Have His Carcase

‘Tell; me, M Antoine,’’ said Harriet, as their taxi rolled along the Esplanade. ‘You who are a person of great experience, is love, in your opinion, a matter of the first importance?’

‘It is, alas! of a great importance, mademoiselle, but of the first, importance, no!’

‘What is of the first importance?’

‘Mademoiselle, I tell you frankly that to have a healthy mind in a healthy body is the greatest, gift of le bon Dieu, and when I see so many people who have clean blood and strong bodies spoiling themselves and distorting their brains with drugs; and drink and foolishness, it makes me angry. They should leave that to the people who cannot help themselves because to them life is without hope.’

Harriet hardly knew what to reply; the words were spoken with such personal and tragic significance. Rather fortunately, Antoine did not wait.

‘L’amour! These ladies come and dance and excite themselves and: want love and think it is, happiness, And they tell me about their, sorrows — me, — and they have no sorrows at all, only that they are silly and selfish and lazy. Their husbands are unfaithful and their lovers run away and what do they say? Do they say, I have two hands, two feet, all my faculties, I will make a life for myself? No. They say, Give me cocaine, give me the cocktail, give me the thrill, give me my gigolo, give me l’amo-o-ur! Like, a mouton bleating in a field. If they knew!

Harriet laughed.

‘You’re right, M. Antoine. I don’t believe l’amour matters so terribly, after all.’

‘But understand me,’ said Antoine who, like most Frenchmen, was fundamentally serious and domestic, ‘I do not say that love is not important. It is no doubt agreeable to — love, and to marry an amiable person who will give you fine, healthy children. This Lord Peter Wimsey, par example, who is obviously a gentleman of the most perfect integrity—’

‘Oh, never mind him!’ broke in Harriet, hastily. ‘I wasn’t thinking about, him. I was thinking about Paul Alexis and these people we are going to see..’

‘Ah! c’est different. Mademoiselle, — I think you know very well the difference between love which is important and love which is not important. But you must remember that one may have an important love for an unimportant person. And you must remember also that where people are sick in their minds or their bodies it does not need even love to make them do foolish things. When I, kill myself, for example, it may be out of boredom, or disgust, or because I have the headache or the stomach-ache or because I am no longer able to take a first-class position and do not want to be third-rate.’

‘I hope you’re not thinking of anything of the sort.’

‘Oh, I shall kill myself one of these days,’ said Antoine, cheerfully. ‘But it will not be for love. No. I am not so detraque as all that.’

The taxi drew up at the Winter Gardens. Harriet felt a certain delicacy about paying the fare, ‘but soon realised that for Antoine the thing was a commonplace. She accompanied him to the orchestra entrance where, in a few minutes’ time, they were joined by Leila Garland and Luis da Soto — the perfect platinum blonde and the perfect lounge-lizard. Both were perfectly self-possessed and incredibly polite; the only difficulty — as Harriet found when they were seated together at a table — was to get any reliable information out of them. Leila had evidently taken up an attitude, and stuck to it. Paul Alexis was ‘a terribly nice boy’, but ‘too romantic altogether.’ Leila had been ‘terribly grieved’ to send him away, he ‘took it so terribly hard’ but, after all, her feeling for him had been no more than pity — he had been ‘so terribly timid and lonely’. When Luis came along, she realised at once where her affections really lay. She rolled her large periwinkle eyes at Mr da Soto, who responded by a languishing droop of his fringed lids.

‘I was all the more sorry about it,’ said Leila, ‘because poor darling Paul—’

‘Not darling, honey.’

‘Of course not, Luis — only, the poor thing’s dead. Anyway, I was sorry because poor Paul seemed to be so terribly worried about something. But he didn’t confide in me, and what is a girl to do when a man won’t confide in her? I sometimes used to wonder if he wasn’t, being blackmailed by somebody.’

‘Why? Did he seem to be short of money?’

‘Well, yes, he did. Of course, that wouldn’t make any difference to me; I’m not that sort of girl. Still, it’s not pleasant, you know, to think that one of your gentleman friends is being blackmailed. I mean, a girl never knows she may not get mixed up in something unpleasant. I mean, it isn’t quite nice, is it?’

‘Far from it. How long ago did he start being worried?’

‘Let me see. I think it was about five months ago. Yes, it was. I mean, that was when the letters started coming.’

‘Letters?’