During his lifetime, English author Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) was one of the most popular writers of crime fiction in the world. Over 160 of his stories were adapted for the cinema. Today he is best remembered as the author of King Kong.
This week and next, I offer this South African tale as a tribute to our Broad Abroad, who won our Christmas Contest. —JLW
THE GREEK POROPULOS Part I
by Edgar Wallace
At Carolina, in the Transvaal, was a store kept by a man named Lioski, who was a Polish Jew. There was an officers’ clubhouse, the steward of which was a Greek sportsman named Poropulos, and this story is about these two men, and about an officer of Hampton’s Scouts who took too much wine and saw a pair of boots.
I have an intense admiration for George Poropulos, and I revere his memory. I admire him for his nerve; though, for the matter of that, his nerve was no greater than mine.
Long before the war came, when the negotiations between Great Britain and the Transvaal Government were in the diplomatic stage, I drifted to Carolina from the Rand, leaving behind me in the golden city much of ambition, hope, and all the money I had brought with me from England. I came to South Africa with a young wife and £370—within a few shillings—because the doctors told me the only chance I had was in such a hot, dry climate as the highlands of Africa afforded. For my own part, there was a greater attraction in the possibility of turning those few hundreds of mine into thousands, for Johannesburg was in the delirium of a boom.
I left Johannesburg nearly penniless. I could not, at the moment, explain the reason of my failure, for the boom continued, and I had the advantage of the expert advice of Arthur Lioski, who was staying at the same boarding house as myself.
There were malicious people who warned me against Lioski. His own compatriots, sharp men of business, told me to ’ware Lioski, but I ignored the advice because I was very confident in my own judgment, and Lioski was a plausible, handsome man, a little flashy in appearance, but decidedly a beautiful animal.
He was in Johannesburg on a holiday, he said. He had stores in various parts of the country where he sold everything from broomsticks to farm wagons, and he bore the evidence of his prosperity.
He took us to the theater, or rather he took Lillian, for I was too seedy to go out much. I did not grudge Lillian the pleasure. Life was very dull for a young girl whose middle-aged husband had a spot on his lung, and Lioski was so kind and gentlemanly, so far as Lil was concerned, that the only feeling I had in the matter was one of gratitude.
He was tall and dark, broad-shouldered, with a set to his figure and a swing of carriage that excited my admiration. He was possessed of enormous physical strength, and I have seen him take two quarreling Kaffirs —men of no ordinary muscularity—and knock their heads together.
He had an easy, ready laugh, a fund of stories, some a little coarse, I thought, and a florid gallantry which must have been attractive to women. Lil always brightened up wonderfully after an evening with him.
His knowledge of mines and mining propositions was bewildering. I left all my investments in his hands, and it proves something of my trust in him, that when, day by day, he came to me for money, to “carry over” stock—whatever that means—I paid without hesitation. Not only did I lose every penny I possessed, but I found myself in debt to him to the extent of a hundred pounds.
Poor Lil! I broke the news to her of my ruin, and she took it badly; reproached, stormed, and wept in turn, but quieted down when I told her that in the kindness of his heart, Lioski had offered me a berth at his Carolina store. I was to get a £16 a month, half of which was to be paid in stores at wholesale prices and the other half in cash. I was to live rent free in a little house near the store. I was delighted with the offer. It was an immediate rise, though I foresaw that the conditions of life would be much harder than the life to which I had been accustomed in England. We traveled down the Delagoa line to Middleburg, and found a Cape cart waiting to carry us across the twenty miles of rolling veldt. The first six months in Carolina were the happiest I have ever spent. The work in the store was not particularly arduous. I found that it had the reputation of being one of the best-equipped stores in the Eastern Transvaal, and certainly we did a huge business for so small a place. It was not on the town we depended, but upon the surrounding country. Lioski did not come back with us, but after we had been installed for a week he came and took his residence in the store.
All went well for six months. He taught Lil to ride and drive, and every morning they went cantering over the veldt together. Me he treated more like a brother than an employee, and I found myself hotly resenting the uncharitable things that were said about him, for Carolina, like other small African towns, was a hotbed of gossip.
Lil was happy for that six months, and then I began to detect a change in her attitude toward me. She was snappy, easily offended, insisted upon having her own room—to which I agreed, for, although my chest was better, I still had an annoying cough at night which might have been a trial to anybody within hearing.
It was about this time that I met Poropulos. He came into the store on a hot day in January, a little man of forty-five or thereabouts. He was unusually pale, and had a straggling, weedy beard. His hair was long, his clothes were old and stained, and so much of his shirt as was revealed at his throat was sadly in need of laundering.
Yet he was cheerful and debonair—and singularly flippant. He stalked in the store, looked around critically, nodded to me, and smiled. Then he brought his sjambok down on the counter with a smack.
“Where’s Shylock?” he asked easily.
I am afraid that I was irritated.
“Do you mean Mr. Lioski?”
“Shylock, I said,” he repeated. “Shylockstein, the Lothario of Carolina.” He smacked the counter again, still smiling.
I was saved the trouble of replying, for at that moment Lioski entered. He stopped dead and frowned when he saw the Greek.
“What do you want, you little beast,” he asked harshly.
For answer, the man leaned up against the counter, ran his fingers through his straggling beard, and cocked his head.
“I want justice,” he said unctuously—”the restoration of money stolen. I want to send a wreath to your funeral: I want to write your biography—”
“Clear out,” shouted Lioski. His face was purple with anger, and he brought his huge fist down upon the counter with a crash that shook the wooden building.
He might have been uttering the most pleasant of compliments, for all the notice the Greek took.
Crash! went Lioski’s fist on the counter.
Smash! came Poropulos’s sjambok, and there was something mocking and derisive in his action that made Lioski mad.
With one spring he was over the counter, a stride and he had his hand on the Greek’s collar—and then he stepped back quickly with every drop of blood gone from his face, for the Greek’s knife had flashed under his eyes. I thought Lioski was stabbed, but it was fear that made him white.
The Greek rested the point of the knife on the counter and twiddled it round absentmindedly, laying his palm on the hilt and spinning it with great rapidity.
“Nearly did it that time, my friend,” he said, with a note of regret, “nearly did it that time—I shall be hanged for you yet.”
Lioski was white and shaking.
“Come in here,” he said in a low voice, and the little Greek followed him to the back parlor. They were together for about an hour; sometimes I could hear Mr. Lioski’s voice raised angrily, sometimes Poropulos’s little laugh. When they came out again the Greek was smiling still and smoking one of my employer’s cigars.
“My last word to you,” said Lioski huskily, “is this—keep your mouth closed and keep away from me.”
“And my last word to you,” said Poropulos, jauntily puffing at the cigar, “is this—turn honest, and enjoy a sensation.”
He stepped forth from the store with the air of one who had gained a moral victory.
I never discovered what hold the Greek had over my master. I gatherered that at some time or another, Poropulos had lost money, and that he held Lioski responsible.
In some mysterious way Poropulos and I became friends. He was an adventurer of a type. He bought and sold indifferent mining propositions, took up contracts, and, I believe, was not above engaging in the Illicit Gold Buying business. His attitude to Lillian was one of complete adoration. When he was with her his eyes never left her face.
It was about this time that my great sorrow came to me. Lioski went away to Durban—to buy stock, he said—and a few days afterwards Lillian, who had become more and more exigent, demanded to be allowed to go to Cape Town for a change.
I shall remember that scene.
I was at breakfast in the store when she came in. She was white, I thought, but her pallor suited her, with her beautiful black hair and great dark eyes.
She came to the point without any preliminary. “I want to go away,” she said.
I looked up in surprise.
“Go away, dear? Where?”
She was nervous. I could see that from the restless movement of her hands.
“I want to go to—to Cape Town—I know a girl there—I’m sick of this place—I hate it!”
She stamped her foot, and I thought that she was going to break into a fit of weeping. Her lips trembled, and for a time she could not control her voice.
“I am going to be ill if you don’t let me go,” she said at last. “I can feel—”
“But the money, dear,” I said, for it was distressing to me that I could not help her toward the holiday she wanted.
“I can find the money,” she said, in an unsteady voice. “I have got a few pounds saved—the allowance you gave me for my clothes—I didn’t spend it all—let me go, Charles—please, please!”
I drove her to the station, and took her ticket for Pretoria. I would have taken her to the capital, but I had the store to attend to.
“By the way, what will your address be?” I asked just as the train was moving off.
She was leaning over the gate of the car platform, looking at me strangely.
“I will wire it—I have it in my bag,” she called out, and I watched the tail of the train round the curve, with an aching heart. There was something wrong; what it was I could not understand. Perhaps I was a fool. I think I was.
I think I have said that I had made friends with Poropulos. Perhaps it would be more truthful to say that he made friends with me, for he had to break down my feeling of distrust and disapproval. Then, again, I was not certain how Mr. Lioski would regard such a friendship, but, to my surprise, he took very little notice of it or, for the matter of that, of me.
Poropulos came into the store the night my wife left. Business was slack; there was war in the air, rumors of ultimatums had been persistent, and the Dutch farmers had avoided the store.
A week passed, and I began to worry, for I had not heard from Lil. I had had a letter from Lioski, telling me that in view of the unsettled condition of the country he was extending his stay in Durban for a fortnight. The letter gave me the fullest instructions as to what I was to do in case war broke out, but, unfortunately, I had no opportunity of putting them into practice.
The very day I received the letter, a Boer commando rode into Carolina, and at the head of it rode the Landrost Peter du Huis, a pleasant man, whom I knew slightly. He came straight to the store, dismounted, and entered.
“Good morning, Mr. Gray,” he said. “I fear that I come on unpleasant business.”
“What is that?” I asked.
“I have come to commandeer your stock in the name of the Republic,” he said, “and to give you the tip to clear out.”
It does not sound possible, but it is nevertheless a fact that in two hours I had left Carolina, leaving Lioski’s store in the hands of the Boers, and bringing with me receipts signed by the Landrost for the goods he had commandeered. In four hours I was in a cattle truck with a dozen other refugees on my way to Pretoria—for I had elected to go to Durban to inform Lioski at first hand of what had happened.
Of the journey down to the coast it is not necessary to speak. We were sixty hours en route; we were without food, and had little to drink. At Ladysmith I managed to get a loaf of bread and some milk; at Maritzburg I got my first decent meal. But I arrived in Durban, tired, dispirited, and hungry. Lioski was staying at the Royal, and as soon as I got to the station I hailed a ricksha to take me there.
There had been no chance of telegraphing. The wires were blocked with government messages. We had passed laden troop trains moving up to the frontier, and had cheered the quiet men in khaki who were going, all of them, to years of hardship and privation, many of them to death.
The vestibule of the Royal was crowded, but I made my way to the office.
“Lioski?” said the clerk. “Mr. and Mrs. Lioski, No. 84—you’ll find your way to their sitting room.”
I went slowly up the stairs, realizing in a flash the calamity.
I did not blame Lil; it was a hard life I had brought her to. I had been selfish, as sick men are selfish, inconsiderate.
They stood speechless, as I opened the door and entered. I closed the door behind me. Still they stood, Lil as pale as death, with terror and shame in her eyes, Lioski in a black rage.
“Well?” It was he who broke the silence.
He was defiant, shameless, and as I went on to talk about what had happened at the store, making no reference to what I had seen, his lips curled contemptuously.
But Lil, womanlike, rushed in with explanations. She had meant to go to Cape Town—the train service had been bad—she had decided to go to Durban—Mr. Lioski had been kind enough to book her a room—
I let her go on. When she had finished I handed my receipts to Lioski.
“That ends our acquaintance, I think.”
“As you like,” he replied with a shrug.
I turned to Lillian.
“Come, my dear,” I said, but she made no move, and I saw Lioski smile again.
I lost all control over myself and leaped at him, but his big fist caught me before I could reach him, and I went down, half stunned. I was no match for him. I knew that, and if the blow did nothing else, it sobered me. I picked myself up. I was sick with misery and hate.
“Come, Lil,” I said again.
She was looking at me, and I thought I saw a look of disgust in her face. I did not realize that I was bleeding, and that I must have been a most unpleasant figure. I only knew that she loathed me at that moment, and I turned on my heel and left them, my own wife and the big man who had broken me.
