£500,000—IN GOLD.
The little red-bearded man had gone, slamming the door noisily behind
him. Shelf mopped his large white face with a scented pocket-handkerchief.
“Do you think,” he said nervously—“do you think we may trust him?”
“To begin with, we’ve got to now, whether we like it or not. He’s nothing
to gain by playing traitor.”
“But would he betray us in case of success?”
“Perhaps,” said Onslow, “he won’t have the chance. Other hands on that
steamer will have to share the secret in whole or in part. Perhaps they
won’t all of them come through it alive. If you remember that we are
plotting deliberate piracy on the high seas, you will recognize that
there is precedent for a considerable percentage of casualties.”
The City man shuddered. Through the double windows came the sullen roar
of a London street, and in imagination he seemed to distinguish the howl
of the crowd joined in execration against him.
His eye fell upon a paper on the desk. It was the formal notice from her
bankers that his wife’s account was heavily overdrawn. He lifted the
paper, and tore it with his teeth; and then he smote the table with a
shut fist, so that geysers flew from the inkwells. But his passion found
no outlet in words. He spoke in his platform voice, and said nothing
about the prime compelling force.
“We will not talk of these unpleasant details, if you please, Mr. Onslow.
I—my heart is weak, I think, and they turn me sick. But at whatever cost,
we must go through with the affair. It is necessary that I make a heavy
_coup_ within the next month, or the consequences may be disastrous.”
“Marmaduke Rivers and Shelf will go down? Quite so. I’m also at the
end of my cash balance, so that money seems to be the impelling power
for each of us. But come now, wake up, sir, and let’s get on with the
business. I’m not so sweet on this City atmosphere of yours that I care
to spend another morning down here if it can be avoided. How are you
going to raise the specie?”
“I’ll proceed about it at once,” said Shelf, pressing another of the
buttons on his desk. “You may as well witness every step of the process.”
In answer to the bell, Fairfax came into the room, nodded rather stiffly
to Onslow, and turned to Shelf with an expectant: “Yes, Sir?”
In terse, business-like phrase his principal touched upon the silver
crisis in America, and the gold famine in the Southern States. Then he
explained the external view of his projected enterprise.
“The _Port Edes_,” he said, “is in the Herculaneum Dock, returned on our
hands to-day. Wire Liverpool at once, asking for freights to Norfolk
Virginia, Pensacola Florida, Mobile Alabama, or New Orleans, at lowest
rates. New Orleans is her final port, and offer that at fifteen per cent.
less. Captain Owen Kettle will be in command, and he sails in four days
from this. When you have deputed your clerks to do this, go yourself to
the bank and negotiate for half a million in gold, to be delivered on
board the _Port Edes_ in dock. The insurance policy on the money will be
deposited with the bank to secure them in full for the loan itself, and
for their other charges the credit of the house will easily suffice. Is
that clear?”
“Perfectly,” said Fairfax; “but I should like to remind you of one thing:
wharf thefts at New Orleans are notorious, and you’ll have to pay
heavily to insure against them.”
“I know—more heavily than for risks across the ocean and the run up the
river. Underwriters are justly nervous about those all-nation thieves.
But in this instance I propose to save myself that fee, and insure in a
different way. Mr. Onslow is going out on the _Port Edes_ expressly as
my representative, and I fancy that he and the captain together will be
capable of seeing to safe delivery. The ship’s arrival will be reported
by telegraph from the pass at Mississippi Mouth, and my New Orleans agent
can calculate her appearance alongside the levee to a quarter of an hour.
He will meet her with vehicles and a strong escort of deputy-sheriffs as
she brings in to her berth, and will take the specie-boxes off by the
first gangway which is put ashore, and carry them straight to a bank.
Does this strike you as a sound course?”
“Yes,” said Fairfax thoughtfully; “I see no undue risks. By the way, as
the _Port Edes_ is merely a cargo tramp, and doesn’t hold a certificate
for passengers, I’m afraid the Board of Trade would not let Mr. Onslow
travel by her simply as the firm’s representative. But that could be
easily overcome.”
“Oh,” said Onslow, “I’ll sign on articles in the usual way as one of
the ship’s company—as fourth mate, say, or doctor, with salary of one
shilling for the run. ’Tisn’t the first time that pleasing fiction has
been palmed upon a shipping-master. It doesn’t deceive any one you know,
because the rate of wages gives one away at the outset. But the country’s
paternal, mutton-headed shipping laws are obeyed, and so everybody’s
pleased.”
Fairfax laughed and went into the outer offices, and Patrick Onslow
turned to the shipowner with a couple of questions.
“To begin with,” he said, “why did you offer freights to Norfolk, and
Pensacola, and Mobile, and those places? If you call in there, the
natural thing would be to get the specie ashore and express it by
railroad direct to New Orleans. If you miss that chance, and start
carrying it round by sea, the thing looks fishy at once. Now, fishiness
is an aspect which we can’t afford in the very least degree. The swindle
will call up enough sensation in its most honest and straightforward
dress.”
“My dear Mr. Onslow, please give me credit for a little more finesse. I
see the objection to intermediate ports as much as you do, but I merely
mentioned them to Fairfax as a blind. To begin with, it is a hundred to
one chance against our getting any cargo at all consigned to them at this
season of the year, even if we offered to carry it gratis. In the second
place, if it was offered, I could easily get out of it in fifty ways.
Afterwards, when the deplorable accident takes place, an inquiry into
this will help to draw off attention from your Floridan Peninsula. Any
one inclined to carp will instantly be told that we were equally ready to
put the specie ashore on the Virginian coast if our other cargo had led
us there. What do you think of that now?”
“Beg your pardon. That’s clear-sighted enough, and should work correctly.
But I fancy my other objection is better founded. What in the name of
plague did you go and economize over insurance for? Why didn’t you get
the stuff underwritten slap up to the strong-room of the bank?”
“To save £500. If you aren’t going past the middle of the Mexican Gulf,
what is the use of wasting money by insuring further?”
“£500 in a deal of £500,000! A mere straw in a cartload!”
“That, my dear Mr. Onslow, is business. As I often assure my young
friends commencing life, if one takes care of the pennies, the pounds
will take care of themselves. It is by looking after what you are pleased
to consider trivial sums like these that the firm of Marmaduke Rivers and
Shelf has risen to its present eminence.”
“Oh, wind!” retorted Onslow. “Don’t tell me!”
“Sir!” exclaimed Shelf.
“Well, if you will have it, the eminence appears to be uncommon tottery,
and because of your miserable meanness you’re doing your best to bring it
over. It’s just trifles like this that tell. Consider what will happen
after the catastrophe. There’ll be an inquiry that will lay everything
bare down to the very bed-plates. Do you think they won’t jump on this
point at once? The stuff is fully insured up to New Orleans; it isn’t
insured on the levee, and in the streets, where the thefts are notorious.
Doesn’t this drop an instantaneous hint that it was never intended to get
so far?”
“No,” said Shelf sourly. “I don’t see that it does.”
“Then,” retorted Onslow, “I differ from you entirely; and as I’m to be
the active agent in this affair, and have to take the first and gravest
physical risk, I do not choose to have my retreat unnecessarily hampered.
I must insist upon your recalling Fairfax for additional instructions.
What extra insurance has got to be paid.”
“Then pay it yourself,” angrily exclaimed Mr. Shelf.
“That’s outside the bargain. Working expenses are your contribution to
the partnership. And besides, for another thing, I couldn’t plank down
that money if I wished. I haven’t it in the world.”
“Mr. Onslow, I believe you. Will you extend the same courtesy to me when
I tell you that if I were to attempt raising even such a trivial sum as
£500 to-day it would precipitate me into bankruptcy to-morrow.”
“Whew! Are you nipped as badly as all that?”
“I have a remorseless drain on me which drinks up the profits of this
business like a great sponge. It is a domestic drain, and I cannot resist
it.”
“You poor beggar!” said Onslow, with the first scrap of sympathy he had
yet shown to his partner. “I believe I understand, and it tones down
your dingy color. You aren’t quite all black. I believe by your own
painting you’re only a moderate sort of gray. And if I’ve been beastly
rude and hard with you, because I’ve considered you a soapy scoundrel
playing entirely for your own hand, I’ll apologize to you. That isn’t in
the least polite, but I think it’s plain, and perhaps we shall get on
together better now. But about this bankruptcy. It’ll be rather a mess if
you go smash before our Florida operation realizes its profits. It will
thicken the inquiry, you know, to a very unpleasant keenness.”
“I think I shall keep on my feet, Mr. Onslow. I trust, I pray I shall;
and, moreover, I thank you for what you have said. I do confess that your
manner of speech has wounded me much at times.”
“Oh, as to that,” returned Onslow, “I mostly say ‘spade’ when I mean it,
and I don’t care to mix religion with theft, when I’m talking with a
co-conspirator. But I fancy we understand one another more comfortably
now, and I’ll leave you to make the rest of the arrangements here in
London. This afternoon I’ll pick up Kettle and run down to Liverpool and
get things in hand there. They’ll require care. To begin with, there’s
a suitable armament to be smuggled on board without advertisement. And
there are other nefarious preparations to be made. Piracy on the high
seas is not a thing to be undertaken lightly nowadays; nor is murder.”
“Oh, heavens!” cried Shelf, “don’t speak of these horrors.”
“I speak of them,” replied Onslow grimly, “because it is right that you
should understand what will probably be done. I don’t intend to redden my
fingers if it can be avoided; but as I put my neck in jeopardy, failure
or no failure, I naturally don’t intend to hesitate at any action which
will bring unqualified success. Only understand fully, Mr. Theodore
Shelf, that piracy you are already an active sharer in, and if there’s
murder done to boot, you will be as guilty as the worst, even though
you sit here in your snug London offices whilst other rougher men are
handling pistol and knife in the Gulf or in a Floridan mangrove swamp.”