A BUSINESS CONSULTATION
The fog was still heavy and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly
in the yellow mist when the young messenger, the first half of his
mission performed, struck briskly riverward to complete his business.
He disposed of his violets at a corner stand, hailed a passing hansom
boldly, and after a low consultation with the driver, got in. They
drove steadily for an hour. The gas-lamps grew fewer, and the
streets more narrow and gloomy.
Suddenly the man drew up with a jerk.
"Here ye be," he called huskily.
The boy sprang to the ground and peered about him. "It'll do," he
announced, and then briefly, "Wait 'arf an hour."
He plunged down a dark and crabbed way, glancing warily behind him
now and then to see if he was being followed.
Here, between invisible walls, the fog hung thick and warm and
sticky, crowding up close, with a kind of blowsy intimacy that
whispered the atmosphere of the place. Occasionally, close to his
ear, snatches of loose song burst out, or a base, coarse face loomed
head-high through the reek.
But the boy was upon his native heath and scuttled along, whistling
softly between closed teeth, as, with a dexterity born of long
practice, he skirted slush and garbage sinks, held around the blacker
gulfs that denoted unguarded basement holes, and eluded the hideous
shadows that lurched by in the gloom.
Hugging the wall, he presently became aware of footsteps behind him.
He rounded a corner, and turning swiftly collided with something
which grappled him with great hands. Without hesitation, the lad
leaned down and set his teeth deep into the hairy arm.
The man let go with a hoarse bellow of rage, and the boy, darting
across the alley, could hear him stumbling after him in blind search
of the narrow way.
Thin shivers of excitement rippled up and down his spine and his
blood crinkled in his veins. Squatting close to the sloppy wall, he
thrust out one leg and waited. He could feel the quarry come on, the
big blowing body of him, the groping, outstretched arms. His leg
stiffened rigid as a bar of iron. With a crash the man fell headlong
across it. The boy laughed aloud and sheered aside, barely missing a
knife which hurtled past and stuck quivering in the opposite wall.
As he sped along, a door suddenly opened in the blank wall beside
him, and a stream of ruddy light gushed out, catching him square
within its radiance, mud-spattered, starry-eyed, vivid.
A man stood framed in the doorway.
"Come in," he commanded briefly.
The boy obeyed. Surreptitiously he wiped the wet and mud from his
face and tried to reduce his wild breathing.
The room which he entered was meagre and stale-smelling, with bare
floor and stained and sagging wall-paper; unfurnished save for a
battered deal table and some chairs.
He sank into one of them and stared with frank curiosity past his
employer, who had often entrusted him with messages requiring
secrecy, past his employer's companion, to the third figure in the
room. A prostrate figure which lay quite still under the heavy folds
of a long dark ulster with its face turned to the wall.
"Well?" It was a singularly agreeable voice which aroused him,
softly modulated but with a faint foreign accent. The speaker was
his employer, a slender dark man, with a finely carved face, immobile
as the Sphinx. He had laid aside his Inverness and top hat, and
showed himself in evening dress with a large buttonhole of Parma
violets, which sent forth a faint, delicious fragrance.
Of the personality of the man the messenger knew nothing more than
that he was an aristocratic young nob, eccentric in a quiet way, who
lived in a grand house near Portland Place, and who rewarded him
handsomely for his occasional services.
He related his adventures of the evening, not omitting to mention his
late pursuer. "The keb's waitin' now, outside, sir," he concluded.
The man listened quietly, brooding, his elbows upon the table, his
inscrutable face propped in the crotch of his hand. A ruby, set
quaintly in a cobra's head, gleamed from a ring upon his little
finger. Presently he roused.
"That's all to-night, my boy," he said gravely. "You've served me
well."
He drew out his purse, extracted two sovereigns, and laid them in the
messenger's hand.
"And this," he said softly, holding up a third gold piece, "is
for--discretion! You comprehend?"
The boy shot a swift glance, not unmixed with terror, at the still,
recumbent figure in the corner, mumbled an assent, and withdrew. Out
in the dampness of the fog, he took a long, deep breath. After all,
he reflected, such affairs were not in the province of a
night-messenger. They belonged to Scotland Yard. And certainly the
man paid well.
As the door closed behind him, his employer leaned back in his chair,
and smiled into the sombre eyes of his companion.
"At last!" he breathed softly. "The thing moves. The wheels are
beginning to revolve!"
His friend nodded gloomily, his glance straying off toward the corner
of the room.
"They've got to revolve a mighty lot more before the night's done!"
he replied with heavy significance.
He was a tall, lean man and wore a brown overcoat with the collar
turned up sharply about his throat, and a derby hat still glistening
from the mist. His voice, which was flat and rasping, betrayed his
transatlantic origin.
"It's my opinion," he continued bluntly, "that you stick right here
at this end of the line and see the game through. You can present
your excuses to Lady Dinsmore to-morrow. I needn't tell you that we
must move in this venture with extreme caution. A single misstep at
the outset, the slightest breath of suspicion, and pff! the entire
superstructure falls to the ground."
"That is doubtless true, Mr. Baggin," murmured his companion
pleasantly. He leaned down to inhale the fragrant scent of the
violets. "But you forget one little thing. This grand
superstructure you speak of--so mysteriously--" he hid a slight
smile, "I know it not. You have seen fit, in your extreme caution,
to withhold all knowledge of it from me."
He paused and regarded his companion with a level, steady gaze. A
faint, ironical smile played about the corners of his mouth.
"Is it not so, my friend?" he asked softly. "I am--how you say--left
out in the cold?"
His countenance was serene and unruffled, and it was only by his
slightly quickened breathing that an acute observer might have said
that the conversation held any unusual significance.
The American stirred uneasily in his chair. A dull flush mounted to
his temples.
"There are some financial matters----" he muttered sullenly.
"You admit it, then--this high scheme has to do with finance, with
the finance of nations--the finance of the world!"
"Hush!" whispered Baggin hoarsely. He glanced about, half-fearfully.
The younger man ignored the outburst. He laid a persuasive hand upon
his companion's arm.
"My friend," he said gravely, "let me give you a bit of good advice.
Believe me, I speak disinterestedly. Take me into your counsels. As
a Russian nobleman and distant kinsman of his Imperial Majesty the
Tsar, I have the entrée to the most exclusive houses of London.
Politics I know a little, and the politicians extremely well. Twice
I have been a guest at Sandringham. I am a person of diplomacy,
resolution, power. In brief, Mr. Baggin, I am intelligent, and I
know too little or too much for you. Too much for an outsider, too
little for a friend and--ah--conspirator. With half my knowledge, I
could make you, or break you like glass. Candidly, I have not the
heart for the latter. I would be rather a--a friendly power." He
leaned forward suddenly. "Make me," he said softly, "a member of
your Committee of Nine."
Baggin shrank back. "You--you know that?" he gasped.
"I know many things," was the quiet reply, "but not all."
The American looked at him doubtfully. The man seemed limpid. Was
he, in truth, as Grayson had once said, as deep as the bottomless
pit? Grayson, he knew, had favoured him.
"You have no money," he objected, finally.
"I have something better."
"What?" In Baggin's mouth the question was an insult.
"Genius!" returned the young man simply.
He disregarded Baggin's scornful ejaculation, and continued
impersonally, as if reading aloud from a book.
"Genius, my friend! Genius is as high above mere money as the stars
wheeling in their celestial courses are above the earth. It is human
electricity--the motive power of the world. With my power, the spark
I feel within me here"--he touched his white shirt-front--"I could
wipe out kingdoms and principalities, change the map of Europe more
drastically than Napoleon--and bloodlessly! Think of it a moment, my
prosaic, financial friend! I who sit here in this room, with you and
a dead man, _can do these things_! Just one little pawn in the game
is missing. Money. A few million pounds for running expenses and
for salaries to my--er--myrmidons! That item, Mr. Baggin, I expect
to be supplied by you."
He laughed outright at Baggin's frowning, mistrustful face, crossed
one leg over the other, and clasped his silk-clad ankle with a
shapely hand.
Baggin noted the boyish action. It at once irritated him and
determined his course.
"Unfortunately," he replied drily, "we have already chosen our
president and voted upon the immediate use of the fund. The map of
Europe, I fear, must for the present remain unaltered----" He
glanced up and added hurriedly, "I--regret this---- Perhaps at our
next meeting---- The membership, as you perhaps know,
is--er--limited."
The young man sprang to his feet. His face was bronze.
"It is of no consequence, my friend." He laughed softly. "Simply,
the scheme appealed to me. It fired my imagination. I am, as you
know, a dreamer.
"'If you can dream, and not make dreams your master,'" he murmured.
He walked over to the corner of the room, picked up his Inverness,
and stood looking composedly down upon the figure which it had
concealed.
"_Salve_, my friend! You go down the river tonight, wiser than all
the kings of earth."
He slipped into his coat and turned toward Baggin, who had also risen.
"You will see that it gets into the morning papers," he said. "I
could wish to write it myself," he added pensively, drawing on his
gloves. "It has possibilities. So: 'Grayson a suicide. Great
financier shows himself at the opera, bids the gay world good-night,
and throws himself in the Thames. A flying rumour breathes money
troubles as a cause for the tragedy.' Wait!" he fumbled in his
breast pocket, "I'll write a note to pin to his clothes."
He scribbled hastily in his memorandum book, tore out the leaf, and
handed it to his companion. "He confesses his sins and commends his
soul to 'le bon Dieu.'" He laid a hand upon the door.
"You will leave me here--alone?" asked Baggin.
"But yes! Nothing can harm you from within, and you bolt the door
from without--until the preconcerted signal. It should not be long
now." He drew out his watch.
"But--I wish you to remain--I command it!" Despite his efforts at
composure, Baggin's voice quavered.
His companion laughed. "A Roland for your Oliver, my friend!" he
cried. "Favour for favour! You grant my small request?"
Baggin shook his head.
"You will be king, eh?--and alone? Good!"
He put on his top hat, adjusted his silk muffler about his throat,
and with an amiable nod to his companion, stepped out into the night.
The fog had thinned to a nebulous haze, fine as a lady's veil, and
the young man strode along briskly. Ten minutes brought him to the
waiting hansom.
"Covent Garden," he directed the driver. He sprang in and leaned
back against the cushions.
"So Baggin would be king!" He smiled with a certain grimness.