The Victorian Villains Megapack (21 page)

The whole time he was speaking Pringle’s eyes never left the packet which Redmile had placed on the table. It was duly sealed and franked by the Secretary of State, the latter operation having evidently just been concluded when Redmile brought it into the room; and Pringle, mentally comparing it with the one reposing in his coat pocket, decided that they bore a sufficient family likeness to render them practically indistinguishable. Suddenly starting up and turning to the window, he exclaimed, as he pointed to something outside, “Extraordinary!”

“What is the matter?” exclaimed Redmile, going up to the window and looking over the Park.

“Excuse me, but that man walking along there is the very image of Karazoff, the accomplice of Grenevitsky, who assassinated the Czar of Russia in ’81’

“Is he, indeed?” said Redmile, gazing with much interest at an innocent-looking pedestrian who was approaching from the direction of the Mall.

“I never saw a more astounding likeness. You may remember that Grenevitsky shared the same fate as the Czar by the explosion of the bomb, but Karazoff, who was standing a little farther back, was unhurt, and was at once arrested.”

“Did you see the assassination, then?”

“No; but I was in St. Petersburg afterwards, and saw Karazoff and the other accomplices hanged. I shall never forget his face as long as I live—he went to his death with the air of a martyr. How it snowed, too, that day!”

“Marvellous fanaticism,” murmured Redmile, as the Nihilist’s double, who was in point of fact a Congregationalist minister, ascended the steps leading to Downing Street. He continued to stare out of the window until the imperative whir of an electric bell made him turn with a start.

“I must really ask you to excuse me,” he said. “I have a most important despatch to send off to Paris, and there isn’t a moment to lose. I’ll send you another check as soon as I have some time to spare. Will you give me your address?”

“Don’t let such a small matter as that trouble you. I will look in at your chambers again one evening—if I may.”

“Pray do! Excuse me, but the Queen’s messenger is waiting. I haven’t a moment—good-morning—good-morning!”

Descending the grand staircase, Pringle hurried into Parliament Street and, hailing a cab, drove back to his chambers. To resume the artificial port-wine mark was but the work of a moment after which he strolled leisurely into the City.

Making the circuit of the Bank, he turned into Throgmorton Street and entered a large doorway whose passage-walls were plastered with names from floor to ceiling. Opening a door on the ground floor, “Is Mr. Hedsor in?” he inquired.

“Just gone over to the House,” replied a smart clerk.

“Would you kindly let him know Mr. Pringle would like to speak to him.”

It was a band-boxed gentleman in morning costume, wearing a tall hat of effulgent glossiness, who entered the office soon after.

“How do you do, Mr. Pringle? How’s literature?” was his greeting.

“Very quiet just now.”

“Same here!”

“Nothing doing?”

“Ab-so-
lute
-ly nothing!”

“Really?” And Pringle, with a smile, glanced round the office. A clerk was sitting ankle-deep in a pile of wrappers and envelopes, which gradually submerged his legs as he attacked a heap of letters and circulars; beside him another incessantly tapped correspondence out of a typewriter; while a third divided his attention between responses to the calls of a telephone and the sundering of a tape disgorged in endless snaky coils from the unresting little machine in one corner.

“Fact!” asseverated the broker, leading the way to a little den separated from the office by a glazed window-frame partition. “Truth is, Paris has got the blues, and ditch-water’s sparkling compared to the present state of things.”

“What about Consols today?”

“Consols? Not much in my line, you know.”

“But I suppose you’re open to do business?”

“Oh, of course it can be done. Depends what you want to do, though.”

“Will you sell for me?”

“How much?” inquired the broker, producing a little book.

“What do you say to fifty thousand?”

The other looked dubiously at him, and sucked the top of his pencil. “There’s always a large bear account open—I shall want good cover,” he remarked after a pause.

“Will you take one percent?”

“Why, yes, I’ll take that. From anyone else I should ask two—indeed, I don’t like it much at any price. They’re high enough, goodness knows, now; but who’s to say they won’t go higher?”

“What are they at?”

Mr. Hedsor went into the outer office and consulted the board on which the tapes were impaled.

“A hundred and ten and an eighth,” said he, returning. “Lord! What a price!”

“Well, I think I’ll trust my luck,” Pringle remarked quietly.

“You need something better to trust to than luck in these hard times.”

“Did you ever hear of a company called the ‘Lobatsi Consolidated’?”

“Yes, you were lucky there, I own, for a mere bit of stagging.”

“And wasn’t there another called the ‘Bokfontein Development’?”

“By Jove! I never thought you’d get out of that as well as you did.”

“And the Topsipitsi Deep Level’?”

“Oh, hang it all! Your proper place is inside the House. I’d forgotten the ‘Topsipitsi.’ Come out and have a drink.”

The world was rather less tranquil when Mr. Hedsor awoke the next morning. Indeed, it was many years since the newspapers had offered the public such a sensational bill-of-fare as their posters promised. In the journals themselves the news was displayed in startling headlines,
The Times
so far forgetting its dignity as to double-lead its leader on the momentous news.

Towards one a.m. the previous night there had come over the wires from the matter-of-fact Reuter the following piece of news, which dislocated the “make-up” of the papers, reducing the sub-editors to a condition of frenzy:

“Paris.—In accordance, it is understood, with instructions from London, Lord Strathclyde leaves for Calais tomorrow, diplomatic relations having been abruptly broken off between the two countries.”

Further particulars from “our own” correspondents confirmed the news, adding that crowds were parading the streets of Paris, singing patriotic songs, and smashing the windows of every shop which bore an English name. Troops were being held in readiness in case of emergencies with which the police would be unable to cope, as it was feared the opponents of the settled order of things would foment disturbances, which in the electric condition of the public mind might have serious results.

The news, although startling, was not altogether unexpected. For some time past the relations between France and England had been in the condition euphemistically described by diplomatists as “strained.” Events in Africa had constituted a chronic source of friction, and the annexation of the Congo Free State by the French, who claimed rights of pre-emption, had brought matters to a crisis. Nevertheless, it seemed as if the resources of diplomacy would heal the breach, and the public, lulled to a sense of tranquillity, were simply paralyzed by the morning’s news, which burst on the nation like a thunderclap.

Some of the papers accused the Government of precipitancy, alleging that England was quite unprepared for war with such a Power as France, others preferred to look upon the war as having been inevitable, and only regretted that a more favorable opportunity had not been selected to commence hostilities; but they were unanimous in the opinion that we were about to enter upon a life-and-death struggle, which it would be impossible to confine to the two Powers chiefly concerned.

In every place where men congregated there was the wildest commotion. At the London railway stations, in the trains and omnibuses hastening to disgorge their daily suburban load, the tidings dwarfed every other topic.

Naturally it was at the Stock Exchange that the greatest excitement prevailed, and “Gorgonzola Hall” was in a delirious ferment. There had been a feeling of uneasiness for some days past, and even the most intensely aureate of gilt-edged securities had shown jelly-like movements. But on this eventful morning the bears carried all before them, and five minutes after the springing of the rattle which announces the commencement of business, prices had begun to crumble away like snow beneath the sun.

As the day wore on, and the news spread, the crowd outside the Exchange became a surging mob, which was swollen every second by the cabs depositing perspiring clients in search of absent brokers. Those privileged to pass the janitors had literally to fight their way in. One of the glass panels in the Shorter’s Court doorway was shivered early in the day, and its fellow had to be boarded over to protect it from a similar fate. Round in Capel Court half a dozen policemen had been posted as a breakwater, against which the uninitiated broke in impotent waves. And ever, as the glass doors swung to and fro, a dull, drumming, persistent roar, like the whirring of distant factory looms, reverberated down the passages, and mingled with the noise of the traffic on the clattering asphalt roadway.

About noon the tall slim figure of Romney Pringle joined the crowd around the Capel Court entrance, and after an arduous struggle succeeded in getting within hailing distance of the blue-coated porter, who as a rule reposes majestically in the leather chair by the door. The present was no time for repose, however, and in response to a fervent appeal from Pringle he condescended to transmit his inquiry for Mr. Hedsor through a speaking-tube to the arcana of the House.

Pringle had a weary wait of over half an hour before the broker appeared, and even then, so dense was the pressure of the crowd, mostly passing inward, that after a few ineffectual struggles Mr. Hedsor, whose stature was not of the bulkiest, was reduced to a desperate squirm at short intervals, with the sole purpose of retaining his position, quite apart from any idea of making progress. How long this captivity might have lasted, or whether it might not have terminated in the incontinent collapse of the broker is uncertain, had not the janitor at length caught sight of him and, clearing a passage through the mob with an authoritative “By your leave,” extracted him by the remnants of his coat collar.

“Whatever do you want?” gasped the palpitating broker, as he pettishly endeavored to adjust his tattered garments. “I’m frightfully busy.” And, mopping his brow, he edged towards a clear space at the side, left by the eddying crowd.

“I’m sorry to trouble you, but I came to ask your advice as to what I had better do,” apologized Pringle, as he dusted him down.

“Advice!” repeated the broker. “Why, I tell you, you ought to be one of us! You’ve got the luck of Old Nick himself! Who on earth would have thought this was going to happen? And I don’t believe it would either, if you hadn’t taken it into your head to do a bear.”

“You see I have faith in my luck, as I told you yesterday. But what are Consols standing at now?”

“
Standing
do you call it? They’re falling—
falling
, man!” The broker grinned sardonically; he was too breathless to laugh.

“Well, what have they fallen to?”

“Why, they were ninety-seven ten minutes ago, and the Lord only knows when they’ll touch bottom! They were eighty-five in the Crimea, and this little show’ll be worse than half a dozen Crimcas before it’s done with.”

“I suppose I ought to buy, then?”

“Oh, the innocence of the man! As if you didn’t know the game to play! Lucky dog that you are.” Mr. Hedsor sighed enviously and began to work a little sum in his notebook. “Look here: I sold fifty thou’ for you yesterday at a hundred and nine three-eighths. If you buy another fifty at ninety-seven—or suppose we say ninety-six or thereabouts, you’ll make thirteen percent, more or less. Now I can’t come out here again. You must just go round to the office and wait, and I’ll telephone through to you as soon as the job’s done. You can amuse yourself by figuring out how much you’ve made in the last twenty-four hours. Oh, you lucky dog!”

“Delighted, I’m sure,” smiled Pringle sweetly. “And in that case you can hold over my check till the settlement.”

“Right you are, my boy! And, look here, next time you’ve got a good thing you might give me the tip, and let’s get in on the ground floor.”

Pringle shook his head in deprecation as the broker, with a knowing wink, dived once more into the crowd, and was borne inwards with the stream.

Coasting along the outskirts of the turmoil, Pringle got safely down Throgmorton Street, only taking ten minutes over a journey which under ordinary circumstances he could have accomplished in as many seconds, and was about to enter the office when a tremendous hubbub arose, distinctly audible above the all-pervading uproar. From the height of the three or four steps up to the doorway he commanded a view of the scene. Looking back, he saw a newsboy crying the evening paper, surrounded by a yelling mob, which struggled and fought madly for the sheets. Presently a small group detached itself from the rest and frantically rushed towards the entrance to the Exchange in the wake of a hatless individual, who had seized a contents-bill which he waved triumphantly above his head. As it floated like a banner in the air Pringle with some little difficulty spelled out:

BRITISH AMBASSADOR HOAXED

FORGED PARIS DESPATCH

SCENE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

He turned abruptly and entered the office, and even as he shut the door behind him the telephone gong whirred. He sprang to the receiver, and before the clerk could reach it twirled the bell-handle.

“Are you there?”

“Yes.”

“Is it Mr. Barker?”

“No; Pringle.”

“Oh, all serene! Fifty thou’ at ninety-six and a half.”

“Thank you. How much do you make it?”

“I said about thirteen percent, didn’t I? Roughly, it’s six thousand five hundred that you’ve made. I say, were you born with a silver spoon in your mouth? It’s settlement day next week and I’ll send you the full account. Ta-Ta!” Out in Throgmorton Street Pringle managed to secure a paper and this was what he read:

THE THREATENED WAR AVERTED