Chapter IV: Echoes of the Boom

O’Hagan called upon me. His entrances possess electric properties. One’s schemes melt; O’Hagan becomes the scheme of all things terrestrial. The future shrinks, bounded by O’Hagan. The universe is “a universe after Captain the Hon. Bernard O’Hagan.” An unexpected call by the Tsar of all the Russias could not be more exciting, and one would be less impressed if the Mikado dropped in for a pipe and a Scotch-and-soda.

“I have selected you, Raymond”—he toyed with his monocle—“to act for me in a little affair on the French coast. You will be associated with Lieutenant the Chevalier Camille d’Oysans.”

That was bad hearing.

The Chevalier, according to O’Hagan, is “the last of the _grand seigneurs_.” I think O’Hagan may be right; and trust he is. This fire-eating Frenchman in my opinion constitutes a menace to society. He would any day rather cut a man’s throat than shake hands with him.

(His recent decoration for having personally dispatched a larger number of Boches than any other man in the armies of France, will be a memory fresh in my reader’s mind.)

“And I do not expect you to withdraw, Raymond,”—coldly.

Since, on more than one recent occasion, I had been so unfortunate as to incur O’Hagan’s displeasure, I perceived that a path was cut for my feet—a path of peril, from which, nevertheless, I might not stray. I understand that Charles II., when it pleased him, could be a king indeed. The fact that O’Hagan inherits a similar capacity from someone or another is not necessarily destructive of what posthumous reputation remains to the lady of his race who ornamented the Stuart court.

He passed to me a press cutting. The paragraph related how an anonymous gentleman had had a public misunderstanding with Mr. Ronald Brandon, the famous author, whose forthcoming work, etc., etc. The misunderstanding had been due to the presence of La Belle Yvette Lotus, the beautiful dancer, etc., etc.

“D’Oysans has already arranged the preliminaries,” explained O’Hagan. “So all that you have to do, my boy, is to meet me at Victoria to-night at ten-thirty.”

“This is incredible!”

“Not at all.”

“We shall all stand to be arrested!”

“Never fear. These little affairs are better managed in France!”

“For heaven’s sake, what weapons?”

“Swords!”

“In what way are you interested in this girl?”

“In no way. Not in the slightest.”

O’Hagan stood up and gracefully executed the Grand Salute with his cane.

“I badly need a little practice,” he said. “That is all, Raymond!”

“This man, Ronald Brandon, has some reputation as a swordsman.”

“So I hear,” replied O’Hagan languidly. “He has grossly insulted me; so that I am quite looking forward to meeting him. Although he merely comes of a race of attorneys, he appears to have a fine reach.”

He yawned slightly. There came a ringing of my door bell, which I proceeded to investigate.

“Might I inquire who the blazes your distinguished visitor is?”

Thus O’Hagan, critically examining a very large size in formidable ruffians who had forced his way past me into the study.

“Which of you is O’Hagan?” demanded the caller, truculently.

He was a man fully six feet two in his boots; wore a peculiarly racy tweed suit, cut morning-coat fashion; a pink soft collar, and a green tie adorned with a big diamond. He was bullet-headed, close shaven, and rejoiced in a prominent jaw of marine blue. He threw a soft hat into a corner and addressed a ferocious glare to each of us in turn.

“You have a broken nose,” said the Captain, with icy distaste.

“That’s done it! You’re ’im!” proclaimed the visitor. “An’ you’ll ’ave a broken neck in ’alf a mo!”

He stripped off his coat and hurled it amongst the litter of my writing-table. He removed the diamond and placed it in his waistcoat pocket. He tore his collar from his ox-like neck and cast it on the carpet. He began to unbutton his vest.

“This is not a public bath,” said O’Hagan, observing these manœuvres through his monocle. “You can have a wash for twopence at the lower end of Langham Place.”

The other proceeded stolidly with his immodest toilet, divesting himself of his waistcoat and rolling up his sleeves over his hirsute, brawny arms. No reply he made; he was a man too full for words.

O’Hagan rose from the Chesterfield which is his favourite lounge and stretched himself languidly. He poked the fire and left the poker between the bars.

“Raymond,” he drawled, “shall I go and find a constable to throw this low dog down stairs?”

The man leapt to the door with extraordinary agility, locked it, and slipped the key into a back pocket of his trousers. He faced us, a formidable figure, stripped to the pink shirt, which revealed the enormous development of his pectoral muscles. O’Hagan moves amid singular proceedings.

“Now, my bonny gentleman! My name’s ‘Trooper’ Belcher—an’ I’m ’er husband!”

“I trust you refer to Mrs. Belcher?”—O’Hagan.

Belcher: “My wife’s La Belle Lotus!”

The Captain studied Mr. Belcher with a new curiosity.

“I gather that you are a music-hall pugilist. Am I also to conclude that you are a bully acting on behalf of Mr. Brandon, whom I have to meet at seven in the morning outside Calais?”

“_I_ met Mr. bloomin’ Brandon at seven this evenin’ outside Oxford Circus!” shouted Belcher. “_You’ll_ meet ’im in Middlesex ’Ospital!”

My wits had deserted me. From the moment that the man had thrust his way into my rooms up to that when he had thus proclaimed himself the assailant of Brandon, I had stood helplessly watching his outrageous proceedings.

(“A gentleman, to-day,” O’Hagan has informed me, “is utterly at the mercy of the first lusty ruffian who cares to attack him. The only offensive and defensive art which survives to any extent—brutal pugilism—is extensively practised among the lower classes. Where is the gentleman’s sword? Taken from him! The Higher Jiu-jitsu, my dear Raymond, or Art of Gentle Thought, should be included in the curriculum of every preparatory establishment.”)

Belcher executed a charge which, I think, would have swept a healthy bullock from its feet. O’Hagan, with a lightning rapidity of action apparently peculiar to pupils of Shashu Myuku of Nagasaki, secured and presented the poker.

The man touched it with one huge fist and recoiled, screaming hoarsely.

“By God! that’s ’ot!” he panted.

“It is,” replied O’Hagan, again thrusting the point amid the coals; “red hot!” With his left hand he waved his monocle in my direction. “One cannot soil one’s hands with the persons of low fellows, Raymond!”

Belcher snatched up a heavy chair as though it had had no greater weight than a matchbox. A lightning, rapier lunge with the poker—an unpleasant _sizzling_ sound—and the chair crashed harmlessly to the floor. The now painfully singed “trooper” fell back on to the Chesterfield, groaning.

Again my bell rang.

“Hand the key to Mr. Raymond, my man,” ordered O’Hagan; “and replace your filthy rags upon your indecently nude person.”

Belcher threw the key across the carpet. My mind had assimilated a profound truth of the Higher Jiu-Jitsu: brute courage falters in the presence of hot pokers. I went to the door, and upon the landing stood a dazzling vision in leopard skins.

“My ’usband!” (The vision had a French accent.) “Is he here? Yes? Quick!”

She slipped past me, as an animal growl sounded from within. My rooms no longer were my own, but were become a rendezvous for insane meetings—for nightmare encounters. I re-entered the bear-garden which I had been wont to call my study.

The leopard lady was kneeling beside the wounded Mr. Belcher and explaining in voluble syncopated English that his suspicions were groundless, that it was a “boom,” no more; that he must _not_ kill Captain O’Hagan.

“My impression, Raymond,” said the latter, focussing me across the room, “is that our friend Belcher has recently left jail.”

“What if I ’ave!” roared that maltreated ruffian, starting to his feet.

“This,” replied O’Hagan with suppressed ferocity, “that if you are present in another minute I shall send you back again! _Madame!_”—he bowed to La Belle—“kindly remove your property from my friend’s apartment—I would suggest that you deposit it in cold storage—and permit me to say that I had credited you with nicer taste!”

He placed a cigarette between his lips, igniting it with the now white-hot poker.

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