He did not answer. He had his arms folded, walking up and down the room, and suddenly seemed to have aged enormously. I had the impression that I was dealing with a very old man.
“Mr. Leithen,” he said at last, “you are bold. You have a frankness which almost amounts to genius. You are wasted in your stupid profession, but your speculative powers are not equal to your other endowments, so you will probably remain in it, deterred by an illogical scruple from following your true bent. Your true métier, believe me, is what shallow people call crime. Speaking ‘without prejudice,’ as the idiot solicitors say, it would appear that we have both weak spots in our cases. Mine, you say, is that I can only work by using the conventions of what we agreed to call the Machine. There may be truth in that. Yours is that you have a friend who lacks your ironclad discretion. You offer a plan which saves both our weaknesses. By the way, what is it?”
I looked at my watch again. “You have ample time to catch the night express to Paris.”
“And if not?”
“Then I am afraid there may be trouble with the police between ten and eleven o’clock.”
“Which for all our sakes would be a pity. Do you know you interest me uncommonly, for you confirm the accuracy of my judgment. I have always had a notion that some day I should run across to my sorrow just such a man as you. A man of very great intellectual power I can deal with, for that kind of brain is usually combined with the sort of high-strung imagination on which I can work. The same with your over-imaginative man. Yes Pitt-Heron was of that type. Ordinary brains do not trouble me, for I puzzle them. Now you are a man of good average intelligence. Pray forgive the lukewarmness of the phrase; it is really a high compliment, for I am an austere critic. If you were that and no more you would not have succeeded. But you possess also a quite irrelevant gift of imagination. Not enough to upset your balance, but enough to do what your mere lawyer’s talent could never have done. You have achieved a feat which is given to few—you have partially understood me. Believe me, I rate you high. You are the kind of foursquare being bedded in the concrete of our civilisation, on whom I have always felt I might some day come to grief. … No, no, I am not trying to wheedle you. If I thought I could do that I should be sorry, for my discernment would have been at fault.”
“I warn you,” I said, “that you are wasting precious time.”
He laughed quite cheerfully.
“I believe you are really anxious about my interests,” he said. “That is a triumph indeed. Do you know, Mr. Leithen, it is a mere whimsy of fate that you are not my disciple. If we had met earlier and under other circumstances I should have captured you. It is because you have in you a capacity for discipleship that you have succeeded in your opposition.”
“I abominate you and all your works,” I said, “but I admire your courage.”
He shook his head gently.
“It is the wrong word. I am not courageous. To be brave means that you have conquered fear, but I have never had any fear to conquer. Believe me, Mr. Leithen, I am quite impervious to threats. You come to me tonight and hold a pistol to my head. You offer me two alternatives, both of which mean failure. But how do you know that I regard them as failure? I have had what they call a good run for my money. No man since Napoleon has tasted such power. I may be willing to end it. Age creeps on and power may grow burdensome. I have always sat loose from common ambitions and common affections. For all you know I may regard you as a benefactor.”
All this talk looks futile when it is written down, but it was skilful enough, for it was taking every atom of exhilaration out of my victory. It was not idle brag. Every syllable rang true, as I knew in my bones. I felt myself in the presence of something enormously big, as if a small barbarian was desecrating the colossal Zeus of Pheidias with a coal hammer. But I also felt it inhuman, and I hated it and I clung to that hatred.
“You fear nothing and you believe nothing,” I said. “Man, you should never have been allowed to live.”
He raised a deprecating hand. “I am a sceptic about most things,” he said, “but, believe me, I have my own worship. I venerate the intellect of man. I believe in its undreamed-of possibilities, when it grows free like an oak in the forest and is not dwarfed in a flowerpot. From that allegiance I have never wavered. That is the God I have never forsworn.”
I took out my watch.
“Permit me again to remind you that time presses.”
“True,” he said smiling, “the continental express will not wait upon my confession. Your plan is certainly conceivable. There may be other and easier ways. I am not certain. I must think. … Perhaps it would be wiser if you left me now, Mr. Leithen. If I take your advice there will be various things to do. … In any case there will be much to do. …”
He led me to the door as if he were an ordinary host speeding an ordinary guest. I remember that on my way he pointed out a set of Aldines and called my attention to their beauty. He shook hands quite cordially and remarked on the fineness of the weather. That was the last I saw of this amazing man.
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