His lips were white, and his eyes blazed as he opened the clock-case and took there from a revolver.
‘Mr. Craig,’ said Richard, ‘may I beg you to remain calm?’
‘I am entirely calm, sir. Teresa, you have never heard your mother’s story. It is the remembrance of that story which makes me firm now. Some day you shall hear it. You may think me mad, but I am not so. You may think me of uncertain temper, mysterious, secretive, a bully, perhaps a criminal. Well, you must think those things; but when you know all, if ever you do know all, you will forgive all.’ His voice softened a little, and then grew firm again. ‘In the meantime, you shall marry Mr. Redgrave. You have visited his room at an unconscionable hour; he has visited this house at an hour still more unconscionable, and there is only one alternative to marriage. I am quite serious when I say that I would sooner see you dead than that you should remain single after this episode. I have seen what I have seen. I know your blood. I know what darkened my life, and darkened your mother’s life, and finally killed her.’
‘You threaten——’ Teresa began.
‘Stop, Teresa!’ Richard exclaimed masterfully, and turning to Raphael Craig: ‘Mr. Craig, nothing will suit me better. I have the honour to ask your daughter’s hand.’
Teresa started violently.
‘As Teresa’s father,’ said Craig solemnly, ‘I give her to you. May she prove a worthy wife!’
‘And you?’ Richard questioned, gazing at Teresa.
‘What a farce!’ Teresa sobbed; but at the same moment, try how she might to prevent it, a smile lighted her tears, and her hand found Richard’s hand.
Mr. Craig put the revolver back into the clock-case.
‘I expect you know that we didn’t yield to that tool of yours,’ said Richard half playfully. ‘I am truly fond of Teresa—that is the explanation. You wouldn’t have used that revolver, though you are certainly in some ways a strange man.’
‘As you are good enough to say, Redgrave, I am a strange man. I should have used the revolver.’
The way in which these words were uttered created a profound impression on Richard. Releasing Teresa’s hand, he began to consider what course he should now adopt in the joint interest of himself and of Teresa. He could not dismiss the suspicion that he had a madman to deal with.
‘If I may,’ said he to Mr. Craig, ‘I should like a few words with Teresa outside. After that there are several things to be settled between you, sir, and me.’
Mr. Craig nodded.
‘It is late,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Richard, ‘but such nights as this do not follow every day in the week.’
‘Teresa!’ the young lover exclaimed when they were in the hall, ‘say you don’t regret. I have loved you since the moment I saw you first.’
‘I don’t regret,’ she said simply. ‘Why should I?’
‘Call me Dick,’ he demanded.
‘Dick.’
‘And kiss me.’
She kissed him.
‘Thanks,’ he said in his curious, undisturbed way; ‘that is indeed good. Now go to bed and rest. I will have a thorough explanation with your father at once. I am determined on that. We must know where we stand, you and I;’ and without waiting for her to make any reply, he flung back into the drawing-room and slammed the door.
Raphael still sat on the Chesterfield, apparently lost in thought.
‘Mr. Craig,’ Richard began, ‘I am now, for practical purposes, a member of your family. Your interests are, presumably, your daughter’s interests, and your daughter’s interests are certainly my interests; therefore——’
‘Therefore?’ repeated Mr. Craig imperturbably.
‘Therefore,’ said Richard, ‘don’t you think you had better let me into some of your secrets?’
‘As, for example——’
‘The secret, for example, of what has occurred between you and Micky, whose real name you have doubtless learnt since I left you on Saturday night last. I should tell you that I had ascertained the identity of that gentleman immediately upon the conclusion of my interview with you.’
‘And I,’ said Mr. Craig, ‘ascertained it about twenty-four hours later. It was then that the revolver-shot occurred. The revolver-shot hurt no one and nothing except the piano.’ Here Mr. Craig lifted up the embroidered damask cover of the piano, and showed splintered wood beneath. The perforation in the damask cover was scarcely noticeable. He continued: ‘I was angry at the man’s calm insolence when I taxed him with being a detective. I aimed to hit, but aimed badly. Having missed, I thought better of the idea of an immediate killing, and told him to go. He went. I saw nothing of him again till I saw him lying senseless in the pit to-night; but I guessed that he was still prowling about.’
‘Thanks,’ said Richard.
‘Thanks for what?’ asked the old man.
‘For your candour. I hope you will trust me and confide in me.’ Richard was now trying to be extremely diplomatic. ‘In spite of appearances, I still believe that you are an honourable man, engaged, however, in some scheme which may involve you in difficulties. Mr. Craig, let me beg you, most respectfully, to continue your frankness; you can lose nothing by it. I need not point out to you that you have been very fortunate to-night.’
‘In what way?’
‘In the fact that I happen to have fallen in love with Teresa, and was tempted beyond resistance by the opportunity offered by your amazing proposition. My love for Teresa has not, I hope, impaired my judgment, and my judgment infallibly tells me that you had a far more powerful reason than that of propriety for urging my engagement to your daughter. And, Mr. Craig, I venture to guess that your reason was that I knew too much of your affairs. You discerned the nature of my feelings towards your daughter, and you determined on a bold stroke. You are an incomparable actor.’
Mr. Craig slowly smiled; it was a smile of almost tragic amusement.
‘Your insight does you credit, Redgrave,’ he said at length. ‘I admit that it was part of my wish to secure your silence, and perhaps your co-operation. Nevertheless, my chief reason for insisting on a betrothal was a regard for Teresa’s future. There are pages in the history of my life that——’ He stopped.
‘We will not go into that,’ he said shortly.
‘As you please,’ Richard assented. ‘Perhaps, to change the subject, you will tell ‘me your object in disappearing so completely to-day, to the grave alarm of my future wife?’
The youth’s spectacles gleamed with good-humoured mischief.
‘I had to perform a certain excursion,’ said Raphael Craig.
‘Now, why in the name of fortune, sir, don’t you say at once that you went to London?’
‘How do you know that I went to London?’
‘By this paper.’ Richard pointed to the Westminster Gazette, which lay on the floor. ‘It is to-night’s special edition. The Westminster Gazette is not on sale in Hockliffe.’
‘Yes,’ said the old man half dreamily, ‘I went to London.’
‘In order to close finally the estate of your uncle, who left you all that silver?’
The irony of Richard’s tone was not lost on the old man.
‘What do you mean, boy?’
‘I said a few moments ago, sir, that you were an incomparable actor. I alluded to our previous interview in this room. Most cheerfully I admit that Teresa’s father imposed on me then to perfection. I believed you absolutely. Since then——’
‘What?’
‘Since then I have found out that you never had any uncle, and that, consequently, your uncle, being non-existent, could not have left you a hundred thousand pounds in silver coin.’
Raphael Craig took a long, deep breath.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I lied to you. But it was a good lie—a lie which I have used so often during the last year or two that I had almost come to believe it truth. You are a clever fellow, Redgrave. How did you discover this?’
‘To be precise,’ said Richard, ‘it was not I, but your precious Micky, who discovered it.’
‘Then you are not so clever a fellow.’
‘Clever enough, sir, to go straight to the point. And the point is, the point at which I have been gradually arriving since our talk began—how did you become possessed of that silver? I ask the question, and I demand an answer to it, as the affianced of your daughter.’
At this moment the lamp, short of oil, began to give a feeble and still feebler light. A slight smell of oil filled the room. Both men instinctively glanced up at the lamp.
‘Redgrave, I may, at any rate, assure you that you are not about to marry a thief’s daughter.’
‘No, sir; probably not. But I may be about to marry the daughter of a man who in some other way has made an enemy of the law.’
‘Listen,’ said Raphael Craig, ‘and believe that I am not acting now. Twenty years ago I formed a scheme, a life-plan. To the success of this scheme money was absolutely essential, money in large quantities. How was I to get it? I was in the service of a bank, and this fact was very helpful to the success of my scheme. I therefore did not wish to leave the bank. But a bank manager cannot make money. At least, he cannot make much money. I needed a lot. I thought and thought, and at length I arrived at the solution of the problem. I began to make money.’
‘But how?’ asked Richard, not yet caring to seem to perceive the old man’s meaning.
‘I made it—made it steadily for nearly twenty years.’
‘You coined it?’
‘I coined it.’
‘Then during the whole of this time you have been spreading bad money everywhere, and have never been found out?’
‘I didn’t make bad money, Redgrave. I made perfectly good money. I cheated no one. I merely sinned against the law. The price of silver, as you know, has been steadily decreasing for many years. The silver in a half-crown, as silver, is now worth little more than a shilling. A half-crown piece is only worth half-a-crown because we choose to call it so. Consult any book on coinage, and you will find that what I say is strictly true. What more easy, then, given the mechanical skill, which I possessed, than to make and utter genuine money at a substantial profit? I made a profit of fifty per cent, on my coinage, and no one on earth can distinguish my money from that of the Mint. It will stand any test.’
Richard did not conceal that he was impressed by the fine simplicity and effectiveness of Raphael’s scheme.
‘But,’ the old man continued, ‘I made money faster than I could get rid of it. It gradually accumulated. Then it was that I invented my Mexican uncle, so that I might deal with the coin more openly.’
‘Yes?’ said Richard.
‘That is all,’ said Raphael Craig.
‘But the object of the scheme?’ asked Richard. ‘You said you needed all this money for a certain scheme.’
‘Yes,’ said the old man solemnly, ‘and the scheme is approaching fruition. Yet a little time, and my task will be done.’
‘It is well,’ Richard put in, ‘that your scheme is nearly completed, for the methods you have employed might even now be found out, and then good-bye to the scheme, whatever it is.’
Raphael Craig smiled.
‘No, my friend,’ he remarked composedly, ‘nothing can upset it now. The last of my silver is disposed of—safely negotiated. Go into my sheds now, and you will discover—nothing. My machinery is destroyed; all evidence is annihilated. For twenty years I have been crossing an abyss by means of a tight-rope; at any moment I might have been precipitated into the gulf. But at last I am on firm ground once more. It is the Other, now, who will shortly be plunged into the abyss.’
‘The Other!’ Richard repeated, struck by the strange and mordant accent with which Raphael Craig had pronounced that word.
‘The Other,’ said the old man. ‘His hour comes.’
‘And who is he?’ demanded Richard.
‘That,’ Raphael Craig said, ‘you will never know until my deed is accomplished. The train is laid, the fuse is ignited. I have only to wait.’
‘Then you will tell me nothing more?’ said Richard.
‘Have I not interested you so far?’ said the old man.
‘Undoubtedly, but my curiosity is still not quite sated.’
‘It occurs to me that your curiosity exceeds mine. By what right, young man, do you put all these questions? I have never sought to cross-examine you, as I might have done.’
‘Under the circumstances,’ said Richard, ‘I think you have a perfect right to know, and certainly I have no objection to telling you. I came on behalf of the directors of the bank.’
‘Which means Mr. Simon Lock,’ said Raphael Craig.
‘Which means Mr. Simon Lock,’ Richard cheerfully admitted.
‘Ah!’
‘Then you decline to admit me further into your confidence?’ Richard doggedly persisted.
‘Redgrave,’ said the old man, standing up, my scheme is my own. It is the most precious thing I have—the one thing that has kept me alive, given me vitality, vivacity, strength, hope. During all these years I have shared it with none. Shall I share it now? Shall I share it with a man young enough to be my son, a man who forced himself into my house, wormed himself into the secrets of my private life? I shall not. It is too sacred a thing. You do not know what my scheme means to me; you cannot guess all that is involved in it. I can conceive that you might even laugh at my scheme—you who do not yet know what life is and what life means.’
Raphael Craig resumed with dignity his seat on the sofa. Richard was impressed by this exhibition of profound feeling on the part of the old man. He was inclined to admit, privately, that perhaps the old man was right—perhaps he did not know what life was and what life meant; perhaps there were things in life deeper, more terrible, than he had ever suspected.
A silence fell upon the room. The old man seemed not inclined to break it; Richard, still under the hypnotism of the scene, would not speak. To relieve the intensity of the moment he quietly opened the Westminster Gazette. The lamp had sunk lower and lower, and it was with difficulty that he could read. His eye, however, chanced to fall on the financial page, and there, as the heading of a paragraph in the ‘Notes,’ he saw these words: ‘LOCK RUMOURS.’ He brought the page nearer to his face, and read: ‘The rumours that the Lock group are in serious difficulties was again rife on ’Change to-day. Mr. Simon Lock, seen by one of our representatives, merely smiled when told of the prevalence of these sinister rumours. He gave our representative the somewhat cryptic answer that we should see what we should see. We do not doubt the truth of this remark. Dealing in the shares of the newly-floated “La Princesse” Gold Mining Company (Westralian) was very active this morning, but fell flat after lunch. The one-pound shares, which, after a sensational rise last week, fell on Thursday to a shade over par, are now at five and a half, with a distinct tendency to harden, in spite of the fact that the demand is slight.’
Richard looked up from the paper.
‘I see,’ he said, with interest, ‘that it is not absolutely all plain sailing even with the great Simon Lock. Did you read this paragraph here about him?’
‘No,’ murmured the old man. ‘Read it to me.’
Richard did so in the rapidly-dying light.
‘Very curious and interesting,’ said Raphael Craig. ‘I have sometimes permitted myself to wonder whether our respected chairman is, after all, the impregnable rock which he is usually taken for.’
At this moment the lamp went out, and the two men sat in absolute darkness.
The next ensuing phenomenon was the sound of an apparently heavy body falling down the stairs into the hall, and then a girl’s terrified scream.
Richard sprang to the door, but a few moments elapsed before his fingers could find the handle. At length he opened the door. The lamp in the hall was still brightly burning. At the foot of the stairs lay Nolan, the detective, wrapped in a bedgown. At the head of the stairs, in an attitude of dismay, stood Juana.
There was a heavy and terrible sigh at Richard’s elbow. He turned his head sharply. Raphael Craig stood behind him, his body swaying as though in a breeze.
‘Juana!’ he stammered out hoarsely, his eyes fixed on the trembling girl.
‘Do not curse me again, father,’ she cried, with a superb gesture; ‘I have suffered enough.’
An oak chest stood to the left of the drawing-room door. Raphael Craig sank down upon it, as if exhausted by a sudden and frightful emotion.
‘Go!’ he said in a low voice.
But the girl came steadily downstairs towards him.
No one seemed to take any notice of the body of the detective.
The body of the detective lay, by chance, lengthwise along the mat at the foot of the stairs. In order to reach the hall, therefore, Juana had no alternative but to step over the prone figure. This she did unhesitatingly, and then turned to Richard.
‘Carry the poor fellow upstairs, will you?’ she asked quietly. ‘He is delirious. The room overhead.’
Richard obeyed. The small, light frame of the detective gave him no trouble. At the top of the stairs he met Mrs. Bridget hastening towards him.
‘Holy Virgin!’ she exclaimed. ‘I did but run down by the backstairs to the kitchen and left the spalpeen with Miss Juana, and when I came back to them the room was as empty as my pocket.’
‘He got a bit wild,’ Richard explained. ‘I suppose his head is affected. Miss Juana is talking with her father. Where is Miss Teresa?’
‘Sure, she’s gone out to the mares. They must have their water, if every soul of us was dying.’
Richard carefully laid Nolan on the bed in the room over the porch. By this time the sufferer had recovered consciousness. He murmured a few meaningless strings of words, then sighed.
‘I will leave him with you,’ said Richard.
‘Not alone! If he begins to kick out——’
‘He’s quite quiet now,’ said Richard, closing the door behind him.
Richard was extremely anxious to be present, as he had a sort of right to be, at the conversation between Raphael Craig and Juana. He descended the stairs with such an air of deliberation as he could assume, and stood hesitatingly at the foot. He felt like an interloper, an eavesdropper, one who is not wanted, but, indeed, there was no other place for him to put himself into, unless it might be the kitchen; for the drawing-room lamp was extinguished, and the lamp in the dining-room had not been lighted.
Juana had approached her father, who still sat on the oak chest. She bent slightly towards him, like a figure of retribution, or menace, or sinister prophecy. Richard noticed the little wisps of curls in the nape of her neck. She was still dressed in her riding-habit, but the lengthy skirt had been fastened up by means of a safety-pin. Richard could not be sure whether father or daughter had so much as observed his presence in the hall.
‘I’ll stay where I am,’ he thought. ‘I’m a member of the family now, and it is my business to know all the family secrets.’
For at least thirty seconds Juana uttered no word. Then she said, in a low vibrating voice:
‘Why do you tell me to go, father?’
‘Did I not say to you last year,’ the old man replied, ‘that if you left me you must leave me for ever?’
‘You abide by that?’ the girl demanded.
‘I abide by it,’ said Raphael Craig.
Like a flash, Juana swept round and faced Richard, and he at once perceived that she had been aware of his presence.
‘Mr. Redgrave,’ she said, with head in air, and nostrils dilated, ‘Teresa has just told me that at my father’s—er—suggestion you and she have become engaged to be married.’
‘That is so,’ said Richard politely. ‘May we hope for your congratulations?’
She ignored the remark.
‘Do you know whom you are marrying?’ she asked curtly.
‘I am under the impression that I am about to marry the daughter of Mr. Raphael Craig, manager of the Kilburn branch of the British and Scottish Bank.’
‘You are about to do nothing of the sort,’ said Juana. ‘Mr. Raphael Craig has no daughter. Teresa and myself, I may explain to you, are twin-sisters, though I have the misfortune to look much the older. We have always passed as the daughters of Mr. Craig, We have always called him father. Teresa still thinks him her father. It was only recently that I discovered——’
‘Juana,’ the old man interrupted, ‘have you, too, got hold of the wild tale? It is astonishing how long a falsehood, an idle rumour, will survive and flourish.’
‘There is no falsehood, no idle rumour,’ said Juana coldly; ‘and I think it proper that Mr. Redgrave should know all that I know.’
‘It will make no difference whatever to me,’ said Richard, ‘whose daughter Teresa may be. ‘It is herself, and not her ancestors, that I shall have the honour of marrying.’
‘Still,’ said Juana, ‘do you not think that you ought to know Teresa’s history?’
‘Decidedly,’ said Richard.
With an embittered glance at her father, Juana resumed:
‘Some time ago, Mr. Redgrave, a difficulty between Mr. Craig and myself led to my leaving this house. I was the merest girl, but I left. I was too proud to stay. I had a mare of my own, whom I had trained to do a number of tricks. I could ride as well as most. Bosco’s circus happened to be in the neighbourhood. I conceived the wild idea of applying for a situation in the circus. Only a girl utterly inexperienced in life would have dreamt of such a thing. The circus people had me performing for them, and they engaged me. On the whole I lived a not unhappy existence. I tell you this only to account for my presence not long since in Limerick.’
‘Limerick!’ exclaimed Raphael Craig in alarm. ‘You have been there?’
Juana continued calmly:
‘The circus travelled in Ireland, and eventually came to Limerick. I knew that Limerick was my mother’s home, and I began to make inquiries. I found out that my sister and I were born previous to Mr. Craig’s marriage with my mother. She had been married before, or she had, at least, been through the ceremony of marriage with another man—a man unknown, who came suddenly into her life and as suddenly went out of it. You will gather, then, that Mr. Craig is not our father, and that he has no authority over us.’
‘Redgrave,’ muttered Raphael Craig, ‘I tell you the poor girl is mad.’
Juana resumed quietly:
‘I must inform you of another thing. While in Limerick and the district I met this Nolan, the detective. He had another name there. I know now, from what my sister has told me, that he must have been investigating the early history of my mother, and my real and false fathers, for some purpose of the police. But I judge him as I found him. He was very kind to me once, and I liked him. He was the personification of good-nature and good temper. When our ways parted he expressed the certain hope that we should meet again. We have met again, under circumstances extremely painful. He has not yet recognised me. You may ask, father,’ she went on, turning to Raphael Craig, ‘why I came back to your house to-day. There were two reasons. It is three months since I learnt about my parentage, and during the whole of that time I have been debating with myself whether or not to come and have it out with you. I inclined more and more to having a clear understanding, not only for my own sake, but for Teresa’s. Then, the second reason, the circus folk had begun to talk. There were jealousies, of course; and the rumour that my birth was surrounded by doubtful mysteries somehow got afoot in the tents. I decided to leave. Here I am. I came prepared for peace; but you, father, have decided otherwise. I shall leave to-morrow morning, We have no claim on each other. Mr. Redgrave, that is all I have to say.’
She ceased.
Richard bowed, and looked expectantly towards the old man, but the old man said nothing.
‘I have the right to ask you, sir,’ said Richard, ‘for your version of what Miss Juana has just told us.’
‘We will talk of that to-morrow,’ answered the old man testily. ‘We will talk of that to-morrow.’
‘It is already to-morrow,’ said Juana scornfully.
There was a sudden tremendous racket overhead. A scream could be heard from Bridget, and a loud, confused chattering from Nolan. The latter rushed violently half-way downstairs, his eyes burning, Mrs. Bridget after him.
‘I tell you I won’t stay there!’ he shouted. ‘It’s unlucky—that room where Featherstone slept the night before he killed himself! It’s unlucky!’
The restless patient sank on the stairs, exhausted by the exertion. Before Richard could do anything, Mrs. Bridget, that gaunt and powerful creature, had picked up the little man, and by great effort carried him away again. The people downstairs saw no more of him. Mrs. Bridget had at last made up her mind to take him firmly in hand.
Richard was startled by a light touch on his shoulder, and he was still more startled when he caught the horror-struck face of Juana—the staring eyes, the drawn mouth.
‘Tell me,’ she said, her finger still on his shoulder—‘tell me—I cannot trust him—has Mr. Featherstone committed suicide? Is he dead?’
‘Yes,’ said Richard, extremely mystified, but judging that simple candour would be the best course to adopt under the circumstances.
‘There was an inquest. Didn’t you see it in the papers?’
‘Circus folk seldom trouble with newspapers,’ she said. ‘When was it?’
‘About a month ago.’
‘Poor fellow!’
Tears ran down her cheeks, and she spoke with an accent indescribably mournful.
‘You knew him?’ Richard suggested.
‘I should have been his wife a year ago,’ said Juana, ‘had he not forbidden it.’ Again she pointed to Raphael Craig. ‘I never loved Mr. Featherstone, but I liked him. He was an honourable man—old enough to be my father, but an honourable man. He worshipped me. Why should I not have married him? It was the best chance I was ever likely to get, living the life we lived—solitary, utterly withdrawn from the world. Yes, I would have married him, and I would have made him a good wife. But he forbade. He gave no reason. I was so angry that I would have taken Mr. Featherstone despite him. But Mr. Featherstone had old-fashioned ideas. He thought it wrong to marry a girl without her father’s consent. And so we parted. That, Mr. Redgrave, was the reason why I left the house of my so-called father. Scarcely a month ago Mr. Featherstone came to me again secretly, one night after the performance was over, and he again asked me to marry him, and said that he had decided to dispense with Mr. Craig’s consent. He begged me to marry him. His love was as great as ever, but with me things had changed. I had almost ceased even to like Mr. Featherstone. I was free, independent, and almost happy in that wandering life. Besides, I—never mind that. I refused him as kindly as I could. It must have been immediately afterwards that the poor fellow committed suicide, And you’—she flashed a swift denunciatory glance on Raphael Craig—‘are his murderer.’
The old man collected himself and stood up, his face calm, stately, livid.
‘Daughter,’ he said, ‘daughter—for I shall I still call you so, by the right of all that I have done for you—you have said a good deal in your anger that had been better left unsaid. But doubtless you have found a sufficient justification for your wrath. You are severe in your judgments. In youth we judge; in age we are merciful. You think you have been hardly done to. Perhaps it is so; but not by me—rather by fate. Even now I could tell you such things as would bring you to your knees at my feet, but I refrain. Like you, I am proud. Some day you will know all the truth—the secret of my actions and the final goal of my desires. And I think that on that day you will bless me. No man ever had a more sacred, a holier aim, than that which has been the aim of my life. I thank God it is now all but achieved.’
He lighted one of the candles which always stood on the bookcase in the hall, and passed into the drawing-room, where he sat down, leaving the door ajar.
Richard crept towards the door and looked in. The old man sat motionless, absently holding the candle in his hand. The frontdoor opened from the outside, and Teresa ran into the house. She saw her father, and hastened, with a charming gesture, towards him.
‘Old darling!’ she exclaimed; ‘why that sad face, and why that candle? What are you all doing? See!’ She pulled back the shutters of the window. ‘See! the sun has risen!’
So ended that long night.
We have now to watch another aspect of the great struggle which for so many years had been maturing in secrecy and darkness, and the true nature of which was hidden from all save one man.
It was seven o’clock in the morning, and in a vast bedroom of a house in Manchester Square a man lay with closed eyes. The house was one of those excessively plain dwellings of the very rich which are characteristic of the streets and squares of the West End of London. Its façade was relieved by no ornament. You saw merely a flat face of brick, with four rows of windows, getting smaller towards the roof, and a sombre green front-door in the middle of the lowest row. The house did not even seem large, but it was, in fact, extremely spacious, as anyone could see who put foot into the hall, where two footmen lounged from morn till night. The bedroom to which we have referred was on the first-floor. It occupied half the width of the house, and looked out on the square. Its three windows were made double, so that no sound from outside could penetrate that sacred apartment. Ventilation was contrived by means of two electric fans. The furniture consisted of the articles usual in an English bedroom, for the man in bed prided himself on being an Englishman who did not ape foreign ways. The said articles were, however, extraordinarily large, massive, and ornate. The pile of the immense carpet probably could not have been surpassed by any carpet in London. Across the foot of the carved oak bedstead was a broad sofa upholstered in softest silk.
An English bracket-clock on the mantelshelf intoned the hour of seven with English solemnity, and instantly afterwards an electric bell rang about six inches over the head of the occupant of the bed.
He opened his eyes wearily. He had not been asleep; indeed, he had spent most of the night in a futile wakefulness, which was a bad sign with a man who boasted that as a rule he could sleep at will, like Napoleon. Here was one detail out of many in which this man considered that he resembled Napoleon.
He groaned, pulled his gray moustache, stroked his chin, which bristled with the night’s growth of beard, and ran his fingers through his gray hair. Then he touched an electric button. Within ten seconds a valet entered, bearing the morning papers—not merely a judicious selection of morning papers, but every morning paper published in London.
‘Put them on the sofa, Jack.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The man rose out of bed with a sudden jerk. At the same moment the valet, with a movement which would have done credit to a juggler, placed a pair of bath slippers on his master’s feet, and with another movement of equal swiftness deposited a pair of six-pound dumbbells in his hands. The man performed six distinct exercises twelve times each, and then dropped the lumps of iron on the bed, whence the valet removed them.
‘Seven-thirty,’ said the man.
‘Yes, sir,’ said the valet, and disappeared.
The man sank languidly on to the sofa, and began, with the efficiency of a highly-practised reader, to skim the papers one after the other. He led off with the Financial, proceeded to the Times, and took the rest anyhow. When he had finished, the papers lay in a tangled heap on the thick carpet. This man was pre-eminently tidy and orderly, yet few things delighted him more than, at intervals, to achieve a gigantic disorder. It was a little affectation which he permitted himself. Another little affectation was his manner of appearing always to be busy from the hour of opening his eyes to the hour of closing them. He was, in truth, a very busy man indeed; but it pleased him to seem more deeply employed than he actually was. He had a telephone affixed to his bed-head, by means of which he could communicate with his private secretary’s bedroom in the house, and also with his office in Cannon Street. This telephone tickled his fancy. He used it for the sake of using it; he enjoyed using it in the middle of the night. He went to it now, and rang imperiously. He did everything imperiously. There was a tinkling reply on the bell.
‘Are you up, Oakley? Well, get up then. Go to Cannon Street, and bring the important letters. And tell——’ He went off into a series of detailed instructions. ‘And be back here at half-past eight.’
The clock struck half-past seven. The valet entered as silently as a nun, and the modern Napoleon passed into his marble bath-room. By this time everyone in the household—that household which revolved round the autocrat as the solar system revolves round the sun—knew that the master had awakened in a somewhat dangerous mood, and that squally weather might be expected. And they all, from the page-boy to the great Mr. Oakley, the private secretary, accepted this fact as further evidence that the master’s career of prosperity had received a check.
At eight o’clock precisely the master took breakfast—an English breakfast: bacon, eggs, toast, coffee, marmalade—in the breakfast-room, a room of medium size opening off the library. He took it in solitude, for he could not tolerate the presence of servants so early in the morning, and he had neither wife nor family. He poured out his own coffee like one of his own clerks, and read his private letters propped up one by one against the coffee-pot, also like one of his own clerks. He looked at his watch as he drank the last drop of coffee. It was thirty-one minutes past eight. He walked quickly into the library. If Oakley had not been there Oakley would have caught it; but Oakley happened to be there, calmly opening envelopes with a small ivory paper-cutter. It was mainly in virtue of his faculty of always ‘being there’ that Oakley received a salary of six hundred a year.
‘Shall you go to Cannon Street this morning, sir?’ asked Oakley, a middle-aged man with the featureless face of a waiter in a large restaurant.
‘Why?’
‘Sir Arthur Custer has telegraphed to know.’
‘No.’
‘I thought not, and have told him.’
‘Umph!’ said the master, nettled, but not daring to say anything.
Like many a man equally powerful, this Napoleon was in some ways in awe of his unexceptionable clerk. Oakley might easily get another master, but it was doubtful whether his employer could get another clerk equal to Oakley.
‘A light post this morning, sir,’ said Oakley.
‘Umph!’ said the master again. ‘Take down this letter, and have it sent off instantly:
‘“Richard Redgrave, Esq., 4, Adelphi Terrace. Dear Sir,—I shall be obliged if you can make it convenient to call on me this morning as early as possible at the above address. The bearer can bring you here in his cab.—Yours truly.”’
The letter was written, signed, and despatched.
‘Anything from Gaunt and Griffiths?’ asked the Napoleon.
‘Yes, sir.’
Oakley turned to a letter on large, thick, quarto paper. The stationery of this famous firm of stock-brokers—perhaps the largest firm, and certainly the firm with the cleanest record, on the Exchange—was always of an impressive type.
‘They say, “We are obliged by your favour of to-day’s date. We can offer a limited number of La Princesse shares at twenty-five. We shall be glad to have your acceptance or refusal before noon to-morrow.—Your obedient servants, Gaunt and Griffiths.”’
‘Twenty-five!’ exclaimed the other. ‘They mean five. It’s a clerical error.’
‘The amount is written out in words.’
‘It’s a clerical error.’
‘Doubtless, sir.’
Even now the Napoleon would not believe that misfortune, perhaps ruin, was at his door. He doggedly refused to face the fact. It seemed incredible, unthinkable, that anything could happen to him. So we all think until the crash comes. He plunged into the mass of general correspondence with a fine appearance of perfect calmness. But he could not deceive Mr. Oakley.
At five minutes past nine there was a careful tap at the door. The messenger had returned from Adelphi Terrace. Mr. Redgrave was not at his rooms. He had gone out on the previous evening, and had not come in again. The landlady knew not where he was.
‘Send again at noon, Oakley,’ said the Napoleon.
In another minute there was another tap at the door.
‘Come in!’—angrily.
The footman announced that Sir Arthur Custer had called.
‘D——n Sir Arthur Custer!’ said the master of the house. ‘Here, Oakley, get out of this! I must see him.’
Oakley got out, and Sir Arthur was ushered in. Sir Arthur looked at his host queerly, and then with much care shut the door.
‘I say, Lock,’ he said, putting his silk hat on the table, ‘it seems to me we’re in a devil of a hole.’
‘Indeed!’ said Simon Lock cautiously.
‘Yes,’ Sir Arthur insisted. ‘Of course I’m sure that when you asked me to join you in this Princesse affair——’
‘You will pardon me, Sir Arthur,’ said Lock, stopping him very politely and formally, ‘I did not ask you to join me. It was yourself who suggested that.’
‘Ah, well!’ said Sir Arthur, with a little less assurance, ‘we won’t quarrel about that. At any rate, I understood from you that we were in for a deuced good thing.’
‘That is so,’ Lock returned. ‘By the way, sit down, Sir Arthur, and remain calm.’
‘Am I not calm?’ asked the member of Parliament, whose pomposity was unaccustomed to be trifled with.
‘Certainly you are calm. I merely ask you to remain so. Now to come to the business in hand. I said, you remind me, that we were in for a good thing. So we were. But some secret force has been working against us. If I could unmask that secret force all would be well, for I could then bring pressure to bear that would effectually—— You understand?’
‘No matter from what direction the force came?’
‘No matter from what direction. And, Sir Arthur,’ said Simon Lock impressively, ‘I shall find it out.’ He repeated the phrase still more impressively, ‘I shall find it out. Simon Lock has never yet been defeated, and he will not be defeated now. I began life, Sir Arthur, on half-a-crown a week. There were conspiracies against me then, but I upset them. At the age of fifty-five, on a slightly larger scale ‘—he smiled—‘I shall repeat the operations of my early youth.’
Simon Lock, like many self-made men, was extremely fond of referring to his early youth and the humbleness of his beginnings. He thought that it proved an absence of snobbery in his individuality.
‘And in the meantime?’
‘In the meantime, I frankly confess, Sir Arthur, we have sold more La Princesse shares than we can deliver. Nay, further, we have sold, I fear, more La Princesse shares than actually exist. We sold freely for the fall. I knew that the shares would fall soon after the flotation, and they did. But they have mysteriously risen again.’
‘And are still rising,’ Sir Arthur put in, nervously stroking his long thin beard.
‘Yes. We sold, I find, over two hundred thousand shares at three. They then fell, as you know, to about twenty-five shillings. Then they began to go up like a balloon. The market tightened like a drawn string. Sir Arthur, we were led into a trap. For once in a way some fellow has got the better of Simon Lock—temporarily, only temporarily. My brokers thought they were selling shares to the public in general, but they were selling to the agents of a single buyer. That is evident.’
‘How do we stand now?’
‘We have to deliver our shares in a week’s time. We have some eighty thousand shares in hand, bought at various prices up to five pounds. On those eighty thousand we shall just about clear ourselves. That leaves us over a hundred and twenty thousand yet to buy.’
‘At the best price we can obtain?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what is the best price to-day?’
‘Well,’ said Lock, looking Sir Arthur straight in the face, ‘I have had shares offered to me this morning at twenty-five.’
Sir Arthur’s reply was to rush to the sideboard and help himself to a glass of brandy. He was a timid creature, despite his appearance.
‘And that figure means that we should lose the sum of twenty-two pounds on each share. Twenty-two times one hundred and twenty thousand, Sir Arthur, is two millions six hundred and forty thousand pounds. That would be the amount of our loss on the transaction.’
‘But this is child’s play, Lock.’
‘Excuse me, it isn’t,’ said Simon Lock. ‘It is men’s play, and desperately serious.’
‘I don’t understand the methods of the Stock Exchange—never did,’ said Sir Arthur Custer, M.P. ‘I only came into the City because a lot of fellows like yourself asked me to. But it seems to me the only thing to do is to cry off.’
‘Cry off?’
‘Yes. Tell all these people to whom we have contracted to sell Princesse shares that we simply can’t supply ’em, and tell ’em to do their worst. Their worst won’t be worse than a dead loss of over two and a half millions.’
‘My dear Sir Arthur,’ said Simon Lock, ‘there is no crying off in the City. We have contracted to deliver those shares, and we must deliver them, or pay the price—commercial ruin.’
‘The Stock Exchange,’ Sir Arthur blustered, ‘is one of the most infamous institutions——’
‘Yes,’ Simon Lock cut him short, ‘we know all about that. The Stock Exchange is quite right as long as we are making money; but when we begin to lose it immediately becomes infamous.’
Sir Arthur made an obvious effort to pull himself together.
‘What is your plan of campaign, Lock?’ he asked. ‘You must have some scheme in your head. What is it? Don’t trifle with me.’
‘Well,’ said Simon Lock, ‘we have a week.
That is our principal asset. Seven precious days in which to turn round. A hundred and sixty hours. In that time——’
There was a knock at the door, and a page entered with a telegram.
Simon Lock opened it hurriedly. The message ran:
‘Sorry must withdraw offer contained in our letter yesterday. Princesse shares now thirty-five.—Gaunt and Griffiths.’
The erstwhile Napoleon passed the orange-coloured paper to Sir Arthur Custer.
‘No answer,’ he said calmly to the page.