The Transgression of Andrew Vane/Chapter VI

“I’ve passed the window every day for a week,” continued Monsieur Jules Vicot, “because I hardly thought you were in earnest in your threat to throw me over, and when I saw the jar there again, this morning, I found I was quite right. You’d thought better of it — eh? You wanted to see me. It’s just as well, perhaps — for both of us.”
 * Chapter VI. A Revolt Suppressed.

There was a suggestion of defiance in his tone which contrasted curiously with the tremor of his hand, as he lit a cigarette.

“I might have taken the liberty of calling on one of your Thursdays, without any summons,” he added, as Radwalader made no reply. As he spoke, he glanced up, met the other’s steady eyes, and immediately looked away again.

“It doesn’t do to push a partner too far,” he concluded, with the hint of a whine.

There was a long pause, which was evidently extremely disconcerting to Monsieur Vicot. He removed his cigarette from his lips several times, and as often replaced it, his hand trembling violently. Radwalader never took his eyes from him, but sat, smiling slightly, with his elbow resting on the arm of his chair, and his hand raised and open. There was not a quiver in his fingers, a fact which was duly noted, as it was intended to be, by his companion.

“Have you lost your tongue?” demanded the latter presently, with manifest irritation.

“Oh, by no means, my excellent Jules,” answered Radwalader, easily. “I was simply reflecting how I might submit a few facts for your consideration in a manner which would render a repetition of the communication unnecessary. There seems to be some misunderstanding. I think I’m not slow to appreciate another’s meaning. I make bold to suppose that you desire to intimidate me?”

Monsieur Vicot fidgeted uneasily, discarded his cigarette, lit another, shrugged his shoulders, and gripped the arms of his chair.

“I think it’s time we understood each other,” resumed Radwalader, still smiling. “It’s long since we spoke of certain things — trivialities, maybe, such as forgery, theft, and blackmail—”

“As to blackmail—” put in the other, with an attempt at bravado.

“Exactly,” agreed Radwalader. “You’re about to say that we’re in the same boat. So we are, but not — to quote the old epigram — but not with the same skulls. I’m not a fool, my good Jules. You are. I walk in the bed of running streams, you in fresh-fallen snow. The inference is plain. My hold upon you is in black and white, and deposited, as you know, in my safe-deposit vault at the bank. It’s as comforting as an insurance policy. In case of my sudden disappearance—”

“Oh, chuck it!” said Vicot.

“Whereas your hold upon me,” swerved off Radwalader pleasantly, “also as you know, is as substantial as the cigarette-ash you’ve just flicked upon my carpet.”

“Chuck that, too,” put in Vicot, sullenly. “What’s the use of all this talk? You’ve the whip-hand, Radwalader, and you know it.”

“Then remember it, by God!” exclaimed the other. His assumption of smiling pleasantly was gone like a wisp of smoke. He had risen suddenly, and, with his fist clenched on the table-edge, was leaning over his companion as if he would crush him by the very force of his personality. His steel-blue eyes had hardened, and at the corners of his lips hovered a sneering smirk which suggested a panther.

“Then remember it,” he reiterated, “and remember it for all time! What I say, I say once. After that — I act. You snivelling drunkard! You wretched, nerve-racked lump of bluff! You threaten me? Did you suppose I’d forgotten that I could have sent you to the galleys five years ago, just because I haven’t mentioned the fact since then? Do you imagine I can’t send you there now? Do you think I’d hesitate for a wink about throwing you overboard, body and soul, if I didn’t find you useful? Do you fancy I’m afraid of you? God! What a maggot it is! Look at those hands, you whelp! I’ve seen you grovel, and I’ve heard you whine, and what a man will do once he’ll do again under like conditions. It’s too late for you to pit your will against mine, my friend! You gave yourself away five years ago, when first I put on the thumbscrews, and I know at just which turn of them you’re going to whimper again!”

To all appearance, the white heat of Radwalader’s passion was gone as suddenly as it had come. With the last words, his face resumed its normal expression of placidity, and, before he continued, he began to pace slowly up and down the room, with his thumbs in the pockets of his trousers. Vicot had made no motion, save, at the other’s contemptuous reference to his hands, to fold his arms. Now he sank a little farther into his chair, and, under lowered lids, his eyes slid to and fro, following his companion’s march.

“If you didn’t understand the situation before,” resumed Radwalader, “it’s probable that you do now. As it happens, I don’t fear God, man, or devil; but even if I were as timid as a rabbit, I wouldn’t fear you! You’re a convenience, that’s all — an instrument to do that part of my work which is a trifle too dirty for a gentleman’s hands. So long as you do it to my satisfaction, I see fit to pay you, and pay you well; and you’re free to drink like the swine you are, and go to the devil your own way. But the indispensable man doesn’t exist, my good Jules, and the moment you kick over the traces, out you go! I discarded you last month because I don’t like people who listen at doors, even if I’m not fool enough to give them an opportunity of hearing anything. If I’ve chosen to call for you again, it’s simply that I’ve work for you, and assuredly not because I’m in any fear of consequences. Pray get that into your head as speedily, and keep it there as long, as possible. There are plenty of others to take your place. As for partners, you’re as much mine as the coyote is the wolf’s, and no more. So you’ve said enough on that point.”

“What’s the job?” put in Vicot, as the other paused.

“If you haven’t forgotten certain things in the past few weeks, you know what it means when I sit close to one man and talk only to him whenever you’re in the room.”

“Never to forget his face,” answered Vicot, as if responding to a question in the catechism. “Is it another game of shadow?”

“To an extent, yes. But it will be more in the open than usual. You won’t have to skulk. Do you think you can accustom yourself to the change?”

“Get on!” said Vicot impatiently. “I suppose it’s the young chap?”

“Yes. He’s to take Remson Peake’s apartment, in all probability — or some other. And you, my excellent Jules, are to be his valet de chambre.”

“Humph!” commented the other, without any evidence of surprise. “And the pay?”

“What’s usual from him, I suppose,” said Radwalader, “and from me double.”

“Say three hundred francs a month, all told?”

“About that.”

Radwalader seated himself again, and, leaning forward, continued more earnestly, making a little church and steeple of his linked fingers.

“First, visitors — their names, or, if not that, their appearance, as accurately as possible. Next, letters — both incoming and outgoing — particularly the latter. Steam them, and take copies whenever it seems best. Keep an eye especially on anything relating to — well, to women in general. If any come to the apartment, make good use of your remarkable faculty for eavesdropping, which was so lamentably misapplied here. Keep your hands off his tobacco and wine. Be respectful. Get him to talk as much as possible, and remember what he says. Stay sober — if you can. And report to me immediately if anything important turns up.”

“When do I begin?”

“I can’t tell. In a few days, probably. I’ll let you know.”

Vicot rose slowly.

“What a blackguard you are, Radwalader!” he said, almost admiringly.

“That’s not the greatest compliment I’ve known you to pay me,” drawled Radwalader. “Imitation is the sincerest flattery.”

The other poured himself another half-glass of whiskey, set it on the table-edge, and stood looking down at it.

“And I was once a gentleman!” he said.

“Oh, don’t get maudlin,” answered Radwalader. “We were all of us something unprofitable once. The main fact, by your own confession, is that, as a gentleman, you couldn’t make enough to keep body and soul together; and that, as a scalawag, you can turn over three hundred francs a month. The world is full of gentlemen. They’re a drug on the market. But accomplished scoundrels are rare, my good Vicot.”

“You’ll have a deal to answer for one of these days, Radwalader.”

Radwalader shrugged his shoulders.

“One never has to answer so long as there are no questions asked,” he said flippantly. “You’d better take your tipple and go home. Preaching doesn’t become you in the least degree.”

“I want to know,” said Vicot slowly, taking up his glass, “what you mean to do. I’ve pulled many a chestnut out of the fire for you, Radwalader, and if I haven’t burned my fingers in doing it, I’ve soiled them enough, God knows. You haven’t any scruple about calling me names, and I take your insults because I’d starve to death if I didn’t. But I’ve a conscience, and it cuts me, now and again.”

“Bank-notes make good court-plaster,” observed Radwalader.

“Yes, but there are some things which I’ve done that I won’t do again. I don’t want to be mixed up in another affair like that of young Baxter. Do you ever think of that morning at the Morgue?”

“I wasn’t made to look backward,” said Radwalader. “Providence put my eyes in the front of my head, and I know how to take a hint.”

“Well, I think of it — often,” said Vicot, with something like a shudder. “He repaid me in my own coin, that boy. If I shadowed him in his life, he shadows me in his death. Even brandy doesn’t blot him out of my mind. When I shut my eyes at night, I can see him, sitting in that ghastly chair, with his face, all purple, looking through the cloudy glass — as truly murdered by us who stood looking at him, as if we had pitched him into the lake at Auteuil with our own hands!”

“Oh, rot!” exclaimed Radwalader. “You know what that means, don’t you? Other men see centipedes and blue rats: you see Baxter, that’s all. Cut off the liquor, and you won’t know there ever was such a thing as a Morgue. Baxter was a silly ass. He tried to do things with ten thousand francs that a sane man wouldn’t attempt with a hundred. I let him go his pace, and I was as surprised as the next chap when I found how short his rope was. I held his notes for double the amount he had in the beginning. Did I come down on his family for them, after he chose the easiest way of evading payment? Not a bit of it. I burned them.”

“Policy,” commented Vicot briefly.

“Is the best honesty,” supplemented Radwalader. “He was daft on baccarat, and if he had to lose, why not to me as well as another? And a man who drowns himself for ten thousand francs isn’t worth considering.”

He crossed to the piano, and, seating himself, let his fingers stray up and down the keyboard through a maze of curiously intermingling minor chords. Then he began to hum softly, looking up, with his eyes half-closed, as if trying to recall the words. After a moment, he struck a final note, low in the bass, and, with his foot on the pedal, listened until the sound died down to silence.

“I want to know what you mean to do,” reiterated Vicot obstinately.

“Well, you won’t, and that’s flat. The job is for you to take or leave, as you see fit. Only I want yes or no, and, after that, no more talk. I’m a hard man to make angry, but you’ve done it once to-day, and that’s once too often for your good. Why, what are you thinking of, man? You’ve known me for five years. Did you ever see me hesitate or back down? Did you ever find a screw loose in my work, or so much as a scrap of paper to incriminate me? Did you ever know me to leave a footprint in the mud we’ve been through together — or let you leave one either, for that matter? A man like you would land in Mazas inside of a week, if he tinkered with business like mine, without a head like mine to guide him! Look here. You’ve been useful to me, Vicot, and, though you’ve been paid enough to make us quits, I’m not ungrateful to you in my own way. Continue to stick by me and I’ll stick by you. Throw it all over, if you will, and you can go your way, with a handsome present to boot. But let me hear any more of such drivel as you’ve given me to-day, and, as God lives, my man, I’ll smooch you off the face of the earth, as I’d smooch a green caterpillar off a page of my book! You’d be a smear of slime, my friend, and nothing more — and I’d turn the page, and go on reading!”

Radwalader had not raised his tone, as on the former occasion, or even risen, but his voice rasped the silence of the salon like a diamond on thin glass.

“Is it yes, or no?” he added.

Vicot swallowed the spirit in his glass, and looked across at him with his eyes watering and blinking.

“You know which,” he said.

“Say it!”

“It’s yes,” said Vicot sulkily; “but if I wasn’t the cur I am, I’d tell you to go to hell — you and all your works!”

Radwalader closed the piano gently.

“If it affords you any satisfaction to hear it,” he answered, rising with a yawn, “I think it likely that the injunction is entirely superfluous. We sha’n’t gain anything by prolonging this interview. It’s four minutes to six, and I must dress for dinner. When I want you, I’ll stick the blue jar in the window. Meanwhile, here’s fifty francs on account. I’ll get Mr. Vane to pay you in advance.”

Vicot stood silent for a moment, the bill crackling as he folded it between his trembling fingers.

“Is that his name?” he asked.

“That’s his name. Au revoir.”

And Radwalader went to the window, flung it open, and drew a deep breath of the soft, spring-evening air. A girl was selling violets on the corner, and he beckoned to her, and bought a bunch of Palmas, leaning down from the sill to take them. Plunging his face into the fragrant purple mass, he dropped a two-franc piece into her hand with a gesture which bade her keep the coin.

“Comme monsieur est bon!” said the girl, smiling up at him.

Only one other figure was in sight, that of Monsieur Jules Vicot, with his head bent, and his hands in his pockets, turning, at a snail’s pace, into the Avenue Victor Hugo. From him Radwalader’s eyes came back to the face of the flower-girl.

“You were just in time,” he said, with his nose among the violets. “The air was getting a little close.”

Then he shut the window, leaving her looking up, smiling, and wrinkling her forehead at the same time, and went back into his bedroom, whistling “Au Clair de la Lune.”