CHAPTER III
MAXELL did not stay many hours in Paris. The Sud Express landed him in the French capital at seven in the morning. He left Paris by the midday train for London. The Long Vacation was drawing to an end, and there were briefs of certain importance requiring examination. There was also a consultation with the Attorney-General on an interpretation of a clause in the new Shipping Act, and he was also due to address his constituents before the reassembling of Parliament.
He might ruminate in vain to find one attractive feature of his programme. Parliament wearied him, and the ordinary practices of the law no longer gave him pleasure.
There was an interest in the work he was doing for the Government, and if he had the faintest hint of pleasure in his immediate prospects, the cause was to be found in the vexed problems centring about this new, and loosely drawn, shipping law. It was a measure which had been passed in a hurry, and when the acid test of litigation had been applied, some of its weak points had been discovered.
The weakest of these points was one affecting the load-line. In an action heard before a High Court Judge, the doubtful clause had been interpreted so as to render the Act a dead letter; and there were particular and especial Governmental reasons why the appeal which the Government had made from the verdict of the lower Court should upset that decision.
There is no need to give the particulars of the great dispute, which arose over the three words “or otherwise loaded,” and it is only necessary to say that, before he had reached London, Mr. Maxell had discovered a way for the Government out of their difficulty.
It was this opinion which he delivered to a relieved Attorney-General, and, with the new argument, the Government were able to present so strong a case to the Court of Appeal, that a month after his return the verdict of the lower Court was reversed.
“And,” said the Attorney-General, “the devils can take it to the House of Lords now and still lose—thanks to your brain wave, Maxell!”
They were smoking in the Crown Room at the Law Courts after the decision had been delivered.
“Where have you been for your holiday, by the way?” asked the Attorney suddenly.
“Morocco,” replied the other.
“Morocco?” The Attorney nodded thoughtfully. “Did you hear anything of friend Cartwright?” he asked.
“We were staying at the same hotel,” replied Maxell.
“A weird person,” said the thoughtful Attorney. “A very curious man—what a Chancellor that fellow would make!”
“He never struck me that way,” smiled Maxell.
“Do you know him well—I mean, are you a particular friend of his?” demanded the Attorney.
“No,” said Maxell indifferently. “I know him—so many men in the law know him.”
“You’re not by any chance associating with him in business now, are you?”
“No,” said Maxell promptly.
It was a lie and he knew it was a lie. It was told deliberately from the desire to stand well in the eyes of his friends. He knew Cartwright’s reputation well enough, and just how he was regarded by the party whom he had served for three years. Cartwright had been Member for a London borough, but had resigned. “Pressure of business” was the excuse he gave, but there were people who said that it was owing to the pressure of the Party Whips, who smelt a somewhat unsavoury case coming into Court with Cartwright figuring prominently.
There is no way of proving or disproving the statement, because the case in which Cartwright most decidedly was interested was withdrawn from the list at the last moment. The uncharitable say that it cost Cartwright a small fortune to bring about this withdrawal, and certainly one of the ladies interested (she was a small-part actress at the Hippoceus) gave up her stage work and had been living in affluence ever since. Cartwright pooh-poohed the suggestion that the case held anything sensational—but he did not enter political life again.
“I am glad you’re not associated with him,” said the Attorney simply. “He’s an awfully nice fellow and I suppose he is as straight and as sound as the best man in the City. But he’s a shifty fellow—just a little bit”—he hesitated—“a little wrong. You understand, Maxell—or shall we say slightly shop-soiled?”
“He is certainly a brilliant man,” said Maxell, not desirous of defending his friend too vigorously.
“Yes, I suppose he is,” admitted the Attorney. “All men like that are brilliant. What a pity his genius does not run in a smooth channel, but must follow the course of a burning cracker, here, there and everywhere, exploding at every turn!”
He slipped down from the table, on the edge of which he had been sitting and pulled off his robe.
“I’m glad to know you’re not associated with Cartwright, anyway,” he said.
Maxell did not attempt to probe beneath the surface of his twice-repeated remark.
He went back to Cavendish Square to his flat and to a tiny, solemn-eyed little girl who had been brought up from Hindhead that day on her monthly visit to “Uncle Max.”
Cartwright had not accompanied his friend to England, and with good reasons. A great deal of his work was carried out in Paris, where he had an important financial backing. He occupied a flat overlooking the imposing, but none too convenient, Avenue of the Grand Army. His home was at the unfashionable end of this interminable thoroughfare, which meant that his rooms were larger and his rent cheaper, and that he was freer from observation than he would have been had he lived according to his means or station in a luxurious flat nearer the Etoil.
He had a board meeting to attend, an informal board meeting, it is true, but none the less important.
Cartwright was the chairman and managing director of the London and Paris Gold Syndicate, a flourishing concern which held big blocks of shares in various land and gold-mining companies, and controlled three mines of its own on the West Rand. Though a Company drawing a modest revenue from its Johannesburg property, its operations were not confined to gold development pure and simple. It was, in fact, an outside broker’s on a grand scale. It gambled heavily and gambled wisely. The shareholders seldom received less than a twelve and a half per cent. dividend, and there were years when in addition it paid a bonus equal to its own share capital.
It numbered its clients at one hundred and fifty thousand, the majority being small people who preferred speculation to investment—country parsons, doctors and the small gamblers who lived fearfully on the fringe of high finance. The shares were at a premium and Cartwright’s interest brought him a considerable sum annually. What probably attracted the little speculator was the knowledge of the Company’s reserve, which stood in the balance-sheet at a respectable figure. It was the question of these reserves that occupied the attention of the four quiet men who met informally in the room of a Paris hotel.
There were three to one against Cartwright, because none of his companions could see eye to eye with him.
“It is too dangerous, M. Cartwright,” said Gribber, whose nationality was suspect; “our risks are already high and we cannot afford, in my judgment, to extend them. The money would be subscribed over and over again if you went to the English public.”
Cartwright frowned.
“Why shouldn’t we make the profit?” he asked; “we could borrow from our reserve.”
“That we can’t touch!” interrupted the cautious Gribber, shaking his head violently. “My faith, no, we cannot touch that! For it is certain that the lean years will come when our clients will require their dividends.”
Cartwright did not pursue the subject. There were other ways of financing his Moorish scheme.
The Benson Syndicate, for example.
He spoke eloquently of this new venture, which was to have its headquarters in Paris, and would be under the eye of his sceptical co-directors. He mentioned names glibly and easily—names that carried weight in the financial world. The three men agreed that the Benson Syndicate had the appearance of a safe investment.
More important was the business which brought Alfred Cartwright to the St. Lazaire Station to meet a passenger a week later.
She sprang from the train and looked round with doubting face, which lighted the moment she saw the saturnine Cartwright.
“My! I am relieved,” she said. “I was scared to think you wouldn’t be here to meet me, and I’d only got a few pounds left.”
“You got my wire?” he asked, and she smiled, showing two rows of pearly teeth.
“I’m still mystified,” she said. “What is it you want me to do in Paris?”
“Let us eat first and talk afterwards,” he said. “You must be hungry.”
“I’m starving!” she laughed.
He had a car waiting for her, and whisked her off to a little street leading from the Boulevard des Italiens, where one of the best restaurants in Paris is situated. The girl looked about her with an approving air. The gaiety and luxury of the place appealed to her.
“My word!” she said enviously; “do you come to lunch here every day?”
“Do you know this place?” he asked.
“I’ve seen it,” she admitted, “but a three-franc dinner at Duval’s has been my limit so far.”
She told him how she had come to the Continent as a dancer, and had “starred” in a tiny little cabaret in Montmartre as one of the “dashing Sisters Jones,” before she had been seen by the impresario who was recruiting material for his tour through the Levant.
Cartwright judged her to be nineteen, knew her to be extremely pretty, and guessed that, under certain conditions, she would be presentable even to the best of the circles in which he moved. He wondered, with a grim smile, what Maxell, that austere and fastidious man, would say if he knew that the girl was with him in Paris. Would Maxell accept her? He thought not. Maxell was a thought straitlaced and in some ways was a bore. But Maxell was necessary. He was a brilliant lawyer, and moreover stood well with the Government, and there might come a time when Maxell would be immensely useful. He could well afford to give the lawyer a slice of the pickings he intended making, because Maxell’s wants were few and his ambitions on the modest side.
Cartwright thought in millions. Maxell was a five-figure man. If all went well with Cartwright’s scheme, undoubtedly he could well afford the five figures.
“What happened to your friend?” asked the girl, as though divining his thoughts: “The man you told me I was to keep away from. Why didn’t you want him to see me?”
Cartwright shrugged his shoulders.
“Does it really matter?” he asked; “he’s in England, anyway.”
“Who is he?” She was curious.
“Oh, a friend of mine.”
“And who are you?” she asked, facing him squarely. “If I’m going to see anything of you in Paris, that Smith, Brown or Robinson business isn’t quite good enough. You’ve been decent to me, but I want to know who I’m working for, and what is the kind of work you want me to do.”
Cartwright pinched his neck—a nervous little trick of his when he was thinking.
“I have business interests here,” he said.
“You don’t want me for an office?” she asked suspiciously. “My education is perfectly rotten.”
He shook his head.
“No, I don’t want you for an office,” he replied with a smile. “And yet in a sense I want you to do office work. I have a little syndicate here, which is known as the Benson Syndicate. Benson is my name——”
“Or the name you go by,” she said quickly, and he laughed.
“How sharp you are! Well, I don’t suppose O’Grady is your name, if it comes to that.”
She made no reply and he went on:
“I want somebody in Paris I can rely upon; somebody who will receive money, transmit it to the Benson Syndicate, and re-invest that money in such concerns as I shall indicate.”
“Don’t use long words,” she said. “How do you know I’m not going to rob you? Nobody’s ever trusted me with money before.”
He might have told her that she would not be trusted with a great deal at a time and that she would be carefully watched. He preferred, however, an explanation more flattering to his new assistant. And not only was it flattering, but it contained a big grain of truth, expressing, to an extent, Alfred Cartwright’s creed.
“Women are more honest than men,” he said. “I should think twice before I put a man—even my best friend—in the position I’m putting you. It will be a simple matter, and I shall pay you well. You can live at one of the best hotels—in fact, it is absolutely necessary that you should. You may”—he hesitated—“you may be Madam Benson, a rich Englishwoman.”
She looked at him from under perplexed brows.
“What is the good of asking me to do that?” she said in a tone of disappointment. “I thought you were going to give me a job I could do. I’m a fool at business.”
“You can remain a fool,” he said coolly. “There’s nothing to do except carry out a certain routine, which I shall explain to you so that you can’t possibly make a mistake. Here is a job which gives you plenty of time, pays you well, gives you good clothes and an auto. Now, are you going to be a sensible girl and take it?”
She thought a moment, then nodded.
“If it means lunching here every day, I’ll take it,” she said decidedly.
Thus was formed the remarkable Benson Syndicate, about which so much has been written, and so many theories evolved. For, if the truth be told, the Benson Syndicate had no existence until Cartwright called it into being in Ciro’s Restaurant. It was born of the opposition he had received, and its creation was hastened by certain disquieting telegrams which arrived almost every hour from London.
Cartwright was, as has been said, a man of many interests. The door-plate of his office in Victoria Street, London, was covered with the names of the companies which had their headquarters in the ornate suite which he occupied. There were two other suites of offices in the City of London for which Mr. Cartwright paid the rent, although he did not pay it in his own name. There were syndicates and companies innumerable, Development Syndicates, Exploitation Companies, Financial and Mining Companies, all duly registered and all keeping one solicitor busy; for the Companies Acts are tricky, and Cartwright was too clever a man to contravene minor regulations.
And to all these companies there were shareholders; some of them contented, some—the majority—wholly dissatisfied with their lot, and quite a large number who were wont to show their share certificates to their friends as curiosities, and tell them the sad story of how they were inveigled into investment.
Only a clever company lawyer can describe in detail the tortuous character of Cartwright’s system of finance. It involved loans from one company to another, very often on the security of shares in a third company; it involved a system of over-drafts, drawn in favour of some weakly member of his family, secured by the assets of one which could show a bold face to the world, and was even quoted in the Stock Exchange list; and divers other complicated transactions, which only the expert mathematician could follow.
Cartwright was a rich man, accounted a millionaire by his friends; but he was that type of millionaire who was never at a loss for a thousand, but who was generally hard up for ten thousand. He came to London much against his will, in response to an urgent telegram, and, having cleared the difficulties which his subordinates had found insuperable, he had a few hours to attend to his private affairs before he took the train back to Paris.
His secretary produced a heap of small bills requiring settlement, and going through these, he paused before one printed slip, and frowned.
“That boy’s school fees weren’t paid last term,” he said.
“No, sir,” said the secretary. “If you remember, I mentioned the matter to you when you were in London last. I was taking upon myself the responsibility of paying the fees, if you hadn’t returned. The boy is coming up to-day, by the way, sir, to be measured for some clothes.”
“Coming here?” asked Mr. Cartwright, interested.
“Yes, sir.”
Cartwright picked up the bill.
“T. A. C. Anderson,” he read. “What does T. A. C. stand for—‘Take A Chance’?”
“I understood he was named after you—Timothy Alfred Cartwright,” said the secretary.
“Yes; of course,” Cartwright grinned. “Still, Take A Chance isn’t a bad name for a kid. When is he arriving?”
“He ought to be here now,” said the man, looking at his watch. “I’ll go out and see.”
He disappeared into the outer office, and presently returned.
“The boy is here, sir,” he said. “Would you like to see him?”
“Bring him in,” said Cartwright. “I’d like to meet this nephew, or cousin, or whatever he is.”
He wondered vaguely what had induced him to take upon himself the responsibility of the small child, and with remorseless judgment analysed the reason as being personal vanity.
The door opened and a child strode in. “Strode” is the only word to describe the quick, decisive movement of the bright-eyed lad who looked with unflinching eye at Cartwright. Cartwright did not look at his clothes, but at the grey, clear eyes, the firm mouth, extraordinarily firm for a boy of fourteen, and the capable and not over-clean hands.
“Sit down, son,” said Cartwright. “So you’re my nephew.”
“Cousin, I think,” said the boy, critically examining the contents of Cartwright’s table. “You’re Cousin Alfred, aren’t you?”
“Oh, I’m a cousin, am I? Yes, I suppose I am,” said Cartwright, amused.
“I say,” said the boy, “is that the school bill? The Head has been rather baity about that.”
“ ‘Baity’?” said the puzzled Cartwright. “That’s a new one on me.”
“Shirty,” said the boy calmly. “Annoyed, I suppose, is the correct word.”
Cartwright chuckled.
“What do you want to be?” he asked.
“A financier,” said T. A. C. Anderson promptly.
He seated himself, leant his elbow on the desk and his head on his hand, his eyes never leaving Cartwright.
“I think that’s a great scheme—finance,” he said. “I’m a whale at mathematics.”
“What particular branch of finance?” asked Cartwright with a smile.
“Other people’s finance,” said the boy promptly; “the same business as yours.”
Cartwright threw back his head and laughed.
“And do you think you’d be able to keep twenty companies in the air at the same time?” he said.
“In the air?” the boy frowned. “Oh, you mean going all at once? Rather! Anyway, I’d take a chance.”
The phrase struck Cartwright.
“Take a chance? That’s curious. I called you Take A Chance Anderson just before you came in.”
“Oh, they all call me that,” said the boy indifferently. “You see, they’re bound to stick a label on to a fellow with an initial like mine. Some of them call me ‘Tin and Copper Anderson,’ but most of them—the other name.”
“You’re a rum kid,” said his cousin. “You can come to lunch with me.”
CHAPTER IV
MR. ALFRED CARTWRIGHT had the enviable faculty of placing outside of his mind all subjects and persons which were unpleasant to think upon. Possessing this power, he could as lightly dismiss the memory of responsibilities, pleasant or unpleasant. He had scarcely left London before he had waived Master T. A. C. Anderson into oblivion. To do him justice, he had certainly speculated vaguely upon assuring his cousin’s future; but his mind was so completely occupied with his own that there was really not room for both—and Take A Chance Anderson had to go.
He reached Paris by the evening train, and drove straight to the apartment he had taken for his new protégé. He found her installed in a very comfortable flat on the unfashionable side of the Seine, and was welcomed with relief.
Miss Sadie O’Grady had not entirely overcome her suspicions of thebona fidesof her newfound acquaintance. Yet, since he had not made love to her, but, on the contrary, had made it very clear that the part he expected her to play in his schemes involved no loss of self-respect, she was becoming reconciled to a relationship which, to say the least, was a strange one. She had established herself in a third-floor office on one of the boulevards, an uncomfortable and unaccustomed figure in an environment which was wholly foreign to her experience, though there was no need for her embarrassment, since she constituted the whole of the staff, and the callers were confined to the postman and the concierge who acted as office-cleaner.
She was to learn, however, that a daily attendance at her “bureau” did not constitute the whole of her duties, or fulfil all Cartwright’s requirements.
It was not until after dinner that night that Cartwright revealed himself.
“Sadie, my young friend,” he said, between puffs of his cigar, “I am going to tell you just what I want you to do.”
“I thought I knew,” she said, on her guard, and he laughed softly.
“You’ll never quite know what I want you to do,” he said frankly, “until I tell you. Now, I’m putting it to you very straight. I want nothing from you except service. And the service I require is of a kind which you need not hesitate to give me. You’re an actress, and I can speak to you more plainly than I could to some unsophisticated girl.”
She wondered what was coming, but had not long to wait.
“I will tell you something,” he said, “which is really more important than my name, about which you showed so much curiosity. There is a man in this city whom I want to get at.”
“How do you mean?” she asked suspiciously.
“He is a man who has it in his power to ruin me—a drunken sot of a fellow, without brain or imagination.”
He went on to explain briefly that he himself was a company promoter, and that he had an interest in a mine, as yet unproved, in Morocco.
“That is why you were there?” she nodded.
“That is exactly why,” replied Cartwright. “Unfortunately, right in the midst of the ground which I have either bought or secured mineral rights over, is a block of land which is the property of this man. He is a Spaniard—do you speak Spanish?”
“A little,” she admitted, “but it is precious little!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Cartwright shook his head. “He speaks English very well. Now, this land is absolutely valueless to the man, but every attempt I have made to buy it has been unsuccessful, and it is vitally necessary at this moment, when I am floating a company to develop the property, that his claims should be included in my properties.”
“What is his name?” asked the girl.
“Brigot,” replied Cartwright.
“Brigot?” repeated Sadie O’Grady thoughtfully. “I seem to have heard that name before.”
“It is pretty common in France, but not so common in Spain,” said Mr. Cartwright.
“And what am I to do?” asked the girl again.
“I will get you an introduction to him,” said Cartwright; “he’s a man with a fine eye for beauty, and in the hands of a clever girl could be wound round her little finger.”
The girl nodded.
“I see what you mean,” she said, “but nothing doing!”
“Wait!” said Cartwright. “I have told you that it is necessary for me to acquire this property. I am taking you into my confidence, and I know that you will respect that confidence. I am willing to pay any reasonable sum, and I neither want you to steal it nor make any personal sacrifice to serve my ends. I am willing to pay, and pay heavily.”
“What do you call heavily?” asked the girl coolly.
“For the property twenty thousand—for you ten thousand pounds,” suggested Cartwright, and the girl nodded.
“That’s got me,” she said. “Tell me what your plan is.”
“My plan is this,” said Cartwright. “You will appear to Señor Brigot—I will arrange that—as a wealthy young American lady who has been spending the winter in Morocco. His property follows a little wooded hill, one of the prettiest formations of its kind in the Angera country. You must rave about that hill, never cease speaking of its beauty and its attractiveness; and you must tell him that you would give anything in the world if you could build a house amidst that beautiful scenery—do you understand me?”
The girl nodded again.
“Brigot is a man somewhat susceptible to feminine charms,” Cartwright went on, “and, unless I am greatly mistaken, he will in one of his obliging moods, offer you the land at a nominal figure, particularly as he has been bitterly disappointed in his attempt to find gold.”
“I don’t like it,” said the girl after consideration. “You promised me that if I came to Paris you would get me a job in one of the theatres. That is what I am after, and the only thing I am fit for. The other business doesn’t seem decent——”
“Ten thousand pounds!” murmured Cartwright.
“It is a lot,” agreed the girl, “but how am I coming out of this business? I come out hopelessly compromised.”
Cartwright shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating smile.
“My dear girl——” he began.
“Wait a moment,” she said quietly; “let’s have a clear understanding. You don’t expect me to walk up to Señor Brigot the first time I meet him, or even the second, and say: ‘You’ve a very nice property. What will you sell it for?’ That is not the kind of transaction you expect me to conduct, is it?”
“Not exactly,” admitted Cartwright.
“It means just a little more than you say,” said the girl; “it means dinners and suppers and hand-holdings and stringing him along. And after it is all over, where am I? I’ve got as much respect for my character as you have for yours, Mr. Mysterious. I want to come out well in this business as you do, and I don’t want to leave my name behind, or be known in Paris—which is the world—as a decoy duck. I’d do an awful lot to please you, because I like you and because you’ve been decent to me. But ‘an awful lot’ does not mean making me so cheap that I am left in the slightly-soiled basket. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Perfectly,” said Cartwright, amazed at the girl’s cool reasoning. He had not given her credit for any of these fine sentiments she now enunciated, and he was piqued, and at the same time a little pleased.
“When you said you’d give me ten thousand pounds,” said the girl, “that sounded good. But it is not good enough. I’ve an idea in the back of my mind that the matter is a much bigger one for you than you’ve told me.”
“How big do you imagine?” bantered Cartwright.
“I think it is big enough to ruin you,” said the girl calmly, “and that you’d be willing to pay any price to get this property. Otherwise, you’d go to the man or send your lawyer in the ordinary way. Now, I don’t want your ten thousand pounds, but I’m going to make a proposition to you. I’ve said I like you and that’s no more than the truth. You told me you were a bachelor and I’ve told you that I’m man-free and heart-free. I don’t say I love you, and I don’t flatter myself that you love me. But if you want this thing to go through, and if you want me to go down in the mud to get it, you’ve got to pay the price——”
“And the price is——?” asked Cartwright curiously.
“You’ve got to marry me,” said the girl.
“Well, I’m——” Cartwright could only gasp his admiration; and then he began to laugh, at first quietly, and then, as the humour of the situation gained upon him, so loudly that the other patrons of the Café Scribe turned to look at him.
“It is a rum idea,” he said, “but——”
“But?” she repeated, keeping her eyes on his.
He nodded to her.
“It’s a bargain!” he said.
She looked at him as she put out her hand and took his, and slowly shook her head.
“My!” she said. “You want that fellow’s land pretty badly,Iknow!” and Cartwright began to laugh again.
Señor Brigot lived in some style for a man who was on the verge of ruin. He had a small house at Maisons Lafitte and a flat on the Boulevard Webber. He was a heavy, tired-looking man, with a dark moustache, obviously dyed, and a short beard, bearing evidence of the same attention. M. Brigot, like Mr. Cartwright, had many interests; but his chief interests were his own tastes and predilections. It was Señor Brigot’s boast that, although he had lived for twenty years in Paris, he had never seen Paris between the hours of six in the morning and one in the afternoon. His breakfast hour was two o’clock. By six o’clock in the evening he was becoming interested in life; and at the hour when most people retire to rest, he was in the prime of his day.
It happened on a certain evening that M. Brigot, who usually met dinner in an amicable frame of mind, sat down at his favourite table at the Abbaye with a big frown, and answered the politemaître d’hôtel’scheery “Good evening” with a snarl.
Amongst his many enterprises and few possessions, and this Mr. Cartwright did not know, was the proprietorship and management of a small, ramshackle wooden theatre in the town of Tangier. He was likewise interested in several cabarets throughout Spain. But what pained him most at the moment was not distressing reports from any of these, but a six-page letter received that afternoon from his son, in which the hope of the house of Brigot had explained his reasons for discharging immediately a very necessary servant. Therefore Señor Brigot swore under his breath and cursed his first-born.
Coincident with the arrival of the letter had come one Jose Ferreira, who had been detained for a week at Madrid. Señor Brigot’s mind was occupied with Jose Ferreira when that worthy, smirking apologetically, as though conscious of the shabbiness of his dress-clothes, sidled into a seat on the opposite side of the table. Señor Brigot glared at him a moment, and Jose Ferreira shifted uneasily in his chair.
“If you had telegraphed to me, I would have settled the matter,” said Brigot, as though carrying on a conversation which he had broken off a few minutes before. “Instead, like the fool you are, you come all the way to Paris, wasting your time in Madrid, and the first I hear of the matter is from my son.”
“It was deplorable,” murmured Jose, “but Don Brigot——”
“Don Brigot!” sneered the father of that worthy. “Don Brigot is a monkey! Why did you take notice of him? Have you nothing else to do in Tangier but to look after that flea-ridden theatre? Have you no other duties?”
“The young señor was emphatic,” murmured the apologetic Jose. “He demanded that I should leave and what could I do?”
Brigot grunted something uncomplimentary. Whether it was intended for his son or for Ferreira, it was difficult to say. Ferreira was content to take it to himself.
Half-way through the dinner Brigot became more human.
“There will always be quarrels about women, my good Jose, and it is your business to be diplomatic,” he said. “My son is a fool; but then, all young men are fools. Why should you neglect my interests because Emanuel is a bigger fool than ever? Only this week I intended travelling to Tangier with the representative of a very rich syndicate who wishes to buy my land.”
“The same señor as before?” asked the interested Jose, who was not only the manager of Tangier’s theatre, but was also the representative of the rusty little gold-mining company which Brigot had floated.
The other nodded.
“The same cursed Englishman,” he said.
Quite unconscious of the fact that his master was cursing the very man whom Jose had most recently cursed, the little man smiled sympathetically.
“I also have a hatred of the English,” he said. “With what insolence do they treat one!”
For some time M. Brigot sat in silence, but presently he wiped his mouth on his napkin, tossed down a tumbler of red wine, and crooked his finger at his companion, inviting closer attention.
“In a day, or perhaps two, I shall send you back to Tangier,” he said.
“The theatre?” began Jose.
“The theatre—bah!” exclaimed the other scornfully. “A donkey-driver could look after the theatre! It is the mine!”
“The mine?” repeated the other in some astonishment.
So long had it been since a spade had been put to the ground, so long had those hopes of Brigot’s been apparently dead, that the very word “mine” had ceased to be employed when referring to the property.
“My Englishman will buy it,” said Brigot confidently. “I happen to know that he has taken up property in the neighbourhood, and he has already made me an offer. But such an offer! He shall pay my price, Jose,” he said, nodding as he picked his teeth, “and it will be a big price, because it is desirable that I should have money.”
Jose did not ask the price, but his employer saved him the trouble.
“Five million pesetas,” he said confidently; “for such a price the property will be sold, always providing, my friend, that we do not discover gold before the sale.”
Jose smiled weakly, a circumstance which seemed to annoy his companion.
“You are a fool,” said Brigot irritably; “you have no brains! You think that is a preposterous sum? Wait!”
When his subordinate’s dinner was finished, Jose was dismissed peremptorily. Brigot had a round of calls to make, a succession of people to be visited; and whilst he might interview the little man at dinner without losing caste, he had no desire to take him round to his usual haunts.
It was at the Abbaye at that golden hour when the price of wine soars and all that is smartest in Paris is assembled in the big saloon, that M. Brigot, who had reached a stage of geniality, met an entrancing vision. Brigot saw the girl and her cavalier at one of the tables, and recognised in the latter a well-known man about town. The latter caught his eye and walked across to him.
“Who is your charming companion?” whispered Brigot, whose failing was, as Cartwright accurately surmised, a weakness for pretty faces.
“She is an American lady who has just come from Morocco,” said the other glibly.
Cartwright had chosen Sadie O’Grady’s companion very well. In a few minutes Brigot had crossed to the other table and taken a seat, was introduced, and was in that pleasant glow of mind which comes to the man of his class who is conscious of having made an impression.
This “American widow,” with her queer, broken French, her beautiful eyes, and the charming distinction which goes best with good clothes, was more lovely than any woman he had ever met—so he swore to himself, as he had sworn before. The friendship progressed from day to day, and so great was the impression which the girl had made, that Brigot was seen abroad at most unusual hours.
The patient Jose Ferreira was despatched on a mission to Madrid, partly because Brigot was tired of seeing him hanging about, and partly because there was some genuine business to be done in the capital.
Sadie reported progress to her employer.
“Oh, yes, he’s crazy enough about me,” she said complacently, “and I’m going a little crazy myself. How long is this to go on?”
“Another week?” suggested Cartwright, smiling approvingly at the gloom on the pretty face. “Have you mentioned the fact that you’ve taken a fancy to his land?”
She nodded.
“He wanted to give it to me there and then,” she said, “but you know what these Spaniards are. If I had accepted, there would have been nothing for me but the front door.”
“Quite right,” agreed Cartwright. “He is the kind of fish you must play. Did he say anything about other offers he had received for the property?”
The girl nodded.
“He spoke about you,” she said; “he called you Benson—is that your real name?”
“It is good enough,” said Cartwright.
“It is queer,” mused the girl, looking at him thoughtfully, “that I never meet any of your friends in Paris, and that nobody knows you—by name. I went down to your flat on the Avenue of the Grand Army,” she confessed frankly, “and asked the concierge. You’re Benson there too.”
Cartwright chuckled.
“In my business,” he said, “it is necessary that one should be discreet. The name which goes in London is not good enough for Paris. Andvice versa,” he added.
“You’re a strange man. I suppose if you marry me in the name of Benson it will be legal?” she asked dubiously.
“Of course it will be legal. I’m surprised at a girl of your intelligence asking such a question,” said Cartwright. “What is the programme for to-night?”
She pulled a little face.
“The Marigny and supper at Corbets—supper in a private dining-room.”
He nodded.
“So it’s come to that, has it? Well, you ought to make good to-night, Sadie. Remember, I am willing to pay up to fifty thousand pounds. It is going to be a tough job raising that money, and it will break my heart to pay it. But it will not only break my heart, but it will break me everlastingly and confoundedly to pay the man’s own price—and his property must be bought.”
“I’ll do my best,” said the girl, “but you have no doubt in your mind that it is going to be hard.”
He nodded.
At one o’clock the next morning he sat reading in his room, when a knock came to his door and the girl came in. She was half hysterical, but the light of triumph was in her eyes.
“Got it,” she said.
“Got it!” he repeated in wonder. “You don’t mean he sold?”
She nodded.
“For ten thousand pounds—three hundred thousand francs. What do you think of your little Sadie?”
“Are you serious?” he asked.
She nodded, smiling.
“What did he——?” he began.
She hesitated and closed her eyes.
“Don’t talk about it,” she said quickly. “I have to see him to-morrow at his lawyers, and the property will be transferred to me.”
“And after?”
She smiled grimly.
“The after-part will not be as pleasant as M. Brigot imagines,” she said. “I tell you, that fellow’s crazy—stark, staring mad. But I felt an awful beast, and I think he’ll kill me when he discovers I’ve sold him.”
“Don’t let that worry you,” said Cartwright easily.