Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine #097v018 (1951-12)

The open door by Rafael Sabatini[4]

Rafael Sabatini died on February 13, 1950, at the age of 75, in the town of Adelboden, Switzerland — a town he loved so deeply that he visited it annually for the last fifty years of his life. Whether Sabatini worked in Adelboden, or merely vacationed there, we do not know; but surely the town must have played an important pan in his life, and its people, its buildings, its atmosphere must have crept into many of his books...

One of the most eminent historical novelists of the Twentieth Century, Mr. Sabatini is known to have done exhaustive research for all his stories. It is interesting to note, however, that he never visited the scene of one of his tales until after he had finished the writing. If this seems coach-before-the-horse procedure, it is nevertheless brilliantly logical: for what Mr. Sabatini was afraid of was that the modem appearance of his story-locales might blur, or even obliterate, the old, authentic background which research had built up in his mind.

Now, we ask you sample one of the typically swashbuckling tales in which you will meet, to quote from Mr. Sabatini’s obituary, “lusty heroes with a talent for exceedingly efficient swordplay” — to say nothing of an even-trickier talent for roguery and blackmail...

“The open Door,” says the castilian proverb, “will tempt a saint,” which is only the Spanish way of saying that opportunity makes the thief.

It is not pretended that Florimond Souverain de la Galette was a saint, or that only exceptional temptation would lead him to seize an opportunity of profit, whatever the moral considerations involved. Nor did the discerning suppose that he had any right to that too high-sounding name of his, or that it was anything more than one of the theatrical properties calculated to create the romantic background which he conceived proper to his profession. It was of a piece with his favourite description of himself:

“I live by the sword.”

This being translated into vulgar terms meant no more than that he was a fencing-master. The sword by which he lived was buttoned and padded at the point, otherwise he would not have lived by it long. For, in fact, he was an indifferent performer; and if he drove even a precarious trade in the exercise of his art, this was because a great vogue of swordsmanship had been created in the declining lustres of the Eighteenth Century by the Art des Armes, that revolutionary and widely-read treatise on fencing by the great Parisian master, Guillaume Danet.

Those were days in which the name of Guillaume Danet was on every lip. His methods were discussed wherever gentlemen assembled, and fantastic tales were told of his wizardry with the blade.

It was Florimond’s pretence that he had studied tinder Danet. The truth was that he had learnt what swordsmanship he knew in a third-rate Paris fencing-school, where, in addition to sweeping up the floor and furbishing the foils, it had been his function to instruct beginners in the various guards. He had read Guillaume Danet’s famous treatise assiduously, and, having scraped together a few louis, the little rascal had gone off to Rheims to set up as a master-at-arms. Over his door he hung a shield, bearing the conventional but in his case unauthorized and inaccurate legend, “Maître en fait d’Armes des Académies de S.M. le Roi.” And he appropriated some of the lustre of the great name of Danet by unblushingly proclaiming himself the favourite pupil of that master.

That magical name accomplished all that Florimond could have hoped, but only until the young gentlemen of the neighbourhood, who had flocked so eagerly to his academy, discovered the falsehood of his pretensions to teach an art of which he himself possessed little more than the rudiments. After that, his only pupils were a few aspiring younger members of the bourgeoisie, and Florimond fell upon esurient days.

His fortunes were touching their nadir when he became aware of that open door which is said to tempt the saint. He made the discovery, by purest chance, at the inn of the Sucking Calf — Le Veau Qui Tète — where it was his evening habit to sit over a game of écarté with Philibert the notary, Desjardins the wine merchant, and Floury the apothecary.

Into that hostelry, on an evening of Spring, came a gaudy, overdressed young man in yellow and silver, with cheap lace at throat and wrist, and a ribbon wherever he could stick one, who had just descended from the Paris stagecoach.

He was the son of a mercer named Desfresnes of the Rue St. Antoine, and he had lately inherited from his father a modest fortune with which he was setting out upon his travels, proposing to play in the world the careless, glittering role of a man of fashion. With his cheap finery he had put on the insolent airs which he had observed in men of the class of which he aspired to be accounted a member.

There may have been a dozen patrons in the common-room of the Sticking Calf when he swaggered in, calling, so as to be heard by all, for the best supper, the best wine, the best room, and the best of anything else the house could supply. In the hush produced by his loud commands, Florimond turned to look him over with an eye of increasing scorn. For Florimond, who, for a time at least, had rubbed shoulders with members of the lesser nobility, knew a gentleman when he saw one.

The day had been a lean one, the cards that evening were not going well for him, and the moment’s inattention caused by the noisy advent of this pinchbeck gallant betrayed him into a disadvantageous discard. It was enough to sour his humour.

The newcomer, who had announced his name of Desfresnes in such a way as to make it sound like de Fresnes, conceived it in his rôle that no pretty woman should be overlooked; and little Pâquotte of the Sucking Calf with her merry eyes, red lips, plump bosom and tip-tilted nose, suddenly found the young gentleman’s arm round her waist and his finger under her chin.

“My dear, I vow to Heaven that you’re too dainty a pullet for a provincial inn. I profess to Heaven you’ld adorn the Palais Royal. You’ld find your fortune there at Février’s.” With princely condescension he added: “I vow to Heaven you shall wait on me, little one.” And in the best manner, as he supposed, of the Palais Royal rake, he placed a kiss, which none could have described as chaste, upon her fresh young lips.

Whether his spuriousness deceived her or not, and whatever may have been her feelings, Pâquotte knew her duties too well to make a fuss. With a laugh she slipped from his detaining arm, and moved off to prepare a table. Monsieur Desfresnes was following when Florimond’s unkindly comment on a note of mimicry arrested him.

“I vow to Heaven we are to be edified by this canary. He talks of the Palais Royal, of Février’s. I vow to Heaven he will have been a waiter there.”

The words were bad enough, but carried to every corner of the room by Florimond’s thin, piercing voice they aroused a general laugh.

Monsieur Desfresnes stood arrested by this brutal shattering of his proud persuasion that he was dazzling these provincials. He lost his head.

A dark flush on his lumpy countenance, he turned back to the card-players’ table. He wore a sword, and, leaning his hand upon the hilt, he thrust it up behind him like the angry tail of a roaring captain. And his tone matched the attitude in truculence. He ransacked his wits for words that should sear and scorch. But, failing to discover them in the little time at his disposal, he contented himself with being haughtily direct.

“Did you talk at me, sir?”

Florimond put down his cards, and swung round on his chair. His glance took in this haughty challenger, from the curls of his cheap wig to the buckles (of gilded brass) on his shoes, and his mouth tightened with malice.

“Now that I behold you better I perceive how little that was worth while.”

The intransigence of the phrase should have warned Desfresnes that here was a man who, for all his slight build and the rusty black of his garments, might be dangerous. But, like the fool he was, he allowed himself to be swept forward by his gust of passion. He slapped Florimond’s face.

“Let that teach you to mend your manners.”

Consternation was followed by hubbub.

Florimond knocked over his chair in his haste to rise, and his three friends rose with him to restrain him. In what he did, however, he was as restrained as he was deadly.

“The lesson calls, I think, for payment. Monsieur Fleury, do me the honour to arrange a meeting for eight o’clock tomorrow morning in the Pré-aux-Chêvres. The length of my blade is twenty-five inches.” He bowed with cold formality. “Not to embarrass you, monsieur, I will withdraw.”

He marched out stiff with dignity, leaving consternation in the bosom of the Parisian who found himself so abruptly with a duel on his hands. Reminding himself, however, that he had to deal with a benighted provincial, for whom such elementary swordsmanship as he possessed should be more than enough, Desfresnes recovered his confidence, and sustained the ruffler’s part.

“I vow to Heaven, sirs, that your friend is in a hurry to get himself killed.”

Florimond’s three associates regarded him with disconcerting pity. Then Fleury, the apothecary, answered him.

“If he doesn’t kill you, sir, you will owe it either to his kindness of heart or to his fear of the consequences. The law is not lenient with a fencing-master, even when he has been provoked.”

“A what?”

The three men sighed as one. Philibert shook his big head.

“Ah! You would not know, of course. A fatal ignorance, young sir. The gentleman you have so unpardonably struck is Monsieur Florimond Souverain de la Galette, master-at-arms of the King’s Academies.”

Desfresnes suddenly felt that the dinner eaten at Epernay had disagreed with him. He stared wide-eyed and pallid, the jauntiness gone out of him like air from a pricked balloon.

“A fencing-master! But — Sacred-name! — one does not fight a fencing-master!”

“It is not prudent,” the lean wine-merchant agreed. “But then neither is it prudent to slap a fencing-master’s face.”

Fleury, however, showed himself brisk and practical. “I trust, sir, that you have a friend to make the necessary arrangements with me?”

“But... but...” Monsieur Desfresnes broke down, and finally demanded: “Where does he live?”

It was a boy from the inn who conducted him on foot to the shabby house behind the Cathedral where Florimond had his being and his academy.

Florimond’s greeting was not encouraging. His scowl was forbidding.

“Monsieur, this is most irregular.”

Desfresnes stammered in a nervous flurry. “Mu... Monsieur, in ordinary circumstances... But these circumstances are... quite extraordinary. I did not know that you were a fencing-master.”

“Ah! Indeed! I am to wear a placard on my breast, for the warning of impertinent cockerels.”

But no insult could inflame anew the young Parisian. ‘It is impossible that I should meet you.”

“Of course, if you prefer that I cane you in the streets...”

“Monsieur, I have come to apologize.”

“Apologize?” Florimond laughed, and to Desfresnes it was the most dreadful sound that he had ever heard. “But where do you come from, then? From Egypt, or Persia, or perhaps China? For all that I know, it may be possible in some of these places to slap a gentleman’s face and avoid the consequences by an apology. But in France, monsieur, we arrange it differently, as you may have heard. For even in the Palais Royal, even at Février’s, these things are understood.”

The young man abased himself in intercessions. Florimond, with no other end in view but completely to humble the upstart, did not yet choose to be mollified.

“You fetched the blood to my cheek just now. I shall fetch yours to your shirt in the morning. Then we shall be quits, and honour will be satisfied.”

Desfresnes was in despair. He thought of flight. But his baggage was at the inn, which, moreover, was the post-house. Surreptitious departure would be impossible. His wandering, fearful eyes observed that the furniture of Florimond’s room was shabby, that Florimond, whilst spruce to the casual glance, was threadbare to a close inspection. And so he came by the inspiration that was, in the sequel, to make a rogue of Florimond.

“If I were to offer compensation for the injury, monsieur?”

“Compensation?” Florimond’s eye was terrible.

“You live by the sword. You give lessons for money. Why should you not satisfy your honour by... by...” He halted foolishly.

“By what, monsieur?”

Desfresnes took a flying leap at his goal. “By ten louis.”

“Leave my house, sir!” roared the incorruptible Florimond.

“Fifteen louis,” gasped Desfresnes, putting up his hands as a shield against the other’s wrath.

But the fierceness had gone out of the fencing-master’s eyes. His lips twitched.

“Fifteen louis! Bah! Name of a name, it costs more than that to smack my face, young sir.”

“Twenty, then,” cried Desfresnes more hopefully.

Florimond became suddenly thoughtful. He stroked his chin. Here was a queer, unexpected shaping of events. Twenty louis was as much as he now could earn in a year. For half the sum he would gladly allow himself to be slapped on both cheeks and any other part of his body that might tempt an assailant. He cleared his throat.

“You understand, of course, that in these matters there can be no question of compensation. Honour is not for sale. But a fine, now: that might be different. After all, I do not want your blood. By a fine of, say, twenty louis, I might consider that I had sufficiently mulcted your temerity. Yes, all things considered, I think I might.”

Desfresnes lost not an instant, lest Florimond should change his mind. He whipped out a fat purse, bled himself and departed.

And from that hour Florimond was a changed man.

An unsuspected source of easy profit had suddenly revealed itself. It was the open door that tempts even the saint. Florimond strangled a conscience that had never been robust, and crossed the threshold.

Twice, in the month that followed, he gave such provocation to travellers resting at the Sucking Calf that on each occasion a challenge resulted. True, the meetings provoked never followed. If Florimond, hitherto so gentle and unobtrusive, had suddenly, to the dismay of his three card-playing friends, become truculent and aggressive, at least, to their consolation, he was always to be mollified by a visit from his intended opponent. Commonly the visit was suggested by Fleury. Of the nature of the mollification which Florimond exacted, his honest friends had no suspicion. From the fact that he now spent money more freely, they simply assumed that the affairs of his academy were improving. Nor did these good, dull men draw any inference from the circumstance that his clothes assumed a character of extreme bourgeois simplicity, and that he abandoned the wearing of a sword, which, in the past, had been an integral part of his apparel.

Their suspicions might have been aroused if Florimond’s victims had walked less readily into his snares. Shrewd in his judgment of likely subjects, he spread his net only for the obviously self-sufficient numskull, and he never forced the pace, always leaving it for the victim to commit the extreme provocation.

Subjects such as these were, after all, by no means common. It is certain that at no time did the average run higher than one a fortnight, and with this, Florimond was at first abundantly content. Greed, however, increasing with prosperity, and fostered by the ease with which it could be satisfied, he grew less cautious.

Yet all went smoothly for him until one Autumn evening, when a moon-faced, quiet-mannered man in the plainest of tie-wigs, his sober brown suit almost suggesting a plain livery, descended from a post chaise at the Sucking Calf and mildly ordered himself supper, a bottle of wine and a bed for the night.

From his table in the usual corner Florimond observed him narrowly, and judged him a timid simpleton of the merchant class, yet a man of substance, since he travelled in a chaise and not by the stage. He was an ideal victim, save that his unobtrusiveness opened no avenue of approach.

Demure and self-effacing, he ate his supper, and Florimond began to fear that at any moment now he might call for his candle, and so escape. Some departure from ordinary tactics became necessary.

Florimond loaded a pipe, rose and crossed the room in quest of a light.

The stranger, having supped, had slewed his chair round and was sitting at his ease, a little unbuttoned and somnolent, his legs stretched before him. Florimond trod upon the fellow’s foot; after that he stood glaring into the moon-face that was raised in a plaintive stare. Thus for a long moment. Then:

“I am waiting, monsieur,” said Florimond.

“Faith! So am I!” said Moon-face. “You trod on my foot, monsieur.”

“Let it teach you not to sprawl as if the inn belonged to you.”

The man sat up. “There was plenty of room to pass, monsieur,” he protested, but so mildly plaintive as merely to advertise his timidity.

Florimond had recourse to stronger measures. “You are, it seems, not only a clumsy lout, but also a mannerless one. I might have pitched into the fire, yet you have not even the grace to offer your excuses.”

“You... you are amazingly uncivil,” the other remonstrated. The round face grew pink, and a wrinkle appeared at the base of the nose.

“If you don’t like my tone, you have your remedy, monsieur,” snapped Florimond.

Rounder grew the eyes in that bland countenance. “I wonder if you are deliberately seeking to provoke me.”

Florimond laughed. “Should I waste my time? I know a poltroon when I see one.”

“Now that really is going too far.” The stranger was obviously and deeply perturbed. “Oh, yes. Much too far. I do not think I could be expected to suffer that.” He rose from his chair at last, and called across to a group at a neighbouring table. “You there, messieurs! I take you to witness of the gross provocation I have received from this ill-mannered bully, and...”

Florimond’s piercing voice interrupted him.

“Must I box your cars before you will cease your insults?”

“Oh, no, monsieur. So much will not be necessary.” He sighed mournfully, in a reluctance almost comical. “If you will send a friend to me we will settle the details.”

It came so unexpectedly that, for a moment, Florimond was almost out of countenance. Then he brought his heels together, bowed stiffly from the waist, and stalked off to request of Fleury the usual service. After that, pursuing the tactics long since perfected for these occasions, he departed front the inn. As the unvarying routine of the matter had taught him to expect, it was not long before he was followed. Himself, as usual, he opened to the knock, and with his usual air of indignant surprise admitted the moon-faced gentleman. As usual the victim displayed all the signs of distress proper to these occasions. His nervousness made him falter and stammer.

“Mu... Monsieur, I realize that this is most irregular. Bu... but the fact is... I realize that I have been too hasty. It is necessary that I should explain that... that a meeting between us is, after all, quite... quite impossible.”

He paused there, prematurely as it seemed, and as if fascinated by the wicked smile that was laying bare the swordsman’s dog-tooth. Into that pause came the sarcastic answer that had done duty on every occasion since Desfresnes’:

“Ah! I am to wear a placard on my breast, so as to warn the impertinent that I am a fencing-master.”

But the phrase which hitherto had proved so disconcerting proved now the very opposite. The stranger’s expression completely changed. It became so quickened by surprise and relief that it entirely lost its foolish vacuity.

“A fencing-master! You are a fencing-master? Oh, but that makes a great difference.” The enlivened glance swept round the room, observed its bareness, the lines chalked on the floor, the trophies of foils, plastrons and masks adorning the walls. The man drew himself up. His figure seemed to acquire an access of virility. He actually smiled. “And this, of course, is your school. I see. I see. In that case everything arranges itself.”

Heels together, he bowed with the proper stiffness. “Forgive the needless intrusion. We meet, then, at eight o’clock in the Pré-aux-Cêvres.” He turned to depart.

For the first time in one of these affairs it was Florimond who was disconcerted. He set a detaining hand upon the other’s shoulder.

“A moment, Monsieur le mystérieux. What the devil do you mean by ‘everything arranges itself’?”

“Just that.” The eyes in the moon-face twinkled with amusement. “For me, as for you, monsieur, a duel with an ordinary civilian would be a serious matter. If there should be an accident the consequences might be grave. You see, I am, myself, a fencing-master. But since you are of the fraternity there are no grounds whatever for my apprehensions.”

A sensation of cold began to creep up Florimond’s spine. As a Swordsman he knew that whilst among asses he might be a lion, among lions he was certainly an ass. He looked more closely at this stranger in whom he had been so mistaken; he looked beyond the round placidity of that pallid countenance, and observed that the man was moderately tall, well-knit, of a good length of arm and an exceptionally well-turned leg.

“You are, yourself, a fencing-master?” he echoed, and his stare was foolish.

“Even of some little celebrity,” was the answer in a tone of mild deprecation. “My name is Danet.”

“Danet?” Florimond’s voice cracked on the name. “Not... not Guillaume Danet?”

Again the stranger bowed, that stiff bow from the waist so suggestive of the swordsman. “The same. Very much at your service. I see that you have heard of me. You may even have read my little treatise. It has made some noise in the world. Until tomorrow, then, at eight o’clock, my dear confrere.”

“But... a moment, mon maître!”

“Yes?” The other paused, his eyebrows raised.

“I... I did not know...

He heard his own phrase cast in his teeth.

“Am I to wear the name Guillaume Danet on a placard on my breast as a warning to impertinent little provincial fencing-masters?”

“But to meet you, mon maître... It is not possible. You cannot wish it. It would be my ruin.”

“That will not matter since you will probably not survive it.”

Wide-eyed, pallid, Florimond stared at this opponent, the very mildness of whose aspect had now become so terrible. Already he had the sensation of a foot or so of cold steel in his vitals. “I will apo... pologize, mon maître.”

“Apologize! What poltroonery! You provoke, wantonly you insult the man you suppose to be incapable of defending himself, and you imagine that an apology in private and in secret will adjust the matter. You are caught in your own trap, I think. You had better be making your soul, Monsieur de la Galette. Good night!”

“Wait! Ah, wait! If now... if I were to compensate you...”

“Compensate me? I don’t understand.”

“If twenty-five louis...

“You miserable cutthroat, do you dare to offer me money? Not for fifty louis would I forgo the satisfaction of dealing with you as you deserve. To bleed you of a hundred louis might perhaps be to punish you enough. But—”

“I will pay it! Master, I will pay it!” Frantically, Florimond made an offer that would beggar him of almost every louis wrung from the victims of his dishonest practices.

Round grew the eyes and the mouth in the round face that confronted him. “A hundred louis!” The great master’s tone reminded Florimond that every man has his price. Slowly Monsieur Danet seemed to resolve. Slowly, with a shrug of the shoulders, he spoke. “After all, why not? The object, when all is said, is to punish your temerity. Since you are penitent, to kill you, or even to maim you, might be too much. I am a man of heart, I hope. It is not in my nature to be inclement. I will take your hundred louis, and bestow them on the poor of Paris.”

It was of no consolation to Florimond to assure himself that the poor of Paris would never see a sou of the money. With a heart of lead he counted out his hoard, and found to his dismay that ninety-eight louis was his total fortune. But now the great Danet showed himself not only clement, but magnanimous. Far from exacting the last obol, he actually left Florimond three louis for his immediate needs.

You conceive, however, that this generosity did not mitigate the fencing-master’s bitter chagrin to see the fruits of months of crafty labour swept away. The only solace he found for his mortification was the reflection that what he had done once he could do again. There would be no lack of pigeons still to be plucked. In future, however, he must proceed with greater caution and not trust too readily to a mild and simple exterior.

So, putting a brave face on the matter, he resumed his habits, and each evening at the Sucking Calf he sat like a spider in its web, waiting for the unwary fly to blunder in.

They were on the threshold of winter, a season of diminished travelling, and for the best part of a fortnight Florimond’s vigilance went unrewarded. Then one evening a traveller arrived whose entrance was like a gust of wind, whose voice, summoning the landlord, was sharp with authority.

The vintner bustled forward, and Florimond could scarcely believe his ears.

“Landlord, I am seeking here in Rheims a rascally fencing-master, who is a disgrace to his calling, and who goes by the flamboyant name of Florimond Souverain de la Galette. Can you tell me at what address he may be found?”

It was Florimond, himself, who answered.

With the feeling that the gods were casting a timely gift into his very lap, he sprang from his chair. He seemed to spin round in the act of leaping, and landed, heels together, in a rectangle before the inquirer.

“He is here.”

He was confronted by a tall, lithe gentleman elegantly dressed in black, who regarded him sternly out of an aquiline countenance. A cold stern voice rang upon the awed stillness of the room.

“You are that scoundrel, are you?”

At least a dozen pairs of eyes were turned in pity upon this rash stranger who came thus to skewer himself, as it were, upon the fencing-master’s sword. A dozen pairs of ears listened attentively to his further words.

“Another in my place might account himself your debtor. For I have to thank you for four pupils who have sought me in the course of the past two months. Each of them had been craftily entangled by you in a quarrel, so identical in detail as to betray its calculated nature. Each of them, so as to keep a whole skin, paid you in blackmail either ten or fifteen louis. Before the last of them came to me for fencing lessons I had already begun to understand the rascal trade you are driving. I have since assured myself of it, and for the honour of the profession of arms, of which I am a jealous guardian, I account it my duty to put an end to it.”

“Who are you?”

“You have the right to know. I am Guillaume Danet, master-at-arms of the King’s Academics.”

“You? You, Guillaume Danet?” Goggle-eyed, Florimond regarded him; and then his glance was drawn beyond this tall stranger to a man who entered at that moment, carrying a valise: a man in sober brown that looked like a plain livery: a man with a round, bland, pallid moon-face, hatefully well known to Florimond.

“Then who the devil may that be, that fellow behind you?”

The stranger looked over his shoulder.

“That? That is my valet. The man I sent here a couple of weeks ago, to verify my conclusions about you.”

And then this poor, rascally Florimond committed his worst blunder. Like all rogues, judging the world to be peopled by rogues having kindred aims, he uttered a snarling laugh.

“He did more than that. Me anticipated you. You are behind the fair, Monsieur Danet.”

“Behind the fair?”

“That scoundrel had a hundred louis from me. I have absolutely nothing left.”

“I see. He played your own game, did he? And you do me the honour to suppose me equally base?”

He laughed, not pleasantly. He raised his cane, and for months thereafter they told the tale in Rheims of the caning administered by the great Danet to Florimond Souverain de la Galette, a caning which made an end of his career as a master-at-arms, at least in that part of France.