Elk 03 The Twister, page 2
“You don’t mean he’s been making love to her, or anything of that sort?”
Julian Reef was on dangerous ground, but there was greater danger elsewhere. He preferred to play with this particular peril rather than risk the attention of his uncle straying back to another matter.
“I wouldn’t say he’s made love to her or that he’s said anything. People don’t do that sort of thing nowadays: they drift into an understanding and drift from there into marriage. I don’t think you kicked him out a minute too soon.” He took up his hat. “Must dash to the office. My Mr. Guelder is an exacting taskmaster.”
“Where did you pick up that Dutchman?” asked Frensham.
“I knew him in Leyden twelve years ago,” said Julian patiently. Frensham’s memory was not of the best, and he had asked that question at least a dozen times before. “I was taking a chemistry course at the University and he was one of the minor professors. An extraordinarily clever fellow.”
Lord Frensham plucked at his lower lip thoughtfully.
“A chemist…what does he know about finance? Yes,” he said slowly, “I remember you told me he was a chemist, and he knew nothing about finance. Why on earth do you keep him in your office in a confidential position?”
“Because he knows something about chemistry,” smiled the other; “and when I am dealing with mining propositions and the wild-cat schemes that are always coming to me, I like to have someone who can tell me exactly the geological strata from which a piece of conglomerate is taken.”
His hand was on the door when: “One minute. Julian: you’re not in such a great hurry. Of course, I don’t take the slightest notice of what that fellow said about Ursula’s money, but it’s all right, I suppose? I was looking at a list of the securities the other day: they seem fairly good and fairly safe properties.”
Julian’s mouth was very expressive. At the moment it indicated good-natured annoyance.
“I seem to remember that Ursula had dividends at the half year,” he said. Of course, if you want to go into the thing as The Twister suggests—that fellow’s getting terribly honest and proper in his old age—send your accountant down, my dear uncle, and let him check the securities, or turn them over to your bank.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Frensham interrupted abruptly. “Nobody has suggested that you can’t handle the fund as well as any bank manager. I suppose none of the securities has been changed?”
“Naturally they’ve been changed,” said Julian quickly. “When I see stock, that promises to be unproductive I get rid of it and buy something more profitable. Ursula’s money has given me more thought than all the other business I do in the course of a year. For example, I had the first news of that slump in Brazil, and got rid of all her Brazilian Rail before the market sagged. I saved her over a thousand pounds on that contract. And if you remember, I told you I was selling the Kloxon Industrials shares—”
“I know, I know,” said the other hastily. “I’m not suggesting that you haven’t done splendidly. Only I’m a poor man—and a reckless man: and I must think of the future where Ursula is concerned.”
Mr. Julian Reef left him on this note; and all the way to the office he was wondering what would have happened if his uncle had accepted his suggestion and had placed Ursula Frensham’s money in the hands of a discriminating banker.
For the sixty thousand pounds’ worth of shares which be held in her name were no longer as gilt-edged as they had been.
Chapter 3.
URSULA FRENSHAM had a small car, and Lord Frensham’s small Hampstead estate offered her an opportunity of getting away from the house without observation. She knew Tony’s habits. He was a great walker. It was his practice when he called to dismiss his car and pick it up again at the park end of Avenue Road. He was half-way down Fitzjohn’s Avenue when she drew into the kerb and she called him by name. He looked round with such a start that she knew she had surprised him in a moment of deepest agitation.
“Get in—brawler,” she said sternly.
“Many things I am: brawler I am not,” he said as he took his place by her side.
“Really, Tony,” she said, “I am very, very hurt with you. Father is furious. Poor Julian!”
“I’m rather ashamed of myself,” he confessed. I have never quite got out of my old Barberton ways.”
“You mean barbarian,” she said. “Tony, what is the trouble? What did you say that made everybody so angry? I know it was you who really provoked Julian. Was it about my money?”
He looked round at her in consternation. “Did they tell you that?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, I guessed it,” she said quietly. “I’m rather worried, too, Tony—not that I’m afraid for my own sake, but I think if anything happened to my money Father would die. You see, poor dear, he’s been working so hard all his life and living so shabbily and the title brought none of those broad lands that a missing heir inherits, only a lot of mortgaged old country houses full of snuffy tenants. And I’m quite sure he knows nothing whatever about the City.”
“And Julian?” asked Tony, looking straight ahead.
She did not reply to this for some time.
“I’m not sure about Julian; and one really ought to be sure about the man one is going to marry.”
He opened his eyes wide at this. “Do you mind stopping the car? I feel sick,” he said, with heavy irony. “Whose idea is this—Julian’s?”
“Father’s.” She was frowning. “Of course, it’s all very much in the air. Tony, do you really think that Julian is a good financier? I don’t.”
“Why?” he asked. He thought that Julian Reef’s little secret belonged to a very exclusive City circle.
“Well, for one thing, he sold some stock of mine called Bluebergs. Do you know them?”
He nodded. “Yes, a very sound company; paying an enormous dividend. Why on earth did he sell it?”
She shook her head.
“I haven’t asked. Only Sir George Crater—he’s the head of the Blueberg Company—” Tony nodded. “—I met him at a dance last night and he said he was going to have a long serious talk with Father about selling the shares—he knows in some mysterious way-“
“There’s nothing mysterious about share transfers, my dear,” said Tony, his eyes twinkling. He was serious again in a moment. “Perhaps he bought something better,” he said, and felt a hypocrite—for he knew Julian could find nothing better on the market than Blueberg Consolidated.
They had reached the end of Avenue Road and were turning to skirt the park when a very tall man, leaning against a lamp-post, raised a languid hand and lifted his hat with tremendous effort and almost let it fall on his head again.
“Do you want to speak to him?” asked Ursula as Tony half-turned.
“Yes, I’d rather like you to meet this gentleman,” said Tony, “unless you have a rooted objection to hobnobbing with detective officers from Scotland Yard.”
She jerked on the brake and brought the car to a jarring standstill. “I’d love to, Tony,” she said as she got out of the car.
The tall man was walking towards them with such a pained expression on his face that she sensed his boredom. Tony introduced him as Inspector Elk.
So this was the great Elk! Even she had heard about this lank, unhappy man—which was not surprising, for he had figured in half the sensational cases which forced their attention upon the newspaper reader for as long as she could remember.
“Glad to know you. Lady Ursula,” said Elk, and offered a large, limp hand. “Aristocracy’s my weakness lately. I pinched a ‘sir’ last week for selling furniture that he hadn’t paid for.”
He looked at Tony thoughtfully.
“I haven’t taken a millionaire for I don’t know how long, Mr. Braid; and according to what I hear about twisters and twisting—” He surveyed a possible victim blandly. “Education’s at the bottom of all crime,” he went on to his favourite theme. “It’s stuffin’ children’s heads with William the Conqueror, 1066, and all that kind of junk that fills Borstal University. If people couldn’t write there’d be no forgers; if they couldn’t read there’d be no confidence men. Take geography; what does it do, miss? It just shows these hard-boiled murderers where they can go when they get out of the country. I never knew an educated policeman that ever lasted more than three years in the force.” He shook his head sadly. “What’s goin’ to win the Stewards’ Cup, Mr. Braid? Not that I hold with racin’ unless I get a tip that can’t lose. Racing an’ betting are the first steps to the gallows. I had four pounds on a horse at Newmarket last week. It was given to me by a criminal friend of mine and it lost. The next time I catch him I’ll get him ten years!”
There was a twinkle in his kindly grey eyes that belied the horrific threat.
Tony had first met the detective in Johannesburg when he went out to bring home a defaulting bankrupt. They had met since in London. Tony Braid liked this lazy man, with his everlasting railings at education; knew him for what he was, the shrewdest thief-catcher in London and though he had no occasion to ask his services, it had frequently happened that the inspector’s presence at his Ascot home had enlivened many a dull evening.
“Are you looking for criminals now, Inspector?” asked Ursula, trying hard not to laugh for fear she offended him.
He shook his head. “No criminals live in St. John’s Wood, my lady. I’m looking for my fellow-lodger. I realise I’m not doing my duty, which is to leave him to an active and intelligent police constable.”
“Has he stolen something?” asked Ursula.
“No, miss, he has stolen nothing,” said Elk, shaking his head. “He has merely put an enemy into his mouth to steal away his brains. Which is in the Prayer Book. He’s an intelligent man when he’s sober, but talkative when he’s soused, it you’ll excuse the foreign expression. He’s probably lying on the canal bank asleep, or maybe in the canal. When he’s sober he talks rationally, and it’s a pleasure and an education to listen to his talks about the flora and fauna of Africa; but when he’s tight he talks about Lulanga Oilfields and how the wells are all dry, what he thinks of the chief engineer—well, he’s a trial.”
He caught Tony’s eye at that moment. The Twister was staring at him as if he had seen a ghost.
Chapter 4.
MR. ELK of Scotland Yard was the only detective known to fame who had ever permitted himself to be mysterious. And there was no circumstance about Mr. Elk’s life that was more mysterious than the quality of lodgers who drifted to the house where be had his residence. Thieves, decayed noblemen, confidence men, and once a murderer, had slept under that interesting roof in the Gray’s Inn Road. And now Tony Braid heard, dumbfounded, that a mysterious drunken somebody who knew all about Lulanga Oil Wells shared quarters with Mr. Elk. And just then Lulanga Oils was a subject which occupied his mind to the exclusion of all others.
To Ursula Frensham the topic of a possibly intoxicated authority upon Lulanga Oils was not especially fascinating. But this lank man, with the lined face and the twinkling eyes was a figure of romance.
“He’s a nice fellow—this Colburn,” Elk was drawling. “Nothing mean about the man—a prince. Smokes cigars that a gentleman can smoke, has got a bit of money—and will get more when these shares go up.” He looked at Tony quizzically. “I thought of seeing you about these oil shares. You gentlemen in the City could tip me off, and I’d just as soon make money our of stocks and shares as I would out of honest work. Sooner, as a matter of fact.”
“Could you bring him down to Ascot?” asked Tony, lowering his voice.
Mr. Elk scratched his neck and thought he might.
As they were walking back to the car: “What startled you so terribly about—what’s the name of the stock—Lulanga?” asked Ursula.
“Nothing very much. Only I’m rather interested in the operations of that company.”
“Isn’t that one of Julian’s?” she asked, suddenly remembering. “Of course: and Father has a tremendous number of shares; he’s been rather worried about them.”
Mr. Braid made no reply.
She dropped him at Clarence Gate, a little mystified by his silence and very surprised when, at parting, he asked her not to speak to her father of the meeting with Elk.
He made his way to his little house in Park Street, which was both home and office, for in truth, though he had much business in the City, it was conducted from his home address, and the modest suite he rented near the Mansion House was very seldom honoured by his presence.
The moment he got into his study he picked up the telephone, called the office and gave instructions as fast as the stenographer at the other end of the wire could write them down. Within a few minutes of ringing off he had dismissed Lulanga Oils and Julian Reef from his mind, and was immersed in the study of the Racing Calendar.
Mr. Julian Reef would have given a great deal for The Twister’s gift of detachment. If you asked the average reputable man of affairs in the City of London who was the shrewdest of the younger financiers, he would have answered, a little vaguely, that he supposed it was that fellow in Drapers Gardens—what was his name again? Ah, yes. Reef—Julian Reef. There was a coterie that would have replied without reluctance and enthusiastically, for he was very popular with a certain set.
They would have pointed with pride to his Flotation of Kopje Deeps, to his daring currency deals, to that flutter in tin which nearly fluttered three old-established firms into the bankruptcy court, only they had reserves. The consequence of that flutter was that Julian, who was caught short, was within an ace of crying “Good morning” to a registrar in bankruptcy.
There were suave and weighty men of finance who watched Julian’s meteoric rise with a certain amused interest. “He will become a millionaire, but he will never be Lord Mayor of London,” said one of these cryptically. Once Mr. Reef brought to a great house a proposition that had every promise of a cast-iron profit. The head of the house was polite, but negative.
“But, my dear Mr. Ashlein, this is gilt-edged!” protested Julian.
The wise old Jew smiled. “It does not stop at the edge, Mr. Reef,” he said genially. “We could not participate without being under an obligation to you and associating our house with your future enterprises. We are—um—a little conservative.”
It was the first and only time that Julian ever attempted to mix the new wine with the old: he was clever enough to realize his tactical error. It was a mistake to court the old houses—it was, he discovered, a greater error to despise the new.
Not that one would describe Mr. Anthony Braid as a financial power, new or old. He had his humble suite of offices in Lothbury and controlled a number of obscure diamond syndicates which, from Julian’s point of view, were wholly unimportant, In the City he was regarded less as a financier than an authority on the sport of racing: except by those City folk who had met him in Johannesburg.
Julian came straight to his office after his unpleasant encounter with the man he hated best in the world, and Mr. Rex Guelder met him on the threshold of his private room.
Mr. Guelder was stout and shabby and spectacled. He was a native of Holland, a country which, for some curious reason, he never visited. He had a round, fat, rather stupid face with protruding eyes and parted lips: his hair stood stiffly erect, and his careless attire was common talk in the City.
He greeted Julian familiarly and as an equal; almost pushed him into his private office and closed the door with a bang.
“Ah, my friend, I will tell you something amusing. Your ridiculous Lulangas, they fall again—three-sixteenths—a quarter—”
He spoke English with a certain ponderous correctness, though his speech was thick and he had a habit of rolling his r’s.
“Bad luck,” said Julian ironically. “I sold eight thousand this morning—they ought to have fallen two points.”
Mr. Guelder shrugged his shoulders and beamed. “Does it matter—anything?” he asked. “These things are so small, so unimportant.” He waved Lulanga Oils out of existence with a contemptuous gesture. “The new crucible has come and will soon be put up! Also the electric furnace from Sollingen. In six weeks we shall have the new installation; and this morning the stones have come from Amsterdam!”
He opened the safe in a corner of the room, took out a wash-leather bag and carefully guiding the stones through his hand, poured out the contents on Julian’s blotting-pad. Nearly a hundred cut diamonds flashed back a thousand rays in the sunlight. There were big yellow diamonds and diamonds that were so dullishly red as to be almost the colour of rubies, and diamonds of a faint, greenish tint—but never one that was white.
“What did they cost?” frowned Julian.
Mr. Guelder smiled broadly.
“Fleabitings,” he said. “Fifteen thousand pounds. On account I have paid t’ree. Eight houses have collected them from here, there and everywhere. Their values who shall know? For us, my dear Julian, millions certain. Not because we shall sell them, as I have often told you, but because—” He tapped the side of his nose and winked.
“Put them away.” Mr. Reef was a little irritable this morning. “Why have Lulangas fallen only a quarter? I wonder if somebody is trying to catch me short.”
Mr. Rex Guelder spread out his plump hands.
“I do not know,” he said. “What does it matter? Why bozzer with these oil shares, my dear Julian? You make a few thousand there, but it is playing with money, when you should reserve every centime for the great coup!”
Julian Reef shifted impatiently in his chair.
“But is it so much of a great coup, Rex?” he asked. “Of course, I realize that you’re a deuced clever chemist and a genius at this sort of thing, but I suppose you know that I’ve spent fifty thousand pounds already? If anybody had told me ten years ago that I should be looking for the philosopher’s stone—”
“Philosopher’s stone!” snorted the other. “Poof!” He snapped his fingers derisively. “You disparage me, Julian, you disparage my genius, you disparage science! You shall see.”
