‘No, no! You must not go.’
‘Well, well,’ said the bully, ‘you shall have him for three hundred guineas. Now that’s reasonable. He’s worth a thousand to any man. Three hundred guineas, money down, and he’s yours.’
Hawkesby stood with his shoulders to the mantelshelf, his face very white, his lips very tight. He must clear himself from this position. His neck would certainly be stretched if O’Neill were taken in his house. Yet, three hundred guineas was a deal of money! And then the devil — or else something that the spy had said — breathed a wicked suggestion into his miserly soul.
‘Three hundred guineas is all that I have by me,’ said he, in a hard voice. ‘Yet you shall have the money.’ And thus the bargain was concluded, and Hawkesby took a heavy bag from the secretaire, where it was locked, and banged it on the table. The spy peered at the yellow contents, weighed it appreciatively in his hands.
‘I’ll take your word for the amount,’ said he, and with a flourish of compliments he took his leave, and departed by the way he had come. Hawkesby, meanwhile, turned a deaf ear to O’Neill’s warnings. At last, when the man had disappeared, the rebel leapt to his feet. In his excitement he seemed completely sobered.
‘Mr Hawkesby,’ said he, ‘I’m eternally your debtor. Yet forgive me if I tell ye ye’ve done a mad thing.’
‘How?’ asked Hawkesby, his eyebrows going up and his hand toying idly with the pistol O’Neill had placed on the table when the spy had bidden him.
‘In allowing that ruffian to depart with the money. You should have kept him here till I was gone. It is odds he’ll go fetch the constable, and still seek to earn his thousand guineas.’
‘Aye,’ said Hawkesby, with a singular smile. ‘It is odds he will.’
‘Then, bedad, give me the pishtol, and let me after him before he’s clear of the orchard.’ And, making shift to go, O’Neill held out his hand for the weapon. Instead, the muzzle was presented at his head.
‘Stand where you are, Mr O’Neill,’ said Hawkesby, in a voice of steel. There was no timidity about him now. He was safe and brave behind his pistol. He backed across the room, the weapon levelled at the rebel, who eyed him with fallen jaw. For the third time in that afternoon Hawkesby’s hand went to the bell-rope. This time his fingers closed upon it, and peal after peal went reverberating through the house.
‘What are ye doin’?’ gasped O’Neill.
Hawkesby showed his teeth in a ghastly smile, his face livid.
‘Mr O’Neill,’ said he, and his voice was crisp and cold, ‘if that ruffian fetches the constable, he’ll be too late. You heard what he said. You are worth a thousand guineas to any man. You are worth that sum to me. I’ve bought you, and I’m — going to sell you again. I’ve driven a shrewd bargain in you.’
The rebel stared at him a moment, unbelief in his face. Then he drew himself up, the last vestige of his drunkenness departed, and a singular smile — a mocking, cynical, yet exultant, smile — upon his hawk face.
‘So that is your loyalty to the Cause; that your devotion to the Prince?’ said he. ‘Bedad! If ever Charlie comes to his own he shall hear of this. But since it’s so — why I’m glad it’s so. You are mighty well served, Mr Judas Iscariot Hawkesby; three hundred guineas is a mort of money to lose over any man.’
‘It’s hardly lost,’ sneered Hawkesby. Then, as O’Neill moved to the window, ‘Stand, or I fire!’ he shouted.
‘Foire, and be hanged,’ said O’Neill. And Hawkesby, angered and desperately afraid of losing his prey, fired one barrel after the other. But the only sound that broke the stillness of the room was the click of the hammer on the empty pan and O’Neill’s soft contemptuous laugh. The pistol was not loaded.
There came a sound of feet, and a knocking at the door.
With a last laugh O’Neill dropped from the sill and sped through the orchard like a hare, to vanish in the twilight. Hawkesby, shaking in every limb with the fear that had come upon him born of an awful thought that had arisen in his mind, sprang to open. In flowed a stream of servants, and after them, walking briskly, stained with dust, came Mr Robertson of Appleby. At sight of him, Hawkesby checked the words that were on his lips. He caught his visitor by the lapel of his coat and drew him aside. His habit of caution was with him now, excited though he was.
‘Did Miles O’Neill lie at your house last night?’ he whispered.
Robertson stared at him a moment. ‘No,’ said he at last; ‘but it is odd you should ask, for I came to tell you that Miles O’Neill was taken last night at Penrith. I heard of it this morning.’
‘I have been robbed!’ screamed Hawkesby. ‘Robbed of three hundred guineas.’
They saw the disorder of the room, with its strewn flagons, and they opined him drunk. By the time he had convinced them he was sober it must have been too late, for his ingenious visitors were never taken.
THE OPPORTUNIST
To follow the early career of Capoulade down its easy descent of the slopes of turpitude were depressing and unprofitable. He had reached the stage at which he pocketed his pride and — like the adaptable opportunist that he was — passed from the artistic plane of swindling to the clumsier methods of purse-cutting and housebreaking. The pursuit of the latter brought him one night into the domicile of Monsieur Louvel.
Old Louvel was a man of fortune and the owner of an unique collection of old Italian jewels, and this was the lure that attracted Capoulade. Did rumour prove well founded he hoped to derive enough profit from this night’s work to enable him to lead, hereafter, a life of ease and honesty in some foreign land; for Capoulade was disposed enough to be honest once it should cease to be worth his while to be dishonest.
He stood in Louvel’s room at dead midnight, facing the press which he had been at considerable preliminary pains to ascertain was the repository of the treasure that was to make him honest — a treasure useless to Louvel, a mere hoard of artistic miserliness. Six steps across the room; twenty seconds to cut a panel; five minutes to secure the booty and make good his retreat — that was all that he now asked of Fortune to the end that his salvation might be wrought. Yet niggardly Fortune denied him even that little.
For even as he took his first steps towards the press a loud knock fell upon the street door. It reverberated through the silent house, it found an echo in Capoulade’s heart, and sent an icy chill through the marrow of his spine.
The knocking was repeated, vigorous and insistently; and Capoulade groaned to reflect how soundly they must sleep, how fine and rare the opportunity that was being ruined for him.
Then came other sounds — shuffling steps of slippered feet descended the stairs; the street door was opened. Voices sounded awhile, then the slippered feet reascended, accompanied now by a heavy, booted tread.
Physically Capoulade was a coward, but morally he possessed the courage of ten men. So averse was he from going empty-handed from that treasure-chamber that he decided at all costs — despite his thudding heart and chattering teeth — to remain until this newcomer should have gone either to bed or back to the streets from which he had been so inopportunely admitted.
A moment later he repented this decision in a passion of alarm. The steps were approaching the very room in which he stood. A shaft of light entered under the closed doors and thrust out along the gleaming parquet to Capoulade’s feet. Swift and silent as a shadow, he crossed to where a curtain masked an alcove, and there he hid himself, prayers on his lips and a knife in his hand, desperate and vicious as a cornered rat.
The door opened, and old Louvel, in nightcap and white quilted dressing-gown, advanced, candle in hand. He was followed by a tall, showily dressed young gentleman, Theodore Louvel, his son, who filled in Lyons the high office of agent to M. Turgot, the Comptroller-General.
In silence the old man crossed to the press, unlocked the double doors and threw them wide.
‘There,’ he exclaimed, anger quivering in his voice, ‘let the evidence of your own eyes satisfy you.’<
br />
He held the candle aloft, so that its light shone upon rows of shelves — all empty.
His son took a step forward, staring. From behind his curtain Capoulade stared, too, in amazement and chagrin.
‘But what does it mean?’ cried Theodore at last. ‘What, then, has become of the treasure?’
There was a dry, contemptuous laugh from his father.
‘Ask yourself rather than me,’ he croaked. ‘You have not by any chance kept an account of the sums of which you have drained me in the last two years? When I remonstrated with you, you laughed. When I sought to restrain you by refusing you the money which you demanded, then, like a dutiful son, you threatened my life. Thus, you said, you should inherit that which I withheld.’
He turned his vulture face upon his son, and a smile of mockery, ineffably bitter, twisted his lipless mouth.
‘I have given you the rope you needed, and you have hanged yourself. In two years you have had from me five hundred thousand livres — and all is gone. I sold my treasures little by little, and there is nothing left.’
‘I’ll not believe it!’ cried Theodore.
Louvel shrugged his narrow shoulders.
‘Believe it or not, it is true. There is nothing for you. You may kill me now, if you will. I have seen to it that my death, at least, shall not profit you.’
With black, scowling brows Theodore faced his father, pondering him as if he would read the mind behind that cynical old mask.
‘It is a lie!’ he said at last, between his teeth. ‘How do you live if you have nothing — eh? Answer me that.’
The old man leisurely closed the press and placed the candle on the table.
‘You would, perhaps, deprive me of the little I have retained to ensure me from perishing of hunger?’
‘Ah! You confess, then, that all is not as you represent it?’ was the quick retort. ‘You can save me from this ruin that impends — and save me you shall — you must! Do you hear? You must!’
‘You had better kill me, and take what you can find,’ the old man mocked him. ‘I would as soon perish by your hand as starve. The deed, too, would set a fitting climax to our relations.’
‘Will you not understand that it is but a loan that I require?’
‘It has always been a loan.’
‘This time I will repay — I swear it.’
‘You swear it? /Farceur!/ Out of your beggarly salary from the Comptroller-General?’
Theodore took a turn in the room, his face as white as his powdered hair, his eyes anxious. At length he paused.
‘It is but ten thousand livres I need, and it is the price of my salvation from ruin and shame.’
‘So has it always been,’ sneered his father.
‘But I will repay you, I say!’ was the vehement, almost frenzied answer. He plucked a paper from his pocket. ‘Listen!’ he insisted. ‘You are acquainted with Madame Lobreau?’
There was nobody in Lyons to whom that lady’s name was not familiar. Under years of her capable management the Grand Theatre of Lyons had been raised from a mere puppet-show until it might have rivalled the most brilliant playhouses of the capital, not excepting the famous Comédie Française.
‘Do you propose to murder her in her bed and steal her jewels?’
Theodore swore furiously under the spur of this sarcasm.
‘Will you listen to me seriously?’ he demanded. ‘This lady holds her managerial privilege from the Comptroller-General, in whose power it lies to deprive her of her theatre. I am the Comptroller’s agent in Lyons, and it lies within my power to dispossess her. Now, it has occurred to a certain Monsieur de Noirmont that, considering the handsome yields of the Grand Theatre, it should be worth his while to deal liberally with me to the end that I might enable him to step into Madame Lobreau’s shoes. I trust I have made myself clear?’
‘Yes, yes.’
Old Louvel was always ready to be interested in schemes that promised profit. The proposal to dispossess Madam Lobreau of the fruits of her labour and talent was a rascally one. But at heart old Louvel himself was a rascal, worthy father of his worthless son.
‘Then listen to this,’ rejoined Theodore. He unfolded his paper and read aloud:
In consideration of the Grant Theatre of Lyons being placed under my control and management, I hereby agree to pay the Sieur Theodore Louvel the sum of 10,000 livres, and further to allow him an annuity of 8,000 livres for as long as the said Grant Theatre shall continue under my management.
Henri de Noirmont
Old Louvel, who had stood hand on ear while his son read the agreement, pursed his lips like one in thought.
‘Let me see it,’ he requested. His son delivered him the paper, and the old man examined it, assuring himself of its genuineness. Then he pondered again.
‘Very well,’ he said slowly at last. ‘You shall have the ten thousand livres by tomorrow evening as a loan, but this agreement remains in my hands as security until I am repaid.’
Theodore protested blusteringly. But his father held so stubbornly to the condition that the Comptroller’s agent was forced in the end to submit.
‘But I must have the money early in the morning. Monsieur — er — the man in whose debt I stand has given me until noon tomorrow to find the money.’
‘If by noon tomorrow Madame Lobreau is no longer manager of the Grand Theatre the money will be at your disposal. Tell me,’ he added, ‘how soon may I expect to be repaid?’
‘I shall place M. de Noirmont in possession of the theatre in a fortnight. I dare not do it sooner, for the sake of appearances.’
‘Very well.’
The old man locked away the document in a secretaire, took up the candle, and re-conducted his son.
After Capoulade had heard the street door close upon the departing Theodore and the old man mount the stairs on his way back to bed, he crept out of his alcove.
His feelings were those of a man who has been swindled. He had come there at the peril of life and limb to possess himself of old Louvel’s collection of Italian gems, only to learn that these had already been sold to pay the gaming debts of that villain Theodore. He was naturally indignant.
He advanced moodily towards the window and opened it with caution. He paused in the act of bestriding the sill, and chuckled softly at his own inspiration. He took the night into his confidence.
‘To make opportunity your slave is the whole philosophy of life,’ he said.
Next morning he waited upon Madam Lobreau at her residence, representing himself as an actor fallen upon evil days.
‘You are come,’ she greeted him, offering him a chair, ‘to seek my help. Hélas, monsieur, you come too late!’
‘Madame,’ loftily answered that tatterdemalion, ‘you are entirely at fault.’ He sat down with the air of one who has the right to do so. ‘I do not come to seek your aid, but to offer you mine.’
He stemmed her questions with a gesture which — were he the actor he had announced himself — might have made his fortune as /Sganarelle/. No man was ever more sensitive to his surroundings than Capoulade, and already he was saturated by the theatrical atmosphere in which he found himself.
‘Madame,’ he announced dramatically, ‘you have been dispossessed of your theatre.’
‘Is it known already?’ she exclaimed.
‘Not to the world at large. But to me — Capoulade — even the very reason of it is known.’
‘Monsieur,’ she protested, bridling, ‘I have heard enough and more of these trumped-up reasons. A cruel, an infamous swindle has been perpetrated to rob me of my rights — the rights earned by years of labour.’
‘Adversity, madame, is blunting the edge of your judgement.’
And in lordly gesture he waved the dirty ruffles that hung like weeping willows over his dirtier hands.
‘The reasons known to me are not the lying, trumped-up reasons expressed to you and to be laid before the Comptroller-General by your enemies. The reasons that I bring you
are the real ones.’
And he proceeded to disclose to her the infamous compact existing between Louvel and a certain M. de Noirmont.
Madame Lobreau went white and red by turns as she listened.
‘But yes,’ she cried. ‘It is no more than I might have suspected. You convince me that it is the truth. If we could but lay proof of it before the Comptroller-General, how I should trample upon those that would ruin me!’
Capoulade launched his thunderbolt.
‘Madame,’ said he, pulling a paper from his pocket, ‘the proof is here. Listen to the agreement signed by Monsieur de Noirmont.’
She heard it in amazement, and, what time he was reading the terms of that scandalous contract, subconsciously she was taking stock of him, and neither his shabby raiment nor his keen, wolfish face was of a quality to inspire her with confidence.
‘Monsieur,’ she asked him, when he had finished reading, ‘how does it happen that you are in possession of this document?’
He looked at her out of his keen black eyes, scenting the suspicion that was awake in her. He wisely deemed it a time for frankness.
‘Madame,’ said he, ‘I am here to serve you — that is my guarantee that you will not betray me. I am not exactly an actor. Such parts as in my time I have played have been played upon that broad stage we call the world. In short, madame’ — and he dropped his eyes in a delicate assumption of shame— ‘I am just a thief.’
‘And you stole this paper from M. Louvel?’ she asked.
He bowed.
‘It occurred to me that by appropriating it I might at once perform a worthy action and compensate myself for my trouble.’
‘But how compensate yourself?’ she enquired, knitting her brows.
Capoulade explained that such a document should not be without its marketable value. She agreed, and offered to purchase it for a /louis d’or/. Capoulade gasped.
‘Twenty francs, madame?’ Then he laughed. ‘Perhaps it has not occurred to you that I might easily get a thousand times that sum from M. Louvel.’
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 522