Читать книгу Men of Affairs - Roland Pertwee - Страница 11

When Anthony Barraclough left the Mansions he walked up Park Lane and turned into Green Street. Before a house with a white front door he stopped and attacked the knocker. He was admitted by a parlourmaid and informed that Miss Irish was in the boudoir. This was good news because it meant sitting on the floor and lovers all the world over are at their happiest when they sit on the floor. There is something soothing and familiar about it. A man loves to sprawl and a woman is always at her best curled up among cushions. It is impossible to be disagreeable when you are sitting on the floor. You couldn't conceivably have a row in that position. Perhaps a little sulking might be done but very little and only of the kind that provokes pleasant makings-up. Altogether it is a jolly fine institution and the world would be a better place if there was more of it.

In the opinion of Anthony Barraclough no one sat on the floor so divinely as Isabel, and to tell the truth he rather fancied himself as her floor partner.

"Don't you bother," he said to the maid. "I'll make my own way up."

He handed over his hat and stick and mounted the stairs and knocked at a door on the second floor.

"May I come in?" he asked and did not wait for the reply.

Isabel was built in among a nest of squabs and cushions that circled the tiny grate.

"Nice!" she said with a grin. "I was beginning to think you were deserting me. Rang up three times yesterday I did."

"Awful busy I was," he returned and disposed himself luxuriously beside her. Then he said 'Please' and had every reason to say 'Thank you' only he preferred to express it otherwise.

"What you been doing?"

"Trous-sewing," she answered nodding at a small basket decorated with silk fruit and overflowing with pieces of flimsy needlework. "But I've been dull. Where were you yesterday?"

"All over the place. North, south, east and west and the nor'-nor's and the sou'-sou's into the bargain. It was a hectic day."

Something in the forced gaiety of his voice made her look at him critically.

"Anything wrong?" he asked. "I know I'm not handsome but——"

"I don't know yet," she continued looking, "but you've a kind of flat look at the corners of your eyes where the fun ought to be."

"Now what on earth do you mean by that?"

"A lot. Tony! Almost you've got the——"

"Well?"

"The money face."

"Money face?"

"Um! You mustn't laugh, it's a dreadful face. Daddy had it. He caught it during the rubber boom and it never went away. Are you still doing things with that beastly syndicate, Tony?"

"Here, chuck it," he implored humorously. "We're sitting on the floor, you know. 'Tisn't fair."

But her expression remained very grave.

"I sometimes believe," she said, "you think that's all I'm good for. You don't talk to me as I want you to talk. I'm not always sitting on the floor, Tony. It's lovely at times, but other times I'm different. I'm—oh, I'm a bit of a surprise really."

"What is it you want to know?"

"I want to be told what you're doing 'cos I've a funny feeling it isn't—oh! I don't know."

"You extraordinary child. It's perfectly all right. Rather important, that's all. There's nothing for you to bother about. I was going to tell you because I shall have to be away for three weeks and I thought——"

"Three weeks? But we were going to be married on——"

"Yes, that's rotten part. Still the invitations haven't gone out—and if we were to put it off ten days to be on the safe side——"

"Our wedding!" she said.

"I wouldn't have had it happen for the world. It's frightful bad luck but——"

Isabel drew up her knees. Very little and lovely she looked. Her big brown eyes were open wide and her lower lip was drawn in. A shock of chestnut hair framed the sweet oval of her face. Tony had said she was like a serious angel and he was right.

She nodded twice.

"It must be very important," she said, "if we have to postpone our wedding. I see."

"You don't see," he said edging closer to her. "You can't because I haven't wanted to worry you with details, but it is important—enormously important."

"More important than I am?"

"'Course not."

"Yet it takes you away from me."

"Only for a little while—and look, dear, I don't want you to tell anyone

I'm going."

"Why not?"

"Because—well, it mustn't be known."

"Tony, is—is what you have to do dangerous?"

He answered evasively.

"What I have to do—no."

"Then let me come too. We could be married first. I don't want a fashionable wedding. Let's do that."

He hesitated.

"Couldn't be done, dear. It wouldn't be——"

"Safe?"

"Practicable."

"You don't trust me."

"Of course I trust you," he said putting his arms round her. "I've trusted you from the moment we first met and I'm going on trusting you all the rest of my life. Isn't that good enough?"

"Not nearly," she answered and rose to her feet.

"Isabel," he said very seriously. "When I tell you that there are huge interests at stake—that all this is for something that—that defeats imagination, surely you will take my word."

She pressed a finger to her chin.

"Huge interests means money."

"It does," he replied, "but money on a colossal scale—illimitable.

Doesn't that appeal to you?"

"No," she said. "I've all I want and you're well enough off. What's the good of more?"

"Just listen," he said. "If I bring off this deal there is no wish in the world one couldn't gratify, and bring it off I shall."

He started to pace up and down the narrow floor space of the tiny room, his hands opening and shutting and a light of enthusiasm dancing in his eyes. It was not the money face he wore as he spoke but the expression of the man of deeds, the man who joyed in accomplishment, in vanquishing difficulty, in facing long odds, buoyed up and carried along by the will to win.

"You can't understand, my dear, all this means to me and will mean to you. I haven't even imagined it myself. Think! We could buy islands, build hospitals, govern nations if the mood prompted us. And all for three weeks' work. Lord, it's—Oh! if I could make you see how big it is—how magnificent."

And womanlike she responded,

"I want you, Tony, the rest only frightens me."

"Forget the money," he said, "and bear this in mind. If I succeed the world will be richer by a tremendous healing force."

"A medicine?"

"Call it a medicine. It's lying out in the open within a little march of the common ways of men and women. I tumbled on the find by a stroke of luck and a little knowledge and a word inside me that whispered, 'Look, go and look.' You've read Kipling's 'Explorer'—I read it you. 'Something lost behind the ranges—something hidden, go you there.' It was like that with me—a pringly feeling—a kind of second sense—expectancy—belief—certainty. Nature has a trick of showing the combination of her treasure safe to one man before the rest—and I was the man."

The little chestnut head shook helplessly from side to side.

"What is it you've found?" said Isabel.

He looked at her searchingly and hesitated.

"If I tell you you'll keep it secret?"

"Yes."

"Honest?"

"Honest."

He dropped his voice.

"It's radium," he said.

She repeated the word dully.

"Radium as it never had been found before. A—whew! an inexhaustible supply. Look—look here!"

He drew from his pocket a small black cylinder with a glass peephole at the top, protected by a circular cap of a dark substance.

"It's the finest piece of radium ever found," he said, "and where I got it, at a single dip of the shovel—but never mind that. See, protect it with your hand so, and look through that eyehole."

At the bottom of the cylinder was a luminous speck like a fire seen from a long way off. Waves and jags of angry light burst from it ceaselessly, this way and that. The restless mass was alive, active, burning. Infinitesimal though its dimensions were it gave a sense of illimitable force and power, a prodigious energy.

Isabel returned the cylinder with a nervous shudder.

"I don't like it," she said. "It—it's horrid somehow—wicked looking." She shot a quick glance at him. "You say this is going to be of value to the world!"

He nodded.

"Then why are you in danger? Why aren't you protected as someone who—

Why are you in danger?"

He didn't answer at once and again she repeated the question.

"It's this way, dear," he said. "When anything great enough is discovered there is bound to be competition. I found the stuff but I haven't the capital to exploit it. I took my samples to a ring of financiers who are backing me."

"Mr. Torrington? Mr. Cassis?"

"Cranbourne—Frayne—that crowd. By sheer bad luck another ring got news of what was going on and are moving heaven and earth to get a share in the plunder."

"So it's plunder now," she said.

"From their point of view."

"And from yours?"

"Achievement—a game."

"That you're willing to risk your life for."

"One doesn't think of that," he answered.

"I do," she said.

"Wish I could give you some of my enthusiasm. What is it old Kipling says again:

'The game is more than the Player of the Game

'And the ship is more than the crew.'"

"Old Kipling, as you call him, wrote for men. What did he know about me?"

"Enough to guess you wouldn't have much use for us if we shirked standing our chances."

"The chances being?"

"The assault or favour of the other side."

"Favour?" she repeated.

Barraclough nodded and took from his pocket a folded sheet of notepaper.

"Listen to this," he said and read: "'Dear Mr. Barraclough, if you would grant me ten minutes private conversation, at your own convenience, I should be pleased to reward the courtesy with a sum of twenty-five thousand pounds. Faithfully yours, Hugo Van Diest.' And that's only ground bait."

"Did you meet him?"

"No fear."

Isabel rubbed her forehead perplexedly.

"Oh, I don't know," she said, "I don't understand. But if this radium belongs to your side already——"

"That's just it," he explained. "I haven't got the concession yet. They know that—it's what makes 'em so devilish active. You'll understand they'll do their best to prevent me getting to the place."

Her eyes opened very wide.

"Their best? D'you mean they'd——"

"Lord, no. There'd be no point in that unless they had the map reference first."

"You'll be gone three weeks?"

"That's all."

"They'll follow you?"

"You bet they'll try."

"Suppose they got you! Tony! Tony, they might try and make you speak."

He did his best to calm her but she went on furiously.

"It's true. Men are brutes—vile beasts—where money is concerned. Oh, I hate this—hate every bit of it. Power—healing—it's only another name for the money grab—the horrible cutthroat money grab. Tony, you shan't go—I won't let you go—I'll prevent you by every means——"

"Now, my dear," he begged, putting his arms about her, "be a good sensible little girl—be a baby for three weeks. You've all your trousseau to get—heaps of people to see. Why not run over to Paris for a week? Then there's my mother in Devon. She'd be tremendously bucked if——"

"Is this place abroad?" said Isabel.

"I can't tell that even to you."

"When are you starting?"

"Probably in three days' time—latish."

"You're determined to go?"

"I must."

"Nothing I can say will prevent you?"

"I'm sorry, dear."

"Hm!" said Isabel. "Then I suppose we'd better make the most of the time that's left."

And very slowly she subsided on the Cushion pile in the corner, her chin resting on his shoulder and her left hand playing idly with a long gold tassel.

"Oh, you angel," he exclaimed, "I knew you wouldn't really make any difficulties. And there's no need to be frightened because they're fixing me up the easiest get-away in the world."

"I haven't promised anything," she answered noncommittally. Her eyes flashed up to his and in them shone the sweetest light imaginable. "But just for now I'm sitting on the floor again."

They forgot all about lunch.