Read Mr. Prohack Page 5


  CHAPTER III

  THE LAW

  His tranquil tone disguised the immense anarchy within. Silas Angmeringhad evidently been what is called a profiteer. He had made his money"out of the war." And Silas was an Englishman. While Englishmen,and--later--Americans, had given up lives, sanity, fortunes, limbs,eyesight, health, Silas had gained riches. There was nothing highlyunusual in this. Mr. Prohack had himself seen, in the very club in whichhe was now entertaining Softly Bishop, a man who had left an arm inFrance chatting and laughing with a man who had picked up over a millionpounds by following the great principle that a commodity is worth whatit will fetch when people want it very badly and there is a shortage ofit. Mr. Prohack too had often chatted and laughed with this samepicker-up of a million, who happened to be a quite jolly and generousfellow. Mr. Prohack would have chatted and laughed with Barabbas,convinced as he was that iniquity is the result of circumstances ratherthan of deliberate naughtiness. He seldom condemned. He had greatlyliked Silas Angmering, who was a really educated and a well-intentionedman with a queer regrettable twist in his composition. That Silas shouldhave profiteered when he got the chance was natural. Most men would dothe same. Most heroes would do the same. The man with one arm wouldconceivably do the same.

  But between excusing and forgiving a brigand (who has not despoiled_you_), and sharing his plunder, there was a gap, a chasm.

  Few facts gave Mr. Prohack a more serene and proud satisfaction than thefact that he had materially lost through the war. He was positively gladthat he had lost, and that the Government, his employer, had treated himbadly.... And now to become the heir of a profiteer! Nor was that all!To become the co-heir with a woman of dubious renown, and with Mr.Softly Bishop! He knew nothing about the woman, and would think nothing.But he knew a little about Mr. Softly Bishop. Mr. Bishop, it used to beknown and said in the club, had never had a friend. He had the usualnumber of acquaintances, but no relationship more intimate. Mr. Prohack,in the old days, had not for a long time actively disliked Mr. Bishop;but he had been surprised at the amount of active dislike which contactwith Mr. Bishop engendered in other members of the club. Why suchdislike? Was it due to his fat, red face, his spectacles, hisconspiratorial manner, tone and gait, the evenness of his temper, hiscautiousness, his mysteriousness? Nobody knew. In the end Mr. Prohackalso had succeeded in disliking him. But Mr. Prohack produced a reason,and that reason was Mr. Bishop's first name. On it being pointed out toMr. Prohack by argufiers that Mr. Bishop was not responsible for hisfirst name, Mr. Prohack would reply that the mentality of parentscapable of bestowing on an innocent child the Christian name of Softlywas incomprehensible and in a high degree suspicious, and that thereforeby the well-known laws of heredity there must be something devilish oddin the mentality of their offspring--especially seeing that theoffspring pretended to glory in the Christian name as being a fine oldEnglish name. No! Mr. Prohack might stomach co-heirship with a far-offdubious woman; but could he stomach co-heirship with Softly Bishop? Itwould necessitate friendship with Mr. Bishop. It would bracket him forever with Mr. Bishop.

  These various considerations, however, had little to do with the immenseinward anarchy that Mr. Prohack's tone had concealed as he musinglymurmured: "Do I really?" The disturbance was due almost exclusively to afierce imperial joy in the prospect of immediate wealth. The origin ofthe wealth scarcely affected him. The associations of the wealthscarcely affected him. He understood in a flash the deep wisdom of thatold proverb (whose truth he had often hitherto denied) that money has nosmell. Perhaps there might be forty good reasons against his acceptingthe inheritance, but they were all ridiculous. Was he to abandon hisshare of the money to Softly Bishop and the vampire-woman? Such a notionwas idiotic. It was contrary to the robust and matter-of-factcommonsense which always marked his actions--if not his theories. Nomore should his wife be compelled to scheme out painfully the employmentof her housekeeping allowance. Never again should there be a questionabout a new frock for his daughter. He was conscious, before anythingelse, of a triumphant protective and spoiling tenderness for his women.He would be absurd with his women. He would ruin their characters withkindness and with invitations to be capricious and exacting andexpensive and futile. They nobly deserved it. He wanted to shout and tosing and to tell everybody that he would not in future stand any d----dnonsense from anybody. He would have his way.

  "Why!" thought he, pulling himself up. "I've developed all thepeculiarities of a millionaire in about a minute and a half."

  And again, he cried to himself, in the vast and imperfectly exploredjungle that every man calls his heart:

  "Ah! I could not have borne to give up either of my clubs! No! I wasdeceiving myself. I could not have done it! I could not have done it!Anything rather than that. I see it now.... By the way, I wonder whatall the fellows will say when they know! And how shall I break it tothem? Not to-day! Not to-day! To-morrow!"

  At the moment when Mr. Prohack ought to have been resuming hisill-remunerated financial toil for the nation at the Treasury, Bishopsuggested in his offhand murmuring style that they might pay a visit tothe City solicitor who was acting in England for him and the Angmeringestate. Mr. Prohack opposingly suggested that national duty called himelsewhere.

  "Does that matter--now?" said Bishop, and his accents were charged withmeaning.

  Mr. Prohack saw that it did not matter, and that in future any nationthat did not like his office-hours would have to lump them. He fearedgreatly lest he might encounter some crony-member on his way out of theclub with Bishop. If he did, what should he say, how should he carry offthe situation? (For he was feeling mysteriously guilty, just as he hadfelt guilty an hour earlier. Not guilty as the inheritor of profiteeringin particular, but guilty simply as an inheritor. It might have beendifferent if he had come into the money in reasonable instalments, sayof five thousand pounds every six months. But a hundred thousandunearned increment at one coup...!) Fortunately the cronies were stillin the smoking-room. He swept Bishop from the club, stealthily, swiftly.Bishop had a big motor-car waiting at the door.

  III

  He offered no remark as to the car, and Mr. Prohack offered no remark.But Mr. Prohack was very interested in the car--he who had never beeninterested in cars. And he was interested in the clothes and in thedeportment of the chauffeur. He was indeed interested in all sorts ofnew things. The window of a firm of house-agents who specialised incountry houses, the jewellers' shops, the big hotels, the advertisementsof theatres and concerts, the establishments of trunk-makers and ofhistoric second-hand booksellers and of equally historic wine-merchants.He saw them all with a fresh eye. London suddenly opened to him itspossibilities as a bud opens its petals.

  "Not a bad car they; hired out to me," said Bishop at length, withcasual approval.

  "You've hired it?"

  "Oh, yes!"

  And shortly afterwards Bishop said:

  "It's fantastic the number of cars there are in use in America. You knowit's a literal fact that almost every American family has a car. Forinstance, whenever there's a big meeting of strikers in New York, allthe streets near the hall are blocked with cars."

  Mr. Prohack had food for reflection. His outlook upon life was changed.

  And later Bishop said, again apropos of nothing:

  "Of course it's only too true that the value of money has fallen byabout half. But on the other hand interest has about doubled. You canget ten per cent on quite safe security in these days. Even Governmentshave to pay about seven--as you know."

  "Yes," concurred Mr. Prohack.

  Ten thousand pounds a year!

  And then he thought:

  "What an infernal nuisance it would be if there was a revolution! Oh!But there couldn't be. It's unthinkable. Revolution everywhere, yes; butnot in England or America!"

  And he saw with the most sane and steady insight that the final duty ofa Government was to keep order. Change there must be, but let changecome gradually. Injustices must be remedied, naturally, but withou
t anyupheaval! Yet in the club some of the cronies (and he among them), afterinveighing against profiteers and against the covetousness of tradesunions, had often held that "a good red revolution" was the only way ofknocking sense into the heads of these two classes.

  The car got involved in a block of traffic near the Mansion House, andrain began to fall. The two occupants of the car watched each othersurreptitiously, mutually suspicious, like dogs. Scraps of talk wereseparated by long intervals. Mr. Prohack wondered what the deuce SoftlyBishop had done that Angmering should leave him a hundred thousandpounds. He tried to feel grief for the tragic and untimely death of hisold friend Angmering, and failed. No doubt the failure was due to thefact that he had not seen Angmering for so many years.

  At last Mr. Prohack, his hands in his pockets, his legs stretched out,his gaze uplifted, he said suddenly:

  "I suppose it'll hold water?"

  "What? The roof of the car?"

  "No. The will."

  Mr. Softly Bishop gave a short laugh, but made no other answer.

  IV

  The car halted finally before an immense new block of buildings, and theinheritors floated up to the fifth floor in a padded lift manned by abrilliantly-uniformed attendant. Mr. Prohack saw "Smathe and Smathe" ingilt on a glass door. The enquiry office resembled the ante-room of arestaurant, as the whole building resembled a fashionable hotel.Everywhere was mosaic flooring.

  "Mr. Percy Smathe?" demanded Bishop of a clerk whose head glittered inthe white radiance of a green-shaded lamp.

  "I'll see, sir. Please step into the waiting-room." And he waved apatronising negligent hand. "What name?" he added.

  "Have you forgotten my name already?" Mr. Bishop retorted sharply."Bishop. Tell Mr. Percy Smathe I'm here. At once, please."

  And he led Mr. Prohack to the waiting-room, which was a magnificentapartment with stained glass windows, furnished in Chippendale similarto, but much finer than, the furnishing of Mr. Prohack's own house. Onthe table were newspapers and periodicals. Not _The Engineering Times_of April in the previous year or a _Punch_ of the previous decade, and_The Vaccination Record_; but such things as the current _Tatler, Times,Economist_, and _La Vie Parisienne._

  Mr. Prohack had uncomfortable qualms of apprehension. For severalminutes past he had been thinking: "Suppose there _is_ something up withthat will!" He had little confidence in Mr. Softly Bishop. And now theaspect of the solicitors' office frightened him. It had happened to him,being a favourite trustee of his relations and friends, to visit theoffices of some of the first legal firms in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Youentered these lairs by a dirty door and a dirty corridor and anotherdirty door. You were interrogated by a shabby clerk who sat on a foulstool at a foul desk in a foul office. And finally after an interval ina cubby hole that could not boast even _The Anti-Vaccination Record_,you were driven along a dirtier passage into a dirtiest room whosewindows were obscured by generations of filth, and in that room sat aspick and span lawyer of great name who was probably an ex-president ofthe Incorporated Law Society. The offices of Smathe and Smathecorresponded with alarming closeness to Mr. Prohack's idea of what abucket-shop might be. Mr. Prohack had the gravest fears for his hundredthousand pounds.

  "This is the solicitor's office new style," said Bishop, who seemed tohave an uncanny gift of reading thoughts. "Very big firm.Anglo-American. Smathe and Smathe are two cousins. Percy's American.English mother. They specialise in what I may call the internationalcomplication business, pleasant and unpleasant."

  Mr. Prohack was not appreciably reassured. Then a dapper, youngish manwith a carnation in his buttonhole stepped neatly into the room, andgreeted Bishop in a marked American accent.

  "Here I am again," said Bishop curtly. "Mr. Prohack, may I introduce Mr.Percy Smathe?"

  "Mr. Prohack, I'm delighted to make your acquaintance."

  Mr. Prohack beheld the lawyer's candid, honest face, heard his tones ofextreme deference, and noted that he had come to the enquiry room tofetch his clients.

  "There's only one explanation of this," said Mr. Prohack to himself."I'm a genuinely wealthy person."

  And in Mr. Percy Smathe's private room he listened but carelessly to along legal recital. Details did not interest him. He knew he was allright.