Читать книгу Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 2 - Lever Charles James - Страница 4

The Juden Gasse, in which Beecher was to find out the residence of Lazarus Stein, was a long, straggling street, beginning in the town and ending in the suburb, where it seemed as it were to lose itself. It was not till after a long and patient search that Beecher discovered a small door in an old ivy-covered wall, on which, in irregular letters, faint and almost illegible, stood the words, “Stein, Geldwechsler.”

As he rang stoutly at the bell, the door opened, apparently of itself, and admitted him into a large and handsome garden. The walks were flanked by fruit-trees in espalier, with broad borders of rich flowers at either side; and although the centre spaces were given up to the uses of a kitchen garden, the larger beds, rich in all the colors of the tulip and ranunculus, showed how predominant was the taste for flowers over mere utility. Up one alley, and down another, did Beecher saunter without meeting any one, or seeing what might mean a habitation; when, at length, in a little copse of palm-trees, he caught sight of a smalt diamond-paned window, approaching which, he found himself in front of a cottage whose diminutive size he had never seen equalled, save on the stage. Indeed, in its wooden framework, gaudily painted, its quaint carvings, and its bamboo roof, it was the very type of what one sees in a comic opera. One sash of the little window lay open, and showed Beecher the figure of a very small old man, who, in a long dressing-gown of red-brown stuff, and a fez cap, was seated at a table, writing. A wooden tray in front of him was filled with dollars and gold pieces in long stately columns, and a heap of bank-notes lay pressed under a heavy leaden slab at his side. No sooner had Beecher’s figure darkened the window than the old man looked up and came out to meet him, and, taking off his cap with a deep reverence, invited him to enter. If the size of the chamber, and its curious walls covered over with cabinet pictures, might have attracted Beecher’s attention at another moment, all his wonderment, now, was for the little man himself, whose piercing black eyes, long beard, and hooked nose gave him an air of almost unearthly meaning.

“I suppose I have the honor to speak to Mr. Stein?” said he, in English, “and that he can understand me in my own tongue?”

“Yaas, – go on,” said the old man.

“I was told to call upon you by Captain Davis; he gave me your address.”

“Ah, der Davis – der Davis – a vaary goot man – my vaary dear friend. You are der rich Englander that do travel wit him, – eh?”

“I am travelling with him just now,” said Beecher, laughing slightly; “but as to being rich, – why, we ‘ll not dispute about it.”

“Yaas, here is his letter. He says, Milord will call on you hisself, and so I hold myself – how you say ‘bereit?’ – ready – hold myself ready to see you. I have de honor to make you very mush welcome to my poor house.”

Beecher thanked him courteously, and, producing Davis’s letter, mentioned the amount for which he desired to draw.

The old man examined the writing, the signature, and then the seal, handing the document back when he had finished, muttering to himself, “Ah, der Davis – der Davis!”

“You know my friend very intimately, I believe?” asked Beecher.

“I belief I do, – I belief I do,” said he, with a low chuckle to himself.

“So he mentioned to me and added one or two little matters on which I was to ask you for some information. But first this bill, – you can let me have these two thousand florins?”

“And what do he do now, der Davis?” asked the Jew, not heeding the question.

“Well, I suppose he rubs on pretty much the same as ever,” said Beecher, in some confusion.

“Yaas – yaas – he rub on – and he rub off, too, sometimes – ha! ha! ha!” laughed out the old man, with a fiendish cackle. “Ach, der Davis!”

Without knowing in what sense to take the words, Beecher did not exactly like them; and as little was he pleased with that singular recurrence to “der Davis,” and the little sigh that followed. He was growing impatient, besides, to get his money, and again reverted to the question.

“He look well? I hope he have de goot gesundheit – what you call it?”

“To be sure he does; nothing ever ails him. I never heard him complain of as much as a headache.

“Ach, der Davis, der Davis!” said the old man, shaking his head.

Seeing no chance of success by his direct advances, Beecher thought he ‘d try a little flank attack by inducing a short conversation, and so he said, “I am on my way to Davis, now, with his daughter, whom he left in my charge.”

“Whose daughter?” asked the Jew.

“Davis’s, – a young lady that was educated at Brussels.”

“He have no daughter. Der Davis have no daughter.”

“Has n’t he, though? Just come over to the ‘Four Nations,’ and I ‘ll show her to you. And such a stunning girl too!”

“No, no, I never belief it – never; he did never speak to me of a daughter.”

“Whether he did or not – there she is, that’s all I know.”

The Jew shook his head, and sought refuge in his former muttering of “Ach, der Davis!”

“As far as not telling you about his daughter, I can say he never told me, and I fancy we were about as intimate as most people; but the fact is as I tell you.”

Another sigh was all his answer, and Beecher was fast reaching the limit of his patience.

“Daughter, or no daughter, I want a matter of a couple of thousand florins, – no objection to a trifle more, of course, – and wish to know how you can let me have them.”

“The Margraf was here two week ago, and he say to me, ‘Lazarus,’ say he, – ‘Lazarus, where is your goot friend Davis?’ ‘Highness,’ say I, ‘dat I know not.’ Den he say, ‘I will find him, if I go to Jerusalem;’ and I say, ‘Go to Jerusalem.’”

“What did he want with him?”

“What he want? – what every one want, and what nobody get, except how he no like – ha! ha! ha! Ach, der Davis!”

Beecher rose from his seat, uncertain how to take this continued inattention to his demand. He stood for a moment in hesitation, his eyes wandering over the walls where the pictures were hanging.

“Ah! if you do care for art, now you suit yourself, and all for a noting! I sell all dese, – dat Gerard Dow, dese two Potters, de leetle Cuyp, – a veritable treasure, and de Mieris, – de best he ever painted, and de rest, wit de land-schaft of Both, for eighty tousand seven hundred florins. It is a schenk – a gift away – noting else.”

“You forget, my excellent friend Stein,” said Beecher, with more assurance than he had yet assumed, “that it was to receive and not spend money I came here this morning.”

“You do a leetle of all de two – a leetle of both, so to say,” replied the Jew. “What moneys you want?”

“Come, this is speaking reasonably. Davis’s letter mentions a couple of thousand florins; but if you are inclined to stretch the amount to five, or even four thousand, we ‘ll not fall out about the terms.”

“How you mean – no fall out about de terms?” said the other, sharply.

“I meant that for a stray figure or so, in the way of discount, we should n’t disagree. You may, in fact, make your own bargain.”

“Make my own bargain, and pay myself too,” muttered the Jew. “Ach, der Davis, how he would laugh! – ha! ha! ha!”

“Well, I don’t see much to laugh at, old gent, except it be at my own folly, to stand here so long chaffering about these paltry two thousand florins. And now I say, ‘Yea or nay, will you book up, or not?’”

“Will you buy de Cuyp and de Wouvermans and de Ostade? – dat is the question.”

“Egad, if you furnish the ready, I ‘ll buy the Cathedral and the Cursaal. I ‘m not particular as to the investment when the cash is easily come at.”

“De cash is very easy to come at,” said the Jew, with a strange grin.

“You ‘re a trump, Lazarus!” cried Beecher, in ecstasy at his good fortune. “If I had known you some ten years ago, I ‘d have been another man to-day. I was always looking out for one really fair, honester-hearted fellow to deal with, but I never met with him till now.”

“How you have it, – gold or notes?” said Lazarus.

“Well, a little of both, I think,” said Beecher, his eyes greedily devouring the glittering little columns of gold before him.

“How your title? – how your name?” asked Stein, taking up a pen.

“My name is Annesley Beecher. You may write me the ‘Honorable Annesley Beecher.’”

“Lord of – ”

“I ‘m not Lord of anything. I’m next in succession to a peerage, that’s all.”

“He call you de Viscount – I forget de name.”

“Lackington, perhaps?”

“Yaas, dat is de name; and say, give him de moneys for his bill. Now, here is de acceptance, and here you put your sign, across dis.”

“I ‘ll write Annesley Beecher, with all my heart; but I ‘ll not write myself Lackington.”

“Den you no have de moneys, nor de Cuyp, nor de Ostade,” said the Jew, replacing the pen in the ink-bottle.

“Just let me ask you, old boy, how would it benefit you that I should commit a forgery? Is that the way you like to do business?”

“I do know myself how I like my business to do, and no man teach me.”

“What the devil did Davis mean, then, by sending me on this fool’s errand? He gave me a distinct intimation that you ‘d cash my acceptance – ”

“Am I not ready? You never go and say to der Davis dat I refuse it! Ah, der Davis!” and he sighed as if from the very bottom of his heart.

“I’ll tell him, frankly, that you made it a condition I was to sign a name that does not belong to me, —that I ‘ll tell him.”

“What care he for dat? Der Davis write his own name on it and pay it hisself.”

“Oh! and Davis was also to indorse this bill, was he?” asked Beecher.

“I should tink he do; oderwise I scarce give you de moneys.”

“That, indeed, makes some difference. Not, in reality, that it would n’t be just as much a forgery; but if the bill come back to Grog’s own hands – ”

“Ach, der Grog, – ha! ha! ha! ‘Tis so long dat I no hear de name, – Grog Davis!” and the Jew laughed till his eyes ran over.

“If there’s no other way of getting at this money – ”

“Dere is no oder way,” said Lazarus, in a tone of firmness..

“Then good-morning, friend Lazarus, for you ‘ll not catch me spoiling a stamp at that price. No, no, old fellow. I ‘m up to a thing or two, though you don’t suspect it. I only rise to the natural fly, and no mistake.”

“I make no mistake; I take vaary goot care of dat,” said Lazarus, rising, and taking off his fez, to say adieu. “I wish you de vaary goot day.”

Beecher turned away, with a stiff salutation, into the garden. He was angry with Davis, with himself, and with the whole world. It was a rare event in his life to see gold so much within his reach and yet not available, just for a scruple – a mere scruple – for, after all, what was it else? Writing “Lackington” meant nothing, if Lack-ington were never to see, much less to pay the bill. Once “taken up,” as it was sure to be by Grog, what signified it if the words across the acceptance were Lackington or Annesley Beecher? And yet, what could Davis mean by passing him off as the Viscount? Surely, for such a paltry sum as a couple of thousand florins, it was not necessary to assume his brother’s name and title. It was some “dodge,” perhaps, to acquire consequence in the eyes of his friend Lazarus that he was the travelling-companion of an English peer; and yet, if so, it was the very first time Beecher had known him yield to such a weakness. He had a meaning in it, that much was certain, for Grog made no move in the game of life without a plan! “It can’t be,” muttered Beecher to himself, – “it can’t be for the sake of any menace over me for the forgery, because he has already in his hands quite enough to push me to the wall on that score, as he takes care to remind me he might any fine morning have me ‘up’ on that charge.” The more Beecher ruminated over what possible intention Davis might have in view, the more did he grow terrified, lest, by any short-comings on his own part, he might thwart the great plans of his deep colleague.

“I never met his equal yet to put a fellow in a cleft stick,” muttered Beecher, as he walked to and fro in intense agitation, “and he’s just the man also, whenever anything goes wrong, not to listen to a word of explanation. ‘Why didn’t you do as I bade you?’ or, ‘As I ordered you?’ for that’s his phrase generally. ‘Who told you that you had any option in the matter? Did I take you into consultation? Play up to my hand!’ that’s his cry. ‘Play up to my hand, and never mind your own!’ Well, I have been doing so some ten or twelve years back, and a nice game I’ve made of it! Break with him! – of course I’d break with him, if any one would tell me how! Egad, sometimes I begin to think that transportation and the rest of it would not be a bit harder to bear than old Grog’s tyranny! It wears one out, – it positively drains a man’s nature dry!” There are volcanic throes, that, however they may work and struggle, throw up no lava; so with Beecher. All his passionate indignation could not rouse him to action, although his actual suffering might have prompted energy to any amount. He took out Davis’s letter and re-read it. One line which had escaped his attention before, now caught his eye on the blank leaf. It ran thus: “Take care that you do not delay at Aix after receipt of this. Benson’s fellows are after you.” A cold shudder came over Beecher as he perused the line. Benson’s fellows meant bailiffs, detectives, or something of the like. Benson was a money-lender of the most inveterate villany, – a fellow who had pursued more men of station and condition than any one living. He was the terror of the “swells.” To be in Benson’s hands meant ruin in its most irretrievable shape; and at the very moment he stood there his minions were on his track!

Ere he was well aware of it, he was back at the little window of the cottage.

“I must have this money on your own terms, Stein,” said he. “I find that Davis has some urgent need of my presence. I can’t delay here another day.”

“How many tousend gulden, milord?” asked the Jew respectfully, as he dipped his pen in the ink-bottle.

“Davis says two – I should like to say four, or even five.”

“Five if you wish it, milord; to me is it all as one – five, fifteen, or fifty; whatever sum you want.”

Beecher put his hand on the other’s wrist to detain him while he took a moment’s counsel with himself. Never had such a golden opportunity as this presented itself. Never before had he seen the man who so generously proffered his services. It was ask and have. Was he to reject such good fortune? – was he to turn his back on the very first piece of luck that had ever befallen him? What heartburnings might he be storing up for future years when he looked back to the time that, with a word, he might have made his fortune!

“But are you quite sure, friend Lazarus, that if I say eight or ten thousand, – for I don’t want more, – Davis will be as willing to back the bill?”

“I am quite sure.”

“Well, now, I am not so very certain of that; and as it is Davis will have to book up, it might be safer, perhaps, that I did n’t go beyond the amount he mentions, – eh?”

“As you will, – as you please yourself. I only say, dere is der Herr Davis’s name; he send it to me and say, ‘Milord will do de rest.’”

“So that he sent you a blank acceptance?” cried Beecher, in amazement.

“Yaas, Just as you see, – ‘Christopher Davis,’ and de flourish as usual. Ach, der Davis!” and he sighed once more.

The man who held Grog’s signature on a blank stamp assumed no common shape in Annesley Beecher’s eyes, and he continued to gaze on the old man with a strange sense of awe and astonishment. If he had not the document there before him on the table, he would not have believed it. The trustful courage of Van Amburgh, who used to place his head in the lion’s mouth, seemed poor in comparison with such heroic boldness as this; and he gazed at the writing in a sort of fascination.

“And Grog actually sent you that over by letter?” asked he again.

“Yaas, as you see,” was the calm answer.

“Well, here goes then, Abraham – Lazarus, I mean; make it out for a matter of – five – no, eight – hang it, let as say ten thousand florins when we are about it! Ten thousand, at six months, – eh?”

“Better at tree months, – we can always renew,” said Stein, calmly.

“Of course; and by that time we may want a little more liquor in the decanter, – eh! old boy?” said Beecher, laughing joyfully.

“To be sure, vaary mush more liquor as you want it.”

“What a brick!” said Beecher, clapping him on the shoulder in all the ecstasy of delight.

“Dere!” said the Jew, as he finished writing, “all is done; only to say where it be paid, – what bank at London.”

“Well, that is a bit of a puzzle, I must own!” said Beecher, rubbing his chin with an air of doubt and hesitation.

“Where do de Lord Lackington keep his account?” asked the Jew; and the question was so artfully posed that Beecher Answered promptly, —

“Harmer and Gore’s, Lombard Street, or Pall Mall, whichever you like.”

“Hanper and Gore. I know dem vaary well, – that will do; you do sign your name dere.”

“I wish I could persuade you that Annesley Beecher would be enough, – eh?”

“You write de name as der Davis say, and no oder!”

“Here goes, then! ‘In for a penny,’ as the proverb says,” muttered he; and in a bold, dashing hand, wrote “Lackington” across the bill.

“Ah!” said the Jew, as he examined it with his glass, and scanned every letter over and over; “and now, vat you say for de Cuyp, and de Mieris, and de Ostade, – vill you take ‘era all, as I say?”

“I ‘ll think over it, – I ‘ll reflect a bit first, Master Stein. As for pictures, they ‘re rather an encumbrance when a man has n’t a house to hang them in.”

“You have de vaary fine house in town, and an oder vaary fine house in de country, beside a what you call box – shoot-box – ”

“Nothing of the kind, Lazarus. I haven’t a thing as big as the crib we are standing in. Your mind is always running upon my brother; but there’s a wide difference between our fortunes, I assure you. He drew the first ticket in the lottery of life; and, by the way, that reminds me of something in Grog’s letter that I was to ask you.” And Beecher took the epistle from his pocket and ran his eye over it. “Ah! here it is! ‘Ask Stein what are the average runs at rouge-et-noir, what are the signs of an intermitting game, and what are the longest runs he remembers on one color?’ Can you answer me these?”

“Some of dem I have here,” said Stein, taking down from a shelf a small vellum-bound volume, fastened with a padlock and chain, the key of which he wore attached to his watch. “Here is de grand ‘arcanum,’” said he, laughing; “here are de calculs made in de experience of forty-one year! Where is de man in Europe can say as mush as dat? In dis book is recounted de great game of de Duc de Brancas, where he broke de bank every night of de week till Saturday, – two million tree hundred tousand francs! Caumartin, the first croupier, shot hisself, and Nogeot go mad. He reckon de moneys in de casette, for when he say on Friday night, ‘Monseigneur,’ say he, ‘we have not de full sum here, – there’s one hundred and seventy tousand francs too little,’ de Duc reply, ‘Never mind, mon cher Monsieur Nogeot, I am noways pressed, – don’t distress yourself, – only let it be pay before I go home to bed.’ Nogeot lose his reason when he hear it. Ah! here is de whole ‘Greschichte,’ and here de table of chances.”

Beecher gazed on the precious volume as Aladdin might have done on the lamp. It was the mystic key to untold riches. With that marvellous book a man needed no more in life; there lay all the “cabals,” all the “martingales,” that years of intense toil and deep study had discovered. To win that knowledge, too, what hearts had been broken, what desolation, what death! It was a record of martyrs in his eyes, and he really regarded it with a sort of rapturous veneration.

Old Lazarus did not fail to detect the expression of wonderment and admiration. He saw depicted there the glowing ecstasy that all the triumphs of high art could not call up. The vigorous energy of Wouvermans, the glowing coloring of Cuyp, the mellow richness of Mieris, had not touched that nature which now vibrated in every chord to the appeal of Fortune. It was the submissive worship of a devotee before some sacred relic! Stein read that gaze, and tracked its every motive; and with a solemn gesture he clasped the volume and locked it.

“But you are surely going to show me – I mean, you are about to tell me the answer to these questions?”

Stein shook his head dubiously, as he said: “Dat is my Kleinod, my idol, – in dat book lie de secret of secrets, and I say to myself, ‘Lazarus, be poor, be destitute, be houseless to-morrow, and you know how to get rich if you will.’ De great law of Chances – de rule dat guide what we call ‘Luck’ – dere it is written! I have but to say I will have, and I have! When I die, I will burn it, or have it lay wit me in my grave.”

“It’s not possible you could do this!” cried Beecher, in horror: far less of indignation had it cost him to hear that any one should carry out of the world with him the cure of cancer, of cholera, or some such dread scourge of poor humanity. The black-hearted selfishness of such a crime seemed without a parallel, and for a second or two, as he looked at the decrepid object before him, and saw the lonely spot, the isolation, and the propitious moment, a strange wild thought flashed across his mind that it might be not only pardonable, but praiseworthy, to seize upon and carry it off by force.

Whether the old man read what was passing within him is hard to say, but he returned the other’s look as steadily and as fiercely, and Beecher felt abashed and cowed.

“I’ ll tell you what, Stein,” said he, after a pause, “I ‘ll buy that same old volume of yours, just for the curiosity of the thing, and I ‘ll make you a sporting offer, – I ‘ll give you ten thousand francs for it!”

A low wailing whistle of utter contempt was all the Jew replied.

“Well, it’s a splendid bid, if you come to think of it; for, just suppose it be everything you say – and I own I can’t believe it is, – but suppose it were, who is to guarantee the continuance of these great public play-tables? All the Governments of Europe are setting their faces against them, – not a year passes without one or two being closed. This very spring there was a talk of suppressing play at Baden. Who can tell what the first outbreak of fanatic zeal may effect?”

“No, no. So long as men live, dey will do tree tings, – make love, make war, and gamble. When dey give up dese, de world shut up.”

There was a truthful force about this Beecher felt could not be gainsaid, and he stood silent and confuted. There was another appeal that he had not tried, and he resolved to neglect nothing that gave even the faintest chance of success. He addressed himself to the Jew’s goodness of heart, – to the benevolence that he knew must have its home in his nature. To what end, therefore, should he carry to the grave, or destroy, a secret that might be a blessing to thousands? He depicted, not without knowledge, some of the miseries of the man “forgotten of Fortune,” – the days of fevered anxiety, – the nights of agonizing torture, as, half maddened by his losses, he played wildly, recklessly on, – suicide in all its darkest forms ever present to his aching faculties, while all this time one glance within that little book would save him. And he wound up all by a burst of enthusiastic praise of a man who could thus transmit happiness to generations unborn.

“I never wish to sell dat book. I mean it alway to die wit myself! but if you will give me one tousand pounds, it is yours. If you delay, I will say two tousands.”

“Done – I take it. Of course a bill will do – eh?”

“Yaas, I will take a bill, – a bill at tree months. When it is yours, I will tell you dat you are de luckiest man in all Europe. You have dere, in dat leetle volume, all man strive for, fight for, cheat for, die for!”

As he said this, he sat down again at his desk to write the acceptance Beecher was to sign; while the other, withdrawing into the window recess, peered eagerly into the pages of the precious book.

“Mind,” said the Jew, “you no let any one see de ‘Cabal.’ If it be once get abroad, de bank will change de play. You just carry in your head de combinations, and you, go in, and win de millions dat you want at de time.”

“Just so,” said Beecher, in ecstasy, the very thought of the golden cataract sending a thrill of rapture through him. “I suppose, however, I may show it to Davis?”

“Ach, der Davis, yaas, – der Davis can see it,” said the Jew, with a laugh whose significance it were very hard to interpret. “Dere now,” said Stein, handing him the pen, “write de name dere as on de oder.”

“Still Lackington, I suppose – eh?” asked Beecher.

“Yaas, – just de same,” said Stein, gravely.

“‘Just as good for a sheep as a lamb,’ as the proverb says,” muttered Beecher. And he dashed off the name with a reckless flourish. “I ‘ll tell you one thing, Master Stein,” said he, as he buttoned up the magic volume in the breast of his coat, “if this turn out the good dodge you say it is, I ‘ll behave handsomely to you. I pledge you my word of honor, I’ll stand to you for double – treble the sum you have got written there. You don’t know the fellow you’re dealing with, – very few know him, for the matter of that, – but though he has got a smart lesson or two in life, he has good stuff in him still; and if– I say if, because, of course, all depends on that—if I can give the bank at Hamburg a spring in the air with the aid of this, I ‘ll not forget you, old boy.”

“You make dem all spring in de air! – Ems, Wiesbaden, Baden – all go up togeder!” And the Jew laughed with the glee of a demon.

“Not that I want to hurt any one, – not that I ‘d like to squeeze a fellow too hard,” broke in Beecher, suddenly, for a quick thrill of superstitious fear – the gambler’s innate conscience – shot through him, and made him tremble to think that by a chance word or thought he might disgust the Fortune he would propitiate. “No, no; my motto is, ‘Live and let live!’ There’s room for us all!” And with the utterance of a sentiment he believed so truly generous, he took leave of the Jew, and departed.