THE SOLITARY FINANCIER
Mr. Alington had not been present at the ball at the Hungarian Embassy,
although Kit had taken the trouble to get him an invitation. By the
evening mail had come a long report from his Australian manager, and as
the report required considerable digestion, he, as always, put business
before pleasure, especially since he did not dance, and devoted the
evening to digesting it. It was all a report should be, concise, clear,
and full, and since he had hitherto known very little, technically
speaking, about his new venture, it demanded long and solitary
consideration. There was a very careful map sent with it, drawn to
scale, with the reef where found marked in red, where conjectured in
yellow.
West Australian mining at this time was but in its infancy. A few
reports only had reached England about unexplored goldfields of
extraordinary richness, and, as is incident to first reports, they had
gained but slender credence. But Mr. Alington had only just come back
from Queensland; he had seen gold-bearing quartz, he had made a few
tentative experiments to prove the richness of the ore, and had
subsequently bought a very large number of claims at a comparatively low
cost. Some of these he fully expected would turn out to be worthless, or
scarcely worth the working; others he soberly believed would be found
to be very rich. And when he opened his manager's report on the night of
the Hungarian ball, he had no more certain information about them.
The manager advised, consonantly with Alington's own desire, that a
group of five mines should be started, which together embraced all his
claims. In number one (see map) there was, as Alington would recollect,
a very rich vein of gold, which had now been traced in bore-holes
through numbers four and five. Numbers two and three were outliers from
the direct line of this vein, but in both a good deal of outcrop gold
might be profitably worked. All, so said the manager, were, as far as
could be at present seen, well worth working, for the two on which the
deeper vein did not lie had gold in smaller veins close to the surface,
which could be got at with comparatively little cost. It was not yet
known whether there was any deeper vein in them.
Then followed a good deal of technical advice. The main difficulty, as
Mr. Alington would remember, was water, and they must be prepared for
heavy expenses in this item. But otherwise the property could not be
better. Of the specimens sent at random for examination, those from
numbers one, four, and five were very rich, and the yield appeared to be
not less than five ounces to the ton. This was very high, but such were
the results. The reef from which they were taken was five feet thick.
Then followed some discussion as to processes; there was certainly much
to be said for cyanide, but he would not recommend corrosion. It was
tediously long, and there was some talk of prohibiting women from being
employed in it. Certainly the white lead produced by it would bring it
under the head of dangerous trades. In numbers two and three the ore
was very refractory, and it was curious to find a vein so difficult in
the matter of gold extraction close by the vein of one, four, and five.
Hitherto, in spite of repeated experiments, they had only been able to
recover 20 per cent. of the gold it contained. But a new process was
being tried in certain mines in the Rand--the Bülow, was it
not?--perhaps Mr. Alington would go into it and cable results. The worst
of these chemical processes was that they were so expensive.
Mr. Alington looked more than ever like a butler of superior
benevolence, as he sat at his table by a green-shaded reading-lamp, and
made himself master of this excellent report. As he read, he inscribed
from time to time neat little notes in pencil on the margin of the page,
and from time to time jotted down some figures on his blotting-pad. His
rooms, above a gunmaker's in St. James's Street--a temporary premise
only--were admirably furnished for the wants of a business man of
refined tastes and simple desires. A large revolving bookcase full of
works of reference stood at his elbow, and a telephone was on the table
before him. He was something of a connoisseur in pictures, and in his
house on the Sussex Downs, to which he was extensively adding, he had a
really fine collection of English masters. But the London fogs and
corrosive smoke spelled death to pigments, and here in his modest
quarters in London he had only prints. But these were truly admirable.
Reynolds' Lady Crosby undulated over the fireplace; Lady Hamilton smiled
irresistibly on him from under her crown of vine leaves if he looked at
the opposite wall; by her sat Marie Antoinette in an old-gold frame of
French work, and Mrs. Siddons was a first state with the coveted
blotted edge.
But to-night Mr. Alington had no eye for these enchanting ladies; he sat
long and studiously with the report in front of him, his broad,
intelligent face alert with his work. From time to time he reached out a
firm, plump hand to take a cigarette from a silver box which stood by
his telephone, but often he sat with it unlit for ten minutes or so,
absorbed in the page; or, again, he would put it down still only half
smoked, as he made one of his little calculations, forget about it, and
reach his hand out absently for another. In this way before midnight
there were some half-dozen in his ash-tray scarcely touched. A
spirit-case and a siphon stood on a tray to his right, and an hour
before he had mixed himself a mild whisky-and-soda, which he had not yet
tasted.
The silver bell of his Sèvres clock had already struck one when he took
up the report, folded it carefully, and put it back in its registered
envelope. The map, however, he spread out on the table in front of him,
and continued to study it very attentively for ten minutes more. That,
too, he then put in the envelope, and, leaning back in his chair, lit a
cigarette in earnest and smoked it through. He was a little
short-sighted, and for reading, particularly at night, he wore
gold-rimmed spectacles, which gave him a scholastic, almost a theologian
aspect. But these had long ago been pushed up on his forehead; the
theologian had evidently some great matter in debate.
At length he rose, still slowly, and stood for a moment in profound
thought. Then, with a sudden briskness, as of a man who had made up his
mind, he took the envelope, and, putting it into a drawer in his
knee-hole table, turned the key upon it.
"It will be one of the very biggest deals," he remarked to himself.
A grand piano by Bechstein stood at the other side of the room, and
Bach's St. Matthew Passion Music was open upon it. Mr. Alington took it
up and turned over the pages with a loving reverence. He paused a
moment, and hummed in his beautiful tenor voice the recitative of "And
Peter went out," and then, lighting the candles, played a few crescendo
chords, and plunged into the intricacies of the great double chorus of
the lightnings and thunders. The sonorous and terrible fugue grew and
grew under his deft hands, rising from crescendo to crescendo with its
maddened, tumultuous ground-bass. A pause of a bar, and with a great
burst he attacked the second part. He sang the air of "the bottomless
pit" with full voice, while his hands quivered mistily in the frenzied
chromatic accompaniment. The appalling terrors of the music possessed
him; he seemed like a man demented. In the last six bars he doubled the
bass as if written for pedals, and with the tierce de Picardy finished
in a crashing chord.
Mr. Alington pushed his rather scanty hair back from his forehead and
gave a great sigh full of reverential awe, the sigh of a religious
artist. He was a true musician, and his own admirable performance of the
wonderful text moved him; it smelled of the flames. Then after a moment
he turned to the last chorus, the most perfect piece of pathos ever
translated into sound, and played it through with all the reticence and
sobriety of his utmost art. The wailing cadences, the simple phrases,
touched him profoundly. Unlike Mrs. Murchison, he did not consider
himself bound to worship Wagner, although the operas did not sound to
him the least alike. He would have told you that he thought him
artistically immoral, that he violated the canons of music, as binding,
so he considered, on musicians as is the moral code on a civilized
society. "A brilliant savage," he said once of that master; "but I know
I am unfashionable."
He sat for a long minute perfectly still when he had finished the
chorus, as absorbed in the thought of it as he had been in the mines
half an hour before. Unaffected moisture stood in the man's eye; his
face was that of a stout and rapturous saint in a stained-glass window
contemplating some beatific vision. He was alone, and perfectly honest
with himself. At length he shut the piano very softly, as if afraid of
disturbing the exquisite sweetness and melancholy beauty of the music by
any other sound, and, candle in hand, went to his bedroom. An admirable
reproduction of Holman Hunt's "Lux Mundi" hung over his fireplace; the
"Triumph of the Innocents" was directly above his anchorite-looking bed.
They were favourite pictures of his, not only for their subject, but for
the genuineness of their feeling. They seemed to him to have grasped
something of the simplicity of the real pre-Raphaelite school--something
of its soberness, its constant love of form, its childlike
straightforwardness. There was an old oak _prie-dieu_ by his bedside,
with several well-thumbed books of devotion on it, and he knelt there a
full ten minutes before he got into bed. He was thankful for many
things--his health, his wealth, his perseverance, his brains, his power
of appreciating beautiful things; and he prayed for their long
continuance and well-being fervently.
Mr. Alington was a sound sleeper and an early riser, and neither his new
and dizzy schemes nor the pathos of the Passion Music kept him awake. He
had various appointments in the City on the following morning, and was
going to lunch with Lord Conybeare at White's. Jack was not there when
he arrived, and he had to solace his waiting moments with the inspection
of the room set aside for the reception of strangers. It was furnished
with a table, on which stood an empty inkstand and a carafe of
stale-looking water, two horsehair chairs, a weighing-machine, and a row
of hat pegs hung up inside a shelfless bookcase. He hoped, however, that
he would not in the future have to confine himself to the stranger's
room when he made an appointment there, since Jack had put him up for
the membership of the club, got Tom Abbotsworthy to second him, and had
induced a large number of members to append their noble names to his
candidature.
Jack came in before long, looking as he always looked, even in the most
broiling weather--perfectly cool, unharassed, and ill to quarrel with.
He never seemed to get either hot or dirty, even in the underground;
smuts passed him by, and settled on the noses of his less fortunate
neighbours.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," he said. "Let us have lunch at once. You
have not been here long, I hope."
"Only a few moments," said Alington; "and I fancy I was here before my
time."
"A fine habit," murmured Jack. "How punctual we should be between us!"
They entered the dining-room, which was rather empty, and took their
seat at a small table a little removed from other lunchers.
"I did not see you last night at the Embassy," said Jack. "I thought you
were sure to be there. Kit told me she had an invitation sent you, and
busy men like you always seem to have time for everything."
"One has all the time there is," said Alington; "and I meant to go. But
the mail brought me news--important news from Australia."
"Indeed? Good news, I hope."
"Excellent news. We shall very soon require your services."
"Ah! What will you drink?"
"Thanks, I never touch wine at lunch. A little water, please. I am a bit
of an ascetic in certain ways. Yes, the news was excellent. I shall get
out a prospectus at once, and float the companies. Out of the five
mines, the same reef, a very rich one, runs through three. The other two
are outliers from this reef, but there appears to be a good deal of
surface gold. They ought to begin paying at once almost. I propose
making two groups out of these five mines--one comprising the outliers,
the other three the main reef. Or we might amalgamate them later. I
strongly recommend your purchasing these outliers in large quantities.
That, at least, is what I intend to do myself."
Jack laughed.
"It is easy to recommend my making large purchases," he said; "and I
wonder if I could run up a bill for them. But circumstances over which I
have long ceased to have any control----"
Mr. Alington held up his large white hand.
"You will not need to cover," he said. "Pay the first call, or, at most,
the first two calls. I assure you that that will be all that is
necessary. Unless I am much more mistaken than I have ever been in my
life, the price will rise very soon and very considerably. You must
remember that you draw a salary as a director. If you wish, I will
advance that for this year."
"That would be very convenient," observed Jack with truth and candour.
"The first call will be half a crown," continued Alington. "A thousand
pounds will thus enable you to command eight thousand shares."
"It is a long time since I have had eight thousand anythings," remarked
Jack; "Of course, I don't count debts. I never count debts. But what
will happen to me if the shares do not go up?"
"The shares will go up," said Alington dryly. "I should advise you to
put yourself entirely in my hands about this. I simply cannot be wrong.
As a director, you are bound to hold shares. I recommend you to put the
greater part of them into these two outlying mines."
"I ask nothing better than to be guided by you," said Jack. "Many thanks
for the hint."
Mr. Alington waved the thanks away, as if they were disproportionately
large to the favour bestowed.
"And I should like to have a meeting of the directors on Tuesday," he
said, "if that will suit you and Lord Abbotsworthy. I am going to see
him this afternoon. I propose to employ my own brokers, men whom I have
dealt with for years."
By degrees the room filled up, and, as the tables near them had begun to
be occupied, they dismissed for the present the subject of the mines.
Jack was more than content to leave his own financial venture in
Alington's hands, for he felt convinced that he was playing fair with
him. Habitually somewhat cynical, he would have thought twice about
going bail for his most intimate acquaintance; but he believed that
Alington, as he himself candidly said, was acting for his own interests
in making it worth a Marquis's while to join the board. About Alington's
ability he had found no two opinions; extensive inquiries showed him
that on all hands he was considered the shrewdest of the shrewd. The
market had already got hints about the new issue, and was waiting with
some impatience for the publication of its prospectus. And the interest
extended far beyond the professional operators; the British public, as
Alington had said, were nearly ripe to go mad on the subject of
Australian gold, and he had chosen his moment well.