir, and he must realise that if he started any double-crossing he might do well for a bit but in the long run he’d get ditched. I’ve thought it all out.’
‘That,’ said F. X., ‘is my opinion too … All right, we’ll leave that at that. Now …’
They plunged into many and intricate details of business. They did, in ten minutes, so used were they to each other, as much work as most other couples in London, standing in the same relation, would have spent two hours and more upon.
F. X. rose and stretched himself. His big body seemed suddenly to tower. He said:
‘Well, that’s that! Anything else, Woolrich?’
Woolrich pondered a moment. His blue eyes narrowed as he thought and one corner of his well-cut, clean-shaven mouth twitched to a little constricted grin of concentration. At one corner of this mouth there showed a gleam of teeth as white as F. X.’s own. He pulled out a small notebook; flipped over its pages.
‘Nothing today, sir.’
‘You don’t want,’ said F. X., looking at him keenly, ‘to go down to the country this afternoon?’
A dark flush darkened Woolrich’s tan. He shook the blond head. ‘No, sir.’ He stood up. ‘If there’s nothing else I’ll go and have a bite of lunch. Busy afternoon after what we’ve done.’
F. X. nodded. ‘No, there’s nothing else.’
Woolrich walked to the door. With his fingers on its handle he turned. He said:
‘By the way, sir, I hear that fellow Marsh has been ringing up—’
‘Oh, him!’ said F. X. ‘That was before you came … All right, don’t blush. I meant to tell you, Woolrich, I’ve made an appointment with Marsh for tomorrow night. I’m going to meet him after all. And I’m going to settle with him.’
Woolrich came away from the door, back into the centre of the room.
‘Good Lord, sir!’ he said. ‘You don’t mean to say you’re going to—’
F. X. shook his head. ‘No, no, no! Woolrich, I’m not wringing wet—you know that. No, I’m going to tell Mr Marsh that if he likes to take a little douceur he can buzz off; if he doesn’t like to take it, he can buzz off just the same. I’m fed up with him … And if after tomorrow he ever rings up or shoves his face in here again, you can have him buzzed off with my love. Anyhow, we don’t want things like that blocking up the place.’
Woolrich paused on his journey to the door. He said:
‘I’ve never seen him, sir, and I don’t want to. But from what you said I should imagine you’re right.’
‘I am!’ said F. X., with feeling. ‘Anthony here yet?’
‘I’ll send him along, sir,’ said Woolrich, and was gone.
3
Francis Xavier Benedik and Anthony Xavier Benedik stood expectant just within the main doors of the Alsace Restaurant. They were waiting for Peter. Peter Rickforth was Samuel Harvey Rickforth’s daughter and did not look it. She was also—or perhaps primarily—the future wife of Anthony Xavier Benedik. She was very, very easy to look at. Her engagement to Tony Benedik had broken, at least temporarily, more hearts than any feminine decision in London for the past six months.
Peter was always late. Tony looked at F. X. ‘I think,’ said Tony, ‘another little drink.’
‘That’ll be three,’ said his father.
‘Right-ho, if you say so!’
They drank standing, their eyes fixed upon the revolving doors through which Peter would presently come. Standing there, utterly unconscious of their surroundings, glasses in hands, they were a couple which brought the gaze of many eyes to bear upon them. Exactly of a height, exactly of a breadth, with the same rather prominent-jawed, imperious nosed, hard-bitten good looks, the same deep, wide shoulders and narrow horseman’s hips, they were a walking, talking proof that heredity is not an old wife’s tale. What lineage, God knows, for F. X. himself could scarcely tell you from whence he came, but wherever this was, it and his own life had stamped their stamp upon the man, and this stamp was upon the son. They did not, these two, behave like father and son. They were more like elder and younger brother—much more. In only one particular was their aspect different. In the dress of F. X. was a careless, easy mixture of opulent cloth and ‘I-like-a-loose-fit-blast-it-what-do-clothes-matter?’ carelessness. In the dress of Tony was a superb and apparently unconscious elegance.
The revolving doors revolved. The little negro page-boy smiled until his face looked like an ice pudding over which chocolate has unevenly flowed.
‘Mawnin’, miss!’ said the page-boy.
‘’Morning, Sambo!’ said Peter Rickforth. She looked about her. She did not have far to look. Father and son were straight before her. She came towards them with her hands outstretched.
‘My dears,’ she said, ‘do not—do not say all those things which are trembling on your tongue and shooting darts of fire from your too amazingly similar pairs of eyes! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! And I’m sorry! How’s that?’
‘Very well,’ said F. X. ‘In fact, Peter, I think you are too well-mannered. After all, you know, any couple of men ought to be only too damn glad for you to lunch with them at all, let alone worry if you’re a few minutes late.’
‘Few minutes!’ said Tony. ‘Few minutes! If you do this, my girl, after we’re married, you’ll only do it once. At least, only once a month.’
Peter’s golden eyes stared at him. ‘Only a month? Why only once a month? Why not once a week?’
‘The effects,’ said Tony, ‘of the beatings will last three weeks, five days and seven hours exactly. We’ve got a table. Shall we go in, F. X.?’
‘If,’ said his father, ‘the lady wills.’
The lady did will, and presently they sat, a trio to draw all eyes, over a meal which was probably for that one day at least the best of its kind in all London.
It was over coffee that F. X. said:
‘Peter, I want to talk to you about your family.’
Peter laughed. ‘Family, sir?’ she said. ‘It’s the first I know about it!’
‘I mean,’ said F. X., ‘the other way round, backwards. Your father.’
‘Oh, Daddy!’ said Peter. ‘What’s he been doing? You don’t mean to tell me that squinting one in the Palazzo chorus has been getting Daddy into trouble, do you? She does squint, you know. She’s got the most awful cast in one eye!’
‘My good girl,’ said Tony, ‘you want a twisted snaffle in that mouth of yours.’
