Sax Rohmer

“ O’Hagan fixed his eyes upon Mr. Repton with quelling glance.
“You have likened me to a confounded policeman, sir. For which new insult I shall pull your nose!” He turned to Major Trefusis, in that hour the most surprised man from Land’s End to John O’Groats. “Mr. Repton is your guest, Major, and of him I shall say nothing, except that he has insulted me; deliberately, and several times. Our cause of misunderstanding is no concern of yours, happily; but as a brother officer and a gentleman you will support my claim to know where I may call upon Mr. Repton to-morrow?” ”

“ For I defy any philosopher to reconcile the ideals of Petronius Arbiter, Omar, and Samuel Clemens!
“Alas, O’Hagan,” I say, “this world of ours is a grey place.”
But he turns to me in surprise, monocle raised, and studies my face with a certain apprehension.
“How can you say so, Raymond? Have I not repeatedly demonstrated that Romance lurks in hiding amid the most prosaic surroundings? Adventure, my boy, is for the adventurous! It is only the blind who deny the existence of fauns. ”

“ Indeed, that is the greatest insult of all. Should you term one a bully who sued you for slander?” O’Hagan’s eyes were bright. “Learn, that when you insult a gentleman, the choice of weapons is his! The law is a weapon for those who cannot fight their own battles, not for such as I!”
Ah! what would you have given to have heard him deliver that speech? But you cannot even picture him, head aloft, foot advanced; hear the ringing voice; quail before the flashing eye.
Repton wrote.
“Now, a letter to McIvor, giving him the appointment at the same salary as his predecessor.” ”

“ However—if Captain Haverley is not permitted the society of Lady Rundel during your absence, I take it that you will be satisfied?”
“Certainly! certainly! If I knew that——”
“Rely upon it, Rundel,” said O’Hagan, rising. “I will put an end to this undesirable intimacy. I shall regard it as my sacred duty to do so!”
In that moment he was superb; a man worthy of the confidence of kings; a man to hold stainless the honour of a queen.
“My dear fellow!” said Sir Roger, and shook his hand furiously. “My dear, dear fellow!”
Ah! what a privilege it is to call Bernard O’Hagan your friend! ”

“ O’Hagan, his cloak cast back in purple splendour, rested one hand upon his hip with a gesture which had not been inconsistent with the act of depressing a rapier hilt.
“Are you quite sure”—he bent towards her with inimitable gallantry—“that a scene here will enhance your professional reputation?”
She glanced up rapidly—and down again, shyly. She could not recall having feared to meet any man’s eye prior to encountering Captain O’Hagan.
“Mr. Dewson—he says so; and Mr. Dewson is so clever. He never makes mistakes.” ”

“ Repton’s face, in the dimness, showed a greyish white. He swallowed noisily—and took a step towards Captain O’Hagan. Moira clutched at the Captain’s arm. She did not fully realise what had happened. Only she knew that this strange man, who half fascinated and half frightened her, had precipitated a climax in her life; had, from no personal motive that she could fathom—unless antipathy from Repton and friendliness to a descendant of Bruce—brought her love affairs violently to a head.
Resentment found place in her heart. Captain O’Hagan was a mere chance acquaintance. ”

“ WE MEET THE DUKE. The character of my friend Bernard O’Hagan is a maze within a maze, a dædalian labyrinth, to the heart whereof I long since have despaired of penetrating. His sense of humour is acute, but peculiar. A man, he declares, who cannot laugh at Mark Twain is a man from whose soul the joy of life has departed. Yet his idea of bliss would seem to be existence in a Persian rose-garden with some few congenial spirits, and, for attendants, only Greek youths and maidens of flawless classic beauty. ”

“ After dinner that evening Sir Roger Rundel called upon O’Hagan in his chambers.
My friend’s chambers overlook Whitehall, and, in his moments of ease, he is always to be found in the room which he calls his library, but whose appointments more nearly correspond with those of a harêm. To visitors but superficially acquainted with O’Hagan, this apartment proves a surprise. Its arabesques dimly perceptible in the blue rays of a hanging lamp, the plash of water in a tiny marble basin enhancing the illusion that one has lost one’s way, this mandarah possesses all the charms of the unexpected. ”

“ Haverley leant back against the door, almost as though he were preparing for a spring. He was a man swept by a tornado of passion, and before its force he quivered and shook.
“The law is the weapon of churls,” continued O’Hagan. “You are a soldier—as I regret to remind you. Upon the table on your right are French foils, Italian rapiers, and three types of sabre. You clearly maintain your right to Lady Rundel’s society. I forbid you to see her again. We will settle the point.” ”

“ He never plays unless requested and the many being ignorant of his accomplishment, he rarely is requested. But from the moment that his long, white fingers caressed the keys in the opening bar until that when they leapt back from the final chord, his audience of two listened spellbound. The piece was a delicate, feminine morsel; individual, charming; upon an elusive melody, which haunted the ear, which spelt Popularity. For a moment there was silence. O’Hagan swung around and faced Pamela.
“Miss Crichton,” he said, “you will make a large sum of money with your music. ”

“ If we except the critic of the Tailor and Cutter, I doubt, indeed, if there be a man in London who perceives the exquisite distinction of O’Hagan’s dress. His mode of going hatless is dubbed affectation; his purple-lined cloak an ostentatious extravagance. ”

“ The dazed and much-insulted man glanced from a shapeless dark mass which, prior to the passage of a brewer’s traction-engine, had been a felt hat, to the face of O’Hagan; and began with his handkerchief to wipe blood from his wounds. O’Hagan cast his eyes upward to the legend: “J. Crichton, Newsagent,” and took the elder man by the arm.
“A word with you, Mr. Crichton!” he said, sweeping that astonished old tradesman into the shop, and ignoring the knot of interested spectators gathered at the door. ”

“ I have yet to deal with you in regard to the offensive terms ‘lunatic,’ ‘ruffian,’ and ‘confounded policeman!’ ”
“Curse you! I’ll kill you!” panted Repton and crouched, looking up to O’Hagan with glaring, malignant eyes which, at that moment indeed, mirrored a murderous soul.
“I think not,” was the reply. “Others have attempted the feat; but I am here to-day, alive to resent insult.” ”

“ A lightning, rapier lunge with the poker—an unpleasant sizzling sound—and the chair crashed harmlessly to the floor. The now painfully singed “trooper” fell back on to the Chesterfield, groaning.
Again my bell rang.
“Hand the key to Mr. Raymond, my man,” ordered O’Hagan; “and replace your filthy rags upon your indecently nude person.”
Belcher threw the key across the carpet. My mind had assimilated a profound truth of the Higher Jiu-Jitsu: brute courage falters in the presence of hot pokers. I went to the door, and upon the landing stood a dazzling vision in leopard skins. ”

“ He sighs for the days when nobility unmistakably proclaimed itself; when an aristocrat was disgraced who dabbled in commerce and a tradesman castigated who raised his eyes above the level prescribed for him.
“A gentleman,” says O’Hagan, “is never at a loss for the right word at the right time. He knows when to throw down the gauntlet, and when to apologise (to his equals) . In this way, factitious gentility often is unmasked.” ”

“ ECHOES OF THE BOOM. O’Hagan called upon me. His entrances possess electric properties. One’s schemes melt; O’Hagan becomes the scheme of all things terrestrial. The future shrinks, bounded by O’Hagan. The universe is “a universe after Captain the Hon. Bernard O’Hagan.” An unexpected call by the Tsar of all the Russias could not be more exciting, and one would be less impressed if the Mikado dropped in for a pipe and a Scotch-and-soda.
“I have selected you, Raymond”—he toyed with his monocle—“to act for me in a little affair on the French coast. ”

“ THE LONELY LADY. That class distinctions are invidious, that one man is as good as another, are theorems which find no place in O’Hagan’s philosophy. His whole life is a protest against such propositions. He complains that there is no badge peculiar to the gentleman; that the latest morning-coat from Savile Row is colourably imitated, and within a week, by Rye Lane, Peckham. Hence, I take it, his broad, black ribbon with the dependent monocle, his purple-lined cloak. ”

“ Sir Brian glassily stared directly at O’Hagan and ignored the hand that clung to his rigid arm. The girl released her clasp and turned imploring blue eyes upon the Captain.
“Oh, Captain O’Hagan,” she said, “there is some dreadful mistake! If you think—ah! how can I say what I mean? Will you believe me”—she frankly met his gaze—“if I tell you that Sir Brian and I are just chums?” Her eyes were flooded with tears. “He is awfully—dreadfully unhappy about . . .” She laid her hand hesitatingly upon O’Hagan’s arm. “I know you have done him no wrong. Won’t you believe me, too? Can’t we be friends?” ”

“ An enraged man, though he be outclassed, overweighted, may fight to the last and keep his pride. But this supreme inertia, this being petrified, posed as for a ballroom scene in a “living-picture,” with frenzied anger boiling in the veins and no muscle responding to the mind’s urgent commands, is something that must be experienced fully to be appreciated.
Dillon panted.
“If I release you,” added O’Hagan icily, “it will be upon parole; upon the understanding that you conserve your resentment for a more fitting time.” ”

“ HE PATRONISES PAMELA. I.
THE HAT OF MR. PARKINS. A very wilderness is Bernard O’Hagan, which no man could hope thoroughly to explore; a most picturesque figure in the satin-lined cloak which he loves to wear in defiance of fashion and indeed of civilised custom, singularly resembling the Merry Monarch whom a lady of his race once entertained right regally at the ancestral home of the O’Hagans. The unexpectedness of the man is one of the most marked features of his character—the one that makes his society at once delightful and alarming. ”

“ Those who have the honour of his acquaintance acquire a new popularity with the less fortunate. Several countesses and a charming duchess have repassed us no fewer than nine times. But O’Hagan, serenely insensible to the admiration which he excites in so many bosoms, lounges regally aloof, as one upon a lofty minaret who scarce glances down to the throngs beneath him. ”

“ Does it not make amends for much that seems harsh in his nature? For although, alas! women often are deceived in men, a woman’s instincts can never err in such case as this; a true woman, as this one, never pours out the trouble with which her heart is bursting, to a knave—to a blackguard. I defy you to confute me. Be it remembered that, by a trick of Fate—or shall we say Providence?—these two had friends in common. Nor be it forgot that, for fifty miles north, south, east and west of Dunnamore, “the honour of an O’Hagan” is a form of oath. ”

“ Some dread there was, mingled with the anger of a man used to the servility which Talent accords to Capital; for the calmly persistent and imperious truculence of Captain O’Hagan is awesome.
O’Hagan extended his arm and seized Repton’s prominent nose in a vice-grip.
Uttering a furious imprecation, Sidney Repton struck out at him. But a pupil of Shashu Myuku (Grand Master of the Higher Jiu-jitsu) is elusive as a marsh-light. There are not six Europeans, my friend has assured me, initiated in the occultry of Japanese super-force. ”

“ And what about Bruce McIvor?”
“McIvor is a man of great promise. He has been unfortunate. He would make an ideal leader-writer. But he lacks the necessary influence to secure such a post.”
O’Hagan frowned thoughtfully.
“He lacks incentive, Raymond,” he said. “A man who can trace his ancestry to Robert Bruce requires no influence other than that of blood. Blood, my boy! that is the secret of success! When he is engaged to the girl he loves—the girl I have chosen for him—he will go far. Mark my words, Raymond; he will go far.” ”

“ O’Hagan nodded, and dropped his monocle. “That sort!”
Sir Roger got upon his feet, and began to pace up and down a square of Persian carpet.
“We know one another, O’Hagan. There’s not another man in England I’d confide in. But—well—Beesley told me about this afternoon—at Mrs. Pointzby-North’s, and I said, ‘Same old O’Hagan!’ That’s what it is, O’Hagan: there’s only one of you—only one of you! This—friendship—between my wife and Haverley is nothing—from Val’s point of view. Understand? She means no harm.” ”