Читать книгу The Man Who Bought London - Edgar Wallace - Страница 9

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AT the moment when Elsie was being initiated into the mysteries of King Kerry's office, two men sat at breakfast in the sumptuous dining-room of Mr. Leete's flat in Charles Street.

One of these was the redoubtable Leete himself, in a dressing-gown of flowered silk, and the other the young-looking Mr. Hermann Zeberlieff. He was a man of thirty-eight, but had one of those faces which defy the ravages of time and the consequence of excess.

Leete and he were friends. They had met in Paris in the days when Millionaire Zeberlieff's name was in every paper as the man who had cornered wheat.

They had something in common, these two men, and when a Wall Street syndicate had smashed the corner, ruining hundreds of small speculators, but leaving Hermann Zeberlieff ten times over a dollar millionaire, Leete had accompanied the young man on the yachting cruise which the execration of the American public and the virulence of the Press had made advisable, and the friendship ripened.

Later Millionaire Zeberlieff was to court publicity more disastrously to himself, and the operations of the "L Trust" were to rob him of half his fortune. They were talking of money now. It was a subject which absorbed both men.

"You're a pretty rich man yourself, aren't you, Leete?"

Zeberlieff put the question in a tone that suggested that he was not particular whether he was answered or not.

"Fairly," admitted the unprepossessing Mr. Leete.

"A millionaire?"

Leete nodded.

"Then why the devil did you sell Kerry your store?" asked the other in astonishment.

Mr. Leete's face puckered into a grin.

"There was a bigger store next door," he said cheerfully. "Goulding's were doing twice the trade—taking all our customers, and prospering. They've got the best position—street corner and a double show of shop fronts. That's why!"

"But why hasn't he bought Goulding's?"

The smile on Mr. Leete's face was expressive.

"Goulding's won't sell. He bought the land and is ground landlord, but he can't disturb Goulding's because they've eighty years' lease to run."

Zeberlieff whistled.

"That will upset him," he said with satisfaction.

"As a matter of fact, Tack and Brighton's is a dying concern," Mr. Leete went on frankly. "Unless he can buy Goulding's he's as good as lost his money. Goulding's will sell—at a price."

He winked.

"By the way," he said suddenly, "did you hear that Kerry had been attacked in the public street—shot at?" The other nodded. "Well, the man that shot at him is dead!"

Zeberlieff raised his eyebrows.

"Indeed!"

Mr. Leete nodded.

"Apparently he was mad drunk when he got to the station, and when one of his pals sent him in a mug of coffee the police let him have it —thought it would sober him."

"And did it?" asked the other without any great show of interest.

Mr. Leete nodded again.

"It killed him—cyanide of potassium in the coffee. My doctor," he paused and raised his voice ever so little, "my doctor, Sir John Burcheston, who happened to be passing, was called in, and he told me all about it."

"Extraordinary!" said Mr. Zeberlieff, obviously bored. "How did it get to him?"

"I don't know—they found the boy who brought the coffee, but he says he was sent by a stranger who can't be found."

"Sounds thrilling," said Zeberlieff coolly.

"Thought you'd be interested," said the other.

"I'm more interested in your deal with Kerry. Didn't he know that Goulding's wouldn't sell?" asked Zeberlieff incredulously; "it doesn't seem possible!"

"He thinks he has got a bargain," chuckled the other. "We knocked the prices down and put the profits up—your Trust folk aren't as clever as they pretend."

But Zeberlieff shook his head. "If you underrate the ability of the 'Big L,'" he said seriously, "you're going to nose trouble—that's all. King Kerry smells the value of property just as crows scent carrion: he doesn't make mistakes."

Leete looked up at the other, showing his yellow teeth in a sneer.

"If I'm speaking disparagingly of a friend of yours—" he began.

The plump baby-face of Zeberlieff went a dull red and his eyes glittered ominously.

"A friend of mine?" he cried savagely. "A friend of mine—Leete, I hate that man so much that I'm afraid of myself! I hate the look of him and the sound of his voice: I hate him, and yet he fascinates me."

He strode rapidly up and down the long room.

"Do you know," he asked, stopping suddenly in his walk, "that I often follow him for hours on end—dog his footsteps literally, for no other reason than because I hate him so much that I cannot let him out of my sight?" His face was pale now; his hands, moist with perspiration, were clenched till the knuckles showed whitely. "You think I'm mad—but you don't know the fascination of hate. I hate him, my God, how I hate him!"

He hissed the last words between his clenched teeth. Mr. Leete nodded approvingly. "Then I'm going to give you good news," he said slowly. "Kerry is going to be bled."

"Bled?" There was no mistaking the almost brutal joy in the other's tone.

"Not the way you mean," said Mr. Leete facetiously; "but we're going to make him pay for Goulding's."

"We?"

"We," repeated Leete, "My dear man, Goulding's is mine—has always been my business. I built up Goulding's out of Tack and Brighten. I have sold the failure; I have kept the success."

Again Zeberlieff frowned.

"Kerry didn't know?" he asked, his incredulity apparent.

Mr. Leete shook his head, and laughed—he laughed a curiously high laugh, almost falsetto. Zeberlieff waited until he had finished.

"I'd like to bet you all the money in the world he did know," he said, and the smile vanished from Mr. Leete's homely face.

"He knows now," he said, "because I've told him."

"He knew all the time," said the other. "I wonder what dirt he has in store for you."

He thought a moment. That active brain which had foreseen the drought of '04 and banked on the cotton famine of '08 was very busy.

"What is he going to do?" he asked suddenly. "What is the plan on which he is working?—I don't know, although I was in the syndicate: none of the others know. He has got the whole thing written out and deposited in the Jewel House. No eye but his has seen it."

Leete rose to change into his street clothes.

"We could smash Kerry if we knew," continued Zeberlieff thoughtfully. "I'd give a million dollars to know what his plans are."

Whilst Leete dressed, the other sat with his chin on his clenched fists, frowning at the street below. Now and again he would change his position to make a note.

When Leete returned, ready for an interview which he had arranged with King Kerry, Zeberlieff was almost cheerful.

"Don't go till Gleber comes," he said. And Mr. Leete looked at his watch regretfully. Before he could excuse himself, the servant announced the man for whom Zeberlieff was waiting.

Gleber proved to be a little colourless man, with a very bald head and a manner which was bird-like and mysterious.

"Well?"

"The young lady came at ten o'clock," he said. "She stood outside the office for ten minutes, then went in."

"The same girl that lunched at the Savoy?" asked Zeberlieff, and the man nodded.

"That's the Marion girl," said Leete with a grin, "A bit of a shop- girl—is he that sort of fellow?"

Zeberlieff shook his head with a frown.

"He's a pretty good judge. How long did she stay?" he asked the man.

"She hadn't come out when I left. I think she's permanent there."

"Rot!" snapped Leete. "What is he going to keep a girl in his office for—a girl of that class?"

Still Zeberlieff indicated that he did not accept the other's view.

"This is the perfect secretary he has always been chasing," he said. "That girl is going to be a factor, Leete—perhaps she is already." He bit his forefinger reflectively. "If she knew!" he said half to himself.

Leete took a hurried farewell, and reached the office of the Big Trust a few minutes after time.

King Kerry was there, and Miss Marion was also there, seated at a rosewood desk behind a pile of papers with every indication of permanency.

"Sit down, Mr. Leete," invited Kerry with a nod, as his visitor was announced. "Now, exactly what is your proposition?"

Mr. Leete glanced significantly at Elsie, and the girl half rose. A movement of Kerry's hand checked her.

"I have no business secrets from Miss Marion," he said.

Mr. Leete's irascible bosom glowed with wrath. That he, a magnate by all standards, should be obliged to speak openly before a shop-girl —even an ex-shop-girl—was galling to his proud spirit.

"There's not much to say," he said with an assumption of carelessness which he was far from feeling. "I've told you in my letter, that I am Goulding's, and I sell at a price."

"You did not reveal the fact that you were the guiding spirit of Goulding's before I bought your other business," said Kerry with a little smile. "You were not even on the board—your solicitor acted for you, I presume?"

Mr. Leete nodded.

"Of course, I knew all about it," said King Kerry calmly. "That is why I bought the cheaper property. What do you want for your precious store?"

"A million and a quarter," replied Leete emphatically; "and not a penny less."

Kerry shook his head.

"Yours is a hand to mouth business," he said slowly. "You pay medium dividends and you have no reserves."

"We made a profit of a hundred and fifty thousand last year," responded Leete with a quiet smile.

"Exactly—a little over ten per cent. of the price you ask —-yet I offer you five hundred thousand pounds in cash for your business."

Mr. Leete got up from his chair very deliberately and pulled on his gloves.

"Your offer is ridiculous," he said. And, indeed, he thought it was.

King Kerry rose with him.

"It is a little under what the property is worth," he said; "but I am allowing a margin to recoup me for the sum I gave for Tack and Brighten —the sum in excess of its value."

He walked with the visitor to the door.

"I would ask you to come to lunch and talk it over," he said; "but, unfortunately, I have to go to Liverpool this afternoon."

"All the talking-over in the world wouldn't alter my offer," said Mr. Leete grimly. "Your proposition is absurd!"

"You'll be glad to take it before the year's out," said King Kerry, and closed the door behind the inwardly raging Mr. Leete.

He hailed a taxi, and arrived at his flat incoherent with wrath, and Hermann Zeberlieff listened with calm interest to a story calculated to bring tears to the eyes of any speculative financier.

That afternoon a young and cheerful reporter of The Monitor, prowling about Middlesex Street in search of copy, saw a familiar face disappear into the "Am Tag," a frowsy club frequented by Continental gentlemen who described themselves variously as "Social Democrats" and "Anarchists," but who were undoubtedly expatriated criminals of a very high order of proficiency.

The enterprising reporter recognized the gentleman in spite of his poor dress, and followed him into the club with all the aplomb peculiar to the journalist who scents a good story.