House of All Nations (108 page)

‘Do so.'

‘You can't pay her out!'

‘Try me.'

‘Ah, you don't think I'll do it, but I will.'

Wearily Jules replied, ‘I wish you'd get out. I really do. Take your clients with you.'

Aristide rushed out of the room, crossed Alphendéry in the corridor, passed him without speaking, and pale and emotional, ran down to the board room. He came close to Jacques Manray and although the board room was full of people said to him in a dramatic
sotto voce
, ‘You will see the denouement soon. A man like me cannot stay here.' He sank down in the armchair alongside Jacques and watched the roomful of people. Some of them looked at him curiously, but immediately looked away: the market was rising and they were all excited. At last, perhaps, prosperity had begun again.

Aristide said to Jacques, ‘When one of Alphendéry's orders comes through signal me.' He leaned back again, breathing huskily.

‘I don't know them from the others,' Jacques explained helplessly.

‘You don't?' He was suspicious. ‘Who knows them?'

‘Mr. Alphendéry is the only one.'

Aristide fell farther back in his chair, his eyes open. This was only what he expected. Alphendéry had been brought back to outwit him. Alphendéry had never gone to Zurich anyhow. He had found out that Alphendéry had arrived immediately in London. The whole house was against him and intended to outwit him. They would not get away with it. Never!

‘Jacques,' he said, ‘show me every order that goes up. I am going to confirm them.'

‘Mr. Raccamond, what has come over you? I can't do that. It would make a scandal. The clients see all we do here.'

‘But not upstairs, not upstairs, that's where Alphendéry comes in.' He started. Alphendéry came into the room at that moment, from the other end. ‘I'll show him up; I'll tell everyone what he does,' he said aloud.

Jacques turned round. ‘Mr. Raccamond, ask Mr. Bertillon about Alphendéry, not me; I know nothing and neither do you. I'm busy, do let me send these orders up, Mr. Raccamond. You see the market's rising and everyone's going into it. Do give me a chance.'

‘I'm going to withdraw my clients,' said Aristide, ‘every one: they won't have my clients. I'm going to take them out. I'll ruin them.'

Jacques said nothing. At the same moment providentially, Alphendéry went out of the room again and upstairs. Aristide rushed out of the board room and stood at the bottom of the staircase slowly veering round as Alphendéry mounted, his lips moving. He watched him go along the gallery. He was bowed and trembling. The clients, who in the midst of their fortune-making had had time to look at him when he brushed past, turned to each other and repeated the current rumor: that fellow Raccamond had general paresis and was now in the stage of megalomania.

Aristide took a taxi home, there telephoned Mme. de Sluys-Forêt, and with his books went straight over to her house. He showed her the books he had stolen from London and Brussels. She must withdraw her account at once. The market was going up. Bertillon had sold out all the accounts; he would have to buy them back at higher prices, and a multimillionaire would not be able to pay the losses. She must withdraw her account at once before the bankruptcy. He might close his doors any night, perhaps after the market closing tonight! Bertillon had no guarantees in France. Some of his money was tied up in lawsuits and that was all he had in France. He paid Carrière's famous drafts out of clients' accounts; his own gold, his own bonds, he kept abroad. Aristide named the places.

Mme. de Sluys-Forêt was very much startled. She rang up Bertillon
while Aristide was there and asked for an immediate interview. She was flustered. She called out her car and went immediately to the bank. Aristide proposed to accompany his client, but she firmly refused. Aristide could come and see her the next day.

This first real victory excited Aristide beyond measure. He followed the lady back to the bank, made sure that she was upstairs, and while he was there heard Jacques Manray answer the telephone: ‘Mme. de Sluys-Forêt. Yes, I'll send you what she has on the books still, as soon as I get a moment. O.K. I'll ask Henri Martin.' Aristide, justified, flew into an ecstasy of terror and self-righteousness. He laid his hand on Mouradzian's arm and dragged him out of the doorway in which he was standing watching the course of the market.

‘Mr. Mouradzian, come with me quickly. I must speak to you. I have something monstrous, absolutely monstrous to reveal to you. Not here! Not here!'

At his air, Mouradzian was frightened. ‘What is it?'

‘Not here, not here, come to the Bar Florence with me.'

At this moment a client called Mouradzian, and he could only whisper, ‘If it's serious, later in the Cinzano Bar. I'll be down that way, say, twenty minutes.'

Aristide looked round. He suddenly thought, ‘If I tell Mouradzian all now, he'll withdraw all his people, and mine will be ruined. I won't get my money.' He had thought this many times before; but he had no sequence in his motives: he thought of things, forgot them, remembered them in nightmares, forgot them in excitement, remembered them in an off hour and forgot them again, because he lived in too many torments! What a life! Not a life for him. And all to make a miserable living—for he was crushed with debts. And on top of all this, he had to protect the clients, some of them millionaires, some of them making easy money chirping in public or pulling long faces on the screen. He was crazy to bother about others the way he did: who thanked him for it? The other men were calm enough.

Mouradzian! He told him months ago what he suspected and did Mouradzian care? That crooked Oriental simply went on doing business. With a chasm opening under his feet. He did not care for his clients, only for his salary, his commissions, even if he was commissioning them into a swindler's den. Ah, ah, all the same Aristide was not like that. He would rescue his clients, willy-nilly; he was not so blindly egotistic. ‘I will go to them all, this afternoon.'

He thought, ‘Mr. Pharion is abroad, he is in Spain—I can't get him. He has a paying account, too. I can't transfer it. What am I to do?'

He ran to the telegraph office and sent telegrams to Pharion and to his biggest client, Weimar, now at Cap Ferrat, thus conceived:

CONFIDENTIAL: HAVE SECRET INFORMATION THAT MERCURE BANK WILL CLOSE SATURDAY AT LATEST. TELEGRAPH INSTRUCTIONS TO TRANSFER YOUR ACCOUNT TO CRÉDIT IMMEDIATELY. KEEP IN TOUCH WITH ME.

RACCAMOND

Aristide rushed down to the Cinzano Bar and there found Mouradzian waiting.

‘What is the matter, Mr. Raccamond? You seem sick to me: you're not yourself at all. What could you have found out to put you into this state? Calm yourself; whatever it is, calm yourself.'

Aristide sat down, planked the books beside him, put his face in both hands, on the café table. ‘I am ill, horribly ill. I haven't slept for weeks. A catastrophe is rushing upon us, there's a sword suspended over our heads as we sit here, as we breathe—but it isn't that only. I suffer horribly in my mind: I have suffered this way for weeks, carrying the whole terrible, terrible secret myself. Protecting others, carrying it myself. I can't bear it any longer. I am not myself, Mr. Mouradzian, excuse me, bear with me, when you hear—' he turned to Mouradzian, his mouth trembling, his eyes wide open, pale.

‘But what, what then? Take something first: a coffee for me, waiter, and Mr. Raccamond, a—'

‘A cognac,' said Raccamond. ‘Listen, friend, I will tell you everything. You are in danger; there are many people in danger. We are threatened with ruin!' He stared terrified at Mouradzian, who quizzed him: these Frenchmen are such actors, half neurotic, half cunning. ‘Perhaps we are ruined as we sit here! Mr. Bertillon is nothing but a swindler!'

Mouradzian's look questioned him and the books. But Aristide would not unseal his secret so soon. First the drama. ‘Bertillon is our enemy. It's hard to believe the worst of Mr. Bertillon, I know. He is charming, disarming, in fact, I still think he is better than the game he plays. He is superior to it but he has been dragged into it. I firmly believe that it was not Bertillon who began this crookery, but the other, this vile Boche Alphendéry. Bertillon could not have thought of selling out to begin with: he isn't the type. Someone showed it to him, engaged him in it. And to begin with I denounce this German. They're all like that: they think treason with jolly-Robin airs; they get you along with them, they propose some little trip, some little evening, and when you're fond of them and believe in their good natures and simple hearts, they hit you on the head and plunder you. They would if we weren't too smart. But we, the cunning ones, are not so smart. We're led. They're clever fellows, such men. They don't use a poniard like an Italian, or a sword or wordplay like the French; they're not of our Latin race. They employ the basest methods, the kiss of Judas. I'm certain that this so-called Alsatian Alphendéry is a secret agent. He's too smooth and simple on top, too friendly. He paws you, laughs into your eyes. He's a German agent, probably; dupery is second nature to him. He has no position in the bank. He is paid from abroad. “Clients,” he says. What clients? I can imagine. He has “big clients,” they say. Who are they? No one has seen them here. We don't know their names. And then, you know, Henri Martin, the cashier? That's the proof of what I'm saying.'

‘What do you mean?' questioned Mouradzian, completely astonished.

‘You know he was a spy in the war?'

‘No.'

‘Yes.' Aristide triumphed. ‘Now what is he doing there in the bank? Did you ever see a spy who ceased to be an agent of some sort? He is perhaps there to watch Alphendéry.'

‘No, no.'

‘And Alphendéry goes about telling everyone, brokers, rich clients, he told the Princesse, the Comtesse de Voigrand, Dr. Carrière, that he is a communist. A blind, eh? A blind for his real politics? It's clear to me.

Mouradzian almost imperceptibly raised his shoulders: he drank the rest of his coffee. ‘And what have you in the books there?'

Raccamond suffocated, paler still. A group of drinkers at a corner table had begun to watch him. Mouradzian caught the low-spoken words of one of the men: ‘He's in some trouble,' one said.

A second man replied, ‘No, I would say a settling of accounts. Look out!'

‘Here? This is not a café where—'

‘Mr. Raccamond,' Mouradzian said briefly, ‘people are looking at us. Come to the point. What is this horror? It's a house that employs spies?'

‘No, no, no: I'm not saying that. I said such a man could be a spy. No—they have a bloc
contre-partie
account. All your clients are sold out. Look at these books.'

He opened them cautiously, showing some pages, but not letting the books out of his hands. Mouradzian looked at him surprised and then gave up trying to take the books. ‘But if you won't let me see …'

‘It's not that, Mr. Mouradzian. This is all the guarantee I have: they have signed agreements with me. I could only force them to with these books. These books are my life, the life of all of us. You see … I forced them to sign an agreement to restore all the positions.'

Mouradzian stared. ‘
What
! All at once?'

‘No, no,' he waved his finger, ‘obviously, not all at once …'

‘You have the agreement?'

After some hesitation, Aristide produced it. The other broker's man read it carefully. ‘Yes, you are right. It is an acknowledgment in a way.' He studied Raccamond. ‘Why do you tell me now? It appears that you settled everything already.'

‘I think they are trying to scuttle us all; they have brought back Alphendéry …'

‘Alphendéry is your refrain! What harm is there in that? He is the only man there who could do it with delicacy, without disturbing the accounts or the markets.'

‘Yes, but they promised to do it under my direction. They promised me a partnership at the end.' He went on with gloomy solemnity. ‘But now, I wouldn't take it. They couldn't force it on me. You see, Alphendéry is there to side-step this agreement.' Mouradzian edged away and turned to face his man. ‘When did you get the books?'

‘Over a month ago. I have struggled day and night since to protect the accounts and get my guarantees. It wasn't easy—they held on like leeches. I forced them to the wall. They showed me their gold; I know where it is … I have been struggling alone all this month, without anyone behind me, against the whole pack. The Comte de Guipatin is with them; Prince Campoverde is with them. I showed them the books. It made no difference to those aristocrats. All the same. You and I as senior men are left standing alone against them all. They are all out to rob us and share the booty.'

‘You took your time about telling me, I must observe,' said Mouradzian.

Raccamond took him by the lapel. ‘Mr. Mouradzian, don't bear me a grudge. It took me time. I could not believe my eyes. I heard the rumors long ago. I got the confidence of the accountants in the foreign branches, with a view to controlling the accounts. Anxious themselves, they were glad to show me the accounts. Then I began to divine the cancer in the bank. But still I did not want to believe …'

‘Why not? I don't understand you at all.'

‘Listen, Mouradzian: I am a fool, but I'm a good fool. That they sold out my clients, robbed me after all my work for them, when they were, as one says melodramatically, living on the sweat of my brow—why, I couldn't adjust myself to the idea straightaway. It's not business—it's—drama; it's the sort of thing you see on the stage, rather. You know, I nearly killed myself with worry; I didn't sleep. My God! I don't seem to have slept a wink since the day my man—the accountant first telephoned me. And then think of it, I didn't really have the right to bruit abroad such a thing without getting confirmation: I would be destroying the reputation of a house. I had to get all the details. That's why I asked the accountant—a poor fellow I got the job for, I knew him before—to confirm or not in the Brussels office to begin with. Because, you know, I had already seen that the Brussels office was important; I sensed it. And I saw orders go through. Then it was said, of course to throw dust in our eyes, that Alphendéry's clients dealt with Brussels …'