“‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘a pure yellow stone is. But this is neither one nor the other. It’s off-colour, and you know that as well as I.’
“‘Won’t you bid for it, then?’ said one of them.
“‘I’ll bid seventy pounds,’ I said, ‘but not a penny more.’
“You should have heard the howl they all set up. ‘It’s worth five hundred,’ the fellow cried.
“‘All right,’ I said, ‘keep it and sell it for that; good day,’ and I went off. The stone was sent after me that evening with a request for my cheque, and I sold it for a hundred two days afterwards. You see old Van Harmer’s training has come in very handy. I just tell you this little anecdote to let you see that though I’m new in the work I’m not to be done. Nothing in the papers here from Russia. I am ready, come when it may. What would you do if there should be any hitch and the affair did not come off? Would you cut and run, or would you stand by your colours and pay a shilling or so in the pound? The more I think of it the more I curse your insanity in getting us into such a mess. Good-bye.”
“He is right. It was insanity,” said the old merchant leaning his head upon his hands. “It seems unkind of the lad to say so when he is so far away, but he was always plain and blunt. ‘If the affair did not come off’ — he must have some doubts about the matter, else he would not even suppose such a thing. God knows what I should do then. There are other ways — other ways.” He passed his hand over his eyes as he spoke, as though to shut out some ugly vision. Such a wan, strange expression played over his grim features that he was hardly to be recognised as the revered elder of the Trinitarian Chapel or the esteemed man of business of Fenchurch Street.
He was lost in thought for some little time, and then, rising, he touched the bell upon the table. Gilray trotted in upon the signal so rapidly and noiselessly, that he might have been one of those convenient genii in the Eastern fables, only that the little clerk’s appearance, from the tips of his ink-stained fingers to the toes of his seedy boots, was so hopelessly prosaic that it was impossible to picture him as anything but what he was.
“Ah, Gilray!” the merchant began, “is Mr. Dimsdale in the office?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s all right. He seems to be very regular in his attendance.”
“Very, sir.”
“And seems to take to the business very well.”
“Uncommonly quick, sir, to be sure,” said the head clerk. “What with work among the ships, and work in the office, he’s at it late and early.”
“That is very right,” said the old man, playing with the letter weights. “Application in youth, Gilray, leads to leisure in old age. Is the Maid of Athens unloading?”
“Mr. Dimsdale has been down to her this morning, sir. They’re getting the things out fast. He wants to call attention to the state of the vessel, Mr. Girdlestone. He says that it’s making water even in dock, and that some of the hands say that they won’t go back in her.”
“Tut! tut!” John Girdlestone said peevishly. “What are the Government inspectors for? There is no use paying them if we are to inspect ourselves. If they insist upon any alterations they shall be made.”
“They were there, sir, at the same time as Mr. Dimsdale,” said Gilray, diffidently.
“Well, what then?” asked his employer.
“He says, sir, that the inspectors went down to the cabin and had some champagne with Captain Spender. They then professed themselves to be very well satisfied with the state of the vessel and came away.”
“There you are!” the senior partner cried triumphantly. “Of course these men can see at a glance how things stand, and if things had really been wrong they would have called attention to it. Let us have no more of these false alarms. You must say a few words on the point to Mr. Dimsdale, as coming from yourself, not from me. Tell him to be more careful before he jumps to conclusions.”
“I will, sir.”
“And bring me ledger No. 33.”
Gilray stretched up his arm and took down a fat little ledger from a high shelf, which he laid respectfully before his employer. Then, seeing that he was no longer wanted, he withdrew.
Ledger No. 33 was secured by a clasp and lock — the latter a patent one which defied all tamperers. John Girdlestone took a small key from his pocket and opened it with a quick snap. A precious volume this, for it was the merchant’s private book, which alone contained a true record of the financial state of the firm, all others being made merely for show. Without it he would have been unable to keep his son in the dark for so many months until bitter necessity at last compelled him to show his hand.
He turned the pages over slowly and sadly. Here was a record of the sums sunk in the Lake Tanganyika Gold Company, which was to have paid 33 per cent., and which fell to pieces in the second month of its existence. Here was the money advanced to Durer, Hallett, & Co., on the strength of securities which proved to be the flimsiest of insecurities when tested. Further on was the account of the dealings of the firm with the Levant Petroleum Company, the treasurer of which had levanted with the greater part of the capital. Here, too, was a memorandum of the sums sunk upon the Evening Star and the Providence, whose unfortunate collision had well-nigh proved the death blow of the firm. It was melancholy reading, and perhaps the last page was the most melancholy of all. On it the old man had drawn up in a condensed form an exact account of the present condition of the firm’s finances. Here it is exactly word for word as he had written it down himself.
GIRDLESTONE & CO.
October 1876
Debit. Credit.
Pounds Sterling Pounds Sterling Debts incurred previous to | Ezra, in Africa, holds disclosure to Ezra 34000 | this money with which 15000 pounds raised at six | to speculate. 35000 months, and 20000 pounds | Balance in bank, at nine months 35000 | including what remains Interest on said money at | of Dimsdale’s premium. 8400 5 per cent. 1125 | Profit on the cargo of Working expenses of the | Maid of Athens, now firm during the next six | in port. 2000 months, including cost of | Profit on the cargoes ships, at 150 pounds per | of Black Eagle,Swan week 3900 | and Panther, calculated Private expenses at | at the same rate. 6000 Ecclestone Square, say 1000 | Deficit 26425 Expenses of Langworthy | in Russia, and of my dear | son in Africa, say 600 | Insurances 1200 | Total 76825 | Total 76825 | All this money must be found within |The possibility of the sinking nine months at the outside. |of a ship must not be |overlooked — that would bring in |from 12000 to 20000 pounds.
“Come, it’s not so very bad after all,” the merchant muttered, after he had gone over these figures very slowly and carefully. He leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling with a much more cheerful expression upon his face. “At the worst it is less than thirty thousand pounds. Why, many firms would think little of it. The fact is, that I have so long been accustomed to big balances on the right side that it seems to be a very dreadful thing now that it lies the other way. A dozen things may happen to set all right. I must not forget, however,” he continued, with a darker look, “that I have dipped into my credit so freely that I could not borrow any more without exciting suspicion and having the whole swarm down on us. After all, our hopes lie in the diamonds. Ezra cannot fail. He must succeed. Who can prevent him?”
“Major Tobias Clutterbuck,” cried the sharp, creaky voice of Gilray as if in answer to the question, and the little clerk, who had knocked once or twice unnoticed, opened the door and ushered in the old Campaigner.
It may be well to remark, that this and succeeding incidents occurred in the old Crown Colony days, before the diamond legislation was as strict as it has since become.
CHAPTER XVIII.
MAJOR TOBIAS CLUTTERBUCK COMES IN FOR A THOUSAND POUNDS.
John Girdlestone had frequently heard his son speak of the major in the days when they had been intimate, and had always attributed some of the young man’s more obvious vices to the effects of this ungodly companionship. He had also heard from Ezra a mangled versi
on of the interview and quarrel in the private room of Nelson’s Restaurant. Hence, as may be imagined, his feelings towards his visitor were far from friendly, and he greeted him as he entered with the coldest of possible bows. The major, however, was by no means abashed by this chilling reception, but stumped forward with beaming face and his pudgy hand outstretched, so that the other had no alternative but to shake it, which he did very gingerly and reluctantly.
“And how are ye?” said the major, stepping back a pace or two, and inspecting the merchant as though he were examining his points with the intention of purchasing him. “Many’s the time I’ve heard talk of ye. It’s a real treat to see ye. How are ye?” Pouncing upon the other’s unresponsive hand, he wrung it again with effusion.
“I am indebted to Providence for fairly good health, sir,” John
Girdlestone answered coldly. “May I request you to take a seat?”
“That was what me friend Fagan was trying to do for twelve years, and ruined himself over it in the ind. He put up at Murphytown in the Conservative interest, and the divil a vote did he get, except one, and that was a blind man who signed the wrong paper be mistake, Ha! ha!” The major laughed boisterously at his own anecdote, and mopped his forehead with his handkerchief.
The two men, as they stood opposite each other, were a strange contrast, the one tall, grave, white, and emotionless, the other noisy and pompous, with protuberant military chest and rubicund features. They had one common characteristic, however. From under the shaggy eyebrows of the merchant and the sparse light-coloured lashes of the major there came the same keen, restless, shifting glance. Both were crafty, and each was keenly on his guard against the other.
“I have heard of you from my son,” the merchant said, motioning his visitor to a chair. “You were, I believe, in the habit of meeting together for the purpose of playing cards, billiards, and other such games, which I by no means countenance myself, but to which my son is unhappily somewhat addicted.”
“You don’t play yourself,” said the major, in a sympathetic voice. “Ged, sir, it’s never too late to begin, and many a man has put in a very comfortable old age On billiards and whist. Now, if ye feel inclined to make a start, I’ll give ye seventy-five points in a hundred for a commincement.”
“Thank you,” said the merchant drily. “It is not one of my ambitions.
Was this challenge the business upon which you came?”
The old soldier laughed until his merriment startled the clerks in the counting-house. “Be jabers!” he said, In a wheezy voice, “d’ye think I came five miles to do that? No, sir, I wanted to talk to you about your son.”
“My son!”
“Yes, your son. He’s a smart lad — very smart indeed — about as quick as they make ‘em. He may be a trifle coarse at times, but that’s the spirit of the age, me dear sir. Me friend Tuffleton, of the Blues, says that delicacy went out of fashion with hair powder and beauty patches. he’s a demned satirical fellow is Tuffleton. Don’t know him, eh?”
“No, sir, I don’t,” Girdlestone said angrily; “nor have I any desire to make his acquaintance. Let us proceed to business for my time is valuable.”
The major looked at him with an amiable smile. “That quick temper runs in the family,” he said. “I’ve noticed It in your son Ezra. As I said before, he’s a smart lad; but me friend, he’s shockingly rash and extremely indiscrate. Ye musk speak to him about it.”
“What do you mean sir?” asked the merchant, white with anger.
“Have you come to insult him in his absence?”
“Absence?” said the soldier, still smiling blandly over his stock. “That’s the very point I wanted to get at. He is away in Africa — at the diamond fields. A wonderful interprise, conducted with remarkable energy, but also with remarkable rashness, sir — yes, bedad, inexcusable rashness.”
Old Girdlestone took up his heavy ebony ruler and played with it nervously. He had an overpowering desire to hurl it at the head of his companion.
“What would ye say, now,” the veteran continued, crossing one leg over the other and arguing the matter out in a confidential undertone—”what would you say if a young man came to you, and, on the assumption that you were a dishonest blackgaird, appealed to you to help him in a very shady sort of a scheme? It would argue indiscretion on his part, would it not?”
The merchant sat still, but grew whiter and whiter.
“And if on the top of that he gave you all the details of his schame, without even waiting to see if you favoured it or not, he would be more than indiscrate, wouldn’t he? Your own good sinse, me dear sir, will tell you that he would be culpably foolish — culpably so, bedad!”
“Well, sir?” said the old man, in a hoarse voice.
“Well,” continued the major, “I have no doubt that your son told you of the interesting little conversation that we had together. He was good enough to promise that if I went to Russia and pretinded to discover a fictitious mine, I should be liberally rewarded by the firm. I was under the necessity of pointing out to him that certain principles on which me family” — here the major inflated his chest—”on which me family are accustomed to act would prevint me from taking advantage of his offer. He then, I am sorry to say, lost his temper, and some words passed between us, the result of which was that we parted so rapidly that, be jabers! I had hardly time to make him realise how great an indiscretion he had committed.”
The merchant still sat perfectly still, tapping the table with his black ebony ruler.
“Of course, afther hearing a skitch of the plan,” continued the major, “me curiosity was so aroused that I could not help following the details with intherest. I saw the gintleman who departed for Russia — Langworthy, I believe, was his name. Ged! I knew a chap of that name in the Marines who used to drink raw brandy and cayenne pepper before breakfast every morning. Did ye? Of course you couldn’t. What was I talking of at all at all?”
Girdlestone stared gloomily at his visitor. The latter took a pinch of snuff from a tortoise-shell box, and flicked away a few wandering grains which settled upon the front of his coat.
“Yes,” he went on, I saw Langworthy off to Russia. Then I saw your son start for Africa. He’s an interprising lad, and sure to do well there. coelum non animam mutant, as we used to say at Clongowes. He’ll always come to the front, wherever he is, as long as he avoids little slips like this one we’re spaking of. About the same time I heard that Girdlestone & Co, had raised riddy money to the extint of five and thirty thousand pounds. That’s gone to Africa, too, I presume. It’s a lot o’ money to invist in such a game, and it might be safe if you were the only people that knew about it, but whin there are others—”
“Others?”
“Why, me, of course,” said the major. “I know about it, and more be token I am not in the swim with you. Sure, I could go this very evening to the diamond merchants about town and give them a tip about the coming fall in prices that would rather astonish ‘em.”
“Look here, Major Clutterbuck,” cried the merchant, in a voice which quivered with suppressed passion, “you have come into possession of an important commercial secret. Why beat about the bush any longer? What is the object of your visit to-day? What is it that you want?”
“There now!” the major said, addressing himself and smiling more amicably than ever. “That’s business. Bedad, there’s where you commercial men have the pull. You go straight to the point and stick there. Ah, when I look at ye, I can’t help thinking of your son. The same intelligent eye, the same cheery expression, the same devil-may-care manner and dry humour—”
“Answer my question, will you?” the merchant interrupted savagely.
“And the same hasty timper,” continued the major imperturbably.
“I’ve forgotten, me dear sir, what it was you asked me.”
“What is it you want?”
“Ah, yes, of course. What is it I want?” the old soldier said meditatively. “Some would say more, some l
ess. Some would want half, but that is overdoing it. How does a thousand pound stroike you? Yes, I think we may put it at a thousand pounds.”
“You want a thousand pounds?”
“Ged, I’ve been wanting it all me life. The difference is that I’m going to git it now.”
“And for what?”
“Sure, for silence — for neutrality. We’re all in it now, and there’s a
fair division of labour. You plan, your son works, I hold me tongue.
You make your tens of thousands, I make my modest little thousand.
We all git paid for our throuble.”
“And suppose I refuse?”
“Ah! but you wouldn’t — you couldn’t,” the major said suavely. “Ged, sir, I haven’t known ye long, but I have far too high an opinion of ye to suppose ye could do anything so foolish. If you refuse, your speculation is thrown away. There’s no help for it. Bedad, it would be painful for me to have to blow the gaff; but you know the old saying, that ‘charity begins at home.’ You must sell your knowledge at the best market.”
Girdlestone thought intently for a minute or two, with his great eyebrows drawn down over his little restless eyes.
“You said to my son,” he remarked at last, “that you were too honourable to embark in our undertaking. Do you consider it honourable to make use of knowledge gained in confidence for the purpose of extorting money?”
“Me dear sir,” answered the major, holding up his hand deprecatingly, “you put me in the painful position of having to explain meself in plain words. If I saw a man about to do a murther, I should think nothing of murthering him. If I saw a pickpocket at work, I’d pick his pocket, and think it good fun to do it. Now, this little business of yours is — well, we’ll say unusual, and if what I do seems a little unusual too, it’s to be excused. Ye can’t throw stones at every one, me boy, and then be surprised when some one throws one at you. You bite the diamond holders, d’ye see, and I take a little nibble at you. It’s all fair enough.”
Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) Page 508