The Grand Babylon Hote

by Arnold Bennett

  Theodore Racksole hesitated one second, and then issued the order with a fine air of carelessness:

  'Filleted steak for two, and a bottle of Bass.' It was the bravest act of Theodore Racksole's life, and yet at more than one previous crisis a high courage had not been lacking to him.

  'It's not in the menu, sir,' said Jules the imperturbable.

  'Never mind. Get it. We want it.'

  'Very good, sir.'

  Jules walked to the service-door, and, merely affecting to look behind, came immediately back again.

  'Mr Rocco's compliments, sir, and he regrets to be unable to serve steak and Bass to-night, sir.'

  'Mr Rocco?' questioned Racksole lightly.

  'Mr Rocco,' repeated Jules with firmness.

  'And who is Mr Rocco?'

  'Mr Rocco is our chef, sir.' Jules had the expression of a man who is asked to explain who Shakespeare was.

  The two men looked at each other. It seemed incredible that Theodore Racksole, the ineffable Racksole, who owned a thousand miles of railway, several towns, and sixty votes in Congress, should be defied by a waiter, or even by a whole hotel. Yet so it was. When Europe's effete back is against the wall not a regiment of millionaires can turn its flank. Jules had the calm expression of a strong man sure of victory. His face said: 'You beat me once, but not this time, my New York friend!'

  As for Nella, knowing her father, she foresaw interesting events, and waited confidently for the steak. She did not feel hungry, and she could afford to wait.

  'Excuse me a moment, Nella,' said Theodore Racksole quietly, 'I shall be back in about two seconds,' and he strode out of the salle à manger. No one in the room recognized the millionaire, for he was unknown to London, this being his first visit to Europe for over twenty years. Had anyone done so, and caught the expression on his face, that man might have trembled for an explosion which should have blown the entire Grand Babylon into the Thames.

  Jules retired strategically to a corner. He had fired; it was the antagonist's turn. A long and varied experience had taught Jules that a guest who embarks on the subjugation of a waiter is almost always lost; the waiter has so many advantages in such a contest.

  2. How Mr Racksole Obtained His Dinner

  NEVERTHELESS, there are men with a confirmed habit of getting their own way, even as guests in an exclusive hotel: and Theodore Racksole had long since fallen into that useful practice - except when his only daughter Helen, motherless but high-spirited girl, chose to think that his way crossed hers, in which case Theodore capitulated and fell back. But when Theodore and his daughter happened to be going one and the same road, which was pretty often, then Heaven alone might help any obstacle that was so ill-advised as to stand in their path. Jules, great and observant man though he was, had not noticed the terrible projecting chins of both father and daughter, otherwise it is possible he would have reconsidered the question of the steak and Bass.

  Theodore Racksole went direct to the entrance-hall of the hotel, and entered Miss Spencer's sanctum.

  'I want to see Mr Babylon,' he said, 'without the delay of an instant.'

  Miss Spencer leisurely raised her flaxen head.

  'I am afraid - ,' she began the usual formula. It was part of her daily duty to discourage guests who desired to see Mr Babylon.

  'No, no,' said Racksole quickly, 'I don't want any "I'm afraids." This is business. If you had been the ordinary hotel clerk I should have slipped you a couple of sovereigns into your hand, and the thing would have been done.

  As you are not - as you are obviously above bribes - I merely say to you, I must see Mr Babylon at once on an affair of the utmost urgency. My name is Racksole

  - Theodore Racksole.'

  'Of New York?' questioned a voice at the door, with a slight foreign accent.

  The millionaire turned sharply, and saw a rather short, French-looking man, with a bald head, a grey beard, a long and perfectly-built frock coat, eye-glasses attached to a minute silver chain, and blue eyes that seemed to have the transparent innocence of a maid's.

  'There is only one,' said Theodore Racksole succinctly.

  'You wish to see me?' the new-comer suggested.

  'You are Mr Felix Babylon?'

  The man bowed.

  'At this moment I wish to see you more than anyone else in the world,' said Racksole. 'I am consumed and burnt up with a desire to see you, Mr Babylon.

  I only want a few minutes' quiet chat. I fancy I can settle my business in that time.'

  With a gesture Mr Babylon invited the millionaire down a side corridor, at the end of which was Mr Babylon's private room, a miracle of Louis XV furniture and tapestry: like most unmarried men with large incomes, Mr Babylon had 'tastes' of a highly expensive sort.

  The landlord and his guest sat down opposite each other. Theodore Racksole had met with the usual millionaire's luck in this adventure, for Mr Babylon made a practice of not allowing himself to be interviewed by his guests, however distinguished, however wealthy, however pertinacious. If he had not chanced to enter Miss Spencer's office at that precise moment, and if he had not been impressed in a somewhat peculiar way by the physiognomy of the millionaire, not all Mr Racksole's American energy and ingenuity would have availed for a confabulation with the owner of the Grand Babylon Hotel that night. Theodore Racksole, however, was ignorant that a mere accident had served him. He took all the credit to himself.

  'I read in the New York papers some months ago,' Theodore started, without even a clearing of the throat, 'that this hotel of yours, Mr Babylon, was to be sold to a limited company, but it appears that the sale was not carried out.'

  'It was not,' answered Mr Babylon frankly, 'and the reason was that the middle-men between the proposed company and myself wished to make a large secret profit, and I declined to be a party to such a profit. They were firm; I was firm; and so the affair came to nothing.'

  'The agreed price was satisfactory?'

  'Quite.'

  'May I ask what the price was?'

  'Are you a buyer, Mr Racksole?'

  'Are you a seller, Mr Babylon?'

  'I am,' said Babylon, 'on terms. The price was four hundred thousand pounds, including the leasehold and goodwill. But I sell only on the condition that the buyer does not transfer the property to a limited company at a higher figure.'

  'I will put one question to you, Mr Babylon,' said the millionaire. 'What have your profits averaged during the last four years?'

  'Thirty-four thousand pounds per annum.'

  'I buy,' said Theodore Racksole, smiling contentedly; 'and we will, if you please, exchange contract-letters on the spot.'

  'You come quickly to a resolution, Mr Racksole. But perhaps you have been considering this question for a long time?'

  'On the contrary,' Racksole looked at his watch, 'I have been considering it for six minutes.'

  Felix Babylon bowed, as one thoroughly accustomed to eccentricity of wealth.

  'The beauty of being well-known,' Racksole continued, 'is that you needn't trouble about preliminary explanations. You, Mr Babylon, probably know all about me. I know a good deal about you. We can take each other for granted without reference. Really, it is as simple to buy an hotel or a railroad as it is to buy a watch, provided one is equal to the transaction.'

  'Precisely,' agreed Mr Babylon smiling. 'Shall we draw up the little informal contract? There are details to be thought of. But it occurs to me that you cannot have dined yet, and might prefer to deal with minor questions after dinner.'

  'I have not dined,' said the millionaire, with emphasis, 'and in that connexion will you do me a favour? Will you send for Mr Rocco?'

  'You wish to see him, naturally.'

  'I do,' said the millionaire, and added, 'about my dinner.'

  'Rocco is a great man,' murmured Mr Babylon as he touched the bell, ignoring the last words. 'My compliments to Mr Rocco,' he said to the page who answered his summons, 'and if it is quite convenient I should be glad to see him here for
a moment.'

  'What do you give Rocco?' Racksole inquired.

  'Two thousand a year and the treatment of an Ambassador.'

  'I shall give him the treatment of an Ambassador and three thousand.'

  'You will be wise,' said Felix Babylon.

  At that moment Rocco came into the room, very softly - a man of forty, thin, with long, thin hands, and an inordinately long brown silky moustache.

  'Rocco,' said Felix Babylon, 'let me introduce Mr Theodore Racksole, of New York.'

  'Sharmed,' said Rocco, bowing. 'Ze - ze, vat you call it, millionaire?'

  'Exactly,' Racksole put in, and continued quickly: 'Mr Rocco, I wish to acquaint you before any other person with the fact that I have purchased the Grand Babylon Hotel. If you think well to afford me the privilege of retaining your services I shall be happy to offer you a remuneration of three thousand a year.'

  'Tree, you said?'

  'Three.'

  'Sharmed.'

  'And now, Mr Rocco, will you oblige me very much by ordering a plain beefsteak and a bottle of Bass to be served by Jules - I particularly desire Jules - at table No. 17 in the dining-room in ten minutes from now? And will you do me the honour of lunching with me to-morrow?'

  Mr Rocco gasped, bowed, muttered something in French, and departed.

  Five minutes later the buyer and seller of the Grand Babylon Hotel had each signed a curt document, scribbled out on the hotel note-paper. Felix Babylon asked no questions, and it was this heroic absence of curiosity, of surprise on his part, that more than anything else impressed Theodore Racksole. How many hotel proprietors in the world, Racksole asked himself, would have let that beefsteak and Bass go by without a word of comment.

  'From what date do you wish the purchase to take effect?' asked Babylon.

  'Oh,' said Racksole lightly, 'it doesn't matter. Shall we say from to-night?'

  'As you will. I have long wished to retire. And now that the moment has come -

  and so dramatically - I am ready. I shall return to Switzerland. One cannot spend much money there, but it is my native land. I shall be the richest man in Switzerland.' He smiled with a kind of sad amusement.

  'I suppose you are fairly well off?' said Racksole, in that easy familiar style of his, as though the idea had just occurred to him.

  'Besides what I shall receive from you, I have half a million invested.'

  'Then you will be nearly a millionaire?'

  Felix Babylon nodded.

  'I congratulate you, my dear sir,' said Racksole, in the tone of a judge addressing a newly-admitted barrister. 'Nine hundred thousand pounds, expressed in francs, will sound very nice - in Switzerland.'

  'Of course to you, Mr Racksole, such a sum would be poverty. Now if one might guess at your own wealth?' Felix Babylon was imitating the other's freedom.

  'I do not know, to five millions or so, what I am worth,' said Racksole, with sincerity, his tone indicating that he would have been glad to give the information if it were in his power.

  'You have had anxieties, Mr Racksole?'

  'Still have them. I am now holiday-making in London with my daughter in order to get rid of them for a time.'

  'Is the purchase of hotels your notion of relaxation, then?'

  Racksole shrugged his shoulders. 'It is a change from railroads,' he laughed.

  'Ah, my friend, you little know what you have bought.'

  'Oh! yes I do,' returned Racksole; 'I have bought just the first hotel in the world.'

  'That is true, that is true,' Babylon admitted, gazing meditatively at the antique Persian carpet. 'There is nothing, anywhere, like my hotel. But you will regret the purchase, Mr Racksole. It is no business of mine, of course, but I cannot help repeating that you will regret the purchase.'

  'I never regret.'

  'Then you will begin very soon - perhaps to-night.'

  'Why do you say that?'

  'Because the Grand Babylon is the Grand Babylon. You think because you control a railroad, or an iron-works, or a line of steamers, therefore you can control anything. But no. Not the Grand Babylon. There is something about the Grand Babylon - ' He threw up his hands.

  'Servants rob you, of course.'

  'Of course. I suppose I lose a hundred pounds a week in that way. But it is not that I mean. It is the guests. The guests are too - too distinguished.

  The great Ambassadors, the great financiers, the great nobles, all the men that move the world, put up under my roof. London is the centre of everything, and my hotel - your hotel - is the centre of London. Once I had a King and a Dowager Empress staying here at the same time. Imagine that!'

  'A great honour, Mr Babylon. But wherein lies the difficulty?'

  'Mr Racksole,' was the grim reply, 'what has become of your shrewdness - that shrewdness which has made your fortune so immense that even you cannot calculate it? Do you not perceive that the roof which habitually shelters all the force, all the authority of the world, must necessarily also shelter nameless and numberless plotters, schemers, evil-doers, and workers of mischief? The thing is as clear as day - and as dark as night. Mr Racksole, I never know by whom I am surrounded. I never know what is going forward.

  Only sometimes I get hints, glimpses of strange acts and strange secrets.

  You mentioned my servants. They are almost all good servants, skilled, competent. But what are they besides? For anything I know my fourth sub-chef may be an agent of some European Government. For anything I know my invaluable Miss Spencer may be in the pay of a court dressmaker or a Frankfort banker. Even Rocco may be someone else in addition to Rocco.'

  'That makes it all the more interesting,' remarked Theodore Racksole.

  'What a long time you have been, Father,' said Nella, when he returned to table No. 17 in the salle manger.

  'Only twenty minutes, my dove.'

  'But you said two seconds. There is a difference.'

  'Well, you see, I had to wait for the steak to cook.'

  'Did you have much trouble in getting my birthday treat?'

  'No trouble. But it didn't come quite as cheap as you said.'

  'What do you mean, Father?'

  'Only that I've bought the entire hotel. But don't split.'

  'Father, you always were a delicious parent. Shall you give me the hotel for a birthday present?'

  'No. I shall run it - as an amusement. By the way, who is that chair for?'

  He noticed that a third cover had been laid at the table.

  'That is for a friend of mine who came in about five minutes ago. Of course I told him he must share our steak. He'll be here in a moment.'

  'May I respectfully inquire his name?'

  'Dimmock - Christian name Reginald; profession, English companion to Prince Aribert of Posen. I met him when I was in St Petersburg with cousin Hetty last fall. Oh; here he is. Mr Dimmock, this is my dear father. He has succeeded with the steak.'

  Theodore Racksole found himself confronted by a very young man, with deep black eyes, and a fresh, boyish expression. They began to talk.

  Jules approached with the steak. Racksole tried to catch the waiter's eye, but could not. The dinner proceeded.

  'Oh, Father!' cried Nella, 'what a lot of mustard you have taken!'

  'Have I?' he said, and then he happened to glance into a mirror on his left hand between two windows. He saw the reflection of Jules, who stood behind his chair, and he saw Jules give a slow, significant, ominous wink to Mr Dimmock -

  Christian name, Reginald.

  He examined his mustard in silence. He thought that perhaps he had helped himself rather plenteously to mustard.

  3. At Three A.M.

  MR REGINALD DIMMOCK proved himself, despite his extreme youth, to be a man of the world and of experiences, and a practised talker. Conversation between him and Nella Racksole seemed never to flag. They chattered about St Petersburg, and the ice on the Neva, and the tenor at the opera who had been exiled to Siberia, and the quality of Russian tea, and the sweetness of Ru
ssian champagne, and various other aspects of Muscovite existence. Russia exhausted, Nella lightly outlined her own doings since she had met the young man in the Tsar's capital, and this recital brought the topic round to London, where it stayed till the final piece of steak was eaten. Theodore Racksole noticed that Mr Dimmock gave very meagre information about his own movements, either past or future. He regarded the youth as a typical hanger-on of Courts, and wondered how he had obtained his post of companion to Prince Aribert of Posen, and who Prince Aribert of Posen might be. The millionaire thought he had once heard of Posen, but he wasn't sure; he rather fancied it was one of those small nondescript German States of which five-sixths of the subjects are Palace officials, and the rest charcoal-burners or innkeepers. Until the meal was nearly over, Racksole said little - perhaps his thoughts were too busy with Jules' wink to Mr Dimmock, but when ices had been followed by coffee, he decided that it might be as well, in the interests of the hotel, to discover something about his daughter's friend. He never for an instant questioned her right to possess her own friends; he had always left her in the most amazing liberty, relying on her inherited good sense to keep her out of mischief; but, quite apart from the wink, he was struck by Nella's attitude towards Mr Dimmock, an attitude in which an amiable scorn was blended with an evident desire to propitiate and please.

  'Nella tells me, Mr Dimmock, that you hold a confidential position with Prince Aribert of Posen,' said Racksole. 'You will pardon an American's ignorance, but is Prince Aribert a reigning Prince - what, I believe, you call in Europe, a Prince Regnant?'

  'His Highness is not a reigning Prince, nor ever likely to be,' answered Dimmock.

  'The Grand Ducal Throne of Posen is occupied by his Highness's nephew, the Grand Duke Eugen.'

  'Nephew?' cried Nella with astonishment.

  'Why not, dear lady?'

  'But Prince Aribert is surely very young?'

  'The Prince, by one of those vagaries of chance which occur sometimes in the history of families, is precisely the same age as the Grand Duke. The late Grand Duke's father was twice married. Hence this youthfulness on the part of an uncle.'