A Duel Part 32

Lamb's costume harmonised with the apartment, it was so evidently the product of one of those artists in dress to whom expense is no object. And it became her very well. In it she looked not only a handsome woman, but almost a real great lady.

Mr. Luker's apparel, on the other hand, was not only unbecoming and ill-fitting, but it was apparently in the last stage of decay. None of the garments seemed to have been made for him, and they were all of them odd ones. He was tall and thin. He wore an old pair of black-and-white checked trousers, which were too short in the leg and too big everywhere else; an old black frock-coat, which he kept closely b.u.t.toned, and which must certainly have been intended for some one who was both shorter and broader. His long thin neck was surrounded by a suspicious-looking collar, which was certainly not made of linen, and he wore by way of a necktie something which might have once done duty as a band on a bowler hat. One understood, after a very cursory inspection, why a gentleman who had such a keen regard for appearances as Mr. Andrew McTavish should object to being brought into involuntary, and unsatisfactory, professional contact with Mr. Isaac Luker.

Yet those who knew had reason to believe that Mr. Luker did a considerable business of a kind--though it was emphatically of a kind. He had one or two peculiarities. He was an habitual gin drinker, and though he could seldom be said to be positively drunk, he could just as rarely be called entirely sober. To all intents and purposes he lived on gin. He had it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and for afternoon tea and supper, and he did not seem to find it a very nourishing food. Then, perhaps partially owing to the monotonous regularity of his diet, he seemed to be incapable of saying what he meant, while his yeas and his nays were as worthless as his oaths. For a solicitor to be a notorious liar and drunkard one would suppose would be a serious handicap in his profession. Oddly enough, with Mr. Luker it was, if anything, the other way. The sort of clients he courted wanted just the sort of man he was. He, speaking generally, never did any clean business; he was only at home when dealing with what was unclean; and as there is more of that kind of commerce about than might be imagined--and some of it is amazingly lucrative--he did tolerably well. Indeed, there were those who declared that, although he did not look it, he was uncommonly well-off, it being one of his characteristics that he was as incapable of spending money as he was of telling the truth or giving up gin.

As he stood there, with his hands folded in front of him in an att.i.tude of prayer, Mrs. Lamb regarded him with what could hardly be regarded as glances of admiration. When she addressed him it was with a frankness which was hardly in keeping with her _role_ of great lady, and which is not usual when one deals with one's legal adviser.

"Listen to me, Luker. I want none of your humbug, and I want none of your lies. I want ten thousand pounds inside a week--and you've got to get them. I'll give fifteen thousand for the ten, so there won't be a bad profit for some one."

"How long do you want the money for?"

"Oh--three months."

"On what security?"

"What security? On the security of my property."

"Your property?" Mr. Luker did not smile--a smile was probably another thing of which he was incapable--but his wizened features a.s.sumed a curious aspect. "Of what does your property consist?"

"None of your nonsense. To begin with, there are those ten thousand shares in the Hardwood Company. As you know very well, they're worth over fifty thousand pounds at the present moment."

"They would be if you had them--but you haven't."

"McTavish & Brown have got them, and you're going to make them disgorge."

"We've first of all to prove that they've got them."

"Oh no, we haven't; they have to prove that they handed them over to Cuthbert Grahame, which is a very different thing, as you know very well."

"My dear Isabel, you're a very clever woman; your fault is that, if anything, you're too clever."

"I've heard you called too clever before to-day."

"My dear----"

"Don't you call me your dear! I won't have it."

"Very well, although it is possible that few men have a better right----"

"Right! Don't you dare to talk to me about right!--you!--don't you talk to me like that, Mr. Luker! You just simply listen to me. I want ten thousand pounds before this day week, and you've got to get it. No one in London knows better than you from whom and how to get it."

"Mrs. Lamb--by the way, how is your worthy husband?"

"Never mind my worthy husband--you keep to the point."

"Even supposing we are able to saddle McTavish & Brown with the responsibility for the Hardwood shares--which is problematical--it'll take a good deal more than three months to do it. It is not to be supposed that they'll accept an adverse decision without taking the case through every court available.

That may take years. If in the end it is decided that they will have to pay, it is not by any means certain that they will be able to. Costs will have swollen the original total enormously; it all will have to come from them. There is nothing to show that they are in a position to pay such a huge sum as that will be."

"Oh yes, there is; they're rolling in money; I've seen enough of them to know so much."

"You think you have. I doubt if that is a matter on which your judgment can be trusted. If the case ultimately goes against them, the possibilities--I should say the probabilities--are that they will declare themselves bankrupt. Then where will you be? You will have to pay your own costs, and, instead of getting the amount adjudged, after another interval of dreary waiting, you may receive, as a final quittance, perhaps sixpence, or a shilling, in the pound. And in the meantime, you must remember, you will have to live."

"You old croaker!"

"Let me make a suggestion."

"Your suggestions!"

She brought her fist down on the back of an armchair with an emphasis which almost suggested that she would have liked that chair to have been some portion of his body.

"Let me lay the whole case before a friend of mine, and, after he has given it careful consideration, it is possible that he may make you a proposition."

"What sort of proposition?"

"That I cannot tell you--the best he can."

"You understand that I must have ten thousand pounds within a week?"

"I hear you say so. If my friend can see his way no doubt he will let you have them."

"Mind he does see his way!"

"As to that----"

Mr. Gregory Lamb's sudden appearance in the doorway perhaps allowed to serve as an excuse for his sentence to remain unfinished.

"You here!" exclaimed Mr. Lamb, as if he were not too well pleased to see him. "I didn't know."

Mr. Luker's greeting, although well meant, was a little peculiar.

"My dear Mr. Lamb, how well you are always looking!--and always so beautifully dressed. What a lovely pin you have in your pretty necktie! Now I know a friend who would give you----"

"I don't want to know what your friend would give me! Confound it, Luker, I never see you but you tell me what some one you know would give me for something I have on. You might be a marine store-dealer."

"There are worse trades, Mr. Lamb--there are worse trades. Now with regard to that exquisite pair of trousers----"

"Look here, Luker, if you're going to tell me what some one you know will give me for my trousers, I'll throw something at you."

"You mustn't do that, Mr. Lamb, it might be something worth money--everything in the room is so very beautiful. Mrs. Lamb, I wish you good-morning."

"Now, no nonsense, Luker. I want that within a week--and you've got to see I have it--if you don't want trouble!"

"I understand perfectly, and will bear what you have said well in mind. You shall hear from me again very shortly."

"I will see I do!"

"I have had clients, Mr. Lamb, who would have conveyed that pin without paying for it--it presents such temptations to an honest man. I do hope it's properly secured. Good-morning!"

When Mr. Luker had retired Mr. Lamb turned to his wife, with knitted brows.