A ROYAL ROAD TO FORTUNE
Mr. Nash considered. The expression which had been on his face a few
minutes ago had nearly vanished. The ex-butler had expressed himself
in terms which the solicitor felt might justify him in modifying the
attitude he had been disposed to take up. That Morgan had been, and
still was, presumptuous went without saying; at the same time, as
matters were turning out, it seemed that there were things which might
be said on the other side; at least so it appeared to Herbert Nash. On
the whole, he was inclined to concede as much. He took a few steps, to
and fro, beside the groyne; then planting himself directly in front of
Morgan, he told him his mind, rather in sorrow, perhaps, than in
anger; indeed his bearing altogether was very different from what it
had been.
"I tell you what it is, Morgan, your conduct, from first to last, has
been bad."
Mr. Morgan smiled at him, affably.
"Has it? That's good, coming from you."
"That's where you've got the wrong end of the stick; whatever I've
done I've done nothing to you."
"No; and therefore you think that I've no right to put a finger in the
pie you've found."
"You'd no right to force yourself into my place, and run the rule over
my things."
"That was luck, Nash, pure luck. I didn't call intending to run the
rule over your things; is it likely? But if you will carry papers in
your letter-case, you shouldn't leave your letter-case lying about."
"Idiot that I was! I found what I'd done soon after I'd started, but I
was fool enough not to come back for it."
"You weren't an idiot; not at all; it was the best thing that could
have happened for both of us--that I should find it."
"I'm afraid I can't agree. To begin with, see how awkward you've made
it for me with my wife."
"Have I?"
"She can't understand what I have done which gives you any title to
call yourself my friend--you!"
"Can't she?"
"And how am I going to explain? I may only be--as you suggest--a poor
brute of a country solicitor; but you forget that she's a lady."
"Not for one moment. Mrs. Nash is a perfect lady; none knows that
better than I do. But, if I help you to make your fortune; if we
become partners in, say, a mercantile speculation; if I show you how
to pour gold, and all the pretty things gold can buy, into her lap,
will she require any better explanation? I think not. My dear fellow,
you exaggerate the difficulties she will make; believe me.
"You talk very largely, but how are you going to do these things? I
had the letter, and I didn't see my way."
"You didn't? Then that shows how fortunate it was that you
communicated the contents of the letter to me; because I do. Tell
me--now be frank; I'll be perfectly frank with you; it's to our common
interest to be frank with each other--how far did you go?"
"I looked up Mr. Frank Clifford."
"And found?"
"That Marlborough Buildings is the head office of Peter Piper's
Popular Pills; of which business Clifford's the managing director."
"And what else?"
"That's as far as I got; I meant to go on after--after----"
"After the honeymoon? I see; I've got a great deal further than that,
a great deal. I take it you're aware that Peter Piper's Popular Pills
is one of the medicines of the hour; the profits are stupendous;
sometimes amounting to a hundred thousand pounds in a year, possibly
more."
"I dare say; that doesn't want much finding out, everybody knows it;
but what's it to do with us?"
"A good deal."
"How?"
"We're going to have a share of the business, and of the profits, and
probably of former profits also."
"Are we indeed? How are we going to manage it?"
"Do you know who the proprietor was?"
Again the two men eyed each other; this time as if Nash was trying to
read in Morgan's eyes the answer to his question.
"He was Donald Lindsay of Cloverlea."
"You don't mean it?"
"I do."
"Are you sure?"
"Perfectly. He called himself Joseph Oldfield; he was a bachelor; he
was a reserved man, standoffish, of secretive habits. He had a flat in
Bloomsbury Square, I've seen it, where he was supposed to spend most
of his time in thinking out new advertising dodges; the present
position of Peter Piper's Popular Pills is principally owing to clever
advertising. The proprietor was his own advertising agent, he was a
master of the art. He called himself, as I've said, Joseph Oldfield in
town, and in the country he was Donald Lindsay of Cloverlea."
"The old fox!"
"I don't think you can exactly call him that; there was nothing in the
opprobrious sense foxy about him. He was one of those men who live
double lives, owing, one might say, to the pressure of circumstances;
there are more of them about than is supposed. He bought the pill
business when it was at a very low ebb; he hadn't very much money
himself, at that time, and I dare say he got it for a song. Mrs.
Lindsay was just dead; his girl was with her nurses, or at school; for
business purposes he called himself Oldfield; it isn't every man who
cares to have it known that he's associated with a patent medicine; in
England it's quite a common custom for a man to carry on a business
under an alias, under half-a-dozen aliases sometimes. As time went on
I take it that his secretive habit grew stronger; he became less and
less disposed to have it known that Donald Lindsay had anything to do
with pills, which do rather stink in people's nostrils; and so he
drifted into the double life. That's the word, drifted."
"You seem to have got up his history."
"I have a way of finding out things; people have noticed it before.
Now take Mr. Frank Clifford; I can tell you something about him. He's
a young man, a _protege_ of Oldfield's--we'll call him Oldfield.
Oldfield had faith in him, he'd have trusted him with his immortal
soul. That's how it was that it was such a shock to him to learn that
he had been taking liberties with his name."
"But had he?"
"Had he what?"
"Been taking liberties with Lindsay's name?"
"He forged those bills which Guldenheim and his friends got hold of."
"That's what I guessed; but guessing's one thing, proof's another."
"Of course it is; I've the proof. I have some of the bills; I got hold
of them rather neatly, though, as a matter of abstract right, I've as
much title to them as anybody else. When you show Mr. Clifford one of
them he won't deny he forged it."
"Yes; when I show it."
"Exactly. I said when you show it to him; and you're going to show it,
if necessary, that's part of the scheme; though it mayn't be
necessary, since it's quite possible he'll capitulate at once. My dear
chap, at the present moment, to all intent's and purposes, Mr. Frank
Clifford is the sole proprietor of one of the finest businesses in the
world, and one of the largest fortunes in England, while the actual
owner is starving in town."
"It's hard upon Miss Lindsay."
"It's the fortune of war. A little starving won't do her any harm; and
I dare say she won't starve long. I never liked the girl."
"Nor I."
"Then there you are; why worry? She's too superior for me, too good;
knocking about in the gutter may bring her down to your level, and
mine; I've known it pan out that way where a young woman's concerned.
I don't like any one to be too good, it makes me conscious of my own
deficiencies; you see, I'm candid. However, she's a factor with whom
we may, or may not, deal later. At present we've to concentrate our
attention on Clifford; think of the possibilities for him, and for us.
No one knows of the connection between Oldfield and Lindsay; no one
even knows that he's dead. Clifford already has powers to draw cheques
in the name of the firm, within certain limits; a man capable of
committing forgery will soon be able to make those limits wider;
there's no reason why he shouldn't appropriate to his own use every
penny that comes in; as things stand nobody'll be able to call him to
account for it; there's no reason why he should not lay hands on the
whole of the old gentleman's investments; and they're--you may take it
from me that they're magnificent. We're the only persons on this side
of the grave who can stop him, and there's no reason why we should, if
he gives us a proper share; in other words, if he takes us in as
partners."
"It's playing with fire."
"Not a bit of it; it's playing with nothing that's in the least
dangerous, if it's managed as I propose to manage it. You think it
over. And now you take me in to lunch, and let me have the pleasure
of meeting that charming wife of yours again; I'm starving! And if by
the time we've done lunch you haven't formulated a scheme of your own
I'll tell you what mine is, and then you'll see that without the
slightest danger to either of us, without the shadow of a shade of
danger--there's no reason why we shouldn't, within a very short space
of time, be worth a quarter of a million apiece."
"A quarter of a million!"
"At least; we're going to deal with big figures, my boy. It'll pay
Clifford, pay him handsomely, to split it up into three parts; and let
me tell you that a third ought to come out at a good deal more than a
quarter of a million."
Herbert Nash hesitated--for his credit's sake let it be written that
he did hesitate--but he took Mr. Morgan home with him to lunch. And
when his wife saw the visitor coming she would have been almost glad
if the earth could have opened to swallow her up; it was as if she
beheld avenging fate advancing towards her in the shape of a
policeman. Her husband was late; it was long after their usual hour
for lunch; he had left no word as to where he had gone; half beside
herself with anxiety, she would have liked to send the town crier
round in search of him; she had been along the pavement to the corner
of this street and the corner of that, to and fro across the common
for a glimpse of him along the front; these man[oe]uvres she had
repeated again and again, and, standing on the doorstep, was
frantically debating within herself as to what could have become of
him, as to what she should do, when she saw him coming with Morgan at
his side. Then, if she could, she would have run away, but she could
not, her feet were as if they had been shod with iron weights, she
could not lift them; she could not move; when they came to her she was
a white-faced, shivering, terror-stricken little wretch; a poor ghost
of the sunny-faced, light-hearted Elaine Harding of such a little
while ago.
Mr. Nash offered a pretty lame explanation of his appearance with the
man of whose presumption in claiming his acquaintance he had spoken
with such scorn in the morning.
"This is Mr. Morgan; he is going to have some lunch with us; we have
business to transact together. You remember Mr. Morgan, Elaine?"
As if she ever could forget him! How she would have prayed for the
power to forget him if she had dared to hope that such prayers were
answered. She hardly heard her husband's words; her white face was
turned towards Morgan, as the convicted criminal has eyes only for the
judge who is to pronounce his doom. Yet nothing could have been less
judge-like than Mr. Morgan's bearing; nothing more affably respectful
than the manner of his greeting. He stood before her with uncovered
head, without even presuming to offer his hand.
"This is indeed an honour to be permitted to meet you again. May I
venture to hope that you will allow me to offer my congratulations on
the fortunate event which has occurred since I saw you last?"
She had to moisten her parched lips with her tongue before she could
speak at all. Then--
"Thank you," was all she said to him; and to her husband, "I--I was
wondering what had become of you."
Nash replied--
"Mr. Morgan had something which he wished to say to me." He led the
way into the house; his wife and Morgan followed. He paused at the
sitting-room door. "Take Mr. Morgan in there," he said to her. "I will
join you in a minute."
Dumbly she obeyed; not realizing that he wanted what she did, a few
minutes' solitude to enable him to pull himself together. He meant to
have them, she had to do without; so that when she was in the room,
and the ex-butler, coming after her, closed the door behind him he had
her wholly at his mercy. She was still limp and helpless, having had
no chance to recover from the shock and horror of encountering him
again; a fact of which he, instantly perceiving, took prompt
advantage. As he pulled the door to behind him a subtle change took
place in his manner; he still smiled, but neither respectfully nor
affably. He addressed the cowering woman in front of him as if she
were some base creature.
"A pretty trick you played me, slipping away like that and leaving no
address! Sneaking off with the man you'd paid to marry you, when, if
it hadn't been for me, you'd have been in jail; and you call yourself
a lady! and I'd treated you as one! Never again, my beauty, never
again need you expect me to treat you like a lady, because you've
shown me what you are. Now you listen to me! You'll give me five
hundred pounds before I leave, or to-night you'll sleep in
Littlehampton jail; and when your husband's told what kind of a
character he's been diddled into marrying by way of a start he'll
throw you out into the road. Now then! that five hundred pounds!"
He held out his hand, as if he expected her to give him the money
there and then. She presented a pitiable spectacle; being scarcely
able to stammer.
"I--I--I can't--can't give it you now."
"No lies! I'm off them! How much have you got in the house?"
"I--I--I might----" Her voice failed her; there was a hiatus in her
sentence. "A hundred pounds."
"Then you'll give me a hundred pounds within half-an-hour after lunch,
and you'll send another four hundred to an address I'll give you
within four-and-twenty hours, or I promise you that, in less than an
hour after, the man you've bought shall kick you out of this house
into a policeman's arms."
Before he could speak again, or she either, the door opened to admit
the diminutive maid; how she managed to open the door, as she
apparently had done, was a mystery, since she was carrying a tray
which was nearly as big as herself. And Mr. Nash presently appearing,
the three sat down to lunch.