Masques & Phases. Robert Baldwin Ross
am sorry to disturb you, Professor Lachsyrma. I shall not detain you for more than—an hour.’
‘If you will kindly write and state the nature of your business, I can give you an appointment to-morrow or the day after. At the present moment, you will observe, I am busy. I never see visitors except by appointment.’
‘I am sorry to inconvenience you. Necessity compels me to choose my own hours for interviewing any one.’
The Professor then suddenly removed the green cardboard shade from the lamp. The discourteous intruder was now visible for his inspection.
He was a fair man of uncertain age, but could not be more than twenty-eight. He wore his flaxen hair rather long and ill-kempt; his face might have been handsome, but the flesh was white and flaccid; the features, though regular, devoid of character; the blue eyes had so little expression that a professed physiognomist would have found difficulty in ‘placing’ their possessor. His black clothes were shiny with age; his gait was shuffling and awkward.
‘My name, though it will not convey very much to you, is Frank Carrel. I am a scholar, an archæologist, a palæographer, and—other things besides.’
‘A beggar and a British Museum reader,’ was the mental observation of the Professor. The other seemed to read his thoughts.
‘You think I want pecuniary assistance; well, I do.’
‘I fear you have come to the wrong person, at the wrong time, and if I may say so, in the wrong way. I do not like to be disturbed at this hour. Will you kindly leave me this instant?’
Carrel’s manner changed and became more deferential.
‘If you will allow me to show you something on which I want your opinion, something I can leave with you, I will go away at once and come back to-morrow at any time you name.’
‘Very well,’ said the Professor, wearily, ready to compromise the matter for the moment.
From a small bag he was carrying Carrel produced a roll of papyrus. The Professor’s eyes gleamed; he held out his hands greedily to receive it, fixing a searching, suspicious glance on Carrel.
‘Where did you get this, may I ask?’
‘I want your opinion first, and then I will tell you.’
The Professor moved towards the lamp, replaced the cardboard green shade, sat down, and with a strong magnifying-glass examined the papyrus with evident interest. Carrel, appreciating the interest he was exciting, talked on in rapid jerky sentences.
‘Yes. I think you will be able to help me. I am sure you will do so. Like yourself, I am a scholar, and might have occupied a position in Europe similar to your own.’
The Professor smiled grimly, but did not look up from the table as Carrel continued:
‘Mine has been a strange career. I was educated abroad. I became a scholar at Cambridge. There was no prize I did not carry off. I knew more Greek than both Universities put together. Then I was cursed not only with inclination for vices, but with capacity and courage to practise them—liquor, extravagance, gambling—amusements for rich people; but I was poor.’
‘It is a very sad and a very common story,’ said the Professor sententiously, but without looking up from the table. ‘I myself was an Oxford man. Your name is quite unfamiliar to me.’
‘I fancy if you asked them at Cambridge they would certainly remember me.’
‘I shall make a point of doing so,’ said the professor drily. He affected to be giving only partial attention to the narrative; but though he seemed to be sedulous in his examination of the papyrus, he was listening intently.
‘I was a great disappointment to the Dons,’ Carrel said with a short laugh, and he lit a cigarette with all the swagger of an undergraduate.
‘And to your parents?’ queried Lachsyrma.
‘My mother was dead. I don’t exactly know who my father was. I fear these details bore you, however. To-morrow—’ he added satirically.
‘A very romantic story, no doubt,’ said the Professor, rising from his chair, ‘and it interests me—moderately; but before we go on any further, I will be candid with you. That papyrus is a forgery—a very clever forgery, too. I wonder why the writer tried Euripides; we have almost enough of him.’
‘So do I sometimes,’ returned Carrel cheerfully. The Professor arched his eyebrows in surprise.
He removed the green cardboard lampshade to keep his equivocal visitor under strict observation.
‘If you knew it was a forgery, why did you waste my time and your own in bringing it here? In order to tell me a long story about yourself, which if true is extraordinarily dull?’
It is almost an established convention for experts to be rude when they have given an adverse opinion on anything submitted to them. It gives weight to their statements. In the present case, however, the Professor was really annoyed.
‘I wanted to know if you recognised the papyrus,’ said Carrel, and he smiled disingenuously. The Professor was startled.
‘Yes; it was offered to me in Cairo last winter by a German dealer in antiquities. I recognised it at once. May I felicitate the talented author?’
‘No. You would have been taken in if I were the author.’
Professor Lachsyrma waved a white hand, loaded with scarabs and gems, in a deprecatory, patronising manner towards Carrel.
‘I must apologise if I have wronged you. I am hardened to these little amenities between brother palæographers. Envy, jealousy, call it what you will, attacks those in high places. There may be unrecognised artists, mute inglorious Miltons, Chattertons, starving in garrets, Shakespeares in the workhouse, while dull modern productions are applauded on the silly English stage, and poetasters are crowned by the Academies; but believe me that in Archæology, in the deciphering of manuscripts, the quack is detected immediately. The science has been carried to such a state of perfection that, if our knowledge is still unhappily imperfect, our materials inadequate, the public recognition of our services quite out of proportion to our labours, there is now no permanent place for the charlatan or the forger. The first would do better as an art critic for the daily papers; the other might turn his attention to the simple necessary cheque, or the safer and more enticing Bank of England note. If you are an honest expert, there is a wide field for your talents; and if I do not believe you to be anything of the kind, you have yourself to blame for my scepticism. You came here without an introduction, without any warning of your arrival. You refuse to leave my room. You inform me that you want money with a candour unusual among beggars. You then ask me to inspect a forged manuscript which you either know or suspect me to have seen before. Should you have no explanation to offer for this outrageous intrusion, may I ask you to leave the premises immediately?’
As he finished this somewhat pompous harangue he pointed menacingly towards the door. He was slightly nervous, for Carrel, who was sitting down, remained seated, his hands folded, gazing up with an insolent childish stare. He might have been listening to an eloquent preacher whom he thoroughly despised.
‘Professor Lachsyrma,’ Carrel said in a sweet winning voice, ‘I will go away if you like now, but I have nearly finished my errand and we may as well dispatch an affair tiresome to both of us, this evening, instead of postponing it. I want you to give me 1000l.’
The Professor rubbed his eyes. Was he dreaming? Was this some elaborate practical joke? Was it the confidence trick? He seemed to lose his self-possession, gaped on Carrel for some seconds, then controlled himself.
‘And why should I give you 1000l.?’
‘I am a blackmailer. I am a forger of manuscripts. I have more Greek in my little finger than you have in your long body. I began to tell you my history. I thought it might interest you. I do not propose to burden you with it any further.