"But how is he mixed up in it?" demanded Thorpe, impatiently.

"Well, as nearly as I can figure it out, he works for one of the men that's at the head of this rubber company. It appears that he happened to show this man--he's a man of t.i.tle, by the way--a letter I wrote to him last spring, when I got back to Mexico--and so in that way this man, when he wanted me to come over, just told Gafferson to cable to me."

"Gafferson," Thorpe repeated, very slowly, and with almost an effect of listlessness. He was conscious of no surprise; it was as if he had divined all along the sinister shadows of Lord Plowden and Lord Plowden's gardener, lurking in the obscurity behind this egregious old a.s.s of a Tavender.

"He's a tremendous horticultural sharp," said the other. "Probably you've heard tell of him. He's taken medals for new flowers and things till you can't rest. He's over at--what do you call it?--the Royal Aquarium, now, to see the Dahlia Show. I went over there with him, but it didn't seem to be my kind of a show, and so I left him there, and I'm to look in again for him at 5:30. I'm going down to his place in the country with him tonight, to meet his boss--the n.o.bleman I spoke of."

"That's nice," Thorpe commented, slowly. "I envy anybody who can get into the country these days. But how did you know I was here?" "The woman in the book-store told me--I went there the first thing. You might be sure I'd look you up. n.o.body was ever a better friend than you've been to me, Thorpe. And do you know what I want you to do? I want you to come right bang out, now, and have a drink with me."

"I was thinking of something of the sort myself," the big man replied.

"I'll get my hat, and be with you in a minute."

In the next room he relinquished his countenance to a frown of fierce perplexity. More than a minute pa.s.sed in this scowling preoccupation.

Then his face lightened with the relief of an idea, and he stepped confidently back into the parlour.

"Come along," he said, jovially. "We'll have a drink downstairs, and then we'll drive up to Hanover Square and see if we can't find a friend of mine at his club."

In the office below he stopped long enough to secure a considerable roll of bank-notes in exchange for a cheque. A little later, a hansom deposited the couple at the door of the Asian Club, and Thorpe, in the outer hallway of this inst.i.tution, clicked his teeth in satisfaction at the news that General Kervick was on the premises.

The General, having been found by a boy and brought down, extended to his guests a hospitality which was none the less urbane for the evidences of surprise with which it was seasoned. He concealed so indifferently his inability to account for Tavender, that the anxious Thorpe grew annoyed with him, but happily Tavender's perceptions were less subtle. He gazed about him in his dim-eyed way with childlike interest, and babbled cheerfully over his liquor. He had not been inside a London club before, and his glimpse of the reading-room, where, isolated, purple-faced, retired old Empire-makers sat snorting in the silence, their gouty feet propped up on foot-rests, their white brows scowling over the pages of French novels, particularly impressed him. It was a new and halcyon vision of the way to spend one's declining years.

And the big smoking-room--where the leather cushions were so low and so soft, and the connection between the bells and the waiters was so efficient--that was even better.

Thorpe presently made an excuse for taking Kervick apart. "I brought this old jacka.s.s here for a purpose," he said in low, gravely mandatory tones. "He thinks he's got an appointment at 5:30 this afternoon--but he's wrong. He hasn't. He's not going to have any appointment at all--for a long time yet. I want you to get him drunk, there where he sits, and then take him away with you, and get him drunker still, and then take a train with him somewhere--any station but Charing Cross or that line--and I don't care where you land with him--Scotland or Ireland or France--whatever you like. Here's some money for you--and you can write to me for more. I don't care what you say to him--make up any yarn you like--only keep him pacified, and keep him away from London, and don't let a living soul talk to him--till I give you the word. You'll let me know where you are. I'll get away now--and mind, General, a good deal depends on the way you please me in this thing."

The soldier's richly-florid face and intent, bulging blue eyes expressed vivid comprehension. He nodded with eloquence as he slipped the notes into his trousers pocket. "Absolutely," he murmured with martial brevity, from under his white, tight moustache.

With only a vague word or two of meaningless explanation to Tavender, Thorpe took his departure, and walked back to the hotel. From what he had learned and surmised, it was not difficult to put the pieces of the puzzle together. This ridiculous old fool, he remembered now, had reproached himself, when he was in England before, for his uncivil neglect of his brother-in-law. By some absurd chance, this d.a.m.ned brother-in-law happened to be Gafferson. It was clear enough that, when he returned to Mexico, Tavender had written to Gafferson, explaining the unexpected pressure of business which had taken up all his time in England. Probably he had been idiot enough to relate what he of course regarded as the most wonderful piece of good news--how the worthless concession he had been deluded into buying had been bought back from him. As likely as not he had even identified the concession, and given Thorpe's name as that of the man who had first impoverished and then mysteriously enriched him. At all events, he had clearly mentioned that he had a commission to report upon the Rubber Consols property, and had said enough else to create the impression that there were criminal secrets connected with its sale to the London Company. The rest was easy. Gafferson, knowing Lord Plowden's relation to the Company, had shown him Tavender's letter. Lord Plowden, meditating upon it, had seen a way to be nasty--and had vindictively plunged into it. He had brought Tavender from Mexico to London, to use him as a weapon. All this was as obvious as the nose on one's face.

But a weapon for what? Thorpe, as this question put itself in his mind, halted before a shop-window full of soft-hued silk fabrics, to muse upon an answer. The delicate tints and surfaces of what was before his eyes seemed somehow to connect themselves with the subject. Plowden himself was delicately-tinted and refined of texture. Vindictiveness was too plain and coa.r.s.e an emotion to sway such a complicated and polished organism. He reasoned it out, as he stood with lack-l.u.s.tre gaze before the plate-gla.s.s front, aloof among a throng of eager and talkative women who pressed around him--that Plowden would not have spent his money on a mere impulse of mischief-making. He would be counting upon something more tangible than revenge--something that could be counted and weighed and converted into a bank-balance. He smiled when he reached this conclusion--greatly surprising and confusing a matronly lady into whose correct face he chanced to be looking at the instant--and turning slowly, continued his walk.

At the office of the hotel, he much regretted not having driven instead, for he learned that Semple had twice telephoned from the City for him.

It was late in the afternoon--he noted with satisfaction that the clock showed it to be already past the hour of the Tavender-Gafferson appointment,--but he had Semple's office called up, upon the chance that someone might be there. The clerk had not consumed more than ten minutes in the preliminaries of finding out that no one was there--Thorpe meanwhile pa.s.sing savage comments to the other clerks about the British official conception of the telephone as an instrument of discipline and humiliation--when Semple himself appeared in the doorway.

The Broker gave an exclamation of relief at seeing Thorpe, and then, apparently indifferent to the display of excitement he was exhibiting, drew him aside.

"Come somewhere where we can talk," he whispered nervously.

Thorpe had never seen the little Scotchman in such a flurry. "We'll go up to my rooms," he said, and led the way to the lift.

Upstairs, Semple bolted the door of the sitting-room behind them, and satisfied himself that there was no one in the adjoining bedroom. Then, unburdening himself with another sigh, he tossed aside his hat, and looked keenly up at the big man. "There's the devil to pay," he said briefly.

Thorpe had a fleeting pride in the lethargic, composed front he was able to present. "All right," he said with forced placidity. "If he's got to be paid, we'll pay him." He continued to smile a little.

"It's nah joke," the other hastened to warn him. "I have it from two different quarters. An application has been made to the Stock Exchange Committee, this afternoon, to intervene and stop our business, on the ground of fraud. It comes verra straight to me."

Thorpe regarded his Broker contemplatively. The news fitted with precision into what he had previously known; it was rendered altogether harmless by the precautions he had already taken. "Well, keep your hair on," he said, quietly. "If there were fifty applications, they wouldn't matter the worth of that soda-water cork. Won't you have a drink?"

Semple, upon reflection, said he would. The unmoved equipoise of the big man visibly rea.s.sured him. He sipped at his bubbling tumbler and smacked his thin lips. "Man, I've had an awful fright," he said at last, in the tone of one whose ease of mind is returning.

"I gave you credit for more nerve," observed the other, eyeing him in not unkindly fashion over his gla.s.s. "You've been so plumb full of sand all the while--I didn't think you'd weaken now. Why, we're within two days of home, now--and for you to get rattled at this late hour--you ought to be ashamed of yourself."

The Scotchman looked into the bottom of his gla.s.s, as he turned it thoughtfully round. "I'm relieved to see the way you take it," he said, after a pause. With increased hesitation he went dryly on: "I've never enquired minutely into the circ.u.mstances of the flotation. It has not seemed to be my business to do so, and upon advice I may say that the Committee would not hold that such was my business. My position is quite clear, upon that point."

"Oh, perfectly," Thorpe a.s.sented. "It couldn't possibly be any of your business--either then, or now." He gave a significant touch of emphasis to these last two words.

"Precisely," said Semple, with a glance of swift comprehension. "You must not think I am asking any intrusive questions. If you tell me that--that there is no ground for uneasiness--I am verra pleased indeed to accept the a.s.surance. That is ample information for my purposes."

"You can take it from me," Thorpe told him. He picked up a red book from a side table, and turned over its pages with his thick thumb. "This is what Rule 59 says," he went on: "'NO APPLICATION WHICH HAS FOR ITS OBJECT TO ANNUL ANY BARGAIN IN THE STOCK EXCHANGE SHALL BE ENTERTAINED BY THE COMMITTEE, UNLESS UPON A SPECIFIC ALLEGATION OF FRAUD OR WILFUL MISREPRESENTATION.' Shall be entertained, d'ye see? They can't even consider anything of the sort, because it says 'specific,' and I tell you plainly that anything 'specific' is entirely out of the question."

The Broker lifted his sandy brows in momentary apprehension. "If it turns upon the precise definition of a word," he remarked, doubtingly.

"Ah, yes,--but it doesn't," Thorpe rea.s.sured him. "See here--I'll tell you something. You're not asking any questions. That's as it should be.

And I'm not forcing information upon you which you don't need in your business. That's as it should be, too. But in between these two, there's a certain margin of facts that there's no harm in your knowing. A scheme to blackmail me is on foot. It's rather a fool-scheme, if you ask me, but it might have been a nuisance if it had been sprung on us unawares.

It happened, however, that I twigged this scheme about two hours ago. It was the d.a.m.nedest bit of luck you ever heard of----"

"You don't have luck," put in Semple, appreciatively. "Other men have luck. You have something else--I don't give it a name."

Thorpe smiled upon him, and went on. "I twigged it, anyway. I went out, and I drove the biggest kind of spike through that fool-scheme--plumb through its heart. Tomorrow a certain man will come to me--oh, I could almost tell you the kind of neck-tie he'll wear--and he'll put up his bluff to me, and I'll hear him out--and then--then I'll let the floor drop out from under him."

"Aye!" said Semple, with relish.

"Stay and dine with me tonight," Thorpe impulsively suggested, "and we'll go to some Music Hall afterward. There's a knock-about pantomime outfit at the Canterbury--Martinetti I think the name is--that's d.a.m.ned good. You get plenty of laugh, and no tiresome blab to listen to. The older I get, the more I think of people that keep their mouths shut."

"Aye," observed Semple again.

CHAPTER XX

IN the Board Room, next day, Thorpe awaited the coming of Lord Plowden with the serene confidence of a prophet who not only knows that he is inspired, but has had an illicit glimpse into the workings of the machinery of events.

He sat motionless at his desk, like a big spider for who time has no meaning. Before him lay two newspapers, folded so as to expose paragraphs heavily indicated by blue pencil-marks. They were not financial journals, and for that reason it was improbable that he would have seen these paragraphs, if the Secretary of the Company had not marked them, and brought them to him. That official had been vastly more fluttered by them than he found it possible to be. In slightly-varying language, these two items embedded in so-called money articles reported the rumour that a charge of fraud had arisen in connection with the Rubber Consols corner, and that sensational disclosures were believed to be impending.

Thorpe looked with a dulled, abstracted eye at these papers, lying on the desk, and especially at the blue pencil-lines upon them, as he pondered many things. Their statement, thus scattered broadcast to the public, seemed at once to introduce a new element into the situation, and to leave it unchanged. That influence of some sort had been exerted to get this story into these papers, it did not occur to him for an instant to doubt. To his view, all things that were put into papers were put there for a purpose--it would express his notion more clearly, perhaps, to say for a price. Of the methods of Fleet Street, he was profoundly ignorant, but his impressions of them were all cynical. Upon reflection, however, it seemed unlikely to him that Lord Plowden had secured the insertion of these rumours. So far as Thorpe could fathom that n.o.bleman's game, its aims would not be served by premature publicity of this kind.

Gradually, the outlines of a more probable combination took shape in his thoughts. There were left in the grip of the "corner" now only two victims,--Rostocker and Aronson. They owed this invidious differentiation to a number of causes: they had been the chief sellers of stock, being between them responsible for the delivery of 8,500 Rubber Consols shares, which they could not get; they were men of larger fortune than the other "shorts," and therefore could with safety be squeezed longest; what was fortunate for him under the circ.u.mstances, they were the two men against whom Thorpe's personal grudge seemed able to maintain itself most easily.

For these reasons, they had already been mulcted in differences to the extent of, in round numbers, 165,000 pounds. On the morrow, the twelfth of September, it was Thorpe's plan to allow them to buy in the shares they needed, at 22 or 23 pounds per share--which would take from them nearly 200,000 pounds more. He had satisfied himself that they could, and would if necessary, pay this enormous ransom for their final escape from the "corner." Partly because it was not so certain that they could pay more, partly because he was satiated with spoils and tired of the strain of the business, he had decided to permit this escape.

He realized now, however, that they on their side had planned to escape without paying any final ransom at all.

That was clearly the meaning of these paragraphs, and of the representations which had yesterday been made to the Stock Exchange Committee. He had additional knowledge today of the character of these representations. Nothing definite had been alleged, but some of the members of the Committee had been informally notified, so Semple had this morning learned, that a specific charge of fraud, supported by unanswerable proof, was to be brought against the Rubber Consols management on the morrow. Thorpe reasoned out now, step by step, what that meant. Lord Plowden had sought out Rostocker and Aronson, and had told them that he had it in his power ignominiously to break the "corner." He could hardly have told them the exact nature of his power, because until he should have seen Tavender he did not himself know what it was. But he had given them to understand that he could prove fraud, and they, scenting in this the chance of saving 200,000 pounds, and seeing that time was so terribly short, had hastened to the Committeemen with this vague declaration that, on the morrow, they could prove--they did not precisely know what. Yes--plainly enough--that was what had happened. And it would be these two Jew "wreckers," eager to invest their speculative notification to the Committee with as much of an air of formality as possible, who had caused the allusions to it to be published in these papers.

Thorpe's l.u.s.treless eye suddenly twinkled with mirth as he reached this conclusion; his heavy face brightened into a grin of delight. A vision of Lord Plowden's absurd predicament rose vividly before him, and he chuckled aloud at it.

It seemed only the most natural thing in the world that, at this instant, a clerk should open the door and nod with meaning to the master. The visitor whom he had warned the people in the outer office he expected, had arrived. Thorpe was still laughing to himself when Lord Plowden entered.