Читать книгу The Twister - Edgar Wallace - Страница 7

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Not by so much as a twitching muscle did Julian Reef betray his consternation. He looked evenly at Lord Frensham, his active mind busy. Three years before Frensham had deposited with him sixty thousand pounds' worth of safe securities. Of the original scrip not one single certificate remained. Bit by bit this gilt-edged stock had been sold to meet the pressing needs of the young financier and had been replaced with scrip in his own companies, the majority of which was worth just the value of the securities as waste paper. Out of his own pocket had he paid with punctilious regularity the half-yearly dividends due on the old and sold stock.

"Do you really mean that?" he asked steadily. "I'm rather surprised—it almost seems as though the Twister has managed to poison you with his beastly suspicions. Of course, if you want the stock back I'll apply to the bank to-day and send it along."

"There isn't any question of suspicion," Lord Frensham said uneasily. "The point is, my dear Julian, I am making such a mess of things that I want to see with my own eyes that my girl is secure. You'll think it childish of me, but there it is. The stock is in your bank: perhaps I could call in——".

"I hardly think so," said Julian coolly. "I am not going to say anything about your attitude, Uncle John. I merely wish to point out that it would not really redound to my credit if you called at my bank with an authorization from me and withdrew the stock which is in my care. It is no secret to the bank, at any rate, that I am administering this fund on Ursula's behalf. I think you had better let me make all the arrangements for handing over this money—I mean these shares. Why have you changed your mind?"

Frensham looked past him and sat twisting his hands in his embarrassed way.

"Well, I'll be perfectly straight with you, Julian. You remember that among the stock were seven hundred Blueberg Gold Mining Syndicate? Sir George Crater, who is the head of the Blueberg and a great friend of mine—well, he called me up on the 'phone this morning and asked me why I had got rid of these Bluebergs and reproached me because he said they had risen pounds since I sold. I hadn't any idea we had sold."

Julian smiled slowly.

"I see," he said. "You don't trust me." And when the other would have protested he silenced him with a hurt gesture.

"Of course, I sold Bluebergs. I never made any secret of it. I bought West African Chartered, which have shown a very handsome rise and a splendid dividend. It is unfortunate that Bluebergs have risen, but that was beyond my foresight."

The older man was weakening; very shrewdly Julian pressed home his advantage.

"I don't think I've ever had such a shock as you've given me. It's knocked the bottom out of things. Obviously you have been influenced by that brute." He silenced him with a gesture. "The truth is that that brute's poison is beginning to work," he said.

Frensham shook his head.

"If by 'that brute' you mean Tony Braid you can get the idea out of your mind, Julian," interrupted Frensham quickly. "I'm not likely to be influenced by a man whom I have forbidden to come to my house. No, it's Ursula I'm thinking of. I've got myself a bit mixed up in the city. I guess I wasn't cut out for a financier, and this slump in Lulanga Oils is rattling me."

"They're up this morning. I suppose you know that?"

Lord Frensham nodded.

"I saw it in the evening paper—yes. But very little—they've got to jump a pound before I can get out of my trouble."

Julian looked at him curiously.

"But what is your trouble? I think I know it all, don't I?"

Lord Frensham did not immediately reply. Watching him, Julian saw evidence of a mental struggle.

"No. I've been taking a flutter in other markets," he said at last. "I haven't told you, naturally, because I didn't want to feel a fool if I lost, and wanted to get a little independent kudos if I won. And I've lost. When is settling day?"

"To-morrow," said Julian. Too well he knew when a settlement was due!

Frensham rose and paced up and down the room, his chin on his breast, his hands clasped behind him; and Julian Reef waited, but was quite unprepared for what came.

"I think I'd better tell you," said Frensham at last. "After my high and mighty sentiments about Ursula's money you'll think I'm the basest kind of hypocrite. But it wasn't what Tony Braid said, and it wasn't what I was told about the Bluebergs being sold, it was something else that brought me here. Some day Ursula will be a very rich woman—you did not know that, but it is a fact—she has a reversionary interest in a very big estate. I want Ursula's present little nest egg for myself—things have come to such a pass that I must pledge her shares against an overdraft!"

Julian's lips pursed as though he were whistling, but no sound issued.

"As bad as that?" he asked softly.

"You can't help me, I suppose?" Frensham was looking searchingly at his nephew.

Julian shook his head gently.

"You've caught me at a very awkward time. I've a deal that will eventually bring me in millions, but it's hardly likely to materialize for a few months. At the present time I'm desperately short of ready money."

Lord Frensham continued his restless patrol.

"I know nobody who would let me have what I want, and Ursula wouldn't mind. I'm sure if I spoke to her she'd agree like a shot."

"Why don't you?" asked Julian before he could trap the words.

"Because I don't want her to know I'm having such a bad time."

He stopped suddenly in his walk and frowned.

"There is a man who would lend me money," he said slowly, "but of course I can't ask him."

The red-faced young man did not smile.

"You're thinking of Tony Braid? The last chap in the world to help you! He's as hard as flint, that fellow, and you may bet that he'd want a quid pro quo that you wouldn't be very keen on paying."

"What is that?" asked Frensham quickly.

Julian's lips twisted in a mirthless smile.

"Are you surprised to know that the aged Mr. Braid has views about Ursula?"

Lord Frensham's smile was one of amused contempt.

"You said that before. Don't talk nonsense. He isn't aged, though he may be old enough to be her father."

"Not exactly." Julian was in an unusually generous mood to admit as much. "No, he's not old enough to be her father; he's quite old enough to be her husband."

In a long silence Frensham walked to the window and stared down at the busy street. After a while he spoke without turning his head.

"You imagine that he's asked——Oh, rubbish!" He turned round quickly. "You see the position, Julian? I simply must have Ursula's stocks by to-morrow morning. I think we'd better arrange to send them direct to my bank."

Julian nodded, his unwavering eyes still fixed upon the other.

"Have you no other reserves—none at all?" he asked.

He was incredulous, outraged, by the news of his uncle's penury. He almost felt as though Frensham had played him a scurvy trick.

"I tell you I've lost and lost and lost," said the other irritably. He passed his fingers through his untidy gray hair and stood glowering down at his nephew. An uninformed observer might have imagined that the attitude was a menace. Julian Reef knew that the big man was scowling internally at himself and his own duplicity, his own weakness, his own treachery to the niece he loved.

"There's nothing else to be done, I suppose?" he said slowly. "Anthony Braid is impossible. I wouldn't risk the humiliation of a refusal. No, the other way is best—the market is rising: I'll be able to unload a block of Lulangas and that will ease the situation. Send the shares to—not to the bank, no. To me at my office. As long as they get to me in the early morning that will be in time."

With a curt nod he left the room.

Julian sat for a long time without moving and at last put out his hand slowly and pressed a bell. Mr. Rex Guelder came peering round the edge of the door and sidled into the office.

"Something is wrong—I smelled it," he said. "What is the trouble?"

"He wanted Ursula's shares, that is all."

A slow smile dawned on the Dutchman's face.

"So small a matter," he said sarcastically. "And how did you tell your goot uncle—nothing, of course! For if you had told him the truth he would not have gone so quietly. The adorable Ursula!" He smacked his thick lips with a grimace: and Julian did not resent his grossness, but sat biting his nails and staring gloomily across the room.

"If that scheme of yours doesn't come off, Guelder, we're in the soup! Not only dear Uncle Frensham and dear Cousin Ursula, but a few other confiding clients may raise merry hell when they find that the shares we are supposed to be holding are nonexistent. It will be a happy day for me when your new machine is working."

"And for me," said Guelder, rubbing his hands, a beatific smile on his face. "Have not fear, my friend. I have had the greatest expert in the country—a German from Dresden. It is the Z-ray alone—that is the bodder. Once she is eliminated—fortune!" He snapped his fingers ecstatically. "Greenwich shall put up a memorial to me—the greatest man of his time!"

But his friend did not share in the jubilation.

"All right," he said. "Leave me alone, will you?"

He sat for a long time, his head in one hand, scrawling meaningless arabesques on the blotting pad, refusing even to interview his secretary. At five o'clock he put on his hat and went into Guelder's stuffy little office. The Dutchman was examining something under a powerful glass and looked up.

"Regard this, my frient. Is there a greater beauty?"

Julian looked curiously at the oval-shaped opal that lay on a pad of cotton wool—a thing of fire that changed its hue with every movement of his hand: now the green of the deep sea, now a flashing orange radiance, scarlet again, blue deep and tender, and through all these colours the shimmer of flecked gold.

Julian put down the stone.

"A mere fifteen pounds of carat," almost pleaded Guelder. "Such a stone is for the collector, the artist!"

"It's not for me," said Julian harshly. "I've got to see my uncle and tell him the truth."

Guelder stared at him incredulously.

"Tell him—that the money is gone? Are you mat?"

Julian shrugged his shoulders.

"What else can I do? He'll know in the morning. I might as well get it over to-night."

"But he will kill you or, worse, put you in prison! Do you not remember, my goot friend"—Guelder's voice was tremulous with emotion—"what he say to you in this very room of yours? He would jail his own brother if he robbed him! This was said with meaning—I know. I understand men!"

Julian turned on him with a snarl.

"Perhaps you'll suggest some pleasant way out of it," he snapped.

The Dutchman's face had gone pale at the hinted possibility that all his labours and researches had been in vain, and that his sublime experiment would never be continued to its logical conclusion. He was terrified. Redder and redder went his face: his neck seemed to swell. "Better anyt'ing than dat! Raise money. See this man Braid. He is rich."

But Julian was not listening. Possibly his uncle, himself at the end of his tether, would understand. He would tell him of the "great scheme" and of the millions that would come to them.

He went slowly out of the office, so preoccupied with his thoughts that he was halfway down Queen Victoria Street on foot before he realized that he had left the office at all.