Читать книгу The Magnificent Hoax - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 8

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It was a great night at Ordino’s, the most fashionable of the night restaurants in London, recently turned into a club and alarmingly exclusive. Ordino himself, who had just discontinued his brief chat with the chef d’orchestre, looked around the room with justifiable pride. He was quick to notice a certain commotion near the entrance. Alfonso, his most reliable understudy, was bowing to the ground. Two guests had just arrived. Alfonso, with many words of greeting, was conducting them to a corner table near the wall, which was usually reserved in case Royalty might appear. Ordino hurried away and joined the little group already assembled round the table. The maître d’hôtel fell back. The sommelier followed his example. Alfonso yielded place. Ordino bowed low to these most desirable patrons.

“Lady Judith,” he exclaimed, “this is marvellous! We are all so happy to see you back. And Sir Gregory, too. You have both had a delightful trip, I trust? We read of rough weather in the Bay.”

It was Lady Judith who replied. She was a singularly beautiful woman, singular also inasmuch as she seemed to have utterly disdained even the smaller arts of the beauty parlour. Her lips showed 52 only a faint line of colour and the ivory pallor of her complexion was a miracle for one returned, barely twenty-four hours according to the telegrams, from a Mediterranean cruise.

“Adorable, my dear Ordino,” she assured him. “But oh, the food! The wine came from you and it was excellent, but even Sir Gregory’s wonderful steward knew nothing about mixing a cocktail. And the cooking—oh, I cannot tell you. I starve!”

“Two double Martinis first,” Sir Gregory, the tall dark man on her left, ordered. “Afterwards you will see our heads together over the menu, Ordino. We are not only hungry, we are greedy.”

“However good the cold storage is,” Lady Judith observed, “there comes a time when most food on a boat tastes the same way. We had very nearly reached that point.”

“We had reached it,” Sir Gregory declared grimly. “Tell us the news, Ordino.”

Lady Judith leaned back amongst the cushions, sipped her Martini happily, and lit a cigarette. Ordino was voluble. He spoke of trouble in a famous family. There were two divorces to report. A separation was certain in a ducal household. A very celebrated and popular young man had had to leave the country suddenly without explanation. Lady Sybil was really engaged at last. The Duke of Crewkerne had joined the club. Sir Gregory finished his cocktail and held up his hand.

“Enough,” he begged. “Touching this business of dining . . .”

“Oh, I am so much with you,” Lady Judith agreed. “No more gossip, Ordino. Give us the rest a little at a time—just a spice with each course. Now, we choose what we eat.”

Ordino himself wrote down the selected dishes with his own particular gold pencil upon his own seldom-used block. On his way to the chef he was stopped by a distinguished patron of the place.

“Tell me, Ordino,” the latter asked, “to whom are you showing all these wonderful attentions? Who is the beautiful lady with the Italian complexion, those attractive eyes and the splendid figure—and her companion?”

Ordino looked at the speaker in surprise. It seemed absurd that any member of the club did not know his famous clients. Then he remembered that the enquirer was an American.

“The lady, sir,” he confided, “is Lady Judith Martellon, daughter of the Earl of Martellon. She would be the most popular young lady in English society but she is always off on some wild expedition or another. Professor Sir Gregory Fawsitt, the man of so much distinction with her, is a great friend. They are supposed to be engaged but there is not much money and one does not know.”

The American, his curiosity satisfied, nodded and passed on. Ordino spent a pleasant ten minutes with the chef. The business of preparing the feast was made simpler by the preliminary service of a great bowl of caviar and a flask of vodka. Ordino was a very happy man. He superintended 54 the service of the caviar himself, and despatched the waiter in search of special lemons just arrived from his own birthplace in Sicily.

“There is one thing I wish to mention,” Ordino confided, leaning slightly towards Sir Gregory. “You remember Major Granderson?”

“The fellow we tried to get out of re-electing?” Sir Gregory reflected. “Yes, I remember him.”

“We decided,” Ordino went on, dropping his voice, “that he was perhaps a little too inquisitive to be a desirable member. Then we discovered that he was a nephew of Longhurst’s, one of our directors, so we had to elect him.”

“And is he still inquisitive?”

“He has been here two or three times a week for the last three months,” Ordino continued. “I have made a point of going to speak to him on each occasion. Sooner or later he has always brought the conversation round to your yachting cruise.”

“Don’t see why he should be so interested in us,” Sir Gregory remarked. “I scarcely know the fellow.”

“I can just recall him,” Lady Judith announced. “He is tall and thin and has a rather worn, sensitive face and tired eyes. I always thought him rather interesting-looking.”

“He may be perfectly harmless,” Ordino concluded, having glanced over his shoulder and discovered that the waiter with the fresh dish of lemons was bearing down upon them. “Still, I did hear a faint rumour—nothing that could be substantiated, 55 though—which was not altogether pleasant. Then his interest in your yachting cruise, considering how slightly you are acquainted, seemed strange.”

“And the rumour?” Sir Gregory asked.

Ordino waved his hand. A matter so slight had passed from his memory. The maître d’hôtel had re-established himself at the table. The waiter was slicing and serving the fresh lemons. The subject of Major Granderson was dropped.

The returned travellers did ample justice to the very choicest meal which the famous club restaurant could serve. There were many friends who paused at their table on their way in and out of the room, but though they were cordially received they were not encouraged to linger.

“You see, my dear Agnes,” Lady Judith observed to one girl who showed no signs of moving on, “to-night we are two very hungry people. To-morrow night, by the end of the week at any rate, we shall be our normal selves again. Just now our chief interest in life is food. Everything about our cruise was wonderful, including the host,” she concluded with a little smile to Sir Gregory, “but as he himself complained the most, he won’t mind my saying that our chef ought to have been thrown overboard.”

“Perfect scoundrel,” Sir Gregory agreed. “Must have forged his credentials, I’m sure of that.”

The girl took the hint and passed on. A well-known 56 sporting peer, who was also a journalist, strolled across the room to them smoking a large cigar.

“We’re no use to you, old chap,” Sir Gregory assured him, as soon as the preliminary greetings were over. “Just a little paragraph that we have returned from a cruise mostly in Mediterranean seas, sunburnt but famished, that’s the limit.”

“Aren’t you going to tell us the places you’ve been to?” the visitor enquired in a disappointed tone. “Everybody’s been so curious.”

Lady Judith shook her head.

“That’s the one question we’re not going to answer,” she confided. “Both Gregory here and myself are under a solemn compact not to tell a soul. We’re going again next year and we have actually discovered one or two almost unvisited spots.”

“Seems rather too bad,” the journalist grumbled. “I thought I had a nice little story for my Sunday column when I saw you two here.”

“If you mention a word more than that brief but happy paragraph which I have just suggested—” Sir Gregory began firmly.

“He won’t, I know,” Lady Judith interrupted, with an appealing glance upwards.

“You have probably been in mischief, both of you,” the journalist grumbled. “Sickeningly selfish, though, to hinder a pal who is trying to make an honest living.”

He lounged off with a good-natured farewell 57 nod. Sir Gregory tapped a cigarette upon the table and lit it.

“I don’t know whether it’s my fancy,” he remarked thoughtfully, “but people seem to be terribly interested in our yachting cruise.”

Lady Judith shrugged her white shoulders.

“After all,” she reminded him, “it’s a vilely personal age. These poor paragraph writers would pillory their own mothers or fathers for a guinea. I suppose they think that two very much talked-about people like you and me, Gregory, ought to have taken a chaperon. What does it matter? I still have some appetite left and I can’t bear these interruptions.”

After dinner Lady Judith and a cousin, the Honourable Algernon Veasey, who had been sitting at a table a short distance away, danced. Sir Gregory, with the air of an habitué, left the room, made his way up a back staircase, along a passage and into a spacious, handsomely furnished apartment on the first floor. There were several cabinets against the walls, of solid and handsome design, and in the centre of the room, upon a magnificent Turkish rug, was a highly polished mahogany table, around which were six high-backed chairs. Sir Gregory threw himself into one of them and pressed lightly with his heel upon the floor. In a moment or two Ordino, calm and bland, presented himself. Sir Gregory looked at him keenly. It was 58 almost as if he were anticipating some measure of trouble, but there was none to come.

“Things going all right, Ordino?” he asked.

“Sir Gregory,” was the earnest reply, “to you, as chairman of the company, I wish to offer my congratulations. For luncheon, for dinner, for supper, for every possible meal we are obliged to turn away hundreds of possible patrons. Our prices are higher than anyone else’s. We are making a larger scale of profit. The accountants here yesterday were dumbfounded at our turnover. They went through the books three times before they decided to make out our profit and loss account. The results seemed impossible. As regards,” he went on, “the other channels of income, you are standing upon the threshold, Sir Gregory, of a great fortune.”

For a single moment Gregory Fawsitt half closed his eyes, a little wearily. The man’s suave complacency, his even tone, his air of complete satisfaction, grated upon him.

“We ought to make money,” he said. “We run tremendous risks.”

The only reply upon which Ordino ventured was a slight shrug of the shoulders. Once, in the tiny village where he had been born, they called him “the man with the face of a bull and the heart of a lion.” It was certainly true that he had never known fear.

“There are many similar undertakings, there is much that is done in Paris and New York where 59 the risks are far greater. New York depends upon an enormous system of bribery. Over here the police remain our enemies, but we run a machine which is nearly what they say of a motor car—foolproof.”

Gregory Fawsitt motioned with his head towards one of the cabinets. Ordino rose to his feet at once. He produced a bottle of choice whisky, a glass, and soda water. Cigars and cigarettes were upon the table. The visitor smoked and meditated for a moment or two in silence.

“This week’s delivery was the largest you have ever had, Ordino,” he observed.

The man smiled.

“One thousand Dutch cheeses,” he murmured. “They were the larger size too. I will admit that even I felt qualms. Yet, what did it matter? We could have received twice the shipment without even a curious look. Your packing and organisation are simply marvellous, Sir Gregory.”

“And the demand continues the same?”

“It grows—it grows every week,” Ordino confided. “While we are on the subject, there is one comment, and only one, which several of our clients have made and that is scarcely in the way of criticism. There have been a few complaints of what they used to call in China ‘the little women’s snow.’ Old Lady Addington declares that it does not send her to sleep nearly as quickly as it used to.”

“What these people forget,” Sir Gregory 60 pointed out, “is that the longer they take the stuff the less effect it has upon them. There’s no chance for any adulteration, Ordino. It comes to us first hand—I can promise you that.”

“There’s no one in the world doubts that, sir,” the little man chuckled, “and the complaints are nothing. They do not amount to a snap of the fingers. All that we pray for is that you may be starting for another yachting cruise—well, if it was to-morrow it would not be too soon. It’s like the craze for cosmetics amongst the women, sir. It grows and grows all the time. Would you like to look at your accounts?”

Sir Gregory nodded. Ordino unlocked a safe, withdrew a small ledger from it, turned to a page about halfway through the volume and pointed to some recent entries.

“We have paid nineteen thousand seven hundred into your account this week, Sir Gregory,” he said. “You have about eight thousand to come. Then there are the ‘B’ payments which have gone over to Switzerland. They’re not so much, because until this week we have been short of stock, but they come to something like twelve thousand odd.”

Sir Gregory nodded silently. He closed the book, fastened the spring lock and leaned back in his chair. Sometimes it all seemed like a dream to him even now. He had never been a poor man, but wealth such as was flowing in now was a thing of which he had never dreamed. And from what a source it came! A grim look for a moment changed 61 his whole expression. Ordino watched his patron with some uneasiness. He dreamed of the days when he might do without these figureheads, these spineless Britishers whom the world so easily believed could do no wrong because they had lived apparently blameless lives and bore honoured names. Some day or other they would develop what they called consciences and then the whole business would crumple up.

“Her ladyship must come and sign our book some day,” he said. “I have the signatures of four members of the Royal family since you left for your last cruise.”

Sir Gregory rose to his feet.

“I must go down and join the others,” he decided.

The inner side of the wall possessed instead of windows small Gothic-shaped apertures looking down on the restaurant below. Sir Gregory drew back the curtain of one and glanced downwards. The place now was packed with people, a seething mass of humanity moving slowly and with difficulty to the music. Almost immediately below were Lady Judith and her companion. Sir Gregory watched her for a moment. She was dancing with perfect grace but languidly, swaying a little to the music but without enthusiasm. A reminiscent smile parted Sir Gregory’s lips. He nodded cheerfully to Ordino and made his way downstairs.