The Trimming of Mr. Edgar Franks

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

 

E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

Begins

A Suite of Suave Stories

in a Riviera Setting

with

THE   TRIMMING   OF

MR. EDGAR FRANKS

Illustrated by Marshall Frantz

THE two men hesitated upon the tee, gazing down the glade toward the distant green. Their caddies were still pointing in excitement to a motionless object stretched upon the smooth turf close to the flag.

“Regardez là-bas!”

“C'est un homme!”

“Il est mort!”

The players paused to consider the situation. They were oddly contrasted combatants—one, Mr. Edgar Franks, elderly, large, and florid, with a mass of flaxen hair only slightly streaked with gray, a transatlantic millionaire, and owner of the finest villa in the neighborhood of Antibes, the other tall and slim, a mere lad, whose name was Armand Toyes, and who motored down occasionally from his home somewhere in the hills behind Cagnes.

“I guess he's lying just about where I want to pitch,” the former remarked in a tone of annoyance. “That is, if it's a man at all.”

“Whether it's a man or a bundle of rags,” his companion observed, “I'm afraid we shall have to walk the hole or send the caddies on. We might try a shout.”

Both men lifted their voices, and the warning cry of the modern golfer rang through the sunlit stillness of the April morning. There was not the slightest movement from the object upon the green.

“We shall have to go and investigate,” the American grumbled.

The two men skirted a little clump of marsh grasses, among which were clusters of yellow irises, and made their way down the fairway toward the green. Both, in their way, were of incurious disposition, yet they quickened their pace a little as they neared their destination.

“It's a man right enough,” the younger golfer declared.

“A tramp,” his companion pronounced, “and asleep. No dead man would lie like that. Hullo there!”

THE sleeper started, raised himself on his elbow and struggled to his feet. He was dressed in the rags of a French tramp or ouvrier out of work, but his attitude, under the circumstances, was unusual. He turned a dark scowling face upon the intruders as though in resentment of their interference with his slumbers.

“Queer place to choose for a bed, my man,” Mr. Edgar Franks remonstrated. “Do you know that this is a golf course, and private property?”

“I did not know, and what does it matter?” was the none too civil reply. “I lost my way and I was overcome by sleep. In what direction does Cagnes lie?”

They pointed out the village. The man looked at them both for a moment with obvious distaste, turned away without another word, and started off.

“Well, I'm damned!” Mr. Edgar Franks exclaimed.

“Surly devil!” his young companion laughed. “A tramp, without a doubt, but fancy his not asking for anything.”

They watched him cross the links in a direct line to the village which they had indicated. He walked as though his feet were sore, but he had none of the habitual slouch of the mendicant.

“Queer that he answered us in French,” Edgar Franks remarked. “He looked English to me. His intonation was English, too.”

They strolled to the next tee and dismissed the affair from their minds.

THE tramp crossed the links, found his way out on to the road, and entered a small café on the outskirts of the village. Madame, from behind the counter, watched his approach doubtfully.

“What does Monsieur desire?” she inquired with somewhat forced politeness.

“A wash,” he replied shortly. “Afterwards some coffee.”

He understood her look, and, from a pocket in his tattered coat, drew out several franc notes. She moved to the end of the counter and opened a door.

“Out there is a basin,” she directed. “There is also water. One may wash there and afterwards the coffee shall be served.”

The man made his toilet and returned. He chose a chair out in the sunlight. His clothes remained the clothes of a scarecrow and the frown had not left his face. Nevertheless, he was a person of no ordinary type. He was apparently still young, his features had strength, his mouth was straight and resolute. His hands were hard and tanned, but shapely.

“Monsieur has come far?” the woman asked, as she served his coffee.

“Far enough,” he answered.... “Can you direct me,” he went on, after a moment's pause, “to the Villa Sabatin?”

“The Villa Sabatin?” the woman repeated. “But, yes. It is up the valley on the left. One takes the little train here, and gets out at St. Oisette.”

“It is far?” he demanded.

“Nine kilometers, perhaps,” the woman replied.

The man paid for his coffee and roll, counted his remaining franc notes, and boarded the shabby little train tram, waiting by the side of the road. Slowly and with many jolts he was transported some distance around the deep fertile basin of country lying between Cagnes and St. Jeanette in the hills. At St. Oisette he descended. There was a cluster of tiny houses, each standing in the middle of its cultivated plot of land, a café, an old church, and a rough road. He had no need to ask his way. At the corner of the road was a sign-post, “To the Villa Sabatin.”

ARRIVED now at the final stages of his journey which might, from his condition, have been a long one, he seemed in no hurry to conclude it. Often he stopped in the somewhat arduous climb and lingered to look around at the ever-increasing panorama. The view was one which had attracted many artists from divers places in the world, but if he felt any appreciation of it, there was no sign of such emotion in his face. His eyes rested with apparent indifference upon the green valley, with its slopes of vineyards and its clusters of olive trees, its neatly cultivated patches of rich vegetable land, and beyond, the walls of the ancient gray Stone villages rising here and there in the shadow of the mountains. He even raised his head and gazed at the distant snow-clad Alps, whose tracery of white seemed more than ever virginal against the deep blue of the sky. He glanced backwards at the old town of Cagnes, rising from the plain and towering over the landscape, its buildings a thousand years old, separate, yet blended together with the strange unison of time, the flashes of blue beyond, the glittering bay eastwards. But whatever impression these things produced upon him remained entirely unrevealed. He simply looked and looked and climbed on.

He arrived at length before a pair of wonderfully handsome iron gates which stood open. A woman came out of the porter's lodge and screamed at him volubly, pointing to a back entrance. He took no notice of her and walked on by the masses of flowering roses, orange-blossoms, and great clumps of heliotrope. He came upon the villa almost unexpectedly, white and cool in the sunlight, with green shutters and a wide veranda. He marched boldly up to the front door and pulled the iron bell. A very correct-looking man servant frowned out upon him.

“TERE'S a back entrance,” he admonished sharply. “You have no right here.”

“I am a visitor,” the tramp rejoined calmly. “Be so good as to inform Madame at once that I have arrived.”

“It is impossible,” the man refused. “Madame does not receive mendicants.”

He would have closed the door, but the tramp's foot was already in the opening.

Illustration: “My little friend is not angry with me any more?” asked Armand, His voice was soft, almost caressing, yet to Cardinge there seemed to be something of menace in it.

“You had better announce me,” he insisted, “or there may be trouble.”

The servant hesitated. A woman had issued from one of the large windows, a book under her arm, and was slowly approaching a wicker chair on the balcony. The tramp drew back and faced her. She was a woman of remarkable appearance, tall, fair, with beautiful complexion, and masses of auburn hair, carefully guarded from the sunlight by a small green parasol with a wonderful jade handle. She was slim and she walked gracefully, yet, though the traces of middle age were not apparent, it was obvious that she was no longer young. She came to a standstill a few yards away. The tramp had removed his cap and bowed low, with a sort of ironic grace.

“As wonderful as ever!” he murmured. “Behold the obedience of your slave!”

The woman looked at him with no expression in her face. Nevertheless, it was clear that she was studying him. Then, with a certain deliberation, her lips parted. She laughed softly and with evident amusement.

“But my dear Hugh!” she exclaimed. “It has come to this, then?”

“It has come to this,” he admitted.

She turned to the butler

“William,” she directed, “show this gentleman to a bathroom. Provide for him whatever you can in the way of clothes and necessities. Monsieur will lunch with us.”

The man bowed and turned to ushered the newcomer toward the stairs. The latter, however, hesitated for a moment.

“Your welcome,” he said to the woman, “overjoys me. I beg, however, that you will not feel undue alarm on my account. My clothes, it is true, were better thrown away. But—”

“You need not explain,” she interrupted coldly.”Hasten to follow William. I am impatient to welcome you under more favorable circumstances, the first of my Virgins to obey the summons.”

He turned away with a little shrug of the shoulders—scarcely the gesture of a tramp. Then he followed his guide up the broad marble stairs.

IN A suit of gray English tweeds, obviously the production of a first-class tailor, shaved, manicured, and redolent of the odors of the bathroom, the tramp, when he made his way out on to the piazza an hour later, had certainly all the outward appearance of a gentleman. Madame regarded him with critical approval; William with such amazement that he nearly dropped the silver tray which he was carrying

“A marvelous transformation!” Madame murmured. “You were always the handsomest of my little company, you know, Hugh, in your way. What a pity that your looks do not seem to have led you to prosperity!”

“Why should I regret ill fortune,” he rejoined, “which has brought me back to you?”

“Your coming was inevitable,” she reminded him, “whether your fortune had been good or ill.”

“True,” he admitted. “It is odd, though, that I should be the first.”

“Where were you?” she inquired.

“In Marseilles three days ago.”

“Marseilles!”

“I landed there from foreign parts,” he explained. “The day I landed I picked up a newspaper in a café on the quay—and here I am.”

“I do not inquire too closely into your adventures,” Madame said, as she led the way toward the luncheon table, “but you know the one condition which breaks our tie?”

“I have never forgotten it,” he replied. “Let me at once reassure you. I have met with various misfortunes during my wanderings, but I have not been in prison.”

“Excellent!” she murmured. “For some of the others I fear. You, however, with all your faults, were always a man.”

He bowed a little ironically.

“An al fresco lunch,” he observed, watching the servants bring out a table. “I have had many on my way from Marseilles, but scarcely like this.... One is perhaps discreet before your household?” he asked.

“My servants are still selected on the same principle,” she replied. “But it is perhaps better.”

“Why have you decided to disband us?” he demanded.

SHE shrugged her shoulders very slightly.

They were served from a sideboard inside one of the rooms. She waited until William, who appeared to have dismissed his subordinates, was occupied there before she answered.

“I am getting old, perhaps, or poor, or weary. I need distraction. I wanted to see what had become of you all—and there is your quittance to earn, you must remember. It suits you to pay me this visit?”

“Suits me!” he repeated. “Why not? I am a ruined and broken man. I was on my way ten minutes after I had read your message. I followed the Mediterranean here and I came strangely. I walked by night, by day I rested and bathed. It has been quite a wonderful experience. I could write a new guide to the Riviera. I have a franc and a few sous left.”

Madame stretched out her hand lazily, opened a silk bag which hung from her chair, took out a small volume and studied it carefully.

“You will be glad to hear, then,” she announced, setting it down, “that you are better off than imagine. There are sixty-two thousand, five hundred francs due to you.”

“Impossible!” he exclaimed.

She smiled.

“A seventh share of the Gobert appropriation belonged to you,” she explained. “You have not as yet received a penny.”

“I disown the Gobert appropriation,” he replied.”There was a woman in it.”

“To disown an affair, which is already accomplished, is merely an affectation,” she declared. “There was a woman concerned who chose to be disagreeable. Nothing happened to her. She was simply ignored. I shall write you out a cheque upon the Credit Lyonnais which will enable you to present a reasonable appearance here.”

“And my quittance?” he inquired.

“There is no great hurry about that,” she told him. 'A rest here will do you no harm and there are several schemes in my mind. Your present business is to replenish your wardrobe and to take up your position as a guest in my house.”

“The effort,” he observed, 'would appear easy.”

The stillness of the sun-warmed lazy air was suddenly broken. One heard no longer the humming of the bees, the drone of countless insects, the downward rush of the little stream at the end of the garden. These fainter and more musical sounds were drowned by the insistent throb of an approaching automobile. A small two-seater tore round the last bend of the drive, and was pulled up with quite unforeseen abruptness at the bottom of the flight of steps. A girl, the sole occupant of the car, descended, and came smiling to meet them. She was very young, and as she drew near it became apparent that she was unexpectedly beautiful. She was tall and slim. Her hair, which escaped bounds a little, was almost the yellow of the Rhine maidens. Her eyes were a dark brown, her eyebrows very distinct and well-defined. Her mouth was delightful; soft and with a continual disposition to develop a humorous curve. She acknowledged, with some surprise, Madame's introduction.

“Mr. Hugh Cardinge—my niece, Claire Fantenay.”

The girl shook hands with a pleasant word. Cardinge, who had watched her with an absorbed gaze, only bowed. The servant was already preparing another place at the luncheon table.

“How is this?” Madame inquired. “I thought that you were lunching with Armand at the Golf Club.”

THE girl frowned a little, blushed, and bit her lip. It was obvious that she was younger than she had at first appeared, and her distress made her seem, to the man who had scarcely yet removed his eyes from her, more beautiful than ever.

“Armand annoyed me,” she confessed. “I preferred to return. Besides, there was a message which he desired me to bring to you.”

“A message?” Madame repeated.

The girl nodded.

“You may understand it,” she continued. “Nobody else could. He told me to say that it had arrived this morning. What 'it' was he did not condescend to explain.”

Madame sighed.

“You children!” she murmured tolerantly.

The girl took her place at the table. The shadow of some recent annoyance or hurt lingered still in her face.

“If Armand is a child,” she said, “I prefer to consider myself grown up. If he is grown up, I should prefer to be a child.”

“By the bye,” Madame inquired irrelevantly, “with whom did Armand play?”

“With a very dull man whom I specially dislike,” the girl answered. “He could have had several better matches, but he insisted on waiting for this person. Most annoying for me because I particularly wanted to walk round.”

“You have omitted to mention the name of this objectionable person,” Madame reminded her.

“Sorry,” the girl replied, “I thought you'd guess. Mr. Edgar Franks, I think he calls himself—the man whom every one kowtows to because he's a millionaire. What does Armand want with millionaires?”

FOR the remainder of luncheon Madame and her niece talked on indifferent subjects, chiefly in French. Their guest remained silent. Afterwards, however, when his hostess invited him to walk with her in the gardens, he had something to say.

“Madame,” he began, “I have obeyed the call. I am here—as before. But you will remember that in the past there was one condition. Women remained outside anything to which we put our hands.”

“Well?”

“The girl there,” he went on. “She is very young, and I am sure that she is innocent. You have no niece.”

MADAME laughed softly. Again her laugh was devoid of any suggestion of mirth.

“Always the Sir Galahad,” she scoffed. “I suppose you'd still cut a man's throat, if you wanted to.”

“If I wanted to, without a doubt,” he admitted coolly. “I have killed several since we met.”

“But the girl, chiefly, I suppose, because she has a baby face, and, from the standards of you men, is beautiful, must not be brought into touch with such things.”

“That is so,” he agreed. “You remember how it was in the old days? Children, dogs, and women one places outside. In other respects you have not known me scrupulous.”

They sat side by side in the pleasant sunlit stillness. Madame was silent. The beauty of his surroundings seemed to act like an irritant upon her companion.

“Tell me,” he asked abruptly. “Have you any definite plans, or is it your ambition to organize a new Decameron in this wonderful new home of yours?”

“I have no plans,” she answered. “Our covenant enjoins that when the time came for disbandment I should send for you all and require you to earn your quittance. That time seemed to me to have arrived. I need amusement badly.”

“You have summoned us all?”

“Every one of you,” she replied with a faint but poignant smile. “They are not all as prompt as you, but they will come. Most of them will hate it, but they dare not stay away.”

“And in the matter of my quittance?” he asked.

“Your enterprise is already arranged for,” she told him. “The message which my niece brought from the Golf Club has confirmed it.”

“It must be understood that the young lady is in no way concerned in the undertaking,” he stipulated.

The light of a supreme and angry contempt flashed for a moment in her eyes.

“Under the circumstances,” she scoffed, “conditions from you seem a little absurd. You desire your quittance, I presume. You must earn it.”

“Madame,” he replied, unmoved, “you should never mock the unfortunate. I admit that I am a soldier of fortune, and to-day I am a pauper—except for the amount you spoke of. But my principles are unshaken.”

“In effect, you weary me,” she declared. “However, let it pass. All that I require of you is that you rob a fat man, not of money, but of information.”

“The business appeals to me,” he declared. “I hate fat men. I was annoyed by one this morning.”

“Then listen,” Madame enjoined.

MR. EDGAR FRANKS, as was his usual custom, drove himself home from the Golf Club in his superb two-seated Fiat. He drove himself on these brief excursions and dispensed with the services of a chauffeur because it was rather the thing to do among the young bloods of the neighborhood. He was a vain and nervous man, with a great gift for imitation. He drove without skill and without pleasure, and even sometimes bragged about his speed. He was decidedly unused to emergencies, however, and his presence of mind was negligible. Consequently when he turned one of the hairpin corners of the drive which led from the road below to his villa on the outskirts of Antibes, he was aghast to find another car blocking the way, the driver leaning over the wheel, as though he had been taken suddenly ill, or fallen asleep. The next few seconds were moments of hysterical flurry on the part of Mr. Edgar Franks. He shouted and swerved and jammed on his brakes with the clumsy force of the terrified amateur. His first clear realization, after he had brought his car to a standstill a few feet from the other, was a further amazing incident. The man who had been leaning over the wheel was now leaning over him—a tall man, wearing, in cold blood and in the middle of the afternoon, a black crêpe mask. Simultaneously he was introduced to an entirely new but not unpleasant odor, the disconcerting part of which was, however, that, with the first whiff, he completely forgot his state of terror, and lapsed into absolute unconsciousness....

“Pardon, Monsieur.”

Mr. Edgar Franks opened his eyes about a quarter of an hour later, and looked into the puzzled face of his head gardener. He blinked rapidly for several moments, but said nothing.

“I took the liberty of awakening Monsieur,” the man explained diffidently. “It seemed to me that Monsieur had perhaps gone to sleep inadvertently.”

Mr. Edgar Franks was not only a fat man, but he was given to self-indulgence, and it was well known that it was his custom to drink large quantities of white wine in the middle of the day, followed by various liqueur brandies. The fact of his going off to sleep in his car, therefore, was not so surprising to his gardener as it might otherwise have been. His subsequent behavior, however was less explicable.

“Where's the other car?” Mr. Edgar Franks demanded.

“The other car, Monsieur?” the man repeated, in a tone of surprise. “I have seen no other car.”

Mr. Edgar Franks felt for his brake, and found that it had been adjusted by some other and stronger hand than his. Then he tore open his coat, and searched his pockets. His pocketbook was there untouched, containing, as a matter of fact, some ten milli notes more than the sum which he was accustomed to carry about with him. There were the two letters which he had received by that morning's post still in their envelopes, and there was also the cable which had been brought to him on the links. His watch, and the gold chain to which were attached some harmless accessories, such as a cigaret holder, a match-box, and a pencil, still remained. He was forced to come to two conclusions. The first was that he had been robbed of nothing. The second was that he was not only unhurt, but feeling remarkably awake and well. Still, just in front of him were the marks of the other car, where it had stopped.

“Damned if I can understand this!” he murmured, as his foot sought the self-starter.

MADAME, already changed for dinner, was reclining in a sheltered corner of the wide flower-enclosed piazza. The (illegible text) wisteria hung down and mingled with a profusion of roses—there was a background of orange-blossoms, and of pink flowering shrubs. Amid it all Madame sat sphinxlike—an elusive, almost an inappropriate figure—in a Paris gown, faintly redolent of perfume, her smooth complexion obviously a tribute to the enameler's art, her eyebrows delicately penciled, her lips judiciously carmined, her hair, rich and soft and beautiful in color, still seeming somehow to lack entire allegiance to the forehead which it skilfully encoiled. She was the supreme word in artistic artificiality, triumphing over its unpleasing suggestion by the exercise of faultless taste and the mystic gifts of sartorial genius....

She turned her head to watch the approach of her guest. Some miraculous foresight had provided him also with dinner clothes, which fitted him as adequately as the lounge suit of the morning. He was no longer even reminiscent of the tramp.

“So your first enterprise was successful,” she murmured. “I trust that it amused you.”

“Indifferently,” he answered, lighting a cigaret. “It was too easy. Still it appeals to one's sense of humor,” he went on. “Your Edgar Franks turned out to be the fat man who woke me this morning on the golf links. I sent him to sleep this afternoon, with your wonderful new anesthetic. Your professor is to be congratulated.”

“Henri might well become the greatest scientist of this generation, if only he had application and could forget that there was such a thing in the world as absinthe,” she observed.

“I am still puzzled,” he confessed, sinking into a chair by her side. “All that I did was to read a cablegram, remember its contents and telephone them to you from Antibes.”

“It was sufficient,” she assured him. “That cable announced the secret purchase of another oil company to be added to Edgar Franks group. The announcement is not to be made until next week. I have already cabled my brokers in New York. It will be an affair of fifteen or twenty thousand pounds.”

“What a brain,” he murmured. “At any rate it is a comfort to feel that I am earning my bread and salt.”

She turned her head and looked at him lazily.

“I wonder sometimes, Hugh,” she said, “why you never did any good for yourself in the world?”

“I very nearly did—once.”

“Lately?”

“Not long ago. Since the days of our little exploits together.... Why, here come my other golfing acquaintance of this morning,” he went on, turning his head at the sound of approaching footsteps. “Its the youth who was playing with the fat man.”

The newcomer quickened his pace a little, bent low over Madame and raised her fingers to his lips. She directed his attention to Cardinge.

“This is a very old friend, Armand,” she said. “Mr. Hugh Cardinge—my nephew, Armand Toyes.”

“Charmed,” the young man declared courteously.

THEY shook hands. Cardinge was conscious of a swift return of that queer feeling of dislike which had brought the scowl into his face only a few hours before. The young man possessed what seemed at first to be a pleasant face and a frank expression. Apart from a tinge of sunburn his color was somewhat high, the faint down of a dark mustache adorned his lips, he had clear brown eyes, beautifully brushed silky hair, and the complexion of a girl. His manner was ingratiating. If he recollected his previous meeting with Cardinge, he betrayed no signs of it. Yet Cardinge, content, as a rule, with a superficial outlook upon life, a scoffer at psychics, found something in that young man's face which filled him with bitter and instinctive aversion. He glanced questioningly toward Madame.

“It surprises you,” she inquired, “that I have discovered a nephew as well as a niece?”

“The relationship in one case being as mythical as in the other, I should imagine,” he rejoined with faint sarcasm.

Madame did not accept the challenge. She was occupied in watching the approach of the girl who had stepped out on to the terrace a moment before. The sunlight had caught her hair, which seemed like a soft halo of gold around her face, a little paler now than earlier in the day. Her eyes were anxious, her expression palpably disturbed. The young man, who had risen to his feet at her coming, approached her with a conciliatory smile.

“My little friend is not angry with me any more?” he asked. “Here is William announcing dinner. Let me take you in.”

His voice was soft, almost caressing, yet to Cardinge there seemed to be something of menace in it. The girl laid her fingers on his arm without a word.

“If you children have quarreled,” Madam said, as she accepted Cardinge's arm, “you must make friends again. To-night is night of rejoicing. We are going to drink champagne. Our friend Hugh Cardinge here has won his quittance.”

She handed him a long sealed envelop which she drew from the silk bag at her side. He glanced at it for a moment with reminiscent curiosity, and then deliberately tore it into fragments.

“You are no longer,” she reminded him, with a faint smile, “one of my Virgins. Won't you stay with us for a little time, as my guest?”

He hesitated. Just at that moment the girl looked around. The arm on which Madame's fingers rested grew rigid. Cardinge changed his mind.

“You are very kind,” he replied. “I will stay on for a short time with pleasure.”

(The second story in this series will appear in the August issue)