Читать книгу The Battle of Basinghall Street - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 5

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Andrew Crooks stepped out of Sandbrook's sporting Rolls-Royce with a sigh of relief. He removed his hat, straightened his hair and paused for a moment to regain his breath. He was a young man of sedate habits and he was not used to being whirled through the North London traffic at anything from thirty to fifty miles an hour.

"I am very much obliged for the lift, your lordship," he said. "If you will step this way with me, I will have your ticket stamped."

"Very nice of Lord Marsom to send you up with me," Sandbrook replied, following his guide towards the turnstile. "I only sent round for a ticket to see this marvellous machine. I didn't expect to be personally conducted. Looks like the entrance to Lords'!"

They crossed the jealously guarded portals and Sandbrook glanced around him curiously.

"I apologise to Lords'," he observed. "Looks more like a filthy dust heap than anything."

"That is only temporary," Andrew Crooks explained. "Over four hundred houses have been demolished to clear this space. It is the site of what may be the largest factory in the world. As you see," he pointed out, "it contains at the present moment only three insignificant buildings. The one opposite is an old-fashioned house which was left when the rest of the property was razed to the ground and is now occupied by various employees of the firm and a staff of draughtsmen from the architects'. The large shed over there contains what you have come to see—the wonderful model of the factory of which everyone is talking. The third building, with the corrugated iron roof which looks like a hangar and which is guarded by policemen, contains the most marvellous machine in the world.... If your lordship will excuse me now, I must go and look after the two visitors I was to meet here. I see them waiting for me in the corner."

Sandbrook glanced across in the direction which his companion had indicated.

"So those are your distinguished visitors," he observed quietly.

"The taller one," Andrew Crooks confided, "is Van Stretton, the great Dutch scientist. The other is an American—a manufacturer from Philadelphia."

"I won't detain you," Sandbrook exclaimed, with a sudden change in his manner. "Many thanks, once more, for showing me the way up."

He moved back towards the turnstiles in time to welcome Miss Frances Moore, who had just arrived. She was wearing a long coat trimmed with fur and a turban hat. Her cheeks were becomingly flushed after the ride in an open car. She looked up at him in surprise.

"Now, whatever are you doing up here, Lord Sandbrook?" she asked.

"My dear Miss Moore," he replied, "you know my interest in Woolito. I have come to see the marvellous model. Everyone in town is talking about it. I presume you have brought Mr. Chalmers on the same errand?"

He shook hands with Miss Moore's companion, the editor of one of the London dailies.

"Quite right," the latter assented. "The idea seems to me so ingenious. I have heard of it in building a theatre—never come across any other application of it."

"It appeals to me immensely," Sandbrook confessed. "A man who's having a house built, for instance. He can have his model made and he and the architect can spend many evenings brooding over it and planning improvements."

"Have you seen Sir Sigismund?" Miss Moore intervened.

"Only once in my life," Sandbrook replied. "At that directors' meeting. A weasel-faced little man with shifty eyes and a mean mouth. I'm thankful to say I've been spared any further vision of him."

"Sir Sigismund Lunt is a remarkably clever man," the young lady said severely. "He is a brilliant chemist as well as being a famous engineer. Anyone might be proud of his accomplishments. What I wanted to know, though, was whether you had seen him this morning?"

"Heaven has spared me that affliction," was the fervent reply. "I am on my way to see the model. May I join up with you?"

"Mr. Chalmers," Miss Moore explained, "is very anxious to meet Sir Sigismund first. We shall probably come across you later."

"I must find my own way about, then," Sandbrook regretted, with a nod to Chalmers and a farewell salute, half pleasant, half ironical, to his companion. "If in your capacity as publicity agent, Miss Moore, you desire to interview me afterwards and ascertain my impressions, I shall be at your disposal!"

The publicity agent shook her head.

"I cannot believe," she told him, with a demure smile, "that a single person in the world would be interested in them."

Sir Sigismund Lunt, some quarter of an hour later, leaned back in the easy chair of his improvised office.

"That's all for this morning, Harris," he announced. "Many people in to see our little show yesterday?"

"A thousand and seventy-one, sir," his secretary replied. "Also one or two with special passes who were allowed to see the machine."

Sir Sigismund smiled approvingly.

"All advertisement," he chuckled. "That gentleman who was here with Miss Moore is the editor of the Sun."

"Indeed, sir ... I saw Lord Sandbrook pass down a short time ago."

"Lord Sandbrook!" Sir Sigismund repeated, vastly interested. "What—the young gentleman—the son of the Earl of Sandbrook who was on our board?"

"Yes, Sir Sigismund. He was captain of Eton and played for The Gentlemen. Lately he's been travelling a good deal. Very fine big-game shot, sir."

"I'm delighted to hear this," Sir Sigismund declared. "Shows he's taking an interest in us. We want Lord Sandbrook to take his father's place, you know, Harris. I shall go down and speak to him. Give me my hat and stick, Harris. I shall certainly go down and speak to his lordship."

Sir Sigismund hobbled down to the shed under which the model of the forthcoming factory was daily displayed to visitors. He paused to accept the farewell greetings of Mr. Chalmers, who was just leaving with Frances Moore, and listened to the former's few words of enthusiastic appreciation. A moment later he came face to face with Sandbrook, who had paused to light a cigarette. For Sir Sigismund, who eschewed the graces and courtesies of life, his greeting was remarkably affable.

"This is a great pleasure, Lord Sandbrook," he declared, holding out his hand with its clawlike fingers. "A great compliment, I call it. I am glad to see your interest in us. I trust that it bodes well for the future."

"Certainly," Sandbrook replied, "I think this is the most amazing model I have ever seen in my life."

Andrew Crooks, with his two companions, who had just issued from the shed, made modest intervention.

"Sir Sigismund," he said, "we were on our way up to your office. May I present two gentlemen who have introductions to us and whom I brought down at Lord Marsom's suggestion? Mr. Van Stretton of Amsterdam and Mr. Solomon Hertz of Philadelphia."

Sir Sigismund displayed a moderate amount of graciousness; he was more interested in his other visitor than in these newcomers.

"We were on our way up to see you, Sir Sigismund," Andrew Crooks continued, "to know if you would countersign these two gentlemen's passes and permit them to see the machine."

Sir Sigismund stroked his chin and looked keenly at the two strangers.

"Interested in the textile business?" he enquired.

"Why, no, sir," the American answered. "I am a large manufacturer of chrome-glazed kids in Philadelphia. It is the amazing arrangement of your factory as shown in the model here which has kept me hanging around. We've nothing finer than that in the States."

"Glad to hear you say so," Sir Sigismund acknowledged.

"The idea of the model seems to me to be so original," Van Stretton observed. "So much more practical than a set of drawings."

"You are quite right, sir," Sir Sigismund approved. "Our architect, by studying it carefully, has already planned several innovations. But," he went on, turning towards the farther and larger building, "if I were a boastful man, if I were one who loved to dwell upon my own achievements, there," he cried, his voice squeaky with excitement, his outstretched finger trembling as he pointed towards the shed which they were approaching, "is the triumph of my life! One of the finest achievements, although I dare to say it, of the century. The monster in there took three years to build. It is the most wonderful machine of its sort in the world. It was scarcely worth the trouble of patenting, although it is patented, because no one else could have designed or made it. That machine, gentlemen, stands as the foundation of the fortunes of Woolito, Limited, and though I do not wish to boast—I am not a man of vainglorious turn of mind—I alone designed it. I alone watched it creep into shape. Other men have wives—there is mine."

It was one of Sir Sigismund's moments. One forgot that he had a face like a ferret and that all the meanness of the world lurked in the secret places of his features. His earnestness for the moment triumphed. The light of the prophet radiated from his insignificant countenance.

"Are we going to be allowed to see this prodigy, Sir Sigismund?" the Dutchman asked eagerly.

The great little man produced his fountain pen. Andrew Crooks passed him the cards of admission, one by one. He scrawled his name across the back of each.

"You will come too, Lord Sandbrook?" he almost pleaded.

"Wouldn't miss it for anything in the world," was the cheerful reply.

They all followed Sir Sigismund up the steps to the shed. The policeman stood on one side at his approach. They heard his orders given in his shrill treble voice to the two brawny commissioners. They followed him into the huge room. The door was closed behind them. They were admitted into the sacred presence....

From behind a highly polished brass bar the four men, like pigmies, looked upwards to what seemed to be a chaos of furious energy, a gigantic medley of harnessed force, stretching farther away than the dazed and weary eyes could follow. Wheels of every size were flashing and piston rods turning in some vague communion with one another. Even a mechanic might well have been bewildered by the amazing power and intricacies of the whirling mass. The inventor, dwarfed into the similitude of some two-legged insect, walked a little in advance of his companions, and every now and then he squeaked out some word of explanation. Hertz came last, his spectacles removed, the man now intensely alive, his eyes everywhere, his hand continually clutching the brass protecting rail. When they stepped out into the daylight, reeling for a moment upon the steps, dazed by the comparative silence and blinded by a sudden flood of sunshine, Sir Sigismund challenged their laudation with an almost childish smile.

"I have no breath for speech," Van Stretton declared. "For the rest of my days machinery is a live and passionate thing."

"I don't know whether I am on my head or my heels," Sandbrook confessed. "All I could see was what appeared to be a stream of grey rubbish go in one end and beautiful baskets full of coloured wool flow out the other."

"I've seen some of our power stations," Solomon Hertz muttered. "I've seen electricity made and water transported five hundred miles—I've never seen anything like that."

Sir Sigismund chuckled and waved them to the gate.

"You are very fortunate men," he told them. "There are not fifty others in the world who have seen my baby at play...."

Outside, Chalmers was talking to the architect, whom he had met in the model shed. Sandbrook, swift to seize his opportunity, drew Miss Frances Moore a little on one side.

"You would doubtless like to know my impressions of that amazing monster," he observed.

She shook her head.

"No one would be interested in them," she assured him. "If you were an engineer, it would be different. I cannot think what made Sir Sigismund take you into the Holy of Holies."

"I am inclined to wonder," he complained, "whether you have not too low an idea of my mentality."

She laughed softly.

"On the contrary," she confided, "I think you are a very intelligent young man. You are so intelligent that there are times when I must confess that I do not quite understand you."

"Capital," he exclaimed. "Look upon me in the light of a conundrum. Devote your time during the next few weeks to solving me. I will be like the illustrated papers—I will offer a prize—"

"Perhaps," she reflected, "you would not care much about being solved."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I have no dark secrets," he assured her; "if that is what you mean. There is one forming in my brain but I have not the courage to share it with you just yet."

She abandoned her attempt at gravity and laughed in his face.

"You are too ridiculous," she protested. "I must leave now. Mr. Chalmers is ready. Tell me seriously—if you can be serious for a moment—what did you think of that machine?"

"I think that it is the missing wonder of the world," he acknowledged.

She moved her head towards the disappearing figure of Sir Sigismund.

"And its inventor?"

"He must have a gigantic brain," Sandbrook confessed. "Small men with large heads often have. All the same, I don't like him any better than I did."

"You must admire him," she persisted.

"Why should I?" Sandbrook objected. "I don't think that he has a nice nature. I will lend you a handbook on physiognomy if you will promise me to study his features one by one."

"You really are too absurd!" she declared.

"Let's talk like human beings," he proposed suddenly. "You have, I fear, a very low opinion of me, Miss Frances Moore, but I like you. When will you dine with me?"

"You are certainly very British," she smiled. "Do you ask every young woman you admire to take a meal at your expense?"

"It wouldn't ruin me if I did," he replied. "There are not many. Where does one reach you on the telephone?"

"One doesn't—in business hours," she answered.

"In your hours of leisure, then?"

"You will find me in the telephone book," she told him. "But listen, Lord Sandbrook. You have a very glib tongue but I really have something against you. I do not think your attitude is entirely friendly towards Woolito."

"My dear Miss Moore," he protested. "I have never seen the stuff."

"Frivolous again," she exclaimed. "You know what I mean. The interests of the Woolito Company are my interests in life. Do you understand that?"

"Perfectly well," he answered.

"An enemy of Woolito, Limited, is my enemy. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly."

"Very well then. I will dine with you one night after next week. You can ring me up. I see that Mr. Chalmers is ready."

She left him with a little nod of farewell and Sandbrook, having offered a lift to Andrew Crooks and his friends, which was hastily declined by the former, made his way back to his car.