An Amiable Charlatan Part 25

"Now, my friends," he said, "welcome to my house! Paul," he added, turning to me, "let me introduce my two friends, Mr. Harding and Mr. Densmore--Mr.

Paul Walmsley. Mr. Walmsley has just been returned for the western division of Bedfordshire."

They greeted me with more than affability. Mr. Harding a.s.sured me he had read my speeches. Mr. Densmore thought no one was more to be envied than a man who had the gifts that secured for him a seat in Parliament.

"It's early yet," Mr. Bundercombe declared genially. "Let's sit down. Tell me a little about English business. It interests me. You bought those Chilean bonds all right, I see. They are up an eighth to-night."

"A good purchase, Mr. Bundercombe," Mr. Harding a.s.sured him; "a very good purchase! After all, though, there's not much money to be made out of those government things. Now we've a little affair of our own--what do you say, Densmore?" he broke off, looking toward his partner. "We could afford to let Mr. Bundercombe come in a little way with us, I think?"

Mr. Densmore nodded.

"Not more than five," he said warningly. "Remember what you promised the Rothschild people."

Mr. Harding nodded and crossed his knees. He lit a cigar from the box Mr.

Bundercombe pa.s.sed round.

"This sounds interesting!" the latter remarked. "I dare say Mr. Walmsley, too, has a little spare money for investment."

Mr. Densmore sighed, though his eyes were brightening.

"It's too good a thing," he explained confidentially, "to let the world into. Between ourselves, there's a fortune in it, and we want to keep it among our friends."

He drew a dummy prospectus from his vest pocket and began a long-winded recital of some figures in which I was not particularly interested. Mr.

Bundercombe, however, appeared to be greatly impressed by what he heard.

"Gentlemen," he said, "there's just one little thing: American business methods and English are different in one respect. In my country we've got a sort of official guide that tells us exactly whom we are dealing with and what their means are. Now I know you are good fellows and it seems to me I'll be glad to go into this little affair with you; but we are strangers financially, aren't we? Now if you were Americans I should say to you: 'What's your rating?' and you'd tell me, because you'd know that I could look it up in a business guide in ten minutes."

"Perfectly sound," Mr. Harding admitted--"perfectly! Neither my partner nor I have anything to conceal. Last Christmas we were worth just over sixty thousand pounds and since then we've made a bit."

"You've no other partner?" Mr. Bundercombe inquired.

"Certainly not!" Mr. Harding replied.

"Then what about our friend Stanley?" Mr. Bundercombe asked quietly.

Almost as he spoke Stanley walked into the middle of the little group. I have never in the whole course of my life seen two men so thoroughly and entirely amazed. Mr. Harding dropped his cigar on the carpet, where he let it remain. They stared at Stanley as though they were looking upon a ghost. Both men seemed somehow to have lost their confident bearing-- seemed to have shrunken into smaller, less a.s.sertive, meaner beings.

"Sixty thousand pounds," Mr. Bundercombe went on--"one-third of which belongs to Stanley here."

"Absurd!" Harding faltered.

"Nothing--nothing of the sort!" Densmore declared.

Mr. Bundercombe very carefully lit another cigar. Then he rang the bell.

Harding rose to his feet. He was not looking in the least like the sleek, opulent gentleman who had entered the room a few minutes before.

"What's that for?" he demanded, pointing to the bell.

The door was already opened. Mr. Bundercombe indicated the young lady who stood upon the threshold--the lady with whom he had been lunching that day at Prince's.

"I only wished to have the pleasure," Mr. Bundercombe explained, "of presenting you two gentlemen--Mr. Harding especially--to this young lady."

"Blanche!" Mr. Harding exclaimed.

Mr. Densmore muttered something under his breath.

"My dear Miss Blanche," said Mr. Bundercombe, moving toward the door, "I will not ask you to stay, as our interview is scarcely, perhaps, a pleasant one. I simply wished you to show yourself so that Mr. Harding and his friend might understand how useless certain denials on their part would be. My servant will now place you in a taxi; and if you will do me the honor of calling here at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning I think I can promise you a satisfactory termination to this little affair."

The girl patted him on the shoulder.

"That's all right, Bundy!" she declared. "I hope you'll take me out to lunch again! As for him," she added, her eyebrows coming together and looking toward Harding, "perhaps he'll understand now how well it pays to be a liar!"

She turned round and left the room amid a stricken silence. Mr.

Bundercombe came back to his place.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I will be brief with you. It has given me the utmost pleasure to arrange this little meeting on behalf of my friend, Mr.

Stanley. In the room on the other side of the pa.s.sage is waiting my lawyer, who will draw up a renewal of your partnership deed with Mr.

Stanley upon terms that we can discuss amicably. In the room behind this is waiting a particular friend of mine--Mr. Cullen, a detective.

"Remember," Mr. Bundercombe added, his voice suddenly very stern and threatening, "that through all the years that man--your rightful partner-- has been in prison, through all the agony of his trial, the humiliation of his sentence, the name of neither one of you has pa.s.sed his lips! Is it your wish that the truth shall now be told?"

They shrank back. Harding was pale to the lips. Densmore was shivering.

"Very well, gentlemen," Mr. Bundercombe concluded. "If I send for the lawyer Mr. Cullen can go. If you choose Mr. Cullen the lawyer can go."

Mr. Harding moistened his lips with his tongue. "We will make an arrangement," he said. "We have been wrong. Now that I see you here, Stanley," he continued, looking up with the first show of courage either of them had exhibited, "I am ashamed! It was a dirty trick! Forget it!

After you were lagged we decided to turn over a new leaf and be honest.

We've been honest--inside the law, at any rate--and we've made money. Come and take your share of it and forgive!"

"We were brutes!" Densmore agreed.

They were both bending over Stanley. Somehow or other his hands stole out to them. Mr. Bundercombe and I strolled outside.

"You might tell Mr. Cullen that we shall not require him this evening,"

Mr. Bundercombe instructed the butler. "Bring a bottle of champagne, and tell the gentleman from Wymans & Wymans and his clerk that we shall be ready for them in ten minutes."

CHAPTER XI--MR. BUNDERCOMBE'S WINK

I scarcely recognized Mr. Cullen when he first accosted me in the courtyard of the Milan. At no time of distinguished appearance, a certain carelessness of dress and gait had brought him now almost on a level with the loafer in the street. His clothes needed brushing, he was unshaved, and he looked altogether very much in need of a bath and a new outfit.

"May I have a word with you, Mr. Walmsley?" he asked, standing in the middle of the pavement in front of me and blocking my progress toward the Strand.

I hesitated for a moment. His ident.i.ty was only just then beginning to dawn upon me.

"Mr. Cullen!" I exclaimed.