Читать книгу Up the Ladder of Gold - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 5

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Harold Nickols, in the very comfortable bedroom of his flat in Ebury Street, permitted himself the not unusual luxury of a telephone by his side. He had just dropped off to sleep for the first time, at about a quarter past three, when the bell rang. He sat up with a shock. His movement towards the receiver was purely mechanical.

“Hullo,” he exclaimed, “who’s that?”

“Is that Mr. Nickols speaking?” a familiar voice asked.

“Yes, this is Nickols,” was the startled reply, for, sleepy though he was, he had already recognised the voice of his sub. “What’s wrong, Scriven?”

“I can’t exactly tell you, sir,” was the cautious answer. “I am telephoning from the basement. I think you had better come down, though, as quick as you can.... Yes. Do you hear me, sir? ... Come down?”

“What, to the offices?” Nickols demanded.

“Yes, sir. There’s something queer going on. You ought to be here. I’ve sent a taxi. It will be outside your door by the time you’ve got into some clothes. I’d rather not answer any questions over the ’phone. I’m a little confused myself.”

Harold Nickols sprang out of bed, dressed with amazing swiftness, made one or two ineffectual passes with the brush at his tousled hair, dashed some cold water into his eyes, stuffed his pipe and tobacco pouch into his pocket, and let himself down by the small, automatic lift. There was a queer, ghostly darkness about the place and about the street outside, but even as he opened the front door, a taxicab, with brightly burning lights, came round the corner. The driver pulled up and touched his hat.

“Are you the gentleman I was told to fetch, sir?” he enquired. “I come from the Sun office in Fleet Street.”

“That’s right,” Nickols acknowledged. “Nothing wrong there, I hope—no fire, or anything?”

“Nothing that I could see, sir. Seemed to be a good many people going in and out for this time of the morning. That was all I noticed.”

“Get there as quickly as you can then,” Nickols enjoined.

They drove swiftly off through the half-empty streets. Something wrong at the office! He knew now, as though by inspiration, whence had come his fit of depression. He saw one face, and one face only, as he sped on his way—the face of the man who had stood in the purposely darkened room only an hour or so ago. He realised in those few minutes the source of all the uneasiness of the evening, the restlessness which had driven him into the streets. He was afraid—afraid as many others had been before him—of that strange, portentous figure of a man, afraid because he had crossed his will, afraid of what retaliation he might be planning. He filled his pipe and smoked savagely, until he was obliged to let the windows down to get rid of the smoke. What could this sphinx of the great world, what could God or the devil do, to throw out of gear at a second’s notice the immense energy of the world’s greatest newspaper? In time—yes, he might work mischief in time—but in those few hours what was there that was possible? Then he suddenly remembered that this man whom he dreaded must have spies inside the place. Perhaps they had throttled the machinery. What was the use of that? Warren Rand might be a terrible man to deal with, but human effort must have its limitations. He, Harold Nickols, had absolute and unquestioned power at the Sun buildings. At a word from him, all would be well again....

Everything seemed normal as they turned the corner of the street, except that there was a little more commotion than usual about the entrance to the building. Then, during that last hundred yards, came a hideous shock. A strange impression of unaccustomed silence thrust its sinister way into Nickols’ consciousness. He leaned halfway out of the window, listening with strained senses. It was a startling realisation, but an undeniable one: there was silence in the street! The mighty machinery, which should have been flinging out in its thousands copies of London’s great newspaper, was motionless. A fury seized upon the man. He sprang from the taxi before it had reached the pavement, sprinted into the marble hall, and ran up the stairs. People whom he met gave way to him. There were one or two little exclamations; one person tried to stop him. He went straight on. His private office was on the first floor and in a room leading from that Scriven, his sub-editor, would be at work. He flung open the door of his private entrance and stared in, amazed. Everything was incredible. The world was upside down. His own particular chair, behind his own much-photographed table, was occupied, and occupied by the man who had paid him that strange visit at the Sheridan Club an hour or so before. By his side sat a small person with flaxen grey hair, insignificant features and snub nose—a stranger to him. In an easy-chair, wan and scared, and showing signs of having been dragged from his bed, was Gervoise Harrison, the proprietor of the paper. Seated at the next desk, sometimes used by his secretary, were two men of professional appearance, also strangers. There was a tense atmosphere about the place, but a sense also of action. Harold Nickols looked around him with amazed apprehension. His hair seemed to be more tousled than ever. There was a wicked light in his eye. When at last he found words, it seemed to him that his voice, which he controlled with difficulty, was reedy. It left every one unimpressed.

“What the hell’s the meaning of this?” he demanded. “What are you all doing in my room? What’s happened to the machinery?”

Warren Rand looked across at him—a level, direct stare.

“Nickols,” he said, “you had your chance a few hours ago. You refused to take it. You are no longer editor of the paper. You no longer have a position here. The lawyers in charge will decide as to the compensation to which you are entitled. You will receive that—nothing else. Get out, please. We are busy.”

“What the hell have you got to do with it?” Nickols cried fiercely.

“I am the owner of the Sun newspaper, as I should have thought you would have gathered by this time,” Warren Rand announced. “I exercised an option which I have held for some time, at five minutes before midnight.”

There came upon Harold Nickols a terrible premonition. The old simile of the Sphinx flashed into his mind. He felt that he was listening to a man who seldom spoke, but who spoke nothing but the truth. He looked helplessly across towards Harrison and read his doom.

“Warren Rand is quite right,” the latter admitted, “although of course I never expected anything of this sort. I sold him an option on the whole of my shares months ago, after the last slump on the Stock Exchange.”

Harold Nickols was dazed. One of the two strangers stood up. He was so obviously a man of law that he had no need to introduce himself.

“Perhaps a word from me might save time,” he suggested. “I am one of the attorneys who look after Mr. Rand’s affairs. What he has just said is perfectly true. He has owned for more than a year fifty per cent of the shares in the Sun Newspaper Trust. Lately, he has purchased from Mr. Gervoise Harrison here an option on the remaining shares, and he paid a specially high price on the understanding that the shares should be transferred, and his control established, at any time he chose, with half an hour’s notice. On arriving in England this evening, my client seems to have become aware of the fact that an editorial was being issued from this paper to-morrow morning with regard to the present Geneva Conference which was diametrically opposed to his own views. He therefore put into force his option, and the Sun newspaper belongs no longer to a company but to one man, my client.”

“And,” Warren Rand remarked, in expressionless voice and without the slightest sign of any interest in the discussion, “the editorial which I have written myself, and which is now being put into type will outline the policy of the Sun on this and all future occasions.”

A singular clarity of mind seemed to come to Harold Nickols. There was something behind, a raging storm driving the heart’s blood through his veins, playing strange tricks with his swelling muscles. For those few minutes, however, the mind triumphed. He saw the path Warren Rand was treading, the grim inevitability of the man’s progress. He kept back the other things. He spoke distinctly and without haste.

“So the Sun,” he said, “is to be added to the chain of Warren Rand’s peace-prating newspapers.”

“It is already added,” was the grim amendment. “By to-morrow morning the million of your readers will have had the boundary of their mental horizon rolled back. They will see the things which lie beyond as the whole world will see them, when you and I are dead and gone, Harold Nickols. You are one of those who have cumbered the way. That is why it is my will to sweep you and your type of thinker into the dust heap. In your blatant jingoism you would make a term of opprobrium of the greatest word in the Saxon vocabulary. You are right. The Sun has joined the chain of my pacifist papers, and however loudly you may blow your little tin trumpets in other quarters and preach the prehistoric doctrine of force as the final appeal between differing men, the things I have written and the doctrine I preach will live in the days when the Punch-and-Judy show remains the sole theatre for your antics.”

Nickols had the air of listening to every word and weighing it carefully. His brow was furrowed, his tousled hair seemed rougher than ever. Those thick lips of his protruded. The eyes behind his spectacles were half closed.

“Does this great message of yours to the readers of the Sun, Warren Rand,” he asked, “tell them how you propose to bring together into common accord all those heterogeneous atoms of humanity of which the Conference is composed?”

“The expenditure of one small copper coin will enable you to answer that question for yourself in a few hours’ time,” was the icy retort.

Harold Nickols ignored the sarcastic reply. The passion in his voice grew thicker.

“Does it tell them,” he demanded, “how you propose to prevent war, how you can justify yourself in encouraging them to believe that you, or any other person, is capable of building a new world, and filling it with a race of human beings devoid of passion, devoid of martial instinct, devoid of every natural competitive impulse? Does your leader tell them that?”

“It avoids all artificial rhetoric,” Warren Rand declared. “Common sense—basic common sense—is all that is necessary to impress upon mankind the truth. You and your fellows, Harold Nickols, are my enemies, and the enemies of the great change which I am seeking to bring into the world. Crow yourselves hoarse on your dung hills if you like. You will fail and I will win.”

There was a curious change in the atmosphere of the room. Every one seemed to be aware of a growing tension. Suddenly they realised what it was. The soft hum of the machinery from below had recommenced. The sound swelled, gained depth and volume, until that unholy silence existed no longer. The heart of the great building was beating once again. The increasing roar seemed to madden Nickols. Warren Rand listened, and the faint parting of his lips at any rate resembled a smile.

“You hear, Nickols,” he said. “There goes the tearing to pieces of all your false jingoism. We’re letting the light in. We are preaching the new doctrine.”

“Are you preaching it for your own country, or are you trying to shove it down our throats?” Nickols demanded savagely.

“I have no country,” was the cold reply, “nor any nationality, except for my passport. Get rid of the idea of boundaries and frontiers, Nickols. Tear your atlas into pieces if you ever want to think like a free man.”

The storm burst, when it came, without warning. A fire of fierce hatred blazed up in the dispossessed man. The thought that every turn of the mighty wheels below was hammering into type these alien views on his beloved pages, worked like madness in his brain. He sprang forward and literally flung himself across the desk. A figure who had been sitting in the shadows, having the air of a guardian over Warren Rand, leaped to his feet, and the lights above glittered upon the automatic grasped in his hand. Every one shrunk back, expecting the roar and the flash. A different thing happened, however. Nickols’ spring seemed to have brought him into contact with no human being, to have met instead the dynamic force of a piston rod. Warren Rand never left his seat. His long arm shot out in front of him, and Nickols came no nearer to his enemy than the end of the fist crashing into his jaw. He swayed for a moment and crumpled up on the floor. There was a little murmur among the bystanders. Gervoise Harrison staggered to his feet. One of the lawyers poured out a glass of water from the table in front of him and approached the prostrate figure, over which the young man with the automatic in his hand was already bending. Warren Rand looked coolly over the edge of the desk. Harold Nickols heard no longer the thunder of the machinery which had maddened him.