The Launching of Roger Brook

by Dennis Wheatley

  ‘Voilà!’ said De Roubec, eyeing him quizzically. ‘I’ll wager there’s little to choose for naughtiness between them, but take your pick.’

  As Roger hesitated the Chevalier leaned forward and catching a short, dark, plump girl by the wrist drew her towards him. With a laugh she fell into his lap and putting her arms round his neck kissed him, leaving the red imprint of her lower lip just below his mouth.

  ‘And what is your name, my pretty?’ he asked.

  ‘Fifi,’ she replied gaily. ‘And yours?’

  ‘Etienne,’ he smiled. ‘Come now, a glass of wine, and you shall tell me your life’s history. I doubt not that you are the daughter of a Marquis, or a Count at the least, and ran away from home with some handsome young buck who betrayed you?’

  Roger still hesitated while the other girls clamoured round him. He did not particularly fancy any of them, but he saw that he must choose one if only to be rid of the rest, so he smiled and beckoned to a slim, fair-haired girl who looked a little more refined than her companions and attracted him on account of her colouring and figure.

  She saw at once that he was nervous and so did not embarrass him by kissing him at once, but quietly took the chair next to his and poured herself some wine. The others instantly stopped laughing and posturing before the table and with sullen looks at not having been chosen moved away.

  Fifi was saying to De Roubec: ‘You are wrong, cheri, I am just one of the people—the people who will rule France one day. I am a Marseillaise and my father was a fisherman. I was brought up in a hovel and when I was thirteen, times were so bad that he sold me to a brothel-keeper.’

  Roger turned his attention to his own companion and asked her name.

  ‘They call me Mou-Mou here,’ she replied, ‘and it serves as well as any other. By what name would you like me to call you?’

  ‘My name is Roger,’ he said at once.

  ‘Rojé,’ she repeated, ‘that is a nice name. Monsieur is a foreigner, is he not?’

  ‘Yes, English. And you, mam’selle? You are French, of course, but are you a native of these parts?’

  She shook her fair head. ‘No, monsieur, I am a Flamande. My husband brought me here from Antwerp in his ship; but he left again without doing me the courtesy of saying good-bye. I had no money and here I am.’

  ‘What a monstrous thing to do,’ Roger exclaimed in quick sympathy.

  The corners of her hard mouth turned down in a cynical little smile. ‘He was not really my husband; but I had had a child by him and hoped that he might make me his wife one day. But why should I bore you with my past misfortunes? Drink up your wine and tell me some naughty stories.’

  Roger had never told a dirty story to a woman in his life and he would have felt embarrassed about doing so now, even if his French had been up to it, and he excused himself on that account.

  Fifi was continuing her story for De Roubec’s benefit, and both the others turned to listen to her.

  ‘A young journalist bought me out of the brothel. He gave me a good home and taught me about politics. Ah, he was clever; but too clever for our happiness in the end. He wrote a lampoon on the Queen, and the seventy thousand louis of the people’s money that she had frittered away in a single year by gambling. The agents of Monsieur de Crosne seized him and carried him off to one of the dungeons in the Château D’If. Poor wretch, he is there still for all I know. As for myself, I took up with a bos’un in the Navy, and he brought me here as a stowaway; but the officers found us out. They had him tied to a grating and gave him two hundred lashes—the brutes, and put me ashore. Then a pimp got hold of me and sold me to Madame, here, for a hundred francs’

  ‘Perchance someone else may take a fancy to you and buy you out,’ remarked De Roubec.

  She shrugged. ‘Who would want me for a keep after five years of this? I’ve little doubt now but that I’ll die as I was born—in a ditch. But the good God may grow tired of Queens so mayhap Marie Antoinette will die in a ditch, too. In the meantime, I have no complaints. Madame is no more greedy and harsh than others of her kind, and I console myself for my lot by enjoying myself when I am fancied by a handsome gentleman like you. Come, Monsieur Etienne, now you have heard my story let us join the dance.’

  As they stood up Mou-Mou laid her hand on Roger’s and said: ‘Would you not like to dance, too?’

  The big room was stifling hot and heavy with the reek of cheap perfume, mingled with even less pleasant odours. Her fingers were slightly clammy yet he did not like to offend her by disengaging his hand; but he shook his head. The last thing he desired was to enter the bacchanalian mêlée in the middle of the floor and be kissed and mauled by the painted harridans dancing there.

  ‘What lovely eyes thou bast, Rojé,’ she said suddenly, and adopting the tu-toi towards him. ‘They would be worth a fortune to any woman.’

  He gave an embarrassed grin. ‘You have very nice eyes yourself.’

  ‘Merci’ she smiled. ‘I am so glad thou chosest me. So many of the men who come here are middle-aged and horrid; and a girl can give so much more of herself to a young man like thyself. Tell me, hast thou loved many girls? But no, I do not think thou can’st have, as yet.’

  He was spared a reply by the arrival of the hunchbacked waiter at their table. The man picked up the bottle which was now empty and looked at Roger interrogatively: ‘Encore, Monsieur?’

  Mou-Mou nodded for him and a few minutes later the waiter put a second bottle on the table for which, as De Roubec was still dancing, Roger had to pay.

  As it was being opened a little girl aged about twelve came up to them. She was dressed as Cupid and suspended by blue ribbons from her shoulders carried a tray of sweets.

  Roger was shocked by the sight of a child in such surroundings and repelled by the wicked knowing look in her prematurely aged face, but Mou-Mou said at once: ‘Please, Rojé, buy me some bon-bons.’

  He obliged and bought her a box for the outrageous price of five francs; upon which she put her arm round his neck and kissed him on his cheek. Her breath smelt faintly of garlic, but he did not like to draw away from her.

  After a moment, she said: ‘Thou do’st not like it here? Am I not right? Come up to my room with me; or if thou preferrest we will command a salon privé where we can sup together.’

  ‘No, not—not yet,’ he stammered. ‘Let us wait until my friend comes back.’ But when he looked again at the dancers he saw that De Roubec and Fifi had already left the room.

  Mou-Mou had also noticed that De Roubec was no longer among the whirling, stamping crowd, and she said: ‘Thy friend has gone upstairs with Fifi. Come, Rojé, or Madame will give me a beating for wasting my time. Which would’st thou prefer, my room or supper first in a salon privé?’

  8

  The Disposal of the Jewels

  Roger felt desperately ill at ease. He thought Mou-Mou a kind girl and was deeply sorry for her. The last thing he wished to do was to put a slight upon her and get her into trouble with Madame, yet he had no inclination to make love to her. In other surroundings and less heavily painted she might have passed in a crowd as quite attractive. But closer inspection showed that her fair hair was coarse and brittle; it was really mousey, as showed near the roots where it had grown since she had last dyed it. Her hands, though small, were fat and the nails had been bitten down. The garlic on her breath seemed to increase in pungency each time she leaned towards him. There were deep shadows under her eyes and her cheeks had a flaccid, unhealthy look. Her pleasant manner, soft voice and youth saved her from being actually repugnant to him but she was a little moulting water-hen compared to a beautiful white swan by contrast with Georgina, and the whole business seemed to him forced and sordid.

  He wished now that he had pleaded tiredness and said that he wanted to go home, while De Roubec was still with them, but now that he had gone off with Fifi he might be away for an hour, and Roger had not the courage to walk out on his own from fear of precipitating a row. Seeking to put off the unpl
easant decision that he knew he would soon be forced to take, he said:

  ‘Before we go let’s finish our wine.’

  Mou-Mou shrugged and poured him another glass. ‘As thou wilst. ’Tis not very good, though, and too much of it is apt to give one the wind, so I beg thee to excuse me.’

  They sat silent for a few moments, then she said quietly:

  ‘At least, Rojé, thou mightest make up thy mind if thou would’st sup or no, as if so I will order it.’

  It was on the tip of his tongue to say ‘Yes,’ as supping with her would gain him another postponement, but he remembered in time that the cost of the meal would prove too severe a strain on his slender resources. If a box of bonbons cost five francs supper might easily run him into a couple of louis.

  ‘No,’ he blurted out. ‘Thank you, but I’m not hungry. I’d rather go up to your room.’

  Now that the decision was taken he felt somewhat better about it, and endeavoured to get as much enjoyment as possible out of his wine which, although sweet and insipid, he did not find unpalatable. But directly he set down his glass she stood up and, instinctively, he stood up with her.

  Having skirted the dancers they went out into the passage and she led the way upstairs. The salon had been shoddy enough but the upper part of the house seemed like a decayed tenement. Above the first floor the staircase was not carpeted and each of the three flights they ascended grew narrower and more rickety. As he followed her up he saw by the faint light coming from under the ill-fitting doors of the rooms they passed that her shoes were worn down and turned over, and he caught glimpses of rat-holes in the bottom of the wainscoting.

  At last, as he paused breathless behind her on a dark and narrow landing, she threw open a door, fumbled for a tinder box, lit two candles and called over her shoulder: ‘Come in, cheri.’

  On entering he saw that her bedroom was an attic in a state of repellent filth and disorder. The shaded candles which were on a small dressing-table before a low window, shone on a jumble of rouge pots, hares’ feet and soiled face-cloths. The bed was a divan on which the coverings were already rumpled and a half-filled chamber-pot stood unconcealed in one corner. The room looked larger than it actually was owing to a huge mirror that occupied the whole of its one unbroken wall, but it smelt abominably of stale scent and seemed the very antithesis of the sort of place that anyone would have chosen in which to make love.

  ‘Please forgive the untidiness,’ Mou-Mou said, on seeing the look of repugnance on his face. ‘I have to share this chamber with another girl. We use it turn and turn about, and she is a veritable slut; but I will soon make thee forget all about that.’

  As she spoke she undid a single hook at the top of her bodice and her striped blue and white frock slid to the ground revealing her stark naked.

  There was a big bluish bruise on one of her hips and a vivid scar disfigured her stomach. She held out her arms to Roger but he knew now that he could not go through with it. His whole soul revolted at the very thought of touching her.

  Swiftly turning his back he pulled out his purse and by the light of the candles fished a guinea from it. Tossing the coin down on the bed he turned, wrenched open the door and fled from the room.

  He had hardly gained the stairs before she had sprung out on to the landing after him.

  ‘Come back!’ she cried. ‘Of what are you afraid? How dare you treat me thus! Ce n’est pas gentil!’

  Then, as he did not heed her, she began to shrill in louder tones: ‘A moi! A moi! We have a rat in the house! Stop him! Bar the door!’

  Blindly Roger crashed his way down the rickety stairs as though all the devils in hell were behind him. By the time he reached the second landing doors were opening on every side and heads poking out to see what all the commotion was about. Mou-Mou’s cries, now mingled with the foulest abuse, had roused the house. The doors of the salon were flung aside and the ‘Widow Scarron’ came lumbering through it followed by half a score of her girls and patrons.

  As Roger made to dive past her she grabbed him by the arm and with surprising strength jerked him towards her whilst screaming obscenities in his ear.

  ‘Let me go!’ he yelled. ‘Damn you! Let me go!’ and wrenching himself free he bounded towards the last flight of stairs.

  ‘Zadig!’ she shouted over his shoulder. ‘En garde! Don’t let him go until he has paid! A louis, and no less! Do you hear?’ And Roger saw that he now had to get past the big negro down in the hall.

  For an instant he thought of drawing his sword and attempting to fight his way out into the street, but he realised at once that in such confined quarters he would have little space to use it. Zadig was half crouching there below him with a stout cudgel held ready in his hand, and with bitter fury Roger realised that unless he wanted a smashed pate he must pay up. Pulling forth his purse again he counted out eight crowns and thrust them into the hand of the negro.

  ‘And one for me, Monsieur,’ said Zadig, now grinning from ear to ear once more.

  Hastily Roger paid the toll, and the big black unbarred the door.

  Out in the street he gulped in the fresh air with indescribable relief; but he had not yet either felt or smelt the last results of his unpremeditated visit to this house of ill-fame. Mou-Mou, whom he had thought so kindhearted and of better instincts than her companions, was waiting for him at her attic window. Immediately he appeared in the street below, with a gutter-bred yell of derision, she emptied the contents of her chamber-pot out on to his head.

  The main douche missed him by a couple of feet but he was splashed by the disgusting mess from head to foot and took to his heels with rage and hatred in his heart. The length of the sword proved his final undoing as he had covered only a hundred yards down the nearest side-turning when it got between his legs and sent him a cropper into the gutter.

  Picking himself up with a curse he went on more slowly, but his night’s adventures were far from over as, having walked the length of two short streets which he thought would bring him to the Arsenal, he then discovered that he was hopelessly lost and had not the faintest idea how to get back to Les Trois Fleur-de-Lys.

  In those times the civic authorities had not yet taken upon themselves the responsibility for either maintaining a proper street-lighting system or for clearing away refuse. The only light came from dimly burning lanterns on occasional street corners or over the porches of the richer private houses, and most of the latter were extinguished when their inmates went to bed. At this hour long canyons of pitch blackness separated the widely-dispersed little pools of yellow light; so the midnight wayfarer had to grope his way from one to another, as best he could, through pavementless streets often so narrow as to permit the passage of one coach only at a time and all littered by the accumulation of household rubbish that had been thrown out into the gutters.

  Few honest citizens ever ventured out at night, unless compelled to do so, and Roger knew that the only people he was likely to meet were drunken roisterers or lurking thieves, so it would be an added peril to show himself unnecessarily and there would be a certain risk in asking his way of anyone he might come upon.

  The cool night air had at first refreshed him after the sickly heat of the brothel, but it now began to affect him unexpectedly, and he realised that owing to his having consumed the best part of a bottle of indifferent champagne he was now a little drunk.

  Pulling himself together on the corner of the street which he had believed would bring him back to the Arsenal he decided that, although it had already been dark when he left the inn with De Roubec if he could regain the waterfront he should be able to find his way back. After trying two streets he came out on a quay and turned in what he believed to be the right direction. The faint sound of violins caught his ear and soon guided him back to the ‘Widow Scarron’s’. Giving the house a wide berth he continued onward but, having visited Monsieur Tricot’s gaming-rooms before going to the brothel had confused him in his bearings, so he was now actually walking away from
the inn instead of towards it.

  The docks and quays of Le Havre are very extensive so he went on quite confidently for some twenty minutes before he began to suspect that he had somehow gone wrong. Now and then he had heard footsteps in the distance or seen a lurking figure momentarily emerge from the shadows, but nobody had attempted to molest him as, in the gloom, with his long sword sticking out from under the skirts of his coat he had the appearance of a well-armed, if somewhat short, man. But now he felt that he simply must chance an encounter to find out where he was and, some five minutes la coming on a party of sailors belatedly returning to their ship, he hailed them in as gruff a voice as he could manage. To his relief, though hilariously tipsy, they proved friendly enough and gave him verbose directions how to find the Bassin Vauban.

  At length, fairly sober again now, but tired and still seething with anger at his night’s misadventures, he recognised the sign of Les Trois Fleur-de-Lys. Then, with the cessation of his own footsteps as he paused before the door he heard others, and realised that someone must have been walking along behind him. Turning, he looked in the direction from which he had come and saw a lanky figure approaching. With a fresh wave of anger he recognised De Roubec, the author of all his troubles.

  After a moment the Chevalier saw him too, and his greeting showed that he was in an equally ill humour. ‘So ’tis you, my little cock without spurs,’ he remarked acidly. ‘Methought that failing a mother to tuck you up in bed you would have gone to spend the night in a convent.’