“there's not a crime—
but takes its proper change still out in crime
if once rung on the counter of this world.”
cornish went back to the hague immediately after lord ferriby's funeral because it has been decreed that for all men, this large world shall sooner or later narrow down to one city, perhaps, or one village, or a single house. for a man's life is always centred round a memory or a hope, and neither of those requires much space wherein to live. tony cornish's world had narrowed to the villa des dunes on the sandhills of scheveningen, and his mind's eye was always turned in that direction. his one thought at this time was to protect dorothy—to keep, if possible, the name she bore from harm and ill-fame. each day that passed meant death to the malgamite workers. he could not delay. he dared not hurry. he wrote again to percy roden from london, amid the hurried preparations for the funeral, and begged him to sever his connection with von holzen.
“you will not have time,” he wrote, “to answer this before i leave for the hague. i shall stay on the toornoifeld as usual, and hope to arrive about nine o'clock to-morrow evening. i shall leave the hotel about a quarter-past nine and walk down the right-hand bank of the koninginne gracht, and should like to meet you by the canal, where we can have a talk. i have many reasons to submit to your consideration why it will be expedient for you to come over to my side in this difference now, which i cannot well set down on paper. and remember that between men of the world, such as i suppose we may take ourselves to be, there is no question of one of us judging the other. let me beg of you to consider your position in regard to the malgamite scheme—and meet me to-morrow night between the malie veld and the achter weg about half-past nine. i cannot see you at the works, and it would be better for you not to come to my hotel.”
the letter was addressed to the villa des dunes, where roden received it the next morning. dorothy saw it, and guessed from whom it was, though she hardly knew her lover's writing. he had adhered firmly to his resolution to keep himself in the background until he had finished the work he had undertaken. he had not written to her; had scarcely seen her. roden read the letter, and put it in his pocket without a word. it had touched his vanity. he had had few dealings with men of the standing and position of cornish, and here was this peer's nephew and peer's grandson appealing to him as to a friend, classing him together with himself as a man of the world. no man has so little discretion as a vain man. it is almost impossible for him to keep silence when speech will make for his glorification. roden arrived at the works well pleased with himself, and found von holzen in their little office, put out, ill at ease, domineering. it was unfortunate, if you will. percy roden was always ready to perceive his own ill-fortune, and looked back later to this as one of his most untoward hours. life, however, should surely consist of seizing the fortunate and fighting through the ill moments—else why should men have heart and nerve?
in such humours as they found themselves it did not take long for these two men to discover a question upon which to differ. it was a mere matter of detail connected with the money at that time passing through their hands.
“of course,” said roden, in the course of a useless and trivial dispute—“of course you think you know best, but you know nothing of finance—remember that. everybody knows that it is i who have run that part of the business. ask old wade, or white—or cornish.”
the argument had, in truth, been rather one-sided. for roden had done all the talking, while von holzen looked at him with a quiet eye and a silent contempt that made him talk all the more. von holzen did not answer now, though his eye lighted at the mention of cornish's name. he merely looked at roden with a smile, which conveyed as clearly as words von holzen's suggestion that none of the three men named would be prepared to give roden a very good character. “i had a letter, by the way, from cornish this morning,” said roden, lapsing into his grander manner, which von holzen knew how to turn to account.
“ah—bah!” he exclaimed sceptically. and that lurking vanity of the inferior to lessen his own inferiority did the rest.
“if you don't believe me, there you are,” said roden, throwing the letter upon the table—not ill-pleased, in the heat of the moment, to show that he was a more important person than his companion seemed to think.
von holzen read the letter slowly and thoughtfully. the fact that it was evidently intended for roden's private eye did not seem to affect one or the other of these two men, who had travelled, with difficulty, along the road to fortune, only reaching their bourn at last with a light stock of scruples and a shattered code of honour. then he folded it, and handed it back. he was not likely to forget a word of it.
“i suppose you will go,” he said. “it will be interesting to hear what he has to say. that letter is a confession of weakness.”
in making which statement von holzen showed his own weak point. for, like many clever men, he utterly failed to give to women their place—the leading place—in the world's history, as in the little histories of our daily lives. he never detected dorothy between every line of cornish's letter, and thought that it had only been dictated by inability to meet the present situation.
“i cannot very well refuse to go since the fellow asks me,” said roden, grandly. he might as well have displayed his grandeur to a statue. if love is blind, self-love is surely half-witted as well, for it never sees nor understands that the world is fooling it. roden failed to heed the significant fact that von holzen did not even ask him what line of conduct he intended to follow with regard to cornish, nor seek in his autocratic way to instruct him on that point; but turned instead to other matters and did not again refer to cornish or the letter he had written.
so the day wore on while cornish impatiently walked the deck of the steamer, ploughing its way across the north sea, through showers and thunderstorms and those grey squalls that flit to and fro on the german ocean. and some tons of malgamite were made, while a manufacturer or two of the grim product laid aside his tools forever, while the money flowed in, and otto von holzen thought out his deep silent plans over his vats and tanks and crucibles. and all the while those who write in the book of fate had penned the last decree.
cornish arrived punctually at the hague. he drove to the hotel, where he was known, where, indeed, he had never relinquished his room. there was no letter for him—no message from percy roden. but von holzen had unobtrusively noted his arrival at the station from the crowded retreat of the second-class waiting-room.
the day had been a very hot one, and from canal and dyke arose that sedgy odour which comes with the cool of night in all holland. it is hardly disagreeable, and conveys no sense of unhealthiness.
it seems merely to be the breath of still waters, and, in hot weather, suggests very pleasantly the relief of northern night. the hague has two dominant smells. in winter, when the canals are frozen, the reek of burning-peat is on the air and in the summer the odour of slow waters. cornish knew them both. he knew everything about this old-world city, where the turning-point of his life had been fixed. it was deserted now. the great houses, the theatre—the show-places—were closed. the toornoifeld was empty.
the hotel porter, aroused by the advent of the traveller from an after-dinner nap in his little glass box, spread out his hands with a gesture of surprise.
“the season is over,” he said. “we are empty. why you come to the hague now?”
even the sentries at the end of the korte voorhout wore a holiday air of laxness, and swung their rifles idly. cornish noticed that only half of the lamps were lighted.
the banks of the queen's canal are heavily shaded by trees, which, indeed, throw out their branches to meet above the weed-sown water. there is a broad thoroughfare on either side of the canal, though little traffic passes that way. these are two of the many streets of the hague which seem to speak of a bygone day, when holland played a greater part in the world's history than she does at present, for the houses are bigger than the occupants must need, and the streets are too wide for the traffic passing through them. in the middle the canal—a gloomy corridor beneath the trees—creeps noiselessly towards the sea. cornish was before the appointed hour, and walked leisurely by the pathway between the trees and the canal. soon the houses were left behind, and he passed the great open space called the malie veld. he had met no one since leaving the guard-house. it was a dark night, with no moon, but the stars were peeping through the riven clouds.
“unless he stands under a lamp, i shall not see him,” he said to himself, and lighted a cigar to indicate his whereabouts to roden, should he elect to keep the appointment. when he had gone a few paces farther he saw someone coming towards him. there was a lamp halfway between them, and, as he approached the light, cornish recognized roden. there was no mistaking the long loose stride.
“i wonder,” said cornish, “if this is going to the end?”
and he went forward to meet the financier.
“i was afraid you would not come,” he said, in a voice that was friendly enough, for he was a man of the world, and in that which is called society (with a capital letter) had rubbed elbows all his life with many who had no better reputation than percy roden, and some who deserved a worse.
“oh, i don't mind coming,” answered roden, “because i did not want to keep you waiting here in the dark. but it is no good, i tell you that at the outset.”
“and nothing i can say will alter your decision?”
“nothing. a man does not get two such chances as this in his lifetime. i am not going to throw this one away for the sake of a sentiment.”
“sentiment hardly describes the case,” said cornish, thoughtfully. “do you mean to tell me that you do not care about all these deaths—about these poor devils of malgamiters?” and he looked hard at his companion beneath the lamp.
“not a d—n,” answered roden. “i have been poor—you haven't. why, man! i have starved inside a good coat. you don't know what that means.”
cornish looked at him, and said nothing. there was no mistaking the man's sincerity—nor the manner in which his voice suddenly broke when he spoke of hunger.
“then there are only two things left for me to do,” said cornish, after a moment's reflection. “ask your sister to marry me first, and smash you up afterwards.”
roden, who was smoking, threw his cigarette away. “you mean to do both these things?”
“both.”
roden looked at him. he opened his lips to speak, but suddenly leapt back.
“look out!” he cried, and had barely time to point over cornish's shoulder.
cornish swung round on his heel. he belonged to a school and generation which, with all its faults, has, at all events, the redeeming quality of courage. he had long learnt to say the right thing, which effectually teaches men to do the right thing also. he saw some one running towards him, noiselessly, in rubber shoes. he had no time to think, and scarce a moment in which to act, for the man was but two steps away with an upraised arm, and in the lamplight there flashed the gleam of steel.
cornish concentrated his attention on the upraised arm, seizing it with both hands, and actually swinging his assailant off his legs. he knew in an instant who it was, without needing to recognize the smell of malgamite. this was otto von holzen, who had not hesitated to state his opinion—that it is often worth a man's while to kill another.
while his feet were still off the ground, cornish let him go, and he staggered away into the darkness of the trees. cornish, who was lithe and quick, rather than of great physical force, recovered his balance in a moment, and turned to face the trees. he knew that von holzen would come back. he distinctly hoped that he would. for man is essentially the first of the “game” animals and beneath fine clothes there nearly always beats a heart ready, quite suddenly, to snatch the fearful joy of battle.
von holzen did not disappoint him, but came flying on silent feet, like some beast of prey, from the darkness. cornish had played half-back for his school not so many years before. he collared von holzen low, and let him go, with a cruel skill, heavily on his head and shoulder. not a word had been spoken, and, in the stillness of the summer night, each could hear the other breathing.
roden stood quite still. he could scarcely distinguish the antagonists. his own breath came whistling through his teeth. his white face was ghastly and twitching. his sleepy eyes were awake now, and staring.
each charge had left cornish nearer to the canal. he was standing now quite at the edge. he could smell, but he could not see the water, and dared not turn his head to look. there is no railing here as there is nearer the town.
in a moment, von holzen was on his feet again. in the dark, mere inches are much equalized between men—but von holzen had a knife. cornish, who held nothing in his hands, knew that he was at a fatal disadvantage.
again, von holzen ran at him with his arm outstretched for a swinging stab. cornish, in a flash of thought, recognized that he could not meet this. he stepped neatly aside. von holzen attempted to stop stumbled, half recovered himself, and fell headlong into the canal.
in a moment cornish and roden were at the edge, peering into the darkness. cornish gave a breathless laugh.
“we shall have to fish him out,” he said.
and he knelt down, ready to give a hand to von holzen. but the water, smooth again now, was not stirred by so much as a ripple.
“suppose he can swim?” muttered roden, uneasily.
and they waited in a breathless silence. there was something horrifying in the single splash, and then the stillness.
“gad!” whispered cornish. “where is he?”
roden struck a match, and held it inside his hat so as to form a sort of lantern, though the air was still enough. cornish did the same, and they held the lights out over the water, throwing the feeble rays right across the canal.
“he cannot have swum away,” he said. “von holzen,” he cried out cautiously, after another pause—“von holzen—where are you?”
but there was no answer.
the surface of the canal was quite still and glassy in those parts that were not covered by the close-lying duck-weed. the water crept stealthily, slimily, towards the sea.
the two men held their breath and waited. cornish was kneeling at the edge of the water, peering over.
“where is he?” he repeated. “gad! roden, where is he?”
and roden, in a hoarse voice, answered at length “he is in the mud at the bottom—head downwards.”
