Lanny made a brief report upon the younger Robins, and the present condition of their political diseases. Fate had played a strange prank upon the business association known as “Robin and Robbie.” The Robin half had got somewhat the worst of it, having two Reds and two Pinks, whereas Robbie had only one Red and one Pink, and didn’t see either very often. The Robin half was considerate and never referred to the fact that the infection had come from the Robbie side. Johannes knew how his associate hated and despised Jesse Blackless, the man who had talked revolution to Lanny, and then to Hansi and Freddi, seducing these sensitive, idealistic minds away from their fathers.
Robbie wanted to know about Irma, and how she and Lanny were making out. Very important, that; the father had found out last October what a convenient thing it was to have the Barnes fortune back of you. He hoped that Lanny wasn’t going to fail to make a success of it. Lanny reported that he and Irma were getting along as well as most young couples he had known; better than some. Irma wanted a lot, and most of the things he was interested in didn’t mean much to her, but they were in love with each other, and they found the baby a source of satisfaction. Robbie said you never got everything you wanted out of a marriage, but you could put up with a lot when it included a thumping big fortune. Lanny knew that wasn’t the noblest view to take of the holy bonds of matrimony, but all he said was: “Don’t worry. We’ll make out.”
III
One of Robbie’s purposes was to see Zaharoff. The New England-Arabian Oil Company had managed to survive the panic, but Robbie and his associates at home needed cash and must find a buyer for their shares. Doubtless the old spider knew all about their plight, but Robbie would put up a bold front. As usual, he asked if his son would like to go along, and as usual the son wouldn’t have missed it for anything. He had never given up the hope that somehow he might be able to help his father in his dealings with the retired munitions king of Europe.
Robbie phoned the old man’s home, and learned that he was at his country estate, the Château de Balincourt in Seine-et-Oise, close to Paris. Robbie sent a telegram, and received an appointment for the next afternoon; he ordered a car through the hotel, and they were motored to the place, which had once belonged to King Leopold of Belgium. Now there was a new kind of kings in Europe, and one of them was this ex-fireman of Constantinople. A lodge-keeper swung back the gates for them, and they rolled down a tree-lined drive and were received at the door by an East Indian servant in native costume. All the servants were Hindus; an aged king wanted silence and secrecy, and one way was to have attendants who understood only a few simple commands. One of Zaharoff’s married daughters lived with him, and no one came save by appointment.
The visitors were escorted into a drawing-room decorated in the lavish French fashion. On the walls were paintings, and Lanny had been invited to see them, so now he took the occasion. But it didn’t last long, for the owner came in. His heavy shoulders seemed a bit more bowed than when Lanny had watched him, in his undershirt, burning his private papers in the drawing-room of his Paris house and setting fire to the chimney in the process. Now he wore an embroidered purple smoking-jacket, and his white mustache and imperial were neatly trimmed. He had become almost entirely bald.
“Eh, bien, mon garçon?” he said to Lanny.
Being at the beginning of his thirties, Lanny felt quite grown up, but understood that this might not impress one who was at the beginning of his eighties. “I was looking at your paintings,” he remarked. “You have a fine Ingres.”
“Yes; but I have looked at it for so many years.”
“Paintings should be like old friends, Sir Basil.”
“Most of my old friends are gone, and the younger ones are busy with their affairs. They tell me you have been making your fortune.”
It was an allusion to Irma, and not exactly a delicate one; but Lanny knew that this old man was money-conscious. The duquesa, his companion, had tried tactfully to cure him of the defect, but without succeeding. Lanny was not surprised when Zaharoff added: “You will no longer have to be a picture-dealer, hein?”
He smiled and answered: “I get a lot of fun out of it.”
The old man’s remark was noted by Robbie, who had said on the way out that if Zaharoff knew that Lanny had the Barnes fortune behind him, he might expect to pay a higher price for the shares of the New England-Arabian Oil Company!
They seated themselves, and tea was served; for Robbie it was scotch and soda. The two men discussed the state of business in Europe and America, and Lanny listened attentively, as he had always done. One who found pleasure in buying and selling old masters could learn from the technique being here revealed. The Knight Commander of the Bath of England and Grand Officer of the Légion d’Honneur of France was the very soul of courtesy, of suavity in manner; a bit deprecating, as if he were saying: “I am a very old man, and it would not be fair to take advantage of me.” His soft voice caressed you and his smile wooed you, but at the same time his blue eyes watched you warily.
He was known as “the mystery man of Europe,” and doubtless there had been mysteries enough about what he was doing in the political and financial worlds; but so far as his character was concerned, Lanny no longer found any mystery. An aged plutocrat had fought his way up in the world by many deeds of which he now did not enjoy the contemplation. He had intrigued and threatened, bribed and cajoled, made promises and broken them; by tireless scheming and pushing he had acquired the mastery of those great establishments which the various countries of Europe needed in order to wage their wars of power. But all the time he had remained in his soul a Greek peasant living among cruel oppressing Turks. He had been afraid of a thousand things: of his own memories, of the men he had thwarted and ruined, of slanderers, blackmailers, assassins, Reds—and, above all, of what he had helped to make Europe. A man who wanted to sell munitions, who wanted all the nations of the earth to spend their incomes upon munitions, but who didn’t want any munitions shot off—at least not anywhere within his own hearing! Unaccountably the shooting continued, Europe seemed to be going from bad to worse, and Zaharoff’s conversation revealed that he trusted nobody in power and had very little hope of anything.
A bitter, sad old man, he felt his powers waning, and had hidden himself away from dangers. He would soon be gone; and did he worry about where he was going? Or was it about what was going to become of his possessions? He mourned his beloved Spanish duquesa of the many names. Did he contemplate the possibility of being reunited to her? Lanny had something to say to him on that subject, but must wait until the two traders had got through with their duel of wits.
IV
It was Robbie Budd who had sought this interview, and he who would have to say what he had come for. Zaharoff, while waiting, would be gravely interested in what Robbie had to tell about the state of Wall Street and the great American financial world. The visitor was optimistic, sure that the clouds would soon blow over. Lanny knew that his father really believed that, but would Zaharoff believe that he believed it? No, the Greek would think that Robbie, having something to sell, was playing the optimist. Zaharoff, the prospective buyer, was a pessimist.
At last Robbie saw fit to get down to business. He explained that his father was very old, and the cares of the Budd enterprise might soon be on Robbie’s shoulders. Budd’s was largely out of munitions; it was making everything from needles to freight elevators. Robbie would no longer be in a position to travel—in short, he and his friends were looking for someone to take the New England-Arabian shares off their hands at a reasonable figure.
There it was; and Zaharoff’s pessimism assumed the hues of the nethermost stage of Dante’s inferno. The world was in a most horrible state; the Arabians were on the point of declaring a jihad and wiping out every European on their vast desolate hot peninsula; Zaharoff himself was a feeble old man, his doctors had given him final warning, he must avoid every sort of responsibility and strain—in short, he couldn’t buy anything, and didn’t have t
he cash anyhow.
A flat turn-down; but Lanny had heard a Levantine trader talk, and knew that Zaharoff’s real purpose and desire would not be revealed until the last minute, when his two guests had their hats in their hands, perhaps when they were outside the front door. Meanwhile they mustn’t show that they knew this; they mustn’t betray disappointment; they must go on chatting, as if it didn’t really mean very much to them, as if Robbie Budd had crossed the ocean to have one more look at Zaharoff’s blue eyes, or perhaps at his very fine Ingres.
It was time for Lanny to mention the paintings, which he had been invited to inspect. He asked if he might stroll about the room, and the Knight Commander and Grand Officer rose from his seat and strolled with him, pointing out various details. Lanny said: “You know I am interested in the value of paintings, that being my business.” The remark gave no offense; quite the contrary. The old man told the prices, which he had at his fingertips: a hundred thousand francs for this Fragonard, a hundred and fifty thousand for that David. “Before-the-war francs,” he added.
They went into the great library, a magnificent room with a balcony all around it, having heavy bronze railings. Then they inspected the dining-room, in which was a startling Goya, the portrait of an abnormally tall and thin Spanish gentleman wearing brilliant-colored silks with much lace and jewelry. “An ancestor of my wife,” remarked the old man. “She didn’t care for it much; she found it cynical.”
An opening which Lanny had been waiting for. “By the way, Sir Basil, here is something which might interest you. Have you ever tried any experiments with mediums?”
“Spiritualist mediums, you mean? Why do you ask?”
“Because of something strange which has been happening in our family. My stepfather interested my mother in the subject, and in New York they found a Polish woman with whom they held séances, and she gave them such convincing results that we brought her to the Riviera with us, and she has become a sort of member of our family.”
“You think she brings you messages from—” The old man stopped, as if hesitating to say “the dead.”
“We get innumerable messages from what claim to be spirits, and they tell us things which astonish us, because we cannot see how this old and poorly educated Polish woman can possibly have had any means of finding them out.”
“There is a vast system of fraud of that sort, I have been told,” said the cautious Greek.
“I know, Sir Basil; and if this were an alert-minded woman, I might think it possible. But she is dull and quite unenterprising. How could she possibly have known that the duquesa was fond of tulips, and the names of the varieties she showed me?”
“What?” exclaimed the host.
“She mentioned the names Bybloem and Bizarre, and spoke of Turkestan, though she didn’t get it as the name of a tulip. She even gave me a very good description of the garden of your town house, and the number fifty-three. She was trying to get Avenue Hoche, but could only get the H.”
Lanny had never before seen this cautious old man reveal such emotion. Evidently a secret spring had been touched. “Sit down,” he said, and they took three of the dining-room chairs. “Is this really true, Lanny?”
“Indeed it is. I have the records of a hundred or more sittings.”
“This concerns me deeply, because of late years I have had very strange feelings, as if my wife was in the room and trying to communicate with me. I have told myself that it could only be the product of my own grief and loneliness. I don’t need to tell you how I felt about her.”
“No, Sir Basil, I have always understood; the little I saw of her was enough to convince me that she was a lovely person.”
“Six years have passed, and my sorrow has never diminished. Tell me—where is this Polish woman?” When Lanny explained about the yacht, he wanted to know: “Do you suppose it would be possible for me to have a séance with her?”
“It could be arranged some time, without doubt. We should be deeply interested in the results.”
V
For half an hour or more the rich but unhappy old man sat asking questions about Madame Zyszynski and her procedure. Lanny explained the curious obligation of pretending to believe in an Iroquois Indian chieftain who spoke with a Polish accent. No easy matter for an intellectual person to take such a thing seriously; but Lanny told about a lady who had been his amie for many years prior to her death; she had sent him messages, including little details such as two lovers remember, but which would have no meaning for others: the red-and-white-striped jacket of the servant who attended them in the inn where they had spent their first night, the pear and apricot trees against the walls of the lady’s garden. Such things might have come out of Lanny’s subconscious mind, but even so, it was a curious experience to have somebody dig them up.
“I would like very much to try the experiment,” said Zaharoff. “When do you think it could be arranged?”
“I will have to consult my mother and my stepfather. The yacht is on the way from Cannes to Bremen, and the plan is to go from there to America and return in the autumn. If you go to Monte Carlo next winter, we could bring Madame over to you.”
“That is a long time to wait. Would it not be possible for me to bring her here for at least a trial? Perhaps the yacht may be stopping in the Channel?”
“We expect to stop on the English coast, perhaps at Portsmouth or Dover.”
“If so, I would gladly send someone to England to bring her to me. I would expect to pay her, you understand.”
“There is no need of that. We are taking care of her, and she is satisfied, so it would be better not to raise the question.”
“This might mean a great deal to me, Lanny. If I thought that I was in contact with my wife, and that I had some chance of seeing her again, it would give me more happiness than anything I can think of.” There was a pause, as if a retired munitions king needed a violent effort to voice such feelings. “I have met no one in any way approaching her. You have heard, perhaps, that I waited thirty-four years to marry her, and then she was spared to me barely eighteen months.”
Lanny knew that Zaharoff and the duquesa had been living together during all those thirty-four years; but this was not to be mentioned. A young free lance could mention casually that he had had an amie, but the richest man in Europe had to look out for chantage and scandal-mongers—especially when the lady’s insane husband had been a cousin to the King of Spain!
“If you want to make a convincing test,” continued Lanny, “it would be better not to let Madame Zyszynski know whom she is to meet. She rarely asks questions, either before or after a sitting. She will say: ‘Did you get good results?’ and if you tell her: ‘Very good,’ she is satisfied. I should advise meeting her in some hotel room, with nothing to give her any clue.”
“Listen, my boy,” said the old man, with more eagerness than Lanny had ever seen him display in the sixteen years of their acquaintance, “if you will make it possible for me to see this woman in the next few days, I will come to any place on the French coast that you name.”
“In that case I think I can promise to arrange it. I am to fly and join the yacht at Lisbon, and as soon as I can set a date, I will telegraph you. In the meantime, say nothing, and my father and I will be the only persons in the secret. I will tell my mother that I have a friend who wants to make a private test; and to Madame I won’t say even that.”
VI
To this long conversation Robbie Budd had listened in silence. He didn’t believe in a hereafter, but he believed in giving the old spider, the old gray wolf, the old devil, whatever would entertain him and put him under obligations to the Budd family. When they rose to leave, Zaharoff turned to him and said: “About those shares: would you like me to see if some of my old-time associates would be interested in them?”
“Certainly, Sir Basil.”
“If you will send me the necessary data concerning the company—”
“I have the whole set-up with me.” Robbie pointed to
his briefcase. “I have thirty-five thousand shares at my disposal.”
“Are you prepared to put a price on them?”
“We are asking a hundred and twenty dollars a share. That represents exactly the amount of the investment.”
“But you have had generous profits, have you not?”
“Not excessive, in view of the period of time and the work that I have put in on it.”
“People are glad to get back the half of their investment these days, Mr. Budd.”
“Surely not in oil, Sir Basil.”
“Well, leave the documents with me, and I’ll see what I can do and let you hear in the next few days.”
They took their leave; and in their car returning to Paris, Robbie said: “Son, that was an inspiration! How did you think of it?”
“Well, it happened, and I thought he’d want to know.”
“That business about the tulips really happened?”
“Of course.”
“It was certainly most convenient. If that woman can convince him that the duquesa is sending him messages, there’s nothing he won’t do. We may get our price.”
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