Chapter Nineteen.
The Man who Loved
A few nights later Max Barclay was seated in the stalls of the Empire Theatre with Marion.
They never went to the legitimate theatre because she had no evening-dress. Even to be seen in one would have caused comment among her fellow employés at Cunnington’s. The girls were never very charitable to each other, for in the pernicious system of “living-in” there is no privacy or home life, no sense of responsibility or of freedom.
The average London shop girl has but little leisure and little rest. Chronically over-tired, she cares little to go out of an evening after the long shop hours, and looks forward to Sunday as the day when she can read in bed till noon if she chooses, snooze again in the afternoon, and perhaps go to a café in the evening. It was so with Marion. The sales were on, and there were “spiffs,” or premiums, placed by Mr Warner upon some out-of-date goods which it was every girl’s object to sell and thus earn the commission. So she was working very hard, and already held quite a respectable number of tickets representing “spiffs.”
In a dark blue skirt, white silk blouse and black hat, she looked extremely pretty and modest as she sat beside her lover in the second row of the stalls, watching the ballet with its tuneful music, clever groupings, and phantasmagoria of colour. She glanced at the watch upon her wrist, and saw that it was nearly ten o’clock. In half an hour she would have to be “in.”
The bondage of his well-beloved galled Max, yet he could say nothing. Her life was the same as that of a hundred thousand other girls in London. Indeed, was she not far better off that those poor girls who came up from their country homes to serve a year or two’s drudgery without payment in order to learn the art and mystery of “serving a customer” – girls who were orphans and without funds, and who very soon found the actual necessity of having a little pocket-money for dress and for something with which to relish the stale bread and butter doled out to them.
The public have never yet adequately realised the hardships and tyranny of shop-life, where man is but a mere machine, liable to get the “sack” at a moment’s notice, and where woman is but an ill-fed, overworked drudge, liable at any moment to be thrown out penniless upon the great world of London.
Some day ere long the revelation will come. There are certain big houses in London with pious shareholders and go-to-meeting directors which will earn the opprobrium of the whole British public when the naked truth regarding their female assistants is exposed. In “the trade” it is known, and one day there will arise a man bolder and more fearless than the rest, who will speak the truth, and, moreover, prove it.
If in the meantime you want to know the truth concerning shop-life, ask the director of any of the numerous rescue societies in London. What you will be told will, I assure you, open your eyes.
The couple of hours Max had spent with Marion proved delightful ones, as they always were. Promenading in the lounge above were many men-about-town whom he knew, and who, seeing him with the modest-looking girl, smiled knowingly. They never guessed the truth – that he loved her and intended to make her his wife.
“Charlie is back from Glasgow,” she was saying. “He came to the shop this afternoon to ask if I had seen you, and to explain how the other night he, by a most fortunate circumstance, missed the Continental train, for next morning Mr Statham wanted him to do some very important business, and was delighted to find that he had not left. Another man has gone out to the East.”
“If he wanted to know my movements he might have called at Dover Street,” Max remarked thoughtfully, the recollection of that night in Cromwell Road arising within him.
“He seemed very busy, and said he had not a moment to spare. He was probably going north again. They have, he told me, some big order from Italy at the locomotive works.”
“I thought Statham couldn’t do without him,” remarked Max. “Nowadays, however, he seems always travelling.”
“He’s awfully kind to me – gave me a five-pound note this afternoon.”
“What did he say about me?” inquired Max.
“Oh! nothing very much. He asked me, among other things, whether I knew where you were on the night of the disappearance of the Doctor and his daughter.”
Max started.
“And what did you reply?”
“That I hadn’t the slightest idea. I never saw you that evening,” was the girl’s frank response.
Her lover nodded thoughtfully. It was now plain that Charlie suspected that he had detected him leaving the house and was endeavouring to either confirm his suspicion or dismiss it.
“Did he tell you to-day where he was going?”
“Back to Glasgow, I believe – but only for two days.”
Max was seated at the end of the second row of the stalls, and beyond Marion were three or four vacant seats. At this juncture their conversation was interrupted by a man in well-cut evening-dress, his crush hat beneath his arms, advancing down the gangway and putting his hand out heartily to Max, exclaiming —
“My dear Barclay! Excuse me, but I want very much a few words with you to-night, on a matter of great importance.” Then, glancing at Marion, he added: “I trust that Mademoiselle will forgive this intrusion?”
The girl glanced at the new-comer, while her lover, taking the man’s hand, said —
“My dear Adam, I, too, wanted to see you, and intended to call to-morrow. You are not intruding in the least. Here’s a seat. Allow me to introduce Miss Rolfe – Mr Jean Adam.”
The man of double personality bowed again, and passing Marion and her lover, seated himself at her side, commencing to chat merrily, and explaining that he had recognised Max from the circle above. He had, it appeared, been to Dover Street an hour before, and Max’s man had told him where his master was spending the evening.
Marion rather liked him. Max had already told her of this Frenchman who spoke English so well, and with whom he was doing business. In his speech he had the air and polish of the true cosmopolitan, and he also possessed a keen sense of humour.
Presently Marion, glancing again at her watch, declared that she must leave. Max scarcely ever took her home. He always put her into a cab, and she descended at the corner of the street off Oxford Street, where Cunnington’s assistants had their big barrack-like dwelling, and walked home alone. It was her wish to do so, and he respected it.
Therefore all three rose, and Max went outside with her and put her into a cab, promising to meet her on the following evening. In the bustle of Leicester Square at that hour, he could not kiss her; but as their hands grasped, their eyes met in a glance which both knew was one of trust and mutual affection.
And so they parted, Max returning to the lounge where the Frenchman, Jean Adam, alias the Englishman John Adams, awaited him.
They had a drink at the American bar, and then promenaded up and down in the gay crowd that nightly assembles in that popular resort. Max nodded to one or two men he knew – clubmen and habitués like himself, and then, after the show was over, they took a cab down to the Savoy to supper.
The gay restaurant, with its crimson carpet and white decorations was crowded. To Gustave, who allotted the tables, Max was well-known, therefore a table for two in the left-hand corner of the big room – the table he usually occupied – was instantly secured, and the couple who had engaged were moved elsewhere. In the season Max had supper there on an average three nights a week, for at the Savoy one meets all one’s friends, and there is always music, life, and brightness after the theatre, until the licensing regulations cut off the merriment so abruptly.
That night was no exception. The place was filled to overflowing with the smart world, together with many American visitors, the latest musical-comedy actresses and their male appendages, country cousins, men whose names were household words, and women whose pasts had appeared in black and white in the newspapers. A strange crowd, surely. Half the people were known to each other by sight, if not personally, and the other half were mere onlookers, filled with curiosity when Lord This or Dolly That were pointed out to them.
Max and Jean Adam were seated with a bottle of Krug between them when the former exclaimed —
“Well, how does our business go?”
“That’s the reason I wanted to see you to-night,” was his companion’s reply with just a slight French accent. “I had some news from Constantinople to-day – confidential news from the Palace,” he added in an undertone, bending across the table. “I want you to read it and give your opinion.” And producing an envelope and letter on thin paper closely written in French, he handed it across to Barclay, as he added: “Now what is written there is the bed-rock fact, I know from independent inquiries I have made in an entirely different quarter.”
Between mouthfuls of the perfectly-cooked filet de sole placed before him Max read the letter carefully. It was signed “your devoted friend Osman,” and was evidently from a Turkish official at the Yildiz Kiosk. Briefly, it was to the effect that the iradé of the Sultan for the construction of the railway from Nisch in Servia to San Giovanni di Medua, on the Adriatic, was in the hands of Muhil Pasha, one of his Majesty’s most intimate officials, and had been granted to him for services rendered in the Asiatic provinces.
Muhil had offered to part with it for twelve thousand pounds sterling, and that the agent of a French Company had arrived in Constantinople in order to treat with him. Muhil, however, had no love for the French, since he was Ottoman Ambassador in Paris a few years ago, and got into disgrace there, hence he would be much more ready to sell to an English syndicate.
The letter of Osman concluded by urging Adam to send instructions at once to a certain box at the British post-office in Constantinople, and to if possible secure the valuable document which would enable a line of railway to be built which would pay its shareholders enormously.
“Well,” exclaimed Max, as he replaced the letter in its envelope, noting the surcharge in black – “1 piastre” – upon the blue English stamp. “What shall you do?”
“Do? Why we must get the twelve thousand, of course. It’s a mere bagatelle compared with the magnitude of the business. I’ve got some reports in my overcoat pocket which I’ll show you after supper. We must get the thing through, my dear Barclay. There’s a big fortune in it for both of us – a huge fortune. Why, for the past ten years every diplomat at the Sublime Porte has been at work to get it through, but has been unsuccessful. The Sultan has always refused to let the line run through Turkish territory, fearing lest it should be used for military transport in the event of another war. His Majesty is not particularly partial to Austria, Servia, or Bulgaria, you know,” he laughed.
“And hardly surprising, in view of past events, eh?” exclaimed Max, entirely ignorant of the real character of this man, who seemed a smart man of business combined with a genial companion. Adam was a past-master in the art of fraud. He did not press the point, but merely went on with his supper, swallowed a glass of champagne, and turned the conversation by admiring the graceful carriage of the head of a girl sitting near with a wreath of forget-me-nots across her fluffy fair hair.
“Yes,” replied Max. “The poise of her head is full of grace, but – well, her face is like the carved handle of an umbrella!” Whereat his companion laughed heartily. Barclay was full of quaint expressions, and of a quiet but biting sarcasm. Some of his bons mots had been repeated from month to mouth in the clubs until they became almost popular sayings. He was now in love entirely and devotedly with Marion, and no other woman of the thousand who passed before his eyes and smiled into his face had the least attraction for him.
A moment later a pretty girl in pink, the Honourable Eva Townley, who was at supper with her mother and same friends, bowed to him and laughed, while another woman, the rather go-ahead wife of a leader at the Chancery Bar, waved a menu at him.
Society knew Max, and many a woman had set her cap at him, hoping to capture the tall, well-set-up and easy-going young fellow, together with the ease and comfort which his substantial estates would afford.
Max, however, had done a few years of town life. He had become blasé and nauseated. Since he had met Marion Rolfe the quiet, modest, unassuming and hard-working shop-assistant, the haute monde bored him more than ever. He went only where he was compelled, yet he nowadays preferred the cheap Italian restaurant and Marion’s society to the tables of the rich with their ugly women striving to fascinate, and their small-talk of scandal, gossip and cruel innuendo.
There is surely no world in the world like that of London – nothing so complex, so tragic, and yet so grimly humorous, so soul-killing, and yet so reckless as our little, lax world of vanity and display that calls itself Society, the world which the nouveau riche are ever seeking to enter by the back-door, and which the suburbs rush to see portrayed upon the stage of the theatre.
Everywhere the manner and morals of Mayfair are aped nowadays. Mrs Browne-Smythe, the City clerk’s wife of tattling Tooting, has her “day,” and gives her bridge-parties just as does the Duchess of Dorsetshire in Grosvenor Square; and Mrs Claude Greene, the wife of the wholesale butcher, who was once a barmaid near the Meat Market, and now lives in matrimonial felicity in cliquey Clapham, “requests the company of” upon the self-same cards and with the self-same formula as the wife of Jimmy James the South African magnate in Park Lane.
Max, glad that supper was over, rose and walked with his friend out into the big lounge where the Roumanian band were playing weird gipsy melodies, and sat at one of the little tables to smoke and sip Grand Marnier cordon rouge, being joined a few moments later by a couple of men whom he knew at the club, and who appeared to be at a loose end.
At last the lights were turned down as signal that in five minutes it would be closing time, and then rifling, Max, ignorant of the ingenious plot, invited his friend Adam round to Dover Street for a final smoke.
Chapter Twenty.
Explains Jean Adam’s Suggestion
Over whiskey and soda in Barclay’s chambers, Jean Adam pushed his sinister plans a trifle further.
He was aware that Max had taken the opinion of a man he knew on the Stock Exchange as to the probable value of the concession for the Danube-Adriatic Railway, and that his reply had been highly favourable. Therefore he was confident that such an opportunity of making money by an honest deal Max would not let slip.
They had known each other several months, and Adam, with his engaging manner and courteous bearing, had wormed himself into the younger man’s confidence. A dozen times Max had been his host, but on each occasion the other took good care to quickly return the hospitality. To Max he represented himself as resident in Constantinople. A few years ago he had been fortunate enough to obtain a concession from the Ottoman Government which, being floated in Paris, had placed him in a very comfortable position; and he was now about to aim for bigger and more lucrative things.
“You see,” he was saying as he produced an official report to the Foreign Office – a pamphlet-like document in a blue paper cover – “here is what our consul in Belgrade reported on the scheme two years ago. Such a line, he says, would tap nearly half the trade that now goes to Odessa, besides giving Servia a seaport. It will be the biggest thing in railways for years, depend upon it.”
Max went to the writing-table, where the lamp was burning, and glanced through the paragraphs of the consular report and several other printed documents which his friend handed to him in succession. Then Adam produced a map, and upon it traced the route of the proposed line.
“Well,” Barclay said at last, rising and lighting a cigar.
“It all seems pretty plain sailing. I’ll go to-morrow and see old Statham about it. His secretary, Rolfe, is a friend of mine.”
“No, Mr Barclay,” said the wily Adam. “If I were you I would not.”
“Why?”
“Well, if you do, you’ll queer all our plans – both yours and mine,” he mused vaguely.
“How?”
“Sam Statham has agents in Constantinople – agents who could offer Muhil double the price immediately, and the ground would be cut from under our feet. Statham knows a good thing when he sees it, you bet, and if he knew anything about this he wouldn’t stick at a thousand or two.”
“Then he doesn’t know?”
“At present he can’t know. It is a secret between Muhil, Osman, and myself?”
“And what about the French people?”
“Of course they know; but they’re not such fools as to let out the secret,” replied Adam.
“Well, what do you suggest?” Max asked, taking a pull at the long tumbler.
“That we keep the affair strictly to ourselves. Once we have the concession in our hands there’ll be a hundred men in the City ready to take it up. Why, old Statham would give us a big profit on it, especially if, as you say, you know his secretary.”
“That was his secretary’s sister whom you met with me to-night,” Max remarked.
“What an extremely pretty girl,” exclaimed Adam enthusiastically.
“Think so?” asked Barclay with a smile of satisfaction. “Why, of course. A face like here isn’t seen every day. I was much struck with it when I first noticed you from the circle, and wondered whom she might be. Rolfe’s her name, is it?” he added with a feigned air of uncertainty.
“Yes. Charlie Rolfe is old Sam’s confidential secretary.”
“Well, afterwards, through him, we might interest Sam,” remarked Adam. “What we have first to do is to get hold of the concession.”
“But how?”
“By buying it.”
The two men smoked in silence. Adam’s quick eye saw that the affair was full of attraction for the man he had marked down as victim.
“You mean that I should put twelve thousand into it?” he said.
“Not at all,” responded the wily Adam at once. “In any case I do not propose that you should put up the whole sum. My idea is that we should put up six thousand each.”
“And go shares?”
“And go shares,” repeated Adam, knocking the ash from his cigar. “But prior to doing so I think it would be only right for you to go out to Constantinople, see Muhil, and ascertain the truth of the whole affair. You have only my word for it all – and the letter. I quite admit that they are not sufficient guarantee for you to put down six thousand. You are too good a business man for that.”
Max was flattered by that last sentence.
“Well,” he said smiling, “I really think it would be more satisfactory if I had – well, some confirmation of all these comments.”
“You can obtain that at once by going out to Constantinople,” declared Adam. “You’ll be out and home in ten days, and I’ll go with you,” he added persuasively.
“Well, I shall have to consider it,” the younger man replied after a brief pause.
“There is very little time to consider,” Adam said. “The French people are at work, and if they raise the purchase price to Muhil we shall be compelled to do the same.”
“But we can get an option, I suppose?”
“I have it. But it expires in ten days from to-morrow. After that Muhil will make the best terms he can with the French. The latter will have to pay through the nose, no doubt, but they’ll get it, without doubt. Their Embassy is helping them.”
“And how long can I have to decide?”
“To reach Constantinople in time we have six days more. We might then take the Orient Express from Paris and just do it. But,” he added, “of course if your inclination is against the journey and inquiry I hope you’ll allow me to assess it before somebody else. Personally,” he laughed, “I can’t afford to miss this chance of making a fortune. This, remember, is no wild mining speculation: it’s solid, bed-rock enterprise. The Servians surveyed the line four years ago and got out plans and estimates. There’s a printed copy of them at the Servian Consulate here in London. So it’s all cut-and-dried.”
“Well I hope, Adam, you’ll allow me a little time to reflect. Six thousand is a decent sum, you know.”
“I don’t want it until you’ve been out there and seen Muhil, Mr Barclay,” Adam declared. “Indeed, I refuse to touch it until you have personally satisfied yourself of the bonâ fides of the scheme. Muhil himself must first assure you of the existence of the iradé, and that it is actually in is possession. Then I will put up six thousand if you will put up the balance.”
“And if it is more than twelve?”
“Why, we share the increase equally, of course.”
“Very well. So far as it goes it is agreed,” said Max. “It only remains whether I go out to Turkey, or not.”
“That’s all. The sooner you can decide, the better for our plans,” Adam remarked. “Only take good care that old Statham does not learn what’s in the wind. You know him, I believe?”
“Yes, slightly. He’s a queer old fellow – very eccentric.”
“So I’ve heard,” said the other, betraying ignorance. What would Max Barclay have thought if he had witnessed that scene so recently when the millionaire had glanced out of his cosy library and seen the shabby stranger lounging against the railings of the Park? What, indeed, would he have thought if he had witnessed old Sam’s consequent agitation, or overheard his confession to Rolfe?
But he knew nothing of it all. Adam had shown him the best side of his nature – the easy-going and keen money-making cosmopolitan whose manner was so gentlemanly and so very charming. He had not seen the other – the side which Samuel Statham knew too well.
Adam, seated there in the big saddle-bag chair, in the full enjoyment of the excellent cigar, knew that with the exercise of a little further ingenuity he would make the first step towards the goal he had in view. He was a man who took counsel of nobody, and even the old hunchback Lyle, his closest friend, knew nothing of his object in drawing Max Barclay, until recently a perfect stranger, into the fatal net spread for him.
He smiled within himself as he calmly contemplated his victim through the haze of tobacco smoke. The dock upon the mantelshelf had struck two.
He took a final drink, slipped on his coat, and with a merry bon soir and an injunction to make up his mind and wire him at the earliest moment, he shook his friend’s hand and went out.
Max sat alone for a long time, still smoking. In his ignorance he was reflecting that the business seemed a sound one. Adam had not asked him to put down money before full inquiry, and had, at the same time, offered to put up half. This latter fact, in itself, showed that his friend had confidence in the scheme.
And so, before he turned in that night, he had practically made up his mind to pay a flying visit to the Sultan’s capital. There could be no harm done, he argued. He had never been in Constantinople, and to go there with a resident like Adam was in itself an opportunity not to be missed.
Meanwhile the astute concession-hunter, as he drove to Addison Road in a cab, was calmly plotting a further step in the direction he was slowly but surely following. His daring and ingenuity knew no bounds. He was a man full of energy and resource, unabashed, undaunted, unscrupulous, and yet to all, even to his most intimate friend, a perfect sphinx.
The second step in his progress he took on the evening of the day after.
In the afternoon, about four, a shabbily-dressed man called upon him at his flat, and they remained together for ten minutes or so. At half-past eight, as Marion was about to enter a ’bus at Oxford Circus to take her up to Hampstead for a blow – a trip she frequently took in the evening when alone – she heard her name uttered, and turning, found Max’s polite French friend behind her, about to mount on the same conveyance.
To avoid him was impossible, therefore they ascended to the top together, he declaring that he was on his way to Hampstead.
“I’m going there too,” she told him, although he already knew it quite well. “Have you seen Mr Barclay to-day?”
“Not to-day. I have been busy in the City,” Adam explained. He glanced at her, and could not refrain from noting her neat appearance, dressed as she was in a black skirt, white cotton blouse, and a black hat which suited her beauty admirably. He knew that she was at Cunnington’s, but, of course, appeared in ignorance of the fact. He was most kind and courteous to her, and so well had he arranged the meeting that she believed it to be entirely an accident.
Presently, after they had chatted for some time, he sighed, saying —
“In a few days I suppose I must leave London again.”
“Oh! are you going abroad?”
“Yes, to Constantinople. I live there,” he said.
“In Constantinople! How very strange it must be to live among the Turks!”
“It is a very charming life, I assure you, Miss Rolfe,” he answered. “The Turk is always a gentleman, and his country is full of beauty and attraction, even though his capital may be muddy under foot.”
“Oh, well,” she said laughing, “I don’t think I should care to live there. I should be afraid of them!”
“Your fears would be quite ungrounded,” he declared. “A lady can walk unmolested in the streets of Constantinople at any hour of the day or night, which cannot be said, of your London here.”
Then, after a pause, he added —
“I think your friend Mr Barclay is coming with me.”
“With you? – to Constantinople?” she exclaimed in dismay. “When?”
“In two or three days,” he replied. “But you mustn’t tell him I said so,” he went on. “We are going out on business – business that will bring us both a sum of money that will be a fortune to me, if not to Mr Barclay. We are in partnership over it.”
“What nature is the business?”
“The building of a railroad to the Adriatic. We are obtaining permission from the Sultan for its construction.”
“And Max – I mean Mr Barclay – will make a large sum?” she asked with deep interest.
“Yes, if he decides to go,” replied Adam; “but I fear very much one thing,” and he fixed his dark eyes upon hers.
“What do you fear?”
“Well – how shall I put it, Miss Rolfe?” he asked. “I – I fear that he will refuse to go because he does not wish to leave London just now.”
“Why not?”
“He has an attraction here,” the man laughed – “yourself.”
She coloured slightly. Max had probably told this friend that they were lovers.
“Oh! that’s quite foolish. He must go, if it is really in his interests.”
“Exactly,” declared Adam. “I have all my life been looking for such a chance to make money, and it has at last arrived. He must go.”
“Most certainly. I will urge him strongly.”
“A word from you, Miss Rolfe, would decide him – but – well, don’t you think it would be best if you did not tell him that we had met. He might not like it if he knew we had discussed his business affairs – eh?”
“Very well,” she said. “I will say nothing. When he speaks to me about the suggested journey I will strongly advise him to go in his own interests.”
“Yes; do. It will be the means of putting many thousands of pounds into both our pockets. The matter is, in fact, entirely in your hands. May I with safety leave it there?”
“With perfect safety, Mr Adam,” was her reply. “It is, perhaps, fortunate that we should have met like this to-night.”
“Fortunate!” he echoed. “Most fortunate for all of us. If you are really Mr Barclay’s friend you will see that he goes with me.”
“I am his friend, and he shall go if it is to his interest to do go.”
“Ask him, and he will tell you,” was the reply of the man who had lounged in Park Lane as a shabby stranger, and of whom old Sam Statham went in such deadly fear.
He went with Marion to the end of her journey, and then left her in pretence of walking to his destination.
But after he had raised his hat to her so politely, and bent over her hand, he turned on his heel muttering to himself —
“You think you are his friend, my poor, silly little girl! No. You will compel him to go with me to the East, and thus become my catspaw – the tool of Jean Adam.”
And giving vent to a short, dry laugh of triumph, he went on his way.