The footman who had shown Van Ingen to the door ushered the count into the morning-room, replenished the fire in the grate which had burned low, and departed noiselessly.
The newcomer sank wearily into a deep chair, and closed his eyes. He looked spent and haggard, as if his night had been a sleepless one. The clear olive of his skin showed slightly sallow, and fine wire-lines were etched about his eyes. Perhaps he did not hear the light footfalls which approached.
Doris came nearer, soft-footed, and pausing before the fire, regarded him with deep attention. She had changed into a dark dress which accentuated her youth and slenderness.
The count opened his eyes and looked at her. A slight smile touched his lips. "I was dreaming of you!" he murmured softly. He sprang to his feet. "Forgive me!" he exclaimed contritely. "I must have dozed. I had a wakeful night."
She gave him her hand. "And I disturbed you with my message!"
"I was glad to come," he replied simply. "But you—this terrible news!" He released her hand and fell back a pace, scrutinising her sharply. "But you do not look sad! And yet your letter—the morning paper which I bought upon the way—it is not true, then?"
"Something is true—but not—not the ghastly thing I feared when I wrote you." She seated herself, and the count resumed his chair by the fire. His face was hidden in the shadows. "You mean that your father——"
"Is alive and well!" Her voice quivered and broke. Two shining tears trembled for a moment upon her lashes., and then sped down her cheeks. Others followed. She smiled through them. "I am so happy—so thankful!" she murmured.
"How did you learn this—wonderful news?" The count's voice, though low, rang like steel on stone.
She gave him a startled look, and withdrew the note from its warm resting place and handed it silently to him.
"May I take it to the light?" Without waiting for permission, he rose and stepped to the window. He stood with his eyes glued to the oblong strip of paper. A curious greyish pallor had spread across his countenance, and his hands shook. A gust of strong rage overtook him, as he stared down at the familiar handwriting. "Imbecile!" he muttered. With an effort he collected himself, and turned back to the girl. "Permit me to ask if your aunt has seen this—ah—communication?"
She shook her head. "You see, he—he has forbidden me to speak!" Tears clouded her vision.
The sternness melted out of his face, but he put another question.
"And your estimable young friend whom I met at the door?"
"No."
He took a deep breath and returned to his place at her side.
"I wished to tell him," she continued, "for Cord is so good! He is as dear to me as a brother."
The count restrained a smile. He bent down and possessed himself of her hand. "Dear lady," he said, "you must conceal this, even from your brother. It was a mad thing for your father to do! I think Baggin would kill him if he knew!" His own face hardened as he spoke. "But what's done can be undone." He leaned forward and dropped the paper upon the glowing coals. It smoked, then turned a deep quivering red, against which the letters were blackly visible. "Look!" he exclaimed softly. One phrase stood out strong and clear upon the darkening ashes.
"'Trust Poltavo!'" Doris whispered. She bent a little toward him. Her eyes were luminous, and her red lips parted. "It is a good omen!" she breathed.
"And you will trust me in this matter?" he asked.
She nodded gravely.
He raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them.
"And in others, also?"
She flushed warmly. "You must not speak of such things now. I must not listen. I can think only of my father. He is not dead—for that I thank Heaven. But he is in danger—great danger, both from Baggin and the law. He—he loved me more than his millions, and wrote to reassure me of his safety. Oh!" she exclaimed passionately, "he is not bad, Count Poltavo—as Baggin is—as I once thought you were—but only weak, and swayed by his imagination. He sees things big. He dreams of a financial empire such as the world never knew."
The count looked at her, and smiled queerly. "And you wish me to find your father?" he questioned.
"Yes, or take me to him!"
"And after that?" he demanded a little eagerly.
"After that," she replied wearily, "you may say what you will."
"Until that hour, then," he said gently, "I shall set a seal upon my lips."
A silence fell between them. The count brooded, his eyelids down-dropped, his chin propped in the palm of his hand. A ruby, set in a curious antique ring, gleamed dully from his finger.
"I think," he observed finally in a low voice, "that Mr. Grayson is, by this time, safely upon the Continent. Paris—Rome?" He shook his head. "Too dangerous. Madrid? It is possible. Yes." He nodded, and then sat erect. "To-night, mademoiselle," he announced, "I shall start for Madrid to find your father."
She thanked him with her eyes. "And you will stop this terrible scheme—you will save him from Baggin?"
"I will save him from Baggin!" he promised grimly. "More than that, dear lady, I cannot undertake."
She gave him a shining look. "Ah, you are good," she whispered. She laid a hand on his arm. "Good and—and faithful!"
The count seemed deeply moved. He looked down at the hand, but made no motion to touch it. "Mademoiselle," he said in a strange, choked voice, "it is you who are good! You conquer me with your divine tenderness!" A spasm as of pain crossed his countenance. "I—I am not good, as the world knows that word. I am hard, ambitious, cruel." He continued, his face white and stern: "Power is to me the greatest thing in the world, greater than love—even my love for you—greater than life. For what is human life? It is cheaper than the dirt in the street. Why should we value it? For myself, it signifies nothing. When it obstructs my path, I set it aside—or crush it."
She drew back from him half fearfully. A lock of dark hair had escaped, and fallen across her brow. It made her look singularly young and troubled. "Why do you say those wild things?" she faltered.
He smiled, master of himself again, and took her hand.
"You are afraid of me—Doris?" he whispered softly.
She trembled at the word. Her white eyelids fluttered, and her colour came and went under his persistent gaze.
"A—a little!" she confessed. It seemed to her that she could almost hear her heart beat. His personality was round about her like a spell.
"Only a little!" the count laughed gaily. "I admit I am very much afraid of you!"
The hand was still closely imprisoned. She disengaged it, and lifted her eyes bravely to him.
"I believe that you are the most truthful man in the world," she said simply. "But I—I fear your truth. It terrifies me."
"Yesterday," he replied, with a whimsical smile, "you hated me. I was all evil. To-day I am the most truthful man in the world. What shall I be to-morrow?"
She held her head down and refused to meet his look.
"I—I cannot tell," she whispered.
"Nor shall I urge you," he replied gently. "Later, perhaps, when your father is safe—— But until then, may I ask a very great favour?"
She nodded mutely.
He drew off the ring. "Will you wear this? I have a fancy that upon your hand it will bring me good luck and ward off danger." He tried it upon one after another of her fingers. "Too large!" he murmured disappointedly.
Doris smiled faintly. From about her throat, hidden in the lace of her gown, she pulled out a slender gold chain, from which a locket depended. "I will wear it here," she promised, "together with the picture of my father." She took the jewel from his hand, and undoing the clasp, threaded the ring upon the chain and restored all to their place.
"That is better than I dared hope!" he said. He bent toward her. "And you will think of me sometimes?"
"Every instant of the day," she responded fervently, "until I shall see my father."
He laughed a little ruefully, and rose. "I suppose that must content me! And now I must be off. I will find your father. 'Trust Poltavo.'"
"I do—completely." She gave him her hand. Her face was composed, almost cheerful. "Do you leave any commands?"
He looked significantly at the fire, where the only trace of the note was a faint black film. "You have already received them," he said gravely. "Everything is as it was this morning. Your father is dead. For you nothing is left but silence—and courage."
She shuddered a little. "Cord told me that the—the affair was in the hands of Scotland Yard, and that a Mr. Smith had been appointed to the case."
The count started at the name. He opened his lips to speak, but closed them again.
"Will he come and question me?" she continued. "Oh," she declared half wildly, "I could not bear that!"
"I regret that Mr. Smith has been given the case," observed the count thoughtfully. "I know the gentleman, slightly. He is a difficult man to deceive. You may be sure, dear lady, that he will come—and come again, if he suspects anything. You must be on your guard. Aid him openly with all the information at your disposal. Make engagements with him. Write notes. Send him fresh clues—one a day! And now—how you say—good-bye!" He looked down into her eyes, smiling.
Doris appeared to cling to him. "Oh, if you could be here to advise me!" she murmured. "I am afraid. It is all so secret—and terrible!"
"I will return," he assured her. "In three days I will return, or wire instructions. Courage!" he whispered. He touched his lips to her hand, pressed it, gave her a long look, and turned abruptly upon his heel.
Doris sank upon the divan, and stared drearily into the fire.
Half-an-hour later, Lady Dinsmore, drawing the curtains softly, found her in the same position. The older woman's face was flushed, and showed traces of recent tears. She sat down beside the girl and drew her close into her arms.
"Dear," she said in a choked voice, "you must be very brave."
Doris shuddered inside the protecting circle. Lady Dinsmore held her tightly.
"Your poor father has been found. Mr. Smith is below. He wishes us to go with him, to identify the—the body." She bent down tenderly to the girl, who lay quite still in her arms, and then gave a little cry. Doris had fainted.
He was a slender, distinguished man, and dressed in black, which is the colour of Spain.
Seeing him, on windy days, when bleak, icy airstreams poured down from the circling Sierras, and made life in Madrid insupportable, one might have marked him down as a Spaniard. His black felt hat and his velvet-linedcappawith its high collar would show him to be such from a distance, while nearer at hand his olive complexion, his delicately aquiline nose, and slightly upturned black moustache, would confirm the distant impression.
He had come to Burgos from Madrid by an express, and had travelled all night, and yet he was the trimmest and most alert of the crowd which thronged the Calle de Vitoria, a crowd made up of peasants, tourists, and soldiers.
He made a slow progress, for the crowd grew thicker in the vicinity of the Casa del Cordon, where the loyal country-folk waited patiently for a glimpse of their young king.
The stranger stood for a little while looking up at the expressionless windows of the Casa, innocent of curtain, but strangely clean. He speculated on the value of life—of royal life.
"If I were to kill the king," he mused, "Europe would dissolve into one big shudder. If, being dead, I came forward offering to restore him to life for fifty million francs the money would be instantly forthcoming on the proof of my ability. Yet were I to go now to the king's minister saying—'It is easy for me to kill the king, but if you will give me the money you would spend on his obsequies, I will stay my hand,' I should be kicked out, arrested, and possibly confined as a lunatic."
He nodded his head slowly, and as he turned away he took a little note-book from his pocket, and inscribed—"The greatest of miracles is self-restraint." Then he rolled a cigarette and walked slowly back to the Café Suizo in the Espolon.
A clean-shaven priest, with a thin, intellectual face, was stirring his coffee at one of the tables, and since this was the least occupied the stranger made for it. He raised his hat to the priest and sat down.
"I apologise for intruding myself, father," he said, "but the other tables——"
The priest smiled and raised a protesting hand.
"The table is at your disposition, my son," he said.
He was about the same age as the stranger, but he spoke with the assurance of years. His voice was modulated, his accent refined, his presence that of a gentleman.
"A Jesuit," thought the stranger, and regarded him with politely veiled curiosity. Jesuits had a fascination for him. They were clever, and they were good; but principally they were a mysterious force that rode triumphant over the prejudice of the world and the hatred in the Church.
"If I were not an adventurer," he said aloud, and with an air of simplicity, "I should be a Jesuit."
The priest smiled again, looking at him with calm interest.
"My son," he said, "if I were not a Jesuit priest, I should be suspicious of your well-simulated frankness."
Here would have come a deadlock to a man of lesser parts than the stranger, but he was a very adaptable man. None the less, he was surprised into a laugh which showed his white teeth.
"In Spain," he said, "no gambit to conversation is known. I might have spoken of the weather, of the crowd, of the king—I chose to voice my faults."
The priest shook his head, still smiling.
"It is of no importance," he said quietly; "you are a Russian, of course?"
The stranger stared at him blankly. These Jesuits—strange stories had been told about them. A body with a secret organisation, spread over the world—it had been said that they were hand-in-hand with the police——
"I knew you were a Russian; I lived for some time in St. Petersburg. Besides, you are only Spanish to your feet," the Jesuit looked down at the stranger's boots,—"they are not Spanish; they are much too short."
The stranger laughed again. After all, this was a confirmation of his views of Jesuits.
"You, my father," he accused in his turn, "are a teacher; a professor at the College of Madrid: a professor of languages." He stopped and looked up to the awning that spread above him, seeking inspiration. "A professor of Greek," he said slowly.
"Arabic," corrected the other; "but that deduction isn't clever, because the Jesuits at Madrid are all engaged in scholastic work."
"But I knew you came from Madrid."
"Because we both came by the same train," said the calm priest, "and for the same purpose."
The stranger's eyes narrowed.
"For what purpose, father?" he asked.
"To witness the eclipse," said the priest.
A few minutes later the stranger watched the black-robed figure with the broad-rimmed hat disappearing in the crowd with a little feeling of irritation.
He drank the remainder of hiscafé en tasse, paid the waiter, and stepping out into the stream, was swept up the hill to where a number of English people were gathered, with one eye upon their watches and another upon the livid shadow that lay upon the western sky.
He found a place on the slope of the hill tolerably clear of sightseers, and spread a handkerchief carefully on the bare baked earth and sat down. He had invested a penny in a strip of smoked glass, and through this he peered critically at the sun. The hour of contact was at hand, and he could see the thin rim of the obstruction cover the edge of the glaring ball.
"Say, this will do; it's not so crowded."
The stranger buried his chin in the high collar of hiscappa, pulled down his felt hat over his eyes, and from beneath its brim gazed eagerly at the newcomers.
One was short and stout and breathed stertorously, having recently climbed the hill. His face was a heavy oval, with deep creases running from nostril to jaw. The other, the speaker, was a tall, lean man, with an eagle cast of countenance. He wore, somewhat carelessly, a brown overcoat and a derby. Both were unmistakably American tourists, who had stopped off at Burgos to see the eclipse.
"Phew!" exclaimed the fat man. "I don't know which was worse, the climb or the crowd. I hate crowds," he grumbled. "You lose things."
"Have you lost anything?" asked the other. His own hand went unconsciously to his breast pocket. The stranger saw this out of the corner of his eye—inside breast pocket on the left, he noted.
"You shouldn't carry valuables in a place like this," the man continued, "that is to say, not money."
"How about letters, eh, Baggin? Letters—and plans? They are sometimes worth money to the right party."
His companion frowned. "Nothing that I carry is worth money," he returned shortly. "I flatter myself that not a man in the world, no, not even you, Grayson," there was a slight sneer in his voice, "could make head or tail of my memoranda. And yet, there it is, the entire proposition, written down, in black and white. But it's all in code, and I carry the code in my head."
"I'm sincerely glad to hear it," replied the other. He looked about him nervously. "I—have a feeling that we oughtn't to have come here."
"You make me tired," said Baggin wearily.
"We oughtn't be seen together," persisted the other. "All sorts of people are here. Men from the city, perhaps. Suppose I should be recognised—my picture was in all the papers."
"Don't be a fool," said Baggin roughly. "And for Heaven's sake, don't peer around in that silly fashion. Let me give you an epigram of Poltavo's. 'It is the observer who is always observed.' Rather neat, eh?"
"I wish he were in with us on this thing."
"I don't," retorted Baggin. "So that's settled. He's done his work, and that's the end of him."
"I doubt it," returned the other thoughtfully. "And, frankly, if the matter comes up again, I shall vote to admit him."
"Well, wait till it does come up," growled Baggin. "And don't talk shop in a crowd like this. Do you know what Poltavo says? 'Men babble away their secrets, and whisper away their lives.'"
There was a long pause, and the stranger knew that one of the Americans was making dumb-show signals of warning. They were nodding at him, he felt sure, so he bowed and asked politely:
"At what hour is the eclipse?"
"No savvy," said the fat man, "no hablo Espagnol."
The stranger shrugged his shoulders, and turned again to the contemplation of the plain below.
"He doesn't speak English," said the fat man, "none of these beggars do."
His friend made no reply, but after a silence of a few minutes he said quietly and in English:
"Look at that balloon."
But the stranger was not to be trapped by a simple trick like that, and continued his stolid regard of the landscape; besides he had seen the balloons parked on the outskirts of the town, and knew that intrepid scientists would make the ascent to gather data.
He took another look at the sun. The disc was half-way across its surface, and the west was grey and blue, and the little clouds that flecked the sky were iridescent. Crowds still poured up the hill, and the slope was now covered with people. He had to stand up, and in doing so, he found himself side by side with the fat man.
A strange light was coming to the world; there were triple shadows on the ground, and the stout man shifted uneasily.
"Don't like this, Baggin," he said fretfully, "it's hateful—never did like these wonders of the sky, they make me nervous. It's awful. Look out there, out west behind you. It's black, black—it's like the end of the world!"
"Cut it out!" said his unimaginative companion.
Then of a sudden the black shadow in the west leaped across the sky, and the world went grey-black. Where the sun had been was a hoop of fire, a bubbling, boiling circle of golden light, and the circling horizon was a dado of bright yellow. It was as though the sun had set at its zenith, and the sunset glows were shown, east, west, north, and south.
"My God, this is awful!"
The stout man covered his face with one hand and clung tightly with the other to Baggin. He was oblivious to everything, save a gripping fear of the unknown that clawed at his heart.
Baggin himself paled, and set his jaw grimly. For the moment he was blind and deaf to the hustling, murmuring crowd about him; he only knew that he stood in the darkness at high noon, and that something was happening which he could not compress within the limits of his understanding.
Three minutes the eclipse lasted; then, as suddenly as it began, it ended.
A blazing, blinding wave of light flooded the world, and the stars that had studded the sky went out.
"Yes—yes, I know I'm a fool." Grayson's face was bathed in perspiration. "It's—it's my temperament. But never again! It's an experience."
He shook his head, as his trembling legs carried him down the hillside.
"You're all right," said Baggin reassuringly. "I'll admit that it was a bit spooky." He tapped his pocket mechanically, and stopped dead.
"Gone!" he gasped, and dived into his pocket. "My memorandum book!" Suddenly he grasped his companion and shook him savagely.
"It was you, damn you! I felt you pawing over me in the dark."
Grayson looked at him good-naturedly. "Don't be an ass, Baggin," he said. "What would I do with your code when I had it? God knows I don't want the responsibility of this business!"
Baggin released him sullenly. "I—I beg pardon, Grayson. But I did feel hands upon me in the darkness, and thought at the time it was you. I daresay it was that accursed Spaniard."
He looked about him eagerly. The crowd was dispersing in all directions. The stranger was not to be seen.
"Thank Heaven, the thing was in cipher. He won't be able to make anything of it, anyway. He probably thought it was a fat wallet full of money, and will be desperately disappointed." He laughed mirthlessly. Plainly he was greatly disturbed.
Grayson observed him with a malicious satisfaction. "You shouldn't carry valuables around in a place like this," he remarked gravely.
The two men descended the hill and made their way to their hotel.
The stranger went into the cathedral, and took from the pocket of his mantle a small memorandum book.
"'Men babble away their secrets, and whisper away their lives,'" he murmured with a smile. "Never was my friend Baggin more apropos."
He set to work upon the cipher. It was very quiet in the cathedral.
* * * * * * *
That evening, at ten o'clock, the trim serving-maid tapped lightly at the sitting-room door of the two American gentlemen, and tendered Baggin, who answered it, a card.
"Tell him to come up," he said in a surly voice. He flipped the bit of pasteboard across to his friend. "Poltavo! What the devil is he doing in this part of the world? No good, I'll be bound."
A sudden idea shot across his mind and struck him pale. He stood in the middle of the room, his head down, his brows drawn blackly together. A red light flickered in his eyes.
Grayson, lounging easily in a deep leather chair, regarded him with something of the contempt the lazy man always entertains for the active one. The beginning of a secret dislike formed vaguely in his brain. His thoughts flew to Poltavo, a bright contrast. "I wish he would bring me news of Doris," he muttered. A wistful look crept into his face.
There was a discreet double knock at the door, it fell open, and Count Poltavo was revealed framed picturesquely in the archway.
He wore a black felt hat and a velvet-linedcappawhich fell about him in long graceful folds. A small dark moustache adorned his upper lip. He removed it, and the hat, gravely, and stood bare-headed before them, a slender, distinguished figure.
"Good-evening, gentlemen."
He spoke in a soft, well-modulated voice, which held a hint of laughter. "Mr. Baggin, permit me to restore something of yours which I—er—found upon the hill." He held out the memorandum book, smiling.
Baggin sprang at him with an oath.
Baggin sprang at him with an oathBaggin sprang at him with an oath
The count, still smiling, flung out his other hand, with a motion of defence, and the candlelight gleamed brightly upon a small dagger of Spanish workmanship. "'Ware!" he cried softly. "That point, I fancy, is sharp."
Baggin fell back a pace, his face twitching with rage.
"You would knife me, an unarmed man!" he cried furiously. "You low foreign cur!"
The count took a quick step toward him. His eyes sparkled. "I must ask you to retract that," he said. There was a dangerous note in his tones like the thin edge of a blade.
Grayson started to his feet. "Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" he cried. "Are you gone stark mad, to quarrel over such a trifle? Baggin, stop glaring like a caged beast. Sit down. The count has returned your book, which doubtless you dropped upon the hill. And did you not boast that its contents were undecipherable?"
Baggin took the book. "I may have been over-hasty," he acknowledged grudgingly, suspicion still in his eye. "But your disguise——"
"Was necessary, my friend, and I accept your apology. Say nothing more of it." The count unfastened the clasp at his throat, stuck the dagger into the panel of the door, and hung his hat and mantle upon it. The moustache he held up between thumb and forefinger with a grimace.
"How do you like me with mustachios, Mr. Grayson? They fell off three times to-day."
The man whom most of London supposed to be dead laughed heartily.
"They change the entire cast of your countenance," he remarked candidly. "They make you look like a rascal."
"That is true," admitted the count. "I have observe' the same. They bring out the evil streak in my nature. I used to wear them, five years ago, in London," he continued pensively, "and then I shaved for—ah—æsthetic reasons. Mr. T. B. Smith does not fancy mustachios. He thought they gave me the look of a nihilist—or perhaps a Russian spy. Apropos," he nodded to Grayson, "he has charge of your case. He is a clever man, my friend." He sighed gently.
Grayson looked at him sombrely. "I wish I were out of this job," he muttered, "and back in America with Doris. You saw her?" he demanded eagerly.
The count nodded, with a significant glance toward Baggin.
The latter caught the look, and suspicion flamed again in his eye.
"May I ask you a plain question?" he said harshly.
"Surely!"
"How much of this business do you know?"
The count permitted himself a smile. "Since this afternoon," he answered softly, "I know—all."
Baggin's face grew black with rage. "Thief! I knew it!" He stuttered in the intensity of his passion.
The count surveyed him dispassionately. "Wrath in, reason out," he murmured.
Grayson intervened again. "For my part," he declared, "I am heartily glad of it. Poltavo is one of us now, and can tell us what he thinks of the scheme. I have always wished for his opinion."
Baggin rose abruptly, and strode about the room. Plainly the man was in a great, almost uncontrollable passion. The veins on his temples stood out in knots, and his hands clenched and unclenched spasmodically. Presently he turned, mastering himself with a strong effort, and held out his hand. "I agree," he said in a constrained voice. "You are one of us, count." The two shook hands and resumed their chairs.
"And now," said Grayson, "tell us what you think of the scheme?"
The count hesitated for a minute. "Good," he said at length, "and bad! Admirable in the general plan, but absurd in some of the details."
"The general plan was mine," said Baggin gruffly.
"And the absurd details were probably mine," admitted Grayson with cheerfulness.
"May I give you some suggestions?" asked the count politely.
"Go ahead!" returned Baggin.
"This afternoon—after I had deciphered your notes—it took me precisely two hours by the cathedral chimes to work out the key—I ventured to revise them, and also to devise a different plan of retirement for the committee. You would care to know it?" He looked deferentially at Baggin, whose bent brows relaxed.
"Draw up your chair to the table," he said in reply. "We'll overhaul the entire proposition. There will be difficulties—— If you could invest an equal share of money——"
"I thought of that," answered the count simply. "And I fancy I can—how you say—raise the required amount. May I speak for a moment to Mr. Grayson—on a very personal matter?"
He drew the older man aside, and conversed with him briefly, in low tones.
Surprise, incredulity, displeasure chased each other across Grayson's countenance in rapid succession. "Very well," he said finally, somewhat brusquely. "You have my consent—until I see Doris."
They returned to the table. "I will be security for Count Poltavo," he declared to Baggin, "for half-a-million pounds."
In the last week of April, 1908, a notice was posted on the doors of the London, Manhattan, and Jersey Syndicate, in Moorgate Street. It was brief, but it was to the point:
"Owing to the disappearance of Mr. George T. Baggin, the L. M. and J. Syndicate has suspended operations."
With Mr. Baggin had disappeared the sum of £247,000. An examination of the books of the firm revealed the fact that the London, Manhattan, and Jersey Syndicate was—Mr. Baggin; that its imposing title thinly disguised the operations of a bucket-shop, and the vanished bullion had been most systematically collected in gold and foreign notes.
Mr. Baggin had disappeared as though the earth had swallowed him up. He was traced to Liverpool. A ticket to New York had been purchased by a man answering to his description, and he had embarked on theLucania. The liner called at Queenstown, and the night she left, Mr. "Coleman" was missing. His clothing and trunks were found intact in his cabin. The ship was searched from stem to stern, but no trace of the unfortunate man could be discovered.
The evening newspapers flared forth with, "Tragic End of a Defaulting Banker," but Scotland Yard, ever sceptical, set on foot certain enquiries and learnt that a stranger had been seen in Queenstown after the ship sailed. A stranger who left for Dublin, and who doubled back to Heysham; who came, via Manchester, back to London again. In London he had vanished completely. Whether or not this was the redoubtable George T. Baggin, was a matter for conjecture.
T. B. Smith, of Scotland Yard, into whose hands the case was put, had no doubt at all. He believed that Baggin was alive.
Most artistic of all was the passing of Lucas Damant, the Company Promoter. Damant's defalcations were the heaviest, for his opportunities were greater. He dealt in millions and stole in millions. Taking his holiday in Switzerland, Mr. Damant foolishly essayed the ascent of the Matterhorn without a guide. His alpenstock was picked up at the edge of a deepcrevasse, and another Alpine disaster was added to the alarming list of mountaineering tragedies. What time four expert guides were endeavouring to extricate the lost man from a bottomless pit, sixteen chartered accountants were engaged in extracting from the chaos of his documentary remains the true position of Mr. Damant's affairs, but the sixteen accountants, had they been sixteen hundred, an the space of time occupied in their investigation, in a thousand years, would never have been able to balance the Company Promoter's estate to the satisfaction of all concerned, for between debit and credit yawned an unfathomable chasm that close on a million pounds could not have spanned.
In the course of time a fickle public forgot the sensational disappearance of these men; in course of time their victims died or sought admission to the workhouse. There were spasmodic discussions that arose in smoke-rooms and tap-rooms, and the question, as to whether they were dead or whether they had merely bolted, was hotly debated, but it may be truthfully said that they were forgotten; but not by Scotland Yard, which neither forgets nor forgives.
The Official Memory sits in a big office that overlooks the Thames Embankment. It is embodied in a man who checks, day by day, hour by hour, and minute by minute, the dark happenings of the world. He is an inconsiderable person, as personalities go, for he enters no witness-box to testify against a pallid prisoner. He grants no interviews to curious newspaper reporters, he appears in no magazines as a picturesque detector of crime, but silently, earnestly, and remorselessly he marks certain little square cards, makes grim entries in strange ledgers, consults maps, and pores over foreign newspaper reports. Sometimes he prepares adossieras a cheap-jack makes up his prize packet, with a paper from this cabinet, a photograph from that drawer, a newspaper-cutting, a docketed deposition with the sprawling signature of a dying man, a finger-print card—and all these he places in a large envelope, and addresses it in a clerkly hand to Chief Inspector So-and-So, or to the "Director of Public Prosecutions." When the case is over and a dazed man sits in a cell at Wormwood Scrubbs pondering his sentence, or, as it sometimes happens, when convict masons are at work carving initials over a grave in a prison-yard, the envelope comes back to the man in the office, and he sorts the contents jealously. It is nothing to him, the sum of misery they have cast, or the odour of death that permeates them. He receives them unemotionally, distributes the contents to their cabinets, pigeon-holes, guard-books, and drawers and proceeds to make up yet anotherdossier.
All things come to him; crime in all its aspects is veritably his stock-in-trade.
When George T. Baggin disappeared in 1908, his simple arrangement of indexing showed the connection between the passing of Lucas Damant, six months later, and the obliteration of Gerald Grayson. The Official Memory knew, too, what the public had no knowledge of: namely, that there had been half-a-dozen minor, but no less mysterious, flittings in the space of two years.
Their stories, briefly and pithily told, were inscribed on cards in the silent man's cabinet. Underneath was the significant word, "Incomplete." They were stories to be continued; some other hand than his might take up the tale at a future time, and subscribe "Finis" to their grim chapters. He was satisfied to carry the story forward as far as his information allowed him.
There never was a more fascinating office than this of the Silent Recorder's. It was terribly business-like, with its banked files, its innumerable drawers, its rows of deep cabinets. "A, B, C, D," they ran; then began all over again, "AA, BB, CC," except the big index drawer where "Aabot, Aaroon, Aato, Abard, Abart" commenced the record of infamous men. There were forgers here, murderers, coiners, defaulters great and small. There are stories of great swindles, and of suspected swindles, of events apparently innocent in themselves, behind which lie unsuspected criminalities.
I show you this office, the merest glimpse of it, so that as this story progresses, and information comes mysteriously to the hand of the chief actor, you will understand that no miracle has been performed, no Heaven-sent divination of purpose has come to him, but that at the back of the knowledge he employs with such assurance is this big office at New Scotland Yard. A pleasant office, overlooking the Embankment with its green trees and its sunny river and its very pleasant sights—none of which the Recorder ever sees, being short-sighted from overmuch study of criminal records.
Mr. John Hammond Bierce, American Ambassador and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Saint James, sat in his spacious private office, and listened with an air of grave attention to the story his young protégé poured into his ears. As Van Ingen concluded, the great man leaned back in his swivel-chair until the spring creaked, and stifled a yawn behind a white, well-groomed hand.
"My dear boy," he said, "this is a very sad tale, and I am genuinely sorry for Miss Grayson. Her father appears to have been a rascal. But," he smiled across at his youthful visitor, "I do not quite see what the American ambassador has to do with the business. I understand you consulted me in my official capacity."
"I—I thought perhaps you might wish to take some action——"
"But the man is dead!" exclaimed the ambassador. "Dead and buried."
"That is just the question!" cried Cord eagerly. "Is he dead? For my part, I suspect he is very much alive and kicking. His suicide was only a ruse, to mask his plans from the public."
"A very successful one!" retorted the older man drily. "His daughter identified the body and was present at its burial. It was in all the papers."
"That is another point!" exclaimed Van Ingen. "Not once was I permitted to view the body. I was even denied admittance to the house until three days after the funeral. Throughout the affair the utmost secrecy was observed."
"That seems natural, under the circumstances."
Van Ingen coloured warmly. "Pardon me, it is not natural, sir, when you know all the circumstances. I was an intimate of the family—almost, one might say, in the position of a son." He halted, and then continued, with a certain dignity: "I have not spoken on the subject to you before, sir, chiefly because there has been nothing definite to say. But Miss Grayson is, I hope and pray, sir, my future wife."
"Ah!" The ambassador surveyed him with a keen but kindly glance.
"I feel bound," he observed thoughtfully, "to make a few remarks, both as your guardian and as a man who has seen something of the world. The wife of a rising young diplomat must be, like Cæsar's wife, above reproach. In short, my dear boy, to marry Miss Grayson will absolutely ruin your career."
Van Ingen sprang to his feet; his face was livid with anger.
"Then, sir," he cried hotly, "I shall ruin my career, with the greatest pleasure in life. Miss Grayson—Doris—is worth inestimably more to me than any paltry success, or material advantage. Moreover," he continued, composing himself with a strong effort, "I disagree with you, even upon worldly grounds. Marriage with Doris will not mar me—it will make me. Without her, I shall be ineffectual, a nobody to the end of my days. Without her, living has no aim, no purpose. She justifies existence. I can't explain these things, sir, even to you. I—I love her!"
"So it would seem!" murmured the ambassador. The sternness had melted out of his face, leaving a whimsical tenderness.
"Sit down, my dear boy! Other people have been as hot in love as you before now—and as rashly headstrong." A shade passed over his features. "Come, let us get down to business. What is it you wish me to do—administer a love-potion to the young woman? Or restore the father to life?"
"I want you to investigate the case," Cord replied simply. "Or rather, give me the power to do so."
"There's Scotland Yard, you know," suggested his friend mildly.
"They could co-operate with us. In fact, that is what I should like to ask. That you send for Mr. T. B. Smith, who is already in charge of the business, and tell him that a certain strangeness in the circumstances has aroused your suspicions, and that you wish to sift the affair to the bottom. But since you cannot move openly, on account of your conspicuous position, you desire to join forces secretly, and to that end you offer a bonus of £500 to clear up the mystery—to prove, satisfactorily, that Grayson either is, or is not, dead."
"Five hundred pounds!" mused the ambassador. "You are in love!"
Van Ingen flushed at the thrust. "I am in earnest," he said simply.
The ambassador studied his finger-tips. "I might say," he observed gravely, "that such a course as you outline—minus the £500—had already occurred to me. Certain financial—er—adventures in which Grayson was engaged, with others, have come before my attention, and it appeared advisable to throw a searchlight upon the somewhat shadowy obscurity of his death. But my attitude in the investigation differs slightly from yours." His eyes, suddenly upraised, were slightly quizzical.
Van Ingen leaned forward breathlessly. He appeared to hang on his companion's words. "Go on! Go on, sir!" he urged.
The older man continued: "I do not ask, then, as you, where is Mr. Grayson? I ask, where is Mr. Grayson's money? The gentleman may be in heaven, or—ah!—elsewhere; presumably the latter. But, in either case, his money is not with him. Where is it, then? These, and several other interesting queries, I am waiting to put to Mr. Smith, who"—he took out his watch—"is due here in precisely ten minutes."
He smiled blandly at the young man, who seized his hand and wrung it fervently.
"And you will let me work under him, for you?"
"That was my intention before this interview. But, since your revelation, I doubt its wisdom. Coolness, impartiality of judgment——"
"Oh, come, sir!" protested Van Ingen, reddening. "I think I've had enough!"
The ambassador laughed. "Perhaps you have," he conceded. "Especially as the young lady has not yet struck her colours—eh?"
"Nor shows the slightest signs of doing so," replied Van Ingen ruefully. "There's another fellow making the running—that foreign beggar, Poltavo."
The ambassador looked up swiftly. "Not Count Poltavo, distantly related to the Czar?"
"Related to the devil!" muttered Van Ingen gloomily. "The way he gets around Doris——"
His guardian looked a little disturbed. "I am sorry for you, my boy. Poltavo is a strong man. I fancy he will give you quite a fight."
There was a discreet knock at the door, and, at the ambassador's call, Jamieson entered. He bore a card, which he laid upon the table.
"I told him that you were engaged, Mr. Bierce, but he said he came in answer to your note."
"Quite right!" replied the ambassador briskly. "Show him in at once." As the secretary vanished, the older man held up the bit of engraved pasteboard before the astonished eyes of his young friend. "Apropos!" he murmured.
Van Ingen reached for his hat. "I must be going," he said hurriedly.
"Not so fast!" The ambassador waved him back to his chair. "Sit still. The investigation has begun!"
The door opened, and Count Poltavo entered the room.
The ambassador received him cordially. "It was good of you to come so promptly," he said. "I daresay my note puzzled you."
"I shall not deny it," smiled the count. He bowed politely to Van Ingen. "As you see, I have come directly on the heels of it, to hear the question."
"I shall not keep you in suspense, Count Poltavo," replied the ambassador gravely, "but come at once to the point. Briefly, some data which lie before me"—he tapped a typewritten report upon the table—"connect you, somewhat vaguely, with a certain recent event. For reasons, I propose to investigate that event, and a truthful statement on your part——"
The count elevated his eyebrows slightly.
"Pardon me! I withdraw the unnecessary adjective."
The count bowed. "And a statement on my part——" he murmured.
"Would be of great value to me at the present moment. And so I have ventured to write to you, as one gentleman to another, to beg your assistance."
"And the question?" The count's voice was like velvet. He outlined a pattern of the carpet with his cane.
The ambassador regarded him somewhat sternly. "How did you spend the evening of the eighteenth of this month?"
The count's composure did not fail him. Not a muscle of his face moved under the sharp scrutiny of his questioner, but he hesitated a perceptible moment.
"The eighteenth?" He wrinkled his brows, in an effort at recollection. "Pardon me!" He took out a small, black, leather-bound book. "I sometimes scribble in it my random thoughts," he explained. "It may contain something which will aid my memory of that particular night. Ah!" His face beamed. "Here it is! The night of the eighteenth, I was at the opera with Lady Dinsmore and her charming niece. Afterwards, I had a most interesting conversation with Mr. Van Ingen, in which he confided to me—ah!—his age." He looked up brightly.
"Is that helpful?"
The ambassador smiled grimly. "And then?"
"Then we parted. I strolled for perhaps ten minutes, and took a taxi-cab home." He appeared to reflect a moment. "I went directly to my study, and wrote for some time—several hours, perhaps. Later, I read." He paused, and then added: "I am not, at any time, an insatiable sleeper. Four, or five hours at best, are all that I can manage. That morning it was dawn when I retired, and a faint, ghostly light was filtering through the shutters. I remember flinging them wide to look out, and wondering what the new day would bring to the world. It brought," he concluded quietly, "great grief to my dear friends."
He rose as he finished. "And now I regret that another engagement—with Lady Dinsmore, in truth—cuts short my time. I am glad if I have been able to aid you. And you will let me know if I can be of further service to you in this lamentable business." He held out his hand. The ambassador sat still in his chair, smiling.
"One moment, my dear count, and, if Lady Dinsmore complains, refer her to me."
The count looked at him amiably. "There is still another question?" he murmured.
"A small part of the same one," the ambassador emended smoothly. "Where were you in the early part of the evening—beforethe opera?"
Poltavo laughed softly. "That is true," he admitted. "For the moment I had completely forgotten. I dined at an unconscionably early hour with a business associate—I regret that I cannot give you his name——"
The ambassador glanced down at his report. "Baggin?" he suggested.
The count turned a little white, but he answered composedly. "It is true. I dined with Mr. Baggin."
"And did not Mr. Grayson call you up over the telephone during dinner?"
"Some one called Mr. Baggin," responded the count indifferently. "I remember, because the fish grew cold and had to be sent away."
"And then?"
"Then—we discussed—business. I have a little money lying idle which I desired Mr. Baggin to invest for me. Unfortunately, the sum was too small for his purpose."
"And when did you join Mr. Grayson?"
The count stared. "Not at all!" He glanced down at the typewritten sheets, and an ironical smile touched his lips. "Your report appears to be—ah!—defective."
"It is," agreed the ambassador. "I had hoped to supplement it by your information. May I ask you again—Did you not see Mr. Grayson at some time during the evening of the eighteenth?"
The count shook his head. "I did not," he replied simply. "I affirm it, upon the honour of a Poltavo."
The ambassador sighed. "Then we are still in the dark," he said ruefully. "But I thank you for your courtesy. Would you care to know why I have sought you out, openly, in this extraordinary fashion?".
"Because you are an extraordinary man," returned the count, with a deep bow.
The ambassador made a motion of dissent, "Because I am your well-wisher, Count Poltavo," he said earnestly. "You are, I believe, a poet, a philosopher, a dreamer—not a common, base money-grabber. And, therefore, I should deeply regret to find you connected in any way with this present investigation, and I sincerely trust that in the future your name will not appear in these—ah!—defective reports. Frankly, I like you, Count Poltavo." He held out his hand. "Good-morning. I thank you for your extreme good nature in answering my questions."
The count appeared moved. Throughout his life, this strange man remained deeply susceptible to expressions of regard from his associates, and was always melted, for the moment, by sincere affection. Indeed, his natural tenderness, offspring of his heart, and his haughty ambitions, offspring of his head, were ever in deadly conflict, and his hardness conquered only by the supremest act of his will.
He grasped the outstretched hand cordially. "You are very kind!" he said. "And I shall repay you by endeavouring that my name does not again appear in that reprehensible report." He laid a hand upon the sheaf of papers. "I should like to see it?" he asked simply.
The ambassador laughed outright. "My dear count," he exclaimed, "your powers are wasted as a private gentleman! You should be the ambassador of your imperial kinsman. There, your abilities would have adequate scope."
The count laughed, and glanced again at the report. "I shall see you next week at the Duke of Manchester's," he said. "The duchess read me yesterday her list of names. I was rejoiced to see it included yours." He bowed again, and withdrew.
The ambassador stared after him somewhat gloomily, took a turn about the room, and stopped in front of the young man. At sight of his doleful countenance, his own face brightened.
"Well?" he demanded.
Van Ingen looked sheepish. "I give up!" he replied. "The rascal's as deep as a well. But he seemed to me to be telling the truth."
"He was!" agreed the ambassador promptly. "He is a great man—and a dangerous one. He has an unquenchable spirit."
He took out his watch. "Smith has failed us," he remarked. "But it is no matter. He sent in this morning his detailed report. I will turn that over to you, my boy, since you have volunteered your services in this business. Read it with care—it contains some remarkable statements—and return it to Mr. Smith, in person. Why not drop around to his chambers this evening and see what has detained him? Wait! I'll give you a line to him."
He scribbled a note hastily, and thrust it and the report into the young man's hands. "And now, clear out!" He waved his hands laughingly. "Don't return until you can explain—everything! Off with you!"
On the way out, Cord paused to examine his mail. One letter was from Doris. He broke the seal with fingers that trembled slightly. It contained but a single sentence.
"Can you come to me at nine o'clock?"DORIS."
Despite his joy at receiving such a token of friendship, his face clouded. Nine o'clock! It was an awkward hour. He had planned to spend the entire evening with the detective.
He determined to read the report, dine with Smith, if he could catch him, and go on later to Lady Dinsmore's. His spirits rose with a bound at the prospect.
But he was destined to disappointment. Mr. Smith was not to be found at his chambers, nor at Scotland Yard, nor in any of his accustomed haunts. Nor had he left any instructions with his man. At five o'clock, after repeated attempts, Cord gave up the project, somewhat sulkily, and sent two messages. He would stay for a short half-hour with Doris, and then drive around to the apartment of the detective, trusting that he might have returned.
That evening, at nine o'clock, he was ushered into Lady Dinsmore's drawing-room by a deferential footman, who went to announce his presence. Cord moved about restlessly. His forehead throbbed madly with overwrought nerves, for, since the reading of the report, he had felt wildly excited. It was safely folded away in an inner pocket, together with a telegram from T. B. Smith, bearing the single word, "Delighted!"
When at length Doris appeared, Cord was struck with the pallid beauty of the girl. Her animation and glow had departed, and her red lips, usually a Cupid's-bow of laughter, drooped pitifully at the corners. Her high-necked gown of deepest black gave her the look of a sorrowing nun. Nor did her manner reassure him; it was vague and remote, and Cord, who had meant to pour out his heart in sympathy, found himself chilled, and stammering forth absurd inanities.
The half-hour passed on leaden foot. Doris explained, in a listless voice, that she was leaving soon, with her aunt, for the Continent, to travel indefinitely. She had meant to go away, quietly, without a word, but she found that she wished to see him once more—she faltered piteously.
Cord stood up abruptly. The interview had suddenly become unendurable to him.
"I shall see you again to-morrow!" he assured her.
She shook her head sadly. "This is the end, dear Cord. Our paths lie apart in the future. Yours is a fair, shining one, with success just ahead. Mine——" She gave a gesture of despair. "Good-bye!"
Cord took both her hands in his. "Good-night! I shall come again in the morning." He felt an almost overmastering desire to take her into his arms, to whisper into her ear the secret of the report.
She walked with him to the outer door and let him out into the cool darkness of the night. "Good-bye!" she said again. She seemed vaguely uneasy, and bent forward, peering about her. "Is that your taxi-cab?" she asked sharply. Cord reassured her.
"I—I have a presentiment that something is going to happen." She spoke in a low voice, full of emotion. "You will be careful—for my sake?"
Cord laughed, with a commingling of the joy and tender pride which a man feels toward the anxiety of the one woman in the world.
"I will be most careful," he promised, "and I will report my welfare to you in the morning!"
The door closed between them, and he went down the steps, whistling cheerfully.
The taxi-cab drew alongside. He gave the address to the driver, and sprang in, triumphant, hopeful. In front of the house of the detective, he descended and halted a moment upon the pavement, searching in an inner pocket for change.
Something rushed upon him from behind; he swerved, instinctively, and received a stinging blow across the head and neck. As he sank helplessly to his knees, blinded by pain, but still conscious, a hand from behind inserted itself into his pocket. Cord resisted with all his strength. "Smith!" he shouted. Something heavy descended upon his head. There was a sudden blaze of falling stars all about him,—and then blackness, oblivion.
When he regained consciousness, he was lying upon a couch, and Smith was bending over him.
"That was a narrow squeak, my friend!" he said cheerfully. "You may thank your lucky stars that you missed the full force of that first blow."
Van Ingen blinked feebly. There was still a horrid buzzing in his ears, and Smith's voice sounded as from a great distance. The room swam in great circles around him.
"The report?" he asked faintly.
"They got it!" admitted Smith, who did not seem deeply downcast at its loss. "But they didn't get you, my boy! So that I think we may regard their job as a failure."
In the month of May the market, that unfailing barometer of public nerves, moved slowly in an upward direction.
If the "House" was jubilant, the "Street" was no less gratified, for since the "Baggin Failure" and financial cataclysm, which dragged down the little investors to ruin, there had been a sad flatness in the world of shares. There are many places of public resort where the "Street" people meet—those speculators who daily, year in and out, promenade the pavement of Throgmorton Street, buying and selling on an "eighth" margin.
To them, from time to time, come the bare-headed clerks with news of this or that rise or fall, to receive instructions gravely imparted, and as gravely accepted, and to retire to the mysterious deeps of the "House" to execute their commissions.
The market was rising, steadily as the waters of a river rise; that was the most pleasant knowledge of all. It did not jump or leap or flare; it progressed by sixteenths, by thirty-seconds, by sixty-fourths; but all down the money columns in the financial papers of the press were tiny little plus marks which brought joy to the small investor, who is by nature a "bull."
Many people who are not directly interested in finance regarded the signs with sympathy. The slaves of the street, 'busmen, cabmen, the sellers of clamorous little financial papers, all these partook in the general cheeriness.
Slowly, slowly climbed the market.
"Like old times!" said a hurrying clerk; but the man he spoke to sniffed contemptuously, being by nature one of that sour class from which all beardom is recruited.
"Like old times!" chuckled a man standing at the Bodega bar, a little dazed with his prosperity. Somebody reminded him of the other booms that had come and undergone sudden collapse, but the man standing at the counter twiddled the stem of the glass in his hand and smiled indulgently.
"Industrials are the feature," said an evening paper, and indeed the biggest figures behind the tiny plus marks were those against the famous commercial concerns best known in the city. The breweries, the bakeries, the cotton corporations, the textile manufacturing companies enjoying quotation in the share list—all these participated in the upward rush; nay, led the van.
Into Old Broad Street, on one day at the height of the boom, came a man a little above middle height, clean-shaven, his face the brick-tan of one who spends much of his life in the open air. He wore a suit of blue serge, well-cut but plain, a spotless grey Tirai hat, broad-brimmed, white spats over his patent shoes, and a thin cane in his hand. "A fellow in the Kaffir market" guessed one of the group about the corner of 'Change Alley, but somebody better informed turned hastily when he saw the quick, striding figure approaching, and dived down a side court.
A showily attired young man, standing on the edge of the pavement chewing a quill toothpick thoughtfully, did not see the newcomer until he was close on him, then started and changed colour. The man in the wide-brimmed hat recognised him and nodded. He checked his walk and stopped.
"Here's Moss," he said. He had a snappy, curt delivery and a disconcerting habit of addressing one in the third person. "How is Moss? Straight now? Straight as a die, I'll swear. He's given up rigging, given up Punk Prospectuses for Petty Punters. Oh, Moss! Moss!"
He shook his head with gentle melancholy, though a light twinkled in his humorous grey eyes.
"I don't know why you're so 'ard on me, Mister Smith," said the embarrassed Moss; "we've all got our faults——"
"Not me, Mr. Moss," said T. B. Smith promptly.
"I dessay even you, sir," insisted the other. "I've 'ad my flutter; and I failed. There's lots of people who've done more than I ever done, worse things, and crookeder things, who are livin' in what I might call the odour of sanctity.
"There's people in the 'Ouse," Moss wagged an admonitory finger towards 'Change, and his tone was bitter but envious, "who've robbed by the million, an' what do we see?"
T. B. Smith shook his head.
"We see," said the indignant young man, "motor-cars, an' yachts, an' race-horses—because they 'aven't been found out!"
"Moral," mused T. B. Smith: "don't allow yourself——"
"I know, I know." Moss loftily waved aside the dubious morality of Mr. Assistant-Commissioner Smith. "But I was found out. Twelve months in the second division. Is that justice?"
"It all depends," cautiously, "what you mean by justice. I thought the sentence was rather light."
"Look here, Mr. Smith," said Mr. Moss firmly; "let's put the matter another way round. Here's Baggin's case, an' Grayson's case. Now, I ask you, man to man, are these chaps dead?"
T. B. Smith was discreetly silent.
"Are they dead?" again demanded Moss, with emotion. "You know jolly well they ain't. You know as well as I do who's at the bottom of these bear raids to send the market into the mud. I know them raids!" In his excitement Mr. Moss got farther and farther away from the language of his adoption. "They smell o' Baggin, George T. Baggin; he's operatin' somewhere. I recognise the touch. George T. Baggin, I tell you, an', as the good book says, his right hand hath not lost its cunnin'."
"And," said T. B. Smith, blandly ignoring the startling hypothesis; "what is Mr. Moss doing now to earn the bread, butter, andet ceterasof life?"
"Me? Oh, I'm in the East mostly," said the other moodily; "got a client or two; give a tip an' get a tip now an' again. Small money an' small profits."
He dropped his eyes under the steady and pseudo-benevolent gaze of the other.
"No companies?" said the detective softly. "No companies, Mr. Moss? No Amalgamated Peruvian Concessions, eh? No Brazilian Rubber and Exploitation Syndicate?"
The young man shifted his feet uneasily.
"Genuine concerns, them," he said doggedly; "an', besides, I'm only a shareholder."
"Not promoter. Mr. Moss is not a promoter?"
In desperation the badgered shareholder turned.
"How in 'Eaven's name you get hold of things I don't know," he said in helpless annoyance. "An' all I can say—excuse me."
T. B. Smith saw his expression undergo a sudden change.
"Don't look round, sir," said the other breathlessly; "there's one o' my clients comin' along; genuine business, Mr. Smith; don't crab the deal."
In his agitation he grew a little incoherent.
T. B. Smith might have walked on discreetly, leaving Moss to transact his business in quiet and peace. Indeed, the young man's light-blue eyes pleaded for this indulgence; but the gentleman from Scotland Yard was singularly obtuse this morning.
"You don't want to meet him," urged Mr. Moss. "He's not in your line, sir; he's a gentleman."
"I think you're very rude, Mr. Moss," said T. B. Smith, and waited, whilst Moss and client met.
"Permit me," said Moss, with all the grace he could summon at a moment's notice, "to introduce you to a friend of mine—name of Smith—in the Government."
The stranger bowed and offered a gloved hand.
"Er——" said T. B., hesitant. "I did not quite catch your name?"
"Count Poltavo," said Mr. Moss defiantly; "a friend of mine an' a client."
"Delighted to make your acquaintance, count. I have met you somewhere."
The count bowed.
"It is ver' likely. I have been in England before."
T. B. Smith surveyed the imperturbable foreigner with interest. Of Count Poltavo's connection with Baggin and with Grayson he knew from his men's reports, though, as far as recollection served, he had never seen the man. But a haunting resemblance troubled him.
He nodded briefly to Moss, and turned away, and five minutes later had dismissed the incident from his mind.
He continued in the direction of the Mansion House. A famous banker, passing in his motor brougham, waved his hand in salute; a city policeman stolidly ignored him.
Along Cheapside, with the deliberate air of a sightseer, the man in the grey felt hat strolled, turning over in his mind the problem of the boom.
For it was a problem.
If you see, on one hand, ice forming on a pool, and, on the other, a thermometer rising slowly to blood-heat, you may be satisfied in your mind that something is wrong somewhere. Nature cannot make mistakes. Thermometers are equally infallible. Look for the human agency at work on the mercury bulb for the jet of hot air directed to the instrument. In this parable is explained the market position, and T. B. Smith, who dealt with huge, vague problems like markets and wars and national prosperity, was looking for the hot-air current.
The market rises because big people buy big quantities of shares; it falls because these same people sell, and T. B. Smith happened to know that nobody was buying. That is, nobody of account—Eckhardts, Tollingtons, or Bronte's Bank. You can account for the rise of a particular share by some local and favourable circumstance, but when the market as a whole moves up——?
"We can trace no transactions," wrote Mr. Louis Vell, of the firm of Vell, Vallings & Boys, Brokers, "carried out by or on behalf of the leading jobbers. The market improvement in Industrial Stocks is due, as far as we can gather, to Continental buying—an unusual circumstance."