Mr. Taynton's statement to his partner, which had taken him so few
minutes to give, was of course concerned only with the latest financial
operation which he had just embarked in, but for the sake of the reader
it will be necessary to go a little further back, and give quite shortly
the main features of the situation in which he and his partner found
themselves placed.
Briefly then, just two years ago, at the time peace was declared in South
Africa, the two partners of Taynton and Mills had sold out £30,000 of
Morris Assheton's securities, which owing to their excellent management
was then worth £40,000, and seeing a quite unrivalled opportunity of
making their fortunes, had become heavy purchasers of South African
mines, for they reasoned that with peace once declared it was absolutely
certain that prices would go up. But, as is sometimes the way with
absolute certainties, the opposite had happened and they had gone down.
They cut their loss, however, and proceeded to buy American rails. In six
months they had entirely repaired the damage, and seeing further
unrivalled opportunities from time to time, in buying motorcar shares, in
running a theatre and other schemes, had managed a month ago to lose all
that was left of the £30,000. Being, therefore, already so deeply
committed, it was mere prudence, the mere instinct of self-preservation
that had led them to sell out the remaining £10,000, and to-day Mr.
Taynton had bought an option in Boston Copper with it. The manner of an
option is as follows:
Boston Copper to-day was quoted at £5 10S 6d, and by paying a premium of
twelve shillings and sixpence per share, they were entitled to buy Boston
Copper shares any time within the next three months at a price of £6 3s.
Supposing therefore (as Mr. Taynton on very good authority had supposed)
that Boston Copper, a rapidly improving company, rose a couple of points
within the next three months, and so stood at £7 10S 6d; he had the right
of exercising his option and buying them at £6 3S thus making £1 7S 6d
per share. But a higher rise than this was confidently expected, and
Taynton, though not really of an over sanguine disposition, certainly
hoped to make good the greater part if not all of their somewhat large
defalcations. He had bought an option of 20,000 shares, the option of
which cost (or would cost at the end of those months) rather over
£10,000. In other words, the moment that the shares rose to a price
higher than £6 3s, all further appreciation was pure gain. If they did
not rise so high, he would of course not exercise the option, and
sacrifice the money.
That was certainly a very unpleasant thing to contemplate, but it had
been more unpleasant when, so far as he knew, Morris was on the verge of
matrimony, and would then step into the management of his own affairs.
But bad though it all was, the situation had certainly been immensely
ameliorated this evening, since on the one hand his partner had, it was
not unreasonable to hope, said to Madge's father things about Morris that
made his marriage with Madge exceedingly unlikely, while on the other
hand, even if it happened, his affairs, according to his own wish, would
remain in Mr. Taynton's hands with the same completeness as heretofore.
It would, of course, be necessary to pay him his income, and though this
would be a great strain on the finances of the two partners, it was
manageable. Besides (Mr. Taynton sincerely hoped that this would not be
necessary) the money which was Mrs. Assheton's for her lifetime was in
his hands also, so if the worst came to the worst--
Now the composition and nature of the extraordinary animal called man is
so unexpected and unlikely that any analysis of Mr. Taynton's character
may seem almost grotesque. It is a fact nevertheless that his was a
nature capable of great things, it is also a fact that he had long ago
been deeply and bitterly contrite for the original dishonesty of using
the money of his client. But by aid of those strange perversities of
nature, he had by this time honestly and sincerely got to regard all
their subsequent employments of it merely as efforts on his part to make
right an original wrong. He wanted to repair his fault, and it seemed to
him that to commit it again was the only means at his disposal for doing
so. A strain, too, of Puritan piety was bound up in the constitution of
his soul, and in private life he exercised high morality, and was also
kind and charitable. He belonged to guilds and societies that had as
their object the improvement and moral advancement of young men. He was a
liberal patron of educational schemes, he sang a fervent and fruity tenor
in the choir of St. Agnes, he was a regular communicant, his nature
looked toward good, and turned its eyes away from evil. To do him justice
he was not a hypocrite, though, if all about him were known, and a
plebiscite taken, it is probable that he would be unanimously condemned.
Yet the universal opinion would be wrong: he was no hypocrite, but only
had the bump of self-preservation enormously developed. He had cheated
and swindled, but he was genuinely opposed to cheating and swindling. He
was cheating and swindling now, in buying the option of Boston Copper.
But he did not know that: he wanted to repair the original wrong, to hand
back to Morris his fortune unimpaired, and also to save himself. But of
these two wants, the second, it must be confessed, was infinitely the
stronger. To save himself there was perhaps nothing that he would stick
at. However, it was his constant wish and prayer that he might not be led
into temptation. He knew well what his particular temptation was, namely
this instinct of self-preservation, and constantly thought and meditated
about it. He knew that he was hardly himself when the stress of it came
on him; it was like a possession.
Mills, though an excellent partner and a man of most industrious habits,
had, so Mr. Taynton would have admitted, one little weak spot. He never
was at the office till rather late in the morning. True, when he came, he
soon made up for lost time, for he was possessed, as we have seen, of a
notable quickness and agility of mind, but sometimes Taynton found that
he was himself forced to be idle till Mills turned up, if his signature
or what not was required for papers before work could be further
proceeded with. This, in fact, was the case next morning, and from half
past eleven Mr. Taynton had to sit idly in his office, as far as the work
of the firm was concerned until his partner arrived. It was a little
tiresome that this should happen to-day, because there was nothing else
that need detain him, except those deeds for the execution of which his
partner's signature was necessary, and he could, if only Mills had been
punctual, have gone out to Rottingdean before lunch, and inspected the
Church school there in the erection of which he had taken so energetic an
interest. Timmins, however, the gray-haired old head clerk, was in the
office with him, and Mr. Taynton always liked a chat with Timmins.
"And the grandson just come home, has he Mr. Timmins?" he was saying. "I
must come and see him. Why he'll be six years old, won't he, by now?"
"Yes, sir, turned six."
"Dear me, how time goes on! The morning is going on, too, and still Mr.
Mills isn't here."
He took a quill pen and drew a half sheet of paper toward him, poised
his pen a moment and then wrote quickly.
"What a pity I can't sign for him," he said, passing his paper over to
the clerk. "Look at that; now even you, Timmins, though you have seen Mr.
Mills's handwriting ten thousand times, would be ready to swear that the
signature was his, would you not?"
Timmins looked scrutinisingly at it.
"Well, I'm sure, sir! What a forger you would have made!" he said
admiringly. "I would have sworn that was Mr. Mills's own hand of write.
It's wonderful, sir."
Mr. Taynton sighed, and took the paper again.
"Yes, it is like, isn't it?" he said, "and it's so easy to do. Luckily
forgers don't know the way to forge properly."
"And what might that be, sir?" asked Timmins.
"Why, to throw yourself mentally into the nature of the man whose
handwriting you wish to forge. Of course one has to know the handwriting
thoroughly well, but if one does that one just has to visualise it, and
then, as I said, project oneself into the other, not laboriously copy the
handwriting. Let's try another. Ah, who is that letter from? Mrs.
Assheton isn't it. Let me look at the signature just once again."
Mr. Taynton closed his eyes a moment after looking at it. Then he took
his quill, and wrote quickly.
"You would swear to that, too, would you not, Timmins?" he asked.
"Why, God bless me yes, sir," said he. "Swear to it on the book."
The door opened and as Godfrey Mills came in, Mr. Taynton tweaked the
paper out of Timmins's hand, and tore it up. It might perhaps seem
strange to dear Mills that his partner had been forging his signature,
though only in jest.
"'Fraid I'm rather late," said Mills.
"Not at all, my dear fellow," said Taynton without the slightest touch of
ill-humour. "How are you? There's very little to do; I want your
signature to this and this, and your careful perusal of that. Mrs.
Assheton's letter? No, that only concerns me; I have dealt with it."
A quarter of an hour was sufficient, and at the end Timmins carried the
papers away leaving the two partners together. Then, as soon as the door
closed, Mills spoke.
"I've been thinking over our conversation of last night," he said, "and
there are some points I don't think you have quite appreciated, which I
should like to put before you."
Something inside Mr. Taynton's brain, the same watcher perhaps who looked
at Morris so closely the evening before, said to him. "He is going to try
it on." But it was not the watcher but his normal self that answered. He
beamed gently on his partner.
"My dear fellow, I might have been sure that your quick mind would have
seen new aspects, new combinations," he said.
Mills leaned forward over the table.
"Yes, I have seen new aspects, to adopt your words," he said, "and I will
put them before you. These financial operations, shall we call them, have
been going on for two years now, have they not? You began by losing a
large sum in South Africans--"
"We began," corrected Mr. Taynton, gently. He was looking at the other
quite calmly; his face expressed no surprise at all; if there was
anything in his expression beyond that of quiet kindness, it was
perhaps pity.
"I said 'you,'" said Mills in a hectoring tone, "and I will soon explain
why. You lost a large sum in South Africans, but won it back again in
Americans. You then again, and again contrary to my advice, embarked in
perfect wild-cat affairs, which ended in our--I say 'our' here--getting
severely scratched and mauled. Altogether you have frittered away
£30,000, and have placed the remaining ten in a venture which to my mind
is as wild as all the rest of your unfortunate ventures. These
speculations have, almost without exception, been choices of your own,
not mine. That was _one_ of the reasons why I said 'you,' not 'we.'"
He paused a moment.
"Another reason is," he said, "because without any exception the
transactions have taken place on your advice and in your name, not in
mine."
That was a sufficiently meaning statement, but Mills did not wish his
partner to be under any misapprehension as to what he implied.
"In other words," he said, "I can deny absolutely all knowledge of the
whole of those operations."
Mr. Taynton gave a sudden start, as if the significance of this had only
this moment dawned on him, as if he had not understood the first
statement. Then he seemed to collect himself.
"You can hardly do that," he said, "as I hold letters of yours which
imply such knowledge."
Mills smiled rather evilly.
"Ah, it is not worth while bluffing," he said. "I have never written such
a letter to you. You know it. Is it likely I should?"
Mr. Taynton apparently had no reply to this. But he had a question to
ask.
"Why are you taking up this hostile and threatening attitude?"
"I have not meant to be hostile, and I have certainly not threatened,"
replied Mills. "I have put before you, quite dispassionately I hope,
certain facts. Indeed I should say it was you who had threatened in the
matter of those letters, which, unhappily, have never existed at all. I
will proceed.
"Now what has been my part in this affair? I have observed you lost
money in speculations of which I disapproved, but you always knew best.
I have advanced money to you before now to tide over embarrassments that
would otherwise have been disastrous. By the exercise of diplomacy--or
lying--yesterday, I averted a very grave danger. I point out to you also
that there is nothing to implicate me in these--these fraudulent
employments of a client's money. So I ask, where I come in? What do I
get by it?"
Mr. Taynton's hands were trembling as he fumbled at some papers on his
desk.
"You know quite well that we are to share all profits?" he said.
"Yes, but at present there have not been any. I have been, to put it
plainly, pulling you out of holes. And I think--I think my trouble ought
to be remunerated. I sincerely hope you will take that view also. Or
shall I remind you again that there is nothing in the world to connect me
with these, well, frauds?"
Mr. Taynton got up from his chair, strolled across to the window where he
drew down the blind a little, so as to shut out the splash of sunlight
that fell on his table.
"You have been betting again, I suppose," he asked quietly.
"Yes, and have been unfortunate. Pray do not trouble to tell me again how
foolish it is to gamble like that. You may be right. I have no doubt you
are right. But I think one has as much right to gamble with one's own
money as to do so with the money of other people."
This apparently seemed unanswerable; anyhow Mr. Taynton made no reply.
Then, having excluded the splash of sunlight he sat down again.
"You have not threatened, you tell me," he said, "but you have pointed
out to me that there is no evidence that you have had a hand in certain
transactions. You say that I know you have helped me in these
transactions; you say you require remuneration for your services. Does
not that, I ask, imply a threat? Does it not mean that you are
blackmailing me? Else why should you bring these facts--I do not dispute
them--to my notice? Supposing I refuse you remuneration?"
Mills had noted the signs of agitation and anxiety. He felt that he was
on safe ground. The blackmailer lives entirely on the want of courage in
his victims.
"You will not, I hope, refuse me remuneration," he said. "I have not
threatened you yet, because I feel sure you will be wise. I might, of
course, subsequently threaten you."
Again there was silence. Mr. Taynton had picked up a quill pen, the same
with which he had been writing before, for the nib was not yet dry.
"The law is rather severe on blackmailers," he remarked.
"It is. Are you going to bring an action against me for blackmail? Will
not that imply the re-opening of--of certain ledgers, which we agreed
last night had better remain shut?"
Again there was silence. There was a completeness in this reasoning which
rendered comment superfluous.
"How much do you want?" asked Mr. Taynton.
Mills was not so foolish as to "breathe a sigh of relief." But he
noted with satisfaction that there was no sign of fight in his
adversary and partner.
"I want two thousand pounds," he said, "at once."
"That is a large sum."
"It is. If it were a small sum I should not trouble you."
Mr. Taynton again got up and strayed aimlessly about the room.
"I can't give it you to-day," he said. "I shall have to sell out
some stock."
"I am not unreasonable about a reasonable delay," said Mills.
"You are going to town this afternoon?"
"Yes, I must. There is a good deal of work to be done. It will take me
all to-morrow."
"And you will be back the day after to-morrow?"
"Yes, I shall be back here that night, that is to say, I shall not get
away from town till the afternoon. I should like your definite answer
then, if it is not inconvenient. I could come and see you that night, the
day after to-morrow--if you wished."
Mr. Taynton thought over this with his habitual deliberation.
"You will readily understand that all friendly relations between us are
quite over," he said. "You have done a cruel and wicked thing, but I
don't see how I can resist it. I should like, however, to have a little
further talk about it, for which I have not time now."
Mills rose.
"By all means," he said. "I do not suppose I shall be back here till nine
in the evening. I have had no exercise lately, and I think very likely I
shall get out of the train at Falmer, and walk over the downs."
Mr. Taynton's habitual courtesy came to his aid. He would have been
polite to a thief or a murderer, if he met him socially.
"Those cool airs of the downs are very invigorating." he said. "I will
not expect you therefore till half past nine that night. I shall dine at
home, and be alone."
"Thanks. I must be going. I shall only just catch my train to town."
Mills nodded a curt gesture of farewell, and left the room, and when he
had gone Mr. Taynton sat down again in the chair by the table, and
remained there some half hour. He knew well the soundness of his
partner's reasoning; all he had said was fatally and abominably true.
There was no way out of it. Yet to pay money to a blackmailer was, to the
legal mind, a confession of guilt. Innocent people, unless they were
abject fools, did not pay blackmail. They prosecuted the blackmailer. Yet
here, too, Mills's simple reasoning held good. He could not prosecute the
blackmailer, since he was not in the fortunate position of being
innocent. But if you paid a blackmailer once, you were for ever in his
power. Having once yielded, it was necessary to yield again. He must get
some assurance that no further levy would take place. He must satisfy
himself that he would be quit of all future danger from this quarter. Yet
from whence was such assurance to come? He might have it a hundred times
over in Godfrey Mills's handwriting, but he could never produce that as
evidence, since again the charge of fraudulent employment of clients'
money would be in the air. No doubt, of course, the blackmailer would be
sentenced, but the cause of blackmail would necessarily be public. No,
there was no way out.
Two thousand pounds, though! Frugally and simply as he lived, that was to
him a dreadful sum, and represented the savings of at least eighteen
months. This meant that there was for him another eighteen months of
work, just when he hoped to see his retirement coming close to him. Mills
demanded that he should work an extra year and a half, and out of those
few years that in all human probability still remained to him in this
pleasant world. Yet there was no way out!
Half an hour's meditation convinced him of this, and, as was his sensible
plan, when a thing was inevitable, he never either fought against it nor
wasted energy in regretting it. And he went slowly out of the office into
which he had come so briskly an hour or two before. But his face
expressed no sign of disquieting emotion; he nodded kindly to Timmins,
and endorsed his desire to be allowed to come and see the grandson. If
anything was on his mind, or if he was revolving some policy for the
future, it did not seem to touch or sour that kindly, pleasant face.