Chapter Thirty Eight.
Friend or Foe?
The two men were silent for some moments. Statham was watching his visitor’s face. To him it was, at least, satisfactory to know that Marion had disappeared, fearing to let her lover know the reason of her sudden dismissal lest he should misjudge her.
Truth to tell, he had anticipated that she would have gone straight to Barclay and told him the truth. Within himself he acknowledged that he had played the poor girl a scoundrelly trick, but consoled himself with the thought that when a man’s life was at stake, as his was, any mode of escape became justifiable.
At last the old man stirred in his chair, and, turning to Max, said:
“Please understand plainly it is not because I refuse to help you, but because it is not within my province to dictate to Cunnington replies regarding his assistants.”
“But you hold a controlling interest in the firm,” declared the other.
“That may be so, but I have nothing to do with the details of organisation,” he replied. “No, Mr Barclay, let us end this matter with an expression of my regret at being unable to assist you. Perhaps, however, I may be able to do so in another direction.”
“In another direction!” he echoed. “How?”
“In a small matter of business.”
Max Barclay was both surprised and interested. He knew quite well that Statham could if he wished, give him previous knowledge that would enable him to make a considerable coup. Ignorance of Marion’s visit to the old man or the cause of her dismissal allowed him to regard the millionaire with feelings of friendliness, and to reflect that, after all, he had no power to dictate to Cunnington.
“You know, Mr Barclay,” he said, “I frequently obtain confidential knowledge of what is transpiring in the world of finance. The other day it came to my ears, through a source it is unnecessary to mention, that the Adriatic railway concession has been placed before you.”
Max opened his eyes. He believed that not a soul except the man who had joined him in partnership was aware of this. The information must have come from Constantinople, he thought.
“That is true,” he admitted.
“A big thing!” remarked the old man in his croaking voice. “A very big thing indeed – means prosperity to the Balkan countries. But pardon me if I ask one or two questions. Do not think I have any intention of going behind your back, or attempting to upset your plans. I merely ask for information, because, as perhaps you know, there is but one man in London who could float such a thing, and it is myself.”
“I know, Mr Statham, that we shall be compelled to come to you when we have the concession all in order.”
“You will,” he said with a smile. “But can you, without injury to yourself, tell me who is your associate in this business?”
“A Frenchman – Mr Jean Adam, of Constantinople.” Statham’s face never moved a muscle. Of this he was already quite well aware.
“An old friend of yours, I suppose?”
“Not – not exactly an old friend. I met him for the first time about a month or so ago,” responded Max.
“And what do you know of him?”
“Nothing much except that I believe him to be a man of the highest integrity and the possessor of many friends interested in high finance.”
“Oh! and what causes you to believe that?”
“Well, we first met in Paris, where, having mooted the idea of a partnership, he introduced me to several well-known people, among them Baron Tellier, who arranged the match monopoly of Turkey, and Herr Hengelmann, of Frankfort, whom, no doubt, you know as the concessionaire of the German railway from the Bosphorus to Bagdad.”
The old man gave vent to a dissatisfied grant.
“Both men stand very high in the financial world, do they not?” Max asked.
“Well – they did,” replied old Sam, smiling.
“Did? What, have they gone under?”
“No. Only Hengelmann has been in his coffin fully two years, and the Baron died at Nice last winter.”
“What?” cried Max, starting forward.
“I repeat what I say, Mr Barclay. Your friend Adam has been indulging in a pretty fiction.”
“Are you sure? Are you quite sure they are dead?”
“Most certainly. I was staying in the same hotel at Nice when the Baron died, and I followed him to the grave. He was a great friend of mine.”
Max Barclay sat stunned. Until that moment he had believed in Jean Adam and his plausible tales, but he now saw how very cleverly he had been deceived and imposed upon.
“You’re surprised,” he laughed. “But you must remember that you can get a decent suit of gentlemanly clothes for five pounds, and visiting-cards are only two shillings a hundred. People so often overlook those two important facts in life. Thousands of men can put off their identity with their clothes.”
“But Adam – do you happen to know him?” Max asked. “If you do, it will surely be a very friendly act to tell me the truth.”
“Well,” replied the elder man with some hesitancy, “I may as well tell you at once that the Sultan has never given any concession for the railway from Nisch to San Giovanni di Medua to cross Turkish territory – and will never give it. He fears Bulgaria and Servia too much, for he never knows what Power may be behind them. And, after all, who can blame him? Why should he open his gates to an enemy? Albania is always in unrest, for in the north the Christians predominate, and there is bound to be trouble ere long.”
“Then you believe that the whole thing is a fiction?”
“Most certainly it is. If there was any idea of the Sultan giving an iradé, I should most certainly know of it. I have good agents in Constantinople. No. Take it from me that the concession will never be given. It is not to Turkey’s interest to allow the development of Servia and Bulgaria, therefore your friend’s pretty tale is all a fairy story.”
“Then why is he pressing me to go out to Constantinople?” Max asked.
Statham shrugged his shoulders, indicative of ignorance.
“Perhaps he thinks you will plank down money?” he suggested.
“He wants nothing until I myself am satisfied with the bonâ fides of the business.”
“Stuff on his part, most likely. He’s a past-master of the art.”
“How well do you know him?”
“Sufficiently well to have nothing to do with him.”
“Then that accounts for his refusal to allow me to confide in you,” said Barclay. “I see the reason now.”
“Of course, act just as you think fit. Only recollect that what I’ve told you is bed-rock fact. The man who calls himself Adam is a person to be avoided.”
“Have you had dealings with him?”
“Just once – and they had a very unpleasant result.”
He reflected upon certain remarks and criticisms which the Frenchman had uttered concerning Statham and his normal methods. In the light of what he now knew, he saw that the two men were enemies. It seemed as though one man wished to tell him something, and yet was hesitant.
“Have you put any money into the scheme?” the millionaire asked.
“Not yet.”
“Then don’t. Tell him to take it somewhere else. Better still, tell him to bring it to me. You need not, however, say that it is I who warned you. Leave him in the dark in that direction. He’s a clever fellow – extraordinarily clever. Who is with him now?”
“Well, he has a friend named Lyle – a mining engineer.”
“Leonard Lyle – a hunchback?” asked Statham quickly.
The millionaire’s countenance went a trifle paler, and about the corners of his thin lips was a hard expression. To him, the seriousness of the conspiracy was only too apparent.
Those two men intended that he should be driven to take his own life – to die an ignominious death.
“You’ve spoken to this man Lyle?” he asked in as steady a voice as he could.
“Once or twice. He seems to possess a very intimate knowledge of Servia, Bulgaria, and European Turkey. Is he an adventurer like Adam?”
“Not exactly,” was the rather ambiguous reply. “But his association with Adam shows plainly that fraud is intended.”
“But why does he want me to go post-haste out to Turkey?” queried Max, who had risen from his chair in the excitement of this sudden revelation which caused his brilliant scheme to vanish into thin air.
“To induce confidence, I expect he would have introduced you to some men wearing fezzes, and declared them to be Pashas high in favour at the Yildiz Kiosk. Then before you left Constantinople he would have held you to your bargain to put money into the thing. Oh! never fear, you would have fallen a victim in one way or another. So it’s best that you should know the character of the two men with whom you are dealing. Take my advice; treat them with caution, but refuse to stir from London. They will, no doubt, use every persuasion to induce you to go, but your best course is to hear all their arguments, watch the gradual development of their scheme, and inform me of it. Will you do it?”
“Will my information assist you in any way, Mr Statham?”
“Yes, it will – very materially,” the old man answered.
“I have revealed to you the truth, and I ask you, in return, to render me this little assistance. What I desire to know, is their movements daily, and how they intend to act.”
“Towards whom?”
“Towards myself.”
“Then they are associated against you, you believe?”
“I suspect them to be,” the old man replied. “I know them to be my enemies. They are, like thousands of other men, jealous of my success, and believe they have a grievance against me – one that is entirely unfounded.”
“And if I do this will you assist me to obtain knowledge of the reason why Marion Rolfe has been dismissed?” asked Max eagerly.
The old man hesitated, but only for a second. It was easy enough to give him a letter to Cunnington, and afterwards to telephone to Oxford Street instructions to the head of the firm to refuse a reply.
So, consenting, he took a sheet of note-paper, and scribbled a few lines of request to Mr Cunnington, which he handed to Max, saying:
“There, I hope that will have the desired effect, Mr Barclay. On your part, remember, you will keep in with Adam and Lyle, and give me all the information you can gather. I know how to repay a friendly service rendered to me, so you are, no doubt, well aware. You will be welcome here at any hour. I shall tell Levi to admit you.”
“That’s a bargain,” the younger man asserted. “When will Rolfe return?”
“To-morrow, or next day. He’s in Paris. Shall I tell him you wish to see him?”
“Please.”
“But say nothing regarding Adam or his friend. Our compact is a strictly private one, remember.”
And then Max, grasping the hands of the man whom he believed was his friend, placed the note in his pocket and went out into the blazing hot September afternoon.
As he disappeared along the pavement the old millionaire watched him unseen from behind the blind.
“To the friendship of that man – that man whom I have wronged – I shall owe my life,” he murmured aloud.
And then, crossing to the telephone on his table, he asked for Mr Cunnington.
Chapter Thirty Nine.
The City of Unrest
Ten days had passed since Charlie had met the mysterious Lorena in Paris.
To both Charlie and Max – though now separated by the breadth of Europe – they had been breathless, anxious, never-to-be-forgotten days.
The ominous words of Lorena ever recurred to him. Apparently the girl knew far more than she had told him, and her declaration that confirmation of Adams’s charges would be found beyond that white-enamelled door in Park Lane gripped his senses. He could think of nothing else.
She had left him in the Rue de Rivoli, outside the Gardens, refusing her address or any further account of herself. She had warned him – that was, she said, all-sufficient.
He blamed himself a thousand times for not having followed her; for not having sought some further information concerning the peril of old Sam Statham.
Yet the afternoon following, just as he was about to drive from the Grand Hotel to the Gare du Nord, to return to London, one of the clerks from Old Broad Street had arrived, bearing a letter from the head of the firm, giving him instructions to proceed to Servia at once and transact certain business with the Government regarding certain copper concessions in the district of Kaopanik. The deal meant the introduction of a considerable amount of British capital into Servia, and had support from his Majesty King Peter downwards. Indeed, all were in favour save the Opposition in the Skuptchina, or Parliament, a set of unruly peasants who opposed every measure the Pashitch Government put forward.
The business brooked no delay. Therefore Charlie, that same night, entered the Orient express, that train of dusty wagons-lit which runs three times a week between Paris and Constantinople, and three days later arrived in Belgrade, the Servian capital.
He was no stranger in that rather pleasant town, perched high up at the junction of the Save with the broad Danube. The passport officer at Semlin station recognised him, and gave him a visa at once, and on alighting at Belgrade the little ferret-eyed man idling outside the station did not follow him, for he knew him by sight and was well aware that the Grand Hotel was his destination.
There are more spies in Belgrade than in any other city in Europe. So much foreign intrigue is ever in progress that the Servian authorities are compelled to support a whole army of secret agents to watch and report. Hence it is that the stranger, from the moment he sets foot in Belgrade to the moment he leaves it, is watched, and his every movement noted and reported. Yet all is so well managed that the foreigner is never aware of the close surveillance upon him, and Belgrade is as gay a town in the matter of entertaining and general freedom as, well, as any other you may choose to name.
During the days when, owing to the unfortunate events which terminated the reign of the half-imbecile King Alexander and the designing woman who became his Queen, when England had suspended diplomatic negotiations, the great stakes held in the country by Statham Brothers were in a somewhat precarious condition. For two years Servian finance had been in anything but a flourishing condition, but now, under the rule of King Peter, who had done his very utmost to reinstate his country in its former flourishing position, the confidence of Europe had been restored, and Statham Brothers were ready to make further investments.
In Charles Rolfe the great millionaire had the most perfect confidence. The letter he had sent him to Paris was clear and explicit in its instructions. If the concessions were confirmed by the Prime Minister Pashitch and the Council, a million dinars (or francs) were already deposited in the National Bank of Servia, and could be drawn at an hour’s notice upon Charlie’s signature.
So he drove to the Grand, the hotel with its great garish café, its restaurant where the sterlet is perhaps more delicious than at the Hermitage in Moscow, and its excellent Tzigane band. It was evening, so he ate a light meal, and, fagged out by the journey, retired early.
He tried to sleep, but could not. The noise and clatter of the café below, the weird strains of the gipsy music, the rattle of the cabs over the cobbles, all combined to prevent slumber.
And, over all, was the vivid recollection of that rather handsome girl who had called herself Lorena, and who had declared that the reason of Statham’s peril lay behind the door which he always kept so carefully secured.
The hours passed slowly. He thought far more of Maud Petrovitch, and of what Lorena had told him, than of the business he had to transact on the morrow. He was there, in the city where Doctor Petrovitch had been worshipped almost as a demi-god, where the people cheered lustily as he drove out, and where he was called “The Servian Patriot.” Where was the statesman now? What was the actual truth of that sadden disappearance?
Why had not Maud written? Sorely she might at least have trusted him with her secret!
The noise below had died away, and he knew that it must be two o’clock in the morning, the hour when the café closed. Presently there came a rap at his door, and the night-porter handed him a telegram. He tore it open mechanically, expecting it to be in cipher from old Sam, but instead saw the signature “Max.”
Scanning it eagerly, he held his breath. The news it contained staggered him. It stated that his sister Marion had been discharged from Cunnington’s, and her whereabouts were unknown.
“Have seen Statham, but cannot discover where your sister has gone. Can you suggest any friend she may have gone to visit? What shall I do? Am distracted. Wire immediately.”
Marion left Cunnington’s! Discharged, the telegram said. Was it possible, he thought, that old Sam would allow her discharge. He was certain he would not. He was his sister’s friend, as he was his own.
Max’s telegram added further to the burden of mystery upon him. What could it all mean?
Marion has evidently left Cunnington’s and disappeared! He tried to think to whom she would go in her distress. There was her Aunt Anne at Wimborne, her cousin Lucy who had married the bank manager at Hereford, and there was her old schoolfellow Mary Craven who had only recently married Pelham, the manager of an insurance company in Moorgate Street.
Those three addresses he wrote on a telegraph form, urging Max to make inquiry and report progress. This he despatched, and again threw himself down, full of dark forebodings.
If Marion had really been discharged, she was in some disgrace. What could it possibly be? That it was something which she dared not face was proved by the fact that she had not confided in Max. She knew Maud’s place of concealment, without a doubt; therefore, what more natural than she should have joined her?
The whole affair was a complete enigma, rendered the more tantalising by the distance which now separated him from London.
Next morning he rose, took his coffee, and went out along the broad central boulevard, gay and lively in the sunlight, thronged by well-dressed ladies and smart officers in uniforms on the Russian model – as bright and pleasant a scene as can be witnessed anywhere outside Paris. Up the hill, past the royal palace, he went. In the royal garden, separated from the roadway by high iron railings, the band of the Guards were playing, and over the palace floated the royal standard, showing that his Majesty was in residence.
Adjoining the palace was a large square castellated building, painted white, and into this he turned, saluted by the gendarmes on duty. Ascending a broad flight of steps, he passed through the swing doors, presented his card, and was shown into the large antechamber of the President of the Council of Ministers, the strongest man in Servia, Monsieur Nicholas Pashitch.
The long windows commanded a wide view of the tows and of the broad Danube shining in the morning sun, while upon the walls of the sombre apartment with its floor of polished oak and antique furniture covered with crimson plush, was a portrait of King Peter and several full length paintings of dead and gone statesmen.
“His Excellency is engaged for a few moments with the Turkish Minister,” exclaimed a frock-coated secretary in French. “But he will give m’sieur audience almost immediately. His Excellency was going to Pirot, but has remained in order to see you. He received your telegram from Budapest.”
And so Charlie Rolfe remained, gazing out of the window upon the quaint eastern town, watching the phantasmagoria of life up and down its principal thoroughfare. A company of infantry, headed by their band, marched past, hot and dusty, on their return from the early morning manoeuvres which the King had attended, as was his daily habit; and as it passed out of his sight the long doors opened, and he was ushered into the adjoining room, the private cabinet of his Excellency the Premier, an elderly, pleasant-faced old gentleman with a long grey beard, who rose from his big writing-table to greet his visitor. The meeting was a most cordial one, his Excellency inquiring after the health of his old personal friend Mr Statham.
Then, at the Prime Minister’s invitation, Charlie seated himself, and explained the nature of his mission. Monsieur Pashitch heard him with interest to the end. Then he said: “Only yesterday his Majesty expressed to me his desire that we should attract British capital into Servia, therefore all that you tell me is most gratifying to us. Mr Statham, on his last visit here, had audience of his Majesty – on the occasion of the loan – and I think they found themselves perfectly in accord. The development of the Kaopanik has long been desired, and I will this afternoon inform his Majesty of your visit and your proposals.”
Charlie then produced certain documents, reports of two celebrated mining engineers who had been sent out to Kaopanik by Statham Brothers, and these they discussed for a long time.
Presently Rolfe said:
“By the way, your Excellency, have you heard of late anything from Doctor Petrovitch?”
“Petrovitch!” exclaimed the old statesman, starting quickly. “Petrovitch? No!” he almost snapped.
“He has been living in England quite recently, but of late – well, of late I’ve lost sight of him. I know,” he went on, “that you and he had some little difference of opinion upon the Customs war with Austria.”
“Yes, we did,” remarked the grey-bearded old gentleman, with a smile. “We differed upon one point. Afterwards, however, I found that my ideas were unsound, and I admitted it in the Skuptchina. I heard that Petrovitch was in London. The King invited him to come to Belgrade about six months ago, as he wished to consult him in private, but he declined the invitation.”
“Why?”
“I think he feared on account of a political conspiracy which is known to have been formed against him. As you know, the Opposition are his bitter opponents.”
“And they are opponents of his Majesty also,” Rolfe remarked.
“Exactly – a fact which for the peace of Servia is most unfortunate.”
“Then you have no idea where I could find the Doctor?”
“Not the least. But – ” and he paused, thinking for a moment.
“Well?”
“If I remember aright my wife told me that she had met his daughter Maud at dinner at the British Legation one night recently.”
“Then she’s here – in Belgrade!” Rolfe cried.
“I’m not quite certain. I did not pay much attention to what she told me. I was preoccupied with other things. But I will ask her, and let you know. Or you might ask the wife of the British Minister. You know her, of course?”
“Yes,” Rolfe answered, excitedly. “I will call upon her this afternoon. I’m sure I’m very much indebted to your Excellency for this information.”
And his spirits rose again at the thought that his sweet-faced well-beloved was safe and well, and that, in all probability, she was actually in that city.