Читать книгу Honor of Thieves - Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne - Страница 8

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It was late in the evening when Patrick Onslow again found himself en tête-à-tête with his host. There had been people in to dinner at the house in Park Lane, but these had gone, and Mrs. Shelf and Amy Rivers followed them to Lady Latchford’s dance. Mrs. Shelf had wished to carry Onslow also in her train, but that person stayed behind by a request which he could not very well refuse. “You will favor me very much by remaining here for the rest of the evening, Mr. Onslow,” Shelf had said in his pompous way. “I have matters of the greatest moment which I wish to discuss with you.”

“I hardly know how to begin,” Shelf confessed uneasily, when they were alone.

“Then let me make a suggestion,” said Onslow, with a laugh. “Come to the point at once. Let’s have the plot without any introductory chapters. You’ve told me you’ve got a scheme on hand for turning my discovery into currency, and you’ve rather hinted that it’s a dirty scheme. The only question is, how dirty? Thanks to pressure of circumstances, I’m not an over-particular person; but on points I’m very squeamish; or, in other words, I draw the line somewhere. Unless I’m very vastly mistaken, your plan will involve one in downright knavery, which is a thing all sensible men avoid if possible. Now, in my ignorance, I fancied the find might be turned to account without climbing down to that.”

“Oh,” said Shelf, eagerly, “then you had a scheme in your head before you came to me?”

The other shrugged his shoulders and lit a cigar. “Just a dim outline, nothing more. You see, the interior of the Everglades is absolutely untouched, by the white man’s weapons. It was vaguely supposed to be one vast lake, with oases of slime and mangroves. The lake was reported as too shallow for boats, and abounding with fevers, agues, and mosquitoes. Consequently it remained unexplored, and on the end of the Florida peninsula to-day no white man (barring myself and one or two others) has ever got further than five or eight miles in from the coast. Now, as I’ve told you, I was lucky enough to hit upon a fine deep ship-channel going in as far as the center line, and I don’t know how far beyond inside. There is good fertile country, a healthy climate and the best game-preserve on this earth. For the first comers, that interior will be just a sportsman’s paradise. My idea is two-wise. First sell the cream off the sport. Some men will give anything for shooting, and in this case there will also be the glamour of being pioneers. Each one will start determined to write a book of his opinions and doings when he gets back. By chartering a steamer and treating them well on board, they would have sporting de luxe, and one ought to get quite five-and-twenty chaps at five hundred guineas apiece. That gives the first crop. For the second, buy up an enormous tract of the land, which can be got for half nothing—say ten or fifteen cents an acre—boom it, and resell it in lots to Jugginses. They’ll fancy they’ll grow oranges, as all Englishmen do who try Florida. Perhaps they may grow them: who knows, if they keep off whisky and put in work? But that won’t be the promoters’ concern. They don’t advertise that the land will produce oranges; they only guarantee that it would if it was given a chance; and that’s all correct. Perhaps this is rough on the Jugginses; but as they crowd these British Islands in droves, and are always on the look-out for some one to shear them, I don’t see why an Everglades Company shouldn’t have their fleeces as well as anybody else. They’re mostly wasters, and wouldn’t do any mortal good anywhere; and it’s a patriotic deed to cart them over our boundary ditch away from local mischief. Besides, even if the worst comes to the worst, and the orange industry of Florida still refuses to make headway, the would-be growers needn’t starve; nor need they even do what they’ll probably hate more—and that’s work. There’s always sweet potatoes and mullet and tobacco to be got, and if that diet doesn’t cloy, a man can have it there for mighty little exertion. Come, now. That’s the pemmican of the plan. What do you think of it?”

“Much capital would be needed.”

Onslow shrugged his shoulders. “Some, naturally, or I shouldn’t have come to you. If I’d seen any way to pouching all the plunder single-handed you may bet your life, Mr. Theodore Shelf, I shouldn’t have invited you into partnership.”

“Returns, too, would be very slow.”

“Not necessarily. Float the company, and then turn it over to another company for cash down.”

“Moreover, when the—er—the young men you spoke about, found that the orange-groves did not produce at once in paying quantities, they would write home, and their parents would denounce me as a swindler in the newspapers.”

“No, not you; the other company—the one you sold it to. But then apologists would arise to show that the Jugginses—don’t shy at the word, sir—were lazy and ignorant, and also that they absorbed the corn whisky of the country in excessive quantities. And then that company could grin smugly, and pose as a misunderstood benefactor. So its profits wouldn’t be smirched in the least. Grasp that?”

“Yes, yes: I dare say you have worked it all out to yourself, and thought over the details so many times that the whole scheme seems entirely plausible. But looking at it from the view of a business man, I cannot say that it appears to be an enterprise I should care to embark in. You see it is so very much beyond the scope of my general operations that I—er—hesitate—er—you understand, I hesitate——”

“Yes,” said Patrick Onslow, quietly, “you hesitate because you’ve got something ten times more profitable up your sleeve.”

Shelf started, and shivered slightly.

“You may as well be candid and open with me,” Onslow continued, “and tell me what you are driving at. If it suits me, I’ll say so; and if it doesn’t, I’ll let you know with surprising promptness. And again, if we don’t trade, you may rely on me not to gossip about your suggestion. I’m not the stone-throwing variety of animal. You see I live in a sort of semi-greenhouse myself.”

There was a minute’s pause, during which Theodore Shelf shifted about as though his chair was uneven rock beneath him. Then he jerked out his tale sentence by sentence, squinting sideways at his companion between each period.

“You know I’m a shipowner in a large way of business?”

Onslow nodded.

“Ships are occasionally lost at sea: steamers, even new steamers straight out of a builder’s yard, and well found in every particular.”

“So I’ve read in the newspaper.”

“And every shipowner insures his vessels to the full of their value.”

“Except when he has a foreboding that they will come to grief on a voyage. Then, so rumor says, he usually has the forethought to over-insure.”

Mr. Theodore Shelf passed a handkerchief over his forehead, and started what was apparently a new topic.

“There is a silver crisis on just now in the United States, and by this morning’s paper the dollar is down at sixty cents. American gold is not to be had. English gold is always worth its face value. What more natural financial operation could there be than to ship out sovereigns, and profit by the discrepancy?”

“Ah,” said Onslow, “so the new and valuable steamer, which, though over-insured, is likely to be reported lost, is evidently to have a consignment of specie on board. £500,000 I fancy you mentioned as the figure in the billiard-room this morning. Well, if one is going in for robbery—or piracy, I suppose it would turn out to be in this instance—there’s nothing like a large coup. It’s your niggler who usually fails, and gets laid by the heels. Drive on, and be a little more explicit.”

“Couldn’t the steamer be lost somehow in the Gulf of Mexico, and a boat containing the boxes of specie find its way through this channel of yours into the interior of Florida?”

“How—lost?”

Mr. Shelf mopped his forehead again. “Don’t steamers,” he asked, “don’t they sometimes have sad accidents which—which cause them to blow up?”

“Such things have been known. But it’s rather rough on the crew, don’t you think?”

“Oh, poor fellows, yes. But a sailor’s life is always hazardous. Indeed, what can he expect with wages at their present ruinous rate? Shipowners must live.”

“Oh, you beauty!” said Patrick Onslow.

“I must ask you,” cried Shelf with a sudden burst of sourness, “to refrain from these comments, sir. But tell me, before I go any further in this confidence, am I to count upon your assistance?”

“That depends upon many things. To begin with, there’ll have to be modifications before I dabble. I’m not obtrusively squeamish about human life—my own, or other people’s. On occasion I bagged my man—because he had twice shot at me. Still, piracy, complicated with what practically amounts to murder, is an art which I haven’t trafficked in as yet; and, curious to relate, I don’t intend to begin. Your scheme is delicious in its cold-bloodedness; but it would look better if it were toned down a trifle. By the way, better help yourself to a drink. Your nerves are in such a joggle, that I fancy you’ll faint if you don’t. I notice there’s no blue ribbon on your evening dress. Humph! That’s a second mate’s nip—four fingers, if it’s a drop; apparently you are used to this. Tell me now, what honorarium do you propose I should take for engineering this piece of rascality in your favor?”

“I will give you five hundred pounds!”

“Now, would you, really? Not even guineas?”

“Mr. Onslow, I’ll make it a thousand. There!”

“Mr. Theodore Shelf, when a monkey wants a cat to pull chestnuts for him out of the fire, he first has to be stronger than the cat. You don’t occupy that enviable position. In fact, I have the whip-hand of you in every way. We need not particularize, but you can sum the items for yourself. Now I’ll make you an offer. Half of all the plunder, and entire control of everything.”

“Great heavens! do you want to ruin me?”

“I don’t care in the least if I do. Your welfare doesn’t interest me. But my services are on the market with a prix fixé, and you can take ’em or leave ’em. That’s final.”

Shelf burst into a torrent of expostulations; exciting himself more and more as he went on; till at last he stood before the other with gripped fists and the veins ridged out down his neck, inarticulate with fury.

Onslow heard him out with a contemptuous smile, but when the man had stormed himself into silence, then he spoke, coolly and coldly:

“When one trades in life and death, the brokerage is heavy. You have heard my offer. If you don’t like it, say so without further palaver, and I’ll leave you now—with your conscience, if you have a rag of such a commodity left.”

“You may sit where you are,” replied Shelf sullenly.

“Well and good. That means to say my terms are accepted. I’ll pin you to them later. But for the present let me observe to you something else, so that there may be no misunderstanding between us. I’ve been rambling up and down the world half my life, and I’ve met blackguards of most descriptions in every iniquitous place, from Callao to Port Saïd—forgers, thieves, murderers of nearly every grade of proficiency. But they say that the prime of everything gets to London, and I verily believe now that it does, for by Jove, you are the most pernicious scoundrel of all the collection!”

“Sir!” thundered Shelf, “am I to listen to these foul insults in my own house?”

“Oh, I quite understand the obligations of bread and salt; but you are beyond the pale of that. You are a noxious beast who ought to be stamped out. Still you can be useful to me; so I shall hire myself out to be useful to you. But I have brought these unpleasant facts under your notice, to let you thoroughly understand that I have summed you up from horns to hoofs, and to point out to you that I wouldn’t give a piastre for your most sacred word of honor. We shall be bound to one another in this precious scheme by community of interests alone; and if you can swindle me, you may. Only look out for the consequences if you do try it on. I never yet left a score unpaid. We’re Arcades ambo—rascals both; only we’re different varieties of rascal. I know you pretty thoroughly; and if you don’t know me as well, possibly you will before we’ve done with one another. And now, if it please you, we’ll go into the minuter details of this piece of villainy, and sketch out definitely how we are to steal this half a million in specie, and this valuable steamer, without committing more murder than is absolutely essential to success.”