Soames went a special colour. Since his employment of Mr Polteed, who had caught him visiting his own wife’s bedroom in Paris, at the beginning of the century, the word detective produced a pain in his diaphragm. He dropped the subject. And yet, without detectives, what was he to do?
One night, Winifred having gone to the theatre, he sat down with a cigar, to think. He had been provided by Michael with a list of ‘advanced’ books and plays which ‘modern’ people were reading, attending and discussing. He had even been supplied with one of the books: Canthar, by Perceval Calvin. He fetched it from his bedroom, and, turning up a lamp, opened the volume. After reading the first few pages, in which he could see nothing, he turned to the end and read backwards. In this way he could skip better, and each erotic passage, to which he very soon came, led him insensibly on to the one before it. He had reached the middle of the novel, before he had resort in wonder to the tide-pages. How was it that the publisher and author were at large? Ah! The imprint was of a foreign nature. Soames breathed more freely. Though sixty-nine, and neither judge, juryman nor otherwise professionally compelled to be shocked, he was shaken. If women were reading this sort of thing, then there really was no distinction between men and women nowadays. He took up the book again, and read steadily on to the beginning. The erotic passages alone interested him. The rest seemed rambling, disconnected stuff. He rested again. What was this novel written for? To make money, of course. But was there another purpose? Was the author one of these ‘artist’ fellows who thought that to give you ‘life’ – wasn’t that the phrase? they must put down every visit to a bedroom, and some besides? ‘Art for Art’s sake’, ‘realism’ – what did they call it? In Soames’s comparatively bleak experience ‘life’ did not consist wholly of visiting bedrooms, so that he was unable to admit that this book was life, the whole of life, and nothing but life. ‘Calvin’s a crank, sir,’ Michael had said, when he handed him the novel. ‘He thinks people can’t become continent except through being excessively incontinent; so he shows his hero and heroine arriving gradually at continence.’ ‘At Bedlam,’ thought Soames. They would see what a British jury had to say to that, anyway. But how elicit a confession that this woman and her set had read it with gusto? And then an idea occurred to him, so brilliant that he had to ponder deeply before he could feel any confidence in it. These ‘advanced’ young people had any amount of conceit; everyone who didn’t share their views was a ‘dud’, or a ‘grundy’. Suppose the book were attacked in the Press, wouldn’t it draw their fire? And if their fire could be drawn in print, could it not be used afterwards as evidence of their views on morality? H’m! This would want very nice handling. And first of all, how was he to prove that Marjorie Ferrar had read this book? Thus casting about him, Soames was rewarded by another brilliant thought: Young Butterfield – who had helped him to prove the guilt of Elderson in that matter of the P.P.R.S. and owed his place at Danby & Winter’s, the publishers, to Soames’s recommendation! Why not make use of him? Michael always said the young man was grateful. And obscuring the title of the book against his flank, in case he should meet a servant, Soames sought his own bedroom.
His last thought that night was almost diagnostic.
‘In my young days we read that sort of book if we could get hold of it, and didn’t say so; now, it seems, they make a splash of reading it, and pretend it does them good!’
Next morning from ‘the Connoisseurs’ he telephoned to Danby & Winter’s, and asked to speak to Mr Butterfield.
‘Yes?’
‘Mr Forsyte speaking. Do you remember me?’
‘Yes, indeed, sir.’
‘Can you step round to the Connoisseurs’ Club this morning some time?’
‘Certainly, sir. Will twelve-thirty suit you?’
Secretive and fastidious in matters connected with sex, Soames very much disliked having to speak to a young man about an ‘immoral’ book. He saw no other way of it, however, and, on his visitor’s arrival, shook hands and began at once.
‘This is confidential, Mr Butterfield.’
Butterfield, whose dog-like eyes had glowed over the handshake, answered:
‘Yes, sir. I’ve not forgotten what you did for me, sir.’
Soames held out the book.
‘Do you know that novel?’
Butterfield smiled slightly.
‘Yes, sir. It’s printed in Brussels. They’re paying five pounds a copy for it.’