THE week following the August Bank Holiday is very rarely indeed a busy
or anxious time in the City. In the ordinary course of things, it
serves as the easy-going prelude--with but casual and inattentive visits
eastward, and with only the most careless glances through the financial
papers--to the halcyon period of the real vacation. Men come to the City
during this week, it is true, but their thoughts are elsewhere--on the
moors, on the blue sea, on the glacier or the fiord, or the pleasant
German pine forests.
To the great mass of City people; this August in question began in a
normal enough fashion. To one little group of operators, however, and to
the widening circle of brokers, bankers, and other men of affairs whose
interests were more or less involved with those of this group, it was a
season of keen perturbation. A combat of an extraordinary character was
going on--a combat which threatened to develop into a massacre. Even
to the operators who, unhappily for themselves, were principals in this
fight, it was a struggle in the dark. They knew little about it, beyond
the grimly-patent fact that they were battling for their very lives.
The outer ring of their friends and supporters and dependents knew still
less, though their rage and fears were perhaps greater. The “press”
seemed to know nothing at all. This unnatural silence of the City's
mouthpieces, usually so resoundingly clamorous upon the one side and the
other when a duel is in progress, gave a sinister aspect to the thing.
The papers had been gagged and blindfolded for the occasion. This in
itself was of baleful significance. It was not a duel which they had
been bribed to ignore. It was an assassination.
Outwardly there was nothing to see, save the unofficial, bald statement
that on August 1st, the latest of twelve fortnightly settlements in this
stock, Rubber Consols had been bid for, and carried over, at 15 pounds
for one-pound shares. The information concerned the public at large not
at all. Nobody knew of any friend or neighbour who was fortunate enough
to possess some of these shares. Readers here and there, noting the
figures, must have said to themselves that certain lucky people were
coining money, but very little happened to be printed as to the identity
of these people. Stray notes were beginning to appear in the personal
columns of the afternoon papers about a “Rubber King” of the name of
Thorpe, but the modern exploitation of the world's four corners makes so
many “kings” that the name had not, as yet, familiarized itself to the
popular eye.
City men, who hear more than they read, knew in a general way about this
“Rubber King.” He was an outsider who had come in, and was obviously
filling his pockets; but it was a comforting rule that outsiders who did
this always got their pockets emptied for them again in the long run.
There seemed nothing about Thorpe to suggest that he would prove an
exception to the rule. He was investing his winnings with great freedom,
so the City understood, and his office was besieged daily by promoters
and touts. They could clean out his strong-box faster than the profits
of his Rubber corner could fill it. To know such a man, however, could
not but be useful, and they made furtive notes of his number in Austin
Friars on their cuffs, after conversation had drifted from him to other
topics.
As to the Rubber corner itself, the Stock Exchange as a whole was
apathetic. When some of the sufferers ventured cautious hints about the
possibility of official intervention on their behalf, they were laughed
at by those who did not turn away in cold silence. Of the fourteen men
who had originally been caught in the net drawn tight by Thorpe and
Semple, all the conspicuous ones belonged to the class of “wreckers,” a
class which does not endear itself to Capel Court.
Both Rostocker and Aronson, who, it was said, were worst hit, were men
of great wealth, but they had systematically amassed these fortunes by
strangling in their cradles weak enterprises, and by undermining and
toppling over other enterprises which would not have been weak if they
had been given a legitimate chance to live. Their system was legal
enough, in the eyes alike of the law and of the Stock Exchange rules.
They had an undoubted right to mark out their prey and pursue it, and
bring it down, and feed to the bone upon it. But the exercise of this
right did not make them beloved by the begetters and sponsors of their
victims. When word first went round, on the last day of February, that
a lamb had unexpectedly turned upon these two practised and confident
wolves, and had torn an ear from each of them, and driven them pell-mell
into a “corner,” it was received on all sides with a gratified smile.
Later, by fortnightly stages, the story grew at once more tragic and
more satisfactory. Not only Rostocker and Aronson, but a dozen others
were in the cul de sac guarded by this surprising and bloody-minded
lamb. Most of the names were well-known as those of “wreckers.” In this
category belonged Blaustein, Ganz, Rothfoere, Lewis, Ascher, and
Mendel, and if Harding, Carpenter, and Vesey could not be so confidently
classified, at least their misfortune excited no particular sympathy.
Two other names mentioned, those of Norfell and Pinney, were practically
unknown.
There was some surprise, however, at the statement that the old and
respected and extremely conservative firm of Fromentin Bros. was
entangled in the thing. Egyptian bonds, minor Levantine loans, discounts
in the Arabian and Persian trades--these had been specialties of the
Fromentins for many years. Who could have expected to find them caught
among the “shorts” in Mexican rubber? It was Mexico, wasn't it, that
these Rubber Consols purported to be connected with?
Thorpe's Company, upon its commercial merits, had not been considered
at all by the gentlemen of the Stock Exchange, at the time of its
flotation. Men vaguely and with difficulty recalled the fact of its
prospectus, when the “corner” in its shares was first talked about.
They looked it up in their lists and files, later on, but its terms said
nothing to them. Nobody discussed the value of the assets owned by this
Company, or the probability of its paying a dividend--even when the
price bid for its shares was making the most sensational upward leaps.
How Thorpe stood with his shareholders, or whether he had any genuine
shareholders behind him at all, was seen by the keen eyes of Capel Court
to be beside the question. Very likely it was a queer affair, if the
truth were known--but at least it had substance enough in it to be
giving the “wreckers” a lively time.
By the end of July it was understood that the fight was better worth
watching than anything that had been seen in a long time. The only
trouble was that there was so little to see. The papers said nothing.
The sufferers were the reverse of garrulous. The little red Scotchman,
Semple, who was the visible avenging sword of the “corner,” was more
imperturbably silent than anybody else. His fellow-members in the
“House” watched him now, however, with a new respect. They discovered
unsuspected elements of power in his thin, tight mouth, in the direct,
cold glances of his brown-grey eyes, in the very way he carried his head
and wore his hat. He came to be pointed out, and nodded about behind his
back, more than anyone else in the “House,” and important men sought his
acquaintance, with an awkward show of civility, who were notorious for
their rude exclusiveness.
It might be, of course, that his “corner” would break under him at any
fortnightly settlement, but already he had carried it much further than
such things often went, and the planning of the coup had been beyond
doubt Napoleonic.
Had this small sandy Scot planned it, or was he merely the weapon in
Thorpe's hand? Both views had their supporters on the Exchange, but
after the wrench of August 1st, when with an abrupt eighty-shilling
rise the price of Rubber Consols stood at 15 pounds, and it was to
be computed that Semple had received on that single day nearly 75,000
pounds in differences and “backwardation,” a story was set afloat which
gave Thorpe the undivided credit of the invention. It was related as
coming from his own lips that he had schemed it all out to be revenged
upon a group of Jewish operators, against whom he had a grievance. In
confirmation of this tale, it was pointed out that, of the seven men
still held pinned in the fatal “corner,” six were Jews--and this did,
upon first glance, look significant. But then it was objected, upon
reflection, that Blaustein and Ascher had both been permitted to make
their escape, and this hardly justified the theory of an implacable
anti-Semitic vendetta. The objection seemed reasonable, but it was met
in turn by the point that Blaustein and Ascher had been bled white,
as Bismarck's phrase went, before they were released, whereas the five
Christians had been liberated with relatively moderate fines. Upon the
whole, a certain odour of the Judenhetze clung thereafter about the
“corner” in Rubber Consols.
On an afternoon of the following week, Mr. Stormont Thorpe was alone in
the Board Room of the offices in Austin Friars. He had risen from the
great roller-topped desk over between the windows, and walked now with
a lethargic, tired step to and fro before the empty fireplace, yawning
more than once, and stretching out his arms in the supreme gesture of
fatigue. After a dozen listless rounds, something occurred to him. He
moved with a certain directness of purpose to the cabinet in the corner,
unlocked it, and poured out for himself a tumbler of brandy and soda.
He drank it without a pause, then turned again, and began pacing up and
down as before, his hands clasped behind him, his head bent in thought.
The intervening six months had effected visible changes in the outer
man. One noted most readily that the face had grown fuller in its
lower parts, and was far less browned than formerly. The large, heavy
countenance, with its square jaws masked now under increased flesh, its
beginnings of a double-chin, and its slightly flabby effect of pallor,
was no longer lacking in individual distinction. It was palpably the
visage of a dictator. The moustache had been cut down to military
brevity, and the line of mouth below it was eloquent of rough power. The
steady grey eyes, seemingly smaller yet more conspicuous than before,
revealed in their glance new elements of secretiveness, of strategy
supported by abundant and confident personal force.
The man himself seemed scarcely to have grown stouter. He held himself
more compactly, as it were; seemed more the master of all his physical
expressions. He was dressed like a magnate who was also a person of
taste. There was a flower in the lapel of his well-shaped frock-coat,
and the rustle of his starched and spotless white waistcoat murmured
pleasantly of refined toilets.
“The Marquis of Chaldon--and a gentleman, with him.”
The announcement, from a clerk who had noiselessly opened the door,
imposed itself with decorum upon Thorpe's reverie.
“Who is the gentleman with him?” Thorpe began austerely to ask, after
an instant's hesitation. But this briefest of delays had brought the
callers into plain view behind the clerk, and with a slight gesture the
master assented to their entrance.
This large apartment was no longer called the Board Room by anybody. By
tacit processes, it had become Mr. Thorpe's room. Not even the titular
Chairman of the Company, the renowned and eminent Lord Chaldon,
ex-Ambassador and ex-Viceroy, entered this chamber now with any
assumption of proprietorship in it. No hint of a recollection that there
were such things as the Company and the Board, or that he was nominally
the head of both, expressed itself in his Lordship's demeanour as he
advanced, his hand a little extended.
The noble Chairman was white of beard and hair, and extremely courteous
of manner--a small, carefully-clad, gracious old gentleman, whose
mild pink countenance had, with years of anxiety about ways and
means, disposed itself in lines which produced a chronic expression of
solicitude. A nervous affection of the eyelids lent to this look, at
intervals, a beseeching quality which embarrassed the beholder. All
men had liked him, and spoken well of him throughout his long and
hard-worked career. Thorpe was very fond of him indeed, and put a
respectful cordiality into his grasp of the proffered hand. Then he
looked, with a certain thinly-veiled bluntness of enquiry, past the
Marquis to his companion.
“You were very kind to give me the appointment,” said Lord Chaldon, with
a little purring gloss of affability upon the earnestness of his tone.
“I wish very much to introduce to you my friend, my old friend I may
say, Monsieur Alexandre Fromentin. We slept together under the same
tent, in the Persian country beyond Bagdad--oh, it must have been quite
forty years ago. We were youngsters looking to win our first spurs
then--I in my line, he in his. And often since we have renewed that old
friendship--at many different places--India, and Constantinople, and
Egypt. I wish heartily to commend him to your--your kindness.”
Thorpe had perfunctorily shaken hands with the stranger--a tall,
slender, sharp-faced, clean-shaven, narrow-shouldered man, who by these
accounts of his years ought not to have such excessively black hair. He
bowed in a foreign fashion, and uttered some words which Thorpe, though
he recognized them as English in intent, failed to follow. The voice
was that of an elderly man, and at a second glance there were plenty
of proofs that he might have been older than the Marquis, out there in
Persia, forty years ago. But Thorpe did not like old men who dyed their
hair, and he offered his visitors chairs, drawn up from the table toward
his desk, with a certain reserve of manner. Seating himself in the
revolving chair at the desk itself, he put the tips of his fingers
together, and looked this gentleman with the Continental name and
experience in the face.
“Is there something you wish me to do?” he asked, passively facilitating
the opening of conversation.
“Ah, my God! 'Something'!”--repeated the other, with a fluttering
gesture of his hands over his thin, pointed knees--“everything, Mr.
Thorpe!”
“That's a tolerably large order, isn't it?” Thorpe asked, calmly, moving
a slow, inscrutable glance from one to the other of his callers.
“I could ask for nothing that would be a greater personal favour--and
kindness”--Lord Chaldon interposed. His tone bore the stress of
sincerity.
“That means a great deal to me, as you know, my Lord,” replied Thorpe,
“but I don't in the least understand--what is it that your friend
wants?”
“Only that I shall not be buried in a bankrupt's grave,” the suppliant
answered, with a kind of embittered eagerness of utterance. “That I
shall not see disgraced the honoured name that my father and his father
bequeathed to my care!”
Thorpe's large, composed countenance betrayed a certain perplexity.
“There must be a mistake,” he observed. “I don't even know this name of
yours. I never heard it before.”
The other's mobile face twisted itself in a grimace of incredulity. He
had a conspicuously wide mouth, and its trick of sidelong extension at
this moment was very unpleasant. “Ah, Herr Je! He never heard it,” he
ejaculated, turning nervously to the Marquis. “Would to the good God you
never had!” he told Thorpe, with suppressed excitement.
Lord Chaldon, his own voice shaken a little, interposed with an
explanation. “My friend is the head--the respected head--of the firm of
Fromentin Brothers. I think you have--have dealings with them.”
Thorpe, after a furtive instant of bewilderment, opened his mouth.
“Oh! I see,” he said. “I know what you mean now. With the French
pronunciation, I didn't recognize the name. I've always heard it called
'Fromen'-tin' here in London. Oh, yes, of course--Fromen'tin Brothers.”
His lips shut tight again at this. The listeners had caught no helpful
clue from the tone of his words. They exchanged a glance, and then M.
Fromentin spoke.
“Mr. Thorpe,” he began, slowly, with an obvious effort at
self-repression. “It is a very simple story. Our house is an old one.
My father's grandfather organized the finance of the commissariat of
General Bonaparte in Egypt. He created the small beginnings of the
carpet and rug importation from Asia Minor. His son, and in turn his
son, followed him. They became bankers as well as importers. They
helped very greatly to develop the trade of the Levant. They were not
avaricious men, or usurers. It is not in our blood. Your Chairman, Lord
Chaldon, who honours me so highly by calling me his friend--he will
assure you that we have a good name in the East. Our banks have
befriended the people, and never oppressed or injured them. For that
reason--I will say perhaps for that reason--we have never become a very
rich house. It is possible to name bankers who have made large fortunes
out of Egypt. It was different with us. Lord Chaldon will tell you
that of our own free will--my two brothers and I--of our own choice we
consented to lose a fifth of all our possessions, rather than coin into
gold by force the tears and blood of the wretched fellaheen.”
“Yes--I have never known a more honourable or humane action,” put in the
Marquis, fervently.
“And then my brothers die--Polydor, who lived mostly at Smyrna, and
whose estate was withdrawn from the business by his widow, and Augustin,
who lived here in London after 1870, and died--it is now six years ago.
He left a son, Robert, who is my nephew, and my partner. He is now of
an age--perhaps thirty years. He was a small child when he came to
London--he has become more English than the English themselves. His
activity and industry are very great; he forms plans of such magnitude
and numbers that they would compel his grandfather to turn in his
coffin. I am in indifferent health. I live much at Homburg and Marienbad
and at Cairo. Practically speaking, I have retired from business. There
remain branches of our house--in several places--but the London house
has become the centre of all things--and Robert has become the London
house. This I make plain to your mind, do I, Mr. Thorpe?”
The other, with his chin sunk within the collar of his white waistcoat,
and scrutinizing the narrator with a steadfast though impassive glance,
made the faintest possible nod of assent.
“I had great confidence in Robert,” the old man went on. His eyes were
dimming with tears, and his voice quavered uncertainly. “His plans
seemed wise, even if they risked more than formerly. The conditions of
business are wholly altered since my youth--and it was best, I thought,
to make Robert free to act under these conditions, which he understood
much better than I could pretend to do. Thus it was that when he said it
was necessary for Fromentin Brothers to belong to the Stock Exchange,
I did not object. He was active and bold and clever, and he was in the
thick of the fight. Therefore he should be the judge in all things. And
that is our ruin. In the time of the South African excitement, he won a
great deal of money. Then he lost it all and more. Then gambling began,
and his fortunes went now up, now down, but always, as his books show to
me now--sinking a little on the average. He grew more adventurous--more
careless. He put many small counters upon different numbers on the
table. You know what I mean? And in an accursed moment, because other
gamblers were doing the same, he sold two thousand of your shares,
without having them in his hands. Voila! He wishes now to put a bullet
through his brain. He proposes that as the fitting end of Fromentin
Freres.”
Thorpe, his chin on his breast, continued to regard the melancholy
figure opposite with a moody eye. It seemed a long minute before he
broke the tense silence by a sigh of discomfort. “I do not discuss these
things with anybody,” he said then, coldly. “If I had known who you
were, I don't think you'd have got in.”
The Marquis of Chaldon intuitively straightened himself in his chair,
and turned toward the speaker a glance of distressed surprise.
“Or no--I beg your pardon,” Thorpe hastened to add, upon the instant
hint of this look--“that doesn't convey my meaning. Of course, our
Chairman brings whom he pleases. His friends--as a matter of course--are
our friends. What I should have said was that if this had been mentioned
beforehand to me, I should have explained that it wasn't possible to
discuss that particular business.”
“But--pardon me”--said Lord Chaldon, in a quiet, very gentle, yet
insistent voice, which seemed now to recall to its listeners the fact
that sovereigns and chancellors had in their day had attentive ears for
its tones--“pardon me, but why should it not be possible?”
Thorpe frowned doubtfully, and shifted his position in his chair. “What
could I say, if it were discussed?” he made vague retort. “I'm merely
one of the Directors. You are our Chairman, but you see he hasn't found
it of any use to discuss it with you. There are hard and fast rules
about these things. They run their natural course. You are not a
business man, my Lord----”
“Oh, I think I may be called a 'business man,'” interposed the nobleman,
suavely. “They would tell you so in Calcutta, I think, and in Cairo too.
When one considers it, I have transacted a great deal of business--on
the behalf of other people. And if you will permit me--I do not impute
indirection, of course--but your remark seems to require a footnote. It
is true that I am Chairman of the Board on which you are a Director--but
it is not quite the whole truth. I as Chairman know absolutely nothing
about this matter. As I understand the situation, it is not in your
capacity as a Director that you know anything about it either. Yet----”
He paused, as if suddenly conscious of some impropriety in this
domestic frankness before a third party, and Thorpe pounced through his
well-mannered hesitation with the swiftness of a bird of prey.
“Let me suggest,” he said roundly, lifting his head and poising a
hand to hold attention, while he thought upon what it was he should
suggest--“this is what I would say. It seems rather irregular, doesn't
it? to debate the matter in the presence of an outsider. You see it
yourself. That is partly what I meant. Now I have met Mr. Fromentin,” he
gave the name its English vowels with an obstinate emphasis, “and I have
heard his statement. You have heard it too. If he wishes to lay more
facts before us, why, well and good. But then I would suggest that
he leave the matter in our hands, to discuss and look into between
ourselves. That seems to you the proper course, doesn't it, Lord
Chaldon?”
The French banker had been studying with strained acuteness the big
lymphatic mask of the Director, with sundry sharp glances aside at the
Chairman. The nervous changes on his alert, meagre old face showed
how intently he followed every phase of their talk. A certain sardonic
perception of evil in the air curled on his lip when he saw the Marquis
accede with a bow and wave of the hand to Thorpe's proposition. Then he
made his bow in turn, and put the best face possible upon the matter.
“Naturally I consult your convenience--and the proprieties,” he said,
with an effect of proud humility. “There are but a few other facts to
submit. My nephew has already paid, in differences upon those accursed
two thousand shares, a sum of nearly 30,000 pounds. I have the figures
in my pocket--but they are fixed in my head as well. Twenty-eight
thousand five hundred, those differences already amount to, not to speak
of interest. At the last settlement, August 1st, the price per share was
15 pounds. That would make 30,000 pounds more, if we bought now--or a
total of practically 60,000 pounds. Eh bien! I beg for the privilege of
being allowed to buy these shares now. It is an unpleasant confession
to make, but the firm of Fromentin Freres will be made very poor by this
loss of 60,000 pounds. It was not always so, but it is so now. My nephew
Robert has brought it into that condition. You see my shame at this
admission. With all my own means, and with his sister's marriage
portion, we can make up this sum of 30,000 pounds, and still enable
the firm to remain in existence. I have gone over the books very
painstakingly, since I arrived in London. It can be kept afloat, and
it can be brought back to safe and moderately profitable courses--if
nothing worse happens. With another six weeks like the last, this
will not be at all possible. We shall have the cup of dishonour thrust
between our teeth. That will be the end of everything.”
M. Fromentin finished in tremulous, grave tones. After looking with
blurred eyes for a moment into Thorpe's face, he bowed his head, and
softly swayed the knees upon which his thin, dark hands maintained their
clutch. Not even the revelation of hair quite white at the roots, unduly
widening the track of parting on the top of his dyed head, could rob
this movement of its mournful dignity.
Thorpe, after a moment's pause, took a pencil and paper from the desk,
and made a calculation. He bit his lips and frowned at the sight of
these figures, and set down some others, which seemed to please him no
more. Then, with a sudden gesture as of impatience, he rose to his feet.
“How much is that sister's marriage portion you spoke of?” he asked,
rather brusquely.
The French gentleman had also risen. He looked with an air of
astonishment at his questioner, and then hardened his face. “I apologize
for mentioning it,” he said, with brevity. “One does not speak of family
affairs.”
“I asked you how much it was,” pursued Thorpe, in a masterful tone. “A
man doesn't want to rob a girl of her marriage portion.”
“I think I must not answer you,” the other replied, hesitatingly. “It
was the fault of my emotion to introduce the subject. Pray leave the
young lady out of account.”
“Then I've nothing more to say,” Thorpe declared, and seated himself
again with superfluous energy. He scowled for a little at the disorder
of his desk, and then flung forth an angry explanation. “If you evade
fair questions like that, how can you expect that I will go out of my
way to help you?”
“Oh, permit me, Mr. Thorpe”--the Marquis intervened soothingly--“I think
you misapprehend. My friend, I am sure, wished to evade nothing. He
had the idea that he was at fault in--in alluding to a purely domestic
matter as--as a--what shall I say?--as a plea for your consideration.”
He turned to the old banker. “You will not refuse to mention the sum to
me, will you, my friend?”
M. Fromentin shrugged his shoulders. “It is ten thousand pounds,” he
replied, almost curtly.
Thorpe was seemingly mollified. “Very well, then,” he said. “I will sell
you 2,000 shares at ten pounds.”
The others exchanged a wondering look.
“Monsieur,” the banker stammered--“I see your meaning. You will forgive
me--it is very well meant indeed by you--but it was not my proposition.
The market-price is fifteen pounds--and we were prepared to pay it.”
Thorpe laughed in a peremptory, gusty way. “But you can't pay more than
I ask!” he told him, with rough geniality. “Come, if I let you and your
nephew in out of the cold, what kind of men-folk would you be to insist
that your niece should be left outside? As I said, I don't want her
money. I don't want any woman's money. If I'm going to be nice to the
rest of the family, what's the objection to my being nice to her?”
“Monsieur,” said the Frenchman, after an instant's reflection, “I offer
none. I did not at the moment perceive the spirit of your words, but
I recognize now that it was delicacy itself. I tender you the most
profound thanks--for ALL the family.”
After some further conversation the elder Fromentin took his departure.
Lord Chaldon apparently proposed to accompany him, but Thorpe begged him
to remain, and he put aside his hat once more and resumed his seat.
Thorpe walked about a little, with his hands in his pockets, in a
restless way. “If it isn't unpleasant to you, I think I'll light a
cigar,” he said suddenly, and moved over to the cabinet. He poured out a
drink of neat brandy, as well, and furtively swallowed it. Then he came
back, preceded by a cloud of smoke.
“It went terribly against the grain,” he said, with a rueful laugh. “I'd
sworn to let no Jew off with an inch of hide left on him--and here three
of them have been wheedled out of my grip already.”
“Jews?” exclaimed the Marquis, much puzzled. “Did you--did you think
Fromentin was a Jew? God bless me! he's no more one than I am! Why, not
even so much, for there IS a Herschell in my pedigree. Why, dear man,
they were Crusaders!”
Thorpe smiled somewhat sheepishly. “I never noticed much,” he said. “It
was a foreign-looking name. I took it for granted.”
Lord Chaldon bent his brows a little. “Yes-s”--he murmured,
meditatively. “I've heard it mentioned that your enterprise was
suspected of an anti-Semitic twist. Do you mind my talking a little with
you about that?”
“Oh, not at all,” the other answered with languid acquiescence, as he
seated himself.