Paid In Full/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT
Mr. Moon tapped at the door of the Artistes’ Parlour behind the spacious platform of Carnegie Hall, New York City, and entered deferentially. Mr. Moon had had cause to be deferential to a good many people in the course of his life, because, to employ a useful American idiom, a good many people had ‘got something on’ Mr. Moon. To Dale Conway he paid the highest deference of all.
‘Good-evening, guv'nor,’ he said.
‘Come in, Moon,’ replied Conway. ‘Got the medals?’
‘These was the best I could manage. I bought 'em from a Jew curio-dealer in Sixth Avenue.’ Mr. Moon laid upon the table certain British war decorations. Conway, in immaculate civilian evening dress, examined them.
‘H’m! South-Africa–King's Medal. I am more or less entitled to that, though I never collected it. Crimean Medal. No, I think not: it looks all right from a distance, but I shall be at close quarters with various wise guys to-night. The Victorian Order—Fourth Class, I should say. That’s always safe. Here's a Military Cross: I wonder what poor devil had to part with that—so soon! I think I must wear it. What’s this green and lake and white affair, I wonder? It looks like some Indian Frontier contraption. Anyhow, I’ll chance it. And here’s the Croix de Guerre. Yes, I think the French Government might presumably have bestowed that upon me. Here goes! My word, I wish I had had these in the Middle West!’ He arranged the medals in their right order of precedence, and pinned them neatly to the silk lapel of his coat. ‘How's the house?’
‘Filling up fast, sir.’
‘And the money?’
‘I’ve told the cash-takers that I’ll come round during the lecture, and check their returns.’
‘By the way, where's the cash paid in advance for booked seats?’
‘I got that this morning, sir. It’s at the hotel.’
‘How much?’
‘About two thousand dollars.’
‘Not so bad. Add to-night’s takings to it, and I’ll check it all up to-morrow morning: I have to go out to supper after to-night’s show. Meanwhile, Moon, no fancy business with the petty cash, or anything of that kind, or it’ll be the worse for you!’
‘No, Captain Conway, sir,’ said Mr. Moon humbly. He was a small man, with a peaky face and a disillusioned expression. All his life he had allowed I Dare Not to wait upon I Would, with the result that at the age of fifty-six he was still serving as a private in the Crooks’ Army.
‘Now,’ continued Conway briskly, ‘go and wait at the back entrance—it’s on Fifty-Sixth Street—and when my chairman arrives, bring him straight here.’
‘Yes, sir. Who is he?’
Conway mentioned a distinguished American name—a very distinguished name, indeed. ‘He should be here about twenty minutes past eight: it’s eight o'clock now. Slip round to Mrs. Tilford's box first, though, and see if the flowers are there for her. That's all.’
There was a knock at the door—the door nearest the janitor's office. There was a second door, opening on to a passage which led to the platform and the Hall.
‘Hallo!’ said Conway. ‘Surely that isn’t the chairman already.’
It was not. It was Tom Winter, curiously quiet.
‘May I come in?’ he asked.
Conway greeted him with effusion.
‘This is jolly good of you, Colonel!’ he cried, shaking an entirely unresponsive hand. ‘I was feeling the want of a little moral support badly: Carnegie Hall is the biggest job I’ve tackled yet. Sit down and have a drink. This is Mr. Moon, my manager.’
Colonel Winter surveyed the flinching Moon dispassionately.
‘British subject?’ he inquired.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Old Soldier?’
‘Oh, yes, sir.’ This was not true, but with Mr. Moon the soft answer was the right answer.
Winter nodded. ‘I see.’ He turned to Conway. ‘Can you spare me five minutes?’
‘Certainly. Moon, go and wait for the chairman. Whiskey and soda, Colonel?’
‘No, thank you.’ Winter sat down by the table. At his elbow lay the discarded Crimea Medal.
‘I’ll wet my whistle, if you don’t mind; I have a heavy job ahead of me.’ Conway mixed himself a drink, and lit a cigarette, humming cheerfully. His hand shook a little, for his intuitions seldom failed him.
Presently Winter spoke, abruptly.
‘You call yourself Dale Conway?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since I came out here. A sort of nom de guerre, for lecturing purposes, and so on.’
‘Your real name, however,’ continued Winter, ‘is something entirely different.’
Conway gave him a sudden glance; then he smiled. He had a particularly confiding smile.
‘Naturally,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you know it.’
‘Yes. It is Denis Cradock.’
‘Ah!’ said Conway thoughtfully. ‘Is it, now—is it?’
‘Yes. Under that name, at any rate, you served in the Army Pay Corps with the rank of Lieutenant, in Nineteen Fifteen.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yes. And in that capacity you absconded from France and made your way over to this country, with a considerable sum of money in your possession—not your own property.’
Conway set down his glass with rather exaggerated deliberation, leant back in his chair, and knocked the ash off his cigarette.
‘This is really all very interesting,’ he said. ‘Go on.’
‘Since then,’ pursued Winter, as steadily as ever, ‘you have made your way by representing yourself to be an emissary of the British Government, and so imposing upon American hospitality. In other words, Mr. Cradock, you are a common impostor.’
Conway smiled indulgently.
‘It’s all a question of point of view,’ he said. ‘I like you, Colonel, and I will be quite frank with you. Let me ask you a plain question. Aren't some people fair game?’
‘Not for a British officer and gentleman.’
‘That’s a damned good answer, Colonel; but it doesn’t go. I’m not an officer—I suppose I was cashiered months ago—and I have long perceived from your manner towards me that you don’t consider me a gentleman. So that’s that! Anyhow, can you blame me for trying to make a bit when I get the chance?’
Tom Winter was genuinely interested—and attracted. Despite himself, he felt the fascination of the rogue's personality, particularly his uncanny power to create an atmosphere sympathetic to his own point of view. Presently he spoke again.
‘I am not disposed to question your right to go to the devil in your own way—in peace-time. But don’t you think the fact that we are at war makes just a bit of difference, Mr. Cradock? Patriotism, and so on!’
‘Oh, certainly. But aren’t you overlooking the fact that I have done my bit already, with something to spare? Quite apart from the real fillip that my lectures are giving to the Anglo-American entente over here—you’ll grant that, won’t you?’
‘I will—so long as you aren’t found out.’
‘Trust me for that! Quite apart, then, from what we will call my propaganda value, I really have done some soldiering.’
‘So I observe,’ replied Winter drily, staring at the medals upon Conway's evening coat. ‘I notice that you were a member of the Tibet expedition. It was a small expedition—one might almost have called it select. I don’t seem to remember meeting you in Lhasa.’
Conway glanced down at the green, lake, and white ribbon; then across to his companion, upon whose breast the same colours, among numerous others, were disconcertingly visible. Not that he was disconcerted.
‘So that’s what this medal is!’ he said, smiling. ‘I was wondering. A funny coincidence—eh, Colonel? You and I are probably the only two men in America who possess the Tibet medal, and here we are sitting in the same room!’
Winter smiled, too, despite himself. ‘But in one direction,’ he said, ‘you have the advantage of me. I was not in the Crimean War.’
‘Neither was I, to be frank: in fact, I wasn’t born. That little article on the table beside you was a bit of over-zealousness on my manager's part. He means well, but he is not up in dates.’ He glanced at his wrist-watch. ‘Now, Colonel, it’s a quarter past eight, and I am expecting my chairman at any moment. Is there anything else you would like to say?’
‘Only one thing. You are under arrest.’
Conway smiled, and shook his head.
‘No, no—really!’ he said. ‘That is crude. Believe me, I have not pursued my present calling for all these years without acquiring a fair knowledge of the laws of the land in which I happen to be operating. You and I stand on an exactly equal footing upon American soil. You have no more power to arrest me than I have to arrest you.’
‘I had not last week,’ replied Winter, ‘nor even three days ago. But things have been moving since then. A definite military status over here has been granted to us by the Federal authorities, and I have just been appointed British Assistant Provost Marshal for the New York district.’
Conway whistled softly through his teeth. ‘The devil you have!’ he said. ‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’
‘Lock you up for the time being; then ship you home for court martial.’
‘Oh, no, you’re not! Don’t you believe a word of it!’
Winter rose to his feet. The gloves were off now, and his voice showed it.
‘I am afraid we are wasting time, Mr. Cradock,’ he said. ‘I have the power to call in the police if I require them. Will you come with me quietly, like a sensible man; or must I—?’
Conway was on his feet, too, by this time.
‘Colonel Winter,’ he said quickly, ‘you can’t do this. I meant what I said just now. Don't you see you can't do it?’ His voice rose to a higher note.
‘Why not?’
‘Do you realise,’ continued Conway, pointing, ‘that in the hall through there three or four thousand people are waiting to hear me lecture? If you arrest me now, what are you going to say to them? Are you going to cry stinking fish? Are you going to tell them that there will be no show to-night, because they’ve been played for a crowd of suckers by a crook—a British crook—a British officer-crook? Do you want the benches torn up??
‘I shall tell your chairman that you have been taken suddenly ill—seriously ill.’
‘Yes, and the next thing you know there’ll be twenty reporters round asking what hospital I’m at. Do you think you’d be able to keep a front-page story of that size from the ablest pack of news-hounds in the world? Think of the effect of such a scandal on our friends here in New York—people who have dined and wined us both. Do you want to make them all feel damned fools—the laughing-stock of the other crowd, the crowd who tried to dine and wine us and got frozen out? Haven’t you any consideration for them? And haven’t you any thought for the general consequences? Don’t you see that, by hunting down an unfortunate devil like me at a moment like this when everything in the Anglo-American garden is lovely, you are going to set back the entente cordiale six months? Think, man—think!’ He gazed feverishly into Winter's face.
But Winter remained unshaken.
‘Nevertheless, Mr. Cradock,’ he said, ‘you are coming with me.’
For a moment the two men eyed one another intently—and who knows what thoughts were in their hearts? Then Conway said, suddenly:
‘Look here—I’ve a plan to propose. There is reason in my warning, and you know it. From your own point of view, as I’ve said, you will only be fouling your own nest if you make a public example of me; and from my own—well, of course, I don’t particularly want to be branded as an impostor and an ungrateful dog. I’ll tell you what. Let me go on that platform now and give my lecture. The moment it is over, you can take me quietly into custody in this very room, and do what you like with me—and I’ll take any sort of punishment that may be coming to me, without squealing. You can pass the word round, if you like, that I have been transferred to an appointment at home. There! That’ll save everybody’s face all round without robbing Justice of her rightful prey. What about it?’ He gazed feverishly across the table. His breath was coming short and sharp.
Winter shook his head.
‘The bargain is too much in your favour, Mr. Cradock,’ he said.
His retort had an unexpected effect. Without a word, Conway dropped into a chair and fell forward on to the table, with his face on his arms. Deep, shuddering sobs broke from him.
‘My favour?’ he sobbed. ‘My God! My favour?’ He lifted a white, glistening face. ‘Do you know what I’m offering to give up? I have been a wanderer over the face of the earth for most of my life, penniless and friendless; and to-morrow my engagement was to have been announced to a lovely and wealthy woman who has actually told me that she cares for me—me—a nameless adventurer struggling for a second chance! Yes, and we were to have been married in a fortnight! Is that nothing? To give up my happiness and a real home—is that a bargain in my favour? Oh!’ he groaned again.
Tom Winter's tone softened—perhaps unconsciously.
‘You mean—Mrs. Tilford?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ replied Conway, looking up again. ‘You are going to humiliate her, too! And I thought you were a friend of hers!’
It sounded like a mere empty reproach, but Conway watched eagerly for its effect. He was not disappointed.
Winter flushed a brick-red.
‘It is you who have humiliated her,’ he said. ‘What can we do that will save her now?’
Conway's brain, working furiously behind appealing eyes, noted the ‘we.’ He rose to his feet.
‘Colonel,’ he said—‘mea culpa! You're right, I have humiliated her. I had hoped, when we were married, to run straight and make good; but, now that I have been shown up, that cannot be. I must forget her. I’m not kicking: it's not the first punch in the jaw that Fortune has dealt me. But Geraldine—we must protect her, between us! I know you’re a sportsman. She's in the Hall now, in a box, within a few feet of the stage. She organised the whole affair. We can't break her heart, as we would! Let me deliver my lecture! Let me have two words with her here after; and then—I’ll put myself entirely in your hands.’
Tom Winter surveyed him steadily.
‘On your word of honour?’ he said.
‘On my word of honour!’
‘Very well.’
‘Thank you, thank you, a thousand times!’ cried Conway. ‘It will mean the end of most things for me, but I appreciate the fact that you are behaving like a sahib; and—we shall save little Gerry. I’ll repay you, if I can.’
There was a knock upon the outer door.
‘That’s Moon, with my chairman,’ said Conway. ‘I shall be on the platform in less than five minutes now.’ He opened the other door. ‘Here's a short cut. Bring her round directly after the lecture, will you? Au revoir, and God bless you!’
Winter left the room as Moon and the chairman entered. In a moment Conway was himself again—suave, cheery, and hospitable.
‘Come right in, General,’ he said. ‘I can’t tell you how I appreciate this honour. Sit down and mix yourself a drink, while I write a rather important note, and arrange a few final details. We have about five minutes yet.’
With his usual grace he made his guest entirely at home. Then he sat down, and, after a brief moment of reflection, scribbled a note.
‘Come outside for a moment, Moon,’ he said. ‘There is a slight alteration in the programme.’