For two days Margaret Leferre moved in a world of hideous unreality.
Strange people interviewed her: a tall, big-framed man, who was
strangely sympathetic in his heavy way, a bank manager who talked
wildly and incomprehensibly until Danty appeared and whisked him off.
One thunderous fact hammered night and day at her weary brain--Rex was
dead by his own hand, and the man she was to marry, the man who,
frantic with anxiety, was calling three times a day and being refused
admission to her, was the cause. Money was his god!
It was hard to adjust her views of him, harder still to comprehend the
callous brutality that had sent a young soul wandering into the
eternal night.
This engagement of hers had been a thing of natural growth: the
families had been friends for years; she had known Luke Maddison since
she was a child. There had been no sudden meeting, no violent kindling
of a consuming flame--she hardly remembered the time she did not like
him, and could not place her finger upon the month and the year when
liking was love.
This was the real calamity of her situation if only she could realize
it. She remembered now all that Ronnie had said of him--he was a
“tightwad.” She had always thought Luke was generous to a point of
imbecility. But that was the facet he presented to her--men knew
better. She set her teeth and brought herself to asking a question of
Danty, who had come strangely near to her in these ugly days. Danty
shrugged his shoulders.
“I am afraid it is a fact--Maddison thinks too much about money. I saw
him the other day, and the only thing he said about Rex was how lucky
for everybody it was that Rex was insured.”
(Here he spoke the truth, for Luke had referred to the insurance as a
protection against the girl being saddled with her brother’s debts.)
“He is fanatical on the point. Naturally he doesn’t appear that way to
you. You are his second obsession.” He saw her wince and went on
quickly: “That is a horrible thing to say, but it is true--except that
I am not so sure that at the moment you aren’t the first.”
It was after this that her cold hatred of the man whose name she was
to bear began to take definite shape. She could not know how much this
almost insane resentment owed its growth to the ingenuity of her new
counsellor.
Danty was clever--diabolically ingenious. He thought quickly, planned
quickly, acted as he planned. The idea came to him on the night of
Rex’s death. It seemed too fantastic for accomplishment. He allowed
the whirling nebula of it to retain its shapelessness until he had
sounded her. If she loved Maddison in the proper way, she would take a
view charitable to his intentions; she would indorse, however
half-heartedly, the conventional mercy of a coroner’s jury and put
Rex’s letter in the category of his minor derangements. This would
have dissolved the nebula of Mr. Morell’s plan to nothingness. But he
found Margaret in a mood to believe the worst, receptive, indeed
eager. And then the nebula solidified into form.
“Money is his god,” was his text; he worked harder on that theme than
he had ever worked in the days when he lived on the credulity of
chance-found strangers. All the tricks of his profession, all the
eloquent persuasions which can be best exercised by innuendo rather
than bald statement, all the craft of suggestion--they were exercised.
“At the moment, I should imagine he is so keen to marry you that he
would sacrifice every penny he has. I honestly believe that if you
asked him to assign you his fortune--as of course you could in your
antenuptial contract; I mean, it is frequently done--he would sign
without hesitation. He would hate it afterwards, and I dare say the
honeymoon wouldn’t be over before he induced you to reassign every
penny to him. I often wonder what some of these overgenerous lovers
would feel like if their wives refused to be so accommodating.”
She stared past him through the window. She was lovely; it was not the
bold loveliness of Millie Haynes, who died in an infirmary, but
something so delicate and unblemished that it caught his breath. He
allowed his eyes to rove the field of her physical perfections. He was
gambling on her strength of character--on Luke Maddison’s weakness.
There was something of the weakling in Luke or he was greatly
mistaken--and Mr. Danton Morell was seldom wrong in his appraisement
of men.
“It is almost incredible,” she said slowly. “If I thought…”
The nebula had not only solidified, it was shaped.
“About money being Maddison’s god?” His tone was one of surprise: he
was almost hurt that his characteristic of her fiancé was not as
patent to her as to himself. “Good Lord! I could give you a dozen
proofs.”
He supplied, not a dozen, but sufficient. Danty’s inventive power
needed the least stimulation.
“I know a man in Norfolk, one of Maddison’s best friends. Maddison was
landed with a block of shares in an oil field that had practically run
dry. One night he asked this fellow to dinner, and before the night
was over had transferred nearly a hundred thousand perfectly worthless
shares to a man who trusted him as--well, as you trust him! Another
case--and this was common property in the City--was a man who…”
The second lie came as glibly as the first. It was all very crude and
on a balanced mind must have produced no effect but scornful unbelief.
A week before, had he dared presume upon the mushroom friendship, he
would have found himself on the wrong side of the door. But Rex lay
shrouded in a mortuary chamber and a coroner’s officer was already
gathering twelve good men and true to pass judgment on the mind that
had willed a revolver to explode.
Danty saw the red lips grow straighter.
He had a servant who was a sometime confederate. Pi Coles had been a
card sharper until Providence smote his hands with rheumatoid. He was
an undersized little man, completely bald, with a face wrinkled with
pain and age. To him Danty confided most of his thoughts--but
obliquely, for he never mentioned names.
“It’s queer, Pi, how the mugs fall for any good story! Do you remember
when you and I were on the same landing in Strangways Jail? Doesn’t
seem eight years ago, and here am I in society, giving advice to
people with hundreds of thousands--people who know the top-notchers!”
“You always was a gentleman, Larry--I’ve never known you when you
didn’t dress for dinner,” said the sycophantic Pi.
“Not so much of the ‘Larry,’” warned Mr. Morell.
He could sit in his comfortable room and muse on the favours which
fate had shown to him. His position was not altogether unique--had not
a famous confidence man once been the guest of an Illustrious Foreign
Personage and been presented at one of the few European courts as a
friend of Royalty?
It was the third day following the tragedy. The twelve good men and
true were to be assembled that afternoon. It was not the happiest day
in Danty’s life. A message came to him the night before from Luke
Maddison, and there was something peremptory, almost unfriendly, in
the summons; and what it was all about Danty knew too well, only he
had hoped that his presence at the bank one snowy afternoon had been
unobserved by the cashier.
Luke had his office in Pall Mall, an out-of-the-way place for a man
engaged in financial transactions; but Maddison’s Bank had owned the
site on which the modern building stood for two hundred years, and
that modest room overlooking Waterloo Place had been the “master
office” from those far-off days when they overlooked a country vista.
Luke had been at his office since eight o’clock, an hour before the
arrival of the staff, and here his bearded manager found him, sitting
at his table, his head in his hands, his personal letters unopened.
Maddison looked up with a start as the manager entered.
“Hullo!” he said awkwardly. “Is there anything wrong?”
There were many things wrong from the point of view of Mr. Stiles,
that shrewd man of affairs. He laid a small sheaf of papers on the
table and detailed the contents of the documents briefly.
“Here are four or five transactions that ought to be closed to-day,
Mr. Maddison. I am rather worried about them. The Gulanga Oil accounts
should be settled. We made a very considerable loss there.”
Luke nodded impatiently.
“Settle it,” he said. “No message from--from Miss Leferre?”
It was a stupid question to ask, for he had a private ’phone and he
knew that any message that came from Margaret would be put through to
him direct.
The manager shook his head gloomily.
“A bad business, sir. I have not spoken to you about it because I
realize how badly you must be feeling. The Northern and Southern have
been on the ’phone again this morning about that check--you remember
they queried the signature yesterday?”
“Yes, yes.” Luke’s usually gentle voice was harsh. “Tell the manager
it is all right.”
“I told him yesterday, as a matter of fact.” Mr. Stiles was inclined
to linger on a subject which was hateful to the other. In desperation
Luke reverted to the question of the Gulanga Oil Concession, and for
once Mr. Stiles’s fatherly interest in the business irritated him.
“Of course, sir, I know that Maddison’s is as sound as a bell of
brass, but there is no getting away from the fact that we have been
making rather heavy losses during the past six months, and I am afraid
I shall have to call upon your reserves. Personally,” he went on,
oblivious of Luke’s growing resentment, “I have always believed we
made a mistake in not selling out to a joint stock concern. In private
banking businesses the personal security plays too big a part for my
liking----”
Mercifully the house ’phone rang at that moment. Luke snatched up the
receiver and listened with a frown.
“Yes, show him in, please.” And, as he replaced the receiver: “I am
seeing Mr. Morell and I do not wish to be interrupted,” he said.
Mr. Stiles made a little grimace. He had been all his life in the firm
of Maddison & Sons, and he did not feel called upon to disguise his
dislike of the caller.
“There is something about that fellow that I dislike very much, Mr.
Maddison. I hope we are not going to carry his account?”
Luke shook his head and nodded toward the door.
Mr. Danton Morell came into an atmosphere which he, sensitive in such
matters, realized was charged with hostility. Nevertheless he was his
smiling self, and laid his carefully brushed silk hat upon the table.
Luke did not fail to notice that he wore a mourning tie, and that, for
some reason, was a further strain upon his jangled nerves.
“Sit down, will you?” His manner and voice were brusque. “You were a
friend of poor Rex’s?”
Danty inclined his head sorrowfully.
“Yes, I was completely in his confidence,” he said. “I think I told
you the day following his unfortunate----”
Luke cut short the recollection.
“Were you so much in his confidence that you accompanied him to the
Northern and Southern Bank three days ago when he cashed a check for
eighteen thousand five hundred pounds?”
Danty opened his eyes wide in well-simulated surprise.
“Why, of course,” he said. “Rex had made very heavy losses in the
City, and I advised him to see you. I understood you gave him a check
for that amount----”
“Did he tell you that?” Luke’s blue eyes did not leave the man’s face.
“Certainly. Why, what was wrong? I saw the check myself.”
There was an uncomfortable pause, and then:
“Did you see him sign it?” asked Luke deliberately.
Danty’s gaze did not falter.
“I am afraid I do not understand you,” he said evenly. “I saw him
endorse it----”
“My name was forged to it. I did not give Rex a check for that amount.
I have been making inquiries. I find that he was heavily involved in a
derelict West African gold-mining syndicate, most of the shares of
which you bought for a song less than a year ago. He has been buying
these shares on margin and they have been steadily dropping in value.
On the day he paid you eighteen thousand five hundred pounds there
came another demand for a larger amount.”
Danty’s heart sank though he gave no visible evidence of his
perturbation. This man knew more than he had dreamed could be known.
Here was a crisis in Mr. Morell’s affairs which might easily lead him
to ruin and undo all those fine schemes of his.
“I do not exactly know what you are suggesting,” he said. “My interest
in the company is a very slight one, and I was horrified when I
learned that Rex had been gambling in the shares. I give you the
fullest permission to make any investigation you wish.”
Luke opened the drawer of his desk and took out a check. From where he
sat Danty thought the signature was a tolerably good forgery. He had
thought so when Rex had brought the check to him. It is the simplest
thing in the world to forge a name, and so far as he had been able to
judge there were no flaws in Rex Leferre’s essay in that dangerous
game.
“You realize what is wrong with this check?” asked Luke.
The other shook his head.
“Are you suggesting that I knew the check was forged?” he asked.
Before he could reply there was a tap at the door and Luke looked up
angrily.
“Come in,” he said.
It was the apologetic manager.
“I am sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Maddison, but will you see Mr. Bird
of Scotland Yard?”
In spite of his self-possession Danty half rose from his seat. The
Sparrow was the last man in the world he wanted to meet that morning.