Читать книгу The Million Pound Deposit - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 4

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At half-past eight precisely, on the eleventh evening after the sensational burglary at Boothroyds' Works, near Leeds, Mr. Thomas Ryde drove up to the Embankment entrance of the Milan Hotel and by a very complicated route succeeded in skirting the foyer, mounted three flights of stairs, traversed a long passage, mounted one more flight, and finding the door of apartment number 332 unlatched, as he had expected, passed rapidly through it and disappeared. Within three minutes, Mr. Huneybell, who had to some extent recovered his composure and his poise, descended from an omnibus at the corner of the Savoy Hill, and by exactly the same route reached the same destination. At twenty-seven minutes to nine, a tall young man of somewhat foreign appearance, of pale complexion, with eyes of a strange shade of greeny-brown and closely cropped dark hair, presented himself at the main reception offices of the Hotel and enquired for Doctor Hisedale. The clerk scribbled the number 332 upon a card and handed it to a page.

"The doctor is expecting you, Baron," he announced, with a bow. "The boy will take you to his room."

The tall young man followed his guide as directed. In the last corridor, he came face to face with a short, thickly built person of obvious transatlantic origin, who was just stepping out of the lift. The two men exchanged civilities.

"Mr. Hartley Wright, isn't it?" the tall young man asked, holding out his hand.

"Sure thing, Baron. Glad you haven't forgotten me," the other acknowledged, with a grin.

They made their way to apartment number 332, where their host was engaged in conversation with the two previous arrivals. He turned to greet them, a tall, lanky man, with grey hair and carefully trimmed grey moustache, the former cut so short that it gave his head the appearance of being shaven. He had very clear, but hard black eyes, effectually concealed behind heavy spectacles. His speech was slow, and his accent slightly guttural. No one could have mistaken him for anything but a German.

"Welcome, Baron," he said. "Welcome, my friend Hartley Wright. We are all here now, I think. Introductions," he concluded, with a ponderous attempt at levity, "are, I take it, unnecessary. You are all well acquainted."

The newcomers exchanged restrained greetings with their predecessors. A waiter entered with a tray of cocktails. They were drunk almost in silence and without any toasting. Mr. Thomas Ryde alone inclined his head towards his host. It was the only sign of good-fellowship.

"Dinner," the latter instructed the waiter, "can now be served. Will you take your places, gentlemen. Mr. Ryde, here upon my right; Mr. Hartley Wright upon my left; the Baron opposite; Mr. Huneybell in the remaining place. I have provided you only with simple fare."

"The simpler the better," Hartley Wright said tersely. "I'd sooner talk than dine."

"We must remember," Thomas Ryde pointed out, "that we are in England. A company of five men meeting to discuss a business project in an hotel sitting-room, who did not lunch or dine or drink, would give cause for comment. There seems to be a feeling amongst you all which it is not easy to understand. Let us shelve it for a moment. Let us play our parts as a little assembly of commercial magnates met to discuss an important proposition."

A waiter entered the room, wheeling forward a side table, upon which were set out caviare, hot toast and butter, and bottles of champagne. Doctor Hisedale showed his appreciation of his guest's suggestion, and attempted to play the part of genial host.

"Mr. Ryde has spoken sensibly," he declared. "We are met here for an important discussion, and presently let each man say what he has to say, but in the meantime let us eat and drink. The starved man argues ill."

The feast was served, but miracles do not happen, and the spirit of good-fellowship was not there. The five men ate and drank, and explored the stereotyped openings to general conversation. There were gloomy references to English politics, to the money rates in different capitals, to the stabilisation of the franc, and kindred subjects. Nobody was at his ease; everybody had the air of keeping back with difficulty what he really wished to say. Doctor Hisedale, after one or two efforts to inaugurate a general conversation, confined himself to discussing with the Baron de Brest the financial operations of several large German industrial concerns. Mr. Hartley K. Wright drank a great deal of wine and every now and then was heard muttering to himself. Mr. Huneybell at intervals ate voraciously and drank deeply but had also intervals of moody and nervous silence. When the coffee was served, the host beckoned the senior of the two waiters towards him.

"Place the cigars, cigarettes and liqueurs upon the table," he instructed. "Kindly see that we are not disturbed. If callers arrive, say that Doctor Hisedale is engaged in a business conference."

"Certainly, sir."

The maître d'hôtel and his underling took their leave. With the closing of the outside door, the atmosphere of tension came to an end. Mr. Hartley Wright was first in the field.

"See here, Doctor," he began, in a crude, unpleasant voice, "and you here, Thomas Ryde, let's get down to hard tacks on this. You've sprung a low deal on us—on me, at any rate. I, for one, never expected to be dragged into a high-class burglary, with a couple of murders thrown in. Neither did Huneybell, neither did Ned Swayles, who's never even handled a gun in his life. You're the man I'm talking at, Ryde; you're the man I blame. You made out that it was as simple as opening your aunt's workbox to get down there, and grab the Boothroyd formula. We all remember what your line of talk was—even if we stopped there was nothing to it. We weren't after money. Our lawyers would have pleaded business jealousy, and we should very likely have got off altogether. And now, look what you have let us in for."

"I have let you in for a sixth share of the Boothroyd formula," Ryde said, carefully clipping the end of a cigar—"a property which you could not have acquired by any other means."

"What's the good of a sixth share of anything," Huneybell intervened, shivering, "when day and night you think of those two dead men, and slink about expecting to be tapped on the shoulder and hauled off to prison?"

The Baron de Brest scowled across the table.

"I am entirely in sympathy with our friend from New York," he declared. "For a man in my position to have been dragged into a criminal affair like this is outrageous. If I had known that a single one of you was carrying a revolver that night, I should have gone straight home and had nothing more to do with the affair."

"The trouble of it is," Huneybell pointed out, his voice shaking nervously, "that when a party of men are engaged upon a burglarious enterprise as we were, if there's a man killed, it don't matter who fires the shot. We're all in it together."

"Let us hope," Doctor Hisedale protested, "that the law does not go so far as that. Personally, I shall not allow myself to believe it. I should advise you to follow my example—put all these disconcerting thoughts behind and look to the future. Let us act wisely. We are met to come to a good decision on this point. We have been led into paying a much greater price than we intended for the Boothroyd formula, but the Boothroyd formula is after all ours. What are we going to do with it?"

"I guess you're right, Doctor," the American assented. "This fellow Ryde has done us dirt, but what we've met to decide about is how to dispose of the booty. What's your idea of its value, now?"

Mr. Thomas Ryde scribbled on the back of the menu.

"I will tell you what it is worth," he said. "In eleven years it has earned for the firm of Boothroyd profits amounting to twenty-two million pounds. That is two million a year. It should be worth five years' purchase—that is ten million. That is what it will be worth to the buyer, but we sellers shall never realise half as much. I suggest that we ask two million for it, or one million in hard cash."

The sound of the figures was stimulating. The little company of men began to throw off their depression.

"That's some money!" Mr. Hartley Wright admitted. "But we've got to get near to it. Now listen to me," he went on, leaning across the table. "I have a suggestion to make. I am well known in Wall Street and close to some of the leading financiers in the United States. Give me the formula and let me see what I can do. If the offer I am able to cable over isn't satisfactory, if I can't get what you think the thing's worth, then one of you others can have a try. What I say, though, is that there's no money worth speaking of anywhere else except in the States. Give me the formula, and I'll catch Saturday's boat."

Doctor Hisedale pursed out his thick, red lips.

"I shall say at once," he pronounced, "that without any personal bias I am against parting with the formula to any one man."

"Then how the hell are you going to dispose of it?" Mr. Hartley Wright demanded.

"I know of two manufacturing concerns in Germany," Doctor Hisedale replied impressively, "who would combine and buy the Boothroyd formula, provided they were convinced that it was genuine."

"Yes, and what money would you get?" the American sneered. "Listen here, boys. We've gone and mixed ourselves up in an ugly business. We need to make enough money out of it to keep us in good shape for the rest of our lives."

"That is more than a need; that is a necessity," Doctor Hisedale grunted. "But the sooner this is clearly understood the better. No one of us is going to dispose of the Boothroyd formula in the way suggested by our friend from the States here. No one is going around to make a deal on his own account. Business is business," he concluded significantly.

"If no one's going to trust any one else," the American demanded with savage emphasis, "how are we going to dispose of the damned thing at all?"

"Not, under any circumstances, in the way you are suggesting," Thomas Ryde intervened, knocking the ash from his cigar, and speaking with cold and convincing precision. "I put it to you, gentlemen, that our friend's idea is blatant, impossible, and highly dangerous. He forgets that if he approaches any financier in the United States during the next fortnight in the manner he proposes and endeavours to open a deal for the Boothroyd formula, he will probably spend the next night at Police Headquarters, waiting there for a report from Scotland Yard."

There was a brooding silence. The words of the last speaker were destructive enough but failed to convey the inspiration for further discussion.

"An American business man doesn't go blabbing his affairs all over the place," Hartley Wright ventured.

"America is the richest country in the world," Mr. Ryde continued calmly, "but that does not mean that Americans part with their money more readily than any other people. I need not remind you that it is not the millionaire who gives the biggest tips, or the richest man who heads the subscription list. Furthermore, the New York business men are the shrewdest in the world, and I do not believe that one of them would be content to buy a property in the dark for the price we shall want for it. You cannot sell the Boothroyd formula in that way, nor, I regret to add, would it be wise to attempt to take the initiative ourselves towards selling it anywhere at all for the next few months."

Mr. Huneybell's nervous fingers were plunged in his thick crop of black hair.

"After all we've been through," he bewailed, "do you mean that we can do nothing but sit still and wait indefinitely?"

Thomas Ryde splashed a little more of the liqueur brandy into his glass and swung it round thoughtfully.

"My friends," he expostulated, "you expect things made too easy for you. Remember that this is no ordinary division of plunder. I should say that each one of us here present possesses at the present moment the equivalent of approximately one hundred and seventy thousand pounds. Money like that cannot be snatched at."

"Show me the way to my share," the American groaned.

"On the other hand," Thomas Ryde went on, ignoring the interruption, "if one of us so much as stirs a finger, drops the merest hint as to where the Boothroyd formula is to be found, the whole game is up. I am quite aware that I am unpopular with every one of you because I took the only possible means of carrying through our enterprise successfully. We will not discuss the question further. We were out for a coup to make rich men of ourselves for the rest of our lives, and when unexpected trouble came, my idea was to deal with it in the only way it could be dealt with. I will admit," he continued; after smoking thoughtfully for a moment or two, "that it complicates the situation to some extent and makes it a little more difficult for us to realise our reward. I admit this frankly and I even impress it upon you. For the sake of our skins, I suggest to you all most earnestly that not one of us approach a single person directly or indirectly with reference to a purchase of the Boothroyd formula. Let us be content to wait. Believe me, one of two things will happen—either Boothroyds themselves will offer a huge reward for the return of the formula and no questions asked, or some other possible buyer—one of the great continental firms, perhaps—will begin secret enquiries here in London, knowing that the formula must be somewhere for sale. It will then be easy enough through a trusted third person to get in touch with our market. In plain words, gentlemen, let our buyers come to us. Don't let us go to them."

"And in the meantime we are to starve, I suppose," Huneybell muttered.

"There is no question of starvation for anybody," Thomas Ryde asserted swiftly. "You, Huneybell, for instance, have a very good job as town traveller in my small business. I pay you six pounds a week, and if things turn out as I expect, in less than a month's time I will be able to pay you eight. You are, I think, something like thirty-six years old. Have a little patience. Even a year should not be too long for you to wait to be made a rich man for the rest of your life.——You, Doctor Hisedale, are a scientist. What your income may be I do not know, but your laboratory at Notting Hill is famous, and one presumes that you do not occupy a suite of rooms like these on an inadequate income."

"I do not see what difference that makes," Doctor Hisedale protested. "I must live comfortably because it has been my custom, but all the time I need money for experiments."

"We will put it this way then," Thomas Ryde continued. "You are not in urgent need. In the cause of safety you can very well afford to wait for twelve months.... You, Baron de Brest, are, of course, in a different category altogether. You are a wealthy man at any time, and to wait will not inconvenience you."

"You make a great mistake, Mr. Ryde," De Brest assured him eagerly. "It is the wealthy man who needs money most. I have my Bank to keep supplied. I have profitable business offered to me every day, but business which needs money."

"Nevertheless," Thomas Ryde rejoined, "you can afford to wait.... As for you, Mr. Hartley Wright, I know nothing of your financial position but I understand that you have several valuable agencies, and I imagine that you are making a very reasonable income. Be content with it for a few months longer. Believe me, it is worth while. Even if that unfortunate little accident with Rentoul and the watchman had not occurred, it would still have been unwise for us to disclose our hand too precipitately. You can be sure, as soon as it leaks out that the Boothroyd formula was part of the proceeds of that burglary—and it will leak out before many weeks are past—there isn't one of the great firms in the world who won't be trying to get into touch with us."

There was a depressed and sullen silence. Thomas Ryde was in the unpopular position of one who has convinced his companions against their wills.

"How do you suppose," Doctor Hisedale asked presently, "it will become known that the Boothroyd formula has been stolen? The firm themselves are not likely to advertise the fact. There hasn't been a word in the papers up till now to even suggest such a thing."

Thomas Ryde smiled.

"I will tell you how it will get about," he said. "It will get about because Boothroyds will not be able to turn out their goods without the formula. The market will become flooded with indifferent material. It won't take the commercial world long to find out its source, especially as I have the handling of all their wastes and am, in fact, the sole London agent for their irregular goods. It certainly won't take the shrewd buyers much longer to find out the reason for it."

"They have a very clever chemist up there," Doctor Hisedale meditated—"a brother-in-law of Rentoul's, I believe he was."

"They have a very clever man indeed," Ryde agreed, "but remember what I told you when I brought you all into this enterprise. Old man Boothroyd—Lord Dutley when he died—was one of the narrowest and most pig-headed old men who ever breathed. He never trusted any one but Rentoul. Sir Matthew Parkinson, for instance, the Managing Director of Boothroyds to-day, knows no more about the proportions, the chemicals used, or any of the finer points of the manufacture than I do. Each department works separately, and it was the formula, and the formula only, which brought them together. Therefore, they are going to commence now a period of experimenting which will cost them millions and whatever measure of success they may attain, they will never turn out the Boothroyd art silks in the proper style until they get the formula back."

There was a brief interlude of disjointed remarks, staccato-like exclamations piercing the blanket of an uneasy silence. De Brest moved to the sideboard, and came back with a cigar in his mouth.

"I do not like this business of waiting," he declared, "any more than the rest of you, but I think that there is much common sense in what Mr. Ryde has said. One has the stock markets, too," he added. "There should be money to be made there. We might arrange a pool to 'bear' the shares."

"Ryde may know what he's talking about," Hartley Wright acknowledged glumly, "but there's one point he hasn't touched upon which seems to me pretty important. You want us to wait for three, or even six months, Ryde? Who the hell's going to take charge of the formula for that time?"

"Ah!" Mr. Ryde murmured. "I imagined we would come to that."

"You bet," was the terse rejoinder. "You don't trust me; I don't trust you. I want to know what you're going to do with the formula before I stir out of this burg."

"The packet has been quite safe with me during the last ten days," Thomas Ryde pointed out.

"Yes, but you don't suppose we've been trusting you, do you?" the other snarled. "You must think we're some sort of mugs. It's cost us a fiver each a week to have you shadowed—but we've done it—Hisedale, the Baron and I between us. We've had a private bull lagging you since the day we arrived in London. You can put that in your pipe and smoke it. We're no more willing to trust you than you are to trust us. Now what are you going to do about it?"

"There is an old-fashioned way," Thomas Ryde suggested gently, his hands seeming to linger about his pocket, "of settling such a matter. The formula is in my possession at the present moment. Would you like to fight for it?"

A tense and ugly silence ensued. Thomas Ryde's chair was a little withdrawn from the table, and from behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, his eyes shone like diamonds. Perhaps none of the four men were utter cowards but there was not one of them to whom there did not come at that moment a little thrill of horrified memory, whose spine did not run cold at the thought of that still, emotionless figure dealing out death twice within the space of a few minutes with quiet and dexterous brutality.

"Damned silly line of talk that," Hartley Wright grumbled.

"It is not necessary for us to quarrel," De Brest insisted. "There is enough for all of us."

"Exactly my view," Thomas Ryde affirmed, in his even, penetrating tone. "You say that you have had me watched. You haven't, during these last ten days, noticed that I have been paying visits to financiers or manufacturers?"

"No one is accusing you of that, or anything else," Doctor Hisedale declared, in the voice of a would-be pacificator. "Your movements have been perfectly regular. At the same time, I must admit that the question of the disposal of the formula presents to me, as to my friend Mr. Hartley Wright, difficulties—very considerable difficulties. Many honest men have been tempted by the prospect of becoming a millionaire."

Thomas Ryde rose to his feet.

"Very well," he agreed, "let us accept the principle of mutual distrust. Meet me at two o'clock to-morrow afternoon in the smoke room of the Cannon Street Hotel, and I will put before you a plan for the safe custody of the formula which I think will be satisfactory to every one. At two o'clock in the smoke room of the Cannon Street Hotel."

"We'll hear the scheme at any rate," Hartley Wright conceded grudgingly. "I don't pledge my word to consent to it."

"You'll consent to whatever the others agree to," was the curt retort. "Gentlemen, I live some distance out and I am not accustomed to late hours. I shall take my leave. Doctor Hisedale, I thank you for your hospitality. In this atmosphere of mutual suspicion, to shake hands would be hypocrisy. Until two o'clock to-morrow in the smoke room of the Cannon Street Hotel."

With which Mr. Thomas Ryde, unruffled and tranquil, took his leave. The banquet was at an end.