Читать книгу The Channay Syndicate - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 4

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As the hour of ten struck from the cathedral clock the doors of the Norwich and Norfolk Bank were slowly and portentously rolled back by the porter—an individual who, in his dark-coloured livery and well brushed but quaintly-shaped tall hat, occupied a position in the civic imagination very little inferior to that of the manager himself. Before the chimes had ceased a slim, well-built man, who had been loitering upon the other side of the road, had crossed the threshold. He paused to look around him with the pleased and interested air of one who revisits a familiar scene. A clerk, who had only just opened an enormous ledger somewhere in the background, came to the counter with an air of resigned displeasure. The echoes of the last stroke of the hour had barely died away. Such precipitation on the part of a customer betokened either impecuniosity or lack of consideration.

“I should like a cheque book,” the early visitor remarked—“a hundred order cheque book.”

The young man looked at him searchingly.

“Excuse me, but are you a customer of the bank?” he enquired.

“Certainly,” was the prompt reply. “I rather think that I have a good deal of money here. My name is Gilbert Channay.”

If the newcomer had declared his name to be that of the Archangel Gabriel, and produced documentary evidence of his identity, his statement could scarcely have created a greater sensation. A dozen heads shot up from behind their desks in every part of the premises, and an elderly cashier reached the manager’s sanctum with a single stride. The door of the private office flew open; the manager himself appeared. Some twenty pairs of eyes were focused upon this amazingly unexpected apparition.

“Mr. Channay! Dear me, Mr. Channay at last!” the manager exclaimed, as he approached with extended hand.

“I came as soon as I was able,” his visitor assured him.

The manager coughed.

“Step into my office, if you please,” he begged. “There are a great many matters of business I should like to discuss.”

Gilbert Channay accepted the invitation but without marked enthusiasm. The manager pointed to his own easy-chair; he himself remained at his desk.

“I must confess, Mr. Channay,” he began, “that your visit is a great relief. Whilst your account, during your absence, has naturally been an immense asset, it has also been a source of considerable embarrassment. Besides the share certificates which we are holding on your behalf, I wonder whether you have any idea as to what your actual cash balance is?”

Gilbert Channay leaned back and looked up thoughtfully towards the ceiling.

“I came straight down here without visiting either my lawyer, who has been acting for me under power of attorney, or my brokers,” he said at length, “but I should think it must amount to nearly a hundred thousand pounds.”

“It amounts to one hundred and twenty-two thousand pounds, odd,” was the impressive pronouncement. “We’re not a large banking establishment, Mr. Channay, and the responsibility of such an account has at times been a source of anxiety to us. You are aware, of course, that there have been two suits brought against us on behalf of the Channay Syndicate with the idea of diverting a portion of the balance towards an alleged trust fund.”

The founder of that syndicate smiled.

“The actions failed, as they were bound to fail,” he observed. “The money is mine. I’ll take a thousand with me now, and I’ll go into the matter of some further investments as soon as I have had time to communicate with my brokers.”

“If our people can be of any use,” the manager suggested—“most respectable firm, here in the city.... Ah Morgan,” he added, addressing the young man who entered, carrying a cheque book, “bring in a thousand pounds—fives, tens and twenties, I suppose, Mr. Channay, and a few treasury notes.... I hope you are going to spend some time down in these parts, sir.”

“I have a small house on Blickley marshes,” Channay confided. “I think I shall stay there for a time. I need a few months to accustom myself to the alteration in my daily routine. Prison life is, of course, quite an experience for anyone.”

The manager was a little distressed. He had not meant himself to allude to the subject.

“We all feel,” he declared, “that you were somewhat harshly treated. The evidence of your friends, for instance, seemed a trifle prejudiced.”

“My enemies, you mean,” was the prompt amendment. “It was a curious little conspiracy, but after all there was no doubt that I broke the law, although, from a commonsense point of view, no one suffered. However—that’s done with!”

“A man with your wealth,” the manager ventured, “will not have the slightest difficulty in re-establishing himself.”

“I suppose not,” his client mused. “The point I have to consider, though, is in what way do I desire to re-establish myself?—certainly not amongst my former associates.”

“It is the universal opinion,” the other persisted, “that your friends and fellow directors, to say the least of it, behaved in a most selfish and inconsiderate fashion.”

“They behaved like damned rogues,” Channay assented, “but they made a terrible hash of it all. However, that’s neither here nor there. Tell your brokers to send me a list of investments down to Seaman’s Grange, Blickley. You shall hear from me in a day or two.”

“The sooner the better,” the manager begged. “A current balance such as yours is not a wholesome thing in banking, sir. We’re proud of it and at the same time distressed. We shall welcome your instructions as regards investment with relief.”

“You shall have them....”

Channay strolled out into the sunlit street, with the thousand pounds buttoned up in his pocket, called at the gun-maker’s, where he made considerable purchases, and finally sought a garage where he hired a car, collected his belongings and returned to the hotel to pay his bill. As he approached the office window, he felt a touch upon his arm. He swung round, and instinctively his right hand crept towards the pocket wherein reposed one of his recent purchases. His uneasiness, however, was of short duration. The man who had accosted him was not the kind of person to inspire any anxiety of that sort. He was a man of under medium height, pink-cheeked, dark-eyed, and with curly black hair; obviously a Jew, and one who attempted no concealment of his nationality.

“It is Mr. Channay!” he exclaimed. “Well, I am glad!”

“Are you?” was the colourless reply. “Why?”

Mr. Mark Levy was a little hurt.

“Why?” he repeated. “Are we not friends—partners, even? Have I not many reasons for being glad to see you?”

“I wasn’t aware of them,” was the curt rejoinder.

“Now, my dear sir,” Levy expostulated, with the air of one seeking to soothe an angry child, “you are ruffled. Everything is strange to you. You have had a very terrible time. Take things gently. You know why I am here? I found out that you were likely to come to Blickley and I determined to be one of the first of your partners to greet you.”

“Partners?” Channay queried. “I didn’t know I had any partners. If I had,” he went on meaningly, “they certainly ought to have shared this unfortunate seclusion of mine.”

“That was not our fault—not mine, at any rate,” Mr. Levy protested.

“The evidence of one or two of you at my trial,” Channay began——

“Stop!” his companion interrupted. “Why should I think that my evidence was necessary. There were all the others in London. I myself was in New York. You must not be too hard upon us, Mr. Channay—upon some of us, I mean. And that reminds me, you have a great deal of money to distribute. I have made up my mind that I would be one of the first.”

“I have also,” Channay observed, “a few old scores to settle.”

His companion coughed.

“Let us find a quiet place,” he suggested, “and talk business together.”

Channay laughed tolerantly. He led the way into a small reading-room and closed the door.

“Now, Levy,” he demanded, “what business have we to discuss?”

“My dear Mr. Channay,” the other begged, “let us talk amiably. This is pleasant matter we have to talk about. It is not losses we have to face. Nyasas closed at thirty yesterday. We have made money—a great deal of money—thanks to your wonderful judgment—an unexpectedly great sum of money.”

“We?” Gilbert Channay repeated coldly.

“Why, my dear sir,” was the wondering protest, “of course it is ‘we.’ There were eleven of us. The transactions were undertaken in your name, but everything was clearly understood. You were to raise the money and apply for fifteen thousand shares. The profits were to be divided into fifteen equal parts, of which you took five and the other ten were to be divided amongst us. I think my share comes to thirty thousand pounds. I have not been fortunate lately, Mr. Channay. I need money very badly. That thirty thousand pounds will be a godsend.”

“If you get it,” Channay observed, smiling.

Mr. Levy dabbed his forehead. He was very anxious, and there was something about his companion’s manner which filled him with vague disquietude.

“You do not dispute the arrangement?” he exclaimed.

“What about the conspiracy to get rid of me and my five shares, and collar the lot?” Gilbert Channay demanded.

“Upon my word of honour,” Mr. Levy insisted, with feverish earnestness—“upon my word of honour, I swear that I was not in that. It was just your swell friends who tried that on.”

“Why did you not come and give evidence on my behalf?” Channay enquired. “You knew that we had all agreed that the balance sheet of the Siamese Corporation should be signed.”

“I was in New York,” the other declared. “I had nothing to do with it at all.”

“You had time to come back,” Channay reminded him. “If you had come back and told the truth it might have made all the difference.”

The man squirmed in his over-eagerness.

“There were others,” he protested—“others in England, on the spot. I never dreamed but that they would go into the box. I never claimed anything, I never wanted anything except my rightful share. When I heard that you had been sentenced to imprisonment I was thunder-struck.”

Gilbert Channay lit a cigarette and threw himself into an easy-chair. The sunlight was drifting in through the windows. It was market day and the streets outside were crowded.

“Well, Mr. Levy,” he announced, “it is unfortunate, but I have decided to take advantage of the legal aspect of the situation, and to keep for myself the profits which have accrued during my—er—temporary absence from the world. I applied for those shares in my own name, instead of in the name of the Channay Syndicate, simply as a matter of convenience, and I intended to apportion the shares as soon as they were delivered. Under the circumstances, however, I have changed my mind. I have sold some of the shares and the remainder are registered in my name. Your treachery is going to cost you, Mr. Mark Levy, to be exact, twenty-nine thousand pounds.”

“You are not going to pay me my share?” Mr. Levy gasped.

“Not one penny,” was the bland reply. “I do not mind confiding to you that I have a balance of over a hundred thousand pounds in that bank across the way there. I have, too, as you see, a cheque book in my pocket,” Gilbert Channay continued, producing it and laying it upon the table. “I could write you your cheque for thirty thousand pounds at this minute, and not feel it—but I shan’t!”

Mr. Levy was almost distracted with heat and despair. He was on the verge of tears. He would have gone on his knees if he had imagined that it might be of any use. He was shaking from head to foot. There were thirty thousand pounds in the balance.

“But Mr. Channay—my dear sir,” he begged, losing for a moment, in his excitement, his prim precision of speech—“I was a bankrupt unless that money reach me this week. The others are all so wealthy—some of them. For me everything that I have touched for years has been bad. I get poorer and poorer, Mr. Channay. Fifteen thousand pounds of that money I owe now, and I will be a bankrupt unless I pay. My creditors have given me time because I tell them that when you come out there is money for me. Mr. Channay, you wouldn’t want to ruin me?”

Gilbert Channay smiled as though the idea amused him.

“You didn’t seem to mind doing worse than ruining me,” he observed.

“But it was not my idea,” Levy cried hysterically. “I was against it. I signed the affidavit only because, if I had not, the others would have scooped in the money and there would have been nothing for me. On my honour, Mr. Channay, this is the truth.”

He paused to wipe the beads of perspiration from his forehead. His eyes were watery, his thick red lips all a-quiver.

“Tell me precisely what happened?” Channay demanded, after a moment’s reflection.

“It was like this,” Levy explained. “I was in New York. I was trying to sell some shares in an orange grove, but no brokers would help me. In New York everybody is so suspicious. Then I got a letter.”

“From whom?” Channay asked.

“From Sinclair Coles,” Levy continued, dropping his voice a little as though afraid of being overheard even in the empty room—“Sir Sinclair Coles, he is now. He wrote me that, although they hadn’t believed it at first, there was a fortune in these Nyasa shares, and that they had been applied for on behalf of the Channay Syndicate in our joint names. He said that you hadn’t treated the company quite fair—that five shares to you was too much—and he said that Kulse should come and see me in New York with a proposition.”

“And Kulse came?”

“He came the next day. He brought the affidavit and stayed with me until I went to a lawyer and signed it.”

“Tell me exactly what he said,” Channay insisted.

“I tell you everything,” Levy promised, mopping once more his damp forehead. “Afterwards you must treat me right for it. Kulse told me that everyone thought your five shares to their one was too much, and they had a scheme for getting rid of you. You signed the balance sheets for the Siamese Corporation so as to pay the application money for the Nyasa shares. That was before they began to boom. Mr. Kulse told me that the other members of the Syndicate had held a meeting in London, they felt they hadn’t been treated fair by you, so they proposed to have you lagged for signing those false balance sheets, and while you were in prison they would distribute the shares equally.”

“Didn’t it occur to you that this was a very dirty piece of work?” Channay asked sternly. “You were to put me into prison for a technical offence, committed not for myself, but for the Syndicate, and whilst I was safely in prison you were to help yourselves to the funds. How does that seem to you now, Mark Levy—a fair deal?”

The tortured man groaned.

“I was a fool when I listened,” he admitted, “but you see I would have got forty-five thousand pounds instead of thirty. Forty-five thousand pounds! Kulse kept on telling me that until I couldn’t bear it, so I swore on the affidavit that you was the one responsible for the Siamese Corporation accounts, that none of us others had been shown them to the best of my knowledge, and that we none of us knew that the whole of the cash balance had been withdrawn for the purchase of Nyasa shares. So you see, with nine members of the syndicate swearing that they knew nothing of the accounts, and me signing an affidavit—well, they figured it out that you wouldn’t have a show.”

“I didn’t,” Gilbert Channay assented. “I got five years’ penal servitude for something which we all agreed upon jointly, and with the shares of the company standing at that moment at a higher price than the people paid for them, and the Siamese Corporation even in a better financial position than their balance sheet showed.”

“It was terrible,” Mr. Levy faltered.

Gilbert Channay walked to the window for a moment and looked out at the steep, sunlit street, the crowds of people, and the busy stream of motor cars and vehicles of every description. Perhaps there was something in his face which he did not care for his companion to see. When he turned round his expression was purely negative.

“Levy,” he said, “I would like you to understand this matter from my point of view. Some years ago, eleven of us formed a little syndicate to conduct certain financial operations. I think I can say without undue conceit that I had most of the brains, as I certainly had most of the capital. We agreed that the profits should be pooled into fifteen shares, of which I should have five and the remaining members one each. Is that right?”

“Quite right, quite right, Mr. Channay. You were very much the cleverest of us all. We ought to have been content.”

“A good many of our transactions,” Gilbert Channay continued, “were pretty close to the wind. We were dealing with all sorts of people—sharks, speculators and, I suppose, a few mugs. We took our first risk with the Siamese Corporation. I signed balance sheets which certainly gave an optimistic view of the company’s properties, and which the Law Courts have since decided were fraudulent. Fraudulent or not, however, my valuations turned out to be correct, and a very large profit was the result. We made so much that you others grew dissatisfied. You were making, or I was making for you, more money than you had ever made before in your lives, but one and all you grudged me my share. You went into a conspiracy.”

“It was not my idea,” Levy muttered.

“You forgot that you had me to thank for a very pleasant little fortune. To possess yourselves of my share as well as your own you raked up this Siamese Corporation affair, which if we had all stuck together would never have come to the Law Courts. You plotted to put me into a false position, believing that you would be able to handle the whole of the funds of the Syndicate during my retirement. That is right, isn’t it, Levy? You signed your false affidavit with the idea of getting me into trouble and helping yourself to my share of the profits during my absence. Right or wrong?

“Quite true, Mr. Channay,” Levy confessed, with tears in his eyes. “I was a fool. I was led away.”

“You were all fools,” Gilbert Channay continued, “to think that I should leave the money where anyone could get at it but myself. However, you have confessed and that is an end of it. You have confessed to an act of incredible meanness, and now I will show you how I propose to return good for evil.”

Mr. Levy began to tremble again. His eyes grew like beads as they followed his companion’s movements. The latter withdrew his cheque-book from his pocket, stretched it out upon the table, dipped his pen in the ink, and wrote. As though he were obeying some natural law of fascination, Mr. Levy rose stealthily from his seat, moved across the room and looked over the other’s shoulder. What he saw was like a message from paradise:—

“Pay to Mark Levy

the sum of thirty thousand pounds.

(Signed) Gilbert Channay.”

Veritable tears stood in his eyes. There was a real gulp in his throat. It was a wonderful moment.

“Mr. Channay—my dear friend—my dear sir,” he exclaimed, as he took the cheque into his pudgy, trembling fingers, “what can I say?”

“Don’t say anything,” Gilbert Channay advised quietly. “I shall probably treat one or two of the other members of the Syndicate in practically the same fashion. You are going to learn a new quality in life.”

Mr. Levy’s eyes were glued to the cheque.

“Your handwriting, Mr. Channay,” he remarked sympathetically, “is not what it used to be. It is very shaky and much larger.”

“You forget where I have spent the last three years,” was the dry rejoinder.

Levy coughed and changed the subject.

“Norwich and Norfolk Bank,” he murmured, still gloating over his treasure.

Gilbert Channay pointed out through the window.

“Across the street there,” he said. “You can draw your money and be off back to London by the next train.”

Mr. Levy picked up his hat and held out his hand, of which Channay took no notice.

“I will not pretend,” the latter concluded, “that I have forgiven you. Perhaps later on in life, I may do so. I am teaching you a little lesson, which I hope you will take to your heart. Good-morning!”

The excited man was incoherent but precipitate. With the cheque clasped tightly between his fingers he hurried out of the room, down the stairs, across the hall and into the street. In more leisurely fashion, with his cheque-book still in his hand, his benefactor followed him. Mr. Levy entered the bank without recognition from anybody and took up his position before the desk of one of the cashiers. Gilbert Channay received a cordial and respectful welcome from the liveried attendant, a smile and bow from those of the employees who caught his eye, as he made his way past the backs of the customers to the manager’s office, to which he was instantly admitted. The latter welcomed him smilingly.

“Glad to see you again, Mr. Channay,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

His client displayed his cheque-book.

“Rather foolishly,” he explained, “I left this in my sitting-room for a few minutes this morning, and when I returned there I found a very suspicious character waiting for me—a man whom I have every reason to mistrust. After his departure I saw that a cheque had been torn out. I simply came across to stop payment of the cheque in case of any trouble.”

“Quite so,” the manager concurred—“quite so! If you will excuse me for one moment, I will go out and give orders myself to the cashiers. It is market day here, as you know, and we are so terribly busy that we should only lose time if I were to send a message.”

He hurried out to the bank and Gilbert Channay lounged in the very handsome leather-covered chair, whistling softly to himself. The manager was gone for several minutes. When he returned he was followed by a little procession. First of all came a cashier. With him was Mark Levy, and behind, the stalwart defender of the door. At a gesture from the manager the latter remained outside.

“Here is the gentleman who gave me the cheque,” Mr. Levy declared, pointing to Channay. “He gave it to me himself not five minutes ago.”

Channay looked at him with a portentous frown.

“I gave you a cheque?” he repeated incredulously. “Why, I refused to pay your fare from London even! Do I understand,” he continued, turning towards the manager, “that this man has presented a cheque purporting to be signed by me?”

The cashier silently handed him the oblong slip of paper.

“The handwriting, as you will see, Mr. Channay,” he pointed out, “is very unlike yours, and the signature does not correspond at all with the signature we have, nor does your private mark appear under the ‘Channay.’ I was bringing the cheque in to Mr. Brown here, for instructions, when he came out.”

“This cheque is a forgery,” Channay announced quietly—“an impudent, inconceivable forgery!”

The manager touched the bell and whispered a word to the attendant. The countenance of Mark Levy was an amazing epitome of consternation, fear and bewilderment.

“But Mr. Channay—my dear sir—is this a joke? I don’t understand. This is the cheque you gave me this morning for my share of the Syndicate funds.”

Channay looked at the distressed man coldly.

“You will scarcely improve matters by trying to brazen it out, Levy,” he warned him. “You came whining to me this morning, and you know very well what my reply was. It seems that you have attempted to help yourself. I wash my hands of the affair. It remains between you and the bank.”

“But you mean that you are going to deny that you gave me the cheque?” Levy gasped.

Channay turned from him contemptuously.

“The cheque,” he assured the manager, “is, as anyone can see, simply a clumsy forgery. This man came whining to me to pay him money in connection with a syndicate to which we both belonged years ago. My reply to him was definite enough. I told him he would have to discover a new quality in human nature before he found even a rich man making a tout of his class a present of thirty thousand pounds.”

Mr. Levy’s red lips were twitching. There was a ghastly pallor in his face, drops of sweat upon his forehead. He struggled for speech in vain. There was a knock at the door, a brief response from the manager, the reappearance of the bank attendant followed by an inspector of police. Gilbert Channay rose to his feet.

“This, I imagine, is your affair, Mr. Brown,” he said, addressing the manager. “My evidence is at your disposal at any time. A more barefaced and preposterous attempt at forgery I never saw. A matter of five years, I should think, Levy,” he went on, turning towards him. “We shall be able to compare experiences.”

There was a whispered word from the manager. The inspector laid his hand upon Levy’s shoulder. The latter started as though he had been stung.

“I won’t go!” he cried. “This is a conspiracy! It’s ruin! Mr. Channay, say something! For God’s sake, say something!”

“If I were to trust myself to speak,” Gilbert Channay rejoined calmly, “I might say too much. You have made a very serious mistake in life, Levy, and, as other and better men have done before you, you are going to pay for it.”

The inspector of police and his charge passed from the room; the latter almost in a state of collapse. Channay shook hands with the manager.

“A most extraordinary piece of good fortune,” he remarked, “that I should have come to you at once. I very nearly left it until after luncheon—even though I knew that the cheque must have been stolen. Then I remembered what a wrong ’un the fellow was. I see your cashier noticed the absence of the two little dots in the loop of the ‘y.’ ”

The manager smiled benignly.

“One of the clumsiest attempts at forgery within my experience,” he observed.

“Positively asking for trouble,” his client agreed as he took his leave.

An hour or so later, Channay, his hired car filled with his various purchases, left the city and turned eastward. There was a faint smile upon his lips as he leaned back amongst the cushions; a smile of reminiscence, not in the least malicious, but the placid smile of one who has succeeded in some interesting task. He thought of the agony of the man whom he had last seen in the magistrate’s court, a policeman on each side, without the slightest compunction. He recalled his own evidence with satisfaction and self-approbation. This was entirely according to plan. He was by no means a sentimentalist, and he felt no shadow of regret at what he had done. If he had borne false evidence he had borne it against a man whose chief weapon it had been. He had returned evil for evil, subtlety for subtlety. There was not a single quality pertaining to his victim which entitled him to consideration. The only astounding thing was the way Mark Levy had walked into the trap, and that within a few hours of his release one of his ten enemies should have been dealt with. His thoughts naturally wandered on to the others. He sat up a little in the car. The sun was hot, but with every mile there came a keener tang of ozone in the breeze from eastward. There came into his mind, one by one, memories of these men with whom he had worked and dined, and in whose company he had wandered through the tortuous ways of the financial world. Isham had grown fat and vicious, Sinclair Coles more saturnine than ever and, without a doubt, less principled. Mark Levy had always been an object of contempt; the worst kind of fool, humble but grasping, servile yet untrustworthy. He was always doomed to be an easy victim, but there were some of the others!—Channay’s face grew a little grimmer in the sunshine as he thought of them. Each in turn should pay, if it cost him his life. No need, he thought, for him to go and seek for them. The pages of his cheque-book were the bait which would draw them to him. Even if he had chosen for refuge the other end of the world, they would come. There might be a day or two’s delay, sometimes a week, sometimes a month, but he possessed the irresistible magnet. In the end they would come.