Quinneys’

Chapter XI More Bludgeonings

I

The loss of four hundred pounds stimulated our hero to greater efforts. Deep down in his heart, moreover, lay the desire to rehabilitate himself. Susan had spared him exasperating reproaches, but he perceived, so he fancied, pity in her faithful eyes. Her ministrations recalled that humiliating Channel crossing, when his superiority as a male had been buried in a basin! Let us admit that he wanted to play the god with Susan, to shake the sphere of home with his Olympian nod, to hear her soft ejaculation: “Joe, dear, you are wonderful!”

At this crisis in his fortunes he found himself, for the first time in his life, with time on his hands. His premises were overstocked to such an extent that he dared not run the temptation of attending sales. To succeed greatly, he only needed customers, and they shunned him as if Soho Square were an infected district.

It began to strike him that he had embarked upon a highly speculative business. Tomlin was clear upon this point.

“It’s a gamble if you go for big things. Buying that commode was a gamble. You can’t escape from it. That’s what makes it interesting. Win a tidy bit here, lose a tidy bit there, and it’s all the same a hundred years hence.”

This familiar philosophy percolated through Quinney’s mind. It never occurred to him that he could be called a gambler, and yet something in him thrilled at the name. He heard Tomlin’s platitudes, and wondered why he had never thought of them before.

“Farming’s gambling—a mug’s game! Sooner put my money on to a horse than into the ground! Marriage! The biggest gamble of all! You struck a winner, my lad—I didn’t.”

“I suppose,” said Quinney, staring hard at Tomlin, “that you don’t gamble outside your business?”

“Yes, I do, when I get a gilt-edged tip.”

“Race-horses?”

“Stock Exchange. Customers tell me things. I’m fairly in the know, I am. Make a little bit, lose a little bit! It binges me up when I feel blue.”

“I’d like to get back a slice o’ that lost four hundred quid.”

“Maybe I can help you to do it. A customer of mine is in the Kaffir Market.”

“Kaffir Market! What’s that?”

It has been said that Quinney was grossly ignorant of things outside his own business.

“If you ain’t as innocent as Moses in the bulrushes! African Mines, you greenhorn! He tells me of things. Never let me down—not once. He says a boom is just due.”

“Do you risk much, Tom?”

“Lord bless you, no! I buy a few likely shares on margin, and carry ’em over. A man must have some excitement.”

“Yes,” said Quinney thoughtfully, “he must.”

He did not mention this talk to Susan, but as he kicked his heels waiting for customers, the necessity of excitement—any excitement—gripped at his vitals. Meanwhile, let it be placed to his credit that he resisted the daily temptation to sell stuff to dealers. He could have sold his treasures to Lark at a fine profit, but he remained true to the principle: keep your best things to attract private customers. He hoped that his kind patron, Lord Mel, would come to see him. Possibly his lordship was offended, because his advice had been spurned. Then he heard that Lord Mel was abroad, and not likely to return to England for several months. He missed the bi-weekly meetings at the Mitre, and he did not dare to tell his Susan that he was depressed and dull, because he dreaded the inevitable “I told you so.” Susan missed her few friends, and Quinney strained his powers of deception in the attempt to cheer her up by affirming that he had bettered his position by leaving Melchester.

Many wise persons contend that if you want anything inordinately, you get it. Excitement came to Quinney when he least expected it.

II

Hitherto adventurers of the first flight had left him alone. Small imposters are easily detected. Nobody could deal with the baser sort of trickster more drastically than Quinney. Rappers, for example, rapped in vain at his door. If he opened it, they never crossed the threshold. But when a provincial pigeon, preening his wings, is discovered within a stone’s throw of the Greek quarter in London, some fancier is likely to make an attempt to bag the bird. Such a one entered Quinney’s establishment some three months after the lamentable sale of the commode. He appeared to be a quiet, well-dressed man, and he wore a single pearl in his cravat, which inspired confidence. He asked Quinney if he ever attended sales as an agent, to buy things on the usual commission. Quinney had acted as agent for Lord Mel upon several occasions, and we may pardon him for mentioning the fact to the stranger, who seemed mildly impressed. He remarked casually that he knew Lord Mel, and had shot some high pheasants at Mel Court. Quinney, in his turn, was impressed by this information, for he knew that Lord Mel was nice in his selection of guests. Eventually Quinney consented to attend a certain sale, and to bid for two Dutch pictures which the stranger had marked in a catalogue.

“This is my card,” said the stranger. “I shall be happy to give you a banker’s reference.” He named a well-known bank, but Quinney was quite satisfied with the name and address on the card. His visitor was an army officer, a Major Fraser, and he belonged to a famous Service Club.

Somewhat to his disappointment, the two Dutch pictures fetched a price beyond the limit imposed by the Major, who dropped in next day and expressed his regrets. He was so civil and genial that Quinney hoped to have the honour of serving him on some future occasion. The Major glanced at the sanctuary and before leaving paid ten pounds for a small Bow figure, and ordered it to be sent to the Savoy Hotel. After he had gone, Quinney found a letter addressed to Major Archibald Fraser, of Loch Tarvie, Inverness, N.B. He sent back the letter with the Bow figure, and he was curious enough to look up Major Archibald Fraser in Kelly’s Handbook to the Titled, Landed, and Official Classes. He discovered, to his satisfaction, that the Major owned two properties in Scotland, and was a Justice of the Peace. He had married the daughter of a well-known Scotch magnate. Quinney chuckled and rubbed his hands. The right sort were finding their way to Soho Square at last. After this the Major dropped in again and again, always in search of knowledge, which Quinney supplied with increasing pleasure. In a word, the pigeon was ready for plucking.

During his next visit the Major spoke with enthusiasm of a picture he had discovered in Dorset. He assured Quinney that the picture was a genuine Murillo. Then he pulled a bundle of notes out of his pocket, handed twenty pounds to Quinney, and delivered the following speech:

“I must go to Inverness to-night,” he said regretfully. “My factor has wired for me about the letting of a forest of mine. Take this money on account of expenses, go to Dorchester, do yourself well—there is an excellent inn there, and a few bottles left of some ’68 port. To-morrow there will be a sale at a small auction mart in the town. This picture will be offered. Here’s a photograph of it. Buy it for me. In three days I shall be back in town.”

He was hurrying away when Quinney stopped him. Queer notions of business these army gentlemen had, to be sure!

“What am I to bid for the picture, Major?”

“I’ll go to fifteen hundred. I shouldn’t be furious if you paid a hundred more. Wire to Loch Tarvie! Bye-bye!”

He was away before Quinney could get in another word.

“Thruster, and no error!” murmured Quinney to himself.

He travelled to Dorchester that afternoon and paid a visit to the auction mart before dinner. The auctioneer knew him, and expressed surprise at seeing him, for he was selling only job lots.

“Nothing to interest you, Mr. Quinney.”

“Perhaps not. I’ll have a squint round as I am here.”

The auctioneer accompanied him, and Quinney soon found his picture, which was very dirty and inconspicuous. Old masters were not in his line, but he recognized the frame at once as being genuine—a fine specimen of carved wood, although much battered. The auctioneer said carelessly:

“I had a gentleman staring at that picture this morning. You’re after the frame, I dare say.”

Quinney made no reply. He saw that a small portion of the dirty canvas had been rubbed.

“Might look quite different if it was cleaned,” said the auctioneer. “The other fellow did that with his handkerchief and a small bottle of stuff he carried in his pocket. I didn’t like to object. Colour comes out nicely!”

“Who does it belong to?”

“A stranger to me. I take everything as it comes. I’m in a small way of business, as you know, Mr. Quinney; but some nice stuff has passed through my hands.”

He plunged into an ocean of reminiscences, punctuating his remarks with lamentations of ignorance.

“If I really knew. Suppose it’s a gift. You have it, Mr. Quinney. I have a sort of general knowledge of values, but it’s the special knowledge that picks up the big bargains.”

Quinney returned to his hotel.

At the auction next day two or three country dealers, small men, with whom he had a nodding acquaintance, were bidding. The gentleman who was interested in the picture was present also, languidly indifferent to the proceedings. However, he became animated when the picture was put up as “a valuable Madonna and Child, the work of an old master.” The gentleman bid a hundred for it, apparently to the surprise of the small dealers.

“One hundred and twenty-five,” said Quinney.

The gentleman bent down to whisper a word to a man who stood next him, and then he stared hard at Quinney, with a slight frown upon his smooth forehead.

“One hundred and fifty,” he said quietly.

Finally Quinney secured the picture for eleven hundred pounds, well pleased at having secured it so cheap. The rival bidder led him aside.

“You are the famous dealer, Joseph Quinney?”

Quinney smiled complacently. The gentleman continued in a whisper:

“I expected to get that picture for a hundred pounds. You have fairly outbidden me, and I could not bid a farthing more to-day; but will you kindly tell me what you will take for your bargain?”

“Sorry,” said Quinney; “but I bought it on a commission for a well-known collector.”

“There is no more to be said,” replied the other.

He nodded pleasantly and vanished. Quinney never saw him again. Nor did he see Major Archibald Fraser. Quinney paid the auctioneer with a cheque, and returned to London, after wiring the Major that the treasure was his. Three days later, not hearing a word from his client, he became slightly uneasy. His cheque had been cashed; the picture was in his possession. The abominable truth leaked out slowly. Major Archibald Fraser, of Loch Tarvie, had been impersonated by a chevalier d’industrie. The picture was worth, perhaps, forty pounds, and the frame another five-and-twenty!

The pigeon from the country had been plucked.

III

The poor fellow sobbed out the facts to his Susan in a passion of self-abasement. The loss of the money was serious enough, but what ground him to powder was the fact that he had become the laughing-stock of the London dealers. Every man jack of them knew. He could not show his face in an auction room without provoking spasms of raucous laughter. The Dorchester auctioneer, called upon to prove his innocence (which he did), made the tale public. It was acclaimed as “copy” by scores of newspapers. And salt was rubbed into his wounds by the reporters whose sympathy seemed to lie with the two scoundrels who had devised so clever a scheme, and escaped with the swag! There was a cruel headline: “A Biter Bit.”

“Whom have I bit?” he demanded of Susan.

The little woman mingled her tears with his, but no words of hers could assuage his misery or stem the torrent of self-accusation.

“Nice sort of fool you’ve married! A mug of mugs! You was right. Ought to have remained in Melchester! Ought to have remained in swaddling clothes! Ought never to have been born!”

He apostrophized Posy, now a child of ten.

“Nice sort of father you’ve got! Look at him! Why didn’t you choose somebody else, hey? Picked a wrong’un, you did!”

Posy lifted her young voice and wept with her parents. And then Susan, almost hysterical, said with unconscious humour:

“Gracious! Isn’t this a rainy afternoon!”

IV

After a few days the sun shone again. Lord Mel, who had returned to England, called upon his former tenant, and listened with sympathy to the tale of thwackings. Quinney added details which he had kept from Susan. Fired by Tomlin, he had ventured into the Kaffir Market, where the bears had mauled him. His losses, fortunately, were inconsiderable; but once again he had been “downed” by Londoners. He was too proud to whine before Lord Mel, and from long habit he expressed himself whimsically.

“Not fit to cross the road without a policeman. Time I advertised for a nurse or a keeper!”

“Are you thinking of going back to Melchester?”

At this Quinney exploded.

“My lord, I couldn’t face Pinker, and Mrs. Biddlecombe would cackle and nag at me till I wrung her neck. She wrote to Susan to say that she was sorry to hear that the Lord had seen fit to afflict me grievously. In her heart she’s glad.”

“You don’t blame the Lord?”

“I blame myself. I’ve been a silly daw, strutting about like a peacock. I wanted a fight, and I’ve had it; but I can’t go back to Melchester. I must stick it out here, win or lose, customers or no customers. If the worst comes to the worst, I can sell to dealers. It means slavery.”

“But you have some customers?”

“Very few—the wrong sort. Mostly women, who don’t value their own time or mine. They look at my stuff, and call it ‘rather nice’; they try to pick up a few wrinkles about glass and porcelain, and then they drift out, promising to call again.”

“We must try to alter this.”

“It does me good to see your lordship’s face again.”

Lord Mel bought a table and some Irish glass. He shook Quinney’s hand at parting genially.

“You’ve had a dose. Perhaps your system needed it. Pay my respects to Mrs. Quinney, and tell her not to worry.”

Quinney ran upstairs to Susan.

“Lord Mel’s been in. Sent his respects to you. You’re not to worry—see?”

“I am not worrying much, Joe. Nobody escapes hard times.”

“His lordship has faith in me. He ain’t offended. Just the same as ever. I told him everything—more than I told you.”

“More than you told me?”

“I lost a few hundreds dabbling in mines. All that foolishness is over and done with. I mean to stick to what I know, and the people I know who’ll stick to me. I shall give my undivided attention to business. I mean to work harder than ever, so as to win back what I’ve lost.”

“How much have you lost, dear?”

“I’m not speakin’ of money, Susie. I’ve lost my self-respect, and I don’t stand with you just where I did.”

“You do—you know you do!”

He shook his head obstinately.

“I know I don’t. You ain’t suffering from a crick in the neck along of lookin’ up at me. I ain’t been soaring lately. Wriggling like a crushed worm about fits me.”

“Joe, dear, you’ve never quite understood me.”

“Hey?”

“I married you for better or worse.”

He stared at her amazedly.

“Lawsy! It never entered into your pretty head that it could be for worse?”

“I should love you just the same if it were.”

“No, no, that ain’t sense, Susie. It won’t wash. You loved me because I was Joe Quinney—a feller with ambitions, a worker, a man with brains in his head. If I failed you, I should expect you to despise me. I should feel that I’d had you under false pretences.”

Susan smiled very faintly. Her voice was curiously incisive:

“You have a lot to learn yet, Joe, about persons.”