Quixtus received them in the museum, a long room mainly furnished with specimen cases whose glass tops formed a double inclined plane, diagrams of geological formations, and bookcases full of pal?ontological literature—a cold, inhuman, inhospitable place. The three looked more dilapidated than ever. Huckaby’s straggling whiskers had grown deeper into his cheek; Vandermeer’s face had become foxier, Billiter’s more pallid and puffy. No overcoats hung on the accustomed pegs, for the cessation of the eleemosynary deposits had led, among other misfortunes, to the pawning of these once indispensable articles of attire. The three wore, therefore, the dismally apologetic appearance of the man who had no wedding garment. The only one of them who put on a simulated heartiness of address was Billiter. He thrust out a shaky hand— “My dear Quixtus, how delightful——”
But the sight of his host’s unwelcoming face chilled his enthusiasm. Quixtus bowed slightly and motioned them, with his grave courtesy, to comfortless seats. He commanded the situation. So might a scholar prince of the school of Machiavelli have received his chief poisoner, strangler, and confidential abductor. They went down to dinner. It was not an hilarious meal. The conversation which used to flow now fell in spattering drops amid a dead silence.
“It’s a fine day,” said Quixtus.
“Very,” said Huckaby.
“Finer than yesterday,” said Vandermeer.
“It promises well for to-morrow,” said Billiter.
“It always breaks its promise,” said Quixtus.
“H’m,” said Huckaby.
They made up for the lacking feast of reason by material voracity. A microscopic uplifting of Spriggs the butler’s eyebrows betokened wonder at their Gargantuan helpings. Vandermeer, sitting at the foot of the table opposite to Quixtus, bent his foxy face downwards till the circumference of the plate became the horizon of his universe. Billiter ate with stolid cynicism; Huckaby, with a faint air of bravado. Once he said:
“I’m afraid Quixtus we got a bit merry the last time.”
“It’s to the memory of that,” replied Quixtus; “that I owe the pleasure of your company to-night.”
“I’m beastly sorry—” began Billiter.
“Pray don’t mention it,” Quixtus interrupted blandly. “I hope the quails are to your liking.”
“Fine,” said Vandermeer, without raising his eyes from his plate.
Once more reigned the spell of silence which oppressed even the three outcast men; but Quixtus, hardened by his fixed idea, felt curiously at his ease. He sat in his chair with the same sense of security and confidence as he had done before delivering his Presidential Address at the meeting of the Anthropological Society, while the secretary went through the preliminary formal business. The preliminary business here was the meal. As soon, however, as the port had been sent round and Spriggs had retired, Quixtus addressed his guests.
“Gentlemen,” said he, and met in turns the three pairs of questioning eyes. “You may wonder perhaps why I have invited you to dinner to-night, and why, you being thus invited, the meal has not been warmed by its accustomed glow of geniality. It is my duty and my pleasure now to tell you. Hitherto at these dinners we have—let us say—worn the comic mask. Beneath its rosy and smiling exterior we have dissimulated our own individual sentiments. We have been actors, without realising it, in an oft-repeated comedy. Only on the occasion of our last meeting did we put aside the mask and show to each other what we were.”
“I’ve already apologised,” murmured Billiter.
“My dear fellow,” said Quixtus, raising his long thin hand, “that’s the last thing I want you to do. In this world of fraud and deceit no man ought to regret having bared his soul honestly to the world. Now, gentlemen, I have not asked you here to insult you at my own table. I have gathered you around me because I need your counsel and your services for which I hope adequately to remunerate you.”
A quiver of animation passed over the three faces. “Remunerate” was a magic word; the master-word of an incantation. It meant money, and money meant food and drink—especially alcoholic drink.
“I know I am speaking for my two friends,” said Huckaby, “when I say that our hearts are always at your service.”
“The heart,” replied Quixtus, “is a physiological organ and a sentimental delusion. There are no hearts in that sense. You know as well as I do, my dear fellow, that there are no such things as love, affection, honour, loyalty in the world. Self-interest and self-indulgence are the guiding principles of conduct. Governed by a morbid and futile tradition, we refuse to regard the world in the malevolent light of day, but see it artificially through the hypocritical coloured glasses of benevolence.”
Huckaby and Vandermeer, who retained the rudiments of an intellect, looked at their once simple-minded and tender-hearted host in blank bewilderment. They hardly knew whether to wince under a highly educated gentleman’s cutting irony, or to accept these remarkable propositions as honest statements of opinion. But the ironical note was not perceptible. Quixtus spoke in the same gentle tone of assurance as he would have used when entering on a dissertation upon the dolichocephalic skulls in his collection which had been found in a long barrow in Yorkshire. He was the master of a subject laying down incontrovertible facts. So Huckaby and Vandermeer, marvelling greatly, stared at him out of speculative eyes. Billiter, before whom the incautious decanter of port had halted, lost the drift of his host’s philosophic utterances.
“The time has now come,” continued Quixtus, relighting (unsophisticated soul!) the cigar which he had allowed to go out—“the time has now come for us four to be honest with one another. Up to a recent date I was a slave to this optical delusion of tradition. But things have happened to clear my eyes, and to make me frankly confess myself no better than yourselves—an entirely unscrupulous man.”
“Pray remember that I’m a sometime Fellow—” began Huckaby.
“I’m a gentleman of good family—” began Billiter, who had understood the last sentence.
“Yes. Yes,” replied Quixtus, interrupting them. “I know. That’s why your assistance will be valuable. I need the counsels of men of breeding and education. I find from my reading that the vulgar criminal would be useless for my purpose. Now, you all have trusted men who have failed you. So have I. You have felt the cowardly blows of Fortune. So have I. You have no vestige of faith in your fellow man—you even believed me to be a party to my late partner’s frauds—you can have, I say, no faith left in humanity. Neither have I. You are Ishmaels, your hand against every man. So am I. You would like to be revenged upon your fellow creatures. So would I. You have passed your lives in pursuing evil rather than good. You, in a word, are entirely unscrupulous. If you will acknowledge this we can proceed to business. If not; we will part finally as soon as this agreeable evening is at an end. Gentlemen what do you say?”
Billiter, looking upon the wine while it was red—there was not much left to show the colour—laughed wheezily and shortly.
“I suppose we’re wrong ‘uns,” said he. “At least I am. I own up.”
Vandermeer said bitterly: “When a man is hunted by poverty he can’t run straight, for at the end of the straight path is death.”
“And you, Huckaby?”
“I also have bolted into a drain or two in my time.”
“Good,” said Quixtus. “Now we understand one another.”
“You may understand us,” said Huckaby, tugging at his untidy beard, “but I’m hanged, drawn, and quartered if we understand you.”
“I thought I had made myself particularly clear,” said Quixtus.
“For my part,” said Billiter, “I can’t make out what you’re getting at except to make us confess that we’re wrong ‘uns.”
“Dear, dear,” said Quixtus.
“I can’t understand it,” said Vandermeer, looking intently at him across the table out of his little sharp eyes. “I can’t understand it, unless it is that you have some big scoop on and want us to come into it, so as to do the dirty work. If that’s so I’m on, so long as it’s safe. But I’ve steered clear of the law up to now and have no desire to run the risk of penal servitude.”
“Oh Lord no!” cried Billiter with a shiver.
Quixtus pressed the burning stump of his cigar against his plate and looked up with a smile.
“Please make your minds easy on that score. I have been reading criminology lately with considerable interest, and I have gone through a volume or two of ‘The Newgate Calendar,’ and the result of my reading is the conviction that crime is folly. It is a disease. It is also vulgar. No, I have no desire to increase my personal possessions in any way; neither do I contemplate the commission of acts of violence against the person or the destruction of property. Anything therefore that comes within the category of crime may be dismissed from our consideration.”
“Then in the name of Gehenna,” exclaimed Huckaby, “what is it that you want us to do?”
“It is very simple,” said Quixtus. “I may plot out an attractive scheme of wickedness, but the circumstances of my early training have left me without the power to execute it. I should like to call on any one of you for guidance, perhaps practical assistance. I may want to see and hear of wickedness going on around me. I would count on you to gratify my curiosity. Lastly, not having an inventive mind, it being rather analytic than synthetic, I should welcome any suggestions that you might bring me.”
“It’s a rum go,” said Billiter, “but I’m on, so long as there’s money in it.”
“There will be money in it,” said Quixtus.
“Then I’m on too,” said Vandermeer.
“You will find us, my dear Quixtus,” said Huckaby, “your very devoted Familiars—your Oliviers le Daim, your Eminences Grises, your ames damnées. We’ll be your ministering evil spirits, your genii from Eblis. It’s a new occupation for a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, but it’s not unalluring. And now, as Billiter has finished the decanter, may I take the liberty of asking for another bottle, so that Vandermeer and I can drink to the health of our chief.”
“With all the pleasure in life,” said Quixtus.
As soon as the three newly constituted Evil Genii were out of earshot of the house, they stopped on the pavement with one accord and burst into unseemly laughter.
“Did you ever hear anything like it?” cried Billiter.
“He’s as mad as Bedlam,” said Vandermeer.
“A sort of inverted Knight of the Round Table,” said Huckaby. “He yearns to ride abroad committing human wrongs.”
“Are we to call for orders every day like the butcher, the baker, and the greengrocer?” said Vandermeer.
“He was so sane at first,” said Vandermeer, “that I really thought he had some definite scoop in view. But it all turns out to be utter moonshine.”
“If he doesn’t want to thieve or murder or paint the town red,” said Billiter, “what the blazes in the way of wickedness is left for him to do?”
“It’s moonshine,” repeated Vandermeer.
“If it wasn’t,” said Huckaby, “none of us would touch it. We can’t take the matter seriously. We’re just lending ourselves to a farce, that’s all.”
“Naturally,” Billiter agreed. “We must humour him.”
They walked on slowly, discussing the unprecedented situation. They were unanimous in the opinion that the poor gentleman had gone distraught. They had all noticed signs of his affliction on the last occasion of their dining at his table. If he had been in his right senses then, he would surely not have behaved with such discourtesy. They agreed to forgive him for turning them out of doors.
“It’s lucky for him,” said Huckaby, “that he has three old friends like ourselves. He might have got into other hands, and then—God help him. My only reason for falling in with his mood was in order to protect him from himself—and from sharks and blood-suckers.”
Billiter and Vandermeer declared that they, too, had acted only out of a sense of loyalty to their old and distracted friend. They protested so hard that their tongues clave to the roofs of their mouths, and each acknowledged his thirst. They turned into the bar-parlour of the first public-house, where they called for whisky, and, each man having found a hat as good a substitute for the sacks of Joseph’s brethren as an overcoat, they continued to call for whisky, and to drink it until the tavern closed for the night. By that time they glowed with conscious virtue. Huckaby swore that he would permit no ruddy lobsters to dig their claws into Quixtus’s sacred person.
“Here’s poor dear old chap’s health, drunk in very last drop,” cried Billiter, enthusiastically draining his last glass.
The tragedy of Quixtus’s loss of reason reduced Vandermeer to tears. He was sorrowful in his cups. He, Vandermeer, had no one to love him; but Quixtus should never find himself in that desolate predicament, as he, Vandermeer, would love him like a friend, a brother, like a silver-haired maiden aunt.
“I’ve had a silver-haired maiden aunt myself,” he wailed.
While Billiter comforted him, Huckaby again warned them against ruddy lobsters. If they would swear to join him in a league to defend their patron and benefactor, he would accept their comradeship. If they preferred to be ruddy lobsters, he would wash his hands of them. They repudiated the crustacean suggestion. They were more Quixtus’s friends than he. A quarrel nearly broke out, each claiming to be the most loyal and disinterested friend Quixtus ever had in his life. Finally they were reconciled and wrung each other warmly by the hand. The barman called closing time and pushed them gently into the street. They staggered deviously to their several garrets and went to bed, each certain that he had convinced the two others of his beauty and nobility of soul.
Vandermeer was the first of the Evil Genii to be summoned. Quixtus laid before him the case of Tommy and the failure of his diabolical project. Vandermeer listened attentively. There was method after all in his patron’s madness. He wished to do some hurt to his nephew for the sheer sake of evil-doing. As far as the intention went he was seriously trying to carry out his malevolent principles. It was not all moonshine. Vandermeer thought quickly. He was the craftiest of the three, and that perhaps was why Quixtus had instinctively chosen him for the first adventure. He saw profit in humouring the misanthrope, though he smiled inwardly at the simplicity of his idea.
“There’s nothing particularly diabolical in telling a young fellow with a brilliant career before him that you’re going to cut him out of your will.”
“Isn’t there?” said Quixtus, with an air of disappointment. “What then would you suggest?”
“First,” answered Vandermeer, “what do you think would be a fair price for a suggestion?” He regarded him with greedy eyes. “Would twenty pounds be out of the way?”
“I’ll give you twenty pounds,” said Quixtus.
Vandermeer drew in his breath quickly, as a man does who wins a bet at long odds.
“There are all sorts of things you can do. The obvious one would be to stop his allowance. But I take it you want something more artistic and subtle. Wait—let me think—” He covered his eyes with his hand for a moment. “Look. How will this do? It strikes me as infernally wicked. You say he is devoted to his art. Well, make him give it up——”
“Excellent! Excellent!” cried Quixtus. “But how?”
“Can you get him into any business office in the City?”
“Yes. My friend Griffiths of the Anthropological Society is secretary of the Star Assurance Coy. A word from me would get the boy into the office.”
“Good. Then tell him that unless he accepts this position within a month and promises never to touch a paint-brush again, he will not receive a penny from you either during your lifetime or after your death. In this way you will bring him up against an infernal temptation, and whichever way he decides he’ll be wretched. I call that a pretty scheme.”
“It’s an inspiration of genius,” exclaimed Quixtus excitedly. “I’ll write the cheque now.” He sat down to his desk and pulled out his cheque-book. “And you will go at once to my nephew—I’ll give you a card of introduction—and acquaint him with my decision.”
“What?” cried Vandermeer.
Quixtus calmly repeated the last sentence. Vandermeer’s face went a shade paler. He wrung his hands, which were naturally damp, until they grew as bloodless as putty. He had never done any wanton harm in his life. All the meanness and sharp-dealing he had practised were but a poor devil’s shifts to fill an empty belly. Quixtus’s behest covered him with dismay. It was unexpected. It is one thing to suggest to a crazy and unpractical patron a theoretical fantasia of wickedness, and another to be commanded to put it oneself into execution. It was less moonshine than ever.
“Don’t you want to do it?” asked Quixtus, unwittingly balancing temptation, in the form of a fat cheque-book, in his hand.
Vandermeer fell. What wolf-eyed son of Hagar would have resisted?
“I think,” said he, with a catch in his throat, “that if the suggestion alone is worth twenty pounds, the carrying out of it is worth—say—ten more?”
“Very well,” said Quixtus; “but,” he added drily, “the next time I hope you’ll give an estimate to cover the whole operation.”
The second of the three to receive a summons from the Master was Billiter.
“You know something about horse-racing,” remarked Quixtus.
“What I don’t isn’t worth knowing. I’ve chucked away a fortune in acquiring the knowledge.”
“I want you to accompany me to race-meetings and show me the wickedness of the turf,” said Quixtus.
“So that’s my little job is it?”
“That’s your little job.”
“I think I can give you a run for your money,” remarked Billiter, a pale sunshine of intelligence overspreading his puffy features. “But—” he paused.
“But what?”
“I can’t go racing with you in this kit.”
“I will provide you,” said Quixtus, “with whatever costume you think necessary for the purpose.”
Billiter went his way exulting and spent the remainder of the afternoon in tracking a man down from his office in Soho, his house in Peckham, several taverns on the Surrey side of the river, to a quiet café in Regent Street. The man was a red-faced, thick-necked, hard, fishy-eyed villain with a mouth like the slit of a letter-box, and went by the name (which he wore inscribed on his hat at race-meetings) of Old Joe Jenks. Billiter drew him into a corner and whispered gleeful tidings into his ear. After which Old Joe Jenks drew Billiter to a table and filled him up with the most seductive drinks the café could provide.
Before the lessons in horse-racing under Billiter’s auspices began—for gorgeous raiment, appropriate to Sandown and Kempton, like Rome, is not built in a day—Quixtus sent for the remaining Evil Genius.
“What have you to suggest?” he asked after some preliminary and explanatory conversation.
A humorous twinkle came into Huckaby’s eye, and a smile played round his lips beneath the straggling brushwood of hair.
“I have a great idea,” he said.
“What is it?”
“Break a woman’s heart,” said Huckaby.
Quixtus reflected gravely. It would indeed be a charming, enticing piece of wickedness.
“I shouldn’t have to marry her?” he asked in some concern.
“Heaven forbid.”
“I like it,” said Quixtus, leaning back in his chair and smoothing his scrappy moustache with his lean fingers. “I like it very much. The only difficulty is: where can I find the woman whose heart I can break?”
“Take a tour abroad,” said Huckaby. “On the Continent of Europe there are thousands of English women only waiting to have their hearts broken.”
“That may be true,” said Quixtus; “but how shall I obtain the necessary introductions?”
“I,” cried Huckaby raising a bony hand that protruded through a very frayed and dirty shirt-cuff. “I, Eustace Huckaby, will reassume my air of academical distinction and will accompany you into the pays du tendre and introduce you to any woman you like. In other words, my dear Quixtus, although I may not look like a Lothario at the present moment, I have had considerable experience in amatory adventures—and I’m sure you would find my assistance valuable.”
Quixtus reflected again. Aware of his limitations he recognised the futility of going alone on a heart-breaking expedition among strange even though expectant females. But would Huckaby be an ideal companion? Huckaby was self-assertive, not to say impudent, in manner; and Huckaby had certain shocking habits. On the other hand, perhaps the impudence was the very quality needed in the quest; and as for the habits—He decided.
“Very well. I accept your proposal—on one condition. What that is you doubtless can guess.”
“I can,” said Huckaby. “I give you my word of honour that you will never see me otherwise than sober.”
An undertaking which would not preclude him from taking a bottle of whisky to bed whenever he felt so inclined.
“We had better start at once,” said Huckaby, after some necessary discussion of the question of wardrobe.
“I must wait,” replied Quixtus, “until I’ve attended some race-meetings with Billiter.”
Huckaby frowned. He was not aware that to Billiter had already been assigned a sphere of action.
“I don’t want to say anything unfriendly. But if I were you I shouldn’t trust Billiter too implicitly. He’s a—” he paused—being sober and serious he rejected the scarlet epithet which, when used in allusion to his friends, had given colour to his gayer speech—“He’s a man who knows too much of the game.”
“My dear Huckaby,” said Quixtus. “I shall never trust another human being as long as I live.”
That evening, somewhat wondering that he had heard no news of Tommy or of Vandermeer, he unlocked the iron safe in his museum and took out his will. He lit a candle and set it by the hearth. Now was the time to destroy the benevolent document. He put it near the flame; then drew it back. A new thought occurred to him. To practise on his nephew the same trick as his uncle had played upon him was mere unintelligent plagiarism. He felt a sudden disdain for the merely mimetic in wickedness.
“I will be original,” said he. “Yes, original.” He repeated the word as a formula both of consolation and incentive, and blowing out the candle, put the will back into the safe.