‘I shall do what I can. Could I see that scar?’
Hubert drew up his left sleeve, unlinked his shirt cuff and exposed an arm up which a long glancing scar stretched almost from wrist to elbow.
The Marquess whistled softly through teeth still his own. ‘Narrow escape that, young man.’
‘Yes, Sir. I put up my arm just as he struck.’
‘And then?’
‘Jumped back and shot him as he came on again. Then I fainted.’
‘This man was flogged for ill-treating his mules, you say?’
‘Continually ill-treating them.’
‘Continually?’ repeated the Marquess. ‘Some think the meat-trade and Zoological Society continually ill-treat animals, but I never heard of their being flogged. Tastes differ. Now, let me see, what can I do? Is Bobbie in town, young Mont?’
‘Yes, Marquess. I saw him at the Coffee House yesterday.’
‘I will get him to breakfast. If I remember he does not allow his children to keep rabbits, and has a dog that bites everybody. That should be to the good. A man who is fond of animals would always like to flog a man who isn’t. Before you go, young Mont, will you tell me what you think of this?’ And replacing his foot on the ground, the Marquess went to the corner, took up a canvas that was leaning against the wall, and brought it to the light. It represented with a moderate degree of certainty a young woman without clothes.
‘By Steinvitch,’ said the Marquess; ‘she could corrupt no morals, could she – if hung?’
Sir Lawrence screwed in his monocle: ‘The oblong school. This comes of living with women of a certain shape, Marquess. No, she couldn’t corrupt morals, but she might spoil digestions – flesh sea-green, hair tomato, style blobby. Did you buy her?’
‘Hardly,’ said the Marquess; ‘she is worth a good deal of money, I am told. You – you wouldn’t take her away, I suppose?’
‘For you, Sir, I would do most things, but not that; no,’ repeated Sir Lawrence, moving backwards, ‘not that.’
‘I was afraid of it,’ said the Marquess, ‘and yet I am told that she has a certain dynamic force. Well, that is that! I liked your father, General,’ he said, more earnestly, ‘and if the word of his grandson is not to be taken against that of half-caste muleteers, we shall have reached a stage of altruism in this country so complete that I do not think we can survive. I will let you know what my nephew says. Good-bye, General; good-bye, my dear young man – that is a very nasty scar. Good-bye, young Mont – you are incorrigible.’
On the stairs Sir Lawrence looked at his watch. ‘So far,’ he said, ‘the matter has taken twenty minutes – say twenty-five from door to door. They can’t do it at that pace in America – and we very nearly had an oblong young woman thrown in. Now for the Coffee House, and Hallorsen.’ And they turned their faces towards St James’s Street. ‘This street,’ he said, ‘is the Mecca of Western man, as the Rue de la Paix is the Mecca of Western woman.’ And he regarded his companions whimsically. What good specimens they were of a product at once the envy and mock of every other country! All over the British Empire men made more or less in their image were doing the work and playing the games of the British world. The sun never set on the type; history had looked on it and decided that it would survive. Satire darted at its joints, and rebounded from an unseen armour. ‘It walks quietly down the days of Time,’ he thought, ‘the streets and places of the world, without manner to speak of, without parade of learning, strength, or anything, endowed with the conviction, invisible, impermeable, of being IT.’
‘Yes,’ he said on the doorstep of ‘The Coffee House’, ‘I look on this as the plumb centre of the universe. Others may claim the North Pole, Rome, Montmartre – I claim the Coffee House, oldest Club in the world, and I suppose, by plumbing standards, the worst. Shall we wash, or postpone it to a more joyful opportunity? Agreed. Let’s sit down here, then, and await the apostle of plumbing. I take him for a hustler. Pity we can’t arrange a match between him and the Marquess. I’d back the old boy.’
The American looked very big coming into the low hall of the oldest Club in the world.
‘Sir Lawrence Mont,’ he said; ‘Ah! Captain! General Sir Conway Cherrell? Proud to meet you, General. And what can I do for you, gentlemen?’
He listened to Sir Lawrence’s recital with a deepening gravity. ‘Isn’t that too bad? I can’t take this sitting. I’m going right along now to see the Bolivian Minister. And, Captain, I’ve kept the address of your boy Manuel, I’ll cable our Consul at La Paz to get a statement from him right away, confirming your story. Who ever heard of such darned foolishness? Forgive me, gentlemen, but I’ll have no peace till I’ve set the wires going.’ And with a circular movement of his head he was gone. The three Englishmen sat down again.