Читать книгу The White Virgin - Fenn George Manville - Страница 9

“Well, what news?” said Wrigley, as Jessop Reed entered his gloomy office. “Bah! what a dandy you are! Why, you spend enough on barbers and buttonholes to keep you from borrowing money.”

“And you spend enough on ballet-girls to keep you from making profits by lending,” retorted Jessop. “All right, my Jonathan,” said Wrigley.

“All right, my David,” replied Jessop. “Let me see: David was a Jew.”

“Whilst I am not,” said Wrigley sharply.

“Oh, of course not. No one would suppose Wrigley to be an Israelitish name. There, don’t set up all your feathers, man, and look so indignant because I suggested that you belonged to the chosen race. There are good Jews.”

“And precious bad Christians,” said Wrigley sourly.

“Awfully! But I say, don’t be so ruffled, man. Lucky I didn’t come for some hard coin this morning.”

“It is; and hang me if I ever lend you money again if I’ve to have blood thrown in my face.”

“Bah! you shouldn’t be so sensitive about it. I don’t mind about your descent.”

“Enough to make any man sensitive. Gad, sir, any one would think we were lepers, seeing the treatment we receive.”

“Yes, it’s too bad,” said Jessop soothingly; “but you do have your recompense, old man. Nice refined revenge your people have had for the insult and contempt they have met with. There, let’s talk business.”

“Yes, let’s talk business. Now, then, what about the hole in the earth down which people throw their money?”

“Well, it’s a big hole.”

“Yes, I know that, but is it a big do after all?”

“No. As I told you, the old man wouldn’t have gone in for it if it hadn’t been right.”

“Then he really does hold a great deal in it?”

“More than half, that I know of.”

“You’ve carefully made sure of that.”

“Yes, carefully. It’s all right, I tell you.”

“Good! And what about the dear brother?”

“He’s still down there.”

“Surveying the mine?”

“Surveying? He has been down it every day for nearly a week, examining every crack and corner – adit, winze, shaft, driving, all the whole lot of it.”

“Well?”

“He sends reports to the old man every night.”

“And what does he say? Do you know?”

“Yes; the old man reads them to me.”

“Fudge! Flams to rig the market. Chatter for you to spread on the Stock Exchange and make the shares go up.”

“No,” said Jessop quietly, as he sat on a corner of the lawyer’s table, and swung his cane and one leg to and fro. “The dad and I don’t hit it, and we’ve had more quarrels than I can count about money and – other little matters; but he’s always straightforward with me over business, and I’d trust his word sooner than any man’s in London.”

“Good son.”

“Ah! you needn’t sneer; you’d only be too glad to get his name to a bit of paper.”

“True, O king! He is a model that way. But then he is pretty warm, and can afford to lose.”

“Yes; but it would be the same if he were hard up. The old man’s dead square.”

“Then you believe your brother’s reports are all that are read to you?”

“Implicitly.”

“No garbling, you think?”

“I’m sure there isn’t. No, old fellow, I hate my fortunate brother most bitterly, and I don’t love my father; but I’d sooner take their word than that of any one I know.”

“Humph!” ejaculated the lawyer. “Well, then, the mine is not quite played out!”

“Played out! Pish! It has never been worked properly. Only scratched and scraped. There’s plenty of ore to pay by following on the old workings with modern tackle, and a little fortune in re-smelting the old refuse that has been accumulating for fifteen hundred or two thousand years.”

“Yes, it is very old,” said Wrigley thoughtfully.

“Old! Why, no one knows how old it is. The Romans worked it, and I daresay the Phoenicians had a finger in it before them.”

“Go on, old fellow,” said Wrigley, laughing. “Can you prove that pigs of lead were got from it to ballast the ark?”

“Well, you needn’t believe it without you like.”

“But I do believe a great deal of it. There’ll be quite enough for us, if you mean business.”

“If I mean business! Why, of course I do. Do you suppose I am going to sit still and let my brother have all the cream of life? He’ll get all the old man’s money. Plenty without that. I’m not blind. Precious little for me there.”

“Then what is going to be done?”

“They are going to set to work directly. My brother has laid his reports before the board. I did not tell you that he has discovered a new untouched lode that promises to yield wonderfully.”

“Indeed!” said Wrigley – “a new lode?” and he looked searchingly at his companion.

“Yes; an important vein of ore that promises to be of immense value.”

“Hah! that sounds well,” said Wrigley.

“For the shareholders?”

“No; for us. Have you forgotten?”

“No,” said Jessop gloomily, “but will it work?”

“Work? You, an old hand, and ask that. My dear Jessop, if we cannot work that between us it is strange.”

“Yes, but the money necessary. It will be enormous.”

“Pretty well, my dear boy,” said Wrigley, with quiet confidence; “but don’t you fidget about that. Millions are to be had for a safe thing, so we need not be scared about thousands. Yes; that new vein will do. Jessop, my lad, you and I must work that vein. The idea of the great lode is glorious and makes our task easy in that direction; but there is a stumbling-block elsewhere – a difficulty in the way.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Jessop testily. “Hang it, man! Don’t be so mysterious. Now then, please, what do you mean?”

“Let me take my own pace, my dear Jessop, as the inventor of our fortune.”

“Anyhow you like, but let me see how we are going.”

“Well, then, you shall. Now, then, we want an enemy. Clive Reed’s or your father’s enemy. Has your brother any?”

“Yes; here he is, confound him!”

“And you will not do, my dear boy! Besides, it would not be your work. I meant some man who dislikes him so consumedly that he would not stick at trifles for the sake of revenge – and hard cash. What is more,” continued Wrigley, as Jessop shook his head, “it must be some one connected with the mine.”

“Bah! How can it be, when the mine is not started?”

“Then it must be as soon as possible after the mine has been started. Some workman under him in a position of trust, whom he has injured: struck him, taken his wife or sweetheart, mortally injured in some way.”

Jessop burst into a coarse laugh, and Wrigley looked at him inquiringly.

“My dear boy,” said the stockbroker, “I thought this was to be a matter of finessing and making a few thousands.”

“It is, and of making a good many thousands.”

“And you talk as if it were a plot for an Adelphi drama. My dear fellow, my brother Clive is a sort of nineteenth-century saint – not the cad in a play. Clive doesn’t drink, bet, nor gamble in any way. He is a good boy, who is engaged, and goes to church regularly with the lady.”

“Oh, yes; that’s as far as you know now.”

“I do know,” cried Jessop. “Clive has never run away with any one’s wife, nor bullied men, nor gone to the – your friends for coin. If you can’t hit out a better way than that, we may pitch the thing up.”

“At the first difficulty?” said Wrigley, smiling. “No, my boy. We want such a man as I have described – a man whose opinion about the mine will be worth taking. He must, as I say, hate your brother sufficiently to give that opinion when we want it, so as to say check to your brother and be believed.”

“Well, then, there isn’t such a man,” said Jessop sourly.

“Indeed! When do you expect your brother back?”

“At any time now. To-morrow or next day, to meet the directors at the board and report again upon his inspection.”

“Again?”

“Yes; he has been down twice before.”

“Who is down there?”

“Only the man in charge of the mine.”

“Who is he?”

“Some fellow my father got hold of in connection with other mine speculations.”

“Well, wouldn’t he do?”

“Pooh! He is, I should say, out of the question.”

“At a price?”

“At a price!” Jessop started and looked keenly at the solicitor.

“Every man they say has his price, my dear Jessop. We want the kind of man I describe. You say there is no such man. I say there are in the market, and I should say this is the very chap.”

“But surely you would not bribe him to – ”

“Don’t use ugly terms. If I saw my way to make a hundred thousand pounds I should not shrink from giving a man five hundred to help me make it.”

“No, nor a thousand,” said Jessop.

“My dear boy, I would get him for five hundred if I could, but if I could not, I would go higher than you say; in fact, I would go up to ninety-five thousand sooner than lose five. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand. Anything to turn an honest penny.”

“Exactly! So now then, as soon as possible, we must begin to feel our way, so as to secure our man.”

“But if there is not such a man to be had?”

“Then we must make one.”

“Wrigley, I thought I was sharp,” said Jessop, with a peculiar smile.

“But you find there is always a sharper.”

“Was that a lapsus linguae, Wrigley?”

“If you like to call it so,” said the lawyer coldly. “But to business. Let me know the moment your brother gets back.”

“Yes, but why?”

“I am going down to see what I think of the mine.”