Читать книгу The Adventures of Mr. Joseph P. Cray - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 4

Table of Contents

After two theatres and a music-hall on three consecutive nights, Mr. Joseph P. Cray and his daughter Sara decided to spend a quiet evening. They dined in the restaurant at the Milan, and selected two comfortable easy-chairs in the lounge afterwards. They watched the people for some time in silence. Mr. Cray in particular was a little distrait.

“Dad, I believe you’re planning something,” Sara remarked, as she lit her second cigarette.

“Not guilty,” Mr. Cray assured her.

“Then tell me just what you are thinking of?” she insisted.

Mr. Cray removed his cigar from his lips.

“I was just wondering,” he confessed, “whether it was possible to combine a little harmless excitement with a certain measure of—er—pecuniary benefit.”

“But you don’t want money, dad.”

Mr. Cray coughed.

“I’m not qualifying for the poor-house yet awhile,” he admitted, “but at the same time, if there were shekels about, I should be a willing collector.”

“Business is all right over in the States, isn’t it?” she inquired.

“Booming,” Mr. Cray acknowledged. “There’s more money coming to me over there than I should care to think about spending, but it’s like this, Sara. If I should be cabling for supplies just now, your stepmother would be wise to the fact that I’ve quit France. She’s a busy woman, but she might take it into her head to take a quick trip over.”

“Good gracious, dad, don’t suggest such a thing!” Sara exclaimed hastily. “You can have all the money you want, from me.”

“Nothing doing, my dear,” her father assured her. “I’m a bad hand at borrowing. All the same it would certainly add a little spice to any little adventure that might come along, if I were able to supply my immediate necessities out of it.”

Sara glanced through the glass partitioning at the opulent-looking crowd who dined, at the women in the lounge with their profusion of jewellery, the men, many of them with the hard, acquisitive expression of the day-by-day city man.

“There’s plenty of money about, dad,” she observed.

Mr. Cray thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets and rubbed two half-crowns together.

“Sure!” he murmured. “Just a touch of inspiration’s all that’s needed.”

Sara left him for awhile, a few minutes later, to go to her room. She was staying at the hotel whilst her house in Charles Street was being renovated. Mr. Cray exchanged his cigarette for a fat cigar and ruminated.

Towards him down the broad, carpeted way, came Mr. Sinclair Smith, erstwhile of the Stock Exchange, and the Honourable Charles Frinton, of no occupation. Mr. Sinclair Smith was of florid complexion, with a tight mouth, narrow eyes, and an embonpoint righteously earned. The Honourable Charles Frinton, whose capacity for enjoying the good things of the world was a trifle in excess of his companion’s, was as thin and pale as a man may be. He, too, however, possessed that slight narrowing of the eyes and indrawn lips which betokened the professional money-getter. They were, in fact, birds of a feather.

“It seems a pity,” the Honourable Charles Frinton sighed, as they looked around for a seat, “that we should be spending money on one another, Sinny.”

“Your fault,” was the terse reply. “The supply of mugs up west seems to be running out.”

Arm in arm, they slowly approached the easy-chair in which Mr. Cray was seated. Frinton pinched his companion’s elbow.

“There’s the type I should like to get hold of,” he said enviously—“easy, benevolent, opulent. Why can’t you drop a few of those into the bag, Sinny?”

“Shut up, you fool,” was the muttered reply. “Can’t you see he thinks he knows us?”

Mr. Cray’s welcoming smile was the bland expression of the lonely and gregarious man.

“Say, I’m not mistaken, am I?” he said, as the two men came to a standstill before him. “Met you about two years ago, sir,” he went on, addressing Sinclair Smith, “at the American Bar with some of the boys. We had one or two together. Sit down, gentlemen,” Mr. Cray continued, without waiting for any reply. “My daughter’s chair, that, but we’ll get another when she arrives. I remember now,” he went on reminiscently, “it was the night before I put on my uniform.”

“I remember perfectly,” Mr. Sinclair Smith acknowledged, shaking hands. “Permit me to introduce my friend, the Honourable Charles Frinton—Mr.—er—dear me, I had your name on the tip of my tongue just now.”

“Cray,” was the prompt response—“Mr. Joseph P. Cray.”

“So you’ve been serving, sir?” Frinton observed after they had settled down.

“American Y.M.C.A., sir,” Mr. Cray confided—“a most uncomfortable uniform for a man of my figure, and at times a very miserable job, but I’m through with it. I took off my uniform less than a week ago, I went right into that little paradise of a bar, and I drank my first cocktail for twelve months. Gee, I can feel the glow of it now!”

“You mean that you were on the water waggon, as I believe your country-people call it, for all that time?” Sinclair Smith inquired.

Mr. Cray was the epitome of stout and contented virtue.

“Not one drop of hard liquor passed my lips all the time I wore Uncle Sam’s uniform,” he declared.

Mr. Sinclair Smith summoned a waiter.

“An appreciative Englishman,” he declared, “is going to offer you as much as you can drink of the best brandy in London.”

As much as Mr. Cray could drink was a pretty tall order, as Mr. Sinclair Smith was presently to discover. The acquaintance, however, proceeded by leaps and bounds, and when Sara presently returned she found her father in his element. He rose to his feet with expansive pride.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I’d have you shake hands with my daughter, Lady Sittingbourne—Mr. Sinclair Smith—the Honourable Charles Frinton. Gentlemen I met here, dear, before I went to France.”

The little ceremony was pleasantly performed. Mr. Frinton, as became his position, inaugurated the conversation.

“Any relation to Sir George Sittingbourne in the Blues?” he asked, deferentially.

“My husband,” Sara explained. “He was wounded in ’15, you know, and became military A.D.C. at Washington. He’s out there now.”

Secure in his temporary absence, Frinton magnified his slight acquaintance with Sara’s husband into an intimate friendship. The little party soon became on the best of terms. Long after Sara’s retirement for the night, they finished the evening in Mr. Cray’s sitting-room. When they parted, even the hard-headed Frinton, and Sinclair Smith, a past-master in the art of avoiding drink, were incapable.

“See you ’morrow, old sport,” Frinton declared, standing on one leg and balancing himself against the door as he shook hands with their host.

“If you don’t look me up in the city we all meet here at one o’clock,” Mr. Sinclair said, all in one breath.

Mr. Cray watched them on their tortuous way towards the lift, waved his hand in farewell, returned to his easy chair, and helped himself to a final whisky and soda.

“Smart chaps, very, and good company,” he ruminated, “but they take their liquor poorly for Englishmen.”

Luncheon that next day was a gay and festive meal. Sara was amiable and brilliant. She spoke of city finance with the bated breath of an ignoramus, and she was perfectly prepared to accept her two hosts as prototypes of its genius. Once or twice the thought of what George would say if he had seen her in such company troubled her slightly, but on the whole she reflected that he belonged to a different side of her life, and that she was really only indulging for a very brief period that unquenched love of adventure in which she had revelled during her younger days.

“I wish dad would do something in the City while he’s over here,” she observed, with a little sigh. “Why don’t you, dad? You know you always have what you call a flutter in Wall Street, when you’re in New York.”

Mr. Cray smiled.

“It’s not so easy to get on to anything worth taking an interest in, over this side,” he remarked. “Besides, I don’t understand the English share market.”

The moment appeared to have arrived for which Mr. Sinclair Smith and the Honourable Charles Frinton had been marking time.

“Do you think your father would really like a little flutter, Lady Sittingbourne?” Mr. Frinton asked. “Not a big affair, mind, but a thousand or two profit certain—perhaps a little more later on.”

Mr. Sinclair Smith laid down his knife and fork.

“Charlie,” he exclaimed, “you’re not——”

“Yes, I am! Why not?” his friend interrupted, gazing admiringly into Sara’s eyes. “Corton’s no pal of mine, and I never gave him a word of encouragement.”

“But I did,” Mr. Sinclair Smith confessed doubtfully. “I promised to meet him to-night and let him know how far we could go.”

“You can tell him the whole thing’s off,” the other declared ruthlessly—“that is to say if Mr. Cray here fancies the proposition.”

“Say, gentlemen, put me wise about this,” the latter begged eagerly.

Mr. Sinclair Smith shrugged his shoulders.

“Mr. Cray,” he said, “you’re a very good fellow, and I quite share Frinton’s admiration for your charming daughter, but, as a rule, to be perfectly frank with you, we reserve our little side-shows for our older friends, especially when the plums are sticking out. However, Frinton’s said the word and I won’t go back on him. Ever heard of the Idabo Rubber Plantations?”

“We’re not great on rubber, over the other side,” Mr. Cray replied, “but I do just know that the Idabo is a sound concern.”

“Ten thousand of the new issue are coming on the market this week,” Mr. Sinclair Smith confided. “I don’t know how you manage these things over on the other side, but the directors don’t want the market disturbed, and they’re handing them out in big blocks. Frinton and I have five thousand each. There’s another five thousand to be bought for prompt cash.”

“And the price?”

“Thirty-seven and sixpence,” Sinclair replied. “You can see what they stand on the market, in this morning’s paper. Forty-one offered.”

“I don’t quite get the hang of this,” Mr. Cray confessed. “Just why are you offering these shares at three and sixpence less than the market value?”

“Because the directors don’t want the market price disturbed,” Mr. Sinclair Smith explained. “They’re taken nearly all the new issue themselves. These are just a few over which they’ve been handing out to their friends. If you take this five thousand, you’ll have to pay prompt cash for them, but they’ll stand you in a profit on to-day’s price of over two thousand pounds. On the other hand, we shouldn’t expect you to put them on the market, except in very small lots, for the next fortnight.”

“And supposing they go down in the meantime?” Sara asked.

Mr. Frinton smiled.

“Your father can get all the information about Idabos he wants to,” he suggested, “but as a matter of fact, if you like a little gamble yourself, Lady Sittingbourne, I’ll bet you five hundred that Idabos are higher sooner than lower in a month’s time.”

“This sounds good to me,” Mr. Cray confessed. “I’ll have a look at the tape presently.”

“That’s right, no hurry,” Mr. Frinton said. “Sinny, you’re host. I think another bottle of this Chateau Yquem. And, Lady Sittingbourne, we really ought to apologise for talking shop.”

“Indeed you needn’t,” Sara protested. “As a matter of fact, it is my fault entirely. It is nice of you to help dad to make a little money.”

“Perhaps I wasn’t thinking altogether about your father,” the Honourable Charles Frinton ventured.

“It isn’t money, of course,” Sara went on. “Dad’s got plenty of that. But it does give him something to do and think about. Men are so much better when their thoughts are occupied, don’t you think so?”

“That depends,” the young man replied, with an impressive sigh. “Sometimes a man’s thoughts are rather a hindrance to his day’s work.”

Sara laughed gaily.

“I think you London men are terrible,” she said.

“There’s only one fault about us,” Frinton declared—“we’re too impressionable.”

Sara looked modestly down at her plate. It was indeed a gala luncheon for the Honourable Charles Frinton and Mr. Sinclair Smith. After luncheon, they adjourned to Mr. Cray’s sitting-room, where their host, with some pride, produced a small portable typewriter, stuck in a sheet of paper, and hammered out the following document:

I, Joseph P. Cray, and we, Charles Frinton and William Sinclair Smith, agree severally, the former to purchase and the latter to sell, shares to the value of ten thousand pounds in the——

“How do you spell Idabo?” Mr. Cray inquired.

“I-d-a-b-o,” Mr. Frinton said.

“No ‘r’?”

“No ‘r.’ ”

—Idabo Rubber Plantations. Payment in full to be made in cash on production of the share certificates, and two hundred and fifty pounds (£250) deposit to be paid by the said Joseph P. Cray on the signature of this document.

“You Americans know how to tie a thing up tight,” Mr. Sinclair Smith remarked, laughing, as he signed his name.

“Something of a lawyer, aren’t you, Mr. Cray?” the Honourable Charles Frinton added, as he too appended his signature. “Do we want a copy of this?”

“I haven’t any carbons,” Mr. Cray replied, “but I guess my cheque will do for your half. I’ll just put the document in the drawer here until we clean the deal up.”

“That will be quite satisfactory,” Mr. Sinclair Smith said, “but there’s one rather important matter, Mr. Cray—when will it be convenient for you to clear this business up? Frinton and I paid for our shares yesterday.”

“As soon as I’ve had time to walk down to the Bank of England, I guess things can be arranged,” Mr. Cray promised. “I’ve a credit here for pretty well as much as I should care to draw.”

Their eyes rested upon him almost hungrily. Both for a moment had the same feeling—they had touched him too lightly, and alas! in all probability they would have no other opportunity.

“What are you doing this evening, Charles?” Mr. Sinclair Smith asked his companion in an undertone.

“Dining at Doncaster House,” the other confided. “The Duchess—well, you understand.”

Mr. Sinclair Smith nodded.

“I promised Joel, too—but there, Charles, I think we ought to clear this business up. You know what Sir William said—that they might ask us for these shares back again if they weren’t cleared up within a few hours. Could you see us between six and seven, Mr. Cray?”

“Sure!” that gentleman replied, rising from the table where he had been writing a cheque. “Here’s your two hundred and fifty pounds. I’ll get down to the bank presently, and we’ll all meet and have a cocktail together, eh? You must let me come down and see you in the city some day, Mr. Smith. I guess I’d be interested in studying some of your English methods.”

“We’ll give you a city man’s lunch any day later in the week,” Mr. Sinclair Smith promised, as he thrust the cheque into his waistcoat pocket.

“I hope we’ll see your charming daughter again,” the Honourable Charles Frinton remarked, as they said good-bye.

“Why not fix up a little dinner for this evening?” Mr. Cray invited hospitably. “Sara’d be tickled to death. We might go to a music-hall afterwards.”

The Honourable Charles Frinton looked the picture of woe.

“Alas!” he regretted, “not this evening. I have some relatives who are apt to be a little exacting.”

“And I have an appointment with a very big financial man,” his friend confided—“a deal in property, I don’t mind telling you, that runs into a couple of millions or thereabouts.”

“Say, you boys do handle the stuff!” Mr. Cray said, admiringly. “Till six o’clock, then, and good luck to you. I’ll pay my respects to the old lady of Threadneedle Street....”

Left to himself, Mr. Cray turned the key in the lock, lest by some chance one of his guests should return. Then he thrust the piece of paper once more back into the typewriter, and, adjusting it carefully, struck a single letter. Afterwards he placed the document in his pocket, caught up his stick and hat and sauntered out into the Strand. His journey citywards, however, extended no further east than Somerset House.

After the mise en scène was set that evening, Mr. Cray’s heart misgave him.

“I guess you’d better not figure in this show, Sara,” he said to his daughter, who was occupying an easy-chair in his sitting-room. “There’s no telling how those two skunks may pan out. They’re soft stuff to look at, but you never can tell.”

Sara showed not the slightest signs of moving.

“Dad,” she said, “I’ve been with you in some tougher corners than you’ll find yourself in this evening. And you know what I told you. If I can’t gratify this morbid craving of mine for a few last glimpses into Bohemia, I shall never settle down and make George a respectable wife. Besides, you’ll want me to mix the cocktails, and I want to see whether Mr. Frinton will remain the perfect gentleman.”

Her father smiled tolerantly.

“I guess there’ll be more tears than blows,” he said. “Stay where you are if you’re set upon it.”

“I intend to,” Sara declared sweetly....

The two visitors were very punctual indeed. They arrived, indeed, five minutes before the time. Mr. Sinclair Smith made profuse apologies.

“The fact of the matter is,” he explained, “both Mr. Frinton here and I are hard pushed this evening. We shall just have to finish our little piece of business as quickly as we can, and if you, sir,” he added, turning to Mr. Cray, “and your daughter, will honour us by dining at the Ritz to-morrow night, we shall be charmed. We can then celebrate this occasion more adequately.”

“It’s a date, sure,” Mr. Cray promised exuberantly. “No need to keep you gentlemen over this little business, either. I’ve a packet of notes here, and I see you’ve got the shares there. Spread them out upon the table, sir. Let’s have a look at them.”

Mr. Sinclair Smith reverently produced a thick pile of brand-new copperplate share certificates. They were very clean, very artistically executed and evidently of recent issue. Mr. Cray, with the notes bulging from his pocket, began to count. The two men stood over him.

“One hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred——” Mr. Cray stopped short.

“What’s wrong?” Mr. Sinclair Smith asked sharply, trying to keep the note of anxiety from his voice.

“It’s this durned spelling again,” Mr. Cray explained, with puckered brows. “These share certificates seem to be spelt without the final ‘r’.”

“That’s the way the plantation’s spelt,” was the sharp reply. “I told you so when you made out the agreement.”

Mr. Cray stopped his counting and felt in his pocket.

“I don’t seem, somehow, to remember that,” he said pensively.

He spread out the agreement, with its Somerset House stamp, upon the table. The faces of the two men who stared at the spot to which Mr. Cray’s fat forefinger pointed, were a study. Without a doubt, the name of the rubber plantation there was “Idabor,” and below it were their signatures.

“It was spelt ‘Idabo’ when I signed,” Frinton exclaimed at last.

“I’ll swear it,” Mr. Sinclair Smith echoed. “The agreement’s been tampered with.”

Mr. Cray returned it reflectively to his pocket.

“I guess you two gentlemen don’t know how to spell your own property,” he said pleasantly. “Now I’ll just put you both wise as to what made me so plumb positive. It’s this report from my stockbroker.”

He held a sheet of paper before him and read out its contents:—

IDABOR RUBBER PLANTATIONS.

Capital three hundred thousand pounds. A fine commercial undertaking. Full particulars in Rubber handbook, sent herewith. Present price of shares round about forty-one. Should recommend purchase.

IDABO RUBBER GROUNDS.

A derelict concern, nominal capital sixty thousand pounds, with a large number of unissued founders shares. Shares not quoted on Exchange as property considered valueless.

“I got that from my stockbroker this afternoon,” Mr. Cray explained. “That’s why I knew for certain that it was Idabor shares and not Idabo we were dealing in.”

Mr. Frinton had turned very pale. He sank suddenly into an unoccupied chair. For the purposes of any further controversy, he was down and out. Mr. Sinclair Smith made as good a showing as could reasonably have been expected.

“Mr. Cray,” he confessed, “the shares we meant to plant you with were the Idabo Rubber Shares. Frinton here and I were had with them, cost us a cool ten thousand. We were the mugs that time. We made up our minds to pass them on if we could to another mug. We selected you.”

“That seems to have been a little unfortunate,” Mr. Cray observed, with a bright smile.

“You’ve tumbled to it and there’s nothing more doing,” Sinclair Smith continued. “Here’s your two hundred and fifty pounds deposit,” he added, throwing the cheque upon the table. “Come on, Frinton.”

“Stop a minute,” Mr. Cray called out.

The two men, who were well on their way to the door, paused.

“I can’t see my way through quite to the end of this little matter yet,” Mr. Cray explained. “By this document here you seem bound to deliver to me five thousand Idabor shares at thirty-seven and six, to-day’s price forty-one, profit to me eight hundred and seventy-five pounds.”

Mr. Sinclair Smith stared at Mr. Cray for several moments without speech. Once he opened his lips, glanced at Sara and closed them again. Mr. Frinton’s rejoinder was on the weak side.

“Those were Idabos and you know it,” he muttered.

Mr. Cray shook his head and tapped his breast-pocket.

“Idabos doesn’t sound reasonable,” he protested gently. “They could be bought by the thousand for fourpence a share, and you were proposing to sell them to me for thirty-seven and sixpence. I feel sure that no one would believe it possible that you two gentlemen would make such a suggestion as that. Idabors my agreement says, and Idabors I want—or eight hundred and seventy-five pounds.”

Then both men forgot the presence of a lady and began to talk. Sara leaned back in her chair with the air of a pleased and gratified audience. Mr. Cray, too, showed not the slightest signs of wishing to interrupt the dual stream of eloquent abuse. When the two men were silent at last through lack of breath, he make his first remark.

“I am not a bargainer, gentlemen,” he said. “There seems to have been a little mutual misunderstanding in this deal, but the fact remains that I am entitled to the delivery of five thousand Idabor shares from you at thirty-seven and sixpence, or the profit on them—eight hundred and seventy-five pounds. I am not a hard man. I will take five hundred pounds cash.”

A secondary burst of eloquence was less original but more abusive.

“You’re a damned sharper!” Mr. Frinton wound up.

“A low confidence trick man,” Mr. Sinclair Smith finished, with a glance at Sara, “you and your——”

Mr. Cray took a step forward. Mr. Sinclair Smith did not finish his sentence. He took a step backwards towards the door. Mr. Cray threw it open and stood there. He was still smiling, but his smile had qualities.

“At nine o’clock,” he said, “my solicitor is looking me up for a friendly chat. A cheque for five hundred pounds any time before that hour will see you through this trouble. You’ll find the lift round to the right. So long, boys!”

Mr. Cray returned to the room with beaming face.

“Sara,” he invited, looking towards the sideboard, “give her a shake.”

At a quarter to nine that evening, while Mr. Cray and his daughter were dining at a corner table in the grill-room, a note was brought to him. He tore open the envelope. Inside was a cheque for five hundred pounds. He thrust it into his waistcoat pocket, produced the one which he had written for two hundred and fifty pounds and passed it to Sara.

“Your share, my dear,” he said. “Let us drink the health of those two philanthropists.”

“You dear, clever father!” she murmured enthusiastically.