The Complete Simon Iff (39 page)

"Quite. I think young Kuhn must have come on the men just as they struck it, and made up his mind in a few minutes what to do. Johansen was certain to tell Craig of the strike; he had to be killed right there. Lipsky was a good tool. But he drank; old Kuhn saw at once when he arrived that he must be got out of the country and pensioned off. Caspar and Lipsky proceed to wreck the gallery and then the mine. The strikes and assaults are all intended to prevent the mine from re-opening, and to divert any suspicion from Kuhn. Note that he is careful to be assaulted even in his new job; argument, the ill-feeling against him has nothing to do with what happened in the mine."

"This is very probable, and very interesting," interrupted Powys.

"But, you are about to say, how does it concern me? Do you think I would waste a moment of your time?"

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Iff."

"I want to prove to you that the entire device, from the moment of Theophilus Kuhn's arrival at Glanders, was directed against you."

But Simon Iff had wasted several moments of Powys' time; he need not have said that at all, and he pulled himself up with a frown.

"They invent this Ransome idiocy not merely to keep the mine unworked until they can force Mrs. Mills into selling it; I agree with you that the mine is a trifle to such minds as yours and, indeed, Kuhn's; but to give a pretext for the pretended quarrel between Kuhn and Arnheim."

"I may tell you that their quarrel has cost them over fifty million, to my certain knowledge."

"I was sure Kuhn would do things well, on the grand scale. You have beaten him too often before."

"How are you sure of this?"

"Miss Madison here told me that Kuhn was called 'Pussy' on Wall Street. I saw him taking endless trouble and risk and loss; he would only do that for some great object; what object so great as you?

"His preoccupation with trifles proved a giant aim to be concealed; his advertized quarrel with Arnheim proved a closer alliance."

"I agree with you. I thank you very much. I will attend to the matter."

"Just one word more, if I may. I came into this in the interest of Mrs. Mills."

"Don't worry. He won't show anxiety to close the deal. The transfer would hardly be ready in less than three days. And - in three days - where would Theophilus Kuhn find four hundred thousand dollars?"

Simple Simon was taken aback for once in his life. The question was as if he were asked where a man on the seashore would find a pebble.

He shook hands quietly with Powys at the door. "Mollie, put your things on. I am going to buy you a new hat. I have had one of the most delightful experiences of my life. So much for my good temper, which bestows hats on blessed damozels. My bad temper, which makes mean me pay for them, is due to remorse for my egregious blunders in this very simple affair."

She fixed her passionate blue eyes adoringly upon his face.

"No!" cried the mystic, in prophetic frenzy, "you only betray your ignorance and your stupidity. Sit down, and let me lecture you upon my own base folly!"

She curled her snaky body into a cunning crook of the sofa, and, with her head thrown back, began to puff a cigarette.

"I sit upon the stool of penitence," he continued, doing so, with the music stool, faute de mieux.

"You noticed, of course, that I changed what in moments of paranoiac megalomania I insult Nature by calling my mind. I did not allow to Mrs. Mills her full measure of imbecility. I did not fully realize that she would instantly do the wrong and dangerous thing. So I let her see what was actually in my mind, or, to be more accurate, I made it possible for Theophilus to divine what was in my mind from her words or her manner.

"That telephone call from that female glossorhoeic reminded me that I was known all over New York, and that Theophilus probably knew already that Mrs. Mills had come to consult me. My more tragic error, indeed, is a fatal underestimation of the calibre and range of Theophilus. For, trying to correct my first mistake, I made a worse one. I tried to deceive him. I wrote a letter which I thought he might accept as indicative of my contempt for Mrs. Mills, and my lack of interest in her affairs. I gave him credit for less intelligence than a limpet's, a - a - a Simon Iff's! Put yourself in his place! 'So Mr. Simon Iff found nothing to interest him in that story? Really! Too bad!' He would then judge that I was lying to somebody. Who would that be? Who worth my while? Who but the quarry, himself? He would then - I mean, he will now - proceed to get after me. As he has the brains of the devil himself, and doesn't stick at murder - even his young hopeful Caspar shoots a man he never saw before merely to conceal his part in a game where no one had ever suspected him to be a player - the inference is that we are liable to be blown up by dynamite at any moment. My only hope is that he will think that letter of mine indicates permanent instead of temporary dementia."

Miss Mollie Madison absolutely declined to take alarm. She crossed her feet over the arm of the sofa, so that 'Cephas' might take note of the fact that she had the right divine to wear white boots - unpinched feet no larger than new-born kittens. And she lighted a third cigarette, not even deigning to reply.

"You are right. I will buy you six pairs of white kid boots."

She passed a hand negligently through her hair.

"Of course," he added hastily, "as you imply, the tops must be of green crushed morocco."

"Think, Cephas!"

From her eyes he understood that she did not wish him to make light of the expected duel.

"Our friend, as we should expect from a disciple of the Evangelist Luke, will be full of Human sympathy; the Christian Touch will be his long suit; his Middle Name will be Eleemosynaria. Then he will know that I am on to his little game; and I will bet you an emerald necklace to match your perfectly intoxicating Poiret - where, oh where are the Prohibitionists? - that he knows that Powys has been here, and what I said to him. But he will not know what Powys said to me, because Powys has always been a bit above his class. But he will be devilish well scared; he will imagine Powys as laying a trap for him, perhaps the more so as he may think Powys ignorant or careless of his own knowledge of the situation. We must hope that he has committed himself too far in this deal to withdraw. In fact, we may say that it is certain that he has done so, for Powys spoke of his ruin with entire assurance. Powys never guesses, or expects, or hopes. Indicative and Imperative are the only moods in his Defective Verbs. Mr. Theophilus Kuhn will therefore know himself bankrupt; there will be nothing left for him but revenge. The question is: Will he try to kill Powys, or will he try to kill me? We are to remember the necessity of this man's mind; his nature compels him to perpetual concealment of his purposes. Will he then try to gain access to Powys on some such pretext of converence, or offer to compromise, or some such obvious blind? He would know that he would stand not a chance in a million. With me the case is different. He knows that I am vowed to the service of humanity, and that, were he three hundred and thirty three times the liar, thief, and murderer that he is, I would see him if he came to me on the pretext that he needed my advice or aid in any spiritual distress or aspiration. Most people interested in occult subjects being potential or actual murderers, I therefore arrange for their reception in the following ingenious manner. Just look out of the window for a minute!"

Mollie obeyed. He drew the curtains behind her, and switched on three electric lamps, which shed a soft and cheerful glow in the apartment. He then made certain rearrangements in the room.

"Come and sit down by me, now, and we will play piquet until Mr. Kuhn favours us with a visit."

Mollie turned and came through the curtains. She walked, as she supposed, straight to him, and banged into a sheet of plate glass in a totally different part of the room.

"Theophilus will have to be a very bad shot in order to hit me," he laughed, came swiftly towards her, and led her gently to the sofa where he had been sitting. The bell rang.

"Ah! but here is our friend the enemy!"

The Japanese boy entered with a visiting card.

"Sir," it read, "I am in extreme spiritual affliction, and I implore you to receive me, and to give me your counsel. T.K."

"Ask Mr. Kuhn to enter, and place a chair for him!" The boy obeyed. "See!" he whispered in the girl's small round ear, "so far we have read his mind aright."

Theophilus Kuhn came in, walking heavily. He was an extreme contrast to Powys. His large frame was clad in loose, untidy clothes, and supported an enormous head, slightly asymmetric like Verlaine's, with an immense domed forehead crowned with a thick mat of curly black hair. He was clean shaven; the mouth was large and prominent, the jaw aggressive, the nose fleshy, curved, and spatulate, the eyes glaucous and cold, with an indefinable expression of cunning and malice that inspired Miss Madison with horror and Simon Iff with sorrow. Even in the dim light, they showed a curious inequality which was somehow uncanny. His hands were large and strong, heavy with fat as the face itself. Simon Iff waited for him to speak. He fumbled long and clumsily with his black gloves before he got them off. Then he slowly drew a fountain pen and check-book from his pocket.

"I understand, Mr. Iff, that you are in need - temporary need, of course, purely temporary - of a little money. I am very happy to be able to accomodate you. I will make out the check for eight million dollars. I have had an excellent day on Wall Street. I have beaten Paul Powys. Yes, sir, we have had many battles, but he has come to his Waterloo. You can hardly imagine what this means to me. It gives me control of the whole wealth of this great country. I have America in my pocket. In five years Europe will be mine. Asia, Africa, the whole world shall bow before Theophilus Kuhn. Understand, Mr. Powys, you are in the presence of no ordinary man. I have wished many a time to kill you; now I let you go, because I have beaten you, beaten you to hell, you dog. I despise you for the toy you are! Aha! you thought to make yourself equal to me. And I let you think it - do you know why? I have waited for this day of your humiliation to tell you the great secret. You puppet! You Marionette! I made you. I am God! Now let me write you your check, Mr. Iff."

Mollie had crouched closer to Simple Simon in abject terror; she put her red mouth to his ear, and whispered.

"He's shamming mad. He thinks it will help him with the jury."

But the magician patted her softly on the head, and went quietly over to the table where Kuhn was laboriously writing out the check, with many a hesitation. He could not make the upstrokes properly.

"Thank you very much for the kindly thought, Mr. Kuhn. The money will indeed be my salvation."

As he spoke, he touched a tiny handbell, and the Japanese appeared. "Bring a doctor," said Simon softly, in the man's own language. "Mr. Kuhn has been suddenly taken ill."

Kuhn rose and handed the check to Iff with a flourish, and then began once more to babble of his fame and his success, his wealth, his empire, and his godhead. He went away with the doctor like a child; he had forgotten Iff's presence; the new face took his attention, and he began all over again to boast of his money, and to offer millions to the servant and to the physician.

The door closed behind him. Simon Iff went over to the girl and put his hand upon her shoulder.

"We will not play piquet to-day, child, and we will not buy ourselves hats and boots. We have need to humble ourselves."

He led her to a recess in the wall, where beneath a lamp of silver, with its red glass, and wick afloat in olive oil, stood the bronze figure of Thoth, the Egyptian God of Wisdom.

"I do not bend the knee in supplication to the Gods; but I bend the head in veneration of their infinite wisdom and of their awful justice. I have been proud of the powers of this poor mind, matching it against the greatest intelligences incarnate on this planet. And in this I did well. But this day have I erred thrice, and the third time is the greatest folly in all my life. For I knew not, nor understood, the infinite wisdom and the awful justice of the Gods. I did not comprehend that a mind so false, so cunning, and so malignant must be a mind insane. Of course the shock of knowing that he was outwitted and irrevocably ruined would topple the unsound structure. I did not understand that. Therefore I feared, and hid myself with a coward's device; and all the virtue is departed from me."

He led her back into the room, and switched on the full light.

"Even in my confession pride thrust up its head," he said very wearily and sadly. "I had to explain to you just where I had gone wrong, and how clever I was to see it. And it's my pride that is urging me now to explain that to you; I wanted to prove how genuine my penitence really was. And now - when I am going to ask you not to come to see me for a week unless you really need me - it is still pride. I want to boast how great a sin it is that demands so fierce a penance for its purgation. It's in the marrow of our bones!

"However," he resumed in his grimly humourous tone, "I am going to do the week of meditation, for all that. It's my Vow. And the object of Vows is to prevent the devil getting at us by the road of Introspection."

"I need you always," answered Mollie, touching the vital spot that concerned her. "But I shall not come to see you. I have a slight touch of pride myself."

"Retro, Satanas!" cried the mystic cheerfully, "you are flattering me where a True Man feels it most. But, my sweet child, that is a lawful pride, and man would be indeed a worm without it. So, Satanissa, you miss the target."

"I think I ought to go down to Palm Beach, and tell the good news to Agnes. You had better come too; that pride of yours comes from sitting cooped up in the city, when you need fresh air and exercise. And those errors of judgment are just plain indigestion. You can do your week of meditation down there."

"I will meditate upon the Sun and Moon, upon Fire, Earth, Air, and Water; and I will also write a short treatise upon how Eve got Adam to eat apples when he ought to have been naming pterodactyls. Oh woman, your fascination is in the Intuition which serves you so well instead of knowledge. What a wonder of Nature to make such a compensation for you!"