Kessler at Ease

A month later Adrian Kessler gave one of his dinners.

He gave them three or four times a year: eight people, no spouses, good food, excellent wine, and a room that had been built in 1908 and never once improved. The guests were the same every time — doctors, two bankers, a woman who ran the aquarium, and Vane. It was the one evening in the calendar that Vane did not try to leave early.

Kessler was sixty-one, tall, unhurried, smooth-faced, and rich in the specific way that a man is rich when he has spent his life being the most interesting person in every room without appearing to try. He had, it is true, a slightly sly cast to his face, and there were people who disliked him on sight, and they were wrong about him.

That night, when the last guest had gone, Vane did what he had done several hundred times in twenty years, which was to stay. Kessler poured two glasses and sat down across the fire from him, and it was clear to anyone watching that he was genuinely glad.

“I have been meaning to say something to you, Adrian,” Vane said. “It's about your will.”

A less careful observer would have missed it. Kessler's face did not move. But the room was a little colder than it had been.

“My poor Howard,” he said. “You are unlucky in your clients. I have never seen a man so upset by a piece of paper — except that pedant Nora Aldiss, at what she was pleased to call my science. I know she's a good doctor. I know you're fond of her. She is also the most hidebound woman in the Commonwealth, and she told me to my face that I was a danger to my own patients, and I have not forgiven her and I never will.”

“I did not approve of that will,” said Vane, “and you know it.”

“I know it,” said Kessler, with an edge now. “You have told me.”

“I am telling you again. I have been learning about Voss.”

Kessler's face went white to the lips. Something darkened behind his eyes and stayed there.

“I do not care to hear any more,” he said. “This was agreed between us.”

“What I heard was abominable.”

“It changes nothing. You do not understand my position.” He said it with a slight incoherence that Vane had never heard from him. “I am painfully placed, Howard. My position is — it is stranger than you can imagine, and it cannot be mended by talking.”

“Adrian,” said Vane. “You know me. Make a clean breast of it, here, tonight, and I have no doubt at all that I can get you out.”

“This is good of you.” Kessler sat forward, and for one moment he was entirely the man Vane had known at nineteen. “This is better of you than I can thank you for. I would trust you before any man alive. And it is not — it is not what you think, and it is not as bad as that, and I will tell you one thing, to put your heart at rest.” He held out his hand, and Vane took it. “The moment I choose, I can be rid of Voss. I give you my hand on that. And now I will add one small thing, and I hope you will take it in good part: this is mine, Howard, and I am asking you to let it alone.”

Vane looked into the fire for a while.

“I have no doubt you are right,” he said at last, and stood up.

“Since we have touched on it,” Kessler went on, “and for the last time, I hope — there is one thing I want you to understand. I take a real interest in that young man. A very great interest. I know you've seen him. He told me. I'm afraid he was rude.” He was twisting the stem of his glass while he spoke. “If I am taken away — if anything should happen to me — I want you to promise me that you'll stand by him, and see that he gets what is his. I think you would, if you knew everything. It would be a weight off my mind.”

“I can't pretend I'll ever like him.”

“I know how that sounds.” Kessler put a hand on his arm. “A minute ago I told you I could be rid of him the moment I chose, and now I am asking you to stand behind him. Both of those are true, and I cannot explain either of them, and you will have to decide what to do about a friend who talks to you like this.” He tightened his grip for a second and let go. “I am not asking you to like him.” “I am asking you for justice. I am asking you to help him for my sake, when I am not here.”

Vane drew a long breath, and let it out, and said he promised.